No, Edward Snowden Has Not Committed Treason

Here’s the thing about the Edward Snowden/NSA/PRISM story: There is a story there, and it’s an important one. Although we don’t know the precise details yet, the story clearly involves a government that’s spying on its own citizens, and none of us should be too comfortable with that. Unfortunately, though, as the facts come out, it appears more and more that it’s not the story Snowden and his primary cheerleader, Glenn Greenwald, want to tell. They’ve gotten a lot of the details wrong, and they’ve provided scant evidence of Snowden’s most outrageous accusations. Consequently, what should be an important story about what our government is doing to us, without our consent, has become a story about personalities – Greenwald’s, Snowden’s, and Pres. Obama’s – rather than the impetus to a much needed conversation.

Chez Pazienza has an excellent piece at The Daily Banter about the extent to which the whole discussion has been sidetracked by hero-worship, specifically targeting Greenwald’s slipshod reporting and those on the left who won’t brook any criticism of Greenwald or Snowden:

For many on the left, Snowden’s tale was unequivocally true and undoubtedly the stuff of paranoid nightmares long before it was even reported. Greenwald’s stories and Snowden’s nebulous accusations and behavior only confirmed that which the left already knew and had been railing about for years without direct proof of their suspicions. Any attempt to refute either, in the eyes of many far-left liberals, now amounts to little more than pro-surveillance state fealty to authority, regardless of how backed up by facts it happens to be.

SCOTUS On Arizona’s Voting Law: Not The Victory You Were Looking For

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., No. 12-17 (.pdf file), to applause on the left. The Court’s decision, penned by Justice Scalia, struck down a provision of Arizona law requiring individuals registering to vote in federal elections to provide proof of U.S. citizenship in certain cases. But, alas, it’s not quite what it seems.

The case stems from Arizona’s Proposition 200, adopted in 2004, which “amended the State’s election code to require county recorders to ‘reject any application for registration that is not accompanied by satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship.’ Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §16–166(F) (West Supp. 2012).” Inter Tribal Council, slip op. at 2-3. Thereafter, individuals registering to vote were required to submit documentation such as birth certificates, driver’s licenses (if the issuing state required proof of citizenship), naturalization papers, and so forth. The issue in the Inter Tribal Council case, however, was a narrow one: not whether Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement was invalid or unconstitutional in and of itself, but whether it conflicted with federal law with regard to mail-in registrations for federal elections.

Your Friday Clash Song: Nembutol Numbs It All …

… But I prefer alcohol!

“The Right Profile” from London Calling (1979), a tribute to the great closeted actor Montgomery Clift, who died in 1966. According to the Clash Wiki:

Johnny Green (Clash tour manager): “At Wessex, Guy [Stevens, producer] fished this book out of his bag, it was Patricia Bosworth’s Montgomery Clift biography. He was telling Joe ‘If you’re going to write a song about somebody, write one about Montgomery Clift!’”

The New York Times’ biography of Clift cites this description from All Movie Guide, which could just as easily apply to Joe Strummer, or any member of the Clash, really: “Prodigiously talented, intense, and defiantly non-conformist, he refused to play by the usual rules of celebrity, actively shunning the spotlight and working solely according to his own whims and desires.” IMDb notes that Clift’s “father was a violent, abusive, ultra-conservative bigot,” and that “whenever Clift was playing characters snapping as they went up against ignorance or brutality, Clift was said to have acted with his father in mind as an antagonist” – which also makes him an apt subject for the Clash.

Moreover, the band’s 1999 live collection takes its name from a Montgomery Clift film, From Here To Eternity. So, there you go. It all comes full circle, or something.

Anyway, it’s a great damn song. So …

Turn. It. Up.

The Supreme Court To America: Don’t Protest Me, Bro!

Funny thing about the First Amendment’s speech clause: For something that’s relatively straightforward – “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” – it’s generated endless controversy and misunderstanding.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell struck down a federal statute (40 U.S.C. § 6135, if you’re scoring at home), that provides:

It is unlawful to parade, stand, or move in processions or assemblages in the Supreme Court Building or grounds, or to display in the Building and grounds a flag, banner, or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice a party, organization, or movement.

Judge Howell’s ruling in the case captioned Harold H. Hodge, Jr. v. Pamela Talkin, et al., No. 12-00104 (U.S. Dist. Ct. D. DC June 11, 2013) (.pdf format), found that “the absolute prohibition on expressive activity in the statute is unreasonable, substantially overbroad, and irreconcilable with the First Amendment,” and, therefore, “the statute [is] unconstitutional and void as applied to the Supreme Court plaza.” Slip op. at 67.

Nice, right? But hold on. Just when you thought it was safe to protest in the Supreme Court Building or on its grounds, Raw Story reports:

Because It’s The Cup …

There will be no post tonight. Let’s go, Blackhawks!

The NSA, FISA, And The President: Part II

If only there were some way to challenge executive power when the President goes to far …

Oh, yeah. There is:

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a constitutional challenge to a surveillance program under which the National Security Agency vacuums up information about every phone call placed within, from, or to the United States. The lawsuit argues that the program violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. The complaint also charges that the dragnet program exceeds the authority that Congress provided through the Patriot Act.

You can down load a copy of the ACLU’s Complaint in that lawsuit, American Civil Liberties Union, et al. v. James R. Clapper, et al., No.  13 CIV 3994 (U.S. Dist. Ct. S.D. NY), here.

The NSA, FISA, And The Magical, Imaginary, Benign Presidency

I’ve been trying for days now to collect my thoughts on the outrage du jour. I’m referring, of course, to last week’s revelations about the Obama Administration’s surveillance activities. On Wednesday, we learned that the National Security Agency had obtained an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which, as Mother Jones’ David Corn reported, “compel[led] [a] Verizon [subsidiary] to give the NSA what’s known as ‘metadata,’ such as the time, length, and location of calls—not the customer’s identity.” Then, on Thursday came news of the Administration’s data-mining program known as “PRISM,” which Bob Cesca explains in some detail here.

I suppose the easiest and most accurate way to respond to the whole matter is to say: That’s awful. The government shouldn’t be doing that. But lawyers don’t get paid to give two-sentence responses, and so I won’t.

When a story like this breaks, the first thing people tend to do is to lash out at Pres. Obama, and that’s understandable. The buck stops with him, after all. But if anyone cares about, you know, fairness, the truth is there’s plenty of blame to go around.