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United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

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Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#411

Post by indigochill »

chrisdhoover wrote: post #78
indigochill wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There the concept of civil disobedience. You don't simply leave a country because you disagree with it, you change it. Refer to the King and the civil rights movement for more. Go further back to the other Martin Luther for even more.

>You don't simply leave a country because you disagree with it

Some do. See: secessionists or separatists. For historical examples, the English religious separatists who moved to Holland. Or the Confederates in the American Civil War.

To be clear, I'm not defending their position or arguing whether or not this is better than civil disobedience, but clearly there is a separatist/secessionist school of moral thought.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#412

Post by chopin »

no_opinions wrote: post #375

I will give some information of what other countries have done in similar situations: - German Constitution: Article 10 [Privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications] https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/chancellor/basic-law-... If you wanted to extend it into modern terminology, it would probably clearly specify communication over wire/radio, digital fingerprints, records, storage, including remote / cl…

I doubt that the situation in Germany is considerably better than in the US. The BND has explicitly being granted the right to snoop at DECIX indiscriminate of the origin. Various groups (eg. laywers) have tried to challenge this and where denied with the reasoning that they cannot prove that they are affected (no legal standing). As well there is legislation proposed or under way which would grant the Verfassungsschutz (German internal intelligence) the right to implant trojans (Bundestrojaner). All ruling parties violate the constitution in a regular way as evidenced by the rulings of the constitutional court.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#413

Post by dredmorbius »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #409
dredmorbius wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The information hurts more than the money helps.

For sure, but as the meme says, why not both?

Proportion.

The money is de minmus. There's the principle, but the vastly greater principle is learning and sharing Snowden's message.

I'm hoping there's a content liberation clause in Snowden's contract with Macmillan to make the book freely available. Given the efficiency of current samizdat distribution sites, that would largely be a formality. It would be welcome all the same.

The effective prohibition on compensated publishing (both Snowden and Macmillan would apparently be enjoined, though again, the case for Macmillan to cover its editing, printing, and distribution expenses might have legs) used to be effective at blocking the spread of information. That need no longer be the case.

If the NSA's excercise of its contract terms serves to both publicise and liberate the content, their own emasculation mechanism is emasculated.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#414

Post by mhh__ »

ryanlol wrote: post #371
mhh__ wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumping all of it online would have been like wikileaks, which I think would've been a mistake in that Wikileaks have been very open about aiming to use there releases to influence politics rather than merely releasing for the sake of knowledge e.g. "Maximum political impact" which does make them less credible (Aside from the dubious links to and decision not to criticise russia)

>decision not to criticise russia Do you have any evidence such a decision has been made by WL? Does that decision apply to China too? I don’t see any wikileaks from China. What makes Russia special? Perhaps these countries just aren’t that interesting to mostly English language WL?

They didn't publish a group of documents embarassing to Russia, when given to then.

Then there is also the source of their 2016 leaks, as documented the Special Counsel report

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#415

Post by mhh__ »

mirimir wrote: post #352
mhh__ wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumping all of it online would have been like wikileaks, which I think would've been a mistake in that Wikileaks have been very open about aiming to use there releases to influence politics rather than merely releasing for the sake of knowledge e.g. "Maximum political impact" which does make them less credible (Aside from the dubious links to and decision not to criticise russia)

But isn't it less biased to dump it all? With the only reason for not releasing being risk to arguably ~innocent individuals. Also, it's relevant to note that Holocaust investigators have not redacted names of ~responsible individuals from their releases. Indeed, they've targeted them.

Wikileaks regularly publish credit card details of completely unrelated bystanders e.g. political donors (and I mean $15 rather than $15 million).

They also clearly time their leaks for impact rather than purely apolitical time slots.

Speaking of the holocaust, wikileaks also hired a holocaust denier (in the words of hopenothate) - Israel Shamim - for years

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#416

Post by lern_too_spel »

cwkoss wrote: post #295
maxlybbert wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden got a job handling classified material. The government only trusted him to handle that material because he signed various contracts that said he would keep the material secret and that he would allow the NSA to read anything he wanted to publish so they could be sure he didn’t accidentally leak something (and, potentially, so they could plan for damage control). This lawsuit is not actually about publishing c…

The most fundamental part of his job was to uphold the US constitution. After numerous attempts to stop the constitutional violations of the NSA from within, he chose to uphold the constitution rather than the orders of unelected power hungry spooks. Frankly, hundreds if not thousands of people within the NSA deserve to be charged with treason. I would be shocked if this actually happened, though.

> After numerous attempts to stop the constitutional violations of the NSA from within

When did Snowden try to stop phone metadata collection from within?

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#417

Post by lern_too_spel »

cwkoss wrote: post #298
tssva wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 only provides protection for government employees which Snowden was not and it also doesn't apply to intelligence agency at least when classified material is involved. The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) of 1998 is the applicable law here and applies to government employees and contractors. It specifies the process of reporting waste,fraud or abuse…

Snowden repeatedly attempted to follow internal processes and was stonewalled. The most fundamental responsibility of his job was to uphold the US constitution. His bosses deserve to be charged with treason, which is why they are working so hard to attack him.

> Snowden repeatedly attempted to follow internal processes and was stonewalled.

There is no evidence of this.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#418

Post by lern_too_spel »

kamyarg wrote: post #100
alexfromapex wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the government realizes how much they’re pissing everyone off by violating our rights and defending themselves for doing it

> how much they’re pissing everyone I am afraid that it is not even a significant portion of the population that is pissed. If it was, then Snowden leaks wouldn't have been almost forgotten in 5-6 years. People seem to have accepted governments can do whatever they want without any consequences. Edit: Wanted to clarify that I am not even talking about the US, as part of the leaks it was revealed that NSA was listenin…

> Germany has already forgotten that it seems.

No, Germany hasn't forgotten. The US trying to listen Merkel's phone and vice versa is expected.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-intellig...

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#419

Post by kaybe »

vinceguidry wrote: post #369
peteretep wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Snowdens most fundamental job requirement was to uphold the US constitution This feels like one of those things that Americans say, that may not be true. Is this actually true? Do NSA employees state such an oath? Is defense of the constitution more important than defense of the nation if the two are in conflict? Happy to be persuaded that this is true, but feels pretty glib to a non-American.

It is not true. This is something I had to learn from people that have been in high-level roles in government. I will start with the history and purpose of constitutions. General guidelines to organize and plan governments around have existed since time immemorial. What makes modern constitutions special is that it specifies the idea of popular sovereignty , that it is the entirety of the population of a nation that…

Do you have a link for us?

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#420

Post by SamReidHughes »

bb88 wrote: post #402
mattkrause wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really true? In 1789, "papers", being made of actual paper, were in transit for much longer in 1789 and there are absolutely draconian laws against destruction and obstruction of the mail. For example, 18 USC § 1702, which prohibits "with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys the same" also doesn't have a carve-out…

Mail protection need not fall under 4th amendment protections if it's protected by laws passed by congress. Another question would be: would mail be protected without that law and just by the 4th amendment itself?

If it’s in an envelope, sure, but not if it’s on a postcard.
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