> It's counterproductive from a security standpoint.
From what kind of twisted security standpoint is it counterproductive to allow someone to reveal mass security violations?
I don't think it is useful to participate in the newspeak that authoritarians use to pretend that you are somehow more secure when your human rights are constantly being violated.
The perspective of the state is twisted whenever it holds itself as separate from and superior to the populace.
The laws covering pre-screening of materials to be published assume that the interests of the state and of its subjects/citizens remain in alignment. Snowden's publication, being in the interests of the people and against the interests of the state, loudly proclaimed that this is no longer the case. The laws yet remain, and the agents of the state are employing them--again, in the interests of the state, and against the interests of most of the people.
When the laws contain no exceptions for publications that reveal malfeasance by the state against the people, that indicates to me that they were drafted by overly optimistic legislators that haven't yet argued with enough anarchists.
This has nothing to do with preventing the reveal of mass security violations and everything to do with laws put in place to disincentivize bad actors who are in a position of trust from profiting from the leaking of state secrets. However you try to spin things, this is exactly what happened. Snowden was in a position of trust, leaked all kinds of state secrets, and then tried to profit from that leak.
Just because something is the law doesn't make it just.
Had Snowden simply leaked information for the sake of malice, then that'd be an entirely different story and I'd agree with you.
But that's not the case here. He's a whistleblower who exposed the grave privacy violations that were being conducted on behalf of the government. This should be protected by whistleblower laws.
Keep in mind the government isn't like some private corporation (or at least it's not supposed to be), it's how we choose to govern ourselves. By not allowing injustices that our elected officials commit against ourselves to be exposed, we make it virtually impossible to end these injustices.
> This has nothing to do with preventing the reveal of mass security violations and everything to do with laws put in place to disincentivize bad actors who are in a position of trust from profiting from the leaking of state secrets.
So, why is it then that these laws do apply here? Is that just incompetence on the part of those who wrote those laws? Because, you know, if it wasn't, then your claim that this was not a goal of these laws is a bit unfounded.
Plus, the fact that these laws still haven't been changed to protect whistleblowers really completely invalidates even the possibility that this is just incompetence. All those people who would be in the position to change that law know about Snowden, and nothing has happened. That is not what an honest mistake looks like.
> However you try to spin things, this is exactly what happened.
So?
> Snowden was in a position of trust, leaked all kinds of state secrets, and then tried to profit from that leak.
So?
Why is it that you feel the need to defend these abuses? To grasp for these straws of plausible deniability? Why is it so hard to see this for what it is: Systematic human rights abuses and violation of the law with other laws that protect the abusers and punish those who reveal the abuse. Why is this law that protects the abusers so much more important than the laws these abusers broke and break? How can it possibly be just to uphold the law against the whistleblower while at the same time letting the abusers continue to break the laws they don't like?
> “However you try to spin things, this is exactly what happened. Snowden was in a position of trust, leaked all kinds of state secrets, and then tried to profit from that leak.”
That looks like _your_ spin on things. The only reason the leaks had potential for a profitable book written about them is that the leaks were the only possible mechanism for society to gain knowledge of egregious abuses of power and coordinated, deliberate violations of rights.
Attributing a profit motive to Snowden is deeply incorrect and unjustified. Government agencies acted out secret behaviors that egregiously abused their power and harmed people. The doing of those behaviors, regardless of the state of knowledge about them of the public, created a profit opportunity, no different than in journalism.
Nobody forced those agencies to do those behaviors and thereby create a sincere and urgent need for an expose that overrides any laws relating to the control of that information. They did that and are wholly responsible for it.
From what kind of twisted security standpoint is it counterproductive to allow someone to reveal mass security violations?
I don't think it is useful to participate in the newspeak that authoritarians use to pretend that you are somehow more secure when your human rights are constantly being violated.