Police State

NSA whistleblower Snowden to seek asylum in Ecuador.

""He goes to the very countries that have, at best, very tense relationships with the United States," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., adding that she feared Snowden would trade more U.S. secrets for asylum. "This is not going to play out well for the national security interests of the United States.""

Because everybody else has extradition treaties. He's trying to escape oppression, so he has to go to countries that resist the US. And I doubt these countries will demand any more info. I'm sure they're happy to protect this guy from the US given what he's already released.

Snowden seems to be missing, and the US is angry.

"In the name of “democracy promotion” efforts in places like China, Iran, Belarus, and elsewhere, the US government has spent millions of dollars providing tools and training to “dissidents” so that they could burrow into their governments and expose abuses and human rights violations. When these governments crack down on the activists acting on US instructions, the US issues another State Department Human Rights report detailing the troubling decline in democracy in said country.

When Snowden reports on his government’s abuses, however, he is charged with espionage – of aiding the enemy. But who is the enemy?"

What hypocritical scams.

The prosecution of Snowden has nothing to do with preventing espionage or keeping us safe.

"What they hate are leaks that embarrass them or expose their wrongdoing. Those are the only kinds of leaks that are prosecuted. It's a completely one-sided and manipulative abuse of secrecy laws. It's all designed to ensure that the only information we as citizens can learn is what they want us to learn because it makes them look good. The only leaks they're interested in severely punishing are those that undermine them politically. The "enemy" they're seeking to keep ignorant with selective and excessive leak prosecutions are not The Terrorists or The Chinese Communists. It's the American people.
The Terrorists already knew, and have long known, that the US government is doing everything possible to surveil their telephonic and internet communications. The Chinese have long known, and have repeatedly said, that the US is hacking into both their governmental and civilian systems (just as the Chinese are doing to the US). The Russians have long known that the US and UK try to intercept the conversations of their leaders just as the Russians do to the US and the UK.
They haven't learned anything from these disclosures that they didn't already well know. The people who have learned things they didn't already know are American citizens who have no connection to terrorism or foreign intelligence, as well as hundreds of millions of citizens around the world about whom the same is true. What they have learned is that the vast bulk of this surveillance apparatus is directed not at the Chinese or Russian governments or the Terrorists, but at them.
And that is precisely why the US government is so furious and will bring its full weight to bear against these disclosures. What has been "harmed" is not the national security of the US but the ability of its political leaders to work against their own citizens and citizens around the world in the dark, with zero transparency or real accountability. If anything is a crime, it's that secret, unaccountable and deceitful behavior: not the shining of light on it."

Exactly.

I like this comparison of Snowden to Paul Revere. The NSA is trying to prevent people like Sam Adams and Paul Revere from threatening their modern tyranny.

"As McClatchy News reports, the Obama administration – already surpassing all previous administrations combined in their relentless prosecution of whistle-blowers – is cracking down hard within the government to make information of all kinds unavailable to the public, including the press. Tyranny percolates best in the dark, especially when the transition from a constitutional republic to democratic despotism is still in process. And we are right at that conjuncture when it’s still possible to stop it – which is why we’re getting a virtually united bipartisan Establishment pushing back hard against Snowden, Greenwald, and those who support them. "

I don't think there's time to stop it.

More on the TWA Flight 800 cover-up. More.

Obama orders federal employees to spy on each other to stop whistleblowers.

Australian ruling coalition rejects NSA-style ubiquitous surveillance right before an election it seems likely to lose.

Privacy and security services to protect your communication from PRISM.