'Pardon Snowden,' one tech exec tells Obama, report says | Hacker News Reader

'Pardon Snowden,' one tech exec tells Obama, report says

news.cnet.com

150 pointsfraqed109 comments

This is a self-serving opportunity for Mark Pincus to look like the good guy, after years of acting like a tyrant when he was in charge of Zynga. I'm not just talking about pushing games designed to exploit users in various ways. Remember the incident where Pincus "demanded certain employees surrender some shares or be fired"? (1) He also laid off more than 500 people earlier this year,(2) managed problems by "address(ing) the symptoms rather than the root causes"(3) and padded his own nest while loyal investors who stuck with Zynga stock got roasted.(4)

Appearing in a photo opp with Obama and saying "free Snowden" is a low risk way for him to improve his image among his peers (rich Silicon Valley people) and the public.

1. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020462190...

2. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/06/03/zynga-l...

3. http://www.fastcompany.com/3007544/where-are-they-now/mark-p...

4. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2013/07/01/the-fall-of-m...

In Sarajevo Blues, Semezdin Mehmedinović writes about seeing Radovan Karadžić on television, stirring up genocidal sentiment with vicious lies. Mehmedinović angrily grabs his son's copy of Karadžić's poetry book for children and begins ripping it apart. The son cries, and Mehmedinović tapes the book back together and returns it.

People are more complex than 'bad guy' or 'good guy' despite our attempts to canonize them one way or the other (Jobs, Churchill, Lincoln, JFK.) Sometimes the bad guy does the right thing, sometimes even for the right reason. That doesn't mean you have to let go of your criticisms.

Karadžić writing good poems does not make him more than a simple 'bad guy.' Being talented is not a good act.

You missed the point of the story, which had to do with accepting a good thing that stemmed from a bad person. The good thing isn't even necessarily the book itself, but the enjoyment it gave Mehmedinović's son. Writing a decently written book for children is a good act and more than a manifestation of talent.

I'm definitely not saying it's a redeeming act, and I'm not saying that Karadžić is some kind of flawed hero. He is a bad guy, regardless of how much he loves his grandchildren.

But, is he particularly exceptional in his evil? All it takes to nurture his kind of evil is to consider a group of people as something less than human, a 'them' less important than 'us.' This kind of belief is prevalent everywhere; it is nearly innate.

It might not stop him from being a bad guy but it definitely stops him from being simply a bad guy.

There's a big fat line between being a dick of a manager (it's not illegal to say "surrender shares or be fired", simply asshole-tinted capitalism) and imprisoning someone for life for performing a heroic act (involving sacrificing his own personal freedom) to uphold some of the most important ideals of our society.

Please learn the difference between "asshole" and "evil".

You can be a stark raging asshole (e.g. Pincus, or weev) and still not be criminal, such as the activities of Obama, the DNI, and the NSA.

Your big fat line may be legality, but it's not safe to assume that other people's moral judgements consider legality in any way.

>Please learn the difference between "asshole" and "evil".

>You can be a stark raging asshole (e.g. Pincus, or weev) and still not be criminal, such as the activities of Obama, the DNI, and the NSA.

I'm not sure how you can more clearly equivocate between "evil" and "criminal," and it's telling that the post you are responding to has absolutely no mention of legality. It's just something that you introduced in order to equivocate.

You're right; It's implicit that I think there is an understanding among reasonable people that "criminal" means "acting outside of your rights".

The US has no right to persecute Snowden, or to spy indiscriminately.

Pincus has every right to do basically whatever he wants as CEO that doesn't infringe upon anyone else's rights. (And no, nobody has a right to a job or future vesting predicated on that job.)

I think the average man on the google shuttle bus or any SV employee would consider "surrender shares or be fired" to be evil.

And it's exactly that that I suggest they learn not to do. It's a dick move, but it's not evil or criminal. It's within the rights of the person doing it, distasteful as it may be.

In my book its breach of contract between the employer and employee and that is illegal.

No, that's breach of contract. It has nothing to do with criminal law or legality.

