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I don’t care about Snowden making a profit, but I do care about the first amendment. The government is not allowed to impose a fine on speech they don’t like. T

by lacker 7y ago

I don’t care about Snowden making a profit, but I do care about the first amendment. The government is not allowed to impose a fine on speech they don’t like. That is not “free speech”.

onetimemanytime 7y ago
Not a free speech case at all. He said all he wanted. The book is out and anyone can buy, just the person that broke the legal agreement (not to share the classified stuff he learned in books without prior clearance) will not make money of that info. Otherwise anyone can do a few years in jail and then make $x million by telling what he saw while working for CIA/NSA etc.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > Otherwise anyone can do a few years in jail and then make $x million by telling what he saw while working for CIA/NSA etc. Why do you think that the only two alternatives is to allow people to sell secrets to foreign governments and sell revelations about illegal actions of the state or to punish both in the same way? Why do you think it is impossible to distinguish those two cases?
  - disintegore 7y ago
    I think his point is that the law is being applied consistently. If Snowden received a pardon (and he absolutely unarguably should) this would not be problem.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
      For one, the law is not being applied consistently. The abusers are still not in jail. Rather, the abuse is still going on, still breaking the law. But also, actually, it would be a problem, because the law would still be broken, because the law still systematically protects the abusers. What is needed is a change to the unjust law, not some exception for someone who highlighted that that is what it is.
- soulofmischief 7y ago
  Cases like these should be protected with whistleblower laws. Legislation encouraging whistleblowing is a good thing.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - irq11 7y ago
    Cases like these are protected by whistleblower laws. But you can’t just leak stuff, call yourself a whistleblower and claim immunity from prosecution. Factually, objectively, Snowden didn’t even try to use the law. (HN voters will immediately censor via downvote any comment that points this out, of course.)
    - colejohnson66 7y ago
      > Factually, objectively, Snowden didn’t even try to use the law. Are you sure? Cause I’m pretty sure he did try using the internal methods. > (HN voters will immediately censor via downvote any comment that points this out, of course.) No, we’re not censoring you because you’re right. We’re downvoting you because you’re wrong.
      - irq11 7y ago
        I’m not wrong. He didn’t file a whistleblower complaint [1]. It’s interesting that you confidently assert that I’m wrong when you admit that you don’t even know what you’re saying is true. [1]https://www.lawfareblog.com/edward-snowden-national-security-whistleblowing-and-civil-disobedience https://www.lawfareblog.com/edward-snowden-national-security... ” There is some dispute about the facts of Snowden’s case, but according to the National Security Agency (NSA), he did not appeal to his superiors, follow the normal whistleblower protocols or otherwise attempt to change the surveillance system from within before divulging its details to the outside world. He did not satisfy Rawls’s condition of fair notice.”
        colejohnson66 7y ago
- stale2002 7y ago
  > Otherwise anyone can do a few years in jail and then make $x million by telling what he saw while working for CIA/NSA etc. That sounds wonderful. I wish this were possible.
logfromblammo 7y ago
Despite the Citizens United ruling, money is not equivalent to speech. When it comes to selling published work, we do have a right, not made explicit in the amendments to the Constitution, to earn a livelihood. But that right is not absolute, such that it is not permissible to earn one's livelihood by committing property crimes, violent crimes, or crimes of deception. The agreement he signed before gaining access to state secrets is backed by laws that anticipated the possibility that someone might someday be paid to reveal those secrets, and those laws attempted to remove the financial incentive for disclosure. They include sections on review of pre-print manuscripts intended for publication, which only apply to cleared individuals. Snowden can spill as many of his own secrets as he pleases, and get paid for them. But the state cannot allow him to profit from revealing state secrets. It's counterproductive from a security standpoint.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > It's counterproductive from a security standpoint. From what kind of twisted security standpoint is it counterproductive to allow someone to reveal mass security violations? I don't think it is useful to participate in the newspeak that authoritarians use to pretend that you are somehow more secure when your human rights are constantly being violated.
  - bigwavedave 7y ago
    This has nothing to do with preventing the reveal of mass security violations and everything to do with laws put in place to disincentivize bad actors who are in a position of trust from profiting from the leaking of state secrets. However you try to spin things, this is exactly what happened. Snowden was in a position of trust, leaked all kinds of state secrets, and then tried to profit from that leak.
    - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      > “However you try to spin things, this is exactly what happened. Snowden was in a position of trust, leaked all kinds of state secrets, and then tried to profit from that leak.” That looks like _your_ spin on things. The only reason the leaks had potential for a profitable book written about them is that the leaks were the only possible mechanism for society to gain knowledge of egregious abuses of power and coordinated, deliberate violations of rights. Attributing a profit motive to Snowden is deeply incorrect and unjustified. Government agencies acted out secret behaviors that egregiously abused their power and harmed people. The doing of those behaviors, regardless of the state of knowledge about them of the public, created a profit opportunity, no different than in journalism. Nobody forced those agencies to do those behaviors and thereby create a sincere and urgent need for an expose that overrides any laws relating to the control of that information. They did that and are wholly responsible for it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kube-system 7y ago
NDA enforcement is not at odds with the first amendment. Thousands of them are signed every day, and they hold up just like any other contract.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > NDA enforcement is not at odds with the first amendment. This isn't ordinary NDA enforcement, it's enforcement of a prior restraint on speech. With a normal NDA, if you publish information you're not supposed to, they can go to court and prove that the information was covered by the NDA and then get an order to stop you from continuing to publish it or sue you for damages. In this case they haven't proved that anything in the book was actually subject to the NDA and they're objecting because they didn't get to review it before publication. But you can reasonably expect any government "review" in this context to be an effort to unreasonably delay or otherwise interfere with publication of the book, even if there is no legitimate cause. The difference is that they would otherwise have to prove the contents of the book was in violation of the NDA. Without that they could suppress the book even if it wasn't. That might not be constitutional and there are a lot of good policy reasons for it not to be. This would be a lot more obvious if they were seeking to restrain publication, so they're looking for a backdoor, and trying to get there by taking the money. But that should fail for the same reason Son of Sam laws are unconstitutional. Writing and publishing a book takes time and money which the person who wants to write it generally can't get without the expectation of recovering it after publication. You don't have time to write a book if you can't get an advance and thereby have to spend all your time working some other job to put food on the table. Which can cause the book not to be written and the readers would be denied the information. It's as much about the right of the readers to pay someone to tell the story and thereby ensure the story gets told, as it is the right of the storyteller to make a buck.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    > This isn't ordinary NDA enforcement, it's enforcement of a prior restraint on speech. Which the Supreme Court famously ruled illegal in Near v. Minnesota[0] among many others. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_v._Minnesota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_v._Minnesota

