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NSA’s Surveillance Goes “Exponentially Beyond what it had Previously Disclosed”

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Photo Credit: APNSA warned to rein in surveillance as agency reveals even greater scope

By Spencer Ackerman. The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed.

John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform “a second or third hop query” through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.

“Hops” refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.

Inglis did not elaborate, nor did the members of the House panel – many of whom expressed concern and even anger at the NSA – explore the legal and privacy implications of the breadth of “three-hop” analysis.

But Inglis and other intelligence and law enforcement officials testifying before the committee said that the NSA’s ability to query the data follows rules set by the secret Fisa court, although about two dozen NSA officials determine for themselves when those criteria are satisified. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APObama loses support for renewal of surveillance; NSA phone program will expire next year

By Stephen Dinan. The lawmaker who wrote the USA Patriot Act said Wednesday that, as it stands, the House will never renew the provisions that the Obama administration uses to collect Americans’ phone records, meaning the government’s surveillance program will be cut off some time next year.

Both Democrats and Republicans told top administration officials that they reject President Obama’s claim that the law allows the intelligence community to collect the phone numbers, time, date and duration of calls made by Americans, and they said Mr. Obama needs to change the way he is running the program if he wants to keep it intact.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who was chief author of the Patriot Act in 2001, said Congress specifically tried to limit the law’s uses when it renewed the provisions under Section 215 of the act that allow the government to collect data from businesses without obtaining a warrant.

In that renewal Congress added in the word “relevant” to try to limit what the government was pursuing. But Mr. Sensenbrenner said the intelligence community has expanded, not limited, its data-gathering efforts after Congress tried to reel them in.

“Section 215 expires at the end of 2015 and unless you realize you’ve got a problem, that is not going to be renewed. There are not the votes in the House to renew Section 215,” he said. “It’s got to be changed and you have to change how you operate Section 215. Otherwise, in a year or a year and a half, you’re not going to have it anymore.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Washington ExaminerVladimir Putin: Snowden saga won’t harm US-Russia relationship

By Brian Hughes. Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Wednesday that an already frosty relationship between his government and the United States would not be damaged if Russia granted asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

“Bilateral relations, in my opinion, are much more important than the squabbles around the activities of the security services,” Putin told reporters in eastern Siberia.

“We warned Mr. Snowden that any of his activities that cause damage to U.S.-Russian relations are unacceptable to us.”

Snowden, the former government contractor who disclosed details about U.S. phone and Internet surveillance programs, applied for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday. A lawyer representing Snowden told Russia’s Interfax news agency on Wednesday that the ex-CIA official could leave Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in the next few days.

The Obama administration has repeatedly warned the Putin regime not to give Snowden refuge since he faces a trio of espionage charges back on U.S. soil. If his application were approved, Snowden could stay in Russia for up to a year. Read more from this story HERE.

Broad Coalition of Gun, Drug, Privacy Groups Sue NSA, FBI Over Surveillance while Snowden Files for Asylum

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Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAPrivacy groups led by EFF sue to stop NSA and FBI electronic surveillance

By Associated Press. Rights activists, church leaders and drug and gun rights advocates found common ground and filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the federal government to halt a vast National Security Agency electronic surveillance program.

The lawsuit was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents the unusually broad coalition of plaintiffs, and seeks an injunction against the NSA, Justice Department, FBI and directors of the agencies.

Filed in federal court in San Francisco, it challenges what the plaintiffs describe as an “illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance.”

The suit came after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details about NSA surveillance programs last month, revealing a broad US intelligence program to monitor Internet and telephone activity to ferret out terror plots.

Snowden, who has been charged with spying and theft of government property, has spent the past three weeks in the Moscow airport transit zone. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AFPSnowden to stay in Moscow airport for now: lawyer

By Maria Antonova. US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden will stay in the transit zone of the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for three weeks while Russian authorities process his asylum request, a lawyer helping him said Tuesday.

Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who helped Snowden file an application for asylum in Russia earlier Tuesday, told AFP the fugitive former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor was happy with his treatment at the airport.

“While all procedural questions are being decided, he will remain in the transit zone of the airport,” Kucherena told AFP in central Moscow when asked if Snowden would remain at Sheremetyevo airport until the asylum request was approved.

He confirmed that the asylum procedure could take up to three months, although a shorter period is theoretically possible.

Kucherena said he met Snowden at the airport on Tuesday to file the asylum request, with a translator the only other person present. Read more from this story HERE.

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Sen. Graham suggests US boycott Winter Olympics in Russia over Snowden

By Jeremy Herb, Julian Pecquet and Justin Sink. President Obama should consider boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia if the Cold War-era foe gives asylum to Edward Snowden, Sen. Lindsey Graham told The Hill on Tuesday.

“I would. I would just send the Russians the most unequivocal signal I could send them,” Graham (R-S.C.) said when asked about the possibility of a boycott.

“It might help, because what they’re doing is outrageous,” he said. “We certainly haven’t reset our relationship with Russia in a positive way. At the end of the day, if they grant this guy asylum it’s a breach of the rule of law as we know it and is a slap in the face to the United States.”

nowden, who has been charged with espionage for leaking details about two National Security Agency programs that collected information about U.S. telephone calls and international Internet usage, officially filed a request for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday. He pledged to abide by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands that he stop leaking information that could damage the United States.


Graham is the first senator to suggest a link between the Olympics and Snowden, who has been holed up in a Moscow airport for weeks. Read more from this story HERE.

Journalist: US Better Not Do Anything to Snowden or Undisclosed Info Will Be Fed’s “Worst Nightmare”

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Photo Credit: ReutersSnowden documents could be ‘worst nightmare’ for U.S. – journalist

By Reuters. Fugitive former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden controls dangerous information that could become the United States’ “worst nightmare” if revealed, a journalist familiar with the data said in a newspaper interview.

Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published the documents Snowden leaked, said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday that the U.S. government should be careful in its pursuit of the former computer analyst.

“Snowden has enough information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had,” Greenwald said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro with the Argentinian daily La Nacion.

“The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare.”

Snowden, who is sought by Washington on espionage charges after revealing details of secret surveillance programs, has been stranded at a Moscow airport since June 23 and is now seeking refuge in Russia until he can secure safe passage to Latin America, where several counties have offered him asylum. Read more from this story HERE.

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The (spy) game’s afoot in hunt for NSA leaker Snowden

By Rowan Scarborough. One twist in the fugitive hunt for asylum-seeking Edward Snowden is that the man who has revealed the most secrets about the National Security Agency in history now is undoubtedly one of its chief targets.

A subplot in this international thriller is a cat-and-mouse game: Will the NSA penetrate his communications or will the master leaker outwit all the agency’s high-tech gadgets — since he, as well as anyone, knows how they work?

“NSA is probably doing what it does best, which is sweeping the ‘electronicshere’ for communications, voice and data, indicating his next chess move,” former CIA officer Bart Bechtel says. “They may also be looking at known and suspected collaborators.”

A second analyst, a former intelligence operative, says that the same methods Mr. Snowden, an ex-NSA contractor, disclosed in documents leaks to the press are now being turned on him. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AFPMorales says US hacked Bolivian leaders’ emails

By AFP. Bolivia’s leftist president Evo Morales on Saturday accused US intelligence of hacking into the email accounts of top Bolivian officials, saying he had shut his own account down.

Latin American leaders have lashed out at Washington over recent revelations of vast surveillance programs, some of which allegedly targeted regional allies and adversaries alike.

Bolivia has joined Venezuela and Nicaragua in offering asylum to Edward Snowden, the former IT contractor for the US National Security Agency who publicized details of the programs and is now on the run from espionage charges.

Morales said that he learned about the alleged US email snooping at the Mercosur regional summit in Montevideo earlier this week.

