3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so (excellent information)

[Catherina]

3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so

Peter Eisler and Susan Page, USA TODAY 8:01 p.m. EDT June 16, 2013

VIDEO AT LINK

In a roundtable discussion, a trio of former National Security Agency whistle-blowers tell USA TODAY that Edward Snowden succeeded where they failed.

When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government's collection of Americans' phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief.

Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way.

For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media.

...

They say the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA contractor who worked as a systems administrator, proves their claims of sweeping government surveillance of millions of Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing. They say those revelations only hint at the programs' reach.

MORE VIDEOS AT LINK

TRANCRIPT at the link. (It is NOT complete, some very important stuff is in the 3 sub videos. I'm on the first sub video right now. Please please, if you have time, do not rely on the incomplete transcripts, watch the videos. )

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

The 3 Participants:

One short thing from the transcript:

Q: At a Senate hearing in March, Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden asked the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, if there was mass data collection of Americans. He said "no." Was that a lie?

Drake: This is incredible dissembling. We're talking about the oversight committee, unable to get a straight answer because if the straight answer was given it would reveal the perfidy that's actually going on inside the secret side of the government.

[think]

1. And some will still ignore these 3 whistleblowers and focus on Greenwald

as if Greenwald is the problem.

It's rather baffling....

[elias7]

3. And some will still stay strangely focused on a mythical beast.

Every thread seems to have these side conversations righteously whining about "those people" who are roughly the same mythical group afflicted with the imaginary ODS. Enough snark and just discuss please. And respect a differing opinion.

[think]

10. I'm sorry.

I'll try to stick to posting facts.

Just very frustrated since some people seem to think facts like the statements of these whistle blowers are irrelevant. There have been many many threads about these whistle blowers yet I still see some posting and focussing on Greenwald rather the spying. It's disingenuous at best.

Again my appologies and I will try to be less snarky going foward.

[Cronus Protagonist]

15. Snark all you want - we've got more where that came from!

DU never has been and never will be a snark-free discussion board. Don't let social pressure censor you. Plenty of us here use snark as a valuable communication tool. QED

[October]

145. What a nice post. How refreshing!

I think the Snark here on DU has risen quite a bit. I've been around long enough when to remember when there was more discussion and enlightening to those who were trying to take some time to sort through stories and learn all the facts.

There are way too many one-line responses and eye rolls around here.

[cstanleytech]

149. Its not that they are irrelevant in this case but rather that its been well documented back to

Last edited Mon Jun 17, 2013, 06:00 PM - Edit history (1)

when carnivore was first mentioned which was over 14 or 15 years ago that the federal government was setting up a system to do what this one does for law enforcement use so these people arent exactly whistle blowing about something really new.
And no thats not to say I care for the program because what sane person would but on the other hand I can honestly see the need for there to be such a database like that that the feds can access for an investigation though I would rather the NSA not run it but instead a new department controlled by the judicial branch of the government so as to always be sure that the feds have to obtain a legit warrant to access it for any investigation.

[ohheckyeah]

21. Except opinion

is masquerading as fact. Listen to these videos or read the transcript. This isn't a matter of opinion.

[nadinbrzezinski]

65. You are entitled to your opinion, not your own facts.

And this is not your imaginary hate...this has been going n from well before 2008 and I fear, with attitudes like yours, will continue well after. And shocking I know, it's party independent.

[Yo_Mama]

139. That's the problem

We have to face the fact that unless there is strong agitation for meaningful change and meaningful oversight, no matter how we vote this is just going to continue to get worse.

This is a mess. I know a lot of people thought their votes for Obama would change the direction (I believed that his presidency would push back on this), but now we must confront the fact that it didn't.

We cannot have Congress being treated as those who don't have the right to know. That should be the first focus. Congress should be able to get a very full picture of what is being done. Once Congress gets that, the people can interact with their representatives to address concerns as the Constitution provides.

[nadinbrzezinski]

141. I know

[iemitsu]

175. It was congress-people who covered up the whistleblowing of these three patriots.

They are part of the problem. Not that they should be or always have been but the current crop of legislators is largely bought and paid for. They are not in office to serve "the people".
They are in on the loop.

[elias7]

186. You don't know my opinion. And my attitude is that I'm sick of the infighting

and all for stopping the simplistic assumptions people make about people they disagree with.

My opinion, FWIW, is that I was appalled at the scope of surveillance back in 2006 when that wave hit, and I'm stunned, sickened and thoroughly dismayed by the Orwellian world we have created for ourselves. I wish Obama had the cajones to have made a more noticeable difference, but then again, no one seems to, except for a few heroic souls.

I do believe, however, that no official, elected or otherwise, has any say in this, including Obama. I believe that none of them are powerful enough, none will be around long enough, all have lives and families that are expendable. I believe that if you want to know who controls the government, find out who is able to force political leaders to invoke state secrets privilege against their own principles.

[nadinbrzezinski]

192. Alas they are not simplistic

And you are tired of the infighting. We call this debate where I come from.

Regardless, what I said stands...

As is some of us are so tired of the bullshit from DC, from both parties, that from now on...I will pay attention to my local elections, where they still matter. At the federal level...it does not. So kids you are on your own...ok, I work as a political reporter, so I have to pay attention insofar as the paper is concerned. I don't have to play in federal elections though, and can always leave things blank or write in the fourth amendment.

I also will henceforth know that certain assumptions are correct...all my movements and calls are recorded, hi guys, and that this is illegal.

Will give you this...this did not start with little boots. It will not stop with this president either...it's a tool of empire.

And we are not a free country. We stopped being one well before 911. All this talk of free country is just comedic.

Oh and I forgot, it is not hate of Obama or bush. That only comes from partisans. This is not a partisan issue.

[Octafish]

39. Character Assassins

It's easier than refuting Greenwald's analysis, which has been spot-on.

[Maedhros]

83. The problem is that these people see EVERYTHING as an attack on Obama

With good reason, too -there is a concerted effort by the Republicans to slander the man: the "secret muslim" nonsense, the stupidity regarding the birth certificate, etc. These are all ridiculous whisper campaigns without a shred of validity.

When something like the Snowden leak happens, of course their natural reflexive action is to criticize the story as another Republican smear campaign. They interpret discussion of the seriousness of the issue as nothing more than concern trolling designed to discredit the President. They are no more likely to be convinced of the seriousness of the NSA surveillance threat than a Tea Partier would be convinced that mandatory purchase of private health insurance isn't socialism.

[reusrename]

169. It is interesting how this dynamic plays out in real life.

We are all influenced by others to a certain degree. If Thomas Paine had not had a influential group of admirers he probably could not have distributed his treasonous pamphlet, or even if he had, no one would have even bothered to read it. The fact that folks like Franklin were supporters is what helped to make his popular.

Snowden's views appear to be directly at odds with Obama's and that is what most likely causes this reaction. It is interesting to watch this now, especially while considering that these social networks, the manner in which we influence each other, is what is being mapped using the metadata that they are collecting without a warrant.

http://flowingdata.com/2013/06/13/sniffing-out-paul-revere-with-basic-social-network-analysis/

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

2. This means nothing to the apologist sophists on these board

but this will have a real impact on many others who read these boards who will not approve of our gov illegal spying on EVERYONE.

