Glenn Greenwald: As Obama Makes “False” Spy Claims, Snowden Risks Life to Spark NSA Debate

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democracynow on Jun 18, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who broke the NSA surveillance story earlier this month, joins us one day after both President Obama and whistleblower Edward Snowden gave extensive interviews on the surveillance programs Snowden exposed and Obama is now forced to defend. Speaking to PBS, Obama distinguished his surveillance efforts from those of the Bush administration and reaffirmed his insistence that no Americans’ phone calls or emails are being directly monitored without court orders. Greenwald calls Obama’s statements “outright false” for omitting the warrantless spying on phone calls between Americans and callers outside the United States.

“It is true that the NSA can’t deliberately target U.S. citizens for [warrantless] surveillance, but it is also the case they are frequently engaged in surveillance of exactly that kind of invasive technique involving U.S. persons,” Greenwald says. After moderating Snowden’s online Q&A with Guardian readers, Greenwald says of the whistleblower: “I think what you see here is a person who was very disturbed by this massive surveillance apparatus built in the U.S. that spies not only on American citizens, but the world with very little checks, very little oversight. He’s making clear his intention was to inform citizens even at the expense of his own liberty or even life.”

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see

Chris Hedges VS Geoffrey Stone Debate: Is Edward Snowden a Hero?

Chris Hedges: The Moral Order of the Country Has Been Flipped Upside Down

Julian Assange: It’s a Vast, Sprawling, Transnational Surveillance System

Julian Assange To Edward Snowden: I Would Strongly Advise Him To Go To Latin America + Glenn Greenwald: Boundless Informant: The NSA’s Secret Tool

Long Running, Long-Known NSA Illegalities and Long-Ignored NSA Whistleblowers by Sibel Edmonds