Snowden: Feds can't cover up leaks by 'murdering me'

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589617-38/snowden-feds-cant-cover-up-leaks-by-murdering-me/

by Libertatea • 13 years ago

36 28 13 years ago

news.cnet.com

ceejayoz2• 13 years ago

Surely everyone had assumed this already? We know Glenn Greenwald has a large number of unreleased tidbits, and I'd guess he's quietly shared those around to trusted people to ensure the information would not be squashable.

seren• 13 years ago

By reasserting it, Snowden is also signalling that it is useless to go after him directly. Be it true or false, this is the only logical thing to say in his situation.

lmg643• 13 years ago

I think this NSA case is getting way too air time on HackerNews. We're turning HN into the drudge report.

Snowden may well be a spy and we've made him into some kind of martyr/hero. His actions came out right around a major summit with China and he defected within their sphere of protection. Allows the chinese to paint us as the bad guy while appearing as a protector of free speech. Brilliant.

No one is talking about chinese industrial espionage now, which is arguably much more damaging to the US than reading people's yahoo email, particularly that of suspected terrorists. And this was most likely the point of the whole exercise.

The story needs to play out - let the facts unfold.

SeanDav• 13 years ago

Not sure what you are trying to suggest here:

- We don't talk about this because it is not relevant?

- We don't talk about it because it takes focus away from the Chinese, who are the real villains here?

What exactly is your point?

omonra• 13 years ago

His point is that HN is turning into a 'What did Snowden say today' channel.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

His point is that he doesn't like Snowden because of the Chinese angle so he doesn't want us to talk about it, but because that is a pretty stupid reason not to talk about something he is going to tell us that we should not talk about it because it is not relevant to HN.

Notice that almost all of the people who think that this issue is getting to much HN attention coincidentally also disagree with what he has done...

NhanH• 13 years ago

If he is indeed a spy, then the Americans have TWO problems to deal with. And it has absolutely no bearing on the current privacy discussion - the two problems are damaging in two (relatively) different aspects.

gte910h• 13 years ago

I do think it's pretty important to talk about this here, as it is "Major Tech Companies" that get pushed into this thing.

The more we know about avoiding it, etc, the better we are

ksks• 13 years ago

Foreign espionage is arguably more damaging than a government possibly violating its own constitution and betraying the values its country is founded upon?

There always was, and will always be, other countries spying on you (and each other), but once the rights of the people are given up to the authority, it is very hard to take it back.

I hold the prospective that the freedom and prosperity of US are more or less based its foundation on its constitutions and the values it was founded on. It is very hard to agree that foreign espionage would be more damaging to the US as you described.

Kylekramer• 13 years ago

I'd like to see more of this coming truth and less of this melodrama.

intrazoo• 13 years ago

I kinda like the melodrama as much as or more than the story (the us/nsa being evil is no surprise), because this is one of the most cyberpunk things to happen in the last few years (TPB and stuxnet being others). I mean, their last name is Snowden! I could not think of a better one if I tried.

not that your point of getting down to brass facts is unreasonable, but the hype is part of the story, and getting more people interested is maybe important in getting lawmakers to maybe pay attention)

BruceIV4• 13 years ago

I think it's a little rich that Snowden is complaining about being labelled a traitor - morality aside, what he did seems like a pretty clear-cut case of treason from a legal standpoint (IANAL).

jwoah12• 13 years ago

Where is he complaining about it? I see this:

"Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American"

BruceIV4• 13 years ago

There was something about not being able to get a fair trial stateside.

Although, I don't know what the laws are like in the States, but in Canada you can go to jail if you have security clearance and reveal information that if true would be classified. If the legal situation is similar in the US, he's pretty clearly guilty.

PavlovsCat2• 13 years ago

And if you don't set morality aside? There can be such a gap between "legal" and "just", and before anyone asks me to set morality aside, I would love to first hear their arguments for me doing that, other than that they do it.

BruceIV4• 13 years ago

I was merely saying that I don't feel like arguing the morality of it, whereas he'd need a very clever lawyer and a sympathetic judge to get out of the treason charge should he ever stand trial.

datasage• 13 years ago

What he did was disclose classified information. Which itself is illegal. But its a jump to automatically assume that disclosure of classified information is treason.

Now if he turns around and starts helping China with the information he has, then he will be pretty much done for.

blackaspen• 13 years ago

Want to bet? Clearly the Feds can do whatever they please.

brown9-2• 13 years ago

Is it just me, or does repeating this sort of assassination thing make anyone else more skeptical of Snowden?

ceejayoz2• 13 years ago

Bradley Manning - already fragile psychologically - was thrown in solitary for years pending trial and subjected to treatment the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture deemed cruel and inhuman.

This for someone without a Top Secret clearance... I'd be nervous too.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

Do you really think that only other countries perform assassinations?

bedhead• 13 years ago

Every day this drags on, this guy seems more and more like the most self-righteous and self-aggrandizing douche on the planet.

And yes, much like when Aaron Schwatrz stories completely hijacked HN, I'm really looking forward to this story - which seems like it's increasingly becoming a non-story (or certainly blown waaaay out of proportion) as more facts come out - stops dominating HN.

I realize both of those terse statements probably aren't going to make me very popular around here.

MisterWebz• 13 years ago

Yes, let's attack his personality instead of talking about the mass surveillance that's going on right now. While we're at it, let's talk about his girlfriend.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

Lets see:

1) Whistle blower calls attention to actions of their government.

2) Media instead focuses on the personal details of the whistle blower.

3) Whistle blower defends himself and tries to divert attention back on the actual material.

4) Whistle blower is considered "self-righteous and self aggrandizing" for defending himself from attacks that should have never been made in the first place.

Wonderful.

habitue2• 13 years ago

This actually makes Snowden seem more intelligent. A lot of the speculation has been he's naive and didn't know what he was doing going to Hong Kong.

In contrast, Bradley Manning: 1. Released a bunch of stuff that was mostly embarassing to US diplomats, but not really evidence of criminal actions 2. Didn't really have much of a plan 3. Didn't get a chance to demonstrate clearly that he wasn't just "acting out", releasing everything he had clearance to access.

Snowden comes across here as being principled, deliberate, and smart about what he released, who he released it to, and what his personal plans were not to get black-bagged.

Snowden: Feds can't cover up leaks by 'murdering me'

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