Read Snowden’s Comments On 9/11 That NBC Didn’t Broadcast

[Peter Lemkin]

The only evidence we've seen thus far that Snowden tried to bring this matter to the attention of his superiors is an email asking a legal question about the priority of various statements of the law by different parties. He did not mention the surveillance programs at all. If this is all the evidence he has, his "whistleblower" defense won't be worth the paper it's printed on. Most real whistleblowers, realizing there is gonna be trouble, make the effort to collect the written proof of these notifications. The fact that Snowden didn't, either says a) there isn't any or b) he knew that he wasn't going to need it.


Now, I acknowledge that any other notification evidence would be in the possession of the one party least likely to voluntarily cough it up. And I also know that any of Snowden's ex-co-workers are unlikely to step forward to corroborate his story. But all that should have been obvious to Snowden as well.

Snowden listed several other emails that would be available - in which he tried internally to get justification for what he was observing or complain that he felt it was illegal or extra-legal. That the NSA has not seen 'fit' to release/admit to more than one, IMO, doesn't reflect badly on Snowden. Time will tell.

As far as others stepping forward, wait. But long ago [as somewhere here I have related] I learned things quite similar from a low-level NSA employee [as the 'state of the art' was back then]. To my knowledge, I'm the only researcher he told, and he did so very reluctantly....afraid that he was being watched meeting and talking to me in public [the boardwalk at Venice, CA beach]. In fact, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital and dosed with Thorazine and other drugs - and then I lost contact with him......so Snowden's moves, while suspect to some, seem like the only moves to avoid being incarcerated for 'treason', brain dead or dead dead.

[Peter Lemkin]

Edward Snowden NSA whistleblowing story to be filmed by Oliver Stone

Director of Platoon and JFK will direct a big budget adaptation of Guardian journalist Luke Harding's book about Snowden's role in exposing the NSA's surveillance culture

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. His story is being adapted into a film by director Oliver Stone. Photograph: Guardian

He has tackled the Kennedy assassination and the Watergate break-in, the Vietnam conflict and the Bush administration's "war on terror". Now the Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone is set to whip up fresh controversy with his adaptation of The Snowden Files, an account of the ongoing NSA scandal written by the Guardian journalist Luke Harding.
Stone's thriller will focus on the experiences of the American whistleblower Edward Snowden, a contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked thousands of classified documents to the former Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald back in June 2013. The film is to be produced by Stone's regular business partner Moritz Borman, with Harding and other Guardian journalists serving as production and story consultants.
"This is one of the greatest stories of our time," Stone, 67, said in a statement. "A real challenge. I'm glad to have the Guardian working with us." Stone's previous films include Platoon, JFK and W. The director has also made documentaries on Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, together with a 2012 TV series, Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States.
Snowden's revelations, first reported in the Guardian, lifted the lid on a culture of mass government surveillance, sparked a global furore and forced the Obama administration onto the back foot. Secretary of state John Kerry later conceded that the NSA's programme had "reached too far" and should be curtailed. Snowden's fate, however, remains in the balance. The former NSA employee has been granted temporary asylum in Russia but faces a 30-year prison sentence if he returns to the US.
Published earlier this year, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man charts the political awakening of the twentysomething Snowden, a committed Republican who found his libertarian values increasingly at odds with his government's surveillance programme. A review in the New York Times hailed Harding's book as "a fast-paced, almost novelistic narrative that is part bildungsroman and part cinematic thriller."
Oliver Stone, who will direct the biopic. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images "The story of Edward Snowden is truly extraordinary, and the unprecedented revelations he brought to light have forever transformed our understanding of - and relationship with - government and technology," said Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor-in-chief. "We're delighted to be working with Oliver Stone and Moritz Borman on the film."
Conceived as a European co-production, the film is due to start shooting before the end of 2014. But time is of the essence. Stone's film looks set to face competition from No Place to Hide, a rival project adapted from the book by Glenn Greenwald and overseen by James Bond producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

