Reader recommendation: Wolf Hall

Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.

Hillary Mantel's award-winning novel on Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall, gives a more sympathetic rendition of Thomas (not Oliver) Cromwell, chief advisor to King Henry VIII, than most historians accord him. The book is written in excellent prose, built on modern and early English languages. It flags a little at the end but is an excellent read. Mantel's second book of this trilogy "Bring up the Bodies," won the Booker prize but I have not read it yet.

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Russia rejects US demand for Snowden's extradition

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday bluntly rejected U.S. demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who has apparently stopped in Moscow while trying to evade U.S. justice, saying that Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border.

Sergey Lavrov insisted that Russia has nothing to do with him or his travel plans. Lavrov wouldn't say where Snowden is, but he angrily lashed out at the U.S. for demanding his extradition and warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply.

"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said. "There are no legal grounds for such conduct of U.S. officials, and we proceed from that."

U.S and Ecuadorean officials said they believed Snowden was still in Russia, where he fled Sunday after weeks of hiding out in Hong Kong following his disclosure of the broad scope of two highly classified counterterror surveillance programs to two newspapers. The programs collect vast amounts of Americans' phone records and worldwide online data in the name of national security.

Lavrov claimed that the Russian government has only found out about Snowden's flight from Hong Kong from news reports.

"We have no relation to Mr. Snowden, his relations with the American justice or his travel around the world," Lavrov said. "He chooses his route himself, and we have learned about it from the media."

Snowden booked a seat on a Havana-bound flight from Moscow Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn't show up on the plane. Russian news reports said he has remained at a transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, but he hasn't been seen there by the media.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has embraced Snowden and WikiLeaks experts are believed to be assisting him in arranging asylum.

Assange on Monday declined to discuss where Snowden was but said he was only passing through Russia and had applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries.

Ecuador's foreign minister hailed Snowden on Monday as "a man attempting to bring light and transparency to facts that affect everyone's fundamental liberties."

The decision whether to grant Snowden the asylum he has requested is a choice between "betraying the citizens of the world or betraying certain powerful elites in a specific country," Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters while visiting Vietnam. He said Tuesday that he didn't know Snowden's exact whereabouts.

A high-ranking Ecuadorean official told The Associated Press that Russia and Ecuador were discussing where Snowden could go, and the process could take days. He also said Ecuador's ambassador to Moscow had not seen or spoken to Snowden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. had made demands to "a series of governments," including Ecuador, that Snowden be barred from any international travel other than to be returned to the U.S. The U.S. has revoked Snowden's passport.

Secretary of State John Kerry urged Moscow to "do the right thing" and turn over Snowden.

"We're following all the appropriate legal channels and working with various other countries to make sure that the rule of law is observed," President Barack Obama told reporters when asked if he was confident that Russia would expel Snowden.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. was expecting the Russians "to look at the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden back to the United States to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged."

Some experts said it was likely the Russian spy agencies were questioning Snowden on what he knew about U.S. electronic espionage against Moscow.

"If Russian special services hadn't shown interest in Snowden, they would have been utterly unprofessional," Igor Korotchenko, a former colonel in Russia's top military command turned security analyst, said on state Rossiya 24 television.

The Kremlin has previously said Russia would be ready to consider Snowden's request for asylum.

Snowden is a former CIA employee who later was hired as a contractor for the NSA. In that job, he gained access to documents that he gave to The Guardian and The Washington Post to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.

Snowden also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." He is believed to have more than 200 additional sensitive documents in laptops he is carrying.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-rejects-us-demand-snowdens-extradition-092352868.html

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US consumer confidence at five-year high in June

In this Wednesday, May 15, 2013 photo, pedestrians walk in and out of the Walgreens flagship store in the Empire State Building, in New York. The private Conference Board reports on consumer confidence for June, on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

In this Wednesday, May 15, 2013 photo, pedestrians walk in and out of the Walgreens flagship store in the Empire State Building, in New York. The private Conference Board reports on consumer confidence for June, on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Americans' confidence in the economy rose to its highest level in more than five years, bolstered by a more optimistic outlook for hiring.

The Conference Board, a New York-based private research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index jumped to 81.4 in June. That's the best reading since January 2008. And it is up from May's reading of 74.3, which was revised slightly downward from 76.2.

