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Pardon Snowden

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Re: Pardon Snowden

#281

Post by mbreese »

megalodon wrote: post #176
captainmuon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, yes you are right. However, there is only so much hedging and differentiation I can put into a post without turning it into an essay. What I wanted to say is "realsocialist" a la former Soviet Union or East Germany. I think part of the confusion is that I live in Germany, where socialist always means that kind of one-party authoritarian system. By this definition, e.g. Bernie Sanders would be a (left-wi…

> ... hedging and differentiation ... How is the distinction hard to understand? Socialism is a system characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to capitalism, which is characterised by private ownership of the means of production. Both are ideologies. You could have compared to Soviet or East Germany directly if you wanted to make a point about totalitarian regimes. Also, I'm pretty su…

There are the proper political science definitions and then there are the meanings on the ground (so to speak). Unfortunately, the latter are fluid depending on the country and don't always line up...

Re: Pardon Snowden

#282

Post by fetbaffe »

tanderson92 wrote: post #276
fetbaffe wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, maybe not a spy, but an agent. https://20committee.com/2016/06/11/edward-snowden-is-a-russi... "The proper espionage term for Edward Snowden is defector, meaning an employee of an intelligence service who takes up residence in another country whose spies are not friends. Since 1917, every single Western intelligence defector to Moscow has cooperated with the Kremlin, on grounds of quid pro quo. There is no know…

> Trumps daughter pals with Putin's girlfriend. Just saying. Clinton's daughter pals with Trump's daughter (and pledges to still do so after the election). Does that make Clinton an irredeemable "deplorable"? edit: added context

Clinton is "deplorable" for other reasons, she is a Saudi proxy.

Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort have connections to Putin.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#283

Post by wtbob »

ekianjo wrote: post #3

Pardonning Snowden while allowing the NSA to continue their business as usual would be strange.

> Pardonning Snowden while allowing the NSA to continue their business as usual would be strange.

It would certainly not be symmetrical, since Snowden committed a crime while NSA has not (despite the rather theatrical claims of some).

Re: Pardon Snowden

#284

Post by tanderson92 »

fetbaffe wrote: post #282
tanderson92 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trumps daughter pals with Putin's girlfriend. Just saying. Clinton's daughter pals with Trump's daughter (and pledges to still do so after the election). Does that make Clinton an irredeemable "deplorable"? edit: added context

Clinton is "deplorable" for other reasons, she is a Saudi proxy. Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort have connections to Putin.

I'll note for others that you didn't actually answer the question.

By the way, Clinton's campaign chairman also has connections to Russia through his consulting group.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#285

Post by eli »

falcolas wrote: post #271
eli wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unclear how accurate this is. Quote: "After extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention." He says he told people, NSA says he didn't.

In a he-said-she-said against the NSA, given the information released and the NSA's history of telling the truth to the public (including Congress), I'm inclined to side with Snowden on this one. The NSA has nothing to gain, and more to lose, if they say that he did follow proper procedures.

Sure, that's understandable. Though Snowden has strong incentives to equivocate on this point.

I imagine this is the sort of thing that might be settled in a trial, should one ever occur.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#286

Post by wtbob »

WilliamDhalgren wrote: post #62
gizmo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edward Snowden is hugely valuable politically because he stood up to the intelligence agencies and survived (so far). Most importantly, we have a moral obligation to get him pardoned. Snowden sacrificed a great deal already. He doesn't need to be martyred, he should be allowed to return home and continue his life.

oh no doubt, what was done to him is atrocious and repugnant. I was only trying out an argument that politically his fate is no longer important, and it is of greater value to focus on what will protect the next Snowden better. It's still clearly a moral imperative to help Snowden.

> oh no doubt, what was done to him is atrocious and repugnant.

What has been done to Snowden that is atrocious and repugnant? He is the one who stole information; he is the one who absconded to adversary states. Nothing has been done to him.

> It's still clearly a moral imperative to help Snowden.

The moral imperative is to see that he gets a fair trial, and then upon conviction to ensure that he is humanely executed.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#287

Post by JoeAltmaier »

falcolas wrote: post #280
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, except in law of course. Then, traitor == wrong and deserving of punishment. Its in the US constitution in fact.

Laws change. The constitution gets amended. There's such a thing as a "positive" defense - guilty, but with a reasonable cause. A jury can even technically nullify a law if they feel it's the right thing to do. Unveiling a trove of illegal projects being undertaken by our government against our wishes would fall into this category in my mind.

I wish it were so. But I'm thinking it may be impossible to forgive. Prosecutors may resort the the Supreme Court too. If someone technically guilty of treason is found anything but guilty by a lower court, I don't see the Supreme Court having any alternative but to overturn it. But what do I know.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#288

Post by forgottenpass »

captainmuon wrote: post #117
JMCQ87 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're allowed your quota of one medium-impact dissident action per week, just like everyone else. As it helps to keep up maintaining the illusion of democracy and free speech, you are actually doing your country a great service. If you start to do more, however... Consider yourself warned. ^^ In this case, I can reassure you though: Online petition clicktivism has been shown to be very ineffective, so it's only cons…

I "love" how China actually tried to formalize this some time ago. Every citizen would get a citizen score, like our credit ratings, but grading how politically loyal they were. There was quite a bit of outrage on the western internet about this. The "funny" thing is, our governments are probably doing very similar things (though still to a lesser degree, and secretly). A big difference is that China often doesn't ha…

The "funny" thing is, our governments are probably doing very similar things

No, they're provably doing similar things. A "citizen score" only has cosmetic differences to the data crunching done by machine learning predictive policing.

The differences are just as large enough to avoid fitting into any of the identifiers for bad governance that the American collective conscience is already keyed into.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#289

Post by strictnein »

jokoon wrote: post #267

I'm still genuinely curious about what the intelligence community thinks of him, if it's bad, what are the arguments against him. I've heard Mike Baker on the Joe Rogan experience say that he did not trust Snowden one bit. In the intelligence world, it's common to be very cautions about leaks since foreign actors like Russia can really benefit politically from such scandal. It can be difficult to really know all the…

Well his colleagues who lost their jobs because they trusted him probably aren't fans of his.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#290

Post by wtbob »

rando832 wrote: post #237
Overtonwindow wrote: post #217

I cannot sign this. I'm happy there is a debate over our privacy, and the information has come to light, but I still believe this man to be a traitor and he should be punished. A pardon is out of the question.

When I read this, it always makes me wonder what is going through your mind: Being a traitor does not mean someone is wrong or deserving of punishment. The implication is that a person's country is always right, and also that if he had been a Russian spy, he would have been a patriot. No. Right and wrong are not governed by national borders and laws.

> When I read this, it always makes me wonder what is going through your mind

I don't think Snowden was right. He was, in fact, wrong as a matter of the law and the Constitution. His concerns were misplaced. Okay, that's fine. But then, rather than doing the honourable thing and resigning — and keeping his oath — he betrayed his oath, he betrayed the trust placed in him, stole information he had no right to access in the first place and fled, first to Communist China and then to Neostalinist Russia (rather neatly giving the lie to his claims to care about human rights: the one government harvests organs from religious dissidents and the other detonated bombs in apartment buildings in order to solidify political power).

I am thoroughly convinced that a) not all Snowden has alleged is true; b) that which is alleged and true is legal and constitutional; and c) that which is both alleged and true is not something so immoral that despite being legal and constitutional it should be avoided anyway. Moreover, I am convinced that his behaviour meets the standard for treason.

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