"Mr. Snowden's claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen - China, Russia, Ecuador, as we've seen," Carney said.
"His failures to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States, not to advance Internet freedom and free speech."
What a bunch of hogwash! This is no different than Obama calling the Boston Bombers “cowards”. The administration wants to make Snowden look like a liar by pointing out the lack of free speech and press in the countries he chose to seek refuge from the United States.
I’m sure Snowden would have loved to have chosen a country with more freedom of press and speech, but he is in the position of having the United States government coming after him, so he has limited choices on which countries he can go to that will protect him from long arm of the United States government. Ecuador is certainly better than China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, or North Korea. I still wonder why his Iceland plans fell through…..
It seems he picked the best countries he could have considering his options. Do you know who would have LOVED to have sheltered Snowden? North Korea. Think of the propaganda they could have generated! Cuba might have sheltered him as well, or even Iran. Why do you think he wants to go to Central America? It’s because he wants the freest country who would shelter him from the United States. Ecuador fits that bill. We have this opinion that the United States is the greatest country on the planet. A lot of other countries like to think they have the greatest too.
While the United States is one of the more free countries when it comes to intellectual freedom, many other countries are more free when it comes to life in general. Take seat belt laws for example. There are places on this planet who allow you to choose to be a dummy or not. You get fined here for it.
That may be a piss poor example, but I have spoken to a lot of people in my years driving semi, many who came to America from abroad. Many of them felt they had more personal freedoms back home, but felt America is where the money was at. Many of them told me that the American Dream comes with giving up a lot of personal freedom.
I did speak to one guy who escaped here from Romania in the 1980’s while it was still under communist rule. He said that he moved to North Dakota to get as far away from centralized government as he possibly could. He told me that he was disturbed by a lot of things happening in the country and that we were moving towards a police state like he lived in. He certainly was an expert on knowing how a police state operated having actually lived and escaped from one. He said the big difference was that we are constantly told that we’re free when we aren’t, so we don’t fight back against our oppressors whereas in Romania, you had no illusion of freedom. I spoke to this guy back in 1998. I wonder how he feels now, especially after 9/11 and the Patriot Act?
If you get right down to it, the only true freedom you have here in this country is the freedom to think what you want to think, although you are not free to act upon those thoughts and beliefs (George Reynolds vs. United States 98 U.S. (8 Otto.) 145 (1878)), and to write your beliefs down and put them out into the public (again with limitations). That’s about it. Other than that, you don’t really have any other freedoms that other people the majority of other countries in the world lack. There are some countries that are terrible like North Korea, but the majority of countries (Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, etc. etc.) have about the same freedoms for their people that we have. Some other countries may have more.
Let’s look at “evil” Iran for a moment. Surely they don’t have the same intellectual freedoms we have here, but are we much better? We both have corrupt governments. They have elections, we have elections. Their choice of candidates is limited, as is ours. We claim that their elections are corrupt and back here to home a slew of dead Illinoisans voted for Kennedy in 1960. However, being a Christian in Iran has its serious drawbacks. If Snowden wanted to continue celebrating Christmas out in the open, I can see why he skipped Iran. If you’re a Muslim, things aren’t too bad for you there. They follow religious law. You know where the boundaries are and if you cross them, you know what punishment to expect.
Here, the laws are convoluted and even the attorneys don’t know how things might turn out. A lot of it will depend on whether or not the judge and/or jury liked the tie you wore to court on a particular day. Here in America, it also depends on what the definition of “is” is. The Supreme Court has a long history of letting certain things slide while banning other things and splitting hairs over it. Even their own rulings leave lawyers and judges scratching their heads. Is it any wonder Snowden doesn’t trust our court system here! Snowden went to the best country he could find while staying out of the grasp of the United States of America. What the hell did you expect him to do?
Here I’ve gotten off track, but the point is, to have our administration say this sort of crap is to politically spin this in a very sophomoric way. What they need to do is just break down and cry; throw their tantrum; and go back to the drawing board to prevent this from happening in the future.
For the record, I’m not saying I agree or disagree with what Mr. Snowden has done. I’m just saying that I understand why he has chosen to go the route he is going in order to find asylum. The government’s take on it is laughable. They know exactly why he’s going the path he is, and it just pisses them off that he’s getting away with it. That’s all. Why doesn’t Carney just stand up there and admit it without all this extra political spin bullshit?
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