Counterpoint: Why Edward Snowden May Not Deserve Clemency 573
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Fred Kaplan, the Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation, writes at Slate that if Edward Snowden's stolen trove of beyond-top-secret documents had dealt only with the domestic surveillance by the NSA, then some form of leniency might be worth discussing. But Snowden did much more than that. 'Snowden's documents have, so far, furnished stories about the NSA's interception of email traffic, mobile phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan's northwest territories; about an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; about NSA email intercepts to assist intelligence assessments of what's going on inside Iran; about NSA surveillance of cellphone calls 'worldwide,' an effort that 'allows it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.' Kaplan says the NYT editorial calling on President Obama to grant Snowden 'some form of clemency' paints an incomplete picture when it claims that Snowden 'stole a trove of highly classified documents after he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness.' In fact, as Snowden himself told the South China Morning Post, he took his job as an NSA contractor, with Booz Allen Hamilton, because he knew that his position would grant him 'to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked.' Snowden got himself placed at the NSA's signals intelligence center in Hawaii says Kaplan for the sole purpose of pilfering extremely classified documents. 'It may be telling that Snowden did not release mdash; or at least the recipients of his cache haven't yet published — any documents detailing the cyber-operations of any other countries, especially Russia or China,' concludes Kaplan. 'If it turned out that Snowden did give information to the Russians or Chinese (or if intelligence assessments show that the leaks did substantial damage to national security, something that hasn't been proved in public), then I'd say all talk of a deal is off — and I assume the Times editorial page would agree.'"
Kaplan makes some excellent points (Score:3, Insightful)
Not "clemency" (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't deserve clemency, yeah. For clemency, you first need to do something wrong.
Re:Technically correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I, as a non-US citizen, or even resident, have a real say on the matter.
Not that I, as a US citizen, have a real say on the matter either.
one-way certainty (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of those propositions that can only ever be in the past tense in a single logical state: busted.
These one-way allegations have a way of never dying, or at least not until it's back page news. Meanwhile, they muddy the waters a great deal just hanging there.
Neither is it self-evidently clear that the NSA's voraciousness is separable, to where informed public debate can exist with only one-half of the picture (aka the domestic half).
I think this article translates to: "it's our policy to never grant clemency under any conditions just in case we later discover a game-changing fact".
The option of a conditional clemency is fraught with unsolvable issues. Snowden could attest that he's never actually done any entirely non-clement things, and if were subsequently learned otherwise, his clemency could be revoked. This would be "clement until proven guilty".
Only for this to be workable, one would have to have a way to prove that the NSA never plants leaks of its own information to gain what it dearly wants—have I got a bridge to sell you—as there's no way to prove that a leak originated from Snowden unless the substance of the leak contains information one can verify the NSA never had at that time.
Good luck with that.
And somehow the subtext of all this seems to imply that the NSA's proven snookery (illegitimately authorized as far as the eye can see) should take a back seat to Snowden's unproven snookery (the worst things he might have done).
I don't blame the NSA for the lamentable standards of civic discourse. But neither can the agency hide from their legacy of operating behind a thick smoke screen of democratic false impressions.
Re: freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Soldiers fight for our freedom? As if fighting in some third-world crap hole has anything to do with our freedom here in the United States. I think Snowden is a true hero. He didn't give his life for oil or empire, he gave his life for something that intimately has to do with *our* freedom.
Re:Kaplan makes some excellent points (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he chose to take *himself* to China and Russia, and I can't say I blame him.
Except they didn't, because Snowden didn't take his files with him, at least not unencrypted.
Are you kidding? This is their best propaganda coup in the past twenty years. They're not going to screw it up even if they don't get access to Snowden's files.
American Exceptionalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Technically correct (Score:1, Insightful)
paint the organzation in a light that shows it to be an unchecked body with too much power and not enough supervision
and so the 'national security agency' revealed itself as one of the bigger threats to 'national security'. the enemy within ...
Not that I, as a non-US citizen, or even resident, have a real say on the matter.
nobody really has because this is all just smoke. does snowden deserve clemency? what sort of sick brain brings up that question? it just tries to sneak in the assumption that he is guilty somehow, and that's what this is about. does this moron fred kaplan deserve clemency? snowden is actually irrelevant, now, except for anyone wanting to shoot the messenger rather than deal with reality.
we need more snowdens, and less cock-sucking fud-spewing self-important minions. i have no clemency for this one in my heart.
Truthy (Score:4, Insightful)
Kaplan says the NYT editorial calling on President Obama to grant Snowden 'some form of clemency' paints an incomplete picture when it claims that Snowden 'stole a trove of highly classified documents after he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness.' In fact, as Snowden himself told the South China Morning Post, he took his job as an NSA contractor, with Booz Allen Hamilton, because he knew that his position would grant him 'to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked.' Snowden got himself placed at the NSA's signals intelligence center in Hawaii says Kaplan for the sole purpose of pilfering extremely classified documents.
What Kaplan leaves out is that gig was not the first time Snowden worked for the NSA, he'd been working with the NSA and CIA in various capacities since 2006. It was during this work "he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness". He took the contractor position explicitly to get the evidence for the illegal programs he already had first hand knowledge of.
Kaplan actually emphasizes that this job was only 3 months, implying that Snowden had just learned about the programs and is therefore lying about all his deliberations and questioning within the agency.
Whatever you think of Snowden I think there's enough evidence to conclude that Kaplan is a hack.
Re:What's good for the goose (Score:5, Insightful)
The military is NOT protecting me. Sorry, but the United States Military that exists today has NOTHING to do with protecting the citizens.
Re: freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
They would have to be cleared by the US gov. Thats a short list of US lawyers. The court would be sealed.
Re:"...it is telling..." "...if it turned out that (Score:2, Insightful)
Your wife is fucking the plumber. Your friend tells you the fact.
And the traitor is... your friend!
Excellent thinking, you are definitely a genius.
human rights (Score:5, Insightful)
are called human rights, because everyone has them. Even criminals, convicted murderers, child killers. Every human has human rights.
So, snowden is a hero. Privacy is not only meant for the USA.
Re:Technically correct (Score:3, Insightful)
US citizens cannot cop out like that. You must take the responsibility for what is done by your elected officials with your tax dollars.
Re:Kaplan makes some excellent points (Score:2, Insightful)
The upside to giving him clemency is it's the first step in preserving the government of the United States.
When citizens begin to kill government officials over this stuff, the government want to show they "are sorry" and "won't do it again" by "making things right."
So basically the more pissed off people are, the more Snowden has a chance of a normal life again. (This FUD article certainly helped him, I just now went from wanting to slap people silly to wanting to hit them with a nice, sharp ax. Or , maybe go aftrica on them and use a machete. What a bunch of lies and what-ifs this article is. "we don't have any evidence he gave secrets to china so he must have!")
Clemency will be a political move by one of the American parties thinking they can get more power. Which party it is, will depend on where stuff falls out, and when stuff falls out. Whichever party that is less influential at the time will push for clemency.
No matter what happens, Snoweden is now just a pawn in a bigger game. The problem is, one can WIN the game based on what one does with the pawns.
Re:"...it is telling..." "...if it turned out that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Technically correct (Score:4, Insightful)
By voting. We have incredibly low voter turn out rates. And yes here comes the "both sides are the same so why vote" argument. Alright, then get involved in politics in some way. Most people don't participate, then claim there's nothing that can be done.
Re:Chinese or Russian Operations? (Score:5, Insightful)
'It may be telling that Snowden did not release — or at least the recipients of his cache haven't yet published — any documents detailing the cyber-operations of any other countries, especially Russia or China,'
Why would he have access to Russian or Chinese documents?
If he did have access to Russian or Chinese documents, it would be because
- the NSA (or CIA or...) stole or snooped them and
- they would be important enough that they would be mentioned in the briefing powerpoints that make up so much of what Snowden apparently has access to.
In other words, this is a sign he is protecting some of the NSA's most truly important secrets, and also a sign that Kaplan is dealing in misinformation if not disinformation.
Re: freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Edward Snowden committed no crimes against justice, he committed crimes against a police state, a big brother state that is and was becoming worse by the day. Edward Snowden did not steal anything, he liberated the truth. His continued freedom is proof that many others can achieve the same acts non-violent acts against a criminal state and work together to bring it down and put the minority that distort and corrupt democracy the world over finally behind bars where they belong.
Edward Snowden does not deserve clemency, he should not be charged in the first place. Until such time as he is called as a witness to testify against those who committed real criminal acts the world over, then he would be doing more harm than good by returning. His continued freedom is proof positive that you too can work to bring down a corrupt elements destroying you democracy, your freedom and your rights and do something that has been celebrated since time immemorial escape to fight another day. Each and every time Edward Snowden appears in public free to challenge those criminals is a victory.
