67 ms·
CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The peopl
by spitx 13y ago
CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket:
"For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr.,
or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people
who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break
the law and suffer the consequences."
"That's a little different than putting the nation's
security at risk and running away."
"What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young
man who has decided he is smarter than the rest of us"
"I don't know what he is beyond that. But he is no hero.
If he has a point — which I'm not sure he does — he
would help his cause by voluntarily coming home to face
the consequences."
Source:
Schieffer to Snowden: Come home, face the consequences
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5-r6mw6nQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5-r6mw6nQ
- onli 13y agoUseful to know how the enemy is arguing. Sure, the consequences are torture, imprisonment and death. But who wouldn't take those consequences to be a real hero?
- untog 13y agoUsing phrases like 'the enemy' doesn't really help raise the level of debate.
- onli 13y agoI didn't mean spitx - the comment didn't make clear that this was his position. I doubt Bob Schieffer will read this. You're right though.
- spitx 13y agoDid Daniel Ellsberg bolt for a communist nation, sympathetic to his views after releasing the Pentagon papers? No, he turned himself in. Snowden wants all the glory and none of the bruises. If that doesn't demonstrate a lack of selflessness, what does? Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Trial_and_mistrial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Trial_and_mistr...
- gruseom 13y agoSince you have such faith in Daniel Ellsberg's moral stature, you might want to refer to his comments on this particular case.
- WiseWeasel 13y agoHere's a link, for the lazy: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/html5/video?id=9135822&pid=9135820§ion=news/local/east_bay http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/html5/video?id=9135822&pid=913582...
- Ygg2 13y agoYeah, no. That doesn't work like that. The times now and 40 years ago were different. CIA, NSA and the whole gamut are now much more efficient than they were 40 years ago (no need for due process etc.) If you try to play fair, they'll fuck you over big time. Look how much good the legal system was to Aaron Schwartz for a minor misdemeanor. You'd never hear from Edward Snowden, until he just came out and admitted he was Chinese spy and that he loves Big Brother, I mean Big Government. PS. He isn't in China btw, he is in Hong Kong. Which isn't a communist country as comment before me noted.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI don't know whether to be amused or depressed by the ahistorical ignorance of your comments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
- Ygg2 13y agoTrue, history hasn't been my strong side, but I don't see how Watergate is relevant? The difference in technology (between now and then) is huge, since our lives have migrated more towards the Internet. Before the wiretapping could only go so far. You needed to install wiretapping in a room (phones could always be bugged). Now wiretapping is everywhere. You literally carry the equipment for others to wiretap you (mobile phones, laptops, google glass, etc). It's just an order of magnitude more easier now.
- jlgreco 13y agoIndeed, the demand from some that dissidents should all throw themselves upon a pyre is peculiar to say the least. I feel safe in asserting that anyone who demands it is either foolish or has ulterior motives for demanding it. I hope we are not forgetting that civil disobedience is not the only legitimate form of resistance. Particularly, when the prerequisites for successful civil disobedience are not precisely met, attempting it is not being noble but rather just being foolish. There is nothing admirable about taking yourself out of the fight for no reason other than to satisfy those who demand strict adherence to the principles of civil disobedience.
- msg 13y agoMartin Luther King didn't live in a world where we imprison innocent men in legal limbo without trial or habeas corpus, or where we officially sanctioned torture and the oubliette. He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system. The whole point of the Snowden story is that the government is not trustworthy in this era. I would not trust the US government to give him justice any more than they did Aaron Swartz. I think Snowden knew exactly what to expect if he "faced the music" and exactly how much attention he could keep on his story in exile.
- SqMafia 13y ago"Martin Luther King didn't live in a world where we imprison innocent men in legal limbo without trial or habeas corpus, or where we officially sanctioned torture and the oubliette. He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system." You're kidding me right?!? You honestly think the era he lived in was fair and just to people like him? Do you know how many lynchings there were in Florida alone? Does the name Emmett Till ring a bell? What did you think MLK fought for?
- msg 13y agohttp://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/#1 http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/an... Do any of you believe that there would have been a new Letter from Birmingham Jail if Snowden were imprisoned? Keep in mind the US authorities are calling this civil rights whistleblowing "treason". Aiding the terrorists and enemy combatant status cannot be far behind. Like it or not, the rule of law has been badly damaged by the endless emergency. These days you do your nonviolent resistance from behind the safety of a diplomatic minefield.
- krapp 13y agoWhat Snowden did is, arguably, treason. Whatever you believe about the righteousness of his cause, or the evil of the programs he exposed, or the corruption of the government pursuing him, that he's being pursued is in fact a case of the system working as intended.
- jrockway 13y agoYes, the mainstream media is full of morons. I'm not sure how this is relevant to this article, though, so I've downvoted your comment.
- adaml_623 13y ago"Snowden's Junket"? Interesting choice of words there. Does that classify as a slight or a smear? "he would help his cause by voluntarily coming home to face the consequences" - I think that quote suggests who's smarter out of Schieffer and Snowden.
- unreal37 13y agoI think Snowden did the best he could do under the circumstances. Expose the truth, run to a safe place, and then identify himself publicly. He's not running, he just prefers freedom to a jail cell. Who doesn't? MLK and Rosa Parks weren't facing 100 years in jail or the death penalty, were they?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- prollyignored 13y agoThe reason why propaganda works, in my opinion is, you send a "simple" message a 1000 times. Here the message is "young narcissistic man, who ran away" "But bob, you are only arguing the means, not the end. Do you think, the idea of a surveillance-free America should be stiffled ?" That question, will never be asked with equal flair, in a one way propaganda.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoYeah, the greatest accomplishments in history are often linked to narcissistic personalities, generally because the person needs to prove something to the world to make up for their secretly poor self-esteem.
