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Two Years Later, White House Responds To 'Pardon Edward Snowden' Petition
An anonymous reader writes: In June of 2013, a petition was posted to Whitehouse.gov demanding that Edward Snowden receive a full pardon for his leaks about the NSA and U.S. surveillance practices. The petition swiftly passed 100,000 signatures — the point at which the White House said it would officially respond to such petitions. For two years, the administration was silent, but now they've finally responded. In short: No, Edward Snowden won't be receiving a pardon.
Lisa Monaco, the President's Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, said, "Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it. If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and — importantly — accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions."
Lisa Monaco, the President's Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, said, "Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it. If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and — importantly — accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions."
Let us kill you.
Alrighty then, will John Corzine receive an indictment? I think we all know the answer.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
He embarrassed us and we want to punish him so nobody else tries to do this in the future.
The government is running away from the consequences of their actions
When people like Keith Alexander and James R Clapper can get away with lying before congress, before the courts, there is a problem.
"We don't do pardons", followed by an appeal to patriotism (ie. if you don't agree with our decisions then you're a pinko commie)
Film at 11.
No sig today...
Seeing how supposedly "democratic" countries all around the world act with regards to things like Trans-Pacific Partnership that gives power to companies to sue countries for lost of profit if they ever dare try to protect their citizens and their environment, I think he's right to stay hidden in an authoritarian regime.
My e-mail response this morning from info@mail.whitehouse.gov regarding the Snowden pardon petition: "We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation that our intelligence community must have all the lawful tools it needs to address."
You mean in addition to the unlawful ones?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
response.
...is Snowden's only hope is he returns to face the music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I received the email about whitehouse.gov's response and, to my mind, Monaco's statement doesn't veer one degree from goal of punishing Snowden as an warning to others, rather than protecting him as a whistleblower.
When Monaco and the rest of the Whitehouse talk about "hid[ing] behind the cover of an authoritarian regime" they all should look in the mirror.
blog
...had severe consequences for the reputation of our country...
FTFY
They said:
"We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation that our intelligence community must have all the lawful tools it needs to address. "
We do indeed live in a dangerous world. A world where every single one of our "Three Letter Agencies" in collusion with government contractors find it not only within their right to violate any level of privacy we felt we had, but they do so with impunity, and in some cases outright malice.
Snowden just showed us what we already know - that we live in a country where the almighty dollar speaks louder than any other cause and once power is given to a government agency that tramples on our rights, we will never ever get them back.
Vote the boxes - Soap, Ballot, Jury and Ammo. And in that order. Unfortunately the sheeple of this country can't get beyond the first two.
Elon Musk for President with Snowden running mate...
Did Snowden do something that needed to be done? Yes. Did he essentially end his own life in the process? Yes. Does anyone actually believe that he thought there would be any other outcome from his actions, or that he wouldn't have a price on his head for the rest of his life? Not if you have at least two working brain cells, you don't. You could have had a hundred million signatures on that petition, and it wouldn't matter, because pardoning him would set a dangerous precedent, essentially declaring open season on any and all State secrets that anyone with access thought should be revealed. You can't even blame Obama for any of this in this case; any head of any government would say 'no' for the same reasons.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Edward Snowden has done more for the public good than Lisa Monaco ever has. In her mind, Ed is already guilty and should come home to be railroaded and disappeared by the government's security apparatus. Of course, I don't know how she expect him to come home with a revoked passport.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Good idea. Maybe he should, I don't know, make a petition?
A judge ruled the phone spying program unconstitutional which makes Snowden a whistle-blower by legal standards. Just one more example of how the government breaks laws every day and violates the Constitution.
Snowden is a whistleblower of the highest caliber.
His reporting of the NSA's treasonous actions deserves a medal. Most of the folks @ the NSA that were / are involved in these treasonous activities should be lined up against a wall and executed via firing squad.
The number of times that the Executive branch have unconstitutionally violated our civil rights shows just how corrupt our current government is.
Your own comments show you to be a traitor to the Constitution as well. What would you like on your tombstone? (and I am not talking Pizza here)
Once people with an actual clue get into power, there's going to be several high level trials, which will include ex-presidents, NSA personnel, CIA personnel, FBI Personnel, let's face it, if it's a government alphabet agency, they're probably in on it. So you'll have plenty of company standing up against that wall.
Enjoy your reprieve while it lasts. The soon to be reorganized Government of the people, by the people and for the people (and no, corporations aren't people) will set things to right, and will welcome Snowden back to U.S. as the hero he is.
Lisa Monaco is a cluleless moron.
>> "he should ... Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and â" importantly â" accept the consequences of his actions"
Read: he should point out our faults then just let us take whatever revenge we feel like.
She is a total moron. How do such people ever get such responsible jobs?
Give him the Peace Prize and lets see if we would jail a Nobel Laureate
"Challenge it, " He did.
"Speak out," He did.
"Engage in a constructive act of protest," He engaged in protest, by whistleblowing, but I guess it doesn't count due to their qualification of "constructive", just like our president's explanation that he's not opposed to wars, just "dumb wars".
"and — importantly — accept the consequences of his actions." Isn't whistle blowing legally protected from retaliation?
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
I wonder if the irony of "authoritarian regime" is lost on these clowns.
Sorry folks, but the US isn't the free society it thinks it is. And you're rapidly becoming a police state which doesn't give a crap about your laws.
That you idiots aren't doing anything about it is worrying, because every other democracy is following suit.
Fuck the security demands of the US if we all have to live in a fucking police state. Why should the rest of the world give up our privacy and freedoms for you assholes for?
Better that Americans die than the rest of us have to be subjected to this level of spying. That you guys have become cowardly idiots is your problem.
Better to hide in an authoritarian regime that will protect you than be prosecuted in an authoritarian regime that betrayed you.
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
When has a petition that garnered enough signtures not been met with the response: "Fuck you, we're not going to change"?
The United States and the Obama administration are the ones that suffer from having an American claim Asylum in Russia. Right now, Russia benefits from the situation more than anyone else. Snowden himself suffers minor inconveniences relating mainly to lifestyle and the ability to see friends and family.
A Snowden Pardon will not in any way encourage people to do what he did. He did what he did out of patriotism - though some may consider it misguided. Martyrs - whether they are heros or villains - do not concern themselves with such minor punishments.
Such a pardon would benefit everyone except Russia. Russia would lose a major political/moral chip (Look we protect an American from the evil USA - wait a second, where did he go?).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
its not unlawful if the president does it.
"He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime."
Says a representative of a nation where everyone is anything but equal, corporations replace simple dictators to make an authoritarian regime no less worse than the one in the East, which created ISIS/ISIL and the idiotic current situation in the Middle East by supplying them and funding them,
which created the present fundamentalist Iran fueled by hate by removing the first democratically elected president ever in the history of the Islamic World (Mohammad Mosaddegh) because he wanted to nationalize oil and get some money for his people to have a better life, thus destroying what could have been a Democratic stable secular free Iran today that would serve as a stabilizing rational power and ally.
A regime that has trained, funded, and supplied the Taliban against the Communist Russia before abandoning them after the fall of Communism,
a regime that has supported Saddam during his war with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war till they decided to remove him later too because he set sights on a neighboring authoritarian regime Kuwait.
Who support Saudi Arabia despite being one of the worst human rights violators, and not making a blip about it.
Who drove South America mad to the point where they went Communist, in the same manner USA destroyed a potentially free and democratic Iran from being created.
Snowden only did the US population a favor by giving them fuel and weapons to finally get rid of an idiotically corrupt government half of which is on a corporate payroll putting corporate interests in front of national ones. From that perspective he is more of a symbol of patriotism than the White House itself.
Snowden has actually said he would go before a jury of peers, in an open trial. The problem is that he faces a military trial, behind closed doors, with no actual representation. So this public statement really is a huge farce.
He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions.
By that logic George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld should go to Iraq and Afghanistan to be judged for war crimes and stop hiding behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Closed Guantanamo Bay yet? Yeah didn't think so. "Running away"? Sounds like the smart course of action when the chances of him getting a fair trial seem to be nil.
The government is running away from the consequences of their actions.
To me, this serves as further evidence that there's enough difference between the Demopublican and Republicratic wings of the Party to bother voting for either one.
It leaves my ballot mostly blank, though.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
"He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers"
Can't happen, he would get accidented long before the trial and any trial, if it did occur, would be in a secret kangaroo court.
nothing to see here. do as i say, not as i do.
The reason I feel Snowden should be tried for treason is simple: it's not just what he did, it's how he did it. If he had really been concerned about the country, he would have selected specific pieces of evidence and turned them over to an American journalist anonymously. Instead, he indiscriminately handed sensitive national secrets over to a foreigner, fled the country, then started trying to make money off of it. These are not the actions of a patriot, they're the actions of a self-serving douchebag. This was exactly the *wrong* way to get things to change. But that was never his goal, regardless of the lies he tells.
If, say, you say that Russia is an authoritarian regime, you don’t need evidence. If you say that the US is an authoritarian regime, you need plenty. Here, that is. In Russia it’s reversed.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
You could have had a hundred million signatures on that petition, and it wouldn't matter, because pardoning him would set a dangerous precedent, essentially declaring open season on any and all State secrets that anyone with access thought should be revealed. You can't even blame Obama for any of this in this case; any head of any government would say 'no' for the same reasons.
I absolutely can blame Obama and Bush. The government was breaking the law and violating the constitutional rights of its citizens. I'm not surprised at the response but that doesn't mean it is acceptable. Remember this is the same government that has recently used torture, held people without charge or trial, invaded two countries, spied on its own citizens, put digital strip search machines in airports, and on and on.
And it wouldn't set a "dangerous precedent" because this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The only dangerous precedent is if we don't hold the government accountable.
Instead, he indiscriminately handed sensitive national secrets over to a foreigner,
Glenn Greenwald is a "foreigner"? Since when?
So maybe Snowdon should run for office in absentia. How does "congressman Snowdon" sound?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
No......DUBYA lied and millions lied.......ass...
What the administration should do in Snowden's case is drop all charges, officially exonerate him, and ask for his cooperation in investigating and prosecuting the crimes that he made us all aware of.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well Obama did promise to be the most open and transparent president ever.
Snowden is a hero, and you're minion.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The trouble is, it by no means clear that, if he did could back to the US, he would indeed be judged in a fair trial.
Then why was Nixon kicked out?
1. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers:
OK, in the first place the jury is picked by the the FEDs, as no one ever convicted of a crime will EVER get a seat on a jury. Those Assholes would never fill another Prison Cell over some bullshit law again. Losing every case would make their jobs suck. Hard to make judgeship with no convictions(stars next to your name).
This jury would be the worst of the worst. Sheeple who have already convicted somone more than likely, vote,believe what they see on t.v., or worse, are the same kind of people as the FEDs.
2. ...not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime:
Yeah, he should be convicted by a Facist Corporate Dictotorship bent on the destruction of all who oppose it, or won't buy thier products. I.E. "Justice"
He wasn't kicked out. He resigned before he could be impeached. He was then pardoned shortly afterwards.
My e-mail response this morning from info@mail.whitehouse.gov regarding the Snowden pardon petition: "We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation that our intelligence community must have all the lawful tools it needs to address."
You mean in addition to the unlawful ones?
Regardless of your tinfoil suit there is no documented case of where the spying the NSA did has had a negative effect on the citizens of the USA. You perceive their actions as unlawful yet not a single person can cite any harm being done.
I also guarantee that the NSA hasn't changed a single thing nor will they.
Just #NUKETHEUSA
There is a reason we don't call them kings.
...then the American symbol called the "Statue of Liberty" is just a meaningless piece of rock....
Unless of course you take the symbolic conspiratorial second meaning which is that America is actually run by the Illuminati (the torch) and it's citizens are slaves in ignorance who falsely believe that they have liberty and justice for all.
The latter seems to make more sense these days.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
He should release the rest of the good stuff...that would make them roll... but with that I'm sure comes the hammer... and there will be no come back ever... on top of getting erased...
How does "congressman Snowdon" sound?
It sounds like a misspelling.
I think Snowden went into this with his eyes open, and rather than running from the consequences of his actions he has chosen one set of consequences over another set. Did his disclosures harm the Intel community? Perhaps, but the Intel community's illegal activities do not enjoy legal or moral cover - they needed to be exposed, and some of them have been declared unconstitutional by courts of law. Without Snowden's disclosures, the courts would never have had the opportunity to exercise oversight. That is what separation of powers is about.
When we weigh the net effect of Snowden's disclosures, the number of illegal and unconstitutional activities the Intel community was engaged seems far greater than the number and volume licit activities that may have been compromised, so I would aver that Snowden's disclosures are probably salutary. It will be some time before the Intel community gets over its temper tantrum about having its illegal toys taken away. And it will probably require cooler heads than those in the current administration (which has shown an unfortunate proclivity to politicize Executive Branch agencies and use them against ideological enemies in an illegal manner) to reconsider whether Snowden is a legitimate whistleblower or a villain. I think in the long term he will be vindicated by history.
