Edward Snowden Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize 343
SmartAboutThings writes "Edward Snowden has a chance of getting the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, as two Norwegian members of the Parliament have nominated him — Baard Vegard Solhjell (a former environment minister) and Snorre Valen. So, the fact that members of the Norwegian Parliament have proposed him for the Nobel Peace Prize could improve his chance of winning. After all, if Obama got this prize, why wouldn't Snowden get it?"
Alternative Nomination (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to nominate Dr. Thomas Neff (http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/01/29/0157208/megatons-to-megawatts-program-comes-to-a-close) as more deserving.
As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the Peace Prizes to Gore and Obama to be the most asinine thing that the committee has ever done.
To implicitly compare those two politicians to the likes of King or Gandhi just disgusts me.
What next, giving one to Jethro Tull?!
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Funny)
nah, give one to Cross eyed Mary instead...
Re: (Score:3)
OK. When you say Barack Hussein Obama, you just sound like a dick. I am a Patron level NRA member. I go to church. I vote Republican. I do not like Obama's policies. I am conservative.
But when you go on about the Hussein garbage, you are just making yourself and people like you sound like a racist. The reason why: You are racist.
Turncoat dixiecrat morons have invaded the GOP. You have dragged us down. You took a once noble and progressive party and made it irrelevant.
Stop it. Just stop it. Stop b
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that one there shows that the Nobel peace prize means NOTHING.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Funny)
And Henry Kissinger.
And that one there shows that the Nobel peace prize means NOTHING.
Hey that is not fair, for years Kissenger systematically carpet bombed civilians in countries that were not a threat to the US at all (Laos, Cambodia)... and then he stopped.
That means he single handedly stopped a horrific, unjust and criminal war. If that doesn't deserve a peace prize, it certainly deserves some kind of prize.
Re: (Score:3)
But you have to have a basic grasp of 20th century history to know that. So most people here don't.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise, they also gave one to Menachim Begin, who was just as nasty a terrorist as Arafat.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Insightful)
> thought the Peace Prizes to Gore and Obama to be the most asinine thing that the committee has ever done.
Concur 100% ! Considering Obama did fuck all to receive the prize, Snowden exposing the lies of the government most certainly deserves more then 1 medal !
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't award it to Obama for anything. They were trying to reward America for voting for a black President.
A country with slavery as late as 1863, which had civil rights riots (and lynchings) in the 1960's, and which still has the Klan, which the same year had a party nominate Mr "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" and Mrs "Oh boy howdy", that country, that country, actually elected a black Democrat President.
After seeing you re-elect GWB, not just elect him but re-elect him, do you realise how grateful the rest of the world was for any sign, no matter how small, that you weren't completely bat-shit fucking crazy?
We were wrong, sure. But you have to see how desperate we were for any sign of sanity.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:4, Insightful)
and which still has the Klan, which the same year had a party nominate Mr "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" and Mrs "Oh boy howdy", that country, that country, actually elected a black Democrat President
Ironic that the racists probably won't take comfort from the fact that while he still may be black (ish), he's clearly a fascist (you'd think that might alleviate a lot of their gripes). :p
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They didn't award it to Obama for anything.
They awarded Obama the Peace Prize because he was personally spearheading negotiations with the Russians to reduce nuclear armament stockpiles. This didn't go anywhere largely because Congress would have vetoed any meaningful concessions. My source on this is 1 degree of separation from Obama (he works with people who would have worked with Obama.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Informative)
The klan is currently a small irrelevant organization. It has had a couple of short lived boosts in popularity during its life time but overall is much less worrisome than other racist groups. And such racist groups appear in most countries, the US is not unique in having such secretive racist organizations, even in Norway and other scandinavian countries. There have been quite a lot of racial tension in Europe recently, which will likely grow as the population becomes less homogenous over time.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't it sad then that the DNC is at minimum, the equal of the GOP in bloodthirst.
