Posted on 06/21/2013 3:22:17 PM PDT by Nachum
Federal prosecutors have filed a sealed criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of documents about top-secret surveillance programs, and the United States has asked Hong Kong to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant, according to U.S. officials.
Snowden was charged with espionage, theft and conversion of government property, the officials said.
The complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, a jurisdiction where Snowden’s former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, is headquartered, and a district with a long track record in prosecuting cases with national security implications.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
Snowden flew to Hong Kong last month after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii with a collection of highly classified documents that he acquired while working at the agency as a systems analyst.
The documents, some of which have been published in The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, detailed some of the most secret surveillance operations undertaken by the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as classified legal memos and court orders underpinning the programs in the United States.
The 29-year-old intelligence analyst revealed himself June 9 as the leaker in an interview with the Guardian and said he went to Hong Kong because it provided him the “cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained.”
Snowden subsequently disappeared from public view; it is thought that he is still in the Chinese territory. Hong Kong has its own legislative and legal systems but ultimately answers to Beijing, under the so-called “one country, two systems” arrangement.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It was not what Snowden revealed that prompted the charge of "espionage;" it was where he went. Up until now the regime (both Democrats and Republicans) have been floating the word "traitor." Since that's not sticking, and since Snowden went to a not-so-friendly nation, the regime is hoping to make a "spy" out of him.
It's a thin line between irony and hypocrisy.
Whatever it is, we're drowning in it these days.
Well, it will take the BS immigration bill off the front pages.
“That ain’t gonna happen. The Republicans hate Snowden just as much as the Democrats do.”
People like you and me have to plant the seed that traitors will be punished for violating their oath and stealing our liberty. If not us, who?
What difference does it make now? The P.O.S. can't run again anyway. And that is exactly why he is doing what he is doing.
BECAUSE WE LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT!
It seems like almost everything the government does is sealed or top secret. Does everything involve national security?
Snowden was charged with Espionage
* ‘theft’.. and... ‘conversion... of... ‘government property’
The act of securing information of a military or political nature that a competing nation holds secret..... It can involve the ‘analysis of diplomatic reports’,... publications,... statistics,... and broadcasts,... as well as spying,...
.... a clandestine activity carried out by an individual or individuals working under secret identity to gather classified information on behalf of another entity or nation.
They know Snowden wasn’t working alone now.
It seems like almost everything the government does is sealed or top secret. Does everything involve national security?
There’s “hole” China can get thru over Hong Kong’s authority if they choose to extradite Snowden.
However...some billionare has offered his private airplane to wisk him to Iceland if he wants to go....penidng their Gov. accepting him.
He has to be on ‘IN’ Iceland to claim asylum.
I guess they didn’t seal that complaint very well.
>> Friday night news dump
He would have been charged sooner, but public support for Snowden was too strong.
Snowden had to be charged regardless of the merits of his actions. There should be a public Congressional hearing that exposes the laws and funding that drives the controversial activity. Snowden and the NSA are the products of programs established and funded by those elected to represent the citizens allegedly being spied on.
If Snowden has half a brain, by the time the Guardian Hong Kong interview aired, he was already long gone. If he truly does want to go to Iceland, the hubbub about him going there should not even start until he is already safely there.
You figure that the aircraft they think with him on board would be shadowed by two F-16s, and perhaps forced to land. But imagine the surprise if he is not on board. And there are US federal marshals dogging his footsteps.
Since Iceland has been mentioned, that is the last place he should go. Instead everybody assisting him should think he is heading in a different direction, so if they are overheard or intercepted, they will just start a wild goose chase.
“What difference does it make now?”
We, you, me and others, need to make it clear to these traitors that there will be consequences to their treachery. If we don’t do it, who will?
We need to organize locally and throw out all the leftists in our local communities. Some in the Tea Party take pride in the fact that we have no leaders, no command structure and no organized plan. That’s stupid as hell. It’s time to get organized and start kicking ass .
His second term plan is to retake the House in 2014 and ram through the rest of his ultra-liberal agenda. He was going to do that by blaming Republicans for everything and drive their numbers down and his and the Dems up. His plan is seriously off track right now.
An Icelandic businessman linked to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said on ‘Thursday’ he had readied a private plane in China to fly Snowden to Iceland if Iceland’s government would grant asylum.
Iceland refused ‘on Friday’ to say whether it would grant asylum to Snowden.
...”New information discovered by Reuters about Snowden’s employment record, online postings and education comes as U.S. lawmakers grill intelligence officials about how a 29-year-old high school dropout managed to gain access to such top secrets as the NSA’s electronic surveillance programs.
According to sources briefed on the matter, Snowden was EMPLOYED BY AN UNIDENTIFIED CLASSIFIED AGENCY IN WASHINGTON from 2005 to mid-2006, by the CIA from 2006 to 2009, when he primarily worked overseas, and by Dell Inc from 2009 to 2013, when he worked in the United States and Japan as an NSA contractor....
...One of his postings, however, dealt with the now familiar issue of corporate compliance with government eavesdropping programs. On February 4, 2010, while working for Dell, Snowden commented on a discussion about a major technology company that allegedly was giving the U.S. government access to its computer servers.
“It really concerns me how little this sort of corporate behavior bothers those outside of technology circles,” Snowden wrote. “Society really seems to have developed an unquestioning obedience towards spooky types.””
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/14/us-usa-security-snowden-online-idUSBRE95D02320130614
I still want to know why they hired this person with so little education. I know some people here excuse it because he was a computer nerd but I know many computer experts who’d have loved that job.
If it’s a classifed agency how come this guy knew about it. Where did he hear about it? This guy is also a “gamer” - “An avid gamer, he posted on the ethics of video game piracy in 2003”... not unlike Stephenson-Benghazi who was also an avid gamer. Can’t get my head around what’s really going on but it sure smells.
Scrub the “classifed agency” stuff as I misinterpretated the meaning.
I still want to know why they hired this person with so little education. I know some people here excuse it because he was a computer nerd but I know many computer experts who’d have loved that job.
___________________________
Why on earth are you focusing on this non-issue. Mark Steyn and Limbaugh did not go to college.
Probably the fact that he wasn’t brainwashed in college is why he was able to tell right from wrong and thing out of the box. He wasn’t a slave.
Education has nothing to do with ethics.
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