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A Hopeful Edward Snowden Says "The Balance Of Power Is Beginning To Shift"
It has been two years ago since Edward Snowden released to the world a trove of proof that the NSA, the US' top spy organization, had been focused as much on spying on its own people as on threats from abroad, in the process crushing countless constitutional civil and personal liberties. For his whistleblowing efforts, he was forced into self-appointed exile in Russia to avoid a lengthy prison sentence in the US.
Which is ironic, because on June 2, with the passage of the "Freedom Act" (which actually is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring Act), the NSA's recording of US electronic communications officially ended, in effect validating Snowden's efforts at halting the US conversion into a totalitarian police state.
In reality NSA surveillance did not really end: bulk collection of Americans' metadata is still allowed by phone companies, which is then accessible by the NSA. According to skeptics this makes intrusion into US private lives even more deliberate as private corporations are not subject to FOIA requests or government intervention: in effect Obama has washed his hands of all supervision over data collection even as the NSA still has full access to everything it could ever ask for (it is unclear why the massive NSA spy facility in Bluffdale, Utah will continue existing if the NSA is no longer allowed to intercept and record data).
Still, for Snowden this was a minor, yet massive at the same time, victory. This is what he said in an op-ed in the aftermath of the passage of the Freedom Act:
Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations.
Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.
Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated.
This is the power of an informed public.
Or, perhaps far worse, this is the power of the government to obfuscate, and to pretend it is reforming when in reality it is hunkering down even further.
The answer remains to be seen, but for now Snowden is granted a moment of optimism. His op-ed ends:
At the turning of the millennium, few imagined that citizens of developed democracies would soon be required to defend the concept of an open society against their own leaders.
Yet the balance of power is beginning to shift. We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy. For the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we see the outline of a politics that turns away from reaction and fear in favor of resilience and reason. With each court victory, with every change in the law, we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear. As a society, we rediscover that the value of a right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects.
Of course, his view that the "balance of power" has shifted will be validated when he returns on US soil and is not promptly handcuffed and whisked off to prison where he spend the next 20 years of his life. Sadly for him, and the post-terror generation, the balance has more more shifting to do, before there are real, tangible changes.
Below is his full NYT Oped:
The World Says No to Surveillance
Two years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.
Within days, the United States government responded by bringing charges against me under World War I-era espionage laws. The journalists were advised by lawyers that they risked arrest or subpoena if they returned to the United States. Politicians raced to condemn our efforts as un-American, even treasonous.
Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations.
Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.
Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated.
This is the power of an informed public.
Ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen, but it is only the latest product of a change in global awareness. Since 2013, institutions across Europe have ruled similar laws and operations illegal and imposed new restrictions on future activities. The United Nations declared mass surveillance an unambiguous violation of human rights. In Latin America, the efforts of citizens in Brazil led to the Marco Civil, an Internet Bill of Rights. Recognizing the critical role of informed citizens in correcting the excesses of government, the Council of Europe called for new laws to protect whistle-blowers.
Beyond the frontiers of law, progress has come even more quickly. Technologists have worked tirelessly to re-engineer the security of the devices that surround us, along with the language of the Internet itself. Secret flaws in critical infrastructure that had been exploited by governments to facilitate mass surveillance have been detected and corrected. Basic technical safeguards such as encryption — once considered esoteric and unnecessary — are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private. Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the arbitrary passage of anti-privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia.
Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy — the foundation of the freedoms enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights — remains under threat. Some of the world’s most popular online services have been enlisted as partners in the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs, and technology companies are being pressured by governments around the world to work against their customers rather than for them. Billions of cellphone location records are still being intercepted without regard for the guilt or innocence of those affected. We have learned that our government intentionally weakens the fundamental security of the Internet with “back doors” that transform private lives into open books. Metadata revealing the personal associations and interests of ordinary Internet users is still being intercepted and monitored on a scale unprecedented in history: As you read this online, the United States government makes a note.
Spymasters in Australia, Canada and France have exploited recent tragedies to seek intrusive new powers despite evidence such programs would not have prevented attacks. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain recently mused, “Do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?” He soon found his answer, proclaiming that “for too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: As long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.”
At the turning of the millennium, few imagined that citizens of developed democracies would soon be required to defend the concept of an open society against their own leaders.
Yet the balance of power is beginning to shift. We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy. For the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we see the outline of a politics that turns away from reaction and fear in favor of resilience and reason. With each court victory, with every change in the law, we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear. As a society, we rediscover that the value of a right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects.
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BTFD
I used to think Snowden was a self pretentious douche, perhaps even a national security employee who was recruited by a foreign government.
Now.... I don't think so.
You know.... We grow.
I hope you are right, Edward Snowden. Nevertheless, I will prepare accordingly.
BTW, Business Insider (aka the 99% outsiders) is running a series of Hit Pieces on Snowden. Givne that they are a controlled mouthpiece for the banksters, we may have reason to be hopeful
Sheeples are beginning to wake up.
Let me know when SNOWDEN releases something NEW.
He sure makes the West look bad and the East look like our Savior. That's the point.
Edward Snowden is controlled opposition.
Look to the real whistle blowers (what are their names again?) -- not those blowing on the oligarch's whistle.
This is one of the latest Meme's used to discredit Edward Snowden, that he is controlled opposition.
It does not pass even the basic smell test question:
Why would the NSA (No Such Agency) benefit from release of information that created the biggest scandal in their entire history, turning millions of americans against them? Perhaps the CIA was trying to screw the NSA, but this does not make Snowden controlled opposition, but a soldier in a inter agency turf battle.
BTW, the claim that Snowden was a Russian spy has already been refuted by the NSA and other agencies. Sometimes, people are motivated to do what is right, even if it hurts.
Listen you mutants: the fact that you even know Snowden's name and face alone should tell you he's a fucking shill. If the "secrets" and "revelations" he made were so important, why was he promoted by every western media outlet in the world? The same media outlets that hid the same information for years while it was known from various other whistleblowers that the media not only ignored but sought to bury.
Wake the fuck up already you stooges. It's the same god damn game but now you have your generational hero, Edward Snowden, the accidental patriot. The 4th wall of the pen is already in place and guess what? you're on the inside. I hope you enjoy the free corn.
http://www.crossroad.to/Victory/stories/wild-pigs.htm
I am Chumbawamba.
Once again correct, unfortunately. Thank you, Chumbawamba.
It's not about "OUR" Alphabet Soup Agencies. It's about the GLOBALIST AGENDA. And Snowden is.
this is all bs, ppl rediscover nothing, same selfish mother fuckers who do not give a fuck to its neightboors, same corrupted fucktards governing without even knowing how to use basic grade mathematics...
fuck that, i just try to get the fuck out of the system, unplug everything and wait. it is my only advice.
Lots of disinfo on ZeroHedge lately.
"Edward Snowden" works so well because so many people "want to believe in something" that they're blind.
Blind.
Blind.
Let it go.
snowden 2016
My beef with Snowden's statement is his charcterization of 9/11 as being a singular event. Au contraire, terrible acts will continue to be done because humans are flawed and fallen schemers. The damage that can be done by a few will continue to multiply with the advent of nano tech, genetic engineering, robotics, and so on. But even simple tech could cripple a civilisation. Say, a handful of murderous psychos could destroy all our refineries all at once using mere mortars, while comrads drill holes in key transformers in our electrical grid using off the shelf means. We are not resilient to such an attack. Id prefer we invest in such resilience but we dont, so some means of looking after the likely perps has got to be in place.
Billy the Poet deserves a community service award for his excellent take downs of the zh idiot brigade all the way down this thread.
Once you realize that the UK is anonymous (e.g. the secret hackers), that snowden was a planned thing (because lets get real, more than one truther came out and was severely punished as a result), and the elite want to keep the sheeple sheep, but they aren't going to end anything they started. These people are psychopaths hellbent on power, what makes you think they would let this guy have a mouth piece and not dissappear him instantly if he was telling something they didn't want people to know? NO, they are using him for FEAR MONGERING, e.g. you are being watched and listened to at all time, but let's get real here, there is NO PROGRAM sophisticated enough to compute speech of even 500,000 people on the phone at one time, GTFO out of here... It would take 10 super computers to process even 20,000 conversations at once... That's not even talking about the billions of phone calls that happen in a day, whoosh!
You raise a good question, and perhaps the correct answer is the one I offered, a turf battle between the NSA and CIA. I really don't know.
What I do know is that we are slaves to the banksters via a corrupt and evil monetary system.
Russian Stacking Dolls.
Keep searching my Latina Lover.
