US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Peter Lemkin]

Jimmy Carter Supports Snowden; Admits to Press: "America Has No Functioning Democracy"
July 18, 2013
Found this in one of Germany's biggest newspapers; Spiegel. Of course we won't hear about Carter's comments in any American Press. To say "America has no functioning Democracy," is quite the statement by a former President.
A direct link to that article, using google translate, can be found here.
Ex-President Carter: "The invasion of privacy has gone too far"
The Obama administration tried to placate Europe's anger over spying programs. Not as ex-President Jimmy Carter: The Democrat attacked the U.S. intelligence sharp. The disclosure by whistleblowers Snowden was "useful."
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was in the wake of the NSA Spähskandals criticized the American political system. "America has no functioning democracy," Carter said Tuesday at a meeting of the "Atlantic Bridge" in Atlanta.
Previously, the Democrat had been very critical of the practices of U.S. intelligence. "I think the invasion of privacy has gone too far," Carter told CNN. "And I think that is why the secrecy was excessive."Overlooking the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Carter, whose revelations were long "likely to be useful because they inform the public."
Carter has repeatedly warned that the United States sharply declined due to excessive restriction of civil rights, their moral authority. Last year he wrote in an article in the "New York Times", new U.S. laws "never before seen breach our privacy by the government" allowed the.
Carter was the 39th President of the United States, who ruled from 1977 until 1981. During his tenure, he tried to align U.S. foreign policy that is more about human rights after his retirement from active politics for his humanitarian work, he received the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize .
In Atlanta, he also expressed his overall pessimistic about the global situation. There is currently no reason for him to be optimistic, Carter said, referring to the situation in Egypt, which had fallen into a military dictatorship. He also lamented the growing political divide in the United States, the excessive influence of money in U.S. election campaigns and the confusing American election rules. The ex-president whose "Carter Center" operates worldwide including election monitoring, announced skeptical whether the United States, the standard that applies when reviewing the Center of elections might be fulfilled.
As a bright spot, however, Carter called the triumph of modern technology that would have caused some of the countries of the Arab Spring of democratic progress. Exactly these developments but are endangered by the NSA Spähskandal as major U.S. Internet platforms such as Google or Facebook lose credibility worldwide.