[NullCharacter]

So is Snowden still a whistleblower? Honest question, not trying to be snide.

If you abscond with 1,000 legitimate mission-oriented documents for every 1 document you leak that pertains to something you think an agency shouldn't be doing, are you still blowing the whistle? At what point are you no longer able to use that title as a defense? 10,000 documents for every 1? 100,000? Can he be both a whistleblower and a criminal or are the two mutually exclusive?

I don't have answers to these questions so I hope someone else does.

Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question, as though it were even possible to disagree with a question.

[pvnick]

Snowden didn't decide which document's to publish - journalists did. He handed over a trove of information, among which was damning evidence that our government was/is doing something they shouldn't, and gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately. I for one believe that the releases have been done with impeccable professionalism, and in fact if it were up to me I would have been even more liberal with the releases (Greenwald, Poitras, et al. have actually worked with the government during this process).

[krapp]

Nevertheless, journalists work for media companies which run on ad revenue. Their motivation and Edward Snowden's don't necessarily align, now that he has become (perhaps inadvertently) a cult of personality figure and a marketable brand, and attaching his name to anything guarantees readership.

[bediger4000]

media companies which run on ad revenue

Greenwald worked for The Guardian for the initial release, and works for The Intercept now. The Guardian, although somewhat ad-supported, doesn't appear to be quite as dependent as most US papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Ownership_and_fin.... The Intercept is definitely weirder than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept

With respect to The Intercept, I submit that you're technically correct (their motivations and Snowden's aren't identical), but that Snowden's motivations are probably closer to The Intercept's staff than they would be to any other news outlet, even NPR.

[jazzyk]

This.

It is amazing how many people don't know this (that he did not just leak everything indiscriminately).

[irishcoffee]

Yes he did, to journalists.

Before the downvote button is spammed: He simply did not have time go go over every single one of the 100,000+ documents he claimed to leak, and give them to journalists in an intelligent manner. There simply was not enough time between him leaving the country and the documents being revealed for him to have done that.

So yes, he did very much indiscriminately leak them.

[facetube]

The journalists working closely with him did have time. There is nothing about this situation that the word "indiscriminately" applies to, unless you're talking about the military spy organization that was allowed to indiscriminately target its own citizens.

[jazzyk]

No, from the context of the post above mine, it is obvious that by "leaking indiscriminately" I meant to the general public.

You are either lacking context comprehension skills or intentionally splitting hairs to make Snowden look bad...

[irishcoffee]

How are journalists not the general public?

Giving classified documents to _anyone_ who isn't cleared to see them is the "general public." Journalists are no exception. Not sure why you think that.

[jazzyk]

Are you serious? The only "cleared" (using your term) people were NSA higher-ups - the very same people who spied on their own citizens.

Snowden sent the docs not to any/all journalists, but to a carefully selected group of the most reputable ones: NYT, WP, Guardian. He had followed Poitras/Greenwald for a long time before to make sure the docs end up in responsible hands.

Also, the journalists asked the US government to cooperate/redact out some national-security sensitive details, they refused. So they had to use their own judgement.

[facetube]

Are you arguing that Snowden giving all of the documents to me would have produced the same outcome as giving them to journalists to review and redact and write articles about?

[cryoshon]

There's been a lot of obfuscation to the contrary, including endless bad-faith comparisons with Chelsea Manning.

[jazzyk]

Yup. Also comparisons with Assange.

[pdkl95]

Well said.

I would only add that in the end, the specifics of what should be released are usually going to a subjective judgment call. Everybody is going to draw a slightly different cutoff line. In US tradition we have used journalists as a representative of the people to make that decision, and Greenwald et al have been incredibly careful in how they released pieces of the Snowden archive. Too careful, perhaps, but I can certainly understand the desire to take it slowly and carefully.

Also, as more documents are released, it's important to remember that Snowden is not the only source. ( https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/04/counting_the_... )

[happyscrappy]

>gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately

Journalists will be tempted to publish regardless of the original intent, let's hope they are not desperate for a story.

