Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Media, Politics, Society

Leaders Call for Snowden’s Prosecution As CNN’s Toobin Calls Him A “Clown”

200px-national_security_agencysvgEdward Snowden, 29, is now a hunted man. The media this morning has moved from the shock over the massive surveillance of citizens to attacking Snowden as a leaker. Indeed, this morning, CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Jeff Toobin denounced Snowden as a “clown” and someone who should be denounced. Toobin and I have been disagreeing a great deal lately. While I respect Jeff Toobin, I was surprised last week when he defended aspects of the investigation of journalists and later the massive surveillance programs. However, I was taken aback by the attack on Snowden. There certainly is a basis for criminal investigation — a point no one denies. He will have to answer for any violation of his clearance agreement and national security laws. However, it is the tenor and shift of the comments this morning that so surprised me. Rather than continue the debate of the loss of privacy, political and media figures are focusing on Snowden rather than the programs. You can disagree with his methods just as you can disagree with Julian Assange. However, there is an obvious effort to (like Assange) make him look unbalanced and dangerous. The story appears more complex. This is a man who gave up a $200,000 a year job and his likely freedom to reveal something that he felt the public should know about in the interest of privacy. You can disagree with his method, but few of his critics would even consider such a sacrifice for principle. Yet, the coverage this morning is largely on how to catch him and punish him. Over the weekend, the White House said it would find the person responsible and punish him. Snowden then self-disclosed his identity.

Ironically, President Barack Obama told the public that he was happy that we could have this debate over the balancing of privacy and security. However, he wants the person responsible for that debate to be prosecuted. Without Snowden, the program would have remained secret and no debate would likely have occurred. While aspects of these programs were previously discussed in 2006, this was the first confirmation of the programs from the government.

U.S. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, called Snowden “a defector” and said “this person is dangerous to the country.” That is the new spin: the “high school dropout” and “clown” who fled to Hong Kong. Indeed, many news outlets are focusing on the fact that he allegedly had a $300 night hotel in Hong Kong before checking out.  (Anyone who has traveled to Hong Kong will tell you that this expense for a room is not uncommon and it is certainly not “one of the priciest” rooms for the city).  Much of the focus will be on Snowden and his case as opposed to the massive surveillance program. Many believe, like Snowden, that the greater danger to the country is the loss of privacy — as discussed in my column today in USA Today. What is clear is that this massive security state, and its contractors, are irate about these leaks, which have given critical information to the public that has long been denied to it by its elected representatives. It is a closed system that is represented vividly by Booz Allen. The current head of national intelligence (Clapper) is a former company executive. The prior intelligence head is now leading the company. It is part of a security state that generates hundreds of billions of dollars and we are the subject of their work under these and other programs. They do not like people causing the public to ask questions.

Snowden acted from within this closed system. We have a democratic system that seems entirely unconnected to the public. From the continuation of our fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to warrantless surveillance, the views of the public seem entirely immaterial to our leaders. They offer rhetorical responses but largely act within a system controlled by two parties and their leaders. Congress itself has proven, yet again, to be entirely disinterested in civil liberties or privacy values. The courts have refused to hear dozens of public interest lawsuits seeking review of such programs. In this environment, whistleblowers often feel that they have no recourse but to go to the media. Of course, this Administration has not only attacked privacy but the free press in the recent scandals.

What is striking is the anger directed at Snowden from the media. He will be held accountable for any crime, but he is also someone who acted at great peril to himself. I do not believe that that makes him a “clown” and I hope that some attention will remain on the attack on privacy represented by these programs.

What do you think?

170 thoughts on “Leaders Call for Snowden’s Prosecution As CNN’s Toobin Calls Him A “Clown””

  1. The govt. is trying to control the discourse so they can keep their policies in place. They would also like to make certain they do not have to resign or face trials for their violations of our law. So you can believe they are bringing their best propagandists out for this one.

    Many in the MSM have proven again and again to be willingly complicit water carriers for powerful wrongdoers. Toobin appears to be one of those. Attacks against the messenger are effective. Just as slurs against Bradley Manning’s sexuality were used by the administration to discredit him, casting aspersions about Snowden’s intellect, patriotism etc. are par for the course.

    Notice also that as with Bradley Manning the govt. is prosecuting someone for revealing what they said everyone knew anyway. The govt. claims both Manning and Snowden’s revelations aren’t worth the time of day and, oh, btw, we’d like to torture, render and give you the death penalty. Too bad Snowden didn’t leak to a pro-torture film maker. He’d get a medal of freedom from Obama for that!

    As to a benign administration. Define benign. This administration has target and killed a 16 year old boy. Another citizen they droned was a man whose alleged “crimes” were first put before a grand jury who found insufficient evidence to indict him. Well the administration killed him anyway. And how about those innocent detainees in Gitmo.

    It is beyond belief that anyone could say this was a moral, benign, just trying to protect the people kind of administration. What rubbish.

