And just for a little more fun and outrage, from WaPo:
‘The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.
Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.
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.’
But never fear: a spokesflack for the NSA said, “We are not interested in personal information about ordinary Americans.” And remember the words of General BeamMeUp: ““You need the haystack to find the needle.”
Aaaaand… from the Guardian live blog of gathering Snowden revelation stories, Western Australia Today is reporting that:
‘Australian authorities gathered more than 300,000 contact lists on a single day from personal email and instant messaging accounts, on behalf of the US National Security Agency, a new report has claimed.’
And while the Aussie government hasn’t ‘fessed up to being the ‘DS’ they assume stands for the spy agency, the former Defence Signals Directorate, given that the US has drone staging bases in AU, we can prolly bet the bank on it being so. Also, that the FISA court doesn’t allow for recording, storage, investigation of ‘US citizens’, the NSA can claim ‘We’re Innocent’ given that the sources of USian communications are…foreign, according to the intel and communications agencies (Five Eyes, and more), who are just ‘helpin’ out’ (ya know: Good Samaritans and all that rot…) The dodge language is bolded by me.
‘The NSA has not been authorised by US Congress or the special intelligence court that oversees foreign surveillance to collect contact lists in bulk, and senior intelligence officials said it would be illegal to do so from facilities in the United States. The agency avoids the restrictions in the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by intercepting contact lists from access points “all over the world”, one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a classified program. “None of those are on US territory.”
Because of the method employed, the agency is not legally required or technically able to restrict its intake to contact lists belonging to specified foreign intelligence targets, he said.
When information passes through “the overseas collection apparatus”, the official added, “the assumption is you’re not a US person.“
But the big news that came in with LUV news this a.m. is that Greenwald’s leaving the guardian to head a new news organization funded by someone named pierre omidyar, at least according to reuters via buzzfeed.
And common dreams is reporting:
‘Greenwald: ‘Most Shocking’ NSA Stories Yet to Come:
Greenwald, Snowden in daily contact to reveal massive trove of revelations’
“The new stories, Greenwald said, should be expected in international media in the coming months. The first will include details of U.S. spying in France and Spain, similar to revelations of U.S. spying in Brazil that has angered the Brazilian government and set off a chain of tense exchanges between the two.
Greenwald also noted that he is in daily contact with Edward Snowden, as well as with the Berlin-based U.S. filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has been working with him on the NSA stories. Together they are carefully sifting through the “thousands and thousands” of NSA documents yet to shock the world, said Greenwald.
“We are undertaking high-risk journalism. We shall continue doing so until we publish the last document I have,” Greenwald recently told a Brazilian congressional panel investigating the allegations that Washington spied on Brazil.”
Go get em, glenn, but stay safe.
The reuters piece only said that: “Omidyar’s active Twitter account suggests he is very concerned about the government spying programs exposed by Greenwald and Snowden.” his twitter page sounds at least a bit encouraging, and he notes that (meh) jay rosen wrote up a phone interview with him here.
But please; do read Ray McGovern’s piece on this event; it should be nailed to countless doors that open into the Oligarch’s castles. I could kiss ya right on the mouth, Ray!
“I’ve had a couple of days to reflect after arriving back from Moscow where my whistleblower colleagues Coleen Rowley, Jesselyn Radack, Tom Drake and I formally presented former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden with the annual Sam Adams Associates award for integrity in intelligence.”
Meanwhile, some seriously bittersweet news:
‘Aaron Swartz’s last gift to journalism and online privacy finds a new home’
“Before Aaron Swartz‘s suicide in January, he had nearly completed work with Wired’s Kevin Poulsen on a secure system to accept messages and documents from anonymous sources over the Internet. The result of that effort was DeadDrop, an open- source python platform. The system assigns each source a unique code name so a relationship can be established without news organizations ever knowing the source’s identity.
