What a dizzying 24 hours Edward Snowden has had. After fleeing Hong Kong (the place he first fled to), he was revealed to be in the airspace above Russia with a WikiLeaks advisor (
this woman) headed to Moscow. Now
Snowden has requested asylum in Ecuador, according to that country's foreign minister.
WikiLeaks describes Snowden’s final destination as “a democratic country” and, yes, Ecuador basically is (
more or less). But it just recently passed a bill restraining press freedom that really ought not to appeal to a whistle-blower.
According to Human Rights Watch, the bill has three worrying components. A) It prohibits so-called “media lynching”, and allows the state to compel the guilty to say sorry and face legal proceedings. B) It claims to encourage the press to self-regulate but actually empowers the government to impose sanctions on wrong-doers. C) Most importantly, the bill asserts that it is a crime for a journalist to undermine “the security of the State”. Just like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are accused of doing. So Snowden, the whistle-blower, is relocating to a country that is turning against the culture of whistle-blowing. Of course, it's also a country that's given refuge (in its London embassy) to Julian Assange – himself fleeing allegations of rape.
I’m afraid that Snowden’s tour of authoritarian regimes – including China (yes, Edward, Hong Kong
is in China) and Russia – rather undermines his reputation as a champion of individual liberty. He will argue that he had no choice, and we might infer that he reasonably bargained that existential enemies of the US are the places most likely to protect him against extradition. But, ultimately, free speech is a black and white thing that doesn’t lend itself to compromise. Snowden simply can’t pitch himself as an enemy of big government while seeking refuge in countries that have governments bigger than God.
It’s a tragedy that Snowden's made this mistake because what he had to reveal about the US security state was very troubling. But while the message remains important, the messenger has been exposed as unworthy of it. Snowden’s totalitarian tour is an embarrassment to his cause.
