
Snowden a 'traitor': Andreessen - kjhughes
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101733893
======
tptacek
I would not under almost any circumstances, including the revelation that he
was working directly with the FSB† when he decided what to leak, use the word
"traitor" to describe a national security leaker. In addition to being
inaccurate, the word sucks all the oxygen out of the room and makes it
impossible to have a dispassionate discussion about what happened.

But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing††, this
story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles.
The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of
people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but
people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that.

Finally, regardless of how I feel about Snowden, I agree (for once) with the
consensus opinion of the HN thread that if there's economic blowback to the
revelations, it's hard to pin that on Snowden. The only way I could see that
being valid is if Snowden made up his own facts and was then taken seriously.
Some of Snowden's claims (and some of Greenwald's) strain credibility, but the
most outlandish claims seem to have been widely dismissed by now.

† _Which I doubt_ a lot _; it 's too interesting, and the most boring
narrative always wins._

†† _You 're not required to get around it; you might believe in a corollary to
"bad facts make bad law" and think that continuing a discussion that has
already been poisoned is a waste of time._

~~~
nabla9
I'm an European and treason and espionage are political crimes (they not
against universal ethics in any way). If Snowden is a traitor, then he spied
on my behalf against U.S. government. For me and many other citizens of so
called free word he is a hero. He should get a medal.

In U.S. media the discussion centers around Americans being spied and if that
is illegal. As a non-American, I see U.S. UK and other mass surveillance
countries as constantly attacking me personally. As more and more people feel
the same way, it will eventually have real consequences to U.S. interests. It
might take generation or two, but it will happen. Why would U.S. want to make
new enemies?

First world countries are very interdependent on each other and this kind of
attacking harms us all. Even in the cynical machtpolitik world view this can
be seen as shortsighted strategy.

~~~
tptacek
I'm not a good person to argue with about Snowden's status as a traitor or a
spy, because I don't think he is one either.

As for the rest of your comment: I find it frustrating the extent to which
Europeans seem to believe that their own governments aren't spying on them.
Obviously, people in the UK have the weakest argument here (there's an
argument that the UK's SIGINT programs are even more aggressive than those of
the NSA), but the arguments for, say, Germany and France aren't that much
stronger.

 _(Also: If there 's a SIGINT conspiracy theory I do buy into, it's that every
modern country in the world is culpable for SIGINT, because they leverage
their partners for access to SIGINT that they cannot lawfully generate
themselves, on a quid-pro-quo basis.)_

You see this manifest itself all the time with supposed privacy startups
launching from the "safe confines" of Switzerland, a government that has a
track record of cooperation with SIGINT.

An assertion I believe to be true that would I think be helpful if more people
understood: NSA surveillance --- however unwise much of it is, and I think
there's a lot of unwise and unlawful stuff happening --- is not a secret
effort to create a New World Order headed by the NSA. It's a means to an
objective shared by most (if not all) of Europe. European companies don't
cooperate with NSA because they're afraid of NSA; they cooperate because they
have shared interests --- both in security (terrorists are a greater threat to
Europe than to the US) and politically (China and Russia have as much if not
more influence over the economies and geopolitical status of Europe as they do
to the US).

~~~
sentenza
As a German, I must disagree. It might seem that the situation with the German
intelligence services is as bad as, for instance in France, but on closer
observation, this is not true. There are multiple reasons:

1\. Our intelligence agencies are not quite as accepted as those in
France/UK/US. The general public has an unfavorable view, mostly due to
history, but also due to more recent scandals. Mainstream newspapers are not
afraid to create bad publicity for those services, unlike in most other
countries.

2\. There is currently a parliamentary investigation into the NSA scandal. Our
government, which is complicit _and_ ideologically accepting of NSA spying is
doing its best to drag its feet, but it still moves ahead. So far, it already
has started raking up dirt on our own intelligence agencies.

3\. Thirty years ago, Germany had two foreign intelligence services. One
world-class service that had few rivals, ruthless and efficient, and one
mediocre service, staffed by former Nazis. The mediocre service was the one of
West Germany and is thus the one still in operation today. There are people in
Germany today (some even in the parliament) that advocate the abolishment of
our intelligence services on the grounds that they are an ineffective waste of
money. I doubt that they will be completely abolished, even if the scandals
here in Germany pile up higher, but it is not unlikely that they may have to
face radical reform quite soon.

You are right that many people over here, especially within the startup scene,
delude themselves about what our own services are doing. However, the average
German techie has a relatively high chance of being educated on the true
extent of the spying, because the CCC is reaching out in all directions to
educate people, and is rather successful at that.

Because let's be honest. Most of us don't take the time to gather and mentally
put in order all of the spy-scandal bits that have been published so far. We
need some pre-digestion of the data and the CCC is doing that for us Germans.
By now, even the German parliament is often inviting people from the CCC to
explain the implications of cryptography and other technologies in
parliamentary comittees.

EDIT: After re-reading my comment, I must say that it sounds a bit too much
like "Hurrah for Germany". Objectively speaking, the German reaction to the
spying scandal is rather subdued and our parliamentary control of intelligence
services is laughable. It's just that the situation is worse in all other
countries.

~~~
tptacek
When you say "CCC", you mean Chaos, right?

If you want to assert that among all the major western governments, Germany is
among the best when it comes to data privacy, and is leagues better than the
US, I'll agree.

