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US Promises Not To Kill Or Torture Snowden
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The WSJ reports that Attorney General Eric Holder promises Edward Snowden won't be tortured or face the death penalty in a new letter hoping to persuade Russia not to grant him asylum or refugee status. Holder's letter, dated Tuesday, notes that press reports from Russia indicated Snowden sought asylum in part based on claims he could be tortured or killed by the US government. It is common for the US to promise not to seek the death penalty against individuals being sought in other countries, because even America's closest allies won't turn over suspects if they believe that person might be executed. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture found Bradley Manning's detention was 'cruel and inhuman'." Update: 07/27 13:15 GMT by T : Several readers have noted that change.gov, established by the Obama transition team in 2008, has recently (last month) gone offline; among other things, it contained language specifically addressing the protection of whistleblowers.
Get it? They said OR, so that's not a lie.
Waterboarding was torture in Vietnam.
But not anymore!
As an American, it breaks my heart that my fellow citizens are okay with indefinite detention and torture, and with the wiretapping which violates our constituation's 4th amendment.
It's a small comfort that our government is facing trouble abroad because of those policies.
Those Romanians who are holding him for us.... What were they thinking?!!
The USA does not need to do the torture, it can send the person to another country and have them do it.
First off we Snowden should get the Nobel of Peace . HIs actions revealed Government wrongdoings like Ellsberg did 40 years ago. .. not Snowden.
They are heroes to the People . The Government is the traitor and criminal here
Second : the fact a Government promises not to torture of kill someone is a sign that things are gone terribly wrong.
Torture and murder are now " normal course of business " for the US Government. Democracy is dead.Government out of control.
Nothing will keep Snowden from assasination.Extreme right wing nutjobs ( yes , right wing republicans ) will subsidise hit men to kill him.
There's few chances for him to stay alive . To be promised not to be murdered or tortured , but a life in jail for blowing the whistle on illegal and reprehensible Government conduct is totally immoral. Democracy is dead in the US . The land of Freedom ? HA ! Let me laugh.
Anyone saying " ok i go back " would be a total fool and idiot.
Our government refuses to admit that waterboarding, sleep-deprivation, and blasting a person with loud music for days on end are "torture". So them claiming they won't "torture" someone is a pretty weak commitment.
Obama promised not to scramble jets to get Snowden and two days later he forced a presidential plane down on suspicions that Snowden might be onboard. Of course, technically he didn't lie as he did this by his european puppet proxies. Eric Holder is even worse than Obama - overtly corrupt as contrasted to typical politicians who at least try to look honest. If he says he "won't torture nor kill", this is propably on the table. US of A desperately wants to make an example of Snowden - even if it will be messy and incur severe political costs. Those fucks want to prevent future whistleblowers by setting example now painful it is to have spine and resist criminal behavior of US government or US corporations.
Is the American government so oppressive that if you speak the Truth, people assume that the government will kill and/or torture you? The government has to step up and say, "We will not Kill or torture."
Freedom of Speech is only one of the freedoms which is gone. People know it. Yet nothing is being done to bring them back.
Snowden is my hero for saying the Truth. Emerson and Thoreau would be proud. Snowden's name is going to come up when I teach Transcendentalism to this year's students.
That last sentence made me thing of posting AC, but I now have the strength to speak the truth also.
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
He will merely be given "Enhanced Detention".
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They're just going to hold him naked in solitary like Manning...subject to "suicide checks" by waking him every half hour...
Really, what are the promises of the US worth nowadays?
The government of the USA wants to reduce the likelihood of more whistle-blowers exposing what they are really up to. The best way to do this is to show to any potential whistle-blowers that if they do then their life will not be pleasant: a boring, long, incaceration is the best way of doing this; it will put most people off.
Edward Snowden is a celebrity at the moment, being in the public eye will be attractive to some, regardless of the reality of living in an airport (or sofa in the Ecuadorian embassy in the case of Assange). If Snowden is killed or tortured he will be seen as a martyr, again this may be attractive to some. I am not saying that this is for everyone, but it may put some attention seekers off (I am not trying to imply that Snowden is an attention seeker).
Also: by making the no kill/torture promise it raises the bar for Snowden's various applications for political assylum.
This is the same Eric Holder that lied under oath before congress about targeting members of the press, and before that lied under oath before congress about fast and furious, and before that lied under oath before congress about the dropping of the case against the New Black Panther Party.
Eric Holder is well known to lie while under oath. Now when he is not under oath, Snowden is supposed to believe him? Give me a break.
Fuck Eric Holder, a fuck this whole god damned completely corrupt administration.
"His name was James Damore."
Define torture. Is it what they did to Manning? Is life in the SHU torture? Is being forced to kneel on concrete for minutes and hours on end torture? Is being slammed into the back of an all metal transport vehicle which has its muffler removed or better yet, made unbelievably loud and driven around for hours and hours and hours in the baking heat, manacled and chained so you can't stop yourself from being tossed around torture? Is being shoved in a transport plane, blindfolded, diapered chained to a seat so tightly you permanently lose feeling in your hands and feet , unable to move a muscle and "transported": in that one excruciatingly painful position for 30 hours while the plane is delayed" and "plans change" torture? Because according to Cheney and Rumsfeld and the other torturers , none of that is torture. The fact that the US IS going to torture Snowden if they get a hold of him is the best reason to not let them get a hold of him and when I say them I mean us. Whatever you think of Snowden's actions, -not a choice I would have made btw- he's not acting against the U.S. as an enemy. Even people who ARE enemies don't deserve to be tortured. Useless as a truth elicitor, it inflicts long-term damaging to the foreign policy interests of any nation that uses it (Thtnks Cheney!) torture ought to be relegated to the imaginations of just ordinary people who are, you know, very mad about something they see on TV . It has no place in the conduct of real people in the real world.
No torture, neither death penalty, right. They will just send him to jail for the rest of his life, because he dared defend the US constitution against the corrupted (I mean corrupted as ill-behaving) government.
That seems quite enough to grant him asylum.
1. The US should not have to be in a position where they are making such promises. The Eighth Amendment was created specifically to put a stop to the sort of thing that the US is now promising not to do. It's sort of like announcing, completely seriously, "I swear I'm not a murderer!" - that's usually a signal you're at least involved in something you shouldn't be.
2. Nobody seriously believes those promises after what the US has done to Bradley Manning, Anwar Al-Awlaki, and what they tried to do to Julian Assange. When Julian Assange argued that the US could no longer be trusted to follow its own laws and promises and international commitments, that argument may have seemed ludicrous, but it is increasingly becoming common opinion. Another example of the US's lawlessness is that they convinced France to force Bolivian president Evo Morales to land so they could search his plane for Snowden, violating all sorts of diplomatic rules to do so.
3. The US is going up against Vladimir Putin's Russia in a battle of human rights records, and losing. That's just astounding.
I am officially gone from
The U.S. government is already torturing Snowden by revoking his citizenship, by making threats to any country that might let him stay. Most Americans feel that Snowden is a whistle-blower, not a traitor. Yet, the government continues to treat him like a criminal. It's despicable that a government by the people for the people would not have the people's best interest in mind.
Let's face the facts, the government in this country has become corrupt with power, and merely pointing out that the government is corrupt has become some kind of treason, yet nobody is doing anything about it. People are slowly handing over more and more power to their government.
"US promises not to torture or kill Snowden." Yeah, right. They also promised they weren't spying on their own citizens until Snowden disclosed that they were. They also promise that they don't assasinate their own citizens, but maybe that missle that killed Anwar al-Awlaki fired itself. Numerous groups, including the International Red Cross have charged the US with torturing prisoners at numerous facilities, but the US denies the charges, but not the techniques used. Why? Because they have classified the techniques in question as interregation techniques, but not torture.
So, yes, the US may promise not to torture or kill Snowden, but when the US changes the definition of torture to suit its purpose and has a recent history of outright dishonesty in related matters, why should anybody believe them? And what if Russia does turn Snowden over and the US is lying? Can Russia get Snowden back? No, of course not.
The US may promise not to torture or kill Snowden, but actions speak louder than words. The words of the US say one thing, the actions something totally different.
First, the United States would not seek the death penalty for Mr. Snowden should he return to the United States.
Translation: We will not "seek" it, but we don't guarantee that he won't get it. It's up to the judge who does the actual sentencing.
The charges he faces do not carry that possibility, and the United States would not seek the death penalty even if Mr. Snowden were charged with additional, death penalty-eligible crimes
Translation: We haven't yet charged him with treason for "aiding the enemy" yet, as we did with Manning, but we will. However when he is charged with treason it's up to the judge to sentence him to death. The prosecutor doesn't do the actual sentencing.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Why such a promise? Can I read this as a confirmation by the USA that they've tortured other people?
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
It's amazing how much Bin Laden changed our country, for the worse. In just a few years we openly torture (something George Washington wouldn't allow and hadn't since the founding of the country), publicly kill Americans and others and of course spy on the entire population.
He may be dead, but we lost so much to the weak minded choices of our political weenies in Washington (the prior administration coming up with these awful choices and then the current one not stopping them so the become "the new normal" in perpetuity - its amazing what he changed our country into via our politicians.
