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As for “waking up” to the terrorist threat, French observers note that they are carrying the fight against Al Qaeda in Mali on their own, had one of the largest NATO troop contingents fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and maintain what’s considered one of the best counter-terrorism intelligence operations in the West. In effect, Netanyahu’s call for Europe to “wake up” and “support Israel” in its struggle against terrorism is seen as a demand that Europe acquiesce in his effort to entrench Israeli presence in the territories, rather than withdrawing and permitting a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 lines.

1) More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.

Obama's campaign promises and election gave me faith that he would lead us toward fixing the problems he outlined in his quest for votes. Many Americans felt similarly. Unfortunately, shortly after assuming power, he closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several abusive programs, and refused to spend the political capital to end the kind of human rights violations like we see in Guantanamo, where men still sit without charge.

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

NSA likes to use "domestic" as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of "warranted" intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a Police department would have to, the "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.

Glenn Greenwald follow up: When you say "someone at NSA still has the content of your communications" - what do you mean? Do you mean they have a record of it, or the actual content? Both. If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time - and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.

What are your thoughts on Google's and Facebook's denials? Do you think that they're honestly in the dark about PRISM, or do you think they're compelled to lie? Perhaps this is a better question to a lawyer like Greenwald, but: If you're presented with a secret order that you're forbidding to reveal the existence of, what will they actually do if you simply refuse to comply (without revealing the order)? Answer: Their denials went through several revisions as it become more and more clear they were misleading and included identical, specific language across companies. As a result of these disclosures and the clout of these companies, we're finally beginning to see more transparency and better details about these programs for the first time since their inception. They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down?

Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this: I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email. Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate? Answer: Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just because of the IP they're tagged with. More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

Edward, there is rampant speculation, outpacing facts, that you have or will provide classified US information to the Chinese or other governments in exchange for asylum. Have/will you? Answer: This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public, as the US media has a knee-jerk "RED CHINA!" reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

US officials say this every time there's a public discussion that could limit their authority. US officials also provide misleading or directly false assertions about the value of these programs, as they did just recently with the Zazi case, which court documents clearly show was not unveiled by PRISM. Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it. Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

Is encrypting my email any good at defeating the NSA survelielance? Id my data protected by standard encryption? Answer: Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it. 

Binney, Drake, Kiriakou, and Manning are all examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures. Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. Instead, these draconian responses simply build better whistleblowers. If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response. This disclosure provides Obama an opportunity to appeal for a return to sanity, constitutional policy, and the rule of law rather than men. He still has plenty of time to go down in history as the President who looked into the abyss and stepped back, rather than leaping forward into it. I would advise he personally call for a special committee to review these interception programs, repudiate the dangerous "State Secrets" privilege, and, upon preparing to leave office, begin a tradition for all Presidents forthwith to demonstrate their respect for the law by appointing a special investigator to review the policies of their years in office for any wrongdoing. There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency. 

What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?

This country is worth dying for.

My question: given the enormity of what you are facing now in terms of repercussions, can you describe the exact moment when you knew you absolutely were going to do this, no matter the fallout, and what it now feels like to be living in a post-revelation world? Or was it a series of moments that culminated in action? I think it might help other people contemplating becoming whistleblowers if they knew what the ah-ha moment was like. Again, thanks for your courage and heroism. Answer: I imagine everyone's experience is different, but for me, there was no single moment. It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress - and therefore the American people - and the realization that that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper - the Director of National Intelligence - baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.

Regarding whether you have secretly given classified information to the Chinese government, some are saying you didn't answer clearly - can you give a flat no? Answer: No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government. Just like with the Guardian and the Washington Post, I only work with journalists.

So far are things going the way you thought they would regarding a public debate? – tikkamasala Answer: Initially I was very encouraged. Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history.

Thanks to everyone for their support, and remember that just because you are not the target of a surveillance program does not make it okay. The US Person / foreigner distinction is not a reasonable substitute for individualized suspicion, and is only applied to improve support for the program. This is the precise reason that NSA provides Congress with a special immunity to its surveillance.

The President thinks shutting down coal power plants is the most important thing ever.

Gun control, global warming, gay marriage, and immigration are the greatest issues of the day to those in Washington who hang around the green rooms of the various news outlets and gossip with reporters about which lobbyists are sleeping with which members of Congress.

Why has Washington forgotten what matters? And what the hell are Republicans even doing?

One other thing: Chief strategist Benenson shows how pathetic the Bernie Sanders campaign was on this issue. He says that the only voters who care about foreign policy are Republicans. It would be a year before Bernie made Israel a wedge issue, in the New York primary debate, when he dared to say that Benjamin Netanyahu is not right all the time, and Clinton had no response. That moment was brave, reluctant, and spasmodic. Had Bernie worked the Israel issue, there was political capital to be made. And everyone in the Clinton braintrust knew it. Don’t mention Israel with dem activists. Bernie followed the same script, pretty much.

Gotta keep going here. Here’s another leaked email to campaign chair John Podesta from his daughter Megan Rouse in May 2015, headlined “Israel”: I’ve heard a concern from some folks who care deeply about Israel that Hillary will be the president “most unfriendly to Israel in our history, worse than Obama.” Thoughts on how I might respond in conversation? Podesta wrote back: That’s a bit crazy. Obama developed a real feud with Bibi, but she has been a staunch defender of Israel since her Senate days. Probably her very best supporters are Haim Saban, and Danny Abraham who would not be with her if she wasn’t totally committed to Israeli security. Eli Clifton offers the moral of this story: “Podesta’s acknowledgement that two of Hillary Clinton’s key donors condition their support on her support of Israel’s security is a striking moment of candor from Podesta, but a statement which is consistent with her previous actions to placate the concerns of her biggest financial backers.”

