Edward Snowden makes 'moral' case for presidential pardon
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Loring_Morison
Samuel Loring Morison (born October 30, 1944) is a former American intelligence professional, who was convicted of espionage and theft of government property in 1985, and pardoned in 2001. He was "the only [American] government official ever convicted for giving classified information to the press."
Seems pretty similar superficially. I wonder if he'll do it, Obama.
Also something quite odd is the number of pardons that seem a bit suspect. For instance Clinton pardoned his own brother. And Marc Rich. Think what you may of him (famous commodity trader, lots of shady deals rumoured), but his crime doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary.
Pardoning Snowden would be a comment on the surveillance state, something worthwhile to talk about. Pardoning some guy who smuggled some oil doesn't seem to have a purpose in regards to the state's role in society.
If Trump wins then what difference does it make?
Unless the role of the elected officials of that state is to make sure they and their friends become obscenely rich, and have impunity even when they do illegal things.
There is a point where having so much control over other people's lives can be considered a problem.
Now maybe it wouldn't be so bad if your own hard work indeed did produced that much value the world. But that's moot: virtually nobody gets rich by working —in practice, they got there by having other people work for them. That is, they accumulate the power of controlling other people's lives by controlling other people's lives in the first place.
Anarcho-capitalism is such an oxymoron.
Based on Obama's track record on privacy and surveillance I'm not sure what you think this comment would be.
What about Jeffrey Sterling?
He might have been the only one at the time.
One of the biggest US tax frauds ever, polluted and corrupted Zambia, fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution (just the tax thing of course), hired lobbyists, sponsored congress library and some politicians, pardoned by Bill Clinton. An example of class justice, corruption and other things wrong in the US, but as you said: nothing out of the ordinary...
I'm afraid Snowden did not make enough money to pay off the right people, like Rich did.
Except, of course, he was rich and well connected.
You may have just blown Hayden's mind.
Can a US president basically compose an edict saying 'This man is a bleeding hero and no branch of the US government will ever hold any of his actions related to incident X against him, now or in the future or else they shall snuff it!' and have this respected by his successors?
Or may a presidential pardon be reversed by any successor?
Is it narrowly defined, eg. the pardonee (is that even a word) may not be prosecuted for his violation of US code such-and-such, section so-so committed on or before date DDMMYY? (Leaving any successor free to throw the book at him for anything not explicitly covered by the issued pardon?)
Hm. Off to Google I go; I find the concept somewhat intriguing.
No, a pardon could not be reversed by a future president (else: Ford could not truly have pardoned Nixon). There's SCOTUS precedent on both of these.
When you say "preemptively", you mean in advance of trial or even indictment. So far as I'm aware, the President cannot issue a pardon in advance of the crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/05/opinion/l-constitution-all...
I seem to recall the Wikipedia article speculating on the checks and balances available if Marc Rich actually did return to the US
You should check that out
I seem to recall there was a president that forgot to veto some bills and the next president signed them. I think there was even a Supreme Court case that held the laws as constitutional.
The president can pardon offenses of federal law. A state's governor can pardon offenses of that particular state's laws.
Obama could actually commute the sentences of everyone serving a sentence strictly for marijuana possession to time served.
If the President is still in office, as head of the executive branch he can prevent prosecution even if there is no pardon, and, anyway, he could just issue a new and properly retrospective pardon. A pardon that's only good if the President that issued it is still in office and still agrees with it is exactly the same as no pardon at all.
The pardon power is only meaningful because it is binding on the federal government, and not just as long as the current President is in power, but forever (or, at least, until the Constitution is amended to change its status.)
AFAICT, the general consensus among those who study Constitutional law is that prospective pardons (those for crimes not yet committed when the pardon is issued) are nullities; for there to be a crime for a pardon or reprieve to apply to, it must have been committed (even if it has not been discovered) when the pardon is issued.
But because no prospective pardons have been issued and then their effect challenged in court, this has never been litigated, and there is no case law on the subject. (But if prospective pardons were possible, given the established breadth of the pardon power in other aspects, it would mean that the President could essentially prevent the US government from ever adopting -- or, rather, ever enforcing -- certain criminal laws that do not yet exist, simply by issuing prospective pardons for any offenses resulting from particular classes of conduct that he doesn't want to ever be criminalized.)
It is absolute.
