Interesting timing. Just a couple of days ago, Snowden said he was hoping France would grant him asylum.
His book came out today.
United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
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Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#262He's broken the law in more than one ways. Regardless of his motives, he broke the law. We can't expect to hold Trump or anyone else accountable if we cannot hold responsible those who are entrusted to protect confidential information.
NSA broke the law, how do we hold them accountable?
Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#263This may actually be good news. Somebody might have determined that it's not worth the political cost to prosecute him publicly, so they'll press civil charges, slowly make the criminal stuff go away, then it becomes a "normal" lawsuit instead of such a hot potato. (I am freely speculating here)
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Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
95% of what we think as "Federal workers" are in fact contractors. Look no further than Accenture and similar. So sure, there's whistleblower laws. But they're in name only, with no real power for those that work with fed stuff in day to day operations.
That is so convenient, isn't it? The government don't need to follow the law which suppose to protect the whistleblowers.
It's more complicated than that, sadly.
A lot of contractors are small outfits that "won" contracts because the contract request was tailored for them. In the fed system, your max cap of what you can make wage-wise, is limited by Congress.
The way around that is not to get paid wages, but becoming a contractor that takes contracts at MUCH higher than the wages would ever be. So it becomes a form of its own version of corruption of "I want to hire and pay these people appropriately but im unable to legally so I'll create a contract only they can fulfill." But the corruption itself is rooted with price controls in Congress.
But one of the side effects is that they're "not working for the govt, but for the company" and the company is working for the govt. It also means no govt pension, or any of the perks for working directly for the govt. And well, contractors get none of the protections of reporting wrong-doing.
Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#265Something that never made sense to me in the Snowden case is how any of this works in face of whistleblower protection laws in USA. According to Wikipedia, the US offers these legal protections: > Whistleblower protection laws and regulations guarantee freedom of speech for workers and contractors in certain situations. Whistleblowers are protected from retaliation for disclosure of information which the employee or…
In addition to other issues, it is not usually the exclusive decision of the whistleblower whether their disclosure qualifies.
Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The lawsuit also names as nominal defendants the corporate entities involved in publishing Snowden’s book. The United States is suing the publisher solely to ensure that no funds are transferred to Snowden, or at his direction, while the court resolves the United States’ claims. Snowden is currently living outside of the United States." This is the actual goal here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Shaffer_(intelligence_... >Shaffer published memoirs of his time as a reports officer in Afghanistan in book titled Operation Dark Heart. Shaffer claims that the Defense Department attempted to preserve secrecy of revelations made by the book, by buying up and destroying all 10,000 copies of the book's first, uncensored run, before allowing for the release of a second, censored p…
That makes no logical sense in the age of ebooks. No matter how many copies of the ebook version they buy, the publisher could sell more to anyone who wants to buy one.
Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
fuzz4lyfe > When you send a letter it does not belong to the post office while in transit txcwpalpha > Inspectors can and do inspect the contents... of mail txcwpalpha > ...for packages There's a scarecrow argument if I've ever seen one. Someone says A is 1. You say A isn't 1 because AB is 2. Sneaky. There certainly is an expectation of privacy in my mail CORRESPONDENCE (which is what this whole thing is about... com…
I did not say that A isn't 1. In fact, in my comment I specifically acknowledge that A is 1 (some types of mail are protected by the 4th amendment). Please do not try to construct a straw man. The point is that there is already a determination that not all items sent through mail services have an expectation of privacy. If we're drawing a parallel between physical mail and e-mail, this lends to the belief that such a…
It's worth noting that "Standard Mail" has a specific meaning here, and refers to things sent in bulk, like newsletters and flyers.
It is emphatically not the standard service you would use to mail your aunt a letter. That service is called First Class Mail, and is not to be opened.
Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The lawsuit also names as nominal defendants the corporate entities involved in publishing Snowden’s book. The United States is suing the publisher solely to ensure that no funds are transferred to Snowden, or at his direction, while the court resolves the United States’ claims. Snowden is currently living outside of the United States." This is the actual goal here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Shaffer_(intelligence_... >Shaffer published memoirs of his time as a reports officer in Afghanistan in book titled Operation Dark Heart. Shaffer claims that the Defense Department attempted to preserve secrecy of revelations made by the book, by buying up and destroying all 10,000 copies of the book's first, uncensored run, before allowing for the release of a second, censored p…
I have one that was just delivered to my house today... so fail on that one.
Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the fact the constitution binds the govt and details what rights the govt has I am not sure how the govt has a leg to stand on.
Snowden got a job handling classified material. The government only trusted him to handle that material because he signed various contracts that said he would keep the material secret and that he would allow the NSA to read anything he wanted to publish so they could be sure he didn’t accidentally leak something (and, potentially, so they could plan for damage control). This lawsuit is not actually about publishing c…
I believe the whistleblower act does cover this contract as is mentioned elsewhere turning this lawsuit into retaliation by the govt thus illegal
Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
.
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The NSA is spying on everyone and trying to weed out the Americans. That doesn't make your completely unsupported claims any firmer, and getting downvoted so quickly indicates you are posting things that might be acceptable in the rest of the internet but are not so welcome here.
Now, if you have some verifiable evidence to support your claims and can provide it then you will receive a far different response.