
Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum? - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/09/has-the-us-become-the-kind-of-nation-from-which-you-have-to-seek-asylum/
======
josephagoss
Americans might not realise this but we see the USA in the same light as China
and Russia when it comes to freedoms. We might be wrong, but thats the
perception myself and many other people from outside the USA see the current
state of the situation.

To think anyone would feel safe in the USA is ridiculous, the USA is one of
the last places anyone should seek refuge in modern times. What scares me most
is the United States influence inside Australia.

~~~
zmb_
As a European I wouldn't say I see the USA in the same light as China and
Russia, but I definitely feel uncomfortable when I have to travel to the US
for work. Given the US's recent track record with human rights and the ongoing
mass surveillance, I just can't be sure some innocent comment on some website
I've made at some point won't flag me and cause me to be indefinitely
detained. I know it's probably not likely, but the possibility is real enough
that it makes me uncomfortable. I'd rather work in countries where I know I
have rights that will be strongly upheld.

When I traveled to the US first time with a new passport (Chicago, year 200X)
I was taken to a police station at the airport and made to answer various
questions (I'm a whiter than white male from Northern Europe). The answers
were entered into what I assume is some monster database, and I was never
explained why this was done or what would be done with the data. It certainly
didn't make me feel like I was entering the "land of the free", rather I felt
like I was entering a police state.

~~~
xtracto
Did you have to take a photograph and save your 10 fingerprints and disclose
all your personal and economic information to get into the USA?

I had to... because it seems for the USA, any Mexican that dares to enter the
country is a potential criminal, so there I am in the huge Mexa database. Just
because I needed to spend a week in the USA for work.

Whereas the 7 years I lived in Europe (UK and Germany) I did not feel as
"guilty". Even with Germany's Rathaus compulsory city registrations.

~~~
gadders
I had to do the photograph and fingerprints thing, and I guess they get my
personal information from my passport. I wasn't asked economic information.
I'm British.

I would guess that every Mexican is treated as a potential illegal immigrant.

~~~
arethuza
At various times I've been asked a lot of detail about the company I work for,
also I got a lot of questions once about why I went to Turkey so often (it's a
really nice place to go on holiday didn't seem an acceptable answer).

Having said that, last few times have been pretty painless. Although I must
admit the idea of the fingerprinting does freak me out I'm usually in a state
where I don't care when I actually get there.

------
tpatke
It is strange that the same country which cherishes its 'right to bear arms'
on the grounds that it gives them a level of protection that the government is
unable to provide is 'happy' to build the infrastructure which allows the same
government to peek into their lives.

On the one hand, we don't trust the government with the basics (physical
security). On the other, we trust them with information we don't want our
parents to see (facebook profiles, etc). ...strange.

Edit: When I say 'the country' I mean the people in aggregate. Obviously, some
people are outraged about this issue, just as some people were outraged when a
gunman killed 30 children. Techies seem to be particularly concerned about
this issue but, on the whole, most people are indifferent.

~~~
newbie12
The right to bear arms is also, explicitly, a protection against tyranny BY
the government. Thomas Jefferson: ""When governments fear the people, there is
liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest
reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last
resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

~~~
mtgx
So is the 4th amendment, and look how much that one is abused. In the end the
Constitution really is "just a piece of paper", if not the _government_ , not
the _judges_ , not the _media_ , and ultimately not even the _people_ respect
it, live by it, and try to protect it as soon as it's endangered by people
trying to accumulate too much power. Where are all the street protests?!

I also fail to understand people who so viciously defend the 2nd amendment
"because of potential tyranny", but don't try to defend the 1st and 4th
amendments with the same aggressiveness, when in fact those amendments are the
_first line of defense_ against that encroaching tyranny, and if they fail,
it's the first clue the country is slipping into tyranny. Would you rather
wait until the very last moment, until people can't take it anymore but to
rise up against the government with violence and starting a massacre, all just
to remove the government? Or would you try to fix things while you still can
do it peacefully, by protecting the 1st and 4th amendments, so it doesn't have
to come to "using the 2nd amendment right to defend against the government
with guns"?

