If You See Something Say Something

Were Snowden and Manning just following the advice of homeland security?  They saw something and they said something. What do you think? Whistle blower or Traitor?

One thing that is coming to light is that our government is hiding criminal/un-constitutional behavior – and lying about it.  The real news on America has to be read on UK papers.

1. The first story on the NSA reports thousands of violations – from an internal investigation.  That means that the real story is under-reported.

Two US senators on the intelligence committee said on Friday that thousands of annual violations by the National Security Agency on its own restrictions were "the tip of the iceberg."

"The executive branch has now confirmed that the rules, regulations and court-imposed standards for protecting the privacy of Americans' have been violated thousands of times each year," said senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, two leading critics of bulk surveillance, who responded Friday to a Washington Post story based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/16/nsa-revelations-privacy-breaches-udall-wyden

2. Destruction of reporters material…

Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger on Monday night disclosed the remarkable news that UK authorities, several weeks ago, threatened the Guardian UK with prior restraint if they did not destroy all of their materials provided by Edward Snowden, and then sent agents to the basement of the paper's offices to oversee the physical destruction of hard drives. The Guardian has more details on that episode today, and MSNBC's Chris Hayes interviewed the Guardian's editor-in-chief about itlast night. As Rusbridger explains, this behavior was as inane as it was thuggish: since this is 2013, not 1958, destroying one set of a newspaper's documents doesn't destroy them all, and since the Guardian has multiple people around the world with copies, they achieved nothing but making themselves look incompetently oppressive.

But conveying a thuggish message of intimidation is exactly what the UK and their superiors in the US national security state are attempting to accomplish with virtually everything they are now doing in this matter. On Monday night, Reuters' Mark Hosenball reported the following about the 9-hour detention of my partner under a terrorism law, all with the advanced knowledge of the White House:

One US security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/sending-message-miranda-gchq-nsa

3. 35 years for Bradley Manning.  Who did what?  Released evidence of criminal behavior in Iraq.

The nonprofit Government Accountability Project lists reasons it regards the Manning sentence as "excessive and unjust":

• It has never been proven that Manning's conduct did harm to the US.
• Manning informed the public of clear wrongdoing.
• Manning suffered egregious and unlawful pretrial detention.
• No individuals have been punished as a result of Manning's revelations despite clear atrocities.

GAP has defended whistleblowers including Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou and William E Binney

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/21/bradley-manning-sentencing-wikileaks-live

4. What about the war criminals that went un-prosecuted?  What about Holder, Hayden and Clapper for lying to Congress? What about Hillary Clinton for lying about Benghazi?  Benghazi, Fast and Furious, AP, NSA and IRS. Lies and manipulation. What a fraud…

5. Great Story on the NYT: Laura Poitras.  Also watch The Program: http://nyti.ms/NGpkrE

Our lives will never be the same, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live someplace and feel like I have my privacy. That might be just completely gone.

Laura Poitras