Yesterday, a bunch of America’s leading tech sector executives met with US President Barack Obama. Things got really interesting when the conversation moved onto the fate of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The former CIA employee, who fled overseas to avoid US prosection for his actions, is a hot subject right now in political circles. Some see him as a traitor. Others see him as a hero for transparency and democracy.
You can probably guess which side a lot of the tech executives sit.
According to CNN, during the meeting Zynga founder Mark Pincus asked President Obama directly, to his face, to “pardon” Snowden. The President declined, saying he could not do that.
We’ve contacted Zynga for confirmation, and will update if we hear back.
Tech source: We weren’t at White House for health care chat [CNN, via The Verge]
Comments
9 responses to “Report: Zynga Founder Asked Obama To ‘Pardon’ Edward Snowden”
Haha, classic.
Even if he offered I’d think snowden would be a fool to accept, it’s glaringly obvious that neither side of the American government give a fuck about the rule of law or quaint concepts like keeping your word
David Hicks found that out the hard way. Julian Assange too. I don’t think much of either person as a human being but their rights are/were definitely both being violated just because ‘fuck you’ as they say.
*Edit* @Dashals , you’re all for the violation of human rights?
Indeed he will be locked up in a bottomless pit eating the good old Harold and Kumar cock meat sandwhich.
The government was doing illegal things and breaking human rights across the globe and he exposed that, not a single person has the right to condemn him for bringing the truth to light and those that do are the real traitors to American and its peoples way of life.
Its yet another reason i despise the country and am nigh positive that its ballooning debt and stupid wars will leave the country on the verge of complete collapse and sink it into 3rd world status before I can have a mid life crisis (they have a good 20+ years to remedy it).
It is amazing how neutral I feel about either side of the debate. I agree intelligence is security, but the documents released, expressing ongoing acts against humanity, should be open to public scrutiny.
Who polices the police, tho? Are people to implicitly trust their government? Looks like the US can’t as civil rights are being trampled on repeatedly (I’d hazard a guess that AU are 110% onboard with it as well). How many attacks has this meta data prevented? The moment anything is taken out of public eye it’s open for abuse and typically that’s what comes of it.
Your first sentence works for both sides of the argument.
LOL – I just find it hilarious that he thinks ANYONE cares what Zynga do or think. Don’t you have a busy day ahead of completely fail to innovate at all? Better stop writing fanmail to Obama and get to it!
+1 for Zynga.
Credit where credit’s due.