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President Obama Says He Can't Pardon Snowden (arstechnica.com)
Joe Mullin, writing for Ars Technica:A campaign to pardon NSA leaker Edward Snowden, launched in combination with a fawning Oliver Stone film about him, hasn't made any headway. The request spurred the entire membership of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, 13 Republicans and nine Democrats, to send a letter to President Barack Obama urging against a pardon. "He is a criminal," they stated flatly. Obama weighed in on the matter on Friday. During his European tour, he was interviewed by Der Spiegel -- the largest newspaper in Germany, a country where Snowden is particularly popular. After discussing a wide range of issues, he was asked: Are you going to pardon Edward Snowden? Obama replied: "I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves, so that's not something that I would comment on at this point." He continued: I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system. At the point at which Mr. Snowden wants to present himself before the legal authorities and make his arguments or have his lawyers make his arguments, then I think those issues come into play. Until that time, what I've tried to suggest -- both to the American people, but also to the world -- is that we do have to balance this issue of privacy and security.
I am thinking in this case Obama is getting a twofer : that is to say, he not only gets to not pardon Snowden (who has embarrassed Obama) but also gets to signal to Hillary that she is not getting.a pardon either without explicitly saying so, without making it look like there is strife within the Democratic Party.
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Putin, as part of his promise to Donald Trump that he will not interfere in the internal affairs of the United States, will deport Snowden to the US within a year of Trump taking office.
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That's just one part of the lie. The other is "At the point at which Mr. Snowden wants to present himself before the legal authorities and make his arguments or have his lawyers make his arguments, then I think those issues come into play."
Obama fucking well knows that Snowden has been accused under the Espionage Act which does not allow him to defend his acts, only to deny them. Which would be absurd in Snowden's case. It will be an open-and-shut verdict of "guilty, full penalty" without Snowden legally being permitted to open his mouth.
I recommend you read up on the Ellsberg trial: Ellsberg was under the same accusation and the judge just shut the lawyer up when he tried to justify Ellsberg's acts. The transcript is sobering. The only reason Ellsberg did not receive a decade-long prison sentence is because the prosecution burglared into his doctor's offices, threatened people, installed eavesdropping devices for use when he was convening with his attorney, and ultimately the judge stated that he was unable to deliver anything amounting to justice under such circumstances and threw the whole case out of court.
But without that prosecutional misconduct at unprecedented levels, Ellsberg would have been fucked to hell and back.
And that's exactly what is in store for Snowden. The Espionage Act is not a tool for delivering justice but revenge. And Obama knows this as well as he knows that Ford pardoned Nixon and the Supreme Court gave his "all-ok" on it.
Fuck, Obama pardoned three people this year already that have not been formally accused.
He is just relying on being gone before the journalists have stocked up on the facts.
Goddamn coward. This is a prime example of the anemia of the left right here. Obama used to stand against the abuses of the Patriot Act and mass surveillance and then you sold out completely--and some of that is due to the dirty realities in the world, yes I get that maybe closing Guantanamo wasn't going to be as simple as all that, but here he is in the closing weeks of your presidency and he can't even make a token effort to support the ideals he once claimed to hold. The perjurer Clapper walked free and will even keep his job right through the very end.
And why are you doing it, Mr. President? Because your entire plan is to play meek and non-controversial, try to not rock the boat and give the Republicans more and more rope from which to hang themselves. That's been your strategy the whole time, and it's backfired almost every step of the way. Admittedly, you have slightly better chances hoping a Trump presidency with Republicans controlling senate and house, but... goddamn it man. If you wanted to have a nuanced view on the matter, you could have at least had Clapper arrested. Or fired.
You just don't get it, do you? It's not OK to unilaterally decide to release top-secret information to the public. End of story.
This is the same CNN site that declared math is racist
...fake news.
"His name was James Damore."
You just don't get it, do you? It's not OK to unilaterally decide to release top-secret information to the public. End of story.
Except (to my knowledge) Manning released zero top secret material. Whatever his/her motivations were, she effectively demonstrated that low level classifications are mainly used to prevent domestic and international outrage, not to counter legitimate security threats.
I happen to think that diplomacy will, in the long run, improve for the better if the ability of diplomats to lie and conceal is significantly disrupted. You are free to disagree, but lying about nature of the material released does not particularly help your cause.
Obama does not care about Snowen. By this time, Obama has probably bought the *IA's line that Snowden is the anti-christ, that should be shot on sight. Under normal circumstances, he would just say that he will not pardon Snowden because Snowden is bad.
Also, Obama has competent legal help, as well as being a lawyer himself. He knows he can pardon Snowden if he wants to. But the situation visa-vie Snowden allows Obama to state a principle that disallows a pardon for Hilary, without referring to Hilary or even admitting that he knows it might apply to Hilary.
This is a very elegant way to throw Hilary under the bus, without even mentioning she might exist. He can say to Hilary supporters when the question inevitably comes up "I must apply my principles without fear of favor."
Whatever you think about Obama you have to admit that he is a very smart fellow.