Edward Snowden, American Hero

[Searcher08]

Oath Keepers Group Places Massive Pro-Snowden Ad Inside Pentagon Metro Station

I like the sound of these guys. Gotta be seriously worrying for tptb to have a fifth column within their own army. Maybe the word has come up through the ranks to reach Obama's ear that many in the US army are tired of killing poorly-equipped foreigners - could be part of the backtracking over Syria Chemweps, combined with public outcry. After all, surely the US military is made up of a melting pot of people of all races and colours - perhaps the humble infantry is starting to wonder when his/her own country of origin (and possibly with members of his family still there) will be attacked by the US?

Anyway, I googled OathKeepers and anti-semetism (to save AD the effort) and the ADL have their eye on them.
http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/domes ... three.html
If the OathKeepers gain much more traction, I'm sure they'll be suitably tarnished as traitors or worse.

AD has *already* exposed these problematic anti-C-Mites as the
racist far-right hate mongering White Nationalist sympaticos they are.
With Calvin & Hobbes cartoons, too. In a mighty 18 pager that might create a feeling of deja vu all over again..
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26182

[Joao]

Snowden Travels in Russia Without Being Recognized – Lawyer

MOSCOW, September 16 (RIA Novosti) – Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, who received political asylum in Russia, travels around the country but has so far not been recognized, his lawyer said.

“He takes walks, he can travel. He travels,” Anatoly Kucherena said in an interview with Russia Today. “No one has recognized him so far.”

He said that Snowden’s parents are to visit him in Russia soon, and his grandparents might also come.

When asked whether the whistleblower had more information that had not yet been revealed, Kucherena said that “certainly” he does.

“Yes, certainly. One should understand that Edward had worked in the CIA for quite a few years. He is a good specialist, a professional,” the lawyer said.

Snowden, a computer specialist and former employee of the US National Security Agency (NSA), was the focus of international attention over the summer after he leaked classified evidence of US government surveillance programs to the media.

He fled to Hong Kong and then to Moscow, where he was granted temporary asylum in Russia in late July despite repeated extradition demands from Washington.

[Sounder]

Oath Keepers Group Places Massive Pro-Snowden Ad Inside Pentagon Metro Station

coffin dodger wrote...
I like the sound of these guys. Gotta be seriously worrying for tptb to have a fifth column within their own army. Maybe the word has come up through the ranks to reach Obama's ear that many in the US army are tired of killing poorly-equipped foreigners - could be part of the backtracking over Syria Chemweps, combined with public outcry. After all, surely the US military is made up of a melting pot of people of all races and colours - perhaps the humble infantry is starting to wonder when his/her own country of origin (and possibly with members of his family still there) will be attacked by the US?

It is not a 'fifth column', there are many folk in the services that come to know of the negative effects of imperial style war with its wanton killing and destruction.

it might also be worth mentioning that internal armed services polling indicates 75 to 80% against war whereas the 'public' polls at around, this dodgy source says, 64%

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... l/2798923/

[conniption]

from page 12:

Brekin - "I remember Qwest was the only phone company that fought the NSA about releasing phone records..."

Washington Post


A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks.

By Andrea Peterson, Published: September 30, 2013


Both Edward Snowden and Joseph Nacchio revealed details about some of the things that go on at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade. (REUTERS/NSA/Handout)

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.

The NSA declined to comment on Nacchio, referring inquiries to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice did not respond to The Post's request for comment.

Snowden leaked documents about NSA spying programs to the public and arguably broke the law in doing so. In contrast, Nacchio seems to have done what was in his power to limit an illegal government data collection program. Even during his own defense, he went through the legal channels he could to make relevant information available for his defense — albeit unsuccessfully.

The programs that were revealed are also substantially different in nature, if not in content. The Bush-era warrantless surveillance programs and data collection programs were on shaky legal ground, based on little more than the president's say-so. That's why telecom companies sought and received legal immunity from Congress for their participation in 2008. But that same update also expanded government surveillance powers. Some observers argue that some of the NSA's spying programs are still unconstitutional. But at a minimum, these programs were authorized by the FISC and disclosed to congressional intelligence committees.

Nacchio told the Wall Street Journal, "I never broke the law, and I never will." But he never got a chance to present to the jury his theory that his prosecution was politically motivated.

__

Correction: An earlier version of this post reported the the length of time between Nacchio's meetings with the NSA and his indictment was a few months rather than a few years. We regret the error.


Andrea Peterson covers technology policy for The Washington Post, with an emphasis on cybersecurity, consumer privacy, transparency, surveillance and open government. She also delves into the societal impacts of technology access and how innovation is intertwined with cultural development.

[seemslikeadream]

Brendan Sasso ‏@BrendanSasso 50m

I think Rep Mike Rogers and Gen Michael Hayden just joked about putting Snowden on a kill list

Brendan Sasso ‏@BrendanSasso 36m

.@ggreenwald And Rogers said: "I can help you with that"

https://twitter.com/BrendanSasso/status ... 1812940800

[conniption]

'US unchained itself from constitution': Whistleblowers on RT after meeting Snowden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3lP5MYUpIc

*
Transcript - RT

[JackRiddler]

Excellent story today on Democracy Now! Coleen Rowley, Ray McGovern, Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack travel to Moscow to give whistleblower prize to Snowden. His speech, interviews with all four.

