You seem a bit confused about what you linked to. They did not rule that the Espionage Act was unconstitutional, they ruled that criminal law can't ban "abstract advocacy of force or law violation." It created the "imminent lawless action" test for threats.
As to what it overruled specifically, it was merely the prior test that was thrown out. The old test was that speech could be banned if it presented a "clear and present danger," but that is just too hand-wavy for the SCOTUS so they put in place a test that is based on the horribles being imminent and not merely dangerous but lawless.
Perhaps you mistakenly thought that if a person's case is thrown out, that means the law they were accused under was not upheld; but is that simply a mistaken belief. If the law was unconstitutional, they would not have been creating a new test for when it applies.;)
Words matter, even words in Supreme Court decisions. My advice, read the decisions and believe their words. They generally mean them.
Note that Snowden is not accused of inciting violent action with words, he's accused of transmitting US secrets to unauthorized persons.
The jury is allowed to take the merit of his actions into account, he's just not allowed to ask them to, and jurors may be removed if they admit in advance that they might do so. But even after removing the ones who admit to it, in the final moment the juror may legally consider the totality of the situation and vote their conscience.
But you're certainly right that it is not available as a defense. It is probably allowed as part of opening/closing statements though to point out that the actions may have had a moral dimension separate from the law. But no, they can't explain to the jury why they're pointing it out or what they might do with that information, or claim that it would somehow justify the actions. But they can certainly explain, in the relevant parts of the trail, what the reasons for the actions were, what the intent was. Probably would ensure conviction as it would require admitting to the actions, but he's already done that.
No, silly rabbit, if the court decides that for the purposes of the law it was done in a time of war then he can be punished by death or not more than 30 years imprisonment. Life imprisonment is not an option.
And even though the nation is at war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) it is likely that the judge would rule that for the purposes of the espionage act and the nature of the accusation it was not a "time of war." In that case, the punishment is limited to death or imprisonment not exceeding 20 years.
The US doesn't use the death penalty in espionage cases. So, depending on the sentencing judge, the maximum sentence would be either 20 years, or 30 years. There is no federal parole, but there is early release for good behavior. He could probably get out in 17 years or so.
A more reasonable thing for him to try to negotiate for than a free pony would be to ask that the prosecutor assert that it was not a "time of war" for the purpose of the Espionage Act, and agree not to seek the death penalty. Those are real things that the prosecutor could grant.
We don't even have secret trials in the USA. Your signature claims you don't believe my country even exists.
And you call other idiots?!
The stuff about gitmo is really icing. How many Americans are in gitmo? Oh, right, not only are there none, there never would be or could be any. No, nobody would ask for any American to be sent there. That is just braindead stuff you saw on your tee-vee.
As long as you don't flee or keep a "go bag" handy thinking you might, then you are entitled to bail. Most people who want bail, get bail. A lot of people facing serious charges prefer to stay in jail during trail, because that is "time served" towards their sentence, whereas being free and on trial, none of that time is counting off your sentence.
The stuff about military trials is for illiterate tinfoil hats without internet access. Look into it, you might have mistaken some hyperbole for facts.;)
Being out during the trial is mostly only useful if you're not guilty. It isn't useful for, "I did it to make the world a better place." In that case you know you're guilty, you're proud to be guilty of making the world a better place, and you should be happy to either get out on bail to be on TV before the trial, or stay in jail and get out a few months younger. "I did it to make the world a better place" is a different thing than, "I didn't do it."
Bail is a bit of a "slam dunk" if you already fled to multiple countries to evade capture. As in, a slam dunk for the prosecution.;)
That requires some really exceptional magical thinking to get to, "well he already fled so if he comes back he's not a flight risk." No, if he already fled then he is a proven flight risk even if you believe that he won't fly this time.
If you're wanting to negotiate your surrender, pre-trial release is not a reasonable thing to demand. That is just daffy.
The problem is he wants a fair trial, AS DEFINED BY EDWARD SNOWDEN.
I imagine he would define "fair" as in "not held in a secret/closed courtroom, with the press allowed to attend, with a jury of his peers, with his defense being allowed to actually see the evidence against him, etc."
And, no, he's never going to get all that.
Gosh, if that is what he was asking for... he gets those things automatically, he doesn't have to negotiate for them.
You might be "falling for something" if you actually thought that is what he's asking for.;) But no, you give the real answer right there: You simply "imagine."
