NSA Staffer: Snowden Didn't Dupe Coworkers Out of Passwords

[JDPriestly]

196. It will most likely be argued before the Supreme Court.

Hard to say how they will decide. Roberts and Kagan worked in the Bush and Obama administrations respectively and may be somewhat biased in favor of the NSA. But Scalia and some of the others are fairly strong on human rights. So we shall see.

I suspect that, as with racial integration, it will take a number of years before the Court recognizes that the NSA is violating our constitutional rights.

The crime in this instance, in my opinion, was perpetrated by the NSA. That is my opinion and my view of the law.

During the NAZI and Communist regimes, many people were punished for political crimes. That could well happen here. The definition of "terrorism," "terrorist acts," and other language defining the conduct targeted by the Patriot Act is very vague and overbroad in my opinion. So far it has been applied in a narrow sense, but the potential for abuse is very great.

Just why certain attacks such as the attack on Gabby Giffords were not considered to be acts of terror while others were is very unclear. Whether the Patriot Act is applied in a certain factual situation seems to be rather an arbitrary decision on the part of law enforcement. That brings us closer to the criminalization of political activities that was prevalent under the NAZIs and Communists. That is because we haven't really clearly defined terrorism as actions as opposed to simply supporting people who without your assistance perform violent acts. That part of the Patriot Act is vague and could be interpreted to permit sentencing people for participating in groups that are associated indirectly with people who commit actual acts of terror. That is one of the ways that political repression was imposed in the NAZI, fascist and Communist totalitarian regimes. You are a "pinko" because you have a friend who is a Communist. Therefore we can imprison you. That is political repression in full form.

Could it happen here? We came close in the McCarthy era. I remember coming home from school and seeing segments of the McCarthy hearings on TV. Even as a child, I was completely appalled. And I didn't and couldn't have understood much about what was going on. I did not have the historical context or knowledge. I just knew that people were verbally beating up on someone with no ability to respond as he would have liked to.