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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Your the one being played by corporate
media propaganda.<br>
<br>
Edward Snowden is a TRUE American hero for revealing to the
American people and the world the crimes of the corporate ruling
class who have hijacked OUR government, shredded OUR constitution
and Bill of Rights and how they are spying on the average American
citizen. Obviously you care NOTHING about freedom and the right to
privacy.<br>
Like those in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy 80 years ago who
blindly followed the dictators and warmongers of the corporate
State.<br>
<br>
David Johnson<br>
<br>
<br>
On 6/3/2014 4:39 AM, Roger Helbig wrote:<br>
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<div>Ellsberg has been blinded by being with the far left too
long. He was a brave man when he released the Pentagon
Papers. He also first released them to Congress and did not
send them to the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong. Snowden was a
thief, pure and simple who has very artfully played the media
for all it is worth by letting his fellow huckster who conned
the Pulitzer Prize community release little tidbits of the
stolen documents without regard to consequences to our lives
on a periodic basis just to keep the attention on him. He has
also played the left like a well tuned violin. Too bad that
none of you pseudo intellectuals realize that you are being
played and I really feel sorry for Ellsberg who used to have
my profound respect but now is just another shill for Snowden.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Roger</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:18 AM, David
Johnson via Peace-discuss <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"
target="_blank">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
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<h1>Ellsberg: Snowden Would Not Get Fair Trial, Kerry Is
Wrong</h1>
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<div><span><a moz-do-not-send="true" title="View all
posts in Resist!"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/category/resist/"
rel="category tag" target="_blank">Resist!</a></span>
<span> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/criminal-justice-and-prisons/"
rel="tag" target="_blank">Criminal Justice and
Prisons</a>, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/edward-snowden/"
rel="tag" target="_blank">Edward Snowden</a>, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/whistleblower/"
rel="tag" target="_blank">Whistleblower</a> </span>
<br>
<span>By Daniel Ellsberg, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel-ellsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act"
target="_blank">www.theguardian.com</a><br>
June 1st, 2014</span><br>
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<h2><span style="color:rgb(102,102,102)">Edward Snowden
is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time,
and he knows what I learned more than four decades
ago: until the Espionage Act gets reformed, he can
never come home safe and receive justice.</span></h2>
<div>
<div> As the author knows from direct chat-log
conversations with him over the past year, Snowden
acted in full knowledge of the constitutionally
questionable efforts of the Obama administration, in
particular, to use the Espionage Act in a way it was
never intended by Congress. (Video still via NBC
News) </div>
</div>
<div>
<p>John Kerry was in my mind Wednesday morning, and
not because he had called me a patriot on NBC News.
I was reading the lead story in the New York Times –
“<a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/world/asia/us-to-complete-afghan-pullout-by-end-of-2016-obama-to-say.html"
target="_blank">US Troops to Leave Afghanistan by
End of 2016</a>” – with a photo of American
soldiers looking for caves. I recalled not the
Secretary of State but a 27-year-old Kerry, asking,
as he testified to the Senate about the US troops
who were still in Vietnam and were to remain for
another two years: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yixdveuf0gq"
target="_blank"><i>How do you ask a man to be the
last man to die for a mistake?</i></a></p>
<p>I wondered how a 70-year-old Kerry would relate to
that question as he looked at that picture and that
headline. And then there he was <a
moz-do-not-send="true" style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/kerry-snowden-coward-traitor-n116366"
target="_blank">on MSNBC</a> an hour later, <a
moz-do-not-send="true" style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/29/daniel-ellsberg-john-kerry-snowden_n_5412980.html"
target="_blank">thinking about me</a>, too, during
a round of interviews about Afghanistan that
inevitably turned to Edward Snowden ahead of my
fellow whistleblower’s own primetime interview that
night:</p>
<blockquote style="color:rgb(102,102,102)">
<p>There are many a patriot – you can go back to the
Pentagon Papers with Dan Ellsberg and others who
stood and went to the court system of America and
made their case. Edward Snowden is a coward, he is
a traitor, and he has betrayed his country. And if
he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music,
he can do so.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the Today show and CBS, Kerry complimented me
again – and said Snowden <a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/28/snowden-return-us-kerry-face-charges-espionage"
target="_blank">“should man up and come back to
the United States”</a> to face charges. But John
Kerry is wrong, because that’s not the measure of
patriotism when it comes to whistleblowing, for me
or Snowden, who is facing the same criminal charges
I did for exposing the Pentagon Papers.</p>
<p>As Snowden <a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/29/edward-snowden-interview-breaking-law-was-only-option-says-whistleblower"
target="_blank">told Brian Williams on NBC later
that night</a> and Snowden’s lawyer told me the
next morning, he would have no chance whatsoever to
come home and make his case – in public or in court.</p>
<p>Snowden would come back home to a jail cell – and
not just an ordinary cell-block but isolation in
solitary confinement, not just for months like
Chelsea Manning but for the rest of his sentence,
and probably the rest of his life. His legal
adviser, Ben Wizner, told me that he estimates
Snowden’s chance of being allowed out on bail as
zero. (I was out on bond, speaking against the
Vietnam war, the whole 23 months I was under
indictment).</p>
<p>More importantly, the current state of
whistleblowing prosecutions under the Espionage Act
makes a truly fair trial wholly unavailable to an
American who has exposed classified wrongdoing.
