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Edward Snowden says he would like to return home

157 points by smacktoward 7y ago

reeboo 7y ago
He wants the jury in his trail to be made aware of jury-nullification.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  I'd argue there's a distinction between a public interest defense and jury nullification. Both ask the jury to vote not guilty despite the legal fact of guilt, but the reasoning is different. Public interest defense says "yes, this was illegal, but morally necessary given the particular details of this case". Jury nullification is more "yes, this was illegal, but it shouldn't be" in my mind.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    I don't think you're getting the difference quite right. A public interest defense is one that argues that a public interest exception, included in a law, applies. In jurisdictions where a public interest defense is possible, i.e. Canada, it applies only to laws which include it as a public interest exception (in Canada, it would be the Security of Information Act of 2001). If a defense argues that a murder was okay because it was in the public interest, that wouldn't be a public interest defense, because the laws against murder don't include a public interest exception. Arguing that such an exception should be made by the jury, rather than that such an exception in the law applies to your case, is a straightforward argument for jury nullification. In the US, I'm not aware of any laws that include a public interest exception, so a public interest defense would not be possible--appeals to the jury to find someone not guilty because their crime was in the public interest would be appeals for jury nullification. There are a few defenses that work on these sorts of exceptions which only apply to specific laws. For example, truth is a defense against a libel charge but not against a HIPAA violation charge, and self defense is a defense against a murder charge but not against a robbery charge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_defence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_defence
- behringer 7y ago
  "And, essentially, the most important fact to the government and this is the thing we have a point of contention on, is that they do not want the jury to be able to consider the motivations. Why I did what I did. Was it better for the United States? Did it benefit us or did it cause harm? They don't want the jury to consider that at all. They want the jury strictly to consider whether these actions were lawful or unlawful, not whether they were right or wrong. And I'm sorry, but that defeats the purpose of a jury trial," Snowden said.
  - amalcon 7y ago
    Snowden is not necessarily right about that. The purpose of a jury trial is to establish facts in a minimally biased manner[1]. This is why summary judgement[2] exists: to streamline the proceeding where the disagreement is in the law, not in the facts. The one thing that clouds this a bit is that the US government cannot constitutionally rule that someone has committed a crime without going through a jury trial. This means that there can never be summary judgement against a criminal defendant (it's mostly a civil litigation thing). Some interpret this as an attempt to explicitly create room for jury nullification. Others interpret this as an attempt to make sure that we never short-circuit the fact finding process in the name of expediency. In practice, it has both of these effects, but there's some debate as to which one is the theoretical grounding. [1]- At least to the extent that humans can ever either establish a fact or reduce bias [2]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_judgment
    - miles 7y ago
      > The purpose of a jury trial is to establish facts in a minimally biased manner Jury nullification in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_Unit... "In 1972, in United States v. Dougherty, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling similar to Moylan that affirmed the de facto power of a jury to nullify the law but upheld the denial of the defense's chance to instruct the jury about the power to nullify. However, in Dougherty the then-chief judge David L. Bazelon authored a dissenting in part opinion, arguing that the jury should be instructed about their power to render the verdict according to their conscience if the law was unjust. He wrote that refusal to allow the jury to be instructed constitutes a 'deliberate lack of candor'. It has been argued that the denial of jury nullification requests negates much of the point of self-representation."
- cm2187 7y ago
  But are you suggesting the laws that penalise stealing classified information are unfair and should be abolished (like slavery laws in the past)? I think these laws must exist. If I was a jury (but keeping in mind I am not even a US national), a fair sentencing would be to recognise him as guilty but to sentence him to a short term / time served. There were many ways in which he could have blown a whistle without releasing wholesale everything he could find on the internal network to some foreign newspapers.
  - hollerith 7y ago
    >If I was a jury (but keeping in mind I am not even a US national), a fair sentencing would be to recognise him as guilty but to sentence him to a short term / time served. In the US, the judge decides the sentence and cannot sentence him to less than a minimum. For example, if convicted (by the jury) of treason, the law states that he "shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000", and the judge cannot impose a sentence less than that.
  - Voloskaya 7y ago
    > "But are you suggesting the laws that penalise stealing classified information are unfair and should be abolished (like slavery laws in the past)? I think these laws must exist." Where did OP suggest that? Jury nullification is specifically a case by case judgement, not a broad statement.
    - cm2187 7y ago
      I am referring to the wikipedia definition (I had to look it up, I had not heard the term before) [1] Jury nullification (US) or a perverse verdict (UK) generally occurs when members of a criminal trial jury believe that a defendant is guilty, but choose to acquit him anyway because the jurors also believe that the law itself is unjust,that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant's case,or that the potential punishment for breaking the law is too harsh. I don't think the law is unjust or misapplied, just that the sentence should give him credit for the public interest aspect of the revelations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Talk about an adversarial interview. It reads like a higher brow version of the game of 20-questions you play with the cops when you get pulled over for a fishing stop. They're constantly trying to trip him up and get him to say something harmful to his case.
- 317070 7y ago
  Exactly, and those fishing expedition questions are not interesting anyway. They are not what I want to find out about the story.
- yellow_lead 7y ago
  Call me tinfoil, but I got the feeling the interviewer was fed questions by the government.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    Not necessary. TV media networks have been sucking up to the government basically since the beginning of TV news. See also, TV news' furor to hype up the Iraq War, even as many newspaper journalists and politicians were crying foul. Or the news' complicity in covering up the bombings of Laos and Cambodia, widely reported in foreign news.
- excalibur 7y ago
  Additionally, the transcription is terrible, possibly intentionally so. > If you look back at the history of the United States, it doesn't take very long for the average person to think about a moment in which it was absolutely illegal to do something. But at the same time, it was absolutely the same thing to do. Was this intentionally misquoted to take some of the wind out of Snowden's sails? I'm not sure, but given the hostile nature of the interview itself I definitely would not rule it out.
- mLuby 7y ago
  In contrast, his (counter-)interviewing skills are impressive. Thoughtful and unflappable.
rhacker 7y ago
I can't fucking believe that it's come to this. Every top social media company was (is?) funneling private data into a search interface presented to an agent with no need of warrants. The trial should be the other way around - The People Suing the US Government. The top lawyer representing the people? Edward.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  I like to believe there's an alternate-universe America where it's Ed Snowden who is filling stadiums to hear him speak, and Donald Trump who has been exiled to Russia. It feels more like the America I grew up believing in.
  - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
    Having attended public elementary school in the 1970's, it would seem we were fed a very optimistic, filtered version of American politics. Schoolhouse Rock's presentation was very selective.
    - rukittenme 7y ago
      I'm sorry Schoolhouse Rock did not give you a complete and definitive understanding of human political order...
      - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
        To be fair, it did give me great clarity on the topic of conjunctions.
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    You grew up in a America that exiles people to Russia?
    - badrequest 7y ago
      Snowden did.
ydnaclementine 7y ago
Obama should have pardoned him
- ndarwincorn 7y ago
  Should have? Sure. Given how his administration treated Chelsea Manning idk why we'd expect that.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Obama released Manning. Commuted her sentence decades early.
    - satori99 7y ago
      His administration also prosecuted more whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act, than all of his predecessors combined.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        For a grand total of eleven prosecutions since 1945. https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/ https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10... Twice of nearly nothing is still nearly nothing... and the claim being made here was that Manning, specifically, was mistreated by Obama. Manning was convicted under Bush and had her sentence commuted by Obama; I'm dubious that the specific case can be taken as "Obama mean to Manning".
        ndarwincorn 7y ago
        >convicted under Bush What kind of revisionist history is this? She didn't whistleblow until 2010. She wasn't convicted until 2013. Hell she wasn't even assigned to intelligence under Bush. I remember arguing with my family (lifelong Democratic party members who aren't as leftist as me) that she was fulfilling Obama's transparency promises for him. Promises it was clear he wouldn't be keeping as early as the Telco immunity bill during the 08 primary.
pgcj_poster 7y ago
Snowden should be brought home, given a medal, and put in charge of the NSA. —Richard Stallman
- derwiki 7y ago
  Just because Stallman said a thing doesn't lend much credibility to it. See also: his defense of Epstein.
  - emilfihlman 7y ago
    Mate... I recommend you read on the matter before making such wild claims. It was basically a hit piece on him.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      They're hardly wild claims. Here's (http://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_2013_%28Pedophilia%29 http://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_20...) him in 2013: > There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children. and 2006 (https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...): > I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. Defending someone like Epstein is hardly off-brand here.
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        Had no idea he'd said something like this. It's deeply disappointing - he always seemed analogous to a software Jesus or the like.
        dagw 7y ago
        If it matters he has apologized for those statements, said they where made in ignorance and claims that he's completely changed his mind now. Still it shows, at best, questionable judgement to have said those things in the first place.
dx87 7y ago
I wish news sites would stop omitting that in addition to the information he leaked about what was going on in the USA, he also leaked a lot of classified information that had nothing to do with the USA. I don't know how he'd argue that providing classified intelligence about China to the Chinese government is in the public interest.
- _iyig 7y ago
  Can you be more specific, or provide a citation?
  - dx87 7y ago
    Here's a news article where they say that he showed them classified information about computers in China that the NSA had access to. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden-classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-s...
    - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
      He pretty much leaked all of the TAO operations in Asia didn’t he?
    - tobylane 7y ago
      That seems related to the US. Is there anything where he leaked memos between other countries, etc? I faintly remember something like ambassador of A stationed in country B reporting that the government of B had a problem with country C.
      - dx87 7y ago
        By "had nothing to do with the USA", I meant things related to collection in the USA. It's not like he needed to leak information that the NSA was spying on other countries, that's pretty much their entire job. I don't see how he could argue that leaking classified information about NSA operations in China is in the public interest.
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
So Snowden here claims there has been no evidence whatsoever he caused any harm. Is this true? I realize I personally haven't heard any cases where the info Snowden leaked was linked to the death or bodily injury of persons of interest or their friends/family. Which is like, hm, ok, is there something I missed here? If no one's been hurt, and the US has long upheld the need for law breaking when the law is unjust (the unlawful action of a black woman sitting in the white section of the bus) then I don't understand why his asking for a fair trial where established cases of just law breaking are brought up is contentious. EDIT: I should clarify since I think there might be some confusion- I'm not saying that Snowden broke no laws. I'm saying I don't understand why his law breaking is contentious, given we have cases in the past of people breaking laws for just purposes that are generally accepted as just behavior. If Snowden wishes to make that argument, why are people scandalized about him wanting to go on a fair trial about it?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  If Snowden's leaks had caused significant harm of the deaths or blown covers sort, we'd have heard all about it in the news. It would've been instantly leaked or openly disclosed to discredit him. I'm sure there's monetary harm from security audits, investigations. The argument Snowden wants to make is that those harms were necessary to inform the public of something they had a right to know about.
  - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
    Im not entirely certain we would have. That doesn’t go with the M.O. of protecting classified information and sources. I imagine right or wrong, he created an operational impact and or void with his disclosures that required adequate efforts to mediate. I’m not sure we’ll ever get a true estimate of loss because it’s almost impossible to calculate and state without disclosure and risking operations.
    - hannasanarion 7y ago
      Before every disclosure, Snowden asked the white house for comment, or to propose a reason why the information should not be released. According to Snowden, the white house never provided a convincing case for why the information would harm US interests.
docdeek 7y ago
Reporting [0] yesterday had him give an interview where he suggested he would love to find asylum in France instead of returning to the US. I get the feeling he just wants something like a life back. [0] https://www.leprogres.fr/france-monde/2019/09/15/le-lanceur-d-alerte-edward-snowden-aimerait-obtenir-l-asile-politique-en-france https://www.leprogres.fr/france-monde/2019/09/15/le-lanceur-...
- rihegher 7y ago
  the link for the interview: https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-invite-de-8h20-le-grand-entretien/l-invite-de-8h20-le-grand-entretien-16-septembre-2019 https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-invite-de-8h20-le-gra...
- emilsedgh 7y ago
  Another scenario is that extortion of Julian Assange made him realize that sooner or later Russia will use him as a leverage in a negotiation and send him to the U.S.
mrlala 7y ago
Then come home. I'm not really on his side here. If he thinks what he did was so morally correct then he should have stayed.
pastor_elm 7y ago
He could have gotten pardoned by Obama, but he preferred to remain under the protection of Vladimir Putin.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  The only reason Edward Snowden is in Russia right now is that the US cancelled his passport while he was in transit, leaving him stuck there.
  - pastor_elm 7y ago
    That prevented him from returning back to the US?
    - criddell 7y ago
      It makes sense to me. In a few months I'm not going to even be able to fly around the US with my Texas driver's license. I don't see how you could fly anywhere without a passport.
    - wavefunction 7y ago
      It would, yes.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        The US Embassy in Moscow would happily take him in and provide travel documents, tickets, and an "escort". It's clear Snowden doesn't want to take that approach. (I wouldn't, either.)
  - emilsedgh 7y ago
    Additional to the passport issue others mentioned (and if I remember correctly) he said he would return, given a non-military trial. I find it a bit difficult to find the source given the fact that these keywords are on top of headlines now.
kerkeslager 7y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the two most relevant pieces of law to this case are 18 U.S. Code § 798[1] and the First Amendment[2]. I think having read both of these is a minimum prerequisite for having an opinion on how the law should be enforced: you can't say how the law should be enforced if you don't even know what the law is. I also think that the following are two very different questions: 1. Is what Edward Snowden did legal? 2. Is what Edward Snowden did ethical? It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...
- AndrewKemendo 7y ago
  There is nobody who questions whether his actions were legal, they clearly were not. Snowden acknowledges this. So to that end, he could have a completely fair trial and still be found guilty and sentenced to punishment. The follow on question is whether the law is constitutional. So far the government hasn't agreed that it is unconstitutional, and the USA Freedom act is a result of the interpreted language, see: ACLU v Clapper Klayman v Obama Jewel V NSA
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > There is nobody who questions whether his actions were legal, A number of people have suggested that at least some of the programs he revealed were illegally classified to conceal their own illegality (and at least one was found to be illegal in one of the court cases fueled by the revelations), and that no lawful prosecution can proceed for revealing material illegally classified in that way.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- nabla9 7y ago
  It's obvious that Snowden broke laws. But Snowden can provide evidence that whistleblowing would not work as way to provide evidence of wrongdooings. Other global surveillance whistleblowers received punitive treatment (William Binney, Ed Loomis, and J. Kirk Wiebe, Thomas A. Drake). He committed political crime and if he is judged by his peers in open court they can take that into account.
jhales 7y ago
The plausibility of a fair trail in the shadow of the Assange debacle is 0.
tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
I'm wondering what Russia did or did not get. Assuming we trust that Snowden acted based on the motivation he stated, it's plausible that he destroyed his copy of the documents before traveling to Russia. However, once there, and stuck in that holding cell for weeks, completely in the hands of Russia, I can't see how he'd withstand the pressure to give them what he still had and couldn't get rid of - the knowledge in his head. (But keep in mind that the US brought the "Snowden in Russian hands" situation upon themselves by cancelling his passport.) I also can't see how the newspapers would be able to keep the documents secret from a foreign intelligence agency. Such a high-value secret stored and handled in a dozen different places, by people who only have a short opsec training, limited understanding, and few resources and little support to establish effective security... Not saying Snowden shouldn't have done it; his revelations showed massive illegal spying by the NSA, and triggered (some, not sufficient but better than nothing) reforms. But claiming no harm seems a stretch.
- linkregister 7y ago
  The US cancelled Snowden's passport prior to his departure from Hong Kong.
- cmiles74 7y ago
  Unless the US has someone from inside Russian intelligence willing to go on the record that Snowden provided actionable intelligence, this seems like a moot point. Certainly this kind of circumstantial evidence (or, really, lack of evidence) wouldn't be allowed in a proper, legal trial.
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    We already know that he divulged detailed lists of Chinese targets in a failed attempt to gain asylum in Hong Kong. That would be allowed in a trial, and would lock him away for sure. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden-classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-s...
    - 7y ago
tyingq 7y ago
I wonder if he is seriously considering returning, or if this is just to generate some renewed interest, or perhaps offers from countries more comfortable to him than Russia. While I respect his motivations for doing it, smuggling classified info out of a secure facility on a memory card hidden in a Rubik's cube is a crime. A fair trial won't change that. He can do a lot more good staying free and sharing his viewpoints, versus rotting in a Federal facility for years.
BucketSort 7y ago
Edward Snowden being treated like a criminal instead of a hero really opened my eyes. He's a patriot who tried to warn us about a government agency reaching far beyond the powers granted to it by the people...and he is called a traitor? It's the most outrageous thing I've ever witnessed in this country. We need Snowden back. He put his life on the line for the people of this country. I can't say I know anyone in Washington with an equal commitment to the people.
- smolder 7y ago
  While I agree Snowden did a heroic thing, he is very visible due to being a whistleblower. There are potentially lots of people doing selfless and principled things that stay secret, since secrecy really is important in that business. There is a tension between citizens need to keep their government from going astray and the government's need to outwit its adversaries. It's pretty clear to me we have gone too far in the direction of a surveillance state, but those agencies still serve a good purpose, too.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jameslevy 7y ago
Not to tread too much into political territory, but if Warren or Sanders is the next US President I'd assume he will receive a full pardon.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  I don't assume he would, but I do hope he does.
- flmontpetit 7y ago
  Until the pendulum swings Republican again and he gets thrown into jail. Remember Chelsea Manning?
  - adam12 7y ago
    That's because Obama didn't give Chelsea a full pardon.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      A pardon wouldn't have any different effect; she's not being targeted (legally speaking) for any action before Obama left office, so even had he pardoned here for every federal crime she might have committed from the day she was born to the microsecond Obama’s turn ended, she would be subject to the exact same thing she is experiencing now. Now, if Obama has pardoned Assange things might be a little differenct for Manning, but that's a weirder counterfactual assumption.
    - bbatsell 7y ago
      This is incorrect. Manning’s commutation is just as immutable as a full pardon. Her current incarceration is over supposed contempt of court by refusing to testify in an ongoing grand jury investigation. A pardon for her past conviction would have had zero effect on that. Blame the judge and prosecutors if you think it is contrary to justice.
      - somebodythere 7y ago
whataburg 7y ago
I personally don't think it would be unethical if Snowdern were to be killed while still in Russia. This isn't likely to be a popular view, but the fact is he's still alive and well in Russia. If the roles were reversed, Russia would likely try to poison him on American soil. Snowdern knew that he was committing crimes that would be tried in a private military court. The US Government isn't required to disclose damages that he's done. There are classified reports on this already, which will be surely brought up at trial - behind closed doors. Snowdern isn't likely to come home due to his self-serving fallacious argument about a fair trial. Therefore IMO he should just be taken out. The USIC probably has good reasons to not do so, maybe for perception or diplomatic reasons.
- paganel 7y ago
  Killing your own citizens only because you allege that they acted against the country’s interest (or “traitors”, as Putin called them in a recent interview) is a thing that should be left for dictatorial States to do (my country, Romania, did that to a couple of exiled Romanian journalists working for Radio Free Europe in the early ‘80s, while we were under the Ceausescu regime). The US may be a lot of bad things right now, but fortunately is not a dictatorship (at least not yet).
  - whataburg 7y ago
    Makes sense. If Snowdern refuses to come home to face justice, then what options remain? We don't have an extradition treaty with Russia. IMO it looks weak if he's allowed to live out his days in Russia. Trump knows this and wanted him back but clearly Putin isn't going to just hand him over. edit: My parent comment that was flagged stated my opinion that Showdern should be taken out.
helen___keller 7y ago
Honestly, I'm pretty over Snowden. The moment he fled to a foreign power, he should have known he would never be a free man in America. Chelsea Manning's sentence was commuted, but Snowden will never have that opportunity because he fled. Furthermore, since the day he fled, he has literally done nothing but try and shame our government and our system through media. There's a chance the motivations behind his actions really are what he says they are. There's no doubting that his leaks were a good thing for Americans to know about. But at this point I'm more inclined to believe he's a foreign asset working on a campaign to kill trust in American government and American intelligence. He's been working this "fair trial" thing for years now. He's just another marketing tool as far as I'm concerned.
- AlisdairO 7y ago
  Whistleblowers in the US are almost universally abused by the system. If the US wants whistleblowers to stick around, it should consider treating them with the kind of respect they deserve. It's crazy to me that in all the talk of punishing snowden, there's never a mention of punishing those who betray the country by spying on their own citizens.
tssva 7y ago
It is technically impossible for the government to guarantee that he can present a "public good" defense. The most they could agree to is not opposing him presenting such a defense. The judge presiding over the trial would determine whether he could actually present such a defense and could decide to forbid it even if prosecutors don't object and could also decide to allow it if they do.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > It is technically impossible for the government to guarantee that he can present a "public good" defense It is quite possible for the President to guarantee that he will not face any charges for which he is not allowed to present such a defense.
  - tssva 7y ago
    The President can't guarantee he won't face any charges. The President could grant a pardon for any crimes the judge rules he cannot present a "public good" defense for but before a judge makes such a ruling he would have already faced the charges. Getting a fair trial would mean going through the same process that others charged with a crime must go through. If he is asking for a promise of a presidential pardon based upon a judge's decision then he is not asking for a fair trial but a trial which is slanted in his favor.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > The President can't guarantee he won't face any charges. The President could grant a pardon for any crimes the judge rules he cannot present a "public good" defense for but before a judge makes such a ruling he would have already faced the charges. I would argue that he won't have faced the charges until and unless he has gone through, or waived, a complete trial on them. > Getting a fair trial would mean going through the same process that others charged with a crime must go through. Only if you assume that the process others charged with a crime must go through in THE US federal system is always and without exception fair in all circumstances. Really, it seems like you have confused “routine” with “fair”.
test2018 7y ago
He should be protected.
jambalaya0 7y ago
Video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOlllv-m79k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOlllv-m79k
modsaretools 7y ago
Ane pushed off the front page within an hour. HN pretty much a state organ for propaganda.
Simulacra 7y ago
I think what Snowden did was treason and if he were to return to the United States he should be put on trial. There were better ways than defecting to Russia. A true patriot would have never defected and run.
sys_64738 7y ago
He'll be executed as a traitor by the US government.

