Former NSA employee Edward Snowden accused of compromising identities of British spies. Should he be punished for his actions?

I wonder how extreme this type of thought would be applicable.

Should quantum computer architects be punished for cybersecurity breaches that would be very likely to happen if the general public were to get access them and easily decrypt the security of virtually any modern digital system?

In the same way, should a liquor store owner be charged for making it easy for an alcoholic to have access to alcohol then they go drink and drive?

Essentially, I am asking:

This seems arbitrary. What is the limit of contextual association of safety breaches that someone should be held responsible?

I don't think that your theory would apply to Snowden in this case. He is accused of stealing classified documents that eventually made their way into the hands of foreign governments that may not have our best interests in mind. You could accuse him of negligence if he had proper courier orders to take the information from point A to point B and lost it somewhere in the middle, causing it to eventually make its way to China and Russia. But on the other hand, since he took the information illegally it doesn't matter how they got the information, fact of the matter is he's going to get slammed for the illegal possession of it in the first place since his illegal possession of the information directly led to it getting to foreign sources.

It can because intentions and results are not always synonymous. Consider the quantum computer architects, firstly. Let's say that they intend to advance the computing capabilities of digital technology for the sake of advancing science. When the general public has access to this technology, their might be a possibility that someone shall utilize it for nefarious purposes. However, that is not the goal of those architects. Next, the liquor store owner intends to make a sale. She has no authority over the consumer to stop her from drinking and driving specifically at the point of sale. An opposing viewpoint to this might be that if the person diseased with alcoholism announces that she is about to drink and drive then the owner has the authority to perform a citizen's arrest.

That said, I challenge how reasonable that scenario would be for someone to say something like that to a liquor store owner at the point of sale. It seems unlikely, based on the buyer's interest in getting a drink.

Applying that to this situation, Edward Snowden has made it clear to the American public that he left his homeland to protect the rights on American citizens. To insinuate that he did so to hurt American society or any other, for that matter, is contradictory to his assertion.

You do not have to believe him, or me. All I am suggesting is that we see the facts as they are rather than how we might want them as (not talking about you, specifically).

Another way of thinking about this is, how punishable is oversight?

He should be punished. I have no sympathy for unethical individuals.

@BranKetra: The reason I said that it probably doesn't apply to Snowden is because the information got out not out of him being negligent while performing his duties, but because of him taking something he wasn't legally authorized to possess and it falling into the wrong hands. Government employees hand carrying classified information from one place to another will have courier orders giving them authorization to carry it and restrictions on what they can do. Without those orders you're toast if caught no matter what your intentions are.

You can't reasonably expect a storekeeper to be arrested for selling beer to someone that is legally allowed to buy it because they turned around and got a DUI while drinking it. At the same time, if Snowden was legally allowed to carry that information and he was held up at gunpoint for it we can't reasonably expect him to go to jail for losing it either in that scenario but if he intentionally hands it to someone not authorized to possess it he can get slammed.

@ad1x2,

Here is another scenario.

If an individual is prohibited in mobility to house arrest, but goes outside one day and accidentally surprises an elderly person walking by on the same block, causing him to have a heart attack and pass away, should said individual receive additional punishment for that (specifically, a homicide conviction and appropriate sentencing)?

sounds like they didn't have good enough encryption then.

While I don't know the whole story, my opinion is that Snowden decrypted the files before taking them out of the NSA since if he didn't there was no way he could have done it on his personal computer. If that is the case he wouldn't have had the same software to encrypt them again and he may have used an inferior encryption software that the Russians and Chinese had a much easier time cracking.

But that's just my opinion based on the idea that the NSA would not want to admit publicly that their strongest encryption methods (which are actually illegal for civilians in the US to possess based on the fact that it could be used for terrorist reasons) can be cracked so quickly. The best encryption methods can take years to crack using the combined processing power of millions of computers.

That's an interesting scenario. I can't say that I would expect a homicide conviction for that but I do know that several states have laws in the books stating that if you accidentally cause the death of a person while committing a felony you can be charged with murder even if you had no intention to kill them.

I'm starting to sympathize with Snowden, and I believe that whistleblowers should be protected simply because there is no accountability (look up wiretapping, violations of the 4th amendment) or any competence (Operation Merlin, Lt. Col Jason Amerine) whatsoever in the intelligence community.

It's not treason to point out something unconstitutional or something that doesn't/didn't work and caused a major setback.

Okay. I understand that view, better, now.

The poll ought to include a fourth option:

• "He should be hailed as a hero for what he's done."

