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American journalist Glenn Greenwald along with Edward Snowden won the Pulitzer Prize for revealing the existence of covert global surveillance programs carried out by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). His investigative work was featured in the film Citizenfour, which won the 2015 Oscar for Best Documentary. In addition to showcasing Greenwalds work and his collaboration on the award-winning feature, an unreleased episode of the series The Method. Curta!, explores the importance of a good story for a documentary, the reasons behind making a film, and its ability to provoke audience participation.

The episode An Ethics and History premieres June 9 at 10 p.m. on Quarta do Cinema.

In this episode, Greenwald reveals details about the 2013 meeting with Snowden in the city of Hong Kong and the consequences resulting from the disclosure of classified NSA files. Working with Snowden has definitely changed the world. It changed the way people think about privacy and the Internet, it has changed the way they think about government secrets and the role of journalism in democracy , says the journalist.

In Brazil, Glenn was also known for the publication of a series of reports that characterized the scandal called Vaza-Jato, which exposed conciliatory negotiations between members of the countrys judiciary. The case brings up other discussions inherent in documentary production: the possibility of cinema as a complaint against political groups or companies, in addition to ethical issues.

In addition to Greenwalds testimony, excerpts from Citizenfour are shown, an account of the case of Edward Snowden and journalistic reports on the above events, in addition to the views of critic Bill Nichols and documentarian Carlos Nader, who served as the presenter of the series. We do.

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Glenn Greenwald talks about the Snowden case in an unprecedented episode of 'The Method' series - OVALE - Sprout Wired

In 2011, when he was general manager of the National Basketball Associations Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey was searching for ideas. He wanted brainstorming fodder: good ideas, outside-the-box ideas, even goofy ideas. Who has plenty of ideas? Fans of the team. So in a highly unorthodox move, Morey asked the Rockets fan base to email ideas on how to improve the team. They could be ideas on how to recruit free agents, ideas on drafting strategy, ideas on anything.

Then he did something even more unorthodox.

Over Twitter, Morey announced that the fan who pitched the best idea would win a bitcoin.

This was a decade ago, 2011. And whens the last time you heard someone use the phrase a bitcoin? The proof still exists on Twitter, where Morey cheerfully doled out the bitcoin, at the time worth $7.24. Most Rockets fans had no idea what he was talking about. I had to google bitcoin, confessed one Rockets junkie. This was so long ago, the Rockets fans were puzzled by Moreys use of a hashtag, confused by the appearance of #bitcoin in his tweet. Since when did # become hashtag? one fan posted. I always thought it was called pound symbol?

This is vintage Morey. Always three or five steps ahead.

A quick primer for the non-hoops crowd: Morey is widely credited with helping to shape the modern-day NBA, or as Michael Lewis once put it, hes Basketballs Nerd King. Morey loves data. He loves finding an edge. Thanks in large part to Moreys charts and spreadsheets, players now shoot more three-pointers (Morey found theyre statistically a higher value shot) and chuck up fewer mid-range jumpers (statistically, a dogs breakfast).

The phrase game changer is usually a cliche, but Morey literally changed the game. True, Morey is not the only influence see also: Steph Curry but its a copycat league. As other teams followed Moreys blueprint, the average score has jumped from 99.9 in 2007 (Moreys first year as Rockets GM) to 112 today.

How is this relevant to blockchain?

When billionaire investors like Michael Saylor or Paul Tudor Jones share their interest in crypto, the space celebrates it as a kind of validation. I would argue that Morey provides the same kind of imprimatur. Hes good at sniffing out trends. Hes good at spotting whats next. Hes the most forward-thinking GM in the most forward-thinking sports league. If Morey embraces crypto? There are worse mainstream signals. (Disclosure: As a lifelong fan of my hometown Houston Rockets, Ive been on Team Morey for years. Look elsewhere for objectivity.)

On our call, Morey brushes off these kinds of plaudits, modestly saying, Im just always into everything new, probably incorrectly at times, where I waste time or money.

Maybe. But his decade-long enthusiasm for crypto seems deeper than a quick bit of dabbling. Moreys so OG that he was involved in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case, he bought a CryptoKitty, he both collects and mints non-fungible tokens (NFT), he gamely drops into a podcast with Anthony Pomp Pompliano, he collects CryptoPunks (and even used one as his Twitter avatar), he sells tweets as NFTs (and donates the funds to the American Civil Liberties Union), and he scoops up NBA Top Shot moments. His crypto enthusiasm seems more rooted in principles than making a buck. When retweeting Pomps celebration of Bitcoin Pizza Day, for example, he framed it as, Get delicious pizza and stop authoritarian oppression win/win. (Few can top Moreys anti-authoritarian credentials.)

