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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."
but ES won't be one
He'll have to pardon Hillary first
POTUS should do all sorts of things, according to many people. He should come clean about the alien reptile people. He should grab a bite to eat every now and then to keep his energy level up. He should pardon all the whistle blowers that were promised the most transparent administration in history.
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A 'pardon' suggests that you've done something wrong but are being let of lightly because we are just that nice. Give the guy a damn medal.
Actually, since Trump has already spoken against Snowden, it seems more likely that Obama would pardon Snowden. Trump's nature is very unlikely to walk back on Snowden. However, Obama might not resist the urge to tweak a President elect Trump's nose by pardoning Snowden.
President Obama is many things, but on his list of top personal identities, I don't see any identity that would pardon Edward Snowden. I think he's a good man, and even a good president under the circumstances, but it ain't going to happen.
Just to clarify my analysis, let me pick the personal identity of "politician". I happen to think it might be Obama's #1 identity, but it's certainly near the top of his list. Pardoning Snowden would be extremely bad as a political move and would give enormous fuel and enthusiasm to his political enemies.
The best candidate to pardon Snowden would probably be a philosopher who was primarily concerned about right and wrong, and you better not hold your breath waiting for one to become president. I actually think that Obama has a philosophical streak, but not in his top 10 identities. His identity as a lawyer is certainly higher, and professional lawyers are trained to ignore such trivialities as right and wrong.
On the third hand, I also blame the big dick Cheney, both for creating the personal-privacy-abusing national security apparatus that Obama has to deal with (in his persona as a realist) and for stuffing the entire civil service with ideologues. That may be the worst legacy of Dubya's miserable failure of an administration. The federal civil service was supposed to be task-oriented and apolitical, an organization of professionals who would competently and impartially administer whatever legislation the political process threw at them, and even ignoring political pressures from the executive branch. Not so under Cheney and his cronies, who actively worked to drive out competent careerists and carefully screened the personal politics of all new hires. Of course the punchline is that the so-called Republican Party now blames Obama for being unable to fix the system they worked so hard to break and keep broken.
Pardoning Snowden? You'd be better off hoping they decided corporations are inhuman monstrosities hiding under the legal fiction of decency.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
A previous article covers whistle-blower Thomas Drake being denied protections for trying to use the proper channels. John Crane, who was to protect the whistle-blowers, became a whistle-blower himself when it became evident the Pentagon was abusing their power in order to punish Thomas Drake.
The article quotes Snowden, "Name one whistleblower from the intelligence community whose disclosures led to real change - overturning laws, ending policies - who didn't face retaliation as a result. The protections just aren't there"
https://yro.slashdot.org/story...
https://www.theguardian.com/us...
> Trump might. Just to spite Obama. Or not, because I doubt he gives a crap about Snowden (he's old news).
Honestly, what are the chances that Trump even understands what Snowden and Manning are about?
Does he have an ounce of integrity to his being? Does he have any comprehension of right and wrong? His racist brain-spasming and the fact that he got rich from inheriting his dad's fortune and multiplied it through ponzi schemes leads me to believe that the man is a nihilistic narcissist.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
There is an endless discussion about everything but the real issue:
Our freedom is being completely destroyed along with the hope that we will ever get it back.
Our future is being threatened. Our lives are at risk.
Nope... Nixon got one.
I'm not a Trump supporter by any means. I'm a #NeverTrump but creating straw men does not help your cause. He didn't make it simply by Daddy's money. There are plenty of people who got daddy's money and lost it all. From rags to riches to rags in three generations.
I was in the building trades and he was very well liked by both union men (which I was) and professional men (which I became). He was competent and audacious and built really interesting projects
Do not take this as me being a Donald Trump supporter for his presidential run. Again I'm a #NeverTrump. But don't build strawmen either. It doesn't help.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Nope, you can be pardoned for any crime. A conviction firmly establishes that a crime occurred, but the president can pardon you for any federal offense. See Carter's pre-emptive pardon of all the draft dodgers and Ford's pardon of Nixon, before charges were even filed.
Now, technically, accepting a pardon means that you were guilty of said crime. Hence, why Ford may have thought the pardon of Nixon was an elegant compromise. He admits wrongdoing and had already resigned, and we stop trying to throw him in jail.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
No one seems to have detected any apology from Trump.
I'm sure he's sorry they confessed. What other apology does he need to make? They confessed, and Trump had nothing to do with that or with convicting them or setting the sentence. Should he feel sorry that he thought the murder/rape of a jogger in a public park merited the death penalty?
If you scratch an ardent Trump supporter, you find a hater.
