- Title: USA: Dozens rally in New York in support of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
- Date: 10th June 2013
- Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JUNE 10, 2013) (REUTERS) PROTESTERS AROUND UNION STATION SUBWAY/ RAILWAY ENTRANCE IN THE RAIN VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS HOLDING SIGNS INCLUDING CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW ? / SNOWDEN IS A HERO - STOP THE SURVEILLANCE / WE STAND WITH EDWARD SNOWDEN (SOUNDBITE) (English) ANDREW STEPANIAN, PROTESTER, SAYING: "I think a lot of us are encouraging people today wherever they are located in the United States, whatever city they are in, to start their own rallies united behind the hashtag that says 'I stand with Edward Snowden'. And no matter how small or how large, encourage the people around you to celebrate Edward Snowden and what he did selflessly for us as Americans and to take the conversation out of the margins to prevent him from being demonized or maligned, whether it be in the media or in government, and have a conversation that says what he did was a public service." PROTESTERS HOLDING SIGNS (SOUNDBITE) (English) DEBRA SWEET, DIRECTOR OF 'WORLD CAN'T WAIT', PROTEST ORGANIZER, SAYING: "This program called PRISM and Bountiful Information Informant by the NSA is literally seizing all of your private information. Everything about your bank records, your phone conversations, your e-mail, your documents, anything that is connected online. They are taking it without any warrant, without really, we are finding out, without anyone overseeing it. They are sweeping up and vacuuming billions of bytes of data every minute and this is not right. It is not just. It's illegitimate and it is not being done to keep us safe." VARIOUS OF MORE PROTESTERS WITH POSTERS OBAMA CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW / SUPPORT SNOWDEN WIDE OF PROTEST
- Embargoed: 25th June 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Usa
- Country: USA
- Topics: Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA5CQUASEOHBPJUBHK9KGEFNCDF
- Story Text: Dozens rally in Manhattan in a show of support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
A few dozen people held a rally in New York City on Monday (June 10) to support ex-CIA employee turned NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden.
Braving heavy rain, the protesters held signs and called for support for Snowden.
Edward Snowden, aged 29, is an ex-CIA employee and worked as a contractor at the U.S. National Security Agency. He recently revealed himself as the source who leaked details of a top secret U.S. surveillance program.
Both the Guardian and the Washington Post said last week that U.S. security services had monitored data about phone calls from Verizon and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook.
Holding signs that read "can you hear me now?" and "we stand with Edward Snowden", protesters tried to educate the public about their cause.
"I think a lot of us are encouraging people today wherever they are located in the United States, whatever city they are in, to start their own rallies united behind the hashtag that says 'I stand with Edward Snowden'. And no matter how small or how large, encourage the people around you to celebrate Edward Snowden and what he did selflessly for us as Americans and to take the conversation out of the margins to prevent him from being demonized or maligned, whether it be in the media or in government, and have a conversation that says what he did was a public service," said Andrew Stepanian.
Debra Sweet, one of the organizers of the rally and director of the group World Can't Wait, said, "This program called PRISM and Bountiful Information Informant (Boundless Informant) by the NSA is literally seizing all of your private information. Everything about your bank records, your phone conversations, your e-mail, your documents, anything that is connected online. They are taking it without any warrant, without really, we are finding out, without anyone overseeing it. They are sweeping up and vacuuming billions of bytes of data every minute and this is not right. It is not just. It's illegitimate and it is not being done to keep us safe."
Snowden said he had thought long and hard before publicizing details of an NSA program code-named PRISM, saying he had done so because he felt the United States was building an unaccountable and secret espionage machine that spied on every American.
Snowden, a former technical assistant at the CIA, said he had been working at the super-secret NSA as an employee of contractor Booz Allen. He said he decided to leak information after becoming disenchanted with U.S. President Barack Obama, who he said had continued the policies of his predecessor George W. Bush. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