Ex-NSA CIA, FBI and Justice Whistleblowers Meet Leaker in Moscow
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/14/ ... patriot_ex

[Allegro]

I’m just now listening to the 20 minute Ytube video from Democracy Now! that’s an excerpt from the video on the page Jack linked, above.

http://youtu.be/uH_bL5U0080


These two videos are shorter versions, which I’ve yet to preview.

http://youtu.be/eZI9OgX5Ogg


http://youtu.be/XP-BqBt2EMM

[seemslikeadream]

SA collects millions of e-mail address books globally

By Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani, Published: October 14

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.

Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.

During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.

Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts.

The collection depends on secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or allied intelligence services in control of facilities that direct traffic along the Internet’s main data routes.

Although the collection takes place overseas, two senior U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged that it sweeps in the contacts of many Americans. They declined to offer an estimate but did not dispute that the number is likely to be in the millions or tens of millions.

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, said the agency “is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets like terrorists, human traffickers and drug smugglers. We are not interested in personal information about ordinary Americans.”

The spokesman, Shawn Turner, added that rules approved by the attorney general require the NSA to “minimize the acquisition, use and dissemination” of information that identifies a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

The NSA’s collection of nearly all U.S. call records, under a separate program, has generated significant controversy since it was revealed in June. The NSA’s director, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, has defended “bulk” collection as an essential counterterrorism and foreign intelligence tool, saying, “You need the haystack to find the needle.”

Contact lists stored online provide the NSA with far richer sources of data than call records alone. Address books commonly include not only names and e-mail addresses, but also telephone numbers, street addresses, and business and family information. Inbox listings of e-mail accounts stored in the “cloud” sometimes contain content, such as the first few lines of a message.

Taken together, the data would enable the NSA, if permitted, to draw detailed maps of a person’s life, as told by personal, professional, political and religious connections. The picture can also be misleading, creating false “associations” with ex-spouses or people with whom an account holder has had no contact in many years.

The NSA has not been authorized by Congress or the special intelligence court that oversees foreign surveillance to collect contact lists in bulk, and senior intelligence officials said it would be illegal to do so from facilities in the United States. The agency avoids the restrictions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by intercepting contact lists from access points “all over the world,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program. “None of those are on U.S. territory.”

Because of the method employed, the agency is not legally required or technically able to restrict its intake to contact lists belonging to specified foreign intelligence targets, he said.

When information passes through “the overseas collection apparatus,” the official added, “the assumption is you’re not a U.S. person.”

In practice, data from Americans is collected in large volumes — in part because they live and work overseas, but also because data crosses international boundaries even when its American owners stay at home. Large technology companies, including Google and Facebook, maintain data centers around the world to balance loads on their servers and work around outages.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said the privacy of Americans is protected, despite mass collection, because “we have checks and balances built into our tools.”

NSA analysts, he said, may not search within the contacts database or distribute information from it unless they can “make the case that something in there is a valid foreign intelligence target in and of itself.”

In this program, the NSA is obliged to make that case only to itself or others in the executive branch. With few exceptions, intelligence operations overseas fall solely within the president’s legal purview. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enacted in 1978, imposes restrictions only on electronic surveillance that targets Americans or takes place on U.S. territory.

By contrast, the NSA draws on authority in the Patriot Act for its bulk collection of domestic phone records, and it gathers online records from U.S. Internet companies, in a program known as PRISM, under powers granted by Congress in the FISA Amendments Act. Those operations are overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in August that the committee has less information about, and conducts less oversight of, intelligence gathering that relies solely on presidential authority. She said she planned to ask for more briefings on those programs.

“In general, the committee is far less aware of operations conducted under 12333,” said a senior committee staff member, referring to Executive Order 12333, which defines the basic powers and responsibilities of the intelligence agencies. “I believe the NSA would answer questions if we asked them, and if we knew to ask them, but it would not routinely report these things, and, in general, they would not fall within the focus of the committee.”

Because the agency captures contact lists “on the fly” as they cross major Internet switches, rather than “at rest” on computer servers, the NSA has no need to notify the U.S. companies that host the information or to ask for help from them.

“We have neither knowledge of nor participation in this mass collection of web-mail addresses or chat lists by the government,” said Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick.

At Microsoft, spokeswoman Nicole Miller said the company “does not provide any government with direct or unfettered access to our customers’ data,” adding that “we would have significant concerns if these allegations about government actions are true.”

Facebook spokeswoman Jodi Seth said that “we did not know and did not assist” in the NSA’s interception of contact lists.

It is unclear why the NSA collects more than twice as many address books from Yahoo than the other big services combined. One possibility is that Yahoo, unlike other service providers, has left connections to its users unencrypted by default.

Suzanne Philion, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said Monday in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post that, beginning in January, Yahoo would begin encrypting all its e-mail connections.

Google was the first to secure all its e-mail connections, turning on “SSL encryption” globally in 2010. People with inside knowledge said the move was intended in part to thwart large-scale collection of its users’ information by the NSA and other intelligence agencies.

The volume of NSA contacts collection is so high that it has occasionally threatened to overwhelm storage repositories, forcing the agency to halt its intake with “emergency detasking” orders. Three NSA documents describe short-term efforts to build an “across-the-board technology throttle for truly heinous data” and longer-term efforts to filter out information that the NSA does not need.

Spam has proven to be a significant problem for the NSA — clogging databases with information that holds no foreign intelligence value. The majority of all e-mails, one NSA document says, “are SPAM from ‘fake’ addresses and never ‘delivered’ to targets.”

