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Comment by DanielRibeiro | Hacker News Reader

The pardon petition also only needs more 7k signatures: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...

Remember that the goal is to get the government address the issue, and show that the people are not fine with the NSA's actions. It would be nice to get them to actually pardon him, but that is a much harder goal.

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Has any whitehouse.gov petition ever led to actual action being taken?

The White House Honey Ale recipe was released from a we the people petition... So, no.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/ale-chief-white-ho...

Here are the ones I can recall off the top of my head:

* CISPA veto threat/defeat [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/cybersecurity-legi...]

* New open-access rules [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/increasing-public-...]

* Halting use of animals in military training [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-halt-c...]

The animals one obviously doesn't count [1], since the petition was created September 27th, 2011, and the order halting the use of animals was issued September 20th, 2011.

[1] Barring time travel

Perhaps the order and the petition were quantumly entangled, thus allowing for the measurement of the petition to affect the known outcome of the order.

I am pretty sure the CISPA veto and the open access rules were only tangentially affected by the petitions. The open access rules were a response to the treatment of Aaron Swartz, which was creating a media storm that was causing more people to notice the general abuses of power by prosecutors in this country. The CISPA veto threat followed pressure from lobbyists and well-connected corporations.

Did the petitions matter at all? Maybe, but they were not even remotely close to being sufficient to get the administration to do anything. The Obama administration already knows how people feel about the Snowden situation; the petition is basically irrelevant.

My opinion about it is that it's ONE way for them to take the temperature of the people. Of course 100,000 signatures alone isn't going to create meaningful action but it does allow for a certain amount of visibility into what's bubbling up to the surface. Thus, it's valuable... just not as valuable as some hope it will be.

It takes ten seconds and costs nothing. I honestly don't understand the argument against it. It may be no better than nothing, but it can hardly be worse.

It could perhaps be worse, either because it makes 100,000 people (or however many) think "well I've done by part now!" so they become complacent, or because the administration thinks "well they've got it off their chest with a petition, that will keep them away from doing anything stronger so let's keep going with what we were doing".

Definitely subjective, though.

What if the 'buzz' generated by all of these people inspires a few people to actually do substantive? Kinda like how spam only needs a few clicks per million to generate a profit.

This is just speculation but it helps me cope with the facebook activism.

I should clarify that I wasn't warning against signing the petition, merely adding a thought to the "well at the very worst it can't do any harm" logic. Make up your own mind on whether signing it is good, bad, or neither :)

The argument is the same, but from the opposite end: Because it costs nothing and takes ten seconds. Why should I care about an opinion if the proponent can't invest more than that into it (say, a phone call to your congressman). What other artefacts of zero-cost, (near-) zero-effort expression should be considered in the legislative process?

It does cost something. It makes you feel like you've done something, so you perhaps have less motivation to do something more substantive such as writing your congressional reps and senators.

Which is a far more meaningful act than signing these useless online petitions.

There are always ways to do more, but in my experience this line of reasoning actually deflates more than it inspires. If someone has 10 seconds to sign the petition, let them sign the petition and go about their day rather than wasting 10 seconds making them feel guilty for not doing more.

No.

I'm surprised that I, as a non-US citizen living in the Netherlands, could sign that.

Watching Hulu.com videos should clearly be US-only, while a petition website targeted at US citizen is for everybody!

Well, it's really very logical. After all, we non-US folk are the ones being spied on as well. Or mostly, even.

It's only fair that we have a say in the politics of the US, as their politicians seem to find it fair to meddle in ours.

Just don't tell anyone in the whitehouse :)

Down to 5.5k two hours after your comment. At this rate, we should be done pretty darn soon.

Down to 1.9k six hours after his comment. Good progress :)

Only 2.7K needed now.

Done now :).

Down to 0 signatures needed :) Reached the 100k! (100,162 right now)

Signed, thanks for posting!

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