Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
aljazeera.com
Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#2If he's really refusing to barter, he must not want Snowden back that much.
More likely, this is Obama's equivalent of Reagan's "We do not negotiate with terrorists"... just a lie for the cameras.
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#3Keeping the NSA's program(s) running would be easier if they keep Snowden out of the news.
Fighting with Russia for him would just draw more attention to it.
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#4If he's really refusing to barter, he must not want Snowden back that much. More likely, this is Obama's equivalent of Reagan's "We do not negotiate with terrorists"... just a lie for the cameras.
The corrolary to your argument would seem to be that Obama is negotiating with Russia for Snowden's release. It strikes me as more likely that he is not. The whole issue is a domestic nightmare, having turned Obama from "good guy" to "bad guy" in the eyes of many (notably the primary demographic of this site).
He doesn't want a trial for this guy. He just wants the issue to go away. The security damage has already been done, if you believe the bit about Snowden having distribute d encrypted copies of the documents, etc...
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#5If he's really refusing to barter, he must not want Snowden back that much. More likely, this is Obama's equivalent of Reagan's "We do not negotiate with terrorists"... just a lie for the cameras.
The cat is out of the bag, really catching snowden at this point is just to serve as an example for others, not in strategic value of its own...
China already has whatever they wanted from snowden, Russia already has whatever they wanted from snowden, Encrypted copies of his data are in the hands of probably dozens of journalists and ambasadors, and the story is already on the news...
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#6If he's really refusing to barter, he must not want Snowden back that much. More likely, this is Obama's equivalent of Reagan's "We do not negotiate with terrorists"... just a lie for the cameras.
The corrolary to your argument would seem to be that Obama is negotiating with Russia for Snowden's release. It strikes me as more likely that he is not. The whole issue is a domestic nightmare, having turned Obama from "good guy" to "bad guy" in the eyes of many (notably the primary demographic of this site). He doesn't want a trial for this guy. He just wants the issue to go away. The security damage has already be…
And the fact that Snowden brought everything he had into Russia, and you have to be a complete idiot to believe Putin's line that nobody from the Russian government or intelligence has talked to Snowden about it, or gotten a copy yet.
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#7If he's really refusing to barter, he must not want Snowden back that much. More likely, this is Obama's equivalent of Reagan's "We do not negotiate with terrorists"... just a lie for the cameras.
The corrolary to your argument would seem to be that Obama is negotiating with Russia for Snowden's release. It strikes me as more likely that he is not. The whole issue is a domestic nightmare, having turned Obama from "good guy" to "bad guy" in the eyes of many (notably the primary demographic of this site). He doesn't want a trial for this guy. He just wants the issue to go away. The security damage has already be…
Indeed. Obama can play the diplomatic equivalent of "We do not negotiate with terrorists" (like "We do not negotiate with allies", I guess), as a machismo stance while Snowden conveniently walks free until he's forgotten by the mainstream American media and stops being a political problem.
The problem with this approach is that it doesn't buy Obama much with the people he's disappointed on this issue. But it does get the matter out of the public eye and prevent additional embarrassment.
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#8Interesting comments so far ... I'm more incensed that Obama called him a hacker. There was absolutely no hacking as he had a security clearance to work with (and apparently copy) the data he was responsible for.
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#9>>it took two months for the country to make a decision in the case of Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblowing website Wikileaks, and that Snowden's case would take at least as long from the time the request was filed.Snowden might be in Russia for some time.
Re: Obama refuses to barter over Snowden
#10Interesting comments so far ... I'm more incensed that Obama called him a hacker. There was absolutely no hacking as he had a security clearance to work with (and apparently copy) the data he was responsible for.
While he might not be a hacker in our minds, whether he was permitted to access the documents he did is still up for debate. If he accessed them without permission, that would be enough to qualify him as a hacker under some definitions.