OMNI SNOWDEN NEWSLETTER #2, November
1, 2013. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a
Culture of Peace and Justice. (#1 July
9, 2013)
My blog:
War Department/Peace Department
War Department/Peace Department
Newsletters
See
newsletters on National Security State (NSS), Pentagon, Secrecy, Surveillance,
and many more.
Index:
Write or Call the White House
President
Obama has declared his commitment to creating the most open and accessible
administration in American history. That begins with taking comments and
questions from you, the public, through our website.
Call
the President
PHONE NUMBERS
Comments:
202-456-1111Switchboard: 202-456-1414
TTY/TTD
Comments: 202-456-6213Visitor's Office: 202-456-2121
Write a letter to
the President
Here are a
few simple things you can do to make sure your message gets to the White House
as quickly as possible.1. If possible, email us! This is the fastest way to get your message to President Obama.
2. If you write a letter, please consider typing it on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper. If you hand-write your letter, please consider using pen and writing as neatly as possible.
3. Please include your return address on your letter as well as your envelope. If you have an email address, please consider including that as well.
4. And finally, be sure to include the full address of the White House to make sure your message gets to us as quickly and directly as possible:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500
Contents #1 (in reverse
chron. order, bold type added by
Dick)
(Some entries offer contexts.)
Petitions
July 13: Ellsberg, Why Snowden Had to Flee US
July 8/15: Schell, Hero Snowden vs. End of Privacy
July 5:
Weisbrot, Helping Snowden
July 5: Pilger,
Morales’ Plane Forced Down
June 26: Blum, Dark History of US
June 24: Lindorff, Hong Kong ,
China , Russia
June 20: Pew Poll, US Public Majority Supports
Prosecution
June 19: Greenwald, FISA Fails Oversight
June 13:
Greenwald, Snowden, Who Is He?
Contents #2
Snowden’s
letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Amy Goodman,
Democracy Now: Snowden on Mass Surveillance
Snowden on
Civil Rights
Ray McGovern:
Snowden Wins Integrity Award
Risen and
Poitras, NSA Gathers Social Connections
Rendall and
McCloskey, Mainstream Media Misrepresents Muslims
Ridgeway and
Casella, Torture
Oliver Stone,
Obama and Snowden
Masters,
Mainstream Media Labels Snowden a “Narcissist”
Edward Snowden Letter to German Government in Full
By Guardian UK
01 November 13
Full text of NSA whistleblower's letter on US surveillance to chancellor Angela Merkel, the German parliament and federal prosecutors, passed on by German politician Hans-Christian Ströebele
To whom it may concern,
I have been invited to write to you regarding your investigation of mass surveillance.
I am Edward Joseph Snowden, formerly employed through contracts or direct hire as a technical expert for the United States National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency.
In the course of my service to these organizations, I believe I witnessed systemic violations of law by my government that created a moral duty to act. As a result of reporting these concerns, I have face a severe and sustained campaign of persecution that forced me from my family and home. I am currently living in exile under a grant of temporary asylum in theRussian Federation
I am heartened by the response to my act of political expression, in both theUnited States United States
Though the outcome of my efforts has been demonstrably positive, my government continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defense. However, speaking the truth is not a crime. I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of theUnited States
I look forward to speaking with you in your country when the situation is resolved, and thank you for your efforts in upholding the international laws that protect us all.
With my best regards,
Edward Snowden
31 October 2013
By Guardian UK
01 November 13
Full text of NSA whistleblower's letter on US surveillance to chancellor Angela Merkel, the German parliament and federal prosecutors, passed on by German politician Hans-Christian Ströebele
To whom it may concern,
I have been invited to write to you regarding your investigation of mass surveillance.
I am Edward Joseph Snowden, formerly employed through contracts or direct hire as a technical expert for the United States National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency.
