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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."
The Obama administration has gone after more whistle blowers than all previous administrations, combined.
The chance of him pardoning the most famous one....? Z E R O
"His name was James Damore."
I also wonder if the Russian government would let Snowden leave their country so easily, given the remote possibility that some other country wants to give him asylum without the danger or extradition.
Odds are that Snowden had at least some contact with Russian intelligence agencies and also had the chance to learn a couple of things about them. And here I doubt that they'll make the same mistake US agencies did.
"Letting traitors go free" won't play well to the "tough on crime" Republican crowd.
I didn't think protectionism and cozying up to Russia would play well with Republicans either.
Also I wonder if Putin will rescind Snowden's amnesty. Putin only did it to embarrass Obama. But for his new pal Trump he might very well hand him over. "As a sign of improving relations between our two nations, we are returning this criminal to you that you may serve justice." Snowden needs that pardon, PDQ.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Those of us with memories also know that Hillary as secretary of state took credit for parts of the Arab Spring and was trying to take credit for the Libya uprising until it went south. This was so prominent at her time in the State Department that Putin even accused her of interfering in Russian affairs and organizing protests after a parliament election.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12...
If Russia was involved in the US election, it was likely retaliation for that. People who remember that don't worry that their involvement was to help trump but assume it was little more than to defeat Clinton who has been accused or similar crap.