Snowden's Letter To Merkel Doesn't Even Mention The Controversial Phone Tap
"He made it clear he knows a lot and that as long as the National Security Agency (NSA) blocks investigations ... he is prepared to come to Germany and give testimony, but the conditions must be discussed,"Hans-Christian Stroebele, a legislator for the opposition Greens party, told German broadcaster ARD.
Those conditions would be temporary asylum and proper security measures, presumably to keep the U.S. from snatching Snowden.
Stroebele visited him in Moscow following allegations that the NSA spied on Merkel's cellphone for nearly a decade.
Afterward, Snowden's wrote a letter to Merkel expressing his desire to give testimony. Oddly, Snowden's letter seems more like a self-congratulatory protest against the NSA itself, rather than concern over the tapping of diplomats' phones, which was ostensibly the inspiration for the letter itself.
Surely Snowden, who Ray McGovern described as "thoroughly informed," knows that Merkel imported the NSA's services.
An article in the Berlin daily Die Welt described German intelligence as "technically backward and helpless" and "helplessly dependent" on U.S. intelligence.
Facilities of the National Security Agency and other intelligence services have boosted their presence on German soil since 9/11, which makes sense, as former NSA officer John Schindler points out, because the attacks were planned on German soil.
Certainly Edward Snowden knows this as well.
Nonetheless, his letter seems focused on American surveillance in general, rather that on surveillance of world leaders.
Check it out:
via Scribd