Poulsen managed the program for the first six months since going public six months ago. On Tuesday, the Freedom of the Press Foundation announced it will be taking over the project, renaming it SecureDrop and providing on-site installation for news organizations along with ongoing technical support.”
Rest in Peace, Aaron Swartz. We hate that they drove you to suicide.
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Into the Obamanable umbra of OUR generation, we must again,
boy, howdy: sunshine. mr. wd said that he heard npr on the way home, and even that organization reported on the snatched contact lists. *even* being the operative word.
but the big news that came in with LUV news this a.m. is that Greenwald’s leaving the guardian to head a new news organization funded by someone named pierre omidyar, at least according to reuters via buzzfeed. I’ll go read more and be back.
and common dreams is reporting:
‘Greenwald: ‘Most Shocking’ NSA Stories Yet to Come:
Greenwald, Snowden in daily contact to reveal massive trove of revelations’
“The new stories, Greenwald said, should be expected in international media in the coming months. The first will include details of U.S. spying in France and Spain, similar to revelations of U.S. spying in Brazil that has angered the Brazilian government and set off a chain of tense exchanges between the two.
Greenwald also noted that he is in daily contact with Edward Snowden, as well as with the Berlin-based U.S. filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has been working with him on the NSA stories. Together they are carefully sifting through the “thousands and thousands” of NSA documents yet to shock the world, said Greenwald.
“We are undertaking high-risk journalism. We shall continue doing so until we publish the last document I have,” Greenwald recently told a Brazilian congressional panel investigating the allegations that Washington spied on Brazil.”
go get em, glenn, but stay safe. aaaaaaooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhmmmm.
there’s also a good article on common dreams about an award given to Snowden, by R. McGovern. you probably saw it.
people are numb to the criminality of the political and business leaders of the planet.
I guess the idea that nothing can be done to stop these things is the most important lesson that they try to pound into people. hence the crushing of occupy.
i did see it mentioned on different people’s twitter feeds, mafr, but hadn’t read it. looks majorly kickass, though. someone had a video of it at my.fdl, iirc.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/15-8
yes, getting out from under the propaganda we’ve been fed forever is one of the hardest tasks for us, which is where the revolution of higher consciousness fits into the overall future for us on turtle island, i think.
as che pasa said, occupy was indeed terrifying to the oligarchs for exactly that reason, plus the applications of a ‘newly imagined better world’ in which we were accountable to one another, and not subservient to the Machine that was chewing us up, then spitting us out after its mastication had sucked away our value to it.
yeah, this really does seem to be a make-or-break time, but even though the rest of the world may have to provide the templates for de-americanizing (in the sense of the US Imperial Machine), we may eventually catch the spirit here, too. if not, it would be hard to argue that we don’t *collectively* deserve our eventual fate.
Thank you for what you do individually and contribute collectively:
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/10/climate-chaos-in-four-minutes-a-video-update/
DESIDERATA, InDeed.
That Olmidyar guy is an original founder of eBay. So, plenty of money there, but what the businessman’s agenda might be is not so clear. I no longer believe in or expect heroes, but Greenwald is about the best we are ever going to get, IMO, so I am cautiously optimistic that he will make a big difference in the way journalism gets practiced.
dear bruce; we thank you collectively. ;~) (dunno quite what you meant, lol).
that video looks very interesting, and whooosh: nature bats last; holy hell, what framing.
quite a musical production that was; lord have mercy, indeed. one of the only biblical discussions i remember well from a book was some rabbis arguing over a passage, and after days and days, they finally decided that in the particular context, ‘thou shalt’ translated more properly as ‘thous mayest’, indicating, of course: choice. and that’s kinda where we are now, eh?
sorry, too, cuz i enjoyed the fifth dimension song. but that was the test piece for writing in some new css code to change the video sizes in posts and comments. i’ve been fiddling with it for several weeks now, and finally received the right help, after many aggravations. all of which is by way of saying that i’m going to delete it. sorry…
well, hello, stranger. so nice to see you, and i know they don’t get much stranger than you. ;~) srsly, welcome back.