Your example is a poor one, because you're legally obligated to get out of the way of the ambulance, and there is a legal principle that if you violate one law to comply with a more important one, then you have broken no law. It would have been against the law NOT to move out of the way, if you saw that a safe place to move your care that was out of the ambulance's way.
There was no law mandating that Snowden release classified information to the public if he thought there would be a moral benefit, so it is very different.
And Senator Wyden had already warned me that the NSA was violating the law, and he had done it without breaking the law himself. People can point out that nobody listened, but so what? I did. And who actually learned accurate details about anything from Snowden? People are just as clueless as before, even the loudmouths who claim to care about the issue just rage wildly and have no answers for any of the difficult questions about management of government secrets. The situation is the same as before Snowden; the Courts are slowly pushing back, but they won't push back very hard if voters are electing the same idiots. In that case, whatever is happening is the will of the people. 100% of the useful affect he could have had would have been changing how people vote, and that didn't happen at all. Look at the current politics; Trump is calling Apple traitors for not wanting to be a government phone-cracking contractor! And that is mainstream.
"Peers" in that context means a person with the same legal rights and status based on caste. Since US law is based on English law, that means that a noble has to be tried by a jury of nobles, a commoner by a jury of commoners. In the US we are all equal under the law, we have no nobles, so it merely means that a person is tried by persons.
Americans are often confused about this, because we don't normally encounter the word "peer" except in the context of "peer pressure" or the "respect of their peers," or some such social, non-caste-based phrasing.
Handwaving, without actually saying anything. He hasn't attempted to show any such thing, he has said that he thinks any trail would be "unfair" because the law is unfair. The person you're replying to is making the argument that fairness is the equal application of the law.
You're simply wrong. Perhaps you don't know that Snowden is demanding an unequal application of the law? Show you understand your own opinion by including it when you state your opinion.;)
Snowden isn't charged with "unrelated crimes" he is accused of violating the Espionage Act by "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person."
There is no such thing as "whistleblower" status as some kind of broad legal principle that protects people from prosecution for crimes. Actually, most whistleblower protections are civil protections that prevent being fired for turning your boss in for committing crimes or at least for breaking rules. It never provides criminal protections in the first place, and only provides civil protections where it has been legally established. It is not, and there is no known argument for it to be, a natural right. It is a created right to help enforce the law.
You blather about some sort of possible "100% justified" but you don't point to any legal principle that would even apply for you to measure how justified it was under that theory.;)
You linked a video... in order to quote a book? Seriously? Did you know when you wandered in the door that this is slashdot and we probably all read books?
A lot of people don't understand that Ellsberg was ready and willing to go to prison, and the only reason he avoided it is because of prosecutorial misconduct and over-reach in the investigation leading to trail. It was not because he was a whistleblower that he was spared punishment, he was spared literally as a punishment to the prosecutors.
Snowden is no Ellsberg. And the prosecutors would not likely make those mistakes, either.
Ellsberg did the right thing, and faced the music. And it is because of the fairness of American trails that he was released after the prosecutors engaged in unfair acts related to the trail.
Restricting the defense to arguments that if true would have something to do with the charges is fair, in the same way that restricting the prosecutor to arguments that if true would have something to do with the charges is fair. You don't want the prosecutor arguing, "gosh, he's a really bad guy and after the thing happened, some other bad thing happened in the community, so gosh he must be guilty!" You also don't want the defense doing that. It is symmetrical. You can argue about being a whistleblower anywhere where being a whistleblower offers protection. National secrets are not one of those places.
Even if you believe that a person should be able to give out nuclear secrets as long as they are holding a whistle while they do it, it would still not be rational to expect trails to be conducted that way even before getting the law changed. And you probably wouldn't want the prosecutor to make up and use their own rules even before getting the law changed, either.
Fairness of what evidence should be introduced in a trail has to be established before the trail.
What is fair to introduce can only be what is legal to introduce. He knew the rules for a trail on the crime he is accused of committing before he engaged in the actions that the government says violated the Espionage Act. What were the rules then? Is he complaining about a change in the rules made since then? No, he's complaining about what he knew the rules would be before he did it.
