Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Sheremetyevo airport
wikileaks.org
wikileaks.org
Are people really not bothered at the irony in this sentence? Russia, as a country that stands against abuse of the powerless by the powerful?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/world/europe/russian-court...
If the posthumous prosecution of Sergei L. Magnitsky, the lawyer who was jailed as he tried to expose a huge government tax fraud and died four years ago in a Russian prison after being denied proper medical care, seemed surreal from the moment the authorities announced it, the verdict and sentencing on Thursday did not disappoint.
By all accounts, it was Russia’s first trial of a dead man, and in the tiny third-floor courtroom of the Tverskoi District Court, it took the judge, Igor B. Alisov, more than an hour and a half to read his decision pronouncing Mr. Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion.
It doesn't matter if it is hypocritical of an American like me to point this out, when it goes on in my country/government as well - but I find it willfully ignorant to label the Russian government as a defender of human rights like this.
edit: here is some more reading on Russia and this topic: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/24/russia-worst-human-rights...
I'm more bothered by your sentence. Russia and China are undoubtedly worse offenders than the US when it comes to human rights (well, at least historically, in this day and age the US seems to be racing to catch up). However, this alone is never a valid reason to discount their criticisms of US actions.
I know you're referring to Snowden's inclusion of Russia on that list, but in this case, they (and maybe China) are the only ones who can stand up against America. Clearly Ecuador fell with a single phone call.
I don't think it's hypocritical for you to point this out, but it simply should not detract from the rest of his statement. Russia has not handed him over---the least he can do is not bite the hand shielding him. I, for one, am glad that people aren't bothered by it.
The guy did something that had massive fallout and would really like to be able to live at least some form of a life. Sure, the countries offering asylum have pretty crappy human rights records and actually contribute a large number of asylum applicants to the USA. However, working in Venezuela or Bolivia, even if nowhere near the standard of living to which he may have become accustomed in Hawai'i, is better than sitting in a cell for years without trial and demonized and forgotten by the state.
I see a massive difference between leaking capabilities and personalities. The former lets us evaluate policies against the rule of law. The second can be treasonous or harmful on an individual level.
He didn't help Iran build The Bomb. He didn't even give anyone the ability to replicate the NSA's capabilities or detect interception of data in transit or at rest. He merely confirmed what many suspected and revealed what few knew (or cared about).
It turns his crusade from one which is anti-pervasive-surveillance to anti-US-government.
"It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president’s plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.
Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless."
Part of the whole point is that known human rights violators and authoritarian governments are acting better than the US on this, the supposed bastion of freedom and democracy in the world.
As for his first statement, I simply don't read too much into it. My only take-away was "thanks for not turning me over". He's an expert on how the NSA is conducting surveillance---not on which countries are authorities on human rights.
His crusade from the beginning has been anti-surveillance
in the US.
I don't think this was true, otherwise I would feel unconditional support for him. He has released leaks about US spying on external targets and aims to flee to countries which have very poor relationships with the US. This muddies the waters considerably. Personally I think it weakens his message, and this disappoints me.
I see what you mean, but I guess this is a personal opinion. I personally think it has had a positive net effect. Specifically, prior to this, hawks in the US were beating war drums after the news about Chinese cyberattacks. I feel they've gone silent lately.
America has also always sat on the morality high-horse. I love this country, but it's still always fun to see the big guy get taken down a peg.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/asia/differences-on-...
I submitted the article here but it's buried in the morass of other submissions.
Just like Thomas Drake, that other NSA whistleblower, who didn't flee and didn't get 'tortured in solitary'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake
Hasn't he repeatedly said that it's already all leaked? His friends on the outside would be able to hold the threat of that against the U.S. government, especially if he were mistreated in prison.
> One of his main goals for leaking all this is that the public had no idea of our laws because they were created in secret courts.
The public may have no idea of the laws, but it's not because they come from secret courts. The law itself has given the executive the power being used here. Metadata collection itself is legal (for decades), and so is collection of foreign surveillance (again, for decades).
The only difference now is that the extra controls added to the modern equivalents of ECHELON, Carnivore, etc. have convinced the FISC that they comply with the public law where previous versions did not, but the FISC did not create any law by themselves.
I think you far overestimate the give-a-shit of the public at large to things like this. The public is accustomed from years of wiretaps, pen registers, cell phone tower searches, TV shows, subpoenas, and the fact that the NSA and CIA have existed for and been doing stuff like this for decades into assuming that there is some way for government investigators to get their hands on exactly this kind of data.
