LIVE Q&A Chat with Snowden earlier today:

————————————–

GlennGreenwald
17 June 2013 2:11pm

Let’s begin with these:

1) Why did you choose Hong Kong to go to and then tell them about US hacking on their research facilities and universities?

2) How many sets of the documents you disclosed did you make, and how many different people have them? If anything happens to you, do they still exist?

Answer:

1) First, the US Government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime. That’s not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it.

Second, let’s be clear: I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash. Congress hasn’t declared war on the countries – the majority of them are our allies – but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we’re not even fighting? So we can potentially reveal a potential terrorist with the potential to kill fewer Americans than our own Police? No, the public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the “consent of the governed” is meaningless.

2) All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

11.13am ET

Question:
User avatar for ewenmacaskill Guardian staff
ewenmacaskill
17 June 2013 3:07pm

I should have asked you this when I saw you but never got round to it……..Why did you just not fly direct to Iceland if that is your preferred country for asylum?

Answer:

Leaving the US was an incredible risk, as NSA employees must declare their foreign travel 30 days in advance and are monitored. There was a distinct possibility I would be interdicted en route, so I had to travel with no advance booking to a country with the cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained. Hong Kong provided that. Iceland could be pushed harder, quicker, before the public could have a chance to make their feelings known, and I would not put that past the current US administration.

11.17am ET

Question:
User avatar for ActivistGal
ActivistGal
17 June 2013 2:15pm

You have said HERE that you admire both Ellsberg and Manning, but have argued that there is one important distinction between yourself and the army private…

“I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,” he said. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”

Are you suggesting that Manning indiscriminately dumped secrets into the hands of Wikileaks and that he intended to harm people?

Answer:

No, I’m not. Wikileaks is a legitimate journalistic outlet and they carefully redacted all of their releases in accordance with a judgment of public interest. The unredacted release of cables was due to the failure of a partner journalist to control a passphrase. However, I understand that many media outlets used the argument that “documents were dumped” to smear Manning, and want to make it clear that it is not a valid assertion here.

11.20am ET

Question:
User avatar for D. Aram Mushegian II
D. Aram Mushegian II
17 June 2013 2:16pm

Did you lie about your salary? What is the issue there? Why did you tell Glenn Greenwald that your salary was $200,000 a year, when it was only $122,000 (according to the firm that fired you.)

Answer:

I was debriefed by Glenn and his peers over a number of days, and not all of those conversations were recorded. The statement I made about earnings was that $200,000 was my “career high” salary. I had to take pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. Booz was not the most I’ve been paid.

11.23am ET

Question:
User avatar for Gabrielaweb
Gabrielaweb
17 June 2013 2:17pm

Why did you wait to release the documents if you said you wanted to tell the world about the NSA programs since before Obama became president?

Answer:

Obama’s campaign promises and election gave me faith that he would lead us toward fixing the problems he outlined in his quest for votes. Many Americans felt similarly. Unfortunately, shortly after assuming power, he closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several abusive programs, and refused to spend the political capital to end the kind of human rights violations like we see in Guantanamo, where men still sit without charge.

11.27am ET

Question:
User avatar for Anthony De Rosa
Anthony De Rosa
17 June 2013 2:18pm

1) Define in as much detail as you can what “direct access” means.

2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?

Answer:

1) More detail on how direct NSA’s accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on – it’s all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.

Updated at 11.41am ET

17 June 2013 2:18pm

1) Define in as much detail as you can what “direct access” means.

2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?

2) NSA likes to use “domestic” as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as “incidental” collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of “warranted” intercept, it’s important to understand the intelligence community doesn’t always deal with what you would consider a “real” warrant like a Police department would have to, the “warrant” is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.

Glenn Greenwald follow up: When you say “someone at NSA still has the content of your communications” – what do you mean? Do you mean they have a record of it, or the actual content?

Both. If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time – and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.

11.41am ET

Question:
User avatar for HaraldK
HaraldK
17 June 2013 2:45pm

What are your thoughts on Google’s and Facebook’s denials? Do you think that they’re honestly in the dark about PRISM, or do you think they’re compelled to lie?

Perhaps this is a better question to a lawyer like Greenwald, but: If you’re presented with a secret order that you’re forbidding to reveal the existence of, what will they actually do if you simply refuse to comply (without revealing the order)?

Answer:

Their denials went through several revisions as it become more and more clear they were misleading and included identical, specific language across companies. As a result of these disclosures and the clout of these companies, we’re finally beginning to see more transparency and better details about these programs for the first time since their inception.

They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down?

11.55am ET

Question:
User avatar for MonaHol
MonaHol
17 June 2013 4:37pm

Ed Snowden, I thank you for your brave service to our country.

Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:

I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.

Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Answer:

Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it’s important to understand that policy protection is no protection – policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection – a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the “widest allowable aperture,” and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn’t stop being protected communications just because of the IP they’re tagged with.

