Snowden alone in calling out Empire as naked

The American Empire stands naked, called out by one man among a hundred thousand who knew its dirty secrets and systematic betrayal of the world's trust.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhExjur_rNLD4iRMPF2de7xmHbfrPrhHxnFn7hQh7kXdGAI3WxNVXuworHp7ODAJW5pb0Am-RzPnEFlX5401qCMlDKeq1Qmg-fyrF2VFgAtEt958ZMEwEaHv5llNOqyMy3XCrANdJY4VCM/s690/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhExjur_rNLD4iRMPF2de7xmHbfrPrhHxnFn7hQh7kXdGAI3WxNVXuworHp7ODAJW5pb0Am-RzPnEFlX5401qCMlDKeq1Qmg-fyrF2VFgAtEt958ZMEwEaHv5llNOqyMy3XCrANdJY4VCM/s690/10.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shadows are cast on the White House in the early morning in Washington.(Reuters / Larry Downing)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />While international politics in the West has been leaping over each other to suck up to The Empire's New Clothes following September 11, 2001, the United States wasted no time in reinforcing the order of Pax Americana - that the US would establish peace in the world through superior firepower.<br /><br />The world was turned into a simple black-and-white "You're with us, or you're against us." In the decade that followed, many countries that were inconvenient to Pax Americana were invaded, none of which had anything to do with the events on September 11.<br /><br />The rattling of sabers were reminiscent of a high school bully: "if you don't accept that we can do whatever we want, we might be mean to you, so behave." Or, as US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed that sentence in just slightly more diplomatic language recently: "Hand over Snowden, or there may be consequences."<br /><br />Most people in the United States aren't aware that their country is acting like their hated high school bully to most of the rest of the world. The few who do tend to take it with humor: bumper stickers have been seen satirizing this as "Be nice to America, or we'll bring democracy to your country", playing on the media spin that every war of aggression to maintain Pax Americana is about "bringing democracy" somewhere.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">So when one man, Edward Snowden, reveals to the world that the Empire stands naked and that it really has been behaving like a bully, wiretapping everybody wholesale, there are shockwaves. But that's where the similarities with the folklore tale ends. Where the naked emperor cringed and realized the game was up, the naked Empire instead chooses to keep rewarding sucking up, pretending that nothing has been revealed at all, and to punish the whistleblower at all costs as a warning to others.</blockquote><br />Politicians in the United States have been quick to call Snowden this, that and the other thing. No wonder. The surveillance hawks who couldn't care less of the human rights of the world would much rather talk about Edward Snowden as an individual than about the fact that the world's trust in the United States has been systematically betrayed wholesale.<br /><br />Take Microsoft software as an important example. As part of the NSA unravelings, it was uncovered that Microsoft gives security holes to the National Security Agency for exploiting before it sends out security repair patches to its users and customers - essentially betraying the trust of every customer worldwide, and making sure that no government, corporation, or media outlet can ever trust Microsoft products again: for Microsoft gave the master key to every customers' operations to the NSA.<br /><br />Without Snowden setting the ball rolling, we would not have known this, and we would continue to have been owned - in the hacker and literal sense of the word - by the United States. Now, we can at least see that any Microsoft-developed software, and probably any closed US-developed software, is a huge security risk that no nation outside the United States can afford to take.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1ATww_qqwRhW5tFYl3preFlMKZhI3KKHci_c-xuW_B5z4PI-A0gRBdl5kF-MAtlFYSyDJ7akiyZoHg0vdBtgB0qAGNcPtQT6tGh1lGwnq0B_3_qAXkNpn17bqXm5eIHqu_OAfX0xsvc/s690/49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1ATww_qqwRhW5tFYl3preFlMKZhI3KKHci_c-xuW_B5z4PI-A0gRBdl5kF-MAtlFYSyDJ7akiyZoHg0vdBtgB0qAGNcPtQT6tGh1lGwnq0B_3_qAXkNpn17bqXm5eIHqu_OAfX0xsvc/s690/49.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snowdon Supporters demonstrate before Obama visit to Berlin.(Photo from instagram.com/rt)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Today, Snowden is said to be comfortable on the inside of Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow, pending new travel documents being issued by some friendly country. (You have to love the fact that he's enraging US bully hawks by planning his trip to China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. The only thing missing would be a trip to Pyongyang with a stopover in Tehran - and we find ourselves rooting for the countries that shield him, those countries we have been told sternly are black-and-white evil.)<br /><br />What's really interesting is how other people who have had their doubts about the United States have started to come forward. There are now rumors that those who have been doubting the Empire's ability to pay back its enormous debts are starting to raise their voices about it. No wonder: the United States has long been bankrupt, but people have been... pretending... otherwise to make sure that a crash to the world economy doesn't happen on their watch.<br /><br />If the doubts in creditworthiness take hold, things can come crashing down quicker than you would expect. Compare with 1987, at what felt like the height of the Cold War - who would have guessed that the Soviet Union would be formally dissolved just four years later?<br /><br />If history teaches us anything, it is that all empires come to an end. History books could theoretically point at Snowden's leak of conscience as the starting point of major, major changes to the geopolitical order. At least they ended a blind and naive trust in the United States' interest in doing good for anybody but itself.<br /><a href="http://rt.com/op-edge/snowden-us-secrets-truth-317/" target="_blank">source</a><br /><img src="http://rt.com/files/opinion/94/00/00/00/photo10.a.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: left; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Gill Sans Light', Helvetica; font-size: 10px; height: auto; margin: 0px 6px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" /><br /><div style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Gill Sans Light', Helvetica; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the first Pirate Party and campaigns for sensible information policy.</div>The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author

