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Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

I believe that the obligation to submit works for pre-publication review is the result of a contract which he signed in order to get his security clearance. My understanding is that if anyone without a security clearance had written the exact same book, there would have been no judgment.

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I believe you're right, mostly because TFA says exactly that:

> In September 2019, the United States filed a lawsuit against Snowden, who published a book entitled Permanent Record in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both CIA and NSA. The lawsuit alleged that Snowden published his book without submitting it to the agencies for pre-publication review, in violation of his express obligations under the agreements he signed. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that Snowden has given public speeches on intelligence-related matters, also in violation of his non-disclosure agreements.

My point is that 100% civil forfeiture for violating the agreement doesn't sit well with me considering the information was already "out there". I would have much rather preferred this action be an outcome of a criminal trial ie. Son of Sam law.

I think this has been the policy for any/all books published without proper review.

Well, what would you think if he'd violated a private contract, and sold a book containing the information he obtained as a result of the violation? Perhaps a lawyer doing this with respect to their relationship with a client, or maybe someone like Levandowski writing a book about what he learned at Google.

Google has the same deal. There is plenty of confidential information readily available on the public Internet but confirming it is still breach of contract and they will sue. I hear Apple is even more zealous about NDAs.

> and they will sue

Can you cite any cases of this? Google suing people first is very rare.

This is not a civil forfeiture action. This is a garden-variety breach-of-contract action. In a civil forfeiture action, the defendant is the property itself.

This is civil.

When you sign a clearence they tell you in the required training this is so you cannot profit off of the info you learn, even in fiction.

Has an obvious point of keeping you from having a financial motivation to breach that clearence.

Feelings I'm afraid have little to so with the legal realities at play here. He had choice to sign or not sign. He signed. While not same subject, there are equally intense feelings that arise in marital separation agreements especially when an ex moves out of state possibly taking kids, alimony due to ex if she/he purposely avoided work to get alimony and 81 other things. The courts are not really all that interested in those feelings of unfairness between exs here.

Agree. This judgement seems a pretty pedestrian outcome of not following a contract.

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