
Edward Snowden makes 'moral' case for presidential pardon - Red_Tarsius
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/13/edward-snowden-why-barack-obama-should-grant-me-a-pardon
======
lordnacho
I bet everyone's been digging for precedent. Found this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Loring_Morison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Loring_Morison)

Samuel Loring Morison (born October 30, 1944) is a former American
intelligence professional, who was convicted of espionage and theft of
government property in 1985, and pardoned in 2001. He was "the only [American]
government official ever convicted for giving classified information to the
press."

Seems pretty similar superficially. I wonder if he'll do it, Obama.

Also something quite odd is the number of pardons that seem a bit suspect. For
instance Clinton pardoned his own brother. And Marc Rich. Think what you may
of him (famous commodity trader, lots of shady deals rumoured), but his crime
doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

Pardoning Snowden would be a comment on the surveillance state, something
worthwhile to talk about. Pardoning some guy who smuggled some oil doesn't
seem to have a purpose in regards to the state's role in society.

~~~
Maarten88
> Marc Rich [...] his crime doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary

One of the biggest US tax frauds ever, polluted and corrupted Zambia, fled to
Switzerland to avoid prosecution (just the tax thing of course), hired
lobbyists, sponsored congress library and some politicians, pardoned by Bill
Clinton. An example of class justice, corruption and other things wrong in the
US, but as you said: nothing out of the ordinary...

I'm afraid Snowden did not make enough money to pay off the right people, like
Rich did.

~~~
freyr
I think he meant "nothing out of the ordinary" as in nothing to warrant a
pardon.

Except, of course, he was rich and well connected.

------
lb1lf
Out of curiosity - how powerful is a presidential pardon?

Can a US president basically compose an edict saying 'This man is a bleeding
hero and no branch of the US government will ever hold any of his actions
related to incident X against him, now or in the future or else they shall
snuff it!' and have this respected by his successors?

Or may a presidential pardon be reversed by any successor?

Is it narrowly defined, eg. the pardonee (is that even a word) may not be
prosecuted for his violation of US code such-and-such, section so-so committed
on or before date DDMMYY? (Leaving any successor free to throw the book at him
for anything not explicitly covered by the issued pardon?)

Hm. Off to Google I go; I find the concept somewhat intriguing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Out of curiosity - how powerful is a presidential pardon?

It is absolute.

> Can a US president basically compose an edict saying 'This man is a bleeding
> hero and no branch of the US government will ever hold any of his actions
> related to incident X against him, now or in the future or else they shall
> snuff it!' and have this respected by his successors?

No, a pardon only affects criminal prosecutions and punishments -- to the
extent covered by the text of the pardon, any future prosecution (or
continuation of existing prosecution) is barred, and any criminal punishment
(including and disabilities imposed by past conviction) is terminated. It
doesn't affect any other action by the government, including any civil action
that might be available in law.

> Is it narrowly defined, eg. the pardonee (is that even a word) may not be
> prosecuted for his violation of US code such-and-such, section so-so
> committed on or before date DDMMYY? (Leaving any successor free to throw the
> book at him for anything not explicitly covered by the issued pardon?)

It can be as narrow or broad as the President chooses. About the only limit is
that it is generally held (though this has never had occasion to be tested)
that the Constitutional power of the pardon does not extend to _prospective_
pardons (that is, a pardon cannot apply to offenses that occur after the
pardon is issued.)

~~~
BrandonY
One more limitation: a Presidential pardon doesn't affect state laws. If, for
instance, Snowden had committed some crime against the state that he was
residing in, the President would not forgive it.

------
zmanian
Reasons it would be in the interests of the US govt to pardon Snowden:

\- It would decrease Snowden's celebrity for him to return from exile.

\- It would remove incentives for Snowden to constantly amplify inconsistent/
hypocritical behavior of the US govt.

\- It would improve the optics for the tech industry for working more closely
with government.

Reasons it would be against Us govt interests.

\- It would make the intelligence community feel hurt/ sad.

~~~
libertymcateer
Each of these points is up for serious disagreement.

1\. His celebrity could _increase exponentially_ when he returned home and was
available to do a press junket and book tour. He would appear on every morning
talk show and radio show and then a tour of the campuses, libraries and malls
of America. This idea is absurd on its face.

2\. He had the resolve to make the initial release knowing he was destroying
his life - it is clear this is a moral stance for him and the personal damage
is done. If he came back to the U.S., expect him to be emboldened and wind up
working for a lobby or a not for profit.

3\. Lobbying dollars >> optics.

RE: US Government interests:

1\. It would make the democrats look weak on terror and intelligence in the
face of an upcoming and obscenely hotly contested election.

2\. It would be bad for morale of our intelligence agencies - by no means a
'soft' consideration.

