Now let's say that you learn a secret that you feel brings your duty to keep your oath into conflict with your duty to your fellow citizens. To be sure we don't just end up arguing about the politics of this case, let's say it's something really horrible. Say you discover that your elected government is
Well, say you discover that
Well, say that you discover that
Well, OK, let's leave it hypothetical. Something really bad. Even worse than the things we've been learning are really true.
There's no question that your oath binds you to the duty of keeping the secret. You can't opt out of your oaths. The problem arises when we discover that there is a conflicting duty, a duty to your fellow citizens. In this situation, you will violate the one duty or the other: either you will fail to keep your oath, or you will fail to warn your fellow citizens of a great evil.
The question, then, is how to violate one of your duties in the least immoral way. Which one, and just how?
Two things make the Snowden case and the Manning case different in my mind. Manning strikes me as someone who should have been shot by firing squad, while Snowden is not for me in the same category. The first is that Manning broke faith with other soldiers, so that there were not two but three duties involved: his duty to keep his oath, his duty to keep faith with other soldiers under fire, and (he apparently believed) his duty to his fellow citizens.
The other thing that strikes me as an important difference between the Snowden case and the Manning case is the question of knowledge. One of the things that makes me believe that Manning is objectively worse is that he didn't even take the trouble to be sure just what he was releasing. He behaved recklessly by simply transmitting hundreds of thousands of documents he hadn't even read. He had no idea what or whom he was putting at risk.
So perhaps that's one criterion: being discriminate, rather than indiscriminate, in the violation of whichever one of your duties you choose to violate.
If so, though, doesn't that imply that it is better to release the information in a discriminate way than to keep the secret? Keeping this horrible secret -- whatever it is -- is to cause harm to every one of your fellow citizens, whereas releasing the secret is not. Thus, it would seem that someone who comes into possession of a truly terrible secret normally ought to violate the duty of oath-keeping, rather than the duty of a citizen.
Perhaps we could say that there can be no duty to keep an immoral secret, which would align with the above finding. However, we don't agree as a polity about just what morality entails. You would have to act on your own moral code, but as you are acting as a de facto agent of the government, you ought to be acting in accord with the morals of the polity as a whole. If you aren't doing that, it's hard to claim that you're acting in their interest.
If this is true, then you might release the secret, but only on the condition of submitting yourself to a trial by a jury of your peers. They would be the proper authority for evaluating whether the secret you released was indeed a severe enough violation of morality that your duty to your fellow citizens was more important than your duty to keep secrets.
For the current case, I think Hot Air is right about the proper route; maybe it mitigates the oath-breaking that the leak be given to a duly-elected representative rather than to some journalist (especially one who is himself immoral and hostile to your country, as Greenwald is). But again, I'm interested in the general question rather than the specific case.
Oath-breaking is a severe and serious moral crime. Is it ever appropriate if another duty conflicts with keeping your oath? If so, on what terms?
In the end, the oath is TO the citizenry-they are the ones the oath-taker swears to protect.
ReplyDeletePeople talk a lot about what is being done, is it legal, whether they do or do not listen to phone conversations, etc. All of which does nothing to address the WHY-
It seems obvious that the intent is to establish a data file on every person who has a digital trail, in the world, starting with the USA.
Every data point about them will be stored, and used "as appropriate."
Any political challenger can be turned by digging into their past looking for any dirt. And everyone has something on them. Any person can be found guilty of something- designate the target, then find the crime.
The data can be examined to find "hubs" or "nodes" in order to locate the most effective points of engagement to destroy widespread opposition.
This is what Obama is all about-
look how he won his Illinois seat- by revealing sealed divorce records of his opponents. Conversely, look at the extreme efforts to conceal his own past-he knows EXACTLY how powerful this type of knowledge is,
and would do anything to get political control of it.
Now why did John Roberts, against all expectations, change his mind on zerocare at the last moment and use the most convoluted logic imaginable to justify it? Makes us wonder a bit, heh?
Possibly. I remember similar thoughts on the timing of Petraeus' resignation. At this point, I don't think you can set aside the possibility as something that couldn't be true, or that is an irresponsible conspiracy theory. Too much has been proven already.
ReplyDeleteConsider the case of Colonel (later General) Hans Oster, a German military intelligence officer.
