Snowden Disinformation Campaign Continues

Edward Snowden, a Russian Spy?

On January 19, 2014 Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers intimated in a national forum that Edward Snowden was working in concert with the Russian government when he chose to expropriate NSA documents revealing U.S. spyware activities.

The New York Times  reported shortly after the legislators' comments that there is no evidence even hinting that Edward Snowden was working with the Russians or any other intelligence agency.

Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers say it is suspicious that Mr. Snowden has Russian protection. Ms. Feinstein and Mr. Rogers should reconsider their comments in view of the facts.

After the State Department revoked Mr. Snowden's passport, he became a stateless person and was thus unable to fly anywhere except back home to face criminal indictments. Edward Snowden had been seeking asylum in a South American country.

Representative Rogers and Senator Feinstein's musings are not germane to most Americans' concerns which are the knowledge that the government has been surreptitiously gathering intimate information on all citizens.

President Obama Supports NSA Surveillance Practices

In spite of advice to the contrary President Obama has decided to allow the NSA metadata collection program to proceed mostly as structured.

Within the NSA critique, "Liberty and Security in a Changing World ," interested parties will find the following admonition:

we endorse a broad principle for the future: as a general rule and without senior policy review, the government should not be permitted to collect and store mass, undigested, non-public personal information about US persons for the purpose of enabling future queries and data-mining for foreign intelligence purposes. (p.17)

Citizen vigilance is critical because:

... we cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly “trusting” our public officials. As the Church Committee observed more than 35 years ago, when the capacity of government to collect massive amounts of data about individual Americans was still in its infancy, the “massive centralization of . . . information creates a temptation to use it for improper purposes, threatens to ‘chill’ the exercise of First Amendment rights, and is inimical to the privacy of citizens.” (p.114)

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board stated January 23, 2014 that the intrusive NSA metadata collection system has minimal terrorist prevention value, is illegal and should closed.

The Perils of Trusting Intelligence Agencies

It was either faulty or contrived intelligence that persuaded Congress to authorize the Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Senator Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers supported the resolution and their vote along with others was predicated on the following intelligence:

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

It has been verified that the weapons of mass destruction described as the cause for action did not exist.

Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi refugee and mother of four, has filed a complaint against George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powell and Paul Wolfowitz.

Sundus Shaker Saleh alleges that the defendants:

broke the law in conspiring and committing the crime of aggression against the people of Iraq. Defendants planned the war against Iraq as early as 1998; manipulated the United States public to support the war by scaring them with images of “mushroom clouds” and conflating the Hussein regime with al-Qaeda; and broke international law by commencing the invasion without proper legal authorization.

There is truth in the Saleh complaint.

What the American Legislative Exchange Council has Wrought

The American Legislative Exchange Council Profit Delivery System

Paul Weyrich, American Legislative Exchange Council's paterfamilias, began prejudicing policy makers in the 1970s. The Weyrich résumé also includes the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and Free Congress Foundation.

The New York Times,"Lobbyists, Guns and Money," Bloomberg Businessweek, "Pssst ... Wanna Buy a Law?" and numerous others find the American Legislative Exchange Council modus operandi troubling. Nancy MacLean, N.C. Policy Watch, says that:

What ALEC and the companies that provide it with millions in operating funds seek is, in effect, a slow-motion corporate takeover of our democracy, first in the states where its party controls both the legislature and the governorship, as in North Carolina. But once its bills to suppress voter turnout take effect, the ultimate prize is to transform our entire country.

The corporate-legislative partnership known as the American Legislative Exchange Council meets three timely annually to discuss state actions that would benefit Wall Street interests. Documents recently provided to The Guardian reveal much about ALEC's agenda.

During the August 2013 tête à tête, the board of fifteen directors submitted a proposal stating:

I will act with care and loyalty and put the interests of the organization first.

Furthermore, State Chairs [elected officials] will "inform ALEC of any public records/FOIA requests that include ALEC documents." Legislators will communicate via a dropbox to evade open records laws.

Lists of commercial entities and state officials facilitating the pay-to-legislate enterprise may be found on the ALEC Exposed website.

N.C. representative Thom Tillis, an ALEC board of directors member, is running for the U.S. Senate. State representative Tim Moffit, also an ALEC board member, is seeking reelection this year.

Americans learned from the Treyvon Martin, "Stand Your Ground," deadly shooting incident that this ALEC legislative model has diminished their security. This favor gun manufacturers bill was signed into law by Governor Bush and was supported by Marco Rubio.

American Legislative Exchange Council's Economic Onslaught

Arizona residents are experiencing first hand ALEC's influence over state lawmakers with the free rider surcharge bill which, as proposed, would financially penalize homeowners [not industries] who utilize solar power energy.

