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Snowden Shortlisted For Europe's Top Human Rights Award
another random user sends this news from the BBC:
"Edward Snowden, the fugitive American former intelligence worker, has made the shortlist of three for the Sakharov prize, Europe's top human rights award. Mr Snowden was nominated by Green politicians in the European Parliament for leaking details of U.S. surveillance. Nominees also include Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head for demanding education for girls. Former recipients of the prize, awarded by the European Parliament, include Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi. Mr Snowden's nomination recognized that his disclosure of U.S. surveillance activities was an 'enormous service' to human rights and European citizens, the parliament's Green group said."
Malala gets this one hands-down. Both made very important statements we must pay attention to, but a fucking headshot beats hanging out in a Russian airport IMHO.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Tell Snowden.. it's a freaking trap. CIA/NSA are going to get him on every awards program they can and when he shows up to accept they are going to snipe him down. I seen something like this on showtime.
a bullet in the kneecap
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
You know how you look down on those foreign types being all clueless and blindly believing in their corrupt governments and dear leaders? Well everyone's looking down on you for the same reasons :)
She didn't really do much for human rights within the European Union. Snowden did.
Awards are for those that need them.
Pissing off the US Govt. may mean that Snowden is happy with that
Yes, that was clearly Snowden's goal. Social change, government by consent, he didn't even think about that hippy-dippy stuff.
No award is going to protect that girl from more attacks by the Taliban. They don't give a damn about what the west thinks about her, if anything they'll see it as a challenge - once again the west trying to attack their religion. But if the award goes to Snowden it makes it that much harder for the US to put him in prison.
If the US tried to put Mandela in prison for being a terrorist, the way SA did before he received the award, the political blow-back would be enormous.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I see what you are saying, however there is a difference between dying for a cause and dying because of a cause.
Had the Taliban successfully snuffed her, she'd already be a martyr -- and a reinforcement why the Taliban must be stopped. Malala gets recognised for standing up for her rights, whether she got capped or not... the fact that she took one to the lobe made her voice louder, and the fact that she lived means she will not soon be forgotten like most martyrs because she can still speak.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Maybe that way the Nobel prize committee could undo some of the damage to the prize's reputation that they caused by giving it to shitheads like Arafat and Obama.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Boy, that will really send a message to the US.
You know what else would send a message? Asylum.
But if no one's feeling that bold, I'm sure the award will really pick Eddie's spirits up during the Russian winter.
My stupid web site
People have shared the Nobel Peace Prize and such before, why not award the prize to both Snowden and Malala this year? What they each did took a tremendous amount of courage and has made a powerful statement for human rights everywhere. And when I think about it, pissing off the Taliban the next village is a very scary and brave thing to do, but then so is pissing off the most powerful government on the planet which commands unlimited numbers of scary commandos, assassins, and gunmen who can kill you no matter where you go. They're both epic, epic heros for what they've done.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
PRISM, purposefully weakening encryption, putting backdoors in products sold domestically, etc. seems to cover their actions against US citizens.
The damage that Mr. Snowden has done to the American intelligence community is incalculable and WILL cost lives going forward.
Bullshit. That was claimed about Manning's leak. But then it was acknowledged that no one had any actual evidence that anyone was actually harmed by it.
The sentencing hearing began with testimony from retired Brigadier General Robert Carr, who in 2010 led an emergency Pentagon review into the impact of leaked war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although the mass leak "hit us in the face" the review did not find any evidence that civilians named in the secret files had then been targeted by militants, Gen Carr said.
but I'm having a hard time seeing how leaking information about NSA's operations against China (just to pick one, there are others...) is anything but providing aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States.
Bullshit. Even James Clapper says otherwise:
As loath as I am to give any credit for what has happened here, which is egregious, some of the conversations that it has generated, some of the debate, is probably needed. So if there's a good side to this, maybe that's it.
Transparency of course is a double-edged sword. It's great for us, great for our citizens. But of course the adversary goes to school on that transparency too. But I'm convinced we have to err on the side of more transparency because, most importantly, we won't have any of this if we don't have the trust and confidence of citizens and their elected representatives.
