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

Assange: Snowden is ‘healthy and safe,’ awaiting asylum ruling from Ecuador


By Jonathan Easley - 06/24/13 11:13 AM ET

Edward Snowden is “healthy and safe” and waiting to hear whether he’ll receive asylum in Ecuador, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday.In a phone call with reporters, Assange said Snowden's application for asylum was being “carefully considered” by the foreign minister of Ecuador. Assange added that Snowden had “possibly” submitted requests to other countries as well.


Snowden, who earlier this month revealed classified documents detailing the National Security Agency’s surveillance of phone and Internet traffic, fled from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday to avoid a U.S. extradition request. The former government contractor is facing federal charges on espionage and theft of government property.The Wikileaks organization, which first gained attention by publishing classified U.S. diplomatic cables, has aided Snowden's effort to gain asylum. Reports said Snowden has been escorted in his travels by Assange’s close adviser, Sarah Harrison.The White House on Monday pressed Russian authorities to expel him or prevent him from leaving to a third country, but Moscow claims it has no legal standing to do so. The Obama administration has also asked Ecuador not to admit Snowden.


Ecuador previously gave Assange asylum at its London embassy to help him evade an extradition request from Sweden, where he is wanted on sexual assault charges in an unrelated matter.Assange on Monday accused the U.S. of trying to “bully” other countries into detaining the 30-year-old former Booz Allen employee.“Today we have seen a range of extreme bellicose statements from the U.S. administration attempting to bully Russia and other nations from facilitating Mr. Snowden’s asylum,” Assange said.

“Every person has the right to seek and receive political asylum … it is counterproductive and unacceptable for the Obama administration to try and interfere with those rights,” he added. “It reflects poorly on the U.S. administration and no self-respecting country would submit to such interference or bullying.”


WikiLeaks attorney Michael Ratner on Monday argued that Snowden was a whistle-blower being “persecuted for political opinion,” and said there was no arrest warrant and therefore no reason to treat him like an international fugitive. Ratner also argued that “asylum trumps extradition.”
“This morning the U.S. Secretary of State [John Kerry] called Edward Snowden a traitor,” Assange continued. “Edward Snowden is not a traitor. He is not a spy. He is a whistle-blower who has told the public an important truth.”
Assange blasted the Obama administration, saying public furor should be aimed at the NSA policies Snowden revealed, rather than the motives of the person who disclosed the information.“The Obama administration was not given a mandate by the people of the United States to hack and spy upon the entire world, to breach the U.S. Constitution and the laws of other nations in the manner it has,” he said. “To now attempt to violate the international asylum law by calling for the rendition of Edward Snowden further demonstrates the breakdown of the rule of law by the Obama administration.”


Snowden’s critics say he’s lost his moral standing by reaching out to oppressive regimes with histories of human rights abuses in an attempt to avoid rendition to the U.S.Media reports have tied Snowden to the governments in Russia, China, Ecuador, Cuba and Venezuela, and the U.S. government fears he could use the classified information he has as leverage in negotiations with foreign regimes.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...-asylum-ruling

Immigration Bill Clears Key Senate Test With Votes to Spare



U.S. Officials Don't Know How Much Secret Material Snowden Took


Monday, 24 Jun 2013 07:39 PM

U.S. intelligence agencies are worried they do not yet know how much highly sensitive material is in the possession of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, whose whereabouts are unclear, several U.S. officials said. The agencies fear that Snowden may have taken many more documents than officials initially estimated and that his alliance with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange increases the likelihood that they will be made public without considering the security implications, they said.Investigators believe Snowden, who was working in Hawaii for an NSA contractor, was partly successful at covering his tracks as he accessed a broad array of information about operations conducted by NSA and its British equivalent, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), according to the sources, who declined to be identified.

In a weekend television appearance, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, said she had been informed by U.S. officials that Snowden possessed around 200 secret documents.But one non-government source familiar with Snowden's materials said that Feinstein grossly understated the size of Snowden's document haul and that he left for Hong Kong with thousands of documents copied from the NSA files.

