Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden
reuters.com
reuters.com
Yet, in my view Snowden actions have been extremely important to set the discussions we are having today: how private do we expect our digital lives to be be it from the state or from megacorps.
I doubt that Facebook/CA affair in 2016 elections would have come to light (or have the same impact) had Snowden leaks not had happened.
I doubt that Europeans would have stoped being 100% subservient to American tech megacorps had those leaks not had happened.
I think alot of people around the world started even considering the importance of who is watching or listening to their digital life because of Snowden. Or at least, because of the conversation that his leaks started.
He wasnt alone in leaking information important to these conversations, but he definitely has become an important advocate of his leaks and his own message.
June 2013 - Snowden leaks NSA documents
September 2013 - the first commit to the Script HQ extension is made (which soon became HTTP Switchboard, which later became uMatrix and uBlock)
https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/commits/master?af...
I don't think he understands or has the patience for the process.
Anything beyond what he can try to decree himself, he seems to lose interest / struggle with. Even tripping up his own party members in congress while they try to understand what he wants. He has threatened to veto things he pushed for... then signed them shortly after.
I think he might simply be incapable of anything requiring too many new steps for him.
There's no 3d chess going on.
First major tax reform in decades?
And of course he needed help from congress, he can't actually pass a bill without congress.
Trump's lack of effort to work with his own party was a constant topic, until his partly largely quit talking about it as no help became the status quo.
[0] https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/t...
He "talked" about doing something about TikTok, then "did" something by signing an executive order on it.
EDIT: Downvotes... OK, so he didn't "talk about" and "do" this? Downvoters care to explain?
As to why national reciprocity didn’t go through, it was because the margins in congress were too low. Republicans in NY IL and CA mostly aren’t into it.
Besides, it’s the same story as ever... “if we give you the thing you want, we can’t campaign on it next time!”.
However, it is true that Trump is known for publicly "floating" a lot of ideas that he latter drops if they prove unpopular. But, if everybody cheers him for it it might actually make it more likely to happen.
Republicans have grown far more circumspect regarding their faith in intelligence services and Federal LEOs. Many see them as just players in and tools of the establishment political/media complex. At this point I don't think pardoning Snowden would hurt Trump with most Republicans. Certainly the 'Never Trumper' wing of Republicans would involuntarily soil themselves, but that's neither unusual nor significant.
This is a bit different than the way we do it -- we expect more statistical power with a saved history of repeated trials. "Floating" has been mentioned here. Perhaps "floating" involves trying two different frames to see how the media covers each, rather than numerous A/B trials for more statistical power.
But seriously, say Trump (or whoever might have been in his place) actually wants to do this as a populistic move: is it hard to do? Does it require any bureaucratic bullshit, arguing with people, forcing stuff, or is it just some paper to sign and it's done? Does it require any effort (and how much) on his side to actually pardon Snowden?
Most pardons involve process though. Felons apply for a pardon, there's a small board to review applications, most are rejected -- that sort of thing. But the President can pardon anyone, at any time, for any Federal crime they have been charged with, before during or after trial (if convicted).
The reality is that it is legally untested, and there's a good chance that Double Jeopardy will protect someone who's pardoned Federally, and then brought up on State charges for the same offense.
I might be wrong, but I don't believe there's ever been a case of a State prosecute even attempting to charge someone at the State level with an crime they've already been pardoned of by the President.
A quick read through of the Wikipedia article for double jeopardy[0] describes implications and legal tests for double jeopardy.
The shortest summary I can make of that article that seems relevant is this:
If you need exactly the same set of facts to prove crime A as crime B, or fewer facts than A to prove B, then they are the same crime. If crime B needs one fact not required for A, then it is a different crime for purposes of double jeopardy.
Based on this reading, it appears that a federal pardon would not imply no state charges. Or, a federal pardon leaves the question of state charges an open one.
> but it is unclear if it holds any legal water.
The claim that POTUS cannot grant clemency for a state conviction definitely holds legal water.
The plain meaning of that clause is extremely clear and its meaning is thoroughly and universally understood in the legal field.
> The reality is that it is legally untested
Re: POTUS directly granting clemency for state convictions, only in a sort of vacuous way. Meaning, this is true for almost everything that is blatantly unconstitutional. E.g., the president having the military disband congress is also "legally untested". I have zero doubt that the current SCOTUS would unanimously reject an attempt by the president to directly grant clemency for a state conviction.
