Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so
USA Today | author | 06/16/13

When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government's collection of Americans' phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief

Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way. ... Read more

Inside 'Prism' Success: Even Bigger Data Seizure
HP | Stephen Braun | 06/15/13

In the months and early years after 9/11, FBI agents began showing up at Microsoft Corp. more frequently than before, armed with court orders demanding information on customers. ...

... But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort.   Americans who disapprove of the government reading their emails have more to worry about from a different and larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone. ... Read more

New Leak Indicates Britain and U.S. Tracked Diplomats
NYTimes | Scott Shane | 06/16/13

A new set of classified documents disclosed Sunday suggested that Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has provided a trove of documents to The Guardian newspaper, had obtained a wider range of materials about government surveillance than had been known, including one document revealing how American and British intelligence agencies had eavesdropped on world leaders at conferences in London in 2009. ... Read more

G20 summits: Russia and Turkey react with fury to spying revelations
TheGuardian | Julian Borger | 06/17/13

Turkey, South Africa and Russia have reacted angrily to the British government demanding an explanation for the revelations that their politicians and senior officials were spied on and bugged during the 2009 G20 summit in London.

... The Guardian revealed that the UK secret wiretapping agency, GCHQ, targeted Mehmet Simsek, the Turkish finance minister and a former Merrill banker, during a G20 economics meeting hosted in London in September 2009. It also considered monitoring the communications of 15 named members of his staff and of Turkey's central bank. ...

... oscow Russian officials said the Guardian revelation that US spies had intercepted top-secret communications of Dmitry Medvedev at a G20 summit in London in April 2009 would further harm the struggling US-Russia relationship and cast a shadow over the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday and Tuesday. ... Read more

The Making of a Global Security State, The Five Uncontrollable Urges of a Secrecy-Surveillance World
TomDispatch | Tom Engelhardt | 06/16/13

1. The Urge to be Global
2. The Urge to Make You Transparent
3. The Urge to Make Themselves Opaque
4. The Urge to Expand
5. The Urge to Leak
Read more

Fracking Is Already Straining U.S. Water Supplies
ThinkPrograss | Tom Kenworthy | 06/15/13

As the level of hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells in the United States has intensified in recent years, much of the mounting public concern has centered on fears that underground water supplies could be contaminated with the toxic chemicals used in the well-stimulation technique that cracks rock formations and releases trapped oil and gas. But in some parts of the country, worries are also growing about fracking's effect on water supply, as the water-intensive process stirs competition for the resources already stretched thin by drought or other factors.   Every fracking job requires 2 million to 4 million gallons of water, according to the Groundwater Protection Council. ... Read more

PRISM Is Just Part Of A Much Larger, Scarier Government Surveillance Program
AP | BusinessInsider | Stephen Braun | 06/15/13

Around the world, government spies and eavesdroppers were tracking the email and Internet addresses used by suspected terrorists. Often, those trails led to the world's largest software company and, at the time, largest email provider.   The agents wanted email archives, account information, practically everything, and quickly. Engineers compiled the data, sometimes by hand, and delivered it to the government.

... Inside Microsoft, some called it "Hoovering" -- not after the vacuum cleaner, but after J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, who gathered dirt on countless Americans.   This frenetic, manual process was the forerunner to Prism, the recently revealed highly classified National Security Agency program that seizes records from Internet companies. As laws changed and technology improved, the government and industry moved toward a streamlined, electronic process, which required less time from the companies and provided the government data in a more standard format. ...

... But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort. ... Read more

DN | Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Tuesday, June 18 [14:15]

*DN | Glenn Greenwald: As Obama Makes "False" Surveillance Claims, Snowden Risks Life to Spark NSA Debate (06/18/13) []

*Charlie Rose | President Obama On NSA leaks, Syria, Iran & China. (06/17/13) [50:47]

*USAToday | 3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so (06/17/13) [9:11]

*Bill Moyers | Lawrence Lessig: Big Brother's Prying Eyes (06/14/13) [56:47]

PBS Frontline | Syria Behind the Lines (04/03/13) [53:41]

*60 Minutes | Taking down Colombia's "super cartel" (06/16/13) [13:03]

*Rotting, Decaying And Bankrupt -- If You Want To See The Future Of America Just Look At Detroit
ZeroHedge | author | 06/17/13

Eventually the money runs out. Much of America was shocked when the city of Detroit defaulted on a $39.7 million debt payment and announced that it was suspending payments on $2.5 billion of unsecured debt, but those who visit my site on a regular basis were probably not too surprised. Anyone with half a brain and a calculator could see this coming from a mile away.

But what Detroit is facing is not really that unique. In fact, Detroit is a perfect example of what the future of America is going to look like. We live in a nation that is rotting, decaying, drowning in debt and racing toward insolvency. Already there are dozens of other cities across the nation that are poverty-ridden, crime-infested hellholes just like Detroit is, and hundreds of other communities are rapidly heading in that direction. So don't look down on Detroit. They just got there before the rest of us. ...