U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#281

Post by davesque » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 4:57 AM UTC

wl wrote: post #3

mindcrime wrote: post #2

Meanwhile, the petition to pardon him[1] only needs ~8000 more signatures to require a response. [1]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...

The response they've given in the past to pardon petitions isn't much of a response at all. I expect a similar non-answer here. Cf. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-cant-commen... https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-can’t-comme...

Well, if they do that, then we'll just have to start another petition. Or organize a protest. We'll have to do something to indicate that we won't stand for it. At the end of the day, they are employed by us.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#282

Post by coolhandluke » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:13 AM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #83

subway wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather buy a plane ticket and head to participate in a large scale event in Washington.

Parallel events in a few places, maybe? Requires a bigger turn-out, of course...

It seems that all of the "major" marches, gatherings, etc. in history have all been events that took place in one location.

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.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Man_March

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#283

Post by Glyptodon » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:20 AM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #102

wavesounds wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if your a whistleblower. What if instead of a domestic spying program he leaked a secret program by his bosses to round up every red haired and freckled person and put them in a concentration camp? Then would you still have to charge him with a crime for revealing a 'secret' program before he could be pardoned and treated as a hero? Of course not, thats ridiculous and so is this.

But he didn't do that. Are you a whistleblower if what you reveal isn't illegal?

What he revealed is clearly unconstitutional. To say otherwise suggests that you lack basic reading comprehension or never had American history taught in 5th grade or middle school.

(...Or that our teachers taught us lies on purpose, I guess... rolls eyes)

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#284

Post by Glyptodon » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:22 AM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #132

brown9-2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he didn't do that. Are you a whistleblower if what you reveal isn't illegal?

A number of people hold that this is illegal under the 4th amendment and founding principles of our country.

I think there are good arguments that many of the policies regarding tapping, surveillance, and secret lists and trials extend into violation of not just the 4th, but the 1st, 5th, and 6th also.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#285

Post by coolhandluke » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:25 AM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #26

I have a feeling we're never going to see the rest of the data Greenwald supposedly has.

I was thinking about this earlier today. My fear is that something will happen to Greenwald and the rest of the data/documents/whatever else he has would never become public.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#286

Post by Glyptodon » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:29 AM UTC

eli wrote: post #58

vehementi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of hard to be a whistleblower without breaking some sort of secrecy law.

There actually are whistleblower protections he could have taken advantage of... but it would have meant working within the system (for example, taking his concerns to Congress or the NSA's Inspector General rather than a reporter) and it only applies if he uncovered fraud or illegal activity. AFAIK there isn't any proof that he uncovered anything illegal .

Trying to work with the system doesn't work. See the case Billy Malone and the National Park Service, etc.

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.)

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#287

Post by rdl » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:31 AM UTC

signed0 wrote: post #277

rdl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't think charging him is inherently bad. If he in fact took 4 government property laptops with him, that's a crime, at the very least. 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 init…

I doubt he actually intended to steal the laptops. Had he attempted to return them they would have caught on to his plan. It's unlikely that he would have taken them with him to Hong Kong as they would phone home. They are probably sitting at his home just waiting for the NSA to pick them up.

The laptops with files on them do demonstrate provenance of the data on them somewhat more so than standalone files, so he may have retained them for that purpose.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#288

Post by fusiongyro » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:33 AM UTC

evilduck wrote: post #97

DanielRibeiro wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pardon petition also only needs more 7k signatures: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow... 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.

Has any whitehouse.gov petition ever led to actual action being taken?

It takes ten seconds and costs nothing. I honestly don't understand the argument against it. It may be no better than nothing, but it can hardly be worse.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#289

Post by lkbm » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:35 AM UTC

eatitraw wrote: post #122

krapp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. 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 charg…

Why such obsession about the law? Some laws are good, and that's good that they are enforced. Some laws are bad, and it is bad that they are enforced. 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 lega…

The obsession with the law is because we're a democracy, albeit far from a perfectly functioning one.

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.)

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#290

Post by Tangaroa » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 5:47 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #134

Can someone explain how he can be charged with espionage? Is there some meaning of that which covers leakers of information, like leaking the Pentagon Papers, when it's to the press (and not to another government or company)?

Someone could, but the explanation is secret. Ironic, isn't it?