Why the hell would he come back? He risked his life to inform the American voting public what the government is doing to them in their name, he’s not going to give that up just to come back. Or else he wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
No, screw amnesty, he needs a full pardon. But, like many heroes, he’ll be lucky just to get a token apology a century from now.
You misspelled “criminals”.
How did he “risk his life”?
Yes, he risked getting thrown in jail, but that’s hardly the same thing.
Yep, heroes often must break laws. Like MLK, or Thomas Jefferson. I can’t recall many heroes who weren’t criminals. Can you?
Snowden has behaved better and more professionally than those rowdy criminals at the Boston Tea Party, that’s for sure.
He gave up his former, well-paid, luxurious life in Hawaii, and his gorgeous stripper girlfriend, so that you and I could have this conversation. You’re right, he didn’t risk death, but he did risk torture.
I don’t recall MLK or TJ breaking the law as an act of first resort, nor do I recall them fleeing across the boarder upon acting. Analogy fails.
I can think of hundreds. Is it your contention that an act of heroism reacquires a criminal act? Because that would be a rather odd definition of the term…
Name some. I’m not talking about fire fighters or doctors here, but people in history books. Maybe war heroes like Audie Murphy would count. But I can’t think of many social or political heroes that didn’t break the rules.
No, but I do think it requires a willingness to ignore the law. Especially when the hero is fighting entrenched powers and unjust laws.
And you seem to fail to grasp the rules of this forum.
Back off.
[ /Moderating ]
Oh, so now the goal posts have been moved from “hero” to “social or political hero”. You’re not talking about firefighters or doctors, but most other people are. Here’s the definition:
Not seeing anything about breaking laws there.
That’s a “unique” opinion. It certainly might apply to a subset of heroes, but you’re redefining the word if you think it “requires” that.
Don’t you remember when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, then fled to the Soviet Union and was given a luxury apartment and praised by Kruschshev?
The only situation where an amnesty for Snowden would be considered is if the government decided that NSA actions were fundamentally wrong. There is a review of these actions going on; the reports are that at most only very minor changes will be made.
It is absolutely a Trial Balloon. Nothing like this has been done before (that I can recall). The US hasn’t been able to discover the full scope of the breach - and Snowden has released files that as far as the NSA knew - he shouldn’t have been able to. Although they have broken into reporters homes, hacked everything they can, and obviously are spending tons of manpower and $$$ on this - they still don’t know the full scope.
The US doesn’t like to negotiate with terrorists or spies (but obviously they do). The problem in this case is it is so public - what can they do? He’d either have to do some jail time - or Obama will fall on his sword in a few years.
It also could be a sham story - if we really are confident we know everything - they could be doing it for other reasons.
But in no way is this story anything other than a planned story.
Even if the President signed an amnesty for Snowden - I mean, like some kind of super-amnesty, like, ‘unlimited immunity to prosecution for any crime, of any description, committed before this date’ - does anybody believe it would be honored? Are things like that ever actually honored?
I mean, amnesty is just a trick played on people who watch too much TV, right? It doesn’t actually exist as a legal instrument, does it?
Technically, I think “amnesty” is something that applies to a class of people, you can’t give amnesty to an individual. Ford used an Executive Order to give amnesty to Draft dodgers, and Carter used the Presidential Pardoning power to do the same.
But in this case (which again, I don’t think has any chance of happening) I think the NSA official is just suggesting the DoJ would agree to drop charges.
No, Snowden is not a criminal; Snowden is a hero for exposing the crimes of the American government. The criminals are in the American government.
That any Americans would defend the crimes of their own government, which they would condemn if it were any other government, and condemn the person who exposed them just shows how irrational nationalism is and how dangerous. It is clearly a case of using a very different yardstick.
The notion that by not turning himself in to the criminals he is disqualifying himself is laughable, it is utterly stupid and it just shows the hypocrisy of those who say it and who would never say the same thing about Chinese or Russian or Cuban dissidents who sought and were granted asylum by America. Why shouldn’t they be sent back to their countries so they can thus validate their actions?
Long before 2001 American spying was abusive, excessive and illegal and after 2001 it has gotten so much worse. It needs to be stopped and for that it needs to be exposed. Snowden is a hero and my prediction is that he will be recognized as such by the American people within a few decades. (I was going to say “in his lifetime” but we never know what the American government might do to his lifetime.)
It could be argued that the American people can subject themselves to a police state if they so wish but what I cannot accept is that they can give their government any valid authority to spy people in other countries. From where I stand the criminals are in the American government and they need to be stopped.
In the 1990s there was a case of a high-level diretor of GM who was of Spanish origin, nicknamed “SuperLópez”. He “defected” to go to Volkswagen in Germany and there were several suits against him alleging he took trade secrets with him to VW. It was a complicated legal case which dragged on. Finally, in 2000 the US government requested from Spain (where he had retired) the extradition of López to face criminal charges.
The Spanish courts denied it on several grounds. One interesting thing that came out is that the NSA had been illegally spying others abroad in order to help GM (before and unrelated to the issue at hand). It was shown the NSA was involved in plain industrial spying in favor of American companies. In the end the extradition was denied.
I don’t know if he’s a hero or not, but didn’t he pretty blatantly violate the Espionage Act? This part:
and this part:
Seems kind of indisputable.
John Mace - I guess it’s an unintentional missquote but I didn’t post this
“No, screw amnesty, he needs a full pardon. But, like many heroes, he’ll be lucky just to get a token apology a century from now.” To which you responded:
This is the original post to which you were referring:
Of course it does.
I don’t know how appropriate it is in this case as what is being suggested is actually a deal - no further prosecution in return for the data that hasn’t been published: not at all sure the terminology fits these circs.
I don’t remember the threat of torture hanging over her head for her “crimes”.