You don't even need to scratch the surface of the Trump haters to find a hater.
The president could pardon someone for "any federal felonies committed" but not misdemeanors. Then Snowden could be convicted of one or more misdemeanor charges like "improper handling of public records" or whatever misdemeanor charge is appropriate.
However, as TFS said:
The Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all presidents before him COMBINED.
Obama pardoning Snowden is about as likely as Bill Clinton being a virgin.
What about Hillary Clinton? The Clintons have been in office or running for office most of their adult lives, since 1977. Most of her career, Bill was the public face of the the team, the actual office holder, while Hillary's role was PR, whitewashing negative information, from small issues of character to major scandals. For example, she assembled and led the teams trying to discredit women like Monica Lewinski and Paula Jones, trying to persuade the public that those events never happened and the women were liars. Her career has been all about HIDING the affairs of government officials. A whistle blower like Snowden, someone who puts the truth on public display, is her enemy, a total low-life from her perspective.
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.
I had originally thought that Hillary had only the one issue (E-mail scandal), but it turns out she's got a whole rack of skeletons in her closet.
If particular note, she made (what she called) a "shameless pitch" to Russia on behalf of Boeing. Russia made a multi-billion dollar deal with Boeing, and Boing then put $900,000 into the Clinton foundation.
Or giving the OK for a uranium deal to a close friend, after which the same close friend put $2.35 million into the Clinton foundation.
Trump has a history of getting money through business, but Hillary has a history of getting money through corruption.
She's not called dirty Hillary for nothing!
The fact that Obama's said Snowden should be in jail should be a clue.
This will get down moded for saying it but Snowden betrayed the country by providing critical foreign intelligence to the nations we were spying on. Had his revelations stopped at only those engaged in legal/illegal spying on US citizens I would consider him a total hero, but because he assisted foreign nations in blocking legitimate spying, and for that he should be jail. He put no filters on the information he provided the press and he did real harm to our international spying efforts. He exposed programs and technologies that provided real foreign intelligence and were no threat to American citizens.
Snowden is a hero and a criminal and he should serve time in prison for what he did. Though his revelations about spying on american's shouldn't be punished his other revelations should be.
He exposed programs and technologies that provided real foreign intelligence and were no threat to American citizens.
That's because he doesn't view himself as an American citizen. He is on the record as saying that he's a "Citizen of the World," whatever that means. I rather liked Robert Gates assessment of him, "He said the government has built an institution of oversight over intelligence-gathering for the past 40 years, and there are avenues for people to pursue with the authorities if they believe a law has been broken. Gates said for Snowden to make public his allegations instead “is an extraordinary act of hubris.”
Hubris indeed; a 29 year old decided that he knew better than the hundreds of elected officials that we the people appointed to make these sorts of decisions on our behalf. Nobody elected him or entrusted him with this sort of power, he just took it for himself. Then, as if that wasn't enough, he leaks EVERYTHING, to foreign media. At least Ellsberg leaked to a reputable American media outlet that takes pains to scrub information that would endanger lives. Snowden's media buddies just dumped everything out there without any consideration whatsoever of the consequences.
Then, the final insult, he runs away to a country that stands diametrically opposed to every human right he claims to champion. This happens AFTER he makes himself the story, by outing himself, rather than at least trying to remain anonymous, as Deep Throat did. It speaks to a personality that craves the affirmation of the public spotlight, which brings me back to Secretary Gates' comment about hubris.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
People say he did it out of conviction or stayed true to his principles. Well, so does a suicide bomber.
But here's the difference: The suicide bomber is expecting a reward - 72 virgins or some other heavenly reward. Snowden knew he would throw away his life but he didn't do it for a personal reward. He did it for others, for his country.
I haven't made up my mind whether Snowden was misguided, stupid or justified. But I have concluded that the man is principled and a selfless patriot. He might be stupid and misguided, but he felt he did the right thing, at great personal cost to himself, for no personal reward.
You can't pardon someone who isn't convicted
I keep seeing this. It doesn't appear to be true.
"When I was a young man, they told me if I voted for Goldwater, I'd get sent to Vietnam. I voted for Goldwater and sure enough, I got sent to Vietnam."
He reported the problems to his superiors and was ignored. Are you suggesting he should go to a governor or a congressman? Like "hello, I'm a NSA analyst and I'd like to chat with you about NSA illegally spying on everyone in US. When and where would that suit you?"
So he should have leaked only something? Greenwald is an American and they met in New York.
There isn't a wide range of countries to choose from. He chose the country that respected his rights. Which, sadly, is not US.