Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

justice.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 501 posts

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#281

Post by StanislavPetrov »

GVIrish wrote: post #273
Swizec wrote: post #231

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…

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...

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#282

Post by michaelmrose »

notredame911 wrote: post #259
notredame911 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

.

You are getting downvoted because your contributions to hacker news are low quality. Consider contributing something else other than conspiracy theories.

The CIA and NSA are two organizations under the Dept of Homeland Security.

They are only opposed to one another in the sense that they are both competing for funding. The divisions among government that you imagine just aren't real.

The "deep state" is mostly a bunch of employees that keep on chugging regardless of who is in charge. Most of what they do isn't secret it is just complicated and boring. To the degree that they possess agendas those agendas are enumerated in long boring documents you will probably never bother to read.

Those that ARE confidential or secret work at the behest of our President even when said President is a giant orange boob.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#283

Post by jstewartmobile »

sandinmytea wrote: post #191

This is yet another way to avoid exposing real circumstances AND reap funds to continue black-budget trafficking operations (precedent setting [see DanielBMarkham's assessment], plus avoiding certain due process rights.) It will not succeed because these measures stand between everyone who has not had their circumstances optimized by bad, withholding leadership.. preventing the better results in the advancement of ty…

A guy on HN talks sense, -10. It figures!

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#284

Post by xodice »

Jesus, who the fuck cares about what Snowden released. I am more sad people aren't way up in arms about WHAT WE LEARNED. (Yes, I understand that sentence makes itself not make sense, but you get my point. Rushed and on mobile, but this pissed me off.)

Thank you Snowden, and fuck you U.S. Government.

- A U.S. Citizen

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#285

Post by notredame911 »

wavefunction wrote: post #270
notredame911 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

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.

.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#286

Post by txcwpalpha »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #258
txcwpalpha wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> some types of mail are protected by the 4th amendment > The law doesn't see a difference Wow the cognitive dissonance in that is painful to read. Your argument sounds like "Shrodingers cat". It is and isn't at the same time. Ultimately though, it has to collapse into one objective reality ;) > If you send a document through UPS, there is no expectation of privacy. Yeah, again, no. This is directly contradicted by s…

It isn't cognitive dissonance just because you aren't capable of discerning the difference between the types of mail. It is possible (indeed, it is the case) that the law sees no difference between packages and letters while also making a disctinction elsewhere. In this case, the law makes a distinction between sealed mail and unsealed mail, but it does not consider the fact that they are "letters" or "packages" in this distinction.

Again, you're getting hung up on the words "letter" vs "package", and you're constructing a straw man around that. Please take your own advice and avoid such arguments.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#287

Post by viklove »

Simulacra wrote: post #56

He'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.

http://www.legintent.com/three-laws-weird-almost-want-break/

Well, I hope you're aware of all the laws that exist in this country. If you break one of them (however frivolous or unjust it may be), I hope you turn yourself in so we can hold you accountable for your crimes.

Moral absolutists confuse the hell out of me. By your own admission, you deserve a prison sentence for driving a car while living in Las Vegas. Regardless of your intent, you would have broken the law (repeatedly).

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#288

Post by OrgNet »

excalibur wrote: post #25
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…

Exactly. Where is the accountability for the government officials who deprived us of our rights in the first place? There's been none. They made a few perfunctory gestures toward self-control, and kept right on violating the Constitution in the same ways under programs with new names.

The problem with the Government is that the people in power feel like they have all the power and don't want to let it go. I think that robots would serve us better.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#289

Post by nyolfen »

notredame911 wrote: post #259
notredame911 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

.

if i wanted to come up with posts to degrade discourse regarding snowden and make people unwilling to engage with his revelations, i would probably make posts like yours

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#290

Post by weare138 »

notredame911 wrote: post #285
wavefunction wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence or any in your case.
Post reply on HN