> there's a good chance that Double Jeopardy will protect someone who's pardoned Federally, and then brought up on State charges for the same offense.
Notice that the only reason this indirect argument is made is because POTUS clearly cannot grant clemency directly.
Although this particular theory about Double Jeopardy has not been tested, there's an entire legal doctrine that addresses this question (the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine). The Roberts Court affirmed this doctrine in Gamble.
The primary justification for the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine is that different sovereigns might have different interests. That justification speaks directly to whether the federal executive should be able to grant clemency for state convictions (no, because the state executive might have different interests in prosecution). See https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt5_2_1_2_2...
So,
1. the President very clearly cannot directly grant clemency for state convictions, and
2. the Roberts court affirmed the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine not one year ago in a 7-2 decision. Go read that decision -- the reasons for upholding the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine speak almost directly to the question at hand.
Given these two facts, it's highly improbable that the President could pardon a federal conviction and then convince the Roberts court to extend that clemency to state convictions via a significant narrowing of the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine. In fact, I'd say that a raw exercise of force is more likely to succeed.
IMO the Rodney King case was a very bad precedent. It was very bad politics for the Federal courts to do otherwise, I understand, but it was not a good decision. The SCOTUS essentially held that a) Dual Sovereignty means the Double Jeopardy clause doesn't apply, b) that the courts can use the double jeopardy condition as a mitigation in sentencing. (b) can be seen as weakening the Dual Sovereignty doctrine, but (a) can be seen as a disaster because the 5th Amendment is incorporated against the States, and the Double Jeopardy clause is in the 5A, so allowing the Dual Sovereignty doctrine to overcome Incorporation doctrine seems like a gross error that puts the entire Incorporation doctrine in... jeopardy. Shall we now say that only parts of the 1A, 2A, 4A, 5A, are incorporated against the States? Which parts? This invites more litigation.
Of course, that didn't happen, IIUC. There's been no litigation arguing that if Dual Sovereignty overrides Incorporation in one case, it might in others. But it could yet happen.
It’s just really hard for me to believe that POTUS could protect Snowden from prosecution in state courts via pardon. At the very least, a DOJ that wants Snowden in prison can side-step this whole question by leaving it to a state and keeping things out of federal court...
Oh, I see. I was speaking into the even further up-thread context of Snowden :p Sorry about that.
> I'm not sure which State laws Snowden might have violated
E.g., http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/program/law/08-732/Jurisdiction/Haw...
> I can see an argument against double jeopardy in the Federal->State direction as opposed to the State->Federal direction: the former, if allowed, could see a defendant tried as many times as there are States + 1, and that can't possibly be in the interest of Justice.
+ a lot more than 1 because of Native American jurisdictions
It's a good pint, but the crime would have to occur in overlapping jurisdictions, which doesn't apply in the case of Manafort. I think even in the case of Snowden it'd be difficult to argue for jurisdiction outside of HI and maybe any states he passed through with HDDs.
I just searched for drug trafficking and computer fraud cases that resulted in multiple charges for the same act in several states. I couldn't find any particularly egregious cases.
I'm not even sure how important this is in the case of computer crime; jurisdiction gets hairy really fast.
Native American jurisdictions generally only have criminal jurisdiction over their own members for actions on their own land, that jurisdiction is Constitutionally an application of federal sovereignty, so where it applies it doesn't add an additional possible prosecution, just replaced (or provides an additional option) for one of the existing possible prosecutions. So, there's no double jeopardy impact.
His disclosures of the capabilities of the NSA in other countries, where the Constitution does not apply, has been the problem since Obama.
Trump could cure cancer and HN would fault in it.
'Ye but but' --looks at the fake news bingo entry-- 'Russia!'
edit: typo.
I don't think that term is automatically negative.
Using "leaker" means you are ignoring that what he did was to blow whistle on illegal activities and only focusing on him.
If you killed someone committing their own separate crime, you'd be both a killer and potentially a hero.
It is important to make clear he both committed a very serious crime and potentially blew the whistle in act of bravery.
But, sure, he hasn't invaded any countries that weren't notionally friendly at the time of the invasion.
Once again I marvel at the flexibility of our English language in describing impossible concepts, such as this one.
