Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning: two men who tried to counter war through leaks. For Ellsberg, it was Vietnam. For Manning, it was primarily Iraq. Now there appears to be a third man in this group, Edward Snowden, for whom it is the war on terror. Each was, in his time, denounced by the right and hailed by the left. Ellsberg and Manning were declared psychologically unstable; Snowden likely will be soon, too. They have been called heroes, patriots, and traitors. Ellsberg and Manning acted out of what both described as a kind of idealismand Snowden has said something similar. Ellsberg avoided prison. Manning will learn his sentence soon. Snowden is in Hong Kong waiting for whatever comes next.

Leaks, leak investigations, and war go together. War abroad has a way of turning into war at homeas the government seeks to ferret out who is giving secrets to whom in the press. War also alienates young men and women in government. People come to work for candidates who promise peace. In power, the same leaders start wars, or at least join them. This was as true of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon as it has been for Bush and Obama.

All three men served in the military and became disillusioned. Ellsberg was a Marine turned civil servant who ended up working for a government contractor, RAND, with access to lots of documents. Manning was an Army sergeant. Snowden enlisted in the Army, with the hope, he says, of joining the Special Forces. Eventually, like Ellsberg, he ended up at a contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton in Snowdens case, that helps store our nations secrets.

For Ellsberg, the transition into disillusionment, and the decision to leak, took years: he spent time in Vietnam and gradually turned against the conflict. He began to think about how he could stop it. And then, one day, he heard a speech from a young college student who proclaimed that prison was his only hope to help stop the war. I left the auditorium and found a deserted mens room. I sat on the floor and cried for over an hour, just sobbing. And I was thinking, my country has come to this. That the best thing a young man can do is go to prison. Soon, he went to RANDs safe and then to the modern device of his day, the Xerox machine.

For Manning, the path was similar but quicker. In the log of a chat with the hacker Adrian Lamo, Manning explains his growing frustration about his country. At one moment, he explains how he felt after learning that fifteen detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police were simply critics of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Manning writes:

i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on he didnt want to hear any of it he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees everything started slipping after that i saw things differently i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth but that was a point where i was a *part* of something i was actively involved in something that i was completely against

We dont know nearly as much about Snowdenat least not yet. But he, too, seems to have gone through a period of growing disenchantment. Here he is, talking with the Guardian: Over time that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about. And the more you talk about the more youre ignored. The more youre told its not a problem until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public and not by somebody who was simply hired by the government.

There are important differences between the three men. Ellsberg was forty when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, quite a bit older than Manning, who was twenty-two at the time of his leak, and Snowden, who is twenty-nine. Ellsberg knew exactly what he was doing, and he moved more slowly. There was a year and a half between the time he copied the documents and when he sent them to the press. Manning sent his immediately. Snowden leaked PowerPoint slides from a presentation in April. Ellsberg was a veteran who had spent nearly a decade thinking about his war. Manning and Snowden were more impulsive: they took files and dumped them. This morning, Ellsberg published a piece praising Snowden.

Manning and Snowden, meanwhile, are both a pair and opposites. Mannings quest was to show that the government couldnt keep secrets from the people. Snowden seems more concerned about letting the people keep secrets from the government. Manning was battling opacity; Snowden, a panopticon. Manning has said that he was dissatisfied with his lifehe was dealing with issues of gender identity and lost love. Snowden seems to have worried about being too content: he was, after all, a young man with a G.E.D. earning two hundred thousands dollars a year in Hawaii.

Some of what Snowden says sounds too absurd to be true. His claim that he, personally, could get access to the private data of the President of the United States seems somewhere between bravura and baloney. Theres also the peculiar question about his decision to flee to Hong Kong, which is, after all, part of the most heavily monitored country on earth.

Theres another question we dont know the answer to: Did recent reports on the Obama Administrations crackdown on leaks have anything to do with Snowdens decision to come forward now? Did the stories about the Department of Justices investigation into the action of reporters at Fox and the Associated Press have any effect on his sense of the mounting awareness of wrongdoing? The general surveillance of civilians is different from the surveillance of journalists and government officialsbut the issues and the tools used are related.

And, here, its instructive again to go back forty years. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were obsessed by leaks: in 1969, the first year of the Administration, they began tapping the phones of reporters and government officials, hoping to determine who was leaking information about bombings in Cambodia. Then, in June of 1971, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post; two months later, Nixon assembled his White House plumbers, whose first task was to break into the office of Ellsbergs psychiatrist. It was John Ehrlichman, a Nixon aide, who later called it The seminal Watergate episode. The pattern went like this: war, leaks, war on leakers, more leaks, more war on leakers.

Barack Obama and Richard Nixon are very different people, and they operate at very different moments in history. There is a lesson to be learned, though. Information gives you power, and surveillance gets you information. But theres a risk in going too farand theres a danger of disillusionment and backlash, as more and more people think the country you lead isnt living up to its ideals.

Above: Photograph of Daniel Ellsberg in the nineteen-seventies. Hulton Archive/Getty.

[#image: /photos/59095103ebe912338a37265d]

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From Daniel Ellsberg to Edward Snowden | The New Yorker

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American whistle-blower Edward Snowden has described Julian Assanges arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy as a dark moment for press freedom.

Mr Snowden, a former CIA employee who fled the US after leaking top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) documents, took to Twitter shortly after Assange was dragged out of the embassyby police.

Images of Ecuador's ambassador inviting the UK's secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of--like it or not--award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books, he wrote.

Assange'scritics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom.

The post was retweeted over 5,600 times within an hour of publication.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested at Ecuadorian embassy

The 35-year-old also used the social media platform to alert journalists to important background material, posting a screenshot of a statement from the UN Human Rights High Commissioner.

Julian Assange's cat looks on from the embassy (Alex Lentati)

The United Nations formally ruled his detention to be arbitrary, a violation of human rights. They have repeatedly issued statements calling for him to walk free-- including very recently, Mr Snowden added.

Mr Snowden, who now lives in an undisclosed part of Moscow, is president of the Freedom of Press Foundation - an organisation that claims to defend and supportcutting-edge transparency journalism in the face of adversity.

Assange was arrested on Thursday, April 11after spending seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

He sought asylum at the embassy in 2012 to escape extradition to the US for questioning, after publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.

He was seized by police after Ecuador abruptly withdrew asylum from him. He was arrested for failing to surrender to the court and was taken in custody to a central London police station this morning.

Scotland Yard later issued a statement saying he had been further arrested on behalf of US authorities on arrival at the police station.

A spokesman said: "This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as possible."

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Edward Snowden: Julian Assange arrest is a 'dark moment ...

Edward Snowden

FILE - This June 9, 2013 file photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, in Hong Kong. Snowden says his "mission's already accomplished" after leaking NSA secrets that have caused a reassessment of U.S. surveillance policies. Snowden told The Washington Post in a story published online Monday night, Dec. 23, 2013, he has "already won" because journalists have been able to tell the story of the government's collection of bulk Internet and phone records. (AP Photo/The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, File)

(Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras via AP)

Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the National Security Agency's secret surveillance of U.S. citizens.

FILE - This Dec. 4, 2012 file photo shows Guardian newspaper editor Alan Rusbridger in London. The Obama administration knew in advance that the British government would oversee destruction of a newspaper's hard drives containing leaked National Security Agency documents last year, newly declassified documents show. The White House had publicly distanced itself from doing the same against an American news organization. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the British news organization The Guardian, made sure the world heard it.

The files Snowden stole from the NSA revealed the agency collected phone records in bulk, gained secret access to data kept by private companies such as Google and Facebook, cracked Internet encryption codes and listened in on the private phone calls of 35 world leaders. The British spy agency GCHQ also was implicated. And there likely are more revelations to come.Rusbridger traveled to Syracuse Wednesday to accept the Tully Award for Free Speech from the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. After publishing the Snowden material, the editor was threatened with espionage charges, grilled by a parliamentary commission and forced to smash computers containing the stolen files. He may still be under police investigation.

Alan Rusbridger (left), editor-in-chief of The Guardian, is interviewed by Roy Gutterman (right), executive director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014, at the Newhouse school on campus. Rusbridger accepted the Tully Free Speech Award for publlishing NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations about NSA spying.

Rusbridger and The Guardian also led reporting on the State Department files leaked by Wikileaks and the phone hacking scandal that rocked Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

In an informal question-and-answer session with Tully Center Executive Director Roy Gutterman, Rusbridger talked about his dealings with Snowden, the changing world of journalism and the challenges facing a free press.

On how the story came to The Guardian: Rusbridger says it began with a willingness to work with a new breed of journalist, Glenn Greenwald.

... Glenn Greenwald is not a conventional journalist. He's a lawyer, a blogger, an activist, he lives in Rio (de Janeiro, Brazil). At the point that we hired him, he had an avid following of about a million of his own people, and he was not a conventional journalist by any stretch of the imagination. But we thought he was interesting figure and we wanted to harness that.

There's a lot of American news organizations that wouldn't touch Glenn Greenwald with a barge pole. And so that's why I link the story to just that -- the hiring of Glenn Greenwald. Edward Snowden, when he wanted to make contact with journalists, didn't go to (The New York) Times, didn't go to a conventional news outlet, he went to somebody he thought would do justice to the story.

On how they got the NSA files: Greenwald and Guardian reporter Ewen McAskill traveled to Hong Kong to meet with Snowden. After 48 hours of "speed-dating,'' they were convinced Snowden was who he said he was and that the documents he had were genuine.

Snowden began by selecting one or two things that he thought were particularly significant. And after that ... it was a case of, "Here is the stuff. I'm coming to you as journalists because I think journalists are the people who should define what the public interest is here, and I'm not going to guide you any further.''

On the difference in responses by the British and U.S. governments: Rusbridger said you can't just "ring up'' the British spy agency to discuss publication of secrets, so they published first and waited to be contacted. When it became clear the British government would try to restrain publication of more stories, The Guardian enlisted a U.S. partner, The New York Times. The NSA and the White House, by contrast, were much more accessible.

The facade of Newhouse III at Syracuse University is emblazoned with the text of the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The NSA didn't (threaten us). I know there are different complaints one could make about the current administration ... But the words that are inscribed on this building mean something. The First Amendment means something and it's internalized in the American mind. ... In Europe it's not internalized ...

On the differing reactions to the story around the world: In the United States, Snowden was reviled as a traitor by the intelligence establishment and hailed as a hero by civil libertarians. Citizens of other countries viewed the disclosures through their own particular lenses, Rusbridger said.

... In Britain the politicians didn't really want to debate the issue. They wanted to attack The Guardian... They weren't very interested in this balancing act that we ask them to do on our behalf ... balancing our civil rights and liberties with our security.

On the fallout from the Snowden disclosures: Rusbridger hopes intelligence agencies are better prepared to negotiate with journalists over the publication of sensitive material.

The big question for the future is that these massive databases don't seem to be very secure. We've seen relatively young, relatively junior people like Chelsea Manning (who gave the State Department documents to Wikileaks) and Edward Snowden, people who work for the government, able to purloin vast amounts of documents. It's likely to happen again.

On what will happen to Snowden now: Rusbridger and McAskill traveled to Moscow in July to interview the whistleblower, who was granted asylum by Russia. He faces espionage charges if he returns to the United States.

... My impression is that he doesn't have access to anything. I don't think the administration considers him a threat. ... We have material. Glenn has material. ... The New York Times has the material that The Guardian had, a copy.

On whether Snowden has regrets:

Not at all. I think he went into it knowing that this was going to change his life forever. I think he felt that this raised enormous questions that society hadn't either known about or dealt with or that we as citizens had given our consent to. I think he felt it really important that this question should be given back to society to discuss, and I don't think he regrets that.

On the importance of journalism and journalism institutions in a free society: Rusbridger harkened back to the founding of The Guardian after the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. The paper would publish a true version of events and hold those in power to account.

I think of journalism as like a fire service, or like a water utility. It's one of the essential things a society needs in order to function. ... Going through Snowden, I'm even more convinced of the value of a newspaper. It doesn't have to be a printed thing, but a resilient organization with professional training and standards, that when it comes under ferocious attack can defend its journalism. That's such an important institutional idea.

On the biggest threat to free speech and freedom of the press around the world: Rusbridger worries about the erosion of those rights in countries that historically have supported them, and the message that sends to the rest of the world.

... Turkey is behaving horribly towards journalists. And that's really crucial because there are lots of much nastier Arab and Middle Eastern regimes ... so if Turkey goes, lots of people are going to follow the example of Turkey. Equally when you see countries like Australia and the UK and to some extent America behaving in a repressive way toward whistleblowers and journalists, that's a disaster, because the rest of the world is watching what we do. ... Others will think that's an OK way to behave.

We understand the threat of terror, but if terror is going to be used to trounce 300 years of civil liberties, that's a disaster for the rest of the world.

Continued here:
Edward Snowden, spying on citizens and freedom of the press ...

U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowdenis urging the Canadian government to acceptall seven of the peoplewho sheltered him in Hong Kong while he was fleeing prosecution as refugees.

In a rare interview, he tells The National's Adrienne Arsenaultthat every day the individualsremain in Hong Kong, "they are in immediate danger."

Two members of the group, Vanessa Rodel and her daughter seven-year-old Keana, arrivedin Canada last week. The whole story reads a bit like a movie script. And why not?

The reason Canadians know their story at all is because filmmaker Oliver Stone madea movie about Snowden, and along the way at some point during the scripting process it's believed information got out that revealed how Rodel and Keana's lives along with the rest of the group's were intertwined with Snowden's.

Back in 2013, Snowdenleaked classified documents from the U.S. National Security Agency, where he had been working as a contractor. The documents revealed a massive government surveillance operation, and the United States declared him a traitor. Snowdenfled to avoid prosecution, at one point winding up in Hong Kong.

That's where he met Rodel.

She and twoother families refugees themselves having fled the Philippines and Sri Lanka sheltered Snowdenin their tiny homes in Hong Kong whilehe was on the run.

Now, from his apartment in Russia, where Edward Snowden lives in exile, he is pleading with Canada to let in the other families the three adults and two children who were left behind.

"These people helped me in 2013," Snowdentold Arsenaultby video chat. "And yet here we are 2019."

Snowden found himself living with thefamilies in Hong Kong six years ago because of a Canadian lawyer, Robert Tibbo. He was Snowden's lawyer and he was also working for the families, trying to keep them from being deported and trying to get them safely out of Hong Kong.

"I would say this one guy... is perhaps the reason [the families] haven't been sent back yet," Snowden said.

He believes it took the leak during the moviemaking to get the world to pay attention to the families'plight. He says Rodel and her daughter would not be in Canada were it not "for the profile they got from this film" and "the insanity of the response of the Hong Kong government to having their mistreatment of these refugee families ... suddenly thrust into the global spotlight."

Snowdendescribes what the refugee families facedaily living in Hong Kong.

Rodel and Keana, another refugee couple and their two children, and a third man were all living as refugees in Hong Kong in 2013. They were poor, prohibited from working by the Hong Kong government, living in cramped spaces.

"The bathroom sink was the kitchen sink," said Snowden. Over a period of about three weeks, he crowded into each of the families' three homeswith them. It wasn't long before he moved on to Russia but itwas long enough to have a negative impact on Rodel and the others.

Their lives were already difficult, Snowdensaid. And once the Hong Kong government got wind through the movie leak that the families had sheltered Snowden, their situation got worse. Snowden says the governmentbasically retaliated, removing their refugee stipends and access to food and housing.

Arsenault asks Snowden what itwas like to realize that the very people who had helped him were being made to pay for it.

That's when Snowden says the effort to get the families refugee status in another country began. He believes Canada is best positioned to help them.

"These children are stateless and they will never live a free life unless they are welcomed into and protected by a state. And the only one who is in a position to do so right now, who has the legal framework to do so right now is Canada."

The paperwork requesting asylum from Canada wasfiled in early 2017 and Snowden says their situation is dire. He says the families will be deported to Sri Lanka where they where they claim to face torture and death threats. He is enormously grateful that Rodel and Keana are here, but says there is clearly something preventing the other five from being immediately brought to Canada, too.

"If this process is independent, If it's truly independent, they already would have been admitted. I believe and everyone else believes the only reason this process for admission has taken so long is simply because the Canadian government is bending over backwards not to create an appearance that might irritate the United States government."

That's because the United States still considers Snowden a traitor and he still faces charges in the U.S. related to his exposure of what was considered state secrets.

Snowden saysthat shouldn't matter.

"The only thing they did is they helped someone who was facing retaliation for telling the truth. And if that's something that Canada can't stand behind, that's something we need to know publicly rather than them sort of doing it privately."

He added, "Admitting these families is something Canada can be proud of. And seeing these families have a happy ending, I think in the fullness of history is something that the United States will be very much glad happened."

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Whistleblower Edward Snowden calls on Canada to help the ...

Today, Edward Snowden is wrong about almost everything. Yes, hes a patriot, and yes, I believe that what he did in 2013 to reveal dangerous elements of our surveillance state was important and commendable. But Snowden is completely oblivious to the challenges that we face as we move into the year 2017a perilous fucking time for our country, to say the least.

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Real Future Fair in Oakland, which featured some amazing speakers like Mae Jemison, the first American woman of color in space. It was a fascinating conference, but there was one speaker that made me incredibly frustrated: Edward Snowden, who joined us in Oakland via teleconference robot from Russia. And Ive come to the conclusion that hes promoting an idiotic worldview thats completely devoid of answers for how to effectively combat the threat that Donald Trump and his neo-fascist goons pose to our democracy.

What got me so riled up about Snowdens talk? He firmly believes that technology is more important than policy as a way to protect our liberties. Snowden contends that he held this belief when Obama was in office and he still believes this today, as Donald Trump is just two months away from entering the White House. But it doesnt make him right, no matter whos in office.

If you want to build a better future, youre going to have to do it yourself. Politics will take us only so far. And if history is any guide, they are the least effective means of seeing change we want to see, Snowden said on stage in Oakland from Russia, completely oblivious to how history might actually be used as a guide.

Snowden spoke about how important it is for individuals to act in the name of liberty. He continually downplayed the role of policy in enacting change and trotted out some libertarian garbage about laws being far less important than the encryption of electronic devices for the protection of freedoms around the world.

Law is simply letters on a page, Snowden said. Its a phrase thats still ringing in my ears, as a shockingly obtuse rejection of civilized society and how real change happens in the world.

How do we advance the cause of liberty around the world? Encrypt your devices, according to Snowden. Okay, now what? Well, Snowdens tapped out of ideas if you get beyond use Signal. The closest he got to advocating for anything involving policy change was when he told people they could donate to the Freedom of the Press Foundation which, it should probably be noted, he currently works for.

Imagine if advocates of human rights held this same worldview fifty years ago. What would the American civil rights movement have looked like in the 1950s and 60s if you didnt believe changes in policy mattered? If you truly think that laws are irrelevant and that securing your communications from government surveillance is the only force for liberty, then your biggest problem with the FBIs persecution of Martin Luther King Jr. was that they tapped his phone lines. Kings use of his phone was a means to an end, just as the FBIs surveillance of King was a means to an end. The end, as far as civil right leaders were concerned, was enacting policy. Shielding your communications from government surveillance is merely a tactic to allow you to operate and organize without government interference. Encryption doesnt fight against injustice all by its lonesome.

What about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement that brought about real change to a system built on systemic racism? The Civil Rights Act didnt end racism, and it, along with its legal cousin the Voting Rights Act of 1965, are currently being butchered beyond recognition after a devastating Supreme Court decision. But the answer to progressive losses in the courts isnt encrypt your phone. The answer is to bring about policy changes through local and national laws to ensure that human rights are protected. Encrypt your data all you likeits an important, if admittedly flawed, way to help organize and protest. (Privacy tools like Tor are leaking like a sieve and there are a hundred different ways for the state to access your communications even if you have the most advanced opsec in the world.) But dont tell me that policy doesnt matter.

If you earnestly put forward this idea that fighting for policy is somehow irrelevant and that laws are simply letters on a page you have very little to offer modern society. Youre surrendering to living in a fundamentally broken world and are ignoring the methods by which history actually evolves to meet the needs of a civilized society. Every time someone like Snowden says encrypt your phone our response must be, okay, now what do we do? And Snowden doesnt have an answer.

Technology works differently than law. Technology knows no jurisdiction, Snowden said via video conference in Russia, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a change in policy would be necessary for his return to the United States, not stronger encryption of his communications.