More fundamentally, the “US Persons” protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it’s only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal.”

12.04pm ET

Question:
User avatar for Spencer Ackerman Guardian staff
Spencer Ackerman
17 June 2013 4:16pm

Edward, there is rampant speculation, outpacing facts, that you have or will provide classified US information to the Chinese or other governments in exchange for asylum. Have/will you?

Answer:

This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public, as the US media has a knee-jerk “RED CHINA!” reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

12.10pm ET

Question:

Answer:

US officials say this every time there’s a public discussion that could limit their authority. US officials also provide misleading or directly false assertions about the value of these programs, as they did just recently with the Zazi case, which court documents clearly show was not unveiled by PRISM.

Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we’ve been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.

Further, it’s important to bear in mind I’m being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

Updated at 12.11pm ET

12.12pm ET

Question:
User avatar for Mathius1
Mathius1
17 June 2013 2:54pm

Is encrypting my email any good at defeating the NSA survelielance? Id my data protected by standard encryption?

Answer:

Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.

12.24pm ET

Question:

Answer:

Binney, Drake, Kiriakou, and Manning are all examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures. Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they’ll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. Instead, these draconian responses simply build better whistleblowers. If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they’ll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response.

This disclosure provides Obama an opportunity to appeal for a return to sanity, constitutional policy, and the rule of law rather than men. He still has plenty of time to go down in history as the President who looked into the abyss and stepped back, rather than leaping forward into it. I would advise he personally call for a special committee to review these interception programs, repudiate the dangerous “State Secrets” privilege, and, upon preparing to leave office, begin a tradition for all Presidents forthwith to demonstrate their respect for the law by appointing a special investigator to review the policies of their years in office for any wrongdoing. There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny – they should be setting the example of transparency.

12.28pm ET

Question:
User avatar for Ryan Latvaitis
Ryan Latvaitis
17 June 2013 2:34pm

What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?

What evidence do you have that refutes the assertion that the NSA is unable to listen to the content of telephone calls without an explicit and defined court order from FISC?

Answer:

This country is worth dying for.

12.34pm ET

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

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

Answer:

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

12.37pm ET

Follow-up from the Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman:

Regarding whether you have secretly given classified information to the Chinese government, some are saying you didn’t answer clearly – can you give a flat no?

Answer:

No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government. Just like with the Guardian and the Washington Post, I only work with journalists.

12.41pm ET

Question:

So far are things going the way you thought they would regarding a public debate? – tikkamasala

Answer:

Initially I was very encouraged. Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history.

12.43pm ET

Final question from Glenn Greenwald:

Anything else you’d like to add?

Answer:

Thanks to everyone for their support, and remember that just because you are not the target of a surveillance program does not make it okay. The US Person / foreigner distinction is not a reasonable substitute for individualized suspicion, and is only applied to improve support for the program. This is the precise reason that NSA provides Congress with a special immunity to its surveillance.

You can read more of Snowden’s comments here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower

…………………………..

This man is the Paul Revere of the 21st Century.. With his message to the country and the world, “Big Brother is here and cannot be Trusted.”

NSA whistleblower tells Guardian readers he would be enjoying a life of luxury in Beijing if he was an intelligence mercenary

A banner in Hong Kong supporting NSA operative Edward Snowden. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has dismissed speculation that he might provide classified US information to other governments as a smear and distraction, saying he could be “petting a phoenix in Beijing by now” if he were a Chinese spy.

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney and others had voiced suspicion about his decision to fly to Hong Kong, where he accused the US government of hacking targets there and on the Chinese mainland.

In a live chat with Guardian readers Snowden wrote: “This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public, as the US media has a kneejerk RED CHINA!’ reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct.

“Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.”

Pressed again to state clearly whether he had given any information to Beijing, he said: “No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government … I only work with journalists.”

Earlier, China’s foreign ministry said suggestions he might have acted for Beijing were completely groundless. Spokeswoman Hua Chunying, speaking at a regular press briefing on Monday, also urged the US to “pay attention to the international community’s concerns and demands and give … the necessary explanation” of its surveillance activities.

Her remarks were in response to questions from two state media organisations. She had previously declined to comment on the 29-year-old’s case, or his claims that the US had hacked targets in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland.

On Sunday, Cheney told Fox News that Snowden was a traitor and questioned his decision to travel to Hong Kong. “I’m suspicious because he went to China. That’s not a place where you would ordinarily want to go if you are interested in freedom, liberty and so forth,” he said, adding: “It raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this.”

Cheney suggested that Snowden could still have confidential data and that the Chinese would “probably be willing to provide immunity for him or sanctuary for him in exchange for what he presumably knows or doesn’t know”.

Others have suggested that if anything, Beijing could lean on the Hong Kong government to return him to the US for the sake of bilateral relations. Hong Kong is part of China but enjoys considerable autonomy under the “one country, two systems” framework.

Snowden told the Guardian he chose to go there because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”, and he believed it was one of the few places that could resist the US government.

