> Manning, Assange and Snowden provided a public service to the American public by showing them what their government was doing.

And swathes of the US public seem to be cheering as they go down. Strange times.

Swathes of the US public seem to be cheering as their own country is going down. Strange times indeed.

If what you really want is a religious ethnostate, you're going to cheer the demise of a multicultural democracy.

which is why the progressive democrats have made removing these programs such a core tenet of their platforms?

this isn't partisan. perhaps skewed one way or another, but both parties seem to be quite happy with the state of domestic surveillance as a whole..

They don't see it as their country going down, they see it as "making it great again". As the other poster said here, what a very large fraction of the US really wants is a religious ethnostate, and they're very good at voting for that, so that's where we're headed.

That is why the US was created as a Constitutional Republic. To prevent the catastrophe of a pure democracy

Problem is the leaders of the country are profiting from the demise.

I see an "interesting" future for the next 20 years of the US

If you mean the fact that the US doesn't have proportional voting and a president can be elected on a minority of the popular vote, then I'm afraid those seem to be exactly what's causing the problem here. It magnifies the impact of the group that wants this theocratic ethnostate, and enabled the election of Donald, who would not have been elected otherwise.

>That is why the US was created as a Constitutional Republic. To prevent the catastrophe of a pure democracy

Why do people like you bring up this canard? Can you point to any pure democracies, anywhere, ever, aside from Ancient Greece? The US isn't special; every decent country (and many not-so-great ones too) now is a democratic republic of some kind, usually constitutional (UK is a notable exception here).

Because as you age you see how change is implemented. You watch the drift.

Example. In my youth police were called peace officers. Their main mission was to enforce the peace at the expense of bending the law.

Today law enforcement disrupts the peace to enforce the law. Society is not better off because of it.

Watching presidents change what they called the nation from Republic to Democracy has also been something that happened. A republic is a nation of laws where everyone has the same rules. A democracy is simply a majority vote and currently the constitution and the laws are being marginalized.

That is why folks bring up this "canard"

FYI calling something constitutionally guaranteed, a canard is exactly to what I refer

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

ARTICLE IV, SECTION 4

> A republic is a nation of laws where everyone has the same rules.

Not necessarily. A republic is simply a country without a monarch. China is a republic. Iran is a republic. Russia is a republic. Democracies that are not republics include places like Denmark, Netherland, Sweden and Spain.

The canard you're bringing up stems from a weird misunderstanding of what republics and democracies really are. Democracies have laws, the same rules for everyone, they have constitutions that (try to) guarantee equal rights. Democracies often have better "rule of law" than many republics, but ultimately, they believe that the authority stems from the people and that the government serves the people rather than the other way around.

Fortunately many republics are also democracies. France, Germany, and, as many people would really, really like to believe, the United States of America. The fact that so many Americans don't really care about democracy, undermine its legitimacy with misleading arguments, and support an electoral system that denies minority representation while letting the loser of the popular vote win the presidency, is really sad.

You do realize the ability of the representative to override the majority vote in a republic was by design as the founders (read Madison's Federalist No. 10) did not trust the general public to make good choices (democracy).

You can conflate the ideas all you want. Does not change the fact the US is a republic. Your example proved it.

if this was such a partisan issue, why did most of the backlash against wikileaks come long before the change of administration, and why didn't the previous administration hillary, etc, speak out loudly for assange, and terminate the programs, rather than continuing them or extending them?

this is not a partisan issue, it is a public awareness / power-elitism issue

Actually, I was just responding to the comment "Swathes of the US public seem to be cheering as their own country is going down" and its response about a religious ethnostate, I wasn't talking about the leakers specifically.

As an American, I disagree with the statements.

I'm halfway "parable of the talents" by Octavia E. Butler (I'm trying to read all the novels that won a Nebula Award). I can see it happening if US keep the current trajectory.

I don't know about cheering, but let's be honest here. Assange let himself be used by the Russians, either knowingly or naively, and he willingly jumped into a hyper partisan US election. Just like some people want to put Hillary Clinton in prison, some are going to want to see Assange punished. Snowden released a lot of information that was very valuable to the citizens of the US, and that's great, but he also went well beyond that and there is a legitimate argument to be made that such behavior should be punished. He's also currently accepting the hospitality of the Russian gov't, which just adds another reason to be skeptical of his neutrality. Manning is kind of the same thing, he went far beyond releasing a controversial video showing misconduct, so some punishment was just. And the commutation by Obama was just.

There are lots of people in the US that believe strongly in the rule of law.

Can you blame Snowden for accepting that "hospitality"?

You only get one life and I don't blame him at all for not wanting to spend the rest of his time on Earth rotting in an American prison. I don't think we can say anything about his true intentions just based on the fact that he chose one of the few (possibly the only?) alternatives presented to him.

Unless we think the information he provided is intended to be misleading, the ball's in our court now (and we are dropping it). Whether or not he chooses to martyr himself to the American "justice" system is irrelevant now.

> Can you blame Snowden for accepting that "hospitality"?

Anyone sitting on comfortable couch can!

I heard a conversation where Assange came out as a "drama queen" for not walking to the car that took him to prison. The event was discussed as if it were part of the Kardashians or something.

> Can you blame Snowden for accepting that "hospitality"?

