Nearly everywhere else around the world, voters are required to show their ID when registering to vote. This is essential to the integrity of elections because without voter ID, the door is open for massive voter fraud.
But not in the United States of America where, on May 20, 1993, then President Bill Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (aka the Motor Voter Act) into law. Before that, the bill had been approved 259 vs. 160 by the House of Reps., and by the Senate 62 vs. 37.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires States to “accept and use” a uniform federal form to register voters for federal elections. The form, which was developed by the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC), requires only that an applicant say, under penalty of perjury, that he is a citizen. In other words, no proof of U.S. citizenship is required to vote long as you say you’re one.
Yesterday, in the case of Arizona et al. v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., et al., the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of voting by non-citizens.
Heads circles in red are the 7 justices who ruled against requiring proof of US citizenship to vote. L to r: Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens, John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Uncircled are Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
As reported by David G. Savage for the Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2013:
The Supreme Court threw out an Arizona law [Proposition 200] Monday and by a surprisingly lopsided vote, ruling state officials may not demand a proof of citizenship from residents who register to vote.
The 7-2 decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia[et tu, Scalia?] said this “proof of citizenship” requirement conflicts with the national Motor Voter Act. The measure said states must “accept and use” a simple registration form when filled out by residents who are registering to vote.
Scalia insists on closely following the words of the law, and in this instance, the words of the federal measure were clear in their meaning, he said. As written, the Motor Voter Act “forbids states to demand that an applicant submit additional information beyond that required by the federal form,” he said.
The Supreme Court ruling was a very lopsided 7-2 vote, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito being the only two dissenters.
“I do not agree, and I think that both the plain text and the history of the Voter Qualifications Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §2, cl. 1, and the Seventeenth Amendment authorize States to determine the qualifications of voters in federal elections, which necessarily includes the related power to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied.To avoid substantial constitutional problems created by interpreting §1973gg–4(a)(1) to permit Congress to effectively countermand this authority, I would construe the [Motor Voter or National Voter Registration] law as only requiring Arizona to accept and use the form as part of its voter registration process, leaving the State free to request whatever additional information it determines is necessary to ensure that voters meet the qualifications it has the constitutional authority to establish. Under this interpretation, Arizona did “accept and use” the federal form. Accordingly, there is no conflict between Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §16–166(F) (West Cum. Supp. 2012) and §1973gg–4(a)(1) and, thus, no pre-emption. [...]
Arizona has had a citizenship requirement for voting since it became a State in 1912. See Ariz. Const., Art. VII, §2. [...] In Arizona’s view, it “accepts and uses” the federal form in the same way that an airline “accepts and uses” electronic tickets but also requires an individual seeking to board a plane to demonstrate that he is the person named on the ticket. [...]
The Voter Qualifications Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §2, cl. 1, provides that “the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature” in elections for the federal House of Representatives. The Seventeenth Amendment, which provides for direct election of Senators, contains an identical clause. That language is susceptible of only one interpretation: States have the authority “to control who may vote in congressional elections” so long as they do not “establish special requirements that do not apply in elections for the state legislature.” U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 864–865 (1995) (THOMAS, J., dissenting); see also The Federalist No. 57, p. 349 (C. Rossiter ed. 2003) (J. Madison) (“The electors . . . are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the State”). Congress has no role in setting voter qualifications, or determining whether they are satisfied, aside from the powers conferred by the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments, which are not at issue here. This power is instead expressly reposed in the States.
The history of the Voter Qualifications Clause’s enactment confirms this conclusion. The Framers did not intend to leave voter qualifications to Congress. Indeed, James Madison explicitly rejected that possibility:
“The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government. It was incumbent on the convention, therefore, to define and establish this right in the Constitution. To have left it open for the occasional regulation of the Congress would have been improper.” The Federalist No. 52, at 323 (emphasis added).
Congressional legislation of voter qualifications was not part of the Framers’ design. [...]
Both text and history confirm that States have the exclusive authority to set voter qualifications and to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied. The United States nevertheless argues that Congress has the authority under Article I, §4, “to set the rules for voter registration in federal elections.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 33 (hereafter Brief for United States).
Neither the text nor the original understanding of Article I, §4, supports that position.”