But he [Snowden] also noted: “I think it is really tragic that an American has to move to a place that has a reputation for less freedom. Still, Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People’s Republic of China.”

He checked out of a hotel there to move to an unknown location last Monday, but told the South China Morning Post last week that he would stay and fight any request for his surrender in the territory’s courts. “I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American,” he told the paper.

Any surrender request would normally be the decision of the Hong Kong government, but Snowden would be able to challenge it through the territory’s legal system, although lawyers think he would probably be unsuccessful in the end. In theory, Beijing could step in to stop him being sent back, but it would be unlikely to relish an all-out public row with the US.

Earlier on Monday, the populist state-run Chinese tabloid The Global Times said that agreeing to surrender Snowden to the US “would be a face-losing outcome for both the Hong Kong SAR [special administrative region] government and the Chinese central government”.

It added: “Unlike a common criminal, (unlike our politicians, for example) Snowden did not hurt anybody. His crime is that he blew the whistle on the US government’s violation of [our]civil rights.

“Extraditing Snowden back to the US would not only be a betrayal of Snowden’s trust, but a disappointment for expectations around the world. The image of Hong Kong would be forever tarnished.”

The newspaper does not represent the official voice of the government and often runs provocative material such as hawkish commentaries from former military officers. But after years of criticism from the US over its human rights abuses and more recently hacking, Beijing appears to be enjoying its opportunity to turn the tables, with extensive coverage of Snowden’s allegations on television and websites and in newspaper commentaries.

According to the latest revelations from top secret documents uncovered by Snowden and seen by the Guardian, British intelligence agencies intercepted the communications of foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-rubbishes-chinese-spy

He is absolutely right that by making us easier targets without weapons to defend ourselves, there will be MORE bad guys not less. What right thinking bad guy want to take on an armed victim?

With that in mind, enjoy this video…

THE WAY FOR THE GAZELLE TO PROTECT ITSELF FROM THE LEOPARD?

A most compelling speech given to the Congress. The man’s arguments are irrefutable. Watch Chuck Schumer smirk and smile. His and his fellow anti-second amendment louts must have been burning with anger having to have the wrong thrown right in front of the faces without an ability to shout down the speaker!

Two pan-democratic lawmakers urged US President Barack Obama on Friday to stop all legal action against and “consider letting go” NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden who has taken refuge in Hong Kong.

They made the comments at a press conference at which they also made public a letter they have sent to Obama urging him to not allow “national security” claims to justify abuse of state power.

In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post on Wednesday, Snowden, a 29-year-old former Central Intelligence Agency analyst, made the explosive claims that the US government had been hacking into computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland for years. He had earlier revealed that the US has been secretly collecting the phone and online data of its citizens for national security reasons.

In the 400-word letter, Claudia Mo Man-ching of the Civic Party and Gary Fan Kwok-wai of the NeoDemocrats, democratically elected members of the Legislative Council urged Obama to “tread very carefully and take into account the views of America’s democratic friends around the world.”

“President Obama probably wouldn’t want any stain … on his political career,” said Mo.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1260849/hong-kong-lawmakers-urge-obama-tread-very-carefully-snowden-case

MOSCOW—The Kremlin Friday dismissed as unconvincing evidence that U.S. officials provided of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons and criticized Washington’s decision to arm Syrian opposition fighters, but stopped short of threatening to deliver air-defense missiles to the Assad government in response.

A senior Kremlin official said Moscow is “not yet” discussing the delivery of the advanced air-defense system in the wake of the U.S. decision. Last month, Russian officials threatened to fulfill the 2010 contract for the S-300 missiles as a way to deter potential outside military intervention in the two-year-old Syrian civil war. Western powers and Israel have staunchly opposed the sale of the system.

Both Moscow and the U.S. are pushing the warring sides in Syria to enter peace talks in the coming months. But opposition forces have appealed for more weapons and support in recent weeks as they’ve lost ground against Mr. Assad’s troops and their allies from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. The Kremlin opposes any international action against its longtime client, Mr. Assad, and has been skeptical of past Western claims that his forces were using chemical weapons.

Thursday, President Barack Obama authorized the U.S. administration to arm fighters against the Assad regime, reversing a long-running policy of giving only nonlethal support to the country’s opposition. The White House cited confirmation that Mr. Assad’s regime had killed up to 150 people with chemical weapons as the reason for its about-face.

Russian officials say the evidence isn’t rock solid. “I want to confirm that we had a meeting with American representatives in which Americans tried to present information to us about the regime’s use of chemical weapons, but frankly speaking, the evidence Americans set out looks unconvincing,” Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin’s top foreign-policy aide, said Friday, according to Russian news agencies.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323734304578545062769525132.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Benghazi descends into chaos under U.S.-backed regime Islamic militia firing indiscriminately

Benghazi has descended into a state of civil emergency in which lawless militia have begun killing protestors with impunity, in the name of the puppet government the United States has established in Tripoli.