[NullCharacter]

I realize Snowden personally didn't leak the documents (unless you qualify handing the trove to journalists as "leaking" which some might). This is why I used the word "abscond" as well as "leak". Fact is he left with thousands of legitimate documents that had no business being a part of his collection.

But I've never received a straight answer to that question and I guess this is no exception.

[bonobo]

I'm confused about what kind of straight answer you're expecting. Why isn't this considered a straight answer?

> Snowden didn't decide which document's to publish - journalists did. He handed over a trove of information, among which was damning evidence that our government was/is doing something they shouldn't, and gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately.

Had he pre-selected which documents to hand over to the journalists, how would this be any different than if he just published them by his own? Snowden knew that he was not supposed to handle this task alone by passing his judgement on these documents by himself, and that he needed someone to help him judge what to disclose and what not to disclose, so he delegated this responsibility to journalists with a reputation he could trust. IMO he was as responsible as one could be: he didn't handle this trouble all by himself, he didn't let any biases he might've had affect the decisions, and he delegated the task at hand properly to american citizens (this is important, he was dealing with national security after all) he judged to be trustworthy. It just boils down to teamwork.

Selecting only the documents he thought described wrongdoings would put too much of his perspective and his biases on the end result. Too much for a single man to decide.

[caskance]

He didn't have any right to make the decision to trust those journalists. Giving them access to all his documents was the problem.

There was enough the NSA did that was OBVIOUSLY wrong that he could have stayed well clear of the things too close to the line.

[bonobo]

He didn't have the right not to make a decision. As a responsible citizen he had the obligation take action and decide how to approach the issue, and he did the best he could as a single individual. Deciding who to trust is doable; filtering all the information on those docs by himself is not.

Yes, he could have disclosed the obvious things, but how would that work out on the long term? Would he be able to address by himself all the questions that would follow up? How much information would he be able to disclose? Too much information and he'd risk disclosing legitimate operations, too little information and he'd soon get discredited.

[caskance]

In the long term, it would have meant that people like me who think there is a legitimate reason for nation states to have intelligence agencies could support him with clear consciences.

[mzs]

He did not disclose all the documents. He made a pass through first to protect people primarily. The vast majority of what he passed on were power points and lists of devices.

[Nadya]

>Fact is he left with thousands of legitimate documents that had no business being a part of his collection.

Going through all the files by himself would be a daunting task that would take years. There are literally 1,000's of documents. Raising the alarm now rather than 8 years from now is important.

Given the circumstances, grabbing everything and handing it over to a team of respectable journalists (who have a team of lawyers) to find out what is against the Constitution/not in favor of the people (seeing as journalists represent the people to an extent) to allow them to only leak the relevant ones that were crossing boundaries seems like a best decision act.

The journalists can leak documents over the course of years and slowly investigate each one to determine if it crosses boundaries and the alarms should be rung for the public.

Snowden would have had a single release of a handful of documents and gone on a very long vacation in a place nobody has ever heard of had he released a few documents himself. It's expensive to pay for a vacation for an entire group of journalists and lawyers.

[canistr]

I disagree.

Grabbing everything because you don't have time to sift through the data and passing them to so-called "respectable journalists" doesn't make it right. In the same way that people claim dragnet surveillance is wrong to catch terrorists if it's violating the privacy of everyone else.

[Nadya]

How would you have done it? Gone through 16,000 documents that are all 100's of pages long as an individual? You'd be lucky to finish in your lifetime. Not to mention he's not a lawyer. Should he consult a lawyer to know what is going against the Constitution or just use his best guess? Is consulting a single lawyer better than a team of lawyers? Should have had consulted a team of lawyers? What makes Snowden more trustworthy than journalists?

Would he be able to find lawyers to consult while remaining in a country that wouldn't put his life at risk? Should the lawyers relocate to Snowden's location of asylum? Or should they be consult over the constantly monitored internet? Is releasing the information 10 years from now more beneficial than releasing it now?

