Steve Watson / Prison Planet & Charlie Rose & Global Research & Eli Lake / The Daily Beast – 2013-10-06 03:13:21
http://www.prisonplanet.com/former-nsa-head-says-hed-like-to-see-snowden-on-us-kill-list.html
Former NSA Head Says He’d Like To See
Edward Snowden On US Kill List
Chairman of House Intelligence Committee responds:
“I can help you with that.”
Steve Watson / Prisonplanet.com
WASHINGTON, DC (October 3, 2013) — The former head of the NSA and the CIA, Michael Hayden, told an audience at a cybersecurity conference today that he’d like to see whistleblower Edward Snowden placed on a US government targeted assassination list.
In comments that were intended as a joke, but that came off as anything but funny, Hayden told the Washington Post-hosted crowd that rather than being on the shortlist for a European human rights award, Snowden should be on a kill list.
“I must admit, in my darker moment over the past several months, I’d also thought of nominating Mr. Snowden, but it was for a different list,” Hayden said during a panel discussion, according to Brendan Sasso of The Hill.
Sasso notes that the audience laughed, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was also on the panel, responded, “I can help you with that.”
The conversation then turned specifically to the government’s use of targeted killings, with Hayden noting “Yes, we do targeted killings, and I certainly hope they make full use of the capacities of the National Security Agency when we do that.”
Hayden was responding to a question about a new project announced by journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill, delving into the NSA’s alleged role in assassinations.
“This is going to be really interesting because I have no idea what [Greenwald] is talking about,” Hayden is said to have added, with Mike Rogers chiming in , “Neither does he.”
While asserting that “We don’t do assassinations,” Hayden said that the government is within its rights to carry out “targeted killings against enemy combatants” during a time of war.
The comments prompted the following tweet from Glenn Greenwald:
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald
Psychopath: former CIA & NSA Director
According to further reports, Hayden also floated a conspiracy theory that Snowden was likely engaged in a “sustained, long-term campaign” to take information from the NSA, with the contractor moving from job to job to gain more access.
Snowden wasn’t “suddenly offended by something he came across,” Hayden said.
Mike Rogers, added his own conspiracy theory, suggesting that Snowden had outside help accessing classified data.
When asked if Rogers believed there was “evidence that Snowden had help from another government,” the lawmaker responded “I didn’t say ‘evidence’ or ‘government,’ but that was pretty good.”
Describing Snowden’s activities as “the most brilliant espionage operation conducted against the United States in the history of the world,” Rogers added “We’re a little concerned there may have been more to this story than meets the eye.”
He further suggested that Snowden was in cahoots with China and Russia, saying that it was highly suspect that Snowden travelled first to Hong Kong, and then ended up “in the loving arms” of a Russian intelligence agent.
Hayden has previously made it known that he believes Snowden to be worse than any American “traitor” ever, including Benedict Arnold, for blowing the whistle on government spying. He has said that he does not see Snowden as a whistleblower because he has not “exposed any wrongdoing” by government.
Hayden has also described the former NSA contractor as a “morally arrogant defector” who will likely become an alcoholic.
It was Hayden who was overseeing warrantless wiretapping programs during his tenure at the NSA. Hayden, was the one in charge of spying on millions of Americans’ communications, relying on a truly twisted version of the law under the PATRIOT Act as cover for his actions.
Hayden was also the man who seriously argued that there was no mention of “probable cause” in the Fourth Amendment, insisting that only ‘reasonable search and seizure’ was required in violating the privacy of Americans.
Sorry, who is the “morally arrogant traitor” again?
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
‘Take ’em Out!”
Hillary Clinton and James Baker
Laugh about Attacking Iran
Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research
(October 4, 2013) — Watch the exchange between former Secretaries of State James Baker III and Hillary Clinton. It reveals the true nature of US foreign policy:
Countries we do not like, we take ’em out. We seek a justification to wage war…. We really want them to fire the first strike and then we will strike back in self defense.
And everybody will support us because we have a massive war propaganda apparatus. In chorus the media will portray Iran as a threat to global security and the US is the savior of democracy.
View this video, it is no laughing matter and then decide, who is a threat to Global Security. (Global Research Editor Michel Chossudovsky.)
Excerpts
Baker: We are the only country in the world that can stop that [Iran building a nuclear bomb]. [Note: All 16 US intelligence agencies have concluded Iran is not working to build a nuclear weapon]…. At the end of the day. if we do not get it done the way the administration is working on it now, which we totally agree with, we ought to take ’em out
Clinton:[Laughing]…. We are working hard. [Laughs]
Look, I think the president has been very clear on this. He’s always said: “All options are on the table and he means it ….
Baker:The sanctions are not complete yet. We want to squeeze them down more….
Clinton: And then, frankly, there are those [in the Iranian regime”] who are saying: ‘The best thing that could happen to us is be attacked by somebody. Just bring it on because that would unify us. It would legitimize the regime.…. we’re not going to give anything up. And, in fact, we’re going to provoke an attack because then we will be in power for as long as anyone can imagine.’
Baker: That’s the reason I say, ‘If anybody’s going to do it, we outta do it, because we’ve got the capability.
Greenwald: Snowden’s Files Are
Out There if ‘Anything Happens’ to Him
Eli Lake / The Daily Beast
(June 25, 2013) — Snowden has shared encoded copies of all the documents he took so that they won’t disappear if he does, Glenn Greenwald tells Eli Lake.
As the US government presses Moscow to extradite former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, America’s most wanted leaker has a plan B. The former NSA systems administrator has already given encoded files containing an archive of the secrets he lifted from his old employer to several people. If anything happens to Snowden, the files will be unlocked.
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who Snowden first contacted in February, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.”
Greenwald added that the people in possession of these files “cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords.” But, Greenwald said, “if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.”
The fact that Snowden has made digital copies of the documents he accessed while working at the NSA poses a new challenge to the US intelligence community that has scrambled in recent days to recover them and assess the full damage of the breach.
Even if US authorities catch up with Snowden and the four classified laptops the Guardian reported he brought with him to Hong Kong the secrets Snowden hopes to expose will still likely be published.
A former US counterintelligence officer following the Snowden saga closely said his contacts inside the U.S. intelligence community “think Snowden has been planning this for years and has stashed files all over the Internet.” This source added, “At this point there is very little anyone can do about this.”
The arrangement to entrust encrypted archives of his files with others also sheds light on a cryptic statement Snowden made on June 17 during a live chat with The Guardian. In the online session he said, “All I can say right now is the US government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.”
Last week NSA Director Keith Alexander told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that Snowden was able to access files inside the NSA by fabricating digital keys that gave him access to areas he was not allowed to visit as a low-level contractor and systems administrator.
One of those areas included a site he visited during his training that Alexander later told reporters contained one of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court orders published by The Guardian and The Washington Post earlier this month.
It’s unclear what else is in the Snowden archive. The Guardian and The Washington Post have already published slides from a classified presentation on a program known as Prism that gives the NSA access to data on non-U.S. persons from Internet companies like Google and Facebook.
The newspapers have also published the “minimization procedures” approved by Attorney General Eric Holder to make sure this collection does not include US persons without a warrant and a top-secret presidential directive approving offensive cyber operations.
Greenwald said that he himself has thousands of documents from Snowden that he is continuing to examine. That figure is considerably higher than the 200 documents that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee, said over the weekend that she was told Snowden possessed.
“I don’t know for sure whether [Snowden] has more documents than the ones he has given me,” Greenwald said. “I believe he does. He was clear he did not want to give to journalists things he did not think should be published.”
In addition to providing documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post, Snowden has also given interviews to the South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, which reported that Snowden has disclosed the Internet Protocol addresses for computers in China and Hong Kong that the NSA monitored. That paper also printed a story claiming the NSA collected the text-message data for Hong Kong residents based on a June 12 interview Snowden gave the paper.
Greenwald said he would not have published some of the stories that ran in the South China Morning Post. “Whether I would have disclosed the specific IP addresses in China and Hong Kong the NSA is hacking, I don’t think I would have,” Greenwald said. “What motivated that leak though was a need to ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China.”
However, Greenwald said that in his dealings with Snowden the 30-year-old systems administrator was adamant that he and his newspaper go through the document and only publish what served the public’s right to know. “Snowden himself was vehement from the start that we do engage in that journalistic process and we not gratuitously publish things,” Greenwald said. “I do know he was vehement about that. He was not trying to harm the U.S. government; he was trying to shine light on it.”
Greenwald said Snowden for example did not wish to publicize information that gave the technical specifications or blueprints for how the NSA constructed its eavesdropping network. “He is worried that would enable other states to enhance their security systems and monitor their own citizens.”
Greenwald also said Snowden did not wish to repeat the kinds of disclosures made famous a generation ago by former CIA spy, Philip Agee — who published information after defecting to Cuba that outed undercover CIA officers. “He was very insistent he does not want to publish documents to harm individuals or blow anyone’s undercover status,” Greenwald said. He added that Snowden told him, “Leaking CIA documents can actually harm people, whereas leaking NSA documents can harm systems.”
Greenwald also said his newspaper had no plans to publish the technical specifications of NSA systems. “I do not want to help other states get better at surveillance,” Greenwald said. He added, “We won’t publish things that might ruin ongoing operations from the U.S. government that very few people would object to the United States doing.”
In this sense Greenwald is applying a more traditional journalistic approach to publishing classified information than WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization that published hundreds of thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables and intelligence reports from Afghanistan and Iraq — initially without removing the names of individuals who were placed at risk after their interactions with U.S. officials in dangerous places were made public. “I am supportive of WikiLeaks, but I am doing something different,” Greenwald said.
For now, the FBI has taken a keen interest in the leak of FISA court documents. Those documents are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the US intelligence community. As of last week, the FBI was investigating whether Snowden may have obtained those documents from a leak inside the secret FISA court.
Thus far, The Guardian and The Washington Post have only published FISA documents that disclosed the wholesale collection of telephone metadata, but not the authorization to monitor the electronic communications of individuals. Greenwald declined to say whether or not he possessed FISA court warrants authorizing surveillance of a specific individual.
For now, Greenwald said he is taking extra precautions against the prospect that he is a target of U.S. surveillance. He said he began using encrypted email when he began communicating with Snowden in February after Snowden sent him a YouTube video walking him through the procedure to encrypt his email.
“When I was in Hong Kong, I spoke to my partner in Rio via Skype and told him I would send an electronic encrypted copy of the documents,” Greenwald said. “I did not end up doing it. Two days later his laptop was stolen from our house and nothing else was taken. Nothing like that has happened before. I am not saying it’s connected to this, but obviously the possibility exists.”
When asked if Greenwald believed his computer was being monitored by the U.S. government. “I would be shocked if the U.S. government were not trying to access the information on my computer. I carry my computers and data with me everywhere I go.”
Eli Lake is the senior national-security correspondent for The Daily Beast. He previously covered national security and intelligence for The Washington Times. Lake has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic since 2008 and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
