In a previous column, I criticized the work of the White House Task Force on the NSA surveillance program as stacked with Obama loyalists with a majority of surveillance hawks. Later, one of the five members came out to say that the reforms were not significant and that he believes the program should be actually expanded not limited. Now, the only member without prior positions in the Administration and national security ties, University of Chicago Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone, has declared that the NSA is not a rogue agency and that Edward Snowden is a criminal.
I have great respect for Professor Stone as an academic but his comments reaffirmed criticism of the make-up of the panel as selected by the White House to offer “reforms” while protecting the underlying program.
Stone insists that NSA is not “some kind of a rogue agency” and that it should not be required to justify the program on the basis of whether it has thwarted any attack or conspiracy. Rather, like some many in the Obama and Bush Administration, Stone measured the program against the most extreme possible attack to argue that it is ipso facto necessary: “It is a mistake to ask, at least arguably a mistake to ask if any particular program . . . thwarted terrorist attacks, because we are not dealing with little things. It is possible that we are talking about a nuclear, a chemical, biological attack where tens of thousands of people’s lives could be at risk. If you thwart one every 20 years, you are doing pretty good. So the fact that hasn’t happened does not prove the program was worthless.” Well that would be an argument that would allow virtually any program with sweeping warrantless searches.
He reserved his harshest words for Snowden, dismissing the “positive consequences” of his disclosure while noting that he is still a criminal. Stone insisted
“we have a very strong legal principle in our system, that you don’t get to commit a crime because you have a good justification for doing so. . . .
Therefore, any kind of a notion that someone is not a criminal when they do this opens the door to other people saying, ‘Well, gee, I can do this and be a hero and I won’t even go to jail for it.’ I think you just don’t want that. . . . Basically, my view is I think Snowden is a criminal.”
What is missing is the fact that most whistleblowers released confidential or classified information. The government routinely classifies embarrassing or abusive programs to prevent the public from seeing the information. By Stone’s measure, historical figures like Daniel Ellsberg would be a simple criminal. The whole concept of a whistleblower is that they release information that would not have been made public. The Pentagon Papers are virtually indistinguishable on that basis from Snowden’s disclosures. Moreover, you have a federal judge who has declared the underlying program unconstitutional — even though Stone and his task force colleagues accepted the program as demonstrably legal. Also, as noted in the previous column,, this ignores the Administration refusing to investigate let alone prosecute Clapper for perjury, CIA officials for torture, or intelligence officials for admitted destruction of evidence on torture. It is simply all part of America’s Animal Farm. Finally, you have the White House and the Congress admitting abuses disclosed by Snowden and promising reforms. This is why I recently wrote a column on the relatively strong basis for a pardon for Snowden.
Stone’s comments shows the continued refusal of Administration allies to acknowledge that the standard applied to Snowden would have led to the incarceration of celebrated figures like Ellsberg and others who helped end abuses in history.
Edward Snowden, in his own words:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/alternative-christmas-message/4od#3629294
As some here already know:
“Stone served as an informal adviser to President Obama in 2008, years after hiring him to teach constitutional law.” -Democracy Now!
Is Edward Snowden a Hero? A Debate with Journalist Chris Hedges & Law Scholar Geoffrey Stone
http://youtu.be/cKmkxptPLSw
I see that this Stone character does not apply his own legal reasoning to himself and the NSA. They ARE committing MANY crimes in their supposed good cause of preventing terrorism. He does not even believe his own principles, which is an indication of total corruption.
“It is a mistake to ask, at least arguably a mistake to ask if any particular program . . . thwarted terrorist attacks, because we are not dealing with little things. It is possible that we are talking about a nuclear, a chemical, biological attack where tens of thousands of people’s lives could be at risk. If you thwart one every 20 years, you are doing pretty good. So the fact that hasn’t happened does not prove the program was worthless.”
Well JT may respect Professor Stone, but if the above is an indication of his logic as he tackles the issue of national security, then I would suggest that he may be an intelligent man made ignorant by his own pre-judgments. When national security policy is to be decided on the basis of a “worst case scenario” then the only logical solution becomes a total authoritarian state because the only way to control against “worst case scenarios” is to control the lives of all citizens and visitors. The problem with pontificating academics like Professor Stone is that they can’t imagine their own lives being impinged upon in any way because they see themselves on the “good guys” side. They are so invested in their own persona that they little understand how easily one of the “good guys” could suddenly find themselves oppressed under an agency like the NSA.
