![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"You know, the interesting thing is that they wanted to convict Bradley Manning and Snowden on treason, [...] you have to be formally at *war* to commit treason. [...]
"Manning is more 'guilty' of it than Snowden, since what he leaked definitely hurt us on the international stage (more so than we already were) - but Snowden mostly leaked material showing that the government was spying on *us*. So, initially implying what he did was treasonous - by logical extension - means the government thinks of all of us as its 'enemy.'"
--
![[info] - personal](https://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
destruya,
2013-08-05
[I'm not sure who "they" is supposed to refer to. I didn't trust my memory so I did a really brief Google search, and didn't spot anything about the Executive branch trying to pin a treason charge on Snowden, but a bunch of legislators did spout off calling his acts treasonous. So OT1H I'm not sure this is enough to say "the governmnt" sees its citizens as its enemy, but OTOH it does suggest the "ordinary people are the enemy" mindset is not limited to local police forces.]
(no subject)
"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving the Aid and Comfort."
Note the second part of the definition: it says "adhering to there enemies..." Only that. Significantly not "enemies in time of war". In fact, read with the first part of the definition, it is clear that the definition includes inherently the concept that a nation can have an enemy that it's not formally at war with.
AS to the larger assertion, that "the government thinks of all of us as its 'enemy.'", well I still regard that as an open question. The assertion is not proven by this line of reasoning; but there is other evidence pointing to the assertion as "fact". If the assertion is not "fact", it is at least a provable/disprovable hypothesis, and I encourage further investigation of this hypothesis.