President Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden Before Leaving Office (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: Ever since Edward Snowden set in motion the most powerful public act of whistleblowing in U.S. history, he has been living in exile in Russia from the United States. An article in this week's New York Magazine looks at how Snowden may have a narrow window of opportunity where President Obama could pardon him before he leaves office. Presumably, once he leaves office, the chances of Snowden being pardoned by Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump are miniscule. Obama has said nothing in the past few years to suggest he's interested in pardoning Snowden. Not only would it contradict his national security policy, but it will severely alienate the intelligence community for many years to come. With that said, anyone who values a free and secure internet believes pardoning Snowden would be the right thing to do. The Verge reports: "[Snowden] faces charges under the Espionage Act, which makes no distinction between delivering classified files to journalists and delivering the same files to a foreign power. For the first 80 years of its life, it was used almost entirely to prosecute spies. The president has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all president before him combined. His Justice Department has vastly expanded the scope of the law, turning it from a weapon against the nation's enemies to one that's pointed against its own citizens. The result will be less scrutiny of the nation's most powerful agencies, and fewer forces to keep them in check. With Snowden's push for clemency, the president has a chance to complicate that legacy and begin to undo it. It's the last chance we'll have."

Comments

Trump is an evil vindictive bastard

[shanen]

I think everyone will agree that Trump loves money. A lot. Even Trump's most ardent supporters.

Did you know that Trump spent about $80,000 to run an ad in favor of the death penalty for the kids who confessed to the rape and murder of the Central Park jogger in 1989?

Funny thing about that story. They were innocent and their confessions were coerced lies. The REAL rapist was identified more than 10 years later and the kids (grown into prison-hardened adults) were released. No one seems to have detected any apology from Trump.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is one reference source.

If you scratch an ardent Trump supporter, you find a hater. My mental image is the Donald sitting on a high chair that he imagines to be a throne. One leg is for government haters, and the others are for Hillary haters, bigots, and racists. Some of them are trying to realize that hate is a bad sales pitch, and they are trying to put a nice veneer on it, trying to fudge some positive reason to support Trump, but scratch the paint and you'll see the hate.

In conclusion, Trump is distinctly unlikely to pardon Edward Snowden.

Re:like Clinton, he'll pardon a lot of people

[rtb61]

The corporate main stream media Clinton campaign spent millions on Clinton trolls (PR=B$ cheap), they are not very good and quite noticeable. Basically a whole bunch of laws were broken and thirty thousands 'personal' (cough, cough, corrupt) emails were not as deleted as the conspirators thought they were and the FBI has a direct line to them, via an immunity agreement, as well as of course various international players who are saving them for the most damaging moment. It will come or the current US cabal will simply avoid it be prosecuting the socialist feminazi (which will never be able to sell the right wing oligarchy agenda masquerading as a progressive liberal agenda as it did under Uncle Tom Obama the choom gang coward) with a token penalty and tossing it out of the election. Bernie Sanders offers too much of a diplomatic reset to allow it to pass (with a corrupt and hostile congress and senate he will not be able to do much else) but stupider decisions have been made in the past. The whole world go to watch a blatantly corrupt US primary process as a lead up to an equally corrupt election, sell democracy to the rest of the world, yup, uh huh, good luck with that.

Pardon for Snowden, only one of two options, a trap to execute him or they'll do it only when Snowden is on his death bed. The current oligarchy is just way to corrupt to do anything beyond serving corruption.