Two U.S. national security sources that were among the people Reuters spoke to confirmed that investigators believe Snowden possesses a substantial amount of secret material, though they declined to discuss numbers.So far, the Guardian and the Washington Post have not published all the details of the documents that Snowden gave them.

Assange and Wikileaks in the past have taken a different approach in releasing tens of thousands of reports about U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as 250,000 State Department cables.Although WikiLeaks initially made the diplomatic cables available to media outlets, including the Guardian and New York Times, who redacted potentially sensitive information before publishing them, the website eventually released an entirely unredacted archive of the material, to the dismay of the Obama Administration. U.S. officials said the information put sources at risk and damaged relations with foreign governments.

MYSTERY MAN
Snowden's current whereabouts, since leaving Hong Kong for Moscow, is shrouded in mystery.
U.S. officials have said they believe he is still in Russia, although Ecuador has said it is reviewing Snowden's asylum request and the media is tracking an Aeroflot flight to Cuba. Airport sources said Snowden was booked into seat 17A but someone else was sitting there as the plane took off.On a telephone conference call Monday with reporters, Assange, who a year ago took refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning in a sexual assault investigation, said he thought more details from material in Snowden's possession should be published.

Asked by Reuters whether he was seeking to obtain, or had already obtained, access to unpublished material in Snowden's possession, Assange, declined to answer, saying that he was unwilling to discuss "sources" which provided information to WikiLeaks.
But he added, "Of course WikiLeaks is in the business of publishing documents that are suppressed by governments."
Assange said that WikiLeaks had arranged and paid for Snowden's departure from Hong Kong.


In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden acknowledged that he took a job as a security administrator for contractor Booz Allen Hamilton three months ago to gain access to details of NSA's eavesdropping programs.

"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked," Snowden said, according to the newspaper.Investigators suspect he also took documents from previous jobs in which he had classified access.
Based on Snowden's documentation, Britain's Guardian published stories outlining massive telephone and Internet surveillance by the NSA and GCHQ, including collection of raw data about U.S. phone calls and tapping by GCHQ into fiber optic trunk cables carrying Internet traffic. The Washington Post and the Guardian disclosed details of an NSA program to read Internet messages of alleged foreign intelligence targets.
Neither the Guardian nor the Washington Post, however, published full operational details of the eavesdropping programs that Snowden told them about. In fact, both newspapers only published handfuls of classified slides and withheld others. Some slides published by both newspapers were also extensively redacted.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/sno...6/24/id/511649

International Community Rejects American Hegemony In Efforts To Capture Snowden

June 25, 2013 by Sam Rolley

With regard to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, it looks like the United States’ international hegemonic policies have encouraged a number of foreign leaders to question the Nation’s dedication to justice and resist calls to turn the whistle-blower over to U.S. authorities.

There is a noticeable disconnect between what U.S. officials say on the international stage about the need to protect whistle-blowers and dissidents, and how officials go about dealing with people who engage in those activities at home.

As of Monday, Russian and Ecuadorian officials were in close contact discussing options for providing asylum from U.S. prosecution to Snowden, who traveled to Russia at the invitation of government officials over the weekend.

The Administration of President Barack Obama, a bipartisan troop of American establishment lawmakers and U.S. prosecutors have already declared Snowden a traitor and charged him with spying under the outdated Espionage Act of 1917. Meanwhile, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino asked a question Monday that is likely on the minds of most average Americans: Has Snowden really betrayed average Americans and their safety, or did he simply ruffle the feathers of the Nation’s powerful elite?

Ecuador is considering offering Snowden permanent asylum, questioning whether the whistle-blower has any real chance of receiving a fair trial in his home country. The nation’s leaders say they feel compelled to offer Snowden asylum because they operate under a policy of placing human rights before the interests of any party. Furthermore, Ecuadorian officials say it doesn’t make sense that a man who revealed rights abuses would face prosecution from the alleged abusers.

“It should be asked, who betrayed whom,” Patino stressed, as he questioned calling Snowden’s leak “treason.”

