Talk:We the People (petitioning system)

Snowden
The Edward Snowden material is not relevant in this article. Anybody can start one of these petitions, and there has been hundreds, if not thousands, of them. There is no reason at all to list one that hasn't seen a response from the White House, let alone one that hasn't even reached the threshold number of signatures needed to trigger a response.

I'm moving the section here per WP:PRESERVE. I invite the user who is edit warring to include it to come here and make his case per WP:BURDEN.

=== Edward Snowden === Edward Snowden, who revealed his identity after making revelations about the existence of PRISM, a top secret surveillance system operated by the NSA, was the subject of a petition to be granted "a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs." The petition had gathered more than 80,000 signatures on June 17, 2013. Federales (talk) 20:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to agree that if there are many of these so-called "petitions", they shouldn't be covered specifically until or if the President responds. One question: Is every one of the "petitions" responded to, covered here? The two listened certainly got some reportage. Did any others? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:32, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, "Anybody can start one of these petitions". But not anybody can get tens of thousands of signatures. Moreover, three media links about the petition are given in the article (in fact, there are more media reportages, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edward_Snowden&action=history ) . Moreover, the petition is related to the important and very much discussed in media ongoing event. If it is insufficient - what is sufficient? Fangorn-Y (talk) 22:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * And note that while the number of signatures was less (30K), Federales agreed that the petition is significant - he even reverted updated values back to 30K. Fangorn-Y (talk) 23:02, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * When or if the President responds to it, it might make sense to include it here. Otherwise it's undue weight and advertising. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The operative word there is "might". It wholly depends on whether the response generates media coverage, and even then the response itself will need to be noteworthy in some respect before it will be worth reconsidering for inclusion in this article. Federales (talk) 00:50, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:55, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In the case of Newtown the only information reflected is that it too got a lot of signatures (though it broke the 100K threshold in less than 24 hours) - Should it go too? WhisperToMe (talk) 08:02, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to leave it. The 24 hour fulfillment seems pretty spectacular, and even if there wasn't a direct response, the President did in fact take up the issue. Federales (talk) 15:32, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Alright. I also wonder just how many petitions do make the 100K in one month deadline. As for Snowden I think whether or not the president takes up the issue there will be coverage anyway (if he doesn't there may be papers which speculate on why he didn't, or explain why he didn't) but I'm going to wait and see WhisperToMe (talk) 16:33, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

"However, the White House will typically not comment when a petition concerns any investigation which may be ongoing."  I don't see any reason to think there will be any speculation, nor is there any reason for additional explanation on why We the People follows its own policy. Federales (talk) 16:44, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It might come as a surprise to people that the White House won't comment (I'll check the actual newspaper articles to see if they do mention the "typically not comment" bit) and I wonder if this will cause analysis or reception to this loophole. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:36, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * From HuffPo :
 * "The White House wouldn't say when its response will come. But it routinely declines to comment on petitions regarding law enforcement matters, including pardon requests. And the ultimate answer is the administration's pursuit of Snowden on espionage charges."
 * In the absence of a direct response, this may be considered suitable all by itself. Federales (talk) 22:42, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

List of petitions with over 100,000 signatures
I removed I section named List of petitions with over 100,000 signatures, since it is totally unsourced. I don't know how one could argue that a section named this should exist but at the very least, we'd need secondary sources for each an every entry.TippyGoomba (talk) 18:45, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is no sensible argument to include such a section. That information is best provided by an external link (which we already have). Federales (talk) 19:01, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

First Amendment
Isn't this site facilitating people's right to petition the government for a redress of grievances as defined in the First Amendment? Traditionally, petitions were sent to Congress instead of the President and administration, but it seems to (as least attempt anyway) help the public be able to do so in a modern way. I'm a bit surprised that this hasn't been mentioned at all in this article, though the petition clause of the First Amendment does tend to be overlooked. 68.46.9.6 (talk) 10:20, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Edward Snowden Revisited & Unanswered Petitions
It has been almost 2 years since the discussion above regarding the petition to pardon Edward Snowden (direct link has been blocked as explained here). As far as I can tell, there has yet to be a response from the Whitehouse, despite meeting the 100,000 threshold (164,836 to be exact). This, in itself, seems very notable and worthy of inclusion. This article from June of 2014 is the most obvious/recent source.

In addition to the specific notability of the Snowden case, this article also lists additional failures of response to threshold-crossing petitions, which also seems very notable. 108.212.239.102 (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Feel free to expand the criticism section using those reliable-source references (they look good), but there is absolutely no need to link directly to specific petitions. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Site still operating
It appears as though the site is still up and running. All the posts that were there under the Obama administration are now gone and archived on obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/petitions. Petitions are still allowed and new ones are coming in. What the requirements are going to be, i'm not sure as they seem to have copied some of the original about pages. GeekInParadise (talk) 21:31, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * A petition calling on Trump to release his tax returns has exceeded the 100k threshold in a day. How the administration responds, if they do, will be interesting. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * AND... there's now reliable source news coverage on this: Politico, New York Daily News, and others, so it's fair game to mention in the article. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

What's the criteria for notable petitions?
We really should have one. Most insane? Eg Declare George Soros a terrorist and seize his assets, that's as nutty as you get. Doug Weller talk 17:04, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Still active after reboot 2017/2018?
In early 2018 the system was relaunched. I haven't found any confirmation that the Trump administration has responded to any inquiries, but also find very few reliable sources that looked into this. Probably worth discussing though. Does anyone know reliable sources on this topic? effeietsanders 07:11, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Source for take down 'by the Biden administration'?
The URL for the platform does now indeed redirect to the whitehouse website homepage. But there isn't any source linked. And the current version of the article says "taken down by the Biden administration". Do other users feel this it is fair say it this way if a third party source can't be found? We should at least try to find a third party source that is somewhat reliable. So far I have only seen this in social media though. At least the Wayback Machine has captured the redirect on the day it happened so I think this could be used as a source for now. As of the language, as there has been no official explanation or third party coverage I'm intending to edit the article with more neutral language. If you'd like to contest this edit please consider writing in response in here first. Gnkgr (talk) 23:27, 28 January 2021 (UTC)