If he does not want to stand on principle, then no, I cannot blame him for choosing what is likely his only opportunity for any amount of freedom.

Part of being a martyr, is, well, being a martyr. He knew the game when he released classified information, even if the ends may eventually justify the means (for some, not all of the information he divulged). I agree that he is essentially irrelevant at this point, he has said what he had to say, and done as much as he will ever be able to do.

But I cannot blame reasonable people for believing that it is important he stand trial for breaking the law, regardless of how damning the information released. There is an argument to be made that we don't want to make it okay for every individual person to make their own judgement call about what classified information should be kept secret and what should not.

> If he does not want to stand on principle, then no,

Well I can kinda understand the principle of not wishing to turn one's self over to be waterboarded or held in draconian isolation in a US prison. I live in Scotland, if I had worked for the UK government, discovered extra-judicial killings and exposed them then sure I'd run somewhere. But it's not home. I lived in another country for a few years, within western Europe within an hour's flight "from home" and just as a "normal mort" I got homesick. Snowden upended his life over his leaks and can't go home. Maybe it's my age, I'm in my early 50's but that's a pretty big thing.

> Part of being a martyr, is, well, being a martyr.

What, as in being double tapped in the back of the head?

We shouldn't need to be "martyrs" these days, we should be given the protection where if your government is committing acts of murder on innocent citizens in other countries (and in the US) then you should be protected. We don't live in the 50's to 80's any more. And also see above, Snowden is an exile, he will likely never be able to go home, that's plenty of martyrdom. And see above.

Parent commenter is ridiculous -- wishing ill will and martyrdome on a well-intentioned individual. There are so many fucking awful people in elite American society living envious lives and it strikes me as incredible someone would suggest such a thing about someone who sacrificed so much to expose what US courts themselves already ruled to be unconstitutional.

You misread. And then you call me awful. Are you having trouble seeing down from that high horse you're perched on?

> Can you blame Snowden for accepting that "hospitality"?

> [...] I cannot blame him for choosing what is likely his only opportunity for any amount of freedom.

It is my understanding he didn't "accept" Russia's hopitality as such, nor did he actively chose it. I thought the US Department of State cancelled his passport, effectively forcing him to stay put in Russia.

On a side note, there seems to be some confusion with regards to that: some sources state that his travel documents were revoked a day before he boarded the flight to Moscow, whereas Greenwald maintains the opposite (his passport was cancelled while en route to Moscow). The whole Hong Kong episode seems very foggy and confused in places and its likely it will be a good while before the whole truth comes out.

EDIT: some spelling. Its late here.

Correct. The US DoS canceled his passport while he was in Russia en route to South America. A reporter even ended up getting stuck on a flight for which Snowden had a reservation in a failed effort to get a scoop.

This is bullshit, nobody should have to go and rot in prison for releasing evidence of illegal and unconstitutional conduct by your own government against your people and standing by what you believe in.

History will show eventually that Snowden did the the right thing. The people will eventually come around because they know deep down that what he stood for was protecting their freedom. Perhaps not in a way that had boots on the ground against some foreign enemy, but against a government that was overreaching and spying on the lives of its own citizens against the peoples' constitutional rights.

It is your responsibility to hold your government accountable for their behaviour and he did that in the only possible way he could have - any other way would have seen his complaints shut down and he would have been silenced, by legal or illegal means. His only recourse was to obtain the information secretly and release the information to the public and let the U.S. population judge for themselves whether or not a government by the people, of the people and for the people was acting in the best interest of those to whom it is constitutionally bound.

You don't need to be a martyr to do what's right, you don't need to be a martyr to do what you believe in. The fact that he fled to preserve his freedom doesn't make what he did any less right, nor does it make him any less principled.

If I had to flee the country to preserve as much of my enjoyment of life as I could, while standing up for what I believe is right, I would do the same thing - and I think you'd probably find that a large proportion of other people would too.

If you were guaranteed to rot in a cell for standing up for what's right, would you still stand for what's right? Or would you fall in line and do what you were told?

Or would you find another way to stand up for what you believed was right?

By the authority of the US Court of Appeals, when they ruled the NSA's activities to be illegal.

> If he does not want to stand on principle, then no

What principle, exactly?

The principle of spending your life in jail if you dare oppose the US government? Where is the fun in that principle?

> Part of being a martyr, is, well, being a martyr.

They shouldn't have to martyr themselves to get the information out.

Snowden did that and didn't spend his life rotting for no reason, that's the better outcome.

> There is an argument to be made that we don't want to make it okay for every individual person to make their own judgement call about what classified information should be kept secret and what should not.

I would argue that we do want this to be okay, at least on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately this means that it's incredibly subjective as to whether an unauthorized release of classified information was justified or not.

We currently live in a world where unethical (and often illegal) activities continue, secretly and silently, likely because people who do have some shred of a conscience are too afraid of the consequences of stepping forward and speaking out. We tighten that status quo only to our detriment and the continued erosion of our civil rights.

Ideally, the courts exist to make judgement calls on this case-by-case basis. That does mean going on trial, though, which has consequences even if you are ultimately exonerated.

It's a tough call. I don't have a good answer.

That's a good point, and I guess I still can't blame Snowden for deciding he doesn't trust the courts to do what's IMO the right thing.

The courts don't need to interrogate journalists and leakers to investigate the claims in their leaks when their leaks have been published and analyzed by multiple news organizations.

> We currently live in a world where unethical (and often illegal) activities continue, secretly and silently,

Cought, ahem, but also overtly - Venezuela, Iran. Sure, not ideal world citizens, but at least Venezuela still has an independent privately owned press, though funded by some pretty unpleasant rich folks.

Iran - not a big fan but I kinda think I'd rather live there (at a push) than Saudi or most of the other UAE, Oman etc type regimes who are US client states for civilian oppression.

There is such a thing as becoming a martyr but the most likely outcome is becoming another Michael Hastings or Daphne Caruana Galizia. It's all fun and games until you get killed before your story breaks or your proof of corruption gets buried under a pile of disinfo, FUD, and distraction and then you die "randomly" as punishment.

Those who stand on principal make excellent stationary targets.

Would we see a trial for the crimes he revealed? If not, I disagree profoundly.

Has any official been tried based on the infos revealed by Snowden ?

Groups such as the ACLU and EFF have tried many times to sue but have been unable because they can’t prove they have standing to sue because they’re suing based on classified information

Submitting to political imprisonment is not a principal, my dude.

What Hollywood does with people! Snowden is a whistleblower, not a martyr. It's not a soap opera, there will be no unrequited love suicide, no Hamlet monolog, no drama.

You sound like you're confusing Snowden with Assange. Snowden was a US citizen with a security clearance who released classified information that he had improperly gotten access to. Assange is an Australian citizen who set up a website and whom Chelsea manning sent classified information which he then published.

There's no question that Snowden committed a crime under US law, and is absolutely subject to US jurisdiction, the question is whether it was justified. With Assange, however, you'd be right: he's never even set foot in the US to my knowledge, and was given the classified information by someone else (who was tried, convicted, and served time for it).

This particular thread is talking about Snowden.

You make it sound like Snowden is trying to flee justice, but he has made clear multiple times that he intends to return to the US if he is allowed to defend himself before a jury in an open court, something that the Espionage Act prevents him from doing. You’re not the only person who “believes strongly in the rule of law.”

And by the way, when exactly did Snowden “go beyond the limits?” As far as I’m aware, he made sure to hand over every copy of the documents he possessed to professional reporters so that every disclosure made was legitimately in the public interest.

> Assange let himself be used by the Russians, either knowingly or naively, and he willingly jumped into a hyper partisan US election.

Believing that narrative actually requires trusting the US security services, who may or may not have something to gain from a new cold war.

There are simpler explanations with just as much evidence behind them.

> There are lots of people in the US that believe strongly in the rule of law.

And that it applies to foreign citizens who have – quite sensibly – never set foot on your soil?

> And that it applies to foreign citizens who have – quite sensibly – never set foot on your soil?

There is a lot of precedent here. Break the law in another country, and you may very well find yourself tried in their courts if you ever step into their jurisdiction. It's not like the US is snatching him off the streets in a foreign country under cover of darkness and dragging him to our jurisdiction, we are using very well established legal channels.

Assange was snatched from a foreign country.

Was he? He's not in the US. He fled the UK's jurisdiction to accept the jurisdiction of Ecuador, but of course that carries the risk that Ecuador could change their mind and transfer him to another jurisdiction, which they did. Perhaps the next stop is Sweden, then the US. In any case all of it is being done through accepted legal channels.

If the US wanted him on our soil without regards to consequences, we could certainly have him in a US jail in a matter of hours.

Assange was refused the ability to travel to Ecuador (a country that he became a citizen of) from the UK, which might be a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (Article 44) -- though I'm not a lawyer:

> The receiving State must, even in case of armed conflict, grant facilities in order to enable persons enjoying privileges and immunities, other than nationals of the receiving State, and members of the families of such persons irrespective of their nationality, to leave at the earliest possible moment. It must, in particular, in case of need, place at their disposal the necessary means of transport for themselves and their property.

There is an argument to be made that since he is not embassy personnel he isn't granted any such rights (in fact that's the most likely explanation).

But then again, there is some grey area here -- in the 1984 someone in the Libyan embassy in the UK shot into a crowd killing a police officer[1]. The UK police weren't granted access to investigate whether the individual who did it was embassy personnel (and thus under diplomatic immunity) or not. The UK then cut diplomatic ties with Libya and all the personnel were forced to leave and return to Libya. However, if the UK had the legal right to refuse passage for non-embassy personnel then surely they would've done so and captured all non-embassy personnel for questioning. But they didn't do that.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Yvonne_Fletcher

The Vienna Convention certainly does not mean that any state can demand that any other state not prosecute any person of their choice, which is what you seem to be implying.

You never define what "persons enjoying privileges and immunities" means. I doubt very much that it is "any random citizen of a country who happens to be inside their embassy".

> which is what you seem to be implying.

That's not at all what I'm implying.

> You never define what "persons enjoying privileges and immunities" means.

I copied the text directly from the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations[1]. From my understanding (as a non-lawyer) it broadly means embassy personnel, which would exclude Julian Assange.