This isnt the first time that Ive thought Snowden was leading Americans astray. In the excellent documentary Citizenfour, about Snowdens leaks and the immediate fallout, I thought he said some pretty idiotic things as well.

I remember what the internet was like before it was being watched, Snowden said in the documentary. As a man in his early 30s, hes either lying or ignorant of history. Either one wouldnt surprise me at this point, to be honest.

The internet has always been monitored by the state. It was created by the fucking US military and has been monitored from day one. Surveillance of the internet wasnt invented after September 11, 2001, no matter how many people would like to believe that to be the case. To claim that there was this magical time when the internet was a frontier is a tragic misreading of history. Much like myths of the Wild West, there was no unpopulated frontier online. There were plenty of people there first. And in the case of the internet, those people were part of the military and intelligence gathering community. They all, quite literally, built the internet.

In Oakland, Snowden also addressed his tweet from October 21st in which he said that, There may never be a safer election in which to vote for a third option. Snowden told us that he more or less stands by his tweet and that anything else freezes us into a dynamic of you must always choose between two bad options which is a fundamentally un-American idea.

This might be the glass half full or glass half empty for our times. People like Snowden subscribe to the belief that the lesser of two evils is still evil. I subscribe to the belief that the lesser of two evils is still less evil. When youre talking about someone as dangerous to democracy as Donald Trump and the fucking knobs hes surrounding himself with who are more loyal than they are intelligent, these competing worldviews matter.

Not that its profoundly significant, but I should probably acknowledge again that I believe Edward Snowdens leaks of classified national security information to journalists was a good thing. Whenever the government is conducting operations that infringe on our rights, it is always the right and proper thing for people to speak out against it. But Snowdens whistleblower activities are largely irrelevant to the opinions that hes spouting today. And I believe that almost everything I heard him say on stage in Oakland was truly idiotic.

If youre looking for NSA docs about the surveillance state, Snowden is your man. If youre looking for guidance on how to make the world a more just place, we have to look elsewhere and listen to people who believe in the only thing that can possibly influence the world for the better: Radical changes in policies that touch the lives of everyone around the globe.

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Edward Snowden Is a Fucking Idiot - gizmodo.com

Edward Snowden was given no script approval, nor did he receive any payment for Snowden, says director Oliver Stone. His new movie tells the story of the former NSA operative and how he came to reveal that the U.S. government was secretly monitoring domestic telephone calls.

The 69-year-old filmmaker and renegade met after Snowden's Russian lawyer "contacted me because he wanted to sell me his book, which he had written about Snowden," said Stone. "But it was a fictional book. He had fictionalized it. And it was an interesting Russian novel. Very Dostoevsky. Really it's about a young man from America who comes over and reveals a 1984 world. I didn't know at that point in time whether we were going to make a fictional movie with an unnamed character, or else we would make the story as realistic as possible about Snowden, because I didn't know if Snowden would cooperate."

The lawyer arranged a meeting in Moscow, in a secure place that Stone would not reveal. At first, he said, Snowden was wary. "I don't think he was comfortable with the idea of a movie at that point. He's into reality and the concept of a movie is so foreign to him. I think he had seen a piece of The Untold History of the United States, which I'd done. That was that 12-part series. And I think he was impressed with it."

After more meetings took place, Stone said, Snowden began to thaw. "[He] got warmer. It took time." In the end, he agreed to take part because "he accepted in his heart that a movie would get made," Stone noted. "And he said that it was sort of an inevitability about a movie getting made, that he doesn't have any rights because he's in exile, and so forth and so on."

The three-time Oscar winner behind such movies as Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Wall Street, blamed the studios' corporate ownership for the fact that none agreed to finance the picture. "The biggest problem in the end turned out to be the self-censorship of scared American corporations," Stone said. "And that's the truth about our society. At the price we were offering, and the script the way it was, it's very hard to believe [that there wasn't] a political factor [in denying the project financing]."

Stone was interviewed Aug. 26 at Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television, where he was the first guest in the sixth season of the Hollywood Masters interview series. Other guests this season will include actors Annette Bening, Ewan McGregor and Andrew Garfield, producer Brian Grazer, Fox TV executive Dana Walden, and French superstar Isabelle Huppert.

In a wide-ranging conversation about his work, Stone also recalled working with Donald Trump in a scene for Wall Street that subsequently was deleted from the movie.

"He was good," said Stone. "I have no complaint. There were a lot of demands. I mean, he had two pages of prerequisites: You couldn't shoot him from this side, that side. But I talked to him, and he's a charming man in person. As an actor, he was stunning. You know, we did take one with Michael [Douglas] and [Trump] talking in a barbershop. And he jumped up after the take and he said, 'Wasn't that great?'" In the end, Stone chose to cut the scene. "It was too late and too little for where we were, at that point in the movie. And I wasn't thinking about his future presidency I was just dealing with an editing issue. I should have left it in probably."

An edited transcript of the interview follows.

STEPHEN GALLOWAYJune 1971. You had been at NYU Film School for a couple of years. Learning from Martin Scorsese, among others.

OLIVER STONEAmong others. Yeah.

GALLOWAY And now you are out in the cold world. Nobody knows who you are. You have just made a short film, which, by the way, you can see on YouTube. It's very good, about Vietnam. What is your thinking about your career and what you want to do with the rest of your life?

STONE It was more like a starvation diet at that point. There was no choice involved. You could either choose to go on, or else you drop out. A lot of people did. They realized that there was no real business, so to speak, you know, when you formally get hired. During our school year, the last year, all of us had been trying to do things. I had worked at Channel 13, and those days, that was the WNET. I think it was the public station. I'd worked on a wonderful novel that was filmed with a bunch of actors like Cornelia Otis Skinner, Gary Merrill, old timers. And it was great. Jack Gilford. It was a great experience to be a PA. And various things like that. I had been a cab driver, night time, and I went more and more into cab driving when I graduated. Night times in New York. That was an experience.

GALLOWAY Was that a good or bad experience?

STONE It was both. (Laughs.) Both. But you know, over the next three, four years, there were no jobs. I kept writing scripts and getting the jobs that I could. Worked on a porno film as an associate producer.

GALLOWAY What was the name of the porno film?

STONE Carrying dollies up four, five flights of stairs. In those days we

GALLOWAY Do you remember the name of the film?

STONE I'd rather forget it. (Laughter.)

GALLOWAY Go on. You know the name. (Laughter.)