ReplyDeleteOster was one of the earlier of the military opponents to Hitler's rule; he was organizing resistance activities long before (for example) Stauffenberg. In 1939, Oster began to pass information about Germany’s plans for an invasion of Western Europe to his friend Bert Sas, who was the Dutch military attache. Sas assured him that this information would be passed to his Belgian opposite number, and Oster surely expected that the information would also reach the French and the British.
The decision to pass detailed military information to an enemy state was extremely painful to Oster, despite his loathing of Naziism–he knew that if the Allies acted effectively on the information he was giving them, it would likely mean the deaths of tens of thousands of German soldiers, among them many of his friends. Nevertheless, he did it. After one session with Sas, Oster unburdened himself to a friend:
"It’s much easier to take a pistol and shoot someone down, it’s much easier to storm a machine-gun emplacement, than to do what I have decided to do. And if I should die, I beg you to remain my friend after my death–a friend who knew the circumstances under which I took this decision, and what drove me to do things which perhaps others will never understand, or at least would never have done themselves."
(Sas did forward the information to his superiors; apparently nothing was done with it.)
I think Oster was clearly right to do what he did...and I also think it speaks well for him that he found it not easy.
Which is the prior duty? It occurs to me that the oath keeping duty (Snowden's, for instance, to protect the secrets he encountered while working for the CIA) must come after the duty to one's fellow citizens--one's fellow members of the social compact (and yes, this begs the question of a foreign national working for the CIA, but not in any important way, I think).
ReplyDeleteOn the matter of you might release the secret, but only on the condition of submitting yourself to a trial by a jury of your peers[,], this is what I wrote in comment on a Spiegel Online article on Snowden's status:
Mr Snowden, of Verizon metadata and PRISM outing fame, thinks of himself as a whistleblower, and so do many who agree with him that the US' PRISM program and its program for collecting metadata from cellphone providers are terribly wrong programs.
I agree that the programs are anathema to individual liberty. However, the programs are legal under US law. The only question here is whether the programs' limits and checks are being honored--and that's a matter of trust, since the programs and its procedures are secret. That secrecy and the need for that blind trust in Government (not just the Obama administration, but any Government) form a large part of my dismay over the programs.
However, the programs' legality mean Snowden cannot be a whistleblower; he's simply a man who has illegally revealed classified data to the public.
What about civil disobedience, then? Is he practicing this honorable means of protest of a government behavior to which he objects?
There are many legal avenues of calling legitimate attention to these flawed programs, including, for instance, any of the several formal whistleblower and Inspector General facilities to which he could have taken his case. Given the damage already done by these programs (stipulating arguendo that damage to individual liberty has been done) any additional damage done through the delays of going through these legitimate programs would have been quite trivial. Yet Snowden eschewed these programs and went directly public. From within a foreign country.
Were this an act of civil disobedience, it would have had to satisfy two criteria: he would have had first to exhaust his legal remedies. As I noted, he chose not to do so.
Secondly, he would have to have been willing to face the consequences of his actions. It is, after all, those consequences and their absurdity in the face of the disobedience and the thing over which the disobedience is occurring that give force and credibility to the disobedience. Snowden's reason for being in Hong Kong, as stated by him, is to avoid facing those consequences.
If Snowden truly believes that what he has done is just, he must return to the US and face the outcomes of his actions in open court. Let him make his case in front of the American people (where he'll find no small measure of support) and convince our representatives in that court case--the jury of his peers--that his act was justified.
Of course he risks not being supported by our representatives, that jury, as there also are a large number of Americans who disagree with what he has done.
Snowden's flight and so far refusal to return indicates he's unwilling to take that risk, that he does not have the courage of his convictions. In that case, Snowden did not commit an act of civil disobedience; he is simply a small man who is placing his ego above justice.
Eric Hines
"There are many legal avenues of calling legitimate attention to these flawed programs ..."
ReplyDeleteMaybe there are, and maybe there aren't. Who in government do you trust these days?
I like the idea of an appeal to a jury of one's peers, but when government officials control what information those peers will have access to, how can you even trust that? It is effectively appealing against the government through the government itself; what interest does the government have in letting you testify against it?
I suspect Snowden realized the Rule of Law in the US has turned into a Rule of Privilege and he would be ignored and "disappeared" rather quickly should he attempt to speak out with his head in the jackals mouth.
ReplyDeleteBuying time to get his message out by seeking a safe pulpit is no flaw- would you rather he be silenced but pure?
Idealism is no antidote for reality.
