Edward Snowden Releases His “A Manifesto For The Truth”

By : Matt Winkeljohn – http://www.resistthetyranny.com

Edward Snowden, former NSA employee and man who leaked information to the public about the illegal spying on every American by the National Security Agency, has releases his “A Manifesto For The Truth.”

After releasing information about the NSA spying on every American and much of the world, Barack Obama made it a point to wage war on anyone who told the truth about the federal government.

Now that things seem to be settling down a little bit for Mr. Snowden and he has found asylum in Russia, he has had more time to slowly leak more information and also write his manifesto.

He released it via encrypted communications channels to the German newspaper, Der Spiegel.

English translated version -

In a very short time, the world has learned much about unaccountable secret agencies and about sometimes illegal surveillance programs. Sometimes the agencies even deliberately try to hide their surveillance from high officials and the public. While the NSA and GCHQ seem to be the worst offenders – this is what the currently available documents suggest – we must not forget that mass surveillance is a global problem in need of global solutions.

Such programs are not only a threat to privacy, they also threaten freedom of speech and open societies. The existence of spy technology should not determine policy. We have a moral duty to ensure that our laws and values limit monitoring programs and protect human rights.

Society can only understand and control these problems through an open, unbiased and informed debate. At first, some governments feeling embarrassed by the revelations of mass surveillance initiated an unprecedented campaign of persecution to supress this debate. They intimidated journalists and criminalized publishing the truth. At this point, the public was not yet able to evaluate the benefits of the revelations. They relied on their governments to decide correctly.

Today we know that this was a mistake and that such action does not serve the public interest. The debate which they wanted to prevent will now take place in countries around the world. And instead of doing harm, the societal benefits of this new public knowledge is now clear, since reforms are now proposed in the form of increased oversight and new legislation.

Citizens have to fight suppression of information on matters of vital public importance. To tell the truth is not a crime.

Full German script here