A group of highly credible Libyan expatriates have provided WND with links to television news video clips from Libya dramatically showing armed militia in Benghazi on June 8, firing indiscriminately on civilians attempting to protest the increasing influence of radical Islam thug groups with loose ties to al-Qaida.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/benghazi-descends-into-chaos-under-u-s-backed-regime/

……………………..

Nothing heard about these atrocities from the new mgmt at the Kerry State Dept..

Wired has another frightening article out:

THE SECRET WAR INFILTRATION. SABOTAGE. MAYHEM. FOR YEARS FOUR-STAR GENERAL KEITH ALEXANDER HAS BEEN BUILDING A SECRET ARMY CAPABLE OF LAUNCHING DEVASTATING CYBERATTACKS. NOW IT’S READY TO UNLEASH HELL.

“Alexander runs the nation’s cyberwar efforts, an empire he has built over the past eight years by insisting that the US’s inherent vulnerability to digital attacks requires him to amass more and more authority over the data zipping around the globe. In his telling, the threat is so mind-bogglingly huge that the nation has little option but to eventually put the entire civilian Internet under his protection, requiring tweets and emails to pass through his filters, and putting the kill switch under the government’s forefinger. “What we see is an increasing level of activity on the networks,” he said at a recent security conference in Canada. “I am concerned that this is going to break a threshold where the private sector can no longer handle it and the government is going to have to step in.”

In its tightly controlled public relations, the NSA has focused attention on the threat of cyberattack against the US—the vulnerability of critical infrastructure like power plants and water systems, the susceptibility of the military’s command and control structure, the dependence of the economy on the Internet’s smooth functioning. Defense against these threats was the paramount mission trumpeted by NSA brass at congressional hearings and hashed over at security conferences.

But there is a flip side to this equation that is rarely mentioned: The military has for years been developing offensive capabilities, giving it the power not just to defend the US but to assail its foes. Using so-called cyber-kinetic attacks, Alexander and his forces now have the capability to physically destroy an adversary’s equipment and infrastructure, and potentially even to kill. Alexander—who declined to be interviewed for this article—has concluded that such cyberweapons are as crucial to 21st-century warfare as nuclear arms were in the 20th.

And he and his cyberwarriors have already launched their first attack. The cyberweapon that came to be known as Stuxnet was created and built by the NSA in partnership with the CIA and Israeli intelligence in the mid-2000s. The first known piece of malware designed to destroy physical equipment, Stuxnet was aimed at Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz. By surreptitiously taking control of an industrial control link known as a Scada (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system, the sophisticated worm was able to damage about a thousand centrifuges used to enrich nuclear material.”

there’s more. read on:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/

………………….

Thats all well and good. So why doesn’t a Congressman requisition from the FOIA as well as the now known capability of existing NSA records for an accounting of how Obama WON the last election over Mitt Romney? The votes were purportedly counted overseas in Spain with a former Obama BIG donor on the board of directors officiating over the results. A forensic audit of the last election could be tasked out to a sixth grade class as a class project where the audit is seen as it happens unfolding in the classroom to eventually be seen in 1 hr weekly episodes as an ‘educational reality series’ on the Discovery channel.

Along with the cell phone conversations, texts and e-mails processed between the supervisors and handlers during the counting.. (I do remember the long waits for some battleground states updating the numbers when Romney was ahead.) It would be interesting to know what caused the long repeated delays in updating the numbers.

…Americans have been told by their Leader, they are not allowed to negatively criticize Muslims.

… Airport security demands Americans be searched from head to toe by whatever means necessary ie. full body x-ray, electronic scanning, invasive groping, even genital probing by over zealous TSA employees in the interests of national security.

… On the other hand, because of [their] religious restrictions, Muslims in order to full-fill TSA requirements need only be searched from the neck up. (Does anyone recall how many Americans were aboard the rouge airliners that crashed into the WTC on 9/11/2001? ) Wikipedia makes no mention of Americans in any of the aircraft on that fateful day.

… A Scandal a Day, does have people talking especially the people who have supported Barack Obama for the last five years and have seen little return on their invested donation dollars. If only worrying about what their ‘hard earned dollars’ donations bought them was their only problem? Forget the promises made in 2011 that spurred you on to pull the Obama lever in 2012 because you are a good person and wanted what he said to be true that has now turned out to be wishful thinking on your part. And instead of looking at your other hand the one with the scarred fingertips healed over after the 08′ election notice now you have a matching pair of scared fingertips because you cast your vote based solely on your emotions and wishful thinking you were going to be taken care of rather than what you always knew to be TRUE…` Trust Obama at your peril..

Yes, I was setting some reminders in place just in case you’ve become overwhelmed with the lop-sided logic that is running our country and driving most Americans to distraction.

So, here is ‘Your Big Obama Thought’ for today:

Thanks to Leanora posting this earlier today:

Mosque’s Are Off-Limits To Obama’s [NSA] Snooping…

The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won’t snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.