In the course of my service to these organizations, I believe I witnessed systemic violations of law by my government that created a moral duty to act. As a result of reporting these concerns, I have face a severe and sustained campaign of persecution that forced me from my family and home. I am currently living in exile under a grant of temporary asylum in the
I am heartened by the response to my act of political expression, in both the
Though the outcome of my efforts has been demonstrably positive, my government continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defense. However, speaking the truth is not a crime. I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the
I look forward to speaking with you in your country when the situation is resolved, and thank you for your efforts in upholding the international laws that protect us all.
With my best regards,
Edward Snowden
31 October 2013
Edward Snowden Speaks Out Against NSA ‘Dragnet Mass Surveillance’,
NationofChange,
Oct. 14, 2013.
|
|
 Amy
Goodman, Video Interview: For the first
time in months, the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has
appeared on video speaking in |
Snowden
statement to European Parliament on civil rights
|
|
|
|
YouTube - Videos from this
email
Independent Investigative Journalism
Since 1995
·
Home
·
About
·
Archives
·
Donate
Edward Snowden’s
Brave Integrity
October 15, 2013
Exclusive: President Obama says he welcomes
the debate on post-9/11 surveillance of Americans and the world, but
that debate was only made meaningful by the disclosures of NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was then indicted and sought asylum in Russia
By Ray McGovern
I’ve
had a couple of days to reflect after arriving back from Moscow
The
thought that companioned me the entire time was the constant admonition of my
Irish grandmother: “Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you
are!” I cannot remember ever feeling so honored as I did by the company I
kept over the past week.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in Moscow on
Oct. 9, 2013, after receiving an award from an organization of former U.S.
intelligence officials. (From a video posted by WikiLeaks)
That
includes, of course, Snowden himself, WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison (and
“remotely” Julian Assange) who, together with Russian civil rights lawyer
Anatoly Kucherena, helped arrange the visit, and – last but not least – the
3,000 Internet transparency/privacy activists at OHM2013 near Amsterdam, whom
Tom, Jesselyn, Coleen and I addressed in early August and who decided to
crowd-source our travel. (See: “In the Whistleblower Chalet” by Silkie
Carlo;http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/in-the-whistleblower-chalet)
As representatives of Sam Adams Associates
for Integrity in Intelligence, we were
in Moscow
Because
of speaking commitments he could not break, Pentagon Papers truth-teller Dan
Ellsberg, whom Henry Kissinger called “the most dangerous man in America” and
who in 1971 was vilified as acidly as Ed Snowden is being vilified now, could
be with us only in spirit. He did send along with us for Ed the video of the
award-winning documentary that uses Kissinger’s epithet as its title, together
with Dan’s book Secrets,
in which he had inscribed a very thoughtful note.
Ellsberg’s
note thanked Snowden for his adroit – and already partially successful –
attempt to thwart what Snowden has called “turnkey tyranny,” that is the terrifying prospect of a
surveillance-driven government tyranny ready to go with the simple turn of
a key.
Two
at our table – Ed Snowden and Tom Drake – enjoy with Dan the dubious
distinction of having been charged with espionage
under the draconian Espionage Act of 1917 that is so much favored by the
administration of President Barack Obama and other zealous protectors of the
national security state and its multitude of secrets.
Call
me naïve, but I had no sense that I was cavorting with treasonous
criminals. Rather, it seemed crystal clear that Ed Snowden is simply the
current embodiment of people so castigated when they feel compelled to speak
out, as Ed did, against gross violations
of the Fourth Amendment.
Compelled? Well,
yes, compelled. Those of us like Snowden, who took a solemn oath “to
support and defend the Constitution of the United States
During
interviews, I found it easy to put the Snowden disclosures into perspective
regarding the seriousness of the Bush
and Obama administration crimes against the Fourth Amendment by simply
reciting that key part of our now-fractured Bill of Rights; it’s just one
sentence:
“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.”
Director
of National Intelligence James Clapper may be able to tell Congress with
impunity (in his own words) “clearly erroneous” things, but neither he, nor his
duplicitous sidekick NSA Director Keith Alexander, nor complicit Senators and
Representatives, nor the President himself can easily bend the Fourth Amendment
that far out of shape once people read the text.
And
that, of course, explains why co-conspirators in Congress like House Speaker
John Boehner and Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein call the
kettle black by branding Snowden a “traitor.” And it is also why former
NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden and House Intelligence Committee chair Mike
Rogers indicate publicly, as they did two weeks ago, that they would like to
see Snowden’s name added to the infamous “Kill List” for the President’s approval.
That
list renders the Fifth Amendment “quaint and obsolete,” the words used by
George W. Bush’s White House counsel Alberto Gonzales when troublesome legal
restrictions might otherwise impinge on what the White House wished to do.
American
Traditions
At
our dinner with Ed Snowden, Coleen Rowley reminded him that his willingness to
expose injustice fit in with a patriotic tradition modeled by Founders like
Benjamin Franklin even before the American Revolution.
Coleen
recounted how Benjamin Franklin got himself in deep trouble in 1773, when he
acquired and released confidential letters from the British governor of Massachusetts to the Crown showing that the colonial
authorities did not think the American colonists should enjoy the same rights
as British citizens in England Franklin
More
poignant still was a reading from Albert Camus beautifully rendered aloud by
Jesselyn Radack, who related some of Camus writings to Snowden’s testimony
(earlier read on his behalf by Jesselyn) to the European Parliament Committee
on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on Sept. 30.
Snowden
wrote: “The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you
have the full measure of my gratitude and support.”
What
follows is how Jesselyn Radack presented the quotes from Camus:
Edward
Snowden, you are in good company. “The Wager of Our Generation” is how Albert Camus described
what you have called “The Work of a Generation,” when he spoke of a similar
challenge in 1957, the year he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. And the
similarity between Snowden and Camus does not end there. The official
Nobel Prize citation praised Camus for “his clear-sighted earnestness
illuminating the problems of the human conscience of our times.”
In
1957, Camus expressed hope in “the quality of the new generation and its
increased unwillingness to adopt slogans or ideologies and to return to more
tangible values.” He wrote: “We have nothing to lose except
everything. So let’s go ahead. This is the wager of our generation. If we
are to fail, it is better, in any case, to have stood on the side of those who
refuse to be dogs and are resolved to pay the price that must be paid so that
man can be something more than a dog.”
Camus
rejected what he called the “the paltry privileges granted to those who adapt
themselves to this world,” adding that, “those individuals who refuse to give
in will stand apart, and they must accept this. Personally, I have never wanted
to stand apart. For there is a sort of solitude, which is certainly the
harshest thing our era forces upon us. I feel its weight, believe
me. But, nevertheless, I should not want to change eras, for I know and
respect the greatness of this one. Moreover, I have always thought that the
maximum danger implied the maximum hope.”
In
December 1957, the month he won the Nobel Prize, Camus strongly warned against
inaction: “Remaining aloof has always been possible in history. When
people did not approve, they could always keep silent or talk of something
else. Today everything is changed and even silence has dangerous
implications.”
And
concrete dangers – like “turnkey tyranny.”
A
key figure in the French Resistance, Camus in July 1943 published a “Letter to
German Friend,” which began as follows: “You said to me: ‘The greatness of
my country [Germany
“‘No,’
I told you, ‘I cannot believe that everything must be subordinate to a single
end. There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be
able to love my country and still love justice. I don’t want for my
country a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive
by keeping justice alive.’ You retorted, ‘Well, then you don’t love your
country.’”
Edward,
that may have a familiar ring to you. But, of course, the truth is the
very opposite. Let us take one more cue from Albert Camus, who emphasized
that, “Truth needs witnesses.”
We
are honored, Edward, to be here at this time and place to be your witnesses. You
have the full measure of our gratitude and support.
End
of Jesselyn Radack’s presentation.
People
have been telling me how eloquent Ed Snowden was in responding to the award. And although
DemocracyNow! hosted us for 40 minutes on Monday, we four did
not have time to point to small, but significant, things like the fact Ed’s
remarks were totally ad lib; he did not know he would be asked to give remarks
until I whispered it to him right after Tom Drake presented him with the
traditional Sam Adams corner-brightener candlestick holder.
One
of the things that impressed me most was Ed’s emphasis on the “younger
generation” he represents – typically those who have grown up with the Internet
– who have (scarcely-fathomable-to-my-generation) technical expertise and
equally remarkable dedication to keeping it free – AND have a
conscience. My first personal exposure to the depth, breadth and
importance of this critical mass of those often dismissed as “hackers” came at
the OHM2013 conference outside of Amsterdam
The
James Clappers and Keith Alexanders of this world simply CANNOT do what they see
as their job of snooping on the lot of us on this planet without this
incredibly talented and dedicated generation. They CANNOT; and so they are
in deep kimchi. If only a small percentage of this young generation have
the integrity and courage of an Ed Snowden, the prospect is dim that repressive
measures in violation of citizens’ rights previously taken for granted can
succeed for very long without full disclosure.
That
is the good news. And with each new Snowden-enabled disclosure of
infringements on our liberties, it becomes more likely that an awakened
public will create sustained pressure for restoration of our Constitutional
rights, and for holding accountable those senior government officials who have
crassly violated those rights, and continue to violate Ed Snowden’s rights
simply because he made it possible for us to know the truth.
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of
the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington
29 September 13AM
Snowden Files: NSA Gathers Data on Social
Connections of US Citizens
James Risen, Laura Poitras, The New York Times
Risen and Poitras report: "Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans' social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information."
READ MORE
James Risen, Laura Poitras, The New York Times
Risen and Poitras report: "Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans' social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information."
READ MORE
·
HOME
·
ABOUT»
·
EXTRA!»
·
FAIR TV
·
STORE
·
CONTACT
Aug
01
2013
A Media Microscope on
Islam-Linked Violence
Selective reporting
misrepresents Muslims as prone to killing
Adapted from juancole.com
The murder of
British soldier Sgt. Lee Rigby on a London street in May
received massive U.S. London
murder has been mentioned in nearly 500 U.S.
But the story also
fit a comfortable media narrative: The attackers were Muslims who declared
religious motivations. One of the assailants called the crime revenge for the
killing of Muslims by Western military forces (Reuters, 5/22/13).
For many pundits,
the Rigby killing provided dramatic “proof” of the violent and dangerous nature
of Islam. Fox News liberal Bob Beckel (Five, 5/23/13) told viewers that Muslims are trying
to impose a worldwide caliphate, and that Rigby’s killing was “a product of the
British allowing Muslims to come into their country.”
Bill O’Reilly (O’Reilly
Factor, 6/5/13) invited Tommy Robinson, the leader of
British hate group the English Defence League, onto his Fox News show. Robinson faced little challenge
as he smeared Muslims, saying politicians are “constantly pandering to Islam
and they’re constantly worried about what the Islamic community would do and
how they will react to anything.”
The association of
Islam with violence is not restricted to
right-wing media. “For a self-described ‘religion of peace,’ Islam does claim a
lot of lives,” wrote liberal New
York Times columnist Nicholas
Kristof (9/22/12) in a piece attempting to explain
Muslim violence. On CNN (5/5/10),
Anderson Cooper telegraphed a similar message when he asked HBO star Bill Maher: “Why is Islam the one
religion that so many in America
FAIR’s 2008 report, Smearcasting: How Islamophobes
Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation (10/1/08),
found violent and dangerous portrayals of Muslims alive and well in centrist
and liberal media habitats: The 2006 National Book Critics Circle nominated for
an award the flagrantly Islamophobic While
Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West From Within, while
the New York Times gifted new subscribers with the
anti-Muslim DVD, Obsession:
Radical Islam’s War Against the West in
2006.
