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France Could Offer Asylum To Assange, Snowden
HughPickens.com writes: The Intercept reports that in the aftermath of the NSA's sweeping surveillance of three French presidents, French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira thinks National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange might be allowed to settle in France. Taubira was asked about the NSA's surveillance of three French presidents, disclosed by WikiLeaks this week, and called it an "unspeakable practice." Taubira's comments echoed those in an editorial in France's leftist newspaper Libération that France should respond to the U.S.'s "contempt" for its allies by giving Edward Snowden asylum. France would send "a clear and useful message to Washington, by granting this bold whistleblower the asylum to which he is entitled," wrote editor Laurent Joffrin in an angry editorial titled "Un seul geste" — or "A single gesture." (google translate) If Paris offers Snowden asylum, it will be joining several other nations who have done so in the past, including Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. However, Snowden is still waiting in Moscow to hear from almost two dozen other countries where he has requested asylum.
Presumably on Corsica
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So, basically, "not going to happen".
Dear Lord: One of your creatures may be hurt tonight. Please let it be the other creature.
...
I completely disagree. France will provide asylum, then the US will threaten to withhold future intelligence and France will both back down and turn both of them over to the US.
People seriously believe that intelligence agencies are not snooping on foreign national leaders?
RLY?
The people who these agencies SHOULD be spying on?
Just wondering.
Why is Snark Required?
The second Assange steps out of that embassy, he's going to be swarmed by cops and soldiers pretending this is all about some bullshit rape charge in Sweden. And the second Snowden leaves Russian airspace, he's in serious danger.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Oh, you poor dears! Of course, we the American people, hold French culture and the French people in the highest regard, you cute little cheese eating surrender monkeys!
France cave-in and surrender?!?!? NEVER!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Fine.
A) He can't get to France without stepping out of the door.
B) We arrest him the second he does that.
C) He stands trial for skipping bail etc. (unfortunately, his life in the embassy is prima facie evidence of guilt in that case, no matter the mitigating circumstances).
D) He serves whatever sentence he gets for that (hard to imagine he doesn't get one).
E) Then we're required to honour any EU warrant that was issued.
F) Then he's either out of UK hands, or able to go to France freely anyway.
After that you can discuss whether or not asylum in France is justified - methinks that the political climate may have changed somewhat by then (in which direction, who knows)?
Well there's also the great hypocrisy that lies there like an elephant in the room. France have probably tried to do the same on all its allies... (No presumption on whether they succeeded or not, just that the fact that they tried is highly likely).
To me, the reaction of the French government shrieking like pigs is just a show for the public opinion, and maybe they'll send back the US Ambassador for good measure. But it will soon die down and no change is to be expected.
Why should the NSA spy on French presidents?
Why wouldn't they? First off, nation states spy on each other. Friend or foe doesn't play into it. Any nation that has the capability to spy on another nation will use that capability. Second, friends don't always stay friends and France hasn't exactly been the closest of allies to the US. Third, France has nuclear weapons and anyone who has nuclear weapons is going to be targeted for spying to make sure they aren't up to something dangerous. Nobody thinks it is likely that France is going to do anything weird but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Finally, France has communications with the leadership of other countries, some of which are far less friendly to the US than France is. Some of these communications are likely very interesting to US intelligence services. While the NSA might not be super interested in what the French president is up to, they probably are interested in some of the parties he is talking to.
Exactly where in the NSA mission statement is this covered?
Twenty seconds on wikipedia would have answered that question for you. This is exactly the job of the NSA, particularly for SIGNINT. You might find their mission to be troubling and I might even agree but it IS their job.
They should be spying on (real) terrorists and neutral/enemy countries, not on friendly/allied countries.
Grow up. There is no such thing as a true friend among nation states. If you think France isn't spying on the US as well then you are naive and haven't read any of your history books. Countries don't have friends, they have interests. Spying between even the most ostensibly friendly of nations is a routine and commonly accepted occurrence. Countries that are friends today can easily be adversaries tomorrow and the US and France haven't had the closest of relationships.
Is it sad that this is the state of affairs in this world? Of course. But don't be blind about how the real world works.
Never happen...the NSA will threaten to withhold future intelligence. France will back down
Probably not a big threat. USA spying on French presidents and not wanting to share nuclear test information with France, probably doesn't help in the "trust" elements of diplomacy.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If that were truly to happen, the French would chop off their president's head.
They have a proud tradition of protecting pedophiles and rapists.
Actually spying is an important part of "trust" in diplomacy. It is the 'verify' part of 'trust, but verify'. Spys avert wars and other uncomfortable situations. All first world nations spy on each other, France is no different. It's the getting caught part that makes in uncomfortable for a short while then it all goes back to normal.
Furthermore, France doesn't share a border with Russia, so a repeat of this kind of incident would be almost certain:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Hypocrisy is all part of the game. To paraphrase Casablanca, everyone is shocked, shocked to find that spying is going on in here, even as they're busy collecting everything they can themselves. It's de rigeur, though, even though everyone knows everyone else is doing it, they have to act surprised. Gestures are made, a few spies are expelled or arrested (and then quietly exchanged for the spies arrested by the other country), and life goes on as usual.
Tl;dr, this isn't just France, this is part of how espionage plays out worldwide. We're only noticing it because Snowden is high profile.
"They have a proud tradition of protecting pedophiles and rapists."
And lots of black US civil rights fighters in the sixties.
Yeah, and sometimes those interests are best served by making agreements with your G8 next-of-kin and remaining true to your word.
Here's a question for you. How often does your wife bug-sweep your bedroom? People don't have marriages, they have interests within sexual alliances.
It's the preferred location for exiling troublesome political figures with French ties.
See if I can post today without all the damned errors :|
This may sound odd, but I am of the opinion Mr. Snowden would be safer staying in Russia than he would in France. The United States and their allies ( assuming they don't piss ALL of them off by getting caught spying on them ) don't have the ability to freely operate in Russia. This makes it a bit more difficult to snatch such a high priority "prize" right off the street, never to be heard from again.
There also exists the risk of future administrations in France cozying back up to the United States, putting their freedom in jeopardy once again. ( Granted, the same can happen in Russia, but is far less likely )
So, unless Russia is as bad as the Western Media likes to portray, ( unlikely, but I've never been so can't say for myself ) I would think long and hard about leaving the safety of her borders.
*Having grown up during the Cold War era, it's interesting to note how much things have changed. When US Citizens feel the need to flee to Russia ( or any non-US ally ) to escape what would most certainly be an unfair trial ( assuming you even receive one ), it has truly become a bizarre world.
Spies neither start nor end wars. The capture of a spy won't be what starts a war. You don't have two countries start off perfectly happy with each other until one finds a spy from the other and suddenly they're sending tanks across the border. Finding a spy might be claimed as the reason for a war, but there are always other, far more significant reasons, almost always having to do with the exploitation of resources (whether mining, farming, space, or people). Even allegedly religious wars usually have to do with claiming land (and therefore resources) for one's deity.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
There is a 20+ year old John Doe warrant for him by the US gov't that could result in his execution. He is safe in the UK and won't be safe in France or Sweden.
Easy. Tomorrow Assange joins a French Foreign Legion using a ("declared identity") Jacques Clouseau. A day later he gets into a fist fight with a person working for the Ecuadorian embassy. Bloody nosed "Jacques Clouseau" then applies for a French citizenship under a provision Français par le sang versé" ("French by spilled blood").
Next day "Jacques Clouseau" gets his French citizenship granted. One hour after that France announces couple of new diplomatic post opening in London. A day later "Jacques Clouseau" applies for that position and gets selected. France sends a letter to British foreign office informing of a newly selected French diplomat "Jacques Clouseau" who will be shortly arriving to French embassy in London. British Foreign Office welcomes the new French diplomat to England.
A French diplomat "Jacques Clouseau" then steps out of a Ecuadorian embassy.
Not for lack of trying.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Thank you for pointing this out. Most people don't realize it.
France dropped out as a full member of NATO in 1966, ordering most non-French forces out, and didn't rejoin it until 2009. The original purpose was so that France could potentially come to a separate peace with the Warsaw Pact nations if it didn't agree with the reasons for a war with them. This didn't last long, as a secret agreement for France to rapidly re-integrate into NATO forces was signed soon after.
However, it caused a great deal of mistrust in other countries, and France has maintained interests in other countries around the world, not always for the betterment of those outside of France. It's strongly suspected of being behind the Israeli nuclear arms program, something that was originally opposed by the United States because it risked rising tensions in the Middle East where the Soviets had a strong presence in countries such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria. France has also been caught conducting industrial espionage in numerous countries including the United States, and there's little reason to think that they've stopped there. The country has an international independence streak much longer than that of the US, and it's not likely to change anytime soon.
Nations spy on other nations, because almost every one has been assured of something and then been stabbed in the back. Reagan told Thatcher that the US had no intention of invading Grenada even as forces were moving in, and the attack began just a few hours later. I'm sure that as much as Thatcher may have forgiven Reagan later, plans were put in place to try to catch this kind of thing at an earlier stage, whether through satellites, photography from chartered aircraft, and 'tourists' who happen to be near key locations, or through traditional espionage techniques of stealing or turning people.
It's an understood game. Everyone does it, everyone tries to stop it. They get better at both sides, and the dance continues.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The Bail Act of 1976 says otherwise. Section 6, Offence of absconding by person released on bail, says in part:
He was granted bail (which was posted by followers) in a criminal proceeding (extraditions are criminal proceedings). He was ordered to return on a specific day and failed to do so. He was granted chances to return in order that his bail would be returned to those who had donated to it, but still did not, and the bail was revoked and the money kept by the Crown. Unless Assange can prove that his failure to appear was reasonable, he's in for three months at a minimum but it could be up to 12 months, plus a possible fine.
