Edward Snowden, American Hero

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Edward Snowden's father writes open letter to NSA whistleblower in Moscow
Lon Snowden pens open letter with his attorney in response to a statement issued by his son Edward Snowden from Moscow

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 July 2013 16.42 EDT

Edward Snowden has been caught in legal limbo in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since his arrival from Hong Kong. Photograph: Sergei Grits/AP
Here is the text of the open letter Lon Snowden, along with his attorney, Bruce Fein, wrote to US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. The letter was provided to the Associated Press.

July 2, 2013

Edward Joseph Snowden

Moscow

Dear Edward:

I, Bruce Fein, am writing this letter in collaboration with your father in response to the statement you issued yesterday in Moscow.

Thomas Paine, the voice of the American Revolution, trumpeted that a patriot saves his country from his government.

What you have done and are doing has awakened congressional oversight of the intelligence community from deep slumber; and, has already provoked the introduction of remedial legislation in Congress to curtail spying abuses under section 215 of the Patriot Act and section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. You have forced onto the national agenda the question of whether the American people prefer the right to be left alone from government snooping absent probable cause to believe crime is afoot to vassalage in hopes of a risk-free existence. You are a modern day Paul Revere summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny and one branch government.

In contrast to your actions, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper responded last March as follows to an unambiguous question raised by Senator Ron Wyden:

"Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Clapper testified, "No sir, it does not." Wyden asked for clarification, and Clapper hedged: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."

Director Clapper later defended his stupendous mendacity to the Senator as the least untruthful answer possible. President Obama has not publicly rebuked the Director for frustrating the right of the people to know what their government is doing and to force changes if necessary through peaceful democratic processes. That is the meaning of government by the consent of the governed. "We the people" are sovereign under the U.S. Constitution, and government officials are entrusted with stewardship (not destruction) of our liberties.

We leave it to the American people to decide whether you or Director Clapper is the superior patriot.

The history of civilization is a history of brave men and women refusing to bow to government wrongdoing or injustice, and exalting knowledge, virtue, wisdom, and selflessness over creature comforts as the North Star of life. We believe your actions fall within that honorable tradition, a conviction we believe is shared by many.

As regards your reduction to de facto statelessness occasioned by the Executive Branch to penalize your alleged violations of the Espionage Act, the United States Supreme Court lectured in Trop v. Dulles (1958): "The civilized nations of the world are in virtual unanimity that statelessness is not to be imposed as punishment for crime."

We think you would agree that the final end of the state is to make men and women free to develop their faculties, not to seek planetary domination through force, violence or spying. All Americans should have a fair opportunity to pursue their ambitions. Politics should not be a football game with winners and losers featuring juvenile taunts over fumbles or missteps.

Irrespective of life's vicissitudes, we will be unflagging in efforts to educate the American people about the impending ruination of the Constitution and the rule of law unless they abandon their complacency or indifference. Your actions are making our challenge easier.

We encourage you to engage us in regular exchanges of ideas or thoughts about approaches to curing or mitigating the hugely suboptimal political culture of the United States. Nothing less is required to pay homage to Valley Forge, Cemetery Ridge, Omaha Beach, and other places of great sacrifice.

Very truly yours,

Bruce Fein

Counsel for Lon Snowden

Lon Snowden

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Nigel Beale ‏@nigelbeale 2h
RT “@MartinxHodgson: Obama "not scrambling jets" to find #Snowden. Merely closin Euro airspace, detaining president! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ju ... ane-vienna …”

WHY EUROPEAN NATIONS MUST PROTECT EDWARD SNOWDEN
PUBLISHED ON WEDNESDAY 3 JULY 2013.
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The general secretary of Reporters Without Borders Christophe Deloire, and WikiLeaks foundator Julian Assange co-sign today an Op-Ed in Le Monde to call out the states of the European Union to protect Edward Snowden.

On October 12, 2012, the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize for contributing to the “advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.” The EU should show itself worthy of this honor and show its will to defend freedom of information, regardless of fears of political pressure from its so-called closest ally, the United States.

Now that Edward Snowden, the young American who revealed the global monitoring system known as Prism, has requested asylum from 20 countries, the EU nations should extend a welcome, under whatever law or status seems most appropriate.

Although the United States remains a world leader in upholding the ideal of freedom of expression, the American attitude toward whistleblowers sullies the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In 2004, the UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression, as well as his counterparts in the Organization of American States and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe issued a joint call to all governments to protect whistleblowers from all “legal, administrative or employment-related sanctions if they act in ‘good faith.’” Whistleblowers were defined as “individuals releasing confidential or secret information although they are under an official or other obligation to maintain confidentiality or secrecy.”

More recently, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe resolved in 2010 that, “the definition of protected disclosures shall include all bona fide warnings against various types of unlawful acts.” The Assembly’s Resolution 1729 concluded that member countries’ laws “should therefore cover both public and private sector whistle-blowers, including members of the armed forces and special services.”

Some are calling for a manhunt for Snowden on the grounds that he is a traitor, and others are trying to cloak the issues he raised in legalistic complexities. But what serious person can deny that Edward Snowden is a whistleblower?

The digital communications specialist’s revelations have enabled the international press, including the Washington Post, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel, to shine a light on a surveillance system that tracks tens of millions of citizens, Europeans among them.

Targeted by an apparatus that threatens their sovereignty as well as their principles, the EU countries owe Snowden a debt of gratitude for his revelations, which were clearly in the public interest.

This young man will remain abandoned in the transit zone of the Moscow airport only if the European countries abandon their principles, as well as a major part of the raison d’être of the EU. Expressions of diplomatic outrage will be empty gestures if the person responsible for the revelations is left isolated and abandoned.

Beyond the necessity of providing a legal shield for whistleblowers, the protection of privacy is a matter of clear public interest, especially in the realm of freedom of information. Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, noted in a report last June that “arbitrary and unlawful infringements of the right to privacy...threaten the protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”

The confidentiality of written and oral exchanges is essential to ensuring the exercise of freedom of information. But when journalists’ sources are compromised, as happened in the case of The Associated Press; when the United States abuses the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that has been invoked a total of nine times against whistleblowers, six of these cases under the Obama administration; when the government tries to silence WikiLeaks by imposing a financial embargo on the organization and by subjecting associates and friends of Julian Assange to abusive searches when they enter the United States, when the site’s founder and his colleagues are threatened with U.S. prosecution, more than American democracy is threatened.

