Ex-CIA man says exposed US spy scheme to protect world

The Indian Express ^ | Monday, June 10, 2013 | Reuters

[Jyotishi]

An ex-CIA employee working as a contractor at the U.S. National Security Agency revealed on Sunday it was he who leaked details of a top secret U.S. Surveillance program, acting out of conscience to protect "basic liberties for people around the world."

Holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong, Edward Snowden, 29, said he had thought long and hard before publicizing details of an NSA program code-named PRISM, saying he had done so because he felt the United States was building an unaccountable and secret espionage machine that spied on every American.

Snowden, a former technical assistant at the CIA, said he had been working at the super-secret NSA as an employee of contractor Booz Allen. He said he decided to leak information after becoming disenchanted with President Barack Obama, whom he said had continued the policies of predecessor George W. Bush. "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under," he told the Guardian, which published a video interview with him on its website.

. . . . .

In naming Snowden on Sunday, the newspapers said he had sought to be identified. "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything," Snowden said in explaining his actions. "With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards," he said.

[Gene Eric]

In the final analysis, the only hurt will fall upon contractors that will now be subjected to daily rectal exams.

[2ndDivisionVet]

There are about a million of them, where is Mr. Obama going to get half a million extra security people to keep an eye on them?

Data intelligence complex is the real story (We spend $80 billion a year on this)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3029382/posts

[j. earl carter]

acting out of conscience to protect "basic liberties for people around the world."

I'd feel a lot more comfortable with this guy if he were more concerned with the basic liberties of Americans, and less concerned with the liberties of "people around the world".

[4rcane]

Its not paranoia to think OBama admin will abuse the information to target Conservatives and his political enemies. He continue to appoint hyper partisans to do exactly that

[Prole]

Granted, but if this guy hadn't broken the story, God only knows how long these Orwellian turds would be empowering themselves with the personal data of their "enemies."

The democrats need to be tarred, feathered and catapulted into the Atlantic Ocean for this.

And if they try to swim back to American shores, they should be given the same treatment over and over until they finally get the hell out of our Country.

[Prole]

I agree, and think that Obama used the NSA to spy on and blackmail Justice Roberts on the Obamacare nod.

Same NSA that spied on and allowed General Petraeus to be blackmailed.

The democrats are a total manifestation of evil, and have nothing in common with We The People.

[Monty22002]

Me too, screw the outside world. It’s the inside America that should be worried. The rest is open season, imo.

[freekitty]

If this guy was really shopping his story around, something as usual smells. Same old story line and stink.

[cynwoody]

Same NSA that spied on and allowed General Petraeus to be blackmailed.

NSA wasn't involved in Petraeus's downfall. It was an FBI operation. Petraeus got caught because his gf couldn't restrain herself from attacking a perceived rival.

All the FBI needed, once they decided to pursue the case, was a subpoena to get what Google had on the Gmail account that was sending catty emails to CENTCOM social butterfly Jill Kelley. Reportedly, the FBI almost declined to take Kelley's case, but were persuaded by the advocacy of her friend, Special Agent Frederick W. Humphries, pictured below at an FBI firearms training exercise.

Once in possession of Google's logs and data, it was simple detective work to identify the sender as Paula Broadwell and to notice that she and General Petraeus were having an affair.

No need for NSA. Sorry.

[flaglady47]

Anyone who doesn’t think that at some point Obama and his regime thugs won’t use the data gathered by the NSA for their own nefarious reasons against individuals or groups of individuals of the opposite political party or religious groups, or pro-Israel groups, has rocks in their heads where a brain should be. The Obama thugs could pluck out info on you or me, on our entire internet lives. They would know everything, our e-mails, our bank accounts and/or credit cards, our health records, everything. Any jpolitically oriented operative within the NSA could do this and bypass any required search warrant needed to do so by simply doing the search on an individual and surreptiously pass it on to whomever wants it, usually a political ideologue of liberal/socialist bent.

The dangers here are tremendous. The government is asking us to trust them on this data mining, that it will not be abused. We already know that the Obama regime is very willing to abuse and use gov’t agencies for their own political purposes. Look to the IRS spying and abuse of citizens of the opposite political party, or wrong religion in their eyes, or those with a pro-Israel bent.

Audits and grant stalling past elections to harm opposition parties from being able to organize and get their word out to educate the public on the constitution, etc., was the norm of this Obama Admin. Look at EPA bullying as a weapon by this Admin, or all the regulations being shoved down our throats, in particular affecting the business community; banks and corporation forced to become crony capitalists used by this crooked regime. Look to Obamacare and its thousands of rules and regulations that were hidden from the public and we are just now finding out what all is entailed in Obamacare.

What in heaven’s name would stop them from having ideologue plants spy on citizens’ e-mails and their backgrounds contained on the internet, basically their whole lives encapsulated therein, to use for their own politically evil intentions? I suspect they have already done this.

SCOTUS John Roberts might have been one of those whose background was looked into by the Obama regime and then used against him to blackmail him into voting for Obamacare. We’ll never know. But I wouldn’t sit here too comfortably and agree that this massive data mining is necessary for our safety rather than using more narrow targeting of data gathering with greater restrictions on its use and how it is mined. I have zero faith in the integrity of the current gov’t and what they would not stoop to in order to further their political cause. We have no true safeguards. Zero.

[stilloftyhenight]

Protect “the world” from whom? Uppity peons?

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

As someone else pointed out earlier, other governments, notably Britain, already have the means to spy on the US via echelon, and swap it with the usgov, in order to get around this if they feel like it.

[uncommonsense]

Freepers have known this for many years. Now, the MSM has broadcast this massive spying apparatus. Microsoft, Google, AOL, et al denied this data mining scheme - which tells us - it's true.

With unlimited funds and industry support, the Feds have 1 Million times the capacity that any public / private company has. The $80 billion spend estimate is a JOKE! The feds have duplicate accounts and slush funds out the wazoo!

I've been an executive at 2 "big brother" data companies and it's frightening what they know about every individual and company.

[Monty22002]

Well, they helped us with signal during ww2, so I guess we owe it back. I just really think they owe us the actual list of stopped terrorist attacks. They won’t though, cause they’re easily 95 mohammed’s and maybe, at best, 5% rightwing.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

The number of Muslims in the UK is the other way around, 5%. But I digress. The point is, if the US Gov is legally restrained from spying on its citizens, they will just get the British Government to do its dirty work for it, and vice versa. I don’t think there is any real way to stop western governments from engaging in unethical eavesdropping unless they are forced to make international treaties preventing each other from spying on each other, and frankly, I don’t see that happening, because it is too convenient for both of the Governments to be able to do so.

[Monty22002]

Spying on islamics should be priority #1.

The splash side effects have to be contained and be considered scandals. Collecting all records and decrypting all 1024 bit RSA (they will surely this) and then 2048 RSA (At Utah) are the real problems.

[Daffynition]

I think he knew he was going to be caught...and evertthing spilled. Let's remember his face ....b/c they'll never find his body.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Would they really be so brazen?