More on Snowden

There is a tendency to admire daring acts even when they are criminal. Gutsy thieves sometimes benefit from public awe bordering on hope that they might get away with their crime. Whistleblowers by definition break the law and yet we are often grateful to them for doing just that. Edward Snowden who leaked information on the extent of US and UK eavesdropping is a case in point.

This is a sad observation, but even if one does not approve of Snowden’s deed, does one really want him to fall into the hands of the American “justice” system? Take Guantanamo - this is a scandal. The US government has kidnapped hundreds of people and is keeping them jailed without trial in a sort of a no-man’s land, on a US naval base in Cuba. This was an invention of the truly nasty Bush and Cheney regime, which Obama vowed to get rid of within a year of being elected. That year ended in January 2010.

The US government refers to the detainees in Guantanamo as “enemy combatants”. So perhaps as enemies they have no rights in the American system. What, however, about the American soldier Bradley Manning who was arrested in May 2010 on suspicion of leaking classified material to WikiLeaks. For almost a year the US army held him in solitary confinement until international pressure shamed them into moving him to a different army base. It took the US justice system almost three years to start court proceedings against Manning. Why? Is that justice?