These days, of course, Morey is the general manager of another NBA team, the Philadelphia 76ers, and once again, of course, his team is deep in the championship hunt. A few weeks before his Sixers entered the playoffs, Morey spoke to CoinDesk about his strategy for investing in NFTs, how he (kind of) almost bought an NFT from Edward Snowden and why NFTs are the start of a major, major trend but that were also primed for a shakeout.

CoinDesk: So I could talk hoops with you for hours but I know our time is limited. Youve been into crypto since waaaaay back. How did that start?

Daryl Morey: Im a big decentralized guy, a big civil liberties guy anything that allows a fundamental thing to happen without a central authority intrigued me. So I had a bunch of bitcoin by 2011, or maybe the end of 2010. And I was giving away bitcoin on Twitter in 2011 as part of a Rockets ideas giveaway. Of course, it was not a $60,000 idea. [Note: Bitcoin was worth $60,000 at the time of our conversation, in what now feels like five years ago.]

Just the whole idea [of bitcoin] appealed to me. And then I went through the roller coaster of getting hacked and being in a Japanese bankruptcy case and just the whole nine yards.

You lost some bitcoin on Mt. Gox, right?

Yeah, I did. Half of it.

My instincts were to not put all of it in any one place. So I had some of it on a wallet on my computer in my house. And then I had half of it on Mt. Gox, which afterwards I felt so dumb about. At the time I was like, Well, now I need to do something with it. Okay, Ill put it on this exchange, Mt. Gox. And because it was so little money at the time, I didnt really think too intentionally about it.

Then I found out that Mt. Gox M-T-G-O-X meant Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange. And Im like, What the hell? I put my bitcoin on a Magic: The Gathering trading card site?! I was laughing and I felt really dumb afterwards. So I lost all of that.

Wait, what happened with your Mt. Gox bitcoin?

I was in the Japanese bankruptcy case. And then Bain Capital did a really smart thing. They went to everyone in that case and offered 10 cents on the dollar. I took it because my wifes cousin a bankruptcy judge in New Jersey was saying, Youre never going to see any of that. Take what you can get. In retrospect, I should have kept it and hoped to get it back because its worth so much more now. But whatever. It is what it is, and Bain Capital is smart for a reason.

And then you were also early into CryptoKitties, right?

So I wish I had been more into it. I was into CryptoKitties, for sure, and I grabbed one. I still have my original, which is only worth around 100 bucks. But I didnt quite get it. Everyone was saying this was a digital collectible, and I got that angle, even though I wasnt really into cats. But I didnt get the scarcity angle. Because with the original CryptoKitties you can breed more and more.

And Im like, 'What the hell? I put my bitcoin on a Magic: The Gathering trading card site?!'

You were worried that because you can just breed cats endlessly breeding and breeding fing cats then there wouldnt be real scarcity?

Right. I didnt see the scarcity angle. I was wrong about that because some of them are worth a lot now. I wish I had dove in deeper. I didnt get that if someone made it scarce, which they did with CryptoPunks shortly thereafter, that it would change the game. And I was skeptical of shysters and hucksters jumping in.

What gave you more confidence in NFTs?

When I found out that NBA Top Shot was licensed, and that Roham [Roham Gharegozlou, Dapper Labs CEO] has a real plan for rolling it out to maintain scarcity and that, [as] with CryptoPunks, only 10,000 would ever be made, then I jumped into it in a big way.

So now youre both an NFT collector and an NFT creator. What was it like to mint your NFT?

Well, its pretty straightforward. People make it sound hard. But I like to describe NFTs as just a unique barcode someone cant copy, that you can put on anything. And when you describe it that way, people get that its not especially hard. Its just a thing.

I love that description. Howd you choose what you minted?

I was trying to make sure I did something that made some sense. And so I thought, yeah, the original formula that I got moderately famous for, Ill do that. [This is the Pythagorean Expectation Formula, which Morey adapted to the NBA.] And Ill do it for charity. To my point on shysters and hucksters, I didnt feel right making money on it. So I gave all the proceeds to the ACLU.

How many NFTs did you mint?

