Snowden
Accepts Whistleblower Award
By Ray McGovern
October 10, 2013 "Information Clearing House - National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, from his asylum in Russia, accepted an award on Wednesday from a group of former U.S. intelligence officials expressing support for his decision to divulge secrets about the NSA’s electronic surveillance of Americans and people around the globe.
The award, named in honor of the late CIA analyst Sam Adams, was presented to Snowden at a ceremony in Moscow by previous recipients of the award bestowed by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII). The presenters included former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, former NSA official Thomas Drake, and former Justice Department official Jesselyn Radack, now with the Government Accountability Project. (Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern also took part.)
By Ray McGovern
October 10, 2013 "Information Clearing House - National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, from his asylum in Russia, accepted an award on Wednesday from a group of former U.S. intelligence officials expressing support for his decision to divulge secrets about the NSA’s electronic surveillance of Americans and people around the globe.
The award, named in honor of the late CIA analyst Sam Adams, was presented to Snowden at a ceremony in Moscow by previous recipients of the award bestowed by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII). The presenters included former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, former NSA official Thomas Drake, and former Justice Department official Jesselyn Radack, now with the Government Accountability Project. (Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern also took part.)
Snowden received the traditional Sam Adams Corner-Brighteneer
Candlestick Holder, in symbolic recognition of his courage in
shining light into dark places. Besides the presentation of the
award, several hours were spent in informal conversation during
which there was a wide consensus that, under present
circumstances, Russia seemed the safest place for Snowden to be
and that it was fortunate that Russia had rebuffed pressure to
violate international law by turning him away.
Snowden
showed himself not only to be in good health, but also in good
spirits, and very much on top of world events, including the
attacks on him personally. Shaking his head in disbelief, he
acknowledged that he was aware that former NSA and CIA Director
Michael Hayden, together with House Intelligence Committee Chair
Mike Rogers, had hinted recently that he (Snowden) be put on the
infamous “Kill List” for assassination.
In brief remarks from his visitors, Snowden was reassured —
first and foremost — that he need no longer be worried that
nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to
risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S.
government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional
rights of Americans.
Even amid
the government shutdown, Establishment Washington
and the normally docile “mainstream media” have not been able to
deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a
mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Even Congress is showing signs
of awaking from its torpor.
In the
somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to
express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Keith
Alexander — Clapper having formally apologized for telling the
Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related things that
were, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and Alexander having
told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA’s
intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.
Coleen
Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited
some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good
company as a whistleblower — and not only because of previous
Sam Adams honorees. She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin
leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by
then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas
Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.
The
letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to
enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an
abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be
necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the
British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as
colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long
censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.
Who’s the Traitor?
Like
Edward Snowden, Franklin was called a traitor for whistleblowing
the truth about what the government was doing. As Franklin’s
biographer H.W. Brands wrote: “For an hour and a half [Wedderburn]
hurled invective at Franklin, branding him a liar, a thief, an
outcast from the company of all honest men, an ingrate. … So
slanderous was Wedderburn’s diatribe that no London paper would
print it.”
Hat tip
for this interesting bit of history to Tom Mullen and his Aug. 9
article in the Washington Times titled ”Obama says Snowden no
patriot. How would Ben Franklin’s leak be treated today?” Ms.
Rowley also drew from Mullen’s comment:
“Tyrants
slandering patriots is nothing new. History decided that
Franklin was a patriot. It was not so kind to the Hutchinsons
and Wedderburns. History will decide who the patriots were in
the 21st century as well. It will not be concerned with health
care programs or unemployment rates. More likely, it will be
concerned with who attacked the fundamental principles of
freedom and who risked everything to defend them.”
The award
citation to Snowden read, in part, “Sam Adams Associates are
proud to honor Mr. Snowden’s decision to heed his conscience and
give priority to the Common Good over concerns about his own
personal future. We are confident that others with similar moral
fiber will follow his example in illuminating dark corners and
exposing crimes that put our civil rights as free citizens in
jeopardy. …
“Heeding
the dictates of conscience and patriotism, Mr. Snowden
sacrificed his career and put his very life at risk, in order to
expose what he called ‘turnkey tyranny.’ His whistleblowing has
exposed a National Security Agency leadership captured by the
intrusive capabilities offered by modern technology, with little
if any thought to the strictures of law and Constitution. The
documents he released show an NSA enabled, rather than
restrained, by senior officials in all three branches of the
U.S. government.
