Obama Administration NSA Spying on Americans

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Web inventor Berners-Lee warns forces are 'trying to take control'
Companies and governments “trying to take control of the internet” are undermining the founding principles of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned.


Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, says the internet is facing a “major” threat from “people who want to control it on the sly” Photo: PA

By James Hurley, Enterprise Editor

12:05PM BST 08 Jun 2013

The inventor of the World Wide Web said the internet is facing a “major” threat from “people who want to control it on the sly” through “worrying laws” such as SOPA, the US anti-piracy act, and through the actions of internet giants.

“If you can control [the internet], if you can start tweaking what people say, or intercepting communications, it's very, very powerful...it's the sort of power that if you give it to a corrupt government, you give them the ability to stay in power forever.”

Sir Tim was speaking as it emerged that the US government has been collecting huge amounts of personal information from Google, Facebook, Apple and other internet companies.

There have also been reports that British spies have been gathering intelligence from the internet giants "through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency"

“Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society,” Sir Tim said. “I call on all web users to demand better legal protection and due process safeguards for the privacy of their online communications, including their right to be informed when someone requests or stores their data.

“Over the last two decades, the web has become an integral part of our lives. A trace of our use of it can reveal very intimate personal things. A store of this information about each person is a huge liability: Whom would you trust to decide when to access it, or even to keep it secure?”

Sir Tim added that a “wake up call” had been delivered when former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak cut off communications services during the uprising that ousted him.

“A lot of people thought the internet was like the air, it just flows. [After this] people asked, 'who could turn off my internet'?”

Sir Tim said "companies and governments in different places all over the world trying to take control of the internet in different ways" is a much bigger threat to its development than fears over any one company having an online monopoly.

"If you remember [web browser] Netscape, people thought, oh the web is great but here's a completely controlling web company, what are we going to do? Then one morning they weren't worried about Netscape any more, it was Microsoft. Then suddenly, wait a moment the browser wasn't the issue, it was the search engine. Then, it's wait a moment, it's the social network.

"If you look at it broadly, yes a monopoly slows innovation, reduces competition. That's why it's important this is an open platform. But monopolies come and go all the time."

Sir Tim called for governments to protect the neutrality and independence of the web and compared its democratic importance to the freedom of the press.



Read More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...e-control.html

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Edward Snowden NSA: Guardian Reveals Identity Of Whistleblower Behind NSA Revelations (VIDEO)

The Huffington Post | By Rebecca Shapiro Posted: 06/09/2013 2:48 pm EDT | Updated: 06/09/2013 7:12 pm EDT
Follow: Video, Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, Edward Snowden Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden Nsa, Edward Snowden Nsa Leak, Glenn Greenwald Guardian Nsa, Guardian NSA Leak, Guardian Glenn Greenwald,

Media News

The Guardian published the identity of the whistleblower on Sunday responsible for providing the paper with top-secret documents that revealed the National Security Agency's secret surveillance programs. The paper wrote that it was revealing Edward Snowden's identity at his request:

From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. 'I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,' he said.

The Guardian compared Snowden, a 29-year-old former CIA technical assistant and current employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, to Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. "Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA," Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras wrote.

Snowden, however, said there were differences. "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he told The Guardian. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

Snowden's identity revelation followed Greenwald's appearance on ABC News' "This Week," where he told host George Stephanopoulos that the public should expect more revelations from him. Greenwald is the journalist responsible for breaking the bombshell story about the NSA secretly collecting phone data from millions of Verizon customers. Greenwald then raced the Washington Post to break the story about Prism, a program that allows the NSA to collect data from some of the country's largest Internet companies (including AOL, HuffPost's parent company).

After turning over the documents to The Guardian, Snowden fled to Hong Kong, where he sat for an interview with Greenwald and watched Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Snowden lived in Hawaii with his girlfriend, but told the UK paper that he was willing to give all of that up. He said:

I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building.

Snowden expects the Obama administration to investigate and accuse him of violating the Espionage Act, as the administration has done to an unprecedented number of leakers.

Click over to The Guardian to watch an interview with Snowden...or watch below:


NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things' – video

Glenn Greenwald on security and liberty index



The source behind the Guardian's NSA files talks to Glenn Greenwald about his motives for the biggest intelligence leak in a generation

• Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance


NSA whistleblower goes public

Cory Doctorow at 12:41 pm Sun, Jun 9, 2013



Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old NSA contractor and ex-CIA employee, has revealed that he is behind the series of leaks that have appeared in the Guardian and Washington Post this weekend, which detailed top-secret, over-reaching, and arguably criminal surveillance programs run by America's spies with the cooperation of the Obama administration.

Snowden says he always intended to come forward after the leaks, and to face down the consequences of his actions. He describes himself as a disillusioned Obama supporter who was disappointed after the 2008 election to see America double down on the overreaching spying programs that had worried him when he was with the CIA. He is giving up a comfortable life with a $200,000 salary, a girlfriend, and a home in Hawaii to blow the whistle on what he views as immoral, out-of-control spy programs. He says he does not want to be at the center of this story; he wants the focus to be on the government's actions.

He is holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong that he has barely left for three weeks. He takes extreme measures to avoid potential eavesdropping and hidden cameras. He believes he will be arrested or possibly killed, and enumerates many ways that this could happen -- rendered by the CIA, imprisoned by the Chinese government, murdered by Tong gangsters or other criminals working for American or Chinese intelligence agencies. But he says he is not afraid, and stands by his choice.

He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become". The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of whom work for the US government. "The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what keeps me up at night," he said, his eyes welling up with tears...

...But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."

Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said...

...For him, it is a matter of principle. "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to," he said.

His allegiance to internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his laptop: "I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation," reads one. Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor Project.

He may not see himself as a hero, but I do. Thank you, Mr Snowden.

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance [Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras/The Guardian]
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home again' [Q&A/The Guardian]

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HE COMES FORWARD!



VIDEO: The 29-year-old source behind biggest intelligence leak in NSA history explains his motives...
'I do not expect to see home again'...
'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'...
'I believed in Obama's promises'...
'Presidents openly lie to secure the office'...
'Government has granted itself power it is not entitled to'...
Suggests he's defecting -- to China?


Rand Paul May Sue Federal Government Over PRISM And NSA Surveillance Programs Leaked By Edward Snowden


By Eric Brown | June 09 2013 5:14 PM

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., one of the leading voices of the libertarian movement, said Sunday he may sue the federal government over the National Security Agency’s newly revealed surveillance program known as PRISM. Paul appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to discuss the possibility of a Supreme Court challenge.



