Below is my column that ran this week in Al Jazerra on the one-year anniversary of the Snowden scandal. It is hard to believe that it has only been one year given the number of investigations, promised reforms, and articles. I previously wrote a piece explaining why a pardon or commutation would not be inconsistent with prior cases, but that still seems unlikely. While I disagree with Snowden’s release of classified information that could harm the country, I do believe that his case is more nuanced than his critics have suggested. What is fascinating is that, after a year, we appear no closer to a consensus on what Snowden represents.
Edward Snowden: Whistleblower or traitor?
Jonathan Turley
It is hard to imagine that just one year ago, Edward Snowden famously walked away. He was a low-level employee of Dell contractor at a nondescript National Security Agency site. A non-entity by design. Just one of hundreds of thousands of people working in the burgeoning national security complex in the United States – the ultimate faceless cog. Now, one year later, he is a household name but the world remains divided on who Edward Snowden is. Is he a whistleblower or a traitor? It turns out that question is often answered not by how people view Snowden but how they view their government.
Snowden the whistleblower
For many around the world, and a growing number of Americans, Snowden is a hero and whistleblower who put his own freedom at stake to reveal shocking abuses by the US intelligence agencies. Much of what Snowden has done certainly looks like a whistleblower. First, he does not appear to have sought money for his disclosures. Indeed, he appears to have thought more about what he was taking than where he was taking it.
Secondly, and most importantly, is the breathtaking disclosures that he made. Consider a few of the more important disclosures:
Secret orders under which the NSA was seizing phone and text records of virtually every citizen in the United States. The scope and lack of protection in the program was described by a federal judge as “almost Orwellian”.Surveillance of world leaders, including some of our closest allies like German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At least 122 world leaders were intercepted by the United States.The forced cooperation of US telecommunication companies to turn over data on every US citizen under programmes like PRISM.Programmes like XKeyscore to search “nearly everything a user does on the Internet” through data it intercepts across the world.The tapping of fiber optic cables by British spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in conjunction with the NSA.The interception of millions of calls in foreign countries, including every single call in places like Afghanistan.
What is most striking is that in the wake of these disclosures, the Obama Administration first denied the allegations. National Intelligence Director James R Clapper Jr not only denied the existence of the programme before the Senate but he later explained that his testimony was “the least untrue”statement that he could make. Of course, that would still make it untrue, but he has never been investigated, let alone prosecuted.
While President Barack Obama would later insist that Snowden did not influence the various reforms implemented after his disclosure, few people believe that claim. There is no question that Snowden succeeded in forcing multiple task force investigations and a series of changes, including the claimed cessation of some aspects of these programmes.
Snowden the traitor
What so many people around the world admire about Snowden is precisely what makes him such a hated figure within government. He broke the rules and worse yet, embarrassed some of the most powerful leaders in Washington. He obviously broke the law in removing and disclosing classified information – material potentially harmful to the security of the United States.
The anger over Snowden clearly goes beyond the act itself however. For many of Washington’s elite, Snowden is as baffling as some alien from another planet. These are people who spent their lives playing by the rules in a system controlled by a duopoly of power. With two parties controlling the system, there is little that happens in Washington that is not predictable and often controlled. The reactions of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Secretary of State John Kerry are particularly illustrative.
Clinton came off as a classic passive aggressive – expressing utter bewilderment over Snowden: “I was puzzled because we have all these protections for whistleblowers. If he were concerned and wanted to be part of the American debate, he could have been.”
Really, how? I represented the prior whistleblower who first revealed aspects of this programme years before Snowden. As I have testified in Congress, the whistleblower system referred to by Clinton is a colossal joke.
Firstly, there are exceptions under the whistleblower laws for national security information so Snowden could not use those protections. Secondly, the House and Senate oversight committees are viewed as the place that whistleblowers go to get arrested. There is a revolving door of staff going back and forth to the intelligence agencies. The only “debate” Snowden would have been part of would have been how best to terminate him in the shortest period of time.
Then there is Secretary of State John Kerry who recently offered his own brand of macho advice to the kid: “Man up and come back to the United States.”
Kerry appears ready to give him an “attaboy” on his way to solitary confinement to cut off virtually any contact with the outside world. I have great faith and love for our legal system, but national security law has become increasingly draconian and outcome determinative due to various changes in the last decade. This administration has continued the use of secret legal opinions and secret evidence in cases. The agencies continue to classify information to prevent the disclosure of potentially embarrassing or conflicting material.
Obama has refused to close tribunal proceedings and reserves the right to determine whether people go to real courts or the widely ridiculed tribunal proceedings. Even with a federal trial, Snowden would be placed under Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) to cut off any outside contact and impose limitations on even his cleared counsel in speaking with him. At trial, federal judges are increasingly barring arguments from defendants as “immaterial” even when those arguments are the real reason for their actions.
So there you have it: hero or traitor. Take your pick. What is clear is that Snowden pulled back the curtain on new reality of living within a fishbowl of constant surveillance. People clearly don’t like it, even if they don’t like Snowden. They are left however with the same sense of frustration and isolation when it comes to their government. Snowden stepped outside of a system that many Americans now view as impenetrable and unchanging. Whatever he may be, Snowden remains fascinating precisely because he proved to be the malfunctioning cog, the one who walked away.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and has handled national security cases in federal court.
Al Jazeera: June 9, 2014
Great piece. People are beginning to see the only bipartisanship in DC is when the duopoly is @ risk. Then the duopoly circles its wagons.
Snowden was an intelligence gatherer who reported on illegal intelligence gathering. A perfect example of two negatives making a positive.
In the absence of my prior attempt to post a comment here working, perhaps it would be useful for folks to get on YouTube, and find Malvina Reynolds singing, “God Bless the Grass’?