I don't know that any country would make bail jumping not be a crime. It's intentionally evading criminal prosecution. Assange will probably never get bail again anywhere in his life.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
"US and France haven't had the closest of relationships."
Ingrate, remember the US Independence War?
"Here's a question for you. How often does your wife bug-sweep your bedroom? People don't have marriages, they have interests within sexual alliances."
This is a poor analogy at best. Are you married? Spouses are constantly secretly keeping tabs on one another without being overt. They are eyeing what one another is doing and spending on a regular basis. And though they aren't necessarily doing it all super covertly, they aren't always open about it.
You're all defending the spying operations targeted at the leaders of foreign allies, but nobody really cares about that. Merkel knew full well she was being spied on simply because she was also spying, I see no problem here. We're all outraged about the spying targeted at the working public for relatively minor (compared to international relations) crimes, especially by the citizens' own government. Yes there's a 'slippery slope' arguement, but we can't realistically stop all spying, so lets focus on the particular type of spying that we really care about stopping. The NSA spying on Angela Merkel's professional dealings isn't that.
in all seriousness, when national pride is insulted, the french are complete dicks. I could see them hosting asange and snowden and telling the US to get bent.
You have obviously never played Civilization. You can even goad Gandhi into dropping nukes on you if you spy on him sufficiently.
Go play and then get back to us.
They often change their policies on a turn of an election or public opinion.
In fact, less democratic forces often embolden their followers by saying that the democratic countries will lose interest or determination and give them a victory by default. They're often right.
Absent some sort of very strong constitutional guarantee, Assange would be one election (or one cabinet meeting) from being deported.
It's unlikely that the Russians will be making up with the US any time soon even if Putin died or was replaced, so he should stay there.
Are we talking about the same Frajce that fought against the English on a new continent. The same that gave one country a statue that symbolises their liberty. The same country that commited 18.000 troops in the first Gulf war?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Is not that we're all being spied on. ( Which, I should note, I think is evil and should stop)
It's that every country that's moaning about being spied upon, given the exact same resources, would do it themselves in a heartbeat.
One does not get the new French identity paperwork and right to live in France until after one has served a complete tour in the Legion and been honorably discharged. There are no political or celebrity postings to the Legion. The French take the Legion really f'ing serious. Its training is no joke, its effectively at a special forces level. The reason the French take the Legion so serious is because it is a highly capable force that can be deployed without domestic political consequences, it foreigners not French kids, in particular French conscripts. They would not f' with the Legion's esprit de corps for Assange.
Imagine two US Ranger brigades (7,000'ish men) that the President of the US could send anywhere around the globe without domestic political consequences. That is effectively what France has.
Oh, but surely, Obama, our fearless defender of all that is good and just, Constitutional scholar and gentleman, would never, ever resort to such methods!
Actually Obama does not lean towards capture and extraction, he leans towards assassination via drones. Capture and extract was the previous guy.
It is a well known tenet of software engineering that sometimes you just have to accept that a software product has come to the end of its useful life. That it is so bloated and kludged up and incomprehensible that a complete rewrite is warranted rather than ongoing extension and maintenance of the existing mess.
Sort of like the IRS regulations.
I'm not sure either Snowden or Assange could live in France in safety anyway. France is subject to European Arrest Warrants. Snowden might be safe from those but if I were him I'd prefer a country like Iceland.
France granted asylum to convicted fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski. The victim was 13 years old. After pleading guilty he fled to France before sentencing. No US and European arrest warrant interfered with his 30+ year stay in France.
makes one wonder about their actions of being incomplete dicks (besides the urine collection bag and celibacy).
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
The flip side of diplomatic immunity is that it has to be granted by the host nation. If it were a matter of the British refusing somebody in France, that person simply wouldn't go to Britain. If the person was already in the UK, the police could arrest that person.
If diplomatic immunity worked as you suggest, Ecuador could declare Assange to be part of the Ecuadorian diplomatic corps, and all the British could do would be kick Assange out of the country.
Rules about diplomats are not intended as permission for one country to do anything it wants on another country's soil. For every privilege, there's ways for a host country to curtail abuse.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There is no extradition treaty between France and the USA so it would be a safe haven.
I've played plenty of Civ. If you keep spying, then yeah, even he's going to get mad. But if you get caught spying on an ally, you get a chance to apologize. That doesn't change the point that if one spying instance starts a war, then it means that a lot of other things led up to it.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I am waiting for the French President to declare publicly that France does not conduct sigint operations against its friends and allies, most particularly against the US and UK.
I agree. France will do anything to piss off the US.
.....but it was France who bombed the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, at a downtown wharf in Auckland, New Zealand in 1985. They killed one of the crew. Granted, that was a conservative French government and they (conservatives) do tend to be sociopathic murderers. One of the many reasons I never vote for conservatives. Anywhere.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Don't get me wrong. I'm French, and I agree that we should offer him asylum. Whistleblowers deserve to be protected. But what he uncovered was an open secret. People with positive IQs knew that it was probably going on in the background, Snowden only confirmed it.
But the show will go on.