I almost forgive the New York Times (not quite) for all the horrific editorials over the past years. For this one:
Under the headline, "Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower", the Times calls for either outright clemency or a reduced sentence saying:
Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community.
And the editorial does not mince words:
In retrospect, Mr. Snowden was clearly justified in believing that the only way to blow the whistle on this kind of intelligence-gathering was to expose it to the public and let the resulting furor do the work his superiors would not. Beyond the mass collection of phone and Internet data, consider just a few of the violations he revealed or the legal actions he provoked:
■ The N.S.A. broke federal privacy laws, or exceeded its authority, thousands of times per year, according to the agency’s own internal auditor.
■ The agency broke into the communications links of major data centers around the world, allowing it to spy on hundreds of millions of user accounts and infuriating the Internet companies that own the centers. Many of those companies are now scrambling to install systems that the N.S.A. cannot yet penetrate.
■ The N.S.A. systematically undermined the basic encryption systems of the Internet, making it impossible to know if sensitive banking or medical data is truly private, damaging businesses that depended on this trust.
■ His leaks revealed that James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, lied to Congress when testifying in March that the N.S.A. was not collecting data on millions of Americans. (There has been no discussion of punishment for that lie.) [emphasis added]
■ The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rebuked the N.S.A. for repeatedly providing misleading information about its surveillance practices, according to a ruling made public because of the Snowden documents. One of the practices violated the Constitution, according to the chief judge of the court.
■ A federal district judge ruled earlier this month that the phone-records-collection program probably violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. He called the program “almost Orwellian” and said there was no evidence that it stopped any imminent act of terror.
I note two interesting facts about the editorial.
It is a golden comment because it sets the frame as "whistle-blower". When the newspaper of the elites begins to define the language--as it does when it supported the Iraq War, so-called "free trade" and a whole host of other bad policies--it makes a difference.
Second, the length. It's a fairly long editorial by normal daily editorial standards, which underscores that the powers-that-be have decided that the elite newspaper needs to make a big stand.
Wed Jan 01, 2014 at 10:23 PM PT: Colleagues:
Just a couple of additions.
I'm not going to spend more time arguing the absurd idea that Edward Snowden did what he did and well, basically, he has to "man up" and take his punishment for the good of...something vague that appears easy for people to argue sitting in their recliner chairs. The guy put his life on the line--probably literally given the scum involved in the secret areas of government--and if he never faces a court, as some think he apparently should "for the good of the movement", more power to him.
As for pardon versus clemency: the bottom line is plenty of wall Street bankers and other criminals make deals, and certainly have done nothing positive to deserve a "Get out of jail card". What I want for Snowden, whatever the legal framework is, is a rock-solid, unwaiveable and unchallenged pass to freedom. He did a public service. Period.
12:19 AM PT: Fellow Kossack bobswern has a diary which adds to the editorial with another column from Jim Traub (a fellow traveler from the past). Worth checking out here: http://www.dailykos.com/...
12:10 PM PT: FWIW, the Times public editor (I'm not a big fan of the public editor--it's usually relatively shallow) has a "behind the scenes" look at how the editorial came to be.
12:10 PM PT: Sorry it's here: http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/...