Daniel Ellsberg defends NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, says whistleblowers like Snowden and Bradley Manning are helping Americans defend their right to privacy.

Jennifer Mattson, GlobalPost, June 10, 2013

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War, said Edward Snowden, 29, the whistleblower who exposed a National Security Agency wide-ranging surveillance program, showed “the kind of courage that we expect of people on the battlefield.”

Ellsberg said on Twitter “there has not been in American history a more important leak than Snowden’s,” including his own, during Watergate.

In July 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a former National Security Council consultant and military analyst changed the course of history when he leaked confidential information about the Vietnam War to a reporter at The New York Times. Those documents later became known as The Pentagon Papers.

Snowden, who has fled to Hong Kong, worked for the NSA as a contractor for Dell and Booz Allen over the last four years.
Ellsberg told The Daily Beast:
“The information about unconstitutional activity that he [Snowden] put out could only be reversed or stopped if the public knows about it, and there was absolutely no way for them or most members of Congress to learn about it without him putting it out.
He went on to say that he identifies with Snowden, “his choice, his decision, his performance” and that the 29-year-old is clearly aware of the consequences of his actions.

He said it is clear is that Snowden broke the law and faces possible of prosecution.

Ellsberg had this to say on CNN:

Daniel Ellsberg “I Think They Have Everything And That Is The Recipe For A TYRANNY In This Country!”

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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/130610/daniel-ellsberg-defends-nsa-whistleblower-edward

Data Surveillance with Global Implications

By Marcel Rosenbach, Holger Stark and Jonathan Stock, Der Spiegel, June 10 2013

The American intelligence director and the White House have finally confirmed what insiders have long known: The Obama administration is spying on the entire world. Politicians in Germany are demanding answers.

South of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the National Security Agency (NSA), a United States foreign intelligence service, keeps watch over one of its most expensive secrets. Here, on 100,000 square meters (1,100,000 square feet) near the US military’s Camp Williams, the NSA is constructing enormous buildings to house superfast computers. All together, the project will cost around $2 billion (€1.5 billion) and the computers will be capable of storing a gigantic volume of data, at least 5 billion gigabytes. The energy needed to power the cooling system for the servers alone will cost $40 million a year.

Former NSA employees Thomas Drake and Bill Binney told SPIEGEL in March that the facility would soon store personal data on people from all over the world and keep it for decades. This includes emails, Skype conversations, Google searches, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, bank transfers — electronic data of every kind.

“They have everything about you in Utah,” Drake says. “Who decides whether they look at that data? Who decides what they do with it?” Binney, a mathematician who was previously an influential analyst at the NSA, calculates that the servers are large enough to store the entirety of humanity’s electronic communications for the next 100 years — and that, of course, gives his former colleagues plenty of opportunity to read along and listen in.

James Clapper, the country’s director of national intelligence, has confirmed the existence of a large-scale surveillance program. President Barack Obama further explained that Congress authorized the program — but that American citizens are exempt from it.

A top-secret document published last week by the Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian shows where the NSA may be getting the majority of its data. According to the document, which was allegedly leaked by former CIA employee Edward Snowden, the intelligence agency began seeking out direct access to servers belonging to American Internet companies on a wide scale in 2007. The first of these companies to come onboard was Microsoft. Yahoo followed half a year later, then Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype and AOL. The most recent company to declare its willingness to cooperate was Apple, in October 2012, according to the secret government document, which proudly states that this access to data is achieved “directly from the servers” of the companies.

US’ “Junior-Partners-in-Empire” also spied by NSA (but worried that data is not shared with them)

Europe outraged but conflicted over NSA surveillance

FRANK JORDANS,  BERLIN — The Associated Press, Tuesday, Jun. 11 2013

Indignation was sharp and predictable across Europe – a continent where privacy is revered. Yet anger over revelations of U.S. electronic surveillance was tempered by an indisputable fact: Europe wants the information that American intelligence provides.

That dilemma was clear Tuesday, only days after leaks about two National Security Agency programs that purportedly target foreign messages – including private e-mails, voice and other data transmissions – sent through U.S. Internet providers.