It is, nevertheless, the case that Trump changed that into an invasion again.
Separately, the US has been aggressive against Russia on sanctions and other moves, which the media does not cover. US moves against Russia does not advance the narrative which suggest US only does Russia's bidding. Media outlets are being very selective with coverage to push their agenda.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2020/08/10/germany-bris...
Criminal Justice Reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Step_Act
Opportunity Zones https://opportunityzones.hud.gov/
Can buy foreign pharmaceuticals https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/12/18/trump-admin...
On as state-by-state basis, something like 40 US states are decoupled now, for various reasons (none of which seemed to be related to politics, to me). I suspect that, nationally, GDP seems correlated to carbon emissions.
EDIT: Turns out the law does protect contractors, so I guess it's circumstantial that employees get branded whistle blowers and contractors get charged as spies.
He exposed clearly illegal activity and framing him as a leader changes the narrative.
He is a whistleblower who upheld his oath to protect the constitution of the US, in the face of severe consequences.
I don't think there's any legal way Snowden wouldn't face a conviction if he was returned to the US, even if you exclude all the "illegal" activity he exposed from evidence against him.
The problem was that I think that a lot of the things that leaked people either
A) THOUGHT were illegal
or
B) Thought that while legal, the government does not do and would not do (particularly because spokespeople have implied under sworn oauth that they do not do.
I'm talking about domestic surveillance.
If there was any justice, then the thing should have been a wakeup call for the US populace and government and new laws would have been introduced to make the things that he leaked illegal.
Alas...
Beyond that I would just chalk it up to some inherent capriciousness... bordering on concerning instability.
I do not think Snowden deserves a pardon. Edward Snowden should be extradited to the United States to receive a trial and an appropriate sentence.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/secret-court-rules-fbi...
https://www.wired.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-klein/ (NSA Leak Vindicates AT&T Whistleblower)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A (Room 641A)
> Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, as part of its warrantless surveillance program as authorized by the Patriot Act. The facility commenced operations in 2003 and its purpose was publicly revealed in 2006.
There's also point #4, "Some beautiful misdirection", in https://blog.thinkst.com/p/if-nsa-has-been-hacking-everythin... discussed 3 days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24139828
Maybe they'd really prefer to take the public relations hit of everybody thinking that they spy on Americans.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#/...
What Googlers were angry about was the stuff in the leaks that showed they were tapping undersea cables.
FYI the slide in question appears here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04...
In fact the lawsuit around Room 641A fizzled because the accuser didn't 'really know' what was happening in the NSA room that had split off copies of backbone fiber trunks running into it and the government didn't have to provide an explanation. So unable to prove standing.
Snowden's revelations lead to actual case law saying that quite a few of the actions of the NSA were unconstitutional, given actual documentation from the government describing their actions.
A great example is point #4, "Some beautiful misdirection", in https://blog.thinkst.com/p/if-nsa-has-been-hacking-everythin... discussed 3 days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24139828
That's some ingenious stuff that is 100% legal.
Plus, it's not as if foreign data doesn't cross the USA. The USA is the best path from China to France.
Maybe they'd really prefer to take the public relations hit of everybody thinking that they spy on Americans.
Why I'm not certain about this:
- What kind of other actions does this philosophy of "the motivation justifies the ends" lead to? Assassinating political leaders suddenly seems on the table...
- What if the whistleblower is motivated by the welfare of the citizens of the world, rather than just of their own nation? I guess you can be a traitor to your country and a hero to humanity (see Nazi Germany etc etc)
Any damage that results is the fault of the people that chose to violate the Constitution, and not the fault of the whistleblower. The violators should be imprisoned in almost every case, and probably even have their citizenship revoked.
Snowden should have be granted a pardon, become a universally respected American hero, and receive a medal.
Snowden's exile in Russia proves that Americans are too ignorant of their own constitution and the principles behind it to do the right thing for him. But he played his part flawlessly and history will grant him the title of American hero.
1. There's nothing about this whistleblower principle that would lead anyone to believe that assassination is fair game. Revealing constitutional violations = whistleblowing; that's it.
2. If there is no violation of the U.S. Constitution, then there is no whistleblowing to be done. Spying on foreign citizens is not a violation of the U.S. Constitution, for example, and so it should not be protected in the same way.
