I’ve tried to stay out of this, but now Snowden has blundered into areas of my expertise and about which he either knows nothing or chooses to lie. This is not a matter of policy or morality or political persuasion. This is just something he asserts as a fact that simply is not true.
As reported by Time and many others, yesterday he stated:
I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”
Espionage is not a crime against peace and humanity. Espionage is not a crime under International Law. This is not my opinion or my position. This is not something about which reasonable people disagree. It is just a fact. There is no authority whatsoever for the proposition that espionage is a violation of International Law. Espionage is not a crime under International Law.
Moreover, as Time continues:
Nuremberg did establish that a person is legally responsible for committing war crimes even if ordered to do so by higher authorities in what is known as the superior orders defense (although the tribunal’s principles do not appear to include the second sentence Snowden attributes to it in several online versions of his statement). (emphasis added)
So, he claims he did what he did, because of a non-existent duty to violate domestic laws that conflict with non-existent international law.
Just wrong.
wcsnyder
An anonymous friend wrote something like this: “You cannot say you can freely violate the constitution of the US by labeling something espionage. The pursuit of espionage is as constrained by the constitution as is the pursuit of any other violation. And it does not matter what the NSA has to say about espionage is too important to be constrained by the constitution. They say that for a living.”
To which I responded:
The Constitution, obviously, is not International Law. As even the Time article notes, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not have the force of law. There are no treaties and no international statutes that forbid spying on anyone. Since there is no international law about this at all, there can be no duty imposed by international law to violate conflicting national law.
wcsnyder
An anonymous friend wrote something like this: “You cannot say you can freely violate the constitution of the US by labeling something espionage. The pursuit of espionage is as constrained by the constitution as is the pursuit of any other violation. And it does not matter what the NSA has to say about espionage is too important to be constrained by the constitution. They say that for a living.”
To which I responded:
The Constitution, obviously, is not International Law. As even the Time article notes, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not have the force of law. There are no treaties and no international statutes that forbid spying on anyone. Since there is no international law about this at all, there can be no duty imposed by international law to violate conflicting national law.