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ACLU Is Launching A Campaign To Convince President Obama To Pardon Edward Snowden (fusion.net)
Coinciding with the launch of Oliver Stone's movie Snowden in select theaters this week, a coalition of civil rights groups are launching a campaign to convince President Obama to pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Fusion reports: The effort, which is organized by the ACLU, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, will gather signatures from regular people and endorsements from celebrities. Snowden will speak by video link from Moscow at a press conference on Wednesday morning in New York, and an initial list of "prominent legal scholars, policy experts, human rights leaders, technologists and former government officials" in support of the cause will be released, according to a statement from the campaign. A presidential pardon would mean that Snowden could come home from Moscow, where he's lived for the past three years, without the fear of being prosecuted. He currently faces federal charges of violating the Espionage Act and stealing government property, even though his disclosures led to reform of the wiretapping program by Congress. Many Snowden supporters are hoping the movie Snowden, which opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, will spur support for a pardon. "I think the value of the movie is that it's lsikely to reach millions of people who have not been paying close attention to Snowden or to the debate about surveillance and privacy," Snowden's layer at the ACLU, Ben Wizner, told Fusion. "Those people will emerge from the movie more educated about surveillance and with more positive attitudes toward Snowden."
Did he actually expose anything illegal or did people just not read the patriot act?
I'd really rather put him on trial with an opportunity to defend himself. But, as I understand it, under the current law he would not be allowed to tell a jury why he did what he did, which would pretty much guarantee an automatic conviction not based on the true merits of his case. So I guess a pardon is the best we can do.
Long ago, the ACLU worked tirelessly to defend the civil liberties of Americans. Now they're just a fundraising organization that mostly exists to elect Democrats. Snowden did a lot of good, but he also acted indiscriminately and betrayed American intelligence-gathering methods to foreign powers. He should be pardoned for whistleblowing on domestic surveillance but punished severely for espionage. Th ACLU knows this but would rather pretend otherwise, in order to get those sweet, sweet donor contacts.
Oops, better add a month on to that 4 weeks.
He's about to leave office. The elections are in less than 4 weeks.
They're targeting the wrong president.
They should be targeting Donald Gump or Hilary Pneumonia and trying to convince them to make an election promise.
Except that it's become tradition for presidents to pardon a bunch of people on their last day in office. If your political career is basically over then noone can do much if you pardon all your friends.
Liberty and justice are 2 key elements that are supposed to differentiate the USA from those other countries.
I'm guessing you're trolling, but unfortunately so many people actually share this viewpoint. Most of them are uneducated, government/military shills, or just scared of the terrorism boogeyman that has been touted as a justification to strip freedom from citizens.
Snowden did the country and incredible service by unveiling the extent to which the government has over reached its authority.
It would be a huge win if Obama pardoned Snowden, but I have a hard time actually seeing that happen. Obama seems to be too attached to the intelligence community, and this would be seen as a stab in the back.
Very Unlikely to happen.
Yes, because China and Russia are great examples of free countries where people have the constitutional freedoms of the US. It's gotten pretty far that people are now demanding or expecting the US government to act in a way a dictatorship does.
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There's a tradition of Presidents (and state governors, for that matter), handing out politically unpopular pardons and commutations on their last day in office, when it can't be used against them while still in office. This is why the ACLU is targeting Obama.
Even if he is pardoned, he'll forever live under a microscope (government holds grudges better than anyone I know) and will have difficulties in finding employment.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Actually, he is still alive in Russia!
Better add another 2 1/2 months until the inauguration.
To convince Obama that unfettered spying without a warrant is not legal according to the constitution?
Our president would have some mental disease if *that* what it takes to convince him otherwise.
You're both correct.
He did a service by revealing the government's spying on US citizens.
He then massively compromised our ability to spy on our adversaries by revealing techniques and tools used for spying on them.
So go ahead and pin the medal on him... then walk him out to the firing squad.
Nope.
Target the lame duck that isn't answerable to anybody. He can sign the pardon on his way to board Marine One to be flown back to Chicago to start writing his next book, and there isn't jack shit that anybody could do about it.
The next President, whoever it is, would have to live with it, the reaction of Congress, etc. for the rest of their term.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
wow.. would that mean "more educated about surveillance" .. shame that lawyer wasn't more educated in grammar!
obama swore an oath to hollywood and people like henry kissenger, not the constitution
It's not the 8 weeks, not 4 weeks, to the election that matters, it's the 18 weeks until the next president is inaugurated that matters.
There is no need to pardon anyone that has not been charged with anything.
If Snowden has done things since leaving the US, they are still subject to other actions.
Besides, since we frequently remotely execute even American citizens in other countries for lesser actions, pardoning Snowden might make him easier to target when we do break international law to execute him.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Americans don't care about privacy. Facebook is proof of that. So is Instagram. So, I think Snowden was a fool.
Vote Obama 2016!
>"Yes, because China and Russia are great examples of free countries where people have the constitutional freedoms of the US."
There is a certain amount of irony in that statement, considering the paths the USA has been taking so often.... the "unpatriot act", the trend to electronic censorships, attacks on gun rights, the endless spying on citizens, the use of searching without probable cause, the misuse of "interstate commerce" to justify just about any law, the tons and tons of Federal programs and laws that are rights reserved to only the States, misuse of the Executive order to make law that is clearly the realm of the Legislative branch, secret lists that deprive citizens of their rights without due process, seizure of property without oversight, trials that take years to start which are certainly not "speedy", cruel and unusual punishments while incarcerated, I could go on, but you get the idea.
The Constitutional freedoms of the US have never been under more attack. Given time, how much like China and Russia will things turn out? So many people act like the Constitution is an outdated list of guidelines or suggestions, and not the rule book... just something that can just be ignored when not convenient or when people scream for more "safety" or just twisted to mean whatever is fashionable at the moment.
It's possible half of what he did was "good" and half was "bad". In the legal system, doing good doesn't usually counter-act the bad.
Let's say you rescued a child from a burning building, and then an hour later you kicked a dog and broke its leg. Rescuing the child doesn't cancel the kicking act in most courts.
Some of the stuff Ed released may turn out to be legitimate to release, but other stuff perhaps not.
Table-ized A.I.
Except that it's become tradition for presidents to pardon a bunch of people on their last day in office. If your political career is basically over then noone can do much if you pardon all your friends.
Just ask Gerald Ford!
He can't be pardoned if he hasn't had a trial and been convicted. He would have to come home, stand trial, and pray someone pardons him??? Would anyone in their right mind take that phantom deal when the wolves of the US DOJ want to cut their career teeth into him as a trophy? Never going to happen.
As someone who is displeased with how Snowden went about this, I'm not opposed to the idea of a pardon. However I don't believe a carte blanche pardon is appropriate, or sets good precedence.
