Should Brazil have offered asylum to Edward Snowden?

Also I will never buy the tired old argument that "everybody is doing it, so we have to do it too." If everybody is doing it then everybody is wrong, because they shouldn't be doing it. Two wrongs will never make a right.

The point is he could have just been a whistle blower, but he chose to also be a traitor, it does not have to be one or the other.  Do you think it was an evil against all mankind when the USA intercepted and later broke the Japanese naval codes before WWII even started?  What unreal world do you live in?

Really, you surprise me... comparing the two, when everyone knew that the Japanese were preparing for war. As I said before spying on one's enemies is to a certain (and I do mean certain) degree a necessary evil. Spying on your so-called friends and private citizens is completely unacceptable no matter who you are or what the circumstance, but I wouldn't expect Americans to agree with this. Historically they've proven they can't or simply won't.

It's laughable that while you get your Fruit of the Looms all in a knot when the spying was on American citizens because that's a violation of your precious Constitution, yet you don't place equal weight on the much more important document that came before it - The Declaration of Independence - which states clearly "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The document doesn't say "All American men", but rather ALL MEN. So clearly even your founding forefathers understood clearly that no matter where you may live you are equal. If spying on American citizens is wrong then cleary spying on private citizens anywere is wrong except in a time of war with that country would it ever be acceptable.

As this really is an "old news" thread and a hypothetical anyway I see no reason for it to remain open when it is  generating such unnecessary discord. I will be closing it.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

Let's draw a hypothetical parallel here before closing the thread:

Suppose Hans Schmidt is a low-level technician in the Third Reich intelligence network. Now suppose that during the height of WWII he spills the beans that the Nazis are planning to invade Cuba, because they want a strategic platform from which to launch attacks on the United States. He also secretly communicates with an American journalist that the Fuhrer, himself, will secretly be going to Cuba to oversee the operations.

As a result of this information Hitler is captured, taken to the USA tried and executed. While using your standards and definition of TREASON, then Hans Schmidt would certainly be a TRAITOR to the German nation. How would you Americans consider him?

I think the answer to that one is quite obvious. You'd consider him the greatest hero of all times. You'd take him into your country and probably give him the Congressional Medal of Honor to boot! Yet, he was a traitor to Germany after all, wasn't he? Well, maybe not? Perhaps because he followed a higher loyalty it becomes something different?

When something is wrong, it continues to be wrong no matter where it is being done, against whom it is being done or by whom it is being done. If my friend tells me all his deepest darkest secrets or if I simply find them out by spying on him and later turn around and spill the beans to his fiancee (who just happens to be my cousin) when he proposes marriage, tell her that he's violent has beaten several of his past girlfriends and she decides to break off the engagement. While I'm certainly going to be considered a traitor by him, she's going to see me as her hero. I betrayed one friend YES, but my higher loyalty (to my cousin) and the greater good still makes me a traitor? I think not.

wjwoodward wrote:

yet you don't place equal weight on the much more important document that came before it - The Declaration of Independence - which states clearly "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The document doesn't say "All American men", but rather ALL MEN. So clearly even your founding forefathers understood clearly that no matter where you may live you are equal.

You have no idea what that document meant.  It was written by a slave holder who later fathered children with one of them, keeping them all as slaves another 50 years after the Declaration of Independence.  It does say all men, but it was a boldface lie, and only applied to white property owners.  You think it applied to slaves and Native Americans?  The constitution, which is more important since it is the law, proclaimed that slaves were to be counted as 3/5 of a man.  Fuzzy math.  It also says nothing about women, who had to wait until the 20th century to get the constitutional right to vote.  If you think in the world of nations that all countries don't collect data on all other countries, friend and foe, then you are unrealistic and uninformed.

wjwoodward wrote:

Let's draw a hypothetical parallel here before closing the thread:

Suppose Hans Schmidt is a low-level technician in the Third Reich intelligence network. Now suppose that during the height of WWII he spills the beans that the Nazis are planning to invade Cuba, because they want a strategic platform from which to launch attacks on the United States. He also secretly communicates with an American journalist that the Fuhrer, himself, will secretly be going to Cuba to oversee the operations.

As a result of this information Hitler is captured, taken to the USA tried and executed. While using your standards and definition of TREASON, then Hans Schmidt would certainly be a TRAITOR to the German nation. How would you Americans consider him?

I think the answer to that one is quite obvious. You'd consider him the greatest hero of all times. You'd take him into your country and probably give him the Congressional Medal of Honor to boot! Yet, he was a traitor to Germany after all, wasn't he? Well, maybe not? Perhaps because he followed a higher loyalty it becomes something different?

When something is wrong, it continues to be wrong no matter where it is being done, against whom it is being done or by whom it is being done. If my friend tells me all his deepest darkest secrets or if I simply find them out by spying on him and later turn around and spill the beans to his fiancee (who just happens to be my cousin) when he proposes marriage, tell her that he's violent has beaten several of his past girlfriends and she decides to break off the engagement. While I'm certainly going to be considered a traitor by him, she's going to see me as her hero. I betrayed one friend YES, but my higher loyalty (to my cousin) and the greater good still makes me a traitor? I think not.

No, I would not consider the kraut who dimed out Hitler a traitor to the USA, but he was guilty of treason to Germany, and should be considered as such in Germany.  Snowden is from the USA, with access to classified info, so in the USA he is a traitor.  Not being from the USA, others can consider him as they will, but saying you will not return a man to the USA because you are saying your thoughts are more important than USA law threatens to break down the whole international system of returning criminals to their country of transgressions.