Or maybe it all comes down to who has more money to raise the awareness about
it. NRA is a powerful lobby. ACLU and EFF less so.

~~~
munificent
> Where are all the street protests?!

I'm going to interpret that question literally. A key thing you have to keep
in mind is that in almost all of the US outside of a few very large cities,
the "street" is not a useful public place. People don't gather and interact on
streets in the US. They are merely channels for cars. Protesting on the
streets would be as useful in most cities in the US as wandering around next
to a shipping lane on the open ocean. The only people "there" are driving
vehicles at full speed.

That of course raises the question of where Americans _do_ congregate
together. Churches are the answer for many, although I believe those are
dwindling. Some go to bars. Neither of those is a particularly good venue for
dissent.

One unfortunate consequence of the US being so car-centric is that we've
destroyed public space, and consequently made public assembly much harder.

~~~
Abundnce10
You bring up a good point. Maybe the best form of protest these days is not to
take to the streets but rather take to the highways. Blocking a interstate
highway going into/out of a large city might get more attention.

~~~
kbenson
This would be remarkably effective at getting attention, but I'm not sure how
beneficial to a cause it would be.

If the purpose is to disrupt travel or commerce, it would most likely achieve
it's goal almost immediately. If the purpose is to bring attention to some
other issue and the disruption of the highway system is unrelated (or only
tangentially related), then the attention would have to be weighed against the
negative impression it creates for the many affected.

I don't have the relevant experience in this area to know under what
circumstances protests that negatively impact average people succeed in their
goals.

~~~
mahmud
This would be a bad idea, tacically and economically. In a protest, at least
in the U.S., you can take measures to protect your identity and not carry any
documentation, along with the ability to flee on foot in any direction. You
also have no tangible assets on you that the government can seize.

In a vehicle protest you forfeit anonymity (lincense plates), ability to split
since road-blocks can easily stop you, and most importantly your vehicle might
be impounded.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
OH it would work. And it's nearly impossible for you to get into trouble. If
all the protesters just drove in a circle such as getting on the highway at a
specific ramp and getting off at a specific ramp just to get back on. They
would create a massive bottle neck not only for those 2 ramps but for the
roads that connect to them. There's no law that says you can't joy ride or
that you must avoid congested traffic. A group of only 100 people could very
easily find a bottle neck on their local highway and exploit it.

~~~
MereInterest
In some places, "Disrupting the flow of traffic" is illegal. For example,
driving at 55 mph on the highway is legal. However, driving next to someone,
both going 55 mpg, would be illegal, as it disrupts the flow of traffic.

------
VLM
The real news is a rare violation of Betteridge's Law Of Headlines was spotted
in today's Washington Post, a sight that shocked pundits worldwide.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, I agree.

But to be fair sometimes the question is constructed so the answer is "yes"
and not no (while still being obvious).

Can't remember an example now.

~~~
VLM
Could that be a suggestive question?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestive_question](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestive_question)

(We're solidly in the realm of (bad) meta-puns now...)

------
l33tbro
I think many countries well outside the oecd perimeter would happily grant
refugee status for dissidents. The obvious example is Assange. Disgusting how
the US has gone from a soft terrorist state (signature drone strikes) to a
surveillence state. The national narrative of freedom and liberty has become
farcicle

------
mariuolo
What is scary to me, having grown up in the 80s, is how accepting people are
of things that used to be considered typical of the USSR.

~~~
gboudrias
To be fair, the US in those times was just as crazy as the USSR, they just
didn't advertise it internally.

------
Fuxy
I doubt there is a country on this planet the US government can't strike a
deal with to get his ass back and into prison.

However we all have to be grateful for what he did regardless I sure it wasn't
an easy decision to make.

Good luck Edward and don't make any mistakes.