Reuters
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 16.

“I’m going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level,” Paul said. “I’m going to be asking all the Internet providers and all of the phone companies: Ask your customers to join me in a class-action lawsuit. If we get 10 million Americans saying we don’t want our phone records looked at, then maybe someone will wake up and something will change in Washington.”

Paul’s announcement comes less than a week after an NSA whistle-blower named Edward Snowden revealed two large-scale, top-secret NSA surveillance programs. First, Snowden leaked news to the Guardian and the Washington Post that the NSA is collecting the phone records of millions of Americans who are customers of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ). Then, Snowden leaked news of PRISM, a top-secret surveillance program with direct access to the servers of tech giants such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and the Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT). Snowden remained anonymous until Sunday, when the Guardian and the Washington Post publicly revealed his name and background with his consent.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Paul said he disagrees with Obama administration statements that the recently disclosed NSA efforts constitute a “modest” invasion of privacy. He said he has no problem with government agencies using similar methods if they have a warrant on a specific person. However, the NSA surveillance programs are designed specifically to bypass using a warrant.

“That doesn’t look like a modest invasion of privacy,” Paul said. “I have no problem if you have probable cause … but we’re talking about trolling through a billion phone records a day.”

Paul said most young Internet users are behind his plan to challenge the NSA programs. Based on receptive comments about his lawsuit on Reddit and the many Twitter user remarks in support of Snowden, Paul may be right on that front.

“The Founding Fathers didn’t want that,” Paul said. “I think the American people are with me. Young people who use computers are with me.”







NSA Whistleblower Revealed: Edward Snowden Donated $500 To Ron Paul’s 2012 Presidential Campaign: Does NSA Whistleblower Have Libertarian Leanings?

By Christopher Zara | June 09 2013 6:54 PM



Photo: Reuters Former presidential hopeful Ron Paul participates in a 2012 debate.

Campaign contribution records appear to show that Edward Snowden, the confessed National Security Agency whistle-blower who spoke out against government surveillance in the Guardian on Sunday, donated $500 to Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid.

Records at CampaignMoney.com show two contributions of $250 each from an Edward Snowden with addresses in Hawaii and Maryland. According to the Guardian’s interview with the 29-year-old whistle-blower, Snowden lived with his family in Maryland before moving to Hawaii.

One of the records lists Snowden’s employer as Dell Inc. NASDAQ DELL), which was also referenced in the Guardian interview.

Additionally, a document on the Federal Election Commission website shows a $250 contribution from an Edward Snowden in Waipahu, Hawaii, to the Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee Inc.

Paul, the former Texas congressman, is a leading libertarian voice and a staunch critic of both President Barack Obama and so-called big government. He ran as a Republican in 2012, but lost the party nomination to Mitt Romney.

In his interview with the Guardian, Snowden said he expects to be strung up on espionage charges, given the Obama administration’s history of prosecuting whistle-blowers. He said he has been holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong.

Snowden’s coming forward has resulted in an outpouring of support on social media, where Facebook and Twitter users are heralding him as a 21st century hero.

According to Trevor Trimm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the famed Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg called Snowden the hero for whom he’s been waiting 40 years.

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NSA Security Oath



Upon being cleared to protect the sensitive information of the National Security Agency, I subscribe to this oath freely, without mental reservation, and with the full intent to exercise meticulous care in abiding by its items.

I solemnly swear that I will not reveal to any person any information pertaining to the classified activities of the National Security Agency, except as necessary toward the proper performance of my duties or as specifically authorized by a duly responsible superior known to me to be authorized to receive this information.

I further solemnly swear that I will report without delay to my security representative the details and circumstances of any case which comes within my knowledge of an unauthorized person obtaining or attempting to obtain information concerning the classified operations of the National Security Agency.

I fully appreciate and understand that the security of the information and activities of the National Security Agency is of vital importance to the welfare and defense of the United States. I affirm that I am familiar with the provisions of Sections 793, 794 and 798, Title 18, United States Code.

I do hereby affirm any understanding that the obligations of this oath will continue even after severance of my connections with the National Security Agency and that they remain fully binding on me during peacetime as well as during wartime.

Rep. Peter King calls for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be extradited from Hong Kong

By Julian Borger, The Guardian
Monday, June 10, 2013 1:58 EDT


Topics: Edward Snowden

Politicians denounce whistleblower’s actions while civil libertarians hail him as a courageous hero

The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was condemned by US politicians and threatened with prosecution by the country’s intelligence chief on Sunday after revealing himself as the Guardian’s source for a series of explosive leaks on cyber surveillance.

A spokesman for the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said Snowden’s case had been referred to the justice department and US intelligence was assessing the damage caused by the disclosures.

“Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law,” the spokesman, Shawn Turner, said.

Snowden had top-secret clearance to help run the National Security Agency’s computer systems but he was a contractor, hired by the giant US defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. The company issued a statement describing the disclosures as “shocking” and pledging to co-operate with any investigation.

It said: “News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.”

There was no immediate reaction from the White House but Peter King, the chairman of the House homeland security subcommittee, called for Snowden’s extradition from Hong Kong. Snowden flew there 10 days ago to disclose top-secret documents and to give interviews to the Guardian.

“If Edward Snowden did in fact leak the NSA data as he claims, the United States government must prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and begin extradition proceedings at the earliest date,” King, a New York Republican, said in a written statement. “The United States must make it clear that no country should be granting this individual asylum. This is a matter of extraordinary consequence to American intelligence.”

The US has an extradition treaty with Hong Kong, but there are exclusions for political offences.

The Republican head of the House intelligence committee, Mike Rogers, said Snowden had “released just enough information to literally be dangerous”.

But Snowden drew support from civil liberty activists and organisations. Jesselyn Radack, a former justice department attorney who represents whistleblowers, told Reuters: “As a whistleblower myself, this is one of the most significant leakers in my lifetime and in US history.”

Radack said she hoped the case could become “a watershed moment that could change the war on whistleblowers and the broader war on information in our country”.

Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive who famously leaked information about what he considered a wasteful datamining program at the agency, said of Snowden: “He’s extraordinarily brave and courageous.”

Drake was investigated so intensely by the justice department that the longtime analyst was reduced to working at an Apple store until the Obama administration abruptly dropped charges that could have landed him in jail for 35 years.