BET!

[Catherina]

5. Are you listening to the videos? heavy stuff. That order was highly highly classified

This is why the government is having an "apoplectic fit" according to them. No one was ever ever supposed to know.

- Not just metadata being stored but content.

- Tip of the iceberg

- When Drake blew the whistle, he blew it "to 2 Congressional 9-11 investigations, to others in Congress, and it all became a state secret. No one was going to discuss it"

- The FISA order is an extraordinary thing. It's the first them they've actually even seen one because these are so highly classified and only available to very few people. FISA is just a surveillance court. We're all foreigners now. By virtue of that order, every phone record that Verizon has is turned over each and every day to NSA. "It's simply give us the data".

- It's the FBI requesting that data. And the order directs Verizon to turn that data over to the NSA, not the FBI which means that the FBI is effectively using the NSA as a processing service to provide the FBI the information to interrogate directly. So they can retroactively analyze the activity of anybody in the country back almost 12 years.

and I'm only halfway through the first of the three sub videos

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

16. just started

and thank you sooooo much Catherina for sharing so much on this important matter, it is helping to better inform me, especially with my off line social network.

[Catherina]

33. You are so welcome! I'm learning so much from you guys too

even small comments here and there have been so important, to follow up on. For example, I didn't realize until today that there are 1.4 million people with Top Secret/Special Intelligence clearances walking around. 1.4 million! That's how many people we have in the Armed Forces!

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

34. Each 1 Teach 1

Old African Proverb, and is what makes DU such a great source for information.

[timdog44]

35. And with 1.4 million

with top secret/special intelligence clearance, there can't really be any secrecy. That is almost twice the number of physicians we have in America. Pretty stupid for intelligence.

[BlueStreak]

32. +1 Some heavy stuff. Hopefully the web of secrecy is starting to unravel

[Catherina]

88. I hope so too. Thank you for listening n/t

[timdog44]

43. I have no gotten to the videos yet.

It is late here and I don't want to wake the wife. But in one of the narratives, I thought it interesting this - Binney: "Certainly he performed a really great public service to begin with by exposing these programs and making the government in a sense publicly accountable for what they're doing. At least now they are going to have some kind of open discussion like that.
But now he is starting to talk about things like the government hacking into China and all this kind of thing. He is going a little bit too far. I don't think he had access to that program. But somebody talked to him about it, and so he said, from what I have read, anyway, he said that somebody, a reliable source, told him that the U.S. government is hacking into all these countries. But that's not a public service, and now he is going a little beyond public service.
So he is transitioning from whistle-blower to a traitor."

Now I still think the espionage on U S citizens is wrong, but Snowden stinks to high heaven. He has been ill advised on what he is doing. I think these people - Binney, Drake, and Wiebe along with Radack are the real heroes here. The Snowden/Greenwald thing is too orchestrated to be a noble patriotic act.

[JDPriestly]

84. If, as was suggested in the discussion cited in the OP,

the terrorists had, in the late '90s, already figured out that there electronic communications are under surveillance, don't you think the Chinese had figured out before Snowden's revelations that theirs probably were too?

Personally I think so. The Chinese have a lot of computer hackers and make computer equipment. How could they not know they were being hacked?

The only folks who don't suspect they are being hacked are very innocent, ordinary people with little or nothing to hide like you and me.

So the secrecy is not about keeping this program from the Chinese or the terrorists but about keeping it from you and me.

It is an NSA program that is so big it is out of control That is my impression from what I have read about it especially the court order attached to Greenwald's first Guardian article on it.

[iemitsu]

176. Only one of the three whistle-blowers suggested that

Snowden was crossing the line between whistle-blower and traitor. The others did not show support for that conclusion and did not suggest similar ones either. All three felt that Snowden had done a public service and had done so more successfully than they had, when they tried doing the same through official channels.
This young man's free life is effectively over, he is only 29. What he did for us, whatever the motivation, was brave and altruistic.
Because he is young, I'd wager that he does not yet fully understand the consequences he will face for his action. But even then, I doubt he did this without introspection or without knowing the gravity of his situation.
Snowden's actions, and the actions of other known and unknown whistle-blowers, are the actions of martyrs. You may think they are crazy or have misplaced their allegiance but it is hard to deny their sincerity.
This also lends credence to their testimony.

[G_j]

48. jaw dropping

time for people to start listening,
...and thinking.

[Catherina]

62. Good because that's my reaction too.

These open up so many cans of worms.

A few minutes ago, putting puzzle pieces together of how they bugged the UN security council and Kofi Annan, and who knows who else, I realized that NSA has ALL the data the world needs to prosecute those Iraq War criminals for Crimes Against Humanity.

The implications are massive.

[G_j]

67. excellent point

And we the people own that information.
It is ours. Of course, with SCOTUS being what it is, not likely that evidence will see the light of day. Manning did exposé some criminality, and they essentially tortured him and are threatening the death penalty.

[Ford_Prefect]

138. But that would amount to domestic spying which the NSA swears it does not do without a warrant...

It also means they probably have the truth about the Banksters on record. Can you imagine that bombshell going off in public or a congressional hearing?

[Catherina]

154. I think it would be 2 different bombshell reactions lol!

I think it would be 2 different bombshell reactions lol!

Most of the population scrambling to find everything out and rest, including many members of Congress, scurrying around like rats.

In a perfect world Anonymous would get all those files to us, to the people who paid for them.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Re Clapper: it's not the lie, it's the coverup.....remember?

[ohheckyeah]

6. "They say those revelations only hint at the programs' reach."

What a surprise.

Let the discrediting of the three men begin.

[Iggo]

7. I won't know what to think...

...until I see their high school transcripts and pictures of their girlfriends.

[ProSense]

8. Three NSA veterans

"3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so (excellent information)"

...who exposed Bush and then had their offices raided in 2007. They have a point, but they certainly can't speak to Obama's policies.

Why isn't Thomas Tamm ever mentioned? He exposed Stellar Wind.

STELLARWIND was succeeded by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications, according to the interviews and documents.

<...>

Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet, process trillions of “metadata” records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively. Metadata includes highly revealing information about the times, places, devices and participants in electronic communication, but not its contents. The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services, disclosed this month by the British newspaper the Guardian, is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY.

The other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called ­NUCLEON.

For Internet content, the most important source collection is the PRISM project reported on June 6 by The Washington Post and the Guardian. It draws from data held by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other Silicon Valley giants, collectively the richest depositories of personal information in history.

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-surveillance-architecture-includes-collection-of-revealing-internet-phone-metadata/2013/06/15/e9bf004a-d511-11e2-b05f-3ea3f0e7bb5a_story.html?hpid=z1

The above story proves the media are becoming more and more clever in their attempts to conflate Bush's illegal wiretapping with Obama's policies.

Stellar Wind was part of Bush's illegal wiretapping program.

The program was in fact a wide range of covert surveillance activities authorized by President Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. At that time, White House officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, had become convinced that FISA court procedures were too cumbersome and time-consuming to permit U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to quickly identify possible Qaeda terrorists inside the country. (Cheney's chief counsel, David Addington, referred to the FISA court in one meeting as that "obnoxious court," according to former assistant attorney general Jack Goldsmith.) Under a series of secret orders, Bush authorized the NSA for the first time to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails between the United States and a foreign country without any court review. The code name for the NSA collection activities—unknown to all but a tiny number of officials at the White House and in the U.S. intelligence community—was "Stellar Wind."

http://web.archive.org/web/20081216011008/http://www.newsweek.com/id/174601/output/print

No charges for man who leaked surveillance program

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has dropped its investigation into a former department attorney who tipped off the media about the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program.

The department informed Thomas Tamm’s attorneys that he will not be prosecuted for the leak that then-President George W. Bush called a breach of national security.

Tamm has said he called The New York Times about the program because it “didn’t smell right” and he thought the public had a right to know.

The Times won the Pulitzer Prize for its 2005 story exposing the program designed to catch terrorists by eavesdropping on international phone calls and emails of U.S. residents without court warrants.

<...>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/no-charges-for-man-who-leaked-surveillance-program/2011/04/26/AFt9o6rE_story.html

Another misleading media report implies that warrantless wiretapping is legal.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023026724

[marions ghost]

9. K&R

People may listen to them now.

[Fuddnik]

11. Dirty commies! All of tem.

[tavalon]

12. Wow, the trickle is becomming a flood

Damn shame it got blown open during this administration instead of the last but it's good that it's getting legs. Big, wet, hairy legs.

[Catherina]

14. One excellent answer about prosecuting Edward Snowden

one of them said he'd support it but only after Bush, Cheney, Rummy, etc were prosecuted. So the focus will keep shifting back to them because they're the ones who shredded this HOWEVER, this does not leave all the Democrats who collaborated with them off the hook.

[duhneece]

143. Thanks for reminding me to shift back to Bush administration on this

That's the ticket.

[Catherina]

155. & Snowden shifted it quite well today saying it was an honor 2b called a traitor by Darth Vader lol!

[ohheckyeah]

13. Drake said "Based on the response of the

US Government and the intelligence establishment, that response, they've gone apoplectic, that should tell you the truth of what he has disclosed to date."

That pretty much cinches it for me.

The videos are chilling.....it is pointed out that the FISA Court has NO jurisdiction to order domestic to domestic surveillance which is what the order that Snowden leaked did.

[Catherina]

18. oh heck yeah! you're listening!

Can you post a few notes too? My computer's CPU usage keeps maxing out and it's causing major problems for me.

That's my long explanation to ask if you'll make notes of what you heard too

[ohheckyeah]

20. There is a transcript of the videos at the link in the OP.

They said Snowden did this the only way it could be done. They tried for years to go through government channels and failed.

For the past 12 years, before the Patriot Act and FISA, the government has collected every single telephone call made on every single Verizon phone number including the data and the CONTENT.

There are anywhere from 40 to 79 companies who are being forced, by a court that has no jurisdiction to do so, to turn over data.

It's truly chilling - the transcript does a better job than I can do.

I'll try to post some more later.

[timdog44]

46. No reason these companies

could not step up to the plate. They are in a better position to defend their actions than a lone wolf.

But it is truly chilling.

[ohheckyeah]

50. In this country

librarians have more courage than CEOs.

[timdog44]

52. Sadly

that is true. And not disparaging librarians. My Mom was one and my sister-in-law, too.

[ohheckyeah]

53. As a group they are the only ones I can

think of who stood up and said no to turning info over to the government. Took some guts and they have my admiration.

[timdog44]

56. And I'll give

you a high 5 on that.

[ohheckyeah]

58. Back at ya!

[sabrina 1]

123. This is the main point that is being ignored: 'by a court that has not jurisdiction'.

The FISA Court only has jurisdiction over Foreign Intelligence requests.

IF they issued warrants, and remember this is their defense, that they did get a warrant, to collect, store and whatever it is they are claiming, DOMESTIC intel, then the FISA Court itself participated in the wrong doing. They have no jurisdiction over Domestic Intel.

[ohheckyeah]

124. Exactly - the defense of the FISA Court

overseeing things is pure bullshit. The FISA Court, as you said, doesn't have jurisdiction over domestic communications.

[Bonobo]

17. Three more narcissists! nt

[Catherina]

19. "cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood(s)"

"Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers." I think he'll go down as a cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/06/11/let_the_smearing_of_edward_snowden_begin

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

24. And they all are "suspiciously" articulate

[me b zola]

82. Yeah, that was a humdinger of a sub-thread

[hootinholler]

98. WTF? Can you link that?

Please?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

22. How corrupt is this system? Could a billionaire buy NSA information? Could a person with less than

a billion buy some information?

What if they were a stock trader? Or what if any of the NSA employees are related to stock traders?

What if a person was interested in affecting the outcome of a major lawsuit? Could they buy any NSA-type information?

Or what if a person was a major contributor to a top-level politician? Could they get special treatment and special information?

[Catherina]

28. All excellent points with frightening implications. Is this not HIGH TREASON?

Imagine what these guys did with that data. Is this not HIGH TREASON?



And I don't care if anyone trusts Obama and all the zillionaires and their lackeys who have special access. This is not about Obama. Bush's people are still in the system.

Think about it.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

31. But Obama is different. He's on our side.

[VanillaRhapsody]

78. Now you are starting to get it..

what do you forsee happening to all that data when and if you can get the Govt. to unplug from it? The data doesn't go away...what happens in a vaccum?

[pacalo]

151. I could see corporations using information about their employees & their medical records,

their customers (especially those with financial hardships), etc.

There has to be more reasons than "terrorism" for secretly spying on all Americans. The government works for corporations, not us. The scope & huge cost of this program are staggering.

[Catherina]

156. +1000000 n/t

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

23. Mr. Binney: Snowden left out the exposure of the NSA tapping of fiber optic trunk lines at ATT SF

Which harvest's, stores, and analyzes ALL DIGITAL CONTENT, which has been documented and going on since 2003.


AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908

All are saying that this is just the "tip of the iceberg".

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

25. Thomas Drake: "We are all foreigners now"

Does not even want to refer to the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) Court as FISA anymore, since they are spying on all of us now!

[Catherina]

26. 'FISA order (F for foreign) has no jurisdiction to authorize domestic surveillance'

They're not surprised this is happening but are pleased to finally have the documentation for what they blew the whistle about because these orders are on very close hold and only very few people ever see them.

Stellar Wind is mentioned but as an old, old program used before the Patriot Act, let alone the FISA Amendments Act. The government was already getting bulk data, and then some, from the Telcos in the early weeks and months after 9-11.

-

[magellan]

27. From the transcript: a problem they apparently *haven't* fixed

Binney: But when it comes to these data, the massive data information collecting on U.S. citizens and everything in the world they can, I guess the real problem comes with trust. That's really the issue. The government is asking for us to trust them.

