French parties call for Snowden political asylum

Source: France 24

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should be given political asylum in France, party leaders from across the political spectrum have said in the wake of the latest US spying allegations.

By Josh Vardey (video)
FRANCE 24 (text)

French party leaders from across the political spectrum have called on France to grant US whistleblower Edward Snowden political asylum, amid demands for ongoing free trade talks between the EU and Washington to be put on hold.

Jean-Luc Mélanchon, leader of France’s Left Party (Parti de Gauche) told BFMTV on Sunday that the extent of alleged US spying on European communications was “arrogant” and “breathtaking”.

“The Americans are spying on EU institutions, so they are already fully aware of the mandate for negotiations that the EU has begun with the US for a free trade agreement,” he said. “We should put these negotiations on hold until the Americans have given some clarity.”

He said France should grant Edward Snowden – currently in transit limbo in a Russian airport without valid travel documents and without any country yet saying it would welcome him – immediate political asylum.

“Edward Snowden... has done us a good service,” he said. “It’s thanks to him that we know we have been spied on. It is not acceptable that we allow a situation whereby he wanders uncertainly around the planet. He is a defender of all our freedoms.”

Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20130701-snowden-nsa-france-asylum-melanchon-greens-le-pen-hollande

The cyber-intelligence complex and its useful idiots

The cyber-intelligence complex and its useful idiots

Those who tell us to trust the US's secret, privatised surveillance schemes should recall the criminality of J Edgar Hoover's FBI

Barrett Brown
guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 July 2013 16.21 BST


J Edgar Hoover (right, with President Richard Nixon) ran the FBI's illegal Cointelpro domestic political surveillance scheme. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

It's a fine thing to see mainstream American media outlets finally sparing some of their attention toward the cyber-industrial complex – that unprecedented conglomeration of state, military and corporate interests that together exercise growing power over the flow of information. It would be even more heartening if so many of the nation's most influential voices, from senator to pundits, were not clearly intent on killing off even this belated scrutiny into the invisible empire that so thoroughly scrutinizes us – at our own expense and to unknown ends.

...

Besides, the government to which we're ceding these broad new powers is a democracy, overseen by real, live Americans. And it's hard to imagine American government officials abusing their powers – or at least, it would be, had such officials not already abused similar but more limited powers through repeated campaigns of disinformation, intimidation and airtight crimes directed at the American public over the last five decades. Cointelpro, Operation Mockingbird, Ultra and Chaos are among the now-acknowledged CIA, FBI and NSA programs by which those agencies managed to subvert American democracy with impunity. Supporters of mass surveillance conducted under the very same agencies have yet to address how such abuses can be insured against in the context of powers far greater than anything J Edgar Hoover could command.

Many have never heard of these programs; the sort of people who trust states with secret authority tend not to know what such things have led to in the recent past. Those who do know of such things may perhaps contend that these practices would never be repeated today. But it was just two years ago that the late Michael Hastings revealed that US army officials in Afghanistan were conducting psy-ops against visiting US senators in order to sway them towards continued funding for that unsuccessful war. If military and intelligence officials have so little respect for the civilian leadership, one can guess how they feel about mere civilians.

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So, how trustworthy is this privatized segment of the invisible empire? We would know almost nothing of their operations were it not for a chance turn of events that prompted Anonymous-affiliated hackers to seize 70,000 emails from one typical firm back in early 2011. From this more-or-less random sampling of contractor activity, we find a consortium of these firms plotting to intimidate, attack and discredit WikiLeaks and those identified as its key supporters, including the (then Salon, now Guardian) journalist Glenn Greenwald – a potentially illegal conspiracy concocted on behalf of corporate giant Bank of America, which feared exposure by WikiLeaks, and organized under the auspices of the Department of Justice itself.

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We find several of the same firms – which collectively referred to themselves as Team Themis – involved in another scheme to deploy sophisticated software-based fake people across social networks in order to infiltrate and mislead. For instance, Themis proposes sending two of these "personas" to pose online as members of an organization opposed to the US Chamber of Commerce, another prospective Themis client, in order to discredit the group from within. Yet another revelation involves a massive cross-platform military program of disinformation and surveillance directed at the Arab world; still another relates how one NSA-inked firm can monitor and attack online infrastructure throughout the world, including western Europe, and will rent these capabilities out to those with a few million dollars to spend on such things.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/cyber-intelligence-complex-useful-idiots


Barrett Brown is a Dallas-based journalist whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Vanity Fair and Huffington Post. He faces over 100 years in prison for charges related to his research on government intelligence contractors.

Putin: Snowden can stay in Russia if he stops damaging US

Source: RT

President Vladimir Putin says NSA leaker Edward Snowden may stay in Russia, if he wants to, but only if he stops activities aimed against the United States.

“There is one condition if he wants to remain here: he must stop his work aimed at damaging our American partners. As odd as it may sound from me,” Putin told a media conference in Moscow.

However, Russia is not going to extradite Snowden, the president underlined.

“Russia has never extradited anyone and is not going to do so. Same as no one has ever been extradited to Russia,” Putin stated.

Snowden "is not a Russian agent", the president said, repeating that Russian intelligence services were not working with the fugitive American.

He said Snowden should choose his final destination and go there.

...

Read more: http://rt.com/news/putin-snowden-asylum-extradite-489/

"of unspeakable hostility" "How can u negotiate when ur negotiating position has been intercepted?"

