Snowden Comments on the NSA Review Panel

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden criticized the presidential panel reviewing U.S. surveillance programs, saying it was a hand-picked group by the government that only suggested cosmetic changes, according to a Sunday Brazilian TV report.

“Their job wasn’t to protect privacy or deter abuses, it was to ‘restore public confidence’ in these spying activities. Many of the recommendations they made are cosmetic changes,” Mr. Snowden said in an email exchange with the Globo TV channel.

  WSJ

I wonder how that worked.

He said U.S. law doesn’t distinguish between a whistleblower revealing illegal programs “and a spy secretly selling documents to terrorists.”

The biggest offense one can commit in the U.S. isn’t to damage the government, but rather to “embarrass it. It’s clear that I could not possibly get a fair trial in my country,” he said, according to the report.

I hope he doesn’t forget that.

He’s been offered – and accepted – a TV address from Channel 4 in Britain to be aired just after the Queen’s annual Christmas address today.