STONE But there were things like that. And I got a job finally. One of the jobs I got that was pretty steady, and gave me a beautiful unemployment insurance, was at a sports film company making baseball films. They were contracted to Major League Baseball. And it was a good contract. But they wanted to expand into advertising. And I was not an expert at advertising. I wasn't very good at selling either, so I sold nothing practically for a year. But I pretended to sell or tried. But I was writing scripts mostly during that whole period in the back office and such. And I was unsuccessful as a scriptwriter, I have to tell you, but I kept at it. There must have been seven, eight, nine scripts in there. And treatments, long treatments. Always hopeful. Heartbreaking. Not read. Took forever to read. You know, I wanted to get them to people like Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, and some of the actors. And it just wasn't working out. But of course, my choice of subject matter may have something to do with it. I don't know. But that business was tough. In the early '70s, it was very tough, because they weren't making as many movies I think. That was one of the problems. Really, it started to change in the early '80s, when the video revolution came in. That allowed those smaller films to be made that we have all seen in the years since. But it was a hard market. I ran into a couple of NYU graduates down at the garage where the taxis were. And all their grandiose dreams. Some of them had money. Some of them were shooting their own films with the money. It was tough.

GALLOWAY What did Scorsese teach you?

STONE It was one year, the first year. Basic production. And we made films that were primitive and crude. Basic motions. I would say, what they called Sight and Sound. That was the name of it. It was 60 seconds, film. You started with a black and white film, 16 mm, and then you worked your way up to five minutes, maybe. Or three minutes. And these were exercises, and generally Marty criticized them pretty well. I mean, he cared. He was passionate. But it was hopeless for him. It was a graveyard. He knew that. And I think he was writing or he was working on projects at that time. But he would come in dutifully every time we had the class. And you could see he hadn't slept very well at night. Because in those days, there was no [VCRs]. And older films were available on TV in the morning time, around 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, you'd see the classics. And that was one of the few ways you could see older films. Unless you'd go to the theater up on 98th Street. So he would always be exhausted. He would talk a mile a minute. And it was hard to understand some of what he said.

GALLOWAY He talks incredibly quickly.

STONE Yeah. And I mean, his hair was down to here, and you could barely see his eyes in the morning. But he was a good teacher, and inspiring. You know, Haig Manoogian was there.

GALLOWAY The dean of the school.

STONE A lot of good teachers. My screenwriting class, I just have to say, was empty. The young people then did not really believe in writing. It was like, put the script together on the spot, like Jean-Luc Godard, go out and shoot. So I was surprised at the lack of attention to that discipline, which I loved, the old screenwriters.

GALLOWAY How did you learn to write? You had written a 1,400-page novel.

STONE I'd written a novel before, when I

GALLOWAY It wasn't published.

STONE Yeah. I was an older student. I came back from Vietnam at that point. And I had written a novel at 19, which was published 30 years later. It's called Child's Night Dream. And it's about being 19. So I cared about writing, but I had written a novel, and how to visualize it into a cinematic approach is a whole different ballgame.

GALLOWAY And so who taught you? Or where did you learn? From watching films? Or did somebody guide you?

STONE Well, that's what we were doing at NYU. You know, first of all, the concept was you can make films. I mean, you would take that for granted now, but back then it was a very special, exotic colony. You didn't join it that easily. And certainly anybody who went to Hollywood, like Marty went with AIP, I think, that was a big deal. We didn't have connections. Now it's changed. Back then, you had to get in by commercials if you could. Or the writing, [which] worked for me. And it took six years, seven years.

GALLOWAY You made two films, The Hand andSeizure, before you made the film that you consider your first feature, Salvador, which is still one of my favorite films of yours.

STONE Yeah. I love that one.

GALLOWAY What did you learn from the first two that helped you make the third one?

STONE Oh Years. I learned years, you know. The first one was a horror film, Seizure, in 1973. And I did it with very little money. And we had a tremendous amount of problems. It was a real first-time film effort. Very funny stories, of course, with Seizure. It was called Queen of Evil, but we had to change the title. Our film had many legal problems, and it was seized. I mean, I had to seize the film back from the cinematographer in Montreal. And I called the film Seizure. (Laughter.)

GALLOWAY How did you seize it back?

STONE Oh God. It's complicated. The Mounties were involved. Bills. I mean, we had a lot of unpaid bills and we had to sneak it across the border to show the work print. It was a nightmare. We finally got secured by Harold Greenberg, who was a gigantic whale of a man, who had the Bellevue Path Lab in Montreal. He basically swallowed the film, and it disappeared into a 42ndStreet double bill as a Cinerama release. But it's actually an interesting film, if you look at it. I don't know if you have seen it.

GALLOWAY I haven't. No.

STONE It was released on video. It's very interesting. It's similar to the theme of The Hand, which is basically an artist, a cartoonist, who has tremendous problems with his imagination. And he projects some of the worst nightmares possible. And it happens to him. Sort of a Cavalcanti film, Alberto Cavalcanti. Dead of Night. That kind of a thing.

GALLOWAY How have you changed as a director since then?

STONE More complex and more mature. I think better with using the camera, using the scenes, directing actors, in every way. I mean, you grow. You grow from your experience. You have to do it. And by the time I made Salvador, I'd been through a lot of heartbreak. I mean, I'd already won an Academy Award for [writing]Midnight Express in '79. And then had a rough spot with The Hand, because The Hand was actually an interesting movie. Again, but the producers were putting a tremendous amount of pressure on me to make it more of a horror film, and less of a psychological horror film. And that was a problem. I, you know, had to photograph the hand 100 different ways. It was an externalization of the character's inner life. And that was always what it was. It wasn't supposed to exist independently. But you know Hollywood. They want it to exist independently. But to have to shoot an object that's very small and make it dangerous is extremely difficult. It's like trying to make a mouse into an elephant. But I had Carlo Rambaldi doing special effects. Wonderfully precise man, but the only problem was he hated my DP, because he said my DP couldn't light his hands. And we had 50, 60 hands in there and we were trying to do very complex stuff. And we did some very good stuff. We still see it. But it was a very difficult film for a first feature, second feature.

GALLOWAY You mentioned Midnight Express, which became a very controversial film. [To the audience:] I don't know if you've seen it, but it's a film I love. Even before you were known as a director, you were known as the writer of Midnight Express, which offended a great part of the Turkish population. I think Amnesty International complained about its portrayal of Turks as villains. This is a story about Billy Hayes' experiences in a Turkish prison. Alan Parker, the director, has subsequently sort of apologized for the film. How do you feel about it?

STONE I've never apologized for it. I said, "I'm sorry about this misunderstanding." But this was a serious misunderstanding here. This film, for me, was based on injustice everywhere. And it was a worldwide issue. Certainly, in the United States. I had been in prison briefly, but it was a horrifying experience. For a drug, federal smuggling charge. And a lot of that passion went into the screenplay. And I felt that the it was really the early drug war. I felt that this treatment of people who were taking drugs was outrageous and still do. Very angry about it. And I made a film about it, too, at one point called Savages, later.

GALLOWAY Which I love.

STONE But this was an early reflection of that. And I made a speech at the Golden Globes, which I had won that year. And I was saying, "This is not about Turkey. This is about the United States. When you people who make television shows here in the United States are always doing the same cliche. You're glorifying the cop. And you're making the drug dealer something evil and much worse than he is." And I got booed off the stage.

GALLOWAY Wow. Really?

STONE Well, I was high, frankly, but (Laughter.) My publicist tried for years to destroy the tape, but I think it still exists. And I know it does.