Consumers' confidence in the economy is watched closely because their spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

The report shows consumers are more positive about current economic conditions and have a more optimistic view of the economy and job market in the next six months.

Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the Conference Board, said that "suggests the pace of growth is unlikely to slow in the short-term, and may even moderately pick up."

Employers added 175,000 jobs in May, nearly matching the average monthly gain for the past year. That's enough to slowly lower the unemployment rate. The rate ticked up to 7.6 percent last month but has fallen 0.6 percentage points in the past year.

More Americans see signs of hiring taking place. Nearly 12 percent describe the number of jobs available as "plentiful," the most since September 2008.

And nearly 20 percent of consumers expect there will be more jobs in six months, while only 16.1 percent expect fewer jobs. That's the first time those expecting more jobs have outnumbered those expecting fewer since February 2012.

Rising home prices are also likely making Americans feel wealthier and more confident about spending. Home prices jumped 12.1 percent in April compared with a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index, also released Tuesday.

Slightly more consumers said they planned to buy a car in the next six months. The percentage saying they planned to buy a home also ticked up.

Americans have been resilient this year, despite tax increases and steep government spending cuts. Consumer spending rose at the fastest pace in two years in the first three months of the year. That helped the overall economy grow at a 2.4 percent annual pace during the January-March quarter.

Economists forecast that overall economic growth is slowing to a 2 percent annual pace in the April-June quarter, in part because they expect consumers have eased up on spending from the robust first-quarter pace.

Despite the recent gains, the confidence index remains well below the 90 reading that indicates a healthy economy ? a level it hasn't reached since the Great Recession began in December 2007.

So far, reports on consumer spending for the second quarter have been mixed. In April, consumer spending fell as income was unchanged. But spending appears to have rebounded in May, based on a preliminary report on retail sales. Americans spent more on cars, home improvements and sporting goods, boosting retail sales 0.6 percent.

The Commerce Department will release a more complete report on May consumer spending and income on Thursday.

The Conference Board survey is conducted in the first half of the month. So the June report didn't capture the impact of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments last week after the Fed's policy meeting.

Bernanke said the Fed could begin to slow its bond purchases by the end of the year. Since then, stocks have plunged and interest rates have spiked.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-25-US-Consumer-Confidence/id-b58d7b0f298147b89ad83b92d5072083

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Raw live results: June 24, 2013

All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of WWE, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. ? 2013 WWE, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This website is based in the United States. By submitting personal information to this website you consent to your information being maintained in the U.S., subject to applicable U.S. laws. U.S. law may be different than the law of your home country. WrestleMania XXIX (NY/NJ) logo TM & ? 2013 WWE. All Rights Reserved. The Empire State Building design is a registered trademark and used with permission by ESBC.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-06-24/wwe-raw-results

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Militants kill 9 foreign tourists, 1 Pakistani

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? At least a dozen Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn Sunday as they were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said.

The foreigners who were killed included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian, said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, he said.

The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a recent U.S. drone strike.

The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years and is likely to damage the country's already struggling tourism industry. Pakistan's mountainous north ? considered until now relatively safe ? is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.

The attack took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). Nanga Parbat is notoriously difficult to climb and is known as the "killer mountain" because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past. It's unclear if the tourists were planning to climb the mountain or were just visiting the base camp, which is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.

The gunmen were wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police force that patrols the area, said the interior minister. The attackers abducted two local guides to find their way to the remote base camp. One of the guides was killed in the shooting, and the other has been detained and is being questioned, said Khan.

"The purpose of this attack was to give a message to the world that Pakistan is unsafe for travel," said the interior minister in a speech in the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the incident. "The government will take all measures to ensure the safety of foreign tourists."

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa group carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban's deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.

"By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

At least a dozen gunmen were involved in the attack, local police officer Jahangir Khan said.

The attackers beat up the Pakistanis who were accompanying the tourists, took their money and tied them up, said a senior local government official. They checked the identities of the Pakistanis and shot to death one of them, possibly because he was a minority Shiite Muslim, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Although Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively peaceful area, it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on Shiites in recent years.

