Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
exposing illegal activity by committing illegal activity is still wrong, no matter how important the info was to the american public at large.
Maybe according to you it is. Some would say the means justifies the ends, especially when it involves reigning in those who are abusing their power.
ends justifying the means? Prime excuse to abuse power AND the rule of law. Cant have it both ways.
Would you rather we had been kept in the dark? Would you prefer that your government operate in total secrecy and in breach of the u.s Constitution, and they be free to do whatever the fuck they like? They've been trying to get away with it for years. Did you ever watch this documentary? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28K2CO-khdY
But all your criticisms and outrage are directed at the whistle blower, and not those who are cheating the American public and abusing their positions.
ends justifying the means? Prime excuse to abuse power AND the rule of law. Cant have it both ways.
Would you rather we had been kept in the dark? Would you prefer that your government operate in total secrecy and in breach of the u.s Constitution, and they be free to do whatever the fuck they like? They've been trying to get away with it for years. Did you ever watch this documentary? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28K2CO-khdY
But all your criticisms and outrage are directed at the whistle blower, and not those who are cheating the American public and abusing their positions.
You are free to call him what you wish. I think I've been fairly clear and consistant here, HE IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW himself!
HE would do well to "take one for the team" as it were and accept the legal responsibility for his crimes. AGAIN, I do appreciate the exposure about this program. But not at the expense of the rule of law he was claiming to defend.
I have a hellava lot more respect for Chelsea Manning after her statement at sentencing. Might have some if Snowden showed the same level of accountability. At present he is no better than those he exposed.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Might have some if Snowden showed the same level of accountability. At present he is no better than those he exposed.
Those he exposed lied under oath, and are breaking the Constitution by spying on every American with zero accountability, and zero Congressional oversight.
Edward Snowden sacrificed a well-paid job and a life of comfort and security in order to expose the crimes and deceit of his superiors.
And yet you place them on the same footing?
Might have some if Snowden showed the same level of accountability. At present he is no better than those he exposed.
Those he exposed lied under oath, and are breaking the Constitution by spying on every American with zero accountability, and zero Congressional oversight.
Edward Snowden sacrificed a well-paid job and a life of comfort and security in order to expose the crimes and deceit of his superiors.
And yet you place them on the same footing?
Sacrificed? Didnt he go after that job to begin with to see if what he suspected was true? With the intent to expose if it was true? What sacrifice?
This well paid job, knowing what he did, he was still able to sleep at night knowing he was a part of it? Thats no sacrifice. He outed himself in a COMMUNIST country, went for the sympathy vote right quick. Hes a fucking pussy punk, not willing to stand up for what hes done.
Manning is a patriot. Misguided perhaps and gave way too much irrelevant material to assange but still . She stood up for her beliefs.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
For the record, I would dearly love for those who lie, misrepresent fact, whatever, be held fully accountable for their actions to the fullest extent the law allows.
Now, do I believe that will actually come to pass? Sadly no. No it will not.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Security, check. Vlady Putin has got that covered in spades ... just ask greenpeace
Comfort, check. Judging by his shopping cart at Trader Ivan's, he is well funded and not living off ramen noodles
Well-paid job ... unknown if he has one or needs one. much like if the hot red head spy made good on her marriage proposal
My fantasy is easier to judge then your fantasy. Speaking of fantasy, how much info has been leaked since he left camp PRC for camp putin ... :think:
the dumbest smart person ever or spy. which is it, brynzie???
So now you know, or imagine, in your ongoing self-serving fantasies, how much money he had before entering Russia?
But you do know full well that Russia wasn't his planned destination, right? The only reason he's in Russia is because the U.S authorities cancelled his passport.
Sacrificed? Didnt he go after that job to begin with to see if what he suspected was true? With the intent to expose if it was true? What sacrifice?
He worked for seven years as a member of the intelligence community before deciding to expose the lies and crimes of his superiors and taking the job at Booz Allen Hamilton. Did he have to do that? No, he didn't. He could have continued to perform his role as a government functionary and kept his mouth shut. But his conscience got in the way of that.
This well paid job, knowing what he did, he was still able to sleep at night knowing he was a part of it? Thats no sacrifice. He outed himself in a COMMUNIST country, went for the sympathy vote right quick. Hes a fucking pussy punk, not willing to stand up for what hes done.
Sure, those who tell the truth are 'pussy punks', while you've voiced zero criticism of people like James Clapper who lie to the U.S public and shit on the Constitution.
Your comments show how little regard you have for freedom. One minute you talk about his trying to win a 'sympathy vote', like this is all just a fucking game of ego's. And the next minute you talk about how he should have handed himself in to the U.S government and accepted being muzzled and imprisoned for potentially the rest of his life...for what purpose? To prove some sort of point? To prove he isn't a 'pussy punk'?
Juvenile nonsense.
Like i said before, i think it's clear where your priorities lie.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
So now you know, or imagine, in your ongoing self-serving fantasies, how much money he had before entering Russia?
But you do know full well that Russia wasn't his planned destination, right? The only reason he's in Russia is because the U.S authorities cancelled his passport.
Say hello to Snow White for me.
Time for another round of fantasy or reality! :P
It was reported that he spent all his funds in a 5 star hotel in Hong Kong. That is what we know.
Another fact is that customs don't allow large sums of cash to go unchecked
Another fact is that he could have gone to Bolivia or Iceland or about a couple of hundred of other places to avoid getting "stuck" in the USSR
Another fact is that he abandoned his pursuit of justice since arriving in the motherland
So again ... Is he the dumbest smart person ever, or a spy?
Say hello to the Cheshire Cat for me when you see him :corn:
Another fact is that he could have gone to Bolivia or Iceland or about a couple of hundred of other places to avoid getting "stuck" in the USSR
He's already explained why he didn't fly directly to Iceland - his professed first choice destination. And I've already posted his explanation in this thread for your benefit - twice.
As for South America, that's where he was headed when the U.S authorities cancelled his passport. But then you know that already, right?
Another fact is that he abandoned his pursuit of justice since arriving in the motherland
Another fact is that he's stated clearly that he doesn't plan to stay in Russia and that as soon as the Russians provide him with the right documents, he'll continue on to South America.
But then you clearly have a problem dealing with facts and prefer instead to make shit up. Why is that?
Also, why do you have such a huge hard-on for Edward Snowden?
Hillary Clinton: we need to talk sensibly about spying
Former US secretary of state greets debate as British shadow home secretary calls for oversight of intelligence
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Nicholas Watt, Alan Travis and Nick Hopkins
The Guardian, Saturday 12 October 2013
Hillary Clinton has called for a "sensible adult conversation", to be held in a transparent way, about the boundaries of state surveillance highlighted by the leaking of secret NSA files by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
In a boost to British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, who is planning to start conversations within government about the oversight of Britain's intelligence agencies, the former US secretary of state said it would be wrong to shut down a debate.
Clinton, who is seen as a frontrunner for the 2016 US presidential election, said at Chatham House in London: "This is a very important question. On the intelligence issue, we are democracies thank goodness, both the US and the UK.
"We need to have a sensible adult conversation about what is necessary to be done, and how to do it, in a way that is as transparent as it can be, with as much oversight and citizens' understanding as there can be."
Her words were echoed by the British shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who repeated her call in a speech in July for reform of the oversight of the intelligence agencies. Cooper, a former member of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee that oversees the agencies,said: "I have long argued that checks and balances need to be stronger – this would benefit and maintain confidence in the vital work of our security and intelligence agencies as well as being in the interests of democracy."
...Clegg, who agrees with Straw that in some cases the Guardian was wrong to publish details from the NSA files, believes the leaks show the need to consider updating the legal oversight of Britain's security services. Aides said he would be calling in experts from inside and outside Whitehall amid concerns that the leaked files show that powerful new technologies appear to have outstripped the current system of legislative and political oversight.
...Nick Pickles, the director of Big Brother Watch, joined forces with ten other like-minded campaigners to call on Cameron and Clegg to reform the system of oversight of the intelligence agencies. In a letter to the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and the ISC chairman the campaigners called for an independent review of the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act 2000 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994; the publication, in line with the practice in the US of legal opinions used to support surveillance methods; and to allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to report directly to Parliament rather than just to the prime minister.
