Snowden deserves an immediate presidential pardon

2013年7月14日 星期日 15:17 PM

Snowden deserves an immediate presidential pardon 
奥巴马应赦免斯诺登

哈佛大学国际事务教授 史蒂芬•沃尔特 为英国《金融时报》撰稿

In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama called upon “We, the People” to preserve America’s ideals of individual freedom and equality. When Edward Snowden disclosed the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance programmes, he was rising to this challenge. Like the nation’s “founding fathers”, he was also defying the usurpations of an increasingly intrusive government. Mr Obama should therefore call off the campaign to apprehend him and offer Mr Snowden a pardon instead. 在巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)总统第二次就职演说中，他号召“我们人民”要坚持美国的个人自由与平等理想。当爱德华•斯诺登(Edward Snowden)披露美国国家安全局(NSA)的秘密监控项目时，他就是在迎接这一挑战。正如这个国家的“国父们”一样，他也在反抗一个触手越来越长的政府的僭越行为。因此，奥巴马应撤销逮捕他的行动，赦免斯诺登。
Mr Snowden stands accused of stealing government property and unauthorised dissemination of classified information. But he did not pass valuable secrets to a foreign government or sell them for personal gain – as convicted spies such as Aldrich Ames or Jonathan Pollard did. On the contrary, he gave up a well-paid job and put his own freedom in jeopardy for a principle. 斯诺登受到的指控包括盗窃政府财产以及未经许可传播机密信息。但是，他并没有把宝贵机密拱手送给外国政府，也没有为谋私利而出售机密——这跟已经定罪的奥尔德里奇•埃姆斯(Aldrich Ames)或乔纳森•波拉德(Jonathan Pollard)等间谍是不一样的。相反，他出于原则，放弃了高薪职位，将个人自由置于危险之中。
Mr Snowden’s motives were laudable: he believed fellow citizens should know their government was conducting a secret surveillance programme enormous in scope, poorly supervised and possibly unconstitutional. He was right.  斯诺登的动机令人赞赏：他认为同胞们应该知道真相，他们的政府正在开展一个范围极广、缺乏监管并有可能违宪的秘密监控项目。他的看法没错。
Thanks to Mr Snowden, we now know that officials and private contractors have been collecting vast amounts of information about ordinary Americans and conducting unprecedented levels of spying on US allies. We know key officials lied on Capitol Hill about what the NSA was doing, casting doubt on the quality of Congressional oversight. By going public, Mr Snowden reminded us that secret programmes undertaken in the name of national security are extremely difficult to control. 正是由于斯诺登的行为，我们如今了解到，官方机构和私人承包商一直在收集大量有关普通美国人的信息，并且在对美国盟友开展史无前例的大规模间谍活动。我们由此得知，在国安局正在做什么的问题上，高官要员们在国会上说了谎，这不得不令人怀疑国会的监督效率。通过将真相大白于天下，斯诺登提醒我们，那些以国家安全名义开展的秘密项目是极难控制的。
NSA defenders argue that these programmes only target individuals who might pose a threat. They maintain ordinary citizens whose digital records might be incriminating or embarrassing need not be concerned, because government officials will never examine their data without probable cause and judicial approval. 国安局的辩护者们声称，这些项目只针对可能造成威胁的人。他们坚称，那些可能会因数字记录获罪或导致尴尬的普通公民不必担心，因为政府官员没有足够理由以及司法批准是不会检查与他们有关的数据的。
How naive. Under the veneer of “national security”, government officials can use these vast troves of data to go after anyone, questioning what they were doing, including whistleblowers, investigative journalists or ordinary citizens posting comments on news websites. 这么想实在是幼稚！在“国家安全”的幌子下，政府官员可以利用这些巨大的数据宝库追踪任何人，质疑他们在做什么。这些被调查的人可能包括告密者、新闻调查记者甚至是在新闻网站上发表评论的普通公民。