(Whether Americans should support a constitutional amendment that protects foreign people from American spying is another matter.)
The TSP was revealed in 2005, broader surveillance was broadly acknowledged publicly by the government in 2007, and a big, overt part of the FISA Amendments Act of 2009 was retroactive legalization of much of it. All of this well before Snowden.
Snowden vastly changed the conversation for everyday people. He's a hero.
> about: Not related to the real Henry Kissinger.
1. Parody role-play of Henry Kissinger ("novelty")
2. Unironic tribute to Kissinger in the username
3. Actually Henry Kissingerhttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/secret-court-rules-fbi...
I'd say that's pretty bad.
Edit: We're having this conversation in two places. Consolidated in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24175476
It was never the NSA who was going to arrest you; this is what mass surveillance on Americans looks like.
When did he give them what information exactly?
>don't think so, he didn't try to bring it up through proper channels first
The two sides disagree whether he attempted this. Snowden say he spent tremendous effort trying to report things through the proper channels.
He gave them the information when he got to China.
> The two sides disagree whether he attempted this. Snowden say he spent tremendous effort trying to report things through the proper channels.
I think if he had, he'd have a single shred of evidence that he had actually tried. I find it hard to believe that he gathered a ton of information that had nothing to do with his supposed reason for leaking the information, but didn't save a single email he could have sent to the people he tried to report it to.
Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
>I find it hard to believe that he gathered a ton of information that had nothing to do with his supposed reason for leaking the information, but didn't save a single email he could have sent to the people he tried to report it to.
Any such email would be classified information, and he destroyed his copies of all that information before leaving Hong Kong
- RAMPART-A
- Anything collected and shared by Five Eyes would have originated overseas. There's quite a bit of GCHQ material, such as Karma Police
- NSA ability to cross airgaps in China
- NSA Core (undercover human agents tapping China, South Korea and Germany) and TAREX (target exploitation running that out of embassies)
- NSA MonsterMind
All of these are only deployed overseas and there are many more such documents. Some have unredacted names of regular people who run these programs, and pieces of info that're miscellany to you and me, but gold to state intelligence services. Both Wikipedia and Lawfare distinguish between Snowden's disclosures of perhaps-unconstitutional domestic surveillance and probably-consitutional international surveillance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...
Second, while many of those actions may be constitutional, citizens should know what their government is capable of and deploying against people. And arguing whether a certain program was constitutional seems pointless when they never get punished.
People are more concerned about other people showing us shady things intelligence community does, than what Edward Snowden did. When intelligence community shouldn't be doing things Congress doesn't know about, which it does.
Amazingly HN loves to crap all over FISA warrants, but when it's used against Trump, nothing but crickets.
[1]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kevin-clinesmith-fbi-lawyer-ple...
The 'deep state' concept requires more than just secret acts that people don't like.
I will never understand this kind of reaction, when you get so emotional about something that all pragmatism goes out the window.
I agree, TDS is a pretty catchy term when you want to deflect from trumps corruption.
Support the efforts of Rand Paul and Thomas Massie, who have already publicly stated their support for a Presidential pardon in this case.
Four years ago, in an interview, Obama refused to pardon Snowden.
I’d say this is a notable development.
To someone with full blown TDS, sure, a Snowden pardon probably won't sway your opinion at all. But think of someone who leans libertarian and maybe doesn't love Trump but also doesn't hate him, and remembers how the Obama admin forced Snowden to flee and revoked his passport, forcing him to stay in Russia. Seeing a pardon from Trump could move them into being a mild supporter.
A lot of people have one or two big issues that their political allegiance revolves around. It can be abortion rights, gun rights, taxes, the national debt, anything. If someone's core issue is fighting the surveillance state, a Snowden pardon would be a massive change in the landscape.
It is the wrong thing when they publicly consider a bunch of things they won't do, or do tiny but loud actions without consistency, that are not aligned with their political agenda but just wish to win votes.
Disclaimer: I'm not American, but that's a pattern we unfortunately see a lot these days
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/353571-a-foolish-consistenc...
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/738162-i-do-not-believe-tha...
“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.” -Milton Friedman
^^^^
It's not a novel concept either, Biden and others regularly use this technique.
Obama promised to let it die... but he didn't.