157 points by smacktoward 7y ago

reeboo 7y ago

He wants the jury in his trail to be made aware of jury-nullification.

ceejayoz 7y ago
I'd argue there's a distinction between a public interest defense and jury nullification. Both ask the jury to vote not guilty despite the legal fact of guilt, but the reasoning is different. Public interest defense says "yes, this was illegal, but morally necessary given the particular details of this case". Jury nullification is more "yes, this was illegal, but it shouldn't be" in my mind.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  I don't think you're getting the difference quite right. A public interest defense is one that argues that a public interest exception, included in a law, applies. In jurisdictions where a public interest defense is possible, i.e. Canada, it applies only to laws which include it as a public interest exception (in Canada, it would be the Security of Information Act of 2001). If a defense argues that a murder was okay because it was in the public interest, that wouldn't be a public interest defense, because the laws against murder don't include a public interest exception. Arguing that such an exception should be made by the jury, rather than that such an exception in the law applies to your case, is a straightforward argument for jury nullification. In the US, I'm not aware of any laws that include a public interest exception, so a public interest defense would not be possible--appeals to the jury to find someone not guilty because their crime was in the public interest would be appeals for jury nullification. There are a few defenses that work on these sorts of exceptions which only apply to specific laws. For example, truth is a defense against a libel charge but not against a HIPAA violation charge, and self defense is a defense against a murder charge but not against a robbery charge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_defence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_defence
behringer 7y ago
"And, essentially, the most important fact to the government and this is the thing we have a point of contention on, is that they do not want the jury to be able to consider the motivations. Why I did what I did. Was it better for the United States? Did it benefit us or did it cause harm? They don't want the jury to consider that at all. They want the jury strictly to consider whether these actions were lawful or unlawful, not whether they were right or wrong. And I'm sorry, but that defeats the purpose of a jury trial," Snowden said.
- amalcon 7y ago
  Snowden is not necessarily right about that. The purpose of a jury trial is to establish facts in a minimally biased manner[1]. This is why summary judgement[2] exists: to streamline the proceeding where the disagreement is in the law, not in the facts. The one thing that clouds this a bit is that the US government cannot constitutionally rule that someone has committed a crime without going through a jury trial. This means that there can never be summary judgement against a criminal defendant (it's mostly a civil litigation thing). Some interpret this as an attempt to explicitly create room for jury nullification. Others interpret this as an attempt to make sure that we never short-circuit the fact finding process in the name of expediency. In practice, it has both of these effects, but there's some debate as to which one is the theoretical grounding. [1]- At least to the extent that humans can ever either establish a fact or reduce bias [2]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_judgment
  - miles 7y ago
    > The purpose of a jury trial is to establish facts in a minimally biased manner Jury nullification in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_Unit... "In 1972, in United States v. Dougherty, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling similar to Moylan that affirmed the de facto power of a jury to nullify the law but upheld the denial of the defense's chance to instruct the jury about the power to nullify. However, in Dougherty the then-chief judge David L. Bazelon authored a dissenting in part opinion, arguing that the jury should be instructed about their power to render the verdict according to their conscience if the law was unjust. He wrote that refusal to allow the jury to be instructed constitutes a 'deliberate lack of candor'. It has been argued that the denial of jury nullification requests negates much of the point of self-representation."
cm2187 7y ago
But are you suggesting the laws that penalise stealing classified information are unfair and should be abolished (like slavery laws in the past)? I think these laws must exist. If I was a jury (but keeping in mind I am not even a US national), a fair sentencing would be to recognise him as guilty but to sentence him to a short term / time served. There were many ways in which he could have blown a whistle without releasing wholesale everything he could find on the internal network to some foreign newspapers.
- hollerith 7y ago
  >If I was a jury (but keeping in mind I am not even a US national), a fair sentencing would be to recognise him as guilty but to sentence him to a short term / time served. In the US, the judge decides the sentence and cannot sentence him to less than a minimum. For example, if convicted (by the jury) of treason, the law states that he "shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000", and the judge cannot impose a sentence less than that.
- Voloskaya 7y ago
  > "But are you suggesting the laws that penalise stealing classified information are unfair and should be abolished (like slavery laws in the past)? I think these laws must exist." Where did OP suggest that? Jury nullification is specifically a case by case judgement, not a broad statement.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    I am referring to the wikipedia definition (I had to look it up, I had not heard the term before) [1] Jury nullification (US) or a perverse verdict (UK) generally occurs when members of a criminal trial jury believe that a defendant is guilty, but choose to acquit him anyway because the jurors also believe that the law itself is unjust,that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant's case,or that the potential punishment for breaking the law is too harsh. I don't think the law is unjust or misapplied, just that the sentence should give him credit for the public interest aspect of the revelations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Talk about an adversarial interview. It reads like a higher brow version of the game of 20-questions you play with the cops when you get pulled over for a fishing stop. They're constantly trying to trip him up and get him to say something harmful to his case.

