WASHINGTON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said that Edward Snowden made sure that the information he took about US surveillance programs will continue to be published.
In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” television show, Assange criticized the United States for revoking Snowden’s passport to keep him from traveling but said this would not preclude the classified information from being disclosed to the public.
“Look, there is no stopping the publishing process at this stage,” he said, adding that “great care has been taken to make sure that Mr. Snowden can’t be pressured by any state to stop the publication process.”
According to Glenn Greenwald, a Guardian journalist who first published the leaked information, Snowden had made encrypted copies of his files and distributed them in case anything happened to him.
By revoking Snowden’s passport, Washington has “marooned” Snowden in Russia and has put him through a “meat grinder,” although he has not been convicted of anything, Assange said.
Snowden is currently holing up in an airport in Moscow waiting for a response to his asylum request to Ecuador.
The whistleblower disclosed secret documents which show the National Security Agency (NSA) gathers phone records of millions of Americans every day. The classified information also revealed another program called PRISM, which spy agencies use to track Internet commutations of American citizens and other nationals.
On Saturday, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine reported that the NSA had also spied on EU offices in Washington, D.C., New York, and the heart of Europe, Brussels.
The magazine said its report is based on a September 2010 “top secret” NSA document, obtained and leaked by Snowden.
Americans are planning to hold nationwide demonstrations on July 4 in more than one hundred cities to protest against the government’s surveillance programs.
