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Friday, July 12, 2013

Human Rights Organizations

Snowden case: comments from head of Amnesty's Moscow office after meeting whistleblower today ... “What he has disclosed is patently in the public interest and as a whistleblower his actions were justified. He has exposed unlawful sweeping surveillance programmes that unquestionably interfere with an individual’s right to privacy."

Snowden Makes A Smart Move ... Human Rights Watch, whose executive director is Kenneth Roth .... a graduate of Yale Law School and a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, and knows what he’s doing. Snowden doesn’t have a great case for asylum. But Human Rights Watch has tried to construct a defense that can turn international law’s vagueness to Snowden’s advantage. HRW claims countries should respect his asylum claim because international law sometimes justifies leaking secrets if they “expose and protect against serious human rights violations.”

2 Comments:

Anonymous Henry said...

I am really not sure what to think about this situation although I think that today's move was smart. When I am in a cynical move I starting thinking that in a few months from now he'll have some kind of accident after being discredited. (If you saw the movie "Gladiator" there's a scene where one of the fellow gladiators says "Don't worry, he'll have to kill your reputation before he kills you" and I think there's a bit of that going on here. (Come to think of it, perhaps parts of the film "Enemy of the State" and/or "Shooter" apply here also!)

Time is our ally in this case though and it's something I am definitely watching, like you.

6:03 PM  
Blogger crystal said...

Henry,

I'm cynical too. I think that's why it's smart for him to make this whole thing so public, to bring in human rights groups - maybe it will shame the government into leaving him alone. We've been watching the same movies :)

7:00 PM  

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