CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the other corporate owned news networks in America have been asking the question: Should former NSA [National Security Administration] contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden be given amnesty? But the correct question that should be posed is: Will the Attorney General criminally indict NSA officials for breaking federal law of spying on 250 million American citizens without probable cause? And will the Obama administration let the NSA off the hook after committing criminal offenses, like they let the CEO’s of big banks and corporations off the hook after the subprime mortgage scan.
The Obama administration has conceded the fact that NSA committed a criminal offense of spying on American citizens by mining citizens’ electronic communication for personal information. Tracking citizens’ travels and creating behavioral profiles of citizens, all of which are collected and stored as metadata at secret facilities and used by god knows who: CIA, FBI, military intelligence, government contractors, private security corporations and Google. Such NSA spying on American citizens clearly violates our 1st Amendment right of privacy under the United States Constitution and violates federal statute laws of the Anti-Effective Death Penalty Act, Terrorism Act, and the U.S. Patriot Act.
It is the moral and legal duty of Andrew Snowden, and all American citizens employed by government, to blow the whistle on government agencies and officials that deliberately commit criminal acts, as the NSA did, and once a citizen has blown the whistle on government agencies breaking the law, the whistleblower must be protected by law from retaliatory criminal prosecution and threat of imprisonment, for such patriotic actions keeps the government honest. It is utter hypocrisy to, in one breath, tell our society of people it is their moral and patriotic duty as law-abiding citizens to call government hotlines and report crimes they witness being committed in the streets, while in the next breath, tell people not to report crimes they witness being committed in the back rooms of government agencies. This double standard of crime doesn’t fly here.
Basically, the government are saying the law does not apply to them and that they are above the law. Are they above the law? As it stands, not a single NSA official have been criminally indicted for violating federal law and the civil rights of 250 million citizens when it spied on Americans. The NSA officials are the criminals here, not Edward Snowden. The NSA is the traitor of America, not Edward Snowden. The major news corporations have repeatedly shown themselves to be another branch of government and the protector buffers of government, as their interests are one and the same. Their cable news networks have purposely deflected the focus and anger of the people away from the criminal actions of the NSA, and in true partnership with the Obama administration, have placed a new spotlight on Edward Snowden, disingenuously claiming that Edward Snowden broke the law by whistleblowing on the NSA breaking the law. Incredible. Let’s make no mistake about it: Edward Snowden is the hero of this story, and the Obama administration, corporate-owned news networks, and the NSA are the villains. Kerry Shakabona Marshall.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
