Posted by : Anonymous
Friday, 21 June 2013
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| Snowden faces execution as sealed complaint charges espionage |
US federal prosecutors have charged whistleblower Edward Snowden with
espionage, theft and conversion of government property in a criminal
complaint, and asked Hong Kong to detain him ahead of a move to
extradite him. Though the criminal complaint is sealed, charges of espionage and
theft are undoubtedly based on Snowden’s extraction of classified
documents from NSA servers, which led to publication of several
articles regarding the NSA’s surveillance programs, including
PRISM, which is alleged to harvest private user data through
cooperation with a slew of American corporations including
Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple and Microsoft. The implicated companies have denied granting US intelligence
services “direct access” to their servers, though during an
online chat on Monday Snowden alleged that they had been
purposely deceptive in their responses. When asked to "define in as much detail as you can what
'direct access’ means," Snowden went into greater technical
detail:
"More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but
in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc
analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter
and get results for anything they want," he said. The specific details of how Snowden transported the classified
NSA documents are somewhat unclear, with The Guardian saying they
were extracted using four laptops taken to Hong Kong, though
subsequent reports suggested that Snowden simply copied secret
files on USB drives. Even though the use of thumb drives is
banned in SIPRNET, the Defense Department’s secret network, as a
system administrator Snowden had much broader access to data.
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| Image from scribd.com |
The United States is also preparing to seek Snowden's extradition
from Hong Kong, a source speaking on condition of anonymity told
Reuters. Federal prosecutors have now laid the groundwork for Snowden’s
extradition back to the US for trial, and have 60 days to file an
indictment. In order to have Snowden’s extradited, Washington
will have to support its charges with sufficient evidence to
convince Hong Kong officials that the charges are not based on
political offenses, which can be excepted by either side in the
terms of the extradition agreement between the US and Hong Kong. The charges against Snowden represent the eighth instance under
the Obama presidency that the Espionage Act of 1917 has been
used. During all previous American presidencies, the law has been
used in a total of three instances to bring charges. The 29-year-old former intelligence analyst flew to Hong Kong
last month, having been in contact with journalists at The
Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers regarding a series of
highly classified documents regarding a massive electronic
surveillance program run by the US National Security Agency that
he had acquired and intended to leak. Washington has now asked Hong Kong’s government to detain Snowden
on a provisional arrest warrant, according to officials who spoke
with the Post. Though the territory is considered a
“semi-autonomous” region under Chinese sovereignty, it is unclear
whether the matter will be handled solely by Hong Kong’s legal
system with or without intervention from Beijing.
Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive of Hong Kong, made a brief
statement last week regarding Snowden's pending prosecution. “When the relevant mechanism is activated, the Hong Kong
[Special Administrative Region] Government will handle the case
of Mr. Snowden in accordance with the laws and established
procedures of Hong Kong,” he said in a statement.
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| Glenn Greenwald |
Speaking to MSNBC following the news of the criminal complaint
filed against Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter who
worked directly with the whistleblower, called the Obama
administration's decision to pursue an espionage charge an
overreach. According to Greenwald, though Snowden was aware he
was breaking the law by disclosing highly classified documents to
the press, the former analyst saw the action as a form of civil
disobedience.
“I think this really
illustrates how vindictive this president is and how much
acrimony he has towards any kind of transparency,” said
Greenwald of the indictment.
