Thread: Privacy Alert! Big Brother is watching and listening, UPDATED

Greenwald on Snowden Leaks: The Worst Is Yet to Come

By Vivienne Walt / Rio de Janeiro @vivwalt Oct. 14, 2013
48 Comments

Edward Snowden speaks during a dinner with U.S. ex-intelligence workers and activists in Moscow on October 9, 2013." title="Edward Snowden speaks during a dinner with U.S. ex-intelligence workers and activists in Moscow on October 9, 2013."



AFPTV / AFP / Getty ImagesEdward Snowden speaks during a dinner with U.S. ex-intelligence workers and activists in Moscow on October 9, 2013. Follow @TIMEWorld

Although four months have passed since Edward Snowden’s explosive NSA surveillance leaks, the most revealing details have not yet been published, and could be rolled out in the international media over the coming weeks and months, beginning with U.S. spying activities involving Spain and France. That’s according to Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who broke the Snowden story last June, and whose life has been drastically upturned since. “There are a lot more stories,” he said on Monday in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives.

“The archives are so complex and so deep and so shocking, that I think the most shocking and significant stories are the ones we are still working on, and have yet to publish.”

Greenwald was speaking in a packed university gymnasium to hundreds of journalists, who are gathered here this week for the Global Investigative Journalism Conference, a two-yearly event that rotates around the world, bringing together writers, television producers and editors to share information and collaborate on work. Here, Greenwald was something of a hero — the entire thrust of the conference centers on ferreting out secrets and wrongdoing—and the journalist received a rock-star welcome. And while Rio was chosen as the location for the conference years ago, it proved a fortuitous spot. Greenwald recently revealed on Brazil´s hugely popular Globo TV that the NSA had spied on President Dilma Rousseff, as well as the government oil company Petrobras. The news caused a furor in Brazil, not least from Rousseff herself, and she canceled a White House visit, originally scheduled for next week.

But in an hour-long discussion on stage with a Dutch journalist, Greenwald suggested that his life was now immensely complicated. A New York lawyer before turning into a high-profile blogger in 2005, he revealed that he was in daily contact with Snowden—a fact that came as a surprise to most in the audience—in what is an active collaboration to sift through the mountain of documents Snowden carried out of the U.S. Snowden contacted Greenwald and U.S. filmmaker Laura Poitras after taking the information to Hong Kong.

Snowden, who had top-level U.S. security clearance, spent a month in Moscow Airport’s transit area until Russia granted him asylum; the U.S. has indicted him for stealing state secrets and exposing them, charges which would likely land him in jail for the rest of his life.

In addition to his contact with Snowden, Greenwald said he was in daily communication too with Poitras, who is based in Berlin, continuing to dig into what Greenwald says is “thousands and thousands of documents.” The challenge of sifting through the information is now itself a risky endeavor. “We go to extreme lengths to make sure our communication is protected,” he said.

The work has made Greenwald himself a possible target of investigation, and he intimated that returning home to the U.S. would not be simple. British police detained his partner David Miranda at Heathrow airport in August, seizing computer hard drives, as Miranda was switching planes from Berlin, where he’d met Poitras. “We spent yesterday cloistered with British lawyers in a conference room, for the lawsuit against British authorities for detaining him for what amounted to 11 hours,” Greenwald said.

But the truly drastic impact has been on Snowden’s life, of course. And in a long discussion, Greenwald outlined how Snowden’s options for asylum had quickly shrunk after he left Hawaii in early June. Snowden flew initially to Hong Kong, where he made contact with Poitras and Greenwald. The two flew to that city, a Chinese special administrative region governed mostly by its own laws, to meet him.

Greenwald said he and Poitras locked Snowden in a room in Hong Kong for six hours after they arrived to meet him in order to “relentlessly interrogate him,” and to make sure that they were not being set up, or that the documents were not fake. Greenwald said the two were also anxious to ensure that Snowden, just 29 at the time, grasped the permanent impact on his future of exposing state secrets—and of insisting to the journalists that they publish his name. “We spent the bulk of that first week making sure he really understood what the implications were of revealing himself,” Greenwald said.

