Snowden adviser: Hillary "either out of touch, or lying" about US protections for whistleblowers

[JDPriestly]

65. In my view, you misinterpret Snowden's lawyer's comment.

And if you do a little more research, you will see why I disagree with your interpretation.

Here is an article from the Guardian on the subject:

Edward Snowden has defended his decision to appear on live Russian television, insisting his question to Vladimir Putin on mass surveillance was designed to hold the Russian president accountable and not, as critics have suggested, an act of compliant propaganda.

(I agree with him and heard in his voice and understood from his words that Snowden was challenging and testing Putin not flattering him, not giving him an easy question.)

Writing for the Guardian, the whistleblower behind the National Security Agency leaks suggests he carefully framed the question to Putin, which he asked via video link in an annual televised call-in with the president on Thursday. Putin, Snowden writes, “denied the first part of the question and dodged on the latter”.

(And it was very clear to me and would be to any objective listener to the exchange that Putin did deny the first par and dodge the latter. Like Snowden, I believe that Putin lied and dodged -- by using weasel words.)

. . . .

“I expected that some would object to my participation in an annual forum that is largely comprised of softball questions to a leader unaccustomed to being challenged. But to me, the rare opportunity to lift a taboo on discussion of state surveillance before an audience that primarily views state media outweighed that risk.”

Snowden says that before state officials in any country can be held accountable, “we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims”. He said he was motivated by a belief that mass surveillance was a threat to people everywhere, not just in the US.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/18/edward-snowden-defends-decision-question-vladimir-putin-on-surveillance

A few Snowden supporters (presumably poor listeners and poor readers) did not understand what Snowden was doing. No wonder people complain about American education. I got what he was doing right away. The fault is in the ears of the listeners and the eyes of the readers, not in what Snowden said to Putin.

And now, I am waiting for the next shoe to drop. I expect that very soon, some highly embarrassing information will be released that proves that Putin was covering up the spying that Russia is doing. I am quite certain that Russia is spying, albeit more clumsily than the NSA and on a tighter budget, on everyone in Russia. They been doing it since the time of the tsars I suspect.