You seem to be conflating civil and criminal law.

(Also, there is no employment contract in the world that gives up at-will, so ", or be fired" sentences aren't even breaches generally.)

Ah so some silver lake employees are on HN then (initially i was dv'ed)

The Weev actually is a criminal, it just so happens that the act that finally sent him to prison shouldn't have.

Personally, I'd argue that anyone who tries to incite people to rape women has crossed the boundary between simply being an asshole, and becoming evil.

https://twitter.com/rabite/status/414162384350367744

Clearly the fact that I incorrectly capitalized the first letter of someone's pretend internet name is an accurate way to assess my character. I honestly don't know how I will go on.

By that rationale, it's also not illegal to enforce an unfair but legally valid statute.

>it's...not illegal to enforce [a]...legally valid statute

Tautologically, yes

Nope, just evil.

Which is precisely my point.

Just because something is legal, doesn't mean that it's right.

When you pay someone in shares instead of commensurate wages because you want employees to bank on your future success, then yank the shares when there is future success...I consider this to be real damage. He basically robbed those workers of their fair reward. Yeah it's not killing people, but it's still very wrong.

Let me introduce you to my friend Andrew Carnegie, raging asshole & builder of amongst other things the world's largest free public library system, or my other friend Howard Hughes, raging asshole and founder of one of the world's largest medical charities, or my other friend Werner von Braun, responsible both for massive civilian casualties and also bootstrapping human exploration of space.

Oh what a piece of work is man, to be able to do both good and bad things.

Agreed. You could fill out that list with many more names.

But what has Pincus done, beyond appearing in a photo opp and asking Obama to do something that others have already demanded?

Pincus sat down with the most powerful man on earth and told him to his face that he should pardon the whisteleblower who has most embarrassed him. That takes real guts, no matter what else he's done.

It could be argued that Keith Alexander is more powerful than Obama these days - but your point stands.

> He also laid off more than 500 people earlier this year

His company is tanking iirc, so I don't think he can be lambasted for that. You can't live in startup-growth-mode of ignoring the balance sheet forever.

If someone is doing seemingly morally correct thing with a self serving intention, he still takes the credit.

He can try to take credit all he wants, it's up to the rest of us if it means anything.

> This is a self-serving opportunity for Mark Pincus to look like the good guy

So what if it is? Who's to say that Bill Gates isn't just spending all the money he's spending on charity to "look like" the good guy? If somebody does the right thing, that's enough. If they do it enough times, that makes them a "good person".

If they also happen to look good in the process, who cares?

Judge the action, not the motive.

This is rank cynicism. You are trashing his motives without any evidence whatsoever. And no, evidence that he is a bad manager is not evidence that he doesn't believe in what he says about Snowden.

I'm not sure having an unofficial company motto of "Be evil" is evidence of being a bad manager.

"The Obama administration has stated that if Snowden were to return to the United States, he would receive protection under due process laws."

That sure is nice of them.

How did it get to a point where this is actually up for debate? It sure sounds to me like that's a statement from somebody who thinks that they have options in how Snowden should be treated by the government.

Was Manning's treatment due process? Because it seems she was stripped naked and kept in isolation for several years.

I think I'll take the exile, thanks Barry.

Manning was in the military, and the operating interpretation of Article I is that Congress and the President have the power to regulate the Armed forces, the rest of the US Constitution and civilian law largely notwithstanding. Draconian punishment and treatment, while concerning, is nothing new for those subject to the UCMJ, even if the code itself appears to prohibit it[1].

The scary scenario would be the classification of Snowden as an enemy combatant, who would then be subject to military justice. I hope that all three branches of the US government consider that to be a ridiculous stretch of the imagination.

[1] http://uscodebeta.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-pre...

Given that several senior US politicians, including at least one who ran for the presidency, have openly advocated the use of "enemy combatant" status at home[1], it's not difficult to see why someone like Snowden might not entirely trust any promise of amnesty.

