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Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

petitions.whitehouse.gov

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Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#81

Post by mkr-hn »

ashleyblackmore wrote: post #67
austenallred wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Which is why the petition matters - it forces a response from the White House. (Obama promised to respond to each petition that reaches 100,000 signatures)

Obama promised a lot of things (and didn't act upon those promises)!

One-line posts rarely contribute anything. This is an off-topic jab with no support. Even examples and support for each would not make this post appropriate since this submission is about the petition, not the progress Obama has made on his promises.

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#82

Post by mpyne »

kdkdkdkdkdkdk wrote: post #44
joe_hoyle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The petition is not evidence of the public being against what the administration is doing, as it only represents the people who want Edward Snowden pardoned, not the "opposite" view, if such a view exists.

Go ahead and create another petition that asks for Edward Snowden not to be pardoned and to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and I bet that it hardly gets any signatures. Edit: This is a response to several of the replies. I'm assuming of course that nobody within the government would game the petition system. If we've gotten to the point were they would impersonate people in a petition to the white house…

That doesn't need a petition though, it's already the default position of the government.

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#83

Post by comefrom20 »

pvnick wrote: post #52
LoganCale wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That rule was put in place after the Swartz petition passed the initial limit of 25,000 in the first day or two. At the time of the change, they specifically said the new 100,000 limit would only apply to new petitions, so the Swartz petition was still under the original 25,000 signature rule.

Remember what Snowden said about policies changing?

For those of us who don't know, what did he say about policies changing?

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#84

Post by comefrom30 »

pvnick wrote: post #52
LoganCale wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That rule was put in place after the Swartz petition passed the initial limit of 25,000 in the first day or two. At the time of the change, they specifically said the new 100,000 limit would only apply to new petitions, so the Swartz petition was still under the original 25,000 signature rule.

Remember what Snowden said about policies changing?

For those of us who don't know, what did Snowden say about policies changing?

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#85

Post by comefrom30 »

austenallred wrote: post #21
freyrs3 wrote: post #7

Expect a response pretty much like this: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-cant-commen...

Yes, but honestly that's OK. It's a small step, but for the president to have to come out and say, "I recognize that a significant number of the American people support this man who is convicted of espionage, but..." is a pretty novel thing.

I'm not sure you have to be an American to sign these petitions.

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#86

Post by LoganCale »

comefrom30 wrote: post #84
pvnick wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember what Snowden said about policies changing?

For those of us who don't know, what did Snowden say about policies changing?

> More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#87

Post by coldtea »

melling wrote: post #68
austenallred wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but honestly that's OK. It's a small step, but for the president to have to come out and say, "I recognize that a significant number of the American people support this man who is convicted of espionage, but..." is a pretty novel thing.

100,000 isn't a significant number of people. You are living in a HN echo chamber. I'm not sure most Americans care. I'd love to know exactly what the NSA is doing. There needs to be some sort of oversight, of course, but they certainly have a job to do. I recently heard former President Clinton talk about it and he was somewhat convincing that there are certain restrictions. At any rate, aren't we venturing into pol…

>At any rate, aren't we venturing into politics and opinions?

Because politics and opinions are something they do in Washington and they don't affect our lives / the tech scene?

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#88

Post by melling »

mpyne wrote: post #78
melling wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100,000 isn't a significant number of people. You are living in a HN echo chamber. I'm not sure most Americans care. I'd love to know exactly what the NSA is doing. There needs to be some sort of oversight, of course, but they certainly have a job to do. I recently heard former President Clinton talk about it and he was somewhat convincing that there are certain restrictions. At any rate, aren't we venturing into pol…

What else is HN supposed to be for, tech startups and self-improvement tips?

HN doesn't have tags and filters. Isn't reddit a better forum? If we fill the front page with "NSA stories", politics, opinion pieces, etc., it will drown everything else out.

As a community we can be anything we want it to be. The majority will decide.

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#89

Post by coldtea »

noselasd wrote: post #28
aashaykumar92 wrote: post #4

When someone stands up for so many people, this is the expected outcome. Unfortunately, it's doubtful that the government will take much of this into account given how badly they were exposed--they will more than likely make an example out of Snowden in such a way that no one is encouraged to do something like this again.

On the other hand, it's barly 0.03% of the popluation - which I'm sure many policy makers will call 'irrelevant'

Really? Then why did the Whitehouse itself considered 25,000 people relevant enough to set them as the limit for petitions?

And then QUADRUPLED it to the current 100,000?

Also, it's not "0.03% of the population" that agree with this. Only the ones that (a) know about the petition and (b) took time to sign it.

Re: Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures

#90

Post by Xanza »

People sometimes forget that although espionage is indeed a crime, Snowden did not release these classified documents to an enemy of the state, but rather the American People. Our founding father, Benjamin Franklin also committed the act of espionage in 1772 when he exposed and printed letters from Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor of Massachusetts, detailing information about the revocation of civil liberties of the resistive American colonists. This act alone is one of the major linchpins that broke into the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the revolutionary War.

Without American heros such as Snowden and Ben Franklin, this country would not exist.

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