I think he comes off as naive and more than a little pompous, but I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.
Either way, if he really wants the focus back on the documents, he should probably write fewer letters about his beliefs, his security, and his personal situation.
I think he comes off as naive and more than a little pompous, but I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.
This is my take too. If he had had more knowledge about the historical background of the other countries he has visited, and especially if he had STRONG knowledge of another language, he might view the position of the United States in these matters a bit differently, and might resolve the trade-offs about what to disclose and what to keep secret quite a bit differently. On my part, as I have said in another HN comment, I would take Snowden's claims more seriously in general if he were on United States soil preparing to face trial for his alleged wrongdoing, ready to bring forward any defenses he thinks he has to possible criminal charges. Right now, part of what Snowden is saying with ghostwriting help from Wikileaks is not making sense.
Your statement is completely nonsensical. The whole point is we have primary documents supporting what he says. His personality has nothing to do with those claims. Greenwald and Snowden have a 100% accuracy rate regarding these leaks, and your comment comes off as very head-stuck-in-the-sand-y.
We have primary documents supporting a very small subset of what he says. Most of the claims, including the more extraordinary ones such as he can wiretap anyone in the world including Barack Obama's personal email from his desk, remain undocumented.
You're missing the point: Nobody's denying that with the right internal authorization, the NSA can tap any phone line they like. What's up for debate (since Snowden has provided no evidence) is the claim that Snowden could do it all by his lonesome, with no oversight or approval.
While I disagree with your point as well, I don't think it's at all the point to which I was responding. The question was about the credibility of his claims. I have not heard any other NSA whistleblower doubting his claims, and in fact they all seem to corroborate them.
Snowden directly addresses your point in his live chat:
"More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...
If you wish to dispute the GP comment, it would be more productive to pick a specific item you believe to be inaccurate and give your reasons for believing it to be inaccurate.
I'm not aware of any false statements that Snowden made, or any doctoring of the NSA documents he provided. (Senators and other officials have confirmed the legitimacy of at least some, as has a federal indictment.)
I would take Snowden's claims more seriously in general if he were on United States soil preparing to face trial for his alleged wrongdoing, ready to bring forward any defenses he thinks he has to possible criminal charges.
I'm not convinced we would be hearing anything from him at all - claims or otherwise - were he currently on US soil.
While I understand the sentiment that says, "I'd prefer it if Snowden were possessed of infinite strength, that he should be willing to suffer years of imprisonment while speaking truth to power," I don't understand the sentiment that says, "So I'll dismiss everything he says given that he doesn't have limitless moral courage."
I note that the same standard never seems to apply to the other side of the argument. You don't hear people say, "Well, naturally I'll dismiss everything that Obama says on the NSA scandal because he used cocaine and didn't even stand trial, much less go to prison, for it."
Actually, I do hear a lot of people who reflexively disbelieve anything Obama says; also, you're making a terribly flawed analogy. A more appropriate one would be to say you didn't trust anything Obama said on the subject of drug policy because he used cocaine etc.
I hear a lot of people who reflexively disbelieve anything Obama says too: it's because they've decided he's a liar, not because he lacks the moral courage necessary to turn himself in for his admitted drug use.
Digression:
I do not myself care that Obama used drugs. I think those drugs should have been legal. I think it was courageous of Obama to admit to drug use even if he did so in a way that did not lead to legal repercussions.
But I also do not care that Snowden violated the law in his whistleblowing. I think his whistleblowing should have been legal. And I think it was courageous of Snowden to blow the whistle, even if he did so in a way that did not lead to the most severe legal repercussions possible.
End digression.
But no, I do not think that I made an analogy, nor that my observation was flawed. People who say, "I won't listen to Snowden unless he turns himself in" are not making an argument about Snowden's facts, they're making an argument about his character. They're saying, "I won't listen to Snowden because he isn't willing to suffer every possible negative consequence of his actions." It doesn't matter if his actions were related to the spying or not.
Those same people never demand the same of Obama (or any of the other government representatives). Those representatives can, and do, in fact, grant themselves and their allies full immunity from negative repercussions, and are still treated respectfully. This is hypocrisy on the part of those who demand that Snowden turn himself in.
And finally, if you want an example of Obama's less-than-perfect moral character that directly relates to the matter under discussion, there is his claim that he was against warrantless wiretaps, and campaigning as someone who was against them.
> A more appropriate one would be to say you didn't trust anything Obama said on the subject of drug policy because he used cocaine etc.
How would that modification to the analogy change the outcome? You can't dismiss every insightful statement or independently verifiable piece of factual information someone says about drug policy just because that person is a crackhead. That's just the ad hominem fallacy.
> I would take Snowden's claims more seriously in general if he were on United States soil
What bearing does which country he's in have on the content of the disclosures? Do you think he fabricated the PRISM slides since he happens to be in Russia right now?
> I would take Snowden's claims more seriously in general if he were on United States soil preparing to face trial for his alleged wrongdoing, ready to bring forward any defenses he thinks he has to possible criminal charges.
So in order for you to take Snowden's claims seriously, he has to either claim that what he did is legal or willingly go to prison for the rest of his life? That seems pretty irrational.
Martin Luther King, Jr. took a greater risk than that. So did the several freedom fighters in Taiwan I know personally, some of whom did hard prison time for leading peaceful public protests before Taiwan democratized. It takes people with a lot of courage to change tough situations.
I am well aware of all that, and I have great respect for those people who made those sacrifices, but it doesn't make sense to require that. The idea you're promoting here is "If you won't volunteer to have your life completely ruined, don't do the right thing. I'd rather you just be complicit in something that harms me if you aren't willing to be punished for doing the right thing."
Do you not see how completely bonkers it is to look at somebody who has already given you valuable information at great personal cost and demand that he suffer more for your benefit? Why on earth would you feel he owes that to anybody?
You're really assuming your conclusion here. William Binney did not go to prison at all; Thomas Drake got a month's probation. Now I'm not saying that they were free to make their revelations, or that it was easy; they went through a great deal of stress, legal expense, and obviously their public service careers are permanently over. But that's still a very long way from 'having your life completely ruined.'
Not at all, but the courts might only impose a nominal penalty, such as the single month of probation to which they sentenced Drake. Why don't you address my point, instead of relying on the implicit assumption that facing the music would necessarily involve the government locking him up and throwing away the key?
Because I don't see how it matters. I could believe that he would be easily acquitted in a single day and it would not matter. We're talking about Snowden's decisions here, and Snowden does not listen to me. His read of the situation is the only one that counts, and it is pretty clear that he does not believe he'd have a snowball's chance in hell. You can argue that he's wrong about his chances, but all that would mean is that he's put himself through a lot of hassle and worry for nothing.
Personally, I tend to agree with Snowden — there are too many powerful people who want to destroy him for him to get a fair shake here. You are right that we could be wrong — but I don't see how that matters.
Well, it's certainly up to him to decide for himself, but I think third parties are quite free to form their own opinions about his credibility or integrity (which I rate at something like 6/10, in case you were wondering).
Yes, certainly! I just think it's irrational to discredit his factual claims on the basis that he is unwilling to stand trial. The truth of the statements "Snowden is telling the truth about our spy programs" and "Snowden is accurately assessing the potential for our justice system to offer him a favorable outcome" are not closely related.
I don't see it as a measurement of Snowden's honesty or integrity particularly. It could be that his judgment about the degree and nature of data collection is wrong. I try to avoid making guesses about people's motivations because there's really no way to measure that objectively and it's far too easy to project your own views onto the actions of someone else.
So, he asks for asylum in the country where they just convicted their own whistle-blower after he's been dead for 4 years. And why is he dead? Well, he died in jail under very suspicious circumstances. This makes Snowden a naive utter moron.
What difference would that make? I am a naturalized American citizen who speaks three languages (English, German and Hebrew. Four if you count broken Spanish). Would that lead you to put a lot of stock in my position?
>I would take Snowden's claims more seriously in general if he were on United States soil
There is a long list of former gov't employees who went through those channels and found them sorely lacking. In other words, people who are in a position to know better, who disagree with you. Radack, Drake, and Binney, to name a few.
