Tương Quan Nhà Nước Chính Phủ và Quần Chúng

Tham Khảo, Bài Đọc Thêm Một Trường Hợp Điển Hình của NSA XKeyscored!

Surprise! You’ve Been XKeyscored!

Posted By Justin Raimondo On August 1, 2013 @ 3:00 pm In Uncategorized | 11 Comments

The news that Edward Snowden has – finally – been granted political asylum in Russia has provoked the Usual Suspects into bloviating the Usual Nonsense: Gee, how come Snowden didn’t go to a “free” country, you know, just like America? Instead, he’s gone to Russia, where the secret police are watching you 24/7 and the cops can burst into your home without a warrant at any time. You know, kinda like this:
"It was a confluence of magnificent proportions that led six agents from the joint terrorism task force to knock on my door Wednesday morning. Little did we know our seemingly innocent, if curious to a fault, Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching. Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the Internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history."
Michele Catalano, of Long Island, New York, was at work yesterday [Wednesday] when the "joint terrorism task force" showed up at her door:
"At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband’s Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.
"Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door…."
All were armed:
"’Are you [name redacted]?’ one asked while glancing at a clipboard. He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in. Sure, he said.
"They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search. They walked around the living room, studied the books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook), looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They asked if they could go in my son’s bedroom but when my husband said my son was sleeping in there, they let it be.
"Meanwhile, they were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked."
It soon became clear this visit was provoked by what the Catalano family had been Googling: pressure cookers (Michele Catalano wants to buy one), backpacks (her husband is looking for one), and the avid curiosity of their news junkie teenage son, who had been reading online about the Boston terrorist attacks. This was confirmed by the conversation between Mr. Catalano and the cops:
"Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves weren’t curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if they ever looked it up. Two of them admitted they did.
“By this point they had realized they were not dealing with terrorists. They asked my husband about his work, his visits to South Korea and China. The tone was conversational."
How did they know Michele had been Googling "pressure cooker"? How did they know he’d been Googling “backpack” and about his visits to South Korea and China? The answer is staring us in the face: when the National Security Agency claims not to be spying on Americans, insisting they only surveil those Americans in contact with "foreign terrorists," they are lying – and here is the proof.
It has often been remarked that the events surrounding this entire Snowden episode have the look and feel of a novel: that the raid on the Catalano home occurred on the very day of Glenn Greenwald’s exposure of "XKeyscore," described by the NSA itself as its "widest reaching" spying tool, is yet another of increasingly numerous examples of life imitating art. As Greenwald reports:
"A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden."
XKeyscore sweeps up everything: emails, browsing history, metadata, social media activity: and, contrary to the lies being circulated by the administration and its defenders, no foreign connection is required, as the Catalano family’s scary experience demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt. As Greenwald points out:
"Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized FISA warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a ‘US person’, though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst."
That capability was exercised in the case of the Catalanos – they were XKeyscored, so to speak, apparently with full "legal authority." (Perhaps this hints at the government’s secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, which Sen. Ron Wyden says would horrify us.)
As Greenwald has been saying throughout this whole debate, the alleged legal necessity of a "foreign" connection, in practice, is so vague as to be meaningless. What was the "foreign" connection in the Catalanos’ case? The fact that Mr. Catalano had traveled overseas? That puts him in the same category as millions of Americans.
To add the requisite Keystone Kops aspect to this incident – after all, we’re talking about a US government agency here – Michele Catalano writes that the "suspicious" Google searches took place "weeks ago," adding "I don’t know what took them so long to get here." Well, I know what took them so long, and so does any libertarian – or any intelligent person who’s been paying attention since our national nightmare began – but let’s not go there now.
The important point is that, however inefficiently and even absurdly they may be going about it, our rulers are turning the US into a hi-tech version of North Korea. Overstatement? I wish. "They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week," Catalano continues, "and that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing."
One hundred times a week? Really? That can’t be true – can it? What’s scary is that I believe it.
From what I can tell, the Catalanos live right on the border of Rep. Peter King’s district – King (R-IRA) has been a caustic critic of the libertarian anti-NSA wing of his party. The other day he ranted:
"When you have Rand Paul actually comparing Snowden to Martin Luther King or Henry David Thoreau, this is madness, this is the anti-war Democrats in the 1960s that destroyed their party for almost 15 years. I don’t want that happening to our party. I thought it was absolutely disgraceful that so many Republicans voted to defund the NSA program, which has done so much to protect our country."
If what happened to the Catalano family has been accurately reported, then yes, this is indeed madness, albeit not in the way King intends. Local police are denying it: the Gothamist, in its quest for acknowledgment of the raid by authorities, reports "a press rep for the FBI in NYC said Nassau County was involved, ‘[S]o I have to go up the chain to bigger people.’" The Guardian puzzles:
"It was unclear on Thursday precisely who had visited Catalano. The FBI told the Guardian that she was visited by the Nassau County police department ‘working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department.’
“‘From our understanding, both of those counties are involved,’ said FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser. She said Suffolk County initiated the action and that Nassau County became involved, but would not elaborate on what that meant.
"The Suffolk County police department directed inquiries back to the FBI.
"The Nassau County police department said Catalano ‘was not visited by the Nassau police department’ and denied involvement in the situation.’"
They’re passing this burning coal around so fast it’s giving me a headache, which is one reason why I believe every word Michele Catalano has written about this shocking home invasion by government agents.
As the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force rampages across Long Island, carrying out these raids 100 times a week, it won’t be long before they show up in Rep. King’s district. In that case, he may have some ‘splaining to do.
The knock on the door in the night – that has always been the emblematic image that flashes before our eyes when we think of totalitarian societies like Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, and, today, North Korea or Cuba.
Is this what we’ve come to?
UPDATE: The Suffolk county police are now saying the visit to the Catalanos was provoked by “a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee.  The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms ‘pressure cooker bombs’ and ‘backpacks.’” The police statement  goes on to say:
“After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature.”
It would be wrong to assume this wasn’t coordinated with intelligence gleaned from XKeyscore or similar NSA surveillance programs: It’s quite likely the Catalanos did the same sort of searches on their home computer. They don’t send out the FBI’s JTTF, or even deputized local law enforcement, just because someone who hates you at your former job is engaged in some weird vendetta. There must have been some corroborating “evidence” that brought the feds – or whoever they were – to the Catalanos’ door. If anything, this update paints this home invasion in an even more sinister light: it’s the inevitable result of the  “if you see something, say something” campaign started by Janet Napolitano, combined with what Snowden calls the “architecture of oppression.”
It is, in short, our national nightmare – one that shows no sign of ending anytime soon.
UPDATE 2: Michele Catalano has issued a clarification, which reads in part:
"We found out through the Suffolk Police Department that the searches involved also things my husband looked up at his old job. We were not made aware of this at the time of questioning and were led to believe it was solely from searches from within our house."
The key word here, of course, is "also."