This is also fantastic. When “Bibi” — no one calls him Benjamin Netanyahu in Dem circles– won reelection in the Israeli elections in March 2015, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta asked Paul Begala for his take on Netanyahu’s victory. Wow is Begala a whiz. He worked for Yitzhak Herzog, who lost; and he wrote back in part: Just as patterns of immigration are moving the US left, patterns of immigration are moving Israel right. I have never seen anything like Bibi’s furious surge to the right in the last 4 days. Nothing like it in America. He had robo-calls calling the President “Hussein Obama, the Muslim,” he had ads saying the Arabs will vote in droves. He accused Herzog of wanting to divide Jerusalem. Bibi did not win because of Iran. He won because of race. He cannibalized the smaller parties on the right: Bennett’s Jewish Home lost 4 seats, Shas lost 4 seats, Lieberman’s party lost 5 seats, United Torah lost 1. That is a 14 seat decline on the right. Bibi gained 10… All the smart guys in Tel Aviv thought Bibi was having a nervous breakdown. In the US you could never get away with those kind of racist appeals. But, man, did it work.

There’s really only one thing to say about this email. Begala is on television all the time slashing Donald Trump. Has he ever told American audiences that Benjamin Netanyahu is a racist in a way that no American politician could be? Not even Trump? And Israel is a place of creeping fascism (as Moshe Ya’alon and Yair Golan have explained)? Begala doesn’t say that because of emails 1 and 2 in this post; “Bibi” is necessary for the maintenance of the American establishment as it now stands. And President Clinton has promised: “I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.” Another leaked email says that Clinton says reaching out to Netanyahu, I mean Bibi, is “near the top” of her list of priorities. I wonder why.

. According to The Washington Free Beacon, “a small coalition of prominent climate change activists and political operatives” met on Jan. 8 in a closed door meeting at the Rockefeller Family Fund in Manhattan. Their agenda: taking down oil giant ExxonMobil through a coordinated campaign of legal action, divestment efforts, and political pressure.”

Some of them secretly briefed state attorneys general before their March press conference on arguments they could present to justify “climate change litigation” and the “imperative of taking action now.” The attorneys general and their staff tried to hide this discussion and coordination with the activists by “using a ‘Common Interest Agreement’… [that] sought to protect as privileged the discussions about defending President Obama’s controversial global warming rules, and going after political opponents using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.”

We didn’t expect ExxonMobil to admit that it had been at fault. It is one of the largest companies in the world—indeed, if its revenues are compared to the gross domestic products of nations, it has one of the world’s larger economies, bigger than Austria’s, for example, or Thailand’s8—and it has a reputation for unusual determination in promoting its self-interest.9 One way or another, we expected it to fight back—most likely, we thought, by proxy, through its surrogates in the right-wing press and in Congress.Sure enough, various bloggers have been calling for “the Rockefellers”10 to be prosecuted by the government for “conspiracy” against Exxon under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.11 (Such lines of attack are being tested and refined, and we expect they will soon be repeated in journals with broader readership.) And in May, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, the chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, sent a letter to the RFF and seven other NGOs (including the RBF, 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Union of Concerned Scientists),12 as well as all seventeen AGs who said they might investigate ExxonMobil. He accused us of engaging in “a coordinated effort to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, and scientists of their First Amendment rights and ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution,” and demanded that we turn over to him all private correspondence between any of the recipients of his letter relating to any potential climate change investigation. When we all refused, twice, to surrender any such correspondence, Smith subpoenaed Schneiderman, Healey, and all eight NGOs for the same documents.We will answer Smith’s accusations against us presently. In order to explain ourselves, however, we first have to explain what Exxon knew about climate change, and when—and what, despite that knowledge, Exxon did: the morally reprehensible conduct that prompted our actions in the first place.

In addition to her bold confession and Clinton’s embrace of the far-right narrative in the Honduran episode, the Latin America chapter is considerably to the right of even her own record on the region as secretary of state. This appears to be a political calculation. There is little risk of losing votes for admitting her role in making most of the hemisphere’s governments disgusted with the United States. On the other side of the equation, there are influential interest groups and significant campaign money to be raised from the right-wing Latin American lobby, including Floridian Cuban-Americans and their political fundraisers.

The third convoy of Russian humanitarian aid has also crossed the border into Ukraine, Itar-Tass reported. The convoy consists of around 200 vehicles carrying some 2,000 tons of aid to the residents of southeastern Ukraine – including cereals, canned food, generators, medicine, warm clothes, and bottled water. Before the convoy’s departure, Ukrainian border guards had been repeatedly invited to inspect the cargo by the Russian side. However, the border patrol declined all offers without citing any particular reason.

Meanwhile, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, declared that there will be “no Ukrainian election” in Donetsk, referring to one of the conditions set out in the September 5 Minsk protocol, which gave special status to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, both located in eastern Ukraine. Zakharchenko said he considers the special status as a declaration of independence of the self-proclaimed republics.

The memorandum follows a more general ceasefire agreement signed on September 5, which outlined a peace roadmap negotiated by Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko and representatives of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian parliament approved laws on a special status for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as amnesty for those participating in the hostilities. Both points were originally outlined in the September 5 agreement.