Where we run into friction is when we try to extend that into saying that the
German government is categorically less culpable for SIGINT than the USG. I do
not believe that; in particular, I think "jurisdictional arbitrage" (if I
might coin a term) profoundly implicates all the governments of Europe (and
Russia as well).

It's hard to argue that a country isn't culpable for some other country's
SIGINT when they are themselves a customer of that SIGINT.

------
atonse
Andreessen says he's surprised that people are surprised.

That's because even if you did follow the NSA, you assumed they spied on
foreign government officials, "bad guys," not _everyone_. That's the source of
the surprise. I don't know anyone who's surprised that the NSA spies on, or
hacks into foreign government agencies.

Another thing is the wording - Andreessen says Snowden's a traitor by the
basic definition, in which he stole national secrets and gave them to our
enemies. That is a consequence of his disclosures. But this information was
hidden from the American taxpayer (which is also easy to justify because we
all don't have security clearances), but more egregiously, the information was
hidden from Congressional Committees that actually have direct OVERSIGHT. And
they have security clearances, so what's your excuse then?

So sure, the Russians and Chinese governments now know what the NSA is up to.
But that was their full time job to find out and they are probably hardly
surprised.

But thankfully, even Congress and the American public know exactly where our
taxes are going. And we really aren't the enemy of the NSA.

What we ask our representatives to do with this information will say it all.

~~~
wpietri
> Andreessen says Snowden's a traitor by the basic definition, in which he
> stole national secrets and gave them to our enemies.

Ugh. That's ridiculous. The basic definition of a traitor is somebody who
betrays.

Snowden didn't give the secrets to enemies: he gave them to journalists, the
informational representatives of the general public. Saying that because of
that he's a traitor is like saying people who work at Mozilla are traitors
because they're giving software to Al Qaeda and Boko Haram. Sure, it _also_
goes to those people, because open source software goes to everybody.

From what I've read about Snowden, he's definitely not a traitor, in that he
seems to have felt that his oath and his allegiance to America required him to
alert the citizenry to other people betraying America by creating an enormous,
unconstitutional surveillance apparatus. I'm entirely ok with people saying
he's wrong, or saying that he's a fool. But calling him a traitor strikes me
as either hysterical or manipulative, and I'm sad to see that coming from
Andreessen, as I have a lot of respect for his other work.

~~~
danielweber
If I give secret information to Bob, and Bob gives it to the enemy, that could
land me on the hook for giving it to the enemy. Bob may not be at fault,
either, since I'm the one that signed the secret clearance agreement with the
government, not him.

I think this is all besides the point, though. Unless I'm missing something
big, Snowden's crimes are all conditions of his having a security clearance.

~~~
chris_mahan
The terms of his security clearance cannot be allowed to nullify his oath to
protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States, can they?

------
billyhoffman
I find it odd that Andreessen seemed most upset about effects the disclosures
have had on "U.S. technology firms' ability to sell their products overseas,"
and yet he talks about Snowden.

Andreessen's anger is entirely misplaced and should be directed at the NSA.
They are the ones that are intercepting American technology products, like
Cisco routers, and modifying them before shipping them overseas. All without
(as far as we know) the knowledge or consent of the companies that make the
products.

All American technology products are now suspect, in ways they never have been
perceived in the past. Not because of the NSA spying on foreign countries, or
collecting domestic meta data. But because the NSA is now tampering with
American technology products and companies.

The tarnishing of American business has nothing to do with Snowden.

~~~
mindslight
> _I find it odd that Andreessen seemed most upset about effects the
> disclosures have had_

Why? Silicon Valley VCs know exactly what they are building - massive
repositories of user information to datamine for the highest bidders.

The NSA does not require exclusive use, is independently funding datamining
research, and has subpoenas - so they are a natural early client.

These facts have been plain as day to anybody who thinks about the
implications of their technology choices. Most don't, so the services become
widely adopted and even quite hip (unfortunately).

Snowden comes along and ignites the media in a way that Binney and Klein
hadn't, just as the pendulum is starting to naturally swing towards
decentralization. It is now in the public consciousness that perhaps these
companies are not to be blindly trusted with the contents of your life.

Of course Andreessen is pissed. The entire business model of modern SV has
been illustrated.

~~~
angersock
Well put!

I'm sadly surprised that there are still so many people willing to work on
these things. :(

------
vidarh
And there went any shred of respect I might have had for Andreessen.

Not just because of his characterisation of Snowden, but because he's clearly
more annoyed at the economic cost of the revelations to Silicon Valley
businesses than about the contents of the revelations, which says a lot about
his world view.

~~~
spinlock
Andreesen and I have the same perspective that Snowden's leak was definitely
not a "revelation." We both already assumed the NSA was spying because it's a
spy organization. So, without any benefit, the only affect of Snowden's leaks
are harmful to the US.

