EU Parliament Calls On EU Countries To Drop All Charges Against Snowden, Protect Him From Extradition
from the well,-that's-interesting dept
The EU Parliament has just approved a measure (by a narrow 285 to 281 vote) telling EU member states to "drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender." That's pretty huge. Of course, as a resolution, it's more symbolic than actually meaningful, because the member states may not follow through on the request. But it is an important step in the right direction.At the same time, the EU Parliament reviewed some other issues concerning mass surveillance, including the whole EU-US safe harbor setup. As we noted, the EU Court of Justice recently tossed out that agreement, which is really creating a huge mess for the internet right now. The EU Parliament "welcomed" the ruling, and pushed for alternatives to the safe harbor agreement. As we noted, the safe harbor agreement was a bit of a mess, but it's important to have something in place to allow the internet to function -- and the real problem was the NSA surveillance program.
At the same time, of course, it's worth noting that surveillance by EU governments is just as bad (if not worse in many cases), and it seems the EU Parliament may be realizing that as well:
Parliament is concerned about "recent laws in some member states that extend surveillance capabilities of intelligence bodies", including in France, the UK and the Netherlands. It is also worried by revelations of mass surveillance of telecommunications and internet traffic inside the EU by the German foreign intelligence agency BND in cooperation with the US National Security Agency (NSA).Simply blaming the NSA and the US for surveillance is missing the point. It's a pretty broad problem, where the NSA/US government is a huge part of the problem, but the EU doesn't exactly have clean hands either.
Again, as mere resolutions, these efforts have little binding authority, but at least people are coming to terms with the damage done and looking to move in the right direction. Declaring Snowden a whistleblower and protecting him against bogus legal threats and extradition would be a really huge step forward.
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Filed Under: ed snowden, eu, eu parliament, extradition, mass surveillance, nsa, safe harbors, surveillance, whistleblowing
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what about the millions of migrants at the borders?
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"faith in the American public"
you are a lost mind, just judging by the last 3 presidents we have elected, anyone thinking that faith in the American public is legit does not deserve any attention.
The American Public is asleep, lost, and ignorant. They are still stuck in the petty squabbles of party that has been slowly and surely eating away at this nation.
A lot of veterans alive today actually like Bush despite the fact that Bush spit & pissed on their service and sacrifice with the DHS/TSA and the Patriot Act with Obama coming along and resuming Bush's spot over their gravestones.
Faith in the the American public... give us all a break pal!
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Of equal importance, the law they'd charge him under, the Espionage Act, does not allow motive as a defense. It's strictly black or white, yes or no, 'Did the accused do X, or did they not?' As there's no doubt that he did in fact leak the information, he'd be found guilty, guaranteed, and why he did what he did would never even come up during trial.
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The American public isn't trying him. The government is.
So having faith in the public to acquit is not an option.
If I had a choice to run or be tried without the ability to mount a defense, yeah, I'd run too. Any reasonably intelligent person would.
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Further, Ellsberg has said that Snowden "should get the Nobel peace prize and he should get asylum in a west European country."
So as you seem to view Ellsberg as having some importance in this matter, maybe you ought to actually listen to him.
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1. HE HAS explicitly asked for a trial, with only a couple reasonable, humane, conditions: no torture, no death penalty...
Empire would offer no such minimal assurances...
2. '...faith in the amerikan public to acquit him.' um, did you just finish 6th grade civics class and actually BELIEVED that bullshit ? not to mention, just HOW do the 'merikan people 'acquit' him ? what sort of insane palaver is that ?
do you still hum along to 'how a bill becomes law', and think that bears even a shadow of a semblance to the reality of sausage/law making ? ? ?
3. i'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it seems inescapable that urine idjit, and a cruel dude, to boot...
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To have a fair trial you would first have to have several thousand treason trials for the traitors currently trying to mold your country into a tyranny.
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Yup, just like a terorist, he has given birth to a world full of people paranoid, worried about the actions of police and government, and generally wasting their time in a constant state of panic and concern about their privacy... all while posting "just back from our guys night out hooker party" on Facebook.
He has greatly contributed to making the world less stable and less safe. Hats off to him.
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Ah the government's favorite logic, 'We weren't doing anything wrong until you revealed that we were'
You don't blame the one who exposes wrongdoing, you blame the one who's doing it.
If people are 'paranoid', it's because various governments are grabbing every piece of data they can get their hands on. If people are more concerned about their privacy, it's because the various governments have been shown to have nothing but contempt for the public's privacy.
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Re: Ah the government's favorite logic, 'We weren't doing anything wrong until you revealed that we were'
Moreover, most people forget that spying (foreign and domestic) is something that has gone one since long before the US was even a thought in history. Technology makes it easier and perhaps more widespread, but not particular different from the past.
"You don't blame the one who exposes wrongdoing, you blame the one who's doing it."
