In his column on July 13 with the Russia-based website, Strategic Culture Foundation, Wayne Madsen pointed out that "Barack Obama has made it one of the linchpins of his administration to identify, prosecute, and imprison national security whistle-blowers. Obama has charged more government employees under the provisions of the antiquated 1917 Espionage Act than all of his predecessors combined. Edward Snowden was the seventh person charged with violating the Espionage Act after he released to the Guardian and the Washington Post classified documents from the NSA revealing the extent of U.S. communication surveillance of the Internet, phone calls, text messages, and Skype communications within the United States and around the world."

Obama won't be 'scrambling jets' to get Snowden. Photo: Whitehouse.gov.

Six months after the 9/11 attack, Madsen notes, the Bush administration's zeal to hunt and capture Osama was considerably less than what Obama's is for Edward Snowden. At a White House press conference, President Bush had said: "The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.... He's just a person who's been marginalized.... I don't know where he is. I really just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you," Madsen noted.

Madsen said Obama's obsession about Snowden was exemplified by his recent action when Obama, while saying in public that he would not "scramble jets" to get Snowden, was closing down airspace between Moscow and Havana. Obama orchestrated this using U.S. Ambassadors in Paris, Madrid, Rome, and Lisbon, believing that Snowden was on board the executive Falcon jet of Bolivian President Evo Morales. The U.S. ambassador in Vienna, Obama political fundraiser William Eacho, conspired with the Austrian government and the Spanish ambassador in Vienna, Alberto Carnero, to force Morales's plane to land in Vienna so Carnero could conduct an "inspection" of the plane in search for Snowden, Madsen added.