Since opening a Twitter account and mocking the NSA, the whistleblower Edward Snowden has been tweeting out his thoughts on a regular basis, much to the delight of his supporters.
In a series of messages yesterday he began by criticising a recent case in Iran in which Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian was convicted in a secret court.
Iran's shocking conviction of a journalist on secret evidence must not stand. #FreeJason https://t.co/40RofVWrC2 pic.twitter.com/0v5xGSrSFa
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015
It is unconscionable for courts to convict journalists behind closed doors. Iranian leaders bear an obligation to correct this injustice.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015
He went on to advise, against the American instinct of individualism, for his followers to work together to protect civil liberties.
If you want to protect your rights, you've got to protect the rights of others. Social justice is common sense.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015
Even the founders recognized that collective action is not in conflict with individual interest. https://t.co/uEIZP5nIbU
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015
On the Black Lives Matter movement he noted that the marginalised are the “first” but not the “only” ones to be targeted in any campaigns of repression.
Women and minorities – racial, religious, and political – suffer first from abuses of power. https://t.co/ajz5RJejFN pic.twitter.com/Ta8obdkyEq
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015
"First" and "only" are separate concepts. The first victims of abuse are never the last, from IPV to armed conflict. https://t.co/l0RzbPznbJ
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015
He also worried that the Internet might lead to increasingly militarisation of society (though historians will note that the public Internet itself came out of an American military project).
We're witnessing the same trends on the internet: our common fabric of communication is becoming co-opted for military purposes.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015
He then warned that social media is a weapon that the authorities can use against citizens:
Richelieu: "Give me six lines written by the most honest man and I will find in them something to hang him." How many tweets have you sent?
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 13, 2015
Unsurprisingly Snowden had a lot of thoughts about how to respond to state surveillance against campaigners, a decades-old problem in the United States.
And always, always, always have a backup plan for leaderless resistance. Spontaneous organization is the hardest for adversaries to counter.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 13, 2015
And in one of his final messages he seemed to respond to the numerous allegations of censorship on universities campuses, recent incidents having flared up in both Warwick and Manchester in Britain.
An individual trying to limit speech at universities is interested in neither university nor justice. https://t.co/JHNEbIAfa3
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 13, 2015
Image Credit – Edward Snowden, January 2014 by DonkeyHotey
