Stop Edward Snowden persecution, European Parliament says

This video from the USA says about itself:

“Citizenfour” [film about Edward Snowden] winning Best Documentary Feature

9 March 2015

Jennifer Aniston and David Oyelowo presenting Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky with the Oscar® for Best Documentary Feature for “Citizenfour” at the 87th Oscars® in 2015.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Europe just voted to drop criminal charges against Edward Snowden and offer him asylum

Posted 17 hours ago by Bethan McKernan

The European Parliament voted on Thursday to drop all criminal charges against Edward Snowden and offer him asylum and protection from rendition from third parties.

MEPs voted 285 – 281 to recognise the NSA whistleblower’s status as a “human rights defender” and asked member states to grant him protection from extradition to the US, where he is wanted under several Espionage Act charges.

In the resolution that was passed, MEPs said “too little has been done to safeguard citizens’ fundamental rights following revelations of electronic mass surveillance” the whistleblower alerted the world to after exposing the extent of the National Security Agency’s spying programmes in 2013.

The EU Commission is also being urged to ensure that all data transfers to the US are subject to an “effective level of protection” and examine concerns over surveillance laws in several EU countries, such as reported co-operation by Germany intelligence agency BND with the NSA.

It is up to individual member states to implement the resolution. …

In 2014 both independent and White House-funded studies analysed hundreds of terror cases and concluded that the NSA collection of phone records had had no discernible impact in foiling terror plots.

On Thursday, the European Parliament narrowly voted a nonbinding resolution calling on European Union (EU) member states to offer “protection” to Edward Snowden: here.

A series of declassified National Security Agency (NSA) documents have revealed that the government’s program of bulk metadata collection of the population’s internet communications, known as STELLARWIND, has continued despite claims by the Obama administration to have ended the program in 2011, prior to information of its existence being leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: here.