That’s right, the government’s sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/06/12/fun-fact-of-the-day-mosques-are-off-limits-to-obamas-snooping/#disqus_thread

The former president says the current president may regret staying on the sidelines if Syria’s war worsens

In a rare split over foreign policy, former President Bill Clinton said President Obama risks looking like a “total wuss” if he lets public and political opposition to intervening in Syria dissuade him from taking decisive action to help rebels topple the Assad regime.

“If you refuse to act and you cause a calamity, the one thing you cannot say when all the eggs have been broken is, ‘Oh my god, two years ago there was a poll that said 80 percent of you were against it,’” Clinton said in a question-and-answer period first reported by Politico. “You look like a total fool.”

Clinton, speaking with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at a Tuesday event that was closed to the press, contrasted Obama’s reluctance to wade more deeply into Syria’s widening conflict with the 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo, which included the bombing of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s forces. “You just think how lame you’d be,” Clinton said. “Suppose I had let a million people, two million people be refuges out of Kosovo, a couple hundred thousand people die, and they say, ‘You could have stopped this by dropping a few bombs. Why didn’t you do it?’ And I say, ‘because the House of Representative voted 75 percent against it?’ “You look like a total wuss, and you would be.”

The comments provided an unexpected boost to the rising chorus calling for beefing up support for the rebels — McCain is one of the biggest supporters for intervention, and Clinton’s wife advocated arming Syrian rebels when she was Obama’s secretary of State. Margaret Hartmann at New York notes that former presidents usually avoid publicly criticizing current ones, especially on foreign policy, and suggests that Clinton might not have intended for his remarks to be made public. Now that they are, Hartmann says, Obama will be feeling more pressure than ever to act.

So, note to Obama: When asked about why you dragged you feet on Syria, stick with “concerns about aiding Al Qaeda-affiliated rebel groups,” rather than “polls showed Americans weren’t feeling it.” [New York]

Of course, there are plenty of reasons to resist charging into another war in the Middle East — including the risk that escalating the conflict could increase the risk that it will spread into a regional war. James Joyner at Outside the Beltway points out that it’s unfair to suggest that Obama’s reluctance to get more deeply involved is due to polls. “The polls opposed intervention in Libya, too,” Joyner says, “and that didn’t seem to bother him.”

I’m inclined to believe that this president is doing his best to serve America’s national interests and is tempering whatever ideological preferences he has to intervene in humanitarian disasters — which may be strong, indeed, given how close he’s been to Samantha Power going back to at least the 2008 campaign — with a hard-headed cost-benefit analysis. Absent strong evidence to the contrary, that’s how I presume any American president decides when to send our forces off to war. [Outside the Beltway]
The U.N. just pushed its estimate of the two-year conflict’s death toll to 93,000, up from 80,000 in mid-May, and the State Department is making a fresh push for arming the rebels. Such circumstances might give Obama no choice but to act more forcefully. Aaron David Miller at Foreign Policy notes that there’s no diplomatic exit in sight. He also argues that nothing the U.S. has done so far and none of the incremental steps we’re considering — arming rebels, imposing a no-fly zone, even launching some airstrikes — will oust President Bashar al-Assad and restore stability.

“After America’s baby steps into the Syrian war don’t resolve it,” Miller says, “Obama will face a choice: He can either stand down and reveal we don’t have the will to stand up, or he can escalate.” Miller says that judging by the people Obama has chosen to surround himself with lately — the hawkish Susan Rice, his new national security adviser, and Samantha Power, his new U.N. ambassador — it looks like the risk-averse Obama administration is destined to intervene.

The steady drumbeat of death in Syria will increase the pressure on the United States to do something, anything, to stop the violence — even if it’s out of good options for doing so. For better or worse, the Obama administration seems headed for military intervention in Syria, with all the risk and uncertainty that entails. [Foreign Policy]

http://news.yahoo.com/bill-clinton-cautions-obama-beware-looking-total-wuss-111000924.html
……………….

Obama doesn’t act unless it’s a direct order from Valjar. Without a typewritten speech or a teleprompter to read from, he neither knows where he is… what issue he’s there to address, or the name of the association hosting the event.

I think Ed is doing just fine following his own plan.

See: http://supportsnowden.org/

So we refused to be part of the NSA’s dark blanket. That is why whistleblowers pay the price for being the backstop of democracy.

June 12, 2013 Thomas Drake

What Edward Snowden has done is an amazingly brave and courageous act of civil disobedience.

Like me, he became discomforted by what he was exposed to and what he saw: the industrial-scale systematic surveillance that is scooping up vast amounts of information not only around the world but in the United States, in direct violation of the fourth amendment of the US constitution.

The NSA programs that Snowden has revealed are nothing new: they date back to the days and weeks after 9/11. I had direct exposure to similar programs, such as Stellar Wind, in 2001. In the first week of October, I had an extraordinary conversation with NSA’s lead attorney. When I pressed hard about the unconstitutionality of Stellar Wind, he said:

“The White House has approved the program; it’s all legal. NSA is the executive agent.”

