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Snowden Nominated For Freedom of Thought Prize
First time accepted submitter DigitalKhaos23 writes "Snowden is a candidate for the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named after Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, which honors people or organizations for their work in the defense of human rights and freedom of thought. The article adds: 'Edward Snowden risked his life to confirm what we had long suspected regarding mass online surveillance, a major scandal of our times. He revealed details of violations of EU data protection law and fundamental rights.'"
Let's take Obama's Nobel Prize away and give it to Snowden.
It wouldn't be a problem to have the NSA spying and snooping if they never abused that power, but we know eventually they will. And indeed, thanks to Snowden we know that they already have.
That's why we don't want the NSA to have this power. Because as far as we can tell, the abuses have been more harmful than any benefits for catching terrorists (and really, the programs don't seem to have caught many terrorists).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Something about the irony of these prizes:
They're awarded to the people who are still going to be destroyed for what they've done for humanity while the monsters perpetrating the obscenities against us all are going completely fucking unscathed. The villains are allowed to continue their gross abuses while we give the human equivalent of a gold star sticker to the guy who couldn't not scream.
I see your trick! Lure him into Europe with a free prize -- and then extradite him! He'll totally fall for it...
I want to hear about the medical experiments being performed on prisoners, the serums and electrodes and soft pillows and comfortable chairs
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Superb, we like you and all, but if you come here we'll arrest you and send to the USA.
for The Freedom from Thought Prize. He has to pick it up at the Hague. He gets three for two if he brings Cheney and Rumsfeld along.
I thought, I got asylum
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
how a prize named after Andrei Sakharov is gonna go over with Snowden's landlord, a veteran of the KGB that tormented Andrei Sakharov.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
For those who wonder what this prize is about, a quote from the linked article. The question is who proposed him and if he makes a real chance.
Members of the European Parliament are officially nominating fugitive US leaker Edward Snowden for a prize celebrating freedom of thought, a parliamentary representative said Wednesday.
Snowden is a candidate for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named after Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, which honors people or organizations for their work in the defense of human rights and freedom of thought.
More info about past winners on Wikipedia.
Considering the last 50 years, I rate Jimmy Carter and his Carter Center very highly, though a big percentage of his good work has been done after his political career ended in 1981.
We must liberate Europe of its harboring terrorists leaders
"Bahnhof, a builder of futuristic-looking data centers" Has nominated Snowden for the peace prize.
I wouldn't expect those morally corrupt idiots to actually award him the prize. It would restore some of their credibility if they did though.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Let's take Obama's Nobel Prize away and give it to Snowden.
I agree 100%. He's done more for liberty in the USA than any politician has done in 50 years. he's actually managed to push surveillance as a topic of conversation at the average american's dinner table. That alone is an excellent achievement, nevermind the rest he has done.
That all being true, no matter what Snowden or any other activist does to try and roll back the fascist encroachments of absolute power - the peace prize world is off limits. Heroes of the people like Manning, Snowden will continue to be labeled traitors and excluded from all significant high profile peace prizes, Time Person of the Year, in large part due to the failure of our intellectuals:
The article is an attack on the intellectual culture in the U.S., which Chomsky argues is largely subservient to power. He is particularly critical of social scientists and technocrats, who he believed were providing a pseudo-scientific justification for the crimes of the state
Intellectuals have betrayed us all before and it will continue to happen until a groundswell of people start to shun, exclude and shine a bright constant light on these mostly unnamed behind the scenes policy setters who have corrupted their purpose blinding following the "party line" subservience to power.
Soviet dissidents were seeking asylum into the USA and the USSR government was not particularly amused when they got awards for reasons the USSR didn't like. Oh the ironies of life.
Riiiight, just goes to show you that you are really scared of some boogieman (like some 5 year old), than a govenrment organisation which won't do what the government and laws say. They can do pretty much anything and you have shitloads of less chance of being able to defend yourself than against some terrorist.
Also you seem to have double standards. NSA has been braking the law the whole time and you are whining about Snowden breaking the law? You are the traitor here.
