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Conservative Site Argues Profiting from Snowden 'Treason' May Violate Law (judicialwatch.org)
"A federal appellate court has ruled that government employees, such as Snowden, who signed privacy agreements can't profit from disclosing information without first obtaining agency approval," writes the conservative advocacy site Judicial Watch. Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes their article:
This would make it illegal to profit from his crimes and the Department of Justice should confiscate all money made by the violators. Snowden is no whistleblower. In fact he violated his secrecy agreement, which means he and his conspirators can't materially profit from his fugitive status, violation of law, aiding and abetting of a crime and providing material support to terrorism.
In addition, they argue that both an upcoming movie about Snowden by Oliver Stone and the 2014 documentary Citizenfour "may be in violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which forbids providing material support or resources for acts of international terrorism... It's bad enough that people are profiting from Snowden's treason, but adding salt to the wound, the Obama administration is doing nothing about it. "
In addition, they argue that both an upcoming movie about Snowden by Oliver Stone and the 2014 documentary Citizenfour "may be in violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which forbids providing material support or resources for acts of international terrorism... It's bad enough that people are profiting from Snowden's treason, but adding salt to the wound, the Obama administration is doing nothing about it. "
This "Conservative site" is also profiting from Snowden with their bullshit click-bait article.
Just another right wing racist web site. I doubt they even bothered to read the law they are discussing.
Why is this even a topic here?
The current US administration has been caught spying in violation of the constutition. The penalty for treason includes death. I'm not sure why snowden gets brought up when I would like to see the current heads of the FBI and homeland security swinging from the end of a noose as justice demands.
You keep using those words, but I don't think you know what they mean.
I accept and believe Snowden performed treason. No doubt in my mind. But I don't think making a movie about it, absent any other strong ties, amounts to support; we have all sorts of movies about criminals as well as current events that happen to be illegal. Without some actual ties, I'd prefer to err on the side of having robust public discussion of these matters rather than worrying about this kind of thing.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
How much money have they confiscated from the paid military advisors for the movie Blackhawk Down? While others have been accused, and found guilty, for releasing this same information they were allowed to cash a check.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
hang by the nuts until he or she is dead!
These cocksuckers have the nerve to call themselves "conservative" when they're clearly liberals in the classic Hamiltonian sense (not to be confused with the European meaning of the word, which is ideologically nearly the opposite).
We're having elections, aren't we?
A. Coward
Snowden exposed government employee TREASON. You fucking dead lying bastard new guy EditorDavid imposter.
You post this on Slashdot the same day you are outed as an FBI Honeypot site. Scroll to next stories. Read all comments.
I know conservative publications make a living by complaining about the president, but fabricating something new to be offended about every single day eventually leads to some really bizarre complaints. Like the $400 million payment to Iran that was part of a deal announced in January.
It's just not working anymore.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
is dead!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
As soon as Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and all the congresscritters that voted to illegally invade Iraq surrender to international authorities for prosecution on war crimes charges.
Plenty of congresscritters, state legislators, justices of the court, prosecutors, law enforcement, and military personnel who similiarly deserve a trip to hangtown for taking actions in direct contradiction to their oaths.
Did Snowden take an oath, or did he merely get security clearance and an NDA? Because if it was the latter then he's a hell of a lot less guity of wrongdoing that the aforementioned parties.
They seem to be the all powerful in charge of all profits.
For all of their clams to be a body that monitors the Supreme court, they sure are pretty unclear on some pretty basic principles.
1. Publishing classified info that shows the U.S. government has broken the law is protected under First Amendment freedom of the press, as firmly established in the Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers precedents.
2. While laws allowing perpetrators of crimes to be stripped of any earnings have been upheld, forbidding artistic representations of the events involved (as in Stone's films) by other parties is one of the most blatant examples of an overreaching prior restraint I have ever heard of. You simply can't ban discussion of a certain topic. It's doubly true when the message is a political one, yet JW pisses and moans that the film presents him as a hero. Guess what? I could make a film saying that Snowden is the second coming of Jesus, and that he, Hitler, and Osama Bin laden will ride in on white stallions to save our country from Trump and his army of human-animal hybrids by installing the Sharia law we so badly need, and no matter how abhorrent that might seem to you, it's protected political speech.
3. It's even clearer for the documentary, which is press reportage and protected in black letter law right there in the freaking first amendment.
4. They try to get around this by calling Stone and the Citezenfour producers "co-conspirators." But guess what? Sympathy for or even open support of Snowden's actions doesn't constitute conspiracy if it happened ex post facto. Which is what did happen. The fact that terrorists might have been helped in some way by the releases (which there is no actual proof for) doesn't mean that Stone/Citizenfour are somehow materially supporting them.
