THE INSURRECTION - Congressional Response

IMHO:  There are Republican members of Congress who are traitors, some even cheering on the Insurrectionists, who should be removed from Congress and tired as traitors.

"How Congress is addressing the Jan.  6 insurrection" PBS NewsHour 1/31/2021

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SUMMARY:  Former President Donald Trump, charged with inciting the January 6 insurrection, is facing his second impeachment trial amid ongoing investigations by Congressional committees and federal agencies into the events that led to the attack.  New York University School of Law Professor and Co-Editor-in-chief of Just Security Ryan Goodman joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss.

CIA - The Mole

From the pages of a spy novel......

"How a crippling intelligence loss led the CIA on a mole hunt" PBS NewsHour 1/18/2018

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SUMMARY:  Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former CIA officer, was arrested this week on charges of mishandling classified information.  A massive mole hunt inside the agency has been on for years for the person who may have helped the Chinese government roll up a significant piece of the U.S. spying network in that country.  John Yang learns more from Adam Goldman of The New York Times.

BRIEF BUT SPECTACULAR - Looking at an American Traitor and an International Spy

"What it's like to turn the camera on Snowden and Assange" PBS NewsHour 7/20/2017

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SUMMARY:  Who people tell you they are is often different from how they act, says award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras, whose latest film, "Risk," looks at WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.  By observing subjects like Edward Snowden make decisions in real time, she gets to experience the immediate drama of her story and change her opinion.  Poitras gives her Brief but Spectacular take on making documentaries.

DOCUMENTARY - 'Citizenfour'

About the traitor Snowden.  Whose revelations have lobotomized our national security.

"Watching Snowden’s pivotal moments in ‘Citizenfour’" PBS NewsHour 2/13/2015

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SUMMARY:  Filmmaker Laura Poitras captured the moment former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed himself as the source behind a massive document leak of classified surveillance in 2013.  Two years later, Snowden’s story is the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Citizenfour.”  Jeffrey Brown speaks with Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald about how those pivotal moments came to life on screen.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  President Obama went to Silicon Valley today to call for more cooperation between private companies and the government when it comes to defending against cyber-attacks.

In the wake of major hacks against health insurer Anthem and Sony Pictures, the president told executives they need to share more information.

But today’s summit also comes amid growing tensions between tech companies and the administration over privacy and civil liberties, a point the president acknowledged.

BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States:  In all our work, we have to make sure we are protecting the privacy and civil liberty of the American people.  Now, we grapple with these issues in government.

We have pursued important reforms to make sure we are respecting people’s privacy, as well as ensuring our national security.  And the private sector wrestles with this as well.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Several CEOs of top tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo!, didn’t attend, reportedly over anger and disappointment about a lack of reform in the government’s broad surveillance programs.

The revelations about the government’s reach are the subject of a documentary nominated for an Academy Award.

NATIONAL SECURITY - NSA Fatigue?

I am getting 'Snowden fatigue.'  Snowden IS A TRAITOR!

"Snowden and supporters fear Americans will lose interest from ‘NSA fatigue’" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2014

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GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now to the new revelations from a fresh interview with NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The extensive profile, in “Wired” magazine is based on hours of interviews conducted over three days, including audio that captures Snowden’s voice.

EDWARD SNOWDEN (traitor):  What I did wasn’t to benefit myself.  I didn’t ask for money.  I gave this information back to public hands.  And the reason that I did that wasn’t to gain a label, but to give you back a choice about the country you want to live in.

GWEN IFILL:  Snowden discloses that the U.S. government ran a top secret cyber-war program code-named MonsterMind.  He said it could accidentally start a war.  And he reveals that, in 2012, NSA hackers mistakenly shut down all of Syria’s Internet service.