European Parliament may be "officially nominating" - but their respective countries have all denied Snowdens asylum requests. Sure sounds like a consolation prize and even if he wins it, it does not let European countries off the hook for their crime. History will judge their actions very poorly - they have done the world a disservice and revealed their deep rooted hypocrisy.
The Foreign Affairs Committee and the Development Committee of the European Parliament will vote on a short list of three candidates. These committees are large, it looks like there will be well over 100 MEPs voting. The final decision is made by the Conference of Presidents, which consists of 11 people who are leaders of the main political blocks in the parliament. They are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_of_Presidents_of_the_European_Parliament.
Sometimes the law needs to be broken.
Wasn't the US founded by a bunch of rebels who violently rose up against the lawful authority of the time?
The price of life in Russia and especially in Moscow is very high. The government of RF does not assist E.S. in fear of further reprisals from the US government.
E.S. has to hire a protection from a private security company, an apartment, etc.
The TL;DW version of Cold Fiord's video on Conservative policy think tank Hoover Institution intellectual Thomas Sowell and his book "Intellectuals and Society"... for those that are interested...
I don't know who created this bunk theory. Wanna see how monarchies work ? See Saudi Arabia. They sell almost as much oil as Russians do, or soviets did. Yet, soviets, with all their crappy, inefficient system, were able to finance huge social security, huge army and lots of other things with their oil money. Maybe not a good things to do, yet Saudis don't even do that. Their petrodolars are used to finance lavish lifestyles of their aristocracy (while rest of their society live in poverty), purchases of ultra-expensive military equipment, US bonds and so called "investments" - in other words, recycling earned petrodollars back into westen economies. Their feudalistic system is terribly inefficient, even compared to very inefficient soviet system, let alone to any other (relatively sane) economy in the world. You see, lack of progress in medieval Dark Ages are directly related to reign of absolute monarchies and feudalism. We've started getting out of medieval darkness mainly because in renesance, power of kings ceased to be absolute.
I thought the prizes were goldy or bronzy---not irony.
I know this is Slashdot and a lot of readers lack critical thinking skills, and take everything at face value, so I'll point out the obvious:
Parent is trolling. He doesn't believe a word he is saying. He's just posting to rile up the gullible Slash-nerds, and it's probably going to work. Watch the overly-serious, self-righteous replies.
So these agencies that are tasked with covert snooping are...snooping. Good.
No news.
With the recent PR coup over Obama on Syria I'm now starting to question Snowden's true motives.
Instead of flying from Hawaii directly to a S.American country that, later, offered him asylum he flies to Hong Kong and stays at the Russian Consulate.
Then flies to Moscow, slums it in the transit area for a month, staying in the press headlines (including causing the forced landing of Bolivian president Evo Morales due to a rumor that Snowden was onboard). Finally getting a 1 year visa to stay in Russia.
Now don't get me wrong, I think it's great that the NSA, and allies, illegal activities have been brought to light.
However I'm looking at Putin and the Kremlin and thinking - nice PR work guys, you're playing the West at its own, old, game and beating them at it.
The question this leaves for me is; was Snowden really a Russian spy and rather than being exposed in the old fashioned cold war way they chose instead to make Snowden and paymasters look like the good guys through a well staged PR stunt?
It's criminal to tell people the government committed crimes, if you then give people proof when others had said so and were asked "Proof, please!".
If there were no proof, it would be all "Here's some tinfoil for you!". And now we see if there's proof given, it's "GET TO FUCKING PRISON YOU CRIM!".
Foreign snooping not domestic snooping.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
All those people in america also broke the law when they started their war with britain.
Maybe we should demand you pay back for all the investment and income lost, or just declare every american a terrorist.
Sometimes a law being "broken" isn't a law at all, but spin by the thugs who run government.
If anyone is a traitor in this, it's the US Congress, the US Senate, the US President, the Canadian Prime Minister, the Canadian Senate, the Canadian House of Commons, the UK Parliament, and so on.
They're the ones who authorized the creation and growth of these abusive letter agencies in violation of the laws of their lands.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Whistle blowing is not a crime. It's a service.
And when the entire government you could report to is corrupt, one has no choice but to whistleblow to the media and the public who own the government.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
After all Sudan's President Omar al Bashir is an indicted war criminal and genocidist and the UN ferries him all over Africa to peace conferences by luxury jet in order, quote 'to ensure his safety' unquote.
Snowden? give the prize to Putin himself. He's only murders journalists he doesn't jail them.
Putin/Snowden 2016 The REAL Liberal alternative.
Freedom to other people's thoughts right?
Leaking secure information isn't whistleblowing, its treason and he will rot in prison for it.
On any issue of importance he's either agreed with them, or folded without a fight. I'd give him a "hamstrung" thing if he'd taken a number of fights to the republicans, lost each time, and has to start compromising to get anything at all done. However he hasn't done that. He's never even stood up and fought. It isn't even that he's rolled over, he's just never shown up in the first place.
This blaming the republicans is really silly. While the republican party by and large is not being helpful, they do not have any sort of control. They have a narrow majority in the house, a minority in the senate, and of course don't have the presidency. If President Obama wanted to stand up and fight on things that mattered, well he'd have a shot at least. It isn't like they could just ram legislation past him. However he hasn't, not once that I can think of.
That's the problem.
Your evidence supports that, not disproves it. The problem is the Saudi monarchy is massively corrupt, as all monarchies tend to be. That doesn't mean that a theoretical perfect one, that is unattainable with real people, wouldn't be a great system.
I mean look at a system like the US has, it's mix of democracy and republic. There is a lot of infighting in government, bureaucracy, dead weight, and so on. It is slow to respond and rather bloated. This is by necessity, and also by design. Spread the power around and create checks and balances so that nobody can abuse it. That is needed because we deal with real people, but it is inefficient.
Now imagine a system where it is a dictatorship, or other situation of absolute power, but we have a theoretical perfect being (an AI maybe) as the ruler. It is incorruptible, cares for nothing but the welfare of its citizens and nation, and makes the best choice it can, all the time. Well that would be a hell of a lot more efficient. Shit would get done. When things needed to change, they'd just change by immediate decree. No games, no pork barrel spending, no holding the budget hostage.
The problem is, we can't have that perfect ruler. Humans are imperfect and put them in a position of absolute power, they get corrupted, generally very badly. Even if you got real lucky and got one that didn't, sooner or later you'd get one that did.
Hence the need for a more complex, and inefficient, system like what we see in modern free countries. However that doesn't invalidate the theory that with a perfect ruler a system of absolute power would be more efficient.
I'm sure the FBI uses techniques like this to snoop on domestic trouble makers. Why not? Similarly the Brit police use it a lot against organized crime etc.
The US has The Fourth Amendment. That makes any domestic telco laws very interesting i.e. a real court, a real warrant vs self authorisation.
Other parts of the world are different, just add to a telco act/law and you can do 'stuff' until you need to ~arrest and its all legal.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Yes and no. Is the "secure" information actually a security risk or was it simply declared "secure"?
Many of the things released by Snowden point to the NSA blatantly disregarding controls on their operations and then knowingly and purposefully trying to hide and obfuscate their illegal actions, making subsequent information NOT "secure", as it was illegally obtained.
Snowden is getting exactly what he wanted, notoriety and fame. He has found a way to elevate himself to celebrity status which he will ride for as long as he can.
As soon as the public eye starts moving away, I expect some kind of book deal or other, possibly drastic, effort to regain the spotlight.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
He doesn't enforce federal drug laws in states that legalizes weed. That alone is a drug-war breakthrough.
They've said that before, and it has been a lie every time. Let's see if it's true this time.
The fault is in the American public in electing the previous administration in the first place, and when you move forward, you fix the source of the problem by fixing the public's attention.
The People do not elect the President. You were victimized by the "America is a democracy" lie that you were taught as a child.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You went against the group think, never go against the group think.
We're having a celebration party in your honor! Come to the US Embassy in Paris for all the festivities!
P.S - There's cake!
- NSA
Exposing secret information that is evidence of crime (in this case, about 300 million violations of wiretapping laws) is in fact the very definition of whistleblowing.
