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USA Calling For the Extradition of Snowden
Taco Cowboy writes "Edward Snowden, the leaker who gave us the evidence of US government spying on its people is under threat of being extradited back to the U.S. to face prosecution. Some people in Congress, including Republican Peter King (R-NY), are calling for his extradition from Hong Kong to face trial. From the article: 'A spokesman for the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said Snowden's case had been referred to the justice department and US intelligence was assessing the damage caused by the disclosures.
"Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law," the spokesman, Shawn Turner, said.'"
Seriously ... if there is anyone out there who is a lawyer, or is knowledgeable enough to take this on ... this is your issue. Start a fund. Start it now.
This is a textbook example of the government trying to apply "do as I say, not as I do." If they want us to respect the spirit and letter of the law, they first need to do the same.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD
Like, say, the 4th amendment protecting against unlawful search and seizure? Bastards were caught with their hands in the cookie jar and are trying anything to deflect attention.
I assume they are worried about what else he plans on releasing. If he has much more damning evidence (Which I assume he does) they want to get into the fold of Mother USA's arms to squeeze... hug him into silence before he says much more.
You can have him back after you impeach and convict your traitorous president and dismantle your illegal domestic espionage complex.
These BASTARDS talk about the law even as they wipe their asses with the Constitutions. If ANYONE should be black bagged, it's these SCUM.
>"Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law," the spokesman, Shawn Turner, said.'"
Does security clearance prevail on a breach of the constitution ?
We have an obligation to do what is right and proper above any other law. In the sense of the USA government, the Constitution is the highest law and lies out what is right and proper. If our government is unjust and doing something unethical and against the constitution, then we must first do what is right and proper to protect the constitution.
Our Government is given power by the people, if they steal powers without consent of the governn than the highest law calls us to correct the misdeed and that trumps the laws on secrecy, etc. A soldier need not follow an illegal order!
Now that being said: Breaking confidentiality on top-secret stuff is no laughing matter. It's treason, a capital offense. But that doesn't mean we aren't called to follow the higher law if the top-secret stuff is in itself illegal.
Even Snowden knew this would happen. There's a reason he's gone public with his identity. Now he can't be killed or disappeared without everyone knowing exactly what's going on.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Guess we'll find out if Hong Kong was a good choice. The extradition attempts should be interesting.
Isn't widespread domestic spying without a specific purpose and a warrant against the law?
This guys is brave for identifying himself and releasing this information, but I fear he's going to get absolutely destroyed in this process.
I fear governments have tipped over to the point where security and paranoia will completely obliterate any privacy and anonymity.
Of course, the biggest fear is that now that Microsoft, Google, and almost everyone else have rolled over to help the US do this spying, every other country is going to demand the same. I'm hard pressed to see how they could refuse given the precedent they've set.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We should find out who 'some people in Congress' are, post their names, and make sure constituents in their voting jurisdiction fill their inboxes. And, parade their names all over the Internet so the other people in Congress will see them be vilified. Nobody here wants to see us continuing in the direction of a totalitarian police state.
According to the article, the people in Congress that are named are 'Republican head of the House intelligence committee, Mike Rogers' and 'Peter King, the chairman of the House homeland security subcommittee'.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
And the "damage" done is that the people, finally got informed on what's going on, really. They now need to determine to what extent and what will be needed to remedy the situation. Extradition and severe prosecution after that is a message to all others potential whistleblowers.
Funny how every time there's a " information leak" like this, it reveals that the Gov and/or Companies are doing some bad stuff, and nothing else happens.
They'll not stop surveillance or testing experimental drugs on poor countries children, it will be just swept under the rug and whistleblower put to jail and then they gonna pretend everything is ok, while people will stop caring until it starts directly affecting them and their lives.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD879 --- 8979 signed on in two days.
Also, over 4000 for repeal of the PATRIOT act so far and over 2000 for the impeachment of Roger Vinson, whose signature authorized some ridiculously broad data collection orders. And 11825 for the resignation of President Obama. I mention this last because people have been calling for his head for years and it's not clear what issue is the biggest factor in people calling for his resignation.
I hear they do a really good B&B deal.
