UNITED
NATIONS, June
10 -- Attacks
on
whistleblower
Edward Snowden
have
begun, some
expected and
some not.
Monday at the
Council on
Foreign
Relations,
former US
Director of
National
Intelligence
John
Negroponte
said he hopes
Snowden "will
be punished."
Dog
bites man.
But
the head of
CFR, Richard Haass,
said that
Snowden is
not
even a
whistleblower,
based on a
definition and
argument that
what he has
exposed is not
illegal. Man
bites dog?
This
a narrow
definition of
whistleblower
whose use by
the United
Nations
Inner City
Press has
previously
covered. Given
a lack of
legal
protections in
the UN
whistleblowers
approaching
Inner City
Press
usually need
total
anonymity. UN
peacekeepers,
for example,
are
afforded no
protections at
all by the UN.
In
the case of
the whistleblower
for and about
the UN
Development
Program in
North Korea,
UNDP argued
that he was no
whistleblower
at
all. While
after a long
fight he was
awarded
damages, it
was for a
violation of
his due
process
rights, NOT
for the
obvious
retaliation.
More
recently, UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon has
appealed,
apparently
automatically,
the award
of damages to
whistleblower
James
Wasserstrom
-- an award
lower than
Wasserstrom's
own legal
costs.
At
the June 10 UN
noon briefing,
Inner City
Press asked
Ban Ki-moon's
spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky, in
the context of
the US
National
Security
Agency PRISM
case, if the
UN views
Snowden as a
whistleblower,
compared to
its treatment
of the North
Korea case,
and
for an update
on the report
on UN
whistleblower
protections
commissioned
by Ban from a
Canadian
jurist.
Video
here from
Minute 9:16.
Nesirky
said
the update
will be
provided when
ready; he did
not squarely
answer the
Snowden as
whistleblower
or any PRISM
question, even
though through
PRISM as well
as Verizon
Wireless and
the FISA
court,
UN officials
have also been
monitored.
Would
that violate
the US' Host
Country
agreement with
the UN? That
is a
question. But
would this UN
say anything?
At
the UN Human
Rights Council
in Geneva, a
civil society
statement was
being
circulated on
Monday, to
"express
strong
concern over
recent
revelations of
surveillance
of internet
and telephone
communications
of US and
non-US
nationals by
the
government of
the USA and
the fact that
US authorities
makes the
results of
that
surveillance
available to
other
governments
such as
the UK...
These
revelations
suggest a
blatant and
systematic
disregard for
human rights
as articulated
in Articles 17
and 19 of
the
International
Covenant on
Civil and
Political
Rights
(ICCPR), as
well as
Articles 12
and 19 of the
Universal
Declaration of
Human
Rights... But
during this
session the
Special
Rapporteur on
Freedom
of Expression,
Mr. Frank La
Rue, reported
(A/HRC/23/40)
worrying new
trends in
state
surveillance
of
communications
with serious
implications
for the
exercise of
the human
rights to
privacy and to
freedom of
opinion and
expression."
Civil
society might
speak - but
will the UN?
Haass will be
speaking on
Monday evening
at the
International
Peace
Institute,
across from
the
UN. Watch this
site.
, 
