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Non-Binding Resolution: EU States Should Protect Snowden
The New York Times reports that the European Parliament has voted to adopt "a nonbinding but nonetheless forceful resolution" urging the EU's member nations to recognize Edward Snowden as a whistleblower, rather than aid in prosecuting him on behalf of the United States government. From the article:
Whether to grant Mr. Snowden asylum remains a decision for the individual European governments, and thus far, none have done so.
Still, the resolution was the strongest statement of support seen for Mr. Snowden from the European Parliament. At the same time, the close vote — 285 to 281 — suggested the extent to which some European lawmakers are wary of alienating the United States. ...
The resolution calls on European Union members to "drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties."
Also at Wired, USA Today and many others; Snowden himself has tweeted happily about the news.
This seems entirely contradictory to their stance on Assange.
I wonder why.
Happy to see common sense, perhaps struggling, but still win. It's long overdue for Europe to stand up to the crumbling US.
In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.
At the same time, the close vote — 285 to 281 — suggested the extent to which some European lawmakers are wary of alienating the United States.
Or, maybe European politicians are just sharply divided over the issue. That would be easy to believe, even if it doesn't fit the narrative of the poor little EU always cowering whenever the US clears its throat.
#DeleteChrome
It's really hard to extradite from the EU anyway even for non-politically-connected crimes. It took 8 years even to get Abu Hamza, which was about as open and shut as possible (including convictions in the UK) for about as hateable of a figure as possible for serious of crimes during a period where there was a major push to prosecute said crimes. The ECHR in particular is a major refuge for people arguing political prosecution. The right in many countries like the UK hates them, as they make it hard to prosecute many types of crime and force them to guarantee all sorts of rights for prisoners (like assisted reproductive services for sex offenders and such). In the case of Abu Hamza, they ruled that a variety of conditions in US prisons are "torture" and he couldn't be extradited until the US promised to make all sorts of restrictions on how he would be housed. They also had to agree to not seek the death penalty, and nearly required the US to not seek life in prison either. And if the US would ever break any of their promises, the ECHR would impose a general ban on extradition to the US (as they've done with many other countries), as it's against EU law to extradite to countries who do not have a track record of upholding their pledges concerning prisoners (it was imposed in the aftermath of the Agiza/Alzery case)
Now, this shouldn't be confused with moving people between EU states under the EAW process (surrender, not extradition), which is generally rather easy. EAWs bypass the executive branch entirely, and the automatic presumption is that the warrant is valid and should be enforced rather than the other way around.
Honestly, what would work out best for everyone would be if the US agreed to plea bargain with Snowden. He seems interested in it, the US would still send their message that "you can't run from the law forever", etc.
"Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
given the pre-judgment, the media coverage, the classified data involved and the associated "national security" options to block the use of that data as evidence for or against him, do you think there is even the slightest chance that Snowden could receive anything close to a "fair trial" in the US?! Nope, not possible....
Not one extradition treaty in an EU member state overrules the European Convention on Human Rights which all EU member states are signatories to and members of.
The lack of the US' ability to guarantee Snowden will be granted a fair trial, means that any extradition treaty will be irrelevant in the face of a European Court of Human Rights challenge using the European Convention on Human Rights and it's implementations.
This is precisely why the convention and court exist - to prevent any member state treating someone unfairly in violation of their fundamental rights by acting as a higher power that can determine if a member government is treating people within it's borders fairly or not. It's a fine example of the importance of it all, it's one entity that can tell governments it doesn't give a shit how much they wish to kowtow to the US, fundamental human rights come first.
Of course a nation state could break protocol and ignore an ECHR ruling, but then it also doesn't get to dictate to places like China, Russia, and so forth about human rights anymore, because it would then be hypocritical and meaningless to do so.
No he's right, it was a political union designed to bind Europe together to make another war unthinkable. NATO was designed to stop Russia (well, the USSR at the time) marching into Europe to undo all of that which is exactly as Russia is trying to do again now with it's invasion into Ukraine and it's funding of far right europhobic political groups like France's FN, the UK's UKIP, and Greece's Golden Dawn whose main policies are to pull their respective countries out of the EU, hence weakening the EU and opening the door further for Russian intrusion.
Both were certainly primarily created to keep Europe from war, although NATO also protects the likes of Canada's northern borders and Alaska too of course.
This guy? Looks like he was found VERY guilty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
There is no such thing as a fair trial when the prosecution can use any number of trump cards to ensure things go their way.
The big one being the State Secrets Privilege. Since all of the evidence is classified ( and the majority of it at Secret / TS level ) there is no way on the planet the intelligence community is going to allow that material to be presented in a courtroom. If you're unable to use any of the smoking gun evidence you've collected in your defense, I'm curious how you would consider the trial to be a fair one ?
To wit:
The state secrets privilege is an evidentiary rule created by United States legal precedent. Application of the privilege results in exclusion of evidence from a legal case based solely on affidavits submitted by the government stating that court proceedings might disclose sensitive information which might endanger national security.
People in the EU may have a problem with the place, but it is specifically for holding illegal combatants captured in the field by the military who are not POWs under the Geneva Convention. It's not a gulag or a concentration camp for political prisoners.
Uhm, that's exactly what it is, which is why people in the EU have problems with it. Kidnapping people from the soil of sovereign countries and then holding them without due process for indefinite time without trial, oversight by third parties (e.g. Red Cross), way to appeal the imprisonment or access to a lawyer on some remote military base is the hallmark of injustice. It couldn't possibly get worse -- well, it could, if you additionally hold some of them in cages and torture them with sleep deprivation and waterboarding.
If you can't see the atrocity of this then I feel very, very sorry for you.