Re:"...it is telling..." "...if it turned out that (Score:4, Insightful)
Constitution says: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
I'll see your "Constitution says", and raise you a "Constitution also says":
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Traitor or not, Snowden has exposed a massive crime by the US government against it's citizens. Why are we even talking about him? Where is the prosecutorial inertia for holding our lying leaders accountable? Dead in our mother's basements, apparently.
Shooting down a hurricane? (Score:5, Insightful)
O RLY?
There are a lot of people in New Orleans who would disagree with that.
Wait, the U.S. military shot down a hurricane that was about to attack U.S. citizens? Or it fought the hurricane, and drove it back into the sea, after it dared to attack U.S. soil?
Look, I appreciate the cleanup efforts that the National Guard was able to engage in, after the local politicians finally got their act together enough to let the National Guard and FEMA into their jurisdictions (which they held off doing for a very long time, at the cost of many lives, and a lot of property), but to say that the military in this case was protecting citizens, rather than engaging in a relief operation, is a lie.
Re:human rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, no. He is definitely *not* a traitor. He has not levied war on the United States, nor has he given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States (no, releasing the information he has released doesn't count as that). So he is not a traitor.
Re:Clemency?! (Score:4, Insightful)
A balance of power competition is not a war, and it is deeply misleading to characterize it that way.
More of a patriot than North by far (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast forward to Snowdon. Why should he get a raw deal when what he did was far less damaging than North, and his whistleblowing, apparently also out of a sense of duty to his country, was of far greater national benefit than selling weapons to terrorists and a declared enemy?
DEFCON - White/Grey Hats sold their souls (Score:3, Insightful)
Abusers demand perfection from abused! Film at 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
So some guy from The Establishment says that Snowden and all future leakers should have somehow performed a humanly impossible feat of meta analysis on millions of documents which constitute proof of widespread criminal and unconstitutional activities . THAT is the standard leakers shall be held to. Or else. They're not leakers, and it's espionage.
So says the Council on Foreign Relations.
You can just seem them breaking into workshop gorups brainstorming how to spin the Snowden Affair so as to turn the American public against him and give the NSA defenders on PBS and FOX talking points.
"Hey polls show people think he's a whistleblower , but maybe if we can split that perception by appearing to agree with the public on *some* of the stuff while damning him with the other stuff, we can split the opposition."
This from the CFR. What did you expect? I used to think that the CFR might be some kind of collective voice of wisdom, experience and expertise on world affairs. You know, people who had wide ranging real world experience and were out of their posts or retired but still engaged and concerned.
I am an asshole this way; I impugn my own idealism to the actions of others.
The CFR is a bunch of hand picked academics and fucking yes men and women drawn from previous administrations and Ivy leagues universities whose main function is to think and live and produce "solutions" within the Skinner box out of which cookies , cake and ice cream have fallen to them their whole lives . They're entirely composed of and express the perspective of government and establishment academic institutions whose "think tanks" and "department chairs" are little more than hand-up-your-ass-moving-your-mouth , you-know-who-feeds-you-baby extensions of Washington officialdom and groupthink.
Good thing they weighed in on Snowden. I know we were all breathlessly awaiting their opinion on this matter.
"I'm sorry to report he trial balloon didn't float too well."
Chinese or Russian: don't they know? (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest concern with any Russian or Chinese documents is what the NSA's having them reveals about the American intelligence capabilities and operations. A public release of such documents, while embarrassing to Russia and China, might be even more damaging to US intelligence, and might possibly expose people working for the US.
all this, while at the same time not serving the purpose of Snowden: "To show how NSA is spying on everyone, specially when this 'everyone' specifically include innocent by stander like US' own population or friendly ally countries. To show abuses of surveillance"
- "Look all the nasty things NSA is doing on US population themselves, in the name of war on {bogeyman du jour}": that suit the purpose and shall be revealed by journalist, after the currate everything to remove dangerous informations.
- "Look at all the things we've managed to steal, here are some documents from Russia and China that should have remained confidential, but did not": that only brings problems.
Even if Snowden did manage to get such documents (no proof exists), these documents aren't likely to get released.
Instead, Snowden spent several days in the Russian consulate before being allowed into Russia. What did he do to convince the Russians to let him in? If *you* were the Russian foreign ministry, how would *you* handle this? It's a legitimate question.
