Treason

In a true & democratic society working to promote the advance of civilization there can be NO SUCH THING as TREASON. It is impossible to be treasonous - by it's own definition. The minute a government has classified anything as SECRET or even higher, it has lost it's moral foundation and deserves to die by what it would call treason. The only way is an open way. In order to keep it, you have to give it away. For those who would think this is leaving the door wide open to "treason", yes, this is patently true - BY DESIGN.Edited by xongsmith, : IZ

Section 3 of the Constitution defines treason and its punishment:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Sure. But maybe there are some people in that society who are not working to promote the advance of civilization, in which case maybe there can be treason. Please post your exact income, as reported on last year's tax return. After all there can be no secrets, and since the government knows this from your tax return, it should be public information.Has it occurred to you that you cannot have privacy without secrets?Personally, I do agree that the government goes too far with secrecy. But it goes too far in the other direction to say that there should not be secrets.

What about military secrets such as troop deployments? Would it be treasonous if someone gave those secrets to an invading force resulting in the slaughter of citizens?

That's just blatantly false. It's trivially easy to demonstrate a hypothetical treasonous action even for "a true & democratic society working to promote the advance of civilization."For instance, revealing troop movements to an enemy in a time of war.But I would agree that the word "treason" is thrown around with excess these days. And I would agree that those who reveal secret wrongdoing are in fact patriots of the highest order, and we need brave people of that ilk to keep our societies honest. Neither Bradley Manning nor Snowden appear to be even remotely guilty of "treason" despite what several authorities say.

Both Coyote & nwr bring up good points about the current USA situation. However, I was not talking about the lying & imperfect version of government the USA has.FWIW, last year i made $12.38 in interest. That was all my income.As usual, I have depended on the kindness of strangers.

In order to verify this could you please supply your name, social, address and tax pin number?

What else will we call it?Democracy does not mean that everyone gets their way.Democracy does not mean that there are no rules to follow.In a democratic society, treason could be nothing other than what it is in any society: acting against the will of the government through unlawful means.As for the 'true & ... working to promote the advance of civilization' part, that is just nonsense. What worse society to live in than one that puts other ambitions over itself? Who cares about the 'advance of civilization' while people are starving? Or how 'true' the democracy is that can accomplish nothing?You've got yourself a nice fantasy, xong; but that's all it is.Treason is treason. Not by design, but by simple reason.

It really comes down to the moral justification for keeping a secret. For example, we think doctor-patient confidentiality is important. This privacy exists so that the patient can get better. Violation of this secrecy is considered to be an immoral act, as it should be.Secrecy in the name of covering up corruption, incompetence, or criminal activity is quite different. When someone brings these secrets to light we consider it to be a moral act.So it is not secrets in and of themselves that are immoral or a problem for democracy. Secrecy is morally ambivalent. It is when we use secrecy as the means to an immoral end that it becomes immoral.

Those who do the conquering write the history.It is history who will judge trators or heros.Snowden has altruistic motives or in it for the money.You decide. I think it is for the good of mankind he is talking.But I am niave noob.

The problem with the Snowden case is that the NSA went through proper channels. They went through Senate oversight and the FISA court. What he did do is describe how legal surveillance was being carried out under the auspices of the Patriot Act. Everyone should already know what the NSA is allowed to do because the Patriot Act was passed in the light of day. No secrecy there.

There are other issues. For instance, the "oversight" appears to be a joke. A particularly bad joke, in that the FISA court has never once denied a request. It's almost as if the FISA court, instead of being comprised of judges, were instead a secretary with a rubber stamp.For another, the legal opinions on the application of the laws that made the programs "legal" are themselves secret. Passing a law and then assuming that the law would function as intended are two different things - many laws result in unforseen consequences, including overreaching by an agency taking the law farther than Congress had intended. Normally, it would be easy for Congress to revisit the issue. But when the legal opinions defining the Executive branch's interpretation of the law are themselves secret...well, it's rather difficult for Congress to know that there is a problem.Then we have the secrecy of the entire process. Normally when someone is handed an order from the government that they believe is unconstitutional, or is being affected by a law that is contradicted by another superseding law, that person or agency can sue in court to resolve the matter. For instance, if a cop comes to my house and demands that I hand over my computers and passwords, I can fight him in court. But under the current laws, in many cases I'm not permitted to even take the matter to court. I'm not allowed to know that the NSA has collected my data, and therefore I'm not allowed to know that I have standing to sue.How long are our records kept? Since they're intercepting all communications, all phone conversations, all emails, all website hits (sure, it's "just metadata" for Prism, but they have a 5-zetabyte data warehouse collecting the actual bits on the fiber cables - they can and do look at the actual content, it just requires 51% (Ha! Flip a coin!) confidence that the data is "foreign," or a rubber-stamp FISA warrant), anything you have said in any phone conversation or online exchange is traceable back to you. Sure, we expect some of that with forums and Facebook and the like - but how long does the government get to keep your entire Google search history? Every email you've sent or received? Every website you've ever visited, even if you never posted a thing?What's so upsetting is not that some legislation was passed, or that spying was done (or at least not only that).Obama keeps going back to the point that "checks and balances were in place." The point is that those checks and balances utterly failed. The pointis, just as John Oliver said on the Daily Show, "Nobody's saying that you broke any laws, Mr. President. We're just saying it's a little weird that you didn't have to.[/i]The result, spying on American citizens even if "actual content" can't be seen unless a FISA court rubber-stamps a warrant, and spying on foreign nations as if non-Americans don't have any rights anyway, these are distressing and outrageous. But what's even more scary is the failure of all three branches to prevent it from happening. Apparently all you have to do is say "terrorism" or "9/11" and anything can be done, and Congress, the courts, and the President will all pass it right along.

They're just riding the wave that the people started.It's to be expected in any true and democratic society.

Considering living expenses for the average hobo, that's 20-40 thousand in unreported income; on which you were actually obliged to pay gift tax, a significantly higher bracket system with correspondingly stiff penalties. Uh Oh

That's a pretty damn liberal definition of treason. Were you living in Stalinist Russia, it might seem appropriate, but in most jurisdictions the word 'treason' tends to be reserved more for things like collaboration with foreign enemies in times of war, or conspiring to bring down the consitutional order. Acts undertaken against the will of the government through unlawful means are known, in technical legal parlance, as 'crimes'.