News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Dec. 27, 2013: Yes, as with all the other 151 episodes before this, this one too is about Barack Obama even though Edward Snowden is the name featured, and unlike Obama, a hero!
Think about this…
Since Barack Obama got the Nobel Prize for absolutely nothing; think about how much Snowden deserves it for exposing the scandal of Un-Constitutional spying the NSA has undertaken with Obama as President.
We can’t award Edward Snowden the Nobel Prize nor provide him a safe free return to the United States as a Hero but we can award him our first ever annual Person of the Year Award for 2013.
The more that Obama and the U.S. security apparatus wants to find a way to capture him and return him to the U.S. to be convicted of treason if not if they could torture and murder him instead, the more he is an American Hero.
It is preposterous to believe either that Snowden should have: 1) stayed in the U.S. and reported what he knew to the same government responsible for his blatant spying on Americans and foreign allies, OR 2): that he should now return to the U.S. to be arrested and be “fairly” tried (sic) and then sent to some maximum security prison for life and tortured in secret.
Are some of you so naive to think that Obama would treat him differently? Take a look at his record with more mundane patriotic “whistle blowers.”
This from the DC insider publication The Hill … May 21, 2013:
“The Obama administration has sent a clear message. Government officials and journalists who wish to work together to create news stories through the leak of classified information that portray the president and his administration in a positive light should have no fear. And to the journalists and whistle-blowers thinking about publishing that other kind of classified information, be prepared to have your emails read, your phones tapped without your knowledge and your life and career turned upside down.”
SURPRISE! The Obama Administration has waged war against any whistleblower who “damages the reputation of the Hypocrite President.” And none come close to being as egregious as Edward Snowden to his reputation.
And even more recently, here is a New York Times editorial from December 10, 2013, commenting on Obama’s response to the recommendations of Obama’s own face saving panel to rein in the NSA:
“By the time President Obama gave his news conference on Friday, there was really only one course to take on surveillance policy from an ethical, moral, constitutional and even political point of view. And that was to embrace the recommendations of his handpicked panel on government spying — and bills pending in Congress — to end the obvious excesses. He could have started by suspending the constitutionally questionable (and evidently pointless) collection of data on every phone call and email that Americans make. He did not do any of that.”
Then this editorial goes on to say …
“He kept returning to the idea that he might be willing to do more, but only to reassure the public “in light of the disclosures that have taken place.”
“In other words, he never intended to make the changes that his panel, many lawmakers and others, including this page, have advocated to correct the flaws in the government’s surveillance policy had they not been revealed by Edward Snowden’s leaks.”
“And that is why any actions that Mr. Obama may announce next month would certainly not be adequate. Congress has to rewrite the relevant passage in the Patriot Act that George W. Bush and then Mr. Obama claimed — in secret — as the justification for the data vacuuming.”
Contrast Obama’s views with what Edward Snowden said from exile in his Christmas Day message …
“Hi, and Merry Christmas. I’m honored to have the chance to speak with you and your family this year.”
“Recently, we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance, watching everything we do.”
“Great Britain’s George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information. The types of collection in the book — microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us — are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go.”
“Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person. A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves — an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that’s a problem, because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.”
“The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. Together, we can find a better balance. End mass surveillance. And remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying.”
End of Edward Snowden’s Christmas message.
So who do you think is the Hero and who is the Villain?
Who deserves the Nobel Prize and our eternal gratitude and respect, and who deserves to e criticized and condemned?
Who deserves to be vacationing in luxury in Hawaii at taxpayer expense, and who deserves to be suffering unable to come home?
Were it not for Edward Snowden’s COURAGE we would never have known what Obama and our secret government are up to. These culprits are still at work but they will never again enjoy the secrecy they crave. We will never be deceived again by a feckless President who regularly lies to us.
God Bless Edward Snowden a true American Hero; Our Man of the Year!
And shame on Barack Obama yet again.
About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
