I posted this in response to the oversimplfying post of an earlier poster who was under the misapprehension that it was enough to say that Snowden violated regulations and orders, as if that fully resolved the issue. It does not.

Time will tell, I hope, whether the Constitution and the First Amendment in particular mandate a whistleblower's exception to orders and regulations that mandate confidentiality. Were it otherwise, the secrecy thus coerced by penal sanctions would prevent an effective opportunity for injured members of the public to learn about the injury, proceed in court to their remedies, and to have the operation of unconstitutional laws restrained by the courts.

No I thought it was the other guy that said that.. 8)

Edited soon as I saw.. But guess your page was already loaded.

haha.. no worries :)

back to the regularly scheduled programming.

He has not even approached the gates at customs, so he has not left the airport or entered Russia.

Which is my point.

I was watching RT, did not catch the name of the area with their accents, did not hear the words "transit area" though. The video made it look like he is kind of hanging in the halls; the point being he has not approached the Russian version of customs, so has not had to present papers to anyone. If I am to believe RT.

They don't allow you to just loiter in the airport like that. Perhaps they made an exception for him, but generally speaking, you can't do that.

He is probably in the transit area. The status of his visa now he didn't go to Havana is anyone's guess, but the length of the visa is 72 hours either way. So he has to go somewhere tomorrow unless he is getting special privileges. My guess, he is getting those privileges.

News reports his passport was revoked before his arrival to Moscow, so he's in their airport without a passport. If true, that means he is not there legally and is without either a passport or transit visa. Though i have never passed through there needing a transit visa... the fact that you need one means that everyone on the flight went through passport control to waiting areas. Hard to do without a valid passport.

Perhaps? Yeah, I think there is an exception being made. I am sure you can't just hang out in limbo for 2+ days in most circumstances. This gives Putin a way to say, "hey, he isn't even in my country yet." Which he is saying.

If that turns out to be true, then he probably doesn't have a lot of bargaining chips to be doing what he is doing right now. Logical would say he has shown the right people enough information to make them believe him so that he can get from A to B without being arrested, and get residency in another country.

Time will tell. The more info he has, the better protected he will probably be.

Might be a good reason to say you could wiretap the pres if you wanted.

It is my understanding that the NSA is using a part of the Patriot Act as legal authorization for the gathering of phone meta data and Prism and it is my understanding that the Federal Supreme Court has reviewed the Patriot Act.

It is my understanding that the gathering of the phone meta data and Prism have over sight by the FISA Court and issue warrants when called upon to do so.

I personally have been aware of both programs for some years but I...like you...did not know the full extent of the programs.

That I agree with, which takes me back to why I believe what he says. He has to have something of value, otherwise he'd be a nobody who they would throw under the bus. Criminals get caught all the time at airports around the world, so if he is a criminal, it should be an open and shut case where he is arrested and sent back to the USA. The fact everyone is helping him is what leads me to believe what he says is true.

You would think those helping him would want to see something. Proof of some kind. Any yahoo can claim he can do this or that, but for these people to jump through hoops for him... I believe proof has been given. I could be wrong of course, but in terms of international travel and protection, Snowden is walking on water right now.

When the government goes before FISA for a warrant, it's an ex parte proceeding in secret - meaning that no one is before the court except a DOJ lawyer. There is no one present who might stand in to object on any basis. And because the order itself is secret, only the responding party will know of its existence - the service provider, never the account holder. If the service provider does not contest it, no one else ever can contest what they don't know about. It's ugly and pernicious. In this case, if I recall, the service providers have all made public comments denying that they know anything about it. Maybe they are telling the truth. Maybe the systems were hacked into without their knowledge. God knows. I don't.

The Patriot Act, I'm told, is as big as a phone book. Maybe that's hyperbolie, but it's quite big. At the time it was passed, many congressmen admitted that they had not even started to read it. For sure, not all of it has been litigated. It's been amended - and it's an extremely complex document. The odds are approximately zero that all of its provisions have been litigated and determined to be constitutionally valid.