The best-known focus
of the whirlwind of smears by the corporate media would be the Park51 Islamic
community center, inaccurately but pervasively described as the “Ground Zero
Mosque.” Media portrayed the center as a slap in the face to families of 9/11
victims—and as proof that the Obama administration was failing to protect
citizens from Muslim extremists (Extra!, 10/10).
But is Islam, as Kristof, Maher
and O’Reilly suggest, really particularly violent? It’s a curious argument to
make from the vantage point of the United States, which has in recent years
launched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and lesser military strikes in at least a
half-a-dozen other nations—violence that has cost at least hundreds of
thousands of lives over the past decade (Iraq Body Count, 3/19/13; FAIR
Blog, 6/7/13).
And looking over the
last century, the bloodiest in human history, it’s an equally strange argument
to make from a Western, Christian-majority nation. As University of Michigan
Islam scholar Juan Cole (Informed Comment,4/23/13) points out, of the more than 100
million war deaths in the 20th century, something less than 2 percent came at
the hands of Muslim-majority nations. Most of those dead came in wars where
non-Muslim nations played a significant role—such as the Iran/Iraq War, where
the United States aided the
aggressor Iraq , and the
Afghan Civil War, where the Soviet Union was a
major military force.
Cole also explains
that “murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States
According to a Gallup
Glenn Greenwald (5/23/13) makes a strong case that the killing
of Rigby, a sergeant in the British Army, though political violence, was not
terrorism, which is generally defined as political violence targeting
civilians. But U.S.
CNN's Anderson Cooper wonders why we
can't make fun of Islam; HBO's Bill Maher explains it is because Muslims are
"violent" and "threaten us."
In “More Terror,
Less Coverage,” Extra! (5/11) showed how a story about an amateurish
bomb that fizzled in Times Square in May 2010, planted by a Muslim American,
got far more coverage than a much more lethal bomb planted by a white racist in
Spokane, Washington, disarmed just hours before its planned detonation during a
2011 Martin Luther King Day parade.
This is par for a
media that has an especially hard time reporting domestic terrorism with
context or proportionality. Charles Kurzman (Think Progress, 9/10/11), author of The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are
So Few Muslim Terrorists, noted in 2011 that since 9/11, Muslim American
terrorists “have killed 33 individuals in the United States University of North Carolina
terrorism expert put that number in the larger context of U.S. violence: “Over that same period of time,
there have been more than 150,000 murders in the United States
A 2010 RAND study found
that of the “83 terrorist attacks in the United States United States , around
100 joined jihadist groups during the study period, which according to RAND suggests that American Muslims overwhelmingly do not
agree with radical ideology and the violent actions associated with it.
Cole found similar
data on Europe . While the European Union’s
population is 4.5 percent Muslim (Pew
Research Center
To successfully equate
Islam with terrorism requires downplaying
terrorism perpetrated by non-Muslims. As conservative Fox Newscommentator Brian
Kilmeade (Fox & Friends, 10/15/10) put it, “Not all Muslims are
terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.” Kilmeade was defendingFox News host Bill O’Reilly, who’d been
criticized for stating on ABC’s View(10/14/10) that “Muslims killed us on 9/11!”
Kilmeade later retracted the comment (Fox & Friends, 10/18/10; Media Matters, 10/18/10), but Michael Goodwin, a columnist for Fox’s sibling publication, the
Murdoch-owned New York Post (4/28/13), used the exact same phrase in a
recent column on the Boston Marathon bombing.
But more influential
than the overt bigotry of the Kilmeades and O’Reillys is the drumbeat of media
attention to Muslim-linked violence compared to violence and terrorism linked
to other groups.
In June, two men in
upstate New York were arrested and charged
with conspiracy to support terrorism after building a weapon that would shoot
radiation into “enemies of Israel Schenectady U.S.
Three weeks before
the gruesome murder of Lee Rigby in London ,
Mohammed Saleem, a 75 year-old Muslim man, was stabbed to death while returning
from a mosque in Birmingham , 100 miles north of London Birmingham U.S.