“It’s an extraordinarily magnanimous act of civil disobedience to disclose the Pandora’s Box of the Leviathan state,” Drake told the Guardian as he returned from a weekend appearance in New York at the Left Forum, where he spoke about whistleblowing and national security.

Drake was returning to Washington by train with Radack. “We’ve had these moments of epiphanies with things like Sandy Hook, where we talk about gun control for a week,” Radack said. “I feel like this is another one of those moments writ large, where the whole country is talking about it and everyone’s pretty much in agreement that the NSA has overstepped.”

Russell Tice, a former NSA analyst who accused the agency in the mid-2000s of overstepping the bounds of its legal surveillance mandate, said: “This guy has more courage than anyone I know.

“The biggest threat to him right now is that the Chinese communists will make a deal with us, a good neighbour deal, to serve him up to you,” Tice said. He encouraged more NSA employees to leak evidence of impropriety in the wake of Snowden’s disclosure.

“I encourage everyone to read the constitution, especially about Probable Cause and the fourth amendment, and to do the right thing,” Tice said. “I’d say this young man stood up and abided by his oath and the rest are just spinmeisters.”


In Hong Kong, ex-CIA man may not escape US reach

By REUTERS

06/10/2013 05:35

WASHINGTON- Edward Snowden's decision to flee to Hong Kong as he prepared to expose the US government's secret surveillance programs may not save him from prosecution due to an extradition treaty in force since 1998.

A 29-year-old former CIA employee, Snowden has identified himself as the person who gave the Guardian and the Washington Post classified documents about how the US National Security Agency obtained data from US telecom and Internet companies.

While preparing his leaks, Snowden left Hawaii for Hong Kong on May 20 so he would be in a place that might be able to resist US prosecution attempts, he told the Guardian.

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Military Ordered Not To Read Anything About NSA Leaks/Scandal

President Obama has said the outrage over the federal government’s decision to monitor citizens’ phone activity is all “hype.”

He might want to share his opinion with the U.S. Air Force, which is ordering members of the service not to look at news stories about it.

WND has received an unclassified NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that warns airmen not to look at news stories related to the data-mining scandal.

Want to know how and why America has so rapidly come to resemble the totalitarian society described by novelist George Orwell in “1984,” one characterized by universal surveillance? It’s all exposed in a special issue of Whistleblower magazine – titled “ONE NATION UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Big Brother is watching in ways Orwell never dreamed.”

The notice applies to users of the Air Force NIPRNET (Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network), which is the only way that many troops stationed overseas and on bases in the U.S. are able to access the Internet.

The last line of the executive summary states:

“Users are not to use AF NIPRNET systems to access the Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories because the action could constitute a Classified Message Incident.”

Cindy McGee, the mother of an airman stationed in the UAE, spoke with WND.

“The fact that our government is attempting to censor our service members from the truth of what is happening here at home is truly frightening and disheartening,” said McGee.

Her son received the same notice.

McGee continued, “I am outraged that our government is attempting to censor the information from our military that every citizen in this country is potentially being targeted by our government in a massive overreach of their constitutional powers by unconstitutional surveillance of all Americans and storage of that data.”

There have been a multitude of reports already on the latest exploding scandal of the Obama administration.

Last Wednesday, the Guardian broke the news of the top-secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all of its call data on an ongoing basis to the National Security Agency.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the NSA and FBI are gathering data from the servers of nine U.S. Internet companies.

Then reports came out that there are 50 companies from which the government is collecting data.

During a press conference, the president dismissed what he called “hype” over the surveillance programs.

But concern over this broad surveillance is causing legislators to look into what they can do to enable more oversight of these operations.

The latest news detailing how the government keeps track of this massive amount of data and its origins was posted by the Guardian, for everyone in the world to read, except members of the Air Force.

See the memo:

[American Patriot]

This is how bad this actually IS... being told NOT to read stories????? TYRANNY! Being told not to use the internet to read news is completely against the law, against the constitution, against our very moral fiber in this country. Fire me.


Military told not to read Obama-scandal news

Verizon phone records story off-limits to airmen

Published: 11 hours ago Gina Loudon About | Email | Archive

Gina Loudon, Ph.D., is host of "The Dr. Gina Show" and a national speaker, analyst and author. She has appeared or been cited by the BBC, ABC, Vanity Fair, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, CNN, New York Times, Time magazine, Fox News, Fox Business, The Hill, "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart and many others. Loudon is credited as one of the "100 founding members" of the tea-party movement, founder of Arizona BUYcott and originator of the field of policology – the nexus of politics and psychology. She is the co-author of "Ladies and Gentlemen: Why the Survival of Our Republic Depends on the Revival of Honor." Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.







President Obama has said the outrage over the federal government’s decision to monitor citizens’ phone activity is all “hype.”




He might want to share his opinion with the U.S. Air Force, which is ordering members of the service not to look at news stories about it.


WND has received an unclassified NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that warns airmen not to look at news stories related to the data-mining scandal.


Want to know how and why America has so rapidly come to resemble the totalitarian society described by novelist George Orwell in “1984,” one characterized by universal surveillance? It’s all exposed in a special issue of Whistleblower magazine – titled “ONE NATION UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Big Brother is watching in ways Orwell never dreamed.”



The notice applies to users of the Air Force NIPRNET (Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network), which is the only way that many troops stationed overseas and on bases in the U.S. are able to access the Internet.


The last line of the executive summary states:


“Users are not to use AF NIPRNET systems to access the Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories because the action could constitute a Classified Message Incident.”


Cindy McGee, the mother of an airman stationed in the UAE, spoke with WND.


“The fact that our government is attempting to censor our service members from the truth of what is happening here at home is truly frightening and disheartening,” said McGee.


Her son received the same notice.


McGee continued, “I am outraged that our government is attempting to censor the information from our military that every citizen in this country is potentially being targeted by our government in a massive overreach of their constitutional powers by unconstitutional surveillance of all Americans and storage of that data.”


There have been a multitude of reports already on the latest exploding scandal of the Obama administration.



Last Wednesday, the Guardian broke the news of the top-secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all of its call data on an ongoing basis to the National Security Agency.


On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the NSA and FBI are gathering data from the servers of nine U.S. Internet companies.



Then reports came out that there are 50 companies from which the government is collecting data.