Mike Adams of Natural News correctly calls the Supreme Court decision as “You need ID to buy beer, but not to register to vote,” and that the ruling “all but openly endorses widespread voter registration fraud” — fraud that already was pandemic in the 2012 election. He concludes:
“With these two plans — widespread voter fraud and the instant citizenship of 11 million undocumented immigrants — democrats may very well be able to continue to hold power in Washington as they drive America into complete financial bankruptcy. But they don’t care about the long-term impact of their actions. The only thing that matters to them is to stay in power and keep milking the system for as long as possible before total economic collapse arrives.”
Just remember as things get worse and worse in America, it was the Supreme Court, with the exception of Justices Thomas and Alito, who had helped make it all possible.
Legal mumbo jumbo, blah blah blah, ipso facto and no way ray. I said it and I mean it and so does FOTM, legal mumbo jumbo disclaimer.
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Now I don’t know about you, but there is this great big
White House in Washington where this guy lives who is very deserving of this lovely gift. Or your Congress Critter. Senator. Or your loud mouth Brother in Law. The possibilities are endless. My only problem is the order form. Please scroll to second sheet to see.
I’m torn between the ever exotic “Gorilla Poop”
Or
You can never Go wrong with the “Combo Poop Pack”
( Three Kinds)
I had to do a screen shot to do this. The actual website is
Man wearing an “Obama 2008″ t-shirt who exposed himself to a female shopper inside a Walmart.
The Smoking Gun reports, June 13, 2013, that the 21-year-old victim said she was approached by an unknown man around 7:50 AM Tuesday in the Dumfries store.
Here’s a photo of the pervert, taken by the store’s surveillance camera:
I cropped and enlarged the pic so you can get a better view of the Obamaperv:
Investigators describe the suspect as a black male between the ages of 15 and 25, 5’ 8”, 140-pound, wearing glasses, green pajama pants, and “a white t-shirt” that was not further described by cops but that you can see with your own eyes is an “Obama 2008″ t-shirt.
The indecent exposure suspect left the Walmart in a “White, older model Honda Civic with black trim.”
Here are some more pics of upstanding Obama voters!
Here’s more evidence that the media-hyped “economic recovery” is a chimera.
In a Feb. 12 e-mail to other executives, Wal-Mart’s vice president of finance and logistics Jerry Murray wrote that “February MTD (month to date) sales are a total disaster. The worst start to a month I have seen in my 7 years with the company.”
Now, Reuters is reporting that Wal-Mart’s woes are persisting. In recent months, Wal-Mart Stores Inc has been hiring only temporary workers at many of its U.S. stores, the first time the world’s largest retailer has done so outside of the holiday shopping season.
A Reuters survey of 52 stores run by Wal-Mart in the past month, including one in every U.S. state, showed that 27 were hiring only temps, 20 were hiring a combination of regular full, part-time and temp jobs, and 5 were not hiring at all. The survey was based on interviews with managers, sales staff and human resource department employees at the stores.
Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said that the new hiring policy is to ensure “we are staffed appropriately,” when the stores are busiest and is not a cost-cutting move. Temporary workers are paid the same starting pay as other workers, but using temps enables the company to have adequate staff on busy weeknights and weekends without having to hire additional full-time staff.
Tovar admitted that before 2013, only 1-2% of the company’s U.S. workforce were temps (or what Wal-Mart internally calls “flexible associates”). Now, the percentage of temps has risen to about .
Walmart U.S. Chief Executive Bill Simon also confirmed that the company is hiring more temp workers: “Their hours flex by the needs of the business from time to time.”
The hiring strategy could save Wal-Mart money by trimming labor costsat a time when its margins remain under pressure. Many consumers are still struggling given a high jobless rate and lack of income growth, leaving retailers of everyday goods with little pricing power, according to other company CEOs and benefits experts. Competition from dollar stores, other big box discount chains and grocery stores is also intense.
It also could set an example for some other companies as they look for ways to cushion themselves from a potential rise in healthcare costs next year as a result of Obamacare, according industry experts and retail executives. Denying that the temp-hiring move was related to Obamacare, Tovar nevertheless acknowledged that it could take a year or more for temporary workers to receive health care benefits.
Wal-Mart’s U.S. staffing has remained relatively flat even as more stores have opened in recent years. At the end of fiscal 2013, Wal-Mart had “more than 1.3 million” workers in the United States, the majority of them at 4,005 Walmart U.S. stores, compared with “approximately 1.4 million” workers in the United States at the end of fiscal 2009, the majority of them at 3,656 Walmart U.S. stores, according to the company’s annual filings for both years.
The temporary workers are often being hired on 180-day contracts, according to the survey of Wal-Mart stores. Temp workers typically have a completion date after which they have to reapply for work, but part-time employees work fewer hours than full-time workers indefinitely.
“Full-time people are getting slimmer and slimmer,” said a supervisor at a store in North Carolina, who asked not to be named, as did other store-level employees who were interviewed for this story, because she is not authorized to talk to the media. She said that the five new employees hired this year at the store are all temps and hours of existing employees are being cut.
A store manager in Alaska, who asked not to be identified, also said that “Everybody who comes through the door I hire as a temporary associate. It’s a company direction at the present time.”
Mary Pat Tifft, a member of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart, a group of current and former Walmart employees campaigning for better wages, hours and benefits, said, “Long-term associates are particularly distraught by this short-term hiring as many are looking for more hours and full-time work. OUR Walmart does not define itself as a union but it does require its members to pay $5 monthly dues and is part of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
Labor market experts said that the relatively high U.S. unemployment rate, which was an official 7.6% in May, and the large number of people not counted because they have left the labor force at least temporarily, does give companies like Wal-Mart the conditions to attract temp workers. National Retail Federation’s healthcare lobbyist Neil Trautwein said that hiring temps is “one strategy” that retailers could use to mitigate the potential rise in healthcare costs due to the Obamacare.
Wal-Mart already has begun to change the healthcare plans it provides workers. Last November, it said that newly hired part-time employees would have to work a minimum of 30 hours a week, up from 24 hours previously, before they can qualify for health coverage. Its U.S. employees also faced an 8-36% increase in premiums in 2013, prompting some workers to forego insurance. The majority of eligible employees at Wal-Mart sign up for the company’s health insurance.
Under Obamacare, large companies like Wal-Mart must next year offer healthcare to 95% of employees who work more than 30 hours a week or pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker for the entire workforce. When the work hours are so variable that the employer is not certain whether an employee qualifies, they can elect to determine eligibility by measuring hours during a period of up to 12 months, a strategy used by Wal-Mart. As a result, Wal-Mart’s temp workers may have to wait a year – provided they are still employed at the company – to find out if they are eligible. By that time, however, the temp may have been fired, which means some temps never get health coverage.
UPDATE:
Financial institutions are firing staff at almost the same rate in 2013 as they did in 2009 (source):
This is the 49th world-famous FOTM Caption Contest!
Here’s the pic (h/t our beloved DCG):
The pic above is not a photoshop, but was taken last September in a campaign stop in Ohio by VPOS Joe Biden. (For more, see my post of Sept. 10, 2012, “How Biden woos blue collar women.”)
You know the drill:
The winner of the Caption Contest will get a gorgeous Award Certificate of Excellence and a year’s free subscription to FOTM!
FOTM writers will vote for the winner.
Any captions proffered by FOTM writers, no matter how brilliant (ha ha), will not be considered.
This contest will be closed in a week, at the end of next Thursday, June 20, 2013.
To get the contest going, here’s my caption:
“Joe Biden, Pres. Lucifer’s best insurance against impeachment.”
For the winner of our last Caption Contest, go here!
The State Controlled Media are turning against The One whom they once idolized.
They are discovering that The One not only does not reciprocate their loyalty but, as the Associated Press found out last month, sent his DOJ gestapo to secretly seize the phone records of AP‘s offices and the home phones and cellphones of journalists. The records were obtained without notice, directly from the phone company.
Now, in an editorial, the AP — GASP!!! — is questioning President Lucifer’s credibility. GASP!!!
The takeaway quote from the AP editorial below:“people … voted for the Obama they wanted and now are grappling with the Obama they got.”
Hey, don’t say we hadn’t warned you! FOTM has only been doing that for the past 3½ years.
(Note: The ROFL GIFs you’ll see are my editorial comments on the AP editorial. )
(Sidoti is the national politics editor for The Associated Press)
As a candidate, Barack Obama vowed to bring a different, better kind of leadership to the dysfunctional capital. He’d make government more efficient, accountable and transparent. He’d rise above the “small-ball” nature of doing business. And he’d work with Republicans to break Washington paralysis.
You can trust me, Obama said back in 2008. And — for a while, at least — a good piece of the country did.
But with big promises often come big failures — and the potential for big hits to the one thing that can make or break a presidency: credibility.
A series of mounting controversies is exposing both the risks of political promise-making and the limits of national-level governing while undercutting the core assurance Obama made from the outset: that he and his administration would behave differently.