In the meantime, living as a man without a country constitutes fairly serious consequences, in my humble opinion.
[apologies for my verbosity in a culture where many are reticent to acknowledge that it is possible and even desirable to use more than 160 characters to communicate.]
You're a child.
" He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions."
You mean just like Bowe Bergdahl? What a bunch of hypocritical tools...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Isn't that the whole point of wiki leaks?
"not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime."
I thought Snowden wasn't hiding in the US.
Oh.
captcha is: unrest, how fitting.
I also guarantee that the NSA hasn't changed a single thing nor will they.
Oh contraire...They now watch their contractors like a hawk!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Thank you for the heads up, I don't often view the firehose, so I missed that one. Maybe we should get a kickstarter going to buy Slashdot off of Dice as the members and make it independent again.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
No Mr President you're the one running away from the consequences of his actions.
Exactly this..
Snowden was about advancing HIS image and person and not so much about exposing something that was wrong. Where I believe he thought he had legal grounds, he was self deluded and stupid.
Now he's just a pawn being used to poke the eye of the country he says he loved by a two bit despot.... Way to go dude, you sure messed that one up.
There goes my karma....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
There is a reason we don't call them kings.
Yes. They *have* got shit all over them.
*Still* negative function...
----- obSig
this would be a case where it would be interesting to see the different outcome between a jury snowden's "peers" vs a jury of "common folk". against a stacked jury of his peers from the industry he would have no chance. against the common american? do you think he would get the pardon? i guess there is always trial by combat...
Maybe it's time to launch a White House petition to fire Lisa Monaco for lying to the American public. (The details of which several people have commented on, here and elsewhere.)
Of course no more would come of it than came of this petition, but it might help get the point across.
It may eventually be deemed to be unconstitutional, but it is allowed by law. Here is the relivant law:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You may not agree with it, but as judges have ruled on it, it is a matter of law.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Pardons are forgiveness for guilt. He is guilty of nothing. Betraying a criminal conspiracy to violate our own laws and subvert the open process of their deliberation and public oversight is hardly a crime. If anything it is the people he exposed who should be recieving pardons if they are to be allowed to continue to walk free.
I am far more concerned with the administrations dangerous decision to lie to the public and cover up clear evidence of its own wrongdoing.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Not that every administration in recent memory has not been run by hypocrites but Obama and his people are so naked about it that it hurts.
Wins re-election - "Elections have consequences"
GOP sweep of House and Senate - "Stone walling and veto threats over the budget"
Snowden goes to Russia - "not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime."
Obama goes to Ethiopia - "Its an important strategic ally with a democratically elected government"
Cuba's continued human rights issues right when they are out of client states to help them and finally truly going to be squeeze by the embargo, hah lets open relations....
I say FUCK YOU Mr. President. I get the rules don't apply to you. Authoritarian regimes are fine when they square with your agenda, but anyone else tries to 'use' one its wrong. If you want to claim the moral high ground, then fucking occupy it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Yes, I said it. He's a criminal. Of course the gov't should NOT pardon him. All you "US gov't is evil" posers can say all you want, and I may even agree with some of your BS, but he took the trust that his employer (you and I) put in him, and all the pay and benefits, and he stabbed us all in the back. There were other ways to voice his disagreement(s), but he chose to be a petulant 20-something-know-it-all and make HUGE national security decisions that endangered lives and cost taxpayers billions. A 20-something kid (that's what he was) should not be making decisions like that. I am as liberal as they come, but I also believe that the law should still apply to Edward Snowden. He will make a misstep and he will be nabbed, or perhaps Russia will get sick of him and just hand him over.
Your argument was nothing more than snarl words.
I would argue that the government agencies were traitors to the American people, and that Snowden selflessly exposed said treachery the only route that he knew how (since he saw his other whistleblower peers fired and discredited when they brought ethics concerns to the leadership).
Snowden only made obvious how America failed us.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
You should visit the UK, Russia, China or even Korea and report back to us. You have more freedom and liberty than any other country in the world.
That is PURE COMEDY GOLD!
If any post deserved a "+6, Funny" it is yours.
What Snowden did was technically illegal, but he was exposing previous illegal acts by the government, so he should be pardoned on that basis. Snowden has not been charged (yet) under the espionage act because the possibility of the death penalty would block his extradition from most European countries where he might seek asylum.
"He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime." That's just ridiculous. He would never see a public courtroom but would be tried in a secret "patriot act " court. I think the authoritarian regime is right here.
This is not the America I grew up in. This is disgraceful.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
"... Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest ..."
Thank you for the list of allowable actions that we, the obedient serfs, are officially allowed to do and be ensured it will have **NO** measurable result from it.
You may not agree with it, but as judges have ruled on it, it is a matter of law.
I don't consider a law that attempts to supersede the Constitution valid. Sure, the Patriot Act may be considered law at this moment in time but it's quite obvious the document is in harsh conflict with the founding legal document of the nation, which I also consider law. So let them bicker back and forth in the courts about which law is more valid, personally I'm going to say, "The Constitution is".
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Bravo Sir... I saw you being oppressed right there. It's the violence inherent to the system.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Snowden used the tactic that Obama uses. Snowden knew he wasn't going to get anywhere going thru normal channels and wouldn't enact as much of a change that he wanted to make. So Snowden used his phone (called a reporter) and his pen (his computer) to get the change he so desired. Obama should be praising Snowden for following his lead.
If you're going to willfully allow the spillage of sensitive government material, work in the civil service. Katherine Archuleta from OPM just had to lose her job.
Of the two, who do you think did more damage to American interests and/or jeopardized our clandestine positions?
I think the government has it's priorities VERY backwards.
Mod me down, I shall become more off-topic than you could possibly imagine.
It is karmic, however.
It's off the market now. I bought it earlier today for 14,500 bottle caps and $100 in NCR money. Also had to throw in 12 bottles of Nuka-Cola and a box of Fancy Lad Snacks, but that was just because of some contractual obligation they had to Pudge.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Intelligence" looks out for their own..
How does it disagree with the constitution? There are still warrants being sworn out by a court, just not one that is open to the public as the information is mostly classified.
So, how is it contrary or superseding the constitution?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
sourceforge lost credibility years ago, unfortunately.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
They have made me angry by abusing my rights and weakened the protections enshrined in the Constitution. I call both harm. If I take your possessions so that you are no longer secure in them - do I harm you? My rights are my property.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country..."
