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Once again I salute Edward Snowden as an all-American hero. On second thought, make that an all-world hero. A movie on how and why Snowden revealed NSA wiretaps is about to be released. Showbiz reports Edward Snowden Doc Premieres: Shocking Inside Look at How He Did It. Citizen Four is the shocking doc about Edward Snowden made by Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Just screened tonight was the two hour film which will be released by the Weinstein Company this month. It doesn’t paint the Obama administration in a very good light as Snowden explains how the government has violated...

The New Yorker Festival presents Edward Snowden in conversation with Jane Mayer.

Citizen Four is the shocking doc about Edward Snowden made by Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Just screened tonight was the two hour film will be released by the Weinstein Company this month. It doesn’t paint the Obama administration in a very good light as Snowden explains how the government has violated privacy rights on a massive scale. Also the filmmakers clearly inducate that all roads lead to POTUS, a fairly serious accusation. There may be serious repercussions.

It is not an accident that the point man for the damaging disclosure of so much Top Secret information enjoys asylum in Russia and that the intelligence is ending up in the hands of Islamic extremists. “It is reasonable to assume that Vladimir Putin is giving information obtained via Snowden to ISIS or al Qaeda so they can damage U.S. infrastructure as his proxy,” former NSA executive Charlie Speight explained to us. “Without getting his hands dirty or spending a single ruble, Putin can bring us down and elevate Russia.” The Putin-Snowden collaboration makes sense in the context of the...

STOCKHOLM (AP) - Edward Snowden was among the winners Wednesday of a Swedish human rights award, sometimes referred to as the "alternative Nobel," for his disclosures of top secret surveillance programs. The decision to honor the former National Security Agency contractor with the Right Livelihood Award appeared to cause a diplomatic headache for Sweden's Foreign Ministry, which withdrew the prize jury's permission to use its media room for the announcement....

North Korea says imprisoned American tried to become 'second Snowden' By James Pearson SEOUL Fri Sep 19, 2014 8:10pm EDT (Reuters) - An American recently sentenced to six years hard labor by a North Korean court pretended to have secret U.S. information and was deliberately arrested in a bid to become famous and meet U.S. missionary Kenneth Bae in a North Korean prison, state media said on Saturday. Matthew Miller, 25, of Bakersfield, California, had prepared his story in advance and written in a notebook that he was seeking refuge after failing in an attempt to collect information about the...

Snowden has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and several have argued that he should get it this year. Currently, he has been granted asylum in Russia, but the United States wants him to be arrested and extradited. Dagbladet has asked Conservative Party (Høyre) politician Tetzschner whether the Norwegian police may arrest a person coming to the country to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The parliamentary representative believes Norwegian police can and should arrest Snowden. - In principle, we care principle of equality. In addition, Norway honor the agreements we have signed, which also ensures extradition to Norway, he...

This week, Switzerland's attorney general completed a legal opinion on the question of whether Snowden could be granted political asylum if he traveled to Switzerland to testify about the National Security Agency's surveillance activities in the Swiss homeland. The AG's office concluded that Snowden would be given asylum as long as prior obligations made by higher-level Swiss officials did not take priority.

A former top official at the National Security Agency says the Islamic State terrorist group has “clearly” capitalized on the voluminous leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and is exploiting the top-secret disclosures to evade U.S. intelligence. Bottom line: Islamic State killers are harder to find because they know how to avoid detection. Chris Inglis was the NSA’s deputy director during Mr. Snowden’s flood of documents to the news media last year. Mr. Snowden disclosed how the agency eavesdrops, including spying on Internet communications such as emails and on the Web’s ubiquitous social media. Asked by The Washington Times...

The NSA cyberwarfare program, called MonsterMind, uses software to look for traffic patterns indicating possible foreign cyberattacks, according to Snowden, quoted in a lengthy profile in Wired. MonsterMind could automatically block a cyberattack from entering the U.S., then retaliate against the attackers, according to the Wired story. Snowden, when he was working as an NSA contractor, was concerned that MonsterMind could lead to misdirected counterattacks. "These attacks can be spoofed," he told Wired. "You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting...

Putin is effing with Edward Snowden. Snowden’s one year of asylum ended on July 31, and he applied in mid-July for another year. As yet, he has heard nothing, except that he will be permitted to stay while his fate is decided. Putin is most likely sending Snowden a message. What is the message? That he is in Russia at Putin’s whim and sufferance. That he had better do as he is told, and not get any ideas. That he is owned. Note that the Russians doubtlessly are deeply suspicious of Snowden, and likely despise him. To give an idea...

Nihad Awad is a born in Jordan Palestinian living in the U.S. for more than two decades. He is co-founder and CEO of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the largest Muslim civil rights organizations in the United States. He was an advisor to Al Gore and met Presidents Bush and Clinton as well as several U.S. Secretary of State. His e-mails were monitored from 2006 to 2008. "As a citizen I am beside myself that the government spies on activists. Though we have done so much for society in this country, we are still suspected." Awad believed...

In an interview published by The Guardian on Sunday, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden explained that sometimes racy images intercepted by the NSA were shared by analysts. During the interview, which was conducted in Russia, Snowden said that some of the American military personnel working on the NSA’s programs were between 18 and 22 and did not always respect the privacy of those whose communications were intercepted. “In the course of their daily work they stumble across something that is completely unrelated to their work, for example an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising situation but they’re extremely...

A fresh set of documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the UK intelligence agency can manipulate online polls and debates, spread messages, snoop on YouTube and track Facebook users.

Russia is expected to renew former National Security Agency contractor and leaker Edward Snowden’s request for extended asylum because ”his life is endangered,” according to a Russian government official. “I see no problem in prolonging the temporary asylum,” Vladimir Volokh, head of an advisory body to Russia’s Federal Migration Service told the Interfax news agency Friday, according to Reuters. ”The circumstances have not changed. As before, Snowden’s life is endangered so the FMS has grounds to extend his status.” Snowden was granted one year of asylum on Aug. 1, 2013 after leaking a cache of classified NSA intelligence documents to reporters, flying out of...

NEW YORK — Heaps of baby photos, fitness selfies, medical records and resumes are among thousands of private communications scooped up and stored by NSA spy programs. That’s according to new disclosures based on documents Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, gave to The Washington Post — disclosures that show just how easy it is for Americans’ private conversations to be swept into the spy agency’s traps. Snowden provided the Post with what it said were 160,000 intercepted conversations, including e-mails, instant messages, photographs, social network posts and other documents. The trove included messages exchanged from 2009 through...

Germany may step up its counter-espionage efforts after an employee of its intelligence service was arrested on suspicion of spying for the US. Measures being considered in response to scandal include monitoring the intelligence activities of nominal Nato allies such as America, Britain and France, as well as expelling US agents from Germany. According to a report in Bild, interior minister Thomas de Maizière has emphasised the urgent need for a "360 degree vision" of the foreign secret agency's activities. The newspaper claims to have obtained an internal document which outlines "concrete counter measures", thus moving away from a policy...

Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post. Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else.

Newser) – You might think that giving a green light to Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis and allegedly fraudulently submitting 660,000 other background checks without actually completing them would prevent you from getting future government contracts. But you'd be wrong, because the Department of Homeland Security has awarded a $190 million contract to US Investigations Services, the Wall Street Journal reports. Why? Because USIS hasn't actually been suspended, and, as one immigration official explained, unless there is such a suspension in place, "by law and policy, we have to go with the lowest bidder." USIS isn't barred, the Office of...

The Snowden leak that journalist Glenn Greenwald has described as the biggest story yet was delayed prior to publication this week, after the U.S. government made last-minute claims about the forthcoming disclosure.