Map for EDWARD SNOWDEN 25/6/2013 14:51 West European time: WHERE IS HE?
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The activities of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower who reported a massive illegal government data gathering program, have perhaps inadvertently revealed how America is truly viewed by the world's nations. Snowden initially sought refuge in Honk Kong after a series of interviews with Britain's Guardian newspaper identified him as the NSA whistleblower who recently revealed details of the NSA's Stasi-like surveillance program.
Predictably, the U.S. directed federal prosecutors to file criminal charges against Snowden, which has now become a matter of course in response to whistleblowers. An all-out international effort was launched to secure his immediate return.
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Revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have confirmed much of what many nations already suspected about U.S. government activities
Additionally, the U.S. government, through its compliant media affiliates, initiated a full-scale assault on Snowden. The government's strategy appears to be to use the media to vilify Snowden while ignoring his startling revelations of criminal activity at the NSA. Rather than explore the wrongdoing exposed by Snowden, the media has instead focused on superfluous matters like his salary, his light educational resume, his pole dancing girlfriend and his reticence to subject himself to America's repressive system of justice.
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The U.S. media has devoted significantly more time to Snowden's "pole dancing girlfriend" than to his stunning revelations of massive government spying
The most glaring example of the media doing the government's bidding may have been the David Gregory interview of journalist Glenn Greenwald on June 23rd during which Gregory entertained the idea that Greenwald could be federally prosecuted for reporting on Snowden. The following exchange was highly revealing: "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?" Gregory asked in the Sunday interview.
"I think it's pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themself a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies," Greenwald shot back. "The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence, David -- the idea that I've aided and abetted him in any way."
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Greenwald eviscerated media lapdog David Gregory in a widely seen interview
"If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal," Greenwald continued. "And it's precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States."
America's vindictive brand of justice, which results in the world's highest incarceration rate both in number and percentage of its people under lock and key, has been cleverly marketed to its masses as the "fairest system in the world." The pacified domestic population receives what little news it cares to ingest from heavily filtered sources and readily accepts this kind of jingoism. Nevertheless, the actions of other nations involved in the Snowden affair strongly suggest that the true nature of America's justice system has been revealed for the entire world to see. While America continues to posture itself as the model of justice for other nations to follow, conviction in U.S. federal courts is a near statistical certainty. America's obscene and patently illegitimate 99% conviction rate in federal courts may be playing no small part in the decision of other nations to offer sanctuary to Snowden, as his conviction is all but predetermined.
Just as the U.S. has sought to vilify Snowden, they have similarly criticized those nations standing firm against America's extradition efforts. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to India that it would be "deeply troubling" if Moscow defied the United States over Snowden, and said the whistleblower "places himself above the law, having betrayed his country." Kerry later made a series of semi-hysterical and utterly baseless comments regarding Snowden. "What I see is an individual who threatened this country and put Americans at risk through the acts that he took. People may die as a consequence of what this man did. It is possible the United States will be attacked because terrorists may now know how to protect themselves in some way or another, that they didn't know before. This is a very dangerous act."
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