NATIONAL SECURITY - Anniversary of a Traitorous Act, Snowden Leaks

"What has the U.S. learned from the Snowden leaks?" PBS NewsHour 6/8/2014

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HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Monday will mark one year since Edward Snowden made headlines by identifying himself as the source of classified information leaked from the National Security Agency.  The U.S. government claimed the revelations would jeopardize national security, making valuable information available to the nation’s enemies.

In the past year, Snowden has spoken virtually at South by Southwest conferences and sat down a few weeks for an interview with NBC anchor Brian Williams from Russia, where he currently has asylum.  For more now we’re joined from Washington by Shiobhan Gorman, intelligence correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.  So what’s Snowden’s status now?  Has position of the US government changed at all in this year?

SHIOBHAN GORMAN, Wall Street Journal:  The position of the U.S. government hasn’t changed in terms of his status, although we have seen some pretty significant policy shifts, over the last year particularly as it has to do with the N.S.A. phone data program.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Right, and so in the last year, has the government changed the way it gathers its intelligence.  Or how has the intelligence gathering apparatus changed as a result of these operations?

SHIOBHAN GORMAN:  Well I think, it remains to be seen what will change in terms of actual intelligence collection.  There was quite a bit of outcry about the monitoring of foreign leaders.  There were some 35 foreign leaders that the National Security Agency was monitoring, eavesdropping on.  And I think the most notable was German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  And that has either you know been reevaluated, or in many cases ceased.

MEDIA - A Book On a Traitor, ‘The Snowden Files’

"In ‘The Snowden Files,’ revealing the man who revealed NSA secrets" PBS NewsHour 3/14/2014

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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Finally tonight: He’s a wanted man in the U.S., but this week, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden spoke, via video from Russia, to the annual gathering called South By Southwest.  He argued to the crowd gathered in Austin, Texas, that the tech industry needs to do more to protect the privacy of Americans in the digital age.

A new book examines what Snowden revealed and pulls together the threads of one of the biggest security breaches in American history.

Jeffrey Brown has our conversation.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It began with an e-mail, “I am a senior member of the intelligence community,” the beginning of revelations leaked by Edward Snowden of the vast surveillance and collection of data by the National Security Agency and the beginning of a new book titled “The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man.”

Author Luke Harding is a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardia, which broke the initial Snowden story.

NATIONAL SECURITY - Tech Giants Call, Update

"Tech giants call for tighter limits on government surveillance" PBS Newshour 12/9/2013

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JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  The giants of the tech industry made a highly public appeal today to rein in government surveillance.  It came in the form of an open letter to President Obama.

The call for curbs focused on people's personal information being collected from online traffic.  Eight major companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, banded together to write an open letter to the president and Congress.  It appeared in full-page newspaper ads and online.

The letter read in part:  "The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual, rights that are enshrined in our Constitution.  This undermines the freedoms we all cherish."

It's the tech giants' latest bid to salvage public trust, amid revelations that they have had to provide users' data to the government.  The details come from Edward Snowden, who leaked a trove of material from the National Security Agency last summer.  Intelligence officials maintain the data collection operation has thwarted a number of terror attacks.

A presidential advisory panel has been reviewing the issue.  Its findings could come this week.

We hear now from the tech world.  Brad Smith is the general counsel and an executive vice president of Microsoft.  He's also speaking on behalf of the companies that signed today's letter.

As I've said before, I consider Edward Snowden a traitor.  Also, using the internet has NEVER been private, any more than holding a conversation in the middle of Central Park can be considered private.

NSA - Why Can't They Keep Their Own Secrets?

WRONG!  IMO Snowden is a TRAITOR not a whistleblower.

"Why has NSA failed to keep its own secrets?" by Mark Urban, BBC News

WASHINGTON:  The past week has been a wretched one for the US National Security Agency (NSA), with revelations of large-scale trawling of phone call data in France and Spain, as well as of eavesdropping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

During these months, since thousands of files copied by former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden started leaking into the public domain, the US has been compared to an Orwellian Big Brother state.