You might be on to something there ... both the TLAs trying to keep the plates spinning while kicking the poles of the other plate-spinner.
I wondered the same thing when the news recently came out that George Soros was responsible for the Ukraine. I mean, it's not like the seeing eye aye had anything to do with it. They've only been sowing chaos and overthrowing countries since 1953. And after sixty years, all of a sudden, this was all Soros' doing? (not that he wouldn't help out, but, really...)
... the phantom junkbot strikes again ...
"Listen you mutants: the fact that you even know Snowden's name and face alone should tell you he's a fucking shill."
Whereas anonymous individuals on Internet forums are to be trusted and revered! We know that they are the real deal because they can validly claim that they have never done a single thing in their entire lives to further the cause of liberty. You've got to respect that.
Ever heard of Sibel Edmonds? Look her up.
There are countless others like her. She is just the most high profile.
I rest my case.
Just remember this: the more well-known the face, the bigger the cover-up.
I am Chumbawamba.
Yeah, I've heard of her but I've never heard from her. She's the broad who refuses to release the evidence she says she has of US government subterfuge but she's quite willing to bash Snowden because he actually did release information at the risk of his life and freedom.
Hang yourself with a rusty anchor chain you dissembling twat.
Add a NOOSE for BILLY THE POET.
Which Alphabet Soup Agency pays for your lowly existence?
If I'm wrong show me the documents released by Edmonds.
Hang yourself with a rusty anchor chain you dissembling twat.
Put a moose shaped biscuit in your ear and say "cheese" you luxurious pomegranate.
+1 for luxurious pomegranate
That was shit.
-5
I know Putin's name and face, does that make him a shill? I find your assertion that anyone who's name and face that is widely known to be a shill simply stupid.
tell em, chumba.
as you can see, the boys have a lot invested in eddie. they put every troll they have on this one, and they don't apply a fraction of the effort when we rail on about the fed et al.
The first step is to shed one's illusions.
That's true. I was all into Bigfoot and Nessie in fourth grade but since I learned the difference between fantasy and documented fact I can think much more clearly.
You might want to give it a try.
Chumba!!!!!
Amazing, chumb. What would possess you to ask that the secrets of massive surveillance of the American people by the rulers’ spy agency should be returned to their secret lair?
Who would you have represent the interests of the American people: the Congress, a pimp President, the international bankers (Fed) or the press? If not Snowden, who? Snowden outmaneuvered the press, if you will recall.
If Snowden is a “plant,” then we need more plants.
I agree with Lauren Weinstein, who said:
Still Naive: "Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance"
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html
His gross naivete remains impressive. Around the world, governments
are doubling and tripling down on both international and especially
domestic surveillance and censorship -- his adopted country being a
prime example, of course. The difference now is that intel agencies
and other government agencies are making sure there won't be any more
sloppy leaks.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Thanks for posting that cheap propaganda shot against his adopted country, as it saves me reading that whole crap.
malek: I appreciate what Snowden did, but if he truly thinks "the balance of power is shifting", he is being naive. There's no way they're relinquishing control yet.
The question falls back onto you: do you really believe Snowden would ever be that naive.
He has however the right to paint his view for once in rose-colored glasses, same as the perpetrators do from their side.
Nothing even remotely compares to amount of data Snowden made available to public. His data is also easily verifiable and made a huge and direct impact/difference (for the better) in technical world.
Most (if not all) other whistleblowers could not provide any evidence (or were not ready to do so, since they'd end up in jail and charged with treason).
But please, go on with your "grrr, you are all stupid and I am the chosen one" rhetoric.
Yeah, if he was real, he'd be dead already.
You're not dead. Apply the same criteria to yourself.
Right, because everybody believes, or at least takes into serious consideration, what a faceless source (or is it sources?) says.
<facepalm>
It's one of those "Lookee what's behind this curtain!" while the box is pushed out of view when no one is paying attention to it.
"This is one of the latest Meme's used to discredit Edward Snowden, that he is controlled opposition."
It's also a valid theory....and one that lingers in the back of my mind, too.
"Why would the NSA (No Such Agency) benefit from release of information that created the biggest scandal in their entire history, turning millions of americans against them?"
They didn't....but Russia did.
"Perhaps the CIA was trying to screw the NSA, but this does not make Snowden controlled opposition, but a soldier in a inter agency turf battle."
