US government sues ex-IT guy for breaking his NDA (Yes, we mean Edward Snowden) The US government today sued former CIA employee and NSA sysadmin contractor Edward Snowden to deny him payment from his newly published book, Permanent Record. The civil lawsuit [PDF], filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleges that Snowden violated non-disclosure agreements signed as a condition of employment with …
I guess I'll go and buy it then!
(Was I the only person visiting/working in the Home Office who noticed when GCHQ started to phone senior mandarins on the afternoon of the start of the Snowden crisis?)
We were all having tea at the time, very nice hospitality too, very professional people
There is no possibility of a public interest defence in a case involving National Security.
When Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, he exposed examples of gross governmental misconduct, but the trial went ahead. When Chelsea Manning leaked video of US helicopter pilots laughing as they sprayed bullets into a group of men and as the APCs rolled over the bodies of the dead and dying, she went to prison.
Whatever you reveal about corruption or incompetence, even if the papers explicitly proved that senior NSA officials got together once a month to eat roasted orphans, that is not admissible in a case which simply asks the question "Did you reveal information you were not authorised to?"
You can check out Ellsberg's HopeX talk on this link
It's not a coincidence that the number of prosecutions for 'leaks' has grown exponentially since 9/11, and especially after Obama got into office and has continued since Trump. It's become a running 'joke', if you can call something so awful a form of even dark humor. It's a gross color-of-law violation? But done by protected class? Oh, it's illegal to turn them in.
There's a reason that immunity (and especially punishment for having gall to question it) should itself be questionable, even by those that benefit from it. Absolute immunity eventually leads to really bad places for those involved. It invites an infection: First, some bad actor joins and abuses it. Second, everyone else sees that nothing happens after many times abused. Third, soon, it's so common that it leads to strife. Forth, some people get told to eat cake and history happens. ;)
Well the simple but potentially obvious way around this will be for Snowden's publisher to publicly declare that they are not paying Snowden for the book. However, some minor publishing house in Russia or where ever is convienant gives Snowden a rather large advance for his new kids book on Unicorns (say)...
I believe this case only applies to US publishing houses publishing (and selling) this book. It doesn't apply to, say, a UK publisher publishing the book outside of the US.
You're forgetting previous cases.
The US government believes it applies to any company that has a US HQ/subsidiary and thus is worldwide - including the EU...
By going with a Germany publisher, Snowden clearly shows he doesn't trust the UK not to be the US's poodle; before or after Brexit...
"By going with a Germany publisher, Snowden clearly shows he doesn't trust the UK not to be the US's poodle; before or after Brexit..."
My latest book is with a German publisher. Does that mean I don't trust the UK not to be the US's poodle?
It just means that the German publisher and he reached an agreement.
Not just wire fraud. They'lll tack on 26 other charges that'll ruin your life even if only one of them sticks.
Then they'll a coerce a confession out of you for wire fraud after which they'll put you in a private jail where you're an additional 200k revenue over the next 4 years
But it's all Justice and Freedom(tm) here guys; Look squirrel!
"I'm sure they will find a way of charging people with 'wire fraud' if they purchase the book from outside the US"
A payment AND a receipt? That's TWO charges of wire fraud.
And a book containing stolen secrets? Add in handling stolen information.
And they are US state secrets? That's treason.
I had an idea that maybe this "you can't benefit on something that's illegal" could be extended.
e.g.
I'm sure today there's a dev working within the NSA who's been asked to do something that they have personal qualms over the legitimacy of that they're doing.
That's a tough place to be. I'd presume your current justification is that this "isn't your problem" - NSA asked you to to do it, you did it, and you believe they'll "cover you ass"
Imagine an alternative world. You share what you've done, it's marked as being illegal, your salary is clawed back (you shouldn't profit from breaking the law).
NSA: a hard place to work, where terms like right and wrong aren't even known to their management. Not the first or only one, though.
Let me be the first to invoke Godwin's Law (sort of)
I was just following orders!
-various and sundry Nazis
Okay, the NSA aren't that bad. I hope.
"Imagine an alternative world. You share what you've done, it's marked as being illegal, your salary is clawed back (you shouldn't profit from breaking the law)."
This alternative world is hell on earth.
A shop sells something that turns out to break some health and safety rules. All retail employees have their salaries clawed back because they shouldn't profit from crime.
If the incredibly private and classified information is already available online, has been reported on news programs and published by numerous newspapers, and thus is classed as being in the public domain, might it not be difficult to argue that classified information is being published in a book?
When has logic and facts ever stopped the US govt in the last 5 decades?
Politicians are blatantly and overtly lying (not just talking about Trump) and the corporate mediat, not only let's them get away with it, they actively assist in propagating those lies
Nixon was just unlucky to be president in a time when journalists still used to serve the public interest.
NDAs that I've seen all say something along the lines of: you can talk about the stuff covered by this agreement if it becomes publicly known otherwise than through your breach of this NDA. Since we know all this stuff because Snowden breached the NDA I guess he's now the only person in the world who is not allowed to talk about it.
The NDA ("contract") between an individual and the US federal government for purpose of holding a security clearance at all, regardless of which department or agency, clearly specifies that it doesn't matter if/when/where/how any classified information is released, YOU do not talk about it or share it AT ALL or else charges may be brought. Just because information is public does not automatically make it unclassified. This is reiterated in annual refresher training based on the National Industrial Security Program Operations Manual (NISPOM, an acronym we have to memorize).
I'm not entirely clear on the book review bit, but the above supersedes even writing a draft. You're supposed to take your secrets to the grave.
Speaking of graves... My grandfather worked for Honeywell -- supposedly on missile-guidance systems since he previously went to Navy radio school in Norfolk, Virginia, during WWII -- and didn't talk about it to anyone, including my grandmother or their kids. He passed in early 2009 and she followed last year; secrets safe.
Is such an onerous NDA ("contract") fair and reasonable whenever the upper levels of secret knowledge gleaned and learned are so incredibly valuable and fantastically expensive to not reveal and conceal/squirrel away for another time later. :-)
It is certainly not good elite capitalist business sense, battling to restrict and restrain growth in upper levels of secret knowledge, whenever markets can deliver and driver whatever analysts and programmers imagine to be possible via ITs use of Media and AI and/or AIs use of IT and Media.
And that delivers an altogether fundamentally different Bigger Picture Show to Present for NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACtive Input to Output SMARTR Enabling.
How switched on to the Myriad Wiles of HyperRadioProACTive IT Web Spiders are the MOD/UKGBNI and are they being soft targeted here with this simple registering of an expression of interest in AWE20 ..... or would one need to enquire directly via the email addresses provided/dead drops supplied?
They're here being tested for Leading AI Positions with an Engaging Out of this World Narrative Raw Core Ore Source Supplying Future Product for Present Production.
How do you think they will fare in that sort of Experimental Warfighting Army Ware? Brilliantly or abysmally?
If the incredibly private and classified information ...is classed as being in the public domain
Skimming through the case document, it would seem one angle the US will take is the "information obtained as a result of his relationship with NSA" [para 37.]. The question arises is how did that information get into the public domain, if it was because of Snowden's own revelations...
They have specifically said so themselves:
Uncle Sam's legal eagles appear to have anticipated this by insisting that it "does not seek to stop or restrict the publication or distribution of Permanent Record." It claims it just wants to stop Snowden from being paid.
And I don't believe for a moment that they haven't heard of the Streisand Effect.
I think within the specific context of Edward Snowden then I would tend to agree it serves no real purpose.
However, stepping back, it once again provides further opportunity to harass publishers and the media, and to remind employees (current and previous) of NSA et al of their NDA's, so don't think about whistleblowing etc.
