January 29, 2014

Britain announced yesterday that the head of GCHQ, the secret eavesdropping agency that has come under scrutiny following leaks by former US analyst Edward Snowden (pic) is to stand down.

Iain Lobban, 53, will leave the agency later this year after serving nearly six years as director, Britain's Foreign Office said.

It denied that his departure was related to revelations contained in Snowden's leaked documents that GCHQ was one of the main players in mass telecommunications surveillance.

"Today is simply about starting the process of ensuring we have a suitable successor in place before he moves on as planned at the end of the year," said a Foreign Office spokesman.

The Government Communications Headquarters a giant, ring-shaped building nicknamed "the doughnut" is situated in the spa town of Cheltenham in southwest England.

It is at the heart of Britain's "special relationship" with the United States when it comes to spying, according to the documents.

They claim the NSA secretly funded GCHQ to the tune of 100 million (RM552.6 million) over the last three years.

One of Snowden's revelations was that Britain was running a secret Internet monitoring station in the Middle East, intercepting phone calls and online traffic, with the information processed and passed to GCHQ.

It also tapped into more than 200 fibre-optic telecommunications cables, including transatlantic ones, and was handling 600 million "telephone events" each day, according to Snowden.

Excerpt from:
edward-snowden-reuters-120313.JPG

Viewers were met with a dramatic presentation as Edward Snowden's first televised interview was broadcast in Germany on Sunday (26.01.2014). Piercing drum beats accompanied images of Moscow's snow-covered roofs before an off-screen voice said, "This is the beginning of a world-exclusive interview with Edward Snowden. Under top secret conditions, journalist Hubert Seipel meets with Snowden."

The man asking the questions made a name for himself partly thanks to his coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"[Seipel's] stubbornness and his connection to Putin's people helped him get this interview," says his colleague Hans Leyendecker, who heads the investigative team for the "Sddeutsche Zeitung" daily. That publication is among the German media outlets that worked directly with the data Edward Snowden released.

Surprises still possible?

In the interview, Snowden offers a detailed description concerning the extent of the surveillance activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA), his former employer. He also discusses surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, economic espionage and collaboration between the NSA and German intelligence services. These are all details that had already come to light gradually in the past months, spurred on by journalists to whom Snowden entrusted his cache of material.

Snowden bluntly summed up the scope of the NSA's activities

In German-language media, the response to Snowden's interview focused on the concrete clues about economic espionage that he mentioned as well as his insinuation that the chancellor is hardly the only politician in Germany affected by the NSA's surveillance activities.

Asked what new revelations Snowden's interview brought forth, investigative journalist Hans Leyendecker pointed to the dimensions the affair has already taken on. "We have a problem in this discussion that people were saying very early on that everything is under complete surveillance," Leyendecker said.

Given that tendency, the journalist explained, it's difficult to bring forth information that will still surprise people.

In some ways, the response to the interview in Germany supports that view. Debates conducted on social media focused less on the content of what Snowden said and far more on questions about why the interview was broadcast at a relatively obscure time late on Sunday evening.

Link:
Snowden interview turns up few key revelations

The People #39;s Republic of Edward Snowden part 2
In this second clip, performed at the Prop Theatre in Chicago, Edward Snowden(Nick Haugland) makes a potentially fatal gaff...

By: Wc Turck

Go here to see the original:
The People's Republic of Edward Snowden part 2 - Video

Alex Jones Show Friday 1 24 14 Piers Corbin
On the Friday, January 24 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex breaks down how "non-state actors" like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning are derailing the "...

By: SovereignNewsAmerica

See the article here:
Alex Jones Show Friday 1 24 14 Piers Corbin - Video

Synopsis

Born in North Carolina in 1983, Edward Snowden worked for the National Security Agency through subcontractor Booz Allen in the NSA's Oahu office. After only three months, Snowden began collecting top-secret documents regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices, which he found disturbing. After Snowden fled to Hong Kong, China, newspapers began printing the documents that he had leaked to them,

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... 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

"I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, but I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

Edward Snowden

"I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. 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

"I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act."

Edward Snowden

Visit link:
Edward Snowden Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story ...

There is no doubt the U.S. engages in industrial espionage, Edward Snowden said in an interview in which he also asserted that he worked alone in disclosing mass surveillance by the National Security Agency.

The former U.S. government contractor, now a fugitive in Russia, told a German television station that if a company such as Germanys Siemens AG were found to have information useful to the U.S. government, the NSA would use it, he said.

Snowden dismissed accusations from members of Congress that he acted as a foreign agent.

I worked alone; I didnt need anybodys help, Snowden said in the interview with German broadcaster ARD. He said the wealth of data he took is now in the hands of journalists and that the U.S. public benefited from knowing what the government was doing.

If Im a traitor, who did I betray? Snowden asked.

Big Data Meets Big Surveillance

Snowden, 30, faces charges of theft and espionage and is in Russia on temporary asylum. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that if Snowden wanted to return to the U.S. and plead guilty, prosecutors would be willing to negotiate.

U.S. legislators including Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have suggested that Snowden had outside help to lay bare the workings of U.S. intelligence.

Former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden poses for a photo during an interview at... Read More

Former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden poses for a photo during an interview at an undisclosed location in Moscow, in December 2013. Close

More:
Snowden Says ‘No Doubt’ NSA Engages in Industrial Spying

Details Published on Monday, 27 January 2014 13:03

Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden poses for a photo during an interview in an undisclosed location in December 2013 in Moscow, Russia. Snowden who exposed extensive details of global electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency has been in Moscow since June 2012 after getting temporary asylum in order to evade prosecution by authorities in the U.S. /Getty ImagesBERLIN: Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden told German TV on Sunday about reports that U.S. government officials want to assassinate him for leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails.

In what German public broadcaster ARD said was Snowden's first television interview, Snowden also said he believes the NSA has monitored other top German government officials along with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Snowden told ARD that he felt there are "significant threats" to his life but he said that he nevertheless sleeps well because he believes he did the right thing by informing the public about the NSA's activities.

"I'm still alive and don't lose sleep for what I did because it was the right thing to do," said Snowden at the start of what ARD said was a six-hour interview that was filmed in a Moscow hotel suite. ARD aired 40 minutes of the six-hour interview.

"There are significant threats but I sleep very well," he said before referring to a report on a U.S. website that he said quoted anonymous U.S. officials saying his life was in danger.

"These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower," Snowden said.

Questions about U.S. government spying on civilians and foreign officials became heated last June when Snowden leaked documents outlining the widespread collection of telephone records and email.

Snowden was granted asylum in Russia last summer after fleeing the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges for leaking information about government surveillance practices.

The revelations shocked Germany, a country especially sensitive after the abuses by the Gestapo during the Nazi reign and the Stasi in Communist East Germany during the Cold War.

See original here:
Edward Snowden: There Are 'Significant Threats' To My Life

January 27, 2014

A portrait of former US spy agency contractor, Edward Snowden is displayed behind a screen as he answers users' questions on Twitter in this photo illustration in Sarajevo, January 23, 2014. Reuters pic, January 27, 2014. Former US National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden told German TV yesterday about reports that US government officials want to assassinate him for leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails.

In what German public broadcaster ARD said was Snowden's first television interview, Snowden also said he believes the NSA has monitored other top German government officials along with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Snowden told ARD that he felt there are 'significant threats' to his life but he said that he nevertheless sleeps well because he believes he did the right thing by informing the public about the NSA's activities.

"I'm still alive and don't lose sleep for what I did because it was the right thing to do," said Snowden at the start of what ARD said was a six-hour interview that was filmed in a Moscow hotel suite.

ARD aired 40 minutes of the six-hour interview.

"These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower," Snowden said.

Questions about US government spying on civilians and foreign officials became heated last June when Snowden leaked documents outlining the widespread collection of telephone records and email.

Snowden was granted asylum in Russia last summer after fleeing the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges for leaking information about government surveillance practices.

The revelations shocked Germany, a country especially sensitive after the abuses by the Gestapo during the Nazi reign and the Stasi in Communist East Germany during the Cold War.

See more here:
edward_snowden_portrait_twitter_reuters.JPG

Fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has voiced fears that US 'government officials want to kill me', in a TV interview to be broadcast in Germany.

The comment comes just days after Snowden's Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said Snowden feared for his life, following a report by US website BuzzFeed of explicit threats against him from unnamed Pentagon and National Security Agency (NSA) officials.

Snowden also told the German broadcaster: 'These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket, and then watch as I die in the shower.'

The translated Snowden quotes were released by German public television chain ARD, as part of a longer interview shot secretly in Moscow that it plans to screen later on Sunday.

In a BuzzFeed article posted online last week and entitled 'American Spies Want Edward Snowden Dead', a Pentagon official is quoted as saying: 'I would love to put a bullet in his head.'

'In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself,' a current NSA analyst was further quoted as saying.

One unnamed army officer told BuzzFeed that Snowden could be 'poked' on his way home from buying groceries by a passerby who is actually a US agent.

Snowden 'thinks nothing of it at the time (and soon) starts to feel a little woozy,' the US intelligence officer is quoted as saying.

'And the next thing you know he dies in the shower.'

Snowden, a former NSA contractor, is wanted by US authorities on treason charges for disclosing details of a vast intelligence operation that monitored millions of phone calls and emails across the world.

Continue reading here:
Snowden says officials want to kill him

Edward Snowden NSA leaker asks for extra security after receiving death threats from US officials !!
1 strike PLZ sub to my back up channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC06StA75rt3uUM_EKXC413g Join Cip n Kev on our Radio show G.U.N.N Sundays 6pm - 8pmUK t...

By: cip1883

See the article here:
Edward Snowden NSA leaker asks for extra security after receiving death threats from US officials !! - Video