As someone from outside the US, I found that particular advocacy (and the rationales claimed to justify it) one of the low points of recent years. It makes sense that you might need different rules for acceptable treatment of enemy combatants when you're in combat, when you don't have the luxury of time and calm deliberation that a court affords because people are shooting at each other. But to me, the appropriate response to recent "terrorist" attacks is to treat them exactly like any other threat, assault or murder, and to put suspects/perpetrators through exactly the same legal processes as anyone else. It is disturbing that we are even considering the possibility that someone who isn't accused of any violent crime at all might have to worry about being labelled an enemy combatant and thus forfeit their normal legal right to due process.

[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2013/04/king-mccain-grah...

Heyyy, if torture was "regulated" by Congress, The President and his military commanders, I guess it would be alright?

Would you put money on the fact that they wouldn't do that?

I would. They would gain nothing from doing it, and everything to lose (especially in the court of public opinion). Plus the case is already pretty clear, he's gone and admitted everything anyways. Literally nothing to gain from trying to put him through a military tribunal.

There's 158 guys in cages in Guantanamo that would beg to differ...

There might not be strong enough cases against some of the prisoners in Guantanamo, so holding them there, under their special status, allows the gov't to hold onto them without having to go through all these bothersome limits on detention. Plus there's the argument that people in Guantanamo could be especially dangerous if re-released (not defending this).

There really isn't that sort of problem with Snowden. A videotaped, non-coerced confession? Hundreds of articles sourced by him? How could the facts be clearer-cut? Trials could begin immediately, the worst he could do is pull an Assange-style blockade in some embassy.

They would gain nothing from doing it, and everything to lose (especially in the court of public opinion).

That shit has sailed before it was built.

The judge in his case ruled at one point that he was being illegally mistreated. What I find outrageous about that is that they only cut a small fraction of the time he had already served off of his sentence as a result. In America, such severe misconduct by the authorities is supposed to result in the defendant walking (And I say this as a person who believes that he was otherwise guilty of SOME of the charges due to his wholesale leak of 700000 files that had nothing to do with government crimes).

If we compromise our values in the name of defending freedom, there is no freedom left to defend.

Pretty sure the precedent was set before Barry was even in politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

Yep. People are "shocked" at Manning's treatment, when Jose Padilla suffered something similar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_%28prisoner%2...

referring to Obama by "Barry" is off putting, in the way referring to Manning as "he" would be.

"Barry" was Mr. Obama's chosen nickname, and he didn't give it up until college: http://www.newsweek.com/when-barry-became-barack-84255

I think you're reaching looking for an insult here.

I'm seeing a lot of grandstanding and assumed affront in this post (Pincas above as well). It's not becoming.

People can be asses and still do the right thing on occasion. And sometimes a nickname is just a nickname.

The reason 'exit might have found it off-putting is because it's almost only the right wing crowd that chooses to use this term now (and only in critical contexts). Take a 5-minute trip to freerepublic forums and you'll see what I mean.

Small side note: Referring to Manning as 'he' in events she was involved in before Manning to choose to publicly make a switch shouldn't be an issue -- that's something Manning herself suggested actually. So for the grandparent post to have used the 'he' pronoun would not have been an issue at all.

> "Barry" was Mr. Obama's chosen nickname, and he didn't give it up until college

Which would make its use understandable if Obama gave it up in college a few months ago, and the person using it was someone who had interacted with him frequently during the time he was using it. Less so when he graduated from college before many of the adults using it were born, much less became aware that Mr. Obama existed.

> I think you're reaching looking for an insult here.

I think you're reaching looking for a justification for the equivalent of mocking a mid-career professional by persistently using a nickname they stopped using in kindergarten.

Yes, and no. I didn’t see many people referring to either of the Presidents Bush as “George”.

No, it was the single letter, W.

Or "Shrub". God bless you Molly Ivans.

It was a joke, an attempt to give the final statement a jovial, chat between friends vibe. I could have used Bazza (it's a British thing) or Prezzy. Too late to edit it now.

It's hard to know if a statement like that is serious or satirical, especially considering the many broken promises and human rights violations Obama is responsible for.