~~~
taktix
Yes, it's becoming a one government world. A New World Order.

~~~
onebaddude
I'll never understand the opposition to a single, global, government entity.
It seems like the most logical plan.

Otherwise, you get multiple countries playing the zero-sum game of gaining at
the expense of other countries. Exactly what we have now. You know, like
exploiting the resources of poor countries so we can have cheap gasoline. Good
system?

~~~
VLM
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, so you're guaranteed to have a 100% fail,
a worse outcome than your zero-sum game, which merely fails most of the time.

What's most likely is an oligopoly of multinational corps really being in
charge, with a thin veneer of democracy as a marketing message to keep the
population under control. "You're not really feudal serfs because you get to
vote for your overseer, among two candidates selected by the plantation owner
who only differ in minor, yet rabble rousing irrelevancies" Or rephrased, the
American system, but worldwide. It may not be a good system, but its a stable
system.

We already have it, to some extent. Is there any real
ideological/moral/ethical difference between the neo-cons and the taliban
other than minor stuff like selection of holy book (said by a former -R who
more or less got kicked out by the extremist fundamentalist neos)?

------
petilon
Anyone who knows my real name can search the internet and find out where I
work, my home address, my spouse's name, my home phone number and my age. I
didn't put any of this information on the internet, in fact I don't even have
a facebook account. Private companies collected and aggregated this
information and put it on the internet. Some of the information came from
public records (for example, home address from property ownership records),
but some was very private (such as my home phone number, which is not even in
my name and rarely given out). This is a huge violation of privacy and I have
no way of stopping it.

I am not worried about the government spying on me. I am very worried about
these for-profit businesses spying on me and outing my information on the
internet. Why isn't anyone writing stories about that instead?

------
dalke
To be complete, there are other historical cases of other countries granting
asylum to US citizen, or people who didn't want to be US citizens.

Bobby Fischer was granted asylum by Iceland. Assata Shakur and roughly 100
other Americans have been granted asylum in Cuba. Norwood Peter DuBerg and
family were granted asylum by Switzerland. Chere Lyn Tomayko was granted
asylum by Costa Rica. Holly Collins was granted asylum by the Netherlands.
Various people were granted asylum by the Soviet Union, but I can find no
names.

------
vijayboyapati
As a libertarian, this travesty has given me some hope that my liberal friends
will be somewhat more sketpical of the government as benevolent provider. For
years and years I have seen people online belittle libertarians as crackpots
and "tin foil hat conspiracy theorists". One wonders when the average joe will
stop and come to terms with the fact that these "crackpots" were far more
insightful about the nature of the state than they were.

Sadly, I think the answer is they will never come to terms with it.

~~~
NikaJessenia
The issue is with BAD government, not all government. America has a bad
government because the government has been co-opted by a corporate elite.

Government should be a meritocracy where the smartest minds in the country
elect representatives from their field of expertise. So instead of having the
dumb public elect one or two figurehead politicians, you have well-educated
people electing top minds in their own field, who represent the scientifically
and intellectually validated viewpoint of those well-educated people.

Cronyism, nepotism and super-rich corporate privilege are what has destroyed
the American government.

Libertarianism would also seek to destroy the American government, reverting
to a state of anarchy where the super-rich corporatists simply rule everyone
by virtue of their superior wealth, manpower, and organization.

------
buo
An American that had to seek asylum from the US government was Bobby Fischer,
one of the best chess players in history. His offense: playing a chess match
against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia (he also owed taxes).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#1992_Spassky_rema...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#1992_Spassky_rematch)