I took a venture capital class at Berkeley where I got to meet government
groups from Russia, China, Poland (and a few others that escape me right now).
They all shared a common goal of learning how Silicon Valley works so they can
setup their own technology hubs in their home countries. Right now, Silicon
Valley is a magnet for the best and the brightest in the world. Why wouldn't
you be concerned that we're loosing that edge for no benefit?

~~~
rsync
No, there was a clear benefit from some of the revelations that were not
commonly assumed pre-snowden.

You're telling me that, pre-snowden, you assumed that governments were
inserting moles into open-standards processes and working to weaken ciphers ?

Or, pre-snowden, you assumed that they were intercepting cisco shipments to
alter network gear ?

Or, pre-snowden, you assumed that on-chip crypto functions from Intel and VIA
were intentionally flawed ?[1]

I mean, I think we all thought in terms of traffic intercept and the worst-
case scenario of a "global observer" ... but I know I for one was very
complacent about how protected my SSL and SSH traffic was.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/we-cannot-trust-
inte...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/we-cannot-trust-intel-and-
vias-chip-based-crypto-freebsd-developers-say/)

~~~
spinlock
>You're telling me that, pre-snowden, you assumed that governments were
inserting moles into open-standards processes and working to weaken ciphers ?

Yes. The first conversation I had about this was in the 90s

>Or, pre-snowden, you assumed that they were intercepting cisco shipments to
alter network gear ?

Yes. I know the TSA goes through my luggage when I fly, why wouldn't the NSA
go through my mail? Intercepting physical communications/packages has
literally been going on for thousands of years.

>Or, pre-snowden, you assumed that on-chip crypto functions from Intel and VIA
were intentionally flawed ?

Hadn't thought of that but it's really not a revelation. We do know that when
companies are contacted by the NSA, they are barred from even acknowledging
that they were contacted. Again, the first conversation I had about the NSA
inserting back doors into consumer technology was in the 90s. This is a novel
approach but the general modus operandi is expected.

I think most people just don't appreciate what the NSA is. This is the
organization that invented public key cryptography a decade before Ron Rivest
and didn't publish the results. It wouldn't surprise me if they had made large
advances in quantum cryptography that let them crack any cipher based on
finite fields. I can imagine that all of this conventional spying is just a
red herring to distract from much more insidious capabilities.

I can imagine their capabilities extend beyond computer networks to the power
grid...

The point is that we funnel huge sums of money into an organization that hires
the best and the brightest to spy on us. Why would you assume they aren't
doing that well?

But, at the end of the day, I just look at the Snowden "revelations" as
another Bengahzi or Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The political opposition will use it
as a tool to further their interests but no one really cares. No domestic
representative is going to cut funding to the NSA and no foreign government is
going to act any differently when it comes to their security. They will get on
the news and make a lot of noise as they use this as political cover to
advance whatever ax they have to grind. But, I can't imagine them actually
caring that the NSA spies on US citizens.

------
mindcrime
I think Andreesen's anger is misplaced. He should be railing against the NSA
for what they were _doing_ , not against Snowden for simply revealing it, vis-
a-vis the harm being done to US companies.

I also think Andreesen is dead-wrong to call Snowden a traitor. One of _the_
most essential principles of having a free and open society is having a
government which is transparent, and which is accountable to We The People.
Many of the things our government has done, and is doing, belong in the
playbooks of 3rd world dictatorial regimes, or totalitarian governments like
WWII era Germany, or Soviet era Russia, etc.

Secret laws? Secret courts? Secret legal interpretations? National Security
Letters (something that acts like a warrant but isn't a warrant)?? Government
agencies that spy on pretty much everybody in the world? Agency officials who
are apparently allowed to lie to Congress with impunity???

And he thinks _Snowden_ is the problem? Get real...

------
justin_vanw
His reasons for saying Snowden is a traitor boils down to "it's harder to sell
stuff overseas now" which boils down to "I'm making less money because of him,
therefore I don't like what he did, therefore I choose disapproving label from
choices of "Hero" and "Traitor"."

He even spells out that logic in his comment. At least he's transparent about
where his priorities are:

Andreessen's Morality Flow Chart: 1\. Does it make me more money (-> good) or
less money (-> bad)?

~~~
trhway
yep, absolutely not a surprising reaction if one looks at just visible
connections between top VCs and other elite here in the Valley and In-Q-Tel,
Palantir, etc... (and if one looks at the amount of invisible ones... Valley
has always been doing a lot for Military Industrial and these days it is
Intelligence Industrial Complex - don't get me wrong, i'm really grateful for
the Valley existence as the greatest technological R&D center :)

~~~
justin_vanw
I actually find it very refreshing that he is so up front about it, and he's
absolutely right that the programs that Snowden revealed have been more or
less an open secret for many years.

Probably we have to consider that he was saying this on CNBC, which is a
financial news channel, and in that context he had to represent his interests,
which include all the people who's money he is managing. I suspect in another
context his views on this would be far more nuanced.

------
cottonseed
I'm not sure why we care what Andreessen thinks. I wish I had a downvote.

Second, he seems to be saying Snowden is a traitor because his revelations are
hurting the US tech industry. I can see why that would make Andreessen feel
betrayed, but that is hardly the definition of traitor.

Third, as others have said, nobody was surprised the NSA is spying. We're
surprised it is conducting pervasive electronic surveillance in the US.
(Personally, I'm horrified although not surprised by the scope of the spying
outside the US. I would strongly support extending privacy protections to
everyone, as unrealistic as that idea is.)

