In August, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden told HuffPost that news organizations were being "misled by individuals associated" with his father, Lon Snowden.
Edward Snowden's statement came hours after Mattie Fein, wife and spokeswoman for Lon Snowden's attorney Bruce Fein, told the Wall Street Journal that his father's legal team did not trust Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, the journalist at the center of the NSA story, and WikiLeaks, which had been advising Snowden.
"None of them have been or are involved in my current situation, and this will not change in the future," Snowden said in August of his father and the Feins. "I ask journalists to understand that they do not possess any special knowledge regarding my situation or future plans, and not to exploit the tragic vacuum of my father's emotional compromise for the sake of tabloid news."
But now it seems that Lon and Edward Snowden are on the same page.
Last week came reports that Lon Snowden and the Feins had split and, on Wednesday, the elder Snowden told the Journal that his views had been misrepresented regarding Greenwald, WikiLeaks and the ACLU, which is helping coordinate his son's legal defense.
Mr. Snowden said he felt Ms. Fein misrepresented his interests when she suggested he didn't trust the intentions of Glenn Greenwald, whose articles in the Guardian based off Edward Snowden's leaks exposed the surveillance programs; American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ben Wizner; and the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks, which has advised his son.
"I hold Ben Wizner and Glenn Greenwald in the highest regard and would have never said anything to discredit their work or to question their motives," Mr. Snowden said.
Update 10:52 p.m.: Bruce Fein responded to Lon Snowden's comments in a statement to HuffPost:
"The belated unity of my former client, Ben Wizner, and Glen Greenwald seems a desperate effort to bolster their relevance to Ed Snowden. He entrusted Jesselyn Radack, who has paid homage to Wikileaks and Julian Assange for providing Ed safe passage to Russia, with the responsibility for reading a statement by Ed regarding surveillance before the European Parliament. Wizner and Greenwald have notoriously belittled Radack and Assange."
"I believe my former client's ill-considered waivers of the attorney-client privilege with an ongoing criminal investigation jeopardized his son and others. In addition, it became apparent to me that the profound constitutional issues raised by Ed's disclosures were being subordinated to egotistical maneuvers for fame and control and the reported commercialization of Ed Snowden's story with book, interview, movie, and other deals. The Constitution--especially the Fourth Amendment right to be left alone absent probable cause to suspect crime--is too important to be left to tawdriness and pettiness. I chose to part company with my client to seek wholesale reform of the constitutional and statutory protocols that govern the collection, analysis, and disclosure of intelligence in the United States undistracted by drivel. I regularly remind myself that Socrates struck the mightiest blow for freedom of inquiry in the history of mankind be taking the hemlock in Athens according to its laws, not fleeing elsewhere. He won immortality, while his Athenian jurors were buried in ignominy."