By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
It’s no surprise that US citizen Edward Snowden, who is living in the oppressive authoritarian mob state of Russia, just released another treasonous intelligence leak regarding US SIGINT intelligence operations overseas. After damaging US-EU relations, he seems bent on destroying US-China relations as well.
The new leak exposes US intelligence program “Shotgiant” that targeted Chinese servers and Hauwei Technologies.
By destroying relations with the wider German public and exposing NSA spying on the Germany people and Chancelor Merkel this last year, it is not surprising that the magazine Der Spiegel is now publishing US foreign intelligence gathering in China. Thanks Germany!
But the Chinese government does not need Snowden’s revelations. They most likely obtain enough intelligence from feeding off the American Intelligence Community to have known about this capability and active programs. The Germans play coy too, but they knew the intelligence capabilities of the UK and the US as well.
The real threat with this exposure is a political and diplomatic one. The leaks published provided by Snowden and published by Der Spiegel, come two days before Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Europe and attends a Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands.
Germany will rally anti-NSA with China and set US-China diplomacy back a notch or two. They realy shot themselves in the foot here with the timing, because of the Russian-Ukraine-EU stand-off. This is at a time when the US is helping Germany and the EU too. They have sided with Russia in this publication, which is a state actor increasingly anti-US and vehemently anti-NSA. The focus now will be off of Russia, and on to the US.
Ironically, Snowden lives in Russia under asylum from the US who have a warrant for his arrest. Russia allows no free speech at all—only his leaks against the US. At this point, how can we be sure he is not a Russian mouthpiece? The Russians feed Snowden their dirt on the US and let the turncoat spit it back out. Even if this is not the case, Snowden’s days are numbered.
So long as Edward Snowden stays in Russia, his image is tarnished. He should move to Crimea and report on the human rights abuses there. His image is destroyed by hypocrisy in the state he lives and the cause he claims to fight. Whatever his motives were before in exposing US intelligence scandals domestically, they have turned into a full-blown, treasonous, anti-American opposition movement and they should be exposed rightly as such.
Attacking legitimate foreign intelligence functions of the US government goes far beyond domestic abuses and whistle-blowing. Meanwhile, it’s okay for Germany, Russia and China to spy on Americans. Isn’t that right, Mr. Snowden?
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