Though former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been indicted for leaking secrets about the U.S. government\u2019s intrusive surveillance tactics, he was honored by a group of former U.S. intelligence officials as a courageous whistleblower during a Moscow ceremony, reports ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern who was there.<\/i><\/p>\n
National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, from his asylum in Russia, accepted an award on Wednesday [9 Oct 2013] from a group of former U.S. intelligence officials expressing support for his decision to divulge secrets about the NSA\u2019s electronic surveillance of Americans and people around the globe.<\/p>\n
The award, named in honor of the late CIA analyst Sam Adams, was presented to Snowden at a ceremony in Moscow by previous recipients of the award bestowed by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII). The presenters included former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, former NSA official Thomas Drake, and former Justice Department official Jesselyn Radack, now with the Government Accountability Project. (Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern also took part.)<\/p>\n
Snowden\u00a0received the traditional Sam Adams Corner-Brighteneer Candlestick Holder, in symbolic recognition of his courage in shining light into dark places. Besides the presentation of the award, several hours were spent in informal\u00a0conversation during which there was a wide consensus that, under\u00a0present circumstances, Russia seemed the safest place for Snowden to be and that it was fortunate that Russia had rebuffed pressure to violate international law by turning him away.<\/p>\n
Snowden showed himself not only to be in good health, but also in good spirits, and\u00a0very much\u00a0on top of world events, including the attacks on him personally.\u00a0Shaking his head in disbelief, he acknowledged that he was aware that former\u00a0NSA and CIA\u00a0Director Michael Hayden, together with House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers, had hinted recently that he (Snowden) be put on the infamous \u201cKill List\u201d for assassination.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0brief\u00a0remarks from\u00a0his visitors,\u00a0Snowden was reassured \u2014 first and foremost \u2014 that he need no longer\u00a0be worried\u00a0that nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the\u00a0Constitutional rights of Americans.<\/p>\n
Even amid the government shutdown, Establishment Washington and\u00a0the\u00a0normally docile \u201cmainstream media\u201d have not\u00a0been able to deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment.\u00a0Even Congress is showing signs of awaking from its torpor.<\/p>\n
In the somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper\u00a0and\u00a0NSA Director Keith Alexander \u2014 Clapper having formally apologized for telling the Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related\u00a0things that were, in his words, \u201cclearly erroneous\u201d and Alexander having told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA\u2019s intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.<\/p>\n
Coleen Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good company as a whistleblower \u2014 and not only because of previous Sam Adams honorees.\u00a0She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.<\/p>\n
The letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that \u201can abridgement of what are called English liberties\u201d might be necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.<\/p>\n
Who\u2019s the Traitor?<\/b><\/p>\n
Like Edward Snowden, Franklin was called a traitor for whistleblowing the truth about what the government was doing.\u00a0As Franklin\u2019s biographer H.W. Brands wrote: \u201cFor an hour and a half [Wedderburn] hurled invective at Franklin, branding him a liar, a thief, an outcast from the company of all honest men, an ingrate. \u2026 So slanderous was Wedderburn\u2019s diatribe that no London paper would print it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hat tip for this interesting bit of history to Tom Mullen and his Aug. 9 article in the Washington Times titled\u00a0\u201dObama says Snowden no patriot. How would Ben Franklin\u2019s leak be treated today?\u201d\u00a0Ms. Rowley also drew from Mullen\u2019s comment:<\/p>\n
\u201cTyrants slandering patriots is nothing new.\u00a0History decided that Franklin was a patriot. It was not so kind to the Hutchinsons and Wedderburns. History will decide who the patriots were in the 21st century as well.\u00a0It will not\u00a0be concerned with health care programs or unemployment rates.\u00a0More likely, it will be concerned with who attacked the fundamental principles of freedom and who risked everything to defend them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The award citation to Snowden read, in part, \u201cSam Adams Associates are proud to honor Mr. Snowden\u2019s decision to heed his conscience and give priority to the Common Good over concerns about his own personal future.\u00a0We are confident that others with similar moral fiber will follow his example in illuminating dark corners and exposing crimes that put our civil rights as free citizens in jeopardy. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cHeeding the dictates of conscience and patriotism, Mr. Snowden sacrificed his career and put his very life at risk, in order to expose what he called \u2018turnkey tyranny.