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Eric Holder Says Snowden Performed 'Public Service' (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNN: Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a "public service" by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques, but still must pay a penalty for illegally leaking a trove of classified intelligence documents. "We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made," Holder told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. "Now I would say that doing what he did -- and the way he did it -- was inappropriate and illegal," Holder added. "I think that he's got to make a decision. He's broken the law in my view. He needs to get lawyers, come on back, and decide, see what he wants to do: Go to trial, try to cut a deal. I think there has to be a consequence for what he has done." "But," Holder emphasized, "I think in deciding what an appropriate sentence should be, I think a judge could take into account the usefulness of having had that national debate." You can listen to the podcast with Eric Holder here.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Gandhi
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
He is a martyr. To be punished for wrongly doing the right thing.
If you really believe that, go on record calling for Snowden to be granted immunity. Coming from a former attorney general, that would have a lot of weight in persuading current officials to do the right thing.
these days, I can't tell the diff between the good guys and bad guys.
snowden knows this.
holder is wasting his fucking time. I wonder what his hidden agenda is, this time.
evil motherfuckers, all of them. try as you will, snowden seems quite a well-aware fellow and he's not buying your bullshit, holder.
eat a bag of dicks. no one's buying your BS. just retire and put someone competant in your place already!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
indict Snowden now, with all possible charges, have a trial in his absence and demand a penalty of $1 .
Justice served, guilty punished, everybody happy.
Neither are the consequences.
I don't think deals have any legal relevance, should a judge choose to disregard them.
I suspect Snowdon would expect a judge to disregard any deal, even were he able to negotiate one. At least, one better than "confess everything, destroy all copies, denounce your supporters and we'll give you Life not demand a death penalty".
Sorry, but "elevating the debate?" NOTHING has changed. The NSA is still illegally conducting mass surveillance on innocent American citizens. There has been ZERO accountability for the NSA and CIA's blatant and PROVEN lies to Congress under oath. There has been no systemic reform nor even the slightest attempt to adhere to Constitutional principles.
And all this while the US government is still seeking to blame Snowden for endangering national security, haul him back to the US and put him on trial? Should we feel comforted by the statements of a FORMER US Attorney General who has no actual power, just because he says that a judge would consider the ends of Snowden's actions when punishing him for the means by which those ends were achieved--mind you, never once actually admitting that such disclosures would NEVER have come to light by any other way? So we are now to believe Eric Holder's facetious claims of leniency, when NOT ONCE has he said anything to the effect of needing to investigate the NSA for breaking the law and for lying to Congress?
Fuck you and the high horse you rode in on. This is why we can't trust the government. This is why nobody with a brain believes you for a second, because we KNOW what happened in the past and we are not so stupid as to forget actual concrete outcomes. The harassment of past NSA whistleblowers, ruining their ability to work in anything but the most menial jobs for having dared to expose the corruption of those higher up; the incarceration and inhumane treatment of Chelsea Manning for her involvement in Wikileaks' exposing the indiscriminate behavior of the American military; and the complete arrogance of the FBI in attempting to force Apple to write source code to circumvent iOS encryption that would allow them to access all data on any iPhone--these are just a FEW of the demonstrably true actions on the part of the government that show that they cannot be trusted and are hopelessly corrupt in their thirst for power.
Snowden was correct to expose the NSA. However, he was wrong to believe that his actions could have possibly shamed the US government and it citizens into holding it accountable.
Snowden has been saying fromthe start that he's willing to stand a fair trial. The trouble is, everyone with any influence and authority in the matter has been replying "Y'all c'mon back so we can lynch you". He's not an idiot. He can see that the authorities don't want to offer him a fair trial; they want to string him up drawing the world's attention to their criminal activities.
If he did, he would have committed "suicide", twice...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Couldn't the administration just pardon him at this point? We might have to jump through some legal gymnastics since he's never been convicted, but it's nothing they couldn't pull off if they were serious.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It's wrong to presume that there was a legal way for Snowden to do what he did, because several previous whistle blowers who went by the book were targeted and prosecuted by the government. The intelligence agencies, and the politicians who support them, do not tolerate leaks—even well-intentioned ones that follow protocol and seek only to expose wrongdoing to the "proper" authorities.