The latest: the government’s acknowledgement that, in a holdover from the Bush administration and with a bipartisan Congress’ approval and a secret court’s authorization, it was siphoning the phone records of millions of American citizens in a massive data-collection effort officials say was meant to protect the nation from terrorism. This came after the disclosure that the government was snooping on journalists.
Also, the IRS’ improper targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status has spiraled into a wholesale examination of the agency, including the finding that it spent $49 million in taxpayer money on 225 employee conferences over the past three years.
At the same time, Obama’s immigration reform agenda is hardly a sure thing on Capitol Hill, and debate starting this week on the Senate floor is certain to show deep divisions over it. Gun control legislation is all but dead.And he’s barely speaking to Republicans who control the House, much less working with them on a top priority: tax reform.
Even Democrats are warning that more angst may be ahead as the government steps up its efforts to implement Obama’s extraordinarily expensive, deeply unpopular health care law.
Collectively, the issues call into question not only whether the nation’s government can be trusted but also whether the leadership itself can. All of this has Obama on the verge of losing the already waning faith of the American people. And without their confidence, it’s really difficult for presidents to get anything done — particularly those in the second term of a presidency and inching toward lame-duck status.
The ramifications stretch beyond the White House. If enough Americans lose faith in Obama, he will lack strong coattails come next fall’s congressional elections. Big losses in those races will make it harder for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, especially if it’s Hillary Rodham Clinton, to run as an extension of Obama’s presidency and convince the American public to give Democrats another four years.
Obama seemed to recognize this last week. He emphasized to anxious Americans that the other two branches of government were as responsible as the White House for signing off on the vast data-gathering program.
“We’ve got congressional oversight and judicial oversight,” Obama said. “And if people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.”
The government is an enormous operation, and it’s unrealistic to think it will operate smoothly all of the time. But, as the head of it, Obama faces the reality of all of his successors: The buck stops with him.
If the controversies drag on, morale across America could end up taking a huge hit, just when the mood seems to be improving along with an economic uptick. Or, Americans could end up buying Obama’s arguments that safety sometimes trumps privacy, that his administration is taking action on the IRS, and that he’s doing the best he can to forge bipartisan compromise when Republicans are obstructing progress.
Every president faces the predicament of overpromising. Often the gap can be chalked up to the difference between campaigning and governing, between rhetoric and reality. As with past presidents, people desperate to turn the page on the previous administration voted for the Obama they wanted and now are grappling with the Obama they got.
From the start of his career, Obama tried to sculpt an almost nonpartisan persona as he spoke of bridging divides and rejecting politics as usual. He attracted scores of supporters from across the ideological spectrum with his promises to behave differently. And they largely believed what he said.
Back then, he held an advantage as one of the most trusted figures in American politics.
In January 2008, Obama had an 8-point edge over Clinton as the more honest and trustworthy candidate in the Democratic primary. That grew to a 23-point advantage by April of that year, according to Washington Post-ABC News polls. Later that year, the Post-ABC poll showed Obama up 8 points on Republican nominee John McCain as the more honest candidate.
Obama held such strong marks during his first term, with the public giving the new president the benefit of the doubt. Up for re-election, he went into the 2012 campaign home stretch topping Mitt Romney by 9 points on honesty in a mid-October ABC/Post poll.
But now, that carefully honed image of trustworthiness may be changing in Americans’ eyes.
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted late last month found 49 percent of people consider Obama honest and trustworthy, a dip from the organization’s last read on the matter in September 2011 when 58 percent said the same. He also has taken a hit among independents, which used to be a source of strength for him, since his second-term controversies have emerged. Now just 40 percent say he is honest and trustworthy, down from 58 percent in September 2011.
Obama has waning opportunities to turn it around. He’s halfway through his fifth year, and with midterm elections next fall, there’s no time to waste.
If he can’t convince the American people that they can trust him, he could end up damaging the legacy he has worked so hard to control and shape — and be remembered, even by those who once supported him, as the very opposite of the different type of leader he promised to be.
WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – Uncovered documents show the U.S. State Department may have covered up allegations of illegal behavior ranging from sexual assaults to an underground drug ring.
CBS News reports that is has unearthed documents from the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), an internal watchdog agency, that implicate the State Department in a series of misconducts worldwide.
The memo, reported by CBS News’ John Miller, cited eight specific examples, including allegations that a State Department security official in Beirut “engaged in sexual assaults” with foreign nationals hired as embassy guards and the charge and that members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail “engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries” — a problem the report says was “endemic.”
Former State Department internal investigator Aurelia Fedenisn told CBS News, “We also uncovered several allegations of criminal wrongdoing in cases, some of which never became cases.”
