Edward Snowden: US won't be able to cover up by murdering me
17 Jun 2013
telegraph
Edward Snowden, the US intelligence whistleblower, has declared that the US government will not be able to cover up his revelations about its vast data-collection programme "by jailing or murdering me".
In a defiant webchat on the Guardian website, Mr Snowden said: "Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."
Earlier this month, Mr Snowden, a 29-year-old former subcontractor working for the US National Security Agency, fled to Hong Kong with a cache of documents that expose the scale of America's cyber spying programmes. He was responding to a question about whether the documents he removed would still exist if something happened to him.
Mr Snowden described as a "predictable smear" the suggestion that he has supplied – or will do so – intelligence to China or others in exchange for asylum after taking refuge in Hong Kong.
"If I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing?" he wrote, initially without directly denying the point. "I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now."
Pressed later for a direct answer on whether he has secretly given classified information to the Chinese government, he said: "No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government."
China has denied allegations Mr Snowden is a spy, but in an indication of how they might approach Mr Snowden’s case, The Global Times state newspaper published an editorial in both its English and Chinese editions calling on Beijing not to return him to the US.
It said that it would be a “face-losing outcome for both the Hong Kong government and the Chinese central government if Snowden is extradited back to the US” and that his “whistle-blowing is in the global public interest”.
Until Monday, the foreign ministry had declined to comment on whether Beijing would intervene.
In the US, Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, suggested that Mr Snowden may be a Chinese spy, adding that the choice of Hong Kong as an asylum destination “raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this”.
In response, China’s foreign ministry said that it was “sheer nonsense” to suggest that Mr Snowden was a Chinese agent.
Mr Snowden was asked why he chose Hong Kong as the base from which to leak and did not fly direct to Iceland, which he has stated would have been a preferred country for asylum.
He indicated that he believed the US government would have been able to exert pressure "harder and quicker" on Iceland than on Hong Kong, which is part of China. He also referred to his cloak-and-dagger tactics as he left Hawaii with the downloaded documents.
"Leaving the US was an incredible risk, as NSA employees must declare their foreign travel 30 days in advance and are monitored," he said. "There was a distinct possibility I would be interdicted en route, so I had to travel with no advance booking to a country with the cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained. Hong Kong provided that."
Mr Snowden continued to insist that individual NSA analysts have great scope to access communications of Americans and foreigners, directly contradicting the assertion that "nobody is listening to your telephone calls" by President Barack Obama.
"The reality is that ... Americans' communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant," he wrote. "They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications.
"And it gets saved for a very long time – and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants."
He was damning of Mr Obama when asked why he waited to release the documents as he previously said that wanted to tell the world about the NSA programmes since before he became president.
"Obama's campaign promises and election gave me faith that he would lead us toward fixing the problems he outlined in his quest for votes," he responded. "Many Americans felt similarly. Unfortunately, shortly after assuming power, he closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several abusive programs, and refused to spend the political capital to end the kind of human rights violations like we see in Guantánamo, where men still sit without charge."
He was scornful of statements by intelligence chiefs that the programmes he has unveiled have helped thwart terror plots. "Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it," he said.
He also accused the US government of character assassination and destroying any prospects of him facing a fair trial in America.
"The US Government, just as they did with other whistle-blowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime," he said. "That's not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it."