Let's not talk about Edward Snowden being brought to trial. Rather, the people in our intelligence agencies and their allies in elected offices who subvert our laws, or who downright break our laws, and who vindictively attack anyone who tries to expose their unlawful, un-democratic, and anti-social behavior are the ones who need to be brought to trial. Hold them accountable first—and then we can talk about Edward Snowden.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
"I think that he's got to make a decision. He's broken the law in my view. He needs to get lawyers, come on back, and decide, see what he wants to do: Go to trial, try to cut a deal. I think there has to be a consequence for what he has done."
Sorry, Mr. Holder. I sincerely doubt Snowden is that much of a fool.
So Snowden helped fix the problem. "Thanks, but you're still a criminal."
Nothing to see here. Problem fixed!
And as soon as we get ahold of Snowden, you'll never see him again, too.
So which will be worse as "supreme leader"? Donald Stalin or Donald Gorbachev?
Only your Trump knows for sure, but he keeps contradicting himself. Snowden has nothing to fear but a promise of amnesty from the Donald.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Snowden did do a public service, but members of the Obama Regime are desperate to get Snowden murdered before Obama leaves office, namely Mr. Eric Holder: And that is the real reason for Holder's "crocodile tears".
A few minutes after any commercial aircraft from Sheremetyevo with Snowden, he will be murdered and Obama will have ordered it.
The 'He did a public service; but how he did it was wrong and wicked and why didn't he go through channels?' position is insufferably smarmy.
Had he gone through channels, that public service would never have occurred. He wasn't the first person inside the intelligence apparatus to grow uneasy with what was going on; but 'politely ask your boss to reconsider his own malfeasance' just doesn't do very much.
If you agree that he did something valuable for the public and the country; you pretty much have to admit that his options were limited for doing so(there is room for quibbling about the finer points of his plan; but you can't very well deny that it was a 'leak it or let it stay in the dark indefinitely' situation). That's the whole point of 'whistleblower' as a distinct class of people working against corruption: they are the ones who bring in external scrutiny when an organization's internal governance has been co-opted by whatever malfeasance they are exposing. More or less by definition they have to use 'illicit' methods; because the problem extends to the people who control all the legitimate methods.
It's perfectly cogent to argue that someone leaked something without reason, and should therefor face the consequences; but 'his reasons were excellent and he did us all a service' is an admission that there were no 'legitimate' channels through which he could have worked.
The NSA may not have changed, but change will come. You are just witnessing the massive inertia of government entities at work (which by the way is a huge argument in favor of smaller government, which has less inertia to change).
But real change has already happened because people are vastly more aware of said surveillance than they were before. Before that was the domain of crackpots who were laughed at.
The trick is now, what happens because of the awareness. We do not yet know, but that does not mean that conditions for actual change have not vastly improved.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But his bosses broke it first.
You can't be that selective when it comes to enforcing the law. He did what he did because others were without a doubt breaking the law and he had no way to pursue it without getting shut down. He tried to what extent he could to follow channels and as so many others did that came before him; and where did that get them? He is a patriot that brought to light the abuses of the government. He broke the law and needs to be pardoned 100%. If he were a citizen of my state I would write him in for senator. Breaking the law to reveal others breaking the law is justified. The military and certain executive branches of the government are overstepping themselves and don't think the rule of law applies to them. Whatever laws be may have broken were obviously flawed if they didn't let him do his job. He perceived a threat to the US constitution for gods sake and did the patriotic thing. Yet he broke the law?
The people in power breaking the laws aren't playing by any rules. They play dirty. They have gone as far as reclassifying documents people have had in their possession in order to prosecute them.
He himself has talked about how he and his coworkers intercepted communications of ordinary citizens not engaged in terrorism sending naked pictures to one another in communication they perceived to be private. They would then banter about it in the office and show each other the embarrassing communications. He said and is correct that that is normal human behavior when one is put it such position. Absolute spying power is corrupting. He recognized this.
Is it asking too much that the government obey it's own laws even if it's inconvenient? Is it too hard to pursue changing the rules that everyone can agree on in a democracy rather that usurping the power in everyone's best interest because you know what's best for everyone?
Cutting deals is the anathema of the justice system at work.
Cutting deals means the truth didn't come out and justice wasn't done.
But then again when in American history has justice been done without being dragged kicking and screaming by a lynch mob, be it via the ballot box, or the street?