“Those US intelligence agents have accessed the emails of our most senior authorities in Bolivia, Morales said in a speech. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Speaks With Putin Amid Tensions Over Snowden

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Photo Credit: Jedimentat44By Fox News. President Obama spoke Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid escalating tensions between the two countries over NSA leaker Edward Snowden but there was no indication they reached any accord on the fugitive’s future.

Snowden, surfacing for the first time in weeks, held a meeting with human rights groups earlier Friday at the Moscow airport, where he’s been stuck in the transit zone since he left Hong Kong last month.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the meeting amounted to a “propaganda platform” for Snowden, and criticized Russia for its handling of the affair.

“It’s also incompatible with Russian assurances that they do not want Mr. Snowden to further damage U.S. interests,” he said.

The Russian government so far has rebuffed calls to return Snowden to the U.S. to face multiple federal charges. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APInside the Ring: More NSA leaks

By Bill Gertz. U.S. intelligence officials are braced for more disclosures of National Security Agency eavesdropping secrets from renegade contractor Edward Snowden, who is seeking asylum in Venezuela.

New details from Mr. Snowden, who was still in a Moscow airport transit lounge on Wednesday, appeared Sunday. Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine and Brazil’s O Globo newspaper published new details about NSA electronic intelligence gathering, including two code names for programs that had not been made public before.

In an email interview with video maker Laura Poitras and journalist Jacob Appelbaum, Mr. Snowden revealed that the NSA works with German intelligence and other Western governments to track down terrorists and other criminal suspects.

“We [NSA] warn the others when someone we want to catch is using one of their airports, and they then extradite him to us,” he stated. “We can have obtained the information for that, for example, from the monitored cellphone of the girlfriend of a suspected hacker who has used it in an entirely different country that has nothing to do with the matter.”

Mr. Snowden said the NSA’s Foreign Affairs Directorate is the main liaison. Read more from this story HERE.

Fugitive Snowden to Meet with Human Rights Groups

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Photo Credit: ReutersFormer intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden asked to meet human rights groups at a Moscow airport on Friday to discuss what he called “threatening behaviour” by the United States to prevent him gaining asylum.

The meeting would be the first of its kind since Snowden flew to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23. He has been stranded in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport ever since, unable to take up asylum offers from third countries.

Snowden is wanted by Washington on espionage charges for divulging details of secret U.S. surveillance programs. The email address from which he sent the invitation to human rights groups was confirmed as authentic by an airport official.

“In recent weeks we have witnessed an unlawful campaign by officials in the U.S. Government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Snowden wrote.

“The scale of threatening behavior is without precedent,” read the letter, a copy of which was posted to Facebook by an official of Human Rights Watch.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Says Snowden Made the Right Call in Fleeing US

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Photo Credit: The GuardianSnowden made the right call when he fled the U.S.

By Daniel Ellsberg. Many people compare Edward Snowden to me unfavorably for leaving the country and seeking asylum, rather than facing trial as I did. I don’t agree. The country I stayed in was a different America, a long time ago.

After the New York Times had been enjoined from publishing the Pentagon Papers — on June 15, 1971, the first prior restraint on a newspaper in U.S. history — and I had given another copy to The Post (which would also be enjoined), I went underground with my wife, Patricia, for 13 days. My purpose (quite like Snowden’s in flying to Hong Kong) was to elude surveillance while I was arranging — with the crucial help of a number of others, still unknown to the FBI — to distribute the Pentagon Papers sequentially to 17 other newspapers, in the face of two more injunctions. The last three days of that period was in defiance of an arrest order: I was, like Snowden now, a “fugitive from justice.”

Yet when I surrendered to arrest in Boston, having given out my last copies of the papers the night before, I was released on personal recognizance bond the same day. Later, when my charges were increased from the original three counts to 12, carrying a possible 115-year sentence, my bond was increased to $50,000. But for the whole two years I was under indictment, I was free to speak to the media and at rallies and public lectures. I was, after all, part of a movement against an ongoing war. Helping to end that war was my preeminent concern. I couldn’t have done that abroad, and leaving the country never entered my mind.

