Edward Snowden Issues Statement From Moscow, Slams Obama

The Zero Hedge ^ | July 1, 2013 | Tyler Durden

[SatinDoll]

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

Edward Joseph Snowden

Monday 1st July 2013

[mylife]

Google is watching, the local grocer is watching, the bank is watching.
Why is anyone surprised?
The Auto manufacturers and Insurance company’s are monitoring your driving.
You monitor your kids and think it’s a great idea to have a GPS in their phone and pay someone to spy on them.
Now there is one in YOUR phone

Nobody gives a flying flip about the wife asking you to pick up some OJ on the way home.

There must be a certain level of surveillance.
Blind eyes don’t work to well.

[mylife]

There are safeguards.

[Revolting cat!]

Google and the grocery store and the credit bureaus, all three of them, are watching you because they want to sell you something. They don’t get much luck with me, I can tell you, maybe with you they’re not wasting their precious resources, I dunno, but the gummint watches us to know how we vote, how we’re going to vote, when and where we’re going to protest and how. A subtle difference for some, I suppose.

[mylife]

I suppose you think rogue agents might pop off some nukes at any second if we don’t get rid of them?

Better get rid of all those guns.
Innocents are getting mowed down by the 10’s of thousands.

I don’t know what is going on with this Snowden guy and Obama.
I don’t think any of us will EVER know.

I have concerns just like you, but I don’t think this Snowden guy passes the smell test.

[fireman15]

....if you cant accept the security of the Country comes first and you are unwilling to have this traitor make his case under the rule of law..then I simply cannot suffer such foolishness..

So you actually believe that collecting “metadata” on every law abiding citizen in the country and recording every phone call, email, and every other form of electronic communication makes the country more secure? Because that is where we are headed with this thing. Because I do not believe that mindlessly accepting this unimaginable violation of our 4th amendment rights makes any of us more secure.

Exponentially increasing the amount of data collected on absolutely everyone does not make it easier for law enforcement, intelligence agencies, or the military to do their jobs. Massive amounts of data is no substitute for common sense and good intelligence or police work. What massive amounts of data is useful for is oppressing political opponents. We have seen in other recent scandals that Obama and his cronies are willing to use data collected by government agencies against their political opponents... and they already have.

Your position is not that of a conservative who believes in the constitution and opposes tyranny. It has more in common with low information Obama supporters.

[mylife]

I am on so many “lists” it is ridiculous, and I am a law abiding citizen.

[Revolting cat!]

I’d like to see my FBI file and have a good laugh!

[justa-hairyape]

Did you read the part where he proved to the world that Obama is a lying scumbag ?

[mylife]

It would probably bore you to tears.

[eclecticEel]

Wonder who wrote that statement for him? This guy is a puppet.

If someone ghostwrote a statement for him I would certainly hope to get a better composition than this. No, I have no doubt that he wrote this himself.

[mylife]

If you are on FReerepublic, you probably made a list.
I you said something in anger on the forum you probably made another list.
Own guns?
You made a list.

Made a threat? OH! you are on a list.

[fireman15]

There are safeguards.

Like the secret courts that have approved virtually every request from every analyst? The only true safeguard we have is the sense of right and wrong of those individuals that make up our intelligence organizations and their commitment to follow the constitution. The problem is that as our society has “advanced” these past few decades people's sense of right and wrong has been blurred to the point where their judgment may not be what you think that it is.

[mylife]

My point is that only the last thing is a crime.
All those other things are inactionable from a legal standpoint

I want to know who has all the pics of the republicans doinking goats, and who is twisting who’s arm.
We will never know.

Who is Biden messing with on gun control?

[Irish Rose]

Kind of melodramatic, I think.

He complains about Obama violating his basic human right to seek asylum; someone should introduce him to the basic legal concept of extradition. What’s happening to him isn’t some crazy break with the law, nor is it an old tool of “political aggression”.

Of course, in addition to depriving him of his right to asylum, he also thinks they’re imposing on him “the extralegal penalty of exile”. And - well, does the contradiction have to be pointed out?

[mylife]

You think they are gonna spill their bag of tricks to the public?
If they do, they spill it to the the Russkies too.

Snowden sure seems cozy with them and the Chicoms.
I don’t even think this is about surveillance.
This is about politics.

Just an opinion.

[cynwoody]

Note the format of the date: "1st July 2013."

The English do that. They use DMY order, and they sometimes spell out the ordinal day, whereas US usage is MDY with the ordinal spoken but almost never written.

The Germans write 1. Juli 2013, where the period is not a decimal point but an ordinal indicator. The Russians write it 1 июля 2013 (DMY, no written ordinal). In Spanish, it's 01 de julio 2013 (1[st] of July 2013).

My guess as to ghostwriter: Englishwoman Sarah Harrison, who works with the WikiLeaks legal defense team and is traveling with Snowden.

[mylife]

The only true safeguard we have is the sense of right and wrong of those individuals that make up our intelligence organizations and their commitment to follow the constitution.

Well, you know something?

A lot of good conservatives just couldn't hold their nose over McCain and Romney and now the entire Gov is stacked deep with Obama's people.

[onyx]

No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

He's right.

[Revolting cat!]

Yep, it is about politics and the trust that the populace has for the government. That’s in my opinion the motivation of Bush’s when he spoke up today. The establishment must protect its interests.

We’ll never know the damage, if any, that Snowden’s disclosures caused national security, if they even could be measured. But trust in government has been seriously damaged, and the Establishment is in panic mode.

[mylife]

“now the entire Gov is stacked deep with Obama’s people.”
DOJ is a prime example.
EPA too.

How’s that workin’ out for us?