Prism: Web Spying Whistleblower Goes Public

[Jasper]

DEVELOPING: Top NSA and DOJ Officials Have Fled the U.S. - Obama Admin. Files Espionage Charges
by David Harris Gershon

In a stunning development, Deputy Director of the NSA, John Inglis, along with Assistant Attorney General, James Cole, have fled the United States after their participation in a contentious congressional meeting on Capitol Hill.

In that meeting, both Inglis and Cole revealed that the depth of NSA spying far surpassed anything that whistleblower Edward Snowden has made public to date. The unauthorized leaks to Congress by Inglis and Cole, which exposed more about NSA spying than anything Snowden has revealed, shook congressional leaders to their core.

The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed.

[...]

John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform "a second or third hop query" through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.

"Hops" refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.

The Obama administration, blindsided by the leaks, immediately announced that the two would be charged under The Espionage Act, and declared them enemies of the state.

Eric Holder, in a hastily convened press conference, admitted that the two had fled the United States on private jets immediately after the hearing, and that their whereabouts where unknown. He was, however, confident that the U.S. would bring them to justice.

“The national security of the United States has been damaged by those leaks. The safety of the American people and safety of people in allied nations is at risk."

[...]

“I am confident that the people who are responsible will be held accountable.”

Rumors are that the two senior intelligence officials have fled to Venezuela, where like Snowden, it is anticipated they will seek asylum. However, much speculation is swirling at this stage regarding their location and fate.

While President Obama, in a short session before reporters, said, "We won't be scrambling any jets to catch these middle-aged leakers," diplomatic channels were already furiously at work, trying to close off all international airspace.

Updates on this story as details emerge will appear below the break.


Updates (EST):

11:01 pm - It has been confirmed by multiple sources that Inglis and Cole have fled to Hong Kong.

Despite this revelation, mainstream media is fawning over news that Cole's wife was once a hand model for Palmolive.

10:24 pm - CNN is reporting, per an anonymous government source, that Inglis and Cole intentionally took their respective posts at the NSA and DOJ in order to leak surveillance information to Congress.

"They engaged in a decades-long, career-building venture just for today's leak," the source said.

9:57 pm - MSNBC pundit Melissa Harris-Perry has called for Inglis and Cole to return to the States and face the consequences of their actions, apparently already tired of talking about the two whistleblowers.

"So come on home, John and James, so we could talk about, you know, something else," Harris-Perry said.

9:42 pm - As the world searches for two of the nation's top intelligence officials, President Obama referred to them as "hackers" in a brief media appearance, attempting to recast the Deputy Director of the NSA and Assistant Attorney General as basement-dwelling, Ramen-noodle-eating cyber thieves who were never employed by the U.S. government or affiliated contractors.

9:16 pm - David Gregory has asked this evening whether congressional leaders, who asked the questions that led to Inglis and Cole's whistle-blowing, should be arrested.

"It was just a question," Gregory Tweeted after coming under fire for suggesting U.S. legislators be jailed for doing their jobs. "I was just echoing what others were wondering."

9:03 pm - After rumours began swirling that Inglis and Cole were aboard a plane with the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, several European nations closed off their airspace and forced Nazarbayev's twin-engine aircraft to land in a field in Lithuania.

"We have not been this humiliated since that Jew Borat's movie!" screamed Nazarbayev after Lithuanian officials announced Inglis and Cole were not aboard the president's plane.

8:42 pm - Wikileaks has Tweeted that it has been in touch with Inglis and Cole, though refused to reveal their location or whether or not the organization is helping the two asylum seekers.

8:24 pm - A furious Venezuela has denied that intelligence officials are in the country. "The airspace around Latin America is closed. Nobody can get in or out!"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/1 ... ge-Charges#

[Jasper]

And another thing...

Former president Jimmy Carter condemned the effect U.S. intelligence programs had on U.S. moral authority in the wake of NSA revelations brought to light by leaker Edward Snowden, Der Spiegel reports.

“America has no functioning democracy,” Carter said at a meeting of The Atlantic Bridge in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday.

[Jasper]

I've confirmed that nobody is paying attention.

[kv]

this is just a troll? well played had me going

[Jasper]

Well, the Jimmy Carter part is real.

[Bandit72]

Bradley Manning.

http://videoshare.politico.com/singleti ... 0696964001

[Pandemonium]

Bradley Manning.

http://videoshare.politico.com/singleti ... 0696964001

Regardless of my feelings pro or con regarding Manning's actions, that clip pissed me right the fuck off. Nothing is more annoying than a bunch of clueless bandwagon-hopping self-righteous celebrities defending a "currently hip" criminal. "I am Bradley Manning..." gimme a fuckin' biscuit.

