That's the first time I've ever heard that. You got a source for that claim? (I'm not suggesting I've researched it, I just have heard a fair amount about the whole thing, and I've just never heard that he tried "appropriate channels").
> Edward Snowden said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears
> In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing
("appropriate channels" was a quote from the previous comment I was replying to)
This is some mental gymnastics right here. Also this is coming from the very NSA that got outted. They're not going to give any admission to having given Snowden no other alternative, or they've no leg to stand on.
To me, the NSA confirming Snowden voiced concerns is confirmation that he didn't decide to just leak documents haphazardly - now, we can conjecture about what NSA response he would have considered to be enough, but he at least voiced concern before taking matters into his own hands.
The NSA will never acknowledge that they left him no avenue other than leaking - that would place him squarely as a noble whistleblower, who only went rogue when left no other choice (and, not at all a traitor).
Edit: since I can't reply to ikeboy below, I'll do it here - as others have pointed out, it doesn't matter that he leaked more than you think was appropriate, since everyone has a different measure for that. He also gave it to people far more qualified than himself to parse through - their choice to publish is not within his control. I'm sure you would have done differently, but this is what it is - we're better off for his actions, full stop. The rest is background noise.
You make three points in your reply. All seem to be flawed.
1. "Different people think differently, therefore your thoughts are wrong" is invalid. People thinking something is morally permissible does not make it so.
2. Delegating responsibilities to others makes you responsible if they mess up. When you're doing something as sensitive as Snowden did, you better own your mistakes, and don't trust people who have agendas.
This wasn't an isolated incident.
3. I'm not sure if his actions are better overall. There's little tangible utility in having less surveillance. It's mostly in things like "you're slightly less likely to turn into a suppressive regime". It's not clear that outweighs the negative aspects.
But even if it was overall better, that doesn't make him good under standard ethics.
Or would you support a firefighter that saved ten lives, then went out and murdered five people? If not, you must not be using a total good metric.
Even if he had no choice, he certainly didn't have to leak everything without the time to go over it. As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, he's leaked stuff that were completely legal, i.e. the US spying on other countries.
I don't think I did? Above I pointed out that the article used to claim the NSA admitted that Snowden tried to go through official channels doesn't really support that. I don't see any response to that point.
Instead, themartorana assumes that the NSA did admit that, and then based an argument on that assumption. My reply was based on that further argument, and in particular the notion that Snowden had no choice, but the assumption was never justified.
Why are you acting as if there is a difference between asking a question and raising concerns? Going to you boss and saying "I saw X doing Y, is that what should be happening?" is clearly doing both.
If he said something along the lines of "I was told X, I'm not sure what it means", that's different from "I was told X, but I believe X to be wrong", or "I was told X, but X is wrong".
Not only did Snowden attempt to raise alarm, but so have others to little effect. Thomas Drake, and William Binney, for starters who were both much higher up in the NSA than Snowden. Neither had any effect on NSA lawbreaking and Drake in particular suffered quite a bit for his efforts. I think it was fair for Snowden to assume and plan for the worst when tattling on the NSA.
