14 DAY TRIAL // Edward Snowden made his first statement after arriving in Russia a week ago and made a point in criticizing the Obama administration once more.
The NSA whistleblower said that he is disturbed by what he sees as the Obama administration’s use of international intimidation tactics.
He points out that Obama had declared he wouldn’t be doing any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over his case, but it is now reported that the President ordered his Vice President to pressure leaders of nations to deny his asylum requests.
Snowden is surely referring to a phone call made by Joe Biden to Rafael Correa in which he asks the country to reject his political asylum request.
“For decades the United States of America [has] been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right laid out and voted for by the US in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country,” Snowden said.
“The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me in a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me from exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum,” the NSA whistleblower continues.
Edward Snowden further states that the Obama administration is not actually afraid of whistleblowers like himself, but of the informed, angry public that demands the constitutional government it was promised.
So far it has been revealed that the NSA had been collecting phone call metadata and private online communications of people across the globe. Furthermore, according to recently revealed documents, the United States had also been spying on EU diplomats and dozens of embassies from all over the world.
Snowden has requested asylum in numerous countries on top of those already sent out to Iceland and Ecuador.