Finally, if we're going to get definitional, Snowden is certainly a traitor.
He clearly broke the law, betrayed the trust placed in him and it seems very
likely he would be convicted of treason. However, I also think he did the
right thing for the right reasons.

~~~
warmfuzzykitten
If we're going to get "definitional," Snowden is not a traitor. "Treason
against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or
in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Setting aside for
the moment the definition of "Enemies" \- a notion that is usually reserved
for wartime - it is difficult to see how Snowden's revelations gave comfort to
anyone, and aid only in the sense of "Oh, and by the way, we're reading your
emails and listening to your phone calls," which any sane "enemy" already
suspected. Witness the precautions the Osama bin Laden camp took to never let
any electronic communication originate from their hiding place in Pakistan.

Snowden violated his contract with the NSA and broke the law, but neither of
these amounts to treason.

------
grifpete
I'm disappointed in Andreessen. It appears that a major part of his concern is
the damage done to US firms trying to do business abroad. This damage,
apparently, completely outweighs and potential damage to our liberties
occasioned by trampling on rights that we won by painful and bloody struggles.

~~~
api
This is a really odious quote, especially if you read carefully. He says Obama
is doing too little to counter the _perception_. In other words it's okay if
you break the law, violate the constitution, and create enormous opportunities
for institutional corruption as long as the perception remains intact and you
don't get caught.

~~~
leorocky
Does he honestly mean he doesn't want perception to reflect reality?

~~~
corford
I doubt very much he wants perception to reflect reality. He's a VC.

------
warrenmiller
It's not Snowden who's harmed US business by exposing the spying, it's the NSA
who did the spying.

~~~
wpietri
Absolutely this.

Right now I'm reading a brilliant book on domestic abuse [1], and it talks
about how abusers create double binds. E.g., family is supposed to go to a
birthday party, but at the last minute the abusive dad blows up at something
the mom says and refuses to let anybody go until she apologizes. The kids
pressure mom to give a false apology so they can go. If she doesn't, she's the
one who ruined the outing, not dad. If she does, she confirms that she's the
problem, and later the kids are upset when she doesn't stick up for them.
Meanwhile, the dad's tantrum is entirely out of scope of discussion, as is the
repeated pattern of behavior.

The governmental theory that they could try to hoover up every detail of every
digital interaction and never get found out was always insane. It wasn't a
question of _if_ that would come out, it was when. I find it hard to believe
nobody internally asked that, but either way they are the ones to blame for
the consequences, not Snowden.

[1] Lundy Bancroft's "Why Does He Do That?", [http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-
He-That-Controlling/dp/042519...](http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-
Controlling/dp/0425191656). It's the single most astute thing I've read. It's
one of those books where it's nominally about a relatively narrow topic, but I
keep saying, "Well, this explains X! And _that_ explains Y!" If anybody would
like a copy, email me; it's good enough I want everybody to have read it.

------
cryoshon
"The Snowden reveals keep coming out. The [Obama] administration is letting
the NSA out to dry. They're letting the American tech industry out to dry,"
Andreessen said.

Obama could hardly be construed as letting the NSA out to dry. If anything,
Obama has gone on record as having the NSA's back and making sure that they
are protected from the consequences of their wrongdoing. Obama's pro-NSA
actions are in stark contrast to his pre-election discourses on this topic.
You'd think that he would love the opportunity to make good on one of his
campaign promises rather than double down on the opposite as he's chosen to.

~~~
chc
Andreessen's complaints about hurting the tech industry probably wouldn't
exist if Obama had thrown the NSA under the bus. The reason American companies
are getting blowback is because of how unrepentant the government appears.

------
mullingitover
It's really helpful when people stand up and identitfy themselves as being
enthusiastic members of 'Team Police State' without having to drag it out of
them. There are definitely traitors to the cause of freedom in this whole
affair, but Snowden is far from being one.

------
jgon
This is now the bog standard reply of the closet fascists who support the NSA
and their rampant spying. They've had to switch to this response because their
previous response "You're just being paranoid", has been utterly blown apart
by the Snowden revelations and thank god for that.

Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of
whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in
our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the
conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and
there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely
dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now
let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue."

I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same
closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works"
persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the
NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they
were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of
evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary"
action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking
about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents
from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China.

At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the
table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid
imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly.

------
logfromblammo
People like to punish the messenger bearing bad news, for some bizarre reason.

American tech companies were injured from the moment the NSA decided to
weaponize them. The secrecy only served to stop the damage from being repaired
until it was a giant, gaping would that requires major surgery. What Snowden
did was essentially stop the morphine drips, rip off the bandages, and say,
"hey, this looks infected."

And the patient blames him for the injury.

All the while, the NSA continues to smear a mixture of poop and lidocaine on
their bullets, firing into the air indiscriminately from an armored bunker.
They are still doing it. Right now.

This is the same sort of damage the CIA caused when they used a vaccination
program as cover for locating Osama bin Laden. And now polio is back in
Pakistan, infectiously crippling people. The CIA at least had the decency to
apologize for that one, and promise to not do that in the future.

I'm sure the doctors, journalists, and merchandise-shippers of the world are
willing to take them at their word. Really. I bet they really mean it this
time.

In reality, these people never consider the non-obvious consequences of their
actions. They aren't paid to question the strategy, only to complete the
mission at hand.

------
scelerat
I am not surprised that the NSA is spying on US citizens. I am angry.

The "I can't believe people are surprised..." trope is dismissive and
condescending.

~~~
Gracana
Mhmm. "Outrage does not equal surprise" is a phrase I remember reading in
comments on a Skepchick blog post once, and I thought it was a very good way
to put it. I wish it was a more widely-understood concept.

