[gavinlynch]

Without making a judgement call on the virtue of his of actions: I consider myself very skeptical of the notion that this administration, which has cracked down on whistle-blowers/leakers as much (or more) than any other, is about to offer anything other than the "full weight of Justice" on Snowden.

I enjoyed Philip Bump's piece from the Atlantic about this: "Why Does CBS Keep Asking Its Ridiculous Amnesty Question About Snowden?"

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/12/why-does-cbs-keep-as...

What can Snowden promise them, anyway, that they would make this deal? The toothpaste is out of the tube.

[davidw]

> What can Snowden promise them, anyway, that they would make this deal? The toothpaste is out of the tube.

My understanding is that he has actually been quite a bit more judicious than Manning about what he has released, putting out stuff that clearly shows what the NSA is doing wrong. I get the impression that he does have more material that could go out but he doesn't feel really needs to be public, as a bargaining chip.

[ceejayoz]

> My understanding is that he has actually been quite a bit more judicious than Manning about what he has released, putting out stuff that clearly shows what the NSA is doing wrong. I get the impression that he does have more material that could go out but he doesn't feel really needs to be public, as a bargaining chip.

I believe he's claimed to have gotten rid of all materials prior to going to Russia. They're in the hands of the team of journalists distributed around the world.

[tripzilch]

> I believe he's claimed to have gotten rid of all materials prior to going to Russia.

This was in response to the question about this data accidentally falling into wrong hands. He said he was very confident that nothing was stolen copied or accessed during his stay in Hong Kong, and that he completely wiped his harddisk before going to Russia.

This doesn't mean that this data does not exist, anywhere, as a bargaining chip. Just that it is not present with him, on a physical storage medium in Russia.

[gavinlynch]

This was my impression as well.

[mpyne]

> My understanding is that he has actually been quite a bit more judicious than Manning about what he has released, putting out stuff that clearly shows what the NSA is doing wrong.

That was his claim, yes, but it's quite incorrect.

Various journalists have the data now and are piecing through it, not Snowden, but things like details of Chinese hacking or tapping into Merkel or Medvedev's phone calls are not violations of U.S. civil liberties and can hardly be said to have been judicious disclosures.

In that regard Manning actually ends up with a better case IMHO; Snowden claimed to have specifically looked at and identified every piece of data he took as requiring disclosure (although taking 58,000-1,000,000+ pieces in a year with a full-time job to do would tend to argue against being 'selective'), so any areas where Snowden leaked something that was only vital to national security happened after he specifically cleared it.

Manning, on the other hand, specifically released a few things but other than that let loose a bunch of data she never quite scanned through. This was definitely negligent, but doesn't seem to have been malicious.

[MichaelSalib]

What can Snowden promise them, anyway, that they would make this deal?

They don't know exactly how much he has and the government has some interest in securing the data that he hasn't released.

[eumenides1]

I don't think covering up something else is what the US should be looking at. If the US were to pardon snowden, it would be to turn a corner (or if you are super cynical, look like your turning a corner) on domestic spying.

Recall that nelson Mandela was classified as a terrorist by the CIA for quite a while. and now his funeral was attended by numerous presidents and ex presidents. I'm NOT saying snowden == Mandela, but that a change in language and a pardon would be to turn a corner on this issue.