Let Snowden Come Home
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
All 12 of us would be fired up! More seriously, did you see the bit on John Oliver about Snowden? The majority of the US population have no idea who Snowden is. Be careful not to get caught up in our tech news bubble.
It isn't until you meet people on both sides of such a dividing line that you realize: propaganda is never aimed at "converting" people who know even the slightest thing about an issue, people who already have any stance at all. Instead, it's aimed at the mass of people who care little enough about an issue, people who are far enough away from the issue, that they'll trust the first source of "facts" about it they see, and then lose interest in finding out more.
Maybe there's a Venn Diagram of information bubble in there somewhere.
:(
Iran does not have nuclear weapons but they are extremely close to having nuclear weapons. They have the knowledge, the material, etc such that if the sustained cooperation of other nations to sabotage their nuclear operations were to discontinue they would be nuclear capable very quickly. This is probably what the author intended - though it is dishonest to round it up the way he did.
When the recent Iran deals were being announced, I read material that said something along the lines of "Iran is 3 months from having a nuke" (breakout). It seemed to be saying, "Iran is holding steady, but could pull the trigger (so to speak) and begin the final 3 months of preparation at any moment". The goal of the nuclear agreement was to keep them perpetually some certain number of months away (or increase it) from having enough material for a bomb.
> The IR-1s installed in the Natanz and Fordow facilities have been performing at an average per unit rate of 0.75 to 1 SWU per year. Using the 1 SWU/year performance of the latest IR-1 model, the breakout time with 9,000 machines using a natural uranium feed would be six to seven months. However, Iran also has substantial stocks of 3.5 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that can be used as an alternative feed, shrinking the breakout time to three months.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/iran...
> Mr. Kerry was joined at the talks by Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, who will have to certify to Congress that the deal ensures that Iran will remain at least a year away from being able to produce a weapon’s worth of bomb fuel over the next decade, a complex calculation in which the size of Iran’s stockpile is a major factor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/middleeast/irans-nuc...
Now maybe there's far more sabotage than we know about going on, but it sounds like Iran has the ability to accumulate enough material, and is choosing not to. The way this is phrased implies that Iran is halting work toward a bomb.
> The [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors, who have had almost daily access to most of Iran’s nuclear production facilities, reported finding no evidence that Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon, and said Tehran had halted work on facilities that could have given it bomb-making capabilities.
I am certain that sabotage efforts are sustained and a critical part of the US-Israel alliance. Beyond the Stuxnet episode and the subsequent Mossad/CIA assassination the history here is dense.
For countries who want to use nuclear readiness as a strategic deterrent, it does make sense to have a short breakout period but not necessarily be already stockpiled.
It's an interesting proposal. My presumption would be that the ideal scenario for Iran would be what was suggested above: that Iran acquire a stockpile, let other countries know that they have them, but not have them in a truly official capacity. It seems like keeping a short breakout period would be less ideal than having a semi-secret, well protected stockpile.
Me either, can you give a recent example or two?
- NGOs and CSOs the US has in China and their support of Civil Society; Civil Society is a comprehensive word that means signon to US standards, expectations, culture, economic norms, etc
- Source code (hosted on GitHub) that supports civil dissidents and websites (greatfirewall) that align with US narrative work that have US support or funding
- DoD MINERVA's study of housing crises in China and the possibility to use home ownership (surveillance of) for prediction or (propaganda of) nudging into unrest
- Broadcasting by the Board of Broadcasting Governors, such as VOA into China
- Anything you can find via FOIA requests from the Bureau of International Information Programs (this was born to take up responsibilities formerly in charge of by the late USIA)
If you want to get hypothetical there are number of suspicious events and coincidences - but these have no definitive link (smoking gun) pointing to the United States so they are excluded here.
It's important to note that NGOs do not mean that they are not related to government or the USG's national security objectives. ZunZuneo for example was set up through a series of NGOs that were ultimately CIA fronts.
There are people who spend 100% of their time focused on any particular country or issue you are interested in. Find professors of foreign policy or cultural studies and security advisors for the country or area. There are similarly task forces that try to provide insight into the whatever issue - many of these are public.
The short answer here is that no, there isn't any easy place. But the great thing is that, if you care enough about it, some reasonable representation of 'what's going on' is available to you.
The Chinese government doesn't care to attempt to change what Americans think about China; they know they won't be able to convince them of anything after so many other sources have already told them this or that thing to believe. So, to Americans, China is a propaganda machine, and China is fine with that. On the other hand, this means Americans never really get to hear what China is telling the Chinese about America, because they don't bother to publish that outside of their borders.
I guess there are three layers to any information bubble, then: at the core, there are informed citizens who both know the propaganda and have facts to reject it; surrounding that, there is a larger group of uninformed propaganda-influenced citizens; and on the outside, there are foreigners, who don't even know what a given country's propaganda says, only that it exists.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/china/09_04_30_infl_ops....
America propagandizes China, China propagandizes America, China propagandizes China and America propagandizes America. Or, if you perfer, each country performs "Influence Operations", "Strategic Communications", "Psychological Operations".
Propaganda is merely the focused government effort to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products.
Different audiences are going to require different messaging.
The US's propaganda is quite different than China's propaganda when it comes to the exact physical end product, although the countries are starting to share more and more common tactical forms and procedures.
Of course what the US wants US civilians to think is different than was the US wants China to think is different from what US wants Chinese civilians to think is different from what China wants USG to think is different from what China was US civilians to think.
Propaganda is not a blunt instrument. It has to be and is targeted to specific audiences.
Or, to put it another way, domestic propaganda is strategic and continuous (and therefore easily observed, by meeting a citizen of the country who "grew up with the propaganda"); foreign-targeted propaganda is tactical and one-off, and won't usually leak out of whatever domain it was focused on (government, military, investors, entrepreneurs, etc.)
