Nsa Contractor Identifies Himself As Source

[midas]

US House votes to continue NSA's phone surveillance

"Have we forgot what happened on September 11?

Mike Rogers

House intelligence committee chairman

"Divided opinion in the US about the snooping was highlighted by a CBS News poll on Wednesday.

The survey found that 67% of Americans opposed the government's collection of phone records, but 52% said it was necessary to counter terrorism."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23445231

In this day of electronic communications ( that the powers that be are so keen to monitor ) they could have easily had a kind of referendum using the internet to vote on something so important as this . To leave this kind of decision soley to a handful of so called elected “representatives “is a farce.

[SinglePot]

52 percent of American citizens polled said it was necessary to counter terrorism.

Looks like a majority.

[Credo]

The US should be quite glad about Snowden being in Russia. They really haven't been too generous with providing him with a platform from which to express his views.

I think Mr. Snowden is going to live to regret his decision. He has done nothing to do to protect the freedoms he wishes to restore and he has now deprived himself of the ability to pursue his aims.

As he sits effectively silenced, the intelligence community is revamping it's strategy so that by the time his information is available, it will be irrelevant.

Yes I mentioned something similar in one of these threads.

Meaning in some ways I wonder if Snowden should have done anything at all given the lack of outrage.

You see more outrage over the NSA from other countries than the one with the supposed history of freedom & rights.

But I know a person like Snowden votes his conscious not what may be popular or make him popular.

He still sees a Constitution & a History of hard won rights & liberties. When he saw them being trampled he spoke out

as a real patriot would.

He knew he could not do so within the controlled area so had to do it the way he did.

Whether it harvests any couch potatoes is yet to be seen.

If not then the citizens of the USA can rest assured they have the government they deserve.

They may sleep well in the false security of having traded hard won liberties & rights for perceived temporary

security

I think it is going to be a very long time before Snowden sees a Constitution with hard won rights & liberties.

His flight from the US will pretty much assure that whatever he wanted to accomplish will NOT be accomplished; at least not by him.

[SinglePot]

don't know. better ask CBS news. I can't find the survey details on the net. maybe you can.

[mania]

I think it is going to be a very long time before Snowden sees a Constitution with hard won rights & liberties.

His flight from the US will pretty much assure that whatever he wanted to accomplish will NOT be accomplished; at least not by him.

Yes of course & I agree. also think he always knew that & was willing to pay this price.

Is he afraid at times & wonders if he did the right thing?

My guess would be yes surely same as any sane person who makes a great sacrifice for what they believe in.

At the moment of truth all who take a stand will wonder

His accomplishment stands alone & always will. That he will not accomplish it, I would guess was not the design.

"Not by him" is like saying Paul Revere was only a messenger

To alert the people is in & of itself a good deed.Even if he fails in waking them.

Edited July 25, 2013 by mania

[mania]

don't know. better ask CBS news. I can't find the survey details on the net. maybe you can.

Mai Bpen Rai as the question was rhetorical.

I know the poll is at best a couple thousand people if that

[SinglePot]

don't know. better ask CBS news. I can't find the survey details on the net. maybe you can.

Mai Bpen Rai as the question was rhetorical.

I know the poll is at best a couple thousand people if that

Probably an unrepresentative sample too.

Up to you.

[SinglePot]

I think it is going to be a very long time before Snowden sees a Constitution with hard won rights & liberties.

His flight from the US will pretty much assure that whatever he wanted to accomplish will NOT be accomplished; at least not by him.

Yes of course & I agree. also think he always knew that & was willing to pay this price.

Is he afraid at times & wonders if he did the right thing?

My guess would be yes surely same as any sane person who makes a great sacrifice for what they believe in.

At the moment of truth all who take a stand will wonder

His accomplishment stands alone & always will. That he will not accomplish it, I would guess was not the design.

"Not by him" is like saying Paul Revere was only a messenger

To alert the people is in & of itself a good deed.Even if he fails in waking them.

Wonder if he woke up the Chinese and Russian security agencies?

[mania]

Probably an unrepresentative sample too.

Probably true because if they vote for sidestepping the Constitution

they are definitely unrepresentative of myself & those I know

[SinglePot]

Don't know. 52 percent in the 'biased poll' said surveillance should continue to counter terrorism. Nothing about the preservation of the constitution.

[Scott]

Off-topic posts and replies have been deleted.

Stick to the topic, please.

[boomerangutang]

Probably the biggest net result of Wikileaks and Snowden - are clandestine organization like the NSA (and similar overseas) are going to tighten up and be even more secretive. Possible results: info will be less judiciously (openly) shared with other organizations. Most of the time, that doesn't matter, but once in awhile, spook agencies come up with data which could prove to be important to other agencies - in efforts to protect against such things as bombings. Wikileaks and Snowden's legacies are to make such data less shared. To use a poker analogy: Cards will be played closer to the chest.

[F430murci]

Let the slippery get slipperier. Split among circuits now and I think we know where the Supremes will go with this one. Magic 8 ball is saying no violation of 4th and seeing a 5-4 majority penned by Roberts.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/30/19781508-government-can-grab-cell-phone-location-records-without-warrant-appeals-court-says?lite

[SinglePot]

When I turn my iPad on I get asked the question. Reveal precise location? Don't allow. OK.

Parallel story to the Snowden issue. Manning found guilty, awaiting sentence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23513603

[Scott]

Although there maybe a relationship between the Bradley Manning situation and Snowden, this thread is about the NSA and Snowden. Please stay on topic.

[midas]

Although there maybe a relationship between the Bradley Manning situation and Snowden, this thread is about the NSA and Snowden. Please stay on topic.

I would have thought the parallels would be much closer to Thomas Drake than Manning?

[SinglePot]

Drake was small fry compared to Snowden and Manning and wikileaks wasn't involved.

Edited July 31, 2013 by SinglePot

[Publicus]

but you cannot blame Bama for continuing surveillance programs already in place. If he stopped and we had another twin towers episode, the <deleted> would hit the fan for him stopping and we would never hear the end of the conservative uproar.

I know you didn't mean to make that sound as insane as it does

It's a perfectly clear and reasonable statement which makes a valid point.

The word "insane" is completely out of place, contributes nothing.

The poster is right. Obama would take tremendous grief and scathing criticism from just about everyone.

Just about everyone.

[SinglePot]

US House votes to continue NSA's phone surveillance

"Have we forgot what happened on September 11?

Mike Rogers

House intelligence committee chairman

"Divided opinion in the US about the snooping was highlighted by a CBS News poll on Wednesday.

The survey found that 67% of Americans opposed the government's collection of phone records, but 52% said it was necessary to counter terrorism."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23445231

Bump.

Round and round in circles.

[sustento]

More revelations...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

[SinglePot]

More revelations...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

So what are the NSA using garbage from the Internet for?

[Publicus]

US House votes to continue NSA's phone surveillance

"Have we forgot what happened on September 11?

Mike Rogers

House intelligence committee chairman

"Divided opinion in the US about the snooping was highlighted by a CBS News poll on Wednesday.

The survey found that 67% of Americans opposed the government's collection of phone records, but 52% said it was necessary to counter terrorism."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23445231

In this day of electronic communications ( that the powers that be are so keen to monitor ) they could have easily had a kind of referendum using the internet to vote on something so important as this . To leave this kind of decision soley to a handful of so called elected “representatives “is a farce.

Washington hasn't ever conducted an official vote on anything via the internet and for good reasons, such as abuse, security of the process, validity of the outcome, massive logistics, a tremendous expense and for many other valid reasons.

Besides, the House and the Senate each have established an Intelligence Committee which no one in Congress is complaining about, nor expressing fear about. Our elected representatives in both Chambers of the Congress represent the vast center-middle point of view of the body politic, to include my own point of view in the matter.

Only a handful of Americans see a bogeyman in this.

[Publicus]

More revelations...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

The Guardian is the home of anti-American readers on the far left end of the political spectrum. Venezuela also is far to the left.

Further, Prof Alan Dershowitz has said Glenn Greenwald is anti-American and loves totalitarian regimes, which resonates with me.

That Snowden went there first and gave the most says a lot about Edward Snowden. That he finds Russia a hospitable place says reams more of negatives about Edward Snowden.

Here's an alternative, realistic, news source:

One Paragraph Sums Up What Edward Snowden Can Expect From His Life In Russia

"The reality that lies before Snowden, however, is not that of a Petersburg slum or a cherry orchard. More likely, he will be given an apartment somewhere in the endless, soulless highrises with filthy stairwells that spread like fields around Moscow's periphery. He will live there for five years before he will be given citizenship. He'll likely be getting constant visits from the SVR (the Russian NSA) to mine the knowledge he carries in his brain."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-snowden-can-during-life-in-russia-2013-7#ixzz2aeOCyftj

That's quite a collection in this, i.e., Snowden, the Guardian, Venezuela, Russia, the CCP-PRC. Snowden hardly could have done worse. Snowden means to inflict harm and injury against the United States, serious and severe harm and injury.

[NeverSure]

Washington hasn't ever conducted an official vote on anything via the internet and for good reasons, such as abuse, security of the process, validity of the outcome, massive logistics, a tremendous expense and for many other valid reasons.

Besides, the House and the Senate each have established an Intelligence Committee which no one in Congress is complaining about, nor expressing fear about. Our elected representatives in both Chambers of the Congress represent the vast center-middle point of view of the body politic, to include my own point of view in the matter.

Only a handful of Americans see a bogeyman in this.

The article describes how opposition to the NSA, which the paper says was recently confined to the Congressional "fringes", has now "built a momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support from Republican and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both parties and pulling in some of the most respected voices on national security in the House."

It describes how GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner - a prime author of the Patriot Act back in 2001 and a long-time defender of even the most extremist War on Terror policies - has now become a leading critic of NSA overreach. He will have "a bill ready when Congress returned from its August recess that would restrict phone surveillance to only those named as targets of a federal terrorism investigation, make significant changes to the secret court that oversees such programs and give businesses like Microsoft and Google permission to reveal their dealings before that court."

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren is quoted this way: "There is a growing sense that things have really gone a-kilter here". Yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Democratic Sen Dick Durbin, one of Obama's closest Senate allies, said that the recently revealed NSA bulk record collection program "goes way too far".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy

Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more worried about civil liberties abuses than terrorism

• • Glenn Greenwald
  • theguardian.com, Monday 29 July 2013 07.33 EDT

Perhaps more amazingly still, this shift has infected the US Congress. Following up on last week's momentous House vote - in which 55% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans defied the White House and their own leadership to vote for the Amash/Conyers amendment to ban the NSA's bulk phone records collection program - the New York Times has an article this morning which it summarizes on its front page this way:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

[NeverSure]

Momentum Builds Against N.S.A. Surveillance

By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Published: July 28, 2013

New York Times

WASHINGTON — The movement to crack down on government surveillance started with an odd couple from Michigan, Representatives Justin Amash, a young libertarian Republican known even to his friends as “chief wing nut,” and John Conyers Jr., an elder of the liberal left in his 25th House term.

But what began on the political fringes only a week ago has built a momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support from Republican and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both parties and pulling in some of the most respected voices on national security in the House.

The rapidly shifting politics were reflected clearly in the House on Wednesday, when a plan to defund the National Security Agency’s telephone data collection program fell just seven votes short of passage. Now, after initially signaling that they were comfortable with the scope of the N.S.A.’s collection of Americans’ phone and Internet activities, but not their content, revealed last month by Edward J. Snowden, lawmakers are showing an increasing willingness to use legislation to curb those actions.

Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, and Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, have begun work on legislation in the House Judiciary Committee to significantly rein in N.S.A. telephone surveillance. Mr. Sensenbrenner said on Friday that he would have a bill ready when Congress returned from its August recess that would restrict phone surveillance to only those named as targets of a federal terrorism investigation, make significant changes to the secret court that oversees such programs and give businesses like Microsoft and Google permission to reveal their dealings before that court.

“There is a growing sense that things have really gone a-kilter here,” Ms. Lofgren said.

The sudden reconsideration of post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism policy has taken much of Washington by surprise. As the revelations by Mr. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor, were gaining attention in the news media, the White House and leaders in both parties stood united behind the programs he had unmasked. They were focused mostly on bringing the leaker to justice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/us/politics/momentum-builds-against-nsa-surveillance.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

[Publicus]

Washington hasn't ever conducted an official vote on anything via the internet and for good reasons, such as abuse, security of the process, validity of the outcome, massive logistics, a tremendous expense and for many other valid reasons.

Besides, the House and the Senate each have established an Intelligence Committee which no one in Congress is complaining about, nor expressing fear about. Our elected representatives in both Chambers of the Congress represent the vast center-middle point of view of the body politic, to include my own point of view in the matter.

Only a handful of Americans see a bogeyman in this.

The article describes how opposition to the NSA, which the paper says was recently confined to the Congressional "fringes", has now "built a momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support from Republican and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both parties and pulling in some of the most respected voices on national security in the House."

It describes how GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner - a prime author of the Patriot Act back in 2001 and a long-time defender of even the most extremist War on Terror policies - has now become a leading critic of NSA overreach. He will have "a bill ready when Congress returned from its August recess that would restrict phone surveillance to only those named as targets of a federal terrorism investigation, make significant changes to the secret court that oversees such programs and give businesses like Microsoft and Google permission to reveal their dealings before that court."

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren is quoted this way: "There is a growing sense that things have really gone a-kilter here". Yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Democratic Sen Dick Durbin, one of Obama's closest Senate allies, said that the recently revealed NSA bulk record collection program "goes way too far".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy

Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more worried about civil liberties abuses than terrorism

• • Glenn Greenwald
  • theguardian.com, Monday 29 July 2013 07.33 EDT

p.png

Perhaps more amazingly still, this shift has infected the US Congress. Following up on last week's momentous House vote - in which 55% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans defied the White House and their own leadership to vote for the Amash/Conyers amendment to ban the NSA's bulk phone records collection program - the New York Times has an article this morning which it summarizes on its front page this way:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

The proposed legislation you refer to was defeated by a majority vote of the House. It lost.

At any rate, Republican party Congressman James Sensenbrenner, author of the Patriot Act, has also said the Act should not be renewed when it comes up in 2015. That's good news because the Patriot Act pre-dates Snowden by a considerable period of time.

In the meantime, however, we'd better not be subjected to another terrorist attack from abroad. If terrorists manage to strike in the US from abroad, we'd see only more of the Patriot Act and more laws like it.

After Wikileaks publishes everything Snowden has, then the terrorists will have it too, if they don't have some or all of it already. Such a horrible development will be traced directly back to Snowden. It would only intensify the Patriot Act and give us more laws like it, all thanks to Edward Snowden.

I don't see many people here thinking this through.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Publicus

[NeverSure]

Washington hasn't ever conducted an official vote on anything via the internet and for good reasons, such as abuse, security of the process, validity of the outcome, massive logistics, a tremendous expense and for many other valid reasons.

Besides, the House and the Senate each have established an Intelligence Committee which no one in Congress is complaining about, nor expressing fear about. Our elected representatives in both Chambers of the Congress represent the vast center-middle point of view of the body politic, to include my own point of view in the matter.

Only a handful of Americans see a bogeyman in this.

The article describes how opposition to the NSA, which the paper says was recently confined to the Congressional "fringes", has now "built a momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support from Republican and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both parties and pulling in some of the most respected voices on national security in the House."

It describes how GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner - a prime author of the Patriot Act back in 2001 and a long-time defender of even the most extremist War on Terror policies - has now become a leading critic of NSA overreach. He will have "a bill ready when Congress returned from its August recess that would restrict phone surveillance to only those named as targets of a federal terrorism investigation, make significant changes to the secret court that oversees such programs and give businesses like Microsoft and Google permission to reveal their dealings before that court."

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren is quoted this way: "There is a growing sense that things have really gone a-kilter here". Yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Democratic Sen Dick Durbin, one of Obama's closest Senate allies, said that the recently revealed NSA bulk record collection program "goes way too far".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy

Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more worried about civil liberties abuses than terrorism

• • Glenn Greenwald
  • theguardian.com, Monday 29 July 2013 07.33 EDT

p.png

Perhaps more amazingly still, this shift has infected the US Congress. Following up on last week's momentous House vote - in which 55% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans defied the White House and their own leadership to vote for the Amash/Conyers amendment to ban the NSA's bulk phone records collection program - the New York Times has an article this morning which it summarizes on its front page this way:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

The proposed legislation you refer to was defeated by a majority vote of the House. It lost.

At any rate, Republican party Congressman James Sensenbrenner, author of the Patriot Act, has also said the Act should not be renewed when it comes up in 2015. That's good news because the Patriot Act pre-dates Snowden by a considerable period of time.

In the meantime, however, we'd better not be subjected to another terrorist attack from abroad. If terrorists manage to strike in the US from abroad, we'd see only more of the Patriot Act and more laws like it.

After Wikileaks publishes everything Snowden has, then the terrorists will have it too, if they don't have some or all of it already. Such a horrible development will be traced directly back to Snowden. It would only intensify the Patriot Act and give us more laws like it, all thanks to Edward Snowden.

I don't see many people here thinking this through.

You're missing the part about the rapid change in public perception.

[Publicus]

I point out again the proposed legislation you love lost last week by a majority vote of the House. It lost.

When Wikileaks publishes everything Snowden has, then the terrorists will have it too, if they don't already have some or all of it.

If there's another horrendous attack - or attacks - in the United States by foreign terrorists, we will get the Patriot Act twice over and even more laws to further strengthen homeland security and protection. The public will demand it.

The terrorists are still trying every day to figure ways to attack in the U.S. as much and as often as they can until they destroy us. Such attacks would include dirty (radiation) bombs if the terrorists can get them - or worse bombs - chemical weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons of mass destruction and the like.

Snowden has left a trail of animus and hostility against the United States, from the CCP--PRC, to Russia, Venezuela, the leftist newspaper the Guardian, Julian Assange - all regimes or news organizations that are leftist and/or against the United States.

The end purpose and goal of Edward Snowden - disclosure - would invite terrorists to see new ways they can attack the United States, in the United States.

Snowden's ultimate purpose - unauthorized disclosure of vital national security information and techniques - would thus precipitate more laws like the Patriot Act and new laws that would increase the surveillance state we all are concerned about to one extent to another. Snowden and Assange, Wikileaks, would newly enable the many terrorists groups who want to destroy the United States.

I'm deeply and greatly concerned that too many people at this point in time have not thought all of this through.

[SinglePot]

"New York Times

WASHINGTON The movement to crack down on government surveillance started with an odd couple from Michigan, Representatives Justin Amash, a young libertarian Republican known even to his friends as chief wing nut, and John Conyers Jr., an elder of the liberal left in his 25th House term."

Ah. Amash and Conyers. A couple of do gooders? An odd couple?

Anyone remember the Enron accountancy scandal? Knee jerk legislation brought in by another odd couple Sarbanes and Oxley resulted in beauracracy that has crippled companies listed on the NY Stock Exchange contributing significantly to the current economic mess the US is still trying to get out of.

And whilst Snowden may well have thought he was doing the US a favour the net result may well be that he has actually damaged it.

[midas]

US House votes to continue NSA's phone surveillance

"Have we forgot what happened on September 11?

Mike Rogers

House intelligence committee chairman

"Divided opinion in the US about the snooping was highlighted by a CBS News poll on Wednesday.

The survey found that 67% of Americans opposed the government's collection of phone records, but 52% said it was necessary to counter terrorism."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23445231

In this day of electronic communications ( that the powers that be are so keen to monitor ) they could have easily had a kind of referendum using the internet to vote on something so important as this . To leave this kind of decision soley to a handful of so called elected “representatives “is a farce.

Washington hasn't ever conducted an official vote on anything via the internet and for good reasons, such as abuse, security of the process, validity of the outcome, massive logistics, a tremendous expense and for many other valid reasons.

Besides, the House and the Senate each have established an Intelligence Committee which no one in Congress is complaining about, nor expressing fear about. Our elected representatives in both Chambers of the Congress represent the vast center-middle point of view of the body politic, to include my own point of view in the matter.

Only a handful of Americans see a bogeyman in this.

If that's the case its even sadder than I thought.

Are you trying to say a country that can put a man on the moon can't do what other countries with far less resources than USA are now actively engaged in?

http://www.inroadsjournal.ca/making-policy-by-e-referendum/