The problem isn't Putin, nor it is Snowden. The Putin problem could be fixed in 5 seconds.

[BlueStreak]

The problem is the NSA, Snowden is just the messenger, and we put Putin in a position he really couldn't collaborate with us.

The President could fix all of this immediately. All he has to do is pardon Snowden. Then there would be no reason for Russia to offer asylum.

There is absolutely no purpose served by persecuting Snowden. He has, in fact, revealed an out-of-control security state. The fact that he did violate some laws in the process is not really very consequential. The service he performed clearly outweighs any harm done by violating the laws. He did, in fact, expose senior American officials themselves breaking the law and operating is open defiance of the Constitution. As a matter of equity, that is far more important than any chicken-bleep laws the security apparatus erected to insulate itself. Indeed, it would be impossible to expose this widespread criminality within the NSA and other agencies without violating some of those laws.

So, when can we expect Obama to pardon Snowden? It really is the only way forward for Obama.

[Rex]

1. A Presidential pardon for criminal activity?

Who do you think he is? Richard Nixon?

[former9thward]

6. All presidents pardon.

All the pardons are for criminal activity.

[cherokeeprogressive]

20. If not Richard Nixon, how about Bill Clinton? n/t

[Thinkingabout]

2. What has Snowden provided to earn him a pardon. Maybe if Snowden revealed his

Puppet masters a pardon may be considered.

[Californeeway]

3. Wasn't there a legal way for Snowden to reveal the information

And did he not make a decision to do it the illegal way ( I guess because he thought it would be more embarrassing and damaging to the Obama administration)?

[PragmaticLiberal]

5. Yes. There were legal channels for Snowden to reveal his info.

Now we can debate whether he would have been successful using those channels but they were there.

[Californeeway]

8. I would say, try legal channels first

If you feel like your getting shut down, take the more drastic method.

And don't reveal security secrets to China and Russia. I think most people who see Snowden as a traitor feel that way because of the sellout to China and Russia.

[PragmaticLiberal]

12. That's how I feel as well.

But if you espouse this position many DUers lable you as a "Stalinist/Obamabot" etc etc.

[Californeeway]

14. They are romantics and need clearly defined lines

shades of grey are not allowed.

They are modern Don Quixotes desperate to find windmills er giants to fight.... and shades of grey get in the way of their romantic notions of Good and Evil. Nietzsche called them "Naughts" people who need something or someone, say a hero figure of some kind to attach themselves too and derive their meaning from. Thus the absolute adulation for Snowden and the anger they feel that anyone questions their messiah. You might as well tell Christians that Jesus was a liar.

Anyone who doesn't want to join them on their romantic quest is just a reminder to them how far out on a limb they are going for their romantic fantasy.

[PragmaticLiberal]

37. Honestly, that's what I've found most disappointing about this place.

The inability (or unwillingness) of some to see the world in anything other than black or white.



DU is a strange place.

A place where President Obama is accused of being a "Stalinist" while Hugo Chavez is revered (by some) as a paragon of democracy.


Go figure.....

[riderinthestorm]

30. No, there was not a legal way for Snowden to reveal this info

The whistleblower act does not cover national security contractors.


http://my.firedoglake.com/mspbwatch/2013/06/09/the-newly-passed-federal-contractor-whistleblower-protection-law-would-not-have-helped-edward-snowden/

Last December, Congress passed (and the President signed), the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. Contained in that bill was section 828, now codified at 41 U.S.C. 4712, which, beginning July 1, 2013, will protect disclosures made by government contractors to any member of Congress, an Inspector General, the GAO, a contract oversight employee in an agency, authorized DOJ or law enforcement agencies, a court or grand jury, or a management official at the employing contractor with authority to investigate wrongdoing.

However, and this is a big however, there is an exception for “any element of the intelligence community, as defined in section 3(4) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 401a (4))” or to

any disclosure made by an employee of a contractor, subcontractor, or grantee of an element of the intelligence community if such disclosure—

(A) relates to an activity of an element of the intelligence community; or
(B) was discovered during contract, subcontract, or grantee services provided to an element of the intelligence community.

[phleshdef]

4. Snowden STOLE thousands of classified documents and fled to other countries and started disclosing.

He should never be pardoned for that. Even Greenwald admitted that there is information in the documents that could in fact compromise national security. And there is information in there regarding counter-espionage activities between us and other countries that spy on us.

