Pardon Snowden and Assange. Let all the dirt about all the high level people come out no matter how dark dirty or ugly they are, only then does US can start to establish some legitimacy on the world stage.

Something tells me that the high level people wouldn't like that.

Yep. Obama didn’t even pardon Manning. He only commuted her sentence. The difference being that pardoning removes it from your record while commuted is just “time served.”

As much as I liked Obama, his government would take any chance at spying on others.

As a senator, Obama missed around half his votes due to campaigning. During 2008, he missed close to 2/3.

But he made sure to be back in Washington in July to vote for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to retroactively give immunity to AT&T for cooperating with a massive illegal wiretapping operation for the secret services. That was the point where I knew where Obama would stand on mass surveillance.

Congress is like the only job where you can take off as much time as you like and use it to apply for a better job.

Congress also gets to decide their own salary hikes.

political jobs were meant to is how sports was a century back.

Being a pro was actively frowned on in many competitions, you were supposed to play part time and still excel.

Political office never paid well, most politicians had farms and other businesses to keep them afloat. Presidents were famously responsible for hosting functions at the White house, some died broke . Also travelling between d.c and your home state was a significant effort for many so extended breaks was needed.

The rules made sense then , they don't now, however given congress makes laws and it's own rules not much can be done to fix it without constitutional amendments.

Congress gets to decide salary for the next congress.

Limiting it to the next congress doesn’t help when they’re career politicians and just get re-elected.

I mean... it helps, because they can't simply pocket the treasury outright. There is presumably some limit where the voters wouldn't stand for it.

The fact that incumbents are generally reelected does certainly weaken the mechanism.

Any constitutional lawyer will take advantage of the constitution's shortcomings.

There's no reason to believe Snowden or Assange have dirt on high level people that they've been sitting on. Why wouldn't they have released it already?

It would be their ace in the hole

Assange seems like he should have played that card by now.

yeah of course not, but then US just going to destroy their brand and image on the world stage, more and more country will start to move away from US.

I don't trust they wouldn't find a way to still lock them up (note that pardons only apply to federal-level cases, not state)

I also don't feel the current administration (or future ones that prescribe to Trump Doctrine) would even entertain the idea, being that hardcore military support is a large part of their narrative.

Pardon him _and_ make him general auditor of NSA operations ;) Didn’t he prove his patriotism? (I’m half joking because I know management certainly requires a network of connections and long-established friendships he doesn’t have).

The irony of this is so great it must really burn the usg. Russia protecting freedom in 2020...

> Russia can come off like the benevolent country protecting freedom.

Not even the most devoted partisan can claim this was a straight face. Russia kills journalists that speak against Putin, poison political opposition, and paint with microwave radiation any diplomat misguided enough to attempt a dialogue.

It's a mafia state, pure and simple.

Yes, but mafia states do PR so that they aren't recognized as clearly as mafia states.

Yes, and if you are a citizen of a free country that defects to a mafia state to help in their PR efforts, such an action should be called out for what it is.

Snowden didn't defect to Russia. The US trapped him there by revoking his passport while he was traveling through on the way to Ecuador.

Why do otherwise smart people keep saying this over and over?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24860909

Literally no one contends he defected for the purpose of helping Russia's PR, so you calling it out as that is deliberately slanderous.

> Literally no one contends he defected for the purpose of helping Russia's PR

Right, including me. That just happened to be the result.

HN contrarians don't wanna hear that - they routinely gobble up the narrative that the US is less free than Russia and other autocracies.

  > they routinely gobble up the narrative that the US is less free than Russia and other autocracies

I have seen little or no evidence to support this contention, and plenty that does not support it.

There are certainly periodic discussions suggesting the US is less free than it's own PR would suggest, but that's not at all the same thing.

I don't think anyone here is saying that the US is less free than Russia. They're saying that this move has PR to that effect as one of its goals.

I think it's more than Snowden is living the dream of every underappreciated IT worker and to speak against him is to speak against that dream, too.

The more I interact on this website, the more i'm convinced this is exactly it. Snowden represents every IT support monkey disrespected by their org, most of whom check Hacker News daily.

I fully agree IT in every industry deserves more respect, but Snowden is thoroughly enjoying his new found celebrity post-defection. To deny this is part of his motivation is to be blind.

Yeah, gimme some of that gobbledygook.. gobble gobble gobble

Not really, they look like an asylum for criminals, actually. It's also the logical place that people think trump will flee to after he loses the election, because he is as corrupt as they come, and russia will welcome him with open arms. Not exactly a good look for russia.