SURVEILLANCE/NSA/SNOWDEN NEWSLETTER #13

OMNI

CIVIL LIBERTIES/SURVEILLANCE, NSA NEWSLETTER #12, June 3, 2014

For a CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, and Ecology, Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 (#1 Jan. 28, 2008; #2 Jan. 22, 2011; #3 Oct. 25, 2011; #4 Jan. 31, 2012; #5 June 9, 2013; #6 July 22, 2013; #7 Sept. 11, 2013; #8 Oct. 18, 2013; #9 Jan. 5, 2014; #10 Feb. 7, 2014; #11 March 13, 2014).

The US taxpayers give $10 billion each year for the NSA to trawl the internet and defy the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.  The essays in this newsletter describe and call for Resistance:   The US Surveillance State is exposed (secrecy, assassinations, agencies photographed, The Intercept magazine), resistance is planned and enacted (Congress seeks “black budgets,” the people support the USA Freedom Act, contact Pres. Obama), and stronger opposition is suggested (turn off NSA’s lights).   Let’s all speak up with Michael Moore:   "I refuse to live in a country like this, and I'm not leaving."    --Dick

See Snowden newsletters: http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/05/snowden-newsletter-5.html

My blog:   War Department/Peace Department

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/ 

My Newsletters:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

For an informed and resistant citizenry.   See: Bush, CIA, Drones, Fascism, FBI, Greenwald, Intelligence Industry Complex, Imperialism, National Security State, NSA,  Obama, Secrecy, Snowden, Top Secret, and more.

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/ 

Visit OMNI’s Library.

Contents Surveillance/NSA #11 at end

Contents Surveillance/NSA #12

THE HISTORY (but telling the truth about, exposing nefarious deeds, is

     resistance)

PBS, Frontline, “ United States of Secrecy, Part One”

PBS, Frontline,  “United States of Secrecy, Part Two”

Julia Angwin, Dragnet Nation

RESISTANCE

Snowden

Greenwald’s New Book, No Place To Hide

Greenwald on Kinsley

Harding, US Spied on Human Rights Organizations

BORDC Challenging NSA, Pres. Obama

Sarah Berlin, People’s Blog for the Constitution

   Surveillance Violates Attorney-Client Privilege

   OFFNow:  Cut NSA’s Electricity

Articles from Common Dreams

Jimmy Carter, Our Email Monitored

NSA Spied on China’s Telecom Huawet

NYT: Surveillance Bill Inadequate

GREENWALD’S NEW INTERCEPT ON-LINE NEWS MAGAZINE

Dick, Articles on Surveillance in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

HISTORY

PBS, May 13 & May 20, 2014 How did the government come to spy on millions of Americans? (114:11) How did the government come to spy on millions of Americans? E-MAIL THIS THE LATEST Next Week: How Silicon Valley Feeds the NSA’s Global Dragnet May 13, 2014, 8:47 pm ET · by Sarah Childress On May 20, FRONTLINE investigates what the tech industry said when the NSA came knocking. Live Chat: How Did the Government Come to Spy on Millions of Americans? May 13, 2014, 8:45 pm ET · by Robert Collins FRONTLINE’s Mike Wiser, Spencer Ackerman of The Guardian and NSA whistleblower Kirk Wiebe will answer this question — and take yours. Join us Wed. 5/20 at 2 pm EST. What Does It Mean When the NSA Has Your Number? May 13, 2014, 8:43 pm ET · by Jason M. Breslow A study of what the NSA may be able to learn by analyzing telephone metadata may confirm the worst fears of privacy advocates. Obama on Mass Government Surveillance, Then and Now May 13, 2014, 8:42 pm ET · by Jason M. Breslow Barack Obama campaigned for the White House promising “no more secrecy,” but as president he has embraced the same domestic surveillance programs he derided as a candidate. NSA Reform: A Guide to the Options May 13, 2014, 8:41 pm ET · by Jason M. Breslow Lawmakers in Congress are jousting over how to reform the NSA’s domestic surveillance activities. Will changes go far enough? Readings & Links: NSA Secrets May 13, 2014, 8:40 pm ET · by Moira Lavelle A guide to the major leaks about the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. How Edward Snowden Leaked “Thousands” of NSA Documents May 13, 2014, 9:04 am ET · by Jason M. Breslow “I’ve got some stuff you might be interested in.” With that simple message, the biggest leak of government secrets in history was set in motion. Inside the NSA the Day After 9/11 May 12, 2014, 10:57 am ET · by Jason M. Breslow Spying on the home front was the one rule that NSA analysts were constantly warned against before 9/11, but that all changed the morning after the attacks. Press Release | “United States of Secrets”: How the Government Came to Spy on Millions of Americans April 24, 2014, 2:20 pm ET In “United States of Secrets,” a two-part series airing May 13 & 20, FRONTLINE reveals the dramatic inside story of how the U.S. government came to monitor and collect the communications of millions of people around the world—and the lengths they went to trying to hide the massive surveillance program from the public.