Anyone who committed the crimes Snowden committed should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Just because he revealed information that some people find morally objectionable doesn't get him off the hook from that. The same with Bradley Manning...

[former9thward]

7. Should we re-try Daniel Ellsberg?

[phleshdef]

9. What a stupid question. No.

[former9thward]

15. Well you seem upset someone stole documents.

And gave some to the world. Just like Ellsberg did.

[phleshdef]

22. Ellsberg was a true whistleblower and he went to Senators first.

He was showing proof that Johnson lied to the American people and to Congress about the Vietnam war. And he at least tried to go through the proper channels to expose it. He also stayed in the country to face justice. He didn't run off to China or Russia with a bunch of classified information. Its a different situation.

[former9thward]

24. Yes different because Nixon was a R.

And Obama is a D. Actually Ellsberg did go overground for two weeks until he got a favorable court ruling.

Let's see what Ellsberg has to say about this:

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, said on Monday that he supports Edward Snowden's decision to flee the United States.

Ellsberg has sometimes been held up as an example of everything Snowden is not. Former Obama administration speechwriter Jon Favreau, for instance, called Ellsberg a "true whistleblower," unlike Snowden.

Yet Ellsberg has steadfastly sided with Snowden, saying that his detractors are wrong to contrast the two of them and calling Snowden's leaks the most important in American history.



Many people compare Edward Snowden to me unfavorably for leaving the country and seeking asylum, rather than facing trial as I did," he wrote. "I don't agree. The country I stayed in was a different America, a long time ago."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/08/daniel-ellsberg-edward-snowden-asylum_n_3562505.html

[phleshdef]

25. I'm aware of Ellsberg's feelings on Snowden and he is full of shit.

Furthermore, it wasn't the Nixon administration that was guilty of what Ellsberg exposed. It was the Johnson administration that lied about Vietnam. And I'm a big LBJ fan outside of that monstrosity.

[BlueStreak]

18. If he had access to them, he didn't steal them

And he has not disclosed anything that is harmful to anybody but the people running the illegal spying operations.

When do you think we will see them prosecuted?

[phleshdef]

23. Bullshit.

If someone with access to your medical records made copies of them and handed them out to someone unauthorized are you going to say they didn't steal your medical records? That's a very impotent argument.

Taking copies of classified information, information that you even signed a contract saying you would protect, and then you leave the country with it, then that's stealing classified information, not just in a moral sense but in a legal sense as well.

Furthermore, those documents do contain information that could harm national security, even Greenwald admitted that much. He left it up to the journalist whether or not to vet that information correctly, he didn't do it himself.

But furthermore, he gave other countries who are spying on us information about our counter-spying operations on them, which has nothing to do with domestic surveillance.

Finally, whether you like it or not, these aren't illegal spying operations. Do I feel the operations are moral? No, not entirely, but they are legal and you are going to have to live with that fact.

Snowden is a criminal.

[BlueStreak]

28. They haven't released any documents that endanger any legitimate overseas surveillance operations

It is a purely technical arhument, not worthy of a forum with "Democratic" in its name to debate whether holding and not releasing documents he already had clearance to access, constitutes "stealing". In a very technical sense, it probably does, but I suggest you take that argument to AuthortarianUnderground.com and see if it gets a better reception.

[phleshdef]

32. Are you going to answer my question?

If someone with access to your medical records made copies of them and handed them out to someone unauthorized are you going to say they didn't steal your medical records?

Aside from that, Greenwald has not released anything endangering operations but Greenwald openly admits that Snowden took documents that COULD, and Snowden went to China and Russia with those documents. Also, Snowden did give some information to journalists in Hong Kong that spell out some counter-espionage activities that he should not have given to them.

Spare me this "authoritarian" garbage. I suggest you look the word up in the dictionary before you throw it around so flippantly. You are being no different that the tea baggers who like to throw around communism and socialism out of context just to attack someone who you don't agree with. I'm not an authoritarian because I disapprove of someone stealing classified information and running off with it to countries that we have an adversarial relationship with. He should've taken the information to Rand Paul or Alan Grayson or some other Congress type critter that would've undoubtedly been sympathetic. Then he would've qualified to be protected. He went way beyond that and took stuff that has nothing to do with American civil liberty issues. Cut that shit out.

[BlueStreak]

33. If a tree falls in the woods

I will take your point of view seriously when:

1) Somebody at NSA does serious prison time for giving access to such documents to a low level new hire

2) Somebody at NSA does serious prison time for giving out this illegally obtained surveillance data to police forces in cases that have nothing to do with national security.

