Should President Obama pardon Snowden?

Other countries should grant Snowden political asylum.

@ragingloli Oh, couldn’t agree more with this. Being stuck in Russia must suck.

Why he would want to come back here is unfathomable. Obama should pardon him.

No, the President should not pardon him. Snowden did the right thing, but he knowingly broke the law. The President cannot take the lead in relaxing security

You don’t become a hero by taking the easy route.

Yes, Obama should, but he won’t.

I think he should but no, he will not.

Yes, he should. The only reason that Snowden didn’t go through official channels is because Obama has cracked down on whistleblowers—who are supposed to be protected by law—more than any other administration in history. When facing a choice between following the law and doing what is right, only a coward chooses to follow the law.

No. If he had just exposed acts of spying on US citizens (215 program for example) then there would be a strong argument to pardon him for whistleblowing. Unfortunately he chose to also leak large quantities of info on programs that were not based in the US and not targeting US citizens. For example he leaked details of the US operations infiltrating Islamic State. Im pretty sure that sort of thing is what the CIA, NSA etc are supposed to be doing and by leaking info on exactly how they are doing means that a) the informants inside those organisations are in mortal danger and b) infiltrating them again or other similar organisations will be significantly more difficult.

Yes. And then he should move to Sibera for a decade as penance for violating American’s civil liberties and not pardoning Snowden sooner.

Irrelevant. The Russians are not letting him go.

@Lightlyseared I don’t think that’s an accurate presentation of the events. Snowden turned over his data to reporters with instructions on how to use it. Not being security professionals, the reporters fumbled the data and released more than he told them to (mostly by failing to redact the documents properly). Perhaps he was careless in thinking that the reporters would be able and willing to follow his instructions. Chelsea Manning got in trouble for similar reasons (turning over unredacted documents because WikiLeaks promised to do it for her). Then again, Snowden was a lot more careful than Manning, going over his instructions specifically with reporters (who then failed to comply). And again, none of this would have happened if the whistleblower protections that the government is supposed to be upholding were not so unreliable. The US made its own bed on this one when it decided to give people like Snowden no good choices.

@SavoirFaire I think it is an accurate representation. You don’t give info like that to reporters and not expect them to publish it. Snowden was carful because he didn’t want to be caught not because he didn’t want the wrong info in the public domain. Everything he gave to the reporters he knew was going to be released. Just because he was justified in releasing some (a very small amount) of the info doesn’t excuse everything else he released.

@Lightlyseared “You don’t give info like that to reporters and not expect them to publish it.”

That would be a decent response except for the fact that the newspapers didn’t publish it on purpose. They released poorly redacted documents that cryptographers were able to crack, which then exposed the information. It wasn’t until the information had already been leaked by accident that anyone started discussing it openly.

@SavoirFaire Regardless, Snowden released the information.

It’s silly to deny the fact because he released it with instructions.

I don’t see what your point is. Just because they were idiots and published it doesn’t excuse the fact that there was no reason to give them that information in the first place.
It’s very hard to accept his argument that he was leaking info as a whistleblower when most of the info he leaked was on legitimate operations. The fact that some of the info he leaked happened to be on suspect operations appears to be nothing more than happy coincidence given that he’s leaked just about every sensitive document he came across in his entire career.

Yes, he should. Will he? No.

Obama is no-nonsense. He won’t pardon Snowden, nor should he.
Snowden did a great deal of damage to the U.S. abroad, and severely compromised our ability to fight terrorism.

Obama and our government in general are selective in the laws that they choose to obey. Prosecuting and failing to protect whistleblowers is a case in point.

Should he pardon him? Absolutely. Will he? Naw.

I used to think so, but I’ve changed my mind.

^^flip-flopper^^

I prefer ‘learner’.

@Call_Me_Jay Of course he released the information (to the reporters, that is). Show me one place where I have denied that. I was making a very specific response to a very specific point. If you look back, @Lightlyseared claimed that “you don’t give info like that to reporters and not expect them to publish it.” This point was made in regards to the information that was published accidentally (as opposed to the stuff that Snowden and his journalist contacts released on purpose). My point is that this isn’t a very good criticism when made about the pieces of information that were published by accident.

@Lightlyseared “Just because they were idiots and published it doesn’t excuse the fact that there was no reason to give them that information in the first place.”

The problem is I disagree that there was no reason to give them the information in the first place. Snowden only handed over documents he thought were relevant to the public interest (with instructions to redact those parts that were particularly sensitive). The problem is that some news outlets failed to redact the documents properly.

