22k more signatures needed on the Snowden pardon petition | Hacker News Reader

22k more signatures needed on the Snowden pardon petition

petitions.whitehouse.gov

138 pointsjenius46 comments

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Want a preview of the exact text the White House will use to not comment?

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-cant-commen...

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-can’t-comme...

Though maybe we'll get extra lucky and get a non-form non-response, like Bradley Manning's:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-cant-commen...

This is a defeatist attitude. But you are voicing your disapproval if it makes it. They know if they are doing wrong if you tell them. Of course it will be like that. But it is the principle of it. They'll probably raise signatures to 250k if it passes, and we should take it past that as well. I am of the ideal that you should never let freedoms go away easily, voice your disapproval.

If it is legal, made by executive orders only via Patriot Act proxies, then we aren't really in a free society anymore. Make a public congressional vote if it is legal, until then is it really legal? What precedent does this set for 1-2 decades from now, not just if it is ok now?

Of course, we may not get a response at all, as in the case of one of the many Aaron Swartz petitions --

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-stat...

(Note that at the time, the threshold for petition responses was 25,000 signatures.)

So, perhaps it'd be better not to hold your breath at all.

It doesn't matter. Even if you take a cynical attitude about petitions (as I usually do), this one in particular has value as a news item as does the fact that it will receive its 100k signatures rather quickly.

The reason petitions like this are important is that ultimately, the fate of whistleblowers must rest in the hands of the people. The government must prosecute leakers; failure to do so would invite rampant leaking, placing essential secrecy in the hands of every single individual with access to confidential information. The key question about a leak is: does the value of the information being public outweigh the cost to national security? The ultimate arbiter of this question can only be the people. The executive branch is too invested in maintaining security; the judicial branch is charged with enforcing the law, not with making policy judgments; and the legislative branch, while it can be very influential, has (at least in the US) no direct control over the fate of any particular whistleblower.

So the only way to keep a whistleblower out of prison has to be by the sheer weight of public opinion. There isn't any other way and there never can be. This is one responsibility we cannot delegate to our elected representatives, because it directly contradicts other responsibilities we have placed on them.

So, if you believe, as I do, that we are better off for Snowden's revelations -- that we desperately need to have a national conversation about what our government is doing to protect us, and whether the price of that is worth paying; that the material Snowden has leaked has been essential in bringing that conversation into focus and drawing attention to it; and that the damage to national security is minimal -- then I urge you to sign this petition.

"Edward Snowden is a national hero and should be immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs."

Looks completely reasonable to me and hence I just signed the petition.

Does it set a good example to pardon someone who leaked classified information and endangered national security (i.e. treason)? Possibly. I would pardon them only if they had whistleblower status--i.e. the leaked programs were illegal.

Morally, perhaps we should wait to see whether the programs are ruled illegal before deciding to ask for a pardon. So far the administration and Congress (two out of three branches) have maintained that they are legal.

Politically, the administration would not want to undermine their talking points--that the programs were legal--by giving implicit whistleblower status to the leaker, thereby implying they were illegal after all.

Ah, the partisan downvotes arrive sans open debate.

HN is over. I'm sorry to see your reasonable response treated that way but if you've been following the past few months you'd know this is now more of an echo chamber than ever. Groupthink rules the day. But anyone who would care seems to have left by now.

How was national security endangered? And I'm curious which of the two parties you think the "partisan" downvoters represent?

I strongly disagree with it, but it's been stated a few times that it's ok to use downvote if you disagree (1). This is certainly not a new thing around here...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

A reply giving the reason you disagree has the benefit of preserving both sides of the argument.

If Snowden would be free on low-cost bail while there's a real investigation into the legality of the program (review by Supreme Court seems to be the only way) I'd support postponing pardoning until after the investigation. But since the opposite will almost certainly happen (lengthy solitary confinement and no due process for Snowden, no investigation into the legality of the programs, etc.) I support an immediate pardon. Potential hero whistleblowers who risk their freedom for all of us (whether or not Snowden is one) shouldn't have to suffer so much.

someone who ... endangered national security

I haven't seen anybody make this claim and provide any reasoning or evidence to back it up.

On the contrary, if you were planning terrorist activities, you'd probably assume that the US government already had access to any of these services and instead use secure, encrypted alternatives. There's probably nothing about your behaviors that would change as a result of the existence of this program being revealed.

The point is that most people didn't assume that the government had access to the extent it did and how much was done domestically. That's why it has been such a big story.

So on the basis of this it's obvious that Snowden endangered national security. Not all terrorists are sophisticated remember e.g. Boston Marathon.

