Hello. My name is Ed Snowden.

12 July 2013

Hello. My name is Ed Snowden.

A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort.

I also had the capability, without any warrant, to search for, seize, and read your communications.

Anyone’s communications at any time.

That is the power to change people’s fates.

It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done.

The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.

Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president’s plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.

Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.

I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future. With, for example, the grant of asylum provided by Venezuela’s President Maduro, my asylee status is now formal, and no state has a basis by which to limit or interfere with my right to enjoy that asylum. As we have seen, however, some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today. This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights.

This willingness by powerful states to act extra-legally represents a threat to all of us, and must not be allowed to succeed. Accordingly, I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as these states accede to law and my legal travel is permitted. I will be submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be accepted favorably.

If you have any questions, I will answer what I can.

Thank you.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/12/edward-snowden-full-statement-moscow

Well Anti I am a big fan of your postings.  I agree with everything you say in this one, all but the part about Snowden being a hero.
 
He is a traitor
 
He admitted that he sought a job with the NSA in order to collect information about the United States’ surveillance activities.  It indicates that Snowden had a plan from the beginning to collect information on U.S. surveillance and to expose that information to the world.  Snowden admitted to planning the break-in, he also admitted to the preconceived notion of releasing the information. This self-admission defines the acts of a traitor and not those of a concerned citizen.  
 
True civil disobedience means being willing to go to jail and pay the consequences for your actions.  Our forefathers were willing to die for their beliefs.
 
It is time that we start seeing Snowden for what he truly is, a rogue with an axe grind and secrets to share. He took his secrets (4 laptops full) to the international press other super powers.  I am not naive enough to believe that China and Russia doesn't have copies of any real secrets he stole.
 
Now compared to the NSA and our government in this matter, he is the good guy, but still a traitor.
 
I would suggest its time more people start seeing Congress for what it is: a completely corrupt and unreliable guardian of the public trust infested with party lackeys who serve their own ambitions first and foremost.  The Constitution is supposed to protect the states and the people from the federal government.  Our government willingly and purposefully operated in contradiction to our Constitution.  We the people should be outraged and demand swift and immediate change.  Unfortunately, political hacks are not limited to government.

Outerlimits wrote:True civil disobedience means being willing to go to jail and pay the consequences for your actions.  Our forefathers were willing to die for their beliefs.

Let's see...

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Snowden has already sacrificed his honor and fortune.

He is broke, stateless, bank accounts seized, passports revoked, all without being convicted of any crime whatsoever.

His life is certainly in jeopardy.

All because he laid out, before a candid world, the actions of this corrupt and lawless government.

4 laptops of secrets? I wish he had 4000, chock full of the sordid details, the spying, the assassinations, the dirty nameless wars, the drug running, the money laundering, the funding of terrorists, the regime toppling...

By every measure to my eye, he is a hero.

Anti Federalist wrote:

4 laptops of secrets? I wish he had 4000, chock full of the sordid details, the spying, the assassinations, the dirty nameless wars, the drug running, the money laundering, the funding of terrorists, the regime toppling...

By every measure to my eye, he is a hero.

At Senator John Tower's Commission--using far less information-- hundreds in Marxist countries were executed.

I doubt that Snowden knows everything he'd downloaded in those computers.

People will die.

News Hawk wrote:

Anti Federalist wrote:

4 laptops of secrets? I wish he had 4000, chock full of the sordid details, the spying, the assassinations, the dirty nameless wars, the drug running, the money laundering, the funding of terrorists, the regime toppling...

By every measure to my eye, he is a hero.

At Senator John Tower's Commission--using far less information-- hundreds in Marxist countries were executed.

I doubt that Snowden knows everything he'd downloaded in those computers.

People will die.

No doubt...just tell me again, who are the Marxists?

You see, part of the hollering I've done all my life over this, includes not justifying the means by the ends.

In other words, do not become what you hate in order to try and fight it.

In the case of the late great United States, we became Marxists to fight the Marxists.

Not very smart, now was it?

1) Actually, it may not have been the Tower Commission, but the Church Commission. A quote from Wikipedia shows how Liberals--like Frank Church--"think":

"So the last service the doves can perform for their country, is to insist that President Nixon's withdrawal program truly leads to a "Vietnamization" of the war. It must not become a device for lowering — and then perpetuating — an American military presence in South Vietnam for the indefinite future. Our long ordeal in this mistaken war must end. The gathering crisis in our own land, the deepening divisions among our people, the festering, unattended problems here at home, bear far more importantly on the future of our Republic than anything we ever had at stake in Indochina."
”

Separating himself from the doves and referring to "The Republic"  innoculates himself from a war that he originally supported.

(Like Hillary! for the war against Saddam).

2) As to Marxist, you may have missed my earlier Signature:

"They're Marxists. Don't call them Democrats."

“Come Back and Be Killed, Ed!”

Butler Shaffer at 01:00 am EDT on July 28, 2013

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/come-back-and-be-killed-ed/

I am so weary of that gaggle of the intellectually and morally bankrupt who believes that they are uttering something profound when, in discussing Ed Snowden’s plight, recite the statist mantra: “just come home and face the music, Ed; don’t run away like a coward; come back to America and state your case.” This is no more than a cowardly evasion on their part; an unwillingness to stand in defense of a courageous man who did what they are too fainthearted to ever think of doing: challenging the playground bully. At a time when the American state insists upon knowing every conceivable detail of everyone’s lives, men like Snowden, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and other whistle-blowers, are condemned by the statist grovelers for informing the public of the state’s secrets.

I wonder if these politicians and media babblers would have equally condemned the likes of Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Ludwig von Mises, Karl Popper, Max Born, Thomas Mann, et al., for leaving Nazi Germany and going to other countries. “Come on, Albert, just go back to Hitler and state your case; it’s all ‘relative’ anyway, isn’t it?” Would they also have heaped praise on the neighbors who squealed to the Gestapo where Anne Frank’s family was hiding?

Comment on the Web:

"Obama made sure that Snowden has been forced to defect to Russia where Putin will relive him of all the NSA secrets he has with him. Obama prevented Snowden from seeking asylum in Iceland and other decent places where USA-NSA secrets would have been safe even if Snowden used some as bargaining chips

Look how the CIA is following Obama orders to keep the Benghazi survivors away from congressmen who want to talk to them. The treachery and treason is pervasive in this regime.


One day we will find out that Valerie Jarrett was behind a lot of this treason and criminal activity"

Valerie Jarrett's Official Title:

"Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs."

 

Even more shocking is her corrupt Chicago background—found here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/obamas_strange_dependence_on_valerie_jarrett.html#ixzz2b4vnT9UU

News Hawk wrote:

When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked the existence of a massive spying program siphoning up Americans' personal phone records earlier this year, President Obama declared: "I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy."

Shortly thereafter, his administration revoked Snowden's passport and hit him with Espionage Act charges
http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-thinks-americans-dont-need-to-know/article/2533908?custom_click=rss

I'm sure you can imagine my shock.

You know, my ??!! WTF??!!  supply has run pretty low these past few years.

'Think the bloom is off the rose?

News Hawk wrote:Now that Obama is "more flexible"...

"A Swedish sociology professor has nominated Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that awarding the former NSA employee would correct Nobel Committee’s mistake in giving the award to President Barack Obama in 2009."

So Snowden can join Nobel Prize winners, Arafat, Carter, Gore, and Obama.