Report: NSA Mulls Snowden Amnesty

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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On an upcoming interview on 60 Minutes, it was disclosed that a possible amnesty deal may be forthcoming for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, in exchange for the return of unreleased security documents.

The reason for granting amnesty is as a recognition that Snowden was, in fact, a whistleblower, who exposed an agency that had gone way too far and then directly lied to Congress about it.
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I hope that he doesn't take the deal, and instead releases the information he's still holding. If they're even willing to make a single concession it means that they are afraid of the stick of dynamite he's holding.
 
He must be holding back some juicy stuff if they're willing to make that kind of an agreement.
 
Lith1um said:
I hope that he doesn't take the deal, and instead releases the information he's still holding. If they're even willing to make a single concession it means that they are afraid of the stick of dynamite he's holding.
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This, the fact they're doing it under the guise of "whistleblower" really makes you wonder what else he has on them.
 
A ploy to get their hands on Snowden. If it works, and people are up in arms over the fake amnesty who cares? The NSA certainly does not.
My guess is that they have already done all that needs to be done to mitigate damage should he release more of it. The NSA really does not care about embarrassment at this point. The US government is already the laughing stock of the rest of the world. What ever Snowden has left is not likely any more damaging to the US than the last four, administrations have been.
 
I wouldn't want to be under Putin's thumb .. no matter what. That guy is a psychopath.
 
Godmachine said:
I wouldn't want to be under Putin's thumb .. no matter what. That guy is a psychopath.
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I'd vote for him any day.

Putin-rides-a-bear_zps7104bc21.jpg
 
Hope you like being in jail for the rest of your natural life then for attempting things you probably take for granted where you are. I'm sure you'll love having to clean that bears balls with your tongue whenever Putin is feeling kind :)
 
Snowden holds no less than 200,000 classified NSA documents. I'm pretty sure anything he will release at this point will be just as damning, if not even more so, than previous reports.
 
Spidey329 said:
This, the fact they're doing it under the guise of "whistleblower" really makes you wonder what else he has on them.
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Thing is...he legally has none of the protections of whistleblower status. Like Snowden or hate him...he fails every single litmus test to have whistleblower status applied to him.
 
Talyrius said:
He must be holding back some juicy stuff if they're willing to make that kind of an agreement.
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That's what I'm thinking. He must really have them over a barrel. It was reported that Snowden may in fact have up to 1.7 million classified documents as opposed to 200,000. He can lay the organization bare.
 
Like Snowden or hate him...he fails every single litmus test to have whistleblower status applied to him.
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Why not? He deserves it in my opinion.
As if we have tests to be a whistleblower.
The guy leaked info that we needed to hear and that was not going to be released. He is a whistleblower. I do not know how you can think otherwise.
 
BladeVenom said:
Still better than Obama.
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He's a Persian cat and a volcano hide out away from comic villain-hood and he's "still better than Obama"?

I suppose he is the kind of ultra-conservative totalitarian that the American right wants these days since democracy is getting in the way of halting all progress.
 
{NG}Fidel said:
Why not? He deserves it in my opinion.
As if we have tests to be a whistleblower.
The guy leaked info that we needed to hear and that was not going to be released. He is a whistleblower. I do not know how you can think otherwise.
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It is quite simple.

We DO have litmus tests legally for who qualifies as a whistleblower status and therefore gets protected. The issue has arrived at the Supreme Court more than a few times...and per the case law rulings, Snowden fails every single litmus test of which there are many.

Snowden is a disgruntled employee who was knowingly hired to do some very unethical yet legal things that were regular and purposeful in their occurence. That last sentence outlines in a nutshell the legal tests and why he failed them. He is NOT a whistleblower.
 
I would not be surprised if he holds documents proving that the NSA and friends are in fact Google, Microsoft or who knows..Paypal, IBM? Some number of social media companies like ancestry.com or even so called antivirus companies like McAfee.
Hardware companies? Cisco?

At this point the question is..what has not been comprim9sed?
 
Twisted Kidney said:
He's a Persian cat and a volcano hide out away from comic villain-hood and he's "still better than Obama"?

