Asylum, legal counsel and protection are costly. This is why we decided to support Snowden's six European lawyers with 36.000 Euro to cover their expenses. Earlier this year, the CCC general assembly also decided to offer Edward Snowden the honorary membership, which he accepted gladly.

"The long lasting dedication of the CCC and others for citizen's rights and against mass surveillance paved the road for a broad public debate after Edward Snowden's revelations", said Snowden's German lawyer, Wolfgang Kaleck. "Both the commitment as well as the support for Snowden require perseverance. The financial support provided will help sustain these efforts."

Edward Snowden is the source of many leaks about the so-called Intelligence Community and their hacking and surveillance operations, which made news headlines all over the world. He ignited the necessary global discussion by informing journalists about how much and how deeply we are being spied on by the NSA and their partners, how they infiltrate telecommunication and Internet service providers. One of our central claims and part of our hacker ethics is: "Public data should be utilized, private data should be protected." Edward Snowden had the guts to live by our principles.

Undoubtedly, Chelsea Manning's courageous actions also stand in line with these values of ours. To express our support and respect, the CCC bi-annual general assembly unanimously voted for offering her the honorary membership. She agreed to accept our offer. Needless to say, it is an outstanding honor for us to count Chelsea Manning as one of us!

The former US private Chelsea Manning, stationed in Iraq in 2009 and 2010, was sentenced for violations of the Espionage Act and other offences in August 2013. Allegedly, she transferred hundreds of thousands of military and U.S. State Department documents and the infamous "collateral murder" video to Wikileaks. Detained as a political prisoner in 2010 under unduly harsh conditions without minimal standards of humane treatment and stripped of her clothing in custody every night, Manning is now serving a 35-year sentence for her courageous acts. [1]

Links:
[1] Alexa O'Brien at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress (30c3) reporting on the secret trial of Chelsea Manning
[2] Edward Snowden Interview Transcript