That's the ultimate get out of jail free card. Break the law but make sure you attach yourself to something that involves state secrets. As such a court will never touch you.

I wonder if there are "secret" courts - a parallel justice and penal system where such issues are tried and punished, similar to military courts (tribunals/court-martial). I'd say no because when you have this power to get away with breaking the law you have enough power to make sure you're never punished.

The US may have 3 branches of power but they're all attached and under the control of the same "state surveillance industry" trunk.

Secret courts are a thing. Supposedly, they’re just used for NSLs though.

That does sound strange to me, can't there be judges that are not politically strapped but bound to secrecy? I understand that in the US you need a jury of peers, but in the Netherlands we don't, so you could copy that system for such cases? Judges should be independent of the state anyway in a trias politica system [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

Being a whistleblower is not a crime. Whistleblowing is regulated by law. Government agencies have internal processes for people who want to blow the whistle on conduct they may deem illegal or unethical, and it is perfectly safe to do so. Edward Snowden did not go through the proper channels. If he had, doing so would not have led to his prosecution. He broke into computer systems he did not have the right to access, copied information, fled the United States, and illegally released the information he stole about government programs that were in no way illegal, or unconstitutional. Snowden broke the Espionage Act of 1917, and deserves due process.

> He broke into computer systems he did not have the right to access, copied information, fled the United States, and illegally released the information he stole about government programs that were in no way illegal or unconstitutional.

Ugh he didn’t break in, he had access. Also if you know anything about his case or related cases, you’d also know the proper channels don’t lead anywhere. There’s a great frontline documentary called “United States of secrets”

Even the oversight committees aren’t privy to the full details and arguably they are where the proper channels should lead. There’s heads of agencies lying to Congress and the Senate about what is happening. The judiciary can’t rule on constitutionality.... which is part of its job.

The reality is, whistleblowing the way Snowden did was the only way to put evidence in the public, such that the judiciary And public can make a decision.

I dispute that Edward Snowden actually made a formal whistleblowing complaint. He claims he went through the channels, but never specifically stated he actually made the type of complaint that goes to the IG or to the U.S. Congress. We see in 2019 the Executive Branch is going to great lengths to discredit a whistleblower, but it is indisputable that a complaint was made.

I have not heard any statement from Snowden claiming that the government was making false statements about this matter.

The government did publish an email [1] that Snowden sent to a training coordinator, disputing the ability of executive orders to supersede law. It is possible that the government did this as a distraction and it is not actually what Snowden is referring to. Nevertheless, Snowden never gets specific about his whistleblowing attempt, despite going into great details about other aspects of his story.

1. https://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/87218708448/edward-j-s...

> Ugh he didn’t break in, he had access

Snowden convinced colleagues to give him their passwords: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/snowden...

A Google query for "Snowden stole passwords" returns a lot of results.

I think you missed a lot of the phrasing:

> supposedly gained access

He was an IT administrator who had Sudo access to pretty much everything. I’d be careful of a lot of the stuff you read in 2013. There was and still is a concerted effort to discredit Snowden and make people feel he is a traitor.

Example: why did they cancel his passport after his plane left for Russia? (To say he’s a Russian spy)

There’s a lot of examples of this. Highly recommend some of the documentaries on the subject I and some recent discussion on the topic.

Snowden gained the vast majority of the electronic information from scraping web tools he had access to. Recall the "wget hacking tool" controversy, where he used the command line to retrieve internal websites. The removal of that information, and obviously the disclosure of it, was illegal.

The government didn't present a release claiming a substantial portion of the information was retrieved with that password list.

> Edward Snowden did not go through the proper channels. If he had, doing so would not have led to his prosecution.

I'm not sure why you're so trusting of the government that is openly admitting they are unwilling to release their secrets, and not only that but the court system is designed to protect this. From what I heard, he tried to go through the proper channels, and was rebuffed. So it's his word against the government, when we already have substantial evidence of the government lying about surveillance programs time and time again.

If you go through the proper whistleblowing channels and get nowhere, it simply means that whatever it is you tried to blow the whistle on, isn't illegal, unethical, or unconstitutional. You humbly recognize that you were wrong, and go back to work. You don't start betraying your country and flee in the arms of the enemy.

