Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 404 posts

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#261

Post by topspin »

smsm42 wrote: post #218
noobermin wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works because he maintains a high approval rating in his party.

Pardoning Snowden is not likely to be popular is his party, most Republicans aren't very big fans of Snowden. However, it is true that Trump is known for publicly "floating" a lot of ideas that he latter drops if they prove unpopular. But, if everybody cheers him for it it might actually make it more likely to happen.

> Republicans aren't very big fans of Snowden

Republicans have grown far more circumspect regarding their faith in intelligence services and Federal LEOs. Many see them as just players in and tools of the establishment political/media complex. At this point I don't think pardoning Snowden would hurt Trump with most Republicans. Certainly the 'Never Trumper' wing of Republicans would involuntarily soil themselves, but that's neither unusual nor significant.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#262

Post by krick »

I agree with all these "wake me up when it happens" poster, because I just generally don't like "nothing happened" news.

But seriously, say Trump (or whoever might have been in his place) actually wants to do this as a populistic move: is it hard to do? Does it require any bureaucratic bullshit, arguing with people, forcing stuff, or is it just some paper to sign and it's done? Does it require any effort (and how much) on his side to actually pardon Snowden?

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#263

Post by surround »

627467 wrote: post #108

I'm not American so my opinion won't matter. Yet, in my view Snowden actions have been extremely important to set the discussions we are having today: how private do we expect our digital lives to be be it from the state or from megacorps. I doubt that Facebook/CA affair in 2016 elections would have come to light (or have the same impact) had Snowden leaks not had happened. I doubt that Europeans would have stoped be…

A nice example is uBlock Origin, which was (probably) created as a result of the Snowden leaks.

June 2013 - Snowden leaks NSA documents

September 2013 - the first commit to the Script HQ extension is made (which soon became HTTP Switchboard, which later became uMatrix and uBlock)

https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/commits/master?af...

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#264

Post by monocasa »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #258
monocasa wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I guess even the FISC had a "gross misreading" since they found the program had been unconstitutionally used. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/secret-court-rules-fbi...

"Unconstitutionally used" ≠ "mass surveillance on Americans" The issue that your article discusses is searches about Americans conducted on data collected from non-Americans outside the US (via Section 702). This is not mass surveillance on Americans. The only program that collected Americans' data en masse in Snowden's documents was phone metadata collection, but it would be a huge stretch to label the way the docum…

> The FISC found that the FBI created an “unduly lax” environment in which “maximal use” of these invasive searches was “a routine and encouraged practice.”

.. to the point of unconstituainality, using a database with records of most Americans in it.

That is definition "mass surveillance on Americans".

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#265

Post by monocasa »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #256
monocasa wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh, six years after that article, the justice system found PRISM had been commonly used unconstitutionally. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/secret-court-rules-fbi... I'd say that's pretty bad.

My article says that PRISM isn't what Snowden claimed it to be. Your article also does not dispute it. The issue that your article discusses is searches about Americans conducted on data collected from non-Americans outside the US (via Section 702). This is not mass surveillance on Americans. Edit: We're having this conversation in two places. Consolidated in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24175476

It is giving recorded information on most Americans to the FBI who then used it unconstitutionally against Americans.

It was never the NSA who was going to arrest you; this is what mass surveillance on Americans looks like.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#266

Post by 0xy »

smsm42 wrote: post #218
noobermin wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works because he maintains a high approval rating in his party.

Pardoning Snowden is not likely to be popular is his party, most Republicans aren't very big fans of Snowden. However, it is true that Trump is known for publicly "floating" a lot of ideas that he latter drops if they prove unpopular. But, if everybody cheers him for it it might actually make it more likely to happen.

The "floating" is A/B testing. Chances are, if this passes some formula of (left wing people won over) - (right wing people who hate it) > 0 then he'll do it.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#267

Post by lern_too_spel »

monocasa wrote: post #264
lern_too_spel wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unconstitutionally used" ≠ "mass surveillance on Americans" The issue that your article discusses is searches about Americans conducted on data collected from non-Americans outside the US (via Section 702). This is not mass surveillance on Americans. The only program that collected Americans' data en masse in Snowden's documents was phone metadata collection, but it would be a huge stretch to label the way the docum…

> The FISC found that the FBI created an “unduly lax” environment in which “maximal use” of these invasive searches was “a routine and encouraged practice.” .. to the point of unconstituainality, using a database with records of most Americans in it. That is definition "mass surveillance on Americans".

> using a database with records of most Americans in it.

How did you make up this "records of most Americans in it" claim? How would communications between targeted non-citizens outside the US with other non-citizens outside the US contain records of most Americans? To understand the article you posted, you have to understand the terms in it first.

Since I'm being rate-limited, some responses to the comment below (if you want me to reply normally, send a few upvotes to reset the rate limiter):

> The NSA believes it only has to be accurate "51%" of the time, with no court oversight that they're hitting that goal.

No, it doesn't. Where does that claim come from?

>The court above had found out that the FBI routinely didn't follow it

Follow what? You're confusing 702 collection, which requires showing that the target is a non-citizen outside the US communicating with the same, with querying of that non-American data for American identifiers, which merely requires sufficient documentation for oversight. You very clearly don't understand the article you posted.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#268

Post by amanaplanacanal »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #229
sixothree wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any measurable metrics by which he is doing a good job?

Sure, taxes are lower for the rich, environmental regulations pose much less hindrance to exploitative industries, there are more conservative judges, and at least 10s of millions of libs have been triggered. Metrics aligned with the general welfare of the US, though? Not so much.

There is one other: he has managed not to start any new wars yet. Which is a pretty big deal, even though I think he is pretty terrible in every other way.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#269

Post by burfog »

duskwuff wrote: post #79
eli wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He floats a lot of ideas that 1) make headlines but don’t really make sense and 2) never actually happen. He’s been two weeks from announcing a new healthcare plan since he took office.

Ditto for building "the wall", making various trade deals, bringing peace to the Middle East, ending the opiate crisis, launching the Space Force... He has a real knack for announcing bold new projects with no clear plan for carrying them out, then quietly moving on.

275 miles of wall have been built as of August 10.

https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/border-...

It is fair to include replacement of vehicle-only barriers and other ineffective junk. That had been effectively nothing, because even the most non-athletic large person could comfortably walk right through.

Re: Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden

#270

Post by clusterfish »

devtul wrote: post #255
duxup wrote: post #12

I suppose on his mind this might fit with some sort of fight with the "deep state". Beyond that I would just chalk it up to some inherent capriciousness... bordering on concerning instability.

> does something I like > No! It doesn't matter, his motives must have been terrible. I will never understand this kind of reaction, when you get so emotional about something that all pragmatism goes out the window.

Broken clock and all that. Trump didn't even issue the pardon yet. He's despised for a reason and a few reasonable things he happened to say or do don't outweight all the horrible things he did.
Post reply on HN