"Intelligence information should protect our nation, not provide personal profit," said G. Zachary Terwilliger, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in a statement.
But it clearly doesn't, and does, Mr US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
And you can't do anything at all really effective and great game changing about all of that, can you?
Trying to penalise and put an extortionate price on the appearance of truth, .... and let us here all assume the Permanent Record tale told is an honest account of Intelligence Systems International Shenanigans ...... is a monumental folly worthy of madness in the enthrall of mayhem.
And it instantly identifies the real enemy and supporting conspiratorial systems within ‽ .:-)
[The road to hell (part 1)]Stood still on a highway
I saw a woman
By the side of the road
With a face that I knew like my own
Reflected in my window
Well she walked up to my quarterlight
And she bent down real slow
A fearful pressure paralysed me in my shadow
She said 'son what are you doing here
My fear for you has turned me in my grave'
I said 'mama I come to the valley of the rich
Myself to sell'
She said 'son this is the road to hell'
On your journey cross the wilderness
From the desert to the well
You have strayed upon the motorway to hell
[The road to hell (part 2)]
Well I'm standing by the river
But the water doesn't flow
It boils with every poison you can think of
And I'm underneath the streetlight
But the light of joy I know
Scared beyond belief way down in the shadows
And the perverted fear of violence
Chokes the smile on every face
And common sense is ringing out the bell
This ain't no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell
And all the roads jam up with credit
And there's nothing you can do
It's all just bits of paper flying away from you
Oh look out world, take a good look
What comes down here
You must learn this lesson fast and learn it well
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway
Oh no, this is the road
Said this is the road
This is the road to hell ..... https://genius.com/Chris-rea-the-road-to-hell-part-1-and-2-lyrics
"Intelligence information should protect our nation, not provide personal profit,"
Just one reason why the TLAs are careful not to fully brief the president.
I wonder if he's asked them to consider his hotel at Turnberry as a safe house yet? If he can get the air force to layover air crews there, why not the occasional spy on the run or a defector or two?
I'd guess that the US doesn't really care one way or the other, and they must know that they risk the Streisand effect. This is just for form's sake, to make sure that no future cases can claim that they set a legal precedent by ignoring Snowden's breach of NDA. Whether they stop him getting the cash or not, they've made their (legal) point.
Clearly the NSA, despite being surveillance gurus, have never heard of the Streisand Effect
or.... maybe they have.
Tinfoil Underpants time, but maybe that's exactly what they want. They know people will buy it, they go after it to make it a huge seller... and they quietly net the proceeds. Okay, so it's peanuts in all likelihood, in the grand scheme of their budget, but someone somewhere has to be on the end of the slush fund.
His passport has been revoked but I'm not certain if his US nationality has been removed too. They are different.
If he still has US citizenship, Uncle Sam will be expecting income tax on the profits made from his book sale, irrespective of where he is domiciled. Failure to pay the income tax (or citizen exit tax) could lead to charges of tax evasion.
Yes it is possible, but long standing UN convention says you cant make people stateless by doing so. So if they're dual nationals then by all means you can strip them of their citzienship/nationailty to your nation. But if they hold only your nationality, then you're not supposed to be able to remove it and leave them stateless...
"the UK government contends that Begum holds, or is eligible for, citizenship of Bangladesh. There have been reports that immigration lawyers confirm this position. The Government of Bangladesh, however, stated that Begum does not hold Bangladeshi citizenship and will not be allowed to enter the country.
British law does not allow that an individual is made stateless and Begum will have the right to appeal the Home Office's decision to revoke her UK citizenship."
>I'm not certain if his US nationality has been removed too.
I suspect not, given Edward Snowden is a natural born american:
Whilst he has been granted asylum in Russia, it is not clear whether he has formally renounced his US citizenship, given what is involved in renouncement I suspect not and is actually unlikely to happen given the Jamal Khashoggi case. So to answer another question, the IRS are going to be wanting to see his back dated tax returns.
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