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[Scoops Novel]

According to this and a few others on a cursory google (no big names, and i was alerted to this via xkcd), the petition to pardon Snowden has reached 100000 signatures. http://www.inquisitr.com/810593/edward-snowdens-pardon-petition-reaches-100000-signatures/

[GreatJustice]

We live in pretty messed up times when someone promoting transparency in government the opposition to surveillance flees to first China and then Russia.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No we aren't. You always seek refuge in other power blocs if you draw the ire of the one you live in.

[misko27]

If you believe that, it is the will of the people that these things happen. And the people are always right, right?

...no. That is the entire purpose of the Constitution. That a tyranny with popular support is still a tyranny, and why the requirements for the government to do such things require far more than a simple majority of the population or of congress to support them in it. A popular tyranny is still tyranny.

First, exactly. The people are not, always right (in direct opposition to statements written by the people who wrote the Constitution, I might add). Secondly, But then, who defines what is right? Who decides that a system or a government, or a policy is unjust or correct? You? I have the same claim to being right that you do, as does anyone else. And who and how would one decide? And who decides how we decide? Without some sort of mandate, from the people, or God, or the educated, or something, there is no way to determine what is a good policy, or anything.

Balances, checks. And accountability. And a big part in those is played by whistle blowers that shine a spotlight on the worst policies enacted by people supposedly at the service of the people yet all too often with secondary agendas.

But accountability implies the people who would judge them are more competent to make decisions then the ones who made them. The people who judge them, leads back to the same question, who? The people vote these guys into power after all, and Obama would be re-elected again given current polls. And, I might add, the faction of people who decry Snowden for his "Oppression tour" (I shit you not), the ones who castigate him as a traitor, are a large and powerful block. They are upset solely at Obama because he is Obama. I quote back to Glyph

That a tyranny with popular support is still a tyranny, and why the requirements for the government to do such things require far more than a simple majority of the population or of congress to support them in it. A popular tyranny is still tyranny.

Exactly. The people's opinion is not necessarily a guarantee of fair and balanced.

Essentially, checks and balances are a smaller, more exclusive, more powerful democracy. And Democracies, as we have already proven, empower such behavior. The US government has one of the strongest Checks and balances system in the world. Hell, it is often powerless because of it, strangled by them. And this still happens? The only options we have, following this argument, are to increase the percentage of the population required to make something happen, which risks slow decision-making, or keep it as is, and risk inaccurate decision making.

The people, failed themselves. No one else is to blame. Everyone in office in the US today did it through a majority.

[GreatJustice]

No we aren't. You always seek refuge in other power blocs if you draw the ire of the one you live in.

Yet I can't seem to recall any American whistleblowers ever fleeing to the Soviet Union for political asylum.

[GlyphGryph]

Traditionally it's been quite a bit harder to draw the ire of the US, I think. And both modern Russia and China are probably better places than the USSR, Hong Kong specifically.

Generally, though, whistleblowers haven't been under the same sort of risks that Snowden is here.

[kytuzian]

According to this and a few others on a cursory google (no big names, and i was alerted to this via xkcd), the petition to pardon Snowden has reached 100000 signatures. http://www.inquisitr.com/810593/edward-snowdens-pardon-petition-reaches-100000-signatures/

There is also a petition on Avaaz.org that has about 1,250,000.

[Zangi]

Traditionally it's been quite a bit harder to draw the ire of the US, I think. And both modern Russia and China are probably better places than the USSR, Hong Kong specifically.

Generally, though, whistleblowers haven't been under the same sort of risks that Snowden is here.

To add on to this:
Manning and Snowden have both managed to leak information to A LOT of people simultaneously.
Back then, that was a heck of a lot harder, if not impossible.  Since it was easier to shut down the flow of information...  unlike today.

Information is power.  >.>

Plus, our gov't seems to be trying pretty hard to silence whistleblowing... but, back then, we probably never really saw the trying part either.

[GlyphGryph]

Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than... everyone else combined ever, hasn't he? I may be misremembering that statistic, but it was pretty crazy. The US is no longer a nation where reporting bad behavior of the government is safe. It used to be that the government simply had to live with leaks to the American public - things have changed.

Also, some potentially disturbing news - Snowden missed his flight, and seems to have disappeared. There's not any evidence he actually arrived in Russia, or at least at the place he was supposed to be staying.

[Tarqiup Inua]

It is funny that in situation like this it is actually beneficial when the world superpowers aren't acting as allies - checks and balances on larger scale, I suppose.


I didn't really expect him to take the plane, myself, as they announced it beforehand. Supposedly there is direct connection from Sankt Peterburg to Iceland, so perhaps that is possibility... or he has never arrived to Moscow in the first place - some theoretize that he might be in Hanoi, even.

Either way, stay out of the harm's way, Mister Snowden. Godspeed...

[SalmonGod]

misko, I don't really accept the idea that our leaders, at least at the federal level, are properly voted for.  We're basically restricted to voting on candidates that are hand-picked for elections by the wealthy.  It's incredibly consistent that the candidate who gets the most corporate donations wins the election, and that was even true for Obama in '08.  Even if that weren't the case, our representatives almost universally do the exact opposite of what they promise while on campaign.  You can't really claim that our representatives are voted for as in a proper democracy when those representatives are completely different people when in office compared to the people they were when campaigning for votes. 

And Obama is one of the most egregious examples ever (TRANSPARENCY).  He's even a good example of how looking at political history isn't good enough, as his behavior as president has greatly contradicted his behavior as senator.  The only reason he's so popular still is he's so amazing at PR and generally presenting himself in such a manner that the people who support him are lulled away from feeling any need to look up how he actually behaves in office.  Even now, many people flat out don't believe me when I talk about the things he's done.

[Gervassen]

Apparently Snowdon's staying overnight in Moscow, according to the BBC intending to fly to Ecuador tomorrow. Why are the Russian's being so lax? It will only fan the flames of accusations of traitor, and bringing up this argument with/subbing America has unclear benefits.

Of course, Russia and China help Snowden. The reason is clear. America has been insufferably preachy about its freedoms and unique democratic legitimacy to tell everyone else on the globe what to do. Take the case of the American IRS trying to end the privacy of Switzerland's banks. That's their bread-and-butter tradition. Might as well tell them to stop making watches, too. And all because America is a special benevolent force for good in the world, so it can tell other countries what to do.

Helping the greatest American whistleblower in decades, as the USA tries to witch-hunt him, is a way of poking America in the eye, but also delegitimises the US as a world moral authority. Consider the following from the Chinese media:

"They demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber-attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age," says Xinhua.

Ten years ago, or even ten months ago, this would have been surreal. Now it at least bears consideration.

[Scoops Novel]

Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than... everyone else combined ever, hasn't he? I may be misremembering that statistic, but it was pretty crazy. The US is no longer a nation where reporting bad behavior of the government is safe. It used to be that the government simply had to live with leaks to the American public - things have changed.

Also, some potentially disturbing news - Snowden missed his flight, and seems to have disappeared. There's not any evidence he actually arrived in Russia, or at least at the place he was supposed to be staying.

Sources, please. Gervassen, i thought the damage the damage has already been done. I'm also doubtful that relations are strained to the point where they wish to (or are) genuinely pissing off America. In addition, if America undergoes reform here, there will be a clamouring, certainly by American's and quite possibly by their own population to do the same for their own programs.

[GlyphGryph]

It's not hard to look up - Before Obama, only three leakers have ever been prosecuted (at least under the espionage act, which is the only law that allows more than a slap on the wrist and the only one particularly relevant to this situation) before him, and he's prosecuted six. He's prosecuted twice as many as every previous president combined.

Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo were both charged in 1971, though the case was thrown out. Samuel Loring Morison was the only person convicted under the law of leaking information until Obama.

During Obama's term, Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was charged for talking to a NYT reporter, Thomas Andrews Drake was prosecuted for attempting to blow the whistle on illegalities with the trailblazer project, Shamai K. Leibowitz was sentenced for speaking to a blogger, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim for talking to a reporter with Fox News, Bradley Manning is obvious, and John Kiriakou for leaking details about the US torture programs.

Technically, Snowden brings it up to seven.

[misko27]

Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than... everyone else combined ever, hasn't he? I may be misremembering that statistic, but it was pretty crazy. The US is no longer a nation where reporting bad behavior of the government is safe. It used to be that the government simply had to live with leaks to the American public - things have changed.

Meh. 7 compared to 3 is a increase of Over 100%, but it is good to keep in mind it is also a increase of 4. The days of Fascism are a little farther ahead.

misko, I don't really accept the idea that our leaders, at least at the federal level, are properly voted for.  We're basically restricted to voting on candidates that are hand-picked for elections by the wealthy.  It's incredibly consistent that the candidate who gets the most corporate donations wins the election, and that was even true for Obama in '08.  Even if that weren't the case, our representatives almost universally do the exact opposite of what they promise while on campaign.  You can't really claim that our representatives are voted for as in a proper democracy when those representatives are completely different people when in office compared to the people they were when campaigning for votes. 

(I was literally waiting for someone to bring that up)Well, that looks a lot like moving the goal posts my friend. It's all we have.  It also ignores the fact that the people support these things in polls, the closest we have to a true barometer, at least as of now. That the people of America supports something you are opposed to is a unpleasant but nevertheless, undeniable fact many politicians have been forced to swallow.

And, of course, it remains the fact It also eerily parallels comments I've seen from the farther right where, under a election using Voter ID, their side would win out cleanly. The truth is of course neither you nor they are right. Neither case would bend the people's will over to you.

Remember as right as you may be on your end of the political scale, you still are at the end. At the end of the day, the people still support stupid, stupid things. This is an undeniable. All the equal elections in the world, and all the transparency we can muster would not get rid of the fact that Obama is a popular man.


Also, it looks like China pulled the strings as Snowden left, as seems rather obvious. They do maintain the final word in Foreign Policy, and reports from Chinese officials indicate they had gotten all the embarrassing out of the US they could, and keeping him any longer risked annoying the US more then they are willing. Of course, Putin doesn't have such qualms so. I thought the whole Ecuador thing was a done deal though? Or have I been misled by the news?