So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden.
It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution.
People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this completely in the bud before prosecutors get rolling, and several other ways of notifying our elected representatives that going down this path is unacceptable.
These are political charges, and as the governed we should stand up to the people who are supposed to be working for us and demand that they be dropped. Immediately.
Remember that the goal is to get the government address the issue, and show that the people are not fine with the NSA's actions. It would be nice to get them to actually pardon him, but that is a much harder goal.
The animals one obviously doesn't count [1], since the petition was created September 27th, 2011, and the order halting the use of animals was issued September 20th, 2011.
Perhaps the order and the petition were quantumly entangled, thus allowing for the measurement of the petition to affect the known outcome of the order.
I am pretty sure the CISPA veto and the open access rules were only tangentially affected by the petitions. The open access rules were a response to the treatment of Aaron Swartz, which was creating a media storm that was causing more people to notice the general abuses of power by prosecutors in this country. The CISPA veto threat followed pressure from lobbyists and well-connected corporations.
Did the petitions matter at all? Maybe, but they were not even remotely close to being sufficient to get the administration to do anything. The Obama administration already knows how people feel about the Snowden situation; the petition is basically irrelevant.
It takes ten seconds and costs nothing. I honestly don't understand the argument against it. It may be no better than nothing, but it can hardly be worse.
It does cost something. It makes you feel like you've done something, so you perhaps have less motivation to do something more substantive such as writing your congressional reps and senators.
Which is a far more meaningful act than signing these useless online petitions.
There are always ways to do more, but in my experience this line of reasoning actually deflates more than it inspires. If someone has 10 seconds to sign the petition, let them sign the petition and go about their day rather than wasting 10 seconds making them feel guilty for not doing more.
It could perhaps be worse, either because it makes 100,000 people (or however many) think "well I've done by part now!" so they become complacent, or because the administration thinks "well they've got it off their chest with a petition, that will keep them away from doing anything stronger so let's keep going with what we were doing".
What if the 'buzz' generated by all of these people inspires a few people to actually do substantive? Kinda like how spam only needs a few clicks per million to generate a profit.
This is just speculation but it helps me cope with the facebook activism.
I should clarify that I wasn't warning against signing the petition, merely adding a thought to the "well at the very worst it can't do any harm" logic. Make up your own mind on whether signing it is good, bad, or neither :)
The argument is the same, but from the opposite end: Because it costs nothing and takes ten seconds. Why should I care about an opinion if the proponent can't invest more than that into it (say, a phone call to your congressman). What other artefacts of zero-cost, (near-) zero-effort expression should be considered in the legislative process?
My opinion about it is that it's ONE way for them to take the temperature of the people. Of course 100,000 signatures alone isn't going to create meaningful action but it does allow for a certain amount of visibility into what's bubbling up to the surface. Thus, it's valuable... just not as valuable as some hope it will be.
I have a great respect towards Snowden for what he did. Knowing his life will be over, he was brave enough to continue believing in his citizen's duty and pledge to the Constitution and all American people (not to the Administration that just happened to be more tyrannical as the days go by) and decided he couldn't stand the abuse anymore. I personally believe the only reason we do not have a full speed tyranny in this country and more wars with american troops involved all over the world is because of the people like Assange, Bradley and Snowden. They put a real time breaks on internal abuse; many times before pulling the trigger those in charge ask themselves: "damn what if another 'traitor' will leak this out and my name [and crimes] will come to the light?". We have grown very dangerous government that WE founded and WE continue to pay for and we seem to forget about that...
But in NO MEANS the Government will EVER let him off the hook. Never. Its not that they are vicious or anything, its simply because the system is broken and corrupt to its inner core (by corruption I do not mean someone giving an envelope under the table to win some contract. I am talking about high ranked generals that with no serious evidence just by "believing we are protecting american people" are sending thousands on the war the they damn well know is not being waged in the name of security, but the name of satisfying Industrial Military Complex, in a monetary way). You can see military lock down of entire cities due to the riots on the streets, and yet they will not change their mind, because that would be a warm invitation to anyone else witnessing shit being done under government seal to come forward. It would be a total reboot of the system. Another 4th of July. And what they think about founding fathers [1] is not what you would assume they do.
It happened in the 70s to Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Paper's leaker.
"Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg."
"He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years."
The charges against Ellsberg were dropped when it became public that the government had spied on Ellsberg by wiretapping Ellsberg's psychiatric visits.
So maybe all Snowden has to do is to show the government spying on him. Which would be kind of meta, as it would put the government on trial for PRISM itself, while probably acquitting Snowden
I actually don't think charging him is inherently bad. If he in fact took 4 government property laptops with him, that's a crime, at the very least.
Ideally, pre-trial investigation and a trial would be fair way to find facts. It's entirely possible minor crimes (violating classified NDA, taking laptops, etc.) would be non-conviction based on other information, but on its face, I don't really have a problem with initial steps to investigate.
Congress would probably be a better venue for this than the courts, though.
Being charged is also pretty much necessary for asylum somewhere, too. (not essential, but it strongly helps)
There actually are whistleblower protections he could have taken advantage of... but it would have meant working within the system (for example, taking his concerns to Congress or the NSA's Inspector General rather than a reporter) and it only applies if he uncovered fraud or illegal activity. AFAIK there isn't any proof that he uncovered anything illegal.
Trying to work with the system doesn't work. See the case Billy Malone and the National Park Service, etc.
You can go straight to the inspector general, they'll find that someone's life was unjustly ruined, and then sweep it under the rug after writing a report.
Binney, Drake, Radack, Edmunds, Tice, how many people have to try and fail with the silly "legit" whistleblower farce before people realize that it doesn't work, and isn't ever going to work.
Nothing like having a gun pointed at you while you're in the shower to say "We aren't brownshirts, we are just so excited to hear your genuine criticism; please speak your mind freely."
Going to NSA IG or the PSCI's in Congress are protected (the whole point of NSA IG is internal malfeasance, it's not just for stealing cafeteria trays...). The problem is that route of reporting may be ineffective, and once you start, you'll lose all future access, come under suspicion, and may actually still be charged (the whistleblower stuff helps more with not getting convicted).
I was originally thinking "he should have gone to IG/Congress rather than the press", but seeing the Binney/Drake/Wiebe interview where they all had gone through the IG/Congress process themselves, recognized they'd accomplished fuck-all, and supported Snowden's decision to go directly to the press/public, kind of convinced me.
I personally might have considered going to someone else in government, other than IG or H/SPSCI -- like to Udall or Rand Paul or maybe even a judge or governor -- as more effective than the "official" channels, but less illegal than a journalist.
"Going to NSA IG or the PSCI's in Congress are protected"
Protected and utterly pointless. Congress already knew what was happening. The NSA's IG is not an unbiased observer.
