Judge Rules Edward Snowden Can't Profit From His Book (gizmodo.com) 104
A federal judge in Virginia ruled Tuesday that whistleblower Edward Snowden will not be allowed to profit from sales of his memoir Permanent Record. The reason? He didn't receive approval from the CIA and NSA. Gizmodo reports: Permanent Record, which was released in September, tells the story of Snowden's decision to become a whistleblower and expose the ways that the U.S. government was spying on Americans in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Snowden fled the U.S. in 2013 after several new stories were written based on documents he leaked and now lives in Moscow, Russia.
Snowden didn't seek approval from the national security agencies where he had signed secrecy agreements before publication, and while the government didn't move to stop the book from being published, it does want any money he makes from the endeavor. Snowden's U.S.-based publishers, MacMillan and Holtzbrinck, are also named in the lawsuit. "Snowden's publication of Permanent Record without prior submission for prepublication review breached the CIA and NSA Secrecy agreement and the attendant fiduciary duties set forth in those agreements," federal judge Liam O'Grady wrote in his 14-page decision. "According to government filings, Snowden signed three Secrecy Agreements with the CIA in November of 2005, August of 2006, and April of 2009. He also signed three NSA Secrecy Agreements in July of 2005, May of 2009, and March of 2013. All of those agreements were unambiguous, according to the judge, and required Snowden to get a prepublication review before the book came out. "During each of [Snowden's public talks via video link at a TED conference and various universities], Snowden caused to be displayed and discussed, among other things, at least one slide which was marked classified at the Top Secret level, and other intelligence-related activities of the CIA and NSA," the judge wrote. "He never submitted any materials or slides to the CIA or NSA for prepublication review, and never received written authority to make his public remarks or publish his slides."
It's unclear if Snowden will appeal the ruling.
Snowden didn't seek approval from the national security agencies where he had signed secrecy agreements before publication, and while the government didn't move to stop the book from being published, it does want any money he makes from the endeavor. Snowden's U.S.-based publishers, MacMillan and Holtzbrinck, are also named in the lawsuit. "Snowden's publication of Permanent Record without prior submission for prepublication review breached the CIA and NSA Secrecy agreement and the attendant fiduciary duties set forth in those agreements," federal judge Liam O'Grady wrote in his 14-page decision. "According to government filings, Snowden signed three Secrecy Agreements with the CIA in November of 2005, August of 2006, and April of 2009. He also signed three NSA Secrecy Agreements in July of 2005, May of 2009, and March of 2013. All of those agreements were unambiguous, according to the judge, and required Snowden to get a prepublication review before the book came out. "During each of [Snowden's public talks via video link at a TED conference and various universities], Snowden caused to be displayed and discussed, among other things, at least one slide which was marked classified at the Top Secret level, and other intelligence-related activities of the CIA and NSA," the judge wrote. "He never submitted any materials or slides to the CIA or NSA for prepublication review, and never received written authority to make his public remarks or publish his slides."
It's unclear if Snowden will appeal the ruling.
He could always have it (Score:5, Insightful)
published outside the country, and people could download it from some .ru site.
Re: He could always have it (Score:2)
It's only in the US that rule is truly applicable.
Publish in China and it would be a new headache for the diplomats.
But he don't have much to lose these days, and when someone only have little to lose they are really dangerous.
But the US should worry more about the government and terrorists on home soil than what Snowden can do these days.
Re: (Score:2)
sell the rights to a publisher, have the publisher profit from it and have a real headache for the court systems. do they want to upheld their copyright system or not - how about can the newspapers profit from their insider info? they can and will and that has been upheld by courts.
though I think the real aim is to just block publication of it, not him profiting from it as such.
also .. did clinton etc who have memoirs written up seek permissions from all the agencies? just having those agreements is usual
Re: (Score:3)
Snowden violated his contract with the government by not getting pre-approval. Newspapers who use information they get, even from unauthorized sources such as Snowden, have no such contract.
Re: (Score:2)
Snowden violated his contract with the government by not getting pre-approval. Newspapers who use information they get, even from unauthorized sources such as Snowden, have no such contract.
