RAY BAKER: On March 25, supporters for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden held a press
conference at the National Press Club, calling for a change in the United States government's
stance towards Snowden.
They want Snowden's U.S. passport to be restored and for the government to not intervene in
his political asylum process.
RootsAction.org cofounder Norman Solomon said that the Obama administration is not only
creating roadblocks for Snowden, but it has unfairly tarnished his reputation.
NORMAN SOLOMON: We're all familiar with the term blaming the messenger.
What we've seen in the last nine months is a /'m{Nb@"keISn/ and exacerbation of such
a dynamic, denouncing the messenger, vilifying the messenger, taking away the passport of
the messenger, and indeed trying to prosecute and imprison the messenger, who since last
June has provided the American people with the capacity to learn about what's being done
in our names with our own tax dollars, in fact to participate in the informed consent
of the governed.
We're also familiar in recent years with the saying, if you see something, say something.
Edward Snowden saw something and he said something.
He saw the undermining of the free press aspects of the First Amendment.
He saw the undermining of the Fourth Amendment.
He saw the full-scale assault on due process and other key aspects of the Fifth Amendment.
BAKER: Solomon's group RootsAction.org sponsored a pair of petitions defending Snowden's right
to his passport and his ability to seek asylum.
With a combined total of 100,000 signers, they presented both petitions to the Justice
Department and the State Department.
This came right after President Obama announced that he would be curbing the NSA's ability
to collect phone records.
Former FBI special agent Coleen Rowley pointed out that such a reform would have only been
possible because of Edward Snowden's revelations.
But she said the government has yet to let up on prosecuting Snowden.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Well, you know the old shoot the messenger.
Okay.
If a person gets the truth out that turns out to be true-- didn't say this in my talk,
but a whistleblower test, part of it is it has to turn out to be accurate.
If your fears and concerns are ridiculous or silly, that wouldn't be the case.
But if it turns out to be accurate and if the entity that is doing the wrong or the
illegal act actually fixes it, how can they turn around now and blame that messenger for
telling them the truth that allowed them to fix the problem?
It makes no sense whatsoever.
BAKER: But how the White House makes sense of its pursuit of Snowden is by looking at
his lack of criticism of other nations.
JAY CARNEY: Mr. Snowden's claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom
of the press, and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors
he has potentially chosen.
China, Russia, Ecuador, as we've seen.
His failure to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to
injure the national security of the United States, not to advance internet freedom and
free speech.
BAKER: Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who has met with Snowden in Russia, said that
Snowden was certainly concerned about the protection of American rights--just look at
his actions before the leak.
RAY MCGOVERN: He had a copy of the U.S. Constitution on his desk.
And it was all dogeared.
And every now and then he'd whip it out and he'd say, now, is what we're doing consonant
with the Fourth Amendment?
BAKER: Former intelligence officials, researchers, and scholars alike are echoing the call for
Edward Snowden to have his passport reinstated.
But here on Capitol Hill, members of both the House and Senate are singing a different
tune about Mr. Snowden, with some even suggesting he's a Russian spy.
MIKE ROGERS: I believe there's a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms of
an FSB agent in Moscow.
I don't think that's a coincidence.
MCGOVERN: The notion that he chose to be in Russia and that Mike Rogers can, you know,
imitate Joe McCarthy in saying, oh, we know the Russians, the Russians are behind all
this, you know, he didn't choose to be in Russia.
It was only because his passport was withdrawn from him and he became stateless, because
John Kerry the Secretary of State decided to do that.
That's why he had to stay in Russia.
And I have to say this, that Putin faced a very difficult decision.
Now, in terms of international law, it was easy.
Okay?
He was due, that is, Edward Snowden was due political asylum.
Why was this difficult for Putin?
Putin's an intelligence officer.
He grew up in the KGB.
You know?
He's the last kind of guy that wants to create a precedent that you can leak all this sensitive
stuff and get asylum somewhere.
BAKER: Senate intelligence chair Dianne Feinstein had a change of heart herself upon finding
out that her Senate Intelligence Committee was being spied on by the same NSA wiretappings
she once defended.
DIANNE FEINSTEIN: What the president has said is that he wanted to maintain the capability
of the program, that, as Chairman Rogers said, it has not been abused or misused and it is
carried out by very strictly vetted and professional people.
FEINSTEIN: Based on what Director Brennan has informed us, I have grave concerns that
the CIA's search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in
the United States Constitution.
ROWLEY: I actually--when I watched Dianne Feinstein, I watched her whole speech.
And my memo about 9/11 in 2002, May 2002, I delivered it to Dianne Fienstein.
I had it--two envelopes, and they went to the Intelligence Committee.
She wasn't even the chairperson yet.
Well, I was a little disappointed over the years that she didn't become a voice for good
government.
She actually, with this intelligence committee, became complicit with the NSA and the CIA
and the black sites and the torture.
And so this moment, where she gave the speech in saying our balance of powers between the
executive and the legislative is imperiled now, we have a constitutional crisis, I took
heart from that.
I said, that's exactly what we've been trying to warn you about.
BAKER: However, Some Americans still believe Edward Snowden betrayed the trust of the United
States and endangered the welfare of servicemen and women at home and abroad.
But Norman Solomon argued that those who criticize Snowden have not been able to show how he
has jeopardized the well-being of American citizens.
SOLOMON: With all the bluster and the rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill and the executive
branch, those folks have not been able to point to a single injury to the public interest,
to the security of the United States.
What Edward Snowden has done is injure the tissue of lies, the fortification of deceit
that have been routine, coming from the Obama administration.
The only way we know about the metadata collection program, the mass surveillance, all these
hundreds, literally, of revelations we've gotten in the last nine months about what's
being done in our names, with our tax dollars, as American citizens, we know about all of
it only because of Edward Snowden.
And it really takes a lot of gall and Orwellian arrogance for the Obama administration, even
after it now is saying it will cut back on the metadata bulk surveillance program, to
still pursue Edward Snowden, to still refuse to give him his passport back, to still refuse
to promise not to abduct him or grab him and drag him back to the United States.
And we know if that would happen that his fate would be similar to Chelsea Manning being
thrown in solitary confinement, cut off from the public.
That is exactly what the Obama administration wants is to silence the voice of Edward Snowden.
BAKER: This is Ray Baker reporting from Washington for The Real News.