They were always going to charge him if only to discourage future Snowden's.
U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
331–340 of 363 posts
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#332So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden. It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution. People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this…
So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. For what, doing their jobs? Protest by all means, but demanding that prosecutors be fired for executing the law is just ridiculous.
I don't think it is all that ridiculous. Prosecutors have tremendous amounts of discretion regarding who they prosecute and what for. They aren't just "doing their jobs" they are explicitly targeting Snowden. The fact that it is their legal prerogative to do so does not necessarily make it ethically correct.
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#333So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden. It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution. People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this…
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.
Down to 0 signatures needed :) Reached the 100k! (100,162 right now)
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#334So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden. It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution. People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this…
If someone can kickstart a fund for Turkey why can't get do it for Snowden? Lets get some full page ads out there!
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you imagine a jury of 12 all believing that what he did was not in the interests of his country?
Sadly that's not how your legal system works any more. I don't have the link handy but it came up here recently with that environmental activist who just got out of jail for breaking up an illegal auction of land. He thought he'd be fine but when the prosecution found that many of the jurors had received a juror's rights pamphlet out lining the basic foundations of your country like that jurys are supposed to be a so…
This is why people shouldn't skip on jury duty and why it is as important as voting.
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#336Earlier 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.
I'm surprised that I, as a non-US citizen living in the Netherlands, could sign that.
Just don't tell anyone in the whitehouse :)
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
Soldiers are supposed to disobey their military superiors if told to commit crimes against humanity. Breaking a law, especially when doing something obviously right, does not mean that you need to have charges brought against you. Say you see a dog about to drown in a creek on private property. If you ran in and saved it, the owner could charge you for trespassing. That doesn't mean they SHOULD.
"Soldiers are supposed to disobey their military superiors if told to commit crimes against humanity." Well, no. A soldier isn't supposed to say "I think that command is illegal under international law, therefore I will choose not to follow it." They'll be court-martialed, and rightly so. Choosing to make that call is intentionally risky, because it's supposed to be rare. Likewise, Snowden will be prosecuted...and ri…
Fwiw, enlisted soldiers swear an oath to obey. Officers do not. And both swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which certainly applies in this case.
Enlisted oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_enlistment
Officers' oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Service...
Not that Snowden is either, but you were talking about when soldiers may disobey their superiors so I thought this might be tangentially interesting.
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who cares? We're talking about widespread malfeasance and lawbreaking by the gov't against every citizen, and the world, vs a few crappy laptops.
The parent comment seemed to be questioning why he was charged with theft of government property.
The theft charge is just a ruse to get the HK authorities to extradite him. If they only charged him with espionage, then there's no problem for Snowden's atty's to make the case for political persecution. The HK courts will see this for the ruse that it is.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/snowden-not...
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking up the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 [1] even more closely, it appears it won't apply to Snowden here. If the material is protected from disclosure by law or E.O. (like this was) then you can only report it to the Office of Special Counsel or the agency I.G. and receive whistleblower protection. It's in fact arguable that things like PRISM even violated any of those provisions, which makes it risky (on…
There is a difference between full protection (not being allowed to be fired) and not being convicted for 25-life under espionage act. It would be insane to retain Snowden in his former role. He is an untrustworthy SCIF sysadmin. He might be worthwhile in the IG office or some public facing role, but I am fine if he is fired, clearance revoked, etc pre trial, even if his disclosures ultimately are positive and lead t…
Good point, though that does make me wonder if he might have technically fallen under Whistleblower Protection (technically an HR thing) and still been liable to imprisonment based on the Espionage Act. Seems weird they'd be orthogonal, but then we're in a weird situation.
Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
"...your defence budget (how large is it again)" It's about the size of the 10 biggest following countries COMBINED! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e... That is YOUR hard earned tax money at work AGAINST YOU.
Black projects are not listed in a public budget. The premise of it being tax money is also suspect. The US government does not get all of the money from taxes despite the popular notion. I agree with your gist however; A modern day human sacrifice.
Could you list some of the other sources of government funding? The only one I can think of is the alleged CIA drug trafficking scandals from decades past.