Well, I meant that he could just use the same loophole you know and the money would go or not go to him later as a donation. Or the us publisher would pay license fees to a russian entity that is the publisher. all the profits after that would be given to usa government (not much, basically accounting trickery about what is profit).
But like, in essence, how is a publisher different from a newspaper who pays their sources as they often do?
Re: (Score:2)
What you're describing is exactly whats happening. Snowden isn't self-publishing, he's going through a publishing house. The publisher is free to profit from the book all it wants (because they didn't sign an agreement with the CIA), but the fraction of the profit that would go to Snowden (the royalties) will go the CIA instead. Nothing about it is a headache for the court, they basically just tell the publisher to put a different name on the checks because Snowden violated his contract with the CIA. Obviou
Re: (Score:2)
Snowden is not the last (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: Snowden is not the last (Score:1, Interesting)
The only thing we are learning about the "deep state" is that it consists of highly intelligent, highly talented patriotic Americans.
And you are a Russian tool.
Re: Snowden is not the last (Score:2)
If they really are intelligent then they should change their operative style to something different to render any knowledge that Snowden has toothless.
Re: Snowden is not the last (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask anyone outside of the tech-sphere "who is Edward Snowden?" They will either call him a traitor or not know him at all.
Re:Snowden is not the last (Score:5, Informative)
He is a real wistleblower (even if he did it wrong and illegally.)
By his account, which has not been credibly refuted, he attempted to use the "right" and "legal" channels as a whistle-blower and was brushed off. He only went rogue when it was apparent he either had to or just give up on it.
It was obvious that he would have gotten nowhere near the consideration that the whistleblower on Trump's case was getting. They would have pretty much disappeared him soviet style because he was too inconvenient.
And that is still likely what would happen to him if he just hopped a jet over and turned himself in without a prior agreement for a fair trial.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
He's a traitor because he couldn't just stop there. He also had to dump thousands of highly classified documents unrelated to any whistleblowing to the public, harming international relations, and intelligence gathering operations around the world. That was his act of Treason. The meta-data program needed to be released, had he stopped there your argumen
Re:Snowden is not the last (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Snowdon made a point of not releasing information that would harm people. As for international relations, the only people that didn't know the US was spying on everyone are mugs like yourself.
Sure the revelations might have been used for political/diplomatic point scoring, but it hasn't stopped the US from continuing today to do exactly what Snowdon said they were doing.
Unlike Assange who just released everything because he is an egoist and loved the attention regardless of the fallout, Snowdon did actually do a public service.
Re: (Score:2)
You really should read how treason is defined in the constitution.
Re: (Score:2)
He's a traitor because he couldn't just stop there. He also had to dump thousands of highly classified documents unrelated to any whistleblowing to the public, harming international relations, and intelligence gathering operations around the world. That was his act of Treason.
He is not a traitor and did not commit treason. You are confusing Edward Snowden with Chelsea Manning, who did just mass dump data without a filter. Edward Snowden gave his material to a reporter, who was quite careful in what was published.
Use your right words. (Score:2)
The reason he is not considered a Whistle-blower isn't because he went outside the approved channels with his revelations about the Meta-data collection.
Please sit down. I've something to tell you, and it will make you sad. The reason he is not considered a whistle-blower under the relevant statutes is because he was not an employee of the US government, but instead working for a contractor to the US government. The relevant whistle-blower statues would not have applied to him.
he is a spy and a traitor and hopefully we can get him back and prosecute him properly some day.
Ah, like we prosecuted the infamous traitor Thomas Drake [wikipedia.org]?
He's a traitor because he couldn't just stop there.
Are you still sitting down? Good. No, he's not "a spy and a traitor" because he released classified info not related to
I bet he's not too surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
It's relatively difficult to believe Snowden would care about the money at this point... he's given up his whole known life for his principles already.
Predicting the US government response to this publication didn't take careful consideration by a room full of Rhodes' scholars, either.
Re: I bet he's not too surprised (Score:1)
Yeah, Putin would have happily taken every cent if the US government didn't.
