Controversial figure Edward Snowden, accused of compromising United States security, desperately wants to come back home. But he has one demand – Don’t call him a traitor.
During a broadcast Monday on the BBC’s “Panorama” program, Snowden says he has offered to return to the United States and face prison for leaking details of National Security Agency programs to intercept electronic communications data on a vast scale.
Critics say his disclosures harmed the ability of the United States and its allies to fight terrorism. FBI deputy director Mark Giuliano told the BBC that Snowden was a traitor.
“The question is, if I was a traitor, who did I betray?” Snowden said. “I gave all of my information to American journalists and free society generally.
“I have paid a price but I feel comfortable with the decisions I’ve made,” he added. “If I’m gone tomorrow, I’m happy with what I had. I feel blessed.”
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 is still waiting for a formal plea-deal offer.
Earlier this year, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said a plea deal with Snowden was a possibility.
Snowden’s revelations about the NSA, Britain’s GCHQ and other intelligence agencies set off an international debate about spies’ powers to monitor personal communications, and about the balance between security and privacy.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
“The question is, if he was a traitor, who did I betray?”
If one were to just pay attention to the foreign affairs between Russia and the United States, and go back in time before the aggressive behavior by Putin, it do not take a PhD to see that the aggressive behavior of Putin began after, let me say again AFTER Snowden supplied them with intelligence that could cost a many Americans lives. Because Russia and China both improved their defense, and both feels and know they are not second to America any more
Russia’s sudden “aggression” is nothing more than reacting to the US increasing their efforts to over-throw Assad and destroy yet another country. Putin’s speech at the UN was very revealing. This has nothing to do with Snowden but protecting Russian interests in the middle East while at the same time preventing the US from making an even bigger mess. Syria has been Russia’s ally and as such Russia is stepping in to prevent yet another unlawful overthrowing of a sovereign leader by the US.
To me the American label of Exceptionalism is a fraud and unless we change our ways it should be renamed Arrogant & Hypocritical.
We’ve been bombing, occupying and now droning all over the world for decades.
The new law of the land is Guilty until proven Innocent thanks to the un-patriotic act.
We overthrow democratically elected governments when they dare to nationalize their resources.
We’re in bed with dictators when it’s convenient.
We lie and steal and covet other’s resources.
We’ve stolen all of this continent from the Indians.
We supported slavery and too many of you are still racists.
We didn’t give women the right to vote until very recently and many of you are misogynists
We were on the wrong side of WWII for a long time. The Bush family was financing Hitler, IBM was helping with Nazi logistics moving Jews on the trains to the camps.
We knew about the Pearl Harbor attack and we moved our best ship out and let it happen.
We create false flag stories and lie to go into war and Iraq was just the latest.
We supported apartheid in South Africa and we helped put Nelson Mandela in jail.
And still today we’re supporting apartheid again with Israel against the Palestinians.
We let 911 happen.
The war on drugs is another hypocrisy, we should be more concerned with big pharma killing us.
I got news for you all.
Putin is not the enemy.
The Ukrainians are Fascists and again we’re on the wrong side.
We should be making friends with the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, the Venezuelans and the North Koreans.
The military Industrial Complex is who we should be against.
I don’t see it that way. It began right after Obama was caught on an open microphone telling Putin how much more flexibility he would have after reelection. That’s when Putin moved into Crimea.
Yes but your view is devoid of real facts.
Get off the meds dude. Seems like you have a BIG chip on your shoulder.
Snowden just released the information the American People need to know. Our enemies already knew.Besides, if he was a “Contractor” rather than an “Employee” the secrets weren’t very well cared for after all.
Why does the US government have to be involed in everybody else’s government dictating their belief of a imperfectly imperial democracy? Snowden merely opened the not so pristine veil of a corrupt government that wants abosolute power over its own people so that the people will only be allowedto think they are free. Our own allies honestly don’t trust our government. The danger of our armed forces isn’t because of Snowden its because of its own government working in violation to the benefit of special interest groups.
He has done nothing wrong !
The CIA and the Pentagon just don’t like anyone exposing any of their dirty little secrets.
Hillary Clinton should be going to jail for being a traitor. She misused/emailed classified information that will hurt the United States.
Exactly!! Hillary revealed classified information in secret to god-knows who while Snowden released classified information to the American people so that they will learn the truth about our government’s unlawful activities. So who is the real criminal?
Should be but won’t. She has too much dirt on the present administration for them to get into any war of words. She will get a slap on the wrist. Nothing more.
Snowden betrayed the United States of America, that is what he did ! Instead of willingly going to jail, perhaps he should contemplate going before a firing squad. What he did to his country is despicable.
Should we shoot all legitimate whistle blowers?
Kevin, perhaps Jeanne works for this “tyrannical government” and thus is afraid of losing her job.
Jeanne-
Let me ask you this: does every government employee and public servant, whether elected or appointed, swear an oath of loyalty to the US Constitution?
You know they do.
Is the Constitution the Supreme Law of the Land? Article 6 says it is.
Should those who violate their sworn oaths be held accountable for that betrayal, yes or no?
Do judges have a right to get mad when people swear to tell the truth, then get caught lying?
What Snowden did was expose CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR.
Tell me, though, Jeanne: how many people have been arrested, tried, and convicted for their completely Unconstitutional behavior, their betrayals of the public trust?
Yet Snowden might get 30 years for exposing CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR that has gone completely unpunished.
Why is that, do you think, in the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave?
Dave, i say he betrayed no one. The government (which is supposed to be its people, but isn’t anymore) got “one upped” and their jaws are out of whack because our tyrannical government got exposed for doing things against our constitution. Therefore, Snowden is a hero to many of us and nothing should be done to him.
NSA, FBI, IRS, FCC, and all the other three-letter government acronyms, devised a program to spy on its citizens. There is evidence that President Obama has been able to use this information to further his political agenda. I know this tyrannical government will tell you Snowden gave our enemies classified information, but the real reason they are mad is because of the exposure of the illegal activities of the government. Thomas Jefferson said, “when government fear the people, there is liberty, but when the people fear the government, you have tyranny.” Folks, ever since Obama became our illegal president, we have had a tyrannical government and it is time the congress of the USA do something about this problem. Impeachment is in order.
Bob-
Good on ya. i came to the same conclusion after discovering the meaning of the words “natural born,” one of the 3 qualifications for the Presidency…and what the 1st Congress – you know, the lawMAKING body? – said those words mean in their second session. All those who call for impeachment needn’t bother; all We the People need to do is order Federal Marshals to put his stuff out on the curb and evict his ass – not that this will actually happen, though. Too near the end of his illegal presidency. But it would send a great message to the world if all the legislation he illegally signed into “law” was completely revoked and invalidated, at a minimum. Personally, i’d like to see him indicted for felony perjury(lying under oath), convicted, sentenced to 10 years, minimum, fined an amount roughly equal to the value of his pay and benefits, then barred from serving in any position of public trust again for the remainder of his natural life for being too stupid to understand the Constitution he swore before God and the American People “to preserve, protect, and defend… against all enemies, foreign and domestic” – but apparently, that’s just me.
You are talking about Bush right!
Right On! Barrack Hussein Obama is an ILLEGAL president, and those who knowingly supported his imperial presidency belong behind bars with him.
Yes, but most of Congress are part of the plot. Especially the Dhimmicrats and RINOS.
In the eyes of our incremental tyranny of our government; yes, Edward Snowden is a traitor. In the eyes of the American Public who rely upon the government to uphold and defend our Constitution, he is a national hero. Anytime the government talks about “national security”, they are referring to the security of the government and not to American Citizens, for which they only give “lip service”, so not to arouse a revolution, in the light of our “freedoms”. Do not be fooled… a general once stated many years ago, “The government has to lie in order to protect itself.”
Well said.
Never thought I’d ever say this, but Mark is spot on accurate! I’m afraid that under the present circumstances, Lincoln’s noble aspiration that “government of the people, for the people and by the people” is, indeed, vanishing from the earth.
Eric-
You may wish to read “The Real Lincoln,” by DiLorenzo(iirc). Here’s a couple of quotes to chew on:
“[T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
— H. L. Mencken(1880-1956) American Journalist, Editor, Essayist, Linguist, Lexicographer, and Critic
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.”
— Abraham Lincoln(1809-1865) 16th US President
Source: Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862
That said, Lincoln did say and write some very noble things, like this:
““Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it – inviolate. The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!”
—Abraham Lincoln, 1858, Lincoln-Douglas debates
…but like most politicians, they say the expedient thing at the time, not state overarching principles they will never violate; why with the War Powers Act he bum-rushed through a rump and Unconstitutionally-seated Congress, he violated his oath to the Constitution almost daily – and, it’s not only never been revoked or overturned, but is continuously re-approved by every sitting president since. Know why? the Unconstitutional War Powers Act grants presidents powers the Constitution never authorizes, doesn’t it?
Anyway, food for thought, maybe; most of our heroes, when closely examined, are nowhere near as noble as we once thought.
Lincoln could not collect the gold and silver that he needed to conclude his aggression against the south so he passed un-constitutional legal tender acts and issued his infamous “green backs” that permitted him to take labor and mater”iel (sic) sans payment. His contemporasry, Horace Greeley said Lincoln’s money system “was no less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.”
I believe Snowden is a hero. Until he exposed the domestic spying being done the our own government nobody but government employees and politicians knew it was going on. To then say it is being done is to protect us from terrorism is the biggest lie and hoax next to Obama being the legal and eligible president. Politicians are spying on everything we do and say to protect themselves from us. The only thing they haven’t been successful with is gun confiscation which they are chomping at the bit to accomplish. Then they will be all powerful dictators.
They must disarm us before too many realize we are involved in a civil war NOW. About 4 years ago, I concluded that we are in a civil war. I now own a 20 year old book titled: “How To Survive The Second Civil War and the Forward is by a former Governor of Arizona, Symington.
Obama is the reason for the terrorist attack’s. Obama is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and refuses to say Terrorist attack’s .Snowden has not done any damage to the American people. He only exposed what these Criminal Politician’s are doing to illegally collect information on their own citizens and Allies. They use this illegally collected information to Blackmail people even the Supreme Court Justice’s .
AMEN! Well said!
Mark well said, you hit it right on the nose!!!
Mark’s post says it all. The American people need to wake up to what is really happening and why the government desperately wants to make an example of Snowden as a traitor.
Was that Marine Corps hero, Smedley Butler? General Butler was probably poisoned to shut him up.
no jail for him he did expose the gov’t for what they are . Liars give him a medal for telling the truth
Edward is a hero!!! Not a coward and TRAITOR like Obama, Holder, Mc Connell, Reid, Pelosi, Biden, Clintons, and the lot of jackasses that have tried desperately to destroy our country!!! These people are dangerous and need to go to prison or whatever the law will allow for their roles in deceiving the People. Oh, do not forget Michelle O who is probably the most embarrassing pos to come down the pike!!!
You forgot Bush2, who did more to harm this country than all of the others!
Don’t forget Bush1 and his father; it is horrible the profile of this criminals…and now, we the ignorant americans, are going to vote for J. Bush. God have mercy on us.
Ignorant Americans + illegals + computerized vote-counting fraud = the puppet most to our masters’ liking.
Anna-
Did you ever hear about http://www.blackboxvoting.org? The founder of that website is a hero to me.
You think Mrs O is worse than our former worst woman, Eleanor Roosevelt who said “We must get used to wars that we don’t intend to win?” I heard her!
Snowden…Don’t Come Back To USA Yet …You Are Truly A Hero…And Prison Is NOT Freedom…Be Patient…Wait Until This Election Process Is Over…You More Than Likely Will Face NO Charges!
This man is a HERO!!! Thank you Edward Snowden, for your bravery!!!
If Snowden is traitor a what is Obama for singing e/o 13603 look it up?
“But he has one demand – Don’t call him a traitor.”
Actually, it was reported elsewhere that he also required the USG to promise not to torture him. How did we come to live in an era when government officials must be asked to expressly acknowledge they will not do what they legally are not permitted to do?
Who should now be plea bargaining with the DoJ are those top leaders in agencies of the USG who flagrantly lied to congress and persistently violated protected rights of the American people. In another era, it is they who would be called to account for treasonous behavior.
Snowden should settle down in Russia, continue to speak on behalf of liberty and duty of conscience, and await future events. Public opinion, in the longer term, may provide him a far more generous accommodation than any presently available under an onerous and flawed law for which no legal defense is permitted and the defendant cannot testify on his own behalf. What obviously needs to change is the law, itself, which plainly violates the 6th Amendment to the Constitution.