Indeed, the very model of democracy that the heirs of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are responsible for upholding has been robbed of its essence.

By what right is the United States exempt from principles that it demands be applied elsewhere?

In January, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a historic speech in which she defined freedom of expression as a cornerstone of American diplomacy. She reiterated that position in February, 2011, in another speech in which she said that “on the spectrum of internet freedom, we place ourselves on the side of openness.”

Eloquent words. They may have brought encouragement to dissidents in Tehran, Beijing, Havana, Asmara, Ashgabat, Moscow and so many other capitals. But how disappointing to find that the skyscrapers of American surveillance have reached a size to match China’s technological Great Wall.

The White House and State Department message of democracy and defence of human rights has lost considerable credibility. One sign of widespread concern – Amazon has reported a 6,000% increase in sales of the George Orwell classic, 1984.

Now, with Big Brother watching us from a Washington suburb, the key institutions of American democracy must play their assigned roles of counterweight to the executive branch and its abuses. The system of checks and balances is more than a slogan for avid readers of Tocqueville and Montesquieu.

American leaders should realize the glaring contradiction between their soaring odes to freedom and the realities of official actions, which damage the image of their country.

Members of Congress must be capable of holding back the tide of security provisions of the Patriot Act by recognizing the legitimate rights of men and women who sound the alarm. The Whistleblower Protection Act must be amended to ensure effective protection for whistleblowers who act in the public interest – an interest completely separate from immediate national concerns as intelligence services interpret them.

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Index on Censorship calls on the EU to protect whistleblowers’ right to freedom of expression
03 Jul 2013
Following reports that some European countries have prevented a plane carrying the Bolivian President Evo Morales into their airspace, Index on Censorship calls on EU members to honour their commitments to freedom of expression.

Index CEO Kirsty Hughes said:

“Members of the EU have a duty to protect freedom of expression and should not interfere in an individual’s rights to seek asylum. Edward Snowden is a whistleblower whose free speech rights should be protected not criminalised.”

James Clapper, EU play-acting, and political priorities
Fixations on denouncing Edward Snowden distract, by design, from the serious transgressions of those who are far more powerful

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 July 2013 09.34 EDT


National intelligence director James Clapper: under fire. Photograph: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The NSA revelations continue to expose far more than just the ongoing operations of that sprawling and unaccountable spying agency. Let's examine what we have learned this week about the US political and media class and then certain EU leaders.

The first NSA story to be reported was our June 6 article which exposed the bulk, indiscriminate collection by the US Government of the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. Ever since then, it has been undeniably clear that James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, outright lied to the US Senate - specifically to the Intelligence Committee, the body charged with oversight over surveillance programs - when he said "no, sir" in response to this question from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

That Clapper mislead Congress is beyond dispute. The DNI himself has now been forced by our stories to admit that his statement was, in his words, "clearly erroneous" and to apologize. But he did this only once our front-page revelations forced him to do so: in other words, what he's sorry about is that he got caught lying to the Senate. And as Salon's David Siorta adeptly documented on Friday, Clapper is still spouting falsehoods as he apologizes and attempts to explain why he did it.

How is this not a huge scandal? Intentionally deceiving Congress is a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison for each offense. Reagan administration officials were convicted of misleading Congress as part of the Iran-contra scandal and other controversies, and sports stars have been prosecuted by the Obama DOJ based on allegations they have done so.

Beyond its criminality, lying to Congress destroys the pretense of oversight. Obviously, members of Congress cannot exercise any actual oversight over programs which are being concealed by deceitful national security officials.

In response to our first week of NSA stories, Wyden issued a statement denouncing these misleading statements, explaining that the Senate's oversight function "cannot be done responsibly if senators aren't getting straight answers to direct questions", and calling for "public hearings" to "address the recent disclosures and the American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives". Those people who have been defending the NSA programs by claiming there is robust Congressional oversight should by leading the chorus against Clapper, given that his deceit prevents the very oversight they invoke to justify these programs.

But Clapper isn't the only top national security official who has been proven by our NSA stories to be fundamentally misleading the public and the Congress about surveillance programs. As an outstanding Washington Post article by Greg Miller this week documented:

"[D]etails that have emerged from the exposure of hundreds of pages of previously classified NSA documents indicate that public assertions about these programs by senior US officials have also often been misleading, erroneous or simply false."

Please re-read that sentence. It's not just Clapper, but multiple "senior US officials", whose statements have been proven false by our reporting and Edward Snowden's disclosures. Indeed, the Guardian previously published top secret documents disproving the claims of NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander that the agency is incapable of stating how many Americans are having their calls and emails invaded without warrants, as well as the oft-repeated claim from President Barack Obama that the NSA is not listening in on Americans' calls without warrants. Both of those assertions, as our prior reporting and Miller's article this week demonstrates, are indisputably false.

Beyond that, the NSA got caught spreading falsehoods even in its own public talking points about its surveillance programs, and were forced by our disclosures to quietly delete those inaccuracies. Wyden and another Democratic Senator, Mark Udall, wrote a letter to the NSA identifying multiple inaccuracies in their public claims about their domestic spying activities.

Defending the Obama administration, Paul Krugman pronounced that "the NSA stuff is a policy dispute, not the kind of scandal the right wing wants." Really? In what conceivable sense is this not a serious scandal? If you, as an American citizen, let alone a journalist, don't find it deeply objectionable when top national security officials systematically mislead your representatives in Congress about how the government is spying on you, and repeatedly lie publicly about resulting political controversies over that spying, what is objectionable? If having the NSA engage in secret, indiscriminate domestic spying that warps if not outright violates legal limits isn't a "scandal", then what is?

For many media and political elites, the answer to that question seems clear: what's truly objectionable to them is when powerless individuals blow the whistle on deceitful national security state officials. Hence the endless fixation on Edward Snowden's tone and choice of asylum providers, the flamboyant denunciations of this "29-year-old hacker" for the crime of exposing what our government leaders are doing in the dark, and all sorts of mockery over the drama that resulted from the due-process-free revocation of his passport. This is what our media stars and progressive columnists, pundits and bloggers are obsessing over in the hope of distracting attention away from the surveillance misconduct of top-level Obama officials and their serial deceit about it.