So, assuming that the story I linked is true and not government propaganda made to smear him (I'm aware that some people will come to the conclusion that it is a smear campaign made to discredit him) are you saying that it doesn't matter that the lives of those British spies may have been put in danger because of the fact that Snowden revealed the metadata programs?

Besides, I think that the third option covers haling him as a hero since a full pardon would be a fitting reward for being a whistleblower.

Has there been any solid, definitive evidence that his actions have endangered lives?

You can be held for criminal negligence or manslaughter if you accidentally kill someone.

Unless I am misunderstanding this, you are saying that if someone surprises an elderly person accidentally then they can be held for criminal negligence or manslaughter as that would mean, by what you said, a person killed someone.

It seems unlikely that this would transpire, based on that logic.

You can be charged for manslaughter if you accidentally kill someone. Being underneath house arrest doesn't mean you're not going to be charged with manslaughter. They will add that to whatever charge you get for violating the terms of your release. It would depend on the state/county/court system if they decided to use the accident as a reason to undergo a heavier sentencing for violation of the terms of your release. But in a black/white scenario where you are clearly responsible for this person's accidental death, you could be charged for either negligence or manslaughter, on top of whatever violation you committed leaving the home. They may not make each other heavier charges but you'd get both.

There isn't enough context to determine if that's what would happen in this particular scenario. It's kind of hard to be "logical" about a particular situation when it lacks any meaningful context.

I do not know about the quotations around the word logical. Anyway, that does not say much about this scenario which at least a general idea of consequences can be thought about with regard to current laws in the United States as it is the country Edward Snowden was a citizen of when he leaked all of his information.

You do not need to repeat yourself as I read your original post in this thread. I am seeking to understand why a person would be charged with manslaughter for surprising an elderly person, causing him to get a heart attack then die because she is on house arrest. It is a straightforward inquiry.

In the same way, I am seeking to understand how negligence is attributed to the case of Snowden, especially when other people are those who utilized the leaked information without his approval.

It would depend on the circumstances. How he/she scared them, where exactly they were, why a simple scare killed that elderly person, etc. In anything like this lawyers tear the case apart to either defend/accuse the person in question. In the same way, if a prosecutor can find a legal way of displaying Snowden's actions as negligent, as defined by court, then he can be charged with negligence.

I don't understand the part of your post where you ask if a person committing a violation of house arrest can still be charged with another, independent crime. The circumstances of his being under house arrest would not factor into any negligence he displayed in a potential crime. It would just be added on top of whatever charge he got for violating it. What if he left his house while on house arrest and raped a woman? He'd get a charge for violating house arrest and raping someone.

No punishment, he deserves nothing beyond a pardon and a lot of fucking high-fives for having the balls to stand up against evil empire's like US & Britain.

Snowden did not leak information about these U.K. spies. Someone else used his action to accomplish that, making it a separate crime, yet he is considered as a possible individual to convict for some reason. You say that lawyers can find some way to defend or accuse him. I am asking how it is negligent to the point that it should be prosecutable.

That depends on how they define negligence in what I assume will be the Supreme Court. I don't see how they can, but that doesn't mean that they can't. I agree that sounds ridiculous, but that doesn't mean they won't try.

With that said, I don't understand the house arrest analogy. In that scenario your imaginary accidental murderer is directly responsible for both actions and takes place under an entirely different set of circumstances. There's no comparison there.

He is responsible for both actions in your opinion which is partially what I have been expressing, here.

How about an unethical entity such as a government?

Your analogy doesn't make that clear. In your scenario, a person goes outside and accidentally kills someone through some type of direct action. Snowden never went outside and directly killed someone under the same circumstances. His actions were completely different.

I have no opinion on Snowden and after checking my posts I don't see where I said I thought Snowden was responsible. I was merely pointing out that if he can be found in some way to have been negligent as defined by whatever court tries, they can technically try him for it. It doesn't even meant they will, they just can.

There is a misunderstanding about the concept of an accident. An accident is something which transpires without deliberate cause. Direct circumstances would be without intervening factors such as not intending to cause harm to the elderly man.

Okay. I am not as interested in seeing what a court will do, so much as what a court should do.

I am not surprised that there's a majority of Republicans supporters who think and believe that Edward Snowden should be arrested. I am qutie sure McCain, and the Bush family share your same views to.

Thanks to Edward we know what kind of a government that some in here are willing to defend and even go to war for.

If they won't prosecute the criminals that led us into a needless war or those that nearly collapsed our economy, Snowden shouldn't be prosecuted.

If you're going to lay out the law, don't be hypocritical about it. Amiright?

Agreed my comrade.

As usual, no.

Yeah.

^

That.

Full pardon.