RT.com, October
11, 2013
The first
videos of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have surfaced since he received
asylum in Russia. The footage, provided by WikiLeaks, was taken during the Sam
Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence awards ceremony.
The video
fragments of a meeting, attended by the former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, former
NSA executive Thomas Andrews Drake and former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, Jesselyn
Radack of the Government Accountability Project, and Sarah Harrison of
WikiLeaks – all whistleblowers in their own respects – were released by WikiLeaks on Friday.
In the
first video appearance since he was granted asylum in Russia, Snowden spoke
about US government transparency and dangers to democracy caused by the NSA
mass spying programs.
“This is
not about any sort of particular program, this is about a trend in the
relationship between the governing and the governed in America,” Snowden said
speaking about the government transparency situation in the US. “That is
increasingly coming into conflict with what we expect as a free and democratic
people. If we can’t understand the policies and the programs of our government,
we cannot grant our consent in regulating them.”
“As someone
very clever said recently, we don’t have an oversight problem in the US we have
an undersight problem.”
The problem
has grown up to a point where Americans have “an executive, the Department of
Justice, that’s unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and
the country on camera but they’ll stop at nothing to prosecute someone who told
them the truth,” Snowden added.
Snowden has
expressed his satisfaction that people around the globe are starting to
understand mass surveillance doesn’t increase safety at all.
“People all
over the world are realizing that these programs don’t make us more safe, they
hurt our economy, they hurt our country they limit our ability to speak and
think and live and be creative, to have relationships, to associate freely.”
There is a
huge difference between surveillance programs aimed at increasing security and
Big Brother mass surveillance, the NSA leaker added.
“There’s a
far cry between legal programs, legitimate spying, legitimate law enforcement
where it’s targeted, it’s based on reasonable suspicion, an individualized
suspicion, and a warranted action – and a sort of dragnet mass surveillance
that puts entire populations under a sort of eye that sees everything, even
when it’s not needed.”
Although it
is known that the ceremony took place in Moscow, the exact location remains a
mystery for security reasons. In an exclusive interview with RT Julian Assange
said Edward Snowden is safe in Russia, but the fates of journalists who helped
him and published his leaks are now of more concern for WikiLeaks.
After a
meeting with Snowden, the four whistleblowers – former NSA executive Thomas
Andrews Drake, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, former FBI agent Coleen Rowley
and Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project – all met in RT’s
to share their thoughts on Snowden and tell their stories.
Of Snowden, Jesselyn Radack said that “he looked great. He seemed very centered and brilliant, smart, funny, very engaged. I thought he looked very well.”
 |
| RT photo / Semyon Khorunzhy |
Of Snowden, Jesselyn Radack said that “he looked great. He seemed very centered and brilliant, smart, funny, very engaged. I thought he looked very well.”
Ray
McGovern, called Snowden “an extraordinary person” who has “no regrets” for his
actions.
Thomas
Andrews Drake is a former NSA senior executive and a whistleblower indicted in
2010 for espionage after leaking documents to the press that alleged that the
intelligence organization had committed fraud, waste and abuse against the
American people. For his whistleblowing activities, Drake was honored in 2011
with the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams
Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award.
In the
studio he recalled his experience being a whistleblower.
“I
disclosed high crimes and misdemeanors by the US government while at the
National Security Agency (NSA). That involved both secret surveillance and
massive fraud, waste and abuse. And no
regrets at all in blowing the whistle, recognizing that I paid a very high
price,” Drake told RT.
Coleen
Rowley is a former FBI agent and whistleblower. In 2002, Rowley testified to
the Senate Judiciary Committee revealing problems facing the US intelligence
community by highlighting some of the pre 9/11 intelligence lapses.
“When you
saw this 180-degree switch to the war paradigm and the use of intelligence
rather than judicial process, due process, you know, the law of interrogation –
I had to speak out and explain the failures of 9/11.” Rowley told RT.
For her activity
TIME magazine chose her as one of three whistleblower persons of the year.
Former
ethics adviser to the Department of Justice, Jesselyn Radack, became a
whistleblower after she exposed the FBI for committing violations in their
interrogation of John Walker Lindh, an alleged Taliban fighter captured in 2001
in Afghanistan, without an attorney present. She also exposed the Department of
Justice for allegedly attempting to suppress that information. “The justice
department was willing to cut corners to prosecute people,” she told RT.
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