Snowden sees ‘turning point’ in NSA reforms…………
Washington (AFP) – Fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden said Tuesday he sees a “turning point” in the surveillance reform plans unveiled by the White House and Congress.
Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents which provided details of vast US surveillance programs, gave a guarded welcome to a proposal from President Barack Obama to end bulk collection of telephone data.
“I believed that if the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans was known, it would not survive the scrutiny of the courts, the Congress, and the people,” Snowden said in a statement released through the American Civil Liberties Union, which is coordinating his legal representation.
“The very first open and adversarial court to ever judge these programs has now declared them ‘Orwellian’ and ‘likely unconstitutional,’” the statement said.
Snowden also made reference to the “USA Freedom Act,” a proposal introduced earlier this year, saying it offered “historic, albeit incomplete reforms.” (Fox guarding the Hen-house IMO)
He added that “President Obama has now confirmed that these mass surveillance programs, kept secret from the public and defended out of reflex rather than reason, are in fact unnecessary and should be ended.”
(also just in….. You can keep your doctor if you like him under ACA… and the War is over in Iraq… cough)
Snowden said, “This is a turning point, and it marks the beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public’s seat at the table of government.”
The White House plan would keep the data outside of government while allowing access for national security reasons, officials said.
Key US lawmakers welcomed the proposal, and one group put forward new reform legislation along the same lines, with bipartisan support.
I liked Kurt Haskell’s reply to this story:
First of all, true whistleblowers don’t get mentioned in the press at all. They get ignored and treated as if they never existed. Anything supporting what a true whistleblower said, would slowly be erased off of the internet. Edward Snowden, on the other hand, is mentioned in an article by the mainstream media at least every other day. The U.S. Government propaganda website Yahoo, has him pictured and quoted constantly. The article below claims that Snowden now sees a turning point in the surveilance “reforms” proposed by the White House. This is just TOO FUNNY! The proposed reforms only make the collection of phone data that has been illegally acquired to be held by the phone companies and not in the Utah Data Center. So, even if we believe this, which we shouldn’t, it’s supposedly ok for the NSA to store all of our phone data with the phone companies? AS IF THIS MAKES ANY FREAKING DIFFERENCE AT ALL! Supposedly, Snowden thinks this is a major turning point!!! ahahahaha. Let’s put our thinking caps on for a minute……………Snowden had access to all of the information in the world. He supposedly knows about the multitude of illegal activities performed by the NSA. He exposes hardly any of them. He thinks it’s ok to collect all of phone data if it is not stored with the government. He thinks this announcement is a turning point, yet, nothing is done about the collection of banking records, credit card records, internet records, emails, texts, the monitoring of citizens with their computer cams and cell cams, etc. This Snowden guy gave up his posh life and posh job in Hawaii to be a patriot and he is SATISFIED with what was released today. I’m sorry, but if you give up your entire life over this NSA spying incident, you name names, you release documents, you push for jail for the offenders, you expose the media in the cover up, and you expose all of the corrupt government plots like 9-11 that have taken place. Only when you have given out all of your information will you possibly, maybe not even then, be satisfied.
Also, with Obama confident that he can legally execute political dissidents, what is the reason Snowden hasn’t been executed yet? Surely it could be accomplished by undercover CIA agents in Russia. Let me guess, just like the Malaysian plane, the NSA can find everything in the world except Edward Snowden. This is kind of like Bin Laden shortly after 9-11 when the U.S. Government couldn’t find him but a reporter could and did an interview. With Snowden, it’s even worse, he gives an interview every other day.
What’s especially troubling with this story is that Snowden was played up by the U.S. Government and the media as an anti-government hero/villain. Yet, now we see repetitive articles where Snowden is becoming accepting of the NSA and Supportive of Obama over this issue. If you look closely, you can really see the brainwashing taking place right before your eyes.
Think