It's not so clear cut though; if I break into your house and find a few joints should that be treated the same way? I suppose it boils down to where on the continuum of severity you place corruption of the democratic process.
Encouraging someone to break into private property looking for evidence would still be a crime, IMO.
Your question is of a moral nature: what should I do if I break in your house and find out that you are abusing your kids?
This is why they write fiction :) Not so easy to figure out, and it could easily vary by individual and circumstance.
As to advocating for people to become robbers, would I advocate for another Snowden to appear? I think that's impossible for me to answer without answering your moral question, without knowing what sorts of things would be revealed by the crime. Whether I advocated or not, though, it'd still be a crime. Not sure if my advocacy is a crime. If so, then I'm a criminal and the law is an ass.
I hadn't considered whether I would advocate for another Snowden, but assuming being 'another Snowden' implies exposing corruption I would have to say that I would. I personally think that corruption in any form is one of the things holding us back as a species. See Africa for a wealth of examples.
What you've just unknowingly (I hope) done is encouraged continuously violating people's privacy, property, and physical health using powers of state just in case something is found. Given most are innocent enough, that means innocent people will be hurt constantly to find some extra guilty ones. That's ridiculous from a moral perspective.
It also assumes the cops are all good: an assumption that's countered by existence of Bill of Rights itself. Not to mention steady stream of corruption cases, misrepresented evidence, lying to get fake confessions, and so on. Definitely not the kind of people that need any "right to ignore rights" if that should ever exist. Their incentive is to lock people up, not keep them free. So, the system should give us protection against that to force them to do it only when they have strong justification.
No. This is exactly what's wrong with parallel construction and why any evidence like this should always be treated like it simply does not exist.
The only times when you should be able to break that rule is if there is overwhelming social advantage to breaking it. And I'm not sure the case posted here is one of those.
Parallel construction is sneaky in that it allows otherwise in-admissible evidence into a case or allows one to jump-start a case that would otherwise not have existed in the first place.
I apologize. You must be making some point that I'm missing. If somebody breaks into your house, they are guilty of a crime. Period.
I didn't say anything about "slaps on the wrist" For all I care, you can make discovering a crime while breaking into the house the same as being complicit in the crime.
Along this entire subthread, there seems to be several topics conflated. Punishment is a separate matter from culpability, as is the state breaking the law during a criminal investigation, which you seem to be focusing on by bringing up parallel construction. The only thing I am addressing is how society should treat the discovery of random bits of information put into the public domain by thieves. That's it. Not how criminal investigations should be conducted, not the relative punishment for various crimes, not how a robber's personal morals should affect his decisions, and not whether it's okay to publish such information once it is made public.
These are all great topics. I'm just not talking about them.
We allow anonymous tips that can get police's attention on something. Our rights then apply to restrict their behavior to what's sensible. Parallel construction is them violating our rights, producing (forging?) evidence, lying about the methods that produced it, then faking/finding a new route to convict us, and then we're convicted on weight of that and/or secret evidence. This poses extra risk due to (a) damage from parallel construction activities themselves, (b) ability to target dissenting/unpopular groups as FBI has long history of doing with permissive powers, and (c) inability to challenge the quality or effectiveness of their selection & evidence gathering process vs more open processes.
" The only thing I am addressing is how society should treat the discovery of random bits of information put into the public domain by thieves."
What's you've done is force the situation to be an extremely narrow case that doesn't represent how parallel construction is used at all. It's normally LEO's focusing on specific groups with surveillance, subversion, and informants. What they focus on vs what harms society most has a disconnect that reveals more political than protective reasons. One of reasons we have accountability measures in the first place. Analysis stemming from thieves breaking into a house & dumping evidence is a very, uncommon case.
Let's look at it anyway. Regular process usually involves searches that you would know about so you can make sure nobody plants evidence. Thief breaks into your house, leaves child porn there, delivers anonymous tip to authorities that you possess child porn, they search you, they find it, and you're convicted. Still trust public safety via thieves method?
Alternatively, a politician wants to be insanely powerful. All he has is parallel construction, police authority, and some surveillance tech. Starts using it selectively on key members of Congress, judges, media people, and so on. Finds dirt on them, but doesn't act on it: extorts them for appropriations, expanded legal powers, hushing on bad stories, and so on. Might be able to pull this stuff off for a long time with untold damage. Wait, why speculate: I'm talking about how J Edgar Hoover amassed power for him and his FBI. Process could be repeating with NSA's surveillance power & Congress constantly ignoring their corruption but we won't know because all of that is secret. ;)
Shifting power to executive branch for secret accusations against people with less and less protections only results in predatory behavior. Both U.S. and foreign history are pretty clear that this is what usually happens. So, it shouldn't be allowed. Our prior system worked well enough. Too well given number of wrongful convictions and false confessions. Reforming it is a better idea.
Here's the thing: breaking into somebody's house is illegal. If you do it, you're a criminal and should face some kind of legal proceeding.
If you break into their house and leave some personal items along the curb, like nude photographs? I'm probably going to gawk at them as I drive by. I don't like the fact that I do it, but I am human. You are still a criminal, and as long as I don't start sharing your personal items, I'm not. I'm just a schmuck.
If, however, you leave evidence of moral or criminal wrongdoing out on the curb for everybody to see? Then the community has an obligation to take action both against the robber and the person who's house was broken into. Simply because you were robbed doesn't mean that you get out of consequences for your actions once they become public.
I'm tempted to view the ramifications of the leaked emails as a purely internal DNC affair. Having said that, I am reading partisan attacks that say there are illegal activities in there. If so? Well, somebody needs to face some kind of legal proceeding. And somebody else is still a robber.
Whatever our views, it's important to come up with standards that apply no matter who's "side" you're on.