Politics

Fareed Zakaria on Snowden, Civil Disobedience, and Big Data

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTV_UJQerFE]

On Sunday, Fareed Zakaria GPS began with “Fareed’s Take” on NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Civil Disobedience, and the civil liberties implications of Big Data.

Here is a description of the commentary:

“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”

That was Martin Luther King Jr.’s definition of civil disobedience. It does not appear to be Edward Snowden’s.

He has tried by every method possible to escape any judgment or punishment for his actions. Snowden has been compared to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. But Ellsberg did not hop on a plane to Hong Kong or Moscow once he had unloaded his cache of documents. He stood trial and faced the possibility of more than 100 years in prison before the court dismissed the case against him because of the prosecution’s mistakes and abuses of justice.

For more on this read Fareed’s TIME column

Iraqis Seeking Asylum

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Iraqis Seeking Asylum

This past weekend, This American Life feature the story of Kirk Johnson and the thousands of Iraqis seeking asylum in the United States after aiding America in the War in Iraq.  

Here is a description of the story, its prologue, and two acts: 

The truly incredible story of a guy named Kirk Johnson who started a list of hundreds of Iraqis who needed to get out of their country. They were getting death threats, and he was their only hope. Only 26 and living in his aunt’s basement, he had no idea what to do. How Kirk kind of succeeded spectacularly and failed spectacularly at the same time.

 

PROLOGUE–Ira talks with Producer Nancy Updike about when she first met Kirk Johnson in 2007. At the time he was mulling a crazy plan that involved Iraqi refugees, the Coast Guard and a boat. (5 minutes)

ACT ONE: RELUCTANT SAILOR–Kirk sleepwalks through an open window and into a completely different life. He explains how he starts compiling a list of Iraqis who’d worked with the U.S. government after the invasion, whose lives were now in danger because of that. Carrying around that list gets some very strange reactions from government officials. Kirk is founder and executive director of The List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies. His memoir To Be a Friend Is Fatalcomes out in September. (23 minutes.)

ACT TWO: EMAILS FROM A DEAD MAN.–To get a sense of what may be broken about our process for bringing these Iraqis into the US, the ones who worked with US forces and who believe their lives are now in danger because of that, Kirk Johnson tells Nancy Updike about one guy. Almost a year of his emails were forwarded to Kirk, who printed them out and started to realize that he was looking at a dead man’s attempt to immigrate to the U.S. (29 minutes)

The Ivory Tower Half Hour: PRISM, Federal Judges, and Economic Development

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The Ivory Tower Half Hour: PRISM, Federal Judges, and Economic Development

Hosted by Barbara Fought, Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, this powerhouse panel of Lisa Dolak (Syracuse University College of Law), Tim Byrnes (Colgate University), Bob Greene (Cazenovia College), Tara Ross (Onondaga County Community College), and  Kristi Andersen (Syracuse University) discuss the recent revelation of the PRISM program, the selection of federal judges, and boosing economic development.