His opinion is set only when you observe him, and upon doing so the state is lost causing you to have to re-entangle him which will lead to the possibility of an entirely new observed answer the next time. :)
Did snowden have another way to do it? Someone with limited power, a small voice, how do they get heard to do it the right way? If there is only an illegal way to do something, I can't blame for doing it the illegal way.
Extend the peace offering on the one hand, while holding the axe behind his back.
Candidly, I wouldn't trust Holder any more now, than I did when he was overzealously prosecuting people while in office!
I think Edward should definitely come back. Even if he has to spend up to 5 years in prison, I think it would be worth it. 5 years can go by fast if he keeps himself occupied. He could use those 5 years to study or do other things, and when he is out he can spend his life dedicated to promoting freedom and privacy, or whatever else he chooses. America is his home country.
Fuck you.
Double Speak?
They will pardon a bunch of drug dealers, corrupt politicians, and bankers. Just watch. But Snowden will never get pardoned.
"...but still must pay a penalty..."
Er... Holder is aware that Snowden is in Russia, and damn well *doesn't* have to pay a penalty, right?
Snowden for President. Then he can pardon himself. (In 4 years; he's not 35 yet.)
We should pardon Snowden. Sure throw a charge at him like he is banned for entering the US for 8 years... And his current time counts against it.
Anything else would discourage other whistleblowers from reporting. If you want to keep whistleblowers from going the illegal route, give them valid legal routes. The current ones clearly don't do anything.
In may 1943, Oberleutnant Herbert Schmid and Oberfeldwebel Paul Rosenberger defected from Nazi Germany, flying their Junkers 88 plane, (equipped with the latest radar), to England. As a result the Brits were able to jam Nazi radar on D-Day. My point? That it's really history that decides who was right and who was wrong. Those two airmen broke German law and would undoubtedly have been executed had they returned to Germany. So should they have gone back to face the music, 'because laws'? Would that have been 'the right thing to do'?
I believe history will look at Snowden in a similar light. Often it's merely a happy coincidence when the law and 'what's right' are in agreement, and this is NOT one of those times. Snowden SHOULD return to the US - but only if he wishes to, with all charges dropped or under a full pardon, and with the thanks of the American people.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The problem with him coming back here is that they aren't going to give him a fair and public trial. He won't there will be a presumption of guilty until proven innocent, no jury by peers, there will be a gag order on the proceeding and the judge will be military. It is a kangaroo court meant to sentence him to death regardless of the facts in the case or public good. Snowden himself stated he would come back if he could be guaranteed it would be a fair trial.
Said the spider to the fly.
I will believe that this is really a matter of law and not vengeance, when Hillary Clinton will serve her sentence. Until then, we have double standards for those in power and those looking in from outside.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
"But," Holder emphasized, "I think in deciding what an appropriate sentence should be, I think a judge could take into account the usefulness of having had that national debate."
Same old, same old. Holder should have enough grasp of the law to know exactly that judge and jury are not allowed to take into account the usefulness of having had that "national debate" because Snowden has been accused under the Espionage Act which does not allow defending one's actions, only denying them. And that would be ridiculous.
So the verdict is hardwired to full penalty, no mitigating consideration allowed to the court.
Grant him immunity!
the latest court-ordered years-delayed document dump on his murderous Fast-and-Furious gun running operations. You can see the docs here or if you are a Democrat or an establishment Republican who hates Judicial Watch (the people who dislodged the document and made them public) you can always file your own FOIA request and wait a few years and file lawsuits against Holder and Obama to get your own copies of the same documents. The government now admits to over 60 more dead people after years of lies and document hiding and President Obama's indirect claim of personal involvement, a requirement for his assertion of "executive privilege" as he shielded Holder from the congress. Holder's program to sell thousands of assault weapons to Mexican drug gangs and not even try to track the weapons is going to keep generating these document drops for years as the courts work through all the delays and legal dodges. Holder, as a long-time DC beltway Democrat hack knows all the informal rules of PR used by corrupt politicians and "fixers" in BOTH parties. It's common practice in DC to for politicians to take action to get media attention to distract the press and public whenever bad documents are published that might truly damage if the public took the time to read them.
Why is the discussion still about the legality of Snowden's actions and his possible prosecution, rather than prosecuting all of the criminals he exposed? They are all still walking free, not even being charged and even the very crimes themselves are ongoing.
