Assange, Manning, Snowden: Heroes or Villains?

[Deleted]

I think their motivation is the closest you'll get to whether or not they are heroes or villains.

Snowden: Believes what he did was in the interests of the public and, however naive he may have been, it's a fairly noble cause. Therefore I'd edge him toward the hero camp, but not into it.

Manning: Seems to have done it partly out of spite due to his/her perceived treatment by the military and partly out of what they thought was the public interest. Neither a hero nor a villain, s/he sits in the corner with the dunce cap on.

Assange: He comes across as the sort of person that would refer to himself in the third person. His motivation appears to be Assange, with any benefit to the public a side effect that he doesn't really care about. Definitely not a hero, but not a villain, except perhaps in some Hollywood teen movie, where he'd play the bitchy cheerleader whose only interest is to become head cheerleader and schemes to achieve that goal.

I think this is a very good breakdown of the differences between them, and a pretty good explanation overall.

I wish I could argue with you over the details but I sort of agree here.

[Independent voter]

I think this is a very good breakdown of the differences between them, and a pretty good explanation overall.

I wish I could argue with you over the details but I sort of agree here.

Wow, British people like Snowden, Manning and Assange? I never would've guessed.

[Deleted]

Wow, two Brits like Snowden, Manning and Assange? I never would've guessed.

Americans should like them more they made it public that your intelligences services are out of control.

[vipers]

it is shameful that those high ranking ppl on Government who broke the law still get away

[Herecius]

Neither. Manning and Snowden are good-intentioned men. Snowden in particular could have been far more meticulous about doing what he felt he needed to, but the truth is he was very careless, and should have been more particular about the documents he was releasing, as a good deal of the information was in no way 'exposing' anything bad, but was instead putting the lives of service members overseas at risk.

Assange however, is an attention-seeking dumbass who deserves no pity, but he's not a villain either.

[Stormspellz]

its not black or white as things seldom are.

[Drsolders]

Americans should like them more they made it public that your intelligences services are out of control.

Only for internal surveillance, I could care less about how much they spy on other countries because either they are doing the same thing or using our surveillance while condemning it (I'm looking at you western Europe).

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Neither. Manning and Snowden are good-intentioned men. Snowden in particular could have been far more meticulous about doing what he felt he needed to, but the truth is he was very careless, and should have been more particular about the documents he was releasing, as a good deal of the information was in no way 'exposing' anything bad, but was instead putting the lives of service members overseas at risk.

Assange however, is an attention-seeking dumbass who deserves no pity, but he's not a villain either.

I kind of had the same feeling about Manning, s/he wasn't a whistle blower in the commonly thought sense. S/he didn't find something important and release it, s/he was angry at the military and released as much as possible in the hopes something bad was in there.

[Kalis]

Wow, British people like Snowden, Manning and Assange? I never would've guessed.

Except in the assessment he agreed with I didn't say I like all three. In fact I stated the opposite for Assange (egotistical), was neutral on Manning (stupid) and only gave Snowden faint praise (good intentions).

[Deleted]

Wow, British people like Snowden, Manning and Assange? I never would've guessed.

I wouldn't say the portrayal was uncritical.

If anything it seemed pretty nuanced to me.

[Demoncrash]

Video relevant to the conversation and has an interview with Snowden.

[looorg]

Assange is some kind of ego-maniacal tool. Personal glory seemed more important to him than anything he actually did. He did what he did to glorify himself. He liked being the center of attention and having people look up to him. Being the first grade jackass that he is he got himself locked up at the embassy of Ecuador, he basically locked himself away -- it must really be killing his ego to be locked away from all his adoring fans. For all I care he can stay where he is until he dies.

Manning is just odd, he doesn't really belong in the company. He doesn't fit in with the other two. It appears more like he had a some personal beef with the military due to his "gender" issues and he wanted vengeance. So he handed over a large amount of classified information to Wikileaks (and Assange). But even with that in mind his actions made him a traitor and now he can rot in jail. He should probably consider himself lucky that he wasn't executed and only got 35 years in jail.

Snowden is more like Assange then Manning in that part. He is a traitor for handing over large amounts of classified information which he was not supposed to have access to. That he believes that his cause was good is irrelevant. He is going to be stuck in Russia until he wants to come home and face justice. Lots of spies that escaped to Russia during the cold war found out the hard way that it wasn't all that fun and eventually they wanted to come home. If he had really wanted to do what he claimed he wanted he sure went about it all wrong. He didn't have to leak all the documents he did, or made the journalists do for him. Most of them are not even relevant to his mission or goal, unless it was infact a different one from which he claimed. For having planed what he did for quite some time he sure did fuck it up fast.

The common theme between these three is that they all royal fucked up their lives for some misguided belief in what they though was good and right. The world didn't become a better place in any regard. The sad thing is how they will eventually figure out how insignificant they are in the grand scheme of things and their actions amounted to nothing. Manning probably most of all, but then he is the only one that had the balls (even tho they might be gone now) to face justice for what he did.

They are not villains, ok Assange might be one -- he is almost like one of them '60 Batman villains. They are traitors, or at least Manning and Snowden are.

[Wildtree]

Snowden .....He is a traitor for handing over large amounts of classified information which he was not supposed to have access to.

That's factually twisted
He was supposed to have access, and did have it.... he didn't hack into any system. He was a system administrator with full access to all this information.
He handed over classified information according to legal protocol applicable for whistle blowing.
You are only a traitor when you give information to a foreign source. He didn't.
He handed over some information to an American Journalist. The information was made public by an American news source.
The misconception comes from the fact that the news source was the Guardian. Which is, a UK based newspaper..
But, he wasn't dealing with the Guardian UK, he dealt with an American, working for the Guardian US.