[Bandit72]

Bradley Manning.

http://videoshare.politico.com/singleti ... 0696964001

Regardless of my feelings pro or con regarding Manning's actions, that clip pissed me right the fuck off. Nothing is more annoying than a bunch of clueless bandwagon-hopping self-righteous celebrities defending a "currently hip" criminal. "I am Bradley Manning..." gimme a fuckin' biscuit.

I totally agree, however I still feel 'advertising' (even if it is by a bunch of clueless bandwagon-hopping self-righteous celebrities) is good 'advertising'

[chaos]

http://www.nationalmemo.com/snowden-has ... rt-lawyer/

Snowden Has Left Moscow Airport: Lawyer

August 1st, 2013 9:15 am
AFP


MOSCOW (AFP) – Fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has left the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for over a month, after being granted temporary asylum for one year in Russia, his Russian lawyer said Thursday.

“Snowden has left Sheremetyevo airport. He has just been given a certificate that he has been awarded temporary asylum in Russia for one year,” his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told AFP. An airport spokeswoman added that he had left within the last two hours.

[Pandemonium]

This is just the conspiracy nutcase lurking in some dark recess of my brain, but I find it interesting that as the whole Snowden thing peaked this week, we suddenly have this big terrorist alert shit going on with not just our embassies in the Middle East, but now at airports and other high profile places in the US. Add to that you have high profile politicians and military heads on various political talk shows this weekend giving out all this information on how we're getting these "clues," what we're doing to "stop" bad things from happening (Al Qaedafucker: "thanks for letting us know we should hold off on attacking target X this week, we'll wait 'til next month") and four-walling this threat through the media like a Manhatten-sized asteroid is going hit the Earth any time now, it's like "see? this is why we need to monitor every single person worldwide... but that info could never possibly be misused."

[Jasper]

This is just the conspiracy nutcase lurking in some dark recess of my brain, but I find it interesting that as the whole Snowden thing peaked this week, we suddenly have this big terrorist alert shit going on with not just our embassies in the Middle East, but now at airports and other high profile places in the US. Add to that you have high profile politicians and military heads on various political talk shows this weekend giving out all this information on how we're getting these "clues," what we're doing to "stop" bad things from happening (Al Qaedafucker: "thanks for letting us know we should hold off on attacking target X this week, we'll wait 'til next month") and four-walling this threat through the media like a Manhatten-sized asteroid is going hit the Earth any time now, it's like "see? this is why we need to monitor every single person worldwide... but that info could never possibly be misused."

Trust me, you're nowhere close to alone in having these thoughts.

Incidentally, we recently came close to gutting the funding for a lot of this crap, but the Republicans didn't come through with the votes. Then everyone clapped.

[Bandit72]

This is just the conspiracy nutcase lurking in some dark recess of my brain, but I find it interesting that as the whole Snowden thing peaked this week, we suddenly have this big terrorist alert shit going on with not just our embassies in the Middle East, but now at airports and other high profile places in the US. Add to that you have high profile politicians and military heads on various political talk shows this weekend giving out all this information on how we're getting these "clues," what we're doing to "stop" bad things from happening (Al Qaedafucker: "thanks for letting us know we should hold off on attacking target X this week, we'll wait 'til next month") and four-walling this threat through the media like a Manhatten-sized asteroid is going hit the Earth any time now, it's like "see? this is why we need to monitor every single person worldwide... but that info could never possibly be misused."

Trust me, you're nowhere close to alone in having these thoughts.

Incidentally, we recently came close to gutting the funding for a lot of this crap, but the Republicans didn't come through with the votes. Then everyone clapped.

I thought most people would have have had these thoughts for quite a long time now. UK's just as bad.

[krakle]

This is just the conspiracy nutcase lurking in some dark recess of my brain, but I find it interesting that as the whole Snowden thing peaked this week, we suddenly have this big terrorist alert shit going on with not just our embassies in the Middle East, but now at airports and other high profile places in the US. Add to that you have high profile politicians and military heads on various political talk shows this weekend giving out all this information on how we're getting these "clues," what we're doing to "stop" bad things from happening (Al Qaedafucker: "thanks for letting us know we should hold off on attacking target X this week, we'll wait 'til next month") and four-walling this threat through the media like a Manhatten-sized asteroid is going hit the Earth any time now, it's like "see? this is why we need to monitor every single person worldwide... but that info could never possibly be misused."

Conspiracy nutcase? Well, would your government ever lie?? Hell yeah! Remember Colin Powell?

Seems like they prefer vagueness a bit more these days.

[Larry B.]

Three Months After It Cleared The 100K Signature Threshold, 'Pardon Snowden' Petition Still Unanswered

Please hold your feigned shock until the end of the post, but the administration has yet to respond to the We the People petition to pardon Edward Snowden. Despite the fact that the petition cleared the (recently increased) 100,000 signature hurdle easily and with plenty of time to spare (it currently sits at 137,000), it still has not been addressed by the White House.

