7 ms·

Please Give Edward Snowden His Medal of Freedom Already

162 points by brmunk 12y ago

3327 12y ago
Why? Because he is the best Russian double agent operation in the history of espionage ? Because he skilled gov't secrets citing domestic spying where as the vast majority of what he revealed is actually international espionage? Which although some may / may not support is legal and any country with that sort of ability and know how would only WISH they could do it too. Medal of Freedom? For the record I was pro-Snowden and for a very long time thought the same - NSA and TOR, etc unwarrented secret courts, etc. Some of them need change and are wrong I agree. But if Snowden was not a a double agent or for that matter a Moscow pawn, he would have had more finesse with the information he released. People are naive, myself included - no one knows what it takes to keep people safe. Look at the world around you and see whats going on and don't take it for granted.
- AndrewBissell 12y ago
  The only reason Snowden is in Russia is because the U.S. government revoked his passport while he was in Moscow. So if you want someone to blame for that, look no further than the State Department.
  - csandreasen 12y ago
    They revoked his passport the day before he left Hong Kong [1]. He traveled to Russia on what turned out to be an invalid travel document issued by the Ecuadorian embassy in London [2] (same one that Julian Assange is holed up in). EDIT: Added citations [1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens-passport-revoked http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-correa-snowden-mistake http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-...
  - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    Is there a reason that a country cannot just let someone in if they want, even without a valid passport? What exactly is preventing his travel if everybody is OK with it except for the USA?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- nostromo 12y ago
  I doubt he's working with the Russians for one simple reason: If the Russians got our classified documents, they wouldn't release them to the public. Most intelligence is more powerful if your opponent doesn't know you know it.
  - krapp 12y ago
    I doubt he's working for the Russians either, but the damaging effect of the disclosures might be worth more to Russia than the actual intelligence itself.
- joshlegs 12y ago
  > People are naive, myself included - no one knows what it takes to keep people safe. Look at the world around you and see whats going on and don't take it for granted. So you're saying we need a government babysitter then? Sure, there are some things you need a government to help protect you from. How, though, is reading all my emails and recording all my phone calls keeping ME safe? Are they protecting me from myself? No. It's an excuse for the powers that be to control the population and expand their power. You hear that NSA? You're a bunch of schmucks. I don't care how many watchlists you have me on.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Schmucks? No no no no no, that is a clever ruse that you should not fall for. There is an agenda here. We may not be able to see all of it at once, but it exists, and projecting incompetence is part of it. I wouldn't go so far as malice (history's greatest monsters thought they were doing right by their country), but to portray the NSA's behavior as incompetent does a great disservice to you, me, and everyone else who should be outraged by this. We should feel as if these intrusive searches and such are a direct attack on us and our culture and our country. Because that's what they are.
    - gonzo 12y ago
      OK, so working at the NSA == terrorism?
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        Of course not. Even if you believe that "working at the NSA" is necessarily an example of terrorism (and I certainly don't) what you would have is a subset relationship not equality.
- hyperbovine 12y ago
  > Look at the world around you and see whats going on and don't take it for granted. This statement is so ironic that it is almost dumbfounding. Look up the term "blowback". The U.S. (in particular, our bellicose foreign policy and insatiable appetite for oil) is the originator of many if not all of the geopolitical disasters which jeopardize our national security. That is to say, the security apparatus that Snowden has so deftly undermined is in large part responsible for creating the very phenomenon it claims to counteract. I don't care who he's working for, the fact that hundreds of millions of people around the world are now aware of this fact, including a large number of Americans, makes him a hero.
  - foobarqux 12y ago
    In terms of real politik it looks like a net win for the US, which is presumably why foreign policy hasn't changed much.
- bronson 12y ago
  Seems to me the lack of finesse is a pretty clear indication he was working unplanned and alone.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
  If some secret police came to your house to kill you because they determined that that's needed in order to keep people safe, would you still stand by your argument? If not, why not?
  - 3327 12y ago
    Thats a loaded question and bit paranoid IMO. Has the secret police come to anyones house in the US? All the stuff NSA is doing is not to raid your house. My stance was and is: that Domestic Spying is wrong but Snowden revealed international espionage way more than domestic. I am fine with international espionage its why I pay taxes and if the USA stops guess whats going to happen via China ?
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
      Nope, it's neither loaded nor paranoid, it's simply a conclusion from your justification that "no one knows what it takes to keep people safe". Either you believe that noone knows, but those people who decide in secret, in which case a secret police killing citizens should also be fine with you if they decide that that's what's needed, or you don't actually believe that justification yourself and do think that the public does actually have something meaningful to say on the topic, in which case you would at least have to justify why that would not apply to mass surveillance. Now, if your stance is that spying on my private life (not being a US citizen, and not being a public/political/military figure either) by your government is something you like to support, then you are an asshole, in particular if you are at the same time telling me we are "friends". I mean, I hope you do see the difference between keeping tabs on foreign military and mass-surveilling the population of allies?
    - FreeDumb 12y ago
      Two words: Brandon Mayfield. Mis-identified by the FBI as being related to the Madrid train bombings. The Spanish police told the FBI his fingerprint didn't match. The Feds used National Security Letters to search his house and computer and plant bugs. And, finding NO evidence he ever traveled to Spain, deduced he was a master terrorist, capable of travelling under false papers. Locked up for weeks in solitary - under a fake name - as a material witness. Oh yes, it can happen here!
rektide 12y ago
Also: freedom.
downandout 12y ago
Love him or hate him, if Edward Snowden returns to the US, it will be in shackles and he will go to prison for most, if not all, of the rest of his life. The US government doesn't waive off prosecutions because the end justifies the means; it simply looks at the means and whether or not they were illegal. In this case, those means were extremely illegal. What Snowden did helped us as a society. He exposed Obama as a liar, the NSA as a thief, and made it politically impossible for legislators to ignore or endorse any form of secret surveillance. But he will personally suffer for that. Whether in the figurative prison of Russian citizenship, or more likely in the literal underground Federal prison in Florence, CO, where security is so tight that inmates are shown their mail on television screens instead of being allowed to touch it, he is going to pay for what he did for the rest of his life. In my view, we should all thank him for his sacrifice.
- awt 12y ago
  What about a presidential pardon?
  - downandout 12y ago
    It would be politically controversial to do so, so I doubt it would ever happen. Definitely not from Obama, whom he exposed as a traitor to the very ideals that got him elected.
    - awt 12y ago
      True. Pardons are usually only given to people actually did something wrong.
      - Karunamon 12y ago
        No matter what you think of Snowden, he did break the law. He did break his oath, he did steal government property. That aside.. this is the least significant piece of information here. None of this is in question. The most important one, and the question that should be the only one that matters, is were those actions justified?
ogrerut 12y ago
I'm wondering how Mr Snoden would compare to e.g. A Google employee stealing user e-mails and fleeing to China
- sehr 12y ago
  How is that in any way relevant? User emails != extensive world wide spying, HK != mainland China
- dictum 12y ago
  A better comparison would be if a Google employee fled to China after leaking the news that Google was intercepting emails from other mail providers and hacking into other companies' servers. (I have no particular opinion about whether Americans should consider Snowden a hero or a traitor.)
bananaoomarang 12y ago
Please don't.
- GhotiFish 12y ago
  defend your statement.
wtbob 12y ago
The only thing he deserves around his neck is a noose. He's a self-righteous prig, a moral child (or possibly a moral cretin) who violated his oath, betrayed his country and leaves the world a far less safe place. His lack of maturity, patriotism and simple common sense have had grievous consequences, and are likely to continue to do so. The system also failed: no-one like him should have ever been granted the access he received. That does not excuse his misbehaviour. I doubt he'll ever get what he deserves; rather, he will be feted and glorified by similar immature, unpatriotic idiots. He'll probably never even recognise the magnitude of the evil he's committed.
- eropple 12y ago
  Please explain, exactly and with cites, what grievous consequences have occurred.
- Hytosys 12y ago
  As you have probably observed by your thoroughly desaturated comment text, many would see "unpatriotic" as a heroic and necessary trait.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Or would see Snowden's actions as patriotic.
  - wtbob 12y ago
    I don't particularly mind being unpopular, although I'm sad that so many are so thoroughly wrong. It's not particularly their fault; they've been poorly educated.
    - eropple 12y ago
      If this were the case, surely you'd have no problem answering the sibling to this subtree, posted nine hours before your comment. But that would be hard.
ChrisAntaki 12y ago
Perhaps a Freudian slip, but ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden recently called Snowden a whistleblower [1]. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140727/07183528026/former-ciansa-boss-michael-hayden-admits-ed-snowden-was-whistleblower.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140727/07183528026/forme...

