I don’t, my analogy was only that a person takes a personal risk with the law in doing either thing. I believe you agree with this from what you are saying.
If America wanted foreigners to distinguish between the fairness of the trials that a person like Snowden could expect between America and Iran than it is America’s responsibility to demonstrate the difference. Ellsberg’s trial was not fair. Mannings trial was not only not fair, but she was held in a small cell and not allowed to lie down or lean against walls for 23 hours a day for years before she was even given a trial. Her clothes and reading glasses were confiscated. That’s America.
As for being “oppressive” we would probably automatically assume that a domestic spying program that involved massive scale information collection about ordinary citizens was oppressive. I don’t see why America gets the benefit of the doubt, especially when the people running the program can come and lie to congress about it without consequences.
But if the people in the house were thanking the man for saving their lives and the prosecutor was going full bore against him, that would make us wonder what the hell was going on with the prosecutor. One would think it would be up the “victim” of the “crime” to say that what happened was good for them rather than bad. Whether or not Snowden’s releases were good or bad for America is up to the American people. That is why public opinion matters in this particular case.
ETA:
It occurred to me: no, this does not beg the question at all. To quote you:
So whether I or anyone thinks the program was “oppressive” doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the program broke any laws. It could be oppressive or not and that would not matter.
So let’s see if we can find any common ground.
Do you agree that a trial for Snowden would only be fair if he was allowed to enter evidence that he was whistleblowing - that is, evidence that the programs he released information on were illegal?
Based on your response to my Iran hypothetical, am I right in assuming that you think it is reasonable for a person to flee a country that is going to unfairly try and sentence them?
Since some countries are judged to be default-oppressive (Iran) and others are not, would you agree that the correct way to make that judgement is how the country has acted in the past, for example, how it has conducted trials of others accused of similar crimes?