In the letter they said: "We would be delighted to meet with you or members of your Government to discuss these issues. At a time when the internet is an inescapable part of daily life, the modern economy and the delivery of public services, it is surely paramount that the laws that govern surveillance are fit for a digital age, and that the safeguards that operate are robust, properly resourced and can command public confidence."
...In her remarks, Clinton did not comment on the UK's oversight arrangements. But she indicated she was wholly supportive of the approach adopted by Barack Obama who – in contrast to Downing Street – has said he welcomes a debate on surveillance in the wake of the NSA leaks.
Answering a question from the Guardian at Chatham House, she said the discussion had to take place within a framework that addressed issues of privacy and protection of citizens because some surveillance programmes remained a "really critical ingredient in our homeland security."
Clinton, who is considering whether to make her second challenge for the Democratic presidential nomination, added: "It would be going down a wrong path if we were to reject the importance of the debate, and the kinds of intelligence activities that genuinely keep us safe.
"So how do we sort all of this out? This is a problem that is well over a decade old, where these capacities have corresponded with increasing outreach to consumers on the business side and increasing concern about security on the government side. People need to be better informed."
The National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has said that the mass surveillance programmes used by the US to tap into phone and internet connections around the world is making people less safe.
In short video clips posted by the WikiLeaks website on Friday, Snowden said that the NSA's mass surveillance, which he disclosed before fleeing to Russia, "puts us at risk of coming into conflict with our own government".
A US court has charged Snowden with violating the Espionage Act, for disclosing the programmes which he described as a "dragnet mass surveillance that puts entire populations under sort of an eye that sees everything even when it's not needed".
"They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely," Snowden said.
The videos are the first of Snowden speaking since 12 July, when the former NSA analyst was shown at a Moscow airport, pleading with Russian authorities to grant him asylum, which they did on 1 August. That decision has strained relations between the US and Russia; President Barack Obama called off a meeting with President Vladimir Putin at a Russia-hosted summit in September.
Snowden said the US government was "unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and the country on camera, but they'll stop at nothing to persecute someone who told them the truth".
In a note accompanying the videos, WikiLeaks said Snowden spoke on Wednesday in Moscow as he accepted the Sam Adams Award, named for a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War who accused the US military of deliberately underestimating the enemy's strength for political purposes, and given annually by a group of retired US national security officers.
Four former US government officials who were at the ceremony told the Associated Press on Thursday that Snowden is adjusting to life in Russia and said they saw no evidence that he was under the control of local security services. They refused to say where they met with Snowden or where he is living.
Edward Snowden: US would have buried NSA warnings forever
Whistleblower says he shared information with media because he could not trust internal reporting mechanisms
Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Friday 18 October 2013
Edward Snowden, the source of National Security Agency leaks, has insisted that he decided to become a whistleblower and flee America because he had no faith in the internal reporting mechanisms of the US government, which he believed would have destroyed him and buried his message for ever.
One of the main criticisms levelled at Snowden by the Obama administration has been that he should have taken up an official complaint within the NSA, rather than travelling to Hong Kong to share his concerns about the agency’s data dragnet with the Guardian and other news organisations. But in an interview with the New York Times, Snowden has dismissed that option as implausible.
“The system does not work,” he said, pointing to the paradox that “you have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it.” If he had tried to sound the alarm internally, he would have “been discredited and ruined” and the substance of his warnings “would have been buried forever”.
Snowden, 30, conducted the interview with the New York Times over the past few days, communicating from Russia, where he has been granted a year’s asylum, with a Times journalist in New York via encrypted email. He took the opportunity to try to quash several of the most widely aired criticisms of his actions.
He disputed speculation that he had run the risk of China and Russia gaining access to the top secret files. He said he was so familiar with Chinese spying operations, having himself targeted China when he was employed by the NSA, that he knew how to keep the trove secure from them.
As for Russia, he revealed that he had left all the leaked documents behind when he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow. He told the New York Times he had decided to hand over all the digital material to the journalists he had encountered in Hong Kong – Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian, and the independent filmmaker Laura Poitras – because to hang on to copies would not have been in the public interest.
“What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of materials onward?” he said, adding: “There’s a zero per cent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents.”
Snowden’s comments about his lack of faith in the internal mechanisms for sounding the alarm within government go to the heart of the dichotomy within the Obama administration’s policy towards whistleblowers.
The administration has introduced new protections for whistleblowers uncovering corruption and inefficiency, including a presidential order that extends the safeguards to the intelligence services.
But contract workers such as Snowden are not protected by the executive order, and the government has pursued official leakers with an aggression rarely seen before. Eight leakers, including Snowden, have been prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than twice the number under all previous presidents combined.
Snowden singled out one of those eight, Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA executive who turned whistleblower after he became alarmed about the agency’s choice of tools for intelligence gathering. Drake, who was prosecuted but had all the charges dropped, was in Moscow last week to honour Snowden with an award.
The author of the New York Times article, James Risen, is himself at odds with the Obama administration. Risen uncovered the original warrantless wiretapping of phone calls by the Bush administration,for which he won a Pulitzer prize. Risen is under intense pressure to divulge the name of one of his sources at the criminal leak trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who is another of the Espionage Act eight. Risen is refusing to reveal his source, and is likely to appeal right up to the US supreme court.
In the interview, Snowden gives further detail about his motives in tearing up his life in the US and becoming one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers. It was a report on the wiretapping programme Risen uncovered that first piqued his curiosity, he said.
He said he was shocked when he came across a copy of a classified report from 2009 dealing with the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping under Bush. “If the highest officials in government can break the law without fearing punishment or even any repercussions at all, secret powers become tremendously dangerous.”
He said his main objection to the NSA dragnet of data was that it was being conducted in secret. “The secret continuance of these programs represents a far greater danger than their disclosure. It represents a dangerous normalisation of ‘governing in the dark’, where decisions with enormous public impact occur without any public input.”
Snowden would not discuss the conditions of his new life in Moscow with Risen. His father, Lon Snowden, returned this week from a visit to see him and reported that “he’s comfortable, he’s happy, and he’s absolutely committed to what he has done”.
I’ve always argued that Snowden had knowingly or unknowingly obtained more information and data than just the wiretapping program. There had to be more at stake than just the outing of the wiretapping program for these foreign entities and countries to open their wallets and doors to Snowden and risk problems with the FBI and the State Department.
NOW WE KNOW - as the latest information supplied by Snowden covers the US drone program. What other information did Snowden provide for disclosure that puts our people and our allies in harms way.
Snowden has just raised the stakes, it’s no longer about the US and its wiretapping program – he has crossed over into impacting terrorist activities. He has crossed over into impacting the ability of our military to conduct its affairs in the best possible position to protect our troops in the field. He has crossed over into impacting national security by providing motive to the enemy to seek local retaliation. What other fallout might we expect from terrorist activities in light of the release of this information?
Snowden’s a goddamn traitor to his country.
SIN EATERS--We take the moral excrement we find in this equation and we bury it down deep inside of us so that the rest of our case can stay pure. That is the job. We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary.
Edward Snowden: US would have buried NSA warnings forever
Whistleblower says he shared information with media because he could not trust internal reporting mechanisms
Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Friday 18 October 2013
Edward Snowden, the source of National Security Agency leaks, has insisted that he decided to become a whistleblower and flee America because he had no faith in the internal reporting mechanisms of the US government, which he believed would have destroyed him and buried his message for ever.
One of the main criticisms levelled at Snowden by the Obama administration has been that he should have taken up an official complaint within the NSA, rather than travelling to Hong Kong to share his concerns about the agency’s data dragnet with the Guardian and other news organisations. But in an interview with the New York Times, Snowden has dismissed that option as implausible.
“The system does not work,” he said, pointing to the paradox that “you have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it.” If he had tried to sound the alarm internally, he would have “been discredited and ruined” and the substance of his warnings “would have been buried forever”.