162 points by brmunk 12y ago

3327 12y ago

Why? Because he is the best Russian double agent operation in the history of espionage ? Because he skilled gov't secrets citing domestic spying where as the vast majority of what he revealed is actually international espionage? Which although some may / may not support is legal and any country with that sort of ability and know how would only WISH they could do it too. Medal of Freedom? For the record I was pro-Snowden and for a very long time thought the same - NSA and TOR, etc unwarrented secret courts, etc. Some of them need change and are wrong I agree. But if Snowden was not a a double agent or for that matter a Moscow pawn, he would have had more finesse with the information he released. People are naive, myself included - no one knows what it takes to keep people safe. Look at the world around you and see whats going on and don't take it for granted.

AndrewBissell 12y ago
The only reason Snowden is in Russia is because the U.S. government revoked his passport while he was in Moscow. So if you want someone to blame for that, look no further than the State Department.
- csandreasen 12y ago
  They revoked his passport the day before he left Hong Kong [1]. He traveled to Russia on what turned out to be an invalid travel document issued by the Ecuadorian embassy in London [2] (same one that Julian Assange is holed up in). EDIT: Added citations [1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens-passport-revoked http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-correa-snowden-mistake http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-...
- A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  Is there a reason that a country cannot just let someone in if they want, even without a valid passport? What exactly is preventing his travel if everybody is OK with it except for the USA?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nostromo 12y ago
I doubt he's working with the Russians for one simple reason: If the Russians got our classified documents, they wouldn't release them to the public. Most intelligence is more powerful if your opponent doesn't know you know it.
- krapp 12y ago
  I doubt he's working for the Russians either, but the damaging effect of the disclosures might be worth more to Russia than the actual intelligence itself.
joshlegs 12y ago
> People are naive, myself included - no one knows what it takes to keep people safe. Look at the world around you and see whats going on and don't take it for granted. So you're saying we need a government babysitter then? Sure, there are some things you need a government to help protect you from. How, though, is reading all my emails and recording all my phone calls keeping ME safe? Are they protecting me from myself? No. It's an excuse for the powers that be to control the population and expand their power. You hear that NSA? You're a bunch of schmucks. I don't care how many watchlists you have me on.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Schmucks? No no no no no, that is a clever ruse that you should not fall for. There is an agenda here. We may not be able to see all of it at once, but it exists, and projecting incompetence is part of it. I wouldn't go so far as malice (history's greatest monsters thought they were doing right by their country), but to portray the NSA's behavior as incompetent does a great disservice to you, me, and everyone else who should be outraged by this. We should feel as if these intrusive searches and such are a direct attack on us and our culture and our country. Because that's what they are.
  - gonzo 12y ago
    OK, so working at the NSA == terrorism?
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Of course not. Even if you believe that "working at the NSA" is necessarily an example of terrorism (and I certainly don't) what you would have is a subset relationship not equality.
hyperbovine 12y ago
> Look at the world around you and see whats going on and don't take it for granted. This statement is so ironic that it is almost dumbfounding. Look up the term "blowback". The U.S. (in particular, our bellicose foreign policy and insatiable appetite for oil) is the originator of many if not all of the geopolitical disasters which jeopardize our national security. That is to say, the security apparatus that Snowden has so deftly undermined is in large part responsible for creating the very phenomenon it claims to counteract. I don't care who he's working for, the fact that hundreds of millions of people around the world are now aware of this fact, including a large number of Americans, makes him a hero.
- foobarqux 12y ago
  In terms of real politik it looks like a net win for the US, which is presumably why foreign policy hasn't changed much.
bronson 12y ago
Seems to me the lack of finesse is a pretty clear indication he was working unplanned and alone.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
If some secret police came to your house to kill you because they determined that that's needed in order to keep people safe, would you still stand by your argument? If not, why not?
- 3327 12y ago
  Thats a loaded question and bit paranoid IMO. Has the secret police come to anyones house in the US? All the stuff NSA is doing is not to raid your house. My stance was and is: that Domestic Spying is wrong but Snowden revealed international espionage way more than domestic. I am fine with international espionage its why I pay taxes and if the USA stops guess whats going to happen via China ?
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
    Nope, it's neither loaded nor paranoid, it's simply a conclusion from your justification that "no one knows what it takes to keep people safe". Either you believe that noone knows, but those people who decide in secret, in which case a secret police killing citizens should also be fine with you if they decide that that's what's needed, or you don't actually believe that justification yourself and do think that the public does actually have something meaningful to say on the topic, in which case you would at least have to justify why that would not apply to mass surveillance. Now, if your stance is that spying on my private life (not being a US citizen, and not being a public/political/military figure either) by your government is something you like to support, then you are an asshole, in particular if you are at the same time telling me we are "friends". I mean, I hope you do see the difference between keeping tabs on foreign military and mass-surveilling the population of allies?
  - FreeDumb 12y ago
    Two words: Brandon Mayfield. Mis-identified by the FBI as being related to the Madrid train bombings. The Spanish police told the FBI his fingerprint didn't match. The Feds used National Security Letters to search his house and computer and plant bugs. And, finding NO evidence he ever traveled to Spain, deduced he was a master terrorist, capable of travelling under false papers. Locked up for weeks in solitary - under a fake name - as a material witness. Oh yes, it can happen here!

