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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.
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...
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.
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
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!
Give him the Peace Prize and lets see if we would jail a Nobel Laureate
When has a petition that garnered enough signtures not been met with the response: "Fuck you, we're not going to change"?
Basically a kangaroo court. Under FISA he is not allowed to use wistleblowing as a defense. Meaning even if he revealed illegal behavior in the federal governments he can't argue that as a defense. He will be tried only on whether or not he released the documents, which no one disputes, and will be put away for the rest of his life.
The entire system is rigged to put him away in a safe, dark, and silent cell where he won't embarrass anymore powerful people.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
Instead, he indiscriminately handed sensitive national secrets over to a foreigner,
Glenn Greenwald is a "foreigner"? Since when?
He wasn't kicked out. He resigned before he could be impeached. He was then pardoned shortly afterwards.
Under FISA he is not allowed to use wistleblowing as a defense.
Actually, it's worse than that. Two of the counts he's charged with are violations of the Espionage Act, which was intended to prevent US citizens from colluding with US enemies during World War I. Unfortunately, the law provides no room for affirmative defenses at all: if secrets were leaked, you're guilty, and the court isn't allowed to consider even the slightest sliver of the surrounding context. Did you uncover something illegal? Doesn't matter. Is this course of action the only one that would have turned up malfeasance by intelligence agencies? That can't be discussed.
The reason the Obama administration's insistence that Snowden come back to the US to "face a fair trial" is so flagrantly disingenuous is that the act that he's charged under, by virtue of its complete lack of defenses, is explicitly and intentionally designed to result in anything but a fair trial. They're inviting him home for a railroading, and it doesn't matter whether it's done in private or public: he's fucked.
You should watch citizenfour, which spends quite a bit of time on this specific issue of how inappropriate the Espionage Act is for Snowden's actions, and just how unfair is is designed to be.
and in most of the US, its borderline illegal to even MENTION JN in court. judges will kick you out, lock you up, threaten you, try to scare you. voire dire does all it can to try to reject jurors that even KNOW what JN is. and if you tell them during VD that you don't know what JN is and then later, they find out you do, you are in contempt.
its all neatly stacked up so that your CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS are not vocalized or listed or communicated to you.
"nice liberty you got there; would be a shame if something were to happen to it"
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
More importantly, the message here is that being right doesn't matter; being good and obedient preserves you, while being right only makes you a martyr. If you expose the corruption of those in power, that's well and good, and a great civil duty; however, you must understand that you will be punished.
The implication is that, civil duty or not, you should think long and hard about pitching your own skin into the cause, because we sure as hell aren't going to reward you just for doing a great service to humanity. Read carefully and you'll notice the government said he'd even have to accept the consequences of speaking out and engaging in constructive protest: they decree you can dissent against their rule, and that's well and good, as long as they can punish you for your dissent--which is precisely the situation in North Korea, where you may speak out against Kim Jong-Un, and, importantly, accept the consequences of speaking out against him.
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he made no effort to be a whistleblower
False there are e-mails that have been more or less corroborate that indicate he DID raise the issue up the chain of command. He was basically told not to worry his pretty little head about it and get back to work.
Selling IC secrets to the highest bidder is hardly whistleblowing
Are you aware of any evidence he every sold any secrets? I am not.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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
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.
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.