317070 7y ago
Exactly, and those fishing expedition questions are not interesting anyway. They are not what I want to find out about the story.
yellow_lead 7y ago
Call me tinfoil, but I got the feeling the interviewer was fed questions by the government.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  Not necessary. TV media networks have been sucking up to the government basically since the beginning of TV news. See also, TV news' furor to hype up the Iraq War, even as many newspaper journalists and politicians were crying foul. Or the news' complicity in covering up the bombings of Laos and Cambodia, widely reported in foreign news.
excalibur 7y ago
Additionally, the transcription is terrible, possibly intentionally so. > If you look back at the history of the United States, it doesn't take very long for the average person to think about a moment in which it was absolutely illegal to do something. But at the same time, it was absolutely the same thing to do. Was this intentionally misquoted to take some of the wind out of Snowden's sails? I'm not sure, but given the hostile nature of the interview itself I definitely would not rule it out.
mLuby 7y ago
In contrast, his (counter-)interviewing skills are impressive. Thoughtful and unflappable.

rhacker 7y ago

I can't fucking believe that it's come to this. Every top social media company was (is?) funneling private data into a search interface presented to an agent with no need of warrants. The trial should be the other way around - The People Suing the US Government. The top lawyer representing the people? Edward.

smacktoward 7y ago
I like to believe there's an alternate-universe America where it's Ed Snowden who is filling stadiums to hear him speak, and Donald Trump who has been exiled to Russia. It feels more like the America I grew up believing in.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  Having attended public elementary school in the 1970's, it would seem we were fed a very optimistic, filtered version of American politics. Schoolhouse Rock's presentation was very selective.
  - rukittenme 7y ago
    I'm sorry Schoolhouse Rock did not give you a complete and definitive understanding of human political order...
    - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
      To be fair, it did give me great clarity on the topic of conjunctions.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  You grew up in a America that exiles people to Russia?
  - badrequest 7y ago
    Snowden did.

ydnaclementine 7y ago

Obama should have pardoned him

ndarwincorn 7y ago
Should have? Sure. Given how his administration treated Chelsea Manning idk why we'd expect that.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Obama released Manning. Commuted her sentence decades early.
  - satori99 7y ago
    His administration also prosecuted more whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act, than all of his predecessors combined.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      For a grand total of eleven prosecutions since 1945. https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/ https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10... Twice of nearly nothing is still nearly nothing... and the claim being made here was that Manning, specifically, was mistreated by Obama. Manning was convicted under Bush and had her sentence commuted by Obama; I'm dubious that the specific case can be taken as "Obama mean to Manning".
      - ndarwincorn 7y ago
        >convicted under Bush What kind of revisionist history is this? She didn't whistleblow until 2010. She wasn't convicted until 2013. Hell she wasn't even assigned to intelligence under Bush. I remember arguing with my family (lifelong Democratic party members who aren't as leftist as me) that she was fulfilling Obama's transparency promises for him. Promises it was clear he wouldn't be keeping as early as the Telco immunity bill during the 08 primary.

pgcj_poster 7y ago

Snowden should be brought home, given a medal, and put in charge of the NSA. —Richard Stallman

derwiki 7y ago
Just because Stallman said a thing doesn't lend much credibility to it. See also: his defense of Epstein.
- emilfihlman 7y ago
  Mate... I recommend you read on the matter before making such wild claims. It was basically a hit piece on him.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    They're hardly wild claims. Here's (http://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_2013_%28Pedophilia%29 http://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_20...) him in 2013: > There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children. and 2006 (https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...): > I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. Defending someone like Epstein is hardly off-brand here.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Had no idea he'd said something like this. It's deeply disappointing - he always seemed analogous to a software Jesus or the like.
      - dagw 7y ago
        If it matters he has apologized for those statements, said they where made in ignorance and claims that he's completely changed his mind now. Still it shows, at best, questionable judgement to have said those things in the first place.

dx87 7y ago

I wish news sites would stop omitting that in addition to the information he leaked about what was going on in the USA, he also leaked a lot of classified information that had nothing to do with the USA. I don't know how he'd argue that providing classified intelligence about China to the Chinese government is in the public interest.

_iyig 7y ago
Can you be more specific, or provide a citation?
- dx87 7y ago
  Here's a news article where they say that he showed them classified information about computers in China that the NSA had access to. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden-classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-s...
  - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
    He pretty much leaked all of the TAO operations in Asia didn’t he?
  - tobylane 7y ago
    That seems related to the US. Is there anything where he leaked memos between other countries, etc? I faintly remember something like ambassador of A stationed in country B reporting that the government of B had a problem with country C.
    - dx87 7y ago
      By "had nothing to do with the USA", I meant things related to collection in the USA. It's not like he needed to leak information that the NSA was spying on other countries, that's pretty much their entire job. I don't see how he could argue that leaking classified information about NSA operations in China is in the public interest.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

So Snowden here claims there has been no evidence whatsoever he caused any harm. Is this true? I realize I personally haven't heard any cases where the info Snowden leaked was linked to the death or bodily injury of persons of interest or their friends/family. Which is like, hm, ok, is there something I missed here? If no one's been hurt, and the US has long upheld the need for law breaking when the law is unjust (the unlawful action of a black woman sitting in the white section of the bus) then I don't understand why his asking for a fair trial where established cases of just law breaking are brought up is contentious. EDIT: I should clarify since I think there might be some confusion- I'm not saying that Snowden broke no laws. I'm saying I don't understand why his law breaking is contentious, given we have cases in the past of people breaking laws for just purposes that are generally accepted as just behavior. If Snowden wishes to make that argument, why are people scandalized about him wanting to go on a fair trial about it?

ceejayoz 7y ago
If Snowden's leaks had caused significant harm of the deaths or blown covers sort, we'd have heard all about it in the news. It would've been instantly leaked or openly disclosed to discredit him. I'm sure there's monetary harm from security audits, investigations. The argument Snowden wants to make is that those harms were necessary to inform the public of something they had a right to know about.
- ganoushoreilly 7y ago
  Im not entirely certain we would have. That doesn’t go with the M.O. of protecting classified information and sources. I imagine right or wrong, he created an operational impact and or void with his disclosures that required adequate efforts to mediate. I’m not sure we’ll ever get a true estimate of loss because it’s almost impossible to calculate and state without disclosure and risking operations.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    Before every disclosure, Snowden asked the white house for comment, or to propose a reason why the information should not be released. According to Snowden, the white house never provided a convincing case for why the information would harm US interests.

