Dick Morris: Obama vs. First Amendment The Federal Communications Commission is about to launch a direct assault on the freedom of the media to cover news as it chooses. The program, called the Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs, involves requesting information from all radio and TV stations, as well as newspapers, about how they cover news, who decides what gets covered, and what criteria they use in the decision. The FCC will also conduct a “content analysis” of one week’s coverage to decide whether each of eight “critical” categories of news is being given adequate attention. While the results of the study will not impose mandatory changes on the media’s news decisions, the “recommendations” from the FCC will carry the weight of law because all radio and television stations must come up for license renewal every eight years. No surprise, the “critical areas” include such liberal topics as the environment and economic opportunity. • What is the news philosophy of the station? • Who are your main competitors?
The Venus Project DOD omits details of secret disclosures in 'Zero Dark Thirty' report - The Hill's DEFCON Hill Pentagon investigators intentionally omitted details of possible disclosures of top-secret information to the makers of "Zero Dark Thirty" in their final review of the department's involvement in the film. The movie was a fictionalized chronicle of U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism operations leading up to the May 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon inspector general's final report, released Friday, said the Department of Defense (DOD) and CIA took all appropriate measures to protect sensitive details, including the identities of CIA operatives and Special Operations Forces members, from becoming public. "We did not identify any instances whereby any special operations tactics, techniques and procedures-related information" were provided to filmmakers Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow, the report said. Rep. “It appears political pressure is the reason that it’s going to be held,” King said. Panetta was CIA chief at the time of the bin Laden raid.
The Top 100 Documentaries We Can Use To Change The World By Films For Action / filmsforaction.org/ Jun 10, 2015 Documentaries have an incredible power to raise awareness and create transformative changes in consciousness both at the personal and global levels. Over the last 8 years, we've watched hundreds of social change documentaries and cataloged the best of them on the site. There's now so many that we realized we needed to filter this down even further. So what follows is our list of the very best 100 - hand-picked for their quality, insight and potential to inspire positive change. All of the films have been selected because they are either free to watch online, or can be rented online. Did we miss anything really good?
Internet Companies Want Permission To Reveal Details of NSA Spy Program Eurasia Review By VOA Three big Internet companies want the Obama administration to let them reveal details of federal court orders to turn over information about their users to U.S. spy agencies. Google, Facebook and Microsoft say they want everything transparent and out in the open. Google’s chief legal official said Tuesday his company has “nothing to hide.” Google says media reports that it gives the spy agencies unlimited access to information about its customers are not true. The National Security Agency has acknowledged leaked newspaper reports that its program called PRISM collects emails and other data from Internet companies. A former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, leaked the story about PRISM and NSA monitoring of telephone calls to The Guardian and Washington Post. He said it is important to reveal what he says is the government’s massive surveillance program on private citizens. The U.S. says information gathered by the NSA has foiled terrorist plots. About the author: VOA Visit VOA's website
Former NSA Boss: This Leak Teaches The World That America Can't Keep Secrets We've been trying to understand why the NSA and its supporters are both trying to play down the seriousness of the leak, while also claiming that it's incredibly dangerous, and I think we may finally have an explanation from former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden, who has given the most bizarre explanation yet: “It informs our adversaries. It puts American companies at risk internationally for simply complying with our laws,” said Mike Hayden, a former director of the NSA and a former director of the CIA. Actually, I think it teaches the exact opposite. Separately, that same report notes that within the NSA, people are freaking out: The impact of the leak inside the NSA has been enormous. If this was no big deal and just the revelation of a basic internal government computer system to deal with statutorily authorized data collection, then why would they be freaking out so much?
Most Americans back NSA tracking phone records, prioritize probes over privacy A large majority of Americans say the federal government should focus on investigating possible terrorist threats even if personal privacy is compromised, and most support the blanket tracking of telephone records in an effort to uncover terrorist activity, according to a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll. Fully 45 percent of all Americans say the government should be able to go further than it is, saying that it should be able to monitor everyone’s online activity if doing so would prevent terrorist attacks. A slender majority, 52 percent, say no such broad-based monitoring should occur. Graphic Public reaction to NSA monitoring The new survey comes amid recent revelations of the National Security Agency’s extensive collection of telecommunications data to facilitate terrorism investigations. But with a Democratic president at the helm instead of a Republican, partisan views have turned around significantly. The reversal on the NSA’s practices is even more dramatic.
Glenn Greenwald on How NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Helped Expose a "Massive Surveillance Apparatus" This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the National Security Agency, we’re joined by Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald from Hong Kong, where he’s broken a series of articles about the NSA over the past week based on information provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Since we last spoke to Glenn on Friday, he’s broken two more major stories about the NSA. Glenn, welcome to Democracy Now! GLENN GREENWALD: The primary point that I think needs to be made from all of these stories, and particularly from the very courageous outing, self-outing, of Ed Snowden, is that there is this massive surveillance apparatus that is being gradually constructed in the United States that already has extremely invasive capabilities to monitor and store the communications and other forms of behavior not just of tens of millions Americans, but of hundreds of millions, probably billions of people, around the globe. AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, U.S.