The European Union’s top justice official, Viviane Reding, said she would demand that the United States afford EU citizens the same rights as Americans when it comes to data protection. Hannes Swoboda, a Socialist leader in the European Parliament, said the purported surveillance showed that the U.S. “is just doing what it wants.”At the same time, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich confirmed that his government regularly receives tips from the United States on Islamic extremists – and he doesn’t expect the Americans to tell him where they got the information.

The Whistleblower: “I Can’t Allow the US Government to Destroy Privacy and Basic Liberties”

Jun 9, 2013

The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA’s history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadow

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Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations

Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras in Hong Kong The Guardian, Sunday 9 June 2013

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.”

He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. “I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me.”

Wikileaks Was Just a Preview: We’re Headed for an Even Bigger Showdown Over Secrets

by Matt Taibbi, Taibblog, Rolling Stone magazine,  March 22, 2013

[Photo:  U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning –  Alex Wong/Getty Images]

I went yesterday to a screening of We Steal Secrets, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s brilliant new documentary about Wikileaks. The movie is beautiful and profound, an incredible story that’s about many things all at once, including the incredible Shakespearean narrative that is the life of Julian Assange, a free-information radical who has become an uncompromising guarder of secrets.

I’ll do a full review in a few months, when We Steal Secrets comes out, but I bring it up now because the whole issue of secrets and how we keep them is increasingly in the news, to the point where I think we’re headed for a major confrontation between the government and the public over the issue, one bigger in scale than even the Wikileaks episode.

We’ve seen the battle lines forming for years now. It’s increasingly clear that governments, major corporations, banks, universities and other such bodies view the defense of their secrets as a desperate matter of institutional survival, so much so that the state has gone to extraordinary lengths to punish and/or threaten to punish anyone who so much as tiptoes across the informational line.

This is true not only in the case of Wikileaks – and especially the real subject of Gibney’s film, Private Bradley Manning, who in an incredible act of institutional vengeance is being charged with aiding the enemy (among other crimes) and could, theoretically, receive a death sentence.

There’s also the horrific case of Aaron Swartz, a genius who helped create the technology behind Reddit at the age of 14, who earlier this year hanged himself after the government threatened him with 35 years in jail for downloading a bunch of academic documents from an MIT server. Then there’s the case of Sergey Aleynikov, the Russian computer programmer who allegedly stole the High-Frequency Trading program belonging to Goldman, Sachs (Aleynikov worked at Goldman), a program which prosecutors in open court admitted could, “in the wrong hands,” be used to “manipulate markets.”

Arraignment date set for Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning

WASHINGTON, DC — The United States Army announced that a formal arraignment date has been set for PFC Bradley Manning. The arraignment has been scheduled for 01:00 PM EST, February 23, 2012 at Fort Meade, Maryland. This arraignment will set the dates for a series of hearings on pre-trial motions, as well as the start of the full court-martial.

“Bradley Manning’s show trial will begin in earnest with this arraignment,” said Jeff Paterson, a lead organizer with the Bradley Manning Support Network. “If the Obama administration was the least bit concerned with providing a fair trial, they would have allowed the defense to explore critical issues, such as unlawful command influence, over-classification, and the torturous conditions to which PFC Manning has been subjected while in their custody. If they were concerned about justice, they would drop the charges against Bradley Manning and prosecute those whose crimes have been revealed.”

Military officials have routinely blocked requests by Manning’s defense team, led by Iraq war veteran David Coombs, for access to evidence and witnesses that could explore these and other relevant issues. During the Article 32 proceedings held in December, the defense was largely restricted by military officials to a discussion of mitigating factors related to Manning’s emotional health. The defense is expected to renew their requests through additional motions leading up to the court-martial.

The arraignment comes as PFC Manning was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by members of the Icelandic Parliament. A blog post by MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir explained their rationale for the nomination:

“According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on our foreign policies, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S. troops from the occupation in Iraq.”