I did five of them. I like five as a nice scarce number. You dont want to do just one. Somewhere between five and 50, I think, is the sweet spot for how many things you mint of something to still get the scarcity element.

So I did five, and people snapped them up pretty quick for around $2,500. Four of them sold immediately.

You should have priced them higher!

When there was still one left, I was like, Oh s**t, I want to keep one! So I kept one. Because Im not going to be someone who, you know, just mints more or something. I would hate that. I also sold a couple of tweets for ACLU charity as well. They didnt quite do as well as Jack Dorseys or Ed Snowdens. Did you see Ed Snowdens tweet? I think he got almost [$]4 million [Editors note: Actually, it was 2,224 ETH, or $5.4 million, on the day of sale.]

I have a funny story. So I know the people around Ed Snowden really well. And Ive talked to Ed, and I think hes an American hero who still needs to be celebrated more. And I thought [Donald] Trump could do the one right thing in his presidency and pardon him. But of course he didnt.

And I hadnt known about the sale today. [Note: We spoke on April 16, the day of Snowdens NFT sale.] I just saw a tweet about it. And 15 minutes from the end of the auction, it was going for 13 Ethereum [around $31K at the time]. I immediately called the people around Ed. I was like, Is this real? Because if its 13 Ethereum, Ill buy it.

And then, I realized I read it wrong. It was going for 1,300 Ethereum. So they were laughing at me. They were, like, No, thats 1,300, Daryl. Im thinking, Okay, Ill let someone else do that one.

Yeah, the random bus drivers NFT goes for 13 ethereum.

Can you describe your NFT investing strategy? Because my understanding is that you look for artists who might be the next bigthing, and are currently undervalued. And this sounds a lot like what you do as a GM, hunting for undervalued players.

On the art side there are some very legitimate artists in the space. But then theres also a lot of nonsense. And theres a shakeout coming. Those [NFTs from the nonsense artists] are going to go to near zero, I think.

I had already been a fan of Beeples digital art. So when I saw Beeples sale go for a crazy amount, I immediately thought, Well, s**t, Ill look for all of my favorite digital artists. Ill see if theyre selling. Shockingly, very few were selling when I first went to look a few months ago.

Unless you're asleep at the wheel, every major organization, sports or not, is looking at how to use the technology in the back end.

Things change pretty quick.

When I first went to look, very few artists were actually selling any NFTs. But every single digital artist whose work I knew and thought was good I just grabbed all of them. Im probably most excited about getting some of Pascal Blanches stuff. Hes just so talented.

And when he did a Dune thing, I thought, Oh my God. I have to get the Dune thing because I love the book. So, yeah, I think Pascal has a chance to be the next Beeple, for example. And so Im just squatting those.

And your strategy for NBA Top Shot?

Im trying to get younger players that I think have a good future, and to get the scarcer ones. For Sorare, same thing, Im trying to grab the younger players that I think have a big future. Because when the shakeout comes, theres going to be a chase to quality.

Thats why I love CryptoPunks. I love the better Top Shot moments of younger players, who are going to be good for 10 to 12 years going forward. I love the Sorare soccer players who are younger and are going to be great later.

Theres going to be a moment when everyone thinks, This was all a huge mistake. That moments coming. It happened with bitcoin when it went back to $3,000. And everyone was like, Bitcoin is dead. Its all bulls**t. Thats going to happen in NFTs. Theres going to be a period where everyone thinks, Anyone who did anything right now is an idiot. Then it goes to quality and the foundation of the idea. And the reality is, theres going to be quality, and the idea is great.

Why do you like the idea so much?

Digital collectibles are superior to physical collectibles. I just moved from Houston to Philly and it was a pain in the ass. I had to move 10,000 comics. I had to move all of my wall art. I had to move all of this s**t, and with digital stuff you just move it. Its definitely superior. And its the start of a major, major trend. So things like CryptoPunks, things like Top Shot, Sorare, all of this early stuff as long as its quality is going to be worth, I think, five to 10 to 100 times in five years. But were going to have to go through a cycle.

It sounds like many players are very Top Shot savvy, and NFT savvy. Theyre into it. Do you see any complications here down the road? Like, what if the players want to mint NFTs or do things that are competitive with Top Shot? And will we have a kind of crypto players empowerment movement that leads to an almost meta-negotiation?

Well, the nice thing is, I think the players union and the league office are on top of this. First off, they can make an NFT now, nothing stops them. Theres no agreement. There may be certain kinds of things like game action where there are rules about what they can make. But just like me, theyre personally going to be able to do whatever they want. So nothings preventing that.

Theyre also benefiting in a big way. I mean, give credit to Michele Roberts [executive director of the NBA Players Association] and Adam [Adam Silver, NBA commissioner] and their whole infrastructure. Everyones making a lot of money in Top Shot at the league, and that flows into BRI [basketball-related income] and its shared 50/50.

The way that Adam and Michele have structured it, where the players and the league office have this partnership, really allows for these kinds of things to flourish. It helped us in the bubble we were the first league back. And thats because of the partnership. And for things like Top Shot and NFTs, that partnership allows these kinds of ideas to flourish.

Players might see a Top Shot moment of themselves selling for $250K, and they wonder how they benefit. Well, they do benefit. How they benefit is a little complicated because you have to look at the licensing flows, but they definitely do benefit. Its really nice how the NBA has done everything.

How much is the NBA to the extent that youre aware looking into other types of NFTs, or fan tokens, or other blockchain concepts, whether for ticketing or other fan engagement tools?

Unless youre asleep at the wheel, every major organization, sports or not, is looking at how to use the technology in the back end. And most of them are probably going to screw it up. [Laughs.] But everyone is looking at it. I think youre going to see tons of announcements from players, the league office, players unions, teams, organizations theres going to be a ton of announcements. And if theyre going to get into it, its important that people really understand the underlying technology and the underlying things that are going to drive value.

Youre most famous for using data and analytics to uncover opportunities and exploit inefficiencies in the market. What are some inefficiencies that you see in the crypto markets, that you think can maybe be exploited?

NFTs are going to be a real dangerous space to put money into for the next year, because theres just going to be a lot of low-quality stuff thats going to go to zero. To me, thats the inefficiency. Its similar to the first explosion of all the different kinds of altcoins and s**tcoins. Theres a flight to quality, and it flew to bitcoin and ethereum and a few others. Its similar here [with NFTs]. The inefficiency is the newly minted stuff that isnt really valuable.

How about a crypto project that youre bullish on?

Im really excited about y.at. Their vision is big. Theres a long way to go, but their fundamental vision is that emojis are universal, hard for governments to control so again, decentralized and every person can have their own three, four, or five emoji moniker. Its your email, its your URL, its whats used to log into sites. Your universal identifier becomes these emojis because language obviously varies from place to place, but globally these emojis are universal. So right now theyre minting all these universal emojis that people can own.

My personal one is the Statue of Liberty and a basketball. The three emoji ones, you can buy right now on their site. The two and one emojis are being auctioned off. Theyre putting in this infrastructure, and Im really bullish on them.

Thanks, Daryl. This was a blast. Best of luck with the rest of the season.

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Daryl Morey on Crypto, NFTs: 'It's the Start of a Major Trend' - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

The spying saga shows that Washington will go to any length to stop EU states from getting closer to China and Russia.

Embarrassing leaks that show the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on high-ranking European Union leaders for years have opened up old wounds of distrust between close military and diplomatic allies.

What has worried EU politicians even more is that Denmark's military intelligence service - the FE - cooperated with the NSA in a sophisticated eavesdropping scheme that targeted German Chancellor Angela Merkel among others.

The revelations came in a pan-European media investigation led by Danish public broadcaster, Danmarks Radio, which said the NSA used Denmark's internet cables to retrieve calls and text messages of high-ranking officials from Germany, Sweden, Norway and France between 2012 and 2014.

Even though the details of NSAs spy operation that focused on Europe have emerged in the past, the new information comes when President Biden is only months into office, while Washington is seeking to coordinate with European allies on a host of issues including Irans nuclear programme.

Intelligence collection against allies suggests a lack of trust in what is being shared in normal diplomatic exchanges, said Ewan Lawson, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Key European states have taken different positions to the US on a number of issues, perhaps most notably on relations with Russia and China.

Reports of a sophisticated US spy network first surfaced in 2013 when the NSA analyst Edward Snowden leaked documents showing how Washington was spying on American citizens and allies in other countries.

US intelligence collection against allies was part of the Snowden leaks and as such, this is not new and given it is relatively historical it is unlikely to have a significant effect on US relations with France and Germany, said Lawson.

Nevertheless, the European politicians have reacted angrily. Clement Beaune, Frances Europe Minister, referred to the spying news as extremely serious.