For example, didn't Obama promise to close Guantanamo Prison? http://www.npr.org/2013/01/23/169922171/obamas-promise-to-cl...

To be fair, the GOP blocked closing down Gitmo like they've done pretty much everything else the past 8 years. Not that I don't think President Obama needs to head back to a remedial course on the Constitution...

It's pretty hard for the opposition to block anything when your party has 60 seats in the Senate and a big majority in the House, as President Obama's party did for almost half a year (and it's pretty easy to get what you want with a "mere" 59 seats, too!)

Also, he's the President. The prison at Guantanamo was established by President Bush without an act of Congress, and it could be removed by President Obama in exactly the same way.

Presidents have wide discretion in military matters where Congress has not legislated to the contrary. In this case, Congress has now legislated to the contrary. That leaves the President without discretion, no matter what authority the facility was originally opened under.

Are you thinking of something other than the Defense Authorization Act of 2011? Which:

a) The President signed, rather than vetoed, as was his option.

b) Went into effect three years after he took office.

It would have been politically damaging for President Obama to close Camp X-Ray during his first few years in office. It would not have been impossible.

> a) The President signed, rather than vetoed, as was his option.

Presidents have signed many laws they disagreed with. Vetos are not particularly common, especially on critical appropriations bills.

> b) Went into effect three years after he took office.

I don't know where you pulled three years from. Obama took office January of 2009. The 2011 NDAA was passed January of 2011 for the fiscal year that began October 2010.

I also don't know what you think you're arguing with me about. Even if I entirely agreed with everything you just said, my comment would have said exactly the same thing. There is no contradiction.

I shouldn't try to do math before my first cup of coffee. Yes, you're right: Two years.

The original comment I replied to said the GOP had "blocked" Obama's attempts to close the camp. Surely the GOP is largely against it, but they had little ability to block its closure if President Obama had been willing to pay the political price. I'm not sure if you disagree with that assessment or not, since you haven't specified which law President Obama would have had to get through Congress in 2009 or 2010 to have the power to close the camp. The need for a law is the only way to justify the notion of a GOP "block", and even there it's a bit of a silly claim, since of course the GOP tried as hard as they could to block the stimulus and ACA; both of those passed.

I think there was (and is) a lot of clusterfuck to deal with in this country, including unwinding two wars, and everyone expecting their particular pet issues to be fixed on whatever timetable they personally think (though I've seen no evidence such people bother to give any actual thought to the effort and complexity required to fix their pet issues) best is a symptom of exactly the narrow-minded, self-absorbed attitude that has completely fucked this country.

All that may be true, but it's still inaccurate to claim the GOP blocked President Obama from closing Guantanamo in his first year as promised. Republicans didn't like the idea, but if the President and his party had wanted it as badly as they wanted ACA, they could have had it.

You're either moving goalposts or arguing against a strawman. Nobody said "blocked [...] in his first year".

President Obama signed an order in his first month in office to close the facility within a year. How did the GOP block that order from being carried out? Was there a filibuster I missed?

Nobody said they did. You are the first person in this thread to bring up "within a year", and you did so quite late, your initial comment was categorical and did not address timetables at all. Everyone else understands shit happens, life is complicated, and things sometimes take longer than we want them to.

OK, so when did the GOP "block" Obama from closing the camp? No time restriction, though of course the easiest time to close the camp would have been when he had large majorities in both Houses of Congress, don't you think?

The 2011 NDAA passed by a vote in the House of 341-48 and 93-7 in the Senate. It was then signed by the President. That doesn't look like the GOP blocking anything to me.

Dunno, don't care. You're so all over the place that you've long ago exhausted my interest. But you might notice I never really made any statement about the GOP at all. You may also recall that your comment which I originally replied to didn't mention parties at all, just Congress and the President.

I'm done here, but in the future, it'd be really nice if you'd decide what you're arguing about before you start.

I know you've actually read this thread (we're the only ones at this point!) so you know my original comment was in reply to wavefunction, who claimed the "GOP blocked closing down Gitmo". So your comment about Presidential power being bound by legislation was apropos of nothing?