docdeek 7y ago

Reporting [0] yesterday had him give an interview where he suggested he would love to find asylum in France instead of returning to the US. I get the feeling he just wants something like a life back. [0] https://www.leprogres.fr/france-monde/2019/09/15/le-lanceur-d-alerte-edward-snowden-aimerait-obtenir-l-asile-politique-en-france https://www.leprogres.fr/france-monde/2019/09/15/le-lanceur-...

rihegher 7y ago
the link for the interview: https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-invite-de-8h20-le-grand-entretien/l-invite-de-8h20-le-grand-entretien-16-septembre-2019 https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-invite-de-8h20-le-gra...
emilsedgh 7y ago
Another scenario is that extortion of Julian Assange made him realize that sooner or later Russia will use him as a leverage in a negotiation and send him to the U.S.

mrlala 7y ago

Then come home. I'm not really on his side here. If he thinks what he did was so morally correct then he should have stayed.

pastor_elm 7y ago

He could have gotten pardoned by Obama, but he preferred to remain under the protection of Vladimir Putin.

alasdair_ 7y ago
The only reason Edward Snowden is in Russia right now is that the US cancelled his passport while he was in transit, leaving him stuck there.
- pastor_elm 7y ago
  That prevented him from returning back to the US?
  - criddell 7y ago
    It makes sense to me. In a few months I'm not going to even be able to fly around the US with my Texas driver's license. I don't see how you could fly anywhere without a passport.
  - wavefunction 7y ago
    It would, yes.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      The US Embassy in Moscow would happily take him in and provide travel documents, tickets, and an "escort". It's clear Snowden doesn't want to take that approach. (I wouldn't, either.)
- emilsedgh 7y ago
  Additional to the passport issue others mentioned (and if I remember correctly) he said he would return, given a non-military trial. I find it a bit difficult to find the source given the fact that these keywords are on top of headlines now.

kerkeslager 7y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the two most relevant pieces of law to this case are 18 U.S. Code § 798[1] and the First Amendment[2]. I think having read both of these is a minimum prerequisite for having an opinion on how the law should be enforced: you can't say how the law should be enforced if you don't even know what the law is. I also think that the following are two very different questions: 1. Is what Edward Snowden did legal? 2. Is what Edward Snowden did ethical? It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
There is nobody who questions whether his actions were legal, they clearly were not. Snowden acknowledges this. So to that end, he could have a completely fair trial and still be found guilty and sentenced to punishment. The follow on question is whether the law is constitutional. So far the government hasn't agreed that it is unconstitutional, and the USA Freedom act is a result of the interpreted language, see: ACLU v Clapper Klayman v Obama Jewel V NSA
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > There is nobody who questions whether his actions were legal, A number of people have suggested that at least some of the programs he revealed were illegally classified to conceal their own illegality (and at least one was found to be illegal in one of the court cases fueled by the revelations), and that no lawful prosecution can proceed for revealing material illegally classified in that way.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
nabla9 7y ago
It's obvious that Snowden broke laws. But Snowden can provide evidence that whistleblowing would not work as way to provide evidence of wrongdooings. Other global surveillance whistleblowers received punitive treatment (William Binney, Ed Loomis, and J. Kirk Wiebe, Thomas A. Drake). He committed political crime and if he is judged by his peers in open court they can take that into account.

jhales 7y ago

The plausibility of a fair trail in the shadow of the Assange debacle is 0.

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago

I'm wondering what Russia did or did not get. Assuming we trust that Snowden acted based on the motivation he stated, it's plausible that he destroyed his copy of the documents before traveling to Russia. However, once there, and stuck in that holding cell for weeks, completely in the hands of Russia, I can't see how he'd withstand the pressure to give them what he still had and couldn't get rid of - the knowledge in his head. (But keep in mind that the US brought the "Snowden in Russian hands" situation upon themselves by cancelling his passport.) I also can't see how the newspapers would be able to keep the documents secret from a foreign intelligence agency. Such a high-value secret stored and handled in a dozen different places, by people who only have a short opsec training, limited understanding, and few resources and little support to establish effective security... Not saying Snowden shouldn't have done it; his revelations showed massive illegal spying by the NSA, and triggered (some, not sufficient but better than nothing) reforms. But claiming no harm seems a stretch.

linkregister 7y ago
The US cancelled Snowden's passport prior to his departure from Hong Kong.
cmiles74 7y ago
Unless the US has someone from inside Russian intelligence willing to go on the record that Snowden provided actionable intelligence, this seems like a moot point. Certainly this kind of circumstantial evidence (or, really, lack of evidence) wouldn't be allowed in a proper, legal trial.
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  We already know that he divulged detailed lists of Chinese targets in a failed attempt to gain asylum in Hong Kong. That would be allowed in a trial, and would lock him away for sure. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-snowden-classified-us-data-shows-hong-kong-hacking-targets https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260306/edward-s...
  - 7y ago

tyingq 7y ago

I wonder if he is seriously considering returning, or if this is just to generate some renewed interest, or perhaps offers from countries more comfortable to him than Russia. While I respect his motivations for doing it, smuggling classified info out of a secure facility on a memory card hidden in a Rubik's cube is a crime. A fair trial won't change that. He can do a lot more good staying free and sharing his viewpoints, versus rotting in a Federal facility for years.

