“I credit Snowden for having a great deal of courage, because he’s ruined himself forever,” he told Salon.
“I don’t think he has a future,” the former Bush administration official added.
I'd say it depends on the American citizen/voter. What future do we want?
Not pressuring the government to bring him back means giving the government a clear thumbs-up for ever-increasing mass surveillance. And it sends any potential whistleblower a clear signal to turn a blind eye to corruption and out-of-control government activity.
Actually, Sanders is pro-Snowden. Sanders has said that he will bring back Snowden and will make sure that a reasonable settlement is reached wrt. copying data and public benefit.
Edit: "In my view," Sanders continued, "the interests of justice would be best served if our government granted him some form of clemency or a plea agreement that would spare him a long prison sentence or permanent exile from the country whose freedoms he cared enough about to risk his own freedom." (added the actual comment)
I don't think this position qualify as pro-Snowden. The trial facing by Snowden is for "treason", which is by definition false because no third party government was involved.
I think it's pretty binary debate. It's not 5 years jail time vs. life sentence like Sanders seems to imply.
Any presidential candidate interested in doing so knows that the first step to pardoning Snowden is to get elected. Pledging to do so now is a pretty sure way to fail at that.
I'm pessimistic, half of america is already fine with opening their iPhone to the Gov. So a traitor who has done something so altruistic that it's impossible for the majority to accept it for what it really is and above all who lives in Russia with their historical nemesys, there is no way there is a chance one day for him to be understood by the masses, I'm afraid.
Things change. No one expected Mandela to become President when he got arrested.
Let's just wait for the next major data breach or data leak.
Just look at whats going on with Bangladesh's central bank. If they can't protect their data, hard to imagine the rest of the developing world being in a better of position.
Accumulators of data in the west, sitting in ivory towers, disconnected from ground realities, are setting all kinds of precedents just waiting to breakdown elsewhere.
I suspect I agree with this guy on most things, but it is a bit tone-deaf to suggest McCain should be in prison. Most people would say he has done his time. That kind of statement calls to mind McCain's famous mic-drop: "I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."
"President Barack Obama has harshly cracked down on whistle-blowers, using the World War I-era Espionage Act to punish whistle-blowers who leaked to journalists more than all previous U.S. presidential administrations combined."
-- Obama 1.0 RC1
"Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out"
"The whistle-blower himself says he has always been incredibly careful about what exactly he discloses, and to whom. “I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,” Snowden told the Guardian. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over.”"
While whistle blowing unconstitutional surveillance on American citizens may be a service, mass dumping of info on classied programs to China and Russia is almost treason (we are not at war).
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 68.6 ms ] thread“I don’t think he has a future,” the former Bush administration official added.
I'd say it depends on the American citizen/voter. What future do we want?
Not pressuring the government to bring him back means giving the government a clear thumbs-up for ever-increasing mass surveillance. And it sends any potential whistleblower a clear signal to turn a blind eye to corruption and out-of-control government activity.
Is that really what we want?
Edit: "In my view," Sanders continued, "the interests of justice would be best served if our government granted him some form of clemency or a plea agreement that would spare him a long prison sentence or permanent exile from the country whose freedoms he cared enough about to risk his own freedom." (added the actual comment)
I think it's pretty binary debate. It's not 5 years jail time vs. life sentence like Sanders seems to imply.
[1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LzcZPxv...
Let's just wait for the next major data breach or data leak.
Just look at whats going on with Bangladesh's central bank. If they can't protect their data, hard to imagine the rest of the developing world being in a better of position.
Accumulators of data in the west, sitting in ivory towers, disconnected from ground realities, are setting all kinds of precedents just waiting to breakdown elsewhere.
-- Obama 2.0
"President Barack Obama has harshly cracked down on whistle-blowers, using the World War I-era Espionage Act to punish whistle-blowers who leaked to journalists more than all previous U.S. presidential administrations combined."
-- Obama 1.0 RC1
"Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out"
from http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/
First they pretend to be on your side, then they pretend to help, then they extinguish.
They will make him rot like Manning until everyone forgets about them and they die in prison.
Pretty sure Snowden will be snatched under Clinton, she seems to have peeve about him.
He could do the talk circuit, give graduation speeches, participate in panel discussions, it'd be great.
I hope the Russians feed him some hot, fresh Po.