Redefining English: Senator Feinstein Says The Press Needs To Stop Calling Patriot Act Surveillance Program A 'Surveillance Program'

TechDirt - 9/26/13, Mike Masnick

In an open Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today, in which Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, NSA boss Keith Alexander and Deputy Attorney General James Cole all got to talk up how important spying on everyone is, there was an incredible moment in which Intelligence Committee boss Senator Dianne Feinstein scolded not these bosses of the surveillance program, but the press for calling it a surveillance program.

More: TechDirt.com

By: Realnews24, 08/21/2013

A US military judge has sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison. Manning faced up to 90 years behind bars, while prosecutors sought to put the whistleblower away for a minimum of six decades. Manning will be credited with the 1,294 days he spent in pre-trial confinement plus an additional 112 days. He was also dishonorably discharged, saw his rank reduced to private from private first class and was forced to forfeit all pay and benefits. No additional fine, however, was levied against him. Manning will have to serve a third of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.

For more on this story visit www.realnews24.com

Commondreams.org, By: Jacob Chamberlain, 08/04/2013

Thousands of people are expected to rally in cities across the U.S. on Sunday in protest of the National Security Agency's recently exposed dragnet surveillance programs, in what organizers from the group Restore the Fourth are calling 1984 Day.

Protesters in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, St. Louis, Raleigh, Austin, and other cities have scheduled marches, rallies, and other events to "draw attention to the NSA’s unconstitutional surveillance programs," in the name of protecting the principles of the U.S. constitution's fourth amendment.

For more on this story visit www.commondreams.org

Shiftfrequency.com, By: Christina Sarish, 07/03/2013

Glenn Greenwald, Guardian journalist who broke the NSA surveillance story showing the extent of the expansion of domestic spying under Barack Obama, tells Fox and Friends that more is coming and the world “will be shocked” by the upcoming next bombshell.

 Greenwald states “I will say that there are vast programs, both domestic and international spying, that the world will be shocked to learn about, that the NSA is engaged in with no democratic accountability and that’s what driving our reporting.” He continues “I think what the Obama administration wants, and has been trying to establish for the last almost five years now with the unprecedented war on whistleblowers that it is waging, and to make it so that everybody is petrified of coming forward with information about what our political officials are doing in the dark that is deceitful, illegal or corrupt.”

For more on this story visit www.shiftfrequency.com

By: RT.com, 07/02/2013

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden’s father has published an open letter praising his son’s contributions in exposing the United States’ vast surveillance operations. According to the Associated Press, Lonnie Snowden celebrated his son’s work "summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny." The letter was reportedly penned by the leaker’s dad and Bruce Fein, a Washington, DC-based attorney who has represented CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou.

Publishing of the open letter comes less than 24 hours after Edward Snowden issued a statement through the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks from Moscow, where he has spent eight days so far awaiting potential asylum from one of more than a dozen countries he’s pleaded with for assistance. President Barack Obama has asked for Snowden to be extradited to the US, and the Department of Justice has indicted him on counts of espionage for disclosing state secrets involving the NSA’s clandestine surveillance programs.

For more on this story visit www.rt.com