MORE

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/

    

DRAGNET NATION:

A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance by Julia Angwin

Times Books

 

An inside look at who’s watching you, what they know and why it matters. We are being watched.

We see online ads from websites we’ve visited, long after we’ve moved on to other interests. Our smartphones and cars transmit our location, enabling us to know what’s in the neighborhood but also enabling others to track us. And the federal government, we recently learned, has been conducting a massive data-gathering surveillance operation across the Internet and on our phone lines.

In Dragnet Nation, award-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin reports from the front lines of America’s surveillance economy, offering a revelatory and unsettling look at how the government, private companies, and even criminals use technology to indiscriminately sweep up vast amounts of our personal data. In a world where we can be watched in our own homes, where we can no longer keep secrets, and where we can be impersonated, financially manipulated, or even placed in a police lineup, Angwin argues that the greatest long-term danger is that we start to internalize the surveillance and censor our words and thoughts, until we lose the very freedom that makes us unique individuals. Appalled at such a prospect, Angwin conducts a series of experiments to try to protect herself, ranging from quitting Google to carrying a “burner” phone, showing how difficult it is for an average citizen to resist the dragnets’ reach.

Her book is a cautionary tale for all of us, with profound implications for our values, our society, and our very selves.  

SUSAN DOUGLAS, “INFORMATION HIGHWAY ROBBERY.”  IN THESE TIMES (June 2014).  Another review of Dragnet Nation.  “…Angwin documents the extent to which we are constantly being watched and offers advice to minimize our digital footprints. . . .”    We must “demand more regulation of the ballooning stalking industry, and to grasp the corrosive costs of accepting, and participating in, our new surveillance culture.”  --Dick

RESISTANCE

GREENWALD

NO PLACE TO HIDE

Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State

Glenn Greenwald, Metropolitan Books, 2014

 

Buy it now

AVAILABLE FORMATS

Hardcover e-Book Agency

In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy. As the arguments rage on and the government considers various proposals for reform, it is clear that we have yet to see the full impact of Snowden’s disclosures.

Now for the first time, Greenwald fits all the pieces together, recounting his high-intensity ten-day trip to Hong Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA’s unprecedented abuse of power with never-before-seen documents entrusted to him by Snowden himself.

Going beyond NSA specifics, Greenwald also takes on the establishment media, excoriating their habitual avoidance of adversarial reporting on the government and their failure to serve the interests of the people. Finally, he asks what it means both for individuals and for a nation’s political health when a government pries so invasively into the private lives of its citizens—and considers what safeguards and forms of oversight are necessary to ... more

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BOOK EXCERPTS

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1

CONTACT

On December 1, 2012, I received my first communication from Edward Snowden, although I had no idea at the time that it was from him.

The contact came in the form of an email from someone calling himself Cincinnatus, a reference to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who, in the fifth century BC, was appointed dictator of Rome to defend the city against attack. He is most remembered for what he did after vanquishing Rome’s enemies: he immediately and voluntarily gave up political power and returned to farming life.

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MEDIA

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Glenn Greenwald interviewed on The Charlie Rose Show

Glenn Greenwald discusses 'No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State' on The Charlie Rose Show.

