Democrats spearhead campaign against Snowden as evidence of illegal spying mounts

By Thomas Gaist, wsws.org

Pelosi and fellow poseurs. Te Democrats are a cruel farce, but the will is still lacking to sweep them from the stage.

Pelosi and fellow poseurs. The Democrats are a cruel farce, but the will is still lacking to sweep them from the stage.

 

The US government, abetted by the media, is intensifying its campaign against former intelligence employee Edward Snowden for leaking evidence of massive and illegal spying.

The Obama administration is preparing to file criminal charges and is pushing for Snowden’s extradition from Hong Kong. Snowden has said that he fears for his safety and has fled his hotel for an undisclosed location.

On Friday, US Attorney General Eric Holder vowed that the US government would punish those responsible for leaks relating to government surveillance programs, which he characterized as “extremely damaging.” At a news conference in Dublin, he said he was “confident that the person who is responsible will be held accountable.”

[pullquote] The political fraud represented by the Democratic party as some sort of “progressive” alternative to the Republicans is increasingly in evidence, but the majority of Americans are too ignorant and deficient in attention span to connect the dots. Hence the rise of the Obamabot in the midst of attacks on the Constitution that exceed the assault by Bush-Cheney and Co. [/pullquote]

“The safety of the American people and the safety of people who reside in allied nations have been put at risk as a result of these leaks,” Holder claimed. In fact, Snowden has revealed spying operations that target both the American people and the population of the entire world.

The more that is revealed about government criminality, the more determined is the insistence from leading officials that Snowden himself, the one revealing this criminality, should be subject to criminal prosecution. As Trotsky put it, “the real criminals hide under the cloak of the accusers.”

The spying programs revealed so far include one that gathers the phone records of nearly every person living in the United States. Another monitors Internet activity, emails and other electronic communications from people all over the world. Snowden has also provided information related to US government hacking, over a period of several years, of Chinese universities, public officials, businesses and students.

In response to these revelations, the media, in close coordination with the government, is leveling ever more hysterical and unsubstantiated charges against Snowden. An article posted Friday by Fox News asked the question, “Edward Snowden: Whistleblower or foreign agent?” suggesting that the Snowden was working with the Chinese government.

“As the story unfolds, one key question stands out: is Snowden the heroic whistleblower he claims to be or something more sinister?” The article claimed that “some” are “questioning his motives and wondering whether claims that he wanted to right a perceived wrong are true—or whether he could be a modern-day double agent, cleverly hiding his actions and painting himself as a victim of the US government while working as an agent for the Chinese.”

Democrats are leading the campaign against Snowden. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for the prosecution of Snowden on Thursday, saying, “I think on three scores—that is leaking the Patriot Act section 215, FISA 702, and the president’s classified cyber operations’ directive—on the strength of leaking that, yes, that would be a prosecutable offense,” Pelosi told reporters at her Capitol Hill news briefing. “I think that he should be prosecuted.”

Pelosi expressed anxiety that the program could be so easily brought under public scrutiny: “How on earth can we have a situation where we are so vulnerable, so exposed, with so much information about how we acquire intelligence, to the point that the [Director of National Intelligence] is saying that it seriously hurt our national security?” she fretted.

This week, US intelligence officials briefed members of the House of Representatives and Senate in secret meetings hidden from public view. Lawmakers were informed that the spying programs are far more expansive that what has been so far revealed.

Speaking after a classified briefing on the NSA surveillance, US Representative Loretta Sanchez acknowledged, “What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today… I can’t speak to what we learned in there… I think it’s just broader than most people even realize, and I think that’s, in one way, what astounded most of us, too.”

“The federal surveillance programs revealed in media reports are just ‘the tip of the iceberg,’” she added.

In a column published on Friday, Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who has published the leaks from Snowden, confirmed that Sanchez is “absolutely right” in her assertion that what has been revealed thus far is “the tip of the iceberg,” adding that he will soon publish “significant revelations that have not yet been heard.”

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that “Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with US national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence.” The information provided by these companies, according to “four people familiar with the process” cited by Bloomberg, is used to “help infiltrate computers of [the US government’s] adversaries.”

According to the news agency, “Some US telecommunications companies willingly provide intelligence agencies with access to facilities and data offshore that would require a judge’s order if it were done in the US, one of the four people said. In these cases, no oversight is necessary under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and companies are providing the information voluntarily.”

As part of the international witch-hunt directed against Snowden, the UK has threatened to fine airlines for transporting the whistleblower to British soil.

Geoffrey Robertson, a lawyer from London, told the New York Times that this measure was unprecedented, saying, “This is a power hitherto used only against those who incite terrorism, race hatred, and homophobia —never before against whistle-blowers.” According to Robertson, the British government is concerned that judges in the UK might rule against Snowden’s extradition to the US on the grounds that this would lead to him undergoing “oppressive treatment akin to that being meted out to Bradley Manning.”

The leading role of the Democrats in implementing the assault on democratic rights was on further display during Thursday’s congressional vote on the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act. The fiscal year 2012 NDAA, signed by Obama, contained provisions allowing for the indefinite detention of US citizens without due process.

An amendment submitted by Republicans to this year’s NDAA, which funds the military, says that nothing in US law can deny citizens the right to a court hearing. The amendment passed, with only three Democrats voting for it.

The NDAA amendment was a cynical maneuver that will have no effect on US policy and will almost certainly be stripped from the final version before it passes the Senate. A stronger version of the same amendment was rejected. Nevertheless, it exposes the Democratic Party’s full support for the destruction of democratic rights in the US.

The reaction of the ruling elite, abetted by the media, is a product of its deep fear that what Snowden has revealed—unconstitutional and illegal programs that have been systematically concealed from the American people—will further undermine the legitimacy of their system in the eyes of millions.




Pretext for a new war: Obama lies about Syrian chemical weapons

By Peter Symonds, wsws.org

Obama: a dependable instrument for an utterly amoral system.

Obama: a dependable and skilled demagog for an utterly amoral system.

In a statement issued Thursday, the Obama administration has declared that the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has violated “international norms” by using chemical weapons on multiple occasions over the past year. The claim is a transparent lie that will be used by the US and its European allies, Britain and France, as the pretext for arming their right-wing Islamist proxies and for military intervention.

The allegations are no more credible than the lies about weapons of mass destruction that were used to justify the criminal US-led invasion of Iraq. The statement by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes claimed that US intelligence agencies had “high confidence” in their assessment, but acknowledged that physiological evidence of sarin gas exposure did “not tell us how or where the individuals were exposed or who was responsible.”
[pullquote] From a political, moral, and ecological standpoint nothing in history matches the concentrated evil and hypocrisy of US imperialism. Not only is this system that represents the superrich provoking wars in every corner of the earth under cover of filthy lies, many in pursuit of petroleum supremacy, and destroying the earth with abandon, but it is also ruthlessly immiserating billions of people and risking a final nuclear confrontation with enemies it has itself created. It can now be said with absolute certainty that Washington is the foremost enemy of humanity and everything that struggles to live on this planet.  Its crimes, every inch facilitated by the prostituted media, are so heinous that even a Nuremberg tribunal would be too kind a forum for them. [/pullquote]

The US claims simply ignored evidence that anti-Assad militias had chemical weapons and may have used them. Late last month, the Turkish press reported that the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front, which forms the military backbone of the anti-Assad forces, had obtained chemical weapons and was planning to use them (see: “Syrian opposition fighters arrested with chemical weapons”). The Syrian “rebels”, which have been pressing for Western military assistance, have far more to gain than the Assad regime by staging small-scale chemical weapons attacks.

Rhodes alluded to the real purpose of the chemical weapons allegations, saying that Obama had declared they were “a red line” that “would change his calculus and it has.” He acknowledged that Obama had “authorised the expansion of our assistance to the [opposition] Supreme Military Council” and would be “consulting with Congress… in the coming weeks.” He warned that “these efforts will increase going forward.”

The timing of the announcement is no accident. It comes as the Obama administration has been immersed in emergency discussions this week on how to stem the recent defeats inflicted on the anti-Assad militias. The Syrian army, reinforced by fighters from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia movement, took back the strategic town of Qusayr on June 5, cutting a crucial supply line from Lebanon for the so-called rebels.

Syrian government forces are reportedly now massing in the north for a drive to seize Syria’s largest city of Aleppo. The Wall Street Journal reported that General Salim Idris, the titular commander of the “Free Syrian Army,” has issued desperate appeals to the US, France and Britain for “anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft weapons and hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds.” According to a US official involved in talks with Idris, he warned that “he cannot hold on to Aleppo without these weapons.”

The disintegration of anti-Assad forces is not primarily due to the lack of weapons. Rather, working people are increasingly hostile to sectarian atrocities carried out by the right-wing Islamists that dominate the Syrian opposition forces. Even the British-based Economist acknowledged: “Many Syrians originally sympathetic to the rebels have been horrified by events such as the reported execution on June 9 of a 14-year-old boy by jihadists in Aleppo, allegedly for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.”

The US is already engaged in talks with France and Britain over the direct supply of arms to Syrian opposition forces and plans to press for further assistance at next week’s G8 meeting. Washington has already been colluding with Middle Eastern allies—Qatar and Saudi Arabia—to supply large quantities of arms and ammunition to the Syrian “rebels.”

French officials plan to meet with General Idris this weekend to assess his military needs. The European Union lifted its embargo on supplying military hardware to anti-Assad militias on the condition that shipments not start until August 1. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, French officials dismissed the timetable as a “gentlemen’s agreement” that was not legally binding.

The Journal also revealed advanced US plans to impose a no-fly zone inside areas of Syria adjacent to Jordan. The Pentagon has already moved Patriot anti-missile systems, F-16 fighters and V-22 tilt rotor Osprey aircraft, used to rescue downed pilots, to Jordan under the guise of participating in joint war games. The US has also stationed a big-deck amphibious warship with a Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

According to the Journal, the Pentagon plan involves “creating an area to train and equip rebel forces” inside Syria and “a no-fly zone stretching up to 25 miles into Syria which would be enforced using aircraft flown from Jordanian bases.” The Jordanian regime has already agreed to the use of its military bases and “it would take about a month” to implement.

As was the case in the US-NATO war to topple Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the imposition of a no-fly zone would simply be the pretext for an escalation into a full-scale air war in support of anti-Assad militias on the ground. Given the far more substantial character of the Syrian military, it could also be a prelude to the intervention of US-led ground forces.

Influential Republican Senator John McCain has already been pressing for a far more aggressive American intervention into Syria, including supplying weapons and airstrikes. In a clear signal that the Democrats and the Obama administration are rapidly moving to do so, former President Bill Clinton was reported in the New York Times yesterday as saying in meeting with McCain that it had been a “big mistake” not to directly intervene, and, gesturing towards the senator, added: “I agree with you about this.” The Obama administration’s bogus claims about chemical weapons use have now provided the pretext.

Once again the Obama administration is dragging the American people into a reactionary, neo-colonial war on the basis of lies. Washington’s determination to oust President Assad is no more about bringing “democracy” to Syria than the US invasion of Iraq was to end the supposed WMD threat posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

US imperialism is seeking to establish its untrammelled domination in the oil-rich Middle East at the expense of its rivals and regards both Syria and its ally Iran as obstacles to its interests. A reckless escalation of the Syrian conflict by the US and its European allies raises the very real danger of drawing in other major powers such as Russia into a broader regional and international war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Symonds writes political analysis for the wsws.org, information arm of the Social Equality Party.




“Turnkey Tyranny”

By Joe Giambrone, politicalfilmblog

“I know everything that is said and done.  And thought!”-Emperor Tiberius, Caligula (1979)

Edward Snowden (2013)

The genius of the American political system is that each administration is significantly worse than the one that preceded it.  The effect is historical revisionism in the public mind.  Nixon looks downright cuddly next to the abuses of Cheney/Rummy/Bush and company.  Now Bush Jr. is starting to look like a civil libertarian when compared to the current Snoopmeister In Chief.  As we plummet toward official Satanism, with a state unrecognizable and patently evil at its core, we can at least cling to the notion that things weren’t as bad as now in some past golden age.  Then we can look around and fight amongst each other, assigning blame to the nearest uninformed yahoo, rather than to the high priests of human sacrifice and global misery and destruction.

 

We now have an utterly exposed fraud of a system unrecognizable as a democracy, but clearly within parameters of what George Orwell conjured up and Hitler before him.

A series of disclosures comes regularly from defective cogs, little technocratic machine parts, which no longer spin as directed.  Edward Snowden’s classified leaks are the icing on top of a shit pile so towering as to be visible from orbit.  As Snowden warned, “the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.”

That is the modus operandi.  Secret memos have replaced debate, law and Constitutionality.

“If I wanted to see your e-mails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.”

–Whistleblower Edward Snowden

Snowden, a private contractor, a computer systems “analyst” at Booz, Allen and Hamilton, is recently out of a job.  But that doesn’t seem to have stopped his employer from rolling forward with the mission, no matter what that mission actually entails.  Buzzfeed reports that Snowden’s old job is open for candidates to apply.  So if you’re a hacker with questionable morals and scruples, you are encouraged to take the keys to the kingdom.  There you will be able to “wiretap anyone, from YOU or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president…

Someone, somewhere in a uniform adorned with various gaudy medals, might ask why some off-the-street computer punk could get hired to wiretap his entire life, and with what oversight or legality?  If said punk decides to wiretap high-ranking military officers, what then?  And the President of the United States?  And federal judges?  What sort of Frankenstein’s worst nightmare has the National Security Agency concocted over there, and in what possible ways do such gaping security holes constitute “national security?”  This is quite the opposite, in fact, a national insecurity on a scale unprecedented in all of human history.

Thanks for letting us know, Snowden, but, you’re still enemy number one to be silenced.  Like Manning, and Assange, Kiriakou, Binney and Sibel Edmonds.  You’re not supposed to tell the public. You see, the US government considers the public a hostile force to be propagandized, controlled, manipulated, kept ignorant, persuaded, sold, taxed, recruited or locked up.  This is the triumph of “western democracy.”

Not a lot is new here, but the naked illegitimacy of the office of the president is a welcome development indeed.  As the buck stops in the Oval Office, perhaps we can begin there with handcuffs and actual warrants for arrest that respect the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights of Mr. Obama and company.

I am not a crook!” said a former crook.  But today, the very notion that the president is a crook has been defined out of existence as a “conspiracy theory” the wild, insane ravings of the lizard cult people awaiting the mother ship.  For it is quite impossible for the president, or anyone else in government, to conspire to break the law.  Such a thing goes against the divine.  A religious aura surrounds the hallowed grounds of the White House, a place so sacred as to be beyond the worldly temptations of normal mortals.

As no US government official is currently capable of breaking the law, the tin foil adorned crowd must simply be shunned and silenced, ridiculed into irrelevance.  Impeachment is another quaint anachronism.  After all, there was no blowjob.  No one lied about semen.  Bodily fluids were not spilled.

This is simply a policy disagreement.  Policy is, in the end, whatever the government decides to have typed up in a memo.  This memo’s relevance to the law and to the rights of the citizens has been engineered completely into irrelevance.  Memo trumps Constitution.  Ask Diane Feinsetin.  They have a “program” and the program is approved by them – so what’s the problem?

The lunatic conspiracist and enemy of the state Edward Snowden claims, “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.”

Well what does he know, really?

“…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.”

-Edward Snowden

Senator Mike Rogers disagrees.  End of story.  End of investigation – of the NSA – not of Snowden of course.

Can some rogue leaker take down the illegitimate surveillance state?  Doubtful.  Have the people awoken?  Remains to be seen.

