Assange, Manning and Snowden Nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize | Hacker News Reader

Assange, Manning and Snowden Nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize

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206 pointsfsflover87 comments

And so was Rush Limbaugh back in 2007.

https://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/nobel-nominatio...

A nomination is meaningless.

Indeed, its even more meaningless when you think about who is nominated. In this case, Russian trolls who release private diplomatic cables that fed into a massive disinformation campaign about western democracy.

With Obama's absurd win at the very beginning of his presidency, before he could even do anything, the whole thing is pretty meaningless.

Obama is far from the most absurd example. The notorious war criminal Henry Kissinger got it years before Obama did.

Alleged war criminal. He's also an incredibly successful and accomplished diplomat.

Only 'alleged' because he's politically connected and aligned with America, and will therefore never go to trial.

Or do you also object with 'allegedly' when people call Bush the Younger a war criminal as well? He'll never see a trial either for the same reason, but he is nevertheless a war criminal.

'In your opinion'

This is an interesting piece from Chomsky on that matter: "Noam Chomsky - The Crimes of U.S. Presidents" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXtgq0Nhsc.

A successful and accomplished diplomat who regularly called the folks he practised "diplomacy" with 4-letter words, racist slurs and shockingly demeaning insults. Look up his transcripts. His personal animus sabotaged so many things for the US. And then he had the gall to publish a book and boast about his "accomplishments". The type of guy who makes Trump look like a Saint.

Al Gore is another example that comes to mind. The EU was rather dubious too.

Yes, and also, sometimes made as a joke, even hitler got nominated.

Besides that, it's somewhat insulting to group assange with snowden and manning.

Being nominated is essentially meaningless; it means you have the support of at least one person, other than themself, from this group:

---

Members of national assemblies and national governments (cabinet members/ministers) of sovereign states as well as current heads of states

Members of The International Court of Justice in The Hague and The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague

Members of l’Institut de Droit International

Members of the international board of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

University professors, professors emeriti and associate professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology, and religion; university rectors and university directors (or their equivalents); directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes

Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

Members of the main board of directors or its equivalent of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

Current and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee

Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee

---

It's also prohibited to reveal nominations for 50 years; so if someone is trumpeting a nomination they are either lying for propaganda purposes or someone involved is breaking the rules for propaganda purposes, and the only thing it proves is that the people involved have no respect for the prize.

couldn't one of the people nominating them say they will in the future nominate someone before they are actually nominated to get around such a rule?

Binney should stand with them. He was one of the first whistleblowers and has felt the wrath of the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelli...

Although I'm outsider to US politics and I kind of liked Obama, Obama winning Nobel was an absurdity.

And Malala winning Nobel was also a joke. Don't get me wrong. I don't like Pakistan's regressive religion oriented politics and I actually hate Taliban. I concur that Malala might have done something courageous, but I always felt awarding her Nobel prize was mostly a propaganda. But now I kind of hate Malala.

Obama and Malala cases made me think that Nobel peace prizes are joke.

For me it was Kissinger's Nobel Peace Prize that showed me that it's pure propaganda.

Just about anyone can be nominated for what it's worth. University professors are among the people able to nominate someone.

This particular nomination is by 17 members of the German federal parliament, the German Bundestag.

The nomination came from members of the German Bundestag representing The Left party (based on the few I checked, more parties may be represented.)

Not that you're wrong, just pointing out who this nomination comes from.

Yes. That's the downside of the Peace Prize such that there are zero barriers to entry for the requirements and everyone qualifies, unless you continue attending paid talks and interviews around the world and this is repeated in the mainstream media.

This is far less apparent in Physics, Chemistry and Economics though.

Can we give it to the coronavirus instead? I feel like a reminder of the human races mortality is just what world peace needed.

If I can become person of the year, so can the Coronavirus. 2006 person of the year was "you - Representing individual content creators on the World Wide Web" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_%28Time_Person_of_the_Year...

I feel like coronavirus has had the opposite effect. More tribalism than ever. "My country is doing better than your country", "Sweden is doing it wrong", "Chinese virus" and all that.

I did think of that before I posted. I think though long term (once we are out of this) we will now take threats to humanity much more seriously.

I can only speak for myself:

Personally I've always seen myself as an observer to humanity. I know what's right and I'd like to make it happen but there's so many people trying to get ahead there's no point. The cards are stacked against me and I was scared to fail.