The attackers took the money and passports from the foreigners and then gunned them down, said the official. It's unclear how the Chinese tourist who was rescued managed to avoid being killed. The base camp has basic wooden huts, but most tourists choose to sleep in their own tents.

Local police chief Barkat Ali said they first learned of the attack when one of the local guides called the police station around 1 a.m. on Sunday. The military airlifted the bodies to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, Sunday afternoon.

"We hope Pakistani authorities will do their best to find the culprits of this crime," the Ukrainian ambassador to Pakistan, Volodymyr Lakomov, told reporters outside the hospital where the bodies were taken.

The Pakistani government condemned the "brutal act of terrorism" in a statement sent to reporters.

"Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries," said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.

Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is sensitive to any issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.

Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the perceived danger of visiting a country that is home to a large number of Islamic militant groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which mostly reside in the northwest near the Afghan border. A relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the peaks of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, condemned the attack and expressed fear that it would seriously damage the region's tourism industry.

"A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people," said Shah. "This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan."

The area has been cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers, and a military helicopter was searching the area, said Shah.

"God willing we will find the perpetrators of this tragic incident," said Shah.

The government suspended the chief secretary and top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.

___

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/militants-kill-9-foreign-tourists-1-pakistani-083351537.html

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UK austerity 'still needed to avoid economic relapse' - Osborne

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's economy could fall back into crisis if the government abandons its austerity programme, Chancellor George Osborne said on Sunday as he raced against the clock to finalise the latest round of departmental cuts.

Three days before he announces ministries' spending limits for 2015-16, Osborne said the budget deficit was still too high and he was committed to finding savings worth 11.5 billion pounds.

"We are out of intensive care and our job now is to secure the recovery," Osborne told BBC television. "There certainly is a chance of a relapse if we abandon our economic plan."

The Conservative-led coalition government is sticking with its central economic policy of reducing a deficit that peaked at more than 11 percent of gross domestic product before it came to power in May 2010.

Despite tax rises and cuts, public borrowing has remained stubbornly high over the past year, and data on Friday showed public net debt climbed to record levels in May.

Asked how many of the 17 government departments had agreed to his spending plans, Osborne said only that the job was not finished and more work was needed before he unveils his spending review on Wednesday.

DEFENCE DEAL

A deal was reached with the defence department on Saturday, Osborne said, ending what analysts saw as one of the most difficult sets of negotiations.

General Peter Wall, the head of the army, said last week that more cuts would seriously damage the country's chances of success in future wars.

Osborne said the defence deal would see cuts to civilian staff numbers, while protecting Britain's military capability. However, he said there was no agreement with the business department, run by Vince Cable, a senior Liberal Democrat, the junior coalition partner.

Labour, which leads the Conservatives by around 10 points in the polls with the next election due to be held in 2015, accuses the coalition of choking the recovery with its austerity drive.

Labour finance spokesman Ed Balls said he would adopt Osborne's day-to-day spending limits for 2015-16 if his party were to win the election. However, he wanted the coalition to spend 10 billion pounds more on capital projects such as new roads.

Balls said he would be prepared to borrow more to finance extra capital expenditure, an admission Economic Secretary to the Treasury Sajid Javid held up as evidence that Labour couldn't be trusted to balance the books.

"Of course there's a case for doing that," Balls told BBC television. "If George Osborne had done that last year or the year before, we wouldn't have had such a flatlining economy."

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-austerity-still-needed-avoid-economic-relapse-osborne-123048318.html

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NSA Surveillance Scandal: Snowden On the Run, Asks Ecuador for Asylum

Edward Snowden is reportedly seeking political asylum in Ecuador after arriving to Moscow today. Meanwhile, the US has revoked his passport. The former NSA contractor has been on the run since he first revealed details of Verizon's participation in a telecommunications industry program to store information on all telephone calls, and then broke news of the NSA/Silicon Valley PRISM system that watches over the whole Interent. Developing...

Sunday, June 23, 2013 1:00PM?Russian media has confirmed that Edward Snowden is now in Moscow after leaving his secret Hong Kong hideout. The same sources reported he has a ticket for an Aeroflot flight to Havana, Cuba, leaving tomorrow at 2PM.

Snowden's final destination may not be Havana, however. The current speculation is that he may go to Caracas after landing in Havana. Other rumors point to Iceland. Wikileaks claims his final destination is Ecuador. Julian Assange and his organization claim they are helping him.