Hey! Sniffing Dogs

Hey! Sniffing Dogs, WE KNOW YOU ARE HERE and SNIFFING OUR ASSES!!! whether you are NSA, CIA, ASIO, FBI, AFP etc or all of your kinds, whatever you sniff, we do give a shit, and WE ARE HERE farting on your faces just to make sure you sniff the right stuffs!

Tam Quyền Đồng Qui Theo Dõi Trộm Cắp Thông Tin Riêng Tư của Công Dân!!!

Tài liệu vừa giải mật xác chứng tuyên bố của Snowden là chính xác: Cả ba ngành Hành Pháp, Lập Pháp và Công Lý toa rập trong chương trình theo dõi trộm cắp thông tin riêng tư của quần chúng, trong khi giả vờ "ngây thơ" không biết gì và đóng kịch "phẫn nộ" đủ trò vặt vãnh! Bản báo cáo chính thức của nhà nuớc Mỹ thừa nhận:

 “Thực tế, cả ba viện nhà nuớc chính phủ đều đóng vai trò quan trọng trong việc kiểm sát những chương trình này. Ngành Công Lý- qua Tòa án Theo Dõi Tình Báo Nước Ngoài- đóng vai trò cho cho phép những chuơng trình này và kiểm sát sự nghiêm chỉnh chấp hành lệnh. Ngành Hành Pháp tiến hành chặt chẽ sự thẩm định nội bộ để bảo đảm tính chấp hành nghiêm chỉnh lệnh lạc, và Lập Pháp giữ nhiệm vụ thông qua những luật cho chuơng trình này, kiểm sát việc thi hành ứng dụng những luật lệ trên, và quyết định có tiếp tục  tái hiệu lực những luật lệ này hay không và ở những hình thức nào (In fact, all three branches of government play a significant role in the oversight of these programs. The judiciary — through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — plays a role in authorizing the programs and overseeing compliance. The Executive Branch conducts extensive internal reviews to ensure compliance, and Congress passes the laws, oversees our implementation of those laws, and determines whether or not the current laws should be reauthorized and in what form.” (.pdf)

