Snowdon is a dummy

As Snowden told the Guardian, “This country is worth dying for.” And, if necessary, going to prison for — for life.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the police assessment represented a "chilling" threat to democracy. "More and more we are shocked but not surprised," she said. "Breathtakingly broad anti-terror powers passed under the last government continue to be abused under the coalition that once trumpeted civil liberties.

Quote:

As Snowden told the Guardian, “This country is worth dying for.” And, if necessary, going to prison for — for life.

His talk seems bigger than his actions, in my view.

His talk seems bigger than his actions, in my view.

Might Snowden get asylum in Germany?

[...] But if Snowden were to testify in Germany, he would probably lose the refugee status granted him by the Russian Federation, and would probably have to reapply for asylum should he want to return there. For many German politicians, the conclusion is obvious: Snowden should be granted political asylum in Germany.

To do that would necessitate circumventing the bilateral extradition agreement between the US and the EU member states. An assessment by the German parliament’s scientific service has concluded that this would theoretically be possible if a person is being persecuted because of an "offence of political nature" - and this could indeed apply to Snowden.
[...][In original report, here now supporters of that.]
But Edward Snowden is an American. Receiving him in Germany, and thereby breaking the extradition treaty with the US, would be a diplomatic affront. As expected, German chancellor Angela Merkel has made no statement about the Snowden case. But Michael Grosse-Brömer, parliamentary secretary of Merkel’s party, the CDU, said that, given the existing legal situation, he would prefer to see Snowden testify in Russia rather than grant him asylum.

"He is not being politically persecuted – he is being prosecuted as a criminal. There are no provisions in the German consitution that would entitle him to make such a claim," Grosse-Brömer [parliamentary secretary of Merkel’s party, the CDU] told ZDF. "That’s why it makes sense to question him in Moscow." A representative of the parliamentary investigation committee could travel to Russia to question Snowden.

On Saturday, the Kremlin announced that Snowden was free to meet anyone he wished in Russia. That also includes being questioned by Germany's Federal Prosecutor General as part of a request for judicial assistance - pending Russian approval, of course. The German Interior Ministry has even suggested to the Reuters news agency that an interrogation by video link would theoretically be possible.

One way of getting around granting Snowden political refugee status would be to provide him with a temporary residence permit. Paragraph 22 of Germany's Residence Act allows for this "if the Federal Ministry of the Interior or the body designated by it has declared that the foreigner is to be admitted in order to uphold the political interests of the Federal Republic of Germany."

The questioning of Edward Snowden could certainly be said to uphold Germany's political interests. But this too would have a negative effect on relations with the US, especially as in July it sent Germany a request for Snowden's arrest in the event of him setting foot on German soil. That paperwork is, however, still lying unanswered in the German Justice Ministry's in-tray.
[...]
Bringing Snowden to Germany would mean walking a political tightrope, but there may be a legal safety net. Were this to go ahead, there would of course be tangible personal benefits for Snowden himself. There are plenty of shops in this country that sell US foodstuffs, so there's a good chance he'll be able to get his hands on his favorite tortilla chips.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/nsa-sunday-morning



By Meredith Clark
The leaders of the Congressional intelligence committees said Sunday they oppose any possibility of clemency for Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who released thousands of documents shedding light on the agency’s constant global surveillance.

Nearly five months after the first reports based on the documents were published, Snowden - who is living in Russian under temporary asylum - requested clemency through a German member of parliament. Snowden also suggested he would be willing to testify before Congress about NSA abuses and help German authorities investigate allegations of U.S. spying on their country.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) have been forceful defenders of the intrusive and secretive surveillance programs, many of which collect private information from US citizens and companies without their knowledge.

The revelations, which have appeared chiefly in The Washington Post and the Guardian, have stoked public outrage and harmed U.S. diplomatic relations with many key allies.

Feinstein and Rogers, appearing on CBS Face the Nation, said the 30-year-old Snowden deserved punishment, not clemency. Neither seemed interested in exploring possible civil liberties violations or much oversight.

