12 ms·
USA must not hunt down whistleblower Edward Snowden
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mindstab 13y agoSo we should stop saying X country should stop violating it's citizen’s civil rights with torture, imprisonment for protesting etc? The US (and the rest of us) may need to start keeping a lot quieter then... Didn't the US invade Iraq in the 90s because they were internally committing genocide? But now what ever happens in your border is all ok? Sceptical
- dicroce 13y agoPretty sure 4'th amendment takes precedent over whatever other "law" he broke.
- sigzero 13y agoNo, I don't think it does in this case actually.
- chris_mahan 13y agoWell, I think he's being charged for revealing information about how the US Government violates the Constitution, specifically the 4th Amendment. Let's be clear: in the United States of America, the Constitution is the Law. The first 10 Amendments constitute the Bill of Rights, and the first paragraph of http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.html http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.htm... clearly shows why they were included in the Constitution: "During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a "bill of rights" that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens.
- famousactress 13y agoSure, but I think the commenter has a point. Let's assume everything works the way it's supposed to. Ideally, when something like this happens it makes perfect sense for the US government to take notice of the fact that a law has been broken, bring charges, and take this to court. If the system continues to work the charges will be contested on the grounds that the action was in the interest of the public and that the leaks document a violation of the constitution. The govt drops the charges, and heads off to repair the completely fucked effects of the patriot act, etc. So I agree it's naive and even unreasonable to expect the US not to file charges. I also agree that there's plenty of evidence that our justice system fails to operate even close to the way it ought to with respect to cases of this nature so I'd sure as shit get out of town if I was in this situation too. [edit: Very much agree with replies to this comment suggesting none of this is likely to, or can possibly happen today.. I'm just saying the nature of the machine is to act as if it's not broken, which with respect to our approach to intelligence-related disputes, it obviously is.]
- chris_mahan 13y agoThe charges will be contested how? The secret courts and the secret interpretation of the Patriot Act are secret and the State holds them to be State Secrets, and thus you cannot contest the charges, and thus the Constitutionality of the law is never challenged, and thus the law stays on the books, to be fully enforced. If this is not a definition of corruption, I don't know what is.
- swombat 13y agoUnfortunately, Bradley Manning's case shows that there's a fair chance that Snowden would never get a trial...
- siddboots 13y agoThe way I read the article, it seemed like Amnesty are just saying that he should have protection as a whistle-blower on the grounds that the leaks demonstrate human rights violations.
- kghose 13y agoI always think of Tom Hank's line in "Catch me if you can": "I can't stop, it's my job."
- pvnick 13y agoI am so saddened to hear that the country I pledged allegiance to as a child is now being accused of human rights abuses by Amnesty International :(
- jrockway 13y agoThis is not a new thing. The prisons in the US are used as a model for countries wishing to gain the status "third world".
- SEJeff 13y agoYou know... Most prisons in the US (non-maximum security) are more like hotels with free gyms, TVs, college class work, and Internet. Some of them where the non-violent white collar criminals go are seen almost (jokingly of course) as resorts. I disagree with your statement.