Covid for all its badness has made me realise I can't just observe. Whilst there are people who don't want what's best in power we are in this precarious position where humanity could fail. My hope however optimistic it is, is that people who are good will also realise they have to act and they can't just watch.

As the old saying goes all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

That saying has always meant a lot to me and I've always stood by the fact I would stand up and be counted when I was needed; this coronavirus made me realise I was needed right now.

I doubt that this pandemic will make the world take threats to humanity any more seriously than any of the other pandemics we’ve had. I can’t think of any reason why this one would be different.

If anything, we all lucked out with how mild it was, and people are going to be less cautious when a much deadlier virus makes the rounds next time.

The way I see it this kind of global threat has been unprecedented since ww2 and I am also of the belief ww2 did a lot for world peace. We are indeed lucky it's not been more serious.

I am not pertaining to know the future and I do admit there is a very high chance I'm being overly optimistic - basically I accept your appraisal of the situation is sadly more probable.

I don't know, that seems mostly limited to the U.S. who everyone else mostly just pities at this point. I'm in Canada and I wholeheartedly wish the U.S. was faring better. But unfortunately it just comes down to wishing they voted for leaders who exhibited a modicum of empathy instead of blaming it on external factors.

For most of the other areas it's a shared journey. Mourning with Italy because they were hit so early. Being scared for Sweden and the UK in their decisions to try to build up herd immunity. Tribalism is "us vs them", I don't think most people have that attitude for coronavirus. Everyone wants everyone to succeed so that we can all learn from it.

What's do you mean by "Sweden is doing it wrong"?

They are referring to Sweden's decision to pursue herd immunity instead of a lockdown. Most countries tried or pretended to try lockdowns. Only a handful of countries have opted for Herd Immunity, so it is a controversial decision (esp because it sacrifices some people (mostly the elderly) for the good of the whole)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

Also a net loss of faith in scientists. After the pathetic failure of epidemic projection models, it’s natural to harbor atleast some doubt about the climate models, and think, “do these scientists really know what they’re doing?”

What did they do in order to promote peace?

Read Snowden's book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Record_(autobiograph...

They held a previous Nobel Peace Prize winner accountable.

Manning has done nothing to hold anyone accountable. She stole classified data, haphazardly, and did nothing to ensure its release wouldn't get people killed. Then, she dumped it all to WikiLeaks. She didn't do it to protect anyone or as a whistleblower.

Even if you hate what Snowden did, he is a whistleblower in the sense that he saw something he thought was wrong, and carefully pulled enough data to prove it without endangering anyone's lives or doing unnecessary damage to his country.

I could totally get behind Assange's and Snowden's nominations (but like others have said a nomination for this Prize is meaningless), but Manning's seems ridiculous.

>Manning has done nothing to hold anyone accountable. She stole classified data, haphazardly, and did nothing to ensure its release wouldn't get people killed. Then, she dumped it all to WikiLeaks. She didn't do it to protect anyone or as a whistleblower.

I'm unclear why the challenges with the Manning release begin with the 22yo w/o enough experience to make better judgments and not the scores of military and political careerists who created, enabled and hid the atrocities.

Transparency is the first step to accountability. Manning isn't a superhuman capable of bringing about justice directly - the failure shows that the system stops at nothing to shield the guilty and throws our heroes in jail.

My point is she's not a hero unless you consider people who recklessly commit federal crimes without even the slightest bit of forethought heroes. Snowden saw a massive problem and was methodical and diligent in his process. Even if you hate what you did, he went out of his way to protect innocent people while still exposing the wrongdoing. To use a military analogy, Snowden tried to snipe someone surrounded by hostages while Manning just tossed a grenade into the room.

That has always been an optional requirement for that prize. The prize is awarded on the principle "we like that famous person".

I wouldn't expect Assange going voluntarily to Swedden. I can be wrong, of course

The same time that the US made official that they were charging Assange, Sweden dropped their accusations.

Assange can go to Sweden and except for a swift plane to the US there is nothing he need to fear.

I do hope some day, Project Gutenberg is nominated, may be Wikipedia too.

To paraphrase Steve Martin from LA story: "the peace prize nominees might not be the truth of life, they are what we wish were true".

The 17 people who sent this letter in Jan 2020 to the Nobel Committee of Oslo are all from the German Bundestag. I am not sure how these nominations work but I would hope to be positively surprised when more governments show support with their nominations to indirectly support transparency in governments.

They are members of parliament (legislative), but not of the government (executive). Their party is the merged & renamed descendant of the SED, East Germany's One-Party-State ruling party. For a variety of reasons, they look to be cast as opposition for the foreseeable future on the federal level, but are part of state governments in Germany's eastern states.

I see confusion crop up here around the term government every now and then. In America, we have our 3 branches (executive, legislative, and judicial) and we call the collection of all 3 the "government" whereas in general I think Europe uses the word "state" for that.

Yeah, for general use, EU "government" is best translated as US "administration", I believe.

A lot of people don't include the judiciary when they say "the state", I believe as the courts are independent and serve as a controlling instance that should (in theory) reign in the state when it oversteps.

Uhhh... last time I checked, Assange colluded with Russia to give us Trump. Whoever nominated him, probably himself, is a deranged motherfucker. They actually think his actions resulted in peace?!?

We are wildly less safe worldwide in every possible way. Climate change was neglected. All environmental standards became toilet paper. Iran now has nukes. North Korea has nukes. Russia is seizing neighboring countries with the blessing of Trump. China has gone rogue. And the US is locking up children in cages. Which part of that sounds like resounding peace?

If Assange were American, I’d nominate him for treason.

Seems a bit funny for German politicians to be nominating US whistleblowers (and Assange). Shall we get some US Congressman to nominate those bloggers who investigated Wirecard?

Why not? Except it doesn't seem to be related to peace and security

Wirecard is just fraud, not government surveillance

Germany is still very troubled from the Stasi times, I can see how this issue would receive a special place in the hearts and minds of the German people. Also, the US surveillance state is so overwhelming and oppressive, literally intended to collect all signal intel and store it for eternity for future decryption attempts, that they probably feel it is especially onerous and in violation of human rights. My 2 cents, but that's why I think they did this.

>Germany is still very troubled from the Stasi times, I can see how this issue would receive a special place in the hearts and minds of the German people.

Ironic that the Bundestag MPs who nominated them are from Die Linke, a successor to East Germany's ruling party that ran the Stasi.

> Shall we get some US Congressman to nominate those bloggers who investigated Wirecard?

Sure, go for it. You're welcome to call for such a thing. Or do you think zee germans would try to stop you?

Assange? Isn't he in limbo over a rape charge? Not sure what his accusers would think about that in terms of "peace"....

Weird how when you expose government corruption, rape charges just happen to show up.

And when they get dropped, everybody act as if the charges were real.

It's the old adage of:

"accusation on the front page, acquittal on page 13"

We'll never know if the charges could be proven because Assange fled to an embassy for many years, denying us all the right to see what would happen at trial.

One of the accusers dropped her charges. She says she was pushed by the Swedish authorities to make a case. The other withdraws he consent after the facts as she says Assange didn't tell her that he was seeing other girls.

Scandalizing someone's vices to discredit their message is millenniums old. It's kinda disturbing that people weren't immediately on to it as a smear job.

We wouldn't know it anyway as the trial in Sweden would never happen, so that he could be deported to US asap...

While I agree that the behaviour of the UK and the USA is suspect, and also that the incredibly low prosecution rate for sexual assault[0] suggests that a guilty-but-not-infamous person otherwise identical to Assange would probably not have been charged, one of his accusers was trying to reopen the case and get him extradited to Sweden as soon as they found out he was no longer in the embassy, and this failed because the judge decided too much time has passed for a fair trial[1].

[0] assuming UK rates are similar to Swedish rates, given a quick google didn’t give me their stats

[1] https://www.thelocal.se/20191119/swedish-prosecutor-holds-pr...

They where real...

Sure, the attention they got where overblown.

But let's not act like assange wasn't acting like an asshole... Or that the charges where dropped because of reasons related to if he's guilty or not.

It would seem then that the perfect time to commit a crime is right about the same time you expose government corruption.

The perfect time to be malevolent is never. As for other crimes, stick to one at a time if you must.

Heavier crimes demand heavier evidence. Suspects if major crime are frequently locked up on smaller sometimes entirely unrelated charges.

Case was dropped.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-j...

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