#EdwardSnowden granted refugee status in Russia, leaves airport http://t.co/TlpPHYj0xj – Guess he has more rights in Russia than in the US
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 1, 2013
#Manning verdict leaves 4 big issues http://t.co/69k1jQqUgr – Has the @barackobama land of the free become an #orwellian security state?
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 1, 2013
What’s up in the “Land of the free and the home of the brave”?
The above two tweets reference articles in today’s Globe. Note the following from the second article:
Obama’s record on whistleblowing
Since taking office less than six years ago, Mr. Obama has pursued more espionage charges against government employees than all other past presidents combined. It was therefore unsurprising that when Mr. Manning pleaded guilty earlier this year to several lesser offences that would have brought him about 20 years of imprisonment, the government refused to bargain and opted instead to prosecute the most serious charges.
By throwing the book at, and making an example of Mr. Manning, Ed Snowden and all other alleged whistleblowers, the U.S. administration clearly hopes to send an intimidating chill throughout the civil service, and in so doing reduce the incidence of leaking.
Is this strategy, in combination with the imposition of curbs on civil liberties and constitutional rights, transforming the erstwhile land of the free into a something disturbingly Orwellian – a national security state? Not an insignificant query.
This is a good article and provides good opportunity for comment and discussion.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/03/5-spectators-injured-at-old-power-plant-implosion/2615005/
see, look, it already happened!
Don\t forget! If there are no attacks, then the electronic surveillance was a success and the tragedy was avoided!!!!!
We all need to keep up the vigil — on any day the US could allow a slip, and another bit of feerdom might be lost.
And now Obama is backtracking on his previous comments that Americans should feel comfortable with the NSA domestic and international spying on emails, phone, etc.
http://online.wsj.com/arti/SB10001424127887324522504579002653564348842.html?mod=us_most_pop_newsreel
“…Mr. Obama also sought to tamp down concerns overseas about the government’s extensive spying apparatus. “America is not interested in spying on ordinary people,” he said. …”
“Mr. Obama’s announcement marks a significant about-face on the issue. Just this past June the president defended the program. “I think on balance, we have established a process and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about,” Mr. Obama said at the time.”……….
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/cia-spied-noam-chomsky?akid=10796.40715.xkeiY6&rd=1&src=newsletter882141&t=7
‘CIA Targeted Noam Chomsky, Documents Reveal
Foreign Policy magazine has obtained documents confirming that the Central Intelligence Agency snooped on famed activist and linguist Noam Chomsky.’
“….In response to the revelation, Chomsky told Foreign Policy: “Some day it will be realized that systems of power typically try to extend their power in any way they can think of.” …”
What he said.
Edward Snowden has just been selected as a finalist for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The winner will be named on October 10.
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The Government Leakers Who Truly Endanger America Will Never Face Prosecution
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_government_leakers_who_truly_endanger_america_will_never_face_prosecuti
Think you have nothing to worry about with the NSA because you’re doing nothing wrong? Think again, because what YOU think is “irrelevant”.
Again, I know I’m safe if Chris Hedges is still allowed to rail against the USG:
“The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.”…
…”The object of efficient totalitarian states, as George Orwell understood, is to create a climate in which people do not think of rebelling, a climate in which government killing and torture are used against only a handful of unmanageable renegades. The totalitarian state achieves this control, Arendt wrote, by systematically crushing human spontaneity, and by extension human freedom. It ceaselessly peddles fear to keep a population traumatized and immobilized. It turns the courts, along with legislative bodies, into mechanisms to legalize the crimes of state.”
The last gasp of democracy:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_last_gasp_of_american_democracy_20140105
@bubblebustin
Yes, I admire him. This a great read.