Indi Guy
Indi Guy's JournalSnowden: US would have buried NSA red flags
Source: MSNBC
For former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, the decision to spill the beans wasn’t about joining the ranks of history’s most infamous whistleblowers.
In a New York Times interview, the 30-year-old said he had no faith in the internal reporting channels when he leaked thousands of classifed documents, exposing the breadth of the U.S. government’s surveillance programs. Snowden said his efforts to report his concerns through the proper chain of command “would have been buried forever,” leaving him “discredited and ruined.”
“The system does not work,” said Snowden in a wide-ranging interview spanning several days last week. “You have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it.”
Snowden learned that lesson the hard way....
Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/news-nation/bad-blood
Texas GOP candidate: 4 liberal states should secede
Source: USA Today
Forget about Texas seceding from the union. It's solidly blue states like California, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut that should get the boot, jokes a Republican running for Texas lieutenant governor.
"I'm in favor of expulsion," Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson told the Associated Press. "New York, California — and there's some good people in New York and California — but their legislatures' aren't representing them."
Patterson may only be half-joking.
Earlier this year, more than 100,000 people signed a petition on the White House website calling on the Obama administration to allow Texas to secede and create its own government. It was similar to petitions filed by people in Alabama, Louisiana and other states where Obama isn't popular. The White House responded by citing an 1869 Supreme Court decision that found individual states do not have the right to secede...
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/onpolitics/2013/10/11/jerry-patterson-texas-liberal-states-secede/2966519/
I get it...
...Only a few constitutional amendments involved there.
Plan B: Secession.
OK Texas; when hurricane Lee hits Corpus Christie, you're on your own. No declaration of a "national" disaster. No federal intervention or funding for rescue, recovery, cleanup, rebuilding etc.
All your politics & politicians will be local & I guarantee you that every last one of your "leaders" will be swept out of office for pandering to the mindless ideologues who considered secession to be a viable expression of opposition to the current administration.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the divided state of Texas, and against the republic which it stands against..."
Oh that's right Mr. Patterson, your statements were only hyperbole.
Julian Assange: Surveillance Apparatus ‘a Threat to U.S. Democracy’
Source: ABC News
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today dismissed criticism from British and U.S. intelligence officials who called recent leaks about secret surveillance programs a “gift” to terrorists, saying in an interview on “This Week” that the programs are a “threat to U.S. democracy.”
Andrew Parker, the new head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, said in a speech Tuesday that the leaking of classified information about surveillance programs such as those by Edward Snowden “hands the advantage to the terrorists.”
NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander said Thursday that terrorists “listen, they see what has come out in the press and they adjust. … I believe people will die because we won’t be able to stop some of those threats.”
Assange, the mastermind behind WikiLeaks’ release of tens of thousands of secret documents online in recent years, rejected that notion today. “Every time the press embarrasses the security establishment, shows they have been acting unlawfully, against what they have said to Congress or to the media, they trot out this old canard, that some speculative harm sometime in the future might happen, when we’re discussing harm that is happening right now, as a result of these abusive programs,” Assange told George Stephanopoulos...
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/10/julian-assange-surveillance-apparatus-a-threat-to-u-s-democracy/
NSA Veterans: The White House Is Hanging Us Out to Dry
Source: Foreign Policy
Gen. Keith Alexander and his senior leadership team at the National Security Agency are angry and dispirited by what they see as the White House's failure to defend the spy agency against criticism of its surveillance programs, according to four people familiar with the NSA chiefs' thinking. The top brass of the country's biggest spy agency feels they've been left twisting in the wind, abandoned by the White House and left largely to defend themselves in public and in Congress against allegations of unconstitutional spying on Americans.
Former intelligence officials closely aligned with the NSA criticized President Obama for saying little publicly to defend the agency, and for not emphasizing that some leaked or officially disclosed documents arguably show the NSA operating within its legal authorities.
"There has been no support for the agency from the President or his staff or senior administration officials, and this has not gone unnoticed by both senior officials and the rank and file at the Fort," said Joel Brenner, the NSA's one-time inspector general, referring to the agency's headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland.
The weak backing from top administration officials has aggravated the relationship between Alexander and the White House, where he has never been warmly embraced. The NSA now finds itself without the strong, visible support of the President at a time of extraordinary political vulnerability, with the agency's secrets laid bare and its future in doubt....
Read more: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/10/10/nsa_veterans_the_white_house_is_hanging_us_out_to_dry
Ex-NSA Chief Jokes About Putting Edward Snowden on Kill List...
Source: The Hill
Former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden joked Thursday about putting Edward Snowden on a kill list. Hayden noted that Snowden has been nominated for a European human rights award.
"I must admit, in my darker moments over the past several months, I'd also thought of nominating Mr. Snowden, but it was for a different list," Hayden said during a panel discussion on cybersecurity hosted by The Washington Post.
The audience laughed, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was also on the panel, responded, "I can help you with that."
Both officials argued that Snowden's leaks about the scope of the NSA's surveillance programs have done serious damage to U.S. national security...
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/326315-former-nsa-chief-jokes-about-putting-snowden-on-kill-list
A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks...
Source: Washington Post
Just one major telecommunications company refused to participate in a legally dubious NSA surveillance program in 2001. A few years later, its CEO was indicted by federal prosecutors. He was convicted, served four and a half years of his sentence and was released this month. Prosecutors claim Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was guilty of insider trading, and that his prosecution had nothing to do with his refusal to allow spying on his customers without the permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But to this day, Nacchio insists that his prosecution was retaliation for refusing to break the law on the NSA's behalf.
After his release from custody Sept. 20, Nacchio told the Wall Street Journal that he feels "vindicated" by the content of the leaks that show that the agency was collecting American's phone records.
Nacchio was convicted of selling of Qwest stock in early 2001, not long before the company hit financial troubles. However, he claimed in court documents that he was optimistic about the firm's ability to win classified government contracts — something they'd succeeded at in the past. And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract. He reportedly refused because his lawyers believed such an action would be illegal and the NSA wouldn't go through the FISA Court. And then, he says, unrelated government contracts started to disappear.
His narrative matches with the warrantless surveillance program reported by USA Today in 2006 which noted Qwest as the lone holdout from the program, hounded by the agency with hints that their refusal "might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government." But Nacchio was prevented from bringing up any of this defense during his jury trial — the evidence needed to support it was deemed classified and the judge in his case refused his requests to use it. And he still believes his prosecution was retaliatory for refusing the NSA requests for bulk access to customers' phone records. Some other observers share that opinion, and it seems consistent with evidence that has been made public, including some of the redacted court filings unsealed after his conviction...
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he-feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/
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