If I was Ed Snowden, I'd be very careful about coming back the United States because there are a lot of Right-wingers who might be gunning for him or just plain nuts motivated by false patriotism.
Do you think Snowden or even Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange ought to be pardoned?
I don't think I know enough to truly say. From what little I know of Snowden, yes, but I haven't deeply investigated it. Assange I know nothing about at all.
In-general, though, we need to treat the whistleblowers better in our society. The guy who busted the criminals at the Watergate hotel wound up with big blowback from doing his job and doing everybody in the country a huge favour by getting that ball rolling. When the government is caught doing nefarious things, illegal things, horrible things, they should be punished, not the people who uncovered it.
Yeah, I agree.
Snowden did Americans a huge service. And whatever Assange did, he has served 7 years basically in prison in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
I doubt either one will get pardoned. I think Snowden is extremely anti-social, couldn't get along with anyone at work, extreme nerd, and decided to copy Assange because he wanted the attention he badly craves. Also, hundreds of thousands of government workers are assigned to safeguard secrets. These workers(and Snowden is one of them) agree to sign documents that strictly state what will happen to them if they steal/sell/mishandle classified information. If the govt. gave Snowden a pardon then the other thousands of govt. workers jobs will have been wasted in vain and more Snowden's would almost assuredly follow.
share> I think Snowden is extremely anti-social, couldn't get along with anyone at work, extreme nerd, and decided to copy Assange because he wanted the attention he badly craves.
Bunch of bad judgement in that comment. Obviously just a groundless character attack on Snowden.
Most of the people he worked with and many other relevant people agree with what Snowden did. Because you don't like it does not mean he is anti-social.
If, by nerd, you mean he is technically very sharp with computers and networks, that is true.
Assange and Snowden did completely different things and for different reasons, which I won't waste time explaining to you.
Snowden was very careful about secrets he revealed. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with that before you ignoramically-extemporize.
There are many other Whistleblowers that if they did not do what they did the American public would be in the dark and even more ignorant than it is now. Look at you.