Or maybe he was a Russian agent from the beginning, who successfully fucked over both agencies with a propaganda win for Russia.
What ethnicity is Edward Snowden, in your opinion, based on his facial features? What country did he ancestors come from?
"BTW, the claim that Snowden was a Russian spy has already been refuted by the NSA and other agencies. "
Oh yeah? And did the NSA also inform you that the recent Amtrak train disaster, the D.C. power outage, the oil train explosions, etc were the work of Russian saboteurs....? No? Well, why do you suppose that is?
(Hint: those who wield power never like being made to look weak.)
Thank you. Someone gets it.
I am Chumbawamba.
But unfortunately there is no cure.
Enough out of you, zealot.
Mole is more like it.
http://cryptome.org/2015/03/snowden-hk-security-devices.htm
Notice his pink notebook is a "MOLE"skine.
Notice he uses a "RED" sheet in the screenshots from Citizen Four. Notice this was filmed while he was in Hong Kong.
Notice how he never once talks about the fact a communication system (phone or internet) is structurally designed to be insecure and no amount of higher level encryption will ever fix that and as such laws will never protect against structural integrity problems. The only way to fix structural problems is to fix the actual structure.
Notice that they use the word 'hopeful' which implies trust in the government and laws by the propaganda matrix with him being a willing co-conspirator.
People hear what they want to hear, they don't want to listen.
Notice that Dewey Cheatum Howe types on a keyboard. This is "KEY." Notice that he also uses a "MOUSE" to play "CAT AND MOUSE" with his targets. Notice that the message above was produced when he was in Albuquerque.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awu7g7eQbdc
Nice try but the difference is he is in the spy business and this symbolism has specific meaning to that business so therefore he should have knew better to not send wrong messages about his intentions symbolically. That is telegraphing your next move not incompetence.
"so therefore he should have knew better to not send wrong messages about his intentions symbolically."
Yeah, people are always sending me secret, symbolic confessions by accident. Don't you hate that?
Yeah especially people whose job and business is to truly understand all forms of communication. You can't control or understand what you spy on without that prerequisite. It is more than technical understanding of things.
So what did you make of the last transmission from Planet Trogg? Was that really Zenon or is something amiss?
You do it all the time without knowing it, it is called body language....
No room for misinterpretation there. I can tell just by the way a man steps off a curb who his favorite Kardasian is.
Dewey has extensive experience in "the spy business" and knows all their secrets.
Since he's now spilled the beans, perhaps everyone can attack him for being a false flag shill. lol.
The attacks on me personally for pointing on things that make people think and listen just bolsters the case. I don't hope people believe me. Hope is an intellectual brain killer. I want them to think, listen and know for themselves by exercising that process to prove it to themselves.
"The attacks on me personally for pointing on things that make people think and listen just bolsters the case."
So because I think you're insane that PROVES!!!! that Snowden is a mole.
Nothing crazy or stupid about that.
The Russians especially Putin and have a vested interest in attacking the US government (the one you believe in) but not faith in government itself.
I guess no one else sees that underlying theme in this OP-Ed.
Hope is an intellectual brain killer
So what's the cure? Complete hopelessness?
The cure is action.
Hope disallows action?
The false flag shills tend to post their accusations where it is intellectually convenient for herds of non-thinking sheeple to agree with them (regardless of whether it is done for financial gain to sustain extroverted weakness).
You were useless on "Car Talk" and you're no better on ZH.
Ahh, the color of his notebook gave him away.
"Notice how he never once talks about the fact a communication system (phone or internet) is structurally designed to be insecure and no amount of higher level encryption will ever fix that and as such laws will never protect against structural integrity problems."
---
Nothing personal, but that "no amount of higher level encryption will ever fix that" is bullish*t. Yes, the drone-brained Public-Key algos can probably be slammed by State-level resources. (Quantum research on prime numbers, etc.) So, don't use that shit.
How about symmetric, one-time pad ciphers? Go through that front door and get back with us. Start with the Privacy Envelope file encryptor, as I know a little about it.
unfortunately, BB, people believe through their emotions rather than using any kind of intellectual analysis.
and others are simply paid trolls.
So are the USSA mega tech companies. By collaborating with the NSA, MS, Apple, IBM etc etc are losing market share in China, Russia and other nations that do not want their government and corporate secrets compromised by illegal USSA spying. This is costing them 10's of billions in sales, and creating new competition. Blowback a bitch, LOL>
The shears are getting dull
I think Edward Snowden is the great American patriot of the 21st Century..