Unfortunately, the official channels are broken here. You have members of Congress talking about how these revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. That means that they know more, that they know details that will shock people, and that they are doing nothing about it. What good would it do to go to them with this information?
Do we know for sure that the charges he is alleging are actually illegal? That I think is the crux of this whole situation. Many people in Congress might know about it and not be doing anything because like we've seen with 'enhanced interrogation techniques', is that the law has been interpreted such that all of this is technically lawful. That looks to be the real problem here.
> Do we know for sure that the charges he is alleging are actually illegal?
No. We don't know their legality. As far as I can tell, there have been pseudo-legal rulings on the subject. But the existence, never-mind the substance, of those rulings are classified. Some people have a problem with that.
Well, sort of. All the charges against him were dropped except a single misdemeanor. He got one year probation and community service. A very different set of circumstances than Snowden, though.
And loss of pension (he was 5 years away), is now working in an Apple retail store, etc. Given that he was about as morally upstanding and cautious a whistleblower as I can imagine, it was still a pretty harsh punishment.
AFAIK, other whistleblowers in the NSA have tried. The fact that it was all swept under the rug may have made Snowden consider a more rash course of action.
Not if your a whistleblower. What if instead of a domestic spying program he leaked a secret program by his bosses to round up every red haired and freckled person and put them in a concentration camp? Then would you still have to charge him with a crime for revealing a 'secret' program before he could be pardoned and treated as a hero? Of course not, thats ridiculous and so is this.
Yes, if what you reveal is unethical but legal. Laws are not handed down from the heavens; laws are created by a notoriously corrupt set of human beings (politicians), and can easily become disconnected from morality.
The better question is: Are you a whistleblower in a legal sense if what you reveal is legal?
The government doesn't operate on unicorns and happy thoughts, it operates on the law. It's the job of the people to elect representatives such that the law conforms as much as possible to unicorns and happy thoughts.
> A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act
if it takes or fails to take (or threatens to take or fail
to take) a personnel action with respect to any employee or
applicant because of any disclosure of information by the
employee or applicant that he or she reasonably believes
evidences a violation of a law, rule or regulation; gross
mismanagement; gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority;
or a substantial and specific danger to public health or
safety.
Looking up the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 [1] even more closely, it appears it won't apply to Snowden here. If the material is protected from disclosure by law or E.O. (like this was) then you can only report it to the Office of Special Counsel or the agency I.G. and receive whistleblower protection.
It's in fact arguable that things like PRISM even violated any of those provisions, which makes it risky (on a legal basis) to leak even if he wasn't in the intelligence community.
There is a difference between full protection (not being allowed to be fired) and not being convicted for 25-life under espionage act.
It would be insane to retain Snowden in his former role. He is an untrustworthy SCIF sysadmin. He might be worthwhile in the IG office or some public facing role, but I am fine if he is fired, clearance revoked, etc pre trial, even if his disclosures ultimately are positive and lead to legal changes and he isn't convicted.
Good point, though that does make me wonder if he might have technically fallen under Whistleblower Protection (technically an HR thing) and still been liable to imprisonment based on the Espionage Act. Seems weird they'd be orthogonal, but then we're in a weird situation.
laws are created by a notoriously corrupt set of human beings (politicians)
Your argument is flawed, because you're mistaking your personal opinions for fact and then trying to build logical arguments on them. Politicians are people, they're not 'a notoriously corrupt set of human beings' distinct from the normal mass of humanity.
Even disregarding the corruption part, his point still stands. Laws are made by people. People are not infallible. People make mistakes. It is therefore obvious that there is potential for bad and unjust laws.
Adding in the corruption part, you can then see that there is potential for laws and policies that are purposefully unjust.
It's a fact that politicians are more notorious for corruption than the average person. But even ignoring that, his argument does not depend on politicians being more evil than the average person. You're seeing a fatal flaw where there is only a molehill.
There was a lot of illegal activity, or at least potential illegal activity, uncovered. Most notably perjury by officials, and violation of a FISA strikedown (which the EFF is trying to dig into).
The level of illegality is unclear, because we cannot investigate and the only court that can determine that consists of government officials, in secret, and no oversight. Almost every action they are taking could be completely illegal, we have no way of knowing or assessing.
I think there are good arguments that many of the policies regarding tapping, surveillance, and secret lists and trials extend into violation of not just the 4th, but the 1st, 5th, and 6th also.
What he revealed is clearly unconstitutional. To say otherwise suggests that you lack basic reading comprehension or never had American history taught in 5th grade or middle school.
(...Or that our teachers taught us lies on purpose, I guess... rolls eyes)
It would be (relatively) trivial for congress to decide to make it so that "rounding up every red haired and freckled person and putting them in a concentration camp" would be legal.
The question isn't legality, per se - it's whether we believe that it follows the values and principles that we want our country to have.
What if my aunt were my uncle? Inventing an alternative set of facts to support your argument is the surest sign that something is seriously wrong wrong with your argument.
I doubt he actually intended to steal the laptops. Had he attempted to return them they would have caught on to his plan. It's unlikely that he would have taken them with him to Hong Kong as they would phone home.
They are probably sitting at his home just waiting for the NSA to pick them up.
The laptops with files on them do demonstrate provenance of the data on them somewhat more so than standalone files, so he may have retained them for that purpose.
This Achilles heel of `theft of laptops' minimally should be listed in the `Don't List' of `Whistle Blowing For Dummies' to alternatively rather fatten up a Fry's $70 terra usb drive, cloud store it, etc.
Proving provenance of the data? No. If he can list it, he can edit, `touch' re-timestamp it, etc, ie, falsify it.
It possibly matters a great deal in regards to his defense.
I know i'll probably just be accused of being a pedant for pointing this out, but theft is still a crime, and theft of laptops containing classified material is really a crime, and at the very least (assuming the government didn't just make this charge up whole cloth), stealing laptops full of classified material and running off to China with them after spilling your guts to the Guardian might not tilt a jury in his favor.
The theft charge is just a ruse to get the HK authorities to extradite him. If they only charged him with espionage, then there's no problem for Snowden's atty's to make the case for political persecution. The HK courts will see this for the ruse that it is.
hey, non-US citizen here. assuming you're a US citizen based on your "outrage".
the point of your defence budget (how large is it again) is to project power through the military and intelligence services.
it is ASTOUNDING that only now you seem to have realized what the US intelligennce apparatus is doing. of course they are collecting all the data, they are basically replicating google to be able to search within digital data. maybe only on foreigners, but what kind of stupid distinction is that? we have a found an al-kaida member, but he is US so hands off?
welcome to the rest of the world. ever travelled? your data is one of many intelligence databases.
i am human being, but somehow it is ok for you to spend gobs of money on monitoring ME, but once you realize it might affect YOU you suddenly get "outraged".
seriously, what DID you THINK all those intelligence services with multi-billion budgets were DOING?
looking forward to the protest by US neckbeards around the country. hope time-warner produces enough guy fawkes masks, should raise the price too. USA USA USA.
Myself and plenty of other US citizens and residents understand the imperialistic tyrrany of the fed.
The problem is that 90% of the population isn't engaged, is brainwashed by national news networks, and is complacent in their lives eating McDonalds and watching Desperate Housewives. They accept being exploited and the atrocities they vote in with their amazing public service of going to a polling place for 10 minutes every 2 or 4 years (and they never vote for their local mayors or judges).
The only way anything would truly change in the USA is if that massive body that spans 2 deviations of income in both directions of the bell curve lost their ability to keep fattening themselves up or if they tv went out.
> That is YOUR hard earned tax money at work AGAINST YOU.
The guy you're yelling at is a non-US citizen who's point is "for the love of god, you ignorant american, how did you not see what's been happening until now?"
It's completely stupid that this is even a topic on HN, but the worst part is the amount of mindless shitposting going on. I mean, you just replied to a person who starts off with a disclaimer about being a not-american, and your response culimates in righteous but misplaced indignation.
This is a threaded discussion platform. If you're going to make an impassioned "me too" sort of reply, it's best to respect the context and make that clear.
Black projects are not listed in a public budget. The premise of it being tax money is also suspect. The US government does not get all of the money from taxes despite the popular notion. I agree with your gist however; A modern day human sacrifice.
Could you list some of the other sources of government funding? The only one I can think of is the alleged CIA drug trafficking scandals from decades past.
Illegal arms trafficking, which was somewhat more thoroughly proven than the CIA making a profit from its illegal drug trafficking. Its involvement, however, was pretty cut-and-dried, and goes far beyond being an "alleged scandal".
These are political charges, and as the governed we should stand up to the people who are supposed to be working for us and demand that they be dropped. Immediately.
Did or did not Edward Snowden leak classified material to the press?
Does or does not the government have a duty to attempt to prosecute him?
You make it sound like he didn't actually break any laws, when he actually did break a couple. Whether the charges brought can be proven remains to be seen, but let's not assume this is a sham and a kangaroo court because you consider what Snowden did to be heroic. It may have been, but that still doesn't make it legal.
Why such obsession about the law? Some laws are good, and that's good that they are enforced. Some laws are bad, and it is bad that they are enforced.
The whole concept of "legality" is (sadly) appropriated by governments. The government invents the rules for itself and other organizations and individuums. They ca invent whatever rules they like. Gulag was perfectly legal. Nazi concentration camps were perfectly legal.
It is stupid to assume that one's actions are bad just because they are against the law.
The obsession with the law is because we're a democracy, albeit far from a perfectly functioning one.
In the governments of the past, we had laws, but the king could overrule them as desired. The move to democracy involved to things: the laws being dictated by the people and the LAW being king--there's no higher power to overrule it. It can only be changed under the established procedures. That procedure is cumbersome and slow, by design (and perhaps now somewhat corrupted, sadly), but still better than the whims of the monarch.
There's a lot to be said for "what's right is king" rather than "law is king". Ideally "what's right" (probably a subset of what's right--e.g., I should be allowed to be a jerk so long as I don't violate important rights) should be democratically codified into law.
Alas, what we have now is secret, undemocratic codification of laws. Obama said in the programs' defense, "We're going to have to make some choices as a society". That's the key issue, I think: they decided to make the decision to the exclusion of society.
So maybe you're right and what's legal is less relevant than it would be in a fully functional democracy. At this point, the social contract to follow the proper democratic procedure has been violated by the makers and enforcers of the law, and following the law is consequently much less of a moral imperative.
Still, I think if we're not ready for armed revolution, legal procedure isn't entirely irrelevant. MLK's letter from Birmingham Jail is something I turn to a lot on this issue: there are times when you should break the unjust law, but when doing so, you must accept the legal repercussions.
Of course, MLK's legal consequences were a small amount of jail time. Snowden's are already significantly harsher, even without them taking him in.
(I think the gulag is a poor example, because it wasn't democratically established. The Nazi concentration camps seem like a pretty good comparison, but not because I consider them perfectly legal. Hitler was democratically elected, but I don't believe many Germans at that time were even aware of the concentration camps. They're a lot like the NSA programs in that way. They needed to make that decision as a society, but weren't given the opportunity. Thus, I don't consider them perfectly legal.)
If the trial is a mechanism to enforce the bad laws, of course it is unjust.
The dictionary definition is justice is "the quality of being fair and reasonable." Is there anything fair ad reasonable about how Snowden is about to be treated?
And who is in charge of deciding which laws are bad? What if two people disagree about the goodness or badness of a particular law, who should prevail?
You seem to be presuming absolute corruption on the part of the legal system and absolute innocence on the part of Edward Snowden. What would you expect to happen, under these circumstances?
> It is stupid to assume that one's actions are bad just because they are against the law.
Yeah, it is. But the law is there and we still have to follow it until we can change it. Part of what makes people that conscientiously break the law for personal beliefs heroes (insert civil rights activist of choice here) is that they do so knowing that they are going against the law and willingly face that.
I respect a person who will take a stand and face the consequences of their actions.
Soldiers are supposed to disobey their military superiors if told to commit crimes against humanity.
Breaking a law, especially when doing something obviously right, does not mean that you need to have charges brought against you. Say you see a dog about to drown in a creek on private property. If you ran in and saved it, the owner could charge you for trespassing. That doesn't mean they SHOULD.
"Soldiers are supposed to disobey their military superiors if told to commit crimes against humanity."
Well, no. A soldier isn't supposed to say "I think that command is illegal under international law, therefore I will choose not to follow it." They'll be court-martialed, and rightly so. Choosing to make that call is intentionally risky, because it's supposed to be rare.
Likewise, Snowden will be prosecuted...and rightly so. He broke a bunch of laws. Maybe he did that out of a sense of righteousness, but the greater legality of his decision is not for him to decide.
But even ignoring all of that, the premise of your metaphor is absurd: Snowden revealed information about legal surveillance programs that weren't acutely harming anyone, and he might have hurt national security in the process. That's a far cry from preventing "crimes against humanity". Perspective, please.
You are saying that a soldier who understands an order to be in violation of law (in this instance, to commit some unspecified crimes against humanity) would be justly court-martialed, and that it should happen?
The entire point of refusing to obey orders that violate the law, or of refusing to abide by an unjust law, or refusing to be complicit in systemic abuses of secret interpretations of a given law that one believes to violate other laws and/or established principles (e.g., the Constitution) is to call attention to the wrongness of that which one is refusing to do. It is to call attention to wrongdoing, whether that be to actions or laws that violate the greater body of law and principles of a given civil society. The proper response would be an evaluation and public reflection upon the practices/acts to which the public's attention has been focused.