Just look at the arraignment for Aaron Hernandez. Why should people be shocked that the government can get your Facebook likes given what they were able to find about the murder of Lloyd within only a week.
At this point Snowden is only hurting his cause by making the story about himself and not about how the government has surveillance ability that is different in scale, if not actually in kind. The longer he drifts in with organizations that the public you're referring to feel are threats and enemies, the less likely it is that the same public will trust the message he's trying to convey.
Edit: Perhaps "Ranking", or current policy is a better phrase than "Record", but in any case, the Nazis were a very long time ago, there aren't even that many WWII veterans alive anymore, much-less in power.
I think I just pissed my pants. Pardon my rudeness, but West Germany was forced to improve their human rights record by imposition from the Allied countries. East Germany continued to have a crap HR record.
Only in the recent record does Germany have a solid HR stance.
Thanks for the reminder. Humbling. :-)
(Source: my mother)
It turns his crusade from one which is
anti-pervasive-surveillance to anti-US-government.
Unfortunately, the US has not been through enough governments for most citizens to discern the government and a nation of people. In countries, where the regime in charge has changed several times, the citizens are far more keenly aware that a government only represents the interests of the people, when the interests of the people are also the interests of those in power in the government.
http://boingboing.net/2013/07/08/snowden-and-venezuela-my-bi...
People keep talking about what Snowden said, but why do they not look at what he did?
If he really wanted to be out of the news it would be easy. Just ask Thomas Drake.
Instead he's turned himself into a longtailed human interest story, despite his protestations to the contrary. If he's smart enough to act as a network structural hacker then surely he's smart enough to recall what types of stories drive the most media coverage in the U.S.
His job in this was to get the evidence out there, let civil rights groups use it to carry on the fight, and to get himself back out of the media spotlight. Instead he's and WikiLeaks are sucking up all the oxygen from the EFF and ACLU.
If he doesn't accept them he is going to be sent into US and tortured. It's either asylum from a non 'free' country or torture.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/john-kiriakou-lette...
The effect is to deteriorate the mind. If people end up having panic attacks afterwards clearly it has caused them damage.
Whether it's widely held by the masses to be torture is of no importance because they have just as little knowledge as yourself.
Educate yourself in what psychiatrists, the United Nations, and Human Rights groups have been saying for a long time before stepping forth onto your soap box to call this "absurd."
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...
I think most people don't think it's torture simply because they don't really know what it's like, haven't experienced it, can't readily imagine why it would be painful, etc.
However, if it were possible to do this without the subsequent mental trauma that would follow then that might be a different story. E.g. virtual social interaction (with other prisoners/guards) might be feasible, we certainly seem to get a lot of people who wall themselves away from others IRL so that they can play their online video games.
But even with that I don't see how that would be a more resource-efficient way to handle the task of rehabilitation where possible and humane segregation from society for the rest.
I think we have to figure that at some point almost any 'stick' in a carrot/stick system can, with overuse, become more dangerous to mental health than useful as a behavior modifier.
But never mind that—I'm more curious about this:
Otherwise, it becomes a tool for peddling minority social viewpoints, which undermines its legitimacy in other regards. We're already feeling the effects of that today.
What minority social viewpoints and what effects?
There is nothing all that silly about it. It simply interprets the Constitution in the way you would a contract--based on what the parties intended the document to mean at the time of the agreement.
> What minority social viewpoints and what effects?
The death penalty would be a good example. Right now, support for the death penalty is around 60% among the American public. If a Supreme Court came along and found that "the living Constitution" meant that the death penalty was unconstitutional, despite the death penalty being common at the time of the founding and also supported by a majority of the public, that would undermine peoples' faith in the Constitution and the Supreme Court as an actual common agreed-upon framework as opposed to just another political tool.
Sometimes the Supreme Court has to spend that political capital, to bootstrap social change, but even when the decision is "right" in retrospect, it has an injurious effect on the institution itself. E.g. it becomes a lot easier for conservatives to dismiss the Supreme Court's opinion on something like giving Guantanamo prisoners habeas corpus rights when they can point to something like Roe v. Wade as evidence of the Court's political nature. It isn't just conservatives, of course. The Court lost enormous credibility among liberals in the 1920's and 1930's when it found all sorts of "economic rights" in the due process clause to strike down FDR's popular policies.
At this moment in history, faith in the Constitution and the Supreme Court is at historical lows on both sides, as a result of decades of liberal Courts using the bench as an instrument for social change on issues where there was no clear-cut consensus. Now, I happen to agree with those specific social issues, but that doesn't change the fact that this change came at high cost to the Court itself.
Originalism has a major advantage, and it is that when the Court isn't constantly finding new things in the Constitution, it can speak with far more authority on issues that were part of the original intent of the founders.
For contracts relating to small situations that would make sense, but for a piece of writing that is meant to apply to a whole country written by a few old men centuries ago is that really the most prudent choice?
We know so much more than they did -- e.g. science now tells us that we can actually quantify pain (both physical and emotional) with remarkable accuracy [1]. With the understanding and new knowledge that has become available in recent time it's likely that the founders would have had a totally different take on things, so I see slow and small nitpicky rectifications on minor points to be misguided in numerous respects since for all one knows founders' approach to several issues would have been altogether different if they had access to the abundant new findings and data that has only become available recently.
I'll give you an example: before I started getting into John Rawls writings, some contemporary philosophy (a lot of Sam Harris stuff), some writings on determinism, I was a libertarian. It was my access to new knowledge that informed my world view with a new and more scientifically rigorous take on things.
[1]: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/brain-scans-of...
http://law.wustl.edu/journal/22/p325grassian.pdf
I had a longer reply, but somehow I don't think you're listening if the New Yorker is hyperliberal. Obviously solitary is not unusual, the questions are whether it's cruel, and whether it prevents recidivism and enables employment upon release.
I didn't say the New Yorker is hyperliberal. I said that the idea that solitary confinement is torture is hyperliberal (literally, "more liberal" than the liberal mainstream viewpoint).
> and whether it prevents recidivism and enables employment upon release.
That's absolutely irrelevant to Constitutionality. Something can be a stupid, ineffective, policy and yet be Constitutional.
Your exact words were, "only a tiny minority of hyperliberals would consider to be true". Since I had linked to the New Yorker which explores the issue in depth and gives significant credence to the idea, your aspersion quite apparently included the New Yorker. To say that it didn't is either revisionist, or you weren't clear with what you originally wrote. The New Yorker is a mainstream liberal publication.
> That's absolutely irrelevant to Constitutionality.
Agreed, but you also ignored the question about cruelty. I brought up those other points to make it clear that I'm not hyperliberal, not even necessarily liberal. I think it's good for our economy if ex-cons are able to work.
I believe the New Yorker and J. Law & Policy articles make a strong case for cruelty.
A day or two ago you said it's "debatable" whether or not torture happened at Guantanamo Bay ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6007152 ). Me? I think strangling and pulling someone on a leash while the individual is naked is torture: http://i.imgur.com/egrawlu.jpg
That said, solitary confinement over long periods of time is definitely torture. There's a stronger psychological component to this form of torture, and it often causes irreparable psychological damage as has been the case for several individuals who were subject to solitary confinement.
how can he be sure that there isn't other legal theory secretly approved by secret court that would allow to subject him to simulated death (or something even more devilish) without leaving any evidence on his body? After all Snowden had security clearance, had friends in these agencies, heard stories, so he do knows better what is waiting for him...
>(it is impossible to consider him an enemy combatant)
why? isn't it is just an at-will designation by the executive branch without any roots in domestic or international law? And even if not enemy combatant, "enemy of the US" or "enemy of freedom" would work fine as well and would qualify him for "enhanced interrogation techniques 2.0 freedom deluxe edition" (nice movie "Dictator" btw)
Because there is no such "secret court?" As a civilian Snowden cannot be tried in a military tribunal, and the only "secret court" that exists is FISC which is only empowered to grant warrants.
As a practical matter, people a lot more disliked by the state than Edward Snowden get tried in regular U.S. District Courts.
agree, secret court is too much. A confidential interpretation by a government lawyer would be enough as always.
Perhaps surprisingly, but no it's not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant
The "enemy combatant" as it is used in the US means people in the US custody who is outside of the US jurisdiction and have at the will of the executive branch been denied Geneva convention (which covers _everybody_, not just uniformed combatants - everybody else is also entitled to protected POW status until put into domestic justice system of the country possessing the custody)
Such "enemy combatant" notion don't have basis in the US law as well as in international law.
"...an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals."
