That was such a refreshing article. I've been saying it for a while now, I'm hopeful that we're going to see some very positive reforms in 2014 or 2015, as well as an eventual hero's welcome for Snowden. It takes a while for such a massive shift in public opinion, but it's inevitable. The reason it's taking so long is just a knowledge gab with the people that aren't as well-informed and don't know the magnitude of the abuses. As people learn the full scope of what's been revealed they tend to be (for the most part) outraged. I look forward to a couple decades from now, when I can tell my kids about how us folks who were paying attention were all vindicated when the NSA reforms were enacted and Snowden was given a full pardon.
It's unfair to characterize people who disagree with you as being uninformed. A lot of people who don't like Snowden's actions know as much about the situation as you do. They've just drawn different conclusions. The gap here is one of personal philosophy and opinion, not one of knowledge.
I''m not entirely sure why Snowden is getting so much personal credit. I remember watching an episode of Frontline on PBS that discussed “Room 641A” [1]. A few quotes from the cited wikipedia page, emphasis added:
”[the room] is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic and, as analyzed by J. Scott Marcus, a former CTO for GTE and a former adviser to the FCC, has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building, and therefore 'the capability to enable surveillance and analysis of internet content on a massive scale, including both overseas and purely domestic traffic.”
”[the program] was originally broadcast on May 15, 2007. It was also featured on PBS's NOW on March 14, 2008. The room was also covered in the PBS Nova episode 'The Spy Factory'.”
I admittedly watch more PBS than the average person. I was talking about Room 641A and concept of the NSA directly siphoning every call, email, text and url sent from the AT&T Pacific data center several years ago. Snowden’s revelations were news and he provided theretofore unnknown details. But they weren't completely out of the blue.
People knew that the NSA was collecting data on an unprecedented scale before Edward Snowden. These programs aren’t new, they didn’t start last year. Snowden unquestioningly gets credit for coming forward, he deserves praise for taking such a risk. It’s clear that he provided us with a paper trail and evidence that no one had in May of 2007. But our knowledge of the NSA’s activities is not “entirely because of information provided to journalists by Edward Snowden” as the NYT OpEd alleges. People had the knowledge years ago. The outrage is recent.
We'll see if the future holds substantive policy reforms or presidential pardons. Cautious optimism never hurts.
You've made friendly comments about my comments here on HN before, so I'll make a friendly comment here about yours. I have noticed that you consistently view Snowden as a hero, but I respectfully disagree. It would take more electrons than the margins of one HN comment could contain (and more time than I have with my work responsibilities today) to explain how I think Edward Snowden could have revealed the same key facts more responsibly, but even though I largely agree that it's good for the public to know more about what NSA was doing and how NSA was characterizing what it was doing to Congress, I don't think Snowden engaged in responsible disclosure ("whistle-blowing"). I think Snowden over the last year has been just as sincerely but ultimately mistakenly misguided as Kim Philby[1] was in the 1960s. Snowden appears to think that he has made the world and his native country a better place on a net basis, and he may even be right about what will happen to his native country as a result of his disclosures, but I think he is mistaken about what the overall course of his actions has done for the world as a whole. That's all I have time to say about this at the moment, but I want to put that out there as an American who has lived under real tyranny[2] before and has observed how tyranny is overcome by people power.
Didn't read the article (blocked by the Great Firewall), but here's a year-ender from Gwynne Dyer. He says... "[Instead of] a list of events, a year-end piece should be a first draft of history that tries to identify where the flow of events is really taking us. By that standard, Snowden comes first."
I find it pleasantly surprising -- almost unbelievable, in fact -- that a highly sought-after fugitive accused of treason and practically certain to be found guilty of serious crimes is so widely supported by the public and the media.
Has there ever been another person whom the executive has done everything in its power to paint as a dangerous enemy of the state, whose approval rating was several points higher than the President's and several times higher than that of Congress? Or is this a never-before-seen situation?
The inverted totalitarianism[1] we live in can seem almost invincible, but this to me is a big glimmer of hope that some people at least are still unwilling to swallow the (two-)party line.
