Snowdon was indicted on NPR this morning for swiping government property and espionage. Well they gotta charge him with something in order to ask the Chinese to extradite him. Surely revealing top secret stuff to the newspapers is against the law. At least back when I had a top secret clearance we all believed that revealing classified stuff was illegal. I don't know what lawyers would call such a crime, but there ought to be a name for it.
I don't quite go along with Dick Cheney and calling Snowdon a traitor. "Treason against the United States shall consist only of levying War against them or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort." Article III, section 3. The founders put this in the Constitution to forbid the British crown's practice of declaring anything that angered the King to be treason.
Snowdon's actions so far, although disloyal, don't quite rise to levying war, and the Chinese aren't exactly enemies of the United States. Competitors, critics, pains in the tail, no good nicks, but not enemies.
The radio went on to describe the Snowdon situation as "a beginning epic legal battle". Well, before that matters much, we have to get Snowdon into US custody. Somehow I don't think the Chinese are going to cooperate in that. And there isn't all that much we can do to pressure them.
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