Wednesday, July 17, 2013

American Citizenship is Rapidly Becoming Devalued to Zero


Washington, DC—Our forefathers sacrificed so much so we would have freedom, prosperity and the tools to prevent government from again becoming despotic.   As a nation our citizenship has been the envy of the entire rest of the world.   We have allowed freedom to slip away and the value of our citizenship has rapidly declined.
We built a system where free enterprise created wealth and jobs.  That in turn gave Americans the ability to consume the fruit of their labor. Productivity and excellence was rewarded and accordingly America became the wealthiest and strongest nation on earth.   Today productivity is punished with extortionate taxation at every level of government.
Nearly 100 years passed and Socialists and Communists floated new ideas about government.  These ideas failed in nation after nation but for a few party leaders that could live like royalty through corruption while their citizens were starved, confined and enslaved.  These governments are well known for killing dissidents or anyone wishing to escape from their own homelands.
That did not stop the spread of Socialism and Communism to the USA and our government including the Whitehouse.  Both major political parties are awash with politicians on a united mission, to force the failed Socialist ideas on Americans.  These disloyal politicians all believe the Constitution they were sworn to protect is outdated and irrelevant.
Socialism can only flourish when the vast majority of citizens are totally dependent upon government.  We are at a point where over 50% of the population is impoverished and programed into utter and complete dependence. 
Our Socialists are doing everything they can to increase the population with the ignorant and poor from Mexico and Central America.  The price of admission is simply to break our immigration laws.  Millions more illiterate and unskilled trespassers are being handed citizenship and the right to vote by our Socialist politicians.  That will guarantee a Socialist government in the USA for the next 100 years.
In the mean time our government is moving in efforts to prevent the flight of Americans wanting to emigrate with their assets elsewhere in the world.  The revocation of passports for tax indebtedness has already begun.  At what point does our border patrol begin to use deadly force to keep Americans from leaving?  Don’t say that it can’t or won’t happen because history is redundant with examples proving this point.
In any event our American citizenship is all but worthless today.  Government’s domestic spying is out of control.  Our Criminal justice system has been reduced to show trials.  To make matters worse we are swimming in wrongful convictions because we’ve given prosecutors too much new power. Our free speech is endangered by the very real threat of IRS abuse.  Our politicians have sold Americans on the idea that liberty must be traded for security.  As a result we have morphed into a fascist police state that’s armed with the latest technological super weapons.
Frankly I have no taste for the new America.  Even the Left leaning European nations still understands the horror of fascism and protects liberty better then America.  Americans are fleeing this nation like never before.  
Productive Americans will either have to fight to regain their freedom or submit to slavery.  I just know one thing, each coming day will be darker as our productivity, prosperity and liberty slips completely into a tyrannical Abyss.


35 comments:

Indy Reasoner said...

You've written truly. I will add this: heinous crimes are committed by the well connected on a continuing basis. The banking and monetary system are full of these "too big to prosecutes." So are the huge transnational corporations and their primary owners. Add to that those members of US government who have sold their souls to said monsters, and we have a monstrous criminal cartel that is as destructive of not only national interests but human interests worldwide as has ever been known in history.

This is where prosecution should begin. But of course, the prosecution is the criminal. Thus, those of us who support the Constitution and real humanity are the enemies.

Worldwide

Unknown said...

What about it becoming not just zero, but rather negative value? Ie. an active liability, threat to one's well-being?

Anonymous said...

Re: America and Edward Snowden, a modern day Prometheus

"Pity the country that requires a hero, Bertolt Brecht once remarked, but pity the heroes too. They are the other homeless, the people who don’t fit in. They are the ones who see the hardest work and do it, and pay the price we charge those who do what we can’t or won’t.

If the old stories were about heroes who saved us from others, modern heroes — Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Rachel Carson, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi — endeavored to save us from ourselves, from our own governments and systems of power.