In fall 2011, according to an NSA presentation, the Yahoo account of an Iranian target was “hacked by an unknown actor,” who used it to send spam. The Iranian had “a number of Yahoo groups in his/her contact list, some with many hundreds or thousands of members.”

The cascading effects of repeated spam messages, compounded by the automatic addition of the Iranian’s contacts to other people’s address books, led to a massive spike in the volume of traffic collected by the Australian intelligence service on the NSA’s behalf.

After nine days of data-
bombing, the Iranian’s contact book and contact books for several people within it were “emergency detasked.”

In a briefing from the NSA’s Large Access Exploitation working group, that example was used to illustrate the need to narrow the criteria for data interception. It called for a “shifting collection philosophy”: “Memorialize what you need” vs. “Order one of everything off the menu and eat what you want.”

Remarkably Timed Spamouflage, Scary Iran Plot Edition
Posted on October 14, 2013 by emptywheel
WaPo has its latest Snowden scoop out, describing how the NSA collects hundreds of thousands of email contact lists daily.

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

I’ll come back to this part of the story later.

But further down in the story, it describes how a hack-spam attack on a member of Iran’s Quds Force overwhelmed NSA, forcing it to conduct emergency detasking of that person and several others between September 20 and October 20, 2011.

Spam has proven to be a significant problem for NSA — clogging databases with data that holds no foreign intelligence value. The majority of all e-mails, one NSA document says, “are SPAM from ‘fake’ addresses and never ‘delivered’ to targets.”

In fall 2011, according to an NSA presentation, the Yahoo account of an Iranian target was “hacked by an unknown actor,” who used it to send spam. The Iranian had “a number of Yahoo groups in his/her contact list, some with many hundreds or thousands of members.”

The cascading effects of repeated spam messages, compounded by the automatic addition of the Iranian’s contacts to other people’s address books, led to a massive spike in the volume of traffic collected by the Australian intelligence service on the NSA’s behalf.

After nine days of data-bombing, the Iranian’s contact book and contact books for several people within it were “emergency detasked.”

This means that this target and “several people” within this Quds Force target’s contact books (and possibly the primary target’s email) were detasked in precisely the same time period as our informant, Narc, was entrapping Manssor Arbabsiar, of Scary Iran Plot fame.

Remember, if you read the plain language of some of the transcripts and other materials, it appears possible the money for this op involved another government.

There’s a similarly odd passage in the quotations purportedly showing that Shahlai was being funded for this by Iran.

[Arbabsiar] this is politics, ok … it’s not like, eh, personal … This is politics, so these people they pay this government … [Shahlai's] got the, got the government behind him … he’s not paying from his pocket. [ellipses original]

Now this passage, unlike the last two (which are translations from Farsi), might best be explained by Arbabsiar’s less than perfect English. With that caveat, though, the bolded passage appears to suggest not that Iran was paying QF, but that QF was paying some other government (or someone else was paying Iran).

There are later details that also don’t make sense if this was an Iranian op.

In other words, during precisely the period when the most bizarre, improbable plot to hit Hollywood in years happens, some of the potential targets have their surveilled communications spamouflaged by an outside entity. (h/t to Frank N Furters for first calling this spamouflage.)

But I think our Intelligence Community is too dull to find that worthy of more consideration.

[Allegro]

AP sources: foreign help to US could be exposed
7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Western diplomats say U.S. officials have briefed them on documents obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that might expose the intelligence operations of their respective countries and their level of cooperation with the U.S.

Word of the briefings by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence comes amid questions swirling around overseas surveillance by the National Security Agency, which has angered allies on two continents and caused concern domestically over the scope of the intelligence-gathering.

The two Western diplomats said officials from ODNI have continued to brief them regularly on what documents the director of national intelligence believes Snowden obtained.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence briefings publicly.

The Washington Post, which first reported on the matter Thursday evening, said some of the documents Snowden took contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China. Some refer to operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States.

The Post said the process of informing officials about the risk of disclosure is delicate because in some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration, but others may not.

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the U.S. takes the concerns of the international community seriously “and has been regularly consulting with affected partners.” She declined to comment on diplomatic discussions.

[seemslikeadream]