Likewise, from the very same two paragraphs you reference you would find that the Bush-definition of enemy combatant describes an "unlawful combatant" who has no right to POW status under Geneva or the LOAC.
That doesn't mean that such civilian combatants have no rights whatsoever, but they are far limited compared to what Geneva provides for uniformed forces, and there is indeed precedent in international (and U.S.) law. For instance, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld was argued to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004, which ruled (among other things) "... repudiating the U.S. government's unilateral assertion of executive authority to suspend the constitutional protections of individual liberty of a U.S. citizen. The Court recognized the power of the government to detain unlawful combatants, but ruled that detainees must have the ability to challenge their detention before an impartial judge.". Congress tried to clarify in 2006 with the "Military Commissions Act of 2006" which does indeed contain a definition of an unlawful enemy combatant (one not reliant solely on the will of the executive). Likewise, several Supreme Court rulings have further eroded the position taken by Bush regarding the legal rights afforded to unlawful combatants held in Gitmo and other places.
And going back to the subject here (of whether the executive can unilaterally declare Snowden to be an 'enemy combatant' and send him to Gitmo): "On 18 December 2003, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the Bush Administration lacked the authority to detain a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil as an "illegal enemy combatant" without clear congressional authorization (per 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a)); it consequently ordered the government to release Padilla from military custody within thirty days." (Padilla was a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil).
But, that case ended up being thrown out on a technicality. When it was re-argued in the right court, they "ordered the Bush administration to either charge Padilla or release him.". They relied for that ruling on the Supreme Court ruling I'd just mentioned.
So no, Snowden should be perfectly safe from treatment as any kind of weird unlawful combatant should he return. In fact the term 'enemy combatant' was dropped in 2009 coincident to a certain regime change in the U.S.
no. Under Geneva, "unlawful combatants", like everybody else, are to be treated like protected POW until transferred to criminal or military justice system (lawful combatants are protected from such transfer). The "enemy combatant" status in the US is "unlawful combatant to whom both are intentionally and systematically denied - transfer to criminal or military justice system as well as POW status". That isn't "unlawful combatant" of Geneva, it is a violation of Geneva.
>they "ordered the Bush administration to either charge Padilla or release him.".
exactly.
> In fact the term 'enemy combatant' was dropped in 2009 coincident to a certain regime change in the U.S.
words change. People are still being held in Gitmo in violation of Geneva.
Do you consider solitary torture? Whistleblowers have been subjected to brutal solitary conditions, and they don't even consider him that.
>There is no reason to believe that someone who goes through the Federal civilian criminal justice system will be inevitably subject to torture.
They do track statistics for this by the way, if you know where to look.
For that reason once the trial judge determined that Manning should not have been held under Prevention of Injury Status after the psychiatrist deemed that he was not actually a suicide risk, she ended up reducing whatever his eventual sentence happens to be due to the fault of the military in that case.
Mind, he's still kind of stupid for 'joking' about killing himself with his soldier/Marine guards (who are not trained psychiatrists and are therefore trained to take no chances).
But even Manning being in the military wouldn't completely excuse his treatment in his first stages of pre-trial confinement.
Screw irony. It seems people stop thinking when they find irony in a situation.
Does Snowden have better options? No. So he has no choice but accepting asylum in a non-free country, no matter how ironic it might result.
No, but it's a valid reason to discount Snowden's positive characterization of those criticisms. It can be the case that both things are true: 1) Russia is correct in criticizing American action, regardless of its own actions; 2) Snowden is wrong to chalk it up to Russia's "standing up against the abuse of the powerless" instead of political grandstanding and deflection.
How does that change in any way the substance of Snowden's disclosures?
"I know you're referring to Snowden's inclusion of Russia on that list, but in this case, they (and maybe China) are the only ones who can stand up against America. Clearly Ecuador fell with a single phone call."
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You're implying US is a better country when it comes to human rights, but I don't see US defending his human rights. In fact, it's breaking many international laws trying to get him.
Also, I have to wonder what would've happened if there was any other weaker Russian president in place. I never liked Putin, but seeing how so many "democratic" countries were so quick to follow US' commands, and break international laws for US, just sickened me.
There's a difference between a partner and an ally, and a master. You can still stand up to your allies or partners at any time, if you disagree with their actions.
A difference between my comment and yours is that mine (in this case) doesn't claim to know things that it can't possibly know.
(You seem obsessed with laws, as if they possess value and worth in and of themselves, when really they are a very high latency sidechannel of society and power)
it is called international law.