He's asking to be allowed a "defense" that is simply not a defense. There is no "whistleblower" status that would protect somebody from accusations of espionage. If he argues it, and the jury agrees with him that he is a "whistleblower," he would still be guilty. Whistles are not magic wands, Harry Potter. It is not "unfair," it is in fact part of a "fair trail" that arguments that wouldn't even help are not allowed as "defenses." A defense has to be a thing that if true means you're not guilty, or at least less guilty. But there is no whistleblower exception to espionage, so it would not be fair to discuss it at trail.
You don't have to like it, but we are still at war.
People who whine and cry about not having "declared" war are directed to Section 2(b)(1) which clarifies that it is in fact a declaration of war:
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
The reason to believe it is not Treason is simply that he is not charged with Treason, he is charged with violating the Espionage Act by "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person" neither of which have anything to do with wars.
He isn't accused of Treason, and it isn't because he didn't help the enemy. Treason isn't helping any enemy at the same time as there being a war, you have to help the actual enemy that is the target of the war. He didn't do that specifically. His crime is related to sharing classified documents, including with various enemies, separately from any war or war effort. Specifically, he is accused of violating the espionage act.
A) The law doesn't allow trail conditions to be set by agreement, the judge is responsible for setting the trail conditions according to the law. He can ask that the prosecutor ask the judge for various things, that is about it. And note he doesn't actually have anything specific that would be "unfair" to negotiate about. B) Extraction teams do not operate in Russia. They operate in places that agree to it behind the scenes, or don't have strong government. Russia is a nuclear power. You can send in spies, but you can't send in operational teams that would have to display weapons, stay in a group, and provide for transportation under those conditions, and also even escape the country.
He doesn't even have an argument for what would be "unfair" about the trail.
It is one thing to disagree about what the law should be, but what a fair trail is isn't that controversial. There are no mainstream arguments that people in the US who are high profile and have access to their choice of lawyers don't get fair trails. That is just silly-talk.
Obviously poor people and minorities often don't get fair trials unless it is high profile, but that isn't Snowden's situation.
He engaged in civil disobedience. Believing you were right to do it does not mean not experiencing the consequences of those acts. When people block a street or engage in a sit-in blocking a lunch counter, they know they will have to serve the time or pay the fine or whatever. A "fair trial" doesn't mean, "if the jury is glad I did it, then I'm not guilty." A trial is to determine if you are guilty of the crime, it is not a popularity contest to decide if the jury still likes you, or if the crime had some happy outcome.
He is like a giant flamebait begging idiots to hang their hats on his crazy argument simply because they dislike the NSA. But you can be against government over-reach and still know what a "fair trail" is. He'd be better off trying to negotiate getting a minimum security white collar prison assignment. Then his supporters could advocate for reduction or commutation of his sentence, something actual possible to receive if the right people agree. Much better than now, where he is constantly asking his supporters to fight for impossible demands.
Of course I don't know what despair is, it is some sort of crap that pessimists go through when things predictably don't work out for them and their psychology doesn't provide a useful frame of mind. If you ever experience hunger and homelessness, maybe you'll feel despair, maybe you won't. Go live in a homeless shelter and I guarantee you, from experience, that most of the people there are not feeling despair. And an American who is not insane would have to be a reasoned idiot to go hungry; between food stamps and soup kitchens, nobody is going to starve to death, nobody is going to be in a situation worthy of despair. If they were stuck in an arid place with no food and little chance of help, knowing they were going to starve to death, OK, it is reasonable to despair. "Oh no, I don't have anything to eat because I'm not hungry enough yet to be at the soup kitchen when they serve dinner" is not cause for despair. It is just simple hunger. It is easily solved with or without a job, with or without being productive at anything. Find me a starving person and I'll find you a person who sold their food stamps for drugs. Their despair is not related to food access.
When I was 14 and hadn't eaten anything but blackberries for over a month (!) I certainly didn't experience despair. The runs, yeah, that's the thing about fruit; it isn't a viable staple food.
Not enough is not "better than being homeless," that is just whiny crap from people who don't understand what homelessness is. Not enough is not enough, so is homelessness. Having shelter over your head but not having nutrition is not complete; it is not better than having no shelter but having food. They are both incomplete. The short-term relative need for shelter varies by climate, but food is required to live, and a healthy diet is required to be healthy. If a job isn't going to meet your needs, it isn't going to meet your needs. Are your needs real needs, or inflated wants? In the essay, they are just inflated wants, not actual needs. Her inflated wants prevent her from meeting her financial needs on her own, so she spends a lot of time begging.