The Snowden Effect: Out Of His Brain On The Train
By Charles P. Pierce at 8:30am

Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden, who blabbed away on his cell phone on an Acela train sitting not far away from a guy with a Twitter account who knew how to use it.
(Optional Musical Accompaniment To This Post)
Tout le Beltway seemed to go abuzz last night with the story of how former CIA and National Security Administration director Michael Hayden got all indiscreet on the Acela, blabbing away on his cellphone to a reporter while, luckless soul that Hayden is, sitting not far away from a former Moveon.org guy with a Twitter account who knew how to use it. This was not the national conversation that the president had in mind, I don't think.
The former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden ended up on the wrong end of a surveillance stakeout on Thursday afternoon when, while riding a commuter train, he was overheard "disparaging" the Obama administration. The over-hearer was a private citizen - Tom Matzzie, an entrepreneur who previously worked for MoveOn.org and John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. Hayden was aboard an Acela train outside Philadelphia and talking by phone with a reporter when Matzzie, who was sitting nearby, recognized him. Matzzie heard Hayden insist to the reporter that he be quoted anonymously, as a "former senior administration official". Then Matzzie began live-tweeting as the nation's former top spy badmouthed the Obama administration, apparently in connection with the revelation hours earlier that NSA had monitored the phone calls of at least 35 world leaders' telephone lines.
As it happens, the Acela is a marvelous environment for this kind of coincidence. Last spring, at the height of the mock controversies surrounding the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense, I was sitting across the aisle from Washington Post embarrassment and former Romney fangirl Jennifer Rubin, who was bellyaching to someone about Hagel's unfitness to hold office and on and on. I'd have shared some of it here but, frankly, she isn't any more interesting on the phone than she is on the page.
In the world revealed by Edward Snowden, International Man Of Luggage, I have absolutely no problem with Hayden's stepping on his own dick this way. (I mean, geez, it wasn't even the Quiet Car.) Put your business in the street this way and you deserve what you get. And the fact that Hayden was overheard going into his "senior administration official" cone of silence is not merely hilarious, but a ringing vindication of my running mate's opinion of anonymous sources that he expressed in these pages yesterday. This episode also has the salubrious effect of rendering a mockery all those chin-stroking, thumb-sucking pieces by serious Washington journalists about how horrible it is that scurvy knaves who can't get good tables at the Palm, or invites to Ben 'n Sally's, keep publishing Our National Secrets without regard to the opinions of the brave, but sadly all-too-human and error-prone, heroes of our intelligence community. Michael Hayden spent a lot of time slagging Edward Snowden -- and once made a funny-ha-ha about putting Snowden on a "kill list" -- and now he gets caught, gossiping like a high-school cheerleader on an open phone line on a public train. They serve very tasty ironies in the Club Car, I'm thinking.
Mattzie speculated that one of the reporters was Massimo Calabresi at TIME magazine, but it will be impossible to determine until stories attributable to a "former senior administration official" begin to be published.
Any publication that quotes Hayden anonymously now is embarrassing itself. He surrendered his right to anonymity when he decided to be a mouthy cluck on the train. The story is now his staggering indiscretion -- another towering blunder by the all-too-human, but sadly error-prone, heroes of the "intelligence community." The story is now that this guy was "bragging about black sites," where we sent people to be tortured because we're far too delicate to do anything except subcontract our crimes against humanity. (And, as we saw yesterday, this brilliant moral dodge has complicated our ability to get justice for our own people. Nicely played, gang.) But doing so anonymously, because he is a brave fighter for freedom. He also ripped his former employers, and did so anonymously, because he is such a courageous fking hero. I have to say, by the standards of sheer Beltway stupidity, this ranks right up there with anything I've ever seen, and it makes me think that Edward Snowden maybe needn't have gone to all the trouble to buy thumb drives. He could have just waited patiently until somebody forgot a bagful of national secrets on the counter at Starbucks, or left the nuclear codes on the table at Popeye's.


Read more: The Snowden Effect: Out Of His Brain On The Train - Esquire
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[seemslikeadream]

Call in Germany for Snowden to Be a Witness to NSA Wiretapping of Merkel Deeply Embarrassing to Obama

MARK KARLIN, BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Who is watching the watchers?
It's not official, and it may never come to pass.

But various press sources are reporting about a growing movement to have NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden testify in Germany.

According to the newspaper that broke the Snowden NSA revelations, The Guardian UK:

Some German politicians and newspaper columnists have backed calls for Snowden to be invited as a witness. The justice minister, Sabine Leuheusser-Schnarrenberger, told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper: "If the allegations build up and lead to an investigation, one could think about calling in Snowden as a witness."

Thomas Oppermann, of the Social Democrats, said: "Snowden's claims appear to be credible, while the US government has blatantly lied to us on this matter. That's why Snowden could be an important witness, also in clearing up the surveillance of the chancellor's mobile."

In Süddeutsche Zeitung, the columnist Heribert Prantl wrote: "Granting asylum to Snowden could be a way of restoring Germany's damaged sovereignty."

The Bundestag will hold a special session to discuss NSA spying on 18 November. The Green party and the leftwing Die Linke have been leading calls for that session to result in a parliamentary investigation.

There is even talk in progressive circles of finding a legal way to grant Snowden asylum. With Chancellor Angela Merkel's outrage at having her cellphone tapped -- along with the apparently massive data mining of other German officials and German citizens -- the uproar is not likely to soon subside.

On Tuesday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote a commentary, "What We Know About Government Malfeasance Is Primarily Due to Whistleblowers." As we pointed out, whistleblowers have shown that using massive surveillance to protext us from terrorists is a very small part of US surveillance objectives, which include political spying, suppression of protest movements, and corporate espionage conducted by the US government -- among other goals.

Many persons, even progressives, have argued that it is only natural to assume all governments, even friendly ones, spy on each other. Perhaps that is true, although to vastly varying degrees.

But even if one accepts that premise, our nation has been lied to about what are the real objectives of the NSA and America's massive surveillance apparatus build-up since the Cold War. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to find a few terrorists? If you believe that, we've got a three dollar bill to sell you.

What is most significiant about the latest development in Germany is it creates headlines that are utterly embarrassing to the United States and the Obama administration. It's an international political debacle. This is the fallout from transparency that the Obama administration so furiously sought to capture Snowden in order to prevent.

But they failed.

[seemslikeadream]

Germany 'should offer Edward Snowden asylum after NSA revelations'
Writing in Der Spiegel, more than 50 high-profile Germans add to increasing calls for Berlin to welcome NSA whistleblower

Philip Oltermann in Berlin
theguardian.com, Sunday 3 November 2013 07.39 EST


Edward Snowden's asylum arrangements with Russia expire in June 2014. Photograph: AP
An increasing number of public figures are calling for Edward Snowden to be offered asylum in Germany, with more than 50 asking Berlin to step up it support of the US whistleblower in the new edition of Der Spiegel magazine

Heiner Geissler, the former general secretary of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, says in the appeal: "Snowden has done the western world a great service. It is now up to us to help him."