“Is this betraying the citizens of the world, or betraying some elites that are in power in a certain country?” the Minister pondered.

In making his case for asylum to the international community, Snowden has plenty of examples to strengthen his argument. He has frequently referenced the Federal government’s treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning leading up to his court martial for leaking Army documents to Wikileaks. That leak turned international opinion strongly against the United States, as it highlighted possible war crimes at the hands of American soldiers.

“It is unlikely that I will have a fair trial or humane treatment before trial, and also I have the risk of life imprisonment or death,” Snowden said in his asylum bid.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has doubled down on portraying Snowden as a traitor. Secretary of State John Kerry chided nations that have helped Snowden evade U.S. officials.

“There would be without any question some effect and impact on the relationship” with the United States if foreign actions were helping the whistle-blower skirt American prosecution.

“There is a surrender treaty with Hong Kong and, if there was adequate notice, I don’t know yet what the communication status was, but if there was, it would be very disappointing if he was willfully allowed to board an airplane as a result,” Kerry said. “With respect to Russia, likewise.”

As for Ecuador, officials in the nation appear poised to reject U.S. efforts to prosecute Snowden as well.

“The relationship between the U.S. and Ecuador should be based on respect for the sovereignty of both countries and our actions are founded on our principles. We consider the consequences of our decisions, but we act in the name of our principles,” said Patino.


http://personalliberty.com/2013/06/2...pture-snowden/

Ex NSA Leaker's Advice To Snowden: "Always Check Your Six"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_7Wytj3rvc

Published on Jun 12, 2013
June 12th

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Anglo-Saxon Spies: German National Security Is at Stake

A Commentary by Jakob Augstein

REUTERS

A GCHQ facility at Menwith Hill in northern England: "Worse than the United States"

Overzealous data collectors in the US and Great Britain have no right to investigate German citizens. The German government must protect people from unauthorized access by foreign intelligence agencies, and it must act now. This is a matter of national security.

"Germany's security is also being defended in the Hindu Kush, too," Peter Struck, who was Germany's defense minister at the time, said in 2002. If that's true, then the government should also be expected to defend the security of its people at their own doorstep. Because the massive sniffing out and saving of data of all kinds -- that of citizens and businesses, newspapers, political parties, government agencies -- is in the end just that: a question of security. It is about the principles of the rule of law. And it is a matter of national security.

ANZEIGE

We live in changing times. At the beginning of last week, we thought after the announcement of the American Prism program, that US President Barack Obama was the sole boss of the largest and most extensive control system in human history. That was an error.Since Friday, we have known that the British intelligence agency GCHQ is "worse than the United States." Those are the words of Edward Snowden, the IT expert who uncovered the most serious surveillance scandal of all time. American and British intelligence agencies are monitoring all communication data. And what does our chancellor do?She says: "The Internet is uncharted territory for us all."

That's not enough. In the coming weeks, the German government needs to show that it is bound to its citizens and not to an intelligence-industrial complex that abuses our entire lives as some kind of data mine. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger hit the right note when she said she was shocked by this "Hollywood-style nightmare."

An Uncanny Alliance

We have Edward Snowden to thank for this insight into the interaction of an uncanny club, the Alliance of Five Eyes. Since World War II, the five Anglo-Saxon countries of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have maintained close intelligence cooperation, which apparently has gotten completely out of control.

It may be up to the Americans and the British to decide how they handle questions of freedom and the protection of their citizens from government intrusion. But they have no right to subject the citizens of other countries to their control. The shoulder-shrugging explanation by Washington and London that they have operated within the law is absurd. They are not our laws. We didn't make them. We shouldn't be subject to them.

The totalitarianism of the security mindset protects itself with a sentence: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. But firstly, that contains a presumption: We have not asked the NSA and GCHQ to "protect" us. And secondly, the sentence is a stupid one: Because we all have something to hide, whether it pertains to our private lives or to our business secrets.