rektide 12y ago

Also: freedom.

downandout 12y ago

Love him or hate him, if Edward Snowden returns to the US, it will be in shackles and he will go to prison for most, if not all, of the rest of his life. The US government doesn't waive off prosecutions because the end justifies the means; it simply looks at the means and whether or not they were illegal. In this case, those means were extremely illegal. What Snowden did helped us as a society. He exposed Obama as a liar, the NSA as a thief, and made it politically impossible for legislators to ignore or endorse any form of secret surveillance. But he will personally suffer for that. Whether in the figurative prison of Russian citizenship, or more likely in the literal underground Federal prison in Florence, CO, where security is so tight that inmates are shown their mail on television screens instead of being allowed to touch it, he is going to pay for what he did for the rest of his life. In my view, we should all thank him for his sacrifice.

awt 12y ago
What about a presidential pardon?
- downandout 12y ago
  It would be politically controversial to do so, so I doubt it would ever happen. Definitely not from Obama, whom he exposed as a traitor to the very ideals that got him elected.
  - awt 12y ago
    True. Pardons are usually only given to people actually did something wrong.
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      No matter what you think of Snowden, he did break the law. He did break his oath, he did steal government property. That aside.. this is the least significant piece of information here. None of this is in question. The most important one, and the question that should be the only one that matters, is were those actions justified?

ogrerut 12y ago

I'm wondering how Mr Snoden would compare to e.g. A Google employee stealing user e-mails and fleeing to China

sehr 12y ago
How is that in any way relevant? User emails != extensive world wide spying, HK != mainland China
dictum 12y ago
A better comparison would be if a Google employee fled to China after leaking the news that Google was intercepting emails from other mail providers and hacking into other companies' servers. (I have no particular opinion about whether Americans should consider Snowden a hero or a traitor.)

bananaoomarang 12y ago

Please don't.

GhotiFish 12y ago
defend your statement.

wtbob 12y ago

The only thing he deserves around his neck is a noose. He's a self-righteous prig, a moral child (or possibly a moral cretin) who violated his oath, betrayed his country and leaves the world a far less safe place. His lack of maturity, patriotism and simple common sense have had grievous consequences, and are likely to continue to do so. The system also failed: no-one like him should have ever been granted the access he received. That does not excuse his misbehaviour. I doubt he'll ever get what he deserves; rather, he will be feted and glorified by similar immature, unpatriotic idiots. He'll probably never even recognise the magnitude of the evil he's committed.

eropple 12y ago
Please explain, exactly and with cites, what grievous consequences have occurred.
Hytosys 12y ago
As you have probably observed by your thoroughly desaturated comment text, many would see "unpatriotic" as a heroic and necessary trait.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Or would see Snowden's actions as patriotic.
- wtbob 12y ago
  I don't particularly mind being unpopular, although I'm sad that so many are so thoroughly wrong. It's not particularly their fault; they've been poorly educated.
  - eropple 12y ago
    If this were the case, surely you'd have no problem answering the sibling to this subtree, posted nine hours before your comment. But that would be hard.

ChrisAntaki 12y ago

Perhaps a Freudian slip, but ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden recently called Snowden a whistleblower [1]. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140727/07183528026/former-ciansa-boss-michael-hayden-admits-ed-snowden-was-whistleblower.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140727/07183528026/forme...