Naive question from a UKian.

As the CinC, couldn't Mr Obama order the USAF to send a C-5 to Guantanamo and collect all the detainees, subsequently flying them back to Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Wouldn't that be a military operation without Congressional veto?

The President doesn't get to expend funds contrary to law. What you are proposing is exactly what is barred by statute.

> he would receive protection under due process laws

Reminds me when DOJ sent an entirely redacted document in response to a FOIA request.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/justice-departm...

Due process really doesn't mean that much when legal guilt is known beforehand and the defendant is a government enemy. After the hit job on Manning, I wouldn't be at all surprised for "due process" to include months and months of torture-detention in solitary confinement pre-and-post-trial-- all legal of course.

> How did it get to a point where this is actually up for debate?

Its not actually "up for debate", the President's statement is a way of making noises that sound reassuring when formed into a soundbite that passes through in a stream of media stories while being devoid of substantive content.

Its specifically designed to be revealed as empty of any commitment beyond what is already undisputably mandatory when analyzed rationally (so that in any case where it would be a source of "unfulfilled promise" political damage that would be the least concern), but to be soothing when heard in the typical media context which is pretty much designed to maximize emotional response and short-circuit rational consideration.

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There is no rebellion or invasion in progress, and even if there were, the rationale of Ex Parte Milligan casts grave doubt on the ability to use that as an excuse except in the areas of the country directly affected.

Congress hasn't suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

Only Congress can suspend it?

The Constitution is a ambiguous on that point, because it doesn't explicitly say who has the power to suspend the writ, only the conditions under which it can be suspended. But the fact that it's in Article I, which describes the powers of Congress, suggests that it is Congress who may suspend the writ: http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/61.... That is also the practice. Abraham Lincoln did suspend the writ unilaterally during the Civil War, but even then he was forced by political pressure to get an act of Congress approving the action.

Due process laws like requiring warrants for wiretaps.

Pedro offers you his protection

With all that's being said about the NSA, and how we should add self-restraint, with all that the government is admitting about the current state of the NSA being bad, why not?

If it's that clear that Snowden did the right thing, why not pardon him? I feel that not pardoning Snowden is roughly equivalent to making a statement that people should be in the dark about the government's spying programs, and that the government should be free to spy on its people, unchecked.

> roughly equivalent to making a statement that people should be in the dark about the government's spying programs, and that the government should be free to spy on its people, unchecked.

That's been the clear attitude of both the Bush and Obama administrations, illustrated through many actions completely unrelated to Snowden.

This is the United States government. By pardoning snowman they set a dangerous precedent.

Let's say they pardon snowden, in the future, if more whistleblowers appear, all they have to do is say "but snowden was pardoned!" And then what?

I understand the potentially precarious position this puts the government in with regards to handling leaks and whistle-blowers in the future but I'm okay with that. Pardon Snowden, pardon (encourage?) future whistle-blowers.

Don't do stuff that makes people become legitimate whistleblowers is a good start.

The US public is not stupid. There is very little goodwill towards Manning about what he did compared to Snowden[1]. And for good reasons.

So people are pretty good from separating whistleblower and leaker. So I think it will be non issue.

[1] There is a lot of sympathy for Manning about the way he was treated, which may or may not be a good case for clemency in the next administration.

If more people do what Snowden did, and reveal the kind of violations he has, then they too should be pardoned for the same reason he should be.

The proper response by the government to future cases is to judge them each case by case.

None of this is going to happen. The moment they open that door all hell breaks loose.

I really wish, but it won't. The system is solidified.

If they open this door, and then do anything against people using Snowdens precedent, the white house will be in a much worse position than now.

Here is the list of people who Obama has pardoned:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bara...

It looks like many of them were just erasing the record of those who committed minor crimes a long time ago. I wonder how you get to be so lucky.

I don't know, but Obama's been pretty stingy with the pardons compared to past presidents.

wait until his last day in office

Pardoning Snowden has practical upsides for the President and NSA apart from morals, ethics, or scoring popularity points with tech execs. Namely, by pardoning Snowden, there's a good chance they can get him back on U.S. soil and possibly prevent more leaks that are damaging in other ways.

