4 ms·
Disclaimer: I'm just a ingorant non-lawyer non-american. Wouldn't a great defense here be that the NDAs shouldn't be enforced because the actions covered were
by gnud 7y ago
Disclaimer: I'm just a ingorant non-lawyer non-american.
Wouldn't a great defense here be that the NDAs shouldn't be enforced because the actions covered were criminal? I mean, isn't that standard with NDAs?
- tootie 7y agoWhat part was criminal? And how would he prove that?
- gnud 7y agoThe alleged spying on US citizens. I know the rest of us are fair game somehow. This could be a chance to get this before the courts, was my actual (badly communicated) point.
- CWuestefeld 7y agoI think we're a little past the need for an "alleged" qualifier.
- likpok 7y agoHe released a lot more than the spying on US citizens. This lawsuit also appears to be about a different thing: the publication of his book. From the complaint (which is the government's side), he was supposed to get pre-authorization for publication and didn't. Therefore, the money from the book goes to the USG instead of Snowden.
- garmaine 7y agoYes, but (frustratingly) it is not illegal within the US jurisdiction for the US government to violate a non-US person's privacy. The US constitution's bill of rights only protects americans. Hence why the key point is that the US intelligence agencies spied on US citizens without warrants. I agree that they shouldn't be spying on anyone in this way (get a warrant!), but spying on US citizens in this way is super duper illegal, and therefore most clearly shows that the program itself was illegal.
- CWuestefeld 7y agoThe US constitution's bill of rights only protects americans. In general, this is false. EVERYONE gets the right to free speech, the right to an attorney and a trial by jury, etc. I wouldn't expect anyone to say that it's OK to take illegal immigrants as slaves because they're not covered by the 13th Amendment. That said, I do see that legal opinions about Snowden's revelations say that the surveillance is OK for non-USAns. I don't understand how this is supposed to be.
- garmaine 7y agoEveryone on US soil. It's definitely a radical, non-consensus opinion that the US bill of rights protects non-Americans outside the USA.
- tootie 7y agoSnowden exposed bulk metadata collection that was greenlit by the FISA court. They were granted explicit legal authority before doing it, so there's zero chance of anyone being criminally liable. The more egregious spying program during the Bush administration (Stellar Wind) was exposed years earlier by the NY Times.
- _nalply 7y agoPerhaps it would be better to use the word "unconstitutional".
- thomascgalvin 7y agoWhistleblower laws allow you to blow the whistle to a government agency, not to the press or the public in general.
- logfromblammo 7y agoWhistleblower laws are a con. Principled reporters have never been treated fairly in the US. It's the same crap as "responsible disclosure"; it just gives the organization time to assemble the cover up. Publish without warning in the public interest, and the public will see the truly responsible party with their hands unclean. Graciously give them six months to clean up their act, and they will instead use it to clean up their mess--which is actually just you. Publish afterward, and you will find that the plan to discredit and humiliate you was already loaded and ready to fire.
- arrosenberg 7y agoCourts have thrown out NDAs before because they were unreasonable or unconscionable - Snowden would argue that he signed an NDA under the pretense that the government was behaving according to its' own laws, and that the NDA should be thrown out because that reasonable expectation was violated.
- dredmorbius 7y agoSource?