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Gary Johnson: I'd Consider Pardoning Snowden, Chelsea Manning (vocativ.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Vocativ: [Vocativ reports:] "The U.S.'s most popular third-party presidential candidate says he would 'consider' pardoning the highest profile convicts of computer-related crimes in the country, including Chelsea Manning, Ross Ulbricht, and Jeremy Hammond. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, also reiterated his possible willingness to pardon Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency analyst who gave a cache of agency documents to journalists in 2013." "Having actually served as a governor and administered the power to grant pardons and clemency, Gary Johnson is very conscious and respectful of the need for processes for using that authority," Joe Hunter, Johnson's communications director, told Vocativ in a statement. "However, he has made it clear on numerous occasions that he would 'look seriously at' pardoning Edward Snowden, based on public information that Snowden's actions did not cause actual harm to any U.S. intelligence personnel. Likewise, he has said he would look favorably on pardoning Ross Ulbricht, consistent with his broader and long-standing commitment to pardon nonviolent drug offenders, whistleblowers, and others imprisoned under unjust and ill-advised laws," Hunter said. When Vocativ asked specifically about Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond, Barrett Brown, and Matthew Keys, Hunter responded: "The same goes for the other individuals you have mentioned -- and hundreds, if not thousands, like them. Gov. Johnson finds it to be an outrage that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world, and announced in 2012 that, as President, he would promptly commence the process of pardoning nonviolent offenders who have done no real harm to others." The Green Party candidate Jill Stein has also shared her thoughts on pardoning Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Not only would she pardon Snowden, but she said she would appoint him to her cabinet.
Snowden is only a traitor if the government considers American citizens as enemies...
If only people realized that voting FOR someone you agree with is less of a waste than voting AGAINST someone you don't agree with.
Voting 3rd party isn't a wasted vote if you are more in line with that party that the main 2.
~Yeah, I can *so* see Edward Snowden getting a confirmation from the U.S. Senate.~ It is only slightly more probable than Jill Stein getting elected to President.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Snowden is not convicted, He can't be pardoned yet.
So Richard Nixon couldn't be pardoned either, since he was never convicted?
DC politicians are the traitors. They routinely pass law that violates the constitution, they've made it clear they're willing to sell our liberty to the highest bidders, and they are willing to prevaricate about it on camera. Fuck them.
Snowden is not convicted, He can't be pardoned yet.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted this language to include the power to grant pardons, conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, conditional commutations of sentence, remissions of fines and forfeitures, respites, and amnesties." [P.S. Ruckman, Jr. 1997. "Executive Clemency in the United States: Origins, Development, and Analysis (1900-1993)," 27 Presidential Studies Quarterly, 251-271]
Granting amnesty and calling it a "pardon" is legit. No conviction required.
If only people realized that voting FOR someone you agree with is less of a waste than voting AGAINST someone you don't agree with. Voting 3rd party isn't a wasted vote if you are more in line with that party that the main 2.
I would like to agree with you, but I suggest you look up the phenomenon called the Spoiler Effect.
CGP Grey has very well-done 6.5-minute video about it here, which is also worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
In summary: A 3rd party candidate is statistically more likely to be closer in ideology to one of the two major parties.
If you have primary parties A and B, and C is the 3rd party, C is probably more like B than A (for this example). If you and I vote for C because we hate A and like C better than B, our votes didn't count for B. So instead of a vote being a 49% A and 51% B vote, it may well turn out 49% A, 41% B, and 10% C. Thus the party we least liked, A, is the winner.
As long as we have first-past-the-post, winner-take-all elections, it is one's rational self-interest to vote strategically against the party they least want to win, rather than for the party they most want to win. It took me some fifteen years to come to that realization, and it is still depressing. The only way C wins is if C can either pull enough votes from A and B, or draws all of B's votes. It could and has happened, but it's extraordinarily rare. Usually A or B will adopt the the strongest primary platform of C to keep those votes for themselves.
As long as we have first-past-the-post, winner-take-all elections, it is one's rational self-interest to vote strategically against the party they least want to win, rather than for the party they most want to win.
Yes, if you prefer a quarterly profit and then bankruptcy over long term growth.
Voting for a third party impacts politics even if that party doesn't win. It sends a message to the runner up that there are votes to gain by adopting a few third party questions.
Voting for the lesser evil only tells the two major parties that they need to be more like each other if they want more votes.
A vote for the lesser evil is a vote to make it become the greater evil, that is why you now have two large parties that only wants to screw you over.
The government fears it's citizens far more than any foreign entity. It has reason to considering how it has systematically worked to rob them for decades. They know that one day, when the country finally fails under the staggering debt there will be a price to pay for whoever is holding the reins at that time.
Thus the party we least liked, A, is the winner.
So? I consider destruction of the two party system more important than voting for someone I dislike a little less.
>"As long as we have first-past-the-post, winner-take-all elections, it is one's rational self-interest to vote strategically against the party they least want to win, rather than for the party they most want to win"
This. +1
Our system makes it essentially IMPOSSIBLE for any non Republicrat to win in major elections. Until we change the voting system to something *SANE* that allows voters to RANK the candidates, we can't really change anything else. We end up voting AGAINST the major party we don't like instead of FOR the party we might want.
Imagine what would be possible if voters this year had the ability to RANK candidates from all the parties. People could rank some other party first with ZERO fear they are throwing their votes away. The outcome might be shocking.... especially if we knew we could do this a long time ago and drummed up more candidates.
http://fairvote.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Even in countries with effective third parties, where FPTP is in play, it almost always tends towards a two-party system, with a third parties playing spoiler, but almost never becoming a governing party. FPTP almost inevitably shuts out third parties from power. There can be unique situations where FPTP multiparty Parliamentary countries can enter a period of minorities, this is particularly true in Canada during the mid 2000s until 2011, where a strong regional party in Quebec managed to destabilize the national parties enough to force two hung Parliaments, and it happened in the UK in 2010, where a strong regional party in Scotland (the SNP) wrestled enough votes from Labour to deprive it of power, but a similar effect with UKIP deprived the Conservatives of an absolute majority. But all in all, these are fairly rare in FPTP legislative assemblies.
It should also be noted that in the UK, in particular, it has a huge lower house, 649 seats in the House of Commons as compared to 435 in the US House of Representatives, and the House of Lords with 798 seats as compared to the US Senate's 100. This far greater number of representatives must also be factored in to any modeling of how FPTP plays out, the UK has a lot more room for third parties to find their niche with smaller Parliamentary constituencies than US districts.
If you truly want to give third parties a shot at significant power, you need to move to some sort of proportional representation. Even normal instant-runoff systems are not truly proportional, and are vulnerable to certain strategies that can give unfair advantage (with the exception of multi-member district STV, which is roughly proportional). But I'm not sure how that would even play out in US presidential elections, where by and large, the game has been rigged to make third party runs for the White House all but impossible. You'd have to make some big changes to the way the electoral college works, or abandon it entirely, but that seems pretty damned unlikely to me, since the intent of the electoral college was to create a sort of hybrid popular vote/state vote system, and any support for amending it after the 2000 election seems to have long since failed, though perhaps a very close election (which this one might be), might bring back demands to reform or eliminate the electoral college (though what kind of voting would replace it isn't clear).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If people continue to vote strategically like you suggest, what incentive do the politicians have to reform our voting system? I can see it now.
"Mrs. Clinton, I am voting for you solely because your opponent is so terrible. But I warn you, if you don't push hard for some sort of ranked choice voting system in the next election I will....still vote for you because your opponent is still terrible."
Judging from their actions, the Democrats and Republicans would rather lose an election than give people the ability to vote their conscience and case a non-spoiler vote minor parties. In 1992 and 1996 Perot split the vote giving Clinton a win. In 2000, Nader's absence would have likely produced a Gore victory. So both parties have been burned by this, but they aren't exactly lining up to change the system. The duopoly has more benefits for them long-term. They aren't going to do it.
The only way to get it done would be by citizen initiative in the states that allow for it. And even then, both the Democrats and Republicans will come out against it; the law will be easily defeated. We will never be rid of this voting system until it regularly spoils a victory for the same party multiple times and the determine they're better off with it than without it.
$500 seems pretty damned insufficient when you've basically taken away a large portion of the working poor's discretionary income. No matter how you try to force it, flat taxes are fundamentally unfair.
Elected SCOTUS judges is even worse. There are enough politicians without making what amounts to a constitutional court effectively a third legislature with the power to veto the others.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I often vote third party, but not because I expect it to make any difference in that election. My intent is to demonstrate that there are voters like myself who are willing to show up to the polls but with values and goals which aren't well represented by the two primary parties. My hope is that the policy and next election cycle might be a little more inclined to try to capture my vote.
Snowden & Manning are whistle-blowers. They were motivated by correcting what the perceived as illegal or immoral actions by the government. They had little to personally gain (and a lot to lose) by their actions. Ulbricht, on the other hand was motivated by greed. His willingness to commission murder-for-hire in order to keep his cash machine going justifies his conviction.
Court? Why are you talking about courts, when your Constitution is very clear on what you are supposed to do when your government gets like this.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Most states are not contested in presidential elections -- hence the term "swing state" for the rare few that are. Thus if you vote in a non-swing state, then voting for a 3rd party comes with little risk, and is a reasonable way to cast a protest vote.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Remember the rule of paradoxes.
He's both a traitor and a hero? This isn't just a difference of opinion: it's very easy to argue that he's both. It sounds paradoxical.
Whenever you see a paradox, the rule is: look for the flaw in your assumptions. Your assumptions might include:
This overlooks that A, B, and C are competitively selected, actively maneuvering to win, and influenced by previous results.
E.g., if B is slated to lose because C is attracting more liberal voters, B is likely to move left in order to capture those voters. Or if B2012 wasn't left enough B2016 may be someone more of that bent. Also, a disliked presidential candidate tends to depress the party's congressional holdings, which makes it more difficult to enact their agenda, and tends to setup a win for the opposing candidate in the next term.
Furthermore, in democracies votes don't merely decide outcomes, they legitimize them. If 100% of the population votes and 90% vote for Hitler because the alternative is Stalin, at that point he basically has a mandate. If only 5% of the population votes and 90% votes for Hitler, I would say an uprising is well within bounds.
Voting your conscience may not net you specific near term outcomes that you desire. But in the long run your vote is a commodity politicians value and they will shape their policies to obtain it. Unless, of course, they can obtain it some other way, such as simply by pointing out their opponent is on the left/right side. If you're going to lock in on that, then you've already spent your opinion as far as they're concerned. The only way to control politicians is to be completely willing to withhold the thing they need and value -- victory. If you let the parties blackmail *you* with outcomes, then they are the ones in control, and that will be obvious by the fact the people are only given choices (Hillary/Trump) that a sound majority of them dislike.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Snowden is not a traitor for revealing the NSA Phone surveillance program. He's a traitor for the thousands of classified documents pertaining to other legitimate intelligence collection efforts that he stole and turned over to whomever. Example: he revealed that we had an active tap on the office phone of the German Chancellor. Revealing that was Treason, Germany is not a military or political enemy but all countries are economic opponents. Further it's evident that he's paid Russia for his asylum with classified information.
That is why he is considered a Traitor. Had he just stuck to revealing the unconstitutional NSA Surveillance of US citizens he would be a hero and would have been protected by Whistleblower status. But he revealed far more, damaging or destroying operations that took years to put in place and putting lives at risk.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
The thing is that the presedential election should not even be that important.What is much more important is who is representing you.
I have this feeling that the shitstorm they have now is just so the system keeps going on as it was. Having all the same 100 senators all the time.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Hmm..... a 1,000 Armed Americans, the largest militia formed in probably over a hundred years. And the Feds backed down....cause they were sure to get their butts kicked. Or forced it to escalate into a military confrontation which could have started a civil war.
As for the U.S. being undefeatable by it's citizens. Goat farmers with hand made AKs and improvised bombs defeated the mighty U.S. in two wars. So I wager a nation in which civilians have far better arms would do quite well against the government if it mobilized. Furthermore, much of the military would fracture when ordered to bomb U.S. cities and civilians.
The obvious rebuttal is the rise of the Tea Party movement. By throwing numerous elections they got their goals included in party platforms.
Further it's evident that he's paid Russia for his asylum with classified information.
[citation needed]
He has claimed that he brought no information with him after he left Hong Kong. Russia is allowing him to stay because it amuses them the trouble he's causing the US / Five Eyes.
Can you layout the reasoning you used to come to your conclusion?
Example: he revealed that we had an active tap on the office phone of the German Chancellor.
...That's illegal. Having an active tap on the office phone of the German chancellor is most certainly internationally illegal, and domestically illegal. We've agree not to do these sort of things and we were found out to be doing them anyway.
What do we call someone exposing a criminal activity? And what if he needs to violate some privacy concerns in order to do so?
Germany is not a military or political enemy but all countries are economic opponents.
That's some mighty fine double-think right there.
Had he just stuck to revealing the unconstitutional NSA Surveillance of US citizens he would be a hero and would have been protected by Whistleblower status
And THAT'S delusional. Do you really think Hilary would let that slide?
Yeah, the guy committed crimes to accomplish what he did. He rode roughshod all over the privacy rights of the US government. Ideally he'd be put on trial and we'd have a court determine what a just punishment would be. But sadly I do not trust my government to give him a fair trial. Indeed, there is a risk that he'd simply have an accident somewhere along the way.
And due to the overwhelming good achieved for the USA by heroic actions from a patriot, I'd like to see any convictions be pardoned. It might have been a kick in the pants for the US government, but it was a great win for the nation and the ideals it stands for.
putting lives at risk.
Who? What lives? Is the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, going to bust into the surveillance van parked outside her office and shoot the spooks with an MP7? That's an "economic opponent" as you said. No lives are at risk, just money. If that. What's really at risk is power. And we're supposed to have checks on that.