>"US Promises Not To Kill Or Torture Snowden""
I can't believe how sad it is that such a letter would ever be necessary coming from the USA. I am so ashamed to be an American since 9/11. A land where everyone is treated as a potential terrorist and the government has destroyed the Constitution the country was built on.
The promise is a specific stipulation. Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights bars Britain and the other signatories from extraditing prisoners if they could face capital punishment. There is no death penalty in any of the 15 member nations of the European Union.
This is an attempt to eliminate willing participation of these 15 EU member states, and other states with similar laws and policies, as potential havens for Snowden on the basis of a possible U.S. death penalty or torture of the extradited person.
See: http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/extradition.cfm and: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/171/2001/en
The latter document is available in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
You haven't heard of it because AC made it up. Amusing story, though.
Sadly Snowden is too young to run. But I wonder if he could get some sort of immunity by being elected to Congress? He might be able to win a seat in New Hampshire or some other live-free-or-die sort of state.
Shouldn't not killing or torturing someone be default behavior. This would be like hiring staff and in their employment contract saying that you won't stab them to death with a sharpened chair leg. It sort of goes without saying in any civilized work place.
Now on the other hand you have to look at their loose definition of torture. Is waterboarding torture? Is 20 years of solitary torture? Are 20 interrogations per day torture? Is putting someone who should be free, in jail torture? According to the white house the answer to all these is probably, no.
I think it's pretty fucking sad when the US is obliged to promise explicitly, on a recurring basis, not to torture people.
Worse it's a pointless exercise. When your definition of torture excludes things like water boarding and sleep deprivation any promise not to torture is clearly meaningless.
This is an attempt to eliminate willing participation of these 15 EU member states, and other states with similar laws and policies, as potential havens for Snowden on the basis of a possible U.S. death penalty or torture of the extradited person.
Well, speaking as an EU citizen, I would not be happy with any extradition until they promised not to torture him using the definition of torture used in the EU. American and English often have somewhat different meanings for the same word and sadly 'torture' appears to be one of them. Even then frankly I'm not sure I would not trust them to hold to that and not drag up some legal argument that they don't have to hold to their promise or else have an 'accident' occur.
I am not trying to imply that Snowden is an attention seeker
But you know damn well that he is.
He damm well better be. What's the point in exposing secret bugging on the planet if you're not going to bring it to everyone's attention? Because attention is the kryptonite to people who'd rather remain in shadow.
"He stopped being that the moment he revealed classified information that did not concern what he was 'whistleblowing'."
And what material was that, specifically?
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I note with interest the USG did NOT promise to hold a speedy, fair public trial. And the point is not redundant any more than torture is.
I like to look for "negative knowledge" -- things that could reasonably have happened, and perhaps should have, but did not. Rejected options, certainly. While imperfect, this does yield insight.
The US administration enabled laws to allow holding people indefinitely without trial.
Congress and the Senate have made it clear that they don't care about the facts of the case: Snowden is guilty in their eyes.
Snowden would be a fool to leave Russia for some small country. Russia has nukes that will make the US think twice before pulling a "Bin Laden" on him.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I'll be writing in Snowden for U.S. Representative next election cycle. He represents my ideals as an American a hell of a lot better than Joe Kennedy (who voted to keep funding for the NSA the other day).
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
"Why Americans aren't using their 2nd amendment rights already to get rid of all these corrupt fucks is beyond me."
Because for the majority of them, nothing is wrong. For the majority of them, as long as they got their food, their work, their entertainment, all is fine. The giov reassure them, "we willg et the traitor!". Snowden is the one disturbing them , he is shaking the status quo, making them see stuff they don't want to see. So they when psyop poo-poo snowden for some minor stuff, "his girlfriend is strange and some sort of stripper" then they forget the main point and dismiss snowden. Or Manning. or anybody disturbing them in their comfortable status quo. Mind you the US is not the only one in that situation. But it is the most flagrant in the US, after they were caught torturing, killing their own citizen, spying on the whole world, lying, lying and lying even more.
The only way the american will revolt, is if the middle and lower class get so much economic pressure that normal life get for them unviable. Then they will revolt. And their politics overlord might be stupid enough to let plutocrate of all ilk really destroy the middle and lower class enough that this will happen. But it will take at least a few more catastrophe like what happenned with the banks or 2 more decades of stagnation for the middle / low class.
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of oppressing their citizens in just this way. Now, a whistleblower, who can't be proven to have revealed even one explicit state secret (beyond the rather unshocking fact that they were being surveilled) to a foreign power is asking for asylum in Russia.
Times change, don't they.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
PRISM (and similar programs) were explicitly made legal by the Patriot Act.