I hope this leads to some real change, but then again, I can't exactly hold my breath.
An NBC/WSJ poll from late July [1] (the most recent poll I found that assessed general favorability of both President Obama and Edward Snowden, lists Snowden with a favorability of 11%, 37% behind Obama's number at that point in time.
A Harvard poll of millennials [2] (defined as 18-29) show that 22% consider him a "traitor", 22% consider him a patriot, and the remainder are "not sure".
Of course, polls which pose questions about approval of his release of documents may differ substantially, but then again, so do polls about specific actions the President has taken. I don't know where the data for your assertion comes from.
I think the last individual who might've been in a somewhat similar position was Daniel Ellsberg, for releasing the Pentagon Papers.
"For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage and theft of government property, but the charges were later dropped after prosecutors investigating the Watergate Scandal soon discovered that the Nixon administration had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg."
But I think Snowden opened a far bigger can of worms, considering that the Pentagon Papers didn't involve spying on US citizens, etc.
"The public" don't support Snowden. Though they also don't really know anything about him. Sometimes the tech echo chamber can give you a bad sense of what the general public thinks.
Probably Daniel Ellsberg. I don't know if he actually had higher approval rate than Nixon, but considering Nixon had to resign after that, I'm thinking he did. There are also a lot of parallels between Ellsberg and Snowden, and a lot of parallels between Nixon and Obama, too, for that matter.
I actually think what Obama did (or continued to do) was much worse that what Nixon did in regards to the mass surveillance and spying. Nixon would've been impeached if he would've pushed the spying machine so far. In fact, he was almost impeached for what he did then, too, which is why he resigned first to save himself the life-long shame. Maybe Obama can learn from that and do the same.
It's also the NYT that protected Ellsberg back then, although I'd say the NYT has been very reactive in Snowden's case, and TheGuardian was the most pro-active one in defending him, by far.
I recommend watching this documentary about Ellsberg.
If only there were more people like Ellsberg, Manning and Snowden, and we wouldn't have to wait decades before the crimes and lies of the military industrial complex or the government get exposed. That would be something, but for that to happen, people need to ask for much, much stronger whistleblower laws. Heck, it should be a Constitutional amendment, because I think whistleblowing is absolutely vital to a properly functional democracy. Without it, governments become rotten and corrupt, and the the public can only react decades later when it's too much to bear. It shouldn't be like that. The public should be able to react to government wrongdoing a lot sooner, to correct the course.
John Dillinger (Great Depression-era bank robber) was widely liked by the public of the day, as a Robin-Hood-esque figure, despite being clearly on the wrong side of the law.
>> "His leaks revealed that James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, lied to Congress when testifying in March that the N.S.A. was not collecting data on millions of Americans. (There has been no discussion of punishment for that lie.)"
As a foreigner, this is probably the most astounding. After all the commotion in the 90s with Bill Clinton lying about the Monica Lewinsky affair, the double standard is striking. From the outside it seems as if Clapper is simply above the law.
I'm glad someone has pointed this out. Perjury is considered a serious crime (remember that Martha Stewart was hounded for simply lying to a Federal agent), and there is no more serious form of perjury than lying before congress.
For the occurrence of this editorial we can chiefly thank Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, for presenting Snowden's documents and handling the journalism carefully and with great influential power. Lesser journalists wouldn't have known what to do, or who to consult to figure out what to do, how to word and interpret things precise enough, and one bad step could have led to disaster, whether in terms of the story, or of Snowden's/their own safety. People can point out potential imperfections in their methods, but today they have this editorial (on top of everything else, including the federal judge rulings) to show for themselves.
They convinced the "Paper of Record," one with a history of party-blind fealty to power, to put out something like this. What has any of us done?
The New York Times, which has stood up countless times for freedom of speech and constitutional principles (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan regarding free reporting of civil rights violations without fear of libel, and New York Times Co. v. United States regarding the free dissemination of the classified Pentagon Papers) has once again, delivered a masterclass in defense of Edward Snowden.
