If Snowden's case as a whistleblower is so strong, why is he afraid to face the consequences?

[Octafish]

37. Sensory Deprivation during transport is one thing. Making him LIVE IT is another...

Apparently, he was treated that way during a period of the 43 months of isolation and solitary he endured before trial.

And this guy is an American citizen, arrested in the USA.

US Gov't broke Padilla through intense isolation, say experts

Despite warnings, officials used 43 months of severe isolation to force Jose Padilla to tell all he knew about Al Qaeda.

By Warren Richey, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / August 14, 2007

MIAMI -- When suspected Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla was whisked from the criminal justice system to military custody in June 2002, it was done for a key purpose – to break his will to remain silent.

SNIP...

For a month, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been questioning Padilla in New York City under the rules of the criminal justice system. They wanted to know about his alleged involvement in a plot to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the US. Padilla had nothing to say. Now, military interrogators were about to turn up the heat.

Padilla was delivered to the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., where he was held not only in solitary confinement but as the sole detainee in a high-security wing of the prison. Fifteen other cells sat empty around him.

SNIP...

In essence, experts say, the US government was trying to break Padilla's silence by plunging him into a mental twilight zone. Padilla was not the only Al Qaeda suspect locked away in isolation. Although harsh interrogation methods such as water-boarding, forced hypothermia, sleep deprivation, and stress positions draw more media attention, use of isolation to "soften up" detainees for questioning is much more common.

"It is clear that the intent of this isolation was to break Padilla for the purpose of the interrogations that were to follow," says Stuart Grassian, a Boston psychiatrist and nationally recognized expert on the debilitating effects of solitary confinement. Dr. Grassian conducted a detailed examination of Padilla for his lawyers.

CONTINUED...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0814/p11s01-usju.html

You have the right to remain silent forever. Anything we make you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinionn and law. Should you ever get the wherewithal to afford an attorney who's worth hiring, good luck in finding one we haven't talked with first. So help us God.