[cryoshon]

We can, should, do, and must continue to have a strong and overriding sense of personal morality when dealing with government-- "just following orders" is not, has not, should not, and will never be an acceptable response to government wrongdoing as committed by the people who make up the organs of the government.

Without Snowden, Ellsberg, Drake, Binney, Manning, and the other leakers, we would still be completely and utterly in the dark about most of the malicious things our government is doing. It is solely by these people's sense of moral agency that the wrongdoings came to light! If we left it up to the government to regulate itself within the rules, we would absolutely never have any kind of citizens oversight specifically because they make their own set of rules, and those rules include keeping us in the dark for the purposes of making things run smoother.

As far as claiming there was some kind of debate over the dragnet-- no, some representatives quibbling about the wording from time to time does not count as citizen oversight. The representatives didn't even know how deep the NSA rabbit hole went. They didn't even understand the interpretations of the Patriot act that were being used to justify the spying. They were almost as clueless as we were. So no, there was no debate, no oversight, no way for the citizenry to say "stop" before the fact, and so far, no listening to their cries after the fact.

You may bring up the FISA and warrantless wiretaps, but it's kind of a stupid thing to say: the FISA court is a rubber stamp body, approving well in excess of 95% of requests that come before it. Nevermind that the citizens have no oversight over the court, since it's held in secret, with unelected members. Nevermind that a democracy shouldn't have a secret court system.

It was a moral necessity to leak, it isn't germane to talk about legality in the context of morality. We either have leakers, or we're passengers to the system, which doesn't sound like a democracy to me.

[karmacondon]

You should have a strong and overriding sense of personal morality when dealing with government, but you should also keep in mind that your opinion is not the only one that counts, nor is your personal moral code necessarily "right". Democracy means that we must accept the will of the majority even when it conflicts with our own beliefs, even if history ends up judging us right and everyone else to be wrong. That's just part of living in a cooperative society.

As the GP comment pointed out, people knew about these NSA programs in particular before Snowden. I certainly did. Just because you weren't paying attention to these issues until they were attached to a charismatic personality doesn't mean that no one else had any knowledge of them.

Congress did indeed debate the details of the Patriot Act. Once again, just because you find it boring to watch CSPAN doesn't mean that the issues weren't debated in open forum. You're conflating your lack of awareness with a secrecy that didn't exist.

The FISA court operates how it's supposed to. It approves the majority of requests because prosecutors can thoroughly evaluate each case before bringing it before the court. They approve everything because prosecutors can request that cases be strengthened before they're even presented.

The bottom line here is that all branches of the government approved of these programs. That's how our system works. If you don't like it then propose a new system, potentially one where every decision has to live up to your personal moral code of righteousness. Until then, we'll stick with doing the best that we can to make the right decisions using the process outlined in the constitution.

[ceejayoz]

> The FISA court operates how it's supposed to. It approves the majority of requests because prosecutors can thoroughly evaluate each case before bringing it before the court. They approve everything because prosecutors can request that cases be strengthened before they're even presented.

Prosecutors can do that for non-secret courts, too, yet their requests are often denied. It's very unlikely that prosecutors take special extraordinary measures to never present a mediocre case to the court.

At the very least, I'd like to see vetted, security-cleared lawyers from the ACLU/EFF/etc. permitted to play the adversarial role found pretty much everywhere else in our legal system.

[rhino369]

There is a vast difference between not accepting "just following orders" as a defense for crimes against humanity and allowing people to spill state secrets when it is against their politics.

If Snowden didn't want to be involved in the NSA, he could have quit.

But like I said, you can't let individuals determine government policy by themselves. Otherwise we'd have no ability to keep information classified.

You can come up with a hypothetical that would justify leaking confidential materials, but I would strongly disagree that Snowden or Manning meet that standard.

If Snowden leaked that the US had an extermination camp, yea I'd support him. But the NSA surveillance programs are nothing like that.

The NSA isn't doing something that completely shocks the worlds conscience. The are following the laws Congress wrote for them. Snowden and other civil libertarians are outraged, but so what. You don't get to declassify stuff because it is against your politics.

The law shouldn't and doesn't give you cover for that sort of political action. How could it? Can a pro-peace activist leak military plans? Can a pro-Palestine activist leak Israeli diplomatic cables?

The standard can't just be "one guys thinks this is immoral."

>You may bring up the FISA and warrantless wiretaps, but it's kind of a stupid thing to say: the FISA court is a rubber stamp body, approving well in excess of 95% of requests that come before it. Nevermind that the citizens have no oversight over the court, since it's held in secret, with unelected members. Nevermind that a democracy shouldn't have a secret court system.

Nobody ever has oversight over courts, directly. They are unelected on purpose to protect them from political bias. The People have oversight by writing the laws. If the People don't want FISA courts, ban them.

No warrant proceeding is in open court. You get a magistrate judge to issue you one in private.

As to 95%, that could just as easily be evidence that the DOJ is only requesting warrants in situations that are legitimate. Recall that they are only handing out ~3000 a year (probably many against the same person and many against foreigners). So it isn't like the DOJ is doing this in a dragnet fashion. Also, the FISA court requires substantive revisions of about 25% of those it approves.

The 95% rate is easily just proof that the government isn't abusing the system.

[cryoshon]

I see that your heart is set on being stuck to upholding the "laws" that make up our system of government while steadfastly ignoring the entire "laws are made for the benefit of the powerful and subject to change based upon convenience" reality we live in. To reiterate, this isn't some small-time debate about whether "leaking confidential files" is "legal" or not, but rather a debate about whether the public has the right to know what the government is doing. The public does, in fact, have a right to know what the government is doing in their name. Snowden and whistleblowers need to exist in the current configuration of the government, which favors secrecy because they fear the public's reaction to their bad deeds.

One last try: Snowden leaked information which tells us that the NSA effectively has the power to blackmail anyone in the US or elsewhere. Via whistleblower Russ Tice we know that the NSA was spying on Obama starting from 2004. Anything Obama has done, the NSA has known. Doesn't that seem like it creates an avenue for major abuse?

This sure seems like a backdoor to democracy which would justify letting the members of the democracy know, right? Or is it still more important to maintain confidential materials when the materials show that democracy has a workaround via surveillance?