Snowden: Spying reforms a 'turning point'
Iran Press TV
Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:6PM GMT
Edward Snowden, the former NSA employee-turned-whistleblower has called the proposed reforms on US spying programs as a "turning point".
Snowden who revealed US National Security Agency has been spying on millions of people and politicians across the globe said in a statement that his disclosures have caused even President Barack Obama to acknowledge that the mass surveillance program is "unnecessary", Common Dreams reported Wednesday.
"I believed that if the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans was known, it would not survive the scrutiny of the courts, the Congress, and the people," he said in a statement released by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
"The very first open and adversarial court to ever judge these programs has now declared them 'Orwellian' and 'likely unconstitutional.' In the USA FREEDOM Act, Congress is considering historic, albeit incomplete reforms. And President Obama has now confirmed that these mass surveillance programs, kept secret from the public and defended out of reflex rather than reason, are in fact unnecessary and should be ended."
"This is a turning point, and it marks the beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public's seat at the table of government."
Snowden's message comes as his supporters are pushing the government to return his passport and accept his right to seek asylum.
The panel of Snowden's supporters has collected more than 100,000 signatures on two petitions calling for the State Department to reinstate Snowden's passport and for the Justice Department to make an 'ironclad commitment' to respect his legal right to seek political asylum abroad without fear of intervention, i.e. 'abduction or other foul play.'
The panel includes Ray McGovern, a retired 27 year veteran of the CIA; Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent-turned-whistleblower; and Norman Solomon, co-founder of the progressive advocacy group RootsAction.org.
The American people, said Solomon, have become familiar in recent years with the phrase, 'If you see something, say something.'
'Edward Snowden saw something,' said Solomon, 'And he said something.'
'He saw the undermining of the free press aspects of the First Amendment. He saw the undermining of the Fourth Amendment. He saw the full-scale assault on due process and other key aspects of the Fifth Amendment.'
'Many millions of Americans have seen what's being done under the cover of the NSA and other intelligence agencies" due to Snowden's decision to go public about the NSA's activities, Solomon added.
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