yes to all you said, and damn; i’d meant to put all the greenwald news into the OP, but got too busy with that other life… i will soon as i can.
the reuters piece only said that: “Omidyar’s active Twitter account suggests he is very concerned about the government spying programs exposed by Greenwald and Snowden.” his twitter page sounds at least a bit encouraging, and he notes that (meh) jay rosen wrote up a phone interview with him here.
as a return gift for you, darlin’:
Guess he’s gonna be beamed up soon:
“NSA director Keith Alexander and deputy expected to depart in early 2014
Alexander, who was rocked by Edward Snowden’s revelations, has formalized plans to leave by next March or April, officials say”
‘Make it so(ooner)!’
Shorter Guy: We just(ly) need to keep on Keepin’ ON; at what we’re best at individually, and together. When our better angels begin to weep, some mood swing up appeared needed; perhaps, this upswing by “Liltin’ Tilton” (it gets a little frenetic toward the end in catching up to the spirit of OUR Times).
yes, my better angels have indeed been weeping. not only the fdl stuff, but cuz of a host of emails over the past few days that have found me…wanting. i was askin’ mr. wd before we slept last night one of those rhetorical questions about why it’s so fucking hard to be a decent, conscious person even when ya think you’re tryin’ so hard. he laughed, thank goodness.
my angel, coyote angel, says, “i’m not the kind of angel that gives advice; i just listen”. nice tune, thank you, bruce.
Wow, more homework, wendye! I love it. I have only looked at the first video and already I am seeing (in my mind’s eye of course) the effect the Petrobras revelations is having on the people of Canada – very much similar to what I’ve been reading down under, though there mainstream media is so far trying to dampen the public outrage and pretend it isn’t happening. One can see that governments could fall on these issues, particularly as now world economy is being attacked, not just citizen’s privacy.
Forgive me for being optimistic, but I am seeing “the answers, my friend, are blowin’ in the wind; the answers are blowing in the wind” in a much more hopeful, (dare I say radiant?) light.
Bravo, Ray McGovern!
“…There are means which cannot be excused.”
“… Today everything is changed and even silence has dangerous implications.”
No wonder those faces in Moscow radiated promise! I am minded that many countries in disarray have found leadership among the exiled, some more happily than others. We should study all such instances and learn from those that did not work out well, along with those that did. The example in the speeches of Benjamin Franklin and word he brought to the colonists that they were second class citizens in imperial British eyes is a cogent case in point.
[Not to mention Camus, of course. Now this is the kind of liberal I aspire to be – a liberal artist!]
On Aaron Swartz’s poignant story, I take a little heart in the following manner:
At least, national mainstream news has begun to focus on a similar story – a life needlessly brutalized to the point of being snuffed out when potential was there to do wonderful things for the community. Less obvious perhaps in the current case, but a member of those we love to hate, the police force, has spoken and acted to make an example of the kind of bullying that Mr. Swartz endured – on a lesser scale for sure, but how do you quantify when the result is suicide? The young woman who suffered this was equally a potential hero of our times, and I am glad mainstream is making a point to carry the story. Pity they didn’t do the same for Aaron, but perhaps his example helped bring this case to the attention of our ‘newsgivers’ in the end.
Thank you for the Martha Tilton, Bruce! Year before I was born, so no doubt one of my womb-based melodies. Could be wendye’s theme song, eh?
