Snowden Plays Victim-Threatens New Leaks In Letter To Ecuador/Releases Statement Via Wikileaks

Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden broke his silence on Monday for the first time since fleeing to Moscow and proved he is a much better leaker than he is a listener. Just this morning Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

“There is one condition if he wants to remain here: he must stop his work aimed at damaging our American partners. As odd as it may sound from me,” Putin told a media conference in Moscow. 

 But in a letter to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa:

In a letter to Ecuador seen by Reuters, Snowden said the United States was illegally persecuting him for revealing its electronic surveillance program, PRISM, but made it clear he did not intend to be muzzled.

"I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest," he said in an undated letter in Spanish sent to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

"No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world. If any of those days ahead realize a contribution to the common good, the world will have the principles of Ecuador to thank."

Snowden then let lose against the country of his birth:

"While the public has cried out support of my shining a light on this secret system of injustice, the Government of the United States of America responded with an extrajudicial man-hunt costing me my family, my freedom to travel, and my right to live peacefully without fear of illegal aggression," he wrote. 

Sorry Eddie, but I don't buy it your loss of family, freedom, etc, is not the fault of the United States Government it is your own fault for releasing classified information.  You had other options but chose to release the information to the world.

Later in the day Snowden released a message via Wikileaks:

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

That's not wheeling and dealing that's asking for cooperation.  Come on Eddy did you really thing the government would say, OK he released valuable secrets not just about spying on Americans but spying on other countries. Que Sera Sera. Especially since spying on foreign governments friend and foe is all the time by and to the US.  The international spying releases have no other purpose than embarrassing the United States.

Are we really to believe Edward Snowden is the ideological angel?

The statement goes on...

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

Everyone who is about to be tried for a crime has their passport revoked. Heck if George Zimmerman had a passport it was revoked till after the trial.  Edward Snowden broke the law, he knew he broke the law, he took the job at Booz Allen with the intention of breaking the law. Sorry you are not seeking political asylum you are trying to escape the law.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

I agree that the Obama administration is afraid of the the American people Eddy, but you are not a whistle-blower. If you were your first step would not have been to blast American secrets to the world.  No Edward Snowden is a little no one who released American secrets to the world so he could gain his 15 minutes of fame.

The domestic wire-tapping and Prism programs are horrific abuses of power by our federal government. However Snowden's methodology and his release of international spying indication his desire for fame, rather than correcting a domestic problem.