The writer and public intellectual Hans Magnus Enzensberger argues in his contribution that "the American dream is turning into a nightmare" and suggests that Norway would be best placed to offer Snowden refuge, given its track record of offering political asylum to Leon Trotsky in 1935. He bemoans the fact that in Britain, "which has become a US colony", Snowden is regarded as a traitor.

Other public figures on the list include the actor Daniel Brühl, the novelist Daniel Kehlmann, the entrepreneur Dirk Rossmann, the feminist activist Alice Schwarzer and the German football league president, Reinhard Rauball.

The weekly news magazine also publishes a "manifesto for truth", written by Snowden, in which the former NSA employee warns of the danger of spy agencies setting the political agenda.

"At the beginning, some of the governments who were exposed by the revelations of mass surveillance initiated an unprecedented smear campaign. They intimidated journalists and criminalised the publication of the truth

"Today we know that this was a mistake, and that such behaviour is not in the public interest. The debate they tried to stop is now taking place all over the world", Snowden writes in the short comment piece sent to Der Spiegel via an encrypted channel.

As calls for drastic measures in response to the NSA revelations are increasing in Germany, Angela Merkel seems to be avoiding direct confrontation with Washington. Several politicians from the chancellor's party have expressed their eagerness to meet Snowden in Russia while simultaneously seeming to rule out the possibility of inviting the whistleblower to Germany. "There is no reason to make a call on a Snowden stay in Germany at this stage," Michael Grosse-Brömer told Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung.

The Kremlin has signalled that it would allow German delegates to meet Snowden in Moscow. Snowden was free to meet anyone and would not be stopped from doing so, said a spokesperson for Vladimir Putin.

During a meeting with a politician from the German Green party in Moscow on Thursday, however, Snowden reportedly expressed reluctance about such a solution. Testifying to a German parliamentary inquiry in Russia, where his asylum runs out next June, would get the whistleblower nowhere nearer to solving his current dilemma. If Snowden left Russia to testify to the Bundestag, he would lose his current status but could potentially apply for asylum in Germany.

Meanwhile, signs are increasing that Merkel is trying to resolve the current diplomatic crisis with a new bilateral agreement with the US, instead of pushing for a pan-European reform of data protection laws. Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported on Sunday that the two countries were close to a "no spy" agreement, which is expected to be signed at the start of the new year. A delegation of German politicians visited the White House for discussions last week.

There is some speculation as to whether Merkel is using the crisis to try to negotiate German membership of the "five eyes" group – the intelligence-sharing network between America, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand created during the second world war. Last week, Merkel's spokesperson denied Germany had intentions to join the anglophone club.

[seemslikeadream]

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
Give Snowden Asylum in Germany
By MALTE SPITZ and HANS-CHRISTIAN STRÖBELE
Published: November 17, 2013

BERLIN — Almost every day, new information is released about how American and British intelligence agencies have monitored governments, embassies and the communications of whole societies. These revelations have provided us with a deep and terrifying insight into the uncontrolled power of intelligence agencies.

They show that data collection is no longer about targeted acquisition of information to avert threats, and it’s certainly not about the dangers of “international Islamist terrorism.” After all, which terrorist is going to call or text Chancellor Angela Merkel?

All of our current knowledge about this surveillance is thanks to one man, Edward J. Snowden. Without him, Ms. Merkel would still be a target for monitoring, and surveillance of German diplomats, businessmen and ordinary citizens would be continuing, undetected.

Without Mr. Snowden, there wouldn’t have been months of discussions in the German Bundestag, the European Parliament and the American Congress about better protection of citizens’ private and commercial communications. Mr. Snowden is paying a high price for having opened the eyes of the world. He can no longer lead a normal life.

He acted in an emergency situation to stop and prevent terrible things. According to both German and American law, the government can grant immunity when criminal laws are violated in order to defend the paramount right to freedom. Publicly announcing a crime should not be a crime. The United States has long had laws to protect whistle-blowers from punishment — and we Germans aspire to have such laws.

According to recent surveys by ARD, a German TV station, 60 percent of Germans see Mr. Snowden as a hero and only 14 percent as a criminal. They know his courageous revelations were intended to protect freedom and the values that we share with America.

One of us met Mr. Snowden two weeks ago in Moscow. He said that he revealed these secrets to defend fundamental American values of freedom and democracy. He wanted to put an end to the nearly unlimited surveillance of the population and to the National Security Agency’s crimes in the United States and across the world. He is willing to testify before the German parliament (though he would prefer to do so on Capitol Hill). Mr. Snowden is an American patriot, not an anti-American.

We Germans owe Mr. Snowden thanks and appreciation — and a safe and permanent residence in Germany.

There would be no obligation to extradite him, since the extradition treaty between the United States and Germany clearly forbids extradition if a person is being prosecuted for a political crime like espionage or treason, as is obvious in Mr. Snowden’s case.

There’s no doubt that the German-American relationship is sorely strained; according to a recent survey, only 35 percent of Germans still see the United States as a trustworthy partner. And it is clear that a decision to grant Mr. Snowden asylum in Germany would strain our relationship even more.

Granting him asylum wouldn’t be about revenge or retaliation for spying on us. It would be a decision based on our fundamental values — and a moral duty. How else can we recover the public’s trust? The only way is to stand up, defend our shared values and set an example for other countries in the world.

Mr. Snowden’s revelations are not to blame for our strained relationship with America; what’s to blame is illegal spying that affects every single person, all the way up to the chancellor. We see this comprehensive surveillance as the beginning of a meltdown of civil rights and liberties and the rule of law.

And the German government has failed to protect its population. For months, it has only reacted submissively and feebly to the United States. Last summer, it blindly trusted the reassuring words of N.S.A. officials and American lawmakers who claimed, falsely, that both American and German law and justice were being respected.

Germany didn’t even forcefully insist on an investigation. In fact, government ministers had declared the scandal settled, until the revelations that the chancellor’s telephone had been tapped caught up with them.

Even today, the German government still refuses to invite Mr. Snowden to Germany and hear him testify about the N.S.A. scandal — let alone offer him asylum and guarantee his safety.

It’s embarrassing that democratic European countries, where the rule of law should reign supreme, have until now shied away from confrontation with the United States and have preferred to place Mr. Snowden’s fate and security in Russia’s hands. Surrendering their sovereign rights, last summer they blocked the airspace over Western Europe at America’s request when there was a rumor that Mr. Snowden was flying from Moscow to South America.

It’s a hopeful sign that the surveillance frenzy of the American intelligence agencies is being reviewed and that their activities are likely to be better supervised and limited in the future. This also has to apply to foreign countries, especially America’s allies.

The planned discussions between German and American legislators are welcome and necessary, both to exchange information and talk about much-needed reforms. We have to mend our relationship, reduce the reach of intelligence agencies and bring their work under the rule of law in order to protect the right to privacy and free, unmonitored communication that both Germans and American hold dear.

But we still owe a basic debt to Mr. Snowden. We demand an immediate change in the government’s policy. Edward Snowden should be given a safe residence in Germany or in another democratic European country and be allowed to stay permanently if he wants to.

[Nordic]

Wow, Sibel Edmonds, someone I respect immensely, just destroyed Glenn Greenwald here:

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12 ... t-bidders/

She makes some really good points.