What kind of journalist - or citizen - would focus more on Edward Snowden's tonal oddities and travel drama than on the fact that top US officials have been deceitfully concealing a massive, worldwide spying apparatus being constructed with virtually no accountability or oversight? Just ponder what it says about someone who cares more about, and is angrier about, Edward Snowden's exposure of these facts than they are about James Clapper's falsehoods and the NSA's excesses.

What we see here, yet again, is this authoritarian strain in US political life that the most powerful political officials cannot commit crimes or engage in serious wrongdoing. The only political crimes come from exposing and aggressively challenging those officials.

How is it anything other than pure whistleblowing to disclose secret documents proving that top government officials have been systematically deceiving the public about vital matters and/or skirting if not violating legal and Constitutional limits? And what possible justification is there for supporting the ability of James Clapper to continue in his job despite what he just got caught doing?

EU Leaders

Then we come to the leaders of various EU states. These leaders spent the last week feigning all sorts of righteous indignation over revelations that the NSA was using extreme measures to spy indiscriminately not only on the communications of their citizens en masse but also on their own embassies and consulates - things they learned thanks to Edward Snowden's self-sacrificing choice to reveal to the world what he discovered inside the NSA.

But on Friday night, the governments of three of those countries - France, Spain and Portugal - abruptly withdrew overflight rights for an airplane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales, who was attempting to fly home from a conference in Russia. That conduct forced a diversion of Morales' plan to Austria, where he remained for 13 hours before being able to leave this morning.

These EU governments did that because they suspected - falsely, it now seems - that Morales' plane was also carrying Snowden: the person who enabled them to learn of the NSA spying aimed at their citizens and themselves that they claim to find so infuriating. They wanted to physically prevent Bolivia from considering or granting Snowden's request for asylum, a centuries-old right in international law. Meanwhile, the German government - which has led the ritualistic condemnations of NSA spying that Snowden exposed - summarily rejected Snowden's application for asylum almost as soon as it hit their desks.

A 2013 report from Open Society documents that Spain and Portugal were among the nations who participated in various ways in rendition flights - ie kidnapping - by the US. In particular, the report found, "Spain has permitted use of its airspace and airports for flights associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations." Similarly, "Portugal has permitted use of its airspace and airports for flights associated with CIA extraordinary rendition operations." The French judiciary previously investigated reports that the French government knowingly allowed the CIA to use its airspace for renditions.

So these EU states are perfectly content to allow a country - when it's the US - to use their airspace to kidnap people from around the world with no due process. But they will physically stop a plane carrying the president of a sovereign state - when it's from Latin America - in order to subvert the well-established process for seeking asylum from political persecution (and yes: the US persecutes whistleblowers).

All of this smacks of exactly the kind of rank imperialism and colonialism that infuriates most of Latin America, and further exposes the emptiness of American and western European lectures about the sacred rule of law. This is rogue nation behavior. As human rights law professor Sarah Joseph put it:


As the Index on Censorship said to EU states this morning: "Members of the EU have a duty to protect freedom of expression and should not interfere in an individual's attempts to seek asylum. Edward Snowden is a whistleblower whose free speech rights should be protected not criminalised."

As usual, US officials and their acolytes who invoke "the law" to demand severe punishment for powerless individuals (Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning) instantly exploit the same concept to protect US political officials, their owners and their allies from the worst crimes: torture, warrantless eavesdropping, rendition, systemic financial fraud, deceiving Congress and the US public about their surveillance behavior. If you're spending your time calling for Ed Snowden's head but not James Clapper's, or if you're obsessed with Snowden's fabricated personality attributes (narcissist!) but apathetic about rampant, out-of-control NSA surveillance, it's probably worth spending a few moments thinking about what this priority scheme reveals.

Snowden Leaks Reveal American Trojan Horse in Europe

By William Pfaff

PARIS—I am surprised that in the Edward Snowden affair no one I’ve yet seen has quoted the American statesman Henry L. Stimson. He was twice (1911-‘13 and 1940-‘45) U.S. secretary of war (we had such a cabinet officer in an America less abandoned to hypocrisy) and once secretary of state (1929-‘33). In the last-named office, he closed down Washington’s post-World War I code-breaking service, saying “Gentlemen do not read others’ mail.” I suppose the difference between a time when the country was governed by gentlemen and the present day is so colossal as to make such a sentiment impossible to credit.

In France, and at the European Parliament, there is discussion about granting Edward Snowden political asylum in France or the E.U. (necessarily minus the U.K., given Britain’s longstanding collaboration with NSA communications interception), or to establish some form of internationally guaranteed asylum available to those persecuted in their own countries for having performed what internationally is regarded as an act of courageous public service.

Something like this is not entirely impossible. The government in Washington and much of Congress, the press and public opinion seem wholly to have failed to grasp the outrage of those nations, which believed themselves America’s close allies, at discovering the private communications of their entire populations, as well as of their governments, being systematically pillaged for personal, commercial, politico-economic and security advantage by the United States. Fleur Pellerin, French minister for the digital economy, said she was shocked by “generalized surveillance of populations—that’s an affair completely different from espionage; it’s much more serious.”

Not only was the intercept of European states’ communications cause for outrage, but these countries’ diplomatic premises in Washington, the United Nations and elsewhere being penetrated and bugged, as well as those of the E.U. in Brussels—supposedly protected from such actions by their allies through international “gentlemen’s” agreements. Moreover, to find that American corporations in the U.S. and Europe are obligated by American law since 2008 to hand over to the American authorities all information of foreign origin! The Europeans now are being warned that it still may not be too late to awaken from the sleepwalking (as Paris’ Le Monde newspaper quotes a European specialist) “towards the irreparable loss of sovereignty over all of its information stocked in [American-controlled or -penetrated] computer ‘clouds.’”

According to the information furnished by Edward Snowden to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Germans are the most spied-upon of all the European allies, with many million communications intercepted a day.

