Back in the USA: @ggreenwald & @laurapoitras honored with Polk Awards http://t.co/Ndl8ztGkrf pic.twitter.com/ZTx24gurtN
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) April 11, 2014
NEW YORK -- Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, two American journalists who have been at the forefront of reporting on documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, will return to the United States on Friday for the first time since revelations of worldwide surveillance broke.Also at the Daily Dot, "NSA reporters Greenwald and Poitras to brave U.S. return Friday." And at NYT, "Polk Award for Snowden Coverage Draws 2 to U.S."
Greenwald and Poitras, currently in Berlin, will attend Friday’s Polk Awards ceremony in New York City. The two journalists are sharing the prestigious journalism award with The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill and with Barton Gellman, who has led The Washington Post’s reporting on the NSA documents. Greenwald and Poitras interviewed Snowden last June in Hong Kong as he first revealed himself.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Greenwald said he’s motivated to return because “certain factions in the U.S. government have deliberately intensified the threatening climate for journalists.”
“It’s just the principle that I shouldn’t allow those tactics to stop me from returning to my own country,” Greenwald said.
Greenwald suggested government officials and members of Congress have used the language of criminalization as a tactic to chill investigative journalism.
In January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested that journalists reporting on the NSA documents were acting as Snowden’s “accomplices.” The following month, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, claimed that Greenwald was selling stolen goods by reporting stories on the NSA documents with news organizations around the world. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) has called for Greenwald to be prosecuted.
Greenwald said the government has not informed his legal counsel whether or not he could face any potential charges, or if he's been named in any grand jury investigation tied to the NSA disclosures.
Silicon Valley has a trust problem, and it's growing. Some of this is the result of National Security Agency spying — and the tech community's cooperation with same — and some of it is based on other things tech leaders are doing. But the worst of it is based on who our tech overlords have become.More (via Instapundit).
The NSA spying has already done harm enough. As Glenn Derene warned in Popular Mechanics when the story first broke, fear of NSA spying is giving a boost to offshore competitors, as companies and users seek hardware and software without back doors and compromised security standards. Some foreign customers feel betrayed by Google, Facebook, and other tech giants.
But even at home, the tech community is hurting. According to a study by Harris Interactive last week, people are actually reducing their Internet usage because of the Edward Snowden revelations and general fears about privacy. The study found that 47% say they have changed their behavior online, and 26% say they're doing less online shopping. Among younger users, aged 18 to 34, the online shopping number was 33%...
And #Russia had Victoria Nuland on crystal clear phone tap telling EU to eff off. #Intelligence #Fail http://t.co/jUH3bWJ1aW
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 24, 2014U.S. military satellites spied Russian troops amassing within striking distance of Crimea last month. But intelligence analysts were surprised because they hadn't intercepted any telltale communications where Russian leaders, military commanders or soldiers discussed plans to invade.Very impressive, indeed.
America's vaunted global surveillance is a vital tool for U.S. intelligence services, especially as an early-warning system and as a way to corroborate other evidence. In Crimea, though, U.S. intelligence officials are concluding that Russian planners might have gotten a jump on the West by evading U.S. eavesdropping.
"Even though there was a warning, we didn't have the information to be able to say exactly what was going to happen," a senior U.S. official says.
To close the information gap, U.S. spy agencies and the military are rushing to expand satellite coverage and communications-interception efforts across Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states. U.S. officials hope the "surge" in assets and analysts will improve tracking of the Russian military and tip off the U.S. to any possible intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin before he acts on them.
The U.S. moves will happen quickly. "We have gone into crisis-response mode," a senior official says.
Still, as Russia brings additional forces to areas near the border with eastern Ukraine, America's spy chiefs are worried that Russian leaders might be able to cloak their next move by shielding more communications from the U.S., according to officials familiar with the matter. "That is the question we're all asking ourselves," one top U.S. official says.
The Obama administration is "very nervous," says a person close to the discussions. "This is uncharted territory."
