NSA leaker Edward Snowden: 'Mission's already accomplished'

WASHINGTON (AP) — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden said his "mission's already accomplished" after leaking NSA secrets that have caused a reassessment of U.S. surveillance policies.

Snowden told The Washington Post in an interview published online Monday night that he was satisfied because journalists have been able to tell the story of the government's collection of bulk Internet and phone records, an activity that has grown dramatically in the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished," he said. "I already won."

"As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated," Snowden told the Post. "Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself."

President Barack Obama hinted Friday that he would consider some changes to NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records to address the public's concern about privacy. His comments came in a week in which a federal judge declared the NSA's collection program probably was unconstitutional. A presidential advisory panel has suggested 46 changes to NSA operations.

Snowden was interviewed in Moscow over two days by Post reporter Barton Gellman, who has received numerous leaks from Snowden. The interview was conducted six months after Snowden's revelations first appeared in the Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Gellman described Snowden as relaxed and animated over two days of nearly unbroken conversation, fueled by burgers, pasta, ice cream and Russian pastry.

In June, the Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint charging Snowden, a former NSA contractor, with espionage and felony theft of government property. Russia granted him temporary asylum five months ago.

The effects of Snowden's revelations have been evident in the courts, Congress, Silicon Valley and capitals around the world, where even U.S. allies have reacted angrily to reports of U.S. monitoring of their leaders' cellphone calls. Brazil and members of the European Union are considering ways to better protect their data and U.S. technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are looking at ways to block the collection of data by the government.

Snowden, now 30, said he is not being disloyal to the U.S. or to his former employer.

"I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA," he said. "I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don't realize it."

Asked about the Snowden interview, White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said: "Mr. Snowden faces felony charges here in the United States and should be returned to the U.S. as soon as possible, where he will be afforded due process and all the protections of our criminal justice system."

Are Africans ready to put race behind them?

Mandela urged both black and white South Africans to think of themselves as citizens. But are people ready for that?

Here's a conversation on Twitter which occurred during former South African President Nelson Mandela's memorial service in Soweto.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe got very loud cheers from people in the stadium when he arrived for the memorial at Johannesburg's FNB stadium on Tuesday.

Someone tweeted: "If I was a white African I would ponder a lot on the enthusiastic welcome given to Mugabe. Oh shit. I am."

Response to tweet: "I thought you were a South African. African equates to 'black' #justsaying".

Then this reply, from someone else: "Dialogue between the black+white African is key & yet we shy away 4rm [sic] it! We haven't talked since #madiba made us in court rooms."

The sometimes uncomfortable issues about land reforms and indigenisation are still simmering, just below the surface, clearly. Some African countries, like South Africa, choose not to talk this openly about the issue, while others are more than willing to do so, even showing off about it. (Mugabe's Zimbabwe is very much in the latter camp.)

So what makes one indigenous to Africa? Is it the colour of one's skin or that one was born on the continent?

Are white-skinned people who are born in Africa Africans? If they are not, then what are they?

Nelson Mandela encouraged the different races to forgive and move on as Africans. But we know there is still a long way to go before his dream is fully realized. The simple truth is that, even today, some blacks don't like whites and some whites don't like blacks.

Those comments on Twitter suggest we need to feel comfortable enough to talk about this. What makes us Africans?

But are blacks and whites ready to do that?

By Haru Mutasa

Convicted Egyptian women eye new protests

Alexandria, Egypt - Ola Ezzat is already making plans to protest again, just two weeks after she and 20 other women were sentenced to 11-year jail terms for their activism.

Ezzat, 18, a student at Ain Shams University, was convicted on November 27 for taking part in a peaceful protest in this Mediterranean city in Egypt. Seven of the defendants were minors, the youngest just 15 years old.

On Saturday, however, an appeals court lessened the verdict - three years' probation for the girls, one-year suspended sentences for the adults - and allowed the defendants to go free, with a warning not to break the law again.

When this happened I was sad. For my daughter, I was crying inside. But for what's happening in Egypt, I support her.

- Alaa Eddin , father of Ola Ezzat, one of the convicted protesters

But in an interview in her family apartment in Alexandria's Sidi Bishr neighbourhood, Ezzat said her friends are already discussing more protests.

"This is our right, and we cannot only exercise it the first time," she said.

Ezzat and her family are outspoken supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate who was elected last year and overthrown by the army in July. They insisted that Morsi, "the legitimate democratic president", would eventually return to power. A hand-drawn portrait of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Brotherhood, hangs over the couch in their living room.

For a family such as the Ezzats, however, the political has also become intensely personal. Ola's brother joined the sit-in at Raba'a al-Adawiya square, one of two pro-Morsi protests where hundreds were killed in August; several friends were shot in front of him, he said.

Four other family members are in jail, including her cousin and uncle, who have been held without charge since August.

The case against the girls has highlighted not just the flaws in Egypt's deeply politicised judicial system, but also the desperate need for reconciliation. Countless Egyptians have been affected by the crackdown on the Brotherhood; their numbers grow daily, and their anger at the government is an intractable obstacle to the political "road map" laid out after Morsi's ouster.

"We need to do this to remember the martyrs of Raba'a … everyone has friends or family who have been killed or arrested," said Ezzat, explaining why she plans to protest again.

'It was a political verdict'

The facts of the case have been widely criticised, not only by Morsi's supporters but also by human rights activists and political factions opposed to the Brotherhood. Even politicians such as Hamdeen Sabbahi, a Nasserist who is trying to position himself as the pro-army presidential candidate in next year's elections, called publicly for a pardon.

Many compared the ruling to Alexandria's best-known criminal case, the murder of Khaled Said, a businessman whose brutal killing at the hands of police became a rallying point for the 2011 revolution. The officers who beat him to death were sentenced to just seven years in prison.

"It was a political verdict in the first place," said Amr Ismail from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. "The government was surprised by the reaction that the first verdict caused. Even people who hate the Muslim Brotherhood were shocked."

The protest on October 31 was the first by a group calling itself "7 am", which hoped to catch the attention of commuters on their way to work or school.

Prosecutors accused the girls of blocking the Corniche, the main seaside road in Alexandria. Ezzat denied this, saying they stood on the shoulder.

Some of the pro-Morsi protests have turned violent, with protesters attacking police and local residents. State media accused the Alexandria women of carrying weapons, but no evidence was put forward to support that claim.

The women were also charged with destroying property, but the only example offered in court was a scratched glass door on a nearby building; damages were estimated at 50 Egyptian pounds, about $7.

"They didn't even prove that the girls were the ones who did this," Ismail said. "Their witnesses said the people who scratched the glass were men."

Ayman al-Dabi, one of the lawyers who represented the jailed women, said the harsh verdict was meant to intimidate women and stop them from joining protests.

"If you manage to scare 50 percent of those people by making them think they're going to face tough consequences, then they will stop going down in the street," said Dabi, whose niece was among those arrested. "This was a security plot gone wrong."

'We couldn't speak'

Ezzat's parents said they did not even take the case seriously at first, because of the contrast between the charges against the girls and the evidence.

"At first I thought it was a joke, and they would be released after a few hours," said her father, Alaa Eddin. "But then I asked a police officer what happened, and he said, 'This girl is dangerous, she has broken the law.'"

The girls were first held in Alexandria for about 48 hours, Ola said, detained in a dirty cell strewn with garbage. "The policeman asked if we were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and we said, of course, and that is our right," she said. "And he told us, you don't understand, you have a big case against you."

They were eventually transferred to a jail in Damanhour, a Nile Delta city about 50km southeast of Alexandria, and held for nearly a month until their trial.

"When we went into the court, we were expecting to go to prison but for a short sentence. One year, two, three," Ezzat said. "When we heard it was 11 years, some of us were shocked, crying, we couldn't speak to each other … And after a while we started laughing, hysterically laughing. We couldn't understand what had happened."