    No, it is necessary for a murdering, torturing, imprisoning the innocent kind of govt. to take every measure necessary from allowing the truth to see the light of day. And that is exactly what is happening here.

  3. SwM,

    p.s. … don’t accept any plane rides from Oky1 no matter how nicely he/she asks ’cause you’re now responsible for the clubbing of Native Americans, the death camps, and drone attacks. My lord, you must be at least 150 years old!

  4. Oky1, You can do research. Find comments where I said that I specifically support drone warfare, oppression of native Americans or the Wall St banks.

  5. >> Bron 1, June 10, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    OKY1:

    I must concur with James Knauer. You are way off base.

    And I rarely concur with James.
    <<

    Thanks, I consider your position.

    I don't have a complete list of her past comments, but just trusting my memory of them my comments seem appropriate for the times.

    If nothing else there are people reading this that now know there are millions of us out here that will not willingly put up this Nazi takeover of the US by the Obama's, Lindsey Grahams, McCains etc….

  6. OS, SM GH,

    Which defence of those Aholes, Clintons, Bushs, Obama, do you guys wish to use, the Sargent Schultz defence, “I didn’t even get up that day” or the Nuremberg defence, “I didn’t know” or “I was just following orders”.

    I have many vets in my family that have served the US. One of them that also went through Europe was among those Gen. Eisenhower sent their outfits to be present/witness as the local German town’s people where order to one of the Nazi death camps & the bodies there so no one could later deny what had happened there.

    They claimed they didn’t know what was happening in that camp.

    You people making the same excuse, “I didn’t what my govt was doing,”, or “I knew but what could lil oh me do about.” is just as a sicking excuse as it was back then.

    Making fun of/ignoring the govt’s own documents & other evidence presented by infowars, zerohedge, whistle blowers, etc only reflects on your character.

    Ya the name Nazi shouldn’t be used lightly. But what is torture, spying, lying, robbery, mass murder,etc., by the govt if it isn’t Nazi like behavior!

    Maybe you should speak to a Native America or other groups here & around the world who have been the other end of the club.

    Have any of the Wallst/London Bank/Insur co’s, the global crime syndicates been shut down & their criminal leaders arrested lately?

    How many Drone Attacks has Obama lunched today just in Africa, yesterday, the day before that? Oh ya, you didn’t see anything about anything as it wasn’t approve for the US Pravda media outlets.

    The list of their War Crimes/Crimes against Humanity is to long for this post, but no, if SM keeps openly supporting those ahole’s policies I won’t be retracting my comments until she does.

  7. Elaine,
    As suggested earlier, we should all be worried when private consultants control our national secrets. Money making does not belong in the national security field.

  8. Swarthmore mom is just telling it like it is OKY. You may not like what she says or disagree with it, but the label you used is inappropriate and ugly.
    Mespo and Gene,
    You are right that if the powers are yelling loudly, it is because the leaks are accurate and that they are worried that maybe the public might actually realize what the Patriot Act has authorized. I would hope that we could get a FISA court whistleblower to come forward to give the public the truth about what really happens in those chambers.

  10. My comments keep disappearing. I’ll try again.

    Why A 29-Year-Old Contractor Had Access To Government Secrets
    Brett LoGiurato | Jun. 9, 2013
    http://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-nsa-leak-booz-allen-hamilton-2013-6

    Another question raised by the revelation of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is the federal government’s growing use of contractors for things like defense and intelligence.

    The Guardian reports that Snowden is a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA who has lately worked as a contractor for two companies — Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz Allen said that Snowden worked at the company for less than three months.

    According to Washington Technology, Booz Allen had contracts with the government that totaled $3.85 billion in 2011. Dell had contracts that were worth $1.87 billion in 2011. Respectively, the two companies ranked just eighth and 19th in that category.

    Both are part of a rise of so-called “Beltway Bandits” — private companies in or near Washington whose major business is providing services to the government.

    Booz Allen gets about 98 percent of its revenue from government contracts. Washington Technology lists 17 “major” customers — and they are all different government agencies. The Defense Department, Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Homeland Security Department, and IRS are just a few.

    That Snowden has made some mindblowing claims about his power at Booz Allen — including the ability to “wiretap the President” if he wanted to — will likely call into question the power and access employees of these companies have, as well as the size of the U.S.’s national security mission in general.

    “I had full access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all around the world,” Snowden said.

    A groundbreaking 2010 report from The Washington Post found a vast expansion of government operations in the post-9/11 world.

    Specifically, it found that 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies are working on intelligence, counterterrorism, or homeland security in the United States. The NSA alone, meanwhile, has contracts with 250 companies.

    The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama early this year, strengthens protections for whistleblowers who are employees of government contractors.

    But employee reports of mismanagement or other violations are only protected if made to a member of Congress, an Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office, a federal employee responsible for contract oversight at the agency, an authorized official of a law enforcement agency, or a court or grand jury.

  12. OKY1:

    I must concur with James Knauer. You are way off base.

    And I rarely concur with James.

