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I seriously hope that the President gives Snowden a pardon even it as a dick move on his way out. His releases were far less dangerous than Manning but I think

I seriously hope that the President gives Snowden a pardon even it as a dick move on his way out. His releases were far less dangerous than Manning but I think his problem is no compelling story to distract from his actions and he did step on a lot of toes. Toes that deserved to be stomped.

Simulacra 6y ago
Both put lives at risk for what has apparently achieved zero gain. I don’t want Snowden to have a pardon, and I think he and Manning both belong in prison.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I wouldn't call revealing the extent of illicit NSA surveillance "zero gain".
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    If nothing else, it pushed Google to close the security hole the UK was using to harvest inter-datacenter data.
    - Simulacra 6y ago
      It nothing else, it pushed the governments to bury their secret programs even deeper. Nothing changed. The NSA is still spying on Americans, American technology companies are still working with governments to thwart human rights and spy on citizens, and Russia has just rewarded its best spy with residency. Net result zero.
- devilduck 6y ago
  If you don't think the direct knowledge of how the US government is surveiling its own people is "zero gain" then I can't wait to hear some other amazing opinions you might have. Though I have my silent guesses as to how your bias leans.
- bdamm 6y ago
  If there was a gain would you feel differently about pardoning Snowden?
  - Simulacra 6y ago
    A pardon is off the table. He committed treason, regardless of Monday morning quarterbacking and saying the ends justify the means. He broke the law. Either it's the law or it's not, and the fact he and Manning broke the law, regardless of what "good" people might see in it, they still broke the law.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      Reporting someone else breaking the law should never be illegal. The law that says it is, is an illegitimate law. That is just playing into the hands of corruption and despotism.
- jdc 6y ago
  How is revealing systemic domestic surveillance at zero value in your mind?
  - wlesieutre 6y ago
    Not to mention this formerly secret mass surveillance program has been making its way through the courts and the Ninth Circuit court of appeals found it to have been illegal, that the NSA has been lying about it for years, and that they were additionally lying when they said it helped convict several terrorist supporters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nsa-spying/u-s-court-mass-surveillance-program-exposed-by-snowden-was-illegal-idUSKBN25T3CK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nsa-spying/u-s-court-... > Evidence that the NSA was secretly building a vast database of U.S. telephone records - the who, the how, the when, and the where of millions of mobile calls - was the first and arguably the most explosive of the Snowden revelations published by the Guardian newspaper in 2013. > Up until that moment, top intelligence officials publicly insisted the NSA never knowingly collected information on Americans at all. After the program’s exposure, U.S. officials fell back on the argument that the spying had played a crucial role in fighting domestic extremism, citing in particular the case of four San Diego residents who were accused of providing aid to religious fanatics in Somalia. > U.S. officials insisted that the four - Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh - were convicted in 2013 thanks to the NSA’s telephone record spying, but the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that those claims were “inconsistent with the contents of the classified record.”
    - anonAndOn 6y ago
      IIUC, this case would have never been possible without Snowden's evidence that the spying program existed. You can't stop a government program that doesn't exist.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    (playing devil's advocate) you could make the argument that the suspicion that domestic surveillance was at that level was almost as high (if not higher).
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Yet we accept this because the alternative means a strong precedent for prosecuting whistle-blowing. Snowden literally exposed a massive spy campaign and moved it from conspiracy status to truth. Just because you didn't do shit about it doesn't mean it was 0 gain :)
  - Simulacra 6y ago
    There was zero gain. Everyone found out and yet we moved right along, your woke outrage has done nothing, still is doing nothing, while two men who put countless lives at risk go on their merry way. It's only a truth to you, to everyone else its treason.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  Don't blame the messenger. The risk was created and perpetuated by a mafia style government on both counts.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I wonder if people who think this would have the same opinion of someone who revealed classified documents about government surveillance or ethnic cleansing in China. Or is it only bad when it's our government's misdeeds that are being exposed?
- jancsika 6y ago
  > Both put lives at risk for what has apparently achieved zero gain. So, future impact affects your assessment of the righteousness of an act of conscience? How does that work?
  - DubiousPusher 6y ago
    Maybe that looks like a gross "argument from final consequences"... ...but if we could get this police state going and everyone would shut up about it we'd all be 100% safe right?
    - jancsika 6y ago
