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United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

justice.gov

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Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#111

Post by nickles »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #44
bb88 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're an originalist (and I'm not saying that I am), data in transmit is not necessarily protected by that amendment If your data has left your house, is it really your data, or is it Google's say?

When you send a letter it does not belong to the post office while in transit. Why are bits on a hard drive any different?

> When you send a letter it does not belong to the post office while in transit.

You only have an expectation of privacy of the contents of the letter. You have no such expectation of anything on the envelope itself (e.g. sender/receiver address). The government contends that it only collects analogous metadata in transit, not the contents of the communication itself (although this is debatable).

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#112

Post by mooreed »

TLDR; If you share the many dirty secrets of your employer, and then write a tell-all book about them. Your employer will sue you for breach of NDA.

This is especially true if your employer is The USA(NSA/CIA) and your last name is Snowden.

The briefing is largely about how the US wants to stop Snowden from collecting proceeds from the book, and how he has violated his NDA by not letting them preview a pre-published draft.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#113

Post by logfromblammo »

rrix2 wrote: post #55
bb88 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The only people I'm aware of that can publish classified information without punishment are journalists. The only people I am aware of which published this were journalists, since day 0. E: I see this is particularly in the context of his publishing his memoirs now after reading the filing. My apologies

Publishing timely facts makes you a journalist. Publishing older facts makes you a historian. There are no legal qualifications for asserting freedom of the press; everyone can do it.

Anyone that has not entered into a contractual agreement with the US to protect classified materials can publish classified materials. It's just that the professional journalists, already established with the large news organizations, are the only ones with the visibility and reputation to not get jailed, vanished, or discredited afterwards.

If you think the US won't break its own laws to protect its dirty secrets, you haven't seen enough leaks of its dirty secrets.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#114

Post by koolba »

HashThis wrote: post #21

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…

That does not make it less illegal.

It just makes it a perfect candidate for jury nullification!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#115

Post by nostrademons »

indigochill wrote: post #66
omarhaneef wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the same issue with the other debate raging on HN: Stallman and Free Speech. The issue is that people -- not sure whether it was OP, or you -- conflate what is moral with what is legal. One person starts off with a moral premise: people should have free speech, or people should have the right to say what the government is doing. Someone else responds with what is legal : the law applies to government curtailmen…

I agree with your observation and statement, but also want to add there is a moral argument that if one objects to a law or a contract, one should remove oneself from under it (leave the country/company) rather than break it, even if the law itself is immoral. Not that I'm arguing one way or another how that applies in this situation, though.

Bystanders may be interested in Kohlberg's stages of moral development, which provides a descriptive (not prescriptive) framework for classifying moral arguments like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_...

The parent comment is a textbook example of stage 4, "law and order". The moral framework behind civil disobedience is stage 5, "social contract".

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#117

Post by hos234 »

tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #46
zer0faith wrote: post #17

Sadly, they will attempt to make an example out of Snowden to discourage anyone from EVER doing something like this again.

The thing people seem unable to do with Snowden is separate the intention of his actions with the impact. I have no doubt he had the right intentions. Informing the people of the gross violations of civil liberties is a noble endeavor. However, the impact that it had and the manner in which he conducted it, and the channels he went through to do so had a dramatically negative impact on sources and methods. Real peopl…

It's hard to buy the party line these days. The intelligence services come across as gigantic incompetent bureaucracies. They didn't prevent 9/11, concocted fake WMDs, thousand drone strikes later they are handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban, were fast asleep to the dangers of Fake news/Social Media issues and had no clue where Trump or Brexit came from. After all that why do you believe them?

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#118

Post by geggam »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #80
geggam wrote: post #60

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.

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…

There are fundamental rules in the bill of rights the govt has passed laws to circumvent.

Those laws are fundamentally illegal

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#119

Post by logfromblammo »

reaperducer wrote: post #33

Can one of the internet lawyers out there explain why this is a civil lawsuit, and not a criminal lawsuit? I'd think that if he committed an actual crime, it would be a criminal suit. I thought civil suits were for people trying to get money out of each other. Or is this like how the feds couldn't get Al Capone for murder so they put him away for tax evasion?

Because no criminal charge that rests solely upon openly publishing facts would ever stand up against the 1st Amendment.

Before any cleared individual ever touches or sees classified materials, they sign an NDA that establishes personal responsibility for protecting classified material. This is separate and distinct from the criminal espionage and treason consequences, but they do their best to make you think they are closely tied with the training materials.

As it happens, openly publishing as a protected right is hugely different from the criminal act of selling or gifting secrets to a foreign adversary, so a civil suit is all they can do.

And given that it is a civil suit, Snowden would have a reasonable shot at an "unclean hands" defense, if the judges were truly impartial and objective.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#120

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #104
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you send a letter it does not belong to the post office while in transit. Why are bits on a hard drive any different?

Inspectors can and do inspect the contents many types of mail, though, so I'm not sure this example is a good one for those championing privacy... To elaborate: when using the US Postal Service, only domestic "First Class Mail" and "Priority Mail" (these are different and distinct from standard mail) is protected and requires a probable cause warrant to open and inspect. Other types of mail, as well as all packages s…

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... communication, not package sending). Why shouldn't there be for my e mail correspondence?

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