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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

#121

Post by general_failure »

cpleppert wrote: post #118
mpyne wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one reason I feel Snowden has hurt his cause by digging in for so much. Another leak or two ( especially about China, who most Americans feel are one step away from being the next U.S.S.R. anyways ) and Obama, DNI, Congress, and basically everyone will be able to smooth the whole thing over by painting it with the traitor brush. I really think Snowden has tried to bite off more than he can chew. At first I bel…

What is hurting his cause is a) making this about him and continuing to talk so we don't have to address the issues and b) releasing a lot of information that doesn't have to do with domestic intelligence (china, g8 spying etc) distracting people even more and turning the public against himc) refusing to talk about what technical capabilities the NSA has and framing the conversation, instead; we see releases of infor…

Yeah that's one thing I don't from yet. Why he is not giving any technical information about prism. I can only conclude he doesn't really know much about it. Maybe he got hold off this one slide deck and jumped to conclusions.

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

#122

Post by general_failure »

coldtea wrote: post #87
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…

> 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?

Because most people in tech, talk about politics without good understanding.

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

#123

Post by [deleted] »

serf wrote: post #120
mkr-hn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

and you're doing such a good job of policing the rest of the thread , too! The petition site was implemented by Obama's cabinet. It was made as a way to make it seem as if his cabinet was more technologically savyy than others(along with "THE FIRST PRESIDENT WITH A SMARTPHONE!"), and allowed for people to think that the platform would increase transparency in governance. Obama's cabinet decides how to respond to peti…

[deleted]

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

#124

Post by drawkbox »

contingencies wrote: post #43
drawkbox wrote: post #2

Ok Obama, time for some of that Change.

I believe he progressed to a completely new level of nonspeak recently: I'm not against change . (Compare during the election - Change! , and before the election: When I am president, there will be no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. - Senator…

Agreed. He is not running for re-election anymore. He should start thinking about his legacy now. And fix this executive branch overreach now, the same one he was concerned about before he was in. If a constitutional lawyer and one who goes in promising this change won't, then we have lost all hope.

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

#125

Post by jivatmanx »

Nrsolis wrote: post #119
overgard wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will candidates know what platform to offer if we don't tell them what matters to us? If you wait till election season it's too late, they'll be terrified of changing their positions and being a "flip flopper" or a "chameleon". Government is like a giant cruiser, you can't wait till the last minute to change its direction if there's an iceberg ahead, you have to start steering early.

Well, just as an example, I wrote a letter to my particular Senators and Representatives. I talked about my support for them during the past election and pointed to my contributions to their campaign. I also made a point to make my voice an individualized one that connected my particular concern with a specific issue. I made my opinion personally known to their staff (the people who REALLY read the letters) and tried…

Thank you for this great response, but even more for your civic participation, and I agree with everything you've said here.

I think that these petitions are helpful for the otherwise apolitical, who get a mental cue, "I signed this petition, I am for this cause". Nobody starts out writing letters, and it's not helpful to condescend those who aren't as committed as us.

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

#126

Post by Nrsolis »

jivatmanx wrote: post #125
Nrsolis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, just as an example, I wrote a letter to my particular Senators and Representatives. I talked about my support for them during the past election and pointed to my contributions to their campaign. I also made a point to make my voice an individualized one that connected my particular concern with a specific issue. I made my opinion personally known to their staff (the people who REALLY read the letters) and tried…

Thank you for this great response, but even more for your civic participation, and I agree with everything you've said here. I think that these petitions are helpful for the otherwise apolitical, who get a mental cue, "I signed this petition, I am for this cause". Nobody starts out writing letters, and it's not helpful to condescend those who aren't as committed as us.

I think it might be going a bit far to say that nobody starts out writing letters (because I did) but I do appreciate that a petition is a good first step at getting active.

And please interpret my comments in the spirit in which they are intended: to educate people about the way things get done in DC. I equate petition signing with quackery when confronting a dread disease. It's harmful precisely because it deceives the patient about its efficacy.

I lived in the DC area for more than a decade. I have two friends who work in the actual White House, another former colleague who is a serving delegate (VA) and countless others who work on the hill as staffers. I worked as an IT volunteer for the OBA campaign in 2008.

I've asked this question before: "What's the difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement? The Tea Party got their candidates ELECTED and changed the political discourse of the country."

As long as our generation keeps showing up to political gunfights armed with snowballs, we're going to keep getting the water hose.

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

#127

Post by Xanza »

jivatmanx wrote: post #111
Xanza wrote: post #90

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…

Most of his works were written anonymously using a fairly ridiculous number of different Pseudonyms including Silence Dogood, Poor Richard, ect. What did he have to hide? Might as well have been a terrorist.

Pseudonyms !== Terrorist

If that was the case than any single person who uses a proxy, VPN, or Tor might as well be a terrorist; you're attempting to browse the web with a pseudonym. The REASON that they were used is because the use of assassins back then was pretty common, especially by the Empire.

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

#128

Post by bhauer »

nadaviv wrote: post #71
bhauer wrote: post #46

I feel fairly silly hawking my own site whenever subjects like this come up, but here I go anyway. Feel free to tell me to shut up. :) I just simultaneously believe quite strongly in the idea of pairing calls for action with charitable donations. The donations make a clear and measurable message of the idea's importance. Plus, even if nothing happens, the charities benefit. So in any event, to get to the fireworks fa…

btf.io seems to be down, but http://brianstaskforce.com/382 works (which I think is the same website?).

It is! Thanks for the heads-up on my (relatively new) short URL domain. I'm not certain why it didn't work for you, though. It seems to work from external sources I've tested (e.g., Google translate).
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