June 24, 2013

Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On?

June 24, 2013
Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On?
Posted by John Cassidy



...

More unnerving is the way in which various members of the media have failed to challenge the official line. Nobody should be surprised to see the New York Post running the headline: “ROGUES’ GALLERY: SNOWDEN JOINS LONG LIST OF NOTORIOUS, GUTLESS TRAITORS FLEEING TO RUSSIA.” But where are Snowden’s defenders? As of Monday, the editorial pages of the Times and the Washington Post, the two most influential papers in the country, hadn’t even addressed the Obama Administration’s decision to charge Snowden with two counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of theft.

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After being criticized on Twitter, Gregory said that he wasn’t taking a position on Snowden’s actions; he was merely asking a question. I’m all for journalists asking awkward questions, too. But why aren’t more of them being directed at Hayden and Feinstein and Obama, who are clearly intent on attacking the messenger?

To get a different perspective on Snowden and his disclosures, here’s a portion of an interview that ABC—the Australian Broadcasting Company, not the Disney subsidiary—did today with Thomas Drake, another former N.S.A. employee, who, in 2010, was charged with espionage for revealing details about an electronic-eavesdropping project called Trailblazer, a precursor to Operation Prism, one of the programs that Snowden documented. (The felony cases against Drake, as my colleague Jane Mayer has written, eventually collapsed, and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.)

INTERVIEWER: Not everybody thinks Edward Snowden did the right thing. I presume you do…

DRAKE: I consider Edward Snowden as a whistle-blower. I know some have called him a hero, some have called him a traitor. I focus on what he disclosed. I don’t focus on him as a person. He had a belief that what he was exposed to—U.S. actions in secret—were violating human rights and privacy on a very, very large scale, far beyond anything that had been admitted to date by the government. In the public interest, he made that available.

INTERVIEWER: What do you say to the argument, advanced by those with the opposite viewpoint to you, especially in the U.S. Congress and the White House, that Edward Snowden is a traitor who made a narcissistic decision that he personally had a right to decide what public information should be in the public domain?

DRAKE: That’s a government meme, a government cover—that’s a government story. The government is desperate to not deal with the actual exposures, the content of the disclosures. Because they do reveal a vast, systemic, institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan surveillance state that has clearly gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorism—far beyond.

As far as I’m concerned, that about covers it. I wish Snowden had followed Drake’s example and remained on U.S. soil to fight the charges against him. But I can’t condemn him for seeking refuge in some place that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States. If he’d stayed here, he would almost certainly be in custody, with every prospect of staying in a cell until 2043 or later. The Obama Administration doesn’t want him to come home and contribute to the debate about national security versus liberty that the President says is necessary. It wants to lock him up for a long time.

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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/06/demonizing-edward-snowden-which-side-are-you-on.html

June 24, 2013

Press Release: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA): Snowden’s Asylum

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2013
1:28 PM


CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Snowden’s Asylum

WASHINGTON - June 24 - MARJORIE COHN, marjorielegal at gmail.com, www.marjoriecohn.com
Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, Cohn is also the author of The United States and Torture and Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent.

She said today: “Since the United States is charging Edward Snowden under the Espionage Act, he has a well-founded fear of prosecution if he is returned to the U.S. Given the torture of Bradley Manning, who was kept in solitary confinement for nine months in Virginia, Snowden would also have a well-founded fear of persecution in the U.S. Thus Snowden can probably make a good case for political asylum in Ecuador. Ironically, the antagonistic policies the U.S. government maintains against Cuba and Venezuela will make those countries unsympathetic to a U.S. request for extradition of Snowden if he stops there on his way to Ecuador.”

NORMAN SOLOMON, solomonprogressive at gmail.com, normansolomon.com
Solomon is the founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. His is the co-founder of RootsAction.org, whose petition titled, “Mr. President, Hands Off Edward Snowden,” has garnered over 20,000 signatures since last night. He spoke with RT yesterday about Snowden’s political asylum process. Solomon wrote a column today for the independent progressive news site Common Dreams titled, “The Pursuit of Edward Snowden: Washington in a Rage, Striving to Run the World.”

Said Solomon: “The same government that continues to expand its invasive dragnet of surveillance, all over the United States and the rest of the world, is now asserting its prerogative to drag Snowden back to the USA from anywhere on the planet. It’s not only about punishing him and discouraging other potential whistleblowers. Top U.S. officials are also determined to—quite literally—silence Snowden’s voice, as Bradley Manning’s voice has been nearly silenced behind prison walls. …

“Those at the top of the U.S. government insist that Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning have betrayed it. But that’s backward. Putting its money on vast secrecy and military violence instead of democracy, the government has betrayed Snowden and Manning and the rest of us.”

MARK WEISBROT, via Dan Beeton, beeton at cepr.net
Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which just released a statement titled, “Ecuador or Another Country Should Grant Asylum to Snowden, CEPR Co-Director Says.” He has written extensively on Ecuador.

Weisbrot said: “It is important that everyone who believes in freedom to defend Ecuador from Washington’s threats, which are very likely if the Ecuadorean government grants asylum to Snowden. Other governments around the world – whose citizens’ rights have been violated by NSA surveillance overreach – should stand behind Ecuador if it chooses to grant Snowden asylum, as should NGO’s. To charge Snowden with espionage is a severe form of political persecution.

“There is good reason for other Latin American countries especially to express solidarity with Ecuador, since so many of them have been subject to U.S. government interference and hostility merely for pursuing alternative paths of economic development, governance and diplomacy than those desired by Washington.

“The Obama administration has prosecuted more than twice as many people under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined. This demonstrates – as do many of the details of these cases themselves – that the administration is applying the law arbitrarily in order to silence people who are exposing what are sometimes criminal and dangerous abuses. Ecuador would be right to see such actions as political persecution and therefore approve this request for asylum.”

