U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
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.
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)
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.
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?
I agree the NSA IG and PSCI's are essentially insiders, but "deal with this or I will go public" would give the minority members some cover.
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.
I will grant you that it's not the greatest law and I'm not sure I would avail myself of it if in his shoes. It does exist, though.
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.
(http://unmpress.com/books.php?ID=12391155859919&Page=book, http://www.hcn.org/issues/43.7/a-misguided-investigation-end..., etc. for reference.)
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.
Nevertheless it's the kind of concrete detail I think a case can hinge on. Public opinion, too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/snowden-not...
They are probably sitting at his home just waiting for the NSA to pick them up.
Proving provenance of the data? No. If he can list it, he can edit, `touch' re-timestamp it, etc, ie, falsify it.
"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)."
Here are the full results: http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/17/public-split-over-imp...
And just because it is interesting:
"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.
For example (similar, but exactly the same angle), a conviction requires a unanimous vote, not a majority vote.
And a Congressional pardon? Are you sure about that?
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.
* CISPA veto threat/defeat [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/cybersecurity-legi...]
* New open-access rules [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/increasing-public-...]
* Halting use of animals in military training [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-halt-c...]
[1] Barring time travel
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.
Definitely subjective, though.
This is just speculation but it helps me cope with the facebook activism.
Which is a far more meaningful act than signing these useless online petitions.
It's only fair that we have a say in the politics of the US, as their politicians seem to find it fair to meddle in ours.
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
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.
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.
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".
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.
Now every law is legal, that's why we have a Supreme Court. Ergo, not every lawbreak is illegal.
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.
I'm just disagreeing with the premise that even having a trial is itself 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?
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.)
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.
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.
"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."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity , which is a specific case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_defense
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 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).
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.
Of course that was before the NSA revelations revealed the true extent of the spying going on.
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.
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.
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.
Rightly so?
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."
Enlisted oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_enlistment
Officers' oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Service...
Not that Snowden is either, but you were talking about when soldiers may disobey their superiors so I thought this might be tangentially interesting.
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.
"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."
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
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.
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?
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)
Also, I think we need the Republicans (or anyone) to impeach Obama, for the good of the country.
For what, doing their jobs? Protest by all means, but demanding that prosecutors be fired for executing the law is just ridiculous.
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.
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.
It's about the size of the 10 biggest following countries COMBINED! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...
That is YOUR hard earned tax money at work AGAINST YOU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_South...
This of course does not cover Afghanistan and Iran/Contra.
Here's a paper examining CIA Black Funding simply by looking at the trillion or so dollars of misallocated DoD money over fifty or so years:
http://www1.american.edu/salla/Articles/BB-CIA.htm
A trillion here and there and pretty soon you're talking real money.
> 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.
Fooey.
Pardoning him would be the Rule of Man.
Just sayin' ..
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.
"(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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Virginia#...
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.
(There's a lot of John Walkers on Wikipedia.)
Why even pretend it's a gov't for the people anymore?
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.
In fact, Pfc. Manning has done exactly this IIRC: He is asking for bench trial so that the judge alone decides his fate.
793 is less serious in that it doesn't accuse him of aiding a foreign government http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-37
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.
[1]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...
Cf. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-cant-commen... https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-can’t-comme...
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!
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.
So 18 signatures have disappeared?
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...
"The Obama DOJ just charged its 7th leaker under "espionage" statute - total for ALL prior presidents: 3"
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.
Pity.
"Anyone have interest in a criminal investigation to discover which "officials" leaked news of the sealed indictment? http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-cha... "
For San Francisco, we should show up in force somewhere - is Tuesday too soon to plan something - say show up in force at Union Square at 8pm?
fadysfca@gmail.com
This is a huge deal on HN. But it's simply business as usual for most people.
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.
The name of the group calls to mind the saying about "painting the forth bridge" - I'm not sure whether that's unfortunate, appropriate, or both...
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?
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.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/06... around 2:20 he talkes about this
taken from a reply by daywalker
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.
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.
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[...]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.
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.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.
[1] http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-complai...
http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth
"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."
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.
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_Unite...
Pretty disturbing times we're living in.
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.
(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.
Leakers leaking about another leaker.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-cha...
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.
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):
http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/death-sentences-and-...
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...
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.
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."
He was not charged yet when he went to HK.
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.))
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...
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?
Happy birthday Ed!
Perhaps there was a limit to the documents he was able to scavenge.
The documents are a direct authorization from the Attorney General for all the ways in which they are allowed to do exactly that.
TERRORISM
and
NATIONAL SECURITY
All proceeds should go to his defense team, Goldberg.