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Edward Snowden about revealing NSA spying | Dear Kitty …

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Edward Snowden defends decision to reveal NSA spying in NBC interview

30 May 2014

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden provided a clear and articulate defense of his actions in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday. In his first television interview with the American media, Snowden denounced the criminal activities of the American government, saying, The Constitution of the United States had been violated on a massive scale.

It is now nearly one year since the first of Snowdens revelations was made public in a June 5, 2013 article in the Guardian. Since then, Snowden has been hounded by the US government, forced into exile in Russia, vilified as a traitor, charged with violations of the Espionage Act, and threatened with violence or death.

Typical of the lying of the Obama administration were statements Wednesday from US Secretary of State John Kerry, repeated in different forms by various government officials on Thursday. Kerry denounced the whistleblower as a traitor and called him a coward for not coming back to the US to face a show trial for the public service he has carried out. Snowdens defense of his actions was, the head of the State Department declared in prose equal to the power of his arguments, dumb.

Snowden has maintained a principled stand throughout this yearlong campaign of threats and calumny. His ability to do so is a reflection not only of personal courage, but also the widespread popular support he continues to have. Despite their best efforts, the Obama administration and its accomplices in the media and other governments have failed to shift public opinion.

What Snowden has revealed in a series of leaks is the very advanced framework of a police state, both illegal and unconstitutional. The National Security Agency (NSA) and the US spy network are engaged in the collection of virtually all communications and the assembling of vast databases for the purpose of monitoring the personal, social and political activities of the entire population.

While attacking Snowden, the Obama administration and the NSA have sought to cover up their own crimes with lies, including the claim that American citizens are not spied on indiscriminately.

Now all of our data can be collected without any suspicion of wrongdoing on our part, without any underlying justification, Snowden said in the interview, refuting these claims. All of your private records, all of your private communications, all of your transactions, all of your associations, who you talk to, who you love, what you buy, what you readall of those things can be seized and held by the government and then searched later for any reason, hardly, without any justification, without any real oversight, without any real accountability for those who do wrong.

Snowden added, Now we have a system of pervasive pre-criminal surveillance, where the government wants to watch what youre doing just to see what youre up to, to see what youre thinking even behind closed doors. He described the ability of the state, on the basis of knowing the pattern of phone calls, to construct a pattern of life for anyone it wants.

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Edward Snowden about revealing NSA spying | Dear Kitty ...

Snowden Email Released by NSA Doesn’t Claim Wrongdoing

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The NSA declassified and released an email Thursday that Edward Snowden sent to its legal team last year, seeking to clarify the spy agency's boundaries when it came to surveillance on private citizens but not raising any whistleblower concerns.

Snowden is currently living in asylum in Russia after he stole secret government documents pertaining to the NSA's spy program and fed them to journalists.

"Hello, I have a question regarding the mandatory USSID 18 training," Snowden wrote in the April 5, 2013, message.

Urgent: NSA Spying: Do You Approve or Disapprove? Vote Now.

"The training states the following: The Hierarchy of Governing Authorities and Documents is displayed from the highest authority to the lowest authority as follows:

Snowden's question came after he underwent a training session on United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18), which pertains to the collection of data from U.S. and foreign citizens.

Three days later, Snowden received a response from an NSA lawyer.

"Hello Ed, Executive orders (E.O.s) have the 'Force and effect of law,'" reads the response. "That said, you are correct that E.O.s cannot override a statute.

"In general, DOD and DDNI regulations are afforded similar precedence though subject matter or date could result in one having precedence over another."

The agency released the emails in response to Snowden's claim during an interview with NBC News that he shared his concerns about the legality of the NSA's spying practices with the Office of General Counsel.

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Snowden Email Released by NSA Doesn't Claim Wrongdoing

Trading Barbs With the NSA? Just Another Day for Edward Snowden

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NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden during a meeting with German Green Party MP Hans-Christian Stroebele regarding being a witness for a possible investigation into NSA spying in Germany, on Oct. 31, 2013 in Moscow, Russia.

By Colin Daileda2014-05-30 23:16:39 UTC

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has provided a trove of evidence to show how the agency spies on Americans as well as other governments, was again assailing the NSA on Friday for doing something he considered untruthful.

On Thursday, the agency released a single email Snowden sent while he worked as a contractor at the NSA. In it, Snowden asked a legal question about whether executive orders have precedence over federal statute law. His question apparently referenced a portion of text from an NSA training manual he felt was incorrect.

Snowden has always said he tried to relay his concerns to the agency before going public with them, but the NSA has denied this claim. When Snowden restated this position during a Wednesday interview with NBC, the NSA released the single email mentioned above.

Which brings us to Friday's happenings.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Snowden called the NSA's release "incomplete" and said the agency released the single document to gain a "political advantage."

Snowden also brought up the fact that the NSA had previously said he had made no attempts to contact them with concerns, which this email proves to be untrue.

Snowden then mentioned that Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) knew about the NSA's mass surveillance in 2011 and thought it was "abusive," but felt they could do little about it. That alone, he said, "underscores how futile such internal action isand will remainuntil these processes are reformed."

Senator Udall's office offered a tepid response to Snowden's claim that Udall and Wyden have been unable to enact meaningful reform from inside the system.

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Trading Barbs With the NSA? Just Another Day for Edward Snowden

NSA Releases Snowden Email, Says He Raised No Concerns …

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NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Image: Courtesy NSA

In response to claims by Edward Snowden that he raised concerns about NSA spying in emails sent to the spy agencys legal office, the NSA released a statement and a copy of the only email it says it found from Snowden.

That email, the agency says, asked a question about legal authority and hierarchy but did not raise any concerns.

NSA has now explained that they have found one e-mail inquiry by Edward Snowden to the Office of General Counsel asking for an explanation of some material that was in a training course he had just completed, the NSA said in a statement. The e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed. There was not additional follow-up noted.

There are numerous avenues that Mr. Snowden could have used to raise other concerns or whistleblower allegations, the statement continued. We have searched for additional indications of outreach from him in those areas and to date have not discovered any engagements related to his claims.

But Ben Wizner, Snowdens legal advisor and director of the ACLUs Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said the NSA is being disingenuous.

Snowden raised many complaints over many channels, he said in a statement today. The NSA is releasing a single part of a single exchange after previously claiming that no evidence existed.

The email, dated April 5, 2013, which was sent shortly before Snowden departed Hawaii for Hong Kong and released thousands of NSA documents to journalists, asks a question about the agencys mandatory USSID 18 training and Executive Orders orders that come from the president.

In his email, Snowden asked about the hierarchy for such presidential orders, asking whether these have the same precedence as law.

My understanding is that EOs may be superseded by federal statute, but EOs may not override statute. Am I correct in this? he wrote. He also wanted to know which of Department of Defense regulations and regulations from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have greater precedence.

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NSA Releases Snowden Email, Says He Raised No Concerns ...

Germany Chickens Out of Charging the US over NSA Spying on …

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Guess whos too big of a coward to prosecute the NSA over the extensive surveillance practiced within the country? If you guessed Germany, then youre right and you get to jump on board the disappointment boat with the rest of us.

For months until now, the world has been wondering whether Germany will have the courage to go through with pressing charges against the United States, especially after conducting a very public investigation into the surveillance practices of the NSA, and particularly into the hacking of Angela Merkels phone.

It looks like diplomacy won over this time, even though the German politicians have been some of the most vocal in their disapproval of the NSA spying on Merkel and others, saying several times over that this is not something that is done among friends.

German media reports indicate that state officials dont believe they have enough evidence to press charges. This is, of course, a weak excuse that indicates the country would rather protect its relationship with the United States than the millions of citizens the NSA spied on.

Media reports over the past year have revealed leaked NSA documents indicating that the intelligence agency has been collecting some 500 million data connections in Germany each month, including phone calls, emails and chat logs. In fact, In January last year, there was a peak day when the agency collected 60 million communication connections.

Considering that the entire country has 80 million citizens, the impact of the collection program is extensive.

Then, not much later on, it was revealed that the NSA was spying on state leaders, including Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. The reaction was swift at the time, with Germany not fearing to point the finger at the United States.

The White House reportedly assured Merkel that shed be taken off the spying list, but it wasnt long after that that new reports indicated the NSA had chosen to spy on a close advisor to the Chancellor instead.

Discussions among German politicians in recent months have been laced with arguments about whether or not to bring Edward Snowden to the country to testify. Some believe that everything can be done via a letter or through a video conference, while others consider that Snowden would offer more valuable information if he were there in person.

Ever since this bickering started, it was obvious that lawmakers feared about how inviting Snowden over would impact Germanys relationship with the United States.

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Germany Chickens Out of Charging the US over NSA Spying on ...

NSA Releases Snowden Email, Says He Raised No Concerns About Spying

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NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Image: Courtesy NSA

In response to claims by Edward Snowden that he raised concerns about NSA spying in emails sent to the spy agencys legal office, the NSA released a statement and a copy of the only email it says it found from Snowden.

That email, the agency says, asked a question about legal authority and hierarchy but did not raise any concerns.

NSA has now explained that they have found one e-mail inquiry by Edward Snowden to the Office of General Counsel asking for an explanation of some material that was in a training course he had just completed, the NSA said in a statement. The e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed. There was not additional follow-up noted.

There are numerous avenues that Mr. Snowden could have used to raise other concerns or whistleblower allegations, the statement continued. We have searched for additional indications of outreach from him in those areas and to date have not discovered any engagements related to his claims.

But Ben Wizner, Snowdens legal advisor and director of the ACLUs Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said the NSA is being disingenuous.

Snowden raised many complaints over many channels, he said in a statement today. The NSA is releasing a single part of a single exchange after previously claiming that no evidence existed.

The email, dated April 5, 2013, which was sent shortly before Snowden departed Hawaii for Hong Kong and released thousands of NSA documents to journalists, asks a question about the agencys mandatory USSID 18 training and Executive Orders orders that come from the president.

In his email, Snowden asked about the hierarchy for such presidential orders, asking whether these have the same precedence as law.

My understanding is that EOs may be superseded by federal statute, but EOs may not override statute. Am I correct in this? he wrote. He also wanted to know which of Department of Defense regulations and regulations from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have greater precedence.

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NSA Releases Snowden Email, Says He Raised No Concerns About Spying

German Authorities Lack Evidence To Prosecute Anyone For NSA Spying

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60577847 story Posted by Unknown Lamer on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @11:30AM from the leave-no-trace dept. jfruh (300774) writes "The revelations about the NSA's surveillance program caused particular outrage in Germany, a country that is closely allied with the United States but nevertheless found that its leader's cell phone was being snooped on. Nevertheless, the German federal prosecutor's office will not be bringing any charges against anyone, mostly because they lack enough evidence (Google translation). The decision is sparking anger among German privacy advocates." You may like to read: Post

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German Authorities Lack Evidence To Prosecute Anyone For NSA Spying