What I'd like to see is Snowden return to the US of his own volition to stand trial. And then, once the trial is complete, a pardon can be issued if necessary. Even if what Snowden did was ultimately a good thing, I believe there still needs to be repercussions for it - that he needs to take responsibility for his actions. A trial to firmly establish the facts of the case and whether he did anything against the law, even if it can only end in not-guilty or a presidential pardon, is something I think would be a reasonable compromise.
However, his revelations of the NSA's foreign activities crossed the line and makes him a traitor.
You are either for drawing and quartering him or for complete pardon. No in between here folks.
Are you suggesting that Richard Nixon was tried and convicted? Or that Gerald Ford did *not* pardon him?
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
Um, he *is* still alive in Russia. Small detail.
There is no need to pardon anyone that has not been charged with anything.
Somebody should have told that to Gerald Ford.
He will have a trivial time finding employment with people and companies that share his values. The Feds will never give him a clearance again (OH NOES!), but he will have no problem at all finding a really good job.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Oh, really? One US President has felt differently about that. Recall the Ford pardon of Nixon (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_Richard_Nixon) in which a man who was then facing no criminal charges was granted "a full, free, and absolute pardon [...] for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in"
So why not? If Obummer is willing to go around congress and the American people to force same-sex marriage upon everyone... I'm sure he can let one traitor slide.
He committed Treason. There is no excuse, no "okay, this time it was okay". Treason. While you approve of what he let out, how he did it and why he did it make him a traitor. We need to stop glorifying him.
....Along with those treasonous bastards who formed the country. Every one of them were traitors, inciting revolution an revolt against the King. Suffering a single traitor is to invite ruin and the decay of Executive and Federal authority!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
There's already been a movie about Edward Snowden, called Citizen 4. Oliver Stone has publicly stated (in reference to his Nixon movie) that he doesn't believe his "art" need fret over truth. He has a history of making fiction about factual history. I make a point of not seeing Oliver Stone movies for that reason. Let him write fiction if he wants to make it up... Hardly a good venue for educating the public about Snowden.
Whatever China and Russia are, neither is a dictatorship. That is an ignorant characterization.
The President of China (head of state; mostly a figurehead) is elected by the National People's Congress, which in turn is elected by an interesting hierarchical election system, ultimately by the people. The Premier (leader of the State Council; head of government) is nominated by the President and approved by the Congress.
Russia is a multi-party state; more so than the US. The President is elected by the people. He appoints the Prime Minister. The Federal Assembly (Parliament) has two houses: the Duma, elected by proportional representation, and the Federation Council, whose members are separately selected by 85 "federal subjects" (very loosely analogous to "states" in the US) - similar to the original method of selection to the US Senate.
Sure, China has a shadow government in the form of the Communist Party, which controls the selection of those who stand for election Congress. Big deal. The USA has a shadow government in the form of the Demopublican establishment, with a death grip on the selection of those who stand for election to Congress and for President.
Obama should make him a knight but cut off two of his fingers.
He also did it an incredible disservice be revealing foreign intelligence gathering. That makes him a traitor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I count 57. Bigger number for Bush, and other presidents.
Number of ever people pardoned that embarrassed a government: 0.
(Possible exception during the revolution, when the rebels became the government.)
Obama is deeply conservative. Hell will freeze over before he would pardon Snowden.
And let us not forget CIA director George Tenet was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom for lying about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq. Resulted in many thousands of dead. Never challenged by Obama. Because Tenet worked for the system. Snowden worked against the system.
Exactly why he should pardon him now. It would mean a lot more to those who supported him in 2008 and have been disappointed ever since.
I don't really care about more surveillance if it means people's lives will be saved. I've concluded the people who have the most to lose from increased surveillance are drug users, pedophiles and those paranoid of the government. I'm willing to be inconvenienced if it saves someone else's life.
Yeah, I get the typical standard response of wrapping oneself in the 13-starred early American flag wearing a 3 pointed hat, and shouting, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety!" I'm not giving up any freedom. I'm still covered by the Constitution.
If there is a compelling national security interest to tap my phone or monitor my communications - I won't like it (obviously) but I'm okay with it. But there isn't so I feel comfortable communicating embarrassing information and even communicating thoughtcrime from time to time. But if someone did get on the government's national security radar, I'd want the government to be able to surveil them in the hope that it might save lives. And in saying I'm okay with it for another means I must accept that risk/inconvenience for myself. Because, like I said, I'm willing to be inconvenienced if it saves someone else's life.
Having said all that, I do respect Edward Snowden for his courage and for bringing this out into the light, and not letting the program run away. I wouldn't want to see NSA employees using the infrastructure to gather LOVEINT, i.e. stalk ex-girlfriends, or politicians using the infrastructure to gather opposition research and the like. On the other hand I personally wouldn't hire Snowden because I get the impression if he saw something that went against his grain, he'd divulge company secrets in a heartbeat.
Yes. One is more likely to get action from outgoing Obama than from incoming Trump or Clinton. The caution is that that if "they" really want to get someone, they will. One could be pardoned. Then he could be railroaded later on, for some trumped-up charge of a new offense. Or he could just be found lying dead in the gutter some day, victim of a "random mugging".
Tons of people blow their stack over Snowden's leaks. They are misguided and wrong in my opinion. What I've seen does not detail or risk named people (I may have missed something) but does bright line where our own government is breaking the law, and not just a little bit.
Look, crazy people will be able to harm us, no question. It's not giving away our own liberty and justice in the process of trying to stop them that makes the difference between an oppressive, unjust government and one that we say we want.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
All right. Who proofread that little gem?
I can't see the AC troll you're replying to, but I was able to see your comment only because it got enough positive mod points to raise it to visibility.
Actually, I understand not putting your name on it. Get your own NSA file right here from slashdot. Now do you actually think they can't get your identity if they care that much?
Sad, but that's the reality of where America is now. Actually, I can go you a couple of notches higher on the paranoia scale. I think Snowden was probably played for a fool, and he didn't disclose anything that the NSA and CIA didn't agree on. If they couldn't figure out his personality and start watching him before he started collecting the documents, then they are seriously incompetent.
They might have included a few real tidbits in there to give his "leak" plausibility, but I think the real dirt is still under the rug, and the real goal was to crank up the paranoia so people like you are afraid to criticize the government in public.
Now if I ever saw a mod point to give, I'd look for a joke to mod up. Not a one so far.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I think that the actual intent of the OP was
Can you imagine him still alive in China, Russia, etc... if he had been a member of their security apparatus and sold their secrets to another nation.
ftfy, because Russia is pretty notorious for killing off ex-pats
Thats the wrong question. The better question is: How much harm has the apparatus done to our freedoms and economy? Europe will no longer trust its data in our hands, and much of the world becomes more adversarial. Is nothing sacred anymore? I shutter to think of the day our thoughts can be digitized, stored, analyzed, and archived.
As for the "intelligence apparatus" and its usefulness... Please. To do what? Protect human life? Congress could save more human beings THIS WEEK in the US by banning tobacco and classifying nicotine a narcotic.
