Hillary Clinton on Edward Snowden: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong [cartoon]

Hillary Clinton either lied when she said Edward Snowden could’ve received whistleblower protections under federal law or she’s just ignorant. Which do you think it was? Ted Rall cartoon.

hillary clinton on edward snowden

See more @ http://anewdomain.net/2015/10/20/hillary-clinton-on-edward-snowden-just-plain-wrong-and-ignorant-too-ted-rall-cartoon/

Edward Snowden: Clinton made 'false claim' about whistleblower protection

Speaking via satellite at a privacy conference at Bard College in New York, Snowden disputed Clinton’s claim that he bypassed whistleblower protections

Edward Snowden has accused Hillary Clinton of “a lack of political courage” for her assertion during the Democratic presidential debate this week that the whistleblower had bypassed options for disclosing illegal government spying programs that would have protected him and not violated the law.

Speaking via satellite at a privacy conference at New York’s Bard College on Friday, Snowden said: “Hillary Clinton’s claims are false here.”

“This is important, right?” Snowden told an audience at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. “Truth should matter in politics, and courage should matter in politics, because we need change. Everyone knows we need change. And we have been aggrieved and in many ways misled by political leaders in the past.”

Before Snowden spoke, Clinton repeated the claim on Friday, at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. After a voter said Snowden was “close to a patriot,” BuzzFeed reported, Clinton disagreed and said he could have received whistleblower protections but instead chose to break the law.

Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/16/edward-snowden-hillary-clinton-false-claim-whistleblower-protection

What Hillary Clinton Got Wrong About Edward Snowden – OpEd

Hillary Clinton is wrong about Edward Snowden. Again.

The presidential candidate and former secretary of state insisted during the recent Democratic debate that Snowden should have remained in the United States to voice his concerns about government spying on U.S. citizens. Instead, she claimed, he “endangered U.S. secrets by fleeing to Russia.”

After accusing Snowden of stealing “very important information that has fallen into the wrong hands,” she added: “He should not be brought home without facing the music.”

Clinton should stop rooting for Snowden’s incarceration and get her facts straight.

Read more @ http://www.eurasiareview.com/27102015-what-hillary-clinton-got-wrong-about-edward-snowden-oped/

 

U.N. Report Calls on Governments to Protect Whistleblowers Like Snowden, Not Prosecute Them

The U.N. envoy charged with safeguarding free speech around the globe has declared in a dramatic new report that confidential sources and whistleblowers are a crucial element of a healthy democracy, and that governments should protect them rather than demonize them.

The report by David Kaye, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, also highlights the harsh treatment of whistleblowers in the U.S., most notably former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who is living in Russia as fugitive from the U.S. government.

Snowden has been charged with three felonies, including two under the heavy-handed World War I-era Espionage Act, which does not allow defendants to make the argument that their actions were in the public interest.

Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, notes in his report that “Snowden’s revelations of surveillance practices” made “a deep and lasting impact on law, policy and politics.”

In a statement accompanying the report in response to Kaye’s questionnaire, U.S. officials acknowledged that government employees who deal with classified material are not covered by the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. But they insisted that those employees “retain the ability to report any perceived government fraud, waste, or abuse to appropriate inspectors general, other executive branch oversight entities, and certain members of Congress while preserving any national security interests at issue.”

Read more @ https://theintercept.com/2015/10/23/u-n-report-calls-on-governments-to-protect-whistleblowers-like-snowden-not-prosecute-them/

 

UN rights expert: governments must ensure whistleblower protections

[JURIST] UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression David Kaye [official profile] spoke out [press release] on Thursday against governments and international organizations who lack protection for whistleblowers. Kaye believes that there are numerous whistleblowers who withhold information that should be made public because of intimidation from government officials and peers. In his report [text], the UN Special Rapporteur noted that individuals have a right to access pertinent information under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [text]. In regards to what level of disclosure of information should be allowed, Kaye said, "[s]tates may restrict access to information in specific areas and narrow circumstances, yet the disclosure of information relating to human rights or humanitarian law violations should never be the basis of penalties of any kind." Kaye noted that the issue has silenced journalists, bloggers, and other media officials but fears that more of the world population remains hesitant to bring issues to light.

