Snowden Is A Whistleblower, Not A Spy

[DesMoinesDem]

The Guardian: Snowden Is A Whistleblower, Not A Spy

The Guardian, the British newspaper that's published the scoops on the National Security Agency's expansive surveillance programs, ran an editorial Tuesday that served as a spirited defense of leaker Edward Snowden.

Snowden, the 30-year-old former defense contractor who leaked details on the surveillance programs, is facing espionage charges from the United States. But those charges are "innappropriate," the Guardian's editorial asserted.

This is emphatically not a cold war style national security case; it is a 21st century case about the appropriate balance between the power of the secret state and the rights of free citizens in the internet era. To charge Mr Snowden under America's first world war Espionage Act is inappropriate. We live in a different world from that. America is not at war in the traditional sense. Mr Snowden is not a spy. Nor is he a foreign agent. He is a whistleblower. He has published government information. And it is as a whistleblower that he will eventually have to answer to the law.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/guardian-snowden-is-whistleblower-not-spy

Posted without any spin.

[liberal N proud]

1. Bullshit - he gave sensitive information to foreign entities

He is a traitor!

Killing the criminal just makes you a criminal.

[FirstLight]

2. please

did you forget the ...?


Traitor?
I think the secret courts are treasonous to the Constitution...

[liberal N proud]

3. No sarcasm - he committed treason by reason of the Constitution

Under Article III, Section 3, of the Constitution, any person who levies war against the United States or adheres to its enemies by giving them Aid and Comfort has committed treason within the meaning of the Constitution. The term aid and comfort refers to any act that manifests a betrayal of allegiance to the United States, such as furnishing enemies with arms, troops, transportation, shelter, or classified information. If a subversive act has any tendency to weaken the power of the United States to attack or resist its enemies, aid and comfort has been given.

The Treason Clause applies only to disloyal acts committed during times of war. Acts of dis-loyalty during peacetime are not considered treasonous under the Constitution. Nor do acts of Espionage committed on behalf of an ally constitute treason. For example, julius and ethel rosenberg were convicted of espionage, in 1951, for helping the Soviet Union steal atomic secrets from the United States during World War II. The Rosenbergs were not tried for treason because the United States and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II.

Under Article III a person can levy war against the United States without the use of arms, weapons, or military equipment. Persons who play only a peripheral role in a conspiracy to levy war are still considered traitors under the Constitution if an armed rebellion against the United States results. After the U.S. Civil War, for example, all Confederate soldiers were vulnerable to charges of treason, regardless of their role in the secession or insurrection of the Southern states. No treason charges were filed against these soldiers, however, because President Andrew Johnson issued a universal Amnesty.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/treason

Again, you are making a hero out of someone for all the wrong reasons. The acts which you are applauding him for should have been handled differently and not by fleeing to a communist country followed by a visit to another with a planned visit to a third.