If you listen to the video, all he did was say he knows nothing about the issues, but he'll "look into it." That's his standard line. He wasn't actually saying he was considering it at all. Honestly, I don't think he would really have any intention to pardon Snowden. It gains him no points with the left, and would damage him with his base supporters. That's probably why the media reported it, to try to get his supporters upset at him.
It's the same thing with the whole manufactured outrage of Kamala Harris and the question posed to him by the reporter. Trump didn't even mention Harris, and the reporter brought it up and asked him whether he heard about the report. Trump said that he knew nothing about it, and he would have assumed that the Democrats would have already validated Harris' eligibility, but he would "look into it." He never even made a point about it, it was obvious it was a non-issue to him. It's a meaningless statement that the media tries to use to make him look bad, and meanwhile it just lets his supporters keep saying that the media lies, which is true when they bend the truth like they do.
When it comes to Snowden, and other national security issues, politicians aren’t frighted by voters enough.
Can someone who is familiar with the US law system shine some light on this matter?
What I'm saying is, if Snowden -- who is the alleged primary source of a leak -- gets pardoned, then how can Assange -- who may not have had any primary involvement whatsoever with the leak of the documents he published -- be held responsible? Logically it makes no sense because Assange's alleged crime is lesser than Snowden's.
In the Assange case Trump has at least one more reason to pardon him: so Assange can tell the world whether Seth Rich gave him the DNC emails. But if Trump even floats a pardon for Assange then the Swedish government might renew its claims against Assange and the UK might just extradite Assange to Sweden, then Trump couldn't get what he wanted. To pardon Assange Trump first has to get Assange extradited to the U.S., and he can't make a deal with Assange first either, and this means he can't pardon Assange yet. There's also no time for any of that before the election. The closer the election gets, the more reason (a) would dominate any reasoning about a pardon for Assange.
Some possible outcomes:
- Trump pardons Assange just before the election without having floated it, and possibly at the same time as Snowden.
- Assange finally gets extradited and either tried, or pardoned, or both, depending on who is President at the time. Hard to say what Trump might do then, since Assange would be no use to him then, and Biden would probably not pardon if Seth Rich really did furnish the DNC's emails to wikileaks.
- Trump wins the election, the charges get dropped, and Sweden does not renew its charges because now Assange would be no help to Trump's campaigns.
- Trump pardons Assange after the election, whether he wins or loses.
- Eventually the UK rejects the extradition requests, Assange goes free, but effectively can't leave the UK because the U.S. could request extradition from any country Assange enters that has an extradition treaty with the U.S.
I totally agree but this is a political explanation, not a philosophical nor a judicial explanation. It seems clear to me that what Snowden did was more serious than what Assange did, because Snowden was the primary source.
> Trump pardons Assange just before the election without having floated it, and possibly at the same time as Snowden.
This is the outcome that would most intrigue me. I have no idea how people would react, but personally I think pardoning Assange makes much more sense than pardoning Snowden. The difference is that Snowden is living in Russia and Assange is in UK custody.
IMO there are only two or three reasons to pardon Assange on the eve of the election: to pander to techies, to show good will, or because Trump believes Assange should be pardoned. It will be very interesting if that happens.
Trump: Remember everyone, Biden used to spy on you.
This is similar to when he did a press conference with all of Bill Clinton’s accusers. Just a means to an end for Trump.
There are things he can do to set the stage for sure.
If he does pardoning Snowden and making that into an issue is a brilliant move. That will sting hard.
[1]https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-rejects-trumps-push-f...
So Trump is trying to make a deal with Snowden - find some dirt on Democrats (Obama administration) during election, and I will pardon you.
However, Snowden is most likely not a spy, so no way this is gonna happen.
Regardless, if this is how the pardon comes about, I happily support it even if it’s not ideal.
It boggles the mind that some can attempt to justify the egregious actions of the US intelligence community while supporting the railroading of a whistleblower. Perhaps the intelligence community could be more responsible and compliant with statute, negating the need for whistleblowers to reveal their illegal activities.
It's not like a legal argument about what you knew or when and what the law says about your responsibility / actions.
A jury ignoring admissions of crimes is pretty rare and a roll of the dice.
I get why people would want that to happen, but expecting that random chance of an outcome and using it to measure fairness, I dunno, they're likely to be disappointed.
