Snowden has 'offered to go prison' if allowed to come back to U.S.

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Viligant_Warrior

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#1
Snowden renews offer to go to prison in order to return to US

Edward Snowden repeated in a Monday interview his pledge to do time if given the chance to come home from Russia, where he has lived since 2013 after divulging damaging information about federal snooping and fleeing the U.S.

The former National Security Agency contractor flew to Moscow two years ago after revealing information about the previously secret eavesdropping powers, and faces U.S. charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.

Snowden told the BBC that he'd "volunteered to go to prison with the government many times," but had not received a formal plea-deal offer.
If Snowden's serious about being willing to go to prison in the U.S., let him hire a U.S. lawyer instead of that fake international mouthpiece he's employed in Moscow. Let him negotiate terms of surrender and make arrangments to return to the U.S. That is, if he's serious. But he's not.
 
Jan 24, 2012
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#2
I hope he isn't stupid enough to surrender. What a tragic end to a hero's story :(

edward-snowden.jpg
 
Jan 24, 2012
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Whatsoever the government does to Snowden let it be done to them.
Like I couldn't even imagine how it would feel to know that what you are about to do will make you a hero, but will also take your freedom away for the rest of your life, no matter where you live in the world.....and then the people that you attempted to save just shrugged their shoulders and went on about their lives while their gov continued to destroy them.

Seriously, one of the few people to ever achieve William Wallace status.
 
Dec 18, 2013
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#5
Like I couldn't even imagine how it would feel to know that what you are about to do will make you a hero, but will also take your freedom away for the rest of your life, no matter where you live in the world.....and then the people that you attempted to save just shrugged their shoulders and went on about their lives while their gov continued to destroy them.

Seriously, one of the few people to ever achieve William Wallace status.
Snowden is not a hero because he only did what he was supposed to. All he did was confirm to we the kings what we all ready suspected. I agree though that the government has gone too far with their treachery. Because the treacherous government knaves hath chased Snowden into the hands of my chief rival Putin by their threats, so have they been delivered up to defeat and threatened by Putin at every turn.

Snowden must be brought back from Russia. It is not fit that any American citizen be kept in captivity.
 

Utah

Banned
Dec 1, 2014
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#6
Perhaps he should build a clock that looks like a bomb and get invited to the White House.
 
Dec 18, 2013
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#7
Perhaps he should build a clock that looks like a bomb and get invited to the White House.
Though you jest, the sad thing is our government is so backwards that this is actually a feasible idea.
 
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Donkeyfish07

Guest
#8
He has wanted to come back since the whole thing started. He wants assurances of a fair trial though (and presumably a public one). The problem with that is, since he is being charged under the Espionage act of 1917....he can't even argue his defense. Which is that the information he revealed never should have been concealed from the public to begin with. A quote from him on the matter.

"I would love to come home, and would do so if I could get a fair trial, but right now, I can’t."

The current administration would rather let him stay where he is than to make a trial public where he could argue that it shouldn't have been done to begin with without public knowledge. Maybe the next president will allow him that much. He is willing to go to jail if he gets that much out of the trial. I say if you really want to roast him, just give him a public trial and let him make his argument.
 

Desdichado

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2014
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#9
I suspect he wants a change of scenery. Not to mention company.
 
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peppers

Guest
#10
I hope Snowden doesn't come back at all. The information he released should have been public knowledge. I think its our right as humans to know if our privacy is being invaded. Granted I don't know much but what ive heard on the radio and documentaries ive watched, I still believe he did what was right not just for himself but for everyone involved. What I heard was that pretty much the government or nsa whoever is trying to put it back to the patriot act saying that even after 14 years since 9 11 they still need to know who we talk to , what we do, what we talk about, the names of every contact and so forth. It wasn't until I heard about Snowden that I realized my computer was being watched because of what I've researched. Most of the research was for college , some on just curiosity. But every thing you research the words go into a number of data bases and if the words you type match the criteria, bam! your being watched. I didn't know until I researched what usually symbols if you have a virus or if your being watched ( crazy stuff) But depending on how often you type in the same thing is how long they watch anywhere from about 6 months to years.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

Guest
#11
I hope he isn't stupid enough to surrender. What a tragic end to a hero's story :(
Some people's "hero" is another person's traitor. Count me among those who believe he is a traitor.
 
Jan 24, 2012
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Some people's "hero" is another person's traitor. Count me among those who believe he is a traitor.
lol VW you've got to be kidding me. seriously I can see you being against marijuana (still kinda hard to see why you're against legalization though), I can see you supporting what we do in the Middle East (even though I think it's atrocious), but you would call Snowden a traitor for trading his life of freedom and a $200K salary for YOUR freedom. Trading all of that just to let you know "hey, your gov is doing very illegal, UNCONSTITUTIONAL things to YOU".