Deaths due to terrorism since 1995 in the US: 3,264 (source)
Deaths due to second hand smoke this week: 9,100 or 1,300 deaths every day (source)
I should mention that although smoking kills 10,000 people a week, I don't support banning it, since that would require taking away our liberties and freedoms. But so does government surveillance, and I would ban that. Its too expensive, doesn't protect all that much life, and tramples on our ideology.
Snowden released documents about the activities of the NSA under President Obama. I seriously doubt the President was happy about that.
He doesn't even need a job. He'll make enough from book deals, tv appearances, guest editorials, and the rubber chicken circuit.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The ubiquitous spying was known long before snowden.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
And the only one with a realistic chance of granting a pardon was cheated by the DNC, On this topic, Clinton is 100% indistinguishable from a republican.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
And I assume you are also wanting the agents who work for the NSA to be brought to justice for their illegal activity? If Edward Snowden is to be charged as a traitor then other individuals currently working for the NSA also need to be charged with treason, their broad net spying means they have been spying on the Government, on Political candidates which also amounts to treason are they also going to be brought to justice?
Oh really?
No. They were bringing war-time technology home to bear on the American people. This is essentially a watered down version of posse comitatus. Sure, they're not firing machine guns and nukes at us but they're using an all manner of high-tech spy gear. Ultimately if the government wants to hang your ass from the rafters they don't need much. We're all guilty of something.
Remember the government are conducting a data swap-meet with foreign governments right now. That's an end-run around the law. They can't always spy on us but other governments are happy to step in and break the law on their behalf. Our government also seems way too willing to buy these ill-gotten spicy details. Meanwhile if I buy a counterfeit Rolex off the back of a lorry it's ME that's in trouble. See how that works?
The whole point is moot. It is never going to happen. Let's say for a minute that it does, and Mr Snowden is allowed to return to the US for a "fair" trial (if he wants). Is there anyone here that actually believes he wouldn't have a fatal car "accident" on his way to the courthouse?
Your CDC link talks about deaths caused by smoking, NOT second-hand smoke.
Everyone knows (has known for ~40 years now) that smoking kills at a tremendous rate, the dangers of second-hand smoke are much less clear cut. The CDC's best (most alarming) guess at the effect is 2.5 million people since 1964. That's a little under 1000 a week.
And even that figure is derived by assuming that every single death of a nonsmoker caused by smoking-related diseases is directly caused by secondhand smoke (i.e. the natural incidence of lung cancer, etc., in the population would be zero if not for smoking), which is an extremely suspect assumption.
From the site:
Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including nearly 42,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure . This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.
No he should not be shot but he is a traitor.
It comes down to this. President Obama should be in jail or Snowden. Which is it?
Frankly no contractor or military personal has the right to decide that they know what is better for the nation the elected government.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yes. And it's unbelievable that this year they chose Trump and Clinton. Are they taunting us???
Can you imagine him still alive in China, Russia, etc... if he had been a member of their security apparatus and sold their secrets to another nation.
"Sold" is obviously the wrong word here.
But to answer your question: If he had been a member of Russia's security apparatus, and he had blown the whistle, and he had escaped to the United States, then whether or not he was still alive would largely depend on how famous he was. Solzhenitsyn managed to die of old age.
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No, you and everyone like you are traitors to the United States and should be executed. Edward Snowden is a patriot and hero.
So were our founding fathers of this country...
There is no need to pardon anyone that has not been charged with anything.
He has been charged with one count of theft of government property, and two counts of violating the Espionage Act.
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He committed Treason.
Actually, it's the intelligence agencies that committed Treason. They obeyed the wishes of America's enemies in their goal to strip all Americans of their Constitutional rights, in order to weaken American and make it more vulnerable.
Snowden was a whistleblower. By definition, all whistleblowers of the government's security apparatus are lawbreakers. If you want nobody to break the law, then you must therefore disallow all such whistleblowers.
I prefer to live in a world where whistleblowers are allowed, even if it results in some lawbreaking. I have no problem with some kinds of lawbreaking. For example, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for his crimes, so I believe some criminals have the potential to be great and good people.
At tremendous personal risk to himself, Snowden needed to engage in criminal actions in order to expose the Treason of the government's security apparatus. In the process of uncovering the Treason, there was some collateral damage, due to the exposure of some sensitive intelligence. To call that collateral damage "Treason" is to willfully ignore the true perpetrators of the Treason: the rogue intelligence officials whose crimes are of a much more massive scale, and whose victims number in the hundreds of millions.
We already know Obama wants Snoden in jail. The NSA works for him directly, he could end all the "Issues" by simply ordering them stopped. If he approves of what is happening (he chooses to allow it to continue=approval) then he must oppose those who work to end those practices.
Deaths due to second hand smoke this week: 9,100 or 1,300 deaths every day (source)
That's the deaths from all smoking. According to your link the annual U.S. deaths from second-hand smoke totals 42,000, which is 115 per day.
More interesting is the comparison, that for every 10 deaths of smokers there is 1 death by second-hand smoke. That's higher than I would have thought.
You are right! My math skills must be slipping. I stand corrected. It doesn't invalidate my point though.
All persons who committed an offence against the United States, whether adjudicated or not, with a full removal of their sentences. This would save the government the cost of incarceration for years,cut down the federal caseload and leave the problem for others.
What are they going to do? Stop it?
"The Constitutional freedoms of the US have never been under more attack" -- man, they need to teach history better in the schools. Constitutional freedoms have always been under attack -- consider the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus, the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918, the House Un-American Activities Committee (1938 to 1975), the FBI under Hoover. And that's not even considering that for most of the USA's existence constitutional freedoms were regularly denied to persons of the wrong race. Things are no worse than before, and better for a lot of Americans. It's just that everyone now thinks they are special. The civil libertarians have always had work to do, and always will.
Usually the former President doesn't fly out until the new President is inaugurated, so anything the former President signs at that point is just a wish, not a pardon.
Also, it's not called Marine One unless the President is on board, so maybe you're envisioning him flying out before the new President is inaugurated. Now, if the new President is Trump I could imagine that happening!
Slim and none.
You, like snowden, are a naive fool. Russia is just as much a democracy as north korea. The elections are shams, and putin is a plutocrat, not a democratically elected leader. China is more complex, but candidates must be approved by the party, so it's hardly a representative democracy.
And you are ignoring the much larger numbers of people killed by the US intelligence apparatus outside the country.
Including thousands of Americans killed in Iraq because of those Weapons of Mass Destruction "found" by the intelligence apparatus. (And not a few locals.)
Whatever China and Russia are, neither is a dictatorship. That is an ignorant characterization.
Sure, China has a shadow government in the form of the Communist Party, which controls the selection of those who stand for election Congress. Big deal. The USA has a shadow government in the form of the Demopublican establishment, with a death grip on the selection of those who stand for election to Congress and for President.
China is in essence a one-party communist dictatorship.* If you debate that the ignorance is yours no matter how interesting you find the apparatus.
The Communist Party isn't just a "shadow government," it is a pervasive ruling party whose edicts are backed up by the secret police. And note that it is the Communist Party that controls the military, not the government.
It appears that in Russia the rules will be adjusted to let Putin rule as long as he cares to.
*Spare me the "patriotic front" argument.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Aw what a load of crap
The "intelligence apparatus" was put together during and after WW2 (a conflict which cost about 60 million lives) as a means to prevent WW3, that had a projected cost of hundreds of millions of lives. They were facing really high risks and were determined to create electronic eavesdropping capabilities that would help reduce them. The Supreme Court was supportive via Smith v Maryland, which allowed for tracking calls without a warrant, and predated most of the capabilities that came to light from snowden.
It was not created to chase a few "terrists" around the desert, even if squashing them became the cause celebre after the failures to identify and stop the 9-11 crew, and the infringements on our privacy (yeah, privacy demands from people addicted to facebook postings, what a load) should be weighed against the threat of a WW2 or larger conflict which the system was designed to stop.
As far as your rightfully high nicotine deaths, they are borne largely at end-off life and represent more of an acceleration of the aging process than anything, while the conflicts which electronic eavesdropping was designed to stop would involve the deaths of a majority of young adults, who get to run into gunfire at our behest.
So, I am glad that you enjoy your freedoms, I do as well, but you seem to have little understanding of how they have managed to survive, or what work people have put into preserving them... both from the standpoints of the ACLU and NSA
selling out for notoriety is "Sold" all the same, although greenwald has really come out far ahead on this one.
And... ask yourself why everybody knows how toxic polonium and ricin are (big hint: that is how the highest profile Russian ex-pats have died, although numerically more get it from defenestration or just shot)
until there is popular American will to do so (maybe never).
Are you suggesting that Richard Nixon was tried and convicted? Or that Gerald Ford did *not* pardon him?
Ford pardoned Nixon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67c-I-yt7s0
Perhaps if Trump wins the presidency, Obama will use his last day in office to pardon Snowden -- simply to create a vocal domestic critic of spying during Trump's presidency in the hope of weakening his domestic spying powers. Not probable, but possible. If Clinton wins, it seems very unlikely he'd unleash a critic on her on his way out the door unless there's more animosity between them than is apparent. If Johnson or Stein wins, of course, then Obama doesn't need to do it because they will.
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Snowden above all others showed without question that Barak Hussein Obama is a lair.
Like Nixon, Obama treasures loyalty to him above anything else.
So, dead as a door nail.
If his actions crossed the line and makes him a traitor, then I can only presume you must believe that everyone at the NSA is even worse than a traitor for their actions. So, given that the NSA and all its members are still on US soil, were's the call for them to be arrested and charged with treason? Or, you know, we could just push them all on a boat 201 nautical miles off the US (in international waters) and nuke them. I mean, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
"How much harm has the apparatus done to our freedoms and economy? Europe will no longer trust its data in our hands,"
With all due respect, please don't confuse harm with education. Welcome to the second grade Europe.
The ironic part is: immediately after the leak, you could ask any "tech" person, and we'd all say the exact same thing: "I knew that. I thought everyone knew that."
IMO if Snowden had wanted to be a whistle-blower, he could have just said "hey news media, remember those stories from a few years ago?"
"It was not created to chase a few "terrists" around the desert, even if squashing them became the cause celebre after the failures to identify and stop the 9-11 crew, and the infringements on our privacy (yeah, privacy demands from people addicted to facebook postings, what a load) should be weighed against the threat of a WW2 or larger conflict which the system was designed to stop."
Sure, just as soon as there is some kind of reason to believe it has in any way done anything even remotely like stop WWIII. Or the deaths of anyone. Nothing that has been declassified since WWII has done so. The intelligence community is almost certainly directly responsible for emnities behind 9/11 and many many more deaths, the number domestically are dwarfed by the numbers abroad, even if you count everyone who has died as a consequence of introducing crack cocaine into domestic poor neighborhoods to create a market that could be used to fund slush funds and black arms trade, with no indication it has saved lives it didn't imperil in the first place.
Known but not to the general public and not proven. Not that it did much good. The congressional reform just gave congressional blessing to most of this illegal activity, I say illegal because congress lacks the Federal government lacks the constitutional authority to legalize these behaviors.
How can the line be truly known, when 'foreign' and 'domestic' activities are subject to such gaping loopholes as allowed by the Five-Eyes arrangement? Those trans-national backdoor deals were *explicitly* designed to confuse and obfuscate what constitutes foreign vs. domestic surveillance.
I don't recall being asked on a ballot whether I wanted any of the above-mentioned ass-fuckery to be performed on my behalf.
He committed treason against the united states government in order to reveal treason against the people of the united states, a yet higher authority. Breaking the law in order to prevent a greater miscarriage of justice is an affirmative defense and a valid argument under the law.
Punishing this man would send a message discouraging other whistle blowers from doing what he did. That would be a very terrible thing.
I said they have never been more under attack, but I wasn't trying to imply they haven't always been under attack (I just think it is accelerating). I agree with everything you said!!
Attacks on gun rights? What attacks on gun rights have there been?
One more, "trials that take years to start which are certainly not 'speedy'." IANAL but if your case takes over 60 days to start the judge will let you off. That is, unless the Republicans have stopped the President from appointing judges in your district. Then it can be extended to up to a year.
If you are talking about civil cases, the constitution doesn't mention them. No guarentee there.
The USA has a shadow government in the form of the Demopublican establishment, with a death grip on the selection of those who stand for election to Congress and for President.
Trump is anything but the Republican party elite's nominee of choice.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Say what? Putin kills or impressions people who run against him and have any chance of winning. Only the approved crazies get to run against him.
If you think that the USA is the same as China or Russia in terms of free elections, shadow governments, and levels of oppression and tyranny, I have some polonium-flavored tea brewed by Tibetian monks I'd like you to try...
Surely you jest.
He was calling him a "hacker" in the beginning, either trying to cover it up or just flat out being ignorant about the facts. Either way, it looks bad for Obama to even talk about him ever again.
Nope.
However, his revelations of the NSA's foreign activities crossed the line and makes him a patriot.
FTFY.
a google search turned up nothing.
Probably because we votge for representatives, not issue by issue. Don't like it, what have you done about it? Contributed money to a better candidate? Canvassed for them? Run yourself? Heck, even vote?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
However, his revelations of the NSA's foreign activities crossed the line and makes him a traitor.
Here we go again...
You have it backwards. Snowden's actions make him a patriot. Your inability (or unwillingness) to see this is unfortunate, but does not change the fact in any way.