> Can a US president basically compose an edict saying 'This man is a bleeding hero and no branch of the US government will ever hold any of his actions related to incident X against him, now or in the future or else they shall snuff it!' and have this respected by his successors?
No, a pardon only affects criminal prosecutions and punishments -- to the extent covered by the text of the pardon, any future prosecution (or continuation of existing prosecution) is barred, and any criminal punishment (including and disabilities imposed by past conviction) is terminated. It doesn't affect any other action by the government, including any civil action that might be available in law.
> Is it narrowly defined, eg. the pardonee (is that even a word) may not be prosecuted for his violation of US code such-and-such, section so-so committed on or before date DDMMYY? (Leaving any successor free to throw the book at him for anything not explicitly covered by the issued pardon?)
It can be as narrow or broad as the President chooses. About the only limit is that it is generally held (though this has never had occasion to be tested) that the Constitutional power of the pardon does not extend to prospective pardons (that is, a pardon cannot apply to offenses that occur after the pardon is issued.)
As things go, it can be argued that the King holds less privilege than his minions; suffrage does not extend to him, for instance. The job undeniably carries some perks, though.
Good thing presidential pardons does not extend to future crimes - that would be - ahem - interesting. Very much so.
- It would decrease Snowden's celebrity for him to return from exile.
- It would remove incentives for Snowden to constantly amplify inconsistent/ hypocritical behavior of the US govt.
- It would improve the optics for the tech industry for working more closely with government.
Reasons it would be against Us govt interests.
- It would make the intelligence community feel hurt/ sad.
Given that the U.S. — whatever its faults and flaws — is the only guarantor of international order, though, a weakened U.S. is sure to lead to more international conflict.
The US govt should not have strong incentives against revealing widespread human rights abuse like full-take surveillance of entire countries.
I maintain that the fake Snowden proposition is excellent news and should be seriously considered. It means they have run out of near realtime computation power and are drawning in data. :) If that is true, then
(a) Good news :)
and
(b) concentrate on getting secure comms for the 10%. (NSA does not care about dick pics and neither do those that engage in such activities.)
Why would Snowden retire from the rabble-rouser personality he's become? He's passionate about the issues and I can't see him ever stopping. I also imagine hes deeply indebted to Putin's regime and probably doesn't want to wake up with a forced Polonium tea breakfast if he doesn't continue his anti-US commentary, even post-pardon or post-Russia.
I really don't see any practical way for anyone to do anything with Snowden but leave him in the bed he's made. Snowden won't just go back to work like a nobody if he got this hypothetical pardon. I'd be surprised to see any precedent of someone who fled to foreign power and became an anti-US mouthpiece for a hostile regime suddenly getting pardoned for treason.
Downvote away, but the 'Snowden == Hero' mentality is not shared with most and the idea that this pardon would be no big deal is a bit naive. It would be incredibly polarizing and controversial to the US public.
I think it would be the opposite.
The longer the story drags on, the more people will forget it. Especially if he is cornered in Russia.
I'd be curious about Snowden writing a book about his late years at the NSA.
I wonder if he was contacted by Oliver Stone, and what story he did tell, because from the trailer you can't really see anything really new.
1. His celebrity could increase exponentially when he returned home and was available to do a press junket and book tour. He would appear on every morning talk show and radio show and then a tour of the campuses, libraries and malls of America. This idea is absurd on its face.
2. He had the resolve to make the initial release knowing he was destroying his life - it is clear this is a moral stance for him and the personal damage is done. If he came back to the U.S., expect him to be emboldened and wind up working for a lobby or a not for profit.
3. Lobbying dollars >> optics.
RE: US Government interests:
1. It would make the democrats look weak on terror and intelligence in the face of an upcoming and obscenely hotly contested election.
2. It would be bad for morale of our intelligence agencies - by no means a 'soft' consideration.
3. It would, in fact, set a precedent that whistleblowers will get pardoned.
This last point is the whole issue. Neither this administration, nor future administrations, is going to be particularly fond of intelligence whistleblowers. Financial and business whistleblowers is one thing - but in intelligence? That is another issue entirely. All politics aside, though we may, as citizens, want this to be precisely the case and hope that if we ever held political office we would feel the same way, it is just unlikely that this attitude is going to be found within the upper echelons of the intelligence or political community.
Unfortunately, the downsides are hugely substantial to those in power and the upsides are widely distributed among the general public. With a risk/reward-matrix like that, don't expect to see any pardons coming down for Snowden anytime soon.
