BERLIN – Following German media’s recent campaigning against massive USA/CIA/NSA spy activities in Berlin (and the Pentagon’s prosaic indifference) evokes what the Germans call ‘Fremdschämen’ –the feeling of shame for the embarrassment of others: What were the Germans thinking, anyway? That they were special? Equal? Bosom buddies, perhaps, on a par with the world’s sole superpower?
The Emperor Is Naked
In the wake of a recent article on Tor1 your author received an e-mail from Shava Nerad, the founding executive director of the Tor Project. Putting aside certain rhetorical devices that have cropped up in this debate, like name-calling or guilt-by-association, let’s examine some of Shava’s points to see if we can take the conversation in a constructive direction.
Choosing Sides
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”-Edward Abbey, American author
There’s a lot to love about America and its people: their pioneering spirit, their entrepreneurship, their ability to think outside the box, their passion for the arts, etc. Increasingly, however, as time goes by, I find the things I don’t like about living in a nation that has long since ceased to be a sanctuary for freedom are beginning to outnumber the things I love.
In the wake of Ed Snowden’s revelations there’s been a litany of calls for the widespread adoption of online anonymity tools. One such technology is Tor, which employs a network of Internet relays to hinder the process of attribution. Though advocates openly claim that “Tor still works”1 skepticism is warranted. In fact, anyone risking incarceration in the face of a leveraged intelligence outfit like the NSA would be ill-advised to put all of their eggs in the Tor basket.
Tuesday we took a quick look at the story of how the NSA's war against patriotic whistleblower Tom Drake persuaded Ed Snowden to move outside the system to expose the criminal activities the government was perpetrating against the American people. In the story we met William Binney. Up top is the short documentary Laura Poitras did for the NY Times about Binney in 2012. It should scare your socks off.Binney was a top intelligence officer/code breaker with the NSA for over 30 years.
MUNICH — You have to wonder how much more the German public will take of the country’s ongoing humiliation by the United States and its extensive program of secretly spying on what nominally is one of America’s most reliable allies.
The latest scandal involves the discovery of a CIA mole working in the highest reaches of Germany’s Defense Ministry. This exposé follows, by less than a week, the arrest of another US spy in Germany’s own intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtsdienst (BND).
NSA attorney Rajesh De says Facebook, Google and Yahoo were not only aware of the NSA’s surveillance program, but that they also in fact provided ‘full assistance’ in the collection of data. Rajesh De, in a hearing of the U.S. government’s institutional privacy watchdog, confirmed my suspicion that every one of the communication industry’s tech giants such as Facebook, Google, Apple and…
Scott Noble is an extraordinarily productive filmmaker who has built up an impressive treasure trove of documentaries at Metanoia Films. The films deal with topics such as the plutocracy’s determination to entrench and maintain its power and wealth through myriad means — among them psychological ops, black ops, propaganda, disinformation, and more.
Guillermo Jimenez Presents Michael Maharrey
On this edition of De-Manufacturing Consent: Guillermo is joined by Michael Maharrey, National Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center. Maharrey provides an update on the progress of the Off Now campaign to “nullify the NSA” at the state and local level, where victories have been won, and which states and corporations have provided the most resistance.