- scythe 13y agoThis is an extremely damaging myth and it needs to die. Prison conditions in the US are, by and large, deplorable. Worse than anywhere in Europe. Worse than most of Latin America. We look like Iran. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_States#Prison_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Stat... >Examples of mistreatment claimed include prisoners left naked and exposed in harsh weather or cold air;[120] "routine" use of rubber bullets[121] and pepper spray;,[120][121][121] solitary confinement of violent prisoners in soundproofed cells for 23 or 24 hours a day;[120][122] and a range of injuries from serious injury to fatal gunshot wounds, with force at one California prison "often vastly disproportionate to the actual need or risk that prison staff faced."[121] Such behaviors are illegal, and, "Professional standards clearly limit staff use of force to that which is necessary to control prisoner disorder."[121] >Human Rights Watch raised concerns with prisoner rape and medical care for inmates.[123] In a survey of 1,788 male inmates in Midwestern prisons by Prison Journal, about 21% claimed they had been coerced or pressured into sexual activity during their incarceration and 7% claimed that they had been raped in their current facility.[124] Tolerance of serious sexual abuse and rape in United States prisons are consistently reported as widespread.[citation needed] It has been fought against by organizations such as Stop Prisoner Rape. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confinement-shane-bauer#13721250664231&action=collapse_widget&id=2473056 http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confine... >He's right about that. After being apprehended on the Iran-Iraq border, Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal, and I were held in Evin Prison's isolation ward for political prisoners. Sarah remained there for 13 months, Josh and I for 26 months. We were held incommunicado. We never knew when, or if, we would get out. We didn't go to trial for two years. When we did we had no way to speak to a lawyer and no means of contesting the charges against us, which included espionage. The alleged evidence the court held was "confidential." >What I want to tell Acosta is that no part of my experience—not the uncertainty of when I would be free again, not the tortured screams of other prisoners—was worse than the four months I spent in solitary confinement. What would he say if I told him I needed human contact so badly that I woke every morning hoping to be interrogated? Would he believe that I once yearned to be sat down in a padded, soundproof room, blindfolded, and questioned, just so I could talk to somebody? >I want to answer his question—of course my experience was different from those of the men at California's Pelican Bay State Prison—but I'm not sure how to do it. How do you compare, when the difference between one person's stability and another's insanity is found in tiny details? Do I point out that I had a mattress, and they have thin pieces of foam; that the concrete open-air cell I exercised in was twice the size of the "dog run" at Pelican Bay, which is about 16 by 25 feet; that I got 15 minutes of phone calls in 26 months, and they get none; that I couldn't write letters, but they can; that we could only talk to nearby prisoners in secret, but they can shout to each other without being punished; that unlike where I was imprisoned, whoever lives here has to shit at the front of his cell, in view of the guards? It is a crazy, awful, and unnecessary black mark on America's human rights record. There is no excuse for this sort of thing, and it happens every day. Other first-world countries get along fine without systematic mistreatment of nearly eight people in a thousand.
- vpeters25 13y agoI bet the first draft of the White House's reply to Amnesty International reads just like the ones typical banana republic dictatorships use: throwing a tantrum about "interference with internal affairs", Snowden broke "the law" and must be deported at once, etc... It is sad that this is pretty much expected from this government the same way the ones among us who grew up in Pinochet's Chile or any other dictatorship could predict from their own government.
- uvdiv 13y agoThe White House rather unambiguously threw Snowden under the bus: "Mr. Snowden's claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen - China, Russia, Ecuador, as we've seen [...] His failures to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States, not to advance Internet freedom and free speech." http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-obama-idUSBRE95N17620130624 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-ob...
- Amadou 13y agoIf it's not one thing, it's another. No matter what Snowden did, they would come up with some excuse to trivialize his disclosures. This one is particularly egregious because it can be turned right back around on the US government which also claims to support transparency, freedom of the press and protection of individual rights and yet it also consorts with despots and dictators.
- genwin 13y agoLet's not forget too that the US toppled 2 democracies and thwarted another.
- adventured 13y agoNot to undermine your point at all - as the US is guilty many times over of doing terrible things in the name of overthrowing governments - but Democracy != good. Just because people can vote, doesn't mean they won't vote in evil leaders. The US elected Nixon, Bush, and Obama, after all.
- thufry 13y agoI don't know why people think that "I think Edward Snowden did the right thing" is incompatible with "Edward Snowden should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." If I run a stop sign to the hospital because my child has a serious injury, I did the right thing (as long as I did it safely), but I still expect to get a ticket for the violation. The reason that Snowden is being called a "hero" in some corners is because of the likely penalties for his actions, penalties that ensure that people don't blog about every piece of classified information that they find distasteful. Amnesty International really puts itself in a weird position by using the words "hunt down"... the US has simply made written requests of countries under existing treaties, requests which have been ignored by Hong Kong without immediate consequence. "Hunt down" implies something Seal Team Six-style.
- potatolicious 13y agoBecause falling on your sword, while noble and makes for great story-telling, is unnecessary. Requiring whistleblowers to fall on their own swords discourages whistleblowing, which as a society we've in the past explicitly spelled out as desirable behavior. tl;dr: If you punish desirable behavior, desirable behavior won't happen.