Can they do anything about it?  Will they?  Will they be asleep again by Sweeps Week?

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”

– Edward R. Murrow

Let me ask you, couch potato man, how many more Edward Snowdens will throw away their careers, their life savings and flee for the rest of their lives in order to save your sorry freedom that you don’t even value yourself?  Why should they?  Are you worth it?  Are you even on the right side of history? Ignorance, in the hyper-information age, is rather pathetic, don’t you think?

The world of knowledge is at everyone’s fingertips, often 24/7, and yet they actively choose to know very little.  They wallow in trivialities and banalities choosing ignorance 9 times out of 10.  How long can such a people remain free?

Should they?

“I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

-Edward Snowden

Beer, Breasts and Cat Videos, that new reality show debuts at 9pm.

Joe Giambrone publishes Politcal Film Blog (@polfilmblog), and he dares anyone to try this Hell of a Deal.




SURPRISE: NBC’s “The Professionals” and Joy Behar have no use for NSA leaker

EDITORIALS—
The ever-disgusting state of the “free press” —
“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty”— proclaim a thousand voices from their high perches.

bona fides totalitarian system of mass communications.

By Patrice Greanville

Glorified news reader Scott Pelley. It'll be a cold day in hell when he dares criticize the system.

Glorified news reader Scott Pelley. It’ll be a cold day in hell when he and his confreres dare criticize the system.

Not content with ganging up on NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden using its overpaid pundits, anchormen, and five-star “journalists” the corporate media can’t resist trotting out any available voice it can grab to add credibility to their character assassination. Students of CIA dirt recognize that media smears are dangerous, straight from its time-tested amoral propaganda manual, and that, by blackening the name or creating a lynching atmosphere toward certain political figures (or entire nations) such propaganda can easily pave the way for real attacks and physical elimination.  The shameless dishonesty of the corporate media comes through in brilliant technicolor when we observe its highly selective stigmatizations.

hmadinejad and Syria’s Assad, have all been mocked and demonized, heavyweight criminals that the Washington mafia endorses are given a pass or even open support. This selectivity, of course, extends to entire nations and ideologies. And while plenty of articulate dissenters can be located in America and “the West” without much trouble, none are ever allowed inside the sacrosanct perimeter of the national debate, nor offered sufficient time to explain their positions.

[pullquote] As a leading member of the lynching mob, NBC has now trotted out even lightweight programs like “The Professionals,” supposedly the voice of the (educated) “man in the street”, to justify its one-sided condemnation of Ed Snowden. In that NBC is marching in lockstep with the rest of the “free press”, which will not tolerate injuries to the propaganda system protecting the global empire. [/pullquote]

Such consideration should give a responsible journalist pause, but the corporate media are not staffed with real journalists or people of sturdy decency but with thinly veiled propagandists for the corporate status quo, blatant fools or cynical opportunists. For the ultimate triumph of capitalist propaganda, US-style, has been to infect so many minds that just about anyone hired or allowed on television will already carry the loyalist virus, or some sort of disabling character deficiency in abundance, making any vetting for ideological purity somewhat superfluous.

The examples below come from television, the pre-eminent medium of mass disinformation and indoctrination in the United States, since print media —in sharp decline for decades—occasionally offer more nuanced and even closer-to-the-truth accounts of contemporary reality. (Warning: Half-truths may be more insidious than straight lies or omissions, but that’s another story.)  Since in the United States, in particular, the “free press” enforces a sort of diffused McCarthyism in support of the imperial establishment’s goals and methods, it’s not surprising to find even the periphery of the great media constellation occupied with witnesses shouting their condemnation of Ed Snowden’s daring act. 

Let’s examine a couple of these modern autos-da-fé.

Loyalist Genuflecters #1: NBC’s The Professionals

The role of this bunch is to represent “educated, reasonable opinion” supposedly mirroring the public’s attitudes toward specific issues. Unfortunately, from the start the very composition of the panel cast doubt as to its ability to reach even such modest goals.  Let’s take a look at the current members:

DONNY DEUSTCH

donny-deutsch-on-gayles-cbs-gig-365x240Hyperegotist Donald “Donny” Deutsch (born November 22, 1957)[1] is an American advertising executive and television personality. Deutsch is the chairman of Deutsch Inc., an advertising agency founded by his father, which he sold to the Interpublic Group of Companies in 2000 for US$ 265 million.[2] 

This guy’s specialty—apart from frequently being a strident, obnoxious jerk— is to be a crony to many of tv industry’s top honchos, and corporate media in general. Being part of the advertising industry, this is of course a natural fit, and that’s how he’s wormed his way into limelight. An intellectual mediocrity of the first order (perhaps his only true distinction), Deutsch, with more than a quarter billion dollars in net worth, is an unapologetically opinionated imperialist establishmentarian, with all the toxicity that that implies. It’s a fair bet that in a truly meritocratic media system this idiot would be invisible. Donny’s opinion? “Snowden’s a traitor with capital “T’!”

STAR JONES
starJonesAccording to her suspiciously inflated Wiki profile, Star Jones (previously Star Jones Reynolds; married to an investment banker), born March 24, 1962, “is an American lawyerjournalistwriter, and television personality. She is known for her former role as a co-host of the ABC weekday morning talk show The View from 1997 to 2006. She was one of sixteen contestants of the fourth installment of Celebrity Apprentice, coming in fifth place.[1]”  

And there’s more. Impeccably and ostentatiously insensitive to the plight of animals, Jones was named to PETA‘s “worst dressed” list four years in a row.[12] An anti-fur ad from PETA featured drag queen Flotilla DeBarge dressed as Jones in a spoof. Jones threatened to sue PETA and DeBarge as a result of the ad.[13]  As a bourgeois feminist avatar, Jones, on account of her fides as a dyed-in-the-wool careerist, was named the national spokesperson for the National Association of Professional Women in January 2012.[14] Jones has since participated in chapter meetings in Florida, California and New York, where she recorded interviews that were aired nationally.  Jones’ opinion of Snowden? “He’s criminal!”

DR. NANCY SNYDERMAN
nancySnydermanSILO
Possessing true quality as a person, Dr. Snyderman is the odd man out on the panel. She’s normally the voice of reason on many issues that require some thinking. A woman of undeniable beauty (her movie star telegenicity didn’t hurt when it came to getting gigs on tv), Nancy L. SnydermanMD (born 1952)[1] is an American physician and broadcast journalist. Since 2006, she has been the chief medical editor for NBC News, and frequently appears on NBC‘s Today and MSNBC to discuss medicine-related issues. Snyderman is also on the staff of the otolaryngology-head and neck surgery department at the University of Pennsylvania, located in PhiladelphiaPennsylvania. She is certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology in head and neck surgery, and specializes in head and neck cancer.  Snyder’s take on Snowden? Actually her real opinion is not clear since she directed attention elsewhere. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrice Greanville is The Greanville Post’s founding editor. 

_______________________________________

Loyalist Genuflecters #2: Joy Behar, on Current TV
A Panel of 3 with 3 attackers
Joy Behar’s show is deceptively named “Joy Behar’s ‘SAY ANYTHING!’.  As this panel proves, it’s anything but. Readers should recall that Current TV (recently acquired by Aljazeera) was home to quasi-alternative views, embracing hosts like Keith Olbermann, Bill Price, etc. So much for corporate-owned “anti-establishment” media.
http://youtu.be/A6ACwXTeXdk

OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT

On the heels of House Speaker John Boehner decrying Snowden as a “traitor,” Joy Behar, Robert Zimmerman and Boris Epshteyn discuss NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s decision to flee to Hong Kong and the possible implications of his choice. Behar, Zimmerman and Epshteyn share the same view that Snowden should not have released confidential NSA files and speculate on his motives.

“Why escape?” questions Behar, while Zimmerman expresses concern that Snowden has jeopardized “important intelligence gathering of information and does create a climate that puts millions in jeopardy.”

Epshteyn thinks anti-Snowden sentiment is bipartisan sentiment: “What is great to see is the agreement that’s coming out right now, there is a consensus between Republicans and Democrats,” he says.

While others have shown support for Snowden’s decision to expose the NSA’s electronic surveillance of people worldwide, Zimmerman wants Snowden held accountable: “I don’t see any way that he CAN’T be convicted of serious crimes,” he says.

Epshteyn wonders if financial compensation fueled Snowden’s choice: “I wouldn’t put it out of the question that he’s getting paid by somebody,” says Epshteyn.
SOURCE: http://current.com/shows/joy-behar/videos/robert-zimmerman-on-nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-at-the-end-of-the-day-hes-a-coward/

<https://www.greanvillepost.com/videos/behar-snowden.flv>




“Hands Off” Edward Snowden and all Whistleblowers, “Hands Off” the Privacy of Americans

by Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and King Downing
Black Agenda Report

BAR-Snowden

Edward Snowden has the nation and the world a great service in revealing the the government’s mega-surveillance of the U.S. public. “The Obama administration should honor, not punish, him or anyone else who has stood up for the Constitution and against corruption.”

As if the Benghazi cover-up of the Embassy attack, the IRS targeting of right wing groups and the AP journalist witch-hunt were not enough, the Obama administration is now faced with explaining to China and the US public why China should stand down on surveillance and cyber attacks while the US steps up it surveillance and cyber attacks . Whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former CIA technician working for the military firm Booz Allen Hamilton under NSA contract, took responsibility for exposing widespread NSA wire-tapping and surveillance against the American people.

Last week, based on information provided by Snowden, the Guardian revealed that the NSA is:

* Carrying out a data-mining program, Boundless Informant that details and maps, by country, billions of pieces of U.S. and overseas computer and telephone network data.

The chairs of both congressional intelligence committees said the whistleblower involved should face prosecution.”

Snowden’s revelations are the most significant act of whistleblower courage since the leaks of Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. The Obama administration, which has prosecuted the most whistleblowers in history, should honor, not punish, him or anyone else who has stood up for the Constitution and against corruption.

In 1969 Ellsberg, a former U.S. military analyst working for a defense contractor leaked the Pentagon Papers, a report showing that then-President Johnson and his administration had lied to the public and Congress about the Vietnam War. Beginning in April 2010 Manning, an active U.S. Army soldier, leaked classified materials on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and diplomatic cables on other issues.

The Obama administration uses campaigns against whistleblowers such as Bradley Manning, now on trial, and Edward Snowden to instill fear in the American public.  We call upon all people to expose corruption, to insist on government accountability and to organize. Progressive forces worldwide must pressure the Obama administration to stand down on prosecuting Edward Snowden and retaliating against all whistleblowers.

Director of Transparency and Accountability for the Green Shadow Cabinet.

King Downing is an attorney and founder of the Human Rights-Racial Justice Center which advocates and organizes around criminal and economic injustice including mass incarceration, police abuse and racial profiling. Downing is a contributor to the following books: Twelve Angry Men and Torture in the US. He is the Chair of the Commission on Corrections Reform for the Green Shadow Cabninet.


Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/%E2%80%9Chands-off%E2%80%9D-edward-snowden-and-all-whistleblowers-%E2%80%9Chands-off%E2%80%9D-privacy-americans

Links:
[1] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/wikileaks
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/nsa-spying
[3] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/edward-snowden
[4] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/daniel-ellsberg
[5] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/cointelpro
[6] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/bradley-manning
[7] http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/Snowden.jpg
[8] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackagendareport.com%2Fcontent%2F%25E2%2580%259Chands-off%25E2%2580%259D-edward-snowden-and-all-whistleblowers-%25E2%2580%259Chands-off%25E2%2580%259D-privacy-americans&amp;linkname=%E2%80%9CHands%20Off%E2%80%9D%20Edward%20Snowden%20and%20all%20Whistleblowers%2C%20%E2%80%9CHands%20Off%E2%80%9D%20the%20Privacy%20of%20Americans