In Snowden's case, as with other whistleblowers, it is extremely difficult to properly blow the whistle without breaking some law(s). There are so many laws out there, that if everyone who broke a law was prosecuted, we'd wind up with 100% of the adult citizenry with criminal records and jail time. The goal of justice is not to indiscriminately prosecute every person who attempts to protect and improve our society by refusing to follow unjust laws and their associated actions. Would that more citizens and public officials would refuse to act in a way that even remotely resembles violating anyone's constitutionally delineated rights, and all those not so delineated, which are reserved to the states and to the People.
If indiscriminate prosecution was the goal of justice, we'd better update our positions accordingly on everything. That means we need to look back and say a good century's worth of prosecuting black people for drinking from the wrong fountain was just. We should start prosecuting those who violate laws that prohibit you from throwing away mail that isn't addressed to you. We should stand up and call for the prosecution of homosexuals and heterosexuals under state sodomy laws and, when they are so prosecuted, we should sit back in our armchairs, cross our legs, and declare, "Rightly so."
Actually, in the U.S. servicemembers are supposed to refuse to follow orders that are not lawful.
You are right that such cases are (and are meant to be) exceptionally rare. The U.S. Supreme Court gives exceptionally wide latitude in what counts as a lawful order, and as far as I know no servicemember has ever been tried (much less convicted) for following a valid order (even if they thought it was illegal).
But with that said I agree with your overall point that Snowden did break the law with at least some of his disclosures. If so much as one document he leaked was found to describe action that was legal (even if unethical) he would fall afoul of various U.S. laws protecting classified information.
Likewise, even if he leaked information describing activities found to be illegal, he may still get in trouble for not following Congress's approved route for such leaks (I'm not sure if that would be technically criminal or administrative in nature though).
"The U.S. Supreme Court gives exceptionally wide latitude in what counts as a lawful order, and as far as I know no servicemember has ever been tried (much less convicted) for following a valid order (even if they thought it was illegal)."
Yes, exactly. And of course, there have been many examples of soldiers who were court-martialed for disobeying orders. The risk of disobeying is on the soldier -- they're taking their life in their hands when they make the decision to cross a superior. It's not as if the military says: "oh, you thought that order was illegal? We won't court-martial you, then."
The parent comment was totally specious, because Snowden is being treated exactly the way any soldier would be treated for a similar behavior. We don't just automatically pardon people for breaking laws because they broke laws with patriotic intent.
He signed the relevant NDAs and was granted Top Secret clearance. He's being held to the standard of anyone else who does that without enjoying some type of exceptional legal protection.
That is not the same thing as the comment to which I responded. Moreover, this isn't a simple matter of violating NDAs and TS clearance by mentioning classified information to some random persons. The situation is more profound and nuanced. He violated the NDAs and TS clearance to call the People's attention to unconstitutional programs that violate our rights and laws as a whistleblower. There is "some type of exceptional legal protection" to be evaluated there.
Just for the flipside though, he did this to call attention to unconstitutional programs in his opinion.
There is a reason we don't generally allow individuals to each individually determine what the Constitution does or does not mean.
There is a famous example in the military of an Army major (doctor) who refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he claimed it was unconstitutional.
You might think he was referring to the war, but instead he was referring to his Commander-in-Chief himself (Pres. Obama), who this major personally felt was a Muslim Kenyan who somehow managed to finagle himself into the Presidency.
It's hardly conclusive that what Snowden has revealed so far is even likely unconstitutional. It seems the most you can say is that the NSA is simply not being very nice at all to the rest of the world, but the Supreme Court decisions up to this point (including recent ones relating to Guantanamo's prison) have generally treated the rest of the world as not worthy of any but the most basic Constitutional protections.
He's in Hong Kong talking about US intelligence operations in Hong Kong. Short of the government not charging him for that specific thing (say, to avoid talking about it altogether), there's doesn't seem to be any way to avoid getting in trouble for it.
However I've yet to see ANYONE in the mainstream press point out that the Obama administration was recently trying to pass legislation that reduced privacy protection for Americans as a response to the Chinese doing exactly what we are doing to the Chinese. There is a high level of hypocrisy here.
Call me an idealist, but my belief is that the USA as a country should take the moral high ground, even if it costs us tactically in the short run.
Yes, once it was clear in polling that the bill was a political nonstarter nation-wide, Obama took that position. At the same time, as http://rt.com/usa/epic-foia-internet-surveillance-350/ among others pointed out at that point, his administration was already violating privacy in all the ways that his rhetoric would say were bad.
Of course that was before the NSA revelations revealed the true extent of the spying going on.
Well, yes. Soldiers are very much supposed to disobey unlawful orders - following unlawful orders is what can get you courtmartialed and 'I was just following orders' isn't going to be an effective defense.
Of course, this is all a bit moot because Snowden definitely did something illegal and it's not clear yet whether anything he reported was itself illegal.
Fwiw, enlisted soldiers swear an oath to obey. Officers do not. And both swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which certainly applies in this case.
There are provisions built into the law for circumstances when you did "something obviously right" but are charged with a crime which was technically committed in the process of doing the right thing.
"the defendant must affirmatively show (i.e., introduce some evidence) that (a) the harm he sought to avoid outweighs the danger of the prohibited conduct he is charged with; (b) he had no reasonable alternative; (c) he ceased to engage in the prohibited conduct as soon as the danger passed; and (d) he did not himself create the danger he sought to avoid."
The executive has a duty to examine the situation and decide whether the NSA's activities were wrong, and whether Snowden was acting in the national interest when he leaked.
Now every law is legal, that's why we have a Supreme Court. Ergo, not every lawbreak is illegal.
The role of the prosecutor is to prosecute the interests of the State, which in this case they have done.
I’m wondering how grand juries play into this—the Fifth Amendment states that “no person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury” (except for those in the military, which I think he wouldn’t classify as).
There’s a great article here which describes the power which Grand Juries used to wield in the indictment process, specifically the ability to act on their own, investigate, and actually challenge the federal prosecutor rather than just rubber-stamping each case: http://constitution.org/lrev/roots/runaway.htm
"The role of the prosecutor is to prosecute the interests of the State"
One would think that, as public servants, their role is to prosecute in the interests of the public at large. That might mean going against the interests of the state, if the state is working against the public.
You are mistaking State for Government. The State simply exists, that is why it has to be defended. The State does not act by itself (it is the Government, "in its name"). This is why the State would be defenseless if prosecutors did not exist, and this is why separation of powers is so important.
I know I am speaking roughly and without technicalities, but the fact that the Government does something does not imply that the State wants is (which is, for example, why the 4th amendment exists: in order to protect, in some way, the State from the Government). And that is why the Constitution is above all mandates of the Government, even if they have been approved by Congress and the military are 'pushing' them.
"The interests of the public at large" is what is meant by the State.
