The charges against Edward Snowden

Factual Questions
1

Best I can see there are three charges filed:

  1. Theft (of government property)
  2. “Unauthorized communication of national defense information” (1917 Espionage Act), and
  3. “Willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person” (1917 Espionage Act)
    2 and 3 carry sentences of up to ten years.
    Looking at this understanding of the Espionage Act:
    Espionage Act of 1917 legal definition of Espionage Act of 1917

… it talks of “obtaining information” - presumably in an underhand way working as a spy, but this was Snowden’s job so he didn’t ‘obtain’ he was given the information by his employer.

… another section talks of " time of war" publishing any information that the president, in his judgment, declared to be “of such character that it is or might be useful to the enemy.”: Is the USA currently ‘at war’?
Trying to understand the basis of the complaint, and it’s legal - as oposed to political or moral - merits?

2

Here you go. There’s nothing about our needing to be at war, just that the classified info be transmitted to an unauthorized person. Similarily 793 d) specifically says communicating Defense information that was entrusted to one is illegal. There doesn’t seem to be any need to get the info in an “underhanded way*”.

*(Snowdon took the information out of the building, which he wasn’t supposed to do, using a USB drive, which were banned from being used in that part of the NSA. So I suspect even if the law read as you thought it did, he’d still be screwed.)

3

Thanks. This is quite interesting:

Fwiw, I have a friend who runs a charity that advices ‘whistleblowers’ - albeit in business world - and it really is an interesting time for that area of law: I guess both capitalism and government are pushing back boundaries, and for some there will be a limit…