The widely accepted definition of 'national security' means the survival of a state. To say that Snowden endangered national security is to say that he took actions which could credibly precipitate the end of the purportedly democratic regime which is in force, and, for example, lead to an anarchy, dictatorship or a return to British rule.

I personally don't believe this to be true; if anything, he may have enhanced national (and international) security against a future shift to a higher and unpopular level of authoritarianism.

Certainly if the state has secret powers they have the power of surprise over some criminals and can prevent some crimes they might not otherwise, but it is folly to optimise for one thing (low crime) to the detriment of all others (personal privacy, governance by consent of the people, rule of law, balance of power of entrenched interests, due process rather than being targeted on secret evidence), and if the government is doing that, the public have at least a moral right to know.

And yet this highly sophisticated secret program neither prevented the Boston Marathon bombings, nor AFAICT, did it aid in any way in the manhunt following the bombings.

Morally, perhaps we should wait to see whether the programs are ruled illegal before deciding to ask for a pardon.

Surveiling people without suspicion seems an obvious human rights violation - I have a hard time imagining how a court could legitimately rule that something like this is legal.

I think Snowden is deadly wrong, you people don't deserve to know anything.

Without getting into a debate over the rest of your points, Snowden did not commit treason, and anyone arguing otherwise has no idea what they're talking about.

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

You have to show "specific intent to make war" to convict someone of treason.

* http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/no_one_understands_what_trea...

>only if they had whistleblower status--i.e. the leaked programs were illegal.

It doesn't matter if the programs were legal or not. If a secret court came to a secret interpretation of legislation that permitted them to claim what they were doing was legal, that doesn't make it right.

I wonder what it would take for you to stand up for something? I think you play it safe. Do you think standing up for something after it is too late is worth it?

The program is preempting privacy for security. Here preempting overstepping of the Constitution should be pardoned.

It is better to err on the side of protecting rights than protecting overstepping authoritarian actions. The latter needs to prove itself more thoroughly if rights are lessened.

Noone will stand up if there isn't some support for people that do things for our freedom. Is making this public really worth putting someone in prison who clearly was smart enough to make it in the CIA and NSA?

If he is wrong and it is now legal to do illegal search and seizure of papers (without oversight and judicial approval/warrants), then we should just kill off the 4th amendment and stop pretending. Giving up freedoms is easy, getting them back is hard and too late. I think you should reconsider.

See, even if it's perfectly legal.. if the wast majority of the population is against it, there likely is a problem with the law, not the majority of the population. At least that's the theory of democracy the last time I checked.

Thank you for posting that. The more refusals the White House is forced to dols out, the more it illustrates what a "dog and pony show" show this administration is. If the petition gets as many as 200,000 or 300,000 signatures which is possible it may signal to other politicians that a storm is brewing. It was like this for Vietnam.

Nobody can please a cynic. When it comes to the White House petitions, maybe you are the one entirely level-headed critic I've come across. But there seems to be no way for them to win you over short of doing precisely what you think ought to be done.

Their petition promises a white house response. That's it. It's entirely likely the response will be "Snowden is a criminal. Leaking is a crime. We will not pardon him because I, Barack Obama, don't think that's the right and just thing to do."

But nope, to you that's another act in their "dog and pony show".

Also, if the petition does reach that 300k mark you mentioned, that means it earned the support of 0.12% of the internet-using American public. Perspective matters.

(To be clear, I don't support the spying. I do think the reaction has been overblown in some cases but the program should end. To paraphrase Bill Maher, "This doesn't worry me all that much but it IS a slippery slope, and that's coming from a guy who thinks most 'slippery slope' arguments are bullshit".

Honest question: why would anyone assume such a petition would have any effect whatsoever? This is the same institution - the state - which has repeatedly and unashamedly told the most blatant lies to further its interest (increasing its power at the expense of the sovereignty of the people). Sure the petition might result in some bleating from POTUS, but does anyone seriously believe this would lead to Snowden being pardoned? The people in power will never countenance letting such a precedent stand. What Snowden did presents an existential threat to the establishment. He's going to be made an example of, regardless of the campaigning of idealists who believe the state can be cajoled into behaving benevolently.

No, nobody thinks they are exercising concrete power by signing a petition. However, those who do have authority over this case are well aware that the difference between an effective example and a martyr is primarily one of popularity. The petition aims to prove that Snowden is popular.