Snowden alone in calling out Empire as naked

The American Empire stands naked, called out by one man among a hundred thousand who knew its dirty secrets and systematic betrayal of the w...

The 'Snowden effect':U.S. spies say militants changing tactics

Members of militant organizations are already showing signs of changes in their communication as an apparent result of information leaked by Edward J.Snowden.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMABVn8XyFrySA0FKIbzZyRNKCsSxzvLLQCRkr_B8uf7gKQ-LPVHSnJv6V9WScoSHJMPHB7WrAMvP2rPCi048bZirtCtR4vCTjIyC4f8rzyAOTvceR72K5vqCaUKTP2cDyOmJ7XAgiW8/s628/tech1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMABVn8XyFrySA0FKIbzZyRNKCsSxzvLLQCRkr_B8uf7gKQ-LPVHSnJv6V9WScoSHJMPHB7WrAMvP2rPCi048bZirtCtR4vCTjIyC4f8rzyAOTvceR72K5vqCaUKTP2cDyOmJ7XAgiW8/s628/tech1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />WASHINGTON — Even as U.S. intelligence agencies and their global partners assess potential damage from Edward Snowden's disclosures about surveillance programs, militants have begun responding by altering methods of communication, a change that could make it harder to foil attacks, U.S. officials say.<br /><br />Intelligence agencies have detected that members of targeted militant organizations, including both Sunni and Shi'ite Islamist groups, have begun altering communications patterns in what was believed to be a direct response to details on eavesdropping leaked by the former U.S. spy agency contractor, two U.S. national security sources said.<br /><br />The officials said it was too early to tell whether the recent changes in communications methods had caused a loss of critical intelligence or if there was now a greater risk of missing warning signs about future attacks. "You don't know what you lose until after you've lost it," one of the sources said.<br /><br />Previous dire warnings of leaks causing huge damage to U.S. national security interests have proved overplayed. The leaking of tens of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables by Wikileaks in 2010 appears to have had far less impact than Washington initially warned.<br /><br />And militants changing the way they communicate could actually hinder plots as they resort to different methods to avoid detection.<br /><br />The charge that Snowden's leaks are causing damage, made by officials speaking on condition of anonymity, comes as the Obama administration mounts a campaign to pressure Russia to extradite him. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday confirmed Snowden was in the transit area of a Moscow airport, but ruled out handing him to Washington.<br /><br />The officials declined to specify what changes were spotted among militant groups, fearing that the more details provided on what was known about their behavior the easier it would be for them to adapt.<br /><br />One U.S. telecommunications expert said privately that the militants' latest adjustments likely included reduced electronic transmissions and more frequent switching of cellphones while they seek new encryption methods.<br /><br />Flashpoint Global Partners, which monitors Islamist militant websites, has noted increased discussion of the NSA leaks.<br /><br />"The simple rule is that 'don't be a fool' don't give ur real information on internet through email u use for jihadi activities. just use fake names and TOR browser is must," one person posted, referring to an Internet browser that can help the user remain anonymous and avoid surveillance.<br /><br />Exactly how serious the damage might be is difficult to measure as intelligence agencies do not know how much more sensitive material Snowden possesses that has not yet been published.