I am officially gone from
people dumb enough to think they can put their business, whether they call it private or otherwise, onto the internet or into an electronic communication method or electronic storage and expect ANY semblance of real privacy.
And in this case the appropriate response would have been to offer him immunity from prosecution to back and testify at the trial for all the other criminals whose actions he exposed. We do that routinely in cases with real bad guys who have no extenuating circumstances or qualities other than their testimony. In Snowdens case, his lawbreaking appears to have been motivated by the highest and most admirable of motivations - a will to obey the oath he took to the Constitution.
Of course the fact is the last thing the powers that be want is to prosecute the other criminals he exposed, which is why they dont want him to come back and will do all they can do discourage rather than encourage his return.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
It's debatable whether Bush actually was elected in the first place.
Technoli
Can someone tell me which human right(s) Snowden was defending by stealing / selling secrets to foreign governments? The right to sell out your country for fame and fortune?
They are willing to nominate him for the award but not willing to give him asylum? I think if they think so highly of his actions they should step up & take him in.
The People do not elect the President. You were victimized by the "America is a democracy" lie that you were taught as a child.
Some of us were taught, (more) correctly, that America is a Democratic Republic and what that difference is and means. Unfortunately, not all public schools (much less private) are on the same page.
A lifetime achievement award for exposing the existence of spies. Didn't anyone see the Bourne movies? Black Briar anyone? This guy didn't expose anything.
For what I've read Manning had a greatest importance at showing the horrors of US War then Snowden findings.
Well my point is if Snowden desearves it why not Manning?
BR,
Ahh, so what YOU were taught is correct and everyone else was taught wrong? Right, got it.
Boys with toys and too much money! Time for us to grow up and start acting like the intelligent people we like to think we are. We need science based policy. We die in larger numbers from so much else. Terrorism is NOT an existential threat- we are not going to throw up our hands and run back the old country because someone used box cutters again. I'm sure these NSA boys believe in what they do. However, what they and you may not know is that they are not protecting us from what actually kills us day after day and in far, far, greater numbers. For example, more died of common flu in the year of 9/11. Ten times more committed suicide by guns in that year. Medical mistakes STILL a leading cause of death. ACTUAL risk and death, NOT imagined risk and death, should drive the priorities of an intelligent people. Our fears are irrational and have brought us to a country we no longer recognize. /yr suicides from guns /yr, homocides from guns,
200k/yr from medical mistakes (IOM Report "To Err is Human"),
42k/yr from automobiles,
36k/yr from common flu,
18k
11k
5k/yr from food poisoning,
Why the stamped to throw away our liberties and privacy in the name of the possibility of death by terrorism? If "One American life is [truly] too many", than why not throw our way of life to prevent the things that actually kill us in LARGE numbers year after year? More died each year before 9/11 and after 9/11 from lightening strikes than terrorism. Even in its best day here, it was nuts with box cutters and our ignorance that got the best of us. Start thinking again!
The shills really have gotten very lazy. They used to register accounts. Now they just paste their one liners as Anonymous Coward and run.
I wonder if some of these shills are even human. They're so repetitive, I think some of them are bots, recognizing key words and pasting the canned astroturf response.
When his victims are not waiting for him anymore? I believe his victims are apex preditors.
Would they shield him from extradition to the us... Would the eu give him asylum in the eu.....
On one hand, this is too pessimistic. As hard as our situation looks like becoming, it's not nearly as bad as the situation of the ordinary person at the end of the 30-years-war (when entire towns were abandoned because there was no one left to live in them), the depths of the French or Russian revolutions, the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and many other historical calamities. Still ...
What I find most discouraging is that WE caused it. It's the computer scientists, the network people, the algorithm designers, the academic consumers of NSF grants half a generation ago, who discovered the possibilities of, built, and made available the tools which will be used to suppress us.
The most frighteningly ominous comment I have heard recently was from a New York Catholic who objected to the government attempting to force Catholic organizations supply of contraceptives against their fundamental beliefs: "I expect to die in bed. My successor will die in jail. And his successor will die a martyr in the public square." Contraceptives are their issue. The mere desire to have independent opinions will soon be ours.
