Exposing the Dark Forces Behind the Snowden Smears

[Peter Lemkin]

US total surveillance: time to impeach?

Posted on July 16, 2013 by admin

Thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden who has just been nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize the United States Government has been exposed as the biggest hacker of all time, stealing data not only from its allies (via its closest allies) and its foes alike but also from ordinary people globally. This is larceny on a grand scale and has nothing to do with national security, let alone concerns about terrorism. Further, it is patently obvious that in organising these mass surveillance programs as revealed by Mr. Snowden the US Administration has contravened the American Constitution. Consequently, senior officials in the Administration should now be prosecuted and its Commander-in-Chief, Barack Obama, impeached.
Meanwhile, according to journalist Glenn Greenwald a so-called dead man's pact has been arranged to ensure that no harm or threat of capture is made to Mr. Snowden. Here is what Mr.Greenwald told The Daily Beast about the precautions taken by Snowden… He "has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published." Greenwald added that the people in possession of these files "cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords." But, Greenwald said, "if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives." Elsewhere , be added, "The U.S. government should be on its knees every day praying that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something happens to him, all the information would be revealed and that would be its worst nightmare."

It is pointless, therefore, for the US Government to try and restrict Mr. Snowden's liberty any longer and he should be able to travel anywhere he wishes and reside in any country that welcomes him. Moreover, the US Government must cease its bullying of other countries (or organisations) that merely wish to assist Mr. Snowden in his quest. Indeed, the UN Declaration on Territorial Asylum 1967 states that any country has the right to grant asylum to anyone for any reason without fear of retribution. In making threats to countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Russia, the United States is in direct contravention of this declaration, to which it is a signatory.
Three days ago, as part of Operation Flight of Liberty, Phase 1, Mr. Snowden announced that he would apply for temporary asylum with Russia but would ultimately aim to take up an offer for permanent asylum with a Latin American country, once his travel arrangements have been secured. At the same time he requested the assistance of the international community to help secure his safe passage once he is able to travel. Organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have vast experience when it comes to lobbying and influencing opinion generally, but do not have the necessary resources to ensure Mr. Snowden's safety.
For Phase 2 of Operation Flight of Liberty, the most viable option available to Mr. Snowden may well see a complex travel arrangement involving Russia as coordinator, the governments of several Latin American countries as guarantors, prominent persons (e.g. Nobel Peace Prize laureates) as human shields, and a flight path that avoids US and allies' airspace. The temporary asylum offered by Russia will provide the time needed to plan such an operation.
Meanwhile, over the past few days there have been more revelations….Slate haspublished an article about how Microsoft has been providing to the NSA details of all Skype communications for some years. Here is an extract… "The Guardian published the latest in a series of scoops about the scope of the NSA's spying programs, based on documents disclosed by former contractor Edward Snowden. The report outlines how Microsoft secretly worked with the NSA to help the agency tap into its email and chat services, including Outlook.com and Hotmail. Notably, the Guardian also cites documents showing that work began on integrating Skype into the NSA's Internet surveillance program PRISM in November 2010, several months before Microsoft purchased the service from U.S. private equity firms. By February 2011, the NSA was able to monitor Skype audio calls. In addition, by July last year, the NSA reportedly boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through PRISM. These details compound recent revelations about Skype's cooperation with the U.S. government. Last month, the Post reported that the NSA has a "User's Guide for PRISM Skype Collection" that outlines how it can eavesdrop on Skype "when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of audio, video, chat, and file transfers' when Skype users connect by computer alone." About two weeks later, the New York Times reported that, five years ago, before Microsoft acquired Skype, Skype initiated an internal program called "Project Chess" to explore how it could make Skype calls readily available to the government."
Here is a timeline of all the NSA revelations, as published by the Guardan.
Here is a good overview article on Echelon, demonstrating how the surveillance programs have been evolving over decades and have nothing to do with countering terrorism but are more akin to a dystopian reality that even Orwell could not have dreamt of. Finally, here is a good overview of the US surveillance state.