Intelligence chairman accuses Glenn Greenwald of illegally selling stolen material
Source: Politico
A top lawmaker argued Tuesday that journalist Glenn Greenwald is illegally selling stolen material by asking news organizations to pay for access to U.S. intelligence secrets taken from the National Security Agency.
“For personal gain, he’s now selling his access to information, that’s how they’re terming it…. A thief selling stolen material is a thief,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) told journalists after a hearing where the leaks set in motion by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. were a major topic of discussion.
.......
“To the best of your knowledge, fencing stolen material — is that a crime?” he asked FBI Director James Comey.
“It would be,” in most cases, Comey said. However, he quickly added that it would be “complicated” in a situation where the person selling that information was engaged in a newsgathering activity because of “First Amendment implications.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/intelligence-chairman-argues-selling-snowden-docs-a-crime-103100.html
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JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)How can we have freedom of the press if news sources cannot be paid?
The Snowden leaks are news like it or not. Don't shoot the messenger.
Any matter of such great public interest as the Snowden leaks is news.
Again we have a Republican in Congress who apparently has not read or thought about the Bill of Rights.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)In other words, Rogers was suggesting that private citizens have no expectation of privacy in anything the government (or anyone else, for that matter) does to us, so long as we don’t know about it.
It’s easy enough to see the fallacy in this logic; after all, if someone placed a webcam in your shower without your knowledge, would it not be a violation of your privacy simply because you don’t notice it?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/31/mike_rogers_bizarre_views_on_privacy_shows_inadequacy_of_government_surveillance.html
Titonwan
(785 posts)Wingers have always been good at twisting the truth and I'm amazed how effective they are on the mouth breathers. Rogers is essentially arguing against the first amendment and a free press! 
Titonwan
(785 posts)Basically Mikey is sayin'- "I'm a peeping tom, jackin' it, and only if I get caught do you have any right to complain!"
You've been caught, Mikey. Shame on you, ya sick bastard.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Titonwan
(785 posts)http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/your-government-protecting-you.html
And I'm in complete agreement.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)that would handling : not theft. Greenwald didn't steal anything.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)who his bosses are.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)Get a "donation" and give the information (or vote as applicable).
Surely, Mike Rogers isn't being a blatant hypocrite is he?
Titonwan
(785 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 5, 2014, 10:42 AM - Edit history (2)
Why isn't Nancy Pelosi et alia not pushing back against this bullshit? We got science committee members that are climate change deniers? We got ultra rich fucks heading our finance committees!
I'm lookin' forward to the next Snowden bomb and see them all squirm some more. This has to come to a head and the sooner, the better. 
Edit One: This just in--
Brazilian senator nominates Edward Snowden for Nobel Peace Prize
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/04/brazilian-senator-nominates-edward-snowden-for-nobel-peace-prize/
This is gonna make a bunch of people look foolish if it pans out. And I hope he wins it!
Second Edit: Oh and I forgot to tell youz guyz about Glenn Greenwald's getting the Polk Prize--
"The Polk award will also be a direct rebuke to critics of Greenwald who have accused him of trading on Snowden’s secrets for personal gain."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin/glenn-greenwald-fellow-snowden-reporters-expected-to-win-top
Democrats better wake up...
"Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels." - Lillian Hellman 1905-1984
SorellaLaBefana
(144 posts)Thus, I am sadly of the opinion that it will be a long time before Democrats do anything about our surveillance society. Such a society which many, even here on DU, seem to support.
I do not have the heart to repeat Ben Franklin's statement on the subject. I will just go quietly off to the kitchen, refill my coffee, and get on with the day.
Ciao.
Demenace
(213 posts)While you folks focus on first amendment rights, we need to talk about the fact that this right does not apply to every individual on earth since it is only a right within the shores of the United states.
The big question is, whether Glenn Greenwald should be selling information that belongs to the American people if indeed he is.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)The US government cannot abrogate its citizens' free speech, no matter where they are. Please don't ask me to list the obvious exceptions, like yelling fire in a non-burning theater--all other things being equal, our right to speech free from US government interference exists everywhere.