Snowden, 30, conducted the interview with the New York Times over the past few days, communicating from Russia, where he has been granted a year’s asylum, with a Times journalist in New York via encrypted email. He took the opportunity to try to quash several of the most widely aired criticisms of his actions.
He disputed speculation that he had run the risk of China and Russia gaining access to the top secret files. He said he was so familiar with Chinese spying operations, having himself targeted China when he was employed by the NSA, that he knew how to keep the trove secure from them.
As for Russia, he revealed that he had left all the leaked documents behind when he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow. He told the New York Times he had decided to hand over all the digital material to the journalists he had encountered in Hong Kong – Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian, and the independent filmmaker Laura Poitras – because to hang on to copies would not have been in the public interest.
“What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of materials onward?” he said, adding: “There’s a zero per cent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents.”
Snowden’s comments about his lack of faith in the internal mechanisms for sounding the alarm within government go to the heart of the dichotomy within the Obama administration’s policy towards whistleblowers.
The administration has introduced new protections for whistleblowers uncovering corruption and inefficiency, including a presidential order that extends the safeguards to the intelligence services.
But contract workers such as Snowden are not protected by the executive order, and the government has pursued official leakers with an aggression rarely seen before. Eight leakers, including Snowden, have been prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than twice the number under all previous presidents combined.
Snowden singled out one of those eight, Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA executive who turned whistleblower after he became alarmed about the agency’s choice of tools for intelligence gathering. Drake, who was prosecuted but had all the charges dropped, was in Moscow last week to honour Snowden with an award.
The author of the New York Times article, James Risen, is himself at odds with the Obama administration. Risen uncovered the original warrantless wiretapping of phone calls by the Bush administration,for which he won a Pulitzer prize. Risen is under intense pressure to divulge the name of one of his sources at the criminal leak trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who is another of the Espionage Act eight. Risen is refusing to reveal his source, and is likely to appeal right up to the US supreme court.
In the interview, Snowden gives further detail about his motives in tearing up his life in the US and becoming one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers. It was a report on the wiretapping programme Risen uncovered that first piqued his curiosity, he said.
He said he was shocked when he came across a copy of a classified report from 2009 dealing with the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping under Bush. “If the highest officials in government can break the law without fearing punishment or even any repercussions at all, secret powers become tremendously dangerous.”
He said his main objection to the NSA dragnet of data was that it was being conducted in secret. “The secret continuance of these programs represents a far greater danger than their disclosure. It represents a dangerous normalisation of ‘governing in the dark’, where decisions with enormous public impact occur without any public input.”
Snowden would not discuss the conditions of his new life in Moscow with Risen. His father, Lon Snowden, returned this week from a visit to see him and reported that “he’s comfortable, he’s happy, and he’s absolutely committed to what he has done”.
And people still trust the Administrations....This guy is trying to out the lawless and they can't even see that officials are breaking the law by shitting on our Constitution :fp:
“We the people are the rightful masters of bothCongress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
I’ve always argued that Snowden had knowingly or unknowingly obtained more information and data than just the wiretapping program.
No need for you to argue that. He already admitted that he had possession of more than just the mass-surveillance program, including highly sensitive material related to terrorist activities. But the only material released to the press was material deemed to be in the public interest.
NOW WE KNOW - as the latest information supplied by Snowden covers the US drone program. What other information did Snowden provide for disclosure that puts our people and our allies in harms way.
How does revealing the NSA's ties to the drone program put your people and your allies in harms way?
Snowden has just raised the stakes, it’s no longer about the US and its wiretapping program – he has crossed over into impacting terrorist activities. He has crossed over into impacting the ability of our military to conduct its affairs in the best possible position to protect our troops in the field. He has crossed over into impacting national security by providing motive to the enemy to seek local retaliation. What other fallout might we expect from terrorist activities in light of the release of this information?
Sounds to me like you watch too much t.v.
The drone assassinations are a direct violation of US and international law, and the spy program is in flagrant violation of the US Constitution.
How does exposing the links between the NSA and the drone program provide 'motive to the enemy to seek local retaliation'? Are you really suggesting that they had no motive for retaliation before, when we were killing their people and innocent civilians, and that now they do?
In fact, the drone strikes aren't protecting Americans or their allies. They're having the exact opposite effect, as any five year old could have predicted.
Celebrated left-wing philosopher and MIT linguist Noam Chomsky almost predictably applauded the efforts of so-called whistle-blowers Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning and decried U.S. drone strikes, which have increased significantly since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
When asked in an interview that aired Thursday on Russia-based RT, Chomsky described Snowden as “an honest citizen.”
“I think he performed the responsibility of an honest citizen,” Chomsky said. “Let the population know what your elected representatives are doing. The same thing with Bradley-Chelsea Manning — let people know what your government is doing.”
Chomsky dismissed the response from the U.S. government to those two leaks as “completely predictable.” The MIT linguist said the U.S. is not concerned with the security of its population, but rather the government is concerned with its own security.
As for why there hasn’t been more backlash from U.S. citizens on privacy invasions, Chomsky chalked it up to a “frightened population.”
“It’s a frightened population, and the security argument has weight,” Chomsky replied. “People feel that somehow the government is somehow protecting us. Take say drones — the drone campaign is by far the biggest terrorist campaign in the world. It’s never described that way, but of course, [that is] what it is. Furthermore, it’s a terrorist-generating campaign. From the highest levels and the most respected sources, it’s recognized that the drone attacks create potential terrorists on quite a substantial scale. So therefore, it is a threat to U.S. security, quite apart from being a terrorist campaign in itself. It is almost never discussed.”
.....
Chomsky continued: “People have a reaction, they don’t say, ‘Fine, I don’t care if my cousin was murdered.’ And they become what we call terrorists. This is completely understood from the highest level, that as you carry out these operations you’re generating terrorism.”
“Sometimes it’s almost surreal,” he lamented, recalling the congressional testimony of a man from Yemen who claimed a single drone strike turned his whole village against the U.S. — something the extremist Muslims in his region had failed to do.
Drone strikes, black op sites, prisoners locked up with no charge for 10 years, and foreign interventions - this is what puts your people and allies in harms way, despite what your glossy-lipped t.v news presenters tell you.
Drone strikes contribute to putting Americans lives at risk. Not a whistle blower exposing the lies and crimes of your government.
Drone strikes by US may violate international law, says UN
Report says CIA attacks led to civilian deaths and casualties and says US protocols are 'hurdle to transparency'
Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
theguardian.com, Friday 18 October 2013
A United Nations investigation has so far identified 33 drone strikes around the world that have resulted in civilian casualties and may have violated international humanitarian law.
The report by the UN's special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson QC, calls on the US to declassify information about operations co-ordinated by the CIA and clarify its positon on the legality of unmanned aerial attacks.
Published ahead of a debate on the use of remotely piloted aircraft, at the UN general assembly in New York next Friday, the 22-page document examines incidents in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Gaza.
It has been published to coincide with a related report released earlier on Thursday by Professor Christof Heyns, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, which warned that the technology was being misused as a form of "global policing".
Emmerson, who travelled to Islamabad for his investigation, said the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs has records of as many as 330 drone strikes in the country's north-western tribal areas since 2004. Up to 2,200 people have been killed – of whom at least 400 were civilians – according to the Pakistan government.
In Yemen, Emmerson's report says that as many as 58 civilians are thought to have been killed in attacks by UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). "While the fact that civilians have been killed or injured does not necessarily point to a violation of international humanitarian law, it undoubtedly raises issues of accountability and transparency," the study notes.
...Emmerson criticises the CIA's involvement in US drone strikes for creating "an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency". He adds: "One consequence is that the United States has to date failed to reveal its own data on the level of civilian casualties inflicted through the use of remotely piloted aircraft in classified operations conducted in Pakistan and elsewhere."
'..the administration has systematized a process by which the executive branch, with no judicial oversight, kills people—including US citizens—routinely all over the world. From a “state of exception,” the administration has transformed these powers, without any public discussion, into a state of permanence.
The language used by government officials to justify such measures is chilling. The list of potential targets has been dubbed a “disposition matrix.” One former administration official noted that they faced a “disposition problem”—i.e., the government faced the challenge of disposing of targets. Wary of a potentially messy legal process, whether in civilian courts or before military tribunals, the Obama administration has elected more and more to simply kill people.