Re: I bet he's not too surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Not worth it. The value Russia gets from just giving Snowden safe harbour is worth morevthan a few royalty dollars. I regret that none of the money I spent on a copy of his book is getting to Edward, though.
theft (Score:5, Interesting)
this is 'pants on head' wrong and stupid.
america, do you really want to go this direction? the whole world is watching? DO YOU EVEN CARE?
I tought the R's (who still control the government) were all about Capitalism(tm). so, its only good for them, but not for others?
snowden should publish with a non-US company. thing is, the US has its dirty arm everywhere, it seems.
we need revolution. we've gone so far astray from the founding fathers' principles, that we need a v2.0 style 'do-over'. our system is broken beyond repair, at this point, if this is how we are going to act.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: theft (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: theft (Score:2)
Re: theft (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: theft (Score:1)
You know the pretext for Manning's situation was that he "leaked" evidence of American war crimes during operations in the middle east right? The war crimes were considered to be amongst classified information therefore he was in violation of US military policy (amongst other information).
There is also such thing as retroactive classification. One can be punished for public dispersal of unclassified information when, after the fac
Re: (Score:1)
Thats why a gov/mil crime cannot be classified.
The other part is a duty to report a gov/mil crime on detection.
Found later saying "classified" does not offer a way around that duty to report.
But the gov/mil do keep trying to use that "classified" to keep their workers from reporting.
ie the
"the duty of all persons in service of the United Sta
Re: theft (Score:1)
Especially when the government now contracts third party paramilitary groups that allow the military to have a sense of "plausible deniability" if such "crimes" are committed. This goes as far back as Black Water.
Reporting a higher crime does not guarantee you anything. After the NSA reveals of snowden congress had meetings to assess the legality of NSA programs. They found them to be illegal/cri
Re: theft (Score:1)
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/0... [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Manning was obviously tortured to the point of disassociative psychosis.
[Citation Required]
Re: theft (Score:1)
Re: theft (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
He ended up in Russia because of his stupidity. His brilliant idea was to flee the US to a country with an extradition treaty with the US.
Re: (Score:2)
A whistleblower working with classified materials can never "Do it the right way".
Sure they can. If you'd like an example, there's this thing about Trump and Ukraine.....
Re: (Score:2)
... and if the democrats did not hate Trump quite so much, you can bet that the whistleblower would have been outted and retaliated faster than I could type this sentence.
See, for instance, the case of Thomas Drake, or even how the various IGs have reported on whistleblower handling [politico.com] recently.
The trump whistleblower is the exception. (The ICIG report on the trump whistleblower's complaint [cnn.com]). The complaint was very much informed by previous whistleblower protection failures. Note that the whistleblower ha
Re: (Score:2)
... and if the democrats did not hate Trump quite so much, you can bet that the whistleblower would have been outted and retaliated faster than I could type this sentence.
That sounds a lot more menacing when you forget the Republicans have already outed him by repeatedly saying his name in hearings.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
we need revolution.
Good luck with that. Most people don't care. Those that do, don't agree on the direction. For every kook that wants to kill to reinstate the 10th Amendment, there is another kook that wants to fight for the Green New Deal.
I have Netflix and pizza, so I'll skip the revolution.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:3)
On any of the political forums where I've posted similar speculation I'm immediately slammed as a paid Russian troll, and it got me temporarily banned at one. Occam's razor really does suggest that the Democratic "leadership" don't actually **want** the presidency or the Congressional majority. In 2016 Clinton ran the worst campaign that I have seen in the 45 years that I've been watching politics, spending a frelling **BILLION DOLLARS** in order to lose to a senile orangutan that made Richard Nixon look
Re: (Score:2)
How do you even DO that?
Hillary Clinton is an utterly awful politician surrounded by yes-people, so she never is told "you suck at this". Instead, she hears "you are so amazing". For example, she interrupted the shitstorm over the "Iran letter" to respond to the email server thing....and every single statement in her press conference about that server turned out to be a lie. Which lead to months and months of exposing those lies one by one, reinforcing the belief that she had done something wrong with the server.