Snowden is pretty obviously suborned by the Chinese, who used this to embarrass the President in his recent 'summit' meeting with the Chinese. "You Americans want to complain about our attempts at cyber-espionage? When you are collecting the world's email?"
ReplyDeleteManning, on the otherhand, should probably be tried for his life. But then so too, his chain of command. I dunno about anybody else, but who the F runs an intel center where you let people wander in and out with recordable media?
Idealism is no antidote for reality.
ReplyDeleteIn Snowden's case, we'll never know since he chose to sacrifice his honor on the altar of expediency.
It's just too easy to set up fail-safes that execute when schedules aren't kept; worries about his being disappeared without effect are overblown.
In Manning's case, I'm largely with Eric B. Not completely, because I'm not convinced Manning has two neurons to hook together into a ganglion, and so maybe he's not capable of making an adult decision. On the other hand, his bosses were smart enough.
Eric Hines
"Well, say that you discover that the government has a secret death program that it has been employing even though it can't be sure of who it is killing, and doctoring the records to make it look like the killings are justified... no, wait, that one's true too."
ReplyDeleteWait, what's the problem there? We used to drop munitions from planes piloted by humans, and when the munitions landed and exploded, we sometimes killed 'innocent' civilians. This is nothing new, and I'm not sure what exactly is wrong with it, unless there are extenuating circumstances with some of these cases, in terms of where or when, or how they were approved. Doesn't the logic of your 'On the Virtues of Killing Children" apply here as well?
There's a problem of discrimination here as well, Douglas. "On the Virtues" was written from the perspective of Just War Theory, specifically the Doctrine of Double Effect (as you'll see if you follow the long comments thread, wherein we had a lengthy debate with the Salon community). One of the things that Just War Theory and the Doctrine of Double Effect require is that you be discriminate. Just as there's a problem in acting in reckless ignorance with release of secrets, there's a problem with acting in reckless ignorance when dropping munitions.
ReplyDeleteIf they're trying to use dodgy analytics to cover up the fact of their ignorance -- so that commanders believe the program has been demonstrably successful when the truth is that we don't know who we kill about 1/4th of the time -- that's another problem. There needs to be a kind of ruthless honesty in this sort of work. The commander may make hard calls -- "On the Virtues" sort of calls -- but he is owed an honest accounting of the evils done. It's the only way he can really apply the Doctrine's tests, and it keeps him in full view of the costs of his choices.
It appears that there is too much data diving going on, and for the wrong reasons. This program, or something like it (if it exists--which is another point altogether, but let's assume it does exist for now) has been a talking point since before the turn of the century--anybody remember 'Carnivore'? The rumor of such a thing was used during presidential campaigns, always against such a thing, and we will never know if it has been effective in stopping any terrorist acts. It obviously did not catch the Boston bombers. OTOH, it may have got incrimating info on people like Petreaus, Roberts, etc...
ReplyDeleteAnd I almost forgot: Police State.
Clearly the govt is now a "domestic enemy" of the people. Snowden's honor is intact.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, this issue is personally troubling to me. I've worked directly with these organizations, I've given those oaths, and I take all of this deadly serious. Justifications are just that, justifications. The level of difference between what Snowden has done, and what Bradley Manning or Johnathan Pollard did is one of inches, not degree. And his offense is increased in my eyes because he fled. He says he acted out of concern for the Constitution and the rule of law, and then he flees to avoid the rule of law.
ReplyDeleteIf Snowden truly believes that what he has done is just, he must return to the US and face the outcomes of his actions in open court. Let him make his case in front of the American people (where he'll find no small measure of support) and convince our representatives in that court case--the jury of his peers--that his act was justified.
I support this 100%. If he believes his lawbreaking was justified, let him prove it before his peers. Better he had held his press conference and turned himself in than flee the country.
Now, you asked a hypothetical disassociated with this case. "What do you do?" And I have wondered this myself. What would I do? And I believe I have an answer.
If I truly believed that the information I held was evidence of a criminal enterprise or conspiracy, I would start by reporting it to the inspector general's office. If I believed they were part of it, or were unwilling to act upon it, I would then inform my Senator. He may not be cleared for the program, but he would have a security clearance at least. I would still be guilty of violating my oath at this point, but I would at least have mitigated it by keeping it out of the public's hands and thereby reducing any potential harm the release of sources and methods could cause.
If I believed both my Senators (and any other Senator I could think of) was not going to take such a thing seriously or were involved, only then would I take the "nuclear option" and go to the press. But immediately after doing so, I would turn myself in to the local police. Let a jury of my peers decide if I was justified or not.
Now, I have seen both here and elsewhere the speculation that I would be "disappeared" if I didn't flee the country. To put my reaction to that politely, that's a load of hogwash. Ignoring the fact that once I'd gone public, if anything at all happened to me (other than arrest and incarceration), the government would be assumed guilty of not just what I brought to light, but of attempting to silence me. And I'm not just talking about if I have a heart attack. If I fall in the shower and get a black eye, everyone would ASSUME I was beaten at the government's orders. I'd be the safest man in the world.
Furthermore, as a nation we've got no stomach for "disappearing" people. We can't even get rid of deserving individuals that we prosecute for mass murder or treason. Aldrich Aimes is still alive, and I doubt there's ever been a spy more deserving of execution.
In short, the answer to "which oath do you break" is to do what you can to minimize the oathbreaking. Snowden, I will grant you, made some effort to mitigate the damage he did. But he did it in the wrong way. Rather than divulging what he knew to a source with SOME kind of clearance (a Senator for example), he went straight to the public but attempted to redact information HE though was harmful. But does he know that he redacted everything? Did he do (as has been done in the past) his redaction in such a manner that it can be easily unredacted? The example I'm thinking of, the government released a redacted document, but because all they did was digitally black out the portions they wished to redact, someone was able to find the redacted information by highlighting the text and doing a copy/paste. yes, that actually happened.
I remember that case.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like we have agreement on a solution, usually speaking: what you're proposing is very close to what I said in the original, and what Mr. Hines seems to think is best.
There are concerns about whether the court system can be trusted to adjudicate these matters. I think, as with the court system generally, that you're taking a crap shoot there. Juries are unreliable creatures at best, even when the law is just and the facts are clear. When the question is whether the government that writes the law is itself acting unjustly, there's the additional danger that a jury might simply bow to those wearing the mantle of authority. A citizen's duty to question whether authority is being used justly might not occur to them. The judge and the court certainly won't instruct them to consider it.
After all, there's no question that the law was broken by Snowden. The question is whether he was right to break the law. But that's just the question the judge will instruct the jury not to consider.
I see.
ReplyDeleteSo Mr.Snowden carefully and quietly goes through "Official Channels", with great respect for chain of command, minimizing damage to the Republic, etc.
Mr.Snowden is then arrested- and placed in a prison cell,under the provisions of the Patriot Act and the NDAA.
Mr. Snowden is never heard from again.
Look at what has been happening, and convince me this line of reasoning is improbable.
Raven,
ReplyDeleteCan you cite for me a single example. Just ONE where someone has been arrested (especially where the press knew his name and the reason for his arrest) that we;ve "never head from [them] again"? I can't. You're citing a far more wide reaching conspiracy than anyone has yet uncovered, with no actual historical basis.
The lesson of actual real world conspiracies is that they cannot stay secret. The Watergate conspiracy. The IRS conspiracy targeting conservative groups. The conspiracy to doctor the events at Benghazi. These all came to light because real people do not take secrets to the grave. For there to be a successful "disappearing" of someone like Snowden, you're assuming that there's a cadre of US Citizens willing to kidnap (and probably murder) another US Citizen, that NONE of them will have any qualms about doing so, that none of Snowden's friends and relatives will note his disappearance, that none of his lawyers (which he surely has at this point) will note his absence, that no one in the press will note his absence, and that the rest of us will never wonder "hey, what happened to that guy who divulged classified information". That's not something that exists in reality. That's in the realm of spy novels. And bad ones at that.
For all the power the US Government has, it is made up of people. The same people who run the post office (badly), Amtrak, and the DMV. These are not faceless automatons that perform their duties with jeweled precision. They're just people. People with egos, and dreams, and desires, and weaknesses like anyone else. They're simply not capable of the levels of Omuerta that such a conspiracy would require. Hell, the Mafia wasn't capable of it.
To make Grim's last point a little more explicit, if we rely on a jury to decide whether the act was right or wrong, then we are relying on them to violate their duty to only consider the law.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Raven's scenario is spy fiction, I can imagine Snowden ending up in indefinite detention with no charges brought for a decade or so. Sure, there'd be the annual article, the occasional "Remember the guy who ..." blog post, etc. There'd be no secret, per se; all the people involved would just be following orders & legally established procedures.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Raven's scenario is spy fiction, I can imagine Snowden ending up in indefinite detention with no charges brought for a decade or so. Sure, there'd be the annual article, the occasional "Remember the guy who ..." blog post, etc. There'd be no secret, per se; all the people involved would just be following orders & legally established procedures.