Why do people keep thinking that the information inside Snowden's documents are a total surprise to Russia and China? These countries have had their own intelligence services *FOR AGES*. People at current top level inside the NSA weren't *even born* back when Russia already had cheka. This countries and their intelligence services have way much more experience and resource than a signle rogue consultant like Snowden (although, for his defence, Snowden *is* brillant and *does* have lots of knowledge and enoguh discipline to have run his stint successfully, without early detection). If Snowden has managed to gatter all this, then one can only imagine all what top opperatives of FSB, MSS, and others have managed to collect.
The same information that Snowden did manage to gather in his documents, and (probably even more) are probably secretly know by Russia and China thanks to their own intelligence channels.
So to go back to your "Russian foreign ministry" exemple, I'll probably keep rellying on exclusively all that FSB (and before KGB) has gattered. They are good guys with experience and ressources, and most of their intelligence can be trusted. I'll absolutely avoid getting anywhere near Snowden's document. The debriefing at the Russian consulate very likely didn't at any point at all concern the intelligence gattered by Snowden. Almost all the time was very probably spent trying to solve all the diplomatic hassle to manage to find a way to safely bring Snowden to russia and find him a place there (and deciding on an exact status, etc.) all the while avoiding hurting allies. Simply bringing Snowden to Russia publicly is a big enough madness that explains alone all the time spent. Given all this already existing circus, trying to get hold on the documents would be the worst idea possible. The "Russian foreign ministry" didn't probably give a fuck about Snowden's documents.
- Peeking into those publicly known documents would have angered even more the USA and would have been even more detrimental to the diplomatic ties of Russia and any other country concerned by those documents. Peeking these documents would be damaging.
- Chances are, that anything in these documents happened to already be known through Russia's own spying program. It's not worth looking at them to begin with. Peeking these documents brings almost no advantages at all for Russia.
Given this, Russia has probably decided "forget about this" regarding the document. And concentrated on the difficult task of bring Snowden to them. .
- That has also been a diplomatically complicated task
- But a
Re:What's good for the goose (Score:5, Insightful)
sorry but if you dont think that th eUSA is capable of committing atrocities as well you need to get your head out of your ass
I've heard this argument before (Score:5, Insightful)
Kaplan is arguing that Snowden would have to be perfectly selective about what he took in order to "deserve" clemency. He would have to take from the NSA "the pound of flesh nearest the heart", without a drop of blood or grain of sinew or bone. That's an impossible standard.
Snowden shouldn't get mere "clemency". Snowden should get a full pardon for the laws he broke, plus the Presidential Medal of Freedom and/or the Congressional Gold Medal for exposing these totalitarian programs.
Re:"...it is telling..." "...if it turned out that (Score:5, Insightful)
That's called throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Of course there are rumors that Snowden is a regular spy. "reportedly there is evidence" is a rumor. There are people whose full time job it is to spread those rumors about all NSA/CIA whistleblowers. It's standard procedure. As for claims about damaging the US interests this is also standard procedure against a lot of journalism. Where are you going to put the bar? With criteria saying you should be able to prove that what you're publishing cannot absolutely damage US interests you're never going to be able to publish anything that says "hey guys, our government is fucking us over". That is not how things should work, even if your government would very much like it that way.
Journalism should publish except in clearcut extreme cases.
Re:What's good for the goose (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of whether you, I or they agree with our government's actions, they risk everything to protect you the best way they know how. Don't blame the military for what you don't like. Become involved in politics to put decision makers in office that order the military to do what you believe is right.
I'm old enough to remember the shameful way that veteran's were treated returning from Viet Nam and I hope that horrible chapter in history is never repeated.
The fact that your comment is modded insightful to the max is pretty disturbing.
good piece (Score:5, Insightful)
And I don't mean that in a positive way. This is the first time I've seen where someone has actually expended some effort to write up something that seems convincing.
However, it is still full of holes. There are two very important ones that are hidden in plain sight, bold-faced lies said out straight so that most audiences won't even notice, much less question them.
The first is his "why didn't he reveal anything about the evil other guys? is he maybe working for them?" allegation, hidden in the two sentences
It may be telling that Snowden did not release [...] any documents detailing the cyber-operations of any other countries, especially Russia or China [...]If it turned out that Snowden did give information to the Russians or Chinese
Well, doh, he didn't work for any russian or chinese intelligence agency during his career, so he did not have an inside view or access to classified documents in any of them. Insinuating otherwise is like complaining that Putin didn't fix the US healthcare.gov problem.