For example the United States government is currently engaged in a blanket of propaganda covering communications, social media and news outfit over the Middle East - they go so far as to create video games for the children there to play. The goal is a deradicalization of the Middle East - the vast majority of which now have turned against or are deeply suspicious of the United States (even NATO member Turkey).
How episodic propaganda operations are depends on the goal of the propaganda. Sometimes there is a specific ephemeral purpose (e.g. military deception), other times it is a short term goal (e.g. increase trust in gov't bonds) and other times it intends to be permanent or long lasting (e.g. America and Western culture is friendly to you and you would like to be a part of it).
But there is potential for bias. VPN exits and VPS are arguably hosted in facilities that serve foreigners. So perhaps their access to domestic Chinese sites is censored.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-most-think-edward-snowden-s...
My experience (Seattle) is quite different. Also colored.
1. http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-s...
2. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/06/john-oliver-in...
I'm not going to google the quote right now but the heart of it is that when they care about an issue, their celebrity can bring more attention than the righteousness of the cause.
We have an abstract understanding of the fact that, in different parts of the world, people are facing hardship but a celebrity can get television cameras to show us what is happening.
Why?
I can understand disliking some of the particular causes, or disliking the disproportionate attention given to celebrities, but why would you hate the fact that people who happen to be famous also advocate for causes they care about?
Because most of the time it's celebrity endoresment - appeal to authority, without having authority. Why should I trust George Clooney's opinion on coffee let alone what he thinks about Darfur?
I imagine Clooney's also had more access to finer coffee than myself, but I can safely assume that adverts aren't expressing personal opinions in the slightest. :)
Not sure about that. Great coffee isn't that expensive.
Speaking of celebrity endoresment and coffee - Al Pacino did an ad for Vittoria (Australian coffee brand) which is IMHO burned-tasting, low quality coffee. There was an interview with the marketing people who made the commercial, and the reason why they chose him was purely because he was a well known Italian... making him a perceived authority on good coffee. Spoiler alert - he isn't.
I saw an interview where he mentioned this (probably Inside the Actor's Studio). Words to the effect of: "realistically the studios are not going to fund a biopic about Edward R. Murrow. So if I can fund it by doing coffee ads, that's something I can live with".
I hear people citing this specific stat all the time as a proof about how stupid or uninformed americans are, and every time I hear it it bothers me. Knowing the vice president's name is something that is neither useful nor relevant to most americans, and therefore not knowing it makes sense entirely. I honestly don't see how that makes them uninformed at all.
But then, there's that "basically educated" thing, isn't it? Our aggressive willingness, as a society, to not know things about how it actually works, and then excuse ourselves for it, troubles me pretty deeply.
I had to struggle to recall the name. The man is utterly unimportant to me, though I do hope he is eventually punished for the crimes of his administration.
Joe Biden was a very well known senator before he became Vice President, any criteria you use to call yourself relatively informed about US politics when you had never heard of Joe Biden is flawed.
This would be like me saying that due to X's long and distinguished career in tennis, most americans should know who they are. The problem is that most americans don't follow tennis at all, especially not to the extent that they are familiar with particular players, unless they are superstars that always have their name all over the news (I can think of two for which this might be the case). And senators seem to have their name in the prominent news less frequently than tennis stars, honestly.
It doesn't help that he's been probably the most invisible Vice President in god knows how many years. I bet you if you asked the same question during the G.W. Bush years a lot more people would be able to answer.
Burn it all and start over, I say :)
That said, whistleblowers are in for a rough time and usually get acknowledged for what they did when they're either too old or dead.
Most of what he leaked has nothing to do with the government spying on its citizens. Most of the documents relate to how the US deals with its own international interests and how it protects those interests - right or wrong.
For this reason, he's not a patriot or a whistle blower. He's just another government employee who stole and released a ton of classified documents that did more damage to his own country than what he's been telling people about the NSA spying programs. And let's be honest, it was something most people already knew about anyways. His documents only confirmed a lot of what people already suspected. The only difference was his documents showed how deep the rabbit hole went.
In a few more years, nobody will care - let him rot in Siberia for all I care. All he did was weaken a country by his actions.
Many officials from the CIA and NSA (and FBI) have distorted the truth or outright lied to public. Snowden's actions have pushed back on that somewhat, rekindling a strong interest in what the watchers are doing. Stingrays, parallel construction, surveillance airplanes over urban areas, etc. You've got to keep that kind of power under strict control and keep the watchers accountable.
I think there's a difference between hearing some unsubstantiated claims from a disgruntled employee (Binney) versus getting a legitimate-looking document that the government made no effort to deny. Once that failed to happen, we knew it was real.
Soon after, government officials acknowledged the mass collection renewal under §215, demonstrating the document's authenticity. So I dispute that it was something people knew about prior to the disclosure.
If I'm not mistaken, there were whistle-blowers before Snowden that were "responsible", following legal means to raise these issues, and completely ignored.
http://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/333741495/before-snowden-the-w...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...
Since we know they were blowing the whistle on issues the public cared about, and we know they were ignored, is that not proof that the legal channels for this are ineffective? Perhaps if these channels actually had lead to actual changes, then the harm Snowden has brought to your country would not have been necessary.
Can you be a little more specific in your armchair whistleblowing? Because we've seen other whistleblowers try to do it other ways -- on many of the same issues -- and fail.
> And let's be honest, it was something most people already knew about anyways.
It was something many people inside and outside of government, some of whom are now advocating -- or actually, in the case of members of Congress, taking -- action to rein it in, were directly dismissing previous reports of. It is not something everybody knew (the "everybody knew it already" line is something that defenders trotted out once enough details had come out that the "you're paranoid, there's no evidence anything like that is happening" line they'd been using with previous reports couldn't be maintained with even a shred of credibility.)
