[Rob Instigator]

This open letter has not been disseminated in the mainstream print or news media.

July 26, 2013
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Re: Civil Disobedience, Edward J. Snowden, and the Constitution
Dear Mr. President:
You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As Edmund Burke sermonized, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Civil disobedience is not the first, but the last option. Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”
Thoreau’s moral philosophy found expression during the Nuremburg trials in which “following orders” was rejected as a defense. Indeed, military law requires disobedience to clearly illegal orders.
A dark chapter in America’s World War II history would not have been written if the then United States Attorney General had resigned rather than participate in racist concentration camps imprisoning 120,000 Japanese American citizens and resident aliens.
Civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow laws provoked the end of slavery and the modern civil rights revolution.
We submit that Edward J. Snowden’s disclosures of dragnet surveillance of Americans under § 215 of the Patriot Act, § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments, or otherwise were sanctioned by Thoreau’s time-honored moral philosophy and justifications for civil disobedience. Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community. He found himself complicit in secret, indiscriminate spying on millions of innocent citizens contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the First and Fourth Amendments and the transparency indispensable to self-government. Members of Congress entrusted with oversight remained silent or Delphic. Mr. Snowden confronted a choice between civic duty and passivity. He may have recalled the injunction of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” Mr. Snowden chose duty. Your administration vindictively responded with a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Espionage Act.
From the commencement of your administration, your secrecy of the National Security Agency’s Orwellian surveillance programs had frustrated a national conversation over their legality, necessity, or morality. That secrecy (combined with congressional nonfeasance) provoked Edward’s disclosures, which sparked a national conversation which you have belatedly and cynically embraced. Legislation has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate to curtail or terminate the NSA’s programs, and the American people are being educated to the public policy choices at hand. A commanding majority now voice concerns over the dragnet surveillance of Americans that Edward exposed and you concealed. It seems mystifying to us that you are prosecuting Edward for accomplishing what you have said urgently needed to be done!
The right to be left alone from government snooping–the most cherished right among civilized people—is the cornerstone of liberty. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson served as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg. He came to learn of the dynamics of the Third Reich that crushed a free society, and which have lessons for the United States today.
Writing in Brinegar v. United States, Justice Jackson elaborated:

The Fourth Amendment states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance
disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police.
We thus find your administration’s zeal to punish Mr. Snowden’s discharge of civic duty to protect democratic processes and to safeguard liberty to be unconscionable and indefensible.
We are also appalled at your administration’s scorn for due process, the rule of law, fairness, and the presumption of innocence as regards Edward.
On June 27, 2013, Mr. Fein wrote a letter to the Attorney General stating that Edward’s father was substantially convinced that he would return to the United States to confront the charges that have been lodged against him if three cornerstones of due process were guaranteed. The letter was not an ultimatum, but an invitation to discuss fair trial imperatives. The Attorney General has sneered at the overture with studied silence.
We thus suspect your administration wishes to avoid a trial because of constitutional doubts about application of the Espionage Act in these circumstances, and obligations to disclose to the public potentially embarrassing classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act.
Your decision to force down a civilian airliner carrying Bolivian President Eva Morales in hopes of kidnapping Edward also does not inspire confidence that you are committed to providing him a fair trial. Neither does your refusal to remind the American people and prominent Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate like House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,and Senator Dianne Feinstein that Edward enjoys a presumption of innocence. He should not be convicted before trial. Yet Speaker Boehner has denounced Edward as a “traitor.”
Ms. Pelosi has pontificated that Edward “did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.” Ms. Bachmann has pronounced that, “This was not the act of a patriot; this was an act of a traitor.” And Ms. Feinstein has decreed that Edward was guilty of “treason,” which is defined in Article III of the Constitution as “levying war” against the United States, “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”
You have let those quadruple affronts to due process pass unrebuked, while you have disparaged Edward as a “hacker” to cast aspersion on his motivations and talents. Have you forgotten the Supreme Court’s gospel in Berger v. United States that the interests of the government “in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done?”
We also find reprehensible your administration’s Espionage Act prosecution of Edward for disclosures indistinguishable from those which routinely find their way into the public domain via your high level appointees for partisan political advantage. Classified details of your predator drone protocols, for instance, were shared with the New York Times with impunity to bolster your national security credentials. Justice Jackson observed in Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York: “The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.”
In light of the circumstances amplified above, we urge you to order the Attorney General to move to dismiss the outstanding criminal complaint against Edward, and to support legislation to remedy the NSA surveillance abuses he revealed. Such presidential directives would mark your finest constitutional and moral hour.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein
Counsel for Lon Snowden
Lon Snowden