> You don't start betraying your country

I consider Edward Snowden the most patriotic American in my life time. The fact that you consider someone revealing the government not only lying under oath, but eroding our 4th Amendment rights to be a traitor is just mind boggling. Our nation was founded by rebels fighting for greater freedoms, after all. Edward Snowden is simply allowing the public to be more educated about the government in hopes they might enact change. He gave up his citizenship fighting for what he believed in, and it was the US government that villified him.

Whenever an organization is secretive, it is only for that organization to protect itself. I've never once encountered an exception to that rule (although I do believe some must exist).

I just don't understand why you assume the government is trustworthy, when there is extraordinary evidence of them deceiving the public time and time again. This same line of reasoning is what led to the 737-MAX disasters - whistle blowers were ignored and people literally died as a result. The only difference is you assign some sort of authority to the government that makes them infallible.

Or maybe... just maybe... The government knows it’s illegal and doesn’t care.

When Congress found out about what was happening, they didn’t shut it down; They reauthorized it. Why? They don’t care.

Comey lied to Congress about the NSA and got away with it. If you think the government cares about what’s legal and what’s not, you’re sorely mistaken.

And he didn’t “flee [into] the arms of the enemy.” A simple google search will yield tons of results that state his passport was canceled while he was in Russia on the way somewhere else. Some even include quotes from the US government (who love to lie) stating that it’s true.

Snowden, being a contractor, didn't have whistleblower protections. In spite of that, he did escalate the issues he saw (Clapper openly perjuring himself before Congress), and was rebuffed. Since he leaked it, the courts have since found that the NSA was in fact violating the Constitution.

I would say the facts openly disagree with your assertation that if the whistleblower protections aren't enough, then it means the government isn't doing anything wrong.

Your facts are just plain wrong here.

As of a couple years ago the NSA has openly admitted to Congress it is illegally collecting certain information about Americans it isn't supposed to. It openly admits it now because Snowden leaked this. Before the leak the NSA just lied about it to their oversight committee.

The people at the top should be in prison. They violated our rights, lied about it to congress, and got caught.

Or, you realize that it was unconstitutional but that the government doesn't care anymore. And so you do the thing patriots do and sacrifice your life to make the information known.

Snowden is a patriot and an American hero. The traitors are those who didn't speak up, and those in power who allow the violations of our constitutional rights to continue.

If it doesn't go anywhere, doesn't that imply that it is illegal and that there's a cover up going on? Why do you assume that the government can effectively self regulate?

The whole reason we have a separation of powers is because government doesn't effectively self regulate. In to case of the NSA, Congress effectively looked the other way and gave the NSA pre-approval through having the FISA courts essentially rubber stamp everything. So in this case, we didn't really have an effective separation of powers. The courts weren't working and Congress was willing to let them break the law.

That's exactly the case where you go public. You release a little bit of less sensitive information to show you have it, and continue to release information if the state refuses to discuss it. From everything I've read, Snowdon's intent was never to harm the US, but to correct illegal behavior.

Nice one Henry, but remember, no trolling on HN. Dang will blow your whistle if you do!

Pshh

Ah, the Espionage Act of 1917. One of the governments finest attacks on free speech. And it worked. The Supreme Court, in wanting to uphold a conviction against someone protesting a war they almost certainly agreed with, ruled it constitutional.

And do you really think the government will give him a fair trial? No. They almost certainly will give him a secret trial. How are those even constitutional?

And regarding the legality, we have a constitutionally protected right listed in the Fourth Amendment: the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The NSA’s indiscriminate spying is a search, no matter what Comey and the government say. If I steal documents off my employer’s computer and never read them, I’ve still committed a crime. Why is it different when the government does it? National security? What security am I receiving in exchange for them stealing data off my computer (and then saying they didn’t)?

>Why is it different when the government does it? National security?

"National security" is obvious doublespeak.

National security does not mean security for the general public, it means security for the incumbent power.

Indeed. Nationa Security is like what HR is to a company. It's there to defend the company's interests, not the employees and it will gladly throw one under the bus if they can legally get away with it.

> National security" is obvious doublespeak.

Just change one vowel and it becomes about right: nOtional security.

> programs that were in no way illegal, or unconstitutional

I noticed you didn't say unethical.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s wrong. The Fourth Amendment is a thing regardless of what the government does or says.

The government is responsible of applying the Constitution. If they don't apply it, then the Constitution doesn't really matter.

> Edward Snowden did not go through the proper channels

I will disagree. Releasing all the information to the public is the only proper channel.

> information he stole about government programs

Copying information is in no way similar to stealing.