\u2019 His whistleblowing has exposed a National Security Agency leadership captured by the intrusive capabilities offered by modern technology, with little if any thought to the strictures of law and Constitution.\u00a0The documents he released show an NSA enabled, rather than restrained, by senior officials in all three branches of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust as Private Manning and Julian Assange exposed criminality with documentary evidence, Mr. Snowden\u2019s beacon of light has pierced a thick cloud of deception.\u00a0And, again like them, he has been denied some of the freedoms that whistleblowers have every right to enjoy.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Snowden was also aware of the cruel indignities to which other courageous officials had been subjected \u2014 whistleblowers like Sam Adams Award honorees (ex aequo<\/i> in 2011) Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack \u2014 when they tried to go through government channels to report abuses.\u00a0Mr. Snowden was able to outmaneuver those who, as events have shown, are willing to go to ridiculous lengths to curtail his freedom and quarrel with his revelations.\u00a0We are gratified that he has found a place of sanctuary where his rights under international law are respected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a Sam Adams \u2018Awardee Emeritus,\u2019 has asserted that Mr. Snowden\u2019s whistleblowing has given U.S. citizens the possibility to roll back an \u2018executive coup against the Constitution.\u2019\u00a0This is a mark of the seriousness and importance of what Mr. Snowden has done.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike other truth-tellers before him, Edward Snowden took seriously his solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.\u00a0He was thus legally and morally obliged to let his fellow Americans know that their Fourth Amendment rights were being violated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe past few years have shown that courage is contagious.\u00a0Thus, we expect that still others will now be emboldened to follow their consciences in blowing the whistle on other abuses of our liberties and in this way help stave off \u2018turnkey tyranny.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cPresented this 9th day of October 2013 by admirers of the example set by the late CIA analyst, Sam Adams.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sam Adams associates also expressed\u00a0gratitude for those who made this unusual gathering possible: Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer for Snowden and founder and head of The Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in Moscow; WikiLeaks\u2019 Julian Assange (SAAII award winner in 2010); Sarah Harrison, also of WikiLeaks, who facilitated Mr. Snowden\u2019s extrication from Hong Kong and has been a constant presence with him\u00a0since; other\u00a0Internet transparency and privacy activists rendering encouragement and support, and, of course, Mr. Snowden himself for agreeing to\u00a0host the first such visit to express solidarity with him\u00a0in Russia.<\/p>\n
The Sam Adams Award, named in honor of the late CIA analyst Sam Adams, has been given in previous years to truth-tellers Coleen Rowley<\/b> of the FBI; Katharine Gun<\/b> of British Intelligence; Sibel Edmonds<\/b> of the FBI; Craig Murray<\/b>, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Sam Provance<\/b>; former U.S. Army Sergeant at Abu Ghraib; Maj. Frank Grevil <\/b>of Danish Army Intelligence; Larry Wilkerson<\/b>, Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell at State; Julian Assange<\/b> of WikiLeaks; Thomas Drake, <\/b>former senior NSA official; Jesselyn Radack<\/b>, Director of National Security and Human Rights, Government Accountability Project; and Thomas Fingar,<\/b> former Assistant Secretary of State and Director, National Intelligence Council.<\/p>\n
Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence was established in 2002 by colleagues and admirers of the late CIA intelligence analyst Sam Adams to recognize those who uphold his example as a model for those in intelligence who would aspire to the courage to speak truth to power. In honoring Adams\u2019s memory, SAAII confers an award each year to someone in intelligence or related work who exemplifies Sam Adam\u2019s courage, persistence, and devotion to truth \u2014 no matter the consequences.<\/p>\n
It was Adams who discovered in 1967 that there were more than a half-million Vietnamese Communists under arms. This was roughly twice the number that the U.S. command in Saigon would admit to, lest Americans learn that claims of \u201cprogress\u201d were bogus.<\/p>\n
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Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.\u00a0As a CIA analyst colleague of Sam Adams, he witnessed first-hand the futility of Sam\u2019s persistent attempts in 1967-68\u00a0to expose the chicanery of the most senior U.S. Army officers in Saigon in falsifying intelligence in order to conceal the fecklessness of U.S. involvement there.\u00a0Sam went to a premature\u00a0death, unable to escape deep\u00a0regret that he stayed within official channels and let himself get diddled, rather than publicly expose the lies. Sam would be very proud of Edward Snowden.<\/i><\/p>\n