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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."
Snowden embarrassed the Obama administration. As much as I think he should be pardoned and let back onto US soil, Obama won't do it. Trump certainly won't either.
Lets live in reality people.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
The guy deserves an apology.
And the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He, not Obama's second in command whose medal is about as warranted as Obama's Nobel Prize.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The guy deserves an apology.
And the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Yes, but note that Obama said, "... for the last time in my term as President ...", when honoring Joe Biden for a lifetime of public service.
I'd be happy with just a pardon for Snowden, as he deserves it, and that would allow him freedom to travel home. Withholding a pardon only prevents him from returning to the country whose citizens he was trying to protect, and forces him to remain living in a "non-ally" foreign nation.
A pardon is the only logical resolution––a lifetime of exile could alter the allegiance of any human.
I signed the petition. An agency of my government was breaking the public trust, lying to legislators, and breaking the law. It was Mr. Snowden's duty to report this, and it is a travesty to take away his life for defending his country against itself.
It wasn't his duty, as he was a contractor. Contractors do not swear the Oath of Service to the US Government, although all of its direct employees are required to. That difference means that he is not shielded by whistle-blower laws.
But the numerous Federal employees in the know – I agree – had a duty to report on the illegal activities, but chose not to. None of them are in exile, nor hanging from the end of a rope, nor even had a finger shaken at them. Instead, they have been protected by their organization. Not a good precedent, but look at history and you'll see that it rhymes.
RICHARD NIXON WAS EMPEACH
Nixon was not impeached. The House voted to began impeachment proceedings. Nixon resigned and was pardoned before they happened.
"His name was James Damore."
It was his duty as a citizen.
Sometimes my country sucks.
The problem with Snowden is that Snowden released at least two very different types of data: 1. Data that shows potentially or actually illegal domestic actions. 2. Data that shows operational details on entirely legal foreign operations. There is a good case to be made about the former, but there is absolutely no legal or moral basis for a pardon on the latter. What Snowden did was not stop at reporting likely law-breaking, but essentially depantsed the NSA WRT its operational capabilities and techniques. That would be like waving a case like some village massacre in one hand and then holding a binder in the other hand that happens to contain the operational status of every military unit in theater, along with personnel names, the whole shebang that would allow an enemy to greatly step up their game. No, for the 2nd point Snowden really has to go to prison if he comes back, and he knows it.
Trump's secretary of education isn't anti-school, she might be a poor choice as her attempts to improve schooling have done the opposite, but she isn't trying to make the schools worse.
As for an anti-vaxxer running a vaccine study, if you want to prove something works, get someone honest who believes it doesn't to study it. I have no idea if RFK will be honest about the results, but having someone who is against vaccines study it is more likely to be convincing if he is.
Throughout the entire Obama presidency, the administration has been absolutely paranoid about leaks and has cracked down on whistleblowers like no other administration in history.
Over the past few months, all this "Russian hacking" stuff has been dominating the mainstream media. In story after story, especially from sites like WaPo, reporters are always quoting "anonymous sources in government" or unnamed "intelligence officials" as their sources. These "sources" have obviously leaked numerous details of classified intelligence reports to the media, yet the Obama administration exhibits absolutely no concern whatsoever about these particular leaks.
If Snowden is a criminal for leaking classified information to the media, why isn't there a full scale government investigation to identify the people who are leaking this classified "Russian hacking" stuff to the media? Do we have any laws left which are enforced in a fair & uniform manner? A government which makes it a practice of enforcing laws arbitrarily is an illegitimate government.
but having someone who is against vaccines study it is more likely to be convincing if he is.
Nice theory.
The reality is that most people don't have brains that work like that.
The cognitive load required to abandon years of passionately held conspiracy theory is really high. It is so much easier to decide that the person was compromised by bribes, threats or even stupidity - that sort of rationalization is ideally suited to the logic of conspiracy that fuels the belief in the first place.
Its what happened when physics professor, MacArthur genius-grant fellow and high-profile climate change denier Richard Muller spent a year trying to disprove the existence of global warming and instead ended up proving its existence. As a result nobody changed their minds about climate change, they changed their minds about Dr Muller.
I can tell you why... Because the USA has been meddling in internal affairs of other countries for decades if not centuries. This did include toppling elected governments (Check what happened in Chile in 1973 or in Iran in 1953 for example). So a lot of people will see this 'controversy' as the USA getting a taste of their own medicine.
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"
There is NOTHING in the Constitution that says anything resembling this. And the most famous pardon in recent history - Nixon - contained none of these elements. Nixon was never convicted of anything, never admitted to anything, was never sentenced, nor was there any so-called "significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence."
And the government wonders why there's a fake news problem? They should look in the mirror - they're the source of a lot of it.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Obama has always been a part of the problem, not part of the solution. There's no way he's going to pardon anyone who attempted to undermine the system that keeps him rich.