... how they placed a high school dropout in such a position of trust. Quoting the Guardian "Snowden is a 29-year-old high-school dropout who trained for the Army Special Forces before an injury forced him to leave the military. His IT credentials are apparently limited to a few “computer” classes he took at a community college in order to get his high-school equivalency degree—courses that he did not complete. His first job at the NSA was as a security guard. Then, amazingly, he moved up the ranks of the United States’ national security infrastructure: The CIA gave him a job in IT security. He was given diplomatic cover in Geneva. He was hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, the government contractor, which paid him $200,000 a year to work on the NSA’s computer systems." .. Wtf are people smoking in the US?
Mr Obama,
Can you please give me access to all your email and phone conversations? If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.
Extreme hypocrisy exhibited by:
He WAS abiding by the law by exposing illegal activities carried out by the government on an ongoing basis. How is what he did illegal or wrong, by any stretch of the imagination? A law instructing any citizen to not report any illegal activity is itself an illegal law.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I fixed your typo.
I do not think you realize just how serious of a matter this is. This is exactly the sort of thing the US government criticizes other nations for. The People, as in the Citizens of The United States of America should not put up with this. If we take the future of our nation seriously we need to start no confidence recall elections where state constitutions allow it, demand the immediate impeachment and conviction or resignation of Barack Obama, and vote out the rest of the trash where state constitutions do not provide for recall elections.
This is a very serious issue and I for one am grateful that we have brave people like Snowden in the NSA who are unwilling to violate the Constitution and are willing to put their own lives at stake to report it to the people via the most public means possible.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Am I the only one with their jaw on the ground that the NSA and CIA are hiring contractors as full time employees in top secret positions with access to everything, instead of doing actual short term janitorial type of work that contractors are supposed to be used for? If they need a printer installs, sure, use the contractor. Need to have a recorded wire tap scanned and sent over to secret building #2, use a contractor? REALLY??
I never thought I'd see the day when an American is seeking political protection in China.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Official channels are worse than useless when the corruption is top-down.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Edward H Snowden
(Age 65+) Retired Porn Star @
State of California Dept. of Adult
Films & Education
I figured the guy is probably legitimate then. That info is enough to make anyone want to stop looking, and makes him sound pretty "spooky." Of course, the NSA knows where to find him anyway, so he's probably SOL.
So if you were witnessing illegal behaviour in the DoD, you're saying you shouldn't report it or whistleblow?
Dude. That is just so wrong.
no taxation without representation!
The only way this is a crime is if actual information is released that hurts national defense. Congress has repeatedly resisted or failed to make the disclosing of classified information illegal, in and of itself.
I am not sure one could consider this national defense information.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Contractor use is how they get around other aspects of US and [especially] Constitutional legal restrictions and limitations.
Problem with the military code, rules or laws? No problem -- hire contractors. Got a problem with accountability and being tracked or with requirements of reporting your activities? Just use contractors. Easy to blame and easy to fire.
Not shocking, but quite disgusting. We put these government controls into place to prevent all sorts of government abuse and they just route around it. And no one is called to the floor for these practices.
...the fun begins.
On one side Snowden, who knows the repercussions of what he did, but chose this path. Bravo. He did not go the Wikileaks route, very impressive.
On the other side whoever who were "appalled" US government is snooping indiscriminately - the list starts with Ron Paul. Lets see if Ron Paul will take a stand and publicly defend Snowden.
Then we have POTUS - who probably would have personally supported Snowden if he were not the POTUS. The more POTUS and his administration squeaks about "grave danger to US" and other nonsense and proceeds to harm Snowden, the more out of touch, elitist and a tool he will look.
Excellent drama. I sincerely hope Snowden can go home to a heroes reception.
Tat Tvam Asi
If Snowden is ever brought to trial, and not droned or Gitmo'd, his only defense will be to prove he was exposing/preventing a greater crime.
The discovery motions alone will be surreal, and what about jury selection? Appellate trial transcripts? Sworn testimony from agency honchos?
I sure hope Groklaw is cranking up for this one. This might be the trial of the century, if it happens.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Speaking as someone who has seen systemic corruption first hand, reporting it via official channels is useless 90% of the time and will just get you outed as a troublemaker. For me it was absolute proof that someone was fired in violation of the Family Medical Leave Act, and the company actively took measures to hide that fact. For the specific case, a woman was found to have breast cancer and the company took very specific steps to ensure that she would be fired and they wouldn't have to deal with it or pay for it. I suspected that there was some pressure from their insurance company as well, since they'd be allowed to drop her after she got fired. They set her file up in a clever way, without needing her to sign anything, to show that she had 'ongoing problems relating to work performance and absenteeism.' She was one of the hardest workers there and never missed a day. Her time clock in the past was redone to make it look like she was absent once or twice a month. She received a warning at one time about not showing up for work and not calling in, but this was due to being evacuated over a chemical spill in her area, and not having access to a phone...they appended it to say that the reason was bunk, but this appending was removed.
