Thoughts on Pardoning Edward Snowden

The spirit of the law, and the letter of much of it, IS protection for whistleblowers, and the encouragement of those whistleblowers when they see the government being party to injustice or unconstitutional acts.

Snowden falls into both these categories, but basically falls through two loopholes in the system: He as a contractor so he had very limited ability to blow the whistle, AND the proper channels for whistleblowing were subverted and went through those who were being tattled on. He tried to do it lawfully but he would have been shut down or probably fucking killed. He also refused to kowtow to arguably the most fucked up, scifi-tier evil shit a human government has ever done.

You're buying into a neocon globalist narrative that wants to protect its Orwellian plutocracy at any cost.

This

I don't think he should face execution or be pardoned.

He should go through the court system, and he should be considered a whistle blower. The american people and a jury of his peers should decide his fate, and then face possible appeal to the SCOTUS so a legal precedent can be set in his case.
He is a hero, but without facing trial we will never be able to protect people who look after his people without the SCOTUS precedent.

Free Chris Wayne!!

It's the same reason we can't negotiate with terrorists. It sets a bad precedent.

It has nothing to do with negotiating with terrorists.

He caught our government breaking the law, so now they want him dead.

He was a leftist who ratted on the leftist laws made by leftists, who were voted in by other leftists.

Fucking THIS.

Also this isn extremely good point, those loopholes need to be closed and a precedent like that would be the best. I was under they wanted to try him under a military court though? They would try pull some shut so he didn't get a jury of peers, or a fair one at least.

there's no intent, the charges leveled aren't legally binding. If he 'is' a traitor the law would have to redifine what 'is' is

two wrongs don't make a right

We put whether or not Snowden is guilty or innocent on the ballet and set a new precedent on how to judge high profile cases in the modern world with billions of people.

If I am not mistaken, he would be sent to prison for life.

As long as the rest of our government gets charged with him, I have no problem with it.

That will never happen though.

retarded default position

his releases regarding domestic surveillance were minimal compared to the massive (largest in our fucking history) breaches he whole-fed to the media. do you not acknowledge this? do you ignore it? foreign intelligence is directly impacts national security, and the basic argument i've outlined is why he won't be pardoned. deal with it faggot

>laws are relative

Many people are sentenced to prison for live before beginning the appeals process. Weather they are innocent or not. That's how the system works.

>being this much of a pussy

Your laws aren't going to stop Tyrone and Lebron from raping your asshole in a gay porn snub so they can afford crack.

>minimal
Literally everything going across the internet.
Righto.

I just fucking hate his face. So he shouldn't be pardoned. He should just fucking stop being an attention whore and get some menial job in Russia.

A military court would be the worst possible trial, and the outcome would probably be execution :(

There's a reason he fucked off to Russia.
You really think he blew the whistle just for the sake of his fellow man?

If hillbag gets a pardon for storing classified info on an easily hacked server, Snowden deserves a pardon, a medal of freedom and $200k pension.

>enforcing the law is being a pussy

Snowden was an IT guy that got bored and looked at ts files. he did not know what he was reading and got scared. Since he is paranoid he fled without asking and got americans killed

go ahead back it up. if you argue for that position, the best you'll come to is 20% that impacted american citizens. go ahead then, make the case for the 80% of foreign surveillance programs he exposed. 26 years old. the ultimate self-righteous hipster

He is stuck in Russia because we revoked his passport before he could get on his flight to Cuba.

>This stake copypasta

He exposed our govt for doing things we already assumed they were doing, things we already knew private businesses were doing, and both continue to do it to this day. Wow what a hero. Execute his traitor ass.

Were you that faggot in school that always reminded the teacher when had homework due?

>Kill the messenger for exposing law breaking
>Ignore the people violating the constitution
>Telling others you are breaking the law is being a traitor

shiggy diggy do

He did nothing wrong but he's a massive SJW faggot so I don't care if he gets the rope or not.

While we're on the subject, thoughts on Bradley Manning?

Fuck that, he broke the law but he did so to show an immense amount of lying and deceit.

Guys a hero.

Mentally ill SJW, but I still don't think he did anything wrong.

“In no case shall information be classified… in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency… or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.”

—Executive Order 13526, Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations

no, edward snowden was though

he doesn't have case
he'd be convicted if tried by any court
let him post more one-man monologues for the rest of his life. movie deals. too cool man. i want to see him make the case when challenged. he would accept the consequences? probably not. dindu notin

>Bradley Manning

I only support Snowden because he whistle blew on policies that directly affected the American people.

While it is nice to know the direction that my nation is heading in, I understand entirely the reason why the path of the nation state is secret. Nations operate on a bigger picture that extends past elected officials, generations of people, etc.

You could start world war III over 50 year old screts, what he did was fucked.

He is also a barely passing tranny, and should kill himself.

Pardon for sure, just watched "citizen four" the other day

This whole thread is full of fucking commies sucking big daddy governments dick

Laws are for fags, and only fags are for laws.

that sounds like nigger logic to me

>nigger
>logic

Pick only one

>they disagree with my position
>commie bootlickers
fucking gas huffing abo

Laws should be decided by the people. Not Ever lasting and never changing.

based but boring. He was right to show that social media is a bought and paid for extension of the NSA/GCHQ

>Tolerating him means we have no government or civilization

BUT ameri-kun you never had civilization in the first place

>It's the same reason we can't negotiate with terrorists. It sets a bad precedent.
This. He should be executed (but so should everyone he incriminated.) There's enough punishment for everyone involved, you don't have to ration it.
The people he ratted on were traitors first, he was a traitor second.