Looking doesn't mean you'll find something, no. But being on a good path is the best way to get to a good place. Going down a path you expect to be a dead end is not reasonable, nor is it a temporary solution to anything. And she wasn't underemployed, she was over-spending. Underemployed are people working part time who need full time jobs, not people living alone (!) in the most expensive, highest-demand-to-live region in the country. There are probably supervisors among the people she complains about who live with roommates because money...
I guess things are a bit different up here in my backwater... here even a 2 year degree will require passing algebra. That means English majors take 2 full years of math, because there a number of remedial classes between "HS minimum" and "the 1 college math class you have to work your way up to and pass."
Maybe they do things differently in California. That said, the Californians that move here seem to all know how to count money just fine.
When you say "well rounded" I think of the young woman who sat next to me in my college algebra class... she was studying manufacturing and had an "I like to party" keychain. Most people claiming to have had a "well rounded" education are setting it up for a "I partied a lot" joke, IME.
I agree. It is hilarious to see somebody who has always been well fed, just presume that their dignity came from the extra meat on their bones. Those of us who have experienced hunger, those of us who grew up in poverty, those of us who know the value of a package of ramen noodles with dandelion leaves, those of us who have lived the experience know exactly what it means. People who presume that being hungry means you have no dignity, have no idea about either. People who presume that anybody who is hungry instantly disclaims any dignity and behaves in any random way like begging on corporate white boards with time that could have been spent applying for crap jobs that aren't at a startup, well they shouldn't even bring up dignity.
People whose self-respect is associated with access to money or how they are seen by others have no self-respect, they have their personal illusion of other-respect, an entirely different consideration. But dignity has nothing to do with external factors; dignity is entirely internal. Dignity is your own sense that you have value, your own self respect. The person who is starving because they won't do something "beneath them" is proud of their choice, because that is the nature of dignity. Some people grow up with a lot of money and presume that dignity is just the absence of shame, but that's because they never needed it. Dignity isn't something you can whine about being denied to you. It is rather by not whining and taking personal responsibility that a person reaffirms their dignity.
And, she's not even being starved. She's actually rather wealthy compared to people who are starving, and could feed herself and another person too just by moving to a rental she can afford, like one with a bunch of roommates. Well, she could have, because she imploded and lost her job. Will she understand the value of a dollar after the experience? One can hope. Will she figure out what dignity is? Very little chance of that happening for many years yet, it appears.
Those of us who have experienced hunger know what dignity is the first time we're confronted with the question, "Do I care what I do to put food in my face?" People with dignity, the feeling of being worthy of respect, do care how they feed themselves. In the context of a starving man, it might simply be the difference between digging in a dumpster for food nobody is using compared to just standing around begging. If you go to a homeless shelter and get to know a few people, you'll find many of them are too dignified to beg, and find the practice abhorrent. Others don't mind begging because it is consentual, but consider doing an immoral job like telephone sales to be beneath contempt. And of course, many humans don't care what they do if somebody hands them a dollar. That is the value of dignity; most people don't have any.
You're the one who claimed straight out that I "pretended" you "condone his actions" when in fact I claimed that you introduced the claim into this context all on your own. And you did, it is totally off topic, and you chose to bring it in in the context of trying to blur the accusation into a false accusation. The real accusation isn't false at all. That is literally acting to support his illegal actions by confusing the public into thinking that they are false accusations of treason. If it isn't what you mean, don't do that act of trying to rewrite history in that way. You literally are supporting his actions. I didn't pretend that. Your response, defending your original statement, furthers your attempt to support violating sanctions against Serbia during the exact time period where crimes against humanity were taking place. You are on record above trying to conflate accusations of supporting that, with being innocent of "treason." Neither part has any connection to this situation.
No it isn't. "Not enough" doesn't turn into enough because you waited "months." BTW, months are very short time units. You'll understand when you're old enough.
If she took the job for 2 weeks and quit to use the 1 paycheck for a bus ticket somewhere that isn't super-high-demand to live, that would make sense. Agreeing to do a job that literally can't support you, and then trying to actually do that job on that pay? No. That is straight idiotic. "Should not have received HS diploma because she didn't finish math" type stuff here.
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You seem a bit confused about what you linked to. They did not rule that the Espionage Act was unconstitutional, they ruled that criminal law can't ban "abstract advocacy of force or law violation." It created the "imminent lawless action" test for threats.
