NSA concerns over election beyond laughable: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Steven Kelley, a former NSA contractor, to discuss the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) concerns over reports that some foreign governments may launch cyber attacks to undermine the November presidential election.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: It seems that in today’s technological era, all these governments, not excluding the US, are involved in utilizing the internet to sabotage and/or snoop on both friend and foe. Your thoughts on the NSA’s most recent concerns?

Kelley: I would not give any credibility whatsoever to anything that the NSA said. This concept of our election somehow being threatened by some outsider is beyond laughable. It is the most pathetic thing for these criminals to be saying in public at this time.

Everybody knows that the primary election was stolen from Bernie Sanders who won overwhelmingly and yet they still forced us to try to accept that Hillary Clinton somehow won when we know that millions of ballots were stolen. The electronic ballot system that they are using now is completely corrupted.

If they are acting like they feel that some outsider is going to corrupt the ballot system, I think that is a complete farce and distraction from the fact that they are doing it. The bottom line is that they are doing it very, very badly. And ultimately I think they are so afraid that they are not going to be able to prevent Trump from winning overwhelmingly and that they are not going to be able to corrupt the system that they are feeling that they need to somehow come up with some foreign enemy excuse to bring in the Homeland Security to take it over and try to force some sort of unelectable candidate on us.

So it is really pathetic and the entire corrupt system seems to be falling apart. I think at this point these people realized that they will be in jail or executed very soon if they do not do this.

Press TV: A lot of critics were quick to accuse the NSA of scaremongering to both justify its own existence and its questionable data gathering practices, especially given the avalanche of criticism since Edward Snowden’s revelations. How much of this NSA concern is attributed to that accusation?

Kelley: Well I think again the most important thing that we need to focus on is that these are criminals trying to protect other criminals, and that their reign of terror on earth is falling apart. These are very, very desperate, last-ditch maneuvers to try to maintain their grip on power. I think that we need to work very hard to keep this peaceful. What we are really seeing here is a revolution taking place that has not become a hot revolution. It is still working within the legal framework. But the powers, that see their end coming very soon, are doing everything they can to try to steal as much time as possible and this requires stealing the election. Of course at this point, it all does not make any difference because their candidate Hillary is practically dead. So who are they going to try to force upon us again?

Press TV: Whistleblower Edward Snowden is asking for a presidential pardon now. If they grant this to him, this may promote a trend. Pardoning Edward Snowden, an American patriot or a traitor? Your view?

Kelley: I believe that I am a much larger whistleblower than Edward Snowden but I would certainly welcome his pardon and I think that he should be allowed to return and not face any sort of harsh retribution.  

Press TV: And do you think that would set a good precedent for the US? Will the intelligence apparatus be a little bit more transparent in the future perhaps?

Kelley: I think so, but I think that still there are people being murdered every day and I think that he would be wise to stay under the protection of Vladimir Putin.

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