Julie L. Kessler
lawyer traveler writer

News

The Fool Snowden

Having spent a great deal of time in Asia, and in Hong Kong in particular, I was extremely suspect of Edward Snowden having gone to Hong Kong even before many of “the facts” of the matter were revealed. That said, what continues to fry my goose the most in this case is the concept that a foolish young man can decide, because of some tech-savvy, to become an unelected Attorney General and pose significant risks to our national security under the guise of some highly distorted sense of patriotism.

 

There’s a huge problem with so many in his age group considering they are cyber-citizens at the expense of claiming citizenship in the physical world. Chief among them is that there are precious few laws in place or which can be enforced that provide protection for breaches of laws we have come to rely on and to respect, as is the case for example with copyright law. And here I speak from personal experience; my book Fifty-Fifty, The Clarity of Hindsight is registered of course under U.S. copyright laws and was released by my publisher in September 2012 in print and in November 2012 in E-format. It was recently pirated and made available on-line through a Chinese hosted web site. Until that is the U.S. credit card company processing payments for the Chinese infringer was threatened with contributory infringement. The Chinese site remains up complete with the cover of my book, but the infringed material can no longer be downloaded and paid for by credit card, at least not in the U.S. While perhaps no national security issues are affected by breaches of copyright laws, the possibilities for damage on other avenues are nearly endless. And on this point Snowden and others of his ilk represents a far more complicated challenge. To national security and otherwise.

Date Posted:  Jun. 19 2013