(UPDATED) Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations/ Hero or Traitor?

UPDATE; Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?  "The good folks at Legal Insurrection raised an interesting point this morning. Why didn’t the prior revelations raised by William Binney cause as much controversy? Mr. Binney is a 32 year veteran of the NSA, who appeared in a 2012 video shot by Laura Poitras for The New York Times, who ironically enough, also directed and produced the interview with Edward Snowden."

Guardian  "The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton."
....
 Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."
....
Strewn about the side of his bed are his suitcase, a plate with the remains of room-service breakfast, and a copy of Angler, the biography of former vice-president Dick Cheney.
....
"Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private....
"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."
More here.

Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data

The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance). Note the '2007' date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.

VIDEO: The IRS Scandal In 5 Minutes

American Glob  "This is a pretty good wrap up of last week’s congressional testimony from On The Record with Greta Van Susteren.
Video by Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft."
 

The Obama IRS Targeting Scandal in Five Minutes – Unbelievable Abuse of Power
" Exposing the Obama Administration’s attack on conservative Americans
The IRS targeted hundreds of conservative groups since 2010. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS starting in 2010.   For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications within weeks."

Benghazi Talking Points

McClatchy

The Scandal Dump is a Smokescreen  "At this point, the focus of the investigation was confined to the failure of the Obama regime to adequately protect the American consulate in a hostile country and its subsequent attempt to cover up that ignominy.  Nobody, except us conspiracy theorists, was asking about the real reason for the coordinated terrorist attack.  Hint: it was not a video mocking Islam.  Here are the questions that should have been asked, but were not:"....Read more:

Soldier Told Not to Read Levin, Limbaugh or Hannity in Uniform

Todd Starnes  "Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, a 25-year Army veteran and conservative Christian based at Fort Myer in Washington, believes his outspoken opposition to gay marriage prompted higher-ups to take a closer look at his beliefs. ..
" “It seems like with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – that the Christians have been the ones who’ve had to go underground and in the closet – for fear of retaliation and reprisals,” Sommers told Fox News. “Christians feel like they can’t be forthright with their faith. They have to hide.”
"Ret. Navy Commander John Bennett Wells is representing the master sergeant...
" “There’s no question about it,“ Wells told Fox News. “Because he is religious, because he feels that homosexual conduct is wrong for religious reasons, he is basically being persecuted.”
....
An official spokesperson in Washington issued the following statement on this matter:
“Accordingly, the Soldier was not prohibited from displaying a political bumper sticker.  Instead, the Soldier’s supervisor discussed the appropriateness of the bumper stickers with him and potential perceptions of others in light of the regulatory guidance.”
“The Soldier is not, and never has been, “facing retribution and punishment from the military for having anti-Obama bumper stickers on his car, reading books written by conservative authors like Mark Levin and David Limbaugh, and serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at his promotion party,” the spokesperson added. 

I do think, however that it is best that military personnel not exhibit political stickers as a matter of their own integrity. I certainly do not want to see leftist, anti-military stickers on a servicemember's car.

Let's call it Laughing WITH the IRS, not AT them

 

Message from the ruins of Qusair

Charles Krauthammer  "This is a huge victory not just for Tehran but also for Moscow, which sustains Assad in power and prizes its warm-water port at Tartus,...."
....
"The losers? NATO-member Turkey, the major supporter of the rebels; Jordan, America’s closest Arab ally, now drowning in half a million Syrian refugees; and America’s Gulf allies, principal weapons suppliers to the rebels.

"And the United States, whose bystander president, having declared that Assad must go, that he has lost all legitimacy and that his fall is just a matter of time, is looking not just feckless but clueless."
(Emphasis added. TD)



American citizens have more to fear from this administration than our enemies.

The Obama our enemies see:

The Obama that half of America sees.

Whoever is leaking top secret NSA documents to the press doesn’t appear to be afraid of the White House. Leakers as heroes.

Buzzfeed   Obama Has Lost The War On Leaks
"Despite his administration’s going to unprecedented lengths to crack down on national security leaks — from seizing the phone records of media organizations to discover their sources, to charging alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning with aiding the enemy — this week has seen two of the most significant leaks in more than a decade.
"On Wednesday The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald revealed that the NSA was collecting phone records for millions of Verizon customers, after someone provided the paper with a top secret court order. Then on Thursday, a “career intelligence officer” leaked another top secret document to the Washington Post proving the existence of an expansive NSA program called PRISM that spies on Americans through nine major internet companies."

