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Pardon Snowden

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Re: Pardon Snowden

#741

Post by nickpsecurity »

tptacek wrote: post #599
nabla9 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you were right and I was wrong using the term arrest.

Thanks! So I think my objection to this narrative is clearer if we put it back into context. What we're really debating is whether someone like Snowden had the means to appropriately handle the issues he discovered through official channels. The narrative on places like HN is that by raising issues and escalating them, perhaps beyond NSA, and NSA's IG, all the way to Senate Intelligence, someone like Snowden would fa…

"they're tied up with news leaks. It's hard, I think, to find a case of an NSA whistleblower who faced law enforcement retaliation for escalating concerns to the NSA IG or Senate committees."

I agree with this. The natural follow-up is, "Are there any examples of those doing internal whistleblowing on programs endorsed as much as these by Executive and Congressional groups getting results that Snowden leaks have gotten?" It usually business as usual with occasional fine or scathing report that I've seen. I doubt a leak-less version of Snowden would get new bills in, jurisdictions changed for major companies, all kinds of privacy startups, etc.

I'd be interested in example you have where similar things came from internal links. You didn't claim you did but I'm asking just in case.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#742

Post by murbard2 »

dllthomas wrote: post #618
murbard2 wrote: post #447

Pardoning Snowden implies he did something wrong. apologizetosnowden.org

Pardoning Snowden implies he did something in violation of US law. If a pardon is a moral judgement at all, it is a judgement that what was done was not wrong.

I'm aware. I'm pointing out that using the word "pardon" is pretty Orwellian given that in normal parlance it means forgive and thus implies fault.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#743

Post by bertil »

BjoernKW wrote: post #120
bertil wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure it’s a fair argument to exclude dozens of the wealthiest countries in the world because they own definition of socialism —that they practice— does not meet your imagined one. The definition is not complicated: have key industrial assets, notably transport infrastructure, owned by public authorities.

By that definition France is a socialist country. I suppose you could say that to some extent but France isn't what one usually thinks of when it comes to real-world socialism. I think socialists in particular will argue against that notion. Even worse though: Most totalitarian countries fit that description, too.

> By that definition France is a socialist country.

France is currently governed by a majority led by the Socialist party.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#744

Post by duaneb »

waspleg wrote: post #729
darawk wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true. Though i'm in favor of pardoning him on balance, it would definitely embolden other leakers. I'm quite sure that if I was someone considering leaking classified documents and I saw him get pardoned after spending 3 years in Russia, it'd embolden me. Spending three years in exile is not great, but it's a far cry from a long prison sentence for leaking classified documents.

It should embolden other leakers. The official reporting for these things is corrupted beyond viability. But Obama won't pardon him. He's at least as conservative as Bush and in some ways far far worse (that he's a considered a constitutional scholar is laughable).

There are many axes on which you can be liberal or conservative. He is President, not a judge, and his job is to lead the country. There's not much point in acknowledging Obama's security policies without mentioning his social, fiscal, environmental, and foreign policies.

Obama may be one things, but lying on a political spectrum neatly is not one of them. In fact, it's pretty damn hard finding a president who HAS been straightforwardly liberal or progressive, much less one that played well with the constitution. I'm not sure why you expect those two things to align.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#745

Post by bertil »

vidarh wrote: post #167
bertil wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure it’s a fair argument to exclude dozens of the wealthiest countries in the world because they own definition of socialism —that they practice— does not meet your imagined one. The definition is not complicated: have key industrial assets, notably transport infrastructure, owned by public authorities.

> The definition is not complicated: have key industrial assets, notably transport infrastructure, owned by public authorities. Many socialist ideologies reject the very idea of public authorities. Talking about them owned by the public would work better, but would exclude many other socialist ideologies. E.g. Saint Simons original socialism involved a technocratic society where the actual key change was that people…

> they own definition of socialism —that they practice—

> The definition is not complicated:

I probably should have been clearer, but that definition was explicitly the one adopted by the socialist parties who alternatively lead a majority of European countries (the “dozen of the wealthiest country in the world”).