None of this is impressive. He claims he had access, but we don't know this for sure.

As for him fleeing the country and going to countries that extradition policies with the US, well, that's not difficult to plan out at all.

The US government has told us that "300 Americans" have had their phone records targeted.

So Americans have in fact been targeted, but we don't know why. Is this because of active terrorist related cases, or because local law enforcement looking into local crimes?

You mean countries where citizens have very little rights?

it's specifically section 215 of the patriot act


As we all scramble to become cybersecurity scholars, here's a handy guide to Section 215, the part of the Patriot Act that authorized the National Security Agency to collect cell data from Verizon and also possibly data for its PRISM program.
What is Section 215?
To understand Section 215, you first need to read Section 103(a) of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which established the FISA court system that grants the government permission to conduct electronic surveillance.

The relevant section:
The Chief Justice of the United States shall publicly designate seven district court judges from seven of the United States judicial circuits who shall constitute a court which shall have jurisdiction to hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance anywhere within the United States under the procedures set forth in this Act, except that no judge designated under this subsection shall hear the same application for electronic surveillance under this Act which has been denied previously by another judge designated under this subsection.
Under Section 215, the government can apply to the FISA court to compel businesses (like Verizon) to hand over user records. Here's what Slate wrote about Section 215 in a 2003 guide to the Patriot Act:
Section 215 modifies the rules on records searches. Post-Patriot Act, third-party holders of your financial, library, travel, video rental, phone, medical, church, synagogue, and mosque records can be searched without your knowledge or consent, providing the government says it's trying to protect against terrorism.

As Section 215 stands today—in the reauthorized version of the Patriot Act passed in 2005—"tangible things" (aka user data) sought in a FISA order "must be 'relevant' to an authorized preliminary or full investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." It also established congressional oversight for the FISA program, requiring the DOJ to conduct an audit of the program and the "effectiveness" of Section 215, and to submit an unclassified report on the audit to the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary and Intelligence.

That was during the Bush administration.
How has the Patriot Act changed since President Obama was elected?

Not very much. Sen. Obama voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in 2005, a decision he defended on the campaign trail in 2008 with the caveat that some provisions contained in Section 215, like allowing the government to go through citizens' library records, "went way overboard." But in 2011 President Obama signed a bill to extend the Patriot Act's sunset clause to June 1, 2015—with Section 215 intact in its 2005 form.

Did the NSA also use Section 215 to obtain Internet data for its PRISM program?
This is less clear, but the leaked PRISM program documents seem to indicate yes. The PRISM presentation seems to imply that Section 215 applies not only to phone metadata but also to email, chats, photos, video, logins, and other online user data. Referring to the type of data the government is allowed to collect as "tangible things" allows a pretty wide berth for interpretation.

This is my problem with all of this. So far all we have is some rather vague statements and no proof or any wrong doing. Even when the press digs in this, they are finding that all of these actions are covered by US law.

Usually I don't give a crap what they do, and if it's in the name of terrorism I'm usually all for it. But this discussion eventually lead me to a four page "warrant" from Congress that seems to be a "blanket" warrant for a six month period - I believe it was for "Information related to terrorism" from Verizon. This might be legal, but I believe it is against the spirit of the law - they should a warrant for each case... Not a blanket warrant for "anything they believe is related to terrorism".

A) There you go, perfectly legal.
B) Holy shit, we are fucked. LOL. Even I can see that.

china and russian drone strike their own children?

must have missed that in the news

It is my understanding that one or more provisions of the Patriot Act has been litigated by the Federal Supreme Court and it would seem to me that there has been more than enough time pass that every provision...that one thinks violates their rights...would have been litigated by now.

the same supreme court that rolled back the voters act?

what makes you think they care about doing anything 'supreme courtish'?

No, that's not what I mean.

There is little congruence these days - if there ever was - between how dependent a nation is on the grace of the United States and the rights afforded to its own citizens domestically.

