Petition Calling For Edward Snowden To Be Pardoned Will Get White House Response

Reason

A petition on the White House's "We the People" website calling for Edward Snowden to be pardoned has over 100,000 signatories, meaning that the White House will be responding.

Snowden has been charged with espionage and is currently in Russia after having left Hong Kong over the weekend. The Associated Press recently tweeted that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will not extradite Snowden, who is currently in the transit zone in Moscow airport.

From ABC News:

WASHINGTON — An online White House petition calling for National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to be pardoned has surpassed the 100,000 signatures required to receive an official response from the Obama administration.

"Edward Snowden is a national hero and should be immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs," the petition reads.

While the petition now has enough signatures to warrant a response, it's unlikely the White House will grant the request. The U.S. has charged Snowden with espionage and there is currently an international manhunt under way to find the alleged leaker, who fled Hong Kong on Sunday for Moscow.

According to the We The People petition website, the White House "will do our best to respond to petitions that cross the signature threshold in a timely fashion, however, depending on the topic and the overall volume of petitions from We the People, responses may be delayed."

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Any response will be totally unsatisfying, but the president looks forward to finding out the White House's response when he reads it in the newspaper anyway.

[Sevo]

I don't see anything where the WH says it'll get a response.
And even if it did, there's nothing to say the response won't be timed to match Holder's comments on dope.

[Xenocles]

What they meant to say is that this petition met the stated threshold for a response, which is subject to change on either a case-by-case or systemic basis. Because fuck you, that's why.

[John]

Remember, the White House website is a family site. So they will have to censor their response before posting it. I don't think "fuck you that is why" will get past the FCC.

[WTF]

Beat me to it. I was going to say the response will be "No, because FYTW."

[Libertymike]

See Ortiz, David, April 20, 2013 at Fenway Park.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

Would that we lived in a world where Obama needed a pardon that Snowden was considering.

[Matrix]

Did the WH respond to those petitions for secession? Several of them had well over 100k signatures. What came of those?

[Pro Libertate]

They declared war on those who tried to secede?

[Libertymike]

They spied upon those who advocated secession?

[Matrix]

Apparently they did:

[Matrix]

link

[sarcasmic]

Summary: We are government. FYTW.

[Sean Higgins]

Response: "His ass is going to jail."

[Libertymike]

Don't you know that all of those brave men and women in uniform protecting our freedoms would never allow that to happen?

[UnCivilServant]

There's nothing that says the response to the petition will contain anything meaningful, or even been truthful. I've you've wasted the time to read previous petition responses, they're basically garbage reiterating the party line.

[Sevo]

'Thank you for your interest. We are very interested in your opinion. We will consider it along with the thousands of others we have received.'

[Libertymike]

Edward Snowden is a genuine hero.

[Sevo]

Uh, this is the choir.

[Libertymike]

One first must practice his preaching to friendly congregations.

[UnCivilServant]

This is the least friendly congregation I've ever seen. Chock full of assholes and people looking for a fight.

[Jordan]

FUCK YOU CUT SPENDING

[Sevo]

What the hell are you talkin' about?!

[Mike M.]

Yeah, right. Nidal Malik Hasan will be pardoned by Block Yomomma before Snowden is.

[Brandon]

Of course. Hasan just succumbed to workplace stress. Snowden is a traitor.

-HuffPo commentariat.

[Xenocles]

Hey now, workplace violence is a serious thing.

[Another David]

It'll just be a bunch of ASCII dicks, but that's a response, right?

[wareagle]

espionage would mean Snowden was spying on the US and revealing secrets to enemy states, wouldn't it? I realize lots of folks don't like Greenwald or WaPo but characterizing either as an enemy state seems a stretch.

[Andrew S.]

Obvious answer: We are the enemy. And I think it's been obvious for a while that both teams view us as such.

[Bardas Phocas]

Aren't we all enemies of the State?

[Brandon]

If you are not of the state, you are an enemy of the state.

[John]

The espionage charge is very troubling. No question Snowden violated national security laws. But there is a difference between leaking to the public and espionage. Espionage is aiding a foreign power. Espionage is Robert Hansen giving the names of US agents to the Russians. What Snowden did is not that.

Even the people who think Snowden should go to jail ought to be nailing Obama's skinny black ass to the wall over that.

[Libertymike]

How about knocking the nihilistic negro non-sense from his noggin?

[Xenocles]

Presumably enemy (though the PC term is "adversary") states also read the Guardian.

[Loki]

Presumably enemy (though the PC term is "adversary") states also read the Guardian.

So what? Do you have any idea how much classified information ends up printed in various newspapers? I've worked on classified programs and I can assure that it's a lot. So why didn't the sources for all those stories over the years get charged with espionage?

Granted the scale of what was revealed was much smaller, but if revealing classified information to a reporter is "espionage" in this case, it should have been considered espionage every other time it's been done as well. Why isn't Daniel Ellsberg or Bob Woddward sitting in prison?

The real answer is that what Snowden revealed makes the government look bad, and we can't have that. And of course because FYTW.

[Xenocles]

That was more devil's advocacy than anything else. The tendency here is to say that "he revealed the information to us, so the charges against him point to us as the enemy." It's reasonable to assume that "the enemy" refers to the actual enemies who are getting the information along with us.

None of this is to endorse the idea that the information should have been secret in the first place, and I would not hold a journalist who never signed a non-disclosure agreement accountable for simply publishing classified information. I agree that this leak mostly relates to embarrassing information about illegal activities, and that makes it righteous no matter who else can see it.

[SIV]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23051808

Another nail in the coffin of Reconstruction. The South will rise again!

[John]

Liberals are having a stroke right now. Using the feds to keep the racist South in line is part and parcel to the liberal identity. Between this and the NSA spying, what does a liberal have left to be smug about?

[robc]

Does this actually HELP the Ds wrt redistricting? Can they avoid the number of minority-majority districts that they gerrymandered in the past?

[John]

I am not sure. I could see it going either way. If the districts around the minority districts are really Republican, chances are they will just dilute their vote and end up with no Dem reps where they had at least one before.

[John Thacker]

In NC, the Supreme Court lawsuit in the 1990s against the most gerrymandered districts was brought by white Democrats, since the majority-minority districts had resulted in helping the Republicans make gains in 1994. By redrawing Mel Watt's district to only be a plurality, the Dems got more districts, with an impressive gerrymander (still winning almost two thirds of the seats with 43% of the vote in 2010) that got turned into a GOP gerrymander after 2010.

[SIV]

Time for the National Anthem!

[robc]

Thomas concurred in order to say that he found Section 5 as well as 4 unconstitutional.

[Xenocles]

The problem with testing for "states with a history of racial discrimination" is that such a test should by all rights result in restrictions on every state (except maybe Alaska?). But it's just a club to use to beat on the elite's stereotypes of the South.

As an ex-Masshole I can point to bussing and to the Yawkey family.

[Libertymike]

Obama is far more of a racist than Tom Yawkey ever was even though the latter made sure that he was not going to be the first to integrate the game.

Obama, otoh, is a beneficiary of state sponsored racism. He is also a supporter of state sponsored racism. He continues to support the wholesale looting of property so that negros get special favors from Massa.

[Xenocles]

Yes, if by "not the first" you mean "the last team in the league to do so."

[Libertymike]

They were the last team to do so.

In football, the Redskins only did so with Bobby Mitchell some 3-4 years after Pumpsie Green first donned a Sox uniform.

[John]

http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....a-clinton/

Vote fraud is just a right wing meme.

[Matrix]

I posted that sometime last week using the same line "voter fraud is just a right wing meme"

[John]

Sorry to copy your act. How bad does vote fraud have to be to get you 8 years? In a state like Wisconsin, guys who beat up old ladies wouldn't get that kind of time.

[Matrix]

Notice how most of these voter faud things come from areas outside of "TEH RACIST SOUTH!!!11!!!one!!"

[UnCivilServant]

Like Deep Blue Troy New York.

[Tony]

No that's just where Republican legislatures put 1,000 people to a polling place in 90% white areas and 10,000 people to a polling place in minority-heavy areas.

But that's not nearly as big a threat to democracy as one or two anecdotes of fraud.

[John]

Whatever lies you tell yourself Tony. It is funny. Shreek comes on here and lies because it is his job to lie for the cause. You come on here and lie because you think the lies are true.

[Libertymike]

That there be a qualitative difference.

[Loki]

Vote fraud is just a right wing meme.

Except when a Rethuglican wins. Then it's "OMGZ STOLEN ELEKSHUN!!!111!!!!" for at least the next 13 years.

[Marginal]

When the WH petition that demanded that Carmen Ortiz (Swartz's prosecutor) be removed, I think the White House said we don't do firings or pardons via petition. Thanks for playing, though!

[The Late P Brooks]

"The President is sensitive to your concerns, but after due consideration and consultation with people who know vastly more about these vital affairs of state than a rabble of ignorant hicks such as yourselves, we have decided to ignore your pointless whining."

[plusafdotcom]

Ah, I was wondering if anyone here had, like me, actually gotten their "personal response" after having signed one of those WH online petitions...

:))))

I got a reply much like the one you posted... a sort of "Thank you SO much for sharing that concern and bringing it to our attention, BUT we're not changing our position at all... feel better now?"

or as we used to learn in the est Training, "Thank you for sharing that" is a socially acceptable way of saying "Fuck You."

Not much has changed.

[Not Sure]

He's responded so well in the past.

[Rich]

"Read and noted."

[John]

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news.....58541.html

Parents in New Jersey of all places actually angry about school plan for random drug tests of students. I am sure the tyrant school administrators will do it anyway. But I am really kind of surprised the parents were not all for it.

