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Are Whistleblowers heroes or traitors?
Patriots and heroes fall in the same category; a patriot is a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors. And a hero is a person noted for courageous acts or nobility of character.
Secrets that should not be hidden from the people. In this era of government’s secrecy, whistleblowers are patriots no less important than heroes that take the risk on their lives to expose the darkest secrets of governments.
Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA technician is my favorite whistleblower and hero, because his revelations have the most benefit for the people not just in the US but for the whole world.
Snowden’s Twitter’s status says in few words his motivations to expose
the NSA’s spying program.
He told the Guardian he worked for a major U.S. government contractor in Hawaii, earning a six-figure salary and enjoying the scenic state with his girlfriend. And he chose to leave everything behind to alert the public of the massive government surveillance program.
Snowden said that governments should be a transparent agency that work for the people and should be accountable and hiding secrets is not the best way to serve the people.
He is a hero in all the extension of the word and he should to be protected, defended, and supported for what his revelations and endeavor; in doing so, we will be defending ourselves, our privacy, security and most importantly defending our constitutional rights, that ultimately are the only protection we have.
Some of Snowden’s leaks suggested the NSA had misled Congress about the scope of its domestic spying activities.
In a Senate hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied when asked if NSA collects information on Millions of Americans. We only know that NSA spying on all of us thanks to Snowden’s revelations.
Now we know better not to say things in the phone that can be heard by prying ears.
Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, although not a whistleblower in my opinion, he is an extraordinary journalist who has tasked himself with serving as a vehicle for whistleblowers to leak governments’ secrets and publish them WikiLeaks.
Recently President Donald Trump said the government will prosecute those who leak government secrets, in my opinion, Trump is trying to instill fear in journalists, not only on whistleblowers.
Remember it was the New York Times who revealed the Pentagon Papers and The Guardian that published Snowden’s revelations.
At one point, the Director of National Intelligence Mike Pompeo called for Snowden execution, “He should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think that the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence for having put friends of mine, friends of yours, in the military today, at enormous risk because of the information he stole and then released to foreign powers.”
I believe whistleblowers feel, that people deserve to know the truth, even as the government hides and denies the facts. Whistleblowers put their lives at risk for the sake of other people making more informed decisions, which is a heroic act.
Snowden a year later-message to ACLU’s supporters
A Message From Edward Snowden, One Year Later
Below is an email ACLU supporters received from Edward Snowden this morning, one year to the day since The Guardian broke the first in a series of revelations exposing the breathtaking scope of U.S. government surveillance. Click here for a new video documenting the incredible events of the last year, along with a timeline and the ACLU’s guide to privacy reform.
It’s been one year.
Technology has been a liberating force in our lives. It allows us to create and share the experiences that make us human, effortlessly. But in secret, our very own government — one bound by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights — has reverse-engineered something beautiful into a tool of mass surveillance and oppression. The government right now can easily monitor whom you call, whom you associate with, what you read, what you buy, and where you go online and offline, and they do it to all of us, all the time.
Today, our most intimate private records are being indiscriminately seized in secret, without regard for whether we are actually suspected of wrongdoing. When these capabilities fall into the wrong hands, they can destroy the very freedoms that technology should be nurturing, not extinguishing. Surveillance, without regard to the rule of law or our basic human dignity, creates societies that fear free expression and dissent, the very values that make America strong.
In the long, dark shadow cast by the security state, a free society cannot thrive.
That’s why one year ago I brought evidence of these irresponsible activities to the public — to spark the very discussion the U.S. government didn’t want the American people to have. With every revelation, more and more light coursed through a National Security Agency that had grown too comfortable operating in the dark and without public consent. Soon incredible things began occurring that would have been unimaginable years ago. A federal judge in open court called an NSA mass surveillance program likely unconstitutional and “almost Orwellian.” Congress and President Obama have called for an end to the dragnet collection of the intimate details of our lives. Today legislation to begin rolling back the surveillance state is moving in Congress after more than a decade of impasse.
I am humbled by our collective successes so far. When the Guardian and The Washington Post began reporting on the NSA’s project to make privacy a thing of the past, I worried the risks I took to get the public the information it deserved would be met with collective indifference.
One year later, I realize that my fears were unwarranted.
Americans, like you, still believe the Constitution is the highest law of the land, which cannot be violated in secret in the name of a false security. Some say I’m a man without a country, but that’s not true. America has always been an ideal, and though I’m far away, I’ve never felt as connected to it as I do now, watching the necessary debate unfold as I hoped it would. America, after all, is always at our fingertips; that is the power of the Internet.
But now it’s time to keep the momentum for serious reform going so the conversation does not die prematurely.
Only then will we get the legislative reform that truly reins in the NSA and puts the government back in its constitutional place. Only then will we get the secure technologies we need to communicate without fear that silently in the background, our very own government is collecting, collating, and crunching the data that allows unelected bureaucrats to intrude into our most private spaces, analyzing our hopes and fears. Until then, every American who jealously guards their rights must do their best to engage in digital self-defense and proactively protect their electronic devices and communications. Every step we can take to secure ourselves from a government that no longer respects our privacy is a patriotic act.
We’ve come a long way, but there’s more to be done.
— Edward J. Snowden, American
Watch the Video
Whistleblower Edward Snowden granted Asylum in Russia
Published on August 1, 2013 by Akashma Online News
UPDATED
by Marivel Guzman
published in RT
Good News for Freedom, Edward Snowden the American whistleblower leaves the transit area of Russia.
The words that shook the US on June 9, 2013 when Edward Snowden from a hotel in Hong Kong gave a video interview to Laura Poitras, who made the video public in the interest of society. She published it under the Fair Use Notice Act.
“Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.”
This was the beginning of NSA nightmare for the US officials.
Now the waters are receding for everyone involved, but not for Edward Snowden, he still face very serious criminals charges if he ever is brought to the US.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and is allowed to enter the country’s territory.
This move would allow him to maneuver and apply for citizenship in another country, so he can hold a passport to take a plane to fly finally to the country that offered him permanent asylum.
Good News for Snowden he is allowed to leave the transit area of the airport and finally breath some freedom, at least for now.
He is not completely free, as long as the US consider him fugitive, Snowden it is in risk of being targeted for assassination, and who knows if Israel’s Mossad will lend a hand to their financial supporters in exchange to stir the mood in the EU after they boycotted Israel economic aid against the illegal settlements. But
Knowing the shady political relations of US/Russia we are in the dark as the secret deals these two countries make in behalf of their banking masters.
For now all the eyes are in Snowden and that gives him a cloud of security. The US could not attempt a drone strike in Russian territory, it is not in its best interest, this could open up an ego wound on the pride of Russia. One thing is to have diplomatic relations on the light of the camera, but another thing is to allow US to openly brake the sovereign of Russia flying in its skies.
The whistleblower has been granted temporary political asylum in Russia, Snowden’s legal representative Anatoly Kucherena said, with his words later confirmed by Russia’s Federal Migration service.
“I have just handed over to him papers from the Russian Immigration Service. They are what he needs to leave the transit zone,” he added.
Kucherena showed a photocopy of the document to the press. According to it, Snowden is free to stay in Russia until at least July 31, 2014. His asylum status may be extended annually upon request.
With his newly-awarded legal status in Russia, Snowden cannot be handed over to the US authorities, even if Washington files an official request. He can now be transported to the United States only if he agrees to go voluntarily.
Snowden departed at around 15.30 Moscow time (11.30 GMT), airport sources said. His departure came some 30 minutes before his new refugee status was officially announced.
Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights States:
- (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
- (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
His present location has not been made public nor will it be disclosed, Kucherena said.
“He is the most wanted person on earth and his security will be a priority,” the attorney explained. “He will deal with personal security issues and lodging himself. I will just consult him as his lawyer.”
Snowden eventually intends to talk to the press in Russia, but needs at least one day of privacy, Kucherena said.
The whistleblower was unaccompanied when he left the airport in a regular taxi, Kucherena added.
However, WikiLeaks contradicted the lawyer, saying the organization’s activist Sarah Harrison accompanied Snowden.
FLASH: We can now confirm that Edward Snowden’s welfare has been continuously monitored by WikiLeaks staff since his presence in Hong Kong.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 1, 2013
Russia is confident that the latest development in the Snowden case will not affect US President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Moscow, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said.
“We are aware of the atmosphere being created in the US over Snowden, but we didn’t get any signals [indicating a possible cancellation of the visit] from American authorities,” he told RIA Novosti.
Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor, came to international prominence after leaking several classified documents detailing massive electronic surveillance by the US government and foreign allies who collaborated with them.
Snowden was hiding out in a Hong Kong hotel when he first went public in May. Amidst mounting US pressure on both Beijing and local authorities in the former-British colony to hand the whistleblower over for prosecution, Snowden flew to Moscow on June 23.
Moscow was initially intended as a temporary stopover on his journey, as Snowden was believed to be headed to Ecuador via Cuba. However, he ended up getting stranded at Sheremetyevo Airport after the US government revoked his passport. Snowden could neither leave Russia nor enter it, forcing him to remain in the airport’s transit zone.
In July, Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia, a status that would allow him to live and work in the country for one year. Kucherena earlier said the fugitive whistleblower is considering securing permanent residency in Russia, where he will attempt to build a life.
President Nicolas Maduro said asylum would be “seriously” considered if sought. Snowden deserves a “humanitarian medal,” he added.
“If this young man is punished, nobody in the world will ever dare to tell the truth,” he stressed.
He’s a man of his word. It’s official. Maduro granted Snowden asylum. He did so on Venezuela’s Day of Independence. Global Research
Related News to Edward Snowden
Facebook, Apple, Microsoft Partner With Privacy Groups To Call For NSA Transparency
Posted on July 18, 2013 by Akashma Online News
By Gerry Smith
First Published at The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is owned by AOL, which also signed the letter and has denied knowledge of the NSA surveillance program.
A coalition of major tech companies and civil liberties groups on Thursday sent a letter to President Barack Obama calling for more transparency around a secret government program that collects private Internet and phone records.
In the letter, the companies argued that Americans “are entitled to have an informed public debate” about surveillance requests. The coalition urged the Obama administration to allow companies to report statistics about the number of national security requests they receive from government agencies for customer data.
The letter said the government should also issue its own regular “transparency report” disclosing that information.
“Basic information about how the government uses its various law enforcement–related investigative authorities has been published for years without any apparent disruption to criminal investigations,” the letter reads. “We seek permission for the same information to be made available regarding the government’s national security–related authorities.”
“This information about how and how often the government is using these legal authorities is important to the American people, who are entitled to have an informed public debate about the appropriateness of those authorities and their use,” the letter continues.
The companies addressed their petition to President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, NSA Director Keith Alexander, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper and several members of Congress. It was signed by more than 20 tech companies and more than 30 trade associations and privacy groups — including Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Silicon Valley and privacy groups do not always agree over privacy matters, making their partnership for the letter noteworthy. Tech companies have faced widespread criticism in recent weeks over reports that they cooperated with the government’s secret Internet spying program. Many tech giants have expressed frustration that they are prohibited by law from discussing the surveillance orders.
The nation’s largest phone companies, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless, were not part of the coalition that signed the letter and have remained quiet about their participation in the NSA surveillance program, as Time.com noted.
The letter comes amid growing calls for greater disclosure about the NSA’s collection of phone and Internet records and a push from members of Congress to scale back the surveillance program, which was disclosed last month in a series of stories in The Guardian and Washington Post.
Disclosure: The Huffington Post is owned by AOL, which also signed the letter and has denied knowledge of the NSA surveillance program.
Edward Snowden Statement 11 a:m, according to WikiLeaks Team
Update 11 a.m.: Here’s the transcript of Snowden’s remarks,
Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.
It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.
I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”
Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.
That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.
Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president’s plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.
Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.
I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future. With, for example, the grant of asylum provided by Venezuela’s President Maduro, my asylee status is now formal, and no state has a basis by which to limit or interfere with my right to enjoy that asylum. As we have seen, however, some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today. This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights.
This willingness by powerful states to act extra-legally represents a threat to all of us, and must not be allowed to succeed. Accordingly, I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as these states accede to law and my legal travel is permitted. I will be submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be accepted favorably.
If you have any questions, I will answer what I can.
Thank you.
This post has been updated with additional information as it became available.
Edward Snowden Has Accepted Russian Asylum Offer
Published on July 13, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Snowden will have to agree not to continue releasing documents harmful to the US.
Photo Credit: Tanya Lokshina / Human Rights Watch
This article was originally published by This Can’t Be Happening.
Edward Snowden, the bete noir of the US national security state, who has leaked information that the National Security Agency is spying on all electronic communications of Americans, and on hundreds of millions of others around the globe, as well as on the leaders and the embassies of even many US allies, is accepting an offer of political asylum that has been extended by Russia, where he has been spending weeks in limbo in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, unable to fly to asylum elsewhere because of heavy-handed US pressure.
According to an RT-TV report [1], Snowden, in accepting the Russian offer, will have to abide by a condition set by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he not continue releasing documents harmful to the US.
This deal leaves a lot of questions unanswered:
First of all, Snowden has already turned over a huge trove of information to reporters at the Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper in the UK, as well as lesser amounts of documents to Der Spiegel magazine in Germany and to other publications in other countries. It would appear that he can no longer control, at this point, whether or not those news organizations continue to publish articles based on the documents in their possession, It is also unclear what the Russian government response would be concerning Snowden’s protected status should any of those organizations, as is likely, continue to publish embarrassing or damaging disclosures about the NSA. Asked by reporters at an airport press conference whether he would continue to release details about the NSA himself while in Russia, Snowden’s answer was simple: “My job is done.” That “job,” though, was providing the leaked information to reporters. Snowden himself has not publicly disclosed the information.
Snowden also correctly pointed out the distinction between “damaging America,” and exposing the NSA. “No actions I take or plan are meant to harm the US… I want the US to succeed,” he said in answer to a question. Would Putin consider further leaks about the US government’s spying on its own citizens “damaging” to America? Open question.
Liveleak.com video of Friday’s Snowden press conference for Right Group Activists in Moscow airport
In any event, Putin has made clear that Russia would never extradite Snowden. As he put it, “Russia has never extradited anyone and is not going to do so. Same as no one has ever been extradited to Russia.” Besides, the cat’s already out of the bag, in terms of the big revelations Snowden made public.
The RT-TV report also suggests that Snowden and Russia may be looking at the asylum situation there as less than a lifetime arrangement. It appears to be a way for Russia to get him out of the airport, into Russia, to further tweak the US, and to put Snowden in an official status where he could be provided with travel documents as a matter of course, as would an asylum grantee in the US
This could enable him to quietly leave Russia later for another location after some time has passed. The RT story significantly quotes Tatyana Lokshina of Human Rights Watch as saying Snowden is seeking to stay in Russia because he “can’t fly to Latin America yet.”
Three Latin American countries so far–Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua– have offered Snowden asylum without conditions, but he has been unable to safely travel to any of them, given the already demonstrated US threat to force his plane to land. (American authorities exerted pressure on French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish governments to refuse their airspace, in violation of international law, to a presidential plane carrying Bolivia’s leader, Evo Morales, to fly home from a state visit to Russia, forcing it to land in Austria, where the government was pressed to illegally inspect the plane, which the US incorrectly suspected was transporting Snowden to asylum in Bolivia.) At the airport conference, Snowden said he had accepted all three of those offers of asylum, as well as Russia’s. “I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future,” Snowden said, after meeting with human rights lawyers earlier.
Second Part of the Original Video made public by The Guardian
Glenn Greenwald: “Snowden has information for more damage”
Published on July 13, 2013 by Akashma Online News
The journalist who received the leaks from the CIA Mole said there are more documents
By Alberto Armendariz | LA NACION
RIO DE JANEIRO. – Smoke and Mirrors. With his striped bathing suit, his white sandals, his jean jacket and a backpack, Glenn Greenwald seems like a tourist walking along the promenade of Sao Conrado, Rio de Janeiro. But it is the journalist, blogger and columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian who surprised the world with revelations about the extensive network of U.S. cyber espionage that was leaked by Edward Snowden, former intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency (NSA ).
“Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the U.S. government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States,” Greenwald, 46, told LA NACION, and since living in these latitudes writes regularly on international security issues which has made him famous, winner of several distinguished awards.
Today, the New Yorker, a former lawyer, is in the eye of the storm. Lawmakers in Washington want to put him on trial, spies of various countries seek Snowden’s secret information shared with him last month in Hong Kong and which he still sends from Moscow through an encrypted email system. He knows he’s being watched and that their conversations are monitored. They even steal the laptop from her boyfriend Rio, from their own home.
Three men wait in the lobby of the hotel Royal Tulip with credentials of a congress of osteoporosis about which the manager has no idea. Are they really doctors or are following Greenwald? Appearances are deceptive.
– Does Snowden’s decision to stay in Russia help him come to Latin America?
– Yes, the most important thing is not to end in U.S. custody, which proved extremely vindictive government to punish those who reveal uncomfortable truths, and in whose judicial system can not be trusted when it comes to people accused of endangering the national security. The judges do everything they can to secure convictions in these cases. He would be immediately put in prison to cover the debate that he helped generate, and end the rest of his days behind bars.
– Does Russia give him security guarantees?
– Not many countries in the world that have the ability and willingness to defy U.S. demands. But Russia is one of those countries and it has been good so far.
– Beyond the revelations about the spying system’s performance in general, what other information does Snowden have?
– Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the U.S. government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States. But that’s not his goal. His objective is to expose software that people around the world use without knowing that they are exposing themselves without consciously agreeing to surrender their privacy rights. He has a huge number of documents that would be very harmful to the U.S. government if they were made public.
– Are you afraid that someone will try to kill him?
– It’s a possibility, although it would not bring many benefits to anyone at this point. Thousands of documents are already distributed and to make sure that several people around the world have the entire file. If something were to happen, those documents would be made public. This is an insurance policy. The U.S. government should be on its knees every day praying that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something happens, all the information will be revealed and that would be their worst nightmare.
– Can Latin America be a good shelter for Snowden?
– Only a few countries, including several in Latin America, China and Russia, have challenged the U.S., and have realized that America is no longer in a position of strength as it did before with the rest of the world, and that the rest of the countries do not have to obey its demands as if it were an imperial order. In Latin America there is a feeling of natural sympathy for the United States, yet there is a great resentment for specific historical policies of Washington toward the region. What happened to the plane of Evo Morales in Europe caused a strong reaction, was treated as if Bolivia was a colony and not a sovereign state.
– From documents Snowden shared with you, is there much more information related to Latin America?
– Yes. For each country that has an advanced communications system, such as from Mexico to Argentina, there are documents that detail how the United States collects traffic information, the programs that are used to capture the transmissions, the number of interceptions that are performed per day, and more. One way to intercept communications is through a telephone corporation in the United States that has contracts with telecommunications companies in most Latin American countries. The important thing will be to see the reaction of the various governments. I do not think that the governments of Mexico and Colombia will do much about it. But maybe those of Argentina and Venezuela will be willing to take action.
Glenn Greenwald / Columnist, The Guardian
Profession: Journalist
Age: 46 years
Origin: United States
Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
Posted on July 11, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Hours after CNBC reported that ValueAct Capital Management threw nearly $2 billion into Microsoft Corporation, April 22, 2013
ValueAct Capital, LLC is a San Francisco based hedge fund. The firm offers its services to high net worth individuals and institutions while investing in the public equity and hedging markets of the United States.
• Files released show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply
Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.
The documents show that:
• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
• Microsoft also worked with the FBI’s Data Intercept Unit to “understand” potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
Skype has been acquired by Microsoft for a whopping $8.5 billion. News.com
• Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio;
• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a “team sport”.
The latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and the Obama administration. All the major tech firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the extent and nature of their co-operation with the NSA to meet their customers’ privacy concerns. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the process is driven by legal compulsion.
In a statement, Microsoft said: “When we upgrade or update products we aren’t absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands.” The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data “only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers”.
In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have “direct access” through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans’ communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.
Since Prism’s existence became public, Microsoft and the other companies listed on the NSA documents as providers have denied all knowledge of the program and insisted that the intelligence agencies do not have back doors into their systems.
Microsoft’s latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: “Your privacy is our priority.”
Similarly, Skype’s privacy policy states: “Skype is committed to respecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications content.”
But internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing.
The latest documents come from the NSA’s Special Source Operations (SSO) division, described by Snowden as the “crown jewel” of the agency. It is responsible for all programs aimed at US communications systems through corporate partnerships such as Prism.
The files show that the NSA became concerned about the interception of encrypted chats on Microsoft’s Outlook.com portal from the moment the company began testing the service in July last year.
Within five months, the documents explain, Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats
A newsletter entry dated 26 December 2012 states: “MS [Microsoft], working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal” with the issue. “These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012.”
Two months later, in February this year, Microsoft officially launched the Outlook.com portal.
Another newsletter entry stated that NSA already had pre-encryption access to Outlook email. “For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption.”
Microsoft’s co-operation was not limited to Outlook.com. An entry dated 8 April 2013 describes how the company worked “for many months” with the FBI – which acts as the liaison between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley on Prism – to allow Prism access without separate authorization to its cloud storage service SkyDrive.
The document describes how this access “means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this – a process step that many analysts may not have known about”.
The NSA explained that “this new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response”. It continued: “This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established.”
A separate entry identified another area for collaboration. “The FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) team is working with Microsoft to understand an additional feature in Outlook.com which allows users to create email aliases, which may affect our tasking processes.”
The NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million global users.
One document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. “The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete ‘picture’,” it says.
Eight months before being bought by Microsoft, Skype joined the Prism program in February 2011.
According to the NSA documents, work had begun on smoothly integrating Skype into Prism in November 2010, but it was not until 4 February 2011 that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general.
The NSA was able to start tasking Skype communications the following day, and collection began on 6 February. “Feedback indicated that a collected Skype call was very clear and the metadata looked complete,” the document stated, praising the co-operation between NSA teams and the FBI. “Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the Prism system.”
Janus Friis-Niklas Zennstrom founders
ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype users. “In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps,” he said. “It’s hard to square Microsoft’s secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google.”
The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies.
The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that “enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism”.
The document continues: “The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…” As a result, the author notes: “these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!”
In its statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said:
We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes.
Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren’t valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate.
Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That’s why we’ve argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues.
In a joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said:
The articles describe court-ordered surveillance – and a US company’s efforts to comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy.
They added: “In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which they operate.”
Edward Snowden Der Spiegel Interview
Posted on July 11, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Interview Translated from the original Der Spiegel Magazine interview German Version by Anonymous
Just before Edward Snowden became a world famous whistleblower, he answered an extensive catalog of questions. These came from, amongst others, Jacob Appelbaum, 30, a developer of encryption and security software. Appelbaum educates international human rights groups and journalists on how to work with the Internet in safe and anonymous way.
He became more publicly know in 2010, when he represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking at a hacker conference in New York. Along with Assange and other co-authors he has recently published the interview recording “Cypher Punks: Our Freedom and the future of the Internet.”
In the course of investigations into the WikiLeaks disclosures, Appelbaum came to the attention of American authorities, who demanded companies such as Twitter and Google to divulge his accounts. He himself describes his attitude to WikiLeaks as “ambivalent” – and describes below how it came about that he was able to ask Snowden these questions.
In mid-May I was contacted by the documentary-maker Laura Poitras. She told me, that at this time she was in contact with an anonymous NSA source, which had consented to be interviewed by her.
She put together questions and asked me to contribute questions. This was, among other reasons, to determine whether she was really dealing with a NSA whistleblower. We sent our questions via encrypted e-mails. I did not know that the interlocutor was Edward Snowden until he revealed himself as such in public in Hong Kong. He did not know who I was. I had expected that he was someone in their sixties.
The following is an excerpt from a extensive interview which dealt with further points, many of them technical in nature. Some of the questions now appear in a different order to understand the context.
The discussion focused almost exclusively on the activities of the National Security Agency. It is important to know that these questions were not asked as relating to the events of the past week or the last month. They were entirely asked without any unrest, since, at that point, Snowden was still in Hawaii.
At a later stage I was again in direct contact with Snowden, at which time I also revealed my own my identity. He told me then that he gave consent to publish his statements.
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Question: What is the mission of the National Security Agency (NSA) – and how is their job in accordance with the law?
Snowden: It is the mission of the NSA, to be aware of anything of importance going on outside of the United States. This is a considerable task, and the people there are convinced that not knowing everything about everyone could lead to some existential crisis. So, at some point, you believe it’s all right is to bend the rules a little. Then, if people hate it that you can bend the rules, it suddenly becomes vital even to to break them.
Question: Are German authorities or politicians involved in the monitoring system ?
Snowden: Yes of course. They (the NSA people — ed.) are in cahoots with the Germans, as well as with the most other Western countries. We (in the U.S. intelligence apparatus — ed.) warn the others, when someone we want to catch, uses one of their airports – and they then deliver them to us. The information on this, we can for example pull off of the monitored mobile phone of a suspected hacker’s girlfriend — who used it in an entirely different country which has nothing to do with the case. The other authorities do not ask us where got the leads, and we do not ask them anything either. That way, they can protect their political staff from any backlash if it came out how massive the global violation of people’s privacy is.
Question: But now as details of this system are revealed, who will be put before a court over this?
Snowden: Before U.S. courts? You’re not serious, are you? When the last large wiretapping scandal was investigated – the interception without a court order, which concerned millions of communications – that should really have led to the longest prison sentences in world history. However, then our highest representatives simply stopped the investigation. The question, who is to be accused, is theoretical, if the laws themselves are not respected. Laws are meant for people like you or me – but not for them.
Question: Does the NSA cooperate with other states like Israel?
Snowden: Yes, all the time. The NSA has a large section for that, called the FAD – Foreign Affairs Directorate.
Question: Did the NSA help to write the Stuxnet program? (the malicious program used against the Iranian nuclear facilities — ed.)
Snowden: The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together.
Question: What are the major monitoring programs active today, and how do international partners help the NSA?
Snowden: The partners in the “Five Eyes” (behind which are hidden the secret services of the Americans, the British, the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians — ed.) sometimes go even further than the NSA people themselves. Take the Tempora program of the British intelligence GCHQ for instance. Tempora is the first “I save everything” approach (“Full take”) in the intelligence world. It sucks in all data, no matter what it is, and which rights are violated by it. This buffered storage allows for subsequent monitoring; not a single bit escapes. Right now, the system is capable of saving three days’ worth of traffic, but that will be optimized. Three days may perhaps not sound like a lot, but it’s not just about connection metadata. “Full take” means that the system saves everything. If you send a data packet and if makes its way through the UK, we will get it. If you download anything, and the server is in the UK, then we get it. And if the data about your sick daughter is processed through a London call center, then … Oh, I think you have understood.
Question: Can anyone escape?
Snowden: Well, if you had the choice, you should never send information over British lines or British servers. Send even the Queen’s selfies with her lifeguards would be recorded, if they existed.
Question: Do the NSA and its partners apply some kind of wide dragnet method to intercept phone calls, texts and data?
Snowden: Yes, but how much they can record, depends on the capabilities of the respective taps. Some data is held to be more worthwhile, and can therefore be recorded more frequently. But all this is rather a problem with foreign tapping nodes, less with those of the U.S. This makes the monitoring in their own territory so terrifying. The NSA’s options are practically limitless – in terms of computing power, space or cooling capacity for the computers.
Question: The NSA is building a new data center in Utah. What is it for?
Snowden: These are the new mass data storage facilities.
Question: For how long will the information there be stored?
Snowden: Right now it is still so, that the full text of collected material ages very quickly, within a few days, especially given its enormous amount. Unless an analyst marked a target or a particular communication. In that case the communication is saved for all eternity, one always get an authorization for that anyway. The metadata ages less quickly. The NSA at least wants all metadata to be stored forever. Often the metadata is more valuable than the contents of the communication, because in most cases, one can retrieve the content, if there is metadata. And if not, you mark all future communications that fits this metadata and is of interest, so that henceforth it will be recorded completely. The metadata tells you what you actually want from the broader stream.
Question: Do private companies help the NSA?
Snowden: Yes. But it’s hard to prove that. The names of the cooperating telecom companies are the crown jewels of the NSA… Generally you can say that multinationals with headquarters in the USA should not be trusted until they prove otherwise. This is unfortunate, because these companies have the ability to deliver the world’s best and most reliable services – if they wanted to. To facilitate this, civil rights movements should now use these revelations as a driving force. The Companies should write enforceable clauses into their terms, guaranteeing their clients that they are not being spied on. And they should include technical guarantees. If you could move even a single company to do such a thing, it would improve the security of global communications. And when this appears to not be feasible, you should consider starting one such company yourself.
Q: Are there companies that refuse to to cooperate with the NSA?
Snowden: Yes, but I know nothing of a corresponding list that would meet this. However, there would surely be more companies of this type, if the companies working with the NSA would be punished by the customer. That should be the highest priority of all computer users who believe in the freedom of thoughts.
Question: What are the sites you should beware, if you do not want to become targeted by the NSA?
Snowden: Normally one is marked as a target because of a Facebook profile or because of your emails. The only place which I personally know where you can become a target without this specific labeling, are jihadist forums.
Question: What happens if the NSA has a user in its sights?
Snowden: The target person is completely monitored. An analyst will get a daily report about what has changed in the computer system of the targeted person. There will also be… packages with certain data which the automatic analysis systems have not understood, and so on. The analyst can then decide what he wants to do – the computer of the target person does not belong to them anymore, it then more or less belongs to the U.S. government.
CIA whistleblower Speaks candidly of the right of Information
Posted on June 09, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Laura Poitras, an American documentary film director and producer, made public her video interview with Edward Snowden CIA leaker of the bomb shell Prims spying program taking place in the US since 2007, and Anonymous made binpasted a series of documents exposing even further 35 countries spying programs including Gig and Prism.
When people speaks of free speech, we speak passionately about a subject matter, or an issue that interest us. It is not only about yelling in the street of what I like to say or what I love to do, but about what everyone’s right to say what they like and and defending everyone’s audacity to do thing. The audacity to be let to do what they like. Not necessarily speaking hate language that insult others, or walking naked in the street expressing my willingness to take the world with clean face, with no makeup, no disguises of any kind. Free speech is more than just that.
Free speech encompasses absolutely everything. No matter how outrageous you think it is. No matter how insulting it sounds for some. No matter how immoral looks like to others. Free speech is about freedom, and freedom has no boundaries. The world of the free. The state of feeling free, the domain of freedom.
When whistle-blowers uncover information that needs to be made public because it is in the best interest of the people, then they are exercising their right of free speech. If this contravene their contract with the agency that contracted them, they have the right to quit, or the agency has the right to terminate the subject that had broken the contract. Should be easier as that.
We live in a free society where censorship is against the law, where spying is against the law, where invasion of privacy is against the law. We live in a free society in all the extent of the word.
So, why is the big deal when a person speaks rightfully his mind?
Why it is a big deal? When a person disclosure information he deems important to the others to know. Should be in the free exercise of his domain of freedom of speech. On this terrain our free society is walking in a thin line of interpretations, a shaky ground of definitions, where laws are interpreted to convenience, where laws are enacted to convenience of certain groups.
Our free society, it is not more free than a dog in a leash. A dog that has the freedom to eat from its bowl when it choses to, to bark at its pleasure, to drink from his water when thirsty, to enter his mini jail shelter anytime it wants to, and to walk the three meters around his post.
Is this what free society looks like to you?, hypothetically speaking we have the protection of the constitution of the United States of America. Why when it comes to expose dirty secrets of the people ruling our government, free speech become treasonous act?
Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant, said he had been working at the super-secret NSA as an employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and decided to break his silence after becoming disenchanted with Obama, whom he said had continued the policies of predecessor George W. Bush.
Snowden speaks in a video interview with Glenn Greenwald from his Hong Kong’s hotel, saying that he chose Hong Kong for being an autonomous territory that is famous for its protests in the street and free speech, he said.
The Guardian and the Washington Post recently published a ‘leaked’ information from a CIA whistleblower, news that went viral around the globe for their controversial content.
In their initial reporting neither of the two newspapers disclosed the source of their information, but three days later a video has emerged with the Self Proclaim CIA leaker, Edward Snowen, a 29 years old former technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency being interviewed by Gleen Greenwald for a film by Laura Poitras an American documentary film director and producer.
Snowden said that he came public with this information because he does not want to live this way, he went on to say that when you are in a position of privileged access like a system administrator, you are exposed to disturbing things, and recognized that this things need to be known by the public. National Security Agency takes information from where ever it can, and spying is one way to do it, he says.
I think that the public its own an explanation of the motivation behind the people who makes this disclosure that are outside of the democratic model, when you are subverting the power of the government, that is a fundamentalist dangerous thing to do democracy, Snowden said.
Responding as why he decided to come public as a whistleblower, that people working for the government, continuously do this things in secret, he said. When the government wants to benefit from a secret action that it took. It is a kind of given to its officials the mandate to tell the press about this, this thing or that thing just to have the public in our side, he said.
He said that he is just another guy without special skills and he thinks that the public is the ones that needs to decide on important issues not the government. He said that he is willing to go in the record to prove the authenticity of these documents.
“I did not change this, I did not modify the story, this is the truth, this is whats happening, you should decide whether we should be doing this”
Also Anonymous posted in Pastebin on Friday a series of documents exposing Gig and Prism programs, both programs saying that 35 countries are spying on their citizens,
“These documents prove that the NSA is spying on you, and not just Americans. They are spying on the citizens of over 35 different countries.These documents contain information on the companies involved in GiG, and Prism.Whats GiG you might ask? well…The GIG will enable the secure, agile, robust, dependable, interoperable data sharing environment for the Department where warfighter, business, and intelligence users share knowledge on a global network that facilitates information superiority, accelerates decision-making, effective operations, and Net-Centric transformation.Like we said, this is happening in over 35 countries, and done in cooperation with private businesses, and intelligence partners world wide.We bring this to you, So that you know just how little rights you have. Your privacy and freedoms are slowly being taken from you, in closed door meetings, in laws buried inbills, and by people who are supposed to be protecting you.Download these documents, share them, mirror them, don’t allow them to make them disappear. Spread them wide and far. Let these people know, that we will not be silenced, that we will not be taken advantage of, and that we are not happy about this unwarranted, unnecessary, unethical spying of our private lives, for the monetary gain of the 1%.” Anonymous
Copyright © 2013 Praxis Films / Laura Poitras
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this video is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
To close this article let me remind you of a guy name Pellicano, is serving a 15 years sentence for wiretapping people in behalf of his clients. Does Mr Pellicano did something worse that our US government did with PRISM Spying Program?… I don’t think so. What do you think?.
“to find me guilty “means just about every other private eye in the country is also a criminal enterprise, And maybe even some of these journalists out there.” Anthony Pellicano in his trial for wiretapping and racketing.
Laura Poitras
Director/Producer/Cinematographer
Laura Poitras was nominated for an Academy Award®, an Independent Spirit Award and an Emmy for My Country, My Country (POV 2006). She received a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy and an Independent Spirit Award for Flag Wars (POV 2003), made with Linda Goode Bryant. Poitras is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute. She has attended the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Edit and Story Lab as both a fellow and creative advisor. She is currently working on the third part of a trilogy about America post 9/11. Before making documentaries, Poitras worked as a professional chef. She lives in New York City.
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