Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve?
Nerval's Lobster writes "U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder made government whistleblower Edward Snowden a very peculiar offer last week: plead guilty, and the U.S. government would consider how to handle his criminal case. That seems an inverted way of doing things—in the United States, the discussions (if not the trial) usually come before the guilty plea—but Holder's statement hints yet again at the conundrum facing the government when it comes to Snowden, a former subcontractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) who leaked secrets about that group's intelligence operations to a number of newspapers, most notably The Guardian. It's unlikely that the U.S. government would ever consider giving full clemency to Snowden, but now it seems that various officials are willing to offer something other than locking him in a deep, dark cell and throwing away the key. If Snowden ever risked coming back to the United States (or if he was forced to return, thanks to the Russians kicking him out and no other country willing to give him asylum), and you were Holder and Obama, what sort of deal would you try to strike with everybody's favorite secrets-leaker?"
Both guilty of Treason, failure to protect the constitution and deserve 10 lifetimes in jail. I have no doubt his actions will cost millions of human lives over the next 50 years.
The real problem is the American people and electing a president that is nothing more than a celebrity. Obama knew all this was happening, and was willfully complicit to let the government violate our rights. Unfortunate the hippies and liberals can't look past their retarded drum protests to bring Obama to justice for letting the government violate our rights (spying, without due process/warrants) and Snowden, for being so irresponsible in the way he revealed what was happening.
Snowden committed crimes. For the rule of law, he should be tried and sentenced to the prescribed penalty for those crimes.
I'm glad we know what he told us. But you can't not prosecute people who undoubtedly did commit crimes because you agree with their stated motives.
Not a 'criminal', simply a 'traitor' - a traitor can have good motives (good enough for him), but we-all used to shoot a lot of 'em.
Um, well ... this is going to be rather unpopular, but ...
What Snowden did to expose the NSA's crimes against American citizens is worthy of recognition. What he did by exposing the NSA's actions against other countries is treasonous. It is the NSA's job to spy on the rest of the world. No one likes that the US, or any other country, spies on the rest of the world but it is a fact of life.
He deserves a ticker tape parade and to be listed among the great patriots who sacrificed personal safety and comfort in the name of liberty.
I've been wondering what the view of the Canadian left would be. I think we can probably agree that he will become known as a great Russian patriot although I didn't realize that Russia was lacking in creature comforts. Well, let's hope he didn't teach the next cell how to avoid detection.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Certainly nobody wants to have a chilling effect on stealing millions of classified documents and fleeing to foreign countries.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell