Hacker News Reader

Comment by EthanHeilman | Hacker News Reader

Exile usually involves a threat of violence if the person returns home. Many exiles are exiles because their home country's government would hurt them if they returned.

"Exile means to be away from one's home (i.e. city, state or country), while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile

Before calling into question the truth of statements made by a public figure please look up the common definition.

Update:

Websters does not use this exact definition, being a more compact format than wikipedia, but if you look under the examples in Websters you will see "Many chose to live as exiles rather than face persecution." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exile

View on HN

Snowden is not using the common definition of the phrase. He is explicitly using a legal definition when he says "the extralegal penalty of exile."

To argue that any person who cannot return to their home country without being arrested is "extralegally exiled" would mean that any fugitive is "extralegally exiled," an absurd result.

It was in fact the one comment I had been about to make. Snowden has chosen to avoid the U.S., explicitly to avoid the legal system. His own father feels he probably technically broke the law so it's hard to claim that the U.S. government has somehow managed to switch all 3 of its branches into a KILL SNOWDEN mode.

If the charges are without merit then one of the very same judges that Snowden feels should be involved in these types of surveillance programs will throw them out.

Snowden's exile may very well be extralegal, but both the exile and the extralegality of it are on Snowden himself.

> Snowden has chosen to avoid the U.S., explicitly to avoid the legal system.

No, he's chosen to avoid the US explicitly to avoid torture.

There's nothing legal about that.

Are you saying that the US justice system is by definition torture?

If so, I would think Snowden would have made that his moral priority to emphasize. There's no reason to fear "turnkey tyranny" (as he said) when we're already living in a torture regime, is there? In that case there's no key to turn, it's already here!

"turnkey tyranny" describes the future consequence for the median citizen.

Torturing those who leak information prior to trial is something that the US government has already demonstrated a willingness to do. It's simply disgraceful - a national shame.

Like how those other NSA whistleblowers were "tortured"? Their treatment was wrong, I'll admit, but calling it torture is insulting to those who have actually been waterboarded by the U.S.

Solitary confinement is torture.

Which NSA whistleblower was subjected to solitary confinement?

Fair enough, I was thinking of Bradley Manning. I don't know if the other NSA guys were held in solitary. However, I'll be surprised if they capture Snowden and he isn't. Why wouldn't he be?

> Why wouldn't he be?

Because there are no bored, humorless Marines in charge of whatever Federal prison Snowden would end up in. I would surmise he should expect the same treatment as any other civilian accused of a Federal felony.

Maybe you don't know this, but there are tens of thousands of prisoners living in long-term solitary in supermax prisons in the US. Why wouldn't Snowden end up with them? What percentage chance is there that he might end up there? What percentage chance justifies an asylum request?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...

By the way you might have to click on "link" to reply; I think the thread nesting is too deep.

I want to say first off, thanks for linking such an informative article (as if I needed more to be depressed about tonight).

I hope I haven't given the impression that I think prolonged solitary confinement is acceptable. But I will say that the idea of someone as infamous as Snowden being put in solitary without actually trying to shank someone is implausible IMHO. Manning's supporters managed to get him transferred out of a military brig, after all, and Snowden's is a much more sympathetic case (with much more international attention to boot).

Oh you're welcome. I always thought solitary was given for maybe two weeks for really bad behavior or something. I didn't get the impression you thought it was good. If anything, I thought perhaps you were a bit optimistic about our judicial system; on the other hand, perhaps I'm a bit cynical. Either way, if he ends up in the US, I certainly hope you're right.

No, it just means that the US engages in more varieties of torture, some of which we consider to be more severe than the others. That does not mean we can't use the same word to indicate all of them.

And why limit yourself to NSA whistleblowers, a government that has crossed this line has crossed that line in general, not just for some class. All this 'just NSA whistleblowers', 'just whistleblowers', 'just foreigners', 'just enemy combatants' and so on isn't fooling anybody.

Some lines you just don't cross, lest you become that which you claim to fight.

> And why limit yourself to NSA whistleblowers, a government that has crossed this line has crossed that line in general, not just for some class.

Because the claim isn't that "the USA has tortured people". The claim is that the USA will torture Snowden. Given the wide disparity in justice systems utilized for U.S. citizens, "enemy combatants", and U.S. military, you have to at least make that broad type of distinction to evaluate the probability of the claim that Snowden will be tortured if he returns.

There's no end to the things you can do or refuse to do if your only justification for that action (or lack thereof) is that a government has, at some time, tortured somebody somewhere.

I agree wholeheartedly that the U.S. needs to account for instances where they torture, but that also doesn't completely invalidate the whole government.

It has nothing to do with torture. Snowden is, quite reasonably, afraid of going to prison for breaking the law.

It depends if the punishment has been legally or extra-legal decided and would be extra-legally carried out. Such claims are always a matter of opinion and whose law, but not all opinions are equal.

1. Threats Made by the US Government: Obama's statements such that Snowden is not worth the effort of an expensive extra-legal killing (“not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker”) by a president that has engaged in many extra-legal killings, at least one against a US citizen, is a threat of extra-legal action. For instance if someone sent a letter that said "I'd kill you but you aren't worth the bullets" would be interpreted by many courts as a threat. Furthermore direct threats of extra-legal killing have been made by other members of the US government.

2. Prior Actions Against Snowden: The fact that Obama has attempted to use trade deals and threats to prevent Snowdens asylum appeals suggests that Obama and the US government is not willing to give Snowden a fair hearing since they are manipulating the international system of asylum to prevent him from getting a fair hearing internationally.

3.Prior Pattern of Action Against Other Whistle Blowers: Obamas illegal treatment of Bradley Manning is part of a pattern going back before Obama of illegal mistreatment of whistle blowers by the US government.

Given this evidence I would argue that the threat of extra-legal punishment is very much real and has been publicly communicated to all involved parties. The reality and communication of this threat to Snowden makes a very strong case for the claim that he has been extra-legally exiled.

Websters does not have any language of the sort relating to "imprisonment or death upon return". http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exile

By the Wikipedia definition above every criminal who flees the country to avoid arrest is by definition in exile. Skipping town because you want to avoid a crime isn't being in exile, it is being on the run.

Fun that we reach for the wikipedia definition of a word; that definition is easily editable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com