David Swanson and Jeffrey Sterling: What Was the Purpose of Operation Merlin? + Join the CIA: Travel the World Passing Out Nuclear Blueprints

Wikileaks _DDC1941

Image by thierry ehrmann via Flickr

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy
October 18, 2019

Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA case officer who was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and was in federal prison in Colorado. Prior to this program, as far as we know, Sterling had not been asked whether he believes the stated purpose of the program he worked on. Does he really think the purpose of giving obviously flawed nuclear bomb-part plans to Iran was to slow down a nuclear weapons program that may not even have existed? Or does he believe the purpose was to plant evidence on the government of Iran? Listen to his answer.

Continue reading

Abby Martin and James Risen: Fighting Censorship, The Surveillance State and Permanent War

The Bug Stops Here

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Abby Martin

teleSUR English on Jul 1, 2016

Few journalists know the cruelty of government censorship as well as James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the New York Times, targeted for several major stories implicating criminality by the US war machine and its national security state.

Continue reading

In Convicting Jeff Sterling, CIA Revealed More Than It Accused Him of Revealing by David Swanson

Updated: May 13, 2015

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy
May 11, 2015

Some Americans have heard of New York Times reporter and book author James Risen and his refusal to expose a source. But, because most reports on that matter scrupulously avoided the subject of what it was Risen had reported, relatively few people can tell you. In fact, Risen reported (in a book, as the New York Times obeyed a government request to keep it quiet) that back in the year 2000 the CIA gave nuclear weapons plans to Iran. Flaws had been introduced into the plans, with the stated intention of slowing down an Iranian nuclear weapons program if one existed. Risen’s reporting that the flaws were glaringly obvious, including to the former-Russian asset assigned to deliver the plans to Iran, made the scheme look even worse than it at first sounds.

Continue reading

America’s Surveillance State, Part 3: The Press Versus The NSA

Dandelion Salad

Replaced video June 15, 2020

True Story Documentary Channel on Sep 7, 2019

DC Rally Against Mass Surveillance

Image by Susan Melkisethian via Flickr

We live in the United States of Surveillance — with cameras increasingly positioned on street corners and with much more invisible spying online and on the phone. Anyone who is paying attention knows that privacy could be out the window. All of this is not happening by accident -well funded powerful agencies and companies are engaged in the business of keeping tabs on what we do, what we say, and what we think.

To many in the world, today, the face of America also has A BIG NOSE for sniffing and sifting mountains of data—phone calls, emails and texts. And with many mouths silenced by paranoia to keep what they decide is secret, secret. America has become a Surveillance-Industrial State where everyone’s business has become its business, and where one huge US intelligence Agency has been given the sanction and unlimited amounts of money to spy on the whole world.

Mass Surveillance is the focus of this new 6 part investigative documentary series examining who is watching whom and why.

Continue reading

XKeyscore, The Scariest NSA Program Revealed By Edward Snowden So Far + Glenn Greenwald: If you allow this kind of surveillance, it will be abused

Restore the Fourth march on Market St on Fourth of July

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

David Seaman on Jul 31, 2013

David explains XKeyscore, the completely terrifying “new” NSA Internet spying program that was revealed to the public by additional Edward Snowden documents earlier today.

Continue reading

Countdown: Spying on us + Feingold questions Holder

Dandelion Salad

Bookmark and Share

firedoglake
June 17, 2009

Countdown – Author James Risen discusses U.S. spying on us
06_17_09 visit: http://firedoglake.com

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

Senator Feingold Can’t Get Straight Answer From Attorney Gen Holder On Warrantless Wiretap Program Continue reading

Propagandists First, Journalists Second – How the NYT Won 2004 for Bush

Dandelion Salad

By Ted Rall
05/21/08 “ICH

Should the news media be patriotic? When a journalist uncovers a government secret, which comes first–national security or the public’s right to know?

In the United States, reporters consider themselves Americans first, journalists second. That means consulting the government before going public with a state secret. “When I was at ABC,” James Bamford told Time in 2006, “we always checked with the Administration in power when we thought we had something of concern, and there was usually some way to work it out.” Continue reading

Who leaked the details of a CIA-Mossad plot against Iran?

Dandelion Salad

By Yossi Melman
ICH
06/03/08 “Haaretz

The Bush administration is prolonging the hunting season against journalists. The latest victim is James Risen, The New York Times reporter for national security and intelligence affairs. About three months ago, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena against him, ordering Risen to give evidence in court. A heavy blackout has been imposed on the affair, with the only hint being that it has to do with sensitive matters of “national security.”

Continue reading

Report details secret Bush administration memos authorizing torture by Joe Kay

Dandelion Salad

by Joe Kay
Global Research, October 7, 2007
wsws.org

Since 2005, the Bush administration has produced at least three secret orders and memoranda justifying extreme interrogation methods banned under international law as forms of torture, according to a newspaper report published on Thursday.

Continue reading