“National Security Advisor Susan Rice said on 60 Minutes Sunday, “We believe he should come back, he should be sent back, and he should have his day in court.””
how about she goes to russia to ask him to come and help us out of this debacle. at least she’d be getting paid for it.
If the NSA believes its activities are legal, why doesn’t it open them to public investigation?
Gee, I wonder why he might not be anxious to do so?
They are recalcitrant, because statements like these from former high officials do bolster the case for granting Snowden permanent asylum (somewhere else). They’re not just idle chatter. They are real threats, to be taken seriously. The loudmouths know that Snowden has them over a barrel. The only thing they can do, now, is howl in protest like children, “I wish you were DEAD! I hate you I hate you I hate you!” It’s sad how lame our country is. A bunch of dumbfucks.
Legal and public are different issues. A police undercover operation may be legal but publicizing it would kill it dead (if not kill the plainclothesmen).
Open to investigation by representatives of the public, I’ll definitely support. Open to the degree of publishing it all… I’m much less convinced. There should be room for a reasonable compromise here… if anyone on either side is willing to let that happen.
The problem is there should be no compromise on the Constitution, and the only way for officials to have a prayer they will ever be able to forge such a “compromise” is to keep it all secret. That’s because divulging anything, even the tiniest details, reveals how illegal their entire way of life is.
The problem is the government, which would be both the judge and prosecutors in this case, so there is, by all appearances, no chance at Snowden getting a fair and proper trial. Until fairness is established a question of what would and wouldn’t be admittable is a moot point.
actually those statements by “high” officials are unintentional cries for help/admissions of guilt/indictable statements for evidence to motive and our national historical record.
“The loudmouths know that Snowden has them over a barrel.”
pretty sure he did leave town.
Good luck getting consensus on what the Constitutution means; we’ve been fighting that battle since the beginning. Compromise or a majority opinion is the best you’re likely to get in anything less than 50 years of work., and I think I’m being overoptimistic given how long it has taken some “obvious” items to be accepted in the past 50 years.
At this point I’m expecting them to try a seance to summon the ghost of Joesph McCarthy to accuse him of being a communist because he fled to Russia.
Like magic!
Asking Snowden to return for trial is just another diversion. We have way more important trials to conclude. These other trials are critical to the future of the US:
- The power and freedom of action of the NSA must be dependent on it's trustworthiness. If the NSA is not trustworthy, then it MUST NOT be given tremendous power and freedom of action. The NSA has demonstrated that it can't be trusted. The NSA itself must be tried. It betrayal must be plumbed. It's trustworthiness must be determined. This must happen before we can safely allow it to wield great power. This trial is of far greater importance than the actions of a minor cog. The NSA wields almost unlimited power to influence, corrupt, alter, and destroy any information on the planet. In our age, this power is almost beyond limit. We must ensure that this power is either dismantled or properly harnessed by trusted restraints.
- James Clapper and Keith Alexander have reneged on their oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States. They have systematically suppressed the interests of the people of the United States in favor of the interests of the NSA. Given their position and level of trust, their trials are much more important that the trial of a minor NSA contractor.
- Every senior NSA official who condoned the [Bullrun][1] program has also demonstrated their willingness to suppress the interests of the people of the United States in order to advance their own interests. They all need to be investigated. If sufficient evidence is gathered, they need to be tried. The betrayal of high level officials of the NSA is surely more important than punishing the naivety of a lowly clerk.
Once we have concluded these vastly more important trials, then we can allow our attention to be diverted to the relatively unimportant (to the United States) fate of Snowden.
If Rice, Morrell and Rogers think NSA dragnet wiretapping is constitutional, then they should tight-rope walk between the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.
That makes just as much sense.
Let’s have Clapper and Alexander have their fair trials first.
Returned for “Trial”?
Man that takes me back.
Way to trigger the nostalgia.
Trials… oh how young and silly we were when we thought fair and open trials with a right to confront the accuser were somehow part of the founding principles of the country.
Next we’ll have a laugh over “habeas corpus” and other silly made-up magic words from ancient history.
Looking at the headline, I thought this was a Doctorow post. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how reasonable and well supported the actual post was, and only then realised it was a guest post. Seriously, I find these kinds of posts are much more compelling than highly partisan posts full of charged words and wild accusations and/or name calling.
Where do they say that dragnet wiretapping is constitutional?
The bulk NSA data collection is of metadata, not the actual content of telephone calls.
Just wanted to register my outrage here as requested by the author.
I don’t care if it’s metadata or not. It’s any data they don’t need. They do not need to be tracking me. They do not need to be tracking you. They do not need to track Sam I Am, and they don’t need to question his choice of food. They need to stop this.
True, consensus is a unicorn. But these NSA things of late are bright line issues: we have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and they have long since stepped over that line of reasonableness and are trying their damndest to hide it from us.
