Snowdon is a dummy

Former NSA Chief Smears Glenn Greenwald
By Steve Rendall

"The Guardian newspaper's Glenn Greenwald," writes former NSA director Michael Hayden today in a CNN op-ed, is "more deserving of the Justice Department's characterization of a co-conspirator than Fox's James Rosen ever was." Hayden's smear came in a column in which he argues that Edward Snowden, whose story Greenwald has been telling in the Guardian, "will likely prove to be the most costly leaker of American secrets in the history of the Republic."

Those thuggish words are particularly disturbing coming from a figure who is, as CNN's editor's note at the top of the column explains, still tied to military and intelligence elites.

When powerful bullies like Hayden attempt to smear or criminalize journalists, it should stir anger, particularly among journalists. Though it should come as little surprise that an official who launched warrantless surveillance programs–in spite of the Fourth Amendment protections against them–also has a tenuous grasp on the First Amendment.

Hayden's sordid attack on Greenwald is just the latest in a string of NSA smears and lies emitting from current and former government officials. After the Snowden story broke in early June, and the official wagons began circling, I noted how officials including U.S. senators, the current NSA chief, the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House itself, were spreading falsehoods about NSA surveillance programs and their successes. With a couple of noted exceptions, those falsehood went unchallenged by journalists.

As this latest propaganda in the campaign to burnish the NSA's reputation and tarnish those of its critics comes at the expense of a reporter, it might be a good time for journalists to ask hard questions about the smear artists, liars and constitutional scofflaws in charge of surveillance programs. Or as veteran journalist and media watcher Dan Froomkin tweeted about Hayden's attack on Greenwald: "Surprise: The people we're supposed to blindly trust with absolute surveillance power engage in in smears & innuendo."

Speaking for himself, Glenn Greenwald responded to Hayden's smear this way:

"I've long thought Michael Hayden belongs in prison for implementing illegal warrantless eavesdropping at Americans"

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/07/19/former-nsa-chief-smears-glenn-greenwald/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=former-nsa-chief-smears-glenn-greenwald

The British Tempora was the other program mentioned by Snowden.
Might be that some documents will be published about it later (might well be, I think). And it might well be that it could be unconstitutional as well.

All those that are unconstitutional, I should think... You guys are welcome to change your constitution so that it says the state can collect whatever information from whoever without a warrant, if that's where you want to go.

I don#t think that you are a specialised expert in German constitutional law.
Actually, you even don't have even basic knowledge about it.

That said, I was referring to the US Constitution. Constitutions of other nations have no relevance to US programs.

Constitutions of other nations have no relevance to US programs.

They say you, like Bradley Manning, gave secrets to their enemies. It’s clear who those enemies are: you, me, us. It was clear on September 12, 2001, that the Bush administration feared the American people more than al-Qaeda. Not much has changed on that front since, and this almost infinitely broad information harvest criminalizes all of us. This metadata—the patterns and connections of communications rather than their content—is particularly useful, as my friend Chris Carlsson pointed out, at mapping the clusters of communications behind popular movements, uprisings, political organizing: in other words, those moments when civil society rises to shape history, to make a better future in the open world of the streets and squares.

The goal of gathering all this metadata, Chris speculates, "is to be able to identify where the ‘hubs’ are, who the people are who sit at key points in networks, helping pass news and messages along, but especially, who the people are who spread ideas and information from one network of people to the next, who help connect small networks into larger ones, and thus facilitate the unpredictable and rapid spread of dissent when it appears.”

Metadata can map the circulatory system of civil society, toward what ends you can certainly imagine. When governments fear their people you can be sure they are not serving their people. This has always been the minefield of patriotism: loyalty to our government often means hostility to our country and vice-versa. Edward Snowden, loyalist to country, you have made this clear as day.



Read more: A Letter to Edward Snowden | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/175339/letter-edward-snowden#ixzz2ZcNba38a
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A divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit handed down the ruling that Risen will have to testify in the case of Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, who allegedly gave Risen classified information about efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
[...] The appeals court panel ruled that the First Amendment does not provide a shield from testimony about leaks of classified information. ... ... ...

Constitutions of other nations have no relevance to US programs.

Given your history of making false accusations and then scurrying away without trying to justify them,

As wrong as our wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It's simply illegal and unwarranted.

they absolutely do have a relevance when U.S. programs are running in other countries.

Intelligence agencies in Germany and the US have been collaborating, according to a new report from a German magazine. The German government has been using bulk data collected by the National Security Agency.