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Nice, Huawei Finally pointed this out, so the next step is hopefully somebody pointing out the difference. There will never be a Snowden in China. You can guar

Nice, Huawei Finally pointed this out, so the next step is hopefully somebody pointing out the difference. There will never be a Snowden in China. You can guarantee their life, or their love one's life will be held hostage. So not only does the "West" ( So to speak ) has a system in place protecting these people, they also have a system to vote them out and elect a new form of government should the ultimate worst come to play. What can you do with the CCP?

Leary 8y ago
The West has a system in place to protect people like Snowden?
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  Are you aware of the government using Snowden's relatives as collateral in order to get him to return to the US? Pretty sure they've been safe this whole time.
  - sbov 8y ago
    Not only that, from what I can tell his girlfriend travels between Russia and the US to visit him.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    The people that know him are protected. And that is definitely worth noting. But I'm far less confident that he would be treated fairly.
    - archgoon 8y ago
      > But I'm far less confident that he would be treated fairly. Maybe, maybe not, but there is precedence in America for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg > Daniel Ellsberg... precipitated a national political > controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, > a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government decision- > making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York > Times and other newspapers. > > On January 3, 1973, Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage > Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, > carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Due to > governmental misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, > and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School > professor Charles Nesson, Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. > dismissed all charges against Ellsberg on May 11, 1973.
- throway88989898 8y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQKUe96TAh4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQKUe96TAh4
techie128 8y ago
lol, you really think the American citizens will vote out the government or impeach their president because they act unethically or immorally? I'd love to know what you're smoking.
- eddieplan9 8y ago
  The question is not if they will, but if they can.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    It makes no difference if they will not, or if the activation energy is exorbitantly high. If you want to go with technicalities, so can anybody in the world, revolution is always an option.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Can they?
  - rchaud 8y ago
    Can they really? The popular vote isn't enough to win a presidential election, you also need electoral college votes which aren't allocated by proportion of population. At the local and state level, you can strategically implement gerrymandering to create electoral districts that are strongly advantageous to you. How would a political challenger not belonging to the dominant party win there? Authoritarian regimes frequently win elections with 80-95% of the vote. That tells me that the people "can" vote him out.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
I disagree. The reason there will be no Snowden in China is primarily that China doesn't hide its spying, and secondarily becaue China does not maintain the pretense of moral superiority on international scale. Snowden-type leak from China would not change the way Chinese citizens perceive their government, and nobody else would care, much less exert outside pressure to change things. Leaks and whistleblowers will happen, though - they do happen even in most oppressive of regimes. (Also excuse me, but I don't believe US wouldn't try to exert pressure on you through your loved ones in a case like this.)
- pjc50 8y ago
  Anyone remember the Plame affair? Not in the same category, but blowing the cover of a CIA operative in retaliation for their husband not following the party lie on Iraq. Scooter Libby was prosecuted during the subsequent investigation and of course pardoned by Trump.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >China doesn't hide its spying, Because they don't have to, because they cannot be democratically removed from power and their people accept a high level of human rights abuses as status quo. US citizens do not.
chrischen 8y ago
I guess Russia is part of the West now? Funny thing is Snowden first went to Hong Kong, a part of China, for that protection.
- kelnos 8y ago
  Suggesting that HK is "a part of China" vastly simplifies what's going on there to a point of uselessness.
  - chrischen 8y ago
    I think the communist party has enough leverage to make it "a part of China" for the concerns of Edward Snowden.
chrischen 8y ago
Can you cite evidence of Chinese dissidents having family members held hostage? Genuinely curious if this is true, because it doesn't sound like it's true as even the Chinese government is accountable to public opinion to a large degree. For an accusation like that you should always provide substantiated evidence, otherwise you're just flaming the anti-Chinese racial flames. Because as terrible as you may think the Chinese government is, it still has the legitimacy and support of a vast majority of the Chinese population.
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  > Can you cite evidence of Chinese dissidents having family members held hostage? Not the best coming from the Guardian admittedly, but still. Top result in google. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/chinese-activists-family-taken-away-over-letter-calling-for-xi-jinping-to-quit https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/chinese-activi...
  - chrischen 8y ago
    There's really nothing that goes on in China without netizens talking about it (see chinasmack.com). It'd be really interesting to hear about the Chinese perspective on this. TO be honest the article seems really lacking on details. From an objective bystander perspective, there may actually be legitimate charges levied on the family members, but it's hard to tell.
  - calcifer 8y ago
    > Not the best coming from the Guardian admittedly What is that supposed to mean?
    - dijit 8y ago
      Guardian is a newspaper generally perceived to be anti-authoritarian. It's one of the few "left" newspapers in the UK.
      - 8y ago
house_atr 8y ago
Why do westerners always do this? Like, the idea of pointing out a tangential difference will somehow invalidate criticism against them. It's like their version of whataboutism. inb4 "the difference is"
anticodon 8y ago
> system to vote them out and elect a new form of government should the ultimate worst come to play Has anything changed after Snowden revelations? New form of government?
YUMad 8y ago
You mean the Snowden whose supposed presence on a plane of a Southamerican president made US pressure couple European countries to deny him air passage and in effect force him to land, and then made the police of the country he landed in search his plane? Insane diplomatic incident. You are right, USA wouldn't kill him if captured. They would only psychologically torture him for years, like they did with Manning.
687u655r 8y ago
What about all those rich Chinese that emigrate to the US and Canada? They all warn about China. Does Israel count as the West? I can definitely see them taking out traitors.
rchaud 8y ago
> There will never be a Snowden in China. Snowden would have been in a US jail if Russia hadn't found him to be a useful symbol of US hypocrisy. Snowden originally went to HK but the authorities were ready to extradite him, as were most countries that didn't want the US breathing down their necks.

Leary 8y ago

The West has a system in place to protect people like Snowden?

fucking_tragedy 8y ago
Are you aware of the government using Snowden's relatives as collateral in order to get him to return to the US? Pretty sure they've been safe this whole time.
- sbov 8y ago
  Not only that, from what I can tell his girlfriend travels between Russia and the US to visit him.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  The people that know him are protected. And that is definitely worth noting. But I'm far less confident that he would be treated fairly.
  - archgoon 8y ago
    > But I'm far less confident that he would be treated fairly. Maybe, maybe not, but there is precedence in America for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg > Daniel Ellsberg... precipitated a national political > controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, > a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government decision- > making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York > Times and other newspapers. > > On January 3, 1973, Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage > Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, > carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Due to > governmental misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, > and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School > professor Charles Nesson, Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. > dismissed all charges against Ellsberg on May 11, 1973.
throway88989898 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQKUe96TAh4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQKUe96TAh4

techie128 8y ago

lol, you really think the American citizens will vote out the government or impeach their president because they act unethically or immorally? I'd love to know what you're smoking.

eddieplan9 8y ago
The question is not if they will, but if they can.
- pishpash 8y ago
  It makes no difference if they will not, or if the activation energy is exorbitantly high. If you want to go with technicalities, so can anybody in the world, revolution is always an option.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Can they?
- rchaud 8y ago
  Can they really? The popular vote isn't enough to win a presidential election, you also need electoral college votes which aren't allocated by proportion of population. At the local and state level, you can strategically implement gerrymandering to create electoral districts that are strongly advantageous to you. How would a political challenger not belonging to the dominant party win there? Authoritarian regimes frequently win elections with 80-95% of the vote. That tells me that the people "can" vote him out.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

I disagree. The reason there will be no Snowden in China is primarily that China doesn't hide its spying, and secondarily becaue China does not maintain the pretense of moral superiority on international scale. Snowden-type leak from China would not change the way Chinese citizens perceive their government, and nobody else would care, much less exert outside pressure to change things. Leaks and whistleblowers will happen, though - they do happen even in most oppressive of regimes. (Also excuse me, but I don't believe US wouldn't try to exert pressure on you through your loved ones in a case like this.)

pjc50 8y ago
Anyone remember the Plame affair? Not in the same category, but blowing the cover of a CIA operative in retaliation for their husband not following the party lie on Iraq. Scooter Libby was prosecuted during the subsequent investigation and of course pardoned by Trump.
EpicEng 8y ago
>China doesn't hide its spying, Because they don't have to, because they cannot be democratically removed from power and their people accept a high level of human rights abuses as status quo. US citizens do not.

chrischen 8y ago

I guess Russia is part of the West now? Funny thing is Snowden first went to Hong Kong, a part of China, for that protection.

kelnos 8y ago
Suggesting that HK is "a part of China" vastly simplifies what's going on there to a point of uselessness.
- chrischen 8y ago
  I think the communist party has enough leverage to make it "a part of China" for the concerns of Edward Snowden.

chrischen 8y ago

Can you cite evidence of Chinese dissidents having family members held hostage? Genuinely curious if this is true, because it doesn't sound like it's true as even the Chinese government is accountable to public opinion to a large degree. For an accusation like that you should always provide substantiated evidence, otherwise you're just flaming the anti-Chinese racial flames. Because as terrible as you may think the Chinese government is, it still has the legitimacy and support of a vast majority of the Chinese population.

King-Aaron 8y ago
> Can you cite evidence of Chinese dissidents having family members held hostage? Not the best coming from the Guardian admittedly, but still. Top result in google. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/chinese-activists-family-taken-away-over-letter-calling-for-xi-jinping-to-quit https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/chinese-activi...
- chrischen 8y ago
  There's really nothing that goes on in China without netizens talking about it (see chinasmack.com). It'd be really interesting to hear about the Chinese perspective on this. TO be honest the article seems really lacking on details. From an objective bystander perspective, there may actually be legitimate charges levied on the family members, but it's hard to tell.
- calcifer 8y ago
  > Not the best coming from the Guardian admittedly What is that supposed to mean?
  - dijit 8y ago
    Guardian is a newspaper generally perceived to be anti-authoritarian. It's one of the few "left" newspapers in the UK.
    - 8y ago

house_atr 8y ago

Why do westerners always do this? Like, the idea of pointing out a tangential difference will somehow invalidate criticism against them. It's like their version of whataboutism. inb4 "the difference is"

anticodon 8y ago

> system to vote them out and elect a new form of government should the ultimate worst come to play Has anything changed after Snowden revelations? New form of government?

YUMad 8y ago

You mean the Snowden whose supposed presence on a plane of a Southamerican president made US pressure couple European countries to deny him air passage and in effect force him to land, and then made the police of the country he landed in search his plane? Insane diplomatic incident. You are right, USA wouldn't kill him if captured. They would only psychologically torture him for years, like they did with Manning.

687u655r 8y ago

What about all those rich Chinese that emigrate to the US and Canada? They all warn about China. Does Israel count as the West? I can definitely see them taking out traitors.

rchaud 8y ago

> There will never be a Snowden in China. Snowden would have been in a US jail if Russia hadn't found him to be a useful symbol of US hypocrisy. Snowden originally went to HK but the authorities were ready to extradite him, as were most countries that didn't want the US breathing down their necks.