      Hee hee, that's like when I tried changing a makefile to speed things up and it compiled the library in question in zero seconds.
  - Simulacra 6y ago
    I can't tell the future, can you?
wavefunction 6y ago
I upvoted you because you merely posted your opinion, with which I agree. His actions did result in loss of trust in the US from foreign governments and people but I think his main intent was to alert the American people to what their government is doing. I consider him a patriot and my only regret is that he was trapped in Russia though I'm not sure his plans to travel to South America would have panned out.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Agreed. We (the public) should never give up attempting to obtain a pardon for him.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- moomin 6y ago
  He was planning to go to Ecuador, wasn't he? Which at the time was pretty friendly to those viewpoints. And then Ola Bini got arrested and detained so I don't think it's that friendly anymore.
  - pseingatl 6y ago
    Correct. The US canceled his passport while he was in Russia, hoping that they would deport him. Whoever had that idea should be fired. Given the Assange situation, it is fortunate for Snowden that he did not reach either Ecuador or Venezuela, the latter country offering him political asylum as well.
- jsu32 6y ago
  If that was his intent: Why not selectively publish only the parts about surveillance of US citizens? Why publish details of how the US was dealing with adversaries like China? From the looks of it, Snowden cared about getting famous more than any specific goal.
  - yourapostasy 6y ago
chrisco255 6y ago
The president can't pre-pardon him though. He'd have to go to trial first.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  That's completely false[0], no such condition exists in the Constitution and people (for the most famous, Nixon) have been pardoned without charges, much less trial. [0] On further reflection, that's probably overstated. While there is no such express condition in the Constitution, and pardons have been issued in such circumstances (including the famous Nixon pardon), none of them have been challenged (such as by a later attempt to prosecute despite the pardon) in a way which caused a court to rule on their effect, and there are cases where the question of the Constitutionality of pre-conviction pardons has been raised, though those cases were resolved on other grounds. So it should probably be acknowledged that the claim that a pardon requires trial and conviction is an active legal theory, though one without positive support in case law, and one which the actual practical use of pardons in the US has not been consistent with to this point.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jb1991 6y ago
  Completely false. Look at Nixon.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    I stand corrected...pardon me.
    - mikestew 6y ago
      Still time to delete that erroneous comment should you so choose. Be advised, now that there are replies, that it will show as "[deleted]".
      - 6y ago
dragonwriter 6y ago
> His releases were far less dangerous than Manning Manning wasn't pardoned, though. Manning was granted clemency based largely on how the military treated her in detention.
BlueScreenDeath 6y ago
Manning was in the military, there is no comparison to Manning and Snowden in that regard.
shadowgovt 6y ago
Snowden was never found guilty of anything, so the President can't pardon him. And Presidential authority doesn't extend to say "Whatever he did, this country forgives him" in the absence of a guilty verdict. It's commonly thought to, but the actual result is unknown; a subsequent President's authority to arrest him on his "pardoned" actions and try him for commission of crime under the theory that one cannot be pardoned for crimes not tried has never been tested in the US legal system. Trump is enough of an outlier that someone might actually be willing to test the hypothesis on any pardons he fires off.
- pseingatl 6y ago
  That's not true. Nixon was preemptively pardoned by Ford with no charges pending.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    And no subsequent President challenged that pardon. That's the operative factor here. Nobody's ever tried to claim the President lacks authority to pardon for crimes untried. What would happen if it was tried is unclear; there's no precedent. Trump's enough of an outlier that his successor might actually test the hypothesis.
    - function_seven 6y ago
      > The President...shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. The Constitution makes no mention of trial, or of conviction. Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that pardons can be offered prior to a conviction in Ex parte Garland[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Garland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Garland
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        Correct on "Crimes untried," and my error. Ex parte Garland clearly covers that. However, subsequent rulings call into question the absolute scope of Ex parte Garland (https://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1815&context=lawreview https://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...). In particular, in case of dispute, the Court has the authority to adjudicate the dispute. It's the authority the Court used to hear Ex parte Garland in the first place. And to my knowledge, there has never been a case that considers the President's ability to pardon for all possible crimes that could be filed related to some action. So if a subsequent President chooses to tack on a fourth crime to the list of three Snowden is currently charged with, a Trump pardon would likely not attach. At least, it would be up to the Court to decide if it attaches.