I suppose he is the kind of ultra-conservative totalitarian that the American right wants these days since democracy is getting in the way of halting all progress.
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The word "progress" implies change for the better. There is some disagreement on whether certain changes are for the better or worse.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
He's a Persian cat and a volcano hide out away from comic villain-hood and he's "still better than Obama"?

I suppose he is the kind of ultra-conservative totalitarian that the American right wants these days since democracy is getting in the way of halting all progress.
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No, the American right does not want Putin. They want people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, but are told that those guys are wacky doodle crazy extremist nutjobs, who should be more like...um...er...trying to think of an example of a better politician these days.

I really hope Snowden doesn't even think of taking this bait. His best bet is probably to get facial reconstruction and try to start over.
 
It has been known he's still holding on the most juicy stuff and NSA just confirmed it. Good job.
 
This annoucement isn't for Snowden. It's damage control (in a PR sense) for the NSA. By doing this, they can try to convince people that they recognize that they've done Snowden wrong and want to make amends by giving him amnesty. I highly doubt Snowden will come down with a fatal case of the stupids and consider this offer seriously. But now supporters of the NSA (and government intrusion in the name of public safety) can point to it and say that the NSA is trying to work with Snowden by holding out an olive branch of sorts.

Stay in Russia, Snowden, though I doubt you need me to tell you that.
 
Technikal said:
I would not be surprised if he holds documents proving that the NSA and friends are in fact Google, Microsoft or who knows..Paypal, IBM? Some number of social media companies like ancestry.com or even so called antivirus companies like McAfee.
Hardware companies? Cisco?

At this point the question is..what has not been comprim9sed?
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The offshore tax shelter accounts of American celebrities, corporations, their heads, and our politicians. That would have been the one thing which may have finally pulled the wool off of everyone's eyes. Rudolph Elmer and Julian Assange came close, but that doesn't stop people from painting Assange as an asshat no matter what he tried to do. I guess some people like being owned and would rather kill the messenger.
 
Stiletto said:
No, the American right does not want Putin. They want people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, but are told that those guys are wacky doodle crazy extremist nutjobs, who should be more like...um...er...trying to think of an example of a better politician these days..
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The right wanting a totalitarian ts a persistent smear that goes back to Stalin. Like Alex Huxley's quote, "62,400 repetitions equal on truth".
 
Skripka said:
It is quite simple.

We DO have litmus tests legally for who qualifies as a whistleblower status and therefore gets protected. The issue has arrived at the Supreme Court more than a few times...and per the case law rulings, Snowden fails every single litmus test of which there are many.

Snowden is a disgruntled employee who was knowingly hired to do some very unethical yet legal things that were regular and purposeful in their occurence. That last sentence outlines in a nutshell the legal tests and why he failed them. He is NOT a whistleblower.
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It's not about what Snowden himself did as employment, it's about the information he discovered. The warrantless domestic mass surveillance that Snowden exposed is not legal, so in a sense he is a whistleblower. Nice spin though.

And, who gives a fuck if he's disgruntled? I'd be disgruntled too if I knew what he knew.
 
Madoc said:
This annoucement isn't for Snowden. It's damage control (in a PR sense) for the NSA. By doing this, they can try to convince people that they recognize that they've done Snowden wrong and want to make amends by giving him amnesty. I highly doubt Snowden will come down with a fatal case of the stupids and consider this offer seriously. But now supporters of the NSA (and government intrusion in the name of public safety) can point to it and say that the NSA is trying to work with Snowden by holding out an olive branch of sorts.

Stay in Russia, Snowden, though I doubt you need me to tell you that.
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He's probably finding life of giving secrets to other countries isn't what is was cracked up to be, especially in Russia. And if he thought he was being watched by the NSA, the KGB replacement agency likely knows each time he takes a dump. He probably has some KGB relic as a perma-friend at all times.
 
Madoc said:
This annoucement isn't for Snowden. It's damage control (in a PR sense) for the NSA. By doing this, they can try to convince people that they recognize that they've done Snowden wrong and want to make amends by giving him amnesty. I highly doubt Snowden will come down with a fatal case of the stupids and consider this offer seriously. But now supporters of the NSA (and government intrusion in the name of public safety) can point to it and say that the NSA is trying to work with Snowden by holding out an olive branch of sorts.