It all comes amid the backdrop of a worried government in Kiev. Ukraine's foreign minister said Sunday that the troop buildup is increasing the possibility of war with Russia.
Months before the takeover, U.S. spy agencies told White House policy makers that Mr. Putin could make a play for Crimea, home to strategically important Russian naval installations. That led to an unsuccessful diplomatic push by the Obama administration.
When the moment arrived, U.S. attention was focused on the troops on Russian soil. Instead, forces already inside Crimea were spearheading the takeover of the peninsula, before U.S. spy agencies fully realized what was happening.
Citing conflicting assessments from intelligence agencies, Rep. Michael Rogers, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has launched a review of whether spy agencies misjudged Mr. Putin's intentions. Agency officials say the differences were relatively small and reflected the competing analysis that policy makers expect intelligence agencies to conduct.
Some Obama administration, military and intelligence officials say they doubt the U.S. could have done much differently. Even with a clearer understanding of Mr. Putin's plans, the Obama administration thought it had few options to stop him. U.S. spy chiefs told President Barack Obama three days before the Crimea operation that Russia could take over the peninsula so fast that Washington might find out only when it was done.
Some U.S. military and intelligence officials say Russia's war planners might have used knowledge about the U.S.'s usual surveillance techniques to change communication methods about the looming invasion. U.S. officials haven't determined how Russia hid its military plans from U.S. eavesdropping equipment that picks up digital and electronic communications.
Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. spy satellites and other intelligence-gathering assets have been focused less on Russia and more on counterterrorism, the Middle East and Asia, reflecting shifting U.S. priorities.
"This is the kind of thing young military officers are going to be reading about in their history books," says one senior U.S. official.
As early as December, U.S. intelligence analysts and diplomats got indications that Mr. Putin had his eye on Crimea. Widespread protests in Kiev against then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych concerned the Kremlin. The analysts and diplomats warned that Moscow could take unspecified measures to protect Russian interests in Crimea if the situation worsened.
The U.S. military's European Command asked the Pentagon to increase intelligence-collection efforts in the region, including satellite coverage. Images showed what U.S. officials described as typical military movements at Russian bases in Crimea.
Looking back, some U.S. officials now suspect Russia might have been trickling more highly trained units into Crimea in small numbers. But U.S. intelligence analysts didn't pick up any such indications before the takeover, officials briefed on the intelligence-gathering effort say...
Wow. Just.....wow. The Daily Beast exposes First Look Media (#Greenwald, @Pierre) nut job defense of RT..... putting up a voicemail
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) March 13, 2014Hear lunatic @TheIntercept First Look "journalist" voicemail defending RT and Russia, slagging off #AbbyWahl, here http://t.co/uAwzI4qEcL
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) March 13, 2014There is nothing quite like the Olympics in Russia to make American political institutions and economic conditions look good. But soon, those podium moments (Go men's freestyle slope skiers!), Vladimir Putin's creepy "pay no attention to my repressive regime" half-smile, and Russia's inability to make flushing toilets or working Olympic ring lights will fade. The spotlight will turn once again to the United States -- and whether it still has what it takes to forge a successful, sustainable foreign policy.Well, let's hope so.
Few would dispute that American political institutions aren't what they used to be. Filibusters, which allow congressional minorities to grind government business to a halt, have skyrocketed, from six in the 91st Congress (1969-1971) to an all-time high of 112 in the 110th Congress (2007-2008). Today's legislators are also more polarized ideologically, with moderates in both parties becoming an endangered species. Trust in government is at an all-time low, with only 10 percent of Americans reporting a high degree of confidence in Congress (compared to 76 percent for the U.S. military).
