Edward Snowden nominated for noble prize

A former Norwegian minister nominated fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize on last Thursday in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. 

"He has contributed to revealing the extreme level of surveillance by nations against other nations and of citizens," former Socialist Left Party minister Baard Vegar Solhjell told AFP, explaining his move. "Snowden contributed to people knowing about what has happened and spurring public debate" on trust in government, which he said was "a fundamental requirement for peace".

 In a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee obtained by AFP, Solhjell and his party colleague Snorre Valen said that they do not necessarily condone or support all of Snowden's disclosures, but praised him for revealing the "nature and technological prowess of modern surveillance".

 "The level of sophistication and depth of surveillance that citizens all over the world are subject to have stunned us, and stirred debate," they wrote in the nomination letter

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Snowden says 'significant threats' to his life

Edward Snowden told German TV on Sunday about reports that U.S. government officials want to assassinate him for leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails.

In what German public broadcaster ARD said was Snowden's first television interview, Snowden also said he believes the NSA has monitored other top German government officials along with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Snowden told ARD that he felt there are "significant threats" to his life but he said that he nevertheless sleeps well because he believes he did the right thing by informing the public about the NSA's activities.

"I'm still alive and don't lose sleep for what I did because it was the right thing to do," said Snowden at the start of what ARD said was a six-hour interview that was filmed in a Moscow hotel suite. ARD aired 40 minutes of the six-hour interview.

"There are significant threats but I sleep very well," he said before referring to a report on a U.S. website that he said quoted anonymous U.S. officials saying his life was in danger.

"These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower," Snowden said.

Questions about U.S. government spying on civilians and foreign officials became heated last June when Snowden leaked documents outlining the widespread collection of telephone records and email.

Snowden was granted asylum in Russia last summer after fleeing the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges for leaking information about government surveillance practices.

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NSA 'Spied on companies' - Snowden

In an interview with Germany's ARD TV channel, the former NSA contractor Snowden said the agency would spy on big German companies that competed with US firms.

Mr Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum by Russia, also said he believed that US officials wanted to kill him.

His leaks caused outrage in Germany when it came to light Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone had been bugged.

After the row broke out last year, Mrs Merkel accused the US of an unacceptable breach of trust.

Last week President Barack Obama indicated to Germany's ZDF TV that US bugging of Mrs Merkel's mobile phone had been a mistake and would not happen again.

Mr Snowden's new allegation about industrial spying may make it harder to rebuild trans-Atlantic trust, the BBC's Stephen Evans reports from Berlin.

Referring to the German engineering company Siemens, Mr Snowden told ARD: "If there is information at Siemens that they [the NSA] think would be beneficial to the national interests, not the national security, of the United States, they will go after that information and they'll take it."

He also said he believed US agents want to kill him, referring to an article published by the Buzzfeed website in which intelligence operatives are quoted as saying they want to see him dead.

In August Russia granted Mr Snowden asylum for one year, after he leaked details of US electronic surveillance programmes.

The US has charged Mr Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence.Each of the charges carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Earlier this week he said he has "no chance" of a fair trial in the US and has no plans to return there.

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"TheTrueHOOHA" is the pseudonym of ....

                                                                                              

Several sources have alleged that Snowden, under the pseudonym "TheTrueHOOHA", authored hundreds of posts on technology news provider Ars Technica's chat rooms.The poster discussed a variety of political topics. In a January 2009 entry, TheTrueHOOHA exhibited strong support for the United States' security state apparatus and said he believed leakers of classified information "should be shot in the balls". However, in February 2010 TheTrueHOOHA wrote, "Did we get to where we are today via a slippery slope that was entirely within our control to stop, or was it an relatively instantaneous sea change that sneaked in undetected because of pervasive government secrecy?"

In accounts published in June 2013, interviewers noted that Snowden's laptop displayed stickers supporting internet freedom organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Tor Project.Snowden considers himself "neither traitor nor hero. I'm an American".

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