A penalty for dissent

Sami Hamdi, the managing director of International Interest, a global risk and intelligence consultancy, said that Washington has been concerned for years that Europe might take an independent approach towards its foes China and Russia.

Some European countries, such as Italy, have gone their own way and signed agreements to participate in Chinas Belt and Road Initiative - a multibillion dollar infrastructure investment project that the US says Beijing is using to expand its global influence.

While the question of America continuing with its spying practice remains open for debate, Hamdi said the distrust between the allies is still there.

Washington is deeply concerned by European countries mulling better ties with Russia, and the EU negotiating a trade deal with China at the same time that Biden seeks to isolate Beijing.

President Trumps administration largely succeeded in convincing European partners to not use Chinas 5G gear.

But some countries, such as EUs economic powerhouse Germany, have resisted US pressure on other projects that involve China or Russia.

Biden is also concerned that Germany has pushed back hard on issues such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that Washington had resolved to impose sanctions on in its entirety, said Hamdi.

The Nord Stream 2, a 1,200 kilometre-long pipeline that will transport Russian natural gas to Europe is being built at a cost of more than $11 billion. The project is vital for the EU to meet its energy needs.

The US in April warned Germany that there was no room for compromise on the project and that it will use all possible means to stop its construction.

Amid the spying saga, one country that has found itself in perhaps the tightest spot is Denmark.

Lars Findsen, the former director of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE) was suspended along with other officials last year after an internal investigation, which began in 2015, Danmarks Radio said.

This is probably most difficult for Denmark in its relationships with neighbours, said Lawson, the RUSI research fellow.

However, the narrative in Denmark seems to be that this was an operation conducted by its intelligence agencies without the knowledge of politicians and not part of an official policy. This is supported by the suspension of senior intelligence officials.

Source: TRT World

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Why does the US intelligence spy on European allies? - TRT World

The Founding Fathers carved the Constitution in light of the horrific political abuses that had proliferated in England in prior centuries. That was why there was a narrow definition of treason in the Constitution: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

After the end of Reconstruction, treason charges became relatively rare in American politics. Wars were probably the biggest propellants, with anyone who opposed American intervention abroad being tagged with the scarlet T. But by the late 1960s, when the futility of the Vietnam War was becoming clear, treason charges had largely lost their political clout. Gen. Alexander Haig, who later became Richard Nixons last White House chief of staff, denounced the Pentagon Papers as devastating a security breach of the greatest magnitude of anything Ive ever seen its treasonable. But the Nixon administrations protests failed to sway the Supreme Court to block the New York Times from publishing the secret official records of decades of U.S. government deceit on Indochina.

Unfortunately, the political exploitation of the 9/11 attacks included reviving treason accusations against anyone who did not cheer George W. Bushs promise to rid the world of evil. On Dec. 6, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft informed the Senate Judiciary Committee, To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and give ammunition to Americas enemies. At that point, Bush had already suspended habeas corpus and his underlings were busy sabotaging laws limiting federal surveillance of American citizens. But regardless of how many civil liberties were actually destroyed, critics were traitors.

Run-up to 2016

While Bush was rehabilitated by the mainstream media in recent years as a reward for criticizing Donald Trump, his 2004 reelection campaign relied on tacit treason accusations to tarnish Democrats, liberals, and even a few libertarians. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, keynote speaker Democratic Sen. Zell Miller implied that political opposition was treason: Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.

There was no evidence that such criticism of Bushs foreign policy was ripping America asunder but trumpeting the accusation made Bush critics appear a pox on the land. Other Republicans used the same theme. John Thune, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in South Dakota, denounced Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle: His words embolden the enemy. Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman condemned the Kerry campaign for parroting the rhetoric of terrorists and warned, The enemy listens. All listen to what the president said, and all listen to what Senator Kerry said. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, stumping for Bush, told audiences, Political criticism is our enemys best friend. Six weeks before the 2004 election, the Washington Post noted, President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.

In 2006, the New York Times revealed that the Bush administration was illegally seizing personal financial information of millions of Americans. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, declared, Were at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) also labeled the Times guilty of treason. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) suggested that the Times had become the Benedict Arnold Press.

After Barack Obama was elected in 2008, treason allegations simmered down, except for occasional allegations that Obama was a secret Muslim scheming to impose Sharia law on America. Former NSA employee Edward Snowdens leak of NSA documents was the biggest treason boomlet of that era. Numerous congressmen called for Snowden to be charged with treason, though the Founding Fathers neglected to include embarrassing the government in the Constitutions definition of treason. House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and former NSA chief Michael Hayden publicly joked about putting Snowden on a government kill list.