Obama tripled the troops in Afghanistan, opposed the treaty on cluster bombs, drone bombs anyone he feels like, tried to extend Iraq, failed, and instead called himself a peacemaker.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Informative)
I thought Obama got his for being "not George W. Bush".
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, Snowden's not Bush either, so that settles it. He should get one.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But how does Snowden promote peace?
I mean, he dug up some records of some illegal stuff the government was doing. Then he sent it to the general media so average Joe, will misinterpret the summary and think their government is doing far worse then they actually did. Combined getting a bunch of other countries pissed off at America, because there is evidence to show what they already know anyways.
In terms of Peace, he seemed to stir up the drums or war.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Insightful)
Without hard evidence there is no knowledge only speculation. This is what separates sane people from the tinfoil hat crowd.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Funny)
Not really, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Really? My broken digital clock seems to think it's 88:88 PM all the time. At what two times is that right?
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Funny)
88:88 PM in the afternoon and 88:88 PM in the morning.
Re:Are you sure Snowden is also not making things (Score:5, Informative)
There aren't many "Snowden's claims". The weird leaks are coming from security researchers pouring over all the power point presentations Snowden got from the NSA. So unless you think he faked those before passing them off to the media...
Re:Are you sure Snowden is also not making things (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh yes the dreaded Power point presentations. They look more like something you would use in a presentation to justify budget increases. They contain no details or even proof that the programs described ever made it into the real world. There has been a remarkable lack of interest in trying to determine the voracity of the information that has been released. He could be making up shit wholesale and there is really no way to verify the information came from the NSA. I am not saying all the information is false I am just pointing out nobody has even investigated the claims. He has also taken it upon himself to judge whether or not the information being released is harmful to the US. With that type of arrogance he must be one hell of international relations expert. The minute he started releasing information on foreign intelligence activities he sealed his fate. The only deal he could get would be the US dropping any charges related to information theft and fraud while prosecuting the espionage act violations to the hilt.
Re: the most asinine thing (Score:3)
Asinine, yes. But more asinine that Kissinger? Or Arafat? That's a pretty high bar.
Re: (Score:3)
I thought the Peace Prizes to Gore and Obama to be the most asinine thing that the committee has ever done.
Reminder that Henry Kissinger won the Peace Prize.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Informative)
Gandhi did not receive a Nobel.
Re:As an environmentalist and (former) Obama fan. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but the terms of Nobel's will specified that the award can't be made posthumously, and it's well understood that the committee not awarding the prize in 1948 was a sort of "missing man formation" way to honor Gandhi.
Re: (Score:3)
You forgot Henry Kissinger.
FWIW, giving that war monger the Peace Prize was much worse than Obama. I'm not sure what Gore did to deserve it, but AFAIK he never instigated a war.
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Well, maybe someday the Nobel committee will pull the same stunt that Time magazine did [wikipedia.org].
Funnily enough, I actually knew someone who put "Person of the Year, Time Magazine, 2006" on his CV.
Re:Alternative Nomination (Score:4, Insightful)
AMEN! Unfortunately, if Obama can get one, any turncoat-calling-himself-whistleblower can get one, too.
It's sad.
Highly unlikely; only people with political influence get them. Obama got one for not being Bush; Snowden can likely get one for not being the NSA.
Re:Alternative Nomination (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn’t say politically influential. I would say flavor of the month, politically trendy. Not always, and some of the nominations have been good, but most are “safe choices” from a isolated, Nordic perspective. (I mean, there is only so much China could do for when Liu Xiaobo won 2 years ago. Norway just does not have much direct trade with China).
As for nomination – It is a important step but I think it is overstated here. There are some big wigs who never got a noble because nobody nominated them. That being said, getting nominated is a fairly low bar to get over. IIRC there are a couple hundred people who can nominate a person and it only takes one. Some of the past nominations were truly fringe. The wheat is shifted from the chaff much later in the process.
