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Comment by mpyne | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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