Posted on 06/10/2013 10:23:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It seems like just last week we discussed the difference between leakers and reporters, and whistleblowers and criminals. In fact, it was just last week, as the Bradley Manning court-martial got under way, when I wrote that Manning didn’t have a First Amendment freedom-of-the-press defense. I wrote in my column at The Week that whistleblowers with clearances have specific ways in which to raise issues of illegality and unethical behavior:
Those with clearances are briefed on how to raise issues on legality and ethics within the parameters of security, and none of those processes involve sending the data to a newspaper. If all else fails, one can contact a member of Congress to discuss whatever issue arises, especially those on committees with oversight of the activities involved. That’s doubly true for those within the military, where chain-of-command prevails in most cases. Manning made the whistleblower defense even more difficult with his indiscriminate release of material — hundreds of thousands of pages of classified cables and other data — that belies a compelling need to expose any specific wrongdoing. …
People have an almost irrepressible desire to tell secrets, especially those that don’t belong to them, which is why government has to establish strong deterrents to leaks that could get people killed and damage our ability to defend ourselves. The real danger lies in making criminals out of reporters and espionage out of normal source-currying behaviors, establishing precedents that will allow those in power to deter journalists from pursuing legitimate stories about the way in which our government operates. That is both a distinction and a difference, and one that matters to both national security and freedom of the press.
In the case of Edward Snowden, he had the same options.....
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
So he was a Paulistinian? Well, I can see why he didn’t share his leak. If Ron Paul would have broken the story, we’d still be laughing.
I watched FNC this evening and found I was agreeing with Beckel and that idiot Jaun, because they were the only ones asking about the Spying on us, the others were attacking Snowden. The Five were as stupid as those morons over on DU.
Interesting... me too.
Why didn’t turn over his revelation to Paul? According to reports Snowden’s last job was at the firm doing the monitoring and he was there but three months. Well after the 2012 election.
THE WHOLE CHAIN OF COMMAND IS CORRUPT!
Manning however was indiscriminant and trivial. A distraction.
First, Snowden was forbidden by law and by an agreement he signed not to reveal anything to anybody who was not authorized to know. However, since he did that, who might he have gone to instead? The following Republicans are on the Senate Intelligence Oversight committee. However, they’d have told him that they already knew all about it, thankyouverymuch. Then, they’d have reported him to the FBI.
Has anyone heard any of these Senators say something like, “I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover phone tapping going on here.”
Saxby Chambliss, Georgia, Vice Chair
Richard Burr, North Carolina
Jim Risch, Idaho
Dan Coats, Indiana
Marco Rubio, Florida
Susan Collins, Maine
Tom Coburn, Oklahoma
Me, too. I was really disapponted in Kimberly.
What if your Congressman has been cowed into silence by a Statist??
Agree.
My suspicions:
A. He’s taking a big payout from the Chinese, which is why he’s there now.
B. He was afraid to leak this in the U.S. to Ron Paul or others, because they might not believe him or take too long to come forward, while the leak he created was being studied.
C. Combination of the two
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