The more I read about what, where, when, why and how Snowden came to find out about the scope of the NSA intelligence gathering – the more I accept there was no other way for him to reveal the entire mess.  
(Via The Guardian) Edward Snowden, the former security contractor who leaked a trove of National Security Agency documents, welcomed a court ruling on Monday that declared the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records to be a likely violation of the US constitution.

Snowden said the ruling, by a US district judge, justified his disclosures. “I acted on my belief that the NSA’s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts,” he said in comments released through Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist who received the documents from Snowden.
“Today, a secret program authorised by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many,” said Snowden, whose statement was first reported by the New York Times. (more…)

FYI – I’m looking for the actual written ruling to share.

Federal judge rules that NSA's program of gathering data on all telephone calls made in the US is unconstitutional – @PeteWilliamsNBC

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance program that collects millions of Americans’ telephone records may be unconstitutional.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled in a lawsuit brought by conservative activist Larry Klayman that the legal challenge to the massive surveillance program — disclosed in full earlier this year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — would likely succeed.
Leon, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, issued a preliminary injunction against the program but suspended the order to allow an appeal by the Justice Department, which said it was reviewing the decision. (more…)

Fitting this comes out today – considering we posted this earlier.
(Via WeaselZippers)  Apparently the NSA has been bugging the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, since 2002. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, President Barack Obama told Merkel on Saturday that he would have stopped the bugging had he known about it.
https://twitter.com/boulevard_blum/statuses/394248326939680768
However, Bild is reporting that not only did Obama know about the bugging, but that he himself personally ok’d it in 2010, and stepped up surveillance on Merkel, calling for a “comprehensive dossier” on her.  According to Bild:  (continue reading)

Once you get in the car, you can’t get off ’til the ride’s over…

You have probably seen multiple written accounts, stories and publish articles, recently about a growing international backlash.   This stems from revelations that under the specific direction of President Obama  the NSA (National Security Agency) has been spying upon a growing contingent of international leaders. 
Our allies are furious with the NSA for spying on them and their respective leaders.   Consequently U.S. credibility and trust has been deconstructed.
Indeed, by recent count the list of Allied Western nations rising in open opposition to President Obama, and his administration, stands around 35.  That’s THIRTY FIVE.
It is against that bold and visible backdrop we wish to draw back your attention.

In July of 2012, during his Term-two presidential bid, President Obama gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nevada. His speech was specifically constructed to outline his accomplishments:

“Because we’re leading around the world, people have a new attitude toward America.” “There’s more confidence in our leadership. We see it everywhere we go.”
– Barack Obama July 2012

At the time many of us just about fell out of our seats. With quick dispatch, and working purely from immediate memory, we outlined the following:

[2012]  There are many administration claims that I shake my head when I hear, but this one is perhaps the worst. It is a complete and utter fallacy to proclaim President Obama’s foreign policy has been even remotely successful. This is just freestyle off the top of my head, but consider: (more…)

Second anniversary of this 2011 post:
You’ll never get a clue what’s being done to, and within, this country from the complicit “mainstream” media. But a KGB expert who defected to the good guys was explaining it for us back in the 80s. Yuri Bezmenov tried to warn us:
Stage One: Demoralization – Elimination of American Exceptionalism, fundamental change of national identity, structural deconstruction of foundational principles, elimination of religion. Embedding a new societal design upon the psyche of generations through ideological academia. Peer pressure by elites upon academics and society to convince that prior values were inherently flawed, racist, prejudiced etc. National identity is diluted with aspersions toward historical references. National history is re-written, re-defined, and molded to fit the new intended behavioral model and create the new values.
The YouTube ID of _Iz3VjoHXLA#! is invalid.
Stage Two: Destabilization  – Creation of economic, financial, and national security crisis. Also includes social crisis and breakdown of previous self-evident restrictions on moral behavior. Cloward Piven approach to overloading the system, ie more takers than producers. The crisis produces benevolent leaders who will promise to deliver “things” (Hope and Change) to meet people’s needs through Social and Economic Justice. False illusions that the situation is under control if certain strategic directions are followed (Bailouts, Stimulus, Jobs Bills, Regulations of industry, Unconstitutional Power Grabs, Dismissal of Historical Laws, Changes in legislative processes, Changes in checks and balances of power etc). (more…)

Now that we have affirmation on WHY the website does not work. Lets take a look at how it’s put together and follow the network.  (HatTip Fantasia for some links)

Sometimes looking into the engineering side of the new Obamacare Cyber Construction (Rabbit Hole) makes you wonder…..

In 2010 when the ACA (Obamacare) was passed it was 2,700 pages, 381,517 words, formulating a bill that no-one read before it was voted on; and “we’d have to pass it to see what’s in it”.
In 2013 Obamacare, and the accompanying regulation which compromise it’s construct, is now 10,535 pages long (11,588,500 words).  Thirty times larger than the initial construct and so massive that no-one knows what it all means in totality.
So a website to sign people up for it needed to be constructed.

Where did the feds turn?  To a previously authorized cyber engineering firm, CGI, who held a very special status –  “Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity.”   As the Washington Examiner outlined: (more…)

Regardless of what you think of him – REMINDER:  We would never know, nor be having this conversation, were it not for Snowden.
WASHINGTON DC – The National Security Agency’s (NSA) reach covers about 75 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic through a slew of partnerships with some of the largest telecom companies in the country, according to a Wall Street Journal report released late Tuesday.
According to the report, gathered from interviews with current and former government officials and telecom industry workers, telecom companies like AT&T filter the data for the NSA, but in looking for communications that begin or end outside of the country, often sweep up unrelated domestic communications.
In addition, the surveillance network at times retains the content of emails and phone calls sent between U.S. citizens as part of a dragnet meant to capture correspondences between foreign targets.
The NSA defended the practice, telling the Journal that if domestic communications are “incidentally collected during NSA’s lawful signals intelligence activities,” that the agency follows “minimization procedures that are approved by the U.S. attorney general and designed to protect the privacy of United States persons.” (read more)
(more…)

Additionally the FISA court admits today it has to rely on the information presented to it when it determines legal authority. Also, the court has no mechanism to check the claims brought to it by the NSA or Justice Dept. One example is outlined in the Washington Post article.
(WASHINGTON POST)  The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (more…)