by lacker 7y ago

I don’t care about Snowden making a profit, but I do care about the first amendment. The government is not allowed to impose a fine on speech they don’t like. That is not “free speech”.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Not a free speech case at all. He said all he wanted. The book is out and anyone can buy, just the person that broke the legal agreement (not to share the classified stuff he learned in books without prior clearance) will not make money of that info. Otherwise anyone can do a few years in jail and then make $x million by telling what he saw while working for CIA/NSA etc.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
> Otherwise anyone can do a few years in jail and then make $x million by telling what he saw while working for CIA/NSA etc. Why do you think that the only two alternatives is to allow people to sell secrets to foreign governments and sell revelations about illegal actions of the state or to punish both in the same way? Why do you think it is impossible to distinguish those two cases?
- disintegore 7y ago
  I think his point is that the law is being applied consistently. If Snowden received a pardon (and he absolutely unarguably should) this would not be problem.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
    For one, the law is not being applied consistently. The abusers are still not in jail. Rather, the abuse is still going on, still breaking the law. But also, actually, it would be a problem, because the law would still be broken, because the law still systematically protects the abusers. What is needed is a change to the unjust law, not some exception for someone who highlighted that that is what it is.
soulofmischief 7y ago
Cases like these should be protected with whistleblower laws. Legislation encouraging whistleblowing is a good thing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- irq11 7y ago
  Cases like these are protected by whistleblower laws. But you can’t just leak stuff, call yourself a whistleblower and claim immunity from prosecution. Factually, objectively, Snowden didn’t even try to use the law. (HN voters will immediately censor via downvote any comment that points this out, of course.)
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    > Factually, objectively, Snowden didn’t even try to use the law. Are you sure? Cause I’m pretty sure he did try using the internal methods. > (HN voters will immediately censor via downvote any comment that points this out, of course.) No, we’re not censoring you because you’re right. We’re downvoting you because you’re wrong.
    - irq11 7y ago
      I’m not wrong. He didn’t file a whistleblower complaint [1]. It’s interesting that you confidently assert that I’m wrong when you admit that you don’t even know what you’re saying is true. [1]https://www.lawfareblog.com/edward-snowden-national-security-whistleblowing-and-civil-disobedience https://www.lawfareblog.com/edward-snowden-national-security... ” There is some dispute about the facts of Snowden’s case, but according to the National Security Agency (NSA), he did not appeal to his superiors, follow the normal whistleblower protocols or otherwise attempt to change the surveillance system from within before divulging its details to the outside world. He did not satisfy Rawls’s condition of fair notice.”
      - colejohnson66 7y ago
stale2002 7y ago
> Otherwise anyone can do a few years in jail and then make $x million by telling what he saw while working for CIA/NSA etc. That sounds wonderful. I wish this were possible.