Writing in the Council of Foreign Relations, Micah Zenko cites one military official involved in the targeted killing program: “To emphasize how easy targeted killings by special operations forces or drones has become, this official flicked his hand back over and over, stating, ‘It really is like swatting flies. We can do it forever easily and you feel nothing. But how often do you really think about killing a fly?’”
Employing a somewhat different analogy, former CIA analyst and Obama adviser Bruce Riedel, told the Post, “The problem with the drone is it’s like your lawn mower. You’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.”
Thousands have been slaughtered in this way, including many entirely innocent civilians. Among those assassinated by the American government were US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, accused of propagating Islamic fundamentalist ideas. Obama has declared that ordering the killing of al-Awlaki was “an easy one.” Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, declared in relationship to the killing of al-Awlaki’s 16-year old son, also a US citizen, who was accused of nothing, that “he should have had a more responsible father.”
It is impossible to speak of the “erosion” of American democracy any longer. The situation is far more advanced. Such language reflects a political establishment for which the most basic democratic conceptions are entirely foreign. It is language befitting a police state.
The implications go far beyond the use of drones. In seeking to justify its program of state killings, the Obama administration has in effect obliterated the legal basis for all constraints on executive power. The core concept of due process is inscribed in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which declares that “no person shall…be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”
The concept of due process traces its roots to the very origins of constitutional monarchy and the limitations on arbitrary power in Britain—the Magna Carta. In brief: a person cannot be deprived of his rights, including his right to life, without a legal and judicial process. According to the Obama administration, however, this due process requirement is satisfied by the internal deliberations of the executive—by the president and his closest advisers.
And if the president can kill anyone, including US citizens, without judicial review, what power does he not have? Any but the most formal distinction between democracy and presidential dictatorship is swept away.
As Charles Pierce has noted - http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/o ... st-9257224 - there is nothing in the constitution that allows the president to wage a private war on individuals outside the authorization of Congress.
The spirit of the constitution was quite the opposite: all of the founders were concerned, in varying degrees, with the risk of allowing the president to exercise too much discretion when declaring war or using force abroad. For this reason, the constitution explicitly grants the right to declare war to the Congress in order to restrain the president from chasing enemies around the world based solely on his authority as commander-in-chief. The founders would be horrified, not comforted, to know that the president has implicated himself in the killing of foreign nationals in states against which the Congress has not passed a declaration of war.
Here’s the difference between you and me regarding Snowden.
--You seemingly believe the data released by Snowden justifies his status as some kind of heroic whistleblower.
--Me, I’m basic, his actions were those of a traitor. He stole secret/classified material from the US government AND planned his flight from US jurisdiction. He transported the stolen secret/classified material to a foreign country. He released that secret/classified material in a foreign country.
So what if the secret/classified material is enlightening on the programs being utilized by NSA, the fact remains that,
(1) NSA’s mission is the collection of communicative data, and, the rules changed after 9/11 to include domestic communications.
(2) the method by which Snowden obtained and distributed the secret/classified material falls under the scope of treason, making Snowden a traitor.
If you think other countries, including our so-called allies are not employing communicative data collection on US citizens, corporations, and government activities within the US and outside of the mainland of the US, then you are just being naïve.
SIN EATERS--We take the moral excrement we find in this equation and we bury it down deep inside of us so that the rest of our case can stay pure. That is the job. We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary.
Here’s the difference between you and me regarding Snowden.
--You seemingly believe the data released by Snowden justifies his status as some kind of heroic whistleblower.
--Me, I’m basic, his actions were those of a traitor. He stole secret/classified material from the US government AND planned his flight from US jurisdiction. He transported the stolen secret/classified material to a foreign country. He released that secret/classified material in a foreign country.
So what if the secret/classified material is enlightening on the programs being utilized by NSA, the fact remains that,
(1) NSA’s mission is the collection of communicative data, and, the rules changed after 9/11 to include domestic communications.
(2) the method by which Snowden obtained and distributed the secret/classified material falls under the scope of treason, making Snowden a traitor.
If you think other countries, including our so-called allies are not employing communicative data collection on US citizens, corporations, and government activities within the US and outside of the mainland of the US, then you are just being naïve.
his very own home government is standing side by side with NSA and theres nary a whisper from him about THEIR activities.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
(1) NSA’s mission is the collection of communicative data, and, the rules changed after 9/11 to include domestic communications.
(2) the method by which Snowden obtained and distributed the secret/classified material falls under the scope of treason, making Snowden a traitor.
If you think other countries, including our so-called allies are not employing communicative data collection on US citizens, corporations, and government activities within the US and outside of the mainland of the US, then you are just being naïve.
1. The Constitution didn't change after 9/11. Citizens have a right to privacy unless there is sufficient reason to suspect them of wrongdoing.
2. It wasn't treason, it was whistle blowing. Treason would imply that he gave, or sold, highly sensitive material to a foreign entity with the intent of bringing harm upon his home country. He did nothing of the sort, and only material deemed to be in the public interest was released.
3. There is zero evidence of other countries spying on the citizens of others. And if you have evidence to the contrary then go ahead and produce it.
Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret
Exclusive: Edward Snowden papers show UK spy agency fears legal challenge if scale of surveillance is made public
Beta
James Ball
The Guardian, Friday 25 October 2013 18.45 BST
Jump to comments (849)
GCHQ headquarters
GCHQ fears a legal challenge under the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods becomes admissable in court. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA
The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a "damaging public debate" on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal.
Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency's long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK's intelligence community.
Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency's large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show.
The papers also reveal that:
• GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone "well beyond" what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies' mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.
• GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court.
• GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with "press handling", including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticised the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and America's National Security Agency.
The most recent attempt to make intelligence gathered from intercepts admissible in court, proposed by the last Labour government, was finally stymied by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 in 2009.
A briefing memo prepared for the board of GCHQ shortly before the decision was made public revealed that one reason the agency was keen to quash the proposals was the fear that even passing references to its wide-reaching surveillance powers could start a "damaging" public debate.
Referring to the decision to publish the report on intercept as evidence without classification, it noted: "Our main concern is that references to agency practices (ie the scale of interception and deletion) could lead to damaging public debate which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime." A later update, from May 2012, set out further perceived "risks" of making intercepts admissible, including "the damage to partner relationships if sensitive information were accidentally released in open court". It also noted that the "scale of interception and retention required would be fairly likely to be challenged on Article 8 (Right to Privacy) grounds".
The GCHQ briefings showed the agency provided the Home Office with support in winning the PR battle on the proposed reforms by lining up people to talk to the media – including Lord Carlile, who on Wednesday gave a public lecture condemning the Guardian's decision to publish stories based on the leaked material from Snowden.
Referring to the public debate on intercept evidence, the document notes: "Sir Ken McDonald [sic] (former DPP [director of public prosecutions]), Lord Goldsmith (former AG [attorney general]) and David Davis (former Shadow HSec [home secretary) [have been] reiterating their previous calls for IaE [intercept as evidence].
"We are working closely with HO [Home Office] on their plans for press handling when the final report is published, e.g. lining up talking heads (such as Lord Carlisle [sic], Lord Stevens, Sir Stephen Lander, Sir Swinton Thomas)."
Carlile was the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in 2001-11, and was awarded a CBE in 2012 for his services to national security.
Another top GCHQ priority in resisting the admission of intercepts as evidence was keeping secret the extent of the agency's co-operative relationships with telephone companies – including being granted access to communications networks overseas.
In June, the Guardian disclosed the existence of GCHQ's Tempora internet surveillance programme. It uses intercepts on the fibre-optic cables that make up the backbone of the internet to gain access to vast swaths of internet users' personal data. The intercepts are placed in the UK and overseas, with the knowledge of companies owning either the cables or landing stations.
The revelations of voluntary co-operation with some telecoms companies appear to contrast markedly with statements made by large telecoms firms in the wake of the first Tempora stories. They stressed that they were simply complying with the law of the countries in which they operated.
