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Lately Bill Clinton has not been doing the president many favors. First, the "is" definition-challenged former president had some harsh words about Obamacare, and most recently in an overnight question-and-answer session before a standing-room-only crowd in a Beijing hotel ballroom, Clinton who was in Beijing for meetings with China’s President Xi Jinping as well as to promote the work of his New York-based philanthropic organisation, the Clinton Foundation, while withholding comments on Obama - whose approval rating has plunged to an all time low - refused to criticise Edward Snowden. Instead he said he believed it was "perfectly legitimate"...

US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged in a German newspaper on Thursday that “tensions” had arisen between the US and Germany over revelations of US espionage, but said relations would remain strong. The German government is studying the possibility of questioning US fugitive leaker Edward Snowden in Russia after admitting he could be in danger of extradition if he were to come to Germany. … Asked what needed to be done to repair US-German ties, Kerry said that Washington was talking with its German partners “about how we better coordinate our secret service efforts and, in doing so, can...

Germany on Tuesday asked the British ambassador to come to the foreign ministry to discuss a newspaper report that a covert spying station was operating in Berlin with hi-tech equipment mounted on the embassy roof. Documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden show that Britain’s surveillance agency is operating a network of “electronic spy posts” from within a stone’s throw of the Bundestag and German chancellor’s office, the Independent reported. …

“It would be a disaster for American-German relations if Snowden came to Germany and publicly testified before the Bundestag.” What Green MP Christian Ströbele ultimately is hoping for after his surprise visit with Edward Snowden in Moscow would be a nightmare for Stephen Szabo of the German Marshall Fund, as well for the Obama administration. The relationship between the two countries is headed towards “a deep, downward spiral,” says Szabo. This must be stopped. If Snowden were to come to Germany with official blessing, the situation would escalate further, warns the long-time Germany expert and vice-president of the German Marshall...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded answers from President Barack Obama on Wednesday after learning US spies may have monitored her phone, warning this would be "breach of trust" between allies. The White House, rattled by the latest exposure based on leaks from intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, said it is not now listening in on Merkel, but did not deny the possibility her communications may have been intercepted in the past. In the wake of Snowden's ongoing revelations, several more key US countries have already complained about American electronic surveillance, and the White House is struggling to stem the diplomatic damage....

PARIS — France and Mexico have angrily demanded prompt explanations from the United States over new spying allegations leaked by former US security contractor Edward Snowden. French daily Le Monde and German weekly Der Spiegel said in separate reports published Monday that the US National Security Agency (NSA) secretly monitored tens of millions of phone communications in France and hacked into former Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s email account. The allegations come on top of revelations already leaked by Snowden and published in June that the US had a vast, secret program called PRISM to monitor Internet users, which French prosecutors...

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

MOSCOW — First, Vladimir Putin accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him at the end of 2011. The next fall, the Russian president threw the U.S. Agency for International Development out of his country. Then he decided civic groups that get U.S. financing must be foreign agents. By the end of last year, Putin decided Americans had become unfit to adopt Russian children. This summer he decided to harbor Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency document leaker, despite strenuous U.S. objections. And ever since the Syrian conflict began, Putin has thwarted President Obama’s attempts to get the United...

MOSCOW — First, Vladimir Putin accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him at the end of 2011. The next fall, the Russian president threw the U.S. Agency for International Development out of his country. Then he decided civic groups that get U.S. financing must be foreign agents. By the end of last year, Putin decided Americans had become unfit to adopt Russian children. This summer, he decided to harbor Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency document leaker, despite strenuous U.S. objections. And ever since the Syrian conflict began, Putin has thwarted President Obama’s attempts to get the United...

Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry appear relieved that the proposal from Moscow provides an opportunity to avoid a war—of which neither of them was particularly convinced. Despite all of Washington’s recent frustrations with the Russian offer of asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the US government knows that a partnership with Putin is both possible and necessary. One reason for this is the fact that armed Islamist extremism, which is growing in strength from Kabul to Damascus, is more of a threat to Russia that it is to the US. It was no accident that the Sept. 9...

Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel Peace Prize By: Tal Kopan July 15, 2013 10:41 AM EDT A Swedish sociology professor has nominated Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that awarding the former NSA employee would correct Nobel Committee’s mistake in giving the award to President Barack Obama in 2009. According to a translation of the letter published by the Daily Mail and RT.com, Umeå University professor Stefan Svallfors wrote the committee that Snowden has made the world safer in releasing information about United States surveillance. “Edward Snowden has - in a heroic effort at great personal cost -...

There he goes again. When last we heard from U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a fourth-term Republican of California, he was working feverishly to help U.S.-despising Russian dictator Vladimir Putin deflect blame justifiably coming his way over the Boston Marathon bombing. Now, Rohrabacher is being trumpeted by Kremlin-operated newswire service RIA Novosti as claiming that the U.S. is "shooting itself in the foot" by noticing that Russia is sheltering the treacherous Edward Snowden and providing massive military support to the America-hating terrorists of Hizb'allah. Rohrabacher says he likes the "spirit" and "sense of humor" of Russians and says they're the only...

<p>Virtually every other show [aside from "Morning Joe"] belongs to hosts who unstintingly support Obama and the Democrats, with only minor points of disagreement. ([Host Chris] Hayes criticizes Obama for his drone killings and surveillance programs, and often conducts friendly interviews with Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who collaborated with Edward Snowden. Melissa Harris-Perry, who appears on weekends at 10 a.m., nearly always defends Obama, and called Glenn Greenwald a “jerk.”) Conservatives are far less visible on MSNBC than liberals are on Fox News, and the right-leaning guests who do appear are typically critics of the conservative movement: Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist, who says the party is too tolerant of “nuts” and “kooks”; Josh Barro, an advocate for Republican reform who describes himself as “neoliberal”; Abby Huntsman, the daughter of failed presidential candidate Jon, who has described the G.O.P. as a party of “non-inclusion.” The over-all impression is that your average Republican or conservative is simply too fanatical to be part of polite discourse.</p>

NSA leaker Edward Snowden set the world on fire when he stood up to the powerful and secretive National Security Agency, exposing its illegal and unconstitutional spying to a global audience. Since that time, statists, neoconservatives, and supporters of the Obama administration have called for him to stand trial for treason. Meanwhile, civil liberties activists have hailed him as a whistleblower and a hero. Some have even suggested that the NSA should be disbanded, that its officials should be held accountable, and that Edward Snowden deserves a ticker tape parade. Today's Enemies Domestic short tackles this national conversation head-on. Do...

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, says the United States is on the verge of becoming a police state as evidenced by the National Security Agency’s data collection programs and the treatment of secret document leakers Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. “We have not only the capability of a police state, but certain beginnings of it right now,” Ellsberg told The Huffington Post Wednesday. “And I absolutely agree with Edward Snowden. It’s worth a person’s life, prospect of assassination, or life in prison or life in exile—it’s worth that to try to restore our liberties...

The Guardian newspaper's editor says British authorities destroyed an unspecified number of its hard drives in an apparent attempt to keep secrets leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden from Chinese spies. Alan Rusbridger made the claim in an opinion piece published Monday on the Guardian's website, saying that a pair of staffers from British eavesdropping agency GCHQ monitored the process in what he called "one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history." He said the hard drives were torn apart in the basement of the Guardian's north London office with "two GCHQ security experts...

The Guardian newspaper says British agents destroyed their newsroom hard drives after they began publishing revelations from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. In an opinion piece, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger claimed the hard drives were destroyed after weeks of pressure by British government officials. He said the drives were torn apart in the basement of their office building as British intelligence agents looked on. "One of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in...

<p>Trevor Loudon, the author of a new book on socialist penetration of the Democratic party and the U.S. Congress, says, “Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this entire NSA scandal is the way the U.S. and international left have used the leaks to turn the American right into a battering ram against U.S. military intelligence capabilities. Historically it has always been the far-left that has sought to castrate U.S. government intelligence capabilities—always using ‘civil liberties’ as a lever.”</p>

The owner of the encrypted email service used by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden says he could face criminal charges for refusing to comply with a secret federal court order issued last week. Ladar Levison abruptly shut down his company, Lavabit LLC, last week to avoid being forced to hand over customers’ personal information and communications. James Trump, a senior litigation counsel at the US attorney’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, contacted Levinson’s lawyer on August 8 - the day Levinson ended Lavabit’s services, NBC News reported. The attorney was told that Levison had “violated the court order,” leading to speculation...

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....