Why is there still no action to prosecute those that knowingly violated the US constitution and endless crimes in other countries? Until all of them have received fair trials for all of their crimes, discussions on whether Snowden's whistleblowing was legal or not are rather unimportant.
This is a definite softening of the tone. Personally I would argue that, in general, public interest should be an affirmative defense for leaking classified information. Since that's not the case in the US, at this time, though - the extreme level of public interest in Snowden's leaks really ought to qualify him for a presidential pardon.
I was always rather disappointed in Obama for not doing that, it would have sent a very different message. I think he was okay as a president, better than most actually, but even the best presidents have some black marks on their records and new the very top of Obama's black mark lists is the way Snowden was handled (just below 'drone strikes').
Then again... maybe this softer tone from Holder is laying the groundwork for just that ? Presidents often want to do something truly impressive in their last days. Any laws the sign are often purely symbolic (as the next president will get rid of anything annoying - think of the many nice bills Clinton pushed through in his last few months which the republicans passed knowing that Bush would never sign them), his supreme court nomination is going nowhere fast, executive actions are very limited in scope (only applies to federal agencies) and can likewise be instantly undone by the next one. Sure it's nice to build a legacy by doing some awesome things that will never survive into the next term -but it's even better to do things that the next president can't undo before they actually happen. Pardon's are one of those. Maybe this "it was a public service but illegal" tone is testing the waters for giving Snowden a pardon during the lameduck cycle ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
He exposed governments illegally and unethically spying on their citizens. Let's see some prosecutions of those involved before thinking of Snowden.
....to get the attention of his superiors and others in charge of control, checks, and balances. They all told him to go away. There was not much else left to do than to engage in illegal activities. The administration should have thanked him right away and given him the biggest honors just so that he didn't see a need to leak more info. I think Snowden's illegal actions pale into invisibility compared to the criminal ineptitude and arrogance of the administration, three letter agencies, and above all Congress.
In the same time frame that Edward Snowden leaked a set of documents to Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, so General David Patreus leaked a set of confidential documents to his biographer and then lover / mistress, Paul Broadwell.
These two events share something in common: they involve the leaking of confidential documents.
However, the consequences of the two events could not have been more different. Patreus was let off with a "naughty, naughty boy!" style of finger wagging, whilst Edward Snowden is in self-enforced exile in Russia because his alternative would be to spend the bulk of the rest of his life rotting in a US prison.
I'm Ok with the general principles that Eric Holder seems to be saying, but the US Government, from the President down, might need to reflect that they have already set the precendent, with Patreus. They can't argue different circumstances, unless they can *prove* that Patreus went the whistleblower route and told his superiors that he intended to leak confidential documentation to his lover. [ Somehow I doubt they would step up to *that* argument ].
Good to keep the debate going, but even more important to be fair, impartial and avoid some of the hypocrisy we've got in this debate at the moment...
Eric Holder is just trying to save face. His days are numbered, as he will stand trial for Treason and Subversion and a number of other charges.
Interesting that opinions regarding Snowden are almost universally positive now. 18/24 months ago many (most?) /. commenters were calling him a traitor or saying what he did was wrong.
Holden did not say that Snowden did a public service by releasing the data, just the opposite. What he did say was that Snowden did a public service by causing the debate. With regards to releasing the data, Holden has not changed his stance and says that Snowden needs to be prosecuted and punished for releasing the data.
Those are two very different things and are definitely not synonymous.
snowden should come back to face the consequences... with one cravat, only after everyone from the bush and obama administrations being held accountable for their actions... you know like torture, inventing WMD's, extra judicial killings (drone strikes), planning and implementing coups of democratic governments, crashing the economy multiple times and the lack of prosecution of any and all of the previously mentioned things. In short until everyone is held accountable for their actions there is no way that we should even consider dealing with Snowden until everyone else who DID NOT perform a PUBLIC SERVICE is held accountable. Torture is not a public service, drone killing and the collateral damage it creates is not a public service, ruining the economy to extract maximum profits is not a public service.. the rhetoric is strong with the ruling class...
Sometimes i feel as if we live in a real life version of Game of Thrones, in the end it really doesn't matter who is king because nothing will change but we will continue to get screwed every time the regime changes.
I've always had mixed feelings on what Snowden did, but this make it easier. If Holder thinks it was a public service then I've cemented my opinion that he should be burned at the stake. Holder, a shill of an AG who only got the job because he knew where the body are buried. I wouldn't trust him to get me out of a parking ticket.