The second crazy-ass hole is that the NSA also did good. You find that a lot these days, apparently it's been given out as a party line.
Well, that is a dramatically misleading statement, not because it is wrong but because it misses the entire point. Allow me to illustrate:
I propose we create an agency similar to the NSA, let's call it the NCA - the National Crime-Eradication Agency. It will have a budget of a billion US$ and one simple task: Buy as many guns and ammo as you can get for that amount, and then drive into every big american city and gun down everyone they meet.
Like the NSA, they will successfully execute a death penalty on many, many murderers, rapists and other criminals who escaped detection or conviction. Even many whose crimes we didn't yet know about because the victims kept silent or were never found.
All in favour?
Of course not, it's a crazy scheme. Just like the NSAs "total surveilance so we detect a few bad apples" approach. Destroying the privacy of several billion people is not an adequate price to pay for capturing a dozen or even a hundred bad guys.
Sure it did get them some. So would carpet-bombing New York City. Success alone is a worthless measure without taking cost into account.
Re:Technically correct (Score:5, Insightful)
And then anyone who tries to seriously get into politics in that way will understand just why the NSA's data collection is so dangerous and gives them so much power. I've seen many people around here make the ridiculous argument that NSA domestic data collection doesn't affect them because they're nobody. Right... But if you want to try to effect real change you stop being a nobody, and all that "dead data" they collected on you suddenly takes on life like so many zombies. Cardinal Richelieu once famously said that if he was given six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men he would find something in them by which would hang him. The NSA has far, far more than that. On all of us. I can only hope that you Americans still have the same courage your founding fathers had when they created your nation. You will need it in these dark days.
Re:What's good for the goose (Score:4, Insightful)
really? Has any building been attacked in your city since 9-11?
You could use the same reasoning to conclude we were perfectly safe before 9/11. And in the grand scheme of things, 9/11 was absolutely nothing; it is our reaction that caused us the most damage.
These are most certainly not wars of defense.
Re:"...it is telling..." "...if it turned out that (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, believe it or not, Russians are humans, and thus have human rights, even if they aren't recognized by the government. Same goes for politicians.
Re: What's good for the goose (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What's good for the goose (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Snowden claims to have gone through the normal channels, except the problem is, he didn't go to anybody. He claims that simply having mentioned his concerns to his boss and co-workers, and not getting any response or shared concern, means that he "tried."
He could have, for example, gone to Senator Wyden, who was publicly critical of the program, has the security clearance, is on the Intelligence Committee, and was already warning that the program was bigger than people knew.
We'll never know what Congress would have done with the truth, because they didn't find out until the same time(*) that the Russians and Chinese found out.
* - or later
Re:"...it is telling..." "...if it turned out that (Score:5, Insightful)
He is a traitor.
No. The traitors are the ones running this country without regards to either the Constitution or the best interests of the people being governed. The traitors are the ones who do what they're payed to do solely in the interest of personal gain.
Re:"...it is telling..." "...if it turned out that (Score:5, Insightful)
He's saying that there is evidence that Snowden is not some heroic patriot, but just a regular old spy that got paid off by the Russians or Chinese,
If he is, he's not a very good spy. A good spy would have stayed in his secret location and continue to spy.
Of course, there probably are actual spies doing that right now. So this wouldn't help China or Russia much at all.
Re:Chinese or Russian: don't they know? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, this is exactly the kind of thing someone from the Council on Foreign Relations would be expected to say. No surprise there: "Let's keep control over everything and punish anybody who dares challenge!"
But let's put things in perspective: if the U.S. still behaved in a civilized and rational manner in regard to whistleblowers, he would not have had to escape the United States and seek asylum elsewhere. This is fundamentally the fault of our U.S. government. Government breaks the law and violates the Constitution (in a rather extreme manner) via the NSA. When that is exposed, government tries to retaliate, also in an extreme manner. Government drives the person with the offending documents somewhere else.
There is not a single step in this process that was not a direct result of government action. I've said this before, but I will repeat it:
Disobedience to government is not treason. Betraying your country and people is treason. Snowden committed the former. U.S. government committed the latter.
Re:What's good for the goose (Score:3, Insightful)
A Military is a necessary evil, but it's still an evil. We take ordinary folks who either want to help their country or just want a job and teach them to be murderers. There's no getting around that.