Những hành xử thuộc bản chất nhà nước này chẳng lạ lùng gì với những người có nhận thức chính trị căn bản đúng đắn. Nó chỉ làm ngạc nhiên hay giả vờ ngạc nhiên đối với những "tín đồ của giáo phái quốc gia nhà nước" mà thôi.

Những tên "chuyên gia" và "bỉnh bút" báo chí chính qui, từ những ngày đầu tiên từng mỉa mai chế riễu Snowden và những ngưòi lên tiếng ủng hộ xác chứng những điều Snowen tuyên bố, vẫn mặt dầy trơ trẽn bào chứa cối chày cho những ngu dốt  của họ.

Giờ đây, Ai, những kẻ nào mới chính là những tên TỘI PHẠM, những kẻ DỐI TRÁ, những kẻ TRỌNG CÁI TÔI ???

Cũng như tín đồ của các tôn giáo, với tín đồ "nhà nưóc giáo" bằng chứng hay sự thật với họ không có giá trị gì ngoài "niềm tin" đã đuợc nhồi nhét sẵn và lời tuyên hứa tuyệt đối trung thành!!!

nkptc

Declassified Memos Confirm Dragnet Phone Surveillance Program Was No Secret From Congress

• By David Kravets
• 07.31.13
• 1:24 PM

• 
  

Deputy Attorney General James Cole, shown in a 2011 photo, said today that lawmakers approved the NSA’s phone-metada dragnet and were briefed privately on the once-secret program. Photo: U.S. Marshals Service/Flickr

Intelligence officials today released top secret internal briefings they had provided to members of Congress that outline the dragnet phone call metadata surveillance program lawmakers secretly knew about but could not tell Americans when publicly voting for it.
The disclosure of the classified documents back assertions from the government, and even some members of Congress, that lawmakers were well in the loop of the dragnet surveillance program disclosed by the Guardian newspaper last month based on secret documents from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. Yet lawmakers were prohibited from publicly discussing the classified program, although the House and Senate subsequently authorized the dragnet in public votes on at least two occasions without the general public’s knowledge.
The release of the documents is intended to allay concerns that the Obama administration was overstepping its legal authority in carrying out the spy program, which is now under attack in courtrooms from San Francisco to the District of Columbia. It could also be that the NSA is feeling lonely in taking all the heat for the surveillance, and wants to bring its congressional co-conspirators into the party.
At an oversight hearing today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Deputy Attorney General James Cole reiterated the point that the program — although kept from the American public — was no secret on Capitol Hill.
“In fact, all three branches of government play a significant role in the oversight of these programs. The judiciary — through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — plays a role in authorizing the programs and overseeing compliance. The Executive Branch conducts extensive internal reviews to ensure compliance, and Congress passes the laws, oversees our implementation of those laws, and determines whether or not the current laws should be reauthorized and in what form.” (.pdf)
The released documents, one dated February 2, 2011 (.pdf), and the other December 14, 2009 (.pdf), were made “available to all Members of Congress” to “inform the legislative debate” as the Obama administration privately lobbied Congress to reauthorize the programs under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
According to the 2011 Top Secret document:

Under the program based on Section 215, NSA is authorized to collect from certain telecommunications providers certain business records that contain information about communications between two telephone numbers, such as the date, time, and duration of a call. There is no collection of content of any telephone call under this program, and under longstanding Supreme Court precedent the information collected is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. In this program, court orders (generally lasting 90 days) are served on [Reporter's Note: Here two lines listing the names of telephone carriers are redacted]. The orders generally require production of the business records (as described above) relating to substantially all of the telephone calls handled by the companies, including both calls made between the United States and a foreign county and calls made entirely within the United States.

