> It's not my business to report anything to anyone
Actually it is. If you're in a Common Law legislation there's a good chance the you could be charged with conspiracy. And if you're in a Civil Law legislation there's a good chance that your country requires you to report ongoing crimes once you gain knowledge about them (of course there's the question if a court will treat Snowden's actions as completed or as ongoing crimes).
Not arguing about the moral thing to do here, just about the legal point of view.
> if you're in a Civil Law legislation there's a good chance that your country requires you to report ongoing crimes once you gain knowledge about them
Does anyone have any citations for this please? (I'm especially interested in English law, but any other country is fine too.)
It seems that at least in the United States there's quite a broad range of things that courts consider as "conspiracy". For example, a few years ago Reinhard Berkau (a German lawyer) was sentenced to prison in the US, because of a crime one of his clients did. He also published a book on his experiences (unfortunately in German only) in case you're interested in the background.
An underground railroad would be a serious proposition. UR was a nasty... and noble... group of people who were perfectly willing to go MUCH further than the authorities or the slave catchers.
I'll give an example, Pinkerton, though it was probably not generally known at the time, was a white operative in this organization. Now after the Civil War, we get some idea of the tactics that Pinkerton and his "coworkers" got up to in the UR.
For instance, when Pinkerton was sent after The James Gang, who he hated, as he saw the James family as slavers AND traitors... he went and threw incendiary devices into the James home. We know now that he fully intended to burn the home down, and probably intended to kill James' mother. The US Government had to call the Pinkertons off.
Would WikiLeaks or a "WikiArmy" be willing to use such tactics? I doubt it.
Another example, the Spanish government hired Pinkerton to help in dealing with a revolution [in Cuba] that intended abolition and suffrage. Six months later... the Cuban abolitionists came to power. So deceit on that level was not beyond the capabilities of the UR.
I'm not sure WikiLeaks has this level of capability.
They were also quiet. Extremely quiet. Underground railroad was not even the name of the organization... it's just the name the American public gave it when it became clear that SOMETHING must have been going on. So these guys were so quiet and disciplined for the time that no one even knew what the organization was called. Or even who was in it, or relative ranks.
I just mention this because a great deal is known about WikiLeaks... so I'm not sure they would make a good underground railroad.
Also, the UR was willing to sacrifice much more than their opponents. Consider, blacks would generally be willing to sacrifice MANY blacks to protect the identity of a white operative... who were more valuable to the blacks for obvious reasons.
Does WikiLeaks or Anonymous have an in-built group of soldiers whose loyalty is without question? Who would be willing to endure great pain or even death to keep its secrets?
I'm just saying... these people are so imitated because they were VERY effective at what they did. They LITERALLY used sex and murder if it suited their ends. They wrote books, music and news to shape public opinion. But all of that was just for starters... They also destabilized economies! And the overthrow of governments was not ruled out as a means of accomplishing their objectives. Most importantly, these people had a proven capability to actually accomplish any of those missions!
Sound familiar?
It should... the UR was, in a very real way, the precursor to the Union's intelligence service during the war. Even after the war... I mean it was Pinkerton who founded the Secret Service! The OSS is the UR's great grandchild, so the CIA is part of that lineage as well. Pinkerton's methods, the UR's methods, still inform investigation and intelligence gathering and even counter intel and insurgency today.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm sure SOME clicktivists are willing to go as far as the black runaways and Northern whites were...
What I am NOT certain of, is whether ANY clicktivists are willing to ENDURE as much as the UR was willing to endure in the pursuit of its goals.
