Intelligence Chair: NSA Leaker Edward Snowden May Have Had Russian Help Dominic Rushe The Guardian January 19, 2014
Russia may have helped the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to reveal details of surveillance programmes and escape US authorities last year, the chairman of the House intelligence committee claimed on Sunday. Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Michigan, interviewed by NBC’s Meet the Press, said Snowden was “a thief whom we believe had some help”, and added that there was an “ongoing” investigation into whether Russia had aided Snowden. “I believe there's questions to be answered there,” Rogers said. “I don't think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the [Russian intelligence service] FSB.” Rogers added: “Let me just say this. I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. “We have questions that we have to answer but as someone who used to do investigations some of [the] things we are finding we would call clues that certainly would indicate to me that he had some help and he stole things that had nothing to do with privacy,” said Rogers. The Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, a staunch defender of the NSA’s programmes, also spoke to Meet the Press. She said Snowden had joined the NSA “with the intent to take as much material down as he possibly could”. Asked if he was aided by the Russians, Feinstein said: “He may well have. We don’t know at this stage. But I think to glorify this act is to set a new level of dishonour.” Rogers' comments were backed by Michael McCaul, chairman of the House committee on homeland security. Speaking from Moscow, the Texas Republican told ABC’s This Week: “I believe he
[Snowden] was cultivated by a foreign power to do what he did.” McCaul said he could not “definitively” say it was Russia that helped Snowden. “Hey, listen, I don't think … Mr Snowden woke up one day and had the wherewithal to do this all by himself. I think he was helped by others. Again, I can't give a definitive statement on that … but I've been given all the evidence, I know Mike Rogers has access to, you know, that I've seen that I don't think he was acting alone.” Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia last August, after travelling to Moscow from Hong Kong. Last year, in an interview with the New York Times, Snowden said he did not take any of the documents he obtained to Russia, “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest”. Snowden said there was “zero-percent chance” that Russia had received any documents and that he had handed all his NSA data to journalists from media outlets including the Guardian, before leaving Hong Kong. “What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward?” he said. Snowden has consistently denied any involvement with foreign spying agencies and said he leaked the documents because he believed the NSA programmes were against the best interests of the US people. “I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things,” he told the Guardian last year. Rogers did not give any supporting evidence for his claims, but suggested Snowden “used methods beyond his technical capabilities" and had help with his travel arrangements. “He was stealing information that had to do with how we operate overseas to collect information to keep Americans safe … and some of the things he did were beyond his technical capabilities,” Rogers said.
Mike Rogers is chair of the House intelligence committee. Photograph: AP Rogers' comments came after President Barack Obama on Friday outlined possible reforms to surveillance practices and a review of the NSA’s programmes. The speech met with a mixed reaction from privacy advocates and tech and telecoms companies, all of whom said there was too little detail and little clarity on how or if the system was being reformed. The NSA revelations have also damaged relations with countries including Brazil and Germany, where the US has been accused of spying on its allies. On Sunday, Brazil gave Obama's speech a cautious
welcome. "It's a first step. The Brazilian government will monitor the practical ramifications of the speech very closely," president Dilma Rousseff's spokesman, Thomas Traumann, wrote on the president's official blog. Some Democrats have been critical. Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, told Fox News Sunday further checks and balances were needed. “There’s a concern that we have gone too much into Americans’ privacy,” he said. “There’s still going to be legislation on this.” In his speech, Obama said he wanted bulk phone data to be stored outside the government, to reduce the risk that such records would be abused; that he would require a special judge's advance approval before agencies could examine an individual's data; and that he would force analysts to keep their searches closer to suspected terrorists or organisations. On Sunday, Feinstein said: "I think that's a very difficult thing. Because the whole purpose of this program is to provide instantaneous information to be able to disrupt any plot that may be taking place." Rogers was also critical of Obama. He told CNN’s State of the Union the president's speech had created more uncertainty in the intelligence community and was potentially dangerous. “We really did need a decision on Friday and what we got was lots of uncertainty,” he said. “And just in my conversations over the weekend with intelligence officials, that level of uncertainty is already having a bit of an impact on our ability to protect Americans by finding terrorists trying to reach into the United States.” He added: “I just don’t think we want to go to pre-9/11 just because we haven’t had an attack.”
Sen. Leahy On NSA Spying: We Need To Stop Government From Controlling American People Vince Coglianese January 19, 2014
Sen. Patrick Leahy says the American people are at risk of being controlled by their government due to the expansive surveillance powers of the National Security Agency. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told host Chris Wallace that the nation’s lawmakers must act to return control of the government to the people. “I think that we are going to maintain our ability to protect the United States,” Leahy began. “That’s extremely important.” “The concern everybody has is allowing our government to have such a reach into your private life, my private life, and everybody else’s, that we are, we have the government controlling us instead of us controlling the government.” “And that’s what both Republicans and Democrats are joined together on the Hill to try to change,” Leahy concluded. Earlier in the program, Leahy suggested that viewers consider history when deciding whether the government should have so much access to the private communications of American citizens. “I just think that there should be oversight,” Leahy said. “Think back in the history of this county, in J. Edgar Hoover’s day and all — if he had had the power when he was spying on protesters and those against the Vietnam War and Martin Luther King — if he had had the power that’s in here, think what might have happened. We Americans believe in our safety. We also believe in our ability to be private.” “You still have to have some checks and balances before you have a government that can run amok,” Leahy said.
‘Agent Orange Corn’: Biotech Companies Are Waging a Chemical Arms Race on Our Food Supply John Robbins Food Revolution Network January 19, 2014 The Obama administration announced last week that it expects to approve corn and soybeans that have been genetically engineered by Dow Chemical company to tolerate
the toxic herbicide — 2,4-D. They are planning this approval despite the fact that use of this herbicide is associated with increased rates of deadly immune system cancers, Parkinson’s disease, endocrine disruption, birth defects, and many other serious kinds of illness and reproductive problems. Weed ecologists are unanimous in warning that approval of these crops will lead to vast increases in the use of this poisonous chemical. Researchers at Penn State say that in soybeans alone, planting of crops resistant to 2,4-D would increase the amount of 2,4-D sprayed on American fields to 100 million pounds per year — four times the current level. The researchers predict a cascade of negative environmental impacts, and add that the increasing use of the herbicide would actually worsen the epidemic of superweeds it is intended to address, by causing weeds to become resistant to multiple herbicides. A coalition of 144 farming, fishery, environmental and public health groups have asked the USDA not to approve the 2,4-D resistant crops. Citing studies that predict dire consequences to both human and environmental health, they add the concern among farmers that 2,4-D would drift onto their property and kill their crops, causing serious economic damage in rural communities. But you have a chance to prevent this from happening. We have now entered a 45 day period during which the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is inviting public comments. The biotech industry continually reassures public officials and the public that genetically engineered foods reduce the amount of pesticides applied to our crops. Is this claim scientifically valid? Or is it just a myth propagated for PR purposes? A recent study, conducted at Washington State University, provides a conclusive answer. The study was authored by agronomist Charles Benbrook, a former executive director of the National Academy of Sciences. Using official US Department of Agriculture data, he and his team of researchers looked at the effect on pesticide use of the first 13 years (from 1996 to 2008) of GM crop cultivation in the United States. Their conclusion? “Genetically engineered crops have been responsible for an increase of 383 million pounds of herbicide use in the U.S. over the first 13 years of commercial use of GE crops.” Total Herbicide Volume Applied… There may be controversy over whether GMO foods are safe for human consumption. But there is virtually no controversy over the fact that herbicides, like all pesticides, are dangerous. The enormous increase in herbicide use that has occurred as a direct result of the planting of genetically engineered crops has not only poisoned the air, the water, the soil, and farm workers. It has also been directly responsible for the development of the super-weeds that now plague 50% of our agricultural acreage. The biotech industry’s answer to these super weeds — their new corn and soy seeds that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D — would only make our food production systems even more tightly tethered to the pesticide treadmill that has produced the problem in the first place. Read more
INFOWARS.COM BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND