I expect one more like this, these days:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-stat...

That is, still no response at all, 4 months later.

That rule was put in place after the Swartz petition passed the initial limit of 25,000 in the first day or two. At the time of the change, they specifically said the new 100,000 limit would only apply to new petitions, so the Swartz petition was still under the original 25,000 signature rule.

Remember what Snowden said about policies changing?

For those of us who don't know, what did Snowden say about policies changing?

> More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...

This petition was created when the goal was 25,000 signatures, before it was increased to 100,000.

At the time it was 25,000.

> SIGNATURES NEEDED BY FEBRUARY 11, 2013 TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000

Yes, but honestly that's OK. It's a small step, but for the president to have to come out and say, "I recognize that a significant number of the American people support this man who is convicted of espionage, but..." is a pretty novel thing.

100,000 isn't a significant number of people. You are living in a HN echo chamber. I'm not sure most Americans care.

I'd love to know exactly what the NSA is doing. There needs to be some sort of oversight, of course, but they certainly have a job to do. I recently heard former President Clinton talk about it and he was somewhat convincing that there are certain restrictions.

At any rate, aren't we venturing into politics and opinions?

> I'm not sure most Americans care.

And of those that do care, a majority feel that he committed treason and needs to be brought to justice.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/17/cnn-poll-maj...

That's one reason I feel Snowden has hurt his cause by digging in for so much.

Another leak or two (especially about China, who most Americans feel are one step away from being the next U.S.S.R. anyways) and Obama, DNI, Congress, and basically everyone will be able to smooth the whole thing over by painting it with the traitor brush.

I really think Snowden has tried to bite off more than he can chew. At first I believed him that he wanted a debate about how the NSA was being used and how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands. Now I think he really wants to gut the whole thing entirely.

But Americans don't want that, they want an agency whose job it is to protect COMSEC, break others' COMSEC and especially to detect and root out terror cells and other anti-U.S. crime before it reaches our shores. The more Snowden aligns his goals with the destruction of the NSA and CIA the more I think he will get people to turn on him completely.

Don't get me wrong; I want that utopia where no one commits crime, we don't need money, everyone's interested are 100% aligned and we just explore the galaxy as peaceful peoples. But if we ever achieve that it would be 1000 times more remarkable than the Sistine Chapel. And you can bet your ass they wouldn't have completed the Sistine Chapel had they torn down all that ugly scaffolding ⅓rd of the way through.

What is hurting his cause is a) making this about him and continuing to talk so we don't have to address the issues and b) releasing a lot of information that doesn't have to do with domestic intelligence (china, g8 spying etc) distracting people even more and turning the public against himc) refusing to talk about what technical capabilities the NSA has and framing the conversation, instead; we see releases of information (PRISM) that are immediately followed by a rush to figure out the actual capabilities of the program, this confuses the public and muddles the waters even more

Snowden should have released the slide and then explained exactly what is wrong with the program. Instead, he did a document dump and followed that up by giving a reveal all interview that shifts the focus from the NSA onto him and his motivations. Snowden still hasn't addressed what he technically knows about PRISM.

He also claimed in his interview he could get access to the presidents email. If he thought that was a big issue he should have gone into detail about it for reporters(the target list, how he could do it as a network administrator etc.) and supported his charge. Instead, it is a one off statement in the context of a long interview where he essentially lays out a political reasoning for why he has done what he did. Snowden still hasn't addressed any of the issues of concern about the NSA and the (lack of)oversight exercised over the agency and its programs.

He had a perfect opportunity to put his concerns before the public and I feel he blew it.

Yeah that's one thing I don't from yet. Why he is not giving any technical information about prism. I can only conclude he doesn't really know much about it. Maybe he got hold off this one slide deck and jumped to conclusions.

Don't forget that's still 44% of people who care.

>At any rate, aren't we venturing into politics and opinions?

Because politics and opinions are something they do in Washington and they don't affect our lives / the tech scene?

Because most people in tech, talk about politics without good understanding.

What else is HN supposed to be for, tech startups and self-improvement tips?

HN doesn't have tags and filters. Isn't reddit a better forum? If we fill the front page with "NSA stories", politics, opinion pieces, etc., it will drown everything else out.

As a community we can be anything we want it to be. The majority will decide.

I'm sure he does realize it already, as does the DoJ and NSA. It doesn't matter to them. If you leak Top Secret material it better be something as damning as the assassination of a politician or anything along those lines, else you won't be shown any mercy by the government.

It's really just a matter of "50 years, or life without parole" at this point.

Exactly. Which is why the petition matters - it forces a response from the White House. (Obama promised to respond to each petition that reaches 100,000 signatures)

These petitions don't really seem to matter -- there are plenty without a response. Previously, the administration "promised" to respond to all w/ 25,000 signatures. Now it's 100k.

What policies have been affected in any way by these things? Takes about 5 seconds to sign one once you have an account, so the results seem to be pretty close to the effort it requires from the public.

Voted for Obama twice but he's just as much of a liar as any other politician.

"Voted for Obama twice but he's just as much of a liar as any other politician."

Then why did you vote for him? You had a lot of other options:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_third_party_and_...

Not to be off-topic but because you asked...

Because the only other real options for P/VP in 2008 and 2012 were even scarier to me each time, and I live in a swing state. I also wasn't wowed by the third party candidates (but have voted for third party candidates before).

The petitions are a good way to gather a list of names for analysis at a later date... just saying!

