Edward Snowden

Jonathan Turley ~ Edward Snowden: Whistleblower Or Traitor?

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“What is clear is that Snowden pulled back the curtain on new reality of living within a fishbowl of constant surveillance. People clearly don’t like it, even if they don’t like Snowden.” ~J. Turley

jonathanTurleyBelow is my column that ran this week in Al Jazerra on the one-year anniversary of the Snowden scandal. It is hard to believe that it has only been one year given the number of investigations, promised reforms, and articles. I previously wrote a piece explaining why a pardon or commutation would not be inconsistent with prior cases, but that still seems unlikely. While I disagree with Snowden’s release of classified information that could harm the country, I do believe that his case is more nuanced than his critics has suggested. What is fascinating is that, after a year, we appear no closer to a consensus on what Snowden represents

It is hard to imagine that just one year ago, Edward Snowden famously walked away. He was a low-level employee of Dell contractor at a nondescript National Security Agency site. A non-entity by design. Just one of hundreds of thousands of people working in the burgeoning national security complex in the United States – the ultimate faceless cog. Now, one year later, he is a household name but the world remains divided on who Edward Snowden is. Is he a whistleblower or a traitor? It turns out that question is often answered not by how people view Snowden but how they view their government.

Snowden the whistleblower

"The public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the ‘consent of the governed’ is meaningless. . . The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed." - Edward Snowden
“The public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the ‘consent of the governed’ is meaningless. . . The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.” – Edward Snowden

For many around the world, and a growing number of Americans, Snowden is a hero and whistleblower who put his own freedom at stake to reveal shocking abuses by the US intelligence agencies. Much of what Snowden has done certainly looks like a whistleblower. First, he does not appear to have sought money for his disclosures. Indeed, he appears to have thought more about what he was taking than where he was taking it.

Secondly, and most importantly, is the breathtaking disclosures that he made. Consider a few of the more important disclosures: Continue reading →

Nancy Murray ~ It’s Time To Reveal The Israeli Role In The US Surveillance Machine

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Mondoweiss  April 14 2014

IsraeliSpyingNSA

If the Israeli government has indeed ordered its spies “to dig up intelligence” showing links between the supporters of BDS and “terrorists and enemy states” asreported in the February 11, 2014 London Times, it may find that it already has as much information as it needs in its data banks.

As described in the UK Guardian by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill, a 2008 document obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden states that “one of the NSA’s biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel. There are parameters on what NSA shares with them, but the exchange is so robust, we sometimes share more than we intended.”

Nevertheless, in the following year the NSA and the Israeli SIGINT National Unit drafted a top-secret memorandum of understanding (MOU) dated March 2009 under which the NSA would provide raw intelligence to Israel, including on American citizens. The MOU requested Israeli intelligence to “destroy upon recognition” communications going to and from “officials of the Executive Branch (including the White House, Cabinet Departments, and independent agencies), the US House of Representatives and Senate (member and staff) and the US Federal Court system (including, but not limited to, the Supreme Court)” as well as communications of civilian and military personnel on official business of government.

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Yes, You Are Being Manipulated By Your Government

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FreemansPerspective  March 20 2104

PuppetOnString2The truth that government agents are influencing people online has been visible for some time to those who were looking. For example, in 2011, we got proof that military contractors and the US Air Force were doing this. (See here and here.) There were other facts as well, including the publicly-stated wishes of Cass Sunstein.

Most people didn’t see those stories, of course, and those who mentioned them were thought to be crazy. “If it was true, we’d have heard about it!”

In early February, however, we got serious proof, courtesy of Edward Snowden and Glen Greenwald. Honestly, I expected this to be a big story, like many of the previous Snowden leaks. Instead, the story went almost nowhere. The “news” simply refused to cover it. And while the story did run on a few websites, I don’t know of it running in any major newspaper or on any TV news, except perhaps RT, the Russian 24/7 English-language news channel. (NBC did run a prior and less troubling story.)

But, we have the slides, and we now know what the NSA and its British partner, GCHQ, are doing to us.

The Manipulations You Pay For

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The Secret Playbook Of Social Media Censors – The “Counter Reset”

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Global Research  February 26 2014

CounterResetGlenn Greenwald’s piece on manipulation of the Internet by intelligence agencies gives examples – based upon documents leaked by Edward Snowden – of how governments disrupt social media websites.

Other whistleblowers have provided very specific information about how agents disrupt social media news sites.

This essay will focus one specific technique: the “Counter Reset”.

To explain the Counter Reset technique, we have to understand the concepts of “momentum” and “social proof”.

Specifically, the government spends a great deal of manpower and money to monitor which stories, memes and social movements are developing the momentum to actually pose a threat to the status quo. For example, the Federal Reserve, Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies all monitor social media for stories critical of their agencies … or the government in general. Other governments – and private corporations – do the same thing.

Why?

Because a story gaining momentum ranks high on social media sites. So it has a high probability of bursting into popular awareness, destroying the secrecy which allows corruption, and becoming a real challenge to the powers-that-be.

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Chris Hedges ~ Our Sinister Dual State

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TruthDig  February 16 2014

Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges

On Thursday the former National Security Agency official and whistle-blower William E. Binney and I will debate Stewart A. Baker, a former general counsel for the NSA, P.J. Crowley, a former State Department spokesman, and the media pundit Jeffrey Toobin. The debate, at Oxford University, will center on whether Edward Snowden’s leaks helped or harmed the public good. The proposition asks: “Is Edward Snowden a Hero?” But, on a deeper level, the debate will revolve around our nation’s loss of liberty.

The government officials who, along with their courtiers in the press, castigate Snowden insist that congressional and judicial oversight, the right to privacy, the rule of law, freedom of the press and the right to express dissent remain inviolate. They use the old words and the old phrases, old laws and old constitutional guarantees to give our corporate totalitarianism a democratic veneer. They insist that the system works. They tell us we are still protected by the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Yet the promise of that sentence in the Bill of Rights is pitted against the fact that every telephone call we make, every email or text we send or receive, every website we visit and many of our travels are tracked, recorded and stored in government computers. The Fourth Amendment was written in 1789 in direct response to the arbitrary and unchecked search powers that the British had exercised through general warrants called writs of assistance, which played a significant part in fomenting the American Revolution. A technical system of surveillance designed to monitor those considered to be a danger to the state has, in the words of Binney, been “turned against you.”

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