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Edward Snowden On Trump Administration's Recent Arrest of an Alleged Journalistic Source (freedom.press)
Snowden writes: Winner is accused of serving as a journalistic source for a leading American news outlet about a matter of critical public importance. For this act, she has been charged with violating the Espionage Act -- a World War I era law meant for spies -- which explicitly forbids the jury from hearing why the defendant acted, and bars them from deciding whether the outcome was to the public's benefit. This often-condemned law provides no space to distinguish the extraordinary disclosure of inappropriately classified information in the public interest -- whistleblowing -- from the malicious disclosure of secrets to foreign governments by those motivated by a specific intent to harm to their countrymen. The prosecution of any journalistic source without due consideration by the jury as to the harm or benefit of the journalistic activity is a fundamental threat to the free press. As long as a law like this remains on the books in a country that values fair trials, it must be resisted. No matter one's opinions on the propriety of the charges against her, we should all agree Winner should be released on bail pending trial. Even if you take all the government allegations as true, it's clear she is neither a threat to public safety nor a flight risk. To hold a citizen incommunicado and indefinitely while awaiting trial for the alleged crime of serving as a journalistic source should outrage us all.
He is right. Snowden is not a disinterested party, but he is still right.
Way to go Snowden - hiding in a country that has little/no freedom of press and attacking a country prosecuting an individual for releasing state secrets/classified information. NSA contractors know that they will handle classified information - which by its very nature is information that is not allowed to be released to the public. That's what they agree to when they sign up - and now he's advocating for allowing contractors to release whatever information they feel like for 'Freedom of Press' reasons? Sorry buddy - you're out to lunch. State secrets and classified information is needed for a country to function - otherwise you might as well just tear it apart and offer it up to whoever has the most muscle.
In what way was the document that Reality Leigh Winner leaked *whistleblowing*...?
It just seems like a cheapening of the term...
C'mon, Snowden. She leaked because she's insane, not patriotic.
I don't know about insane, but certainly not very bright. From: Reality Winner, N.S.A. Contractor Accused of Leak, Was Undone by Trail of Clues
Audit trails showed six people had printed copies, but only one — Ms. Winner — had also used a work computer to exchange emails with The Intercept. A search warrant application said she had found the report by plugging keywords into the N.S.A.’s system that fell outside her normal work duties — and had printed no other files.
Dumb enough that either (a) she wanted to get caught or (b) it's been created to make the Trump administration look competent and tough.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"Whistleblower" protections should not extend to leakers whose purpose is domestic partisan-political in nature.
Revealing things like Snowden did which are blatantly unconstitutional acts by government are one thing, but revealing certain confidential/secret/top-secret information to harm political enemies should never be protected.
I notice Snowden did not in any way endorse Winner's specific actions, only the relevant laws in general and their draconian nature.
Strat
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
... to challenge the constitutionality of the Espionage act, and hope that, for the right reasons, the Supreme Court will ultimately strike it down. Unfortunately this implies several years of legal battle for a Winner... but she may not have another choice anyway.
Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
What she leaked was certainly not whistle blowing. A report that states people were spear phished by a foreign government is nearly a daily event for many of us, and I don't even work in DOD any longer where it was multiple times a day. This was dumping data for purely political purposes, not presenting wrong doing and cover up. Snowden and Manning both could be claimed as whistle blowers.
As to the claim that this should be in front of a jury I would agree if, and only if, the jury members all had the correct clearance and could be trusted outside of court with information learned in the case. Evidence in these types of trials will contain at least some classified material/methods. It must be established "how" they tracked down the 6 sources and narrowed down to one.
For those who cry "1st Amendment", the 1st does not protect you from consequences. Hell, the founders of the US lived knowing that at any moment the King of England would lop their heads off if given the chance.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The interesting thing is, she searched for evidence of Russian hacking. She had access to all the classified information as well. What she found was the extent of the evidence held by our intelligence agencies.
It appears from what was printed, that they have nearly NO evidence of Russian interference. A couple SpearPhishing attacks at voting machine manufacturers is the extent of their evidence? So someone made an EMAIL and that is unquestionable proof? If that is all it takes to make the NSA and ENTIRE government say illegal hacking happened and a year long issues, how long before someone crafts an email from someone else to frame them? It would literally take me an afternoon to frame Russia in this way to produce this evidence, and its all the NSA has?
I think she accidently blew the lid off the entire thing. From this point on, anyone claiming there is proof is literally making stuff up.
The drug dealer gets to have a jury, though.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
If you look at her social media posts, it is clear that she was not emotionally stable and while her views were not particularly extreme, she was very passionate and riled up about even small issues. She should have had her security clearance revoked long ago.
Some of that sounds like another Twitter user.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Revoking a clearance for political beliefs is some seriously dangerous ground. Where do you draw the line between someone with "acceptable" political beliefs or not? This is something that could cut both ways. Should someonwho was an active Tea Party/etc member during the Obama administration have had their clearance revoked? What part of anything she had done, up until the point she actually leaked classified information, would you suggest crossed a line?
Unless the political activity itself is somehow actively seditious (like being a Communist during the Cold War, for instance) or otherwise links you to anti-government groups, I don't think you can simply use being politically active and motivated as a clearance determinant. Maybe if the activity itself somehow does, such as if someone was a diehard Wikileaks supporter or such - but certainly not for anything remotely mainstream.
yes, it does matter. You have accidental death, manslaughter, murder and murder 1 in the USA all differentiated on what you intended and why you did it.
Indeed the jury has to derermine whether the law was INTENDED to cover the case at all, no matter what the wording of the law says, it's WHY there is a jury nullification.
And if the reason for doing it is irrelevant, then there's no such thing as espionage, just leaking confidential information. That you did it for a foreign power you are in thrall to is irrelevant, because that's merely WHY you did it, not WHAT you did. She could just say "Not guilty" because the charge is being a spy. And since she's not, she's not guilty. If asked "did you leak information", then this isn't a charge of being a spy, so is irrelevant and doesn't have to be answered. "Did you give russians confidential information at their behest" is what being a spy is, but she didn't do that. And "Trying to harm the US" isn't spying, and is still another "why you did it" that is, apparently, irrelevant.
We have a President most people know should never have been elected, and you don't think it is pertinent that he probably wasn't legitimately elected?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun