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White House spokeswoman and Presidential Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco issued a response to the petition that Edward Snowden receive immunity from any laws he may have broken and be allowed to return to the USA as a free man. Her statement reasserted the Administration's position that Snowden is a criminal, running away from the consequences of his actions and should return to the USA to stand trial (and inevitably serve out the rest of his life in solitary confinement).
The full text of the response:
Thanks for signing a petition about Edward Snowden. This is an issue that many Americans feel strongly about. Because his actions have had serious consequences for our national security, we took this matter to Lisa Monaco, the President's Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Here's what she had to say:
Since taking office, President Obama has worked with Congress to secure appropriate reforms that balance the protection of civil liberties with the ability of national security professionals to secure information vital to keep Americans safe.
As the President said in announcing recent intelligence reforms, "We have to make some important decisions about how to protect ourselves and sustain our leadership in the world, while upholding the civil liberties and privacy protections that our ideals and our Constitution require."
Instead of constructively addressing these issues, Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it.
If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and -- importantly -- accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers -- not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions.
We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation that our intelligence community must have all the lawful tools it needs to address. The balance between our security and the civil liberties that our ideals and our Constitution require deserves robust debate and those who are willing to engage in it here at home.
(Score: 1, Troll) by albert on Wednesday July 29 2015, @07:19AM
He couldn't spy as well as Obama could. Taking Bush at his word (yeah, I know...) we see that he actually started a war because he was misinformed. Had the spying been better, the 2nd war in Iraq might have been avoided.
With the loss of capability, we're headed back to the Bush level of cluelessness. Oh joy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @08:24AM
...they would have been able to at least plant some WMD's to give the spin some credibility
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday July 29 2015, @01:22PM
Where do they find you guys? Did the government run a recruiting event at Bob Jones University? Or were you vat-grown in secret labs beneath Ft. Mead and decanted to undertake this social media mission?
This honestly takes the cake for the greatest amount of drivel I've yet seen on our beloved Soylent. Bush spied less well than Obama? Who the hell do you think started the Total Information Awareness program, Obama 8 years before he was elected President?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by albert on Wednesday July 29 2015, @10:26PM
Bob Jones University would kick me off campus mighty fast. I'd probably reach escape velocity.
It probably hasn't occurred to you, but there exist conservatives who are not Bible-thumping types driving pickups with confederate flags. It's possible to be a reality-based thinker with conservative values. The fact that many conservatives are completely illogical does not imply that liberal values are logical.
Bush evidently did spy pretty well by the end of his second term, getting Obama off to a great start. Obama's last couple years will be lousy. The next person will have trouble too. It doesn't matter if they have a "D" or "R" after their name. This stuff is done by government workers and contractors who are essentially nameless and hidden, many working for low pay. These are people who love their country and really want their country to win. It's called patriotism, something sorely lacking in most of the tech industry. Patriotism is about more than just constitutional amendments 1 and 4.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:14AM
These are people who love their country and really want their country to win.
It sounds like they're more in love with the idea of an authoritarian regime of their own making.
It's called patriotism
Patriotism is wanting your country to do better, and defending the principles of freedom. You're certainly not a patriot if you advocating violating or violate the highest law of the land and destroy people's freedoms in the name of safety.
something sorely lacking in most of the tech industry.
Good. That fake "patriotism" isn't desirable.
Patriotism is about more than just constitutional amendments 1 and 4.
Right. You have to follow the rest of the constitution, too. Sorry, government.
(Score: 1) by albert on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:36AM
Do you really think they intended to violate the constitution?
They have a bias, and so do you. These biases lead to opposite conclusions. So far the courts have mostly sided with you, so in that sense you got things right, but that doesn't mean that the other side was purposely violating the constitution.
Most likely they were blinded to the situation by needing to get things done and by being in an echo chamber very different from the one here at soylentnews.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday July 30 2015, @03:13PM
Do you really think they intended to violate the constitution?
I think they don't give a shit. Their intentions don't matter, however; they're treacherous scum.
They have a bias, and so do you.
And their biases lead to egregious violations of our fundamental liberties, ethics, and the highest law of the land.
There are too many obvious constitutional violations for them to not realize this. I don't buy this apologist nonsense one bit, and even if they didn't realize what they were doing, they still deserve to be in prison.
So far the courts have mostly sided with you, so in that sense you got things right
I would be correct even if the courts didn't side with me. To say otherwise leads to a paradox. Does reality change once the courts make a ruling? Because courts have overruled previous court decisions in the past. Were both rulings correct, or did reality change in that time? The notion that the courts are always right is just a legal fiction at best, because at the end of the day you probably have to have someone with a bit of power who people listen to. But when the courts get it wrong, and they have and they will continue to do so, The People have to fix the situation.
Most likely they were blinded to the situation by needing to get things done and by being in an echo chamber very different from the one here at soylentnews.
I like how you're comparing the "biases" as if they're anything alike.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 30 2015, @09:34AM
Those are called, "Libertarians," nowadays. And (the hint is in the name) they really hold fast to the Constitution and like freedom. They do not approve of violating it. The rest are Know-nothings [wikipedia.org]. (Heck, even their anti-Catholicism has not gone, as you can see on the front page of Drudge today, which is asking if the Pope is the Anti-Christ.)
You cannot claim to defend the Constitution and turn around and wipe your ass with it.
That's a bullshit false choice. It's the same dreck fascists always roll out to shout down free men. We all remember that telling Goering quote, "the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Implying that those who oppose authority are cowards or want their country to lose is an argument made by those with no honor.
It truly astonishes me how so many can completely invert very clear language and intentions to believe the opposite thing. Jesus said, "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." It does not mean, "Run out and kill Muslims." But that's exactly what conservatives tell themselves Jesus meant. The United States has multiple laws and signed many treaties against torture and has prosecuted torturers as War Criminals, which is a long precedence of staunch opposition to torture, enshrined in American law. But what do conservatives think that means? Hey, let's go out and torture people! It's not torture when America is the one torturing people...
It's almost as though American conservatives did capture Mengele after the fall of the Third Reich and agreed to let him go on to exile in South America if he first perfected the technique of performing a rectal-cranial inversion on their rank-and-file.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by albert on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:30PM
You can be socially conservative while being a non-believer.
Jesus never existed, and therefore couldn't spew liberal nonsense. Run out and kill Muslims.
We can see liberal values destroying themselves in France just this past week. A lady was sunning herself in the park. A group of Muslims attacked her for being in a bikini. You liberals want to let everybody in, and then those people turn society conservative in a very fucked up way.
Self-preservation requires a bit of xenophobia. Someday we'll be living under Sharia because of people like you.
This is just victor's justice. We "prosecute" because that is the only way a democracy can get liberal voters on board with what possibly needs to be done. A more honest approach would either skip the sham trial (go straight to execution) or make it non-sham by allowing "orders that were lawful at the time" as a defense.
Supporting a sham trial is pretty vile. It's worse than just lining people up and shooting them.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday July 29 2015, @03:11PM
Had the spying been better, they would have used it to violate more people's rights, and there still would've been an Iraq war, because Bush and his buddies are all sociopathic, lying war criminals.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @10:39PM
> we see that he actually started a war because he was misinformed.
That's a misleading characterization.
Yes, the best available intelligence on Iraq's WMD program suggested that they did have WMDs. But the expiration date on that intelligence was 5 years past. Bush and his collaborators choose to discount that the intelligence was well-known to be stale because it confirmed their biases. That's not a failure of intelligence, that's a failure of judgment.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:17AM
One thing I don't see often mentioned is the fact that, even if they did have WMDs, so fucking what? Iraq was a sovereign country. The US had and has WMDs, and was in fact the only country that actually used atomic bombs during warfare, and used them to murder countless innocents. Maybe the world should invade the US.
The justification seems to be that they might use the WMDs they supposedly had in some evil way at some unspecified point in the future, so we have to engage in preemptive warfare. That's unethical to the highest degree.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Thursday July 30 2015, @12:33AM
He couldn't spy as well as Obama could. Taking Bush at his word (yeah, I know...) we see that he actually started a war because he was misinformed.
You can't take him at his word. The man lied to everyone, and maybe even himself, to justify a war he wanted to start and/or finish (start or finish depends how you frame it, I guess). What Bush wanted from "spying" was not reality but justification of his predetermined stance. Things that were inconvenient were thrown out. Even if there was perfect spying on Hussein (you know, it was pretty good considering almost continual inspections!!), it would have been completely ignored.
(Score: 1) by albert on Thursday July 30 2015, @03:58AM
Seeing what you want to see is a pretty typical human failure. Probably all of us do that, all the while steadfastly denying it.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday July 30 2015, @03:26PM
Stupidity is not a sufficient explanation for the levels of corruption we see in government. Power corrupts, and these sociopathic pieces of garbage are irredeemably corrupt.