According to the spokeperson contacted by US News, the administration will get to it when it gets to it.

"Response times vary," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told U.S. News in an email Friday, responding to a request for White House comment on the two-month [now three-month] delay. "We're not in a position to comment on the substance of a response before it has been issued," she added.

Nope, can't comment on this one, not even nearly four months from the initial leak. But the White House hasn't held off on commenting on other, more recent petitions, even those that fell severely short of the arbitrary 100,000-signature mark. It answered one on saving the Johnson Valley OHV area, even though it topped out at 29,500 signatures. It took time to offer its thoughts on protecting the rights of non-religious military members, something 24,393 signatories were concerned about. Fighting pediatric cancer? The administration bravely confronted this controversial issue head-on, even though less than 30,000 signatures were gathered.

Does "We the People" greatly resemble a masturbatorial excercise in talking points and easy wins? Yes, yes it does. And yet, the administration could have, at the very least, responded with a marginally-justified "no comment," as it has in other highly-controversial cases.

However, it's also possible for the administration to duck the issue by giving a response similar to the one used by White House spokesman Josh Earnest Wednesday on Bradley Manning's 35-year prison sentence for providing documents to WikiLeaks. Manning has since self-identified as a woman, and is seeking recognition under the name Chelsea.

"I'm not going to get ahead of that process," Earnest said. "If there is an application that's filed by Mr. Manning or his attorneys, that application will be considered in that process like any other application."

Considering the administration has charged Snowden with espionage and Obama himself has said he doesn't consider him a hero, it seems unlikely that this will receive any consideration at all. If anything, the response will soft-peddle the administration's angle and point at various legal rationales that justify punishing the whistleblower. It's not that we don't know the response (if it ever comes) will be jargon-heavy and unsatisfactory -- it will -- it's the fact that the administration upped the signature limit simply to make it harder to receive a response, and yet it continues to ignore anything that clears the mark but it doesn't want to deal with.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201309 ... ered.shtml

[chaos]

Approximately 312 million people live in the United States.

I do not think Snowden is a hero nor do I think that he deserves a pardon. Snowden did not handle the situation in an admirable way and caused more harm (as opposed to aid) to the citizens of this country.

I admit it is a complicated issue, but I am adamantly not on TeamSnowden. Let him relish the bastion of democracy he chose to flee to in Russia.

[Jasper]

Snowden did not handle the situation in an admirable way and caused more harm (as opposed to aid) to the citizens of this country.

Keep telling that to yourself. I'm sure whatever planet you live on is a happier place.

[chaos]

Not necessarily happier; just less ignorant.

[Larry B.]

What he says is absolutely true.

[Jasper]

Not necessarily happier; just less ignorant.

I'm sure that you believe what you're saying, and while I find that sad, it's not sufficient motivation for me to attempt to educate you, as that would be quite a substantial undertaking.

[chaos]

Go drink a "yahoo."

[SR]

[Essence_Smith]

http://aintnoright.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 0&start=20

[SR]

http://aintnoright.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 0&start=20

[Essence_Smith]

http://aintnoright.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 0&start=20

Aaaaaaand ES gives his stamp of DISAPPROVAL to yet another topic of discussion.

It was a joke, ya dork...pretty sure I've actually had a glass of wine or two with Artemis in my time...don't you have some almond milk to drink or something?

What I wrote was a joke too, you dope. You'd know that if you were paying attention, but that might be tricky for you between sipping Yahoo and perusing the latest issue of Spider-man with pro wrestling blaring in the background.

On topic this whole issue is definitely interesting and all but completely predictable imo...as for Snowden I wonder if the ends always justify the means...I'm sure thought was given to the consequences he would face and I do feel if one is in his position and feels the need to say something then fine, but again, did the end justify the means in this? What would have been a better way to go about it?

[Hype]

I wonder if the ends always justify the means..

Probably not. I think the only people who ACTUALLY think that are utilitarians, where the end of a moral action is always some kind of net gain in happiness or net reduction in suffering.

The most obvious counterexamples to this are arguments against torture as a method of interrogation, even though there are cases where torture has led to a good outcome (such as, perhaps, the famous case of Khalid Sheik Mohammed).

I don't have a clear take on the morality of Snowden's actions, but I do know that philosopher Peter Ludlow (whom I had the pleasure of interacting with for a year when he was at Toronto) has supported him: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... emic-evil/

In broad terms, commentators in the mainstream and corporate media have tended to assume that all of these actors needed to be brought to justice, while independent players on the Internet and elsewhere have been much more supportive. Tellingly, a recent Time magazine cover story has pointed out a marked generational difference in how people view these matters: 70 percent of those age 18 to 34 sampled in a poll said they believed that Snowden “did a good thing” in leaking the news of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program.

So has the younger generation lost its moral compass?

No. In my view, just the opposite.