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94% of Japanese think that the Fukushima crippled nuclear plant is not under control

flag-japanSurvey: Most Japanese think Fukushima nuclear accident not settled http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201307180064 July 18, 2013 By SHIGEKO SEGAWA / Staff Writer The vast majority of Japanese, 94 percent, think the nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant triggered by the earthquake and tsunami two years ago has not been put under control, a survey showed.

A research team led by Hirotada Hirose, a professor emeritus of Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, sent out questionnaires in March to 1,200 people across the nation ranging in age from 15 to 79.

According to the survey, 94 percent said that they thought the nuclear accident had not been settled. When asked for reasons, many responded that radioactive substances were still leaking from the stricken plant.

liar-nuclear1As far as who the respondents said they trust, 33 percent said disaster information disseminated from the central government and its ministries and agencies was the most untrustworthy, while 2 percent chose local governments as the most unreliable source of disaster information.

“An (effective) nuclear policy is impossible unless the central government wins the understanding and support of not only local residents living in areas that host nuclear power plants but also the support of all the people in Japan,” Hirose said.

Twenty-three percent of respondents said they believe it is only a matter of time before another accident will occur if nuclear plant operators resume operations at now-idle reactors, while 57 percent said they think a similar nuclear disaster will likely happen.

Thirty-one percent said nuclear power should be abandoned as soon as possible, whereas 54 percent said Japan should phase out nuclear power over time.

The research team presented the findings to a meeting of the Cabinet Office’s Atomic Energy Commission on July 17.

July 19, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013, Indonesia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

AUDIO: Hanford nuclear site: officials browbeat TV journalist

civil liberties USAHear-This-wayTV Journalist: Officials at U.S. nuclear site browbeat me for reporting on radioactive leaks — “You will be publicly humiliated” — Said I was basically an idiot — Never treated that way before (AUDIO) #Hanfor http://enenews.com/tv-journalist-officials-nuclear-site-browbeat-reporting-radioacitve-leaks-will-be-publicly-humiliated-basically-idiot-never-treated-before-audio

Title: KING 5′s Susannah Frame Nails Nuclear Hanford Secrets
Source: Nuclear Hotseat
Host: Libbe HaLevy
Date: July 15, 2013

Follow-up to: TV: Leaking tank at U.S. nuclear site may be in far worse condition than previously known — Workers shocked by new findings #Hanford

Susannah Frame,, KING 5 TV: At the beginning, especially WRPS officials [at the Hanford nuclear site] were extremely condescending. They tried bullying me. They tried to tell me that basically I was an idiot, that I didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve never had media professionals deal with me in that way. I’ve been around for a long time. […]

I was really surprised at the way I was treated. They said do you even know how to Google? […]

They really tried to browbeat me into not doing the story at all. They said, ‘We think that you will be publicly humiliated if you go on TV and online and report this because what you are saying is so absurd — You’re saying we ignored a leak?’
How to help Nuclear Hotseat        Stream the full program here

July 18, 2013 Posted by | civil liberties, Resources -audiovicual, USA | Leave a comment

USA scandal of Uranium Center of Excellence taxpayer ripoff

nuke-greenwashThe “excellence” of this facility was that the radioactive garbage was green-washed as “recyclable,” and Ohio voters were also duped by the promise that it would bring hundreds of jobs, when the final tally was only two full-time inventory managers. I suppose that if spent fuel storage had been added, it would have been called the Center for Real Awesomeness with Plutonium.

Many of the same contractors who had been paid to haul the excellent garbage in were then paid a second time to haul the excellent garbage out in a less-than-excellent shell game that meant lucre for an elite group of crappy corporations. 