GALLOWAY When you were in prison, they found two ounces of marijuana on you or something?

STONE Something like that. Yeah.

GALLOWAY Were you in prison in San Diego?

STONE Oh, we have to go to that! Yeah. You like the interesting juicy stuff, but

GALLOWAY I knew you would knock me for that, but you know it's interesting. So since I'm asking that question, tell us about it.

STONE Which one?

GALLOWAY About that prison experience.

STONE Oh, come on. Really?

GALLOWAY Of course.

STONE We're talking about movies, not

GALLOWAY [To audience:] You want to know about this?

AUDIENCEYes!

STONE I was coming back from Mexico, and I had just come back from Vietnam, about seven days. Hadn't even called my parents to tell them I was back. I was really one of those guys from Vietnam who was coming back from a lot of combat. And I was taking psychedelics at that point, just trying to get used to the world again. But it wasn't a world that I had recognized. And the experience of veterans coming back, you know, was difficult. So I left the country. And partied in Mexico. And came back, and I was arrested [in San Diego]. And it was scary, because there were two judges. One was a five- to 20-year[s in prison] judge, and the other one was a parole judge, who would give you five years on parole, you know, and you wouldn't even serve. So it was like, "What day do you go up in front of the judge?" And there was no representation. They never came at that point. The prisons in San Diego were feeling the early drug war. And it was overcrowded. Three times too many inmates. It was a very eye-opening experience, and another side of America that I had never seen before. So between the infantry and the prison, and between the Merchant Marine I started to see the world in a different way than I'd grown up.

GALLOWAY You said something interesting, which most people wouldn't think. And you just mentioned this was a scary experience. You said a lot of what you were dealing with when you were young was fear, and that you yourself still deal with fear, and you're still afraid.

STONE Ha. When did I say that to you?

GALLOWAY You didn't say it to me. I think you said it in the book [The Oliver Stone Experience].

STONE Gosh. This is a very good journalist, I have to tell you. (Laughter.) This man, he digs.

GALLOWAY Thank you. Tell us about that.

STONE I have to say, I was shocked when you told me you read this book, which just came out. Because you know, it's a big book, and you really prepared. [To audience:] But he's taken you far ahead and far deeper into things that you may not understand of

GALLOWAY I appreciate that. But let's not avoid the question. Fear. Do you still feel that?

STONE Yes. I do. I do. I think that's an inherent quality in all people. I mean, I think it's a fear that's deeper now than it ever was. Sure. But I've come to terms with it. It's a beast that you face every day. And being older gives me some advantages over it.

GALLOWAY By the way, the other thing you said that was interesting, you gave the commencement address at the University of Connecticut, I think in May. And you said, "I've been to four colleges." Yale, from which you dropped out. NYU. I think the third one was Hollywood, but the fourth one was the College of Older Age.

STONE Yeah.

GALLOWAY And that really interested me. Because you have mellowed somewhat, I think. True?

STONE Yes. (Laughter.)

GALLOWAY You may elaborate.

STONE You know, this is very personal stuff. I feel like you're a psychiatrist.

GALLOWAY (Laughs.) And I promised your assistant I wasn't going to go down this path

STONE I don't even know you and

GALLOWAY Let's go back to the film that really put you on the map. And I'm going to show an excerpt from this truly brilliant film. Be warned. It's a very violent scene, but it's an extraordinary film. Watching it again is even better than when I saw it when it came out. So let's take a look at a sequence from Platoon.

[CLIP]

[APPLAUSE]

STONE That's a strong scene.

GALLOWAY How do you feel watching it?

STONE Whew. I feel terrible. What do you want me to say? I mean, it's not a pretty scene, but it's accurate, not in the exact details, but it's a condensation of many of the things that happened over there. And happen in every war that we're fighting since World War II, it seems. And maybe even then. You know, when you're in a country that you're not invited into, and you're white, and it's a Third World country, the infantry gets very divided, and whatever they say about "Support the troops," you know, the truth is some of the troops should not be supported. People go over there and they get out their anxieties and their fears, and they blame anybody outside themselves. They don't look in. And they look out. And they often take it out on people who have no ability to speak the language and so forth and so on. In some cases, invalids and people who are stupid, or ... retarded, mentally challenged. And it happened in some form to me. And there was a guy like this guy Kevin Dillon plays who existed in the platoon I was in. No names, but there were all kinds of acts of homicide that were done not overtly, and not in front of officers, but that happened like in a situation like that. Where it would be covered up by a cowardly sergeant who was a bully. You saw the sergeant, the John C.McGinley character.

GALLOWAY In fact, he's in four of your films

STONE This brings it all together. And it also, one detail that you should remember. In these situations and this is like true for Iraq and Afghanistan when you go to these places, these villages, they are often collaborating with the enemy. Yes. Why not? Because they are in an impossible situation. They're getting pressure from the insurgent side or the native side. They're getting a lot of pressure. And here comes the U.S. And here we are saying, "You got to work with us." And then guys get very pissed off because they find supplies in those villages. Or let's say they know where the booby traps are, this, that. There's 100 ways you can collaborate. They collaborate because they have no choice. They're in the middle of a mess.

GALLOWAY You were 21 when you went to Vietnam. You volunteered. I think you actually missed your 21stbirthday because you crossed the international dateline.

STONE Yeah. I got robbed. (Laughter.) But I stay forever young.

GALLOWAY What possessed you to do that?

STONE Possessed me? Well, you've read the book [The Oliver Stone Experience] Obviously, I was a bit like Ron Kovic, a lot like Ron Kovic. I believed in the fight against communism. My father had been Republican. I grew up conservative. And in 1950s New York, you had to believe that the communist conspiracy was about to engulf the United States. You just had to. That was the way we were raised. And it was all-American. It was very much like it is now in a certain sense. Engaged in a cold war in which we certainly invented the enemy, or exaggerated him to the point at which he was, as Joe McCarthy said, you know, about to take over our government and all this stuff. And we went to that war, many of us, in that belief. I was completely alienated and shocked when I returned and didn't know where I was. Took me a while to straighten, to get back into society. Going back to NYU Film School about nine months later was part of it. It was a very shaky time. Talk about fear. We had a lot of fear, you know, about life, about coming back to American society that you don't recognize. Nobody cared about Vietnam. I mean, only the poor went there. I mean, I would say in the officer class, and most of the young people did not go. They had deferments. So you're not dealing with your own people. You don't have that camaraderie. No one understands what you're doing over there. They think it's a bummer. They think it's lost time. And too bad, you know. Move on.

GALLOWAY You were pretty badly wounded in Vietnam. You were shot I think in the neck. And you still have shrapnel there?