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The interceptions, according to the magazine, are made by equipment at the vast American military base near Frankfurt, and according to another report, by American-controlled communications facilities at NATO headquarters outside Brussels in Belgium. The German minister of justice, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said, “It is beyond imagination that our friends in the U.S. view Europeans as the enemy!” She described this as Cold War conduct, targeted this time at Europe. Elmar Brok, the German chairman of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said the spying “has reached dimensions that I did not think possible for a democratic country” The United States “has lost all balance.”
There have been many demands from officials, members of the European parliament and commentators that the negotiations for a transatlantic free-trade zone, scheduled to begin next week, be postponed or cancelled. How can one negotiate freely under these circumstances? One can argue that Europe would be better off without such an agreement when the other side’s conduct is demonstrably unscrupulous and predatory. Free-trade agreements have always been sought by Washington because the U.S. consistently benefits most from the access provided to others’ markets while indirectly blocking foreign access and withholding crucial domestic markets under federal and state “Buy American” laws, which govern more than 10 percent of the available U.S. market and are all but politically impossible to remove.

However, the gravest aspect of the Snowden revelations has been their demonstration of the vast exploitation and betrayal of America’s alliance relationships. If the U.S. spies on European governments from its enormous number of military installations or U.S.-controlled NATO facilities, the Europeans could well decide that they would be better off requiring these bases’ removal—as Gen. de Gaulle did in France in 1966, ordering the American military to leave France.

Even in the fantasy-case of a new Russian military threat to Europe, the Europeans would find themselves virtually as well-protected as they are now, since they are no longer dependent upon Russian energy supplies, and NATO today functions as a mere adjunct to the Pentagon, largely financed by Europeans. The U.S. could never afford, strategically or militarily, to abandon Europe to Russian (or any other) aggression. What Snowden has inadvertently done is to reveal to the world that NATO and the American military deployment, in Europe and elsewhere, together have become, with respect to America’s allies, a Trojan Horse.

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CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou’s Open Letter to Edward Snowden
By: Kevin Gosztola Tuesday July 2, 2013 4:06 pm


John Kirkiakou

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who is serving a thirty-month sentence in prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, has written another letter. It expresses support for former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has exposed secret US government surveillance programs and policies, and provided a glimpse of the ever-expanding massive surveillance apparatus the government has built.

Kiriakou was the first member of the CIA to publicly acknowledge that torture was official US policy under the administration of President George W. Bush. He was convicted in October of last year of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) when he provided the name of an officer involved in the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program to a reporter and sentenced in January of this year. He reported to prison on February 28 (which was also the day that Pfc. Bradley Manning pled guilty to some offenses and read a statement in military court at Fort Meade).

This is the second letter to be published by Firedoglake since Kiriakou went to prison. He sent it to his attorney, Jesselyn Radack, of the Government Accountability Project.

In the letter, Kiriakou offers advice to Snowden from his experience, suggesting that he “find the best national security attorneys money can buy.” He suggests establishing a website for supporters to follow his case, get his side of the story and make donations to support his defense.

Also, he declares, “You’re going to need the support of prominent Americans and groups who can explain to the public why what you did is so important.” He recommends reaching out to the American Civil Liberties Union, Government Accountability Project and other organizations like them who value individual freedoms and can advise him.

His “most important advice,” as he writes, is to “not, under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI.”

Based off experience, he adds, “FBI agents will lie, trick and deceive you. They will twist your words and play on your patriotism to entrap you.”

Kiriakou had spent his adult life working with the FBI. They asked him to come in for questioning in January 2012. He was willing to do anything to help. An hour into the interview, he realized he was the one under investigation. In fact, a search warrant was being executed on his house and, from that point forward right up until sentencing, the FBI followed him wherever he went tracking his every move, even when he was with his family.

According to Kiriakou, the FBI also tried to set him up. As he told Firedoglake before he was sentenced to prison:

In the summer of 2010, a foreign intelligence officer offered me cash in exchange for classified information. I turned down the pitch and I immediately reported it to the FBI. So, the FBI asked me to take the guy out to lunch and to ask him what information he wanted and how much information he was willing to give me for it. They were going to put two agents at a nearby table. They ended up canceling the two agents but they asked me to go ahead with the lunch so I did.

After the lunch, I wrote a long memo to the FBI — and I did this four or five times.It turns out – and we only learned this three or four weeks ago – there never was a foreign intelligence officer. It was an FBI agent pretending to be an intelligence officer and they were trying to set me up on an Espionage Act charge but I repeatedly reported the contact so I foiled them in their effort to set me up.

Snowden has mentioned Kiriakou. He considers him an example of “how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures.” He was aware of his case before he blew the whistle and it was a preview of what he needed to prepare for after his act of conscience.

In a previous letter, Kiriakou detailed his life in prison, including an incident in which prison officials attempted setup a confrontation between Kiriakou and a Muslim prisoner, telling Kiriakou he was the uncle of the Times Square bomber, when in reality the imam was in prison for refusing to testify in the Lackawanna Six case. Prison officials also lied to the Muslim prisoner, telling him that Kiriakou had called Washington after they met and had been ordered to kill him.

Firedoglake supports the right of prisoners like Kiriakou to exercise their First Amendment rights from within the walls of prison. It is unknown what retaliation, if any, Kiriakou has experienced as a result of his decision to begin writing “Letters from Loretto.” But, as an organization, we stand ready to support him if the Bureau of Prisons is subjecting him to mistreatment because he has chosen to be public about what he is experiencing in prison.

Below is the second “Letter from Loretto” from Kiriakou:

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“Letter From Loretto”

An Open Letter to Edward Snowden

Dear Ed:

Thank you for your revelations of government wrong-doing over the past week. You have done the country a great public service. I know that it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders right now, but as Americans begin to realize that we are devolving into a police state, with the loss of civil liberties that entails, they will see your actions for what they are: heroic. Remember the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” That is what’s happening to our country now. Your whistleblowing will help to save us.

I wanted to offer you the benefit of my own whistleblowing experience and aftermath so that you don’t make the same mistakes that I made.

First, find the best national security attorneys money can buy. I was blessed to be represented by legal titans and, although I was forced to take a plea in the end, the shortness of my sentence is a testament to their expertise.

Second, establish a website so that your supporters can follow your case, get your side of the story, and most importantly, make donations to support your defense.

