Why President Obama Can't Pardon Edward Snowden
newsweek.com
newsweek.com
tldr; Whether Snowden’s theft was an idealistic attempt to right a wrong, a narcissistic drive to obtain personal recognition, an attempt to weaken the foundations of the surveillance infrastructure in which he worked, or all of the above, by the time he stepped off that Aeroflot jet in Moscow, it had evolved, intentionally or not, into something much simpler and far less admirable. He was disclosing vital national secrets to a foreign power. Conjectures about Snowden’s motives matter less than the undeniable fact that he was greatly assisted in his endeavors by powerful enemies of the United States."
I bet if you had a program where whistle blowers were honored instead of destroyed internally, you'd have less exfiltration of data, and less external whistle blowing.
The 4th amendment has been getting curb stomped for quite a while now, I'm curious as to when it'll be declared deceased. You currently have no expectation of privacy at a border, or too close to a border, or with any data at your phone carrier, or isp, or email provider, so really where does this "persons, houses, papers, and effects," really exist anymore? Hell, even if you think the 5th amendment protects you from being coerced with prison into telling your passwords, it often doesn't.
Maybe I'm missing something, and the 4th amendment is doing a great job somewhere, if it is I could use a reminder, I'm getting jaded.
This feels very much like a deep state smear job, especially given the weirdly adulatory photo of Obama.
I always assumed it was more PR reasons, rather than anything Snowden knows. How can the US accuse the Russian Federation of human rights abuses or lack of individual freedoms if they have a walking, talking example of a citizen who cannot go home to the US but lives free in Russia? It's farcical, as Putin's Russia is less free than the US, but it does shut down debate.
And in a slight change of topic, I have been really shocked in the last 6 months how willing ordinary Americans are to defend Putin in political discussion. Something is working over there.
Stefan Molyneux just did a video on McCarthy's attempt to root out Russian infiltration, that you might find interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wljpYZ8wejA
I don't have anything against Putin; he seems like an effective leader, though Russia has different values than the US. Though, the history makes for a good conspiracy story: Maybe McCarthy's spies are still there!
I suppose those journalists died of natural causes, then.
As for your initial topic, you will find no defense of McCarthyism from me. It is wrong in a free society to talk about "rooting out" political ideas or equate them with treason, espionage, support of a particular government, etc. My problem with a lot of cold war rhetoric is: if someone is a Marxist, Trotskyist, etc. and you oppose that - so what? In a politically free society there ought to be open debate and let ideas stand or fall on their own. But I guess in those times a lot of people felt differently.
Right, all he really needs in return is that it embarrasses the US. Heck, for the last 22 years the US has been letting Cuban defectors come to the US and gain residency (whether or not they have valuable state secrets to trade) simply because it makes us look good and makes Cuba look bad.
The Russians aren't a bunch of idiots. They have a need to be players on the global stage, but cannot compete on military hardware.
So they fight for perception and impressions, which is more effective than bombs anyway. I've even heard laudatory comments about Putin's attempts to curb violence in Syria! (After propping up Assad for years)
Meanwhile, we've had a series of presidents that either couldn't put a sentence together (Bush 2) or couldn't make a timely decision (Obama).
"Obama also knows that NSA documents Snowden copied and removed but did not give to those journalists in Hong Kong were used to embarrass America’s allies in NATO well after he arrived in Moscow. For example, the explosive revelation that the NSA targeted the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel was released in September [2013]. In June 2015, NSA documents stolen by Snowden on WikiLeaks caused further trouble by revealing that the phones of three presidents of France—Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande—had also been targeted. These embarrassing revelations—made long after Snowden claimed he had no more documents—put Obama in a very bad spot with America’s European allies."
It's an important part of Snowden's history that he gave all the documents he had to Glenn Greenwald, and didn't keep access himself. Bruce Schneier believes that Snowden was not the source of the September 2013 leak,[1] and I can't find anyone (before this article) even suggesting that Snowden was the source of the June 2015 leak. There's no source for the claim in this article, other than "Obama knows."
So that seems significant if true, but it's a pretty nasty smear if not -- I hope it doesn't stand as an unsourced rumor.
[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_us_intell...
Snowden sacrificed a cushy job in Hawaii and risked life in prison because he's a hopeless romantic True Believer in the American style philosophy of freedom.
So rife with innuendo, appeals to emotion and straw men and so utterly devoid of fact that I don't know where to begin.
I thought it was only federal crimes that can be pardoned, no?
Except if it's Nixon...
The power is vaguely defined and is absolute. Short of being outside the lines enough to justify impeachment, it can probably mean whatever a president wants it to.