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WikiLeaks Calls for Pardons From President Obama -- Or President Trump (wikileaks.org) 445

"President Obama has a political moment to pardon Manning & Snowden," WikiLeaks tweeted on Friday, adding "If not, he hands a Trump presidency the freedom to take his prize." And a new online petition is also calling for a pardon of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying Assange is "a hero and must be honoured as such," attracting over 10,000 supporters in just a few days. An anonymous reader writes: Monday WikiLeaks also announced, "irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the real victor is the U.S. public which is better informed as a result of our work." Addressing complaints that they specifically targeted Hillary Clinton's campaign, the group said "To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump's campaign, or Jill Stein's campaign, or Gary Johnson's campaign or any of the other candidates that fulfills our stated editorial criteria." But they also objected to the way their supporters were portrayed during the U.S. election, arguing that Trump and others "were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications -- because none exists."
Thursday a WikiLeaks representative expressed surprise that, despite the end of the U.S. election, Julian Assange's internet connection in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London has not yet been restored.
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WikiLeaks Calls for Pardons From President Obama -- Or President Trump

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  • Political reality (Score:4, Insightful)

    by paiute ( 550198 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @12:39PM (#53271459)
    Clinton lost by a whisker. Clinton is Obama's friend. Wikileaks spread dirt on Clinton. Now you want Obama to give you a warm handshake and a kiss on the cheek?
    • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @12:48PM (#53271501) Journal

      Obama: "A pardon? Oh, I thought you said 'drone'. My sincere apologies for this terrible terrible accident."

      • by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @01:14PM (#53271649)

        A US drone attacking the Embassy of Ecuador in the middle London.

        I'll grab the popcorn.

    • by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @12:48PM (#53271507)

      That's putting it likely; I'll bet that Hillary wants Assange's head on a pike. And to be honest, I'm not sure why anybody cares about him at all, to new he comes off as a total weasel.

      • That's putting it likely; I'll bet that Hillary wants Assange's head on a pike. And to be honest, I'm not sure why anybody cares about him at all, to new he comes off as a total weasel.

        He is a total weasel. He also has provided important, accurate, and relevant information to Americans.

        • He is a total weasel. He also has provided important, accurate, and relevant information to Americans.

          Indeed! The recipe tip about the reason for adding the rice piecemeal during the creation of a risotto is important to me and accurate, I can guarantee it. It works very well. Not sure how it's relevant to the election.

          All he did was a data dump from hacked emails. It turns out the risotto trick was one of the most useful bits of information in there. There was very little of substance.

          • Even if the information was accurate, what happened next was typical of what happens when you get large document dumps. People sift through the documents, finding passages that look incriminating or insinuate nefarious acts or conspiracies. This is what happened with Climategate, and both that and the Clinton email dumps are classic examples of quote mining, of the dishonest taking of passages out of context and using them to create a false narrative.

            I doubt there's a public figure in the world that you cou

    • The other campaign (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @12:53PM (#53271547) Homepage Journal

      Clinton lost by a whisker. Clinton is Obama's friend. Wikileaks spread dirt on Clinton. Now you want Obama to give you a warm handshake and a kiss on the cheek?

      Trump won over Clinton 290 to 228, which is most definitely *not* a whisker.

      If you want to complain that Clinton would have won by different rules, you also have to allow that Trump would have campaigned differently under the different rules.

      For example, with full popular voting Trump would have campaigned more vigorously in California and New York, to garner more of the proportional popular vote in those states.

      He would have had a different campaign, and won under the different rules as well.

    • Clinton was Obama's ally, never a friend.
    • Oh wait, you're beong serious? Eeesh... don't turn to TV for your news, it's not good for you.
    • first off, clinton did NOT lose by a whisker. She won the popular vote and lose the electoral vote (which is the REAL one). WHy did she lose? Because so many dems ASSUMED that she had already won, that they did not bother to show up.
      IOW, it was not dems voting for the trump, since he got slightly less than the typical number of votes for GOP. OTOH, the number of votes for dems plummeted.
  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by craXORjack ( 726120 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @12:46PM (#53271497)
    I don't believe Manning qualifies as a whistle blower. (S)he just exposed a boatload of confidential documents with no clear purpose behind the action.
    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @12:53PM (#53271543) Homepage Journal

      One of the best uses for the pronoun "(s)he".

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pushing-robot ( 1037830 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @01:08PM (#53271619)

      Agreed. Why do people lump them together? Snowden and Assange/Manning/Wikileaks are polar opposites; Snowden blew the whistle on illicit spying, Wikileaks *is* illicit spying.

      How anyone can support both I have no idea.

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Gussington ( 4512999 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @05:01PM (#53272749)

        Agreed. Why do people lump them together? Snowden and Assange/Manning/Wikileaks are polar opposites; Snowden blew the whistle on illicit spying, Wikileaks *is* illicit spying.

        How anyone can support both I have no idea.

        It seems a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the reality of Snowden's heroic actions. It will take decades for official recognition, but like a Mandela, MLK Jnr, or Rosa Parks, I think Edward Snowden will be looked back on as a hero by future generations.