<br /><br />Militants have a long history of trying to cover their electronic tracks.<br /><br />Largely using written messages and trusted couriers, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden hid for years until he was killed by U.S. forces in 2011. He advised militants to exercise extreme caution over electronic communications. Thumb drives and sim cards used to carry information should be destroyed after use, he told them.<br /><br />DAMAGE ASSESSMENT<br /><br />Intelligence analysts around the world are working to determine the operational impact of Snowden's exposure of methods used by the U.S. National Security Agency and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters agency to tap into telephone and Internet traffic.<br /><br />Among the potential damage to Western intelligence is that foreign governments like Russia and China may have found out technical details of how Western agencies intercept communications and what specific links they monitor or tap into.<br /><br />U.S. officials fear that if Snowden, now allied with the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, releases more of the large cache of classified information he is believed to possess, there could be further fallout for Western counterterrorism operations.<br /><br />U.S. agencies are already operating on a "worst case" assumption that all of the classified material in Snowden's possession has somehow made its way to one or more adversary intelligence services, several sources said.<br /><br />How much of a long-term impact Snowden's actions have at home may depend largely on whether a backlash in the United States ultimately restricts how the NSA can use its tools.<br /><br />"The problem is one of public trust, a commodity now in very short supply," a former Western intelligence official said.<br /><br />U.S. and British officials insist that massive telephone and Internet surveillance by the NSA and GCHQ, including collection of raw data about U.S. phone calls and tapping by GCHQ into fiber-optic trunk cables carrying Internet traffic, has stopped attacks and is essential to public security.<br /><br />The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive is still in the early stages of damage assessment from the Snowden leaks and it is not yet known when it will issue its findings, a U.S. intelligence official said.<br /><br />With Snowden's disclosures pointing to U.S. electronic surveillance of Chinese targets, Washington may face charges of a double standard when it holds cybersecurity talks with Beijing next month.<br /><br />"How can the United States continue to stand on high moral ground after demonizing China and accusing us of hacking?" a source close to the Chinese leadership told Reuters in Beijing.<br /><br />That stance is seen as a logical result of the Snowden saga by some American experts too.<br /><br />"It will make it more difficult for us to appear holier than thou," said James Lewis, a former State Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiucx7_-knnilA3_rQsv-1fyWO9ixEFCvK73ah0uNIScNqZ-gFxcPTZGX5SyTTQJIQJuqKI9VnzrOHW01bUWClrMfzVCN7LKVvwVSK33cYpPMKjBTJ_pOT4JBDWNw_oWO4k9YFAVCHQ5dU/s225/index.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiucx7_-knnilA3_rQsv-1fyWO9ixEFCvK73ah0uNIScNqZ-gFxcPTZGX5SyTTQJIQJuqKI9VnzrOHW01bUWClrMfzVCN7LKVvwVSK33cYpPMKjBTJ_pOT4JBDWNw_oWO4k9YFAVCHQ5dU/s225/index.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div>

The 'Snowden effect':U.S. spies say militants changing tactics

Members of militant organizations are already showing signs of changes in their communication as an apparent result of information leaked by...

