NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden explained his decision to leak top-secret documents as a response to America letting a ragtag group of terrorists scare the country into accepting a near-Orwellian surveillance state, a choice that can be challenged, says Norman Solomon.
After 9/11, the principal “liberty” that many Americans seemed to prize most was the “freedom” to go to the shopping mall without having to fear “terrorists.” That attitude gave impetus to the construction of a police-state framework that could crush all the other liberties and freedoms, Daniel Ellsberg warns.
Americans tend to swing back and forth on the question of security v. privacy, depending on the latest big story. After the Boston Marathon bombings, there was anger over too little FBI prevention; after disclosures of massive data collection, there’s fury over too much intrusion – a dilemma examined by ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Exclusive: Edward Snowden, the person who disclosed top-secret documents on the U.S. government’s massive surveillance programs, is reportedly in Hong Kong and seeking asylum from countries that value openness and freedom, conditions seen as slipping away at home, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.
Exclusive: Americans are finally waking up to what George W. Bush created with his “war on terror” – and what Barack Obama has continued – a national security state that violates privacy and dispatches “special ops” teams or lethal drones to roam the world killing “terrorists,” a topic addressed by “Dirty Wars” and Lisa Pease.
Special Report: New evidence has shaken the confidence of former Rep. Lee Hamilton in his two-decade-old judgment clearing Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign of going behind President Carter’s back to frustrate his efforts to free 52 U.S. hostages in Iran, the so-called October Surprise case, Robert Parry reports.
Americans got a rare glimpse into the breadth of U.S. government surveillance of their communications with new revelations that phone and Internet providers have been turning over vast amounts of data to be mined for “terrorism” investigations, an issue discussed by human rights attorney Shahid Buttar with Dennis J Bernstein.
Pervasive right-wing propaganda – relying on false allusions to the Founding myth and bigoted illusions about non-white minorities – has sucked millions of Americans into an unrealistic ideology centered on hatred of government. Lawrence Davidson encountered that reality on a vacation cruise.
Exclusive: Over the past decade, as the United States has focused on Middle East “terrorism,” its traditional sphere of influence in Latin America has spun further out of the U.S. orbit, with major regional countries coalescing around areas of cooperation. This pattern is deepening despite occasional political flare-ups, writes Andrés Cala.
Official Washington’s “tough-guy-ism” often cites historical precedents, like Hitler at Munich or the Rwanda genocide, as simplistic justifications for new wars. President Obama’s two new national security appointees – Susan Rice and Samantha Power – seem prone to that mistake, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
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