Here it is, put up or shut up: name one single way that I personally am less "secure" due to Snowden's actions.
That's it. One single example.
Either that, or quit pushing this bullshit.
Do you have ESP?
I will be watching when this President walks out the door and enacts Executive policies and Presidential pardons that Putin would be in awe and Exclaims. "Russia has nothing on that".
I'm sorry to have to put it to you like this, but you are a functionary in a vile regime that routinely violates the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. That makes YOU the traitor. You and the other DHS flunkies can find nothing better to do with the $60-billion you extorted from the American people than spy on the likes of Black Lives Matter. But this is just appalling, even by criminal enterprise standards. Aren't you ashamed and embarrassed? I think you had better come out and publicly confess all your dark deeds, and throw yourself on the mercy of the courts, before the mob catches up to you. Yes, that would be the best, maybe the only good outcome of this whole, sordid affair. Thanks, and have a great day!
What, the Obama administration is actually going to take a sensible position on something? I can't believe it!
You need to take a long, hydraulic suck on a tail pipe.
How about unreasonable searches (xkeyscore) and seizures (bulk personal and private data collection, i.e. Room 614A) for starters?
Look at this too for more contradictions of the Constitution vs. Patriot Act: http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html
It may eventually be deemed to be unconstitutional, but it is allowed by law. Here is the relivant law:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You may not agree with it, but as judges have ruled on it, it is a matter of law.
So was slavery, once... does that make it "right" at the time?
Would you hang all those who helped slaves escape?
If it is wrong, then it is wrong, and no law makes it right.
That would be pneumatic you moron!
"Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it. If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and — importantly — accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions."
Blah, blah, blah.
Don't look at the man behind the curtain.
Let's also not forget that he *did* try blowing the whistle through official channels. (The gov't denied those claims, but then the emails in which he actually did so, were published, demonstrating that the gov't was either mistaken, or lying.)
Simply classifying information doesn't make it a National Security Secret.
Especially when you are doing so to protect what is a blatantly illegal operation from any Judge with the authority to shut it down.
I wonder if folks would look upon Snowden the same way if the secrets he revealed were far darker in nature. Would he still be a traitor if his disclosures implicated the USG in 9/11 ? The Kennedy Assassination ? Any number of false flag operations around the world ?
Tin foil hat stuff for sure, but an illegal operation is an illegal operation regardless of the secret.
So would those calling him a traitor today, still be calling him a traitor tomorrow if he disclosed something along the lines of the aforementioned " darker secrets " ?
Now that he moved to Brazil so he wont face constant harassment from the feds.
...ought not to be defined by the government against which it is wielded.
Tenemus pyrobolos atqui jacimus cognitiones.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What about the warrant portion do you not understand?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Personally, I think that we, the users of slashdot, should purchase it. I would gladly donate some money for it, and I think a lot of other users would do the same.
There is precedence. The WELL was bought by users, and is still operational.
What's Rob Malda doing these days? Any spare time?
Exactly.
If the end result of civil disobedience is the exact same in the USofA as in North Korea ... then what is the difference?
The politicians demanding martyrdom would be just as comfortable working for North Korea's government as they are working for the USofA's government.
And THAT is a very big problem.
He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions.
Or he could be pardoned...
The "He should face the consequences of his actions" argument can be used for any crime. The request for a pardon is a specific request that someone *not* face the consequences of their actions, or more accurately, that the consequences of their actions be changed to "no longer be punished".
It's like she is not even acknowledging what is being asked for.
It's like If I go to a car dealership and ask them if they sell any other cars besides what can be seen in the showroom, and the dealer then proceeds to list all the cars in the showroom. If he only has what is in the showroom, a better answer is "I only have what is in the showroom"
If the don't intend to pardon Snowden, all they need to do is say "We don't intend to pardon Mr. Snowden". If everyone *always* had to "face the consequences of their actions", then pardons wouldn't even exist.
If the political winds are blowing in one particular direction, a voice of discontent that speaks against those winds is pointless. For those of us who signed it, all we did was probably get ourselves some extra attention from TSA and Customs.
This is nothing new. The administration has been saying this all along, and the stupidity of it has been pointed out by the people they lionize as having "done it right" in the past.
Read this: http://www.theguardian.com/com...
Is that you Dennis?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
On the plus side, the intelligence agencies now have the names of 100,000 potential dissidents and aggitators to add to their database.
Let's hear what you say under oath and subject to cross examination Ed. I've heard all the self-serving comments to friendly reporters, they don't mean jack.
He wasn't kicked out. He resigned before he could be impeached. He was then pardoned shortly afterwards.
Semantics really. He unquestionably would have been impeached and likely removed from office. And if he didn't do anything there would have been no reason to pardon him.
well ms soandso, at least he did the right thing. What you make out of it ("not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions.") is your thing - and believe me, ms homeland fck advisor, nobody is interested in your stupid talk.It's just that, and the secrets are disclosed. Good luck.
A pardon requires a conviction.
As Snowden hasn't been convicted yet, this is a moot point.
probably confusingly refering to assange or greenwald's employment by a UK medika, or greenwald's residency of brazil.
What do you expect from a country that has a Department of Homeland Security? It sounds like something from Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. (Fatherland, motherland, homeland ...)
Glad to know I'm not the only one that thinks that. I always thought it sounded uncomfortably like something right out of a oppressive dictatorship or a George Orwell book.
no government is going to officially, publicly condone such a thing being done.
Nobody is asking them to. It would be fine if they would merely drop the issue instead of seeking retribution. That is an option available to them. The cat is out of the bag, the government has egg on its face (deservedly so) and the right thing happened. Time to let it go.
" not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime."
hmm Hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime from a country that has sadly has become one. Remember, Big Brother is always watching..
Why do people think he's not going to get an open trial? OR a fair one?
It doesn't matter whether he gets an open trial or not. The trial quite simply will not be fair. That is more or less a foregone conclusion. The laws he is charged under basically allow for no context to be considered even if what he did was morally correct and justified. He quite simply cannot get a fair trial.
The outcome may be obvious, but that doesn't make the trial unfair....
A ludicrous argument because it presumes the laws are just. Laws frequently are wildly unfair and you cannot have a fair trial when you are being judged under unfair laws.
At the jury selection of Tim Dechristopher:
BILL MOYERS: So when did you know for sure that you were going to be convicted?
