Edward Snowden short-listed for top European rights prize http://t.co/UpfX2I2Nak via @torontostar – Also revoke @BarackObama Nobel prize
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) October 1, 2013
US Promises Not to Kill Edward Snowden http://t.co/vRLwv4gYrS – @BarackObama Why would your "citadel of freedom and justice" kill him?
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) October 1, 2013
BRUSSELS—Fugitive U.S. intelligence analyst Edward Snowden has made the shortlist for a European human rights prize whose past winners include Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi.
Snowden was nominated for the Sakharov Prize by the Green group in the European Parliament for what it said was his “enormous service” to human rights and European citizens when he disclosed secret U.S. surveillance programmes.
Snowden, who is in hiding in Russia, said in a statement read out to parliament that he was grateful lawmakers were “taking up the challenge of mass surveillance”.
“The surveillance of whole populations, rather than individuals, threatens to be the greatest human rights challenge of our time,” he said.
Perhaps Mr. Snowden should be nominated for the Nobel Prize? He appears to have done something to merit it. But then again, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to undeserving people in the past.
It’s amazing how much the world has changed. For example the United States has evolved:
From the land of the free to the @BarackObama #Orwellian #PRISM security state
And it comes down to the fact that no one trusts the USG anymore, and really, why should they?
A military and surveillance behemoth that has little if any regard for the people it’s supposed to serve. US persons abroad have firsthand experience of this. Once credibility is shot, it’s shot, and honouring those who helped in the process will only speed up the US’s degradation on the world stage.
FATCA’s fate to me seems to depend on who’s going to blink first, the US or other governments. Don’t blink, Canada!
FATCA pressure from the U.S. is forcing Canada and other countries to consider whether and to what extent they want to tie their future to the U.S. economy and live under the US/IRS jackboot. To be tied economically to the U.S. is to be tied to a country that is deteriorating and drowning. FATCA aside, it is critical that Canada:
1. Move away from integration and focus on the U.S.; and
2. Actively form and nuture links with other countries.
This is essential.
FATCA is NOT the real issue. The real issue is how all countries can maintain independence from the U.S. FATCA simply illuminates how the U.S. is attempting to impose a global tax system on the world. In other words, the U.S. allows it citizens into other countries and then uses this as an excuse to claim a share of the GNP of that those countries. That’s the simple FATCA (pun intended) of the matter.
FATCA needs to be seen as a “wakeup call” to the rest of the world. There’s a reason why Fareed Zakaria wrote a book about the post American world.
No country that values its future can be tied to a sinking ship.
The U.S. is like the Titanic. Like the builders of the Titanic they think the ship is unsinkable.
Wrong, it’s going down as I write!
Canada MUST disengage from the U.S.
Rejecting FATCA needs to be seen as the beginning of that disengagement.
My words almost exactly, yesterday of Facebook:
“Canadian business columnist Diane Francis thinks that Canada should tie its boat to the Titanic in negotiated surrender to the US. If she’s not tried for treason she should at least try and find a new career in comedy.”
Wonderful news. Congratulations, Edward. All of us are in your debt.
“Bulgarian-German Novelist and Privacy Activist Denied Entry into the USA”
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/10/01/bulgarian-german-novelist-and-privacy-activist-denied-entry-into-the-usa/
This incident has been reported on in various German newspapers. This was the only English link I could find on it. I had also signed the petition which got him into trouble. Denying people entrance (after already having ESTA approval) without reason is characteristic of dictatorhips and police states, not democracies.
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FATCA, and the NSA issues are red flag warnings to US citizens and the rest of the globe. If this is what the US is willing to do to its own citizens – who have not committed any crimes, and is willing to force other countries to do – using blunt force, then really, is there any limit to what the US is willing to do to those who are NOT Americans?
I don’t think there is.
@badger
Look what they’re willing to do to their own citizens within their own borders in a government shut down.
The USA government should be ruled a dangerous breed, muzzled and leashed.
Until the facts came out about NSA spying activities in Brazil, Boeing was the anticipated winner of a 36 fighter jet contract from Brazil:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/13/us-usa-brazil-jets-idUSBRE97C00L20130813
Today showed that it still cares about its sovereignty and decided to buy 36 fighter jets from Swedish Saab:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/18/us-brazil-jets-idUSBRE9BH11C20131218