If Snowden were popular in the sense that matters, there would be protests down the thoroughfares of American cities to free him. Sadly he is not popular in the sense that matters. He's not popular in the same way that free abortions are popular. He's not even popular in the way that legalizing marijuana is popular. He's just popular enough that libertarian-types (of whom I count myself as one) scream indignant outrage at the grim reality that has been exposed to us (and which many of us have long suspected existed). Most of the rest of the population is already yawning and moving on to the next story. The Economist lead with a piece today barely acknowledging the Orwellian nature of the PRISM program, blandly stating "Our point is not that America's spies are doing the wrong things, but that the level of public scrutiny is inadequate".

The true lesson to those of us who cherish freedom is the awful extent to which we have lost.

The response is going to look something like "because we don't know the full extent 'related to the NSA surveillance programs,' we cannot make any such promises" mixed in with some reasonable sounding stuff about due process and rule of law.

And so it's going to be an empty response, as cynically predicted.

Which is good.

This is a system that the White House devised itself, and like so many statements and positions it took, it never thought it was actually going to be held accountable. What they didn't realize is that it actually will serve a useful pupose.

The sooner and more the WH makes cynical non-responses to these petitions, and is caught in lie after hypocritical lie, the sooner the majority of people will hold the WH, Congress and the government itself in open contempt. Then we can get on to the next stage, whatever that's going to be.

You can't pardon someone who hasn't been convicted of a crime. This petition is somewhat premature and presumptuous!

Didn't Nixon get pardoned before he was tried?

It would probably be better described as amnesty. I know the word pardon was used in reference to this, probably because it derives from the president's constitutional pardon power, which was interpreted by the SCOTUS to also include granting amnesty. But the petition should really be a petition for amnesty, not a pardon unless he's successfully convicted and all avenues of appeals have failed.

The president can indeed do that. See Proclamation 4311 for Nixon, signed by Ford.

It stems from the president's constitutionally granted pardon powers. SCOTUS decided this also includes the ability to grant amnesty.

It's a petition for amnesty because he hasn't been convicted of a crime, yet. Colloquially the two words are pretty much interchangeable, but pardons and amnesties are different things.

Look, 77k people for the NSA to target heavily.

I signed it too, Hi NSA you'll get bored real quick reading my traffic ;)

77k statesmen more like it. If it doesn't reach 100k I'll be pretty taken back by the lack of spine in Americans today. Go back 10-20 years and it would be a much bigger push back.

Freedoms are easy to give up, but you have to fight to get them back. Maybe we shouldn't give them up so easy.

When you have to break the law to reveal constitutional attacks that are illegal to even speak about yet might itself be illegal, something is wrong and it is an un-winnable situation.

If I was the NSA I'd do the same thing, it is their job to pry for national security. But it is our job to let them know when they have gone to far or just gotten lazy. Is it really too hard to ask for judicial approvals? Oversight? And when the executive branch overreaches happen yet make emergency directives to make it legal those need a check. Yes a free society is harder to manage, but others fought and died for that for us, least we can do is hold strong. Authoritarian nations are much easier for the leaders and much harder on individuals/citizens.

Then again the ARPAnet was a DoD project, it is ultimately the best honeypot in the history of the world.

Well this is awfully suspicious

  $ dig @8.8.8.8 petitions.whitehouse.gov

  ; <<>> DiG 9.6-ESV-R4-P3 <<>> @8.8.8.8 petitions.whitehouse.gov
  ; (1 server found)
  ;; global options: +cmd
  ;; Got answer:
  ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 39404
  ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

  ;; QUESTION SECTION:
  ;petitions.whitehouse.gov.	IN	A

  ;; Query time: 500 msec
  ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
  ;; WHEN: Sat Jun 15 18:05:23 2013
  ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 42

Can you please explain what is suspicious for a n00b like me?

The DNS entry for petitions.whitehouse.gov disappeared for a bit.

It was just a SERVFAIL, not an empty response. It's not that uncommon.

Hmm, it's back now.

This site seems to fail a lot. Every time it does someone interprets it as being suspicious, especially when their pet petition is getting attention on a site they frequent. Don't read too much into it!

I've noticed a lot of downtime on this site too. I agree it's not suspicious. I imagine this site gets a lot of traffic. I'd be curious to see uptime stats over time. Like "downforeveryoneorjustme" except more like Pingdom. Is there a service like Pingdom for checking uptime stats on public sites like this?

There must be a sale on tin-foil hats or something.

Why would the Whitehouse intermittently take down the petitions site ? The petitions aren't binding and are merely used to help guide their decisions and provide a forum for clear responses to issues.

It's not like the response to this petition is going to be revelatory: National security is important. Leaks compromise national security. Snowden is bad. The End.

"The petitions aren't binding and are merely used to help guide their decisions and provide a forum for clear responses to issues."

Are there any examples of these petitions leading to action? It seems like it is just representation theater to me.

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