WikiLeaks Founder: Obama Surveillance Changes Vindicate Edward Snowden

[Purveyor]

The founder of the WikiLeaks website said on Saturday that President Obama’s announcement of changes to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program this week vindicated Edward Snowden’s release of information about the program.

“Today the President of the United States validated Edward Snowden’s role as a whistleblower by announcing plans to reform America’s global surveillance program,” WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange said in a statement.

“But rather than thank Edward Snowden, the president laughably attempted to criticize him while claiming that there was a plan all along, ‘before Edward Snowden,’” Assange continued. “The simple fact is that without Snowden’s disclosures, no one would know about the programs and no reforms could take place.”

Assange compared Snowden to former solider Bradley Manning, who was convicted of releasing classified information about the Iraq War, and Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War in the 1970s.

“As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently once stated, ‘All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent,’” Assange said. “Luckily for the citizens of the world, Edward Snowden is one of those ‘people of good conscience’ who did not ‘remain silent,’ just as Pfc Bradley Manning and Daniel Ellsberg refused to remain silent.”


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/316499-wikileaks-founder-obama-surveillance-changes-vindicate-edward-snowden#ixzz2baZCKu1e

[AppleBottom]

1. Yep anyone that understands 1+1=2 understands this, TRUTH. nt

[cantbeserious]

2. But, But Obama And The Character Assassins Are Dead Set On Incarceration

eom

[PSPS]

3. Vindicate? Only the swooners and surveillance state apparatchiks saw him in a bad light.

[DirkGently]

4. Pretty hard to avoid that conclusion. Not that some aren't trying. :)

[bvar22]

5. Oh Boy!

We are going to be treated to a spectacle of tortured, twisted, evasions & diversions,
followed by a parade of bitter Denials, Fallacies, and outright Creative & Baffling BS.

I gonna go put on my High Steppers so I can enjoy the fun without getting my socks wet!

[99th_Monkey]

6. Wants to have it both ways, Obama does. nt

[Maedhros]

7. The White House is feeling the heat. This is undeniably a Good Thing.

Obama's media team is in full spin mode. There was a 3-4 day span in which we didn't see much chatter from the NSA defenders as the spin doctors did some furious analyzing and settled on the "we were fixing it anyway" angle as most plausible.

And now we're seeing it on every liberal blog. I was checking out comments on Daily Kos yesterday and they have their own crew that posts the same points, using the same terminology and the same slurs against Snowden/Greenwald et al.

And they claim it's not coordinated.

[JDPriestly]

11. But there is no discussion of fixing the biggest problem which is that a very small group of

people have access to huge amounts of metadata and perhaps, we do not know for sure, other very personal data about a lot of people including politicians, scholars, businessmen, doctors, JOURNALISTS(????), teachers, and military enlisted men and officers.

With access to that data comes knowledge about people, what motivates them, what they might want to hide from say a spouse or a child or a parent or an employer, and all kinds of information that makes it possible to manipulate those under surveillance.

It also gives those with that knowledge of the database analysis results the ability to pick and choose future leaders, to vet lawyers and advisers to the president and Congress.

The power is frightening, and I am not exaggerating the magnitude of it one bit. This is a dictator's dream -- to have that much information on a population.

That major problem which, since the information is possessed by the executive branch, makes the separation of powers into a joke, has not even been discussed.

And then we get to computer voting. At what point will the NSA be able to simply reach into the computers that count the votes and decide who wins (assuming that has not already happened)? How long?

We need far more drastic changes than are being discussed.

[Maedhros]

13. I agree on all points.

Funny, all the folks posting here that are doing everything they can to discourage discussion of such changes.

[Cryptoad]

8. NO,,,,,,,

he is still guilty of releasing classified documents. the only crime that of yet we have any evidence of having taken place!

[JDPriestly]

10. That is, arguably, depending on your viewpoint, a political crime.

It's all a matter of perspective. When dissidents spoke out against the Soviet Union, we granted them asylum and invited them to share the secrets they knew if any.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

People who feel that they are accused of political crimes have a right to asylum somewhere in the world in many, many cases. That is the way it works. And it is a good thing.

[Cryptoad]

12. We are talking about the Law

His case would all make sense if he could produce any evidence of criminal activity,,,,,

Snowden not agreeing with how the NSA operates is not enough to justify his crimes of releasing classified documents purely on the bases of his speculation and conjecture.

Let him produce some facts to backup his claims and I will Gladly eat my words.

There was a time when being a Democrat meant you knew the difference between Speculation and Fact.

Seems those time are passing

[JDPriestly]

9. And before that people like John Brown and Martin Luther King and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

and even John Kerry in his day of protesting the Viet Nam War.

Thank you to those who stand up and speak and pay the price.

And don't think that Snowden's decision to go to Russia is an easy way out. He will be an exile, a fugitive for a long time, looking behind him, watching what he says.

I was just reading an article about a Belgium woman, Countess Andree de Jongh who committed heroic acts during WWII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9e_de_Jongh

History is full of people who act and speak although doing so puts them, personally, at great risk. We are grateful to all who stand on principle and do not choose the ease of conformity.

Are they always right? No. But even when they are wrong, there is something inspiring about the fact that they spoke out and set off a national discussion. Thanks to Edward Snowden, the issue of surveillance is being talked about. I just hope this discussion is not too late.