Snowden

Traitor or hero, Snowden still a success on college lecture circuit

It’s been nearly four years since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden spilled some of the most deeply held secrets of the National Security Agency, emerging from obscurity to become a central figure in a global debate about surveillance and secrecy.

Now, nearly every week, Snowden hops on his computer from his exile in Russia for a video chat with university students, techies or privacy advocates in some corner of North America.

Never in modern times has an accused enemy of the U.S. state had so much access to the public, or so divided people about where he lands on the spectrum from “traitor” to “hero.”

It’s not a bad gig. Snowden’s got cash and clout, pulling in $30,000 or more per talk, although his lawyer says he does many appearances for little or no money.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article145023939.html#storylink=cpy

Snowden

SPY OR WHISTLEBLOWER? SHOULD OBAMA SETTLE WITH SNOWDEN?

Edward Snowden has been living in asylum in Russia for three years. As our country prepares to elect its next president, none of the candidates are likely to have a merciful attitude toward the controversial whistleblower, nor want to begin their administration with a political act on a provocative subject that passionately divides the country.  

But President Obama has an opportunity in his final months in office, when presidents traditionally exercise their pardon and clemency powers, to direct his Attorney General to offer a reasonable settlement to Snowden through his attorneys.

Snowden

Edward Snowden Should Return to US, Face Trial - CIA Director

National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden should return to the United States and stand trial to face the charges brought against him, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan said in an interview published Thursday.

"I would only support his coming back and facing the charges that have been levied against him, and to let a court of law determine his fate," Brennan told Yahoo News, answering a question on whether he supported a pardon of Snowden.

Snowden

Three Years Later: How Snowden Helped the U.S. Intelligence Community

Snowden forced the intelligence community out of its suboptimal and unsustainable obsession with secrecy.  “Before the unauthorized disclosures, we were always conservative about discussing specifics of our collection programs, based on the truism that the more adversaries know about what we're doing, the more they can avoid our surveillance,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in 2013.   Post-Snowden, the intelligence community operates on the principle that secrecy is not an absolute value, but one that needs to be traded off for other values, including domestic legitimacy.  Snowden made it realize that, in the words of former NSA Director Michael Hayden, “although the public cannot be briefed on everything, there has to be enough out there so that the majority of the population believe what they are doing is acceptable.”

Snowden

Guantanamo, Bosnia & flip-flops: New NSA revelations from Snowden leaks

The NSA participated in Guantanamo Bay interrogations, while the US military took part in a rendition from Bosnia, newly released leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden show. A decade’s worth of NSA newsletters will be published over the coming months.

On Monday, The Intercept published the first three months’ worth of SIDtoday, the NSA newsletter named after the Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID). The first release contains 166 documents from 2003, and will run until the publication of the most recent issues in its Snowden Archive, the trove of documents collected by the former NSA contractor, which are dated through 2012.

Snowden

Edward Snowden to take Norway to court to secure free passage

Edward Snowden will take the Norwegian state to court in a bid to secure free passage there, a Norwegian law firm representing the former U.S. spy contractor said on Thursday.

Snowden has been invited to Norway to receive a freedom of speech award from the local branch of writers’ group PEN International, but is worried that he would be handed over to the United States, his lawyers say.

“The purpose is to get legally established that Norway has no right to extradite Snowden to the U.S.,” the law firm, Schjoedt, said in a statement.

“U.S. authorities have already asked that Snowden will be extradited to the U.S. if he was to arrive in Norway,” Hallvard Helle, the lawyer representing Snowden, told Reuters.

“It is a case they (the Norwegian authorities) have not wished to comment on previously, so therefore we want a legal clarification of this,” Helle said, when asked whether Norway had said it would extradite Snowden if he entered the country.

Snowden

Snowden touts ‘credible’ Sanders, pans Clinton in live debate tweets

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter on Saturday night to share his real-time thoughts on the Democratic presidential debate.

 

Snowden, who has taken political asylum in Russia, repeatedly slammed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, panning her statements on cybersecurity technology and foreign policy.

