For many people, the United States Flag is a reminder of what this nation stands for and the freedoms so dearly fought for.
Two hundred thirty-six years ago today, the Continental Congress adopted a flag with 13 stars and 13 stripes. Our flag today has 50 stars, but the stars and stripes remain the same. And the flag is still a reminder of freedom and democracy.
Celebrating Flag Day began on June 14, 1885 when Bernard J. Cigrand, a 19 year old teacher at Stony Hill School, placed a 10 inch, 38 star flag in a bottle on his desk.
It wasn't until May 30, 1916 when President Wilson issued a proclamation calling for a nation wide observance of Flag Day that Cigrand's lifelong dream of honoring our flag was realized.
So, Happy Flag Day to each and every one of you. Remember our forefathers and the men and women of this country that have never forgotten the value of freedom and the symbol of what we continue to fight for today.
Terrance Brown, 40, is on trial in South Florida for allegedly conspiring with four other men to hijack armored trucks delivering cash to banks in 2010. All have pleaded not guilty. But now Brown has come up with a unique defense: he wants the National Security Agency to turn over his phone records to the court to demonstrate his innocence.
The case, which is taking place in federal court, involves phone records – the FBI and prosecutors have been using cellphone records to demonstrate the men’s locations near the robbery attempts. The prosecution said that it was unable to get cellphone records from the time before September 2010 because the phone carrier had destroyed the records.
The demonization
of Edward Snowden has already begun. It was so predictable that he even mentioned it in his interview with the Guardian.
The government is now in damage control mode and Edward Snowden is the enemy.
Just today CBSreports that they have uncovered
documents that show the State Department may have covered up allegations of
illegal and inappropriate behavior within their ranks.
That “..according to an internal State
Department Inspector General’s memo, several recent investigations were
influenced, manipulated or simply called off.”
Yet we hear government mouthpieces calling Edward Snowden a traitor.
Yesterday Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the 9/11 whistleblower on the
Able Danger program, said on Fox News that Snowden has essentially defected to
China, and that whatever information he possesses about this program the
Chinese either already have or likely will in the near future.
One thing about Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer – he is a whistleblower himself. He
claimed that he alerted the FBI in September 2000 – yes, one year BEFORE 9/11 –
about the information uncovered by the secret military unit “Able Danger”, but
he alleged that three meetings he set up with bureau officials were blocked by
military lawyers.
What did CBS report? “..investigations
were influenced, manipulated or simply called off.”
Shaffer gave the 9/11 Commission this information and they DID NOT INCLUDE IT
IN THEIR FINAL REPORT. (you can read the rest here)
The point is…Edward Snowden has worked inside this government…he knows how they
operate. Did he also know that if he went to a superior, as Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer
suggested, that his concerns would be ignored? Of course he did.
The current president – Obama – had great words for whistleblowers right after
his election. He even went so far as to call them courageous. It’s still there today, on his
website change.gov:
·Protect Whistleblowers: Often
the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is
an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to
speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives
and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We
need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in
performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal
workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama
will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing
whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due
process.
Fair words from then candidate Obama...but, as always with him, they were only words.
Thomas Drake, a former NSA employee who was a whistleblower on NSA waste
has been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking NSA documents.
William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe and Edward Loomis are three more former NSA
employees charged under the same act for exposing NSA WASTE…what did Edward
Snowden think would happen to him for revealing something much more egregious…spying
on innocent American citizens?
So, accept what you hear and read about Edward Snowden with care my friends.
As Snowden said in his interview with Glenn Greenwald "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight."
And that very government is scrambling right now to put all the pieces of their shield of secrecy back in place so that we will continue to remain in the dark about what they are doing and who they are doing it to.
To quote Obi-Wan "Nothing to see here. Move along."
In February Breitbart TV first revealed this video of Rep Maxine Waters bragging about Obama collecting Americans information. “The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life,” Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday. “That’s going to be very, very powerful,” Waters said. “That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”--------------------------------------
DON'T TELL ME THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. THIS IS THE SAME WOMAN WHO, IN 2008 DURING A CONGRESSIONAL HEARING, LECTURED OIL COMPANY EXECUTIVES "GUESS WHAT THIS LIBERAL WOULD BE ALL ABOUT? THIS LIBERAL WOULD BE ABOUT SOCIALIZING...UH...UM...WOULD BE ABOUT...BASICALLY...TAKING OVER...AND THE GOVERNMENT RUNNING ALL OF YOUR COMPANIES"
From the Guardian The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows DR
From the Daily Mail in the U.K. During a March 2012 congressional hearing, NSA Director Keith Alexander told Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson - 14 times - that his agency wasn't engaged in collecting the kind of domestic digital data that has now become the subject of embarrassing disclosures.