But I cannot help wondering, if the NSA is as powerful as its critics have claimed, why has it been so useless at protecting its secrets?

Where are the worm viruses unleashed into the computer systems of newspapers that have published US secrets?  The court orders to prevent additional disclosures?  And, if you enjoy spy fiction, the deniable operators climbing over balconies in Brazil or Hong Kong to steal laptops or indeed terminate their owners?

The American system of official secrecy has for years operated on the basis of targeting the leaker "pour decourager les autres".

In August, the trial of Private Bradley Manning ended with a 35 year sentence for passing classified material to Wikileaks.

As for this latest bout of revelation, involving information about phone and internet spying that is much more highly classified than anything Pte Manning had access to, on the surface it seems only the British authorities have acted in an attempt to stop further publication.

British intelligence officers have watched journalists destroying some computers at the Guardian newspapers.

'Aspects of incompetence'

And David Miranda, the partner of one of the journalists holding the largest amount of Snowden files, was also stopped in August as he changed planes at Heathrow airport, questioned and had memory devices confiscated.

Indeed, the Miranda episode is pretty much the only one since the publication of the Snowden stories that suggests some kind of joined up response aimed at frustrating further publication.

It had the hint, with its foreknowledge of Mr Miranda's travel plans and the fact that he was carrying these files, of an operation based on precisely the kind of intelligence gathering that Mr Snowden has warned of.

In the US though there has been pretty much nothing.  And this is despite the fact that it is common journalistic knowledge that the Guardian journalists sitting on a great many more files, drip feeding them into the public domain, have been operating in New York.

There are aspects of incompetence to it.

Mr Snowden was part of an army of more than 800,000 people with clearance to access such damaging material, and was able to get it again when working with a contractor despite concerns having been expressed at the CIA about his motives.

Some "lessons learned" studies have been launched within the intelligence community, but not yet with any result in terms of cutting the numbers given access to such secrets, or barring from similar work the contractor that employed him.

As for the media, well this crisis should put to bed the idea that that a call from the White House to the editor of the Washington Post or New York Times can simply squash a story like this.

There have been no US legal attempts to force journalists to destroy or turn over what they have, and in the UK a DA Notice on the subject has been widely ignored.

Even the PR response has been limited and ill co-ordinates.  Monday's New York Times comments that "the administration has seemed uncertain about how to handle the reports", concerned the interception of the German leader's mobile phone.  Last week, the attempts of one former NSA director to fight back turned into farce when his briefings to journalists by phone were overheard by a fellow passenger on a train who started tweeting updates.

Spying allegations

The latest revelations, about tapping world leaders phone calls, also leave one wondering what use the content of Ms Merkel's calls were to US policy makers?

The White House has tied itself in knots over whether to admit the president was actually briefed on what she was saying, but it can hardly be said that it gave the US some amazing advantage in the bilateral relationship with Germany.

Some in Washington have detected in the President's unwillingness to take stronger action in defence of the NSA, a desire to see the vast intelligence bureaucracies that grew up after 9/11 cut down to size.

Whether or not that is the case, any attempt to halt the revelations by legal action would inevitably have brought accusations of an assault on cherished constitutional freedoms.

So the leaks continue and today we discover that the NSA recorded the call data (i.e. the numbers dialed and duration, rather than the actual content) of 60m Spanish calls during one month.

Perhaps Kafka rather than Orwell provides the better literary template for this ongoing story.

The NSA has grown into a huge data-mining bureaucracy driven by its own organizational imperatives.

It pursues ever greater coverage, storage of data, staff and budget.

In many cases it does things because it can, rather than because somebody has asked whether the information is useful, whether it is worth the potential price if discovered, or whether the activity can actually be prevented from coming into the public domain.

