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Press TV has conducted an interview with Wayne Madsen, former NSA officer, Seattle about US lawmakers trying to build a case for treason against Edward Snowden who revealed the US spying scandal.

- It sounds like they’re trying to build a case against Edward Snowden by creating this "Russia connection" so to speak to ensure that he gets punished for what he has done. Do you see it that way, too?

- Yes I do and what we’re seeing is McCarthyism playing out here in the 21st century.

People like Mike Rogers, the chairman of the house of the Intelligence Committee – these are old war hawks, cold war warriors, Rogers himself is a former FBI agent.

He is the last person in the world who should be in charge of US oversight over the intelligence community having been a former FBI agent - this man can’t be trusted, he’s a right-wing Republican who’s beholden to the NSA. Everything he says is pro-NSA. And similar things can be said about (US Senator Dianne Feinstein) Feinstein, his counterpart on the Senate side, but it’s clear what they’re trying to do.

After President Obama was forced to institute some fairly mediocre changes and oversight over the NSA, now the operation is to further demonize Edward Snowden, try to say he was a Russian agent.

Joe McCarthy (McCarthyism) would be very proud of this right now and basically they’re trying to make Ed Snowden ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ when in fact a lot of American people respect Snowden for what he did, support him for what he did.

I, as a matter of fact, broke a story that the US and the British intelligence out of the British embassy in Moscow were laying out a plot to try to capture Snowden, rendition him back to Britain or the United States – and that operation failed.

So this is now character assassination, that’s the route they’re going rather than the original plan was to rendition him with a black hood over his head and be taken out in the trunk of a car or private airplane back to the United States, through London possibly.

- Are you at all surprised at the timing at which this allegation is being made specifically considering this just comes right after Obama has made this, “landmark speech” where he basically just defended the practices of the NSA?

- For Obama and his handlers in the White House this is the carrot and the stick.

The carrot was supposedly these reforms of NSA that were really not reforms it basically still allows NSA to carry on business as usual with the idea that there’s going to be some sort of privacy ombudsman present when these decisions are made by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). This is all legalistic hocus pocus mumbo jumbo.

And now the stick... the stick is this coordinated campaign that started on these Sunday morning talk shows in Washington, which by the way lays out the agenda for the following week – so we’ll be hearing about this ad-nauseum, ad-infinitum for this coming week and probably weeks following that Ed Snowden is a Russian spy.

They are trying to turn him into another Robert Hansen... or John Walker to name some of the other spies, when at the same time we’re hearing calls because the US was found to be eavesdropping on Israel for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

So, we’re seeing Snowden who is an American hero turned into a demon; and a demon Jonathan Pollard turned into a hero. Herein we have the problem with the American political system and the American corporate media that goes along with this nonsense.

- How far do you think the US is going to go in this character assassination of Snowden and what will it achieve exactly?

- Well, I think what they’re going to try to do is box Snowden in. He is supposed to be giving testimony to the European parliament; there is the German Bundestag (National parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany).. So this is an attempt to make him persona non-grata not only physically in those countries - and I said he’s safer in Russia right now than in any other country.

But it is to also make him persona on-grata in a virtual sense by trying to make him look like this Russian spy to get the European parliament and the German Bundestag and other parliaments around the world in countries where it has been found that the NSA has been committing espionage upon to get them to withdraw their invitations for him to appear, testify by a video link so forth and so on.

It’s a demonization campaign. I hope it doesn’t work. I think what Edward Snowden did was courageous and I support him and I condemn these people like Rogers from Michigan... and these other right-wing war hawk republicans who see a Russian hiding behind every tree like it’s 1955.