>Right now, part of what Snowden is saying with ghostwriting help from Wikileaks is not making sense.
A previous version of this Fine Print column incorrectly said that an article by journalist Glenn Greenwald was written for the WikiLeaks Press blog.The article, about filmmaker Laura Poitras and WikiLeaks being targeted by U.S. officials, was written for the online publication Salon and first appeared April 8, 2012. Its appearance on the WikiLeaks Press blog two days later was a reposting. This version has been corrected.
A previous version of the column also asserted that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, during a May 29 interview with Democracy Now, “previewed” the story that Greenwald wrote for the Guardian newspaper about the Obama administration’s involvement in the collection of Americans’ phone records. There is no evidence that Assange had advance knowledge of the story; the assertion was based on a previously published interview in which Assange discussed an earlier surveillance project involving the collection of phone records.The assertion has been taken out of this version.
The column also does not mention Snowden’s past work in the intelligence community. The lack of this context may have created the impression that Snowden’s work for Booz Allen Hamilton gave him his first access to classified surveillance programs.
Actually, how he is treated in this situation is of direct importance to the matter at hand. If the USA does not follow the rule of law regarding his case, it only fans the flames.
think about the federalist papers for a second. Someone needed to wrote them to convince a nation about our beloved constitution. Since all eyes are on Snowden, he has the best ability to sway many minds about what he believes and what I believe to be right.
Anyone should be able to interpret the constitution as no person or group of people are infallible. It's obvious that SCOTUS opinions change over time, due to composition and prevailing attitudes.
So it's okay to pick and choose which texts to follow from our Constitution? The Constitution doesn't give Snowden the power to interpret it. It does however give that duty to our federal courts. Should we just ignore that part in our Constitution?
The only reason courts interpret the Constitution is because somebody brings forth a constitutional challenge. Often that discussion results from somebody breaking a law.
The point is if Congress passes an unjust law, a legitimate recourse is to force the issue by breaking it intentionally and asking a judge to decide.
Where does the Constitution give sole authority for interpreting it to the Supreme Court? In fact, it does not even give that authority to the Supreme Court. Judicial review was not established directly in the COnstitution.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
, --
And here's the important part, pay attention:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it
I'm rereading the Federalist Papers right now, as it happens. I can't help thinking that most of HN would dismiss Hamilton and Madison as 'statist thugs' if I were to start quoting or paraphrasing the views of those gentlemen on topics like national security.
Hamilton argued at the constitutional convention for an elected monarchy. He admired Caesar above all others, and throughout his life held a profound disdain of the lower class. - “the people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government.”
Read his Caesar letters, or his constitutional convention speech, or other writings, as these views aren't really apparent in the Federalist papers.
Madison is interesting, but he didn't hold to a single consistent political philosophy through his life.
> Shouldn't the interpretation of our Constitution be left to the Supreme Court?
No.
> I mean, the Constitution explicitly grants the Court those powers.
The Constitution defines the judicial power of the United States to include deciding certain classes of legal controversies, including those arising under the Constitution, and provides that the Supreme Court is the organ which executes that role in both an explicitly defined set of cases, and in certain other cases as Congress directs. But that is pretty far from explicitly granting the Supreme Court the sole and exclusive power to interpret the Constitution.
Interpreting the Constitution is no less essential to the Supreme Court's role of deciding certain legal controversies than it is to, e.g., the President's role of seeing that the laws -- including the Constitution -- are faithfully executed, or the Congress's role in carrying out the powers and responsibilities it has defined in the Constitution, or the public's role in evaluating the performance of all three branches and electing members to the two political branches.
The Supreme Court (or the judiciary, or even "government officials" more generally) isn't a special priestly caste to whom the contemplation of certain mysteries is restricted. That would be contrary to the entire concept of government of, by, and for the people.
That's not what is says. Particularly, that period you put in isn't where the sentence ends, the full sentence is:
"The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
Further, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is defined in Art. III, Sec. 2: "In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."