A similar explanation of the program was described in the 2009 Top Secret briefing document. In the end, both the House and Senate reauthorized the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act that kept the surveillance program running.
The government unveiled the documents today following the Guardian posting in June of a leaked copy of a top secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion requiring Verizon Business to provide the National Security Agency the phone numbers of both parties involved in all calls, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number for mobile callers, calling card numbers used in the call, and the time and duration of the calls.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, conceded today that the dragnet was no secret among lawmakers. But he noted a sense of irony, that lawmakers couldn’t publicly discuss it.
“But of course you can’t talk about it,” he said.
One of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act — Section 215 — allows the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize broad warrants for most any type of “tangible” records, including those held by banks, doctors and phone companies.
Under the Patriot Act, the government only needs to show that the information is “relevant” to an authorized investigation.
Meanwhile, the government today also released a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion detailing how the massive database is used. The government has said it has queried the database using “300 unique identifiers” last year searching for terrorist activity.
About two dozen officials have access to the database, the highly redacted opinion said.
According to the opinion (.pdf), this is the standard by which a query can be executed:
“Such approval shall be given only after the designated approving official has determined that based on the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent persons act, there are facts giving rise to reasonable, articulable suspicion that the selection term to be queried is associated with….” [Reporter's Note: The rest of the sentence was redacted.]

Bản Tin Snowden Rời Phi Trường DemocracyNow.org

Snowden đã rời phi trường với qui chế tị nạn tạm thời!

(Hình bên: Luật sư Anatoly Kucheren và hộ chiếu nhập cảnh Nga của Snowden)

 Hôm nay 1-8-2013, luật sư Nga của Snowden, ông Anatoly Kucheren, chính thức cho biết Snowden đã được Nga cấp tình trạng tị nạn tạm thời  là một năm, trong khi chờ đợi cúu xét tư cách thường trú nhân tại Nga.

Theo qui chế "tị nạn tạm thời", Snowden đương nhiên được sống tự do và làm việc như một công dân Nga trên lãnh thổ Nga 12 tháng, nhưng với điều kiện không được tiếp tục công bố những tài liệu "có phương hại đến đồng minh Mỹ"
 
Củng theo luật sư Anatoly Kucheren, Snowden "Kẻ bị  truy nã gặt gao nhất địa cầu" đã rời khu chuyển tiếp quốc tế bằng Taxi để đến nơi cư trú chưa được tiết lộ.

Trong khi đó Anatoly Kucheren vẫn súc tiến việc mời bố Snowden đến Nga để gặp anh theo qui chế riêng của Nga. Cùng lúc FBI Mỹ cũng "yêu cầu" ông Lon Snowden đến Nga theo "dàn xếp" của FBI Mỹ, nhưng ông Lon Snowden đã từ chối những điều kiện do FBI đặt ra.
 
Diễn tiến có nhiều chỉ dấu cho biết đây là kết quả của cuôc điều đình "bên trong" giữa nhà nước Nga và Mỹ. Tuy nhiên trên bình diện báo chí, phía Mỹ cứ khăng khăng yêu cầu Putin tôn trọng công pháp, và pháp trị - dẫn độ Snowden cho Mỹ. Ngược lại Putin bình thản trả lời như một sự cố bình thường rằng luật pháp Nga đối chiếu với công pháp không có lý cớ gì chính đáng để dẫn độ Snowden cho Mỹ (no reason for Russia to extradite Snowden).  Phát ngôn viên chính thức của nhà nước Nga, Yuri Ushakov, tuyên bố báo với chí quốc tế  rằng đây là sự kiện chẳng quan trọng lắm (“relatively insignificant case”) cho nên nó sẽ chẳng ảnh hưởng gì đến bang giao Nga Mỹ!!!
 
Ngược lại, phía Âu Mỹ cả một guồng máy tổng hợp của nhà nước (Hành pháp, lập pháp, công lý) và báo chí thu hết toàn lực để tấn công đe dọa và triệt hạ danh dự Snowden và đe dọa tất cả những cá nhân và quốc gia nào có thiện cảm đồng ý cấp qui chế tị nạn cho Snowden- như một cảnh cáo làm gương cho toàn thể quần chúng và báo chí Mỹ.
 