I'm not sure he'll be remembered as"Pandora"
I hope he is real but Jon Rappaport and Lew Rockwell have done good write ups on Snowden. Jon's take is Snowden never left CIA and is a deep plant to harm NSA. See Eye Aye is like the Mafia but worst. Some mobster get out alive but William Colby did not make it.
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/unanswered-questions-for-e...
http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/colby.htm
The Columbia, MD ~ Ft. Meade location is a dead giveaway... Both are places with spooks on both sides... I haven't come to any final conclusions on the issue but I think your finger is on the pulse Freddie...
Jesus fucking christ, I spent half my goddamned sorry life answering the fucking doorbell from spook secretaries doing regulatory inquisitions on the viability & trustworthiness of the fucking spooks... It was annoying as HELL!
Finally ~ I sold the goddamned house (to whom else? a goddamned green beret wannabe spook wih a Ft Meade job, who was the only motherfucking fuck who could AFFORD the house & wanted to send his little munchkins to FUTURE SPOOK elementary school)...
If it's any consolation, I only have 2 lasting comments:
1. The NSA spooks tend to be BARNEY FIFE pencil pushing dweebs.
2. The CIA spooks, at least HALF of them, have paramilitary training
I don't know him and never met him but I get the impression he is both wise and courageous beyond his years.
how much of a cabal intelligence shill is mr snowden? guess we can only speculate.
but I am certainly suspicious.
Correct, unfortunately.
So your message is: You have no allies. Anyone who speaks out for freedom is a secret storm trooper. Submit to the NWO or end your life now.
Nice try, but no dice.
No dice? Shucks.
Go suck off your master, silly slave.
So what's for lunch at Mossad HQ today, Izzy?
Silly Billy! No soup for you!
That's more matzah balls for you.
I'd gladly trade our entire Congress along with the Muslim for Snowden. I'd be getting the best of it.
With their paymasters gone ISIS would dissolve. Throw in Soros and solve the Ukie "crisis" as well. Peace on Earth!
Put Congress and the Supremes in Gitmo. Bring Snowden home.
9+11 total inside job. We are coming for YOU Darth Chen.
What say'eth Snowden?
Exactly. Snowden say'eth nothing.
.gov won't go down without a fight
I think our Gov has def. adopted the Samson option if shit falls apart
If shit ever falls apart, it's Greek Islands & dual passports for 'El Presidente' & his banana republic Praetorians
This guy keeps hitting it out of the ball park...
He is an exceptional American and human being.
He has done more to change the national psychosis prevalent; linked with the Patriot Act's dystopian legacy of neo-con concoction-- a dastardly state promoted manipulation of Law against freedom worldwide; than anybody else; all on his own thanks to his signal service in exposing the "spook state" via his relays in the free Press!
He has done more to change the national psychosis prevalent;
After seeing multiple random interviews with folks on the streets of NYC, I've no doubt it's going to require an event as horrendous as WTC to rouse murikans from their anesthesia.
James Clapper logged in to down vote you. I gave you a +1.
golf clap for signaling Clapper's red light.
"James don't slap the crap downwards, just get yourself cured as you are spreading "The NSA Clap" disease all over the Internet..."
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.
Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know."
JFK
The entire speech, in his own words, given at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on April 27, 1961, to the American Newspaper Publishers Association.
The commonly quoted "Secret Society" part of the speech doesn't start until around 6:00 into the speech.
Keep in mind this speech was delivered 10 days after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHA-025-001.aspx
The so-called secret society to which JFK refers is the Soviet Union and its allies.
"It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match."
JFK says that he is not asking the US press to conceal information on the US government but that's exactly what he was doing.
"This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy...
But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security."
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-N...
JFK in this instance:
"secret societies are bad, but next time please keep quiet about secrets."
and then they killed him.
you can make a case for one hell of a warning to the people if you make a sandwich of the above JFK quote, the Ike Farewell adress which warns us of the military indutrial complex.
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
Re-reading this speech reminds of what our great country one was.
I miss America.
I always wonder if Ike sat down with JFK before he took over. They were the last two who really warned America.
I would like to thank Banzai7 for linking to "Anatomy of a Great Deception". I d/l'd it, then bought the DVD. Finally, a 9/11 movie that I can show my family that they will be able to relate to. I hope it spreads exponentially.
Snowden tap dances around 911 and the Boston bombing thing doesn't he? He says he's fighting against the surveiilence state and patriot/freedom act and the information "haystack" it creates. The 911 commission, if memory serves, does not even mention building 7.
The 911 commission, if memory serves, does not even mention building 7
Correct, Tom Keane (R) said "not relevent" (on camera). Also - no mention of the security company overseeing the WTC. Brother Marvin Bush's security company.
I want to believe Snowden and his whistle-blowing efforts are above board. If he refuses to talk about the main catalyst for the surveillance state, something isn't right and I remain a skeptic.
*I don't know for sure everything Snowden has said concerning 911.
Thank you for weighing in with some sense. No one mentioned that above. Everyone that is skeptical of Snowden got junked. If he really had access to all of those files.... why would he re-hash some old hat surveillance stuff that was 'leaked' by previous whistleblowers in 03' and 07-08? Why not spill the beans on something that people could actually rally behind? Most people assume we are being watched and data recorded at every turn. Tracking transactions, GPS with phones, liscense plate readers etc. Most sheep bleat they have nothing to hide so it doesn't bother them.
MSM was touting him on every channel.... The shitty cat and mouse game where he was just ONE step ahead of them in China and buys a ticket and skips town reads like a shitty spy novel. If he really was a threat MSM would have been given a gag order and he would have been black bagged.
Since then what has come to pass? Did the NSA get its snooping powers taken away? Was the Patriot Act repealed? Looks to me like this whole thing was an elaborate poke in the eye to any person who thought things were going to change. The USA Freedom Act that was just passed ensures the spying will continue.
Atleast Snowden gets a movie out of the deal and gets idolized. Meanwhile real whistleblowers are tossed in jail, charged under the 100 year old espionage act, or if they are of any significance get the Michael Hastings treatment
Snowden is a double-agent in a turf war. He is not more complicated than that. In short, the CIA wants what the NSA will not share.
<<why would he re-hash some old hat surveillance stuff that was 'leaked' by previous whistleblowers in 03' and 07-08? >>
-- because Snowden does not oppose government surveillance.
Pay close attention to what Snowden has always said. His goal was/still is to "open a public dialogue" over mass surveillance. He wants to lead the public into consenting to surveillance. The praetorians win no matter what. If the sheeple ignore government surveillance and choose eyePhone+Kardashian, then the sheeple have consented to everything --- that is the MO of the elite.
"I did this to give the American people a chance to decide for themselves the kind of government they want to have." Who the hell talks like that??
Just watched it. That is one of the better 9/11 movies I have seen. Thanks to you and Banzai7!
< Balance of power shifting OR
< Enemy feigning retreat
Balance of power shifting - temporarily. Result will be Total War.
Probably the best remedy for the corruption of the US Constitution is to use the Constitution itself as the means of correcting the corruption per Article V and a convention of states.
The convention should be underpinned by one fundamental principle to permeate throughout each issue addressed.
The principle being that of establishing the correct identification of Individual Rights and that any appeal for a constitution at all is for the protection of Individual Rights.
This pretty much is all inclusive of every ailment indicative of a sickened civilization.
Be careful what you wish for. Our challenges right now seem to come from an unwillingness and inability to live by the principles set forth in our current constitution and amendments (which seem to be perfectly fine). IMHO, opening the door to wholesale changes in the name of modernizing our constitution would thoroughly gut any remaining obstacles to creating an Orwellian nightmare for the masses. Would you really trust the clowns who are running the current circus to make the right changes for the masses? Did you watch any of the debate about the Patriot act and US Freedom Act? <sarc> Perhaps we should give the president fast-track authority to make all changes in secret for a final up-down vote by the remaining clowns who are pretending to represent us. </sarc>
Careful with those amendments.
Once again:
Cracks In The Constitution by Ferdinand Lundberg.
Read it and understand it, my friend.
It is the current establishment which has allowed the corruption to ensue.
Are you familiar with what the Individual Rights amendment is?
It fills in the fissures of what already exists and makes it impenatrable.
The only alternative is to continue to boil like frogs.
The Orwellian nightmare is already upon the masses.
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
Turning the tide,,, sure,,, Anyone read the American Freedumb Act?
STAND WITH RAND!
Meet Edward Snowden,straight from the CIA,to the KGB
The KGB was defunct 24 years ago.
