MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unedited full version of Edward Snowden statement

Snowden: “Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.”

US citizenship: a weapon for the government? Is this spy a hero or criminal? A petition demanding the Obama administration pardon Snowden has collected over 120,000 digital signatures, way above the threshold where the White House should issue a response.

Former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden says he remains free to publish more information about the U.S. government’s spying programs.

“While the public has cried out support of my shining a light on this secret system of injustice, the Government of the United States of America responded with an extrajudicial man-hunt costing me my family, my freedom to travel, and my right to live peacefully without fear of illegal aggression,” he wrote.

Many Americans like me that love their country and the freedoms and responsibilities coming with the privilege of being a US Citizen believe leaking the secrets could be compared with a soldier not following an order he pledged to follow when he was given top secret clearance.

If this was the case a soldier has the right to not engage in something morally objectionable, whether that objectionable thing was intended or unintended. There were many people in Nazi Germany who after the war said they were “just following orders” and used that explanation to excuse themselves from what took place. A soldier has to follow orders most of the time, but also has to maintain responsibility for his own actions in some circumstances.

Perhaps this is what Snowden did. The government spying on their best European allies and on their own citizens in violation of the US constitution and is morally unacceptable. Every soldier and every citizen and every student pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The German Federal Prosecutors' Office, which is responsible for domestic security issues, told the German magazine SPIEGEL that all available and relevant information about the Prism, Tempora and Boundless Informant spying programs is currently being reviewed by the agency. The spokeswoman said the office was seeking to form a reliable understanding of the facts. The spokeswoman said that “criminal complaints” relating to the scandal appear “likely”. One criminal complaint has already been filed in Germany.

Here is the full wording of Snowden's statement without edit:

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013”