As to what it overruled specifically, it was merely the prior test that was thrown out. The old test was that speech could be banned if it presented a "clear and present danger," but that is just too hand-wavy for the SCOTUS so they put in place a test that is based on the horribles being imminent and not merely dangerous but lawless.
Perhaps you mistakenly thought that if a person's case is thrown out, that means the law they were accused under was not upheld; but is that simply a mistaken belief. If the law was unconstitutional, they would not have been creating a new test for when it applies. ;)
Words matter, even words in Supreme Court decisions. My advice, read the decisions and believe their words. They generally mean them.
Note that Snowden is not accused of inciting violent action with words, he's accused of transmitting US secrets to unauthorized persons.
The jury is allowed to take the merit of his actions into account, he's just not allowed to ask them to, and jurors may be removed if they admit in advance that they might do so. But even after removing the ones who admit to it, in the final moment the juror may legally consider the totality of the situation and vote their conscience.
But you're certainly right that it is not available as a defense. It is probably allowed as part of opening/closing statements though to point out that the actions may have had a moral dimension separate from the law. But no, they can't explain to the jury why they're pointing it out or what they might do with that information, or claim that it would somehow justify the actions. But they can certainly explain, in the relevant parts of the trail, what the reasons for the actions were, what the intent was. Probably would ensure conviction as it would require admitting to the actions, but he's already done that.
No, silly rabbit, if the court decides that for the purposes of the law it was done in a time of war then he can be punished by death or not more than 30 years imprisonment. Life imprisonment is not an option.
And even though the nation is at war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) it is likely that the judge would rule that for the purposes of the espionage act and the nature of the accusation it was not a "time of war." In that case, the punishment is limited to death or imprisonment not exceeding 20 years.
The US doesn't use the death penalty in espionage cases. So, depending on the sentencing judge, the maximum sentence would be either 20 years, or 30 years. There is no federal parole, but there is early release for good behavior. He could probably get out in 17 years or so.
A more reasonable thing for him to try to negotiate for than a free pony would be to ask that the prosecutor assert that it was not a "time of war" for the purpose of the Espionage Act, and agree not to seek the death penalty. Those are real things that the prosecutor could grant.
We don't even have secret trials in the USA. Your signature claims you don't believe my country even exists.
And you call other idiots?!
The stuff about gitmo is really icing. How many Americans are in gitmo? Oh, right, not only are there none, there never would be or could be any. No, nobody would ask for any American to be sent there. That is just braindead stuff you saw on your tee-vee.
Daniel Ellsberg didn't flee the country, either.
As long as you don't flee or keep a "go bag" handy thinking you might, then you are entitled to bail. Most people who want bail, get bail. A lot of people facing serious charges prefer to stay in jail during trail, because that is "time served" towards their sentence, whereas being free and on trial, none of that time is counting off your sentence.
The stuff about military trials is for illiterate tinfoil hats without internet access. Look into it, you might have mistaken some hyperbole for facts. ;)
Being out during the trial is mostly only useful if you're not guilty. It isn't useful for, "I did it to make the world a better place." In that case you know you're guilty, you're proud to be guilty of making the world a better place, and you should be happy to either get out on bail to be on TV before the trial, or stay in jail and get out a few months younger. "I did it to make the world a better place" is a different thing than, "I didn't do it."
Bail is a bit of a "slam dunk" if you already fled to multiple countries to evade capture. As in, a slam dunk for the prosecution. ;)
That requires some really exceptional magical thinking to get to, "well he already fled so if he comes back he's not a flight risk." No, if he already fled then he is a proven flight risk even if you believe that he won't fly this time.
If you're wanting to negotiate your surrender, pre-trial release is not a reasonable thing to demand. That is just daffy.
The problem is he wants a fair trial, AS DEFINED BY EDWARD SNOWDEN.
I imagine he would define "fair" as in "not held in a secret/closed courtroom, with the press allowed to attend, with a jury of his peers, with his defense being allowed to actually see the evidence against him, etc."
And, no, he's never going to get all that.
Gosh, if that is what he was asking for... he gets those things automatically, he doesn't have to negotiate for them.
You might be "falling for something" if you actually thought that is what he's asking for. ;) But no, you give the real answer right there: You simply "imagine."
Oh, so if I believe somebody else broke a different law, then that means I didn't break any law! Wow, I never considered that.
