USA Calling For the Extradition of Snowden 955
Taco Cowboy writes "Edward Snowden, the leaker who gave us the evidence of US government spying on its people is under threat of being extradited back to the U.S. to face prosecution. Some people in Congress, including Republican Peter King (R-NY), are calling for his extradition from Hong Kong to face trial. From the article: 'A spokesman for the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said Snowden's case had been referred to the justice department and US intelligence was assessing the damage caused by the disclosures.
"Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law," the spokesman, Shawn Turner, said.'"
It wont do much, but at least register interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess we'll find out ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The damage to the freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
The constitution is the highest law of this nation. Particularly the specific protections the constitution contains. If government uses "security clearance" to hide breaches of the constitution, anyone with clearance has an obligation to act. The constitution is above the government, not the other way around.
Some people in Congress? (Score:5, Interesting)
We should find out who 'some people in Congress' are, post their names, and make sure constituents in their voting jurisdiction fill their inboxes. And, parade their names all over the Internet so the other people in Congress will see them be vilified. Nobody here wants to see us continuing in the direction of a totalitarian police state.
According to the article, the people in Congress that are named are 'Republican head of the House intelligence committee, Mike Rogers' and 'Peter King, the chairman of the House homeland security subcommittee'.
Re:Murrica (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It wont do much, but at least register interest (Score:3, Interesting)
It really annoys the hell out of me... (Score:5, Interesting)
... how they placed a high school dropout in such a position of trust. Quoting the Guardian "Snowden is a 29-year-old high-school dropout who trained for the Army Special Forces before an injury forced him to leave the military. His IT credentials are apparently limited to a few “computer” classes he took at a community college in order to get his high-school equivalency degree—courses that he did not complete. His first job at the NSA was as a security guard. Then, amazingly, he moved up the ranks of the United States’ national security infrastructure: The CIA gave him a job in IT security. He was given diplomatic cover in Geneva. He was hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, the government contractor, which paid him $200,000 a year to work on the NSA’s computer systems." .. Wtf are people smoking in the US?
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:4, Interesting)
Democracy is the rule of the people.
Betraying democracy would therefore be preventing the people from getting the information necessary to make informed choices about who to vote for.
Strange days indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:4, Interesting)
We're talking about saving lives here.
If those lives are lived under constant surveillance then it's perhaps kinder to let them die. But hey, if you don't mind having a neckbeard at the NSA jerking off to the private pictures your girlfriend sent you, then that is your business.
Re:Doing what is right... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's no laughing matter, but it's not treason. Treason is defined in the Constitution and this ain't it.
It's worth noting that 'treason' is one of the very few(possibly only, I can't remember if there are any others) offenses specifically defined in the constitution, rather than being left to "eh, congress will write some laws when they get together, and the several states already have things in place to keep murder and cannibalism to a minimum". And that's because the framers knew how... versatile... 'treason' can be if you allow it to be defined by whatever butthurt government is vexed with somebody at the moment.
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:5, Interesting)
At the very least, sign the Whitehouse Petition, if only for the entertainment value of forcing Obama to respond.
Pardon Snowden [whitehouse.gov]
Re:It really annoys the hell out of me... (Score:5, Interesting)
$200k? Dayum!
But yeah it's scary that they put this guy in IT security at the NSA of all places. Most people with such qualifications would have a hard time doing better than pumping gas, secretary positions require more training with computers.
On the other hand none of the PhDs at the NSA had the moral fortitude to leak this stuff.
Can of worms opened... (Score:5, Interesting)
On one side Snowden, who knows the repercussions of what he did, but chose this path. Bravo. He did not go the Wikileaks route, very impressive.
On the other side whoever who were "appalled" US government is snooping indiscriminately - the list starts with Ron Paul. Lets see if Ron Paul will take a stand and publicly defend Snowden.
Then we have POTUS - who probably would have personally supported Snowden if he were not the POTUS. The more POTUS and his administration squeaks about "grave danger to US" and other nonsense and proceeds to harm Snowden, the more out of touch, elitist and a tool he will look.
Excellent drama. I sincerely hope Snowden can go home to a heroes reception.
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:5, Interesting)
Acting without a common definition is anarchy
So just like the NSA and US government acted when they illegally gave themselves the power to spy on its citizens.
