Update 2, 6/19/13
The Guardian posted the transcript of a Q&A between Edward Snowden and Guardian readers on Monday which provides more insight into the mind, motivations and perspective of the man Dick Cheney called a "traitor." When asked to respond the the charge of being a traitor whose leaks helped terrorists, Snowden said:
Snowden on potential charges, trial and additional future leaks:
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. . . . .
Snowden on Obama:
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.
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.---------- Democracy Now! had a very good segment, Glenn Greenwald: As Obama Makes "False" Surveillance Claims, Snowden Risks Life to Spark NSA Debate, yesterday concerning the NSA spying debate in general and Obama's statements defending the legality of the actions taken. As Obama's ratings for being "honest and trustworthy" go into free-fall, The Guardian's world famous investigative reporter, civil-rights commentator, and former constitutional lawyer, Glenn Greenwald, had this to say about the President:
I’m staggered by how deceitful and misleading that claim is from President Obama. It’s actually worse than just misleading and deceitful; it’s just outright false.See Greenwald's column in yesterdays Guardian for more detail on why the claims of the President are misleading or false:
Fisa court oversight: a look inside a secret and empty process
In the column, Greenwald points out that when pundits like New York Times columnist and Iraqi War proponent Tom Friedman tell Americans "that before NSA analysts can invade the content of calls and emails, they "have to go to a judge to get a warrant to actually look at the content under guidelines set by Congress," that he, as usual, is misleading them. According to Greenwald:
Top secret documents obtained by the Guardian illustrate what the Fisa court actually does – and does not do – when purporting to engage in "oversight" over the NSA's domestic spying. That process lacks many of the safeguards that Obama, the House GOP, and various media defenders of the NSA are trying to lead the public to believe exist. . . . .
Under the FAA, which was just renewed last December for another five years, no warrants are needed for the NSA to eavesdrop on a wide array of calls, emails and online chats involving US citizens. Individualized warrants are required only when the target of the surveillance is a US person or the call is entirely domestic. But even under the law, no individualized warrant is needed to listen in on the calls or read the emails of Americans when they communicate with a foreign national whom the NSA has targeted for surveillance.
As a result, under the FAA, the NSA frequently eavesdrops on Americans' calls and reads their emails without any individualized warrants – exactly that which NSA defenders, including Obama, are trying to make Americans believe does not take place.Many of us may know somebody overseas who we phone, email or text, and some of us have relatives from Iran or other middle-eastern countries who regularly do so. It only takes a "suspicion" to target these communications.
----------
See also: Edward Snowden, My Book with Scott Ritter, and the Art of Crushing the Messenger to Crush the Message
By William Rivers Pitt Tuesday, 18 June 2013
He went to China. He seems too coached in his remarks. His girlfriend was a pole-dancer. He was a bad neighbor. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Edward Snowden is experiencing one of the more broad-spectrum efforts at character assassination in recent memory after his deliberate exposure of the far-reaching nature of NSA domestic surveillance. It's an old trick. Crap on a critic from great height, crap on a critic with great volume, in the hope that the critic becomes entombed in crap and loses their viability as a critic.
Please read the rest of William Pitt's plea. I would only add that I do give a damn about Ritter, and Snowden as well, just as I would give a damn about anyone who sticks their neck out to tell important truths and is then subsequently targeted, entrapped or demonized by powers interested in suppressing the truth and information needed for a functional democracy.Disclaimer: I don't give much of a damn about Edward Snowden. I give a very large series of damns about the information he revealed, as should any thinking American in my personal opinion. Attacking his character, his girlfriend, his travel plans etc. is a shortcut to thinking, a way to tamp down revelations that this administration, like the previous administration, has been peeking through a lot of windows in ways the American people need to be aware of. Snowden attacks equal Obama defense, in my humble o, and it's a pretty gruesome display from a lot of people who spent a lot of time attacking Bush on similar grounds not so long ago. But IOKIYBO ("It's OK If You're Barack Obama") appears to be the rule of the day. . . . .
----------
Check out DN!'s related video:
From the video:
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, what we’re really having a debate about is whether or not we’re going to have a free press left or not. If there are no Snowdens, if there are no Mannings, if there are no Assanges, there will be no free press. And if the press—and let’s not forget that Snowden gave this to The Guardian. This was filtered through a press organization in a classic sort of way whistleblowers provide public information about unconstitutional, criminal activity by their government to the public. So the notion that he’s just some individual standing up and releasing stuff over the Internet is false.But more importantly, what he has exposed essentially shows that anybody who reaches out to the press to expose fraud, crimes, unconstitutional activity, which this clearly appears to be, can be traced and shut down. And that’s what’s so frightening. So, we are at a situation now, and I speak as a former investigative reporter for The New York Times, by which any investigation into the inner workings of government has become impossible. That’s the real debate.
. . . .
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, we’re talking about the death of a free press, the death of a civil society. This is far beyond a reasonable debate. We make the East German Stasi state look like the Boy Scouts. And if we don’t wrest back this power for privacy, for the capacity to investigate what our power elite is doing, I think we can essentially say our democracy has been snuffed out.----------
Some History on Surveillance Since theBush Administration: Total Information Awareness.
Total Recall
If the NSA's massive spying operation sounds a lot like a Bush-era program ... that's because it is.
BY SHANE HARRIS | JUNE 19, 2013
A decade ago, a Pentagon research project called "Total Information Awareness" sparked a mass panic because of its seemingly Orwellian interest in categorizing and mining every aspect of our digital lives. It was "the supersnoop's dream," declared William Safire of the New York Times, a "computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, [combined with] every piece of information that government has about you...."
If this sounds reminiscent of the current uproar over NSA surveillance, you're paying attention. That's because the NSA monitoring tools are very similar to -- and, in many cases are directly based on -- the technology that Total Information Awareness (TIA) tried to use. . . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment