> Why else is behavior even a concern, except for its outcomes?
Because expected outcomes matter, too. If I shoot you and you live, that's called "attempted murder", and IMHO should be punished exactly like actual murder. If I shoot you and a paramedic who is trying to stop your bleeding gives you a medicine that you're allergic to and you die, the paramedic should still be treated as someone who acted honorably.
We judge actions based on intent because we want to encourage people to act with good intentions. Outcomes are frequently beyond our control.
> he has to accept responsibility for his actions, good and bad
True, but it's common for us to honor those who choose a good tradeoff. Eg, "yes, you shot the criminal and killed him, which is bad, but you rightly judged it was better to save the hostage's life. That's a wise and moral tradeoff, here's a medal."
> Many people believe Snowden's tradeoff was right.
Any my assertion is that the people who believe that do not understand the trades that Snowden made, but instead think that because Snowden punched the boogeyman, anything else Snowden could be responsible for is mitigated completely.
I'm not saying we should hang Snowden from the yardarm, but it would be nice if people would at least acknowledge the negative repercussions that we know of today, and the possibly much more negative repercussions that have yet to be revealed, and weigh that into their calculus somewhere.
The fact is that NSA is still around, will continue to be around, will continue to collect information overseas, will continue to be able to collect information domestically (albeit under more policy controls), and all of this was completely predictable when Snowden flew out of Hawai'i for the last time.
Was everything else that came with it worth it? Playing populist politics to try and drive a wedge between Europe and the U.S. (just prior to Putin's heel turn with Ukraine, no less)... was that and everything else worth it?
And someone please explain, why was it not possible to simply leak the civil liberties concerns such as phone metadata, AND NOTHING ELSE? He'd still have "started the debate", no? Why did he steal Tier 3 information that he's only leaked to China (and no other journalists) up to this point?
He's not responsible for anything. He was legally required to leak when his bosses ignored his reports. You can't be "responsible" for doing what you're required to do.
Besides, the NSA mass surveillance programs are next to worthless.
Moving from collecting 5% of the uninteresting communication in the world to 99% is irrelevant when it's the 0.0001% that isn't so easily collected that we're looking for.
A program of mass surveillance like that is only good for things that aren't a national security risk, such as stopping drug dealers, counterfeiters, etc. Perhaps useful, but nothing we need a massive secret-police force able to tap everything for.
Because expected outcomes matter, too. If I shoot you and you live, that's called "attempted murder", and IMHO should be punished exactly like actual murder. If I shoot you and a paramedic who is trying to stop your bleeding gives you a medicine that you're allergic to and you die, the paramedic should still be treated as someone who acted honorably.
We judge actions based on intent because we want to encourage people to act with good intentions. Outcomes are frequently beyond our control.
> he has to accept responsibility for his actions, good and bad
True, but it's common for us to honor those who choose a good tradeoff. Eg, "yes, you shot the criminal and killed him, which is bad, but you rightly judged it was better to save the hostage's life. That's a wise and moral tradeoff, here's a medal."
Many people believe Snowden's tradeoff was right.