Checkbook Journalism & Leaking to the Highest Bidders
SIBEL EDMONDS | DECEMBER 8, 2013 46 COMMENTS
The NSA Whistleblowing Case: Something is Awfully Rotten in the State of …?
Imagine a major government whistleblower who leaks his evidence and obtained documents to the highest bidders in the mainstream media and mega corporations. Does that sound awful, disgraceful and despicable? Okay. Now, imagine a pseudo journalist who obtains over 50,000 documents from a government whistleblower, and then takes some of this information and puts it out for bid, reserves a certain portion for a lucrative book deal, and saves the rest for a mega corporation that has a record of screwing whistleblowers. How does that sound? This is what I mean by the title of this commentary: Checkbook Journalism & Leaking to the Highest Bidders.For the past twelve years I have been known as one of the most notorious government whistleblowers, even given the title of The Most Classified Person in the History of the United States by a civil liberties organization. I am the founder and director of a whistleblower organization that includes over 150 national security whistleblowers. I have known and represented over 150 national security whistleblowing cases in Congress and the media. And let me tell you this, I have never seen a case that even comes close to this bizarrely unethical and despicable case.A government whistleblower obtains over 50,000 pages of documents that implicate the government in severely illegal and unconstitutional practices. This whistleblower risks everything, including fleeing the country, in order to leak these documents and let the public know how its government has been breaking the nation’s laws and violating their rights. So he goes to another country and then entrusts all this evidence to a few reporters and wanna-be journalists. Why does he do that? He does it so that these reporters will present all this information to the public: not only those in the United States, but everyone all over the world. Think about it. Why else would someone risk everything, including his own life, to obtain and leak such documents? Are you thinking? Because what would be the point to all this, to taking all these risks, if 99% of these documents remain secret and hidden from the public? Ludicrous, right?Now, here is what happens next: The whistleblower hands over these documents, and goes through a surreal escape journey. So surreal that even Hollywood could not have matched it. Of the handful of reporters who were entrusted with 50,000 documents, a few do nothing. By that I mean absolutely nothing. A couple from this entrusted group does a little bit more. They meet with a few mainstream media outlets, they spend many hours around the table with their mega companies’ mega attorneys and U.S. government mega representatives (the same government that is implicated in these documents). Then what happens? Here is what happens:During the six-month period since they received the documents and the whistleblower’s story broke, the supposed-journalists released 1% (One Percent) of these documents:
Out of reported 50,000 pages (or files, not clear which), about 514 pages (>1%) have been released over 5 months beginning June 5, 2013. At this rate, 100 pages per month, it will take 42 years for full release. Snowden will be 72 years old, his reporters hoarding secrets all dead.
That’s right. A whistleblower breaks the law to obtain 50,000 documents, he flees the country to escape prosecution and jail time, he hands over these 50,000 pages to a handful of individuals in return for their promise to present these documents to the public, six months pass, and the public gets 1% of these documents. But please, wait. This is not all. Far more interesting and troubling things happen meanwhile.The main wanna-be reporter begins his relentless pursuit of high dollars in return for … for what? In return for exclusive interviews where he would discuss some of this material. In return for a very lucrative book deal where he would expose a few extra pages of these 50,000-page documents. In return for a partnership with and extremely high salary from a Mega Corporation (think 1%) where he would … hmmmm, well, it is not very clear: maybe in return for sitting on and never releasing some of these documents, or, releasing a few select pages? That’s right. The culprit is able to use his role in the whistleblower case, and his de facto ownership of the whistleblower’s 50,000-page evidence, to gain huge sums of money, fame, a mega corporate position, book and movie deals … yet, making sure that the public would never see more than a few percent of the incriminating evidence. Of course, secondhand checkbook profiteers tend to be very savvy, able to blow smoke, muddy water, and obscure their real deeds and true personhoods. This particular one is famous for spending years as an ambulance-chasing style attorney, where all he had to do was to write dozens of pages to make cases that were never cases, or make real cases appear as if they never were. Sensible people always advise against using personal background information to expose other non-personal cases of subjects. I agree with these sensible people. I think it is disgraceful to bring in irrelevant personal information to make a case on a non-personal issue. However, sometimes personal information becomes part of the picture and very relevant. Allow me to provide you with an example in our case. What if the personal facts paint a figure that does anything and everything for money and fame? What if a checkbook leaker (or a checkbook censorship agent) is the type of person who has engaged in the following:
· Has represented corrupt mega banks and financial institutions as an attorney to make mega bucks, yet claims to be a Marxist Leninist Socialist who supports the Occupy movement.· Has left short-lived civil liberties activities to set up an exploitive pornography business with names such as Hairy Studs and Hairy Jock… All for money and profit.· Has been known as an individual who has always used anything and everything to bring frivolous lawsuits (many of them) to get rich quick.· Has been representing himself as a Marxist-Socialist, Liberal and Libertarian, simultaneously, and based on circumstances, never having to reconcile the discrepancies between those positions and his partnership with corporate billionaires, his luxurious lifestyle, putting on a Marxist front, representing himself as a Libertarian … and the list goes on. Which one is he? Really?
You see, when you add these qualities and personal history to the fact that a whistleblower and 50,000-pages of documents are being used to make mega money and mega fame, while simultaneously the public at large is being kept in the dark and 99% of these documents are censored, what do you get? A few days ago the checkbook wanna-be journalist released a very long argument in defense of his indefensible actions and practices. I am going to address a couple of those, but I want you to keep in mind that the argument is coming from a person known as an ambulance-chaser attorney and litigious money grabber, thus is brilliant at obscuring facts and realities with mud and distortions. Consider how a partnership with a mega billionaire corporate man is being characterized and fudged here:
It has the backing and is being built by someone whom I am absolutely convinced is dedicated to this model of independent, adversarial journalism.
This is not the first time this supposed pro-whistleblowers and civil liberties oriented wanna-be journalist has described his new Billionaire owner. The new owner has been characterized by him several times as a solid owner with a solid track record on whistleblowers issues, First Amendment, Freedom of the Press, etc. We have been searching and researching the new owner’s record. There is not much to be found to qualify this man as someone with a good record on the significant areas mentioned above. None … except:
Paypal suspended online payments to WikiLeaks in December of 2010 after, its managers said, they read a letter by the State Department indicating WikiLeaks was breaking American laws. In retaliation, a group of Anonymous hacktivists brought down the payment site with DDoS attacks two days later. The hacktivists who were apprehended, known as the PayPal 14, were in court today and accepted plea bargains in order to avoid felony charges.Omidyar has been ‘the director and Chairman of the Board since eBay’s incorporation in May 1996,’ and noted that “eBay owns PayPal.” …