Re:Alternative Nomination (Score:5, Funny)
It's pretty sad when you can get a Nobel Prize for not doing / being things. I wonder if someone could get a Nobel Prize in physics for converting the mechanical energy harvested from Alfred Nobel oscillating in his grave into the ultimate in renewable energy...
Re:Alternative Nomination (Score:5, Insightful)
Great news! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a HELL of a lot better than when Obama got the prize, just for being elected. An unknown nobody who had run a successful campaign got a peace prize just for moving into the White House? Totally bogus.
Maybe the committee has decided that they would like to have some credibility.
I'm all for Snowden getting the prize. To bad it has been cheapened with some of the past awards.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama got it because tbey wanted to slap George Bush in the face. He should have declined because that is beneath the presidency to participate in such an exercise.
Although this case may also be seen as a slap at the president, at least Snowden wpuld arguably deserve it, if you approve of him.
Re: (Score:3)
4 people/orgs got a Nobel Peace Prize for "not being Bush": Carter, IAEA, IPCC and Obama.
If Obama does get the anti-congress to finish normalizing relations with Cuba and Iran before the end of his term, and does pull out of Afghanistan (after completing the Iraq withdrawal), it will partially offset the realpolitik of blowing up random people. Not enough to deserve the prize outright, but at least a few major peace achievements, and better than most presidents.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama got it because tbey wanted to slap George Bush in the face. He should have declined because that is beneath the presidency to participate in such an exercise.
Although this case may also be seen as a slap at the president, at least Snowden wpuld arguably deserve it, if you approve of him.
The Nobel Peace Prize was originally established by someone who had created what he considered a horrible weapon of war to honor and encourage people who had worked to promote and enable world peace.
Not for not being George W Bush, not even for uncovering a lot of contra-democratic practices. It is, after all, not a "democracy" prize. And by that standard Yasser Arafat actually is more entitled to it than either Obama or Snowden. Not by much, since while dealing peace with one hand, he still had the other under the table dealing war, as we later discovered, but at least to some degree.
As to whether Obama should have turned it down specifically because it was awarded to slap GWB in the face, I'm not certain I'd go that far. We already knew that US Presidents cannot be looked to as exemplars of virtue.
On the other hand, he really should have refused it for the simple reason that he hadn't done anything specifically to promote peace at the time. And that was before the drones.
Re:Great news! (Score:4, Insightful)
He's a politician. What is?
Re: (Score:3)
Paying taxes? Listening to constituents? Earning a living through hard work?
Re: (Score:3)
The years of lying it takes to get that many people to vote for you is pretty hard work.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden was just the messenger. If countries get angry at one another, it is because of their actions, not because of Snowden.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the committee has decided that they would like to have some credibility.
The Nobel Peace Prize has LONG been without credibility; it's always been a tool to push some sort of agenda.
2012 - The European Union? You mean the group that shouted how we should stop Ghadafi from defeating the rebels in Libya, dragged the US into a response and then backed off leaving the US the sole owner of a military intervention they didn't want? Especially after forming deals with Ghadafi that had lessened his grip and got him to give up nuclear programs and chemical weapons? Yeah, that turned out well.
2009 - Barack Obama - all based on promises and rhetoric and no action... sure.
2007 - Al Gore for promoting environmental awareness? That's kind of the wrong category.
1994 - Yasser Arafat? He's done a lot to promote peace in the world.
1973 - Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for the Paris Peace Accords - I'm sure the South Vietnamese really appreciated Le Duc Tho's peaceful process when he invaded and annexed their country.
And where is Mahatma Ghandi? Where is Pope John Paul II? The Nobel Peace Price ceased being about "Peace" long ago and has simply been a tool to highlight the political agenda of a few Norwegian scientists.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>2007 - Al Gore for promoting environmental awareness? That's kind of the wrong category.