That is why trials (those dealing with the Federation) begin with the words "The US vs whomever", not "The Government of the US" or "The President of the US".
I remember reading several points(Wikipedia)
98% Grand Juries return an indictment, rarely narrowing or broadening the charges;
90% of Federal Criminal Cases are Plea Bargained before trial;
90% of Federal Criminal trials result in a conviction;
This is why the Aaron Swartz was so wrong, once the prosecutor decided to overzealously present the charges to a grand jury, the odds were stacked against him.
Snowden is in big trouble, because in this case its highly unlikely that President Obama will pardon him, although popularly requested to do so.
So yes, the whole prosecution process has runaway from the original goal of justice.
I don't think putting pressure on the government to fire the prosecutor who filed the petition is likely to work. A poll earlier this week found that the majority of Americans want Snowden charged and disapprove of what he has done. You need to start with petitioning your fellow Americans.
I was replying to someone who wanted to pressure the administration into firing a prosecutor for prosecuting Snowden. It seems unlikely that they will be swayed when the majority of Americans want Snowden prosecuted.
"The typical Pew Research Center for the People & the Press national survey selects a random digit sample of both landline and cell phone numbers in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. As the proportion of Americans who rely solely or mostly on cell phones for their telephone service continues to grow, sampling both landline and cell phone numbers helps to ensure that our surveys represent all adults who have access to either (only about 2% of households in the U.S. do not have access to any phone)."
"People under 30 are the only age group in which a clear majority (60%) says that the release of classified information about the NSA phone and email data collection program serves the public interest."
> "People under 30 are the only age group in which a clear majority (60%) says that the release of classified information about the NSA phone and email data collection program serves the public interest."
I wonder if that's because, as if often said, that the people in this age group have grown up in a time when posting your "private information" (including your activities, who you associate with, etc.) is the norm.
Many of the so-called "Facebook generation", for example, seem to not give a damn about the surveillance and spying (based upon my admittedly small sample size) that is being conducted. They are already accustomed to so much more of their "private" data being public -- many of them, in fact, are quite happy to make it public.
Perhaps not. In the same poll, 63% said that if Snowden's claims were true, they would feel that their personal privacy has been violated. It just doesn't translate into the public wanting him to walk free.
Who do you think is reading that petition? I would postulate, only the signers. You also make it sound like that is the only way to get your voice "heard".
People need to organize and protest, online and in person. That means, an organized blackout like SOPA/PIPA and organized public (in real life) protests. I like the whitehouse.gov petitions, but I don't know of an instance where they've helped anything (in their short history). The Baby Boomers got plenty done with protests. And Google/Wikipedia/etc stopped SOPA/PIPA with a massive online blackout. Of course, the tech industry largely benefits from intelligence spending, so I'm not sure how much of a protest could be organized online. Perhaps the users themselves need to boycott any company not opposed to surveillance (say, replacing their avatar with some indication of their boycott and deleting all their content).
Also, I think we need the Republicans (or anyone) to impeach Obama, for the good of the country.
What does this mean exactly? "Political charge" is absurd.
Besides, are you seriously suggesting that a petition should be enough to drop criminal charges brought upon someone? That's not how things work in any civilized country.
I tend to side with him at the moment but there is no way I will trust my judgment, or that of 90,000 angry online petition signers, to decide justice for me. Let the trial happen, let's see everything that's going on, this will bring up a lot of things up in the open.
Maybe we'll find he's a hero and he's done nothing wrong, or maybe we'll find that he has sold intelligence to the Chinese or whatever.
Either way, the right way is to go through the judiciary system.
Yes, I am surprised at how quiet they've been this week. Must've grown tired of having every new denial answered with a new document showing them to be lying again.
In a way that is good indicator that they are beginning to worry their timing so as limit the political damage from the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
There's another way to demonstrate just how unhappy you are with the trampling of your basic rigthts.
Guns.
Go out on the streets in meaningful numbers brandishing unloaded guns to show the govt how serious you are about the issue. It's a much stronger form of protest IMO.
(PS: I know I'll get downvoted for such radical comments, but moderation has stopped working with govts)
What would even be the point if the guns weren't loaded? You shouldn't be willing to march en masse into the streets with weapons you're not prepared to use, otherwise it's an idle threat. Signs and slogans would literally be more useful. Then at least, the news media might report on the message and not the guns.
Needs a better catch phrase like "You can take away my ability to share digital files that the public needs to know about when you pry them from my cold dead hands!"
I don't think it is all that ridiculous. Prosecutors have tremendous amounts of discretion regarding who they prosecute and what for. They aren't just "doing their jobs" they are explicitly targeting Snowden. The fact that it is their legal prerogative to do so does not necessarily make it ethically correct.
I would love to see some examples of people who have engaged in similar practices that we didn't bother to prosecute. Like people complaining about 'Obama's war on Leakers,' these assertions of prosecutorial vindictiveness are meaningless without context.
I'm sure the prosecutors that filed this did so at the behest of their superiors, and/or the POTUS, Justice Department, and everyone with a dog in this fight. Going after them would probably be the best thing that could happen for the rest. Have to aim higher.
So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired.
That's the wrong target, Snowden clearly broke the law, and that's what the prosecutors are alleging. You could argue that the laws are unjust (Call Congress!) and so on but apparently everything NSA did was rubber stamped by judges so they have the seal of approval. Snowden knows it too, he himself said that he will be made to suffer.
Obama will never pardon him, imagine the precedent? He will have to take whatever is coming and let history judge him, espionage or civil disobedience?
"The same night two prominent Kadet leaders, Professor F. Kokoshkin, and Dr. A. Shingarev, were murdered in a hospital by a group of Bolshevik sailors. When Lenin heard of the ensuing protest meetings held by the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, he said cynically: 'Let them protest, let them bubble over with rage, let them rave some, sigh some, drink a lot of tea and talk until dawn; then they will surely soon fall asleep.'" - A history of Soviet Russia, George Von Rauch, Fifth Revised Edition, 1967
I can't help but think of that every time I read one of these threads. Especially when people ask for things like the dismissal of the prosecutors, in complete disregard that this agenda comes straight from the White House.
Yup. Since 9/11 the US state has been working hard to consolidate its domestic power, creating a domestic counter-insurgence force (the DHS) to circumvent the Posse Comitatus Act and a command-structure for military action within the continent (NORTHCOM), among many other complementary developments. Wherever the agenda originated, both political parties are following it and the power consolidation is unlikely to stop until completion barring some disruptive influence.
"(a) Whoever, with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver, or transmit, to any foreign government, or to any faction or party or military or naval force within a foreign country, whether recognized or unrecognized by the United States, or to any representative, officer, agent, employee, subject, or citizen thereof, either directly or indirectly, any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, note, instrument, appliance, or information relating to the national defense, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life, except that the sentence of death shall not be imposed unless the jury or, if there is no jury, the court, further finds that the offense resulted in the identification by a foreign power (as defined in section 101(a) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978) of an individual acting as an agent of the United States and consequently in the death of that individual, or directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack; war plans; communications intelligence or cryptographic information; or any other major weapons system or major element of defense strategy."