Wake up Henry.
so then, roger, are we to assume russia has no intelligence agency? I mean, really. who the hell cares if they are called kgb or the knights of columbus.
perhaps you should take your own advice.
Sorry, of course the OSS is well known.
I hear they, mossad, MI6 and some other super creepy albanian intel group are meeting in madagascar this summer for a barbeque.
should be a hoot.
There should be a Prize or something for this guy.
There is.
NSA is going to see that he gets it.
Snowden is naïve to think that there is a shift in thinking when one factors the American election into the mix. The Democratic Party, and Retardlicans, will say and do anything to worm their way into office. As soon as they gain entry the changes will be consolidated and new oppressive legislation will be enacted.
not naive, just paid.
To his credit, he is putting on a pretty good act.
I'll believe the balance of power is shifting when heads of the banksters and complicit politicians begin to roll off the guillotine.
Ed Snowden et al.,
It is especially inhumane to deceive youth.
http://patrick.net/misc/It+is+especially+inhumane+to+deceive+youth
Snowy forgot more of the Constition than dumb black muslim ever knew
Exactly. And the former loves America while the latter hates it and is determined to undermine it.
The critical point here is that the NSA represents a weapon used by the eltie rulers against the American people. And these rulers are not the US Congress or the president; the Congress and the president don’t control the currency, or any important facet of public or foreign policy.
IOW, the NSA is not “spying on its own people,” it is spying upon “We, the People,” its perceived enemy.
We are sick of tyranny by oligarch and not going to take it any more. The concentration of wealth and power must be destroyed. We will come rejoicing bringing in the thieves. Bringing in the thieves bringing in the thieves we will come rejoicing bringing in the thieves. They are DOOMed. It would be better to be a fat man and go through the eye of a needle than to be a dead man and be dead and so on.
Yes and for those who despise Snowden it should be remembered:
Matthew 13:57
And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home."
Snowden is not Jesus but his information is certainly a revelation.
It would be naive to expect the psychopaths in Washington to check their own power and suddenly start following the law.
Their surveillance has been and continues to be a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment. Probable cause has not been established and individual warrants have not been sought nor issued from an independent judge. How is this not illegal?
And why has no one been prosecuted? Because our (In)Justice Department is never going to go after one of its own. Those enforcing the laws believe they are above the law. So why would they do a 180 and start following it now?
This shit doesn't stop until the dollar collapses. When the federal checks start bouncing, the spying will stop.
Beyond naive actually.
Mr. Snowden is too optimistic. Never in history did system changed for the better without removing the bad guys first. As long as they rule and continue to replace themself with even worse one after another(Hillary next..), it will only get worse.
I wonder... Is he kind of buying himself his ticket back to USA ? Come on...
Absolutely no mention of Govn't outsourcing data collection and storage to Big Corp in the Freedom Act... It will be worse !
He is analyzing only one round of the boxing match. He surely must be more clear-eyed than this.
I am perplexed by the thinking of some.
As a taxpayer and citizen I feel the government should not be hiding anything from me, regardless of what it may be. After all the government is supposed to be for us, which in reality it isn't.
This young fella has the guts to tell his fellow citizens what .gov is up to and there are people who want to see him strung up for helping them see what is going on.
To me, those people are part of the problem that Snowden uncovered. When your neighbor rubber stamps survellance, torture, undercover sleazeball operations, the CIA, NSA and so on in the name of 'Patriotism', what kind of neighbor is he or she?
The kind of neighbor who will snitch on you in the hope they get a reward, like an extra $20 on EBT or because Obama may send them a template e-mail telling them what a great Patriot he or she is in the name of fighting terror.
Lets face it people, when someone is up to no good, like buying fertilizer to make a bomb to murder innocents, that is different than what is going on today.
People will turn in their mothers today, "Yessir, she has $2 k cash and I don't know how she got it. Damn I hate to think Mama is a terrorist, money launderer or drug dealer.' Meanwhile never thinking Mama was saving $10 a week for years to get that 2K while cleaning toilets and looking after ungrateful family members.
1 - 9 - 8 - 4
Free Manning
Sadly I believe Snoweden is being a tad naive and so are others if they think for one second that the government will cease it's spying programs. Will not happen - ever - if anything they will go darker and become more insidious.