It's not just the trust that you have to have in the government. It's the trust you have to have in the government employees, (that) they won't go in the database — they can see if their wife is cheating with the neighbor or something like that. You have to have all the trust of all the contractors who are parts of a contracting company who are looking at maybe other competitive bids or other competitors outside their — in their same area of business. And they might want to use that data for industrial intelligence gathering and use that against other companies in other countries even. So they can even go into a base and do some industrial espionage. So there is a lot of trust all around and the government, most importantly, the government has no way to check anything that those people are doing.

Q: So Snowden's ability to access information wasn't an exception?

Binney: And they didn't know he was doing (it). ... That's the point, right? ...They should be doing that automatically with code, so the instant when anyone goes into that base with a query that they are not supposed to be doing, they should be flagged immediately and denied access. And that could be done with code.

But the government is not doing that. So that's the greatest threat in this whole affair.

[KoKo]

120. BINNEY:"And they didn't know he was doing (it)...That's the point, right?

Excellent point...shoots down the Treason/Traitor Argument. It was openly accessible to those with Security Clearance... So WHY did our government allow this information out if they are so "careful about access?" How much access do the 1.4 Million who have these security clearances have that THEY can sell that info to "Other Parties" for profit where as neither Snowden or Assange did this for profit. They did it as "Whistleblowers" to inform the PEOPLE.

---------
Q: So Snowden's ability to access information wasn't an exception?

Binney: And they didn't know he was doing (it). ... That's the point, right? ...They should be doing that automatically with code, so the instant when anyone goes into that base with a query that they are not supposed to be doing, they should be flagged immediately and denied access. And that could be done with code.

But the government is not doing that. So that's the greatest threat in this whole affair.

[WillyT]

29. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[HardTimes99]

30. I can't help but note that those who seem quick to malign Snowden

(and to a lesser but still significant extent Greenwald) do not dare tackle the good character and faith of these three.

Their words tend to corroborate the broad outlines of Snowden's allegations (as if Loretta Sanchez' 'tip of the iceberg' quip or Nadler's faux pas that may not have been so faux weren't enough corroboration by themselves).

After a certain point, one must begin to pay heed to 'weight of the evidence' arguments to conclude that, where there is smoke, there is definitely smoke and almost certainly fire.

[watoos]

36. I think people are missing the point

assigning blame to Bush or Obama. Much of this surveillance is contracted out. Snowden worked for a subsidiary of the Carlyle group. The Carlyle Group is composed of Bushes, Saudis, Bin Ladens, Rumsfelds. Anyone think that Snowden might be a Carlyle crony used to make Obama look bad?

[Catherina]

38. This is not about Obama.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[QC]

105. For a good many people, EVERYTHING is about Obama.

If the sun failed to come up tomorrow, their first response would be, "I hope PBO doesn't get cold!!!"

[QC]

116. I had forgotten all about that. Please think nothing of it. n/t

[Catherina]

122. Thank you :) n/t

[treestar]

146. The media puts it

That Obama will face questions on these things. And some posters do out it directly on him. So your observation is not completely fair.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023034028

Right there and will soon see the gloating.

[sabrina 1]

37. Three decent and honorable men who tried to do the right thing. And we hear all the time that

'if only Manning had followed procedure and gone through the chain of command, gone to Congress as advised for Whistle Blowers, he'd be okay.

Well, no one took more care than Drake to follow every Whistle Blower guide line, he went through all the required steps and his reward was to be charged under The Espionage Act which could have landed him in jail for 35 years.

The night before his trial began, the case was dismissed. But not before the life and reputation of a truly honorable man, was ruined.

So following the rules didn't prevent these men's lives and livlihoods from being destroyed.

Things must be pretty bad when so many Whistle Blowers are risking everything to try to warn the American people.

[Catherina]

41. ^^^THIS^^^ No control, technobabble and word salads

and Snowden, which is why I call him a hero, went way beyond what the did and delivered the good.

In the 2nd or 3rd video (I had to reboot), from what I understand, he had physical access, because of the nature of his job, to see and then download things, he wasn't supposed to see, and that's how he was able to provide documented proof of what they'd been trying to warn the country about.

Another thing they said is that within the intelligence community, there are a lot of decent people, who are required to live squeaky clean lives to serve and protect but there's a pressure effect now over years of seeing their lawmakers and representatives betray the people and commit crimes of mind-boggling magnitude. They didn't specifically mention the Iraq war but I imagine that's one thing. Think too of Libya. Syria.

And think too of what some of these people know about Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney....

Another thing they emphasized is that there is NO oversight, NO control because Congress, and the President, are at the mercy of what these the intelligence community higher-ups choose to tell them. And they snow them with technobabble and word salads.

[ohheckyeah]

44. Absolutely - the government

destroyed these men's lives because they dared to tell the truth.

This isn't just unconstitutional or sneaky or lying, it's evil.

[sabrina 1]

61. Evil, I agree. And it's all about money and retaining the influences and power to get it.

Billions of it. The only thing that will stop them is if the people remain firm in their current position of opposition (according to the polls) to this kind of dangerous domestic spying.

The smear machine is ready and waiting as soon as a Whistle Blower emerges. But they seem to keep coming and more will come until it gives courage to all the others who are disturbed by what is going on but don't have the courage (and I don't blame them, I doubt I would either) to do what these men did.

I watched a movie last night about East Germany in the eighties, before the wall fell. It was about a Whistle Blower and those who supported him, and the Spy Agencies that were watching everyone. Once upon a time not so long ago when I watched movies like this, I was thankful for where we live. Last night it all seemed so familiar. Even the fact that some of those who were part of the spy machine, were decent men but could not do anything without exposing themselves to years in prison, or death. The Wall fell a few years later and the hero, an artist who had almost been caught but due to one brave member of the spy machine was protected, spoke to one of the worst of the persecutors and said 'how come you knew about me, I was not being surveiled'? The reply 'heh, we knew everything about you, you were always under surveillance.

Now East Germans can get their files and many have been shocked by what they find in terms of the amount of surveillance that was going on. Fortunately or them it ended, but not before many were destroyed.

We don't need to get to that point, assuming we are not. All we have to do is to stand up now, because this is how it begins.

[ohheckyeah]

64. Unfortunately,

too few people will ever hear all of this information and even fewer will care.

[Catherina]

47. (we) spied on UN Security Council and Kofi Annan - IRAQ WAR

^^Courtesy of muriel_volestrangler in Hissyspit's LBN thread.

Former minister Clare Short's claim that Britain spied on the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, ahead of the Iraq war, have been described as "deeply irresponsible" by the prime minister, Tony Blair.

The UN responded to Ms Short's claim that, during her time in government, she had read transcripts of some of Mr Annan's telephone calls, by saying that any such spying would be illegal.

Mr Blair refused to confirm or deny the claim, but insisted that intelligence officers always acted within the bounds of national and international law.
...
Asked whether British agencies had been involved in spying activities against Mr Annan, Ms Short - who quit the cabinet in protest over the reconstruction of Iraq - said: "I know, I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/26/iraq.iraq

The proof exists, in NSA's vaults, to DRAG THOSE WAR CRIMINALS TO THE HAGUE.