...

He's a faggot traitor and should be tried for treason.

Pardon the fuck out of him. Modern day hero.

The NSA breaks the supreme law of the land - the U.S. Constitution. What's your point?

Morals are subjective and the law is not. Absolutely. thats why he should be pardoned. The wistleblower act is the law. Sorry globalist.

((((((incidental collection))))))

As a defense contractor myself, this guy was an idiot with both a morality complex and a God complex. Overall what he did was morally correct, although he could have (and should have) operated within the confines of the law. He dramatized the fuck out of the ramifications, and, in doing so, made Americans neglectful of a service that literally does not affect them.

>b-but muh Big Brother
Too bad that unless you're literally planning some next-level shit, they won't even look at your emails/phone calls.

Think of this: most people let their email inboxes pile up or just delete half the spam emails they get on a daily basis without reading them. You really think the NSA is going to go through ALL of that data for you? That's pretty fucking selfish.

Personally, I think the guy's a hero.

Now ''''''Chelsea'''''' Manning on the other hand....

If you're talking about the NSA's actions it's an argument about the 4th amendment. Thats why it's considered unconstitutional.

>Trust us goys!
>Nothing to hide, nothing to fear! ;)
>Now ignore that pesky 4th amendment

Nixon got pardoned.

Bring him back under the cloak of pardon.

Then execute him, preferably on a cross, with nails, for PR purposes.

He exposed officials violating the constitution.

>Can't prove intent.

Full pardon.

The 4th amendment has nothing to do with people being able to tap your communications. They do not physically seize your electronics, your laptops, your phones, etc. They don't need a warrant to spy with your unprotected webcams (the easiest thing in the universe to disconnect) or unprotected cellphones (blame Big Comms for that one). They are taking no action more serious than you and I could take.

I can see the argument, but that depends on how liberally you interpret the Constitution. Also, if I remember correctly, the bigger concern was FISA "secret courts" that could not be held in public among the jury of your peers.

Marc Rich got pardoned.

Why would they bring home one of their top disinfo agents?

No removal of citizens rights without due process.

If Obama would lure him in with a pardon, and give him a public execution, I would forgive everything both of them have done.

ignore all of the programs that were legal, classified, and centered on foreign intel that were fundamentally mandated to the 3-letter agencies as tasked to maintain and strengthen national security. nah it's literally 1984, you millennial shits are trash

Does the NSA make this thread everyday?

Sorry we're aware of your lawbreaking, Obama.

Exactly. If those fucks can get pardons why not Snowden?

How "liberally" I want to interpret it? The fourth amendment states that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..." They're taking your information without your consent or a warrant. Now if they had a warrant to do all that then we could talk, but until then the constitution is the constitution.

Now they're buying our info from big companies like Google, and while I think that's a BS curcumvention, it's technically constitutional.

Reality is millenials are giving the establishment a run for their money because they're actually informed.

But violating the constitution is fine?

Fucking bootlickers.

He should be pardoned. He is a patriot.

>How "liberally" I want to interpret it?
Are you jk bro? The internet wasn't around when the Constitution was written. I understand what you THINK it means, but some people don't think the same way. Some people think that the Constitution was written and meant to be interpreted literally, others think that it's meant to be applicable to today's standards, trying to apply what the Founders would have thought in today's society.

Eat shit, you short-sighted faggot.

T first administration that wants to abuse this - will. COINTELPRO wasn't even that long ago.

Pardon Snowden, and lock up Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger with all the other traitorous neocons/neolibs.

lmao. You have no idea what you're talking about.

t. a nigga with TS/SCI

>Some people don't see it the same way
The supreme court does.
>Literal interpretation
Unreasonable searches is literally right there. In pink and black.

>informed
by headlines and facebook.

...And the internet. Theres a reason Hillary is popular with older democrats instead of younger ones.Why do you think the dems are getting shitposted out of the election?

You realize "effects" is in the 4th amendment for a reason, retard

By your logic

>Letters written with mechanical pencils are not protected. Mechanical pencils didn't exist
>No electronic communication is protected
> The 2nd amendment only gives you the right to 18th century weapons

This is literally a nigger liberal tier position and you should be ashamed of your argument. Is your IQ 82?

I am 100% for everything Snowden did, and I believe he is a true Patriot, and a hero.
But, I dont believe he should be pardoned. He still commited a great crime. Even though I believe that crime was something I support.

headlines, facebook and the internet. do you think they are informed now,, as if that addendum makes a god damn bit of difference? fuck this, i need to read a couple headlines on salon and be offended on facebook for snowden.

He's a god damned hero.

Everyone in this thread seems to ignore the fact that the Government would have been happy as a pig in pigshit to keep lying to our faces. They lied in open court for fuck sakes about the existence of such a program.

He showed us, rather unequivocally, that they can not be trusted.

Are they shooting at Dennis Reynolds(the Golden God)?

You're trying. You're trying so hard.

Yes the internet in clearly very informative. If it weren't for the internet; the media thats shilling for Hillary would be winning by far. Yes it makes a god damn bit of difference.