Latest updates

U.K. Internet Spying & U.S. Drone Evidence

Friday, June 21, 2013 3:40 PM?The extent of the FBI's domestic drone spying is revealed by "drone licenses" released to the Electronic Freedom Foundation. News of the drone documents follow FBI Director Robert Mueller's admission to U.S. senators that drones are already spying on Americans on U.S. soil. The Guardian continues revealing details of the massive spying operations, with new evidence showing the U.K. intelligence services tapped into the same Internet pipelines fully monitored by the NSA.

NSA and Silicon Valley In Same Business

Thursday, June 20, 3:25 PM?The National Security Agency wants information on everybody. Tech giants such as Facebook and Apple and Google have information on everybody. They're all in the same business, and the subject of this massive combined technology-intelligence operation is you. Using Prism, the NSA snatches all Internet traffic as it flows in and out of the United States, which violates the U.S. Constitution.

And it's not just data that flows between the California technology giants and the NSA. Facebook's former security chief, Max Kelly, left the social network to take a similar job with the National Security Agency.

Snowden's "Wargame," FBI Drones Over USA

Wednesday, June 19, 2013 3:39 PM?The veteran leaks site Cryptome.org calls Edward Snowden's NSA leaks part of a growing "wargame," while the FBI's director has admitted to the Senate that drones are currently spying on Americans from the skies above the United States.

Opinion

Some tech experts say all this should be expected, some say it's no big deal.

Others say it's a march to fascism. Is privacy officially dead?

The story so far...

In reverse chronological order

Tuesday, June 18, 10:45 PM?The surveillance of Americans' phone calls and Internet activity is "transparent," President Barack Obama said on television Monday night. The names of these secret programs revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden are turning up on job sites all over the Internet.

The NSA and FBI has had access to private accounts on Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Apple during the last six months, and appears to be expanding and extending online surveillance that first began with the controversial Patriot Act programs launched after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Monday, June 17, 10:45 PM?Edward Snowden?the NSA contractor employee who revealed the secret US government spy program Prism on June 6?now says that more details are coming.

11:23 AM?Answering The Guardian readers' questions, Prism whistleblower Edward Snowden claims that more details are coming no matter what happens to him: "All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."

10:42 AM?Today, Apple has admitted that the government obtained data from 9,000 to 10,000 devices as part of investigations on "robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer?s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide." The company also claims it doesn't chat messages or videoconferences and that "it doesn't store Maps, location, or Siri data in any way that could identify you."

Saturday, June 15, 2013 3:00 PM?The Associate Press has numerous sources detailing that Prism's collaboration with tech companies is just the tip of the iceberg?the NSA actually captures every single bit of data that comes in and out the United States, storing it for analysis:

...larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone. That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis.

Thursday, June 13, 2013 1:55 PM?The Silicon Valley giants are telling a very different story than the NSA, which explained in top secret Power Point presentations exactly how the data comes from the biggest Internet companies to the government's massive spying operations.

Patriot Or Traitor: Edward Snowden and the NSA Prism Surveillance Web

Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 7:25 PM?More Americans see Prism whistleblower Edward Snowden as a patriot than as a traitor, according to a new opinion poll. But the 29-year-old former intelligence contractor who leaked the details of the NSA's massive data mining operation is still unknown to most Americans?46% have no opinion on his motivations.

1:40 PM?Prism whistleblower Edward Snowden has resurfaced in Hong Kong, telling the South China Morning Post that he's "revealing criminality" and has no other motives. He plans to stay in Hong Kong and has more secrets to reveal.

Since the shocking revelations were revealed a week ago, Snowden has been vilified as a defector but also hailed by supporters such as WikiLeaks? Julian Assange.

?I?m neither traitor nor hero. I?m an American,? he said, adding that he was proud to be an American. ?I believe in freedom of expression. I acted in good faith but it is only right that the public form its own opinion.?

Snowden tells the Hong Kong paper, ?I will never feel safe."

Ron Paul Fears Edward Snowden Will Be Assassinated

Tuesday, June 11, 2013 11:39 PM?Congressman Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who first became a hero to young computer technicians in 2007, said today that he fears that the United States government will assassinate Edward Snowden using either a "cruise missile or a drone missile."