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I love the hubris behind Manning and Snowden. These guys wanted to be the next Deep Throat, but instead of going throw lawyers, legislators, and legitimate news media, they went through shady, self-aggrandizing snake-oil salesmen. Look, I support whistle-blowing, but dude, be smart about it. What did guys like Manning and Snowden think was going to happen? The US EXECUTES people who steal and leak secrets. I don't agree with that in the slightest, but its the calculated risk you take when you play that game. When I hear these dudes talking about "civic duty to protect democratic process" as a bunch of shit. Dudes thought they'd get famous, now they did, but infamous instead. I sympathize with their situation, but I don't feel sorry for them. It is what it is, but I'm never surprised when the US police-state shows its fangs, and am always surprised how caught up so many Americans are with jingoism to have naively ever believed there was anything but the police-state in the first place!

Besides of which, the worst part, all that leaked information and what did it change? What did it stop? How many Americans actually gave a fuck?

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

I love the hubris behind Manning and Snowden. These guys wanted to be the next Deep Throat, but instead of going throw lawyers, legislators, and legitimate news media, they went through shady, self-aggrandizing snake-oil salesmen. Look, I support whistle-blowing, but dude, be smart about it. What did guys like Manning and Snowden think was going to happen? The US EXECUTES people who steal and leak secrets. I don't agree with that in the slightest, but its the calculated risk you take when you play that game. When I hear these dudes talking about "civic duty to protect democratic process" as a bunch of shit. Dudes thought they'd get famous, now they did, but infamous instead. I sympathize with their situation, but I don't feel sorry for them. It is what it is, but I'm never surprised when the US police-state shows its fangs, and am always surprised how caught up so many Americans are with jingoism to have naively ever believed there was anything but the police-state in the first place!

Besides of which, the worst part, all that leaked information and what did it change? What did it stop? How many Americans actually gave a fuck?

manning went through wikileaks, which was a way for ANONYMOUS sources to leak stuff. this pathetic msm concocted story about these people being inauthentic media whores is a load of shit to distract the citizenry from its uncomfortableness with its states murder of innocents/police state apparatus. manning did not want to be famous and only shared his secret to someone he thought would keep it confidential because he was going insane from loneliness and bullying in an army base in iraq.

so go fuck yourself you shit talking coward. your wigger rasta posing will amount to jack shit, and you are simply uncomfortable about being reminded your fellow countrymen murdered innocents for fun. you are reiterating another version of the "but we already knew they did this stuff!" faux argument. which is just a way of saying you don't want to know about it, without having to say you don't want to know about it.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

manning went through wikileaks, which was a way for ANONYMOUS sources to leak stuff. this pathetic msm concocted story about these people being inauthentic media whores is a load of shit to distract the citizenry from its uncomfortableness with its states murder of innocents/police state apparatus. manning did not want to be famous and only shared his secret to someone he thought would keep it confidential because he was going insane from loneliness and bullying in an army base in iraq.

