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Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

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Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#121

Post by vaadu »

tzs wrote: post #102
peterkelly wrote: post #10

Another important question is whether or not the NSA should be pardoned for their illegal activity: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSKBN0N... Or whether James Clapper deserves a pardon for committing perjury during a testimony to Congress: http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com Edit: /s

It's not at all clear that Clapper committed perjury. He took an oath long before he testified at that hearing to not reveal certain secrets to unauthorized people, and that oath was backed by laws passed by Congress. He also took an oath later to testify truthfully at that Congressional committee hearing. When those oaths conflict, which one takes priority? Note that due to the nature of Wyden's question, Clapper co…

When oaths conflict, lying to Congress is still a crime. His non-criminal response should have been "I am not at liberty to discuss program details" or something along those lines.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#122

Post by rhino369 »

freehunter wrote: post #71
Sneakos wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could waste time insulting them, or you could provide a case as to why you are right. What purpose does it serve to call them lazy?

There are some things it's not worth arguing because the facts have already been well presented and at this point anyone arguing to the contrary has deliberately chosen to ignore those facts. Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya. Climate change is not real. Jet fuel can't melt steel beams. JFK was killed by a magic bullet. The Holocaust never happened. Snowden is a terrorist and a treasonous traitor. Does anyone really st…

You are conflating fact and opinion. Someone's opinion on Snowden isn't necessarily based on facts. You can be objectively wrong about a fact, but you can't be objective wrong about an opinion.

>You can't hold the simultaneous opinions that Snowden was a traitor who should be punished and that the NSA was wrong for conducting illegal wiretaps.

Sure I can. Snowden could have leaked one single document that would blow open the illegal meta data case--the FISA subpoena. Instead he leaked thousands upon thousands of pages about stuff that had nothing to do with illegal wiretapping. He leaked stuff that is the unambiguously legal.

A huge percent of what snowden leaked was stuff he just didn't personally agree with. And sorry, that's not good enough for me. The USA isn't run by Edward Snowden.

I don't think he's a traitor, but he is a leaker.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#123

Post by logfromblammo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #114
logfromblammo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A careful reading of the U.S. Constitution reveals that the majority of the clauses that establish rights actually forbid the U.S. federal government from performing certain actions, period, rather than forbid it from performing those actions or not, conditional on citizenship. The 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures apply to everyone, everywhere. The U.S. government must always get a…

> The 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures apply to everyone, everywhere. Even granting that, what is "reasonable" depends on a lot of other factors (both legal -- such as specific grants of power to Congress, and laws passed under such grants -- and factual), and the nature of world of multiple sovereign states and the grant of power to Congress to regulate interactions with them, and…

Being able to actually enforce such a judgment would either require a treaty or that the defendant or defendant's property enter U.S. territory.

I don't see how Article III would prevent the establishment of a U.S. District Court outside the territory of the U.S. There is no distinction there that makes the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington any more or less legal than a theoretical U.S. District Court for Ireland and Great Britain, or U.S. District Court for France.

28 U.S. Code § 1331: The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. Article III, Section 2, allows an inferior court to hear a civil case brought by a foreign person against the U.S., with the Supreme Court having appellate jurisdiction.

A treaty cannot establish such a court; it can only require that Congress either establish such a court, or be in breach of the treaty.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#124

Post by CaptSpify »

fixermark wrote: post #64
tFXR89qo wrote: post #52

Or... finally fix your broken judiciary so he can have a fair trial.

That may not be possible given the category of law he's charged with. Since his leak did damages to espionage programs that are undisclosable (under classified information law), prosecuting him fairly may not be compatible with the American system of justice as laid out in the Constitution. No real way to do it without building a "star court" with privileged access to classified information, that can therefore not be…

Yeah, I think that's kind of the point. The fact that we don't really have a method for conducting a fair trial for him is arguably a bigger problem.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#125

Post by rhino369 »

omginternets wrote: post #8
Sneakos wrote: post #7

One thing this article doesn't take into account is that the movie the author undoubtedly watched before writing this was full of inaccuracies, and had the purpose of establishing Snowden as a martyr or sorts. This is evident because rather than just prove their point, the author makes several attempts to make sure the reader knows that if you hold an opposing view, you are intellectually lazy and unable to cope with…

>don't make an article about how the opposing stance is only held by the weak minded. What if you really think that's the case? Screw it, I'll say it. I think anyone who condemns Snowden is intellectually lazy or has vested interests in NSA surveillance. I have yet to see a single cogent rebuttal of Snowden's moral case.

