Does ACAB include Edward Snowden?
2026-06-09 11:50 UTC
Replies (13)
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@zurchpet@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 12:02
yes
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@silentjohn@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 12:38
Seeing as he is one of the most famous whistleblowers out there, no.
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@stoicEuropean@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 13:14
Thats a brilliant question. I might be in the minority here, but one thing I’ve always wrestled with is whether ACAB is best understood as a critique of an institution or as a judgment of every individual within that group. Personally for me, the strongest argument has always been the institutional one. I have deep criticisms or even hatred of how police power is (ab)used, of the historical role in protecting existing power structures, and of the ways in which accountability regularly fails. At the same time, I’m less convinced that every individual who wears a badge is equally malicious or equally committed to those structures. Some actively reinforce them, some passively uphold them, and some try, with varying degrees of success, to mitigate harm from within. My best friends father is serving as a police officer here in Germany, and he is as left as it gets. He became a cop bc “that’s where the change needs to happen”. He’s openly anti-racist, supports refugees, is active in labor and union issues, has privately attended demonstrations against far-right groups, and has never been shy about criticizing police misconduct, especially if it’s about his very own colleagues. That’s why the Edward Snowden question is so interesting. If someone works within a coercive state institution, but then exposes wrongdoing at enormous personal cost, does that tell us something about the institution, the individual, or both? So I’d say: I see the police as one of the biggest problems of our societies. Comes right after the fight against climate change and the fight against capitalism. But IMO it’s wrong to say ACAB, bc it’s every individuals action that should decide over their fate. Feel free to argue with me, since I’m open to changing my mind. I’m wondering whether our criticism becomes sharper when it’s aimed primarily at systems or structures, rather than pointing at the individuals.
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@electric_nan@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 13:43
It applied when he was a cop, yes.
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@pH3ra@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 13:55
A cop AND a snitch…
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@eldavi@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 14:28
he’s one of those fabled good apples in the bunch – one of the cops who report the other cops – and the rotten ones in the bunch (aka the 99.99%) are trying to arrest him.
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@communism@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 16:28
He’s not a cop anymore is he?
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@yenahmik@lemmy.world 2026-06-09 13:04
Was he ever a cop? I thought he was a software engineer…
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@bountygiver@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 19:10
If anything he is more of a proof why ACAB, if you try to do the right thing they will get you, therefore good cops cannot exist
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@ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 21:44
I was just about to answer thinking you meant Robert Pattinson in Twilight
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@dropdrip@lemmy.ml 2026-06-09 23:29
He blew the whistle because the surveillance apparatus was surveilling Americans; everyone else was fair game. The complete rejection he suffered from the Americans might’ve morphed into “mass surveillance is generically bad”, which now catches non-Americans too, but he’s an American dog who got a fright when he saw the reality outside propaganda reels. The system continues unabated. ACAB.
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@Little_mouse@lemmy.ca 2026-06-09 16:26
Imagine a good cop, if you can. They will have to exist in a system which I think we can all agree is corrupt to the point that it cannot be repaired. They have a choice, they can silently watch as justice is applied unevenly. Allowing their coworkers to steal and murder with next to no oversight. This would (I feel) mean that ACAB applies to them just as much as anyone else. Or they can try to do something about it, try to fight the system through direct action or documenting/exposing the bad cops for the media. Almost always the result of trying to reform the police system from within is expulsion (one way or another) from the police. If the police excise any good cops from their own ranks, then you are again left with ACAB being satisfied. Edward Snowden is an example of the police identifying and elimination any good cops from their own ranks to ensure that ACAB still stands.
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@the_wizard_of_0Z@lemmy.ca 2026-06-21 08:51
he is a anonymous_leaker… in country that makes you dirty and turns you into a stinker. Yet if he was silent it would of been deadly.