There are other definitions of socialism, but I prefer to see how people practice it.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#746

Post by EdSharkey »

koolba wrote: post #134

Whether or not Snowden get's pardoned depends on one thing and one thing only: Whether Obama wants it as part of his legacy. Either way it's not going to happen till after the election and most likely not till the end of his term in January. I'd expect it to be more likely for him to be pardoned if Trump is elected as otherwise Clinton, by association, would be dogged with "granting quarter to an enemy of the state".

After the Snowden thing blew up, Obama made an angry rant about wanting to punish whistleblowers to the utmost extent the law allows. Obama isn't a good guy, and he seems to like all the power he's got. At least, that's what I heard when he went off on Snowden. There wasn't enough nuance in Obama's speech for me to grant him any national security leeway - he was just grumpy and lashing out because he was getting challenged on his policies.

In general, Obama had a bad run because he did a pretty bad job, so his legacy is shot. Clinton is no small part of his failures with the Benghazi incident, Libya in general, Egypt, Ukraine, and the asinine "Russia reset". Clinton's campaign is disintegrating, so I think she'll fade before the election.

Trump is a complete mystery. He could be a totalitarian, using Obama's extra-constitutional maneuvers as a springboard to dominate the people. Or, he could be a populist and flop around whichever way the wind blows - he could pardon Snowden just to placate the mob and get some short-term bump in approval ratings - or just as easily put a hit on the guy to get the same.

When Trump is not adjusting his message for an audience, I get the sense he thinks he can govern like a big city boss does. In the best case scenario, I envision Trump will be unable to govern because capitol hill won't respond to his small ball policies, belligerence, and whining. Congress will just plow forward with their profligate debt spending and toss him a policy bone from time to time.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#747

Post by bertil »

dredmorbius wrote: post #701
bertil wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not attacking anyone, simply clarifying the implicit assumptions of people who believe that Snowden needs a pardon. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has introduced jurisdictions that goes outside of the usual process of law, notably publicity; people who oppose that trend in government tend to assume that Snowden has been convicted using such an extraordinary measure. Whether that is possible within the current law framework seems irrelevant to both those claiming for his head, and Snowden himself.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#748

Post by kordless »

bogomipz wrote: post #439
kordless wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are mistaking the resulting meta-consciousness created from the game theory in society and government with individual's based consciousness and some internal intent to deceive. While I would agree the government may try to deceive us, it does so by formally rationalizing government individual's actions as needed to "protect" us from threats. There is likely not one or two people "plotting" out what is hap…

>"... meta-consciousness created from the game theory" Could you elaborate on what this is?

A Turing machine is a good example of a construct that is able to self reference and take action based on measurements. In a Turing machine, one can model other machines.

With human consciousness, this analogy would be applied to a "higher level" of consciousness forming around/on top of the human's interaction with that particular "thing" that allows the thing to take action on given metrics and share it among other consciousnesses which are in communication with it and assist with sustaining it's existence. In a business, for example, the game theory/model would govern the way the business makes money and the processes in which the company provides product or services to a customer which best ensure the future success of the company as an entity.

If the founders/influencers in the company approach building the model with the assumption the customer facing processes are mutable (which itself is dissonant in nature without customer approval), the resulting "consciousness" of the business might focus on building value by marketing means and acquisition (both viral based growth methods). This "intent" is then translated into the day to day processes required for raising additional awareness of the company's product in the market, again at the customer's cost. In extreme examples where such entities can survive long term, such as with the government, these intents may extend well beyond any intent by the individual's involved. I don't think anyone working for the government really wants to violate your privacy, but they are heavily influenced in their need to rationalize it given they wouldn't want the same thing happening to themselves, nor would they want fail at stopping a terrorist blowing up something on American soil. So, they make it "OK" to deal with personally, and the government entity is able to survive symbiotically with the host which is currently being kept in "stable" condition.

