I have on occasion asked people who reject or rationalize any and all criticism of US foreign policy: “What would the United States have to do in its foreign policy to lose your support? What, for you, would be too much?” I’ve yet to get a suitable answer to that question. I suspect it’s because the person is afraid that whatever they say I’ll point out that the United States has already done it.
When whistleblowers come forward we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them. Giving us the truth is not a crime. This is our data, our information, our history. We must fight to own it.
Courage is contagious.
While the President must surely realize that History will judge him more harshly rather than less for letting concerns of this sort color his supervision of the national-security apparatus, from a human standpoint, it’s easy to understand why he might feel that he “is not the right president” to take this on. Can you imagine what Lindsay Graham would say if the President took the position that the “Never Again’ mission should be ratcheted down a notch?
The UK government’s response to revelations of mass surveillance leaked by Edward Snowden is leading to the erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms in Britain, said a letter sent to PM David Cameron on behalf of global human rights organizations.
“Remember, Dick Cheney is a politician who engaged in some of the worst, most radical and criminal conduct in the last century in the United States and did it all in secret — from lying about the war in Iraq to torturing people, to putting people in cages with no lawyers, to eavesdropping on the American people without the warrants required by law”
The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.
He lied claiming otherwise. He’s a serial liar. He’s a moral coward. He’s a war criminal multiple times over. He did what supporters thought impossible.
He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He plans lots more ways to prove it through 2016. Humanity may not survive the ordeal.
On October 27, Deutche Welle (DW) headlined “Media reports suggest Obama knew NSA spied on Merkel.”
“What we revealed is that this spying system is devoted not to terrorists, but is directed to innocent people around the world,” Greenwald told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Monday. “None of this has anything to do with terrorism. Is Angela Merkel a terrorist?”
Directed by Brian Knappenberger, whose previous work includes the Anonymous documentary We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, the video was produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and released by the Stop Watching Us coalition in advance of a rally in Washington on Saturday to protest privacy abuse and call for Congress to reveal the extent of the NSA’s mass surveillance programs. The three-and-a-half minute video features Oliver Stone, Democratic Representative John Conyers Jr., Lawrence Lessig, and several activists and whistleblowers.
British intelligence has been trying desperately to keep its surveillance practices secret – wary of public anger and legal challenges. That’s emerged from internal documents leaked by Edward Snowden, and obtained by the Guardian newspaper. But as RT’s Sara Firth reports, the spy agencies’ worst fears are already coming true. To discuss the controversial techniques used by British intelligence, and the ongoing backlash, former MI5 agent Annie Machon joins RT.
Britain is to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the Guardian newspaper’s leaks by Edward Snowden as part of a broad counter-terrorism inquiry. The probe was announced hours after PM David Cameron called the leaks “dangerous” for national security.
Addressing the UK parliament Wednesday, Cameron accused the newspaper of damaging national security by publishing sensitive data provided by the former NSA contractor.
The National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly difficult missions. Called “Tailored Access Operations” (TAO), this department devises special methods for special targets.
That category includes surveillance of neighbouring Mexico, and in May 2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report classified as “top secret” said: “TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon’s public email account.”
