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Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

reuters.com

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Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#81

Post by tomc1985 »

longtimegoogler wrote: post #62
throwaway1777 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone thought mass surveillance was a conspiracy theory before Snowden. On the balance maybe he still deserves prison, but denying the positives of what Snowden did is disingenuous.

I don't think so. Wasn't it common knowledge that the Government had access to emails via ISPs and shredder well before Snowden's revelations? What was revealing, I guess was some of the technical details of how it was being done.

Not really. There were murmurs, talk of a secret room with fiberoptic splitters at an AT&T datacenter in San Francisco, lots of rumors but most of it was never confirmed

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#82

Post by bcrosby95 »

longtimegoogler wrote: post #62
throwaway1777 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone thought mass surveillance was a conspiracy theory before Snowden. On the balance maybe he still deserves prison, but denying the positives of what Snowden did is disingenuous.

I don't think so. Wasn't it common knowledge that the Government had access to emails via ISPs and shredder well before Snowden's revelations? What was revealing, I guess was some of the technical details of how it was being done.

Part of why Google decided to speed up their timeline on encrypting traffic across their internal network is because they learned the NSA tapped into it.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#84

Post by pyuser583 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #60

The Post conversation reads like Trump has just heard a pitch to attract voters, and wants to know which side of the argument could help him more.

Isn’t that how politicians are supposed to think? Isn’t the point of electing leaders to combine their self interest with the will of voters?

When it comes to Snowden, and other national security issues, politicians aren’t frighted by voters enough.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#85

Post by thaumasiotes »

cryptonector wrote: post #39
duxup wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Russia needs anyone's help being rid of Snowden... Russia is not a very free country, if they want him silent, gone, whatever it would happen.

Clearly Snowden has been useful to them, at least from a propaganda angle, and perhaps intelligence-wise as well. By now they've extracted all the value they were ever going to extract from him, and he may just be a cost center to them now, but you're absolutely right that if they wanted to be rid of him, it'd be trivial to do it.

> Clearly Snowden has been useful to them, at least from a propaganda angle, and perhaps intelligence-wise as well. By now they've extracted all the value they were ever going to extract from him

Symbols can stay valuable for a long time. A political refugee from the United States has all kinds of symbolic value, not least because we aren't willing to admit that there could be such a thing.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#86

Post by learc83 »

sneak wrote: post #78
learc83 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn’t they kill her? If you know enough about the CIA to be absolutely certain they will murder Snowden, then surely you know what line he crossed that Chelsea Manning didn’t? You might also want to point out that the torture was solitary confinement for all but 1 hour per day, which I’m no fan of, but just to be clear it wasn’t torture in the water boarding or toenail removal sense.

That’s the thing: it doesn’t need to be “absolutely certain” to be sufficient risk to effectively bar him from ever re-entering (or even venturing too far out of the current protection detail that keeps him alive). Even “pretty likely to be assassinated upon entry” would be enough to keep most reasonable or prudent people away forever. Solitary confinement for extended periods of time causes permanent, physical damag…

You seemed pretty sure. But ok if he’s “pretty likely to murdered ”, then you must have some numbers to back that up? How many leakers have been murdered, and how many haven’t?

What was the probability that Chelsea Manning was going to be murdered? And how was it calculated?

edit in response to your edit which included this:

>As I have personally witnessed the intense, permanent damage caused by such things, I entirely refuse to engage with your casual dismissal, which is extraordinarily offensive to me.

So you're just going to toss out unsubstantiated claims and then retreat under the pretense of being extraordinary offended?

Torture has a generally accepted meaning and most people (and our legal system) don’t think that a single occupancy prison cell with an hour of human contact per day fits that meaning. The studies supporting psychological damage are generally talking about months of near total isolation, which is not what Chelsea Manning experienced.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#87

Post by repsilat »

malnourish wrote: post #52
repsilat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I don't like him (not eligible to vote for or against), but the "threat to our democracy" narrative is completely sunk. He clearly has no dictatorial aspirations. Maybe it's just because of events in the lead-up to the 2016 election, but if anything he seems worried about abuses of unchecked executive power on people's privacy. He's certainly at odds in some cases with Barr, who is a classic AG and wants ever-g…

Can you explain how you reconcile that belief with multiple statements supporting e.g. running for more than 2 terms, un-elected leaders, as well as the very recent refusal to fund the post office because it will help more people exercise their constitutional rights and the installation of a postmaster general who is actively removing sorting machines and post boxes, as well as unsourced claims of mass voter fraud, p…

Ah, well perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that his dictatorial tendencies are more a threat to democracy than they are a threat to liberalism. He's interested in being and staying President, not at all principled about what he needs to do to make it happen, but seemingly not so interested in expanding the surveillance state, suppressing speech, that sort of thing.

As one of the "taxed but not represented" people in the US, I guess I might value voting rights a little less than I should.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#88

Post by toomuchtodo »

tomc1985 wrote: post #81
longtimegoogler wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Wasn't it common knowledge that the Government had access to emails via ISPs and shredder well before Snowden's revelations? What was revealing, I guess was some of the technical details of how it was being done.

Not really. There were murmurs, talk of a secret room with fiberoptic splitters at an AT&T datacenter in San Francisco, lots of rumors but most of it was never confirmed

The existence of this facility (as well as others) was confirmed.

https://www.wired.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-klein/ (NSA Leak Vindicates AT&T Whistleblower)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A (Room 641A)

> Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, as part of its warrantless surveillance program as authorized by the Patriot Act. The facility commenced operations in 2003 and its purpose was publicly revealed in 2006.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#89

Post by duxup »

undoware wrote: post #67
undoware wrote: post #37

[flagged]

I'd be interested to know the rationale for the downvote.

I didn't vote but IMO the posts that are really certain of a specific agenda seem sort of less credible and just rando spin.

Even a slight indication that you recognize your are guessing tends to illicit... better responses.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#90

Post by [deleted] »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #72
kgarten wrote: post #58

Is it just me or is the term leaker politically charged in the context. For me, Snowden is a whistle blower not a leaker. There's a reason why he revealed secretes (he also didn't just release them, but was very careful how much he revealed), the secrete programs were unconstitutional -> whistle blower not leaker. edit: typo.

Snowden's method of whistleblowing was leaking documents to the press. He is both.

[deleted]
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