[sabrina 1]

63. I remember that scandal, which went away until the Wikileaks cables confirmed it. No one has been

held accountable for that either. It was and is against the law to do so, but who will have the guts to try to prosecute anyone? They know what would happen to them.

[Catherina]

66. I don't know. And they probably never will but

the whole world will realize this, if they haven't yet, and to our government, image is everything.

I have no idea where this could go. Or how. Or even if.

[iemitsu]

177. J Edgar Hoover had this kind of power (on a smaller scale)

and he was impossible to oust from his position at the FBI.
We had to wait for him to die to be rid of him. He had the goods on everyone in Washington and many outside the capital.
The government wants god-like power over each and every one of us. It is so much easier to control populations when one is all-knowing.
Even if we succeed in getting the government to stop this and other programs designed to spy on Americans, they will just employ another, even more secret, program to monitor our every breath.

[G_j]

60. so true! nt

[Lifelong Protester]

74. This statement of yours really 'got me'

Things must be pretty bad when so many Whistle Blowers are risking everything to try to warn the American people.

That certainly means we ought to be listening up and asking a lot of questions.

[pacalo]

152. I agree.

[ReRe]

40. 3 NSA Veterans Speak Out...

K&R

Marking to come back later and watch/read/comment...

[Catherina]

42. Great because this is really good stuff. You're going to appreciate it n/t

[ohheckyeah]

45. Yes, it is - thanks

for posting.

Lots of people conspicuous for their absence in the thread.

[Catherina]

55. You're welcome but seriously, I would not be so focused without DU

There's an amazing group effort happening right now. I'm so impressed. The thanks go to the community and the Admin for providing this great platform.

[ReRe]

69. I am anxious to listen to it all...

... however, I have heard Binney and Drake allot on DemocracyNow over the past year or so, but the other fellow.. I didn't know about him. Anxious to hear him.

For another good interview of William Binney, go to:

http://www.dailycaller.com/2013/06/10/what-do-they-know-about-you-an-interview-with-nsa-analyst-william-binney/

[Catherina]

70. Thank you. So much to listen to. I'm starting to feel like the NSA lol!

[ReRe]

72. :-) hahaha

[Melinda]

49. The round table discussion throughout the video is a must see. Articulate, polite, respectful...

multilayered and opinionated filled discussion. The article itself gave me great pause. This is some very serious stuff. Every last bit of it. Would everyone would lose the shields and listen to one another. Individuals and their communities need to stop looking for disparities and come together to read, discuss, listen, exchange ideas, learn, and ultimately (hopefully) make thoughtful decisions and then actions stop this madness.

I hope everyone reading this thread makes time to thoughtfully read/watch this story of the 3 NSA whistle blowers. And then think about it.

Thanks Catherine for bringing this to DU. I'm so happy you're here.

[Safetykitten]

51. Obviously made up propaganda. None of them know PowerPoint.

[Catherina]

57. Lol! Good one :) n/t

[snot]

54. K&R'd & bookmarked.

[Catherina]

59. Snot, really, don't miss all 4 videos. You won't even notice the time go buy

I know you'll find them fascinating.

[nadinbrzezinski]

68. Tomorrow, walked in from a fire

And had to do the usual. Fire still active...so scanner is still on.

[Catherina]

71. Oh :( Glad you're able to help people.

It will still be here tomorrow. Get some rest too

[nadinbrzezinski]

73. What was frustrating was...not being able to get to

Any fire official. This worked ok...but if homes were at threat forget about it.

[Lifelong Protester]

75. K & R

And will come back at another hour to view videos. Thanks to you, and all DUers who are really digging into this topic.

[Catherina]

77. You're welcome but thanks for reading it

We're all in this together. There couldn't be a finer bunch of people either.

[Catherina]

76. As an aside. Hilarious quote from the NYT about revolving doors

From a New York Times article talking about #Snowden in Hong Kong, this statement sort of reminds me of how our administration operates..

"State-owned or state-controlled enterprises.. run by Communist Party cadres who tend to rotate back and forth between government and corporate jobs every few years as part of elaborate career development procedures."

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/m2gldf

[upi402]

79. Finally - DUers are backing these folks

So many drunk on Fear-Aid when this hit the fan.
Franken will come around, you watch.

[G_j]

80. all appear to agree..

Q: What was your first reaction when you saw it?

Binney: Mine was that it's documentary evidence of what we have been saying all along, so they couldn't deny it.

Drake: For me, it was material evidence of an institutional crime that we now claim is criminal.

Binney: Which is still criminal.

Wiebe: It's criminal.

[Octafish]

81. Edward Snowden's not the first to make claims about NSA

The LA Times adds:

Edward Snowden's not the first to make claims about NSA

Previous employees have said that the cyber-spying agency is tracking Americans' communications. Intelligence officials maintain that is not the case.

By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau
June 15, 2013, 10:47 p.m.

EXCERPT...

"Here's a low-level systems guy" who copied a top-secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and a presidential directive about cyber attacks, said Mark Rumold, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group in San Francisco. "To say that there is a rigorous technical program in place to prevent broad-based lurking around through the data — I have a hard time believing that."

In a lawsuit, Rumold's group argues the NSA has used a "shadow network of surveillance devices" to acquire communications "of practically every American who uses the phone system or the Internet … in an unprecedented suspicionless general search through the nation's communications networks."

The group cites evidence from Mark Klein, who in 2006 went public with documents purporting to show a secret room at an AT&T facility in San Francisco where he believed the NSA was copying telecommunications traffic. AT&T lawyers have acknowledged in court that the documents are genuine — without confirming that they show what Klein believes.

Klein said what he found was consistent with Snowden's disclosures on NSA programs code-named Fairview and Blarney, which involved the collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past, as well as the PRISM program that accesses data from Internet companies.

SNIP...

Foreign governments and terrorists already know the NSA is targeting their telephones, emails and other communications, Cate said. "That's why Osama bin Laden's compound wasn't connected to the Internet," he added.

SOURCE:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nsa-past-leakers-20130616,0,6401942.story

Thank you, Catherina! The truth leaves a mark.

[Catherina]

87. "That's why Osama bin Laden's compound wasn't connected to the Internet,"

We need to put that in bold "That's why Osama bin Laden's compound wasn't connected to the Internet,"

and I remember the ATT room in San Francisco, people poked fun attacking those who wanted to talk about it as conspiracy theorists.

Now, omfg, now everyone *knew* lol.

I swiped this picture from you



It's brilliant for all this. Thank you! Thank you for helping everyone see place this things in perspective too.

One more thing, I don't get how people can pretend to be so blase about this, as if it's all ok.

As easily as we hack into other people's networks, what makes anyone think ours are safe. Are people really willing to take the risk pf having all that data stored there for outsiders to get to? To blackmail our politicians? Blackmail us?

[Octafish]

94. Celebrity Blackmail

And who's more blackmail-able than a crooked pol?



