Snowden: NSA Targeted Journalists Critical of Government after 9/11

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail By Jonathan Easley

Leaker Edward Snowden accused the National Security Agency of targeting reporters who wrote critically about the government after the 9/11 attacks and warned it was “unforgivably reckless” for journalists to use unencrypted email messages when discussing sensitive matters.

Snowden said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine published Tuesday that he came to trust Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who, along with Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, helped report his disclosure of secret surveillance programs, because she herself had been targeted by the NSA.

“Laura and [Guardian reporter] Glenn [Greenwald] are among the few who reported fearlessly on controversial topics throughout this period, even in the face of withering personal criticism, and resulted in Laura specifically becoming targeted by the very programs involved in the recent disclosures,” Snowden said for the article, a profile of Poitras.

Snowden didn’t detail how Poitras was targeted by the NSA surveillance programs he disclosed, but suggested the agency tracked her emails and cautioned other journalists that they could be under surveillance.

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‘It cost the public dearly’: Snowden says media have failed as government watchdogs in his first interview since NSA leaks

By Joshua Gardner

In his first interview since he outed himself as the source of leaked NSA documents, Edward Snowden said the media has given the government a free pass to grow unchecked power ever since the attacks of September 11.

‘[It] ended up costing the public dearly,’ the 30-year-old newly minted Russia resident told the New York Times in a QandA published Tuesday.
Snowden’s interview focused on journalists and the media, which he said need to wake up to the realities of surveillance. ‘Any unencrypted message sent over the Internet is being delivered to every intelligence service in the world,’ he said.

Snowden’s QandA was, of course, done through encrypted emails. Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who helped Snowden spill his secrets, served as intermediary, having won the former NSA contractor’s trust months ago.

‘Laura was more suspicious of me than I was of her, and I’m famously paranoid,’ Snowden told Times reporter Peter Maass.

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Documents Show Secret Service Kept Tab of Swartz

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Photo Credit: APU.S. Secret Service documents show that the agency played a key role in the investigation of free-information activist Aaron Swartz and watched his case closely until he committed suicide.

Swartz died in New York City in January as he faced trial on charges he hacked into a Massachusetts Institute of Technology archive of scholarly articles with the aim of making the information freely available.

The documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show the Secret Service field office in Boston secured documents and electronic devices seized during a search of Swartz’s home and research office at Harvard University.

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Burp: On Vineyard, Obama Lunches on Fried Shrimp, Fried Oysters, Onion Rings, French Fries

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Photo Credit: bostinno.It’s only been three days, but President Obama has quickly settled into the vacation diet on Martha’s Vineyard. But don’t tell the first lady.

During a rainy day on Tuesday, he traveled to Nancy’s in scenic Oak Bluffs for a fried lunch. According to the pool report: “POTUS’s food order at Nancy’s was fried shrimp, fried oysters, onion rings and french fries.”

Obviously not on the lunch trip was first lady Michelle Obama, the first family’s fitness buff.

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John Kerry: ‘This Little Thing Called the Internet … Makes It Much Harder to Govern’

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Photo Credit: APSpeaking to State Department personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil, on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that “this little thing called the Internet … makes it much harder to govern.”

He also said that “ever since the end of the Cold War, forces have been unleashed that were tamped down for centuries by dictators.”

“I’m a student of history, and I love to go back and read a particularly great book like [Henry] Kissinger’s book about diplomacy where you think about the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the balance of power and how difficult it was for countries to advance their interests and years and years of wars,” Kerry said to a gathering of State Department employees and their families.

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White House Insists James Clapper Will Not Lead NSA Surveillance Review

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Photo Credit: EPABy Ewen MacAskill

The White House has moved to dampen controversy over the role of the director of national intelligence James Clapper in a panel reviewing NSA surveillance, insisting that he would neither lead it nor choose the members.

Statements by Barack Obama and Clapper on Monday night were widely interpreted as the director of national intelligence being placed in charge of the inquiry, which the president had announced on Friday would be “independent”.

The apparent involvement of Clapper, who has admitted lying to Congress over NSA surveillance of US citizens, provoked a backlash, with critics accusing the president of putting a fox in charge of the hen house.

But the White House national security council insisted on Tuesday that Clapper’s role would be more limited.

“The panel members are being selected by the White House, in consultation with the intelligence community,” national security council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

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Photo Credit: APIntelligence committee withheld key file before critical NSA vote, Amash claims

By Spencer Ackerman

A leader of the US congressional insurrection against the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs has accused his colleagues of withholding a key document from the House of Representatives before a critical surveillance vote.

Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican whose effort to defund the NSA’s mass phone-records collection exposed deep congressional discomfort with domestic spying, said the House intelligence committee never allowed legislators outside the panel to see a 2011 document that described the surveillance in vague terms.

The document, a classified summary of the bulk phone records collection effort justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, was declassified by the Obama administration in late July.

