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Comment by benevol | Hacker News Reader

Obama is clearly pro-mass-surveillance [0] and certainly has been all the time.

So there is no way he will pardon Snowden (even if it's The Right Thing to do).

[0] Barely a week before he leaves office, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has authorized controversial new legislation that grants America’s 16 intelligence organizations access to raw communications data from the NSA’s surveillance efforts.

[...]

So information that was collected without a warrant—or indeed any involvement by a court at all—for foreign intelligence purposes with little to no privacy protections, can be accessed raw and unfiltered by domestic law enforcement agencies to prosecute Americans with no involvement in threats to national security.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/13/the-nsa-can-now-share-unfi...

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Considering Mike Pompeo, Trump's pick to head the CIA, has said "the proper outcome" for Snowden would be "a death sentence", things are unlikely to get better for Snowden in the next administration.

If he was willing to pardon Chelsea Manning, they should have written 1M signature petition for that instead. She has already served plenty of time. It would be good if he were to let her out before he goes. She's dying in there.

Could you succinctly outline the case for pardoning Chelsea? My simplistic overview is that she leaked a bunch of somewhat interesting confidential information because she was pissed off with the people she was serving with. Sucks she's being made an example of, but that's presumably why these punitive sentences exist?

I see this as being in contrast with Snowden, whose revelations have (perhaps) led to politicians prioritising oversight of surveillance, and whose actions claimed to be motivated by an attempt to protect citizens' rights.

The case being made (and there is some reporting this is being considered by the administration) is for commuting her sentence, not pardoning her.

I've personally never read the leaked documents from Chelsea Manning, but from what I understand, it exposed a lot of what was going on at Guantanamo Bay, also including videos of truly horrifying air strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't know if you would classify this as merely 'somewhat interesting' confidential information, but personally I am glad it was released and I think the public has a right to know about these things.

I'd be more inclined to accept that if those weren't just a tiny part of the thousands of seemingly random documents she released. It certainly makes it appear that the exposing of air strikes was a by-product of the release, not its intent.

The first leaks where the collateral murder videos.

Sorry for the downvotes, secfirstmd, but I believe the readers are looking for a more substantive post. Explaining how civilians and BBC reporters were mistakingly targeted as insurgents, then the Admin's resistance to FOIA requests by the BBC and the families of the victims would help. A link to the wiki can't hurt. You know the drill, perhaps a rushed post?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrik...

I am not sure what video proved. I don't think anyone needs a massive data leak to know that people are killed in wars, and that bombs are making "collateral damages". That's not exactly a secret. In fact the pentagon maintains statistics on civilian casualties.

I am not aware of any major wrongdoing uncovered by the diplomatic cables leak. The comments I read/heard from diplomats who reviewed the data rather implied that the US diplomatic staff is doing its job rather well, with often an accurate description of the internals politics of the countries they cover. Leaking these memos certainly resulted in a few red faces as private, undiplomatic comments made it to the front page. But I don't see the benefit.

That leak is more akin to the sort of reckless leaks where massive amounts of private, sensitive data made available by unscrupulous hackers just because they could. This is a very different animal from the Snowden leaks which did uncover major wrongdoings and were filtered responsively.

I do not disagree and am not aware of any other significant disclosures from Manning's data. However, the families of the victims deserved to know and the FOIA tequest was nefariously(IMO) denied. Stats don't tell the whole story.

Yep, was just sitting down on a plane before a flight. Thanks for giving the wider context I didn't have time to add.

Why do you want the video of journalists being murdered in cold blood to be kept a secret?

(link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrik... )

Snowden has asked Obama to commute her sentence before or instead of pardoning him. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/819177951040249856 The way she's being treated is way beyond what she was sentenced to. The court keeps ordering Leavenworth to give her medical treatment that they are refusing her. They keep deciding to put her in solitary even though she's attempted suicide at least twice. Sometimes they prevent her from contacting her lawyers at the scheduled times. This isn't just about a punitive sentence.

Shouldn't her personal circumstances (serving time in a men's prison) play a role in the decision to pardon?

No?

That's part of it, but also the punitive solitary confinement which has reached consensus among many people to be torture, and the abrogation of civil rights with refusals to allow meetings with Chelsea's lawyers.

We're letting some cowboy military officials inflict illegal punishments because they are mad and that needs to be reined in as well. The military answers to civilian control in the US.

I am also well aware that the UCMJ which all service people fall under has different provisions than civilian courts but these officials aren't even following that.

It's disingenuous to blame Manning for leaking information she should have never had access to. This goes all the way to the top. Bush authorized the release of all of that in order to 'help catch bad guys' without thinking there is a reason this stuff was classified, why classified information exists, and why not every peon in the military should have access to it.

Why should she have never had access to it?

Jonathan Pollard [1] got a get out of jail card. And he did extensive damage to our national security.

Private Manning should be pardoned. That poor kid has suffered enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard

Pollard was paroled after spending almost 30 years in prison - nearly the length of Manning's sentence. It's not a 'get out of jail card' you want to be wishing on her.

Private Manning made one mistake, as far as I know. Pollard made a business of betraying America.

I'm just pointing out it's not much of a supporting example. Pollard's sentence was not commuted. He was paroled in accordance with guidelines at the time of his sentencing. He spent 29 years in prison. If you want some kind of clemency for Manning, well, Pollard's case doesn't demonstrate or involve clemency.

> I'm just pointing out it's not much of a supporting example.

Ah. I misunderstood.

> Could you succinctly outline the case for pardoning Chelsea?

I think OP had it right in saying she has served time.

If you pardon Snowden he would get away scot free, which is a hard sell.

Definitely the worst of his "legacy". Although some could argue it's the fact that he brought U.S. into 8 active wars, while bombing Iraq, the war the U.S. supposedly "won", as much as ever.

That's "mr Nobel Peace Prize" alright.

What are the 8 active wars? Genuinely curious. That seems like a lot.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Yemen

Source: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/25/...

Thanks

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