Demenace
(213 posts)How uneducated your response is! Where is the first amendment right of the American in the North Korean jail or in any country! The laws of the United states do not trump the laws on soils of a foreign nation. How you do not understand that is beyond me.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)Come back to me when you're a little more coherent. I don't suffer insults lightly, and I waste no more time than necessary with people such as yourself. My point stands, and remains one hundred percent correct. Let me know if you have what it takes to make this interesting--we can negotiate the minimum amount. Hint: the First Amendment applies to the relationship between US citizens and their government, irrespective of where those citizens are located on the planet.
So how much, zippy?
Demenace
(213 posts)When you have no leg to stand on, folks like you resort to insults. I said your first amendment rights are not applicable when you are in Russia dealing with the Russian government, which part of this statement do you not understand?
Just as a right written into the Russian constitution has no legal bases on American soil, how much longer do some of you have to keep expressing your lack of knowledge around here before you wake up to the fact that constitutions even that of the United states have their limitations and scopes of legality.
Why do you not go ask the American Cleric who had his behind droned in Yemen how that first amendment thing is working for him?
How much lack of knowledge about life can you display because someone pulls you aside to cue you in?
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Rogers said his source for the information was “other nations' press services”.
Since leaving the Guardian in October, Greenwald has worked on a freelance basis with news organizations worldwide on stories based on Snowden’s surveillance documents. But he told the Guardian he has “never, never, ever” sold the documents themselves to anyone “Mike Rogers is literally just fabricating and lying when he says that,” Greenwald said.
“I have never, ever sold a document, where I get money and I say ‘here’s a document, go off and do whatever you want with it.’,” Greenwald said, calling the claim foolish, unfounded, and designed to intimidate journalists.
FBI director James Comey said that a reporter “hawking stolen jewelry” was a crime, but it was “harder to say” journalism based off the Snowden leaks was criminal, since such a determination had “first amendment implications.”
“It’s an issue that can be complicated if it involves a news-gathering or a news promulgation function,” Comey said.
Rogers asked: “Entering into a commercial enterprise to sell stolen material is acceptable to a legitimate news organization?”
Corney replied: “I’m not sure I’m comfortable answering that in the abstract."
The attorney general, Eric Holder, said in November he did not plan to prosecute Greenwald.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/us-congressman-mike-rogers-glenn-greenwald-thief-snowden-nsa
SO YOU LIE AND SUPPORT A REPUBLICAN
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)People elsewhere don't have this right?
Here you go!
The Universal Declaration of Rights
"Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
The Universal Declaration of Rights begins as follows:
"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
"Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, . . . . "
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
"Freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers"
Powerful! All-encompassing freedom of information and of the press.
Look! I would like to be able to believe that my government is the best, most honest, most compassionate, most democratic and most free in the world, but if we are, I really hate to think what it is like in the rest of the world.
Freedom of the press is a basic human right. It troubles me to see that, once again, a leader at the NSA does not fully appreciate that fact. I wonder whether Snowden saw that characteristic in the leadership of the NSA and in part spoke out because of what he saw. It is very dangerous to have people who have no respect for universal human rights in high positions in the military and intelligence. I don't know the people who work for our intelligence community (at least I don't think I have met any of them), but considering the lack of regard for human rights that we are now seeing in those who represent the agencies before Congress, I am troubled. Maybe our entire government from top to bottom needs to take a day and talk about universal human rights -- from the President right on down to the secretaries in our local police stations.
randome
(34,845 posts)Because something was written on a piece of paper more than 230 years ago, it now applies to everyone in the world?
What about the clerical edicts calling for Islamic fundamentalism to reign supreme? That's probably on a piece of paper, too.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Those limits apply wherever the government may act.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)But keep up your right wing chatter.
Oh..... Read before you open your mouth.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I hope your post is not serious.
I don't like Islamic fundamentalism at all, but short of those individuals who are advocating violence, they have the right to express peaceful opinions just as we do. Our country was founded on the idea of defending the Bill of Rights and the concept that those rights are inalienable and universal.
Documents asserting individual rights, such the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789), and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights (1791) are the written precursors to many of today’s human rights documents. Yet many of these documents, when originally translated into policy, excluded women, people of color, and members of certain social, religious, economic, and political groups. Nevertheless, oppressed people throughout the world have drawn on the principles these documents express to support revolutions that assert the right to self-determination.