Vần đề vẫn chỉ là chơi chữ trong "nguyên tắc pháp lý" giấy lộn. Putin thừa biết điều kiện Putin đặt cho Snowden coi như chỉ để vẽ mặt cho quan hệ Nga Mỹ  và người hiểu biết ai cũng hiểu như thế- vì tất cả "hồ sơ" Snowden đã trao cho những cộng tác viên cũng như đã có kế hoạch tiếp tục của nhóm đã đạt ra. Nhà nuớc Nga Mỹ cũng bó tay chịu trận khía cạnh này,  Hiện nay những thông tin vạch trần chương trình theo dõi trộm cắp tài liệu của NSA vẫn được Glenn Greenwald nhẩn nha từng buớc dưa ra công chúng. Theo nguyên tắc Snowden "vô trách nhiệm" và không vi phạm điều kiện ký kết với qui chế tạm thời tị nạn của anh tại Nga!


Tài liệu mới nhất do Greenwald đưa ra đã KHẲNG ĐỊNH TUYÊN BỐ của Snowden rằng Anh, ngồi tại văn phòng của cơ quan tư nhân thầu khoán cho NSA , có khả năng và thẩm quyền đọc, theo dõi trực tiếp bất cứ ai đang dùng mạng, kể cả tổng thống Mỹ. Tuyên bố này cho đến nay vẫn bị các "chuyên gia điện toán" và các "bỉnh bút" chính qui mỉa mai là "bốc phét và cường điệu"! Nay đã có đủ bằng chứng qua ứng liệu XKeyscore của NSA (http://chuquyencanhan.blogspot.com/2013/07/nsa-nghe-len-trom-cap-hau-nhu-tat-ca.html)!!!

Putin và Nhà nước Nga đang ngậm bò hòn Snowden làm ngọt với nỗi canh cánh lo sợ "lòng dũng  cảm sẽ truyền nhiễm" sang xã hội Nga, hay đúng là Putin và nhà nước Nga đang thật su hí hửng vì đã bắt đuợc cơ hội vỗ mặt Âu Châu đặc biệt là Mỹ bằng chính vũ khí "nhân quyền pháp trị" của họ? Và đồng thời đã rửa mặt cho nhà nước Nga, một nhà nước duy nhất còn lại trên thế giới đủ khả năng bước hiên ngang ở vị thế đối trọng công khai thách thức  thắng thế với Âu Mỹ sau khi từng liện tục bi Âu Mỹ xỉa sói  "nhân quyền pháp trị"?

Dù bên trong sóng ngầm đang vỗ ở mức nào, củng phải sòng phẳng công nhận rằng việc cấp qui chế tị nạn gọn gàng của Nga cho Snowden trong hoàn cảnh toàn bộ "thế giới tự do Âu Châu" hãi sợ quay lưng dưới áp lực hung hăng cua Mỹ,  đã xác định tư thế nhà nước Nga là thế lực duy nhất còn lại hiện nay trên thế giới dám thách thức nhà nước Mỹ. Điều này cũng cho thế giới thấy Trung Quốc, mệnh danh "cường quốc thứ nhì kinh tế" và "cường quốc quân sự đang lên" thật sự chỉ là CON CỌP GIẤY.

Snowden, với thực tế khẳng định rằng nhà nước Mỹ không thể để anh trở về Mỹ hay có một đòi sống "Nga bình thường" với nhà nước Nga, ít nhất là trong những năm sắp đến, sẽ phải mất một khoảng thời gian đủ để tái phối trí lực lượng và phương sách của anh cho con đường anh đã vạch ra và chọn lựa. Con đường đã trở thành chông gai hơn với súc ép của thế lực nhà nước từ Âu Mỹ và ngay tại Nga.

Trong những ngày sắp tới, chúng ta sẽ chứng kiến bản lãnh của Wikileaks, Glenn Greenwald, và đặc biệt Snowden như thế nào  trong một hoàn cảnh cực kỳ khó khăn chưa từng xảy ra với bất cứ ai trong lịch sử đấu tranh dân quyền. Snowden và cộng sự viên sẽ phải cực kỳ khôn khéo để lèo lái vị thế "bang giao quốc tế" duy nhất của Nga để vừa tiếp tục làm việc vừa bảo đảm an toàn đời sống cá nhân.

Chỉ còn một vấn đề mà anh không thể tránh khi nhà nước Mỹ quyết định: Ám Sát Snowden!

Đến tổng thống Mỹ khi thách thức guồng máy còn không tránh được "ám sát" hoặc "tự tử, tai nạn v.v)  thì chắc chắn Snowden đã lượng trước và coi tất cả mọi đe dọa của nhà nuớc nhẹ như lông hồng. Và có lẽ chính cái "coi nhẹ như lông hồng" của anh là lá chắn mạnh mẽ vững chắc nhất!

