Other NSA Whistleblowers Support Edward Snowden

NSA Whistleblowers Mark Klein and Thomas Drake support what Edward Snowden has done.

 Klein: "I don't expect this to happen, [but] Congress should give Edward Snowden retroactive immunity for standing and defending the Constitution. He's done a service for the entire country. What's revealed politically is that both parties are in on this."

 And:  Snowden, Drake writes, has revealed only "the tip of the iceberg." Warning that Snowden will pay a "high price," for his actions, he nonetheless understands why it was taken. "I didn't want to be part of the dark blanket that covers the world, and Edward Snowden didn't either. It's simply validation of this vast, systemic, industrial-scale, Leviathan surveillance system. And it's twelve years of growth. ... None of what I've seen published in The Guardian or the Post surprises me."

The Criminal NSA

HT: Egalicontrarian As JDB put it, "legal experts Jennifer Granick and Christopher Sprigman have written this helpful opinion piece in the NYT,"  The Criminal NSA.  Their conclusion:

We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal.

FBI Document: "[Deleted]" Plots to Kill Occupy Leaders "If Necessary"

WhoWhatWhy reports an FOIA document obtained from the FBI that records:

 An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles. 

Read more.

Where Have All the Democrats Gone?

Disturbing news to me was this comment by Glenn Greenwald:

  Numerous NSA defenders - mostly Democrats - amazingly continue to insist that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by the NSA. How do they get themselves to ignore things like this and this?"

Greenwald reminds us that things weren't always so bleak:

In the mid-1970s, the US Senate formed the Select Intelligence Committee to investigate reports of the widespread domestic surveillance abuses that had emerged in the wake of the Nixon scandals. The Committee was chaired by 4-term Idaho Democratic Sen. Frank Church who was, among other things, a former military intelligence officer and one of the Senate's earliest opponents of the Vietnam War, as well as a former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Even among US Senators, virtually nothing was known at the time about the National Security Agency. The Beltway joke was that "NSA" stood for "no such agency". Upon completing his investigation, Church was so shocked to learn what he had discovered - the massive and awesome spying capabilities constructed by the US government with no transparency or accountability - that he issued the following warning, as reported by the New York Times, using language strikingly stark for such a mainstream US politician when speaking about his own government:

"'That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.'

"He added that if a dictator ever took over, the NSA 'could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.'"

As Greenwald observes:

  The conditional part of Church's warning - "that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people" - is precisely what is happening, one might even say: is what has already happened. That seems well worth considering.

Any Democrats considering this? 

NSA's motive for Spying: Blackmail?

A short interview of NSA whistleblower Russ Tice, who blew the whistle in 2005, reveals that they were spying on political and military leaders, judges, journalists, and other prominent people. Was it to insure a compliant government and press?

"...Thy Kingdom Come..."

If you were raised Christian, you probably know "the Lord's Prayer" by heart: "Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come...."   If you were raised Jewish, you might know the Kaddish prayer by heart, even if you don't know its translation, but when you get to "veyamlikh malkhuteh," (וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ), your saying, "May He establish His kingdom." (Of course, you already had prayed, "May His great name be exalted and sanctified is G-d's great name," "Yitgaddal veyit qaddash shmeh rabba," "יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא").

So both Jews and Christians traditionally pray that God's kingdom be established.  This is a tacit acknowledgment that God's kingdom is not established...yet.   As the Lord's Prayer continues, "...thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven...."   God's will is not done on Earth.  Or if it is, it is not done the way it is done in Heaven.

So when we see things that are obviously wrong or evil, we should remember that God sees them as obviously wrong or evil, also.  They didn't happen because His will was done.  Or if it was His will, it wasn't done as His will is done in Heaven, where there is no evil, no pain, no suffering, no death.  And thus it will be when His kingdom does come to Earth:  only goodness, joy, and celebration.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the WTC Dust Debate

Well, I don't know if it's really everything, but John-Michael Talboo's and Ziggi Zugam's article, 9/11: Explosive Material in the WTC Dust, covers a LOT of it.