I think anyone who is unable to understand the arguments of his opponents is probably the intellectually lazy one.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#126

Post by mzw_mzw »

freehunter wrote: post #108
mzw_mzw wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would actually argue that it's not wasting time to insult them, it's wasting time arguing with them. That's exactly the attitude that brought us Donald Trump. If you mock and delegitimize people for long enough, they'll stop taking the system seriously and just give you the finger in any way they can.

No, it happens further back than that. If you pretend that all opinions are equally important, if you legitimize provably wrong opinions just for the sake of "teaching the controversy" or "hearing both sides of the argument", you teach people that it's okay to be ignorant, that it's okay to put their fingers in their ears and ignore the facts when they're presented. Donald Trump is what happens when you tell someone…

>Either you continue to listen to them, thereby legitimizing their point of view, or you say they're crazy and move on with your life.

And they get pissed off at being called crazy, and elect Donald Trump as President. So that didn't work out so well for you.

>We need to shut down Donald Trump and Jenny McCarthy as soon as they start talking, not hear them out like they're part of the conversation.

"Shutting down" people like that legitimizes their persecution narrative, which is a really, really bad move.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#127

Post by geofft »

imagist wrote: post #120
dllthomas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/vol126_t... My understanding has it that in practice "the people" means roughly "all citizens and residents of the US", not all people anywhere. You can disagree with the courts over what the words mean, but do so deliberately.

America, where corporations are people but foreigners aren't.

But foreigners with corporations are people! https://theintercept.com/2016/09/16/fec-republicans-kill-att...

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#128

Post by rhino369 »

saynsedit wrote: post #43
RodericDay wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come proven collateral damage such as innocent deaths caused by US military interventionism is widely considered reasonable and acceptable. So, tenuous upside/blatant downside = no outrage. But the unproven collateral damage of Snowden's leaks, which had the giant upside of revealing democracy-chilling surveillance techniques, leads to mass reaction from the government. So, undeniable upside/debatable downside =…

Yeah, Americans sleep when they hear 90% of drone attack deaths are civilians: https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-comp... But they are wide awake and outraged when Snowden's ostensible act of espionage has caused an enormous amount of public good and technological innovation. It's not really the American's fault. We hear few of their real voices. It's the media that speaks the loudest.

>Yeah, Americans sleep when they hear 90% of drone attack deaths are civilians:

No, 90% of the drone deaths weren't known indented targets. If you bomb a Taliban camp to kill a known Taliban leader, you are going to kill a lot of people, but they aren't going to be mostly civilians.

Sure some of them are civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that's legal under international law and essentially unavoidable in war.

You could argue that maybe America is aiming at targets without any regard for who surrounds them, but that you can't use that 90% figure to do it. And I also believe that you'd be wrong.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#129

Post by okwhatthe2 »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #83
sickbeard wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the Judiciary is broken, or are you just being intellectually lazy?

The parts where we have public defenders that cannot provide adequate representation, plea bargains that ruin any chance for real justice, bails set at outrageous amounts, prison sentences that are ridiculous by most any other first world country standard, contempt of court used to keep people in jail for over a decade, the list is miles long. The judiciary system is thought by some to be the most political of the br…

Don't forget execution.

Re: Don’t just pardon Edward Snowden; give the man a medal

#130

Post by rhino369 »

Practicality wrote: post #53
saynsedit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Americans sleep when they hear 90% of drone attack deaths are civilians: https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-comp... But they are wide awake and outraged when Snowden's ostensible act of espionage has caused an enormous amount of public good and technological innovation. It's not really the American's fault. We hear few of their real voices. It's the media that speaks the loudest.

Who are these generic Americans that think that Snowden should be condemned? Everyone American I know is very grateful for what he did. And I know quite a few. I've only ever heard official policy statements condemning him. I am not even really sure those stating such policy agree with what they are saying (at a personal level).

He leaked classified information beyond what he needed to expose illegal programs. Most of his purpose was to expose programs he had an ideological problem with. I don't believe that is a good enough reason to leak classified information.

Edward Snowden isn't an elected official. It wasn't his job to decide which US policies he agrees with. Government can't function if low level employees take it upon themselves to rule.

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