When it become clear that Hong Kong would not grant Snowden protection from U.S. authorities, he tried to reach Ecuador through Moscow and Cuba, but was stuck after the U.S. canceled his passport.

Still, Greenwald said governments who had considered taking in Snowden had made no real effort to do so. “Venezuela could send a jet to Moscow any time to pick him up, but never did. Ecuador the same way,” he said.

So, is Snowden happy in exile in Russia, whose government has itself conducted widespread surveillance programs and routinely cracks down on subversive journalists? Greenwald replied: “Happy, in the sense that if the alternative is a cage in the U.S. for the rest of your life, then Russia looks a lot better.”

http://world.time.com/2013/10/14/gre...s-yet-to-come/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/obamacare-we...2/#post1374371

Edward Snowden leaks: US diplomat chooses not to attack the Guardian

Ambassador to UK Matthew Barzun refuses to accuse paper of endangering security but focuses on security and privacy debate
Sunday 20 October 2013 09.17 EDT

Matthew Barzun, US ambassador to the UK, declines an invitation from Andrew Marr to criticise the Guardian over the NSA security leaks. Photograph: Getty Images

The US ambassador to Britain, Matthew Barzun, has rejected an opportunity to criticise the Guardian newspaper for publishing leaks from the former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, saying he wanted to focus on the importance of the debate about the trade-offs between security and privacy.
Barzun was appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show for the first time since his arrival in London in June, and talked about the impact of the debate on national security created by Snowden's leaks. He also stressed that President Barack Obama was clear that his response to the leaks should not have "a chilling effect on the press".
Asked if he shared the UK security services' concerns about the threat to national security from the leaks, he said he wanted to focus on the "importance of having this debate about what the trade-offs are between security and privacy, between transparency and secrecy, and to do so in a way that protects whistleblowers – which is different, by the way, from wholesale releasing of information, hundreds of thousands of documents".
Barzun said Obama had "promised to seek to balance the legitimate security concerns of not only our citizens but of our allies, and balance those with the privacy concerns shared by all people". He said the president "put in specific measures to protect whistleblowers if they see something illegal or unethical. That's an important part of the balance".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...matthew-barzun

Dianne Feinstein And The NSA Versus James Madison

October 22, 2013 by Michael Boldin

UPI FILE

A few weeks ago, Dianne Feinstein claimed that mass spying by the National Security Agency is “lawful, effective and Constitutional.”
Seriously.
I won’t waste my time refuting that nonsense. But I will give you some tools to resist these criminals, without relying on people like Dianne Feinstein to do the right thing — which, by the way, is unlikely to happen.
Ever.
More on that and some action items you can take today in a bit.
But first, a little more from Feinstein.
Up Is Down

Calling billions of 4th Amendment violations “Constitutional” wasn’t enough for Feinstein. She then introduced a new NSA “reform bill” that does absolutely nothing to stop the NSA.
A few days later, she took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal for some nasty fearmongering. She wants you to believe that either the NSA must be allowed to continue the spying, or you could get hurt in a terrorist attack.
Her message was basically this: We spy, or you die.
George Orwell knew what this was all about when he wrote: “Politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
The Truth — From James Madison

The truth, though, is that you don’t have to keep taking it from people like Feinstein. And you don’t have to sit around waiting for her or her friends to stop the NSA.
James Madison, known as the “Father of the Constitution,” had some advice for what to do; and it doesn’t include relying on the Federal government to stop the Federal government.
In Federalist No. 46, he gave us a four-step plan to successfully resist — in our States — Federal actions we consider either unConstitutional or “unpopular.”

1. Disquietude of the people: Madison expected the people would throw a fit when the feds usurped power — even using the word “repugnance” to describe their displeasure.
2. Refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union: Noncompliance. The Feds rely on cooperation from State and local governments. When enough people refuse to comply, they simply can’t enforce their so-called laws, regulations or mandates.
3. The frowns of the executive magistracy of the State: Here, Madison envisioned governors formally protesting Federal actions. This raises public awareness, and executive leadership will move things to the next step.
4. Legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions: An example of this is the use of State and local legislation — laws and resolutions — either protesting or resisting the Federal acts.

