Yoichi Shimatsu
24 Oct 2013
Whistleblower Edward Snowden was taken for a ride by con artists in the service of the US and UK intelligence agencies. Under the cover of “independent journalism”, the scammers conned him out of his trove of secret NSA files, hustled him from Hong Kong ahead of legislature-sponsored public hearings on cyber-espionage, and unceremoniously dumped him, minus documents, in a transit lounge at Moscow Airport. This report shows how the American and British spymasters retrieved the top-secret files by luring the fugitive into a well-laid trap, while the mass media went along with the deception to aid the authorities in evading public calls to abolish the global surveillance state.
Pierre Omidyar, founder of the online flea market e-Bay, is betting a reported $250 million that the accomplices of whistleblower Edward Snowden can follow up their caper with the launch of an online news site with global reach. The ethnic Iranian tycoon is funding a new media project for the team of Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill because he became “more alarmed about the pressures coming down on journalists with the various leak investigations in Washington.” (Pacific Business News)
An angel investor committed to press freedom and opposed to government surveillance is every journalist’s dream even though it sounds too good to be true. There are serious grounds for questioning the credibility of Greenwald and his newest patron, whose business venture Omidyar Network is closely connected with NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, Edward Snowden’s erstwhile employer.
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