Note that I am not saying Snowden acted perfectly. I think there are legitimate criticisms of some of his actions. He could have redacted the documents himself, for instance (though it is possible he was not in a position to do so or that Greenwald convinced him not to in order to get the story published). My position is only that—on balance—what he did was for the public good and is not deserving of legal punishment at this point.

“It’s very hard to accept his argument that he was leaking info as a whistleblower when most of the info he leaked was on legitimate operations.”

Now I wonder if we are talking about the same thing. At first, it seemed like you were complaining about the information that was released accidentally. Here it seems that you might have a wider definition of “legitimate operations” than I do. I think that everything purposefully released was fair game under the circumstances.

“The fact that some of the info he leaked happened to be on suspect operations appears to be nothing more than happy coincidence given that he’s leaked just about every sensitive document he came across in his entire career.”

This is false. Only a small percentage of the documents Snowden took have been released. He claims to have been very careful in which documents he shared. The problem is that many of the documents that contained relevant information also contained more sensitive information that was not redacted properly.

“I left the meat on the floor with specific instructions to the dogs. ‘Do not eat that steak.’”

@Call_Me_Jay Reporters are not animals. And again, you seem to be missing a very specific point: the documents I am talking about were redacted. The problem is that they were redacted poorly. No one purposefully published anything that they weren’t supposed to (unlike with Manning and WikiLeaks), so the reporters in fact exercised exactly the self-control that you are petulantly pretending they are incapable of exercising. If you have a problem with what was published on purpose, that’s an entirely different subject. Please try to follow the actual conversation.

@dappled_leaves What caused you to change your mind?

I’ve yet to meet an honest reporter. Just sayin.

^^I’ve yet to meet a reporter but that doesn’t mean I don’t think they exist.

@SavoirFaire unfortunately just because you think that releasing information was justified doesn’t make it justified. You may not like it but the CIA and NSA are allowed / required to spy on other countries. It’s their job. Releasing information on those operations is not whistleblowing. It’s treason. It’s like someone getting a job at a bank and releasing info on your finances because they don’t agree with banks.

Spying is betraying, by definition. Snowden’s choices was between betraying his employers or betraying the American people. He could have chosen to work for the system and take in the paycheck… Instead he tried to help you folks, at great risk for his life. He tried to tell you that this system of global evedropping could be very dangerous for the US democracy at the hand of a less benevolent administration than Obama’s.

We shall soon see if he was right.

Whether Obama pardons Snowden or not is irrelevant because Snowden will not come back to America anytime soon. Even if he wanted to, I suspect he couldn’t.

A better question would be: should we forgive the betrayal of century-old democratic values by Bush and Obama? I think we shouldn’t.

@Rarebear Regarding Snowden, IMHO he informed the people of the USA that, contrary to Obama’s assurance that the NSA is, was and will be “spying on”/gathering information on our citizens. Obama stated unequivocally that the NSA did NOT spy on our citizens.

He is a patriot @olivier5. He put country before government (the two are not synonymous) and that is how it should be.

@rojo I agree. Country before government. Not synonymous.

@Lightlyseared I am perfectly aware that my opinion does not determine what is true. Neither, of course, does yours. I was simply trying to locate exactly where our disagreement was coming from.

In any case, what Snowden did is very clearly not treason. Treason is defined by the US Constitution—in fact, it is the only crime defined by the US Constitution—and Snowden’s actions do not warrant that label. That’s not just my opinion, either. It is the opinion of the US Department of Justice—which, when ordered to charge Snowden with everything they could, left treason off the list. (This could change if further information comes out, of course. But like the Justice Department, I can only deal with what is known at the present.)

And as for what the CIA and NSA are allowed or required to do, I would ask you this: allowed by whom, exactly? US law? International law? The laws of the countries we are spying on? Surely you can see that the answers to those three questions might be different, and those differences are relevant. Regardless, the most important thing that Snowden revealed has nothing to do with these agencies spying on other countries (which we already knew they did, allowed or not). He revealed that they were spying on us, which they are explicitly not allowed to do (both agencies being prohibited by law from engaging in domestic activities).

The long and short of it is this: when exposing a crime is treated as a crime, you are ruled by criminals. And if espionage is defined as intentionally giving information to the enemy, and Snowden’s intent was to give information to the US public, then charging Snowden with espionage only reveals (or confirms) that the US government sees its own citizens as the enemy. Quite frankly, that’s information that I am glad to have—disturbing as it may be. And so I can hardly see how it is not a public service for Snowden to make that information known.

Good point @SavoirFaire

Even if Snowden were pardoned, the criminal element of our government would see to it that Snowden did not live very long. They’re good at that.

Thanks for all the responses. I’m still undecided on my point of view.