Public reaction was equally shocked, particularly after newspapers started to publish photographs from the courtroom, showing young girls in white prison clothes and headscarves standing inside a metal cage. An adviser to interim President Adly Mansour told reporters the girls would receive a pardon after their appeals were finished.

No pardon has been issued, and if the girls are arrested at another protest, the suspensions on their jail sentences could be lifted. Ezzat's parents, however, said they would support her right to continue protesting.

"When this happened I was sad. For my daughter, I was crying inside," her father said. "But for what's happening in Egypt, I support her."

World leaders bid farewell to Mandela

Leaders meet in Johannesburg to pay homage to iconic leader as US President Obama calls him a "giant of history".

World leaders from around 90 countries, along with tens of thousands of South Africans, are paying their tributes to Nelson Mandela, iconic former South African president, at a memorial service in Johannesburg, recalling his contributions for reconciliation across political and racial divides.

In his address at the ceremony at Johannesburg's Soccer City Stadium on Tuesday, Barack Obama, the United States president, called Mandela, who died last Thursday at the age of 95, the "giant of history" and described him as a leader who "moved a nation towards justice".

Speaking under rain on Tuesday, Obama said that Mandela earned his place in history through struggle, shrewdness, persistence and faith, comparing him to Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.

"There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba's (Mandela's clan) struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people," he said, stabbing his finger in the air.

"Nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, persistence and faith.”

Zuma booed

Jacob Zuma, the South African president, was booed and jeered before his speech at the memorial as in a major public humiliation in front of leaders six months before national elections. Many South Africans in the ten thousands-strong crowd emptied their seats of the stadium during his address.

Zuma said that everyone had a Madiba moment in their life as Mandela "touched their lives".

"That we are Madiba's compatriots and that we lived in Madiba's time is a reason for great celebration," he said.

At a landmark moment at the ceremony, Obama shook the hand of Raul Castro, leader of long-time Cold War foe Cuba, in an unprecedented gesture between the leaders of two nations which have been at loggerheads for more than half a century. Castro smiled as Obama shook his hand on the way to the podium to make his speech at the commemoration, indicating that such antagonisms have been put on mute on Tuesday.

In his speech, Raul Castro, quoted his brother Fidel Castro, former Cuba leader, and said, "Mandela will not go down in history for the 27 years he spent behind bars... but because he was able to free his soul from the poison that such unjust punishment can cause."

Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General who is also attending the ceremony, said: "He has done it again.... We see leaders representing many points of view, and people from all walks of life. All here, united... He showed the awesome power of forgiveness and of connecting people with each other."

David Cameron, the British prime minister who did not make an address at the memorial, said it was clear that people of South Africa want to say goodbye to the "great man" and "commemorate what he did", but also "celebrate his life and celebrate his legacy."

Speakers from colonised countries

Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from Johannesburg said that all the speakers selected were leaders and statesmen from countries that had previously been under colonialist rule.

"There is no head of state from the United Kingdom or the commonwealth speaking at the funeral," he said. "The list of speakers display South Africa's political orientation away from the West."

"Each of the six selected speakers have had a history of colonialist rule."

Coinciding with UN designated Human Rights Day, the memorial service for Mandela is the centrepiece of a week of mourning for the globally-admired statesman. Singing joyous crowds are all around around the stadium despite the rain.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harpe, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Union Council President Herman Van Rompuy were among the participants of the memorial.

Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, also attended the ceremony, an indicator of many that hostilities are put on hold for the day. Blair has called Mugabe a dictator who should have been removed from power. Mugabe has called Blair an imperialist and once told him to "go to hell". 

Israel's top leaders have been conspicuous by their absence at the memorial, skipping the ceremony for the anti-apartheid hero whom Palestinians have always viewed as their comrade in the struggle for freedom. Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor President Shimon Peres attended the event.

Aljazeera source