It was made clear to me that the original intent of government was to gain access to all the information it could without regard for constitutional safeguards. “You don’t understand,” I was told. “We just need the data.”

In the first week of October 2001, President Bush had signed an extraordinary order authorizing blanket dragnet electronic surveillance: Stellar Wind was a highly secret program that, without warrant or any approval from the Fisa court, gave the NSA access to all phone records from the major telephone companies, including US-to-US calls. It correlates precisely with the Verizon order revealed by Snowden; and based on what we know, you have to assume that there are standing orders for the other major telephone companies.

It is technically true that the order applies only to meta-data. The problem is that in the digital space, metadata becomes the index for content. And content is gold for determining intent.

This executive fiat of 2001 violated not just the fourth amendment, but also Fisa rules at the time, which made it a felony – carrying a penalty of $10,000 and five years in prison for each and every instance. The supposed oversight, combined with enabling legislation – the Fisa court, the congressional committees – is all a kabuki dance, predicated on the national security claim that we need to find a threat. The reality is, they just want it all, period.

So I was there at the very nascent stages, when the government – willfully and in deepest secrecy – subverted the constitution. All you need to know about so-called oversight is that the NSA was already in violation of the Patriot Act by the time it was signed into law.
………………………..

Drake goes on to say:

“So none of this is new to me. The difference between what the Bush administration was doing in 2001, right after 9/11, and what the Obama administration is doing today is that the system is now under the cover and color of law. Yet, what Snowden has revealed is still the tip of the iceberg.

General Michael Hayden, who was head of the NSA when I worked there, and then director of the CIA, said, “We need to own the net.” And that is what they’re implementing here. They have this extraordinary system: in effect, a 24/7 panopticon on a vast scale that it is gazing at you with an all-seeing eye.

I lived with that dirty knowledge for years. Before 9/11, the prime directive at the NSA was that you don’t spy on Americans without a warrant; to do so was against the law – and, in particular, was a criminal violation of Fisa. My concern was that we were more than an accessory; this was a crime and we were subverting the constitution.

I differed as a whistleblower to Snowden only in this respect: in accordance with the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, I took my concerns up within the chain of command, to the very highest levels at the NSA, and then to Congress and the Department of Defense. I understand why Snowden has taken his course of action, because he’s been following this for years: he’s seen what’s happened to other whistleblowers like me.

By following protocol, you get flagged – just for raising issues. You’re identified as someone they don’t like, someone not to be trusted, I was exposed early on because I was a material witness for two 9/11 congressional investigations. In closed testimony, I told them everything I knew – about Stellar Wind, billions of dollars in fraud, waste and abuse, and the critical intelligence, which the NSA had but did not disclose to other agencies, preventing vital action against known threats. If that intelligence had been shared, it may very well have prevented 9/11.

But as I found out later, none of the material evidence I disclosed went into the official record. It became a state secret even to give information of this kind to the 9/11 investigation.

I reached a point in early 2006 when I decided I would contact a reporter. I had the same level of security clearance as Snowden. If you look at the indictment from 2010, you can see that I was accused of causing “exceptionally grave damage to US national security”. Despite allegations that I had tippy-top-secret documents, In fact, I had no classified information in my possession, and I disclosed none to the Baltimore Sun journalist during 2006 and 2007. But I got hammered: in November 2007, I was raided by a dozen armed FBI agents, when I was served with a search warrant. The nightmare had only just begun, including extensive physical and electronic surveillance.

In April 2008, in a secret meeting with the FBI, the chief prosecutor from the Department of Justice assigned to lead the prosecution said, “How would you like to spend the rest of your life in jail, Mr Drake?” – unless I co-operated with their multi-year, multimillion-dollar criminal leak investigation, launched in 2005 after the explosive New York Times article revealing for the first time the warrantless wiretapping operation. Two years later, they finally charged me with a ten felony count indictment, including five counts under the Espionage Act. I faced upwards of 35 years in prison.

In July 2011, after the government’s case had collapsed under the weight of truth, I plead to a minor misdemeanor for “exceeding authorized use of a computer” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act – in exchange for the DOJ dropping all ten felony counts. I received as a sentence one year’s probation and 240 hours of community service: I interviewed almost 50 veterans for the Library of Congress veterans history project. This was a rare, almost unprecedented, case of a government prosecution of a whistleblower ending in total defeat and failure.

So, the stakes for whistleblowers are incredibly high. The government has got its knives out: there’s a massive manhunt for Snowden. They will use all their resources to hunt him down and every detail of his life will be turned inside out. They’ll do everything they can to “bring him to justice” – already there are calls for the “traitor” to be “put away for life”.

He can expect the worst; he knows that. He went preemptively overseas because that at least delays the prying hand of the US government. But he could be extracted by rendition, as he has said. Certainly, my life was shredded. Once they have determined that you are a “person of interest” and an “enemy of the state”, they want to destroy you, period.