No it was not. His stated intent was to expose government surveillance in order to spark public discussion. His unstated intent, derived from his actions, was exactly the same.
Had he aimed at damaging the government, there were much more efficient -- for that effect -- ways of revealing the information.
If you understand anything about what has actually happened, you'll know that Snowden provided (a) an exhaustive list of all the "other ways" that exist in theory and (b) point-by-point demonstration that none of them are real. But if you're aware of an avenue that has not already been widely and properly dismissed as useless then please, provide the details here.
And while you're at it, maybe you can explain how something can be both a genuine secret and common knowledge. Remember, that unproven suspicions are not the same as definite knowledge - not by a long shot. There's also a huge difference between knowing that something is technically possible and discovering that government officials have became lawless enough to actually do it.
Honestly, if we were to deal with crimes in the order they were committed, Snowden would be the last person going to trial.
Ah, the irony of mimicking the villain's final moments in A Few Good Men. The villain claims to protect the country's high ideals, yet does so by flagrantly violating them, and in the process utters your line, almost verbatim.
> His documents only confirmed a lot of what people already suspected.
Then how could he have weakened the country? This is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too argument.
Think about it this way, would you be mad if Russia FSB agents were constantly trying to get access to classified military networks of the US? Well no, that's part of their stated functions and one of the mildest at that. If those networks get hacked it is the U.S. fault! Same with the NSA hacking Russian govt networks (substitute countries as you will, it doesn't matter). But if it turned out that the FSB was intercepting every phone communication in the U.S. 100% of the time between random civilians (which btw might or might not be the case...), that would be a different situation. Mass surveillance is different from targeted espionage and is not any more righteous when you do it to civilians abroad than when you impose it on your own citizens.
Besides, there is the whole lot of evidence of decisions where the NSA intentionally weakened U.S. cyber-security in order to make sure it could spy on foreign civilians using those weaknesses. Making yourself more vulnerable to attack while pissing off as many people abroad as possible is the opposite of what you want your government to be doing, it would seem to me...
While this may sound like conspirilogic, I can site many similar instances of deaths of journalists and other instigators under mysterious circumstances in this country if necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist)#...
EDIT: and since I can no longer edit my original comment: *cite
Why wouldn't that be just as likely to happen to him while in exile once public attention has waned?
People dying in car accidents are a thing that happen with a much higher probability than winning the lottery, so maybe this is nature imitating art more than anything else.
Domestic Spying is NOT OK.
International Spying IS OK.
He released dozens of files regarding international spying. Setting US efforts back dozens of years, endangering lives of US assets.
Sorry to say but that is treason.
Treason has a price.
What are you feelings about spying that is ostensibly international but nonetheless collects a potentially large, though unknowable, amount of intimate domestic communication? I ask because that is exactly the kind of thing that happens with the "Foreign Intelligence" programs Snowden leaked.
> [...] Section 702 of FISA Amendments Act of 2008, is labeled "Procedures For Targeting Certain Persons Outside The United States Other Than United States Persons." Going on name alone, that sounds like the opposite of a license for the NSA to collect private messages between Americans.
> Not necessarily.
> [...]
> Through those spying programs, it is possible that American-to-American email could hit an overseas server and be pulled into NSA databases even though those emails are not the target of NSA searches. The law does not prohibit this kind of "incidental" collection of Americans’ communications, as long as it was part of an otherwise valid collection of non-Americans’ information, said Stephen Vladeck, American University national security law professor.
> Government reports, leaks and a scathing 2011 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion offer more proof that the NSA cannot separate out communications between Americans from the emails involving a foreigner. "NSA’s knowing acquisition of tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications through its Upstream collection is a cause of concern for the court," wrote FISC Judge John D. Bates in the declassified opinion.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/apr/09/...
If you are upset with the leak of international material you must be upset with Greenwald.
Yes, the USA Freedom Act is limited. Yes, it doesn't change all the things we'd all like to see changed. "The perfect is the enemy of the good." It's at least movement in the right direction. Let's try celebrating that, instead of (or at least along with) bitching that it's not movement far enough.
Slogans are easy, what's hard is recognizing the difference between political theater and meaningful change.
America is tumbling into the abyss of tyranny and people celebrate.
I'm saying, "Ooh, look: teeny, tiny step back from the level of tyranny we had yesterday. Nice!" I would hope anyone who hates tyranny would see merit in that.
Now, yes, if that's all we get, then being pissed and — more importantly, doing something about it — is warranted. But I choose to look at this as a first step, while you and others appear to regard it as appeasement and a pat on the head.
Not much I can do for you there.
Dismissing criticism with a flippant "perfect is the enemy of the good" is lazy and thoughtless.
The government has shown no interest in curtailing the vast surveillance apparatus it has built, nor does it show interest in investigating its own abuses of such power.
When people praise such drivel as the freedom act it only sets us all back on the road to tyranny. So yeah, your perspective is detrimental to improving the dire circumstances we find ourselves.
Thanks.
EDIT: You know what I think has people the most pissed off in all of this? That their illusions about America having been a particularly "free" country in the first place are being shattered.
I'm reminded of nothing quite so much as the virulence I've seen in former, incredibly ardent Obama supporters, when they realized how much of a tool he actually was.
Those of us who knew he was a tool from the beginning? Not so pissed when his true colors came out.
(And, no, I'm not a Republican, nor a Libertarian. I just realized a long time ago how corrupt the American political process is, and engage with it with that principle in mind.)
So pre-9/11 the NSA wasn't allowed to spy on Americans (in most cases), so instead they paid the UK's GCHQ to spy on Americans for them and then relayed the intelligence to the NSA for analysis. This was and still is a perfectly legal loophole. There are no limits on cooperation with other intelligence agencies. When 9/11 happened the NSA got effectively a blank cheque and asked to increase intelligence gathering significantly, so instead of continuing the GCHQ misdirection they simply expanded spying within the US and then legalised it (via executive order at the time, law later).
So the NSA was spying on Americans in the 1990s, they just had to do more legal maneuvering to do it. It just got significantly worse in the 2000s and they dropped even pretending that they weren't. Even if a stronger law outlawed spying on Americans, you'd just see them go back to the GCHQ way.
PS - A lot of Americans seem to want the NSA spying on "foreigners" without realising that that effectively opens the door to the NSA spying on Americans. That way a call between a US citizen and anyone from abroad can be listened in on.
PPS - Don't even get me started on the NSA's spying on behalf of US corporations, that's a whole other can of worms.
If the budget remains the same or even increases the following year, then clearly something is not right there and the NSA will just use that money to "keep" the program in some other place and through some other methods.
Unfortunately, since the "Defund the NSA" bill that almost passed the House after the first Snowden revelations, I haven't seen any discussion about doing that. The civil liberties organizations should've pushed for a similar law within 3 months afterwards and ensure it passes then.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04...
That's not a rational argument.
no it isn't, EO12333 disallows the intelligence community from asking someone else to do something that they cannot do
It's like the recent Smith-Mundt reforms. You no longer have to prevent propaganda from reaching the American public. You just have to not intend for it to reach the American public.
oh you mean if material spontaneously appeared? yeah... good luck explaining that one
This leads to a question: in the movie Citizenfour, Snowden explains that the NSA uses british surveillance system when they need information that they can't legally obtain in the US. I'm wondering, under this new "freedom act", can the NSA legally query the british system to access information about US citizen?
Snowden is charged with "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person," which -- I think sensibly -- is illegal even if the unauthorized person is a reporter and even if you had good intentions.
I'm not a lawyer, but if he wants to argue that he's innocent or that the law is unconstitutional, it seems like the courtroom is the right place to make that argument.
But the fact that other criminal acts are going unpunished doesn't really have any bearing on Snowden's case. The crime Snowden is charged with is the same regardless of who else is charged.
The state does not want to give up these programs and it does not think that they are wrong.
Some members of Congress may think otherwise and some lawyers may think so as well. But the top brass even in the DOJ are mostly on board with these programs.
The most the state is willing to do is let Clapper 'retire' from service out of his official capacity and into a role where he can partner with the US government from the private sector and install a new general in his place.
As for Snowden, are there not mechanisms in our court system whereby lenience is given to those in special circumstances - whistleblowing laws being one of them?
I agree 100% that Snowden should face the music. But he doesn't believe he will get a fair trial in the United States and this is likely the case. So he's asking for amnesty.
I think that Snowden should continue asking countries for amnesty until it is clear that the legal circumstance in the United States and the conditions and location of the court he will be charged with (Virginia? Really?) will be a fair one. Mostly this means stronger whistleblower protection laws of the sort the Obama Administration promised but never delivered.
It's important to note that Snowden did not disclose these documents - he brought them to journalists, who then worked with the USG to coordinate what could be published to the public.
Historical analogies, such as the huge civil rights win in Ellsberg's Times vs. The United States sets a precedence that is not going to stick with Snowden. Ellsberg could not escape the Espionage Act charge but it was dropped by minstrel. This is not going to be a repeat with Snowden - they are going after him with the Espionage Act because they know that it specifically excludes the defense that the leaks were performed in the public interest.
History of National Security laws show how opaque the presumed-to-be transparent process of the court are supposed to be. Take for example the Lavabit case, done without a jury with a secret court summons and with evidence that the state promised the judge was there but could not provide to the defense or public for inspection because... national security. All done with only one or two weeks notice and a gag order that made it nearly impossible to find legal representation.
This was for Snowden's email provider.
Finally, the Virginia court circuit is one filled with lawyers not known for their expertise or lenience in civil rights matters but one with lawyers known for their favoritism of national security.
But overall we've got what we need from Snowden and I don't care so very much for me what he does. When I say he shouldn't come home it's prescriptive advice: meaning I would recommend to him - if I were him - that he find amnesty because of the facts listed above.
This talk of the history of the Espionage Act feels like a lot of hand waving. You make it sound like the government cherrypicked and misapplied some old law in order to stymie Snowden's defense. I don't believe there ever was (nor ever will be) a scenario where leaking national security documents to the press is protected as whistleblowing. This is not specific to the Espionage Act, I don't think "yes I did it, but it was for the greater good of society" is typically a valid defense argument in any criminal case.
(And it's offtopic but I disagree with your characterization of the Lavabit case. Lavabit wasn't on trial; they were served with a valid wiretap order that was signed by a regular non-secret non-FISA court judge and based on reasonable evidence. That's how it's supposed to work. I wish all national security cases were pursued that way.)
The Espionage Act has been used a total of 8 times, multiple times during the Obama Administration.
(You can disagree but Lavabit had suite that it effectively was not allowed to bring. This is point I made above - Lavabit was trying to mount a legal defense against the destruction of its business in this case; it was not able to.)
But I feel we've lost the point. Snowden can't argue that his actions were legal or warranted by the Constitution while he's a fugitive.
I do agree we are off point. Snowden can't argue that his actions were legal or warranted by the Constitution while he's a fugitive. He also can't if he isn't given a fair trial: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9656310
But Eli, we agree. I too am insanely curious to see how this would be handled in court. I don't really have too strong opinions about Snowden himself - mostly I am concerned about the precedent the court case would set up and what it would communicate to other whistleblowers.