Mespo… Well said…
“we have a very strong legal principle in our system, that you don’t get to commit a crime because you have a good justification for doing so. . . .”
**************
The whole country was founded on a “crime” from the British point of view.
Here’s mad King George III sounding remarkably Task Force-ish in his address to Parliament on October 27, 1775:
The authors and promoters of this desperate conspiracy have, in the conduct of it, derived great advantage from the difference of our intentions and theirs. They meant only to amuse by vague expressions of attachment to the Parent State, and the strongest protestations of loyalty to me, whilst they were preparing for a general revolt. On our part, though it was declared in your last session that a rebellion existed within the province of the Massachusetts Bay, yet even that province we wished rather to reclaim than to subdue. The resolutions of Parliament breathed a spirit of moderation and forbearance; conciliatory propositions accompanied the measures taken to enforce authority; and the coercive acts were adapted to cases of criminal combinations amongst subjects not then in arms. I have acted with the same temper; anxious to prevent, if it had been possible, the effusion of the blood of my subjects; and the calamities which are inseparable from a state of war; still hoping that my people in America would have discerned the traiterous views of their leaders, and have been convinced, that to be a subject of Great Britain, with all its consequences, is to be the freest member of any civil society in the known world.
I guess not much changes in the Rules for Power.
I suppose he missed the part about slavery being legal….. And people were prosecuted for freeing the slaves and for harboring those that were freed and escaped….. But wait…. That’s olds news…. Just because someone defied the law because it’s illegal…. Oh yeah…. I guess England gave us our blessing to leave the Union Jack flag….. Man… Maybe I need to go back to revisionist and the school for justification of illegal laws….
raff said, “Prof. Stone should be ashamed of himself.”
I’d like to add to that “and the black swan he rode in on.”
Also, to step aside to geese and ganders, what Justice Holmes said.
Will Professor Stone now be joining a pressure group to have Dick Cheney and Mr. clapper prosecuted, just for starters. Or does his comment only apply to the good guys who disclose bad conduct?
Pick your panel and get the result you want. Snowden is a hero. If he had stayed in the US he would be dead by now and he would have been silenced. The NSA, the President and his predecessor, the AG ands other government officials have done the damage to the US by their conduct. Snowden did us all a service by shedding light on that conduct. He is a whistleblower not a criminal
One should try to live without breaking laws but you would not have the USA if it this general rule were not broken sometimes. (perhaps the USB..) Edward Snowden reminded me of where this country is headed: I had applied & paid for citizenship in 2013 but had a change of heart just before my second appointment & kept my British passport & Canadian citizenship. We may all be going down under the yoke of too large & too untrusting government but the USA is now racing faster to the weir. Well done, Edward Snowden, a modern Robin Hood
Prof. Stone should be ashamed of himself.
Snowden first contacted supervisors and coworkers, but could not get anyone to do anything.
So he followed one of the oldest laws in our nation:
(Whistleblowers According To The Early Americans). The criminals are those who oppose what Snowden did.
You mean to tell me a Chicago politician is stacking the deck?? I’m appalled!
“[Their] argument basically boils down to the notion that the more inept at the intelligence business or the Kop business our federal agents are, the more they have to watch more and more people as a way to figure out who is being naughty and who is being nice.” (The Keystone Complex To The Rescue – 8). Long gone are the days of Sherlock Holmes and other competent detectives.
Dave, given the outcomes of a number of other whistleblowers who did “the right thing”, I don’t think Snowden had any choice.
“we have a very strong legal principle in our system, that you don’t get to commit a crime because you have a good justification for doing so. . . .”
Ummmm, unless you are with the NSA ???
QUOTE “you don’t get to commit a crime because you have a good justification for doing so. . . .”
Tell that to Obama that has had double tap drone strikes, and insists that he can kill Americans, even here with them….
It doesn’t help that Snowden fled the country. Irrespective of whether he shed light on shady practices or conversely exposed our vulnerabilities to our enemies, seeking asylum to avoid prosecution somewhat undermines his position.