BREAKING — U.S Sues Edward Snowden and You’d be Surprised to Know Why

Sep 17, 2019

The United States today filed a lawsuit against Edward
Snowden ^[1], a former employee of
the CIA and NSA government agencies who made headlines worldwide in
2013 after he fled the country and leaked top-secret information
about NSA’s global and domestic surveillance activities.

And, you would be more surprised to know the reason for this
lawsuit.

No, it’s not for leaking secrets; instead, for publishing a book
without submitting it to the agencies for pre-publication
review.

In his latest book, titled “Permanent Record” and released today
on September 17th, Edward Snowden for the first time revealed the
story of his life, including how he helped to build that
surveillance system and what motivated him to try to bring it
down.

According to a press
release ^[2] U.S. Department of
Justice just published, with the publication of his book Snowden
has violated non-disclosure agreements he signed with both CIA and
NSA agencies.

The lawsuit alleges that Snowden published Permanent Record
without first submitting the book to the agencies for
pre-publication review and also gave public speeches on
intelligence-related matters, violating the agreements he signed
with the agencies.

The United States government is not looking to stop or restrict
the publication or distribution of Permanent Record, but instead,
is seeking to recover all proceeds earned by Snowden.

“Under well-established Supreme Court precedent, Snepp v. the
United States, the government seeks to recover all proceeds earned
by Snowden because of his failure to submit his publication for
pre-publication review in violation of his alleged contractual and
fiduciary obligations,” the press release reads.

Besides Snowden, the US government is also suing the publisher
solely to ensure that no funds are transferred to Snowden, or any
account at his direction, while the court resolves the United
States’ claims.

“The United States’ ability to protect sensitive national security
information depends on employees’ and contractors’ compliance with
their non-disclosure agreements, including their pre-publication
review obligations,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of
the Department of Justice’s Civil Division.

“This lawsuit demonstrates that the Department of Justice does not
tolerate these breaches of the public’s trust. We will not permit
individuals to enrich themselves, at the expense of the United
States, without complying with their pre-publication review
obligations.”

This lawsuit is separate from the legal criminal charges brought
against Snowden for his alleged disclosures of classified
information about US mass surveillance programs like PRISM ^[3], DROPOUTJEEP ^[4], XKeyscore ^[5], MUSCULAR ^[6] and many
more ^[7].

The story is developing…

References

^{^}
Edward Snowden
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
press release
(www.justice.gov)
^{^}
PRISM
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
DROPOUTJEEP
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
XKeyscore
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
MUSCULAR
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
many more
(thehackernews.com)

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BREAKING — U.S Sues Edward Snowden and You’d be Surprised to Know Why

References

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