All Blorgs are criminals. A Blarg was accused by a Blorg of being a criminal. The Blarg is therefore innocent. T/F?
Your example is a poor one, because you're legally obligated to get out of the way of the ambulance, and there is a legal principle that if you violate one law to comply with a more important one, then you have broken no law. It would have been against the law NOT to move out of the way, if you saw that a safe place to move your care that was out of the ambulance's way.
There was no law mandating that Snowden release classified information to the public if he thought there would be a moral benefit, so it is very different.
And Senator Wyden had already warned me that the NSA was violating the law, and he had done it without breaking the law himself. People can point out that nobody listened, but so what? I did. And who actually learned accurate details about anything from Snowden? People are just as clueless as before, even the loudmouths who claim to care about the issue just rage wildly and have no answers for any of the difficult questions about management of government secrets. The situation is the same as before Snowden; the Courts are slowly pushing back, but they won't push back very hard if voters are electing the same idiots. In that case, whatever is happening is the will of the people. 100% of the useful affect he could have had would have been changing how people vote, and that didn't happen at all. Look at the current politics; Trump is calling Apple traitors for not wanting to be a government phone-cracking contractor! And that is mainstream.
"Peers" in that context means a person with the same legal rights and status based on caste. Since US law is based on English law, that means that a noble has to be tried by a jury of nobles, a commoner by a jury of commoners. In the US we are all equal under the law, we have no nobles, so it merely means that a person is tried by persons.
Americans are often confused about this, because we don't normally encounter the word "peer" except in the context of "peer pressure" or the "respect of their peers," or some such social, non-caste-based phrasing.
http://criminal.findlaw.com/cr...
Handwaving, without actually saying anything. He hasn't attempted to show any such thing, he has said that he thinks any trail would be "unfair" because the law is unfair. The person you're replying to is making the argument that fairness is the equal application of the law.
You're simply wrong. Perhaps you don't know that Snowden is demanding an unequal application of the law? Show you understand your own opinion by including it when you state your opinion. ;)
Snowden isn't charged with "unrelated crimes" he is accused of violating the Espionage Act by "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person."
There is no such thing as "whistleblower" status as some kind of broad legal principle that protects people from prosecution for crimes. Actually, most whistleblower protections are civil protections that prevent being fired for turning your boss in for committing crimes or at least for breaking rules. It never provides criminal protections in the first place, and only provides civil protections where it has been legally established. It is not, and there is no known argument for it to be, a natural right. It is a created right to help enforce the law.
You blather about some sort of possible "100% justified" but you don't point to any legal principle that would even apply for you to measure how justified it was under that theory. ;)
You linked a video... in order to quote a book? Seriously? Did you know when you wandered in the door that this is slashdot and we probably all read books?
A lot of people don't understand that Ellsberg was ready and willing to go to prison, and the only reason he avoided it is because of prosecutorial misconduct and over-reach in the investigation leading to trail. It was not because he was a whistleblower that he was spared punishment, he was spared literally as a punishment to the prosecutors.
Snowden is no Ellsberg. And the prosecutors would not likely make those mistakes, either.
Ellsberg did the right thing, and faced the music. And it is because of the fairness of American trails that he was released after the prosecutors engaged in unfair acts related to the trail.
Restricting the defense to arguments that if true would have something to do with the charges is fair, in the same way that restricting the prosecutor to arguments that if true would have something to do with the charges is fair. You don't want the prosecutor arguing, "gosh, he's a really bad guy and after the thing happened, some other bad thing happened in the community, so gosh he must be guilty!" You also don't want the defense doing that. It is symmetrical. You can argue about being a whistleblower anywhere where being a whistleblower offers protection. National secrets are not one of those places.
Even if you believe that a person should be able to give out nuclear secrets as long as they are holding a whistle while they do it, it would still not be rational to expect trails to be conducted that way even before getting the law changed. And you probably wouldn't want the prosecutor to make up and use their own rules even before getting the law changed, either.
Fairness of what evidence should be introduced in a trail has to be established before the trail.
What is fair to introduce can only be what is legal to introduce. He knew the rules for a trail on the crime he is accused of committing before he engaged in the actions that the government says violated the Espionage Act. What were the rules then? Is he complaining about a change in the rules made since then? No, he's complaining about what he knew the rules would be before he did it.
