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Pardon Snowden

pardonsnowden.org

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Re: Pardon Snowden

#351

Post by [deleted] »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #333
lettergram wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

But everything affects others, especially in this ever-more-connected-and-congested world. Standards are useful for computer, and for people. Libertarianism has attractions, but idealism only goes so far. I believe the Libertarian world would collapse in flames (or disease, or hunger, or congestion).

[deleted]

Re: Pardon Snowden

#352

Post by allendoerfer »

lettergram wrote: post #328
vcarl wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

I really like the idea of the small state. Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. Children have rights and when parents do not protect these rights, the state has to. There is a hierarchy of rights. The right of the child to be healthy is greater than the right of the parent to ignore scientific evidence.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#353

Post by sampo »

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…

> 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.

Historically, every attempt to build a socialistic society has led to tyranny. One can wonder, if this might be an inevitable consequence along the path to attempt socialism.

But we have managed to build several capitalistic societies which did not fall into tyranny (although some did).

Re: Pardon Snowden

#354

Post by WilliamDhalgren »

wtbob wrote: post #286
WilliamDhalgren wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 execute…

Wow. Fine, I'll bite: He is prosecuted for the greatest act of whistleblowing since the pentagon papers. This has enabled improvements in both privacy regulations and accelerated the deployment of strong cryptography across the Internet.

As the Berlin University puts it, he can thus be credited with "extraordinary achievements in defense of transparency, justice and freedom".

Yet despite this, his country of origin has no laws needed to protect him and any future cases of the kind. And what the hell are advesary states? Last I heard the cold war was over...

There is of course no possibility that he'd get a trial, so your morbid fantasy is just that... Again, I'm simply astonished that there are people in the US who could see this act as anything other than utter heroism.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#355

Post by BafS »

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…

> A mode of thought I would expect in socialist countries, not the US...

What is your definition of "socialist" ? A lot of European countries are "socialists" in a way (always a nuance) but they don't have an aggressive kind of local NSA (even if some have a local NSA).

Re: Pardon Snowden

#356

Post by ihnorton »

mc32 wrote: post #329
forgottenpass wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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

Jailed, no. Fired and ostracized? Certainly, except for narrow definitions of "views" and "dissidence" (largely calibrated by region and type of employment).

Re: Pardon Snowden

#357

Post by kpwagner »

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…

My conservative friends, not in the intelligence community, really don't like him. They try to be civil, but I can almost hear them hiss when I mention "Snowden".

It's odd to me. They don't mind digital surveillance at all. They think it's good if it makes everyone safer.

Throwing in my two cents, what interests me on the Snowden topic, is his character. While I'm glad Snowden took the initiative and risk, I don't believe he did it for altruistic reasons: sacrificing himself for the greater good. My opinion is based on seeing and hearing Edward Snowden talk in the documentary "Citizen 4" and other interviews. Many people say, "Look at what he did. He gave up his life in America. He sacrificed everything for no financial reward. He's a hero." It's true he took a big risk; he could still spend a lot of his life in prison. But he has gained huge from this risk. He is famous and respected by many; they're making a fucking movie about him. It reminds me of the line at the end of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford": "You know what I expected [after I killed Jesse James]? Applause."

Re: Pardon Snowden

#358

Post by zawarudo »

RRRA wrote: post #206

If you fear signing this, _and don't_, you really don't understand long risk mitigation and are just preparing yourself to be scared even more in the long run. Just like privacy doesn't exist without others, signing this will at least help by giving strength, and privacy, in numbers. Leaving this resistance alone, as if they were some heroes you respect but won't stand by, is really a cowardly way of being anti socie…

This is a great point which I completely agree with.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#359

Post by wildmusings »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #311
wildmusings wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need to adjust your tinfoil hat. FISA does not have jurisdiction to hear any criminal complaints.

It's pretty shitty to throw the term "tinfoil hat" in an argument, especially so when discussing Snowden. It's also pretty silly to make the assumption that there hasn't been some sort of secret equivalent of conviction given everything we've learned about how opaque our government is.

You're simply wrong. FISA courts exist because Congress created them and gave them jurisdiction. There is no such thing as a secret conviction under US law. There is no such thing as a secret criminal trial, where the accused has no opportunity to defend themselves, under US law. Does not exist period.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#360

Post by mc32 »

ihnorton wrote: post #356
mc32 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> The main difference is you're not getting fired or ostracized or jailed for run of the mill political views or dissidence. Jailed, no. Fired and ostracized? Certainly, except for narrow definitions of "views" and "dissidence" (largely calibrated by region and type of employment).

You're conflating government action with civil actions. Civilians do all kinds of things governments are constrained from doing --I can be ostracized by colleagues for being irreligious or contemptuous of management or being pro choice, or conversely pro life or being too PC or not being PC, etc.

I'm unaware of dragnets and massive house to house searches in order to discover and punish people who went out for a brief protest against against a corrupt government office.

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