Flag-USAUranium Titan Tumbles  EcoWatch July 12, 2013  By Geoffrey Sea“…….Excellent Extortion Recent developments at Piketon and Paducah make no sense at all without understanding that the working national plan for how to deal with the outmoded gaseous diffusion plants and their massively contaminated sites has been to convert both into “national sacrifice” waste repositories. But you won’t find that plan in any Federal Register notices or Environmental Impact Reports. Rather, it’s the subtext of a hundred different records of decision and formal notifications. The new way to evade those nuisance environmental compliance requirements is for federal agencies and funded corporations to simply not announce what they intend to do. Continue reading

July 16, 2013 Posted by | Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium, USA, wastes | 1 Comment

USEC uranium scandal will make the Solyndra solar story look trivial

Uranium Titan Tumbles  EcoWatch July 12, 2013  By Geoffrey Sea“……..USEC has certainly achieved some record-setting milestones. The $5 billion price tag on a completed commercial centrifuge plant (an estimate USEC has not bothered to update) would be approximately 350 times the total current market value of the entire company. It’s like a kite-flying club saying that it will build a B-2 bomber. The annual salary of CEO John Welch is about a third of the total value of his company, a rate of compensation justified only by his ability to keep a straight face when saying that he expects the government to give him a $2 billion loan guarantee. Say “Solyndra” a hundred times slowly after setting off a stink-bomb to get some sense of the magnitude of the incipient scandal when USEC finally bites the dust.

But no, that really isn’t fair to Solyndra. Solyndra may have been a case of the government picking winners and losers unwisely. USEC is a case of the government picking a loser intentionally over and over again, only because the privatized cash recipient has strategically and falsely promised jobs in the states and districts of powerful Members of Congress.

Once described in the Financial Times of London as “the trust fund baby of the American nuclear industry,” USEC has squandered every sequential $50-million allowance check from the feds on posh executive salaries and luxurious lobbying. Therefore, the allegedly-private company still needs a couple of billions from the government, just to make ends meat and ward off investment-fraud litigation. The company’s loan guarantee application, repeatedly submitted in the run-up to key elections, has already been twice denied because “USEC had nothing, absolutely nothing,” in the words of a former aide to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

Even if USEC got that federal loan by some underworld device, criminal or demonic, it would need to raise at least an additional $3 billion to complete a new production plant, which Welch says, still straight-faced and with no supporting evidence, could come from a Japanese international bank. I suppose that would be in gratitude for USEC’s supply of nuclear fuel to the three reactors at Fukushima that melted down and are still leaking. Those silly Japanese and their short memories and spare cash………. http://ecowatch.com/2013/uranium-titan-tumbles/

July 16, 2013 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Cover-up of health effects of soldiers affected by nuclear bomb tests

justiceA victory for the vets would destroy the current radiation risk model and open the floodgates for more claims If the court were to allow the evidence, a victory is more likely, setting a legal precedent for some 900 other veterans waiting in the wings.

 ”Millions have died because of this cover up of the effects of internal radiation, and millions more will die if we don’t succeed in destroying this risk model.”

EXPOSED: Health threats of ‘safe’ levels of radiation covered up by Anglo-American establishment in nuke test; vets fight for pensions http://www.naturalnews.com/041130_Christmas_Island_atomic_bomb_tests_veterans.htmlflag-UKJuly 10, 2013 by: Anna Bragga A pensions case has become the site of a vicious battleground between the Anglo-American establishment and a British scientist in a row over accepted safe levels of radiation exposure.

It began in 2011 when a group of 16 veterans of UK nuclear bomb tests in Australia and Christmas Island applied for pensions on the grounds that their illnesses (and those of their children and grandchildren) were most likely caused by particulate uranium inhalation.

In a tale with more twists than a John Grisham novel, the veterans have had their appeals quashed after being forced to change their firm of solicitors and their expert witness – international radiation authority and Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, Dr. Chris Busby, who has a track record of winning five similar cases in a row.

secret-dealsThe veterans, originally represented by Rosenblatts Solicitors, had commissioned Dr. Busby to provide evidence. But Rosenblatts suddenly pulled out of the case in December 2012 after funding provided by the Royal British Legion dried up. Washington-based Hogan Lovells International – a firm with a history of representing government and pharmaceutical companies, quickly filled the gap.