3\. It would, in fact, set a precedent that whistleblowers will get pardoned.

This last point is the whole issue. Neither this administration, nor future
administrations, is going to be particularly fond of intelligence
whistleblowers. Financial and business whistleblowers is one thing - but in
intelligence? That is another issue entirely. All politics aside, though we
may, as citizens, want this to be precisely the case and hope that if we ever
held political office we would feel the same way, it is just unlikely that
this attitude is going to be found within the upper echelons of the
intelligence or political community.

Unfortunately, the downsides are hugely substantial to those in power and the
upsides are widely distributed among the general public. With a risk/reward-
matrix like that, don't expect to see any pardons coming down for Snowden
anytime soon.

~~~
zmanian
I like these counter arguments

~~~
okwhatthe2
_slow clap_

~~~
sctb
Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all. We ban accounts that
continue to post this way.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
aluhut
I really hope he'll be able to leave Russia one day but if I were him, I
wouldn't return to the US. Too many people with weird ideas in their heads.

~~~
pc86
Not a trait confined to the United States by any stretch.

~~~
avn2109
The difference is that Russian state security is protecting him from
deportation/abduction/assassination (while also surveilling him) to make sure
they get to keep sticking their finger in America's eye.

If he leaves the Eastern bloc you can bet that the boys in Fort Meade will
make contingency plans to sabotage his brakes/get him on trumped-up charges
for something else a la Assange/otherwise ruin his day.

~~~
MichaelMoser123
>The difference is that Russian state security is protecting him from
deportation

that's a double edged sword; if the Russian leaders decide some day that they
want to improve relations with the US by extraditing him then they might just
do it.

------
Red_Tarsius
I admire Snowden's sacrifice, but the US can't pardon him. Doing so would
signify weakness and encourage subversive behaviour. Traditionalist countries
– China, Russia, Iran – are especially perceptive to status signaling. No
doubt they would exploit the event to foster Anti-American sentiments. Also,
we don't know the info Russian Intelligence got out of his asylum in Moscow.

Side note: I hope GMT Games releases an expansion for Twlight Struggle: 1989 ~
2015. Despite the fall of the USSR, the proxy war has never stopped. I'd love
to re-enact the past 25 years. _Snowden flees to Moscow_ would be a Red Event,
2 ops: " _US reveals their hand of cards this turn. Remove up to a total of 2
US Influence from one or more countries to Western Europe_ ".

EDIT: to clarify, I do want the US to grant him pardon.

~~~
Jahava
At some point I have to draw a line between the information that he leaked
regarding questionable (and, ultimately, illegal) domestic US spying programs
and the sizable remainder of the corpus detailing US tools, techniques, and
strategy employed against foreign nations. The former is undoubtedly
potentially patriotic, while the latter is a legitimate and legal function of
the NSA and likely damaged its intelligence mission on a number of fronts (and
is, ultimately, treasonous).

I have to ask myself: could he have leaked the former without the latter? In
all available information, I have not seen a compelling reason to think that
the two bodies of data were inseparable. A heroic Snowden with the best of
intentions absolutely needed to invest the time and care into either not
collecting the body of non-US data in the first place or, failing that,
purging it from the body that he released to the world.

For me, his failure to do either inexorably poisons any heroic fallout with
the treasonous side effects. One step further: _why_ did he neglect to do
something as simple and important? I find the heroic Snowden to be a hard
sell, since it seems like he was at best grossly irresponsible and, more
likely, motivated by something other than patriotism.

~~~
justinpombrio
> and the sizable remainder of the corpus detailing US tools, techniques, and
> strategy employed against foreign nations.

Could you provide a reference to these? I've heard this referred to before,
but still don't know what he did that could have done actual harm.

EDIT: Unless that harm is simply other nations thinking that the US isn't
spying on them, and then learning that they _really_ , _really_ are?

~~~
dTal
I think it's government propaganda. The only foreign espionage stuff I
remember hearing about was this[1], which turned out to be a false flag
leak[2] (!!!).

[1][http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-
uk-s...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uk-s-secret-
mid-east-internet-surveillance-base-is-revealed-in-edward-snowden-
leaks-8781082.html)

[2][https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-
gov...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government-
independent-military-base)

~~~
dTal
Downvote away, but this has come up repeatedly and no one has managed to
provide a source. Meanwhile the fake incident I just linked is strong evidence
that the government is willing to go to lengths to construct that narrative.
It's been repeated so often that even Snowden supporters are starting to leave
it unchallenged, but I think we're witnessing revisionism right here. In fact,
as far as I can tell Greenwald et al have exercised considerable restraint in
only publishing activities with bearing on domestic surveillance.

