Time to Pardon Edward Snowden? • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#71

Post by runamok » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

georgeplusplus wrote: post #29

realjohng wrote: post #25

Edward Snowden is an American patriot. He followed his conscience and acted in good faith to defend the constitutional rights of the American people.

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

The fact that the secret program he leaked was ultimately determined to be unlawful says he is vindicated and should be pardoned.

"A National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program has been ruled unlawful, seven years after it was exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54013527

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#72

Post by scrozart » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

georgeplusplus wrote: post #29

realjohng wrote: post #25

Edward Snowden is an American patriot. He followed his conscience and acted in good faith to defend the constitutional rights of the American people.

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

Reddit is leaking.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#73

Post by sgt » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

bobwall wrote: post #64

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…

He sort of has his freedom, if you consider life within Putin's Russia containing freedom.

In Putin Russia, freedom has you!

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#74

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #16

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…

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…

> "And yes, this harmed America by undermining the trust that those countries had in it"

That seems unlikely. At the international level, it's well understood that alliances aren't permanent as de Gaulle's famous quote "[Nations have] no friends, only interests." illustrates. For example, Russia, Japan, and the US were allies during the First World War but were on opposing sides in the Second.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#75

Post by mijkal » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

nip180 wrote: post #47

GekkePrutser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those of the rest of the world. Especially those of us in X eyes countries.

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.

This assertion is counter to the core principles of the nation's founding — that one's rights are innate, and the constitution simply places limits on the government regarding what can be regulated and to what extent. That means we recognize that every person of any nationality has the right to free speech, fair and speedy trials, no torture, etc.

If you mean other nations don't recognize the same rights, then I grant you that, but the constitution doesn't limit this recognition to US citizens.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#76

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

danarmak wrote: post #70

tshaddox wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that so? Could Congress pass a law establishing an official religion for permanent residents?

I don't know if residents have a special status. But the DOJ appears to claim that Congress could pass a law establishing religion for foreigners, demand other countries extradite all their citizens, and sentence them in the US for not following this law.

“Congress shall make no law” seems pretty comprehensive.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#77

Post by outoftheabyss » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

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.

Amazing how Assange suddenly became a Russian asset after 2016, this charge never appeared when he spent years going after the Bush admin

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#78

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

avmich wrote: post #8

trident1000 wrote: post #3

The reason he will never be pardoned has nothing to do with if his leaks were merited or not merited (they clearly were as the activities of the govt were proven illegal). Its because then you green light a govt leaker in critical programs you open pandoras box for govt secrets spilling out and you can lose control. Keeping employees/contractors in fear that they will never stop chasing you is a good way to stop peop…

> Keeping employees/contractors in fear that they will never stop chasing you is a good way to stop people from doing this. This is contradicting to the idea of government existing for people and serving people. If government uses fear to reduce accountability, it needs to be changed.

Not if you believe that the people want the government to protect them and they are ok with these programs if they enable the government to do that.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#79

Post by 627467 » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

Say Biden wins the election. I'm curious to see how his administration would handle this situation considering that Snowden revelations happened dead in the middle of Biden's second vice-presidency and they had plenty of time to be considerate, and handle this situation appropriately.

Re: Time to Pardon Edward Snowden?

#80

Post by lern_too_spel » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #53

lern_too_spel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cr…

> Also, 99% of the programs he exposed were Illegal.

The only US program he leaked that was illegal was the phone metadata collection. The vast majority of programs he leaked involved surveillance on foreign targets outside the US.

> SCOTUS has refused to rule on any of it

None of it has made it to SCOTUS due to the vast majority being completely legal, so SCOTUS hasn't even had a chance to refuse to rule on any of it. The only program that could have gone to SCOTUS was phone metadata collection, but the government already shut that down, so they aren't going to waste time challenging its legality.