GREENWALD: US
· 
President Barack Obama today canceled a
meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
(updated below)
President
Obama today canceled a long-scheduled summit with Russian President Vladimir
Putin in part because
the US president is upset that Russia defied his personal directive to hand over Edward
Snowden despite the
lack of an extradition treaty between the two nations. That means that US
[US
refuses Bolivia
The
US constantly refuses requests to extradite - even where (unlike Russia) they
have an extradition treaty with the requesting country and even where (unlike
Snowden) the request involves actual, serious crimes, such as genocide,
kidnapping, and terrorism. Maybe those facts should be part of whatever media
commentary there is on Putin's refusal to extradite Snowden and Obama's rather
extreme reaction to it.
Other matters
Former
Bush-era CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden appeared on CNN this week and confirmed that our reporting on the NSA's
X-Keyscore program was
accurate, telling the nation that we should all be grateful for those
capabilities.
NYU
journalism professor Jay Rosen has a superb essay on the behavior of the US
Foreign
Policy CEO and Editor David Rothkopf becomes the latest establishment figure to
recognize, as he puts it in a quite good column:
"I have myself been too slow to recognize that the benefits we have
derived from Snowden's revelations substantially outweigh the costs associated
with the breach."
UPDATE
Civil rights hero John Lewis, in an interview with the Guardian today, praised Snowden for engaging in
"civil disobedience" in the tradition of Thoreau, Gandhi and the
Civil Rights movement.
Meanwhile, 150 press freedom and human rights groups from around
the world issued a letter demanding
that the US cease prosecuting Snowden on the ground that "Snowden's
disclosures have triggered a much-needed public debate about mass surveillance
online everywhere" and "thanks to him, we have learned the extent to
which our online lives are systematically monitored by governments, without transparency,
accountability or safeguards from abuse."
At a hearing yesterday of the Brazilian Senate's Foreign
Relations Committee, at which I testified, senators not only uninformly
expressed indignation at indiscriminate NSA spying on their citizens and
support for Snowden, but some borrowed Snowden masks worn by college students
in attendance andput them on their own face to show
support.
Finally, Princeton University international law professor Richard Falk
has an Op-Ed today explaining that the granting of asylum to Snowden
wasn't just within Russia
Maybe Obama can cancel meetings with all of them, too, as
punishment (along with Hong Kong , China , Venezuela ,
Ecuador , Bolivia , Nicaragua ,
Cuba and Russia
On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 10:05 AM, kxl pipeline
truthforce <kxlpipelinetruthforce@gmail.com> wrote:
this is a disturbing, counterproductive
response by our commander and chief
Obama Cancels Russian
Trip Over Snowden Asylum
By The Canadian Press, Associated Press
08 August 13
President Barack Obama is cancelling plans to meet with
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow
The move is in response to Russia U.S. frustration
with Russia
A top White House official said Obama still attends to plan the
Group of 20 economic summit next month in St.
Petersburg , Russia
Cancelling the meeting denies Putin a prominent moment just as
global attention will be turning to the summit.
Obama said in an interview Tuesday that he
was "disappointed" by Russia U.S.
faces in dealing with Moscow
"There have been times where they slip back into Cold War
thinking and a Cold War mentality," Obama said in an interview on NBC's
"The Tonight Show."
Obama and Putin last met in June on the sidelines of the Group
of 8 summit in Northern
Ireland
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S.
Instead of visiting Putin in Moscow ,
the president will add a stop in Sweden
In Moscow , the Kremlin expressed
its disappointment but said it remains ready to work with the United States U.S.
to develop relations with Moscow Moscow
"This decision is clearly linked to the situation with
former agent of U.S.
White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Russia 's decision last week to defy the U.S. Moscow summit on other
agenda items, Rhodes said the president
decided to cancel the talks.
"We'll still work with Russia
on issues where we can find common ground, but it was the unanimous view of the
president and his national security team that a summit did not make sense in
the current environment," Rhodes said.
Obama's decision is likely to deepen the chill in the already
frosty relationship between the two leaders.
They have frequently found themselves at odds on pressing
international issues, most recently in Syria ,
where the U.S. U.S. has also been a vocal critic of Russia
Secretary of State John Kerry and Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel
are still preparing for meetings in Washington
Some congressional lawmakers have called for Obama to demand
that Russia Sochi
Sen. Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that
"Putin doesn't deserve the respect after what he's done with
Snowden." He told CNN, "I know what he's doing. He's trying to make Russia
In his interview Tuesday, Obama defended his decision to attend the G-20
summit, an annual gathering of the world's largest economies. Given the U.S.
The G-20 summit is scheduled to take place in St. Petersburg Stockholm ,
Sweden
Rhodes said Sweden
has been an important U.S.
partner on clean energy issues and will be part of a U.S.
TORTURE, MANNING, SNOWDEN
News from a Nation in Lockdown
Why Holder’s Pledge That Snowden “Will Not Be Tortured” Is
a Lie
In a letter pressing
“I can report that the United States is prepared to provide to the
Russian government the following assurances regarding the treatment Mr.
Snowden would face upon return to the United States United States
would not seek the death penalty for Mr. Snowden should he return to the United States United States
The fact that the U.S.
Snowden faces charges of “willful
communication of classified communications to an unauthorized recipient” and
“unauthorized communication of national-defense information.” Never mind
the fact that most of the information was leaked
long ago to
journalists like James Bamford. Snowden need only look to the treatment of
others accused of national security breaches to see what would surely await him
in the United States
Bradley Manning was
subjected to more than nine months of pre-trial solitary confinement, some of
it naked in a bare cell. Suspects held in the civilian, rather
than military, justice systems fared, if anything, worse
than Manning, who was eventually removed from solitary. Muslims accused of
relatively minor national security-related offenses have spent years in pre-trial
solitary under “Special Administrative Measures” (SAMS) which bar all communication
with the outside world. Finally, driven mad by isolation and convinced that
they cannot get a fair trial, they are pressured to take pleas with sentences
ranging 30 years and up, likely to be served indefinite solitary confinement.
In all probability, if the Russians
give up Snowden, he will be brought back to American soil and immediately
placed in solitary confinement under SAMS. Once he is convicted–which seems
virtually guaranteed–he will continue to be held in solitary, for “national
security” reasons or perhaps purportedly for his own safety. He could well
end up at ADX, the infamous federal supermax prison in Florence , Colorado
Snowden might be driven to some of the
crazy and desperate behaviors demonstrated by other residents of ADX after
years of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation. According to a current
lawsuit, “Prisoners interminably wail, scream and bang on the walls
of their cells. Some mutilate their bodies with razors, shards of glass,
writing utensils and whatever other objects they can obtain. Some swallow razor
blades, nail clippers, parts of radios and televisions, broken glass and other
dangerous objects.”One man held at ADX, who had no prior history of mental
illness or self-harm, has both cut himself extensively and bitten off both his
pinky fingers. Suicide attempts are common.
And all this while he
is not being tortured.
Share this:
·
Email
·
Print
·
Facebook
·
Twitter
·
LinkedIn
Fwd: SNA Video: "Oliver Stone: Snowden Is a Hero; Obama Is
a Snake"
Sonny
ActionsWednesday, August 14, 2013 1:47 PM
rom: Shingetsu
News Agency <shingetsunewsagency@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 2:36 AM
Subject: SNA Video: "Oliver Stone: Snowden Is a Hero; Obama Is a Snake"
To: Shingetsu News Agency <shingetsunewsagency@gmail.com>
Dea All,
Date: Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 2:36 AM
Subject: SNA Video: "Oliver Stone: Snowden Is a Hero; Obama Is a Snake"
To: Shingetsu News Agency <shingetsunewsagency@gmail.com>
Dea All,
The latest SNA Video has just gone up. Oliver Stone spoke so
well at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan yesterday that I just had to
make this one available quickly.
