Slashdot Mirror
In First American TV Interview, Snowden Talks Accountability and Patriotism
mspohr (589790) points out NBC News's interview with Edward Snowden, the first time Snowden has talked with an American television reporter. It's a wide-ranging conversation, in which Snowden emphasizes his ongoing belief that he did the right thing to release the many documents that he did, even at the cost of his ability to travel. Snowden told NBC's Brian Williams "he had tried to go through channels before leaking documents to journalists, repeatedly raising objections inside the NSA, in writing, to its widespread use of surveillance. But he said he was told, "more or less, in bureaucratic language, 'You should stop asking questions.'" Two U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that Snowden sent at least one email to the NSA's office of general counsel raising policy and legal questions." Perhaps paving the way to eventual repatriation, Snowden also indicated that he would be willing to accept a "short period" behind bars. But, he said, the U.S. should "reform the Espionage Act to distinguish between people who sell secrets to foreign governments for their own gain and people who return information to public hands for the purpose of serving the public interest," and to include contractors as well as government employees.
The only place he'd ever get repatriated to is Leavenworth (if they're being generous) or Gitmo (if they aren't).
Poking the bear is bad enough, making the bear feel foolish (while continuing to poke) is unforgivable. In this case, the bear is not Russia. :(
If they let him go free, or off with a light sentence, he'll have a new career as a public speaker, or activist against the NSA and surveillance. No way the government would allow that sentiment to have a publicly acceptable mouth piece.
Between serving the public's interest, and serving one's own interest at the expense of the public? This is intended as a serious question--I like Snowden's idea,
Its pretty easy to tell the difference between someone selling information to a foreign government in secret, and divulging it to the public publicly.
If you are concerned someone is going to "maliciously" divulge secret information to the public for no personal gain but the satisifcation of causing disruption? So what? I can live with that trade off. Its better than the treat whistlblowers as traitors we have now.
And realistically, most of government secrets shouldn't be secret anyway. If that person releases troop movements, under cover agents identities, and your private health information 'the public' will crucify him regardless of the law.
If he releases the contents of a secret in-the-works treaty and you can't tell whether his intentions were disruptive or public service based on the contents of the treaty, I'm ok with erring on the side of public service. And I don't think treaties should be secret anyway.
So what about the rest of the NSA? They're breaking the law every day, all day. What should we do about them?
I'm not for touching Snowden with any legal repercussions of his actions until the NSA is held accountable for their violations of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and outright lying to congress under oath.
You can't have it both ways, you can't say Snowden is a traitor and the NSA is not, and advocate for punishing one and not the other. The NSA is hugely more guilty of law breaking than Snowden could ever hope to be. When I see some bigwigs of the NSA behind bars, then I'll accept Snowden needs to serve some time (not life) for his supposed crime of enlightening the rest of us of the huge disregard for the law the NSA has shown.
Re 'decide his fate by staying in the US and facing the judicial system ? "
At best he would have found some political interest in his case.
He would have faced a sealed court as just a 'contractor' as the gov aspect of his NSA and CIA work would have been carefully hidden.
A 'contractor' may face all the same legal charges as a gov worker but enjoy few of the gov worker only whistleblowers legal protections.
He would have had all the legal protections of a contractor before a sealed court with a very expensive short list of cleared lawyers.
His legal team would not have the clearance to see, question or ask for more evidence that would support his case.
His legal team would not have the clearance to present more facts to any interested cleared political supporter.
After a short, rigged hidden trial the very public spin would begin.
The left of the US main stream media would understand he was a low level private contractor and not worth reporting on.
The right of the US main stream media would understand he was a low level contractor with far left union ideals and not worth reporting on.
For anyone else the hint that he was a limited hangout would make sure they lost interested in the few public fragments of the case.
Knowing what happens to even the most politically powerfully supported US gov whistleblowers within the US legal system the only wise option was to get the information to the press and then be free of the material.
You can more read about other past US whistleblowers and their US court experiences here: http://cryptome.org/2013-info/...
The other good aspect is that great law reform teams can now work with the public information in public courts and slowly bring more media attention to the loss of US rights and freedoms over the past decades.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Yes the email seems to exist :)
http://time.com/137530/nsa-to-...
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
"He goes on to cite a list provided in the training that ranks presidential executive orders alongside federal statutes in the hierarchy of orders governing NSA behaviour.
“I'm not entirely certain, but this does not seem correct, as it seems to imply Executive Orders have the same precedence as law"
With an unnamed individual sending back "“correct that EO's cannot override a statute” but that they have the “force and effect of law”."
Would seem to show a legal question in one email was 'found' and is now been presented with spin to the wider media.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Snowden released the information, and now it's up to us to fix the problems. You mention MLK and such, but the situation simply isn't comparable, and even if it was, there is no need for every 'hero' to act in the same way.
And why is there so much focus on Snowden himself? It seems like the government is trying to distract people from their horrendous activities.
Snowden accepts the possibility of Gitmo because, in principle, all of us could be sent to Gitmo and taking a Get-out-of-Gitmo-Free card would be unfair.
I don't think it's unfair for people who don't want to be abused by their government to move elsewhere.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Perhaps there is a reason that jurors are treated like crap by the court system, precisely to make sure that only the "right" jurors show up. There is no legitimate reason why being on a jury should take ten times more time than the amount of time actually spent in the courtroom. No one in that court room, except maybe the defendant, has their time wasted as liberally as the jury.