Petition to pardon Edward Snowden reaches 100,000 signatures
petitions.whitehouse.gov
petitions.whitehouse.gov
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/why-we-cant-commen...
It's really just a matter of "50 years, or life without parole" at this point.
It doesn't force anything. They don't have to respond and they usually don't, when it's not convenient for them. It's just a user-created poll on their website.
The petition site was implemented by Obama's cabinet. It was made as a way to make it seem as if his cabinet was more technologically savyy than others(along with "THE FIRST PRESIDENT WITH A SMARTPHONE!"), and allowed for people to think that the platform would increase transparency in governance.
Obama's cabinet decides how to respond to petitions. I think the parent of your reply, although simple in its' phrasing, is pertinent to the discussion at hand.
Ones' history does play out in the judgment that people make, and the fact that the President has broken OTHER promises is probably good reason to suspect his intentions in the future (such as the promise of a real reply@100k)
What policies have been affected in any way by these things? Takes about 5 seconds to sign one once you have an account, so the results seem to be pretty close to the effort it requires from the public.
Voted for Obama twice but he's just as much of a liar as any other politician.
Then why did you vote for him? You had a lot of other options:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_third_party_and_...
Because the only other real options for P/VP in 2008 and 2012 were even scarier to me each time, and I live in a swing state. I also wasn't wowed by the third party candidates (but have voted for third party candidates before).
After all that has happened, it amazes me that anyone would put any value on a promise made by President Obama.
I'd love to know exactly what the NSA is doing. There needs to be some sort of oversight, of course, but they certainly have a job to do. I recently heard former President Clinton talk about it and he was somewhat convincing that there are certain restrictions.
At any rate, aren't we venturing into politics and opinions?
As a community we can be anything we want it to be. The majority will decide.
Because politics and opinions are something they do in Washington and they don't affect our lives / the tech scene?
And of those that do care, a majority feel that he committed treason and needs to be brought to justice.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/17/cnn-poll-maj...
Another leak or two (especially about China, who most Americans feel are one step away from being the next U.S.S.R. anyways) and Obama, DNI, Congress, and basically everyone will be able to smooth the whole thing over by painting it with the traitor brush.
I really think Snowden has tried to bite off more than he can chew. At first I believed him that he wanted a debate about how the NSA was being used and how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands. Now I think he really wants to gut the whole thing entirely.
But Americans don't want that, they want an agency whose job it is to protect COMSEC, break others' COMSEC and especially to detect and root out terror cells and other anti-U.S. crime before it reaches our shores. The more Snowden aligns his goals with the destruction of the NSA and CIA the more I think he will get people to turn on him completely.
Don't get me wrong; I want that utopia where no one commits crime, we don't need money, everyone's interested are 100% aligned and we just explore the galaxy as peaceful peoples. But if we ever achieve that it would be 1000 times more remarkable than the Sistine Chapel. And you can bet your ass they wouldn't have completed the Sistine Chapel had they torn down all that ugly scaffolding ⅓rd of the way through.
Snowden should have released the slide and then explained exactly what is wrong with the program. Instead, he did a document dump and followed that up by giving a reveal all interview that shifts the focus from the NSA onto him and his motivations. Snowden still hasn't addressed what he technically knows about PRISM.
He also claimed in his interview he could get access to the presidents email. If he thought that was a big issue he should have gone into detail about it for reporters(the target list, how he could do it as a network administrator etc.) and supported his charge. Instead, it is a one off statement in the context of a long interview where he essentially lays out a political reasoning for why he has done what he did. Snowden still hasn't addressed any of the issues of concern about the NSA and the (lack of)oversight exercised over the agency and its programs.
He had a perfect opportunity to put his concerns before the public and I feel he blew it.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-stat...
That is, still no response at all, 4 months later.
Shows that the tech community is not as big as we think and/or is apathetic to even filling a form, forget about peaceful marches. This is why politicians don't care and don't need to care about things that are important to only the tech crowd.
The numbers are just not there. There are lots of posts, tens of thousands of comments, even more up votes, but when the rubber meets the road, there is nothing. And the people with lots of money in the tech field don't care to part some for social change or to form PAC. We have no one else to blame for this but ourselves for things like the Aarons case and the state of affairs. Politicians have zero reasons to care one bit when a simple online petition can't make 100k votes all over the US in 2 weeks of non stop and over the top coverage in tech circles and going viral.
