http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-records-program-illegal-court
The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled the NSA electronic surveillance program illegal in violation of the U.S. Privacy Act, Sec. 215.
The court apparently did not reach the constitutional question whether the wholesale vacuuming-up of information for sorting later.
The rule is that courts must not reach constitutional questions unless absolutely necessary, meaning that if another way can be found to decide a case, that must be the basis of the decision.
Former NSA contract employee blew the whistle on the illegal practice, before it was declared illegal, in 2013. He is subject to federal prosecution for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and has fled to Putin's Russia where he sought and obtained political asylum.
Imagine fleeing the US and taking refuge in Russia to gain political asylum from American justice.
Shades of Yossarian in Catch-22.
Pity Joseph Heller, the author, is no longer with us.
He did leave us his amazing blueprint in the form of the book, however, which I happen to be rereading after having read the Tracy Daugherty biography (St. Martin's Press, 2011) of Heller called "Only One Catch." A good literary biography, explaining anything you maybe didn't pick up on the first time around, or may have forgotten.
I read Catch-22 while in first year law school (NYULS) in 1962, on the subway headed towards home in NYC and couldn't stop laughing.
The phrase "Catch-22" has long since entered the language to denote craziness as practiced by bureaucracies and worked on humans.
So, my question now is this:
If Snowden blew the whistle on a government spy program held to be illegal, is he still subject to being prosecuted, or should he be given a medal?
How can you be prosecuted for telling the truth to the American people, the victims of the crime?