There is much to criticize regarding American Legislative Exchange Council's machinations but none is more disturbing than the organization's pension reform scheme.

Public servants in numerous states are finding that trustees have shortchanged or pilfered away these inviolate obligations. Politico refers to pension funds as private equity honey pots.

The Manhattan Institute, an ALEC member, informs via its Public Sector Inc. website that:

State and local government employees all over the country collect taxpayer-guaranteed pension benefits that are far more generous than those available to most private-sector workers.

This long-touted fallacious claim was ALEC's initial assault on employee rights.

In California ALEC's fingerprints can be found on initiative 13-0043, " PUBLIC EMPLOYEES. PENSION AND RETIREE HEALTHCARE BENEFITS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. " If this measure is approved it will:

Eliminate constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree healthcare benefits for current public employees, including teachers, nurses, and peace officers, for future work performed. Permits government employers to reduce employee benefits and increase employee contributions for future work if retirement plans are substantially underfunded or government employer declares fiscal emergency.

North Carolina's 875,000, past and present, workforce and their $83.1 billion retirement holdings are under ALEC pension reform attack. The risks to the state's pension fund and its beneficiaries were increased in August when Governor Pat McCrory signed a bill to move portions of the workers' funds into a more volatile investment landscape. The Bloomberg News article,"North Carolina Pension Adds to Lagging Private-Equity Bets (1)," adds further insight on the subject.

NC Treasurer, Janet Cowell reports that at the end of September 2013, the pension portfolio had returned 9.97 percent for the fiscal year. Ten year returns averaged 6.57%.

Rather than trust Ms. Cowell's prognostications, the State Employees Association of North Carolina has engaged an independent firm to audit their pension plan.

Public pension fund insolvency can be linked to deceptive accounting practices, underfunding, conflict of interest investment choices and borrowing. Many state legislators such as those in North Carolina have exacerbated the problem by reducing or eliminating corporate taxes and levies on upper income brackets.

Since most pension plans have critical deficiencies, ALEC estimates anywhere from $750 billion to more than $4 trillion, public-sector employees can expect further benefit reductions. Regrettably guarantors, outside state governments, hold the trump card—it's called bankruptcy.

ALEC says that state pension liability risks can be reduced by: removal of defined benefit plans, cost of living adjustment guarantees, and constitutional protections. The Council also suggests that at the end of the employment term employees receive an annuity.

This proposed change benefits the state and insurance industry but provides no guarantees to employees. The American Legislative Exchange Council's script for state pension reform may be found here.

Please vote wisely. 2014 is a pivotal election year and candidates affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council may not be representing public interests.

Going Public In Support of Edward Snowden

John and Bonnie Raines purveyors of government secrets
Mark Makela—The New York Times

Activists Acknowledge Breaking and Entering FBI Office to Obtain Documents

On the evening of March 8, 1971 a group of eight broke into a suburban Philadelphia FBI office and left with documents substantiating suspicions that the government and specifically J. Edgar Hoover had been spying on anti-war protesters and other dissidents. These stolen files changed the course of history.

A short time later Daniel Ellsberg provided the Pentagon Papers to the media. These disclosures enabled the Church Committee to determine in 1976 that the government had been perpetrating grievous surveillance practices.

As a result of Edward Snowden's NSA leaks in 2013, Americans have been advised that even more intrusive government-sponsored watch programs have been in place for more than a decade. Activities ruled illegal in the mid 70s, are back in vogue.

One of most damning examples of FBI misconduct was the anonymous letter sent to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Through illegal wiretaps the agency knew that Rev. King had engaged in
extramarital affairs. The FBI promise: If Rev. King committed suicide this embarrassing information would remain private. The FBI threat is as follows:

The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant.[sic] You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.

The FBI missive to Rev. King also included incriminating wiretaps. Rev. King was one of many Americans under Project MINARET observation. Others on the government surveillance list included Senators Church and Baker, Tom Wicker, Art Buchwald and Muhammad Ali.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders asked NSA Director Keith Alexander this month whether the agency had been or is spying on members of Congress. Copies of the correspondence may be viewed here.

