Monday, June 10, 2013

Europeans Demand Answers on Obama Administration's Secret Intelligence-Gathering Programs

Wow, the story keeps getting bigger and more complicated.

From the Guardian's lede tomorrow morning, "Obama pressured over NSA snooping as US senator denounces 'act of treason'":
Barack Obama was facing a mounting domestic and international backlash against US surveillance operations on Monday as the administration struggled to contain one of the most explosive national security leaks in US history.

Political opinion in the US was split with some members of Congress calling for the immediate extradition from Hong Kong of the whistleblower, Edward Snowden. But other senior politicians in both main parties questioned whether US surveillance practices had gone too far.

Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the national intelligence committee, has ordered the NSA to review how it limits the exposure of Americans to government surveillance. But she made clear her disapproval of Snowden. "What he did was an act of treason," she said.

Officials in European capitals demanded immediate answers from their US counterparts and denounced the practice of secretly gathering digital information on Europeans as unacceptable, illegal and a serious violation of basic rights. The NSA, meanwhile, has referred Snowden to the Justice Department, and said that it was assessing the damage caused by the disclosures.

Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who revealed secrets of the Vietnam war through the Pentagon Papers in 1971, described Snowden's leak as even more important and perhaps the most significant leak in American history.
Yeah, and the idiot Ellsberg compares the U.S. to East Germany's "Stasi" regime. A nice touch from a traitor.
Guardian photo BMbcog7CMAAl_CRjpg-large_zps0a31ab49.jpeg

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