NSA leaker Snowden: ‘Mission’s already accomplished’
WASHINGTON — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden said his “mission’s already accomplished” after leaking NSA secrets that have caused a reassessment of U.S. surveillance policies
Snowden told The Washington Post in an interview published online Monday night that he was satisfied because journalists have been able to tell the story of the government’s collection of bulk Internet and phone records, an activity that has grown dramatically in the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished,” he said. “I already won.”
“As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated,” Snowden told the Post. “Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”
President Barack Obama hinted Friday that he would consider some changes to NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records to address the public’s concern about privacy. His comments came in a week in which a federal judge declared the NSA’s collection program probably was unconstitutional. A presidential advisory panel has suggested 46 changes to NSA operations.
Snowden was interviewed in Moscow over two days by Post reporter Barton Gellman, who has received numerous leaks from Snowden. The interview was conducted six months after Snowden’s revelations first appeared in the Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Gellman described Snowden as relaxed and animated over two days of nearly unbroken conversation, fueled by burgers, pasta, ice cream and Russian pastry.
In June, the Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint charging Snowden, a former NSA contractor, with espionage and felony theft of government property. Russia granted him temporary asylum five months ago.
The effects of Snowden’s revelations have been evident in the courts, Congress, Silicon Valley and capitals around the world, where even U.S. allies have reacted angrily to reports of U.S. monitoring of their leaders’ cellphone calls. Brazil and members of the European Union are considering ways to better protect their data and U.S. technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are looking at ways to block the collection of data by the government.
Snowden, now 30, said he is not being disloyal to the U.S. or to his former employer.
“I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA,” he said. “I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don’t realize it.”
Asked about the Snowden interview, White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said: “Mr. Snowden faces felony charges here in the United States and should be returned to the U.S. as soon as possible, where he will be afforded due process and all the protections of our criminal justice system.”
Editorial Comment by STTPML:
Perhaps the next step in the evolution of his consciousness is for Mr. Snowden to pose other questions that are begged or derivative from his present position (with all due respect to his act of whistle-blowing and the courage and sacrifice it took):
1) “How do you “reform” or “make better” any organization or institution, if it can be proved that it is an integral part and organ of the maintenance and projection of a fundamentally rotten, brutal, predatory, genocidal Imperial system that openly and proudly proclaims its “Strategic Doctrine” to be “Full Spectrum Dominance.” over the world? And why would you want to?
2) What about the phrase “Banality of Evil” coined by Hannah Arendt from her coverage of the Eichmann trial? A construct that refers to the army of plain and faceless bureaucrats and functionaries (“little Eichmanns”), who look nothing like monsters, who strive to make the trains to the death camps run on time and “efficiently”, claiming no knowledge or concern for what those trains are delivering and to what?
3) How can the Rule of Law from any legal system, international, national, state, local or traditional, survive, endure, adapt and not implode, with any party or parties (individuals, groups or governments of nation-states) self-asserting/anointing themselves as “exceptional” and thus not bound by the rule, definitions, terms, accountability, and punishments of law not only to which others are being held, but to which the “exceptional” demand others, not themselves, be held?
4) Why is it that Canons of treaty and contract construction require supremacy clauses, non-conscionability and equal protection and applications clauses? How can any legal system or social system survive with wide and widening contradictions between the Constitutionally promised de jure (by law on paper) due process and equal protections/accountability of law, proclaimed to the whole world as a standard to be emulated one the one hand, versus the de facto (in reality) reality of “asymmetric” access to political power, information, regulatory action and legal grease that is a commodity just like cornflakes, for sale at very high prices to the few who rule the many whose taxes partly finance their own domination.?
5) Why is it that some analysts of “Americana” (American history and present) have characterized the U.S. Imperium as metaphorically a huge Dominatrix, dressed in leather with whips and chains, prowling the earth looking for masochists eagerly looking to aid and abet their own domination and abuse (of course the paradox is that no true sadist would ever give a masochist what he wants and begs for–pain); while others see the projected hubris and “exceptionalism” of the U.S. Imperium as something like Cabaret (the musical and film about a Cabaret that was a typical enclave of debauchery and hedonism in Germany amidst the rise of fascism in the early 1930s) meets “Jerry Springer” or some see what is passed off as “American Culture” as one gigantic Jerry Springer Show?
6) What type of person, group or whole government or culture summarily self-declares, self-anoints, self-credentials, self-proclaims publicly and proudly that he, she, it is “exceptional” in every fundamental way, “destined by “providence” to lead and rule others, including even being the only one to define “exceptional” or at what, or how measured with respect to itself vs others? What type of person, group or government refuses to recognize the same law that it demands others obey? Is that not pure psychopathy along with pure chutzpah and a lot more?
7) Can the lion ever lie down with the lamb without the lion first becoming a vegetarian?
8) What kind of sick logic says we “honor the dead” and “make sure they did not die in vain” by engineering a “save-face” exit, after more Vietnam-like defeats, dumping allies and killing even more people? Is that not like the proverbial compulsive gambler that keeps betting and losing and refusing to go home until he at least “gets even” and recovers his losses? And what does traditional “mainstream” economic theory say about being guided by “sunk costs” in future decisions and attempts to recover them?
9) And just how, under what logic, can anyone say the dead Waffen SS “died for Germany”, or that the dead honored at the Yasakumi Shrine “died for Japan”, or that the American dead of the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan wars (all founded on lies and gross breaches of international law) “died for America”? Not only did they die in vain, they died with blood on their hands as evidenced by the fact that many of their fellow citizens suffered and died refusing to obey, and attempting to stop, the fascist and imperialist regimes that had taken power and arrogated to speak for a whole People? Why not honor their deaths and those of the victims of those who went along with evil when they had a chance to say no.
10) In an increasingly interdependent and integrated global community of nation-states, nations and other types of state and non-state actors, the definitions of “national security” and actions taken under its banner or cover, directly and materially affect the definitions of “national security” and actions taken under its banner or cover by other nation-states and global actors. Given that this is axiomatic and self-evident, what happens to international law, or the concept of law and rule of law, global security (by anyone’s definition) national security (of weaker and non-allied states) if some of the nation-states are allowed to self-assert/anoint themselves as “exceptional” or “superpowers” or “global leaders” and summarily define “national security”, international law, meanings and scopes of treaties, etc outside of and without any regard to the definitions of and actions taken in the name of national security, international law, etc by other nations.
11) Are not “Acts of War” any actions by the government of one nation-state against and harming in various intended ways, another government, society and and its peoples whether declared or undeclared, overt or covert or clandestine or false flag? Why would any government take actions against another government outside the framework of international law and governing institutions of it, or engage in actions that are not only covert (hidden) but also clandestine (plausible deniability) and even false flag (intent to have someone else blamed)? Why not seek actions openly, for cause, under governing international law and institutions? Does cover-up not signal consciousness of guilt as no need to cover-up what is clean only what is dirty and cannot stand transparency and scrutiny?