Indeed. Her angelic 1956 version formed some of my first memorable melodies, along with “Your Hit Parade’s” mournful “Wayward Wind” synched by Giselle McKenzie and Elvis’ border-blasted “Such A Night”, soaring beneath fifties’ American DEW (Defense Early Warning) line. Better Angels, ALL.
foot tapper
i’ll forgive your optimism, juliania, but this is another in-between time, a ‘Waiting Is’ time, the space between two floors, i reckon. the answers have always blown in the wind, but too many have been too deaf to hear the songs of freedom (not knowing that they were/are caged). it was a bit why i wrote the propaganda piece. and of course the din is all the partisan finger-pointing about the debt ceiling, next will be the budget CR, the grand bargains effected, but cloaked as…some other bad prose by President White Teeth.
so…we’ll see, and do what we can, eh? can we collectively change the poisons into medicine, including the radioactive and fracked ones? bring on the wonder, and the ‘secret life of water’!
and my theme song might be more the ‘i can’t find my way home’ one up yonder, lol.
added: from where i sit, it looks increasingly doubtful that fdl will be a place to help knit a nonviolent revolution now, or into the future. looks as though the intention is for it to be more akin to a ‘progressive huffpo’ or something. professional film and music folks, all new invitees.
and yes, a toe-tapper, mafr. where did we hear songs like that? i know i waited tables for a glenn miller orchestra show once, but that was in the late ’60’s, long after their heyday. but you’ve reminded me a another big band: ___, ___, social club band. can’t recall the name. but they were either cubano, mexicano, or something. ping a memory?
professional film and music folks, all new invitees.
I don’t follow what they are doing there, they lost Dave Dayen, now Fatster, Jane Hamsher rarely writes anything there, and it’s becoming somewhat boring. too bad Jane has no interest in writing, she’s good at it.
I’m losing interest in that site.
no don’t remember the band you mentioned. The blind Canadian blues guitar player (forget name) used to host a radio show where he played old music from the twenties and thirties, probably where I heard that tune. Or the jazz series by the American documentary film maker.
my take is that she (or her team) are bummed about the dearth of site clicks (half of what there were a year ago), and have drawn the wrong conclusions, or at least imo, and are in search of a different demographic. i bafflingly caused a kerfuffle by asking a question of a new diarist who’d done a disguised hit piece (again, imo) on lauryn hill. the reactions by the mods and KG made me even more curious, but now ii see why they er…interfered. i googled, and the ones i checked out are definitely pros.
but you forgot emptywheel. all the juice got to be at da ghetto, and maybe…well, who knows?
but hooray and hallelujah! it was the buena vista social club! (thanks for the help, bing…) cubanos.
Well, music can’t save US, but it can salve US for the struggles to stop deploying the literal and figurative Company poison sources (from Global Frackdown http://www.globalfrackdown.org/events/ to Flush TPP, to disobeying orders to use war criminal DU, WP or mace weapons on us citizens, worldwide). Including keeping Strontium 90 out of president Tooth Barry’s Bushsimulacrum smirk for his And OUR Own good). At least the reframing language is becoming radical, again! Now, can our temporal tempo keep pace? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2S1I_ien6A , y’all.
gotta be gene krupa, yes? zounds, that’s hoooooot!
“if they throw a revolution, and i can’t sing sing sing, i don’t want any part of it!”
~ fractured emma goldman
you’re one positive dude today, eh? and juliania’s a positive dudette. we hafta keep the strontium 90 outta his toothpaste, too? ain’t that what makes teeth shine, if not glow in the dark? ‘the tooth barry’, lol. y’all are gonna throw me right outta the club, i’m so glum!
and here i was readin’ about 63% of US fast food workers (in between kitchen chores) bein’ on ‘welfare’. sheeee-it. i shouldda been dancin’!
but see, right now: i’m clancy… and yes, i’ll snap out of it, soldier…
O’Buffalo’d, eh? There is No TRY; DO. They are:
http://madamenoire.com/297196/fast-food-workers-fight-to-super-size-their-wages/
I knew Clancy. I went to the same school as him, which Neil also went to for a year or two. My first, and only guitar teacher played in one of Neil’s bands, Neil Young and the Squires. (one tune by them on youtube) I did not know Neil.
