Whistleblower Edward Snowden received several standing ovations in the Swedish parliament after being given the Right Livelihood award for his revelations of the scale of state surveillance.
Snowden, who is in exile in Russia, addressed the parliament by video from Moscow. In a symbolic gesture, his family and supporters said no one picked up the award on his behalf in the hope that one day he might be free to travel to Sweden to receive it in person.
If anything, this highlights the true significance of data privacy invasion and the gradual shift towards a society where total digital surveillance is becoming a rapid reality.
And while digital data integration and homogenization does bring superior advantages and conveniences with it, the potential for data abuse grows too. Finding a balance, and providing the technical and legal basis to protect liberty, morality, and ethics while continuing to enable technological integration and advancement – for example by constructing and upholding a data use permission system. But this is so contrary to the goals of total surveillance… and, as the award recognizes, the problems associated with total surveillance are quite massive indeed, that standing up to protect our right to privacy is an act of heroism and a necessary step in ensuring the protection of basic human rights, more fundamental and crucial to prevent large-scale corruption and abuse than you might want to believe.
I recommend that you watch his acceptance speech – and hope, that the speech delivery via Google Hangouts does not give away sufficient information for US foreign agents to dispose of Snowden during his exile. After all, total digital surveillance leaves very little space to hide.
Just a short diary to point out that Edward Snowden won the Swedish Human Rights Award for his daring and heroic revelations.
Edward Snowden wins Swedish human rights award for NSA revelations
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The Falcon and the Snowden
The courts should decide if he is a traitor or not, no matter what we feel about the benefit of the knowledge he provided about US spying. It's not about him letting the world know that the US is spying, it's about actually releasing the information gathered to our potential enemies. We can't as individuals make the call as to his guilt, thus he needs to face a civilian trial in the US.
+Jones Murphy So would you care to explain why the only person jailed for the CIA torturing prisoners was the CIA agent that exposed it?
+Jones Murphy True – but theory and practice are different things. Theoretically, it's not illegal to expose illegal acts. Practically, there 'are ways' to eliminate people who do, and the threats against Snowden (and also others) are a prime example of that.
+Stan Warren really? http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/26/exclusive_fired_army_whistleblower_receives_970k
It's illegal to expose illegal acts by the government.
+Curtis Bressler according to him. How do we know what "would have happened?" Unless of course he stay to accept whatever happened, or the government comes out and says they want him dead. I'm not saying what he did was wrong I'm saying he DID the crime; he should have to accept the consequences of said crime.
P.S. that thing about being "guilty until imprisoned for life" affects lower income minorities far more often than it does for mid-to-upper class Caucasian males.
+Red Shield wow yeah we really don't lead the world in imprisonment based on state and local governments. What was I thinking
+Jones Murphy you mean, that you know of.
You don't spy upon every American, just to spy.
+Alex Mel how do I put this most politely? Go fuck your redneck self.
+Jones Murphy https://plus.google.com/115158239007158905495/posts/e17ka9ZyXJg
+Red Shield yeah and the NSA which imprisons, shoots and chokes no Americans is far more important than our cops who drive us to the world championship of surveillance and imprisonment.
We wouldn't even know about the NSA if it wasn't for him.
+Jones Murphy You are most welcome. 🙂 Enjoy your preteen sons and daughters enjoy anal sex in America.
http://rt.com/usa/206311-chicago-5thgraders-sex-ed-anal/
+Alex Mel Thanks Putin!! http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/01/30/gay_russia_under_putin_brutal_bloody_and_horrifying.html
This is the same Sweden that Assange is avoiding extradition to, right ?
Thanks, Putin, for not giving into #Obama's demands to hand over #Snowden .
+Curtis Bressler the USA leads the world in imprisonment. What % of those prisoners are locked up for anything relating to journalism or the NSA?
+Dayron Brown
He fled because he would not see a single second of a fair and just trial.
He would have been immediately tortured or killed.
The usa's ethical processes are so broke they're non-existent.
Guilty until imprisoned for life…..that's how he would have been treated.
Plus…he/journalists still have more info to parse through and to divulge.
If he were in the hands of the terrorists of the government of the usa…..he would not be able to do the work that's needed to fix this mess.
I love the neutral poll at the end "Will we ever be free from the criminal enterprise called our government?"
Not leading the witness at all.
+Dayron Brown and mind you he fled to China and Russia, known for their freedom from surveillance. 🙂
+Adil Fareed how? He fled instead of taking punishment for what he believed in. He doesn't understand how civil disobedience works.
Yup this is far more important than the surveillance which puts the US at the top of the world in police imprisonment, stopping, frisking, shooting and choking.
Fuck this bitch and fuck you too when you going to be charged with theft mr gowdy
Edward Snowden is a brave man!
At the height of the cold war threat(60's+) The FBI became a secret powerful surveillance team. Years later, information started to leak. Citizens and critics discovered the depth and severity of the problem and called for reform. J.Edgar Hoover (director of the Bureau of Investigation and later the instrumental founder and Director of the FBI) died and eventually the FBI lost some power and was held in check.
According to President Harry S. Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force; Truman stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him". (Wikimedia and Summers, Anthony (Jan.1,2012) "The Secret Life of J.Edgar Hoover".
Suddenly 911. Terrorist threat. The NSA was adopted and slowly gained power and influence, expanding surveillance, which by the way is part of the FBI. Sound familiar? Food for thought.
1984 arrived later than Orwell expected, but not by much, really.