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A comment on Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden. Parent comment

Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by MichaelApproved on Friday February 05, 2016 @11:22AM (#11042418)
To add to your comment, he took an enormous amount of data. It was sweeping and pretty indiscriminate. And he gave it to the media.

Some of what he took and shared could be legitimately argued as whistle blowing but there's lots of other classified data about legitimate programs that was taken as well.

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by tux1968 on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:07PM (#11043318)
Isn't the more important point whether or not he exposed serious corruption and illegal activity? We forgive the police breaking the law, in order to enforce it, all the time.. the classic example of speeding to catch a speeder.

It seems disingenuous to focus on the collateral damage of his action and ignore the main target. We forgive our military their collateral damage all the time as an unfortunate side effect of pursuing a noble mission. Shouldn't he be afforded the same?

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by danso on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:38PM (#11043575)
> Isn't the more important point whether or not he exposed serious corruption and illegal activity? We forgive the police breaking the law, in order to enforce it, all the time.. the classic example of speeding to catch a speeder.

But...that's not breaking the law. When speeding is done as part of the police officer's job, it is not breaking the law.

In contrast, when a police officer speeds while not carrying out their duty, that is indeed breaking the law. The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2013 was awarded to an investigation that uncovered illegally speeding cops: http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/7180

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by sangnoir on Friday February 05, 2016 @04:25PM (#11044757)
> that's not breaking the law. When speeding is done as part of the police officer's job, it is not breaking the law.

By definition, whistleblowing is disclosing information that shouldn't be disclosed.This is why there needs to be whistleblower protection: so that the "illegal" action is no longer considered illegal but a civic duty.

> The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2013 was awarded to an investigation that...

Funny you should mention that, in 2014, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was awarded to journalists who worked with material illegally provided by Edward Snowden: http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/7200

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by Lawtonfogle on Friday February 05, 2016 @03:26PM (#11044354)
>But...that's not breaking the law. When speeding is done as part of the police officer's job, it is not breaking the law.

What about the FBI running a honey pot where they continue to allow children to be abused? Technically legal, but is it really something we should tolerate?

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by FreakyT on Friday February 05, 2016 @12:01PM (#11042720)
I think this is the key issue that really muddies the Snowden issue.

I completely agree with Snowden's leaking of the domestic spying program information, but he also leaked a lot of information not related to that. Foreign spying is basically what the NSA is supposed to do.

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by mcv on Saturday February 06, 2016 @07:43AM (#11047545)
Did he also leak information about spying on enemies? Or only about spying on allies?
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by FreakyT on Monday February 08, 2016 @11:18AM (#11058935)
Both, and that's the key issue. Here's an example:

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266875/exclusive...

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by kafkaesq on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:55PM (#11044140)
And he gave it to the media.

That makes it sound like he dumped it indiscriminately.

Which is very misleading.

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by jellicle on Friday February 05, 2016 @12:03PM (#11042736)
Can you give an example?
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by BWStearns on Friday February 05, 2016 @12:36PM (#11043032)
Listening in on Merkel's phone calls. Yes, an ally of the US but allies spy on each other all the time and have and will for all time. Was it illegal? That's a hard no. Was it immoral? That's an interesting debate.

Edit: Though I did appreciate her Captain Renault impression about being so terribly shocked that as head of state she was a target for espionage.

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by robotresearcher on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:50PM (#11043664)
> Was it illegal? That's a hard no.

It was illegal under German law. Should we ignore the laws of our close allies?

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by Philadelphia on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:09PM (#11043796)
Being a foreign spy is always illegal. That's the point of it, and why spies are separate from soldiers and police.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by BookmarkSaver on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:03PM (#11043755)
Whether or not we should, it later came out that they were doing the same to us.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by BWStearns on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:45PM (#11044068)
If I were a German taxpayer and the BND weren't spying on the US I would want a refund.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by tptacek on Friday February 05, 2016 @12:46PM (#11043117)
He doesn't have to. Both Snowden and Glenn Greenwald have acknowledged both that there are documents in the Snowden tranche that are not in the public interest to disclose, and that all the documents had not been reviewed before being turned over to reporters.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by jellicle on Saturday February 06, 2016 @12:38PM (#11048729)
So you're saying you have no examples, and that the only people privy to any supposed non-public-interest disclosure were the journalists at a few major newspapers.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by tptacek on Saturday February 06, 2016 @01:00PM (#11048821)
No, that is not what I said.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by slantedview on Friday February 05, 2016 @12:16PM (#11042847)
He cannot, because any sensitive data that is not in the public's interest, to be made public, has not been.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by ikeboy on Friday February 05, 2016 @12:39PM (#11043061)
>The American government conducted a major intelligence offensive against China, with targets including the Chinese government and networking company Huawei, according to documents from former NSA worker Edward Snowden that have been viewed by SPIEGEL and the New York Times

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-spied-on-chine...

>Research by SPIEGEL reporters in Berlin and Washington, talks with intelligence officials and the evaluation of internal documents of the US' National Security Agency and other information, most of which comes from the archive of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, lead to the conclusion that the US diplomatic mission in the German capital has not merely been promoting German-American friendship. On the contrary, it is a nest of espionage. From the roof of the embassy, a special unit of the CIA and NSA can apparently monitor a large part of cellphone communication in the government quarter. And there is evidence that agents based at Pariser Platz recently targeted the cellphone that Merkel uses the most.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cover-story-how-...

Well, I suppose it's in China's and Germany's interests, but doing things like that that benefit another country at the expense of your own is generally called treason.

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by fnordfnordfnord on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:10PM (#11043348)
It may generally be called treason by some people, but in the US the definition of the crime of treason is specifically constrained to avoid abuses.

>Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by ikeboy on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:55PM (#11043692)
Revealing national security secrets to Enemies doesn't count as Aid?
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by BurningFrog on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:40PM (#11044025)
Is China an enemy of the US? They're certainly not at war, and are the worlds biggest trading partners. I don't know the answer, just pointing out that it's not obvious.

From http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/3/essays/11...

In Cramer v. United States (1945), the Supreme Court held that a specific intent—adherence to the enemy, and therefore to harm the United States—is necessary, rather than the simple rendition of aid.

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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by fnordfnordfnord on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:04PM (#11043766)
If you want to apply that test naively then you need to hold David Petraeus, Scooter Libby, Robert Novak, and a whole host of others to the same standard. Snowden didn't "reveal national security secrets to enemies" he revealed them to the press. He may have made it possible for so-called enemies to learn things they didn't already know, but even that is debatable. Define "Aid" and "Enemies" however you like, but apply the definitions consistently if you want to be taken seriously.
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Re:Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden by lostlogin on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:04PM (#11043287)
It's sort of amazing that treason is a still a charge that can be levelled. Seeing the word outside the context of a 18th century history (or earlier) still catches me, and with Snowden it's hardly recent news.
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