I know some of you may have doubts as to the ties between the media and the government, but the historical record does indicate that the New York Times has had a flagship role in challenging government abuse on many levels. I don't see why it would not have a similar role in this debate.
The Times has certainly had its bright moments, but it's also had its dark ones, and its performance and actions over the past decade haven't been particularly upstanding.
I do applaud the editorial. Enough that I'll add my "but it's been a while coming" in a separate sentence. But it's been a while coming.
Remember that it was The Times's own prior record which prompted Snowden to reach out instead to Laura Poitras, and independent, and Glen Greenwald of The Guardian.
On the surface, I welcome this editorial. About time.
But the NYT has deep connections to the USG, so I'm wondering where this editorial is coming from. It could be a trial balloon on the part of the administration to test the public's appetite for a reduced sentence for Snowden.
Without making a judgement call on the virtue of his of actions: I consider myself very skeptical of the notion that this administration, which has cracked down on whistle-blowers/leakers as much (or more) than any other, is about to offer anything other than the "full weight of Justice" on Snowden.
I enjoyed Philip Bump's piece from the Atlantic about this:
"Why Does CBS Keep Asking Its Ridiculous Amnesty Question About Snowden?"
I know that the U.S.A. is the greatest country on earth and utterly amazing in every possible way imaginable, however, the majority of the world's population do not live in the U.S.A.
In the U.K. we like America, we even have a 'special relationship' (according to our politicians, the fact is that no American politicians see it that way or mention the fact). However, do most people in the U.K. want to visit or live in the U.S.A.? No! Further into Europe I really doubt that the average French person would want to up sticks and move to the U.S.A.
If fleets of B-52's carpet bombed Europe with free U.S. passports, visas and one-way tickets to 'the land of the free, home of the brave' I very much doubt that there would be that much of a scramble to pick them up, hop on a plane and rush to the U.S.A. Sure, some would go, but even then, after a year or two they would want to return.
It has been a while since I have heard anything about floods of refugees wanting to leave Russia, so life there can't be all that bad.
What's to say that Snowden isn't actually enjoying life in Russia? His C.V. is rather impeccable and I doubt he will be struggling for work. He is almost certainly not without his female admirers too. He might just get used to knowing that the U.S.A. is off limits. He might also be able to be relaxed about personal security. He knows that if anything happens to him then it is pretty bad news for Uncle Sam even if it is a lone nutter that does the deed.
Okay his asylum status runs out in less than a year but how much does he really value a U.S. passport? Or for charges to be dropped against him? It is not that big a deal. Uncle Sam has no leverage here even if Americans don't see it that way.
Immigration to the United States has always been as you say in the matter that many people who arrive here leave after a while. I used to have visions of nineteenth-century ships arriving full of immigrants to the United States, and then traveling empty back to Europe to pick up more immigrants, but the historical data actually show that about one-third of all persons who immigrated to the United States in the era of unrestricted immigration eventually migrated back to Europe. But they were changed after living here. Much of what makes Europe very livable these days results from returned would-be Americans promoting the democratization of Europe. (Much of the rest of what makes Europe very livable these days results from the United States rescuing Europe from central European tyranny twice during the world wars, and following the second rescue with the Marshall Plan and the Bretton-Woods agreement.)
So of course some people like to stay in the country where they grew up, where they are able to speak the language and are familiar with the cuisine and climate and where their childhood friends live. Nonetheless, the United States is second to no country in the world in its net gain of immigrants from various countries all over the world. Many, many, many people want to immigrate to the United States.[1] Russia is surrounded by wretchedly poor, badly governed countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, and many people leave those countries to go to Russia.[2] But Russia does not gain population through immigration to large degree, because many people who were born in Russia are glad to leave Russia (and they populate whole neighborhoods near where I live).
Prediction, as someone who has practiced immigration law in the United States: if the United States had open immigration again as it did until about the 1870s, it would gain a substantial percentage of population by immigration, even if some people who arrive return to their countries of birth. Usually people all over the world become more interested in living in America after hearing from other people who have lived in America, on a net basis.
