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The Intercept reports that in the aftermath of the NSA's sweeping surveillance of three French presidents, French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira thinks National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange might be allowed to settle in France.
Taubira was asked about the NSA's surveillance of three French presidents, disclosed by WikiLeaks this week, and called it an "unspeakable practice." Taubira's comments echoed those in an editorial in France's leftist newspaper Libération that France should respond to the U.S.'s "contempt" for its allies by giving Edward Snowden asylum.
France would send "a clear and useful message to Washington, by granting this bold whistleblower the asylum to which he is entitled," wrote editor Laurent Joffrin in an angry editorial titled "Un seul geste" — or "A single gesture." (google translate)
If Paris offers Snowden asylum, it will be joining several other nations who have done so in the past, including Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. However, Snowden is still waiting in Moscow to hear from almost two dozen other countries where he has requested asylum.
French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira thinks National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange might be allowed to settle in France.
If France decides to offer them asylum, she would "absolutely not be surprised," she told French news channel BFMTV on Thursday (translated from the French). She said it would be a "symbolic gesture."
Taubira was asked about the NSA's sweeping surveillance of three French presidents, disclosed by WikiLeaks this week, and called it an "unspeakable practice."
Her comments echoed those in an editorial in France's leftist newspaper Libération Thursday morning, which said giving Snowden asylum would be a "single gesture" that would send "a clear and useful message to Washington," in response to the "contempt" the U.S. showed by spying on France's president.
Will France deliver the rebuke to Washington that Germany has failed to?
Original Submission 1 Original Submission 2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2015, @02:43AM
> Specifically spying on allies not so much though.
“England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests”
-- Lord Palmerston
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Saturday June 27 2015, @04:58AM
That doesn't justify spying on them while they are allies. It just means that allies today may not be allies tomorrow. Meanwhile there are a LOT of things one can legitimately do (and should legitimately do) short of actually tapping an allied leaders phone to "keep tabs" on them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2015, @02:30PM
> It just means that allies today may not be allies tomorrow.
No, what it means is that "ally" is not a binary state. The error you are making is to think that nations have the same sort of relationships that people do. That is not an accurate paradigm. International relations are a complex web of specific agreements addressing specific areas. Few, if any, countries have agreements not to spy on each others' governments nor are there international laws codifying any such restrictions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday June 27 2015, @03:34PM
Few, if any, countries have agreements not to spy on each others' governments nor are there international laws codifying any such restrictions.
So what? If these countries are so free and principled, they can start by not doing the evil things that the other countries are doing. If the US is truly 'the leader of the free world' (which is a joke), then it should stop its unethical mass surveillance wholesale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2015, @04:01PM
> If these countries are so free and principled,
You are making the same error in logic of anthropomorphizing international relations. A "free" country is one in which the people are free to live their lives from intrusion by the organization of citizens called "government." There is no international government, even the UN is more of a club of countries with voluntary membership than a government.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday June 27 2015, @05:47PM
You are making the same error in logic of anthropomorphizing international relations.
There is no error in logic for wanting countries to act ethically, and not just say "Well, everyone else is doing Evil Thing X, so we need to do it too!"
I believe everyone has rights and should be free from mass surveillance. I live in the US, and the US government should not even be conducting mass surveillance on foreigners. It should be targeted. I don't care if other countries are doing it too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @04:32AM
> There is no error in logic for wanting countries to act ethically,
The error in your logic is to assume that what is ethical for interactions between people is also ethical for interactions between nations. Hence anthropomorphization.
That is as reasonable as saying that the same ethical framework for human-to-human relationships should also apply to human-to-animal relationships, so keeping pets or farm animals is unethical because slavery is unethical --- something obviously nonsensical.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday June 28 2015, @06:02AM
The error in your logic is to assume that what is ethical for interactions between people is also ethical for interactions between nations. Hence anthropomorphization.
I'm assuming nothing. Mass surveillance is simply unethical to me.
There's nothing difficult to understand about this. "Mass surveillance is unethical." != "Human-to-human relationships are the same as country-to-country relationships."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @11:05AM
> I'm assuming nothing. Mass surveillance is simply unethical to me.
Spying on heads of state and other targets of interest in foreign governments is targeted surveillance.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday June 28 2015, @05:28PM
We also spied on allies, rather than actual enemies, which is also a problem.
And that's if you ignore the countless people the US is conducting mass surveillance upon. Not sure why you'd do that, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @09:34PM
> We also spied on allies, rather than actual enemies, which is also a problem.
Ok, so now we are in a circular pattern.
You don't like spying on the governments of 'allies' because that's 'mass' surveillance - except it isn't because those are specific targets of interest.
