Edwin Snowden Come In From The Cold

Hopefully we can have a non political discussion about what I believe
to be one of the most important stories of the past 10 years. If the MODS
want to take down etc,etc.

The NYT is calling today for Snowden to receive amnesty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/opinion/edward-snowden-whistle-blower.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=1&

 

Eddie's a scoundrel, scumbag and traitor.
Hope I am not overstepping my bounds in saying so.
No, he should not be granted amnesty.
That he basically did an end-around this government is proof of its lack of true potency.
The admin got embarrassed by a low-level bureaucrat high school dropout.

 

As noted in a previous thread, I was unsure what to think of Ed Snowden at first, but the longer it has gone on and the more that has come out about what the government and its spy agency were doing, how far-reaching it was and how little accountability there was, the more on board I became.

I now firmly believe Snowden is a hero and a patriot for exposing egregious invasions of privacy without cause or justification against a huge number of American citizens. The conversations and changes that have occurred and are under consideration since then never would have happened without him, and they needed to happen -- and more need to happen still.

The stuff we've found out as a result of his actions for the most part is stuff U.S. citizens rightfully should know.

 

I'll skip the traitor part, because I imagine we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

But as for the scoffing at him because he's a high school dropout....Regardless of how you feel about his motives/politics/etc., the dude is not dumb. In fact, I think he's quite brilliant. If nothing else, he's a lot more articulate than me, a high school (and college) graduate.

 

Edward.

 

I love how politicians are aghast at what the NSA was doing, are calling for reforms, and also want Snowden prosecuted.

What was his alternative? Go to the NSA IG? Go to Congress, which has oversight of the NSA?

The head of the NSA, James Clapper, knowingly lied to Congress, and nothing is being done about it. You think they would have welcomed this guy's information?

He would have been thrown in jail just for possessing it without authorization.

 

Traitors commit treason, black dude.
The two are not separate and irrelative.
I just wanted the little drama queen to seek succor in the Pope's wings, ripping a page out of the Middle Ages.
He tried every other trick in the book.
This guy is no Jason Bourne.

 

And you don't have to be a genius to realize that a semi-permanent spot in the left's pantheon of martyrs (move over, Joe Hill) isn't worth rotting in a cell for the next two decades.

I'd guess he has an extremely slim chance of a Christmas Day 2016 pardon, a la Casper Weinberger and Marc Rich. Otherwise, how does sunny Uraguay sound, Ed?

 

Anyone else remember the days when blowing the whistle on egregious constitutional violations wasn't a partisan issue?

 

Agreed on this one. It seems weird to think that what the NSA was doing was horrible, but then see Snowden as a traitor instead of a democracy-preserving whistle-blower.

To the question at hand. I don't think amnesty will ever be considered because I think the administration does see him as a traitor - and you can't really say "you can get away with treason as long as you make sure you save yourself a trump card to keep harming the country with." Would send a bad message, to say the least.

 

Peppridge Farm

 

no