Often times, other DSS agents were simply told to back off of investigations of high-ranking State Department members. Fedenisn told CBS that “hostile intelligence services” allow criminal behavior to continue.
In one such cover-up, investigators were told to stop probing the case of a U.S. ambassador who was suspected of patronizing prostitutes in a public park. The memo states that the ambassador was permitted to return to his post despite having, “routinely ditched…his protective security detail” in order to “solicit sexual favors from prostitutes.”
A draft of the Inspector General’s report on the performance of the Diplomatic Security Service, obtained by CBS News, states, “Hindering such cases calls into question the integrity of the investigative process, can result in counterintelligence vulnerabilities and can allow criminal behavior to continue.”
Fedenisn was part of the team that drafted the whistleblower report, and CBS News reports that two hours after the charges were reported, investigators from the State Department’s Inspector General showed up at her door.
A statement to CBS News states, “It goes without saying that the Department does not condone interference with investigation by any of its employees.”
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
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. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.
Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA.
In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”
Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.”
He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. “I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me.”
Despite these fears, he remained hopeful his outing will not divert attention from the substance of his disclosures. “I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in.” He added: “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”
He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”
‘I am not afraid, because this is the choice I’ve made’
Three weeks ago, Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last week’s series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii where he was working, he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose.
He then advised his NSA supervisor that he needed to be away from work for “a couple of weeks” in order to receive treatment for epilepsy, a condition he learned he suffers from after a series of seizures last year.
As he packed his bags, he told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a few weeks, though he said he was vague about the reason. “That is not an uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade working in the intelligence world.”
On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since. He chose the city because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”, and because he believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the dictates of the US government.
In the three weeks since he arrived, he has been ensconced in a hotel room. “I’ve left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay,” he said. It is a plush hotel and, what with eating meals in his room too, he has run up big bills.
He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.
Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organisation in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is looking for him.
Since the disclosures began to emerge, he has watched television and monitored the internet, hearing all the threats and vows of prosecution emanating from Washington.
And he knows only too well the sophisticated technology available to them and how easy it will be for them to find him. The NSA police and other law enforcement officers have twice visited his home in Hawaii and already contacted his girlfriend, though he believes that may have been prompted by his absence from work, and not because of suspicions of any connection to the leaks.
“All my options are bad,” he said. The US could begin extradition proceedings against him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and unpredictable course for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk him away for questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or he might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US territory.
“Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets,” he said.
“We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.”
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.”
He predicts the government will launch an investigation and “say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become”.
The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of whom work for the US government. “The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won’t be able to help any more. That’s what keeps me up at night,” he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
‘You can’t wait around for someone else to act’
Snowden did not always believe the US government posed a threat to his political values. He was brought up originally in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. His family moved later to Maryland, near the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade.
By his own admission, he was not a stellar student. In order to get the credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, he attended a community college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework. (He later obtained his GED.)
In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he said: “I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression”.
He recounted how his beliefs about the war’s purpose were quickly dispelled. “Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone,” he said. After he broke both his legs in a training accident, he was discharged.
After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency’s covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.
By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.
That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw.
He described as formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives were attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting the banker drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car. When the banker was arrested for drunk driving, the undercover agent seeking to befriend him offered to help, and a bond was formed that led to successful recruitment.
“Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world,” he says. “I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.”
He said it was during his CIA stint in Geneva that he thought for the first time about exposing government secrets. But, at the time, he chose not to for two reasons.
First, he said: “Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn’t feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone”. Secondly, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave him hope that there would be real reforms, rendering disclosures unnecessary.
He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he “watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in”, and as a result, “I got hardened.”
The primary lesson from this experience was that “you can’t wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act.”
Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA’s surveillance activities were, claiming “they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them”.
He described how he once viewed the internet as “the most important invention in all of human history”. As an adolescent, he spent days at a time “speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own”.
But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. “I don’t see myself as a hero,” he said, “because what I’m doing is self-interested: I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”
Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA’s surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he said.
A matter of principle
As strong as those beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? “There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich.”
For him, it is a matter of principle. “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to,” he said.
His allegiance to internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his laptop: “I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation,” reads one. Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor Project.
Asked by reporters to establish his authenticity to ensure he is not some fantasist, he laid bare, without hesitation, his personal details, from his social security number to his CIA ID and his expired diplomatic passport. There is no shiftiness. Ask him about anything in his personal life and he will answer.
