(Translated From German Site)
By Gregor Peter Schmitz
Former US President Jimmy Carter has in the wake of the NSA spying scandal the American political system severely criticized. “America has currently no functioning democracy,” Carter said Tuesday at a meeting of the “Atlantik-Brücke” in Atlanta.
Previously Democrat had been very critical about the practices of the US intelligence services. “I think the invasion of privacy has gone too far,” said Carter to CNN. “And I think that the secrecy that has been excessive.” Overlooking the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden , Carter said, whose revelations are in the long term “probably useful,” because they inform the public.
Carter has repeatedly warned that the United States too much limiting of civil rights lost its moral authority. Last year he wrote a post in the “New York Times”, new U.S. laws allowed the “unprecedented violation of our privacy by the Government”.
Carter was the 39th President of the United States, he ruled from 1977 to 1981. During his tenure, he tried to align the US foreign policy more human rights – after retiring from active politics he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work in 2002.
He was in Atlanta also overall pessimistic about the global situation. There is currently no reason for optimism for him, said Carter and drew attention to the situation in Egypt, which had fallen back into a military dictatorship. He lamented the growing political division in the United States, the excessive influence of money in U.S. election campaigns, and the bewildering American electoral rules. The ex-President, whose “Carter Center” operates, among other worldwide election observation were skeptical, whether the United States met the standards that sets the Center with validation of elections.
As a ray of hope, Carter, however, called the triumph of modern technology that had created a democratic progress in the countries of the Arab spring. Exactly these developments to be endangered by the NSA spying scandal but, as major US Internet platforms such as Google or Facebook this worldwide lose credibility.