One of the biggest US tax frauds ever, polluted and corrupted Zambia, fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution (just the tax thing of course), hired lobbyists, sponsored congress library and some politicians, pardoned by Bill Clinton. An example of class justice, corruption and other things wrong in the US, but as you said: nothing out of the ordinary...
I'm afraid Snowden did not make enough money to pay off the right people, like Rich did.
Except, of course, he was rich and well connected.
If Trump wins then what difference does it make?
Unless the role of the elected officials of that state is to make sure they and their friends become obscenely rich, and have impunity even when they do illegal things.
There is a point where having so much control over other people's lives can be considered a problem.
Now maybe it wouldn't be so bad if your own hard work indeed did produced that much value the world. But that's moot: virtually nobody gets rich by working βin practice, they got there by having other people work for them. That is, they accumulate the power of controlling other people's lives by controlling other people's lives in the first place.
Anarcho-capitalism is such an oxymoron.
Based on Obama's track record on privacy and surveillance I'm not sure what you think this comment would be.
What about Jeffrey Sterling?
He might have been the only one at the time.
You may have just blown Hayden's mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Loring_Morison
Samuel Loring Morison (born October 30, 1944) is a former American intelligence professional, who was convicted of espionage and theft of government property in 1985, and pardoned in 2001. He was "the only [American] government official ever convicted for giving classified information to the press."
Seems pretty similar superficially. I wonder if he'll do it, Obama.
Also something quite odd is the number of pardons that seem a bit suspect. For instance Clinton pardoned his own brother. And Marc Rich. Think what you may of him (famous commodity trader, lots of shady deals rumoured), but his crime doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary.
Pardoning Snowden would be a comment on the surveillance state, something worthwhile to talk about. Pardoning some guy who smuggled some oil doesn't seem to have a purpose in regards to the state's role in society.