drummers played that drum riff (from the goodman tune) right up into the early sixties. Benny’s dad was a Jewish european immigrant who made his living as a labourer in an abattoir in Chicago. Benny was making more money in a week, when he was a teenager, than his dad made in a month or a year, can’t remember. Benny bought his dad a newspaper stand, which his dad ran till he died. Benny was the first famous band leader to have an integrated (black musicians) band. Charlie Christian, and the vibes player, lionel hampton, Teddy Wilson, pianist. Charlie was the first modern jazz guitar player. His electonics technology is still in demand. lecture over.
any of you see “the president’s analyst”. way ahead of its time.
with all due respect, madamenoir might not know which side she is on, given the content of her blogsite. no follow-up, as in: how many of them were fired, how successful was the strike, or how key is it that customers (not to mention other workers) are informed and supportive?
by default, i’ve been the only diarist covering trade and other union worker issues since bill perdue left. the issue is far more complex than just ‘doing’, imo. i may have written it up, and related issues; dunno, really. please laugh when i say, “i have other links!” that may be helpful.
not krupa then, mafr? just his riff? awesome, in any event. what was the story with clancy, then?
pretty fun how many times i’ve played the benny goodman piece, bruce. it’s a blasting of the genre that opened my beloved, if goof-as-hell, ‘jeeves and wooster’. love the art, too.
yikers, mafr. art preceding life (well, except for the dot introduced into fetuses [she sayed hopefully; x-files devotee here]).
Late night, early morning, just a saying howdy and I see that you have been rearranging the layout and have figured out some of the code for sizing the youtubers. Looking real purdy!
Stayed off the computer for most of the day, worked hard enough to fall asleep in the chair after getting the evening meal together. Up with a hot tea another batch of cloves dehydrating, hoping the rain holds off or is light tomorrow. Distributed produce to a few seniors 20 yrs my senior.
Friends bound for two weeks to Japan, they are taking their iodine supplements and last they heard, the cooling tower tubes were not going to be lifted until 11/12/13. The little bit I’ve been following local politics the last week or so has been the WI Democratic party pick to challenge Scott Walker. That would be Trek bicycle heiress and fat wallet, Mary Burke. DPW is hippie punching to attempt full party compliance, but we off-chart-lefties are pointing to a few flaws that we see. Things like all those bicycles save .5% are manufactured by slave Asian labor, but seemingly do very well for the stateside retailers. Off Topic of your post.
Canadian nationals and indigenous people getting fired up. I suspect more to come. You’d think the RCMP would be protecting the tax-payers. Daylight is a breaking in my soul.
For our bountiful mother:
simply beautiful, nonquixote. i’ll stick up a news video and a few ugly photos soon. the blockades have been goin’ on for several months now, eh? yes, the Indigenous of turtle island are warriors, as are so many Indigenous around the globe, and will lead the way.
mr. wd said amy goodman mentioned the current events yesterday, and censored news is covering it. dunno what happened late last night in elsipintog, but our hearts are with them: mi’kmacs, lakota, mohawks and others.
thank you for getting me off my ass.
nice tunes, from everyone, thanks…. wendydavies you might like Raymond Scott’s music.
Clancy Smith was an oddball guy, who did not fit in, and always seemed to be by himself. That’s all I can remember about him.
too bad those demonstrators, or some or one of them, set a police car on fire; At least the CBC managed to say that there are many people who do not want tracking. could be a NAFTA problem too, with fracking in Canada.
http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2013/10/17/elsipogtog-solidarity-is-spreading-across-canada/
guess that could have triggered thoughts of clancy’s not being able to sing nowadays, if some event were mixed in…
arrgh. i listened to ‘lightworks’ and ‘night and day’. beyond ‘liking’, perhaps.
yes, the molotov cocktails present a problem. just stuck up a video of ellen gabriel trying to speak to it. her words reminded me of the angela davis interview DN aired: ‘and you ask ME about violence?’ tough calls for so many who have been the objects of state violence forever… damn.
Test.