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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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He leaked a ton of gov't documents. Some on domestic spying things that had been known about for some time. This was a good thing. He also leaked a bunch of stuff about U.S. international spying. That was not good. He might have gotten away with leaking domestic stuff. Or lightly gotten away, who knows. But he was without a doubt going to jail for leaking international intel. And rightfully so. As said, he ran away to Russia instead of face the music. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
As a non-American, I’m rather happy he leaked things about U.S. international spying. That was good.
Whether or not you think that information should be out there, protecting national security secrets was quite literally his job. Penalties for mishandling national security information are pretty clear, especially when you've been put into a position of trust. He then flees to one of America's biggest enemies on the international stage. And do we really think that protection came without a price?
Honestly I have real mixed feelings about Snowden. I do think Americans had a right to know about the domestic spying activities even if they weren't entirely surprising (details had been leaked previously but we did not know the degree to which those efforts had been ramped up). But he openly and knowingly violated the law. He can't have expected that to come without consequences. And he can't fall back on principles if he's not willing to face those consequences.
Sure, he risked his life and safety to get the information out,. That makes him a hero.
As for breaking the law, he did his duty as a human and thats more important than upholding injustice.
No one should have to “face the consequences” of authoritarians.
Who exactly are you referring to as an authoritarian? The Obama administration?
The US government as a whole.
That sure seems like stretching the definition of that word to the point where it's meaningless.
You think applying authoritarianism to a government as a whole is stretching the definition to being meaningless?
Alrighty then.
No, I think applying it to governments which do not meet the definition of authoritarian makes it meaningless, particularly when there are real authoritarian governments that you can easily contrast to (like for example the one in the country Snowden fled to).
Yep. Every time I bring up the objectively bad parts of the leaks, people just flip out.
What parts are objectively bad? see a lot that’s subjectively bad for the US, but plenty of other people are glad to know that they had been spied on and plenty of other countries are happy to have the US lose some significant pr points.
It wasn’t just US assets that were uncovered in the leak.
The Chinese were able to decrypt much of it causing nations other than the USA to need to evacuate personnel for safety reasons.
Your feelings are one thing, seeing the USA with egg on its face always gets folks happy, rah rah USA bad we get it. That doesn’t change what happened.
Snowden isn’t the villain he is made out to be by the USA but goddamn did he do a stupid thing in a dumb way and isn’t the hero folks who like to see the USA fail make him out to be.
Chances are people in your country who work to keep you safe had their lives put at risk because of how he leaked what he leaked. Good still came out of it. It can be both.
appeal to emotion
speculation. do be careful speaking as if you're the adult in the room with absolutely nothing to show that you deserve this respect.
and provide links please, i find your argument spurious so let's dispense with the pleasantry
Christ on a stick get your logical fallacy bullshit out of a casual conversation we’re having online.
If you need a source for my opinion then it’s me.
If you need a source for the things I’m asserting then I’d honestly say go to Wikipedia because it’s probably the best resource for info that’s reviewed and has a trail. Beyond that I would wager you’d find issue with anything that corroborates what I assert.
That’s subjectively bad for the personnel and subjectively good for China. I’m not saying it was subjectively good for countries like Canada or Germany, but someone did benefit.
My memory is fuzzy. Didn't he originally try to give the full, un-redacted docs to just newspapers, but got frustrated with the slowness/unresponsiveness or something and then everything went public? Or am I thinking of the earlier guy who worked on writing illegal software for the government, tried to blow the whistle and then got in trouble? Or am I thinking of a subsequent whistleblower who tried to use a secure dropbox for media, but it turned out to be insecure? There's just been so many people trying to show proof of shady government stuff that I can't keep track of which of the folks are supposed to be 'bad' for doing so.