Google, Microsoft and Facebook released open letters today asking the U.S. government to get the tech firms off the hook for cooperating with widespread electronic spying on Americans by the biggest tech firms as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In Maryland, the father of Snowden's girlfriend described Snowden as a man of "strong convictions of right and wrong." But because Snowden is generally "shy and reserved," Jonathan Mills said he was shocked by the revelations.

Lindsay Mills, the 29-year-old girlfriend of Snowden, reportedly texted her father but did not reveal her whereabouts. Snowden disappeared from his Hong Kong hotel at least a day ago, and has yet to surface.

6:40 PM?While the world's attention turned to Edward Snowden's pole-dancing ballerina girlfriend today, the American Civil Liberties Union launched a legal backlash against the NSA and FBI's widespread domestic spying as Google and Apple sought permission from the U.S. government to disclose at least some of what's going on.

The ACLU lawsuit is the first challenge to the widespread phone company spying revealed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old American who has single-handedly brought the nation's attention back to the long forgotten issue of constant surveillance.

2:31 PM?The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald wrote the shocking stories based on Snowden's leaks, but Greenwald knows firsthand that surveillance dragnets allegedy created to target foreign terrorists are just as easily?and clumsily?turned on U.S. citizens critical of an overreaching government that increasingly seems to exist only to protect itself from the nation it ostensibly serves. The Nation's Lee Fang describes what was revealed just two years ago:

Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies, and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions, and political organizations. The plans ? one concocted in concert with lawyers for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to "combat" WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America ? fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cyber tools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.

The episode also shows that Greenwald, who helped Snowden expose massive spying efforts in the U.S., had been targetted by spy agency contractors in the past for supporting whistleblowers and WikiLeaks.

Majority of Americans Support NSA Spying

Monday, June 10, 2013 5:42 PM?NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has left his Hong Kong hotel as Republican members of Congress call for his extradition and the White House. The 29-year-old contractor for U.S. intelligence services provided details of Washington's decade-long spree of data collection on the phone calls and Internet use of all Americans, and now fears for his life.

Nearly 19,000 people have signed the "Pardon Edward Snowden" petition at WhiteHouse.gov. Daniel Ellsberg, whose life was upended by his decision to leak the Pentagon's bleak assessment of its war in Vietnam, today is praising Snowden's "conscience and patriotism."

Meanwhile, a solid majority of Americans surveyed by Pew Research Center say they're just fine with the constant surveillance of telephone calls and Internet use?56% of Americans support the illegal domestic spying, but only 27% of Americans claim to be closely following the scandal.

3:04 PM?Palantir, the Silicon Valley startup named for an evil all-seeing rock from Lord of the Rings reportedly behind the NSA's Prism program to spy on all Internet activity, takes the hobbit life very seriously. A company director explained in 2010 that a surveillance program called "Save the Shire" saw America's perceived enemies as orcs and dark wizards.

Sunday, June 9, 10:00PM?Edward Snowden: This is the man who told the world about PRISM, the NSA spy network capable of grabbing all your personal data?including private messages, photos and videos?with the help of America's top tech companies.

According to the Guardian, Snowden worked for the last four years at the National Security Agency. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," Snowden told The Guardian. ?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 U.S. government is doing.?

Following the revelation of his identity, Edward Snowden was hiding in a Hong Kong hotel.

Despite Denials, Tech Companies Collaborated With NSA

Saturday, June 8, 3:30 PM?The Guardian has revealed the existence of a second NSA surveillance network. Its name is Boundless Informant and, unlike PRISM, it covers the entire planet. Unlike PRISM, however, this network doesn't capture the data but merely organizes it, indexing countries by the metadata obtained from local phone and computer networks.

3:10 AM?The New York Times says that Facebook, Google and Apple are collaborating with the NSA, rebutting the companies' carefully worded statements. According to their sources, companies like Facebook built specific systems so the government could easily request and access their data.

This information contradicts Zuckerberg's denial, posted on his Facebook page Friday afternoon, which has the vague sound of many, many lawyers parsing their own language:

Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access [added emphasis] to our servers. We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday.