Maybe watch the documentaries about Snowdon, and learn the small but significant fact differences.

[Kalis]

That's factually twisted
He was supposed to have access, and did have it.... he didn't hack into any system. He was a system administrator with full access to all this information.
He handed over classified information according to legal protocol applicable for whistle blowing.
You are only a traitor when you give information to a foreign source. He didn't.
He handed over some information to an American Journalist. The information was made public by an American news source.
The misconception comes from the fact that the news source was the Guardian. Which is, a UK based newspaper..
But, he wasn't dealing with the Guardian UK, he dealt with an American, working for the Guardian US.

Maybe watch the documentaries about Snowdon, and learn the small but significant fact differences.

Use of the word "traitor" is a strange one in the US, as their most revered figures in history were traitors - their Founding Fathers.

I wouldn't classify Snowden as a traitor, noble but naive and somewhat reckless is more accurate, he broke the law but did it for the right reasons and could/should have taken more care about the information taken, or at least that which he made available for publishing.

[Tydrane]

I don't think such binary titles are appropriate for any of the above.

I can't think of that rat-faced shitstain, Assange, while hiding out in a foreign embassy in the UK to avoid due process in relation to sexual assault charges as either a hero or a villain. All I see is scum.

[Deleted]

You know, you could make - and I strongly disagree with it but I certainly understand the perspective - argument for Edward Snowden being a "whistle-blower" and a hero. It requires ignoring the fact that actual US spying on US Citizens constitutes the tinniest minority of his leak and that most of the leak is related to Western (not even just American) security and spying on Russia, China and Terrorists. It requires ignoring a tremendous amount of Edward Snowden's backstory and him and his co-conspirator's political motivations. It requires forgetting that things like US contingency prepositioning locations and how the US electronically spies on China was leaked. If despite all of this you ignore and you only care about the NSA spying on Americans, you could make an argument (again one I disagree with) that Edward Snowden is a heroic whistleblower.

'Murica spies on everybody else and gets caught red handed: Everybody spies on everybody

Another country spies on 'Murica and gets caught red handed: "U wut m8? How dare u spy on da land of da free, imma bomb you to last week! 'Murica!"

[Deleted]

I don't think such binary titles are appropriate for any of the above.

I can't think of that rat-faced shitstain, Assange, while hiding out in a foreign embassy in the UK to avoid due process in relation to sexual assault charges as either a hero or a villain. All I see is scum.

"Scum" sounds pretty binary to me.

Not a lot of grey in that word.

[Wildtree]

Use of the word "traitor" is a strange one in the US, as their most revered figures in history were traitors - their Founding Fathers.

I wouldn't classify Snowden as a traitor, noble but naive and somewhat reckless is more accurate, he broke the law but did it for the right reasons and could/should have taken more care about the information taken, or at least that which he made available for publishing.

It certainly wasn't the politically smartest move to make this whole thing with the Guardian, which is just a US branch of the UK company.
There would have been enough US companies for that matter. Washington Post, New York Times, you name it.

[looorg]

That's factually twisted
He was supposed to have access, and did have it.... he didn't hack into any system. He was a system administrator with full access to all this information.
He handed over classified information according to legal protocol applicable for whistle blowing.
You are only a traitor when you give information to a foreign source. He didn't.
He handed over some information to an American Journalist. The information was made public by an American news source.
The misconception comes from the fact that the news source was the Guardian. Which is, a UK based newspaper..
But, he wasn't dealing with the Guardian UK, he dealt with an American, working for the Guardian US.

Maybe watch the documentaries about Snowdon, and learn the small but significant fact differences.

I disagree. I don't dispute he was a systems administrator and he had access to the information, but his access to the documents was not for him to copy and bring out of the facility or network and do with as he pleased. His access was so he could service the computer systems and help analysts and other intelligence operatives to do their job. Not to spread and disseminate as he and his journalist friends saw fit.

Handing them over the Greenwald changes nothing, if the documents had stopped there you might have had a point or leg to stand on but it didn't since what he did was to facilitate a global spread of classified information. The Guardian US is just a subsidiary of the Guardian Media Group which is British, which in turn makes it a foreign source. That he handed it off to their US office as a defense for not being a traitor is ludicrous.

I have seen most of the documentaries about Snowden there is by now, I have read a massive amount of the leaked documents to. Most of the articles and "documentaries" these days more about glorifying him as a person then dealing with what he actually did.

[Kalis]

It certainly wasn't the politically smartest move to make this whole thing with the Guardian, which is just a US branch of the UK company.
There would have been enough US companies for that matter. Washington Post, New York Times, you name it.

As far as I can tell, it was the particular journalist he was interested in, not their employer and that's actually the correct way of doing it...in theory.

In practice you're right, he shouldn't have gone to the Grauniad, that somewhat backs up my statement about him being naive, though that isn't what I was alluding to.

[Zecora]

My question from all this is simple:

Whistleblowers like Assange, Manning and Snowden:
- who put transparency and truth above the safety of people and soldiers,
- who risk their own lives to expose things that perhaps the public is not ready for,
- who make their own decisions as to what is right and wrong and betray their governments to do so,
are they heroes -- or villains?

Heroes. There is really no question about that, and if you cannot see it, you're part of the reason why we need heroes like them.