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The Obama administration faced a backlash from congressional Democrats on Friday following revelations that the National Security Agency broke privacy rules and overstepped its authority thousands of times since 2008. The details were reported late Thursday in The Washington Post, based on an audit and other secret documents provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The report challenged claims by President Obama just last week that the NSA was not abusing its authority, and complicated his effort to reassure Americans and Congress that -- with a little more oversight and transparency -- the surveillance programs are nothing to be worried about....

Edward Snowden accused the National Security Agency of targeting reporters who wrote critically about the government after the 9/11 attacks and warned it was “unforgivably reckless” for journalists to use unencrypted email messages when discussing sensitive matters. Snowden said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine published Tuesday that he came to trust Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who, along with Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, helped report his disclosure of secret surveillance programs, because she herself had been targeted by the NSA. “Laura and [Guardian reporter] Glenn [Greenwald] are among the few who reported fearlessly on controversial topics...

The former head of the National Security Agency said Sunday that not only does ending the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs seems unlikely, but he images those endeavors could expand in scope during the coming years. Former NSA chief Michael Hayden told television host Bob Schieffer of CBS’ Face the Nation over the weekend that the current program that collects the metadata of millions of American phone customers on a regular basis for the United States government could in the future perhaps be used to soak up even more statistics about US citizens. In early June, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden...

WikiLeaks founder: Obama surveillance changes vindicate Edward Snowden By Keith Laing - 08/10/13 10:40 AM ET The founder of the WikiLeaks website said on Saturday that President Obama’s announcement of changes to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program this week vindicated Edward Snowden’s release of information about the program. “Today the President of the United States validated Edward Snowden’s role as a whistleblower by announcing plans to reform America’s global surveillance program,” WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange said in a statement. “But rather than thank Edward Snowden, the president laughably attempted to criticize him while claiming that there was a...

President Barack Obama doesn’t have a strong hand or the dominant personality needed to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that’s why the United States backed out of a September one-on-one meeting, says Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. “If they neither fear you nor respect you, it’s going to be awfully hard to talk them into letting (NSA leaker Edward) Snowden come back into the United States in our custody,” King said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity.” …

"There have been times when they slip back into Cold War thinking," said President Obama in his tutorial with Jay Leno. And to show the Russians that such Cold War thinking is antiquated, Obama canceled his September summit with Vladimir Putin. The reason: Putin's grant of asylum to Edward Snowden, who showed up at the Moscow airport, his computers full of secrets that our National Security Agency has been thieving from every country on earth, including Russia. Yet there are many KGB defectors in the United States, and Russia has never used this as an excuse to cancel a summit....

Last month, I wrote about Russia’s harsh backlash against gay-rights activism (“Russia Says ‘Nyet’ to Gay Adoptions“), and it turns out that this explains the cancellation of a scheduled summit: The Wall Street Journal, among others, reports that President Barack Obama has decided to cancel a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s grant of temporary asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Yet that cannot possibly be the case. A few weeks ago, when Snowden arrived in Russia, Obama brushed the issue aside: he was not “scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker,” he said. Obama also downplayed...

America Discredited 06.08.2013 America Discredited. 50771.jpeg Paul Craig Roberts As Washington loses its grip on the world, defied by Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and now Russia, the US government resorts to public temper tantrums. The constant demonstration of childishness on the part of the White House and Congress embarrasses every American. Washington's latest outburst of childish behavior is a response to the Russian Immigration Service granting US whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum in Russia for one year while his request for permanent asylum is considered. Washington, having turned the US into a lawless state, no longer has any conception of legal procedure....

Vague terrorist threats shutting down nineteen of our embassies, Russian strongman Putin thumbing his nose at President Obama, Iran jerking our chain – the U.S. hasn’t looked this cowardly on the world stage since the Jimmy Carter administration. Here at home, too, we’ve gone back to the Carter future; unemployment is high, Keynesian economics are all the rage, our professorial president is increasingly whiny and ineffectual; all that’s missing is a cardigan sweater and that infernal violin. Our recent contre-temps with Russia is a throw-back to the weak-kneed Carter era. President Vladimir Putin has granted temporary asylum to NSA leaker...

