Obama should have pardoned him
Obama is way smarter than anybody asking for clemency for Snowden.
China: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusiv...
Pakistan: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/docum...
> perhaps Obama had good reason not pardon Snowden
> the damage Snowden did was worse than his advocates are willing to acknowledge
The damage he did is precisely why his advocates want him pardoned.
He damaged people who were subverting the US constitution. He provided the evidence for this.
Some us think the organizations he damaged were/are acting against our democratic institutions, and therefore the damage is welcome. He not getting granted a pardon would seem to us as evidence that these anti-democratic, anti-bill of rights forces are deeply connected to the highest levels of government.
But the key here is how you perceive the people who are subverting our liberty. Welcome anti-terrorist agents? Or anti-democratic shadow agents with the capacity to implement turn key dictatorship?
Given how his administration treated Chelsea Manning idk why we'd expect that.
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10...
Twice of nearly nothing is still nearly nothing... and the claim being made here was that Manning, specifically, was mistreated by Obama. Manning was convicted under Bush and had her sentence commuted by Obama; I'm dubious that the specific case can be taken as "Obama mean to Manning".
What kind of revisionist history is this? She didn't whistleblow until 2010. She wasn't convicted until 2013. Hell she wasn't even assigned to intelligence under Bush.
I remember arguing with my family (lifelong Democratic party members who aren't as leftist as me) that she was fulfilling Obama's transparency promises for him. Promises it was clear he wouldn't be keeping as early as the Telco immunity bill during the 08 primary.
In the closing days of the administration, and with the anonymous officials they sent out to explain the decision sharply contrasting Manning's case with Snowden's.
So, again, the treatment of Manning even including the commutation as Obama was on the way out provided no reason to expect anything but a cold shoulder to Snowden.
It is to his credit that he made that particular wrong right by commuting her sentence, but as others pointed out his administration did everything in their power to differentiate that from Snowden.
I think it's easy to look back fondly on his Presidency in comparison to the travesty we see today, but Obama was not a good person.
As far as doubling down on surveillance, Snowden's leaks showed that Obama shut down surveillance programs that might include Americans' data, including email envelope collection. He did not start any such programs.