[NY Times] Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American security contractor granted asylum by Russia, has appealed to Washington to stop treating him like a traitor for revealing that the United States has been eavesdropping on its allies, a German politician who met with Mr. Snowden said on Friday.The appeal came in a letter from Mr. Snowden carried to Berlin by Hans-Christian Ströbele, a veteran member of the Green Party in the German Parliament, who said that he and two journalists for German media met with Mr. Snowden and a person described as his assistant -- probably his British aide, Sarah Harrison -- at an undisclosed location in or near Moscow on Thursday for almost three hours.
In his letter, Mr. Snowden, 30, also appealed for clemency. He said his disclosures about American intelligence activity at home and abroad, which he called "systematic violations of law by my government that created a moral duty to act," had had positive effects.
Yet "my government continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defense," Mr. Snowden wrote. "However, speaking the truth is not a crime. I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the United Sates will abandon this harmful behavior."
Mr. Ströbele, 74, is a seasoned left-wing defense lawyer and the longest-serving member of the parliamentary committee that oversees German intelligence. At a packed news conference held after his return to Berlin, he said he had been trying to visit Mr. Snowden since the summer, when the American first arrived in Moscow in search of asylum. After a number of countries, including Germany, said Mr. Snowden could not apply for such protection from the Moscow airport where he was taking sanctuary at the time, Russia granted him a one-year asylum on Aug. 1.