In short: JW are a bunch of hacks who know nothing about the actual law.
But what would I know? I've only actually studied Constitutional law.
A whistleblower of the highest order.
Write-in Campaign... Snowden / Assange 2016!!!
It doesn't matter if Assange isn't a citizen of the U.S., neither is Osama Bin Barrak
"It's bad enough that people are profiting from Snowden's treason, but adding salt to the wound, the Obama administration is doing nothing about it."
It's not surprising he has a different viewpoint than that of these conservative bloggers... after all, he's from Kenya.
#DeleteChrome
OK, it's a 'conservative site' that presents this argument against Snowden. And here, for a mostly progressive audience, it is presented as a troll to bait the eager readers to reply with venom. It is a common tactic at slashdot to rile up the readers and it's commonly called clickbait.
It's an election season in the US and more than usual we see the polarity between left and right, progressive vs conservative. And here we may be encouraging the divide between Americans to assure there is no middle ground.
I have always thought of slashdot readers as more astute than most. I don't do Fecebook or others because they seem less astute, more strident. I hope to see some balance in this particular discussion. If some consider Snowden to be a criminal, let's examine their motivations and see if there isn't some compelling reason for that belief.
...omphaloskepsis often...
It is a shame that Snowden isn't old enough to run for president. Otherwise, with our current two despised candidates, he might have been able to win for a third party. I would very much like to see him in the office.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The claim that Snowden's act constitutes 'Terrorism' is an example of the abuse of the term - and of legislation if it does - that needs to be highlighted. From first principles it can be argued that Snowden shouldn't benefit from his actions, or not, but the use of 'terrorism' legislation should be unacceptable...
does not equate to being convicted of a crime.
As he has yet to stand trial ( especially since it would be a one sided joke of a trial ) they would be hard pressed to follow through since he has not been convicted.
Except in very selected public opinion circles that is.
Barry? Is that you? I didn't know you had time to read /.!
What law did the US government break? Just because you think they violated the law doesn't mean it's true. Saying NSA actions COULD be used illegally is not the same as saying they HAVE did something illegal. In any case you have to prove your accusations. You prove it by taking the government to court. In order to take the government to court you need standing. To achieve standing you need to prove tangible harm has been caused to the person or persons trying to file the legal complaint. Were you imprisoned by the governments action? Were you threatened or harassed by the government? Are you being prosecuted for a crime using information illegally collected by the NSA? Were you monetarily or professionally harmed? There have been recent cases that passed these requirements which invalidated the use of Stingray electronic cell tower data to prosecute a crime. A court has recently ruled the government could not setup surveillance equipment outside a court house capable of capturing privileged information between an accused and their legal counsel.
The next hurdle would be to actually prove the NSA broke the law or did anything that was explicitly against the law. Keeping in mind that the NSA is a covert intelligence agency run by the government and as such is not required by charter or law to be transparent. The NSA takes it's direction form the Legislative, Executive , and Judicial branches of government. And agencies involved in dealing with national security issues have always operated in the gray area. As the saying goes the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
You can also forget about declaring that foreign intelligence operations conducted by the NSA violate or are subject to any US laws. Covert intelligence agencies have only one law when conducting operations on foreign soil and that is don't get caught. It's why every serious country in the world pacts their embassy staffs with their spy's and controllers. If they do get caught they can declare diplomatic immunity and leave the country.
Snowden violated the Espionage Act when he released information on foreign intelligence operations. His actions have nothing in common with Ellsbergs Pentagon Papers. His information pointed to wrong doing on the part of US military and civilians. Snowden's data was all about damaging US foreign intelligence programs and becoming famous. He deserves Russia. It is a fitting that he actually experiences what a true surveillance and rights denying state looks like. I think it also shows what an idiot he was for going public before he was in a country more to his liking. He wasn't being chased until after he released the data and he even picks Chinese territory to make his big announcement? He must have thought the NSA would just give him a pass on his actions because after all it was all for a good cause wasn't it? The big a question is what exactly was the cause? I would say it was nothing more than a way to make tense US international relationships even more tense which never is a good thing for anyone.
The fact that terrorists might have been helped in some way by the releases (which there is no actual proof for) doesn't mean that Stone/Citizenfour are somehow materially supporting them.
Right, that's an insanely irresponsible argument that if an action you take later "supports or benefits terrorists" then it can be considered terrorism in itself. I mean, jeez, if that were the case Twitter and Facebook would be considered the most dangerous terrorist organizations on the planet.