This. Look at the CIA's history. The FBI's history. Look at the profiteering trillion+ boondoggle they recently got us into in Iraq. If you trust these fuckers with your privacy then you're clinically retarded. They're malevolent and we'll be suffering blowback from their bullshit for at least another generation.

So many willfully ignorant sellouts in this thread.

As an individual, I support Snowden. But as a citizen of the USA I cannot support him, because he leaked secret information that put soliders in danger. No matter how justifiable it is, he really can't be pardoned.

Bootlickers will be bootlickers.

Snowden is a faggot. Leaking classified info is unacceptable and shouldn't be tolerated.

No one who says that the NSA violated the Constitution actually understands the law.

t.kikeberg

"OH YES GOY, BLAME THE PERSON WHO EXPOSED UNCONSTITUTIONAL SPYING ON IT'S CITIZENS AND FOREIGN INTERESTS, REMEMBER THE SIX GORILLION!!!"

Explain to me how PRISM is not unconstitutional? Do you really think shedding light on the capabilities of government ran agencies is a bad thing? Why are you a kike agent?

mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/judge-deals-a-blow-to-nsa-phone-surveillance-program.html

TIL The supreme court doesn't understand the law.

No, what he did was treason by definition. Whether I agree with what he did or not doesn't matter

Who cares.

Didn't we already know everything he dumped? Not sure why the MSM picked up on him out of all the whistleblowers.

"Snowden is a clear threat to our government and did our country a lot of harm."

>Votes for Trump.

There are some things that should stay hidden from the general public. This retard endangered the safety of our entire country with his misguided, idealistic bullshit--he's no fucking patriot.

I'd be fine with him if he didn't also sell thousands of secrets to China and Russia and got our spies killed

Classified is classified. Zero reason he should get a pardon.

The goverment is treasonous for keeping so much shit secret. Transparency is one of the principles of democracy.

>Too bad that unless you're literally planning some next-level shit, they won't even look at your emails/phone calls.

What do you think about having CCTV installed in every private home? Of course on the condition that if you're not literally planning some next-level shit, the government won't be looking at the footage.

Execution.

I'm fine with leaking stuff.

I'm not fine with running away and cooperating with outside governments.. I'm not fine with leaking stuff not related to the original plan - government spying.

1. Its a targeted program for non-citizens who are not on American soil. These people do not have 4th amendment rights because they are not subject to our jurisdiction.

2. The government obtains the information from the service providers in accordance with law.

3. Even if the targets were Americans the 3rd party doctrine makes it legal to tap phone lines in a criminal investigation upon permission of the service provider.

Full pardon

Thank you for supporting the constitution above your 6 figure income.

The info he released made it clear that all transmissions are being recorded so it doesn't matter how much you nuke your HDD, if info traveled through the internet it has been recorded.

BTW this is what annoys me about the Hillary emails controversy. Either partisan politics is keeping them from simply putting her in jail or she is being protected while maintaining the appearance of investigating.

Normies didn't care about surveillance before and don't care now.

Hang him

"Even if they aren't American, there are clauses that take your constitutional rights to privacy away anyway and make them in the right."

This mindset is why we are as fucked as we are, little cucks like this perfectly fine with signing away their rights for the sake of what? Nothing you faggot.

execute him pls

Its only metadata that is collected, not the contents of your communications. They know who you call but not what you said.

That's not true and if you believe this you shouldn't open you dumb faggot mouth

>Being this naive in CURRENT YEAR

Additionally, the way the leaks were handled made it seem as if the NSA didn't have permission from corporations to do what it had been doing.

There's a reason why so many Internet companies accomplish functions that would be government functions.

Anything you put on the internet is like offering it to the government.

Am I the only one around here that thinks that Snowden is a Patriot and possibly a world hero.

Its thought of as analogous to a physical letter. If you voluntarily send a letter to a third party, it is no longer yours and so the government may obtain it from that 3rd party by means of order instead of a warrant.

I'm not sure how old these procedures are, but they predate our nation and were written into the Judiciary Act of 1789. The same congress that ratified the Constitution and demanded the bill of rights also wrote this into law. You have precisely no understanding of liberty, the Constitution, or the law more generally.

if he's executed, so should everyone involved in illegal acitivites within the government

> Man sacrifices his livelihood and future so that you could know that (((they))) were collecting information on you.
> Cred Forums resents him because muh nationalism

Fuck off.

Except when the third party has a contractual obligation to it's customers to provide a level of security and privacy. You talk as if constitutional law is meant to protect the government instead of the people, something a kike would say.

Dude is stupid. He can never come back.

The only way he comes back is some sort of dramatic regime changes, revolution that will never happen.

He's gonna have to get used to exile.

LOL

Since when did the USA pardon Russian spies/traitors?

To me, what Snowden did was an act of nationalism. I don't see why so many of these spergs can't see that.

NSA employees are all up in this thread trying to persuade people into believing "who cares if he showed people that we lied to your faces about a bunch of shit for malevolent purposes, kill the traitor! U.S.A! "

It's like the states is cucking itself holy fuck

He broke the law. Without laws we are nothing better than niggers and savages. He knew what he was doing when he willingly broke the law, and if he had any integrity he would accept the responsibilities of his actions instead of crying, bitching, running then whining for a pardon. Fuck him.

This is ironically the most unpatriotic place on the internet. They claim to love their country and "muh freedoms" yet shun anybody who actually exercises their freedoms because they've been brainwashed into believing that their government is in their best interest. Cucks, all of them

Wow the projection is hard here.

