Privacy, Government, Surveillance, and You.

By this logic we should ban all driving. Not all drivers cause fatal accidents, but some do. Which is why the person leaker should think about what he's doing when releasing the information.

edited 23rd Mar '14 12:08:16 PM by Qeise

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

That's a slippery slope argument. Drunk driving is illegal because we deem the risk of harm unacceptable in comparison to the benefit of allowing it. The same is true of making classified information public — that's what "classified information" means in a nutshell. Just because we have to draw the line of acceptable risk somewhere doesn't mean it would be equally valid to draw it anywhere.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The analogy fails simply because there's no potential good that comes out of drink driving, while good can and does come out of leaking. With drunk driving something bad happens or it doesn't, with leaking you've got the third possibility of something good happening.

edited 23rd Mar '14 1:25:30 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

For the record, yes. Intent to do harm is generally an actual legal consideration — often the difference between charges or no charges, misdemeanor and felony, or at the very least in degree of offense. The legal system is fucked up, but throwing out that part and taking the Judge Dredd route sounds rather the opposite of how to address things.

But even if it weren't, we could at the very least carefully examine it on a case-by-case basis that bothers to get off its ass and weigh the merit of the action against the crime it exposed. That seems rather more intellectually competent than blindly condemning it wholesale as drunk driving to further entrench flagrant abuse of power.

edited 23rd Mar '14 1:22:55 PM by Pykrete

That doesn't mean that the analogy fails, it just means it isn't complete. The point that the guy using the analogy was trying to make was that there are valid and legitimate reasons to make releasing classified information illegal regardless of whether it causes harm or not — the same reasons why drunk driving is illegal regardless of whether or not any particular instance of it causes harm.

You're missing the point. It's not All Crimes Are Equal, it's Crimes Are Illegal Because Committing Them Carries Risk Of Causing Harm Which We Want To Discourage.

edited 23rd Mar '14 1:35:10 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Fair enough, but it's still a pretty shoddy analogy. Something like vigilantism works much better in my opinion.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

If "carries risk of causing harm" is your criteria for making something illegal, you've got a hell of a lot more ground to cover than the gray areas of exposing systemic abuse. Honestly, you'd be hard-pressed to find much of anything that doesn't.

What's that? You usually weigh potential harm and benefit before blindly making it illegal? Oh, we're good then.

Keep in mind overzealously punishing people who do the right thing in a tricky situation like this discourages them from doing good things for fear of reprisal, or encourages those already doing harm to keep doing it secure in the knowledge that they're in an ivory tower — which is itself harmful.

edited 23rd Mar '14 7:54:33 PM by Pykrete

What about someone getting themselves and their car home on time, instead of having to call a taxi to drive them home, then, in the morning, having to take a bus all the way back to wherever they left their car the night before?

A) The intoxication is avoidable, (presumably) willingly brought upon oneself, and not a response to an external offense. There's basically no circumstance where being drunk is not a removeable condition.

B) When comparing the benefit of avoiding a few minutes' extra transit to potentially smearing someone across your bumper, the result of a risk/reward analysis is a pretty resounding "tough titties".

Oh and for the record, involuntary intoxication (spiked punch etc.) is a plausible legal defense.

edited 23rd Mar '14 2:33:10 PM by Pykrete

If there's a forest fire around my house, and I've had a few beers, and my kids need me to get behind the wheel of the car and drive them out, I'm gonna get behind the wheel.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

You can make up extreme extenuating circumstances all you like; they don't prove the general rule invalid.

Frankly, if you've downed a six-pack, you might be able to get your kids away from the fire, but once you are out of immediate danger, you pull over and get help.

If you're literally too incapacitated to walk, then you're going to die one way or another.

Let's have rational analogies, please.

edited 23rd Mar '14 7:50:21 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Honestly I'd be quite willing to make an exception for that were I the judge, but sadly alcohol and cars is one of those things they tend to be more eager to look HARD ON CRIME for even in the face of extreme and obvious extenuating circumstances and border cases (charging an unintoxicated underage driver for giving a ride to a drunk passenger holding alcohol).

