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US Government is Entitled to All Snowden Book Proceeds, Judge Rules

posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 20 2019, @02:16AM   
from the by-the-book dept.

Freeman writes:

The US government is entitled to every cent Edward Snowden earns from publishing his memoir, Permanent Record, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
[...]
Snowden is still in exile in Russia, where he has been stranded since 2013. The classified documents Snowden leaked to multiple journalists that year sparked an intense debate over US surveillance practices and inspired some modest reforms. Snowden faces near-certain prosecution for espionage if he returns to the US.

The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on September 17, the day Snowden's book first went on sale, seeking to seize Snowden's book profits. On Tuesday, just three months later, Judge Liam O'Grady granted the government's motion for summary judgment.
[...]
The judge also ruled that Snowden had breached his contractual responsibilities by giving speeches at the TED conference and other venues.
[...]
"Both the CIA and NSA secrecy agreements prohibit unauthorized publication of certain information, and Permanent Record discusses those types of information," O'Grady wrote. As a result, "the government is entitled to summary judgment."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/us-government-is-entitled-to-all-snowden-book-proceeds-judge-rules/

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Original Submission

• Re:No problem (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @06:52PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @06:52PM (#935238)

  AC you replied to here. I agree with you. In fact, I pointed out (admittedly without much detail) that Snowden *tried* to follow the law and go through proper channels to expose the stuff he eventually did.

  But, the American people are the "proper channel." Even if Snowden had handed over all the documents to the press immediately, I would have been fine with that. The People deserve to know if the government is violating the highest law of the land, and going through any so-called "proper channels" increases the risk that the whistleblower will be snuffed out before they can inform The People, which has happened to other whistleblowers.

  I'd point out that in almost all of those cases, legal action against such folks was not only pursued, but was expected by those performing such acts -- and the prosecutions themselves were used to show the injustice/wrongness of such laws.

  Okay, but it would do no one any good for Snowden to face trial, only for him to not be allowed to mount an actual defense where he would be allowed to explain why he did what he did. Snowden has explained this himself, and it's due to the espionage act.

  I posit that even if he'd stayed in the US, while he most certainly would have been convicted (and, if he ever returns, that will likely happen) and would be out of prison by now and on the book/lecture circuit making a lot more noise and convincing many more people that we need to stop spying on Americans and fix the broken whistle-blower systems in our government.

  Why do you posit that?

  As it is now, the naysayers can just call him a traitor and a scofflaw, changing the conversation from one of "how do we fix the problems exposed by Snowden?" to "this guy is a traitor and a sell-out -- how much didn't he reveal and sell to the Russians? Why else would they give him sanctuary?"

  They would do that regardless. Authoritarianism is a mental illness.

  Civil disobedience without adjudication of the unjust laws being protested almost always fails. I want us to succeed.

  Nothing stops us from getting rid of those unjust laws, except that there are more worthless, cowardly authoritarians in 'the land of the free and the home of the brave' than some would like to admit.

  Parent