~~~
higherpurpose
I remember reading a lot of Reddit comments initially like "are you surprised
they're doing this?", and I agree they are condescending, because people
saying that usually want to:

1) show how smart they are, because they _already knew that_ , and perhaps you
didn't

2) try to imply that it's "no big deal", since it's _been happening_ for some
time, and supposedly because of that you shouldn't be angry about it _now_.

I disagree with both views, because:

1) _most_ people weren't in fact aware that the NSA was spying on _every
single person on the planet_ , guilty of something or not, and also most
people (or rather security engineers) weren't aware that NSA is trying to
_actively_ attack US companies in order to spy on their users, and even tap
the Internet cables to get all plaintext data.

2) most of this stuff has been happening under _secrecy_ (it is a spy agency
after all), so just because it's been happening under secrecy for decades,
doesn't mean we shouldn't be _outraged_ that we find out about it only now. If
anything we should be _more_ outraged, because it's been happening for so
long, without the population being aware of it, and giving their consent for
it (especially on the part about even innocents being spied upon to "catch the
terrorists" \- which is already proven to _not be_ the only reason NSA spies
on everyone)

------
declan
Marc Andreessen is a smart fellow who doesn't mind saying controversial
things; I often find myself agreeing with him. But I wonder here if he saying
something controversial for the sake of the controversy.

I especially wonder if Marc has thought through the implications of his
"textbook traitor" line. Let's say he's right that Edward Snowden violated the
Espionage Act, which is what I take his comments to mean (the definition of
"treason" is "levies war against them or adheres to their enemies," which is
arguable at best). 18 USC 798 makes it a felony for anyone to "publish" or
"make available" any "classified information" relating to:

\- the "nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic
system of the United States or any foreign government" OR

\- or "concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United
States or any foreign government" OR

\- "obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the
communications of any foreign government"
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798))

Those are Boolean OR statements above; you only need to hit one to have an
all-expense paid trip to Club Fed. Snowden hit all three!

But if Snowden violated the Espionage Act, then didn't the small number of
reporters he gave the NSA docs to? And the larger number of reporters who
reproduced them? And anyone forwarding a Glenn Greenwald article with embedded
PDFs? And sites like HN that "make available" classified documents by allowing
links to the docs to be posted here?

~~~
mpyne
> But if Snowden violated the Espionage Act, then didn't the small number of
> reporters he gave the NSA docs to? And the larger number of reporters who
> reproduced them? And anyone forwarding a Glenn Greenwald article with
> embedded PDFs? And sites like HN that "make available" classified documents
> by allowing links to the docs to be posted here?

Prosecutorial discretion is still a thing, even if "common sense" has
disappeared.

Nor has competing interests gone away; there is a natural tension for the
American government in maintaining freedom of the press while enforcing the
law which would (and should!) act to make the question of suing the NYT, WaPo,
etc. not as easy as you make it sound. But for Snowden there is no such
dilemma. On the contrary, he even explicitly promised he would not do what he
did, something the press has never guaranteed.

Either way, surely you're not trying to claim that there are not gradations in
severity, or that the law (even as it stands today) should or does treat
crimes apart from their severity. Even our drug laws, abusive as they are,
understand the concept of possession of large amounts or small amounts of a
given drug, severity categories, etc.

Hell, even murder and rape carry different charges for different levels of the
crime, so I'm disappointed that you'd try to undermine the logic of a law
against espionage by such shoddy reasoning.

If Carmen Ortiz declines to charge the HN webteam with espionage it says
nothing about the logic of charging Snowden with the same.

~~~
declan
> act to make the question of suing the NYT, WaPo, etc. not as easy as you
> make it sound

No, not "suing" the NYT, WashPost, etc. The Espionage Act is armed with felony
criminal sanctions. The nuclear option would be for FedGov to _indict_ the
news organization, do no-knock raids on the homes of their reporters and
editors involved in the story, seize computers (ala GCHQ), etc. The reason
FedGov has not is left as an exercise to the reader.

But more broadly, you're attributing views to me I do not hold. I wrote about
the Espionage Act at some length here -- this may set you straight (I don't
have time or the inclination to do it here):
[http://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-could-be-vulnerable-to-
es...](http://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-could-be-vulnerable-to-espionage-
act/)

~~~
mpyne
> The reason FedGov has not is left as an exercise to the reader.

There's no exercise at all: They'd get pilloried for it in the very same
media, on top of what I already mentioned regarding the tension around
facilitating a mostly free press. I mean, even the Guardian's editors noted
that they preferred working on the Snowden leaks from their New York office
rather than their London office. That wasn't an accidental or hasty decision.

Your article is very informative, actually. And to your great credit, I'm not
actually sure what specific views you hold after reading it, other than an
apparent opposition to the Espionage Act. Some of the points brought up appear
to be in the sense of "look how ridiculous this is", but I don't agree with
the ridiculousness at all.

E.g. the intent of someone doing the spying shouldn't any bearing on whether
someone is guilty under Espionage Act or not; either your spying could have
hurt the nation (for some definition of "hurt") or it couldn't. Intent would
certainly have bearing into the severity of a sentence, and we could even
envision having entirely separate charges for different categories of harm
(just as we split murder into attempted murder, manslaughter, premeditated
murder, etc.), but whether you spied or not is effectively a binary question
at the end, and that very well _should_ possibly extend all the way up a
felony.

Maybe your point is that we need to revisit the law as it stands to have those
separate categories of harm instead of what amounts to a giant "reasonable
man" test, and I wouldn't oppose that. But the law is in many ways demand-
paged; it only gets changed in response to obvious miscarriages of justice,
and I'm not sure that _all_ possible prosecutions of Assange under the
Espionage Act would represent that. He's not a journalist and he's certainly
_trying_ to harm the USG (and thereby, the US people) so it's not as if such a
prosecution would be obviously mistaken.

