Photo Credit: APBy Philip Ewing. Edward Snowden’s nightmare may be coming true.
Not exile; not the danger of imprisonment or prosecution; and not his newfound association with dictators, lawyers and impresarios.
Snowden’s worst fear, by his own account, was that “nothing will change.”
“People will see in the media all these disclosures, they’ll know the lengths the government is going to grant themselves powers, unilaterally, to create greater control over American society and global society,” he told The Guardian last month after he’d asked it to identify him as its source. “But they won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things, to force their representatives to actually take a stand in their interests.”
One month after The Guardian’s first story, which revealed an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing the National Security Agency to collect the phone records of every Verizon customer, there has been no public movement in Washington to stop the court from issuing another such order. Congress has no intelligence reform bill that would rein in the phone tracking, or Internet monitoring, or cyberattack planning, or any of the other secret government workings that Snowden’s disclosures have revealed. Read more from this story HERE.
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Last chance for Edward Snowden?
By Associated Press. An influential Russian parliament member who often speaks for the Kremlin encouraged NSA leaker Edward Snowden on Sunday to accept Venezuela’s offer of asylum.
Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee in Russia’s parliament, posted a message on Twitter saying: “Venezuela is waiting for an answer from Snowden. This, perhaps, is his last chance to receive political asylum.”
Russian officials say Snowden has been stuck in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport since arriving on a flight from Hong Kong two weeks ago, unable to travel further because the United States annulled his passport.
Pushkov’s comments appear to indicate that the Kremlin is now anxious to be rid of the former National Security Agency systems analyst, who the U.S. wants returned to face espionage charges.
The asylum offer from Venezuela came in the early hours of Saturday, Moscow time, and there has been no response from the Kremlin or Russian Foreign Ministry. As Pushkov’s tweet indicated, Snowden also is not known to have responded to Venezuela’s offer. Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: DPASnowden Claims German Intelligence “in Bed” With the NSA
By Spiegel. For weeks now, officials at intelligence services around the world have been in suspense as one leak after another from whistleblower Edward Snowden has been published. Be it America’s National Security Agency, Britain’s GCHQ or systems like Prism or Tempora, he has been leaking scandalous information about international spying agencies. In an interview published by SPIEGEL in its latest issue, Snowden provides additional details, describing the closeness between the US and German intelligence services as well as Britain’s acquisitiveness when it comes to collecting data.
In Germany, reports of the United States’ vast espionage activities have surprised and upset many, including politicians. But Snowden isn’t buying the innocence of leading German politicians and government figures, who say that they were entirely unaware of the spying programs. On the contrary, the NSA people are “in bed together with the Germans,” the whistleblower told American cryptography expert Jacob Appelbaum and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in an interview conducted with the help of encrypted emails shortly before Snowden became a globally recognized name.
Snowden describes the intelligence services partnerships in detail. The NSA even has a special department for such cooperation, the Foreign Affairs Directorate, he says. He also exposes a noteworthy detail about how government decision-makers are protected by these programs. The partnerships are organized in a way so that authorities in other countries can “insulate their political leaders from the backlash” in the event it becomes public “how grievously they’re violating global privacy,” the former NSA employee says.
Intensive Cooperation with Germany
SPIEGEL reporting also indicates that cooperation between the NSA and Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, is more intensive than previously known. The NSA, for example, provides “analysis tools” for the BND to monitor signals from foreign data streams that travel through Germany. Among the BND’s focuses are the Middle East route through which data packets from crisis regions travel. Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: APCuba’s Raul Castro backs asylum offers for Edward Snowden
By Fox News. Cuba’s Raul Castro stood Sunday with Latin American countries that have expressed a willingness to grant asylum NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Venezuela and Bolivia both made asylum offers to Snowden over the weekend, and Nicaragua has said it is also considering his request.
Snowden has until Monday to respond to Venezuela’s offer.
“We support the sovereign right of …. Venezuela and all states in the region to grant asylum to those persecuted for their ideals or their struggles for democratic rights,” Castro said in a speech to Cuba’s national assembly, according to state-run newspaper Juventud Rebelde.
The foreign media was not given access to the session, but the speech was expected to be broadcast in its entirety later Sunday. Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: APBrazil Top Target of NSA Eavesdropping, Second Only to the US
By Reuters. The U.S. National Security Agency monitored the telephone and email activity of Brazilian companies and individuals in the past decade as part of U.S. espionage activities, the Globo newspaper reported on Sunday, citing documents provided by fugitive Edward Snowden, a former NSA intelligence contractor.
The newspaper did not say how much traffic was monitored by NSA computers and intelligence officials. But the Globo article pointed out that in the Americas, Brazil was second only to the United States in the number of transmissions intercepted.
Brazil was a priority nation for the NSA communications surveillance alongside China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan, Globo said.
In the 10-year period, the NSA captured 2.3 billion phone calls and messages in the United States and then used computers to analyze them for signs of suspicious activity, the paper said. In the United States, the NSA used legal but secret warrants to compel communications companies to turn over information about calls and emails for analysis.
Some access to Brazilian communications was obtained through American companies that were partners with Brazilian telecommunications companies, the paper reported, without naming the companies. Read more from this story HERE.