~~~
brown9-2
I think you left out the part where he defiantly broke the law at the time
against economic activities in Yugoslavia.

~~~
buo
Sorry -- I didn't mean to be unclear about that. The point I wanted to make is
that, while he violated a UN embargo, it was just a chess match, and
nevertheless he was relentlessly persecuted and had to seek asylum.

------
webXL
> Bradley Manning, a soldier who released classified documents to WikiLeaks in
> 2010, has had a very different experience. Manning was held for three years
> without trial, including 11 months when he was held in de facto solitary
> confinement. _During some of this period, he was forced to sleep naked at
> night, allegedly as a way to prevent him from committing suicide._ The
> United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture has condemned this as “cruel,
> inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the convention
> against torture.”

I don't know all that much about the case, but why include suicide-prevention
as an abuse? I'd probably want to kill myself in his situation, but I think
it's humane to actually try to prevent someone from doing it.

And wasn't Manning's leak much more dangerous since it named foreign
informants of hostile governments and terrorist organizations? Why lump that
in the same category as Snowden letting Americans know how they are being
spied on?

~~~
erezsh
> why include suicide-prevention as an abuse?

Letting someone sleep naked is not suicide-prevention, it's abuse and
humiliation.

------
dspillett
_> Serious question: Now that he's a US citizen on foreign soil, and an enemy
of the state, is it now legal to call a drone strike against him?_

Not quite by my understanding. He would need to be in an area officially
classed as a war zone for that.

They could send them to surveil and intimidate him though, but there are less
costly ways to do that which won't upset the people in the country he is
currently living in nearly as much.

(the parent comment seems to have been deleted while I was responding, hence
breaking flow as I have and replying to the top)

~~~
resu
Sending drones into Chinese airspace, that is really going to fly!

~~~
dspillett
The drones currently unofficially over china are not carrying weapons so
couldn't "take him out" as the OP I was responding to was talking about. Of
course their might be something else the US are doing that we don't know
about...

------
cwp
Wow. This is the first time I've encountered an exception to Betteridge's law.
The article makes a pretty strong argument that the answer to the headline is
"yes".

------
alan_cx
I believe that in the UK, and probably the EU, you cant extradite people, I
think including Americans, if there is a chance the death penalty will be
given. Not 100% sure, but I think that is the case.

So, in some ways, the US has been a place form which one can seek asylum for
ages. Or at the very least, be very careful in considering extradition
application. Assuming the US government bothers with the legal inconvenience
and doesn't just sent the CIA in to render them.

~~~
xtracto
>I believe that in the UK, and probably the EU, you cant extradite people, I
think including Americans, if there is a chance the death penalty will be
given. Not 100% sure, but I think that is the case.

That is also the case even in Mexico. To think that in a country (my country)
where deaths by beheading, bar mass shootouts and rampant corruption still
stands on a 'higher moral ground' that the USA really amazes me.

------
snowwrestler
Many people have sought asylum from the U.S. over the years. Does no one else
remember the Vietnam draft-dodgers who departed to Canada? The communist
sympathizers or agents who defected to USSR?

That said, I disagree with the notion that because the U.S. implementation of
personal freedoms is not perfect, then we are as bad as any other country.
Freedom is not measured binarily.

------
ryguytilidie
Well we made a law to protect whistleblowers, so we as a nation clearly
understand that whistleblowers are quite important.

...Then the law was simply amended to exclude people who worked for the
agencies that had the power to do the most damage.

So, unfortunately the answer is yes, we are the type of nation where you now
have to seek asylum.

------
swethrowaway
People seem to speak in favor of guns (outside of stuff like hunting, sports,
etc, which is not really relevant here) for two reasons:

1\. Self defense against common criminals 2\. Safeguard against tyranni

I would like to add a third reason:

3\. Because I am a free man. Because I am sovereign. Because I hold
inalienable rights. Because I harm no one by keeping arms.

I think the first and second arguments hold some weight[1] but really to me
this is a freedom issue. I really don't think I NEED to provide a reason why I
should be allowed to own a gun, same as I don't need to provide a reason why I
am allowed to exist. It's very simple: no one - be it my neighbor or more
abstract entities - has the right to infringe on my right to life and liberty.
Part of that right to exist is the right to keep instruments of self-defense.

Now, there are a tons of gray zones (eg I don't think individuals have the
right to build nuclear weapons in their back yard) but for guns it's very
simple. No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater here.

Can we really trust individuals to own guns? I'd say it's the opposite: the
government is WAY less mature and responsible than individuals. The occasional
misbehaving individual is a fart in the wind compared to the systematic,
egregious misconduct of pretty much every government ever. Seriously, look at
the track record of governments in the 20th century - not exactly a rosy
picture. And if you look at history, it's always the nobility and such that
are allowed to bear arms, and the unfree classes that are deprived.

I do believe in a minimal state, though, so I'm not an anarchist.

I am born and raised in Scandinavia btw, so I guess I'm a bit of an odd duck
as pro-gun and libertarian :)

Posting as throwaway because this is somewhat controversial and I see no
reason to incur negative social status in my social circles over something
that is purely an academic issue in Sweden anyway (ie there is no pro-gun
movement whatsoever here and anyone who espouses those kinds of views is
insta-pigeonholed as a radical kook).

Anyway, I felt I needed to vent a little bit. I expect to be downvoted into
oblivion. But, hey, at least provide a counter-argument, will ya? :)

[1] But I think some people are overestimating guns as a tyranny deterrent.
The US military allowed each Iraqi household to have one Kalashnikov, for
instance. That should tell you something.