NSA leak is treason, says Feinstein - The Hill - covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is guilty of treason, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday. “I don’t look at this as being a whistle-blower,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calf.) said. “I think it’s an act of treason.” The whereabouts of Snowden were unclear Monday as authorities ramped up an investigation that could lead to his extradition and prosecution. The White House ducked questions about Snowden even as it came under conflicting pressures from across the political spectrum to either prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law or show leniency. Republican lawmakers urged the Obama administration to extradite Snowden “at the earliest date” possible, after he revealed on Sunday that he was responsible for one of the largest intelligence leaks in U.S. history. Democrats like Feinstein also said the source behind the leak of the NSA’s Internet and phone surveillance programs must be prosecuted. “He took an oath — that oath is important,” she said.
Marc Thiessen: Leaks, not the NSA programs, deserve condemnation The exposure of the PRISM program under which the NSA monitors foreign terrorists on the Internet, as well as the leak of a top-secret court order requiring Verizon to share calling data with the government, are incredibly damaging to national security. These leaks give terrorists information they did not have about our collection activities. They undermine the willingness of American companies to cooperate with us because these leaks have put their international reputations at risk. And they teach everyone — including sources and liaison partners — not to work with us because we cannot keep a secret. But instead of being outraged by the damage done by these leaks, critics on the left and right are criticizing the NSA for undertaking activities that are lawful, constitutional and absolutely vital to protecting the country. Calm down, folks. During the Bush administration, critics opposed what they called “warrantless wiretapping.” Why does the NSA need to collect all that data?
Dana Milbank: Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks are the backlash of too much secrecy There might be a bit more sympathy for Clapper’s digestive difficulty if he hadn’t delivered a kick in the gut to the American public just three months ago. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper at a Senate hearing in March, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” “No, sir,” Clapper testified. “It does not?” “Not wittingly. We now know that Clapper was not telling the truth. As the administration and some in Congress vent their anger about leaks to The Post and to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, officials have only themselves to blame. Edward Snowden, the leaker, did the honorable thing in revealing his identity; it would be more honorable if he would turn himself in and face the consequences for his law-breaking. “All of us are sort of asking what in the world has gone on,” a seemingly bewildered Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader, alleged Monday on CBS’s “This Morning.” “How do you not know the answer?” Good question.
Eugene Robinson: Snowden’s NSA leaks show we need a debate Snowden betrayed his employer, the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, and his promise not to divulge classified information. He paints what he did as an act of civil disobedience, but he has decided to seek political asylum abroad rather than surrender to authorities and accept the consequences. In published interviews, he comes across as grandiose to the point of self-parody, a legend in his own mind. He is an imperfect messenger, to say the least. Did you know that the NSA is compiling and storing a massive, comprehensive log of our domestic phone calls? As President Obama noted, nobody is eavesdropping on the phone calls of U.S. citizens and residents. But we have oversight of intelligence operations in this country, too. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has to issue the orders that allow the NSA to collect “metadata” from telephone providers. The NSA’s snooping is also subject to scrutiny by the intelligence committees of the Senate and the House.
Obama embraces role as consoler in chief to remain above the fray - The Hill - covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com President Obama will gain one more day of respite from the controversies that have crowded in on his administration Tuesday, as he tours the New Jersey coast to inspect the recovery and rebuilding efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The Garden State visit follows a presidential speech Monday to mark Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery and a trip to tornado-stricken Oklahoma on Sunday. Both weekend occasions permitted Obama to appear above the fray — the commander-in-chief and consoler-in-chief, respectively — rather than as a political figure pinned down in the Washington trenches. The trip comes as his administration faces tough questions over a trio of controversies: the IRS political targeting scandal, the Justice Department’s leak probes and the handling of the Benghazi mission attack. Tuesday’s New Jersey trip will be undertaken in the company of Gov. Chris Christie (R), a visit that will evoke memories of their joint tour of affected communities shortly after Sandy hit.
OPERATION PAPERCLIP &THE NASA NAZIS 10/14 by VNR Featured follow Call in to speak with the host The U.S. Military rounded up Nazi scientists and brought them to America. It had originally intended merely to debrief them and send them back to Germany. President Harry Truman agreed in September 1946 to authorize "Project Paperclip," a program to bring selected German scientists to work on America's behalf during the "Cold War" However, Truman expressly excluded anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Naziism or militarism." The then CIA director Alan Dulles had other ideas and so the Nazi scientists dossier's were re-written to eliminate incriminating evidence. Guests include John Hamer author of the book The falsification of history - our distorted reality