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·                                 Glenn Greenwald interviewed on The Charlie Rose Show

·                                 Glenn Greenwald interviewed on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams

·                                 Glenn Greenwald interviewed on The Colbert Report (Part 1)

·                                 Glenn Greenwald interviewed on The Colbert Report (Part 2)

·                                 Glenn Greenwald interviewed on The Today Show

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REVIEWS

Reviews from Goodreads

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A Response to Michael Kinsley

By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

23 May 14

n 2006, Charlie Savage won the Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles in The Boston Globe exposing the Bush administration’s use of “signing statements” as a means of ignoring the law.  In response to those revelations, Michael Kinsley–who has been kicking around Washington journalism for decades as the consummate establishment “liberal” insider–wrote a Washington Post op-ed defending the Bush practice (“nailing Bush simply for stating his views on a constitutional issue, without even asking whether those views are right or wrong, is wrong”) and mocking concerns over it as overblown (“Sneaky! . . . The Globe does not report what it thinks a president ought to do when called upon to enforce or obey a law he or she believes to be unconstitutional. It’s not an easy question”).

Far more notable was Kinsley’s suggestion that it was journalists themselves–not Bush–who might be the actual criminals, due both to their refusal to reveal their sources when ordered to do so and their willingness to publish information without the permission of the government:

It’s wrong especially when contrasted with another current fever running through the nation’s editorial pages: the ongoing issue of leaks and anonymous sources. Many in the media believe that the Constitution contains a “reporter’s privilege” to protect the identity of sources in circumstances, such as a criminal trial, in which citizens ordinarily can be compelled to produce information or go to jail. The Supreme Court and lower courts have ruled and ruled again that there is no such privilege. And it certainly is not obvious that the First Amendment, which seems to be about the right to speak, actually protects a right not to speak. . . .

Why must the president obey constitutional interpretations he disagrees with if journalists don’t have to?

Last Sunday, same day as the Globe piece, The New York Times had a front-page article about the other shoe waiting to drop in these leak cases. The Bush administration may go beyond forcing journalists to testify about the sources of leaks. It may start to prosecute journalists themselves as recipients of illegal leaks. As with the Globe story, this turns out to be a matter of pugnacious noises by the Bush administration. Actual prosecutions of journalists for receiving or publishing leaks are “unknown,” the Times article concedes. But this could change at any moment.

Well, maybe. And maybe journalists are right in their sincere belief that the Constitution should protect them in such a case. But who wants to live in a society where every citizen and government official feels free to act according to his or her own personal interpretation of the Constitution, even after the Supreme Court has specifically said that this interpretation is wrong? President Bush would actually top my list of people I don’t want wandering through the text and getting fancy ideas. But why should he stay out of the “I say what’s constitutional around here” game if his tormentors in the media are playing it?

This is the person whom Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review, chose to review my book, No Place to Hide, about the NSA reporting we’ve done and the leaks of Edward Snowden: someone who has expressly suggested that journalists should be treated as criminals for publishing information the government does not want published. And, in a totally  unpredictable development, Kinsley then used the opportunity to announce his contempt for me, for the NSA reporting I’ve done, and, in passing, for the book he was ostensibly reviewing.

Kinsley has actually done the book a great favor by providing a vivid example of so many of its central claims. For instance, I describe in the book the process whereby the government and its media defenders reflexively demonize the personality of anyone who brings unwanted disclosure so as to distract from and discredit the substance revelations; Kinsley dutifully tells Times readers that I “come across as so unpleasant” and that I’m a “self-righteous sourpuss” (yes, he actually wrote that). I also describe in the book how jingoistic media courtiers attack anyone who voices any fundamental critiques of American political culture; Kinsley spends much of his review deriding the notion that there could possibly be anything anti-democratic or oppressive about the United States of America.

But by far the most remarkable part of the review is that Kinsley–in the very newspaper that published Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers and then fought to the Supreme Court for the right to do so (and, though the review doesn’t mention it, also published some Snowden documents)–expressly argues that journalists should only publish that which the government permits them to, and that failure to obey these instructions should be a crime (emphasis mine):

The question is who decides. It seems clear, at least to me, that the private companies that own newspapers, and their employees, should not have the final say over the release of government secrets, and a free pass to make them public with no legal consequences. In a democracy (which, pace Greenwald, we still are), that decision must ultimately be made by the government. No doubt the government will usually be overprotective of its secrets, and so the process of decision-making — whatever it turns out to be — should openly tilt in favor of publication with minimal delay. But ultimately you can’t square this circle. Someone gets to decide, and that someone cannot be Glenn Greenwald. 