In reality, numerous telecoms companies were doing much more than that, as disclosed in a secret document prepared in 2009 by a joint working group of GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.
Their report contended that allowing intercepts as evidence could damage relationships with "Communications Service Providers" (CSPs).
In an extended excerpt of "the classified version" of a review prepared for the Privy Council, a formal body of advisers made up of current and former cabinet ministers, the document sets out the real nature of the relationship between telecoms firms and the UK government.
"Under RIPA [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000], CSPs in the UK may be required to provide, at public expense, an adequate interception capability on their networks," it states. "In practice all significant providers do provide such a capability. But in many cases their assistance – while in conformity with the law – goes well beyond what it requires."
GCHQ's internet surveillance programme is the subject of a challenge in the European court of human rights, mounted by three privacy advocacy groups. The Open Rights Group, English PEN and Big Brother Watch argue the "unchecked surveillance" of Tempora is a challenge to the right to privacy, as set out in the European convention on human rights.
That the Tempora programme appears to rely at least in part on voluntary co-operation of telecoms firms could become a major factor in that ongoing case. The revelation could also reignite the long-running debate over allowing intercept evidence in court.
GCHQ's submission goes on to set out why its relationships with telecoms companies go further than what can be legally compelled under current law. It says that in the internet era, companies wishing to avoid being legally mandated to assist UK intelligence agencies would often be able to do so "at little cost or risk to their operations" by moving "some or all" of their communications services overseas.
As a result, "it has been necessary to enter into agreements with both UK-based and offshore providers for them to afford the UK agencies access, with appropriate legal authorisation, to the communications they carry outside the UK".
The submission to ministers does not set out which overseas firms have entered into voluntary relationships with the UK, or even in which countries they operate, though documents detailing the Tempora programme made it clear the UK's interception capabilities relied on taps located both on UK soil and overseas.
There is no indication as to whether the governments of the countries in which deals with companies have been struck would be aware of the GCHQ cable taps.
Evidence that telecoms firms and GCHQ are engaging in mass interception overseas could stoke an ongoing diplomatic row over surveillance ignited this week after the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, accused the NSA of monitoring her phone calls, and the subsequent revelation that the agency monitored communications of at least 35 other world leaders.
On Friday, Merkel and the French president, François Hollande, agreed to spearhead efforts to make the NSA sign a new code of conduct on how it carried out intelligence operations within the European Union, after EU leaders warned that the international fight against terrorism was being jeopardised by the perception that mass US surveillance was out of control.
Fear of diplomatic repercussions were one of the prime reasons given for GCHQ's insistence that its relationships with telecoms firms must be kept private .
Telecoms companies "feared damage to their brands internationally, if the extent of their co-operation with HMG [Her Majesty's government] became apparent", the GCHQ document warned. It added that if intercepts became admissible as evidence in UK courts "many CSPs asserted that they would withdraw their voluntary support".
The report stressed that while companies are going beyond what they are required to do under UK law, they are not being asked to violate it.
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty and Anthony Romero Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union issued a joint statement stating:
"The Guardian's publication of information from Edward Snowden has uncovered a breach of trust by the US and UK Governments on the grandest scale. The newspaper's principled and selective revelations demonstrate our rulers' contempt for personal rights, freedoms and the rule of law.
"Across the globe, these disclosures continue to raise fundamental questions about the lack of effective legal protection against the interception of all our communications.
"Yet in Britain, that conversation is in danger of being lost beneath self-serving spin and scaremongering, with journalists who dare to question the secret state accused of aiding the enemy.
"A balance must of course be struck between security and transparency, but that cannot be achieved whilst the intelligence services and their political masters seek to avoid any scrutiny of, or debate about, their actions.
"The Guardian's decision to expose the extent to which our privacy is being violated should be applauded and not condemned."
what was that you asked for Byrnzie? Some sort of evidence?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
I haven't tapped the seal of Bioshock Infinite yet. Once I do... oy yoy yoy.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Would you rather we had been kept in the dark? Would you prefer that your government operate in total secrecy and in breach of the u.s Constitution, and they be free to do whatever the fuck they like? They've been trying to get away with it for years. Did you ever watch this documentary? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28K2CO-khdY
But all your criticisms and outrage are directed at the whistle blower, and not those who are cheating the American public and abusing their positions.
HE would do well to "take one for the team" as it were and accept the legal responsibility for his crimes. AGAIN, I do appreciate the exposure about this program. But not at the expense of the rule of law he was claiming to defend.
I have a hellava lot more respect for Chelsea Manning after her statement at sentencing. Might have some if Snowden showed the same level of accountability. At present he is no better than those he exposed.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Those he exposed lied under oath, and are breaking the Constitution by spying on every American with zero accountability, and zero Congressional oversight.
Edward Snowden sacrificed a well-paid job and a life of comfort and security in order to expose the crimes and deceit of his superiors.
And yet you place them on the same footing?
I see you're still indulging your fantasies.
Whatever gets you through the day.
Security, check. Vlady Putin has got that covered in spades ... just ask greenpeace
Comfort, check. Judging by his shopping cart at Trader Ivan's, he is well funded and not living off ramen noodles
Well-paid job ... unknown if he has one or needs one. much like if the hot red head spy made good on her marriage proposal
My fantasy is easier to judge then your fantasy. Speaking of fantasy, how much info has been leaked since he left camp PRC for camp putin ... :think:
the dumbest smart person ever or spy. which is it, brynzie???
This well paid job, knowing what he did, he was still able to sleep at night knowing he was a part of it? Thats no sacrifice. He outed himself in a COMMUNIST country, went for the sympathy vote right quick. Hes a fucking pussy punk, not willing to stand up for what hes done.
Manning is a patriot. Misguided perhaps and gave way too much irrelevant material to assange but still . She stood up for her beliefs.
Snowden ran like a punk.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Now, do I believe that will actually come to pass? Sadly no. No it will not.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
So now you know, or imagine, in your ongoing self-serving fantasies, how much money he had before entering Russia?
But you do know full well that Russia wasn't his planned destination, right? The only reason he's in Russia is because the U.S authorities cancelled his passport.
Say hello to Snow White for me.
He worked for seven years as a member of the intelligence community before deciding to expose the lies and crimes of his superiors and taking the job at Booz Allen Hamilton. Did he have to do that? No, he didn't. He could have continued to perform his role as a government functionary and kept his mouth shut. But his conscience got in the way of that.
Sure, those who tell the truth are 'pussy punks', while you've voiced zero criticism of people like James Clapper who lie to the U.S public and shit on the Constitution.
Your comments show how little regard you have for freedom. One minute you talk about his trying to win a 'sympathy vote', like this is all just a fucking game of ego's. And the next minute you talk about how he should have handed himself in to the U.S government and accepted being muzzled and imprisoned for potentially the rest of his life...for what purpose? To prove some sort of point? To prove he isn't a 'pussy punk'?
Juvenile nonsense.
Like i said before, i think it's clear where your priorities lie.
But it doesnt matter does it?
YOU will telll ME what I think and believe. Isnt that right?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
It was reported that he spent all his funds in a 5 star hotel in Hong Kong. That is what we know.
Another fact is that customs don't allow large sums of cash to go unchecked
Another fact is that he could have gone to Bolivia or Iceland or about a couple of hundred of other places to avoid getting "stuck" in the USSR
Another fact is that he abandoned his pursuit of justice since arriving in the motherland
So again ... Is he the dumbest smart person ever, or a spy?
Say hello to the Cheshire Cat for me when you see him :corn:
No it wasn't. It was reported that his funds were running low.
Good job that in the 21st Century we have something called credit cards then.
He's already explained why he didn't fly directly to Iceland - his professed first choice destination. And I've already posted his explanation in this thread for your benefit - twice.
As for South America, that's where he was headed when the U.S authorities cancelled his passport. But then you know that already, right?
Another fact is that he's stated clearly that he doesn't plan to stay in Russia and that as soon as the Russians provide him with the right documents, he'll continue on to South America.
But then you clearly have a problem dealing with facts and prefer instead to make shit up. Why is that?