“We’ve focused a lot on the NSA but not on what the threat is,” Rogers said. “The bad guys are not U.S. intelligence agencies.”

Rogers compared the prospect of reigning in the NSA’s activities to both American isolationism before Second World and the breakdown of intelligence and communication that preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

NSA Director Michael V. Hayden led the spy agency as it began pushing domestic warrantless surveillance during the Bush administration. He downplayed revelations that the United States had monitored the cell phone of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel. “This wasn’t exceptional,” Hayden said. “This is what we were expected to do.”

Hayden got a taste last month of what it feels like to be spied on. While riding the Amtrak train from Washington to New York, he was overheard by a fellow passenger while speaking on the phone. Hayden was apparently talking with a reporter from Time Magazine, insisting on anonymity as he spoke derisively about President Obama and defending Bush-era CIA tactics including torture of detainees and a practice known as rendition, where foreign terrorism suspects where kidnapped and then secretly transported around the world. The passenger who overheard Hayden, posted parts of the conversation to his Twitter account.

But public anger over the NSA’s seemingly endless surveillance has had almost no impact on Congress.

Last week, Feinstein shepherded a bill through her committee, the FISA Improvements Act, that she has said would prohibit the government from bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. In fact, the bill does no such thing.

Not only does it officially permit the NSA to continue doing so, it could allow for even more expansive surveillance.

Feinstein’s bill “takes what the NSA is already doing and puts it in legislation, and says ‘you can’t do more than this,’” Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told MSNBC.

Given that the government’s authority to collect records is questionable at best, it would represent a major victory for the agency. According to Goitein, the bill could allow the NSA to make an unlimited number of “hops,” or communications between a target and someone, and communications between that person and others, when tracking connections between people under suspicion by the agency.

Goitein and others, including Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, have also singled out a provision in the bill that could allow “backdoor searches,” so the NSA could collect Americans’ messages and phone calls without a warrant.

James Sensenbrenner, the Republican representative from Wisconsin who helped author the PATRIOT Act, and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont are leading a bipartisan charge to ban bulk collection of data. Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan has been pushing a similar ban since the narrow defeat of an amendment in August that he offered with his Democratic counterpart from Michigan. Rep. John Conyers. The intervening months have only offered more evidence of the scope of the NSA’s collection and of myriad abuses of authority.

“Under Sen. Feinstein’s bill, for the first time, the federal government would be explicitly empowered to seize the records of all Americans–even those who the government knows have done nothing wrong,” Will Adams, a spokesman for Amash told MSNBC. Any “The Constitution protects Americans from constant surveillance.”

Goitein and other privacy advocates think arguments like Feinstein’s and Hayden’s obscure what’s really at stake for the public. “There is a clear choice: are we going to continue to allow unbridled access to Americans’ information in the absence of any basis for suspicion, or are we going to continue to uphold the approach we’ve had for decades that says Americans’ personal information is off limits unless there is a specific individual basis. We can cut ties with the values we have brought with us that balance privacy and security or continue to uphold them.”

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National Security

Seems like we have a large percent of the senate that does no care for what the American people think or what the constitution state.

Sen. Feinstein is playing games by trying to play the American people for fools by mislabeling bills that in fact grant even more power to the NSA.

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/nsa-sunday-morning



By Meredith Clark
The leaders of the Congressional intelligence committees said Sunday they oppose any possibility of clemency for Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who released thousands of documents shedding light on the agency’s constant global surveillance.

Nearly five months after the first reports based on the documents were published, Snowden - who is living in Russian under temporary asylum - requested clemency through a German member of parliament. Snowden also suggested he would be willing to testify before Congress about NSA abuses and help German authorities investigate allegations of U.S. spying on their country.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) have been forceful defenders of the intrusive and secretive surveillance programs, many of which collect private information from US citizens and companies without their knowledge.

The revelations, which have appeared chiefly in The Washington Post and the Guardian, have stoked public outrage and harmed U.S. diplomatic relations with many key allies.

Feinstein and Rogers, appearing on CBS Face the Nation, said the 30-year-old Snowden deserved punishment, not clemency. Neither seemed interested in exploring possible civil liberties violations or much oversight.