Assange is not a lawyer, is not a recognized legitimate news source, and clearly the "anonymous" part was forgotten. Its the fucking US military, what, Manning didn't think they'd figure that shit out? Again, you want to leak? Go through LAWYERS, and also LEGITIMATE NEWS MEDIA who are in a better position to protect you. Assange couldn't even protect himself! Further, Assange increasingly comes across as a self-absorbed egomaniac and perhaps his motives for releasing Manning's materials were exploitative.

so go fuck yourself you shit talking coward. your wigger rasta posing will amount to jack shit, and you are simply uncomfortable about being reminded your fellow countrymen murdered innocents for fun. you are reiterating another version of the "but we already knew they did this stuff!" faux argument. which is just a way of saying you don't want to know about it, without having to say you don't want to know about it.

What, are you scared because I'm challenging the motivations and intentions of these guys instead of sacrificing myself in self-effacing martyrdom to their neo-radical altar? Meh..

[Rob Instigator]

The government snoops on EVERYTHING, stores the info, and uses it when convenient for them. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pedo assholes trading kids and pics and movies of kids, but after three years they bust 150 of them? yeah.

http://news.yahoo.com/google-pressur...140900667.html

Woman google searches "pressure cookers" researching a purchase. her husband on another computer was googling "backpacks" for an unrelated purchase. The next day a "joint terrorism task force" goes to their house to interrogate them. How did they know?

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Assange is not a lawyer, is not a recognized legitimate news source, and clearly the "anonymous" part was forgotten. Its the fucking US military, what, Manning didn't think they'd figure that shit out? Again, you want to leak? Go through LAWYERS, and also LEGITIMATE NEWS MEDIA who are in a better position to protect you. Assange couldn't even protect himself! Further, Assange increasingly comes across as a self-absorbed egomaniac and perhaps his motives for releasing Manning's materials were exploitative.



What, are you scared because I'm challenging the motivations and intentions of these guys instead of sacrificing myself in self-effacing martyrdom to their neo-radical altar? Meh..

you already know that if he'd have gone to a legitimate news source they'd have shopped him to the government. also, wikileaks published those cables WITH legitimate news organizations like the nyt and the guardian, so your made up argument is utter shit.

of course, him being a media whore or not is irrelevant, even though its the most pathetic right wing talking point which aims to character assassinate him and distract from the WORK he was involved in by changing the argument to an irrelevant one about his personality. i wont even go back to this irrelevant deliberate side track masquerading as a point. and the reasons he released the cables was hardly exploitative, it was to release footage showing US soldiers murdering innocents for fun, which noone wanted to see because it made them too uncomfortable, hence the endless discussion of assanges character, which gives everyone a convenient get out clause, because his soul wasn't pure. well fuck you. also manning didnt have lawyers at the time he leaked it, because he was stationed in iraq. he did it ANONYMOUSLY as you well now you fucking retard. you aren't challenging the motives and intentions of these guys out of anything other than an aping of the narrative everyone settled on, which is to just bitch about their unpure souls in order to show how little you want to discuss what their leaks actually showed, which you'd all be a lot happier not having to see or admit you know were happening.

what you really wanted to say was "hey, i dont want to hear this shit so its your fault you're getting persecuted so tough luck asshole."

and others in this thread do their usual 'pretend the government is an omnipotent entity' schtick. "hey you cant PROVE they aren't right?" childish beyond measure, but very american.

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

I love the hubris behind Manning and Snowden. These guys wanted to be the next Deep Throat, but instead of going throw lawyers, legislators, and legitimate news media, they went through shady, self-aggrandizing snake-oil salesmen. k?

What do you suggest? They couldn't get resolution through established outlets - in this world you end up dead or in jail - there are lists of DEA people who are now jailed because they tried to stop the Pseudo-Feds from running dope. And maybe they didn't have the need for media attention as you suggest, but just wanted to get the information out there for us to decide. Without some corporate or federal intermediaries to water the message. You sound angry at them!

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

The government snoops on EVERYTHING, stores the info, and uses it when convenient for them. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pedo assholes trading kids and pics and movies of kids, but after three years they bust 150 of them? yeah.

maybe thats why the NSA always gets it vote. They email pictures of your children sleeping to your work computer. they email files of you talking to your whore or same sex lover.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

you already know that if he'd have gone to a legitimate news source they'd have shopped him to the government. also, wikileaks published those cables WITH legitimate news organizations like the nyt and the guardian, so your made up argument is utter shit.