BucketSort 7y ago

Edward Snowden being treated like a criminal instead of a hero really opened my eyes. He's a patriot who tried to warn us about a government agency reaching far beyond the powers granted to it by the people...and he is called a traitor? It's the most outrageous thing I've ever witnessed in this country. We need Snowden back. He put his life on the line for the people of this country. I can't say I know anyone in Washington with an equal commitment to the people.

smolder 7y ago
While I agree Snowden did a heroic thing, he is very visible due to being a whistleblower. There are potentially lots of people doing selfless and principled things that stay secret, since secrecy really is important in that business. There is a tension between citizens need to keep their government from going astray and the government's need to outwit its adversaries. It's pretty clear to me we have gone too far in the direction of a surveillance state, but those agencies still serve a good purpose, too.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jameslevy 7y ago

Not to tread too much into political territory, but if Warren or Sanders is the next US President I'd assume he will receive a full pardon.

mywittyname 7y ago
I don't assume he would, but I do hope he does.
flmontpetit 7y ago
Until the pendulum swings Republican again and he gets thrown into jail. Remember Chelsea Manning?
- adam12 7y ago
  That's because Obama didn't give Chelsea a full pardon.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    A pardon wouldn't have any different effect; she's not being targeted (legally speaking) for any action before Obama left office, so even had he pardoned here for every federal crime she might have committed from the day she was born to the microsecond Obama’s turn ended, she would be subject to the exact same thing she is experiencing now. Now, if Obama has pardoned Assange things might be a little differenct for Manning, but that's a weirder counterfactual assumption.
  - bbatsell 7y ago
    This is incorrect. Manning’s commutation is just as immutable as a full pardon. Her current incarceration is over supposed contempt of court by refusing to testify in an ongoing grand jury investigation. A pardon for her past conviction would have had zero effect on that. Blame the judge and prosecutors if you think it is contrary to justice.
    - somebodythere 7y ago

whataburg 7y ago

I personally don't think it would be unethical if Snowdern were to be killed while still in Russia. This isn't likely to be a popular view, but the fact is he's still alive and well in Russia. If the roles were reversed, Russia would likely try to poison him on American soil. Snowdern knew that he was committing crimes that would be tried in a private military court. The US Government isn't required to disclose damages that he's done. There are classified reports on this already, which will be surely brought up at trial - behind closed doors. Snowdern isn't likely to come home due to his self-serving fallacious argument about a fair trial. Therefore IMO he should just be taken out. The USIC probably has good reasons to not do so, maybe for perception or diplomatic reasons.

paganel 7y ago
Killing your own citizens only because you allege that they acted against the country’s interest (or “traitors”, as Putin called them in a recent interview) is a thing that should be left for dictatorial States to do (my country, Romania, did that to a couple of exiled Romanian journalists working for Radio Free Europe in the early ‘80s, while we were under the Ceausescu regime). The US may be a lot of bad things right now, but fortunately is not a dictatorship (at least not yet).
- whataburg 7y ago
  Makes sense. If Snowdern refuses to come home to face justice, then what options remain? We don't have an extradition treaty with Russia. IMO it looks weak if he's allowed to live out his days in Russia. Trump knows this and wanted him back but clearly Putin isn't going to just hand him over. edit: My parent comment that was flagged stated my opinion that Showdern should be taken out.

helen___keller 7y ago

Honestly, I'm pretty over Snowden. The moment he fled to a foreign power, he should have known he would never be a free man in America. Chelsea Manning's sentence was commuted, but Snowden will never have that opportunity because he fled. Furthermore, since the day he fled, he has literally done nothing but try and shame our government and our system through media. There's a chance the motivations behind his actions really are what he says they are. There's no doubting that his leaks were a good thing for Americans to know about. But at this point I'm more inclined to believe he's a foreign asset working on a campaign to kill trust in American government and American intelligence. He's been working this "fair trial" thing for years now. He's just another marketing tool as far as I'm concerned.

AlisdairO 7y ago
Whistleblowers in the US are almost universally abused by the system. If the US wants whistleblowers to stick around, it should consider treating them with the kind of respect they deserve. It's crazy to me that in all the talk of punishing snowden, there's never a mention of punishing those who betray the country by spying on their own citizens.

tssva 7y ago

It is technically impossible for the government to guarantee that he can present a "public good" defense. The most they could agree to is not opposing him presenting such a defense. The judge presiding over the trial would determine whether he could actually present such a defense and could decide to forbid it even if prosecutors don't object and could also decide to allow it if they do.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> It is technically impossible for the government to guarantee that he can present a "public good" defense It is quite possible for the President to guarantee that he will not face any charges for which he is not allowed to present such a defense.
- tssva 7y ago
  The President can't guarantee he won't face any charges. The President could grant a pardon for any crimes the judge rules he cannot present a "public good" defense for but before a judge makes such a ruling he would have already faced the charges. Getting a fair trial would mean going through the same process that others charged with a crime must go through. If he is asking for a promise of a presidential pardon based upon a judge's decision then he is not asking for a fair trial but a trial which is slanted in his favor.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The President can't guarantee he won't face any charges. The President could grant a pardon for any crimes the judge rules he cannot present a "public good" defense for but before a judge makes such a ruling he would have already faced the charges. I would argue that he won't have faced the charges until and unless he has gone through, or waived, a complete trial on them. > Getting a fair trial would mean going through the same process that others charged with a crime must go through. Only if you assume that the process others charged with a crime must go through in THE US federal system is always and without exception fair in all circumstances. Really, it seems like you have confused “routine” with “fair”.

test2018 7y ago

He should be protected.

jambalaya0 7y ago

Video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOlllv-m79k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOlllv-m79k

modsaretools 7y ago

Ane pushed off the front page within an hour. HN pretty much a state organ for propaganda.

Simulacra 7y ago

I think what Snowden did was treason and if he were to return to the United States he should be put on trial. There were better ways than defecting to Russia. A true patriot would have never defected and run.

sys_64738 7y ago

He'll be executed as a traitor by the US government.