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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
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.
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...
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.
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
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.
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.