As much as I want to believe Snowden is real, I honestly don't know what to believe. I would like to think that instead of being a puppet, the real reason the main stream media had to disclose him was that the noise elsewhere on the globe was too great.
But being a cynic, I remain cautious. I too believe that the impact is less than he wants to currently believe, even if it's greater than what he initially hoped for.
I think most are largely ignorant of who he is and what he did and what's going on. It's going to take something really ugly to wake people up - like Elysium, hunger games, Soylent green ugly. My guess is that the elite won't be that crude. And if they go crude it will either be in the form of a nuclear war or a pandemic to wipe out 90% + of the population because I can't imagine they're stupid enough to believe they can control, even with all the technology at their disposal, some 7 billion people. Perhaps even more importantly, why would they want to devote their precious resources to such a grand scale operation when they can just let the bio weapons fly?
You're right.
Most of the 'elite' do not believe that the working class or poor are human beings, but sub species which nuisance value can be eliminated like a housefly when encountering a fog of insecticide.
The Nazis believed they were superior and were working on purifying the Master Race with blond, blue eyed, specimens which were above all.
That thinking is still prevelant in circles today.
People like Bruce Jenner would be going to the camps along with blacks and those who disagreed as well as certain religions which did not conform such as the Jehova's Witnesses.
Edward Snowden. A product of 9/11, a nobody drawn to patriotic service. Apprentice spy and contractor working for team Cheney, in some ways everything about a generation of mindless and detached worker bees that the east coast elite hates. But before he…
Alle NEWS:
http://tersee.com/#!f=de,en&q=snowden&t=text
For a spy .... he sure is greedy for face time .... OBL was "oh shucks shy" in comparison !
Anyone who thinks the buck stops at the bankers and the Jews .... isn't a Latina Lover ... is a Government Lover !
The bankers and the Jews are the government.
Snowden did not release jack. He handed it all to a captured media. Its simply yet another chain yank. As usual we are getting played this time too. Come on guys WAKE UP!
Along with Diane Feinstein, Hillary Clinton and the Congressional leaders of the Republican Party, your position is that whatever Snowden has given us should be returned to the secrets being kept by the government. Have you missed the fact that your freedoms are being reduced almost daily by this government? And you would ask that we all go back to sleep and trust it?
If you believe the international bankers and their spy agencies have the interests of the American people at heart, you are making a fatal mistake at a time when America’s entire future is on the line.
The debate boils down to this: Those who admire Snowden and believe his information is critical to the American people and their freedom and those who completely trust the government and tilt toward totalitarianism under the rallying banner of Socialism.
Dont talk to me about beliefs. Prove it to me. Notice Ed never mentions that the only way this gets resolved is first knowing what they have been doing. Then and only then could we make an informed choice.The very notion that we should or could make a good choice without knowing the truth is just silly.
Who did they blackmail? How many did they blackmail,extort,frame or just kill? We can believe all kinda stuff? What do we know? Until we know the true extent we dont know jack.
Apparently one of us does not know jack. Let's pretend that the American people are in a fight for the sovereignty of their country; if they are not, the political events of the last few years are a staged mirage.
To save ourselves and our nation we need as much information as we can get. The Boston Tea Party started with information. Ignorance is not bliss.
"As director of intelligence for a Congression Committee investigating major foundations, Lee Laurens interviewed inner-circle power brokers and condluded that they were driven by an inordinate and insatiable desire for power, prestige and wealth. 'The ones who make it to the top are able to conceal their lust for power and wealthy by wrapping themselves in a cloak of philanthropy or public service.' Laurens added that to make it to the top, the power broker must be acceptable to the inner-circle of the Council on Foreign Relations." -- Robert Goldsborough, The New World Order.
If you want a profile of an inner circled power-broker take a look at Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Stanley Fischer and/or Robert S. Strauss, among others.
If you want to understand the new world order, read Tragedy and Hope by Dr. Carroll Quigley who spilled the beans on the plot to destroy the U.S.
If he has no security clearance anymore, how the fuck does he know?
Methinks Snowden is over optimistic on the rolling back of mass state surveillance.
In reality it will only happen when the tipping point arrives. But like so many other predicted events - like CRASH II - the timing is difficult to predict, but it has not happened yet. History informs us that such major changes happen when people have nothing else to lose and they tear down the existing apparatus and start again. We haven't got there yet but when it arrives, it will be very sudden and take us by surprise.