CHINESE DISSIDENT URGES STRONG EMPHASIS ON UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

From the Princetonian — “[Chen Guangcheng’s] plan includes establishing a database of human rights violators, increasing international funding for software that breaks down firewalls as a means to promote internet freedom, encouraging nations to demand that the Chinese government end religious persecution and the “one-child policy,” forming an inter-parliamentary body on human rights, calling on legal experts to publicly support human rights lawyers in China and asking American citizens to contact their representatives in support of these measures…” (Link below)

http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2013/10/chinese-dissident-chen-guangcheng-advocates-universal-human-rights/

NSA LEAKS REPORTER TO LAUNCH INDEPENDENT NEWS VENTURE

From report: “Glenn Greenwald, an American living in Brazil, said the new project will be “a very well-funded…very substantial new media outlet.”  He added that “my role, aside from reporting and writing for it, is to create the entire journalism unit from the ground up by recruiting the journalists and editors who share the same journalistic ethos and shaping the whole thing – but especially the political journalism part – in the image of the journalism I respect most,” he told BuzzFeed.” (Link below) …

http://rt.com/news/greenwald-guardian-news-project-242/

 

AN EPITAPH FOR MAINSTREAM JOURNALISM – ‘WE SUBMITTED TO THE STATE’

From investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian: 

“Like many people, I’ve spent years writing and speaking about the lethal power-subservient pathologies plaguing establishment journalism in the west. But this morning, I feel a bit like all of that was wasted time and energy, because this new column by career British journalist Chris Blackhurst – an executive with and, until a few months ago, the editor of the UK daily calling itself “The Independent” – contains a headline that says everything that needs to be said about the sickly state of establishment journalism:

“In other words, if the government tells me I shouldn’t publish something, who am I as a journalist to disobey? Put that on the tombstone of western establishment journalism. It perfectly encapsulates the death spiral of large journalistic outlets…” (Link below)

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/14/independent-epitaph-establishment-journalism

 

NSA HARVESTS MILLIONS OF EMAIL, INSTANT MESSAGING CONTACT LISTS GLOBALLY

From the Washington Post: “During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year. Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts. The collection depends on secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or allied intelligence services in control of facilities that direct traffic along the Internet’s main data routes….” (Link below) …

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-collects-millions-of-e-mail-address-books-globally/2013/10/14/8e58b5be-34f9-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html?hpid=z1

ASSANGE: SNOWDEN SAFE, JOURNALISTS AREN’T; GOOGLE COZY WITH US SURVEILLANCE

RT Interview with WikiLeaks Jullian Assange:  “Edward Snowden is safe in Russia, but the fates of journalists who helped him and published his leaks are now of more concern for WikiLeaks, Julian Assange said in an exclusive interview with RT Spanish ‘Behind the News’ host Eva Golinger. Assange also shared his views on the NSA scandal in Latin America and the future of freedom of information.  He criticized the US and the White House for abusing its power more than any other administration in history, stressing that President Obama has prosecuted twice as many journalists under the espionage act as all previous US presidents combined since 1917…” (Link to interview below)

http://on.rt.com/ka76cl

U.S. WHISTLEBLOWERS HONOR SNOWDEN AS FATHER ARRIVES IN RUSSIA

Washington Post report — “MOSCOW — Four whistleblowing advocates from the United States met with Edward Snowden in Moscow Wednesday and gave him an award for truth-telling — a provocative gesture, given that the U.S. government has accused Snowden of causing grave harm to national security. The activists from the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, an organization of former national security officials, praised Snowden for shining light on a secret government surveillance program…” (link below to story)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/snowdens-father-arrives-in-moscow/2013/10/10/ec4f6c32-3182-11e3-ad00-ec4c6b31cbed_story.html

THE DUPLICITY OF EVIL …

A comment:

For all the power they seek, it’s astonishing the naivete on the part of the nihilist death-dealing systems, the constant war for absolute or near-absolute control, brutalizing human lives and natural resources for suicidal gain. They play right into the hands of the evil that will betray them.

 

SCAHILL, GREENWALD PROBING NSA LINK TO USA ‘ASSASSINATION PROGRAM’

Report from Common Dreams: “[Investigative] journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald on Saturday night announced that they are now working together on joint investigation on how the U.S. National Security Agency has been involved in the wider overseas ‘assassination program’ run by the Obama administration.

“As the Associated Press reports from Rio de Janeiro—where Greenwald and Scahill attended the South American premiere of Dirty Wars, a documentary film based on Scahill’s book of the same name—the U.S. journalists ‘known for their investigations of the United States’ government’ have now ‘teamed up to report’ on how the vast surveillance network of the NSA operates in conjunction with clandestine operations run by the U.S. military or CIA.

“‘The connections between war and surveillance are clear. I don’t want to give too much away but Glenn and I are working on a project right now that has at its center how the National Security Agency plays a significant, central role in the U.S. assassination program,’ said Scahill, according to AP, while speaking at a roundtable discussion at the Rio Film Festival…”   (Link to report below)

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/09/29

NSA GRAPHS US CITIZENS’ SOCIAL CONNECTIONS

NY Times report: “The spy agency [NSA} began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor…” (Link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

AMERICAN JOURNALIST, FAMILY DETAINED & HARASSED AT US BORDER

REPORT:  “A producer with National Public Radio’s “On the Media” program says the US Customs and Border Patrol agents who interrogated her and her friends and family while they attempted to return to the States following a recent wedding in Toronto, Ontario were anything but courteous. Sarah Abdurrahman told NPR that she attempted to cross into the US at Niagara Falls earlier this month on Labor Day when CBP agents stopper her entire party and subjected them to around six hours of questioning. All six people in the car were American citizens, she said.” (Full story at link below) …

http://on.rt.com/kgp88t