- prollyignored 13y agoPlease don't think that I am trying to correct you. But narcissism has nothing to do with our Snowy. It's inception, by brute force. What Bob is doing is, he is compressing the issue to a trifle. It's the reporter equivalent of calling "LOL OP, you are such a short sighted faggot" and receiving precious HN karma for it. When you can't win a debate, you win by stinking it up and making others leave. That's how trolls killed love4eva-forum. Every sell-out reporter is doing it, for quite some time actually. Edit: Does anyone remember the sheer Debauchery of the press, during the Occupy movement ?
- 13y ago
- david_shaw 13y ago> "The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." That's correct, and I agree that participating in civil disobedience, by nature, requires being willing to "do the time" as part of making a point. Whistleblowers, however, are a different story. I don't believe that Snowden was trying to be a martyr for Americans' right to privacy; I think he saw something that he wanted to be revealed (or that he thought needed to be, if you're arguing his side of the story) and leaked it.
- spitx 13y agoWhat about Bradley Manning? That's as pristinely analogous a case as it gets to Snowden's, with diametrically opposed approaches the actors took to pursue their causes. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bradley_Manning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bradley_Mannin...
- jlgreco 13y agoWhy should we want him to end up like Manning? Why would anybody wish that upon another human? It is a barbaric thing to suggest.
- spitx 13y agoI do not wish (or expect) for Snowden to be sentenced with capital punishment if he were to turn himself in. However any attorney or advocacy organization will find it extremely arduous to prove that he did this in good faith. Fleeing only makes it worse. It is universally considered a symptom of insincerity. An insincerity of mission and an insincerity of motive. It will be an entirely unconvincing case even if it were made in the court of public opinion much less closed-door hearings. Had he even made the slightest of effort to reach out (to whatever institution, individual or group that he trusted, based in the United States) he would have left an indelible impression on privacy advocates, news organizations and the larger public, even if his criminal fate eventually remained unmitigated, by that act of outreach.
- lignuist 13y agoOnly martyrs should try to improve things?
- jivatmanx 13y agoMLK was protected by his fame. Rosa Park's act was entirely symbolic. Ellsberg was protected by the fact that he had given the information to a number of extremely influential Senators; something I'm sure Snowden would have loved to have done, if he was lucky enough to have that kind of access, and if there were still such thing as a senator who is honest and cares about the constitution. (Or if "journalists" still believed their job was to serve as a check on, rather than an apologist for, the powerful)
- genwin 13y agoExcept that MLK wasn't protected by his fame. It's not just the gov't that is the risk.
- wavefunction 13y agoThere are questions surrounding who actually shot him. The man who went to prison for it may have been set up, as he denied personally shooting Dr. King. MLK was planning a huge "live in" on the National Mall to pursue greater income equality and there were plenty of interested parties that would have wanted to prevent that.
- OstiaAntica 13y agoActually the shooter initially pled guilty. Dept. of Justice looked at these "questions" and concluded they are junk. http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/mlk/part2.php#over http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/mlk/part2.php#over
- wavefunction 13y agoI bring it up only to mention that it is perhaps not so cut and dry who shot MLK...
- jessaustin 13y ago...he had given the information to a number of extremely influential Senators... I guess the NSA learned from that episode; apparently they preemptively told every member of Congress about all the awful things they've been doing recently. Of course the secret setting in which they admitted these transgressions was designed to put the legislators at a disadvantage. Multiple Representatives have denied ever understanding what the briefings were about.
- Joeri 13y agoSnowden knows exactly what the consequences would be, because he's not the first whistleblower. Bradley Manning is still potentially facing the death penalty, and at the very least he will never see the outside of a jail again. And still plenty of people found enough reason to label him a coward. It is way too easy to be in a comfy chair and say that other people should throw their life away to stand by their principles. IMHO, Snowden should just ask for political asylum if that is what he went to hong kong for. Given the circumstances, he would probably get it.
- mpyne 13y agoManning is not facing the death penalty, is not a "whistleblower" by any reasonable stretch of the term (except perhaps by lucky accident), and his actions were different from Snowden's, at Snowden's own admission.
- jacquesm 13y agoManning fits the definition of a whistleblower just fine, he brought a bunch of injustices to public attention. As for not facing the death penalty, he looks like he's halfway at deaths door already, they're just taking their time about it. The world is watching the way Manning is treated and drawing its own conclusions from that.
- mpyne 13y agoAnd the U.S. undoubtedly killed a bunch of criminals by dropping the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, but even the most die-hard supporters of the bomb don't try to make that a positive point of the whole affair. Instead that tends to be evaluated as a whole and not just with a narrow lens that happens to mesh with whatever you were looking to find.
- john_b 13y agoSomeone who can't see the "point" Snowden is trying to make obviously shouldn't offer him advice. But hey, if I got paid to rattle off my opinion on national TV regardless of its merit, I might bloviate too.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jfoutz 13y agoIt's a tough spot. Now days, you need at least 1.5 million to defend yourself against a federal prosecution, after the feds have seized your assets. Very few people can do that. Without the cash, it would turn into "guy did some stuff, then went to jail".
- wilecoyote 13y agoThis is easy to forget in the abstract, but never in actual practice (Aaron Schwartz for sure, but probably a vast majority who've encountered the US court system in any non-trivial way). It is, in my mind, akin to spending / political contributions in politics. Money has an essential role to play but should not be allowed to corrupt the process. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Three branches of government. We hold these truths ...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoNote to Bob Schieffer: The US' pathetic record on protecting important gov't whistleblowers is responsible for Snowden's flight.
- emiliobumachar 13y agoNot to try to canonize the man, but MLK is a very high standard, even for heroism. "Not as brave as MLK" does not make much sense as a put-down.