471–480 of 501 posts
Nobody in this discussion seems to have mentioned the word "advance". Snowden has already been paid for this book, and the advance will have been negotiated with the expectation that it will be difficult to pay any additional royalties. Has Snowden's contract with the publisher been exhibited yet? It'll be interesting to see if there's anything funny in there.
Curiously since Snowden is a US citizen he’ll have to file & pay taxes on that income.
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The criticisms will occur at this point no matter what he does. I would actually bet he welcomes the talk as a distraction from his easy to prosecute crimes.
> I would actually bet he welcomes the talk as a distraction from his easy to prosecute crimes. None of his crimes are easy to prosecute while he is in office; the distractions won't have much effect once he is not in office. So I doubt that that is exactly the issue.
Sure, but that's purely a political constraint, not a legal one, and he's well aware of that. There doesn't appear to be any will in the democratic or republican leadership to advance motions to remove him from power. Given the lack of any interest in this regard, the constant onslaught of allegations of foreign intervention seems to be more of an effort to shift blame away from the weaknesses of a certain 2016 democratic nominee and hedging against a 2020 loss when certain american billionaires had demonstrably many times the influence of any foreign government. A change in political power could find him out of office very quickly.
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The criticisms will occur at this point no matter what he does. I would actually bet he welcomes the talk as a distraction from his easy to prosecute crimes.
What crimes has Donald committed?
For those wondering, the purpose here (part of a multi-pronged approach) is to restrict his income and seize his assets. The less money someone has access to, the less power they have. This makes it harder for him to live day-to-day, restricts his access to experts who won't work pro-bono, and ultimately will hurt his criminal defense should he ever return to the USA. These guys don't fool around. Expect more pressur…
This would also provide a strong justification for closing said loopholes.
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The Constitution is the core of the nation, or we've lost the whole point.
That's bizarre, given that many countries operate just fine without one.
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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…
How does that jive with: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Probably the same way civil asset forfeiture does, somehow p…
People are just too good at rationalizing and not questioning "the way things are" even in the face of the obvious evidence and become quite upset when the elephant in the room is pointed out.
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> I would actually bet he welcomes the talk as a distraction from his easy to prosecute crimes. None of his crimes are easy to prosecute while he is in office; the distractions won't have much effect once he is not in office. So I doubt that that is exactly the issue.
> None of his crimes are easy to prosecute while he is in office; the distractions won't have much effect once he is not in office. Sure, but that's purely a political constraint, not a legal one, and he's well aware of that. There doesn't appear to be any will in the democratic or republican leadership to advance motions to remove him from power. Given the lack of any interest in this regard, the constant onslaught…
There is considerable debate on whether it is legal to criminally prosecute a sitting President, for different reasons applying to state vs. federal charges. At best, it would involve getting courts to resolve novel questions of Constitutional law about which the legal community has no consensus and which there is no direct on-point precedent.
So, no, it's a legal constraint.
> There doesn't appear to be any will in the democratic or republican leadership to advance motions to remove him from power.
The Democratic leadership is fully behind efforts to removw him from power shortly after the next Congress opens. They also aren't standing in the way of efforts to do sooner (impeachment hearings in the House begin in less than a week).
The Republican leadership, sure, fits your description.
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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 laws against publishing classified information only apply to people who are authorized to have it in the first place. As soon as that info makes its way to someone who is NOT authorized to see it, they can legally do whatever they want with it. There is no legal definition of "journalist" in this context.
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Are you or have you ever been employed by a US intelligence agency? You seem very skilled at subtly misleading with half-truths. We don't really know what unpublished documents Snowden took, and it is extremely naive to trust the state's allegations. The published info about defense and foreign intelligence was relevant to the American people because it demonstrated that NSA had been lying to congress and our allies.…
I've never worked for the intel agencies but I've worked in other places in the USG. You're right that we may never know what exactly Snowden took, that's always going to be the tough part about the public evaluating classified information cases. Sometimes you'll find other pieces of the puzzle years later if you're lucky. Either way, you should take what senior intel officials say with a grain of salt, they're alway…
I dug into his releases pretty deeply, but probably have missed quite a few of his public statements.
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I fundamentally disagree that secrecy is the foundation of national security. Journalists have revealed state secrets countless times, and over and over the secret was kept to hide unjustifiable actions of government officials violating their oath of office and taking actions which harm national interests. There is a role for keeping certain information temporarily secret (i.e. don't publish where the active missile…
The state of journalism in any particular country is a very good cue to start with when trying to figure out the exact level of civilization present. Journalists not only have to be authorized by states to operate, but they must also be protected by those same states. This is the case in most countries except for exceedingly advanced ones, such as the US and most of Europe, where they can be allowed a great deal of a…