Coincidentally, at the very same time, Dr. Busby had obtained access to secret nuclear test reports by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), revealing information of significance to the case. He had also by then written 12 reports showing new evidence of the link between internal radiation exposure to uranium, the main component of all the bombs and a range of ill health effects. Continue reading

July 11, 2013 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | 1 Comment

Confusion and secrecy surround China’s proposed uranium processing plant in Jiangmen,

questionflag-ChinaExperts call for more details on Guangdong uranium plant, South China Morning Post,  Olga Wong and Minnie Chan  Concern over sketchy nature of details and possible radiation risks from proposed nuclear development in Guangdong.

Nuclear experts and green activists have called for more information from the Guangdong government after limited details were released about its proposal for a uranium processing plant in Jiangmen, about 100 kilometres from Hong Kong.

An announcement by the Jiangmen City Development and Reform Bureau said the 230-hectare plant would carry out uranium conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication.

But the three-page statement, issued last Thursday, did not make it clear whether the plant, in the Longwan industrial district of Zhishanzhen, would perform spent fuel reprocessing – recycling of old fuel rods that could emit high doses of radiation – or what measures would be used to avoid radiation leaks…… Continue reading

July 11, 2013 Posted by | China, reprocessing, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium | Leave a comment

Unsafety at Brown’s Ferry nuclear plant, and a whistleblower’s case

whistleblowerFor Johnson, speaking out has had consequences, as she said she ran up substantial legal bills without expectation of a resolution with TVA. But she became more concerned about the costs of not speaking out.

“I found myself in the position of becoming a whistleblower when TVA management altered root cause reports I authored to subdue their findings,” she said last week. “I hope that bringing this story to public light will force TVA to address the safety significance of altering the findings of teams of engineers and experts for the sake of protecting production and their own bonuses.”

safety-symbol1Browns Ferry: Shrinking the safety margin at Alabama’s largest nuclear plant By Challen Stephens and Brian Lawson, All Alabama 7 July 13

What federal regulators have said in recent years:

• Browns Ferry received a red finding, the federal government’s most serious warning Flag-USAbefore shutdown.

• Browns Ferry failed to notice a blocked low-pressure cooling line.

• Inspectors discovered wider problems with safety culture at Browns Ferry.

What a search of TVA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents also shows:

• The backup low-pressure line also malfunctioned.

• The high-pressure core spray was installed incorrectly.

• The Unit 1 reactor operated for years with overlapping, malfunctioning emergency cooling systems.

What a whistleblower alleges, and paperwork supports:

• TVA ignored or obscured failing safety tests for malfunctioning equipment.

• TVA hurried to install equipment based on managerial bonuses.

What TVA acknowledges in their own paperwork:

• The plant operated for years with a bias toward power production over safety. Continue reading

July 8, 2013 Posted by | employment, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 3 Comments

Australia’s role in America’s global spying – Snowden reveals this

secret-agent-Aust

Three Latin American countries, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, have now offered Mr Snowden political asylum after European Governments last week denied their airspace to a plane carrying the Bolivian president Evo Morales home from a conference in Moscow after the US State Department alleged that the former US intelligence contractor was on board..

Snowden reveals Australia’s links to US spy web Hume Weekly, By Philip Snowden,-EdwardDorling July 8, 2013, United States intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has provided his first disclosure of Australian involvement in US global surveillance, identifying four facilities in the country that contribute to a key American intelligence collection program.

Classified US National Security Agency maps leaked by Mr Snowden and published by US journalist Glenn Greenwald in the Brazilian O Globo newspaper reveal the locations of dozens of US and allied signals intelligence collection sites that contribute to interception of telecommunications and internet traffic worldwide.

The US Australian Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs and three Australian Signals Directorate facilities: the Shoal Bay Receiving Station near Darwin, the Australian Defence Satellite Communications Facility at Geraldton and the naval communications station HMAS Harman outside Canberra are among contributors to the NSA’s collection program codenamed X-Keyscore.

The New Zealand Government Security Communications Bureau facility at Waihopai near Blenheim also contributes to the program.

X-Keyscore reportedly processes all signals before they are shunted off to various “production lines” that deal with specific issues and the exploitation of different data types for analysis – variously code-named Nucleon (voice), Pinwale (video), Mainway (call records) and Marina (internet records). US intelligence expert William Arkin describes X-Keyscore as a “national Intelligence collection mission system”.

Worldwide web

The documents published by O Globo show that US and allied signals intelligence collection facilities are distributed worldwide, located at US and allied military and other facilities as well as US embassies and consulates. Continue reading

July 8, 2013 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | 3 Comments

India’s nuclear radiation leaks – a national secret

text ionisingDr Subbarao said that BARC, in response to a PIL filed in the Bombay High Court by an NGO in 2005, filed affidavit confirming the presence of radioactivity in the Thane Creek from Dhurva reactor. But they so far have refused to release the any test reports citing it to be a threat to national security. 

Even RTI applications filed by activists have borne little fruit. “After so many complaints, we got access to a few paragraphs of the Chaturvedi report on Jaitapur. People have a right to know how these projects will affect them. Why should it be a national secret?”

flag-indiaRadiation leak a national secret? DNA, Dilnaz Boga  , Jul 7, 2013  Union minister hints at radiation leak, scientists and fishermen confirm ecological damage; but no PIL or RTI query has managed to get BARC to release reports on radiation levels around Thane creek. In the third week of June, while tackling the issue of oil spills along Mumbai’s coast, Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jayanti Natarajan told dna that steps had to be taken to curtail the radioactive waste leaking into Thane Creek from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

“Yes, at times radioactive material escapes and ports have to ensure that radiation doesn’t spread to the people and the environment,” Natarajan said.

Going by the past trends, the rare admission from the Union Ministry is possibly the closest the public may get to knowing the truth behind the radiation leak.

Citing national security as the reason, BARC for decades has vehemently refused to make public the weekly test reports on radiation levels around nuclear plants where people reside. The plea of environmentalists and scientists demanding independent investigations by third parties and transparency in testing have also been rejected. Continue reading

July 8, 2013 Posted by | India, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Great Lakes nuclear waste dump: secret deals by government officials and local mayors

secret-dealsflag-canadaStop the Great Lakes Nuclear Waste Dump  Eco Watch,  Michael Leonardi  July 3, 2013 “…….With what is now the world’s largest nuclear power plant steaming away on the shores of Lake Huron and a pile of deadly and poisonous radioactive waste that is decades high and growing, Ontario Power Generation is now pushing to transform Lake Huron into a nuclear sacrifice zone. Their plan is to dig out two, what they call Deep Geological Repositories (DGRs), less than a mile away from the Lake and 680 meters below the surface to bury low level, intermediate-level and high-level radioactive waste permanently in shafts carved out of limestone. This is an experiment that has never been done anywhere else in the world and yet just as the nuclear industry tells us that radiation is harmless, we are to believe that this waste will remain safely out of harms way under the Lake for hundreds of thousands of years to come.

Recently, it has come to light that government officials from local mayors all the way up to the current president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Michael Binder, held secret meetings with an association of nuclear power companies called the Nuclear Waste Management Organization charged with locating a dump site. The meetings were held under the guise of the Deep Geological Repository Community Consultation Advisory Group, which consists of a quorum of eight mayors of communities in Bruce County, from 2005 to the fall of 2012. Many of these meetings took place before the public was even made aware of the possibility of siting a high-level waste dump in Bruce County and while the process for siting the low and intermediate level waste dump was still ongoing.

According to documents uncovered by the local group, Save Our Saugeen Shores, Binder, who is a political appointment of the Harper government and chairs what is supposed to be Canada’s neutral nuclear watchdog, warned participants at a meeting on September 30, 2009, of environmental and anti-nuclear groups who “have the project on their agenda. You haven’t seen anything yet.” It seems that Binder had already made up his mind about the validity of the low and intermediate level waste dump as well, stating he hoped “their next meeting with him would be at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the low and intermediate-level waste DGR.”

