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Snowden Seeks International Help Against US Espionage Charges
An anonymous reader writes "Edward Snowden is calling for international help to persuade the U.S. to drop its espionage charges against him. Snowden said he would like to testify before the U.S. Congress about National Security Agency surveillance and may be willing to help German officials investigate alleged U.S. spying in Germany. Snowden is quoted as saying that the U.S. government 'continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defense.' He continues, 'I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the United States will abandon this harmful behavior.'"
So tired of people excusing our government's behavior just because others do it.
Others include Pol Pot, Idi Amin, 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, and Joseph Stalin. (No point in invoking Godwin here).
If the US is like those, where are the piles of bodies, the mass graves? What made them infamous was ultimately slaughter, cruelty, and oppression, not simply surveillance.
Don't get me wrong, it isn't that government surveillance can't be misused, but I have yet to see evidence of actual meaningful intentional abuse by the NSA. One person per year spying on a girlfriend and getting fired doesn't really make the grade. The potential is there, but not the actuality. I think it is easy to make the case for more oversight since the potential is real, and intelligence agencies are a potential source of danger in a democracy. But don't confuse the NSA for the Stasi, KGB, or what have you. It clearly isn't true, and I think I'd trod that ground enough times.
If you want to worry about demonstrated, admitted government oppression, then you need to look to the IRS and its handling of conservative political groups around the time of the last election. That is a demonstrable danger to democracy, and may have even tipped the election. That nonsense has to be rooted out now before the rot spreads.
As to the Constitution, there is no pretending about the US having a constitution. The US has one, and it seems to be working even if the results baffle some people. Much of the controversy involves people being confused about exactly how it works, particularly when there is interplay between Article II, a state of war,* the 4th Amendment, and criminal law versus national security / the law of war. People here that wouldn't fill out their own tax form regularly make sweeping statements about questions of constitutional law that they really know little about, and often get it wrong.
For further aid in disentangling the US from those examples, I suggest watching at least this trailer if not the entirety of this film - available on Amazon. It tends to be clarifying.
* Yes, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force is legally equivalent to a declaration of war. It is against al Qaida and its allies.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Snowden leapt from whistleblower straight to traitor by releasing vast quantities of highly qualified material without any concern whatsoever for its legality. People may not like the policies or laws but the vast majority of the operations performed by the NSA are perfectly legal. Yes, some things they have done are illegal and are worthy of being exposed, but that wasn't good enough for him. He had to release EVERYTHING. For him, the ends justified the means and now he wants a pass on that. He did EXACTLY what he hates about the US's spying activities. The bottom line is that his sanctimonious cause was more important than the national security of the United States and its allies. He's a fucking irresponsible piece of shit hypocrite and deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I hope they do catch him one day, give him his day in court, and then execute his sorry ass.
Snowden could have handled this well and been correctly classified as a whistleblower. Instead he will go down as one of the greatest traitors of all time. Sadly, we may never know the full extent of the damage he has caused (and will be causing going forward).
On a side note, I also love how Glenn Greenwald is enriching himself over this whole deal by leaving the guardian to start up a new news media site. He helps sell out the country and our allies and is going to get rich off of it. He's one swell guy.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?