STONE I was not seriously wounded, thank God. I was hit twice, yes. And both times I was scared. Yeah. First time I thought I was going to die because there was a lot of blood, in the neck. And the second time I got blown up by a satchel charge. And I'm OK. But I got out of the field briefly, and I stayed out for a while, but I couldn't stand the rear, and I ended up getting into I go into the details in this book. But I always had problems with authority in the army, you know, because you're being bossed around by people like John McGinley, stuff like that. So I ended up back in the field. They were going to Article 15 me, which is put me basically in detention, and put me in a jail there. Another jail. And then I would extend my stay. I'd come out of jail, and I'd have to go back to the field for the same amount of time.

GALLOWAY God.

STONE You know, they really think it through. It was called LBJ, the prison.

GALLOWAY Wow. (Laughs.)

STONE It was named Long Binh Jail, but LBJ were the initials for Lyndon Johnson, who was the antihero of the time. Anyway...

GALLOWAY Are you still anti-authority?

STONE You bet. (Laughter.) You bet.

GALLOWAY That's interesting. Is there any authority that you're not anti?

STONE I've been having problems with that through my whole life, as you can tell from my films and some of my documentaries, too. I really think that we don't think for ourselves. I think many of us are sleepwalking. Many of us buy the lies. So I tend to be contrary and think for myself as much as possible. And sometimes I don't. But I was going back to something you said earlier, but I forgot what it was.

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Oliver Stone on Edward Snowden: "America Is Fed Bullshit and ...

HONG KONG A Filipino woman who sheltered Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, when he fled to Hong Kong has been granted asylum in Canada, where she arrived on Monday with her daughter.

The woman, Vanessa Mae Bondalian Rodel, was part of a group of asylum seekers in Hong Kong who briefly allowed Mr. Snowden to stay in their homes in 2013.

This is a really great day, said her lawyer, Robert Tibbo. Shes departed Hong Kong. Shes left behind all the distress, hopelessness and uncertainty in life, the discrimination and marginalization she has suffered.

The Hong Kong government in 2017 rejected the asylum claims of all seven migrants connected with Mr. Snowden. Since then they have been living in limbo, fearing deportation while awaiting decisions on asylum applications to Canada.

Ms. Rodel did not know who Mr. Snowden was when she took him in to her tiny apartment. She brought him an Egg McMuffin and ice tea from McDonalds. And on his second day there, she bought him a copy of The South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper, and saw his image splashed on the front page.

Oh my God, unbelievable, she recalled herself saying. The most wanted man in the world is in my house.

At that time, Mr. Snowden was the focus of international scrutiny as government officials and news media outlets rushed to find the source of leaks about some of the United States most closely guarded surveillance programs.

Like Ms. Rodel, Mr. Snowden was represented by Mr. Tibbo, who figured that the tiny apartments of his asylum-seeker clients in some of Hong Kongs poorest neighborhoods would be the last place anyone would look for the contractor.

Mr. Snowden, who initially stayed in the five-star Mira Hotel when he arrived in Hong Kong, disappeared from public view for about two weeks before leaving for Moscow, where he lives in exile to this day.

He faces charges in the United States, including two counts under the Espionage Act, after he revealed details of secret surveillance programs that collected communications of hundreds of millions of people.

His location during most of his time in Hong Kong was secret until 2016. The realization that he had stayed with asylum seekers focused attention on their difficult circumstances in the territory. They cannot work in Hong Kong and live on small government stipends while they await decisions on their applications, which are usually rejected.

Mr. Tibbo was criticized by some other lawyers in Hong Kong, who said he had put the asylum seekers at risk and undermined their cases by helping news organizations cover their plight. But clients including Ms. Rodel said that he was a tireless advocate and that they felt reassured when he took on their cases.

Ms. Rodel, 42, and her 7-year-old daughter, Keana Nihinsa, are now set to live in Montreal. Their expenses for their first year will be provided by For the Refugees, an organization that was set up to handle the groups asylum claims.

The group will also provide her with professional and educational counselors to help her figure out how to proceed now that she will be allowed to work again, said Marc-Andr Sguin, the president of For the Refugees.

This is a huge victory for Vanessa and her daughter, Mr. Sguin said. Both left Hong Kong earlier today as refugee claimants and landed in Toronto as Canadian permanent residents.

Five other asylum seekers who sheltered Mr. Snowden are awaiting decisions on their applications in Canada. Among them is Ajith Pushpakumara, from Sri Lanka, who said he had fled to Hong Kong after being tortured for deserting the military and faces the possibility of execution if he returns to his native country.

Mr. Snowden tweeted a message of thanks on Monday. After so many years, the first of the families that helped me is free and has a future, he wrote. But the work is not done. With solidarity and compassion, Canada can save them all.

Visit link:
Canada Gives Asylum to Refugee Who Sheltered Edward Snowden ...

Vanessa Rodel smiles during a media scrum after arriving with her daughter Keana to the Toronto airport on a flight from Hong Kong this week. She is one of several Hong Kong-based refugees who helped Edward Snowden hide in Hong Kong after his leaks exposed U.S. global surveillance programs. Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Vanessa Rodel smiles during a media scrum after arriving with her daughter Keana to the Toronto airport on a flight from Hong Kong this week. She is one of several Hong Kong-based refugees who helped Edward Snowden hide in Hong Kong after his leaks exposed U.S. global surveillance programs.

The first of three Hong Kong-based refugee families who helped shelter National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden when he was on the run, has been granted asylum in Canada.

Vanessa Rodel and her daughter, Keana, arrived in Montreal on Tuesday, eager to embrace their new lives as Canadians.

"I feel so great and I feel like I'm free," Rodel told reporters at Toronto Pearson International Airport shortly after landing in the country on Monday night.

She described her life in Hong Kong as one riddled with sleepless nights, fear and instability for herself and her 7-year-old since the government there rejected their claims for asylum in 2017.

Now, she said, "I don't have to worry. ... I'm ready to start my new life."

But her joy was tempered by her concern for the people she left behind. "They've been stuck for many years," Rodel said.

"They have so many troubles in their lives ... the kids are having a hard time," she added.

Rodel moved to Hong Kong in 2002 after escaping the Philippines. She applied for asylum in 2010, saying she was a victim of human trafficking in her home country, but was turned down seven years later. As a result she and her Hong Kong-born daughter had been living in legal limbo the government designates children of refugees as stateless and Rodel was not permitted to have a job. The pair subsisted on meager government assistance with little access to basic services.

"This has been a seven year battle," Robert Tibbo, the lawyer who represents Snowden as well as the refugees who hid him, told CNN.

Rodel and her daughter are among seven asylum seekers, including three children, involved in keeping Snowden out of sight after he leaked highly classified documents about the government's PRISM surveillance program and fled the U.S. in June 2013. Hiding Snowden with the refugees was an idea conjured by Tibbo, who assumed correctly that the former NSA contractor could safely evade U.S. and Hong Kong authorities in that setting.

"They opened their door to me," Snowden said in a Radio-Canada interview following Rodel's arrival in Canada. "They knew what it was like to be hunted, to be chased, to be retaliated against. And they smiled at me."

"They were living in very difficult conditions, incredible poverty, and they shared everything they had," Snowden recalled.

