Hero Snowden Delivers Christmas Message +

CNN: Edward Snowden delivers an "alternative" Christmas address on Britain's (copyright fascist) Channel 4, warning of a growing lack of privacy.

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RT: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has delivered his ‘Alternative Christmas Message’ via a British TV channel. The whistleblower called for an end to mass spying by governments, stating that a child born today will have "no conception of privacy."

Snowden’s address aired by the UK’s Channel 4 comes as an alternative to the Queen’s traditional Christmas speech, which is shown by the country’s other leading broadcasters.

Filmed in Russia, the address is the first TV appearance of the whistleblower since his arrival in the country, where he was granted temporary asylum in August.

The message starts with Snowden appealing to each and every family, warning them that the scope of government surveillance has gone to the extent that “a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all”.

As a former US Central Intelligence Agency employee, US National Security Agency contractor, and the person behind the biggest security leak in US history, Snowden gives his assessment of the classic bogey model of the Orwellian state as “nothing compared” to today's surveillance methods.

“The types of collection in the book – microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us – are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person,” the former NSA contractor says.

He goes on to say that “a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought.”

“And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be,” Snowden adds.

Reuters / Gary Cameron

The American whistleblower also points out the importance of the debate which his revelations have ignited. Snowden shared top secret NSA documents about widespread surveillance by American, British, and other governments on phone and internet communications earlier this year. The scandalous disclosures outraged the world - including many senior officials, such as Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, who was allegedly spied on by the US government agency.

“The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. Together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying,” Snowden says.

Snowden’s address to the British audience comes amid an ongoing debate in the country over the tightening mass surveillance at home, as well as at an international level.

The latest revelations on the intelligence activities of the NSA and its UK allied agency, General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), last Friday alleged that the US and the UK are spying on friends and foes alike, monitoring the communications of senior EU, UN and Israeli officials.

Snowden said in an earlier interview with The Washington Post that he had “already won,” since the public has begun to address the issue of government surveillance. “For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished,” Snowden said.

Channel 4’s alternative to the Royal Christmas Message has been aired annually since 1993, giving a platform to diverse figures – many of whom have been deemed controversial. Brigitte Bardot delivered the message in 1995, Marge and Lisa Simpson in 2004, and the then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2008. 

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Angelo: We are grateful for the men that go and get mentally and often physically raped and broken in wars to make us less safe due to inevitable retaliations? What future contemplation for a baby with a million pound bedroom?

I have been quietly contemplating our faux democracy that's actually a fascist bankocratic military industrial complex, personified by war ship toting royals murdering 'sand niggers' from the sky.

Paying taxes to kings and queens in 2013 in a so called 'democracy'... I don't get it. It's as clear to me as a Keynesian economics white paper to a maths prodigy. As mud.

Quietly contemplate those who are suffering today whilst losing vital pennies from their meager incomes to pay the fat banksters and their fairy tail figurehead.... endorsed by our so called representatives.

Dream of the structure that would have bailed out the people in stead. It's called 'open direct government by the people' with zero or everyone as representative. Dream of an end to copyright and patent fascism and of the desertion of our hated overseas military bases usurping foreign lands.

Better still wake up.