Organizers with the Bradley Manning Support Network expect the court-martial to begin as early as May. Hundreds of supporters demonstrated outside the Article 32 hearings. Organizers say that the Obama administration can expect even larger numbers at the court-martial.

UCBerkeley Whistle-blowers conference to support Bradley Manning

WHISTLEBLOWERS to OCCUPY THE TRUTH

#TRUTHCON
Open Space Whistleblower and Transparency Conference
February 17-19, Berkeley

On the weekend of February 17, 2012, an unusual mix of notable experts from surprisingly disparate backgrounds will meet at UC Berkeley for a three-day conference. The conference will focus on discussion and creative innovation concerning the importance of truth and transparency to a free society. The “Occupy The Truth” Conference is open to the public.

The conference will begin Friday night at 6pm with mixer followed by an esteemed panel of speakers, featuring Daniel Ellsberg, Col. Ann Wright and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. At 8:30pm Reverend Billy Talen will give a rousing “sermon.”

Saturday and Sunday begin at 9:00am with registration and breakfast ending with a closing circle from 5 to 6pm. The days will be broken up into ‘unconference’ style workshops, wherein attendees will collaboratively create and manage the conference’s agenda and work flow.

The host organization, FRESH JUICE PARTY, is a politically prejudiced media group best known for interrupting President Obama at a fundraiser to protest the illegal treatment of accused WikiLeaker, Bradley Manning. Now they say they are set to hold their own party, where they will welcome constructive interruption, performance, and innovation. You should definitely expect the unexpected.

Scott Olsen Drums Up Support for Bradley Manning

Marine veteran Scott Olsen, who suffered a head injury at the October 25 Occupy Oakland protest, smiles near other demonstators during the Occupy movements' attempts to shut down West Coast ports in Oakland, California

by Jonathan Perri , change.org, 2011-12-20

The image of Iraq Veteran Scott Olsen being carried by protestors during the Occupy Oakland protests after he was critically injured by Oakland Police Department is one that people all over the world have seen. For many, Scott became the face of the 99% and his injury an example of police brutality.

Now, Scott is asking the Department of Defense to allow UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez to have a private interview with Bradley Manning to discuss the conditions of his detainment.

Bradley Manning, is accused of stealing and leaking over a quarter million classified documents that were published online by Wikileaks while he was serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.

For 10 months, Manning was held in solitary confinement and the UN’s torture investigator was not allowed to speak with him to discuss the conditions of his detainment without the U.S. listening in and recording their meeting – they’d even be able to use what Bradley said to the UN against him in court.

It’s been suggested that while in detainment, Manning has been being tortured. As a Marine, Scott started the petition on Change.org to show his support for the humane treatment of Manning.

It is a crime to witness felonies and stay silent; Manning didn’t

Video by David Swanson
How Manning Is Being Treated:
http://warisacrime.org/content/how-bradley-manning-really-being-treated

Quantico, Virginia (January 17, 2011) – Over 150 concerned citizens risked arrest today at the gates to the Marine Corps base at Quantico in order to protest the inhumane conditions that accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Army Pfc. Bradley Manning has been held in for seven months and counting. Supporters marched towards the base front gate chanting “Free Bradley Manning!,” approximately a mile from the brig where Bradley has been held in solitary confinement for the last five months, before being stopped by Marine MP’s. CodePink activists had collected a care package for Bradley that included a blanket, a Snuggie, cookies, books and music. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, it was rejected by the Marines. Earlier in the day, many of these activists rallied outside FBI Headquarters in Washington DC to protest the September raids on anti-war organizers in Chicago and Minneapolis.

These actions were organized by a wide range of organizations, including: the Defending Dissent Foundation, WarIsACrime.org, Bradley Manning Support Network, DC Bill of Right Coalition, Progressive Democrats of America, World Can’t Wait, DC National Lawyers Guild, CodePink, Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, Witness Against Torture, Backbone Campaign, Courage to Resist, and others.

Whistleblowers of US War Crimes Slandered, Threatened with Arrest; WikiLeaks’ Funding Now Blocked

By David Leigh & Rob Evans

15 October, 2010
The Guardian

The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government.

Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist.

The apparent blacklisting came a few days after the Pentagon publicly expressed its anger at WikiLeaks and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange, for obtaining thousands of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, in one of the US army’s biggest leaks of information. The documents caused a sensation when they were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and German magazine Der Spiegel, revealing hitherto unreported civilian casualties.

WikiLeaks defied Pentagon calls to return the war logs and destroy all copies. Instead, it has been reported that it intends to release an even larger cache of military documents, disclosing other abuses in Iraq.

Moneybookers moved against WikiLeaks on 13 August, according to the correspondence, less than a week after the Pentagon made public threats of reprisals against the organisation. Moneybookers wrote to Assange: “Following an audit of your account by our security department, we must advise that your account has been closed … to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities.”

Pentagon demands Wikileaks files

[Repeatedly, US war crimes have been difficult to learn about.  They are “national secrets,” we are told, and their release will endanger our missions and put our operatives at risk.  The same story is now told about the massive release of documents which provide evidence of US war crimes and strategic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush and Obama administrations.  We hope that the people will act to defend the release of more information on such crimes.  Criminals who are being protected by government suppression of whistleblowers need to be brought to justice.-ed]

Protecting secret crimes results in this image of the US

Friday, August 06, 2010

The Pentagon has demanded that the whistle-blower website Wikileaks hand over all classified US military documents it has not yet published and remove existing material posted online.

Wikileaks is in possession of about 15,000 secret papers relating to the war in Afghanistan which it did not publish to protect those mentioned in the documents.

“We are asking them to do the right thing,” said Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, as he made a public request for WikiLeaks to hand over the US documents and delete material it had put on the Internet.

“We hope they will honor our demands,” he said, adding that the US government was the rightful owner of all the classified material in WikiLeaks’ possession.

Wikileaks sparked controversy last month when it published more than 70,000 military documents relating to the war that revealed an unvarnished, and at times disturbing picture of the conflict.

The Pentagon said that the leak – the largest in military history- had put US troops and Afghan informers in danger. Morrell warned that more publications would cause further damage.

The Significance of the ‘Support Bradley Manning’ Campaign

[Several months ago, WikiLeaks came to be recognised as the leading whistleblower organization of our time.  They released a videotape which exposed serious war crimes being committed by US forces in Iraq which involved deaths of civilians and newspeople.  Someone who had access to this tape (which was taken by crewmen of an Apache attack helicopter) had been so troubled by these events that they chose to reveal it to the public.  This revelation was an act of moral outrage.  The tape made its way to WikiLeaks, then to the media.  And the White House and Pentagon, untroubled by the crimes, went after the perpetrator(s) of ….the exposure.   A soldier named Bradley Manning was held as a suspect in….the exposure.   All those who are outraged at the war crimes committed against the Iraqi people should join the defense of those who are attacked for bringing these crimes to light.  WikiLeaks is in the proud tradition of those who brought the My Lai Masscre (Vietnam) to public view, and those, like Philip Agee and Daniel Ellsberg, who shared the information that led to broad struggles against imperialism.-ed.]

Bradley Manning

By Katharine Dawn

29 July, 2010,   Bradleymanning.org

Background

Bradley Manning is the young man charged with leaking classified US military information – including the video of a US Army helicopter gunning down Iraqi civilians and Reuters journalists in Iraq in 2007 that was released to the world via the whistleblower website WikiLeaks as “Collateral Murder”. Bradley is now held in isolation from the outside world, in military detention in Kuwait. Bradley, who reportedly felt un-supported in life, faces – for his alleged actions – up to 52 years imprisonment.

Could the fate of one young man have any bearing upon the fate of the world?

Standing back from the tremendous onrush of these pivotal times, is it possible to realistically gauge the significance of the Support Bradley Manning campaign to the future outcome of the world? That is the objective of this article, exploring divergent scenarios ; I’ll let my esteemed readers and the course of history be the judge. So,

What if the world abandons Bradley Manning and the cause of open, informed public debate he stands for?