Unless they were citizens of a country under a dictatorship or an authoritarian regime, it used to be only tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists who worried about government-led mass surveillance. The rest, knowing that as citizens of a democratic nation they were entitled to their privacy, assumed that their elected leaders would be respectful of that fundamental right. But Edward Snowdens revelations gave sight to a scary reality where governments violate their citizens rights with blatant disregard.

The United States of America, a country that perhaps most prides itself on embodying the values of freedom, conducted the most rampant mass surveillance in history with impunity. Surprisingly, it was an American citizen, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor who outed his nations transgressions against its own people.

When Edward Snowden discovered the invasive and massive scale of the surveillance that NSA was conducting, he considered it his patriotic duty to inform the American people of the crimes they were being unknowingly subjected to. That too from the very people who were sworn to protect them. So, he leaked damning information about the US intelligences extensive phone and internet surveillance and fled to Russia; giving up a comfortable life in his home country for a cause he believed in.

Today, as Edward Snowden turns 34, the US still continues its attempt to extradite and prosecute him on espionage charges. But he continues to fight for freedom in all its forms and this is what he has had to say about why he did what he did:

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Edward Snowden's quotes on the importance of privacy - YourStory.com

You know its a slow celebrity birthday day when we have to use someone from the world of politics and news for our Daily Dump. Alas, June 21 is that day. Whatever side of the aisle you fall on, however you may feel about the security of information, whichever way you lean on important issues like privacy and intrusion, its a virtual (get it?) certainty that Edward Snowden has at least made people more aware of all of those things.

Personally, theres not anything in life I care enough about to basically spend the rest of mine on the sneak. But thats just me. Having lived in DC for a decade or so, embassies are nice, no doubt. But I couldnt be confined anywhere and be happy. Maybe the Playboy mansion. I guess that would be a slightly different story, but I digress.

Regardless, Snowden is 34 today, and if I was on the lamb and holed up in an embassy somewhere wanted by nearly every intelligence agency, Id probably watch a lot of MAC football replays. Pretty points and high octane offenses always take my mind off of national security.

On to the sports news and notes you need to know from an undisclosed location in todays Hustle Belt Daily Dump....

Best Group of 5 Non-Conference Matchups | Washington Post You know its something when a paper like the WaPo cares about MAC things. Two MAC games made the list, but all of these are what I like to call Must Watch. So get yourself ready.

College World Series Bracket and Scores | SBNation No MAC squads left, but the only college sport still ongoing is the College World Series. Storylines abound, but this will keep you current and up to date on all that stands between us and the nothingness of the July offseason.

What kind of roster could an NFL expansion team create? | SBNation With all the talk of the NHL expansion draft, its worth asking the question what would happen if the NFL had one. This is the answer to that question courtesy of the mothership.

Former NFL Tackle Comes Out | SBNation A sad, inspiring, and courageous story all rolled up into one. Worth your time and probably worth some thought after the fact.

Happy Hump Day, everybody. Half way to the weekend.

The rest is here:
Edward Snowden wants MAC news and notes - Hustle Belt (blog)

When Edward Snowden walked out of the NSA in 2013 with thumb drives full of its most secret files, the agency didn't have a reliable list of peoplelike Snowdenwho had privileged access to its networks. Nor did it have a reliable list of those who were authorized to use removable media to transfer data to or from an NSA system.

That's one of the alarming revelations in a Department of Defense Inspector General report from last year. The report, which was ordered by Congress, reviewed whether the NSA had completed some of the most important initiatives it has started in response to the Snowden leak to make its data more secure. The New York Times obtained the DOD IG report via FOIA.

The most shocking detail in the report is that even at the new National Security Agency data center in Utah, "NSA did not consistently secure server racks and other sensitive equipment" in data centers and machine rooms. At the Utah Data Center and two other facilities, the report stated, "we observed unlocked server racks and sensitive equipment." The finding that the NSA wasn't locking down all its server racks was first disclosed and reported in a House Intelligence Committee Report on Edward Snowden's leaks released in December.

But the more fundamental problem revealed in the report is that the NSA has done little to limit the number of people who have access to what are supposed to be the most protected hardware the NSA has.

The IG report examined seven of the most important out of 40 "Secure the Net" initiatives rolled out since Snowden began leaking classified information. Two of the initiatives aspired to reduce the number of people who had the kind of access Snowden did: those who have privileged access to maintain, configure, and operate the NSA's computer systems (what the report calls PRIVACs), and those who are authorized to use removable media to transfer data to or from an NSA system (what the report calls DTAs).

The government's apparent lack of curiosity is fairly alarming

But when DOD's inspectors went to assess whether NSA had succeeded in doing this, they found something disturbing. In both cases, the NSA did not have solid documentation about how many such users existed at the time of the Snowden leak. With respect to PRIVACs, in June 2013 (the start of the Snowden leak), "NSA officials stated that they used a manually kept spreadsheet, which they no longer had, to identify the initial number of privileged users." The report offered no explanation for how NSA came to no longer have that spreadsheet just as an investigation into the biggest breach thus far at NSA started. With respect to DTAs, "NSA did not know how many DTAs it had because the manually kept list was corrupted during the months leading up to the security breach."

There seem to be two possible explanations for the fact that the NSA couldn't track who had the same kind of access that Snowden exploited to steal so many documents. Either the dog ate their homework: Someone at NSA made the documents unavailable (or they never really existed). Or someone fed the dog their homework: Some adversary made these lists unusable. The former would suggest the NSA had something to hide as it prepared to explain why Snowden had been able to walk away with NSA's crown jewels. The latter would suggest that someone deliberately obscured who else in the building might walk away with the crown jewels. Obscuring that list would be of particular value if you were a foreign adversary planning on walking away with a bunch of files, such as the set of hacking tools the Shadow Brokers have since released, which are believed to have originated at NSA.

NSA headquarters in Maryland. Image: MJB/Flickr

The government's apparent lack of curiosityat least in this reportabout which of these was the case is fairly alarming, because it is a critically important question in assessing why NSA continues to have serious data breaches. For example, it would be important to know if Hal Martin, the Booz Allen Hamilton contractor accused of stealing terabytes of NSA data in both hard copy and digital form, showed up on these lists or if he simply downloaded data for decades without authorization to do so.

Even given the real concern that Russia or someone else might have reason to want to make the names of PRIVACs and DTAs inaccessible at precisely the time the NSA reviewed the Snowden breach, the NSA's subsequent action does provide support for the likelihood the agency itself was hiding how widespread PRIVAC and DTA access was. For both categories, DOD's Inspector General found NSA did not succeed in limiting the number of people who might, in the future, walk away with classified documents and software.

With PRIVACs, the NSA simply "arbitrarily" removed privileged access from some number of users, then had them reapply for privileged access over the next 3 months. The NSA couldn't provide DOD's IG with "the number of privileged users before and after the purge or the actual number of users purged." After that partial purge, though, NSA had "a continued and consistent increase in the number of privileged users."

As with PRIVACs, the NSA "could not provide supporting documentation for the total number of DTAs before and after the purge" and so was working from an "unsubstantiated" estimate. After the Snowden leak, the NSA purged all DTAs and made them reapply, which they did in 2014. The NSA pointed to the new number of DTAs and declared it a reduction from its original "unsupported" estimate. When asked how it justified its claim that it had reduced the number of people who could use thumb drives with NSA's networks when it didn't know how many such people it had to begin with, the NSA explained, "although the initiat[iv]e focused on reducing the number of DTA, the actions taken by NSA were not designed to reduce the number of DTAs; rather they were taken to overhaul the DTA process to identify and vet all DTAs." The IG Report notes that the NSA "continued to consistently increase the number of DTAs throughout the next 12 months."

When, in 2008, someone introduced a worm into DOD's networks via a thumb drive, it decreed that it would no longer use removable media. Then, after Chelsea Manning exfiltrated a bunch of documents on a Lady Gaga CD, the government again renewed its commitment to limiting the use of removable media. This report reveals that only in the wake of the Snowden leaks did the NSA get around to developing a vetted list of those who could use thumb drives in NSA's networks. Yet as recently as last year, Reality Winner (who, as an Air Force translator, was presumably not a privileged access user at all) stuck some kind of removable media into a Top Secret computer, yet the government claims not to know what she downloaded or whether she downloaded anything at all (it's unclear whether that Air Force computer came within NSA's review).

When contacted with specific questions about its inability to track privileged users, the NSA pointed to its official statement on the DOD IG Report. "The National Security Agency operates in one of the most complicated IT environments in the world. Over the past several years, we have continued to build on internal security improvements while carrying out the mission to defend the nation and our allies around the clock." The Office of Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond with comment to my questions.

Yet this issue pertains not just to the recent spate of enormous data breaches, which led last month to the worldwide WannaCry ransomware attack using NSA's stolen tools. It also pertains to the privacy of whatever data on Americans the NSA might have in its repositories. If, three years after Snowden, the NSA still hasn't succeeded in limiting the number of people with the technical capability to do what he did, how can NSA ensure it keeps Americans' data safe?

Original post:
The NSA Has Done Little to Prevent the Next Edward Snowden ... - Motherboard

Russian President Vladimir Putin has compared ex-FBI director James Comey to fugitive Edward Snowden and joked he would offer him political asylum.

Speaking on his annual Direct Line program, in which he answers screened questions from viewers all over Russia live on all major state TV channels, Putin weighed in on the rift between Comey and U.S. President Donald Trump.

I do not know the details of Comeys testimony but some things are clear to me, Putin said, referring to the ex-FBI directors address to the U.S. Senate in which he spoke of awkward encounters with Trump. Among those mentioned by Comey included Trump demanding loyalty from the FBI director and expressing hope Comey would stop investigating compromising links between the presidents appointees and the Russian government.

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Read More: Putin gets trolled by Russians calling for his resignation live on air

Comey was fired because Trump was not happy with the ongoing investigation, which he has called a made up story even as his former national security adviser Michael Flynn admitted to misleading the White House about past contacts with the Russian ambassador. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the investigation for a similar reason.

Putin has argued the Russian ambassador did nothing wrong as it is his job to meet with people. Perhaps in a show of good faith on Thursday he said Comey could find shelter in Russia if ever he needed, just like Snowden, a former U.S. intelligence contractor-turned-whistleblower.

Comey said he kept record of a conversation with the president and then gave it to the press. Well this already is odd. How then is the FBI director different from Snowden, he added, referring to the huge leak of classified information by Snowden. Then he is a rights defender.

The legal difference that Putin, a former spy himself, did not mention is that Comey leaked the memo after being dismissed from his role and a private citizen and the information was about a conversation he had personally, and was not classified. Snowden had leaked classified information about U.S. intelligence and surveillance activities.

Regardless, Putins arms, at least rhetorically, are wide open as he said if Comey were to face political persecution, Russia is ready to accept him too.

Russian Senator Alexey Pushkov was quick to congratulate Putin on his brilliant trolling. I can imagine former FBI director Comeys face, when he learned that Moscow was ready to grant him asylum as it did to Snowden.

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Vladimir Putin Invites James Comey to Follow Edward Snowden and Seek Asylum in Russia - Newsweek

CNN Library

(CNN) -- Here is a look at the life of Edward Snowden, who has admitted to leaking information about US surveillance programs to the press.

Personal: Birth date: June 21, 1983

Birth place: Elizabeth City, North Carolina

Birth name: Edward Joseph Snowden

Father: Lonnie Snowden, former Coast Guard officer

Mother: Elizabeth Snowden, federal court administrator

Other Facts: Dropped out of high school.

The Guardian reported that in 2009, Snowden got the first of several jobs with private contractors that worked with the National Security Agency (NSA).

Timeline: May 7, 2004 - Enlists in the Army Reserve as a Special Forces candidate.

September 28, 2004 - Is discharged from the Army Reserve without completing any training.

2013 - Works for Booz Allen Hamilton for less than three months, assigned to a team in Hawaii. Snowden is terminated on June 10, 2013.

May 16, 2013 - Snowden has his first direct exchange with Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman.

May 20, 2013 - Snowden leaves for Hong Kong.

May 24, 2013 - In an e-mail to Gellman, Snowden requests that the Post publish information about PRISM, a surveillance program that gathers information from Facebook, Microsoft, Google and others.

June 5, 2013 - The Guardian reports that the US government has obtained a secret court order that requires Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of Americans to the NSA.

June 6, 2013 - The Guardian and the Washington Post disclose the existence of PRISM, a program they say allows the NSA to extract the details of customer activities -- including "audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents" and other materials -- from computers at Microsoft, Google, Apple and other Internet companies.

June 9, 2013 - The Guardian and Washington Post disclose Snowden as their source for the intelligence related leaks.

June 9, 2013 - Booz Allen Hamilton releases a statement confirming that Snowden has been an employee of their firm for almost three months.

June 12, 2013 - The South China Morning Post publishes an interview with Snowden in which he says that US intelligence agents have been hacking networks around the world for years.

June 17, 2013 - During a live online chat, the person identified as Snowden by Britain's Guardian newspaper insists that US authorities have access to phone calls, e-mails and other communications far beyond constitutional bounds.

June 18, 2013 - Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce argues that the PRISM program has helped stop a number of alleged terrorist attacks.

June 21, 2013 - Federal prosecutors unseal a complaint filed in US District Court in Virginia on June 14, 2013, charging Snowden with espionage and theft of government property.

June 22, 2013 - A senior US administration official says the United States has contacted authorities in Hong Kong to seek the extradition of Snowden.

June 23, 2013 - Snowden flies to Moscow from Hong Kong. Russian President Vladimir Putin later verifies that Snowden is in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport.

June 23, 2013 - A source tells CNN that the US government has revoked Snowden's passport.

June 30, 2013 - German news magazine Der Spiegel reports that classified leaks by Snowden detail NSA bugging of European Union offices in Washington and New York, as well as an EU building in Brussels.

July 12, 2013 - Snowden meets with human rights activists and lawyers. He says he is requesting asylum from Russia while he awaits safe passage to Latin America.

July 16, 2013 - Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena tells CNN that Snowden has applied for temporary asylum in Russia. If his request is granted, Snowden would be able to live in Russia for at least a year.

July 24, 2013 - Russian news media reports that Russia has approved documents that would allow Snowden to enter the rest of the country while his temporary asylum request is considered.

August 1, 2013 - Kucherena tells CNN that Snowden's application for political asylum for a year has been approved and he has left the Moscow airport.

October 31, 2013 - Snowden's attorney Kucherena tells CNN that his client has been hired by an unnamed Russian website.

November 3, 2013 - A letter, purportedly written by Snowden, is published in the German magazine Der Spiegel. The letter, titled "A Manifesto for the Truth" says, "mass surveillance is a global problem and needs a global solution."

December 17, 2013 - Snowden posts an open letter to Brazil, offering to help investigate US surveillance of Brazilian citizens.

January 23, 2014 - Attorney General Eric Holder says, "If Mr. Snowden wanted to come back to the United States and enter a plea, we would engage with his lawyers." Snowden says in an online chat the same day that," (a return to the US is) unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistle-blower protection laws."

March 10, 2014 - Snowden speaks via teleconference from Russia to an audience of thousands at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, urging the audience to help "fix" the US government's surveillance of its citizens. The event marks the first time Snowden has directly addressed people in the United States since he fled the country with thousands of secret documents last June.

May 28, 2014 - NBC News airs an interview with Snowden in which he claims, "I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word -- in that I lived and worked undercover, overseas, pretending to work in a job that I'm not -- and even being assigned a name that was not mine." In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, National Security Adviser Susan Rice denies that Snowden was ever a US spy.

August 7, 2014 - Snowden's attorney announces that Snowden has been granted an extension to stay in Russia for three more years.

February 23, 2015 - NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers says that Snowden's surveillance leaks have had a "material impact" on the agency's ability to prevent and detect terror plots.

June 4, 2015 - In response to President Barack Obama signing the USA Freedom Act that will limit our nation's surveillance on private citizens, Snowden publishes an op-ed piece in The New York Times saying "ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen..."

July 28, 2015 - The White House rejects a petition to pardon Snowden and maintains its position that Snowden should return to the United States. The petition contains over 167,000 signatures supporting Snowden.

September 29, 2015 - Snowden joins Twitter and gains over 110,000 followers in less than an hour after posting his first tweet. Snowden only follows the NSA.