    • by jmv ( 93421 )

      The problem isn't so much how Manning leaked the documents, but how WikiLeaks messed up spectacularly afterwards. The journalists who got the Snowden documents published only what was newsworthy and acted responsibly. OTOH, WikiLeaks messed it up so badly that everyone had access to all the documents. Then for the Clinton emails, they didn't even pretend they were trying to act responsibly and directly dumped everything as fast as they could.

    • EXACTLY.
      And snowden simply went too far to be a whistleblower. He should have stopped before speaking about spying on other nations and groups. He knew that NSA was legal on that.
      And America has absolutely NO SAY on Assange. The only nation that is really interested in him, is Sweden.
  • This is just meaningless, self-serving posturing on WikiLeaks' part.

  • What? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @12:49PM (#53271513) Journal

    An organization which knowingly and deliberately worked with a foreign government to affect the U.S. presidential election now wants people to listen to them and pardon people who have affected U.S. national security?

    Talk about a pair of balls.

  • How is the US supposed to pardon him, when he is wanted by the Swedes for questioning?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12, 2016 @01:01PM (#53271579)

      The badly written summary makes it clear that the pardon is requested for Manning and Snowden, and for some reason tries to include an unrelated mention of Assange, probably so they can have more links to click.

    • He is also wanted now by the British for bail offences and quite probably contempt of court...

    • A pardon would make him safe from all crimes committed anywhere before the pardon in the US including extradition for those crimes. In effect there would be no legal way to get him out of the US.

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @01:31PM (#53271735)

      How is the US supposed to pardon him, when he is wanted by the Swedes for questioning?

      I know a lot of people don't RTFA, but... It's a tweet, it's only 111 characters! And even if that's too hard for you, you didn't even make it to the end of the first sentence of the summary.

      By the way I like dolphins. I just thought I'd share this since it is entirely as relevant to the discussion as your post was, but someone seems to be giving away free mod points, and dolphins are much cooler and more intelligent than Assange.

    • A president can pardon someone, even if currently no charges have been filed. For example, Ford pardoned Nixon for any and all actions he undertook as President.

      Trump can easily pardon Assange from any prosecution by the U.S. gov't for all actions committed by Assange between 1972 to 2016.

      That would no effect on whatever Sweden wants Assange for. However keep in mind that Assange only went into hiding at Ecuadorian embassy because he feared Sweden would extradite him to the USA and that he'd end up being to

      • He didn't learn that, that was an unevidenced claim he made to a British court when he was fighting extradition to Sweden. When the British courts rejected his conspiracy theory and deemed Sweden's request valid, that's when he hightailed to the Ecuadorian embassy.

        It should be notes that not only does Sweden want him for allegedly sexual offenses, he is also wanted by the UK, and that even if Sweden dropped its investigation, he would almost certainly have to face a British court again.

  • The three men need to be pardoned. They are American heroes who put the right of the people to know above all else. If one does not "know" then one's vote has no meaning or value.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It will not happen. Neither of the ones that could do it has the personal honor or the statesmanship that would require. The US has moved for 3rd-rated "leaders" to 4th rated ones now, no qualities of an actual leader in evidence anymore. Obama was probably the last one that at least tried to give the impression of being qualified for the job.

  • Assange needs a pardon - after all he only exists because mainstream media has given up on the whole "investigative journalism" thing to keep government honest. He doesn't steal secrets, he just publishes leaks. It's ridiculous to blame the messenger. But Snowden and Manning - not going to happen. While I know Snowden says he's a whistleblower and to some extent this is true - there is blowing the whistle and there is chucking a stick of dynamite in a gunpowder factory. I doubt he'll ever be pardoned if onl
  • 1) manning belongs in prison. He was a traitor by releasing more information than was needed to stop what he objected to.
    2) Snowden deserves a medal for reporting on the spying on America by individuals, and then multiple bullets for having given out all sorts of legal stuff that the NSA did.
    3) it is not our place to 'parden' assange or wikileaks. Even now, America has no rights to him. The nation that wants him is sweden. And I doubt that they will let a 2x rapists go free.
  • by pla ( 258480 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @02:26PM (#53272055) Journal
    The US hasn't actually charged Assange with anything. Obama can't pardon someone for crimes that don't exist; he also can't pardon someone on behalf of another country (Sweden).
    • Assange believes that charges against him are just an excuse to extradite him to USA. So the request is to proactively demonstrate that USA has no interest in Assange.

      It doesn't make sense legally speaking, but that's the answer to your question.

  • by ocsibrm ( 3588573 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @02:32PM (#53272097)
    He's called for Snowden to be killed as a traitor, so I'm thinking he *probably* won't pardon the guy. Just a hunch though.
    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      He's called for Snowden to be killed as a traitor, so I'm thinking he *probably* won't pardon the guy.

      That's true. And if there's one thing Trump does, it's remain consistent in his opinions over time. /s

  • I could see Snowden getting a pardon at some point but a plea deal that avoids jail time would be more likely especially before Trump takes office.

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Saturday November 12, 2016 @03:29PM (#53272393)

    Rod Blagojevich has done way to much time all ready.

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