Sorry Snowden, Russia Is Not Exactly a Bastion of Free Speech

[Juanita]

In most instances, they probably would do just that. But given the outcry and media attention in the U.S., Snowden is now the biggest piece of political leverage Russia has had on the United States since the height of the Cold War.

Ummmm.. Political leverage....that is an interesting point...and we do seem to be on the verge of another Cold War...hopefully, less chilling this time...

 

[Paschendale]

Who's we? Last I heard, it's only the US gummint that's at the bottom of the ocean floor.

And the supposedly freedom loving people who keep voting in politicians who legislate away civil rights, who advocate for the government to be able to assert secrecy just because it says so, and who pretend that power only exists if you write it down on an official document. The government only does what those people (and that probably includes you) permit it to do.

 

[DDD]

I think Snowden was obliged by the USA constitution to which he was sworn to work so as to act as he did. But he better not come here. The government would seize him and deport him back to USA in a highly decorative Christmas package!

A Business Man Coming Out Of The Box Royalty Free Stock Photo, Pictures, Images And Stock Photography. Image 768318.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

I didn't say plenty of choices for asylum. I said plenty of choices.



No. It's not a lesser of two evils dilemma. It's a save-my-own-skin or stick-to-my-morals dilemma.



Master plan? Please. He has no clue what he's doing anymore.




Here maybe this will help you.

Tolerate - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary



Why Rabid, you wound me!

Please, enlighten us about this plethora of good choices he had. By the way, turning himself in to the US government to be tortured and imprisoned for years without a trial, then being sentenced to life in prison isn't an option.

Like I said, you can sit there nice and smug in your armchair and point out that you would never run from your government, but that's a lie and you know it.

There is absolutely zero benefit to our society, or to Snowden to turn himself in. You just don't like him and want to see him suffer.

 

[shrubnose]

From Human Rights Watch...


Edward Snowden’s Russian lawyer says his client wants to start learning Russian. Now that the American whistleblower has finally left Sheremetyevo airport for “temporary asylum” in Russia, he might find himselfiz ognya da v polymya –out of the frying pan and into the fire. After all, Russia is hardly a bastion of free speech defense.We recommend including a few key terms in any vocabulary lesson:

Khuliganstvo: Translated as “hooliganism,” this word can mean anything from getting into fistfights to shouting political slogans and jumping around in a Moscow cathedral. Two women from the punk group ***** Riot are currently serving out a two-year prison term for theirkhuliganstvo. (***** Riot, in case you’re wondering, is “Pussi Raiot” in Russian.)

Ekstremizm: This one is easy for an American to pronounce, but hard to define. It can mean just about anything that is controversial or generates “discontent,”especially if it criticizes the authorities. There’s a whole section of the Russian police dedicated to fightingekstremizm. One example of their work: the prosecutor’s office recently tried to ban a book calling for an international tribunal on war crimes committed in Chechnya because of itsekstremizm.

Proverka: This is a term that critics of the Russian government know well. The exact translation is “audit” or “inspection,” but often aproverkalooks more like a raid: officials from the tax inspectorate, health inspectorate, Federal Security Service, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Federal Migration Service, prosecutor’s office, or possibly even the fire inspectorate swoop down without notice into the office of a non-governmental organization and ask lots of questions and demand loads of documents. Recently, Russia’s prosecutor general reassured the public that their purpose is just to “get to know” what NGOs do. This cozy exercise has resulted so far in at least nine court cases against NGOs for various alleged infractions.

Propaganda: Yup, same word! But it doesn’t mean quite what you might think. In Soviet days, this was a respectable Communist Party pursuit. This summer, the word has taken on a sinister new meaning with the passage of a law forbiddingpropagandafor homosexuality. Don’t reassure any miserable Russian teenager that “it gets better” – that could qualify aspropaganda.

Inostrany agent: “Foreign agent” is a Cold War term for a spy, but even though Snowden was a card-carrying consultant to the U.S. National Security Agency, it won’t apply to him. A new Russian law requires that NGOs who get funding from abroad and engage in unspecified “political activity” register asinostrany agenti.Several NGOs have gone to court to fight the application of this term to them, which they describe as tantamount to being branded as a traitor.

Predstavlenie: This is another one of those innocuous Russian words that has taken on a spooky new meaning. Technically, apredstavlenieis any kind of notice. These days, for NGOs, it means the prosecutor thinks you’ve violated the law, possibly by engaging inpoliticheskie deyatel’nost(political activity) such as holding a roundtable, making a policy recommendation to a state official, or raising awareness about corruption. Most likely, it probably means you’re going to court.

Preduprezhdenie: It means “warning.” It’s a milder form of thepredstavlenieabove, but it’s no joke. The prosecutor may suspend an NGO that gets more than two of them.

