German official releases Snowden letter asking for help

[Indi Guy]

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Berlin • Edward Snowden is calling for international help to persuade the U.S. to drop its espionage charges against him, according to a letter a German lawmaker released Friday after he met the American in Moscow.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, has conceded that some of the NSA’s spying has reached too far and will be stopped.

Snowden said he would like to testify before the U.S. Congress about National Security Agency surveillance and may be willing to help German officials investigate alleged U.S. spying in Germany, Hans-Christian Stroebele, a lawmaker with Germany’s opposition Greens, told a press conference.

But Snowden indicated in the letter that neither would happen unless the U.S. dropped its espionage charges — a policy shift the Obama administration has given no indication it would make...



Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/57071089-68/snowden-stroebele-german-germany.html.csp

[Blue_Tires]

1. Drop the charges? That ain't happening...

[zeemike]

2. But congress is not interested in what Snowden has to say

They are trying to cover up what he has already revealed.
And if they get their hands on him they will make sure he never speaks to anyone again, like Manning.
His only hope is a presidential pardon, but it will take a President Warren or Sanders and a lot of new congress members before that will happen.

[jmowreader]

6. There is absolutely no way any president, even Bernie Sanders, will pardon him

Regardless of his motives, the reality is he passed thousands of Top Secret documents to a journalist who's been getting rich and famous off them. There's a whole wing in the Leavenworth military prison full of lesser spies than Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, and a lot of them got life-without-parole.

[zeemike]

9. Well I never give up on justice.

and that makes me unfit to be a third way democrat I guess...you have to be "pragmatic".

And when you take the oath of office you swear to defend and protect the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic...and so if you keep your oath and see the constitution being violated you have a duty to defend it...and that is what Snowden did...and the enemies are domestic.
Secrets are not so sacred that they cannot be reveled in all cases...we give the government the power to keep secrets and if the violate that trust we can take it away.

[Indi Guy]

21. Well said.

...An just because MIC corporations are now people too, that doesn't mean they are part of "of, by, and for the people."

[Turbineguy]

28. Snowden has put the nation in a bad place.

The security services have to protect themselves and the nation from congressional oversight because of idiots like Michelle Bachmann or other republicans who would not hesitate to spill the nation's secrets if it suited them politically. Somebody has to govern. Having teabaggers in charge of Congress doesn't change that.

Did the NSA overstep its brief? Of course it did. Its job is to collect secrets and the more secrets it collects and the better it collects them the better job it's doing. It is in the nature of any such organization to increase its sphere. That's why they should have congressional oversight. But not from these inept buffoons.

Then along comes Mr. Snowden who decides to release a bunch of information without regard to its sensitivity. I suppose it was bound to happen. Snowden if nothing else is as big a buffoon as Bachmann.

[KansDem]

3. Espionage charges against Snowden? Yet...

War Criminals Bush and Cheney walk free?

[font size="1"]war crime
n.
Any of various crimes, such as genocide or the mistreatment of prisoners of war, committed during a war and considered in violation of the conventions of warfare.[font size="2"]

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This is truly f*cked up!

[dipsydoodle]

4. Link to full letter in reply #21 here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014636786

[Progressive dog]

5. So Snowden wants foreign governments to interfere in the US so

he can appear in person to explain the power point that he's already released. That has to be a joke, he can't possibly expect that to happen.

[JDPriestly]

10. All nations interfere with nations on civil rights issues.

It's far more common to intervene on behalf of someone being deprived of rights or wrongly accused of political crimes (like Snowden in the eyes of those who defend him) than to place the phones of the leaders of allied nations (like Germany is for us) under surveillance.

[Progressive dog]

11. All nations try to interfere, that doesn't

mean that they are right or that they succeed. I didn't realize that law breakers had civil rights that allowed them to escape prosecution. Snowden has one civil right here, he has the right to a jury trial.
Come home Eddy and your actual "civil rights" will be honored.

[Luminous Animal]

13. Yes. They have the right to seek asylum.

[Progressive dog]

16. Seek asylum? He ran from the US, he's asking

for a free pass back and all he has to do is tell Congress about the stuff that he's already leaked to the whole world.

[Luminous Animal]

17. He has already been granted temporary asylum in Russia and he is not

adverse to the idea of accepting asylum elsewhere if the U.S. charges are not dropped.

[Progressive dog]

20. Snowden would not want me on his jury.

While I'm sure that some Germans would like to tweak the US, cooler heads will ask themselves whether having a self important and self righteous creep around is worth it. I'll bet the Germans will choose the USA over Eddie.

[Luminous Animal]

12. He was asked to testify and the letter is his response

Stroebele, who said his trip to Moscow was specifically to ask Snowden whether he’d testify before the Bundestag about NSA activities in Germany, returned with a letter from Snowden in which the 30-year-old computer specialist defends his leaking of secret NSA documents.

“I am heartened by the response to my act of political expression, in both the United States and beyond,” Snowden wrote in the letter, which Stroebele read aloud at a news conference Friday. “Citizens around the world as well as high officials – including in the United States – have judged the revelation of an unaccountable system of pervasive surveillance to be a public service.”


Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/01/207251/snowden-tells-germans-hes-proud.html#storylink=cpy

[Progressive dog]

14. I understood why he would want the Germans

to pull a Putin, what I don't understand is why he thinks he should get a free pass for crimes in the USA. He should exercise his Constitutional right to a jury trial. It takes a unanimous verdict to convict. His supporters should convince him to come home and face his accusers.

[Luminous Animal]

15. He can also exercise his right to asylum.

His supporters would prefer that he not face Chelsea Manning's fate and spend the bulk of his life in prison.

[Progressive dog]

18. He already has asylum with the Russians,

let him stay there. It seems appropriate that he would receive asylum in a country led by a former spymaster.

[salimbag]

23. Just because

You put "progressive" in your screen name, don't expect people to assume your views are, in fact, progressive. BTW, Bush the elder was head of the CIA. Spies running our country?

[Progressive dog]

25. What exactly does your post have to do with

whether Snowden should be given immunity. I am an American, Snowden has chosen to flee my country to avoid prosecution. He fled to a country that has no history of democracy where Putin is only slightly less powerful than the dictators that came before.
It is an appropriate place for him.

[SoapBox]

7. Sorry Comrade Eddie...

no help for FUCKING traitors!

What's the matter? Putin's Rusky lap not so comfortable?

[DisgustipatedinCA]

8. 1954 called. They asked you not to come back. nt

[frylock]

19. well played..

the red baiting is fucking hilarious!

[Indi Guy]

22. And there you have it folks,...

...the articulated stance of the opposition party.

[Iliyah]

24. He wants to come home.

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. He is welcome to return to the US and dispute the charges against him in a court of law

A jury of his peers will decide on whether the charges are valid.

Otherwise, he can enjoy his new home (and job) in Russia. He is a fugitive from justice wanted under a US federal felony warrant.

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

27. Kerry says some of the spying will be stopped?

This genie is out of the bottle from an incalculable variety of directions. It's a new world and all have been charged with reconfiguring their respective realities. Buckle up folks, this is only going to be a more exciting ride as time moves forward.

[JoeyT]

29. Our courageous leaders aren't about to drop the charges.

What does he think he is, rich and well connected?

If he'd caused hundreds of thousands to die needlessly, we wouldn't even have BROUGHT charges.

[BillyRibs]

30. So the Drum Head has spoken.

War criminals and banksters get away with everything, and whistle blowers are guilty as sin.

[Ash_F]

31. Say no to the Republican led NSA

Why Duers would defend an ardently right wing organization is beyond me. Where were these posters when they went after Acorn?