Not necessarily, though really, that is EXACTLY what Assange did, because ASSANGE went to the media to promote those leaks shortly after Wiki published them

of course, him being a media whore or not is irrelevant, even though its the most pathetic right wing talking point which aims to character assassinate him and distract from the WORK he was involved in by changing the argument to an irrelevant one about his personality.

Dude, do you think I keep up with right-wing media to even know that? I'm just calling out Assange as I see it, having nothing to do with liberal or conservative analysis. The dude doesn't pass the smell test, he is a slime-ball.

i wont even go back to this irrelevant deliberate side track masquerading as a point.

Its not a side-track. Manning leaked his material directly to Assange, and Assange sold him out. How is this irrelevant or a side-track? Don't avoid the truth of the matter, which is as I initially criticized, these leaks weren't about justice or democracy, they were about PUBLICITY, PERIOD.

and the reasons he released the cables was hardly exploitative, it was to release footage showing US soldiers murdering innocents for fun, which noone wanted to see because it made them too uncomfortable, hence the endless discussion of assanges character, which gives everyone a convenient get out clause, because his soul wasn't pure. well fuck you. also manning didnt have lawyers at the time he leaked it, because he was stationed in iraq.

That is your interpretation of the narrative, but the subsequent chain of events doesn't necessarily support that theory. Especially the way Assange whored out the leaks. Again, where were the lawyers? The legal preparation? Assange should have arranged that, but he didn't, he only looked out for himself when he didn't get the fame and money he predicted. He thought the post-1999 WTO protest in Seattle hipsters would load up his PayPal account in the name of Che, and instead, everybody just got fucked when the hammer came down.

he did it ANONYMOUSLY as you well now you fucking retard. you aren't challenging the motives and intentions of these guys out of anything other than an aping of the narrative everyone settled on, which is to just bitch about their unpure souls in order to show how little you want to discuss what their leaks actually showed, which you'd all be a lot happier not having to see or admit you know were happening.

What the fuck are you rambling about? Easy with the straw man arguments, I didn't say any of the things you mentioned. Again, if those leaks were so anonymous why is Assange so well-known and how did Manning get arrested?

Further, what did these leaks change? Has there been any kind of policy shift? Shit, has public opinion even remotely moved? NO. So again, the shit was an epic fail, that will cost Manning his life, and for what, so Assange could attempt to be a hero? Manning should have went through the actual group Anonymous instead, might have actually worked out better..

what you really wanted to say was "hey, i dont want to hear this shit so its your fault you're getting persecuted so tough luck asshole."

I am saying its his own fault, but I am again challenging motives, and when his dad writes this letter quoting Martin Luther King and shit, I think, hmmmm.. Assange and Wikileaks don't fit into that kind of narrative, sorry, and again, I'm just speaking the real, and not sacrificing myself to the neo-Radical altar.

and others in this thread do their usual 'pretend the government is an omnipotent entity' schtick. "hey you cant PROVE they aren't right?" childish beyond measure, but very american.

Where is Manning? Oh right, getting tortured in some kind of government prison, not secretly but with full public knowledge.. Some pussy government

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by tesla69

What do you suggest? They couldn't get resolution through established outlets - in this world you end up dead or in jail - there are lists of DEA people who are now jailed because they tried to stop the Pseudo-Feds from running dope. And maybe they didn't have the need for media attention as you suggest, but just wanted to get the information out there for us to decide. Without some corporate or federal intermediaries to water the message. You sound angry at them!

Yet Assange went straight to those same corporate intermediaries didn't he? See, my beef is this. People keep asserting like WikiLeaks had some kind of DIY hacker ethos, some kind of pirate approach. Well, they clearly didn't. They went as mainstream as if they were plugging a New York Times Best-Seller or a weekend Blockbuster flick. Assange was at all the morning news shows, plugging the leaks. Then what happened? Oh right, Manning got arrested, Assange went into exile. Moral of the story. LAWYER up BEFORE you leak, and skip the snake-oil salesman middle-man, and do like Deep Throat, go to the legitimate media YOURSELF. If anything, leak it anonymously to THEM, but don't go through shit-bags like Assange

Speaking of shady as WikiLeaks..