That depends on your perspective: within the next century or two climate change will likely be the single largest driver of warfare the world has ever seen. With flooding, drought, and famine striking simultaneously around the world things are going to get really ugly.
Still, I don't know that his sensationalist exploits in "raising awareness" should compare to people that actually get things done.
Re: (Score:3)
>2007 - Al Gore for promoting environmental awareness? That's kind of the wrong category.
That depends on your perspective: within the next century or two climate change will likely be the single largest driver of warfare the world has ever seen. With flooding, drought, and famine striking simultaneously around the world things are going to get really ugly.
Still, I don't know that his sensationalist exploits in "raising awareness" should compare to people that actually get things done.
Then give it to Gore in 100 years or so. If we need to give it to Gore now, then let's also give it to the people who warned us about killer bees, overpopulation. and invaders from Mars.
Re:Great news! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't understand the Olso peace accords, and how Arafat shaking hands with a jew and setting up an official Palestinian office was a major peace achievement, you need better teachers.
Re: (Score:3)
But just like Kissinger, Arafat won the Peace Prize for helping to end violence that he was largely responsible for.
Re: (Score:3)
(I'll take the AC bait)
Cynically? Yes.
Now you have everyone talking about a two-state solution, whether it's to push it forward or torpedo it.
Considering that many of these people used to deny the other's right to even exist or live nearby, and that talking to them would get you shot (at best), it's pretty impressive progress.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Informative)
It's the peace prize, not the anti pedophile prize. PJPII did a lot to help topple the iron curtain, and he was the first pope to really reach out to other religions, including Jews, Muslims and Buddhists. He was the first pope to visit an Eastern Orthodox country since the split a thousand years ago.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for Snowden getting the prize. To bad it has been cheapened with some of the past awards.
I'm not. I think giving it to Snowden would serve only as a repudiation of Obama's prize, and not as an actual reward for promoting peace. It would only cheapen the award further.
It's the Nobel Peace Prize, not the Nobel Privacy Prize or the Nobel Stand-Up-To-Authority Prize. What Snowden did was good and needed and courageous, but it wasn't related to Peace or to saving lives. In fact, it's actually inflamed diplomatic tensions. How about giving it to that doctor in Africa who didn't get it in 2013, or the megatons-to-megawatts guy suggested above?
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
And, you don't think that exposing an all-seeing police state has any bearing on peace?
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I actually don't. I think exposing an all-seeing police state has great implications for the rights of that state's citizens, but has very little bearing on life vs. death.
Let me make the connections for you. Government surveillance and data collection does two things (among many others), depending on whether it's publicly known or not.
If the government is running public surveillance and effectively acting like a police state (think the TSA), it convinces many people of a supposed necessity for "security" against some "unseen enemy." It's very easy to turn that fear against some random foreign nation, even when the connection in tenuous -- e.g., the Iraq war. The continuous feeling of "unease" that many Americans have by being continuously bombarded with messages like "You need to take your shoes and belt off and d the 'special pose' for the nudey scanners, or you could DIE even on a plane from terrorists" is that there are enemies out there, and the government needs to protect you, probably including military actions. (And imagine if "weapons of mass destruction" might be involved! See Iraq above ramp up to try to create a conflict with Iran in recent U.S. politics.) Public surveillance and police state actions create a state of paranoia in the populace that can often lead them to support armed conflicts... because they're just that freaked out and scared.
Now, what about secret surveillance that is kept from the public? Well, it does similar things, except the paranoia now is left to fester inside the government and agencies that compile the data. There will always be apparent "threats" to every nation, always people shooting their mouths off about something or other, always people talking to shady people (but not actually intending to be terrorists).
But increased surveillance ensures that lots of people in the government are frankly OBSESSED with huge amounts of weird stuff going by their desks every day. A report here, a briefing there, and suddenly you're convinced that many people are plotting terrorist activities right now -- and they're out to get you.