Yes, he unequivocally deserves a pardon.

A contract is only law between the contracting parties. The government isn't bound by any private contract and can compel a party to violate the terms in pursuit of an investigation.

>russian spy reveals secrets
>putin fills him with polonium
>dies agonizing death

>american spy steals a bazillion files
>gives them to lefty faggots
>Cred Forums and SJWs unite in calls to pardon him
>Cred Forums confirmed for cuck infestation

I would have been willing to give him a pardon but since he allied himself with Hillary and Soros I say let him hang. He tried to fight the globalists and ended up becoming their pet. He betrayed his own ideals and the earth should have no place for scum like him.

I used to respect Snowden but what is his problem? Fighting with wikileaks, shilling on Cred Forums .. I mean sure it would be nice to be pardoned but why is he trying so hard? It's only been a few years? Is he still married? I guess that part would make sense. Anyway the point is, the pardon isn't going to happen and even if it did he wouldn't be safe. He should work on settling into his new life and find some long-term sustainability in it.

Reminder, Trump wants to execute Snowden

And this is where we fall, you're either on the side of "Give me my fucking privacy as an American Citizen" or "Here, look at all my shit, I have nothing to hide."

Why? Why are you okay with the government being completely able to look at anything you do or say whenever they want to? Explain this line of thinking to me please.

He should be pardoned

When did he do this?

His waifu is with him in Russia,

This , also it was a bad move on his part. Maybe we would have shilled for his pardon when Trump wins but now I will shill for active hunting and execution

And the law of the land is the constitution.

If the law was broken by the Government, it should be up to the people to hold them accountable, thus, Snowden is innocent.

I'm only saying it is lawful, not that it is good. I have said nothing about the value of the patriot act as a policy. You must be capable of making this distinction.

>severely damaged natsec
>gave out foreign intel, dmg natsec
>foreign surveillance
>ad hom
>ad hom
>foreign intel & natsec
>ur uninformed
>still uninformed

got all of your posts
this may seem hostile, sorry
wtf are you going on about with foreign intelligence and surveillance and nat'l security?
literallywut?
color me uninformed, that's fine; please inform me (I'm not gonna write your argument for you)

Give him a year in prison.

>Heinrich my son

>your stomach hurt now, yu must chose were to relase

>beautiful and clean toilet
>or designated shitting-mouth of wife for scat fetish

>...

shockchan.com/1-priest-1-nun/

>endangered the country
how?
please expound, I'm genuinely interested

The worst of it may be that he stole schematics and design documents for military technologies and probably gave them to his protectors in exchange for his freedom and non-extradition.

>Loves Snowden
>Hates Assange

Reminder, Hillary was Secretary of State when the US literally forced the Ecuadorian President's plane out of the sky to search it for Snowden.

Baller

talk to a postal inspector
you're absolutely wrong with your analogy
with a corporation, you sign your rights away many times in their terms of use, but that's not related to your analogy regarding rights
nice try though

FPBP

He released a lot of shit besides PRiSM or whatever the fuck that was.

Didn't he rape some girl?

you've got it backwards there
literally how the dea bullies shipping companies (dhl ups and fedex) into huge (millions) settlements for online pharmacy shipments.

articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-03-29/news/os-ups-dea-prescription-drugs-20130329_1_online-pharmacies-prescription-drugs-ups

What that moron is talking about is the third-party doctrine, which is a completely modern concept, originally applied exclusively to trash sitting outside your house.

It's absurd to apply that same standard to digital communications. It's only a matter of time before the Supreme Court clarifies this point.

bait
2/10

He's so fucking dreamy jesus.

an avoidable loss of the US gov hadn't been so tyrannical in their handling f the situation, but still a significant loss

Snowden never asked to be pardoned. He said he understood and would accept the consequences of his actions if he were to receive a fair trial, which he has been explicitly told he won't receive if he returns to the states.

He didn't release anything, he gave it to journalists, who consulted experts and only released programs that were in the public interest. If there were ever any stories that actually jeopardized our security, the NSA would have hollered for months about it. They're just embarrassed that they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland

>unwarranted harassment of another country's politicians is baller?
do you also find all of her extrajudicial killings (e.g. Vince foster) baller?

He's actually my distant cousin. Weird.

he is doing ok anyway. He doesn't need your pardon!

>First, we doubt that people in general entertain any actual expectation of privacy in the numbers they dial. All telephone users realize that they must "convey" phone numbers to the telephone company, since it is through telephone company switching equipment that their calls are completed. All subscribers realize, moreover, that the phone company has facilities for making permanent records of the numbers they dial, for they see a list of their long-distance (toll) calls on their monthly bills. In fact, pen registers and similar devices are routinely used by telephone companies "for the purposes of checking billing operations, detecting fraud, and preventing violations of law." United States v. New York Tel. Co., 434 U.S., at 174–175.

The extreme outrage generated by the NSA stories was because people believed they had an expectation of privacy in their online communications. Even the authors of the Patriot Act thought the NSA programs were outrageous.

The US would come of as a lot less cucked if he didn't tie himself to the leaks. I guess he did a service to the world, however he is a traitor and should be barred from return to the USA or any nation with an extradition treaty.

Justice Blackmun rejected the idea that the installation and use of a pen register constitutes a violation of the "legitimate expectation of privacy" since the numbers would be available to and recorded by the phone company anyway.

phone numbers, not contents of electronic communications

apples, meet oranges

my sides

>US MSM is literally hypocritical
I lol'd

>allied with Hillary and Soros

wat? If this is true, he's dead to me.