Just a phone call: "A nice little country you have there, wouldn't it be pity if something happened to it?"
Just as the real example: it was reported that the existing trading arrangements were in question for some countries in Latin America.
I imagine they haven't. The bully who demands your lunch money hasn't hit you in the face either. The threat is merely implied.
>It's a defender of human rights in this case.
What Russia is doing with their anti-gay laws for example, is similar to what western countries have done to privacy, all in the name of an abstract idea like terrorism/protect the children/drugs.
Just because Snowden is against human rights violations it does not make him exempt of having to dance with the devil. Being a complete rebel, even in a world where it's obviously ruled by fake morals, is not a wise thing to do, specially when your life is at stake.
Spot on. Given this situation, as some of the still relatively empowered, IMHO we in the technology community therefore have a moral obligation to do what we can to support any potential remedies to the situation.
I guess I am more concerned about what's happening to our country now than with litigating the human rights history of tangentially involved nations.
It's perfectly possible to be a gross violator of human rights and then later (or even simultaneously) defend human rights.
As I posted before, dreamers of one world government only need to see what is happening to here to understand the folly of that ideal.
The only way Snowden can win now is to come home and let himself become a martyr.
Even then, I'm not sure he "wins". People have a very, very short attention span. He'd be forgotten before the sentencing was handed down, most likely. From a legal point of view, the case is pretty simple: did you release documents you swore not to release? Yes? Penalty is X years in prison. I don't see much martyrdom there. He won't be killed, he won't be tortured (he may be in solitary, which may be for his own safety more than anything else, whether he's a suicide risk or at risk of being murdered in prison -- just my opinion), so there isn't much to be get all that enraged about (beyond what he's already leaked).
The time would probably be taken to put together some evidence, figure out exactly what was leaked, and how. I'm sure there are many, many things he'd get charged with, so there's a lot of research to get done, and since it's sensitive information, there needs to be a lot of care taken to figure out what was accessed and just as importantly what wasn't accessed.
By then, Kim Kardashian will be working on a divorce or another baby ("South", anyone?), Aaron Hernandez will be up for appeal or something and the public won't will care much about this.
"Solitary confinement is considered to be a form of psychological torture when the period of confinement is longer than a few weeks or is continued indefinitely. Negative psychological effects have been documented, leading one judge in a 2001 suit to rule that 'Solitary confinement units are virtual incubators of psychoses—seeding illness in otherwise healthy inmates and exacerbating illness in those already suffering from mental infirmities.'"
Let me know how that goes.
Fixed that for you. Yes.
I think it is better option to be pain in the ass and be always there like a sore spot distracting the government.
I mean, there's a reason Snowden sought to differentiate his methods from Manning's, even if he had the same overall goal.
[EDIT: I mean side with the West whilst at the same time thoroughly taking them to task for their own rights violations]
Snowden has sided with the West. If the government were never embarrassed by its bad behavior, we would keep losing our rights until eventually there was nothing left but tyranny hiding behind a constitutional facade. It would not help anyone for Snowden to return to the USA at this point. He will never have access to classified information again, and in all likelihood he would find himself in solitary confinement until the end of his life.
[1] http://www.hrw.org/americas/venezuela
[2] http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/03/05/venezuela-chavez-s-author...
[1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/09/nytc-m09.html
Such is the sign of the brave new world.
And shame on you for venerating rule of law over right and wrong.
The wrong and cowardly thing to do is to praise Russia for not handing his sorry ass to Americans as if it's some sort of victory for human rights.
It was also odd when I earlier read that Human Rights Watch was the only agency which received an invitation from Mr. Snowden which felt the need to release the message in advance to the media, including the time and place of the meeting.
To see the problem with these events, consider it in any other situation where a political prisoner who is in hiding, let's say a North Korean, is meeting with representatives from human rights agencies. How would it be perceived if one of those human rights agencies announced the location in advance and took the opportunity to deliver a personal threatening message they had privately received during a personal conversation with Kim Jong-un.
consider it in any other situation where a political prisoner who is in hiding
And Venezuela has demanded the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, a former C.I.A. operative accused here of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people in the 1970s. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in the 1980s and went to live in the United States.
“The first thing you need to do to have the moral standing to ask for the extradition of this youth Snowden, whose only act is to reveal the crimes that you committed, is to turn over Luis Posada Carriles, who you are protecting,” Mr. Maduro said this month.