I don't know this for certain, but I have to guess that this obsession with looking for ANY signs of potentially bad actions probably also contributed to the Bush White House arguing for an invasion of Iraq (again, see above). The more "data" that comes in, the more likely that people are to see random patterns in it, effectively finding what they want to see.
And when those people are in charge of major governments or lots of weapons, that kind of paranoid quest combing through random data is a serious threat to world peace.
I think there are better candidates.
So do I. But someone who exposed the paranoid actions of crazy governments intent on finding "unseen enemies" to attack HAS potentially contributed something significant toward future peace.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you don't really understand the point of those rights. They aren't rights simply for being rights. They are rights because they are a necessary component of a healthy civilization. An "all seeing police state" perpetuates violence - the kind that a state visits on its citizens - it is just one or two steps removed from the actual violence that it creates.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
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LMAO - that's just awful - and so politically incorrect!
commies! (Score:2)
Well, sort of [wikipedia.org], anyway.
Another way of looking at it: (Score:2, Interesting)
Obama won one of these, so what does winning this prize really mean?
Re:Another way of looking at it: (Score:4, Insightful)
As snarky as that comment is, it rings true. The impact of the Nobel Peace Prize has been diluted by awarding it to someone as an attempt to motivate them, rather than based on what they actually did. Perhaps if Obama goes on to earn that prize after the fact then it might restore the prize's meaning to some degree.
Re:Another way of looking at it: (Score:4, Informative)
I mean let's just have a look at the winners:
A christian woman (mother Teresa) who tortured sick people by not giving them access to treatment and pain killers. (I bet if I left her out I would get +5, but fuck it)
A bunch of US presidents.
Henry Kissinger, who was involved in several wars.
Probably the most similar to Snowden was the German man who alerted the rest of the world to the German re-armament.
While he did get the prize it caused 2 committee members to resign because they didn't want to give the prize to a "criminal". His crime being of course treason for alerting the rest of the world to the re-armament.
And lastly Ghandi, who made peaceful protests by not eating. Oh wait, never mind. The person who most comes to mind when you think peace never actually got a nobel peace prize.
Ah... the Nobel Peace Prize (Score:3)
Re:Ah... the Nobel Peace Prize (Score:5, Informative)
Some of those prizes were to people or organizations who really deserved it: Jane Addams (no relation to Gomez or Morticia, you silly people), The International Red Cross (a couple of times), American Friends Service Committee (for humanitarian relief efforts during and after WWII), Linus Pauling, Martin Luther King, Amnesty International, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela / F.W. de Klerk, Doctors Without Borders, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf all did a great deal in the service of peace and humanity, and many took great risks to do so.
That kind of litany makes awards to people like Henry Kissinger even more of a travesty.
They need (Score:5, Insightful)
to take away Obama's and give him that one. They should do it while playing the candidate Obama vs President Obama videos in the background.
Re:They need (Score:5, Funny)
But if you like your Nobel Peace Prize then you can keep your Nobel Peace Prize.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but you have to receive it to know if you deserve it.
Incredible irony (Score:5, Insightful)
If he wins, then we'll have one Peace Prize winner being honored for resisting the authoritarianism of another Peace Price winner.
Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Just about every human being that does not drone-strike weddings was a better choice than Obama.
Congratulations to the Nobel Prize comittee for making such a particularly bad choice out of a universe of about 7 billion.
Re:Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama won the Peace Prize for being a president who wasn't Bush. Nobel prizes are an asinine political statement by a committee that's become reactionary anti-American and anti-China.
Re:Obama (Score:4, Interesting)
He actually got it mostly for his work in nuclear disarmament before he was president, however they were clearly smitten and should never have given him the prize.
We all (Norwegians) know it.
Re:Obama (Score:5, Funny)
"out of a universe of about 7 billion"
So it's not just the Miss Universe pageant that is rigged to only choose Earthlings...