“We’ve focused a lot on the NSA but not on what the threat is,” Rogers said. “The bad guys are not U.S. intelligence agencies.”

Rogers compared the prospect of reigning in the NSA’s activities to both American isolationism before Second World and the breakdown of intelligence and communication that preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

NSA Director Michael V. Hayden led the spy agency as it began pushing domestic warrantless surveillance during the Bush administration. He downplayed revelations that the United States had monitored the cell phone of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel. “This wasn’t exceptional,” Hayden said. “This is what we were expected to do.”

Hayden got a taste last month of what it feels like to be spied on. While riding the Amtrak train from Washington to New York, he was overheard by a fellow passenger while speaking on the phone. Hayden was apparently talking with a reporter from Time Magazine, insisting on anonymity as he spoke derisively about President Obama and defending Bush-era CIA tactics including torture of detainees and a practice known as rendition, where foreign terrorism suspects where kidnapped and then secretly transported around the world. The passenger who overheard Hayden, posted parts of the conversation to his Twitter account.

But public anger over the NSA’s seemingly endless surveillance has had almost no impact on Congress.

Last week, Feinstein shepherded a bill through her committee, the FISA Improvements Act, that she has said would prohibit the government from bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. In fact, the bill does no such thing.

Not only does it officially permit the NSA to continue doing so, it could allow for even more expansive surveillance.

Feinstein’s bill “takes what the NSA is already doing and puts it in legislation, and says ‘you can’t do more than this,’” Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told MSNBC.

Given that the government’s authority to collect records is questionable at best, it would represent a major victory for the agency. According to Goitein, the bill could allow the NSA to make an unlimited number of “hops,” or communications between a target and someone, and communications between that person and others, when tracking connections between people under suspicion by the agency.

Goitein and others, including Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, have also singled out a provision in the bill that could allow “backdoor searches,” so the NSA could collect Americans’ messages and phone calls without a warrant.

James Sensenbrenner, the Republican representative from Wisconsin who helped author the PATRIOT Act, and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont are leading a bipartisan charge to ban bulk collection of data. Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan has been pushing a similar ban since the narrow defeat of an amendment in August that he offered with his Democratic counterpart from Michigan. Rep. John Conyers. The intervening months have only offered more evidence of the scope of the NSA’s collection and of myriad abuses of authority.

“Under Sen. Feinstein’s bill, for the first time, the federal government would be explicitly empowered to seize the records of all Americans–even those who the government knows have done nothing wrong,” Will Adams, a spokesman for Amash told MSNBC. Any “The Constitution protects Americans from constant surveillance.”

Goitein and other privacy advocates think arguments like Feinstein’s and Hayden’s obscure what’s really at stake for the public. “There is a clear choice: are we going to continue to allow unbridled access to Americans’ information in the absence of any basis for suspicion, or are we going to continue to uphold the approach we’ve had for decades that says Americans’ personal information is off limits unless there is a specific individual basis. We can cut ties with the values we have brought with us that balance privacy and security or continue to uphold them.”

Explore:
National Security

these cats dont think that they work for us.

with the America haters...so in the minds of said America haters..

Hummm...some members of congress do not agree with the America haters...so in the minds of said America haters...they do not care what the American people think!

Jesus!

http://www.thebostonliberal.com/former-nsa-official-warns-of-complete-totalitarianism-during-recent-mit-talk/


Former NSA Official Warns of “Totalitarian State” During Recent MIT Talk

Headlines on CNET and Yahoo are reading today that the Senate has a proposal out for a vote next week which will legalize the warrantless access to American’s email. But this is already happening, says Bill Binney, a former NSA Official of 40 years who “built the system,” and spoke recently at MIT.

According to the Constitution and internal NSA policy, it was illegal for them to intercept, monitor, or store data on US Citizens without a warrant. But after 9/11, George Bush authorized the NSA to change its policy to ignored the Constitution and their policy longstanding policy went out the window. Then when the Patriot Act was passed, they could start taking, storing, and analyzing all commercially held data about us (phone, bank records, etc.). Blanket electronic surveillance was approved on US Citizens.