But the Snowden uproar was a kerfuffle compared to the Pandoras box opened by the 2016 presidential campaign. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton repeatedly effectively asserted that Republican nominee Donald Trump was a Russian tool, betraying the nation.

Treason in the White House

After Trumps surprise victory in November 2016, treason became the coin of the realm for denigrating political opposition. Democratic politicians, activists, and their media allies responded to Hillary Clintons surprise defeat by smearing Donald Trump for colluding with Russia. Leaks to the media from the FBI, CIA, and other federal agencies spurred raging controversies that contributed to Trumps firing FBI chief James Comey. That resulted in the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Trump. Endless wrangling followed, including a claim by prominent Democrats claiming that Republicans would be guilty of treason if they released a memo detailing the FBIs abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Mueller quickly became sacrosanct; liberals even bought votary candles with his likeness. A piece I wrote for The Hill on Muellers lawless record as FBI chief spurred 1,500 comments, including denunciations of me as a treason weasel, bearded grifter, Alt-moron, lackey, lickspittle, and librarian (some folks cant spell libertarian). In April 2019, Mueller finally admitted that there was no substantive evidence of collusion but that did not stop the endless RussiaGate refrain and treason accusations from Trump critics. Most of Trumps presidency was permeated by charges of treason against him.

But the Mueller-induced treason prattle was childs play compared to what followed disputes over the 2020 presidential election. As law professor Jonathan Turley noted, after the media announced Biden won, All court challenges [to election results] then became unethical for lawyers and all congressional challenges became sedition for members. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro this past December denounced one challenge to the election results as a seditious abuse of the judicial process that was guilty of misleading the public about a free and fair election and tearing at our Constitution. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wailed, The most serious attempt to overthrow our democracy in the history of our country is under way. Twitters left-wing tilt has helped spur hashtags such as #GOPSeditiousTraitors and #TreasonAgainstAmerica. One leftist activist got 65,000 likes when he declared that Donald Trump should replace Benedict Arnold in history as Americas most reviled traitor.

On the other side of the political divide, some Republicans sounded equally hellbent on demonizing any opposition to their demands. Republican lawyer Lin Wood declared that Vice President Pence would be guilty of treason for certifying the election results and that he will face execution by firing squad. The Pro-Trump duo Diamond and Silk tweeted, After listening to the leaked call put out by the Washington Post we are convinced that Georgias secretary of state and his lawyer need to be arrested for Treason!

After protesters crashed into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 (some crashed into the building while others sauntered in), treason accusations went into overdrive. The definition of treason was vastly expanded to include members of Congress who filed a lawful challenge against the 2020 electoral tally. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that Republicans who signaled they would not ratify the Electoral College results earlier that month gave aid and comfort to [protesters] with the idea that they were embracing a lie that the election did not have legitimacy. A court of law would never convict Republican members of treason, but Pelosi can convict them in the court of public opinion, thanks to the hanging judges at CNN and MSNBC.

Civil War politics

Many Trump opponents are invoking 1861, denouncing any Republican challenges to the election as the same type of treason supposed to have been committed by states that exited the union. But the Civil War illustrates the catastrophic damage that can result from broad-brush definitions of treason. Northern politicians quickly persuaded their supporters that all Southerners were traitors a capital offense. In 1864, Gen. William Sherman wired the War Department in Washington, There is a class of people men, women, and children who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order. Union armies in Virginia, Georgia, and elsewhere late in the war intentionally devastated civilian populations who were considered collectively guilty of secession and treason.

Unfortunately, many pundits and politicians know only a fairy-tale version of the Civil War. The fact that Trump had high support in many southern states is spurring bizarre proposals that would be the final coffin nails into any hope for a semblance of peaceful coexistence between Americans with different views and values. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the medias favorite progressive congresswoman, declared, The only way our country is going to heal is through the actual liberation of southern states. She didnt specify whether she favored the type of military dictatorship that was ended only by a historic compromise after the fraud-ridden 1876 presidential election. Politico, one of the most respected Washington publications, printed a piece titled, What Ulysses Grant Can Teach Joe Biden about Putting Down Violent Insurrections. The piece stressed, Grants approach relied on a combination of brute military force and a drastic curtailment of civil liberties, yet it nevertheless has relevance for the current moment. The article stressed the need for overwhelming force to suppress the type of people who violated the sacred space of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Any federal attempt to expunge political dissent in America with brute military force and a drastic curtailment of civil liberties would very likely provoke a civil war. But that could be the end result of current trends of presuming that political opponents are traitors who must be exterminated. While Democratic members of Congress and some Biden officials are comforted by the thousands of National Guard troops now occupying Washington at their behest, they would be unwise to presume the troops would obey orders to scourge their countrymen in every nook of the land.