The NSA critique, "Liberty and Security in a Changing World," issued in December by President Obama's task force recommended that the government shut down the metadata collection system because this information might prompt public officials to:

engage in surveillance in order to punish their political enemies; to restrict freedom of speech or religion; to suppress legitimate criticism and dissent; to help their preferred companies or industries; to provide domestic companies with an unfair competitive advantage; or to benefit or burden members of groups defined in terms of religion, ethnicity, race, and gender. p.16

For these reasons:

we endorse a broad principle for the future: as a general rule and without senior policy review, the government should not be permitted to collect and store mass, undigested, non-public personal information about US persons for the purpose of enabling future queries and data-mining for foreign intelligence purposes. (p.17)

In conclusion:

... we cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly “trusting” our public officials. As the Church Committee observed more than 35 years ago, when the capacity of government to collect massive amounts of data about individual Americans was still in its infancy, the “massive centralization of . . . information creates a temptation to use it for improper purposes, threatens to ‘chill’ the exercise of First Amendment rights, and is inimical to the privacy of citizens.” (p.114)

The question remains: Is seeking truth a prosecutable offence?

"We the People" versus the National Security Agency

NSA Critique: "Liberty and Security in a Changing World"

On December 12, 2013 President Obama's five-member task force issued it's opinion on National Security Agency surveillance practices. The advisory panel's [Richard A. Clarke, Michael J. Morell, Geoffrey R. Stone, Cass R. Sunstein, Peter Swire] findings and recommendations are reminiscent of those of the Church Committee in 1976. In summary: examiners then and now have determined that the intelligence community has been operating outside acceptable parameters.

Edward Snowden's expropriated, now-publicized, NSA documents provoked the inquiry. There are more NSA facts forthcoming because most of Mr. Snowden's cache has not been released. As highlighted in the NSA critique and by The York Times report, "No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A," constitutional rights have likely been violated.

December judicial decisions on NSA spying techniques are contradictory: District Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that the NSA's bulk telephony metadata collection program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is lawful whereas District Court Judge Richard J. Leon described the government's endeavors as Orwellian pursuits. Judge Leon said that "While Congress has great latitude to create statutory schemes like FISA, it may not hang a cloak of secrecy over the Constitution."

In spite of prior official disclaimers, Judge Pauley noted that the Edward Snowden leaks prodded the government to admit that the NSA has been capturing and banking metadata on all foreign and domestic calls since May 2006.

To enter the data labyrinth, specified inquirers "must determine that there is a reasonable articulable suspicion that the suspect is associated with an international terrorist organization that is the subject of an FBI investigation."  Intelligence agencies'  awareness programs were in place prior to 9/11 but were strengthened after the fact.

Since the liberty versus security question is judicially unsettled, voters and members of Congress may gain further insight from the NSA critique. First and foremost President Obama's five advisers stated that the NSA should cease and desist its metadata collection practices because this data might entice public officials to:

engage in surveillance in order to punish their political enemies; to restrict freedom of speech or religion; to suppress legitimate criticism and dissent; to help their preferred companies or industries; to provide domestic companies with an unfair competitive advantage; or to benefit or burden members of groups defined in terms of religion, ethnicity, race, and gender. p.16

For these reasons:

we endorse a broad principle for the future: as a general rule and without senior policy review, the government should not be permitted to collect and store mass, undigested, non-public personal information about US persons for the purpose of enabling future queries and data-mining for foreign intelligence purposes. (p.17)

Further safeguarding liberty recommendations:

Personal identification data thus collected by the NSA should be removed from government control and be stored with third party contractors (p.23).

Because of conflict of interest concerns, future NSA directors should be non military, confirmed by the Senate, professionals (p.21).

FBI National Security Letters, compelling recipients to turn over private information, should be limited to clear and present danger situations (p.18). The FBI generated 192,499 national security letters from 2003 to 2006. NSL's are not subject to judicial review (p.54 Judge Leon ruling) 

To ensure impartiality, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges currently selected by the Chief Justice should be chosen by the nine members of the Supreme Court (p.22).

Commercial ventures should not provide security clearance approvals (p.23). Prior to privatization federal employees handled these assignments. The private equity-owned Booz Allen Hamilton firm, Edward Snowden's employer, relied on USIS another private equity-controlled entity to provide Mr. Snowden with his top-secret ranking. USIS has 100 federal contracts and provides security checks for more than 95 agencies.

Intelligence failures were contributing factors in the September 11, 2001 attacks (p.71).  The fact that President Bush proposed the Patriot Act one week after the airplane strikes raises the question of whether this measure was waiting in the wings.

Upon evaluation:

... we cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly “trusting” our public officials. As the Church Committee observed more than 35 years ago, when the capacity of government to collect massive amounts of data about individual Americans was still in its infancy, the “massive centralization of . . . information creates a temptation to use it for improper purposes, threatens to ‘chill’ the exercise of First Amendment rights, and is inimical to the privacy of citizens.” (p.114)

The "State of Deception" report by Ryan Lizza further clarifies government activities.

Sobering news from Mr. Snowden: "NSA seeks to build quantum computer that could crack most types of encryption."