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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."
...is Snowden's only hope is he returns to face the music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"and — importantly — accept the consequences of his actions." Isn't whistle blowing legally protected from retaliation?
On paper, but they've already wiped their ass with it so they don't care much.
Except they immediately built in whistleblower protections that apply to everyone... oh, except Snowden. And they said in the press he should've just used those when they weren't implemented until 2 months after his revelation.
Silly plebe. Laws only apply to the little people. Not those with wealth and power.
Instead, he indiscriminately handed sensitive national secrets over to a foreigner,
Glenn Greenwald is a "foreigner"? Since when?
And when there were whistleblowers before him who tried to report issues they saw. These people don't have the name recognition of Snowden because their reports were hushed up and the whistleblowers were accused of wrongdoing themselves. Snowden saw how "work within the official channels" went and chose a more effective method, albeit one that put him into permanent exile.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Snowden is a hero, and you're minion.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But they do pardons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... A group of those guys set off 120 bombs in major US cities. Snowden would be treated harsher than those terrorists.
He wasn't kicked out. He resigned before he could be impeached. He was then pardoned shortly afterwards.
Let us kill you.
If the crime fits....
I have a feeling that he could plea bargain a deal that returned him to the states and preserved his life if for nothing else but to avoid the public trial.
Of course, being banished to Russia, is fine too.. I don't think this administration cares one way or the other.
Public trial?
There will be no such thing.
Oh yes there would be a very public trial. Why do you need a closed trial when all the classified evidence has already been published by the accused and is in public domain? Just whip out the contract he signed when he was indoctrinated with his clearance and dig out the public records of the documents he claims to have released to the press. All you have to prove is HE released the classified information...
Why do people think he's not going to get an open trial? OR a fair one? The outcome may be obvious, but that doesn't make the trial unfair....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The evidence is classified, so the trial can't be public. Classified information doesn't suddenly become unclassified when it's made public. It doesn't matter if the whole world knows; these are government rules, they're not supposed to make sense.
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.)
The big difference with all of the above is he does not accept the consequences of his actions.
He is not on the same level as Rosa Parks, Susan B Anthony or Martin Luther King Jr.
He should have gone on the Sunday talk shows and say, "the government is doing really sleazy, illegal and unconstitutional shit, and I am violating my oath and the law by telling you exactly what they are."
Wrong. Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks and Susan B. Anthony did NOT go to prison. They were arrested, booked and released. MLK spent some time in a local jail, but that's not the same as being sent to prison.
A better example for Snowden would be Daniel Ellsberg, who is now seen as a hero.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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
You do remember that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, right? He was under surveillance by the FBI, the NSA, and police in order to undermine his civil rights movement -- as he was killed.
A 1999 civil court case decided that government agencies were liable for participation in the conspiracy to assassinate him.
Sure, that's not proof but the fact that the guy died standing up for what he believes in kind of says that the danger was as real as it is for Snowden...
Oh a comedian, US corporations are pretty malevolent, from pharmaceuticals lying and killing people to generate extra profits, to oil companies taking cheap ass short cuts and killing people to the US military industrial complex actively promoting war for it's own sake and killing people. These psychopaths run the US government and that pretty much makes the US government as malevolent as it gets.
What the US government press really wanted to say in the press release "We were breaking laws all over the world in collusion with US corporations and mostly getting away with it, so fuck Snowden and as a warning to others who believe in honesty and justice, we will kill him and any other traitors to Psychopaths Incorporated 'er' the US Government". This is not about justice, this is about promoting the take over of the whole world by US corporations and enslavement of the worlds population. Of course psychopaths being psychopaths, it really is all about promoting global chaos because psychopaths thrive in chaos, it is quite simply who they are.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen