Last week, Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) broke the news that Barack was having all the Verizon phone calls seized (who was called, who did the calling, how long the calls lasted). As Matthew Mosk, James Gordon Meek and Lee Ferran (ABC News) pointed out yesterday, "In the case of Greenwald's phone monitoring report, The Guardian published a Top Secret order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was extraordinary in part because it was the first known leak in the super secret court's 35-year history, according to insiders." A day after the Verizon revelation came news of the spying Barack authorized of the internet.
Today Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras (Guardian -- link is text and video) report on Ed Snowden the Booz Allen Hamilton contractor who provided the documents for the reports by the Guardian and the Washington Post and who recently left the US for Hong Kong:
The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.
Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.
In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."
Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing."
Whether that's possible or not, who knows? Some will feel he came forward to early in the story and certainly there will be efforts to discredit him. Barbara Starr and Holly Yan (CNN) quote Ralph Cossa sneering, "I'm sure the guy had an overactive Mother Teresa gene." I didn't know that having a Mother Teresa gene -- active or overactive -- would be a bad thing. But I didn't know that Cossa would be quoted and not identified. He's the President of Pacific Forum CSIS -- part of the War Hawk Center for Strategic and International Studies. Pentagon mouthpiece for NPR Tom Gjelten spoke with Linda Wertheimer about Snowden on today's Morning Edition (NPR). Tom offers such 'insight' as, "He seems to be what we'd normally call a geek." Tom also insists, "He actually suggested in that interview that the CIA might send the mafia after him. That seems maybe a little far fetched." Who knew Tom could stand on his hind legs so long? DoD, get that little doggie a treat.
Actually, Ed Snowden offered the many ways he could be gotten too in Hong Kong -- including rendention, including the CIA paying off The Triad -- China's organized crime I could be rendered by the CIA, I could have people come after me or any of their third party partners. You know, they work closely with a number of other nations. Or, you know, they could pay off The Triads, any of their agents or assets. We've got a CIA station just up the road, the consulate up in Hong Kong, and I'm sure they're going to be very busy for the next week." You can stream that interview here.
It was cute of Tom to say "mafia" and make people think of some scene out of The Godfather. It wasn't very honest, but have we ever Tom to be honest? No. The Triad is the Chinese mafia. Although other elements of the Chinese mafia have been targeted by the US government,as Jake Adelstein (Daily Beast) explained last September, The Triad hasn't been targeted:
It should be noted that the U.S. government has still not designated the Triads, China’s mafia, as a significant criminal organization, according to U.S. government sources largely due to lack of cooperation from Hong Kong, Macau, and China. Also, the same sources say that Chinese lobbyists and some influential Las Vegas casino operators have pushed hard to keep the Triads off the list for fear that it would jeopardize their “cash-cow” casino operations in Macau.
Should he be worried? He just went public late yesterday. But Tammy Mori (KHON -- link is text and video) reports, "Honolulu Police reportedly came to the house Wednesday, looking for Snowden but he had already moved out on May 1." The house was the rent house Ed Snowden and his girlfriend lived in. The police stopped by Wednesday, June 5th. That's interesting because Glenn Greenwald's scoop went up late Wednesday June 5th. (See this post at Ann's site from just after midnight Thursday morning.) So Honolulu Police were out at Ed Snowden's rent house in Hawaii on June 5th for what reason? And, again, Ed Snowden wasn't even identified as the leaker until yesterday.
Barbara Kollmeyer (MarketWatch) notes, "So far, the online petition to 'Pardon Edward Snowden' has pulled in over 8,000 signatures — well away from the 100,000 it needs to rack up by July 9 to get the White House’s attention. The petition was started the day prior." But maybe by coming forward so early, the focus can remain on what the documents contained and revealed? Amy Davidson (The New Yorker) reminded people of what that was yesterday:
So far, the leaks have revealed that the N.S.A. is collecting records from Verizon Business (and, it emerged, from any number of other companies) for every phone call placed in the United States; that, with a program called Prism and some degree of coöperation from technology companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Apple, it is looking at the private data of both foreigners it targeted and—“incidentally”—Americans a degree or even two removed from them; that another program, called Boundless Informant, processed billions of pieces of domestic data each month, and many times that from abroad. We also learned that James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, flat-out lied to the Senate when he said that the N.S.A. did not “wittingly” collect any sort of data on millions of Americans. And we were reminded of how disappointing President Obama can be. These were all things the public deserved to know.
Barton Gellman, Aaron Blake and Greg Miller (Guardian) reported last night:
Asked whether he believes that his disclosures will change anything, he said: “I think they already have. Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.”
Snowden said nobody had been aware of his actions, including those closest to him. He said there was no single event that spurred his decision to leak the information, but he said President Obama has failed to live up to his pledges of transparency.
“My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them,” he said in a note that accompanied the first document he leaked to The Post.
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Isaiah's latest goes up after the next entry does. On this week's Law and Disorder Radio, an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) topics addressed include political prisoner Lynne Stewart, Bradley Manning, nutty Chris Hedges (no, they'll never call him out on this show -- they will never even note that he was the first NYT reporter to put the false link between Iraq and 9-11 on the front page of the paper), Robert Meeropol speaks about Carry it Forward: Celebrate the Children of Resistance – 60th Anniversary of Rosenberg Execution on Sunday June 16, 2013 and Michael Ratner's niece Lizzy Ratner talks about actions in NYC.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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