- slg 13y agoYou are making the leap to assume there will be punishment (probably a fair assumption, but an assumption nonetheless). He isn't yet being forced to fall on his sword. The US hasn't sentenced him to death or life in prison. The US is simply trying to bring him back to face his charges.
- smegel 13y agoI find the media reporting on this incredibly frustrating. So many articles seem to be blindly making claims along the lines that both China and Russia have extradition treaties with the US and should be "following the law". For example: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/24/politics/nsa-snowden-options/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/24/politics/nsa-snowden-optio... > While it's true that the United States has treaties and agreements with Russia and other countries, those agreements aren't always followed There is no mention here of a US/Russia extradition agreement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradition_treaties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extraditi... And here: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/snowden-affair-turns-into-cold-war-caper-20130625-2oteo.html http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/snowden-affair-turns-i... > It was not clear if he was speaking of China or of Russia, when he added: “If we cannot count on them to honour their legal extradition responsibilities, then that is a problem.” Well given that neither Russia or China have extradition treaties with the US, I would hazard a guess they were referring to Hong Kong.
- toyg 13y agoMakes sense: Snowden is somewhere on the other side of the world, Amnesty have absolutely no say in his fate, so might as well write up a nice press release about him, right? Let's hit those front-pages, people! Meanwhile, a few yards from their lovely London HQ, a certain unsympathetic Australian is under indefinite house arrest. When his tribulations first started, Amnesty first stood silent for days, then threw him unceremoniously under the bus. Because evildoers are always somewhere else, never in your own backyard, of course.
- sigmar 13y ago"under indefinite house arrest" alternatively known as, evading UK police by seeking asylum in a foreign embassy
- josephlord 13y agoAnd while I have no view at all about his guilt or innocence of rape in Sweden and would argue against his extradition to the US I am certain beyond all reasonable doubt that he is guilty of breaching his bail conditions for which I think he should be punished.
- scarmig 13y agoAmnesty: "Sweden should issue assurance it won’t extradite Assange to USA" Which is, I believe, is identical to Assange's stance. http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/sweden-should-issue-assurance-it-won-t-extradite-assange-usa-2012-09-27 http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/sweden-should-issue-assurance...
- toyg 13y agoNote the date: 27 September. It took them 3 months to get their head out of their arse, and only after they bled supporters. In June and July, their tone was very different, more akin to what their Swedish branch is still saying: http://www.thelocal.se/43510/20120928/ http://www.thelocal.se/43510/20120928/ EDIT: see for example: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/16/human-rights-watch-amnesty-assange-ecuador_n_1789681.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/16/human-rights-watc...
- namank 13y agoWhat's the pledge ritual? Seems like something reinforced via the education system? Please enlighten those of us outside the US.
- tlrobinson 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance
- notatoad 13y agoEvery morning, every child is forced to stand up, place their hand over their heart, face the flag, and recite the words "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
- jlgreco 13y agoAnd for some additional perspective, "under God" was added in the 50s to distinguish us from those godless communists.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Addition_of_.22under_God.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Addition_o... The pledge is unarguably a political tool.
- munin 13y agoyou aren't forced, you have a choice. many choose not to.
- jlgreco 13y agoIn many schools the only way to opt-out without receiving significant grief for doing so is to claim a religious exemption to pledging to things. I saw kids receive perpetually refilling detentions for refusing to say the pledge, though at the time I found it weird that they would refuse.
- ataggart 13y agoFive year olds do not have the capacity to understand such choices, thus should not be compelled into making them.
- Tycho 13y agoThis whole thing will make a hell of a movie script.
- imchillyb 13y agoSnowden will be hunted down, and murdered by drone. He will never have the chance to face his accusers. There will never be a trial. There will be a mostly silent poof in the night, and Mr. Snowden will become another drone strike statistic.
- temp453463343 13y agoHonest question: Can someone draw the lines for me from looking at call meta data to human rights? Is privacy even a right in the same sense as other human rights? Human rights are generally about what you CAN do, not about what others (ie.the government) CAN'T do.