Ten keys to the Snowden case

Keymer Ávila

30/07/2013

Opinión

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"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" George Orwell, 1984.

For more than a month Snowden has occupied primary space in the global media, generating debates that go from the preoccupation for the US vigilance and control over all of us, to the worthy response of the countries that make up ALBA and MERCOSUR in the face of aggression against Evo Morales, to the proposals of marriage of an attractive former Russian spy. What are the principal aspects that must be considered on this case?

1. Snowden is not the first to unleash this kind of storm (that in the end everyone knows). He has come to be a kind of D'Artagnan, becoming the fourth member of a group of citizens that have denounced the excesses of the U.S. Empire from their own gut feelings. These are: 1) Philip Agee, former CIA agent who after retiring in 1968 raised serious questions about this agency. They cancelled his passport, he was persecuted across the world, particularly by the elder Bush, and ended up settling in Cuba until the end of his days; 2) Bradley Manning, former U.S. soldier, detained under conditions that violated his human rights since 2010, for denouncing massacres on the part of US troops in Irak and Afghanistan; 3) more recently, the Australian Julian Assange, the only one of the four who is not a U.S. citizen and who for almost a year has been in asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, because of his work with WikiLeaks.

2. On June 6 the British newspaper The Guardian published news to the effect that the National Security Agency (NSA) had access to telephonic and internet registers of millions of clients of the telephone company Verizon in the U.S. In self-justification the White House defended the need to register telephone calls of U.S. citizens. The next day the Guardian and the Washington Post revealed classified information on two massive espionage programmes operated by the U.S. government. The first (PRISM) allowed the NSA and the FBI to access the servers of Microsoft, Google, Apple, PalTalk, A.O.L., YouTube, Skype, Yahoo and Facebook without limits and thus obtain personal information about the users, monitor email and internet traffic. The second is a tool that allows them to track and register data (Boundless Informant) of calls in the United States, with the aid of satellite networks including those that operate commercially. On June 9 Snowden revealed that he was the source for both newspapers. At this time he had gone to ground in Hong Kong, where he had travelled to from Hawaii. Three days before this he had made the famous video in which he was interviewed by The Guardian.

3. On June 13 the hunt for Snowden was publicly announced by the United States.. He is being prosecuted for espionage, theft and the illegal use of governmental goods, justifying the surveillance programmes in the struggle against terrorism. They fear that the former agent might release data to China. Snowden, with a wink at the Chinese, denounced U.S. espionage against their government. The Chinese treated the case sparingly and with prudence, assuring that they would act in accordance with law.

4. On June 22, the U.S. Government formally requested the extradition of Snowden from Hong Kong. The next day the former technician arrived in Russia and undertook contacts with the Ecuadorian government, but this government, subject to pressure and the interception of its internal communications, was unable to carry out the asylum.

Solidaridad con Evo Morales. Quito, Ecuador

5. European governments, among which the German government was prominent, were aware of the espionage programmes and some had consented to their employment. This explains the servile and complicit attitude of Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, which carried out an aggression against President Evo Morales because of the unfounded suspicion that Snowden was with him in the presidential aircraft. Paradoxically, the latter two countries were among those who had been the objects of U.S. espionage.

6. Snowden requested asylum from more than twenty countries, but more than half of these formally refused to receive him. Some of them pleaded that they were unable to study the case since the person requesting asylum was not in their territory. This stood out because of its implications with the case of Evo Morales in France, Italy and Spain.

7. In response to the aggressions against Evo Morales, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia offered asylum to the former CIA agent. In the face of these offers the U.S. refused to comment. In contrast to this, Mercosur stood with the three countries from ALBA and vindicated the right of political asylum.

8. In spite of the meeting between Kerry and the Venezuelan foreign minister in Guatemala, in which there were the beginnings of relations of mutual respect, Kerry made threatening phone calls to the Venezuelan government to insist that this government should not grant asylum to Snowden. Before this, other officials had attempted to intimidate Rafael Correa, the President of Ecuador. Snowden was attacked publicly by many, including Obama hinself, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Kerry, along with leaders of the Senate and the Congress, and some spokesmen from the judiciary. Later, on July 17, Samantha Power ratified these moves, criticizing Venezuela, Cuba, Russia and Iran as "oppressive regimes", in her campaign to represent the U.S. before the United Nations.

9. After having retracted a first request for asylum from Russia (June 25), due to the condition that Putin insisted on, that he not undertake hostile activities against his "U.S. partners", to avoid the difficulties of flying to Latin America, Snowden accepted the conditions and formally requested asylum from Russia. In addition, this country has stated that he would not be extradited to the U.S. since the two countries have no bilateral agreements on this matter. In addition, they noted that the attitude was reciprocal, since the U.S. has not surrendered spies to Russia under similar circumstances.

10. A month after his arrival in Russia, reports on the possibility of Snowden leaving Sheremetievo Airport in Moscow and regularizing his condition of temporary asylum are still contradictory and replete with bureaucratic excuses. At the present time the pressure exercised by the U.S. on a global level around this case, together with information as to US espionage on many governments, were raising awkward responses among a number of countries (Brazil ,Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ireland, Iceland, Mexico, Peru, Russia, among others), since it would be difficult for them to maintain solidarity with the U.S. without facing negative reactions on the part of their own citizen that are being spied upon. Several organizations, among them Russian and German groups, as well as a number of personalities, have indicated openly and concretely their support for the former CIA agent.

It is tragicomic that the United States, after all their efforts, argues that Snowden did not have access to "the most confidential information". If this be true, can one imagine what is the "most confidential" information that the former technician did not have access to?

2013-07-26

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)

@Keymer_Avila

https://www.alainet.org/fr/node/78225?language=en