So it appears that Edward Snowden has gone to Russia, and now has disappeared entirely. Whatever happened to the Big Ass Hero who was willing to be extradited and put on trial to expose the whole truth to the American people? I guess that person was just a figment of our imagination, vanished in a whiff of smoke and mirrors.
Meanwhile, another whistleblower by the name of Bradley Manning is on trial for his life, and nobody is paying attention.
Susan Stark
UPDATE:
There are some who think that I have stated that Edward Snowden should voluntarily submit to torture. Nowhere have I said any such thing, nor do I think Edward Snowden should in any way be tortured or submit to torture. Run, Snowden, RUN!!!
Susan
20 Comments.
So there is room in your heart for only one whistleblower at a time.
It is obvious that you have never considered being a whistleblower by your evident lack of concern for Snowden and your inability to understand the personal consequences that must be taken into account.
How, in your estimation, would Snowden’s voluntarily submission to torture make his a more pure and worthy sacrifice? He’s not applying for sainthood via martyrdom.
What a problem for the likes of you if large numbers of American people ever begin to speak freely and fearlessly. Not that many in this mass of domesticated curs would ever really ever do that.
Feel free to delete this comment. I’ll feel free to put it back up until my login privileges are revoked.
@Glenn
I’m rather pissed that Bradley Manning hasn’t gotten any media attention in three years what Mr. Snowden has received in only three weeks.
I guess they only have room for one whistleblower in their hearts, and that certainly isn’t the enlisted military grunt, right?
I’m pissed about Bradley Manning but I’m not going to recommend that others follow your lead to take it out on Snowden and kick him around.
You might as well kick a dog as Snowden for all the positive effect it has. Is this some emerging R and D, divide and conquer strategy?
Manning was driven out of the spotlight precisely because he was arrested and tortured and, as such, is no longer of any consequence. So long as Snowden is not arrested, the government looks like an asshole, because that’s what occurs when an authoritarian regime is caught cheating. If you’re doing something reprehensible — rape, murder, or large-scale versions of the same — the only propaganda tactic available to improve your image will be to claim that someone else is the bad guy. But that tactic only works if you can put the hurt on that other person, else you’re an impotent little bitch.
No one should sit back and wait to be tortured. The position that someone should just wait to be arrested and tortured easily puts its maintainer into asshole territory. Civil rights activists knew that people were out to murder them in the fifties and sixties and wisely fled when they had good tips about assassinations and lynchings. The U.S. government has out-and-out murdered reporters in the last few years due to their negative press and lack of U.S. political connections to protect them. We have intelligence agencies and soldiers using rape and sodomy against political prisoners — we KNOW that is happening. If you’d expect anyone to hang around for that, what the fuck is wrong with you?
N.B. — Incidentally, one should question one’s position when it happens to be consonant with Fox News and rightwing Democrats as a general rule, but in this particular case, antipathy to Snowden is even more obviously problematic because his supporters aren’t calling for him to come home and face trial — why the fuck should he face trial for reporting on illegal activities he couldn’t constitutionally have been doing in the first place? — but his detractors are claiming that this is what his supporters want. Typical rightwing tactics include flat-out lying about what a rival political group are saying and strawmanning the resultant caricature. Given this, why isn’t the antipathy to Snowden an obvious trap?
While I do think it seemed rather noble to want to be arrested in order to ‘put the system on trial,’ I doubt Mr. Snowden would have been given any amount of publicity after he was arrested. He would have ended up like Mr. Manning: tortured and forgotten.
Mr. Snowden has shown again how clever he is. He has leaked many different possible plans/destinations. He is pissing the federal government off more and more because they seem incompetent. The control freaks can’t stand that anything is beyond their grasp. He is much more dangerous to them and helpful to us if he remains safe and out of US custody.
He might have had trouble deciding what to do after he confessed to being the leaker. He’s about the last person on earth that deserves such horrors that await him in the hands of our ‘extraordinarily talented’ torturers. Evading their grasp is just another way he can stick it to the man. I hope he has a long, happy life.
In addition, I really don’t see what Mr. Snowden would have been able to reveal on trial that he could not as a free man…if ‘our’ agents got the chance, they’d probably just execute him ‘as he was reaching for a weapon’ a la bin Laden.