Okay, let's get serious. We set up laws for the purpose of strengthening the strong, and subduing the weak, and in maintaining the status while telling the world we are "democratic" and "moral". The laws were set up to allow government agencies that have been out of control since the Kennedy assassination to increase their out of control foothold.As loopholes disallowing them unlimited power were found, they were patched up to allow free reign of government agencies undermining the very constitution we say we uphold. And you aren't allowed to talk about illegal or immoral acts because you can be labelled as a "domestic terrorist" for doing anything the government agencies don't like and imprisoned/tortured indefinitely. Even now with the "debate" (more like rants of the intellectuals because there is no effect on our government except to increase it's intensity of spying and penalties for trying to curtail it), we tell people, give us the keys to spy on people without evidence, without declared cause; just do it or we'll imprison you (with a side of potential "persuasion"), and if you tell anyone about what we want from you, or close your business (which they now effectively own, not you), the same will apply. We've got violation of due process, right to legal representation, freedom of the press, right to own property/business, and freedom of speech all stopped...or else. The government with it's "laws" has become effectively lawless and unaccountable. We have the nerve to tell people about legal? The law is simple: Government (and it's reps) does what it wants, you submit quietly, or else. Difference between this and China and Russia (if any) is less visible. Snowden come back? It seems ironic he has more freedom in Russia than here, or maybe it's not so ironic after all. We can't even get any significant say in elections, as our votes are in essence hijacked by political party procedures. (John Oliver has some good points there). We can only choose from preselected representatives, whose actions are already "in the bag". Much like china ironically where you can only choose officials approved by the Chinese Communist party. Hmm...
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
"...raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made..."
He's seriously suggesting that we had a constructive debate, made changes, and it's all in the past? What a joke.
Maybe he's right, only in the manner that the masses don't grasp it, and there's no chance at serious change in this broken system?
Suddenly I'm in the mood for some @Nihilist_Arbys
https://twitter.com/nihilist_arbys
"Being alive is a crock of shit." --Kilgore Trout
How about a pardon in exile with the proviso, he can never work for the U.S. or alied gov't again?
(Much like his status today, but leaves him free to move about the cabin.)
Tracy Johnson
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BT
General Patraeus was indeed prosecuted by the Obama administration (possibly because he was seen as a potential Republican presidential candidate back then), and is often done in corrupt governments, he was allowed to plea bargain down once the point was made and his political potential was destroyed. What made that case interesting though was the mitigating point you either missed or chose to omit: his mistress, Ms Broadwell, who got access to the classified documents was herself a US Army officer with a security clearance.
The much more interesting connection you failed to note was this one: Hillary Clinton completely mishandled thousands of classified documents, including many bearing the nation's highest classification - illegally removing them from the State Department, illegally storing them in an insecure location, illegally destroying thousands of documents, and illegally allowing people with no security clearances at all (her lawyers, her private IT people, etc) unsupervised access to those documents. Her "punishment" appears to be being the presidential nominee of the Democrat party with the potential of living the rest of her life rich and powerful and protected by taxpayer-funded armed bodyguards of the Secret Service.
Petraeus was at least punished in some way. Snowden's self-imposed exile in Putin-land is probably a form of punishment. Hillary seems to be about to get the world's ultimate promotion.
The channels were corrupted or co-opted, pick your phrasing. The success of the Three Letter Agencies since 911, and in relation to their expanding scope of activity without accountability, is due in part to corrupting those channels.
In fact I'd go so far as to suggest the TLA's viewed channels for reporting internal misdeeds, like the enemy, like the terrorists. Those channels needed to be killed, captured and waterboarded. And they were. It was all part of the mission.
But I wonder when disrespecting the constitution also became part of the mission. Are the TLA's proud of this? By all appearances they are. It's a measure of how far they have fallen that neutralizing the constitution became part of their mission.
Understand that this is from a man that has demonstrated that he doesn't care about the law. More to the point, it's there for political purposes in his mind. I'm sure we don't have long to wait before Obama starts emptying the jails just like Holder did with Clinton. I'm sure he left a list of people to free.
So I wouldn't confuse his opinion with what is the right thing to do is or actual law. He may get something right, however even a broken clock is right twice a day.
No wonder our system is dysfunctional.