I am now reliving the last 12 years from what’s been disclosed in the past week. I feel a kinship with Snowden: he is essentially the equivalent of me. He saw the surveillance state from within and saw how far it’s gone. The government has a pathological incentive to collect more and more and more; they just can’t help themselves – they have an insatiable hoarding complex.

Since the government unchained itself from the constitution after 9/11, it has been eating our democracy alive from the inside out. There’s no room in a democracy for this kind of secrecy: it’s anathema to our form of a constitutional republic, which was born out of the struggle to free ourselves from the abuse of such powers, which led to the American revolution.

That is what’s at stake here: to an NSA with these unwarranted powers, we’re all potentially guilty; we’re all potential suspects until we prove otherwise. That is what happens when the government has all the data.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/snowden-surveillance-subverting-constitution

BERKELEY, Calif. — Famed Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg had harsh words for the Obama Administration during an event here Tuesday evening, charging that the rapid expansion of government surveillance since 9/11 has left the country “a turnkey away from a police state.”

“We’re not a police state yet, but the foundation has been set,” he continued. “It could happen overnight.”

Ellsberg, 82, is a former military analyst who became one of the most famous men in America when he leaked a top-secret government report on the Vietnam War to The New York Times in 1971. He has since been a patron saint to the civil liberties movement and is viewed by many as a predecessor of modern-day leakers like Bradley Manning and now Edward Snowden, the man who recently released evidence of the National Security Agency’s covert phone records collection and Internet data mining.

Speaking at a panel discussion on “our vanishing civil liberties” organized by the Berkeley chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the anti-war activist group Code Pink, Ellsberg argued that recent revelations of the large-scale collection of Internet and cell phone data should be of grave concern to all Americans.

“Reassurances by high officials on the limits of the surveillance state are worthless,” he said, referring to a speech given by President Barack Obama last week where the president defended the NSA’s monitoring programs.

“Legalizing this activity doesn’t make it constitutional,” Ellsberg said. “Congress cannot repeal the Fourth Amendment.”

The event’s decidedly liberal crowd gave a rousing chorus of boos to Ellsberg’s mentions of both Obama and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the latter of whom has called Snowden’s leak “an act of treason.”

Ellsberg said contrary to the government’s claims that its monitoring programs are only collecting metadata — such as the time and duration of phone calls and the subjects and IP addresses of emails — he was confident the NSA is saving far information more than it lets on.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s admission earlier on Tuesday that he gave the “least untruthful” answer possible when he claimed the government wasn’t collecting information on millions of Americans eroded all of the administration’s credibility on national security issues, Ellsberg said. He also called on other government whistleblowers to come forward to reveal the full extent of the government’s spying efforts.

“Snowden is someone who has made me proud to be an American,” Ellsberg added, “which isn’t something that’s happened too often in the past dozen years.”

During a wide-ranging discussion with panelists, including Icelandic parliamentarian Brigitta Jónsdóttir, author Norman Solomon and National Lawyers Guild Executive Vice President Nadia Kayyali, Ellsberg called the administration’s use of the National Defense Authorization Act to allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens “an impeachable offense.” Ellsberg has signed on as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the government challenging the NDAA.

He will be back in the Bay Area later this month when he’s scheduled to march in the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade on behalf of Manning, the imprisoned Wikileaks leaker. Manning was initially selected to serve as the event’s grand marshal (in absentia, due to his current imprisonment), but subsequently had the honor revoked by the organization’s leadership.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-spying_n_3429694.html

Jun 11, 2013 4:59pm EDT

(Reuters) – Thomas Drake is one of the few people who understands from personal experience what the future may hold for Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA contractor who exposed the U.S. government’s top secret phone and Internet surveillance programs.

His advice for Snowden: “Be lawyered up to the max and find a place where it’s going to be that much more difficult for the United States to make arrangements for his return,” Drake said. “And always check six, as we said when I used to be a flyer in the Air Force. Always make sure you know what’s behind you.”

Drake, a 56-year-old former intelligence official at the National Security Agency, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act in 2010 for allegedly revealing classified information about the agency’s sweeping warrantless wire-tapping program. The government later dropped all but a misdemeanor charge.

“For me this is a déjà vu,” Drake said, adding that Snowden’s previous comfortable life was over.

“When you offer up information about the dark side of the surveillance state they don’t take too kindly to it,” he said. “They want to stay in the shadows.”

(Reuters Digital Video: link.reuters.com/dur78t)

Drake, one of six people indicted for leaking secret information since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, said the FBI investigated him because it believed he was the source of a New York Times story published in December 2005 that first revealed the NSA’s wire-tapping program. He says he was not the source of that information, and 10 felony counts against him were dropped when he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government information.

In a series of interviews over the past week, he described the experience of coming under investigation.