Greenwald’s notion of what constitutes suppression of dissent by the established media is an invitation to appear on “Meet the Press.” On the show, he is shocked to be asked by the host David Gregory, “To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden…why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Greenwald was so stunned that “it took a minute to process that he had actually asked” such a patently outrageous question. 

And what was so outrageous? . . . As the news media struggles to expose government secrets and the government struggles to keep them secret, there is no invisible hand to assure that the right balance is struck. So what do we do about leaks of government information? Lock up the perpetrators or give them the Pulitzer Prize? (The Pulitzer people chose the second option.) This is not a straightforward or easy question. But I can’t see how we can have a policy that authorizes newspapers and reporters to chase down and publish any national security leaks they can find. This isn’t Easter and these are not eggs.

Let’s repeat that: The New York Times just published a review of No Place to Hide that expressly argues on the question of what should and should not get reported “that decision must ultimately be made by the government.” Moreover, those who do that reporting against the government’s wishes are not journalists but “perpetrators,” and whether they should be imprisoned “is not a straightforward or easy question.”

Barry Eisler, Erik Wemple, and Kevin Gosztola all have excellent replies to all of that, laying bear just how extremist it is. After reading Kinsley’s review, Ellsberg had a couple questions for him:

But there’s a broader point illustrated by all of this.  Reviews of No Place to Hide internationally (the book has been published in more than two dozen countries, in nine languages) have, almost unanimously, been extremely positive. By stark contrast, reviews from American writers have been quite mixed, with some recent ones, including from George Packer and now Kinsley, attempting to savage both the book and me personally. Much of that is simply an expression of the rule that Larry Summers imparted to Elizabeth Warren upon her arrival in Washington, as recounted by The New Yorker:

Larry Summers took Warren out to dinner in Washington and, she recalls, told her that she had a choice to make. She could be an insider or an outsider, but if she was going to be an insider she needed to understand one unbreakable rule about insiders: “They don’t criticize other insiders.”

My book, and my writing and speaking more generally, usually criticizes insiders, and does so harshly and by name, so much of this reaction is simply a ritual of expulsion based on my chronic violation of Summers’ rule. I find that a relief.

But even the positive reviews of the book in the U.S. (such as from the Times‘ book critic Michiko Kakutani)  took grave offense to its last chapter, which argues that the U.S. media is too close and subservient to the U.S. government and its officials, over whom the press claims to exercise adversarial oversight. This condmenation of the U.S. media, argued even many of the positive reviewers, is unfair.

But here, it wasn’t just Kinsley who mounted an argument for the criminalization of journalism when done against the government’s wishes. Almost instantly, other prominent journalists–NBC’s David Gregory, The Washington Post’s Charles Lane, New York’s Jonathan Chait–publicly touted and even praised Kinsley’s review.

So let’s recap: The New York Times chose someone to review my book about the Snowden leaks who has a record of suggesting that journalists may be committing crimes when publishing information against the government’s wishes. That journalist then proceeded to strongly suggest that my prosecution could be warranted. Other prominent journalists —including the one who hosts Meet the Press–then heralded that review without noting the slightest objection to Kinsley’s argument.

Do I need to continue to participate in the debate over whether many U.S. journalists are pitifiully obeisant to the U.S. government? Did they not just resolve that debate for me? What better evidence can that argument find than multiple influential American journalists standing up and cheering while a fellow journalist is given space in The New York Times to argue that those who publish information against the government’s wishes are not only acting immorally but criminally?

Edward Snowden: US Government Spied on Human Rights Workers.  Luke Harding, Guardian UK ,  Readere Supported News, April 9, 2014
Harding writes: "The US has spied on the staff of prominent human rights organisations, Edward Snowden has told the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Europe's top human rights body." 
READ MORE.

BILL OF RIGHTS DEFENSE COMMITTEE BORDC

Dear Dick,

Nearly a year ago, Edward Snowden brought something to the American people that our government wouldn’t: the truth. Despite revelations which continue to emerge, we the people have yet to uncover the full scope of the American dragnet or the depth of the civil liberties crises threatening the future of our nation.

With your support, however, BORDC remains hard at work building transpartisan, multiethnic grassroots coalitions across the country to force long overdue change restoring constitutional rights. Recently, our work on issues from dragnet surveillance to the infiltration of First Amendment groups, and from torture to institutional corruption, has drawn greater attention than ever before.

In January, when President Obama publicly addressed the NSA spying controversy, the Boston Globe printed our concerns that his speech preempted a report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight board that ultimately suggested far more fundamental changes than the meager ones supported by the President. The same month, the Washington Post quoted us in a story about the aggressive Off Now campaign, through which we're working with concerned activists to shut down NSA spying centers through the states, even while the Washington spin cycle continues.

We did not stop there. In February, we were quoted by the Guardian­—the paper which broke the Snowden leaks—in a story responding to foolish suggestions that involving the FBI in mass surveillance could help address NSA abuses. Shahid Buttar, BORDC's executive director, reminded readers that “The FBI’s history of abusing the civil liberties of Americans is longer even than the NSA’s.”

Last month, we also spoke with Intercept—the new investigative journal launched by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who first exposed the Snowden revelations in the Guardian—about the CIA spying on Senators to suppress public knowledge of CIA torture programs documented in a 6,000 page report. We called for the CIA director to be removed from his position for his complicity in human rights violations.

[LOCAL]    Beyond challenging the crimes of intelligence agencies in the media, we're also doing it in a community near you. OnApril 10, we coordinated a national day of action with coalitions across the country to protest surveillance by local police through a network of over 80 wasteful, duplicative, and constitutionally offensive fusion centers. In Washington DC, we prompted applause from tourists at the White House for exhorting the President to “#StopSpying.”

The movement to return our government to we the people is growing.

We're working to restore your rights by challenging agencies whose budgets dwarf our own, and need your support to pursue the numerous organizing opportunities beyond our current reach. Only together can we preserve our rights— and the democracy they were established to enable. Thank you for standing with BORDC and making a choice to invest in building the movement.

Warm regards from the frontline,
Shahid Buttar
Executive Director

Bill of Rights Defense Committee
8 Bridge Street, Suite A, Northampton, MA 01060
www.bordc.org
info@bordc.org
Telephone: 413-582-0110
Fax: 413-582-0116

THE FOLLOWING TWO ARTICLES BY SARAH BERLIN RELATE CLOSELY:  to ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE:  STOPPING IT BY CUTTING OFF—OFFNOW-- THE ELECTRICITY.

Building a Movement. Restoring Rights. Reclaiming Our Constitution.    

Posts by Sarah Berlin:

Sarah is a former BORDC intern and a graduate of Carleton College, where she majored in American Studies. She wrote her senior thesis on the US government's representation of immigrants following 9/11 and has worked on grassroots campaigns for immigrant rights and civil liberties.

NSA surveillance violates attorney-client privilege

February 10, 2014 at 9:00 am

8

The NSA campus in Fort Meade, Maryland. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

In a recentNation article, Nicholas Niarchos tells the story of Ron Kuby, a lawyer who was representing a man charged with providing material support to the plotters of the foiled 2009 New York subway bombing. Kuby was summoned to a Joint Terrorism Task Force office in New York City and led to a conference room where, accompanied by law enforcement agents, he listened to recordings of three conversations between him and his client. Apparently, when the client called Kuby for legal advice, the government had been listening in.

Read the rest of this entry »

OFFNow

Sarah Berlin, “Cutting Power to the NSA.”  In These Times (June 2014).  “A new group of civil liberties advocates wants to turn the lights of on the National Security Agency (NSA)—literally OFFNow.”

Home | About Us | Donate | Subscribe | Archives March 15, 2014

Researchers Confirm: When NSA Watches Your Metadata, It Is Watching You by Sarah Lazare "Stanford University researchers have confirmed what civil liberties advocates have warned since the NSA scandal broke: metadata surveillance is a window to highly sensitive personal information." The Feinstein Syndrome: “The Fourth Amendment for Me, But Not for Thee”  by Norman Solomon "With few exceptions, what bonds those at peaks of power routinely trumps what divides them. It takes a massive and sustained uproar to really fracture the perversity of elite cohesion." Web Inventor's Bold Call: Time for 'Online Magna Carta' by Andrea Germanos "Are we going to continue on the road and just allow the governments to do more and more and more control — more and more surveillance? Or are we going to set up a bunch of values? asks the Web's founder."  Surveillance-Defending Senator Slams Surveillance of Senate by Andrea Germanos "NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden called out the hypocrisy of Feinstein's outrage over senators being spied upon while supporting of NSA spying on ordinary citizens."

