Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about the nation state stops having secrets that are making enemies for itself?
Considering there has never been a time in human history where a nation state has not had any opposition from other nation states, I suspect your suggestion is literally impossible.
Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
171–178 of 178 posts
Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've had to modify the CSS of comments before now I may be misunderstanding you, or missing something obvious, but I just highlight faded comments with my mouse (or finger if on mobile), works well.
The intent of fading downvoted comments out seems to be to make them more annoying to read than most users would be willing to put up with, and far easier to simply skim over and ignore, regardless of their quality (even when they're not faded enough to be illegible - the fading provides the visual cue to the casual reader that "this isn't worth your time.") It's similar to the reason text posts are faded by default…
Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that police and military have very well-defined protocols for oversight, carried out mostly in the open, with multiple authorities being involved and clear chains of responsibility. If a policeman shoots an unarmed man, there will be investigations and trials, and somebody will have to say why it happened as it did (maybe the policeman, maybe his bosses, maybe a mayor, etc). Punishment may or may no…
> The difference is that police and military have very well-defined protocols for oversight, carried out mostly in the open, with multiple authorities being involved and clear chains of responsibility. So does the NSA through both the FISC court and the Congressional Intelligence and Judicial Committees. As much as people like to gloss over them and brush them off as rubber stamps, if you actually read the released F…
... that in practice amounted to absolutely nothing, because the NSA kept doing what it wanted pretty much all the time. They just lied a few times more here and there, like Clapper did. It took Snowden to show that they were lying through their teeth.
> you can look at the in-fighting between Sen Feinsein and former Sen Rogers on one side with Sen Wyden and former Sen Udall on the other.
That's not oversight, that's 4 people deciding what is kosher and being totally forbidden from discussing it in public anyway, as they themselves made clear. That's not how it should be.
> Greenwald has yet to show evidence of a single American that was targeted by the NSA.
All the stuff about "parallel construction" is enough, to be honest. It's not in Greenwald's docs, but if you sum it to the capabilities that Greenwald reported, it's pretty damning.
> what was actually happening was that Google and Yahoo were sending their international data-center traffic across the globe unencrypted
In that case, the responsibility of NSA and GCHQ was to alert Google of the vulnerability and ask them to fix it, not abuse it. Or rather it should be -- it took Snowden to discuss what the NSA should and should not do at the political level.
> The article doesn't answer any of these questions
If it did, you'd be screaming that it's irresponsible disclosure that will harm people on the ground etc etc etc. From your POV, Greenwald is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't; but it's clear from the subsequent fallout that Greenwald was right to publish what he did and how he did it.
> If the NSA is using that access to gather information on, say, Russian targets, I don't care
As I said, there is a world beyond the US border.
Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are not guilty of child abuse. You are guilty of endangerment. The father is guilty for child abuse. That said, the responsibility a parent has a child far exceeds the responsibility in most other relationships. Also the analogy is quite distant. Consider a closer analogy of report a number of child abusers to the police. One of these abusers is a father who abuses their child. Enough info is made public during t…
My analogy was designed to demonstrate the responsibility of an actor who has knowledge of a consequence of his/her behavior, whether or not the actor is in control of the consequence itself. In the event of a shamed child, I am indeed responsible (not guilty, that has a legal connotation that's undesired here) for a child's shaming if I am the one who acted, and the result of which was the shaming, regardless of oth…
Am I missing anything here?
Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The difference is that police and military have very well-defined protocols for oversight, carried out mostly in the open, with multiple authorities being involved and clear chains of responsibility. So does the NSA through both the FISC court and the Congressional Intelligence and Judicial Committees. As much as people like to gloss over them and brush them off as rubber stamps, if you actually read the released F…
> you'd see there was a good deal of pushback ... that in practice amounted to absolutely nothing, because the NSA kept doing what it wanted pretty much all the time. They just lied a few times more here and there, like Clapper did. It took Snowden to show that they were lying through their teeth. > you can look at the in-fighting between Sen Feinsein and former Sen Rogers on one side with Sen Wyden and former Sen Ud…
Did you read the article I linked to? If so, how does your statement mesh with the fact that, based on the order issued by judge discussed in that article, the NSA was forced to change their collection and minimization procedures and delete all of the data that had been previously collected under that program[1]? This was all very much pre-Snowden.