However my point is that there is a case in 1984 where a suspected criminal for a crime committed in the UK (who might not have been embassy personnel) was allowed safe passage with embassy personnel. It's possible they didn't want to deal with additional scandals or didn't think of this avenue, but it is quite strange. However, the fact that the UK threatened to storm the embassy and cut of ties with Ecuador does indicate the political situation is much higher than it was in the 1984 incident.

Ecuador tried to instate Assange as a Ecuadorian Ambassador, but the UK refused their request for diplomatic immunity. So it probably isn't a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (though the UN did state that the UK's actions are a violation of the Geneva Convention on Human Rights[2]).

[1]: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1964/06/19640624%2002-1... [2]: https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

> Ecuador tried to instate Assange as a Ecuadorian Ambassador, but the UK refused their request for diplomatic immunity

No, they tried to appoint him to a subordinate (not “Ambassador”) diplomatic position to Russia. Which does not give him diplomatic immunity in the UK by right. The UK declined to extend such status as a courtesy as it might otherwise do.

> However my point is that there is a case in 1984 where a suspected criminal for a crime committed in the UK (who might not have been embassy personnel) was allowed safe passage with embassy personnel.

Everyone leaving the embassy had their diplomatic status verified when they were stopped, questioned, and frisked on the way out, but it's quite possible the perpetrators were one of those who left before the cordon was thrown up, and if not they were embassy personnel. The act was clearly.a state act of reprisal, so there would be no reason to have it done by unprotected persons.

Ecuador has full right to unilaterally choose their ambassadors, they don't need the approval of the UK. What is true is that the UK can then declare an ambassador persona non grata... But then they must be allowed to leave.

It was a brilliant ploy to get Assange out, if you believed UK would adhere to the Vienna convention. Unfortunately they didn't, and there's no one around who are willing and able hold them to it.

Ok, so every time an American is arrested abroad, Trump could declare them a diplomat and the country would have to let them off without charges? This is really what the Vienna Convention requires?

Why doesn’t every country just do this routinely, in that case?

There's no violation; the “privileges and immunities” referenced are those of accredited diplomats to the receiving state, which you only get to be by consent of the receiving state. Assange was never an accredited diplomat to the UK (there was an abandoned effort to get him appointed as a diplomat to Russia, but that provides no mandatory protection under the convention with regard to the UK, and the UK declined to extent diplomatic status as an non-mandated courtesy based on that appointment, so it was abandoned.)

> However, if the UK had the legal right to refuse passage for non-embassy personnel then surely they would've done so and captured all non-embassy personnel for questioning.

Every person exiting the embassy was stopped, frisked, questioned, and photographed by the police; none were held further because they were all diplomatic personnel. (This is not addressing the people who exited before the police through a complete cordon around the embassy, or the material—including certainly he weapons and other evidence—sent out in sealed diplomatic bags thereafter and before the final evacuation of the embassy.

There's a [dead] reply that seems to refute this, and I'm not sure why it's dead. The First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Nowhere in there does it mention "citizens". Only "people". And you don't need to be a US citizen to be a person. The first result[0] of a quick Google search suggests that federal courts do indeed believe that the Constitution protects to non-citizens.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2017/01/30/does-th...

Can't say why it was downvoted to oblivion. But I personally don't know what the right answer is. We already rely on SCOTUS to tell us what the First Amendment really means and how it applies, since as written it just says "Congress shall make no law..." which is kinda specific. So it seems like we're past the point where we can interpret any other part of that clause literally.

Now, all disclaimers given, I figure the Constitution ought to apply to anyone within it's jurisdiction, which to my mind means that if you are subject to our jursdiction for criminal purposes, you're subject to our constitution for it's protections as well.

>I figure the Constitution ought to apply to anyone within it's jurisdiction, which to my mind means that if you are subject to our jursdiction for criminal purposes, you're subject to our constitution for it's protections as well.

I fully agree, hopefully the SCOTUS will confirm this in a ruling at some point.

Additionally the Declaration of Independence included this statement:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

I think the consent to be governed should be established whether implied or expressed in a way more specific that just being a person somewhere on earth.

The declaration of independence does specify how consent is expressed. Quoting the relevant section:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

In other words it is by refusing to revolt that people consent to be governed. Revolution doesn't require all that many people, but it requires them to be willing to risk it all. See, for example, the Romanian revolution in 1989. [1] It's one of the most ironic revolutions. Their communist dictator, in an effort to prove his popularity, decided to force tens of thousands of people to appear in a public square to listen to his speech so it could be used as propaganda and broadcast to show his 'popularity.' 'You'll never believe what happened next.' 3 days later following a 2 hour trial their dictator was sentenced to death and executed immediately.

The logic is circular (people consent by not not consenting), but I think reasonable. The reason is that there are many people who, given the choice, would reject consent anytime they failed to achieve victory in a democratic process. That would lead to complete chaos. And revolution is not a particularly high standard. Imagine if 0.1% of the US population (that's around 330k people) chose to move on DC with the goal of aggressively rebooting the government. They'd be near impossible to stop. And even if stopped, it would certainly trigger a rethink of our entire system which would be at least a partial victory. So if you can't get even 1/1000 people willing to risk it all, it's tough to claim that our evils are not sufferable, or are not reparable within the systems available to us.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution#Ceau%C8%99...