You can't even explain to me how U.S. soldiers have ever "fought for our freedom" (other than WWII and Korea of course). But I just explained to you how this man fought for your freedom.

lol cmon VW. Surely Bill O'Reilly is for Snowden.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

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#13
lol VW you've got to be kidding me. seriously I can see you being against marijuana (still kinda hard to see why you're against legalization though), I can see you supporting what we do in the Middle East (even though I think it's atrocious), but you would call Snowden a traitor for trading his life of freedom and a $200K salary for YOUR freedom.
No. I call him a traitor for the following reasons:

Not because of the information he leaked, but the manner in which he leaked it. A true whistleblower would have first pursued legal avenues for reining in the NSA, such as seeking out sympathetic members of Congress. We elect people to serve in Congress specifically for the purpose of representing their interests on important matters of state.

A true patriotic whistleblower believes in his or her cause enough to be willing to accept the punishment their disclosures bring. If they truly believe in the righteousness of their cause, they’ll be confident enough that the American people will ultimately come to appreciate their actions and they’ll be pardoned. Snowden’s flight to Hong Kong and then Moscow showed he wasn’t willing to suffer the consequences for his actions, calling into question how much he believed in his cause.

While fleeing abroad certainly made Snowden a coward, it didn’t necessarily preclude him from being a whistleblower. The information he disclosed wasn’t necessarily any less important to restoring Americans’ liberty because of his personal shortcomings.

It has long since become apparent, however, that Snowden should be viewed as a traitor because of the careless ways in which he collected and leaked information. Had Snowden been a whistleblower interested in protecting the American constitution, he would have carefully collected information documenting NSA overreach in spying on Americans. Only that would have been given to the journalists and newspapers Snowden contacted.

Instead, he collected an apparently unknowable amount of information (unknowable to both him and the NSA) and dumped it on the doorsteps of largely foreign newspapers. As he no doubt fully understood, most of these documents contained information pertaining to how the NSA collected intelligence on legitimate foreign targets, not Americans whatsoever.

If you don't understand all this makes him a traitor, then I have to question just how loyal you are to the United States of America.
 
Jan 24, 2012
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No. I call him a traitor for the following reasons:

Not because of the information he leaked, but the manner in which he leaked it. A true whistleblower would have first pursued legal avenues for reining in the NSA, such as seeking out sympathetic members of Congress. We elect people to serve in Congress specifically for the purpose of representing their interests on important matters of state.

A true patriotic whistleblower believes in his or her cause enough to be willing to accept the punishment their disclosures bring. If they truly believe in the righteousness of their cause, they’ll be confident enough that the American people will ultimately come to appreciate their actions and they’ll be pardoned. Snowden’s flight to Hong Kong and then Moscow showed he wasn’t willing to suffer the consequences for his actions, calling into question how much he believed in his cause.

While fleeing abroad certainly made Snowden a coward, it didn’t necessarily preclude him from being a whistleblower. The information he disclosed wasn’t necessarily any less important to restoring Americans’ liberty because of his personal shortcomings.

It has long since become apparent, however, that Snowden should be viewed as a traitor because of the careless ways in which he collected and leaked information. Had Snowden been a whistleblower interested in protecting the American constitution, he would have carefully collected information documenting NSA overreach in spying on Americans. Only that would have been given to the journalists and newspapers Snowden contacted.

Instead, he collected an apparently unknowable amount of information (unknowable to both him and the NSA) and dumped it on the doorsteps of largely foreign newspapers. As he no doubt fully understood, most of these documents contained information pertaining to how the NSA collected intelligence on legitimate foreign targets, not Americans whatsoever.

If you don't understand all this makes him a traitor, then I have to question just how loyal you are to the United States of America.
Let me respond in reverse order to your post. I'll respond to the last part now, and the rest later.

Let me make one thing clear, I have NO loyalty for the Marxist States of America.

I have NO loyalty for ANY country that orders its men to stay lying in bed silenty while little Afghani boys scream as they are being sodomized in the ally bunkers next door.

I have NO loyalty for ANY country that burns DROVES of men, women, and children (INFANTS!) to death on its own soil.

I have NO loyalty for ANY country that flies two drones into buildings (to enter a region and eliminate documents of stolen money in the Pentagon) and then mourns those who have died like they aren't even guilty.

The United States of America died around 1960. It was a great country, with great ideals, moral people, and a thirst for justice. The baby boomer generation is just now starting to realize what every younger generation has known since the early 90s, that we don't live in the United States of America anymore. We live in a highly sophisticated dictatorship that sports a historical flag bearing stars and stripes. That's why I feel nothing when I see people burning the U.S. flag or stomping on it. It's like stomping on a Mayan vase. Or throwing an Ancient Egyption tablet on the ground, shattering it. It means nothing anymore. It represents nothing.