Jimmy Carter: 'I Believe if I Send an Email, it Will Be Monitored' 

Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News, Readers Supported News, March 24, 2014 
Stableford writes: "Former President Jimmy Carter believes U.S. intelligence agencies are spying on him — so much so, he eschews email to avoid government spies." 
READ MORE

NSA Spied on Chinese Telecom Giant 
Al Jazeera America , Reader Supported News, March 24, 2014
Excerpt: "The National Security Agency (NSA) has secretly tapped into the networks of Chinese telecom and internet giant Huawei, The New York Times and Der Spiegel reported on their websites this weekend."
READ MORE

 A Surveillance Bill That Falls Short 
Editorial | The New York Times, Reader Supported News, May 25, 2014 
Excerpt: "A year ago, it would have been unimaginable for the House to pass a bill to curtail the government’s abusive surveillance practices. The documents leaked by Edward Snowden, however, finally shocked lawmakers from both parties into action, producing promises that they would stop the government from collecting the telephone data of ordinary Americans and would bring greater transparency to its domestic spying programs." 
READ MORE

GREENWALD, POITRAS: THE INTERCEPT, New On-Line News Magazine, Articles on Surveillance, NSA Mainly at Present  (content is expanding)

DISPATCHES

A Response to Michael Kinsley

By Glenn Greenwald23 May 2014

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In 2006, Charlie Savage won the Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles in The Boston Globe exposing the Bush administration’s use of “signing statements” as a means of ignoring the law.  In response to those revelations, Michael Kinsley–who has been kicking around Washington journalism for decades as the consummate establishment “liberal” insider–wrote a Washington Post Read more

VOICES

The Bahamas Wants to Know Why the NSA is Recording Its Phone Calls

By Ryan Devereaux20 May 2014

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Government officials in the Bahamas want their U.S. counterparts to explain why the National Security Agency has been intercepting and recording every cell phone call taking place on the island nation. Responding to a report published by The Intercept on Monday, which revealed that the NSA has been targeting the Bahamas’ entire mobile network and storing Read more

NEWS

Data Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas

By Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras19 May 2014

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The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas. According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian Read more

NEWS

British Spies Face Legal Action Over Secret Hacking Programs

By Ryan Gallagher13 May 2014

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The United Kingdom’s top spy agency is facing legal action following revelations published by The Intercept about its involvement in secret efforts to hack into computers on a massive scale. Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, has been accused of acting unlawfully by helping to develop National Security Agency surveillance systems capable of covertly breaking into Read more

VOICESDISPATCHES

Keith Alexander Unplugged: on Bush/Obama, 1.7 million stolen documents and other matters

By Glenn Greenwald08 May 2014

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The just-retired long-time NSA chief, Gen. Keith Alexander, recently traveled to Australia to give a remarkably long and wide-ranging interview with an extremely sycophantic “interviewer” with The Australian Financial Review. The resulting 17,000-word transcript and accompanying article form a model of uncritical stenography journalism, but Alexander clearly chose to do this because he is angry, resentful, and Read more

DISPATCHES

Watch Live: Glenn Greenwald Debates Former NSA Director Michael Hayden

By  The Intercept  02 May 2014

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Live from Toronto, Canada, watch The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald team up with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to debate state surveillance with former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Greenwald and Ohanian will argue against the motion “be it resolved state surveillance is a legitimate defense of our freedoms.” The Read more

NEWS

British Spy Chiefs Secretly Begged to Play in NSA’s Data Pools

By Ryan Gallagher30 Apr 2014

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British surveillance agency GCHQ secretly coveted the NSA’s vast troves of private communications and sought “unsupervised access” to its data as recently as last year, cla

