Transcript of this segment from my Radio show of June 1-2 2014. You can hear the segment as I delivered it by clicking http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lesersense/2014/06/02/analyzing-snowden-interview-russia-ukraine-china-bullying-and-more and fast forwarding to 37:55
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I watched a replay of the Edward
Snowden interview with NBC's Brian Williams this past week. I'm
struck by how he provided inadequate or demonstrably untrue answers
to the two central issues around his actions.
The two central questions are
#1 - Did NSA Surveillance programs
amount to lawbreaking or wrongdoing and if so are they bad enough to
justify taking the massive steps he took.
and
#2 - Did Snowden do enough to try to
address whatever was concerning him through appropriate channels.
We can talk about other issues but
everything else, in my opinion, is window-dressing compared to those
two central questions.
The problem with Snowden's actions
with regard to my first question, did the surveillance programs
amount to wrongdoing, is that Snowden had no legal training and thus
did not have the background to answer those questions, nor did he
apparently consult someone who did before acting.
The NSA Surveillance programs, at
least from what we have been told from the documents Snowden and
Greenwald presented us, and we don't really have confirmation if that
information is accurate, but from what we've gathered from the
documents they are the subject of a lot of debate between fourth
amendment experts. There is no consensus about whether they are
Constitutional or not. I've previously covered on this show the
evolution in fourth amendment court cases with regards to
surveillance.
The important two things to know are
that prior to the FISA Law of 1978, the appellate Courts repeatedly
ruled that the President has the inherent right to conduct
surveillance for national security purposes and that this constitutes
an exception to the fourth amendment. an example of one of these
rulings is US v Duggan in 1984. FISA passed in 1978 basically stated
that to conduct national security surveillance in the US the
President had to go through a FISA court to get a warrant. And
President Obama has been going to a FISA court to get warrants. So
its understandable that people are making the argument that what he
is doing is constitutional. Obviously there are additional details
there but the law basically is as I've laid out.
Some critics say the FISA court is
almost a rubber stamp. That's right, because the FISA court is acting
on prior Appellate Court precedents that say, as I just mentioned
that the President has the inherent right to conduct national
security surveillance.
The FISA court is not there to
prevent surveillance per se, but to ensure there is oversight and a
paper trail to ensure that if congress wants to come back and
investigate why the President spied on someone and take action, they
have the ability to do so.
Snowden was repeatedly asked by
Brian Williams last week to detail the wrongdoing by the NSA and he
mentioned the Constitution 22 times and he talked about a few issues
but the question is did those things violate the fourth amendment.
Were they illegal or Constitutional. Of course, Snowden can't answer
that, he doesn't have the background. Nor can we take his word for a
number of things including, did this surveillance help the fight
against terrorism. The folks who really know the answer to that
question are prevented from answering because the information is
classified. But we don't need to ask that question to show Snowden's
claims to be invalid.
The question is did he have a
reasonable basis to conclude that the government was doing something
illegal or Unconstitutional or generally wrong, and the answer is no.
He could have gotten that information. He could have retained an
attorney that was an expert in fourth amendment appelate cases and
asked that attorney to go over what he found. He didn't do that.
That in my opinion is a critical
problem with his actions. A late 20's guy with no legal experience or
training made a very grave decision whose basis is a legal one that
he was not qualified to make.
Now lets look at problem #2. Did
Snowden take all possible actions within regular channels to get his
concerns addressed. The answer to that is easily answered. No. He was
asked this directly by Brian Williams and his answer was:
"I actually did go through
channels, and that is documented. The NSA has records, they have
copies of emails right now to their office of general counsel, to
their oversight and compliance folks from me raising concerns about
the NSA's interpretations of it -- legal authorities. Now, I had
raised these complaints not just officially in writing through email
-- to these offices and -- and these individuals, but to my
supervisors, to my colleagues, in more than one office. I did it in
Fort Meade. I did it in Hawaii.
Now folks, on its face you can see
how ridiculous this is. This guy is about to take an extraordinary
action, violate the oath he took to safeguard and not disseminate
classified information to unauthorized people, he's going to flee the
country, and he asserts as adequate attempts to address his concerns
properly that he sent a few emails to his supervisors and the NSA's
office of general counsel.
In fairness, I agree that this what
Snowden describes are among the first steps you might take, yes, but
not the last or even second to last or third to last. Before I took
the radical step that he took, I would be knocking on the doors of
every congressman or senator on Capitol Hill in particular all of the
leadership of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. I would
have gone to see the Inspector General of the Office of the
Intelligence Community in person. I would have tried to see as many
people in the administration as possible. I would have sent emails
and letters to the President that I worked for the CIA and NSA and
Booz Allen and needed to see him regarding an urgent national
security issue. He probably wouldnt have gotten in to see the
President but he might have gotten as far as a deputy Chief of staff
or maybe even the Chief of staff.
And the President was clearly
interested in having a discussion about this. The President gave a
speech in May of 2012 indicating a desire to have a dialogue on the
appropriateness of a number of programs including drones and NSA
Surveillance. That's two weeks or so before Snowden's first documents
were leaked to the public.
But even giving Snowden credit for
emailing the NSA Office of General Counsel with his concerns is
giving him too much Credit.
Get this folks, when asked about it,
the NSA initially denied that Snowden ever emailed the general
counsel expressing concerns.
Do you know why? Well, let me
explain it this way. After Snowden kept trying to assert he had sent
such an email, the NSA went back and looked for any correspondance
between Snowden and the general counsel and they found one, but it
had very little to do with raising security concerns. The NSA has
published the full email correspondance online.
The upshot is, its
Snowden asking about a training class where an Executive order was
discussed as carrying the same weight as federal law. The general
counsel replied, yes they have the same power. If you would like to
discuss, call me.
Thats it. I am not omitting anything relevant. That
is Snowdens claim to trying to get this addressed through official
channels.
After the NSA posted that email online, Snowden started
backing up and claimed that the emails that really expressed his
concern was sent to the NSA Signals Intelligence folks. If that's
true, why didn't he mention that instead of mentioning the Office of
General Counsel email during his interview with Brian Williams?
Those two problems with his actions,
the failure to have an expert look over what his concerns were to
determine the legality of them and totally inadequate attempts to
address his concerns through legal means take what he did out of the
realm of whistleblower and hero and put them squarely in the position
of criminal and betrayer of his countries trust and secrets. There is
no amount of spin that will make those two issues go away. They are
the central issues in what Snowden did and he should be judged on his
failure to act responsibly in both cases.
For other odd statements by Snowden,
an article by Bob Cesca titled "The 13 Most Bizarre Things from
Edward Snowden’s NBC News Interview" is a good place to get
that information, and includes such mentions as:
Snowden claimed he has auote “no relationship” with the Russian government and that he’s quote “not supported” by it but that’s odd, given how the Russian government has twice offered him asylum and one of his lawyers, Anatoly Kucherena, is an attorney with the Russian intelligence agency, the FSB (formerly known as the KGB).
and
Early on after the documents he took were first leaked, Snowden was adamant about saying he is not a spy.” But this past week on tv with Brian Williams he not only confessed to being “trained as a spy.” and taking on assignments as a spy, he pumped up his spying credentials.
When you examine all of this, I
think that anyone who still finds Snowden credible needs to have
their heads examined.
Edward Snowden wins the award for
worst and most shameful nonsense of the week.
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