Saturday, January 4, 2014

Did NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Lie About His Chinese Contacts?

Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters

Snowden Lied About China Contacts -- Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast

Snowden lied about his contacts with China. Should he get clemency?

Yesterday, the New York Times urged the Obama administration to offer Edward Snowden “a plea bargain or some form of clemency.” The paper called the former NSA contractor “a whistle-blower” for his exposure of “the vast scope” of the NSA’s “reach into the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the United States and around the globe.”

Perhaps Snowden is what the Times portrays him to be, a hero of sorts, yet the editors of the paper rushed to judgment. In their editorial they did not even raise the possibility that he passed along vital national security secrets to China. It is likely he did so.

“I have had no contact with the Chinese government,” Snowden wrote in a Q&A on the Guardian website while taking refuge in Hong Kong in June. “I only work with journalists.”

Read more ....

My Comment: Gordon Chang raises a lot of questions .... but I see no definitive answers.

1 comment:

James said...

“I have had no contact with the Chinese government,” Snowden wrote in a Q&A on the Guardian website while taking refuge in Hong Kong in June. “I only work with journalists.”
In a strict sense that's true. But he had contact with the Chinese government through his agents who are of course the "journalist". I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night long.