Which has the greater truthful authority?
The Law?
Or…
Life?
Hey Johnathan: A really good article. Shall I say (ugh) “fair and balanced”? Keep up the good work.
In my view, Edward Snowden is a traitor to the crule [“crule” is not a typo} of law if “the crule of law” is the neurologically-abusive notion that the make-believes of law are sovereign over life itself, and are, thus more than life itself.
In my view, Edward Snowden is a magnificently beautiful hero for all who have been abused, sometimes even abused to death, by the crule of law.
For myself, the crule of law has inflicted upon me sometimes beyond catastrophically shattering abuses.
Please see Malvina Reynolds, “God Bless the Grass,”on YouTube. Apparently, my attempting to embed the URL for it will not work.
Is life truthfully held accountable to the crule of law, or is the crule of law accountable to life?
God, “Bless the Grass”?
The crule of law denies to some people in pain from chemotherapy effective relief from terrible pain, through using Grass?
God, “Bless the Grass!”
The cruel of law denies to some autistic people the right to be autistically truthful and truthfully autistic, by defining autism as inescapably a mental disorder and/or defect?
God, “Bless the Truth!”
Is it not the truth that life was before the cruel of law became?
How can it ever be that the crule of law is not, as long as life exists, ultimately answerable to life itself and, perhaps much more, to that which gives life its being alive and its living doings?
I continue to wait for a scientific demonstration of any actual event which actually happened which actually could have been actually-avoided through any actually-achievable process of any actual kind whatsoever.
The essence of the crule of law, as I, being autistic, have yet been able to grasp it, is simply the reversal of what is honest with what is dishonest and the reversal of what is true with what is untrue.
People who are actually truthful, to the extent that they live actual lives that are actually truthful, are inescapably traitors to the dishonesty and deception of the crule of law.
God, “Bless the Truth!”
For me, to me, and with me, Edward Snowden has blessed life with his conscientious courage in protesting the dishonesty and deception of the crule of law.
As an autistic person, a living human person who has often experienced life as an autistic human person as though beyond-infinitely-hateful anathema to the social construction of imagined reality masquerading as truth and life, I embrace with rejoicing Edward Snowden’s treason regarding dishonesty and deception as mandated-by-the-crule-of-law-based social norms.
God, “Bless Life!”
This sentence is appalling:
“While I disagree with Snowden’s release of classified information that could harm the country, I do believe that his case is more nuanced than his critics has suggested.”
How can anyone write such limp-wristed dross?
In the meantime……
Julian Assange continues to live in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. So far, the around-the-clock siege of the embassy by British security forces has exceeded £6,000.000. At today’s exchange rate, that comes to at least $10,060,160 in US dollars.
There are no charges, but the Swedish prosecutor wants him to come to Sweden for questioning regarding an allegation that he had sex with a woman without using a condom. Sweden is the only country in the world where sex without a condom can result in a “rape” charge. The Swedish prosecutor and detectives have steadfastly refused to come to London to interview him, and won’t interview him by teleconference. They are demanding Assange come to Sweden in person, and won’t give him assurances he will not be handed over to the CIA. The Swedish prosecutor won’t come to London or talk to him on the phone, but the British taxpayers are paying for extraordinary security so this alleged–but uncharged–“rapist” can’t leave the country, except to go to Sweden.
http://rt.com/news/164516-assange-london-ecuador-embassy/
Whistleblower without doubt or debate. There was literally no other way to get Americans to understand the totality of the illegality represented by the NSA, and its legal underpinnings. The Patriot Act and Authorization of Military forces will fall, but not under this President.
Reblogged this on terryclarkeblog.
It is interesting the one person who admitted committing a felony in this whole saga continue to be free of any prosecution. In fact he is still in a high position in our government and he admitted to a felony. How does that happen Clapper?
Thank you for a well reasoned article. Keep up your fight to have our elected officials bide by the Constitution as they cross their fingers and swear to protect it.
Most Americans still don’t know the half of it.
Hero… Any government that will accept the notion of ‘secret courts’ and ‘secret evidence’ deserves to be outed by a Snowden.
From time to time one courageous individual rises above millions of other mediocre lemmings, to reveal to the world the scams and corruption of the 1%. Snowden is among those few individuals who will be honored in future generations as that exceptional individual.
Jonathan Turley: “Snowden remains fascinating precisely because he proved to be the malfunctioning cog, the one who walked away.”
While I understand your point (I think), I’d hardly refer to Snowden as a “malfunctioning cog.”
Snowden’s the Nathan Hale of our times. He claims he tried to bring his concerns to the attention of his superiors and that he can prove it. The NSA denies it. I believe Snowden.
Asking what Snowden is happens to be a trick diversion.
The elephant in the room question is “What is a government that spies on its own people as if they were enemies, and spies on its allies as if they were enemies. and maybe spies on its enemies too?”
And illegally spies at that, no matter what idiot judges say about the plain language in the Constitution.
Snowden has the founding spirit that should never have been allowed to be killed with propaganda and limp emotions of enablers:
(Whistleblowers According To The Early Americans – 2).
Reblogged this on BLOGGING BAD w/Gunny G! ~ (Attn: "CLINGERS").
We can begin the analysis by asking why was Booze Allen was allowed to sell the entire NSA package to the UAE and remain in business while we continue to read discussions of — Snowden: whistleblower or traitor? I will tell you why because BOOZE ALLEN did it for the money; something your alleged “rule players” understand. The “traitors” are those who have allowed our Constitutional rights to be taken away and our tax dollars to be squandered on foreign wars. Snowden is the messenger who brought the truth and that is why he is so hated by the power structure –a bipartisan hatred. That s the kind of bipartisanship we can all do without.
Great hero