Legal scholars have<a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://books.google.com/books?id=4k0cwvr2fnec&pg=pt504&lpg=pt504&dq=melville+nimmer,+%2522national+security+issues+v.+free+speech,%2522+stanford+law+review&source=bl&ots=_2nvbbwjeh&sig=scqk5ajpjwujjqjqvxyxfui07c4&hl=en&sa=x&ei=aoehu6hjc4llsaslrykoag&ved=0ccoq6aewaa#v=onepage&q=Melville%2520Nimmer%252C%2520%2522National%2520Security%2520Issues%2520v.%2520Free%2520Speech%252C%2522%2520Stanford%2520Law%2520Review&f=false"
target="_blank">strongly</a> <a
moz-do-not-send="true" style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/edgar.pdf"
target="_blank">argued</a> that the US supreme
court – which has never yet addressed the
constitutionality of applying the Espionage Act to
leaks to the American public – should find the use
of it overbroad and unconstitutional in the absence
of a public interest defense. The Espionage Act, as
applied to whistleblowers, violates the First
Amendment, is what they’re saying.</p>
<p>As I know from my own case, even Snowden’s own
testimony on the stand would be gagged by government
objections and the (arguably unconstitutional)
nature of his charges. That was my own experience in
court, as the first American to be prosecuted under
the Espionage Act – or any other statute – for
giving information to the American people.</p>
<p>I had looked forward to offering a fuller account
in my trial than I had given previously to any
journalist – any Glenn Greenwald or Brian Williams
of my time – as to the considerations that led me to
copy and distribute thousands of pages of top-secret
documents. I had saved many details until I could
present them on the stand, under oath, just as a
young John Kerry had delivered his strongest lines
in sworn testimony.</p>
<p>But when I finally heard my lawyer ask the
prearranged question in direct examination – <i>Why
did you copy the Pentagon Papers?</i> – I was
silenced before I could begin to answer. The
government prosecutor objected –<i>irrelevant</i> –
and the judge sustained. My lawyer, exasperated,
said he “had never heard of a case where a defendant
was not permitted to tell the jury why he did what
he did.” The judge responded: <i>well, you’re
hearing one now</i>.</p>
<p>And so it has been with every subsequent
whistleblower under indictment, and so it would be
if Edward Snowden was on trial in an American
courtroom now.</p>
<p>Indeed, in recent years, the silencing effect of
the Espionage Act has only become worse. The other
NSA whistleblower prosecuted, Thomas Drake, was
barred from uttering the words “whistleblowing” and
“overclassification” in his trial. (Thankfully, the
Justice Department’s case fell apart one day before
it was to begin). <a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/02/guilty-plea-fox-news-leak-case-shows-why-espionage-act-prosecutions-are-inherently"
target="_blank">In the recent case of the State
Department contractor Stephen Kim</a>, the
presiding judge ruled the prosecution “need not show
that the information he allegedly leaked could
damage US national security or benefit a foreign
power, even potentially.”</p>
<p>We saw this entire scenario play out last summer in
the trial of Chelsea Manning. The military judge in
that case did not let Manning or her lawyer argue
her intent, the lack of damage to the US,
overclassification of the cables or the benefits of
the leaks … <a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color:rgb(0,86,137)"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/21/bradley-manning-sentencing-wikileaks-live"
target="_blank">until she was already found guilty</a>.</p>
<p>Without reform to the Espionage Act that lets a
court hear a public interest defense – or a
challenge to the appropriateness of government
secrecy in each particular case – Snowden and future
Snowdens can and will only be able to “make their
case” from outside the United States.</p>
<p>As I know from direct chat-log conversations with
him over the past year, Snowden acted in full
knowledge of the constitutionally questionable
efforts of the Obama administration, in particular,
to use the Espionage Act in a way it was never
intended by Congress: as the equivalent of a
British-type Official Secrets Act criminalizing any
and all unauthorized release of classified
information. (Congress has repeatedly rejected
proposals for such an act as violating the First
Amendment protections of free speech and a free
press; the one exception to that was vetoed by
President Clinton in November 2000, on
constitutional grounds.)</p>
<p>John Kerry’s challenge to Snowden to return and
face trial is either disingenuous or simply ignorant
that current prosecutions under the Espionage Act
allow no distinction whatever between a patriotic
whistleblower and a spy. Either way, nothing excuses
Kerry’s slanderous and despicable characterizations
of a young man who, in my opinion, has done more
than anyone in or out of government in this century
to demonstrate his patriotism, moral courage and
loyalty to the oath of office the three of us swore:
to support and defend the Constitution of the United
States.</p>
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</div>
<div>
<h3>Related Posts:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/nbc-news-shows-why-viewers-cant-trust-them/"
target="_blank">NBC News Shows Why Viewers Can’t
Trust Them</a><span> May 31, 2014</span> </li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/edward-snowden-interview-with-vanity-fair/"
target="_blank">Edward Snowden Interview</a><span>
April 10, 2014</span> </li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/snowden-says-he-was-a-spy-not-just-an-analyst/"
target="_blank">Snowden Says He Was a Spy, Not
Just an Analyst</a><span> May 28, 2014</span> </li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/why-wont-kerry-leave-syria-alone/"
target="_blank">Why Won’t Kerry Leave Syria Alone?</a><span>
May 20, 2014</span> </li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/code-pink-mocks-egyptian-dictator-sisi-outside-of-us-chamber-of-commerce/"
target="_blank">CODE PINK Mocks Egyptian Dictator
Sisi Outside Of US Chamber Of…</a><span> April 16,
2014</span> </li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
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