No Agency Should Collect So Much Data

Thus the data scandal doesn't pertain just to our legal principles, but to our security as well. We were lucky that Edward Snowden, who revealed the spying to the entire world, is not a criminal, but an idealist. He wanted to warn the world, not blackmail it. But he could have used his information for criminal purposes, as well. His case proves that no agency in the world can guarantee the security of the data it collects -- which is why no agency should collect data in such abundance in the first place.

That is the well-known paradox of totalitarian security policy. Our security is jeopardized by the very actions that are supposed to protect it.

So what should happen now? European institutions must take control of the data infrastructure and ensure its protection. The freedom of data traffic is just as important as the European freedom of exchange in goods, services and money. But above all, the practices of the Americans and British must come to an end. Immediately.It is the responsibility of the German government to see to it that the programs of the NSA and GCHQ no longer process the data of German citizens and companies without giving them the opportunity for legal defense. A government that cannot make that assurance is failing in one of its fundamental obligations: to protect its own citizens from the grasp of foreign powers.

Germans should closely observe how Angela Merkel now behaves. And if the opposition Social Democrats and Green Party are still looking for a campaign issue, they need look no further.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-907577.html

Russia Confronts US: BACK OFF, Snowden is FREE to Travel as He Wishes

Added by Bill Bissell, Admin II on June 25, 2013 at 10:47am
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Russian FM dismisses U.S. accusations over Snowden case as "groundless, unacceptable"

MOSCOW, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed on Tuesday the U.S. accusations over Edward Snowden as "groundless and unacceptable," saying the fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker did not cross border into Russia.

"We deem absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable the attempts we are witnessing to accuse the Russian side of violation of U.S. laws," Lavrov told a press conference after talks with his Algerian counterpart Murad Medelci.

"There are no legal grounds whatsoever for this behavior of U.S. officials," he said.

A White House spokesman said on Monday that the United States had asked Russia to extradite Snowden charged with espionage and theft of government property.

"I wish to say promptly that we have nothing to do with Snowden, his relations with the U.S. Department of Justice or his movements around the world," the minister said, adding "he picked his route on his own ... Snowden has not crossed the Russian border."

Snowden, 30, disclosed information on Washington's secretive surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence.

He arrived at Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport on Sunday from Hong Kong. Earlier media reports said he would take a flight to Havana on Monday, but he did not show up on the plane.


http://patriotaction.net/video/video...sg_share_video

JUNE 22, 2013

U.S. SEEMINGLY UNAWARE OF IRONY IN ACCUSING SNOWDEN OF SPYING

POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ



WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The United States government charged former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden with spying on Friday, apparently unaware that in doing so it had created a situation dripping with irony.

At a press conference to discuss the accusations, an N.S.A. spokesman surprised observers by announcing the spying charges against Mr. Snowden with a totally straight face.

“These charges send a clear message,” the spokesman said. “In the United States, you can’t spy on people.”

Seemingly not kidding, the spokesman went on to discuss another charge against Mr. Snowden—the theft of government documents: “The American people have the right to assume that their private documents will remain private and won’t be collected by someone in the government for his own purposes.”

“Only by bringing Mr. Snowden to justice can we safeguard the most precious of American rights: privacy,” added the spokesman, apparently serious.

Get the Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.

Photograph by Kin Cheung/AP.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...of-spying.html

Obama Puts Russia on “Double Secret Probation”

Posted by Be First In Media Staff in Free Citizens | 0 comments

Jun 25, 2013

President Obama’s weakness on foreign relations issues has compromised any chance he had to act tough on this issue. Try not to laugh.

US Urges Russia Not to Harbor NSA Leaker Snowden, Warns of ‘Consequences’ for Future Ties

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State John Kerry warned Monday that Russia was “on notice” with regard to the U.S. request to hand over the indicted former National Security Agency consultant Edward Snowden, even as Chinese officials played down concerns about soured relations with the U.S. over the decision to let the fugitive leave Chinese soil.

As of early Tuesday Snowden, who is wanted in the U.S. for leaking secrets to the media, was believed still to be at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, his first destination after flying out of Hong Kong on an Aeroflot flight on Sunday. With Iceland and Ecuador among countries reportedly considering his request for asylum, the U.S. government warned countries around the world not to harbor him.

