Why Prosecuting Snowden Is Unfair — Until NSA Answers for Misconduct
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 1st, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Why Prosecuting Snowden Is Unfair — Until NSA Answers for Misconduct
Joe Conason, RealClearPolitics
What America learned from Edward Snowden’s interview with “NBC News” anchor Brian Williams on Wednesday evening was much less than what we still need to know. Snowden described himself as a highly trained espionage agent, rather than a low-level hacker; he insisted his actions were patriotic, not treacherous; and said he yearns to return to the United States. He claimed to have warned his superiors about the surveillance excesses committed by the National Security Agency, and he doesn’t believe a fair trial would be possible for him under the Espionage Act if he did return. But we still don’t…
Despite Thomas Piketty, Voters Reject Economic Redistribution
Michael Barone, RealClearPolitics
The opinion pages, economic journals and liberal websites are atwitter (a-Twitter?) these days over French economist Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” Left-wingers cite Piketty’s statistics showing growing wealth inequality — though some have been challenged by the Financial Times — in support of Piketty’s policy response, huge taxes on high incomes and accumulated wealth. One suspects that many of his fans have another agenda in mind. They’d like to gull a majority of the 99 percent to vote for parties that would put their friends in control of an engorged state…