Stay in Russia, Snowden, though I doubt you need me to tell you that.
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I watched an interview which I can't recall at the moment, but one of the panelists that was pro NSA mass warrantless surveillance addressed one of the anti warrantless panelists and asked him a simple question, "If this was 1940 and the Enigma Code was cracked, would you be standing here in opposition claiming that it was unethical for us to use it?".

That is the mentality of some of the people at the NSA. They see us as being in a perpetual state of war now that we have declared a war on terror. They see you as crazy, a trouble maker, a subversive, they see you as wanting to place the country in jeopardy. Some of them will see you as naïve, romantic, patriotic, and misguided. But some of them will just see you as an enemy within and despise you as much as you despise them. Between the drug war, the war on terror, and the declared wars we have every 5 to 10 years or so, we are in a perpetual state of war and some people relish living that way.

Undoubtedly there are good men and women working at the NSA, at every level of our government, at every level of law enforcement. But any power which you grant to an administration you dislike and disapprove of, will eventually be inherited by one that dislikes you, and doesn't trust you. The founding fathers knew this much, so they designed a system of checks and balances which required specific warrants to be approved by a judge in order to prevent misuse of such staggering powers.
 
Lith1um said:
It's not about what Snowden himself did as employment, it's about the information he discovered. The warrantless domestic mass surveillance that Snowden exposed is not legal, so in a sense he is a whistleblower. Nice spin though.

And, who gives a fuck if he's disgruntled? I'd be disgruntled too if I knew what he knew.
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Um Yes. It is ENTIRELY about what Snowden did for employment. That is entirely it. And you're the one spinning without any regard for facts and law. Where to begin?

To qualify as a whistleblower...Snowden must disclose information on illegal acts or criminal wrong doing. The amazing thing about all these NSA programs, is that they're legal thanks to FISA/Patriot Act etc. No whistleblower status for Snowden right there.

Persons are not protected via whistleblower laws if they speak pursuant to their regular job duties. Snowden was contracted by the NSA-WTF did he think he was going to do? Hand out lollipops to children?

Private contractors (like Snowden) are exempt from whistleblower protections if their disclosure violates the law. I'm roughly 101% certain Snowden outing highly classified governmental surveillance programs does this.
.
.
.
And so on.

If I, like Snowden, out my employer's dirty (yet legal) laundry I am not a whistleblower and niether is Snowden. Legally speaking. I'm a disgruntled employee.
 
I don't want a Putin—I want an American Augusto Pinochet.
 
We are going to collapse and civil war is inevitable and all your opinions dont matter. Hyper liberalism and hyper conservatism has created the flsmethrower that is burning Rome the 2nd to the ground. People havent learned from history and we are doomed to repeat it. Get ready for hardcore tyranny its on a platter waiting to be served.
 
Skripka said:
Um Yes. It is ENTIRELY about what Snowden did for employment. That is entirely it. And you're the one spinning without any regard for facts and law. Where to begin?

To qualify as a whistleblower...Snowden must disclose information on illegal acts or criminal wrong doing. The amazing thing about all these NSA programs, is that they're legal thanks to FISA/Patriot Act etc. No whistleblower status for Snowden right there.

Persons are not protected via whistleblower laws if they speak pursuant to their regular job duties. Snowden was contracted by the NSA-WTF did he think he was going to do? Hand out lollipops to children?

Private contractors (like Snowden) are exempt from whistleblower protections if their disclosure violates the law. I'm roughly 101% certain Snowden outing highly classified governmental surveillance programs does this.
.
.
.
And so on.

If I, like Snowden, out my employer's dirty (yet legal) laundry I am not a whistleblower and niether is Snowden. Legally speaking. I'm a disgruntled employee.
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The problem is the way the system is setup, there is basically no way to be a whistle blower because of the rules/regulations/laws dealing with the government.
 
darkstarcow said:
The problem is the way the system is setup, there is basically no way to be a whistle blower because of the rules/regulations/laws dealing with the government.
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Not necessarily the government as a whole...but anything that can be dubbed "national security", double plus yes.

There have been laws passed to widen the protection....but they ended up landing in case law....with the conservatives on the SCOTUS stripping them down to what we have. Course it doesn't help matters that lots of people sue for the status when it doesn't/shouldn't apply.
 
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