So now we are just back to the problem that it is 'allies' which is again anthropomorphizing so you'll throw in all the other spying on regular people to muddy the waters.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday June 28 2015, @10:10PM
You don't like spying on the governments of 'allies' because that's 'mass' surveillance - except it isn't because those are specific targets of interest.
You're an idiot. Here's what I'm saying:
1) Mass surveillance is unethical.
2) We shouldn't spy on our allies, but our enemies, and it should be targeted.
How difficult is this to understand?
which is again anthropomorphizing
You keep making this assertion, but you have provided zero reason for me to accept that saying certain behaviors are unethical is anthropomorphizing. It's essentially just a buzzword you use to dismiss my arguments without putting any sort of thought into the issue. It's also a straw man, because at no point have I said that "Human-to-human relationships = country-to-country relationships", so drop it already.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @10:38PM
> 1) Mass surveillance is unethical.
Good for you. Not in dispute. But also completely unrelated to the question of spying on foreign governments.
> 2) We shouldn't spy on our allies, but our enemies, and it should be targeted.
Anthropomorphization because the rules for national "allies" are not the same as the rules for personal friends. Ca-fucking-piche?
> at no point have I said that "Human-to-human relationships = country-to-country relationships"
Pedants defense. You did not say it literally, but your entire argument is based on that presumption.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday June 28 2015, @10:42PM
Anthropomorphization because the rules for national "allies" are not the same as the rules for personal friends.
Not in dispute. But spying on allies is still unethical. Ca-fucking-piche? Understand my position?
Pedants defense. You did not say it literally, but your entire argument is based on that presumption.
No, this is called the "I didn't make that argument, so you're arguing with a straw man." defense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @10:47PM
> But spying on allies is still unethical.
Explain yourself. All you do is keep stating it with no other justification than they are our buddies - something also known as anthropomorphization.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday June 28 2015, @11:14PM
Explain yourself.
All surveillance should be justified and require actual reasons to spy on someone beforehand. In the US, it would (if our government obeyed the constitution) require a warrant. The fourth amendment doesn't actually use the word "citizens", but even so, there should at least be oversight. Right now, there is none, and we spy simply to make sure our supposed 'allies' aren't doing anything bad, which is unjust.
something also known as anthropomorphization.
Not providing a justification that you like != anthropomorphization. It's fairly clear to me that you don't even know what the hell that word means and aren't interested in responding to what I actually say.
When will you cease the straw men? You don't need to rely on logical fallacies to disagree with me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @11:21PM
ll surveillance should be justified and require actual reasons to spy on someone beforehand. In the US, it would (if our government obeyed the constitution) require a warrant. The fourth amendment doesn't actually use the word "citizens", but even so, there should at least be oversight. Right now, there is none, and we spy simply to make sure our supposed 'allies' aren't doing anything bad, which is unjust.
Half of that paragraph is about citizens, not governments. - do you see why I keep accusing you of anthropomorphization?
As for the rest of it, what defines just? International relations are defined by treaties, not some vague undefined notion of what is "just." We haven't signed any treaties saying we won't spy on each other.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday June 29 2015, @12:16AM
Half of that paragraph is about citizens, not governments. - do you see why I keep accusing you of anthropomorphization?
What the fuck? Governments are made up of groups of humans and involve humans, even if they are not themselves one single human; you can't completely separate humans from governments. I pointed out the fourth amendment of the constitution. The word "citizens" is mentioned exactly once.
I mentioned a standard for surveillance that you should be familiar with.
As for the rest of it, what defines just?
I'd say that if you care about freedom, you already agree with me. I respect things such as privacy, and countries like North Korea (and apparently the US government and most other governments) don't.
not some vague undefined notion of what is "just."
There has never been a perfectly defined notion of "just" and there never will be. Not even laws are unambiguous. But warrantless, suspicion-less surveillance is generally rejected by people who actually care about things such as freedom. Maybe you don't, as seems to be the case.
I don't know why ethical judgements are so hard for you to understand, but just endlessly repeating your favorite buzzword will never convince me of anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @12:22AM
You didn't answer the question. All you've got is your own ideas about ethics which you keep justifying by referring to personal relationships not international relationships. Concepts such as "freedom" simply have no analog in international relations.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday June 29 2015, @02:33AM
All you've got is your own ideas about ethics
Which are based around unimportant nations like "freedom" and "privacy", but who needs those, really.
Concepts such as "freedom" simply have no analog in international relations.
Nice try trying to divorce ethics from the actions of countries. Surveillance ultimately targets people, and surveillance can be ethical or unethical. Countries, likewise, can act in unethical ways. I'm not sure why you're trying to pretend that people aren't involved in this process at all, and if that's not what you mean, then I have no idea what you're saying. Almost everyone else understands what I mean when I say country X did something unethical, whether they agree or not.