“Secret meetings between industry, government officials and the nuclear oversight commission are a definite slap in the face to democratic transparency, if not downright illegal,” said Jutta Splettstoesser, a resident and farmer from Kincardine. “The timing of this discussion is troublesome,” says Cheryl Grace, a spokesperson for Save Our Saugeen Shores, the group which accessed the information. “What’s troubling is the secrecy exhibited by the mayors who were elected to serve the public, not the nuclear industry. We can find no evidence that the mayors, meeting as a county council, felt the need to discuss these issues in a public forum. In our own experience with Saugeen Shores council, the council regularly goes around the table and each councillor reports on their activities between council meetings. Mayor Mike Smith, who attended these meetings with the nuclear industry, never saw fit to inform his council and the public about these discussions and meetings. Either that or he did so in a separate secret forum, making all of this even more troubling for our community.”

Fortunately, ground has not yet been broken on either of these ill conceived nuclear waste dumps and resistance is growing as word gets out despite Ontario Power Generation and the Canadian Nuclear industry’s best efforts to keep a lid on the project. Locally, citizens groups plan on challenging the legality of the secret meetings and the collusion demonstrated between the mayors of Bruce County and the nuclear industry prior to public knowledge of the dump siting process.

Any serious political opposition party with a little clout can use the obvious industry bias exhibited by the chair of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to further expose the Harper government’s marriage to dirty energy. Harper already faces sinking popularity and credibility, protecting the nuclear industry’s profit motives in this case has international ramifications for the health and sustainability of the entire Great Lakes region. Even in the U.S., with all its problems of transparency and nuclear malfeasance, an uncovering of such industry bias by an NRC commissioner as was exhibited by Michael Binder would end in his forced resignation or removal, coupled with criminal prosecution………..” http://ecowatch.com/2013/stop-great-lakes-nuclear-waste-dump/

July 8, 2013 Posted by | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Venezuela to the rescue – asylum offer to Edward Snowden

Snowden,-EdwardEdward Snowden offered asylum by Venezuelan president  Reuters in Caracas guardian.co.uk, 6 July 2013  Nicolás Maduro says whistleblower has ‘told the truth in spirit of rebellion’, while Nicaragua also weighs asylum offer Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro said on Friday he had decided to offer asylum to former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has petitioned several countries to avoid capture by Washington.

“In the name of America’s dignity … I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to Edward Snowden,” Maduro told a televised military parade marking Venezuela‘s independence day.

The 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor is believed to be holed up in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport.

WikiLeaks said on Friday that Snowden had applied to six more nations for asylum, bringing to about 20 the number of countries he has asked for protection from US espionage charges.

Maduro said Venezuela was ready to offer him sanctuary, and that the details Snowden had revealed of a US spy program had exposed the nefarious schemes of the US “empire”.

“He has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the US spying on the whole world,” Maduro said.

“Who is the guilty one? A young man … who denounces war plans, or the US government which launches bombs and arms the terrorist Syrian opposition against the people and legitimate president Bashar al-Assad?”

“Who is the terrorist? Who is the global delinquent?”…….

Earlier on Friday, Nicaragua said it had received an asylum request from Snowden and could accept the bid “if circumstances permit”, president Daniel Ortega said.

“We are an open country, respectful of the right of asylum, and it’s clear that if circumstances permit, we would gladly receive Snowden and give him asylum in Nicaragua,” Ortega said during a speech in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua…….http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/06/edward-snowden-venezuela-asylum

July 6, 2013 Posted by | civil liberties, politics international, SOUTH AMERICA, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power forces get France’s Environment Minister sacked

secret-dealsflag-franceSacked French minister lays blame on nuclear power, fracking groups SMH, Tara Patel July 6, 2013 France’s former environment minister Delphine Batho, who was sacked on Tuesday, has blamed the fracking and nuclear power industries for her dismissal.