Simulacra 6y ago

Both put lives at risk for what has apparently achieved zero gain. I don’t want Snowden to have a pardon, and I think he and Manning both belong in prison.

saagarjha 6y ago
I wouldn't call revealing the extent of illicit NSA surveillance "zero gain".
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  If nothing else, it pushed Google to close the security hole the UK was using to harvest inter-datacenter data.
  - Simulacra 6y ago
    It nothing else, it pushed the governments to bury their secret programs even deeper. Nothing changed. The NSA is still spying on Americans, American technology companies are still working with governments to thwart human rights and spy on citizens, and Russia has just rewarded its best spy with residency. Net result zero.
devilduck 6y ago
If you don't think the direct knowledge of how the US government is surveiling its own people is "zero gain" then I can't wait to hear some other amazing opinions you might have. Though I have my silent guesses as to how your bias leans.
bdamm 6y ago
If there was a gain would you feel differently about pardoning Snowden?
- Simulacra 6y ago
  A pardon is off the table. He committed treason, regardless of Monday morning quarterbacking and saying the ends justify the means. He broke the law. Either it's the law or it's not, and the fact he and Manning broke the law, regardless of what "good" people might see in it, they still broke the law.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    Reporting someone else breaking the law should never be illegal. The law that says it is, is an illegitimate law. That is just playing into the hands of corruption and despotism.
jdc 6y ago
How is revealing systemic domestic surveillance at zero value in your mind?
- wlesieutre 6y ago
  Not to mention this formerly secret mass surveillance program has been making its way through the courts and the Ninth Circuit court of appeals found it to have been illegal, that the NSA has been lying about it for years, and that they were additionally lying when they said it helped convict several terrorist supporters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nsa-spying/u-s-court-mass-surveillance-program-exposed-by-snowden-was-illegal-idUSKBN25T3CK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nsa-spying/u-s-court-... > Evidence that the NSA was secretly building a vast database of U.S. telephone records - the who, the how, the when, and the where of millions of mobile calls - was the first and arguably the most explosive of the Snowden revelations published by the Guardian newspaper in 2013. > Up until that moment, top intelligence officials publicly insisted the NSA never knowingly collected information on Americans at all. After the program’s exposure, U.S. officials fell back on the argument that the spying had played a crucial role in fighting domestic extremism, citing in particular the case of four San Diego residents who were accused of providing aid to religious fanatics in Somalia. > U.S. officials insisted that the four - Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh - were convicted in 2013 thanks to the NSA’s telephone record spying, but the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that those claims were “inconsistent with the contents of the classified record.”
  - anonAndOn 6y ago
    IIUC, this case would have never been possible without Snowden's evidence that the spying program existed. You can't stop a government program that doesn't exist.
- dnautics 6y ago
  (playing devil's advocate) you could make the argument that the suspicion that domestic surveillance was at that level was almost as high (if not higher).
aaomidi 6y ago
Yet we accept this because the alternative means a strong precedent for prosecuting whistle-blowing. Snowden literally exposed a massive spy campaign and moved it from conspiracy status to truth. Just because you didn't do shit about it doesn't mean it was 0 gain :)
- Simulacra 6y ago
  There was zero gain. Everyone found out and yet we moved right along, your woke outrage has done nothing, still is doing nothing, while two men who put countless lives at risk go on their merry way. It's only a truth to you, to everyone else its treason.
rorykoehler 6y ago
Don't blame the messenger. The risk was created and perpetuated by a mafia style government on both counts.
StavrosK 6y ago
I wonder if people who think this would have the same opinion of someone who revealed classified documents about government surveillance or ethnic cleansing in China. Or is it only bad when it's our government's misdeeds that are being exposed?
jancsika 6y ago
> Both put lives at risk for what has apparently achieved zero gain. So, future impact affects your assessment of the righteousness of an act of conscience? How does that work?
- DubiousPusher 6y ago
  Maybe that looks like a gross "argument from final consequences"... ...but if we could get this police state going and everyone would shut up about it we'd all be 100% safe right?
  - jancsika 6y ago
    Hee hee, that's like when I tried changing a makefile to speed things up and it compiled the library in question in zero seconds.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  I can't tell the future, can you?