SPYING - More Fallout From Traitor Snowden's Actions

"Fallout from NSA leaks threaten trust at home, damage relationships abroad" PBS Newshour 10/25/2013

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SUMMARY:  The controversy unleashed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began in June when The Guardian newspaper first reported on leaks about U.S. monitoring of phone calls.  Since then, information about the NSA's surveillance have threatened trust at home and relationships with U.S. allies abroad.  Ray Suarez recaps the revelations.

"EU leaders Merkel, Hollande call for 'no spying' agreement with U.S." PBS Newshour 10/25/2013

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SUMMARY:  German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande called for a "no spying" agreement with the U.S. after reports that the NSA monitored and collected phone data from their countries.  A State Department spokeswoman said the Obama administration is ready to discuss the issue.  Kwame Holman reports.

"What are the diplomatic costs of the NSA surveillance revelations for the U.S.?" PBS Newshour 10/25/2013

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SUMMARY:  Revelations that the NSA has collected phone and email data from our European allies has created a "serious and awkward diplomatic problem" for the U.S. Former CIA official Philip Mudd and P.J. Crowley, former assistant secretary of state, join Ray Suarez to discuss the diplomatic ramifications.

RUSSIA - Grants Traitor Snowden Asylum

Message to Snowden:  Stay in Russia and good riddance.

"Russia Grants Snowden Asylum, Which U.S. Dubs an 'Extreme Disappointment'" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 8/1/2013

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  The drama over disclosures of U.S. surveillance programs took a major new turn today in Russia.  The man at the center of the story was allowed to go free for the first time since arriving there in June.

Edward Snowden's lawyer confirmed the news to reporters today at the Moscow airport.

ANATOLY KUCHERENA, attorney for Edward Snowden (through interpreter):  Yes, I have arrived in the airport so that a member of the immigration service could give him a document that grants him temporary asylum in the territory of the Russian Federation.  I have just seen him off, and he has left the airport to go to a safe location.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The National Security Agency leaker had been in limbo in the airport's transit zone for more than a month.  He managed to flee in a taxi, eluding the media throng that had camped there for weeks.  Snowden will now be able to travel freely throughout Russia, but his lawyer said his exact whereabouts are being kept secret for security reasons.

ANATOLY KUCHERENA (through interpreter):  He will choose his place of residence himself.  He can live in a hotel or an apartment.  As he is one of the most wanted people on earth, he will be making sure his place of residence is absolutely safe.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Snowden released his own statement through the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which has a legal adviser traveling with him.

The statement read, in part:  "We have seen the Obama administration show no respect for international or domestic law, but in the end the law is winning.  I thank the Russian Federation for granting me asylum in accordance with its laws and international obligations."

U.S. officials had demanded Snowden be returned home to face espionage charges for leaking information about the NSA's secret surveillance of phone and Internet communications.  But Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to expel him, and one of Putin's aides downplayed today's development, insisting -- quote -- "This issue isn't significant enough to have an impact on political relations."

But, in Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Snowden's release has U.S. officials weighing whether to cancel President Obama's planned summit with Putin next month.

JAY CARNEY, White House Press Secretary:  We will obviously be in contact with Russian authorities, expressing our extreme disappointment in this decision and making the case clearly that there is absolute legal justification for Mr. Snowden to be returned to the United States, where he is under indictment on three charges, felony charges.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Meanwhile, the president met privately with a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers to address concerns about the NSA's surveillance programs.

Back in Russia, Snowden now has a grant of asylum for at least a year.  That can be extended indefinitely, and he even has the right to seek Russian citizenship.

"Despite Tension Over Snowden, U.S. and Russia Seem Reluctant to Upset Diplomacy" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 8/1/2013

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SUMMARY:  Russia's offer of asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden has U.S. officials weighing whether to cancel President Barack Obama's upcoming summit with President Vladimir Putin.  Will it affect long-term diplomacy between the two nations?  Jeffrey Brown gets an update on the Snowden story from Paul Sonne of The Wall Street Journal.