Among the revelations made by Snowden over recent weeks were claims of NSA surveillance on targets in China and Russia – specifically, hacking of Chinese cellphone companies and interception of then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s communications while he was visiting Britain in 2009.

Armed with those claims, Chinese and Russian officials are voicing little sympathy for U.S. efforts to bring Snowden to justice – and little concern about warnings of consequences for future relations.

The Russian business daily Kommersant quoted Alexei Pushkov, an influential lawmaker who heads the State Duma’s international affairs committee, as commenting that the U.S. had not considered the possible consequences when it decided to spy on Medvedev in 2009.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying portrayed Snowden’s departure as the result of a decision taken by the Hong Kong authorities rather than the central government – and then cited Snowden’s claims about NSA hacking of Chinese telecom operators as further proof that China – which the U.S. has accused of cyber attacks – in in fact the “victim” of such crimes.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the administration was “just not buying that this was a technical decision by a Hong Kong immigration official. This was a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant.”

Ventrell and White House press secretary Jay Carney both said the Chinese had dealt a “serious setback” to efforts to build mutual trust.

U.S. officials said late last week a formal extradition request had been submitted to Hong Kong. Ventrell said the U.S. had also approached the Chinese government in Beijing on the matter “at the ambassadorial level.”

Albert Ho, a Hong Kong lawmaker who acted as Snowden’s lawyer during his stay there, said he suspected that the central government rather than officials in Hong Kong was behind his departure.

The territory’s RTHK broadcaster quoted Ho as saying he had reason to believe that “those who wanted him to leave represented Beijing authorities.”

Speaking to reporters in New Delhi late Monday after talks with his Indian counterpart, Kerry said it would be “deeply troubling” if China had “willfully” allowed Snowden to leave, and would “without question,” have “an impact on the relationship, and consequences.”

As for the Russians, Kerry said Deputy Secretary William Burns had been in touch directly and “they are on notice with respect to our desires.”

“I would urge them to live by the standards of the law because that’s in the interests of everybody,” he said, adding that the U.S. had at Russia’s request transferred seven prisoners in the last two years.

“So I think reciprocity and the enforcement of the law is pretty important.”

Russia and the U.S. do not have an extradition treaty, but Kerry referred to unspecified cases where the two have cooperated in law enforcement despite that.

However, the U.S. and Russia have also clashed over such matters, especially after the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008, extradited to the U.S. and put on trial on arms smuggling charges.

Although Moscow said the incident was politically-motivated and repeatedly pressed for his return to Russia, Bout was convicted of conspiring to sell weapons to a terrorist group (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) and sentenced last April to 25 years’ imprisonment.

Russia said at the time of his sentencing that getting him home would be a priority in relations with the U.S. via US Urges Russia Not to Harbor NSA Leaker Snowden, Warns of ‘Consequences’ for Future Ties | CNS News.

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http://www.befirstinmedia.com/obama-...ret-probation/

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

JUNE 22, 2013

U.S. SEEMINGLY UNAWARE OF IRONY IN ACCUSING SNOWDEN OF SPYING

POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The United States government charged former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden with spying on Friday, apparently unaware that in doing so it had created a situation dripping with irony.

At a press conference to discuss the accusations, an N.S.A. spokesman surprised observers by announcing the spying charges against Mr. Snowden with a totally straight face.

“These charges send a clear message,” the spokesman said. “In the United States, you can’t spy on people.”

Seemingly not kidding, the spokesman went on to discuss another charge against Mr. Snowden—the theft of government documents: “The American people have the right to assume that their private documents will remain private and won’t be collected by someone in the government for his own purposes.”

“Only by bringing Mr. Snowden to justice can we safeguard the most precious of American rights: privacy,” added the spokesman, apparently serious.

Get the Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.

Photograph by Kin Cheung/AP.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...of-spying.html

U.S. SEEMINGLY UNAWARE OF IRONY IN ACCUSING SNOWDEN OF SPYING,

Now that says it all don't ya think!!!!!


Remember Benghazi!!!!!!