Edward Snowden wins Sam Adams award

From WikiLeaks:

This week Edward Snowden received the Integrity Award from the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. These videos from the award ceremony are the first of Mr Snowden after being granted asylum in Russia. The videos show Mr Snowden as he was given the award by Ray McGovern (ex-CIA) who said "Sam Adams Associates are proud to honor Mr. Snowden’s decision to heed his conscience and give priority to the Common Good over concerns about his own personal future. We are confident that others with similar moral fiber will follow his example in illuminating dark corners and exposing crimes that put our civil rights as free citizens in jeopardy.... Just as Private Manning and Julian Assange exposed criminality with documentary evidence, Mr. Snowden’s beacon of light has pierced a thick cloud of deception. And, again like them, he has been denied some of the freedoms that whistleblowers have every right to enjoy." Also present at the ceremony was WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison who took Mr Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow and obtained his asylum. The previous award winners, all United States Government whistleblowers, Thomas Drake (NSA), Jesselyn Raddack (DoJ) and Coleen Rowley (FBI), were also in attendance. These videos were filmed on the October 9 and are released for the first time today.

Continue ReadingEdward Snowden wins Sam Adams award

I have nothing to hide

Film Maker Laura Poitras responds as follows to those who say (in reaction to revelations regarding the surveillance state) "I have nothing to hide":

If someone says, “I have nothing to hide,” does that mean they want a camera in their bedroom? Or that they want their computer to be a two-way camera, feeding information into a government office? Do they want a switch that can be flipped so that your phone becomes a microphone streaming your personal conversations to the government? Most people who make the argument “I have nothing to hide” don’t fully understand the technical capabilities that the government has. They are vast. All these devices that we carry around with us can, at the flip of a switch, be turned against us. Our most intimate moments, our beings, ourselves... It can become an Orwellian nightmare where all these tools that we surround ourselves with can beam our whole life to people sitting in some secret government facility. It’s not that the government is necessarily interested, it’s that there’s nothing to stop them, legally or technologically. And a person would never know when it’s happening. They won’t tell you because it’s all a secret. I have a Gmail account, and I assume that everything is being handed over, probably in real time, to the government, and I think I should have a right to know that that’s happening. There are no technical constraints to this becoming a full surveillance state. And we hardly have any oversight, and any laws that exist are all happening in secret.

Continue ReadingI have nothing to hide

Hostile BBC reporter tries to bait Glenn Greenwald

In this interview/inquisition, Glenn Greenwald puts up with more establishment media questioning, i.e., reporters who feel that their job is to do the bidding of their governments rather than to shed light on government abuses and corruption.

Continue ReadingHostile BBC reporter tries to bait Glenn Greenwald

Obama- hoist by his own terrorist petard

But what happens when President Obama aids the enemy?  Will we as a nation insist that the President should also be subject to the law?  Are we a nation of laws, or corrupt banana republic which only enforces the law against those powerless to resist?

Continue ReadingObama- hoist by his own terrorist petard

Bank of America hammers whistle blower

Check out what Bank of America did to this whistle blower. This type of "justice" will make people think twice about stepping up to be whistle blowers. this outcome disturbs me for two reasons. 1. I publicly blew the whistle on a Missouri Attorney General more than 20 years ago, resulting in widespread public exposure of his corruption, so this issue is personal to me, and 2. Whistle blowers are often the only source of unfiltered information for the public, information that can serve the public good. We need to get over the idea that whistle-blowing is improper simply because whistle-blowers disobey their employers' wishes or disobey laws even as they are achieving a greater good with no personal gain.

Continue ReadingBank of America hammers whistle blower