{"id":9398,"date":"2015-06-24T07:44:55","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T12:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9398"},"modified":"2015-06-24T07:44:55","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T12:44:55","slug":"council-of-europe-calls-on-u-s-to-let-snowden-have-a-fair-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9398","title":{"rendered":"Council of Europe Calls on U.S. to Let Snowden Have a Fair Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2015\/06\/23\/european-council-calls-u-s-let-snowden-fair-trial\/\" target=\"_blank\">Council of Europe Calls on U.S. to Let Snowden Have a Fair Trial<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.coe.int\/en\/\">The Council of Europe<\/a>, the self-proclaimed \u201cdemocratic conscience of Greater Europe,\u201d urged the United States on Tuesday to allow NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to return home and make the case that his actions had positive effects.<\/p>\n<p>The call for Snowden to be allowed a \u201cpublic interest defense\u201d \u2014 something not available to whistleblowers charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, as Snowden has been \u2014 was part of a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/assembly.coe.int\/nw\/xml\/XRef\/X2H-Xref-ViewPDF.asp?FileID=21931&amp;lang=en\">resolution<\/a>\u00a0to improve international protections for whistleblowers passed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/assembly.coe.int\/nw\/xml\/Votes\/DB-VotesResults-EN.asp?VoteID=35540&amp;DocID=15416&amp;MemberID\">overwhelmingly<\/a>\u00a0by the 47-nation council\u2019s parliamentary assembly at its meeting in Strasbourg, France.<\/p>\n<p>After the vote, Snowden spoke to the assembly by video from Moscow, where he has temporary asylum. \u201cIt would be committing a crime by discussing your defense,\u201d Snowden said of his current legal prospects if he returned to the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s incredibly strong,\u201d he said of the council\u2019s resolution. \u201cIt\u2019s a major step forward. \u2026 If you can\u2019t mount a full and effective defense \u2014 make the case that you are revealing information in the public interest \u2014 you can\u2019t have a fair trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>U.S. government officials have repeatedly said that Snowden should return home to face the consequences of his actions. Snowden should \u201ccome back, be sent back, and he should have his day in court,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewire.com\/politics\/2013\/12\/why-does-cbs-keep-asking-its-completely-wrong-amnesty-question-about-snowden\/356431\/\">said<\/a>\u00a0National Security Advisor Susan Rice on \u201c60 Minutes\u201d in December 2013.<\/p>\n<p>But as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/freedom.press\/blog\/2013\/12\/if-snowden-returned-us-trial-all-whistleblower-evidence-would-likely-be-inadmissible\">Trevor Timm<\/a>\u00a0of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and others have pointed out, the administration has previously argued that disclosing details of Espionage Act cases further risks national security, so the defendant can\u2019t explain why he did what he did. Military whistleblower Chelsea Manning faced the same conundrum during the summer of 2013. Her entire defense was ruled inadmissible until sentencing. Manning is serving 35 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Council of Europe Calls on U.S. to Let Snowden Have a Fair Trial The Council of Europe, the self-proclaimed \u201cdemocratic conscience of Greater Europe,\u201d urged the United States on Tuesday to allow NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to return home and make the case that his actions had positive effects. The call for Snowden to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6676,249,6677,551,577,938,765,6678,5567,827,876],"class_list":["post-9398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-council-of-europe","tag-edward-snowden","tag-espionage-act","tag-national-security-agency","tag-nsa","tag-press-freedom","tag-surveillance","tag-susan-rice","tag-the-intercept","tag-united-states","tag-whistleblower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9399,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9398\/revisions\/9399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}