[nicholassmith]

There was a funny line in The Social Network that went:

`Like my brother and I are in skeleton costumes chasing the Karate Kid around a gym.`

That's kind of what America looks like. Snowden has all these mighty military secrets, but at the end of the day they just look like school bullies who want to smack him around. What Snowden did is without a doubt a crime, but one that seems like it was necessary, and should be easy to resolve. The longer this draws on the more America looks like a misguided bully, forcing weaker kids to pick on the nerd. It doesn't help that the mood seems to be to string him up as a traitor in war time.

Edit: 'easy to resolve' sounds flippant, but it's being turned into the biggest manhunt on a global stage since Bin Laden.

[mchusma]

I agree with everything but the concept that what he did "is without a doubt a crime." In fact, many people, including lawyers and constitutional scholars, have debate on the subject. The reasons they might not be a crime include: -Legal whistle blower protections -precedent of committing lesser crimes to prevent larger crimes -international case law around disobeying illegal orders -the application of reasonableness in the 4th amendment

Snowden is committing a crime no more than Daniel Ellsburg releasing the Pentagon Papers was a crime, and Mark Felt (Deep Throat) was a criminal for exposing FBI and presidential misconduct.

[nicholassmith]

Ooh, that's interesting thank you. My knowledge of constitutional application is Not Great, so it's interesting it'd fall within that. I think it's possibly still a crime but one with a certain level of legal affordability, but I'm sure much smarter people than me are working on that definition.

I'd have said the last one (FBI & President) wouldn't fall under treason exactly, as whilst they were whistleblower leakers they weren't of a certain level of international security relations.

[embolism]

How do they resolve this without having him face a trial?

Also, there are some countries that are even less benign than then US who would like to take advantage of this situation if they can.

[nicholassmith]

They don't, but trials don't have to be drawn out, ridiculous processes like the Bradley Manning trial has become, they can be done with pretty straight forward behaviour from both sides.