Clinton should drop the silly talking points about Snowden and seriously address the issue.

[Vattel]

Last edited Thu Oct 22, 2015, 08:57 PM - Edit history (2)

Clinton: “He broke the laws of the United States. He could have been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.”

Could Snowden have “gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower?” And could he have still “raised all of the issues that he has raised?” The answer is somewhat complicated, but two points are worth making:

Point 1: Snowden could not have followed the federal protocol for whistleblowers and still publicly raise his issues.

Had Snowden followed the legally allowed path for whistleblowers, he would not have been able to get his information to the public. Public disclosure of his information was his goal, because he believed that the issues he wanted to raise should be publicly debated. So when Clinton says that he could have raised all of the issues he raised, this elides the fact that he couldn’t possibly have publicly raised those issues. Raising them even to a congressional committee would not have led to public disclosure because committee members who would have received classified information from Snowden would not even have been legally permitted to disclose that information to the rest of Congress, let alone the public. Moreover, the only way he could effectively raise some of the issues he raised was to steal classified information. No whistleblower protections protect anyone who steals classified information.

Point 2: It is doubtful that Snowden was protected by any whistleblower laws.

It is doubtful that Snowden would have been protected from retaliation or prosecution by any whistleblower laws at all; and, even if he was, he would have had no way of knowing that he was. What about the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA)? WPA does not apply to employees of the NSA let alone employees of firms contracting with the NSA. What about the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA)? ICWPA applies to employees like Snowden, but includes no protections against retaliation let alone prosecution. What about Presidential Policy Directive 19 (PPD-19)? Here things get less clear, but, on the most natural reading, PPD-19 does not protect employees of businesses that contract with the NSA. Some legal experts have debated that point, but Snowden would certainly have had no basis for predicting that a court would decide that he was protected by PPD-19.

Bottom line: Clinton should drop the silly talking points and honestly address the Snowden case.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33918.pdf
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-105publ272/pdf/PLAW-105publ272.pdf
http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/ppd/ppd-19.pdf

[randys1]

1. Hillary was having a good day, CANT HAVE THAT now can we.

BASH

[Fawke Em]

2. The OP is NOT a Hillary bash.

It's a legitimate discussion of issues - one even discussed at the debate.

[Vattel]

3. Way to ignore the real issues!

[randys1]

4. Way to attack the Democratic candidate on a Democratic board.

[jfern]

7. She's not the candidate, there are 4 of them

[Vattel]

8. Since when is it unacceptable to criticize a candidate during the primary?

Are we supposed to only say positive things about every candidate?

[randys1]

10. Many here do nothing but attack her, some post OP's with attacks and they never

discuss anything, just attack after attack.

I know why, it is not new.

Some here sincerely attack her over and over, they are focused on one issue, their pocketbooks.

[Autumn]

11. When it's Hillary. Yes please say positive things about Hillary

so as to avoid hurt feelings. TIA

[bigwillq]

18. Damn. I guess I missed my primary.

So, Hillary won?

[randys1]

19. Candidate, not nominee

[Myrina]

24. Would you like some cheese with your incessant Whine?

[randys1]

29. May wanna remove that peace sign, because if there is even a one percent chance you will

stay home on election day, and the cons win, we will be at war instantly

[Krytan11c]

34. Do you think that war will be started

When Russia violates a no fly zone?

[Agschmid]

5. You lost me at point one.

[riversedge]

6. I have had enought of you on my good day....

Talking to YOU

[Vattel]

9. lol, grumpy ignorance

[riversedge]

12. ah.

[Maedhros]

13. Can you refute any of the points made in the OP? [n/t]

[NCTraveler]

14. I would much rather here her talk more about the NSA.

She has spent enough time on Snowden. I don't expect her to talk much more about whistleblower status.

[Vattel]

15. I agree.

[nilram]

16. k&r

[BainsBane]

20. Snowdon is not a campaign issue

He is one man.

The issue that needs addressing is the NSA and the rights of citizens to not be surveyed without a warrant. That subject was long abandoned on this site for endless threads about Snowden and Greenwald as individuals.

[nilram]

21. That was a quote from the most recent debate.

Which, seems to me, to be part of the campaign. The issue the OP addresses not Snowden as an individual, but is the legal protections he has, and thus, what whistleblower protections anyone has who is in his position. I agree that the NSA and the rights of citizens to not be surveyed without a warrant should be discussed in the campaign (and future debates). Whistleblower protections are one big piece of having visibility to that overreach.

[BainsBane]

23. I understand that

but I disagree with the OP that Clinton somehow needs to address Snowden's situation more.
If he wants to talk about broader issues, he should do so. Most don't, however. They make everything about a few great men or an evil woman. It gets tiresome.

Besides, weren't the whistleblower laws already changed to include private contractors?

[Andy823]

27. Exactly

There are a hell of a lot of issues that need to be addressed, Snowden is not one of them. Why so many here want to make that man a hero, and now want to say that his problems should be one of the issues we need to address, is beyond me.

[Vattel]

30. I agree with you that there is no reason Clinton should bring up Snowden.

But if asked about him (as she was in the debate) she shouldn't use it as an opportunity to mislead. She should honestly discuss what whistleblower protections exist for someone who goes public with classified information that reveals illegality.

[zappaman]

22. Sorry, but most of the country could not give a rat's ass about Comrade Snowden.

[Myrina]

25. ... and that's too bad because what he uncovered is illegal, unconstituional and a travesty ...

.... for the so-called "Lead(ing country) of the Free World" to do to its own citizens.

[zappaman]

26. Americans have other things on their minds

no one cares what Hillary or any other candidate has to say about some guy who ran to Russia after leaking classified information.

[jeff47]

28. Except it wasn't.

If you look at the documents he actually leaked, either they have nothing about targeting (they're about techniques), or they explicitly describe how they exclude US persons in order to make them legal. Except one.

That one is the program collecting phone metadata. An overly-broad 1979 SCOTUS ruling declared that all phone records are business records, and have no right to privacy attached. Since phone records carry a lot more information than 1979, this should be revisited by Congress or the SCOTUS, but it hasn't been revisited yet.

So actually, they were legal. That doesn't make them less of a travesty, it means we need to be aiming at Congress instead of the NSA.

[Vattel]

31. As Chafee pointed out, the most recent court ruling said that the program is illegal.

[jeff47]

33. How do you think it gets to the SCOTUS?

Gotta have a ruling to appeal in order to get to the SCOTUS.

The judge in question specifically stated that his ruling does not align with some precedent.

[Vattel]

35. That doesn't contradict anything I've said.

[reformist2]

32. For someone supposedly so liberal, Hillary has a strange intolerance for civil disobedience.

Despite the entire history of social & economic progress in this country, Hillary actually thinks that it was the legislative reforms that mattered more than the protests that occurred prior to them. One wonders if Hillary would have told John Brown to have "worked within the system"...