Slyr0x:

"This experience," Levinson wrote, "has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States." ®

GraphicsPlus: I will rather allow US government to intercept my data than to think that Snowden is a hero. Snowden is a traitor and US government means well for its citizens.

GraphicsPlus: I will rather allow US government to intercept my data than to think that Snowden is a hero. Snowden is a traitor and US government means well for its citizens.

Slyr0x:

In revealing the colossal scale of the U.S. government’s eavesdropping on Americans and other people around the world, Snowden has performed a great public service that more than outweighs any breach of trust he may have committed.

Thanks to Snowden, the whole world now knows “The N.S.A. has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting.”

Snowden lived a "very comfortable" life earning a salary of roughly US$200,000. .about #32million naira per annum. .Point out a man that'ld give away all that + his privacy + his freedom + his family . .

So what exactly is Snowden’s real crime? Why is he being haunted? All 'cos he uncovered questionable activities that those in power would rather have kept secret.

In my humble opinion, Snowden is a man of conscience! In his words, “I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things. .I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

I still insist that Snowden is a hero!!!

curiouslad: @graphicplus

If it was not illegal then why was it made a secret. Whatever backing it received was not made public

GraphicsPlus: I will rather allow US government to intercept my data than to think that Snowden is a hero. Snowden is a traitor and US government means well for its citizens.

Lovetinz:

Your ignorance of the implications of the government snooping on you is astounding!

Do You snoop on the government?

Think.

Lovetinz:

Your ignorance of the implications of the government snooping on you is astounding!

Do You snoop on the government?

Think.

₱®ÌИСΞ:


Your ignorance of the implications of the government snooping on you is astounding!

Do You snoop on the government?

Think.

When I read this article, I can't help but to think about when Gandalf faced Balrog in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.
"You shall not pass!!!" - Gandalf.
Good job Lavabit!! Fight against this encroachment on our freedoms!!

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....

Human Rights Watch said that if Snowden were able to raise the issue of NSA mass surveillance without facing espionage charges, he would not have left the United States in the first place.

Former US President Jimmy Carter said: "He's obviously violated the laws of America, for which he's responsible, but I think the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far ...

In late July 2013, Lon Snowden expressed a belief that his son would be better off staying in Russia, saying he was no longer confident his son would receive a fair trial in the United States, and that Russia was probably the best place to seek asylum. The elder Snowden said that the FBI had offered to fly him to Russia on their behalf. Lon declined the offer citing a lack of assurance that he would see his son, and adding that he didn't wish to be used as "an emotional tool.

After Amnesty International met Edward Snowden in Moscow in mid July 2013, the organization said:
"What he has disclosed is patently in the public interest and as a whistleblower his actions were justified. He has exposed unlawful sweeping surveillance programmes that unquestionably interfere with an individual’s right to privacy. States that attempt to stop a person from revealing such unlawful behaviour are flouting international
law. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right."

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, accused western governments of practicing hypocrisy, as they conducted spying on the Internet while they criticized other countries for spying on the Internet. Berners-Lee said that Internet spying can make people feel reluctant to access intimate details or use the Internet in a certain way, and as paraphrased by Steve Robson of the Daily Mail, he said that the Internet "should be protected from being controlled by governments or large corporations."

Any government employee or contractor is warned repeatedly that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a crime.... These were legally authorized programs; in the case of Verizon Business’s phone records, Snowden certainly knew
this, because he leaked the very court order that approved the continuation of the project. So he wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety. The question, of course, is whether the government can function when all of its employees (and contractors) can take it upon themselves to sabotage the programs they don’t like. That’s what Snowden has done.

NSA warrantless surveillance – Shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush (R) implemented a secret program by the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on domestic telephone calls by American citizens without warrants, thus by-passing the FISA court which must approve all such actions. In 2010, Federal Judge Vaughn Walker ruled this practice to be illegal.

Senator Paul said, "I do think when history looks at this, they are going to contrast the behavior of James Clapper, our National Intelligence Director, with Edward Snowden. Mr. Clapper lied in Congress in defiance of the law, in the name of security. Mr. Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy."

In all, twelve Justice Department officials resigned rather than testify under oath before Congress. They included Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his chief of staff Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ liaison to the White House Monica Goodling, aide to the president Karl Rove and his senior aide Sara M. Taylor.

On 21 June 2013, the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper issued an apology for giving false testimony under oath to the United States Congress, which is a felony under 18 USC s. 1001. Earlier in March that year, Clapper had denied
that the NSA was collecting any type of data from U.S. citizens. In his letter of apology, Clapper wrote that he had focused on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and therefore, he "simply didn't think" about Section
215 of the Patriot Act, which justifies the mass collection of telephone data from U.S. citizens. Clapper said: "My response was clearly erroneous—for which I apologize".

It was revealed (by Snowden) in June 2013 that GCHQ, the intelligence agency of the British government, had intercepted phone calls and monitored computers used by foreign delegates at the summit. Their actions were sanctioned by the British government and intelligence was passed to British government ministers.

Russia, Turkey and South Africa reacted angrily after it was revealed that their diplomats had been spied on during the 2009 G-20 London summit.

Hong Kong legislators Gary Fan and Claudia Mo wrote a letter to Obama stating, "the revelations of blanket surveillance of global communications by the world's leading democracy have damaged the image of the U.S. among freedom-loving peoples around the world."[142] Ai Weiwei, a Chinese dissident, said, "Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it's abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals' privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights."

Morales plane incident
Red marked nations (Spain, France and Italy) denied permission to cross their airspace. Plane landed in Austria.

On July 1, 2013, president Evo Morales of Bolivia, who had been attending a conference of gas-exporting countries in Russia, appeared predisposed to offer asylum to Snowden during an interview with Russia Today. The following day, the airplane carrying him back to Bolivia from Russia was rerouted to Austria when France, Spain and Italy denied access to their airspace due to suspicions that Snowden was on board. Upon landing in Vienna, the presidential plane was reportedly searched by Austrian officials, although the Bolivian Defense Minister denied a search took place, saying Morales had denied entry to his plane. The refusals for entry into French, Spanish and Italian airspace ostensibly for "technical reasons", strongly denounced by Bolivia, Ecuador and other South American nations, were attributed to rumors perpetuated allegedly by the US that Snowden was on board. Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José García-Margallo, publicly stated that they were told he was on board but did not specify as to who had informed them. Austrian media later claimed the rumor originated with the US ambassador to Austria. France apologized for the incident the day after the plane was grounded. The Spanish ambassador to Bolivia apologized two weeks later, saying that "the procedure was not appropriate".

U.S. government declares hacking an act of war, then hacks allies

Revelations from European leaders on Monday that the National Security Agency bugged European Union offices in Washington and hacked into its computer network bring to light hypocrisy on the part of the U.S. government, according to The Washington Examiner.
Now that EU officers have been hacked by the U.S. government as well, one must wonder if that was an “act of war” on the part of the United States, the Examiner

FORNSAT, which means "foreign satellite collection", and refers to intercepts from satellites that process data used by other countries

XKeyscore may be instrumental in the process of breaking in to a VPN, and to identify "exploitable" (hackable) machines via TAO

Snowden described his CIA experience in Geneva as "formative", stating that the CIA deliberately got a Swiss banker drunk and encouraged him to drive home. Snowden said that when the latter was arrested, a CIA operative offered to intervene and later recruited the banker. Swiss President Ueli Maurer said it did not seem likely "that this incident played out as it has been described by Snowden and by the media." The revelations were said to be sensitive as the Swiss government was passing legislation for more banking transparency.

In Nigeria, Shell told US diplomats that it had placed staff in all the main ministries of the government.

U.S. President Barack Obama asserted that the American public had no cause for concern because "nobody is listening to your telephone calls".

According to The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald (Snowden Report) even low-level NSA analysts are allowed to search and listen to the communications of Americans and other people without court approval and supervision. Greenwald said low level analysts can via systems like XKeyscore "listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. And it's all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst.

In his January 2003 State of the Union speech, U.S. President George W. Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This single sentence is now known as "the Sixteen Words."

In late 2002 and early 2003, Bush urged the United Nations to enforce Iraqi disarmament mandates, precipitating a diplomatic crisis. In November 2002, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei led UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, but were advised by the U.S. to depart the country four days prior to the U.S. invasion, despite their requests for more time to complete their tasks.[263] The U.S. initially sought a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of military force but dropped the bid for UN approval due to vigorous opposition from several countries.

Inspectors began visiting sites where WMD production was suspected, but found no evidence of such activities, except for 18 undeclared empty 122 mm chemical rockets that were destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision. P. 30 Inspectors also found that the Al-Samoud-2 and Al-fatah missiles violated the UN range restrictions, the former also being partially destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision.

Inspectors began visiting sites where WMD production was suspected, but found no evidence of such activities, except for 18 undeclared empty 122 mm chemical rockets that were destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision. Inspectors also found that the Al-Samoud-2 and Al-fatah missiles violated the UN range restrictions, the former also being partially destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision.

On March 7, Hans Blix reported accelerated cooperation throughout the month of February[3] and he informed the UN security council that "it will not take years, nor weeks, but months" to verify whether Iraq had complied with its disarmament
obligations.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met in the Azores for an "emergency summit" over the weekend of March 15–16, 2003, after which Bush declared that, despite Blix's report, "diplomacy had failed" to compel Iraq to comply with UN Resolution inspection requirements, and stated his intention to use military force to attack Iraq in what was, according to the Bush administration, compliance with the threat of "serious consequences" in UN 1441

Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet.

The invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by some long-standing U.S. allies, including the governments of France, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada. Their leaders argued that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that invading the country was not justified in the context of UNMOVIC's 12 February 2003 report

The government of the United States said publicly, and the British pledged privately, that they were willing to invade Iraq with or without Security Council authorization,[11] despite this being illegal under international law.

The United States does not recognize the jurisdiction of any international court over its citizens or military, holding that the United States Supreme Court is its final authority. One example of this policy is that the United States did not ratify the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty, and on 6 May 2002 it informed the UN that it has no intention to do so.

Aftermath

After the invasion of Iraq, the Iraq Survey Group, headed by David Kay was formed to find the alleged weapons of mass destruction. Apart from a small quantity of degraded pre-1991 shells, nothing was found.

In 2005, the Central Intelligence Agency released a report saying that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.

According to The Washington Post, when occupying troops found no evidence of a current nuclear program, the statement and how it came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war.

On August 15, 2008, Bush said of Russia's invasion of the country of Georgia: "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.

UK Defence officials issued a confidential DA-Notice to the BBC and other media asking the media to refrain from running further stories related to surveillance leaks including US PRISM programme and the British involvement therein. The US Army similarly restricted access to the Guardian website in order to prevent an unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

In response to the information release by Snowden, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. If passed, the amendment "would curtail the ongoing dragnet collection and storage of the personal records of innocent Americans." The House rejected the amendment by a vote of 205–217. An analysis indicates that those who voted against the amendment received 122% more in campaign contributions from defense contractors than those who voted in favor of it.

Iraq was the sixth largest net exporter of petroleum liquids in the world in 2012, with the majority of its oil exports going to the United States and to refineries in Asia.

GraphicsPlus:
The US plan to sniff communication data is not targeted to innocent citizens. If your data is just about everyday communication between friends, couple, family, business partners and colleagues, they have nothing against you. But if it's about terrorism, it will now help them to track down the terrorists.

GraphicsPlus:

It could not have been made public or the purpose will be of no use because terrorists will then find another way of passing information information to each other. Do you know how much information every government receives from secret security agents? There are classified information that should not be made public. Believe me, NSA has absolutely nothing to do with your communication data if it has nothing to do with terrorism activities.