CINDY COHN AND NADIA KAYYALI

DEBUNKED: How often are the NSA's defenders going to repeat the same talking points?

Over the past year, as the Snowden revelations have rolled out, the US Government and its apologists have developed a set of talking points about mass spying that the public has now heard over and over again. From the President, to Hilary Clinton to Representative Mike Rogers, Senator Dianne Feinstein and many others, the arguments are often eerily similar.

But as we approach the one year anniversary, it's time to call out the key claims that have been thoroughly debunked and insist that the NSA apologists retire them.

So if you hear any one of these in the future, you can tell yourself straight up: "this person isn't credible," and look elsewhere for current information about the NSA spying. And if these are still in your talking points (you know who you are) it's time to retire them if you want to remain credible. And next time, the talking points should stand the test of time.

1. The NSA has Stopped 54 Terrorist Attacks with Mass Spying

The discredited claim: NSA defenders have thrown out many claims about how NSA surveillance has protected us from terrorists, including repeatedly declaring that it has thwarted 54 plots. Representative Mike Rogers says it often. Only weeks after the first Snowden leak, US President Barack Obama claimed: "We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted" because of the NSA's spy powers. Former NSA Director General Keith Alexander also repeatedly claimed that those programs thwarted 54 different attacks.

Others, including former Vice President Dick Cheney have claimed that had the bulk spying programs in place, the government could have stopped the 9/11 bombings, specifically noting that the government needed the program to locate Khalid al Mihdhar, a hijacker who was living in San Diego.

Why it's not credible:These claims have been thoroughly debunked. First, the claim that the information stopped 54 terrorist plots fell completely apart. In dramatic Congressional testimony, Senator Leahy forced a formal retraction from NSA Director Alexander in October, 2013:

"Would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting cited by the administration were not all plots, and of the 54, only 13 had some nexus to the US?" Leahy said at the hearing. "Would you agree with that, yes or no?"

See the article here:
Five dumbest ways defences for NSA spying

The chief executive officers of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Google Inc. (GOOG) and other technology companies are asking the U.S. Senate to muzzle the National Security Agency.

The request comes two weeks after the House of Representatives passed a bill to end the most controversial aspects of domestic spy programs while stopping short of the technology industrys demands for greater restrictions on the bulk collection of Internet data. The Senate intelligence committee is meeting today to discuss the House legislation.

The CEOs letter comes on the one-year anniversary of the publication of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposing the range of government surveillance tactics. The public backlash has prompted Congress and President Barack Obama to consider new parameters for spy programs.

Its been a year since the first headlines alleging the extent of government surveillance on the Internet, CEOs from the coalition of companies wrote in an open letter to senators that was to be published today in the New York Times and Washington Post. It is time for action.

When Big Data Meets Big Surveillance

The CEOs included Microsofts Satya Nadella, Facebook Inc. (FB)s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple Inc. (AAPL)s Tim Cook.

None of the executives who signed the letter are scheduled to appear at todays Senate hearing. Witnesses on the agenda include Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole, NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett and FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano.

The House bill that passed on May 22 would end one of the programs under which the NSA collects and stores as much as five years of phone records on Americans. The technology companies said that bill is flawed because it might allow the government to collect e-mail and other Internet data in bulk. The companies, which created the Reform Government Surveillance coalition, are asking the Senate to fix the flaw.

As the Senate takes up this important legislation, we urge you to ensure that U.S. surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent, and subject to independent oversight, the CEOs wrote.

Legislation must also allow companies to provide even greater detail about the number and type of government requests they receive for customer information, the executives wrote. The letter doesnt list additional changes sought.

Read more here:
Zuckerberg, Nadella Ask Senate to Restrain NSA Spying

NSA Spying and the Speech Police 05-30-14

By: Frankly Speaking Live

Read more:
NSA Spying and the Speech Police 05-30-14 - Video

NSL NSA Spying
The Chanel 4 news team gives a hard hitting report on NSA Spying ft Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone.

By: kaylie kramer

Originally posted here:
NSL NSA Spying - Video

Nancy Pelosi Confronted on NSA Spying
In this original video by Teen Take, Nancy Pelosi is questioned about her support of the NSA. Its worth mentioning that even though Nancy opposes George W. Bush #39;s Program and says he went too...

By: WeAreChange

Excerpt from:
Nancy Pelosi Confronted on NSA Spying - Video

INFOWARS Nightly News: with Lee Ann McAdoo Tuesday June 3 2014: Dr. Ed Group
Tuesday: The Infowars Nightly News. Inside The Gitmo Hostage Crisis. Plus, Teen Confronts Nancy Pelosi on NSA Spying: House Minority Leader Bumbles Embarrassing Response. -- http://www.prisonplanet...

By: Ron Gibson

More:
INFOWARS Nightly News: with Lee Ann McAdoo Tuesday June 3 2014: Dr. Ed Group - Video

WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) --A teenager confronted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi about the NSA's spying activities on Monday.

Andrew Demeter, a self-described investigative reporter who runs the TeenTake Youtube channel, asked the Senator, who was initially smiling at the young people, ""Why do you support the NSA's illegal and ubiquitous data collection?"

The smile quickly faded from the Senator's face.

"Well I, I do not, I have questions about the metadata collection that they were, uh, collecting," Pelosi replied, "unless they had a reason to do so."

Two women, possibly the Senator's aids, stand in the background of the video. One looks suddenly anxious and the other cracks a sly and knowing smile at the question.

Both stand nervously listening to her reply.

The House Minority Leader quickly recovers by saying that she didn't support certain resolutions and that she fought the NSA on their collection processes, but Demeter follows up with, "You did vote for a bill to continue funding for the NSA, though?"

"Yeah, of course," Pelosi answers quickly. "I don't think we should not fund the National Security Agency; no, they do many, many things."

Then, as Demeter starts to ask his next question, an aid talks over him, saying "Thank you for your -- " in an attempt to cut his interview short, but Demeter won't be deterred, and raises his voice to ask Pelosi, "Isn't the NSA a clear violation of the fourth amendment?"

The House Minority Leader's answer is stammering and vague and seems to blame the Bush administration for the NSA's spying:

Here is the original post:
Teenager confronts House Minority Leader on NSA spying ...

Germanys top prosecutor will start a formal investigation into whether U.S. intelligence agents tapped Chancellor Angela Merkels mobile phone, potentially heightening tensions between the two countries over spying.

The Federal Prosecutors office in Karlsruhe said it had uncovered sufficient initial evidence to probe whether U.S. spies had violated German law. A second preliminary inquiry into mass surveillance by U.S. and British intelligence didnt yield enough proof to warrant a probe, the prosecutor said.

Extensive findings have brought forward enough initial clues that unknown officials of the American intelligence services placed Chancellor Angela Merkels mobile phone under surveillance, the prosecutor said in a statement today.

An official probe may widen a rift between the governments in Berlin and Washington that surfaced in October amid reports that signals-intelligence agents from the National Security Agency had hacked the German leaders phone. A separate parliamentary investigation into mass surveillance, disclosed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to the media last year, is already under way in Berlin.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said there have to be consequences if evidence arises that U.S. agents tapped government officials devices or conducted mass surveillance in violation of German law. The prosecutor isnt under political pressure from Merkels government coalition to act, he said.

If there are indications that German law has been broken, then investigators have to take action, Maas told Deutschlandfunk radio. That applies to the chancellors mobile phone as much as it does to mass surveillance.

Following reports last year that the chancellors phone had been tapped, the White House said agents arent spying on Merkel and pledged not to do so in the future.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters on Air Force One today that direct dialogue with the U.S. is the best way for Germany to address its concerns over spying.

Germanys justice system will be making its own decisions about its own inquiries, but we believe we have an open line and good communication with the chancellor and her team, Rhodes said, while traveling with President Barack Obama.