During a press conference, the president dismissed what he called “hype” over the surveillance programs.


But concern over this broad surveillance is causing legislators to look into what they can do to enable more oversight of these operations.


The latest news detailing how the government keeps track of this massive amount of data and its origins was posted by the Guardian, for everyone in the world to read, except members of the Air Force.
See the memo:

[American Patriot]

Now let me post a "calmer" message.

First of all... The government has a classified program in place to "spy" on American's data. They are collecting metadata and using this material can essentially track you without listening to you. It is CLASSIFIED.

Second... when classified it leaked we still treat it as classified, neither confirm nor deny it.

Third... Snowden dumped a lot of information to the Guardian... that makes him a "law breaker".... but at the same time he leaked classified he alerted the WORLD to the government's spying program. This program while it might be "legal under Patriot act" is NOT LEGAL under the Constitution.

Fourth... Snowden will be arrested if they can find him. He'll be tried and jailed. Hell, they might even execute him. He's got balls doing what he did and whether he is a hero or a traitor remains to "be determined by the US Government".

Life is going to be very, very... hectic for him for a few days unless and until he gets someplace they will take him in.

Me... I'm completely against this program and the collection of data on all of us. There is NO REASON for it.

AThe fourth Amendment is very, very clear: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The truth is they can call it "data" but data equates to papers. Collecting it on innocent people equates to unreasonable searches and seizures. If they want to collect data there MUST BE A WARRANT ISSUED with Probably Cause and they MUST describe precisely where the effects, papers, or data is stored "particularly"; meaning "exactly".

I can see why Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin are literally up in arms about this.

I've been on "Twitter" now for, oh, since it came out I guess. Never use it, never really understood it. So this weekend I signed in on my new tablet and started reading. I can tell you that Americans, not Conservatives, and not Liberals, EVERYONE is mad as hell. Every, single person that was tweeting about it (with a very, very few exceptions, a couple perhaps) were raging mad about it.

A few Republicans are calling Snowden a "criminal". Almost everyone else is calling him a "hero".

Iceland is offering asylum to Snowden at this point.

The "damage" done appears to me to only involve outting the government on the fact they are actually spying on the People of this country.

The REAL damage will come in the next few days when they decide to yank all contractor's security clearances "until we can review your back ground" or some such bullshit.

Most of us can't DO our jobs without the clearances.

This is an abuse of the law, and it's a DIRECT abuse of the 4th amendment.

This isn't going away.

[American Patriot]

10 things to know about Edward Snowden

AP Photo | AP Photo




By TAL KOPAN | 6/10/13 10:09 AM EDT


Edward Snowden burst in public view when the 29-year-old identified himself as the source of leaks about the National Security Agency’s surveillance of Americans. Here are 10 things to know about Edward Snowden.


1. Doesn’t have a high school diploma. According to The Guardian, which published the first story about the NSA surveillance, Snowden never finished his high school coursework, taking classes at a community college in Maryland but not completing those, either. The paper reported he did obtain a GED later.
Continue Reading

2. Donated to Ron Paul. Zeke Miller, of Time, reported that Snowden made two $250 donations to the libertarian presidential candidate’s 2012 campaign. Snowden told The Guardian he voted for a third party in 2008 rather than President Barack Obama.


3. Wasn’t a friendly neighbor. Snowden most recently lived in Hawaii with his girlfriend before leaving in early May, and neighbors say he didn’t stop to chat much. According to The Telegraph, a neighbor told a local television station: “We occasionally saw him as he was coming or going, or checking mail, or getting the garbage. We would say ‘Hi how’s it going? How are you?’ and he would just rush inside.” Neighbors also said Snowden had boxes piled floor-to-ceiling in his garage for the entire six months he lived there.


(PHOTOS: 10 famous whistleblowers)
4. His laptop stickers reveal his beliefs. Stickers on Snowden’s laptop express support for Internet freedom, The Guardian said. One reads, “I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation,” and another is for the Tor Project, an online anonymity software.


5. Served in the army for only 5 months. Snowden told The Guardian he enlisted in 2003 and entered a Special Forces training program, but was discharged after breaking both his legs in a training accident. POLITICO confirmed Snowden was in the Army Reserve as a Special Forces recruit in 2004, but an army spokesman said he was discharged 5 months later and “did not complete any training or receive any awards.”


6. First job with NSA was as a security guard. The Guardian reported that Snowden was a security guard at a covert NSA facility at the University of Maryland before moving on to the CIA to work on IT security.


7. Used the codename Verax, Latin for “truthteller.” According to Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman, Snowden picked the pseudonym for their interactions. He called Gellman BRASSBANNER.


8. Whereabouts are currently unknown. While Snowden had said he was staying in Hong Kong, Reuters and USA Today each spoke to a hotel in Hong Kong that said Snowden had been staying there, but checked out of his room on Monday.


9. Lived comfortably. Snowden told The Guardian that he made about $200,000 a year in his position, which The New York Times reports may have been largely paid for by the U.S. government. Before he went into hiding, he was working for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.


10. Witnessed some spy novel-level stuff before. Working for the CIA in Geneva, Switzerland, Snowden told The Guardian that operatives once recruited a Swiss banker by getting the man drunk, encouraging him to drive home, then having an undercover agent help him with his drunk driving arrest.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...#ixzz2VpEE8YY6

[American Patriot]

This one WILL NOT load for me.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...-marks-my-end/

[American Patriot]

June 10, 2013
From Daniel Ellsberg to Edward Snowden

Posted by Nicholas Thompson



Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning: two men who tried to counter war through leaks. For Ellsberg, it was Vietnam. For Manning, it was primarily Iraq. Now there appears to be a third man in this group, Edward Snowden, for whom it is the war on terror. Each was, in his time, denounced by the right and hailed by the left. Ellsberg and Manning were declared psychologically unstable; Snowden likely will be soon, too. They have been called heroes, patriots, and traitors. Ellsberg and Manning acted out of what both described as a kind of idealism—and Snowden has said something similar. Ellsberg avoided prison. Manning will learn his sentence soon. Snowden is in Hong Kong waiting for whatever comes next.


Leaks, leak investigations, and war go together. War abroad has a way of turning into war at home—as the government seeks to ferret out who is giving secrets to whom in the press. War also alienates young men and women in government. People come to work for candidates who promise peace. In power, the same leaders start wars, or at least join them. This was as true of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon as it has been for Bush and Obama.


All three men served in the military and became disillusioned. Ellsberg was a Marine turned civil servant who ended up working for a government contractor, RAND, with access to lots of documents. Manning was an Army sergeant. Snowden enlisted in the Army, with the hope, he says, of joining the Special Forces. Eventually, like Ellsberg, he ended up at a contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton in Snowden’s case, that helps store our nation’s secrets.


For Ellsberg, the transition into disillusionment, and the decision to leak, took years: he spent time in Vietnam and gradually turned against the conflict. He began to think about how he could stop it. And then, one day, he heard a speech from a young college student who proclaimed that prison was his only hope to help stop the war. “I left the auditorium and found a deserted men’s room. I sat on the floor and cried for over an hour, just sobbing…. And I was thinking, ‘my country has come to this. That the best thing a young man can do is go to prison.’” Soon, he went to RAND’s safe and then to the modern device of his day, the Xerox machine.


For Manning, the path was similar but quicker. In the log of a chat with the hacker Adrian Lamo, Manning explains his growing frustration about his country. At one moment, he explains how he felt after learning that fifteen detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police were simply critics of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Manning writes:

i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees… … everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…”

We don’t know nearly as much about Snowden—at least not yet. But he, too, seems to have gone through a period of growing disenchantment. Here he is, talking with the Guardian: “Over time that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about. And the more you talk about the more you’re ignored. The more you’re told its not a problem until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public and not by somebody who was simply hired by the government.”


There are important differences between the three men. Ellsberg was forty when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, quite a bit older than Manning, who was twenty-two at the time of his leak, and Snowden, who is twenty-nine. Ellsberg knew exactly what he was doing, and he moved more slowly. There was a year and a half between the time he copied the documents and when he sent them to the press. Manning sent his immediately. Snowden leaked PowerPoint slides from a presentation in April. Ellsberg was a veteran who had spent nearly a decade thinking about his war. Manning and Snowden were more impulsive: they took files and dumped them. This morning, Ellsberg published a piece praising Snowden.


Manning and Snowden, meanwhile, are both a pair and opposites. Manning’s quest was to show that the government couldn’t keep secrets from the people. Snowden seems more concerned about letting the people keep secrets from the government. Manning was battling opacity; Snowden, a panopticon. Manning has said that he was dissatisfied with his life—he was dealing with issues of gender identity and lost love. Snowden seems to have worried about being too content: he was, after all, a young man with a G.E.D. earning two hundred thousands dollars a year in Hawaii.


Some of what Snowden says sounds too absurd to be true. His claim that he, personally, could get access to the private data of the President of the United States seems somewhere between bravura and baloney. There’s also the peculiar question about his decision to flee to Hong Kong, which is, after all, part of the most heavily monitored country on earth.


There’s another question we don’t know the answer to: Did recent reports on the Obama Administration’s crackdown on leaks have anything to do with Snowden’s decision to come forward now? Did the stories about the Department of Justice’s investigation into the action of reporters at Fox and the Associated Press have any effect on his sense of the mounting “awareness of wrongdoing”? The general surveillance of civilians is different from the surveillance of journalists and government officials—but the issues and the tools used are related.


And, here, it’s instructive again to go back forty years. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were obsessed by leaks: in 1969, the first year of the Administration, they began tapping the phones of reporters and government officials, hoping to determine who was leaking information about bombings in Cambodia. Then, in June of 1971, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post; two months later, Nixon assembled his White House plumbers, whose first task was to break into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. It was John Ehrlichman, a Nixon aide, who later called it “The seminal Watergate episode.” The pattern went like this: war, leaks, war on leakers, more leaks, more war on leakers.


Barack Obama and Richard Nixon are very different people, and they operate at very different moments in history. There is a lesson to be learned, though. Information gives you power, and surveillance gets you information. But there’s a risk in going too far—and there’s a danger of disillusionment and backlash, as more and more people think the country you lead isn’t living up to its ideals.


Above: Photograph of Daniel Ellsberg in the nineteen-seventies. Hulton Archive/Getty.

[American Patriot]

Peter King is calling for this guy's arrest, extradition and prosecution.

[American Patriot]

5 things to note about NSA surveillance programs

Originally published: June 9, 2013 7:31 PM
Updated: June 9, 2013 7:42 PM
By The Associated Press The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - (AP) -- Edward Snowden identified himself Sunday as a principal source behind revelations about the National Security Agency's sweeping phone and Internet surveillance programs. Five things to know about the disclosures:

-- THE PROGRAMS: The NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans each day, creating a database through which it can learn whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S. While the NSA program does not listen to actual conversations, the revelation of the program reopened the post-Sept. 11 debate about privacy concerns versus heightened measures to protect against terrorist attacks. Separately, an Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, allows the NSA and FBI to tap directly into nine U.S. Internet companies to gather all Internet usage -- audio, video, photographs, emails and searches. The effort is designed to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

-- THE LEAKER: A 29-year-old high school dropout who worked for consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton has claimed responsibility for disclosing the programs to The Guardian and The Washington Post. Snowden told The Guardian that he enlisted in the Army, was dismissed after breaking both legs during a training exercise and later got a job as a security guard at a covert intelligence facility in Maryland. He says he later joined the CIA and was posted under diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. He later worked for consulting companies and claims he spent four years working as a contractor with the NSA. In a statement, Booz Allen Hamilton said he has worked for them less than three months.

-- THE REASON: In interviews with The Guardian and the Washington Post, Snowden said he felt compelled to disclose the program because he wanted "to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them." Snowden says he also was disillusioned with CIA tactics to recruit spies in Geneva and was disappointed President Barack Obama did not do more to curtail surveillance programs after his 2008 election.

-- THE REACTION: The government's response was fierce. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the disclosures were "gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities" and asked the Justice Department to investigate. Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the journalists who reported on the programs don't "have a clue how this thing works; neither did the person who released just enough information to literally be dangerous." Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she wanted to see the leaker prosecuted. Rep. Peter King, a Republican on the intelligence panel, called for Snowden to be "extradited from Hong Kong immediately." John Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence, called it "an outright case of betrayal of confidences and a violation of his nondisclosure agreement." Yet some also said Snowden's revelations should spark a debate about the secret programs and civil liberties. "I am not happy that we've had leaks and these leaks are concerning, but I think it's an opportunity now to have a discussion about the limits of surveillance, how we create transparency, and above all, how we protect Americans' privacy," said Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.

-- THE CONSEQUENCES: The NSA has asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation, and Snowden could face decades in prison if convicted on espionage or treason charges. The Obama administration has been particularly aggressive in prosecuting those who disclose classified information. Snowden has fled to Hong Kong, a former British colony that is now a semi-autonomous region of China. Snowden says he chose the city because he expects leaders could resist pressure from the U.S. government. Snowden also says he would "ask for asylum from any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy." Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the United States that took force in 1998, according to the U.S. State Department website.

[American Patriot]

Top secret: The answer to whether we're being spied on


William Hague was unable to provide clear answers on Prism




"I will take great care to say nothing..." the foreign secretary said at one stage during his statement about the questions raised by the revelation of the Prism programme for monitoring email and social media traffic.


At one stage during his Commons statement I feared that William Hague might live up to his words.


He meant that he would say nothing which might aid terrorists to know how the security services go about their business. Plots against us are made in secret, he said, so they need to be combatted secretly.


However, it was clear that he intended to say nothing at all about Prism - including even using its name. Nor did he intend to spell out in ways which any member of the public could understand when their emails or other social media traffic could be monitored.


'Proportionate'

Instead, Mr Hague made a number of general points again and again:


Firstly, that Britain should be proud of the security services which had protected us from numerous plots.


Secondly, that we had "one of the strongest system of checks and balances anywhere in the world", which involved ministers signing warrants before intercepts can take place, independent oversight of their decisions by the Intelligence Services Commissioner, and parliamentary accountability via the all party Intelligence and Security Committee, chaired by Sir Malcolm Rifkind. The ISC was, he said, the proper place to ask more detailed questions.


Thirdly, our current laws do not allow for "indiscriminate trawling" of data but only allow for "necessary, proportionate, targeted" searches.


Fourthly, the suggestion that GCHQ had sought to bypass the law by using intelligence gathered abroad was "baseless".


The clear hint was that ministers had approved the use of any intelligence gathered by the American National security Agency's Prism programme.


There was also a hint that the period leading up to the Olympics had been a time when such co-operation had been significant.


However, Mr Hague dodged shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander's invitation to confirm that all such data was approved by ministerial warrants.


I can't give an answer as categorical as he would like, the foreign secretary said, but it would be wrong to say this would be done without ministerial oversight. We are left to wonder what that really means.


Most of the House of Commons seemed reassured. Former Labour foreign and home secretaries backed the security services and the government. Many MPs wanted to know if the security services might not need more powers, rather than fewer.


However, if you were hoping for clear or detailed answers, you did not get them.


They are, it seems, well, secret.

[American Patriot]

hmm

Daniel Ellsberg Calls Edward Snowden A 'Hero,' Says NSA Leak Was Most Important In American History

The Huffington Post | By Jack Mirkinson Posted: 06/10/2013 3:38 am EDT | Updated: 06/10/2013 12:46 pm EDT








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By publicly identifying himself as the leaker behind last week's NSA revelations, Edward Snowden has secured his place in media and political history.
ABC News called the leak "one of the greatest national security leaks in recent American history," and in publishing his identity, the Guardian compared Snowden, a 29-year-old contractor with the NSA, to Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the most famous leaker in history. It was almost exactly 42 years earlier, on June 13th, 1971, that the first batch of the Pentagon Papers were published in the New York Times.
Like Ellsberg, Snowden's leaks have led to a public response from the president of the United States. Moreover, he is all but certain to face the same criminal prosecution that Ellsberg faced, and that Bradley Manning, the other candidate for "most famous leaker" status, is currently facing.
Like Snowden, Ellsberg was an insider, a man who worked for the RAND Corporation and the Pentagon before deciding that he could no longer tolerate what he saw as the lies of the American government in Vietnam, and used the media to get his message out.
"I spent years keeping my mouth shut as presidents lied to us and kept these secrets," Ellsberg told "Democracy Now" in 2010. "I shouldn’t have done that. And that’s why I admire someone even who’s accused, like Bradley Manning ... of actually risking their own personal freedom in order to tell the truth. I think they’re being better citizens and showing their patriotism in a better way than when they keep their mouths shut."
Snowden had similar things to say in his interview with the Guardian:

"I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

Trevor Timm, a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tweeted Ellsberg's reaction to the news about Snowden on Sunday:

I was just with Dan Ellsberg as he learned out about Edward Snowden. He called Snowden a hero, said he's been waiting for him for 40 years.
— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) June 9, 2013

On Monday, Ellsberg wrote an op-ed for the Guardian expanding on that praise (emphasis added):

In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.

He also told CNN why he said he'd been waiting "decades" for someone like Snowden to emerge. "Decades in a sense that of seeing somebody who really was prepared to risk his life for his country as a civilian," he said. "To show the kind of courage that we expect of people on the battlefield."
Ellsberg is regarded mostly as a noble figure these days; it remains to be seen how Snowden will be viewed. A BuzzFeed analysis on Sunday found that those calling him a "hero" outnumbered those calling him a "traitor" by 30 to 1 on Twitter, but that is hardly a representative sample of the country at large.
However the story unfolds, Snowden has in all likelihood added his name to a select group of leakers who became nearly as famous as the secrets they revealed.

[American Patriot]

Journalist says Snowden fled to Hong Kong because he believed he wouldn’t get fair trial in US

(Vincent Yu/ Associated Press ) - Glenn Greenwald, right, a reporter for The Guardian newspaper, speaks to media at a hotel in Hong Kong Monday, June 10, 2013. Greenwald spoke about his interview with Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old contractor who allowed himself to be revealed as the source of disclosures about the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs.

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By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, June 10, 11:12 AM

HONG KONG — The American intelligence contractor who disclosed U.S. government surveillance programs fled to Hong Kong because he believed he wouldn’t get a fair trial in his home country, the journalist who broke the story said Monday.


Glenn Greenwald of the British-based Guardian newspaper said Edward Snowden chose the semiautonomous Chinese region because it was the least bad option open to him.

JUN 9


Iraq’s prime minister made a rare visit to the country’s self-ruled Kurdish region in the north.









Greenwald said in an interview that Snowden wants to remain out of the “clutches” of the U.S. government for as long as possible but is fully aware that he won’t succeed.
Snowden says he worked as a contractor at the National Security Agency and the CIA.