And other quotes:
Nigel Inkster, former deputy chief of British intelligence service MI6, suggests of the leaks that they were “very embarrassing, uncomfortable, and unfortunate” but that while embarrassing the impact may not have been particularly great as “I sense that those most interested in the activities of the NSA and GCHQ have not been told very much they didn't know already or could have inferred.” He also suggests that Germany and other US allies have not been as outraged as they have seemed “The tears that have been shed internationally have been of the crocodile variety” so there is unlikely to be any reduction in ties between their intelligence agencies.
Stop believing the fear mongering nonsense told to you by people who only stand to gain power, favor and/or financial rewards by furthering these surveillance dragnets.
There's been a political vacuum when it comes to defending Snowden and more generally people's right to privacy. Good for Green politicians for showing their concern! There are many more orphan causes in search for a party to pick them up: copyright and patent law reform, standing up to lobbies, etc. They'd get my vote.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Fighting for the rights for women to get education is a very noble act by Malala (and she very nearly paid a heavy price for it with her life), but Snowden revealing the NSA spying AND pissing off the most powerful and most arrogant nation in the world?...PRICELESS...oooh, I'm getting a tingling feeling all over.
It's three Belarusian political prisoners.
Belarus is a European country that has a really nasty government that has basically continued in the Soviet era style despite the fall of the Soviet Union. Some call it the last dictatorship in Europe.
The Belarusians are already up for the Nobel Peace Prize and have won the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Award.
Your post makes an assumption, and follows to conclusion based on that assumption. The website says:
"The Sakharov Prize is intended to honour exceptional individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression. Like Andrei Sakharov himself, all the winners of the prize have shown how much courage it takes to defend human rights and freedom of expression."
As far as I can tell, Malala wrote for BBC as a 12 year old and had a documentary about her by the New York Times, which isn't much of a fight against oppression. She began giving interviews and became a spokesperson, and got shot. Most of the actual work since then was by other people on her behalf, until a UN speech in July. Not sure that really fits the bill.
Snowden claims he intentionally got a job where he could get secrets, actively violated the law and abused his privilege, left a job in Hawaii and pole-dancing girlfriend, and is now fleeing the very government that, as he damned well knows, has the ability to find him anywhere. He certainly is no free man at this point, and knew what he was getting into. That took far more courage than surviving a shooting.
Malala's father showed courage, based on the few interviews and articles I read, and would be my vote before Malala.
Not trying to diminish her message, but the award is rather specific about its purpose, and it's not about awareness or motivating change. It is about honoring/rewarding the people who motivate and effect change.
[...]If you did think it was important, you wouldn't be trivializing it in the face of an issue that has little to no bearing on American citizens. (Failing that, then it's as I stated earlier: You argue just to argue.)
Part of the reason the leaks have caused so much concern, is due to the NSA's activities extending far beyond the borders of America. However poverty is defined and whether or not it is an issue in America, it's likely to be an issue in other parts of the world that the NSA's influence extended to.
I'm not siding with girlintraining's opinion, because I happen to think that a single very powerful entity with massive global surveillance operations and potential influence over the world's information is a very dangerous idea that could gravely impact the future of everyone in the world. However I would hope that others would also consider the morality and implications of the NSA's operations beyond their back yard, the location of your countries borders shouldn't have any bearing on the way you value one abstract social ethic against another... Especially since we are talking about the internet and the NSA here.
Are you bloody kidding me?!?!?
Are you bloody kidding me?!?!?
It's highly debatable if Snowden actually risked his life for what he did. Even if he did, it would be at the hands of a well organized state, so he would know the time, place and means.
Yeah, maybe he wouldn't be assassinated, just deported back to the US for a show trial and get slammed with a 35 year sentence. So given life expectancy at around 70 years, he just risked *half* of his life.... I mean, when he gets out from a 35 year jail he'll just be in his sixties, it's not like he doesn't have many more years before him!
Or have you forgotten that the same people who tried to silence her are also responsible for throwing acid in these young girls faces, poisoning the water wells these schools use, and other horrid ways to terrify little girls.
The same people trying to silence Snowden are also known to employ tactics considered torture, like waterboarding, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, and all sorts of other horrid ways to break grown up men.
Malala doesn't just face death, she faces a life time of terror & fear for wanting to do nothing more than learn.
Snowden doesn't just face death, he faces a life time of terror and fear, being stripped of his citizenship, deprived from seeing his family, for wanting to do nothing more than exposing lies.
Don't quote me on this.