Picture by Le Studio1.com
Peter Taylor, the veteran TV journalist who has made many programmes about here, had a half-hour on BBC ONE last night. His documentary was about Edward Snowden. Snowden looks young and remarkably upbeat.
I say that because I’m surprised he’s not dead. He has exposed the way in which the US hoovers up millions of pieces of data about its citizens – emails, texts, phone calls, places visited, with whom – and he emphasised that the US government did all this without telling its people. As ever, the UK is the lapdog of the piece, collecting a vast amount of information about its citizens and passing it on to the US. An example: the phone in your pocket, although switched off, can be switched on by the spooks and every detail of your conversation recorded. Neat, eh? We have about as much privacy as a goldfish in a bowl.
Snowden, as Taylor pointed out, is a divisive figure. Some hail him as a hero, exposing the truth of what is being done in the name of the US without the citizens of the US knowing about it. And, it’s important to remember, what is being done in the name of the UK without its citizens knowing either.
But not all are singing Snowden’s praises. To the former director of the CIA, the present deputy director of the CIA: he’s a traitor. He’s given away secrets about his country, leaving it less well equipped to deal with acts of terrorism. If he comes back to the US, he’ll be put on trial for treason and spend many years in prison. Right now he’s holed up in Russia, and the CIA men say he’ll die there. Snowden is in his early thirties.
Given his position, Snowden shows amazing composure. As I say, I’m surprised the CIA haven’t found a way to kill him yet. And I’m amazed at the way he can remain calm and positive, cut off as he is from his family and friends. He believes he has done his country a service rather than engaged in treachery. I’m with him completely. The American and British governments tell us they do the things they do – and keep secret – because it’s for our own national good. That’s not the voice of democracy. That’s the voice of an all-powerful nanny, telling you to run along, leave everything to them, trust them.
If the price for protection by Big Brother is to have your every word and move monitored without your knowing it, I’d rather take my chances with international terrorism.
Hey guys – we’re all growed-up. And you’re our servants. How about telling us what you get up to all day? Hardly seems unreasonable, given that we’re funding you.
All of the CIA covert activities did not prevent 9/11, school shootings, oversea wars, endless murders, & children shooting children.
That’s maybe because the CIA was behind it Bridget. I’m not saying the CIA is behind everything but a lot of things. Their top priority isn’t the protection of the American people, more the protection of the interests of the rich and powerful.
The CIA have powerful tools at their disposal. I remember reading, and being told, that certain words are tracked by the CIA and other intelligence groups on the internet, they are basically “Red Flaged” so if they are typed and entered then the CIA’s/etc powerful computers that “watch” the internet will be alerted and notified.
So if me, Jude, poor Neill or you Bridget gets a knock at the door and Men in Black are standing there, you know where they’re from 😉
I believe Snowden to be a Hero. All this info he disclosed about the CIA,MI5 etc is available to the Spooks here.
Hell on earth
In 1999, during the propaganda war about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, The Independent reported that the CIA and MI6 had placed personnel among Arms Inspectors. We were exposed to regular reports justifying the need for bombing raids. There was little or no mention of the fact that aircraft and tanks were firing shells and bombs made from quantities of depleted-uranium waste products from the nuclear industry.
Medical experts confirmed cases of leukaemia, abscesses, tumours, gangrene and thousands of deformities in children. Bombs and sanctions continue to pose major health problems in the Middle East and innocent children bear the brunt of the suffering. Hollywood churns out much garbage about macho men and women, special forces armed to the teeth with the finest technology designed to bring ‘democracy’ to various theatres of conflict. The movie makers are not so keen to spend time, let alone money on treating leukaemia and other chemical plagues. Some may regard Edward Snowden as a traitor, perhaps we need more individuals who are prepared to expose the fact that weapons of mass destruction continue to pose a major threat to thousands of innocent men, women and children in the Middle East.
We need lots more Edward Snowden’s everywhere,in every walk of life. The ” Safe Harbour ” deal between the EU and the US (2000) has been declared invalid because of Mr Snowdens work . This deal allowed the US companies ,CIA,FBI etc access to data from all EU citizens through Facebook ,Google etc. Secret Trade agreements like TiSA, TPP and TTIP ,the content of which even governments are unaware, will sideline national laws, Governments to a great extent are excluded with multi-national companies setting the rules ,If laws affect their profits, they can sue. If new regulations might impact where or what they want to do with their money they can sue.People like Julian Assange,Edward Snowden etc are essential if we’re to keep any semblance of freedom and democracy…..they are already carrying out mass murder,torture etc in your name and mine.
He is a traitor in the same way that those Germans who plotted against Hitler are traitors: the guy is a hero.
What they don’t tell you about the guys who planted the bomb to kill Adolf Hitler is that they only wanted peace with the Western Allies, they planned to continue the War against the Soviets/Communists on the Eastern Front.
Indeed, the Germans/Nazis would’ve won the war if they had have launched Operation Barbarossa one month earlier as planned or proceeded to attack Moscow (which they would’ve took) instead of swinging South and capturing Kiev, killing well over 200,000 Soviet soldiers and capturing 600,000 POW’s in the process. Hitler choose a great short term Victory instead of winning the War in the long run.
Personally anyone listening in to my phone conversations or intercepting my e-mails would soon get bored, the people I am talking to are probably bored too. But then I am not an Islamist jihadist looking to cause carnage, I think it is perfectly acceptable for governments to listen in, now the situation in the north is different as the government in question does not have, in my humble opinion, any legitimacy. But if we were living in the ideal world of a thirty two county, sovereign, free Ireland, I might think differently. I would also be wary if I were Edward Snowden, Russia isn`t exactly the greatest example of freedom of speech in the world. I would give the tea a miss.
If doing the right thing makes you a traitor to your country then what does that say about your country?
Snowden did the right thing, he exposed the scandalous activities of the CIA and US Government. But is the US Government the only country in the world to spy on its own citizens? Of course not. I would say every major country does it. In fact I think China would make the US Government look like a school boy when it comes to the extent that it spy’s on, oppresses and controls its own citizens.
As someone who wants to move to and work in the USA in the near future I will be thinking twice about what I say over the internet or on the Phone while there. But there again, our very own “protectors” in Norneverland, aka MI5, already read and watch our messages, so maybe I have greater reason to be more conscious here in my own country than in the USA.
I never knew that lolar.
They have some neck calling anyone else a terrorist
http://www.mintpressnews.com/depleted-uranium-iraq-wars-legacy-cancer/193338/
You might be interested to read, ‘Let the Numbers Speak’ by Dr Souad N. All-Azzawi in The Handstand May 2009.
B.O.D. be with the good old, gone old days, Esteemed Blogmeister, when instead of such sophisticated issues like Snowden and Wikileaks we only had relatively simple matters such as Snowdon and Abbeyleix to contend with.
That was back in 1962 when an Aer Lingus Viscount ferried in Princess Margaret and her then husband Lord Snowdon to be greeted by the then husband’s sister and her husband Viscount de Vesci (pronounced Veezy) on the tarmac of Dublin Airport (nee Collinstown).
The difference in spelling between Snowden and Snowdon (nee Anthony Armstrong-Jones) is not unimportant. For the not at all inappropriately named Tones would just have been minded to marry a brother of Liz the Lizard. There being, however, a nonglut in the market of Princes at that epoch in Royal History, Tones did what he did best, he opted to go with the flow.
Indeed, so ambidexterous was Tones that his gayclubbing chums in the swinging London of that time – hot spots such as Le Duce, The Alibi and Take 5- used to spell out their hero of now as ‘Sn-oh!-wdon’.
There was a scrumptious morsel of post-modern irony in the title of the hit song of the day even as the Royals touched down on the runway in the Republic. The song? ‘When the girl in your arms is the girl in your dreams’. The singer? Cliff Richards.(or, Cliff Richard as he was and is still known outside certain barrios of Baile Atha Cliath).
As soon as the ceremonials were completed on the tarmac a vastly impressive security operation swung into action. The cavalcade bearing the VIP guests of the Viscount and Viscountess were escorted by a crack combination of elite units of Oglaigh na hEireann and the Garda Siochana.
The escort was led by an army jeep with had a 6 by 6 placard thoughtfully attached to its back with the helpful sign which read: FOLLOW ME. The distance from Dublin airport to the De Vesci Manor which measured 62 miles in ’62, was covered in a highly commendable two and a half hours.