> it forces a response from the White House.

It doesn't force anything. They don't have to respond and they usually don't, when it's not convenient for them. It's just a user-created poll on their website.

"Obama promised"

After all that has happened, it amazes me that anyone would put any value on a promise made by President Obama.

Obama promised a lot of things (and didn't act upon those promises)!

One-line posts rarely contribute anything. This is an off-topic jab with no support. Even examples and support for each would not make this post appropriate since this submission is about the petition, not the progress Obama has made on his promises.

and you're doing such a good job of policing the rest of the thread , too!

The petition site was implemented by Obama's cabinet. It was made as a way to make it seem as if his cabinet was more technologically savyy than others(along with "THE FIRST PRESIDENT WITH A SMARTPHONE!"), and allowed for people to think that the platform would increase transparency in governance.

Obama's cabinet decides how to respond to petitions. I think the parent of your reply, although simple in its' phrasing, is pertinent to the discussion at hand.

Ones' history does play out in the judgment that people make, and the fact that the President has broken OTHER promises is probably good reason to suspect his intentions in the future (such as the promise of a real reply@100k)

And was awarded a Nobel prize..

I'm not sure you have to be an American to sign these petitions.

You mean "suspected" of espionage.

Its sad that it took so long spite of being all over HN, Reddit, /. Etc.

Shows that the tech community is not as big as we think and/or is apathetic to even filling a form, forget about peaceful marches. This is why politicians don't care and don't need to care about things that are important to only the tech crowd.

The numbers are just not there. There are lots of posts, tens of thousands of comments, even more up votes, but when the rubber meets the road, there is nothing. And the people with lots of money in the tech field don't care to part some for social change or to form PAC. We have no one else to blame for this but ourselves for things like the Aarons case and the state of affairs. Politicians have zero reasons to care one bit when a simple online petition can't make 100k votes all over the US in 2 weeks of non stop and over the top coverage in tech circles and going viral.

I wonder...how many people are not apathetic but scared to sign a petition like that?

Also I think many people aren't apathetic about the issue, they're apathetic about the White House's laughable petitioning system.

"people are not apathetic but scared to sign"

That's exactly what this surveillance is doing: killing free speech by intimidation is killing democracy.

Or maybe not everyone agrees with you. There's been a lot of discussion about the 'means', but not much about the 'ends'. The 'ends' is the same as giving nuclear secrets to Iran or North Korea.

So are you saying the public is now equated to being the enemy of the state?

Perhaps it could be due to the fact that, given all past evidence, the chance of this specific petition actually doing anything of any importance is extremely small.

Every time anything even mildly controversial has gotten the signatures required, it is either ignored or replied to with a template answer.

Perhaps one could get a little fatigued after continuous failure to elicit change.

This petition wont change anything.

We have REAL petitions every 2/4/6 years. It's called an election. You want change, that's how you get it.

How will candidates know what platform to offer if we don't tell them what matters to us? If you wait till election season it's too late, they'll be terrified of changing their positions and being a "flip flopper" or a "chameleon". Government is like a giant cruiser, you can't wait till the last minute to change its direction if there's an iceberg ahead, you have to start steering early.

Well, just as an example, I wrote a letter to my particular Senators and Representatives. I talked about my support for them during the past election and pointed to my contributions to their campaign.

I also made a point to make my voice an individualized one that connected my particular concern with a specific issue. I made my opinion personally known to their staff (the people who REALLY read the letters) and tried to educate them about my specific concerns.

So, yeah, I participate in the process by being educated about the issues, educating my elected representatives about the issues, and then highlighting that my continued support for them as an elected representative depends on my determination of how good of a job they are doing at just that.

That's why I'm poo-poo'ing this petition stuff. It's too general, too diffuse, not aimed at a particular politician with real influence, and ultimately going to be a wasted effort. It'll be ignored.

That's where Alexis Ohanian and his group have really done good work. They made a point of getting people to connect directly with their representatives and make it clear where the populace stood. THAT is how stuff gets done.

Slacktivism doesn't get you anywhere since it requires nothing that involves any real EFFORT. Letter writing and phone calling does. Working on campaigns does. Visiting representatives and senators does. Clicking a button does NOT.

Thank you for this great response, but even more for your civic participation, and I agree with everything you've said here.

I think that these petitions are helpful for the otherwise apolitical, who get a mental cue, "I signed this petition, I am for this cause". Nobody starts out writing letters, and it's not helpful to condescend those who aren't as committed as us.

I think it might be going a bit far to say that nobody starts out writing letters (because I did) but I do appreciate that a petition is a good first step at getting active.

And please interpret my comments in the spirit in which they are intended: to educate people about the way things get done in DC. I equate petition signing with quackery when confronting a dread disease. It's harmful precisely because it deceives the patient about its efficacy.

I lived in the DC area for more than a decade. I have two friends who work in the actual White House, another former colleague who is a serving delegate (VA) and countless others who work on the hill as staffers. I worked as an IT volunteer for the OBA campaign in 2008.

I've asked this question before: "What's the difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement? The Tea Party got their candidates ELECTED and changed the political discourse of the country."

As long as our generation keeps showing up to political gunfights armed with snowballs, we're going to keep getting the water hose.

So, you are satisfied with providing one bit of information every four years? Do you think a Democracy can be sustained with this level of input?

In a two party system they won't understand why you voted that way.

You are joking right?