At 2:46 on the video Rep. Johnson begins asking the pointed questions about NSA spying on American citizens. Each question is answered with an emphatic "NO" by then NSA Director Keith Alexander. DR
NSA whistleblowers J. Kirk Wiebe and Bill Binney have been sounding the alarm about government intrusion into Americans' privacy for years. They joined Megyn Kellytoday to give us some revealing insights into how the agency works after President Obamadefended the needto monitor Americans' phone calls.
Obama said today that nobody at NSA is listening to your phone calls, saying they are gathering "metadata" like the numbers involved in a call, how long it was, and where it was made from. But Wiebe said there is a common misconception going around about this aspect of the program.
"Aggregated metadata can be more revealing than content. It's very important to realize that when an entity collects information about you that includes locations, bank transactions, credit card transactions, travel plans, EZPass on and off tollways; all of that that can be time-lined. To track you day to day to the point where people can get insight into your intentions and what you're going to do next. It is difficult to get that from content unless you exploit every piece, and even then a lot of content is worthless," he explained.
Mr. Wiebe said something very interesting and telling:
"There is nothing unique about human beings that work at NSA that's different from human beings that work at the IRS or that work at the DOJ...We don't need to operate on a wink and a nod 'trust me'."
Binney stated "..they chose to go to the 'dark side' because that was their choice."
Both men agree that the current administration chose to collect everyone's data, guilty or not, and ignore the original programming they had put in place that encrypted private citizen's information and only focused on terrorist activity. DR
AS USUAL AND UNFORTUNATELY, THIS STORY WAS NOT COVERED BY THE LAPDOG GOVERNMENT-CONTROLLED-MEDIA-COMPLEX BACK IN DECEMBER OF 2012.
THE RUSSIAN TIMES DID THIS INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM BINNEY, THE FORMER NSA EMPLOYEE, AN EXTREMELY COURAGEOUS WHISTLEBLOWER THAT HAS BEEN WARNING PEOPLE ABOUT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE ON IT'S OWN CITIZENS.
AT 7:55 IN THE VIDEO THE R.T. CORRESPONDENT ASKS A QUESTION "IT SEEMS THAT THE PUBLIC IS DIVIDED BETWEEN THOSE WHO THINK THAT THE GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM VIOLATES THEIR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND THOSE WHO SAY I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE SO WHY SHOULD I CARE. WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THOSE WHO THINK THAT THIS SHOULDN'T CONCERN THEM?"
LISTEN TO HIS ANSWER.
"THE PROBLEM IS, IF THEY DON'T THINK THEY'RE DOING ANYTHING WRONG THEY DON'T GET TO DEFINE THAT. THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT DOES.
THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT DECIDES WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG AND WHETHER OR NOT THEY TARGET YOU...IF THEIR POSITION IS AGAINST SOMETHING THE ADMINISTRATION HAS, THEN THEY COULD EASILY BECOME A TARGET."
CHILLING WORDS.
WHEN ASKED WHAT THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS THING HE HAD COME ACROSS WHILE AT NSA, MR. BINNEY REPLIED "THE VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION AND ANY NUMBER OF LAWS THAT EXISTED AT THE TIME. THAT I COULD NOT LIVE WITH. THAT IS WHY I LEFT."
IF YOU THINK, FOR EVEN ONE NANOSECOND, THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION IS NOT VIOLATING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS...THAT WHEN OBAMA SAYS 'IT'S FOR PROTECTION AGAINST TERRORISTS'...YOU NEED TO TAKE THE BLINDERS OFF AND SEE THIS FOR WHAT IT IS.
AS MR. BINNEY STATES IN THE VIDEO, THE ORIGINAL PROGRAM WAS DESIGNED WITH ENCRYPTIONS TO FILTER OUT EVERYTHING THAT WAS NOT TERRORIST RELATED AND ONLY LOOK AT THE THINGS THAT WERE.
THOSE SAFEGUARDS AGAINST UNNECESSARY SPYING ON INNOCENT CITIZENS ARE NOW GONE.
THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS NOT ONLY STEPPED OVER THE LINE...THEY HAVE MARCHED OVER THE DIVIDE THE CONSTITUTION PROVIDED AS PROTECTION AGAINST AN OPPRESSIVE AND INTRUSIVE GOVERNMENT.
MR BINNEY STATED HE IS WORKING WITH THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION TO GET THIS CASE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT. VISIT THEIR WEBSITE. SUPPORT THEM IF YOU CAN, BUT AT LEAST SIGN UP TO BE KEPT INFORMED ABOUT THEIR PROGRESS.
the ones that teach their children...even if it means the job will take twice as long...
