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Pardon Snowden

pardonsnowden.org

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Re: Pardon Snowden

#411

Post by saint_fiasco »

captainmuon wrote: post #124
paulintrognon wrote: post #64

I believe when you wrote "socialist" you meant "authoritarianist"? Please don't mix-up those two concepts

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…

Come on, authoritarian and totalitarian aren't that much longer than socialist. There is no need to write an essay.

You would never think of signing such a petition in Pinochet's Chile or Stroessner's Paraguay and those weren't socialist.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#412

Post by foo4u »

clarkmoody wrote: post #344
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... The United States government has done an excellent bit of propaganda to convince the bulk of the public that they are the most free people on earth. We salute the flag and sing the national anthem at games. We have the presidents' pictures on the walls of our classrooms. We chant "USA" at political rallies. But the government of the United State…

As an US citizen, I no longer salute that piece of cloth or sing the national anthem at sports games. I don't even bother standing for it and encourage others to do the same to show our distaste for how our own government treats us.

I was disgusted in the 2000's when being against the Iraq war was not only being flaunted unpatriotic but not supporting our troops. That's BS. I support our troops and would rather not have seen them deployed to conduct Cheney's bidding.

I will sign the petition and if some asshole gives me trouble at the border for it, so what? I'm a US citizen and entitled to re-enter my country. F them.

"If patriotism is 'the last refuge of a scoundrel,' it is not merely because evil deeds may be performed in the name of patriotism, but because patriotic fervor can obliterate moral distinctions altogether” ~ Ralph B. Perry

Re: Pardon Snowden

#413

Post by 45h34jh53k4j »

pc86 wrote: post #327
Benjammer wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Problem being that ML manifests the unconscious biases of its author -- in the form of its learning set being biased, in the form of not-spotting patterns that are obvious for human heuristics or in the form of training not capturing something the author sees as significant.

I recall a story recently about ML detecting risk for post-op inpatients. Human nurses know not to send people with Asthma home after an operation due to their high risk profile. Because the ML system was always ignoring Asthma patients as they were never queried, it assumed it was safe to send them home.

I would argue that that racially biased policing in ML is just an extension of racially biased data scientists in Ft Meade, or Silicon Valley or Wall St or where ever.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#414

Post by badminton1 »

A pardon would be very unlikely. Since Snowden is being "made example of" to prevent similar whistleblowing and leaking activity.

Even if the government pardons him, the country is full of armed lunatics on meds, he wouldn't be safe.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#415

Post by steamer25 »

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…

Human Rights Watch press release:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/09/13/us-obama-should-pardon-e...

Re: Pardon Snowden

#416

Post by __jal »

dsacco wrote: post #368
apk17 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 9/11 the US already states very explicitly that it doesn't want me as a visitor - I'm not going to go through the (visa) hoops they hold up to me. It was actually administratively much easier to cross the iron curtain in the form of the berlin wall back then than it is now to get into the US (me being german). (This is a bit unfair because there were special regulations for germans inside berlin, and US visas w…

Where does the United States explicitly state that it doesn't want German visitors?

Where do you fill your hourglass?

(The GP's point can be true in the absence of explicit statements from the USG that it doesn't want Germans.)

Re: Pardon Snowden

#417

Post by awqrre »

tptacek wrote: post #371
whamlastxmas wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The second graf in the quote in the comment you are replying to refutes your comment.

By itself, the second quote doesn't say that he took the job to find data to leak and I don't think that those two quotes are directly linked.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#418

Post by cconroy »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #388
clarkmoody wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A mode of thought I would expect in socialist countries, not the US... The United States government has done an excellent bit of propaganda to convince the bulk of the public that they are the most free people on earth. We salute the flag and sing the national anthem at games. We have the presidents' pictures on the walls of our classrooms. We chant "USA" at political rallies. But the government of the United State…

Noam Chomsky talks a lot about "Manufacturing Consent" (he wrote a book with this title). He says that in a democratic society you can't use force to control people, so you have to control them by controlling attitudes an opinions instead. It works well, and the people of the United States are heavily controlled by the elite, who in this case are the corporations and the media companies they control. https://www.yout…

David Hume came to this conclusion in OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT (in the 1st paragraph).

people of the United States are heavily controlled by the elite is too simplistic and some "elites" make the world better.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#419

Post by NoGravitas »

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…

Be pure! Be vigilant! Behave!

http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/wp-content/up...

Re: Pardon Snowden

#420

Post by tomaskafka »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #315
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... It's ironic that given all the valid concerns in your post, you also fell for the oldest piece of propaganda in the book by the very government you're concerned about and that you think that socialism has something to do with dictatorships, rather than it being just an idea that itself has nothing to do with dictatorships in itself, but was in t…

Nazi and socialist ideology is quite close. After all, the S in NSDAP stands for Socialist, and they targeted same voters.
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