The Intercept is Hiring

By John Cook13 May 2014

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As I’ve mentioned before, if it seems as though things are a little slow around here, it’s only because we’ve been busy planning for the long-term future of the site while continuing to work through the Snowden materials. We’ve completed some of that planning and are ready to start staffing up The Intercept with editors and Read more

NSA Spied on Chinese Telecom Giant 
Al Jazeera America , Reader Supported News, March 24, 2014
Excerpt: "The National Security Agency (NSA) has secretly tapped into the networks of Chinese telecom and internet giant Huawei, The New York Times and Der Spiegel reported on their websites this weekend."
READ MORE

Chinese and US Commercial Espionage    

On May 25, 2014, the Arkansas-Democrat-Gazette reprinted an editorial from “Bloomberg View,” titled “Maybe, Finally, Justice,” in which the writer denounced the Chinese government for spying on US corporations and rejoiced that at last culprits have been indicted.  Surveillance  by one nation against another is normal national security operation, but against a commercial company it is theft.

     Well, the NSA has also spied on Chinese companies, as the preceding report reveals.  Instead of such provocative behavior, which can only escalate tensions already inflamed by military expansion in the Pacific and E. Asia, end commercial espionage and find ways of sharing information. See the newsletters on US Westward Imperialism, which trace the increasing encirclement of China    --Dick     

REPORTS ON SURVEILLANCE/NSA IN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT/GAZETTE, 6-12-13 to 12-18-13  ()ADG stands for Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

[The Editorials and several of the news reports are hostile to Snowden.  Ot the 23 items, two are favorable: Bolivia offers asylum, one Letter to the Editor welcomes the truth.  Several seem straight event reporting.   Close analysis of this and other controversial political crises would make excellent classroom research.  –Dick]

Editorial.  “TIME To Pay The Piper? Ya Breaks Da Rules, Ya Pays Da Price.”  ADG (6-12-13)

ADG Staff.  “U.K. Says Snowden Not Welcome.”  ADG (6-15-13)

Minter, Adam. (Bloomberg News). “Too Hot To Handle?”  ADG  (6-15-13)

ADG Staff.  “Fugitive Snowden Leaves Hong Kong. Russian Jet Takes Leaker To Hong Kong.”  ADG (6-24-13)

Baker, Peter, et al. (NYT).  “U.S. Lambastes Nations Aiding Leakers Flight.  China, Russia, Equador Urged To Follow the Rule Of Law.”  ADG (6-25-13)

ADG Staff.  “Russia:  Won’t Give Up Leaker.  Snowden Free To Choose Destination, Putin Tells U.S.”  ADG  (6-26-13)

ADG LTE (Washington Post).  “Equador’s Double Standard.”  ADG  (6-27-13)

ADG Staff.  “Obama Dismissive Of Leaker, Calling Snowden A Hacker. President Obama Said He Had Not Called the Presidents Of China Or Russia On The Snowden Case Because He Did Not Want To Elevate Its Importance.”  ADG (6-26-13)

Torres, Diego et al. (AP).  “Biden Gives Ecuador A Call: Vice President Asks Country To Deny Leakers Request.”  ADG (6-30-13)

Baltimore Sun.  “Leaker Lost The High Ground.”  ADG (7-2-13)

ADG Staff.  “U.S. Fugitive Seeks Asylum Inside Russia.  Must Stop Leaks, Putin Says.”  ADG (7-2-13)

LaPaz, Bolivia.  “Bolivia Makes Asylum Offer To Snowden.”  ADG  (7-7-13)

ADG Staff.  “U.S.:  Snowden’s Actions Complicate Foreign Ties.”  ADG  (7-8-13)

?ADG Cartoon ADG (7-8-13)

LTE.  “Snowden Spoke The Truth.”  ADG  (7-9-13)

ADG Staff.  “Snowden Asks Help Of Groups On Haven:  U.S. Leaker Seeks Asylum in Russia.”  ADG  (7-13-13)

Isachenkov, Vladimir. (AP).  “Snowden Asks Russia For Temporary Asylum.”  ADG  (7-17-13)

ADG Staff.  “Holder:  Won’t Execute Leaker.  Letter To Russia:  Torture Out, Too.”  ADG (7-27-13)

ADG Staff.  “Snowden Gets Asylum In Russia:  U.S. Fumes.”  ADG (8-2-13)