Der Spiegel magazine, citing Snowden-leaked documents, reported in October that U.S. authorities obtained Merkels cell number in 2002, when she was opposition leader. The surveillance was carried out by an NSA Special Collection Service from within the U.S. embassy adjacent to Berlins Brandenburg Gate, Spiegel reported at the time.

See original here:
Germany Says NSA Spying Must Have Consequences Amid Probe

S

Over the past year, as the Snowden revelations have rolled out, the government and its apologists have developed a set of talking points about mass spying that the public has now heard over and over again. From the President, to Hilary Clinton to Rep. Mike Rogers, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and many others, the arguments are often eerily similar.

But as we approach the one year anniversary, it's time to call out the key claims that have been thoroughly debunked and insist that the NSA apologists retire them.

So if you hear any one of these in the future, you can tell yourself straight up: "this person isn't credible," and look elsewhere for current information about the NSA spying. And if these are still in your talking points (you know who you are) it's time to retire them if you want to remain credible. And next time, the talking points should stand the test of time.

The discredited claim: NSA defenders have thrown out many claims about how NSA surveillance has protected us from terrorists, including repeatedly declaring that it has thwarted 54 plots. Rep. Mike Rogerssays it often. Only weeks after the first Snowden leak, US President Barack Obama claimed: "We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted" because of the NSA's spy powers. Former NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander also repeatedly claimed that those programs thwarted 54 different attacks.

Others, including former Vice President Dick Cheney have claimed that had the bulk spying programs in place, the government could have stopped the 9/11 bombings, specifically noting that the government needed the program to locate Khalid al Mihdhar, a hijacker who was living in San Diego.

Why it's not credible:These claims have been thoroughly debunked. First, the claim that the information stopped 54 terrorist plots fell completely apart. In dramatic Congressional testimony, Sen. Leahy forced a formal retraction from NSA Director Alexander in October, 2013:

"Would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting cited by the administration were not all plots, and of the 54, only 13 had some nexus to the U.S.?" Leahy said at the hearing. "Would you agree with that, yes or no?"

"Yes," Alexander replied, without elaborating.

But that didn't stop the apologists. We keep hearing the"54 plots" line to this day.

Read the original here:
The Five Dumbest Ways That People Defend NSA Spying

Electronic Frontier Foundation: No Doubt the Government Destroyed NSA Spying Evidence

EFF filed its first lawsuit challenging illegal government spying in 2006. The current dispute arises from Jewel v. NSA, EFF's 2008 case that challenges the government's mass seizure of three kinds of information: Internet and telephone content, telephone records, and Internet records, all going back to 2001. EFF's brief notes that the government's own declarations make clear that the government has destroyed five years of the content it collected between 2007 and 2012, three years worth of the telephone records it seized between 2006 and 2009, and seven years of the Internet records it seized between 2004 and 2011, when it claims to have ended the Internet records seizures.

The government's reinterpretation of EFF's lawsuits and the preservation orders came to light in March, when government lawyers revealed secret court filings from 2007. In these filings, the government unilaterally claimed that EFF's lawsuits only concerned the original Bush-era spying program, which was done purely on claims of executive power. Without court approval, much less telling EFF, the government then decided that it did not need even to preserve evidence of the same mass spying done pursuant to FISA court orders, which were obtained in 2004 for Internet records, 2006 for telephone records, and 2007 for mass content collection from fiber optic cables.

"EFF and our clients have always had the same simple claim: the government's mass, warrantless surveillance violates the rights of all Americans and must be stopped. The surveillance was warrantless under the executive's authority and it is still warrantless under the FISA court, as those orders are plainly not warrants." said Cohn. "The government's attempt to limit our claims based upon their secret, shifting rationales is nothing short of outrageous, and their clandestine decision to destroy evidence under this flimsy argument is rightly sanctionable. Nevertheless, we are simply asking the court to ensure that we are not harmed by the government's now-admitted destruction of this evidence."

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Electronic Frontier Foundation: No Doubt the Government Destroyed NSA Spying Evidence