The rest of us so often sacrifice that self and those ideals to fit in, to be part of a cannibal system, a system that eats souls and defiles truths and serves only power. Or we negotiate quietly to maintain an uneasy distance from it and then go about our own business. Though in my world quite a few of us strike our small blows against empire, you, young man, you were situated where you could run a dagger through the dragon’s eye, and that dragon is writhing in agony now; in that agony it has lost its magic: an arrangement whereby it remains invisible while making the rest of us ever more naked to its glaring eye.

Private Eyes and Public Rights

Privacy is a kind of power as well as a right, one that public librarians fought to protect against the Bush administration and the PATRIOT Act and that online companies violate in every way that’s profitable and expedient. Our lack of privacy, their monstrous privacy — even their invasion of our privacy must, by law, remain classified — is what you made visible. The agony of a monster with nowhere to stand — you are accused of spying on the spies, of invading the privacy of their invasion of privacy — is a truly curious thing. And it is changing the world. Europe and South America are in an uproar, and attempts to contain you [Edward Snowden]...

You yourself said it so well on July 12th:

“A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates. It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the U.S. Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice — that it must be seen to be done.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/18/rebecca_solnit_edward_snowden_is_a_modern_day_prometheus_partner/

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more! Many authors/pundits express the same concern over the continuing collapse of The United States.

What are we to do? Voting is useless. Not all of us are flush with cash to seek a safe haven. Protesting seems to be a dangerous proposition what with the DHS, NSA and every other thug looking to arrest and torture.

Violence is most definitely out of the question. That will only bring the jackboot down on everyone harder.

Just what are we to do?

Anonymous said...

Marx said "communism" would be the final stageof evolution, an ultimate achievement and would "wither away" the state. HA! More like an evolutionary dead end.

Ludwig Von Mises said the self described east german socialist democracy spectacularly admitted it's failures when they had to build a wall to keep their comrades in!

Marx and Engels were statists...the only way any of these "isms" can work is if it's voluntary and everyone wants the same thing, like a herd of cattle or monastery. But since human beings are not cattle, their wants and desires can vary in degree and detail.

But speaking of welfare domestically, how about the foreign welfare? Israelis get more taxpayer money then any illegal mexicans, heck, American taxpayers pay more for Israel's military then Israelis do and they have a lower unemployment rate!

After a decade of war, you'd think some Americans would wake up as they watch their jobs and bank accounts shrink, instead the corrupt state controlled corporate media feeds us divisory topics like gay marriage and global warming, while the 911 security profiteers use mass murder for political and financial gain. It's sick, pathetic, and Anti-American.

http://stoptheblankcheck.org/

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

Wulirider said...

Socialism/communism will NOT last 100 years. It has already morphed into Fascism and go the way of "Hungar Games" or revolution, and a new American Spring possible after one or two decades of struggle. There is a growing awareness that "Independence Day" scenario may be behind the whole national security state, given the growing awareness of historic and ancient history showing great battles in the past recorded by all societies and those who came from above where not nice creatures. A Babel Tower scenario may be in works if they come back again, but this time, Earth might be ready to make it a fair fight...

Unknown said...

As one of those 'ignorant and poor from Mexico' I don't appreciate the broad stroke you paint us with.

I am no socialist - I am a libertarian. Not a pansy libertarian who is satisfied with reforming the education system with vouchers, but the sort of libertarian who wants to outright privatize the whole education system and everything else to boot.

Nor am I ignorant. I've already got a Bachelor's degree in Economics. Give me a few years and I'll add a PhD degree to that.

If you wish to blame anyone on the state of the United States, blame not us immigrants. We've seen socialism first hand. We despise it at a level most US citizens will never be able to appreciate. We saw our homelands destroyed by it and would have lost our lives if we had not taken extreme efforts to get out.

If you wish to blame anyone, blame the socialists at the state schools who have infected our children with AMERICAN socialist ideas. Blame those conservatives who insist on antagonizing us by refusing to agree to immigration reform and in the process encourage our young to radicalize towards the left. But us-? How can you blame us? We didn't vote in the socialists. We don't have the right to vote to start off with!

