Snowden: Hero or Traitor...Federal Judge Weighs In

Well, it’s official, at least one Federal Court Judge, after hearing evidence and allowing both sides to present their case, came to the conclusion that the NSA has been violating the Constitutional Rights of millions, yes, millions, of Americans. After this hearing, he thinks what the NSA is doing in gathering massive amounts of information on Americans is Unconstitutional. I take this judicial determination as a pretty good indication that the point of the legality or illegality of the NSA’s actions is, at minimum, a topic on which reasonable people can disagree, and what the NSA has been doing is a subject to be debated. This debate, much to the chagrin of the NSA, will now occur in the brightest light of day, the sunshine, that light which clandestine operations seek to avoid at all costs. The NSA would much prefer to do what they have been doing for years, apparently; treating us like mushrooms, keeping us in the dark and feeding us B.S.

Edward Snowden released information on NSA spying and that has turned into a firestorm of protest against the NSA, but when we start discussing in terms of what Snowden has done, we must remember some basics about this country we call the United States of America. We were once, as we all should know, a colony of Great Britain. “We The People” decided we didn’t like what the King of England was doing to us and we said, “No more!” We did that in a document called the Declaration of Independence.

If you read the Declaration of Independence, you get past the very poetic, and I believe divinely inspired, language to find that the Declaration becomes a list, a fairly long list, of complaints against the King George III. It was by that Declaration that anyone in the colonies that supported independence became a traitor. They were subject to be tried in the King’s Court, assuming there was a trial, and presumably hanged. We live in a country, like many, that had its beginnings in an act of treason. Interestingly, since we won the Revolutionary War caused by the Declaration of Independence, most of the Founding Fathers avoided being hanged, but they were, at least to the British, traitors.

We now have a situation where many believe Edward Snowden is a traitor and should be charged with treason. Many would actually prefer to skip the trial part after he is charged and just take him out back of the jail and shoot him, but most would at least like a show trial or so-called Kangaroo Court, so we can keep up appearances and feel better about ourselves. Is this sounding like the British and the Revolution?

There is a problem with all this; Snowden may have done nothing more than reported a crime and we do not, or should not, prosecute people that report crimes.  If Edward Snowden is charged and tried, it will not be so much because he violated laws, but because he violated laws made by the people that are engaged in the violation of our Civil Rights.  It may well be an act of civil disobedience against the unjust actions of the government.  More Declaration of Independence stuff, but without the war and formation of a new country....so far.

The government passes laws that say they, the government, have the right to operate in secret to protect "We The People." Using that secrecy, they engage in acts that violate the Rights of "We The People," and now they want to claim that the guy who told us about what they were doing is a traitor because he told us about what they were doing and how they were breaking the law.  This sounds a lot like the list of complaints in the Declaration of Independence.  We told King George we are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights and he is violating them, so we said we will start our own country and government. In the later 18th Century one did not tell the King of England he was doing anything illegal.  By definition the King was the law and therefore could not do anything illegal.  One man's heroic civil disobedience is another man's treason.

Let’s analyze our current situation and, just for the sake of argument, let us assume that the Federal Court was right in what it determined.  The United States Government, through the National Security Agency, engaged in acts that violated the Civil Rights of millions of Americans. The violation of any Right guaranteed by the Constitution and that pesky Bill of Rights, is to commit a crime. If you don’t believe me, check out the following which I lifted from none other than the FBI website through the use of copy and paste:

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242
Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law

This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.

Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties.

( http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/federal-statutes)

So, the NSA was committing a crime and the NSA is an arm of the Federal Government, and it is a pretty powerful arm. Within the “Intelligence Community” the NSA is described as “the agency that reads the CIA’s mail before the CIA gets their mail.”  Here is this one little schmuck, Edward Snowden, who says, “Holy crap, this can’t be legal! I’ll call the police!”  But our friend Edward thinks about it and realizes that he is about to report an illegal activity being committed by the Federal Government. He realizes that he will be silenced and repressed, not necessarily killed in an unfortunate accident, but silenced nonetheless, so he goes to “We The People.” He blows the whistle, to use modern terminology.  Who do you think are the first to brand him a traitor?  Yep, the government.  The “person” committing the crime brands him a traitor and calls it treason to reveal what at least one Judge now says was a violation of our Civil Rights.

Now that a Federal Judge, a man learned in the laws of our country, or so we fervently hope, has said he agrees that what Edward Snowden told us about what the NSA was doing was, and is, illegal, a violation of our Fourth Amendment Right, he has opened a path to what should be a frank and open discussion of what the NSA has been doing to “We The People” and I welcome that discussion.  However, I am not naïve enough to think the Government will let that discussion occur. This will be, like so many different things in our history, obfuscated by the Government. Pressure will be brought to bear, officials influenced and people in that same government that has been screwing with our Rights, will do everything in their power to make sure the discussion never fully sees the light of day. They see us, “We The People,” as the unwashed masses; lowly citizens that could not possibly know what is in our own best interests. In the words of James Taylor, “The man says stand to one side, son, we got to keep this big ball rolling. It's just a question of controlling for whom the bell is tolling.” If ever James Taylor’s song, “Let It All Fall Down” had meaning, it is today, now, and this situation. I recommend you read the lyrics, even if you hate the music.

Personally, I think that Edward Snowden has done a great service to this country and “We The People.” He has revealed that the government has engaged in the violation of the Rights of “We The People.” He has, as our Founding Fathers did, engaged in what one side will call a treasonous act, and the other side will call a great act of heroic sacrifice, but, like our war for independence, I think we will have wait to see who wins.  In the meantime, at least one guy, a Federal Judge, thinks the point has enough merit to make it worthy of discussion and careful consideration.