The assumption here is that Snowden is a 'whistle blower'.
Yes - in some instances, especially with respect to his release of information regarding domestic surveillance - he is.
But Snowden released a lot of information that has nothing to do with domestic surveillance, for instance, how the US spies on Russia. This is not 'whistle blowing'.
Someone tell me how releasing that information does not constitute a crime?
I agree that he should be pardoned for his 'whistle blowing' activities. But not for the other stuff.
Man, you guys are like scared little cretins, scared to leave site of the shore!
these are people who literally hire death squads to get what they want. hurting their feelings has consequences.
Way off topic: is it just me, or did this particular usage of the faux-technical word "optics" spike this election cycle? To me, it reeks of punditry and/or snootiness (no offense) and rubs me the wrong way.
If he leaves the Eastern bloc you can bet that the boys in Fort Meade will make contingency plans to sabotage his brakes/get him on trumped-up charges for something else a la Assange/otherwise ruin his day.
that's a double edged sword; if the Russian leaders decide some day that they want to improve relations with the US by extraditing him then they might just do it.
Side note: I hope GMT Games releases an expansion for Twlight Struggle: 1989 ~ 2015. Despite the fall of the USSR, the proxy war has never stopped. I'd love to re-enact the past 25 years. Snowden flees to Moscow would be a Red Event, 2 ops: "US reveals their hand of cards this turn. Remove up to a total of 2 US Influence from one or more countries to Western Europe".
EDIT: to clarify, I do want the US to grant him pardon.
In my opinion, Snowden did something really patriotic, but you may have another definition of what patriotic means.
Even if Russia forced information out of him, against his will, that should not block a pardon. Then it's even more important that he tells the US what he told them.
He ignored the legal process for raising his concerns. He ignored the inspectors general. He stole information he had no legitimate need to access and fled to adversary states. He caused exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.
You mean the adversary state that is the only thing keeping Snowden from rotting in a military prison to never see the light of day again? How do you think that would have played out had he went somewhere "friendly" to the USA?
The "damage" that was done to the "national security" of the united states is more damage to the pride of those caught in illegal behavior than bona fide harm to America. It was a revealing to people that their government has been lying to them, loudly and repeatedly, something which is strictly positive.
[1]: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/vindication-for-edward-s...
Last I checked, the consensus was that he raised concerns repeatedly within his chain of command and then attempted to go over it, so much so that there was a process begun to review his actions for discipline/reduced security clearance.
He did not ignore the legal process for raising his concerned- the legal process for raising his concerns FAILED, and, as widely acknowledged by those who should have had oversight (but did not effectively have it until post-Snowden) after his leaks, those concerns should havs been taken seriously by that review process, but were not.
Furthermore, you must understand this: the damage that Edward Snowden caused to the United States was no more and no less than desperately necessary chemotherapy, because the NSA had grown CANCEROUS, and I'm absolutely not convinced it has been cured totally, though I'd be happy to see information otherwise.
Yes, and he ignored that everyone qualified to determine the legality of the programmes he objected to determined that they were, in fact, legal.
> He did not ignore the legal process for raising his concerned- the legal process for raising his concerns FAILED
No, it succeeded. Nothing he revealed was in fact illegal or unconstitutional. Neither the law nor the Constitution mandates all good things, nor bans all bad things. 'I don't like it' is unsufficient proof of illegality.
Which is precisely why whether it was "legal", as defined by the NSA themselves, is irrelevant.
No, he exposed a federal crime being committed by the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper.
He exposed how the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper committed perjury (a federal crime in this instance) by lying to Congress and the American people about mass surveillance.
Is the counter argument that senior government officials should be allowed to lie to Congress about surveillance of American citizens?
And from wikipedia[1]: "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a Congressional committee in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having given false testimony."
Clapper changed his story a few times but eventually described this as something like "I forgot what we were talking about" but only after the perjury was exposed. Attorney General Eric Holder basically said he just forgot something and no charges necessary. One interpretation of this is as overt government corruption. It's relevant that Holder recently said he believes Snowden performed a public service.
Untrue. And, in fact, his revelations were instrumental in leading to at least one of the cases in which those things were found to be illegal.
Unless you can point to a specific quantifiable thing that happened due to the information he had (because some people getting rightfully upset with their government's mass surveillance of its own people) I'd have trouble saying he caused any damage whatsoever.
And to the prior points, that's sort of what he'd need a pardon for, isn't it?
Bill Binney and Thomas Drake were both NSA whistleblowers who tried to go through proper channels, including superiors and the Congressional intelligence committees. Drake was charged after showing illegal spying documents to a journalist, but they dropped the case, eventually, and he ended up working at an Apple store.
Binney never revealed sensitive documents, and as a result, he wasn't able to get anyone to investigate his criticisms. But in retaliation for speaking up to Congress, the NSA revoked his security clearance and railroaded him out of business.
Peyton Manning and Assange are also good non-NSA examples of how whistleblowers are actually treated.
Finally, Snowden did not flee to Russia. He went to Hong Kong because of its strange quasi-independent status, and was trapped in Russia en route to Central America.
do you really believe that? prove it. what security incidents have occurred because of Snowden's revelations that would not have occurred otherwise?
I have to ask myself: could he have leaked the former without the latter? In all available information, I have not seen a compelling reason to think that the two bodies of data were inseparable. A heroic Snowden with the best of intentions absolutely needed to invest the time and care into either not collecting the body of non-US data in the first place or, failing that, purging it from the body that he released to the world.
For me, his failure to do either inexorably poisons any heroic fallout with the treasonous side effects. One step further: why did he neglect to do something as simple and important? I find the heroic Snowden to be a hard sell, since it seems like he was at best grossly irresponsible and, more likely, motivated by something other than patriotism.
Could you provide a reference to these? I've heard this referred to before, but still don't know what he did that could have done actual harm.
EDIT: Unless that harm is simply other nations thinking that the US isn't spying on them, and then learning that they really, really are?
[1]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uk-s...
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-gov...
Also consider that Snowden did British citizens a favor by revealing how the GCHQ was ultimately spying on them, too.
Seems like a logical, though not desirable, no. He didn't, and I would argue couldn't, have had the time. From the time he fled until his passport was revoked, was a pretty short amount of time. Additionally, had he been caught before releasing the data we would never know the name Snowden, or the abuses that occurred.
I would say that the time spent sifting through journalists to find someone who was trust worthy was better spent. That person would then have a shield around them which would protect them, even if Snowden was captured.
So basically, if had stopped to do that before releasing, then the likelihood that we would have ever seen any evidence, let alone the correct set of evidence, is very small.
Maybe. Ideally it could be spun as a sort of "costly signalling".
> and encourage subversive behaviour.
Not any and all subversive behavior; subversive behavior of the form "I have deep ethical concerns about what is being done secretly here, so I am making it public." I want people feeling comfortable coming forward in that situation even if I ultimately disagree with their concerns. Threat of such is an important check on abuse of secrecy.
Why?
Snowden doesn't have enough powerful forces in high places that will push for the pardon. If he has friends like Jonathan Jay Pollard has, chances are he'll get it, but he doesn't.
Obama won't pardon Snowden not because Snowden doesn't have the right friends. He won't do it because it would be a politically unpopular move. Everyone can get behind pardoning someone sentenced to life for shoplifting under a three strikes law. Snowden is much more divisive.
If that were important in granting pardons, Clinton wouldn't have pardoned Mark Rich. Those politically-opposed to Obama will remain so regardless of what he does, so he couldn't care less.
In the Marc Rich case, Clinton had a pretty good idea of what the upper bound of the crime being excused was. Also: he shouldn't have pardoned Rich, is I think the consensus at this point.
What does it even mean, apart from lip service to those who disagree with their vote? Politicians don't hold personal responsibility for the fallout of their policies, so it is just rhetoric intended to neutralize your negative opinions of them.
Just what you suspect it does: nothing.
Commutation of sentences is actually much more common, particularly at the state level, because it doesn't really carry with it any indication that the person didn't commit a criminal act (and thus is less politically risky), only that the punishment was either too severe or that there's no reason to continue with it. I believe it also doesn't block further civil penalties or suits, although I'm not clear whether a Presidential pardon actually does (haven't ever seen any examples of that).
Petraeus had an affair with a reporter.
One of those things made it possible for Americans to know what their government was/is doing with great personal risk to the whistleblower. The other....didn't.
That's really not how I read the scandal. A woman, who formerly had clearance for classified material, was engaged in an illicit affair. There is no evidence (that I'm aware of) that 1.) the classified information was ever leaked to someone without clearance, and 2.) that any actual trading occurred.
Lapsed clearance is even less applicable, obviously.
The man sacrificed his freedom so yours may last.
