Well, from a political point of view, Snowden is just a guy, and he did what he could do already. Pardoned or shot dead, makes little difference now (well, chilling effect is certainly even worse if the latter happened tomorrow, but its bad enough as it is).
The important thing would be wistleblower protection laws changes that would protect a future Snowden from this situation.
Edward Snowden is hugely valuable politically because he stood up to the intelligence agencies and survived (so far). Most importantly, we have a moral obligation to get him pardoned. Snowden sacrificed a great deal already. He doesn't need to be martyred, he should be allowed to return home and continue his life.
>should be allowed to return home and continue his life.
That is only true if you are operating under the assumption that liberty, human welfare, and strength of America as a nation is a good thing for the future.
To me, it's not at all obvious that our ruling class really gives a shit about those.
You might still divide your feelings about the American ruling class, and Edward Snowden, presently facing criminal prosecution and long time, possibly (though doubtfully) death.
So, no, yours isn't the only reason to support pardoning Snowden.
It's also, distantly, possible that the act of allowing for the potential good of his actions might lead more to question an unwavering support of present American principles, values, and policies.
oh no doubt, what was done to him is atrocious and repugnant. I was only trying out an argument that politically his fate is no longer important, and it is of greater value to focus on what will protect the next Snowden better.
It's still clearly a moral imperative to help Snowden.
What happens to Snowden sets a precedent. That has huge implications politically. An America where Snowden gets assassinated will be a different America politically than one where Snowden gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
> oh no doubt, what was done to him is atrocious and repugnant.
What has been done to Snowden that is atrocious and repugnant? He is the one who stole information; he is the one who absconded to adversary states. Nothing has been done to him.
> It's still clearly a moral imperative to help Snowden.
The moral imperative is to see that he gets a fair trial, and then upon conviction to ensure that he is humanely executed.
Wow. Fine, I'll bite: He is prosecuted for the greatest act of whistleblowing since the pentagon papers. This has enabled improvements in both privacy regulations and accelerated the deployment of strong cryptography across the Internet.
As the Berlin University puts it, he can thus be credited with "extraordinary achievements in defense of transparency, justice and freedom".
Yet despite this, his country of origin has no laws needed to protect him and any future cases of the kind. And what the hell are advesary states? Last I heard the cold war was over...
There is of course no possibility that he'd get a trial, so your morbid fantasy is just that... Again, I'm simply astonished that there are people in the US who could see this act as anything other than utter heroism.
I'd imagine the US gov will hardly want to encourage whistleblowing of that sort nor a patriotic aire about the act. It is a national security risk regardless of how any individual act pans out.
Stripping whistleblowers from their constitutional rights and condemning them to a lifetime in prison is arguably a worse national security risk.
A society needs layers of checks and balances, and whistleblowing is one such layer. When whistleblowing is penalized so harshly you create an environment of unchecked power. Citizens can't do anything because even when they know they're being lied to, they need to know the specifics of what's going on in order to protest effectively. Because as we've now learned even the elected representatives get sidelined, so they're pretty much useless.
Realistically speaking, how much damage can one whistleblower really do when they have no malicious intent? Not much. What are the negative consequences of unchecked power? Effectively unlimited.
One does not know what a whistleblowers intent is ahead of time. Further, we are talking about secret service stuff here rather than all whistleblowing.
No whistleblowers in this area does not mean no oversight or no checks and balances. It's just that as an audit mechanism, it presents a lot of risk since it leaves what can ultimately effect national security to the discretion of the whistleblower.
It means an extremely opaque system of checks precisely in an area of the state that is particularly succeptable to abuse. That is a real risk to national security here.
Contrary, I can see exactly zero potential for jeopardising national security by any mooderately sane law on whistleblower protection in this area.
All whistleblowing is taking things into one's own hands at the risk of persecution, and here its only more so, given the seriousness of the charges one will face if one's defense on the basis of whistleblower protection ie arguing one acted in the public interest and revealed gross abuse of power fails.
Whatever is at the discretion for the potential leaker to decide, is at that discretion regardless of legal defense opportunities a leaker may have after the fact.
It is simply ludicrous that revealing rampant abuse of power by precisely those tasked with protection of the constitutional order, and precisely at the point where such control is most needed can be a punishable offense in any democracy.
But naturally any such leak needs to be able to stand up in court and satisfy some reasonable criteria of public interest and of having revealed serious violations - nobody is suggesting blatant espionage be legalized ffs.
I think that's agreeable but you're just asking for legislation that results in a balanced outcome.
In this case there was clearly a public good. There was also a massive national security compromise in the US ability to conduct surveillance.
Which effects national security more in the long run strikes me as a difficult thing to speculate about. However in the short term I'd imagine every organisation of interest to the US in the world promptly switched keys, hardware, routine, whatever after the story broke...
Yeah, though not so much that some kind of legislation should be found that creates a balanced outcome, but that just even broad strokes of some vanilla whistleblower protection legislations are themselves reasonable and balanced, and hence should apply in the security setting too.
> There was also a massive national security compromise in the US ability to conduct surveillance.
but, but that's the whole point of the exercise, isn't it; the curtailment of mass surveillance? I mean, we're talking about a public agency; it needs to act within a clear public mandate when striving to reach its goals. It is not an end in itself, so when it oversteps its mandate, its not in fact providing any public good, but diminishing it, and so hindering it in further action on this course is in the public interest.
So sure, having the public aware that it engages in mass surveilence and bulk collection on both its citizens and non-targeted citizens of the world more generally -- is inconvenient to the agency, but is a win for the public. And consequently so are any actions third parties then take to make its life more difficult -- because really it is the rouge party here!
Something seems upside down to me in this logic where obscuring the price you pay for a public service can be permissable simply because people expect some reasonable level of that service. And hence the scandal of realizing the true cost of that service, and the public finding it too expensive can be seen as a story that has two sides, merely because any limits that public may decide to put on the price naturally cause the quality of the service to degrade. But,but if the public isn't the one that decides on the quid pro quo here, who the hell is being served here anyhow??
Surely if its the public that's served by a public agency, then a person who uncovers that the agency is costing us way way more than is known and than it claims - even under oath to the congress for christ's sake - is a desirable correction, for no decision could even be made under false information.
Oh I'm sure they wouldn't. But there is no risk to national security, as whistleblowing protections only apply to uncovering illegal activities, abuse and similar misconduct.
But who'd want one's security apparatus to be incentivised to follow the rules, right?
> Pardoned or shot dead, makes little difference now
Law is built on precedent. This is how a two-hundred year old law about papers in one's house was used to try and pry open an iPhone. It is also why people get rightly indignant about seemingly small things.
In the specific context of the data Snowden exfiltrated, you are correct - a pardon changes little. But for the next Snowden? Or the political climate surrounding his "treason" versus "whistleblowing"? Totally different.
yeah, its what it does for the next Snowden that's most important here-- but that's why I suggested actual legal reform is necessary.
How can a pardon set a precedent? Its an act of an executive, not a court? It would be up to whoever is the president when the next Snowden occurs to grant clemence or no at their total executive discretion, no? So how's that a precedent? And how comforting it would be to the next Snowden that his life is at the whim of the current president to grant or take should he go through with a leak.
Or am I misunderstanding how the US legal system works?
I have to grant you're completely right about the political climate though. No legislative change will happen w/o a wide perception that the party at fault is the NSA here, and Snowden's action heroic and justified and hence worthy of legal protection. And a pardon would help in establishing that.
I'm really amazed how negatively he's percieved in the US apparently.
I believe your interpretation on the pardon "precedent" is correct - legally no precedent is really set. A presidential pardon is basically an act of mercy, not a legal opinion.
However, as a social precedent, it may give the next Snowden a more favorable outlook with the public, which in turn would make sympathy from lawmakers less risky.
Or maybe nothing at all. But you are right, legally probably wouldn't do much