TIM DECHRISTOPHER: During the jury selection of the trial. That was what really did it. There was a moment during the jury selection we had this huge jury pool because it was a high profile case. And there was a moment where the prosecution and the judge found out that most of that jury pool had gotten a pamphlet before they came in on the first day from the Fully Informed Jurors Association. And it was a pamphlet that didn't say anything about my case, but it talked about jury's rights. It talked about why we have juries. And it, you know, quoted the founders of the country on juries being the conscience of the community. And the prosecution flipped out over this. It was the only time I saw the prosecutor completely lose his cool during the whole process. And we went into the judge's chambers and the prosecutor was screaming and saying, "We should have a mistrial here." And wanted to just throw the whole thing out.
BILL MOYERS: Because of this pamphlet that were—
TIM DECHRISTOPHER: Right. Right. I mean, the prosecutor was almost spitting when he was reading from this and saying, "This notion of voting your conscience it’s out in space." And he was terrified. He was, he was really scared of what was on that pamphlet. And then rather than get rid of the whole jury pool, the judge called the jurors in one at a time to his chambers. And I was—
BILL MOYERS: Each one individually?
TIM DECHRISTOPHER: Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: Privately?
TIM DECHRISTOPHER: Yeah. And my legal team and I were on one side of the table. The prosecution was on the other side. The judge was at the head of the table and there was one juror at a time at the other end. And the judge would say, "You understand it's not your job to decide what's right or wrong here. Your job is to listen to what I say the law says, and you have to enforce it, even if you think it's morally wrong. Can you do that? Can you follow my instructions, even if you think they're morally wrong?"
And unless they said yes, they weren't on the jury. And I was sitting in the seat closest to the juror. And I watched one person after another say, “Yes, your Honor, I'll do whatever you tell me to do, even if I think it's morally wrong." And they meant it. And that's when I knew that I was going to be convicted.
BILL MOYERS: Because they were going to decide if the law had been broken, not if it was a good law?
TIM DECHRISTOPHER: Yeah. Yeah. And the judge would define for them what the boundaries of that law was. And, you know, so basically it was if he committed this action, then he's guilty and you have to convict him.
People here forget an important thing: from US government perspective, it is not only about the surveillance stuff that Snowden helped to reveal. Case for his pardon would be much stronger if they thought that he only wanted to expose the surveillance programmes for public good. But government officials claim that only tiny fraction of the files that Snowden took were related to surveillance programmes. According to recent article Snowden supposedly stole 900 000 Department of Defense files, not just NSA files.
You may, justifiably, be skeptical about these claims but nature of Snowden's deeds changes if he stole and/or compromised military secrets. Even if you don't believe it, I remind you that you must take this aspect into account.
Keep repeating the lies until they sound true, huh? Doesn't work unless your lies are more subtle.
Snowden specifically has avoided the limelight to ensure, in his own words, that the narrative wasn't about him, but the programs he leaked. Nice try. Did you even watch CitizenFour? He stated this as his biggest concern before the leaks even became public.
Notice he's never been on prime-time TV interviews (AFAIK) where he can get trapped by soundbites -- CNN, FOX News, etc. but only appeared in lectures to citizens and journalists where real discussions can take place, and where the issues will be on the table, not whether his girlfriend has dyed her hair recently.
dear person or persons who wrote the whitehouse response, i'd like to respond by repeating back to you your exact words:
"If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and — importantly — accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime"
and, as an aside, dear whitehouse aides, may i remind you what happened to aaron schwartz.
Snowden's contractual obligation not to disclose NSA secrets, or his contractual obligation to uphold the constitution?
Because these two things are clearly in conflict.
Obama already knows he got his dick firmly in your ass and there's nothing you're going to do about it.
Keep voting Democrat and Republican and keep getting fucked like a bitch. That's the American way.
Yea, be judged by "peers" like cunt bitches like you.
An authoritarian regime that's pro-men (if such a thing were to exist: ie marry girl children like in every country pre-feminism) is better than a cunt-run democracy.
Just saying. Yes, they were pardoned, as were the rest of the Bush/Cheney gang.
Or perhaps Putin will have him killed is some spectacular false flag operation to make the US government look like total tools.
However, it is quite unlikely Putin cares or is in any way involved in the Snowden case. He is the chief executive of Russia, and has a lot more important things to do than decide if a low level whistle blower gets asylum in Russia or not.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
So let them bicker back and forth in the courts about which law is more valid, personally I'm going to say, "The Constitution is".
And the people who decides what laws will be upheld thinks otherwise. You can try to oppose them if you don't mind ending up in jail.
SO you want to gather up all those CIA/FBI... agency employees and charge them with criminal offences as well?
Spying on US citizens in the US without a court order is against the law but they have never been charged.
The FBI has done this for its entire existence, presidents have benefited from this spying so are they criminals as well (proceeds of crime)?
How many times in the past has the FBI/CIA been told not to wiretap citizens without a warrant and done it anyhow?
If you believe in liberty and don't want the government breathing down your back and directing your every move you need to get to New Hampshire. The Free State Project @ https://www.freestateproject.com/ is a successful movement to draw 20,000 liberty-minded activists to one state. Thousands have moved already and thousands are moving now and thousands more are planning to move (the moment is close to reaching 20,000 committed movers). A 14 year battle is beginning to take shape and we need as many people to join the revolt as can be mustered. Once we hit 20,000 liberty-activists free thinkers will have significant influence in the state. If your serious about liberty consider making the move! This is not like Liberland. The main difference between Liberland and the Free State Project is the later is a real movement with thousands of people actually moving.
This is the part that really rubbed me the wrong way:
Since taking office, President Obama has worked with Congress to secure appropriate reforms that balance the protection of civil liberties with the ability of national security professionals to secure information vital to keep Americans safe.
As the President said in announcing recent intelligence reforms, "We have to make some important decisions about how to protect ourselves and sustain our leadership in the world, while upholding the civil liberties and privacy protections that our ideals and our Constitution require."
Here are some of the things Obama said prior to becoming president. This was in 2006:
We need to find a way forward to make sure that we can stop terrorists while protecting the privacy, and liberty, of innocent Americans. ... As a nation we have to find the right balance between privacy and security, between executive authority to face threats and uncontrolled power. What protects us, and what distinguishes us, are the procedures we put in place to protect that balance, namely judicial warrants and congressional review. ... These are concrete safeguards to make sure surveillance hasn’t gone too far.