  14. that is why we have the 2nd amendment, it isnt for hunting. do you think the people would be listened to if we only had a double barrel shotgun and 2 boxes of shells available to us?

    This is why Fienstein, Schumer, Biden and their ilk want your semi-automatic, military style weapons. It is why we should be allowed to own fully automatic weapons with only a background check.

    80 -100 million well armed citizens arent going to be ignored if the government oversteps their charter.

  15. Why A 29-Year-Old Contractor Had Access To Government Secrets
    Brett LoGiurato
    Jun. 9, 2013
    http://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-nsa-leak-booz-allen-hamilton-2013-6

    Another question raised by the revelation of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is the federal government’s growing use of contractors for things like defense and intelligence.

    The Guardian reports that Snowden is a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA who has lately worked as a contractor for two companies — Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz Allen said that Snowden worked at the company for less than three months.

    According to Washington Technology, Booz Allen had contracts with the government that totaled $3.85 billion in 2011. Dell had contracts that were worth $1.87 billion in 2011. Respectively, the two companies ranked just eighth and 19th in that category.

    Both are part of a rise of so-called “Beltway Bandits” — private companies in or near Washington whose major business is providing services to the government.

    Booz Allen gets about 98 percent of its revenue from government contracts. Washington Technology lists 17 “major” customers — and they are all different government agencies. The Defense Department, Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Homeland Security Department, and IRS are just a few.

    That Snowden has made some mindblowing claims about his power at Booz Allen — including the ability to “wiretap the President” if he wanted to — will likely call into question the power and access employees of these companies have, as well as the size of the U.S.’s national security mission in general.

    “I had full access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all around the world,” Snowden said.

    A groundbreaking 2010 report from The Washington Post found a vast expansion of government operations in the post-9/11 world.

    Specifically, it found that 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies are working on intelligence, counterterrorism, or homeland security in the United States. The NSA alone, meanwhile, has contracts with 250 companies.

    The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama early this year, strengthens protections for whistleblowers who are employees of government contractors.

    But employee reports of mismanagement or other violations are only protected if made to a member of Congress, an Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office, a federal employee responsible for contract oversight at the agency, an authorized official of a law enforcement agency, or a court or grand jury.

  16. OKY1 whines, “Swarthmore mom, your constant support of the Anti-American, Nazi policies ”

    Wrong, and only said to get negative attention. Please pay better attention.

  17. Anonymously Yours 1, June 10, 2013 at 11:45 am

    AP,

    I know a number of brilliant folks that only have GEDs…… I’m amazed that he was able to get a job like this….. Pretty snooty group….
    ====

    I’m not. They make the mistake of thinking that they’ll be able to control some of these folks — that they’ll be beholden… It’s lovely when it backfires….

  18. Leaker’s Employer Became Wealthy by Maintaining Government Secrets
    By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ERIC LIPTON
    June 9, 2013
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/us/booz-allen-grew-rich-on-government-contracts.html

    Excerpt:
    WASHINGTON — Edward J. Snowden’s employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, has become one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the United States almost exclusively by serving a single client: the government of the United States.

    Over the last decade, much of the company’s growth has come from selling expertise, technology and manpower to the National Security Agency and other federal intelligence agencies. Booz Allen earned $1.3 billion, 23 percent of the company’s total revenue, from intelligence work during its most recent fiscal year.

    The government has sharply increased spending on high-tech intelligence gathering since 2001, and both the Bush and Obama administrations have chosen to rely on private contractors like Booz Allen for much of the resulting work.

    Thousands of people formerly employed by the government, and still approved to deal with classified information, now do essentially the same work for private companies. Mr. Snowden, who revealed on Sunday that he provided the recent leak of national security documents, is among them.

    As evidence of the company’s close relationship with government, the Obama administration’s chief intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., is a former Booz Allen executive. The official who held that post in the Bush administration, John M. McConnell, now works for Booz Allen.

    “The national security apparatus has been more and more privatized and turned over to contractors,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that studies federal government contracting. “This is something the public is largely unaware of, how more than a million private contractors are cleared to handle highly sensitive matters.”

    It has gone so far, Ms. Brian said, that even the process of granting security clearances is often handled by contractors, allowing companies to grant government security clearances to private sector employees.

    Companies like Booz Allen, Lockheed Martin and the Computer Sciences Corporation also engage directly in gathering information and providing analysis and advice to government officials. Booz Allen employees work inside the facilities at the N.S.A., among the most secretive of the intelligence agencies. The company also has several office buildings near the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.

  19. Bloiuse, I have been targeted by the Alex Jones gun loving crew since I started on this blog .It all started with that tea party guy that destroyed my sign at the healthcare rally. 🙂 I have a relative that was a consultant for Booz Allen although not in Dc so i know a little bit about the type of people they usually hire. When I was on my so called house hunting trip, I saw this massive Booz Allen building in Rockville and I wondered why they had such a large presence in the DC suburbs.. Well, now I know. It pays to keep your eyes open and follow the money.

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