"Not that I wanna be their official messenger."
It certainly helps our cause that he's both intelligent and articulate.
The fact that the US Govt can continue operating at full will irrespective of legal and constitutional boundaries shows just how much power and influence they already have.
It is my sincere hope that this event ends the political careers of a number of US politicians, and engages enough voters to disrupt the status quo.
The perception presented by the US press/propaganda is that these are "paper democracies" [1], in the sense that an election was held but the implication is that the outcome of that election was pre-ordained such that the person "elected" is really just a dictator wearing the mantle of democracy to give their position a bit more legitimacy.
The unintended consequence of that propaganda effort is that many of the same sorts of innuendo can be applied to the US election process, so in a way they make themselves appear less legitimate than they might hope for.
Regardless of the reality of the situation, Snowden (or his speech writers), have incorporated (or perhaps co-opted) this theme to position the US (in the eyes of US residents/citizens) as being the inferior form of government or country relative to countries that they have been told are, or are implied to be, "paper democracies" [1]
I approve of that rhetoric because it has a chance of waking some people out of their "but it protects us from terrorism" slumber to realize that some prices are too high to pay and maybe this has gone too far and its time to change. And its clear that the incumbents are lining up on the side of supporting the NSA (I'm thinking of people like Senator Feinstein here) so they are the people we need to replace. We'll see how effective it is.
And yes, there is the counter argument about "but this is just what the enemies of the US want, us to voluntarily neuter our own intelligence services so that they can get back to doing their evil deeds." which, were this a foreign policy forum, we would be going back and forth on the limits of sovereignty vs the rights of the citizenry.
[1] I came across the term "paper democracies" in a book about the Iran Contra affair as a description of countries with elections whose outcome was rigged.
That's nonsense, though. Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina all have powerful, organized opposition parties, which have real differences with the current government and a real chance of winning elections — in a way that the US really doesn't — and also substantial restraints on the power of the executive, in a way that the US, again, no longer does.
Venezuela is the only member of this list that even conceivably approximates a "paper democracy", due to the current lack of limits on executive power, and in their case it's more because the opposition parties are pathetically corrupt than because they're illegal — but those opposition parties still govern several of the states of Venezuela.
"Nearly all Latin American elections now are free and fair" http://www.economist.com/node/16964145
no, it means you were successfully trained to be one.
To David Brooks and all the others who mock him for not finishing high school, take this statement as a model of clarity and forthrightness.
I'm not challenging the intellectual capacity of Snowden, but there is an army of supporters, including a well known publicist, that have been trying to turn Snowden into the latest cause celebre.
In hindsight, just wondering if running around the world is any better than giving yourself up to the local police. Given the media spotlight he is under, I doubt if there would have been a repeat of what they did with Manning. He might have got more support too.
I mean if you are passionate enough about your beliefs to throw your life away why not face the consequences head on. Sort of like a King or Gandhi. I realize what an unfair thing it is to say, but it would seem that sitting in some South American country or Russia, without knowing anyone and constantly looking over your shoulder would be equivalent to sitting in a cell in the US.
The most important condition would be strict adherence to the 8th amendment, which means no possibility of solitary confinement or other cruel and unusual punishment and reasonable bail, so he is afforded the same rights that Daniel Ellsberg was after leaking the Pentagon papers.
The other required condition would be changing the jurisdiction in which charges are brought back to where they should have been filed, which is Hawaii, not Virginia. Cherry-picking a jurisdiction where many of those that will be on the jury may work in the IC community or have close ties to the IC community is not justice. In fact, it is a perversion of it.
Lastly, (and I know this would never happen), but I would love to see a Frost v. Nixon type debate involving Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, Barack Obama, Gen. Keith Alexander and James Clapper live on national TV unrehearsed.
> The most important condition would be strict adherence to the 8th amendment
This is supposed to be a condition of USG existing in the first place, so the only thing it could give is more empty promises.
> In fact, it is a perversion of it [justice]
Once again, if USG was bound by anything, it would already not be perverting justice in every other trial.
At this point to Snowden, USG is just an angry beast to be avoided at all costs. More power to him for working to unmask the extent of its colonization of the world while he's still in limbo. But at this point, he can never return to the soft prison with free speech, and has to deal with being in the rest of the world without it. The only thing we can wish for him is to be able to resume a nice life next to a beach somewhere.