Read more @ http://jurist.org/paperchase/2015/10/un-rights-expert-governments-must-ensure-whistleblower-protections.php

'Silence is too often the only safe option left,' UN report on sources and whistleblowers

New York, Oct 23 (IBNS): Governments and international organizations are failing to ensure adequate protections to whistleblowers and sources of information, according to a new report by the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression.

“Countless sources and whistleblowers around the world are intimidated by officials, co-workers, and others, depriving everyone of information that may be critical to public debate and accountability,” David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression told UN General Assembly during the presentation of his study.

“All too often, those revealing allegations of wrongdoing lack effective protection,” the human rights expert warned delegates in the Assembly’s Third Committee – the Organization’s main body dealing with social, humanitarian and cultural issues.

He added,  “Silence is too often the only safe option left to them, with the public left in the dark and wrongdoing left unpunished.”

In the first major UN report devoted to the subject, Kaye reviews national and international norms and practices and presents recommendations to establish or improve available protections.

“The problem of source protection extends beyond traditional journalists to bloggers, citizen reporters, [non-governmental organization] researchers, authors, academics, and many others,” the expert noted. “How can they carry out investigative work if they cannot extend the basic assurances of confidentiality to their sources?”

“While there are major gaps in protections, there are also important advancements in norms protecting sources and whistleblowers around the world. Yet they are often riven with loopholes or, even with strong legal protections, not enforced in practice,” he continued.

Read more @ http://indiablooms.com/ibns_new/world-details/F/4756/silence-is-too-often-the-only-safe-option-left-un-report-on-sources-and-whistleblowers.html

 

Hypocrisy 101: US Backs Free Speech for Dissidents Abroad, Except Snowden

UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye has called on governments to protect whistleblowers like Edward Snowden.

In his latest report Kaye highlighted the harsh treatment of whistleblowers in the US and urged officials to stop demonizing them; as such people are a crucial element of a healthy democracy.

Radio Sputnik discussed the issue with the former FBI special agent who jointly held the TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” award in 2002 — Coleen Rowley.

“Edward Snowden recently said that if you are going to be a whistleblower who just merely wants to tell the public about any illegal action that your government is committing then you have to practically understand that you will become a martyr.”

Rowley further said that in his case he had to flee to another country to seek asylum because if “you stay in the US then more likely than not you will end up in prison. The person loses his job and in some cases his family. It is a steep cost for all whistleblowers.”

Read more @ http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151026/1029119970/us-snowden-whistleblower-interview-fbi-agent.html

Mr Robot: 'Edward Snowden is a huge fan of our show'

The acclaimed US series starring Christian Slater has won plaudits for its realistic depiction of a world of digital vulnerability. Here’s how it became 2015’s must-see TV

Elliot Alderson, the tech whizz at the centre of the TV thriller Mr Robot, hacks anything and everything: computers, smartphones, even his own therapist. “Hacking her was easy,” he brags in the show’s first episode. Her password he guessed straight away: Dylan_2791, her favourite artist and the year she was born, backwards. Within minutes, Elliot had wormed his way into her email, looked through her dating history on eHarmony and found out the name of her current boyfriend. “I’ll hack him soon enough. I always do,” he says dispassionately. You don’t dare doubt him.

If Rami Malek, the Egyptian-American actor who plays Elliot, can’t quite boast the computer chops of his character just yet, he does seem to have picked up a few pointers. “In the car the other day a friend wanted to play music on her phone. She was driving so she gave me the four-digit code. I looked at it and said: ‘Ha, four digits! That wouldn’t happen to be the pin code to your ATM card, would it?’” He laughs then pauses: “People don’t realise how vulnerable they are.”

Vulnerable is the right word. In a society where every last detail of people’s lives is catalogued and shared online, our data has become a much-coveted commodity. Governments pore over our phone records and WhatsApp threads, corporations sell our hobbies and health records to the highest bidder, and – somewhere in the murky corners of the internet – a dark army of phishers, spammers and general villains lies in wait, ready to pilfer our credit card details or leak our darkest secrets to the wider web.

Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/oct/17/mr-robot-christian-slater-rami-malek

US prepared to undertake counter offensive cyber operations in other people's networks NSA warns

The US is prepared to undertake counter-offensive cyber operations in other people's networks as a retaliatory action if its own cyberspace is breached, warned Richard Ledgett, the deputy director of the National Security Agency.

He said nations need to do more to identify clear red lines that, if crossed, will lead to consequences. These consequences could take the form of actions within cyberspace itself, or it could be diplomatic or economic, in the form of sanctions or the threat of sanctions.

He noted that there is an increasing danger of destructive cyber attacks by countries such as that faced by Sony last year and the world's largest oil company, Saudi Aramco in 2012. It is also seeing more aggressive postures by nation states.

Read more @ http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-prepared-undertake-counter-offensive-cyber-operations-other-peoples-networks-nsa-warns-1525815

NSA Director Talks Snowden, Ethics, Accountability At CMU

Read more @ http://wesa.fm/post/nsa-director-talks-snowden-ethics-accountability-cmu

I guess if they say it long enough they think people will believe it…. And many will. I keep coming back to what Snowden said…. Its about power, economic espionage etc…..and not terrorism. When you go back over the news stories on what he has divulged its evident that Snowden is right…..

NSA slams Snowden but accepts need for high-level debate on privacy

The deputy director of the NSA has accepted the need for a "macro" level debate about privacy and security but rejects the characterisation of Edward Snowden as a whistleblower.

Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the US National Security Agency (NSA) since April 2014, said in an interview with BBC Radio 4 this morning that many hundreds of targets that the NSA monitors realised in the wake of the Snowden revelations that they were vulnerable, jeopardising the work of the intelligence services.

He said that a “macro” level debate was need but he didn't like the way that it had come about.

Read more @ http://www.scmagazine.com/nsa-slams-snowden-but-accepts-need-for-high-level-debate-on-privacy/article/449602/

Snowden and Ellsberg hail leak of drone documents from new whistleblower

Classified documents on US assassination program released to the Intercept welcomed by men who exposed NSA surveillance and Pentagon Papers

American whistleblowers hailed the release on Thursday of a collection of classified documents about US drone warfare as a blow on behalf of transparency and human rights.

The documents anchored a multi-part report by the Intercept on the Defense Department assassination program in Yemen and Somalia. Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other rights groups said the report raised significant concerns about human rights violations by the US government, and called for an investigation.

Classified documents published by the Intercept include pages from a 2013 study of the drone program by a Pentagon taskforce. The documents came from “a source within the intelligence community who worked on the types of operations and programs described in the slides”, the Intercept said.

“It’s pretty remarkable stuff,” said Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“In some ways it reconfirms and illuminates much of what we knew, or thought we knew, about a lot of these programs, like that the administration firmly prefers kill over capture despite claiming the opposite, and that there’s not ‘a bunch of folks in the room’, as Obama calls it – that there’s a clear, bureaucratic process for this.

“It clearly shows, as we’ve known, that the United States does not know who it’s killing.”

Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/16/drone-documents-whistleblower-edward-snowden-daniel-ellsberg

US spy chiefs hunt the new Snowden: Whistleblower leaks top secret drone assassination program that reveals how 90% of people killed in one 5-month spree WEREN'T targeted

  • Cache of top-secret security documents published by The Intercept
  • The same team leaked files from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
  • The new cache of 'slides' details how President Obama clears a pilot-less drone assassination 
  • The source who leaked them described the process as 'outrageous'
  • He or she has not been named, fearing a Snowden-like backlash
  • The documents reveal that in one operation where 219 people were killed, only 35 - 15 percent - were intended targets
  • The CIA and Pentagon officials are investigating the leak 

·        Intelligence chiefs are hunting for a new Edward Snowden-style whistleblower who has leaked classified details about America’s drone assassination program. 

·        CIA and Pentagon bosses are investigating after the publication of ‘The Drone Papers’ which includes Top Secret slides on how President Obama authorizes a kill.

·        The disclosure raises the prospect of a second Snowden-like figure, especially as the leak was published by the same journalists who worked with him before.

·        But unlike Snowden the single, anonymous source has already spoken out and expresses intense moral outrage over the drone strikes on theintercept.com.