“My life was turned upside down and inside out,” said Drake, who now earns an hourly wage as a technical expert at an Apple store. “I know what it’s like to live in a surveillance state because the surveillance state was on me, riding me, for so many years. They obviously wanted to do me in. It was relentless. I wouldn’t want any American to go through it.”

Snowden, who worked for three months for Booz Allen Hamilton and was contracted out as a systems administrator to the NSA Threat Operations Center in Hawaii, disclosed this weekend that he was the source of last week’s reports in The Guardian and The Washington Post, saying he acted out of conscience to protect “basic liberties for people around the world.”

Snowden said he had thought long and hard before publicizing details of an NSA program code-named Prism, saying he had done so because he felt the United States was building an unaccountable and secret espionage machine that spied on every American.

U.S. officials have defended the data collection efforts as vital to averting terrorist attacks and other threats against the United States, and insisted there were strict limits on any domestic spying.

Drake, who resigned from the NSA in 2008, said the data released by Snowden validated concerns he began raising internally as early as 2002 about a huge spike in domestic surveillance after the September 11, 2001, hijacking attacks.

Drake said he raised his concerns first with the Pentagon’s inspector general and then worked as a government source on two congressional investigations.

“None of it surprises me,” said Drake. “What you’re seeing here is simply the continuation of what was done in absolute secrecy after 9/11. Those programs were put in place and simply expanded.”

Drake, who worked in signals intelligence during the Cold War, insists he never disclosed classified information. He says Snowden was someone who seems to have done so to serve the public interest.

“History can judge the rest of him, but if Ellsberg’s case is any indication, then that long arc of history will probably bend toward seeing him as a whistleblower,” he said on Tuesday.

Daniel Ellsberg was a national security analyst who passed defense documents known as the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times during the Vietnam War.

Drake said he doesn’t know Snowden personally, although both worked at Booz Allen and the NSA, and he does know some of the journalists involved in the reports based on Snowden’s data.

Snowden flew to Hong Kong on May 20 so he would be in a place that might be able to resist U.S. prosecution attempts, he told the Guardian. He also mentioned Iceland as a possible refuge, and Russia has said it would be willing to consider granting him asylum.

Hong Kong has a long-standing extradition agreement with the United States that has been exercised on numerous occasions since 1998, but legal experts predict a long legal battle if Washington seeks his return.

Drake said he was still suffering the consequences of his actions. “My life was essentially destroyed,” Drake said, noting that the case took a terrible financial and personal toll. He lost his retirement savings and went into debt as his legal bills approached $100,000.

He declined to discuss the impact of the investigation on his family, but said he was disturbed to see a television camera following Snowden’s mother in recent days. “Other people can be affected as well,” he said.

Asked if he still believes what he did was worth it, Drake had no doubts: “Is freedom worth it? Is liberty worth it? Is not living in a surveillance society worth it?”

“If you don’t want to live it, then you’ve got to stand up and defend the rights and the freedoms that prevent that from actually happening,” he said.

see link for video:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/us-usa-security-nsa-drake-idUSBRE95A12X20130611

Daniel Ellsberg, whose leak of the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971 exposed the secret history of the war in Vietnam, thinks Edward Snowden’s leak of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs was more important than his.

“In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material, and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago,” Ellsberg wrote in an op-ed published by the Guardian on Monday. “Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an ‘executive coup’ against the U.S. constitution.”

Ellsberg added on CNN Sunday night that “it can’t be overestimated to this democracy. It gives us a chance, I think, from drawing back from the total surveillance state that we could say we’re in process of becoming, I’m afraid we have become. That’s what he’s revealed.”

On Friday, President Barack Obama defended the programs that predated his administration, saying Americans must tolerate “modest encroachments on privacy” in the name of security, Congress had been fully briefed, and that his White House “actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards.”

In the Guardian, Ellsberg scoffed at Obama’s response:

For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense—as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time—as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads—they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know.

The fact that congressional leaders were “briefed” on this and went along with it, without any open debate, hearings, staff analysis, or any real chance for effective dissent, only shows how broken the system of checks and balances is in this country.

It’s not the first time Ellberg has butted heads with Obama.

In 2011, Ellsberg was among a group of noted whistle-blowers that penned an open letter asking that a “transparency award” given to Obama earlier that year be rescinded. They called the Obama administration’s record on secrecy and surveillance “a disgrace.”

In 1971, Ellsberg became the first person to be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for releasing classified information to the public. The case was later dismissed when it was revealed during trial that the government had engaged in illegal wiretapping to gather evidence against him.

The Pentagon Papers were formally declassified in 2011.

Last week, Ellsberg told The Washington Post that the U.S. government would have gone after him the same way they’ve gone after Bradley Manning, the former U.S. soldier who is currently on trial accused of providing thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.

“I’m sure that President Obama would have sought a life sentence in my case,” Ellsberg said.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ellsberg-snowden-nsa-leak-pentagon-papers-142811185.html

Per Shannon Bream

Avril Haines to be deputy CIA Director, suceeding Morell who resigned.