Criminality vs. Civil Disobedience; Snowden should surrender

Criminality vs. Civil Disobedience; Snowden should surrender

By Karl Spain

Since it is a well-established crime to disclose information obtained from the government; after signing an oath of confidentiality, Edward Snowden is a self-admitted criminal. There is a loophole however, that is also just as well established in the American legal system.

Crimes committed as an act of civil disobedience, in the interest of the greater good, are not only excused, they are generally celebrated, although this almost always comes – until many years later. Has Mr. Snowden has committed treason, or has he committed an act of civil disobedience?

Civil disobedience has three components, of which non-violence, is the most important. This doesn’t mean the act cannot affect people, or even that it mustn’t inconvenience or delay them. Some of the best acts of civil disobedience are targeted at making trains, buses, public areas, either impeded or delayed. But the person responsible for the design of the act must be careful; that is does not hurt or kill others, or is likely to lead to those results. Snowden gets a passing grade here, he clearly thinks the existence of these massive new data sets are a greater threat to life and limb of the average American, than the statistically infinitesimally small risk that you will die from terrorism.

If he is right and they are building a fully relational database with everything about your life in it, than he is completely correct about this. The existence of such a database, anywhere, is hundreds of times more likely to get you killed, suppressed or stripped of your liberties, than terrorism is, any year of our countries existence, including 2001.

Sacrifice is the second component of civil disobedience. Not only must the act not enrich or benefit the person committing it (in which case it’s just good old fashioned crime), it must be accompanied by a sacrifice, like getting arrested (or the threat of arrest), not eating, lose of a job, a social position, etc. Just because somebody doesn’t agree with you, or society, doesn’t give him or her the right to delay the buses or break their oaths of secrecy. Those things are a crime for a reason. But if they’re willing to get arrested, just to make a point, sometimes that point needs to be more loudly heard.

And when the American people hear, sometimes they listen. Rosa Parks tried not to give up her seat on that famous bus ride — over a decade before the actual bus boycott — but that first time, nobody listened. On this second critical component, Snowden gets a failing grade. He damaged his dissent by eliminating the step where he sacrifices. If he had chained himself to the Statute of Liberty the day after his disclosures in The Guardian and The Washington Post; he might have gotten his own statute there one day. His argument that he sacrificed by giving up his cushy life with his girlfriend in Hawaii is weak. Although he may see that true sacrifice, he fled to avoid jail time, and jail time is sacrifice.

This is also why he failed in the third element of civil disobedience, notification. Civil disobedience must be declared. Nobody changes the American legal system, for the better, in the dead of the night. Admittedly, it’ s hard to declare when bound by an oath of secrecy, but since he was obviously prepared to disregard that oath anyway, he could have declared, and should have.

The fact the U.S spies on foreign governments, including our allies (and that they return the favor) is well known. Obama and Snowden have both made this point. Snowden’s revelations on this other point went to our methods for doing so however, and that data should have remained classified. Even Russian President Putin feels this way. Snowden really hurt himself here as well. He needs to surrender to the U.S. government, make the sacrifice, and hope his very important points about the danger of these huge data sets, is listened too, by the American people.

Karl Spain is the former president and publisher of The Journal Newspapers.