100-Pound Snowden Bust Appears in NYC Park to Celebrate “Fight Against Modern-Day Tyrannies” [+video]
By Sophia Rosenbaum and Reuven Fenton. Even a fake Edward Snowden can’t spend a day in NYC before getting carted away by authorities.
A 100-pound bronze bust of the infamous whistleblower was erected early Monday morning on top of Fort Greene Park’s Prison Ship Martyrs monument, which pays homage to Revolutionary War soldiers.
Two anonymous artists took it upon themselves to modernize the monument by sneaking into the park at 4 a.m. and adhering Snowden’s plaster head to the top of a pillar.
“We have updated this monument to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies,” the artists wrote in a statement to ANIMAL New York.
“It would be a dishonor to those memorialized here to not laud those who protect the ideals they fought for, as Edward Snowden has by bringing the NSA’s 4th-Amendment-violating surveillance programs to light,” they added. “All too often, figures who strive to uphold these ideals have been cast as criminals rather than in bronze.” (Read more from “100-Pound Snowden Bust Appears in NYC Park” HERE)
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John Oliver Meets with Edward Snowden: ‘They Are Still Collecting Everybody’s Information, Including Your D**k Pics’
By Eric Carriere. On this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the loveable Brit met with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The entire clip wasn’t aimed at engaging in a massively intellectual conversation about data sharing and government surveillance, but rather, finding a way to make the issue palatable to the average American. How did Oliver achieve this you might ask? In layman terms, he simplified the issue of mass surveillance down to a case of the government being able to view your d**k pictures.
“Over the last couple of years, you’ve probably heard about strange-sounding programs, such as XKeyscore, Muscular, Prism, and Mystic, which are, coincidentally, also the names of some of Florida’s least popular strip clubs,” Oliver joked. “Welcome to XKeyscore — our dancers are fully unredacted and Tuesdays are wing nights.”
Oliver was focusing on the government’s debate over reauthorizing the Patriot Act on June 1 and section 215 of the act that provides the government with the ability to take “any tangible things, including books, records, papers, documents, and other items” from businesses. (Read more from this story HERE)
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