He is quiet, smart, easy-going and self-effacing. A master on computers, he seemed happiest when talking about the technical side of surveillance, at a level of detail comprehensible probably only to fellow communication specialists. But he showed intense passion when talking about the value of privacy and how he felt it was being steadily eroded by the behaviour of the intelligence services.
His manner was calm and relaxed but he has been understandably twitchy since he went into hiding, waiting for the knock on the hotel door. A fire alarm goes off. “That has not happened before,” he said, betraying anxiety wondering if was real, a test or a CIA ploy to get him out onto the street.
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.
Ever since last week’s news stories began to appear in the Guardian, Snowden has vigilantly watched TV and read the internet to see the effects of his choices. He seemed satisfied that the debate he longed to provoke was finally taking place.
He lay, propped up against pillows, watching CNN’s Wolf Blitzer ask a discussion panel about government intrusion if they had any idea who the leaker was. From 8,000 miles away, the leaker looked on impassively, not even indulging in a wry smile.
Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden’s leaks began to make news.
“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.”
He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed.
As for his future, he is vague. He hoped the publicity the leaks have generated will offer him some protection, making it “harder for them to get dirty”.
He views his best hope as the possibility of asylum, with Iceland – with its reputation of a champion of internet freedom – at the top of his list. He knows that may prove a wish unfulfilled.
But after the intense political controversy he has already created with just the first week’s haul of stories, “I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets.”
OK, you may have heard that there might be a slight problem with President Obama’s Birth CERTIFICATE. first off it’s BUSH’S fault, you right wing racists. secondly how many times does our HONORABLE president have to suffer this indignity? For the last time we will produce his BC right here on FOTM.
the-real-birth-certificate
—————————————– ~ Steve~ ———————————————
BOMBSHELL: Document Examiner Tied To Obama Defense Attorney Says Birth Certificate Is 100% Fraud
Reed Hayes is a court qualified handwriting and document examiner whose business is located in Honolulu, Hawaii. He has nearly 40 years of handwriting related experience, and has worked as an international consultant and speaker. Never heard of him? Well, Hayes is the Certified Document Examiner (CDE) who produced the 40 page opinion referenced in the Mike Zullo affidavit that was submitted to the Alabama Supreme Court in the Obama eligibility case and his report concluded that the Obama birth certificate image, located at WhiteHouse.gov is a complete fabrication.
PPSimmons reports:
The rabid followers of the “O” (Obots) have rushed to denounce Reed Hayes as a “quack.” However, one might be surprised to learn that one of Hayes’ clients listed in the Expert Witness Directory at this link is an attorney with Perkins-Coie Law Firm.
Perkins – Coie is the law practice whose partners have provided Obama’s personal defense against all birth certificate and natural born citizen litigation over the past five years. Hmmmmm. Very interesting indeed.
If it turns out that Sheriff Arpaio is successful in getting Congress to investigate the authenticity of Obama’s BC, the Perkins-Coie legal team, who will be defending Obama, will be hard pressed to simply dismiss Reed Hayes as a “quack.” This fact will be especially significant now that it is a revealed and proven truth that members of the Perkins – Coie firm have used Hayes as an expert witness! Their own prior cases, where Hayes was used as a witness, would be severely compromised if they use Saul Alinski-styled mocking attacks on Hayes.
It has been reported that Mr. Hayes has been hounded by Obama operatives to discover the details of his 40-page forensic analysis of the Obama pdf birth certificate. He has been referring them to Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse, who now legally own his report, for further information.
I also found it interesting that someone sided with the Obama administration and attempted to bring up dirt on Hayes by pointing out that he was a homosexual with a “partner,” who is now deceased. Isn’t that interesting? Why would that be considered “dirt” from the Obama side? Isn’t he the one telling us that is “normal” and isn’t he the one helping to push the homosexual agenda along? Ah, the hypocrisy!
Mike Zullo responded to the revelation from Hayes, “This ought to serve as a warning shot across the bow to the naysayers of our criminal investigation in the Obama fraud case. The impressive credentials of Mr. Hayes, and the fact that he has testified in court cases for Perkins-Coie coupled with the fact that Mr. Hayes is a registered Democrat, demonstrates the integrity of our investigation and our conviction that we possess incontrovertible evidence to back our case. It must be emphasized that we possess much more evidence similar to this revelation that we have not yet released for public information.”
Heads circles in red are the 7 justices who ruled against requiring proof of US citizenship to vote. L to r: Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens, John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Uncircled are Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