In our next BFP Roundtable video session I will talk more about this, and other eye-brow raising items in Omidyar’s record, including his connections and associations with Iranian lobby groups for “Regime Change” in Iran. But for now, let’s shoot down this muddying counter-argument presented by someone with true expertise in muddying and fudging facts as an ambulance-chaser litigious attorney who has gotten away in life by threatening everyone he could with a lawsuit and libel suits. Now back to lies, contradictions and then muddying it all a la the litigious attorney. For the last few months, whenever pressured about the 99% unreleased documents, the answers have been swinging between two or three more years to we are done with releasing. You see, this was not the case initially, not during the first couple of months prior to signing deals with mega corporate new sugar daddies and mega publishers for the book deals. Here is the triple-talking, mud-making and fudge-creating wanna-be journalist on June 26, 2013, the month the public saga began:
When they met, Snowden supplied Greenwald with a “volume of documents so great that I haven’t actually gone through them all.” Snowden was meticulous — Greenwald described the files as beautifully organized, “almost to a scary degree.” Stories based on the leaked documents will continue for another few months, Greenwald said, but not, he hopes, beyond that. “I get bored with myself,” he said. “If I’m still working on these stories a year from now, I’ll probably be in an asylum somewhere.”…
So what happened since the greasy checkbook reporter made those statements? Please don’t tell me that at that point he was not aware how deep things went or how thick those documents were. Because he knew exactly how deep and how thick, and that they were all meticulously and beautifully organized: Meaning the whistleblower had done all the work for the reporters in advance. This was not a thick pile of hodgepodge documents – they were already analyzed, organized, categorized, sub-categorized, and sub-sub-categorized. As for what happened since June 26, 2013? A lot. A new very lucrative book deal was struck. He is being very secretive and tight-lipped on how many millions of dollars he received from this US mega publisher, however, he had to deal a whistleblower’s document to secure this deal:
According to the publisher, it will “contain new revelations exposing the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government’s program, both domestically and abroad.” …
So there – one reason why a checkbook wanna-be journalist is not providing the public with the information they have the right to know. How is that for integrity?Further, no one is asking the crucial question: With the mega publishing corporations’ record, how is it that they are willing to publish classified government documents? Do you know what these same publishers said about my own book? Here is what they said:
“without the approval by the FBI-DOJ prepublication review board we will not publish your book. The government will come after us.”
So, isn’t it amazing that an American mega publisher, a mainstream American publisher, is giving millions to publish a book that will reveal US government classified material? I can tell you from experience and with one hundred percent certainty: the publisher has the government’s consent. How does that bear with the claims that this checkbook reporter is under arrest and even death threats by the U.S. government? Let me tell you something: it does not. What it tells you is this: A Dog & Pony Show put on by the U.S. government and its agents. The checkbook wanna-be reporter is also securing a million dollar movie deal with Hollywood.
You had to know this was coming. There’s a bidding war heating up between Hollywood studios over the rights to bring Glenn Greenwald’s forthcoming tell-all book about the Edward Snowden affair to the big screen.
Well, as we all know, the CIA blesses these movie deals with mainstream Hollywood. Don’t we? Without the handlers’ blessing no such deal could have been made. When the pretender shows up at the Oscar Gala, ask yourself this: Weren’t they supposed to arrest and maybe even drone the hell out of this guy? So what happened, dude?The exact same questions should be posed for a new mega corporate sugar daddy tucking checkbook journalists under his wing in return for…? Your guess is definitely as good as mine. The billionaire who stomped upon a whistleblower’s account with his PayPal Corporation has suddenly found a heart? I didn’t think so either
In her first interview since leaving Moscow for Berlin last month, Harrison told German news weekly Stern: “How can you take something seriously when the person behind this platform went along with the financial boycott against WikiLeaks?” Harrison was referring to the decision in December 2010 by PayPal, which is owned by eBay, to suspend WikiLeaks’ donation account and freeze its assets after pressure from the US government. The company’s boycott, combined with similar action taken by Visa and Mastercard, left WikiLeaks facing a funding crisis.“His excuse is probably that there is nothing he could have done at the time,” Harrison continued. “Well, he is on the board of directors. He can’t shake off responsibility that easily. He didn’t even comment on it. He could have said something like: ‘we were forced to do this, but I am against it’.”…
In our coming BFP Roundtable we will have first-hand accounts from reporters who have witnessed how our checkbook journalist has been asking for money in return for interviews and documents.I started this commentary by introducing my credentials as a whistleblower and someone who has known and represented many government whistleblowers from the intelligence and law enforcement agencies- hundreds of whistleblowers, honorable people such as NSA’s Russ Tice, DEA’s Sandalio Gonzalez and FBI’s John Cole. In this case of a checkbook wanna-be journalist and a whistleblower, I have nothing but many questions when it comes to the whistleblower in question. I do consider the selfless act of releasing this incriminating information on our government’s illegality heroic; however, I have numerous unanswered questions for the whistleblower in question:
Did he give his full consent to the mainstream and checkbook reporters so that they could sit on 99% of these documents if they chose to?Is he perfectly okay with this disgraceful and opportunist person using these documents to secure millions of dollars in book and movie deals?Does he consider the censorship of 99% of his documents justified and okay? If so, what kind of image does he hope to maintain when the leaking is selective and based on bidding in dollars?Does he have an arrangement where he gets a cut from the opportunist’s mega millions obtained via documents he entrusted him with? If so, wouldn’t that make him tainted and a culprit in this?Why is he in Russia (in exile), when the checkbook opportunist is in the belly of the beast making deals in millions of dollars, and is about to head a $250 Million news corporation set up by his billionaire sugar daddy?
And finally, a bit crudely,
What the fu.. is wrong with this picture?! Because as a whistleblower and an expert on whistleblowers I see thousands of wrong things with this picture!
Please do not get me wrong here. I have no questions but answers when it comes to the checkbook opportunist in question. I have known about him for years, long before this NSA episode. What I don’t have is an answer when it comes to the NSA whistleblower in question. I have been sitting on the fence on this one. Unlike my own whistleblower members, I do not know this guy. I don’t. I have never corresponded with him, and he has never reached out to me or my organization. I keep going from silently cheering and supporting him, to doubting what he is all about. I have never seen a case like this. I don’t think anyone has. However, in light of the case of our checkbook journalist, Mainstream Publishers’ mega million book deals, Mainstream Hollywood’s mega studio deals, Mainstream Media backing and showcasing, and Mega Corporation’s mega millions getting involved … and in all this, zero retaliation or interference from our mega government known for being ruthless on whistleblowers, I just don’t get this case. My experienced gut says something is awfully rotten in the state of … this NSA whistleblower-Checkbook Opportunist Drama Set. I get half of the rotten state, but am still wondering about the other half. # # # #Sibel Edmonds is the Publisher & Editor of Boiling Frogs Post and the author of the Memoir Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story. She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for her “commitment to preserving the free flow of information in the United States in a time of growing international isolation and increasing government secrecy” Ms. Edmonds has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.


FILED UNDER: UNCATEGORIZED TAGGED WITH: BOILING FROGS POST, CHECKBOOK JOURNALISM, CLASSIFIED WOMAN, CONTROLLED OPPOSITION, DEEP STATE, EBAY, EDWARD SNOWDEN, GLENN GREENWALD, GOVERNMENT WHISTLEBLOWERS, GREENWALD BOOK DEAL, GREENWALD MOVIE DEAL, JOURNALISTIC ETHICS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, NSA, NSWBC, OPPORTUNISTIC JOURNALISM, PAYPAL, PIERRE OMIDYAR, SHADOW GOVERNMENT, SIBEL EDMONDS, WHISTLEBLOWERS, WIKILEAKS
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