>In other words it is by refusing to revolt that people consent to be governed.

My understanding based on the statement "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government" is that this right to revolt is the nuclear option for people who have the ability to alter it and the ends which the government can be destructive towards are the initial rights previously outlined in the document. So if the US government doesn't work to secure these right for an Australian citizen and doesn't express their right to alter or abolish or revolt against the US government then it should not interpret their consent to be governed by US law for actions taken by them outside the US.

Your phrasing there is not the clearest, but if I am understanding you correctly, would that not then be the 'fault' of the Australian government? A country can write whatever laws they want, but it's ultimately up to the country hosting those individuals to determine whether those laws mean anything. For a contemporary example the several Mueller indictments of Russian nationals are completely meaningless. They will never face a day in court because the Russian government does not tend to yield to US influence. There's 0 reason that e.g. the Australian government could not behave similarly, if they so wished. It comes with political and other risks, but so is the same with all decisions people make.

It should be obvious that that Constitution doesn't apply to people who aren't even in USA at all.

The Constitution applies to the government; it says what the government must, may, and mustn't. do. The government mustn't interfere with anyone's free speech.

There's a major nuance with our constitution that is extremely important to understand what it does, and does not, do. The nuance is that the constitution does not grant people freedom of speech, or even directly protect that right. You already inherently have freedom of speech by merit of existing. A government cannot grant you that right anymore than they can grant you the right to think. But what governments can do is to remove rights. The constitution restricts the power of our government to do that.

So the migration case you mention was a good example of this nuance. Congress can ban entry from whatever country they want. We could ban Canadians tomorrow if congress so chose. As for executive orders, the current precedent set is that the president is allowed to ban travel from any group so long as allowing it would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States." So the nuance there is, is Trump banning travel from these nations because they are Muslim majority, or is he banning travel from these nations because travel from these Muslim majority nations is not in the interest of the United States?

He tasked a 50 day review ranking and classifying nations on their migration controls as well as making diplomatic efforts to mutually improve the standards of these nations. After the 50 days he prohibited entry from the countries which were deemed threats, most of which where Muslim majority. Lower courts tried to then claim he did this because these countries were Muslim, and attempted to use his past words against him. The Supreme Court ruled that his words did not override an otherwise valid justification and upheld his order. [1]

---

The big point here is that the constitution can render laws unlawful, but it itself does not directly provide any protections from otherwise legitimate laws. For maybe the clearest example consider Kleindienst vs Mandel [2]. In that case the US chose to prohibit entry to an individual based exclusively on speech that would be perfectly legal if it had been said within the US. This case made its way to the supreme court and they upheld that this action was not a violation of the first amendment. [2] And it should be clear why (though the fact this made it all the way to supreme court belies my notion of obviousness here) - his speech was used against him but within the confines of other valid laws.

[1] - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleindienst_v._Mandel

> That's like saying a foreign terrorist can't be charged for an act of terrorism because they're not a U.S. citizen.

One man's might-is-right flag-waving US exceptionalism is another man's terrorism.

Yeah, the flip side to this argument is pretty heinous: American war criminals can be prosecuted any time, any place they show up outside of Americas' borders.

Except, they can't, because the USA will protect them, even threatening to INVADE any country which attempts to reign their war criminals in.

Duplicity is the order of the day.

We live in a world where if you criticize the government enough to piss off the espionage department of your country, your only choice is to run to east if you live in the west and west if you live in the east.

If Assange is beholden to hold up US law, why would that only be applicable to some of them? And what about the issue of war crimes?

Everything is so relative man... /s

> Furthermore, because Assange is a foreign national, 1st Amendment protections do not apply in this situation.

Not remotely true, the first amendment protects anyone and everyone from government infringement. All of the bill of rights applies to anyone, citizens or not. Try reading them, they say what the government cannot do, nowhere will you find it saying but only to citizens.

> He's also currently accepting the hospitality of the Russian gov't

That's massaged a bit. if only he'd have had other travel plans to any other non extradition countries (he did), but stopped in an international terminal (for weeks before entering Russia) after diplomatic planes were being force grounded.

> Assange let himself be used by the Russians, either knowingly or naively

What if Assange was being "used" by the United Nations Human Rights Council, or by Canada, or Oxfam, or Letsie III, or Burger King? The premise here appears to be that the Russians are somehow evil. The US isn't at war with Russia and Assange isn't a citizen of either state.

In any case, how was he "used" by Russia? Isn't this sort of leak exactly the kind of thing that Assange and Wikileaks have always stood for? Do you think he'd not have leaked the info if the Russians weren't a factor?

Manning jailed forever. Assange self imposed home arrest for last few years, probably will be jailed forever in US soon.

Can't really blame Snowden for staying in the one place on earth US can't buy or blackmail.

Manning hasn't really been jailed forever. She had her sentence commuted, and the recent legal trouble she finds herself in is entirely of her own creation, no?

IMO both Manning and Snowden have the weakest legal arguments, and Assange the strongest. I would personally have advised him to avoid taking sides in US politics, but he wasn't asking my opinion :). Playing in the big pond as a small fish is a dangerous game.

> recent legal trouble she finds herself in is entirely of her own creation, no?

Only in a sense of "Stop hitting yourself!".