What sort of outcome do you want here? Would you like, as a result of the court case:
(A) A precedent whereby whistleblowers who share documents with the press that implicate the government in a scandal widely and bipartisanly disapproved of by the vast majority of American people are forgiven for their crimes on account of public good but where foreign spies who share documents with enemy intelligence can be charged
(B) A precedent whereby whistleblowers who share documents with the press that implicate the government in a scandal widely and bipartisanly disapproved of by the vast majority of American people are treated like foreign spies who share documents with enemy intelligence
[Or maybe you want some other precedent?]
I'm squarely in camp (A). Since law is a man made object, I say we get to making it possible for the legal landscape to allow the first precedent to be possible right away.
Nominally true, but this approaches the cliche about the rich and poor alike being banned from sleeping under bridges.
So long as the law is unevenly enforced such that (for instance) Clapper is not targeted and Snowden is, the surveillance state retains the structural ability to frame the debate about itself, lie about what it does and severely punish anyone who exposes the lies.
That is not a system that promotes democratic oversight, especially oversight of a passel of agencies already armed with massive advantages in evading oversight not typically available to most other agencies, like (enormous) hidden budgets, specially crafted exemptions to sunshine, classification, etc. (And that's before we get to the really creepy things these agencies do.)
Take the recent Visa application process in the US. Let's pretend - and I'm not so sure we would be pretending - that the Visa process isn't 'random' but is prioritized for political purposes. This is one way that the appearance of fairness can be ridden for the pursuit of interests.
Even prioritizing police cases (parking tickets) to 'subjects of interest' or prior offenders is a skew of justice if these filters are correlated to any significant degree with political outcome or race/creed.
The US will poll citizens in other areas of the world until it is ascertained that the population would vote a certain way - at which point they will call for a vote to be held. This gives the outcome of a vote a sense of legitimacy to those just paying attention to the outcome of the vote - but those who can watch the process of repeated polling alongside influence operations understand just how fine an instrument this can be for deciding political outcomes.
This isn't to say any of this is 'wrong'. There's an undercurrent in the language - that's unfortunate. It's first enough to realize that these things are done and they are done sometimes explicitly with a purpose and other times by accident. Being aware is the first step to deliberation.
You should know that he would be legally barred from doing so under an Espionage Act prosecution.
https://freedom.press/blog/2013/12/if-snowden-returned-us-tr...
https://freedom.press/blog/2014/01/sen-schumer-wrong-snowden...
But more importantly, I don't think that's wrong. "I had a good reason" isn't a defense against the charges since intent is not a factor in this crime. I don't think you're generally allowed to argue for jury nullification, which is what this would amount to. (If the government could prove he intended to cause harm I imagine there would be even more charges against him.) And it makes sense: we can't have a situation where any random defense employee can bring down a national security program that they themselves think is wrong or illegal.
I assume if there was a sentencing hearing, he'd be allowed to make a case for leniency based on why he did it.
I want that situation. I want that situation very badly.
People are generally predisposed to think that the stuff they're working on is a good thing. If, despite that, someone decides it's so appalling it needs to be stopped, I want them to speak up. Even if they're occasionally wrong.
It flies in the face of everything American and everything decent. There's a reason jury nullification is a thing - it's a check against the unbridled power and resources of the prosecution, and any laws that may be unjust by existing.
Seriously, it's crazy to me when shit is ruled inadmissible when the information clearly has everything to do with the case. And if I put myself in the shoes of a juror, if I pass a verdict and later find out part of the truth was withheld, I'm very much going to feel that I was used - a pawn in a broken system, and not at all a participant in justice.
The reason being that if jurors knew they could just choose not to convict people who broke unjust laws, the conviction rate of the American justice system would be cut in half.
> If the information that is being reported is classified, then the recipient must have a need-to-know and the recipient must hold a security clearance.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_th...
The whistleblower protection act of 1989 eplicitly excludes those who work for the armed forces or the intelligence community (!). So basically the laws are wired such that the NSA and the Army are free to do anything (illegal) without scrutiny so long as it is also secret.
I agree.
Let's put him on trial right after the trials for Keith Alexander and James Clapper wrap up. And while we're prosecuting him for it, we can draw up charges against half the Senate for violating the Logan Act.
He should face charges (and be acquitted or given a very light sentence due to mitigating circumstances). But, he should not be a victim of selective enforcement of the law.
A plea bargain would require him admitting wrongdoing.
He raised internal concerns over the illegal activities he saw and was told to be quiet. Snowden himself has said he feared what happened to John Kiriakou (the whistleblower who exposed CIA's illegal torture program) happening to him had he made an even bigger issue out of it.
The people who should be supporting rigorous checks on government authority and overstep simply aren't; the system is out of control and punishes those who speak up about illegal activity. He did what any reasonable person would have done in his situation when confronted with a massive criminal conspiracy.
A plea deal would allow the government to taint his actions, which were nothing short of heroic.
But when choosing how to respond on the issue of leaking classified information, I think the government has to look at more than just this case. Would every subsequent leak, inspired by this one, also be heroic? Unlikely.
Even if you think he did good overall, he did so some wrong.
Much of what he leaked is unambiguously legal and exactly the sort of thing that the NSA is supposed to be doing.
Clearly legal:PPD-20, spying on China, Tempura/Upstream, Embassy spying, spying on Germany, spying on al Jeezera, various spying methods, etc. etc. etc.
Murky: internet meta data program that ended in 2011, prism, collection of US data on overseas cables
Illegal: telecom metadata, various personal abuses by employees
Snowden wasn't elected to make US policy and he doesn't get to dictate what US policy should be. The bulk of his secrets were directed at policies he disagreed with, not law breaking.