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The right and wrong way to go about these thing (Score:2, Interesting)
Speaking as someone who has seen systemic corruption first hand, reporting it via official channels is useless 90% of the time and will just get you outed as a troublemaker. For me it was absolute proof that someone was fired in violation of the Family Medical Leave Act, and the company actively took measures to hide that fact. For the specific case, a woman was found to have breast cancer and the company took very specific steps to ensure that she would be fired and they wouldn't have to deal with it or pay for it. I suspected that there was some pressure from their insurance company as well, since they'd be allowed to drop her after she got fired. They set her file up in a clever way, without needing her to sign anything, to show that she had 'ongoing problems relating to work performance and absenteeism.' She was one of the hardest workers there and never missed a day. Her time clock in the past was redone to make it look like she was absent once or twice a month. She received a warning at one time about not showing up for work and not calling in, but this was due to being evacuated over a chemical spill in her area, and not having access to a phone...they appended it to say that the reason was bunk, but this appending was removed.
So a week after she went on leave under the FMLA, she was officially terminated for not showing up for work for a week without calling in. They simply threw away her paperwork and were done with it. I took the findings and reported them via official channels. Nothing happened. I took the findings and reported them to an agency that was supposed to investigate these things. Nothing happened. Finally I took the findings and reported them to the person that they happened to. What happened next was a settlement of undisclosed value from the company to her. The undisclosed value was enough to hit a company of that size pretty hard.
Were there any changes in the company? No. Not a single one. If a woman that worked there got breast cancer next week, you can bet your ass they'd still end up fired for a no call no show. Would I ever have worked in that industry again had they figured out who I was? No. Would I ever have a job again if they figured out who I was? No. Would I likely go to jail for 'hacking' when seeing those things was part of my everyday job? Yep.
This is the country...no...the world that we live in. Get used to it folks. People primarily want three things: Food, shelter, and socialization. Guess what can ensure all three? Money and power. That's what people seek. No one is going to know about the evil things you did to get them when you're retired somewhere nice and warm and have a million dollars in the bank. Even if half the civilized world cares, there's still plenty of fish in that other half.
Want my advice? Well, I don't really care if you want it or not, here it comes. You can just as easily have food, shelter, and socialization, by living a decent life as a decent human being. The difference is that if you're filthy rich, you can have it all on your own terms. You can decide exactly what food to eat, exactly what shelter to hide under, and exactly who you mingle with. It isn't nearly as grand a choice as it seems at first glance.
Here in America, being a lower-middle class citizen, I think I'm pretty damn rich. I've got two cars in good condition, a house, a bank account, and food on the table. I can go to Walmart right now and pick from a whole bunch of different foods to eat, clothes to wear, books to read, and leisurely activities to pursue. This is the grandest life that the average person has known at any time throughout all of history. You think we have it bad? Imagine being in the middle ages. Your pantry is nearly dry. You'll be lucky to have stale bread to eat this week, you'll be even luckier if you get to eat meat this year. Imagine 100 years ago. You've never had a cold drink in the summer before. Electric power is something for big cities and rich people. Half your friends just died from the Spanish Flu, and all that can be done is for a nurse to check on you and ask you if you're still alive.
Re:It wont do much, but at least register interest (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be interested to see, built into the Constitution, a nuclear option:
Every time there is a federal election (i.e. every two years), there is a little tick box for "vote of no confidence". If over 50% of people (or a majority of people in over 50% of states, or however you want to define "majority" -- or perhaps a supermajority) tick it, then there is another election after a three month campaign, for all Senate seats, House seats, and the Presidency. All current members of Congress, the President, the Vice President, and senior Cabinet members are ineligible to run. Until they're sworn in, any act of the lame-duck Congress requires a supermajority (so they can't break things out of spite on the way out), and can be vetoed by a majority of state governors. (The point is to impose paralysis for all but urgent matters until the new government gets there.)
Re:Doing what is right... (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed.
I saw a report on RT last night where an interviewee stated that there were on the order of 90,000,000 documents defined as classified in some way or another in 2011 alone. ($DIETY I hope I remembered that wrong because that number is astounding.) There's can't possibly be that much information generated in that year that needed that kind of protection. Unless, of course, the Govt. is employing some sort of needle-in-a-haystack, Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-warehouse-style classification where you classify pretty much everything to make it more difficult to determine just what is the ``secret'' wheat amongst all that chaff. At some point, though,nobody's allowed to talk about anything that the govt. does because it's all classified.
Traitors and Spies! (Score:4, Interesting)
Saw a comment on Boing Boing, that I liked:
There have been no whistle blowers since 2000, only traitors and spies...
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:3, Interesting)
Blind loyalty. (Score:4, Interesting)
Given tendencies over the last 5+ years I predict nothing will happen. Few will bat an eye if Snowden gets extradited, tried and convicted.
Every time some scandal has surfaced it's followed the same pattern:
1) It's dismissed as fabrication until evidence surfaces. The day I heard of this spy program the reports were all pointing out that everyone was denying this program existed.