Also, why do you have such a huge hard-on for Edward Snowden?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/o ... ton-spying
Hillary Clinton: we need to talk sensibly about spying
Former US secretary of state greets debate as British shadow home secretary calls for oversight of intelligence
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Nicholas Watt, Alan Travis and Nick Hopkins
The Guardian, Saturday 12 October 2013
Hillary Clinton has called for a "sensible adult conversation", to be held in a transparent way, about the boundaries of state surveillance highlighted by the leaking of secret NSA files by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
In a boost to British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, who is planning to start conversations within government about the oversight of Britain's intelligence agencies, the former US secretary of state said it would be wrong to shut down a debate.
Clinton, who is seen as a frontrunner for the 2016 US presidential election, said at Chatham House in London: "This is a very important question. On the intelligence issue, we are democracies thank goodness, both the US and the UK.
"We need to have a sensible adult conversation about what is necessary to be done, and how to do it, in a way that is as transparent as it can be, with as much oversight and citizens' understanding as there can be."
Her words were echoed by the British shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who repeated her call in a speech in July for reform of the oversight of the intelligence agencies. Cooper, a former member of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee that oversees the agencies,said: "I have long argued that checks and balances need to be stronger – this would benefit and maintain confidence in the vital work of our security and intelligence agencies as well as being in the interests of democracy."
...Clegg, who agrees with Straw that in some cases the Guardian was wrong to publish details from the NSA files, believes the leaks show the need to consider updating the legal oversight of Britain's security services. Aides said he would be calling in experts from inside and outside Whitehall amid concerns that the leaked files show that powerful new technologies appear to have outstripped the current system of legislative and political oversight.
...Nick Pickles, the director of Big Brother Watch, joined forces with ten other like-minded campaigners to call on Cameron and Clegg to reform the system of oversight of the intelligence agencies. In a letter to the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and the ISC chairman the campaigners called for an independent review of the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act 2000 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994; the publication, in line with the practice in the US of legal opinions used to support surveillance methods; and to allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to report directly to Parliament rather than just to the prime minister.
In the letter they said: "We would be delighted to meet with you or members of your Government to discuss these issues. At a time when the internet is an inescapable part of daily life, the modern economy and the delivery of public services, it is surely paramount that the laws that govern surveillance are fit for a digital age, and that the safeguards that operate are robust, properly resourced and can command public confidence."
...In her remarks, Clinton did not comment on the UK's oversight arrangements. But she indicated she was wholly supportive of the approach adopted by Barack Obama who – in contrast to Downing Street – has said he welcomes a debate on surveillance in the wake of the NSA leaks.
Answering a question from the Guardian at Chatham House, she said the discussion had to take place within a framework that addressed issues of privacy and protection of citizens because some surveillance programmes remained a "really critical ingredient in our homeland security."
Clinton, who is considering whether to make her second challenge for the Democratic presidential nomination, added: "It would be going down a wrong path if we were to reject the importance of the debate, and the kinds of intelligence activities that genuinely keep us safe.
"So how do we sort all of this out? This is a problem that is well over a decade old, where these capacities have corresponded with increasing outreach to consumers on the business side and increasing concern about security on the government side. People need to be better informed."
...
Edward Snowden says NSA surveillance programmes 'hurt our country'
Video clips posted to WikiLeaks website show former NSA analyst speaking for the first time since July asylum plea
Associated Press in Moscow
theguardian.com, Saturday 12 October 2013
Link to video: Edward Snowden awarded the Sam Adams prize for integrity in intelligence: http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/ ... ence-video
The National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has said that the mass surveillance programmes used by the US to tap into phone and internet connections around the world is making people less safe.
In short video clips posted by the WikiLeaks website on Friday, Snowden said that the NSA's mass surveillance, which he disclosed before fleeing to Russia, "puts us at risk of coming into conflict with our own government".
A US court has charged Snowden with violating the Espionage Act, for disclosing the programmes which he described as a "dragnet mass surveillance that puts entire populations under sort of an eye that sees everything even when it's not needed".
"They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely," Snowden said.
The videos are the first of Snowden speaking since 12 July, when the former NSA analyst was shown at a Moscow airport, pleading with Russian authorities to grant him asylum, which they did on 1 August. That decision has strained relations between the US and Russia; President Barack Obama called off a meeting with President Vladimir Putin at a Russia-hosted summit in September.
Snowden said the US government was "unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and the country on camera, but they'll stop at nothing to persecute someone who told them the truth".
In a note accompanying the videos, WikiLeaks said Snowden spoke on Wednesday in Moscow as he accepted the Sam Adams Award, named for a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War who accused the US military of deliberately underestimating the enemy's strength for political purposes, and given annually by a group of retired US national security officers.
Four former US government officials who were at the ceremony told the Associated Press on Thursday that Snowden is adjusting to life in Russia and said they saw no evidence that he was under the control of local security services. They refused to say where they met with Snowden or where he is living.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/o ... gs-forever
Edward Snowden: US would have buried NSA warnings forever
Whistleblower says he shared information with media because he could not trust internal reporting mechanisms
Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Friday 18 October 2013
Edward Snowden, the source of National Security Agency leaks, has insisted that he decided to become a whistleblower and flee America because he had no faith in the internal reporting mechanisms of the US government, which he believed would have destroyed him and buried his message for ever.
One of the main criticisms levelled at Snowden by the Obama administration has been that he should have taken up an official complaint within the NSA, rather than travelling to Hong Kong to share his concerns about the agency’s data dragnet with the Guardian and other news organisations. But in an interview with the New York Times, Snowden has dismissed that option as implausible.
“The system does not work,” he said, pointing to the paradox that “you have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it.” If he had tried to sound the alarm internally, he would have “been discredited and ruined” and the substance of his warnings “would have been buried forever”.
Snowden, 30, conducted the interview with the New York Times over the past few days, communicating from Russia, where he has been granted a year’s asylum, with a Times journalist in New York via encrypted email. He took the opportunity to try to quash several of the most widely aired criticisms of his actions.
He disputed speculation that he had run the risk of China and Russia gaining access to the top secret files. He said he was so familiar with Chinese spying operations, having himself targeted China when he was employed by the NSA, that he knew how to keep the trove secure from them.
As for Russia, he revealed that he had left all the leaked documents behind when he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow. He told the New York Times he had decided to hand over all the digital material to the journalists he had encountered in Hong Kong – Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian, and the independent filmmaker Laura Poitras – because to hang on to copies would not have been in the public interest.
“What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of materials onward?” he said, adding: “There’s a zero per cent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents.”
Snowden’s comments about his lack of faith in the internal mechanisms for sounding the alarm within government go to the heart of the dichotomy within the Obama administration’s policy towards whistleblowers.
The administration has introduced new protections for whistleblowers uncovering corruption and inefficiency, including a presidential order that extends the safeguards to the intelligence services.
But contract workers such as Snowden are not protected by the executive order, and the government has pursued official leakers with an aggression rarely seen before. Eight leakers, including Snowden, have been prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than twice the number under all previous presidents combined.
Snowden singled out one of those eight, Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA executive who turned whistleblower after he became alarmed about the agency’s choice of tools for intelligence gathering. Drake, who was prosecuted but had all the charges dropped, was in Moscow last week to honour Snowden with an award.
The author of the New York Times article, James Risen, is himself at odds with the Obama administration. Risen uncovered the original warrantless wiretapping of phone calls by the Bush administration,for which he won a Pulitzer prize. Risen is under intense pressure to divulge the name of one of his sources at the criminal leak trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who is another of the Espionage Act eight. Risen is refusing to reveal his source, and is likely to appeal right up to the US supreme court.
In the interview, Snowden gives further detail about his motives in tearing up his life in the US and becoming one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers. It was a report on the wiretapping programme Risen uncovered that first piqued his curiosity, he said.
He said he was shocked when he came across a copy of a classified report from 2009 dealing with the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping under Bush. “If the highest officials in government can break the law without fearing punishment or even any repercussions at all, secret powers become tremendously dangerous.”
He said his main objection to the NSA dragnet of data was that it was being conducted in secret. “The secret continuance of these programs represents a far greater danger than their disclosure. It represents a dangerous normalisation of ‘governing in the dark’, where decisions with enormous public impact occur without any public input.”