The discussion here is so one-sided, myopic and hyperbolic that I think the reasonable people don't even bother anymore.
Note that warrantless metadata collection is not illegal, per Smith v. Maryland.
It's also true that Smith v. Maryland is highly controversial. The Third Party Doctrine essentially states that you can't expect technology to provide you technology so long as the technology is bought or served by someone else. Via CALEA and the Stored Information Act, as well as 702 in FISA and a constellation of other legislation (now Freedom Act as well) third parties are forced to keep records on behalf of national security hawks.
In praxis this means that there is no manner by which I can communicate with someone in private anywhere except for in my or their house - and then if I willingly allow a third party product that has a listening device in my house provided by a third party it is the law that I can not expect those conversations to be private either.
Smith v. Maryland was in 1979. The world is a radically different place now that software has eaten the world. It is not a good precedent and akin to citing section 215 the way that NSA did.
I'm too lazy to find a link but the second circuit recently ruled on this.
The US has a brandished reputation. Snowden made it worse and could actually prove his cases.
As a German, Snowden is awesome. I wouldn't give a rat's ass about whether you consider it legal to spy on this country. You (the state) suck. We learned this once more, got proof, understand that the US of A is not friendly and cannot be considered socially compatible - the values don't line up.
Yeah - I don't think he should return to the States. I think we should fire a politician or two over here and pay him a pension for life. And _really_ limit our cooperation with that aggressive/invasive country.
I can express how disgusted I am about exhibit A and have still enough of that feeling left for B, C and DE.
①: Just like with JS there are The Good Parts as well, of course.
As an American, I sure hope not.
PPD-20 is interesting. Do you think we have the right to be aware of the scope of the "cyber war"? Bruce Schneier's conclusion on PPD-20:
"Yes, our military needs to invest in cyberwar capabilities, but we also need international rules of cyberwar, more transparency from our own government on what we are and are not doing, international cooperation between governments and viable cyberweapons treaties."[1]
Seems reasonable to me to assume Snowden's releasing of PPD-20 was to promote this effort. It's a tricky situation but perhaps his knowledge of America's advantage in that war meant that this was a safe release. I trust his judgement. He clearly has had to weigh the options between acting within a legal system and trying to improve it through illegal political action.
Is there evidence of serious fallout from a Snowden release yet? I'm honestly asking, my knowledge can be hit and miss as I primarily try to stay on top of Canada's involvement.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/18/opinion/schneier-cyberwar-poli...
And "unambiguously legal" is overselling the point: PPD-20 includes offensive capabilities amounting to acts of war -- which would presumably be illegal absent congressional approval. China surveillance includes illegal surveillance of US nationals and well as mass surveillance, which is arguably inappropriate policy. Tempora is a program conducted by the UK -- arguably illegal as signatory to EU treaty. Spying on Germany is likely to support economic espionage, which would be illegal under WTO treaty, etc. Al Jezeera is a journalist organization, which provides a useful Arab propaganda counterpoint to US propaganda, and is not itself a sponsor or advocate of terrorism. The various spying methods exposed are executive overviews and lack sufficient technical detail for implementation, and are thus appropriate for public policy discussion.
The US state security apparatus is also not elected -- yet it clearly does control policy through overclassification and outright misrepresentation of its activities to congressional oversight.
Were Mr. Snowden's actions illegal? Yes, clearly, but that is a question of no meaningful value in this context, as most NSA activity is illegal somewhere, and some NSA and FBI activity is clearly illegal within the US.
Were these actions wrong? That remains to be seen.
Even if they were wrong, is there a net moral benefit which could excuse the costs? That is a complicated question. Do the fruits of NSA, CIA and FBI espionage achieve their stated goals? Is US foreign policy successful? Does the US reliably achieve its military objectives?
So, rather than yet again repeating the mistakes made over the last 100 years -- with some exceptions, an otherwise disgraceful litany of paranoia and short-sighted pragmatism -- perhaps it is a good time to reexamine politically whether foreign policy as practiced by the US is appropriate and efficacious. The responsibility for this interminable chain of dismal failures must be accepted by the US government and US electorate as a whole. The status quo -- mindless subservience to nationalism, patriotism, and religion along with a generous dose of political amnesia -- is completely unjustified at this point.
This discussion cannot ever fully occur when the mechanisms informing that foreign policy are forever hidden from political debate by a veil of overclassification motivated by criminal activity.
Mr. Snowden has caused that debate to begin -- his stated intent. One could therefore reasonably conclude his actions are moral and justified as well as illegal under US law. US law is therefore the problem, not Mr. Snowden.
Tempora is exactly one of the programs that isn't "clearly legal", and is one of the things that most needed to be exposed.
As for spying on our allies and on foreign embassies: are you really so nationalistic that you aren't aware that this isn't legal? Or do you only care about US laws?
As for spying on the press, this is also very important to have exposed and stopped. Freedom of the press is fundamental to government by informed consent, and a press that is constantly under surveillance is not free.
Why?
> A plea bargain would require him admitting wrongdoing.
A deal with his lawyers is not necessarily a plea bargain.
For instance, he could be granted transactional (sometimes called "total") immunity in exchange for testimony regarding matters related to the information released, either to support executive investigations into any potential illegalities or to support congressional investigations. While either is, perhaps, unlikely, they would constitute a "deal with his lawyers" that would not be a plea bargain or involve a admission of legal guilt; they'd also not be a pardon.
The former is arguably whistleblowing, but the latter is not. Even Greenwald and Binney admit this.
See the reddit comment for details and links to sources. Particularly interesting are Snowden's admitted reasons for working at the NSA in the first place, before he knew of the domestic spying.
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/38cej4/elected_o...