Once a secret surveillance system exists, it is only a matter of time before someone abuses it for selfish ends. Richard Nixon kept his own “enemies list” and used the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on American citizens. Former Federal Bureau of Investigation director J Edgar Hoover helped keep himself in office by collecting dirt on officials. 只要存在一个秘密监控系统，这个系统被某些人出于私利滥用就只是一个时间问题。理查德•尼克松(Richard Nixon)就有一张“敌人名单”，还曾动用美国中央情报局(CIA)监听美国公民。而前美国联邦调查局(FBI)局长约翰•埃德加•胡佛(J Edgar Hoover)则靠收集官员负面信息来保住自己的局长宝座。
Fear of exposure threatens to stifle the dissent and debate that is essential to healthy democracy. Governments already classify much of what officialdom is doing and selectively leak information to influence public opinion, so citizens must rely on journalists, academics and principled individuals such as Mr Snowden to find out what our “public servants” aren’t telling us. But if critical voices are cowed by the possibility that their personal lives will be revealed, those in power will be harder to monitor and policy errors will go uncorrected. 对暴露的恐惧有可能会导致压制良性民主体制十分必要的异见和辩论。政府对官僚机构的许多行为都做了保密，选择性地公开信息，以左右舆论。因此，普通市民只有依靠记者、学者以及斯诺登这样有原则的个人，才能知道我们的“公仆”有什么事瞒着我们。但如果那些批评声由于私人生活可能被公开而受到胁迫，对当权者进行监督将会加倍困难，政策错误将无法得到纠正。
Pardoning Mr Snowden would surely provoke howls of protest from the intelligence community, which hopes to deter future leakers by making an example of him. But a pardon for him is unlikely to trigger a wave of imitators; how many other insiders would sacrifice their jobs and risk their freedom because Mr Snowden got a reprieve? And if a few did follow suit and exposed government wrongdoing, society as a whole would benefit. 赦免斯诺登肯定会引发情报界的一片抗议之声，这些人希望通过对斯诺登的处理以儆效尤，以防未来再出现泄密者。但赦免斯诺登不太可能激发一批模仿者。有多少内部人士会因为斯诺登被赦免而愿意放弃他们的职位并冒失去自由的风险？就算少数人学斯诺登揭露政府的陋行，整个社会也会从中受益。
History will probably be kinder to Mr Snowden than to his pursuers, and his name may one day be linked to the other brave men and women – Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Luther King Jr, Mark Felt, Karen Silkwood and so on – whose acts of principled defiance are now widely admired. 斯诺登在史书上的待遇很可能会比抓他的人好一些。也许有一天，他的名字会与其他勇敢的男女——丹尼尔•埃尔斯伯格(Daniel Ellsberg)、马丁•路德•金(Martin Luther King Jr)、马克•费尔特(Mark Felt)、凯伦•丝克伍(Karen Silkwood)等等——并列，这些人有原则的反抗行为在今天广受人们敬佩。
Ironically, less august company awaits Mr Snowden should he join the ranks of those whom presidents have spared. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, George HW Bush pardoned the officials who conducted the illegal Iran-Contra affair, and Mr Obama has already pardoned several convicted embezzlers and drug dealers. Surely Mr Snowden is as deserving of mercy as these miscreants. Pardoning him would also show that Mr Obama’s rhetorical commitment to “We, the People”, and to open and transparent government, is not just empty words. 讽刺的是，如果斯诺登被加入获得总统宽恕的人之列，他的“同伴”中却有很多不那么光彩。杰拉尔德•福特(Gerald Ford)赦免了理查德•尼克松，老布什(George H. W. Bush)赦免了那些导演了“伊朗门事件”的官员，而奥巴马已赦免了几个被定罪的贪污犯和毒贩。毫无疑问，斯诺登和这些恶人一样值得怜悯。赦免斯诺登还能够证明，奥巴马的口头承诺——向“我们人民”许下的承诺，致力于建设开放透明政府的承诺——并不是空话。
The writer is a professor of international affairs at Harvard

本文作者是哈佛大学(Harvard)国际事务教授