The burning baby scenario.

[reusrename]

You see a house on fire and you hear a baby screaming inside so you bust open a window and save the baby.

This is the theory behind whistleblowing. Of course it is a crime to smash someone's window and then enter their house without permission. But is that really a good excuse to let the baby burn?

Sure, perhaps a hundred other folks may have been willing to watch the baby burn, but that's only because the fire was very hot.

(A related topic: Of course we don't want to make breaking and entering legal just because this scenario may someday in the future. This was exactly the argument that was made for trying to legalize torture, remember, the ticking-bomb scenario.)

[Shankapotomus]

1. Playing devil's advocate

But the fire wasn't set out of government policy.

[reusrename]

2. The fire may be cause by arson or accident, but the morality of rescuing the baby does not change.

The analogy allows a very clear way to separate the legal and moral questions.

In the Snowden case, there is also an ethical question related to perjury, which can add a little more complexity to the situation.

If there is even a whiff of evidence that the govt. is intentionally burning babies, then there is no choice, IMHO.

[OKNancy]

3. and if the person who saved the baby turns out to be a pedophile

So, we are very happy the baby is saved, and we don't really care about the breaking and entering... but we find it very interesting that the hero in this case only saved the baby because he had ulterior motives. It would be interesting to many to find out the back story.
It still doesn't mean we are not happy about the baby.

[Progressive dog]

4. And then flees with the baby to Hong Kong

Great post OKNancy.

[reusrename]

6. This is a great post.

Chances are that the pedophile set the fire. I can see that.

[Whisp]

8. excellent. we don't know who the 'hero' is, do we?

[MH1]

5. But if there was no baby, and it was just a story made up by the perp as a cover story...

And the perp is shown to be a common criminal with a history of fabricating stories ...

Just playing devil's advocate here

[reusrename]

7. Yeah, sure, but in this particular case we already know there was a baby.

The "baby" being the fact that officials were exposed for lying to congress.

In general, this is something to pay close attention to because there is not always a baby. The ticking bomb has yet to materialize.

[pnwmom]

9. This scenario is easily flipped in the other direction.

Suppose some arsonists planned the fire and the baby is screaming in the burning house.

If collecting phone meta-data could have pointed to a conspiracy to commit arson, wouldn't it have been better to avoid this whole burning baby scenario in the first place?