The only right thing he did was expose the NSA spying on Americans. The other 1.7 Million documents he stole that had nothing to do with the patriot act and he hid out in China and Russia with those documents, both of which now have those documents. He's a traitor and deserves death. Fuck Snowden.

>doesn't know the actual story

He gave the documents to the journalists and then wiped his copies. When he went to Russia, he didn't have any documents.

Even when they sit normally, they still look like they're squatting.

Also, the argument that he's a Russian spy is absurd. The only reason he's in Russia is because Crooked Hillary decided to yank his Passport when he was making his connecting flight in Russia.

don't forget he didn't damage any foreign intelligence projects. you keep leaving it out, i don't understand why. defending him at every opportunity almost makes it seem like you might know the actual story.

He didn't make any decisions on what to leak. He gave the documents to leading journalists and let them decide what to leak. If you have a problem with any particular story, you should complain to the media agency, not the source.

seems like there'd be no way to really assure or confirm that he wiped his copies
we know he kept some kind of "insurance" at least that didn't get wiped

>laws are for fags

t. Chet Gecko

He had no copies with him. He literally wrote the manual at the CIA on protecting data, if there's anyone to trust with your data its him. Obama should pardon Snowden and hire him to advise the DNC.

Reasonable people may disagree, however congress has largely endorsed the patriot act by renewing it with only slight modification. They require ISPs to store the data themselves and relinquish it upon request. Its a minor procedural change that doesn't address the core privacy issue

That's what the NSA did with its domestic programs. The government examined the contents only with foreigners.

we dont. unless the federal government considers the American public an enemy, Snowden is neither a spy nor a traitor

There's no reasonable excuse to collect the Metadata of every American under the pretext of preventing terrorism when that same program has stopped literally ZERO terrorists in its decade long history.

Pardon him.

But he will never be safe.

The "minor procedural change" you're referring to is the elimination of a Constitutionally-required individualized warrant, the very basis of American criminal jurisprudence in the last 200 years.

Courts aren't there to tell the legislature to make effective laws.

Its not a warrant. Its an order to a 3rd party.

entrusting documents concerning foreign intelligence collection to a number of "leading journalists," around the world. this is what happened. you at least acknowledge it then. do you acknowledge that damage was done to those collection efforts in ways that the general public could not begin to speculate on without more knowledge of specific classified programs? to jump ahead, you're argument is despite the damage to these foreign collection efforts, which were the majority share of leaked documents, he was not only justified but should be pardoned for his disclosure (to international media, without censorship) of domestic surveillance? i can't come to that same conclusion, honestly, but i guess i understand the sentiment.

Laws are supposed to uphold the morals of their society, Americans don't like being spied on, so why is he being branded a traitor?

My argument is that no reasonable person could argue that these programs are necessary, cost effective, or Constitutional.

It's absolutely absurd to stretch the 40 year old third-party doctrine to cover the content of electronic communications or to use it to justify the wholesale collection of all domestic Metadata. The only reason it hasn't been overturned is because the government has spent the last -15 years lying about the existence of these programs.

These journalists worked with experts in the field and were incredibly prejudicial in their coverage. For complaining so much about the "damage" to our collection efforts, you're posts are devoid of examples.

The NSA is designed for foreign collection, this wasn't the big revelation. What caused all the outrage is that the NSA gigantic spying apparatus was bring used against American citizens for wholly domestic communications. The NSA shared these intercepts with the DEA, IRS, and FBI to use illegally in court cases.

He committed treason leaking classified information, but told us something that everybody already knew. Didn't change a fucking thing. He should either come home and face trial, or stay the fuck in Russia.

The Rosenbergs were executed.

You don't see any contradiction in complaining that he "leaked classified information" while also saying that he didn't leak anything of value?

i didn't realize there was no damage done. thanks for correcting me. i've changed my mind he should be pardoned immediately, i'm so angry i'm shaking right now. #freesnowden guys

>I have no argument

My sides dude, they left earth

Don't be mean to burgers, they're too stoopid to understand anyway

He made a promise when he took that job. He ducked himself, regardless of how how good the intentions were. Good intentions can get people killed. That's why the rules exist. If you work in intel, you do your job and shut the fuck up. It's not your place to be the moral arbitrator.

>pardoning this faggot

he's a compulsive liar who has lied about almost everything

he didn't break both his legs during army training
he never got his GED
and he only worked an entry level IT job at the CIA

You officially win user. Gratz.

your position is that there are no examples of damage being done, so clearly there is no damage done
my position is that your position is fucking retarded
i think that qualifies as an argument but hey, i'm just a bootlicker brownshirt

This. He broke a nondisclosure agreement that he signed willfully. He belongs in jail.

He took an oath to the Constitution, not the government.

If you make the assertion that he caused damage, then you should back your claim up.

The government is just spreading absurd lies to cover its own ass. He broke his legs in special forces training, leading to his discharge.

The idea that an entry-level person would have admin privileges on the network is laughable.

Idk about the GED, but anyone who went through high school knows what a joke it is anyway.

He also sworn an oath to protect the Constitution from domestic enemies. His oath comes before any duty to the government.

Pardon

Pardon x 100

>He took an oath to the Constitution, not the government
>what is a non disclosure agreement?