It opens a big can of worms when you question the logistics of doing it differently. Not that I disagree with your statement - it's a lot like dragnet (catch it all to watch a few) but the logistics in this scenario, unlike a dragnet, the resources simply aren't there to do it any other way. Snowden is not a multi-billion dollar government with near unlimited resources.

[bonobo]

Are you claiming that he could handle all of this by himself? Because unless you're claiming it, you'll have to agree with me that he would have to trust someone at some point. And calling Greenwald a so-called respectable journalist doesn't make justice to the reputation he built. I'm curious to know how would you select a better fitted person to this job.

I also don't think that comparing this to privacy violation is a valid comparison. The government is not a person, you're not violating any civil rights by getting these documents.

[caskance]

If he didn't have the time to do it responsibly, he didn't have the time to do it at all.

[Nadya]

The point of whistleblowing is to blow the whistle and tell people. Not blowing it at all is the exact opposite of whistleblowing - it's being complicit with the crimes committed by the government. Your suggestion is because he does not have the resources, alone, to deal with a corrupt part of government he shouldn't even try? That's a great way to maintain the status quo and have nothing change.

As far as I'm concerned - he could not have handled his scenario in a more responsible manner given his resources and scenario.

What makes Snowden more trustworthy than Greenwald, et al? Some no-name contractor nobody had ever heard of is not more trustworthy than a team of internationally respected journalists with a team of lawyers capable of citing the laws where the government is overstepping their bounds.

I wouldn't trust Snowden to determine what should and shouldn't be leaked to the general public. I don't think many people would. I do, however, trust Greenwald, et al. They have a reputation that they've spent years building up trust with the public. Snowden lacks that trust.

[caskance]

We're not talking about asking him to sift through data on hundreds of programs. He had the resources to leak information about the one or two programs that actually went so far over the line that it made him worried rather than everything he could get his hands on. Talk to the same journalists and everything. That would have been easier, not harder. Sure, maybe less gets fixed in the one go-round, but if the NSA doesn't take that as a hint to clean up their act, more whistleblowers would follow, especially if Snowden had actually earned trust for the idea by acting responsibly.

Thinking that people wouldn't believe the data he provided because there wasn't enough of it makes no sense.

[ewindisch]

As a thought experiment, are we certain these documents came from Snowden? He has not digitally signed these releases. He himself may not know entirely what was in the archive, so he may not be certain if all the released documents originated from his dump. Even if he was aware of documents being incorrectly attributed to him, it may do his cause more harm than good to highlight this fact.

It would be a legitimate option for the NSA to intentionally "leak" documents that simply describe their mission, causing a false spectacle. It will not hurt them much, given it's well within their mission parameters, but CAN hurt Snowden through public backlash. It would raise such questions as, "is Snowden still a whistleblower?" Such releases could hurt his credibility, or even flood the news with insignificant stories such that the truly important ones are lost in the shuffle.

I am not certain this is what we're seeing, but neither would I be surprised if it were true.

EDIT: There have been documents leaked about how the CIA and IC use character assassination to advance their causes. There have also been articles explicitly about the character assassination of Snowden: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-sp... http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/t...

[NullCharacter]

Using your same logic here, you could claim that those documents are forgeries to begin with, leaked to "assassinate" the "character" of the NSA. You can't have it both ways. Either you're skeptical of the documents origin/source or you aren't.

[ewindisch]

Absolutely. Also remember this was a thought experiment, not a conspiracy theory.

FYI, not sure why you're using quotes around Character assassination. It is a fixed expression in English, it's not something I made up: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_assassination 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character%20assass...

[NullCharacter]

I used quotes because I don't know if it's actually possible to assassinate the character of a government organization, in the sense that I'm not sure if a government organization has a character to be assassinated per se. Generally I'd save that term for individuals. I wasn't being flippant.

[ewindisch]

Sorry, I was speaking of character assassination of Edward Snowden, not of the NSA. I did not intend to insinuate you were being flippant, it was very possible you had not known this turn of phrase (not everyone is a native English speaker).