That's just...hilarious, and absurd. What purpose does that call serve; what goal is it working toward? Is it some sort of legal requirement? Can we just do without the inane posturing, for once?
Edit: apparently there is some dispute as to whether this conversation actually took place.
When all the smoke is cleared away from Snowden's allegations, and there have been congressional investigations into the data-gathering and surveillance practices of United States government agencies and private companies, most Americans will still be quite supportive of their federal government (in the usual complaining United States way) and tens of millions of people around the world will still desire to settle in the United States.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-drea...
To date, I am persuaded that United States government programs related to foreign intelligence need more effective oversight--not least because they hire snafus like Snowden. I am also persuaded that most countries with governments subject to the discipline of a free press and free and fair elections largely are willing to cooperate with the United States in the kind of programs the NSA intends to run, because there are genuine threats from terrorist plotters in those countries.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Boston+Marathon+bombing&sour...
I'd be glad to see NSA programs reviewed by Congress, and possibly curtailed in their operation to ensure their lawfulness. I'd also be glad to see Edward Snowden go on trial according to United States law to weigh his actions against any defenses he may be able to assert at trial. I've lived elsewhere twice for long stays in my adult life, and after talking to people from around the world about this, I'm still glad to be living in the United States at the moment, and still mostly glad that the United States system of rule by law operates as it does.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 180 times, i guess Snowden feels that even a couple times of such simulated death experience would be too much - look at how Manning looks - like a ghost (and i suppose Manning had it clearly explained to him that if he mentions anything else that was done to him beyond solitary confinement - it will be repeated in double amount)
note: while there is incomparable difference between Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's actions and Snowden's, there isn't much difference from the POV of the ones who have and would be "handling" the former and the latter - between terrorism and high treason, high treason have been punished by the powers to be equally or even more harsher.
Did Thomas Drake end up being waterboarded?
Manning has looked like a ghost at the best of times, just look at his Wikipedia article with his 2009 picture in the Hollister shirt and compare to the recent photos of him being escorted to/from the trial going on now at Ft. Meade.
What specific pictures have you seen where he looks injured?
Bringing these kinds of charges in Virginia is like filing a patent suit in East Texas.
A dry run, as it were.
That's not to say I think they are being insincere. However there is no reason for them to go out of their way to get Snowden into their country.
No country on the planet can just let him pass the border without violating it's own laws. This is exactly why revoking his passport is such a disgusting move that violates all common decency.
If there was ever one specific moment in history in which the US changed from a flawed democracy to a totalitarian state, it's the moment they took Snowden's passport.
I think there is a double standart. Now the president looks like perverted nasty bully - throwing a tantrum because he and his friends were found out.
Am I the only one who found this whole statement pretty odd?
Let's see. A "whistleblower" is a term for someone who blows a whistle. This is generally meant to indicate someone who is making some kind of loud noise to report a crime; someone (maybe a cop, maybe just someone who is a victim of a crime) trying to get attention that a crime has been committed.
Now, when reporting a crime, do you generally expect the perpetrator of that crime to be the appropriate person to determine whether or not a crime has been committed, and thus whether or not labeling the person a "whistleblower" is appropriate?
The whole idea of whistleblower laws that don't protect someone from reporting to the public about crimes committed by the administration is laughable. What the hell is the point of any kind of whistleblower laws or protection if you can't actually blow the whistle on your bosses?
In the US system, there are representatives of the people, passing laws. There is a single executive, also a representative of the people, implementing said laws. And there are the courts, interpreting said laws when there are disagreements over them.
But the whole point of representative democracy is that the people ultimately get to decide who is doing this, so that a runaway government cannot be a single "top level" of authority that creates, enforces, and interprets its own laws. The whole point is that the people are the highest authority, and the government serves at their will.
But if the government hides substantial information from the people, a democracy cannot effectively function. The people need to know what the government is doing. There are good reasons for limited amounts of secrecy, for particularly sensitive information or for privacy purposes. But keeping vast amounts of information on things that affect everyone, outside of a wartime environment, is anti-democratic.
This type of secrecy, this type of executive action which is seen as being unquestionable by even elected representatives, let alone the people, is turning the government from a representative democracy to an oligarchy.
Not true in any practical sense. If the government physically does something to me (like surveils me, arrests me, evicts me, etc.) I don't get to vote my way out of it. They are the top level of authority in any meaningful sense.