BUSH MADE DEAL WITH IRANIANS, PILOT SAYS

[Catherina]

102. Who is that?

Celebrity blackmail makes me think of Elliott Spitzer. If someone can dig up dirt on anyone in the country they want to, how easy it is to knock out all the good guys and replace them with more compliant people.

Who's in the picture?

[Octafish]

103. George Herbert Walker Bush, BFEE

Poppy.

[Catherina]

108. Lol, I recognized him. His High Lizardness is unmistakable

I was wondering if the girl was connected to on of the gazillion nasty stories.

That most evil man had the intelligence community at his disposal. Where were you the day John F Kennedy was murdered Mr Bush? But that's a whole gazillion other threads with so many secrets locked away in the vaults of the NSA.

[Octafish]

111. That is the issue that makes the flock of concerned ones show up PFQ...

...Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.

Gee. Instead of calling for my post to be moved to the dungeon or me banned from DU, they should ask: "Why would a guy whose oil bidness was a CIA front tell the FBI he would be in Dallas on the same day JFK was killed?" Even more importantly: "Why didn't he phone in his concern about a potential assassin before the assassination?"

Annie gave the guy a great massage. Wouldn't be high class to fail to thank her for her service.



Remember Jennifer Fitzgerald?

[Catherina]

121. Yes. But he had an *alibi*, Gerald Ford lol. These are the criminals who run our intelligence

Wake up America.

[Octafish]

127. Gerald Ford, the Warren Commission Wound Mover.

Gerald Ford: Warren Commission skeptics "no problem"

[mettamega]

85. :-( i cant get video to work

[Catherina]

86. What browser are you using and what problem are you having?

And can you get youtubes to work when they're embedded like in the video forum here?

[blkmusclmachine]

89. We're all Germans now.

[yodermon]

90. All these whistleblowers.... why is *Snowden* getting traction *now*???

What's different?

[Catherina]

97. On second thought, that's not the point of this thread n/t

[uponit7771]

100. Prove WHAT!? Nothing new!! None of these anylyst say ANYTHING new!

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

109. He provided TOP SECRET documentary proof - as noted in the video

Do you think this is all in the government officials heads?!

And as the apopolitic response by gov demonstrate all too well, the authenticity of the documents are not in dispute.

Please, inform yourself on these important issues by taking advantage of the many useful links provided by the many awesome people who participate here instead of braying ignorance.

[uponit7771]

110. Of what!?!!?!? Regards

[Luminous Animal]

112. "material evidence of an institutional crime"

Q: What did you learn from the document — the Verizon warrant issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — that Snowden leaked?

Drake: It's an extraordinary order. I mean, it's the first time we've publicly seen an actual, secret, surveillance-court order. I don't really want to call it "foreign intelligence" (court) anymore, because I think it's just become a surveillance court, OK? And we are all foreigners now. By virtue of that order, every single phone record that Verizon has is turned over each and every day to NSA.

There is no probable cause. There is no indication of any kind of counterterrorism investigation or operation. It's simply: "Give us the data." ...

.......


Binney: What it is really saying is the NSA becomes a processing service for the FBI to use to interrogate information directly. ... The implications are that everybody's privacy is violated, and it can retroactively analyze the activity of anybody in the country back almost 12 years.

[uponit7771]

128. NOT unconsitutional, Meta Data is NOT the costumers...You through out trash they can look through it

..you leave a receipt at the store they can look through it.

I disagree that it's UC

[sikofit3]

189. Meta Data

Meta Data is data about the data meaning that they get a general large set of data and then they populate it with attributes which goes far beyond what we throw out and receipts. It is a description of the data so if you think about that, you will begin to see the problems here. Then they take that data and metadata and they use what ever program they have to do what ever they want with it and these possibilities are almost endless.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

126. The NSA Spying on ALL American's Comunicatons

Are you not watching or reading what the whistle blowers are saying?

[uponit7771]

129. Meta Data = communications?! That's not what Meta Data is

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

131. The US GOV is spying on both the metadata AND the content

[uponit7771]

132. Link and quote on the content, that even sounds crazy....there isn't equipment or people

...enough to do that in a practical way

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

133. It's all over DU, but just because you can't imagine it only reveals your lack of imagination

Not to mention tech knowledge.

[uponit7771]

134. "itls all over DU" is NOT a link and quote, I'm asking you to source your claim. Regards

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

136. This very thread discusses the massive government spying on ALL Americans (LINK)

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/04/70619

You're welcome

[sikofit3]

190. Exactly!

This is what one of the whistle blowers specifically said many times in the videos in the OP. They are collecting ALL of it even through the fiber networking that we all use to get on the internet! It is astounding.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

106. He provided TOP SECRET documentary proof - as noted in the video

[Catherina]

117. I changed my mind and deleted my response because if people haven't even watched the video,

any comments they make here aren't really to discuss the subject of this thread.

Next thing you know, there will be baseless accusations that this is all a conspiracy against Obama as if this was all about him.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

130. Use them as an opportunity to repeat what the whistle blowers are saying

Please do not be discouraged, though these people are being deliberately obtuse and often rude, it actually helps the cause of spreading the word since your text will be indexed by search engines which will help even more people locate and read/view this important information, beyond even DUers.

Spreading the word will is our most important task to battle the authoritarian totalitarians.

[Catherina]

157. I'm not discouraged lol. And I'm very grateful others have the patience

[AnnieK401]

91. The NSA allegations/revelations should not come as a surprise

to anyone who was paying attention. I remember hearing about this years ago, then the story just never seemed to go anywhere. OK, maybe this latest revelation spelled it out in black and white and we have a better idea of the scope of the operation. Still, no one disputes that this has been going on for years. The problem is 3 branches of Govt. authorized this. And forgive me but I do accept the fact that there is information Gov. officials (the POTUS, Congress people, etc.) have that I don't and probably shouldn't have access to. Yes, Obama spoke out against this as Senator/candidate Obama. However, when he became President Obama his job became to carry out the law not to legislate. He was also then responsible for keeping us safe. Not to mention that Republicans were constantly accusing him of being "soft" on security. Guess that's kind of hard to reconcile with the narrative of him being a warmonger who overreaches on National Security. Call me an Obama apologist if you like, but this is the truth. OK, yes we should have this conversation. But at some point we have to accept that the people who are in charge of keeping us safe do have access to information that the general public can not have. We have to elect people we have a basic trust of. One last thought, does anyone not find the timing of the latest revelations suspicious. This is distracting from immigration reform and the imminent completion of the implementation of the ACA, which some (OK basically liberal) sources are saying will make the GOP look bad for fighting so hard against it. Nuff said.

[Catherina]

101. This issue is 20 times more important than immigration reform or the ACA

This issue is why we even have an immigration problem in the first place. This issue of spying on the whole world to rearrange it the way we want, is how we identify, for example, students in universities to form those cute little movements for color revolutions and overthrow legitimate governments so the 1% can make huge profits.

It's why we have a Health Care Problem in the first place. The intelligence budget is a trillion dollars a year that could have gone, for all those years, into public healthcare, schools, rent subsidies for the elderly, heating oil for them, public transportation, education, housing....

