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Comment by scottshea | Hacker News Reader

I imagine that he will keep moving until he gets asylum or some guarantees from the Chinese government.

... or is pardoned: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...

Not that I am holding out a lot of hope, but the more signatures the better. It does seem like the best outcome; we need greater transparency, and whistle-blowers help with that substantially.

not sure how it works in the US, but my understanding of a pardon is that you have to be trialed and convicted first, you can't be pardoned in blanco.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford#Pardon_of_Nixon

oh wow.

ridiculous petitions aside, too bad he doesn't have any reason to pardon him - it's his last office anyway and the poor dude already put all his cards on the table.

If we collect enough signatures, he'll have to revisit if he wants to retain any credibility. Of course, "enough signatures" might well be upwards of 300 million...

You can be granted immunity.

This is not the case in the US - the President's power to pardon is pretty broad, and has been used before conviction numerous times.

But normally you pardon rich people that did something stupid, like Wall Street bankers who commit fraud.

There would certainly be some unusual things about this pardon, but none of those have a bearing on whether it is within the power of the presidency.

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