Here's an idea - don't do horrifically illegal, amoral things alongside other legal but probably still amoral things, quash all possibilities of accountability, and expect that no one will call you out on it.
Snowden did the right thing, and the only thing that could have been done.
This is exact reason pardons exist. People do things that are illegal but not amoral when the system either doesn't account for it, the laws are not up to date to accurately reflect the consensus of a society, or the system is broken and acting outside the broken system was the best option.
Snowden doesn't deserve jail time due to the inefficiencies of our democracy. Inefficiencies that are largely due to our completely broken election system, as is obvious with the current presidential election.
p.s. Always loved that song.
Snowden clearly did not do the only thing that could have been done. He did release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not release the foreign surveillance information.
All governments do bad things. That justifies whistleblowing. It never justifies an attack on the country's international security by its own citizens. In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms about cyberwarefare.
If a government does something illegal and actively works to prevent itself from being held accountable, it is justified in my opinion to make them accountable even at the cost of intangible inconvenience. You're operating under the assumption that a government should operate in secrecy, which in my opinion is bullshit - even for military and CIA activities, we should be transparent on non-granular scales. Obviously not releasing "hey we're going to mortar this coordinate at this time" but you probably get the idea.
>He did release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not release the foreign surveillance information.
He released 200,000 documents. Millions of pages of information. I don't see how it can be argued he alone could have thoroughly vetted these documents to prevent unintentional leaks. And in his situation, I am sure he had to weigh the advantages of revealing illegal activities to the intangible and temporary inconvenience of only slightly less morally reprehensible spying programs.
>In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms about cyberwarefare.
We shouldn't make our standards by comparing us to other countries. There are some pretty fucked up laws out there.
Where we disagree is on your opinion that military and CIA activities should not be secret. Secrecy has been critical to maintaining strategic advantage in war and national security throughout history. Nothing has changed about that now. To suggest that we should blindly ignore this seems disconnected from the real world.
> We shouldn't make out standards by comparing us to other countries.
I can see how it might have looked as if that's what I was doing. I am not. To clarify - I don't think the illegal programs are justified at all, and Snowden was right to leak them. I do think the international intelligence programs are jusified. Not because we should do what others are doing, but because there are large and powerful countries who don't share ours interests and intend to undermine us.
There has been some other preemptive pardons: pardons for Richard Nixon and Caspar Weinberger at least.
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/proclamation-4483-granting-pa...
And waaaay more questionable, but only questionable if you give the Clintons the benefit of the doubt still
I imagine that a hurdle to pardoning him would be that there is potentially content that would be too egregious not to charge him, which has yet to be released.
If he were pardoned, and that material were released, would he be immune to prosecution? This sounds like a thorny thing to try to figure out, or maybe it's really obvious :)
Unfortunately, Snowden will never be able to safely return to the US.
Its actually potentially quite simple, but impossible to answer without the actual text of the pardon. A pardon can be as simple or complex, and as broad or narrow as the President chooses to make it. It could, for instance, cover any offense that may have been committed by the recipient prior to the date of the pardon, in which case the answer is simple -- yes, Snowden would be immune.
He has implied that he possesses such material, in great quantity. He is holding that possession up as deterrent against assassination, although if he received a pardon, presumably he wouldn't need that deterrent anymore?
Besides, I would think a deterrent such as I'm describing would be motivation for russians to assassinate him and make it look like americans did it.
To the contrary, he has adamantly denied possessing any such material. I dont have the source, but in several video interviews he's said to protect himself from being apprehended by foreign intel agencies for a copy of the material, he simply doesnt have it. He's turned it all over to journalists.
He does not possess the material, but he absolutely possesses the encryption keys to the material, and has distributed an encrypted version of a vast trove of material to many different persons, with a deadman switch.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/07/snowdens_dead...
The systems we live in are systemically corrupted by money (and/or power).
I wonder what his life would be like upon his return. I suspect his life would still be in danger.
You don't need to be convicted, or even charged, to be pardoned; a pardon doesn't even have to be specific as to the crime(s) it covers, it can just cover any crimes you may or may not have committed during some time specified time period before the pardon was issued (as was the case with Ford's pardon of Nixon.)
It is true that the usual clemency petition process operates after conviction, but that's a discretionary administrative process, it does not reflect the scope of the Constitutional pardon power.
And his country's interests were his concern. What he had a problem with was his government's interests.
Nope.