It's not because something is technically legal that it's moral. For instance, killing civilians with drones, torturing people, or recording the whole world's communications may be legal according to some twisted laws, but it doesn't make it right. At least voters should have a clear view of such issues, and it's not coming from the US government.
Without context then sure it seems not right. In the real world, terrorism is real. Although I don't agree with anything you mentioned as a whole, if it is a consequence of the world I live in, I'm ok with that. So are plenty of others.
It reminds me one of the presidential debates. Question of national defense was briefly discussed. Both candidates agreed that it was important to "catch the bad guys". Then they disagreed on whether more ships were needed in the navy or something like that. Obama came up with a good joke, and that was it!!
In that context, I find it salutary that guys like Snowden provide some additional information on what is actually going on.
Obviously since the number of deaths caused by terrorism thus far is tiny, for terrorism to justify these actions that you agree would otherwise be unconscionable, the only conclusion you could make is that the security apparatus must be supremely effective, and have thwarted thousands of otherwise successful attacks against the US alone.
Am I correct in following that train of thought? Do you believe that a significant number of deaths have been prevented, say a number close to those killed by ATV's* in the US each year?
What is the evidence for these thwarted attacks?
* www.atvsafety.gov/stats.html
I never understood these kind of questions. Don't you think there's a difference between premeditated murder and accidental death? You can't prevent people from accidentally doing stupid things and mishaps, you can only minimize it. Whereas premeditated murder can be prevented.
Can you please clarify the meaning of these statements.
1) ATV deaths are preventable some of the time, but premeditated murder is preventable all of the time.
2) ATV deaths are never preventable, but premeditated murder is preventable some of the time.
3) ATV deaths are preventable some of the time. Premeditated murder is preventable some of the time.
The only one that seems reasonable to me is option 3), which is not much of a distinction at all.
If you can prevent it at an acceptable cost, by all means prevent it. I'm skeptical that you'll hit you'll hit 100% regardless of what you do, and the cost can easily come too high for marginal reductions.
A distinction? Hell, there's practically no overlap.
I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't sound right.
Quite the opposite.
So, from a US perspective, NSA foreign intelligence gathering (specifically SIGINT gathering, its whole mandate) is, generally speaking, legal.
Given the hierarchy of law (e.g., the preeminence of the Constitution over other laws) and matters of interpretation, that's somewhat in dispute (see, for interpretation issues, e.g., the 2nd Circuit ruling finding that the mass metadata collection program was, contrary to the government's claims, authorized by Section 215.)
> Wasn't the NSA acting within its powers too?
Again, that matter is, at best, considerably in dispute.
Let the possibility of other information being leaked act as a further risk entailed in breaking the law.
As such, simply looking at this in a legalistic vacuum isn't helpful at all.
But when I take a look at the general conduct of the US government both internal and external, and the insane chaos it is creating around the globe, it doesn't feel morally wrong to sabotage the US government in every conceivable way.
The US government tortures and executes people without trial. (even its own citizens in some cases) The president signs a kill list every week. And then there's various terrorist organizations that are seemingly run out of Washington. This is beyond anything I could have imagined 20 years ago. Not even in my wildest dreams. (or nightmares)
It's also, technically, an act of war.
The fact is that the major powers of the world conduct espionage and that disclosures are not handled as acts of war. Discovered spies are typically placed in a persona non grata diplomatic status and granted safe passage back to their home countries. See U.S. spy Ryan Fogle. [4]
I don't mean to pick on China; I addressed it because it was the example you gave. Every major power has had at least one widespread computer espionage campaign discovered by Kaspersky, Symantec, Mandiant/FireEye, etc.
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29817644 (White House computer intrusion by China)
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21502088 (U.S. Defense contractors' networks intrusion by China)
[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21271849 (New York Times network intrusion by China)
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_declared_persona...
What do you mean if China did it? They do do it. So does Russia. So does North Korea. So does the US.
There is essentially the cyber equivalent of the Cold War going on right now, and attempting to get into each other's systems, especially infrastructure systems like power plant control systems, is the equivalent of flying fighters provocatively close to someone else's border.
a) you agree that attacking foreign nations (in this case: electronically?) is fine, because .. they're not us
b) 'traitor' is really a concept that we should still consider. I mean.. What? You might visit this site and learn about cool things to order from China, order them online and yay! New toy. But the US government can try to infiltrate that country to 'be safe'??
(Note that the same thing is just as crazy from an enlightened point of view, if we're talking about the route back, China -> US. Or .. really, any bullshit like that)
I don't think I could trust the US intelligence apparatus to not get me into some kind of "accident" or come up with some fake charges to put me into prison. Not to mention the risk of some "patriot" taking justice into his/her own hands.
Which is very sad, but unless the political landscape in the USA - and internationally - undergoes some major changes, coming back to the USA would be a stupid move for Mr. Snowden, unless he is ready to go to Jail for a long time. And given the example of Bradley/Chelsea Manning, that does not sound very inviting.
I think the primary impact has been the complete erosion of whatever goodwill the United States had among the citizenry (n.b. not the governments) of her allies.
That obviously doesn't matter in the short term; but so many things don't matter in the short term.
The DESERVED complete erosion.
I fixed it for you.
Don't forget James Clapper lying to congress about not spying on US citizens. I also got a video of it, https://youtu.be/9LKzAsIMUx8
Last I heard he was selling a book, not from jail.
Put yourself in Snowden's shoes. What could anyone in the government say to you that would convince you it was safe to return to the USA?
If Obama pardoned Snowden on his last day in office (as I hope he does), Snowden could come home.
If murder is the concern, Snowden will not be safe anywhere. Do you think that the CIA doesn't have people in Moscow?