The “Open Secret” acronym for this program is called Stellar Winds and about 100 of the NSA’s 40,000 employees work on this program. There are, however, many people across different organizations who act to analyze the data for new potential threats.

To hold all of this data, the NSA is building the world’s largest spy/data center in Bluffdale, Utah. This data center is for Stellar Winds, and, according to Binney, can hold 5 zettabytes, or 5 billion Terabytes. This, says Binney, is enough storage to hold 100 years’ worth of worldwide data communication. The room was stunned.

Before 9/11, Binney explained, they would enter “known” threats and create a sort of social networking database linking them all together. If you were as close as two-hops away from a “known,” then you were considered a “suspect”. See the picture for pre-9/11 design. Everyone in blue was not linked and therefore discarded.

But not anymore. Now EVERYONE’S electronic communication is being collected and entered into their database. Phone calls are filtered and flagged, emails are captured, filtered and flagged (see General Petraeus), bank accounts monitored (see Eliot Spitzer), and Fusion Center operatives are acting as boots on the ground (see recent Boston ACLU victory).

“I built the system,” says Binney, “and I left because they were using it to collect data on virtually every person in the country. I refused to be a part of a system that was subverting the constitution, and that’s why I quit.”

A recent ACLU court victory has won the release, for the first time, of fusion center records, pictures, and footage about individuals, groups, meetings, and political events which took place around Boston. Groups such as Veterans for Peace, Stop the Wars Coalition, and Code Pink have been labeled “extremists” by these fusion centers. The information that the lawsuit revealed shows how officers monitor, record, and store data on individuals involved in non-criminal constitutionally protected activities and turning them over to DHS with no oversight or auditing.

“I’m not afraid of Big Brother. I’m afraid of Little Brother. Little brother is the problem,” explained Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts. “Local cops, DMV employees, prosecutors, or other government agencies can potentially have access to this to and can have the ability to search these databases.”

“Everyone needs to remember, you are innocent until proven guilty,” Said Carol Rose.

Bill Binney took some questions:

Do you believe the government has a copy of all emails in the United States?

I believe they have most of them, yes.

Is there any way you can protect yourself from this?

Only an air gap. If you’re on the Internet, the answer is no.

If you encrypt your own stuff will you get flagged?

Probably yes.

Are there any phone carriers that don’t submit data to the NSA?

Not to my knowledge no. Quest tried to resist and their CEO was charged, and he gave in.

Is this linked to the President’s “kill list?”

Yes. And the no fly list. Senator Kerry from MA was accidentally placed on the list and it took him two years to get off of it. Can you imagine what a regular person would have to go through? And don’t forget, drones are not precision weaponry. They have a large kill radius. A lot of people die who aren’t targeted.

Where do you see this in 5-10 year?

“It’s going to be a totalitarian State and we’ll have an imperial president, a dictator, unless we do something, unless we stand up. Everyone in congress took an oath to protect the constitution. They’re all violating that oath. So every time you see one, you should say “what are you doing with this privacy stuff? You’re violating your oath by supporting this kind of activity.”



The room was stunned again.

Quote:

Hummm...some members of congress do not agree with the America haters...so in the minds of said America haters...they do not care what the American people think!

Jesus!

America haters?

So anyone including US citizens that think that it is outrageous to do massive spying on the bulk of the first world people including US citizens are America haters!!!!!!!!!

Just because technology had reached the point that such a massive violently of privacy is possible for the first time in history back by tens of billions of dollars does not mean that it is either moral and when it come to the American people constitutional.

For all my life I was taught that it is totalitarian police states who so fear their own people that they spy in bulk on their own citizens not free nations such as the US.

You might wish to live in a super East German state where the secret police have files on everyone but somehow I do not care for that kind of future for the US.

The below is the kind of state that if you fight it being born you are an America hater according to Frank and we haters will all have secret government files, along with anyone who dare to disagree with any government actions.

At the very best no flying for us and likely no important jobs either.

Quote:

http://www.thebostonliberal.com/former-nsa-official-warns-of-complete-totalitarianism-during-recent-mit-talk/


Former NSA Official Warns of “Totalitarian State” During Recent MIT Talk

Headlines on CNET and Yahoo are reading today that the Senate has a proposal out for a vote next week which will legalize the warrantless access to American’s email. But this is already happening, says Bill Binney, a former NSA Official of 40 years who “built the system,” and spoke recently at MIT.

According to the Constitution and internal NSA policy, it was illegal for them to intercept, monitor, or store data on US Citizens without a warrant. But after 9/11, George Bush authorized the NSA to change its policy to ignored the Constitution and their policy longstanding policy went out the window. Then when the Patriot Act was passed, they could start taking, storing, and analyzing all commercially held data about us (phone, bank records, etc.). Blanket electronic surveillance was approved on US Citizens.

The “Open Secret” acronym for this program is called Stellar Winds and about 100 of the NSA’s 40,000 employees work on this program. There are, however, many people across different organizations who act to analyze the data for new potential threats.

To hold all of this data, the NSA is building the world’s largest spy/data center in Bluffdale, Utah. This data center is for Stellar Winds, and, according to Binney, can hold 5 zettabytes, or 5 billion Terabytes. This, says Binney, is enough storage to hold 100 years’ worth of worldwide data communication. The room was stunned.

Before 9/11, Binney explained, they would enter “known” threats and create a sort of social networking database linking them all together. If you were as close as two-hops away from a “known,” then you were considered a “suspect”. See the picture for pre-9/11 design. Everyone in blue was not linked and therefore discarded.

But not anymore. Now EVERYONE’S electronic communication is being collected and entered into their database. Phone calls are filtered and flagged, emails are captured, filtered and flagged (see General Petraeus), bank accounts monitored (see Eliot Spitzer), and Fusion Center operatives are acting as boots on the ground (see recent Boston ACLU victory).

“I built the system,” says Binney, “and I left because they were using it to collect data on virtually every person in the country. I refused to be a part of a system that was subverting the constitution, and that’s why I quit.”

A recent ACLU court victory has won the release, for the first time, of fusion center records, pictures, and footage about individuals, groups, meetings, and political events which took place around Boston. Groups such as Veterans for Peace, Stop the Wars Coalition, and Code Pink have been labeled “extremists” by these fusion centers. The information that the lawsuit revealed shows how officers monitor, record, and store data on individuals involved in non-criminal constitutionally protected activities and turning them over to DHS with no oversight or auditing.

“I’m not afraid of Big Brother. I’m afraid of Little Brother. Little brother is the problem,” explained Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts. “Local cops, DMV employees, prosecutors, or other government agencies can potentially have access to this to and can have the ability to search these databases.”

“Everyone needs to remember, you are innocent until proven guilty,” Said Carol Rose.

Bill Binney took some questions:

Do you believe the government has a copy of all emails in the United States?

I believe they have most of them, yes.

Is there any way you can protect yourself from this?

Only an air gap. If you’re on the Internet, the answer is no.

If you encrypt your own stuff will you get flagged?

Probably yes.

Are there any phone carriers that don’t submit data to the NSA?

Not to my knowledge no. Quest tried to resist and their CEO was charged, and he gave in.

Is this linked to the President’s “kill list?”

Yes. And the no fly list. Senator Kerry from MA was accidentally placed on the list and it took him two years to get off of it. Can you imagine what a regular person would have to go through? And don’t forget, drones are not precision weaponry. They have a large kill radius. A lot of people die who aren’t targeted.

Where do you see this in 5-10 year?

“It’s going to be a totalitarian State and we’ll have an imperial president, a dictator, unless we do something, unless we stand up. Everyone in congress took an oath to protect the constitution. They’re all violating that oath. So every time you see one, you should say “what are you doing with this privacy stuff? You’re violating your oath by supporting this kind of activity.”



The room was stunned again.

Thank you for continuing to be so far over-the-top. Anyone with a real sense of proportion will see this for what it is.