You're a moron talking out of your ass

I don't think he did anything wrong, but he is a faggot. If he got executed I wouldn't care.

His oath was "to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic." There is a very real reason why people swear oaths to the Constitution and not the President or the government.

Wrong. He exposed that the NSA themselves were actually breaking hundreds of laws, mostly constitutional.

>If you make the assertion that he caused damage, then you should back your claim up.
yeah that's an optimistic approach. our targets know the vectors of infiltration, the outline of our programs, the individual collection routines, the exact data targeted for collection, the timelines involved, the purpose of that collection. but, as you imply, the absence of evidence is absence if evidence i think quote goes. i admire your optimism is all, and i already said thanks for changing my mind.

Lol put your head back in the sand

He's a wonderful man that should not only be pardoned, but have a ticker tape parade thrown for him.

But the laws that he broke were violating the supreme law of the land. Nothing is above the constitution.

You're incredibly niave if you think our targets don't know they are being targeted.

The actual programs that were disclosed in the media were heavily redacted. As I said, if the NSA has a smoking gun that proved Snowden damaged anything other than the NSA's reputation, they would be shouting it from every mountain top. They got caught spying on Americans and now they're trying to shoot the messenger.

You can be sure he gave everything to the russians too

why would the nsa disclose the damage to specific programs? again, you're still asserting that there was no damage done and your reasoning is that no one has published it. the nsa doesn't publish secrets, that was snowden's job.

> Exposed the government spying on its people and breaking the law

Dude needs some parades in his honor if you ask me.

1. The "right to privacy" is a fabricated judicial invention that has nothing to do with the Constitution. Judges rightly understood do not have the power to amend the Constitution. They have the power to tell us what the law is, not what it should be. Insofar as a court goes beyond the original meaning of a text they are no longer doing Constitutional law, but lower law and filling in gaps for congress to revise.

2. The classic common law doctrine requires physical trespass of person or property for the warrant burden to be generated. There is none here because the metadata is jointly owned by the ISP and the target. The ISP may be compelled to assist an investigation without any Constitutionally mandated procedure.

3. Even assuming that "right to privacy" and the reasonable expectation of privacy test are legally legitimate. The case here is identical to the one in Smith. If there was no 4th amendment right there, then it is not generated by multiplicity, even when the affected parties are multiplied by 315 million.

I don't think he was a spy beforehand, but the Russians would not take him in without cooperation, and the people in the Russian gov have admitted that Snowden gave them info

>You're incredibly niave if you think our targets don't know they are being targeted
holy shit i skimmed this at first, what the fuck am i being trolled, please confirm

This. If Snowden did anything to compromise the safety of American citizens, why isn't anyone talking about it? In whose best interest is it to praise him for his actions if there was even the slightest hint that he might have hurt the common US citizen?

It has previously been reported that ISIS IT experts studied Snowden's leaks to help avoid detection to develop encrypted channels of communication.

Mr Brennan said: “In the past several years, because of a number of unauthorised disclosures and a lot of handwringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been some policy and legal and other actions that make our ability collectively, internationally to find these terrorists much more challenging.

"I do hope that this is going to be a wake-up call particularly in areas of Europe where I think there has been a misrepresentation of what the intelligence security services are doing by some quarters that are designed to undercut those capabilities.

express.co.uk/news/world/620270/Traitor-Edward-Snowden-taught-ISIS-Paris-terrorists-avoid-detection-NSA-CIA-John-Brennan

The public is being played. It's all an act. He's not some hero, he's a spook playing a part and do many of you are falling for it. This false debate of 'traitor' or 'Saint' is a test to see how much control you will accept.

So you think drug dealers don't know the cops are out trying to bust them? That murderers aren't aware of the methods used to track murderers?

>we can't negotiate with terrorists
That's just a fucking slogan, NATO does negotiate with terrorists.

>why isn't anyone talking about it?
it's a standout topic in most write-ups regarding his request for pardon. actually, probably all of them.

no i don't think that the scope and nature of many foreign collection vectors were understood by the targets prior to snowden's disclosures. i've made that kind of clear, but there it is to reiterate.

It was a controlled leak to test the waters, people didn't rebel. He does not deserve the forgiveness.

The NSA had no problem trying to blame Snowden for Paris. If they had a smoking gun, they would post it. It's absurd to argue that there is damage and then refuse to post evidence. They aren't even asserting that damage was done.

The right to privacy is clearly laid out in the fourth amendment. Read it again

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

>believing John Brennan

At the time of the Paris attacks literally no law had been changed. The reforms to 215 hadn't even been implemented. They are just upset that they failed to catch them and needed a fall guy.

It's interesting to not that this is the same moron who said "Snowden has blood on his hands" before the investigation into the attack was even concluded. Come to find out, it was plotted and carried out over PLAIN TEXT SMS! These buffoons are so busy trying to break into Google servers that they ignored terrorists that Syria warned them about.

Because Cuba is so much better than Russia.

I'm note believing him, but there is a real possibility that his leaked documents weakened US intelligence in fighting terror.

The fact of the matter is Snowden stole A LOT of stuff, and there is no way to know with certainty what he has done with it -- we have only his word that he destroyed the data. Hence, there is no other alternative but to execute him for treason.

Please name a country would be acceptable to you and wouldn't bend to American pressure to extradite him..

Bullshit, he ran even before he found out he wouldn't get a fair trial.

