A Response to Your Petition on Edward Snowden

I did post a link in response to another comment here, but I'd still recommend doing your own research for the big picture. The war on whistleblowers is a very recent development in US history, and no previous administration has come down in the same way as this one.

This is partially a reflection of modern technology because information is so much easier to distribute today but also because the level of serveillance carried out by the government requires keeping more secrets than ever.

Switzerland is a semi democracy. In Switzerland, People are allowed to organize a vote to reject laws and to enact laws. And there's nothing public officials can do about it. They are powerless against popular vote. The only thing the oligarchs can do in Switzerland is to manipulate opinion through the media. In certain Swiss cantons, common people gather four times a year on the canton's capital town square and vote laws by raising their hand. It seems like the "masses of uninformed people" in Switzerland are doing a better job than your mafioso leaders of whatever stripe because Switzerland has a much higher standard of living than the U.S. and incidentally has never waged war on anyone even having no oil reserves at all. Note also that democracy in Athens lasted for two centuries, which is longer than any of the today's republics and was one of the most powerful city-state of the time. So much for "direct democracy" not working. So now, please, don't bother with the usual parroting of platitudes (such as "human nature") and go educate yourself.

It's also very reasonable to suppose, as he did, that going about things in the manner that he did was the only way to achieve his stated mission, since, by definition, what he wanted to publicise was highly classified. The downsides for himself, and to whatever extent for diplomacy and national security, were worth it in his eyes. Thus, the idea that he should have instead "[c]hallenge[d] it, [spoken] out, engage[d] in a constructive act of protest" is facile gibberish, and, as to the idea that he should face the consequences in a trial by a jury of his peers, it would be akin to sheep negotiating with the wolves. What was he going to do, hold up a banner that says "[redacted]"?

By the same token, it's ludicrous to expect the American state to pardon Snowden, with or without a petition. Snowden has irretrievably made himself a sworn enemy of the American national security state. The state could not possibly allow its legitimacy and legal supremacy to be undermined by his actions. His situation is not unlike that of politically persecuted activists elsewhere.