“Just as
Private Manning and Julian Assange exposed criminality with
documentary evidence, Mr. Snowden’s beacon of light has pierced
a thick cloud of deception. And, again like them, he has been
denied some of the freedoms that whistleblowers have every right
to enjoy.
“Mr.
Snowden was also aware of the cruel indignities to which other
courageous officials had been subjected — whistleblowers like
Sam Adams Award honorees (ex aequo in 2011) Thomas
Drake and Jesselyn Radack — when they tried to go through
government channels to report abuses. Mr. Snowden was able to
outmaneuver those who, as events have shown, are willing to go
to ridiculous lengths to curtail his freedom and quarrel with
his revelations. We are gratified that he has found a place of
sanctuary where his rights under international law are
respected.
“Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a Sam Adams ‘Awardee Emeritus,’
has asserted that Mr. Snowden’s whistleblowing has given U.S.
citizens the possibility to roll back an ‘executive coup against
the Constitution.’ This is a mark of the seriousness and
importance of what Mr. Snowden has done.
“Like
other truth-tellers before him, Edward Snowden took seriously
his solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the
United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. He was
thus legally and morally obliged to let his fellow Americans
know that their Fourth Amendment rights were being violated.
“The past
few years have shown that courage is contagious. Thus, we expect
that still others will now be emboldened to follow their
consciences in blowing the whistle on other abuses of our
liberties and in this way help stave off ‘turnkey tyranny.’
“Presented
this 9th day of October 2013 by admirers of the example set by
the late CIA analyst, Sam Adams.”
The Sam
Adams associates also expressed gratitude for those who made
this unusual gathering possible: Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer for
Snowden and founder and head of The Institute for Democracy and
Cooperation in Moscow; WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange (SAAII award
winner in 2010); Sarah Harrison, also of WikiLeaks, who
facilitated Mr. Snowden’s extrication from Hong Kong and has
been a constant presence with him since; other Internet
transparency and privacy activists rendering encouragement and
support, and, of course, Mr. Snowden himself for agreeing
to host the first such visit to express solidarity with him in
Russia.
The Sam
Adams Award, named in honor of the late CIA analyst Sam Adams,
has been given in previous years to truth-tellers
Coleen Rowley of the
FBI; Katharine Gun of
British Intelligence; Sibel
Edmonds of the FBI;
Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan;
Sam Provance; former
U.S. Army Sergeant at Abu Ghraib;
Maj. Frank Grevil of
Danish Army Intelligence; Larry
Wilkerson, Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.), former chief of
staff to Colin Powell at State;
Julian Assange of WikiLeaks;
Thomas Drake, former
senior NSA official; Jesselyn
Radack, Director of National Security and Human Rights,
Government Accountability Project; and
Thomas Fingar, former
Assistant Secretary of State and Director, National Intelligence
Council.
Sam Adams
Associates for Integrity in Intelligence was established in 2002
by colleagues and admirers of the late CIA intelligence analyst
Sam Adams to recognize those who uphold his example as a model
for those in intelligence who would aspire to the courage to
speak truth to power. In honoring Adams’s memory, SAAII confers
an award each year to someone in intelligence or related work
who exemplifies Sam Adam’s courage, persistence, and devotion to
truth — no matter the consequences.
It was
Adams who discovered in 1967 that there were more than a
half-million Vietnamese Communists under arms. This was roughly
twice the number that the U.S. command in Saigon would admit to,
lest Americans learn that claims of “progress” were bogus.
Ray McGovern works with
Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. As a CIA analyst colleague of
Sam Adams, he witnessed first-hand the futility of Sam’s
persistent attempts in 1967-68 to expose the chicanery of the
most senior U.S. Army officers in Saigon in falsifying
intelligence in order to conceal the fecklessness of U.S.
involvement there. Sam went to a premature death, unable to
escape deep regret that he stayed within official channels and
let himself get diddled, rather than publicly expose the lies.
Sam would be very proud of Edward Snowden.
Copyright © 2013
Consortiumnews
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