So a week after she went on leave under the FMLA, she was officially terminated for not showing up for work for a week without calling in. They simply threw away her paperwork and were done with it. I took the findings and reported them via official channels. Nothing happened. I took the findings and reported them to an agency that was supposed to investigate these things. Nothing happened. Finally I took the findings and reported them to the person that they happened to. What happened next was a settlement of undisclosed value from the company to her. The undisclosed value was enough to hit a company of that size pretty hard.
Were there any changes in the company? No. Not a single one. If a woman that worked there got breast cancer next week, you can bet your ass they'd still end up fired for a no call no show. Would I ever have worked in that industry again had they figured out who I was? No. Would I ever have a job again if they figured out who I was? No. Would I likely go to jail for 'hacking' when seeing those things was part of my everyday job? Yep.
This is the country...no...the world that we live in. Get used to it folks. People primarily want three things: Food, shelter, and socialization. Guess what can ensure all three? Money and power. That's what people seek. No one is going to know about the evil things you did to get them when you're retired somewhere nice and warm and have a million dollars in the bank. Even if half the civilized world cares, there's still plenty of fish in that other half.
Want my advice? Well, I don't really care if you want it or not, here it comes. You can just as easily have food, shelter, and socialization, by living a decent life as a decent human being. The difference is that if you're filthy rich, you can have it all on your own terms. You can decide exactly what food to eat, exactly what shelter to hide under, and exactly who you mingle with. It isn't nearly as grand a choice as it seems at first glance.
Here in America, being a lower-middle class citizen, I think I'm pretty damn rich. I've got two cars in good condition, a house, a bank account, and food on the table. I can go to Walmart right now and pick from a whole bunch of different foods to eat, clothes to wear, books to read, and leisurely activities to pursue. This is the grandest life that the average person has known at any time throughout all of history. You think we have it bad? Imagine being in the middle ages. Your pantry is nearly dry. You'll be lucky to have stale bread to eat this week, you'll be even luckier if you get to eat meat this year. Imagine 100 years ago. You've never had a cold drink in the summer before. Electric power is something for big cities and rich people. Half your friends just died from the Spanish Flu, and all that can be done is for a nurse to check on you and ask you if you're still alive.
Security supposedly means protecting our freedom. If so, they are one and the same, and there can't even theoretically be a tradeoff.
Not to mention that the entire point of the leak was that the government is deliberately spying on non-terrorists.
Snowden claims that one of the specific reasons why he chose to act is because the NSA was deliberately lying to congress. If that isn't a crime, it should be. IMO it should be considered treason, but the very least I think it is a clear-cut case of perjury.
Of course, the government will punish the real guilty parties here to the same extent that they punished the criminal activities Manning revealed...
So, you're saying that the NSA didn't use the secret FISA courts to get questionably legal status to track every cellphone on every US carrier?
In spite of the multiple government security officials saying it's OK that they were doing that.
You're funny.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
No...I am not shocked. I worked for a defense contractor as contractor from another company. I had clearance. Its pretty common. There are several levels of clearance. Everyone knows about secret and top secret, but there are other levels that don't even have names. In addition to that, you have compartmentalization through program clearance. Which basically means, even if you have super duper top secret clearance, you still don't get to see anything until you are briefed on the specific rules of the specific program. The government hire contractors like BH for their ability to specialize.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
Snowden publicized Top Secret information on U. S. Government surveillance of all Americans in their use of email, cell phones, and internet searches. The NSA is allegedly performing this surveillance under the auspices of the Bush-era 'Patriot Act' which was enacted as a means to locate and monitor terrorists. Prior to the PA, the government had to go to court and obtain wiretap authorization for specific individuals for a specific purpose and for a limited amount of time. Before the PA, the U.S government certainly could have prevented a lot of domestic criminal and terrorist activity if it had been allowed to continuously monitor all landline communications. That type of monitoring and surveillance was infamous and routine in the former Soviet Union, China, North Korea, East Germany, and many other totalitarian governments but we Americans were sheltered by our constitution. Of course, the first landline networks didn't appear until the dawn of the 20th century. The 19th century had widespread telegraph networks that the government could have routinely monitored which would have certainly prevented criminal and terrorist activity. The point here is that it is not the technology that has changed, nor the constitution, but our willingness within ourselves to accept 24/7 surveillance by our government to make us safer. We are willingly giving up our constitutional right to privacy to be safe. Of course, there has never been an actual vote on this but our public acceptance of the unfortunate fate that will befall the courageous Mr. Snowden is reflective of what the outcome of such a vote might be.
Saw a comment on Boing Boing, that I liked:
There have been no whistle blowers since 2000, only traitors and spies...
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the human rights activists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a human rights activist.
Then they came for the terrorists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a terrorists.
Then they came for the people with Verizon,
and I didn't speak out because I don't like getting charged that much for a phone plan.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Did Snowden violate the law, yes, he violated the agreements he made when he obtained his security clearance. This the US violate the laws by implementing this kind of program, probably. Was public disclosure the right way to go about it, absolutely not.
There are mechanisms in place for whistle blowers when it comes to classified information. Is it affective, well, I do not have an answer for that. Did Snowden follow channels first before going public, we don't know that yet either.
So you don't know whether Snowden followed internal channels, or whether those channels would have been at all fruitful. But you know that he absolutely did not go about this in the right manner. Got it.
Whether we like it or not, there are process and procedures in place, and the Gov will do what the Gov does (if you think any other country does not do similar crap, you are probably deluding yourself). Follow the appropriate path, if no fruitful resolution comes from that, then public release is a possibility, but expect consequences.
Do you expect that if he had gone up his chain of command, whatever that was, that he would have been heard out and this program would have been made public? I do not. I expect it would have been kept quiet, and he would have been fired. He'd be a target at that point, having made known his opinions. No, the only way to make this program public knowledge was to leak it to the press, just as he did.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
"Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law,"
I would say the latter part trumps the former and a pretty good case could be made that spying on US citizens is illegal unless you change the constitution.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Re: he had clearance, and orders, and trusted access... the U.S. itself insisted in 1945, rightly so, that individuals must listen to their conscience, regardless of their official obligations.
Given tendencies over the last 5+ years I predict nothing will happen. Few will bat an eye if Snowden gets extradited, tried and convicted.
Every time some scandal has surfaced it's followed the same pattern:
1) It's dismissed as fabrication until evidence surfaces. The day I heard of this spy program the reports were all pointing out that everyone was denying this program existed.
2) The story is trivialized, the talking heads can't understand why the story persists and dismiss it as opponents trying to vilify the president. I've heard this repeated time again on CNN and elsewhere.
3) Dredge up some action from the prior administration to establish moral equivalency. There's a lot to blame Bush for, and he helped enable a lot of the problems we're seeing now, but a lot of stuff unfolding doesn't come close to being on the same level. If it had been we would probably had seen riots in the streets.
4) Dismiss it as one of those things that just happens or attribute blame to the prior administration. This, again, another attempt to marginalize the situation as overblown. I've noticed as tendency to see every little bit of news as evidence the story is a fabrication even when the pieces clearly don't add up. If Bush had been president these same people would have latched onto these stories with all fervor and demanded his hanging.
That's the fundamental problem here; how blindly loyal people are to Obama. The most telling aspect is that people were taking to the streets in protest during Bush's rule over less and now they're conspicuously silent. It goes to show that all that was more about ideology than any real principle. The problem isn't that people were complaining then, it's that they're not doing so now. Without question Bush had his own flock of sheep, but conservatives were generally a lot more critical towards him than I'm seeing with liberals and Obama today. The Tea Party, before being co-opted by Republicans and turned into a joke, came to rise during the Bush administration. And that's when they aren't also making a joke of the Green or Libertarian party.
For a wide variety of reasons Republicans have been in turmoil because conservatives don't feel they're being properly represented. One of the big reason being that they don't like being forced to tick off every conservative box. I've yet to see a similar response to Democrats, they certainly seem unified to a fault. When, for example, a liberal site lavishes praise on someone like Barney Frank, corrupt and having had a hand in the real estate bubble, you've really got to question the legitimacy principles. If you can't identify the problems in your own party and find good ideas in others, there are some real problems.
I will acknowledge that the response on Slashdot has been far more balanced than I've seen elsewhere. I'm actually impressed because it's a far better environment for discussion than it was back in 2008.
We don't actually know if he is right at this point
What in the world do you mean? Do you think it is fine that the government was secretly monitoring everyone's phone records?
In this case he may be "right" but he may also have broken the law which we'll need a trial to decide.
At this point, a trial is a formality. He claims he broke the law, and now the government is agreeing with him. The trial is to establish some facts for the record and sentencing. It also does not appear that the NSA broke any laws - everything seems to be on the up-and-up.
And THAT is the problem. Our system is now set up such that the government can monitor the details of every phone call made by every American, secretly and legally.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Does anybody on eiher side think the government won't use this system to track everyone here who posts in support of this guy?
Dear lord, please just let me be a paranoiac.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
There is a necessary trade off between intelligence gathering for the purpose of law enforcement and national security and citizens' right to privacy. Public sentiment at this point may be that the NSA has overstepped an ethical boundary and possibly Constitutional principles. What concerns me is the motivation that drove them to do so and what we can do in the future to keep them (and other agencies) clear of these boundaries.
Giving our government the power to peer into our private lives in return for security is one thing. But I don't recall a Constitutional clause permitting Booz Allen Hamilton to do so. I fact, I suspect that a lot of the NSA/FBI/CIA motivation for these huge data collection projects is the lobbying being done by contractors getting a piece of the action. Given a law restricting access to citizens' personal data only to civil servants and elected officials, I suspect that these agencies will reign in their data collection efforts to those absolutely necessary for their charters.
I don't have a problem with the NSA hiring contractors to put up a data center. But lets restrict its operation to direct employees alone and I'll bet they will be a lot more careful with their espionage dollars. Such a law will also go a long way toward putting a stop to another issue I haven't seen too much discussion on. That is; private contractors utilizing their access privileges to sensitive data for their own benefit. Having worked inside the 'military-industrial complex' for a few decades, I have seen numerous instances in which access to foreign intelligence product was used for purely economic advantage by private contractors. Inevitably, giving private contractors access to citizens' personal data will be leveraged for profit. Its one thing if a Google or Microsoft does this within the boundaries of the law. But given the trust we give to government agencies, having their data go right out their back door is just wrong.
Have gnu, will travel.
Rather scary isn't it? Realistically I suspect this recent revelation is just the tip of the iceberg.
Agreed. The funny thing is that two weeks ago a friend and I were working out cocktail napkin figures for how much storage space they would need for all of this. I felt a little bit like a conspiracy nut at the time, but now I feel vindicated :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
A lot of comments are about the morality of releasing the documents (constitution vs. obeying orders) seem to be missing the larger point. In Snowden's own words from his interview with the Guardian, the American people need to decide if this federal data collection problem is right or wrong. From all appearances, both major parties (Democrat and Republican) are firmly in the grip of the industrial-security complex. How can we change this? How can we make the government respect the will of the majority of its citizens with regards to individual privacy rights and due process? President Obama said that "he welcomes the debate". Would he have welcomed the debate last week? How can we have an honest public debate when anyone who provides documents is immediately threatened with life in the slammer?
As long as both parties tow the same common line on security issues, I hope that there will be more and more Snowdens and Mannings, because for a lot of these people, there is no other recourse than to go the press and hope that public opinion comes down on their side. If these programs really do save lives, the government needs to finally come clean and stop just saying "just trust us." I wish Snowden good luck and hope that he finds asylum somewhere safe, and I hope that if someday sanity returns to the federal government, he can come home without being threatened.
Snowden's actions seem pretty well justified. After all, didn't he swear an oath before he started his job which went something like this:
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.
Oh, wait. That's the oath that Congressmen have been taking for the past 130 years, but apparently ignore whenever it gets to be inconvenient. Never mind.
What in the world do you mean? Do you think it is fine that the government was secretly monitoring everyone's phone records?
Not at all. I merely mean that we do not have all the facts yet. On the surface it looks pretty damning of the government but I'd be shocked if we know the whole picture at this point.
What additional facts do you expect? No one is disputing the veracity of the document he leaked, and not only has the government not denied that the domestic surveillance is going on, but that we should all just accept it because it's been going on for years.
What possible facts could come out to make this seem better? We all know that they claim to be doing it under the guise of anti-terrorism, but many people aren't willing to give up privacy and allow all of their electronic audit trails to be cataloged by the government in return for some small reduction in terrorism. And I really think that blanket surveillance is going to have only a modest effect against terrorism since there are many ways for a terorrist cell to communicate without arousing suspicion.