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Pardon Snowden

pardonsnowden.org

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Re: Pardon Snowden

#701

Post by dredmorbius »

bertil wrote: post #98
ComodoHacker wrote: post #94

Doesn't pardoning assume convicting him first? Or does it mean there won't be open trial? I think an open and media covered trial will be more valuable to the public. Not sure about himself.

The assumption is that he has been convicted by a secret court (FISA).

FISA's jurisdiction is to rule on surveillance permits. Not criminal convictions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intell...

The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, also called the FISA Court) is a U.S. federal court established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The governing legal code: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1805

So:

1. FISA doesn't do criminal convictions.

2. There are no secret courts in the US capable of in absentia trials.[1]

3. Your attacking those who are correcting your factual misapprehensions doesn't play well here. Please don't do that.

________________________________

Notes:

1. If a defendant takes off during the pretrial phase, however, he may be able to elude an in absentia conviction. In the 1993 case Crosby v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law "prohibits the trial in absentia of a defendant who is not present at the beginning of trial."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

Re: Pardon Snowden

#702

Post by dredmorbius »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #94

Doesn't pardoning assume convicting him first? Or does it mean there won't be open trial? I think an open and media covered trial will be more valuable to the public. Not sure about himself.

No. Addressed multiple times in this thread. Notably: Nixon pardoned by Ford, and Vietname War draft-dodgers pardoned by Carter, without necessity of prior convictions.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#703

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

nojvek wrote: post #395

Why does the site need a Donate button shoved in my face. Auto opt-in to mail list is also selected. Also for a petition do they really need my home address and rest of the details? Shouldn't name and email suffice. Happy to sign the petition but not at this site. Is there a way I can send a letter myself to the president?

I can understand why an address might be necessary to coorberate that some random signer from the internet matches to an physical US address.

But after I signed, it presented a donate page. I don't want to give them money since they have my addresses. They would have been more likely to get my money if they provided an anonymous donation portal.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#704

Post by eli »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #369
eli wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think every IT person in the government should have the ability to disclose any Top Secret programs based only on their own personal opinions about their legality?

They (the three-letter agencies) could always try not breaking the law. See if that cuts down on the number of employees looking to sell them down the river.

Is it up to low level employees with no legal training to decide who is breaking the law?

Re: Pardon Snowden

#705

Post by dredmorbius »

wallace_f wrote: post #42
gizmo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edward Snowden is hugely valuable politically because he stood up to the intelligence agencies and survived (so far). Most importantly, we have a moral obligation to get him pardoned. Snowden sacrificed a great deal already. He doesn't need to be martyred, he should be allowed to return home and continue his life.

>should be allowed to return home and continue his life. That is only true if you are operating under the assumption that liberty, human welfare, and strength of America as a nation is a good thing for the future. To me, it's not at all obvious that our ruling class really gives a shit about those.

You might still divide your feelings about the American ruling class, and Edward Snowden, presently facing criminal prosecution and long time, possibly (though doubtfully) death.

So, no, yours isn't the only reason to support pardoning Snowden.

It's also, distantly, possible that the act of allowing for the potential good of his actions might lead more to question an unwavering support of present American principles, values, and policies.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#706

Post by id122015 »

Its the first petition that I find worth signing. I did it through Amnesty Intl as I dont live in the US. Only with an email address I dont know how credible the petition is, I wanted to prove that I'm standing up and supporting him. We either die all together like Maya, or we win.

I didnt understand where the money from donations go, but I could donate also for the right cause.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#707

Post by hobs »

zeveb wrote: post #647
aidenn0 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've gathered, the intelligence community thinks bad things about him; their view is "fix it from the inside." Public leaks can be incredibly damaging to our operational advantages against various adversaries, and it's often non-obvious which data will be most helpful to them. The main reason I stand behind him is the matter of the director of the NSA lying to congress under oath. We don't even have the ill…

> The main reason I stand behind him is the matter of the director of the NSA lying to congress under oath. Did he? Everything I've read is that he used true words, but didn't explain what those true words actually meant.

That is called lying through omission.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#708

Post by emmelaich »

wry_discontent wrote: post #662
yodsanklai wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with Chomsky's views, but sometimes I feel he's too extreme and that makes him lose credibility. Maybe it's my misunderstanding, but he often sounds like there is a bunch of people, "the elite" that plan together how they are going to control the rest of the world. I see this instead as a natural, non-coordinated phenomenon caused by various powerful people trying to serve their self-interests.

If you read more of what he says, you'll find Chomsky says exactly this.

So you might summarise Chomsky's book as "some people are more persuasive than others"

Does he also say that these people may be powerful because they are persuasive?

Re: Pardon Snowden

#709

Post by Dowwie »

kyledrake wrote: post #642
kyledrake wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just asked a few people on the "supporters" list who said they had "nothing to do with it", after trying to figure out more about it's core and see if I could get added to the list myself (my opinions on the NSA dragnet crap are well documented, I do not live in fear of them: http://blog.neocities.org/making-the-web-fun-again.html ). I'm starting to think they just got a list of people they believed might support t…

Update: This has indeed been validated by multiple sources to me as a real thing. The two people I asked about this told me they forgot that they signed up for it (sigh). How's your morning going?

and who are YOU? (/sarcasm)

Re: Pardon Snowden

#710

Post by pbarnes_1 »

antisthenes wrote: post #617
hutzlibu wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm no. In Somalia you do have a lot of government interference - you just have many smaller (wannebe) ones there, fighting against each other for power, vs. one big.

That's exactly the scenario that would happen in a libertopia most libertarians describe - minimal government. It's an incentive for other actors to try to imitate the role of government through other means. Actually, not just Somalia - Africa is ripe with examples of these.

Power vacuums are not left unfilled for long.

Also, I've never met a "true" (in the sense that they tell you about it as soon as you talk to them) libertarian who isn't also a raging asshole.

But there are assholes on all points of the spectrum, so I'm not sure what that proves. :D

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