>his revelations of the NSA's foreign activities crossed the line
What line, how did he cross it? This kind of generalization is weak and does not contribute to the debate. Please explain your reasoning.
How does NSA foreign activities benefit the average US citizen? If there is no benefit, then who has he betrayed?
It is the foreign activities of the NSA that crossed the line, not the fact that Edward Snowden reported them.
The US government can do whatever they wish in the US, as long as the majority of US citizens support it. However, outside US jurisdiction, they have to follow applicable local laws. Snowden's documents clearly show illegal activities on a massive scale. Those responsible should be arrested and extradicted.
Snowden himself isn't begging your pardon, he just wants a fair trial; "fair" in the sense that he can use a "public interest" defense (whistleblower) instead of having it automatically disqualified. This is something Congress could (and should) allow.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sno...
As I see it, Clinton (with her email server) and Snowden are either both innocent or both guilty of disclosures. Maybe Obama could pardon Clinton on his way out, for any non-crimes she may or may not have accidentally committed during her dutiful years.
He's a traitor. He deserves death.
Yes he did us a great service, but then destroyed that by revealing much more, revealing extensive details of many legitimate intelligence collection efforts that did not violate US law but were actually fully within the scope and mission of the NSA.
It's not the phone surveillance program reveal that he is facing charges for. (He might be facing charges for those as well but can claim whistleblower status and most likely win against those charges.) It's all the other secrets he revealed to the world and to his Russian hosts to pay for his asylum.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Check the Fox News site. Didn't you know the government is taken everybody's guns ? No really. Bunch of jackbooted government thugs showed up at my cousin's place in Shitville Idaho and took her guns. No really. It happened. Told her the 2nd ammendment doesn't apply to an S-300 Surface to Air Missile launcher. She said she uses it to go duck hunting but would they listen ?
By this time next week you won't be able to carry an AK-47 gun into Arby's and scare the kids without some government thug showing up cause the 'owner called the police because he thought he was being robbed' and shooting you ... I mean, seriously, that's only supposed to happen to black people ! And on Friday, they'll come collect them from your house. Honest! My niecedaughter told me !
Okay. Getting serious. Just a couple of months ago a man, guilty of no crime, was pulled over in a 'routine traffic stop'. He happened to be black. He had a gun, which he legally owned. He informed the cop that he had a, legal, gun and did absolutely nothing violent - obeying the officer completely. When the officer asked for 'license and registration' he reached for it... and was promptly shot dead. All this was captured on video - we have undeniable proof of what happened. Now you would THINK that the NRA would be up in arms about this. For once there we have an example of an ACTUAL assault on gun rights - when cops shoot you for having a gun you legally own and informed them you had with you. A gun you did not threaten them with, or commit any crime with. This actually WAS an assault on gun rights (that it was yet another black man killed by a cop is another matter). ... crickets. Not a single response from the NRA. No press release. No protest. No rally. No mention on their website. Not so much as a fucking tweet.
And what
The NRA may have gotten a tiny glimmer of sympathy from me - if they were acting against genuine oppression of legitimate gun owners - all of them, that includes black people in traffic stops.
If they wouldn't stand up for him - then nothing they DO stand up for is worth protecting.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The man is a hero and should be praised as such
Spoken like a true coward
Look at ALL the laws on the books at federal, state, county, and municipal levels... EVERYONE is a criminal even if they don;t realize it, that's a huge part of the problem, a legal system out of control...
Elected officials are NOT above the law or the Constitution regardless of what they think.
Snowden is a hero and should be treated as such
Snowden is a traitor. Even if Obama were to "pardon" him for something he's not yet been convicted of....doesn't mean that he'll be able to just come back to the states.
He's a coward.
No. He broke the law. Plain and simple. There are other ways to achieve change rather than compromising so many sensitive and critical programs.
Then you are blind. Every call for more and stricter gun control laws is an attack on gun rights. Every call to confiscate or restrict the classes of weapons we can own is an attack on rights. "Nobody needs an Assault Weapon" is an attack on gun rights, "Common Sense Gun laws" that will do nothing to stop criminals from using guns are an attack on gun rights.
If you saw nothing then you didn't actually look.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Whatever China and Russia are, neither is a dictatorship. That is an ignorant characterization.
The President of China (head of state; mostly a figurehead) is elected by the National People's Congress, which in turn is elected by an interesting hierarchical election system, ultimately by the people. The Premier (leader of the State Council; head of government) is nominated by the President and approved by the Congress.
Nice job as an apologist there. The Chinese presidency is simply an elected dictatorship with backroom deals being cut and alliances forged to reach that position. In no way at all do the common people have any say at all in this process. At best they get to vote in elections where those running have no opposition. The NPC folks are all carefully chosen and it's not like some office worker in Zhuhai, for example, can one day hope to move up through the system to join the NPC. One of the major problems as I see it is that the upper levels of the CCP have children who inherited their position from their fathers and they didn't do anything to earn it except be born into the right family. President Xi himself is an example of such. When you just give out leadership positions to the children of people who held those jobs before, you won't necessarily get the best and brightest.
You initially wrote this.
Deaths due to second hand smoke this week: 9,100 or 1,300 deaths every day
You are attributing 1,300 deaths a day due to second hand smoke which is wrong. CDC only claims 42,000 deaths annually are caused by secondhand smoke which works out to 115 deaths a day due to second hand smoke. You either misunderstood what the CDC provided or are intentionally misrepresenting the CDC's data.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
>on a boat 201 nautical miles off the US (in international waters) and nuke them ...
You would kill every fish, octopus, whale, dolphin, narwhal and crab in a 30 mile radius?
You must really, really hate the beach.
Nah, I say strap 'em to an ICBM and launch it, set to explode in Low Earth Orbit.
With a little luck, the EMP will knock out some of their spysatelites while we're at it, and probably some Chinese ones too. ...may want to make sure you time the launch for when the ISS is on the other side of the planet though...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I'm not following. Sorry. And calling me stupid isn't helping me see your point.
Are there actual changes in gun laws where you live?
If Snowden had just released information regarding domestic spying, I could go along with a pardon. However, when he released how the US spied on other nations, he crossed the line.
Compromising legitimate and legal intelligence collection activities that are the task and mission of the NSA does not make one a Patriot. Only an idiot could make that leap of twisted logic.
I've never understood why criminals should get pardons. Snowden should be tried on the merits of what he did and, if found guilty, the punishment should fit the crime.
Pardon?? They why have security clearances or classified information?
No, a pardon is unimaginable. If there is a pardon, we might as well hang it all up and say there's no point enforcing laws.
FWIW, yes I believe Hillary should also have been tried. The privacy debate is critical. That's no reason to compromise so many classified programs in the process.
Despite the lack of fairness in the system, that's no reason to throw our hands up and cease law enforcement.
Whatever China and Russia are, neither is a dictatorship. ... Russia ... The President is elected by the people.
Lots of dictatorships have elections. Dictators love having elections. They get huge wins every time. What's not to love about that kind of approval from your people?
The USSR and the rest of their block used to have elections too. That didn't make them actual democratic republics, even if they did slap those words on their Nations' names.
Actually the ones overstepping their authority within the government are the traitors. They have spit on the rights of the people they were entrusted to protect. They should be hung for treason. Since they have some control over policy, they have it set up so patriots like Snowden are the criminals. See how that works?
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
But hell no!
Snowden alerted the world to unprecedented civilian surveillance by not only the NSA but also American allies surveillance This Orwellian surveillance of Americans is supposed to be illegal. Smartphones and social media are a god send to intelligence operators. They had full reign of every single smartphone on the planet. Every human carried a microphone, GPS, and camera and everything they sent or received could be intercepted. Talk about the holy grail of intelligence gathering! The insight revealed in the WikiLeaks published by Snowden have led to new security and encryption to be implemented everywhere. On the one hand I don't like the government spying on civilians so I like the idea that tech companies up their game as a result.
At the same time, he revealed this secret surveillance, methods, and abilities to our enemies who are now able to adapt and avoid detection and surveillance. That is a clear example of aiding the enemy and is downright treasonous. I would much prefer not to be under surveillance but the enemy is literally among us within the civilian population and that has not changed, in fact it's greatly increased in the last eight years.
So what to do about Snowden... Well I do not agree he should be pardoned, quite the opposite. He has blown wide open the biggest of classified top secret intelligence documenting just about all of the intelligence communities abilities and methods. It is the biggest leak in history. The damage done is enormous to the safety and security of the US and our allies to defend against enemies foreign and domestic. Even today he is being allowed to video conference and be paid for speaking to various groups as a privacy advocate. The man should be assassinated even in Russia. If he is ever captured he should be just made to disappear. Yes, I mean shoot him in the head and dump him in the sea like Osama Bin Laden. He is a treasonous bastard of epic proportions. He has betrayed everyone with a security clearance. He has betrayed his country. He has put many lives at risk and he has destroyed valuable methods of intelligence by revealing their existence. The damage done is absolutely enormous. If anyone deserves to die for treason it is Snowden.
FYI, I also agree that Hillary Clinton should be charged with high crimes and misdemeanors and imprisoned for no less than 15 years. She should have her security clearance revoked immediately and she should be ineligible to run for the presidency. I also know that Obama's birth certificate is fake, it was released in PDF format and was clearly doctored. I don't believe Hawaii even has a real microfiche copy of his birth certificate on file, I believe they took another one and doctored it and released the PDF but they were stupid enough to not merge the layers first. I believe that Obama was not born in the US but overseas. I believe that he is a Marxist and he has done more damage to the USA than even Snowden's treason. He has cut the military dramatically, reduced our nuclear weapons, alienated our allies, embraced and emboldened our enemies, caused the Arab Spring which has destabilized the entire middle east, pulled troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan which has allowed ISIS to grow, released Guantanamo Bay terrorists who re-took the battlefield, kept the US economy strangled to prevent recovery, enabled riots in the streets and increased racism and hate groups such as the New Black Panthers and BLK, etc. I do not believe he is incompetent I believe this is all intentional. No president has ever done so much damage in history except for perhaps Nero of Rome.
God Help Us All... It's either build a bunker, stockpile weapons and food or ready onesself for the Rapture and Armageddon. We are so close to WWIII it is not funny. China and Russia have been ramping up their militaries at a very rapid pace while we downsize our own. Threats against the USA continue to mount.
No, you have it backwards. Your inability to see this means you have absolutely no idea what you are even talking about. But that does not change the fact in any way that he compromised several fully legitimate and lawful foreign intelligence collection efforts. He is a traitor.
They are the entire purpose, goal and mission of the NSA. They benefit the average US Citizen by developing the intelligence our diplomatic and military agencies need to conduct international affairs and military operations needed to protect the US and Our Economic interests.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
President Obama will never pardon Snowden for his real crime: Embarrassing his administration by actually delivering the kind of change he promised to be. Agree or disagree with Snowden, there was no upside for HIM to do what he did. Snowden did what he did in service to the American people. If politicians ACTUALLY served the _people_, Congress wouldn't enjoy an approval rating lower than the King of England's at the time of the American Revolution. If there is anything that Edward Snowden has reminded us, its that the rights we enjoy are not free but rather purchased through the sacrifices of others. I'm not saying he's worthy of a tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery, but he's certainly sacrificed a lot more than most of our elected officials who wage multiple wars in our name with little to no fear of THEIR KIDS ever being placed in harm's way.
Punishing this man would send a message discouraging other whistle blowers from doing what he did.
That is the whole point. Make an example out of Snowden so that no one dares even think about exposing the governments wrongdoing.
There are a lot of people who believe this line of reasoning and a number of them are in the military or people like my mother. It was interesting last year on 9/11 when I mentioned that the terrorists had won as we were well on our way to accomplishing everything Osama wanted with the exception of leaving the Middle East. My mother blew a gasket that I would ever question our government's actions to keep us safe even if it did cost us our rights. My cousin who was still a week end warrior (one weekend a month 2 weeks a year) was insistent that our actions in the middle east have made it a better place even though he was 8 years old when 9/11 happened. Both of them take the approach of at least we are trying so it must be good without even considering that doing nothing may have been a better option.
Time to offend someone
I should mention that although smoking kills 10,000 people a week, I don't support banning it, since that would require taking away our liberties and freedoms.
That's totally alright, but the government could very well ban smoking on any public land, including while driving.
Where I live no because I live in a state that respects the 2nd Amendment. But in states on both coasts gun rights are being restricted. CA just banned a very broad range of weapons turning thousands of law abiding citizens into felons. NY has done the same as has CT and MASS. The Democratic candidate for President has called for more gun control laws, banning certain weapons (based on cosmetic features) and even banning and confiscating of guns like Australia did in 1996.
And you are going to claim that there is no attack on gun rights? Yes you are either blind or stupid.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
I'm not following. Sorry. And calling me stupid isn't helping me see your point.
Are there actual changes in gun laws where you live?
There are many many restrictive gun laws in a lot of different states which force people to go through hoops and hoops of redundant forms, permits, licenses, background checks, and in person interviews.
Take where I live, Massachusetts, the AG here just issued new guidelines that make it crystal clear that pretty much any gun could be considered an assault rifle, but she won't say which ones. She just threatened anyone violating her secret list with a felony.
Previous AGs have also abused their power by declaring particular guns to not meet Massachusetts safety requirements for consumer sales, like the commonly used Glock pistol (also commonly used by Massachusetts police), without actually saying how they could in fact meet safety guidelines.
Leaving it up to Glock as a corporation to iteratively provide the Massachusetts AG with new guns for destructive testing until the AG arbitrarily deemed them safe for use by the Massachusetts residents. I mean for fuck sake all they needed to do was to tell Glock that the load indicator needed to protrude x number of millimeters. Instead they just said it wasn't "enough" like they just somehow they will know it when they see it...I know BS when I see it.
Then you have another state agency issuing a competing lists of guns that are and are not legal in Massachusetts and at the end it just says see the AG for additional requirements. So you have a list of guns that are legal in Massachusetts that at the end of the list just says it really isn't a list of legal guns because the AG can say whatever the AG wants.
It is regulation for the pretty overt purpose of harassment in order to make it harder and harder and harder to own guns and criminalize trivial acts of non-compliance in pursuit of an ideological agenda to make sure the only people with guns are the police, military and the criminals, not actually common sense gun safety to make it safer for citizens to own guns or to go after violent criminals.
Snowden let journalists see classified documents in order to expose a criminal conspiracy against the American people
^^ This. ^^
I'm not planning on spending any of my hard-earned cash on this movie, so can somebody tell me if it explains his rationale for not taking advantage of any of the LEGAL options that were available to him?
Baloney. Snowden should have gone to Congress.
Because of the classified nature of the revelations it would have had to go to the Intelligence committee... who were the ones complicit in the criminal and unconstitutional activities. The only way to bring it to the attention of the full Congress was to make it public.
If ever there was a case where public sentiment should be honored it is now. Either we are a country that respects liberty and will support a pardon or we are a den of thieves who have stolen Liberty from our children.
Gov. Johnson would certainly pardon Snowden. A vote for either Clinton or Trump is a vote against Liberty.
So you are saying that the USA should become more like China and Russia?
Fuck right off.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Yeah ,,, the "journalists" from the PRC and KGB.
Just ask Gerald Ford!
Or Bill Clinton.
"because his disclosures were NOT evidence of any criminal activity"
Every aspect of NSA/intelligence activity revealed by Snowden was/is illegal. It even prompted congress to quickly pass an act trying to legalize some of it under the false guise of limiting the activity but of course congress along with the rest of the federal government lacks constitutional authority to do or bless the actions being engaged in.
"Loose lips still sink ships, and it's entirely likely that people were killed as a result."
That seems highly suspect since there is plenty of evidence that intelligence have caused deaths, broken the law, and terrorized our own populace there is zero evidence that they've ever saved a life they didn't imperil in the first place. Not a single terrorist act has been shown to have been stopped. It's like that moment when you realize that if Indiana Jones had not been present at all the outcome of Raiders of the Lost Ark would have been the same but less damage getting there since it was the Ark and not Jones that defeated the Nazi's. The same with the Last Crusade, without Jones either the Germans don't find the grail or they do and would have killed themselves in exactly the same way trying to take it.
There is no shortage of attack that you've listed above and frankly I believe his statement still stands.
Actually you are the naive one, you think the US somehow stands apart from Russia, North Korea, and China?
That doesn't sound much different than the United States.
We already know Obama wants Snoden in jail. The NSA works for him directly, he could end all the "Issues" by simply ordering them stopped. If he approves of what is happening (he chooses to allow it to continue=approval) then he must oppose those who work to end those practices.
Maybe he just does not want to end like JFK did.
What I'd like to see is the people Snowden exposed as breaking US laws stand trial.
You might want to read the Nuremberg Principles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_principles#Principle_IV
Also look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Keenan
Military personnel can and have been held liable for unlawful actions taken under orders. They are obliged to disobey manifestly unlawful orders or be held personally responsible. Similar principles would apply to contractors.
The one which springs to mind is the successful ban on "high capacity clips" in response to a school shooting (Sandy Brook?).
There are on-and-off attempts to ban "assault-style rifles" as well, although those rarely gain traction.
There have been discussions (and maybe a successful law?) trying to ban the "gun show loophole" (which would in effect require a person at a gun show to run a background check on the buyer; I have no idea how that would be practical at a temporary venue).
I think some states have reduced conceal-and-carry laws, although I can't cite any specifics so I could be imagining it.
If you want to push it, you could suggest that some recent attacks on stand-your-ground and castle-doctrine are anti-gun as well, although I'll openly admit that this is really stretching it.
Why would you expect the NRA to respond here? It is a one-off, tragic mistake (or "mistake"). Is anybody suggesting that the key fact in the shooting was that the person was a gun owner? I heard it cast more as a racism item (more NAACP/ACLU) than a gun rights one (NRA).
If there was a systemic pattern of targeting gun owners for murder I'm sure the NRA would react. As it stands, a one-off bad situation usually doesn't trigger a response from an activist group.
For example, does the ACLU or EFF respond to every single flame an online troll posts? They are "free speech" groups, are they not? Have they even taken an official stance on trolling?
Which is saying nothing. That's like defending the Nazi's actions by saying that's what they're about. (Yea, Godwin and everything, but honestly it seems pretty clear that the NSA's mission and goals are in conflict with the US Constitution.)
They benefit the average US Citizen by developing the intelligence our diplomatic and military agencies need to conduct international affairs
Like stopping 9/11. Oh, right. Well, what about stopping that Paris attack? Finding Bin Laden? Oh, right, they either don't care or incapable of doing the job, even WITH all their clusterfucking of us.
Congratuations (on the part I bolded). That pretty well sums it up. We, the US, have turned into sycophants of corporatism even when it clearly violates the rights of everyone. We tolerate it because we see it as acceptable to violate our privacy so long as it doesn't otherwise effect our lives or our liberties. The US government, of course, is a benevolent spy. We can trust them*.
So, how's the direct feed of your bathroom cam to the NSA going? For, you know, "developing the intelligence our diplomatic and military agencies need to conduct international affairs and military operations needed to protect the US and Our Economic interests" if ever a foreigner should happen to use your bathroom.
*And honestly, I tend to believe we can generally trust them to violate our privacy for the economic interest of the US. But, golly, that's still a VIOLATION of my right to privacy. If you think my bathroom analogy is hyperbole, well, I don't see why it should be. If you can accept the notion the NSA can and will spy on you, why would you be reluctant to help out? Clearly you don't give a shit about your privacy.
There is a possibility you are overlooking - the activities were constitutional, legal, and authorized. In that case Snowden really screwed everybody.
Let's not forget, this same military/intelligence apparatus created the animosity in the middle east that lead to 9/11 in the first place.
Either you don't know what "traitor" means, or you're lying about what it means.
Which is it?
Because no other possibilities exist, and any attempt to introduce one is absolute proof that it's the second option.
Are "Common Sense Gun laws" inherently bad?
The Constitution has no restrictions against 9 year olds owning, carrying, possessing, or using guns. That said, most "reasonable" people would think they should be restricted from carrying a loaded 6-shooter on their hip when going to class in the 4th grade. Would you consider "stricter gun control laws" of that nature to be "an attack on gun rights"?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Edward Snowden has not been convicted in a U.S. court of law, so how can he be pardoned?
WTB [sig], PST!!!
