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When Snowden Speaks, Future Lawyers (and Judges) Listen
TheRealHocusLocus writes: We are witness to a historic first: an individual charged with espionage and actively sought by the United States government has been (virtually) invited to speak at Harvard Law School, with applause. [Note: all of the following links go to different parts of a long YouTube video.] HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig conducted the hour-long interview last Monday with a list of questions by himself and his students.
Some interesting segments from the interview include: Snowden's assertion that mass domestic intercept is an "unreasonable seizure" under the 4th Amendment; that it also violates "natural rights" that cannot be voted away even by the majority; a claim that broad surveillance detracts from the ability to monitor specific targets such as the Boston Marathon bombers; him calling out Congress for not holding Clapper accountable for misstatements; and his lament that contractors are exempt from whistleblower protection though they do swear an oath to defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.
These points have been brought up before. But what may be most interesting to these students is Snowden's suggestion that a defendant under the Espionage Act should be permitted to present an argument before a jury that the act was committed "in the public interest." Could this help ensure a fair trial for whistleblowers whose testimony reveals Constitutional violation?
Some interesting segments from the interview include: Snowden's assertion that mass domestic intercept is an "unreasonable seizure" under the 4th Amendment; that it also violates "natural rights" that cannot be voted away even by the majority; a claim that broad surveillance detracts from the ability to monitor specific targets such as the Boston Marathon bombers; him calling out Congress for not holding Clapper accountable for misstatements; and his lament that contractors are exempt from whistleblower protection though they do swear an oath to defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.
These points have been brought up before. But what may be most interesting to these students is Snowden's suggestion that a defendant under the Espionage Act should be permitted to present an argument before a jury that the act was committed "in the public interest." Could this help ensure a fair trial for whistleblowers whose testimony reveals Constitutional violation?
Right or Wrong, he's a brave man.
What the NSA is doing is billions of counts of illegal wiretapping. A This kind of mass data gathering is precisely what the fourth amendment prohibits, and any person involved with this program is violating their oath and committing felonies on a routine basis.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Edward Snowden is going to die screaming. :)
his 15 minutes of fame were over a long time ago - he's a worthless piece of shit and I'd be glad to shoot him myself.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
DiceDot takes notes.
There's no way companies are paying Alexanders new company a million $ a month to consult. He's not allowed to reveal secret info, and public info is free. So what would the be paying for. There's no way the current NSA CTO is moonlighting for it and nobody in the NSA bats an eyelid. You would never have a part time employee in that position in the NSA, the money would be a conflict of interest.
What does make sense, is if this company is a conduit from banks and telcos to NSA.
You can't legally search US bank records, but if his company received those records and resold them, then a conduit like that could conceal the source of the data. So this is what makes a more plausible role for that company that would be worth the millions per year, laundering the source of the data into the NSA.
A data broker for data that the NSA legally can't obtain from the original source. When they ask the NSA if it obtained US Bank data, it says no (pretending it doesn't know the data it bought from this conduit company came from banks), when they ask them if they obtained telco data they again say no.
Likewise foreign partners like GCHQ, are spying on Brits via companies like BT & Vodafone and sending the data to the NSA. But suppose instead they simply sold data for some company to process, and that company happened to resell that data to some other company which then lands in the NSAs database.
Q. Did NSA get any data from Vodafone.
A. Not to my knowledge.... says the NSA man.
A million dollars worth of plausible deniability. Now that *does* seem a more plausible role for his new company and its what I suspect is behind it.
Sting calls it decades ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
No idea what technology is available to Snowden today, but the interview would have been much more enjoyable if he'd bothered to wear a mic.
Really that the Espionage Act is even on the books is a matter of great shame. It was invented to suppress pacifist groups. That Schneck vs. United States was unanimous in upholding this is the yet another indictment of the White Court (may the nine of them rot and burn in Hell).
Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbel, Jack Anderson, Paul Anderson, Edward Snowden.
Just because he exposes a government and not a business, does not make him any less important. In years to come, students around the country will read about what he has done. Eventually his actions will be considered like some of the above.