This issue is how all our activist movements fail in this country and they maintain the illusion that we have freedom when we can't even hold a protest without sticking to a pre-approved route and being spied upon so they can infiltrate our movements and totally violate our privacy.

This issue is one of the reasons we have so many wars and conflicts. An out of control gazillion dollar monster that collaborates in fabricating intelligence to mislead and blackmails people into a gazillion dollar perpetual war machine.

That doesn't mean the other issues are unimportant or that we should drop them but - No other issue is more important or more pressing than this one.

At least that's how I see it.

[AnnieK401]

104. Point taken

[Catherina]

107. Thanks Annie. This is what I wrote in another thread and stand by it

even if it makes people angry, because Martin Luther King's words are very clear. So clear that this is when they decided he had go because putting him under surveillance was not longer enough.

A hero on a staggering scale

This is why the machine is out in full force against him (Edward Snowden). If Martin Luther King were alive today, he'd be right under the bus with Snowden, thrown under by the same people who have no respect for constitutional rights or human rights.

... these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

– Thomas Jefferson, August 1774

A Time to Break Silence

...

And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction (...), many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

...

(...) There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war (...) and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup (...), and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

...

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. (...) years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

...

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

[xchrom]

92. du rec.

[Buzz Clik]

93. Bookmarking this for this next "this is Obama's fault" thread.

[idwiyo]

95. K&R

[Puzzledtraveller]

96. k&r

So the Obama admin is considering releasing the court order. The administration never denied in whole the details in the leak, yet we have seen a constant effort to discredit and or to say that it was all made up by the avid fans and bought and paid for corporate mouthpieces that moonlight as representatives, senators and media stooges.

[jsr]

99. This is a must read.

[nashville_brook]

153. +1

[ohheckyeah]

114. K&R

[AtheistCrusader]

115. I've heard of Binney

Never heard of the other two before. Thanks for this.

[Catherina]

118. You're welcome. I learned a lot too. n/t

[L0oniX]

119. Democracy is an illusion and the Constitution is the stage of a puppet show.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

125. Clearly these three men are -

out to discredit the Obama Presidency.


Or something like that.

[Catherina]

158. I know. They planned it years before he was even a Senator

Most of the Conspiracy Theories are out of this world.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

195. They wanted to make sure it was all in place --

so that O would fall right in to their trap!

I swear to god, I feel like I've been taking crazy pills when I read some of the rationalizing/attacking/dreck that has surfaced since this first broke. It's really been stunning. Thanks for your efforts on this.

[Catherina]

196. Thanks HHNF. I had to turn it off to not see that and not to get distracted, discouraged or angry

The conspiracy theories would be comic relief if the comedians weren't so serious about them. Stunning is the word

[toby jo]

135. Thanks, Catherina.

I've been involved in trying to get issues out that are classified - radio frequency weapons systems and their use upon the public, etc. It's hard to stay on topic and get the right message out when, at root, security issues are involved.

In today's environ, I'd have to ask DU'ers how they would keep everyone safe, because this is what O is going through.
What weapons at your disposal would you consider? Folks here are generally not into weaponizing situations, and our country is tech/weaponry heavy, so you have to sift through the chaff to get to the grit.

All that matters is the grit.

But the best comment on this thread, is how even congressman and the president are not getting the truth from our intelligence overseers. They're getting 'word salads'. This has stopped our group more than anything.

A long time ago, the 80's, someone from the 'black market underground' of our grapevine told me 'we are living in 1984, only nobody knows it'. I laughed then but don't anymore. We are being crushed by too much money in the intelligence field.

These additional stories give weight. Thanks much.

[Catherina]

159. Thank you Toby Jo. Excellent comments n/t

[snagglepuss]

137. Bkmrd to read later

[Catherina]

160. It's a lot of reading so if you have limited time, just listen to the videos

The transcript in the article is only about 1/5 of what's in the videos (as least yesterday).

[limpyhobbler]

140. kick/rec. Brilliant. Glad this story is not going away. nt

[Yo_Mama]

142. There were both internal and DOJ attacks against these people

Understanding the history of what happened to them is important also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailblazer_Project

[KoKo]

144. BTW...was shocked to see this from USA Today...And Pleased since

Democracy Now has been the only voice I've seen who have focused on these three Whistle Blowers and given them consistent airtime in interviews through the years.

Susan Page the co-author of this piece has always struck me as the "insider journalist" (well aren't they all these days) but, who like Jonathan Alter...has been successful in always appearing to be unbiased and informative...but slanting towards the PTB for favor when it suits them.

So, to see this from USA Today is very interesting... and a hopeful sign, imho.

[Catherina]

162. Imagine if we didn't have DemocracyNow and all their archives

DemocracyNow! alone is enough to refute the entire MSM and that hilarious NPR.

[carolinayellowdog]

147. three of the top five most-rec'd posts today are yours, deservedly

For me, in the past week, you have become the most-trusted-DUer with every day further solidifying that impression. The authoritarians have turned praising fellow DUers into a game to encourage one another's abusive behavior, so I'm reluctant to follow suit with that kind of post-- but you are a ray of disinfectant sunshine!

[Catherina]

163. I'm honestly humbled by what you just wrote

Speechless really. But thank you so much. There are so many trustworthy DUers here, many of them in this thread. I'm extremely grateful that so many masks came off this week so that DU can get back to doing what it does best, which is hunt for the truth and have substantive conversations. Everyone doesn't have to agree but the juvenile behavior has got to go. Thank you so many times Carolinayellowdog. At your service

[iemitsu]

178. Spies here on DU too? Of course.

Called trolls, or shills or other disparaging things, they play the same roll on public websites as the NSA plays with the phone companies. They are here to record information and plant counter-intelligence perspective into the discussion. They are trained and they are legion.
How many layers of espionage frost our lives? Who knows what, about you: at work, at home, where you bank, internet sites you access, what you look like (facial recognition), the last time you stopped at 7/11 (camera records), what you eat (Safeway card), what clothes you wear (credit card info), how often and for how long you exercise, your driving record, etc.?
We should learn to be less creatures of habit, more random in our actions, less predictable. That would confuse them.

[joeybee12]

148. And the 10 things we didn't know about them will be posted in, 3..2..1..

[Earth_First]

150. +100

Wait for it.

Thank you for a wonderfully important OP!

K&R!

[Catherina]

164. You're welcome. Everyone who said TY is welcome. I love doing this

I love that people care so much

[Logical]

161. Nice post. Thanks for doing it!!! n-t

[steve2470]

165. thanks for posting this, everyone needs to hear these guys

The issue is NOT Snowden. As Will Pitt said, I could care less about him.

[ymetca]

166. We're obviously all being spied upon

Crooks and Liars has an interesting article, citing more sources that this wiretapping is pretty much wholesale and out of control.

[Catherina]

168. Thank you. It looks like a keeper, I bookmarked it to read tonight

Welcome to DU

[Go Vols]

188. +1

[Hekate]

167. Some intelligent and informed information. Kick. Rec.

Now we're getting somewhere.

[mia]

170. Thanks for this post.

Listening to it now.

