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posted by martyb on Sunday June 04 2017, @05:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the keeping-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer dept.

Edward Snowden said that from contacts he has had with those in the White House and in President Obama's orbit, "we've come to understand that [Obama] was personally wounded as a result of these disclosures," which prompted Snowden to seek asylum outside the country.

[...] Snowden also addressed the notion of President Obama pardoning him. Based on communications he had with Obama's White House and those in the former president's orbit, Snowden realized he would not receive a pardon because the information Snowden leaked significantly damaged Obama's legacy.

[...] It had long been speculated, leading up to Obama's final hours in office, that he would grant Snowden a 11th hour pardon.

Snowden, however, disputed this notion saying, "I don't think it was a likely case. I'm not even sure it was a possible case, because the president himself was the one most personally embarrassed by these disclosures."

"[Obama] campaigned in 2007...on the platform of saying he would end exactly this kind of warrantless mass surveillance," Snowden continued. "In secret, instead of ending this programs, he entrenched them and expanded them. He made their reach greater, he made their use more common, he normalized what had been an unlawful and unpopular program of the George Bush administration and made it a new American tradition."

Will Obama's legacy come to be, as Snowden seems to suggest, that he normalized police state surveillance?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @06:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @06:04PM (#520875)

    I want to add that the guy who founded facebook should get his profile set to public every now and then without his being aware of it, so that everyone can see what he otherwise thought was private.

    i dont approve of the governments actions and spying on the populace, and I try hard to not be a one-issue voter (and I have lots of issues--before we even get into the political stuff...) but I greatly detest what the likes of facebook and google have done specifically to enrich shareholder value, what our ISPs want to do with our data, and why it is so hard to even learn what they are selling about oneself without first becoming a business and actually buying your own details.

    It's that greed and then the things one does to keep making that money... what FB and google and the others have done for shareholder value has helped greatly enable the government to fulfil these things that cause such spittle to require cleaning off our collective monitors... shame on the people that write these things, and shame on those that invest in it with the expectation to profit from it. and may someone have mercy on the fools that use it all for "free", because they aren't getting it from me.