Impact

This is effective stuff.
Madison said that if a number of States followed this path, it would “present obstructions which the Federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano agreed recently. He said if an entire State refused to comply with a Federal law, this would make it “nearly impossible to enforce.”
Putting It In Practice Against NSA
Using this advice, the Tenth Amendment Center has put together a multi-phase plan to resist the NSA.
Phase 1 starts with passage of the 4th Amendment Protection Act in your State.
This is a “legislative device” that requires a “refusal to cooperate” with Federal spying programs in your State.
No matter what they tell you, the NSA absolutely does rely on help in virtually every State.
Here are just a few prominent examples, all of which would be banned with the passage of the 4th Amendment Protection Act in your State.
Providing vital resources: The NSA is resource-hungry. Back in 2006, they maxed out the Baltimore-area power grid. They were concerned that additional power needs could “cripple” their “mission.” The hunt for new data centers was on.
The one in Utah, for example, requires 1.7 million gallons of water every single day to operate. That water is being supplied by a political subdivision of the State of Utah.
Utah should turn the water off.
No water equals no NSA data center.
(See our ads on this here.)
In Texas, the new data center being built in San Antonio gets all its electricity from a State-owned power company.
They should turn it off and make the NSA fend for itself.
There are NSA locations in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii, Tennessee, West Virginia and Georgia, too.
Universities as research centers: There are currently 166 colleges around the country that the NSA has partnered with as “Centers of Academic Excellence.”
These are major research centers, advancing NSA spying capabilities. And they act as fertile recruiting grounds for future NSA “analysts.”
Many of these universities are State-run, and future partnership would be banned with passage of the 4th Amendment Protection Act.
It’s bad enough they’re spying on all of us, but recruiting our kids to do it? Shameless.
Big Brother in your local police: The NSA’s culture of suspicion is trickling down to local law enforcement. Information collected without a warrant is shared locally through two channels (that we’re already aware of). They share through the Special Operations Division (SOD) and fusion centers.
On top of it, local law enforcement is encouraged to share Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) upstream with NSA and other Federal agencies. (Learn more about SAR here.)
It’s a very symbiotic relationship.
In short, your local police is being co-opted by Big Brother.
Turn It Off!

Every single State needs to turn it off.
Whether it’s resources like water, electricity or sewage treatment, or research partnerships and information “sharing,” there’s nothing in the Constitution, or any case law, that requires your State to help the Feds violate your rights.
Even the Supreme Court has repeatedly agreed with this “anti-commandeering doctrine.” Relevant court cases are 1842 Prigg, 1992 New York, 1997 Printz and 2012 Sebelius.
Working together, we will send a message to people like Feinstein and her creepy friends at the NSA.
“You don’t get to scare us into giving up the 4th Amendment.”
And how do we do that?
Deliver the message with resistance. They’ll hear us loud and clear.
It’s not going to be easy. And it’s not something that can be done with one bill, one lawsuit or one anything for that matter.
But if we want to live free, we have to take it, as Thomas Jefferson so wisely said: “A free people claim their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate”
Refuse to comply, and nullify.
Action items:

• Learn more about the 4th Amendment Protection Act here.
• Contact your State Representative and Senator by phone. Strongly, but respectfully, encourage them to introduce the act in your State. Contact info here.
• Contact them again every two weeks until you get an answer. Report back whatever you learn here.
• Contact your local politicians — county and city or town — and ask them to introduce a resolution in support of this action here.
• Join the coalition to stop NSA spying here.
• Sign the petition to turn the water off in Utah here.
• Get updates on the effort nationally and in your State.

–Michael Boldin
Note from the Editor: Under the Obama Administration, the NSA, the IRS, and the State and Justice departments are blatantly stepping on Americans’ privacy—and these are just the breaches we’re aware of. I’ve arranged for readers to get a free copy of The Ultimate Privacy Guide so you can be protected from any form of surveillance by anyone—government, corporate or criminal. Click here for your free copy.

Filed Under: Conservative Politics, Liberty News, Staff Reports

http://personalliberty.com/2013/10/2...james-madison/

Hell Hath No Fury: Feinstein’s New Bill to Incriminate for Speaking Against NSA Spying and Courts

Posted by: Michelle Wright Posted date: October 23, 2013 In: News




California lawmaker and member of the United States Senate committee, Diane Feinstein has let it be known that she strongly supports the National Security Agency and its surveillance programs. The agency has caught much heat from the American people after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked documents showing that the NSA spies on millions of citizens through their phone data.
Last weekend, she published an op-ed in theWall Street Journal, claiming that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented had the NSA surveillance programs been alive beforehand. “We would have detected the impending attack that killed 3,000 Americans,” she wrote.
Then on Monday, she stated that the NSA’s bulk compilation of phone records is actually “not surveillance” and is rather just a necessary device by means of fighting terrorism. Her statement was made in an op-ed, which was published by USA Today.
She also asserted that the agency’s actions have been “effective in helping to prevent terrorist plots against the US and our allies.”
Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, both of whom are also members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter to NSA director Keith Alexander, criticizing him by detailing, “Saying that ‘these programs’ have ‘disrupted dozens of potential terrorist plots’ is misleading if the bulk phone records collection program is actually providing little or no value.” They also detailed how the NSA has only stopped a few pieces of terror plots over the years – contradictory to Senator Feinstein’s assertions.
It was also reported by the Guardian that Senator Feinstein is anticipating introducing legislation, which would criminally punish those who make critical statements about the NSA and its secret courts.
Feinstein’s bill comes just in time in the agency’s favor, considering both the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have active lawsuits against the NSA for its unconstitutional surveillance of US citizens.

SOURCE


http://freepatriot.org/2013/10/23/he...spying-courts/

BRICS Countries Build New Internet to Avoid NSA Spying

Fiber optic undersea cable bypassing U.S. to be completed by 2015

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
October 24, 2013

BRICS countries are close to completing a brand new Internet backbone that would bypass the United States entirely and thereby protect both governments and citizens from NSA spying.

In light of revelations that the National Security Agency hacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone, in addition to recording information about 124 billion phone calls during a 30-day period earlier this year, the fallout against the NSA has accelerated.

Brazil is set to finalize a 34,000-kilometre undersea fiber-optic cable by 2015 that will run from Vladivostok, Russia to Fortaleza, Brazil, via Shantou, China, Chennai, India and Cape Town, South Africa.

According to the Hindu, the project will create, “a network free of US eavesdropping,” which via legislative mandates will also force the likes of Google, Facebook and Yahoo to store all data generated by BRICS nations locally, shielding it from NSA snooping.

“The BRICS countries have the muscle to pull this off,” notes Washington’s Blog. “Each of the BRICS countries are in the top 25 largest economies in the world. China has the world’s second largest economy, India is 3rd, Russia 6th, Brazil 7th, and South Africa 25th.”

However, some privacy experts fear that this will do little to stop the NSA, given that it has tapped undersea cables since the Cold War era. Others are more positive.

“Any alternative would be a positive thing, writes Michael Dorfman. “The more choice you have, the better. Yet no-one can say for sure whether this new Internet will be safer than its US counterpart and will be able to protect the rights of regular users, including the privacy of personal data and free access to resources, more effectively.”

The BRICS cable was already in development months before the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden first became public in June.

In September it emerged that the NSA had been spying on Brazilian government communications as well as Brazilian oil company Petrobras. Spooks hacked into the firm’s computer network to eavesdrop on conversations between CEOs.

The current Internet architecture is dominated by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is largely controlled by the United States.

Other entrepreneurs are also fighting back against NSA surveillance. Tech maverick John McAfee recently announced that he was to fund a $100 gadget named Decentral that would sync up with a modem to thwart NSA spying and provide total anonymity.

Asked what he would do if the US government banned the product, McAfee responded, “I’ll sell it in England, Japan, the Third World. This is coming and cannot be stopped.”

Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71

FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

This article was posted: Thursday, October 24, 2013 at 10:00 am
Tags: big brother, internet, technology


http://www.infowars.com/brics-countr...id-nsa-spying/

Powerful Nations and Companies Fight Back Against NSA Spying

Posted on October 24, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
Video at the Page Link:


New Telecommunications Infrastructure Is Being Built to Avoid American Spying

One of India’s largest newspapers – The Hindu – reports:

Most of Brazil’s global internet traffic passes through the United States, so [the Brazilian] government plans to lay underwater fiber optic cable directly to Europe and also link to all South American nations to create what it hopes will be a network free of US eavesdropping.

A consortium of telecom and undersea cable companies competing for the contracts for the proposed BRICS cable show what they think the project should look like:


(BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.)
The BRICS countries have the muscle to pull this off. Each of the BRICS countries are in the top 25largest economies in the world. China has the world’s 2nd largest economy, India is 3rd, Russia 6th, Brazil 7th, and South Africa 25th.
As Reuters notes:

* The BRICS countries make up 21 percent of global GDP. They have increased their share of global GDP threefold in the past 15 years.
* The BRICS are home to 43 percent of the world’s population.
* The BRICS countries have combined foreign reserves of an estimated $4.4 trillion.
* Intra-BRICS trade flows reached $282 billion in 2012 and are estimated to reach $500 billion by 2015. In 2002, it was $27.3 billion.
* IMF estimates of GDP per member in 2012, China $8.25 trillion, Brazil $2.43 trillion, Russia and India at $1.95 trillion each, South Africa $390.9 billion.

China is also dropping IBM hardware like a hot potato due to security concerns. Intel and AMD may not be far behind.
Economic powerhouse Germany is also rolling out a system that would keep all data within Germany’s national borders.
New Hardware Is Being Built to Thwart Spying

Anti-virus legend and wild man John McAffee claims that he has created a $100 hardware router which will block NSA snooping:

There will be no way (for the government) to tell who you are or where you are ….

FreedomBox has been developing a similar concept for years:
And numerous other competitors will soon jump into the fray.
Of course, one of the simplest hardware solutions is to unplug. For example, by using an air gap, duct tape or a typewriter.
New Internet Architecture Is Being Developed to Minimize American Spying

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the organization which controls domain names and internet addresses.
ICANN has long been a U.S.-controlled organization. Even after ICANN become more international onpaper, it has still been dominated by America.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the Web. For example:

W3C tries to enforce compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards defined by the W3C. Incompatible versions of HTML are offered by different vendors, causing inconsistency in how Web pages are displayed. The consortium tries to get all those vendors to implement a set of core principles and components which are chosen by the consortium.

Together, ICANN and W3C – along with groups like the Internet Society and the Internet Engineering Task Force – are largely responsible for administering the electronic “plumbing” of the Web.
In response to NSA spying revelations, all of these groups just told the U.S. to pound sand. As Tech Crunch notes:

Key Internet stakeholders, including [ICANN, W3C , Internet Society, Internet Engineering Task Force and others] have released a statement condemning pervasive government surveillance and calling for an internationalization of the Internet’s underlying framework.
***
Post-NSA revelations, the United States has lost its standing as the Internet’s defender. Instead, it has been revealed that as a country we have systematically worked to undermine its encryption, and the inherent privacy that it grants users.
Instead of keeping the Internet safe, we have built an industry designed on its subversion. And now the Internet is ready to break up with us. From the joint statement:

[The parties] expressed strong concern over the undermining of the trust and confidence of Internet users globally due to recent revelations of pervasive monitoring and surveillance. [...] They called for accelerating the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing.

Indeed, the head of ICANN has thumbed his nose at the U.S. and expressed support for Brazil’s fight against American spying. As Agence France-Presse reports:

Brazil, which has slammed massive US electronic spying on its territory, said on Wednesday it would host a global summit on internet governance in April.
President Dilma Rousseff made the announcement after conferring in Brasilia with Fadi Chehade, chief executive of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).
“We have decided that Brazil will host in April 2014 an international summit of governments, industry, civil society and academia” to discuss Brazil’s suggestions for upgrading Internet security, Rousseff said on Twitter.
***
Chehade heaped praise on Rousseff for using her UN General Assembly speech in September to demand measures to thwart the massive US cyber spying operation revealed by US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
***
“She spoke for all of us on that day. She expressed the world’s interest to actually find out how we are going to all live together in this new digital age,” said Chehade.
“The trust in the global internet has been punctured and now it’s time to restore this trust through leadership and institutions that can make that happen.”

New Software Is Being Developed to Help Protect Against Spying

Google has just rolled out the beta version of an anonymizing proxy service, called uProxy. I’m not sure I trust Google – a PRISM partner to the NSA – to protect me from government snoops. But there are many other proxy services which claim that they can help protect you from the prying eyes of the NSA.
SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can install to accept documents from anonymous sources. It was created by privacy activist and Reddit founder Aaron Swartz, with assistance from Wired editor Kevin Poulsen and security expert James Dolan (a major security audit of SecureDrop has been conducted by security expert Bruce Schneier and a team of University of Washington researchers.)
AP notes:

From Silicon Valley to the South Pacific, counterattacks to revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance are taking shape, from a surge of new encrypted email programs to technology that sprinkles the Internet with red flag terms to confuse would-be snoops.
***
Developer Jeff Lyon in Santa Clara, Calif., said he’s delighted if it generates social awareness, and that 2,000 users have installed it to date. He said, “The goal here is to get a critical mass of people flooding the Internet with noise and make a statement of civil disobedience.”
University of Auckland associate professor Gehan Gunasekara said he’s received “overwhelming support” for his proposal to “lead the spooks in a merry dance,” visiting radical websites, setting up multiple online identities and making up hypothetical “friends.”
And “pretty soon everyone in New Zealand will have to be under surveillance,” he said.
Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Parker Higgens in San Francisco has a more direct strategy: by using encrypted email and browsers, he creates more smoke screens for the NSA. “Encryption loses its value as an indicator of possible malfeasance if everyone is using it,” he said.
***
This week, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University released a smartphone app called SafeSlinger they say encrypts text messages so they cannot be read by cell carriers, Internet providers, employers “or anyone else.”

Privacy companies are changing their encryption standards to try to get around the fact that NSA has been pushing compromised encryption standards as a way to break into encrypted communications. For example, PC World reports:

The U.S. National Security Agency’s reported efforts to weaken encryption standards have prompted an encrypted communications company [Silent Circle] to move away from cryptographic algorithms sanctioned by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

New Legal and Social Norms Are Being Implemented to Rein In Spying

European lawmakers on Monday voted to approve new data protections aimed at shielding citizens’ private communications from the NSA. The new law will target companies that pass on personal details of Europeans to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence without proper legal documentation showing that the NSA needs the information on national security grounds.
The EU is considering pulling out of the SWIFT financial transfer system.
Foreign companies are using their non-American status as a competitive advantage in competing for cloud storage customers and web users. And see this.


http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/...sa-spying.html

Merkel's ObamaPhone Scandal Escalates: US Ambassador Summoned By German Foreign Minister

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/24/2013 05:24 -0400

The diplomatic farce in the aftermath of the most recent revelations that Obama had tapped not only Hollande's but Merkel's cell phone as well, continued when moments ago Germany's Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain if it was indeed true the NSA "may be spying" on Merkel, a ministry spokeswoman said. They used the word "may" loosely. John B. Emerson, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Germany, will meet Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle Thursday afternoon.

But while the latest diplomatic escalation will have zero impact whatsoever on either US spying intentions, mostly of US citizens let alone foreigners, or German-US relations, what is missing is that had this "scandal" happened four short months ago, the farce would have been truly complete as the summoned US Ambassador would be none other than former Goldman senior director and head of Goldman Germany, Philip Murphy, who alas stepped down in August. Had that been the case someone may have just put two and two together.

From the WSJ:

The German government's position will be clearly presented to [Mr. Emerson]," the spokeswoman said. The U.S. Embassy referred questions back to the German Foreign Ministry.

Germany's Parliamentary Control Committee, which oversees the intelligence services, will meet for an impromptu session on the cellphone scandal at 1200 GMT, said the head of the committee, Thomas Oppermann.

Ms. Merkel spoke by phone with President Barack Obama on Wednesday to discuss the claims that the U.S. monitored her communications. The chancellor made clear that surveillance among allies would be "fully unacceptable" and a "grave breach of trust," her spokesman said in a statement released late Wednesday in Berlin.

The White House said Mr. Obama assured Ms. Merkel in the call that the U.S. "is not monitoring and will not monitor" her communications. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

In other news, the German Parliament security committee meets today on merkel phone tap, German govt spokesman Seibert comments in text message. A text message which it goes without saying, was intercepted by the NSA.
And here is Angie herself showing just where the NSA's bug was planted:




http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-1...reign-minister

2 Hours Ago by Mike "Mish" Shedlock

US Accused of Spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Phone - Merkel Phones Obama

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The Wall Street Journal reports Berlin Says U.S. May Be Spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Phone

BERLIN—Germany said it believed U.S. intelligence may be spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, an intrusion that it said would constitute a “grave breach of trust” between the longtime allies.

Ms. Merkel called President Barack Obama on Wednesday and made clear that such surveillance among allies would be “fully unacceptable,” her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a statement released late Wednesday evening in Berlin.
Mr. Seibert said Ms. Merkel expected U.S. agencies to explain their overall surveillance practices against Germany, “questions that the German government asked months ago.”

Merkel Phones Obama
The Spiegel Online reports Berlin Complains: Did US Tap Chancellor Merkel's Mobile Phone?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday to discuss suspicions that she may have been targeted by US intelligence agencies for years, SPIEGEL has learned.
The chancellor asked for a thorough explanation of serious indications that US intelligence agencies had declared her private mobile phone to be a target in their operations.
She "unequivocally disapproves" of such methods and finds them "totally unacceptable," her spokesman Steffen Seibert said. "This would be a grave breach of trust," he added. "Such practices must immediately be put to a stop."
The unusually strong reaction from the Chancellery was prompted by SPIEGEL research. After the information was examined by the country's foreign intelligence agency, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), and the Federal Office for Information Security, Berlin seems to have found their suspicions plausible enough to confront the US government.
During her conversation with Obama, Merkel expressed her expectation that "US authorities would provide an explanation about the possible extent of such surveillance practices, and thus answer questions that the German government already posed months ago," Seibert said.
"As a close ally of the United States of America, the German government expects a clear contractual agreement on the activities of the agencies and their cooperation," he added.
In response to the allegations, a spokeswoman for the US National Security Council told SPIEGEL: "The President assured the Chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel."
The spokeswoman did not wish to specify whether this statement applied to the past.

Thank Whistleblower Snowden



We should all thank whistleblower Edward Snowden for many of the spying revelations now coming to light. I think he is a hero.
Unfortunately, as I noted in Hypocrites and Bullies Speak on "The Importance of Trust" president Obama and numerous bullies don't see it that way.

Hypocrites and Bullies

1. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
2. Rep. Mike Rogers, Head of the House Intelligence Committee,
3. Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

I would like to point out to all three gentlemen one important fact: Edward Snowden did not undermine trust.
There was no trust to undermine. All Snowden did was prove the obvious.
If there was any trust the US would not have been bugging the offices of
the EU and Germany. If there was any trust, France would not be spying
on us.
Bullies, Bribes, and Foreign Aid
Please note the bullying by US imperialists. Rep. Mike Rogers (R) proposes “to send a very clear message that we won’t put up with this kind of behavior.”
Excuse Me! What about unconscionable spying by the US on its alleged allies?
Countries should send a very clear message to the US that they will not
put up with our severely misguided imperialism. And they probably would
except they fear the US might cut off aid.
If you are looking for a reason very few countries have offered Snowden asylum (see Venezuela, Nicaragua offer asylum to Snowden; Double Standards and Hypocrite Allies), you now have an answer.
Thus, we can all thank Rogers for explaining that US foreign aid is
really nothing but bribery so the imperialists, war-mongers, and hypocrites can continue their ways
with impunity, totally clueless they are the ones directly responsible for the undermined trust.

Question of Trust
Why Should Any Country Trust the US? They shouldn't, and the US is to blame, not Snowden. Is this about to matter? Let's hope so.
Editor's Note: This follows on the heels that France discovered that the US was intercepting 70 million phone calls of their citizens.


http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/10/us...-phones-obama/