Perhaps the ultimate cause of the proliferation of treason accusations is that politicians have captured far too much control over Americans lives. The more power politicians seize, the more unhinged political rhetoric becomes.

American politics is increasingly becoming toxic because presidents nowadays are elective dictators. Rather than a process of selecting a chief executive who will uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws, elections nowadays confer a license to run amok over the lives and property of practically anyone who falls under federal sway. Government has amassed so much power that the vast majority of Americans no longer trust Washington.

The surest recipe for curtailing political vitriol is to reduce political power so elections are not demolition derbies that doom losing sides. Thomas Jefferson in 1799 offered the ideal that can rescue America from strife today: In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. And if presidents and members of Congress choose to openly scorn their oaths of office and constitutional constraints on their power well, many Americans would consider that to be treason.

James Bovard is the author of 10 books, including 2012s "Public Policy Hooligan" and 2006s "Attention Deficit Democracy." He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.This article was originally published in the April 2021 edition of Future of Freedom.

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OPINION: Will treason mania destroy America? - The Richmond Observer

This month, a highly anticipated report is slated to be delivered to the United States Senate on the subject of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) what we used to call Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). The report is to be made public (although it may have a classified annex) and was requested as part of the Intelligence Authorization Act attached to a COVID-19 relief bill. Itspurpose is to provide lawmakers with the best information available from the Pentagon and the intelligence community about incidents that appear to involve vehicles with amazing flight characteristics far beyond those of our most advanced aircraft.

But, this report should also shed light on and, in theory, resolve a thirty-year old, major UFO puzzle with Nevada origins: did a young physicist named Bob Lazar actually work on captured extraterrestrial spacecraft at a secret government facility called S-4, in Lincoln County near Area 51?

Lazar surfaced publicly in 1989, when he was interviewed by my former colleague George Knapp of KLAS-TV, Las Vegas. At first, Lazar spoke only in silhouette, and used the pseudonym Dennis. Later, he came forward under his own name and with no disguise. Lazars claims were fantastic: that the U.S government had, in its possession, nine crashed or captive spacecraft from another world at least one of them shaped like an actual saucer. Lazar claimed hed been part of a team hired by the government to reverse-engineer the craft, which would unlock for American scientists the propulsion secrets they needed to pave a path to the stars.

Lazar said he was fired from his job at the clandestine military base because he brought some friends into the desert near Area 51 one evening to surreptitiously watch a saucer being test flown. A Lincoln County deputy caught the group leaving the area and the deputy ratted Lazar out to the government.

Lazars story combined the most compelling elements of alien abduction stories and shadow-government conspiracy theories. The tale had a profound influence on popular culture from cartoons like American Dad to movies like Paul & Independence Day.

While publicity surrounding Lazars amazing claims literally put Area 51 on the map, it also shined a spotlight on himself, and it wasnt long before people started picking apart his story. Places where Lazar claimed to have gone to college like CalTech and MIT said theyd never heard of him. About a year after his initial TV interview, Lazar found himself criminally charged for helping operate what prosecutors described as an illegal high-tech whore house. That didnt help his credibility much.

As his case worked through the legal system, Lazar produced one of the few bits of physical evidence that hed worked at a secret base in Nevada. It was a W-2 form, reflecting income of less than one thousand dollars, purportedly paid to him by the Department of Naval Intelligence.

Even that form was questioned over its authenticity. Skeptics pointed out that theres an Office of Naval Intelligence within the Department of the Navy but not a Department of Naval Intelligence.

I covered Lazars criminal case as a reporter for KTNV-TV in 1990. I remember him pleading guilty to pandering and I recall thinking: if his saucer stories were true, and hes typical of the scientists we have working on the most significant scientific project in history then our planet might be in deep doo-do.

Yet, credibility issues aside, and despite a dearth of physical evidence and lack of corroboration from other scientists, Lazars astounding tale has not only survived over three decades but thrived.

His claims received renewed attention in 2018 thanks to a documentary produced by movie maker Jeremy Corbell. The documentary widely viewed on Netflix led to Lazar appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast, possibly the most popular podcast on the planet (this planet, anyway). Corbell, meanwhile, has been interviewed multiple times recently on network news talk shows. He is the source of at least one, recently leaked UAP video that depicts what appear to be triangular shapes moving through the sky.

Corbell in the interviews Ive seen has not claimed the UAP videos show alien intelligence at work. But he did say in his documentary that he believed there was more evidence Bob Lazar was telling the truth than there was that he was lying.

Far be it from me to suggest these aerial objects could not be of extraterrestrial origin. They may very well be. But, I would caution people inclined to rule out earthly explanations not to jump to conclusions. Just because you dont know what something is doesnt mean it is what you wish it was. UK science writer Mick West has provided very plausible terrestrial interpretations of the most recent UAP videos making rounds on TV, including the video of flying triangles.

The request for the Senate UAP study makes no mention of alien intelligence or extraterrestrial space vehicles. But the language of the request calls for such a comprehensive study that the results should either confirm or debunk Lazars claims.

The Director of National Intelligence, working with the Secretary of Defense and other agencies, is directed to provide a report that includes (in part):

A detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held by the Office of Naval Intelligence, including data and intelligence reporting held by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force;

A detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data collected by:

A detailed analysis of data by the FBI, which was derived from intrusions of unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted United States airspace

Also to be included in the report:

Identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries;

Identification of any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put United States strategic or conventional forces at risk.

Thus, the upcoming Senate report has the potential to paint Lazar as an unfairly maligned interstellar whistleblower with more impact than Edward Snowden, Karen Silkwood and Daniel Ellsberg combined or suggest hes either a liar or a loon.

Assuming Lazar has been telling the truth can the report avoid conceding that? Wouldnt the Pentagon have to say, at the very least, Well, Senators, were not sure whats causing all these recent UAP sightings, but we can tell you that we have an alien technology in our possession capable of performing the same kind of high-speed, gravity-defying maneuvers were seeing in these videos.

Of course, such news would be the biggest story since Genesis.

Im not getting vibes that a world-shattering revelation of that scale is about to be made. For example, former President Barack Obama, who was this nations commander-in-chief and presumably should know whats going on, was asked point-blank about UFOs in a recent interview with CBS-TVs James Corden.

While Obama said he was aware of real incidents involving unknown objects in the sky making incredible, unexplained maneuvers he also addressed the issue of aliens and captive alien spacecraft, saying:

When I came into office, I asked (about aliens), right? I was like, alright, is there the lab somewhere where were keeping the alien specimens and spaceship? They did a little bit of research and the answer was no.

So, if the upcoming Senate report does not vindicate Lazar, what will it say about him? Will he even be mentioned? Or mentioned as a mere minor player who made extraordinary claims but was an ordinary employee at Area 51 who never got near a saucer because there werent any?

My suspicion is the report will contain new details about many incidents already reported, and new reports of other sightings that have been previously secret. There will likely be some events that seem to defy conventional explanation.

But, I think people who are expecting the military to finally provide evidence validating Lazars resume as a saucer mechanic will be disappointed.

One thing you can say about Lazar after all these years: he was unequivocal. Lazar did not drop vague, tantalizing hints (as some have recently done in the media) that American scientists have possible exotic materials that need further testing to determine whether theyre of alien origin. Lazar flat out said our scientists have nine captive alien craft (nine!), that theyve been studying these craft for more than thirty years, and that he personally wrenched on the machines.

Based on Obamas comments, though, I dont think well see evidence of that in the upcoming report. And if Lazars case remains unconfirmed, I fear true believers may decry the Senate report as just another whitewash, a 21st century redux of Project Bluebook which looked at more than 12,000 UFO sightings between 1952 and 1969 and concluded there was no evidence any of them involved extraterrestrial vehicles.

At the very least, the request for the report indicates the government and military are finally taking a serious and urgent look at whats causing these phenomena and whether they pose a threat to our security. Thats progress, and thats good.

But, if the report comes up short for those expecting proof-positive of alien contact, all I can say is this: the truth is out there. And watch the skies. Keep watching the skies.

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NEVADA UFOs, the Pentagon, and the enigma of Bob Lazar NEVADA CURRENT - Nevada Current