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Petition With Over 1 Million Signatures Urges President Obama To Pardon Snowden (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: More than 1 million people signed onto a petition asking President Barack Obama to pardon Edward Snowden, proponents of the pardon said Friday. The campaign began in September, when Snowden, his attorney Ben Wizner from the ACLU, and other privacy activists announced they would formally petition Obama for a pardon. Snowden leaked classified NSA documents detailing surveillance programs run by the U.S. and its allies to journalists in 2013, kicking off a heated debate on whether Americans should be willing to sacrifice internet privacy to help the government protect the country from terrorist attacks. Obama and White House representatives have said repeatedly that Snowden must face the charges against him and that he'll be afforded a fair trial. In the U.S., a pardon is "an expression of the president's forgiveness and ordinarily is granted in recognition of the applicant's acceptance of responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence," according to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. It does not signify innocence. Also on Friday, David Kaye urged Obama to consider a pardon for Snowden. Kaye, the special rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the freedom of expression, said U.S. law doesn't allow Snowden to argue that his disclosures were made for the benefit of the public. The jury would merely be asked to decide whether Snowden stole government secrets and distributed them -- something Snowden himself concedes he did. In response to the petition, Edward Snowden tweeted: "Whether or not this President ends the war on whistleblowers, you've sent a message to history: I feared no one would care. I was wrong."
Obama already ignored it when he just enacted new data sharing rules with the NSA and the "16" other agencies, extending the problem even more.
[...] with a million signatures, he can't exactly ignore it [...]
From the "delivery letter", the first sentence (emphasis mine): "Dear President Obama, We are hereby delivering signatures from 1,101,252 people across the world who ask that you use your presidential authority to pardon Edward Snowden."
Not only they are just 1 million people (when the population of USA is 300 times more) but -some/all?- they are not even USA citizens (i, a Greek, could had signed it - or even Osama Bin Laden...)!
Petition wasn't representative of the will of the majority.
They didn't ignore it, it was debated in Parliament on the 5th of September 2016, and a response was issued - the petition, set up before the referendum by a pro-Brexit campaigner, was used post-referendum by anti-Brexit campaigners to try and retroactively change the rules of the referendum, throwing the result out. Which you can't do.
The demands of the petition might not have been carried out, but it was NOT ignored.
Why would you repeat such an obvious untruth? Given that this subject comes up every time any such story is published, I have a hard time believing that you have never been exposed to it before. Nevertheless it apparently needs to be explained, you can be pardoned at any time at the President's discretion, whether or not you have been convicted. Those of us who are old enough will remember when this happened to Richard Nixon.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
That's exactly how it DOES work in many EU states, especially when the ruling class doesn't like the outcome of a referendum: for example the referenda in Ireland about the EU "constitution" was done over to get an other outcome, and the outcomes of referenda in The Netherlands about the same and about the treaty with the Ukraine were more or less ignored.
Sure he can!
It's a busy time right now! Right? RIGHT?
And even so, it's simple enough to say "No.", couched in suitably political terms.
You know what I'm talking about.
At this time *EVIL RUSSIA! EVIL RUSSIA!* we don't have enough information *EVIL RUSSIA! EVIL RUSSIA!* on the situation to make us comfortable pardoning him for stealing secrets and giving them to EVIL RUSSIA!
Basically, what would have happened to him, had he come home is he would have become Bradley/Chelsea Manning Mark 2.
He'd have been dumped in a prison. Rotted for a while. Then announced that he'd decided to cut his dick off and live as a woman. Turning him into a complete laughingstock meme and totally detracting from what actually happened.
I think Snowden likes his cock and balls right where they are...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
> Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.
Strange, so the US forgot how the systems work too for some time, it seems.
So, yes, Obama can pardon Snowden.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Psh. A pre-emptive pardon can still be issued. A century and a half ago, SCotUS explicitly determined that except for cases of impeachment, presidential pardon power "extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment". Where do people get the notion that such a pardon can only be issued after a trial?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is more likely a response to Russia's actions during the election.
So, NOW Obama reacts to Russian hacking?
What about when the Russians hacked the White House itself? Obama did nothing.
What about when China hacked the entire OPM database of cleared government workers? Obama did nothing.
What about when Russia had penetrated the entire State Department network? Obama did nothing. (So given Obama's fecklessness, Hillary actually did have a reason to run a separate email system - but she didn't run it securely and it was probably hacked by everyone: Hillary Clinton’s Email Was Probably Hacked, Experts Say)
Obama did nothing until Democrats needed an excuse for Hillary's loss.
Having Kennedy run a study on the autism-vaccine link is like having Daniel Shenton (president of the flat earth society) run a study on weather or not the earth is a spheroid, or Bill Kaysing (if he were still alive) running an investigation into whether the moon landings in the 60s and 70s were a hoax.
Having ANYONE run a meta-study on what is , essentially, established science to try and find proof that it is not - and damaging national and world health in the process - is not just irresponsible but downright dangerous.
Oh, and DeVos basically wants to defund public schools by shifting as many dollars as possible to vouchers for people to use at privately-run schools, with essentially no oversight. Whether she intends to make public schools worse or not is somewhat irrelevant when her goal is to eliminate their source of funding.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
No, someone doesn't need to be convicted to be pardoned. President Nixon was never convicted (or even impeached) and he received a pardon from President Ford over the Watergate charges after he resigned.
There is an implicit admission of guilt in accepting a pardon. But my understanding is that you really have no choice in the matter as once a pardon is issued, it is valid from the perspective of the government whether you accept it or not (they will no longer attempt to prosecute or detain/punish you for the crimes you were pardoned over).