> They just lied a few times more here and there
Like where? I keep seeing this argument - Clapper said something in a Congressional hearing that turned out to not be true, therefore everything anyone in the government says is a lie. Greenwald has documents on everything the NSA is doing; why haven't I seen any other documents catching officials lying to the public?
> That's not oversight, that's 4 people...
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence currently has 22 members; the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has 19 members; the FISC has 11 judges. That doesn't include their any of their staff.
> All the stuff about "parallel construction" is enough
When Reuters broke the parallel construction story, they mentioned this in the reporting[2] (emphasis mine):
"Today, the SOD offers at least three services to federal, state and local law enforcement agents: coordinating international investigations such as the Bout case; distributing tips from overseas NSA intercepts, informants, foreign law enforcement partners and domestic wiretaps; and circulating tips from a massive database known as DICE."
...
"Wiretap tips forwarded by the SOD usually come from foreign governments, U.S. intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. Because warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is illegal, tips from intelligence agencies are generally not forwarded to the SOD until a caller's citizenship can be verified, according to one senior law enforcement official and one former U.S. military intelligence analyst."
> In that case, the responsibility of NSA and GCHQ was to alert Google of the vulnerability and ask them to fix it, not abuse it.
The NSA has a responsibility to protect US national security; it is under no obligation to protect to security of foreign communications. Like I mentioned in my comment, if groups outside the US were taking advantage of this to spy on Americans, then that's something I'd like to see in the headlines. If that's the case, the NSA would need to justify prioritizing its foreign spying over protecting US interests.
> If it did, you'd be screaming that it's irresponsible disclosure
I think disclosing how the NSA conducts its operations without any further justification is irresponsible. If a news agency (especially an American one; I can understand why a foreign one wouldn't care) goes and tells the world exactly how a US intelligence agency is collecting information without showing me evidence of abuse, all they're doing is tipping off legitimate intelligence targets on how to avoid being spied on. In order to show evidence of abuse, you need to answer at least a few of those questions that I posed. I want abuse stopped, not legitimate intelligence work. This article doesn't show abuse.
> As I said, there is a world beyond the US border.
Which is exactly why we have spies. Do you think the NSA has no legitimate purpose?
[1] http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/the-nsa-documents-part-iv...
[2] http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE97409R20130805?irpc...
Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
#176I sometimes think that HN is pro-Snowden. Are there folks here who see him as less a hero more a villain?
Edward Snowden seems like a good guy, but what he did was wrong. Betrayal and theft should not be condoned under any circumstances. He made the wrong choices and should be held accountable for them in a court of law. If someone I trusted unilaterally decided that I was breaking the law and then used that as a justification to steal documents from me and give them to journalists, I would be very upset. That's just wro…
An important line from stage 6 of Kohlberg's stages of moral development - "Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws."
Read this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of...
The linked page describes a theory of moral reasoning and ethical behavior ( and their various developmental stages ).
Your view corresponds very closely with level 4 (copied below) - you believe that laws should be absolute, inviolable and should be applied equally and blindly.
Some of the replies to your comment are speaking at level 5 or 6. They do not believe that the police, justice system or the government are absolute moral authorities and can make no mistakes.
Copy paste from wikipedia follows:
In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would — thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones. Most active members of society remain at stage four, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force.
Post-Conventional
The post-conventional level, also known as the principled level, is marked by a growing realization that individuals are separate entities from society, and that the individual’s own perspective may take precedence over society’s view; individuals may disobey rules inconsistent with their own principles. Post-conventional moralists live by their own ethical principles — principles that typically include such basic human rights as life, liberty, and justice. People who exhibit post-conventional morality view rules as useful but changeable mechanisms — ideally rules can maintain the general social order and protect human rights. Rules are not absolute dictates that must be obeyed without question. Because post-conventional individuals elevate their own moral evaluation of a situation over social conventions, their behavior, especially at stage six, can be confused with that of those at the pre-conventional level.
Some theorists have speculated that many people may never reach this level of abstract moral reasoning.
In Stage five (social contract driven), the world is viewed as holding different opinions, rights and values. Such perspectives should be mutually respected as unique to each person or community. Laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid edicts. Those that do not promote the general welfare should be changed when necessary to meet “the greatest good for the greatest number of people." This is achieved through majority decision and inevitable compromise. Democratic government is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.
In Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Legal rights are unnecessary, as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not reached hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way, as in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.[18] This involves an individual imagining what they would do in another’s shoes, if they believed what that other person imagines to be true.[19] The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; the individual acts because it is right, and not because it avoids punishment, is in their best interest, expected, legal, or previously agreed upon. Although Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he found it difficult to identify individuals who consistently operated at that level.
An example of a stage 6 behaviour... a colleague at the office was offered a place in the list of authors of a patent that was being filed. This colleague had joined the team almost immediately after the 'invention' had been invented, but he helped a lot with the implementation and solving a lot of critical problems around the main invention. Thus, at the time of filing for the patent, it was obvious to the team that his name should be included in the 'inventors'. The team members didn't even ask for the colleague's permission... they put his name as one of the inventors and approached the colleague for his signature on the patent application. However, the colleague refused to be included, giving the reason that "I cannot justify my name being included in the inventors list to myself. I didn't invent that. I am sorry but I must refuse". Young people in the team thought that he was nuts.
Edward Snowden has acted at stage 6... but it "can be confused with that of those at the pre-conventional level" by people who themselves do not understand the stages 5/6. There is no doubt that he is a hero... and if the press releases the documents idiotically (who were given the documents by Snowden with the utmost faith), its their mistake. But it will not change the fact that Snowden acted morally and rightfully.
Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
#177I sometimes think that HN is pro-Snowden. Are there folks here who see him as less a hero more a villain?
Edward Snowden seems like a good guy, but what he did was wrong. Betrayal and theft should not be condoned under any circumstances. He made the wrong choices and should be held accountable for them in a court of law. If someone I trusted unilaterally decided that I was breaking the law and then used that as a justification to steal documents from me and give them to journalists, I would be very upset. That's just wro…
In your world of absolutes - yes. The chef and I would go to jail or be fined for theft and the child may starve to death. All over food that otherwise would have been trash. That doesn't seem logical or moral on any level.
To allow for my lazy analogy, let's pretend we asked the wealthy businessman if we could donate any scraps to an orphanage and he was a Scrooge and said no.
>If someone I trusted unilaterally decided that I was breaking the law and then used that as a justification to steal documents from me and give them to journalists, I would be very upset. That's just wrong, man.
That sounds like something the mafia might say of a rat. "Dude, I trusted you. WTF? Why would you tell about our drug smuggling to the police?" The important thing about Snowden's whistleblowing is that they were violating the law.
>The world would descend into chaos pretty quickly if we all decided to start reviewing and passing judgement on the data that we're in charge of, instead of just making sure that it goes where it's supposed to go without incident.
"Absolutely no questions asked" is a dangerous policy and once again smells of a criminal ring. "Don't ask what's in the package. Just get it to where it needs to be." What if someone is paid to transfer a trojan to your computer. Should they simply move the payload without questioning what it is or why or the legality of it?
>We have a system of rules that must be enforced equally, for the good of all of us.
The system is constantly revised, outdated laws are thrown out. Some laws are reworded. Laws are a reflection of the values of a society. These values can and do change. If it is the popular opinion that Snowden did the right thing then he did the right thing. That's that.
Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edward Snowden seems like a good guy, but what he did was wrong. Betrayal and theft should not be condoned under any circumstances. He made the wrong choices and should be held accountable for them in a court of law. If someone I trusted unilaterally decided that I was breaking the law and then used that as a justification to steal documents from me and give them to journalists, I would be very upset. That's just wro…
> We have a system of rules that must be enforced equally, for the good of all of us. Off the top of my head, here are some ways that laws have been broken: * By refusing to sit at the back of the bus. * By refusing to pay taxes on tea. * By housing Jewish refugees. * By helping runaway slaves. * By marrying someone of a different ethnicity than your own. * By declaring a country's independence. * By telling people w…