>They aren't even asserting that damage was done.
user, do you ignore the news for 2 years. that is a false statement. it's not my job to keep you informed. i'm only here to point out that your position is naive.

>we can't prove what he did with the data so we have to execute him

kewl, but that's not how Anglo-American jurisprudence works.

Please show me where he damaged national security and explain to me why that damage wasn't acceptable as a payoff to learn that our government was illegally spying on us.

Prosecute. You can be a whistleblower without committing espionage.

Ask Bill Bennie or Thomas Drake how that works...

Well, that's easier. He's been charged with:

> Theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and willful communication of classified intelligence to an unauthorized person

Doesn't seem to exist much doubt that he did this

yeah that's what i thought then. you won't consider the other position, so you brick yourself away and call me a rapist. fuck you liberal cocksucker. suck my american balls.

Security guy here. You faggots already do this shit to yourselves with those home cams. Look up the security issues surrounding the internet of things.

Truth is 90% of the fags that take in every word of Snowden's are the same ones who post the last thing they shitted on twitter, put all sorts of Iot devices in their homes, and sell their data opening to businesses. If you ever work or see the gov space you will see how lauahble under equipped to wage a war of info gathering the way Snowden frames it.

My thoughts on Snowden is that he should man up and face justice if he truly feels he was in the right. In exchange the government should promise the the full trial will be recorded in history so that he can be proven with time to be right or wrong in his methods.

>Illegally spying on us

I wouldn't call it spying, people need to be responsible for the security of their own data. The NSA fights an ongoing war that's completely invisible to the civilian eye. If people knew the real dangers the US faced, they might be more understanding of the NSA's actions.

Literally what

So did the government and their officials, but no one is going to hold them accountable. This entire anti-Snowden campaign is simply about retribution for highlighting the crimes of the US Government against its citizens.

Constitutional law is the highest law of the land. It trumps any other law it comes into conflict with.

That's fine. If the NSA needs those powers then it should openly go to Congress and the American people to ask for them. They shouldn't unilaterally decide to start collecting all of our communications.

Well, but this doesn't erase his crime

If he commits a crime in the defense of athe Constitution, then there is no crime.

Saw the movie Snowden yesterday.
It was great.
I suggest anybody who thinks he was a Russian spy or traitor should watch it.

>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated

This doesn't say that a person has a right to be secure against surveillance if they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

It says that they have a right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects. Surely one isn't made less secure by mere observation. They're talking about trespass to person, home, or property here.

There is no such thing as 'Crime in the defense of constitution. If you wan't to protect the constitution you seek the Supreme Court.

What part of "unreasonable searches" do you not understand?

If a "law" violates the constitution, then it is null and void. Such a law cannot be violated because it should not function as a law in the first place.

Say he can come home but he has to spend 2 years in jail. That will discourage future leaks while allowing the poor guy the option to return.

The answer is there aren't any. However calming to be a messager of freedom/transparency while going to the biggest countries in the world that stand against it is the height of hypocrisy and shows that his primary goal in this was fuled by ignorance and/or becoming a special snowflake.

I can appreciate the conversation he started on where the gov should draw the line and the courts. But the fucker has a highly arrogant tone for a person who was nothing more than a system admin who tricked a bunch of retards into giving him their passwords so he could hook up his hard drive.

If you are interested in hearing the gov's side, follow the news of the special report that is supposed to be coming out which talks about everything Snowden did leading up to incident. While I wouldn't believe EVERYTHING in it, it should put things into perspective.

If someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in an area, then it is still a trespass. Any surveillance in an area where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy requires a particularized warrant from a court. This is the very basis of the right to privacy.

A man shows that the CONTROLLING BODY of a nation is ILLEGALLY spying on the people
>Condemned as a spy

We need more people like Snowden in the nooks and crannies of these organizations.

Which law are you saying that violates the constitution? I don't follow you

Of course the NSA will be doing illegal things. It's why it exists, and it will continue to do so probably

this guy got a lot of people killed and deserves to be hanged, period.

Read all your comments. Are you being retarded on purpose?

Name one of those people.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

He didn't hide in Russia, he was stranded there when Crooked Hillary revoked his passport.
In any case, where should he have gone? What country other than Central American shitholes would stand up to the US to protect a legitimate political asylum seeker?

His security clearance allowed him access to the entire network, he wasn't just a lowly cog. You can complain about his tone if you want, but I'm not sure what my tone would be if I just sacrificed my life to expose illegal conduct by my own government.

We are supposed to be a country of laws. The idea being that nobody is above the law, including the NSA.

He should not be pardoned, but certainly given a light sentence in a public open trial.

Consider the government spying on you with an infrared camera from across the street. No trespass, but would violate the reasonable expectation test.

Secure is an odd word to use to guard against mere onlookers. Though language my have been different in their day. I concede that I haven't made a very good point.

The non-disclosure agreement is a legally binding contract, and therefor functions as a low-level law.

It's not what he did but how he did it that's the problem.

He broke the law, plain and simple. Just like two wrongs don't make a right, the government doing illegal stuff doesn't give him the right to also do illegal stuff then flee to Russia to avoid punishment.

His actions clearly show that he was more interested in being hailed as a special fucking snowflake hero than any sort of sense of justice or civic duty, because in no way does Russia and China obtaining US state secrets help the US people.

Trespass as I'm using it doesn't mean a physical breach, it's any breach of that expectation of privacy. Sorry for the confusion.