logfromblammo 7y ago

Despite the Citizens United ruling, money is not equivalent to speech. When it comes to selling published work, we do have a right, not made explicit in the amendments to the Constitution, to earn a livelihood. But that right is not absolute, such that it is not permissible to earn one's livelihood by committing property crimes, violent crimes, or crimes of deception. The agreement he signed before gaining access to state secrets is backed by laws that anticipated the possibility that someone might someday be paid to reveal those secrets, and those laws attempted to remove the financial incentive for disclosure. They include sections on review of pre-print manuscripts intended for publication, which only apply to cleared individuals. Snowden can spill as many of his own secrets as he pleases, and get paid for them. But the state cannot allow him to profit from revealing state secrets. It's counterproductive from a security standpoint.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
> It's counterproductive from a security standpoint. From what kind of twisted security standpoint is it counterproductive to allow someone to reveal mass security violations? I don't think it is useful to participate in the newspeak that authoritarians use to pretend that you are somehow more secure when your human rights are constantly being violated.
- bigwavedave 7y ago
  This has nothing to do with preventing the reveal of mass security violations and everything to do with laws put in place to disincentivize bad actors who are in a position of trust from profiting from the leaking of state secrets. However you try to spin things, this is exactly what happened. Snowden was in a position of trust, leaked all kinds of state secrets, and then tried to profit from that leak.
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    > “However you try to spin things, this is exactly what happened. Snowden was in a position of trust, leaked all kinds of state secrets, and then tried to profit from that leak.” That looks like _your_ spin on things. The only reason the leaks had potential for a profitable book written about them is that the leaks were the only possible mechanism for society to gain knowledge of egregious abuses of power and coordinated, deliberate violations of rights. Attributing a profit motive to Snowden is deeply incorrect and unjustified. Government agencies acted out secret behaviors that egregiously abused their power and harmed people. The doing of those behaviors, regardless of the state of knowledge about them of the public, created a profit opportunity, no different than in journalism. Nobody forced those agencies to do those behaviors and thereby create a sincere and urgent need for an expose that overrides any laws relating to the control of that information. They did that and are wholly responsible for it.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kube-system 7y ago

NDA enforcement is not at odds with the first amendment. Thousands of them are signed every day, and they hold up just like any other contract.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> NDA enforcement is not at odds with the first amendment. This isn't ordinary NDA enforcement, it's enforcement of a prior restraint on speech. With a normal NDA, if you publish information you're not supposed to, they can go to court and prove that the information was covered by the NDA and then get an order to stop you from continuing to publish it or sue you for damages. In this case they haven't proved that anything in the book was actually subject to the NDA and they're objecting because they didn't get to review it before publication. But you can reasonably expect any government "review" in this context to be an effort to unreasonably delay or otherwise interfere with publication of the book, even if there is no legitimate cause. The difference is that they would otherwise have to prove the contents of the book was in violation of the NDA. Without that they could suppress the book even if it wasn't. That might not be constitutional and there are a lot of good policy reasons for it not to be. This would be a lot more obvious if they were seeking to restrain publication, so they're looking for a backdoor, and trying to get there by taking the money. But that should fail for the same reason Son of Sam laws are unconstitutional. Writing and publishing a book takes time and money which the person who wants to write it generally can't get without the expectation of recovering it after publication. You don't have time to write a book if you can't get an advance and thereby have to spend all your time working some other job to put food on the table. Which can cause the book not to be written and the readers would be denied the information. It's as much about the right of the readers to pay someone to tell the story and thereby ensure the story gets told, as it is the right of the storyteller to make a buck.
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  > This isn't ordinary NDA enforcement, it's enforcement of a prior restraint on speech. Which the Supreme Court famously ruled illegal in Near v. Minnesota[0] among many others. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_v._Minnesota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_v._Minnesota