Edward Snowden Voted Guardian Person of the Year 2013
Source: The Guardian
Edward Snowden voted Guardian person of the year 2013
NSA whistleblower's victory, for exposing the scale of internet surveillance, follows that of Chelsea Manning last year
Monday 9 December 2013 07.44 EST
Mark Rice-Oxley, Leila Haddou and Frances Perraudin
For the second year in a row, a young American whistleblower alarmed at the unfettered and at times cynical deployment of power by the world's foremost superpower has been voted the Guardian's person of the year.
Edward Snowden, who leaked an estimated 200,000 files that exposed the extensive and intrusive nature of phone and internet surveillance and intelligence gathering by the US and its western allies, was the overwhelming choice of more than 2,000 people who voted.
The NSA whistleblower garnered 1,445 votes. In a distant second, from a list of 10 candidates chosen by Guardian writers and editors, came Marco Weber and Sini Saarela, the Greenpeace activists who spearheaded the oil rig protest over Russian Arctic drilling. They received 314 votes. Pope Francis gained 153 votes, narrowly ahead of blogger and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe, who received 144. Snowden's victory was as decisive as Chelsea Manning's a year earlier.
It is strange to think now, but a little more than six months ago, virtually no one had heard of Snowden, and few people outside the US would have been able to identify what the initials NSA stood for. Though internet privacy was beginning to emerge as an issue, few people had any idea of the extent to which governments and their secretive auxiliaries were able to trawl, sift, collect and scrutinise the personal digital footprints of millions of private individuals.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/edward-snowden-voted-guardian-person-of-year-2013
snot
(10,538 posts)Pardon my l*nguage.
merrily
(45,251 posts)The field contained worth candidates, but the Snowden disclosures were shockers.
To many. (I added "to many" because invariably, someone will post that he or she knew everything years ago, so I thought I'd save him or her the trouble.)
SamKnause
(13,110 posts)Left Coast2020
(2,397 posts)WowSeriously
(343 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Shouldn't that sign read, "Snowden is a Russian"?
Not to mention traitor.
Indi Guy
(3,992 posts)...a statement that's all hat and no cattle.
Emotional outbursts are not based on logic, therefore there is no logical reason to give them credibility.
idwiyo
(5,113 posts)Bigotry at it's worst.
Funny!
Maybe he should move back to China? Or Syria! He's got a whole world to choose from except here, so he's anything but American.
In the mean time the Tin Foil Hat/Musket crowd worries about calls made while cheating on their wives but the plotting TERRORISTS find other means of communication, so that they can kill as many as possible.
Thanks a lot again Comrade Eddie.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)Go read the Constitution and get back to us.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)Last edited Mon Dec 16, 2013, 01:31 AM - Edit history (1)
and an honest examination of US foreign policy by our political leaders, would be a much more effective means of reducing the threat from terrorism.
Not that the physical threat is great enough to rationalize the obliteration of democracy and an expenditure of a trillion dollars a year on militarism, anyway. After all, each of us, is at far greater risk from many other things, like heart disease or cancer or an auto accident. The resources squandered on the GWOT, would be better served providing ourselves with publicly funded health care and developing technologies to move quickly from burning hydrocarbons to other sources of energy that don't degrade our biosphere. That would provide real security.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)You would be hard pressed to make a case against that.
Thank you for posting this and thank you to The Guardian, where actual journalists report the real news.
...no ones ever going to get a Pulitzer for reporting on Miley Cyrus & the Kardashians.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... maybe someone will start an awards show for journalists who report the most garbage "news." Might be a good idea for "The Onion"?