Re:Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
The list of eligible planets have been on public display at the Nobel institute for the last 50 years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complains and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now. And by on display I mean in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
Yes, but (Score:3)
Yes, but you could argue that G.W. Bush had a chance at the Peace Prize, too, since he was nominated. So could a flying pig, if it was nominated. Anyone who is nominated has a chance at winning.
Secret nominations? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought that you were supposed to keep any nominations for a Nobel Prize secret? I know that the Nobel committee keeps them sealed for something like 60 years but I have no idea whether it's a convention, a rule, or just simply not bothering to tell anyone on the nominator's end.
Re:Secret nominations? (Score:4, Informative)
Officially it seems you're right, so either it's a rumor or someone did let it slip.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nomi... [nobelprize.org]
> What about the rumours circling around the world about certain people being nominated for the Nobel Prize this year?
> Well, either it's just a rumour, or someone among the invited nominators has leaked information. Since the nominations are kept secret for 50 years, you'll have to wait until then to find out.
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The Committee does not itself announce the names of nominees, neither to the media nor to the candidates themselves. In so far as certain names crop up in the advance speculations as to who will be awarded any given year's Prize, this is either sheer guesswork or information put out by the person or persons behind the nomination. Information in the Nobel Committee's nomination database is not made public until after fifty years.
In this particular case, the two politicians in question decided to send out a press release, the Nobel committee will neither confirm nor deny but there's very little doubt that this is genuine.
It's a trap! (Score:2)
Guaranteed income (Score:3)
I hope he wins. Having an independent source of income will remove a lot of stress from his life.
Prof. Farnsworth: "... that may well win me the Nobel Prize!"
Leela: "In what field?"
Prof. Farnsworth"I don't care! They all pay the same!"
"First secure an independent income, then practice virtue."
-- Old Greek Proverb
Come on people... (Score:3)
Re:Come on people... (Score:4, Informative)
But at least he made it to "man of the year" of Time magazine.
Spoiled prizes (Score:2)
Nobel Peace Prize has lost all credibility (Score:3)
Well, it's hard to say if it ever had any credibility.
The difference between Obama and Snowden (Score:2)
After all, if Obama got this prize, why wouldn't Snowden get it?
<sarcasm>Because Snowden hasn't droned enough civilians. [huffingtonpost.com]</sarcasm>
Justice is needed to show the Union still stands (Score:5, Interesting)
As interesting as Snowden is, this is a distraction from the more important (and probably more urgent) question of... when are the criminals [washingtonpost.com] at the NSA going to be brought to justice?
Also, when do we fire the people that sold out our actual spy talent - with their far more targeted, far more 4th Amendment compatible tools like THINTHREAD - instead of continuing to give a paycheck to the assholes that let 9/11 happen so they could keep funneling money to their contractor friends [consortiumnews.com] to develop the far more expensive TRAILBLAZER? The families of the victims that died do this willful neglegence will probably want to file civil lawsuits, too.
A cornerstone of the very idea of "justice" is equal protection before the law, and these people need to get their day in court. If they do, then maybe we can start to put this feckless imbroglio [tinyurl.com] behind us and move on, with only the usual political drama to worry about.
On the other hand, if we fail to accomplish this task - if we fail to obtain some basic symbol that the Constitution is still respected as the highest law of the land - then we've really given up any last pretense that this is any kind of civilized nation with a social contract.
No one has deserved it more... (Score:5, Insightful)
in a long long time.
Re:As bad as Obama (Score:4, Interesting)
I see your point, and I'm inclined to agree, mostly. But here's possible counterpoint.
Consider a country like North Korea. It's not really at war with anyone (unlike the U.S.), but it does plenty of saber-rattling (like the U.S.) It's also an authoritarian police state. Suppose one of its citizens pulled a Snowden, in a way that damaged the NK government's ability to be a police state, but also damaged its ability to conduct foreign espionage. Would it be reasonable for that NK citizen to receive the Peace Prize for that action?
If you say yes, than I would argue that in several important ways, his actions are similar to Snowden's.