Third, you’re going to need the support of prominent Americans and groups who can explain to the public why what you did is so important. Although most members of Congress are mindless lemmings following our national security leadership over a cliff, there are several clear thinkers on The Hill who could be important sources of support. Cultivate them. Reach out to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Government Accountability Project and others like them who value our individual freedoms and who can advise you.

Finally, and this is the most important advice that I can offer, DO NOT, under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI. FBI agents will lie, trick, and deceive you. They will twist your words and play on your patriotism to entrap you. They will pretend to be people they are not – supporters, well-wishers, and friends – all the while wearing wires to record your out-of-context statements to use against you. The FBI is the enemy; it’s a part of the problem, not the solution.

I wish you the very best of luck. I hope you can get to Iceland quickly and safely. There you will find a people and a government who care about the freedoms that we hold dear and for which our forefathers and veterans fought and died.

Sincerely,
John Kiriakou

–

John loves receiving your letters and responds to each one he gets. You may write to him at:

John Kiriakou, 79637-083
PO Box 1000
FCI Loretto
Loretto, PA
15940

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WikiLeaks Blasts U.S. for Leaving Snowden "Stateless" as NSA Leaker Withdraws Asylum Bid in Russia


Is Edward Snowden a Hero? A Debate with Journalist Chris Hedges & Law Scholar Geoffrey Stone

Glenn Greenwald: As Obama Makes "False" Surveillance Claims, Snowden Risks Life to Spark NSA Debate
TOPICS
Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, National Security Agency, Obama
GUESTS
Kristinn Hrafnsson, a spokesperson for WikiLeaks. He is an investigative journalist who was named Icelandic journalist of the year and best investigative journalist.

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Jun 14, 2013 | STORY
LINKS
WikiLeaks
“Statement From Edward Snowden in Moscow.”
Watch all Democracy Now! coverage of Edward Snowden
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National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has reportedly abandoned his effort to stay permanently in Russia, but has submitted asylum requests to 20 other countries. His decision comes one day after President Vladimir Putin said Snowden could only seek asylum in Russia if he stopped leaking U.S. secrets. When Snowden arrived in Russia last week, it was initially believed he was on his way to Ecuador, but that prospect is now in doubt. For more, we’re joined by Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesperson for WikiLeaks, which is assisting Snowden in his attempt to seek political asylum. Hrafnsson is a longtime investigative reporter who was named Icelandic journalist of the year three times.

Watch Part 2 of Interview

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AARON MATÉ: National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has reportedly abandoned his effort to permanently stay in Russia but has submitted asylum requests to 20 other countries. His decision comes one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Snowden could only seek asylum in Russia if he stopped leaking U.S. secrets.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] If he wants to go anywhere and someone will accept him, he is welcome. If he wishes to stay here, then we have one condition: He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners—although it sounds very strange coming from me. He positions himself as a fighter for human rights, and he is not going to stop this activity, so he has to choose the country for himself and go to it. When it will happen, I unfortunately do not know. If I knew, I would tell you.
AARON MATÉ: When Snowden arrived in Russia last week, it was initially believed he was on his way to Ecuador, but that prospect is in doubt. Speaking to The Guardian on Monday, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said a misunderstanding had wrongly fueled rumors Snowden was coming to Ecuador. Correa acknowledged Ecuador’s consul in London issued the travel document that allowed Snowden to leave Hong Kong, but called that action, quote, "a mistake." Correa now says his government won’t consider asylum for Snowden unless he can reach Ecuador or one of its embassies.

AMY GOODMAN: While Snowden has been holed up at a Moscow airport, news outlets are continuing to report on Snowden’s leaks. Over the weekend, the German magazine Der Spiegel revealed the NSA spied on European Union offices in Brussels, Washington and at the United Nations. The NSA allegedly planted bugs to listen in on conversations and phone calls, and also hacked into the EU computer network to access emails. According to The Guardian, one NSA document lists 38 embassies and missions as "targets," including not just the EU but also countries such as Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey. The latest documents also point to a major NSA spy operation targeting European citizens. According to Der Spiegel, some 500 million unique communications are monitored in Germany alone each month, the most of any European country. On Monday, a European Union spokesperson said top officials have demanded an explanation from the United States.

PIA AHRENKILDE HANSEN: The EU is now expecting to hear from the U.S. authorities. And let me state clearly that clarity and transparency is what we expect from our partners and allies, and this is what we expect from the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, to discuss the latest on Edward Snowden and his spying revelations, we’re joined by Kristinn Hrafnsson. He’s a spokesperson for WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website that’s been assisting Snowden in his attempt to seek political asylum. Kristinn Hrafnsson is an investigative reporter who was named Icelandic journalist of the year three times.

We welcome you to Democracy Now!

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON: Thanks for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about these latest revelations, Kristinn?

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON: Well, if you are—if you’re referring to the revelations by Der Spiegel this weekend, this is, of course, causing anger all over Europe, and it’s very hard to defend by Obama, even though he claims now this is a common thing. The leaders of the European nations are disagreeing, that spying on their—on friends is not a normal thing, and they are demanding explanations. This is simply one of the revelations, important ones, that we’re getting from Snowden pertaining to the extent of the snooping programs by the NSA.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read the statement of Edward Snowden, or a part of it, because he is speaking out for the first time. On Monday, Snowden broke a more than week-long silence after arriving in Russia to evade U.S. extradition. In a statement released by WikiLeaks, Snowden thanked supporters and condemned the Obama administration for revoking his passport and pressuring foreign governments to reject his bid for asylum. He compared himself to U.S. Army whistleblower Bradley Manning and fellow NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, writing, quote, "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." Snowden added, "I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed by the efforts taken by so many."

Talk about that statement and then what is happening. It looks like Ecuador is backing off a bit, or at least President Correa said that the consul who gave him the travel document to leave Hong Kong had overstepped, had not gotten the proper authority, and now Snowden apparently has said he will not apply for political asylum in Russia.

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON: Well, I think Snowden is correct in criticizing that his passport is being revoked and that it is outrageous to take away the symbol of citizenship. He is basically left stateless, and the reason why he’s stranded is because his passport has been revoked. That is, of course, an outrageous act.

What he refers to as—that the administration is not afraid of him or Thomas Drake or other important whistleblowers like Bradley Manning who have stepped forward, but actually of the people, he is referring to, of course, that there’s an attempt to silence whistleblowers to stop the flow of important information to get to the public. So it’s basically war on information. It’s a war on truth that is going on. And it’s in line with the attack on whistleblowers that we’ve seen in this country in recent years; under Obama, now with Snowden, eight people have been charged or persecuted on the basis of the Espionage Act of 1917, which is more than in the history of the nation prior to Obama. So it is, of course, a grave concern.

You were referring to the statement by Correa and Putin on playing down somewhat, it seems, their support. I don’t read too much into it. I think that they are concerned about the grave threats and the bullying attempt that they are subject to, as any other nation. Let’s not forget that a week ago Secretary of State Kerry threatened nations by saying that it would have consequences for any nation who would support Snowden.

Now, of course, he has applied for an asylum in more than 20 countries. There has been no formal reply, except for from a few nations who say that, well, procedurally an individual has to be in a country to be able to submit his application formally. That was the case in my home country in Iceland, where I personally contacted the government with a request from Snowden. The Ecuadoreans are saying similar things. But, I mean, the options that he has have opened up, I believe, because the support and the recognition of the importance of his work is growing, and especially in Europe. I would think that he would have a possibility of being granted asylum in many European countries.

AARON MATÉ: Well, and one of those countries now appears to be Venezuela. Today, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said Edward Snowden deserves the world’s protection for divulging details of Washington’s spy program.

PRESIDENT NICOLÁS MADURO: [translated] He said great truth in order to dismantle a world that cannot be controlled, not by an American imperialist elite nor by anyone. And these revelations that he made are the most important. A young man of 29 years who is capable of opening himself up against mechanisms of the intelligence services, who spy and want to know everything, who go against friends and enemies, who set up technological operations, satellites, with the help of the Internet, telephones, to try and control the world—the revelations of this young man have great value. He must be protected by international human rights. He has the right to be protected, because the United States will continue to pursue him. The American president, the secretary of state, why are you persecuting him? What crime has he committed? Did he kill anyone? Did he plant a bomb and kill anyone? No. Much better, he has prevented wars, and he has stopped illegalities being committed against the entire world. For this, he deserves the protection of the world. He hasn’t asked for asylum, but when he asks for it, we will give him an answer.
AARON MATÉ: That’s Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Kristinn, can you talk about what the U.S. has been doing behind the scenes? Obama played down Snowden’s worth, saying we’re not going to scramble jets to get him. But then Vice President Biden called Correa over the weekend.

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON: Yeah, and not only that, we see behind the scene a confirmation that there is an extreme pressure being put on nations around the world, despite that attempt to play down the situation and—in Obama—Obama’s speech in—I believe in Kenya, last week, when they saw actually the angry reaction to the harsh statement issued in the beginning of last week by Kerry and others. Now we see you are playing this words of support from the Venezuelan president, but I can assure you that there is great support among the public and leaders around the world. That is—and Amnesty International has issued a statement where they recognize Snowden’s concerns for ill-treatment if he returns to the United States, and they recognize his right to seek asylum under international law.

And I believe that the public, outside U.S. as well as in the United States, which is amazing, I think, given the extremely one-sided and negative reporting by the mainstream media, do support Snowden. In two polls that I’ve seen by Ipsos MORI of last Thursday, more people believed in the U.S. that he was a patriot than a traitor. Earlier, a report by Time magazine showed that 53 percent of Americans believed that he did the right thing by exposing these secrets. And if you look at an age group, 18 to 34 years old, 70 percent of them thought he was doing the right thing. So we see a generation gap there. Young people, who are not distracted by the absurd reporting in the mainstream media, they go to the Internet. They rely on the Internet. It’s the generation of the generation. They understand that the freedom of the Internet and the freedom of information is essential. That’s something that the administration in this country should be concerned about.

AMY GOODMAN: Kristinn, we have to break, but we want you to stay with us. Kristinn Hrafnsson is with WikiLeaks. He is also, what, voted Icelandic journalist of the year three times. When we come back, we will also be joined by Malte Spitz, who’s a member of the German Green Party’s executive committee. He’ll be joining us from Berlin to talk about these latest revelations about the spying on the EU, the European Union, and his headline in a op-ed piece in The New York Times, "Germans Loved Obama. Now We Don’t Trust Him." Stay with us.

[slimmouse]

Reading all of this thread, it appears to me at least pretty clear both where the moral high ground is here, and where the large yet apparently voiceless weight of public opinion lies, as Clapper, Obama and co, continue to flaunt their power, and reflect this in their arrogance, contempt actually, for the American people, and those of other nations.

At the end of the day, its true that Snowden broke the law. But the law here is truly an ass, and one of many such laws.

Its something of a pity of course that apparently theres no kind of law against Clapper issuing the sort of bare faced lie to the people, that he did. Or Obama for that matter. Election manifestos as some kind of legally binding contracts, breach of whose terms is punishable to the full extent of better law? Just a thought I came by elsewhere recently.

All of the above notwithstanding meanwhile, the question I suppose is, can we make our numbers heard in an effective manner?

[beeline]

All of the above notwithstanding meanwhile, the question I suppose is, can we make our numbers heard in an effective manner?

I don't know if it will help, I am kind of cynical in such matters, but I am going to my local http://www.restorethefourth.net/ rally tomorrow.

[8bitagent]

The essential hostage holding of the Bolivian president reminds me of how the LAPD shot up and nearly killed two older women because they "thought the car resembled Dorner".. It's pathetic to see how desperate the Obama regime is to get this guy. If it wasnt for Obama's alleged support of LGBT issues, the health care or a couple of other issues; there'd be very little reason for any self respecting liberal to support this administration.
In fact it kind of seems like, while not on the war front, but the whole black ops/patriot act/spying/big brother front, the Obama white house took what the neocons did and put it into overdrive.

[slimmouse]

In fact it kind of seems like, while not on the war front, but the whole black ops/patriot act/spying/big brother front, the Obama white house took what the neocons did and put it into overdrive.

Its pretty clear to me that the people whom the likes of Obama answer to got their strategy for the bigger agenda right on cue here.

I mean who else could have gotten away with it like Obama has ?

