Edward Snowden feels vindicated as world debates spying, US rules out clemency on espionage charges

Updated November 20, 2013 15:12:07

American intelligence leaker Edward Snowden says he has been vindicated by the debates about spying his actions sparked.

Snowden was granted asylum in Russia and faces criminal charges in the US for leaking top-secret documents about the US National Security Agency's (NSA) surveillance activities.

Writing in German magazine Der Spiegel, he said systematic snooping is a threat to privacy, freedom of expression and open societies.

"The existence of espionage technology must not determine politics," he wrote, adding there was a moral duty to see that laws and values limit surveillance programs and protect human rights.

"Anyone pronouncing the truth is committing no crime."

Audio: Key US Congress members rule out clemency for Snowden (The World Today)

Snowden also said that initially some governments who had felt "unmasked" by the spying revelations had initiated "an unprecedented persecution campaign" in a bid to quash debate.

But he said that despite attempts to silence it, important debate is taking place.

The paper said Snowden wrote the piece, entitled A manifesto for the truth, on November 1 in Moscow and it was sent to Spiegel's offices via an encrypted channel.

US rules out clemency for Snowden

Snowden's remarks were published as the White House ruled out clemency and demanded he face justice.

"Mr Snowden violated US law and our belief has always been that he should return to the United States and face justice," spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said.

Republican congressman Mike Rogers agrees, saying there is no reason to clear Snowden of any possible charges.

"If he wants to come back and own up to the responsibility of the fact that he took and stole information, he violated his oath, he disclosed classified information... I'd be happy to have that discussion with him," he told CBS.

Spying 'out of control'

Prominent US journalist James Fallows has told The World Today that Barack Obama should curb the US spy program.

"There's been the ratchet of security in the US since the 9/11 attacks 12 years ago where anything that has any 'this will stop the terrorists connotation' just seems to go on unchecked," he said.

"The revelation that has most genuinely shocked me was the one three or four days ago, via Snowden to the Washington Post, that the US government had been hacking into the data centres of Google and Yahoo.

"Which is horribly destructive to those companies -how are they going to get foreign clients when the US government is hacking into them?

"There really has to be some reckoning because this is out of control.

"The revelations of overreach by the US security establishment ... I hope they will prompt president Obama to do something and if not him, the Congress and the electorate."

Listen to the interview here.

"But he does need to own up with what he's done and if he wants to talk through why he did it and those things, that would be the appropriate time and the appropriate way to do it."

Snowden remains in Moscow but he is reaching out to countries he thinks might be more inclined to help.

Among those nations is Germany, which is still reeling from allegations the US spied on its chancellor Angela Merkel.

Former German defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, says Ms Merkel is disappointed and is adamant Germany would not have done the same.

"Close relationships and the first thing to do is usually to pick up the phone and talk and not to tap the phone," he said.

"So there are steps you usually should go and we were not interested in spying on the top level of other partners."

But the former director of the NSA, Michael Hayden, says spying on foreign leaders is nothing new and he believes president Barack Obama did not personally know.

"It's impossible for me to imagine that the [National Security Council], the administration, the White House didn't know and the fact that they didn't rush in to tell the president this was going on, points out what I think is a fundamental fact - this wasn't exceptional," he said.

"This is what we were expected to do."

Republican says debate focused on wrong issue

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, is a vigorous defender of the surveillance programs.

He says the wrong conversation is taking place.

"This is the whole problem, we focused a lot on the NSA but not a lot about what the threat is," he said.

"You think about the programs, all of which we've discussed, all of which are legal, all of which have the most oversight of any programs in the United States government.

"So the question now isn't how you rein in the NSA. The object is, listen, are they following the law, are they protecting civil liberties? The question is, what are the threats to the United States?"

Both he and senior Democrats say Snowden has made isolating those threats harder.


Topics: security-intelligence, defence-and-national-security, world-politics, russian-federation, united-states

First posted November 04, 2013 14:37:00