AFTER EDIT: Ah, yes, the expected downvote again. Anyway, you are welcome to explain your disagreement, as I won't mind hearing a differing opinion from someone else here. That's something I learned in American culture: feel free to disagree, then hear someone out about why they disagree.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your comment – what does this have to do with how great the US is?
Snowden grew up in the US. Having the US after him means he is excluded from traveling to a large part of the Western world due to fears of extradition (even making it out of Russia, due to flight connections and such, might be hard).
Perhaps he is happy living in Russia for the rest of his life (though I doubt it), but since when does a desire for clemency indicate he (or anyone) views the US as the "greatest country on earth?"
I second this, as an European, I would rather not live in the US.
Sure I would like to visit, there are lots of interesting place, but having to deal with the TSA is to much of a hassle on its own.
Government shut-down closing those interesting places once in a while is just the bonus argument, but can prove even more bothersome than the TSA (which is after all only a bad moment).
It is perhaps the most famous picture of World War II. Then Captain;
now Marine General Larry Snowden is the oldest surviving officer from
the Pacific's fiercest battle.
"Second half of my platoon, I'm already over that ridge," said Snowden.
The Flag hasn’t been raised yet in this picture, when it was; Snowden
says it wasn’t as romantic then as it is now.
"I've read many accounts that says, when the flag went up the troops
all over the island stood up and cheered. No way. Not where I was, you
stood up you were a dead marine."
At 92, Snowden fought in three wars, he was wounded twice.
At Iwo Jima he held dying marines in his arms.
"I had a son just a year and half old, back in the states. And I had
the momentary flash about what it would mean to me if somebody was
telling me that my son is dead. I went to Los Angeles to..."
General Snowden still keeps a hectic travel schedule, speaking on
freedom and veterans. He say you can’t have one without the other.
"Veterans are what brought us to freedom. Veterans are the ones who
keep us free. Veterans are still fighting over seas, in people they
don't know, in lands they don't know."
As America celebrates its independence with bar B cues, picnics, and
fireworks, Snowden's wish is that parents share the reason America is
free with their children.
"You do what you want to do. The high cost of freedom is just that, a
very high cost."
Larry Snowden, one of the reasons we are celebrating our freedom.
Snowden served in the military for 37 years. After leaving the
military he served as trade negotiator with Japan.
I'm young, so excuse my naiveté, but I can't remember another time (in my lifetime) that the gov't & press have been in such a standoff with a stark contrast of opinion.
It seems news these days is mostly feeding people's opinions back to them ("here's what you had to say on twitter") and taking pot shots at the other sides of the spectrum on lots of surface level points that quite frankly - neither side is going to shift anytime soon.
That said, if nothing else, it seems the quality of news post-snowden has picked up a little & it seems the press is finally starting to do their job in informing the public rather than just appeasing it (or maybe I'm just paying attention more).
As a general rule, I think the press doesn't push itself very hard- it largely does whatever it has to do to sell papers (or equivalent).
Here's what I think: Intelligent commentary on difficult issues emerges into popular consciousness whenever the difficult issues are serious enough that the intelligent, thoughtful folk are forced to have conversations with the general masses. In this simplistic sense, major issues "shake up" sociopolitical reality.
I know this sounds a little elitist. I don't consider myself to be one of the "intelligent, thoughtful folk". I'm a veritable moron. But whenever these shakeups happen, there's an increased demand for intelligent commentary, and the press moves to fulfill that demand.
That's my theory. I could be totally wrong; would love to hear input/criticism from others on this.
I'm not all that young anymore, and I certainly don't remember this either.
As others have noted, Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s is probably the most recent precedent.
And the mainstream press have absolutely been falling down on the job, with very few exceptions. The Times is barely worth reading, and I'm finding NPR/BBC increasingly unlistenable (or simply not worth my time). The Guardian has hit my must-read list, and I'll be very interested to see what Greenwald does with his new venture.