~~~
declan
> There's no exercise at all: They'd get pilloried for it in the very same
> media

Unfortunately you only get a C+ on this exercise. :)

The short answer is that portions of the Espionage Act likely violate the
First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech if the EA were used to
prosecute journalists who obtained the materials over the transom. (Whether
this applies to Wikileaks is a different story. Different facts.)

The slightly more detailed answer is that the modern jurisprudence relating to
the First Amendment is far more speech-protective than it was when the EA was
codified a century ago. And DOJ doesn't want to risk having parts of the EA
declared unconstitutional. So Glenn Greenwald and other reporters were
(properly) not indicted for violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it a
federal felony to publish classified NSA SIGINT or cryptographic material.

------
cbtacy
The good news is that there are tons of VCs out there who are really good and
are well aligned with our opinions and interests. There is absolutely no need
to talk to these guys much less take money from them.

~~~
ardit33
Yep. A shark will always remain a shark.

------
imgabe
Hurting interests of US owned companies = treason?

I mean, yeah we're all operating on the assumption that the government is more
or less run by business, but it's still gauche to just come right out and say
it like that.

~~~
josho
Sadly, if you study American history you will find several examples* where
hurting US interests has led to CIA led government overthrows.

*See the book Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer for an interesting read.

------
Htsthbjig
If you look at Andersen at the video, he is angry.

He is angry because he could lose money because of Snowden. He talks about
other countries in the world as envious. But a lot of the capital of the US
comes from outside US.

The people outside of the US get angry too if they are considered
"adversaries" and start doing illegal things to favor US business.

That simply backfires. Most of the people outside the US has not problems with
the NSA catching terrorists, but have huge problems with the NSA robbing them
(industrial spying)blind.

This is like cheating on your partner and then getting angry with the person
that tells your partner about it.

I was already telling people not to trust the cloud or American companies
before Snowden, I though that if they could abuse, they will, obvious for
smart people like me, a minority of the population. The difference is that now
the people I talk to actually listen to me.

------
protomyth
"For me obviously he's a traitor," Andreessen said. "If you look up in the
encyclopedia 'traitor' there's a picture of Ed Snowden."

For a US Citizen the actual definition of treason is:

    
    
      Treason against the United States, shall consist 
      only in levying War against them, or in adhering
      to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. 
      No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless 
      on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same 
      overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
    
      The Congress shall have Power to declare the 
      Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason 
      shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except 
      during the Life of the Person attainted.
    

It might be a tad bit hard to convict him under that definition.

The fact that it has hurt overseas business is a function of the government
policy and not the leaker. Snowden wasn't the first at the NSA to blow the
whistle, and given what happened the first time, I'm not sure what other
course of action people expected.

------
declan
I posted a five-part response on Twitter to Marc A, which he just retweeted
(it doesn't mean he agrees with me, of course, but at least is a signal that
he read it):

[https://twitter.com/declanm/](https://twitter.com/declanm/)

I think @pmarca is right in that many technologists suspected the scope of
#NSA surveillance pre-Snowden (I’ve made the same point). 1/5

And @pmarca is also correct that early #PRISM reporting was spectacularly
wrong (despite my efforts at the time to correct the facts) 2/5

But original documents matter, especially for legal challenges to warrantless
bulk surveillance of Americans’ phone records. 3/5 @pmarca

And Snowden’s acts don’t amount to treason, which is the one crime defined in
Constitution. Don't fit definition. Shouldn’t. 4/5 @pmarca

Snowden DID violate the #Espionage Act’s prohibition on “publish[ing]”
classified SIGINT docs. But so did hundreds of reporters. 5/5 @pmarca

Not only reporters. All you folks on Twitter linking to leaked NSA SIGINT docs
are violating Espionage Act ("makes available..."). 18USC798

------
JackC
_The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I
thought we 've been funding this agency for 50 years ..._

People on both sides who say stuff like that need to watch the United States
of Secrets.[1]

What's going on now is _not_ business as usual. It's business since shortly
after 9/11, when the Vice President's legal counsel wrote an order directing
General Hayden, the NSA Director, to disable the agency's privacy protections
and take whatever steps were necessary to find Al Qaeda, ignoring any sort of
constitutional limits on domestic spying. Career NSA employees described the
change as bringing the agency back to what it had been when Nixon resigned.

We've been funding this agency for _62_ years, but after the Church Commission
found that they greatly overstepped their bounds, we -- our elected
representatives in Congress -- cracked down on them in the 1970s.[2] Then in
2001, we -- a few people in the Bush administration -- threw those protections
away and told them to have at it, full steam ahead.