The President has the Constitutional power to issue pardons, it does not grant the President (whether the same President or any subsequent one, or anyone else for that matter) power to retract them.
> The DOJ could drop all charges. And then impose new ones once he returns.
Not to the extent that the new ones are covered within the scope of a Presidential pardon.
> And that is to say nothing of the possibility of his being killed, with blame cast on some nut job, and with all sorts of manufactured dirt on him released afterward.
To the extent that could happen (at the hands of the government or otherwise) if he returned, it could happen if he didn't. Its not exactly like no one is ever killed -- including by the US Government -- outside of the United States.
If it happens outside the United States, there's plausible deniability. If it happens in the US, there'll be far more scrutiny.
Ticker tape parades, a federal holiday, buy 1 get 1 free at Carl's Jr. - celebrate what this man did.
Well, I'm sure if they had respected our right to privacy, Snowden would have respected theirs.
1. Exposed the tools and techniques of domestic surveillance. 2. Exposed the tools and techniques of foreign surveillance.
The idea of not prosecuting Snowden seems to focus on the commendable exposure of the full extent of the domestic program.
I just don't see how one can ignore his exposure of the perfectly legal foreign intelligence gathering.
I mean, in an ideal world we wouldn't have spies... But we also wouldn't have police or military.
It's not at odds with the dismissal of the Nuremburg defense because it was a violation of the international law. I do have to admit that is sort of a cop out since international law at the time was more moral than real law.
Another huge distinction is that nobody was charged at Nuremburg for not exposing the crimes, they were charged with aiding them. If Snowden had a moral issue spying on people, he could quit.
Also at Nuremburg, we were just punishing the losers of a war.
Are you sure? In their final days in office, lame-duck Presidents can (and do) use their pardon powers in ways that would be politically-unthinkable at any other time.
A total pardon would be very hard – a potentially dangerous precedent, even, for discipline in the security agencies.
But perhaps a pardon could be creatively crafted for all acts except some token offense with a smallish (2-4 year) maximum incarceration.
Without an unambiguous and expansive public pardon, if I were Snowden, I'd be somewhat suspicious of other offers from the DoJ. They might find a way to nullify the offer, or find something else outside the agreement to prosecute.
Clinton's last-day pardon of Marc Rich comes to mind...but then again, Rich was a contributor to his campaign so the pardon was just more DC back-scratching.
What possible motivation would exist for the president who continued (and expanded) the Bush-era surveillance state to pardon Snowden? I see none.
Finally, I don't think Snowden is safe in Russia so I hope he gets out soon.
Is this like Obama's USA? What is the purpose of calling it Putin's Russia?
"The Man Without a Face" by Masha Gessen is a great read on Putin's rise to power.
http://smile.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face-Unlikely/dp/159...
"...the agency had breached its own privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times a year since 2008."
"Mr. Snowden committed very serious crimes... that he should face."
It's article 5.2, sandwiched in-between 'you have the right not to be murdered' and 'you have the right not to be enslaved'.
Article 11 is fairly wishy-washy, but it states that privacy is also considered a human right.
Never, never, never going to happen. Not in this generation, anyway. Maybe in 20, 30 years.
link: http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pub....
One thing that struck me is that after reading this, it seemed like a mathematical tally that was entirely reasonable that he be given a life sentence given the point system.
Given that the first instances in the guidelines where life sentences are handed out are treason and espionage (drug trafficking is second), isn't there a significant concern that if Snowden came back, already admitting what he did, he'd just rot in prison with a pre-tallied up score?
Was he hired to secure them, but then stole them?
Isn't this treason?
Let him come back. If there is enough evidence against him, then he can stand trial.
If he is innocent; then the government won't be able to prove a case against him.
Is "treason" against people and organizations who failed the country and abused the constitution still treason?
Let's not forget that the revolution for independence was also treason to the British crown...
The prosecution can present their evidence.
That's the problem with justice in full -- it's not just the law, and it's not just the majority opinion.
The first can mostly determine compliance (with its code), the second can mostly determine popularity or prevelance of a sentiment.
And they can do that only given all the facts (which they wont, e.g. how this information was used, special service people can just lie like they did to congress etc), and without undue influence from outside.
For something like Snowden's case (or the slavery example), who controls the media and public discourse is quite an important factor on any jury, that's in effect even before they got selected.
All that, of course, if anybody believes that there's a thing such as justice in general, and that while some things can be relative, something like slavery being bad is wrong whether the majority of people in an era thinks its ok or not.
He's not. https://freedom.press/blog/2013/12/if-snowden-returned-us-tr...
> If Edward Snowden comes back to the US to face trial, he likely will not be able to tell a jury why he did what he did, and what happened because of his actions. Contrary to common sense, there is no public interest exception to the Espionage Act. Prosecutors in recent cases have convinced courts that the intent of the leaker, the value of leaks to the public, and the lack of harm caused by the leaks are irrelevant—and are therefore inadmissible in court.
Treason requires actions directly aiding a wartime enemy. There's a reason the US has prosecuted (let alone convicted) less than 40 people for it, and there's a reason they passed the Espionage Act, which is what Snowden was charged under.
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
This is the part you addressed. Perhaps this could be construed as "giving our enemies aid". The actual legislation adds more details. But the constitution continues:
"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."
Which, actually, may not be an evidentiary standard that could be met here, assuming Greenwald and Poitras don't testify.
Nobody (not even him) questions whether he violated the laws as they were written, but the concept of whistleblowing suggests that these laws were knowingly violated to present unlawful laws and actions.
We don't view the reporters who uncovered Watergate this way--why him?
But Snowden is in Russia because the US kept him there while he was passing through (going so far as to force down the plane of the President of Bolivia on suspicion Snowden might be on board).