NSA Uses Corporate News to Spread Propaganda and Silence Dissent – Truthdig

The message NSA and other officials send to the public every time a whistle-blower and journalist step forward to expose an inconvenient truth is, “You’re all going to die because of these leakers and the journalists who publish their disclosures!” Greenwald writes.

This encourages a fervor of fear that has led some legislators and “journalists” to openly call for the assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for disclosures made through his site.

The “danger” of these leaks is the general reason given for convicting Chelsea Manning, who exposed war crimes committed under the name of Americans. (Manning’s failure to expose what she witnessed would have been a violation of the Nuremberg Laws.) Of course, this justification was never subjected to scrutiny during Manning’s trial and never criticized in the corporate media.

Truthdig columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who was at the Manning hearings, has said the U.S. government was never able to find a single example in which lives were endangered by Manning’s disclosures.

Read more at: NSA Uses Corporate News to Spread Propaganda and Silence Dissent – Truthdig.

United Nations Launching Investigation on US & UK Spy Agencies

While the British government is pounding The Guardian for disclosing NSA leaked documents provided by Edward Snowden, they might want to look in the rear view mirror – a “Bigger Brother” is coming up behind.

The United Nation’s senior counter-terrorism official is set to launch an investigation into the surveillance powers of American and British intelligence agencies following Edward Snowden’s revelations that they are using secret programs to store and analyze billions of emails, phone calls and text messages.

Read more at Edward Snowden revelations prompt UN investigation into surveillance | World news | The Guardian.

Canada’s Spy Agency Scrutinized for Abusing Powers

Middletown Voice has pointed out that our frigid friends to the north have come under heat for their security breaches as well as the GCHQ and NSA in the U.K. and USA, respectively.

The Vancouver Observer reports:

CSEC has been in the news big time since October when Snowden revealed that the agency has conducted industrial espionage on the Brazilian government and Brazilian companies that compete with Canadian firms.

That was followed last week by Snowden’s revelations that CSEC and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) cooperated in spying on the protests against the G20 Summit Meeting that took place in Toronto in June 2010.

It’s nice to know that American and British spy agencies aren’t the only ones who can’t resist the temptation to abuse their power and spy on residents, other government officials, and foreign dignitaries.

It is illegal for it to conduct spying on Canadian soil. That is supposed to be the bailiwick of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). It’s even less legal for CSEC to be welcoming the NSA to set up shop on Canadian soil and then conduct joint operations with it.

CSEC is Canada’s CIA. It has developed a vast expertise on internet spying and data storage, placing Canada in the top ranks of the “Five Eyes” espionage alliance that is headed by the U.S. and Britain and also includes Australia and New Zealand.

Glenn Greenwald is working with Canadian journalists to help reveal the depth of the spying, and promises more secrets will be revealed in coming weeks. You can read the entire article: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/commentary/more-revelations-about-canada%E2%80%99s-top-secret-spy-agency-are-coming

NSA Tells Employees How to Handle Family & Friends Questions

Apparently, our wounded friends at the National Security Agency (NSA) anticipated employees might get confronted by friends and family over the Holidays, so they prepared a take home letter for them with instructions on how to respond to questions. Independent news group Firedoglake obtained a copy of the two page letter:

It was clearly put together for rebutting statements about the NSA from news stories on documents disclosed by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, and it encouraged employees to “share the following points with family members and close friends.”

The “talking points” sheet suggests that employees make five key points: (1) NSA’s mission is of great value to the Nation”; (2) NSA performs its mission the right way—lawful, compliant and in a way that protects civil liberties and privacy; (3) NSA performs its mission exceptionally well. We strive to be the best that we can be, because that’s what America requires as part of its defense in a dangerous world; (4) The people who work for NSA are loyal Americans with expert skills who make sacrifices to help protect the freedoms we all cherish; (5) NSA is committed to increased transparency, public dialog and faithful implementation of any changes required by our overseers. (No emphasis added. Underlines appear in the document.)

Things keep getting worse for this group. In the past week we learned that Canada actually authorized the NSA to spy on foreign dignitaries while they attended a conference in their country. And now the British government is cracking down on the The Guardian for its participation in humiliating GCHQ.

And, unless you didn’t catch this one, it’s one of my personal favorites:

Journalists Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher and Ryan Grim recently published parts of a document for a story at Huffington Post that showed NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander had sought to discredit radical Muslims by spying on their porn-viewing habits. One of the six targets discussed in the document was a US person…none of these people targeted were believed by the NSA to be involved in any terrorist plots. The NSA wanted to embarrass them because they had a history of espousing views that the agency considered dangerous to the United States.

And Congress is cutting Food Stamps on hungry Americans because they believe the poor are a waste of our money.

Check out the article – it’s an excellent read and refutes every single point made by the NSA. Doesn’t the NSA realize how embarrassing it must be for employees as we keep learning more about what they’ve been doing? Isn’t the knowledge that they’ve demanded workers ease drop on citizens bad enough without sending them home for the holidays with two pages of lies to tell their family and friends?

And Congress is looking for waste to cut from our federal budget – if this is the best we can produce from the NSA, I’d say the entire program should be shut down saving taxpayers billions of dollars, let alone try to minimize the embarrassment this has caused, and will continue to cause as more revelations are made public.

Nevertheless, excellent reporting by Firedoglake.

 

Journalism: Outside the Realm of Control

Grab your favorite soft drink and popcorn…this is better than anything you can get on Netflix.

We are entering a new phase of journalism where individuals have more power than the platforms (Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, Gannett, etc.) who previously owned access to all information.

For the past 40 years, because of how information was captured, packaged and re-sold to us, it was imperative that the industry consolidate in order to compete through economies of scale which eventually led to the consolidation of the media industry – 6 companies owning 80% of all media we read, listen to, and watch.

These 6 companies are part of the Oligarchy and as you can imagine, if you own the flow of information, you have tremendous power. Was it abused?

You betcha…the sole purpose of the free press was to work for the benefit of the people as a 4th branch of government to ensure government didn’t abuse its power, and ensure our democracy remained in tact by holding back the greedy capitalists who have been a threat to our democracy ever since the founding of this great nation.

Once the Oligarchs decided to own the free press – they neutered the power of our 4th branch of government just like they neutered our politicians in Washington and Indianapolis.

We were told what they wanted us to hear. The government was part of this consolidated entity as we all know monied interests control the politicians. We now see monied interests buying school board seats to ensure they get their agenda upheld in privatizing schools.

The Oligarchs own and control the three branches of our federal government – executive, legislation, and judicial. They own our statehouses through ALEC where over 200 corporations come together and create laws for politicians to implement on their behalf – which they do.

However, now we are experiencing tremendous change within the journalism industry as people and organizations move outside of the established Oligarchy (like Muncie Voice & Middletown Voice) to hold the entire “establishment” accountable – the roots of the free press – the 4th estate – the 4th branch of government.

Read the accompanying article from Pando Daily and the response from Glenn Greenwald. They will give you a taste of where things are going and it will make you view Gannett’s rag with a whole different perspective.

Privatization of NSA Secrets: Glenn Greenwald Responds.

German Lawmaker Says He Met Snowden in Russia

Edward Snowden might be wanted for espionage in the United States, but he is quickly making friends in the international community as more foreign leaders discover they were being spied on by the NSA.
We’d still like to know if the NSA was also spying on POTUS without his permission.