From NY Times this this morning

Mr. Snowden thanked Russia in a statement issued by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization that has been assisting him.

How interesting,.. The sad part is that Snowden might actually think that Russia of all places is safe for him! Russia!!

I think the moral of the Manning-WikiLeaks story is that in this era, if you want to be a pirate or a rebel, you got stay underground. This isn't like the 1960s or the 1990s, this is more like the 1950s or the 1980s, where the government shuts that shit down without mercy, because by and large the American public supports this, and further, its not like in the 50s or 80s where people were ignorant or not informed, people are over-saturated with information and yet, sighs, alas, they seem more crass then ever.

[dead_battery]

i cant respond to that, since it involves a series of points that contradict each other, which you simply made up and which have no logic. you might try reading it back again to spot them, if you were interested, which you aren't. other parts of it substitute assumptions you pulled out of your ass for events that (never) happened in the real world. but congrats on keeping it 'real' and reducing it to an infantile rebellious cartoon were these people actually doing things just didn't have your wise underground attitude you fucking white rasta retard. you are legitimately spouting the most infantile, moronic, fucking retarded and other adjectives i can't alter shit imaginable. i seriously hope that one day the facade of winking dipshittery gives way to a self awareness that does not come on too strong at once because the cognitive dissonance of how much you've embarrassed yourself might drive you to suicide.

i would seriously pay money to see you, a spliff smoking dreadlocked white rasta, interview manning and assange and tell them they weren't "underground" enough, man. you are a walking meme which the internet has yet to discover.

i mean, its very clear to anyone who wants to read your post that you are just making up things out of thin air. post parody - post irony - yet still not in on the joke. what a triumph.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

What you mean to say, is you were trolling out of your ass, and you have nothing more to troll about.

 

[dead_battery]

yes suchfriends, that is exactly what i was saying, and exactly not what you were doing. i was being a troll and you were making mature and adult points, and not just making things up, like a 5 year old would.

and seriously - i really do believe that you believe this.

[tesla69]

Like serfs in the dark ages, American citizens can be picked up on the authority of some unknown person in the executive branch and thrown in a dungeon, subject to torture, without any evidence ever being presented to a court or any information to the person’s relatives of his/her whereabouts. Or they can be placed on a list without explanation that curtails their right to travel by air. Every communication of every American, except face-to-face conversation in non-bugged environments, is intercepted and recorded by the National Stasi Agency from which phrases can be strung together to produce a “domestic extremist.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/...ip-of-tyranny/

[TheMadcapLaughs]

dead_battery, if you don't mind me asking. what country are you from?

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

yes suchfriends, that is exactly what i was saying, and exactly not what you were doing. i was being a troll and you were making mature and adult points, and not just making things up, like a 5 year old would.

and seriously - i really do believe that you believe this.

I would like you to point out and document what exactly I made up, that is, if you can

[dead_battery]

 

 

 

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

I would like you to point out and document what exactly I made up, that is, if you can

everyone reading can see, but i do believe you have deliberately blinded yourself. try spotting the the ad hominems, conjecture masquerading as fact, fact-less opinions masquerading as real events, and plain bullshit. if you would like me to list them all so you can simply add more 'questions' to them, then reply to my replies with more rhetorical bullshit and opinions, i'm out, but you can still go on without me.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

everyone reading can see

YES. I SEE.

[insert children's cartoon picture which stands for UNASSAILABLE LOGIC]

[because a children's cartoon picture stands for UNASSAILABLE LOGIC]

[tesla69]

This is what the Founding Fathers said about whistleblowers: "[i]t is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other the inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge,” said the bill, resolved on July 30, 1778."