Imagine a society where those in charge, all the way up to the President, were just as afraid of prosecution and life sentences for violating the law/Constitution as peons at the bottom like Snowden.
That probably means the judiciary is just as corrupt as the executive and legislative branches, so it's not so much a matter of whether or not they're violating the law, as how much they and their political opponents are paying the judges.
Several failed Latin American democracies come to mind as concrete examples.
While I agree with the overall sentiment of this editorial, I think one thing is very wonky. It says that Snowden provided "enormous value" and "has done his country a great service."
But if you agree with these statements then how could a successful resolution include a "please bargain" and punishment, even if it is "substantially reduced"?
The whole idea of being a whistleblower is that you get immunity. If you agree that Snowden is a de facto whistleblower then punishment and prison time shouldn't even be on the table.
Obama appears not to have had a clear picture of the issues back in August when he delivered a speech solidifying his administrations views on the issue. The president suggested that if Mr. Snowden had wanted to avoid criminal charges he could have simply told his superiors about the abuses.
However, whistle blower protections do not apply to contractors, only to intelligence employees, rendering its protections useless to Mr. Snowden. And the New York Times Editorial board agrees:
>"In retrospect, Mr. Snowden was clearly justified in believing that the only way to blow the whistle on this kind of intelligence-gathering was to expose it to the public and let the resulting furor do the work his superiors would not."
The truth is it will take years before any offer the US government would give will be truly sincere and not just an attempt to get him back into the country so they can do with him what they please.
I honestly think the Libertarian party (or perhaps independent) could play up the fact he would pardon Snowden during the 2016 election process and sway a few percentage of votes his/her way.
Even if Snowden was granted clemency, ten bucks says that if he returns to the US, he'll be found mysteriously dead of a car crash or "suicide" within 18 months.
"In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago."-Pentagon Papers Whistle-Blower Daniel Ellsberg
I have a legal question, perhaps someone here would be more educated enough to answer. Which part of our "systems of checks and balances" is supposed to balance the system in this instance. The president seems uninterested in changing anything, congress seems uninterested (and incapable) of doing anything, and the supreme court can only knock things down. It would seem to me like there is a large amount of people who want an action taken, both to change the system, and to pardon snowdon. Is the answer really only to wait until the next election cycle?
I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that cases like the ACLU v. NSA will be able to strike down programs like this. But you're correct, unless Congress is moved to do something about it (which, given their track record, seems unlikely), we'll have to wait until the next election for a mentality shift.
When I saw the title, I thought he had died. It (the title) sounds oddly like an obituary. Or is the title meant to reflect the change of perception (from "traitor" to "whistle-blower")?
I interpreted it as the latter, and I actually really like it. Since this whole thing started, there's been a lot of debate about whether he's a patriot or a traitor. Without even reading the article, I think that headline is the clearest, boldest statement the NYT could make about where they fall on that question.
Why are we so surprised the NSA is spying on us? Why are we reacting now?
Think about all the data we have voluntarily injected into the public sphere - thru Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr... Everybody is famous now. We are our own papparazzi.
[+] [-] pvnick|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hooande|12 years ago|reply
I''m not entirely sure why Snowden is getting so much personal credit. I remember watching an episode of Frontline on PBS that discussed “Room 641A” [1]. A few quotes from the cited wikipedia page, emphasis added:
”[the room] is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic and, as analyzed by J. Scott Marcus, a former CTO for GTE and a former adviser to the FCC, has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building, and therefore 'the capability to enable surveillance and analysis of internet content on a massive scale, including both overseas and purely domestic traffic.”
”[the program] was originally broadcast on May 15, 2007. It was also featured on PBS's NOW on March 14, 2008. The room was also covered in the PBS Nova episode 'The Spy Factory'.”
I admittedly watch more PBS than the average person. I was talking about Room 641A and concept of the NSA directly siphoning every call, email, text and url sent from the AT&T Pacific data center several years ago. Snowden’s revelations were news and he provided theretofore unnknown details. But they weren't completely out of the blue.
People knew that the NSA was collecting data on an unprecedented scale before Edward Snowden. These programs aren’t new, they didn’t start last year. Snowden unquestioningly gets credit for coming forward, he deserves praise for taking such a risk. It’s clear that he provided us with a paper trail and evidence that no one had in May of 2007. But our knowledge of the NSA’s activities is not “entirely because of information provided to journalists by Edward Snowden” as the NYT OpEd alleges. People had the knowledge years ago. The outrage is recent.
We'll see if the future holds substantive policy reforms or presidential pardons. Cautious optimism never hurts.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
[+] [-] tokenadult|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24803131
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720
[+] [-] vorg|12 years ago|reply
http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=5&i=10887
[+] [-] umanwizard|12 years ago|reply
Has there ever been another person whom the executive has done everything in its power to paint as a dangerous enemy of the state, whose approval rating was several points higher than the President's and several times higher than that of Congress? Or is this a never-before-seen situation?
The inverted totalitarianism[1] we live in can seem almost invincible, but this to me is a big glimmer of hope that some people at least are still unwilling to swallow the (two-)party line.
I hope this leads to some real change, but then again, I can't exactly hold my breath.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
[+] [-] ewoodrich|12 years ago|reply
A Harvard poll of millennials [2] (defined as 18-29) show that 22% consider him a "traitor", 22% consider him a patriot, and the remainder are "not sure".
Of course, polls which pose questions about approval of his release of documents may differ substantially, but then again, so do polls about specific actions the President has taken. I don't know where the data for your assertion comes from.
[1] http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/A_Politics/_Today...
[2] http://iop.harvard.edu/blog/iop-releases-new-fall-poll-5-key...
[+] [-] visakanv|12 years ago|reply
"For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage and theft of government property, but the charges were later dropped after prosecutors investigating the Watergate Scandal soon discovered that the Nixon administration had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg."
But I think Snowden opened a far bigger can of worms, considering that the Pentagon Papers didn't involve spying on US citizens, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salient|12 years ago|reply
I actually think what Obama did (or continued to do) was much worse that what Nixon did in regards to the mass surveillance and spying. Nixon would've been impeached if he would've pushed the spying machine so far. In fact, he was almost impeached for what he did then, too, which is why he resigned first to save himself the life-long shame. Maybe Obama can learn from that and do the same.
It's also the NYT that protected Ellsberg back then, although I'd say the NYT has been very reactive in Snowden's case, and TheGuardian was the most pro-active one in defending him, by far.
I recommend watching this documentary about Ellsberg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwXylIaJ_Lg
If only there were more people like Ellsberg, Manning and Snowden, and we wouldn't have to wait decades before the crimes and lies of the military industrial complex or the government get exposed. That would be something, but for that to happen, people need to ask for much, much stronger whistleblower laws. Heck, it should be a Constitutional amendment, because I think whistleblowing is absolutely vital to a properly functional democracy. Without it, governments become rotten and corrupt, and the the public can only react decades later when it's too much to bear. It shouldn't be like that. The public should be able to react to government wrongdoing a lot sooner, to correct the course.
[+] [-] wmeredith|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r0h1n|12 years ago|reply
>> "His leaks revealed that James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, lied to Congress when testifying in March that the N.S.A. was not collecting data on millions of Americans. (There has been no discussion of punishment for that lie.)"
[+] [-] sbt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tloewald|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swalsh|12 years ago|reply
not that it has any value... ever, but if there was a whitehouse.com petition, i'd sign it.
[+] [-] _bfhp|12 years ago|reply
They convinced the "Paper of Record," one with a history of party-blind fealty to power, to put out something like this. What has any of us done?
[+] [-] Rogerh91|12 years ago|reply
I know some of you may have doubts as to the ties between the media and the government, but the historical record does indicate that the New York Times has had a flagship role in challenging government abuse on many levels. I don't see why it would not have a similar role in this debate.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
I do applaud the editorial. Enough that I'll add my "but it's been a while coming" in a separate sentence. But it's been a while coming.