Snowden would not discuss the conditions of his new life in Moscow with Risen. His father, Lon Snowden, returned this week from a visit to see him and reported that “he’s comfortable, he’s happy, and he’s absolutely committed to what he has done”.
NOW WE KNOW - as the latest information supplied by Snowden covers the US drone program. What other information did Snowden provide for disclosure that puts our people and our allies in harms way.
Snowden has just raised the stakes, it’s no longer about the US and its wiretapping program – he has crossed over into impacting terrorist activities. He has crossed over into impacting the ability of our military to conduct its affairs in the best possible position to protect our troops in the field. He has crossed over into impacting national security by providing motive to the enemy to seek local retaliation. What other fallout might we expect from terrorist activities in light of the release of this information?
Snowden’s a goddamn traitor to his country.
And people still trust the Administrations....This guy is trying to out the lawless and they can't even see that officials are breaking the law by shitting on our Constitution :fp:
No need for you to argue that. He already admitted that he had possession of more than just the mass-surveillance program, including highly sensitive material related to terrorist activities. But the only material released to the press was material deemed to be in the public interest.
How does revealing the NSA's ties to the drone program put your people and your allies in harms way?
Sounds to me like you watch too much t.v.
The drone assassinations are a direct violation of US and international law, and the spy program is in flagrant violation of the US Constitution.
How does exposing the links between the NSA and the drone program provide 'motive to the enemy to seek local retaliation'? Are you really suggesting that they had no motive for retaliation before, when we were killing their people and innocent civilians, and that now they do?
In fact, the drone strikes aren't protecting Americans or their allies. They're having the exact opposite effect, as any five year old could have predicted.
Read on...
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/10/choms ... rld-video/
Celebrated left-wing philosopher and MIT linguist Noam Chomsky almost predictably applauded the efforts of so-called whistle-blowers Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning and decried U.S. drone strikes, which have increased significantly since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
When asked in an interview that aired Thursday on Russia-based RT, Chomsky described Snowden as “an honest citizen.”
“I think he performed the responsibility of an honest citizen,” Chomsky said. “Let the population know what your elected representatives are doing. The same thing with Bradley-Chelsea Manning — let people know what your government is doing.”
Chomsky dismissed the response from the U.S. government to those two leaks as “completely predictable.” The MIT linguist said the U.S. is not concerned with the security of its population, but rather the government is concerned with its own security.
As for why there hasn’t been more backlash from U.S. citizens on privacy invasions, Chomsky chalked it up to a “frightened population.”
“It’s a frightened population, and the security argument has weight,” Chomsky replied. “People feel that somehow the government is somehow protecting us. Take say drones — the drone campaign is by far the biggest terrorist campaign in the world. It’s never described that way, but of course, [that is] what it is. Furthermore, it’s a terrorist-generating campaign. From the highest levels and the most respected sources, it’s recognized that the drone attacks create potential terrorists on quite a substantial scale. So therefore, it is a threat to U.S. security, quite apart from being a terrorist campaign in itself. It is almost never discussed.”
.....
Chomsky continued: “People have a reaction, they don’t say, ‘Fine, I don’t care if my cousin was murdered.’ And they become what we call terrorists. This is completely understood from the highest level, that as you carry out these operations you’re generating terrorism.”
“Sometimes it’s almost surreal,” he lamented, recalling the congressional testimony of a man from Yemen who claimed a single drone strike turned his whole village against the U.S. — something the extremist Muslims in his region had failed to do.
I'd love to know what the word 'country' means to you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi1_BkEt5uI
Drone strikes, black op sites, prisoners locked up with no charge for 10 years, and foreign interventions - this is what puts your people and allies in harms way, despite what your glossy-lipped t.v news presenters tell you.
Drone strikes contribute to putting Americans lives at risk. Not a whistle blower exposing the lies and crimes of your government.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/o ... ate-law-un
Drone strikes by US may violate international law, says UN
Report says CIA attacks led to civilian deaths and casualties and says US protocols are 'hurdle to transparency'
Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
theguardian.com, Friday 18 October 2013
A United Nations investigation has so far identified 33 drone strikes around the world that have resulted in civilian casualties and may have violated international humanitarian law.
The report by the UN's special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson QC, calls on the US to declassify information about operations co-ordinated by the CIA and clarify its positon on the legality of unmanned aerial attacks.
Published ahead of a debate on the use of remotely piloted aircraft, at the UN general assembly in New York next Friday, the 22-page document examines incidents in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Gaza.
It has been published to coincide with a related report released earlier on Thursday by Professor Christof Heyns, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, which warned that the technology was being misused as a form of "global policing".
Emmerson, who travelled to Islamabad for his investigation, said the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs has records of as many as 330 drone strikes in the country's north-western tribal areas since 2004. Up to 2,200 people have been killed – of whom at least 400 were civilians – according to the Pakistan government.
In Yemen, Emmerson's report says that as many as 58 civilians are thought to have been killed in attacks by UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). "While the fact that civilians have been killed or injured does not necessarily point to a violation of international humanitarian law, it undoubtedly raises issues of accountability and transparency," the study notes.
...Emmerson criticises the CIA's involvement in US drone strikes for creating "an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency". He adds: "One consequence is that the United States has to date failed to reveal its own data on the level of civilian casualties inflicted through the use of remotely piloted aircraft in classified operations conducted in Pakistan and elsewhere."
'..the administration has systematized a process by which the executive branch, with no judicial oversight, kills people—including US citizens—routinely all over the world. From a “state of exception,” the administration has transformed these powers, without any public discussion, into a state of permanence.
The language used by government officials to justify such measures is chilling. The list of potential targets has been dubbed a “disposition matrix.” One former administration official noted that they faced a “disposition problem”—i.e., the government faced the challenge of disposing of targets. Wary of a potentially messy legal process, whether in civilian courts or before military tribunals, the Obama administration has elected more and more to simply kill people.
Writing in the Council of Foreign Relations, Micah Zenko cites one military official involved in the targeted killing program: “To emphasize how easy targeted killings by special operations forces or drones has become, this official flicked his hand back over and over, stating, ‘It really is like swatting flies. We can do it forever easily and you feel nothing. But how often do you really think about killing a fly?’”
Employing a somewhat different analogy, former CIA analyst and Obama adviser Bruce Riedel, told the Post, “The problem with the drone is it’s like your lawn mower. You’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.”
Thousands have been slaughtered in this way, including many entirely innocent civilians. Among those assassinated by the American government were US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, accused of propagating Islamic fundamentalist ideas. Obama has declared that ordering the killing of al-Awlaki was “an easy one.” Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, declared in relationship to the killing of al-Awlaki’s 16-year old son, also a US citizen, who was accused of nothing, that “he should have had a more responsible father.”
It is impossible to speak of the “erosion” of American democracy any longer. The situation is far more advanced. Such language reflects a political establishment for which the most basic democratic conceptions are entirely foreign. It is language befitting a police state.
The implications go far beyond the use of drones. In seeking to justify its program of state killings, the Obama administration has in effect obliterated the legal basis for all constraints on executive power. The core concept of due process is inscribed in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which declares that “no person shall…be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”
The concept of due process traces its roots to the very origins of constitutional monarchy and the limitations on arbitrary power in Britain—the Magna Carta. In brief: a person cannot be deprived of his rights, including his right to life, without a legal and judicial process. According to the Obama administration, however, this due process requirement is satisfied by the internal deliberations of the executive—by the president and his closest advisers.
And if the president can kill anyone, including US citizens, without judicial review, what power does he not have? Any but the most formal distinction between democracy and presidential dictatorship is swept away.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... al-killing
As Charles Pierce has noted - http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/o ... st-9257224 - there is nothing in the constitution that allows the president to wage a private war on individuals outside the authorization of Congress.
The spirit of the constitution was quite the opposite: all of the founders were concerned, in varying degrees, with the risk of allowing the president to exercise too much discretion when declaring war or using force abroad. For this reason, the constitution explicitly grants the right to declare war to the Congress in order to restrain the president from chasing enemies around the world based solely on his authority as commander-in-chief. The founders would be horrified, not comforted, to know that the president has implicated himself in the killing of foreign nationals in states against which the Congress has not passed a declaration of war.
