<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="column-both"> [An American brother, who is a global
citizen... who will lose job, home, family and know the pain of
exile. O like me and others on this list, an anti-American. Since
Obama can authorise the killing of Americans under signature drone
strikes perhaps this may be a solution to this intractable
problem...]<br>
<br>
<span class="headline-intro"></span>
<h2 class="article-title"><span class="headline-intro">NSA
Whistleblower:</span> <span class="headline">'I Do Not Expect
To See Home Again'</span></h2>
<p class="author">By <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/extra/0,1518,632139,00.html"
target="_blank">Marc Pitzke</a>
</p>
<div id="js-article-top-wide-asset">
<div class="image-buttons-panel spXXLPano"> <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/photo-gallery-whistleblower-on-the-run-fotostrecke-97768.html"
title="Photo Gallery: Whistleblower on the Run"><img
src="cid:part2.02080201.05050406@gmail.com"
class="spPanoGalleryTeaserPic" title="Photo Gallery:
Whistleblower on the Run" alt="Photo Gallery:
Whistleblower on the Run" width="860" height="320"
border="0"></a><span class="image-buttons"> <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/photo-gallery-whistleblower-on-the-run-fotostrecke-97768.html"
title="Photo Gallery: Whistleblower on the Run"><img
src="cid:part4.07040507.05020602@gmail.com" alt="Photos"
class="btn-photo-text"></a></span> </div>
<div class="asset-credit">REUTERS/ Ewen MacAskill/ The Guardian</div>
</div>
<p class="article-intro"><strong>He was once a cog in the US
intelligence apparatus, but 29-year-old ex-CIA employee Edward
Snowden has admitted to making one of the biggest intelligence
leaks in history. He now faces severe consequences -- but
President Obama also has a lot to answer for.</strong></p>
</div>
<div class="article-section clearfix">
<p>Edward Snowden sits in a hotel room in Hong Kong. He is pale
and unshaven, his voice quiet but firm. For fear of spies, he
has sealed off the door with cushions. He says he's only gone
outside three times in the past three weeks. When the fire alarm
went off, he suspected that someone was trying to lure him out
of hiding. </p>
<p>
</p>
<div class="spMInline">
<div class="spCommercial spM300" id="qcMiddle2Container">
<div class="spCommercialInner">
<h5>ANZEIGE</h5>
<div align="center">
<iframe id="Middle2"
src="http://adserv.quality-channel.de/RealMedia/ads/Creatives/qc/ON2012XX6186XCAXINTXREST/ON2012XX6186XCAXINTXREST_02.html"
border="0" marginwidth="0" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0"
marginheight="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" valign="top"
scrolling="no" width="300" frameborder="0" height="250"></iframe>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Snowden is on the run. The scene, as depicted by London newspaper
<a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance"
target="_blank" title="Guardian: Edward Snowden, the
whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations"
class="spTextlinkExt text-link-ext">the Guardian</a>
<i>, </i>is the latest and most dramatic chapter of a spy
thriller that in recent weeks has kept the United States and much
of the world in suspense. Snowden is the highly sought-after man
who notified the press about the infamous US surveillance program
Prism -- probably one of the biggest leak scandals in the history
of espionage.
<p>Snowden didn't have to reveal the fact that he is the
whistleblower behind the story. But he decided to out himself
voluntarily in a 12-minute video interview that the<i> Guardian</i>
posted on its website on Sunday night.</p>
<p>Snowden puts a moral spin on his protest against state data
surveillance: "I don't want to live in a society that does these
sort of things," says the 29-year-old former CIA technical
assistant who was last employed by the <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/defense/"
title="defense" class="text-link-int">defense</a> contractor
Booz Allen Hamilton. "I don't want to live in a world where
there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual
exploration and creativity," he continues.</p>
<p>But for that, it may already be too late. The debate that
Snowden hoped to initiate has revealed that the US's virtual
surveillance network is nearly all-encompassing -- and that
citizens are powerless against it. "Welcome to the future,"
writes Ross Douthat in the <i>New York Times</i>. "Just make
sure you don't have anything to hide."</p>
<p>
<b>A Historical Coup in </b>
<b>Hawaii</b>
</p>
<p>Snowden, too, fears this future. The US government, he says,
"are intent on making every conversation and every form of
behavior in the world known to them."</p>
<p>Snowden himself was once a cog in the gears of the intelligence
apparatus. After a short stint in the US Army, he began his
career in the clandestine National Security Agency (NSA), then
moved to the CIA. That's where he first began to have doubts. "I
realized that I was part of something that was doing far more
harm than good," he says.</p>
<p>In 2009, Snowden entered the private sector and ended up at
Booz Allen Hamilton, a billion-dollar company with close ties to
American espionage circles. His most recent job, as the company
confirmed with noticeable consternation, was as an IT contract
worker at an NSA facility in Hawaii. </p>
<p>And that's where he made his historical coup. Snowden copied
documents exposing two gigantic secret NSA programs --
comprising massive surveillance of telephone and internet
communications -- and leaked them to the <i>Guardian </i>and<i>
Washington Post</i>.</p>
<p>He then asked his employers for a few weeks off and flew to
Hong Kong. He didn't even say anything definite about what was
going on to his girlfriend.</p>
<p>
<b>Obama's PR Problem</b>
</p>
<p>Snowden has had "a very comfortable life," with an annual
salary of $200,000 and a house in Hawaii. "I'm willing to
sacrifice all of that," he says, "because I can't in good
conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet
freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with
this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."</p>
<p>What is he facing now? Extradition, abduction, litigation: "All
my options are bad," he says. Snowden told the <i>Washington
Post</i> on Sunday that he is seeking "asylum from any
countries that believe in free speech and oppose the
victimization of global privacy." </p>
<p>"I do not expect to see home again," he told the <i>Guardian</i>.
</p>
<p>Several times, he mentioned WikiLeaks informant Bradley
Manning, who is now facing a military tribunal in one of several
cases in which the administration of President <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/barack_obama/"
title="Barack Obama" class="text-link-int">Barack Obama</a>
has taken a hard line against whistleblowers.</p>
<p>Already Mike Rogers, a Republican congressman who serves as
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has called for a
criminal investigation. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein
seconded the call and suggested congressional hearings as well.</p>
<p>
</p>
<div class="spMInline">
</div>
The response from the US intelligence community itself was kept to
a dry statement: "The matter has been referred to the Department
of Justice," a spokesman for the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence said on Sunday.
<p>Obama now faces a huge public relations problem. Wasn't it he
who said that he welcomed the debate on government spying? And
yet now he has decided to pursue the very man who triggered this
debate.</p>
<p>One thing is certain: Snowden is sought after -- by the secret
services, by the courts, by journalists. Whether hero or
villain, writes Garance Franke-Ruta in the <i>Atlantic</i>,
there is one thing the privacy-rights activist seems not to have
fully considered: "He is about to become one of the most
highly-scrutinized public figures in the world." </p>
</div>
</body>
</html>