Image by Stephen D. Melkisethian via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
TheRealNews on Nov 8, 2013
Chris Hedges says David Miranda’s detention represents an assault on journalism by the US and its allies.
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Transcript
The Real News Network
Nov. 8, 2013
[…]
NOOR: Ed Snowden has continued to provide outlets like The New York Times, which released a front-page story Sunday about ongoing new information about NSA programs, yet backers and supporters of the NSA continue to push back. Some of the arguments include saying, if you have nothing to hide, there is nothing to worry about; this NSA spying shouldn’t concern you. Is there any historical precedent for citizens to be concerned about government surveillance? And how do you respond to arguments such as those?
HEDGES: Well, you don’t want to give this kind of power to the state, because–and I speak as a journalist–because it makes it absolutely impossible to carry out any serious investigation of power. No source is going to reach out to you, because they know full well that the government has all of the electronic footprints that you make in trying to contact a journalist. And I think one of the reasons that Snowden went public almost immediately is that he knew that the government had all of Greenwald’s communications and it he would very quickly trace it back to him. That’s the problem.
It’s not a matter of nothing to hide. That’s an inverted question. The government has a lot to hide. And this kind of mechanism is a kind of a failsafe device by which whatever the government wants to do, however criminal, however corrupt, however fraudulent, however anticonstitutional, it never gets found out. That’s the real issue.
[…]
from the archives:
Chris Hedges: The Collapse of Complex Societies + Q&A (#NSA, #NDAA)
Stop Watching Us Rally: Americans Demand End To NSA Spying Program + Dennis Kucinich’s Speech
Chris Hedges: NDAA, Al Qaeda and the American Police State
We Live Under a Total Surveillance State in America by Fred Branfman (#NDAA, #NSA)
Dandelion Salad 
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Pingback: Rick Rozoff: The NSA/US/NATO/Cyber Command are Not Simply Passively Spying | Dandelion Salad
Reblogged this on The Turning Spiral and commented:
What have we allowed our nation states to become? Places where we criminalize peaceful protest and honest journalism, places where wellbeing of economy, of the state and of people is redefined as the health and wealth of corporates, where democracy itself has given way to corporatocracy.. these are the places that we have allowed our nation states to become. The moral imperative facing all of us, is to urgently reclaim the meaning of wealth and wellbeing, to take back freedom and democracy , and to build a new place of inclusive wellbeing from the ground up. The time is urgent and it is right now.
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