Snowden speaks from Moscow: 'Obama lies' Fugitive NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has released a statement, published by WikiLeaks, that excoriates President Obama, essentially calls him a liar, and says that the administration is not afraid of leakers like him, but of us. "On Thursday," Snowden writes, "President Obama declared before the world that he would not …
This post has been deleted by its author
I am hoping beyond hope that the person sat in Russia is a suitably disguised Wikileaks sourced double and that Snowden is reading all this from the comfort of the bolt hole he headed to after HK.
Snowden's plight will ultimately be the test of Wikileaks abilities and the yard stick all other potential good guys and girls will measure their chances against.
So, please, let's have a happy ending.
With the US Gov shenanigans and it's President's lies, it's left Putin on higher ground. Now I imagine Putin has been positioning himself to use that position to give the US Gov an ultimatum, perhaps about the US presence in the middle east. Now Snowden's presence there has a potential of compromising that position if Russia take him in. Therefore Putin needs him gone. I think Putin should have bribed another smaller nation into taking Snowden.
tempemeaty,
I think you've been reading too much spy fiction. Plus, what "President's lies"? He's not been made stateless, he's a US citizen, but has had his right to travel taken away. He can go home to the US any time he likes. Or he can find somewhere else that wants to take him.
'It has been reported that the US VP put pressure on countries' is not evidence of Obama lying. Or in fact evidence of anything. It's just rumour. Even if true, saying please extradite to us our criminal is not diplomatic wheeler-dealering.
Whatever is, or isn't, true in the Snowden case, he's not important enough to change Middle East policy for. Neither the US or Russians are even remotely likely to think so. Even if he was, the story has already been leaked, so there's nothing left to bargain for.
> Obama a liar
Pope catholic, bears shit in woods etc.
Really, does anyone except blue-state fascists still have any confidence in Hopey Changey?
Closed Guantanamo, most transparent administration evar, saved the economy, left Iraq as promised, does not do surveillance, not into exporting duhmocracy by force of arms into foreign lands and other utter bullshit for years and years and years.
Did I mention not gonna kill women and children every Wednesday and won't intervene in Syria? Ok, he didn't say that but he does have a "Nobel Peace Prize", like Kissinger.
You might be surprised how many people are in deep denial about Obama.
His job approval ratings have been between 48 to 51% since February. With so many right-wing freaks in office, Obama gets a pass for seeming relatively sane. That doesn't mean he's not a liar and a fraud.
Snowden says that US.gov is not afraid of him, but of "an informed, angry public". Sadly, that is a long way off, especially the "informed" part.
Disappointed, yes, and yet they still look for reasons to excuse him.
Even in this case, for example, Obama vows 'no wheeling and dealing' For Snowden, but then US.gov threatens Ecuador with trade sanctions if they accept Snowden for asylum.
So, what was that 'no wheeling and dealing' statement, then, if not a lie? Snowden is right to call out Obama for deception.
People will down vote, naturally. Sometimes the truth hurts.
Don't worry. By the time 2016 rolls around, doubtless we'll have another Democrat whom all the great and good will declare to be utterly fantastic...with a remarkably poor track record, which will be studiously ignored and excused in extremis. Obama got away with refusing to release his university grades, got tenure as a law professor despite having never written a peer reviewed paper, hung out with the likes of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, and had the most partisan voting record in the Senate...and was still apparently a genius who believed in reconciliation and bi partisanship.
Meanwhile, the Republican will be a "dumb", "tool of the upper class who doesn't pay their taxes"...kind of like Obama's Treasury Secretary :-)
You're only dumb if you go along with it :-)
America spies on everyone. EVERYONE. They say some countries are excluded, but those countries rely on monitored countries' network infrastructure. Who is to say communique through those countries isn't also intercepted. Another thing is; strangers like Mr. Snowden can rummage through our stuff without constraint; ie every one of them is a potential blackmailer. Luckily for us Ms. Snowden was of sound mind not to use gathered knowledge against individuals but to expose a huge security issue that affects us all.
Germany is only the beginning, mark my words!
Why is it people need to be constantly reminded of this fact?
I'm waiting for the US to get truly pissed with the EU hissy-fitting about being spied on and release information about EU member-state spying operations in the US, or remind everyone about the honeytrap they used to embarrass the French a few years ago.
This case, and the previous one (Manning) might put off potential whistle-blowers, yes. On the other hand, some people now might say: I don't give a flying monkey what happens to me, I've had enough, or - "I KNOW what will happen to me, but here's the pen drive with 16GB data anyway". It's just a matter of reaching a certain... boiling point, when what they preach, and what they do are so wide apart, that you finally can't take it any longer.
And yes, there will be vetting, and there will be activity and patterns monitoring to weed out the "lunatics", "leftists", "traitors" and "hackers"... but it's never going to be 100% accurate. And generally, oppression stimulates resentment and resistance. Some people will riot, and will get caught before they do any damage to the system, others will outsmart it and leak the info out.
Putin said "He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners" ("Он должен прекратить свою работу, направленную на то, чтобы наносить ущерб нашим американским партнерам"). He did not say about it being "harmful to the US" as the author of this piece interpreted it. Putin't "American partners" are not necessary the "US, the Country".
Putin probably still feels that he belongs to the "intelligence community", and perceives the US secret service establishment as his partners, so it makes sense.
"Yet now it is being reported," he says, "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.
I'm fairly certain and old hack like Joe Biden wouldn't need to be ordered to do something like that.
Putin's big reaction to all this would probably have been one of wincing laughter as if he were watching The Office or similar comedy - and probably thinking 'Well, I'm glad we don't use private contractors in the FSB and that everyone who does work there knows they'd be dead before Grenwald had a chance to write an op-ed piece about them.'
Has he applied for asylum to St Helena? Both Snowden and Assange would love it there. They could rant at each other all day over the island's internet (2 starbucks cups and 100m of string), claim to have more followers (seagulls) than the other and occasionally visit Bonaparte's grave to remind themselves of the enormous impact they are making on history.
In the meantime the rest of us could forget these sad individuals and get on with our lives.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
