If you were president, would you pardon Edward Snowden?

[President Johnson]

Just read that Edward Snowden asks the president for a pardon. If you were president now, would grant such one? If yes, no or under certain condiations, explain (this is why I made no poll to click out of this).

The issue is very complicated I think. I can understand that he wants to come home and get a normal life again. And he certainly doesn't deserve the death panalty or decades in prison. The problem with a full pardon is that if you grant it, other members of the intelligence comminities could feel encouraged to do leak/publish secret information. And who knows, at one time there may be something published that really pays into the hands of terrorists.

So as president I would work out something with my legal experts. There must be some form of punishment. I would grant him a clemency under certain conditions. Paying a fee or working for charity.

[LLR]

Without a doubt, but I'd have to make sure he hadn't been bugged by Putin, or worse, brainwashed by him.

[Classic Conservative]

I would

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, of course.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Obviously, but no president would ever actually do this. Not even The Socialist in an alternate reality.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Yeah, of course.

[Illiniwek]

Dear God no

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

His essentially self-imposed banishment to a communist country is a big mitigating factor to me, as well as the nature of the content he released. Coming back and spending a year or two in prison would satisfy me.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I will also say that I wouldn't consider his actions disqualifying for a future government job. Once he has served the prison term I specified above, I'd be fine with re-hiring him to his old job. NSA director is probably not on the table though.

[Santander]

Hell no. I'd sooner drone him or arrange his accidental death than pardon him.

[RFayette]

Hell no. I'd sooner drone him or arrange his accidental death than pardon him.

[The Dowager Mod]

No, I would put a bullet in the back of his head myself.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Yeah, and I'd appoint him NSA Director afterwards.

[windjammer]

Never

He needs to spend the rest of his life in jail

[SWE]

Assuming I get a chance before I'm killed in a coup, sure.

[Del Tachi]

Never

He needs to spend the rest of his life in jail

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Never

He needs to spend the rest of his life in jail

Would you support putting Daniel Ellsberg in jail too?

[Clark Kent]

Yes, if he had stayed here, accepted the consequences for his actions, and hadn't given classified information to Russia.

[nicholas.slaydon]

In a heartbeat and without a second thought. And after I pardoned him I would award him the Presidential Medal Of Freedom and nominate him to be the new Director of the NSA.

[Buffalo Bill]

In return for some favors that could help me sabotage political opponents. 

[Kingpoleon]

Yes, if he had stayed here, accepted the consequences for his actions, and hadn't given classified information to Russia.

I'd agree except that he very well may have died and caused severe civil tension.

[Sumner 1868]

No, he doesn't need it. I would immediately pardon Chelsea Manning, however.

[Ljube]

Yeah, and I'd appoint him NSA Director afterwards.

[Lyin' Steve]

No, I would put a bullet in the back of his head myself.

Why do people think what he revealed was some big secret anyway?  I remember back in 2004 after the Patriot Act we used to joke around about how the FBI was listening to our phone conversations and say things like "by the way bin Laden is hiding in my basement."  The various intelligence-gathering and spoofing operations he revealed were widely assumed to exist prior to 2013.

Snowden is just another self-important anti-American libertarian know-it-all hacker, but because he actually did something he's a hero.  In truth, nobody has been adversely affected by any of the operations he revealed, but everyone loves him anyway because he satisfied our curiosity about what the NSA was doing and let us feel outraged and like victims, the #1 American pastime.

Haven't people been saying for decades now that we need to take the fight to terrorists on the internet?  Doesn't Hillary Clinton always say that we need to create more programs and devote more resources to combatting online radicalization and jihadi terror networks?  An enormous portion of what Snowden revealed was our entire, detailed arsenal of techniques to do exactly that.  People acted all outraged because that's just automatic nowadays.

And all the privacy stuff... ever watch Zero Dark Thirty?  Ever read The Looming Tower?  Do you really think that access to phone conversations and online conversations is a weapon our intelligence services shouldn't have?  My god, eavesdropping on conversations has been the most effective intelligence gathering technique since the beginning of time.  Just because we have new mediums of communication doesn't change that.  I can say with 100% confidence that the data gathering techniques employed by our intelligence agencies and those around the world that we coordinate with have saved a tremendous number of lives.  But if there's one thing we've learned from this election, it's that people are utterly selfish and chomping at the bit to find paranoid conspiracy theories to believe, so the "BIG BROTHER is SPYING on us!" bait was irresistible.

But whether it's ultimately right or wrong to use these techniques isn't really the point.  Clearly there's a lot of wiggle room here, it's not like the government is poisoning our water supplies or anything terrible like that.  I don't trust just some random guy, which is all Edward Snowden is, to decide whether critically damaging our national security infrastructure by revealing information is worth the tradeoff of whistleblowing on these sorts of morally-ambiguous activities.  I don't think our nation should reward people who do it.  It disgusts me that he's treated like a hero because I know that it only encourages more people in his position of trust to do the same.

Our society is obsessed with these kinds of leaks because we're a bunch of curious assholes who have no respect for the privacy of others while crying crocodile tears at any perceived threat to our own privacy.  Remember the Sony leak and how everyone rushed to read the leaked e-mails even though it was clearly a play by the North Korean government?  Do you really think that revealing personal information about the hundreds of thousands of people who were members of Ashley Madison was morally justifiable enough that you'd trust the guy who did it?  How about the Russian hackers who leaked Hillary Clinton's e-mails?  Should leakers be our new heroes and trusting random people to make these kinds of moral tradeoff decisions for us the new national norm?  Because when you demand Snowden be pardoned, that's what you're saying.  You're saying that what he did was okay with you, you think that it's perfectly alright for random nobodies like him to decide what private or confidential information should and should not be public.

I don't think that's ok, I think that random nobodies should be strongly discouraged from leaking private, confidential information.  I think the only exception is in cases where something truly terrible is taking place, like if some Nazi colonel had leaked the final solution, and I don't think that what Snowden leaked is anything close to crossing that line.  Furthermore, I don't think he himself is some noble, misguided hero, I think he's a self-important traitor who got so caught up in worrying about global intelligence agencies trying too hard to fight terrorism that he felt it was his duty to publicly reveal all the inner details of their efforts, the trust other people had put in him be damned, and that's worthy of contempt.  If he ever steps foot in the United States he should be locked in a cold black box a half mile under Florence, Colorado for the rest of his life.

done rambling...

[Lyin' Steve]

I've got another question for you Atlas.  Since you're so detached from our intelligence activities that have kept you safe for your entire life, it doesn't really feel like Snowden damaged you, even though he did.  What if Snowden had decided that he was morally obligated to release all your private text messages and Facebook conversations?  What if he'd had access to them, decided he didn't like how you wronged someone, or you lied to your girlfriend, or found you'd committed a crime and admitted to it via text, or something like that, and leaked it.  Would he still be a hero?  Now that he's personally hurt you instead of doing it indirectly?  Do you think the government should reward and pardon him since we're now rewarding hackers for hurting people so long as they're sanctimonious enough about it or satisfy our curiosity and need for outrage?