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New Dunno, but probably not.
Ellsburg leaked a single (very large) report that he personally worked on and knew something about.

Snowden (and Manning) leaked a mountain of stuff that they had access to (by hook or by crook) that they didn't work on and didn't really know much about.

Different cases.

Ellsburg's leak was published in in the NYTimes and in the Congressional Record:

To ensure the possibility of public debate about the papers' content, on June 29, US Senator Mike Gravel entered 4,100 pages of the papers to the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds. These portions of the papers, which were edited for Gravel by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, were subsequently published by Beacon Press, the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.[21] A federal grand jury was subsequently empaneled to investigate possible violations of federal law in the release of the report. Leonard Rodberg, a Gravel aide, was subpoenaed to testify about his role in obtaining and arranging for publication of the Pentagon Papers. Gravel asked the court (in Gravel v. United States) to quash the subpoena on the basis of the Speech or Debate Clause in Article I, Section 6 of the United States Constitution.

[...]

Ellsberg surrendered to authorities in Boston, and admitted that he had given the papers to the press.

I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.

— Ellsberg on why he released the Pentagon Papers to the press.[29]

He was later indicted on charges of stealing and holding secret documents by a grand jury in Los Angeles.[29] Federal District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr. declared a mistrial and dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973, after it was revealed that agents acting on the orders of the Nixon administration illegally broke into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist and attempted to steal files, after representatives of the Nixon administration approached the Ellsberg trial judge with an offer of the job of FBI directorship, after several irregularities appeared in the government's case, and its claim that it had lost records of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg conducted by the White House Plumbers in the contemporaneous Watergate scandal.[9] Byrne ruled: "The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice. The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case." Ellsberg and Russo were freed due to the mistrial.[9]


Ellsburg didn't run to China or Russia. He stood up and accepted responsiblity for his actions. Ellsburg was clearly subject to an illegal investigation and worse. A mistrial was the correct response.

Snowden is no Ellsburg (Daniel's protestations to the contrary).

It's not just the quantity of stuff that Snowden released, but the fact that he had no understanding of all the (good and bad) ramifications of the material that Ellsburg did.

It's hard to make comparisons. But Snowden's actions do not seem comparable to Ellsburg to me except at the margins.

YMMV.

Cheers,
Scott.
New "Snowden is no Ellsberg"
Snowden is no Ellsberg (Daniel's protestations to the contrary).
You know, regarding this issue I'm going to proceed on the assumption that Daniel Ellsberg's judgments are, with all due respect, a shitload better informed than yours. These are, I hasten to add, matters on which reasonable men may reasonably disagree, but your sunny attitude toward the malign cankers comprising the "national security" apparatus that's eroding self-government here always startles me, as though a drinking buddy were to go on occasionally about how John Wayne Gacy might have stepped over the line now and again, but that people should remember that he was a civic-spirited bloke and a lot of fun at parties.

cordially,
New Re: "Snowden is no Ellsberg"
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/rethinking-the-pentagon-papers

Ellsberg, for his part, seemed to have achieved everything he could have hoped for. He would not be going to jail for the 115 years that he had calculated would be his maximum sentence. The Pentagon Papers were out, showing the "murder" and the "lying machine" for what they were. And yet Ellsberg remained deeply disappointed. The storm of controversy he had created revolved not around the secrets he had disclosed, but rather the legal and political issues raised by Nixon's war against the Times. "Mainstream interviewers and other commentators listened to me and treated me with respect," Ellsberg lamented. "But neither these people nor the public at large could take seriously the warning I was trying to convey."

THE REAL COST

Ellsberg's disappointment returns us to the central issues raised by his case. To begin with, one reason the actual contents of the Pentagon Papers did not significantly shape discussion of the war — and would probably have been forgotten had Nixon not attempted to suppress their publication — was that, in contrast to some of the most controversial leaks published by the New York Times and other news outlets over the past few years, no current operational secrets were disclosed. Indeed, not one of the 7,000 pages of the McNamara studies that Ellsberg gave to the Times in 1971 contained information less than three years old. "It is all history," noted Justice William Douglas in his concurring opinion in the Times case. "None of it is more recent than 1968." (In fact, significant portions of the Pentagon Papers covered episodes dating back to the administrations of Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman.)

Moreover, although Ellsberg leaked with abandon, there were some lines that he declined to cross. Even today, he readily acknowledges that there are certain kinds of materials, "such as diplomatic negotiations, certain intelligence sources and methods, or various time-sensitive military-operational secrets, that warrant...strict secrecy." And the Times, for its part, made at least a limited effort to assure itself that the revelations in the Pentagon Papers would not (in themselves) jeopardize national security in any immediate way or put American or South Vietnamese lives directly at risk.


FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Different Time, ∆ ages/experience-levels of the protags ... different aims re a desired response
..for a Start.

IMO the {utterly predictably-} ennui of the Murican vox-pop probably didn't so much surprise Ellsberg as it Did--in This War-crucial Event--much disappoint him. Surely he *SAW* the escalating of #-Un-Necessary Deaths ..coming.
[Then as now: Afghan, Iraq Syria? whole f'ing M.E. next?? Dead Wahabs on the pile too? they be near the most vicious and the fathers of 9/11.]

