NSA leaker Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?

[JJ Husker]

Finally saw the movie "Snowden". I didn't realize the extent of the information the NSA was collecting or the unethical ways they were using it.

 

I don't think he desired to be in the limelight or to be branded a hero. I think maybe he was hopeful that the Obama administration might treat his whistle blowing more leniently than the Bush administration but that didn't happen. He seemed to understand the sh!t storm his actions were going to cause and that it would likely change his life forever. Considering he still did the right thing knowing this I would say he is a hero. Anyone calling him a coward is on way too high of a horse for my taste. I don't blame him for avoiding certain prosecution or the also highly possible disappearing that he may have been subjected to.

 

I would recommend watching the movie. I found it to be rather eye opening...and disturbing.

[RedDenver]

Finally saw the movie "Snowden". I didn't realize the extent of the information the NSA was collecting or the unethical ways they were using it.

 

I don't think he desired to be in the limelight or to be branded a hero. I think maybe he was hopeful that the Obama administration might treat his whistle blowing more leniently than the Bush administration but that didn't happen. He seemed to understand the sh!t storm his actions were going to cause and that it would likely change his life forever. Considering he still did the right thing knowing this I would say he is a hero. Anyone calling him a coward is on way too high of a horse for my taste. I don't blame him for avoiding certain prosecution or the also highly possible disappearing that he may have been subjected to.

 

I would recommend watching the movie. I found it to be rather eye opening...and disturbing.

I agree with your observations, but I'd be careful of believing a movie - any movie.

[JJ Husker]

 

Finally saw the movie "Snowden". I didn't realize the extent of the information the NSA was collecting or the unethical ways they were using it.

I don't think he desired to be in the limelight or to be branded a hero. I think maybe he was hopeful that the Obama administration might treat his whistle blowing more leniently than the Bush administration but that didn't happen. He seemed to understand the sh!t storm his actions were going to cause and that it would likely change his life forever. Considering he still did the right thing knowing this I would say he is a hero. Anyone calling him a coward is on way too high of a horse for my taste. I don't blame him for avoiding certain prosecution or the also highly possible disappearing that he may have been subjected to.

I would recommend watching the movie. I found it to be rather eye opening...and disturbing.

 

I agree with your observations, but I'd be careful of believing a movie - any movie.

Oh yeah, it's apparent the movie portrayed him in the very best possible light. But given everything I know on the subject I tend to think he exposed it for the right reasons and at considerable personal cost. The most disturbing thing to me was the extent of the information they collect and the nefarious ways in which they use it. Again I realize it's a movie but I have no reason to believe that it isn't true. I knew they had some capabilities but damn. The storage and search algorithms...and activating web cams etc. scary stuff.

[Danny Bateman]

I oscillate on how I feel about Snowden. He may have been able to handle things better, but Obama did not have a good record of dealing even-handedly with whistleblowers.

 

On the other hand, had Snowden gone through the proper channels, who knows if we know the full extent of how bad what the NSA was doing. I'm certainly no fan of theirs.

 

One person I absolutely think is a bad actor and stooge of our adversaries? Assange.

[zoogs]

I agree about Assange. And yeah, I think the point is that the proper channels weren't going to work.

[RedDenver]

I'm not sure Assange is a bad actor. Wikileaks has never released false information.

 

I'm not saying Assange should be trusted, but that doesn't mean he's working for our adversaries either.

[zoogs]

I think their interests are openly aligned. Wikileaks finds it most useful to be adversarial towards to the United States. I guess it's not hard to see why, and maybe they're not wrong that the U.S. is the right target for their goals of challenging the status quo. But this priority plainly supersedes their open information branding. Lots has been written about their antics (of late); here's one I found that is hopefully a reasonable window into our side of this argument:

 

https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-moral-high-ground/

 

And as much as the U.S. may deserve some of what it's getting, I can't favor the chaos that they're stirring our way.

[BigRedBuster]

I've always been very uncomfortable with what Snowden and Wikileaks do.

 

Here is a guy who was given top secret clearance, breaks that trust and then runs off to Russia to be protected? I'm not naive enough to think our country doesn't do things it shouldn't. But, he sits in Russia, of all places, and is protected by a regime that is extremely corrupt and ruled by someone who obviously does the same or worse than anything he has exposed the US of doing.

 

There is a very fine and blurry line with this kind of stuff. Yes, if the government is doing stuff it's not supposed to do, it should be exposed. However, there are also things the government does that, if leaked, put real people in danger that are trying their best to protect us as citizens of the US.

They seem to have no problem leaking anything they can get their hands on no matter the damage it can do.

[Danny Bateman]

Here are a couple of very informative articles that led me to believe Assange is at best indifferent and at worst a stooge for Russian interests.

[RedDenver]

I've always been very uncomfortable with what Snowden and Wikileaks do.

 

Here is a guy who was given top secret clearance, breaks that trust and then runs off to Russia to be protected? I'm not naive enough to think our country doesn't do things it shouldn't. But, he sits in Russia, of all places, and is protected by a regime that is extremely corrupt and ruled by someone who obviously does the same or worse than anything he has exposed the US of doing.

 

There is a very fine and blurry line with this kind of stuff. Yes, if the government is doing stuff it's not supposed to do, it should be exposed. However, there are also things the government does that, if leaked, put real people in danger that are trying their best to protect us as citizens of the US.

They seem to have no problem leaking anything they can get their hands on no matter the damage it can do.

The other side of that coin is that the NSA was violating the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, and then the head of the NSA publicly lied about it. Was it worse for Snowden to break his top secret oath or his oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic?

 

Snowden didn't directly release the documents, but instead gave them to reporters he thought were ethical and asked them to release what they thought were pertinent. What else could he have done? I guess he could have stayed and faced the US govt, but after what happened to other classified leakers, I can't blame him.

 

Also AFAIK there's never been any evidence that the Snowden or Manning leaks got any sources hurt or killed.

[zoogs]

I'm a lot more sympathetic to Snowden than to Assange. However, I think his decision to leak has to be viewed separately from everything he's done since. A criticism I've read is that he's been played by the Russians and, however pure his intentions, no match for their manipulations. This seems fair. Then there's his apparent desire to morph into this authoritative voice on a lot of things, which seems unusual given his background as "some NSA worker".

 

Both a product and the victim of the circumstances, I suppose.

 

But to emphasize, who or what he really is or has become is less meaningful than the stories he broke. The latter is what we have to grapple with.

[RedDenver]

I'm a lot more sympathetic to Snowden than to Assange. However, I think his decision to leak has to be viewed separately from everything he's done since. A criticism I've read is that he's been played by the Russians and, however pure his intentions, no match for their manipulations. This seems fair. Then there's his apparent desire to morph into this authoritative voice on a lot of things, which seems unusual given his background as "some NSA worker".

 

Both a product and the victim of the circumstances, I suppose.

 

But to emphasize, who or what he really is or has become is less meaningful than the stories he broke. The latter is what we have to grapple with.

Agreed.