That we can't just mechanically apply the law like the axioms of mathematics is part of the very reason that we have judges, juries, and the adversarial system, to allow for some measure of human judgement in the process.
A jury can even be sympathetic... and still convict him.
I hear folks talk about a fair trial but he's already admitted to crimes... so is the "fairness" only determined by a highly unlikely outcome, I'm not sure that's about fairness.
That would be only one of the charges. And a reasonable Snowden defence would be to recite the oath he swore to the Constitution. If this were the only charge, I don't rule out a fair trial.
But the second charge would be revealing NSA programs operating outside inside USA borders. This was the reason Obama didn't want to write a pardon, and the reason Pompeo sides with executing Snowden. The accusation that Snowden was working for a foreign intelligence agency hinges on two questions: why did he reveal those overseas programs, and how did he get onto (or know to get onto) Aeroflot without a passport.
This is why he can be simultaneously a patriot and traitor. Trump (or his predecessor) could have written a pardon the first charge and deliberately left out the second. Whether Snowden would want to take his chances with a trial on the second charge would be a tough choice.
As one of the "taxed but not represented" people in the US, I guess I might value voting rights a little less than I should.
Even if one were a fan of his policies, I cannot comprehend the confusion of principles that would lead them to put "checking executive power" anywhere on his priority list. Not as it relates to privacy, and not in general.
That includes replacing NAFTA with a modestly upgraded USMCA. He got China to sign a deal that very aggressively favors the US (maybe they won't stick to it of course; which would imply they may never stick to any consequential trade deal). Along with the new trade deals with Japan and South Korea. The only major trade deal remaining is with the EU (and then Britain whenever they're ready to do so, likely after the virus is brought under control).
https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/border-...
It is fair to include replacement of vehicle-only barriers and other ineffective junk. That had been effectively nothing, because even the most non-athletic large person could comfortably walk right through.
I believe Snowden needs to be pardoned. He made the Public aware of the shady things that are done in its name. So the Public needs to pardon Snowden for being a whistleblower and this can be voiced through the President, who is supposed to be the ultimate voice representing the Public and its interests.
However, Trumps motivations for doing anything have been fickle and marred in short-term political or personal popularity gain, sometimes to the detriment of the very thing he is supporting.
So supporting a pardon for Snowden is great but the reasons for doing so are really not clear and -as usual- not articulated in any sensible and reasonable way.
Maybe I'm wrong but this looks more like a political diversion to me, maybe a way to divert the outrage when he pardonned Stone -clearly a shady character if there was one- or just keep the news busy for a while.
He should be executed, but in the same breathe he may deserve a pardon? Not going to happen.
Neither the State Department, the Justice Department, the Defense Department, or the Intelligence Community, is particularly sympathetic to Snowden's cause (for good reason imo). There has been no change on that front from the Obama administration to the Trump administration. William Barr, Mike Pompeo, and Mark Esper are no more fans of Snowden than Loretta Lynch, John Kerry, and Ash Carter were. Snowden will die in Russia or in a US prison. I know it's not what the vigilantes of the Internet want to hear, but it's the most likely scenario.
I haven't noticed trump ever being particularly concerned about what the intelligence community thinks.
[1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/39568370275766272...
Can Edward Snowden vote in US elections? As far as I know, he's still an American citizen, and he hasn't been technically convicted of anything.
1. My uninformed kneejerk guess is that Russia, for whatever reason, wants to be rid of Snowden. It's the only explanation for why Trump—who has no pressing reason to be thinking about Edward Snowden right now, and almost certainly does not approve of Snowden or people like him—would suddenly raise the issue.
2. That, or it's something Trump knows will get everyone talking and he needs a distraction. Maybe both.
I could be missing something, but I can't see how this is going to help Trump in an election at all. The people who care about Snowden are not going to overlook everything else Trump has done, and at the risk of sounding callous, I don't think most millenials are really thinking about Snowden at this point.
The question for me is why Putin wants Edward Snowden gone, and when you look at the one vs. the other, the answer looks pretty clear to me.
Russia is not a very free country, if they want him silent, gone, whatever it would happen.
Symbols can stay valuable for a long time. A political refugee from the United States has all kinds of symbolic value, not least because we aren't willing to admit that there could be such a thing.
There is way more overlap in the thought process (with respect to the deep state) of Trump and Snowden supporters than than Snowden supporters would let on.
