291–300 of 501 posts
Somebody tell the Donald that Snowden stood up to Obama era policy.
How can he stop this without inviting criticisms of being a Russian asset or some such accusation?
This is the "It is illegal to inform the citizen base that the government has removed their constitutional right" lawsuit. The NSA and FBI removed every US citizen of their constitutional right, to privacy. Edward Snowden informed the US citzen base on their constitutional rights being removed. This lawsuit is the government saying it is illegal for any US citizen to inform all other citizens when the government remo…
Rightly or wrongly, that is not a part of the SF86 form when one applies for a clearance. The SF86 form offers no leeway for moral objections. So in such a scenario, it would be better to not submit the SF86 form in the first place. The only people I'm aware of that can publish classified information without punishment are journalists.
This 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)
No, this is the only way Snowden can be hurt today. If other avenues open you can bet they will be immediately exploited. Mannings treatment spells volumes here and what they did to Manning will be a walk in the park (in no way diminishing it) compared to what they'll do to Snowden.
Lol, he won't be: he's already pocketed a pretty sizeable advance. The man thinks ahead, unlike the petty bureaucrats he enraged.
Earlier 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…
Frankly, hundreds if not thousands of people within the NSA deserve to be charged with treason. I would be shocked if this actually happened, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with Snowden is that: A. He did not try to whistleblow through any officials channels in the NSA, intelligence community, or Congress B. He stole somewhere around 1.5 million documents, of which the vast majority had nothing to do with the programs he thought were illegal The house intelligence committee report on Snowden actually concedes that he could have enjoyed whistleblower protection under the law…
The real problem is that the NSA not only routinely ignores issues raised by whistleblowers, but actively retaliates against them for trying to blow the whistle on illicit activities. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon...
However, it doesn't change the fact that he stole a tremendous amount of classified material that had nothing to do with what he felt civil liberties issues. Also doesn't change the fact that the Russian government outright admitted that Snowden shared Intel with them (according to the house Intel committee report).
So even if he has a solid defense regarding prism and some of the other stuff he exposed, he doesn't really have any justification for the defense and foreign intelligence classified info he stole.
Something 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 Snowden's case, he was a contractor and the specific whistleblower law covering the NSA did not apply to him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because, AFAIK, there’s nothing binding the government from enacting a law against treason or espionage. So they did a century ago. The problem is not that (depending on who you ask). The problem is that they’re abusing “national security” to justify needing secret courts and claiming a legally protected action (whistleblowing[0]) is illegal. [0]: Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…
The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 only provides protection for government employees which Snowden was not and it also doesn't apply to intelligence agency at least when classified material is involved. The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) of 1998 is the applicable law here and applies to government employees and contractors. It specifies the process of reporting waste,fraud or abuse…
The most fundamental responsibility of his job was to uphold the US constitution. His bosses deserve to be charged with treason, which is why they are working so hard to attack him.
This 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)
"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.
This is just petty bureaucrats trying to justify their pointless jobs.
Somebody tell the Donald that Snowden stood up to Obama era policy.