Oliver Stone: Snowden Is a Hero; Obama Is a Snake
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v01Cszk5Ta8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUsPajG-xJnanhNvbSiV9i7Q
Take 5 and check it out!Michael
·
ABOUT
ABOUT
·
EXTRA!
·
FAIR TV
·
STORE
·
CONTACT
Jul
01
2013
Press Latched On to Snowden's 'Dropout' Status
Fox News' Megyn Kelly discusses Edward
Snowden's educational status with Fox's Chris Stirewalt.
[The
version in Extra! (Aug. 2013) is
entitled “The Snowden Psychiatric Smear.
–Dick]
Edward Snowden has
been characterized as many things in recent weeks, but journalists' discounting
him as a "high-school dropout" speaks volumes about media portrayals
of education.
Megyn Kelly of Fox
News(6/11/13) began a segment by referring to
Snowden as a "high-school dropout," as if this detail was more
important than his name, which was only mentioned sentences later.
New York Times columnist David Brooks (6/10/13) attempted to discredit him by saying, "Though obviously terrifically
bright, he could not successfully work his way through the institution of high
school. Then he failed to navigate his way through community college."
Brooks suggested that there's no way to be a successful part of
"civil society" if you are not part of "a series of gently
graduated authoritative structures."
While no one can say
exactly Edward Snowden quit high school, there are students in our country who
don't fit into such "structures" and have dropped out as a result.
Snowden apparently preferred independent self-study, which gave him a General
Equivalency Diploma (GED).
Kelly barely
remembered to include this detail. Under the headline "NSA Leaker
Background: Dropped Out of High School & the Army," she reported,
"So he is 29, never graduated from high school," and finished with a
look of distaste, "I think he got his GED." Reviving the racially
charged and negatively reinforced stereotype of the GED student (the GED is
disproportionately used by minorities–National Institute of Health, 5/1/11) and the high-school dropout, Kelly
implied that someone who didn't officially graduate high school isn't entitled
to much respect.
Snowden doesn't
really fit the stereotypical "high-school dropout" image. At
age 29, his unconventional path had already found him success: He was making
six figures a year as a government contractor doing what he loved. To do so
well, he obviously must be intelligent, motivated and skilled, which makes
Kelly expressing dismay at "people with that resume
and that background"
having his job seem ironic.
The media discovered
his educational history from the Guardian (6/11/13),
which profiled Snowden after breaking the story. The Atlantic (6/9/13) reported, "The first version of
the Guardian piece described Snowden as a
high-school dropout, which raised a lot of eyebrows as the U.S. Army does not
take people without either a high-school diploma or a General Equivalency
Diploma, with very rare exceptions. The paper later clarified that he holds a GED."
CNN (6/10/13), ABC (6/24/13) and NBC (6/22/13) also reported Snowden as a
"high-school dropout" without mentioning his GED.
In his syndicated
column, Mark Shields (6/19/13) wrote that attacking Snowden by
labeling him a high-school dropout was "as stupid as it is snobbish."
He wrote:
Consider these
high-school dropouts: Founding father and genius inventor Benjamin Franklin.
Founding Father and First President George Washington. The founder of modern
nursing, Florence Nightingale. American aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur
Wright. The first lady of civil rights, Rosa Parks, who refused a Montgomery Alabama America Union ,
Abraham Lincoln.
And if formal
education and advanced degrees are the key to wisdom, please explain how the United States was so misled into the tragedy of
the invasion and occupation of Iraq
Reihan Salam of Reuters (6/14/13) wrote in an opinion piece:
I found the reaction
to Snowden’s dropout status disheartening. Instead of lamenting the fact that a
high-school dropout has fared so well, we ought to celebrate it, allegations of
treason notwithstanding. It must be said that the fact that he was able to
climb so high is a sign that at least some elite American institutions are
still willing to take chances, and that is a very good thing.
END SNOWDEN NEWSLETTER
#2
No comments:
Post a Comment