ReplyDeleteNah... that sort of traveshamockery only occurred during the Bu$hReich :p
Seriously, isn't that kind of the point?
Leaking isn't supposed to be a first resort. It's supposed to be a LAST resort. Everyone wants to substitute their unique, special snowflake judgment or values for those of the body politic. And they can do that now. What we *don't* get to do is do that and evade the consequences.
A society where every person considers himself to be above the law isn't going to work terribly well.
I can imagine Snowden ending up in indefinite detention with no charges brought for a decade or so. Sure, there'd be the annual article, the occasional "Remember the guy who ..." blog post, etc. There'd be no secret, per se; all the people involved would just be following orders & legally established procedures.
ReplyDeleteAnd no one would file a Sixth Amendment appeal? Seriously? You think that would somehow get ignored by his lawyers? And that no politician would take notice? Seriously? If I, for a moment believed my government was doing what you described to a US Citizen, I think that qualifies as an event worthy of armed rebellion.
Sure, there would be appeals. They could take years. National security, doncha know.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, if I thought the IRS and EPA were targeting groups for political reasons, or if a government agency was secretly gathering records on all of the electronic communication that goes through US servers, or if a government agency was helping thousands of guns to be shipped to Mexican drug cartels with no trace, or ...
Well, all those things are unthinkable, aren't they? Our government would never betray the American people in those ways, and if they did, boy, they'd really pay for it!
[I]f we rely on a jury to decide whether the act was right or wrong, then we are relying on them to violate their duty to only consider the law.
ReplyDeleteJuries always have had the option to disregard the law, in some states (vis., New Mexico) explicitly so.
I've sat on a number of juries in a number of jurisdictions, and in a number of jury pools where the prosecutor was forced to ask his case to be dismissed because it became evident as he questioned us that he had none. I have no fear of a jury's verdict.
Eric Hines
And, after all, it's not like the media would ignore a story that reflected badly on a Democratic administration, and the government certainly can't issue gag orders to lawyers, so no worries, right?
ReplyDeleteOk, look... I clearly am not going to convince you that what you describe has not happened, and will not happen in the foreseeable future, regardless of the fact that you've got no example of this ever happening before outside of a "feeling" or some bad fiction. But I'm telling you, if you seriously think the government can do this, then clearly we're past the point of talking about it. Because you can't wait for a government willing to "disappear" you to come for you in the middle of the night.
ReplyDeleteI personally think the very idea is crazy as hell.
Juries always have had the option to disregard the law, in some states (vis., New Mexico) explicitly so.
ReplyDeleteGranted, they have the option, but in states where it isn't explicitly granted, is it a violation of their legal duty by the letter of the law?
Lawyers get faced with this type of question every time they represent a client that misbehaves, and the problem with a government is similar to that of representing a corporation.
ReplyDeleteA lawyer has a duty to represent his client vigorously, within the bounds of the law. When a lawyer discovers serious wrongdoing within the company, he has a duty to take the matter to a higher authority and get it changed.
If he can't get it changed, he's supposed to resign.
And if he operating under the American Bar Association rules, he is then supposed to disclose the malfeasance.
But if he is in California, he is supposed to keep his client's confidential information secret "at every peril to himself."
UNLESS there is a imminent thread of death or severe bodily harm to a human being. Then he is required to disclose, under ALL rules.
So, with all that in mind, I say
1. Death of one human being is a good place to start drawing the line.
2. I've not yet heard anything about anybody in any of these scandals going through channels within the organization, first.
Valerie
... I clearly am not going to convince you that what you describe has not happened...
ReplyDeleteI'm not at all saying that it has happened, or that it will, or even that it's likely. I am saying it's become more believable given what the government actually has done, and the powers it has given itself, in the last few years.
There was some misunderstanding of my comment-
ReplyDeleteOf course, right now, Snowden is not going to "disappear"- the beans have been spilled, the press is alerted , yada yada. Questions would be raised.
But if he first took his concerns to the very entity he was concerned about, (the "chain of command") then yes, I do believe he would have been -#1 threatened , and #2 "disappeared". Now that does not mean he would be murdered, but it does mean he would not be talking to anyone-
Hm, the initial story seems to be fraying some.