If Snowden be characterised as a bull-in-the-China-shop (no pun necessary but, ..why not??) because he abdicated creating the deeply-ordered triage of each factoid (versus the extant media thought-mixer-Machine), we might all have wished he deemed that he Had sufficient time (as he properly noted the Odds against his capture via any next small slip.) Clearly: he did not believe he Had the time/ all. things. considered. Yathink?? [I suspect that his quick action was indeed, the best means of using Surprise, for there being no previous hints of his alienation from The Machine™.

And who would not wish that he possessed years of the experience of creating such collected-factoids, all the while feeling the immense weight of Knowing that No One, not even many on some Special-list: would ever learn of the matters. Well, at least he Did possess that last, nagging awareness.

Finally, you know my screed on the over-reliance (..to the point of absurdity) on the faith that--in time--there will be an "algorithm"/EZ-recipe for the mentally lazy? ... *to "perfect" "Security", then the implementation of the shiny New-plan-for that ... etc. ad, you know.

* my limit: two scare-" " in a row :-þ

I guess I'm fuzzy re why we must keep arguing about the utter (near--) certainty of human perfidy, especiially where personal-ego+massive-power made available: regularly collide and like matter/antimatter ... we know the special word for that phenom. I cut this young guy more slack than thee, when placed in the rare position of overseeing countless factoids/so Many! so horrific in all implications.

(I wish, had it been moi, that I too might have survived This Long!) without being assassinated by the people who Loves dem old-world recipes for ..making-all-Knowledge-Simple! [-minded] Just read the Rule-book


Maybe some pages filled with ⨌∑∞ should be our ready-Ref for navigating the World of (Maya?)
..well anyway: of 'non-denumerable infinities' and other abstractions which we have made concrete. Like a lead slug. I just don't confuse the ineffable with any WFFs (well-factored formulae wasn't it, in "WFF n'Proof"?

I deem that, people who want -Evah!- to signal some grokking of [Reality] ought usually to refer to The Bard, for the best kid-glove handling of (just the ephemeral, never mind trying for the Real, in a few paragraphs.) I include-Self in the overview that most of us, most of the time are anywhere from partially- to ZZZZ-asleep. Especially about such fodder as w.t.f. Freedom, Security, and other Stuart Chase bugbears can be transliterated-into. Y'know?

(Don't believe anything I say, either ..unless it blends in purée mode.) My Gramma oft referred to .."those BIg Men in Washington know." It's my pure-Lead Standard. Now Tungsten {W} needs more words.
New I'm not arguing that humans are perfectable or can make perfectable systems.
I am in favor of looking at the circumstances surrounding people who break their oath and leak a mountain of information by hoovering up everything they can get their hands on.

Reread some of the SCMP interviews. Snowden was upset that the NSA was spying on China.

“The reality is that I have acted at great personal risk to help the public of the world, regardless of whether that public is American, European, or Asian.”


The hubris of the man is astounding. It fits with the rest of his reported childish postings:

As a twentysomething, nerdy NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who just turned 30 on the lam, frequented chat rooms and message boards under the name "TheTrueHOOHA." He held forth about anime and Ron Paul ("He's so dreamy"), which fits the profile of a Redditor-type, but IRC chat logs revealed by Ars Technica today are much more surprising: In 2009, Snowden went off on the New York Times, WikiLeaks, and government leakers in general.

He even offered a potential punishment, according to Ars Technica's transcripts:

[TheTrueHOOHA] HOLY SHIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&hp
[TheTrueHOOHA] WTF NYTIMES
[TheTrueHOOHA] Are they TRYING to start a war?
Jesus christ
they're like wikileaks
[User19] they're just reporting, dude.
[TheTrueHOOHA] They're reporting classified shit
[User19] shrugs
[TheTrueHOOHA] about an unpopular country surrounded by enemies already engaged in a war
and about our interactions with said country regarding planning sovereignity violations of another country
you don't put that shit in the NEWSPAPER
[User19] meh
[TheTrueHOOHA] moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this?
[TheTrueHOOHA] those people should be shot in the balls.


Snowden was (wrongly) put in a position of responsibility. He (allegedly) took advantage of his position to steal a mountain of classified information. To pump up his ego, he released it to his buddy Glenn Greenwald and friends, then fled to China and gave press conferences about how wonderful and selfless he is. He then fled to Russia and allowed himself to be used as a pawn in a Putin press conference.

He is in way, way over his head. And the process that allowed him to be hired at BAH and gain access to so much information was broken. I'd like to think that BAH suffered consequences for that, but ...

All that said, I don't think for a minute that we can construct systems that cannot be twisted to nefarious ends. But I also do not think that a single person can be permitted to claim for himself knowledge and expertise that counterweights all the legal and systemic checks-and-balances.

