The Tyler Group News 85236931403 TTG, The Lonely Flight of Edward Snowden

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Source

As a US State Department whistleblower,

I think a lot about Edward Snowden. I can't help

myself. My friendships with other whistleblowers

like Tom Drake, Jesslyn Radack, Daniel Ellsberg,and John Kiriakou lead me to believe that, however

different we may be as individuals, ouracts have

given us much in common. I suspect that includes

Snowden, though I've never had the slightest contact

with him.Still, as he took his long flight from Hong

Kong into the unknown, I couldn't help feeling that

he was thinking some of my thoughts, or I his. Here

are five things that I imagine were on his mind (they

would have been on mine) as that plane took off.

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I am afraid

Whistleblowers act on conscience because they encounter something so

horrifying, unconstitutional, wasteful, fraudulent, or mismanaged that they are

overcome by the need to speak out. There is always a calculus of pain and gain (forothers, if not oneself), but first thoughts are about what you've uncovered, the

information you feel compelled to bring into the light, rather than your own

circumstances.

In my case, I was ignorant of what would happen once I blew the whistle.

I didn't expect the Department of State to attack me. National Security Agency

(NSA) whistleblower Tom Drake was similarly unprepared. He initially believed

that, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation first came to interview him, they

were on his side, eager to learn more about the criminal acts he had uncovered at

the NSA. Snowden was different in this. He had the example of Bradley Manning

and others to learn from. He clearly never doubted that the full weight of the US

government would fall on him.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-030713.html

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He knew what to fear. He knew the Obama administration was

determined to make any whistleblower pay, likely via yet another prosecution

under the Espionage Act (with the potential for the death penalty). He also knew

what his government had done since 9/11 without compunction: it had tortured and

abused people to crush them; it had forced those it considered enemies into yearsof indefinite imprisonment, creating isolation cells for suspected terrorists and even

a pre-trial whistleblower. It had murdered Americans without due process, and

then, of course, there were the extraordinary renditions in which US agents

kidnapped perceived enemies and delivered them into the archipelago of post-9/11

horrors.Sooner or later, if you're a whistleblower, you get scared. It's only human.

On that flight, I imagine that Snowden, for all his youthful confidence and

bravado, was afraid. Would the Russians turn him over to Washington as part of

some secret deal, maybe the sort of spy-for-spy trade that would harken back to the

Cold War era?

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Even if he made it out of Moscow, he couldn't have doubted that the full

resources of the NSA and other parts of the US government would be turned on

him. How many CIA case officers and Joint Special Operations Command types

did the US have undercover in Ecuador? After all, the dirty tricks had already

started. The partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke

Snowden's story, had his laptop stolen from their residence in Brazil. This

happened only after Greenwald told him via Skype that he would send him an

encrypted copy of Snowden's documents.

In such moments, you try to push back the sense of paranoia that creeps

into your mind when you realize that you are being monitored, followed, watched.It's uncomfortable, scary. You have to wonder what your fate will be once the

media grows bored with yourstory, or when whatever government has given you

asylum changes its stance vis-a-vis the US. When the knock comes at the door,

who will protect you? So who can doubt that fear made the journey with him?

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Could I go back to the US?

Amnesty International was on target when it stated that Snowden "could

be at risk of ill-treatment if extradited to the US". As if to prove them right,

months, if not years, before any trial, Speaker of the House John Boehner called

Snowden a "traitor"; Congressman Peter King called him a "defector"; and others

were already demanding his execution. If that wasn't enough, the abuse Bradley

Manning suffered had already convinced Snowden that a fair trial and humane

treatment were impossible dreams for a whistleblower of his sort. (He specifically

cited Manning in his appeal for asylum to Ecuador.)

