Edward Snowden's father defends his son on NBC's 'Today'

Snowden

Edward Snowden has become one of the most polarizing figures in America these days. However, he is not in America - last I knew, he was in a Moscow airport, awaiting his next movement to an undisclosed country without extradition to the United States.

A brief refresher for those not familiar with the story. Snowden was an ex-National Security Agency contractor who leaked out information about a spying apparatus that was being used on American and British citizens. Since leaking out the information, he has gone off the grid and is reportedly being assisted in his attempt to "get away" by WikiLeaks and its controversial director, Julian Assange. The end result is to get Snowden to Ecuador, who has offered him asylum. Ecuador also offered Assange protection, as he currently resides in its embassy in London.

This morning the father of Snowden appeared on NBC's 'Today' show, where he defended his son, saying he did not commit treason and that "those who surround" his son are bad influences.

"I love him. I would like to have the opportunity to communicate with him. I don't want to put him in peril, but I am concerned about those who surround him," said Lonnie Snowden. "I think WikiLeaks, if you've looked at past history, their focus isn't necessarily the Constitution of the United States. It's simply to release as much information as possible. So that alone is a concern for me."

"You know, at this point I don't feel that he's committed treason. He has, in fact, broken U.S. law in the sense that he has released classified information. And if folks want to classify him as a traitor -- in fact, he has betrayed his government. But I don't believe that he's betrayed the people of the United States," he added.

How do you view Edward Snowden?

Details

Show:
- Today (US)
Network:
- NBC

Written by: Hamatosan
Jun 28th, 2013, 7:14 am

Images courtesy of NBC

Anonymous

Message Posted On Jul 22nd, 2013, 12:29 pm

Snowdens own excellent statement: "Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates. It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law. ..... Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice." wikileaks(dot)org/Statement-by-Ed...nowden-to.html UK and US citizens...and, in fact, anyone not offering him asylum...should feel ashamed of their government.

Anamon

Level 2 (54%)
Points: 1.4
Since: 26/Apr/11

Message Posted On Jul 8th, 2013, 5:49 pm

Anonymous 2, none of this prevents the implementation of a backdoor to the data storage, or even just a privileged user account. It's just giving someone else the access that developers and moderators on Facebook already have. In fact, it's just giving them the same access you have, without enforcing the privacy settings of other users. There really isn't anything to it. Besides, almost all of the companies involved in the meantime had to retract their denials and admit that Snowden's information was the truth.

Encryption is good. Of course the people who the agencies claim to be after would already be using similar measures to not get caught. That is the biting irony of the whole thing. If someone were clever enough to actually plan a successful terrorist attack (or whatever), you'd think they'd also be clever enough to not use public, global, unencrypted communication channels. It's ridiculous. All the NSA could hope to find would be some armchair extremists, if they're lucky, but not people with the means and intent to do any real harm. It's like with airport security: put up a big dramatic show for your customers, give them a feeling of security so they don't get too afraid and stop flying; just hope they don't think about it, and realise that actual terrorists would probably not have much trouble finding a way around regular airport security.

Anonymous

Message Posted On Jul 1st, 2013, 3:56 pm

We all know that almost every country on the planet are spying on us. We just have to be more careful. Encrypted email is one such method. Anonymous or encrypted browsing is another. Please get with the program and realize that the US is now going the way of the USSR circa the 1950's. It'll only get worse.

Anonymous

Message Posted On Jun 29th, 2013, 7:56 am

Snowden is either very incompetent or purposely lying. I knew it from the moment i heard he declared that Facebook and Google give direct access to it's servers to NSA. Those companies core competencies upon which they very success build is technical know-how is commanding power of distributed massive computing network. They engineers created unique software and hardware and constantly improve it. They design state-of-the-art database software that others copy and reverse engineer. If NSA have direct access to this unique systems it must have deep involvement in design of this system. And this level of involvement will necessarily slow down development and take away well-earned competitive edge.

Anonymous

Message Posted On Jun 28th, 2013, 3:33 pm

Thanks for asking Josh. If I had the access he did I'd hope I'd have the balls to do the same. I don't think I would though. Taking on the NSA is probably the bravest thing I've ever heard of. he made some bad decisions in where he went, but I don't think he had many options for places to go that the US would have respected borders in their efforts to get to him other than China and Russia.If he ended up in Iceland or ends up in Ecuador, I'd have been surprised if they didn't extract him regardless of what their government wanted. I really believe he intended to do good for the US and the world, and I believe he self-censored in order be sure that he didn't aid any enemies of his home country which I believe he loves. I don't think it was a publicity stunt or egotism, I think he really wanted to let people know concretely how bloated US intelligence agencies have become and the fact that they were acting unconstitutionally.

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