This will be easier to read here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyunderground/
*BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG MEDIA ON THE ATTACK * ** *Peter King, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, clearly lied <http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-scandal-peter-king-glenn-greenwald-92665.html> with the help of mainstream media, in another attack on Glenn Greenwald, asserting, "Not only did he disclose this information. He has said that he has the names of CIA agents and assets around the world and threatening to disclose that. The last time that was done in this country, we saw a CIA station chief murdered in Greece." * *In fact, Greenwald was more cautious than /LUV News/ would have been about releasing the information from Edward Snowden. We believe that much of the information is not classified to keep it from terrorists, but to keep it from the American people (and if anyone has anything hot, please don't send it to /LUV News/, we are being watched). Nothing Greenwald has released, or, based on following the very responsible Greenwald for years, /nothing he will release/, will endanger government agents nor harm national security. * *We believe Greenwald has much more sensitive information from Snowden, and we hope he isn't being intimidated from releasing it by threats being broadcast over mainstream media. Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, who attended an NSA briefing on this and is sworn to secrecy, says what we've learned to date is "only the tip of the iceberg <http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305047-dem-rep-lawmakers-learned-significantly-more-about-surveillance-programs-in-nsa-briefing>." * *But even some Republicans are upset. "It now appears clear that the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied under oath to Congress and the American people," GOP Congressman Justin Amash said yesterday, calling for Clapper's resignation <http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/305031-rep-amash-calls-for-dni-clapper-to-resign>. * *Meanwhile corporate media are awash with guests on "news" programs screaming that the sky is falling because terrorists now know they are being watched, even as others make wild claims that civilization has been saved because of these spy programs. /The Guardian/ refutes that this morning with a piece titled "NSA surveillance played little role in foiling terror plots, experts say. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/nsa-surveillance-data-terror-attack>"* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *EXPOSING CORPORATE GOVERNMENT * ** *"A broad-based alliance of public interest and other groups is warning that years of attacks by business interests has made the U.S. regulatory so inefficient that public safety is being put at risk," begins a piece this morning from /IPS News/ <http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/u-s-regulatory-system-stymied-by-special-interests/>. * *You would never know it from watching mainstream media, but the average citizen is protected by government regulators far more than they are by the national security folks. Mainstream media and corporate government, on behalf of their controllers-- owners, board members, advertisers and campaign contributors-- have been undermining the government's regulatory agencies for decades in an effort to increase profits for transnational investors and corporations that don't give a damn about this country or its people. * *Which is why we have an unreliable food supply, unsafe workplaces, pharmaceuticals that cause death and disease, polluted air and water, and other horrors sometimes rivaling conditions in third world nations.* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **One of the great puzzles about the Snowden revelations for many has been, "Why Hong Kong?" Dave Lindorff offers the best speculation we've seen, following --Jack Balkwill ** *A Whistleblower Holding All The Cards* Why is Edward Snowden in Hong Kong? <http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/12/why-is-edward-snowden-in-hong-kong/> *by DAVE LINDORFF* *A lot of people in the US media are asking why America's most famous whistleblower, 29-year old Edward Snowden, hied himself off to the city state of Hong Kong, a wholly owned subsidiary of the People's Republic of China, to seek at least temporary refuge.* *Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the US, they say. And as for China, which controls the international affairs of its Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, while granting it local autonomy to govern its domestic affairs, its leaders "may not want to irritate the US" at a time when the Chinese economy is stumbling.* *These people don't have much understanding of either Hong Kong or of China.* *As someone who has spent almost seven years in China and Hong Kong, let me offer my thoughts about why Snowden, obviously a very savvy guy despite his lack of a college education, went where he did.* *First of all, forget about Hong Kong's extradition treaty. When it comes to deciding whether someone will be extradited, particularly for a political crime, as opposed to a simple murder or bank heist, the decision will be made in Beijing, not in a Hong Kong courtroom. Second, Hong Kong has a long history of providing a haven to dissidents --- even to dissidents wanted by the Chinese government. Consider, for example, the Chinese labor movement activist Han Dongfang, who was the subject of a massive dragnet after the Tiananmen protests, but who successfully fled to Hong Kong before the handover of the place from Britain to China, and is continuing to monitor Chinese labor strife and protest from his home on Hong Kong's Lamma Island. Hong Kong also has a public that is very supportive of democratic values --- certainly more so than the majority of American citizens. Hong Kong people may not be paying too much attention to Snowden's situation right now, but if the US were to actively seek to extradite him, I am confident that the place would erupt in support for him, including the local media.