Death penalty: Many countries, such as Australia, Canada, Macao, New Zealand, South Africa, and most European nations except Belarus, will not allow extradition if the death penalty may be imposed on the suspect unless they are assured that the death sentence will not be passed or carried out.
The U.S. would waive the death penalty to get him back from any of those countries, as they regularly do. I seriously doubt there is any chance they would seek it, anyway.
Some countries also prohibit extradition for life sentences. I remember hearing about one extradition case, they capped the sentence at 60 years, for that reason.
> I don't think Virginia allows the death penalty for espionage:
I'd be surprised if espionage, per se, is even an offense under Virginia state law, but it really doesn't matter what Virginia law is since he is being charged with crimes under federal law in federal court that happens to be located in Virginia.
There are times when federal courts, for a variety of reasons, hear state law claims, and in those cases the remedies allowed by the state are relevant. But when federal courts hear federal claims, the state law of the state in which the federal court happens to sit is irrelevant.
I would hope that those countries also have an extradition exception for torture, including:
(1) solitary confinement;
(2) sleep deprivation;
(3) water boarding
and any other cruel and unusual punishment.
The federal government pursued the death penalty against Brian Patrick Regan in 2003. The jury decided against the punishment, however, and is now serving a life sentence without parole.
He had also made an offer to foreign governments to sell the information, and judging by the fact that he was carrying classified documents with him when he was arrested, I'd say that he planned on acting on those offers. By contrast, AFAIK Snowden has made no such offer and has not talked with the Chinese government.
I agree that what Regan attempted to do was far worse than what Snowden did. It's not even in the same category. I was just pointing out that the feds did pursue the death penalty in this case despite not pursuing it in the Hanssen case.
You have the right to waive your right to a jury, as it turns out. There might be good reasons for this; maybe you do not believe it is possible for an unbiased jury to be assembled for your case (because it is all over the media and most people already think you are guilty). Maybe your defense hinges on highly technical details that an average juror cannot be expected to understand, but that a well-educated judge can.
As it so happens, juries are not required for a government to be legitimate, to respect the rights of its citizens, or for trials to be democratic. Quite a few legal systems in the present day and historically have a panel of judges decide criminal cases. Neither system is perfect.
Defendants can waive the right to trial by jury and instead be subjected to a bench trial. Laws like this need to account for the possibility that the finder of fact may be the judge instead of a jury.
The fact that Holder and Obama chose to drop their charges into public view smack in the middle of the friday night news blackout shows that they lack confidence and feel weak in the face of negative public opinion.
We are entering into the seminal stages of a struggle for the 21st Century; will the future be defined by unaccountable power?
Will we all live in the Panopticon with the sole exception of the ODNI or whatever Cabal is the inner circle of the Intelligence Community?
Will the US (and the world) be ruled by secret laws negotiated as "trade treaties"; that give corporate organizations greater power than any legislature accountable to the citizenry?
Snowden's revelations are merely one set of secrets that we deserve to know. There many more, and every one of those secrets deserves exposure. We, the people of earth; deserve to know what is being done to us by our leaders.
When a government has so profoundly violated the people's trust as ours; questioning it's legitimacy is... legitimate.
From the Bradley Manning link: "the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government."
This is a petition to pardon, which is solely the power of the President. They can't - with any legitimacy - claim that commenting on this would be stepping on someone else's toes.
Apparently, they "[do] not comment, however, on individual pardon applications," according to the Marc Emery. I hope they will make an exception in this case, as this instance speaks to much broader policy. Regardless, sign the petition!
> This is a petition to pardon, which is solely the power of the President. They can't - with any legitimacy - claim that commenting on this would be stepping on someone else's toes.
They can, as at this point he hasn't convicted. Promising to pardon (or declining to do so) in advance of trial would indeed be stepping on the legal system's toes.
That hasn't seemed to stop the executive branch from pardoning people who have been charged but not convicted of anything. (Off the top of my head Marc Rich comes to mind, probably Nixon and a few others too)
I don't expect much of a response either, but I still think it sends an important message, if this gets over the threshold (and it looks like it will).
Well, if they do that, then we'll just have to start another petition. Or organize a protest. We'll have to do something to indicate that we won't stand for it. At the end of the day, they are employed by us.
If you add a random query string to the end of the url you'll get the latest signature count. You will have to change it each time you want to see the current count.
Clearly the US government have to prosecute him with something. Cant encourage it and all that. And presumably he leaked this info knowing full well that the US government would have little choice but do this.
So, I suppose the perfect out come would be: go back to the US, get charged, go to court, admit guilt, get sentenced, then hopefully a President can pardon him.
Now, how one can ensure such an out come, I have zero idea.
All assuming he gets to go to proper civilian court with a jury. If its a military, kangaroo, secret, closed, court.... no way.
Yeah, I like the idea, I just cant see it working or having a viable chance.
It's been years since I've bothered to listen to the chants or read the banners of (insert protest group) when the march down Market Street. For SF it's just part of the scenery for me.
It seems that all of the "major" marches, gatherings, etc. in history have all been events that took place in one location.
One that comes to mind is the Million Man March[0] on the National Mall in 1995. I'm not sure it would have had the same effects it did if it were 2,000 men here, 4,000 men here, and so on.
What about on the 4th? Not ridiculously soon, but seems appropriate, gives us a little time to plan something, and this case isn't moving at a breakneck speed anyway.
Nobody on the east coast cares about what people in San Francisco happen to be protesting about on any given day. If you want to march somewhere, come down to D.C. where someone relevant might actually see you.
Pelosi probably cares what her constituents are protesting, and perhaps what people are protesting in front of them, if it's likely to effect how they vote. Boxer and Feinstein less so, but perhaps a tiny bit...
Interestingly, according to that article, he hasn't been charged with treason, 'just' espionage, theft and conversion of government property. Someone more qualified than I can elaborate, but treason is a much harder crime to prove than espionage (like murder vs. manslaughter).
Edit:
According to the video link provided by spdy, the crime needs to exist in both systems (ie Hong Kong and the US) in order for an extradition request to be considered valid.
Treason, with a similar burden of proof, does not exist in Hong Kong, and thus could not be charged.
Is the US attorney's office allowed to rescind the charges of espionage and re-charge him with treason after he's been extradited to the US?
The people using the term "treason" are either using it ridiculously or only to characterize their opinions of his actions.
From the Constitution:
> 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.
"The Cold War period saw few prosecutions for treason. On October 11, 2006, a federal grand jury issued the first indictment for treason against the United States since Kawakita v. United States in 1952, charging Adam Yahiye Gadahn for videos in which he appeared as a spokesman for al-Qaeda and threatened attacks on American soil." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#United_States).