But rather, the people, collectively, are supposed to be the top level of authority. If the people want to vote out the current administration, they can. If they want to change the laws, they can vote for representatives who will do so. If they want to change the constitution, they can call a constitutional convention. Now sure, no individual can do this alone; they have to get a substantial fraction of the populace to do it along with them.
However, there are several factors that work against this. One major one is secrecy. If what the government is doing is hidden, then they cannot provide oversight (nor can their elected representatives, or the courts).
What a stupid complaint. He's opposed to his country spying, so he blows the whistle on them. Now what is he to do? Stay and become the next Manning, locked away in torture and forgotten about? He obviously has to go, so where? It has to be somewhere that can stand up to the US which, as we've just seen, isn't very fucking many places. Russia and China are pretty much the only realistic options here.
But no, he shouldn't be practical. He should be more concerned that some dumbass on the internet might call him a fucking hypocrite.
I think his actions while on the run are just pathetic. He's such a weasel, like a guy who sucker punches someone on the street then takes off. The to align himself with these other countries who in the grand scheme of things are far worse actors than the US takes some serious balls. I still get the sense that 90% of the reason he decided to pull this off was for selfish reasons, that he wanted the notoriety.
EDIT - I suspect numerous downvotes will confirm the consensus
Just as a minuscule example of US foreign policies, have you ever heard about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
Or use of, practically, chemical weapons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
Or something current:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/11/to_protect_...
"Now in his second term, President Obama insists that his counterterrorism policies differ markedly from Bush's. However, there are far more similarities than differences with regards to: non-battlefield targeted killings (an estimated 50 under Bush, and 387 under Obama); indefinite detention of suspected terrorists (approved by both through executive orders); broad surveillance authorities (as former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden admitted on Sunday, 'NSA is actually empowered to do more things than I was empowered to do under President Bush's special authorization')"
I don't think the weasel simile is appropriate in this case. I don't think aligning himself with countries of questionable loyalty to his ideals is an inherently bad thing either - 1)It creates a sort of dichotomy, and increases the contrast between what the US portrays itself to be, and what it actually is(due to it using the same exact methods commie governments use) 2) Those are the only ones that will give him asylum, as the US is, after all, a G6 country. 3) It buys him more time(see 2.) to make decisions.
But you have to look at the other side of this issue - not for a second has the U.S. played this game without dirty tricks.
I didn't downvote you, however, I do think you watch US based media too much, judging from the rather overly simple argument. If not, then my apologies.
As for the 'hypocrisy' would you feel the same if a Chinese national ran to the US seeking asylum after broadcasting to the world that the Chinese were hacking our hospitals and universities just because they could?
Thus the hypocrisy - China and Russia have brutal, repressive governments that do not have moral equivalency with the USA. That said, I don't think the scenario you pose is analogous. If Snowden flew to China and revealed we were spying on China, that would be regular old treason.
If a Chinese national came to America to reveal to the world how China was spying on its own people (what good would that do as this information would be censored out within China?), he would be going to a less repressive land from where he left. Thus, no hypocrisy.
So, it's wrong to blow the whistle on the least-repressive land in the world without submitting to draconian punishment? Let's say the US disappeared from the world (closed its borders entirely, took off in a giant spaceship, etc)... Does this mean that whistleblowers in Russia must accept punishment for their message to be valid?
So what do we do now?
I don't find Wikileaks as a credible source on this topic in general.
So forget about Wikileaks. It's either Human Rights Watch's Tany Lokshina lying, or the US Ambassador.
[0]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/12/edward-snowden-t...
The fact that he has been charged with a crime is a pretty good indication that the USG thinks he has broken the law.
If you carry out Wikileak's line of thinking here, then anyone in any country who has been charged with a crime, no matter how severe or small, brutal or kind, should have the right to seek asylum from another country and that no state should interfere with that right.
Also, they continue to make the false claim that he has been made "stateless", which shows a purposeful ignorance of how laws actually work.
Or did you have something more specific in mind?
Just because returning to your country would likely be unpleasant for you doesn't mean you no longer have a country.
I'm not a fan of what the NSA is doing but I don't think Snowden is even remotely close to a hero either. Did you know you can take that position? That there's a difference between ones position on NSA spying and whether Snowden is a whistleblower? I'm of the opinion that Snowden and the NSA are criminals.
Every individual has the particular interest to live in a healthy society,and not to have his possibilities limited by his country of birth if you ask me.
They do not have the best track record in terms of privacy or human rights, but helping him will make them look good internationally.