------
helthanatos
His case should have been: "You pardoned many criminals that actually caused
harm, I on the other hand, only caused awareness of the government's
surveillance crimes"

~~~
rhino369
He caused awareness of a lot more than that. If he just blew open the meta
data bulk collection, I'd strongly support a pardon. But he disclosed much
much more than that. Stuff that inarguably legal under US law.

~~~
helthanatos
What do you mean?

------
tempodox
Why would Obama suddenly stop whistleblower persecution? It's the one thing he
will be famous for. And you can't ruin a bad reputation.

------
finid
He makes a good case for the pardon, but Obama won't give it.

Why?

Snowden doesn't have enough powerful forces in high places that will push for
the pardon. If he has friends like Jonathan Jay Pollard has, chances are he'll
get it, but he doesn't.

~~~
rayiner
Obama has granted pardons or clemency to well over 100 people while in office.
He has directed the DOJ to fill the pipeline of clemency cases for him to
review before he leaves office, with a focus on people sentenced under harsher
guidelines that were revised while he was in office.

Obama won't pardon Snowden not because Snowden doesn't have the right friends.
He won't do it because it would be a politically unpopular move. Everyone can
get behind pardoning someone sentenced to life for shoplifting under a three
strikes law. Snowden is much more divisive.

~~~
finid
> He won't do it because it would be a politically unpopular move.

If that were important in granting pardons, Clinton wouldn't have pardoned
Mark Rich. Those politically-opposed to Obama will remain so regardless of
what he does, so he couldn't care less.

~~~
rayiner
Clinton later stated in public he regretted that decision and the damage it
did to his legacy.

~~~
tanderson92
It is always amazing to me when politicians say they "regret" an action, or
"take responsibility" for a vote (see Clinton's statements on Iraq since
2014).

What does it even mean, apart from lip service to those who disagree with
their vote? Politicians don't hold personal responsibility for the fallout of
their policies, so it is just rhetoric intended to neutralize your negative
opinions of them.

~~~
Kadin
> What does it even mean, apart from lip service to those who disagree with
> their vote?

Just what you suspect it does: nothing.

------
us0r
At the very least he should get a David Petraeus deal (who was trading
classified information for sex).

~~~
zip1234
The scale of what Petraeus did vs what Snowden did is very different.

~~~
us0r
I don't think scale is written into the law.

~~~
zip1234
While I can't speak to whether or not it is written into the law, there is
historical precedent on the matter. Look up Clayton Lonetree for one where the
scale was low. He was given a shorter sentence than is typical of espionage.
Look up Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen for someone where the damage was
estimated to be much greater.

------
krokodil
He'll never get it. He lost any hope of whistle-blower status when he released
information on foreign surveillance programs.

~~~
whamlastxmas
The government lost any hope of moral high-ground by performing illegal
surveillance amongst many other things. It is not reasonable to expect Snowden
to selectively only release information that was strictly illegal (due to
sheer number of files to sort through) and it is reasonable for someone to
whistle-blow through unofficial channels when official ones are not available
(and they weren't despite many people trying to advocate that they were - save
your breath).

Here's an idea - don't do horrifically illegal, amoral things alongside other
legal but probably still amoral things, quash all possibilities of
accountability, and expect that no one will call you out on it.

Snowden did the right thing, and the only thing that could have been done.

~~~
zepto
No. Whistleblowing on illegal government actions is totally different from
treason. The fact that part of the government did something illegal in no way
justifies undermining national security goals if those two are not related.

Snowden clearly did not do the only thing that could have been done. He did
release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not release
the foreign surveillance information.

All governments do bad things. That justifies whistleblowing. It never
justifies an attack on the country's international security by its own
citizens. In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms
about cyberwarefare.

~~~
whamlastxmas
>The fact that part of the government did something illegal in no way
justifies undermining national security goals if those two are not related.

If a government does something illegal and actively works to prevent itself
from being held accountable, it is justified in my opinion to make them
accountable even at the cost of intangible inconvenience. You're operating
under the assumption that a government _should_ operate in secrecy, which in
my opinion is bullshit - even for military and CIA activities, we should be
transparent on non-granular scales. Obviously not releasing "hey we're going
to mortar this coordinate at this time" but you probably get the idea.

>He did release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not
release the foreign surveillance information.

He released 200,000 documents. Millions of pages of information. I don't see
how it can be argued he alone could have thoroughly vetted these documents to
prevent unintentional leaks. And in his situation, I am sure he had to weigh
the advantages of revealing illegal activities to the intangible and temporary
inconvenience of only slightly less morally reprehensible spying programs.

>In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms about
cyberwarefare.

We shouldn't make our standards by comparing us to other countries. There are
some pretty fucked up laws out there.

