The Guardian newspaper names Edward Snowden, 29, as the source who...

[Eupher]

Over on This Ain't Hell, some initial analyses of Snowden's so-called military career have been done, which question certain "elements" of it. FOIA request pending.

[txradioguy]

I know there are people on both sides of the aisle right now that want this guys head...they're saying he's no better than Bradley manning and such...but when you stop and think about it...what Snowden did was release info about the process involved in the way NSA gathers info on all of us.

He didn't release any actual info. No names transcripts of conversations or emails.

In short he did what Seymour Hersch did with his front page story about how we were tracking al-Qaeda by their bank accounts.

I haven't seen or heard of Hersch having to hide from authorities or fear for his life.


Manning on the other hand did EVERYTHING Snowden didn't. He released email...diplomatic cables...video etc. Manning put lives at risk...Snowden hasn't.

That's the difference between the two based on the info available right now.

And at this point Snowden needs to be protected under U.S. Whistleblower laws.

If it turns out he released documents then put him in a cell next to Manning.

But right now all he's guilty of is showing how the NSA collects the info.

[Rockntractor]

I have to wonder how people would feel if you had a knock on the door and the FBI entered without a search warrant and said they were going to search, photograph and catalog everything you owned, but not to worry this was for statistical use only and would not be used personally against you unless you broke the law at a later date.
How many would say this was harmless and the price we have to pay for our national safety?

[Adam Wood]

I have to wonder how people would feel if you had a knock on the door and the FBI entered without a search warrant and said they were going to search, photograph and catalog everything you owned, but not to worry this was for statistical use only and would not be used personally against you unless you broke the law at a later date.
How many would say this was harmless and the price we have to pay for our national safety?

Just to be clear: I think that this is almost certainly in violation of the Fourth Amendment (without more details, I can't be completely certain, but it certainly sounds that way to me). That does not excuse this guy's actions, though. There are channels and methods for him to report wrongdoing, and those do not include running off to Hong Kong to blab national secrets, even bad ones, to a Guardian reporter there on an expense-account holiday.

What the NSA is doing is wrong. What this guy did is also wrong. I learned in kindergarten that two wrongs do not create a right.

[Rockntractor]

Just to be clear: I think that this is almost certainly in violation of the Fourth Amendment (without more details, I can't be completely certain, but it certainly sounds that way to me). That does not excuse this guy's actions, though. There are channels and methods for him to report wrongdoing, and those do not include running off to Hong Kong to blab national secrets, even bad ones, to a Guardian reporter there on an expense-account holiday.

What the NSA is doing is wrong. What this guy did is also wrong. I learned in kindergarten that two wrongs do not create a right.

Very true but what Paul Revere did was also against the law.
As I said earlier in the thread I don't like his modus operandi either, I wish he could have chosen someone other than china, but then again he is hardly a professional spy.

[Odysseus]

I know there are people on both sides of the aisle right now that want this guys head...they're saying he's no better than Bradley manning and such...but when you stop and think about it...what Snowden did was release info about the process involved in the way NSA gathers info on all of us.

He didn't release any actual info. No names transcripts of conversations or emails.

In short he did what Seymour Hersch did with his front page story about how we were tracking al-Qaeda by their bank accounts.

I haven't seen or heard of Hersch having to hide from authorities or fear for his life.


Manning on the other hand did EVERYTHING Snowden didn't. He released email...diplomatic cables...video etc. Manning put lives at risk...Snowden hasn't.

That's the difference between the two based on the info available right now.

And at this point Snowden needs to be protected under U.S. Whistleblower laws.

If it turns out he released documents then put him in a cell next to Manning.

But right now all he's guilty of is showing how the NSA collects the info.

Releasing the process can be more damaging than releasing the data. The NY Times published leaked documents about the SWIFT program, which tracked terrorist finances, and this gave the bad guys insights into how to hide their money trails. Another revelation about cell phone tracking capabilities resulted in jihadis learning to use disposable phones.

Just to be clear: I think that this is almost certainly in violation of the Fourth Amendment (without more details, I can't be completely certain, but it certainly sounds that way to me). That does not excuse this guy's actions, though. There are channels and methods for him to report wrongdoing, and those do not include running off to Hong Kong to blab national secrets, even bad ones, to a Guardian reporter there on an expense-account holiday.

What the NSA is doing is wrong. What this guy did is also wrong. I learned in kindergarten that two wrongs do not create a right.

