SNOWDEN WOULDN'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID
Posted on 07/01/2013 8:08:44 PM PDT by 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
I think that is just what is going on.
Obama walks away scot free, thakes a little side trip to Africa and the people hate the Gov.
Nothin sticks to this guy.
You have got that right!
Ya gotta pick yer battles.
I was a cryptanalyst and linguist while in the Navy (1980 - 1986), and was assigned to programs for NSA. Part of our training emphasized that we were not to copy or listen to the conversations of U.S. citizens. To do so required a warrant, and we were just searching bandwidths looking for foreign comms.
Our training emphasized that we took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, including the rights of its citizens. Any illegal orders were to be reported.
My education included the history of WWII during the 1960s. The Nuremburg trials weren’t so far in the past, the late 1940s. Because of those trials, people were hanged for “following orders” that resulted in war crimes.
Go to Nachumlist.com, and see the dead associated with BHO2. Breitbart wasn’t the first, and Hastings will not be the last.
Melodramatic? I think not. Snowden has no doubt read history, and is familiar with the U.S.Constitution.
“...trust in government has been seriously damaged...”
They have no one but themselves to blame.
Thanks for speaking up. Likewise, I can't stand the revisionist trash that comes from the Lost Causers.
Great comment... agree, anyone bucking Obama and Juan McCain must be doing something right.
Snowden is a patriot and freedom fighter speaking truth to power. I hope Wiki or any viable protectors can help save his life. The list og dead people around This regime grows every day.
Should Snowden go to the same court that just invalidated. a State Referendum on marriage?
Right on the money. There actually is movement to tax and thus control the internet. Look for the ‘government elites’ to step up those efforts.
Oh stop...Who do ya think rolled out the Patriotic Act which set up the Bill of Rights as a target?
Delusional?
So says a proponent of the NEW WORLD ORDER.
No offense, but I’ve never trusted you...Ever.
So says a regular guy.
Amazing seeing this on FR... people willing to give up their privacy, rights and freedom to the government.
God bless you SatinDoll... you are a true and HONEST Patriot. I take comfort in the FACT there are millions of Patriots in this country. Those who seek to destroy our rights and freedom should be forewarned, it will not go without a fight.
Your training sounds like very good policy to me. I’m not sure what has been going on in the NSA lately. Frankly, it would not surprise me if Obama has been abusing its surveillance programs, like he has abused other things. And if he has, I do not mind someone being the whistle-blower.
But if you are going to play the whistle-blower, wouldn’t it be better to do it on Capitol Hill than in Hong Kong? You were trained to report illegal orders within our own government, not run off to a Communist-controlled nation and publicize the problem from there.
And what I really can’t understand is this: Why did he leak America’s intelligence operations against China?
Snowden, in this statement, is also throwing around psuedo-legal jabberwocky: extralegal penalty, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, judicial order.
You want to say: Look, Edward, the president of the United States has never needed a judicial order to ask other nations not to grant somebody asylum. And: Look, Edward, unlike the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, extradition has been around pretty much forever. Seeking to extradite someone is not “using citizenship as a weapon”.
The man claims to be acting in defense of the Constitution, but reading this statement leaves me wondering if he understands it.
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