Snowden worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor to the NSA, at the time he leaked classified documents. Since he was NOT a government employee, he is not covered by the court decision mentioned in the article. Of course, Judicial Watch knows that.
And if Snowden HAD been a government employee, he would have been covered by the Federal Whistleblower law and would not be at risk of prosecution for the leaks, since he proved that the US government was breaking the law.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
If I were Snowden I'd be looking at every possible media outlet to get the word out about the disgusting things I've learned. Some of those media outlets require money/funding, and inevitably will return some kind of profit (ticket sales for movies for example). But them trying to play that card on Snowden in the first place is just proof that they need to examine his motives and his position as someone who wants to stop the breaking of laws and constitutional foundations that his country was founded on by its own government. Relating him, even remotely, to "terrorism" is appalling and insulting to his integrity and willingness to essentially throw his life away for the sake of informing people that their government isn't playing by its own rules.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Oh you poor deluded soul ...
"Free-Speech Zones" ring any bells? Ya know, those nice fenced-in places for protestors to cool their heels, far enough away from any event that the general public won't be bothered by them? First used sometime 'round the 60s? Also a nice place for less "cooperative" journalists to get tossed into?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong.
Funny you mention the surveillance of courtrooms, when one of the many clearly illegal acts carried out by the NSA was monitoring privileged communications between American attorneys with Muslim Clients without acquiring an appropriate FISA warrant.
Then there's the targeted spying on personal details of romantic partners of NSA employees (do you really think they have no standing???), the warrantless collection of call metadata and content between US citizens within the US, mass data retention of private communications of innocent people clearly of no interest, spying on allied foreign heads of state and diplomats (in direct violation of US ratified treaties which are federal law), and sale of bulk surveillance data, including personal communications of innocent Americans, to foreign governments such as the UK and Israel. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
You also conveniently have nothing to say about the actual subject of the story, which is not Snowden himself, but the fact that JW is advancing the absurd argument that anyone who merely depicts or reports on Snowden's actions (NOT even the content of the revelations) should have their First Amendment rights trampled.
I haven't seen a front-page article here that criticized a conservative anything in a long time.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Any one else following what's going on with Manning? There's a whistle blower if there ever was one and the U.S. tortures him/her endlessly.
:T:R:A:N:S:
So acting against corrupt spooks to tell citizens of the USA what they were getting up to is treason now? That sounds like something Putin would have said when the remains of the KGB were taking over Russia.
Keep in mind that Snowden leaked to Americans and the it was the Washington Post etc that told others, but they are not being accused of treason.
The DOJ ought to arrest the conservative advocacy site Judicial Watch for treason. Not treason against the nation but treason against their own conservative values.
Time was an authentic 'conservative' understood the need for privacy, individual liberty, and freedom. The government was potentially dangerous and had to be kept limited. Also, there's this little known and widely abused document called the Constitution that conservatives used to like a lot. Time was.
Snowden is more 'conservative' by these measures than Judicial Watch. Or maybe Judicial Watch just got a little too excited by the election season, saw a chance to take a shot at Obama, and went off their meds. In this explanation Snowden is just the bait.
This would be news to George W Bush, whose administration was repeatedly sued and hounded by the organization.
It would be more accurate to say that there are certainly people at JW who are conservative, but that they are very principled in attacking what they see as corruption, dishonesty, and general illeaglity in the federal government no matter who is in charge. In this sense, Judicial Watch is a rare gemstone in American politics and government: an outside watchdog group who does not automatically sue their opponents and yet overlook or justify bad actions by their own side. The number of such groups monitoring the feds could easily be counted on one hand.
By this nature. They are arguing that if you make money from the Snowden story. You have no rights to free speech. That in of it's self is a scary concept. Imgnine other things the government could make rules saying you can't say because someone might make money?
Judicial watch? Why not save everyone the time and link to the enquirer or Onion instead? At least their bullshit is entertaining.
They have no comment section, no way of telling anyone that reads this site to be able to inform their readers that Snowden was not a "federal employee" like they claim.
ever. Bull fucking shit.
Thanks -
Love,
fuck you.
Shouldn't he be charged with treason? After all he leaked confidential material to his mistress/biographer. Or are we only allowed to go after people who aren't in the boys club?
He committed treason to prove the government was already committing treason. He's what every American should be, a simple patriot willing to fight for our rights unlike Obama.
of course he's not a whistleblower, he's fucking freedom fighter for pete's sake... Fuck trump 2016!
Speaking as a former Republican and current Libertarian: Conservatives, despite all their pro-Constitution and pro-Business posturing, are actually vehemently against Free Speech, Privacy and the Free Market. In this, they're not much different from Democrats. Let's compare The Republican, Democrat, and Libertarian Presidential candidates' views on Edward Snowden:
* Donald Trump (R) has called Snowden a traitor
* Hillary Clinton (D) wants Snowden put on trial and imprisoned
* Gary Johnson (L) has compared Snowden to the American Revolutionaries, said Snowden did this country a service by telling us that the Government is spying on everybody, said he does not want Snowden imprisoned, and also said he'd probably grant Snowden a pardon.
Seems like Johnson is the only one of these three candidates espousing an alternative view.
It's bad enough that people are profiting from Snowden's treason, but adding salt to the wound, the Obama administration is doing nothing about it.
I love how neo-cons/tea# are coming to this site always screaming and lying about O or Hillary. So what can O do? Snowden lives in Russia and published via China. Exactly what can O do? Nothing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
US journalists must not report it? Ok, the internet is big and US laws don't apply in Russia, so I guess I have to turn to RT from now on for more Snowden reports...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Snowden is no whistleblower. In fact he violated his secrecy agreement"
They seem unclear on the concept, if they think that whistleblowing is somehow incompatible with violating a secrecy agreement.
One does not exclude the other.
...after defying authority?
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Ben Franklin
Etc...
Hillary seems to have had no problem profiting from the information (and influence) she gained as a government employee, both in terms of donations to her "foundation" and in terms of speaking fees. But I suppose she just can do no wrong.
The right wing is dangerous. And ordinary, well intended laws can be dangerous as well. That is because the right wing treats laws like a rubber band that can be stretched to enormous sizes and intrude into things the laws were never intended to touch. For example by bringing this to light the right wing is promoting Snowden and reaping the financial benefit of re-election . There fore they are benefiting by the supposed crimes and the right wing should be arrested.
They just lost a lot of respect from me. Snowden is most definitely a whistle blower. If these so-called "conservatives" can't understand the need to follow an oath, which includes not warrantless spying on every single one of your countrymen/women (which would be breaking your oath to the constitution by curb-stomping the 4th amendment), then they have no right to call themselves conservative. If they are prior military, then they are just rotten oath breakers, and therefore human scum which should be taken out back and shot in the head, perhaps forced to dig their own grave first.
Sure, you can make it illegal to reveal state secrets. You can't make it illegal to disucss revealed former secrets.
That's because an restriction on speech has to be narrowly tailored to achieve a legitimate public purpose. In other words bullshit excuses for power grabs aren't accepted.
Before a secret is revealed, there is a legitimate public purpose to restrict discussing them: to keep them out of enemy hands. Once they are revealed this purpose no longer applies; the reasons for going after people discussing them is to target domestic political opponents. That won't pass Constitutional muster.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
When was Snowden tried and convicted of treason?
linquendum tondere
This site is fully fucking Fed now. FBI is all this shit is.
Obama's administation has done plenty to further this cause.... I mean the way Hillary Clinton was allowed to walk, scot-free, and without even a slap on the wrist for her violations of US Security Secrets protocols which actually led to the deaths of Americans over-seas. Therefore, Snowden's leak which merely woke the American people up to the gross violations of the Constitution by the American government, causing no deaths, is surely no longer an issue, and he can come home the hero and savior of the soul of this Country he truly is!!! "He can't you say? Will still possibly face a death sentence or life in prison you say??? But Hillary just got off, and she caused deaths.... How is that fair or even possible?"
But I can't take any "conservative" website seriously when these people -- who used to champion ideas like small government and personal freedom -- are lining up to vilify the man who did more to tell us about how the US government and its partners spy on their own citizens than anyone else ever has.
I can understand people who argue that Snowden should be tried in a court of law and punished for his actions. I may not *agree* with them, but I can at least understand it. But the idea that we should ignore the entire question of government overreach? I don't think that's something that ought to be swept aside -- and once upon a time, 20-30 years ago, I would've expected the GOP to be loud critics of this kind of surveillance.
How times change.
If they dare attack Oliver Stones retelling of one of the pivital events of modern history, or ever comes under fire in any way than this new law must be struck down! Disallowing criminals to profit from criminal acts is nothing new, but disallowing other people from retelling their story for profit would be a gross violation of the First Amendment. One could argue the judicial ban on profiting from a crime is a violation of the freedom to contract which is also a violation of the constitution! But people forget about the freedom to contract clause. Whats more interesting is this same administration has the gall and balls to try to through the book at Snowden who caused no loss of life, but allows Hillary to walk scot-free who caused the death of the embassedor and embascy thing in Africa!