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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sultan who wrote (225789)	6/9/2013 9:24:28 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 540756

If you break the law like he did and are unwilling to face the consequences like Ellsberg did, then the answer is yes. It has always been so. Here and pretty much everywhere else in the world. If Snowden had surrendered himself to U.S. authorities, he almost certainly would have faced charges that carry penalties of decades in prison. He might have rationally feared being subject to years of pretrial detention and the kind of degrading treatment Manning faced. And if he had chosen to fight the charges, he would have risked spending decades in prison if he lost. There’s no question that the United States has stronger protections for free speech and the rule of law than repressive regimes like China or Iran. But it’s also clear that our courts defend constitutional rights less zealously today than they did in Ellsberg’s day. Snowden wasn’t crazy to question whether he’d be treated fairly by the American justice system. The author says that the US "has stronger protections for free speech and the rule of law than repressive regimes like China," but Snowden went to HK. Which is, effectively, China. Whatever the Basic Law in HK says, if China wants to abrogate it, they will--especially for someone who is not a citizen. He is certainly an articulate guy, but he strikes me as being like many essentially self-educated bright people, very naive, however informed and reasoned he sounds (not unlike Aaron Swartz, actually). I'm sure more will come out about his background as time goes by.