Snowden is only a traitor to the Government, that was trying to keep their spying on us a secret. I think most of the American public thinks of him as a hero, for telling us the length and depth that the US Government is spying on us. Like we were kiving in Nazi Germany, or some communist country that monitors it’s citizens as closely as we are spied on. I doubt that he endangered anyone, or put the surveillance program in jeopardy. All he did was make the government angry for exposing their spying on American Citizens. Terrorists are already smart enough that they use disposable phones and other means to contact each other, they are not fools. The biggest impact of his revelations, are that we now know for sure that the government IS spying on us, and how far they will go in their spying efforts. Screw the NSA, and their domestic spying. With an administration full of Muslims, I imagine that the terrorists have better access to information they want to know, than anything Snowden provided to them. If anythiing it’s our government that is the traitor, and out of control. .
Are Shriners Muslims? The noted Muslim Elijah Muhammad was interviewed by Louis Lomax, a writer for the Atlanta Constitution Journal who published in book titled: When The Word Is Given: “There are three and one half million indirect Muslims in this country, those higher Masons called Shriners. When one reaches the 33rd degree in Masonry, one is no longer called a Mason. One is then called a Muslim son and comes under the teachings and prayers of Islam. We in Islam do not ascribe sonship to the almighty god, we are his spiritual children but god has no son.” “He is antichrist that denieth the father and the son.” 1 John 2:22
Unlike me the bald punk road super who eats Guido Snowden is a hero. i wish I could be like him but I will never be. A lsoer I remain.
I agree Snowden is a Hero ! The government is totally out of control. We need this stuff brought out by brave people like him, willing to risk it all for the rest of us. The governemnt at all levels have embarked on a 30 to 40 year campaign to take all our rights away. Always in the name of our safety. Its non-sense.
Why isnt anyone being arrested for ignoreing and destroying the 4th Amendment ? Why isnt anyone being arrested for lieing to congress and the american people about Iraq and Afganistan, or violateing the Logan act ? The list is huge but ignored. You should not throw stones if you live in a glass house. I would not surrender to a government like this with its rampant corruption and destruction of the law of the land the CONSTITUTION !
Snowden betrayed his criminal, corrupt government and in so doing upheld his oath to protect the constitution. He revealed unlawful activities by his government to the American public. He did not do so for personal gain. How does that make him a traitor? The whole BS about hurting our national security and aiding terrorists is nothing but an attempt to distract from the real issue, which is criminal acts by our own government against the American people. Snowden deserves a heroes welcome. If he goes to jails so should every law maker in this country who has betrayed the American people.
AMEN!
Whistleblowers are heroes.
The majority of high level politicians and directors of governmental branches like the NSA are the ones that need to go to jail for deceiving the American public and not following the constitution!!!
All that needs to happen is that Snowden makes a deal with the administration, and show how he hacked in to Hillary’s iphone and he will get off scot free, and Hilangry will replace him in jail
Snowden is a HERO!!!! I wish more people would overcome their fears and share the dirty secrets that they are forced to keep!! Including our
great military. They are also forced to lie about what is going on!. Obama is a puppet for higher powerful men than he. We as the people need to hang in together. Fight for truth and right. I say, stay away from USA for a little more time. Nancy
You are correct, It is common knowledge that the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve answer to no one. (PARADE 1977) The President, the Congress, Supreme Court, the legislators and judges ALL serve that Board of Governors. Woe is us!
This Horn News blog-o-rama is “Kookaburra Heaven.”
Snowden is a Godsend to the US Citizens. If he had not reveal all the dirty secrets of our Government ,then nobody would had known what our Government cooking be hid our backs. At least most of us are aware of this fact. He is not a traitor but humble sole helping and alerting the tax paying citizens how their Government is screwing them be hid their backs.
Well done go ahead reveal us more of such dirty tricks which most Govts; hide from their own citizens. Wheather it be the GMos in our food by poisoning our supply or keeping tracks of innocent citizens to trap them if they go sagainst the corrupt Govt, who believes that taking bribe is different then getting paid by the lobbists
The ten planks of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto
have superseded the Bill of Rights. Read them and weep:
google Marx’s ten planks USA=Unhappy Slaves of America