* *As for China, while the issue that has Snowden on the run --- exposing an Orwellian spying program targeting the American people and run by the super-secret National Security Agency --- is certainly not one that the Chinese government likes to discuss in terms of their own locked-down society, you can bet that the folks in the Propaganda Bureau in Beijing, and in the inner circle of the government, are rubbing their hands with glee both at the incredible embarrassment their harboring of Snowden causes the hypocritical US, and at the trove of intelligence information he has, which they may be able ultimately to lure him into disclosing if they treat him well.* *Then too, there is the matter of the Confucian concept of gift-giving and mutual obligations. It was, I am sure, no accident that Snowden chose the weekend that President Obama was hosting a summit in California with China's new president Xi Jinping to disclose his identity as the NSA whistleblower who exposed the national spying program to the /Guardian/ and the /Washington Post/. In doing that, he gave President Xi an incredible gift --- the chance to hold the upper hand in his negotiations with a hugely embarrassed and compromised Obama over issues like Chinese computer hacking of US corporate and government secrets, and theft of intellectual property. For of course it is clear that the NSA is at least as active in hacking Chinese computers and spying on Chinese communications.* *Such a gift as that is not easily ignored or forgotten in Chinese culture. President Xi owes Snowden a lot, and I believe he will honor that debt by seeing that Snowden is protected from any threat that might be posed to him by a vindictive or frightened US government.* *But Snowden isn't relying solely on Chinese cultural values to protect himself.* *He was also careful to send a powerful message of warning to the US officials in the videoed public interview he gave <http://www.policymic.com/articles/47355/edward-snowden-interview-transcript-full-text-read-the-guardian-s-entire-interview-with-the-man-who-leaked-prism> [1] outing himself. As he told interviewer Glenn Greenwald, "I had access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all over the world. The locations of every station, we have what their missions are and so forth. If I had just wanted to harm the US? /You could shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon/."* *That one line at the end had to make the folks in Langley and at NSA headquarters sit up straight or to head to the bar for a stiff one! And indeed he could. And I will guarantee you, Snowden being as smart as he is, that he has already taken that information and dispersed it to a number of trusted people, perhaps including Greenwald, with instructions that they should put it all out on the Web if anything happens to him, such as his being kidnapped or disappeared or terminated. It's a wonderful insurance policy and one that would not have escaped him. Nor would he have bothered to discover that he had all that information available to him if he hadn't thought that he might need it.* *It would be a relatively easy matter for the high-tech spooks at the NSA to retrace Snowden's electronic trail to see if he really did download all that super-secret information and really could blow up the entire US spy machine. If they find out that he really has that information, he's basically untouchable.* *The real question is not what they are going to do to Snowden. It's what we Americans are going to do now that we know how truly insane and totalitarian our government has become.* *Will we go back to watching our sports teams and our reality TV programming, and forget about the fact that we no longer have any privacy in our lives, that our elected leaders and our judges are operating on the assumption that if they get out of line the fascist machine at the NSA that works in service of the corporate elite will blackmail or destroy them with its access to all their communications. Or will we rise up and demand an end to this high-tech tyranny in the name of a fraudulent "War" on Terror?* *Snowden exiled himself and gave up a great job in Hawaii in the hope that we would rise up when we learned that our democracy has been hijacked.* *Let's hope he's right.* ** http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/12/why-is-edward-snowden-in-hong-kong/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *If you wish to be removed from this list, please let us know* ** *To join the Liberty Underground news service go here: http://luvnews.info/Join.htm* ** *You may also join our talk group athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/ <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/>if you would like to participate * **or join our Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/461619557192964/ * email: libert...@hotmail.com* ** *Tell your friends about /LUV News/ because some people just don't get it* [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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