It seems that Ed Snowden has guaranteed that he will not be silenced - or, rather, that the information he gathered on the NSA's (constitutionally-questionable) spying activities will not be buried. No matter what happens to him, the info will be made public.
Let's check this out below the Kosspaghetti.
As reported at The Daily Beast:
The former NSA systems administrator has already given encoded files containing an archive of the secrets he lifted from his old employer to several people. If anything happens to Snowden, the files will be unlocked.
Seems to me that the guy has covered himself against assassination and other forms of retaliation with this move. That - given the USA's fetish for drone strikes on its own citizens - is a damn good idea.
This info has come to light courtesy of Glenn Greenwald:
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who Snowden first contacted in February, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.” Greenwald added that the people in possession of these files “cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords.” But, Greenwald said, “if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.”
Our government can demonize this good man all they like. They can hunt him down, slam him into a jail cell next to Bradley Manning's, or outright murder him for what he has done in the name of the Fourth Amendment, but the info is going to come out. And there is nothing anybody can do to stop it.
Under the "Fair Use" restriction, my final quote from the article published by The Daily Beast (and you really SHOULD follow the link I provided to it - it's VERY interesting) is this paragraph:
The arrangement to entrust encrypted archives of his files with others also sheds light on a cryptic statement Snowden made on June 17 during a live chat with The Guardian. In the online session he said, “All I can say right now is the U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.”
I have one last thing to make you aware of before I end this diary:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
Carry on.