If electronic documents can be claimed as "government property" then surely government can be legally kept out of a person's electronic devices and documents, then charged with tresspass if they access them anyway.
Is Snowden's layer the transport layer or maybe the network layer? I'm a little confused here.
Mr. President, pardon Edward Snowden! If your "Yes We Can" sloganeering meant anything, now would be a good time to act in accord with it.
Here are the reasons why you should pardon this patriot:
1). Respect. Snowden fought the largest government and security apparatus on the planet to a draw. That alone should make you respect him;
2). He was a whistle blower, who sounded the privacy alarm at great personal cost. Federal legislation includes no protection at all for whistle blowers, and that is your area of responsibility. You need to do something to protect whistle blowers and you haven't done enough. If you cannot protect Snowden then you can't protect anyone;
3). The damage done by Snowden was mainly done to the illegal and unconstitutional spying apparatus. None of the whistle blowing would have been necessary but for the prior illegality. That prior illegality has persisted under your leadership and by your acquiescence. That situation does not speak well to your legacy;
4). Nixon, Liddy, North. Idiots all, yet they received the coveted Presidential Pardon. Snowden is head and shoulders above those idiots, yet you'd withhold from him, Presidential protection? Who exactly decided on this set of priorities? Did We The People vote on giving corrupt individuals free passes, while principled objectors to wrong-doing go without?
5). Snowden has continued to contribute meaningfully, to debates on security, privacy, freedom and human rights. Snowden is no one-act play. Want to set an example, to contrast America against China, Syria, Russia and North Korea? Then set a contrasting example.
Your actions speak more loudly than your words. Mr. President, Pardon Snowden! Be the change you want for the world. Yes You Can!
"Elected officials are NOT above the law or the Constitution regardless of what they think."
So you think that Snowden is above the law? And I guess you are for putting Obama in prison then.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"The man is a traitor and should be shot and would be in many other countries. Can you imagine him still alive in China, Russia, etc?"
I can imagine him still being alive in Russia just fine but I don't have to because he is actually alive in Russia.
The ACLU responds every time someone gets killed expressing their freedom of speech in the US, yes.
Let's be clear, do you support the US Government imposing its will on states?
He will have a trivial time finding employment with people and companies that share his values.
He would not be in his current unique position if there were any. Noone in the U.S. would stick out his neck for the Constitution.
Nope, Snowden exposed the corruption of the government and is a hero.
Obama has had to deal with a congress that has stated they have no interest in doing their jobs and instead outright stated they would do everything they could to block and hurt Obama's presidency. Yet he still beat the republicans for the White House, not just once but TWICE.
Kinda tells you how people view the republican party as it exists these days...
You're getting the causes mixed up a little.
The Bush administration was not interested in gathering facts and then deciding what to do about Iraq. It was interested in going to war with Iraq and finding facts that supported the decision. The intelligence services did not cause the war.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Most seriously, near the end of the Reagan administration, in which buying a new infantry rifle was made illegal. I'm not actually pro-gun, but I do get sensitive about Constitutional rights, and I'd like to see that law found unconstitutional.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
In the US, there are two parties that differ significantly from each other, and both frequently win elections. (The Republicans seem intent on self-destruction, but if they succeed there will be another party for what most of the rest of the developed world considers far right.) Presidents are limited to a maximum of ten years in office, which normally translates to two terms, and they all hand over power on schedule. There is no expectation of a ruling family. The US has a court system that has frequently shown its independence.
The US, while far from perfect, is also far from being Russia, China, or North Korea.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It's impossible for Snowden to have committed treason since the agencies that he exposed were in fact conducting illegal and treasonous acts against the very people of the United States of America. Edward Snowden is a hero and a patriot. There is simply no truer description of the man.
People like you and everyone who works for the NSA, FBI, CIA and TSA need to be tried for treason and promptly shot.
False dichotomy but nice try, troll.
If I had it my way, every traitor and hate-monger like you would be hung until dead.
In many ways both Russia and China are freer than the United States. The US is far from the most free country in the world and in fact has a ton of restrictions that most uncultured and untravelled Americans *can't* see because they are heavily indoctrinated.
That's true. But still the intelligence services served the corrupt administration, and not the nation. They were a willing tool of evil.
The point is that "massive harm to the US intelligence apparatus" is not harm to the USA. The NSA needs drastic reform.
Unfortunately the "harm" to the NSA etc has been minimal. More like mild embarrassment. Noone has gone to jail.
The CIA director commits perjury to congress and nothing happens. Business as usual.
good thing you are a coward so we can ignore you.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Umm... Obama is doing all the things that you feel are illegal that Snowden leaked... And is out to put him in jail.
You can not say that Snowden did the right thing by breaking the law and reporting things you feel are illegal while President Obama is doing those illegal things.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"In the US, there are two parties that differ significantly from each other, and both frequently win elections."
The US has one party with two flavors of spin designed to carefully divide the population in order to keep them from uniting and looking too closely while they strip the Constitution and the people of power. It can be argued the Constitution was never really more than something to rally people behind and ignore when inconvenient. The president hands over all power every 10 years to prevent the president from having much power. The people who are actually in charge aren't politicians at all, the nation is run by the wealthy elite and the unelected military/intelligence complex which does not give up power.
If you take a look at the two parties, they differ on a lot of issues, including health care, abortion, equal rights for people with nonstandard sexuality, social programs, and the role of government in the US. They agree on many issues, including some I disagree with, but that's how it's going to be with the two-party system our election processes implicitly mandate. The court system (and the Federal courts in particular are pretty independent) pays attention to the Constitution, although as before I don't agree with all their rulings.
The US is a reasonably functional democracy, far from perfect, but far from being a dictatorship.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
From what I've seen, the intelligence services are tools that the Bush administration misused to justify invading Iraq. They were pressed to come up with results Cheney liked, and Cheney misused what he got from them. Just because something can be misused doesn't mean it's corrupt or can't be useful.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"If you take a look at the two parties, they differ on a lot of issues, including health care, abortion, equal rights for people with nonstandard sexuality, social programs, and the role of government in the US. They agree on many issues, including some I disagree with, but that's how it's going to be with the two-party system our election processes implicitly mandate."
You seem to have this odd idea that what they say to you to get elected and/or divide you is what they care about/stand for/etc. Stating two positions and pretending to be competitors means the things they want can pass while the things they don't but said they did can fail and be blamed on "the other guy" who is really just part of the same team.
Look at the illegal NSA domestic wiretapping. Whose interest did it serve for some to pretend outrage, some to claim support, then pass a bill to "reform" that actually just gave congressional blessing to unconstitutional and illegal actions? Whatever congress had the authority to legalize was legalized by the bill and the bill has language legalizing all sorts of things congress doesn't have the authority to legalize. Somehow both parties were on board with "reforming" by blessing in reality and lying to the public indicating they were putting a stop to the illegal activity on the other?