Germany has canceled a decades-old agreement on information-sharing with Britain and the United States, in the wake of controversy sparked by American leaker Edward Snowden's disclosures about mass surveillance programs. Germany's Foreign Ministry announced the move Friday, saying it was effective immediately.

Snowden Gets Temporary Asylum in Russia, Leaves Airport By PAUL SONNE MOSCOW—National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has received asylum for a year in Russia and has left Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, his lawyer said on Thursday. NSA leaker, Edward Snowden, says the U.S. has left him "stateless". Is that the case? What happens when the U.S. revokes an American's passport? How often does that happen? How do you renounce your citizenship? WSJ's Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer. Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer who has been representing Mr. Snowden in Moscow, said the U.S. fugitive received so-called "temporary asylum" for a period of...

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and is allowed to enter the country’s territory. The whistleblower has been granted temporary political asylum in Russia, Snowden's legal representative Anatoly Kucherena said. “I have just handed over to him papers from the Russian Immigration Service. They are what he needs to leave the transit zone,” he added. Snowden has already left the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, an RT crew at the scene has confirmed. His present location has not been made public nor will it be disclosed, Kucherena said, adding that Snowden is among the...

The representative told Reuters that Snowden had crossed into Russia after spending more than month in the airport's transit zone.

If Republicans don’t quash the libertarian streak shown recently by some of their members they risk following the destructive lead of Democrats in the 1960s, says GOP Rep. Peter King of New York. “When you have Rand Paul actually comparing [NSA leaker Edward] Snowden to Martin Luther King or Henry David Thoreau, this is madness,” King said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “This is the anti-war left-wing Democrats of the 1960s that nominated George McGovern and destroyed their party for almost 20 years. I don’t want that happening to our party.” …

In March 2009 Hillary Clinton announced that the Obama Adminstration was going to push the reset button with the Russians. Unfortunately, the administration bungled their delivery and spelled out “overcharge” rather than “restart” on their button. ... This week the Russians pushed their own reset button. Moscow rejected US demands for the extradition of NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

WASHINGTON — U.S. sanctions against any country offering asylum to Edward Snowden advanced in Congress Thursday as the 30-year-old National Security Agency leaker remained in a Moscow airport while Russia weighed a request for him to stay permanently. The measure introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., demands the State Department coordinate with lawmakers on setting penalties against nations that seek to help Snowden avoid extradition to the United States, where authorities want him prosecuted for revealing details of the government’s massive surveillance system. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the proposal unanimously by voice vote as an amendment to next year’s...

The New York Times published James Risen’s most recent article last Wednesday. It focused on the bipartisan backlash President Barack Obama’s administration faces in the wake of revelations about the domestic surveillance operations of America’s National Security Agency (NSA). … A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Risen would receive no First Amendment protection safeguarding the confidentiality of his sources—in this case former CIA employee Jeffrey Sterling. … The ruling could not have come at a more volatile time. In the midst of the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the Risen trial sheds further light on the...

The director of the National Intelligence says an effort in the House to rein in the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance program would dismantle a critical tool in the fight against terrorism. James Clapper issued the statement just hours ahead of a House vote on an amendment by Republican Rep. Justin Amash that would end the statutory authority under the USA PATRIOT Act for the NSA to collect hundreds of millions of phone records. …

Russia gives Snowden pass to leave airport RUSSIA'S migration service has provided fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden with a document that allows him to leave the Moscow airport transit zone where he has been holed up for the past month, the RIA Novosti news agency says. The document confirms that his application for asylum is being considered, but allows Snowden to cross the Russian border so long as border guards do not object, it said on Wednesday. The Interfax news agency said Snowden could leave the airport in the "next hours". The Interfax news agency added that the document...

The U.S. government’s growing surveillance of Americans has transformed the nation into an “electronic concentration camp,” top civil-liberties attorney John W. Whitehead says. “It’s moving so rapidly you have to feel creepy because you're being watched. Everybody has a file if you do anything electronically,” Whitehead, author the new book “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State,” told Newsmax TV. … Whitehead—who founded the Rutherford Institute in Virginia, which helps promote civil liberties and human rights—has been researching the growth of the National Security Agency since the 1980s. The agency has been under fire for its collection of...