--You seemingly believe the data released by Snowden justifies his status as some kind of heroic whistleblower.
--Me, I’m basic, his actions were those of a traitor. He stole secret/classified material from the US government AND planned his flight from US jurisdiction. He transported the stolen secret/classified material to a foreign country. He released that secret/classified material in a foreign country.
So what if the secret/classified material is enlightening on the programs being utilized by NSA, the fact remains that,
(1) NSA’s mission is the collection of communicative data, and, the rules changed after 9/11 to include domestic communications.
(2) the method by which Snowden obtained and distributed the secret/classified material falls under the scope of treason, making Snowden a traitor.
If you think other countries, including our so-called allies are not employing communicative data collection on US citizens, corporations, and government activities within the US and outside of the mainland of the US, then you are just being naïve.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
1. The Constitution didn't change after 9/11. Citizens have a right to privacy unless there is sufficient reason to suspect them of wrongdoing.
2. It wasn't treason, it was whistle blowing. Treason would imply that he gave, or sold, highly sensitive material to a foreign entity with the intent of bringing harm upon his home country. He did nothing of the sort, and only material deemed to be in the public interest was released.
3. There is zero evidence of other countries spying on the citizens of others. And if you have evidence to the contrary then go ahead and produce it.
News
UK news
GCHQ
Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret
Exclusive: Edward Snowden papers show UK spy agency fears legal challenge if scale of surveillance is made public
Beta
James Ball
The Guardian, Friday 25 October 2013 18.45 BST
Jump to comments (849)
GCHQ headquarters
GCHQ fears a legal challenge under the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods becomes admissable in court. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA
The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a "damaging public debate" on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal.
Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency's long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK's intelligence community.
Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency's large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show.
The papers also reveal that:
• GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone "well beyond" what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies' mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.
• GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court.
• GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with "press handling", including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticised the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and America's National Security Agency.
The most recent attempt to make intelligence gathered from intercepts admissible in court, proposed by the last Labour government, was finally stymied by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 in 2009.
A briefing memo prepared for the board of GCHQ shortly before the decision was made public revealed that one reason the agency was keen to quash the proposals was the fear that even passing references to its wide-reaching surveillance powers could start a "damaging" public debate.
Referring to the decision to publish the report on intercept as evidence without classification, it noted: "Our main concern is that references to agency practices (ie the scale of interception and deletion) could lead to damaging public debate which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime." A later update, from May 2012, set out further perceived "risks" of making intercepts admissible, including "the damage to partner relationships if sensitive information were accidentally released in open court". It also noted that the "scale of interception and retention required would be fairly likely to be challenged on Article 8 (Right to Privacy) grounds".
The GCHQ briefings showed the agency provided the Home Office with support in winning the PR battle on the proposed reforms by lining up people to talk to the media – including Lord Carlile, who on Wednesday gave a public lecture condemning the Guardian's decision to publish stories based on the leaked material from Snowden.
Referring to the public debate on intercept evidence, the document notes: "Sir Ken McDonald [sic] (former DPP [director of public prosecutions]), Lord Goldsmith (former AG [attorney general]) and David Davis (former Shadow HSec [home secretary) [have been] reiterating their previous calls for IaE [intercept as evidence].
"We are working closely with HO [Home Office] on their plans for press handling when the final report is published, e.g. lining up talking heads (such as Lord Carlisle [sic], Lord Stevens, Sir Stephen Lander, Sir Swinton Thomas)."
Carlile was the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in 2001-11, and was awarded a CBE in 2012 for his services to national security.
Another top GCHQ priority in resisting the admission of intercepts as evidence was keeping secret the extent of the agency's co-operative relationships with telephone companies – including being granted access to communications networks overseas.
In June, the Guardian disclosed the existence of GCHQ's Tempora internet surveillance programme. It uses intercepts on the fibre-optic cables that make up the backbone of the internet to gain access to vast swaths of internet users' personal data. The intercepts are placed in the UK and overseas, with the knowledge of companies owning either the cables or landing stations.
The revelations of voluntary co-operation with some telecoms companies appear to contrast markedly with statements made by large telecoms firms in the wake of the first Tempora stories. They stressed that they were simply complying with the law of the countries in which they operated.
In reality, numerous telecoms companies were doing much more than that, as disclosed in a secret document prepared in 2009 by a joint working group of GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.
Their report contended that allowing intercepts as evidence could damage relationships with "Communications Service Providers" (CSPs).
In an extended excerpt of "the classified version" of a review prepared for the Privy Council, a formal body of advisers made up of current and former cabinet ministers, the document sets out the real nature of the relationship between telecoms firms and the UK government.
"Under RIPA [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000], CSPs in the UK may be required to provide, at public expense, an adequate interception capability on their networks," it states. "In practice all significant providers do provide such a capability. But in many cases their assistance – while in conformity with the law – goes well beyond what it requires."
GCHQ's internet surveillance programme is the subject of a challenge in the European court of human rights, mounted by three privacy advocacy groups. The Open Rights Group, English PEN and Big Brother Watch argue the "unchecked surveillance" of Tempora is a challenge to the right to privacy, as set out in the European convention on human rights.
That the Tempora programme appears to rely at least in part on voluntary co-operation of telecoms firms could become a major factor in that ongoing case. The revelation could also reignite the long-running debate over allowing intercept evidence in court.
GCHQ's submission goes on to set out why its relationships with telecoms companies go further than what can be legally compelled under current law. It says that in the internet era, companies wishing to avoid being legally mandated to assist UK intelligence agencies would often be able to do so "at little cost or risk to their operations" by moving "some or all" of their communications services overseas.
As a result, "it has been necessary to enter into agreements with both UK-based and offshore providers for them to afford the UK agencies access, with appropriate legal authorisation, to the communications they carry outside the UK".
The submission to ministers does not set out which overseas firms have entered into voluntary relationships with the UK, or even in which countries they operate, though documents detailing the Tempora programme made it clear the UK's interception capabilities relied on taps located both on UK soil and overseas.
There is no indication as to whether the governments of the countries in which deals with companies have been struck would be aware of the GCHQ cable taps.
Evidence that telecoms firms and GCHQ are engaging in mass interception overseas could stoke an ongoing diplomatic row over surveillance ignited this week after the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, accused the NSA of monitoring her phone calls, and the subsequent revelation that the agency monitored communications of at least 35 other world leaders.
On Friday, Merkel and the French president, François Hollande, agreed to spearhead efforts to make the NSA sign a new code of conduct on how it carried out intelligence operations within the European Union, after EU leaders warned that the international fight against terrorism was being jeopardised by the perception that mass US surveillance was out of control.
Fear of diplomatic repercussions were one of the prime reasons given for GCHQ's insistence that its relationships with telecoms firms must be kept private .
Telecoms companies "feared damage to their brands internationally, if the extent of their co-operation with HMG [Her Majesty's government] became apparent", the GCHQ document warned. It added that if intercepts became admissible as evidence in UK courts "many CSPs asserted that they would withdraw their voluntary support".
The report stressed that while companies are going beyond what they are required to do under UK law, they are not being asked to violate it.
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty and Anthony Romero Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union issued a joint statement stating:
"The Guardian's publication of information from Edward Snowden has uncovered a breach of trust by the US and UK Governments on the grandest scale. The newspaper's principled and selective revelations demonstrate our rulers' contempt for personal rights, freedoms and the rule of law.
"Across the globe, these disclosures continue to raise fundamental questions about the lack of effective legal protection against the interception of all our communications.
"Yet in Britain, that conversation is in danger of being lost beneath self-serving spin and scaremongering, with journalists who dare to question the secret state accused of aiding the enemy.
"A balance must of course be struck between security and transparency, but that cannot be achieved whilst the intelligence services and their political masters seek to avoid any scrutiny of, or debate about, their actions.
"The Guardian's decision to expose the extent to which our privacy is being violated should be applauded and not condemned."
what was that you asked for Byrnzie? Some sort of evidence?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Just a hunch