Edward Snowden Reveals Why He Decided To Leak NSA Secrets To The Media

Reuters

Edward Snowden: US Would Have Buried NSA Warnings Forever -- The Guardian

Whistleblower says he shared information with media because he could not trust internal reporting mechanisms.

Edward Snowden, the source of National Security Agency leaks, has insisted that he decided to become a whistleblower and flee America because he had no faith in the internal reporting mechanisms of the US government, which he believed would have destroyed him and buried his message for ever.

One of the main criticisms levelled at Snowden by the Obama administration has been that he should have taken up an official complaint within the NSA, rather than travelling to Hong Kong to share his concerns about the agency’s data dragnet with the Guardian and other news organisations. But in an interview with the New York Times, Snowden has dismissed that option as implausible.

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My Comment: He knew that in order for the NSA to do it what it does .... the White House and Congress were complicit in issuing the orders and providing the necessary oversight. In short .... the entire system was geared up to conduct such extensive surveillance .... and if anyone complained .... it would have made no difference. The complaints would be buried and the "whistle-blower" would have been shunted aside or "warned".

.... “The system does not work,” he said, pointing to the paradox that “you have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it.” If he had tried to sound the alarm internally, he would have “been discredited and ruined” and the substance of his warnings “would have been buried forever”.