wavefunction 6y ago

I upvoted you because you merely posted your opinion, with which I agree. His actions did result in loss of trust in the US from foreign governments and people but I think his main intent was to alert the American people to what their government is doing. I consider him a patriot and my only regret is that he was trapped in Russia though I'm not sure his plans to travel to South America would have panned out.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Agreed. We (the public) should never give up attempting to obtain a pardon for him.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
moomin 6y ago
He was planning to go to Ecuador, wasn't he? Which at the time was pretty friendly to those viewpoints. And then Ola Bini got arrested and detained so I don't think it's that friendly anymore.
- pseingatl 6y ago
  Correct. The US canceled his passport while he was in Russia, hoping that they would deport him. Whoever had that idea should be fired. Given the Assange situation, it is fortunate for Snowden that he did not reach either Ecuador or Venezuela, the latter country offering him political asylum as well.
jsu32 6y ago
If that was his intent: Why not selectively publish only the parts about surveillance of US citizens? Why publish details of how the US was dealing with adversaries like China? From the looks of it, Snowden cared about getting famous more than any specific goal.
- yourapostasy 6y ago

chrisco255 6y ago

The president can't pre-pardon him though. He'd have to go to trial first.

dragonwriter 6y ago
That's completely false[0], no such condition exists in the Constitution and people (for the most famous, Nixon) have been pardoned without charges, much less trial. [0] On further reflection, that's probably overstated. While there is no such express condition in the Constitution, and pardons have been issued in such circumstances (including the famous Nixon pardon), none of them have been challenged (such as by a later attempt to prosecute despite the pardon) in a way which caused a court to rule on their effect, and there are cases where the question of the Constitutionality of pre-conviction pardons has been raised, though those cases were resolved on other grounds. So it should probably be acknowledged that the claim that a pardon requires trial and conviction is an active legal theory, though one without positive support in case law, and one which the actual practical use of pardons in the US has not been consistent with to this point.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jb1991 6y ago
Completely false. Look at Nixon.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  I stand corrected...pardon me.
  - mikestew 6y ago
    Still time to delete that erroneous comment should you so choose. Be advised, now that there are replies, that it will show as "[deleted]".
    - 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago

> His releases were far less dangerous than Manning Manning wasn't pardoned, though. Manning was granted clemency based largely on how the military treated her in detention.

BlueScreenDeath 6y ago

Manning was in the military, there is no comparison to Manning and Snowden in that regard.

shadowgovt 6y ago

Snowden was never found guilty of anything, so the President can't pardon him. And Presidential authority doesn't extend to say "Whatever he did, this country forgives him" in the absence of a guilty verdict. It's commonly thought to, but the actual result is unknown; a subsequent President's authority to arrest him on his "pardoned" actions and try him for commission of crime under the theory that one cannot be pardoned for crimes not tried has never been tested in the US legal system. Trump is enough of an outlier that someone might actually be willing to test the hypothesis on any pardons he fires off.

pseingatl 6y ago
That's not true. Nixon was preemptively pardoned by Ford with no charges pending.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  And no subsequent President challenged that pardon. That's the operative factor here. Nobody's ever tried to claim the President lacks authority to pardon for crimes untried. What would happen if it was tried is unclear; there's no precedent. Trump's enough of an outlier that his successor might actually test the hypothesis.
  - function_seven 6y ago
    > The President...shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. The Constitution makes no mention of trial, or of conviction. Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that pardons can be offered prior to a conviction in Ex parte Garland[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Garland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Garland
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      Correct on "Crimes untried," and my error. Ex parte Garland clearly covers that. However, subsequent rulings call into question the absolute scope of Ex parte Garland (https://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1815&context=lawreview https://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...). In particular, in case of dispute, the Court has the authority to adjudicate the dispute. It's the authority the Court used to hear Ex parte Garland in the first place. And to my knowledge, there has never been a case that considers the President's ability to pardon for all possible crimes that could be filed related to some action. So if a subsequent President chooses to tack on a fourth crime to the list of three Snowden is currently charged with, a Trump pardon would likely not attach. At least, it would be up to the Court to decide if it attaches.