Mr. Snowden is already a dead man. His opposition came far, far too late to do any good.
Let’s look at the realities here. Snowden, as an NSA employee, has been fingerprinted, retina-scanned (probably), DNA scanned (probably. If not, the NSA made sure to pick up his toothbrush when they raided his apartment), and biometric data has been collected as well (or can be from all the video). Snowden’s voice patterns will be analyzed. As will his biometric data (shape of his face, distance between his eyes, etc.)
He’s dead already. All it will take is one arrest, or walking across the wrong camera. Or any of a dozen other things. For all we know, the NSA took the precaution of marking Snowden with a RFID tag. The idea that Snowden can slip away like The Shadow is a concoction of Saturday morning cartoon programs and bad novels.
Like I said, his protest comes too late. All the traps have been built up over the years. You need a credit card to rent a car, you need ID for a plane trip. You have to sign in to buildings. In a thousand little ways, all the escape routes have been closed off. For the future Snowdens, there will be no way out. The act of defiance will become an instant routing to a cell.
@Jack
” While I do think it seemed rather noble to want to be arrested in order to ‘put the system on trial,’ I doubt Mr. Snowden would have been given any amount of publicity after he was arrested. He would have ended up like Mr. Manning: tortured and forgotten.”
I have to concede that this might very well be the case. And no doubt Snowden doesn’t want to be any kind of “fall guy”. But disappearing may not be the best idea, because it increases the chance of disappearing for good.
@Alex
Third World countries aren’t as “wired” as we are. If Snowden has cash , he can move around there. And if he’s working for another clandestine agency, which I personally believe he IS, they will no doubt help him.
Regarding Susan Stark’s rightwing position on Snowden:
Manning was driven out of the spotlight precisely because he was arrested and tortured and, as such, is no longer of any consequence. So long as Snowden is not arrested, the government looks like an asshole, because that’s what occurs when an authoritarian regime is caught cheating. If you’re doing something reprehensible — rape, murder, or large-scale versions of the same — the only propaganda tactic available to improve your image will be to claim that someone else is the bad guy. But that tactic only works if you can put the hurt on that other person, else you’re an impotent little bitch.
No one should sit back and wait to be tortured. The position that someone should just wait to be arrested and tortured easily puts its maintainer into asshole territory. Civil rights activists knew that people were out to murder them in the fifties and sixties and wisely fled when they had good tips about assassinations and lynchings. The U.S. government has out-and-out murdered reporters in the last few years due to their negative press and lack of U.S. political connections to protect them. We have intelligence agencies and soldiers using rape and sodomy against political prisoners — we KNOW that is happening. If you’d expect anyone to hang around for that, what the fuck is wrong with you?
N.B. — Incidentally, one should question one’s position when it happens to be consonant with Fox News and rightwing Democrats as a general rule, but in this particular case, antipathy to Snowden is even more obviously problematic because his supporters aren’t calling for him to come home and face trial — why the fuck should he face trial for reporting on illegal activities he couldn’t constitutionally have been doing in the first place? — but his detractors are claiming that this is what his supporters want. Typical rightwing tactics include flat-out lying about what a rival political group are saying and strawmanning the resultant caricature. Given this, why isn’t the antipathy to Snowden an obvious trap?
Also — the censorship here is appalling. The guest poster here is nigh-trolling (“Hey, why didn’t you submit to torture?”) and strawmanning, but the posters get censored? Ted, what are you doing?
“Nobody is paying attention” to Manning?
I’d suggest at least Snowden is paying attention to Manning’s ordeal.
@Sekhmet
Snowden should never have to submit to torture, and I never said he had to. He is right to run away if he feels he’s going to be tortured. Any sane person would.
@Falco
Yes, but the mainstream media are not.
To Susan:
When your post 1) revolves around the phrase: “the Big Ass Hero who was willing to be extradited and put on trial to expose the whole truth to the American people ” but 2) lacks any mention of the mainstream media then you will have to forgive the more pedestrian of your readers for failing to realize your gripe is with said media as opposed to “Big Ass.”
For the record, the mainstream media has been ignoring Manning literally for years before “Big Ass” came on the scene.
Susan,
Yes, the Third World isn’t as wired as we are. Yet. But 1. It’s coming to the Third World, 2. We’re back to the “he only needs to get caught on one camera” problem, 3. All the Internet stuff will be routed through satellites, meaning the NSA automatically will get a copy of everything.
Snowden will discover that, in order to avoid prison and torture, he will have to remove himself from society (a whole other prison and torture). He will have to severely limit the number of people who see him and interact with him. It will take only one person suddenly realizing who he is to collapse the entire shell game.
Everyone Snowden ever knew will be monitored, waiting for a contact. The second anyone gets something from him, the NSA will show up at the door: “You have two choices. Tell us where he is, or we arrest you right now for withholding information.” Once arrested, the word will get out via mainstream media. “Snowden’s mother/father/brother/sister/cousin-once-removed/girlfriend arrested.” The message will be clear to Snowden. Come in, or we substitute them for you.
If Snowden never contacts anyone, after a while, the NSA will arrange for an e-mail from Snowden to arrive, and use that as the pretense for an arrest.
Also, as far as cash goes, a million dollars in hundreds weighs about 22 pounds. You can’t carry it with you easily. So where does Snowden cache it? (His bank accounts are surely frozen by now.) Very few places are secure enough and still accessible at all times. And even if, somehow, he keeps this theoretical money with him, it will run out. When you’re on the run, a million doesn’t go very far because all the people who helped know that there’s something up.
Yes, a clandestine agency might help him. But then you come to the problem of moles and double-agents. If Snowden’s with another agency, the word will get out.
Alex,
Solid analysis as usual.
Susan,
I think you already know from other comments I’ve made that I’m not upset by the suspicions you’ve cast. I’m all for a little doubt and caution, but I think it’s your tone that has agitated so many people here. You come off as accusatory and disrespectful. It DID sound like you were blaming Mr. Snowden for Mr. Manning’s situation. Your post did imply that he should have submitted to extradition. It was a rather minor point in the entire story that Mr. Manning might be planning to be arrested. He is one of the only allies/heroes we have. At this point it would have to be an impossibly convoluted, massive conspiracy that would have him as Obama’s official authorized leaker.
@Alex
I certainly hope that nothing happens to Snowden, in any case. Unfortunately the odds are against him, as you’ve pointed out.
@Jack,
What bothers me is that Snowden chose to leak at the precise time that Manning is on trial for his life, and at the same time never bothers to mention what Manning is going through when the spotlight was on him (Snowden). Also, if Snowden knew enough to leak to Glenn Greenwald, then he would certainly know about Bradley Manning. Snowden comes off as a massive jerk to me for not mentioning Manning. And now he’s disappeard.
However, if someone can show me a Snowden quote where he did mention Manning’s plight, then I will eat my crow and enjoy it. But I haven’t read anything like that myself.
At no time did I say that Snowden should submit to torture or imply it, but the fact that commenters automatically think Snowden will be tortured if caught is a sad indication of how far down the tubes the Rule of Law has gone in this once great nation of ours. After Guantanamo, Jose Padilla, and Manning, that is a valid concern
Susan,
I’m glad exkiodexian won’t get his way particularly because you bring up points I don’t think of on my own. That is troubling or at least unfortunate that this leak came out right now. Maybe Mr. Snowden didn’t think it could wait. I don’t know if he has mentioned Mr. Manning. A good question.
Susan,
To answer your question about Manning. And I have to be brief because I’ve got errands to finish before I fall asleep at my desk.
Look at Snowden and look at Manning. Look at their back stories.
I’m now going to be really, really mean. Snowden is an “adorkable” little nerd. He’s the boy every father would be happy to have as a son-in-law. Good job, smart, good grooming, etc. A nice, cleancut fellow. And let’s look at Bradley Manning. A sexually confused, elfin little drama queen with a huge laundry list of psychological problems even before they threw him in a little metal box.
Both the Civil Rights movement and the Gay Rights movement did the same thing. The Civil Rights groups threw the black women under the bus. The Gay Rights movement threw the trannies and drag queens under the bus.
Remember that Rosa Parks was not the first black woman arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus. She was just far more marketable as an icon than the first black woman. And that’s not my thinking, that was the Civil Rights people’s thinking.