What followed were a series of resignations, internal protests, and leaks. For
people who knew what was going on, it was not business as usual. The first
stories about the extent of the new regime started coming out in 2005, four
years after it started. If you want to say that you've had a pretty good guess
what the NSA was up to since 2005, and the Snowden documents only confirmed
your suspicions, that's fine. But you couldn't prove it, and the government
flatly denied it. They have shown no compunction about directly lying to us
about what they were doing (and, remarkably, they're still trying to). What's
different now is that their lies are clear, because the truth is in their own
documents.

If you're surprised that people were shocked by what the NSA has done since
2001, then either you were born in 2002, or you need to learn more about how
and why things changed.

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-
sec...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee)

------
rosser
How many of the people decrying Andreessen's stance on Snowden would still
take A16Z money?

Where are your principles now?

------
vdaniuk
I really, really think we need a new breed of 'venture socialists' for the
lack of better term that will optimize investment BOTH for potential returns
and social good.

~~~
massappeal
I think the Social+Capital Partnership is trying to do this, but I could be
mistaken.

------
LordHumungous
A traitor is someone who betrays his country to another country. Which country
would that be in this case? Not Russia or China, they already knew exactly
what the NSA was up to. The only people Snowden betrayed his government to was
the citizens of his own country, because he felt they have the right to know
what their government is doing. Whether or not you think he was right to do
it, it is not treason by any definition.

------
sixQuarks
Andreessen is a "grand master" when it comes to tech/startups. I really do
respect his insights, he's obviously a very intelligent person. However, in
this case, it seems Andreessen is not much of a student of history and
government.

Anyone that listens to Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" and "Common Sense"
podcasts will know how dangerous these government powers can be.

------
RV86
Calling Snowden a 'traitor' is a very ill omen for us as a country. There are
many parallels to Ellsberg, but I feel that he had more public
defenders/support than Snowden. We've moved even farther to the stance that
any action taken against/criticism of the state is unpatriotic and a stone's
throw away from traitorous. This was especially the mentality immediately
after 9/11 and it clouded our judgment so much that having a reasonable
discussion about invading other countries was impossible. 13 years later,
we've traded our own privacy and the respect of most of the world for bombing
the intractable enemies our war-like tendencies created in the first place.

It's also an ill omen that Andreessen, one of the poster-children for a
transformative, open medium would come down on the side of a secret, power-
drunk apparatus vs. a civil disobedient who used said medium to try to wake up
a complacent populous.

------
joeevans1000
Andreessen is a classic money grubber. His bottom line is his bottom line...
not society, public wellbeing, or what's right.

------
izzydata
Under what circumstances is hiding the truth beneficial? If the truth is in
someway upsetting then something should be done to fix it instead of wishing
they were still ignorant of it.

------
zackmorris
Traitor is such a strong word… To think the NSA is worried about Snowden,
really at all, is kind of comical:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r6y4vjADwY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r6y4vjADwY)

I started college at UIUC in 1995 just after Andreessen took the NCSA Mosaic
code and turned it into Netscape, and I remember several of the older CS
students and TAs were miffed at him for doing so:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_\(web_browser\))

I’ve always taken that story as a sign that if you want to get rich in tech,
theft (er, borrowing) is a surefire way to do it. Maybe Andreessen is jealous
that someone stole the spotlight for the public good instead of private gain.

~~~
Bahamut
I remember that some of the talk at UIUC being that the school missed an
opportunity there.

As for theft, I think a just as big example is Zuckerberg AND Facebook. In
that case, he actively sabotaged the code for the people he was supposed to
work for.

------
throw7
Andreessen comes across as amoral here. Actually, that's not completely
correct; he believes what's right is anything that helps his bottomline, and
anything that hurts his bottomline is wrong.

It's a very similar argument that Lanny Breuer put forth in not going after
wall street.

~~~
tptacek
What is the upside to an amoral Andreesen of broadcasting an opinion that is
extremely unpopular with the people who make up his dealflow?

~~~
jgon
Good question. And yet the fact remains that he did it. It's almost like
people are fallible or something.

~~~
tptacek
Would it blow your mind to hear that not everyone agrees with you about
Snowden?

~~~
jgon
Nope. What would blow my mind is watching you engage in a non-passive
aggressive manner with people. Let's see if you can!

------
wellboy
< The fallout from the Snowden leaks have hurt U.S. technology firms' ability
to sell their products overseas, he added.

Yes and the costs are estimated to be as high as $180B
([http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/business/fallout-from-
snow...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/business/fallout-from-snowden-
hurting-bottom-line-of-tech-companies.html?_r=0)). However, this is a very
close-minded thing to say, which I would have never expected from Marc
Andreesen.

It's not the Snowden revelations that have caused the $180B damages, it's the
government breaking the law and our big tech-companies and not having a spine
to fight against these violations that caused these damages.

------
zimbatm
Andreessen hits a point when he says what foreign government knew full well
that they where spied upon. We have to remember that those revelations are for
the public. Given how easy it was for Snowden to acquire these documents it's
not far fetched to think that the other groups of power already had access to
them. And they are collaborating with the US anyways. Politicians cry outrage
to calm down the public. As if they where the victims. Funny how they never
talk about what counter-measures could be applied. Shouldn't it be our
countries responsibility to ensure that the Internet is not bugged at least in
the realm of the country ?

------
projectramo
In case you want to look up how others feel about this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Public_opinion_p...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Public_opinion_polls)

------
i_s
Great comment from Jonathan Blow about this on twitter:

> Yesterday I didn't have an opinion about Marc Andreessen but today I have a
> very strong one.

