Blocking access to the Guardian???? Fearing information and the TRUTH?
If you're not angered by the direction of our nation, maybe you don't 'get it.'
Glenn Greenwald. (photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
On NSA Stories, Snowden and Journalism
01 July 13
Discussing the implications of the last four week's of articles, revelations and debates.
ast night, I gave my first speech on the NSA stories, Edward Snowden and related issues of journalism, delivered to the Socialism 2013 Conference in Chicago. Because it was my first speech since the episode began, it was the first time I was able to pause a moment and reflect on everything that has taken place and what the ramifications are. I was originally scheduled to speak live but was unable to travel there and thus spoke via an (incredibly crisp) Skype video connection. I was introduced by Jeremy Scahill, whose own speech is well worth watching. Those interested can view the entire speech in this recorder; below it are a few articles worth reading:
(1) The New York Times has an Op-Ed from Thursday by law professors Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman entitled "The Criminal NSA". It argues, citing recent revelations, that "it's time to call the NSA's mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."
(2) The New York Times' excellent public editor, Margaret Sullivan, examines recent debates over who is and is not a "journalist" and provides one of the best working definitions yet. Matt Taibbi addresses the same question here. Meanwhile, former New York Times columnist Frank Rich argues that whatever "journalist" means, David Gregory doesn't qualify.
(3) Edward Snowden isn't the first NSA whistleblower of this decade. He was preceded by senior official Thomas Drake, who was unsuccessfully prosecuted by the Obama DOJ under espionage statutes and previously wrote that he saw the same things at the NSA that Snowden says prompted him to come forward. Another was William Binney, the long-time NSA mathematician who resigned in the wake of 9/11 over the NSA's domestic spying; as this article notes, the last set of documents we published regarding bulk collection of email metadata vindicates many of Binney's central warnings.
(4) A bipartisan group of 26 Senators just wrote a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper demanding answers to some fairly probing questions about the administration's collection of bulk communication records on Americans, the "secret law" on which they relied, and their clearly misleading claims to Congress.
(5) It's well worth finding 9 minutes to watch this Chris Hayes discussion of how establishment journalists love leaks that serve the interests of political officials, but hate leaks that disclose what those officials want to keep suppressed. This is the heart and soul of establishment journalism - its true purpose - revealed:
Berlin accuses Washington of cold war tactics over snooping
Reports of NSA snooping on Europe go well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger: 'If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war'. Photograph: Ole Spata/Corbis
Transatlantic relations plunged at the weekend as Berlin, Brussels and Paris all demanded that Washington account promptly and fully for new disclosures on the scale of the US National Security Agency's spying on its European allies.
As further details emerged of the huge reach of US electronic snooping on Europe, Berlin accused Washington of treating it like the Soviet Union, "like a cold war enemy".
The European commission called on the US to clarify allegations that the NSA, operating from Nato headquarters a few miles away in Brussels, had infiltrated secure telephone and computer networks at the venue for EU summits in the Belgian capital. The fresh revelations in the Guardian and allegations in the German publication Der Spiegel triggered outrage in Germany and in the European parliament and threatened to overshadow negotiations on an ambitious transatlantic
As further details emerged of the huge reach of US electronic snooping on Europe, Berlin accused Washington of treating it like the Soviet Union, "like a cold war enemy".
The European commission called on the US to clarify allegations that the NSA, operating from Nato headquarters a few miles away in Brussels, had infiltrated secure telephone and computer networks at the venue for EU summits in the Belgian capital. The fresh revelations in the Guardian and allegations in the German publication Der Spiegel triggered outrage in Germany and in the European parliament and threatened to overshadow negotiations on an ambitious transatlantic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/30/berlin-washington-cold-war
NSA collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under Obama --Secret program launched by Bush continued 'until 2011' --Fisa court renewed collection order every 90 days --Current NSA programs still mine US internet metadata 27 Jun 2013 The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata "every 90 days". A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011. The collection of these records began under the Bush regime's wide-ranging warrantless surveillance program, collectively known by the NSA codename Stellar Wind. According to a top-secret draft report by the NSA's inspector general - published for the first time today by the Guardian - the agency began "collection of bulk internet metadata" involving "communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States".
Former NSA, CIA director: 'The United States does conduct espionage' 30 Jun 2013 "The United States does conduct espionage," and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protecting the privacy of American citizens "is not an international treaty," former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden said Sunday on "Face the Nation," after a German magazine cited secret intelligence documents to charge U.S. spies of bugging European Union offices. Earlier Sunday, top German official Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger accused the United States of using "Cold War" methods against its allies. Her statement came in response to a report in the German news weekly Der Spiegel, which, citing some of the top-secret documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden, claimed the NSA had eavesdropped on EU offices in Washington, New York and Brussels.
Secret-court judges upset at portrayal of 'collaboration' with government 30 Jun 2013 Recent leaks of classified documents have pointed to the role of a special court in enabling the government's secret surveillance programs, but members of the court are chafing at the suggestion that they were collaborating with the executive branch. A classified 2009 draft report by the National Security Agency's inspector general relayed some details about the interaction between the court's judges and the NSA, which sought approval for the Bush regime's top-secret domestic surveillance programs. The report was described in The Washington Post on June 16 and released in full Thursday by The Post and The Guardian. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the former chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, took the highly unusual step Friday of voicing open frustration at the account in the report and court's inability to explain its decisions.
E.U. fury on allegations of U.S. spying 30 Jun 2013 European leaders reacted with fury on Sunday to allegations in a German magazine that the United States had conducted a wide-ranging effort to monitor European Union diplomatic offices and computer networks, with some saying that they expected such surveillance from enemies, not their closest economic partner. It was the latest fallout from National Security Agency information apparently leaked by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor whose detailing of classified information on the agency’s programs has shined a rare light on U.S. surveillance efforts that range far wider than previously understood.
U.S. bugged EU offices, computer networks: Der Spiegel 29 Jun 2013 The United States has bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, according to secret documents cited in a German magazine on Saturday, the latest in a series of exposures of alleged U.S. spy programs. Der Spiegel quoted from a September 2010 "top secret" U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) document that it said fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had taken with him, and the weekly's journalists had seen in part. The document outlines how the NSA bugged offices and spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the United Nations, not only listening to conversations and phone calls but also gaining access to documents and emails. The document explicitly called the EU a "target".
Inner workings of a top-secret spy program 29 Jun 2013 The National Security Agency’s PRISM program, which collects intelligence from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Apple and other tech giants, is "targeted" at foreigners. But it also collects the e-mail, voice, text and video chats of an unknown number of Americans -- "inadvertently," "incidentally" or deliberately if an American is conversing with a foreign target overseas. Here are new details on how the program works, from top-secret documents and interviews.
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