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I think the problem is, people do not care anymore. The scandal is over, business as usual. Only a small percentage of the population still cares about Snowden.

I think the problem is, people do not care anymore. The scandal is over, business as usual. Only a small percentage of the population still cares about Snowden. I think the image of the NSA has been hurt and a change in legislation might get you some positive press in the future, but I do not think that pardoning Snowden would be worth the effort for a politician. On the other hand: Obama probably does not have to care. Edit: I normally don't do these edits, but seriously, why am I getting downvoted for this? Obviously this is bad, that does not make it any less true. You must be the ones downvoting sad YouTube videos and the reason why Facebook had to introduce multiple like variants.

imron 10y ago
I think people are confusing your statement of the situation as endorsement of the situation. The reality is, I think you're right. Sadly, for the majority of people, this is not an issue they care about.
- unicornporn 10y ago
  Descriptive vs normative statements. Surprisingly difficult for people to differentiate between the two.
  - allendoerfer 10y ago
    If you look at my comment, it even was normative, but the other way round. I called the situation a "problem".
    - unicornporn 10y ago
      There you go, some people obviously even have trouble looking at the comments :)
- robattila128 10y ago
  Interviewer questions have shown more care about Snowden's personal drama instead of focusing on the issues of growing censorship and surveillance. I wish people would stop donating money to twitch gamers and instead support journalists who investigate, setup tor-relays/seed-boxes and reduce the dependence on centralization.
  - allendoerfer 10y ago
    When the market fails, the state has to chime in. Oh wait … nevermind.
- colmvp 10y ago
  That's just the news cycle right? Until another terrorist attack happens on a favored Western city, Westerners will be ambivalent about ISIL. Until a newspaper prints another photo of a child dead in the sand, Westerners will be ambivalent about refugees.
k_sze 10y ago
And you know what's also awful? We expect neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump to pardon Snowden in the future. In this sense, Democrats and Republicans are not all that different. It's still all about the interest of the powerful.
- zamalek 10y ago
  Trump would, in all likelihood, further attempts to hunt him down - given his stance on spying on Americans.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  Sure, that is bad. But on a grand scale of things the president or whether or not one man will be pardoned is not really what matters for the American people. To me it is an important issue, but things like wars, mass surveillance and so on are even more important. And you cannot fix them with a broken parliament. However the parliaments are broken, because its members are invincible [0]. Name recognition beats everything. They do not have to fear to do something wrong but for their names to not be recognized anymore. So money talks. Hard to imagine how this could be fixed. I guess you would have to restrict the amount of money to be used, but who would shoot himself in the foot? You would need shitloads of money from a source, who does not care - rare combination. Also the topic is not as sexy as "curing X". After that the even bigger problem would be to find a way to get the media to actually report on things and/or the people to actually pay attention to such reports. A glimmer of hope to me is Jon Stewart (and the group around him, especially Last Week Tonight). [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/reelect.php https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/reelect.php
- lettergram 10y ago
  The if Hilary claimed she would pardon Snowden I'd vote for her in a heartbeat. I hate her because to me she seems to want to expand the surveillance state. I hate Trump because with a surveillance state anyone who makes fun of his hands would/could be arrested... Hence, at the moment I'm voting Gary Johnson, who I actually think is the most qualified, but also made it clear he wants to downsize the NSA
  - 10y ago
greyman 10y ago
And then there are people like me, who don't see the situation as black&white, i.e. I am not signing that petition. In my opinion, for the sake of security, it is necessary to "cache" the whole Internet communication to prevent terrorists attacks and other dangers. Like what the Brits are doing and currently they didn't have any big attack after the London bombings. I am not an American and I don't have a motivation to defend NSA or whoever, I just think that what Snowden did was partially wrong. Of course, caching the Internet like NSA and others are doing has human rights consequences, and those should be discussed publicly. But question the very existence of such practices is unreasonable in the situation the world is in nowadays. There are LOT of people in the world today who would want to wipe off the whole Western civilization, if they could... there must be a protection from them.
- Tepix 10y ago
  Even Snowden agrees that surveillance is necessary. However it is done outside of the public's eye and as we have seen without legal authorization. That's the part that made him blow the whistle. Mass surveillance is deeply contrarian to our core values as a democratic society. If it is to happen there needs to be a discussion and a public decision. That's exactly what is set into motion by the Snowden revelations.
  - ionised 10y ago
    He agreed that targeted surveillance is necessary (I do too), not this indiscriminate 'collect it all' bulk surveillance of entire populations that we have now.
    - Chronic9q 10y ago
      Isn't that what startups do these days? Collect every piece of damn information from each user visiting their site? Log when they hover over a link and all?
      - marcosdumay 10y ago
sidcool 10y ago
I agree. It's like he wasted his efforts.
barrkel 10y ago
Snowden's actions were effectively an attack on the mechanisms of governance: if they let him off the hook, they fear they will encourage more people to act like him, and that affects the solidity of the lever of governmental power. If government is a tool, it's a rare politician that votes to make the tool less reliable. Note that this is distinct from changing the scope of what the tool can affect: this is about the reliability of the tool. Even politicians that were in favour of what Snowden did, who thought he contributed positively, and voted against surveillance, would still likely baulk at making life too easy for more people like him. That's because government is supposed to flow from the top down, and policy change is not supposed to emanate from the machinery. The machinery is supposed to execute the orders of government.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  One could argue, that it was really the press acting here, which as the 4th power is also part of the machine. Also the Nazi trials largely ended legal positivism [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism

imron 10y ago

I think people are confusing your statement of the situation as endorsement of the situation. The reality is, I think you're right. Sadly, for the majority of people, this is not an issue they care about.

unicornporn 10y ago
Descriptive vs normative statements. Surprisingly difficult for people to differentiate between the two.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  If you look at my comment, it even was normative, but the other way round. I called the situation a "problem".
  - unicornporn 10y ago
    There you go, some people obviously even have trouble looking at the comments :)
robattila128 10y ago
Interviewer questions have shown more care about Snowden's personal drama instead of focusing on the issues of growing censorship and surveillance. I wish people would stop donating money to twitch gamers and instead support journalists who investigate, setup tor-relays/seed-boxes and reduce the dependence on centralization.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  When the market fails, the state has to chime in. Oh wait … nevermind.
colmvp 10y ago
That's just the news cycle right? Until another terrorist attack happens on a favored Western city, Westerners will be ambivalent about ISIL. Until a newspaper prints another photo of a child dead in the sand, Westerners will be ambivalent about refugees.

k_sze 10y ago

And you know what's also awful? We expect neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump to pardon Snowden in the future. In this sense, Democrats and Republicans are not all that different. It's still all about the interest of the powerful.

zamalek 10y ago
Trump would, in all likelihood, further attempts to hunt him down - given his stance on spying on Americans.
allendoerfer 10y ago
Sure, that is bad. But on a grand scale of things the president or whether or not one man will be pardoned is not really what matters for the American people. To me it is an important issue, but things like wars, mass surveillance and so on are even more important. And you cannot fix them with a broken parliament. However the parliaments are broken, because its members are invincible [0]. Name recognition beats everything. They do not have to fear to do something wrong but for their names to not be recognized anymore. So money talks. Hard to imagine how this could be fixed. I guess you would have to restrict the amount of money to be used, but who would shoot himself in the foot? You would need shitloads of money from a source, who does not care - rare combination. Also the topic is not as sexy as "curing X". After that the even bigger problem would be to find a way to get the media to actually report on things and/or the people to actually pay attention to such reports. A glimmer of hope to me is Jon Stewart (and the group around him, especially Last Week Tonight). [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/reelect.php https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/reelect.php
lettergram 10y ago
The if Hilary claimed she would pardon Snowden I'd vote for her in a heartbeat. I hate her because to me she seems to want to expand the surveillance state. I hate Trump because with a surveillance state anyone who makes fun of his hands would/could be arrested... Hence, at the moment I'm voting Gary Johnson, who I actually think is the most qualified, but also made it clear he wants to downsize the NSA
- 10y ago

greyman 10y ago

And then there are people like me, who don't see the situation as black&white, i.e. I am not signing that petition. In my opinion, for the sake of security, it is necessary to "cache" the whole Internet communication to prevent terrorists attacks and other dangers. Like what the Brits are doing and currently they didn't have any big attack after the London bombings. I am not an American and I don't have a motivation to defend NSA or whoever, I just think that what Snowden did was partially wrong. Of course, caching the Internet like NSA and others are doing has human rights consequences, and those should be discussed publicly. But question the very existence of such practices is unreasonable in the situation the world is in nowadays. There are LOT of people in the world today who would want to wipe off the whole Western civilization, if they could... there must be a protection from them.

Tepix 10y ago
Even Snowden agrees that surveillance is necessary. However it is done outside of the public's eye and as we have seen without legal authorization. That's the part that made him blow the whistle. Mass surveillance is deeply contrarian to our core values as a democratic society. If it is to happen there needs to be a discussion and a public decision. That's exactly what is set into motion by the Snowden revelations.
- ionised 10y ago
  He agreed that targeted surveillance is necessary (I do too), not this indiscriminate 'collect it all' bulk surveillance of entire populations that we have now.
  - Chronic9q 10y ago
    Isn't that what startups do these days? Collect every piece of damn information from each user visiting their site? Log when they hover over a link and all?
    - marcosdumay 10y ago

sidcool 10y ago

I agree. It's like he wasted his efforts.

barrkel 10y ago

Snowden's actions were effectively an attack on the mechanisms of governance: if they let him off the hook, they fear they will encourage more people to act like him, and that affects the solidity of the lever of governmental power. If government is a tool, it's a rare politician that votes to make the tool less reliable. Note that this is distinct from changing the scope of what the tool can affect: this is about the reliability of the tool. Even politicians that were in favour of what Snowden did, who thought he contributed positively, and voted against surveillance, would still likely baulk at making life too easy for more people like him. That's because government is supposed to flow from the top down, and policy change is not supposed to emanate from the machinery. The machinery is supposed to execute the orders of government.

allendoerfer 10y ago
One could argue, that it was really the press acting here, which as the 4th power is also part of the machine. Also the Nazi trials largely ended legal positivism [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism