onward to victory



NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/09/nsa-whistleblower-comes-forward-says-i-d

NSA Whistleblower Comes Forward, Says 'I Don't Want To Live In a Society That Does These Sort of Things'
J.D. Tuccille|Jun. 9, 2013 4:08 pm



The whistleblower behind the past week's revelations about U.S. government snooping on telephone calls and the Internet is 29-year-old Edward Snowden, a systems analyst who once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and now (well, probaby not anymore) works for a defense contractor with access to intelligence documents (Booz Allen confirms his employment and expresses dismay). He has voluntarily allowed the Guardian and the Washington Post to reveal his identity in order to explain himself, and in full expectation that the Obama administration and intelligence services will come after him. In his interviews with those newspapers, he comes off as a disillusioned patriot who has grown horrified by the growing security state and the danger it poses to privacy and liberty. "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things," he told the Guardian.

From the Guardian:

In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he said: "I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression".

He recounted how his beliefs about the war's purpose were quickly dispelled. "Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone," he said. After he broke both his legs in a training accident, he was discharged.

After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency's covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.

By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.

That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw. ...

Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them".

Like many Americans, he nursed hope that the election of Barack Obama would rein in the growth of the surveillance apparatus, but instead he "watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in."

The Washington Post adds:

Asked whether he believed his disclosures would change anything, he said: “I think they already have. Everyone, everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten— and they’re talking about it. They have to power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.”

Snowden also expressed the hope that the NSA surveillance programs would now be open to legal challenge for the first time. Earlier this year, in Amnesty International V. Clapper, the Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against the mass collection of phone records because the plaintiffs could not prove exactly what the program did or that they were personally subject to surveillance.

“The government can’t reasonably assert the state secrets privilege for a program it has acknowledged. The courts can now allow challenges to be heard on that basis,” Snowden said.

Snowden is currently holed up in Hong Kong and plans to seek asylum in "countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy." Iceland is mentioned as a possibility.

In the wake of Snowden's revelations, politicians and intelligence agency bureaucrats have sought to justify the wide-reaching surveillance as necessary to battle terrorism. But journalists have already pointed out that the one specific case mentioned, a 2009 bomb plot targeted at the New York subway system, was actually foiled by traditional police work.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper calls the revelations "literally gut-wrenching." Let's hope he's in for some serious continuing heartburn as Snowden's efforts are followed-up upon with efforts to cripple the surveillance state.

The Guardian has a video interview with Edward Snowden here.

More Reason coverage of the NSA scandal and reactions to the surveillance revelations can be found here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-sur...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2013/jun/04/audiobooks-bradley-manning?INT...

We need more Daniel Ellsberg's, Bradley Manning's, Julian Assange's and Edward Snowden's.

__________

we have them yes,

the hits keep coming



Published on Jun 12, 2013
TODAY, Obama and company get Served ! On Wednesday June 12th 2013 Larry Klayman files a class-action suit against Obama over the Verizon Scandal and Prism program with Google, AOL, Facebook, Youtube, Paltalk, Yahoo and More !
Category
News & Politics

http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2013/06/11/nine-companies-tied-to-p...

Nine Companies Tied to PRISM, Obama Will Be Smacked With Class-Action Lawsuit Wednesday
AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo! and Youtube will be named in the suit, attorney says

By STEVEN NELSON
June 11, 2013



Former Justice Department prosecutor Larry Klayman amended an existing lawsuit against Verizon and a slew of Obama administration officials Monday to make it the first class-action lawsuit in response to the publication of a secret court order instructing Verizon to hand over the phone records of millions of American customers on an "ongoing, daily basis."

Klayman told U.S. News he will file a second class-action lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia targeting government officials and each of the nine companies listed in a leaked National Security Agency slideshow as participants in the government's PRISM program.

According to the slideshow, the PRISM program allows government agents direct, real-time access to the servers of nine major tech companies, including AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo! and YouTube.

[UPDATE: Lawsuit Seeks $20 Billion, Court Order to End Data Collection]

U.S. News did not seek comment from the companies, all of which have denied any knowledge of or participation in the PRISM program.

Klayman said he hopes the two lawsuits will be considered jointly as companion cases.

The class-action lawsuit against Verizon says the defendants violated customers' "reasonable expectation of privacy, free speech and association, right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures and due process rights."

"This case challenges the legality of Defendants' participation and conduct in a secret and illegal government scheme to intercept and analyze vast quantities of domestic telephone communications," says the lawsuit against Verizon, which also names as defendants President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, NSA director Keith Alexander and federal judge Roger Vinson, the FISA court judge who approved the leaked April order.

[ASSANGE: Snowden Should 'Go to Latin America']

Klayman told U.S. News the Verizon lawsuit will be served to the named defendants. "Either they will file an answer or move to dismiss" the complaint, Klayman said, "[but] we're confident the case will proceed."

Within a few months, Klayman said, the court will likely define the "class" the suit seeks to represent by ruling that "everyone's in" or by allowing Verizon customers to either opt-in or out-out of the class. Currently the suit only represents a Pennsylvania couple.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said during a Sunday appearance on Fox News that he intends to file a class-action lawsuit against Verizon and the Internet companies over the surveillance programs, but it's unclear how exactly he will proceed with the plans.

[READ: Patriot Act Author: Orders Violate Fourth Amendment]

"I'm going to be asking all the Internet providers and all of the phone companies: Ask your customers to join me in a class action lawsuit," Paul said Sunday. "If we get 10 million Americans saying we don't want our phone records looked at, then maybe someone will wake up and something will change in Washington."




Nine Companies Tied to PRISM, Obama Will Be Smacked With Class-Action Lawsuit Wednesday
AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo! and Youtube will be named in the suit, attorney says

By STEVEN NELSON
June 11, 2013 RSS Feed  Print
Comment (88)


inShare
18

Attorney Larry Klayman hopes to turn up the legal heat on President Barack Obama over his administration's secret domestic surveillance programs.
Former Justice Department prosecutor Larry Klayman amended an existing lawsuit against Verizon and a slew of Obama administration officials Monday to make it the first class-action lawsuit in response to the publication of a secret court order instructing Verizon to hand over the phone records of millions of American customers on an "ongoing, daily basis."

Klayman told U.S. News he will file a second class-action lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia targeting government officials and each of the nine companies listed in a leaked National Security Agency slideshow as participants in the government's PRISM program.

According to the slideshow, the PRISM program allows government agents direct, real-time access to the servers of nine major tech companies, including AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo! and YouTube.

[UPDATE: Lawsuit Seeks $20 Billion, Court Order to End Data Collection]

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Jun 12^th, 2013 at 11:14am:


Doesn't the world have enough idiots in it already.
This clown betrayed his country and deserves what is coming.

chicken_lipsforme wrote on Jun 13^th, 2013 at 5:55am:


...obviously you're a big fan of how the Mafia operates

it_is_the_light wrote on Jun 13^th, 2013 at 4:00am:


Doesn't look very 'state of the art' to me. Looks like some cold war junk left over from the sixties. The military aren't all that, in the design department I know, but you'd think they'd make some sort of effort to keep up.

Grey wrote on Jun 13^th, 2013 at 11:52am:


underground facility dear one,

you are on a need to know,

be at peace

namaste

- : )

http://www.news.com.au/technology/apple-tim-cook-obama-sued-over-nsa8217s-spy-pr...

Apple, Tim Cook, Obama sued over NSA's spy program, PRISM

By Claire Porter Technology editor
From: news.com.au
June 13, 2013 9:15AM


Apple CEO Tim Cook is being sued over revelations it helped the NSA to spy on internet users. Source: AP
APPLE and US President Barack Obama are being sued over the National Security Agency's secret spy program, along with a host of big players in the tech field.
The defendants also include Apple CEO, Tim Cook, Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google and its CEO, Larry Page, Youtube, Microsoft and its CEO, Steve Ballmer, Skype, Yahoo! and its CEO, Marissa Meyer, the NSA and a host of others.
The companies are being sued by conservative activist, Larry Clayman and three others, Charles Strange, Matt Garrison and Michael Ferrari in a class-action lawsuit over alleged privacy violations.
The suit comes after it was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former CIA contractor, that the NSA had been spying on internet users for the last six years with the alleged cooperation of tech giants Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and others.
Klayman issued a statement saying that the class action suit would "serve to unify all political and social persuasions in our great nation to wage a second American Revolution, one that is peaceful and legal - but pursued with great resolve and force".
"Government dishonesty and tyranny against the people have reached historic proportions during the last three administrations in particular, and the time has come for We the People to rise up and reclaim control of our nation," he said.
"If not, the government will control us and this will mark the end of individual liberties. The American people can thus use these class actions to 'man the barricades of freedom' against the establishment government despots and their corporate enablers who seek to enslave them through coercive abuses of their privacy."
Klayman described the NSA's spy program as an "Orwellian power grab" that was designed to "blackmail the masses into submission, in order that these modern day greedy tyrants achieve their corrupt ends".




The class action suit isn't the first and it won't be the last.
The American Civil Liberties Union has also announced that it is suing the US government to put an end to the NSA's collection of online communications.
US Senator, Rand Paul has also said he will be filing a lawsuit against the Obama administration over what he claims are "unconstitutional" surveillance programs.
Meanwhile,Google has revealed how it gives the NSA user data.
The company revealed to tech site, Wired, that it transmits information to the NSA using a secure dropbox, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which sets out procedures regarding electronic surveillance of foreigners.
"When required to comply with these requests, we deliver that information to the US government - generally through secure FTP transfers and in person," Google spokesman Chris Gaither told Wired .
The company denied providing the NSA direct access to its servers.
"The US government does not have the ability to pull that data directly from our servers or network," Gaither said.
The "how-to" explanation was designed to set the record straight on suggestions that it and other companies had special equipment installed on their networks that allowed the NSA to access surveillance data directly.
"We refuse to participate in any program - for national security or other reasons - that requires us to provide governments with access to our systems or to install their equipment on our networks," he said.
Facebook and Yahoo! declined to explain how they transmitted court-ordered data to the NSA.