Trading Barbs With the NSA? Just Another Day for Edward Snowden

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has provided a trove of evidence to show how the agency spies on Americans as well as other governments, was again assailing the NSA on Friday for doing something he considered untruthful. On Thursday, the agency released a single email Snowden sent while he worked as a contractor at the NSA. In it, Snowden asked a legal question about whether executive orders have precedence over federal statute law. His question apparently referenced a portion of text from an NSA training manual he felt was incorrect. Stanford Responds to Snapchat CEO's Emails: We're 'Positively Ashamed' Snowden has always said he tried to relay his concerns to the agency before going public with them, but the NSA has denied this claim. When Snowden restated this position during a Wednesday interview with NBC, the NSA released the single email mentioned above. Which brings us to Friday's happenings. Snowden: NSA's email release is incomplete In an interview with the Washington Post, Snowden called the NSA's release "incomplete" and said the agency released the single document to gain a "political advantage." Snowden also brought up the fact that the NSA had previously said he had made no attempts to contact them with concerns, which this email proves to be untrue. Snowden then mentioned that Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) knew about the NSA's mass surveillance in 2011 and thought it was "abusive," but felt they could do little about it. That alone, he said, "underscores how futile such internal action is—and will remain—until these processes are reformed." Senator Udall's office responds to Snowden Senator Udall's office offered a tepid response to Snowden's claim that Udall and Wyden have been unable to enact meaningful reform from inside the system. Udall "did not feel constrained" by being a part of the government, Mike Saccone, a spokesperson for Senator Udall, told Mashable. Saccone said Udall has worked since 2011 to "rein in" the NSA's mass data collection, but fixing organizational missteps through the Senate takes time. The spokesperson also said that Udall still believes Snowden should return to the U.S. to make his case. Former government whistleblower says Snowden wouldn't get a fair trial Daniel Ellsberg, whose leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 made him the Edward Snowden of the the Vietnam War, wrote in The Guardian on Friday that Snowden would not receive a fair trial if he came home. Ellsberg was responding to Secretary of State John Kerry's call for Snowden to "face the music" on Wednesday, saying that no whistleblower can expect a fair trial until the Espionage Act is reformed. The former intelligence leaker said that the act—originally meant to prevent military insubordination during a time of war—was now being used to prevent whistleblowers from defending themselves in court. That's what happened to him, Ellsberg wrote, so why wouldn't it happen to Snowden?

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Trading Barbs With the NSA? Just Another Day for Edward Snowden

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has provided a trove of evidence to show how the agency spies on Americans as well as other governments, was again assailing the NSA on Friday for doing something he considered untruthful. On Thursday, the agency released a single email Snowden sent while he worked as a contractor at the NSA. In it, Snowden asked a legal question about whether executive orders have precedence over federal statute law. His question apparently referenced a portion of text from an NSA training manual he felt was incorrect. Stanford Responds to Snapchat CEO's Emails: We're 'Positively Ashamed' Snowden has always said he tried to relay his concerns to the agency before going public with them, but the NSA has denied this claim. When Snowden restated this position during a Wednesday interview with NBC, the NSA released the single email mentioned above. Which brings us to Friday's happenings. Snowden: NSA's email release is incomplete In an interview with the Washington Post, Snowden called the NSA's release "incomplete" and said the agency released the single document to gain a "political advantage." Snowden also brought up the fact that the NSA had previously said he had made no attempts to contact them with concerns, which this email proves to be untrue. Snowden then mentioned that Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) knew about the NSA's mass surveillance in 2011 and thought it was "abusive," but felt they could do little about it. That alone, he said, "underscores how futile such internal action is—and will remain—until these processes are reformed." Senator Udall's office responds to Snowden Senator Udall's office offered a tepid response to Snowden's claim that Udall and Wyden have been unable to enact meaningful reform from inside the system. Udall "did not feel constrained" by being a part of the government, Mike Saccone, a spokesperson for Senator Udall, told Mashable. Saccone said Udall has worked since 2011 to "rein in" the NSA's mass data collection, but fixing organizational missteps through the Senate takes time. The spokesperson also said that Udall still believes Snowden should return to the U.S. to make his case. Former government whistleblower says Snowden wouldn't get a fair trial Daniel Ellsberg, whose leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 made him the Edward Snowden of the the Vietnam War, wrote in The Guardian on Friday that Snowden would not receive a fair trial if he came home. Ellsberg was responding to Secretary of State John Kerry's call for Snowden to "face the music" on Wednesday, saying that no whistleblower can expect a fair trial until the Espionage Act is reformed. The former intelligence leaker said that the act—originally meant to prevent military insubordination during a time of war—was now being used to prevent whistleblowers from defending themselves in court. That's what happened to him, Ellsberg wrote, so why wouldn't it happen to Snowden?

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Edward Snowden Opens Up in New Interview: ‘I Was Trained as a Spy’

The key player in the NSA scandal says the government is "misleading" the public about his work experience Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor behind one of the biggest leaks of classified intelligence in American history, describes his previous job as more Bond-like than reported in the past. Google’s New Car Doesn’t Have a Steering Wheel “It’s no secret that the U.S. tends to get more and better intelligence out of computers nowadays than they do out of people,” Snowden said in an excerpt from a new interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams that will air on Wednesday. “I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas — pretending to work in a job that I’m not — and even being assigned a name that was not mine.” The 30-year-old is currently living in Russia and wanted on espionage charges in the U.S. after he helped expose some of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Snowden went on to say the U.S. government has tried to discredit him by downplaying the number of positions he held while working for the CIA and the NSA. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to use one position that I’ve had in a career here or there to distract from the totality of my experience,” said Snowden, who added that he worked “at all levels from — from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top.” “So when they say I’m a low-level systems administrator, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d say it’s somewhat misleading.”

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Edward Snowden Opens Up in New Interview: ‘I Was Trained as a Spy’

The key player in the NSA scandal says the government is "misleading" the public about his work experience Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor behind one of the biggest leaks of classified intelligence in American history, describes his previous job as more Bond-like than reported in the past. Google’s New Car Doesn’t Have a Steering Wheel “It’s no secret that the U.S. tends to get more and better intelligence out of computers nowadays than they do out of people,” Snowden said in an excerpt from a new interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams that will air on Wednesday. “I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas — pretending to work in a job that I’m not — and even being assigned a name that was not mine.” The 30-year-old is currently living in Russia and wanted on espionage charges in the U.S. after he helped expose some of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Snowden went on to say the U.S. government has tried to discredit him by downplaying the number of positions he held while working for the CIA and the NSA. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to use one position that I’ve had in a career here or there to distract from the totality of my experience,” said Snowden, who added that he worked “at all levels from — from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top.” “So when they say I’m a low-level systems administrator, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d say it’s somewhat misleading.”

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