To his critics, Snowden remains a traitor whose actions have caused possibly irreparable damage to US intelligence capabilities. In the wake of last year's revelations, the ex-CIA director James Woolsey argued that if Snowden was convicted of treason, he should face the death penalty.
Supporters, by contrast, view the whistleblower as a patriot who acted purely in the public interest. "To me, Snowden is a hero," Stone said in July of last year. "He revealed secrets that we should all know, that the United States has repeatedly violated the fourth amendment."
The Guardian and the Washington Post both went on to win the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service for their groundbreaking reporting of NSA surveillance. On accepting the prize, Rusbridger paid tribute to Snowden's role in breaking the story. "The public service [citation] in this award is significant," he said. "Because Snowden performed a public service."

[Drew Phipps]

There was another man in California (Oakland) who was a whistleblower to the surveillance of internet traffic. I forget his name. He went public and stayed home. Got fired of course.

I'm looking forward to the rest of Snowden's emails. Its a shame that as he smuggled out thousands of pages of classified documents he didn't remember to save a few of his own emails which would prove his legal defense.

[Magda Hassan]

I know who you mean. Can't recall his name right now. Think it was telco stuff. Passing phone records on illegally to NSA and such.

[Lauren Johnson]

I know who you mean. Can't recall his name right now. Think it was telco stuff. Passing phone records on illegally to NSA and such.

William Binney?

[Albert Doyle]

What point is there staying home and facing the charges when America is basically a fascist occupied state with a rogue government that has turned against its people and the Constitution? Besides, why is Russia such a pariah state? They're not communist any more remember? If we have a Global Economy then foreign states are not the automatic enemies they used to be, right? There's no doubt there's been a restructuring of internal and external definitions and alliances, which doesn't exclude a neo-American National Security state now criminalizing its population and destroying previous Constitutional protections (and lying about it with contemptuous impunity). Sorry Drew, but I must have missed the part where Snowden owed some kind of moral debt to those filthy traitors that call themselves our government. It's clear the definition of what Snowden did was not criminal but was instead a heroic defense of the American people and their rights against a dark and treasonous government that no longer respects their rights or previous form of government. Snowden shined light into the dark recesses of government that the Bush administration concealed with their anti-democratic laws. The attention shouldn't be on Snowden, it should be on the government that now acts like all guilty criminals when caught. Chances are if Snowden took a brave stand his information would be confiscated and buried and you would never hear of him. This would all be done with the mass approval of the average American useful idiot that now crowds the 'Killing Kennedy' Amazon review section with thousands of approving positive reviews. What really needs to be criticized is calls for death from the halls of the murderers of JFK and government hunting of citizens who do the job government has now forsaken. If America were really sound it would not respond that way to sunshine and transparency, which is the real issue here. The government gives away what the policies and practices Snowden exposed are really intended for. So the violator isn't really Snowden it's us. We are the ones who have let these Kennedy killers reign for too long.

[Drew Phipps]

It was William Binney, thanks. The point of acting courageously in the face of government oppression is to inspire others to stand up against oppression. Remember the little guy in Tiananmen Square? The Chinese government is still (after 25 years) so afraid of that one act of courage, that they don't allow demonstrations there, and don't allow foreign journalists to film the Square. The consequences to the individual will be bad, but the overall effect of such courage is to improve the society.

The point (for me) is not to give up. We can still change this country, for the better, for us all, but not by giving up.

[Albert Doyle]

I honestly don't see what the point is. Tank Man in Tiananmen Square was never identified. He also chose to avoid certain government punishment. The Chinese government won due to its imposition of restrictions, just like on the 50th in Dealey Plaza. Meanwhile Snowden is free and able to bear witness against those government hypocrites. They haven't shut him down and he hasn't given up. May those WMD bastards eat their hearts out and hear Snowden in their sleep.

[Drew Phipps]

Well, he is alive. But he isn't free.

[Magda Hassan]

Well, he is alive. But he isn't free.

He's freer than he would be in the gulag archipelago of US black sites he would have disappear into if he'd stayed. He still has a voice.