I am proud to share with you a presentation by my fellow alumnus Robert Tibbo, best known as the lawyer for American whistleblower Edward Snowden, on 29 December 2019 in Messe Leipzig, Germany, an update on the situation with Snowden and the Snowden Refugees.
The lecture covers the current global erosion and dismantling of international refugees and constitutional law by increasingly authoritarian democracies and loss of international protection for whistleblowers and the brave people who protect whistleblowers, like the Snowden Refugees.
“The Snowden Refugees still in limbo in Hong Kong are at heightened risk and need public support and donations to survive. The two children in Hong Kong need to be brought to the safety of Canada at the earliest time to remove them from the dangers in Hong Kong and to have all three children reunited in Montreal,” said Tibbo.
Snowden will make an appearance in the 35th minute of the lecture.
“The choices that we made, and the things that you do, they have power. And doing nothing, that’s a choice. Now lots of us would like to think that’s a willing choice. We like to think that we are the sole captain of our own destiny. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be, that’s the way it’s intended, that’s the way we designed the system,” according to Snowden.
“And yet the system today, somehow the actors within it spend an enormous amount of energy trying to make you forget that the things you do affect the outcomes. They’ll tell you not to worry about it, that it’s not so bad. After all it ‘could be worse’. But I say to you it could be better.
“And every time we hear those words, that’s what we need to say – Every system in history, even the most powerful, has been subject to change. And every hack that is performed against us can face a patch.”