The Justice Department and intelligence agencies prepared it for Congress before a 2011 vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and left it for the intelligence committees in Congress to make the document available to their colleagues.

“It is not acceptable for the intelligence committee, or any other committee, to withhold critically important information pertaining to a program prior to the vote,” Amash told the Guardian.

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Friends Plead Not Guilty to Obstruction of Justice

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Photo Credit: APTwo college friends of the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect pleaded not guilty Tuesday to allegations they conspired to obstruct justice by agreeing to destroy and conceal some of their friend’s belongings as he evaded authorities.

Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both nationals of Kazakhstan who shared an apartment in New Bedford, Massachusetts, became friends with bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev when they all started school at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 2011.

Tsarnaev is accused of setting off two bombs near the race’s finish line that killed three and wounded hundreds on 15 April. He has pleaded not guilty. Authorities say he was working with his older brother, who died during the manhunt for the suspects days later.

On April 18, Tsarnaev’s friends took his laptop from his dorm room, along with a backpack that had fireworks with explosive powder and a jar of petroleum jelly, federal authorities alleged in an indictment last week.

They say Kadyrbayev had gotten a text from Tsarnaev suggesting that he could go to his dorm room and “take what’s there.” The indictment also alleged that Kadyrbayev later put the backpack with the fireworks and jelly in a trash bin outside the New Bedford apartment after Tazhayakov agreed.

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Union-Free America, Beware: Obama’s NLRB Is Locked, Loaded and Ready To Do Union Bosses’ Bidding

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Photo Credit: Red StateIt is now official. Barack Obama’s union-dominated National Labor Relations Board is now up to its full anti-employer potential with AFL-CIO attorney Nancy Schiffer and union lawyer Kent Hirozawa being sworn in, along with union attorney Mark Pearce resuming his role as chairman.

This is the first time the NLRB has had five sitting members since 2003, when Democrats began crippling George Bush’s NLRB in an effort to diminish its capacity on rulings.

While two Republicans, Harry I. Johnson, III and Philip A. Miscimarra were also sworn in, they are in the minority and, as a result, will only be useful for their dissent (which can sometimes be useful in federal courts).

Although Obama’s NLRB had been stymied for a period of time, thanks to the bi-partisan deal cutting by Senate Republicans, union-free employers are facing a more hostile environment not seen for the last 30 years or more.

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Whistleblowers’ Attorney: 400 Surface-to-Air Missiles Stolen from Benghazi Now ‘in the Hands of Some Very Ugly People’ (+video)

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A former U.S. attorney representing Benghazi whistleblowers is claiming that 400 surface-to-air missiles were “stolen” and “taken from Libya” and are now “in the hands of some very ugly people.” He also said the Obama administration is “deeply concerned” that the weapons may be used to shoot down airliners.

In an interview with WMAL radio, Joe DiGenova explained that the stolen missiles also represent one of the reasons the U.S. State Department shut down 19 embassies across the Middle East last week.

He said the development has the Obama administration “deeply concerned” and on alert.

Even more potentially shocking, DiGenova claimed the missiles are now in the hands of Al Qaeda operatives, according to his sources. His sources include “former intelligence officials who stay in constant contact with people in the Special Ops and intelligence community.”

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DOE Defends $100M Grant to Green Company that Now May File Bankruptcy

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The Energy Department is defending its decision to award nearly $100 million to a major green energy company that has been investigated by two federal agencies and says it may be forced to declare bankruptcy.

ECOtality announced the company’s potential bankruptcy in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. It also revealed that it is under investigation by the Labor Department. The company was previously subject to an SEC investigation into alleged insider trading.

DOE spokesman Bill Gibbons defended the agency’s decision to award ECOtality $99.8 million to build electric-vehicle charging stations around the country.

“The Energy Department’s grant to ECOtality was used for the installation and data collection of charging stations in cities across America where sales of plug-in electric cars are on the rise,” Gibbons said in an email.

“Meant to establish the seeds of infrastructure needed to support a growing market for advanced vehicles, the company installed more than 12,500 charging stations in 18 U.S. cities — or approximately 97 percent of their goal,” he noted.

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Health Group’s ObamaCare Enrollment Drive Targets States with GOP Governors

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A leading campaign to promote ObamaCare enrollment is targeting 10 states, mostly with Republican governors hostile to the law.

The window to begin enrolling in the law’s new coverage options opens in just 50 days. Enroll America, a prominent nonprofit with close ties to the White House, said it’s focusing on 10 states as it ramps up a massive education campaign that will ultimately cost tens of millions of dollars.

Enroll America President Anne Filipic emphasized that the group’s mission is not to promote ObamaCare politically but to provide nuts-and-bolts information about how the law works and to encourage people to sign up for new coverage options.

“This is not a conversation about politics,” Filipic said. “This is a conversation about what does this mean to you, to your family, to your pocketbook. And there’s such power in that.”

Of the 10 states Enroll America is targeting — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas — nine have Republican governors.

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