Our economic fundamentals aren't any prettier, with debt constituting 73 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), higher than any time since around World War II, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That compares to a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 20 percent for China and 94 percent for Spain. Of course, the 2008 recession, which started with the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble, created the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression, leading to the near collapse of several large financial institutions, sovereign debt crises across Europe, and downturns in stock markets worldwide. But since then, U.S. growth has averaged an anemic 1.075 percent from 2009 to 2012 (compared to an average of 3.68 percent during the second half of the 20th century). And as Nobel laureate Michael Spence notes, the American economy is poorly structured to thrive in the global marketplace, with increasing employment in nontradeable sectors such as government and health care, and an educational system in relative decline.
Yet here's the thing. Even with a gridlocked, polarized, and reckless Congress, a skyrocketing national debt, and a shaky economy, President Barack Obama has been strangely unconstrained in executing his major foreign policy priorities. He surged then drew down in Afghanistan, intervened in Libya, pivoted to Asia, negotiated an interim nuclear deal with Iran, expanded NSA surveillance capabilities, and deployed drones to kill suspected terrorists, including American citizens, around the world without much of a peep from Congress (with the exception of Rand Paul). While many question whether these policies are wise or well-implemented, it's clear that Obama has been able to get much of what he wants on major issues. U.S. foreign policy has hewed closely to his preferences.
What's going on? How can we square these serious institutional and economic conditions with Obama's comparatively free hand in foreign affairs?
It's possible that Obama is simply a persuasive politician, though his domestic policy struggles with health care reform and his outright failure to pass major domestic priorities -- immigration reform, a budget "grand bargain," climate change legislation, or expanded background checks on gun purchases -- suggest otherwise. It is also possible, as the political scientist Aaron Wildavsky famously noted, that presidents are systematically less constrained in the conduct of foreign than domestic policy. The president is, after all, the commander-in-chief, negotiator-in-chief, and secret-information-holder-in-chief, wielding substantial formal powers to strike deals and order strikes abroad, and carrying more informal clout on the world stage than he often does in Washington.
If Wildavsky's "two presidencies" thesis were true, it would be good news, suggesting that coherent foreign policy still has a future. But I think there's a third, more likely, and disconcerting dynamic at play. Like all presidents, Obama is relatively unconstrained in the near term to pursue the foreign policies he desires. But he is seriously and dangerously constrained over the longer term by three factors that are often hard to see -- but growing worse...
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering authorizing the CIA or the military to kill an American citizen hiding in Pakistan who allegedly has helped Al Qaeda militants plan attacks against U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan and is actively plotting future attacks, officials said Monday.Yes, because "a review by the Justice Department" totally satisfies the constitutional requirement of due process of law. Totally man!
Justice Department lawyers are reviewing the evidence and have not yet determined whether President Obama should consider adding the American, whose identity was not disclosed, to the list of terrorism suspects who are hunted and killed overseas by drones, airstrikes or military raids.
The process has been complicated by the suspect’s U.S. citizenship and new criteria for the targeted killing of Americans, officials said.
Under guidelines approved by Obama in May, a potential target must pose “a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” Americans proposed for the so-called kill list also are entitled to legal due process, which the administration has interpreted to mean a review by the Justice Department.
The case could revive the bitter congressional debate over administration counter-terrorism policies, including drone strikes, that delayed Senate confirmation of CIA Director John Brennan last year.
Administration officials have been grappling with the case for months, according to three officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss it. The details were first reported Monday by the Associated Press.
I'm looking forward to @ggreenwald's next U.S. visit http://t.co/ZA0zmOGRuk And I bet the FBI is, too. #CuffHim @AmPowerBlog @LouiseMensch
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) February 6, 2014Welcome to the Edward Snowden-era of national security journalism — a time when no scoop is too small, no detail too minor, and revelations about government surveillance pour forth on an almost daily basis.
It’s a significant departure from the way things used to be.
After Sept. 11, reporters and editors often heeded tremendous pressure from government officials, including the president and/or national security adviser, to hold blockbuster articles concerning classified U.S. spy operations — accepting the warnings that publishing the information could put national security in danger or even lead to another catastrophe.