He said this during his campaign:
strengthen privacy protections for the digital age and harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy
He said this while campaigning in 2007:
I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient
After he critiqued:
the Bush administration's initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens
He promised to:
update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional intelligence committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law
He also said he would review the Patriot Act to make sure that necessary protections for constitutional rights were in place.
So, what did he do when he got elected? He renewed the Patriot Act, and didn't do shit about any constitutional overstep until just recently when Rand Paul blocked another renewal of the Patriot Act, and now the White House has the balls to trot out that woman saying what I quoted above, how the president is working sooooo hard on reforms to protect our rights. Yeah, right. This petition hit its mark 2 years ago, why the response now? Because of the actions by Paul and others (most definitely with a massive assist from Snowden) to actually get some sort of dialog going on reforms, and now the White House is trying to take credit for everything. They waited this long to respond to the petition because they had shit to say about it until someone who is not even in the president's party finally gets the ball rolling and they can start taking credit for reforms. It's hollow bullshit. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain. This petition response is hollow, it's as hollow as the campaign promises which got me to naively vote for Obama for his first term, and his complete and utter failure to meet any of them is why I didn't vote for him in his second term, so they don't get to claim any sort of high ground on this issue. They did not want these reforms, they were dragged there kicking and screaming the entire way ever since Snowden boarded his
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Snowden was about advancing HIS image and person and not so much about exposing something that was wrong.
Is that why he's gotten rich touring the talk-show circuit?
Fool.
"Edward Snowden is an evil turncoat and general git because he embarrassed us in general and Lord God Obama in particular and so we hate him and intend to try to screw him every way we can, so long as it is consistent with the daily screwing requirement of Trey Goudy."
"We live in a dangerous world."
Yes, yes we do. Thanks for the fire and brimstone.
She presumes the US Gov is a reasonable entity. It is not, and so avoiding it's retributional conduct is competely appropriate and prudent.
"In early June, shortly after the May 22, 2011 6 pm broadcast of a 60 Minutes episode on the Drake case, the government dropped all of the charges against Drake and agreed not to seek any jail time in return for Drake's agreement to plead guilty to a misdemeanor of misusing the agency’s computer system. Drake was sentenced to one year of probation and community service.
At the July sentencing hearing the presiding judge, Richard D. Bennett of the Federal District Court, issued harsh words for the government, saying that it was "unconscionable" to charge a defendant with a list of serious crimes that could have resulted in 35 years in prison only to drop all of the major charges on the eve of trial. The judge also rejected the government's request for a large fine noting that Drake had been financially devastated, losing his $154,600 job at the NSA and his pension."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake
Now it's time for all of you to not fail America.
like criminal CIA interrogators guilty of torture and war crimes.... or criminal Wall Street bankers selling garbage mortgages as AAA and other massive financial frauds.... some criminals are ABOVE THE LAW you see....
There is overwhelming evidence that the US Government is a cess pool of fascists, hypocrites, liars, thieves, and whores - and they would very much prefer to keep that fact a secret.
Reminds me of a quote from the brilliant film Punishment Park (1971) by Peter Watkins ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suh2r2ojP3I ) One of the characters says something along the lines of "at another time in history the honorable thing to be might be a cop... right now the honorable thing to be... is a criminal."
and this one:
you can buy a pig a wig
made of the finest twine
but underneath the wig
the pig is still a swine
No administration in its right mind is going to pardon him for it is political suicide. They're more likely to pardon/protect someone that "handles" him and all the other loose ends.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It is funny you try to claim he is a whistleblower when he made no effort to be a whistleblower. Selling IC secrets to the highest bidder is hardly whistleblowing.
It's even worse when one proves it by using it to gain safe passage between one hellhole(China) and the next(Russia). Those plane tickets weren't free, y'know.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Perhaps not surprising that Ms Monaco is so inclined, since she is responsible for running Guantanamo Bay concentration camp.
Synesthesia much?
Requiem for the American Dream
is this part of the incumbent's (party's) plan to win the next one?
why else wait until now to announce?
You know, you're right. Please paste a link to your personal channel of the Panopticon - oh, and ensure to have your walls replaced by glass toute-de-suite
Requiem for the American Dream
You might have noticed that *noone* cares to think about, less-still legislate on the topic of what is right.
Shame on you for even implying that they should.
Requiem for the American Dream
The talk show circuit in Russia? Or better yet, via satellite?
Grab the vodka, Snowden's on the TV honey! (Said no one ever.. ) His 15 min of fame is over and now he's relegated to making money the Russian way.... How do they do that exactly?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
20 pounds of fascist dumbfuck in a 5 pound shill sack.
The Obama White House dithers and dithers and dithers, after which it carefully and deliberately makes the wrong choice.
Yep; people like to feel warm and fuzzy about their country / government; anyone making that position less tenable is to be demonized.
Requiem for the American Dream
Seriously? That's what you're going to post?
Requiem for the American Dream
Snowden was about advancing HIS image and person and not so much about exposing something that was wrong.
First, what evidence do you have of his motivations?
Second, and far more importantly, who gives a fuck? Why does it matter so much to you what his reasons were? He did the country an enormous service.
How much harm is Putin really able to do to us by parading Snowden around? Conversely, how much good did Snowden's revalations do? I think that what little aid and comfort he gave to Putin was a worthwhile exchange, and I'm pretty sure he would agree.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime
The practice of democracy is indeed questionnable in Russia, but beside the question of Snowden himself,
is the White House being reasonable to openly refer to Russia as an authoritarian regime or are
we just witnessing something really clumsy?
I mean this is the White House speaking, in an official public response, not you or I...
Coming from a government that does unconstitutional things against the people, hiding behind force and threat of force against innocents. Fuck off, Obama administration, you are not American, not legitimate, and not a government of a free people operating under the rule of law
Snowden trial would go something like this.
Evidence is a secret. Trial must therefore be secret.
After the trial.
What was the outcome? That's a secret.
Where is Snowden? That's a secret.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/world/middleeast/jonathan-pollard-spy-for-israel-to-be-released-on-parole-in-november.html
How can they release an Israeli spy who had been sentenced to life while denying pardon to a hero who pointed out the conspiracy to spy on an entire nation?
He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime.
He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide from an authoritarian regime.
Goes to show that our government really does not represent the viewpoints of the people when it comes to the 'secret" horrible things it does and that when caught will still pretend it wasn't THEM that did anything wrong.
Patriots? Try fascists!
That is a shame, but you're right...