A brave man who flees to Putin and the Chicoms rather than face our corrupt government in court? He's brave in the way that Bin Laden was brave. He hides until an assassin or drone finds him.
an ill wind that blows no good
They wouldn't be committing felonies as that would require a violation of law rather than violations of constitutional restrictions against government. The law, constitutional or not, allows the NSA to do what they are doing else a lowly court could shut it all down by a simple low level prosecutor bringing charges to a grand jury.
Which is why no one in Congress can be expected to cast the first stone at the NSA. Whether they are in a position to know of its effectiveness or not, they will shy away in mortal political terror of NSA producing clear evidence that mass surveillance has "kept us safe". Still waiting. Likewise, pure judicial challenges run into stone walls as courts circularly argue over jurisdiction.
Or in the case of Hepting v. AT&T the Ninth Circuit committed to a sorry-ass monkey fuck decision where the case was dismissed on the basis of a piece of legislation ('retroactively' granting telecom immunity) that was passed after the case was filed. Pause to reflect on that. Has there ever been a clearer example of dereliction of duty of the judicial branch? Or a clearer admission of guilt by the Government?
That is because the NSA was terrified of Hepting vs. AT&T, more scared than it had ever been. Think of this case as a Pandora's box for them --- in which dozens (if not hundreds) of civilian technicians who had been involved in constructing its backbone taps might be encouraged to come forward to add their own piece to a sketch of NSA's domestic spy apparatus. As they came forward you'd see a map of the USA with taps appearing all over, and that would dispel any rhetoric claiming they did not intend to tap America itself.
And besides --- my own speculation but borne out in several places --- I allege that Hepting vs. AT&T would also have exposed that some technicians building our taps were foreign nationals and foreign corporations under contract to NSA. Countries whose spies we have convicted. Strange bedfellows laid bare. Gathering conversations (not silly metadata) has been portrayed as a high cost of liberty, though in the wrong hands it will subvert liberty. Our challenge is to prove this on three fronts.
We must seek to de-fund the NSA by calling into question the track record of mass surveillance to counter threats as of this day --- today. I draw a line at today because they could be cooking up something for tomorrow...
We must de-construct and demonstrate the motive behind mass surveillance to conclude that its only purpose in the end is to gather blackmail and empower absolute rulers with the tools they need to subvert our system of Government. This is true even if those presently engaged in it have good intentions.
We must defame the NSA and what it has become, the people behind it, the Senators who support it because someone whispered something in their ear --- was it a secret of National Security or was it blackmail? There's the rub --- dismantle it.
And that Constitution thing. Thar be dragins.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Benjamin Franklin opened other colonist's mail for intelligence purposes in the Revolutionary War. George Washington ran a spy ring during and after the Revolutionary War that spied on other colonists.
I like person X.
Person X did IllegalThingTM.
Ergo, IllegalThingTM is OK.
Hey! Did you know that there's a name for what you just did?
And it stands even when a president does it.
Did you also know that you're full of shit? There, proven in black and white.
By his own admission Snowden is a thief and liar. Whether he's also a traitor, well, I'll wait for sworn testimony at his trial, I try not to prejudge.
I have no mod point or I would mod parent up in an instant
The parent has laid out a very clear message why NSA must be defeated, if we want USA to stay a nation where freedom and liberty remain valid
The whole purpose of juries is to create the possibility of nullification. However, the government hates this limitation of its preferably unfettered powers and tries to prevent jurors being informed of their right to strike down unjust prosecution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
http://reason.com/blog/2014/10...
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Disagree.
Re: "They wouldn't be committing felonies as that would require a violation of law rather than violations of constitutional restrictions..."
Um, whut? You are aware, are you not, that "constitutional restrictions" are in fact the source and root of all other laws? Therefore the constitution is law and violations of the constitution is violation of the law. Furthermore ordinary legislation cannot contradict the constitution. Such laws are null and void. Laws routinely interpret the constitution; indeed that is necessary and the reason why the constitution alone is not sufficient law. However any interpretation along the lines of "yes means no and black is white" are strictly forbidden.
Re: "Once it is in the grand jury's hands, the government cannot order the prosecutor to stop anything..."
Are you not paying attention? I would have agreed with you pre-911. Since that time the government has, many times interfered with cases before the courts. All they have to do is invoke the Patriot Act, claim that the evidence is secret, or the sources are secret. I'm not aware of any cases where they suggested that the charges were secret but that's the next logical step.