Latest leak: Obama Wants A List Of Countries To Cyberattack
"Another day, another leak -- and once again, it's not much of a surprise, but rather a confirmation of what's long been suspected. This time, it's that President Obama has ordered the US to draw up a list of "targets" for proactive cyberattacks, as revealed (yet again) by Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian."

A huge source of security leaks is Obama himself  "President Obama yesterday insisted the White House wasn’t behind national security leaks that wound up in flattering news stories.
"Stung by criticism that his aides were dishing secrets to The New York Times and other media to bolster his re-election campaign, Obama said he’d investigate." And how did that all work out, Mr. President?

Schoolteacher Responds to 'Schools' Sinister War on Guns'

American Thinker  ...."So if an administrator finds a student in possession of a gun during a search and feels confident he can get away with it, [he] will quietly dispose of the gun. The student is neither suspended nor reported to the police so he can be arrested. If a school employee claims to have seen the gun, the administrator says it was just a toy gun."
....
Get ready for the irony. Here it comes:
"Now, if the student brings a toy gun to school, especially one that looks like a real gun, he is treated as if he brought a real gun to school. The student even gets a visit from a police officer for a lecture on the consequences that could result if the toy gun was mistaken for a real gun by a law enforcement officer or if it had actually been a real gun. "

The work of Rich Terrell, master photoshoppist

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 

Rich is used for background info in the American Thinker article, "President Photoshop?"  "Two puzzling photos that do not bear close scrutiny were published in 2010 on the mybarackobama.com campaign website, adding further mystery to the man who left surprisingly few documented footprints in the sands of time as he came to adulthood."  Read more:

5 Ways Liberals Annoy Me

Louisiana Conservative Dot Com  ...."It’s their body, their choice when we are talking about abortion, but it’s not your body your choice when it comes to seat belts, helmets, trans fat, salt, soda pop, and McDonald’s. It’s amazing and even more annoying that they talk about freedom in a way that only certain acts should be an individual choice while so many other actions should be limited by government.
That was item one; go here for the rest

Hat top to Jeff Blanco

Where’s the Patriotic Wrath Over Benghazi?

Bruce S. Thornton "Something has happened to this country when we are indifferent to the deaths of brave Americans who have been murdered by our sworn enemies, and blasé about our president and his flunkeys’ lying about that tragedy for political gain. Something is off when we leave unchallenged the lame excuse that the most powerful military in the history of the world armed with the most advanced weapons could not help their comrades because it was decided that a relief force couldn’t “get there in time,” even though no one knew how much time those soldiers had, which in the event was several hours. And we have suffered a colossal failure of patriotic nerve when we are not enraged that whether there was time or not, out forces weren’t ordered to descend on those fanatics and exact a fearsome price in blood for killing Americans. Bill Clinton ran away from Mogadishu in 1993, but at least our soldiers before they left made the enemy pay about 2000 dead for killing 18 Americans."

Michelle Obama Blows Off China’s First Lady, Chinese See It As A “Deliberate Snub”…

Weasel Zippers "China experts immediately warned that Mrs Obama’s decision to stay in Washington could have an unwelcome chilling effect on a summit that White House officials have billed as an “unprecedented”
opportunity to heal divisions between the world two biggest economies.
"Her absence is likely to limit Ms Peng’s role at the two-day California meeting and may be interpreted by the face-conscious Chinese bureaucrats and public as a deliberate snub, both US and Chinese analysts said."

The UK reports: Michelle Obama snubs Chinese 'First Lady' by refusing to attend California summit with the President and his wife saying that she has to take care of Sasha and Malia  " 'First lady diplomacy is also very important and the US side has failed to cooperate,' Chinese political scientist Zhang Ming told The Telegraph.
"'According to normal diplomatic etiquette this is very strange. It shouldn’t be like this.' "

The LA Times reports:  ""The decadent American imperialists don’t give us 'face.' Who is more important, children or creditors?’’ wrote one commentator, referring to U.S. debts to China.
" "In addition to the lack of hospitality, it was very reasonable for the two families to meet since Obama wants to develop personal relations,’’ wrote a commentator using the name Zhan Hao."