
Pardon Edward Snowden - gmays
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/12/pardon-edward-snowden
======
japhyr
If you haven't seen Citizenfour, watch it when you have a chance. I already
respected what Edward Snowden did, but I came away with even more respect
after watching him bring Glenn Greenwald up to speed with what's been going
on. His deliberate decision to share this story with the world was amazing,
and watching his commitment to that decision was inspiring and motivating.

[https://citizenfourfilm.com/](https://citizenfourfilm.com/)

~~~
wcummings
More than anything, the movie drove home how much he is "one of us".
Everything down to the dorky jokes (his "mantle of power") reinforces that he
comes from the same subculture, and he's just another hacker. In a lot of ways
he could have been someone you or I know.

~~~
Fnoord
Agreed, and I often ponder on how much that counts for any NSA employee, and I
find that a frightening thought.

~~~
glitchdout
I'd say it counts a bit. At least according to Keith Alexander who recently
said that NSA's best are "leaving in big numbers".

[https://www.cyberscoop.com/nsa-morale-down-keith-
alexander-m...](https://www.cyberscoop.com/nsa-morale-down-keith-alexander-
mike-rogers/)

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zwieback
I don't get it. I tried reading this New Yorker story when it came out and
thought it was terrible and has little to do with Snowden. Now it's on the
front page of HN? Did anyone understand the story itself?

~~~
rory096
This was an impressive HN experiment, at the very least. 14 comments now and
only one person even glanced at the article.

~~~
kbenson
Depending on what you think upvoting the submission means, you might interpret
it anywhere from deplorable to perfectly normal.

I myself sometimes upvote for the _submission_ (after at least minimally
reviewing it), and sometimes for the _discussion_ (sometimes before viewing
the submission), and sometimes for the _concept_ which I think deserves eyes
and hopefully a discussion, even if the submission itself is anemic.

Rather than treat submission score as some proxy for article quality or
importance, I try to think of it as what I think it actually maps most closely
to, which is _interest_ , and in the most broad reading of the word and what
it applies to.

Edit: Although, it's possible you meant experiment in the entirely literal
sense in that it exposes behavior, and there is no implied judgement.

~~~
tedunangst
He said comments, not score.

~~~
kbenson
Sure, but I had to make some assumptions about what was being implied and what
might actually be meant, because how do we actually know how many people read
the article?

I'll admit, I was using the comment as a springboard to bring up something I
wanted to talk about. It wasn't really meant to come across as chiding, which
I thought it unfortunately read as after I posted it, which is why I posted
the edit, which I'm not sure really helps. It establishes it as me calling out
the parent comment, but them tries to offer a way to soften it, and I'm not
sure the net result was worth it.

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framebit
This is a fictional short story involving a fictional poetry contest centering
around the theme of Snowden. It's not an article or even an opinion column.
Nothing wrong with fiction, just wanted to point this out as an FYI.

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WhatIsDukkha
Clickbait title. It's broadly, if not totally, irrelevant to the piece.

~~~
bdcravens
True, but mods lean heavily towards original titles vs editorializing.

~~~
WhatIsDukkha
It clear from the surrounding comments here that wasn't the right choice.

~~~
dang
Yes, but we didn't get to it in time, so may as well leave it now.

The tendency of the community to react purely to titles is so strong that it's
one of those things that goes far beyond HN and into human nature. I'm still
working on figuring out why.

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sjbase
Not remotely what I expected to read based on the title... but interesting
nonetheless. I gather we're supposed to be repulsed by the conversation
between the two characters (I certainly was). A reminder that no profession,
no matter how "noble," is safe from petty politics and those who thrive off of
it.

I imagine there's a tiny population of poets on HN. Would love to hear what
they read from this.

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tanderson92
So if I understand this (hopefully, work of fiction^) correctly, it was a
perverse interest in the _wrong kind of importance_ to circulate a poetition.
And the patriarchy appears to feature prominently as an explanation for why an
individual was possibly forgotten in the request for signatures. The
complaints about Bob Dylan also seem petty and not fully considered.

Maybe I don't understand this piece at all, but it appears to make no sense at
all.

^ I say I hope this is a work of fiction because if it is a reflection of how
NY literary circles think or act then that is terrifying. Like the cuckold
from the piece, I would then characterize this not as willful blindness but
willful myopia to the surveillance state.

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jwtadvice
I'm so confused. This article appears to have nothing to do with Snowden?

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nickff
These authors (columnists who plead Snowden's case to the government) seem to
be looking for any reason to forgive a horrific array of individuals and
organizations which have spent decades abusing power, and hiding the truth
from the public.

The persecution of Snowden was not some strange accident, it was the latest in
a long series of blows against liberty and human rights.

~~~
azernik
Really? I thought they were asking for _Snowden_ to be forgiven, usually
phrased in the language of him doing a public service by leaking. sure,
they're not simultaneously, asking for the people who made this surveillance
happen to be punished, but that's like asking for $10, getting turned down,
and then someone telling you that you should have asked for $100. One thing at
a time, especially since a pardon can help shape public perceptions of NSA
surveillance and its legality.

~~~
nickff
I would bet you that the mechanism of state surveillance continues to expand,
and that none of the people who created or expanded it are ever brought to any
account.

The NSA's take-away from the Snowden revelations was that they have to be more
careful with their IT staff. The NSA is not pulling back on their
unconstitutional surveillance.

I am advocating for a complete stop to the violation of individual privacy,
not just a meaningless token gesture.

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fullshark
Took me too long to realize this was fiction

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wineisfine
Would be a nice gesture of Obama on his way out. Just to soften the broken
promise of not being able to close Guantanamo.

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module0000
How often does the justice department say "Oh, we were wrong, let's make it
right."? Ever? Pardoning Snowden(whether right or wrong) is not going to
happen.

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eternalban
In light of the recent (fake?) news about contending camps in the deep state,
interesting to consider if Edward here was a CIA asset doing damage to an
adverserial NSA.

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mi100hael
Dafuq did I just read?

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marcoperaza
I can see a reasonable argument being made for pardoning Snowden for revealing
the domestic dragnet programs. But how can he possibly be pardoned for
revealing the details of our foreign intelligence operations? Spying on
foreigners is the raison d'être of intelligence agencies.

~~~
peterkelly
We are _all_ foreigners - it's a term that only has meaning within the context
of a given country. In case you hadn't noticed, those of us who do not _not_
hold US citizenship and do not live in the US have the same inherent rights,
and deserve the same protections, as those who do. We are not lesser people
than you, and to suggest that it's perfectly ok to treat our privacy as less
important than your own is simply arrogant.

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the disclosures to the US itself, his
actions benefited humanity globally by exposing the evil and corrupt nature of
the US intelligence agencies, along with those of the UK, Canada, New Zealand,
and my own country, Australia.

~~~
marcoperaza
I'm sympathetic to the sentiment, but it's unworkable in our anarchic system
of nation-states, where there is no authority binding states to any system of
justice. There is no international court to appeal to for surveillance
warrants. There is no international police force that will quash bad behavior.

As Thucydides observed: _" Right, as the world goes, is only in question
between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer
what they must."_

This isn't a statement of how things ought to be, but how they are. Tie your
hands at your own peril, for those who gain at your expense might not be so
generous.

