PRISM: We welcome this debate
Wow, I love writing about the government. You know how some drivers slow down for an accident on the highway? I like to watch hypocrites squirm. They don’t know they’re hypocrites. They don’t even know...
View ArticleEdward Snowden vs. NSA
The issue of domestic surveillance is not principally about privacy, much as President Obama would like to define it that way. It is about a government that violates the Consitution in secret, then...
View ArticleChurch leadership to resist a lawless government; Benjamin C. Bradlee
Here are some words of encouragement for Reverend Rick Hoyt, whose First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles leads nineteen other organizations in a lawsuit against the NSA for violations of the first,...
View Article“We target very specifically areas of concern”
“I can give assurances to the public in Europe and around the world that we’re not going around snooping at people’s e-mails or listening to their phone calls,” Obama said. “What we try to do is target...
View ArticleElmer Fudd scares the hell out of us
I love reports like this! Watch the biggest threat to our national security warn that the government shutdown threatens our national security: Top official warns shutdown is ‘dreamland’ for foreign...
View Article“I swear to tell the truth,” the wicked truth
If a liar swears an oath to tell the truth, does that make it more likely the liar will actually tell the truth? If listeners know the witness is a liar, does the oath make it more likely the audience...
View ArticleNSA to Angela Merkel: “You’ve become a public distraction”
Now Angela Merkel discovers Washington set up a listening post in Berlin to monitor her cell phone. How brazen can you be? What are those people at the NSA thinking? Brazil, Mexico, France, Germany....
View ArticleClapper’s Crapper
Last week, when James Clapper and Keith Alexander testified contra Snowden yet again, the question arose whether the NSA had “gone rogue”. That’s a term that comes to us from Jason Bourne, and many...
View ArticleOpen letter to the people of Brazil from Edward Snowden
An open letter to the people of Brazil, from Edward Snowden: Six months ago, I stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government’s National Security Agency to stand in front of a...
View ArticleNSA believes U.S. law prohibits some intelligence activities!
Here’s another interesting report from the Snowden files. Apparently the Australians helped the NSA with surveillance of a Chicago law firm that assisted the Indonesian government in trade talks:...
View ArticleOptic Nerve, central symbol of the surveillance state
The Snowden files get better and better. This week we have a report that the NSA and the UK’s GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters – collaborated on a project called Optic Nerve. The purpose...
View ArticleCorruption and secrecy in software systems and foreign affairs
As we think about the issue of truth and truth telling in the context of government secrecy, we encounter another interesting connection: that between transparency and security. We associate...
View ArticleWhat have we learned from Edward Snowden’s disclosures?
A few things we have learned from Edward Snowden’s disclosures, and their aftermath: U. S. intelligence officials know that we think they are doing something wrong, but they don’t think they are doing...
View ArticleThankful we have the NSA to protect us
“NSA is a professional foreign-intelligence organization with a highly trained workforce, including brave and dedicated men and women from our armed forces… As we have said before, the agency has zero...
View ArticleFurther thoughts on Snowden, NSA, and 9/11
Greenwald to publish list of U. S. citizens NSA spied on When I first read that Glenn Greenwald plans to …Continue reading →
View ArticleNational security in the twenty-first century
Without fail, secrecy breeds distrust. When you withhold information from other people, who ought to know what you know, you keep …Continue reading →
View ArticleFederal court: Snowden was right
A U. S. federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, May 7, that Snowden is correct: NSA collection of phone records …Continue reading →
View ArticleThe phone company is omni-potent
I’d say the NSA, FBI, and CIA could learn some fine points about customer service from Ernestine the switchboard operator. Here’s …Continue reading →
View ArticleCorroboration, credibility, and numbers
No strength of numbers can unite people who know Snowden, Drake, and Manning speak the truth, who can corroborate what they say, since the law says they must go to prison if they reveal government's...
View ArticleEdward Snowden three years on
President Obama's policy is to jail whistleblowers and protect the people who manage his national security state. Presidents have become so accustomed to serving the national security state's interests...
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