The commander of the CIA states it plainly: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/39568370275766272...
(Remember, we're talking about the same CIA that hacked US congressional computers, because the congress was investigating the CIA’s torture record and they wanted to cover it up. Then the CIA lied about hacking them. Then they later lied about lying about it.)
The IC knows they would suffer zero consequences for his “heart attack”.
Ed is far too smart to ever put himself in that situation.
Thus, for practical purposes, such a pardon is irrelevant.
https://www.politico.com/story/2011/04/obama-says-manning-br...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-mannin...
She was reimprisoned after her pardon, where she was subjected again to inhumane treatment, and attempted suicide a third time as a result.
If you know enough about the CIA to be absolutely certain they will murder Snowden, then surely you know what line he crossed that Chelsea Manning didn’t?
You might also want to point out that the torture was solitary confinement for all but 1 hour per day, which I’m no fan of, but just to be clear it wasn’t torture in the water boarding or toenail removal sense.
Even “pretty likely to be assassinated upon entry” would be enough to keep most reasonable or prudent people away forever.
Solitary confinement for extended periods of time causes permanent, physical damage to the human brain and psyche. If you have no experience with it or those who have so suffered, I don’t think you have even a remote shred of justification or qualification to speak of it the way that you have.
As I have personally witnessed the intense, permanent damage caused by such things, I entirely refuse to engage with your casual dismissal, which is extraordinarily offensive to me.
What was the probability that Chelsea Manning was going to be murdered? And how was it calculated?
edit in response to your edit which included this:
>As I have personally witnessed the intense, permanent damage caused by such things, I entirely refuse to engage with your casual dismissal, which is extraordinarily offensive to me.
So you're just going to toss out unsubstantiated claims and then retreat under the pretense of being extraordinary offended?
Torture has a generally accepted meaning and most people (and our legal system) don’t think that a single occupancy prison cell with an hour of human contact per day fits that meaning. The studies supporting psychological damage are generally talking about months of near total isolation, which is not what Chelsea Manning experienced.
"Solitary confinement is so egregious a punishment that in 2011, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment condemned its use, except in exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, and banned the practice completely for people with mental illnesses and for juveniles."
[0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/almost-addicted/2018...
2. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture is a lawyer in a political position, not a psychiatrist.
3. The studies linked in his report and the article failed were horribly flawed. They examined general population prisoners and prisoners subjected to solitary confinement without taking into account the selection biases that lead to differences between those populations, i.e., prisoners who have behavioral problems are more likely to be selected for solitary confinement.
I think that charging prisoners exorbitant fees to call their family is horrible. I think that not allowing books on programming in prison because the warden is concerned with "hacking" is wrong. Hell I think giving prisoners beds that are less comfortable than what you'd expect guards to sleep on is terrible.
But I don't think those things should be described as torture because they diminish the meaning of the word.
For Mr Snowden, this is not a game.
Gellman writes about both of these occasions in his book Dark Mirror, which I recommend you read if you’re interested in becoming less naive about the American spy apparatus.
Additionally, the commander in chief of the entirety of the US military, including all of the IC (CIA et al), has plainly stated that Snowden should be executed. Note that Snowden has not at this time yet been put on trial, and the US constitution establishes the presumption of innocence, so such an event if it were to occur would be accurately described, legally, as an extrajudicial assassination of a US citizen.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/39568370275766272...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
Why haven't the people involved in the The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI been murdered? The members still alive have been public for the past six years. They revealed COINTELPRO and caused the Church Committee. Not worthy of an instagibbing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Inve...
Even when Russia was FAR more closed the US intelligence was able to operate there.
I don't think it is all or nothing and I seriously doubt Snowden is untouchable.
Snowden has been quite the show, enough so that I'm seriously wondering if he's actually a spook. His entire story is weird. He holds a six figure salary as an NSA contractor, suddenly has a moral compass, somehow downloads a bunch of top secret stuff while working remotely from Hawaii, leaks documents that are mostly redacted and missing critical information about compromised hardware, and is believed by the world wide media unilaterally without question. Then his smoking hot girlfriend says she wants to go join him. No one has found him yet while he does video conferencing using Google Hangouts.
By contrast, Julian Assange was trapped in an Ecuadorian embassy for years. He's been though hell and his origination has leaked much more crucial information.