Actually, simply collecting the metadata for calls is not a Fourth Amendment violation. The relevant text of the amendment states that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Writing for the majority in United States Vs. Jones, Antonin Scalia explained that the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment are based on principles of property ownership, citing the English Common Law decision in Entick v. Carrington, in which Lord Camden's decision addressed the significance of property rights in search-and-seizure:

“[O]ur law holds the property of every man so sacred,that no man can set his foot upon his neighbour’s closewithout his leave; if he does he is a trespasser, though he does no damage at all; if he will tread upon hisneighbour’s ground, he must justify it by law.” Entick, supra, at 817.

Scalia then observes:

"The text of the Fourth Amendment reflects its close connection to property, since otherwise it would have referredsimply to “the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures”; the phrase “in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” would have been superfluous."

The later interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, which produced the standard of a "reasonable expectation of privacy" (United States V. Katz), does not abrogate the previous concept of invasion of privacy as a matter of trespass on private property, but adds to it. Therefore, the question becomes, does the government's action constitute a trespass on private property, and does its action violate a reasonable expectation of privacy? This is where the legal reasoning gets tricky, because the seizure of the records would have required a specific, not a general, warrant (general warrants, or Writs of Assistance, as the Crown called them, were the reason for the Fourth Amendment in the first place), unless Verizon volunteered the records without a warrant. The records are the property of Verizon, not the callers, and therefore it is up to Verizon to decide whether or not to cooperate. The government's possession of the data within those records, which is limited to information about the calls, but not the contents of the calls themselves, does not constitute a search or seizure of private property, nor is there an expectation of privacy with regard to the metadata (which, unlike the content of the calls, is logged by Verizon). The nineteenth century equivalent would be if a postmaster informed a police officer that a criminal suspect did, in fact, post a letter or package to a given address, but that the postmaster had no idea of the contents.

Now, just because the Fourth Amendment is silent on metadata does not mean that this is good policy, or that the Obama administration's breathtaking mendacity in denying the existence of the program to congress shouldn't be an issue, only that it may not be the the issue that the civil libertarians are talking about.

We have to be consistent here, and I admit to getting caught up in the outrage over the idea of the government collecting this information, especially in view of the IRS scandal and the administration's proven inclination to abuse information which it compells us to present under penalty of perjury, but we also need to know the legal and ethical issues and address them clearly. We can leave the hysterical posturing to DU.

[Generation Why?]

Over on This Ain't Hell, some initial analyses of Snowden's so-called military career have been done, which question certain "elements" of it. FOIA request pending.

I believe the Army verified those aspects.

On the topic of Snowden: Love what he is doing. I have no problems with anyone exposing unconstitutional and invasive activities being committed by the government.

[Odysseus]

I believe the Army verified those aspects.

On the topic of Snowden: Love what he is doing. I have no problems with anyone exposing unconstitutional and invasive activities being committed by the government.

That is a very dangerous position for someone in our line of work to take. We don't get to decide what is and isn't Constitutional, and when we decide that we are better arbiters of that than the congress, the courts and the executive branch, then we are putting ourselves above the Constitution, which we are sworn to support and defend. Don't succumb to that temptation.

Before you decide that this is unconstitutional, ask yourself if the US interception and code-breaking of Japanese diplomatic and military codes prior to our entry into WWII was Constitutional, or if the interception of SIGINT from the Soviets to their agents in the US (the Venona Intercepts) was Constitutional. Would it have been acceptable for someone to leak the existence of the Manhattan Project during WWII? Remember that those intercepts, like the NSA program, were not being used to prosecute American citizens, but to gain wartime intelligence against declared enemies and identify clandestine enemy combatant (i.e., terrorist) networks operating in the US. The legal standards are radically different for those two endeavors, and the blurring of the lines between criminal justice issues and national security issues creates real problems for effectively dealing with either.

Snowden held a position of trust, and he violated that trust. If he genuinely believed that the program was illegal, he had other options. He could have raised the issue internally to his superiors, or taken his information to the congressional committees charged with oversight of the executive, and which have a Constitutional mandate to investigate, but which also have the means to deal with classified without compromising them. By going outside of the chain, he acted irresponsibly and dangerously.

[Molon Labe]

Obama promised a transparent administration. Now he's getting one.

[Articulate_Ape]

There is something that is starting to stink about this story, now Edward is talking about defecting to China, like they are some sort of freer country.

Sadly, we have reached a point where, in many respects, China actually is more free than the US. Especially if you want to go into business for yourself. A more important point is: How the hell did we allow things to get this way?