> Wait ... he's a traitor because he released "national security secrets", but
> the disclosure didn't have value because you should have known

> How are they secrets if you 'should have known' they were doing this stuff?

[https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/474603349367476224](https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/474603349367476224)

------
dreamweapon
_" For me obviously he's a traitor," Andreessen said. "If you look up in the
encyclopedia 'traitor' there's a picture of Ed Snowden."_

This sad quote from Andreessen, rather than telling us anything about Snowden,
merely demonstrates his own predilection for manipulative thinking styles and
rhetoric. Not to mention, implicitly, his profound lack of respect for the
intelligence of the listener.

Which makes me all even less interested than I had been in anything else he
might have to say.

------
squozzer
Who has done more to damage America's social cohesion - Snowden or the NSA?

If Andreesen didn't have a billion or so dollars riding on how the world
perceives SV, I might find his opinion more creditable.

And while a lot of the discussion considers the NSA's intent as irrelevant, it
wouldn't surprise me to find out later that the NSA was using their technology
to clean out the bank accounts of so-called "traitors" or whatever moniker we
use to label undesirables.

------
runjake
I disagree with Marc, but he brings up a number of good points, so the video
is worth watching.

And yeah, many people have known/could surmise that NSA was watching all. At
least those people who paid attention to ECHELON, Cryptome, and James Bamford.

But Snowden's point was to get NSA's activities known to the general
population, not the cypherpunks and tinfoilers. I'm unsure Marc sees or cares
about this point.

------
albert_holm
"This is something people have got very upset at me for saying this. I think
if you actually follow the NSA and read the books and the articles and
understood the history, I think you generally assume that they were doing
pretty much everything that's come out."

So if we already suspected/knew what NSA was doing, then what harm did Snowden
cause by basically only verifying our suspicions?

------
PhasmaFelis
> _The fallout from the Snowden leaks have hurt U.S. technology firms '
> ability to sell their products overseas, he added._

It's pretty damn weird that an avowed and successful capitalist is arguing
against a buyer's right to get an honest evaluation of a product. He'd be
talking out the other side of his face if the same information had leaked out
of China.

------
bythewayside
Here is one of a very few people who decides which company gets funded and
which doesn't. If he believes that Snowden is a traitor to American interests,
then I am inclined to believe he knows what he's talking about. If he believes
that what's bad for the NSA is bad for Silicon Valley, I am inclined to
believe him as well. Also if Hitler back in the day called Schindler a traitor
to Nazi Germany interests.. that would be true as well.

We like to pretend that we don't live in a corporate fascism because we are
moral individuals who want nice things for all mankind and that our government
should represent us. But let's face it, neither the government nor the
corporate elite, of which Andreessen is a part of, gives a shit what the cogs
think. The mission of this system hasn't been to represent "the people" in a
long time. So shuttup, eat your cereal, work, spend and die when you're done.

------
rdl
I don't understand why he said this publicly, even if he believes it. It does
him and a16z no favors with likely startup founders, foreign governments,
foreign corporate partners, the security/privacy community, etc. a16z doesn't
need any help with LPs or the US Government.

(I think he might be right as a first-order effect for the majority of people,
but the second order effects hurt US companies, individuals, etc.)

------
suprgeek
I am still struggling to figure out if Andreessen is serious or he is trolling
with these idiotic statements.

Sample:

"The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I
thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands
of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year."

We fund police & firefighters for more than that (aggregated) so we shouldn't
be surprised when serious police misconduct comes to light. I shouldn't be
surprised if say for instance they locked up Mr. Andreesson without charges?
What kind of moronic argument is that?

" The secrets he's revealed have hurt Silicon Valley by association,..."

So it is the revelation that the NSA is indulging in widespread Warantless
spying on Americans & everyone else that hurt Silicon valley, not the Spying
itself.

So by that logic Nixion's Watergate break-in was not bad, its revelation was
bad? What a twit

I think I have lost what little respect I had for this guy. We could do with a
few more Snowdens to counteract him any day.

~~~
dreamweapon
_I am still struggling to figure out if Andreessen is serious or he is
trolling with these idiotic statements._

Both, it seems. That's the sad part.

------
zacinbusiness
"He made me not make as much money as I wanted to have made and thus he is a
traitor."

------
ninv
Snowden is rat, he broke the code of silence. US Govt must punish him (or his
parents GF etc.) severely to deter any furter incident.

He should be in FBI's most wanted list and Govt should offer some prize on his
head.

capisce!

------
cyphunk
where's the page to join the boycott of Andreessen companies?

------
kolev
Never like @pmarca. This is another perspective on who this guys really is.
His involvement in the Bitcoin bubble is very indicative on the human material
he's made of.

------
notastartup
this really hurts the respect I had for Andreessen. Really wish he didn't make
that statement. Snowden is NOT a traitor, he is a bringer of truth, truth
which will ultimately set us free, how can that be a bad thing?

~~~
adewinter
Whether or not he made that statement doesn't matter. What should matter to
you more is that he believes it in the first place.

~~~
tkinom
He is believer of $$$. Someone (or some org such as NSA ) is stopping the
China and others from buying the product/using the service his VC firm is
investing it. That's what really upset him the most.

------
drcongo
Says man who wears Google Glass.