Contemporary international human rights law and the establishment of the United Nations (UN) have important historical antecedents. Efforts in the 19th century to prohibit the slave trade and to limit the horrors of war are prime examples. In 1919, countries established the International Labor Organization (ILO) to oversee treaties protecting workers with respect to their rights, including their health and safety. Concern over the protection of certain minority groups was raised by the League of Nations at the end of the First World War. However, this organization for international peace and cooperation, created by the victorious European allies, never achieved its goals. The League floundered because the United States refused to join and because the League failed to prevent Japan’s invasion of China and Manchuria (1931) and Italy’s attack on Ethiopia (1935). It finally died with the onset of the Second World War (1939).
. . . .
The idea of human rights emerged stronger after World War II. The extermination by Nazi Germany of over six million Jews, Sinti and Romani (gypsies), homosexuals, and persons with disabilities horrified the world. Trials were held in Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, and officials from the defeated countries were punished for committing war crimes, "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity."
Governments then committed themselves to establishing the United Nations, with the primary goal of bolstering international peace and preventing conflict. People wanted to ensure that never again would anyone be unjustly denied life, freedom, food, shelter, and nationality. The essence of these emerging human rights principles was captured in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address when he spoke of a world founded on four essential freedoms: freedom of speech and religion and freedom from want and fear (See Using Human Rights Here & Now). The calls came from across the globe for human rights standards to protect citizens from abuses by their governments, standards against which nations could be held accountable for the treatment of those living within their borders. These voices played a critical role in the San Francisco meeting that drafted the United Nations Charter in 1945.
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-1/short-history.htm
The article continues to explain the history of the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Let us never forget the value of human rights in our own lives. Let us never fail to extend respect for the human rights of every person on our planet.
randome
(34,845 posts)I thought this was in reference to the Constitution. My mistake. Still, no one is preventing Greenwald from expressing his opinions. No one. But selling stolen data is another thing entirely.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)AP sells news stories. Newspapers hire reporters, pay them, and publish the stories the reporters write. That is how the press works. Do you think that people like Rachel Maddow or other reporters and newscasters go on TV for free?
If you want the NY Times online on a regular basis, you pay for it. That principle applies to all news media.
Greenwald is a member of the media. He sells stories and information. That is what members of the media do for a living. The Snowden documents were provided to Snowden and others. They sell that story. If they were publishing documents they obtained from some other source, they would probably ask money for them because that is their business. Journalism is a business is my point.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]
Titonwan
(785 posts)about the Constitution. Just a piece of paper.
Demenace
(213 posts).. United states constitution. Folks here are talking about their 'first amendment right' which again for your education is not a recognize-able right if you set your foot on English soil or better yet known as a foreign soil.
And again, Universal declaration of Rights are just that declarations not recognized by the Government of the United states as in the case of the continued detention of foreign citizens at Gitmo.
You really should know what you are talking about before your express them.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)of all humans, then you believe that those rights are the inalienable rights of all. I think that is what Thomas Jefferson was referring to when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
We should respect those rights even for citizens of other nations, and demand that other nations respect those rights which are our inalienable rights also.
Idealistic? Yes. But was there ever a more idealistic group than the men who founded our country, and that, I believe, is what they intended in their writings and words.
Demenace
(213 posts)... He did not include the slaves he owned and the natives whose lands were getting stolen, did he? And for the love of everything good, how is this declaration relevant to how the Israelis treat the Palestinians? How is it relevant today to how the Chinese treat the people in Tibet?
How about those rights been applied to the folks in Gitmo for over a decade now during your life time or do this declaration not apply to them as it did not apply to the slaves Jefferson owned back in his day?
What is wrong with you people and your selective reasoning?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Jefferson was wrong in his judgment about his slaves. And he questioned his opinion. Think of the inequity with which slaves were treated by Supreme Court justices and Congress, everyone in our country for centuries.
Today we understand that people of all races are equal and created to have the same basic needs and potential. That is something we have learned over our history.
As today, some of us mistakenly deny that people of other nations enjoy the same innate, inherent and basic rights that we do, so did men like Jefferson and the Supreme Court justices and leaders of our country mistakenly believe that slaves did not deserve equal rights.