So on that flight he knew - as he had long known - that the natural desire

to go back to the US and make a stand was beyond foolhardy. Yet the urge toreturn to the country he loves must have been traveling with him, too. Perhaps on

that flight he found himself grimly amused that, after years of running roughshod

over international standards - Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, "enhanced interrogation

techniques", "black sites" - the US had the nerve to chide Hong Kong, China, and

Russia for not following the rule of law.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-030713.html

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He certainly knew that his own revelations about extensive NSA cyber-

spying on Hong Kong and China had deeply embarrassed the Obama

administration. It had, after all, been blistering the Chinese for hacking into US

military and corporate computers. He himself had ensured that the Chinese

wouldn't turn him over, in the same way that history - decades of US bullying inLatin America - ensured that he had a shot at a future in someplace like in Ecuador.

If he knew his extradition history, Snowden might also have thought

about another time when Washington squirmed as a man it wanted left a friendly

country for asylum. In 2004, the US had chess great Bobby Fischer detained in

Japan on charges that he had attended a 1992 match in Yugoslavia in violation of a

US trade ban. Others suggested that the real reason Washington was after him may

have been Fischer's post 9/11 statement: "It's time to finish off the US once and for

all. This just shows what comes around, goes around."

Fischer's American passport was revoked just like Snowden's. In the

fashion of Hong Kong more recently, the Japanese released Fischer on an

immigration technicality, and he flew to Iceland, where he was granted citizenship.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-030713.html

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I was a diplomat in Japan at the time, and had a ringside seat for the

negotiations. They must have paralleled what went on in Hong Kong: the appeals

to treaty and international law; US diplomats sounding like so many disappointed

parents scolding a child; the pale hopes expressed for future good relations; the

search for a sympathetic ear among local law enforcement agencies, immigration,and the foreign ministry - anybody, in fact - and finally, the desperate attempt to

call in personal favors to buy more time for whatever Plan B might be. As with

Snowden, in the end the US stood by helplessly as its prey flew off.

How will i live now?

At some point, every whistleblower realizes his life will never be the

same. For me, that meant losing my job of 24 years at the State Department. For

Tom Drake, it meant financial ruin as the government tried to bankrupt him

through endless litigation. For CIA agent John Kiriakou, it might have been the

moment when, convicted of disclosing classified information to journalists, he said

goodbye to his family and walked into Loretto Federal Correctional Institution.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-030713.html

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Snowden could not have avoided anxiety about the future. Wherever he

ended up, how would he live? What work would he do? He's just turned 30 and

faces, at best, a lifetime in some foreign country he's never seen where he might

not know the language or much of anything else.So fear again, in a slightly different form. It never leaves you, not when

you take on the world's most powerful government. Would he ever see his family

and friends again? Would they disown him, fearful of retaliation or affected by the

smear campaign against him? Would his parents/best friend/girlfriend come to

believe he was a traitor, a defector, a dangerous man?

All whistleblowers find their personal relationships strained. Marriages

are tested or broken, friends lost, children teased or bullied at school. I know from

my own whistleblower's journey that it's an ugly penalty - encouraged by a

government scorned - for acting on conscience.

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If he had a deeper sense of history, Snowden might have found humor in

the way the Obama administration chose to revoke his passport just before he left

Hong Kong. After all, in the Cold War years, it was the "evil empire", the Soviet

Union, which was notorious for refusing to grant dissidents passports, while the

US regularly waived such requirements when they escaped to the West.

To deepen the irony of the moment, perhaps he was able to Google up the

2009-2011 figures on US grants of asylum: 1,222 Russians, 9,493 Chinese, and 22

Ecuadorians, not including family members. Maybe he learned that, despite the

tantrums US officials threw regarding the international obligation of Russia to

extradite him, the US has recently refused Russian requests to extradite two of itscitizens.

Snowden might have mused over then-candidate Obama's explicit pledge

to protect whistleblowers.

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"Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in

government," Obama then said, "is an existing government employee committed to

public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism...

should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush

administration." It might have been Snowden's only laugh of the flight.I don't hate the US ... but believe it has strayed

On that flight, Snowden took his love of America with him. It's what all

of us whistleblowers share: a love of country, if not necessarily its government, its

military, or its intelligence services. We care what happens to us the people. That

may have been his anchor on his unsettling journey. It would have been mine.Remember, if we were working in the government in the first place, like

every federal employee, soldier, and many government contractors, we had taken

an oath that states: "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States

against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance

to the same.

