PRISM scandal

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  11-12-13
  

  Mistaking Omniscience for Omnipotence

  by Tom Engelhardt

  In a world without privacy, there are no exemptions for our spies.

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• 10-8-13
  

  Where Does the Eavesdropping Scandal End?

  by John Prados

  At this rate, American citizens will be the only ones whom the NSA can safely intercept.

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• Saying No To The Surveillance State

  by Jackson Lears

  These are dark days for the republic. 

• SOURCE: Salon
  7-19-13
  

  Justyn Dillingham: Jimmy Carter’s Forgotten History Lesson

  Justyn Dillingham is a freelance writer residing in Tucson, Arizona. A former president has given the weight of his voice and reputation to the critics of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program, blasting the federal government’s “invasion of human rights and American privacy” and suggesting that leaking the program’s existence to the press was “beneficial.” Ordinarily, this might give even the staunchest defenders of the NSA pause, for ordinarily a former president’s opinion carries considerable influence.But this time it will make little difference. For the former president is, of course, Jimmy Carter—the only former president one could imagine making such a statement, and not coincidentally one of the more widely detested former presidents in recent memory.

• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  7-18-13
  

  Rebecca Solnit: A Letter to Edward Snowden

  Like Edward Snowden, Rebecca Solnit has a GED, not a high-school diploma. She lives in Silicon Valley’s shadow, in a city where billionaires race $10 million yachts and austerity is closing the community college.  Her newest book is The Faraway Nearby. Billions of us, from prime ministers to hackers, are watching a live espionage movie in which you are the protagonist and perhaps the sacrifice. Your way forward is clear to no one, least of all, I’m sure, you.I fear for you; I think of you with a heavy heart. I imagine hiding you like Anne Frank. I imagine Hollywood movie magic in which a young lookalike would swap places with you and let you flee to safety -- if there is any safety in this world of extreme rendition and extrajudicial execution by the government that you and I were born under and that you, until recently, served. I fear you may pay, if not with your death, with your life -- with a life that can have no conventional outcome anytime soon, if ever. “Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped,” you told us, and they are trying to stop you instead.

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• The Making of the U.S. Surveillance State, 1898-2020

  by Alfred W. McCoy

  Sadly, Mark Twain was right when he warned us just over 100 years ago that America could not have both empire abroad and democracy at home. 

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• Demystifying the NSA Surveillance Program

  by John Prados

  The NSA scandal is fast becoming the most serious diplomatic disaster in recent American history. For a host of reasons the surveillance needs to stop right now.

• SOURCE: WSJ
  7-2-13
  

  Max Boot: What the Snowden Acolytes Won't Tell You

  Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present" (Liveright, 2013).'The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe."That quip from Tom Wolfe is worth savoring as the U.S. prepares to celebrate the Fourth of July—and as overheated rhetoric emanates from fans of Edward Snowden, the proud thief of American secrets. Even supporters, like Sen. Rand Paul, who express discomfort with how he fled to China and Russia, nevertheless applaud Mr. Snowden for alerting Americans to a supposedly dangerous infringement of liberty from the government's monitoring of electronic communications. Mr. Snowden's more extreme acolytes credit him with stopping the rise of a new tyranny in Washington.

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• Charles Marvin, a Nineteenth-Century Edward Snowden?

  by Leslie Rogne Schumacher

  Credit: Wiki Commons.Meet the Press host David Gregory’s recent insinuation that Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald should possibly be charged with the crime of aiding and abetting whistleblower Edward Snowden in the NSA surveillance scandal is alarming for all who value protecting the principles of investigative journalism. It is made more alarming, though, by considering how closely this exchange matches a landmark case in the history of public secrecy and investigative reportage, namely the 1878 Globe scandal. A consideration of this episode in relation to Greenwald’s (and, indeed, Gregory’s) role in the ongoing NSA imbroglio should be unsettling to those who value and want to protect the freedom of the press.

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• The Information Age Has Given Birth to a Global Security State

  by Tom Engelhardt

  You may have secrets, but you are not a secret -- and you know it.

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• Yes, PRISM Really is a Big Deal

  by John Prados

  The truth is that the terrorist threat is much diminished from what it was when the Patriot Act was adopted in 2001, or even from 2008, when amendments to that law opened the door to PRISM.

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• 10-10-01
  

  Leaks to the Media ... An Old Story?

  Image via Shutterstock.Leaks through History Was It Illegal for President Bush to Leak Classified Secrets to Bob Woodward?Deep Throat and the FBI's History of Hiding Its Own LeaksWhy Did President Ford Ban Assassinations? (Explains that Ford leaked the fact that the CIA had plotted the assassination of foreign leaders.)Rick Shenkman: Leaks that might have changed the history of Vietnam Athan Theoharis: Deep Throat and the FBI's History of Hiding Its Own LeaksCIA Spy Case: Valerie Plame Leak Note: This article was first published October 10, 2001 and has been updated.