Also I think many people aren't apathetic about the issue, they're apathetic about the White House's laughable petitioning system.
That's exactly what this surveillance is doing: killing free speech by intimidation is killing democracy.
Every time anything even mildly controversial has gotten the signatures required, it is either ignored or replied to with a template answer.
Perhaps one could get a little fatigued after continuous failure to elicit change.
We have REAL petitions every 2/4/6 years. It's called an election. You want change, that's how you get it.
I also made a point to make my voice an individualized one that connected my particular concern with a specific issue. I made my opinion personally known to their staff (the people who REALLY read the letters) and tried to educate them about my specific concerns.
So, yeah, I participate in the process by being educated about the issues, educating my elected representatives about the issues, and then highlighting that my continued support for them as an elected representative depends on my determination of how good of a job they are doing at just that.
That's why I'm poo-poo'ing this petition stuff. It's too general, too diffuse, not aimed at a particular politician with real influence, and ultimately going to be a wasted effort. It'll be ignored.
That's where Alexis Ohanian and his group have really done good work. They made a point of getting people to connect directly with their representatives and make it clear where the populace stood. THAT is how stuff gets done.
Slacktivism doesn't get you anywhere since it requires nothing that involves any real EFFORT. Letter writing and phone calling does. Working on campaigns does. Visiting representatives and senators does. Clicking a button does NOT.
I think that these petitions are helpful for the otherwise apolitical, who get a mental cue, "I signed this petition, I am for this cause". Nobody starts out writing letters, and it's not helpful to condescend those who aren't as committed as us.
And please interpret my comments in the spirit in which they are intended: to educate people about the way things get done in DC. I equate petition signing with quackery when confronting a dread disease. It's harmful precisely because it deceives the patient about its efficacy.
I lived in the DC area for more than a decade. I have two friends who work in the actual White House, another former colleague who is a serving delegate (VA) and countless others who work on the hill as staffers. I worked as an IT volunteer for the OBA campaign in 2008.
I've asked this question before: "What's the difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement? The Tea Party got their candidates ELECTED and changed the political discourse of the country."
As long as our generation keeps showing up to political gunfights armed with snowballs, we're going to keep getting the water hose.
I just simultaneously believe quite strongly in the idea of pairing calls for action with charitable donations. The donations make a clear and measurable message of the idea's importance. Plus, even if nothing happens, the charities benefit.
So in any event, to get to the fireworks factory already:
A plea to the US government to pardon Edward Snowden (donate to the EFF in particular!) [1]
The idea: "More than a petition" [2]
I have absolutely no idea. How could I, if everything is kept in secret?
What I can do, is asking Obama, if he likes what he is doing. If his daughters like what he is doing. If he still believes in "change". If he wants to appear in history books in a row with Bush jr., McCarthy and Soviet leaders. I don't expect answers from Obama, but I can say, that I would not like it, if I were him.
The history books will find a way to portray him in a good light. As history books have taught us.
History books tend to be very diverse, depending on where they come from, but they also tend to align more and more as centuries are passing by.
This is being done for thousands of years. Actually it's one of the first things you learn in history class.
Without American heros such as Snowden and Ben Franklin, this country would not exist.
If that was the case than any single person who uses a proxy, VPN, or Tor might as well be a terrorist; you're attempting to browse the web with a pseudonym. The REASON that they were used is because the use of assassins back then was pretty common, especially by the Empire.
And then QUADRUPLED it to the current 100,000?
Also, it's not "0.03% of the population" that agree with this. Only the ones that (a) know about the petition and (b) took time to sign it.
Edit: This is a response to several of the replies. I'm assuming of course that nobody within the government would game the petition system. If we've gotten to the point were they would impersonate people in a petition to the white house then I guess we are pretty much doomed.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/17/cnn-poll-maj...
So the questions I'd ask about whether petitions work are: -will they work to get government to reconsider policies? -will they reveal government's unwillingness to act?
Either way, that's a victory in my books.
One major objective of activism is to inspire more activists.
At worst, it shows that a lot of people are listening and agreeing with Snowden regarding NSA's snooping
(Compare during the election - Change!, and before the election: When I am president, there will be no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. - Senator Obama, December 24, 2007)
A better petition would ask the government to elaborate on the documents released.
Kidding, it won't be interesting at all.