re: Would you pardon Edward Snowden? Chealsea Manning?

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Which is why those documents weren't dumped like Wikileaks. He intentionally sought out Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Barton Gellman to vet the documents and publish only what was newsworthy and that would not endanger lives.

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Of course, we have absolutely no clue which states or intelligence agencies the entirety (or unreleased portions of) the material was exposed to.

WikiLeaks
35m35 minutes ago
WikiLeaks ?@wikileaks
Obama may grant Manning clemency tomorrow. What happened to Manning?

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You would risk badly alienating the entire intelligence apparatus

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You mean the same intelligence apparatus who embarked on the largest disinformation campaign in American presidential history to try and delegitimize the election of Trump. Most conservatives on here rightly don't believe a word the intelligence community says about the Russian hacking, yet they eat up every word these same people say about Snowden and Manning.

Of course the intelligence community hated these two. If the American people were actually informed of the depth of our surveillance apparatus they might rein it in, which means less money and power for those in the NSA and CIA.

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Would you pardon Edward Snowden?

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Yes, and would probably give him a medal.

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Chealsea Manning?

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No way no how. She can rot in prison.

I think manning has suffered enough. Being confined to solitary confinement and ridiculed at a national level is enough to disuade others. Keeping manning in jail for the rest of her life would be too much. Snowden should be allowed to come home with a guarantee that he will only be looking at 2-5 years probation.

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As opposed to James Clapper? He already committed perjury in front of Congress. And the CIA? Their job is to create propaganda, lie and disinform. And nobody has yet to question the veracity of anything Greenwald and Poitras have written to date.

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I don't like Clapper, I do agree with him on some things re: Trump. Your argument begins with the premise CIA having just completed a huge intelligence operation to discredit Trump, so let's not act as though you're approaching this from a point of fairness.

And I question the shite out of a ton of stuff Greenwald has written. There are plenty of articles where I think GG makes a valid point, but he's a radical ideologue, so I'm certainly not going to accept his often unverifiable accounts about what did/didn't happen with regard to Snowden

No way would I pardon Manning, public servants and the military particularly are held to a higher standard.

Snowden on the other handed gathered his data when he was a private citizen. However, I wish that Snowden had done things in America rather than going to China/Russia . With that in mind, I do not think I would pardon him, maybe try to set him up in a more friendly country that would not have to extradite(maybe UAE, Taiwan, Ukraine). If I felt that the next admin may go after him then potentially pardon his high crimes but not all. He must pay a price for his actions, and we cannot set a precedent that allows government intel agents to go rogue. I just think that he also should get some credit for exposing unconstitutional activity by the US government.

Absolutely

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You mean the same intelligence apparatus who embarked on the largest disinformation campaign in American presidential history to try and delegitimize the election of Trump. Most conservatives on here rightly don't believe a word the intelligence community says about the Russian hacking, yet they eat up every word these same people say about Snowden and Manning.

Of course the intelligence community hated these two. If the American people were actually informed of the depth of our surveillance apparatus they might rein it in, which means less money and power for those in the NSA and CIA.

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great post

As the corporate military industrial complex continues to incrementally crack down on our cherished freedoms, if he is not pardoned or cut a deal, our children will be left to wonder where are the Edward Snowdens of yesteryear.