Richard Dawkins calls them memes, but they are likely capable of more complexity than we realize, given the somewhat substantiated claims in the video titled This Video Will Make You Angry on YouTube. It would also make a lot of sense if they worked toward escaping attention, given the awareness of them by the host is akin to inoculation.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#749

Post by ak4g »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #324
wtbob wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I read this, it always makes me wonder what is going through your mind I don't think Snowden was right. He was, in fact, wrong as a matter of the law and the Constitution. His concerns were misplaced. Okay, that's fine. But then, rather than doing the honourable thing and resigning — and keeping his oath — he betrayed his oath, he betrayed the trust placed in him, stole information he had no right to access in…

What would you say is the point of having the power to pardon if doing something illegal is never justifiable, or if our justice system is infallible? If our laws are ever unjust, or our justice system ever fallible, the argument "it was illegal" cannot be used to justify whether something was moral. US law is a terrible basis for morality and that's a super weak argument. Treason is the systemic and illegal invasion…

Our justice system is not infallible, the OP never claimed that. And so, that's why we have pardons. It's pretty straightforward, if you don't misrepresent his argument.

> Treason is the systemic and illegal invasion of the rights hundreds of millions of Americans, corrupt government officials quashing all means of accountability, lying under oath to congress, intentionally misleading congress and the American people, and refusing to enforce any sort of due process of law when it's been discovered that people were doing highly illegal things.

I'm sorry, but really really wanting those things to be treasonous does not make them treason.

Your gut is not the US Code. The US Code has no provisions that cause things to become treason by chaining enough increasingly emphasizing adjectives together.

If you argued this in court, you would lose.

For my part: I don't like that Snowden took incredibly serious (forget illegal) actions that served to cast aspersions on both the one and only meaningful US cybersecurity institution and the legitimacy of the United States government as a whole, and is now being harbored by Putin. Are people not seeing what has happened since? Russia is overtly inserting themselves into our domestic politics, and for the political feasibility of doing so, they should be (and by harboring a fugitive, absolutely are) thanking one Edward Joseph Snowden.

They're leveraging Assange as another mouthpiece, although there they get to hide behind being "Random Joe Public" donating to wikileaks. (And if you provide cover noise by doing so yourself: Stop. You're being played.)

What Snowden's actions predictably precipitated is incredibly ominous. I don't care how much pseudo-"Orwellian" surveillance was going on (that - do people not get this? - was not being abused. There were no mass arrests of people who arranged drug buys on facebook, or via gmail or whatever. Nobody knew it was happening prior to Snowden's actions - which is actually not true at all, anyone paying attention (raises hand) knew since the Room 641a disclosures in, what, 2006? Snowden was merely a far-more willing talking head - but I digress. The point is: if a whistleblower had to tell you they were reading every last email, clearly they weren't exactly doing a lot with that capability!). That does not in any way compare to giving an actual dictator of an an actual authoritarian party and government an unprecedented and dangerous level of leverage and influence and dirt on our democracy. Hell no, go directly to jail, do not collect $200, there doesn't need to be any detente with Moscow until Snowden is extradited.

A pardon? Give me a break. As far as I'm concerned, this petition is an instrument of the Kremlin, meant to further extend their ill intent into our country. No.

Re: Pardon Snowden

#750

Post by bnolsen »

Sgt_Apone wrote: post #430
tomaskafka wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazi and socialist ideology is quite close. After all, the S in NSDAP stands for Socialist, and they targeted same voters.

This is bad history. The Nazis who emerged in power had no ties to socialism. By this logic, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a purely democratically run country.

huh? The nazis were entirely socialist and ran a socialist agenda. That was their platform. Centralized education, centralized health care, strict gun control laws, the list goes on and on.
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