[themartorana]

Your respect and admiration absolve him of his responsibilities.

This is something I'm seeing more and more - "Snowden is a hero, but should stand trial and face his responsibilities." It's an oxymoron as far as I can figure, and I'm deeply disturbed by it. Either we should know what was revealed, and our government needs checking, or not. But if so, outing that information is heroic and extralegal. If you truly want no one to ever take the same risk Snowden took for the citizens of the US, let the citizens be the ones to throw him to the dogs.

[jcranmer]

When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, he didn't immediately flee to a foreign country to avoid prosecution. Indeed, he willingly submitted to arrest (under the same law that Snowden is charged under).

That Snowden appears to be trying to run away from the consequences of his actions makes him less of a hero in my eyes.

[RodericDay]

Daniel Ellsberg himself on Edward Snowden:

Yet when I surrendered to arrest in Boston, having given out my last copies of the papers the night before, I was released on personal recognizance bond the same day. Later, when my charges were increased from the original three counts to 12, carrying a possible 115-year sentence, my bond was increased to $50,000. But for the whole two years I was under indictment, I was free to speak to the media and at rallies and public lectures. I was, after all, part of a movement against an ongoing war. Helping to end that war was my preeminent concern. I couldn’t have done that abroad, and leaving the country never entered my mind.

There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today, let alone that a trial could be terminated by the revelation of White House actions against a defendant that were clearly criminal in Richard Nixon’s era — and figured in his resignation in the face of impeachment — but are today all regarded as legal (including an attempt to “incapacitate me totally”).

[...]

He would almost certainly be confined in total isolation, even longer than the more than eight months Manning suffered during his three years of imprisonment before his trial began recently. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Torture described Manning’s conditions as “cruel, inhuman and degrading.” (That realistic prospect, by itself, is grounds for most countries granting Snowden asylum, if they could withstand bullying and bribery from the United States.)

[fixermark]

When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, the United States wasn't quite so much in the habit of, among other things, legally justifying torture to extract information as it is apparently today.

The legal and political ecosystem has fundamentally shifted post-9/11, and I don't know it's fair to hold a modern whistleblower to a standard that existed in the '70s.

(That's a long-winded way of saying "I wouldn't trust the government either." ;) )

[AYBABTME]

It's a weird argument. Not only do US people want a hero, but the hero must suffer.

[angry_octet]

Is that a surprise in the Christian context?

[nathan_long]

Yes. Christians do not wish to be like Judas, Pilate, etc.

[angry_octet]

I was referring to the need for a martyr. Though if you are biblically minded, then by allowing Snowden to be crucified we are bringing a curse upon ourselves, cf Barabbas.

[eropple]

No, the "hero" (and I don't think Snowden is one, but I am biased from personal experience) should, if he believes himself to be in the right, defend himself in front of a jury of his peers. That's not the same thing as "suffering"; that's how the judicial system works.

[ScottBurson]

Except, of course, that the law he is charged under -- the Espionage Act of 1917 -- does not permit a public interest defense.

Would you also say that James Clapper should stand trial for perjury?

[mikeash]

Why? What's the connection between believing one's actions to be right and surrendering to the justice system? Especially if he believes, no doubt correctly, that he would be found guilty and punished severely.

[timv]

Would you say the same if the hero was from Russia or North Korea or Syria?

Would it be OK to leak documents from there and then flee their judicial systems?

[themartorana]

I would definitely support someone outing and then fleeing Russia. In fact we do it all the time - it's called political asylum.

[int_19h]

An impartial jury would be bound to rule him guilty, because he did break a law.

It doesn't mean that he's not a hero, though, because many people didn't even know it was the law until he did. And that it is a bad law.

But no, he doesn't have an obligation to suffer to prove that he had a point.

[angry_octet]

Juries have many times chosen to take a more holistic view of the law, determining that sometimes prosectution is not in the public interest, known as jury nullification.

See especially the case of a British leaker: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Ponting

[ethanbond]

Juries are in no way bound to find even the most egregiously culpable defendants guilty of committing a crime. Choosing not to do so is not claiming the person did not break the law, but a claim that the law itself was wrong.

It happens every once in a while and is an important feature, not bug of the American judiciary.

[int_19h]

Jury nullification is a right, yes. However, jury instruction will very deliberately claim otherwise, and most people do follow it (and if, during jury selection, anyone hints at understanding what it is, they will almost certainly be excused). So realistically it's a very inefficient check.

[lerpa]

An impartial jury would recognize that breaking that law was the right thing to do because the law was wrong and unjust, and therefore should be abolished. It's not like the US legal system came down from heaven.