Chúc mừng Snowden và chúc phúc lành cho anh trên con đường xả thân vì công tâm và công lý.

nkptc
2-8-2013
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Edward Snowden receives temporary asylum in Russia, leaves Moscow airport

 MOSCOW — Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. security contractor, left the transit zone at Moscow’s international airport Thursday after Russian authorities granted him temporary asylum.

Anatoly Kucherena, an attorney for Snowden, said documents were issued Thursday allowing Snowden to live and work in Russia for up to one year while his application for permanent political asylum is pending. Snowden, 30, had been stranded in Russia’s Sheremetyevo Airport for more than five weeks.

Lon Snowden says he does not believe his son will ever get fair treatment from the U.S. government for revealing intelligence secrets. He sat down with the Post's Jerry Markon to defend to his son.

Lon Snowden says he does not believe his son will ever get fair treatment from the U.S. government for revealing intelligence secrets. He sat down with the Post's Jerry Markon to defend to his son.

Edward Snowden left the transit zone at Moscow's international airport Thursday, August 1 after receiving permission from the Kremlin to enter Russian territory.

Full coverage

“I have just seen him off. He has left for a secure location,” Kucherena told the state broadcaster Russia 24.

Kucherena described Snowden as “the most wanted man on the planet” and said he “needed time to adapt to Russian realities.”

[VIEW: Photos of Snowden.]

Snowden left Sheremetyevo in a taxi Thursday afternoon, eluding reporters who have camped at the airport since he arrived June 23 on a flight from Hong Kong.

Kucherena did not reveal where Snowden was bound, saying that although he was ready to provide advice, it was up to his client to decide where to live.

The lawyer said arrangements are being made for Snowden’s father to visit him in Russia, the Associated Press reported. In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Lon Snowden said he was eager to speak with his son but had refused an FBI offer to fly him to Moscow while his son was trapped at the airport, because U.S. authorities could not guarantee that the two would be able to meet.

“If he comes back to the United States, he is going to be treated horribly,” Lon Snowden said. “He is going to be thrown into a hole. He is not going to be allowed to speak.”

Snowden is wanted in the United States for leaking classified documents about telephone and e-mail surveillance programs. The documents issued Thursday will allow Snowden to live in Russia for up to one year, the lawyer said.

U.S. authorities repeatedly asked Russia to turn Snowden over to them so that he could be prosecuted for leaking the documents, and Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in June that Russia was defying international convention by allowing the fugitive to remain unhindered in the transit zone.

“There are standards of behavior between sovereign nations,” Kerry said. “There is common law. There is respect for rule of law.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, said he saw no reason for Russia to extradite Snowden to the United States. He said that for Snowden to remain in Russia, he would have to refrain from releasing information that is damaging to the United States. Putin added that the case should not be allowed to damage Russian-U.S. ties.

“If he wants to stay here, there is one condition,” Putin said July 1. “He has to stop his work undermining our U.S. partners, as odd as it may sound coming from me.”

The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday published a new report on U.S. intelligence-gathering based on information from Snowden, but Kucherena said the material was provided before Snowden promised to stop leaking, the Associated Press reported.

Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela have offered Snowden refuge, but pressure from Washington and concerns that the United States or Europe might block him from traveling through their airspace — his U.S. passport has been revoked — have prevented him from leaving Russia.

Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin official, told reporters Thursday that the “relatively insignificant case” of Snowden would not harm ties between Russia and the United States. There was no sign that President Obama would cancel a planned trip to Moscow in September, he added. 