It is very easy to simply go along with the social norms and attitudes of your historical era as many are today in denying that all people have a right to freedom of information (press), speech, religion, assembly and to petition their governments as well as privacy, a fair trial and all the other basic rights guaranteed to us in our Constitution. But those attitudes are simply wrong. We are created with the desire for those rights, and our societies function best when we guarantee to ourselves and others those rights. These are certain basic universal laws and rights. The Universal Declaration of Rights was sponsored by the US. To the extent that we abandon and decline to hold fast to our belief and dedication to those rights we are wrong, and we deservedly lose the respect of the world.
We have to act consistently with our professed values. The vast surveillance network that we have built is not consistent with the values that we profess in our Constitution. I hope that it will be brought under some rational control.
I realize that my country is violating the ideals and laws set forth in our Constitution. It makes me very sad. I hope that we will realize the wrong we are doing not just to others but to ourselves.
Demenace
(213 posts)... the United states of America, period! That is why we have this thing called sovereignty of nations which means, each nation has a right to make its own set of laws and ideals. It was the desire to escape these laws and ideals as set by the King of England that we are told drove the Founding Fathers to this continent in the first place. Upon arrival here, the folks felt, they did not need to live under those laws and ideals as set forth by the King so they came up with their own set of laws and ideals which included the famous declaration that all men (note not women, Native Americans and Slaves) were created equal with inalienable right of freedom.
The 'declaration of Independence' ideals you are pushing as universal were flawed as back in the day when the Founding Fathers were making this declaration, they themselves did not give those rights to all people within their own nation. But more importantly, today almost 270 years later, we are still denying those rights to those other people in Gitmo for over a decade now.
Dude, do not talk to me about ideals. The fact of the matter is, the United states constitution and laws embodied in it does not mean anything once you step out the United states soil, the applicable laws and ideals are those of the land on whose soil you are standing on. That my friend is how it is!
Case in point, Russia would have had to hand over Snowden if the laws and constitutional ideals of the United states are legal on Russian soil, guess what? Those laws and ideals of the United states constitution do not mean anything on Russian soil hence Snowden sitting pretty inside Russia. That is a lesson you do not want to learn in real life on a foreign soil, dude!
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)NAZI ideas. And Germany's guarantee of free speech applies not only against the government but in the private sector. Thus, you can't lose your job in Germany for speaking your opinion. But you can in the US.
We will have to agree to disagree. I believe that the UN Charter of Human Rights guarantees the same fundamental rights with variations in the details that the US Constitution guarantees, and it applies to all people all over the world. I am not a Guantanamo enthusiast. But we are stuck with Guantanamo because Bush and we have so harmed many of the inmates there that, if we allowed them to leave, they might become more dangerous to us than they were when we imprisoned them there.
I believe in universal human rights.
Some Americans think that the US is the only country that guarantees those rights. That's because those Americans know nothing about other countries or the laws in other countries. Many other countries respect human rights but vary them slightly. I am not well versed in British law on human rights, but it is my understanding that even today, British law does not protect human rights to the extent that our Constitution does. Our law developed based on the British legal system (adversarial) and common law, but our Constitution as I understand it at least purports to provide more protection for our basic rights and privacy than does British law. That is an oversimplification, but that is my general understanding.
Demenace
(213 posts)I have not said, nations do not have right declarations in one form or the other. That is not my contention. My contention is that Americans should realize that the 'First Amendment' as written in the Constitution of the United states, is an American thing and that it is applicable only to Americans on American soil.
As soon as you leave the territories of the United states sovereignty, you are subjected to the rights as defined by the soil you are standing on.
I am just curious that for a defender of Universal Human Rights, you will make an exception for those rights to be affords to those 'inmates' at Gitmo that according to you, 'we have so harmed'! So, you advocate when it suits you for the Universal rights you champion to be denied in this day and age to people whose only know crime is that they are mad at us for harming them in the first place but according to you, they should not enjoy the rights you advocate because they might be more dangerous to you!
And you say understand the ideals you advocate!
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)While you focus on asking extremely loaded questions with patently false premises--as though you were echoing the authoritarian state's campaign to attack and neutralize Greenwald--the big question is, whether you, Demenace, should be murdering little kittens by drowning them in the river near your house. If indeed that is what you are doing.
Demenace
(213 posts)...authoritarian state?