The treason law under which Mr. Snowden would be charged fails to consider motive and is thus a completely unjust law. Imagine committing manslaughter and being changed with first degree murder and having no legal standing to argue motive? I believe Mr. Snowden has committed a crime of treason and should either do short jail time or a suspended sentence. But his motive was to strengthen the United States, and I believe that was also the majority effect of his actions due to both his intent and his responsible handling of the data.
#50198207, you are a flag waving sheep, an idiot.
Everybody Lies
That's not how moderation works. That's not how any of this works. I haven't really checked...
On the other hand, I just did a search, like so: http://www.bing.com/search?q=s...
Doesn't seem to result in "oblivion".
Edward Snowden isn't dumb either. He's seen what the US has done with Julian Assange. He's seen what the US has done with Bradley Manning (Now Chelsea Elizabeth Manning but still in the crowbar motel for 50 years), and Thomas Drake, and even Arron Swartz. They all did the right thing, and an unethical government either locked them up, locked them up by proxy, shut them up by threatening their civil liberties in a very real way (again for life), or simply took their life. Thomas Snowden won't ever come back because the US isn't that kind of country. The US is a 'corporate' kind of country. Disloyalty means one of two things: stay away forever, or come back and get locked away forever. The latter and they claim a sarcastic, mean-spirited victory. The former and you are still a wanted fugitive, lower than the dust. Snowden won't ever come back. But if he changed his appearance, fingerprints, eye color, and kept his DNA out of other peoples hands, then he could live in the US easily. But there are other places in the world that don't care about what he's done. He could live there, quietly, and never again worry about the US. Look at Bin Laden. 2 Bush terms, and half an Obama term, before they guessed where he was. If you know how the home team works, you can stay underground till you are old.
hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime
Chortle...Seriously?
Pot, meet kettle!
Someone give that fascist bitch a coffee, she is still asleep....
Then when she wakes up or if.... Tell her to read her own God Dam Constitution!!!
Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions."
Unlike James Clapper who enjoys no consequences for his actions- lying under oath to Congress.
Two legs good, four legs bad.
Obama's administration is going to go down in history as the one that best highlights how politically well connected players are "too big to jail" even as law enforcement became more ferocious towards the common and petty criminals.
The entire NSA engaged in unconstitutional spying on Americans on a scale that made the event which inspired the Church Commission look pale in comparison. That is not my opinion, that is a fact established by the courts. They knowingly and deliberately destroyed evidence of torture in order to evade criminal prosecution. No banking executives were prosecuted for a criminal scam which literally brought the economy down. No banking executives were prosecuted for the near daily now criminal operations from Sinaola Mexico cartel (the video-beheading gang) drug money launderig to LIBOR rating rigging to the criminal MITM attack on the stockmarket which was the subject of the book Flashboys.
Yeah I have mixed emotions about Snowden. But I dont' have mixed emotions about any of the trillion dollar criminals who destroyed millions and millioins of people's life savings and millions and millions of people's lives.
So your snarky shit about facingthe consequences of your actions rigs hollow to these ears. How's Eric Holder doing these days working for the entities he declained to prosecute? You nkow, the same ones he worked for before he was AG?
Oh, we paid all that money back, they say. Yeah? Did you go back and retoractively undestroy all the lives which were destroyed because of your actions also? Did you reset the course of all those personal histories back to what they were before they lost their jobs their homes their savings their time ?
How is THAT REAL cost not calculated in what you did. You paid the government back the bailout money. Fuck you and the horse named the Obama Administration you rode in on.
This from someone who cried tears of joy when this President did his inaugural walk.
What you don't like is the law... Fine, just don't keep saying he won't get a fair trial because according to the LAW he will. Saying he won't get a fair trial is wrong. The courts are there to fairly apply the law and for the most part, that's what they do.
You cannot have a fair trial governed by unfair laws. Jim Crow laws were brutally unjust. Are you seriously going to claim that the rulings under Jim Crow laws were in any way fair or just? Just because something is the law does not mean trials will be fair. It is a trivial exercise to write laws that clearly prevent a fair trial under any reasonable definition of the term "fair". You seem to have a fairly mechanical definition of the word fair. Just because something follows the law does not mean it is fair. Under your logic anything a dictator does is fair because he is applying the law interpreted correctly. That's a ridiculous argument.
Although it seems obvious to me that the laws on treason are fairly clear and even handed
I guess it's fortunate you aren't a lawyer then because it's not at all clear that the actions of Mr. Snowden constitute treason. In fact it's rather easy to argue that they do not under the US Constitution which puts some rather strict limits on the definition of treason. He did not levy war against the US and it's debatable whether he gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the US. Convictions or even indictments for treason in the US are quite rare. The most recent was in 2006 and the last before that was in 1952. Mr. Snowden's actions would likely be considered a felony rather than treason. Daniel Ellsberg who released the Pentagon Papers wasn't charged with treason nor were numerous captured spys and others who released confidential documents.
I'm not sure how you think the law can be changed so Snowden get's what you think is a fair result, without letting other folks off who really *should* be convicted.
The law doesn't have to be changed at all. The justice department merely has to decline to prosecute or the President can grant a pardon. Happens all the time. The next guy can be prosecuted or not under the same set of rules without changing anything or causing any serious problems.
The late, former head of the NSA, Lieutenant General William E. Odom, respectfully disagrees.
http://www.middlebury.edu/medi...
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The word "the" is a notorious trickster.
They say "running away from the consequences" when what they really mean is "running away from one particular set of consequences where we get all the photo ops wearing the stick".
The problem with this image is that greater society doesn't usually hand the stick to men wearing B&W, pin-stiped, double-breasted pygamas. He who breaks the law finds the stick slippery.
The consequences is presently enduring are already pretty unpleasant: notoriety he can never live down, and de facto house arrest without so much as a landlord-tenant act to protect his interests.
I'd also suggest that his marriage, family, and career prospects are not what they once were.
Of course, the vast majority of the American population would jump at the chance to throw over marriage, family, and career for the least chance to stick it to The Man, so we better add another heaping helping of grim before all hell breaks loose.
If you want to know how any organization is going to behave, just look at the constraints on its behavior - the negative feedback to actions it might take. For a corporation, the most important negative feedback is profit - if an action loses money, then the corporation cannot continue that action (for very long).
In the case of a democracy the most important feedback takes the form of votes. If our elected officials do something we object to, we vote against them.
But if we are not aware of what they are doing due to a shroud of secrecy, then we cannot vote based on that information - which removes the *only* constraint on a government agency's actions. So it's no surprise that they will be doing things that we find astonishingly repellent. That's why secrecy - any secrecy - is fundamentally deeply corrosive to the democratic process.