Remember that it was The Times's own prior record which prompted Snowden to reach out instead to Laura Poitras, and independent, and Glen Greenwald of The Guardian.
[+] [-] Zigurd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajays|12 years ago|reply
But the NYT has deep connections to the USG, so I'm wondering where this editorial is coming from. It could be a trial balloon on the part of the administration to test the public's appetite for a reduced sentence for Snowden.
[+] [-] gavinlynch|12 years ago|reply
I enjoyed Philip Bump's piece from the Atlantic about this: "Why Does CBS Keep Asking Its Ridiculous Amnesty Question About Snowden?"
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/12/why-does-cbs-keep-as...
What can Snowden promise them, anyway, that they would make this deal? The toothpaste is out of the tube.
[+] [-] scw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|12 years ago|reply
In the U.K. we like America, we even have a 'special relationship' (according to our politicians, the fact is that no American politicians see it that way or mention the fact). However, do most people in the U.K. want to visit or live in the U.S.A.? No! Further into Europe I really doubt that the average French person would want to up sticks and move to the U.S.A.
If fleets of B-52's carpet bombed Europe with free U.S. passports, visas and one-way tickets to 'the land of the free, home of the brave' I very much doubt that there would be that much of a scramble to pick them up, hop on a plane and rush to the U.S.A. Sure, some would go, but even then, after a year or two they would want to return.
It has been a while since I have heard anything about floods of refugees wanting to leave Russia, so life there can't be all that bad.
What's to say that Snowden isn't actually enjoying life in Russia? His C.V. is rather impeccable and I doubt he will be struggling for work. He is almost certainly not without his female admirers too. He might just get used to knowing that the U.S.A. is off limits. He might also be able to be relaxed about personal security. He knows that if anything happens to him then it is pretty bad news for Uncle Sam even if it is a lone nutter that does the deed.
Okay his asylum status runs out in less than a year but how much does he really value a U.S. passport? Or for charges to be dropped against him? It is not that big a deal. Uncle Sam has no leverage here even if Americans don't see it that way.
[+] [-] tokenadult|12 years ago|reply
So of course some people like to stay in the country where they grew up, where they are able to speak the language and are familiar with the cuisine and climate and where their childhood friends live. Nonetheless, the United States is second to no country in the world in its net gain of immigrants from various countries all over the world. Many, many, many people want to immigrate to the United States.[1] Russia is surrounded by wretchedly poor, badly governed countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, and many people leave those countries to go to Russia.[2] But Russia does not gain population through immigration to large degree, because many people who were born in Russia are glad to leave Russia (and they populate whole neighborhoods near where I live).
Prediction, as someone who has practiced immigration law in the United States: if the United States had open immigration again as it did until about the 1870s, it would gain a substantial percentage of population by immigration, even if some people who arrive return to their countries of birth. Usually people all over the world become more interested in living in America after hearing from other people who have lived in America, on a net basis.
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-drea...
[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/232...
AFTER EDIT: Ah, yes, the expected downvote again. Anyway, you are welcome to explain your disagreement, as I won't mind hearing a differing opinion from someone else here. That's something I learned in American culture: feel free to disagree, then hear someone out about why they disagree.
[+] [-] fabrika|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sd8f9iu|12 years ago|reply
Snowden grew up in the US. Having the US after him means he is excluded from traveling to a large part of the Western world due to fears of extradition (even making it out of Russia, due to flight connections and such, might be hard).
Perhaps he is happy living in Russia for the rest of his life (though I doubt it), but since when does a desire for clemency indicate he (or anyone) views the US as the "greatest country on earth?"
[+] [-] bausson|12 years ago|reply
Sure I would like to visit, there are lots of interesting place, but having to deal with the TSA is to much of a hassle on its own.
Government shut-down closing those interesting places once in a while is just the bonus argument, but can prove even more bothersome than the TSA (which is after all only a bad moment).