She populated h
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
No, we couldn't care less that "the world is watching". The world has made it clear on many occasions, with the ugliest possible language, that they despise us. Why would we ever care about their respect? Respect is a two-way street, you gotta give it to get it.
Oh, and that part about the founding fathers principles is a crock. You made it quite clear you despise the Founders, so it's disingenuous to speak for them. It's the same as you trying to appeal to the sensibilities of Muslims because they're toler
Re: (Score:2)
we need revolution. we've gone so far astray from the founding fathers' principles, that we need a v2.0 style 'do-over'. our system is broken beyond repair, at this point, if this is how we are going to act.
1.0 was Separation of Church and State.
2.0 will be a consequence of Separation of Markets and state.
Religions, Markets, and Governments are the three means of social control. Whenever they're not in competition, everything goes to hell.
Crypto only ever gets better, not worse. Without control of a printi
Re: (Score:1)
I tought the R's (who still control the government) were all about Capitalism(tm). so, its only good for them, but not for others?
This started before the "R's" came into power. It's bi-partisan nonsense, so let's be fair.
Re: (Score:2)
I tought the R's (who still control the government) were all about Capitalism(tm). so, its only good for them, but not for others?
Remember when Republicans were for both capitalism and limiting government power?
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden is every bit a hero and our treatment of him shows exactly why we have so few of them. Maybe someday we'll come to our senses or we'll get a a President who's willing to not only pardon but also recognize Snowden as the kind of American that we should all aspire to be.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not surprising. Generally the courts haven't allowed criminals to profit from selling their story .
With obvious exceptions, e.g. Nixon, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A... [amazon.com]
Re:coward. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll give you that winding up in Russia is ironic, but to be fair, there aren't too many places he could've fled that would've been outside the reach of the US.
You're twisting the words a bit suggesting he couldn't bear to live in the US, so much as his residence here was about to be Club Fed. Is that freedom in Russia better than prison in America? Hell, Snowden probably has some interesting shower thoughts.
Re:coward. (Score:4, Insightful)
so much as his residence here was about to be Club Fed
I think you're a bit optimistic, far more likely he would have been sent to a SuperMax where he could have been conveniently "suicided".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: coward. (Score:2)
He would rather be here in the US but he upset too many of the more malevolent government employees. It's ironic that he had to go to Russia to insure his personal freedom.
Re:coward. (Score:5, Informative)
*Checks notes...* ... Russia.
Your notes are pretty crappy. He didn't flee to Russia he was stranded in Russia.
And it turned out their system of due process in his case turned out to be more robust than that offered by the USA. I'll grant that it was politically expedient but in no way did Snowden ever intend to take up permanent residence there.
Re: coward. (Score:3)
"And it turned out their system of due process in his case turned out to be more robust than that offered by the USA."
How can you say that when a Russian citizen would be in the best case disappeared to a dark cell for doing this in Russia, similarly a Chinese citizen in China or Hong Kong.
He didn't even hang around in country long enough for charges to be filed did he? So what's your basis for that claim?
How can Snowden's situation be used to say ANYTHING about due process in America, Russia, or China. H
Re: (Score:2)
promptly be sent to jail, and be found dead within a few days
Fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
He's nowhere near important enough to kill. He already leaked his secrets.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's the thing: Everything Snowden leaked was and is legal.
The phone metadata program is legal under a 1979 SCOTUS decision that ruled no warrants are required for phone records. It's definitely a decision of it's era - landline phone metadata is not nearly as privacy-breaching as cell phone metadata. But that ruling is the current law of the land.
The vast majority of everything else Snowden leaked were capabilities. His fans have asserted those capabilities are being used on US persons, but the very f
Snowden should give the Feds a giant middle finger (Score:5, Insightful)
and publish his book as a torrent. If he can't profit from it, he can at least spread it far and wide, and humiliate fed.gov even more.
Re: Snowden should give the Feds a giant middle fi (Score:2)
That would be giving the middle finger to his publisher, not the government.
Re: Snowden should give the Feds a giant middle f (Score:1)
Have you bought your copy yet? Oh yeah, I forgot....
Re: (Score:2)
Do you really think it's not already available?