October 5, 2015 - According to Snowden, he is willing to go to prison if he is allowed to return to the United States. Snowden and his lawyers are waiting to discuss a deal with the US government.

May 30, 2016 - Former US Attorney General Eric Holder says Snowden performed a "public service" by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques, but still must pay a penalty for illegally leaking a trove of classified intelligence documents.

September 16, 2016 - The film "Snowden," directed by Oliver Stone, opens in US theaters.

December 22, 2016 - Congress releases a report saying Snowden has been in contact with Russian intelligence officials since arriving in Russia. Snowden immediately takes to Twitter following the report's release to dispute the accusations, writing "they claim without evidence that I'm in cahoots with the Russians."

January 17, 2017 - Russia extends Snowden's asylum until 2020.

TM & 2017 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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Edward Snowden Fast Facts - KRTV News in Great Falls, Montana - KRTV Great Falls News

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden, who is currently living in Russia, ever offered to hand Moscow sensitive information in exchange for asylum.

We made first contact with Mr. Snowden in China, Putin said, reflecting on Snowdens departure from the U.S. following his leak of tens of thousands of National Security Agency and British Government Communications Headquartersdocuments in 2013. The Russian president was speaking to U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone for his four-part documentary series for Showtime called The Putin Interviews.

Related: Putin answers questions about cloning himself, marijuana and sex

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Thats when we were told that there is this person who wants to fight for human rights and against their violation. And we need to give credit to Mr. Snowden. He never took it upon himself to give us any kind of information, Putin said.

However, Putin told Stone that Russia was not prepared to welcome Snowden at first. We have such complicated relations with the U.S., and we dont need additional complications, the Russian president explained.

According to Putin, Snowdens arrival in Moscow came as a surprise to the Kremlin, as it was initially only intended as a transit flight to Latin America.

To Cuba or to Ecuador? Stone asked Putin, though the president did not answer. He only revealed that Russia was not fully prepared to accept Snowden at first and that once the information about his protracted trip around the world made it to the press, he would not be allowed to fly anywhere.

And he was stranded in the transit passenger zone, Putin said. He is a personthat it is brave, if not a little reckless. He sat for a while in the transit passenger zone, and then we even gave him temporary asylum.

Of course the American side asked us to hand him over. Clearly we could not do that, Putin said. When asked why, he said it was because Russia did not feel it would have the same treatment in response if it asked for an extradition.

Equally, Snowden has denied taking any files to Russia, telling TheNew York Times in 2013 it would not serve the public interest to do so.

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Russian President Says Edward Snowden Did Not Leak US Intelligence to Moscow - Newsweek

Snowden needs to face the music Belleville News-Democrat The denials now by Vladimir Putin have no merit; if he had said these denials six months ago they could have been believable, but not now. This whole story smells of a rat turncoat by the name of Edward Snowden. He would have had the knowledge and ...

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Snowden needs to face the music - Belleville News-Democrat

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, May 9, 2017, 7:27 PM

Even Edward Snowden condemned James Comeys firing.

Shortly after the White House announced that President Trump had fired the FBI director, Snowden spoke out against the move.

This FBI Director has sought for years to jail me on account of my political activities, he tweeted Tuesday evening.

If I can oppose his firing, so can you.

GOP, Dems weigh in on FBI Director James Comey's firing

Snowden fled the United States in May 2013 after leaking thousands of classified National Security Agency documents.

A month later, the U.S. Department of Justice, led by Comey, charged him with two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property.

In January 2014, Comey said he was confused by those who called Snowden a whistleblower or hero.

"I see the government operating the way the founders intended," Comey told reporters, "so I have trouble applying the whistleblower label to someone who basically disagrees with the way our government is structured and operates."

Trump fires FBI Director James Comey over Clinton email probe

Comey also told Yahoo News in 2015 that he had no intention of negotiating a plea deal with Snowden, calling him a fugitive.

Read this article:
Edward Snowden criticizes Comey's firing, despite ...

A fake news story claimed that NSA leaker Edward Snowden had proof that Osama bin Laden was still alive, living with family in the Bahamas. (AP photo)

A fake news story that said former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had proof that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was enjoying a taxpayer-funded lifetime vacation in the Caribbean has resurfaced after several years.