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" We didn't pledge fealty to the government or a president or party, only - as the

Constitution makes clear - to the ultimate source of legitimacy in our nation, "the

people".

In an interview, Snowden indicated that he held off on making his

disclosures for some time, in hopes that Barack Obama might look into the abyssand decide to become the bravest president in our history by reversing the

country's course. Only when Obama's courage or intelligence failed was it time to

become a whistleblower.

Some pundits claim that Snowden deserves nothing because he didn't go

through "proper channels". They couldn't be more wrong, and Snowden knows it.As with many of us whistleblowers facing a government acting in opposition to the

Constitution, Snowden went through the channels that matter most: he used a free

press to speak directly to his real boss, the American people.

In that sense, whatever the fear and anxiety about his life and his future,

he must have felt easy with his actions. He had not betrayed his country, he had

sought to inform it.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-030713.html

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As with Bradley Manning, Obama administration officials are now

claiming that Snowden has blood on his hands. Typically, Secretary of State John

Kerry claimed: "People may die as a consequence to what this man did. It is

possible that the United States would be attacked because terrorists may now know

how to protect themselves in some way or another that they didn't know before."

Snowden had heard the same slurs circling around Bradley Manning: that

he had put people in danger. After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to speak

of the war on terror, there is irony too obvious to dwell upon in such charges.

Flying into the unknown, Snowden had to feel secure in having risked

everything to show Americans how their government and the NSA bend or breaklaws to collect information on us in direct conflict with the Fourth Amendment's

protections. Amnesty International pointed out that blood-on-hands wasn't at issue.

"It appears he is being charged primarily for revealing US and other governments'

unlawful actions that violate human rights." Those whispers of support are

something to take into the dark with you.

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I believe in things bigger than myself

Some of the charges against Snowden would make anyone pause: that,

for instance, he did what he did for the thrill of publicity, out of narcissism, or for

his own selfish reasons. To any of the members of the post-9/11 club ofwhistleblowers, the idea that we acted primarily for our own benefit has a theater

of the absurd quality to it. Having been there, the negative sentiments expressed do

not read or ring true.

Snowden himself laughed off the notion that he had acted for his own

benefit. If he had wanted money, any number of foreign governments would have

paid handsomely for the information he handed out to journalists for free, and hewould never have had to embark on that plane flight from Hong Kong. (No one

ever called Aldrich Ames a whistleblower.) If he wanted fame, there were potential

book contracts and film deals to be had.

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No, it was conscience. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere along the line

Snowden had read the Declaration of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal:

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of

obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to

prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring".Edward Snowden undoubtedly took comfort knowing that a growing

group of Americans are outraged enough to resist a government turning against its

own people. His thoughts were mirrored by Julian Assange, who said, "In the

Obama administration's attempt to crush these young whistleblowers with espionage

charges, the US government is taking on a generation, a young generation of peoplewho find the mass violation of the rights of privacy and open process unacceptable.

In taking on the generation, the Obama administration can only lose."

Snowden surely hoped President Obama would ask himself why he has

pursued more than double the number of Espionage Act cases of all his presidential

predecessors combined, and why almost all of those prosecutions failed.

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On that flight, Snowden must have reflected on what he had lost,

including the high salary, the sweet life in Hawaii and Switzerland, the personal

relationships, and the excitement of being on the inside, as well as the coolness of

knowing tomorrow's news today. He has already lost much that matters in an

individual life, but not everything that matters.

Sometimes - and any whistleblower comes to know this in a deep way -

you have to believe that something other, more, deeper, better than yourself

matters. You have to believe that one courageous act of conscience might make a

difference in an America gone astray or simply that, matter or not, you did the

right thing for your country.

- Peter Van Buren

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