There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today, let alone that a trial could be terminated by the revelation of White House actions against a defendant that were clearly criminal in Richard Nixon’s era — and figured in his resignation in the face of impeachment — but are today all regarded as legal (including an attempt to “incapacitate me totally”).

I hope Snowden’s revelations will spark a movement to rescue our democracy…Read more from this story HERE.

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Paper reveals NSA ops in Latin America

By Juan Forero. A Brazilian newspaper on Tuesday published an article it said is based on documents provided by the former American contractor Edward Snowden asserting that the United States has been collecting data on telephone calls and e-mails from several countries in Latin America, including important allies such as Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

The paper, O Globo, based in Rio de Janeiro, says the documents show the National Security Agency amassed military and security data on countries such as Venezuela, an American adversary that has been accused of aiding Colombia’s Marxist rebels and maintaining close ties with Iran. But the documents also show that the agency carried out surveillance operations to unearth inside commercial information on the oil industry in Venezuela and the energy sector in Mexico, which is under state control and essentially closed to foreign investment.

U.S. officials have declined to address issues about intelligence gathering or the O Globo report, except to issue a statement saying that “we have been clear that the United States does gather foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations.”

The report on Tuesday came after O Globo on Sunday published a story contending that Brazil is a major target of the NSA’s international effort to monitor telecommunications. The newspaper said that in gathering data in Brazil, the NSA counted on the collaboration of American and Brazilian telecommunications companies, though O Globo did not name them.

The revelations of the American agency’s operations across a swath of Latin America coincided with news from Russia about where Snowden, who is believed to be at the Moscow airport, may be headed. A leading Russian lawmaker, Alexei Pushkov, said on Tuesday via his Twitter account that Snowden, who had been a contractor for the NSA, had accepted the offer of asylum that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had made on Friday. Read more from this story HERE.

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WikiLeaks: Snowden Has Not Accepted Asylum in Venezuela

By CBSDC/AP. WikiLeaks claims that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has not yet formally accepted asylum in Venezuela after a Russian lawmaker tweeted, then deleted minutes later, that Snowden accepted asylum from the South American country.

“The states concerned will make the announcement if and when the appropriate time comes. The announcement will then be confirmed by us,” WikiLeaks posted on Twitter.

The Associated Press reports that Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov initially tweeted that Snowden accepted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s political asylum request.

“Predictably, Snowden has agreed to Maduro’s offer of political asylum. Apparently, this option appeared most reliable to Snowden,” Pushkov tweeted.

But the post was deleted minutes after Pushkov tweeted the information. Read more from this story HERE.

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Edward Snowden: U.S., Israel ‘Co-Wrote’ Cyber Super Weapon Stuxnet

By Lee Ferran and Kirit Radia. The former National Security Agency contractor on the run from U.S. authorities halfway around the world said that Stuxnet, an unprecedented cyber weapon that targeted Iran’s nuclear program, was the product of a joint American-Israeli secret operation.

Before Edward Snowden became a household name, he conducted an interview via encrypted emails with cyber security expert Jacob Appelbaum and was asked about the game-changing computer code, according to the interview published in the German newspaper Der Spiegel Monday.

“NSA [U.S. National Security Agency] and Israel co-wrote it,” Snowden said.

Snowden said that the NSA regularly works with foreign governments and has a “massive body” called the Foreign Affairs Directorate to deal with international partners.

In the interview Snowden did not discuss Stuxnet further and, so far, none of the newspapers Snowden has worked with have published any documents directly relating to the cyber weapon. Read more from this story HERE.

Snowden Loves America, Not Its Government; Says He’s Unwilling to Live Under Constant Surveillance

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Photo Credit: The Guardian The Guardian released the second part of Snowden’s interview with Glenn Greenwald in Hong Kong. In it Snowden, made it clear that he loved America but hated what its government has become. He also predicted that the feds would ultimately accuse him of espionage. Here are excerpts of that interview:

“I think they are going to say I have committed grave crimes, I have violated the Espionage Act. They are going to say I have aided our enemies in making them aware of these systems. But this argument can be made against anyone who reveals information that points out mass surveillance systems,” he said.

