General Discussion

FrodosPet

(5,169 posts) Sun Sep 6, 2015, 09:43 AM Sep 2015

Snowden attacks Russia rights curbs as 'fundamentally wrong'

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/snowden-attacks-russia/2104470.html

Snowden called Moscow's restrictions on the web "a mistake in policy" and "fundamentally wrong" as he accepted a Norwegian freedom of expression prize by videophone from Russia.

POSTED: 05 Sep 2015 22:15 UPDATED: 05 Sep 2015 23:28

OSLO: Former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on Saturday (Sep 5) criticised Russia - the country that has granted him asylum - calling its crackdown on human rights and online freedom "fundamentally wrong" and said he would prefer not to live in exile.

Snowden said Moscow's restrictions on the web were "a mistake in policy" and "fundamentally wrong" as he accepted a Norwegian freedom of expression prize by videophone from Russia.

~ snip ~

"I've been quite critical of (it) in the past and I'll continue to be in the future, because this drive that we see in the Russian government to control more and more the Internet, to control more and more what people are seeing, even parts of personal lives, deciding what is the appropriate or inappropriate way for people to express their love for one another ... (is) fundamentally wrong," he said.

~ snip ~

Snowden said he had "never intended to go to Russia, that was never my plan" and that he had been transiting the country en route for Latin America when US officials cancelled his passport.

~ snip ~

5 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Snowden attacks Russia rights curbs as 'fundamentally wrong' (Original Post) FrodosPet Sep 2015 OP

If only he'd been able to make it to that mecca of human rights, Latin America. randome Sep 2015 #1

The School of Americas did it's job in Latin America... think Sep 2015 #3

There's a standard phrase for his situation. Igel Sep 2015 #2

Some prisons have iron bars and brick walls FrodosPet Sep 2015 #4

He's on foreign soil so the NSA is allowed by law to monitor his communications. randome Sep 2015 #5

randome

(34,845 posts)

1. If only he'd been able to make it to that mecca of human rights, Latin America.

Reply to FrodosPet (Original post)

Sun Sep 6, 2015, 09:57 AM

Sep 2015

[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

think

(11,641 posts)

3. The School of Americas did it's job in Latin America...

Reply to randome (Reply #1)

Sun Sep 6, 2015, 10:08 AM

Sep 2015

Igel

(35,320 posts)

2. There's a standard phrase for his situation.

Reply to FrodosPet (Original post)

Sun Sep 6, 2015, 10:07 AM

Sep 2015

It's not "exile."

It's "self-imposed exile." Once the "self-imposed" part is clearly understood, then it can be dropped and only referenced occasionally to refresh the context.

Pushkin was exiled. Solzhenitsyn was exiled. The Soviets created a funny status to avoid the term "external exile": You crap on people with trumped up charges or impossible charges until they have no choice but leave or go into prison, then forbid their returning. You prevent them from working and try them for being unemployed; you revoke their residency permits while issuing an order that they not leave the city, then try them for being in the city without a valid permit or leaving the city in defiance of government edict. So Voinovich fled to a very real exile, along with many others.

Soviet internal exile was a commonplace and affected many, many millions. One analysis even made the claim that the number of internal exiles providing essentially free or very under-priced labor and Soviet GDP growth were so very, very strongly positively correlated that a causal connection was almost impossible to avoid. Nobody liked this analysis. Putinists came along soon thereafter to deny any such thing could possibly happen under the glorious USSR. Western conservatives wanted to take credit for the USSR's collapse, and many liberals still had trouble accepting the extent of the USSR's repression at the time.

Snowden's just in self-imposed exile. But if he keeps on dissing his patron, it'll work out badly for him. (Yet if he stops, he'll lose his adorers and then who'll feed the little narcissus?)

FrodosPet

(5,169 posts)

4. Some prisons have iron bars and brick walls

Reply to Igel (Reply #2)

Sun Sep 6, 2015, 10:26 AM

Sep 2015

And some prisons have forests and fields.

With a good lawyer and public support, he might have gotten 5 years or less.

But now he's just in a different kind of prison. The issues in America that led him into exile are even worse in Russia.

And despite his criticism of Russian Internet restrictions and laws encroaching on freedom of speech, Snowden said he feels he is allowed to express himself in Russia.

"I do. And I think it's primarily in the context of the fact that most activities happen online. I mean, when people ask me where I live, the most honest answer is on the Internet."

At least he knows he can surf the web in safety in Russia, that they don't have an NSA watching his every keystroke.

randome

(34,845 posts)

5. He's on foreign soil so the NSA is allowed by law to monitor his communications.

Reply to FrodosPet (Reply #4)

Sun Sep 6, 2015, 10:30 AM

Sep 2015

I have no doubt they are doing so to the best of their abilities.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

Reply to this discussion