It's silly to see "biker patriots" protesting this and that. Driving here and there. It's silly to see the Bill O'Reilly/Ann Coulter cult talking about how much change this country needs, how we need to get back to the "old ways", how our constitution is so great....when it hasn't been followed consistently for 15 years...and nobody is doing anything about these things other than voicing their opinions on the internet.

So no. I'm not a silly "patriot" that walks around with an "American" flag on my shirt, carries an AR15 around in public like it's going to matter when the gov finally makes it's move for a gun grab, and thinks we are in the Middle East for just reasons. My loyalty is to the great people that occupy this piece of land. I'd die for them, easily. Not some group of men tell me they now control it and call it a "country" after genociding the great people who were already here.
 
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Jan 24, 2012
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Part 2

No. I call him a traitor for the following reasons:

Not because of the information he leaked, but the manner in which he leaked it. A true whistleblower would have first pursued legal avenues for reining in the NSA, such as seeking out sympathetic members of Congress. We elect people to serve in Congress specifically for the purpose of representing their interests on important matters of state.
I'm afraid this isn't true or feasible. There are no "sympathetic" members of Congress to Snowden's actions. He exposed THEM. He exposed the whole government, not just the NSA. We may have elected members of Congress to represent our interests in the 50s, but I can tell you without a doubt that there isn't a single member of Congress that's looking out for you and I. It's not the NSA that's after him, they aren't some rogue entity in the gov. The gov is fully interconnected now. There are very little checks and balances left.



A true patriotic whistleblower believes in his or her cause enough to be willing to accept the punishment their disclosures bring. If they truly believe in the righteousness of their cause, they’ll be confident enough that the American people will ultimately come to appreciate their actions and they’ll be pardoned. Snowden’s flight to Hong Kong and then Moscow showed he wasn’t willing to suffer the consequences for his actions, calling into question how much he believed in his cause.
I have yet to read a whistle-blower manual that says you gotta turn yourself in like a complete idiot to be a legit whistle-blower. When, in the history of the U.S., has there ever been enough public support that the government got all soft and gooey and pardoned an enemy of the state? Never. We sure didn't come through for Bradley Manning did we?

While fleeing abroad certainly made Snowden a coward, it didn’t necessarily preclude him from being a whistleblower. The information he disclosed wasn’t necessarily any less important to restoring Americans’ liberty because of his personal shortcomings.

It has long since become apparent, however, that Snowden should be viewed as a traitor because of the careless ways in which he collected and leaked information. Had Snowden been a whistleblower interested in protecting the American constitution, he would have carefully collected information documenting NSA overreach in spying on Americans. Only that would have been given to the journalists and newspapers Snowden contacted.

Instead, he collected an apparently unknowable amount of information (unknowable to both him and the NSA) and dumped it on the doorsteps of largely foreign newspapers. As he no doubt fully understood, most of these documents contained information pertaining to how the NSA collected intelligence on legitimate foreign targets, not Americans whatsoever.

If you don't understand all this makes him a traitor, then I have to question just how loyal you are to the United States of America.
K, first of all, being at such a high security level, I don't think he had a lot of time to play around on his computer, surfing through thousands of files to occasionally find one document that was incriminating to the U.S. I'm sure the man found that something wasn't right and had to scoop as much info as he could (and as FAST as he could) from the systems in enough time to snake away without getting killed.

The files that had nothing to do with what the NSA was doing to us? Collateral damage. It was good enough for federal baby-killers in Waco TX, wasn't it?
 
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Angela53510

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2011
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I watched CitizenFour last week. It is the documentary about Snowden. I think it is incredibly revealing about the invasion of privacy, to say nothing about the response of the American government to his documented claims. Charging him with espionage?? More likely trying to save face in light of the violations of American law that the government has been a part of.

If it was just about the US, it would be one thing. But this invasion of privacy extends to really every country in the world. They are collecting data which is not warranted, on the bogus claims of terrorism and protecting America. And that means that the US is collecting data about me. I am NOT impressed!

In fact, Snowden is beyond a hero! He had the fortitude to come forward and implicate the American government for their evil is something that, should the Lord tarry, is going to be remembered far into the future.

The question is though, is the average global citizen going to react to this travesty of illegal information tapping and data collection, or are they going to call Snowden a traitor, for exposing the truth?
 
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Donkeyfish07

Guest
#17
I watched CitizenFour last week. It is the documentary about Snowden. I think it is incredibly revealing about the invasion of privacy, to say nothing about the response of the American government to his documented claims. Charging him with espionage?? More likely trying to save face in light of the violations of American law that the government has been a part of.