Asked whether he had sought a career in the intelligence community specifically to become a mole and reveal secrets, Snowden, 30, said he had joined government service very young, first enlisting in the US army immediately after the invasion of Iraq out of a belief in “the goodness of what we were doing. I believed in the nobility of our intentions to free oppressed people overseas.”

But his views shifted over the length of his career as he watched the news, which he saw as propaganda, not truth. “We were actually involved in misleading the public and misleading all the publics, not just the American public, in order to create certain mindset in the global consciousness and I was actually a victim of that.”

He had not fallen out of love with America, only its government. “America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.”

In the new excerpts, he explained his motivation for revealing the information. “I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded,” he said. “And that’s not something I’m willing to support, it’s not something I’m willing to build and it’s not something I’m willing to live under.”

Edward Snowden’s Nightmare Comes True

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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.

Snowden a Whistleblower, but US Leaders, Press Increasingly Call Him a Traitor as Asylum Offers are Made

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Photo Credit: J Scott Applewhite/APEdward Snowden is a whistleblower, not a spy – but do our leaders care?

By Spencer Ackerman. According to US legislators and journalists, the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden actively aided America’s enemies. They are just missing one essential element for the meme to take flight: evidence.

An op-ed by Representative Mike Pompeo (Republican, Kansas) proclaiming Snowden, who provided disclosed widespread surveillance on phone records and internet communications by the National Security Agency, “not a whistleblower” is indicative of the emerging narrative. Writing in the Wichita Eagle on 30 June Pompeo, a member of the House intelligence committee, wrote that Snowden “has provided intelligence to America’s adversaries”.

Pompeo correctly notes in his op-ed that “facts are important”. Yet when asked for the evidence justifying the claim that Snowden gave intelligence to American adversaries, his spokesman, JP Freire, cited Snowden’s leak of NSA documents. Those documents, however, were provided to the Guardian and the Washington Post, not al-Qaeda or North Korea.

It’s true that information published in the press can be read by anyone, including people who mean America harm. But to conflate that with actively handing information to foreign adversaries is to foreclose on the crucial distinction between a whistleblower and a spy, and makes journalists the handmaidens of enemies of the state.

Yet powerful legislators are eager to make that conflation about Snowden. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APVenezuela, Nicaragua offer Snowden asylum

By Hadas Gold and Nick Gass. Nicaragua and Venezuela on Friday night became the first countries to offer National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum.

“As head of state, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden so that he can live (without) … persecution from the empire,” President Nicolas Maduro said, according to the Associated Press.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he’d be willing to extend the same offer to the 29-year-old, but adding he would only do so “if circumstances allowed it.”

“We have the sovereign right to help a person who felt remorse after finding out how the United States was using technology to spy on the whole world, and especially its European allies,” Ortega said.

Wikileaks announced earlier Friday via Twitter that Snowden has applied for asylum in six more countries. Read more from this story HERE.

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Iceland proposal to grant NSA leaker Snowden citizenship appears to go nowhere

By Fox News. Icelandic lawmakers introduced a proposal in Parliament to grant immediate citizenship to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden — but it looks like it’s going nowhere.

Parliament later voted not to debate the measure before the summer recess, Reuters reported.

With his options narrowing daily, WikiLeaks announced Friday the fugitive NSA leaker had applied for asylum in another six countries, in addition to the 12 where he reportedly already has applied. However, WikiLeaks said it could not reveal the new names due to “attempted U.S. interference.”

Ogmundur Jonasson, whose liberal Left-Green Party is backing the Snowden citizenship proposal along with the Pirate Party and Brighter Future Party, put the issue before the Judicial Affairs Committee Thursday, but it received minimal support.

Snowden is believed to be stuck in a Moscow airport transit area. At one point, he told the Guardian newspaper that he was inclined to seek asylum in a country that shared his values — and that “the nation that most encompasses this is Iceland.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Valda Kalnina/EPANSA leaks: UK blocks crucial espionage talks between US and Europe

By Ian Traynor. Britain has blocked the first crucial talks on intelligence and espionage between European officials and their American counterparts since the NSA surveillance scandal erupted.

The talks, due to begin in Washington on Monday, will now be restricted to issues of data privacy and the NSA’s Prism programme following a tense 24 hours of negotiations in Brussels between national EU ambassadors. Britain, supported only by Sweden, vetoed plans to launch two “working groups” on the espionage debacle with the Americans.

Instead, the talks will consist of one working group focused on the NSA’s Prism programme, which has been capturing and storing vast amounts of internet and mobile phone metadata in Europe. Read more from this story HERE.

International Fall-Out Over Snowden Continues with Anger from Bolivian, French Officials (+video)

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Photo Credit: APBolivian President: US ‘Imperialism’ Caused Flight From Russia To Be Diverted

By CBSDC/AP. Bolivian President Evo Morales blames the United States for his plane from Moscow being diverted to Vienna, Austria, Wednesday for a 14-hour layover after suspicions arose he was harboring National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

Returning home to a hero’s welcome, Morales called it an “open provocation” to the South American continent after France, Spain and Portugal refused to let his plane pass through their airspace.

The United States and European allies “use the agent of North American imperialism to scare us and intimidate us,” Morales said.

Morales added: “I regret this, but I want to say that some European countries should free themselves from North American imperialism.”

The United States declined to comment on whether it was involved in any decision to close European airspace for Morales’ plane. Read more from this story HERE.

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French official lashes out at US at July 4 party, in latest clash over Snowden leaks

By Fox News. As NSA leaker Ed Snowden struggles to find a country that will take him, the case continues to cause diplomatic headaches for the U.S. government.

In the latest flare-up, France’s top security official on Thursday publicly dressed down the U.S. at the American ambassador’s July 4 garden party.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who was a guest of honor at the event hosted by Ambassador Charles Rivkin, denounced alleged U.S. “espionage” of France and other countries, while the European Parliament voted to open an investigation.

In a speech before hundreds of guests, he said that “in the name of our friendship, we owe each other honesty. We must say things clearly, directly, frankly.” He said the alleged spy tactics, “if proven, do not have their place between allies and partners.”

The European suspicion is the product of yet another news story presumably based on material leaked by Snowden, who continues to evade arrest by staying in the transit zone of the Moscow airport. Read more from this story HERE.

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Do we care about our privacy anymore?

By Bill Press. Every Fourth of July, somebody reminds us there’s more to this national holiday than hotdogs and fireworks. Take time over the weekend, we are piously admonished, to remember what it’s all about. Annoying advice, perhaps, but important. And, this year, more so than ever because one of our most basic rights is under attack.

In powerful words that still stir our hearts, our Founding Fathers laid forth the foundation on which America is built: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And those rights are so sacred “that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”

Clearly, the founders were telling us they wouldn’t tolerate any wholesale attempt to undermine our basic rights — and we shouldn’t, either. So where’s the outrage today over the massive invasion of our privacy by the National Security Agency? Have we forgotten how to fight?

All we’ve been talking about for the last two weeks is Edward Snowden. Where is he? Will he ever get out of the Moscow airport? Will he be granted asylum anywhere? Who cares? The real issue is not Snowden’s fate. It’s what Snowden revealed about the NSA’s collection of data, which we now know to be even more widespread than previously believed.

Under a broad interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, and with the full blessing of the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NSA’s amassing and storing a record of every phone call – every single phone call! – made in the United States: from what number, to what number and how long it lasted: what Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has called “a massive invasion of Americans’ privacy.” The NSA has also capturing records of every email sent outside the United States. Read more from this story HERE.