But just as Watergate changed the ethos of political journalism, the Snowden leaks appear to have upended the way many journalists approach national security reporting. While substantial portions of Snowden’s massive cache of information has been withheld, Americans have been treated to a seemingly endless wave of articles since the first stories landed in June — leaving Obama administration officials and members of Congress fuming and even some veteran journalists concerned that the bar to publish has fallen too low.
Snowden has prompted a free-for-all among journalists itching to tell America’s surveillance secrets, an important generational shift as the nation faces years of growing debate about privacy in an increasingly wired world. The litany of stories come not just from the handful of reporters with access to the former NSA contractor’s treasure-trove of documents but also from competitors eagerly searching for scoops to move the dial on what has become one of the biggest stories of the decade.
“For years … it was like the number of articles to come out on NSA you could count on the fingers on one hand,” said James Bamford, who has written four books on government surveillance. “Now it’s almost impossible to keep up.” ...
That there is now a vast library of NSA stories is also due, in no small part, to the nature of digital journalism. Glenn Greenwald, the Rio-based journalist who has worked most closely with Snowden, has been an aggressive presence online and on social media.
His approach to the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers marks a radical departure from past coverage where reporters from the major dailies would sometimes go all the way to the president with their findings — and sometimes accept delays even if it meant getting scooped.
“There’ll be blood on your hands,” President George W. Bush reportedly warned The New York Times’ publisher in a 2005 Oval Office meeting before the newspaper published a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about warrantless NSA eavesdropping in the U.S. — a story it had held for more than a year.
It’s not just Washington that is struggling with the new journalistic calculus on surveillance coverage. In the Snowden story, Guardian reporters working with Greenwald have checked with British government sources before publication.
Edward Snowden appeared to come very close to announcing the news himself. During his recent interview with German public broadcaster NDR, he said: "I would suggest it seems unreasonable that if anyone was concerned about the intentions of German leadership that they would only watch Merkel and not her aides, not other prominent officials, not heads of ministries or even local government officials."More.
Now it appears that, in addition to eavesdropping German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile communications, the National Security Agency was also eavesdropping on Gerhard Schröder's phone while he was still chancellor. On Tuesday night, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and NDR reported that Schröder had appeared on the so-called National Sigint Requirement List, a list of people and institutions named for targetting by the intelligence agency whose telephone communications should be monitored. Schröder was reportedly assigned the number "388" in 2002, if not sooner.
The reports cite unnamed US government and NSA insider sources claiming that Schröder was declared a target for monitoring because of his critical position on US preparations for a war in Iraq. A person with knowledge of the action is quoted as saying that the US had reason to believe that Schröder would not help lead the alliance toward success.
Criticism from German Government
In Germany, the revelations appeared to create new tensions in German-American relations. Speaking to SPIEGEL ONLINE, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, of Schröder's center-left Social Democratic Party, accused the NSA of conducting indiscriminate mass surveillance. "Protecting safety appears to be a guise for the NSA to collect unlimited data," he said. "Eavesdropping on a chancellor's mobile phone in no way contributes to protecting against terrorist attacks."
Maas called for Germany to continue to push for a no-spy agreement with the US, despite resistance from Washington. "Even if it won't be easy for the Americans, we still need to continue pushing for an international agreement, because we cannot spare any effort to ensure the the data of people in Germany is better protected."
Responding to questions about the allegation that the NSA spied on Schröder, agency spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told SPIEGEL ONLINE the intelligence agency would not publicly comment on every alleged intelligence service activity...
Customs agents in Long Beach were shocked after opening boxes labeled "House Hold Goods" bound for Iran and finding thousands of documents outlining secret information on the military's $392-billion fighter jet program.Keep reading.
The treasure trove of technical manuals, specification sheets and other proprietary material was being sent by Mozaffar Khazaee, a former engineer with military jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney, to the city of Hamadan in northwest Iran, authorities said.
A federal grand jury indicted Khazaee, 59, Tuesday on two counts of interstate transportation of stolen property. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count.
The criminal case casts a pall over foreign-born workers handling sensitive government information, experts said. But they noted that some of the more notorious cases have involved U.S. citizens such as Edward Snowden, the analyst who leaked National Security Agency secrets.
In an affidavit summarizing the evidence against Khazaee, a special agent from the Department of Homeland Security said the government uncovered 44 boxes of material that contained technical data on military engines and the largest weapons program in history: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
"The documents contained language regarding the technical specifications of the JSF engine program, as well as diagrams, blueprints and other documentation relating to the inner workings of the jet's engine," the affidavit by special agent Breanne Chavez said.
"Several of the documents also bore markings indicating that they were the property of at least three defense contractors," it said. The companies are only identified as A, B and C.
Matthew C. Bates, spokesman at Pratt & Whitney, confirmed his company is part of the investigation, prompted by the seizure Nov. 26.
.@ggreenwald returns (briefly) to @commentisfree: 'Obama's NSA 'reforms' are little more than a PR attempt' http://t.co/ZvMD8x6eAm
— GuardianUS (@GuardianUS) January 17, 2014
And here's Greenwald on the far-left Alex Wagner's show on the socialist MSNBC network.WASHINGTON — Many of President Obama's closest advisors have embraced a controversial assessment of one of the National Security Agency's major data collection programs — the belief that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could have been prevented had government then possessed the sort of vast trove of Americans' telephone records it holds now.Keep reading.
Critics of the NSA program, and some scholars of America's deadliest terrorist attack, strenuously dispute the view that the collection of phone data would necessarily have made a difference or that the possibility justifies the program now. The presidential task force that reviewed surveillance operations concluded last month that the program "was not essential" to preventing terrorist attacks.
But as the president finalizes plans for a speech on Friday announcing his proposals to change intelligence operations and oversight, the widespread agreement at the most senior levels of the White House about the program's value appears to be driving policy. As a result, the administration seems likely to modify, but not stop, the gathering of billions of phone call logs.
In recent White House meetings, Obama has accepted the "9/11" justification, aides say, expressing the belief that domestic phone records might have helped authorities identify some of the skyjackers who later crashed passenger jets in New York, the Washington area and Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.
He believes the main problem with the program is one of perception: Many Americans don't trust the NSA, one of the most secretive of spy agencies, to respect civil liberties.
On June 5, 2013, the Guardian broke the first story in what would become a flood of revelations regarding the extent and nature of the NSA’s surveillance programs. Facing an uproar over the threat such programs posed to privacy, the Obama administration scrambled to defend them as legal and essential to U.S. national security and counterterrorism. Two weeks after the first leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were published, President Obama defended the NSA surveillance programs during a visit to Berlin, saying: “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany. So lives have been saved.” Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, testified before Congress that: “the information gathered from these programs provided the U.S. government with critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world.” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on the House floor in July that “54 times [the NSA programs] stopped and thwarted terrorist attacks both here and in Europe – saving real lives.”Keep reading.
However, our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading. An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal. Indeed, the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata, which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls, as well as the time and date of those calls but not their content, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases. NSA programs involving the surveillance of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4 percent of the terrorism cases we examined, and NSA surveillance under an unidentified authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined.
The 2008 column of Ruth Marcus I referenced- arguing against prosecution of torturers & criminal FBI agents - is here http://t.co/DRSjNiW5Jm
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 2, 2014Ready for launch? An Atlas 5 will blast off at just past 11PM, PST carrying an classified NRO payload (also cubesats) pic.twitter.com/ll7s0nCOPg
— Office of the DNI (@ODNIgov) December 5, 2013WASHINGTON — Officials at the National Security Agency, intent on maintaining its dominance in intelligence collection, pledged last year to push to expand its surveillance powers, according to a top-secret strategy document.There's more at that top link.
In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.”
Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence. “The interpretation and guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s mission,” the document concluded.
Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of adversaries in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass codes that keep communications secret by influencing “the global commercial encryption market through commercial relationships,” human spies and intelligence partners in other countries. It also talked of the need to “revolutionize” analysis of its vast collections of data to “radically increase operational impact.”
The strategy document, provided by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, was written at a time when the agency was at the peak of its powers and the scope of its surveillance operations was still secret. Since then, Mr. Snowden’s revelations have changed the political landscape.
Prompted by a public outcry over the N.S.A.’s domestic operations, the agency’s critics in Congress have been pushing to limit, rather than expand, its ability to routinely collect the phone and email records of millions of Americans, while foreign leaders have protested reports of virtually unlimited N.S.A. surveillance overseas, even in allied nations. Several inquiries are underway in Washington; Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the N.S.A.’s longest-serving director, has announced plans to retire; and the White House has offered proposals to disclose more information about the agency’s domestic surveillance activities.
The N.S.A. document, titled “Sigint Strategy 2012-2016,” does not make clear what legal or policy changes the agency might seek. The N.S.A.’s powers are determined variously by Congress, executive orders and the nation’s secret intelligence court, and its operations are governed by layers of regulations. While asserting that the agency’s “culture of compliance” would not be compromised, N.S.A. officials argued that they needed more flexibility, according to the paper.
Senior intelligence officials, responding to questions about the document, said that the N.S.A. believed that legal impediments limited its ability to conduct surveillance of terrorism suspects inside the United States. Despite an overhaul of national security law in 2008, the officials said, if a terrorism suspect who is under surveillance overseas enters the United States, the agency has to stop monitoring him until it obtains a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
“N.S.A.’s Sigint strategy is designed to guide investments in future capabilities and close gaps in current capabilities,” the agency said in a statement. “In an ever-changing technology and telecommunications environment, N.S.A. tries to get in front of issues to better fulfill the foreign-intelligence requirements of the U.S. government.”
There are growing calls in Germany not only to question Edward Snowden in connection with the ongoing NSA scandal, but also to offer him safe passage and asylum. Yet the heads of the two major political camps fear the wrath of the United States.More here.
Hans-Christian Ströbele, a lawyer and parliamentarian for Germany's Green Party, turned 74 this year. He has devoted more than 50 of those years to the political struggle for justice and for what is good in the world - or at least that's how he sees it. "Have you ever been on the wrong side of things?" Ströbele was asked in a recent television interview.
"Politically speaking?" he asked the interviewer, glancing at the ceiling. For two seconds, it seemed as if he had to consider the question, but he quickly regained his composure and emphatically replied: "No."
Now Ströbele is waging another political battle, probably the most noteworthy one of his life. Last Thursday, he went to Moscow and spent three hours speaking with Edward Snowden, the man whose revelations about the spying activities of the United States have both captivated the world for months and deeply changed its perceptions.
Ströbele, a lawmaker from the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg election district in Berlin, was the first politician in the world to meet with Snowden in his Moscow exile. Snowden's mission is now Ströbele's mission. He wants to bring the American whistleblower to Germany to testify before an investigative committee of the German parliament, the Bundestag, and in doing so provide him with a secured right of residence in Germany.
Ströbele knows that granting Snowden the right to stay in Germany would create problems for German-American relations. The Americans have already submitted an extradition request, just in case Snowden ever sets foot on German soil. But Ströbele doesn't care. He sets his own priorities and, once again, he believes himself to be on the right side of history, notwithstanding Germany's trans-Atlantic partnership with the United States. "If the political will exists, as well as the courage, including the courage to stand up to presidents, then it's possible," Ströbele said after returning from Moscow.
Since revelations emerged two weeks ago that America's National Security Agency had long spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone communications, calls have been growing for whistleblower Edward Snowden to be offered political asylum in Germany.Well, he can't stay in Russia forever. He's still a man without a country. Interesting though is how much the German left digs the guy. Anything to stick it to Obama right in the eye.