[UnCivilServant]

"My snowflake isn't on drugs!"

[John]

Which is a perfectly acceptable reason for a parent to tell the school to go fuck themselves.

[UnCivilServant]

I wasn't arguing either side, just filling in why the parents were against it because of your expressed surprise.

[Rich]

"Other than *Ritalin*, of course!"

[sloopyinca]

Will their response be video of the planes flying into the twin towers or will it be the bombs going off at the Boston marathon? WH staffers are furiously putting together their focus group to see which way they'll go.

[Rich]

Ima say Boston.

That would help maximize the absurdity.

[John]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....-1.1381703

Remember, there is no reason for a ordinary citizen to own a gun. This woman could have just played dead or gone to the bathroom and solved this whole thing. A gun would not have helped this situation at all.

[UnCivilServant]

I need more details - was the door locked, what is the normal crime rate for the area, why was the homeowner living in New Jersey, why was the homeowner unarmed (aside from living in new jersey)

[John]

The homeowner was unarmed because she lives in New Jersey and it is impossible to own a gun.

The larger point I think is that because legal gun ownership is so difficult and rare in New Jersey, the guy felt safe busting into the house. He had little worries of running into someone with a gun. Only a suicidal lunatic would try such a tactic in a state where gun ownership is common. But in New Jersey, it is a good way to rob someone. Who is going to be home? Who is going to stop you?

[UnCivilServant]

I know, I live in New York. We're still trying to cast of the newest abomination of those who mistake 'gun ban' for 'safety'. I still want to know why the homeowner made the mistake of living in New Jersey.

[John]

Because unless you have the money to live in Manhattan, New York sucks. Seriously, you going to live in Yonkers? Statan Island? Fuck that. I would New Jersey over anywhere in New York outside of the good areas of Manhattan, where no one can afford to live anyway.

[UnCivilServant]

Proximity to that pustule of a city is not a good thing. Even in the capital district (needed th job, job was here) I'm too close.

[sarcasmic]

Q: Why do people in NYC appear to be pissed all the time?

A: You would be too if the light at the end of the tunnel was New Jersey.

[KDN]

New Jersey is theoretically a great place. We have beaches, woods, mountains, two major cities, and a slew of beautiful suburban downtowns all within two hours of any point in the state. Unfortunately, we also have 5 irredeemable poster children of urban decay, an abusive and brazenly corrupt government, and a ton of ex-NYC residents that don't know how to mind their own fucking business and treat the township like an HOA.

[John]

The suburbs of North Jersey are great. They are gorgeous and should be great places to live.

[Libertymike]

Oakland?

Pompton Lakes?

Parsippany?

Morristown?

[KDN]

Millburn is a very nice town within spitting distance of the city. However, it's even closer to Irvington, which might be the worst town in America east of Buffalo. The reason she got robbed is because there is nothing left to steal in Irvington.

This should remind us all why we shouldn't be so quick to advocate the dismantling of social welfare programs: when poor folks can't steal from each other, they're going to break into your house and take your shit.

[UnCivilServant]

Actually that was our defense mechanism when I was growing up. We had nothing to steal, and our neighbors knew it.

[Sevo]

"This should remind us all why we shouldn't be so quick to advocate the dismantling of social welfare programs: when poor folks can't steal from each other, they're going to break into your house and take your shit."

Sorry, I don't pay for protection rackets.

[KDN]

It wasn't a serious suggestion.

[Xenocles]

"Sorry, I don't pay for protection rackets."

Pretty nice of them to let you visit reason.com in prison.

[sarcasmic]

But, but, but the intention is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals!

Why do you want criminals to have guns?

[UnCivilServant]

Because they need to defend themselves from other criminals. So long as the citizendry is more heavily armed than the criminals or the police, all will be well.

[WTF]

The homeowner was unarmed because she lives in New Jersey and it is impossible to own a gun.

No, it is not at all impossible to own a gun in NJ - I have quite a few. It is quite impossible to get a concealed carry permit, though.

[John]

So New Jersey is not like New York? How hard is it to buy and legally own a gun there?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Then they would be reading the burglar's name off a list in a demonstration against "gun violence."

[John]

+100

[Fatty Bolger]

BREAKING: White House issues official response to Snowden pardon petition

[Rich]

Petition Calling For Edward Snowden To Be Pardoned Will Get White House Response

The bad news is: The response will be TS and seen only by the FISC.

[Loki]

Petition Calling For Edward Snowden To Be Pardoned Will Get White House Response

Obama: "Let me be clear: fuck you, that'w why."

Something tells me the FISA court is going to be busy with over 100,000 new wiretap warrants...

[C.E. Mills]

Pardon only after forty-year prison stint has been served.

[Jim in Denver]

My only issue with asking for a pardon is that it implies he did something wrong to begin with.