'Idealistic' Snowden Should be Welcomed by China (Xinhua, China)
Are people like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning standing up
on behalf of the world against 'the hypocrisy of those who preach about
Internet freedom abroad while stifling it at home'? For China's state-run
Xinhua, According, columnist XuPeixi
makes the case for granting asylum to NSAwhistelblower Snowden, who has taken refuge from U.S. authorities in
Hong Kong.
BEIJING:
Last week, a bright idealistic young man named Edward Snowden single-handedly
opened lifted the lid on the U.S. National Security Agency's PRISM program. Due
to its scope, country of origin and implications, this marks the bleakest
moment yet in the history of the Internet.
In
terms of scope, major transnational Internet service providers ranging from
Google to Apple are involved in allowing the NSA to
access customer data for the purposes of "surveillance." Nearly every
type of service, ranging from email to VoIP, have come within the program's
scope. It all originates in the country that dominates the world's Internet
resources - a fact recognized in the information leaked by Snowden: "Much
of the world's communications flow through the U.S." and the information
is accessible. The case indicates that through outsourcing and contracting, Big
Brother is breaching the fundamental rights of citizens by acquiring unfettered
access to their most personal communications.
As
the case unfolds, there are many issues to be concerned about. How do we make
sense of the fact that the market and state colluded in the abuse of private
information via what represents the backbone of many pieces of modern infrastructure?
How do we rationalize the character of Snowden and his fellow whistleblowers?
How do we understand the one-sided accusations of cyber attack the U.S. has
poured on China over the past few months? To what degree have foreign users of
these Internet services fallen victim to this project? Amidst these suspicions,
let us clarify two types of American personality.
First
of all, Snowden's case offers us a rare opportunity to reexamine the integrity
of American politicians and the management of the dominant Internet companies
that reside in the United States, and it appears that while many of these
individuals verbally attack other nations and people in the name of freedom and
democracy, they ignore America's worsening domestic situation. In her eloquent
speech on Internet freedom [see below], former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said that if Internet companies can't act as "responsible stewards
of their own personal information," then they would lose customers and
their survival would be threatened. In the same speech, she also urged U.S. media
companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands
for censorship and surveillance.
Clinton
certainly seemed under the impression that her own government was above
reproach on these matters, when every piece of evidence, whether in hindsight
or not, suggests the opposite. We must also remember that Clinton's Internet
freedom speech was addressing Google's grand withdrawal from China. So following
the logic of her speech, it is surely time for Google to take responsibility
for leaking data and information to the NSA and
withdraw from the U.S. market. David Drummond, Google's senior vice president
and chief legal officer, justified Google's withdrawal from China by citing "state
surveillance" and the "fact" that the G-mail accounts of dozens
of human rights activists were being "routinely accessed by third parties."
If Google wants to be consistent with its past statements, the PRISM program
gives the Internet giant much more cause to act.
We
can see, therefore, that when American politicians and businessmen make
accusatory remarks, they turn a blind eye to their own misdeeds and have them
firmly fixed on foreign nations. This calls the integrity of these rich,
powerful and influential figures into question, and gives the clear impression
that America bases its own legitimacy not on good domestic governance, but on
stigmatizing practices abroad.
Perhaps
the most confusing issue revolves around the hypocrisy of those who preach
about Internet freedom abroad while stifling it at home. The Fudan University students who listened intently to
President Obama's speech about Internet freedom and censorship at a town
hall-style meeting in Shanghai in 2009 certainly took his remarks seriously.
How must they be feeling now, that it's obvious President Obama himself doesn't
believe his own Internet rhetoric? In the same vein, many like-minded young
Chinese once put flowers in front of Google's Beijing headquarters to pay
tribute to its "brave" and outspoken challenge to perceived Chinese
government surveillance. How must they be feeling in light of Google's
involvement in PRISM and with the knowledge that Google's action against China are
only part of its commercial strategy? An increasing number of Chinese people
will come to understand that the democratization of domestic Chinese media is
entirely different from that which happens abroad.
Second,
let us look at another kind of American personality. How can we understand and
explain Snowden and similar figures? These young idealists, including The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein, who helped bring down President Nixon after the Watergate
affair, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and U.S. soldier Bradley Manning, among others,
can be categorized as the "bright feathers" of our time, to borrow words
from the popular American movie The Shawshank Redemption. They all embody the courage to
fight the system, which the film also celebrates.
[Editor's
Note: The author refers to this quote from the film The ShawshankRedemption:
"I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their
feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that
knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live
in is that much more grey."]
The
25-year old Manning is now a prisoner, having been arrested in Iraq in May 2010
on suspicion of having passed classified material to WikiLeaks. Assange has
been confined in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for nearly a year. Snowden is
on the run in Hong Kong. While human rights activists from developing countries
(certainly as far as Western agencies are concerned) are often blessed with a range
of hiding places, we now see the dilemma of Western dissidents. For this reason
China, despite the fact that it doesn't have a good reputation as far as
Internet governance is concerned, should move boldly and grant Snowden asylum.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
After
all, what American and British authorities have done to people like Snowden
represents a challenge to the common sense of the global public. These people
are too brilliant to be caged. Their feathers are too bright. For the emerging
evils that have been committed and continue to be done by the alliance of state
and market in the digital age, Snowden and those like him represent the hope
and possibility that counter measures exist to combat them. Unfortunately,
those who proclaim to the world "don't be evil" are themselves, as
they are willing conspirators in the game, and their drive for profit has led
them to play a major role in this evil. If intelligence work can be contracted
or outsourced this way, anything can.
That
is why we appreciate and salute the efforts of Snowden et al., who have gambled
their careers, family, personal freedom, and even their lives to let the global
public know what the most powerful force in the world is doing with perhaps the
central infrastructure of our age; and to make the public aware that this force
is acting in an unconstitutional manner and entirely contrary to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. To further understand the likes of Snowden, let us
end with a narrative by the character Red from the Shawshank Redemption as he rationalizes the escape of his friend Andy:
"Some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.
And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up
does rejoice."
*XuPeixi is Associate Professor
at the Communication University of China, Beijing. He is also a PhD candidate
and researcher at the University of Tampere, Finland. His research interests
include International Communication, Citizen Participation and New Media. He
can be reached at xupeixi@gmail.com.