But I digress, and if anything that only makes it more compelling not to dismiss whistleblowers wholesale as badwrong and irresponsible. If even drunk driving cases have situations where LAAAAAAAAWWWWWW seems pretty broken, certainly something distinctly more gray like the NSA leaks at least qualifies for an honest assessment instead of a knee-jerk dismissal.

edited 23rd Mar '14 7:56:02 PM by Pykrete

Which was the point of my analogy. If I think the U.S. Military or security apparatus is doing nasty shit like the torture or extrajudicial murder of innocent civilians, that whistle needs blowing.

And to further Fighteer's analogy of pulling over to the side of the road when you're out of safety, I acknowledge that maybe not everything needs to be instantly declassified. But you should be able to blow that whistle safely when necessary.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

There will always be rational exceptions, and judges unwilling to grant them. (And frankly, for every story I hear of some kid getting the book thrown at them unfairly, I hear three of a repeat DUI offender killing someone after a judge let him off easy.)

The occasional failings of our justice system do not mean we shouldn't bother having or enforcing laws. Yes, whistleblowers should be protected to the extent that they are operating in good faith. But governments claim special privilege with respect to information security, and rightly so. Sometimes, like in Snowden's case, the court of public opinion is what will decide their fate.

I'm still on the fence as to whether I agree with his actions. It doesn't matter what I think, though; the deed is done and the information is out there. Hunting him down and punishing him at this point merely looks punitive. Frankly, if it weren't for the apparent utter incompetence at the NSA in so many, many ways, this would never have happened at all, and so it's something of a just dessert for them.

edited 23rd Mar '14 8:06:37 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Exactly. If all the whistleblowing is forbidden whether it's harmful or not, then all the shady activities can be done safely whether they're harmful or not.

Join my forum game!

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal efforts by U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei.

China calls on US to quit spying on its companies.

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

To which the US will say: "Stop spying on our companies, then."

And they will reach an impasse.

edited 24th Mar '14 6:48:44 PM by Quag15

That's not what the US will say. Although they will reach an impasse.

Pretty much this, though in reference to my opinion of Snowden's actions, I'd have far more respect for him if he'd either a) leaked the information anonymously, or b) stuck around to face the consequences for his actions. If he'd remained anonymous, then that would have made it clear that his goal was to inform the public, not to get famous as the guy who blew the lid of the NSA's surveillance programs. If he's stuck around instead of fleeing the country, that would have made it clear that he was taking a principled stand in protest of an abusive system. It would have allowed him his day in court, where he could have applied for official whistleblower status and started a much-needed national conversation about that, as well as the NSA's doings.

By leaking the information, telling everyone he did it, and then fleeing the country, the impression he gives is of someone who wanted to be famous like Julian Assange and Bradley Manning — to the detriment of his purported message. None of that changes the information he leaked, of course, and I'm not suggesting that we should ignore what the NSA is doing because the guy who exposed their activities is a jerk, but it certainly informs my opinion of Snowden himself.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It seems easy to say "he should have stayed and made a principled stand" when one is not looking at what happens to whistleblowers. I don't blame Snowden for running, might have been better to keep a low profile though.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

I'm a bit iffy on Snowden.

He's got an office in the Kremlin now and with this business in Crimea and Syria before I'm sure Ivan's putting the screws on him.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if he was giving them information.

Oh really when?

Aside from Russia and China, where did he have to hide from Uncle Sam?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

That's true enough but still. Regardless of whatever your opinion of his original leaks were, he's in Russia now and is probably giving them information.

And now that Russia has basically gone around and started up the second cold war I think we need to start counting Snowden as one of them.

Oh really when?

The big question I have on Snowden in why the round trip? His final destinations appears to have been South America, so why did he try and make his journey there via going though China and Russia?

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Because the US blocked off pretty much all avenues of transit overnight. He could barely get out of Hong Kong.