Incorrect. The appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is "confined within such limits as Congress sees fit to describe." The Francis Wright, 105 U.S. 381 (1881), at 386.
For legal purposes, sure, but if the people disagree with the court's decision there are ways to change things. We could amend the constitution, we could throw it out and write a new one, we could change the makeup of the court, etc. Legally the ultimate authority on the interpretation of the constitution rests with the Supreme Court, but the citizens of this nation are free to express what they want out of the constitution.
We are allowed to disagree with the court, we are allowed to voice our disapproval, and we are allowed to try to rally others to our cause. The Supreme Court is not some kind of heavenly authority, they are just as capable as making the wrong decision as any other branch of government.
Yes, you're free to express what you want out of the Constitution but you're not free to break laws as interpreted by our federal courts. Unless the Constitution is amended, shouldn't we be following the rule of law and let the Court interpret the Constitution?
The problem with that approach is that it allows unjust laws to persist indefinitely. Every so often someone needs to stand up and refuse to play by the rules to ensure that unjust laws are repealed.
Look at the situation Snowden faced. You have a system that widely violates basic privacy rights, based on a secret interpretation of the law, approved by a secret court that only hears the executive branch's arguments and which almost never refuses to grant a warrant (i.e. it is a rubber stamp), with oversight by people who are chosen by the executive branch and who work in secret. These programs, conducted in secret, are widely approved of by the government and widely disapproved of by the general public. Had Snowden accepted the rules and the law, these programs would remain secret and would have continued unopposed indefinitely.
The rule of law does not work when laws are kept secret from everyone. Healthy societies need everyone to follow the law, yes, but they also need for people who recognize failures of the system to stand up despite laws that forbid them from doing so.
FTA: All three pollsters asked their respondents how closely they had followed the NSA issue, and all three found just over a quarter of Americans following the issue “very closely,” while they found from about a third to half not paying close attention at all.
So, how could they report 90% or more of the public with a meaningful opinion about the NSA tracking program? The answer: They all used a “forced-choice” question format, which pressures respondents to make an on-the-spot decision, regardless of how committed they might be to that view. Thus, many people with no real views on the matter had to come up with one, and were thus highly influenced by the priming they had undergone during the interview itself.
You're free to do what you want as long as you're willing to accept the consequences. You're free to rob a bank if you think it's worth the potential jail time and harm to other people.
It's exactly the point though. You are free to break laws, or at least you are free to try. You are not nearly so free to break laws once you are in prison.
I think what you're saying is that you cannot expect to break laws without there being consequences. Of course we agree about that. The point of civil disobedience is that you believe so strongly you are willing to pay the price.
Perhaps you believe it is morally wrong to break laws as a means of getting the courts to interpret the Constitution?
Which is only convention, not by law, and in any case, just an arbitrary number.
FDR threatened to pack the court with lackeys if they didn't vote in favor of his programs.
Which raises the obvious question of, since that event, has the Supreme Court really even served as a check on executive power?
I suppose, at least, FDR would have had to answer to public opinion if he had actually carried out that threat. Unlike, say, if the secret FISA court were so threatened.
> Which is only convention, not by law, and in any case, just an arbitrary number
No, its actually set by law, not convention.
> FDR threatened to pack the court with lackeys if they didn't vote in favor of his programs.
FDR proposed legislation to Congress which would have expanded the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. [1] It was not a threat of unilateral action. The President can't appoint people to the Court without an open seat, created by Congress, to appoint them to.
> I suppose, at least, FDR would have had to answer to public opinion if he had actually carried out that threat. Unlike, say, if the secret FISA court were so threatened.
There are two different courts created under FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review), and the members of both are selected by the Chief Justice of the United States from among current members of the federal judiciary.
The Supreme Court is just another political body. If you have any doubt about this just look at the nomination hearings, as well as the huge number of 5-4 rulings. If the law were clear and it wasn't political, most of the rulings would be heavily slanted one way or another as it would be clear to the justices and there would be very little disagreement.
In short I agree: the Supreme Court is NOT The Voice of God.
Either way, if he really wants the focus back on the documents, he should probably write fewer letters about his beliefs, his security, and his personal situation.