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In reply to the discussion: It's A Darn Good Thing All Those Snowden Revelations Came To Nothing... [View all]neffernin
(275 posts)I turned what could have been a good point into a complex question, which is not a logically sound point to make in a debate. This would have been much stronger:
Since Snowden has provided some amount of documents to the press, how do we know he hasn't provided more to others? It is on this point that while some of the actions he has taken are rightfully characterized as good in unearthing NSA overreach, it is very possible that Snowden himself has committed overreaches that we do not know of yet. This is why there's any question of him being either a hero or traitor; at times the line is a very fine one to cross and very hard to define. There is no denying he has taken information and provided it to at least one third party, so it is very possible he has done it again.
While you kind sir, have added nothing new to the conversation except for all kinds of poor debate:
Take Clapper and Alexander, who have no more to do with Snowden's actions than Obama. This is the exact definition of a Red Herring:
Red herring. This means exactly what you think it means: introducing irrelevant facts or arguments to distract from the question at hand.
Or equating that since I believe that what Snowden did is still grey, you equate me to being a stealthy republican or whatever else it is you said (based on the fallacy above):
Straw man. This is the fallacy of refuting a caricatured or extreme version of somebody's argument, rather than the actual argument they've made. Often this fallacy involves putting words into somebody's mouth by saying they've made arguments they haven't actually made, in which case the straw man argument is a veiled version of argumentum ad logicam.
And you ask for my opinion, here it is (repeated from a post you replied to):
In an ideological world, yes, Snowden releases information and our government quickly and easily fixes the problem of the NSA collecting too much information. That being said, in the real world, the only way they will collect intel to protect against the dangers of this world is by collecting as much information that is humanly possible. They have datacenters capable of holding data storage that is beyond comprehension.
Now, we should not be living in a society of fear Ex: Taking off shoes at the airport is a scam because the one person who tried to use that as an act of terrorism failed miserably. Ex: Having to worry about the government intercepting your Facebook messages via NSA surveillance.
But at the same time Edward Snowden is a computer guy. He's that guy who helps you add the spacing you want on your word document at work. He isn't a spy. In no way does he know about all of what he took and released to the press (much of it was classified higher than he had normal access to, and far beyond his scope of expertise). There's no way of knowing he hasn't released some if not all of this information to Russia, or China. There's no way for us to know if some of that information isn't detailed information about the protection of the president, or other government leaders. If it was just letting people know some of what was going on with the NSA, Snowden wouldn't be in Russia right now. He isn't the first who has alerted people to this though he is the first to alert in such detail.
He can be your hero, but he isn't mine. He isn't a villain/traitor to me either, but I can't really agree with what was done in no way shape or form as what he did was not clear headed or done with any idea of the full implications.
I appreciate the exercise and consider myself more learned from the experience. Thank you.