Otherwise keep up the good fight in the name of liberty.

Anonymous said...

This current Administration , with the active assistance from the MSM, is conducting a seminar on How to Destroy a Rebublic Without a War ! They are succeeding because we have become a " nation of sheep " , uninformed and resigned to the actions of a hugely centralized governmnt , determined to exercise total control over our lives ; it will not end well ! One day we will look back on this Administration as the one most responsible for coalescing all the Socialist forces to destroy the last remnants of resistance . " freedom once lost can never be regained " !

Dennis Wilson said...

"At what point does our border patrol begin to use deadly force to keep Americans from leaving? Don’t say that it can’t or won’t happen because history is redundant with examples proving this point."
.
We have already passed that point!
.
http://tinyurl.com/Deadly-USA-Border
THE DEADLY USA BORDER--BERLIN REDUX

Like Berlin except that USA border guards KILL people trying to ENTER OR LEAVE!

Among stories at that link will be the one from 2006 about how U.S. authorities smashed his vehicle’s window with a baton, and then shot and killed the unarmed 22-year-old driver of a car headed FOR Mexico.

Questions to ponder:

WHY do US authorities stop ALL cars going INTO Mexico (and Canada)?
Shouldn’t that be the function of Mexican (or Canadian) authorities?
Do we, in FACT, actually live INSIDE a prison?

Anonymous said...

To the person stating will the US Border Patrol prevent departures?
Apparently you have not found the documentation or learned it direct from a US Border Patrol Agent: the Homeland Insecurity told the Border Patrol--we don't have any AMMO
And to the person claiming to be coming from Mexico:
Dial#2 for Spanish
Whom is impacting whom?
Part of my family are Mexicans: but they remain and stand up for Mexico...and those who stood their ground at Goliad...make a choice..they didn't just wonder in...they helped establish Texas which now like most States welcomes the illegals and the illegitimates DREAM ACT to the seats of our US Dead Military in our USA's taxpaid Universities.
Everything Mexico does is the opposite of what they dictate and demand from our US Citizens of Generations!
USA's time is running out..

Anonymous said...

Ding bat:
Apparently, you have NEVER left the USA...or you would realize ALL vehicles are stopped EXCEPT drug cartels entering into the USA..
A prison...try residing in Guatemala when the Federales chase the Chiapians into the Northern Region...
The paradox of what Mexico does with their Illegals, illegitimates, illiterates dumping them on diminishing US Citizens of Generations as law abiding working contributing taxpayers.
No other nation welcomes a pregnant who re with auto-welfare citizenship from womb to tomb now 8-9 generations...
Coward TRAITORs WITHIN do..the Communist PLAN via LULAC founded in MExico by the same for that planned destructive purpose of us dba the USA.
Sop where will all the ilegals, illegitimates run to next when the Communist Chinese Government takesover...along with the Russian Troops already occupying USA soil?

Anonymous said...

No one is against immigrants. We are against trespassers. Productive people such as yourself are welcome as long as you didn't break into our house.

Marcy Fleming said...

The last thing we need is another hysterical, whiny We Are Doomed ! piece.
This BS has been common on the Right for a century.
Socialism has never lasted anywhere.
The Commies have infiltrated the Right to spread demoralization.

Anonymous said...

Regarding Full Disclosure in Government and Broadcast

Truth In Media - Reality Check that does not Bounce-

Discussion John B. Wells and Ben Swann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqoHmGmk9fU&feature=youtu.be

E, Tippett said...

Some of these dung headed comments
merely reflect the ignorance of the
american public about its own history
particularly the boycotted Constitutional convention and the
four years of civil war (Shay's and
the Whiskey Rebellions of 1787 and
1791-94!) as well as many other
untaught and significant historical
events. I can see why Hitler once
said that "THE MOST WONDERFUL THING
FOR OUR GOVERNMENTS IS THAT PEOPLE
DON'T THINK! Comparing this country
to others still living in the
middle ages is no excuse for a
brainwashed, stultified public
refusing to vigilantly demand this
government come clean on all issues
facing us in this historical era!

Anonymous said...

Re: States American and German - Abuse of power is related to who is in power, the strength of that power and peoples ability to recognize and organize against it.

"...there is less to envy in America today.

Whatever Osama bin Laden thought he was doing by staging 9/11 he tipped the US towards developing a menacing and ever-more powerful security apparatus.

The US lost its immense advantage in world politics of being the country where people believed that they were not going to be unjustly jailed or otherwise mistreated by the state.

Snowden is very clear why he made his initial revelations about National Security Agency surveillance. He was enjoying “a very comfortable life” with a salary of $200,000, a home in Hawaii and a close and loving family.

He said: “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine ....”

He added: “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”

It is satisfying, if gruesome, to watch great powers shoot themselves in the foot. This was true of the mistreatment of Bradley Manning after the WikiLeaks revelations and it is true again of Snowden. Washington imagined it was a smart move to chase him into the limbo of the transit area in Moscow’s main airport, but thereby guaranteed that he was at the centre of international attention...

One of the most striking features of the Snowden saga is the craven cooperation of most European states. That Spain, France, Italy and Portugal all denied passage to the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales, in case Snowden might be on board, removes any doubts about US superpower status...

The only person in Europe to see Snowden’s fate both in terms of political morality and in the context of the history of the US and Europe, is Rolf Hochhuth, the German author and playwright. He presented an eloquent petition to Chancellor Angela Merkel asking that Snowden be given asylum.

Hochhuth points out in the petition that where government is both accuser and perpetrator “the accused has no hope of justice”. He added that if Snowden returns to the US he faces years in prison, but if he stays in Russia he will be permanently muzzled.

So, why should Germany of all countries offer asylum to an American? Hochhuth writes that “more than any other, the German people are obligated to honour the right of asylum because, beginning in 1933, our elite, without exception from the Mann brothers to Einstein, survived the 12-year Nazi dictatorship purely because other countries, with the US as the greatest example, offered asylum to these refugees.”

Hochhuth emphasises that he is motivated by memory of what the US did for Germany in the past. He remembers newsreel of when the Americans liberated Buchenwald in 1945 and saw Eisenhower in tears as he witnessed his GIs bulldozing mounds of corpses...

Hochhuth argues that the US has changed, saying “no nation remains lastingly great”. It might be difficult to sustain a charge of treason against Snowden in the US, but he could still receive multiple 10-year sentences, under the Espionage Act, for revealing classified information...

In its pursuit of Snowden the US government has given substance to his accusations about an over-mighty and uncontrolled security apparatus. The sovereign rights of independent states have been trodden down as readily as the rights of individuals.

“It is the highest moral duty of Germany to give asylum to Edward Snowden,” concludes Hochhuth’s petition, “[because] we as no other Europeans are duty bound in the light of our shameful past!"


http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/germany-should-honour-its-debt-and-offer-nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-asylum-8722923.html

Anonymous said...

" We have allowed freedom to slip away and the value of our citizenship has rapidly declined."................ What? It's worse than that, your country is really really sick. Your government is totally out of control not respecting even innocent persons lives, police killing them over nothing, obama and the military slaughtering abroad and every other institution in your country corrupted over money and power - your jails filling up with clearly innocent victims of corrupt prosecutors/police and judges. And your population turns a blind eye at it incredibly. Fools as well as rotten to the core. You should be thankful God is not in the "wipe them out retribution business". But you still should get your house in order - repent - or you will see the Lake of Fire (hell), Luke 6:24. That's from the bible not me. And peversely, america mostly believes the bible!!!!!

Carroll said...

