Actually, it is right what he did. Given how much dirt has been exposed do you really think there was another way to do this? What Snowden did is a prime example of civil disobedience: sometimes a country needs to be called out on what it's doing is wrong, no matter what the laws say.
That said, whistleblowers are in for a rough time and usually get acknowledged for what they did when they're either too old or dead.
But most folks I talk to (even not in tech) know that the nsa is supposed to be doing foreign spying and are fine with it. You quickly fall into a minority thinking that exposing foreign operations was "right".
The thing with "foreign spying" is that most people I know do make a distinction between spying on foreign governments (were the biggest question is, should governments spy on close allies, and if so, how much?) and mass surveillance abroad.
Think about it this way, would you be mad if Russia FSB agents were constantly trying to get access to classified military networks of the US? Well no, that's part of their stated functions and one of the mildest at that. If those networks get hacked it is the U.S. fault! Same with the NSA hacking Russian govt networks (substitute countries as you will, it doesn't matter). But if it turned out that the FSB was intercepting every phone communication in the U.S. 100% of the time between random civilians (which btw might or might not be the case...), that would be a different situation. Mass surveillance is different from targeted espionage and is not any more righteous when you do it to civilians abroad than when you impose it on your own citizens.
Besides, there is the whole lot of evidence of decisions where the NSA intentionally weakened U.S. cyber-security in order to make sure it could spy on foreign civilians using those weaknesses. Making yourself more vulnerable to attack while pissing off as many people abroad as possible is the opposite of what you want your government to be doing, it would seem to me...
He painted himself into a corner, and that's on him. There are a myriad of other ways he could have done this, but his intent was clear to damage the government more so than expose government surveillance.
Most of what he leaked has nothing to do with the government spying on its citizens. Most of the documents relate to how the US deals with its own international interests and how it protects those interests - right or wrong.
For this reason, he's not a patriot or a whistle blower. He's just another government employee who stole and released a ton of classified documents that did more damage to his own country than what he's been telling people about the NSA spying programs. And let's be honest, it was something most people already knew about anyways. His documents only confirmed a lot of what people already suspected. The only difference was his documents showed how deep the rabbit hole went.
In a few more years, nobody will care - let him rot in Siberia for all I care. All he did was weaken a country by his actions.
I disagree. What Snowden did was hugely important not just domestically but internationally. Without him we wouldn't have the current push to reform the surveillance state, so it would have grown unfettered into a cancer that really would affect all of us. I don't want to live in a fishbowl.
Many officials from the CIA and NSA (and FBI) have distorted the truth or outright lied to public. Snowden's actions have pushed back on that somewhat, rekindling a strong interest in what the watchers are doing. Stingrays, parallel construction, surveillance airplanes over urban areas, etc. You've got to keep that kind of power under strict control and keep the watchers accountable.
> There are a myriad of other ways he could have done this
Can you be a little more specific in your armchair whistleblowing? Because we've seen other whistleblowers try to do it other ways -- on many of the same issues -- and fail.
> And let's be honest, it was something most people already knew about anyways.
It was something many people inside and outside of government, some of whom are now advocating -- or actually, in the case of members of Congress, taking -- action to rein it in, were directly dismissing previous reports of. It is not something everybody knew (the "everybody knew it already" line is something that defenders trotted out once enough details had come out that the "you're paranoid, there's no evidence anything like that is happening" line they'd been using with previous reports couldn't be maintained with even a shred of credibility.)
I didn't know about the 215 collection until the public disclosure.
I think there's a difference between hearing some unsubstantiated claims from a disgruntled employee (Binney) versus getting a legitimate-looking document that the government made no effort to deny. Once that failed to happen, we knew it was real.
Soon after, government officials acknowledged the mass collection renewal under §215, demonstrating the document's authenticity. So I dispute that it was something people knew about prior to the disclosure.
If you understand anything about what has actually happened, you'll know that Snowden provided (a) an exhaustive list of all the "other ways" that exist in theory and (b) point-by-point demonstration that none of them are real. But if you're aware of an avenue that has not already been widely and properly dismissed as useless then please, provide the details here.
And while you're at it, maybe you can explain how something can be both a genuine secret and common knowledge. Remember, that unproven suspicions are not the same as definite knowledge - not by a long shot. There's also a huge difference between knowing that something is technically possible and discovering that government officials have became lawless enough to actually do it.
Honestly, if we were to deal with crimes in the order they were committed, Snowden would be the last person going to trial.
> (...) his intent was clear to damage the government more so than expose government surveillance.
No it was not. His stated intent was to expose government surveillance in order to spark public discussion. His unstated intent, derived from his actions, was exactly the same.
Had he aimed at damaging the government, there were much more efficient -- for that effect -- ways of revealing the information.
There's a difference between suspicion and actionable knowledge.
If I'm not mistaken, there were whistle-blowers before Snowden that were "responsible", following legal means to raise these issues, and completely ignored.
Since we know they were blowing the whistle on issues the public cared about, and we know they were ignored, is that not proof that the legal channels for this are ineffective? Perhaps if these channels actually had lead to actual changes, then the harm Snowden has brought to your country would not have been necessary.
Ah, the irony of mimicking the villain's final moments in A Few Good Men. The villain claims to protect the country's high ideals, yet does so by flagrantly violating them, and in the process utters your line, almost verbatim.
> His documents only confirmed a lot of what people already suspected.
Then how could he have weakened the country? This is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too argument.
That said, whistleblowers are in for a rough time and usually get acknowledged for what they did when they're either too old or dead.