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Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Glenn, from the Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement, about the American whistleblower Edward Snowden publishing information about the US government’s spying activities. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview. 

- I want to ask you about how you feel at this point about Edward Snowden and his many revelations about the US spying program now on EU officials as well?

- Well I don't doubt that what he's saying is the truth but the question we have to ask is why all of a sudden now? Are we going to be paying this kind of close attention to it when it has been well known ever since 9/11 that the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States government have been listening in?

We had the entire debacle involving the warrantless wiretaps. And now all of a sudden at a time when Barack Obama is being pressured by certain parties for very deep ties with the US media to initiate war against Syria and to initiate war against Iran, the biggest scandal of his presidency has erupted that could very well lead him being impeached.

So as I said while I do not doubt that what Snowden is saying is the truth, I do have to question the timing on this and whether there is something more under ground, more sinister about this that is meant to push Barack Obama into doing something that he does not want to do, namely, war against Syria and Iran.

- And do you believe Mr. Glenn that this relationship between the EU and the United States has been somewhat dented by this?

- Yes there is no question about this. This is absolutely a disaster for the American diplomatic community, not necessarily that the EU wasn’t aware that the United States had been listening and this is just a common knowledge among diplomats just to assume that their conversations are not private.

But at the same time this being made public before the eyes and ears of the world and putting United States on such a..., I mean this is the kind of stuff that you would have expected under the Soviet Union.

So the fact that this has been broadcast now so loudly across the world threatening to undo the decades of cooperation that have existed between United States and Europe, as I said this is the equivalent of a political atomic bomb for the President.

So there is no telling which way this is going to be particularly now that he has involved Russia. Russia has decided to give Snowden at least temporary protection and has refused to extradite him and has raised Putin standing in the world.

So this is like I said, this is something that I guarantee was keeping Barack Obama awake at nights and I think that it is going to be keeping him awake for many nights in the future.

- And just briefly if you can Mark Glenn, how do you think history will judge Edward Snowden, a hero or a traitor?

- Well I think that there is going to be a question mark on Snowden for quite some time, given the fact that there are many unanswered questions about him.

Certainly he has done the right thing in wakening the American people up to the dangers of their privacy. He's gone a long way towards shattering this pointless illusion that Americans are free and that we have the right to export this freedom that we do not have through the rest of the world through the use of war.

So I think that Snowden is going to be remembered for many, many years and decades to come. We just have to hope that the American people will learn a valuable lesson from this and that they will take the reign of government and indeed bring freedom to themselves that they at least presume to celebrate every July the 4th.