This was a kind of elementary Majck at work wouldnt you say? At the very least it was a psyop of the best provenance.

[justdrew]

[8bitagent]

In fact it kind of seems like, while not on the war front, but the whole black ops/patriot act/spying/big brother front, the Obama white house took what the neocons did and put it into overdrive.

Its pretty clear to me that the people whom the likes of Obama answer to got their strategy for the bigger agenda right on cue here.

I mean who else could have gotten away with it like Obama has ?

This was a kind of elementary Majck at work wouldnt you say? At the very least it was a psyop of the best provenance.

A lot of the people still on this forum were on in 2008. It'd be kind of an interesting project to collect all our thoughts during the 2008 period and see how they matched up to what happened 5 years later.
I think the general viewpoint if I was remember was Obama was brought on by the powers that be to lull people to sleep while at the same time dangerously stoking the right wing.
In fact I distinctly recall saying that the neocons were these rabid pit bulls intentionally made to go bonkers, however on a leash they still were. And Obama was brought in as if to say "Don't worry kids, the big scary monsters
are gone now...here's a new fluffy dog, so to sleep now children". The children being liberals who marched in the streets against Bush.

Now comes the fabulous doublebind(again, hat tip to 82_28) where many on the left may feel conflicted about raising such a vocal stink against the Obama white house given the right wing is so obnoxiously and so zealously foaming at the mouth angry at Obama(mostly, for bizarre fictitious reasons) It's the perfect setup for the PTB. Who knows what really has been built behind the visible trojan horse all this time.I will say I find it ironic that I dont recall too many reports of toddlers, the elderly and crippled being molested and humiliated at airports under Bush, or Bush openly and smugly bragging about black ops wet works programs. Heck the left got pissed at Cheney for even contemplating such things. If Bush had assassinated in broad daylight an American teenager from Colorado on vacation in Yemen sneaking out to have lunch with friends, and THEN smugly defended such actions, oh my god...yeah you would have heard the left going nuts.

[seemslikeadream]

Why Edward Snowden's Leaks Have Empowered All of Us
Edward Snowden has to some degree fragmented and dispersed the concentrated power of capital and the state.
July 2, 2013 |

If the expression knowledge is power - attributed to the English Renaissance philosopher Francis Bacon - is true, then it implies, among other things, that its opposite is also true. That is, if knowledge is power, then the lack of knowledge, or ignorance, amounts to a lack of, or exclusion from, power. As such, removing, obscuring, or hiding knowledge - in a word, secrecy - not only creates power, it produces powerlessness, weakness, and vulnerability as well. Indeed, as Elias Canetti phrased it in his Crowds and Power: "Secrecy lies at the very core of power." As the state, then, acquires ever more knowledge/power through such programs as PRISM, 'the people' in general - in spite of the State's dubious claims of enhancing security and safety - are only further weakened, put into an ever more vulnerable, precarious position. In addition to the myriad political, legal, and ethical issues embedded in the debate concerning the whistleblower Edward Snowden's ongoing disclosures of classified information, this nonconsensual, actual precarization of the public (by secretive state and private-sector agencies whose authority to gather this power is by no means clear) constitutes a substantial harm in itself.

As such, those who argue that mass surveillance is wrong because it leads to horrible things at the bottom of a slippery slope entirely miss the point. Notwithstanding the fact that the 'slippery slope' is a logical fallacy, the harm under consideration does not lie in some hypothetical future. Beyond present-day trespasses to people's privacy, this actual disempowerment, which replaces political subjectivity with political subjugation to an unprecedentedly powerful state, is a present, concrete harm. That the disclosure of secrets disrupts this unprecedented aggrandizement of power to some degree explains why whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, and others are exposed to such vengeful persecution. Insofar as whistleblowers have exposed this secrecy, along with its contents, they have not only redistributed knowledge, but have redistributed and threatened power as well.

Though US political culture has traditionally (if only nominally) claimed to be suspicious of concentrations of power, in reality order - as opposed to liberty - is predicated on just such concentrations. To be sure, while people like to point to the Constitution's separation of powers schema as evidence of this alleged enmity to tyrannical concentrations of power, it is nothing short of a political-economic fact that that which is subject to separation hardly comprises actual power. For let us not forget that the US is a 'representative democracy.' And the interests represented in local, state and federal government alike are overwhelmingly those of the rich. This should not be too contentious a claim. Not only do the rich bankroll practically every candidate running for public office - and so act as gatekeepers to political office - the Supreme Court's notorious decision in Citizens United (which holds that money is consubstantial with political speech) only amplifies this dynamic; in spite of any rhetoric to the contrary, one's political power is contingent on one's economic power.

When one factors into this the reality that economic power has concentrated to unprecedented levels over the past few decades - to such a degree that the top 1% of the country now controls more than 42% of the country's wealth - it takes willful blindness to fail to see that power is not only notseparated, it is concentrated into what without hyperbole can be described as tyrannical intensities.

So, although Obama may argue that checks and balances are in place and that what the national security state is doing is legal because the three branches of representative government agree that it passes constitutional muster should not be terribly persuasive; let us not forget, Obama claims that due process requirements are satisfied when officials confer in secret to select who gets placed on secret kill lists. Even the New York Times, in a recent editorial responding to disclosures of mass surveillance, proclaimed that "the [Obama] administration has now lost all credibility on this issue."

With his dystopian Disposition Matrix, his secretive drone strikes, his massive surveillance programs, including PRISM, and his record-breaking prosecutions and persecutions of whistleblowers - not to mention ongoing abuses at Guantanamo, among other places - well into his second term in office it is not difficult to see that Obama's presidency is far from offering a corrective to the excesses of the Bush years. Indeed, although George W. Bush's aggrandizement of the executive branch was exceptional, it pales when compared to Obama's permanentization of what, under Bush, were still temporary powers. And as secrecy confers more and more power, and leaks and disclosures of secrets threaten this power, it is unsurprising that Obama will pursue Snowden, and others, with the tenacity of those zealots whom Obama claims to be the cool, polar opposite of.

