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Pardon Snowden

pardonsnowden.org

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Re: Pardon Snowden

#321

Post by segmondy »

These digital signatures are the equivalent of chain letters, send this to 100 people and your wish will come true.

If we as a people want to make change, we should use the net to organize people to make change in the real world not the digital world. Make time, get in the streets, protest, actually pick up the phone and call your politicians, write to them, write to the government. Overwhelm them so much that they are forced to say yes.

Presidents and politicians wish to be loved, they are like Emperors, they want to appease the people. If they people make plenty of noise, they cave.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#322

Post by John23832 »

mariuolo wrote: post #299
John23832 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indirectly it kind of is. The Government, owned by the people determines whether some companies continue to produce, or fail. Under natural capitalism Amtrak would have died years ago.

Actually someone defined the USA situation as Inverted Totalitarianism, where things are as you say but the power relationship is reversed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism

That's interesting. I've never heard of that.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#323

Post by _jomo »

bisRepetita wrote: post #270

Who are these guys? Registrar is in Panama. The site says "partnership with ACLU and Amnesty International", but I cannot find any links from those sites to pardonsnowden.org Both ACLU and AI have their own petition forms with different letters. https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/edward-s... https://action.aclu.org/secure/grant_snowden_immunity Wondering if ACLU and AI are a little late to confirm, o…

https://shop.aclu.org/product/ACLU-Edward-Snowden-Limited-Ed...

> Front features artist Shepard Fairey's iconic portrait of Edward Snowden

> Back includes ACLU logo and pardonsnowden.org URL

Re: Pardon Snowden

#324

Post by whamlastxmas »

wtbob wrote: post #290
rando832 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What would you say is the point of having the power to pardon if doing something illegal is never justifiable, or if our justice system is infallible?

If our laws are ever unjust, or our justice system ever fallible, the argument "it was illegal" cannot be used to justify whether something was moral. US law is a terrible basis for morality and that's a super weak argument.

Treason is the systemic and illegal invasion of the rights hundreds of millions of Americans, corrupt government officials quashing all means of accountability, lying under oath to congress, intentionally misleading congress and the American people, and refusing to enforce any sort of due process of law when it's been discovered that people were doing highly illegal things.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#325

Post by danso »

captainmuon wrote: post #60

Maybe a naive question, but what would the risk be for me to sign this? I wonder if I (a US citizen) might get trouble the next time at the border? Or get a higher score in some database, that combined with other things might get me into trouble? Increased scrutiny from the IRS (which should have nothing to do with this, but "they" might say hell why not?)? Inability to get security clearances in future? Being target…

Normally I'd call that paranoia. But after reading about the case in which a Goldman Sachs programmer aroused suspicion [0] from the FBI for using "Subversion" and occasionally erasing his "bash history", I think it's reasonable to remember that anything you say can and will be used against use in the eyes of the law

[0] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman...

Re: Pardon Snowden

#326

Post by whamlastxmas »

tzs wrote: post #254
awqrre wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where Snowden said that "he specifically took the job with the intent [...] to release to journalists in those foreign countries"

"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked. That is why I accepted that position about three months ago." "If I have time to go through this information, I would like to make it available to journalists in each country to make their own assessment, independent of my bias, as to whether or not the knowledge of US network operations against their peopl…

That says he accepted because he wanted access. Not because he wanted to leak the data. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why someone would find it interesting or fulfilling work to get access to machines on such a big scale. It's prestigious if nothing else.

It's possible he meant for the purpose of leaking data, but it's wrong to assert it only due to your assumptions.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#327

Post by pc86 »

Benjammer wrote: post #242
captainmuon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 MTA's "See something, say something" campaign in NYC always kind of comes off sounding dystopian to me.

I'd much rather inefficient, racially biased policing come from the population than an ML algorithm in Ft. Meade.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#328

Post by lettergram »

vcarl wrote: post #295
lettergram wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The if Hilary claimed she would pardon Snowden I'd vote for her in a heartbeat. I hate her because to me she seems to want to expand the surveillance state. I hate Trump because with a surveillance state anyone who makes fun of his hands would/could be arrested... Hence, at the moment I'm voting Gary Johnson, who I actually think is the most qualified, but also made it clear he wants to downsize the NSA

Gary Johnson wants to get rid of the Department of Education[0] and is against mandatory vaccinations[1]. [0]: https://www.johnsonweld.com/education [1]: https://twitter.com/govgaryjohnson/status/113419678730301440

I'm not going to get into a flame war, but pretty much everything related to libertarians are freedom of choice. I strongly agree that mandatory vaccinations on a national level should not be required.

As long as it does not harm me, I don't think I should disallow someone to do it. That is to say, I don't think I should, or society should pressure our beliefs on others. I would vaccinate my own children because it makes sense to, but I wouldn't force my neighbor to at gun point because that isn't going to help anyone. Which is the whole premise of the libertarian party.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#329

Post by mc32 »

forgottenpass wrote: post #288
captainmuon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The main difference is you're not getting fired or ostracized or jailed for run of the mill political views or dissidence.

Look at today's Turkey for what it would be if this were true in western democracies (of which Turkey withdrew itself recently).

Re: Pardon Snowden

#330

Post by whamlastxmas »

Looking forward to donating when they accept bitcoin. I have no expectation he'll be pardoned, but the other important thing here is that there's a documented movement for it. History will show that people wanted this and Obama and Hillary/Trump refused it. It will be more difficult for blind patriotic bias to weasel its way into the history books.
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