Note: This article is also available in Portuguese, translated by Anders Bateva.
237 years ago, 56 traitors to their King and country signed a document which outlined a new philosophy, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights. That among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This gave birth to a new nation, the United States of America. Funny how your perception can change depending on your viewpoint and background, isn’t it? In 1776, these 56 signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence did something very brave indeed. They took a stand against the Empire on which the sun never sets, the British Empire, because it failed to embody and represent what they believed in: that it should be the task of the government to secure the above rights, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And that whenever the government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. These men are considered patriots by many Americans, because in defying the King of Great Britain in 1776, they founded the United States of America, a nation once conceived on these noble principles. A nation that sadly no longer adheres to the philosophy laid down it its Declaration of Independence. Had history played out differently, these men could have been tried for high treason and hung, drawn and quartered. These men took a huge personal risk based on what they personally believed in. You have to remember, back in 1776, the British Empire was a superpower, quite similar to the roles the United States, Russia and China play today. But history is written by the victors, as they say.
Snowden
Now, Snowden blew the whistle because he recognized the government failed to defend the rights of the people, failed to embody the spirit in which it was founded 237 years ago. This is an incredibly brave thing to do. Just think about it: he had to leave his friends and family and his entire life behind and can probably never visit his friends and family again, because he did what he felt was right: expose the crimes committed by the US government. By many he is now branded a traitor, similar to how those 56 signatories were viewed by a portion of the British people back in the day. I sincerely hope Snowden will stay safe. One of the things that struck me when following the Snowden story, is that the media spin machine is now in full swing, trying to come up with dirt on both Edward Snowden, and the journalist who published the story in the Guardian: Glenn Greenwald. The goal of course, is to slowly make the media shift their focus away from the main story, and onto petty things instead, like the obsession with Snowden’s girlfriend, or whether Greenwald should be charged with a crime or not. The goal of those manipulators behind the scenes is to discredit the source who has been leaking this classified but vitally important information, so that eventually people will start to no longer believe him. By discrediting the whistle blower, they hope to also discredit his story. Don’t they get it? Don’t they get that transparency, and democratic oversight, checks and balances are what any government that claims to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people desperately needs? Precisely those things that it is now sorely lacking. By having informed, intelligent citizens, we increase overall safety and national security. We don’t make our nations any safer by scaring our citizens and beating them into submission. But as of late, the truncheon is used in lieu of conversation more and more…
Meanwhile in Europe…
Here in Europe, we saw politicians finally taking a stand against the NSA PRISM program, but sadly only because it was in their own self-interest to do so. It wasn’t until Snowden released documents proving that the United States had been spying on European diplomats in Washington, New York and Brussels, as was published in Der Spiegel on July 1st, that we finally got some strong language from some European leaders, with François Hollande even threatened to suspend the trade pact talks with the US. This delayed reaction by European politicians seems to send the message to the European citizens that it’s apparently perfectly OK to spy on European citizens (politicians here were awfully quiet when the story broke), as long as the Americans are not spying on our diplomats and politicians. Oh, and if you’ve heard the NSA’s stories about ‘metadata’, and you’re wondering what ‘harmless metadata’ really means, be sure to check out German Green Party Member Malte Spitz’s six months of telephone records mapped on a moving map. It’s quite a humbling experience. 🙂 Update: Since I wrote this article on July 2nd, 2013, things have changed even more dramatically, as long-established diplomatic principles in international law have been grossly violated by denying President Morales’ plane access to French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese airspace, causing it to have to divert to Vienna when the president was on his way home from a summit in Moscow. Of course, this caused massive anger in Latin America. The real problem we now have in Europe are leaders with rubber knees. We have our brain, and our sovereignty. Let’s start using it.