Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Justice, Media, Politics, Uncategorized

Edward Snowden speaks: US blackout of interview (Updated with new video source)

By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor

NSA logo smallLast Sunday, former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden was interviewed for the German television network ARD.  The interview was big news in Germany and much of the world in both print and broadcast media. However, the interview appears to have been blocked intentionally by US government authorities. In fact, the media in the US appears to have gone to ‘radio silence’ about it. It has been posted on YouTube several times, but is taken down almost immediately.  The video site Vimeo has it embedded, but as I write this, Vimeo is under a DDoS attack.  LiveLeak also has it, and that video is embedded in this report by Jay Syrmopoulos for  Ben Swann’s news page.

Mr. Snowden spoke candidly in a thirty-minute English language interview with the reporter from ARD.

He says his “breaking point” was “seeing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress.” That was when Clapper denied the existence of a domestic spying programs when he testified before Congress in March of last year. Snowden added, “The public had a right to know about these programs. The public had a right to know that which the government is doing in its name, and that which the government is doing against the public.”

In case Ben Swann’s page is taken down, along with the LiveLeak video, here is the interview on Vimeo. Offered without commentary, since Edward Snowden can speak for himself.

Update:
An internet search revealed the Edward Snowden interview is up on Rutube.  It is a Russian video site somewhat similar to YouTube. The text is in Russian and doesn’t have an English language version.  I have a feeling Rutube will not be as knee-jerk responsive to take-down orders from western countries.
Here is the Snowden interview as presented on Rutube.  WordPress does not support Rutube for embedding, but this link will take you to the interview:

103 thoughts on “Edward Snowden speaks: US blackout of interview (Updated with new video source)”

  1. And I’ll say it again: The situation is so much worse than many realize.

    Hyperbole?

    No.

  4. Federal judges are the real villains here – their top duty is to preserve the Bill of Rights. These agencies have absolutely no fear of felony prosecution or prison time. Federal judges are the watchdogs that allow this to happen.

  5. When they came for the gypsies I was not a gypsy, so I did not speak up. When they came for the journalists, I was not a journalist, so I did not speak up for them. When they came for the Jews, I was not a Jew, so I did not speak up for the Jews. When they came for the Arabs, same thing. When they came for Snowden, same thing. So, when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.

    I sometimes think of Curly on the Three Stooges, when he uttered: Hotsie Tot Sie, I smell a Nazi. He said it in rhyme. I wonder what Curley would have to say about the news media in America on this date. This is a day that will live in Infamy. It reminds me of the era in Nazi Germany when the newspapers went Nazi or shut down.

    It is ironic that the Germans are the ones with the guts to publish Snowden on television. They learned from the Nazi and later the Stasi in East Germany and value freedom. What do we value. What would the Framers of our Constitution say? Where is the Graham family which owned the Washington Post and fought the Pentagon Papers battles? They sold the Post to Jeff Bezos. Where is Bezos today? Sucking Obama’s underlings? Where is the New York Times? The Saint Louis Post Dispatch? Their owners? The owners are all gone into third or fourth generation retirement. No one is left to speak up for us. They came to get Snowden. Did you speak up for him? Who will speak up for you when the American Stasi come for you?

  8. We can get Link TV here at the marina where the dogpac hangs out to watch tv and work the internet. I sometimes watch DemocracyNow! with Amy Goodman. I have not seen it in several days, so I do not know if she covered the Snowden interview. I did watch last Wednesday or so when she devoted an hour to the life of Pete Seeger. He had died on Monday. The mainstream media had blacklisted mere mention of his death much less any segment to his life. I searched Yahoo News and Google News for Pete Seeger stories. I was able to find them only under the little column on Google News for LA Times, New York Times and The Guardian. But the Yahoo column and Google column of news blacklisted the story. Then I tried the same thing yesterday on Google News and Yahoo News and could find nothing about this interview.

    Another thing I notice about maintstream media, on network television, or newspapers, is that they always show this dorky photo of Snowden which was published back on Day One of his fleeing the country. They want to portray him as some dork.

    If you folks on the blog here found any news outlets that we can reach on the internet that did not honor the American Stasi Blackout, please let us know.

  10. Stanley is demonstrating the best way to counter a DDoS attack.

    Spread the targeted video everywhere.

    This DDoS will fail.

    Spread the word.

    Spread the video.

  11. “DDOS, short for Distributed Denial of Service, is a type of DOS attack where multiple compromised systems — which are usually infected with a Trojan — are used to target a single system causing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Victims of a DDoS attack consist of both the end targeted system and all systems maliciously used and controlled by the hacker in the distributed attack.

    According to this report on eSecurityPlanet, in a DDoS attack, the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from many different sources – potentially hundreds of thousands or more. This effectively makes it impossible to stop the attack simply by blocking a single IP address; plus, it is very difficult to distinguish legitimate user traffic from attack traffic when spread across so many points of origin.” (Webopedia).

    Who benefits?

    The same ones who went to the trouble of hijacking a thousand computers from which to mount the attack.

    Who is paid to do that with your tax dollars?

  12. Thanks for the link, Charlton. I saw it here in Kaohsiung, Taiwan with no problems. A fine opportunity for the articulate and knowledgeable Edward Snowden to present his views.

    Now, on the basis of widely disseminated public information, President Obama must fire DNI director James Clapper and charge him with a felony for lying to Congress, while at the same time exonerating Edward Snowden for telling the truth. President Obama must do this, of course, only if he sincerely wishes to carry out his oath to see that the laws are faithfully executed. If he cares not a bit whether he does any such thing, then he can just do any damn thing he pleases and the official liars will continue to proliferate under his tolerance and encouragement.

  14. I would love to see the message that went out to the mass media to refrain from covering the Snowden interview. I bet the NSA has it.

  16. Chuck

    In an example of Life Imitating Art, the picture of Ms. Steisand’s house won an award on wikipedia.

    “This image was selected as picture of the day on the English Wikipedia for January 18, 2014”

  17. Darren,
    I just checked the German web page and the video timed out. No way to tell if it is a DDoS attack or just more traffic than the servers were designed to handle. I think blog posts like this are popping up all over, and lots of people are looking in. By taking the actions they did, an official entity is once again learning the hard truth of the Streisand Effect

    In my lectures, I explain the power of a negative suggestion by demanding of my audience, “During the next ten seconds, no matter what else you do, DON’T THINK ABOUT AN ELEPHANT.” Tell people not to do something, or that they can’t have it, is the best way to get them to do it. Your piece this evening on the social psychology of playground behavior is a perfect example.

  18. A link to the German website is HERE

    There are a couple other vids there as well.

    At the time of this comment, the video server is pegged out. An error message reads that the video could not be loaded, please try again later.

  19. Use Firefox addon Video Download Helper and download a copy for yourself. It is 222667609.mp4. Then you can watch it several times, and upload it to any webserver to which you may have access. Blocking this stuff is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

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