Truest statement of the week II

The renewed witch-hunt of Snowden, encouraged by Obama’s speech, began in earnest last Sunday when leading Democratic and Republican congressmen charged that Snowden was acting as a spy for the Russian government. Appearing on “Meet the Press,” Republican Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, described Snowden as “a thief, who, we believe, had some help; who stole information, the vast majority [having] nothing to do with privacy,” but rather “had to do with how we operate overseas to collect information to keep Americans safe.”
Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, lent credence to Rogers’ totally unsubstantiated accusations, saying that “he may well have” been working as a spy for the Russians.

The fact that Snowden is in Russia as the result of an international campaign led by the United States to deny him entry into any other country was simply ignored. In their effort to prevent Snowden from leaving Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport last summer, the US and its allies went so far as to force down the plane of the Bolivian president on suspicions that the NSA contractor-turned whistle-blower might be on board.

-- Thomas Gaist and Joseph Kishore, "Democratic rights and the defense of Edward Snowden" (WSWS).