Let Snowden Come Home

Probably not until the Millennials are in political power. Too many of the older generation think he was naughty.

In the history of Espionage Act cases - the Espionage Act being a wartime temporary restriction of normal constitutional proceedings that survived past its wartime statute - excludes the possibility of arguing a whistleblower case, which is what Snowden would want in this case to argue.

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.

I think that it's easier to sell soap with a Jenner story than a Snowden one.

People are perfectly well capable of understanding that the government is reading all of their emails, text messages and facebook posts.

The problem is that advertising dollars come from big corporations that make money off of the snooping and that well will run dry if anyone suspects that reporting will have a negative effect on next quarter's revenue.

Instead of "Hey look! These Fortune 500 companies are getting paid millions of dollars to tell the government everything that you do.", we get "Hey look! This guy's doing something weird!"

The polls I've seen that break out by age groups, IIRC, show both Millenials and Gen X believing Snowden served, rather than harmed, the public.

I disagree. What Snowden did was hugely important not just domestically but internationally. Without him we wouldn't have the current push to reform the surveillance state, so it would have grown unfettered into a cancer that really would affect all of us. I don't want to live in a fishbowl.

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.