ReplyDelete... And his offense is increased in my eyes because he fled. He says he acted out of concern for the Constitution and the rule of law, and then he flees to avoid the rule of law...
ReplyDeleteThere is a saying I heard once: "Tell the truth. Then RUN".
Valerie nailed it here:
ReplyDeleteI've not yet heard anything about anybody in any of these scandals going through channels within the organization, first.
Let's not forget the reason the IRS story was intentionally leaked in the first place is that an IG inspector's report was about to be released. So the government was *already* looking into the abuses.
While I sympathize with the concerns many of you have expressed, you're making essentially the same arguments the anti-Bush crowd made for 8 years. This abuse *could* happen! People can't be expected to follow the law or go through legal channels because.... GITMO!
Were they right to say everything they were saying (those things *could* have happened, after all)?
It would be lovely if rape victims didn't have to endure the bad side of pressing charges or "whistleblowers" (and it's far from clear that Snowdon is a whistleblower) could freely leak government documents to the NYT with zero risk of getting fired or prosecution.
Are those rules you want to see extended to everyone, or only "good leaks" you personally approve of?
I'm not at all saying that it has happened, or that it will, or even that it's likely. I am saying it's become more believable given what the government actually has done, and the powers it has given itself, in the last few years.
ReplyDeleteSnowden's stated excuse for why he fled the country is that he was certain he would be "disappeared". This plotboiler nonsense is no more believable to me than JFK conspiracy theorists who state ironically that LBJ ordered the CIA to assassinate the President. Can you imagine that conversation?
"I want you to kill the President of the United States."
"On whose authority?"
"The Vice President of the United States."
"Oh, very well then."
SO ridiculous. [sarc]Yeah... I'm sure Snowden would have been renditioned to GITMO and tortured with the frilly panties of fascism for having the chutzpa to embarrass the President of the United States. And no one would ever have said a word about it because... well because! Creeping fascism![/sarc]
Entertaining this nonsense is poison to an open society. It's saying that members of the government (to include the military) would sit idle while the President and his cronies in the press stonewall and lock up or even murder a US Citizen and no one would dare speak out about it. Much like the JFK stuff, or the nutjobs who claim that US Army forces actually carried out the attack on Sandy Hook (and yes, there are actually people who believe that), it requires you to assume that people who work in the government or military are myrmidons who take orders without question. And that just doesn't happen.
More problems w/ Snowden's story ...
ReplyDeleteCass, I'm not arguing that there should be no consequences. We were discussing when breaking an oath might be acceptable. Given that the thing one is leaking is so bad that it must be leaked, then if the government genuinely can't be trusted, I would argue that leaking to the press might be an acceptable alternative. I never said there should be no consequences for it.
ReplyDeleteOn that tack, is the government trustworthy?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't take, and I never argued for, a large-scale conspiracy.
Look at the recent IRS and EPA abuses. These are clear, relatively widespread political abuses that apparently lasted for several years before being blown. Prior to the last few weeks, reports that this was happening were treated as crazy conspiracy theories.
Look at Fast & Furious - apparently, quite a few members of the law enforcement community, in multiple agencies, possibly going up to the DOJ, were willing to allow thousands of guns to walk across the border to drug cartels with no way to track them except finding them at murder scenes. This also lasted a few years, IIRC, before anyone challenged it. Apparently up to a couple hundred Mexicans were killed with these guns during that time. It didn't become a big deal until a USBP agent was murdered with one. (Arguably, it never became a big deal.)
These are not cases of one or two bad apples. These are at least tens of government workers in each case involved over a period of years in some very questionable, if not illegal, activities. It is quite likely that people rather high up in the agencies involved were aware of these activities, if they didn't instigate them.
It's also not as if this sort of thing has never happened. There have been cases where police officers framed someone for a crime and, since our system rightly takes the word of a police officer over Joe Citizen, the man went to prison. There was a NYPD officer who recently claimed he'd done that a number of times.
Given the above, I don't think that it's crazy to believe that a few people in a government agency might collude to wrongly get someone locked up for a while to avert a major scandal.
And what do each and every one of those conspiracies have in common? We know about them. In the short term, they might get away with it. In the long term, they never do. And right now, the scandals on the plate (while serious) don't rise to the level of kidnapping and murder. When you cross that threshold, I think you get armed rebellion on your hands. So any Administration stupid enough to try that will both get discovered and destroyed.
