At least some people are standing up for Snowden... now who will stand up for us?

At least some people are standing up for Snowden...

Denouncing US 'Empire' South American Leaders Step Up to Protect Snowden 

Two South American nations, Venezuela and Nicaragua, indicated Friday that there may be some relief for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who for the past 14 days has unsuccessfully sought political asylum from a number of nations, all the while remaining trapped in the purgutory of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport.

"As head of state of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela, I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young Snowden [...] to protect this young man from the persecution launched by the most powerful empire in the world," Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said—alluding to the United States—during an independence day speech in Caracas on Friday.

"I announced to the friendly governments of the world that we have decided to offer this international human right to protect this young man," he continued, adding that several other Latin American governments have also expressed their intention of taking a similar stance by offering asylum for the cause of "dignity," AP reports.

The speech followed an earlier statement by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega during which he announced: "We are open, respectful of the right to asylum, and it is clear that if circumstances permit it, we would receive Snowden with pleasure and give him asylum here in Nicaragua."

"We have the sovereign right to help a person who felt remorse after finding out how the United States was using technology to spy on the whole world, and especially its European allies," Ortega added.

Remember kids---spying doesn't make you safer.  I'll outsource to Chomsky:

In response to Obama's claims that spying is crucial for protection against terrorists, Chomsky scoffed, "If we had anything like a free press, there would be headlines saying this is a bad joke," in an interview with Laura Flanders of GRITtv.

Chomsky told the Guardian—the publication that initially broke the NSA secret spying story—that the snooping itself constitutes a wrongdoing on a wide scale:

Governments should not have this capacity. But governments will use whatever technology is available to them to combat their primary enemy – which is their own population.

Chomsky insisted to the Guardian that the close partnership between the U.S. government and corporations that specialize in spying technologies exposes a political structure that does not represent the interests of the U.S. people:

They [governments and corporations] take whatever is available, and in no time it is being used against us, the population. Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

Now if only we can get some national leadership in this country on protecting citizens from a security state.