If it was just about the US, it would be one thing. But this invasion of privacy extends to really every country in the world. They are collecting data which is not warranted, on the bogus claims of terrorism and protecting America. And that means that the US is collecting data about me. I am NOT impressed!

In fact, Snowden is beyond a hero! He had the fortitude to come forward and implicate the American government for their evil is something that, should the Lord tarry, is going to be remembered far into the future.

The question is though, is the average global citizen going to react to this travesty of illegal information tapping and data collection, or are they going to call Snowden a traitor, for exposing the truth?
Agreed. It's generally only American, Australian, and British citizens who are anti-snowden. Speaking as an American, we are the only ones politically brainwashed enough to abandon logical thinking and embrace irrationality in order to perpetuate our political ideologies (at least on this one particular matter, most countries do this to an equal extent on other matters). Logic itself is in short supply these days.

For example "It is illegal to tell the public that you have proof that people in power are doing illegal things and show it to them" and "It is illegal to give information to the press that proves a government is conducting hostile illegal activities against their constituents". And "anyone who disagrees with the previous two statements is a traitor". That pretty much sums up the psychology of people in a lot of first world English speaking countries.

You can call it national security if you want, but no matter what label you slap on it it is just moronic babbling meant to perpetuate the reign of those committing the crimes.
 
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Viligant_Warrior

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#18
I don't care how "righteous" or "just" a cause might be, no cause justifies treason, and that's exactly what Snowden committed. If you're going to justify what he did, then you could justify the assassination of someone whose policies you don't like. That's ridiculous. So is giving Snowden a pass. He needs to face the allegations against him like a man, as I said in that post earlier. If you guys don't care for that viewpoint, tough. It's mine, and I won't change it.
 
Dec 18, 2013
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I don't care how "righteous" or "just" a cause might be, no cause justifies treason, and that's exactly what Snowden committed. If you're going to justify what he did, then you could justify the assassination of someone whose policies you don't like. That's ridiculous. So is giving Snowden a pass. He needs to face the allegations against him like a man, as I said in that post earlier. If you guys don't care for that viewpoint, tough. It's mine, and I won't change it.
If Snowden is guilty of treason, how much moreso is the vast majority of the Congress and Bush and Obama? So we have two options of justice here. The first option is Snowden and most the government must be punished for treason and we must pull down their houses and build scaffolds with the wood thereof and hang them upon it. The only alternative compliant with the Biblical command to do our best to deal in Justice is to consider also the Biblical command to do Mercy. God provides us another option, that we can forgive all the parties involved.

Then there is the added dynamic of our kingly contest with Putin, the king of Russia. This is in my view the more pressing matter of the present as it pertains to this topic. In this you and me actually have an agreement, that we both want to get Snowden out of the hand of our chief rival Putin. Though we have different ends to bringing Snowden back, it is quite curious to me that we both have been the strongest proponents on the website of bringing him back.

We both understand each other's views on the spying and Snowden himself. I am highly interested in your views on the topic as they pertain to the America-Russia dynamic. These are my views as it pertains to that dynamic of the story.

If we bring back Snowden for to punish him, then Putin's hand is strengthened against us. Putin will be able to point out the hypocrisy of America. He will be able to call into question the legitimacy of our government and even our legitimacy as citizens. He will be able to undermine our alliances even moreso, which are all ready badly damaged, by pointing out that America deals dubiously and wrathfully. It will strengthen Putin's propaganda efforts to exploit the divisions in America. Putin will even be able to say he treated an American citizen better than Americans do! That last one alone is too much of an insult for me to bear.

If however we bring Snowden back and pardon him, and thereby pardon our government, then I believe that will strengthen our hand. It will show we are just and merciful as kings to our own people and our own government as the Bible says we ought be. It will lay the groundwork to rebuild the peoples' trust in the government and the government's trust in the people. It will show to our allies that because we are willing to deal in justice and mercy with our own people that we will deal more justly with them and thereby we can start to heal some of the wounds to our alliances. It will turn the tables on Putin's machinations against us, for Putin is not merciful to his own people or his own government and by us pardoning Snowden it will make this obvious even to his own people. We will be able to call into question, without hypocrisy, Putin's dealings, whether they be genuine or out of his own imperial self-interest.
 
Jan 24, 2012
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I don't care how "righteous" or "just" a cause might be, no cause justifies treason, and that's exactly what Snowden committed. If you're going to justify what he did, then you could justify the assassination of someone whose policies you don't like. That's ridiculous. So is giving Snowden a pass. He needs to face the allegations against him like a man, as I said in that post earlier. If you guys don't care for that viewpoint, tough. It's mine, and I won't change it.
If that's your view, that's your view. But my viewpoint is that it was perfectly ok for Nazi soldiers to commit treason. Hitler was evil and any one of them who committed treason were good men for doing it.