 

Snowden looked favorably on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), calling him “more credible on foreign policy” than Clinton and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

 

Snowden

Five hours with Edward Snowden

The choice of two left shoes of the former Soviet Union is, since decades, history in Russia. On my way here, I passed Cyrillic letters that were perfectly readable, even without any knowledge of Russian. Brands like McDonald’s, Starbucks, World Class Gym, Michael Kors and United Colors of Benetton are like a universal code language, making everything understandable, whether the signs are in Moscow, Stockholm, San Francisco or Bangkok. If you think you can measure totalitarian tendencies, freedom of speech and rule of law in a country, by the standard of the cars, the number of restaurants or Stella McCartney’s latest spring collection, you’re fooling yourself.

Poverty shows. Democratic deficit doesn’t.

Snowden

Edward Snowden: I'm not a traitor

“It took three months to arrange it through intermediaries. We were told to go to Moscow, check into a hotel, provide a room number, and Mr Snowden would come and knock on the door at one o’clock. Which, amazingly, he did.”

So says veteran investigative reporter Peter Taylor of the cloak-and dagger tactics he had to employ to secure the first British TV interview with Edward Snowden – the world’s most successful cyber-surveillance hero or traitor, depending on whose opinion you’re canvassing.

Snowden

European Parliament Says Snowden Should Be Welcomed in Europe

The European Parliament voted on Thursday to call on its member states to welcome “human rights defender” Edward Snowden to Europe with open arms.

The member states should “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as a whistleblower and international human rights defender,” read the resolution.

The resolution is a purely symbolic move, with no legal weight. Although a majority of the Parliament voted in favor, the body has only an advisory role in the European Union’s complicated system of governance — and no direct control over its member states.

Snowden

The most wanted man in the world

But rather than the Russian secret police, it’s his old employers, the CIA and the NSA, that Snowden most fears. “If somebody’s really watching me, they’ve got a team of guys whose job is just to hack me,” he says. “I don’t think they’ve geolocated me, but they almost certainly monitor who I’m talking to online. Even if they don’t know what you’re saying, because it’s encrypted, they can still get a lot from who you’re talking to and when you’re talking to them.”

Snowden

Snowden says he would go to prison to return to U.S.

Edward Snowden says he has offered to return to the United States and go to jail for leaking details of National Security Agency programs to intercept electronic communications data on a vast scale.

The former NSA contractor flew to Moscow two years ago after revealing information about the previously secret eavesdropping powers, and faces U.S. charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.

Snowden told the BBC that he'd "volunteered to go to prison with the government many times," but had not received a formal plea-deal offer.

Snowden

Assange says Snowden’s escape to Russia was his idea

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange could have played a role in the decision by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to seek asylum in Russia, instead of Latin America. Assange says it was he who advised Snowden to turn to Moscow for refuge.

Snowden “preferred Latin America, but my advice was that he should take asylum in Russia despite the negative PR consequences, because my assessment is that he had a significant risk of being kidnapped from Latin America on CIA orders…kidnapped and possibly killed,” Assange said in an interview with The Times.

Snowden

'It's a possibility': Eric Holder claims US could strike deal with Edward Snowden to bring him back from exile - and says the case prompted 'necessary debate' on secrecy

Eric Holder believes America could strike a deal with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to see him return from exile in Russia to the United States.

The former Attorney General, who charged Snowden with three felony counts of espionage for leaking thousands of government papers to the press, told Yahoo News it is a 'possibility' as he acknowledged the case prompted a 'necessary debate' about secrecy. 

His words are the most favorable to come from any senior official involved in the case.

Snowden

Edward Snowden Might Be Able to Return to the United States

According to former Attorney General Eric Holder, Edward Snowden and the Justice Department might strike a deal that enables the former NSA contractor to return from Moscow to the United States.

Charged with three felony violations of the Espionage Act, Snowden’s decision to release tens of thousands of government documents to journalists has ignited a diverse conversation, one Holder refers to, in an interview with Yahoo News, as “necessary.”