Admittedly I'm not keeping close tabs on the case, but isn't the issue contempt of court? Could she stop the legal trouble by agreeing to testify?

"We don't say you commited any crime but either you speak or we'll hold you jailed indefinitely."

That doesn't sound like a first world democratic country. Yet it is.

On the contrary, it's perfectly normal in much of the first world. You are required to testify and jailed in contempt if you don't. The 5th is a US peculiarity.

Jailed indefinitely?

In my country it's 30 days tops. Not sure if you can be sentenced more than once for the same thing.

Also you can refuse to answer any question that might incriminate you, your family or your loved one without any punishment.

Yes, that's how contempt of court tends to work: you are jailed until you do the thing the court demands.

I believe it's to testify against Assange, which she has decided not to do as Assange's case is a legal grey area to say the least.

I wouldn't say it's Manning's choice so much as a 'testify if you want to get out' Hobson's choice.

>Can't really blame Snowden for staying in one place after the US canceled his passport mid-air.

ftfy

> Manning jailed forever

No, just until she either testifies as legally required or the term of the grand jury expires.

> Manning jailed forever.

in case you missed it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commute...

> in case you missed it:

In case you missed it, she's currently in jail. [0] [1]

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-mann...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/16/chelsea-mann...

She's in jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury. This is not directly part of the leak.

This is related to the leak. She won't testify to the details of how Assange helped her.

Unless I'm missing something, that means her continued incarceration is by her own choice.

"We don't say you commited any crime but either you speak or we'll hold you jailed indefinitely."

That doesn't sound like a first world democratic country. Yet it is.

I'm not sure why you seem to think so. The government does have the ability to force people to testify - just so long as it doesn't force people to incriminate themselves with that testimony. Just like how you get imprisoned for skipping jury duty, you can get held in contempt of court for refusing to testify to a grand jury.

Yes, refusing to testify to the grand jury... in the WikiLeaks case.

She was released when the last grand jury ran out of time. A new grand jury was called, she refused to appear before it and was put back in jail. Presumably there’s an upper limit on how long she can be in jail (this grand jury also has a time limit, plus once Assange’s trial gets far enough along, there won’t be any point to demand that she appear before the grand jury).

> Presumably there’s an upper limit on how long she can be in jail (this grand jury also has a time limit, plus once Assange’s trial gets far enough along, there won’t be any point to demand that she appear before the grand jury).

That's the limit on civil contempt, but there's no reason she couldn't then be charged with criminal contempt and imprisoned for that.

>There are lots of people in the US that believe strongly in the rule of law.

I find this argument specious. If it were the case, Americas criminal, illegal wars would not be happening.

And they are criminal, and they are illegal - and the world is having a very hard time prosecuting the criminals behind them.

Which is why we need Assange and Snowden and Manning, and the people they inspire, more than ever before. Because real crimes are being committed, and the American people are complicit.

That is a very strange definition of rule of law - not being subservient to your own demise is bad for rule of law but not the exposed misconduct which goes completely unpunished?

Rule of law isn't harmed by even the most vile criminals running away from enforcement or even the most ineffectual enforcement - those undermine its power but not its legitimacy. It is misapplication of the law in the first place that does it.

Fuck that authoritarian "You have to accept the unjust punishment because rules is rules!" mentality. Rules are meant to serve the people not the other way around. The scales are already weighted against justice and the power.

> There are lots of people in the US that believe strongly in the rule of law.

You mean like the First and the Fourth amendments?

Of course! As applied in a court of law.

U.S. gov. probably would put Snowden through a secret court process, which is widely regarded as a kangaroo court in service of the spook branch of the government. They will make sure he becomes a terrifying example of what happens to heroic whistleblowers.

> Manning is kind of the same thing, he went far..

Please correct me if it was an honest mistake, but you're revealing your bias by choosing to use "he" instead of "she".

Is undeniable that Manning is biologically a man with both X and Y chromosomes. It happens also that psychologically is/feels like/wants to be a woman. Both cases can be applied perfectly. People is complex and can be more than one thing at the same time.

That's roughly equivalent to intentionally mispronouncing someone's last name all the time or using a derogatory nickname for them. It's a light form of bullying. Unless they insist on being called "Master" or "King" or any nonsense like that, it is always best to respect people's wishes and call them the way they would like to be called.

Not even close. Telling the truth is begin honest, not bullier or derogative, and the truth is that people is complex and should embrace their complexity. Being complicated and not plain is that makes us unique and interesting.

> Telling the truth is begin honest

This is nothing but a cheap excuse on your behalf for your bullying. Transgender people already way more about their real genes and the issue as a whole than you do, and the idea that you're doing them a favour by telling them the truth would be highly patronizing at least, but in reality you're just being hypocritical, because you know that they already know more about it than you anyway. It's not as if someone just decides to change his or her gender from one day to another, and you know that very well.

What you say about telling the truth is also not true in general, of course. You know very well for yourself that it wouldn't be okay to tell your boss that he's fat and ugly, even if that was the case. We lie for politeness and courtesy several times a day, and that's not just fine, it's indispensable, since we cannot always choose whom to deal with. These things concern basic values of our society that people like you choose to ignore whenever it's convenient to them. But God forbid somebody uses the same whacko principles that you propose on you and tells you the truth about you...

