The New York Times Pushes For Clemency For Snowden

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Editorial Board of the New York Times has weighed in on the criminal charges facing Edward Snowden and writes that 'Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight..' 'He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community.' The president said in August that Snowden should come home to face charges in court and suggested that if Snowden had wanted to avoid criminal charges he could have simply told his superiors about the abuses, acting, in other words, as a whistle-blower. In fact, notes the editorial board, the executive order regarding whistleblowers did not apply to contractors, only to intelligence employees, rendering its protections useless to Snowden. More important, Snowden told The Washington Post that he did report his misgivings to two superiors at the agency, showing them the volume of data collected by the NSA, and that they took no action. 'Snowden was clearly justified in believing that the only way to blow the whistle on this kind of intelligence-gathering was to expose it to the public and let the resulting furor do the work his superiors would not. ... When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government,' concludes the editorial. 'President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to end Mr. Snowden's vilification and give him an incentive to return home.'"

Comments

Re:Cold Fjord

[anagama]

When that bootlicker shows up, you can refer him to this article:

If Snowden Returned to US For Trial, All Whistleblower Evidence Would Likely Be Inadmissible

If Edward Snowden comes back to the US to face trial, he likely will not be able to tell a jury why he did what he did, and what happened because of his actions. Contrary to common sense, there is no public interest exception to the Espionage Act. Prosecutors in recent cases have convinced courts that the intent of the leaker, the value of leaks to the public, and the lack of harm caused by the leaks are irrelevant -- and are therefore inadmissible in court.

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/12/if-snowden-returned-us-trial-all-whistleblower-evidence-would-likely-be-inadmissible

Re:did they break the law?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but if you have to ask "did they break the law?" then you are absolutely right that you haven't been paying attention.

The courts and congress, prior to Snowden's leaks, did allow it. You are correct there. But what they allowed was not the same as what the NSA was actually up to. They flat-out lied to get authorization for some things, then went off and did others so when/if they got caught, they could say, "But we were told we could do that!" It is a well-documented fact at this point that the NSA lied to both the courts and congress. That, in itself, is not legal.

Then, we have the fact that they are definitely violating the 4th amendment. They are not "just" collecting "metadata." They have the content of every phone call or email you make, your browsing history, etc. and they intend hold it for at least 15 years. As American citizens have the right to not be unreasonably searched without warrant, they have violated the constitution in billions of instances over the last decade.

First amendment rights have also been under attack. Some members of the media have stated that they've been under pressure (not clear if it's from their employers or otherwise) to not run any anti-NSA stories. Some businesses, such as Lavabit and Silent Circle, have had to shutdown because of ridiculous legal pressure to completely legal businesses simply because they did not want to provide all of their information in bulk and instead said they would comply with the law and turn over any information related to suspects. In the case of Lavabit, the FBI demanded they turn over their SSL public & private keys; this is not needed to unencrypt stored information on users, but instead to create a MITM attack on their network. I got a bit off-topic here, but the point is simply that people are forced to behave differently, including limiting their speech, out of fear of government backlash. It is a clear violation of the first amendment.

Then, we have the fact that the NSA is participating in hacking and distributing malware. You know what that's called? Computer fraud. And it's very illegal. If you have some time to waste, go ahead and watch this presentation from 30C3.

But, most importantly, remember that government propaganda is legal now so keep an eye out for their bullshit.