Speaking from his home in Russia, where he was eventually granted asylum, Snowden urged the Canadian government to move swiftly to accept the remaining five refugees, all of whom are Sri Lankan.

Ethan Cox, a spokesperson with For the Refugees, the Canadian organization that filed asylum applications on behalf of Rodel, Keana and the others told NPR, "It's time to finish the job."

For the Refugees has collected donations to provide financial support and sponsors for the asylum-seekers in Canada. The nonprofit is calling on the Trudeau government to intervene on the group's behalf to expedite their applications.

According to Cox, those left behind are in imminent danger. "They can be deported at any time to their home country. They are in a place where they have been cut off from state support and don't have any state protection."

"If there is a delay of months to get the other applications processed, that may amount to death by delay," he added.

Read more:
Refugee Who Helped Hide Snowden In Hong Kong Granted Asylum ...

U.S.whistleblower Edward Snowden saidhe is relieved one of the families who helped hide him when he was on the run in Hong Kong in 2013 has been granted refugee status in Canada.

"They knew what it was like to be hunted, to be chased, to be retaliated against," he said in an interview with Radio-Canada.

"And they smiled at me. You know, they opened their home.I mean, thiswas very small. They were living in very difficult conditions, incredible poverty, and they shared everything they had."

Ottawa has granted refugee status to Vanessa Rodel, 42, and her seven-year-old daughter,Keana, saida spokesperson for the group that privately sponsored the family.They areamong a group of seven asylum seekers who housed Snowden after he fled the United States in 2013.

The familylanded this evening at Toronto's Pearson Airport.

"I feel like I'm free," Rodel told reporters. "I can sleep well."

"I'm so happy that we finally went to Canada," Keanasaid. "Iwas waiting for days and days."

Vanessa Rodel talks about what it's like to be in Canada.

Rodel and her daughter's final destination will beMontreal, where they are expected to arrive on Tuesday, to begin their new life.

Rodel had been living in Hong Kong since 2002after fleeing her home in the Philippines. She applied for asylum there in2010,but her claim was rejected.

In 2013, a Montreal-based lawyer working with Snowden came up with a plan to hide him in the homes of refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong, including Rodel's.

Snowden was wanted by U.S. authorities for leaking highly classified government documents about government surveillance programs. He had been a contract worker for the National Security Agency until he fled the country, ultimately escaping to Russia, wherehe still lives.

Watch as Edward Snowden describes how he hid while evading arrest in Hong Kong:

A non-profit organizationcalled For the Refugees submitted applications to privately sponsor all seven of the refugees living in Hong Kong in 2016,said a spokesperson for the group, Ethan Cox.

"Vanessaand her daughter have been accepted as privately sponsored refugees," he said. "Right now, the long nightmare is over for Vanessa and Keana."

Coxsaid the other applicants are still waiting to see if their applications will be accepted as well.

After housing Snowden, Rodel feared Hong Kong authorities would step up their efforts to deport her to the Philippines, where she said she fears for her life.

Cox, who is familiar with Rodel's case, said in the Philippines shewaskidnapped, raped and sexually trafficked by an extremist group before she fled to Hong Kong.CBC News has not verified the details of Rodel's initial asylum claim.

Rodel told Radio-Canada that Hong Kong authorities have questioned her about Snowden, but when she refused to co-operate, her social assistance was cut off.

The group For the Refugees hasbeen collecting donations to support the families,andits membershope all of them will be able to settle in Canada as privately sponsored refugees.

"They are extremely brave people who have nothing, but when someone in distress needed them, they opened their doors," said Montreal-based Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, one of the lawyers with the group.

"Instead of letting them live in a terrible situation without a future, we wanted to do something for them, as they wanted to do something for Edward Snowden."

Rodel's was the first claim to be accepted and though it has given hope to the others, Cliche-Rivard said there is an urgency to their cases, and he hopes the government acts quickly.

"The clients are facing tremendous distress [in Hong Kong]," he said. "Removals for the other five are pending, so Canada cannot take another year or two to decide their cases."

In a tweet after Rodel's flight took off, Snowdenurged Canada to help the remaining families.

"After so many years, the first of the families who helped me is free and has a future. But the work is not over with solidarity and compassion, Canada can save them all," he wrote.

Read the rest here:
Family who helped Edward Snowden arrives in Canada | CBC News

Canadian authorities have granted asylum to a woman and her daughter who housed Edward Snowden in Hong Kong after the former NSA contractor leaked classified documents on US surveillance programs around the world in 2013.

The decision allows Philippines national Vanessa Rodel and her 7-year-old daughter Keana to leave Hong Kong after living in the city without proper legal status for years.

Im truly happy, Rodel said. Im so excited. I cant sleep.

Rodel and two Sri Lankan families put up Snowden shortly after he went public in 2013.

At the time, Snowdens lawyer Robert Tibbo worried that his client could face possible rendition back to the US, where he was branded a traitor.

So Tibbo advised Snowden to hide with Hong Kong refugees because he thought it would be the last place anyone would look.

This has been a seven year battle, said Tibbo, who also represents the refugees who hid Snowden.

After Snowden left the city and was granted asylum in Russia, Rodel and the other refugees who hid him moved forward with their Hong Kong refugee status applications. Their cases were rejectedin 2017.

As of now, only Rodel and her daughter Keana have been granted asylum in Canada. Lawyers working on behalf of the other refugees who hid Snowden said the Canadian government is still considering their cases.

Rodel told CNN the process has been long, arduous and depressing. She said she came to Hong Kong because she was a victim of human trafficking in her home country of the Philippines, and is too afraid to go home. However, as a refugee without legal status, she also does not feel safe in Hong Kong.

Theres nothing here, Rodel said. Its a living hell in Hong Kong. Weve had a miserable life in Hong Kong.

Rodel said in Canada, she hopes she and her daughter can learn French, buy a home and perhaps even enroll in university.

Keana doesnt remember much of Snowden, except that he has short hair. She said shes excited for her new life in Canada, and is looking forward to seeing snow for the first time and Siberian huskies.

Rodel and two Sri Lankan families who hid Snowden came forwardin 2016, around the time Oliver Stones film Snowden was released.

The three families they always faced long odds on being granted legal status in Hong Kong.

The cityis not a signatory to theUnited Nations Refugees Convention, and historically has only allowed a very small number of refugees to settle in. There are about 10,000 people living in Hong Kong who are seeking refugee status,according to the NGO Justice Centre Hong Kong.

Those who are not recognized have trouble accessing basic services like healthcare or police protection. Children born here to refugees, like Rodels daughter Keana, are effectively stateless. Keana does not have a passport.

The Hong Kong government said in a statement to CNNin 2017that it rejected the three families asylum claims because it believed there were no substantial grounds for believing that the claimants, if returned to their country of origin, will be subject to real and substantial risk of danger.

56.130366-106.346771

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Woman Who Housed Edward Snowden in Hong Kong Receives Refugee ...