How about I say you are been an authoritarian by denying me the simple right of asking a question of your hero and kind (Greenwald)? Would I be fair in my reasoning?
Who is the authoritarian enabler now?
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)(1) and there is none -- Greenwald is not selling documents, there is no evidence for this, and it's obviously a lie
-- except that
(2) this lie happens to be the one being fronted by the authoritarian state in its effort to distract from the revelations about illegal and unconstitutional state activities brought about by Snowden...
and
(3) you obviously wouldn't even know this lie to repeat it, if they weren't fronting it every chance they had...
then
(4) yeah, that's whom you are echoing. The authoritarian state.
Whether you know it or not.
And do I care?
No!
I do not really care where you picked up your authoritarian propaganda, especially since it's based on a lie. Greenwald is not selling documents.
I don't care if you even know it's authoritarian propaganda. Can't help you there.
I also don't care if you think you can get by on some incoherent attempt to project your muddled thinking on to others.
Given the ambient politics of this country, even a lot of nice, well-meaning, liberal people echo right wing and highly authoritarian and stupid things all the time. You may be one of them.
Can't help them all, especially not if they come at me as Internet personas with such a stunning inability to put ideas together coherently. That would be a terrible suck on my precious time, don't you think?
Do have a nice day, though!
Demenace
(213 posts)When in your world no one has a right to question whatever you have crowned as the truth!
Definition of the stupid - He or she who is wholly without any doubt about how right he or she is.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I do not call you the supporter of an authoritarian state.
As I made very clear, I don't know what motivates you, and I definitely don't care.
You are, however, echoing the lies about Greenwald advanced by an authoritarian state, specifically the false talking points of the extreme right-wing authoritarian Rogers, which in turn repeat the current line of the extreme authoritarians around the NSA.
As you are echoing these, and as these are demonstrably lies, this is merely an accurate observation of what you have chosen to do.
Again, whether you have any clue about what you're doing doesn't matter. Also, projection and rudimentary reverse-labeling rhetoric further exposes the poverty of your position.
Demenace
(213 posts)Dude, you do not know my political leaning so drop that political paint brush! I asked a question which you can ignore but to deny me the right to ask that question is in fact the definition of an 'Authoritarian' and here is why? In an Authoritarian system, it takes people who are willing to stop free discuss for there to be lack of free speech and usually it takes the form of someone challenging the other to stop speaking.
What you are attempting is the classic move of an 'Authoritarian' by attempting to interfere with my asking a question! The right you have is to ignore my question as it is my right to ask it!
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)So we return to the beginning:
Do you like killing kittens, as you might be doing every night? If so, why do you murder these kittens?
Demenace
(213 posts)... might do wonders for your mind!
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)If we are going to use such loose definitions 
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2012&type=C&cid=N00009668&newMem=N&recs=20
AT&T Inc $21,000
Koch Industries $20,750
General Dynamics $20,250
Raytheon Co $20,000
Lockheed Martin $20,000
Northrop Grumman $20,000
Octafish
(55,745 posts)WTF. We need the security. Sumbitch, without illegal spying on America to tell us how many terrorists we need to find and classify for future retrieval, how will we continue to justify the trillion we spend on the Pentagon, all the illegal wars, and Homeland Security every year?
George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"
By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58
A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.
During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.
Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.
The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.
SNIP...
Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.
CONTINUED...
http://is.gd/FtMipm
And we trust him to do the right thing. Always. Especially, for his cronies and family.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)literally everything they say is projection these days...
TriplD
(176 posts)I've been wondering who the blackmailers are and who are the blackmailees, and which side of the fence these intelligence committee members fall. You're right. I think this is a tell.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)Is the information "intellectual property" in the classical sense, and if so, who does it actually belong to?
As far as I know, state secrets are not property, are they? In any event, this stuff was obtained by the NSA from other sources. Don't those other sources own the info?
I do understand that the first charge against Snowden in his indictment is a theft charge.
I still don't know if the charge relates to specific hardware or if it relates to information.
Response to Redfairen (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
frwrfpos
(517 posts)Defund this RW, Constitution busting shit completely. Our country is under violent assault by Fascists and this is not hyperbole
You do not have a right to violate the Constitution asshole
Fuck the 1% greedy economically violent terrorists that infest our government