Bradley Manning supporters made up "the largest non-corporate contingent" at #SFPride this weekend

Bradley Manning Gay Pride: Supporters Show Love For WikiLeaks Whistleblower

Urvi Nagrani
4 hours ago


Bradley Manning Gay Pride: Supporters Show Love For WikiLeaks Whistleblower

As much as San Francisco Pride's Board would've probably liked to have Bradley Manning and his supporters absent from any Pride 2013 recap, it is noteworthy to say, after two months of controversy, they were the largest non-corporate contingent — with over 2000 folks — and they even danced to Michael Jackson in a flash mob that delighted the crowds.

...

The Bradley Manning contingent was prominently attended by 82 year-old Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. Ellsberg celebrated with his wife riding in a truck labeled "Bradley Manning Grand Marshal." Within the Manning contingent there was also a flash mob dance, ACT up Representatives, and many Veterans against the war.

Also in attendance was Pride's legal counsel, Brooke Oliver, who resigned after 15 years because of the Pride Board's handling of the Manning debacle. At the SF Pride Media Party on Thursday, unnamed guests fell on both sides with past board members saying, "this issue just needs to die" and others who blamed Lisa Williams for taking a stance that wasn't reflective of all of SF Pride's members.

In a quiet but significant shift from previous years, for the first time, SF Pride allowed a military recruitment booth as an exhibitor at the Parade. When asked to confirm that prior to the event, Lisa Williams replied with a noncommittal, "yes I think that's true." Approximately 100 protesters proceeded from marching in the parade to the booth, effectively shutting it down. While the military has become much more gay and lesbian friendly with the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, as well as with the repeal of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, they are not yet Trans-Inclusive and the epidemic of sexual assaults make Pride's support of their recruiting presence questionable.

...

http://www.policymic.com/articles/52201/bradley-manning-gay-pride-supporters-show-love-for-wikileaks-whistleblower

Turnkey Tyranny, Surveillance and the Terror State

Turnkey Tyranny, Surveillance and the Terror State
June 25, 2013

Trevor Paglen

We’re not moving toward a surveillance state; we live in the heart of one.

By exposing NSA programs like PRISM and Boundless Informant, Edward Snowden has revealed that we are not moving toward a surveillance state: we live in the heart of one. The 30-year-old whistleblower told The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald that the NSA’s data collection created the possibility of a “turnkey tyranny,” whereby a malevolent future government could create an authoritarian state with the flick of a switch. The truth is actually worse. Within the context of current economic, political and environmental trends, the existence of a surveillance state doesn’t just create a theoretical possibility of tyranny with the turn of a key—it virtually guarantees it.

For more than a decade, we’ve seen the rise of what we might call a “Terror State,” of which the NSA’s surveillance capabilities represent just one part. Its rise occurs at a historical moment when state agencies and programs designed to enable social mobility, provide economic security and enhance civic life have been targeted for significant cuts. The last three decades, in fact, have seen serious and consistent attacks on social security, food assistance programs, unemployment benefits and education and health programs. As the social safety net has shrunk, the prison system has grown. The United States now imprisons its own citizens at a higher rate than any other country in the world.

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The next few decades will be decades of crisis.

Politicians claim that the Terror State is necessary to defend democratic institutions from the threat of terrorism. But there is a deep irony to this rhetoric. Terrorism does not pose, has never posed and never will pose an existential threat to the United States. Terrorists will never have the capacity to “take away our freedom.” Terrorist outfits have no armies with which to invade, and no means to impose martial law. They do not have their hands on supra-national power levers like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They cannot force nations into brutal austerity programs and other forms of economic subjugation. But while terrorism cannot pose an existential threat to the United States, the institutions of a Terror State absolutely can. Indeed, their continued expansion poses a serious threat to principles of democracy and equality.

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A few statistics are telling: between 1992 and 2007, the income of the 400 wealthiest people in the United States rose by 392 percent. Their tax rate fell by 37 percent. Since 1979, productivity has risen by more than 80 percent, but the median worker’s wage has only gone up by 10 percent. This is not an accident. The evisceration of the American middle and working class has everything to do with an all-out assault on unions; the rewriting of the laws governing bankruptcy, student loans, credit card debt, predatory lending and financial trading; and the transfer of public wealth to private hands through deregulation, privatization and reduced taxes on the wealthy. The Great Divergence is, to put it bluntly, the effect of a class war waged by the rich against the rest of society, and there are no signs of it letting up.

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http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/trevor-paglen-turnkey-tyranny-surveillance-and-the-terror-state/

Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations

Source: The Guardian

Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations

Reports in Der Spiegel that US agencies bugged European council building 'reminiscent of cold war', says German minister

Ian Traynor in Brussels, Louise Osborne in Berlin and Jamie Doward
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 June 2013 13.39 BST


The Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home of the EU council – and subject to a US survellance programme, according to documents seen by Der Spiegel. Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian

The prospects for a new trade pact between the US and the European Union worth hundreds of billions have suffered a severe setback following allegations that Washington bugged key EU offices and intercepted phonecalls and emails from top officials.

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A spokesman for the European commission said: "We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports. They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us."

There were calls from MEPs for Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council – who has his office in the building allegedly targeted by the US – and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, to urgently appear before the chamber to explain what steps they were taking in response to the growing body of evidence of US and British electronic surveillance of Europe through the Prism and Tempora operations.

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There were also calls for John Kerry, the US secretary of state, to make a detour to Brussels on his way from his current trip to the Middle East, to explain US activities.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/30/nsa-spying-europe-claims-us-eu-trade