Cuts both ways. Snowden had to break the law in a significant way in order to expose the wrong doing. He violates his security clearance and pretty much did a very treasonous thing, to provide all the documents of US actions around the world to everyone, including the enemies. It should come as no surprise that Russia has been resurgent against the background of all of this.
The public's vocal desire for privacy doesn't match up with their actions. Social media and electronic devices mean we are more visible than ever, we allow ourselves to be tracked by ad companies, social media sites, cell phone companies, credit card companies, banks, and a whole host of other services and companies that on a day to day basis compile your activities, hopes, and desires in order to "serve you better" with offers, ads, and promotions that suit your desires and activities. Don't think so? Just go search Google for something you never buy or search for, say like "VoIP routers" or something like that, and see what your ads online look like. Or shop Amazon, similar effects.
The public's claimed desire for privacy doesn't match their actions, plain and simple. The outrage about what the government has been doing is at least in part hype and hysteria stoked by online media pundits trying to drive page views. Not very good!
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I also see you gladly used the debunked flawed anology of just because some morons posts their debauchery pics on Facebook VOLUNTARILY, people just have to be fine to be spied upon by a vindictive government.
Way to go, genius.
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Which probably will do him as much good as their acquittancea did for Manning.
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Re: Re: Ah the government's favorite logic, 'We weren't doing anything wrong until you revealed that we were'
Welcome to the wonderful world of politics and the mainstream press where everything has to be hyped, so that a minor difference in views is a major issue, and every wrong doing becomes a major cause for concern.
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"I am going to lie back and try to enjoy austerity measures and being bombed," said nobody ever.
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Re: Re: Ah the government's favorite logic, 'We weren't doing anything wrong until you revealed that we were'
When the government gets caught spying on people, and lies again, and again, and again about it, go figure, people generally aren't feeling too free with the trust at that point.
Moreover, most people forget that spying (foreign and domestic) is something that has gone one since long before the US was even a thought in history. Technology makes it easier and perhaps more widespread, but not particular different from the past.
Yeah, no, there is absolutely a difference. When communications involved letters and then phones, there's only so much you can gather, and it takes work to do so, meaning you only gather info on certain individuals that you have reason to suspect, because it's not possible to gather it on a mass scale. With the tech we have now though? You can gather enormous amounts of highly personal data, and it's easy to do so.
There are worlds of difference between 'Spying on one person because you have reason to suspect they are engaged in illegal acts' and 'Spying on everyone possible just in case they might do something illegal sometime down the road, simply because you can'. The first is investigation work, the second is sating a voyeuristic fetish.
Cuts both ways. Snowden had to break the law in a significant way in order to expose the wrong doing.
Please, if he had to break the law it's because the 'approved' methods of raising concerns had been demonstrated to be little more than traps for the well meaning but stupid. And I imagine you'll object to this, but just because it's the law, doesn't make it right, and just because someone breaks the law it does not automatically make their actions wrong. If he had to break the law to bring the information of what the government was doing to the public, if that's what it took, then so be it.
He violates his security clearance and pretty much did a very treasonous thing, to provide all the documents of US actions around the world to everyone, including the enemies.
If 'informing the public of what their own government is doing' is 'treason', then that definition ceases to have any value beyond squashing dissent.
As well, funny thing, but the apocalyptic disaster that the government claimed would befall us all, the corpses piling to the sky thanks to the release of the info to all those nebulous 'enemies'... never happened. All that info, and it seems the only people who didn't know it already was the public, so the idea that releasing it would be hugely damaging to anything but the USG's credibility and reputation is a joke.
The public's vocal desire for privacy doesn't match up with their actions. Social media and electronic devices mean we are more visible than ever, we allow ourselves to be tracked by ad companies, social media sites, cell phone companies, credit card companies, banks, and a whole host of other services and companies that on a day to day basis compile your activities, hopes, and desires in order to "serve you better" with offers, ads, and promotions that suit your desires and activities.
None of those groups can throw you in jail, and to an extent you can avoid them if you care to, so don't try and pretend that there's no difference between them and what the government is doing. Just because someone may be willing to voluntarily make certain personal information public, or give it to a private company does not make the government grabbing everything it can, like it or not, acceptable or even comparable. Someone choosing to post a funny email they got is very different than someone rooting through their entire inbox without their knowledge or consent.
The outrage about what the government has been doing is at least in part hype and hysteria stoked by online media pundits trying to drive page views.
In part, but a large part of the outrage is due to the government spying on it's own citizens, on a massive scale, lying about it, and getting caught out on their lies. People don't care to be spied on by their own government, and people don't care to be lied to by their own government, it's not hard to see why people would be angry when both are happening.
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Re: Re: Ah the government's favorite logic, 'We weren't doing anything wrong until you revealed that we were'
You are equating two very, very different things here. This is like saying that because people are fine with donating money, they should also be fine with someone stealing their money.
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