NATIONAL SECURITY - View on Closing Arguments in Traitor Manning's Trial

"Prosecutors, Defense Offer Different Portraits of Bradley Manning in Closing" PBS Newshour 7/26/2013

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JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  The defense got its final say today, for the soldier who made a massive disclosure of secret documents.  Now the so-called WikiLeaks case goes to a military judge.

As Army Private 1st Class Bradley Manning arrived at Fort Meade, Md., this morning, a handful of supporters stood by, some wearing T-shirts that said "Truth."  Inside, his attorney argued that Manning wanted the world to know the truth of U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The 25-year-old intelligence analyst stands accused of the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, releasing more than 700,000 classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

Manning was arrested in May 2010 while serving in Iraq, and charged with 21 offenses.  Last February, he pleaded guilty to some of the lesser charges, including misuse of classified information.  The court-martial on the remaining offenses began June 3.  A conviction of the most serious, aiding the enemy, could send him to prison for life.

In their closing arguments yesterday, prosecutors argued that Manning was no naive soldier, but a traitor.  The defense insisted today he should be seen as a whistle-blower.

Charlie Savage of The New York Times was in the courtroom for the past two days and joins us now.

NATIONAL SECURITY - Traitor Snowden, Permission to Leave Moscow Airport

"Snowden’s lawyer says he will remain at Moscow airport for now" by Isabel Gorst, Washington Post 7/24/2013

Russia has decided to give fugitive leaker Edward Snowden permission to leave the Moscow airport where he has spent the last month, an immigration official said Wednesday, but it remains unclear whether he will be granted temporary political asylum.

Vladimir Volokh, the head of the public council of the Russian Federal Migration Service, said Snowden would be handed a certificate stating that he had applied for temporary political asylum.

State-controlled media, quoting unnamed security officials, said he was given the document sometime on Wednesday.

The certificate means that Snowden can leave the transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, where he has been stranded — without permission or documentation to enter Russia or travel to another country — for more than a month.

Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency who has been charged in the United States with leaking classified information, will not be free to move around Russia unless he is granted asylum, Volokh said.

“He will only be allowed to stay in places designated by Russian law enforcement agencies,” Volokh told the Eko Moskvy radio station on Wednesday afternoon.

He said Snowden would “not be extradited to any country where his life might be in danger, because he has applied for asylum here.”

Police stepped up security at the airport earlier Wednesday, fueling rumors that the Snowden’s release was imminent.  Russian television aired footage of Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer for Snowden, arriving at Sheremetyevo in the afternoon to consult with his client.

Snowden asked the Russian government for temporary asylum last week.  He has indicated that he sees life in Russia as a short-term solution and hopes eventually to move on to Latin America.

Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela have offered to give Snowden refuge, but pressure from Washington, as well as concern that the United States or Europe might block him from traveling across their airspace has prevented the fugitive from departing Russia.

NATIONAL SECURITY - Latest on Traitor Edward Snowden

Note the use of "traitor" in my post title.  Snowden IS a traitor because; he signed a contract NOT to revile secrets (and he does not get to decide what is secret or not), he flew our country, AND is not willing to take the consequences of his actions.  If he was patriotic, he would have been willing to take the consequences.

"Snowden Meets With Human Rights Activists in Renewed Effort for Russian Asylum" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 7/12/2013

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SUMMARY:  Edward Snowden, the man who leaked information about major surveillance programs at the National Security Agency, renewed a request for political asylum in Russia and met with human rights activists and Russian politicians.  Ray Suarez reports on the White House's response to the possibility of Snowden staying in Russia.

"Will Snowden Continue Leaks if Granted Russian Political Asylum?" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 7/12/2013

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SUMMARY:  For the first time in weeks, it was confirmed that NSA leaker Edward Snowden is in Moscow.  Ray Suarez talks to Ellen Barry of the New York Times about Snowden's dwindling options, his defense of his actions and what conditions Russia may enforce in order to agree to hosting him.