Is Edward Snowden A Traitor? - If He Is, So Was Daniel Ellsberg. - Slate

[WillyT]

Is Edward Snowden a Traitor?
If he is, so was Daniel Ellsberg.
By Emily Bazelon | Slate
Posted Tuesday, June 11, 2013, at 4:46 PM


Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, speaks during a rally in support of Pfc. Bradley Manning on June 1, 2013, in Fort Meade, Md.
Photo by Lexey Swall/Getty Images

<snip>

The condemnations are raining down upon Edward Snowden, master leaker of National Security Agency surveillance programs. They come from the expected sources: House Speaker John Boehner calls him a “traitor.” But they also come from people you might expect to be more sympathetic toward him. Legal experts Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago and Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker both believe he betrayed his country and should go to prison. So does New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Toobin writes that Snow “wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety.” Stone says, “There is no reason on earth why an individual government employee should have the authority, on his own say so, to override the judgment of the elected representatives of the American people and to decide for the nation that classified information should be disclosed to friends and enemies alike.”

Brooks: “He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed.” (Brooks also dings Snowden for being a lone wolf, which is hilariously at odds with his adulation of other solo radicals.)

A foundation of their argument is that Snowden is not a genuine whistle-blower. And it’s true that if you divulge classified information to expose the government and you don’t reveal a clear legal violation, you’re not, under current law, a whistle-blower. The federal Whistleblower Protection Act, passed in 1989, was written to shield government employees who reveal fraud and other wrongdoing. But it is riddled with exceptions. If you work for the NSA or the CIA, you’re out of luck—no protection for you. Snowden misses on both counts: He seems to have exposed no actual crimes, and he worked for the NSA. They may make movies about private-sector whistle-blowers such Erin Brockovich (fought toxic dumping) and Jeffrey Wigand (exposed tobacco company lies). But they prosecute government whistle-blowers such as Thomas Drake, who exposed waste and bureaucratic mess at the NSA, and of course Bradley Manning, on trial for the enormous WikiLeaks data dump.

The Obama administration is moving to charge Snowden with disclosing classified information, probably under the Espionage Act—the anti-sedition law from 1917 that has recently become the government’s favorite weapon. The government can count on this much: Once Snowden is charged with crimes that will surely carry a long prison sentence, it will be harder to see him as a hero. That has certainly been true for Manning.

I understand that some government secrets must stay secret...

<snip>

More: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/edward_snowden_and_daniel_ellsberg_is_the_nsa_leaker_a_traitor.html

[WillyT]

1. Kick !!!

[Catherina]

2. You've got to understand

(as seen on twitter)

Snowden made 2 donations to Ron Paul therefore the leaks are fake and no big deal. Nothing to see here, remember to vote Democrat.


On a more serious note. That revolting John Bolton is squawking that

Snowden 'Committed Act of War Against United States'

...

"Treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution and it talks about waging war against the United States -- which this is -- and giving aid and comfort to our enemies, and God knows they've gotten a lot of aid and comfort from this release," Bolton said in the interview with Newsmax TV.

"Let me ask, who died and made him king? Who gave him the authority to endanger 300 million Americans? That's not the way it works, and if he thinks he can get away with that, he's got another think coming."

...

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/bolton-snowden-nsa-leaks/2013/06/11/id/509318?s=al&promo_code=13CA9-1
"If he gets a jail sentence it ought to be about five life terms running consecutively."

[WillyT]

3. Thanks !!!

Bolton is repulsive.

[FarCenter]

4. Ellseberg got off on a technicality that had nothing to do with whether he was a traitor

[randome]

5. Ellsberg didn't dump the Pentagon Papers on the doorstep and then go into hiding.

Big difference, IMO.

Snowden said "I'm not going to hide." And now he's gone.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[bluestate10]

6. Ellsberg didn't align himself with and contribute money to a known racists and person who

would rips basic freedoms from millions of Americans if he gains the power to do so, even in "retirement". Snowden is a rightwing traitor, pure and simple.

[Tseko]

7. Guilt by association?