US Politics Mega-thread - Page 10086

On March 19 2018 08:00 Doodsmack wrote:
A good example of Trump's contempt for the Constitution, especially the First Amendment.

https://twitter.com/ktumulty/status/975463086793609218

On March 19 2018 08:05 Gorsameth wrote:

How is this contempt for the constitution?
NDA's are not illegal. Like with any other business people are free to not sign them (and resign/get fired when you do obv).

You don't have the right to work in the WH that would be infringed upon.

On March 19 2018 08:10 Excludos wrote:


The government is not a business and should not be run like one. Transparency, with the exception of national security, should be required. When you hand out NDA to your employees, something has gone way off the rails.

Also, the argument of "Well they don't have to work there" is absolutely stupid. Someone has to work there, and that someone has to sign the NDA. So people quitting because they "Don't have the right to work there" gives us exactly nothing.

On March 19 2018 08:16 Gorsameth wrote:

Right, because no previous administration was transparent because the WH didn't leak like a sieve during their term.
No, that's not where transparency in government should come from.

And yes something has gone completely off the rails to cause this. Factions in the WH are at war with eachother.

I'm not saying this is 'good' or that it should be normal. No, its a sign of the complete dysfunction of the government at the top level.

But that doesn't mean its 'contempt for the constitution'.

On March 19 2018 08:34 Doodsmack wrote:
WH personnel serve the public and the First Amendment protects their ability to speak about their work. That speech is a matter of public concern which is the reason it's protected. The NDAs are in all likelihood unenforceable though so in that sense it doesn't matter.

On March 19 2018 08:41 Excludos wrote:
But unless your name is Snowden, whistle-blowing is legal)

On March 19 2018 08:45 micronesia wrote:

You kind of undermine your post with this statement. Whistle-blowing being legal does not mean you can release a whole bunch of classified information, some of which you haven't reviewed yourself, in the name of the public good, legally.

On March 19 2018 08:48 Excludos wrote:


Everything Snowden did was legal under most whistle blowing laws across the world. He released classified information of a government program breaking human rights He also, contrary to what you said, didn't release it to the public. He released it to journalists to go through and vet for him. A lot of what he brought with him never saw the light of day because it wasn't of importance to the story. He did it the correct way, while Wikileaks did it the wrong way. His mistake was whistle blowing against the American government instead of a private company. And since the government make the rules, they just decided that he wasn't following them.

On March 19 2018 08:55 micronesia wrote:

Journalists are the public. Whistleblowing does not mean you can release classified information that doesn't need to see the light of day to journalists for them to sift through. For example, when the Pentagon Papers were released, the leaker actually carefully selected what information would and would not get released. He didn't hand a huge bag of information over to a journalist and ask for it get sifted through. HE did it the correct way. I'm not trying to make a case that if Snowden had taken similar actions to Ellsberg the government would have been totally accepting, but I'm cautioning you that you aren't thinking correctly about this.

On March 19 2018 09:10 Excludos wrote:


Do remember the position he was in tho. He had a large amount of information with him which takes a long time to sift through, he had just escaped the country, and was paranoid about the NSA or CIA sending agents after him to kill him (which, considering what he sat on and what he had done, was definitely a possibility had they known where he was hiding at the time). So instead of doing the impossible and sit on the information by himself, he gave it to journalists he trusted to help him pick what to release, and they did. I don't really see how else you would have expected him to handle this.

On March 19 2018 09:13 micronesia wrote:

The original question wasn't about what he should have done, given his circumstances. The question was really about the legality of what he did. The sensitivity of the information he had and his geographic location didn't suddenly change the rules about what actions are legal, in his favor. Out of curiosity, are you relying entirely on the movie Snowden as your information source or are you going off of other sources?

On March 19 2018 08:41 Excludos wrote:


Remember there's a difference between civil law and criminal law. First amendment only protects you against the latter. I don't know if this is enforceable either, but in a normal business (Which the WH most certainly is not), you can indeed make people sign an NDA and sue them if they don't follow it. The first amendment protects you for speaking about your work, but you're still breaching a contract (Criminal law is above civil law tho, so it's all a bit complicated on when you're allowed to break an NDA and not. But unless your name is Snowden, whistle-blowing is legal)

On March 19 2018 09:31 Doodsmack wrote:


The first amendment applies to civil law as well.

On March 19 2018 09:32 Excludos wrote:
Btw I should point out, since we're discussing legality, that human right rules are above your own country's rules. Laws aren't equal, and it's ok to break one to stop another under certain circumstances. That said laws are only laws because the government made them and enforces them, and they can decide whatever they damn well want to. And atm they've decided that he embarrassed them enough that they're not even willing to give him a fair trial.

On March 19 2018 09:36 zlefin wrote:

on what basis are you claiming they're not willing to give him a fair trial?