Who says crime doesn't pay? All it takes to disprove that outdated statement is to observe how banksters and other assorted criminals have looted this country and the rest of the world. Actually they have been looting the rest of the world for several decades and just now getting around to looting this country into 3rd world status.

Anonymous said...

The socialist systems always collapse when the illiterate, the lazy, the non productive but very fertile outnumber those who work. Therefore nature will eventually correct the imbalance and those unable to care for themselves will perish.

Anonymous said...

Hey in July 2013 lets make the American passport valuable again

Tell Congress To Act Now To End The Surveillance State

https://www.aclu.org/secure/stopnsa?ms=taf_acluaction_stopnsa_130726


Anonymous said...

Free Press in US?

"The idea that you can execute someone for an offense that had no element of intent or even specified effect,

or that you can face life in prison or death simply from informing an enemy or potential enemy in the process of informing fellow citizens for their benefit

is potentially a lethal blow to the First Amendment or freedom of speech and the press," says Daniel Ellsberg, the former intelligence specialist who released the Pentagon papers – a classified history of the US policies in the Vietnam War – some 40 years ago.

That precedent could be damaging "specifically to investigative reporting on matters alleged to be security issues," adds Mr. Ellsberg,..

"You can’t inform the public of wrongdoing by your government without informing the world."

Yet a healthy Democracy, he says, is impossible without such information. "No government will voluntarily reveal the elements of its own decisionmaking."

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/0725/How-Bradley-Manning-s-aiding-the-enemy-charge-could-jolt-journalism

Anonymous said...

Paul said, "Our forefathers sacrificed so much so we would have freedom, prosperity and the tools to prevent government from again becoming despotic."

And this freedom has been fought for by people - world wide- including Germany with the German people since some may know - more than others - that the enemy can lie within!

Germany's president, who helped expose the workings of East Germany's dreaded Stasi secret police, said whistleblowers like U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden deserved respect for defending freedom!

German President President Joachim Gauck said people who work for the state were entitled to act according to their conscience, as institutions sometimes depart from the law.

"This will normally only be put right if information is made public. Whoever draws the public's attention to it and acts out of conscience deserves respect,"

After the fall of communism, Gauck, a dissident Lutheran pastor, headed a commission in charge of the Stasi's vast archive of files on people it had spied on, using them to root out former Stasi members and collaborators.

His unusual decision to speak out on a hot political issue comes as the fallout from the Snowden affair is dominating headlines

"The fear that our telephones or mails are recorded and stored by foreign intelligence services is a constraint on the feeling of freedom and then the danger grows that freedom itself is damaged," he said.

"We are a democratic state with the rule of law with basic rights. Freedom is one of these basic rights."

Referring to communism and Nazism, President Gauck said Germany had painful experiences of living in a security state where no one was safe to speak out:

"We Germans have had to experience the abuse of state power with secret services twice in our history. And therefore we are sensitive (to this) and our American friends must accept that."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/26/us-usa-security-snowden-germany-idUSBRE96P0NQ20130726

Anonymous said...

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and as Bob Zimmerman said "The Times They Are A-Changin' " and it seems they always do.

"Thousands in Germany protest NSA surveillance Associated Press - 27 July 2013

Thousands of people are taking to the streets in Germany to protest against the alleged widespread surveillance of Internet users by U.S. intelligence services.

Protesters, responding to calls by a loose network calling itself #stopwatchingus, braved searing summer temperatures Saturday to demonstrate in Hamburg, Munich, Berlin and up to 35 other German cities and towns.

Some wore tinfoil hats to shield themselves from the sun — and make a political statement about warding off unwanted eavesdroppers.

Others held placards showing support for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

http://www.neurope.eu/news/wire/thousands-take-streets-germany-protest-us-surveillance-internet

Anonymous said...

n the most emotive scenes of his closing arguments in the case of Bradley Manning, Coombs his lawyer played to the court three clips from the video Bradley Manning uploaded to WikiLeaks of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad. The clips showed a group of civilians, that included two Reuters correspondents, being mowed down from aerial bullet fire.

Coombs asked the judge to watch the video "from the standpoint of a young man looking at eight people and what we know now to be the truth – there are two reporters there – standing on a street corner and being shot like fish in a barrel … You have to view that through the eyes of a young man who cared about human life."

Bradley Manning's 'sole purpose was to make a difference', lawyer INSISTS

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/26/bradley-manning-wikileaks-defence-lawyer

Anonymous said...

The problem with the sick, obsessive superpower revealed to us by Edward Snowden is that it cannot bring itself to utter the one line it absolutely must utter before it can move on: “My name is America and I’m a dataholic.”

For American spies, Big Data is like crack cocaine: just a few doses – and you can forget about mending your way and kicking the habit. Yes, there’s an initial illusion of grandeur and narcissistic omnipotence – just look at us, we could prevent another 9/11! –

but a clearer, unmediated brain would surely notice that one’s judgment has been severely impaired. Prevent another 9/11? When two kids with extensive presence on social media can blow up a marathon in Boston? Really? All this data, all this sacrifice– and for what?

So let us not pass over America’s surveillance addiction in silence. It is real; it has consequences; and the world would do itself a service by sending America to a Big Data rehab.

But there’s more to learn from the Snowden affair. It has also busted a number of myths that are only peripherally related to surveillance: myths about the supposed benefits of decentralized and commercially-operated digital infrastructure, about the current state of technologically-mediated geopolitics, about the existence of a separate realm known as “cyberspace.”

We must take stock of where we are and reflect on where we soon will be, especially if we fail to confront – legally but, even more importantly, intellectually – the many temptations of information consumerism.

Why surrender control over electronic communications?
First of all, many Europeans are finally grasping, to their great dismay, that the word “cloud” in “cloud computing” is just a euphemism for “some dark bunker in Idaho or Utah.” Jorge Luis Borges, had he lived long enough, would certainly choose a server rack – not a library – as the primary site for his surreal stories.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/ueberwachung/information-consumerism-the-price-of-hypocrisy-12292374.html

Anonymous said...

Even low-level National Security Agency employees can look at citizens' communications, reporter and privacy advocate Glenn Greenwald said Sunday morning on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

“The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they’ve collected over the last several years,” Greenwald said. “And what these programs are, are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things. It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future.”

Greenwald, who has taken the lead in reporting for the British paper The Guardian on revelations by NSA analyst-turned-leaker Edward Snowden, said the broad access allows for analysts to circumvent the legal system that is supposed to restrict the agency from engaging in certain surveillance activities without judicial oversight.

“There are legal constraints for how you can spy on Americans,” Greenwald told Stephanopoulos. “You can’t target them without going to the FISA court. But these systems allow analysts to listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. ... And it’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/greenwald-says-low-level-nsa-analysts-can-access-e-mails-phone-calls-1361887

Anonymous said...

Rep. John Conyers wants to defund NSA’s phone snooping

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/24/why-rep-john-conyers-wants-to-defund-nsas-phone-snooping/

Anonymous said...

Momentum builds against NSA surveillance

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/us/politics/momentum-builds-against-nsa-surveillance.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-years-of-obscure-warnings-wyden-gets-sought-after-privacy-debate-in-wake-of-nsa-revelations/2013/07/28/267efd1a-f573-11e2-861b-70461cc1cd24_story.html

Anonymous said...

Re: First Amendment and American Journalism

"The American journalism trade is breathing a collective – but premature and, in many cases, grossly hypocritical – sigh of relief today. A military judge has found Bradley Manning guilty of many crimes, but "aiding the enemy" isn't one of them.

Had the judge found Manning guilty of aiding the enemy, she would have set a terrible precedent. For the first time, an American court – albeit a military court – would have said it was a potentially capital crime simply to give information to a news organization, because in the internet era an enemy would ultimately have been able to read what was leaked.