ReplyDeleteWe were discussing when breaking an oath might be acceptable.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly. We were discussing what to do when two duties conflicted in such a way that you could not but violate one of them. One of the things I'm arguing is that you must act discriminately in deciding which duty to violate, and how -- but not that doing so is acceptable, exactly.
It's somewhat like the conversation I was having with Cass a while back about drunkeness. It's a sin, and it remains a sin even if you do it for very good reasons -- e.g., if you get drunk with a friend so that he can feel free enough to unburden himself of some terrible emotional weight he wouldn't be able to talk about when sober. That's really a duty; but to perform the duty, you must violate another duty, the duty not to sin.
Christianity can handle these kinds of problems very well, because of its focus on forgiveness. Caesar doesn't do it as well, but the same issues do sometimes come up.
While it's heartening that we have discovered these particular abuses, the fact that we did is not proof that we have discovered all such abuses, or that we will always discover them in the future.
ReplyDeleteAnd, really, framing someone and getting them sent to prison is pretty much kidnapping. IIRC, the NYPD cop would have gotten away with it if he hadn't given himself up. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
All that said, I agree that someone who thinks they have uncovered something bad enough to break an oath to reveal should break the oath as little as possible. Going to a senator would seem far better than to the media, especially hostile media.
As for leaking in general, there were a number of leaks that hurt us in the Iraq & Afghan campaigns and yet failed to reveal any real misconduct (or at least any misconduct that wasn't already under investigation). I wish the Bush administration had tracked the leakers down and tried them for treason.
Snowden might be guilty of treason, or he might not. I'll wait for more evidence to come out.
Cass, I'm not arguing that there should be no consequences. We were discussing when breaking an oath might be acceptable. Given that the thing one is leaking is so bad that it must be leaked, then if the government genuinely can't be trusted, I would argue that leaking to the press might be an acceptable alternative. I never said there should be no consequences for it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification. Sorry if I misstated your position!
The problem I have is when people don't even try to work within the system. The more we learn about this guy, the more sketchy he seems to be. So I'm not particularly inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that's just my opinion :p
It's somewhat like the conversation I was having with Cass a while back about drunkeness.
ReplyDeleteYikes! I thought we were discussing posting sexually oriented materials in the work place (in particular, an officer doing so openly in flagrant violation of the orders he's charged with enforcing), not drunkenness. If I'd thought that was going on at work, I'd have been even more feisty! :)
Thanks for the clarification. Sorry if I misstated your position!
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm not being very clear these days. When you first brought it up I should have said something, but I was too busy playing devil's advocate and let the suspicion fester.
The problem I have is when people don't even try to work within the system.
Yeah, I think that's a serious problem. I think the scandals I've brought up point to some serious reasons to not put one's full trust in the government, but at the same time, MikeD is right that going too far the other way (i.e., paranoia) is also a problem that can have serious consequences.
Tom asked, too long ago, Granted, they have the option [for juries to disregard the law], but in states where it isn't explicitly granted, is it a violation of their legal duty by the letter of the law?
ReplyDeleteI flat missed the question, but I offer this belatedly. My apologies for my tardiness.
As a matter of mere legalities, I have no clue; that would vary across the 50 States, which may well differ from Federal law.
As a matter of morality, it goes back to my original question: which is the prior [duty]? They have a duty to uphold the law, but the law is written by them, in part, through their elected legislatures. Further, they have a prior duty, it seems to me, to their fellow citizens, fellow members of our social compact. That duty is to do what is just. What that is isn't always easily articulated, isn't even always easy, but they must do it, anyway. It's the difficulty of that that makes us use juries of more than one man and juries drawn more or less at random from the community.
Juries aren't perfect, but they're better than present alternatives. Call me an idealist, but I have no fear of juries.
Eric Hines
Thanks, Eric. I'll have to look more into that.
ReplyDeleteI think juries are a crap shoot, and the higher up in the system, the more so.
However, I'm glad to hear you've had good experiences with them. It restores a little of my faith in the system.
These all sound like crazy nut case conspiracy stories. I don't believe them. Snowden's about as believable as Obama and Greenwald was in 2008. Which is to say, somewhat believable, but not really. Not without 3 independent verifications of the facts.
ReplyDeleteI do believe there is better stuff to come. The "real stuff", so to speak.
This isn't "real stuff". At least, it's rumor mongling. If people could imagine what the Leftist alliance was doing... maybe they could piece it together. People's imaginations are a bit weak though. Too much public education, perhaps.