~~~
swethrowaway
It should say "2\. Safeguard against tyrannical governments". I seem to be
unable to update my comment to fix the typo.

------
Shivetya
Considering the changes this Administration made regarding who it can
'legally' target with drones, would being outside of this country, asylum or
not, be safe?

Which countries large enough to not allow our use of their airspace don't have
extradition treaties? Russia?

------
ubiq
Maybe it's time for a new amendment that explicitly protects the privacy of
individuals?

~~~
rocky1138
A law is only as good as the people who follow it. A lock keeps an honest man
honest.

------
freepipi
There is no absolutely liberty and absolutely privacy, isn't it? if the
government didn't collection people's information, the hackers from other
countries will do so. which one do you prefer?

------
squozzer
If you like what is happening, do nothing. If you don't, do something.

The best way to hurt a rich person is to make them a poor person.

The best way to hurt a megalomaniac is to make them helpless.

------
thetwiceler
I think this is really hyperbolic. The fact is that Snowden violated the
conditions of his Top Secret security clearance, which is a crime that is
subject to criminal prosecution.

Now, I'd argue the leak that Snowden made was much more acceptable than, if he
had revealed the identities of CIA spies to foreign countries and caused them
to be killed.

Nevertheless, we are a nation guided by rule of law, and it would be
unreasonable to expect that Snowden wouldn't be prosecuted. Just because he
did something which many people consider was a good thing, does not mean that
he didn't do something illegal.

~~~
jaekwon
Yes, and I wonder if Nazi Germany had laws regarding Jews.

------
julianozen
Serious question: Now that he's a US citizen on foreign soil, and an enemy of
the state, is it now legal to call a drone strike against him?

~~~
dspillett
Not quite by my understanding. He would need to be in an area officially
classed as a war zone for that.

They could send them to surveil and intimidate him though, but there are less
costly ways to do that which won't upset the people in the country he is
currently living in nearly as much.

------
Millennium
Not yet, but they're sure putting a lot of effort into laying the sort of
infrastructure that would make it easy to become such.

------
joelrunyon
> Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

It's a little sad we even have to ask this question...

------
raymondduke
All these stories seem to be a journalism ploy to rekindle readership.

------
johnnybegoode
short answer: YES

------
gadders
Well, according to Julian Assange, so is Sweden.

------
BigBalli
yes, and it has been for quite some time.

------
freddealmeida
To answer the question: Yes.

------
youngerdryas
The problem is Ellsburg released evidence of government officials doing
something illegal which meant he was shielded. The NSA story, which is not
even fully known yet, though classified is apparently legal and has
congressional as well as judicial oversight. The IRS and reporter wire taps
are far more likely to take down the presidency.