At least everyone recognized the shit Herbert Hoover did was illegal.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
I voted for Obama specifically to send the message that the first election win was not a fluke - that people really did prefer a black man and a doofus (Biden) over the other party's offerings.
I did not vote for a third party because even if everyone who wanted a third party voted third party, there are not enough votes to get that third party elected. Especially because there isn't just one third party. To have a viable third party, we all need to agree who that party is, and then be convinced that we won't accidentally vote for the worst candidate via the Nader effect.
When you put together a viable third party ticket without viable fourth and fifth parties, on whom enough of the discontented can agree, and still loses, you can puke.
Libertarian Party - on the ballot in 48 states and D.C., 1.2 million votes = 1%. Short of 400,000 registered members. For a 3-way split, you would need to sway 39 million other people to support it - which means roughly 67 million supporters, with 58% turnout.
Doing the math, it is much more likely to be a spoiler vote. I don't see getting 67 million people to change their party affiliation. Let's change that to just the voters, so 39 million people. How many of those would vote for a third party if they were guaranteed not to be a spoiler vote? I think half is very generous, so you're still at convincing 20 million people. It's just not going to happen in time for the next election unless something super serious happens.
And conveniently, Snowden is that huge thing that could change peoples' outlooks on the government and the parties. Just as conveniently, this will all be forgotten in time for the next campaign - again, unless the Libertarian party takes huge gambles on public sentiment, and wins.
Green party got less than half of the Libertarians despite getting on the ballot in 36 states. It's even more unlikely to be a contender, and more likely to spoil the third party vote.
THAT would be a real statement.
Am I the only one here who finds it odd that our government officials specifically pointed out that Snowden would not be tortured? Is that not something that should not have even had to be said? Sounds like anyone who was involved in preparing this public statement should now come under investigation on suspicion of torturing prisoners, since it sounds like they are implying that torture is perfectly normal here despite being a blatant violation of the Eight Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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let's face it, we cant trust what the government says.
a list of summarized lies and realities:
"the first thing i'll do is close guantanamo bay" - didnt happen, still open.
"we do not torture" - because we renamed it "enhanced interrogation" or "rendition" them to other countries
"there is no drone program" - not long after "oh, we have a drone program"
"we do not have a program to collect information from everyone" - not long after "well, i tried to tell the least untruth" and seriously, PRISM is the least untruth?
i'm just waiting for the NSA to get busted using PRISM freely on anyone and everyone.
there is a good deal of criminal activity from congressmen and their friends that have gone completely unpunished and the police have abused the hell out of the PATRIOT act.
how far we have fallen.
B.I.H. Constitutional rights (R.I.P. is so OVER)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Jimmy Carter Defends Snowden, Says U.S. Has No "Functioning Democracy".
I did not vote for a third party because even if everyone who wanted a third party voted third party, there are not enough votes to get that third party elected.
It's amazing how effective the DNC and RNC have been in pressuring people not to vote for third parties. It's not like it's some horse race that you lose money on if you don't vote for the winner.
The national conventions are the best people in the country at changing public opinion, and everyone believes that a 3rd party vote is "wasted". It's scary actually how people believe this. It makes me wonder if they couldn't get you all to believe that underwear is dangerous if they wanted to. If it kept them in power you'd all probably be walking around half naked by next week.
Third party votes ARE NOT INEFFECTIVE. They are so effective that the national conventions has given out plenty of excuses for everyone to pick from. The fact is, 3rd party votes change the national discussion, and that changes policy regardless of who is holding office.
Before the last election, was anyone discussing legalizing drugs? No.
Before the last election, did anyone care about budgets and financial policy? No.
Before the last election, were there any debate questions about the limited power of the federal government? No.
Third parties and lobbies make these things happen. You might not know how many people actually wrote in alternative candidate names, but the people writing next year's national convention platform know that number very accurately and want those votes.
Not only this, but as someone who has lived in countries with systems designed to encourage small parties (NZ, DE), I have seen the difference it can make. The third parties almost never get into government (it can happen, but it is not the point of voting for them), instead what happens is the bigger parties change their policies to try to capture the votes off them. We have two big parties that are within a few percentage points of each other. One election some newcomers calling themselves the pirate party suddenly get a few percent of the vote after being basically unheard of until then. Their platform is based on internet neutrality. The media starts talking about internet neutrality. The big parties start wondering if it would be clever to start developing internet neutrality policies in order to pull those few percent. Those few percent would help big party X get ahead of big party Y, and wouldn't effect their current voter base much. Suddenly the small party has changed government policy without even getting into power.
If a third party candidate in the US got 10% of the vote, the entire political campaign system would shift into a new gear and start trying to pander directly to those 10%.