Re: (Score:1)
that's where I got the audio book from...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This.
To me, while he's at it - he should leak the vast majority of crap on the government .
Make them SQUIRM.
Our country does things we only think other countries do. It's time for it all to come to light and maybe, just maybe the people will hold the government accountable and make the congress critters actually represent the people for once. You know, government - by the people, for the people.
Never speak truth to power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Setup a chairty like "the clinton foundation" (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The Clinton Foundation, you say? [charitynavigator.org]
Well, he could do worse. [charitynavigator.org]
America the world's greatest democracy? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because jailing people for decisions you don't like is not a good thing. Especially when it's a very obvious black-and-white ruling about contract law.
If you don't want to go through government approval before publishing your book, don't sign 6 contracts that require government approval before publishing your book.
Snowden should have asked for permission (Score:3)
Then the Feds would need to put up or shut up. If they censored everything they would look ridiculous, and it could still be published overseas. And if not, then they have blessed it.
Correct Ruling (Score:2)
His whistleblowng is not relevant to this issue.
The law required him and every NSA person to get approval. He knew this going into the job.
So, it'll cost less, then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Asked if the elimination of Snowden's cut would allow for a cheaper sale price, industry spokesmen laughed and pointed out that authors hardly ever get anything, anyway.
Just spend any "profits" (Score:1)
Works for Apple, Amazon, Google, etc... Right?
You all are missing the point of the book.... (Score:2)
He doesn't care about the money.
This is his TESTIMONY... because you already know that any court case will not be open, given the current rules associated with trials for traitors, as the US has labeled him.
So we get his side of the story, which we'd never get in any court coverage.
Having purchased and read the book, it's not a comfortable read in parts, because now you (as a reader) get the most intimate thought processes about the hows and the why's of what he did. And honestly... it was a bit "voyeurist
Buy a European copy (Score:3)
I should be possible to buy a copy of the book - from a publisher in Europe that would hold the funds in escrow - and have it mailed over to the US. (That was done back when the Beats were getting hit with obscenity charges.)
Somewhat involved, yeah. But considering the effort Snowden made, seems pretty damned easy.
IN THE USA! (Score:2)
He can most certainly profit from it in the rest of the world.
I'd be highly surprised it he could not, in the EU, Russia, China, and most east-Asian, middle-eastern, South American or African countries.
Of courae it always depends on the amount of terrorism the "world police" bullies do in that country.
Re: (Score:2)
He can most certainly profit from it in the rest of the world.
No, he made the mistake of choosing a US-based publisher, so all profits would go through the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Dang can they sell the rights or something?
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the contract he signed with the publisher.
Can they still pretend that's classified? (Score:2)
And can they use classification to cover up criminal activity? They were waaaay off the rails, and misusing official secrecy as cover for spying on all of us. Can they really continue to pretend they have the authority to control this information?
Seems to me that there's room for appeal. Lo
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Does he really need the CIA/NSA to sign off on public information?
Yes. He signed 6 contracts saying he would let them review anything he published.
If he wanted to publish a dictionary, it would still have to be reviewed. Even though that would be 100% public, non-governmental information.
Also, leaking isn't declassification. The information is still considered classified by the government.
They were waaaay off the rails, and misusing official secrecy as cover for spying on all of us
Nope. Despite what Snowden's fans say, everything he leaked was legal.
The phone metadata program is legal due to a 1979 SCOTUS decision that phone records don't require a warrant. T
Set sail for the Pirate Bay! (Score:3)
... 'cuz there ain't no way I'm buying Snowden's book just to have the proceeds go to those big-brother-loving ratfucker shitheels at the NSA. And I will do so with a 100% crystal-clear and clean conscience; since that old saw about "supporting the artists" absolutely in no way whatsoever applies here.
Judges have this power? (Score:1)
judge shouldn't be allowed to profit from his job (Score:1)
meaning of whistleblower? (Score:2)
"...required Snowden to get a prepublication review before the book came out. "
he's a whistleblower, the point is that the stuff he's showing wasn't supposed to be shown and would never have been approved.
Re: (Score:2)
So what about publishing outside the US? (Score:1)