~~~
zepto
Thanks for clarifying.

Where we disagree is on your opinion that military and CIA activities should
not be secret. Secrecy has been critical to maintaining strategic advantage in
war and national security throughout history. Nothing has changed about that
now. To suggest that we should blindly ignore this seems disconnected from the
real world.

> We shouldn't make out standards by comparing us to other countries.

I can see how it might have looked as if that's what I was doing. I am not. To
clarify - I don't think the illegal programs are justified at all, and Snowden
was right to leak them. I do think the international intelligence programs are
jusified. Not because we should do what others are doing, but because there
are large and powerful countries who don't share ours interests and intend to
undermine us.

------
tptacek
My guess is, his flight from the US is going to prevent his pardon. A pardon
was a long shot no matter what, but a preemptive pardon of a fugitive would be
without historical precedent.

~~~
finid
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Clinton pardon a guy who ran to another
country to avoid prosecution here (USA)?

~~~
tptacek
Yeah, Mark Rich. Ok, not without precedent. (Mark Rich cooperated and was
pardoned conditionally, for whatever that's worth).

------
codezero
Just out of curiosity – does Snowden have material that hasn't yet been
released to the press/public?

I imagine that a hurdle to pardoning him would be that there is potentially
content that would be too egregious not to charge him, which has yet to be
released.

If he were pardoned, and that material were released, would he be immune to
prosecution? This sounds like a thorny thing to try to figure out, or maybe
it's really obvious :)

~~~
knodi123
> does Snowden have material that hasn't yet been released to the press/public

He has implied that he possesses such material, in great quantity. He is
holding that possession up as deterrent against assassination, although if he
received a pardon, presumably he wouldn't need that deterrent anymore?

Besides, I would think a deterrent such as I'm describing would be
_motivation_ for russians to assassinate him and make it look like americans
did it.

~~~
digler999
> He has implied that he possesses such material,

To the contrary, he has adamantly denied possessing _any_ such material. I
dont have the source, but in several video interviews he's said to protect
himself from being apprehended by foreign intel agencies for a copy of the
material, he simply doesnt have it. He's turned it all over to journalists.

~~~
knodi123
Pardon, I spoke imprecisely. But the effect is the same-

He does not possess the material, but he absolutely possesses the encryption
keys to the material, and has distributed an encrypted version of a vast trove
of material to many different persons, with a deadman switch.

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/07/snowdens_dead...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/07/snowdens_dead_m.html)

------
leksak
What is he looking at to his right? Did he receive the questions beforehand
and is reading his speech from a paper?

------
honkhonkpants
Wouldn't he have to be tried, convicted, and imprisoned before he could be
pardoned? I think what Snowden wants here is amnesty.

------
benevol
The problem lies with the assumption/argument of 'moral'.

The systems we live in are systemically corrupted by money (and/or power).

------
CyberDildonics
I hope he gets it, but he'll probably have to donate $100 grand to the Clinton
foundation like everyone else.

------
gumby
I hope it happens!

I wonder what his life would be like upon his return. I suspect his life would
still be in danger.

------
shkkmo
Am I missing something here? Snowden was never convicted of anything, how can
he be pardoned?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Snowden was never convicted of anything, how can he be pardoned?

You don't need to be convicted, or even charged, to be pardoned; a pardon
doesn't even have to be specific as to the crime(s) it covers, it can just
cover any crimes you may or may not have committed during some time specified
time period before the pardon was issued (as was the case with Ford's pardon
of Nixon.)

It is true that the usual clemency petition process operates after conviction,
but that's a discretionary administrative process, it does not reflect the
scope of the Constitutional pardon power.

------
marcoperaza
Snowden blew any chance of this when he leaked tons of data about totally
legitimate foreign intelligence activities, not just domestic spying.
Regardless of whether you think leaking the domestic spying programs was
justified, his leaks about our activities overseas are unforgivable.

~~~
ben0x539
As someone who lives overseas, I'll happily forgive him. I imagine I'm not
alone in this.

~~~
marcoperaza
His responsibility wasn't to your interests. If your interests conflict with
America's interests, then yours lose out in the decisions that the United
States makes. Just as if my interests as an American conflict with your
government's interests, mine will lose out in their decisions.

~~~
funkymike
Not everyone segments responsibility to only their own country. He did
humanity a service. He certainly did not have a responsibility to
intentionally withhold evidence of US surveillance in other countries. I
believe he had a moral imperative to reveal that information.

~~~
marcoperaza
When you have a government job and are entrusted with a security clearance,
your country's interests must be your only concern. The people are entrusting
you with their interests.

~~~
ionised
_your country 's interests must be your only concern_

And his country's interests were his concern. What he had a problem with was
his government's interests.