The Illusion of Israeli-Palestinian Peace for Our Time

The Illusion of Israeli-Palestinian Peace for Our Time

By Stephen Lendman

Global Research, July 30, 2013

Region: Middle East & North Africa

In-depth Report: PALESTINE

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Talks take place in Washington. Doing so alone assures betrayal and failure. It’s certain. America one-sidedly favors Israel. It’s duplicitous. It’s no honest broker. It never was. It’s not now.
No legitimate Palestinian leader would permit Washington’s involvement. Collaborators betray their people by doing so.
Talks began Monday night. They did so informally. A State Department statement said the following:
“Today, Secretary Kerry spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and personally extended an invitation to send senior negotiating teams to Washington to formally resume direct final status negotiations.”
“Initial meetings are planned for the evening of Monday July 29 and Tuesday July 30, 2013.”
“The Israelis will be represented by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Molcho, and the Palestinians will be represented by Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh.”
“As Secretary Kerry announced on July 19 in Amman, Jordan, the Israelis and Palestinians had reached agreement on the basis for resuming direct final status negotiations.”
“The meetings in Washington will mark the beginning of these talks.”
“They will serve as an opportunity to develop a procedural workplan for how the parties can proceed with the negotiations in the coming months.”
“In his invitation, the Secretary again commended the courage shown by Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas.”
“The Secretary said, ‘Both leaders have demonstrated a willingness to make difficult decisions that have been instrumental in getting to this point. We are grateful for their leadership.’ ”
“The United States and the parties are looking forward to beginning these substantive discussions and in moving forward toward a final status agreement.”
Fact check
Longstanding unresolved final status issues are off the table. Claiming otherwise is duplicitous.
They include ending occupation, self-determination, settlements, borders, diaspora Palestinians right of return, borders, air, water and resource rights, and East Jerusalem as Palestine’s exclusive capital.
Oslo left these and other major issues unresolved. It did so for later final status talks. Palestinians are still waiting. They’re denied. They’re cheated. They’re betrayed. They’re on their own.
Previous articles explained what journalist Henry Siegman once called “the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history.”
Talks were stillborn from inception. Gideon Levy said “There has never been an Israeli peace camp. Let’s call the child by its real name: The Israeli peace camp is still an unborn baby.”
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon claims Jews have “an unassailable right (to) settle anywhere, particularly here, (in) the land of the Bible.”
The peace process is a useful fiction. It “sear(s) deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people.”
Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said he wanted talks dragged out for a decade. Doing so lets Israel vastly expand settlements. He omitted saying on stolen Palestinian land.
Current Prime Minister Netanyahu calls talks “a waste of time.” He and US officials conspire against Palestinians. Peace remains elusive. Israel and Washington spurn it.
Palestinians have no say. Talks began in the mid-1970s. The so-called peace process is little more than a slogan. It stalls for time.
Decades passed. Palestine remains occupied. Israel controls over 60% of the West Bank.
It does so through expanding settlements, outposts, closed military zones, tourist sites, commercial areas, no-go ones, increasing East Jerusalem encroachment, Israel’s apartheid wall, Jews only roads, and numerous checkpoints and barriers.
Palestinians are increasingly isolated. They’re ghettoized. They’re in separated cantons. They’re on least valued land. Israel controls borders, air and water rights, as well as all resource rich areas.
Longstanding Israeli intransigence severely compromises Palestinian rights. Israel’s a lawless land-grabber. Land laws facilitate ethnic cleaning.
Jews get exclusive rights. Palestinians have none. Israeli laws and Land Administration prohibit Arabs from buying, leasing or using land exclusively reserved for Jews.
Yasser Arafat (1929 – 2004) once said: “Israel has always confiscated land from Arabs and dispossessed them of their property. The land always goes from Arabs to the Jews.”
Israel Shahak (1933 – 2001) addressed the Jewish State, saying:
It includes occupied territory Israel controls. “The real situation in Israel is really very simple: Israel is not an ‘Israeli’ state, or a state of its citizens but it is a ‘Jewish state.’ ”
“More than 90% of the inhabited areas of the State of Israel are under the rule of the Jewish National Fund regulations, under which non-Jews cannot rent or buy a house or flat, open a business, in short cannot live.”
“This land is called in Hebrew ‘the land’ saved. The land which belongs to non-Jews is called unsaved not national, and by buying or confiscating it from a non-Jew by a Jew, the land is supposed to be ‘saved.’ ”
There’s more. The Israel Land Authority (ILA) severely restricts Palestinian development. It does so through regional councils. They control Arab areas.
They enforce rigid residential, agricultural, and industrial use zoning restrictions. They prohibit unlicensed construction.
They ban it on agricultural land. They stipulate where Jews and Arabs may live. They afford rights exclusively to Jews. They deny Palestinians room to expand.
They confiscate occupied “public land” for exclusive Jewish use. They declare national priority areas off-limits to Palestinians.
They delay, restrict, and/or prohibit developing Arab communities. They deny Palestinians representation on national planning committees.
Forced evictions, dispossessions, and home demolitions facilitate more Jews-only development.
Palestinians are denied. They’re severely compromised. It’s been this way for 46 years. Peace talks are fake. They’re a charade. They’re like they’ve always been. They facilitate same old, same old.
They reflect futility, failure and betrayal. They change nothing. This time’s no different. Pretense pretends otherwise. Don’t expect the mainstream media to explain.
New York Times editors one-sidedly support Israel. It’s longstanding Times policy. On July 25, they headlined“Inching Forward in the Mdeast,” saying:
Kerry “used six trips to the region to pursue a sensible strategy to nudge the two sides to the table.”
Duplicitous Arab League leaders gave him and Palestinian collaborators cover to do so.
“The international community has promised the Palestinians a $4 billion economic package.”
Kerry’s economic plan is crony capitalism writ large. It benefits private Western/Israeli investment.
It spurns Palestinian rights. It continues neoliberal harshness. Kerry wants more of the same. Don’t expect Times editors to explain.
They claim Israel will release dozens of long-held Palestinian prisoners. They’ll do so in good faith. Mercy isn’t in Israel’s vocabulary.
Palestinians are ruthlessly treated. Thousands languish unjustly in Israel’s gulag. Released prisoners are harassed, monitored and rearrested.
On the one hand, Times editors said “No good can come if Israel….evolves from a Jewish majority state to an Arab majority state.”
On the other, they suggested “the long sought dream of a Palestinian state (can’t be) left to die.”
They omitted what’s most important. Israel won’t permit viable Palestinian self-determination. Two states once were possible. No longer. Israel controls too much land. It steals more daily.
Conflict resolution depends on ending Israel’s occupation. It means one state for all its people at peace with equal rights. It requires everyone be treated equitably, justly and fairly.
Nothing else works. Current conditions aren’t sustainable. Israel wants permanent occupation. Palestinians deserve sovereign freedom.
Democratic legitimacy requires one nation for all its people. It does so irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity, or other differentiating factors.
It requires mandating equal rights, observing international law principles, and ending decades of occupation, colonization and apartheid.
It requires treating Arabs and Jews equally. It means establishing binding statutes. It requires enforcing them. It’s about commitment for the right thing.
Don’t expect the mainstream media to explain. On June 23, Haaretz editors fell woefully short. They headlined ”On the way to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating tent,” saying:
“Netanyahu’s support for a two-state solution hasn’t been so resolute since his (2009) Bar-Ilan speech in 2009.”
Obama’s “moves in the first five months of his second and last term, including the appointments of Kerry and Rice, show (he’s) striving to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.”
A “historic agreement with the Palestinians is a paramount goal for Israel and certainly for its prime minister.”
Haaretz editors know better. Their editorial reflects illusions, not reality.
Netanyahu abhors peace. He spurns Palestinian rights. He brags about “put(ting) an end to the Oslo Accords.”
He says “America is a thing you can move very easily.” His Bar-Ilan speech gave impossible conditions. They included:

• demilitarization;

• border, air space, and East Jerusalem under Israeli control;

• Palestinians recognizing Israel as the “state of the Jewish people;” and

• no right of return.

In May 2011, Netanyahu addressed a joint congressional session. He reiterated his views on Palestinian self-determination. He refused to accept pre-1967 borders.
He said Israel would retain and expand large settlements in and around East Jerusalem. Doing so cuts the West Bank in half.
He added that Israel will maintain “a longterm (Jordan Valley) military presence.” Doing so controls Palestine’s most fertile land. It controls all entry and exit points.
During Netanyahu’s two terms as prime minister, he accelerated settlement construction. It continues unabated. He wants “facts on the ground” established. Doing so prevents Palestinian self-determination.
In January 2013, Israel’s Peace Now said Netanyahu’s policies “disclose a clear intention to use settlements to systematically undermine and render impossible a realistic, viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
He rejects what Palestinians deserve. He supports militarized occupation harshness. He demands continued apartheid. He spurns peaceful conflict resolution. So does Washington.
Palestinians have no peace partner. They never did. They don’t now. Peace for our time is fake. It’s illusory. It’s a distant dream. Don’t expect the mainstream media to explain.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 
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http://www.dailycensored.com/the-illusion-of-israelipalestinian-peace-for-our-time/