Read more @ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3274583/US-spy-chiefs-hunt-new-Snowden-Whistleblower-leaks-secret-drone-assassination-program-reveals-Obama-authorizies-kill.html 

US spy agency is concerned about state-sponsored spying

Also with Edward Snowden

VORACIOUS DATA CONSUMER the US National Security Agency (NSA) is concerned that some national states, but not the United ones, are taking hacking and surveillance too far and are close to crossing a line.

The NSA invited the BBC into its offices and presented its deputy director for questioning. Richard Ledgett had a lot to say, and told the Beeb that attacks are getting worse and that this is a bad thing.

Ledgett is concerned about state-sponsored shenanigans, which is ironic since the rest of the world is concerned about US-sponsored swoop-and-store-data grabs. Anyway, he reckons that anything that connects to the internet is in the threat sphere.

"If you are connected to the internet, you are vulnerable to determined nation-state attackers," he said.

Read more @ http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2432112/us-spy-agency-is-concerned-about-state-sponsored-spying

 

Edward Snowden warns SNP plans to take more control of universities is a threat to student autonomy

SNOWDEN was elected rector of Glasgow University earlier this year while he is still hiding in Russia.

WHISTLEBLOWER Edward Snowden has criticised the SNP’s plan to take more control of universities.

The former US intelligence contractor, now rector of Glasgow University, said the Higher Education Governance Bill puts funding at risk.

Snowden, who is in hiding in Russia, also warned the legislation threatens student and uni independence. His words were seized on by the SNP’s opponents as proof Education Secretary Angela Constance must rethink her plans.

Holyrood insist they only want to make institutions more accountable.

But Snowden told his 1.5 million Twitter followers: “Despite objections, UK’s SNP advancing bill threatening student, university autonomy.”

He warned students that the Bill “represents a real threat to the financial and academic independence” of universities.’

Read more @ http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/edward-snowden-warns-snp-plans-6712751

Could Edward Snowden's Have Gone Through Those "Proper Channels" We're Always Hearing About?

Q&A with Jesselyn Radack, Snowden's attorney.

"Edward Snowden's Lawyer on the Government's War on Whistleblowers," written by Amanda Winkler & Nick Gillespie and filmed by Todd Krainin and Joshua Swain. About 13 minutes.

Original release date was October 22, 2015. Writeup below:

During the first Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton denounced Edward Snowden as a criminal who simply refused to work through official channels. "He broke the laws," said Clinton. "He could have been a whistleblower, he could have gotten all the protections of being a whistleblower." 

Would Edward Snowden be better off had he gone through official channels to blow the whistle?

No way, says his lawyer, Jesselyn Radack of ExposeFacts.org.

In an interview with Nick Gillespie, she points to intelligence whistleblowers who came before Snowden as evidence that her client would not have been provided legal protections. "Tom Drake, Bill Binney, Kirk Wiebe, and Ed Loomis did go through the proper channels," she tells Reason TV, "and all of them fell under criminal investigations for having done so."

Read more @ https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/25/edward-snowdens-lawyer-on-the-government

Digital Dissidents

Lauded as heroes by some, denounced as traitors by others, they're the "digital dissidents" whose revelations have made headlines around the world.

"Criticise me, hate me, but think about what matters in the issues. Right? Think about the world you want to live in." Edward Snowden

The decision by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to reveal covert US surveillance programs exposed the massive capabilities of the US spy agency to monitor communications around the globe.

"The way in which these disclosures happened have been damaging to the United States and damaging to our Intelligence capabilities." US President Barack Obama

In speaking out, Snowden's joined the ranks of self-declared intelligence whistleblowers who have risked imprisonment.

"There was a moment where he said very clearly, very distinctly, that I showed him the right way. I had always hoped that a Snowden would come along." Thomas Drake, NSA Whistleblower

In this documentary from German broadcaster WDR, Snowden, along with other whistleblowers from the NSA and Britain's MI5 talk about their motivations for speaking out:

"Once you lose that sense of privacy and you start to self-censor, you stop to be an effective and fully integrated citizen of that country, so privacy in my view is the last defence against the slide towards a police state or totalitarianism." Annie Machon, Former MI5 agent

Read more @ http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/10/26/4337020.htm

Edward Snowden's Lawyer on the Government's War on Whistleblowers

Jesselyn Radack reveals what happens when whistleblowers go through those "proper channels" we're always hearing about.