See also: “U.S. Seemingly Unaware of Irony in Accusing Snowden of Spying” from the New Yorker, and “Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.” from McClatchy’s Washington Bureau.
###

A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.

http://www.accuracy.org/release/snowdens-asylum/

June 24, 2013

Amnesty International: USA must not hunt down or prosecute whistleblower Edward Snowden

Edit to add the poster Amnesty just tweeted out

June 24, 2013

Somebody please tell Lindsey Graham to catch up. He has written to Russia. & Negative impact China

and in related news

June 24, 2013

Democratic rights are at stake in fight to defend Edward Snowden

Democratic rights are at stake in fight to defend Edward Snowden
24 June 2013

There is something profoundly unsettling about seeing a young person fleeing a vindictive government for having exposed a massive political conspiracy against the democratic rights of the American people and the people of the world.

Edward Snowden has been charged with espionage and is being denounced by American politicians and media commentators as a traitor who is spying for the enemy. But to whom is he giving information? To the American people. In the eyes of Snowden’s accusers, the enemy is the American people.

The people have a right to know that every telephone call is recorded, every email is monitored, every Skype conversation is listened into; that every communication, Internet download and credit card purchase is collected and stored in vast National Security Agency (NSA) databases. Those private communications that are not immediately wiretapped or read are collected for future snooping.

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The endless stream of denunciations of Snowden by politicians and media commentators continues unabated. It is an attempt, first, to disorient public opinion and shift attention from the real issue raised by his exposure of US spying programs, and, second, to make an example of Snowden so as to intimidate others from exposing government crimes.

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Read more: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/24/pers-j24.html

June 24, 2013

I'm laughing, laughing my head off lol! "We know nothing"

Who's playing chess now lol?

June 23, 2013

Syria falls under manufacturing consent but I don't think Snowden has anything on Syria

If he does, I'll be more amazed than I am that someone so young, surrounded by those slithering snakes, grasped so much. Who knows, he very well might. He's surprised even cynical old me so far with this fresh outburst of real hope.

Can you tell our politicians are losing it? Demanding, urging, pleading, threatening. And all this after infiltrating and agitating like in Putin's case where they tried to destabilize Russia several times by using the USAID to fund student groups for another fake color revolution. And taunting them with it.

Someone tell ole gramps here that he doesn't have the first clue about chess

June 23, 2013

US politicians warn Russian president of "serious consequences" if they do not hand over Snowden

US politicians issue warning to Russia as Edward Snowden arrives in Moscow

Senator warns Vladimir Putin of 'serious consequences' if country neglects to send NSA whistleblower back to US

Dominic Rushe in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 June 2013 16.14 BST



US politicians attacked Vladimir Putin on Sunday and called for Russia to hand over Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who admitted leaking top secret spying documents.

As Snowden landed in Moscow after leaving Hong Kong, where the US had requested his arrest, leading Democratic senator Chuck Schumer accused the Russian president of sticking a finger in the eye of the US.

"The bottom line is very simple: allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States, whether it is Syria, Iran and now of course with Snowden," Schumer said on CNN's State of the Union.

"That's not how allies should treat each other and I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship."

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/23/edward-snowden-us-politicians-react

June 23, 2013

MI5 feared GCHQ went 'too far' with NSA. Retroactive warrants. Targets outside of the UK (us lol)

MI5 feared GCHQ went 'too far' over phone and internet monitoring

Amid leaks from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, senior intelligence source reveals worries were voiced in 2008

Nick Davies
The Observer, Saturday 22 June 2013 20.18 BST


GCHQ taps can intercept UK and US phone and internet traffic. Photograph: EPA

Senior figures inside British intelligence have been alarmed by GCHQ's secret decision to tap into transatlantic cables in order to engage in the bulk interception of phone calls and internet traffic.

According to one source who has been directly involved in GCHQ operations, concerns were expressed when the project was being discussed internally in 2008: "We felt we were starting to overstep the mark with some of it. People from MI5 were complaining that they were going too far from a civil liberties perspective … We all had reservations about it, because we all thought: 'If this was used against us, we wouldn't stand a chance'."

The Guardian revealed on Friday that GCHQ has placed more than 200 probes on transatlantic cables and is processing 600m "telephone events" a day as well as up to 39m gigabytes of internet traffic. Using a programme codenamed Tempora, it can store and analyse voice recordings, the content of emails, entries on Facebook, the use of websites as well as the "metadata" which records who has contacted who. The programme is shared with GCHQ's American partner, the National Security Agency.

Interviews with the UK source and the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden raise questions about whether the programme:

■ Exploits existing law which was passed by parliament without any anticipation that it would be used for this purpose.

■ For the first time allows GCHQ to process bulk internal UK traffic which is routed overseas via these cables.

■ Allows the NSA to engage in bulk intercepts of internal US traffic which would be forbidden in its own territory.

■ Functions with no effective oversight.

The key law is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Ripa, which requires the home secretary or foreign secretary to sign warrants for the interception of the communications of defined targets. But the law also allows the foreign secretary to sign certificates that authorise GCHQ to trawl for broad categories of information on condition that one end of the communication is outside the UK.

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The source claimed that even the conventional warrant system has been distorted – whereas police used to ask for a warrant before intercepting a target's communications, they will now ask GCHQ to intercept the target's communications and then use that information to seek a warrant.

...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/23/mi5-feared-gchq-went-too-far


"on condition that one end of the communication is outside the UK" Why I believe that be us lol!

June 23, 2013

"Greenwald is an advocate, not a journalist" This is important to remember.