He's asking to be allowed a "defense" that is simply not a defense. There is no "whistleblower" status that would protect somebody from accusations of espionage. If he argues it, and the jury agrees with him that he is a "whistleblower," he would still be guilty. Whistles are not magic wands, Harry Potter. It is not "unfair," it is in fact part of a "fair trail" that arguments that wouldn't even help are not allowed as "defenses." A defense has to be a thing that if true means you're not guilty, or at least less guilty. But there is no whistleblower exception to espionage, so it would not be fair to discuss it at trail.
There is in fact on ongoing war, legally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You don't have to like it, but we are still at war.
People who whine and cry about not having "declared" war are directed to Section 2(b)(1) which clarifies that it is in fact a declaration of war:
The reason to believe it is not Treason is simply that he is not charged with Treason, he is charged with violating the Espionage Act by "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person" neither of which have anything to do with wars.
He isn't accused of Treason, and it isn't because he didn't help the enemy. Treason isn't helping any enemy at the same time as there being a war, you have to help the actual enemy that is the target of the war. He didn't do that specifically. His crime is related to sharing classified documents, including with various enemies, separately from any war or war effort. Specifically, he is accused of violating the espionage act.
A) The law doesn't allow trail conditions to be set by agreement, the judge is responsible for setting the trail conditions according to the law. He can ask that the prosecutor ask the judge for various things, that is about it. And note he doesn't actually have anything specific that would be "unfair" to negotiate about.
B) Extraction teams do not operate in Russia. They operate in places that agree to it behind the scenes, or don't have strong government. Russia is a nuclear power. You can send in spies, but you can't send in operational teams that would have to display weapons, stay in a group, and provide for transportation under those conditions, and also even escape the country.
He doesn't even have an argument for what would be "unfair" about the trail.
It is one thing to disagree about what the law should be, but what a fair trail is isn't that controversial. There are no mainstream arguments that people in the US who are high profile and have access to their choice of lawyers don't get fair trails. That is just silly-talk.
Obviously poor people and minorities often don't get fair trials unless it is high profile, but that isn't Snowden's situation.
He engaged in civil disobedience. Believing you were right to do it does not mean not experiencing the consequences of those acts. When people block a street or engage in a sit-in blocking a lunch counter, they know they will have to serve the time or pay the fine or whatever. A "fair trial" doesn't mean, "if the jury is glad I did it, then I'm not guilty." A trial is to determine if you are guilty of the crime, it is not a popularity contest to decide if the jury still likes you, or if the crime had some happy outcome.
He is like a giant flamebait begging idiots to hang their hats on his crazy argument simply because they dislike the NSA. But you can be against government over-reach and still know what a "fair trail" is. He'd be better off trying to negotiate getting a minimum security white collar prison assignment. Then his supporters could advocate for reduction or commutation of his sentence, something actual possible to receive if the right people agree. Much better than now, where he is constantly asking his supporters to fight for impossible demands.
Of course I don't know what despair is, it is some sort of crap that pessimists go through when things predictably don't work out for them and their psychology doesn't provide a useful frame of mind. If you ever experience hunger and homelessness, maybe you'll feel despair, maybe you won't. Go live in a homeless shelter and I guarantee you, from experience, that most of the people there are not feeling despair. And an American who is not insane would have to be a reasoned idiot to go hungry; between food stamps and soup kitchens, nobody is going to starve to death, nobody is going to be in a situation worthy of despair. If they were stuck in an arid place with no food and little chance of help, knowing they were going to starve to death, OK, it is reasonable to despair. "Oh no, I don't have anything to eat because I'm not hungry enough yet to be at the soup kitchen when they serve dinner" is not cause for despair. It is just simple hunger. It is easily solved with or without a job, with or without being productive at anything. Find me a starving person and I'll find you a person who sold their food stamps for drugs. Their despair is not related to food access.
When I was 14 and hadn't eaten anything but blackberries for over a month (!) I certainly didn't experience despair. The runs, yeah, that's the thing about fruit; it isn't a viable staple food.
Not enough is not "better than being homeless," that is just whiny crap from people who don't understand what homelessness is. Not enough is not enough, so is homelessness. Having shelter over your head but not having nutrition is not complete; it is not better than having no shelter but having food. They are both incomplete. The short-term relative need for shelter varies by climate, but food is required to live, and a healthy diet is required to be healthy. If a job isn't going to meet your needs, it isn't going to meet your needs. Are your needs real needs, or inflated wants? In the essay, they are just inflated wants, not actual needs. Her inflated wants prevent her from meeting her financial needs on her own, so she spends a lot of time begging.