He allowed the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers to reveal his identity on Sunday as the source of a series of top-secret documents outlining two NSA surveillance programs.


The Guardian reported that Snowden arrived in Hong Kong on May 20. He checked out of a Kowloon hotel on Monday and his current location is unclear.
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the leaks at the request of the NSA.


“If the Justice Department does end up indicting him, which almost certainly it will — it’s basically inevitable at this point — he doesn’t really trust the judicial system in the United States to give him a fair trial,” Greenwald said in Hong Kong.


“I think if he trusted the political system and the political culture in the United States he would have just remained there and said ‘I did what I did and I want to defend it,’” Greenwald said.


He said Snowden chose Hong Kong because it has a history of strong political activism, free speech and respect for the rule of law. But he added that once Snowden decided to leak the information, “all of the options, as he put it, are bad options. There were no good options for him.”


Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed back to China in 1997 but was allowed to retain a high degree of autonomy and its own legal system. The city has an extradition treaty with the U.S., but it contains some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political.


Greenwald said Snowden had watched with concern the court martial of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private on trial for handing a trove of classified material to WikiLeaks, and that it had raised fears for him about secrecy and “abridgement of due process.”


Snowden, 29, believes he will eventually end up with the same fate as Manning, Greenwald said.


“I think that his goal is to avoid ending up in the clutches of the U.S. government for as long as he can, knowing full well though that it’s very likely that he won’t succeed and he will end up exactly where he doesn’t want to be,” Greenwald said.


Snowden told The Guardian that he hoped for asylum in Iceland, which he believed was a champion of Internet freedom, though Greenwald said as far as he was aware, he hadn’t filed a claim for asylum anywhere.


When asked why Snowden didn’t just head to Iceland, Greenwald said he was unsure but guessed that because the Arctic nation is a small country, it would find it much more difficult to say no to the United States than Beijing or Hong Kong.


“There’s a lot of history in terms of small Scandinavian countries or small countries in Europe succumbing to U.S. demands and doing things that are contrary to their values or even their law,” Greenwald said. “I think he feels that won’t happen here.”


It’s unclear how Snowden, who earned $200,000 a year while working at Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp., was funding his stay in Hong Kong. Greenwald said he had been “living on credit cards essentially for the last several weeks.”


But he added that since Snowden revealed his identity, he has been contacted by “countless people” offering to pay for “anything he might need.”

[Phil Fiord]

The one that would not load for Rick is here:

The computer technician who passed classified documents to reporters about two sweeping U.S. surveillance programs has revealed his identity and motives, risking decades in jail -- if the U.S. can extradite him from Hong Kong, where he is said to have taken refuge. Edward Snowden, 29, who told The Guardian and The Washington Post he had worked as a contractor at the National Security Agency and and as an employee of the CIA, allowed the newspapers to reveal his identity Sunday.

Play Video
NSA whistleblower revealed

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Analyst: NSA contractor may have exaggerated access

Last week both papers had published a series of top-secret documents outlining two NSA surveillance programs. One gathers hundreds of millions of U.S. phone records while searching for possible links to known terrorist targets abroad; the second allows the government to tap into nine U.S. Internet companies to gather all domestic Internet usage to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.
Snowden said he instigated one of the biggest government leaks in U.S. history to inform the public of what he called "the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life."
He was a systems engineer and administrator for the CIA, and most recently worked as a contractor at the U.S. National Security Agency.
In an interview with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, published on the Guardian website, Snowden talked about the system built to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens:
"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge or even a president," Snowden said. "Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with."
As a whistleblower, he says his life is forever changed.
"You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk, because they're such powerful adversaries, that no one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they'll get you in time."
In an article published on Sunday, Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman wrote that in his earliest communications with Snowden, the NSA contractor said he understood that he would be "made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end" -- and that the threat extended to journalists investigating the story before it becomes public.
The U.S. intelligence community, Snowden wrote to Gellman, "will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information."
But he further stated that he wanted to pursue the leak despite what had happened to whistleblowers in the past, "to embolden others to step forward," to show that "they can win."
The NSA has asked the Justice Department to conduct a criminal investigation into the leaks.

• Claimed NSA whistleblower's future unclear; Guardian reporter says he's "ready" for consequences
• NSA seeks criminal probe of program leaker
• The man behind the NSA data-mining stories
• Julian Assange: NSA, FBI programs amount to "mass spying" on Americans

Snowden, who said he was a technical assistant for the CIA before working as an employee Booz Allen Hamilton under contract to the NSA, could face many years in prison for releasing classified information if he is successfully extradited from Hong Kong, according to Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who represents whistleblowers.
Snowden told the Guardian newspaper he believes the government could try to charge him with treason under the Espionage Act.
Zaid told the Associated Press that, if convicted, Snowden could be subject to a 10 or 20 year penalty for each count, with each document leaked considered a separate charge.
But Zaid said that would require the government to prove he had intent to betray the United States, whereas Snowden publicly made it clear he did this to spur debate.
The government could also make an argument that the NSA leaks have aided the enemy -- as military prosecutors have claimed against Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who faces life in prison under military law if convicted for releasing a trove of classified documents through the WikiLeaks website.


"They could say the revelation of the (NSA) programs could instruct people to change tactics," Zaid said. That could add more potential jail time to the punishment.
Chief White House correspondent Major Garrett said that, since the Guardian and Washington Post revealed the existence of the NSA surveillance programs, the response by President Obama and his administration has been to justify the legal grounds for secret phone snooping and data mining. "Many of these explanations have been defensive, asserting what the snooping and surveillance is not," said Garrett. "That's designed to hold the political line in Congress."
But through it all, Garrett said, "the White House has had to admit a politically and tactically startling truth: It conducts more surveillance than the Bush White House.

Play Video
Alleged NSA whistleblower warns of "turnkey tyranny" in U.S.

Play Video
Alex Gibney on Obama admin. and whistleblowers

"The Obama administration insists that it has built many more safeguards and checks and balances within that surveillance, but it would have preferred not to admit to surveillance, and now it knows it's going to have to prove in the court of public opinion all the safeguards and checks and balances built around that surveillance," said Garrett.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says they do not target U.S. citizens. But Snowden claims the programs are open to abuse.
Senior correspondent John Miller said that the U.S. intelligence community is largely run not by government staffers but by contractors: "When I was working as a director of national intelligence, I had a staff of six or seven government employees and 38 contractors. That's not terribly unusual out there."
Miller noted that Snowden's access to classified material was not as an intelligence analyst, but as a computer technician. "According to him, he's supposedly involved in computer security so that allows you to roam through the system. His authorities are nothing like what he said they were, though," he said.
This week they will talk about going forward with a criminal investigation. "He's made himself the prime suspect. He could get indicted, charged, and subject to extradition," said Miller.
Ten years ago Hong Kong extradited three al Qaeda suspects to the U.S. But the extradition treaty between Hong Kong and the U.S. includes provisions allowing a request to be rejected if it is deemed to be politically motivated or that the suspect would not receive a fair trial.
Snowden told the Post he was not going to hide.
"Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest," he said in the Post interview published Sunday. Snowden said he would "ask for asylum from any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy."
The Post reports the Justice Department is in the "initial stages" of an investigation into the leak.

• Claimed NSA whistleblower's future unclear; Guardian reporter says he's "ready" for consequences
• NSA seeks criminal probe of program leaker
• The man behind the NSA data-mining stories
• Julian Assange: NSA, FBI programs amount to "mass spying" on Americans

Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican leader, said that an investigation this week on Capitol Hill into the NSA programs "will be very serious, obviously. We'll be dealing with a balance between national security and safeguarding our civil liberties."
Cantor said that the NSA programs, as set up, were legal. "There's no question that there's some extraordinary programs with extraordinary breadth, but when Congress after 9/11 went about enacting some of these programs, what it did was empower our law enforcement officials, and did so in a constitutional manner. Now we don't know what happened in this instance, and we've got to find out."
Snowden told The Guardian he lacked a high school diploma and served in the U.S. Army until he was discharged because of an injury, and later worked as a security guard with the NSA.
He later went to work for the CIA as an information technology employee and by 2007 was stationed in Geneva, Switzerland, where he had access to classified documents.
During that time, he considered going public about the nation's secretive programs but told the newspaper he decided against it, because he did not want to put anyone in danger and he hoped Obama's election would curtail some of the clandestine programs.
He said he was disappointed that Obama did not rein in the surveillance programs.
"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he told The Guardian. "I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."
Snowden left the CIA in 2009 to join a private contractor, and spent the last four years at the NSA, as a contractor with consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton and, before that, Dell.
The Guardian reported that Snowden was working in an NSA office in Hawaii when he copied the last of the documents he planned to disclose and told supervisors that he needed to be away for a few weeks to receive treatment for epilepsy.
He left for Hong Kong on May 20 and has remained there since, according to the newspaper. Snowden is quoted as saying he chose that city because "they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent", and because he believed it was among the spots on the globe that could and would resist the dictates of the U.S. government.
"I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets," Snowden told The Guardian.

[American Patriot]

Tried awhile ago, again and no joy.

[American Patriot]

‘Love that Fourth Amendment!’: Jake Tapper takes the Constitution to Twitter

Posted at 12:38 pm on June 10, 2013 by Twitchy Staff | View Comments

So @jaketapper is quoting the 4th amendment via Twitter this morning...maybe there's hope for the world after all! #TLoT
—
CR (@KYColC) June 10, 2013

The recent NSA surveillance scandal has a lot of Americans worried about the prying eyes of Snoop Obama and his government pals. As Twitchy founder Michelle Malkin noted, the NSA surveillance debate is nuanced, but the “creepy, creepy surveillance-state context in which this current administration operates” is important to consider. Looks like we can count CNN’s Jake Tapper among those concerned.
This morning, Tapper got his hands on a pocket Constitution and decided to remind his Twitter followers what the Fourth Amendment says about personal security:

As i entered @CableShow this a.m., someone from @cspan was handing out pocket Constitutions. Love that 4th Amendment! law.cornell.edu/constitution/f…—
Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 10, 2013

The right of the people to be secure in their persons,houses,papers,+ effects, against unreasonable searches+seizures, shall not be violated—
Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 10, 2013

+ no warrants shall issue,but upon probable cause,supported by oath or affirmation, +particularly describing the place to be searched,…—
Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 10, 2013

"…and the persons or things to be seized."—
Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 10, 2013

on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!—
Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 10, 2013

Uh-oh!

You were asking for it, Tapper. RT @jaketapper on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!—
Kimberly C (@conkc2) June 10, 2013

@jaketapper #flaggedforaudit—
Hugo Hackenbush (@MangyLover) June 10, 2013

Heh.

The Constitution is now considered partisan. Sad times. RT @jaketapper: on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!—
L K (@OrwellForce) June 10, 2013

What a sad state of affairs. RT @jaketapper: on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!—
Sarah Rumpf (@rumpfshaker) June 10, 2013

Indeed. Tapper’s joined a growing club comprising people who have to be careful now:

If you're a group, that teaches it, watch out! RT @jaketapper: on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!—
Kristina Ribali (@KristinaRibali) June 10, 2013

Welcome to the tea party and enhanced IRS scrutiny. RT: @jaketapper: on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!—
DrewM (@DrewMTips) June 10, 2013

@jaketapper In Congress, too.—
Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) June 10, 2013

It is inside the White House, too. RT "@jaketapper: on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!"—
Darth Wyatt (@DarthWyatt) June 10, 2013

“@jaketapper: on twitter, quoting the Constitution is controversial!” In schools, teaching the Constitution is controversial too.—
Lisa Douville (@mrsmeklar) June 10, 2013

But there’s strength in numbers, and we’ve got Tapper’s back!

@jaketapper glad to see the Constitution on Twitter. Too many citizens have no clue what's in it—
Contagio (@unionblue83) June 10, 2013

@jaketapper you rock Jake!—
FullFrontalTruth (@truth_full) June 10, 2013

@jaketapper THANK YOU!!! Americans STAND UP!!! These are our god given rights!!!—
ShannonJoy (@ShannonJoyRadio) June 10, 2013

Follow @twitchyteam

[Phil Fiord]

Rick, regarding the 4th amendment. Yes, it is there and applies here, except the Patriot Act modified what can be expected with the application of the 4th. At least that is the gist of what is being bantered about.

I am with you on the 4th applying here but think back to when the Patriot Act was rushed through and the implications it had for us all.

[American Patriot]

A friend this morning basically said "We deserve what we have, we voted for it, and we allowed it to happen." I guess she is somewhat right, and I've said we deserve the government we vote for.

However, a law does NOT negate the 4th. It must of course be challenged in court now to be found unconstitutional.