However, if journalism dodged one figurative bullet, it faces many more in this era. The ever-more-essential field of national security journalism was already endangered. It remains so. The Obama administration's war on leaks and, by extension, the work of investigative reporters who dare to challenge the most secretive government in our lifetimes, has been unrelenting.

...

For those who want to tell the public what the government is doing with our money and in our name, there are new imperatives. Governmental secrecy, surveillance and the systematic silencing of whistleblowers require updated methods for journalists and journalism organizations of all kinds. Americans pursuing this craft [meaning truthful journalism] have to understand the risks and [if at all possible] find countermeasures.

...

[but] that is not enough. The public needs to awaken to the threat to its own freedoms from the Obama crackdown on leaks and, by extension, journalism and free speech itself.

We are, more and more, a society where unaccountable people can commit unspeakable acts with impunity. They are creating a surveillance state that makes not just dissent, but knowledge itself, more and more dangerous. What we know about this is entirely due to leakers and their outlets. Ignorance is only bliss for the unaccountable."

More at:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/30/bradley-manning-verdict-bad-news-for-journalists

Anonymous said...

Well this person's Citizenship was removed in a big hurry even though he was born in USA. He has an new place to live now - From Russia With Love

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/08/02/world/europe/Snowden/Snowden-articleInline.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/world/europe/edward-snowden-russia.html?_r=0

Anonymous said...

Edward Snowden’s father, Lonnie Snowden, who had previously stated his belief that his son should come home [to America], said he now believed Edward should stay in Russia

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fugitive-nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-given-asylum-for-a-year-by-russia-8741940.html

Anonymous said...

This is some banana republic we are living in. And we are the bananas being sucked of all our juice!

Another Surveillance program called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.

Barack Obama met members of Congress at the Oval Office today as an increasingly embattled White House seeks to contain growing anger over the surveillance tactics employed by the National Security Agency.

Republican and Democrats have been invited to the meeting, just 24 hours after

the Guardian revealed details of another National Security Agency surveillance program which, according to documents, allows analysts to to search through huge databases of emails, online chats and the browsing histories without prior authorisation.


More at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/obama-lawmakers-nsa-surveillance-programs

Anonymous said...

The government isn't allowed to wiretap American citizens without a warrant from a judge. But there are plenty of legal ways for law enforcement, from the local sheriff to the FBI to the Internal Revenue Service, to snoop on the digital trails you create every day. Authorities can often obtain your emails and texts by going to Google or AT&T with a simple subpoena that doesn’t require showing probable cause of a crime. And recent revelations about classified National Security Agency surveillance programs show that the government is regularly sweeping up data on Americans’ telephone calls and has the capability to access emails, files, online chats and other data — all under secret oversight by a special federal court.

The breadth of and justification for the surveillance are the subjects of ongoing debate in Washington. President Obama and others have defended the programs as necessary to identify terrorists and stop attacks before they happen, but privacy advocates and several U.S. lawmakers have questioned them.

Here's a link to a look at what the government can get from you and the legal framework behind its power:

http://www.propublica.org/special/no-warrant-no-problem-how-the-government-can-still-get-your-digital-data

Anonymous said...

Snowden and Congress on the same side

Momentum on Capitol Hill to Rein In NSA Surveillance Programs - August 2, 2013

"In the weeks since Edward Snowden’s unauthorized disclosures about some of the government’s most sensitive surveillance programs, the former National Security Agency contractor has found an unlikely ally: Congress.

Lawmakers of all political stripes, some of whom also have expressed outrage at Snowden’s actions, are now part of a growing coalition that is challenging the scope and effectiveness of the formerly secret operations for the same reasons that allegedly drove Snowden to disclose them — and for which he is now charged with espionage-related offenses.

More at:
http://matthewaid.tumblr.com/post/57148092327/momentum-on-capitol-hill-to-rein-in-nsa-surveillance

Anonymous said...

Reps. Conyers & Massie on Bipartisan Campaign Against NSA Spy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0BGVzcHBcY