Sadly that's not how your legal system works any more. I don't have the link handy but it came up here recently with that environmental activist who just got out of jail for breaking up an illegal auction of land.
He thought he'd be fine but when the prosecution found that many of the jurors had received a juror's rights pamphlet out lining the basic foundations of your country like that jurys are supposed to be a social check on the laws and the social conscience they threw a fit and they with the judge 1 by 1 interviewed potential jury members and sent home anyone who wouldn't agree to follow the judges orders and interpretations of the law and just vote to convict on weather or not he broke the law, not weather the law was just or what he did was for a greater good.
And so with a jury stacked against him (some may say against the original spirit of your legal system) he ended up with years in jail. Mean while in the course of trying to redo the auction they of course found that it was illegal and didn't do it.
So he felt he'd saved the land and it was worth a few years of his life.
Snowden faces worse and again probably a fairly stacked jury if it were to ever come to that. Tho they could also just indefinitely detain him nakedly in a micro cell in solitary etc etc etc.
To be fair, what he did could be in the interests of his country and still be considered espionage, depending on the details of the case. I think a very likely opinion would be, yes, the programs he exposed were wrong and yes, he's a hero but also a traitor.
I only say this because I expect the bulk of comments to this post to suggest the reason Americans might find him guilty would be narrow-mindedness or some sort of fascist tendency, but that's not necessarily going to be the case even if they do. Anti China/Anti-communist bias definitely would play a part, but the charges could possibly stick on their own merits, even if Americans are uncomfortable with the nature of what he exposed.
Yes, quite easily. Randomly pull from somewhere like central Pennsylvania and you probably wouldn't even need to exclude anyone from your randomly picked list.
That would depend on the definition of "country" used (its leadership/government or its citizens), and whether or not the jury can be convinced that the secrecy of the leaked programs was in the citizenry's best interests.
Why is he being charged in the Eastern District of Virginia when the alleged crime was perpetrated in Hawaii? Shouldn't any prosecution be under the original jurisdiction of the District of Hawaii/9th Circuit?
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy
and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein
the crime shall have been committed[...]
> Why is he being charged in the Eastern District of Virginia when the alleged crime was perpetrated in Hawaii?
It wasn't. Per the complaint [1], the alleged offenses occurred in the county of "Not Applicable" in the District of "Not Applicable". Which would appear to charge offenses that did not occur within any judicial district, which, IIRC, can be charged in any US District Court.
The complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, a jurisdiction where Snowden’s former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, is headquartered and a district with a long track record of prosecuting cases with national security implications.
Yes, I read that part. But the Sixth amendment says nothing about where the defendant's employer is headquartered or the convenience of the prosecutors, judges, etc.
To me, the choice of Virginia as the original jurisdiction is clearly unconstitutional.
Also, Rule 18 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure states:
Unless a statute or these rules permit otherwise, the government must
prosecute an offense in a district where the offense was committed.
I believe since he stole the laptops from his employer there, they can charge him there. At least, this theory may explain why that bogus little charge was included.
Completely agree, however, it may also depend on his employment contract with Booz Allen Hamilton. For example, many tech companies are Delaware C-corps but all legal issues involving employees are resolved in the state of employment, i.e. California in most cases. It would be great if a BAH employee can share details on the jurisdiction of disputes, arbitration and other legal issues in their employment contract.
Any such contract clauses would only affect civil litigation between BAH and the employee based on the contract, not effect proper venue for criminal cases brought against the employee by the government.
They charged him on his birthday? Damn, that's cold. After what the NSA did to Thomas Drake (dragging him through legal hell for four years, which in the end resulted in no jail time or fines), you have to wonder how personal some of the legal maneuvering is.
"Restore the Fourth is a non partisan group of concerned citizens working to restore privacy and fourth amendment rights. We are planning nationwide protests in over 100 locations on July 4th."
I really wonder when people are actually going to wake up, understand how the system works and spend their efforts lobbying politicians instead of meaningless protests.
Let's assume this charge is legal and correct for a moment. Why aren't the newspapers (guardian and the post?) and their writers/editors also being charged? Why aren't the newspapers having their paypal and all their bank accounts frozen?
We live in very scary times as far as I'm concerned. The US is prosecuting its own citizens for standing up and saying "what you're doing to the rest of the world is not OK". But if you're a non-US citizen doing the same you just get thrown in Gitmo.
There's outrage about what is being done domestically, but the rest of the world seem to have no way of protesting. As an Australian I should be safe from all of this - but our Government, no doubt, is piggy-backing on everything the US is doing. No one is safe.
W.r.t. why the Guardian isn't also being charged: While the act of leaking classified information is a crime, publishing classified information leaked to you by someone else isn't a crime. Here's a law-review article discussing that: https://www.law.upenn.edu/institutes/cerl/conferences/ethics...
Snowden presumably signed some contract or took some oath when he got his clearance, which he violated when he leaked info. The newspapers never made such promises. I don't think Snowden should be punished, but I can see why there might be a distinction with respect to prosecution.
The government obviously needs to set a precedent by charging Snowden. Even though what the government is doing is controversial and many people support Snowden, there might be somebody else down the line who thinks, "If Snowden was able to do it, then I can too because I believe this thing I'm exposing is wrong."
Of course, massive public outrage over what the NSA is doing could make it a moot point and put the focus on the government. But like many things, this isn't a one sided issue and many people are indifferent or support the NSA. The media is asking "How should we feel about this?" and any white house petition will likely get a weak answer reinforcing the government's decision.
Espionage is punishable by death. I sincerely hope Snowden finds asylum somewhere safe --Iceland perhaps-- as the Department of Justice has made it perfectly clear that this patriot is no longer welcome here.
The only civilians executed for espionage in the US were the Rosenbergs in 1953 and that is widely seen as an overreaction that occurred in the context of the hysteria of the early Cold War. Only three people have been executed by the Federal government for any crime since 1963. It is incredibly unlikely that Snowden would be executed.
Given that the political (un)likelihood of the death penalty was already addressed by GabrielF00, it's not clear to me how "slippery slope fallacy" is a valid dismissal when espionage is punishable by death and has been applied.
I hope Hongkong will be protecting him, or he can live in Iceland peacefully afterwards. He is doing that for all of us ordinary people in my opinion.
This is also extremely embarrassing for US gov and the president, who were blaming Chinese for network attacks and acting as the innocent victim. I now doubt the integrity of our leaders, they're simply liars in this regard, how can I trust them in the future for whatever they're going to say.
More and more over the past several years, I've wondered what has become of this country. I mean, in my 39 years of life in the U.S., I don't think there was ever a time where I thought, this country has gone to the pits. And, not only is it the the government, it's the U.S. Citizens. These people are placated to the point that if you don't take away their celebrities and entertainment, you could literally shit on their mothers and they probably would just take it.
