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An Outrageous Gesture from the Pulitzer Prize Committee — John Yoo
I’m not surprised that the Pulitzer Prize committee gave the Washington Post and The Guardian US a prize for pursuing the sensationalistic story of Edward Snowden —even though the story is a disaster for the country. Unlike some on both the right and the left, I do not see Snowden as any kind of hero. He should be returned to the United States for prosecution. It is another sign of this Administration’s weakness in foreign affairs that it cannot persuade other countries to turn him over.
I don’t, however, think we need to automatically read the prize as a vindication of Snowden’s crimes. Awarding a prize to a newspaper that covered a hurricane or runs a photo of a grisly crime does not somehow justify the underlying tragedy. Yes, there is a difference here, in that the harm comes from the public release of the material. I’m not sure, however, that the distinction between the event itself and publicity is key.
It would have been different if the newspapers themselves had a hand in facilitating the violation of the law. One would hope the Pulitzer committee would not reward a newspaper for actively assisting Snowden in stealing classified information from the NSA or fleeing justice — that crosses the line from coverage of an event to abetting a violation of American law.
I don’t think, however, that there is anything you can do to stop an Edward Snowden once he steals the information and decides to make it public. If the Post didn’t publish it, someone on the internet would have. See WikiLeaks (at least the Pulitzer Committee didn’t give Julian Assange a prize. Though one now wonders why.)
This Administration, despite its effort to prosecute leakers, is now responsible for the most destructive intelligence setbacks in modern American history. This is in part because, for all the efforts it has taken after the fact, it has not done enough to secure U.S. intelligence at the source. That’s great for Snowden and the Post, but bad for the country.
Published in General
I don’t think that’s quite accurate. He fled the country because he knew that a fair trial would almost certainly result in his conviction and imprisonment. The thing to remember about the Snowden matter is that the fact that he broke the law isn’t seriously in dispute.
What he did was not right by any reasonable standard. He could have easily gone to the IG, he could have gone to the counsel office at his company, he could have gone to any number of congressmen or senators.
We do not know why he chose not to do any of these or why he want to China and Russia. All we do know is he provided unfriendly nations and our enemies with priceless intelligence.
He should be shot.
Quite correct, I was hasty in that reply.
o 18 USC 641 – Theft of Government Property
o 18 USC 793(d) – Unauthorized Communication of National Defense Information
o 18 USC 798(a)(3) – Willful Communication of Classified Communications Intelligence Information to an Unauthorized Person
Are I believe the relevant law in this case.
At the risk of inflicting a poor analogy on your hypothesis, that is like saying that poor ickle Roman Polanski just had to flee the country since that mean judge was insisting on punishing him for [expletive]-raping a 12 year-old-girl (for which, in this case, he had already been convicted). Don’t you see? Polanski didn’t get a fair trial!
Bollocks.
Now Snowden’s going to sue me for comparing him to a child rapist. :-\
Had he gone to the IG, or initiated any other “whistleblowing” process, he would have been, at the least, terminated from his job.
As opposed to exiled from his country?
I have no reason to believe that to be true, do you?
That’s a good point. There are whistleblower protection statutes which would in most cases provide for treble damages in the event Snowden was fired for going to the IG.
Terminated from his job? Certainly. Concerning other direct action, it would depend on who felt threatened, and how much, and if they thought it could be kept quiet.
You expressed a desire that he be shot for making his information public. Are you that certain that if an internal whistleblowing process threatened the wrong person, an “accident” couldn’t have been arranged?
Spies are not plaster saints, nor are they shining paladins of truth, justice, and the American way. We ask them to operate in places where angels fear to tread, so it’s a good thing they’re not angels. There’s a reason the CIA is not supposed to operate inside the US. Doing things to foreign enemies that would be illegal, if done to US citizens is part of a spy’s job.
That’s why some of us object so strenuously to domestic intelligence gathering operations. We want spies doing unto others, not unto us.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/
What makes you certain he would lose his job? People make IG complaints regularly. Is there a correlation between making such a complaint and being fired?
Oh, there’d be some “good” reason for the termination. There’d be piles of excellent “documentation”, too. Creating believable phony documents is part of a spy agency’s job. By the time they got through “documenting” his incompetence, his own mother would believe he was a useless boob who couldn’t really have known anything about anything.
According to the article, the men were not terminated from their jobs but rather spent years complaining.
Baseless conjecture.
The NSA does not employ spies in the Hollywood sense. It collects signals intelligence, it does not run agents or engage in any human intelligence.
If any government agency would know exactly who to call on for any expertise it didn’t have in-house, it would be the NSA. They probably have enough dirt on key people in the intelligence community that they could blackmail any agency unwilling to help them.
You’ve argued that the NSA is so brilliant that its domestic surviellance capabilities are indispensable AND that it is not competent to fake a reason to terminate a whistleblower. Please make up your mind which argument you wish to pursue, because arguing both simultaneously is like having tea and no tea at the same time.
You have seen too many movies.
Excellence in one area does not imply competence in another. NSA’s ability to collect and analyze signals intelligence no more makes it capable of extorting other agencies than it does making crumpets for your tea.
NSA seems to be the only government agency that actually listens.