Despite certain untoward scenes by the usual suspects on the main drag of Abbeyleix, the then surveillance techniques of the Garda Siochana proved more than adequate to the task: veni, veezy, vichy.
(Security note: this Peg, a princess from a neighouring island to the east is in no way to be confused with Peig, a princess from a neighbouring island to the south-west. if, for instance, the latter had chosen to make a state visit to the mainland of Ireland after the publication of her autobiography and its inclusion on the schools’ curriculum, she would have required even more stringent security, by far, than her near-namesake).
The security scenario boiled down as it normally did in these instance to a battle of hits between the Shinners and the shinners The latter being of course, the Special Branch who took a, erm, leaf out of the box camera of Tones and shinnied up many of the majestic elms which surrounded the Manor.
Their sophisticated surveillance methods resulted in eight men being charged with Offences against the Free Stateen Act the following morning. Tones (who thankfully is still amongst us) was a tip top and flash fashion photographer. Known, indeed, in the trade as ‘the snapper with the peanut-butter shutter’.
Further evidence of the savoir faire of the FSS surveillance system of the time, as revealed by TV archive footage, was the sight, just inside the gates of the 17th century grounds, of a 20th century Oglaigh na hEireann armoured car patrolling the manicured lawns. Which prompted Perkie’s retro-porcine punster to come up with the headline: ‘A Pig for Peg’.
This added surveillance measure enabled the Princess Royal to enjoy the peak of her visit: a peek at the Viscount’s prize collection of local Queen’s County lizards in the primordial pond to the rear of the ha-ha. Sadly, this was an interest not shared by Lord Snowdon, possibly down to the lack of royal reptilian blood in his veins.
Indeed, keen Royal Watchers mark this episode down as The Turning Point which led to their eventual acrimonious divorce.One which was attended by much plaque and Braque removing (from both outer and inner walls) and no lack of backstabbing. The T.P. being that of the keen interest Lord Snowdon showed in the Humber Pig truck on patrol.
(That Lord Snowdon subsequently went on to wed, erm, Miss Lucy Lindsay-Hogg may well be a coincidence. Or indeed it may well have to do with the centrality of Bacon Studies on the Eton Curriculum. Whether it is Francis the writer or Franics the painter is up to the student. However, the telling of porkies is not necessarily an optional module. As the instance of D’Camerone may well attest).
Despite the significant disparity in the spelling of their surnames there was, nonetheless, a Russian connection between Snowdon and Snowden. A (gasp) Molotov cocktail was thrown at a Garda squad car but it failed to explode. (The squad car). A chain was flung across high-tension wires and the power supply was temporarily severed to the servants’ quarters but, significantly,not to the Manor House itself.
The local MP, one Oliver Flanagan condemned these incidents as ‘disgraceful and cowardly’. He went on to announce that ‘they had no political significance whatsoever’.
(Incidentally, this O.F. of the Queen’s County was a local eccentric who was given to canvassing for votes on his High Nellie bicycle with a placard on his handlebars: ‘Here comes Oliver J’ and a placard on his back: ‘There goes Oliver J.’. Seemingly it was in keeping with the zeitgeist of the times. See ‘FOLLOW ME’ above).
While Oliver J has, alas, come and gone his son is, equally alas, all too with us. Blessedly so. As a young lad of five summers in short trousers and long face Charlie ‘Je suis Charles !’ Flanagan (for it was he !) was truly traumatised by ‘the cowardly and disgraceful sense’ he was eye-witness to on the loyal and leafy avenues of Abbeyleix in the Queen’s County.
These days both his trousers and his face are longer.
Indeed, it would probably take a combined pooling of surveillance talents from both Snowdon and Snowden (photographic and digital) to satisfactorily capture the full extent of the lugubriousness in that face of the Foreign Minister of the Free Southern Stateen.
I guess the U.S and it’s useful idiots will forever bark ‘traitor’ as a warning to any others who are thinking of blowing the whistle in the future. For example they wouldn’t want any voice recordings of the perpetrators of the bombing of that recent Afghan hospital to be revealed to the plebs. The narrative must be maintained, NATO good the rest of the world bad. It’s a bit like the barking dogs of unionism who want to maintain the narrative, unionism good republicanism bad. Threats and demonisation will be brought upon anybody who challenges that narrative. You see there is a method in their madness/bitterness/supremacy.