
Edward Snowden voted Guardian person of the year 2013 - r0h1n
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/edward-snowden-voted-guardian-person-of-year-2013?CMP=twt_gu
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F_J_H
I've been offline for a bit. Has anyone made the point that Edward Snowden is
today's Nelson Mandela?

I'm recalling a conversation I had with someone born and raised in South
Africa, who said Mandela was in jail for a reason as he was a terrorist who
broke the law, (which of course has been much discussed recently). Someone
else chimed in something like "it's different when you break laws to right an
injustice..."

It's a complex issue, and I'd be surprised if someone hasn't already made the
connection.

Edit: clarity

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chrisdevereux
Mandela was respected for what he did after being released from prison, rather
than what he did before going to prison.

When oppressive and divisive regimes fall, it often happens violently and they
end up being replaced by regimes that are just as bad if not worse (see:
Tsarist Russia, White-majority Rhodesia, many other postcolonial states). That
didn't happen in SA, and Mandela is credited with that.

If the world ends up looking way more dystopian scifi than it does at the
moment, there's maybe a scenario where Snowden ends up being today's Nelson
Mandela, but I wouldn't bet on it.

~~~
zorked
I thought there was this world-wide campaign to free Mandela while he was in
prison as well. Surely it couldn't be informed by what he would do in the
future.

~~~
arethuza
There was a _huge_ campaign to free Mandela in the 1980s, including the
memorable song "Free Nelson Mandela" by The Special AKA:

[http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/09/jerry-
dammers-f...](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/09/jerry-dammers-free-
nelson-mandela)

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thearn4
The difference in public perception between Snowden and Bradley Manning is
interesting. Is it because of the nature of the information leaked? Is it
because Snowden got away, and some folks like to root for an underdog?

~~~
quarterto
Slightly offtopic: Her name is Chelsea Manning.

~~~
icelancer
Yes, but at the time, her name was Bradley Manning. I generally split
references to Pvt. Manning based on time. I don't find it insensitive.

~~~
fiskkastanj
If I was her I would want to be called the female name, and you should always
be a nice person and treat others like you would want to be treated, I for one
would think.

~~~
dreamfactory
It's considered acceptable if you are talking about her pre-transition life.

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aet
How much money has The Guardian made off Edward Snowden?

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danieldk
Does it matter? It's not as if The Guardian bought Snowden's information in a
bidding race. Snowden trusted Greenwald, who happened to be associated with
The Guardian.

A newspaper should be judged on quality. If this leads to more income, all the
better.

~~~
dllthomas
Right. We _want_ doing responsible journalism to lead to more money.

~~~
aet
Indeed, but, the profit motive prevented the timely release of the documents
they have in they possesion. Are they still sitting on any docs?

~~~
icelancer
They are releasing documentation based on Snowden's desired timeline, not
based on some profit motive you are insinuating.

~~~
aet
Why should we care about his desired timeline? The docs are not his property.

~~~
dllthomas
If he did not have an expectation that they would follow his timeline, he
would be less likely to leak the docs to them, and possibly less likely to
leak the docs at all. It's not like Snowden couldn't have just dumped all the
docs on us if that was his intent.

~~~
aet
So we have to sit around while The Guardian decides which docs are important..

~~~
dllthomas
And don't unwarrantedly put people in harms way, &c. Yes. It's called
journalism. It's not perfect, but neither would an unfiltered dump have been.
And it's far better than us not getting the docs at all, isn't it? Which is
certainly another timeline Mr. Snowden could have chosen, at far greater
personal convenience.

~~~
aet
Ok, I see your point.

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gremlinsinc
I think I'll run for President in 2016 on my platform will be to honor Edward
Snowden as a hero, not enemy of state - give a full pardon, and bring him on
as a security reform advisor. That + guaranteed basic income - and flat sales
tax that fluctuates to pay for everything - and get rid of a lot of the red-
tape in congress. -- Our laws need a big red marker, and some duct-tape to
make sense in a 2.0 world.

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smackfu
The voting method was "leave a comment on a story listing the nominees." Only
2000 votes for something like this, on the internet, seems a bit silly.

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dav-id
Is it surprising really? This guy has given them a dump of documents that they
are milking for every penny its worth.

~~~
kybernetikos
The way you say that makes it sound like a bad thing, rather than being their
obligation to society and chosen job.

~~~
jheriko
it is when they drip feed the world for sales instead of publishing the
information freely in one lump and separately writing articles.

the whole situation stinks tbh. despite the damage to NSA and GCHQ a number of
other unsavoury elements in government are really benefiting from this...

~~~
eterm
The "lump it" method doesn't work, it's top news for a day then everyone gets
back to what they were doing.

Dripping it out better highlights the incompetence of those who were tasked to
keep it all in check (including journalism as a whole) and the extravagance of
what has been going on by matching the scale of the surveilance to the scale
of reporting.

It also highlights hypocrisy, such as the initial Merkel reaction "how dare
they! Oh, well carry on" with the reaction after the revelations that Merkel
was spied on "How dare they! We can't let this go on".

Not acting because "unsavoury elements will benefit" would just lead to a
paralysis, unsavoury elements always find a way to benefit, it's part of what
makes them so unsavoury.

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level09
I'm really surprised Elon Musk only got 11 votes.

~~~
tehwalrus
I'm not - he's only a businessman, not a political activist, and his companies
haven't done anything particularly spectacular this year (Model S was released
in 2012).

Remember that the Graun is still a UK-based paper, and we don't idolise
business-folk the way the US does.

~~~
smackfu
>we don't idolise business-folk the way the US does

Well, only if they are on television shows.

~~~
walshemj
And are dodgy barrow boys (who fucked up his chance at the big time because of
poor attention to detail), property developers oh and the accountant who got
lucky.

I have seen some of the Drgons den types do a live session at a business start
up show and my god if there was anything at all technical in the pitch you
could see the poor dears eyes glaze over and how out of their depth they
where.

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ChuckMcM
It will be interesting if a US based publication does the same. To do so would
be to show a strong disregard for the officially supported narrative. People
forget the complexities of emotions during the time of crisis when they look
back through the lens of hindsight favorably.

If we can sustain the anger long enough to get durable change, Edward will be
able to rightfully take some credit for that.

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jheriko
i'm sure they are very grateful for all the attention and paper sales he has
provided them...

maybe they could dump out all the revelations in one go instead of drip
feeding us? or just make the information public?

although to be fair - he has certainly shaped the year's news stories for a
good reason. he has enlightened many who were previously naive.

~~~
jokoon
That's an actual leaking strategy: if you slowly release those documents, it
will be talked about more, and more will be written about it. It also give
more time to journalist to analyse it, and debate those documents, as it's not
a simple to analyse...

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cfontes
Thanks to us? maybe?

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Theodores
This is silly. What about Lewis Hamilton and his successful move to the
Mercedes Formula One team? He risked life and limb to win points. He is a true
hero. This Snowden bloke simply sent some stolen documents to a Guardian
journalist before hiding like a coward.

I don't feel awards are right unless they are full of evil wrong doers spiced
up with a few populist entries. Hopefully Time magazine will have Feinstein
win their Person of the Year award. Then order in the universe will be
restored.

~~~
mistercow
I'm reminded of this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbXTBPN1HhA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbXTBPN1HhA)

How does it help? Yesterday, we had a whistle blower in here. He helped by
revealing the illegal activities of his government committed against their own
people. How does racing a Formula One car ... help?