> Being complicated and not plain is that makes us unique and interesting.

Still, that gives you zero reason not to respect other people's 'complexity.'

You are assuming a lot of things about me (lol). I will not give you the correct answers

> the idea that you're doing them a favour by telling them the truth would be...

Should they be provided with a comforting lie instead for the rest of their lives? Santa Claus children's tales style? And you call me hypocrite and patronizer?

> you know that they already know more about it than you

Do I? Because all transgender people are super smart and all non transgender people are dumb? Sounds delusory thinking at its best, or something worse

> God forbid somebody uses the same whacko principles that you propose on you, and tells you the truth about you...

There is also the option to just stand criticism like and adult, and do not care about what a strange says about you. Some people could even benefit from adopting this point of view, but I must admit that shatter like porcelain at the tiniest injury or frustration perceived or imagined is also a popular choice nowadays.

> There is also the option to just stand criticism like and adult, and do not care about what a strange says about you.

No, harassment is not what decent people do.

Educate yourself: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-ma...

Also educate yourself on the multifaceted nature of biological sex and gender identity.

> I don't know about cheering, but let's be honest here. Assange let himself be used by the Russians, either knowingly or naively, and he willingly jumped into a hyper partisan US election

I don't blame him. He's doing everything to survive, when everything was being cut off. I think everyone can agree that Trump is an insurgent and outsider. He was a wildcard for Assange at the time. He didn't exactly have a lot of options given his desperate situation.

I don’t believe the source of the secret files is ever protected in a court of law from prosecution, but the publisher may be.

For example the Pentagon Papers were released by Daniel Ellsberg and published by The NY Times. From Wikipedia;

> For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property, but the charges were later dismissed after prosecutors investigating the Watergate scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.

An FBI agent, military enlisted or officer, etc. would rightly face charges for doseminating classified materials. There is no carte blanche to break the law because of something you don’t like that your Administration is doing. Sometimes the offense is so egregious that it’s a sacrifice someone is willing to make. In those cases if the court of public opinion is enough on the side of the leaker, there is always pardons or jury nullification to fall back on.

But I do think that it’s still precipitated by an illegal act (the leaking) which can rightly be prosecuted because generally classified material is classified for a reason and it’s not up to each individual that comes across it to decide if they agree or not.

The publisher also has to be careful that they are not soliciting or assisting the leaker in providing the materials lest they become an accomplice. I assume, although I’m not fully up to speed on the case, that this is the angle for charging Assange.

I disagree. We have whistleblower protection for corporate whistleblowers, why not governmental?

Edit: turns out we do, but it has to be actually illegal behavior as opposed to just unethical.

Nearly every activity I've seen reported that has been leaked has been, IMHO, illegal in some way. Warrantless wiretapping, war crimes, or violations of international law. The rest have been things that are simply embarrassing, which are by statute, prohibited from being classified in the first place.

Classification has been completely misused in the second half of last century and particularly in the first two decades of this one.

Being "Illegal" isn't black and white, especially in the case of ACLU vs Clapper, which was about bulk metadata collection through FISA.

Originally dismissed by district courts, then successfully appealed as overreaching the PATRIOT act the dismissal was vacated and remanded back to district courts where it was eventually effectively dismissed during Smith v Obama when the program was sunsetted.

On the topic of war crimes, despite claims that war crimes were committed, no formal trials convicting anyone of war crimes came from either Manning's nor Snowden's revelations, despite investigations thereof [1]. This isn't just a nit-picking point, or handwaving away corruption or cover-up. If people have problems with the process, the same process that has revealed War Crimes, then that's a separate subject.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...

Whistleblowing isn’t to the NYT, it’s to the government itself.

Also;

> ...existing legal protections for whistleblowers are limited and generally do not extend to leaks of classified information. [1]

[1] - https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/F...

So does this mean it is possible to hide a crime by making it classified, making it illegal for anyone to reveal that such a crime was committed?

As far as I understand it, if the DOJ and the Inspector General are all on board with whatever is being done, then realistically there’s no way to get it in front of a court or the court of public opinion without risking being charged for disclosing classified material all the way up to treason.

Basically yes unfortunately.

Isn't violating Unreasonable Search and Seizure on a Massive scale illegal?

This is where they use Third Party Doctrine which basically means "if you give information to someone else, not involved then obviously it's not private!"

Which essentially means that law enforcement can collect info from your ISP, cell carrier, grocery store, banks, and anyone else without a warrant because it doesn't qualify as a search.

It's a completely broken mindset but there has been zero effort to reform it from any political party.

Yes, that holds water if there is some point where a citizen is selecting to waive their rights to privacy. Interacting with a company as a private citizen does not change the fact one is a private citizen. Without a citizen waiving the right to privacy, such an action would constitute a violation of one's rights. There's effectively no way to "opt out" of clandestine information harvesting and that is by design. Even worse, the intelligence agencies release the tools they created quietly so that they can't get in trouble in court because they're using tools that are "publicly available" lol. give me a break. civil liberties are not being demanded by the people and will likely die as a result.

Yes. Government lawyers may try to say otherwise, but the Constitution is very clear on this.

> I don’t believe the source of the secret files is ever protected in a court of law from prosecution, but the publisher may be.