ADG Staff.  “Envoys Talk Asylum, Other Issues.  U.S., Russian Officials Meet As Snowden Finds New Home.”  ADG (8-3-13)

Editorial. (Los Angeles Times).  “What’s Next Mr. Snowden?”  ADG  (8-5-13)

Kriel, Caro.  (AP).  “4 From U.S. Meet With Snowden.”  ADG  (10-11-13)

Donahue, Patrick.  (Bloomberg News).  “Germany Rules Out Asylum For NSA Leaker.  Overture Aimed At Mending Rift Caused By U.S. Spy Data.”  ADG  (11-7-13)

ADG Staff.  “Snowden Seeks Refuge To Aid Brazil Probe.”  ADG  (12-18-13)

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Contents Surveillance Newsletters  Nos. 8-11

Contents #8 Oct. 18, 2013

DC Stop Watching Us Rally October 26

Greenwald, End of Privacy

NSA Chief Admits Full Collection of GPS Cell Phone Data

NSA Reporting in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Calabrese and Harwood:  US National Surveillance State

Noam Chomsky

Risen and Poitras in NYT, NSA Spies on Social Relations

Obama Tries to Block Supreme Court Review of NSA Spying 

US Copies Stasi

Lazare, Oversight of NSA a Sham
Boadle: Brazil’s President Cancels Visit to US
Webb, US/UK Surveillance Partners
Peter Maass:  Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald
The Nation: Should Focus on Systems Not Individuals

Contents #9  Jan. 5, 2014

Tell Congress to Protect Our Privacy and Pass the USA Freedom Act.

Abdo:  ACLU Sues, Larger Sweep of Snowden Documents Revealed

Cole, NSA on Trial

Glanz and Lehren,

NSA Stopped No Terror

Snowden’s Christmas Message

Three Reports:  Giant Tech Industries Ask Government to Limit Surveillance

Sesenbrenner,  NSA Budget vs. US Economy

To Kerry:  Reinstate Snowden’s Passport

Lisa Graves, NSA from Nixon to Obama [comprehensive]

Nader vs. US Corporate State of Surveillance

Reuters, Germany and Brazil Present Resolution to UN

Borger, European Spy Agencies

Engelhardt Tomgram, Surveillance State Scorecard

Cole, Limit Uncontrolled Electronic Surveillance of Foreigners

Greenwald, Surveillance Conformity

Contents #10 

Illegal, Unconstitutional NSA

Four on Tuesday Feb. 11 DAY WE FIGHT BACK

RootsAction, Watchdog.net, Shalom Center, Free Press Action Fund

Cohn (National lawyers Guild): It’s Worse than Orwell Imagined

Sanger, NSA Implanted Software Around the World

Amy Goodman, FBI’s COINTELPRO, NSA, and Secrets Revealed

Jaffer and Toomey, Crimes on All Levels Snowden’s Evidence Reveals

Hedges, Control of US by Intelligence Services

OBAMA, NSA Speech, Other NSA Revelations

Senator Rand Paul Sues Obama Admin.: NSA Unconstitutional

Greenwald, Obama’s NSA “Reforms” Inadequate

Pew Research, Public Little Affected by Speech

Lizza, Obama Offers Cosmetic Changes to NSA’s Telephone Metadata

Carpenter, What Obama Didn’t Say, What He Will Do

Ackerman, Clapper Untruthful

Contents of Surveillance/NSA Newsletter #11

Resistance

Action: Support the USA Freedom Act

Hattem, Congress Asks Obama for Black Budgets of Federal

  Spy Agencies

US Surveillance State

Scahill and Greenwald, NSA and Assassinations

Paglen, Photos of US Intelligence Agencies

Hussain, More Secrecy Abuses

Greenwald, James Clapper, Obama’s Top Security Officer,

  Liar and Fear-Monger

Jim Hightower, NSA and Snowden

Greenwald, Poitras, Scahill: Welcome to The

  Intercept, New Online Magazine

  Dan Froomkin, Toll of Secrecy

  Terrah Baker, “The Intercept”

Chris Hedges, US Leaders Talk Democracy, Practice Repression

END SURVEILLANCE/NSA NEWSLETTER #12