[+] [-] dstarin|12 years ago|reply
http://www.snowden-warfield.com/
More recently --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FQ_CfWIVXA
It is perhaps the most famous picture of World War II. Then Captain; now Marine General Larry Snowden is the oldest surviving officer from the Pacific's fiercest battle.
"Second half of my platoon, I'm already over that ridge," said Snowden.
The Flag hasn’t been raised yet in this picture, when it was; Snowden says it wasn’t as romantic then as it is now.
"I've read many accounts that says, when the flag went up the troops all over the island stood up and cheered. No way. Not where I was, you stood up you were a dead marine."
At 92, Snowden fought in three wars, he was wounded twice.
At Iwo Jima he held dying marines in his arms.
"I had a son just a year and half old, back in the states. And I had the momentary flash about what it would mean to me if somebody was telling me that my son is dead. I went to Los Angeles to..."
General Snowden still keeps a hectic travel schedule, speaking on freedom and veterans. He say you can’t have one without the other.
"Veterans are what brought us to freedom. Veterans are the ones who keep us free. Veterans are still fighting over seas, in people they don't know, in lands they don't know."
As America celebrates its independence with bar B cues, picnics, and fireworks, Snowden's wish is that parents share the reason America is free with their children.
"You do what you want to do. The high cost of freedom is just that, a very high cost."
Larry Snowden, one of the reasons we are celebrating our freedom.
Snowden served in the military for 37 years. After leaving the military he served as trade negotiator with Japan.
[+] [-] joelrunyon|12 years ago|reply
It seems news these days is mostly feeding people's opinions back to them ("here's what you had to say on twitter") and taking pot shots at the other sides of the spectrum on lots of surface level points that quite frankly - neither side is going to shift anytime soon.
That said, if nothing else, it seems the quality of news post-snowden has picked up a little & it seems the press is finally starting to do their job in informing the public rather than just appeasing it (or maybe I'm just paying attention more).
[+] [-] visakanv|12 years ago|reply
Here's what I think: Intelligent commentary on difficult issues emerges into popular consciousness whenever the difficult issues are serious enough that the intelligent, thoughtful folk are forced to have conversations with the general masses. In this simplistic sense, major issues "shake up" sociopolitical reality.
I know this sounds a little elitist. I don't consider myself to be one of the "intelligent, thoughtful folk". I'm a veritable moron. But whenever these shakeups happen, there's an increased demand for intelligent commentary, and the press moves to fulfill that demand.
That's my theory. I could be totally wrong; would love to hear input/criticism from others on this.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
As others have noted, Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s is probably the most recent precedent.
And the mainstream press have absolutely been falling down on the job, with very few exceptions. The Times is barely worth reading, and I'm finding NPR/BBC increasingly unlistenable (or simply not worth my time). The Guardian has hit my must-read list, and I'll be very interested to see what Greenwald does with his new venture.
[+] [-] crusso|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukeschlather|12 years ago|reply
Several failed Latin American democracies come to mind as concrete examples.
[+] [-] hpvic03|12 years ago|reply
But if you agree with these statements then how could a successful resolution include a "please bargain" and punishment, even if it is "substantially reduced"?
The whole idea of being a whistleblower is that you get immunity. If you agree that Snowden is a de facto whistleblower then punishment and prison time shouldn't even be on the table.
[+] [-] seanieb|12 years ago|reply
However, whistle blower protections do not apply to contractors, only to intelligence employees, rendering its protections useless to Mr. Snowden. And the New York Times Editorial board agrees:
>"In retrospect, Mr. Snowden was clearly justified in believing that the only way to blow the whistle on this kind of intelligence-gathering was to expose it to the public and let the resulting furor do the work his superiors would not."
[+] [-] Fuxy|12 years ago|reply
The truth is it will take years before any offer the US government would give will be truly sincere and not just an attempt to get him back into the country so they can do with him what they please.
Then again leaking info was risky so he might.
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[+] [-] mrcactu5|12 years ago|reply
Think about all the data we have voluntarily injected into the public sphere - thru Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr... Everybody is famous now. We are our own papparazzi.