We have to start viewing any secrecy as extremely suspicious, especially if they can't tell us why something is secret. We need some kind of process to bring oversight to secret policy- I don't know how it would be done though, except to simply make that kind of secrecy illegal altogether, which might have unintended consequences. Certainly we can't trust elected officials to provide oversight, because as I showed above the people cannot provide oversight to those officials with respect to secret policy.
Snowden is a criminal and a traitor and should be prosecuted as such. He abused his security clearance to illegally obtain gigabytes of classified material and leak it to adversaries of the U.S.
If he were truly concerned about NSA behavior, he would have reported the behavior to his supervisor, the Inspector General, the GAO, and his congressman. As a last resort only, he would have been justified to leak the generalities of the NSA surveillance while doing his best to protect classified material.
However, he didn't do any of this. What he did wasn't whistleblowing. He isn't a hero. He is a criminal and a traitor.
If he was just "blowing the whistle" on the feds for spying on it's citizens then why did he take all that other information.... I don't trust him, I don't like him, he is no hero. The death penalty works for me.
He blinded me with science, you insensitive clod!!
As far as I can tell, the NSA makes a real attempt to stay within the law. They push the borders as hard as they can, and sometimes go over, and I don't agree with a lot of their interpretations, but it at least looks like they can be reined in with laws. The hard part is getting the people to put pressure on their Congressional representatives.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What bullshit. This is NOT Land of the Free. We're all guilty until proven otherwise. Just stand accused and see how much of your money and resource is required to buy justice regardless of whether you're guilty or innocent. Snowden is a hero fighting a totalitarian regime and if we're very lucky, someday his statue will stand on the DC Mall.
I'll address each point and give an explanation as to why I feel he should have done exactly that.
The reason I feel Snowden should be tried for treason is simple: it's not just what he did, it's how he did it. If he had really been concerned about the country, he would have selected specific pieces of evidence and turned them over to an American journalist anonymously. Instead, he indiscriminately handed sensitive national secrets over to a foreigner,
Domestic press would likely have been too easy to muzzle.
fled the country,
I would too if the NSA, FBI and CIA were all after me.
then started trying to make money off of it.
I'll assume by this you mean he was raising his profile?
There are two good reasons to do this, one selfless the other less so.
1) By becoming a public figure, he gives a face to the cause. People now have Snowden to point to when they talk about the illegal activities our government perpetrates and then covers up.
2) By becoming a public figure, he makes 'discreet assassination' close to impossible. Now if he dies, there will be conspiracy theories aplenty, some of them pretty believable. So now the feds need to try and get him to turn himself in before he dies, or they will be widely believed to be behind his death (regardless of how it happens).
These are not the actions of a patriot, they're the actions of a self-serving douchebag. This was exactly the *wrong* way to get things to change. But that was never his goal, regardless of the lies he tells.
The wrong way to get things to change is what Drake et. al. did. Raise it up the chain of command. This got them nothing, but police harassment and fired. So few people know about those guys, because the government was able to bottle it all up, and nothing changed.
All your comments on if he should return and how to get a fair trial I must assume is hyperbole.
The very law he's charged under prevents him from putting up ANY defense at all. All he can basically do nothing more than plead guilty, or not guilty. There is no jury of his peers. She is so smug and confidant in the public's idiocy that she say's this publicly. To many who I would think have enough knowledge of the issue to know that she is lying out right.
Of course the general public doesn't know this. They think he could get a fair trial. That's the law right? That's how it works? No, that's not how it works. She says, "Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest". How would he or we be able to do that when we don't know there is a problem or what that problem is? It's laughable.
Finally. since we found out about it, we've been doing nothing but challenging it, speaking out, and engaging in a constructive protest. What has that gotten us? NOTHING. Using the tool provided never gets us anything because they're simply ignored. Does she want James R. Clapper to face the consequences of his actions. Dick Cheney, George W Bush? FUCK OFF.
"Since taking office, President Obama has worked with Congress to secure appropriate reforms that balance the protection of civil liberties with the ability of national security professionals to secure information vital to keep Americans safe."------- I believe it. He and others alike believed that the citizenry of the United States carried too much weight. Therefore the "appropriate reforms" were clearly aimed at shifting that weight to the other side of the scale. "Vital to keep Americans safe" Yeah, don't forget to throw that cherry on top there, Ms. Monaco.
I think you might be retarded.
Snowden's disclosures fall in 3 categories:
1) How the government spies on it's own people, in violation of it's own laws.
2) How the government spies on friendly governments, sometimes going against international agreements
3) How the government spies on known adversaries, like China.
He was absolutely right to point out number 1, but wrong to disclose 2 and 3.
Jonathan Pollard's parole is in the news, an american who spied for Israel, nominally a friendly country. He was sentenced in 1987.
You spy - or release information on american spying on other countries, you go to jail.
3. is just fucking stupid. There was no good reason to let our military adversary know how america spies on them, no matter how much shit we buy from them.
Had he left it at information on how a government illegally spies on it's citizens, he would definitely be in the right.
I just received an acknowledgment from whitehouse.gov indicating that I voted exactly opposite to what I would have voted. Not happy about this. Apparently it's possible to sign these petitions without any sort of confirmation whatsoever.
Like I said to the other guy who doesn't want to listen...
Your issue is with the law, not the courts, with the people who WROTE the law, not the judge or the process. Stop saying it would be an unfair trial.
I'm not going to engage in the debate over the law being fair or not because it's pointless and largely meaningless to this situation. The law is what it is, I didn't write it nor wish to argue about it. You need to go after the people who wrote it if you don't like it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Its been more than 2 years and the perpetrators of illegally eves-dropping on the conversations of the citizens are still at large. People inside NSA are still happily continuing to violate peoples privacy. Where is justice? Who would trust and come back to a land where there is no justice?
You wrote a long post about Obama that makes it seem like he is an outlier when it comes to failure to uphold campaign promises. You do know that every single president in history has made a ton of promises while campaigning that were later dropped or not accomplished once elected, right? That isn't excusing any president, it is just a statement of fact.
You wrote a long post about Obama that makes it seem like he is an outlier when it comes to failure to uphold campaign promises.
It wasn't my intention to make him seem like an outlier, I just believed he wasn't going to be the same as everyone else. In other words, I thought he would be an outlier in that he would actually do many of the things he promised which I felt were important. I was wrong.
You do know that every single president in history has made a ton of promises while campaigning that were later dropped or not accomplished once elected, right?
Yes.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black