Google's Larry Page posted something that sounds remarkably similar to Zuckerberg's statement:

First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government?or any other government?direct access [added emphasis] to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a ?back door? to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.

According to the Times, the key words here are direct access. The government didn't have a backdoor to access the data, but these companies built a system for them:

New York Times | Tech Companies Concede to Surveillance Program

[C]ompanies were essentially asked to erect a locked mailbox and give the government the key, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information, they said.

Obama Says PRISM Exists To "Keep Us Safe"

Friday, June 7, 3:31 PM?A mysterious Facebook-connected startup called Palantir?a Lord of the Rings reference to a magical method of surveillance?appears to be the entity that runs the NSA's PRISM program just revealed to be spying on all Americans at all times, with Barack Obama's approval. Obama was in Silicon Valley this morning shaking down the tech billionaires for campaign money:

1:36 PM?Obama claimed the massive, unprecedented national surveillance system involves only "modest encroachments on privacy." As for any political fallout in Congress, Obama also made it clear that "your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we're doing."

12:41 AM?Barack Obama, speaking live in Silicon Valley right now, said the electronic snooping "helps protect us from terrorism" and insists all the eavesdropping of every mobile call, email, instant message and file attachment is completely legal. Obama is in San Jose raising campaign money from the Internet billionaires who allow the NSA to spy on all Americans.

11:18 AM?The nine major tech companies letting the U.S. government spy on all Americans all the time have denied being part of the wholesale surveillance program run by the National Security Agency and the FBI. The spies have full access to all Internet communications and mobile call data coming in and out of the United States and Britain?but the online collective known as Anonymous has already retaliated by dumping a huge trove of NSA documents on the Internet.

NSA Surveillance Program Is Called PRISM

Thursday, June 6, 2013 10:29 PM?The Washington Post reports that the NSA and FBI are working with the top nine U.S. tech companies?including Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Apple?to capture all your e-mails, photographs, audio, video, and documents, in addition to wiretapping all your calls.

Their spying system is called PRISM. As a response, hackers group Anonymous have published 13 secret US government documents, including documents about PRISM and the Department of Defense's Strategic Vision for controlling the internet.

Newly exposed proof that all the major telecommunication companies in America continue to hand over all phone data to the National Security Agency means that the White House's illegal mass wiretapping of people suspected of no crime has continued for a dozen years.

Along with monitoring of web traffic, email and searches through the major telecom carriers, all phone calls been wiretapped with full cooperation of the communications companies since at least 2001. That the practice is illegal hasn't stopped the White House or NSA from continuing the wholesale surveillance. Congress reliably moves to make illegal spying legal whenever there's a scandal like the current Verizon outrage.

White House Says Spying On Millions of Verizon Calls a "Critical Tool"

Wednesday, June 6, 2013 9:03 AM?America's spy agencies have had full access to US cellphone call data to and from Verizon customers since April, the Guardian reports. The Obama Administration is defending the National Security Agency phone spying as a "critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States."

The secret order was obtained by the British newspaper and reported Wednesday night.

Reuters | Obama administration defends phone record collection

The Obama administration on Thursday acknowledged that it is collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack. Read...

AP | White House Defends Collecting Phone Records

The White House on Thursday defended the National Security Agency's need to collect telephone records of U.S. citizens, calling such information "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats." Read...

Forbes | NSA's Verizon Spying Specifically Targeted at Americans

[T]he extent of the NSA?s surveillance shows that it has focused specifically on Americans, to the degree that its data collection has in at least one major spying incident explicitlyexcluded those outside the United States. Read...

CNN | Obama administration reacts to phone records report

A senior Obama administration official [...] stressed that the information acquired by the purported order "does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call." Read...

Data from all incoming and outgoing calls is provided to the NSA under the top secret order, which the Washington Post describes as a "routine renewal of a similar order first issued in 2006." The White House did not specifically address the Verizon order this morning, but referred to at least one telecommunications company.

Past revelations of major U.S. telecommunications companies spying on Americans suspected of no crimes has shown that the other carriers have consistently opened their lines and data banks to America's spy agencies since 2001.

[Photos by the Associated Press and Getty Images. Illustrations by Front]

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Source: http://front.kinja.com/nsa-surveillance-scandal-snowden-on-the-run-asks-ecua-511588927

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