While it may sound grandiose, it is nevertheless the case that by disclosing secret information, such as the existence of PRISM, Edward Snowden has to some degree fragmented and dispersed the concentrated power of capital and the state. And as more revelations are said to be on the way, it is interesting to consider the meaning of the word revelation, and to note that revelation is the English word for what in Greek is termed apocalypse. Apocalypse, of course, carries a double meaning. Not only does it connote unconcealment, the revelation of what is hidden and secret; it also denotes the destruction of a world. And perhaps this is what Obama and the class he represents are so terrified of after all: that the injustices that are being revealed will lead to the end of their world of power. Hopefully it will - and will lead to the instantiation of a world in which justice, as opposed to dominating power, is realized.

[slimmouse]

Clare Daly on Edward Snowden.

[Hunter]

I BELIEVE Snowden is the real deal BUT IF HE ISNT, I can see what this might be about, have a guy leak and blow the whistle and then have NOBODY IN THE WORLD offer hims asylum thereby making it very clear to anyone else, going forward, who might decide to leak or blow a whistle that there is nowhere in the world they can run to for protection.


We will have to wait a bit longer to see if anyone comes through for him but right now he is living in the transit section of Moscow Airport just like Tom Hanks in the movie, in fact exactly like Tom Hanks in that movie, incredible.

[seemslikeadream]

CIA whistleblower to Snowden: ‘Do not cooperate with the FBI’
Published time: July 03, 2013 16:39
CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou

CIA, FBI, Intelligence, Security, USA
NSA leaker Edward Snowden is the subject of an open letter of support just published from behind bars by John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent currently serving time for sharing state secrets.

In a letter dated June 13 and published Tuesday by Firedoglake, the imprisoned CIA vet salutes Snowden for his recent disclosures of classified documents detailing some of the vast surveillance programs operated by the United States’ National Security Agency.

“Thank you for your revelations of government wrongdoing over the past week,” Kiriakou writes. “You have done the country a great public service.”

“I know that it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders right now, but as Americans begin to realize that we are devolving into a police state, with the loss of civil liberties that entails, they will see your actions for what they are: heroic.”

Beginning with the June 6 publication of a dragnet court order demanding the phone data of millions of Americans, The Guardian newspaper has released a collection of leaked documents attributed to Snowden for which the US government has charged him with espionage. He is reportedly now hiding in a Moscow airport and has sought asylum from no fewer than 20 countries to avoid prosecution in the US. Should he be sent home and forced to stand trial, however, Snowden will likely find himself in a peculiar position that the former Central Intelligence Agency analyst can most certainly relate to: Kiriakou is currently serving a 36-month sentence at the Loretto, Pennsylvania federal prison for revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent to reporters.

Before Kiriakou pleaded guilty to one count of passing classified information to the media last year, the government charged him under the Espionage Act of 1917. He has equated the prosecution as retaliation for his own past actions, saying the charge wasn’t the result of outing a secret agent but over exposing truths about the George W. Bush administration’s use of waterboarding as an interrogation tool in the post-9/11 war on terror. As in the case of Snowden, Kiriakou’s supporters have hailed him as a whistleblower. As the government sings a very different song, though, the CIA analyst offers advice to Snowden in what is the second of his “Letters from Loretto” published by Firedoglake since Kiriakou’s two-and-a-half-year sentence began earlier this spring.

“First, find the best national security attorneys money can buy,” writes Kiriakou. “I was blessed to be represented by legal titans and, although I was forced to take a plea in the end, the shortness of my sentence is a testament to their expertise.”

“Second, establish a website that your supporters can follow your case, get your side of the story and, most importantly, make donations to support your defense.”



Kiriakou goes on to encourage Snowden toward garnering support within members of Congress and other institutions capable of calling attention to his case, such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Before he concludes, however, he bestows on Snowden what he calls “the most important advice I can offer.”

“DO NOT, under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI,” Kiriakou warns. “FBI agents will lie, trick and deceive you. They will twist your words and play on your patriotism to entrap you. They will pretend to be people they are not — supporters, well-wishers and friends — all the while wearing wires to record your out-of-context statements to use against you. The FBI is the enemy; it’s a part of the problem, not the solution.”

“I wish you the very best of luck,” Kiriakou writes before signing off. “I hope you can get to Iceland quickly and safely. There you will find a people and a government who care about the freedoms that we hold dear and for which our forefathers and veterans fought and died.”

When Snowden first revealed himself to be the source of the leaked documents last month, murmurings quickly began circulating of Iceland possibly extending his way an offer of asylum. The list of countries asked to consider his request reportedly now exceeds 20, and the likes of Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba and Switzerland have all been floated as options. As Firedoglake’s Kevin Gosztola recalls, though, the Federal Bureau of Investigation likely won’t rule out dirty tricks to try and take down Snowden before he escapes, at least if Kiriakou’s experiences are any indication.

“According to Kiriakou, the FBI also tried to set him up,” Gosztola writes. He goes on to cite a January 2013 interview in which the CIA whistleblower recounted a previously untold story about the government’s alleged efforts to indict Kiriakou on even more charges.

“In the summer of 2010, a foreign intelligence officer offered me cash in exchange for classified information,” Kiriakou said. “I turned down the pitch and I immediately reported it to the FBI. So, the FBI asked me to take the guy out to lunch and to ask him what information he wanted and how much information he was willing to give me for it.”

“After the lunch, I wrote a long memo to the FBI — and I did this four or five times. It turns out – and we only learned this three or four weeks ago – there never was a foreign intelligence officer. It was an FBI agent pretending to be an intelligence officer and they were trying to set me up on an Espionage Act charge but I repeatedly reported the contact so I foiled them in their effort to set me up.”

Kiriakou is one of eight Americans charged under that World War One-era legislation by President Barack Obama, who has prosecuted more people under that law that all previous leaders combined. Snowden became the latest US citizen to have their name added to that list and joins the likes of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning and NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. In a question-and-answer session hosted by The Guardian last month, Snowden celebrated those men as “examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope and skill involved in future disclosures.”

“Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. Instead, these draconian responses simply build better whistleblowers. If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response,” Snowden said.

In his first statement since entering Moscow more than a week ago, Snowden published a note through WikiLeaks on Monday dismissing the White House’s hunt for leakers, calling their tactics deceptive, unjust and “bad tools of political aggression.”

“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,” Snowden wrote.