At the core of Edward Snowden's actions -- as with so many "whistleblowers" -- is that oath sworn before being allowed to work with classified information. That oath is sacred in law, and it's law that determines the outcome for the leaker and whistleblower and nation.
Or is that true? Doesn't government often manipulate the law to maintain its impermeability and credibility?
At least one commenter has offered the jarring truth about government, "the law," and oaths in Peckinpah's screenplay for "The Wild Bunch."
When one swears an oath of Omertà, for example, do you consider it binding? Great exchange in the movie the Wild Bunch about this:
Pike Bishop: What would you do in his place? He gave his word.
Dutch Engstrom: He gave his word to a railroad.
Pike Bishop: It's his word.
Dutch Engstrom: That ain't what counts! It's who you give it *to*!
Are we willing to face the outcome if we decide that our government has become so large, so compromised, so tight with corporations, so uncontrollable and so corrupt that oaths sworn to it are exactly like omertà? When people say "government has gotten too big" isn't that what all of us -- right and left -- worry about? When government classifies information because that information could be politically embarrassing, isn't it working against us?
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Doubts about what our government has become are a thread connecting recent actions by whistleblowers and those who write about them. Timothy B. Lee writes about this in "Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?"
Americans are familiar with stories of dissidents fleeing repressive regimes such as those in China or Iran and seeking asylum in the United States. Snowden is in the opposite position. He’s an American leaving the land of his birth because he fears persecution.
Four decades ago, Daniel Ellsberg surrendered to federal authorities to face charges of violating the Espionage Act. During his trial, he was allowed to go free on bail, giving him a chance to explain his actions to the media. His case was eventually thrown out after it was revealed that the government had wiretapped him illegally.
Bradley Manning, a soldier who released classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, has had a very different experience. Manning was held for three years without trial, including 11 months when he was held in de facto solitary confinement. During some of this period, he was forced to sleep naked at night, allegedly as a way to prevent him from committing suicide. The United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture has condemned this as “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the convention against torture.”
Ellsberg has argued that this degrading treatment alone should be grounds for dismissing the charges against Manning. Instead, the government has sought the harshest possible sentence. Even after Manning pleaded guilty to charges that could put him in prison for 20 years, the government has still pushed forward with additional charges, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act, that were intended to be used against foreign spies, not whistleblowers.
The civilian whistleblowers targeted by the Obama administration haven’t received treatment as harsh as Manning’s. But it’s telling that in none of their cases have the courts reached the legal and constitutional merits. The government’s strategy, in leak cases and many others, is to seek the maximum possible charges and then “plea bargain” down to a sentence the government considers more reasonable. ...WaPo
The degrading treatment suffered by Bradley Manning appears to have been a "straw that breaks..." for many Americans. It has been much more embarrassing than any revelations coming from Manning's and Assange's work. It has taken our military, our justice system and our federal government out of the realm of the democratic republic and it suggests parallels with exactly the kinds of regimes in other countries that have been used as a reason to either cut off relations or invade them.
As for the likes of Edward Snowden, the current Supreme Court can't be counted on to acknowledge law-breaking by members of the executive and legislative branches if a naive computer geek with principles challenges those institutions.
