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> One could say that the same is true in the US, but I believe the degree matters. Although the US government and intelligence agencies will and do try to overr
by PoignardAzur 5y ago
> One could say that the same is true in the US, but I believe the degree matters. Although the US government and intelligence agencies will and do try to overreach, there is a strong legal and cultural tradition of exposing, resisting, and fighting these overreaches in the US.
That point would be a lot stronger if the US government hadn't demonstrated shocking callousness and disregard for international law in their efforts to catch notorious whistleblowers Snowden and Assange.
I remember when Belarus downed a plane to catch a political dissident and all western countries acted shocked, even though these countries had tried to do the exact same thing to Snowden on the US's behalf, with a presidential plane no less.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jjeaff 5y agoInternational law isn't really a thing if it has no teeth. I would be more worried about the US breaking its own laws. Which they of course do, on occasion. But there is a lot of pushback and not too much fear of reprisal if you call them out and fight them on it. For example, we are in the process of appointing a supreme court justice that, during her career, has fought against US Government overeach and represented alleged terrorists imprisoned (oh sorry, "detained"), in Guantanamo.
- PoignardAzur 5y agoMy point isn't "the US is bad because it doesn't respect international law". My point is that the US is willing to go pretty damn far to put some high-profile dissidents in a hole and throw away the key, and there is very little pushback both internally and internationally, which kind of undercuts the whole "the US government would hesitate to do X because whistleblowers would stop them" argument.
- jjeaff 5y agoAre you talking about Snowden? Because that is one person and he isn't in a whole. They haven't even caught him. Another I can think of is Chelsea Manning who ended up getting a presidential commutation of sentence.
- ummwhat 5y agoHold up. Downed a plane is different from grounded a plane. I don't know the Belarusian case, but either you misused the word or they are very different.
- alternatetwo 5y agoThey forced the plane to land in Belarus by threatening it with fighter jets while it was nearly out of their airspace. IIRC they pretended there was a bomb threat or some other nonsense.
- hoseja 5y ago"Downed" is usually understood as "shot down".
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- PoignardAzur 5y agoGrounded a plane, yes, sorry. I meant they forced it to land (in the US case, by having neighboring countries close their airspace mid-flight).