Until that time, your argument is completely disingenuous authoritarian garbage unworthy of being entertained on an ostensibly progressive website.

Come see me when one of those above two things happens and we can have a fair conversation. Until then, I'm not buying anything you have to say on this subject.

[phleshdef]

36. You aren't taking my point seriously simply because its inconvenient for you to do so.

It defeats your argument and you can't have that.

[indepat]

10. Who our government chooses to prosecute and who it chooses not to prosecute

imo define its character for it tells us whether or not our government promotes the rule of law, equal justice under the law, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: it tell us whether ours is a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. .

[BlueStreak]

19. There were over 3000 prople arrested in the Occupy activities, and not a single banker charged

until this past week -- and even then those are civil charges, so none of the banksters risks any jail time.

[indepat]

34. The proof is in the pudding cooked and served up to us

[Cleita]

11. Still looking for those pigs to fly.

It seems the best and easiest solution so I'm certain it won't happen.

[hfojvt]

13. it could also be fixed the same way as

the Wombosi problem.

[Life Long Dem]

16. Yeah right... breaking laws are meaningless

And you mean prosecution, not persecution. Forget about any pardon. Snowden is on the run for a reason. He doesn't want a fair trial because a fair trial will put his thieving ass behind bars, and he knows it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. What is the purpose of prosecuting Snowden? What's the payoff for the PTB?

The only possible reward would be a warning to other whistle blowers to toe the line and be obedient little cogs in the wheels of power.

[BlueStreak]

21. Yes, of course that is why they want to prosecute him. I should have said

"How would prosecuting Snowden advance the interests of any American that is not part of the central authority complex"?

[polynomial]

26. The Russians are Putin, the Americans are taken

What we the people need is to understand the Russians or any other country that has not, nor has a treaty with America. Big time decisions about war or trade agreements, especially international law are made by treaty. What is really funny here is the complete void in that part of the discussion especially those journalists in the electromagnetic spectrum cable free air or radio totally suppress this real piece of law.

In my last reading if true we the people should understand that America and the Russia along with China did not sign on to the latest international treaty for human rights. George Bush time the great depression to begin the millennium with too big to fail. George Bush knew he was doing torture that’s why America did not sign on to it.

Hello out there, there are no rules…

So, now we the people have gay’s broadcasting about unfair treatment of gays in Russia. Or boycott the Olympics, stop buying Russian vodka makes no sense, actually the absurd of hypocrisy. Yes and totally avoid the typical money laundering scheme.

We the people should understand or consider the real piece of law where the banks have encryption codes to protect their transmissions. Who knows what money is transported to who, we don’t know! Begs the question then we the people to keep our private documents secure even in the electromagnetic envelope we the people should also have encryption codes to protect our documents.

Just as the too big to fail one percenters have encryption that send and transport secret illegal money laundering has been going on for decades under the blanket of national security efforts. Meta data the is useful for gerrymandered politics. Snowden saw this, many of we the people understand and see this criminal imbalance, bias awkwardness, immoral conduct in the bedrock of Democracy.

Transparency is the core, the foundation, the life giving water we the people have been blessed. What really is crazy we the people pay taxes to diminish our very existence. That’s nuts.

[grasswire]

27. Immunity would be better than a pardon

Irrevocable immunity in exchange for testimony before Congress.

[BlueStreak]

29. That would be OK too, and would also solve the problem.

The reason they won't do that is because they want to torture anybody who has the audacity to stand up to the government that is operating illegally.

But I don't believe Obama has the power to offer immunity, whereas he clearly has pardon powers. Perhaps the Justice Department has the power to offer such a deal, but that might be the sort of thing that would require an act of Congress (literally).

It is a moot point because the last thing they want is for this guy to testify before Congress. They want to lock him up in solitary confinement for the next 50 years where he can't tell anybody anything. And that, folks, is exactly why his only real option was to leave the country.

[AppleBottom]

31. +1000 Nice commentary.

[mick063]

35. If brought back for trial, Snowden will reach a martyr-like level.

Primarily due to the constant anti Snowden rhetoric and the desperation of the administration to bring him back. It is the anti Snowden crowd that has given him such stature. Many people simply wanted to discuss the NSA and FISA, but Snowden was continuously jammed into the conversation.

Well......people finally took the Snowden ball and ran with it.


Demonizing Snowden is like squeezing jello. The tighter you squeeze, the more jello that oozes between your fingers.