E.g. Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos? A real beacon of Liberty in the South Pacific? But tighter than hell with our government. E.g. Egypt till we took the former leader out - it was where we contracted out our torture needs. Cf. Switzerland, which has always maintained a fiercely independent stance, but possesses among the highest standards of liberty. Cf. Iceland, ditto.

As a nation, we've never selected our friends or made decisions about aid and assistance depending in any big way on how closely the domestic front resembles our Bill of Rights, as it once was lived here.

You're right, none of it is impressive. It's super easy to evade capture from the US government while traveling abroad with a revoked passport and be protected by foreign governments at the same time. Easy peasy. Pretty common stuff really. The more I think about it, the more common this clown is.

Have you actually ever visited any of those countries or are you just regurgitating what you've read online in the western media?

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

King, that's just not how it works. Lawyers don't get a roving commission to contest every part of the law. It depends on aggrieved clients who want to challenge something that affects them. To challenge a law, you must have "standing", which means a concrete connection to the provision you are challenging. When taxpayers attempted to challenge that part of the income tax that funded the Vietnam War, they were thrown out of court. Without that connection, you cannot stay in court. It must be a very particularized connection. In some historic cases, the Supreme Court has held that only Congress itself has standing to challenge some executive orders. There is no system by which each and every law gets routinely strutinized by some panel of lawyers and gets challenged in court. No, the passage of time really doesn't have anything to do with it. It's a very tiny part of the statutes that have ever been brought to court for a determination of validity.

are you referring to 'United States v. Malinowski'?

don't forget the secret fisa court.

L am pretty much aware of all that you have stated and understand what you have stated...but I was being somewhat facetious...for as many people that I have heard complain about how the Patriot Act has trampled on their rights...and the amount of time that has passed...it just seems that every provision would have been challenged in court by now.

BTW what is your thinking about military courts compared to civilian courts.

should me and you mutt revolutionise the united states?

What you are saying is that Snowden "believes" the US is violating the law, but he's not an attorney. It might even be in fact that the only laws broken here is by Snowden himself.

If Snowden believes the US was violating the law so much, he should have contacted an attorney - and not flee the country.

Just so you know, you're trying to explain this to a guy who actually faked his own death here.

Pigshit. PF was a seventy year old man who died of a stroke approaching 11 years ago. In adition I understand how it works just fine..thank you very much.

You are just an ignorant perverted cocksucker that is also a fucking fruit cake.

Who knows what he believes...or what his motives were/are.

The comparison between military courts and civilian courts is pretty complicated. While I was in the JAG Corps, young, idealistic, and without experience in civilian courts, I thought that the military system was monstrously unfair. Indeed, there are some elements that I still dislike about it. But, having seen the alternative, the criminal justice system as it works in Illinois and in federal courts, I see that the military system has some areas where it is better and fairer. Especially in the quality of legal defense services provided. I no longer think that the system of courts martial is terrible. Each system has plusses and minuses, somebody's calculus of fairness weighed against other interests, like cost and manpower, and differing ideas of decency and fairness. What I've learned from this is to master the rules and process and use every advantage in each system for the benefit of a client - and those benefits will be different from place to place - and to find ways around the disadvantages of each system. Maybe that's not a great answer but it's the best I can do.

That's the other problem... Why China? Why Russia? Why not fly straight to Ecuador or Iceland?

RIP Pathfinder. Long live theking.

I'm blushing again. Thanks.

is really anyone out there who believes that prisma is all about finding out possible terrorist actions? just think the ammount of data that each single day is getting out and in the united states.i dont think that a terrorist will call his partner to ask him if everything's going well with the bomb.the targenting group in so called prisma operation, is only the people.have no doubt about it.
if not,those bastards from hellstan wouldn't be able to perform they barbarian action during
boston's marathon.snowden is not a traitor.

the opinion that really put thinks the way they are....very good!

I asked because over the years attorneys that I have known that have had experience in both systems...for the most part...felt that the military system of justice is...overall...fairer. Thanks for your input.