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I used to agree with this but now that I've seen where this path leads, I think he should be given a fair trial and judged. Our government and the security of 3

• biztos 7y ago
  Current POTUS has recently threatened a legally protected whistleblower with removal of protection, it wouldn't be crazy to call it a death threat. Previous POTUS wasn't any better disposed to Snowden. I'm not necessarily a fan, but I think it was a very rational choice on Snowden's part to choose "permanent exile and fear of assassination" over "trust the system."
  • garmaine 7y ago
    It was a death threat. He literally said the whistleblower should be killed.
    • cookie_monsta 7y ago
      To be fair I've only seen him on record alluding to the idea that he should be killed. Can you cite his literal statement?
      • xrd 7y ago
        Rolling Stone has a theory about his somewhat vague statement about "what we used to do in the old days." https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/oh-nothing-just-trump-fantasizing-about-executing-spies-behind-the-whistleblower-complaint-891093/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/oh-nothi...
      • tkifnn 7y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDEDQFj9sFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDEDQFj9sFk
    • late2part 7y ago
      I don't think this word 'literally' means what you think it means. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/2/donald-trump-edward-snowden-kill-traitor/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/2/donald-trump...
  • yahnu 7y ago
    Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Mannings. So may be there was a better scenario for Snowden? But we can only speculate at this point. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-chelsea-mannings-sentence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commute...
• kup0 7y ago
  The assumption that a fair trial is even a possibility is pretty naive, IMHO
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• gnrlbzik 7y ago
  And i think he would take this path, but i do not think he can get a fair trial right now.
  • handedness 7y ago
    A fair trial isn't what he's after. By his own admission he would be quickly and easily prosecuted for his actions. He's after something which doesn't presently exist: “If I’d made preexisting arrangements to fly to a specific country and seek asylum, for example, I would’ve been called a foreign agent of that country. Meanwhile, if I returned to my own country, the best I could hope for was to be arrested upon landing and charged under the Espionage Act. That would’ve entitled me to a show trial deprived of any meaningful defense, a sham in which all discussion of the most important facts would be forbidden. “The major impediment to justice was a major flaw in the law, a purposeful flaw created by the government. Someone in my position would not even be allowed to argue in court that the disclosures I made to journalists were civically beneficial. Even now, years after the fact, I would not be allowed to argue that the reporting based on my disclosures had caused Congress to change certain laws regarding surveillance, or convinced the courts to strike down a certain mass surveillance program as illegal, or influenced the attorney general and the president of the United States to admit that the debate over mass surveillance was a crucial one for the public to have, one that would ultimately strengthen the country. All these claims would be deemed not just irrelevant but inadmissible in the kind of proceedings that I would face were I to head home. The only thing my government would have to prove in court is that I disclosed classified information to journalists, a fact that is not in dispute. “This is why anyone who says I have to come back to the States for trial is essentially saying I have to come back to the States for sentencing, and the sentence would, now as then, surely be a cruel one. The penalty for disclosing top secret documents, whether to foreign spies or domestic journalists, is up to ten years per document.” Excerpt From: Edward Snowden. “Permanent Record.” Apple Books.
    • cookie_monsta 7y ago
      That sounds to me exactly like what he wants is a fair trial. The fact that the possibility doesn't exist under the current system is the larger point.
• ar-jan 7y ago
  Of course if whistleblowers weren't routinely completely destroyed by the state he might have chosen that path instead.
• hnbroseph 7y ago
  what you describe does not seem to correlate with reality. > he was also wrong what do you mean?
  • biztos 7y ago
    I think @Lendal means it was wrong of him to take the information public, not that any of his assertions were wrong in themselves. At least that's how I parse the language itself, and I've also heard this position from numerous acquaintances.
• saucoidev 7y ago
  He exposed illegal actions by the government, and as far as i know there hasn't been a trial for that, just a flurry of laws passed to justify what was done after the fact. What can you do, when the institution you should report illegal acts to, is the one perpetrating them?
  • strunz 7y ago
    Exactly, this is the whole reason whistleblower protections exist. It gives a lone wolf the ability to fight against the machines that are bigger than they could possibly fight themselves.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• CWuestefeld 7y ago
  He should be judged fairly by a jury of his peers and that trial should be held in a transparent, fair and open trial for all to see. The government won't let that happen. They'll say that, for national security reasons, the public can't be allowed to know the actual impact of the secrets he disclosed. And if we can't see the impact, it's impossible to weigh judgment. Democracy can't work in the face of such secrecy.
  • xrd 7y ago
    That's exactly what happened with Nacchio mentioned above. Right or wrong, he was prevented from establishing evidence because "state secrets."
• hestipod 7y ago
  He was not wrong. So many people define right and wrong by some system of made up rules and laws, and if someone breaks those rules or laws, even for right, people still say "they should be held accountable" as if the rule and law matter more than anything. The bad guys don't follow those rules and laws and exposing them for that, even if it violates said rules and laws, is not "wrong". It's brave and moral and right. If I was on that jury he would get a "not guilty" or jury nullification from me because despite what rules and laws he may have technically violated the system was wrong, not him. I don't care about idealistic excuses like "he should have....." because those things don't work as history proves over and over again. There are times the ends justify the means. Life is not a series of black and white rules or rule violations. The only wrong part about all of this is that they were spying on everyone to begin with, lied about it, and that nothing has been done about it since everyone was made aware. They have done a fantastic job of convincing the masses Snowden is the REAL bad guy. Shameful. If anyone insists on a trial it should be of the USG for its nefarious activities. Not the little guy for exposing them.
  • ohbleek 7y ago
    I agree with this opinion fully and I find it odd that the OP you replied to doesn’t call for the federal agencies that were conducting unconstitutional surveillance to be held accountable in court?
  • late2part 7y ago
    There's this concept of punching up or down. The little guy shouldn't be punched down to - in conventional politically correct culture. Mostly the legal system is not encouraged to be politically correct. Mr. Snowden broke his oath and leaked confidential data. His defense is the greater good. That should prevent prosecution. Mr. Clapper lied to Congress when he said "Not Wittingly." Mrs. Clinton failed to safeguard confidential data. Others have broken the law, and they are not prosecuted. We should prosecute those who break the law. They should defend themselves accordingly. The real solution to this mess is for Congress to pass a law that exposing illegal activities is allowed. Wait - they did! The whistleblower protections don't work. More corruption.
• raxxorrax 7y ago
  Where does this path lead in your opinion? Frankly, I think this reasoning is pretty weak.
• Aperocky 7y ago
  There will be no fair and open trial, the media will rile up potential jury beforehand with dubiously authored hit pieces. Alternatively, he might decide to suddenly fall into depression and remorse and commit suicide in a jail cell.
• westoncb 7y ago
  > no matter how right he believed himself to be. Does it change anything for you if it wasn't just his opinion, but some sort of majority consensus instead—even if that only arrives in the history books? (Only asking in principle, as a hypothetical—not making the claim that Snowden in fact was right.) There seems to be a fundamental problem with what you're proposing here—of course the vigilante approach is riddled with obvious issues too, but I just want to point out that what you're describing isn't clearly an effective way of dealing with things either. You're basically saying the system works and we should trust it to evaluate and handle Snowden correctly: we have Congress, and they'll make the right choices if not the president. But, the giant government programs exposed by Snowden are already a striking example of how we can't rely on Congress, at least to handle this matter correctly. Why would we assume the same entity which created the problems that were exposed is going to then handle the exposer fairly? (I don't know the precise link between the exposed programs and Congress—so maybe they are separate/unrelated enough that my suggestion is inaccurate.)
• soraminazuki 7y ago
  > I think he should be given a fair trial and judged. That’s his whole point. But if you truly care about the law, shouldn’t government officials also be put on trial for breaking the law on a much more massive scale? > Our Congress has 535 members for precisely this reason, the president answers to Congress and is not a king, and even the Chief Justice does not rule absolutely. The reason he went public is precisely because the system of checks and balances didn’t work in the first place. In case you’ve forgotten, government officials actively kept members of congress in the dark and even lied under oath.
• user8373 7y ago
  You almost made me believe the system is perfect. Unfortunately, it's not.
• bumby 7y ago
  >Our Congress has 535 members for precisely this reason He touches on this in the podcast. He claims the vast majority of Congress had no clue and only the Gang of Eight had that access. If true, the implication is that the full representation of the People was not present to provide those checks and balances
• late2part 7y ago
  I sort of respect your opinion. His affirmative defense is a plain reading of the 4th amendment. The problem is I believe that our government and courts have lost objective interpretation and we're tending towards corruption. The courts will be biased "for the greater good" v. the actual law. We see this with Mr. Clapper "not wittingly" testimony to congress. We see this with the Lavabit case. When the game is rigged, your only option is not to play. I am occasionally encouraged by our country's judicial system doing something right. The fact that this is astonishingly rare is the canonical problem, circular to the issue Mr. Snowden raises. The federal courts embraced this quasi-faux legal perspective that they could capture data and store it and then post-hoc get a warrant for the previously captured data. This is is corrupt and immoral. In general this is the reason I believe Mr. Snowden should not present himself for trial, because we do not have ethical folks in the courts or congress who will give him a fair trial.
• cstork12 7y ago
  He addressed this on the podcast: The Espionage Act does not allow for a fair trial – no matter how well you prepare your defense. All that would be established at the trial is that he is guilty of sharing classified information which nobody, especially not him, denies. No possibility to lay out his motivation for his actions.