

White House presses Russia to expel Snowden; sharp words for China - titlex
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-obama-idUSBRE95N17620130624

======
Ixiaus
_His failures to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive
throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States, not
to advance Internet freedom and free speech._

This kind of logic baffles me.

~~~
mpyne
Is he wrong though? He fled to a country that has a "Great Firewall" and
Internet censors and then to a country where journalists are routinely killed
for opposing Putin. Isn't Pussy Riot _still_ in prison?

Most people are not hypocritical about principles they care deeply about, so
it's fair to ask whether Internet freedom is itself the principle Snowden is
concerned about (in which case, why allow for hypocrisy), or whether it's
something else entirely. After all one thing people pretty much can't say
about RMS is that the man doesn't stand behind his principles. (edited to fix
verb tense)

Now I'm even starting to be confused about what precisely Snowden's motives
are. On some topics he talks about how people in general have rights, then he
starts talking about how he's worried about _America_ and _Americans_
specifically as if he's a patriot that doesn't care as much about the rest of
the world. He talks about violating 4th Amendment rights and needing warrants
and then says that you can't get a fair trial in America.

~~~
tptacek
Yes, he's wrong. The logic doesn't work. Supposed human rights abuses in the
US don't actually have much to do with abuses in Russia; there's little the US
could have done to affect the outcome for Pussy Riot. If the conditions aren't
somehow causally related, then they're independent, and the onus isn't on
Snowden to account for every independent human rights abuse in the world.

I've actually been more aggravated by this argument coming from the "other
side". When it was announced that Snowden was heading for Ecuador, Human
Rights Watch (among others) began posting to Twitter about Ecuador's terrible
record with press freedom (shortened: there is freedom of the press in Ecuador
as long as the press isn't criticizing the Correa administration). People
immediate set about slamming HRW for drawing attention to Ecuador's problems
without accounting for every problem in the US.

Same problem: if Ecuador is jailing journalists, seizing their property, or
even torturing and killing them --- all things alleged by human rights groups
about Ecuador --- that's a problem regardless of what the US is doing.

Similarly, if the NSA is unlawfully stretching the FISA process to surveil
Americans, that's something worth publicizing no matter how many journalists
Russia and China kill.

I have a lot of the same problems with the Snowden story that you do, but I
was disheartened to read that Carney had made that argument today.

~~~
mpyne
Well, I do agree that independent events can be treated independently.

I think the one big thing I can't get around is the cognitive dissonance of
wanting more of the 'rule of law' around things like FISA but then globe-
hopping because the 'rule of law' has become inconvenient. Certainly where the
law is not being followed that should be fixed, and good on Snowden for noting
that. But how can it be true that the same judiciary that issues warrants
under the 4th Amendment cannot be trusted to run a fair trial? If the
judiciary is untrustworthy then adding warrants to more spots in the NSA
cannot fix the issue. So is that what Snowden wants, or does he want to
prevent the government from even having the ability to monitor communications,
even with a warrant?

Similarly, if Snowden is such a patriot I can't believe that he has putting
himself, his brain, and all the TS that he's carrying or has access to within
100 miles of Russia. He's potentially one $5 wrench away from spilling a _lot_
of TS, voluntarily or otherwise, to people who are not as kind as Assange and
Greenwald.

I just don't know what to think about him anymore, and I think that's what is
bugging me more than anything.

~~~
tptacek
Ultimately, Snowden probably doesn't know anything that China doesn't already
know. (You couldn't say the same thing about the information Manning dumped,
by the way).

Regardless: I don't think his motives should have much to do with how the law
treats him, which makes the concern over which countries he's choosing to
visit even more of a sideshow.

I think most rational observers understand why Snowden is picking the
countries he's picking; he's choosing the large, easily reached countries with
the weakest ties to US law enforcement. It's disingenuous to pretend that his
arrival in Moscow is a commentary on Russian civil rights.

~~~
corin_
> _You couldn 't say the same thing about the information Manning dumped, by
> the way_

How far along the "normal to crazy conspiracy theory" line would it be to
question whether, if people like Manning and Snowden can so easily leak this
information, couldn't China already have got it themselves? I mean, if spying
had reached that level... would we know about it?

~~~
tptacek
The problem in Manning's case wasn't China.

~~~
corin_
My bad, I took your comment at word value rather than big picture. I didn't
follow a huge amount of what Manning leaked, who were you referring to with "
_You couldn 't say the same thing about the information Manning dumped, by the
way_"?

------
mark_l_watson
Obama: "What we know is that we're following all the appropriate legal
channels and working with various other countries to make sure the rule of law
is observed"

There seems to be a lot of double speak about THE LAW as being something
universal. This seems to me to be mostly propaganda directed at Americans
since foreign governments certainly understand the nuances of treaties, etc. I
don't want to be too critical but it seems like the USA being one of the few
countries to not accept the world court is ironic.

~~~
laureny
> "What we know is that we're following all the appropriate legal channels and
> working with various other countries to make sure the rule of law is
> observed"

This seems to be the exact correct thing to say, though. Would you have
preferred

<< we're following all the appropriate legal channels and working with various
other countries to make sure the rule of AMERICAN law is observed" >>

?

~~~
dllthomas
Given that they seemed initially to be demanding HK circumvent their own laws
to turn Snowden over quickly "if they respect the rule of law," the latter
might be more accurate.

I'd really rather they be saying the former _and walking the walk_.

------
corin_
How would is life play-out if he went back to the US, and how will it play out
if he gets asylum somewhere like Ecuador? In the former would he die in
prison, or would he some day be released, be it in a few years or many years?
What precedents are there that span the long-term (i.e. more than Manning)?
And if he gets asylum... in a year can he just live a quiet life, in a foreign
country? Or will he constantly be looking over his shoulder, unable to ever
return home, regretting his decision not to face the US legal system?