Looking doesn't mean you'll find something, no. But being on a good path is the best way to get to a good place. Going down a path you expect to be a dead end is not reasonable, nor is it a temporary solution to anything. And she wasn't underemployed, she was over-spending. Underemployed are people working part time who need full time jobs, not people living alone (!) in the most expensive, highest-demand-to-live region in the country. There are probably supervisors among the people she complains about who live with roommates because money...
I guess things are a bit different up here in my backwater... here even a 2 year degree will require passing algebra. That means English majors take 2 full years of math, because there a number of remedial classes between "HS minimum" and "the 1 college math class you have to work your way up to and pass."
Maybe they do things differently in California. That said, the Californians that move here seem to all know how to count money just fine.
When you say "well rounded" I think of the young woman who sat next to me in my college algebra class... she was studying manufacturing and had an "I like to party" keychain. Most people claiming to have had a "well rounded" education are setting it up for a "I partied a lot" joke, IME.
I agree. It is hilarious to see somebody who has always been well fed, just presume that their dignity came from the extra meat on their bones. Those of us who have experienced hunger, those of us who grew up in poverty, those of us who know the value of a package of ramen noodles with dandelion leaves, those of us who have lived the experience know exactly what it means. People who presume that being hungry means you have no dignity, have no idea about either. People who presume that anybody who is hungry instantly disclaims any dignity and behaves in any random way like begging on corporate white boards with time that could have been spent applying for crap jobs that aren't at a startup, well they shouldn't even bring up dignity.
People whose self-respect is associated with access to money or how they are seen by others have no self-respect, they have their personal illusion of other-respect, an entirely different consideration. But dignity has nothing to do with external factors; dignity is entirely internal. Dignity is your own sense that you have value, your own self respect. The person who is starving because they won't do something "beneath them" is proud of their choice, because that is the nature of dignity. Some people grow up with a lot of money and presume that dignity is just the absence of shame, but that's because they never needed it. Dignity isn't something you can whine about being denied to you. It is rather by not whining and taking personal responsibility that a person reaffirms their dignity.
And, she's not even being starved. She's actually rather wealthy compared to people who are starving, and could feed herself and another person too just by moving to a rental she can afford, like one with a bunch of roommates. Well, she could have, because she imploded and lost her job. Will she understand the value of a dollar after the experience? One can hope. Will she figure out what dignity is? Very little chance of that happening for many years yet, it appears.
Those of us who have experienced hunger know what dignity is the first time we're confronted with the question, "Do I care what I do to put food in my face?" People with dignity, the feeling of being worthy of respect, do care how they feed themselves. In the context of a starving man, it might simply be the difference between digging in a dumpster for food nobody is using compared to just standing around begging. If you go to a homeless shelter and get to know a few people, you'll find many of them are too dignified to beg, and find the practice abhorrent. Others don't mind begging because it is consentual, but consider doing an immoral job like telephone sales to be beneath contempt. And of course, many humans don't care what they do if somebody hands them a dollar. That is the value of dignity; most people don't have any.
Dignity doesn't pay in dollars or donuts.
Thanks, that was a great read.
You're the one who claimed straight out that I "pretended" you "condone his actions" when in fact I claimed that you introduced the claim into this context all on your own. And you did, it is totally off topic, and you chose to bring it in in the context of trying to blur the accusation into a false accusation. The real accusation isn't false at all. That is literally acting to support his illegal actions by confusing the public into thinking that they are false accusations of treason. If it isn't what you mean, don't do that act of trying to rewrite history in that way. You literally are supporting his actions. I didn't pretend that. Your response, defending your original statement, furthers your attempt to support violating sanctions against Serbia during the exact time period where crimes against humanity were taking place. You are on record above trying to conflate accusations of supporting that, with being innocent of "treason." Neither part has any connection to this situation.
No it isn't. "Not enough" doesn't turn into enough because you waited "months." BTW, months are very short time units. You'll understand when you're old enough.
If she took the job for 2 weeks and quit to use the 1 paycheck for a bus ticket somewhere that isn't super-high-demand to live, that would make sense. Agreeing to do a job that literally can't support you, and then trying to actually do that job on that pay? No. That is straight idiotic. "Should not have received HS diploma because she didn't finish math" type stuff here.