[nabla9]

As a citizen of EU country I'm grateful. If Snowden is committing crime, it's political crime.

There are more important concerns and loyalties than those we have for individual countries. If he is revealing how US spies friendly nations, he is serving greater good. His document leak to journalists seem to avoid information of NSA spying Russia or China.

[wwwwwwwwww]

Snowden stopped being a whistleblower to me when the docs about the CIA's sigint spying gear was published.

There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries.

If his sole goal was to damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies, then he was a mole, not a whistle blower.

[pvnick]

> There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries.

That's a false dichotomy. Snowden didn't risk his life just to help people improve their privacy - he did it to expose wrongdoing and start a process to reform our government.

[cryoshon]

This is an unrelated issue, but I think you're working from the premise that the CIA's spying and SIGINT capabilities actually make the US safer or more strategically secure in the world.

That the CIA actually improves the US's position isn't remotely proven even on the 50 year timescale, and there's a cornucopia of evidence that supports the opposite hypothesis which states the CIA's endless philandering has engendered a deep hatred of the US in many corners of the world, not to mention seeding anarchic instability.

[caskance]

And the idea that engendering a deep hatred of the US in many corners of the world or seeding anarchic instability does not improve the US's position is likewise not remotely proven. The whole point of representative democracy is that decisions, especially ones like these that require privileged information to really be sure about, are delegated to elected representatives.

[psykovsky]

The US spying capability does nothing but damage to the rest of the world. Just because I live in a different country you must respect my rights, nonetheless. No, secret court orders won't fly around here.

[rurban]

He didn't publish any material. The german magazine Spiegel published this part you are complaining about.

They explained their reasoning why they published it.

[clarkmoody]

Isn't every whistleblower within the intelligence community a criminal by definition due to the laws surrounding the material? (Assuming they are blowing the whistle about non human-resources issues)

[ju-st]

Yes. Compare with the rebellion of the 13 Colonies.. or was it a revolution?

[tptacek]

That's not a question with a binary answer. Some of what he's published clearly is "whistleblowing", and a lot of it clearly isn't.

The notion of whether Snowden as a person is a whistleblower is a partisan rhetorical trick --- employed by both "sides" of the debate --- used to distract people from his actual actions.

[bediger4000]

used to distract people from his actual actions

How do we determine his actual intentions? I mean, Snowden is alive and well and giving quotes: "People who think I made a mistake in picking [Hong Kong] as a location misunderstand my intentions,” Snowden clarified. “I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality.”"

Sounds like Snowden considers himself to be something of a whistle blower, in the common sense, if not the technical. So, that's settled, I guess.

[rasz_pl]

>Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question

You are asking the question same way Fox News asks if we should just nuke middle east. It not a question, its your opinion, as valid and proper as rape jokes(another Fox News special).

[pdkl95]

If you are concerned about the release of some of these documents, why aren't you focusing your attention on the crimes in government and the failure of oversight that made public disclosure necessary. Would you prefer Snowden had stayed silent and the crimes he revealed remained unknown?

Everybody makes mistakes, and it is reasonable to assume that someone trying to bring documents out of a state agency so the people can see them isn't going to have the luxury of time. This attitude that a whistleblower is somehow supposed to be perfect is suspicious; attempting to seed the meme that Snowden was anything other than a whistleblower, while diverting attention yet again from the crimes of a rogue intelligence agency.

[mtgx]

Of course he is. His documents have already provided huge benefit to the public. Are we really going to nitpick over every single document from the hundreds of thousands and go "Aha! this document probably shouldn't have been leaked - he's totally a traitor now"?

I'm sure there were documents in the Pentagon Papers which probably shouldn't have been made public, too. Looking back, was that relevant to the larger cause of informing the public about the Vietnam war's lies?

[caskance]

That's what it means to be a traitor, isn't it?

If someone lives an otherwise law-abiding life, and commits ONE crime, would you not call him a criminal as long as his total contribution was net positive?