Presstitutes

Glenn Greenwald: On Prism, partisanship and propaganda

"One of the most significant aspects of the Obama legacy has been the transformation of Democrats from pretend-opponents of the Bush War on Terror and National Security State into their biggest proponents: exactly what the CIA presciently and excitedly predicted in 2008 would happen with Obama's election. Some Democrats have tried to distinguish 2006 from 2013 by claiming that the former involved illegal spying while the latter does not. But the claim that current NSA spying is legal is dubious in the extreme. If Democrats are so sure these spying programs are legal, why has the Obama DOJ been so eager to block courts from adjudicating that question?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: On Prism, partisanship and propaganda

Naomi Wolf: My creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be

"I hate to cast any skepticism on what seems to be a great story of a brave spy coming in from the cold in the service of American freedom. And I would never raise such questions in public if I had not been told by a very senior official in the intelligence world that indeed, there are some news stories that they create and drive — even in America (where propagandizing Americans is now legal). But do consider that in Eastern Germany, for instance, it was the fear of a machine of surveillance that people believed watched them at all times — rather than the machine itself — that drove compliance and passivity." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNaomi Wolf: My creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be

Der Spiegel Laments The Rapid Spread of Printable Pistols

"A student from Texas has invented a plastic pistol that anyone can make with a 3-D printer. It is undetectable by metal detectors and capable of killing. And it is spreading unchecked across the continents. A few days after Cody Wilson's invention had been created, the United States Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to the rest of the world. The officials, responsible for fending off terrorist attacks, wrote three pages about the dangers of a weapon against which they are powerless. They wrote that public safety is threatened. They also wrote that, unfortunately, it is impossible to prevent this weapon from being made." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDer Spiegel Laments The Rapid Spread of Printable Pistols

How Snowden Did an End Run Around the NSA and the Obama Administration

"Snowden went to the Washington Post first, but when the Post waffled, he dropped them and went to Glenn Greenwald, a pro-civil rights lawyer who lives in Brazil and writes for The Guardian, a British newspaper/website. Greenwald wrote up the story as Snowden gave it to him, thereby scooping the world. He gets 100% credit, as does The Guardian. The Washington Post gets also-ran status. These days, a leaker with a story can get his story out his way. There is always a journalist somewhere who will run it. If it’s in a major publication, which The Guardian is, the story will get coverage. A leaker no longer has to do it anyone else’s way. He can do it his way." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHow Snowden Did an End Run Around the NSA and the Obama Administration

Bill O’Reilly suddenly opposed to NSA surveillance he supported under Bush

"The conservative host described the NSA’s surveillance programs as a 'massive intrusion.' O’Reilly warned that 'corrupt government officials' could leak sensitive data to hurt their political opponents. He said that keeping actual content of private conversations on file was 'flat out unconstitutional.' O’Reilly’s tune was far different under the Bush administration. At the time, he voiced strong support for the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, which collected the telephone records of millions of Americans. In 2006, after a judge ruled the program was unconstitutional, O’Reilly speculated that she didn’t care if Americans were killed by terrorists." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill O’Reilly suddenly opposed to NSA surveillance he supported under Bush

Where Was Mainstream News While the Surveillance State Was Expanding?

"An honest report would explain how what is obviously one of the biggest stories of the modern era has gone unreported by Reuters and by the mainstream media in general. An honest report would address the aggregate courage of the alternative media in covering the rise of the surveillance state while being marginalized by the formal media and disparaged as being agents of 'conspiracy theories.' But instead, we get articles like this one, reporting that is good and serious as far as it goes ... but it surely doesn't go very far. What's needed is investigate reporting. Instead, we are presented with a kind of catalogue." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhere Was Mainstream News While the Surveillance State Was Expanding?

Snowden, in exchanges with Post reporter, made clear he knew risks

"'We managed to survive greater threats in our history . . . than a few disorganized terrorist groups and rogue states without resorting to these sorts of programs. It is not that I do not value intelligence, but that I oppose . . . omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance. . . . That seems to me a greater threat to the institutions of free society than missed intelligence reports, and unworthy of the costs. Analysts (and government in general) aren’t bad guys, and they don’t want to think of themselves as such,' he replied. But he said they labored under a false premise that 'if a surveillance program produces information of value, it legitimizes it.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSnowden, in exchanges with Post reporter, made clear he knew risks