It will last as long as we do. (Thanks for the quote, Louie). After us, the deluge.
They should stick to drinking Vodka.
The prize for this award should be a bullet in the head. When he accepted his job at the NSA he swore to an oath. He broke that oath and the penalty should be paid.
The fault is in the American public in electing the previous administration in the first place, and when you move forward, you fix the source of the problem by fixing the public's attention.
*LOVE* how you manage to blame the public and Bush for Obama's failings there.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
A democratic republic is a democracy by virtue of being democratic. If there is a difference between a Democratic Republic and a democracy then it follows that your Democratic Republic is not a democratic republic at all. I suppose that's why you wrote it as a proper noun - a cat named Tiger is not a tiger either.
Fortunately I'm sure he only disclosed information on domestic snooping and he redacted all the info on foreign surveillance. Otherwise I'm sure you'd agree that he'd be a traitor for aiding the enemy. I'm also glad his first choices of interviews was with China and Russia for we all know they have exemplary records of not spying on their own people.
So let's see, he divulges foreign intelligence to our foreign counterparts, or enemies as some might call them, and flees to them for asylum. However, because some of the information he grabbed wholesale happens to reveal the domestic wiretapping stuff all these people around here fall over themselves to kiss his ass because he tells them what a martyred hero he is? If he wants to play the holy high horse idealism thing, he would have revealed the domestic stuff and not the foreign stuff. There are examples of heroic whistleblowers you can look to, but he sure isn't one. He is a mercenary spy, simple as that.
The angry sanctimonious tone of his supporters is pretty amazing in these posts. They clearly have laid claim to the high moral position like they were a bunch of anti-abortionists in a political debate; if you don't agree 100% with their position then you are clearly a idiot and immoral person.
Yeah, Sowell is a troll, just a little more articulated than most but a troll is a troll is a troll. No wonder Cold Fjord likes him...
Select quotes, a TL;DR version of the TL;DW version:
In the Conservative Series on American Politics, Sowell has given us the Idiot's Guide to Intellectuals, Big Print Edition. We should take him at his word. This is not a book for intellectuals. It is a gift item for conservatives who do not read.
Intellectuals and Society covers many topics but feels like an "oldies but goodies" compilation for conservative seniors at Leisure Lakes Golf. Everything here has been played countless times. Inasmuch as Sowell rarely identifies intellectuals he derides, except in discussions of the past, where he becomes fearless, the book lacks punch.
Sowell writes in the name of the market, but sometimes his loyalties conflict. "Many intellectuals," he says, do not grasp executive compensation. "They do not understand how corporate executives can be worth such high salaries—as if there is any inherent reason why third parties should be expected to understand, or why their acquiescence should be necessary." Is it only "intellectuals" who have doubts about executive pay and bonuses? Where has Sowell been?
Never was a leader of a democratic nation more acclaimed than Neville Chamberlain, writes Sowell, when he returned from Munich with an agreement with Hitler. Why? Because of intellectuals and their "steady drumbeat of pacifist anti-national-defense efforts." That is far from the truth. The 1930s appeasement had roots in a popular pacifism and war weariness as well as an anticommunism that saw Hitler as an ally, not an opponent. After all, Hitler expanded to the East and threatened the Soviet Union, not the West. Moreover, many intellectuals opposed appeasement, a fact about which Sowell seems to know nothing. He might add to his reading list books on the Spanish Civil War, even George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, in which he may discover that intellectuals fought with their lives against appeasement
Sowell likes history, but he likes it on Post-it notes. He also prefers to revisit stale arguments rather than intervene in current controversies. In a book about intellectuals and society, he manages to ignore the health-care and financial crises. Instead, he argues that intellectuals have misunderstood Herbert Hoover.
Meh.
Modded down again. Un-fucking-believable.
You people seem to think that I disagree with his exposure of the NSA activities. I don't. He should have exposed it. I just disagree with the way he chose to do it.
Such is the mindset of the Slashdot crowd.
No the real problem is people who think like YOU.
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.