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U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

reuters.com

11–20 of 113 posts

Re: U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

#11
post #4

Will Trump pardon Snowden? that will be interesting.

I don't see how anything else could happen here, unless the USA is truly a lawless country where the rich and powerful is in control without any consequences. So yeah, Snowden will still be on the run.

It's going to the supreme court which will overturn I guarantee it.

Re: U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

#12
post #4

Will Trump pardon Snowden? that will be interesting.

Trump's base is very pro-military and a lot of them believe that Snowden put military lives at risk (and also confuse him with Chelsea Manning / Julian Assange). So I don't see how that could ever happen.

Re: U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

#13

So, are the espionage charges against Snowden going to be dropped? Otherwise they want to convict a man of exposing illegal activity, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

Don't be daft. They'll argue that in the exceptional case of state security, exposing any kind of secretive information (illegal or otherwise) is still a crime. They'll just argue that only "normal citizens" shouldn't be barred from reporting criminal activities.

Of course it is bullshit .. but since when did that stop them? Exceptionalism has been the key word, used almost every time the government violated a laws or moral boundary (both domestically and abroad).

Why would anyone expect sense, from a government that will never receive actual jail time from any national court, in a country were potential punishment appears to be the main motivator for powerful people to not do everything illegal?

Why on earth would anyone still expect any sense, after the USA went as far as creating laws to justify military invasion of a foreign country, if an international tribunal would ever charge them with violating international law?

Why are so many American citizens still so naive about the real nature of their own government. Always thinking it's the other party that's the bad guys .. never wanting to accept that the party really doesn't matter (just ask any foreign country that received an unhealthy dose of "freedom and democracy").

Re: U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

#14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how anything else could happen here, unless the USA is truly a lawless country where the rich and powerful is in control without any consequences. So yeah, Snowden will still be on the run.

I fully agree. USA is lawless, for example U.S. blacklists International Criminal Court prosecutor over Afghanistan war crimes probe: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-icc-sanctions/u-s-bla...

The US is not a member of the ICC, if the Europeans want to pretend to matter outside of Europe then they can force the issue and see how well that goes. Otherwise, they should stick to being a trade pig for the rest of the world.

Re: U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

#15
post #6
post #4

Will Trump pardon Snowden? that will be interesting.

Now would be about the best time for him to make that move. With elections upcoming and all that.

Trump's pardoning of Snowden would lose more presidential election support than it would win. Sure, there are plenty of people who would support the decision to pardon Snowden, but I can't see them being the type of people to vote for Trump based on that. Existing Trump supporters, on the other hand, I could see "punishing" Trump for his weakness in pardoning a "traitor who fled to Russia".

Re: U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

#18
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now would be about the best time for him to make that move. With elections upcoming and all that.

Trump's pardoning of Snowden would lose more presidential election support than it would win. Sure, there are plenty of people who would support the decision to pardon Snowden, but I can't see them being the type of people to vote for Trump based on that. Existing Trump supporters, on the other hand, I could see "punishing" Trump for his weakness in pardoning a "traitor who fled to Russia".

He can pardon him to test the effects on polling. If it helps, great. If it hurts him, get Snowden back, arrest him, and claim it was a trick to get the traitor that Obama couldn't get all along.

Re: U.S. court: Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

#20
post #2

Time to give a massive apology and a full pardon to Mr Snowden then.

Having read Barton Gellman’s book that describes and alludes to some of the details of what were in the actual (never published) Snowden files, I do not believe that the US IC would let him continue to live, even if he were fully pardoned.

I doubt it will ever be safe for him in the US again, despite his legal status.

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