During the first Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton denounced Edward Snowden as a criminal who simply refused to work through official channels. "He broke the laws," said Clinton. "He could have been a whistleblower, he could have gotten all the protections of being a whistleblower." 

Would Edward Snowden be better off had he gone through official channels to blow the whistle?

No way, says his lawyer, Jesselyn Radack of ExposeFacts.org.

Read more @ https://reason.com/reasontv/2015/10/22/edward-snowdens-lawyer-war-on-whistleblo

 

Senate passes controversial cybersecurity information sharing legislation

The Senate on Tuesday passed a cybersecurity bill that would give companies legal immunity for sharing data with the federal government, over the protests of some lawmakers and consumer advocates who say that the legislation does not adequately protect Americans’ privacy.

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, must now be reconciled with legislation passed earlier this year by the House of Representatives.

The Obama administration and lawmakers in both parties have been seeking for years to enact information-sharing legislation, and it now seems likely to become law.

Read more @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/10/27/senate-passes-controversial-cybersecurity-information-sharing-legislation/

Senate approves cybersecurity bill

Read more @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/10/27/senate-expected-to-approve-cybersecurity-bill/

Edward Snowden brands Facebook 'shameful' as social network is accused of secretly backing US data-sharing scheme

Facebook has been accused of secretly backing the US Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) - which is now poised to become law - while it continues to publicly oppose the act.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has branded the social network "shameful" in response.

If it goes through US Congress, CISA would allow companies and the government to share private user information to be used in investigating crime and terrorism. Participating companies could look forward to protection from prosecution for handing over this data.

Facebook is a member of an industry body called the CCIA - the Computer and Communications Industry Association - which also includes Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, eBay and Yahoo, and which issued an open letter in protest against CISA earlier this month.

"CISA's prescribed mechanism for sharing of cyber threat information does not sufficiently protect users' privacy or appropriately limit the permissible uses of information shared with the government," read the letter.

"In addition, the bill authorizes entities to employ network defense measures that might cause collateral harm to the systems of innocent third parties."

Read more @ http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2432164/edward-snowden-brands-facebook-shameful-as-social-network-is-accused-of-secretly-backing-us-data-sharing-scheme

 

'StarTalk's' Neil deGrasse Tyson on 'patriotic' Edward Snowden, finding the geek within

Excerpt:

You recently interviewed Edward Snowden. How did that come about? You seemed excited to speak with him. 

Why wouldn’t anyone be?  We learned he was a fan of my work and watched "Cosmos." So that always makes a good starting point because that means they have a comfort level I don't have to earn. They know I’m not there to stump 'em, this is not some kind of investigative, journalistic interview. We’re here to get our geek on. In my conversation with him, yes, we talked about the Bill of Rights and security and the right to privacy, the usual things you'd expect, but quickly we got on the topic of can an alien embed signals within the radio waves that permeate the universe and hide them in the cosmic radio waves so that you can send a signal that no one would know about. We talked about cosmic encryption. That's him getting on his geek underbelly.

So you related to him as a fellow nerd and not necessarily as a hero or villain?

I was agnostic going on. I generally try to avoid having an opinion about someone that was shaped by journalists or anybody else's account. Yes, there’s the duality, hero or traitor. I don’t use the word "hero" very often, I'm not going to use it in this case, but certainly "traitor" has been invoked for him.

What I would say is, after discussing his motives and what he did and why he did it, I can tell you without hesitation he is the most patriotic person I have ever met. He understands the Constitution better than most of the people who are criticizing him. He's all for secrets, if you obtain them from people whom you have reason to expect could be against the security of the nation. That’s not what was happening. The NSA was collecting secrets on everybody and at that point he cried foul. He said, this is a violation of this amendment and I will not stand by this. This is not what the founding fathers had in mind, this is what the founding fathers tried to protect against. 

Read more @ http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-neil-degrasse-tyson-star-talk-edward-snowden-20151021-story.html


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~