Technically correct. Ellsberg faced the threat of prosecution for many years after the leak.

> There has to be some way to address this, and at the moment there clearly isn't.

I don't see how it could ever happen.

It's arguable that democracy and government accountability in the US ended in the early 1800s. If it ever existed at all, really.

I mean, consider history. The New Deal was arguably appeasement to forestall revolution. We finally elected a black president, who had cultivated almost a "black power" reputation in Chicago, and he ended up barely more liberal than Nixon.

The gold standard here is Daniel Ellsberg who sent the pentagon papers to the Washington Post. Those were the documents that revealed that America had an illegal secret war in Cambodia.

In short, Assange is no Daniel Elssberg.

Ellsberg says otherwise. There are countless links, but here's one: https://progressive.org/dispatches/daniel-ellsberg-on-arrest....

Again: Ellsberg says otherwise. Let's quote the whole passage:

"Julian, meanwhile, is being charged with having gone beyond the limits of journalism by helping Manning to conceal her identity with a new username. He is also charged with having encouraged her to give him documents. That is criminalizing journalism. I can’t count the number of times that I have been asked for documents by journalists or for more documents. She had already given hundreds of thousands of files to Assange and he wanted more. This is the practice of journalism."

>that's exactly my argument why he's not a journalist...if you want to protect journalism from being criminalized, then criminal activity cannot be called journalism.

If you want to protect the standard of "innocent until proven guilty", you shouldn't deem them guilty until proven innocent; though it seems you already have?

Agree :) Sorry I do want nitpick here as it's seen so often - "innocent until proven guilty" might imply that they haven't been found guilty yet (until). "Innocent unless proven guilty" I think is a better phrase :)

I'm not sure that matters.

Assuming Ellsberg is the gold standard, his behavior would be sufficient, but not necessary, to be in the clear. Put another way, just because you don't live up to his standard, it doesn't necessarily mean you've done something wrong.

I agree that Assange is no saint. Assuming the allegations of rape are credible, he should stand trial and be punished if convicted. His motivations across a wide variety of leaks are certainly open for questioning.

But did he break any laws with regard to this specific leak? If he did actually assist Manning in cracking passwords (or whatever is alleged), then he should be held accountable for that. If not, he should go free (for that particular charge). It's that simple.

Of course, I don't trust the US gov't to give him a fair trial. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd manufacture evidence in a case like this; my belief is that they'll take any measures necessary when it comes to deterring people from leaking classified information, especially classified information they find embarrassing or damaging.

> But did he break any laws with regard to this specific leak?

According to the DOJ Indictment yes. He conspired with Manning to obtain access to a classified system. That's different than say Glenn Greenwald merely accepting Snowden's documents.

It's worth noting that Manning already had access to the classified system. Assange conspired to help her hide her usage of that access, something Greenwald has called the duty of a journalist. The law itself would violate the First amendment, so he would not have broken anything.

That remains to be seen. The indictment alleges yes, but it's up to a jury to decide (or a plea deal to avoid deciding).

That's fine to say, but what does it actually mean?

How do we protect forces providing oversight and sunlight to parts of the government that we the people really should know about to be informed voters? How do we reasonably protect 'watchers', and how can we have reasonable oversight of the 'watchers'?

Part of the issue is that there is not a clear standard that must be adhered to; where does selection bias count as an editorial action and where does it count as being an agent of a foreign power? If someone is a completely dumb conduit that does not evaluate the data but republishes it without inner knowledge do they have more or less protections than someone that evaluates and 'publishes' the content (I.E. in technical terms 'the press', even if not part of something traditionally obvious as a news organization.)?

Personally, I think this should be part of the duties of the Office of the Inspector General, and the OIG should be shunted to being answerable to the either the Legislature, or the Courts.

Of course, I also believe that OIG should be hounding the Executive constantly, and have the authority and onus to declassify anything classified as soon as possible too. That means that classification stops being a privilege of the Executive, and instead becomes a maintenance item That requires periodic review to reclassify.

I believe you are correct in that the spirit is SOME official watchdog should exist within the government. Even better some department for EACH BRANCH.

However it is also commonly said that a "fourth estate" (or branch) exists, and the top search result that I get for that phrase is:

"What is the role of the Fourth Estate?

In the United States, the term fourth estate is sometimes used to place the press alongside the three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. The fourth estate refers to the watchdog role of the press, one that is important to a functioning democracy.Jan 3, 2019

What is the Fourth Estate? - ThoughtCo https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-fourth-estate-3368058"

The press should also watch the government, and the oversight branches, and all of them should have oversight over the others as a completely closed system that roots out any actions that are may represent impropriety, immoral, OR illegal actions.

The first amendment doesn't protect conspiring to illegally access a computer system. Further, not all dissemination of classified materials can be classified as a first amendment activity.

In short, there has to be a difference between a spy and a journalist.

Further, it's worth noting that Snowden agreed to sign his life away when he signed the SF-86 form to apply for a US clearance. Glenn Greenwald did not.

The Supreme Court is part of the government — you mean the executive? Of course that could be a situation, that’s ostensibly why the founders separated the 3 branches, including giving SCOTUS life terms to increase their independence.

You want to ask the Supreme Court of the United States if the United States government has too much power?