U.K.spy agencies get $154mn bonus amid sweeping cuts

UK intelligence will receive the largest budget boost in the latest government review of public spending, reports the Telegraph. The funds increase follows civil rights uproar at UK involvement in the NSA spy scandal.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKUSKcvoozXkWrVnF3ZxUW8cCuvPBoCBifi3cGTID6h8RxyMp6O0IwK9L35Zw1EhXE_cmrClDijtNzE3pkVG3qojlPP8wP_7xGgV0gGAOvB0QhNfDMCucMuj3pO_bQ64p62bAFRGmM8f4/s1600/The+MI6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKUSKcvoozXkWrVnF3ZxUW8cCuvPBoCBifi3cGTID6h8RxyMp6O0IwK9L35Zw1EhXE_cmrClDijtNzE3pkVG3qojlPP8wP_7xGgV0gGAOvB0QhNfDMCucMuj3pO_bQ64p62bAFRGmM8f4/s1600/The+MI6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The MI6 building, which is the SIS (The Secret Intelligence Service) headquarter, is pictured at Vauxhall Cross in central London (Reuters/Toby Melville)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will present a review of public spending for 2015-16 on Wednesday with a view to cutting the deficit. While, funding for most government bodies will be slashed, MI6, MI5 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) will receive a bonus of up to $154 million.<br /><br />The increase of 3.4 percent in overall funding for intelligence organizations, which already have a budget of $2.9 billion, will make them top of the UK government’s spending agenda, overtaking the health service, education and military.<br /><br />The institutions that will suffer most at the hands of the $17 billion austerity cuts include the Business department, the Culture department, the Home Office and the Justice department. The Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, faces cuts of around $1.5 billion, with the reassurance that this will not stipulate a decrease in front-line troop numbers.<br /><br />Recently, UK intelligence has come into the firing line after it was discovered the GCHQ has access to a massive global network of communications, storing calls, Facebook posts and internet histories. GCHQ also shares this data with the NSA.<br /><br />The extent of the spy program is such that whistleblower Edward Snowden, who originally leaked the information to the Guardian, called it “worse than the US.” Rights groups were up in arms about the sheer scope of the network able to monitor 600 million ‘telephone events’ a day.<br /><br />“This appears to be dangerously close to, if not exactly, the centralized database of all our internet communications, including some content, that successive Governments have ruled out and parliament has never legislated for,” said Nick Pickles of UK privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch.<br /><br />GCHQ, for its part, has defended its sweeping eavesdropping network, saying it had always been “scrupulous” in complying with the law.<br /><br /><b>‘Nothing but pride’ for US-UK intelligence-sharing.</b><br /><br />In answer to the public uproar to the sweeping surveillance programs, UK Foreign Minister, William Hague spoke out in support of the spy network and data sharing with the US. He said that both the US and the UK had acted in compliance with the law and used information only “to protect citizens’ freedoms.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTThuV-aQlQxRDnTei1u19Ix-eoujb9S8RwwGk0H5iQ3KzwoXtyrk50DAkFbL2YUPX68noa3kS9wkb95VFqOK-k3j2ugASgXQDv-SoztrpRqjt46m1GHM83gOu2qmCd95ObJr4l867ir8/s1600/UK+Foreign+Minister+William+Hague.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTThuV-aQlQxRDnTei1u19Ix-eoujb9S8RwwGk0H5iQ3KzwoXtyrk50DAkFbL2YUPX68noa3kS9wkb95VFqOK-k3j2ugASgXQDv-SoztrpRqjt46m1GHM83gOu2qmCd95ObJr4l867ir8/s1600/UK+Foreign+Minister+William+Hague.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UK Foreign Minister William Hague (AFP Photo)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> "We should have nothing but pride in the unique and indispensable intelligence-sharing relationship between Britain and the United States," Hague said in his speech at the Ronald Reagan Library on Tuesday afternoon.<br /><br />He went on to call the US-UK alliance a “bastion of freedom.”<br /><br />Moreover, he stressed that such surveillance was “indispensable” to combat the growing threat of terrorism.<br /><br />Following the brutal murder of 25-year-old soldier Drummer Lee Rigby by Islamist extremist in Woolwich in May, UK intelligence has come under increased scrutiny. There were suggestions that MI5 and MI6 could have done more to prevent the death of Rigby after it was found that one of the alleged killers, Michael Adebolajo, had already been flagged by UK intelligence as a potential threat.

U.K.spy agencies get $154mn bonus amid sweeping cuts

UK intelligence will receive the largest budget boost in the latest government review of public spending, reports the Telegraph. The funds i...