Edward Snowden is still stuck in the Moscow airport, having been offered asylum by Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. It’s unclear whether any government will challenge the U.S. which is threatening governments in Latin America not to let Snowden in or even over their countries, saying that, “would put relations in a very bad place for a long time to come.” In fact, more information has come out on the extensive surveillance the U.S. is doing of data in those countries.
Courageous acts can change how people think. A poll this week by Quinnepeac showed that 68% of U.S. voters aged 18-29 think Snowden is not a traitor, but a whistleblower, with the poll showing a “Big Shift On Civil Liberties vs. Counter-Terrorism.” The New York Times July 11 said Snowden has “succeeded in opening the government spying’s trade-offs between civil liberties and security to the broadest and best-informed public debate in many years,” and criticized President Obama for not actually engaging in the discussion he says he wants on the topic.”
The Guardian released more of an interview with Snowden done June 6, where he said, “”I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded,” he said. “And that’s not something I’m willing to support, it’s not something I’m willing to build and it’s not something I’m willing to live under.” He continued, “we’re compounding the excesses of prior governments and making it worse and more invasive. And no one is really standing to stop it.”
Today new revelations of top secret programs revealed by Snowden cover the extensive access Microsoft has provided the NSA to Skype video, Outlook.com, cloud storage, and Hotmail. The Guardian says, “internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing.”
Join in spreading this: We indict the US government: for torturing, intimidating and prosecuting whistleblowers while covering up and not prosecuting those responsible for the war crimes and crimes against humanity. As Snowden said, the story is not about him, but about the vast, criminal surveillance by the NSA.
Debra Sweet is the Director of World Can’t Wait. Read more of her writings at debra.worldcantwait.net