Re: (Score:3)
North Korea is technically at war with the US, South Korea, and the UN armed forces. It is involved with counterfeiting on a global scale, illegal arms trade, drug trade, and supports terrorism. That is on top of diverting food aid sent to help its starving peasants to the North Korean military. Three generations of a dissenter's family get sent to prison camps where they are likely to die. They are used in experiments [theguardian.com].
If you can't figure out the difference between North Korea and the US then your meter
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Snowden hasn't done a damn thing for peace. What he has done is cripple the ability of the west to gain intelligence.
...and I think we're all agreed that the West has a lot of room to improve in the intelligence department. Although I'd disagree -- Snowden has educated the west, and hopefully helped people make more intelligent decisions.
Governments on the other hand, yes, they've been somewhat "crippled" if by crippled you mean "held accountable to their own charters and agreements".
We all know from time on the school playground that the most peaceful times are when those with the power are so busy squabbling amongst ea
Re:As bad as Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
You are confused, there is no notion of the USA's gathering intelligence to avoid terrorist attacks or wars.
The federal government were watching the attackers of 9/11 to see what they would do. well, we saw what they did.
The federal government used "intelligence" to justity a pointless invasion of Iraq (as aside note we supported Saddam and gave him money and dual use technnology to build the WMD he used to gas Iranians and Kurds)
The CIA is using "intelligence" to protect their narcotics cash crops in Afghanistan, bombing competitors and protecting chosen drug lords.
The federal government currently has FBI and DHS finding low IQ morons, losers with no ability to do anything, courting them for weeks while filling their heads with violent thoughts and ideas and then providing them with fake bombs. And then swooping in for arrests and headlines and congratulations all around for yet another blow in the "war on terror".
This is the type of "intelligence" you are claiming is necessary? fuck you and all other shills for the US's corporate fascist government.
Re:As bad as Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Intelligence is critical... to avert wars.
Right, but not in the way you think.
Take the Syria conflict, for example - President Obama was preparing to use our soldiers and pilots as the "rebels" private air force, until the public became aware that said "rebels" were actually members of Al Qaeda. So, yes, intelligence averted the US entering yet another conflict, as well as arming our own enemies again - but it was the government who wanted to start the war in the first place.
Sunshine is still the best disinfectant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hate Snowden all you like for whatever reason you like but that doesn't mean you can twist reality into something it's not.
The reality is that a lot of the world has come together to realize that the super powers are conspiring against them. This has bonded many countries together while hurting the relationships that the U.S. and Britain have with the rest of the world. Unfortunately for your world view the U.S. and Britain are only small pieces of the world puzzle. I would also argue that honesty has alwa
Re:As bad as Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
International war is not the only enemy to peace. So is a police state, where the government has declared war on its own populace. And we're getting dangerously close to a single executive order being able to turn our once-great nation into the most repressive police state the world has ever seen.
Re: (Score:2)
So-called "intelligence" was critical to allowing certain governments to have the knowledge to *start* wars. Is your memory so short? Of course, that "intelligence" was a thin tissue of lies, but who cares, that was the label applied to it at the time by the aggressor.
Re:Not a fan. (Score:4, Insightful)
he was trusted to look the other way while the people he worked for were breaking the law?
if he found out his bosses were, say, importing dope and selling it to kids to boost company profits, would you still be mad at him for "violating trust"?
no? well then i say to you sir that you are a hypocrite.
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely correct!
Assuming by "country" you mean "the cabal of ruling elite that created the system to invasively monitor the populace they claim to represent".
Re: (Score:2)
You might consult the constitution for the definition of "treason," before you try to play the pedantry card and make yourself look even more like a frothing nutbag.
Re:Nobel 'Peace' prize = Award from Israel (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot the brain rays. The Zionists are using brain rays to alter people's subconscious into passivity. Fortunately, these rays can be blocked by a thin layer of aluminium.