NSA says Snowden e-mails exempt from public disclosure and secret

[morningfog]

269. The request was for "any and all" emails.

Last edited Sat Jul 12, 2014, 11:38 PM - Edit history (1)

NSA's refusal was to produce any, other than the one produced in their denial.

"Any and all" is the standard request construction. The request was made perfectly well. There was no ambiguity in what was being asked for, there was no record that had to be created, simply a printout of the emails. However, the NSA refused to produce the number of documents, the itemized bases for denial or to just produce the redacted docs, as required by law.

By the way, this wasn't a blanket request. It was limited to any and all Snowden emails, and it was totally proper. It was exactly as it should have been worded.

As for guessing what I would or would not being doing under a hypothetical, please don't. You don't know me, thank you very much. I am no Snowden fan. I am glad he released the docs he did, I have no opinion on him or his motives. I simply could care less. If the NSA released the redacted docs, assuming it wasn't 80 pages of black box, I would read what was there and naturally be curious about what was redacted. But I would not assume that because it was redacted it must be the very piece that exonerates Snowden.

I do, however, have great concerns with the NSA, its programs and obfuscations. Especially after Clapper's perjury.

I don't care if Snowden actually took it up the ladder. I really don't. I support the release regardless of what preceded the release. Again, my issue is with a government agency not respecting the law, in this case FOIA.

It is worth noting that this FOIA request was not from Snowden. If I were Snowden and were planning on mounting a defense, of course, I would have retained my emails. We don't know if he did or not, but I think it is clear that he is not the most forward-thinking actor.