"Edward Snowden: Osama bin Laden is still alive living in the Bahamas," read the headline on a May 13, 2017, post on AntiNews.in, a repository of wild-eyed conspiracy stories. It was flagged by Facebook users as potentially fake as part of the social media websites efforts to combat fake news.

The post said Snowden told the Moscow Tribune that instead of killing the al-Qaida leader in May 2011, the United States set him up with a cushy retirement fund through the CIA payroll. As of 2013, it said, bin Laden is living with "five of his wives and many children" collecting more than $100,000 a month via a Nassau bank account.

"Osama Bin Laden was one of the CIAs most efficient operatives for a long time," Snowden is allegedly quoted as saying. "What kind of message would it send their other operatives if they were to let the SEALs kill him? They organized his fake death with the collaboration of the Pakistani Secret services, and he simply abandoned his cover. Since everyone believes he is dead, nobodys looking for him, so it was pretty easy to disappear. Without the beard and the military jacket, nobody recognizes him."

We could find no evidence that Snowden, who leaked classified information about the federal governments surveillance programs, has ever said such a thing about bin Laden. Snowden fled to Moscow to avoid espionage charges and has since given several interviews, but this post is fake.

Versions of the story have appeared on many other websites over the last several months. But it originated on WorldNewsDailyReport.com, a parody website weve identified on our list of dubious news sources, way back on Aug. 25, 2015.

The sites disclaimer noted that "WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website even those based on real people are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle."

The sites stories are fabricated. As far as we can tell, the Moscow Tribune is not even a real media outlet, although there are Twitter and Facebook accounts under that name that do share news stories (the paper in Moscow, Idaho, is called the Daily News).

The version of the post on AntiNews.in also cited a Dec. 31, 2015, post on a site called NaijaPicks.com, which said it worked "to keep you informed on what's going on in Nigeria, Africa and the world over." The post also included real quotes from Snowden reported in The Guardian newspaper in 2013.

We attempted to reach AntiNews.in through its online contact form, the only available method of reaching the site, but did not receive a response.

We rate this statement Pants On Fire!

Share the Facts

2017-06-12 20:32:59 UTC

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Years-old story that Edward Snowden can prove Osama bin Laden lives in Bahamas is fake news - PolitiFact

Published time: 8 Jun, 2017 22:03 Edited time: 9 Jun, 2017 10:20

James Comey's revelation Thursday that he leaked information to the media received mixed reactions from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Assange seized the opportunity to play on the former FBI Directors own words, when he coined the term "intelligence porn" in his criticism of WikiLeaks' activities.

READ MORE:Intelligence porn: FBI directors new nickname for WikiLeaks

Meanwhile, Snowden, reacted somewhat more empathetically, tweeting: sometimes the only moral decision is to break the rules.

Comey confirmed under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he leaked details of a meeting with President Donald Trump to the media via a friend. The leaked memo included the claim that Trump asked Comey to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynns contacts with Russian officials.

READ MORE: Ex-FBI chief Comey: Many news stories about Russia are just dead wrong

Weighing in on Thursdays proceedings, Snowden subtly pointed out the similarities in their situations.

The whistleblower added that he was sympathetic to Comeys reasoning for the leak but noted that the government was not convinced when the same argument was made by former CIA director General David Petraeus over his leaks.

Snowden also responded to claims by Trumps lawyer that Comey made unauthorized disclosures of privileged communications, with the former NSA contractor saying the public interest in this case is superior.

In March, Snowden called out Comeys statement on leaks to the media in which the then-FBI director suggested such releases could be deterred by locking some people up.

In June 2013, federal prosecutors, led by Comey, filed criminal charges against Snowden under the Espionage Act over the leaking of classified information regarding the National Security Agency's surveillance programs.

Two years later, Comey called Snowden a fugitive, adding, Id love to apprehend him so he can enjoy the benefits of the freest and fairest criminal justice system in the world.

However that hasnt stopped the whistleblower coming to the defense of the former FBI director in the aftermath of his firing by Trump. This FBI Director has sought for years to jail me on account of my political activities. If I can oppose his firing, so can you, he tweeted last month.

Read more here:
Comey hailed as 'intelligence porn star' by Assange, as Snowden defends 'leak' - RT