The following is from empty set:
If this is true, it changes the whole complexion of this matter from
whistle-blower to espionage.
Here is an excerpt from the article in the Wash. Post. " The South China Morning Post, which has interviewed Snowden, reported Monday that he had taken a job with Booz Hamilton Allen earlier this year with the express purpose of being assigned to the NSA and accessing classified documents. "
Here is an excerpt from the article in the Wash. Post. " The South China Morning Post, which has interviewed Snowden, reported Monday that he had taken a job with Booz Hamilton Allen earlier this year with the express purpose of being assigned to the NSA and accessing classified documents. "
So he thought (or maybe knew, from his previous job) that the NSA was spying on american citizens, which it is not allowed to do, so he began an investigation. In the course of this investigation he gathered evidence of a massive surveillance operation that was kept from the american people, and from Congress, which he then released to the american people, through the news media.
ReplyDelete[Remember, the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about this program in March. ]
I understand the need to keep state secrets, but this is about a secret court issuing secret orders to a secret organization that is not accountable to anyone.
It's good to know where this information came from, but please remember that it is the information that we should be focusing on.
I agree that if he takes an NSA job to get info to release he is not a whistleblower. It seems like Michael's first sentence contains a lot of pure speculation - all favorable to Snowden's motives. If he had those things before and released them from the previous job as you imagine that he might have done, then he qualify as a whistleblower.
DeleteYou say: I understand the need to keep state secrets, but this is about a secret court issuing secret orders to a secret organization that is not accountable to anyone.
Are you talking about the FISA court and the NSA? I thought I had known about them for years. Far from unaccountable these have been approved by all three branches of the federal government.
As far as the “secret” data mining and source - receiver watching for patterns, I thought that that was permitted under the Patriot Act and renewed under Obama. (Also renewed and used extensively by Obama is drone assassination including American citizens. Doesn’t that bother you more than this?)
You say: It's good to know where this information came from, but please remember that it is the information that we should be focusing on.
But some of the information is what our spying has produced about other nations. If the info qualifies as espionage and you release it to the public, then you are engaging in espionage.
He may not have had the proof that he thought was required to be believable from his previous job at the CIA. Several people have come forward claiming the NSA was doing this, but they had no substantial proof. It's been said since 2006 that the NSA has intercepted everything from AT&T, but no one has had substantial proof until now.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned troop movements a few weeks ago, in reference to secrecy. The troops are not the secret, it is where and when they are moving that is the secret. The same can be said for FISA and the NSA. It's not the name of the agencies that are secret, it's what they are doing. The FISA court is building a body of law that that circumvents the other courts, their decisions can not be made public, and therefore cannot be appealed to a higher court, and the NSA is acting on those secret, one sided interpretations.
The NSA is only authorized by congress to only gather information from outside the US that has to be relevant to an investigation in order to be obtained. So the NSA is either in breach of one of their congressionally-approved powers or they had a court, that only hears cases presented by the NSA, secretly authorize these powers.
So yes, a secret court issuing secret orders to a secret organization.
And the drone assassination program is very troubling, and it's also had it's day in the sun with first good-old-fashioned senate filibuster we've seen in a while. I hope the next congress can actually do something more permanent about that.