Edward Snowden accuses US of illegal, aggressive campaign against him, US spokeswoman gets ripped apart as press questions why Snowden doesn’t have the right to free speech, US digging themselves a big deep hole of bad PR

Dear All

The Edward Snowden Case is very interesting, Snowden that US claims is a traitor but 55% of Americans says he is a whistleblower.

Edward Snowden blew that whistle on the massive operation by the US to spy on its citizens, Russia, China, and on its own allies.

The fallout from his revelations has been very damaging to the US administration, spying on their allies and then getting outed, opps!

Well all know that Russia and China are being spied on all the time, we even see it as plots in Hollywood movies.

And recently an America spy was caught in Russia complete with ‘fake’ wig, maybe a woolly hat would have been a better disguise.

Embarrassing stuff very cold war indeed and straight out of a novel.

So, after spilling the beans Edward Snowden fled the US, presumably since he thought that he couldn’t get justice and protection from the US Constitution which incidentally President Obama swore to uphold.

His first stop was Hong Kong, but as the Chinese were getting spied on, they weren’t exactly up to dealing with the US request for Snowden to be sent back.

And the US got the paper work wrong, Chinese authorities are into details.

Then Edward headed for Mother Russia, and is now based in an airport since the US cancelled his passport, presumably his right to be considered innocent until proven guilty doesn’t apply anymore.

Being stuck at the Moscow airport however has backfired on the US as this gave Snowden the right to have a platform and air legitimate grievances.

Currently our American cousins are breaching his human rights with removing his passport, doesn’t play well international.

And the more Edward is the centre of attention, the more bad PR the US gets on this issue.

Our Russian cousins are love this stuff, it ticks all the right boxes as gives them such a stick to beat America while at the same time saying America is ‘our partners’!

Talk about taking the piss.

Now, the US has accused Russia of giving Edward Snowden a "propaganda platform" as Snowden met human rights groups at a Moscow airport.

President Barack Obama called Vladimir Putin after Snowden’s meeting; the general gist was that the Russians silence him.

In a US press conference, where female US official complained about the meeting, a member of the press ripped into her on live TV!

“why shouldn’t he have to right to free speech”?

Possibly one of the best questions to asked this year of the Obama Administration.   

The cancelling of Snowden’s passport was wrong, making him stateless was a violation of his human rights, until found guilty, he is presumed innocent.

Even if he was to walk about screaming ‘I did it, I did it’!

That’s the way the law works.

At present Edward Snowden is said to be asking for temporary asylum in Russia, and the Russians are minded to give it to him.

Makes them look terribly nice and reasonable to the world wide public who have taken a real interest in this story.

Is Edward Snowden a traitor?

No, he didn’t leak to a foreign power, he exposed wrong doing on an industrial scale, something which the US should never have been involved in.

The Kremlin's official position is that Snowden can stay in Russia as long as he stops leaking secrets about US surveillance schemes.

Given he has already spilled the beans, he is happy to comply.

President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov:

"Mr Snowden could hypothetically stay in Russia if he first, completely stops the activities harming our American partners and US-Russian relations and, second, if he asks for this himself."

As to fallout, the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales, because of suspicions that Mr Snowden was on board, their ambassadors have been brought back for consultation because of the incident.

You could argue that the plane was sovereign territory and therefore even if Snowden was aboard there is an issue that no jurisdiction applied.

There will be more to come from that beside the bad PR disaster.

On Friday, Mr Snowden said in a statement he formally accepted all offers of support or asylum he had already received "and all others that may be offered in the future".

I wonder if he will have more passports than Jason Bourne!

Either way, this situation is a complete disaster, if anything happens to Edward Snowden, if he stubs his toe or ends up dead somewhere, it will be seen as murder and the Americans can ill afford to be linked to political assassination.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University