It's relieving that Iceland is the only country with any balls left for civil liberty, and all those that complained about the NSA spying but then refused Snowden asylum should be ashamed of their actions. It's an international embarrassment. Also quite ironic this happens on the Fourth.
As I type this, I breathe an immense sigh of relief. It's odd that Snowden, a man I hardly know, influences me that much. It's the feeling I get when I think of the founding fathers and their sacrifice and how it paid off after a long and difficult struggle.
I don't know if it will pay off for the United States, but bravo to Snowden for standing up and doing something apart from signing online "petitions."
Icelander here. Hold on to the praise for the moment. The bill may not even be discussed before the parliament is adjourned for summer holidays later tonight. So far it is not even on the agenda: http://www.althingi.is/cache.html#þingfundur
I would imagine that there will be a fair amount of influence exerted in the direction of Reykjavik to make sure this doesn't pass.
Actually, it would be fascinating to see the records of the incoming calls to the leaders of the Icelandic government - I wonder who could help with that? ;-)
We currently have a right wing majority in parliament in Iceland, and they're not keen on issues of civil liberty. Head of one of the ruling parties said last week that "Snowden is going to go to the back of the citizenship line like everyone else". Sorry.
What they could do is send out a letter to all the people at the front of the citizenship line and ask if anyone is willing to trade places with him. If I were waiting at the front of the line I would gladly switch places with him. I'm sure they can find someone.
Well, there might be 0.1% chance. I mean, Framsóknarflokkurinn just supported the new constitution, a bill put forward by the Leftist Green. They might yet surprise us.
We have a street name after Iceland in our capital. The reason: Iceland was the first western country to recognize the restoration of the independance of Lithuania. It took some balls 22 years ago, maybe they still have them :)
To be fair, though, the US never recognized the Baltic States incorporation into the USSR, neither de jure, nor de facto, therefore they had no restoration of independence to recognize.
Not really. As the USSR was collapsing and the Baltic countries broke free, Western countries rushed to re-recognise them (as most have de jure not recognised the occupation of the Baltic states). It did not take 24 hours after Iceland recognised the Baltic states, that Denmark did as well.
Furthermore, Denmark, along with Sweden and Norway spend the years following the dissolution of the USSR financially helping the Baltic states, something Iceland did not do (although, in their defence, they probably could not afford it either at that time).
Actually it took Denmark a bit more than two weeks to do the same, but you are right, they there second after Iceland. That was February 1991. Most of the other countries only "rushed" at the end of the summer after events in Moscow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d'état_attemp...
The part about help is true (though I heard a very pragmatic reason for it: "the better you live in your country, the less you will be likely to come to our". Not sure if working.)
Hope it passes. Edward is almost like a refugee (Palestinian or Syrian) - forced to leave his country, can't go back home, and no other country will accept him. Perhaps he should head for and remain on a vessel in International Waters?
I don't think you generally need to renounce one citizenship for another - I have dual citizenship, for example, and it's never caused anyone a problem.
This is certainly not a general situation. I thought that this is one of those situations that would mean a loss of citizenship but after reading some more I am utterly confused about the specific situation and dual-citizenship in general.
It's actually not confusing, you just have to ignore the statutes and State Department, because they don't control. Case law does.
The Supreme Court made a constitutional ruling (meaning it can't be overturned except by constitutional amendment; Congress and the Executive are powerless to change it themselves) in 1967 that US citizenship cannot be lost involuntarily.
"The very nature of our free government makes it completely incongruous to have a rule of law under which a group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship. We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to, and does, protect every citizen of this Nation against a congressional forcible destruction of his citizenship, whatever his creed, color, or race. Our holding does no more than to give to this citizen that which is his own, a constitutional right to remain a citizen in a free country unless he voluntarily relinquishes that citizenship."
Great info, thanks! Are you a lawyer?
...and furthermore, a passport is not required for travel: this is merely an international convention and can be waived and changed at any time.
No. At some point around 99/2000 I read Harry Blackmun's dissent in Callins and started on a path to a sophisticated layman's understanding of various areas of law through self-study, particularly constitutional issues.
Law school has always been a someday-maybe, but the more I see how it turns so many people into inhumane robots obsessed with the letter of the law instead of its spirit, the less motivated I am.
> Law school has always been a someday-maybe, but the more I see how it turns so many people into inhumane robots obsessed with the letter of the law instead of its spirit, the less motivated I am.
I don't think law school does that to people, I think that people that are oriented that way are a significant subset of the people attracted to law school.
It is entirely up to a country whether they recognise you as a citizen or not and there's no international limit on them. You could, depending on the country, collect as many as you want.
As I type this, I breathe an immense sigh of relief. It's odd that Snowden, a man I hardly know, influences me that much. It's the feeling I get when I think of the founding fathers and their sacrifice and how it paid off after a long and difficult struggle.
I don't know if it will pay off for the United States, but bravo to Snowden for standing up and doing something apart from signing online "petitions."