I disagree. To "shit on their mothers" would actually motivate those who are placated and apathetic to act and mobilize. In my mind, only very few persons would take to the streets and sacrifice their livelihoods and personal convenience for abstract ideas and principles. Case in point, Edward Snowden.
Until the effects of corruption has reached, in a literal sense, the doors of most Americans, we might see citizens act and begin to stand for abstract ideas such as privacy, due process, etc. But I think they would only continue until it becomes most inconvenient for them.
I guess this is a cynical way of looking at people but maybe I'm not in a good state of mind at the moment.
Personally, I would want him to stand trial on two conditions:
(1) He and Glenn Greenwald are allowed to have an open, public televised debate with President Obama, the congressmen that are members of the intelligence committee, and the judges that sit on the FISC court. This would be done in 3 sessions Frost/Nixon style.
(2) He is promised fair just treatment, that is made public so that he cannot be subjected to solitary confinement and other torturous conditions.
Yeah, but as I said in another comment, it is common practice for certain countries to only extradite someone in capital cases if the country requesting extradition guarantees that they won't seek the death penalty. He could appeal to Hong Kong to only allow extradition on the condition that solitary confinement and other cruel and unusual punishments cannot be used.
This actually seems to be a pretty big problem with the web right now. We've been balkanized into mobile and desktop versions of sites, to the point where sharing one with the other inevitably pisses someone off. This article is all but unreadable on desktop, and I suspect the same would be true in reverse.
The point of the web is to have multiple clients getting the same info from a single source. This doesn't work if mobile and desktop clients are served different versions of the same site, and in effect are barred from sharing with eachother.
I sort of agree with you... but then OTOH when it comes to virtually any newspaper/media site I almost always prefer viewing the mobile version to the "full site" (even when browsing on a traditional computer), because the mobile versions tend to be less stuffed up with garbage ads, interstitials, social networking buttons and other such shit-fuckery.
I suppose this certifies the authenticity of the released claims, for those who have been continuing to deny it: If the documents weren't real he'd just be a liar and lying in the media isn't generally a crime in the US.
Snowden is, and will forever be, a patriot in my eyes. Our government (in the US) takes away more and more of our civil liberties and constitutional rights with each passing day and I'm personally tired of it.
If Hong Kong grants the "provisional arrest warrant" it could mean that Snowden will spend years fighting extradition from inside a jail cell. And it could be the end of any hopes of asylum in Iceland.
The Chinese authorities will hold him until they feel he has given them all he knows, then quickly extradite him to the US.
At that point he will probably try to get to Europe. If he makes it, his appeal to those governments on humanitarian grounds may be weakened by the fact the first country he picked practices capital punishment far more than the US (more than every other country in the world combined):
He could have fled to Europe in the first place just as easily. For example, US citizens are exempt from visa requirements for short stays (90 days) in France -- la Patrie des droits de l'homme -- from where he would have had direct access to the ECtHR...
Snowden: "Leaving the US was an incredible risk, as NSA employees must declare their foreign travel 30 days in advance and are monitored. There was a distinct possibility I would be interdicted en route, so I had to travel with no advance booking to a country with the cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained. Hong Kong provided that. Iceland could be pushed harder, quicker, before the public could have a chance to make their feelings known, and I would not put that past the current US administration."
And there's the whole moratorium currently in place against extradition in HK right now, and they have a British-based judicial system that takes FOREVER (just like ours!), and have an exemption in their extradition treaties for political crimes. HK != PRC.
Can someone explain how he can be charged with espionage? Is there some meaning of that which covers leakers of information, like leaking the Pentagon Papers, when it's to the press (and not to another government or company)?
Nothing to see here. Govt need to create a public process with a severe penalty in order not to create a precedent.
The same type of prosecution as in Khodorkovsky or Pussy Riot cases in Russia - to clearly signal to others - don't do it again, so govt will do everything that is possible.
Sometimes I think that being a major in, say, English literature isn't that useless as it seems to be.))
> The anti-secrecy group Wikileaks has held some discussions ...
What is an anti-secrecy group? It sound like something out of Discworld series, where a group is tired of being discovered changed the door sign from "secret group" to "not-secret group". In the world of Discworld, it would likely work too.
Is it so hard to write a group behind the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, or the more correct term: A group that runs a publishing website for whistleblowers called WikiLeaks?
Source? What information has been published which isn't a whistleblow leak? Bradley Manning isn't exactly charged with telling about someones secret crush, or where they hide to smoke, or where that secret stash of weed is.
I was thinking about this earlier today. My fear is that something will happen to Greenwald and the rest of the data/documents/whatever else he has would never become public.
Don't you think that maybe they leaked the most interesting stuff first? This stuff has started to fall out of the news. It's past time to keep the story going.
Perhaps there was a limit to the documents he was able to scavenge.
If I could gamble on this topic, my bet would be that there isn't any more interesting information. That said, I am interested in learning what the rest of the information is, so I can make up my own mind about the issue.
Did you miss the new documents published yesterday? They've been all over HN today, and they contradict most everything Obama and the NSA have been saying for the past week.
I didn't find them very revelatory. It just seems like typical CYA spook paperwork. Regarding the government lying, I don't see how that is news, either.
Because it's documented proof of their blatant lies to the public and to Congress. If that's not something big to you, I doubt there are any documents that can be released which will impress you.
I'd like to see more documents detailing how the system works, and specific instances of it being used to target american citizens. Something along the lines of the information eventually turned up about the Fast and Furious operation, or the Iran Contra affair. Right now it's just a powerpoint and a signed letter.
Greenwald/The Guardian won't release it out of fear of being brought up on similar charges. I don't know why they haven't released it already, unless it's just more of the same sort of vaguely incriminating powerpoint presentations.
News cycle. If they release too early, it just fatigues everyone and makes them get bored of the issue. I'm guessing that Greenwald is sitting on many of the documents and waiting for people to forget about Snowden, and then he'll release another one to keep the issue (and The Guardian) in the news. He maximizes both the political impact and the eyeballs going to his employer in this way.
That won't stop Greenwald. And if you haven't noticed, they already have released even more incriminating documents, including a signed order from the Attorney General authorizing multiple exemptions to the ban on collecting and viewing data from U.S. citizens.
It's not illegal for journalists to possess classified info, because espionage laws only apply to those who are authorized to possess such info and disclose it without authorization to a third party; the third parties themselves are guilty of nothing (except perhaps "conspiracy" as the DoJ is trying to do against Wikileaks, allegedly.)
It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution.
People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this completely in the bud before prosecutors get rolling, and several other ways of notifying our elected representatives that going down this path is unacceptable.
These are political charges, and as the governed we should stand up to the people who are supposed to be working for us and demand that they be dropped. Immediately.