Zalozhnik: Not long before his death, Russia's most famous whistleblower described himself as a “hostage” to a Moscow judge. Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and accountant, had alleged that Kremlin insiders were involved in a massive scheme to defraud the Russian government of more than $200 million in taxes. Instead of investigating his allegations, the authorities arrested Magnitsky, who died of untreated pancreatitis in a pretrial prison in 2009. This summer, Magnitsky was posthumously convicted of tax evasion.

Edward Snowden may feel like a zalozhnik to geopolitical forces much greater than himself. He certainly deserves to have his asylum claim heard.

But if he stays in Russia for any length of time, he will probably want to familiarize himself with how critics fare with the government that has given him shelter

.







If Snowden really wants to learn Russian
.

What makes you think that Mr Snowden is not already very familiar with how the Russian government treats critics and other people? He may know more about the subject than you do. In any case that has little to do with his current need of a place of refuge.




When you are drowning you don't ask those who rescue you a lot of snippy questions.

 

[shrubnose]

In most instances, they probably would do just that. But given the outcry and media attention in the U.S.,

Snowden is now the biggest piece of political leverage Russia has had on the United States since the height of the Cold War.

And the Russians know how to use political leverage.

 

[shrubnose]

From Human Rights Watch...


Edward Snowden’s Russian lawyer says his client wants to start learning Russian. Now that the American whistleblower has finally left Sheremetyevo airport for “temporary asylum” in Russia, he might find himselfiz ognya da v polymya –out of the frying pan and into the fire. After all, Russia is hardly a bastion of free speech defense.We recommend including a few key terms in any vocabulary lesson:

Khuliganstvo: Translated as “hooliganism,” this word can mean anything from getting into fistfights to shouting political slogans and jumping around in a Moscow cathedral. Two women from the punk group ***** Riot are currently serving out a two-year prison term for theirkhuliganstvo. (***** Riot, in case you’re wondering, is “Pussi Raiot” in Russian.)

Ekstremizm: This one is easy for an American to pronounce, but hard to define. It can mean just about anything that is controversial or generates “discontent,”especially if it criticizes the authorities. There’s a whole section of the Russian police dedicated to fightingekstremizm. One example of their work: the prosecutor’s office recently tried to ban a book calling for an international tribunal on war crimes committed in Chechnya because of itsekstremizm.

Proverka: This is a term that critics of the Russian government know well. The exact translation is “audit” or “inspection,” but often aproverkalooks more like a raid: officials from the tax inspectorate, health inspectorate, Federal Security Service, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Federal Migration Service, prosecutor’s office, or possibly even the fire inspectorate swoop down without notice into the office of a non-governmental organization and ask lots of questions and demand loads of documents. Recently, Russia’s prosecutor general reassured the public that their purpose is just to “get to know” what NGOs do. This cozy exercise has resulted so far in at least nine court cases against NGOs for various alleged infractions.

Propaganda: Yup, same word! But it doesn’t mean quite what you might think. In Soviet days, this was a respectable Communist Party pursuit. This summer, the word has taken on a sinister new meaning with the passage of a law forbiddingpropagandafor homosexuality. Don’t reassure any miserable Russian teenager that “it gets better” – that could qualify aspropaganda.

Inostrany agent: “Foreign agent” is a Cold War term for a spy, but even though Snowden was a card-carrying consultant to the U.S. National Security Agency, it won’t apply to him. A new Russian law requires that NGOs who get funding from abroad and engage in unspecified “political activity” register asinostrany agenti.Several NGOs have gone to court to fight the application of this term to them, which they describe as tantamount to being branded as a traitor.

Predstavlenie: This is another one of those innocuous Russian words that has taken on a spooky new meaning. Technically, apredstavlenieis any kind of notice. These days, for NGOs, it means the prosecutor thinks you’ve violated the law, possibly by engaging inpoliticheskie deyatel’nost(political activity) such as holding a roundtable, making a policy recommendation to a state official, or raising awareness about corruption. Most likely, it probably means you’re going to court.

Preduprezhdenie: It means “warning.” It’s a milder form of thepredstavlenieabove, but it’s no joke. The prosecutor may suspend an NGO that gets more than two of them.

Zalozhnik: Not long before his death, Russia's most famous whistleblower described himself as a “hostage” to a Moscow judge. Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and accountant, had alleged that Kremlin insiders were involved in a massive scheme to defraud the Russian government of more than $200 million in taxes. Instead of investigating his allegations, the authorities arrested Magnitsky, who died of untreated pancreatitis in a pretrial prison in 2009. This summer, Magnitsky was posthumously convicted of tax evasion.

Edward Snowden may feel like a zalozhnik to geopolitical forces much greater than himself. He certainly deserves to have his asylum claim heard.

But if he stays in Russia for any length of time, he will probably want to familiarize himself with how critics fare with the government that has given him shelter

.


If Snowden really wants to learn Russian
.

Since it is very unlikely that Mr Snowden will have a problem with any of the things that you talk about here, there is no reason for him to waste his time worrying about them.

 

[shrubnose]

I agree.

By buddying-up with Russia Snowden has destroyed any credibility he may have had as being an agent fighting against tyranny and oppression.

Now he's more of a "well, i'll tolerate tyranny and oppression when it suits me" kind of agent.

When did Mr Snowden 'buddy-up' with Russia? I missed that

 

[shrubnose]

Mr. Snowden's issue is the fourth amendment, not the first amendment.

Free speech is useless when nothing intelligent comes of it.

Free speech gets a lot of people in trouble every day.

 

[shrubnose]

Yeah, because Snowden totally turned down all those offers of Asylum by freedom-loving democracies and chose to go to Russia. Oh wait. They all demonstrated that their respect for human rights and transparency was just talk and closed their doors on him. He ended up in Russia because he didn't have any other choice.




He took the least bad choice. A lot of countries decided that pissing off the USA was not a good idea.

 

[shrubnose]

And how many political positions would be silenced if we were to implement that sort of thinking?

Quite a few.

 

[shrubnose]

Snowden has had plenty of choices. He chose to release classified information knowing that he could very well face imprisonment. And now he's choosing protection of a gross violator of human rights to avoid facing that imprisonment. That makes it very clear that his motives for the leak were not so pure and, regardless of whether the leak was ultimately a good deed or not, Snowden is not the champion of liberty the masses are making him out to be.

Not everyone is cut out to be Tom Paine. let's thank Snowden for what he did.

 

[shrubnose]

No, it has nothing to do with his credibility or his past actions. He took the Russian asylum because he has no other choice, we're trying to lock him in a dark box for the rest of his life. I don't see how you could possibly take this as a "I think Russia is less tyrannical" statement.

In reality all he's saying is it's better than the alternative.

That might be true if it was his plan from the beginning to go to Russia, which it wasn't. Russia was just the only ones that would take him. He underestimated how hard the US would bully all of the upstanding nations into not taking him.

He's done us a great service, and how he now has to play spy games to avoid being thrown in a dark hole doesn't really make any statement about his original intentions.

Anyone who criticizes Snowden should try spending a couple of years in his situation.

 

[shrubnose]

Implement what sort of thinking? Can you be a bit more specific?

The kind of thinking that says - That's not the greatest idea in the world, so lets not even talk about it for a couple of minutes.

 

[shrubnose]

I just addressed this. He's had plenty of choices.

He's choosing protection of a gross violator of human rights.

I've never said he's making any statement of the sort. He doesn't care whether Russia is tyrannical. That's my point. He's ok with abusive tyrannical power as long as it benefits him.







No. What it says is that he's willing to tolerate a nation that is a proven violator of human rights....as long as it suits him.




Basically, yes. He thought he would be safe in Hong Kong. Now that he's facing the consequences of his actions, he's running to the arms of a notoriously terrible government that imprisons political opponents and members of the press. I'm sorry, if you can't see the hypocrisy here I think you're blind.

He's staying in Russia because the USA wants to put him in prison and throw away the key.

If you were him,where would you be right now, Russia or the USA?

 

[RabidAlpaca]

Anyone who criticizes Snowden should try spending a couple of years in his situation.

Agreed. They act like he did this for his own benefit, like he's somehow being treated like a rockstar. In reality he's being hunted and constantly having to look over his shoulder and be paranoid.

He's staying in Russia because the USA wants to put him in prison and throw away the key.

If you were him,where would you be right now, Russia or the USA?

He's going to tell you how he'd totally "Grow a pair and take on the US government".

 

[the_recruit]

He's going to tell you how he'd totally "Grow a pair and take on the US government".

WRONG!

If I were Snowden, I would perform ritualistic Seppuku to try to regain some honor to my family name after shaming it by being such a hypocrit.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

WRONG!

If I were Snowden, I would perform ritualistic Seppuku to try to regain some honor to my family name after shaming it by being such a hypocrit.

I don't think you know what the word hypocrite means. To be a hypocrite he would have to do something he criticized. He didn't criticize running for your life, he criticized spying.

If you have proof that Snowden is a spy, we'd like to know about it.

 

[Wraith8]

I agree. By buddying-up with Russia Snowden has destroyed any credibility he may have had as being an agent fighting against tyranny and oppression. Now he's more of a "well, i'll tolerate tyranny and oppression when it suits me" kind of agent.

Exactly, Snowden has the same hypocrisy that Julian Assange has. Assange pretends that he cares about full disclosure yet happily takes refuge from the government of Ecuador which has an atrocious record regarding freedom of the press.

To be a hypocrite he would have to do something he criticized. He didn't criticize running for your life, he criticized spying.

So you're claiming the Russian government (who Snowden is now taking refuge from) doesn't spy. That's funny. If Snowden is soooo critical towards spying then his principles should've forbidden him to accept any help from the Russians. Not to mention the fact that if he was critical of spying then what was he doing working at the NSA and CIA in the first place??


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