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).