Edward Snowden, Hero or Traitor?

[a completely inoffensive name]

I support of this argument - I submit the case of Socrates.

I have read the Crito and I seem to recall Socrates argument to be as follows. Correct me if my reading was off please.

P1: It is worse to do harm than to suffer it.
P2: To violate the law, is to go against the wishes of the populace who have put these laws in place, and is to do an act of harm against them and the rule of law.
P3: Therefore we must follow the laws no matter how just or unjust they have been crafted and implemented.

If you wish to present Socrates as a case, you must be ready to defend this defense. Premise 1 is certainly not set in stone among many people here I would think. Premise two is also certainly up for debate as well.

Do you mean to tell me that since you follow Socrates' example that you are a complete pacifist?

[Papewaio]

Justice =/= Law

Socrates view is that group think drones trump individual freedom.

That point of view might work in a facist society it clearly is at odds with the founding documents of the US.

[Brenus]

Socrates’ case: I take (I didn’t check) it as ACIN describes it: So the German’s traitors are the anti-Nazi, the Russian’s traitors are the ones against U.S.S.R., the Cubans traitors are the Anti-Castro ones, and so on. So the Baroness Thatcher was right when telling that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist…
This is a strange view of the justice and the world. If injustice is the law, it is justice because it is legal…

More seriously, what about the “justice” at Guantanamo Bay and “the strength of American Justice”? I would say he Knows it and decided wisely not to go for it.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I just don't get it. Its never wrong alert the world to an injustice.

If your argument against that is that spying isn't injustice, its government, then I respond by saying that it has never been properly put to the people in the first place. Of course its an injustice.

Your notion that he should have stayed and gone to trial is just silly. That's asking someone to fall on their sword in a way you can't possibly relate to, or have the moral standing to ask of them.

I have read the Crito and I seem to recall Socrates argument to be as follows. Correct me if my reading was off please.

P1: It is worse to do harm than to suffer it.
P2: To violate the law, is to go against the wishes of the populace who have put these laws in place, and is to do an act of harm against them and the rule of law.
P3: Therefore we must follow the laws no matter how just or unjust they have been crafted and implemented.

If you wish to present Socrates as a case, you must be ready to defend this defense. Premise 1 is certainly not set in stone among many people here I would think. Premise two is also certainly up for debate as well.

Do you mean to tell me that since you follow Socrates' example that you are a complete pacifist?

The title of the thread was "Hero or Traitor".

My argument is two fold.

1. Under US law he is a traitor - once for disclosing classified information that harms the US, twice for running from the authorities after.

2. He is not a hero because he ran - by running he abandons the country he purports to benefit, by running to Her enemies he benefits then and harms the US. If Snowden faced the law of the US he would be putting up a defense, as it is he has run and to me that suggests he thinks he is guilty. He knew the law when he did what he did, subsequently he has made every effort to avoid the consequences of his actions.

Oh - yes - ACIN is fundamentally correct about the Crito - and it seems Xenophon agreed.

[Papewaio]

Which US is he harming?

The government with secret courts and by implication laws?
The Consitution?
Or the people?

Which is the most important?

[HopAlongBunny]

He showed the wisdom of a messenger with bad news for people who don't want to hear it.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Which US is he harming?

The government with secret courts and by implication laws?
The Consitution?
Or the people?

Which is the most important?

Trying to separate the three is absurd - 9/11 happened to people in the US because of how other people saw the US Government. The suggestion that the US has "secret laws" is totally unjustified - per definition a law has to be published in the Statute Books to be enforceable.

Now - just in case people missed it - I'll state it again. My argument stands specifically on the classified information Snowden has released about foreign espionage acts carried out by the US against other states. All states do this for their own security, including Germany, and the US has not been "caught" at it, the US has been betrayed by one of its own spies.

Had Snowden stopped short of that and confined himself to domestic abuses of the Constitution, he would be on fairly solid ground as a Whistleblower. If memory serves - didn't he only flee the US once the foreign files had been released?

[Papewaio]

There is a difference between the three.

One is the State bureaucracy and apparatus.
The other the ideals it is founded on.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

The third the people it is supposed to be governed on behalf of.

"that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

It is supposed to be a government of and for the people. One which protects the people's liberties, freedoms and pursuit of happiness.

A government which spies on its people's every communication at whim. That denies that is does so even as it pursues broader and deeper methods of doing so. A government which will use these powers out of context and out of proportion for crimes that do not materially impact on the safety of its people.

Yes there is a definitive difference between the three. It has been a staple of these boards for people to denounce a government yet embrace a nations people. What is rarely a odds is a country to veer so far and hard from its own character.

As the man of steel is out. Lets remember how the US used to be summed up "Truth, Justice and the American Way" these used to be synonymous not juxtapositions.

[Fisherking]

Well said Pape


And yes, they have secret courts. Snowden’s case would not be an open trial. Chances are he would get a military tribunal, but I am not sure on that.

As the programs etc. are secret, which kept people from taking the government to court on them, it is unlikely he would get anything like a normal trial but he was charged under the WWI espionage act which in its self has serious constructional issues.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This would be true if you could trust the system to give him a fair trial. As has already been pointed out, that's unlikely to be the case.

Now I find that you seem to be unable or unwilling to separate the government and the people. One is perfectly capable of being a patriot and being hated by one's government.

I'm not saying they're inseparable - I'm saying that separating them is a false distinction. Saying "oh, it only harms the government" is an excuse with an extremely short lifespan.

If you know your history you'll know that one of the first shots in the Colonial fight for rights and representation came in of a case against a printer. That aside, the US can have his trial behind closed doors but they can't pretend it isn't going on.

I believe that if Snowden had only exposed the Verizon abuses, he would have a fair trial because of public opinion. By overstepping into the genuinely treasonous he has allowed himself to be painted as an Enemy of the State - running has only made that worse.

Snowden's actions have undermined any good he might have done.