2) The story is trivialized, the talking heads can't understand why the story persists and dismiss it as opponents trying to vilify the president. I've heard this repeated time again on CNN and elsewhere.
3) Dredge up some action from the prior administration to establish moral equivalency. There's a lot to blame Bush for, and he helped enable a lot of the problems we're seeing now, but a lot of stuff unfolding doesn't come close to being on the same level. If it had been we would probably had seen riots in the streets.
4) Dismiss it as one of those things that just happens or attribute blame to the prior administration. This, again, another attempt to marginalize the situation as overblown. I've noticed as tendency to see every little bit of news as evidence the story is a fabrication even when the pieces clearly don't add up. If Bush had been president these same people would have latched onto these stories with all fervor and demanded his hanging.
That's the fundamental problem here; how blindly loyal people are to Obama. The most telling aspect is that people were taking to the streets in protest during Bush's rule over less and now they're conspicuously silent. It goes to show that all that was more about ideology than any real principle. The problem isn't that people were complaining then, it's that they're not doing so now. Without question Bush had his own flock of sheep, but conservatives were generally a lot more critical towards him than I'm seeing with liberals and Obama today. The Tea Party, before being co-opted by Republicans and turned into a joke, came to rise during the Bush administration. And that's when they aren't also making a joke of the Green or Libertarian party.
For a wide variety of reasons Republicans have been in turmoil because conservatives don't feel they're being properly represented. One of the big reason being that they don't like being forced to tick off every conservative box. I've yet to see a similar response to Democrats, they certainly seem unified to a fault. When, for example, a liberal site lavishes praise on someone like Barney Frank, corrupt and having had a hand in the real estate bubble, you've really got to question the legitimacy principles. If you can't identify the problems in your own party and find good ideas in others, there are some real problems.
I will acknowledge that the response on Slashdot has been far more balanced than I've seen elsewhere. I'm actually impressed because it's a far better environment for discussion than it was back in 2008.
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:5, Interesting)
How could it reach the Supreme Court when no-one knew about it ... until he blew the whistle on the NSA no-one was able to ask the Supreme Court to investigate if it was unconstitutional because it was Top Secret and they were not allowed to know ...
Here's a thought (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a necessary trade off between intelligence gathering for the purpose of law enforcement and national security and citizens' right to privacy. Public sentiment at this point may be that the NSA has overstepped an ethical boundary and possibly Constitutional principles. What concerns me is the motivation that drove them to do so and what we can do in the future to keep them (and other agencies) clear of these boundaries.
Giving our government the power to peer into our private lives in return for security is one thing. But I don't recall a Constitutional clause permitting Booz Allen Hamilton to do so. I fact, I suspect that a lot of the NSA/FBI/CIA motivation for these huge data collection projects is the lobbying being done by contractors getting a piece of the action. Given a law restricting access to citizens' personal data only to civil servants and elected officials, I suspect that these agencies will reign in their data collection efforts to those absolutely necessary for their charters.
I don't have a problem with the NSA hiring contractors to put up a data center. But lets restrict its operation to direct employees alone and I'll bet they will be a lot more careful with their espionage dollars. Such a law will also go a long way toward putting a stop to another issue I haven't seen too much discussion on. That is; private contractors utilizing their access privileges to sensitive data for their own benefit. Having worked inside the 'military-industrial complex' for a few decades, I have seen numerous instances in which access to foreign intelligence product was used for purely economic advantage by private contractors. Inevitably, giving private contractors access to citizens' personal data will be leveraged for profit. Its one thing if a Google or Microsoft does this within the boundaries of the law. But given the trust we give to government agencies, having their data go right out their back door is just wrong.
Re:I expect they are worried (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm more interested in the other 37 slides that he gave to reporters, but didn't get published. It seems they spoke with the Whitehouse before writing the report, and agreed to only publish 4 of the slides. What's on the other 37 that's so damning? And what happened to open journalism? With this state-controlled/influenced news situation we now have, how would you release information like this without it just getting censored anyway?
Re:Someone start a defense fund (Score:2, Interesting)
^ THIS! ^ People need to get it through their thick heads that there is no left-right paradigm any longer, and has not been for quite a long time. They may call themselves Democrat or Republican but they are on the same team. That team does not play for the Citizens of the USA any longer.
Media keeps telling you about the left-right though, and doing anything they can to keep people away from the truth in how bad shit really is. CNN disgusted me this morning (in a waiting room, I had to watch). They had "experts" telling us how Snowden committed treason, but no counter opinion. A good number of people still believe everything that main stream media is fact, and not brainwashing garbage. Curious to see if this and Manning starts to wake more people up.