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

Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

infosecurity-magazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 131 posts

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#51

Post by nwsm »

justasking12345 wrote: post #4
Kednicma wrote: post #2

This administration won't do it, simply because Russia has more leverage over Snowden's cultural influence while he's unpardoned and in exile. The next administration won't do it, because Biden was in Obama's administration during Snowden's original actions. We need to examine the situation not from whether enough time has elapsed to make the wounds heal over, but from whether our government is ready to admit its pas…

How can you assume that next administration willn't be of Trump's but Biden's ?

Because that scenario is irrelevant to the conversation

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#52

Post by LatteLazy »

cloverich wrote: post #41
LatteLazy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He couldn't expose one without the other could he?

I remember him specifically saying he thought spying on allies was wrong, and even a key component of his decision. Whether you agree this is the deciding point for crime / not crime, it is certainly a division between blowing whistle on domestic spying and everything else.

I think that from a purely technical point of view there isn't a division here: if the NSA has gained access to basically everything (mobile networks, ISPs, landlines, OSs etc) and they're using the access to hoover up all the private data of citizens then logically our allies and enemies know they are also being targeted don't they? Why would the NSA be using God Mode domestically but restricting itself abroad?

So Snowden even revealed everything or nothing. He couldn't only spill half the beans!

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#53

Post by LatteLazy »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #42
LatteLazy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He couldn't expose one without the other could he?

Why not? 99% of the things Greenwald et al published from his leaks were perfectly legal, and that was just a small subset of the total documents Snowden leaked. Why not just expose the illegal phone metadata program? If he had done that, he would easily qualify as a whistleblower.

Exposing the phone meta data program would expose it both domestically and internationally. That exposure would limit the US ability to keep doing it internationally and open him to exactly the critism made above.

The issue here is that none of these programs care about national boundaries (or citizenship etc). So exposing domestic surveillance exposed it internationally as well. There was no way to avoid that. So criticism of it seems unfair to me...

Also, 99% of the programs he exposed were Illegal. Some have been legalised after the fact, others semi legalised.

SCOTUS has refused to rule on any of it, so the ultimate compatibility with the constitution remains unclear...

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#54

Post by gjs278 »

pengaru wrote: post #35
georgeplusplus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. I think he’s a tool of Russia and got paid to tarnish America and diplomacy worldwide.

It sounds like you're confusing Assange and Snowden.

it sounds like you’re just confused. neither one of them is a russian asset. maybe you are by intentionally spreading misinformation

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#55

Post by CalChris »

pengaru wrote: post #35
georgeplusplus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. I think he’s a tool of Russia and got paid to tarnish America and diplomacy worldwide.

It sounds like you're confusing Assange and Snowden.

Something about Snowden fleeing to Russia makes that confusion difficult to accept.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#56

Post by gambiting »

Supermancho wrote: post #50
jbay808 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International spying on your allies , including corporate espionage against countries like Germany. That angered your allies much more than it endangered them. Whistleblowers like Snowden are the mechanism that keeps that spying from happening in the first place. Edit -- And yes, this harmed America by undermining the trust that those countries had in it. But to be clear, it wasn't Snowden's disclosure that broke tha…

> International spying on your allies, including corporate espionage against countries like Germany. I expect the US to be spying on ALL nations, not just enemy-of-the-week or communist ones.

Expect, as in - you want them to spy? Or just accept it as an inevitable fact of life?

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#57

Post by cryptica »

HashingtheCode wrote: post #5

If Assange isn't being pardoned for the nonsensical "crime" of exposing war crimes by the US Government, there is no chance that Snowden will be pardoned. Snowden willingly stole state secrets whereas Assange only published. Still, when you consider that Snowden is living in Russia, essentially free, and Assange is in a 3.5x2m cell, I don't think Snowden has anything to worry about, except that the royalties from his…

They should both be pardoned. They committed no crime. The public has the right to know what their governments are doing using their money.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#58

Post by nip180 »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #49
nip180 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey may have defended the rights of people in the rest of the world, but only American citizens have rights protected by the US constitution.

Yes but some of the secrets he exposed implicated allies as well, for whom it is often just as illegal to spy on their own citizens.

I 100% agree he did. I 100% agree that this counts as a service to people in those countries.

My point was that those things do nothing to add to the lore that he is an American patriot that defended American constitutional rights. The question of should he receive a pardon by a US President should should put significantly more weight in the service he did to Americans compared to the service he did to other people.

I don’t mean to come off as xenophobic or nationalist. However, the title American Patriot is earned for services given to Americans and the United States itself.

Patriot definition: a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#59

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

sb057 wrote: post #19
ChicagoDave wrote: post #13

Snowden didn’t just expose national wiretapping. He also exposed international spying capabilities that endangered our people and our allies. If he had not crossed that second line, he’d just be a legitimate whistleblower, but he decided to actively harm the U.S. intelligence community and they will never allow a pardon. I’d lay odds if he ever steps foot in an unprotected setting, a slip on a banana peel and a fatal…

>He also exposed international spying capabilities that endangered our people and our allies. Really, like what?

There is a part of the leaks that talks about how the US was spying on a new terrorist group... which made it more difficult to spy on them and ended up becoming what became ISIS.

Snowden didn't expose it but the newspaper he coordinated with (the guardian) ended up not correctly redacting that portion.

I don't have an opinion on whether this is a bad thing or a good thing.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#60

Post by dijit »

CalChris wrote: post #55
pengaru wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're confusing Assange and Snowden.

Something about Snowden fleeing to Russia makes that confusion difficult to accept.

US govt did that to him. He was trying to get to Ecuador from HK when his passport was revoked mid-route.

Russia gave him asylum, for reasons which are not related to him helping them, purely because it antagonises the US.

He still openly criticised the Russian government, and has expressed strong desire to come back to the US.

Post reply on HN