Ms Batho, who held the energy and the environment portfolios, was fired by President Francois Hollande after she called his 2014 spending plans ”bad” because they cut her department’s funds by about 7 per cent.

These forces that I am talking about wanted my scalp.

Mr Hollande announced her sacking via Twitter.

But Ms Batho said on Thursday that her support for France’s ban on shale gas drilling and reducing its dependence on nuclear power were the real reasons behind her departure. ”The battle crystallised notably on the question of shale gas and more discreetly on the reduction of nuclear in France,” she said at a news conference at the National Assembly in Paris. ”These forces that I am talking about wanted my scalp.”

She left at a critical time as the nation debates its future energy mix after Mr Hollande pledged to lower the proportion of power France derives from nuclear energy, the highest in the world.

An energy law was to be formulated in coming months and sent to parliament early next year.The stakes are high for Electricite de France SA, operator of the country’s 58 nuclear reactors, because it wants to extend the lives of its generators rather than have any of them shut down.

Socialist Philippe Martin was named to replace Ms Batho……… Mr Hollande has pledged to lower the dependence on nuclear energy to 50 per cent of total output by about 2025 from the present 75 per cent. http://www.smh.com.au/world/sacked-french-minister-lays-blame-on-nuclear-power-fracking-groups-20130705-2phc7.html#ixzz2YIsVQFKn

July 6, 2013 Posted by | France, politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Deadly plutonium fallout over Mururoa – truth now revealed

Mururoa fallout worse than first thought http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/8872214/Mururoa-fallout-worse-than-first-thought 3 July 13  MICHAEL FIELD Newly declassified French military documents have revealed that nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll were far more deadly than has previously been admitted with plutonium fallout at much higher levels and over wider areas.

The documents cover the 46 atmospheric nuclear tests conducted at Mururoa and Fangataufa in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1974 and reveal that warships near the tests were hit by higher levels of radioactivity than known.

Mururoa-test-1971

A New Zealand Labour Government in 1973 sent two warships, HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Otago, to monitor the Mururoa tests. It was not believed, at the time, that they may have received nuclear dusting but these new documents reveal there were much higher levels of radiation than were known.

A 1974 test, code named Centaur, dumped 500 times the maximum allowed level of plutonium fallout on Tahiti, 1250 kilometres away, the documents show.

There were also 140 more incidents of nuclear fallout above the 209 incidents already known. Tahiti, home to around 178,000 people, was hit 37 times by fallout. Continue reading

July 5, 2013 Posted by | France, New Zealand, OCEANIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Secret promises to USA, by Japan, to burn plutonium

secret-dealsMainichi: Japan’s secret promise with U.S. to burn plutonium — “It is abnormal for sure” — “Expected to stir up controversy” http://enenews.com/mainichi-japan-secretly-promised-to-burn-plutonium-it-is-abnormal-for-sure-expected-to-stir-up-controversy
Title: Japan made secret promise with U.S. to restart pluthermal nuclear program
plutonium238_1Source: Mainichi
Date: June 25, 2013

A Japanese prime ministerial envoy secretly promised to the United States that Japan would resume its controversial “pluthermal” program, using light-water reactors to burn plutonium, according to documents obtained by the Mainichi.

The secret promise was made by Hiroshi Ogushi, then parliamentary secretary of the Cabinet Office, to Daniel Poneman, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, during Ogushi’s visit to the United States on behalf of then Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in September last year.

[…] The fact that a Japanese official promised to the U.S. to implement such a controversial project without a prior explanation to the Japanese public is expected to stir up controversy. […]

“It is abnormal for sure,” said one official with the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. […]
See also: Plutonium-burning reactors to restart in Japan? — Gov’t forcing companies to use MOX fuel — Official: “We have no other choice”

July 5, 2013 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan, reprocessing, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Edward Snowden speaks out, from Moscow

Snowden,-EdwardStatement from Edward Snowden in Moscow Edward Joseph Snowden 1st July 2013  One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

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

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

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

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

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

July 2, 2013 Posted by | 2 WORLD, civil liberties | Leave a comment