[slipslidingaway]

171. Thank you, just started listening to the interviews. n/t

[KoKo]

172. Hopefully the "Night Crowd" can take time to read Transcripts or watch the Videos of this

tonight.

[Agony]

173. Yeah! a thread worth kicking!

Thank you very much, Catherina.

Radack " Last year alone, in 2012, they approved 1,856 applications and they denied none. And that is typical from everything that has happened in previous years. ... I know the government has been asserting that all of this is kosher and legitimate because the FISA court signed off on it. The FISA court is a secret court — operates in secret. There is only one side and has rarely disapproved anything."

GREAT! the old rubber stamperoo! out-of-control secrecy...

Cheerio!
Agony

[Catherina]

180. 1,856 applications and they denied none. lol!

I would like to see this secret court.

"the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a Police department would have to, the "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp."

Edward Snowden today

[iemitsu]

174. I want the names of the congress-people, who these

whistleblowers revealed their concerns to. Their names and the names of other elected officials, who helped to sweep the information under the rug.
The part of "oversight" that works is the individual responsibility to expose wrong-doing. The part that doesn't work is that whistleblowers have to report wrong-doing to congress, a bunch of people who can't be trusted to protect us.
If we want workable oversight, of these covert programs, we need to have whistleblowers reporting to the foreign press.

[Catherina]

179. Agreed! I can't speak for them but it's got to be the Gang of Eight

Edward Snowden specifically fingered them the House & Senate Select Committees on Intelligence. I don't know who else but like you, I;d like to know.

I pasted the current members at the end of this post. I don't know who was on the Committee when these guys went to talk to them.

Taken from today's thread "Edward Snowden ONLINE NOW" Transcript/Raw data of what he really said & how he said it


[hr]12.34pm ET

Question:
User avatar for AhBrightWings
AhBrightWings
17 June 2013 2:12pm

My question: given the enormity of what you are facing now in terms of repercussions, can you describe the exact moment when you knew you absolutely were going to do this, no matter the fallout, and what it now feels like to be living in a post-revelation world? Or was it a series of moments that culminated in action? I think it might help other people contemplating becoming whistleblowers if they knew what the ah-ha moment was like. Again, thanks for your courage and heroism.

Answer:

I imagine everyone's experience is different, but for me, there was no single moment. It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress - and therefore the American people - and the realization that that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight***, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper - the Director of National Intelligence - baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.

[hr]

The current Gang of Eight

Background

The President of the United States is required by 50 U.S.C. § 413(a)(1) to "ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States." However, under 50 U.S.C. § 413b(c)(2), the President may elect to report instead to the Gang of Eight when he thinks "it is essential to limit access" to information about a covert action.[not verified in body]
...
The individuals are sworn to secrecy and there is no vote process

The term "Gang of Eight" gained wide currency in the coverage of the Bush administration's warrantless domestic spying program, in the context that no members of Congress other than the Gang of Eight were informed of the program, and they were forbidden to disseminate knowledge of the program to other members of Congress. The Bush administration has asserted that the briefings delivered to the Gang of Eight sufficed to provide Congressional oversight of the program and preserve the checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches.[1]

Members of the Gang of Eight (intelligence)

United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:

Mike Rogers (R): (Chair)
C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D): (Ranking member)

United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

Dianne Feinstein (D): (Chair)
Saxby Chambliss (R): (Ranking member)

Leadership in theUnited States House of Representatives:

John Boehner (R): (Speaker of the House)
Nancy Pelosi (D): (Minority leader)

Leadership in the United States Senate:

Harry Reid (D): (Majority leader)
Mitch McConnell (R): (Minority leader)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_%28intelligence%29

[iemitsu]

182. Thanks for identifying these criminal members of congress.

Guess it explains why Dianne Feinstein was livid about the revelations. Bound to make her look bad.
The others too. The arrogance of these people is beyond belief.

[Catherina]

184. And Pelosi too. And Boehner of course too.

Pelosi... I can literally see her wringing her hands, something that's normally only done in books.

And don't you think that, I mean, of all questions, let's just be completely removed from – how on Earth can we have a situation where we are so vulnerable, so exposed, with so much information about how we acquire intelligence to the point that the head of the DNI is saying that it seriously hurts our national security, is that what he said, words to that effect? How could we be so – by one person walking out the door with access to so much information?

http://www.democraticleader.gov/Transcript_of_Pelosi_Weekly_Press_Conference_on_GOP_Obstructionism

They're not accountable to us. We have no oversight whatsoever.

[iemitsu]

185. Nope. Just a bunck of self-important fools,

who have convinced themselves that if they have all the power and money then all of us will be fine.

[slipslidingaway]

181. Transcripts do not do the interviews justice, thanks! n/t

[Catherina]

183. No they don't. Not at all. I wonder if that's for legal reasons?

I'm glad you watched them. Thank you Solidarity

[slipslidingaway]

197. Not sure why, that is why everyone should watch the videos ...

thanks.

[sibelian]

187. Thank you Catherina. K+R

[woo me with science]

191. Huge, huge K&R

Thank you, Catherina.

[Go Vols]

193. Kick

[Catherina]

194. From The Atlantic: Snowden succeeded where we failed. And a list

3 Former NSA Employees Praise Edward Snowden, Corroborate Key Claims

The men, all whistleblowers, say he succeeded where they failed.
Conor Friedersdorf Jun 18 2013, 8:30 AM ET

...

Thomas Drake, William Binney, and J. Kirk Wiebe each protested the NSA in their own rights. "For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens," the newspaper reports. "They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media."

In other words, they blew the whistle in the way Snowden's critics suggest he should have done. Their method didn't get through to the members of Congress who are saying, in the wake of the Snowden leak, that they had no idea what was going on. But they are nonetheless owed thanks.

And among them, they've now said all of the following:

-- His disclosures did not cause grave damage to national security.

-- What Snowden discovered is "material evidence of an institutional crime."

-- As a system administrator, Snowden "could go on the network or go into any file or any system and change it or add to it or whatever, just to make sure -- because he would be responsible to get it back up and running if, in fact, it failed. So that meant he had access to go in and put anything. That's why he said, I think, 'I can even target the president or a judge.' If he knew their phone numbers or attributes, he could insert them into the target list which would be distributed worldwide. And then it would be collected, yeah, that's right. As a super-user, he could do that."

-- "The idea that we have robust checks and balances on this is a myth."

-- Congressional overseers "have no real way of seeing into what these agencies are doing. They are totally dependent on the agencies briefing them on programs, telling them what they are doing."

-- Lawmakers "don't really don't understand what the NSA does and how it operates. Even when they get briefings, they still don't understand."

-- Asked what Edward Snowden should expect to happen to him, one of the men, William Binney, answered, "first tortured, then maybe even rendered and tortured and then incarcerated and then tried and incarcerated or even executed." Interesting that this is what a whistleblower thinks the U.S. government will do to a citizen. The abuse of Bradley Manning worked.

-- "There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. It's a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered."

...

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/3-former-nsa-employees-praise-edward-snowden-corroborate-key-claims/276964/

[woo me with science]

198. kick