It strikes me that much of Snowden's original leaking was protecting civil liberties for U.S. citizens--let's call that patriotism. And it seems that reasonable people and federal judges agree that knowing about and fixing these abuses is a Good Thing.

As it stands now, the heavy handed government rhetoric / smear campaign, combined with the threat of legal (or worse, extra-legal) penalties at home, might make anyone skittish. And a skittish guy with a whole lot of government secrets seems like a Bad Thing.

So, let's bring this guy home and throw him some parades before Russia, China, Iran, and everyone else knows everything about our cyber warfare capacity--i.e. "legitimate" spy stuff that all nations take part in.

Kind of strange that in a discussion that is ostensibly related to the disastrous Healthcare.gov, that you'd invite the CEO of a gaming company that thrives off of manipulating users through gamification. I know Zynga has been successful in many ways that most could only hope to emulate...but really, there weren't more relevant CEOs to bring to the table?

But good for Pincus for asking the question. How embarrassing it is for Obama to equivocate on morality and principles with a CEO whose gaming company is often criticized for having neither.

To remain off topic:

It's not just him. The full quote:

"Obama met Tuesday with 15 tech executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, with the official purpose of discussing how his administration can improve its Healthcare.gov Web site."

None of these people seem particularly good candidates for a discussion on how to make healthcare.gov better. It's also highly questionable that only highly ranking executives were invited. It feels to me this was more of a face saving publicity stunt or a talking point. It would've been more useful and cheaper for Obama to just have Google or Yahoo build a replacement healthcare.gov website, or open source the task and ask them for contributions.

Where's the "let's get shit done" focus?

"Kind of strange that in a discussion that is ostensibly related to the disastrous Healthcare.gov, that you'd invite the CEO of a gaming company that thrives off of manipulating users through gamification."

Not strange nor a surprise at all when that CEO is a major campaign contributor.

My first reaction was, "Cool!"

Then I got to thinking about it a little more, and I can't figure out why this is the least bit interesting.

"Pardon Snowden" is a pretty common sentiment among the tech crowd. And tech execs generally follow the same sort of opinions as the rest of us. I'm sure there are substantial differences, but there's no surprise that there would be tech execs who think Snowden should be pardoned.

So then what is the supposed surprise? That the guy was brave enough to actually voice his opinion to the President? This is not the USSR and you don't get thrown in the gulag for expressing an opinion that the President disagrees with.

The last thing Ed Snowden needs is a shady character like Pinicus vouching for him what next will Donald Trump get in the act or gorgeous George Galloway MP.

He needs some higher quality supporters if he does want to negotiate a way out of his predicament

Until that exec is willing to state their support for a pardon in public, this is all just a bunch of PR for Obama and the big tech companies.

Now wait and see how top tech execs will be gaining cheap karma points during this "call for reform" campaign.

Obama cannot pardon somebody who's not a criminal, in any case he may be a witness or a liar.

well, if a tech exec says it...

Edward Snowden is the Martin Luther King Jr. of my generation. History will vindicate this man and hail him as a hero. It's great to see at least one tech exec with the courage to speak up for him.

But why did it have to be Zynga's Mark Pincus...

I was kind of surprised Pincus was in that room. Are our virtual farming habits being analyzed by the NSA too?

He was another CEO's 'plus one'

Well if you send "Mark Pincus would like to play Presidential Advisor with you!" to enough people, someone will click it :)

Instead of all of them! Why weren't they unanimous?

This. One tech ceo can be brushed off by the administration. A room full of hand-picked ceo's all saying the same thing in unison is tough to ignore.

You have to wonder, though, whether they all were willing to spend their limited presidential currency shitting on Obama's head. I can't imagine pardon requests are something a president ever wants to entertain.

Just a note, the president cannot pardon someone who has not been convicted yet I believe.

Have you heard of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford? What about Jimmy Carter and the Vietnam draft evasion pardons?

That is incorrect.

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