MLK had a huge impact, but not for a single act, and not by himself. He helped build a system that had internal battles over the proper way forward and the best intermediate goals to strive for. A 30-something IT guy cannot take the system into his own hands and do what he wants with it because he thinks that it's somehow wrong for the NSA to spy on China. Or that he has the right to take secret information that he has sworn an oath to protect and give it to whomever he wants.

Systems are imperfect, and they can be wrong. But individuals who go around important systems are wrong more often than not. Look at Bundy. Look at McVeigh. Look at Trump.

Snowden wouldn't get much more than pity from me if he had leaked all the stuff, then called a press conference in DC, gave his spiel about how he did it to protect China from the NSA, and then waited to be arrested. I would have thought that he was a misguided idealist, perhaps. Especially given his diametrically-opposed professed views of less than a decade earlier. But he seems to be a giant narcissist who thinks that he's smarter and more virtuous than everyone in the US Government.

Maybe I'll change my mind in a few years, but I wouldn't bet on it.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Belatedly..
OK a fair exposition of your (and some others') character analysis of this/"any old?" young guy, on a self-assigned MIssion.

So then.. we were expecting, perhaps Epictetus, Montaigne and Kurt V. in an attractive wrapper?
OTOH, from Mozart to Shelley to Dennis Brain (Fr. horn player killed in a Canadian air crash IIRC) lots of exceptionals at or near-30: distinguished selves. Dying at their only local-peak, leaving us to miserably-Miss what we imagine would have become. If. Only.

We now KNOW that Murica (not alone, but still.. counter to all the propaganda of our innate-Goodness) Would/Did.. tell-any-lie/globally as locally; spread any sanctimonious self-aggrandizement as from the first ("Remember the Maine" cha. cha. cha.) or contemporaneously (The Tonkin Gulf LIE to massively intensify the Vietnam pre-Iraq Fiasco. Etc.fucking-Etc.

Weighing the [+]s [-]s of this opera would need a book-shelf of tl;drs, as our grey cells weary of perpetually debating such un-Resolvables as:

JUST *HOW* FUCKED-UP *IS* -??_ this chimerical/ largely imaginary/over-hyped 'THING' called -by at least-One- The dis-U.S.A. Hmmmm?
.
.
.
"We" bloody-Began as a Slaver State, as we commenced our perpetual hypocrisy: within the earliest documents, with phrases like
All Men Are Created Equal
... cha. cha. cha.

This young guy did, at least: allow any/all of us to become Truly! more current on, the State of the U.S. and its (Governmental) world-view, as well as demonstrating the degree of dissembling in Govt. rhetoric to the masses ..previously and just-Then. (Almost any Useful-factoid in this morass Would have been Classified [X] ... the Real-est problem that any 'democratic' ideals must face, in a world run just like The School for Scoundrels

New Thanks. We'll have to battle again when he's back in the USA. ;-)
     the fate of NSA whistleblowers - (rcareaga) - (32)
         Well, at least our 4th Estate repor...., er, ... never mind. -NT - (mmoffitt)
         Dunno. - (Another Scott) - (30)
             "Things they didn't like." - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                 Just because you don't like the oversight doesn't mean there wasn't any... - (Another Scott)
             Why the scare quotes? - (rcareaga) - (14)
                 There's too much history to dig through for a detailed answer. - (Another Scott)
                 Re: Why the scare quotes? -NT - (Ashton)
                 Re: Why the scare quotes? -NT - (Ashton)
                 Re: Why the scare quotes? -NT - (Ashton)
                 Have to pile on here, for recalling Ed Murrow's earnest comment to his staff - (Ashton) - (9)
                     It really is different, I think. - (Another Scott) - (8)
                         So you'd prosecute Ellsberg? -NT - (rcareaga) - (7)
                             Dunno, but probably not. - (Another Scott) - (6)
                                 "Snowden is no Ellsberg" - (rcareaga) - (5)
                                     Re: "Snowden is no Ellsberg" - (Another Scott) - (4)
                                         Different Time, ∆ ages/experience-levels of the protags ... different aims re a desired response - (Ashton) - (3)
                                             I'm not arguing that humans are perfectable or can make perfectable systems. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                                 Belatedly.. - (Ashton) - (1)
                                                     Thanks. We'll have to battle again when he's back in the USA. ;-) -NT - (Another Scott)
             Re: Underlings don't decide policy. - (a6l6e6x) - (12)
                 True, but ... - (Another Scott) - (11)
                     Manning and Padilla were driven insane by the system in question - (jake123) - (4)
                         Different. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                             author of the account is on the local NPR affiliate - (rcareaga) - (2)
                                 Yeah, it's a slanted piece. It's from the Hudson Institute. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                                     Hheheeeeehaaahaaaaa - (crazy)
                     You should have been part of the defense team - (rcareaga) - (5)
                         Scott's only following orders! :) -NT - (a6l6e6x) - (3)
                             Ouch. -NT - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                 I wasn't likening you to the defendants - (rcareaga) - (1)
                                     "Democratic Traditions" - (Another Scott)
                         Saved me the trouble of mentioning that: "Aber es war doch Policy zu gassen die Juden!" - (CRConrad)

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