My point remains the same. Privacy is a right enshrined explicitly in the fourth amendment. It's not an absolute right, but it's a right that requires probable cause and a warrant to violate.

CIA plant, true hero is Assange, which Snowden has attacked online before, more recently Wikileaks' DNC leaks

He's a traitor and should be executed.

Bring them home and hang him high!!!!

He betrayed his nation regardless.

this, snowden is a sold out faggot, assange is the only one with balls

How exactly would you have preferred him to expose the government spying? He tried going through the chain if command and they didn't listen. If he had pushed too hard like Bill Bennie or Thomas Drake, he would have ended up just like them - financially and professionally ruined.

Yeah because the govt is going to publish the deaths of covert operatives. my uncle is lt col in the army rangers and the only thing he has said to me about this is that if this man ever came back to the states, he would do anything to be on the firing squad.

no matter what you say, what he did incorporated more than whistleblowing. it was fundamentally treason. if the US government wants to probe your asshole you say "thank you" and "god bless america"

The split between the two is only over the method of disclosure. They are good friends besides being on different sides of this debate.

Yeah, but the question is whether he should be pardoned. Whether he broke the law is not being debate.

The only people who releases documents are the media who wrote the stories. Snowden never released anything. If the government really thought the media endangered lives they would have prosecuted the press.

Unless your name is Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Snowden broke the laws for a just cause, meanwhile half the legislative is criminal. If it weren't fro some of the inane foreign policy of these plutocrats most those of people would be alive. Priorities if you care about patriotism.

No the real reason you can't name someone is because nobody has died.
You obviously don't even know what he leaked for fucksake.
He wasn't leaking names of informants and military intel, he leaked the fact that the NSA can look through your email as easily as you can Google, that they can turn your webcam on without you knowing and watch you undress without needing any sort of warrant, that you've probably got someone sifting through everything you think is private due to the fact that you know a guy who knows a guy who once made a phonecall to the same pizzashop as a terrorist suspect.

>Soros

Huh. I don't know how I feel, now. If he's being used by anyone named Soros, that's a concern for sure.

In 1791 the 4th amendment would have only protected against physical trespass because that is how the common law system worked.

Five Eyes is a problem. If you cannot trust those who purport to protect you, you should not let those people have the "power" to protect you.
Once it is no longer in their interest to protect you, they will actively work against you and they now have the ability to do so very effectively.
It's dangerous.

T H I S

I'm not sure how true that is, but I'm not sure why a physical trespass of your privacy would be any different than an electronic trespass. The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court appears to agree.

Sweden when are you going to allow Assange to leave so that he can troll Hillary from the comfort of a real home?

I'm a defense contractor too and I think Snowden was a god damn hero. I want to defend our country against enemies foreign and domestic, and what the NSA does is a violation of the 4th amendment wholesale. Fuck them and fuck Clapper. Clapper himself should be in prison for perjury when he directly lied to Congress.

He's a CIA asset. There's so need to pardon or execute him.

This. If you look at the pixels of the documents he leaked, it's easy to see that he's really a triple agent for the CIA.

It's okay man nobody believes Cred Forums anyway.

Snowden can be seen to be a CIA asset when he helps to reinforce untrue narratives. I won't give any examples but look out for it.

I'm talking about physical trespass and it's analogue in the information space, which is always a violation of a legally vested property right. For example: the theft of a trade secret or duplication of copywrited material.

He whistle blew in a way that got everything out into the peoples eyes. Nobody wanted to bring it up, and more importantly nobody who could disseminate the info wanted to. It just wasn't in their interest, and the media is controlled mostly by government anyways.

His only option was to send it to wikileaks and other sources. The sad thing is, what has it changed?
Nothing. People are just accepting that the NSA is spying on them and sharing info with CSEC, ASD, GCHQ and GCSB. Weird that New Zealand is in on it but whatever.

Russia and China would find out anyways, there's nothing you can do to control the information once it's out except for try to encourage people to mock it and disbelieve it. The reason he left is because the government that is actively spying and lying to the people would put him in jail and destroy his life for trying to help people better understand the government that controls them.

How does that leather taste?

There is a clear legal right to be secure from unreasonable searches. I don't see anything in your argument that makes me believe that right doesn't extend to electronic communication.

Cred Forums should be praising this guy since he caused a lot of people to question the current government which helps Trump's campaign a shitload.

>The sad thing is, what has it changed?
A lot of companies switched to using default encryption, which fucked the NSA over hard. They cried a lot about it and we saw some sabre rattling from idiot politicians saying they would ban encryption, but that's it.

Also the Supreme Court told the NSA they cant legally store the information and have to house it elsewhere because if they have it it violates the 4th amendment. Now they have to have a warrant to get the information from a third party.

The ideal is that it becomes too expensive for the government to continue and not enough results, so they quit. That's our best hope right now, barring a major supreme court breakthrough case.

Tbh anyone that thought the government wasn't spying on its own people were just a bunch of brain-dead normies

Well he gave away the nsa's secret information so to make it fair the nsa should give away secret information about him.

That's easy to say now, but what the NSA was actually doing was shit that only hard-core conspiracy nuts would think possible.

He held a conference in Vancouver where he showed up on Skype to publicly endorse Hillary and shill for globalism. Funded and sponsored by Soros with special guest star Alex Soros

Yeah, that's a lie.