Edward Snowden Gets Sam Adams Award 3361


Ray McGovern and the Sam Adams party have presented the Sam Adams award to Edward Snowden.  I am delighted.  This from Ray’s account of the event:

In brief remarks from his visitors, Snowden was reassured — first and foremost — that he need no longer be worried that nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional rights of Americans.

Even amid the government shutdown, Establishment Washington and the normally docile “mainstream media” have not been able to deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Even Congress is showing signs of awaking from its torpor.

In the somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Keith Alexander — Clapper having formally apologized for telling the Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related things that were, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and Alexander having told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA’s intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.

Coleen Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good company as a whistleblower — and not only because of previous Sam Adams honorees. She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.

The letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.

There has been a determined attempt by government to justify the need to intercept everybody’s communications, all the time.  We have, yet again, had MI5 claim there are many thousand violent Islamic terrorists running around the UK, (yet somehow not managing to kill anybody).  The cry of “paedophiles” is raised, as always.  I can imagine them suggesting the entire population be shot dead, and justifying it as making sure they get the paedophiles.  The tabloids would go with that.

There still had not been a single credible claim by the mainstream media that any named individual has died, despite that contingency being trotted out all the time as the reason Snowden and Manning should not have revealed state crimes and abuse of power.  I am hopeful that, with the internet still largely free to the dissemination of information, out next massive whistleblower is only weeks away.


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3,361 thoughts on “Edward Snowden Gets Sam Adams Award

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  • Mark Golding - Children of Conflict

    ‘The U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional rights of Americans.’

    TRUTH from an attack on the World Trade Center – 11th September 2001

    1. Temperatures present in the WTC building fires exceeded 4753 degF exploding reinforced concrete to dust.

    2. The telephone calls of Todd Beamer from Flight UA 93 and Barbara Olson from flight AA77 were faked.

    3. Video images of the attackers are inauthentic.

    4. DDO Winfield was told, ‘shut-up or die’ to silence the truth of UA93.

    5. General Hugh Shelton is too honest and brave and was kept ignorant or ‘out of the loop’ in military terminology.

    6. General Myers and General Ralph Eberhart are liars and a disgrace to military service.

    7. Donald Rumsfeld was a liability and told to zip-it or disappear.

    8. Cheney lied and delayed ‘shoot-down’ – Bush refused to give the order.

    9. Even so Bush was the weakest minded President in history.

    10. Bush was told to ‘invent some theater’ early that Tuesday morning.

  • BrianFujisan

    Fuckedup, the Fedup bulldog only wags his tail when the underaged ‘Sofia’ is around

    WTF…

    More nastiness…

    Btw which one is jobless? or are you both claiming benefits?

    Fucking Disgusting.

    Sofia @ 10;44 pm

    Cheers for Link

    i’ve been hearing of this story

    Time to uphold the law on racism and hate speech in Israel
    Scores of racist commenters rejoice at the sight of a news item about the tragic death of four young girls in the Hebron area. So why doesn’t anyone do anything about it?

    By Tomer Zeigerman

    This past Thursday, Israel’s Channel 2 News posted on a news item on its Facebook page about a tragedy in Hebron: four Palestinians girls had died after they were forgotten in a car (actually, the girls accidentally locked themselves while playing, and this did not happen in Hebron but in a nearby town, Taqumiya).

    Scores of Israelis responded with appalling comments. Here’s a small yet unpalatable selection:

    “Why only 4, I would have preferred 8″ said Naty Asulin; “I am going to unlike your page. Why is this a tragedy? They are not from my people” (Shalom Dror); “The more the merrier. Why does this not happen more often?” (David Hagege); “Could they not have forgotten 5 more?” (Avial Abutbul).

    This goes on and on.

    http://972mag.com/time-to-uphold-the-law-on-racism-and-hate-speech-in-israel/80599/

    Anyway Sofia, some kool traveling music for ya…Mid east meets electronic icon Klaus Schulze

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9DxojdpjGw

    Clark love the fotos, Will email soon enjoy rest of you’re time here.

  • Macky

    “WTF…

    More nastiness… ”

    +

    “Fucking Disgusting.”

    Yep, Villager is a real blight on this Blog; those who exchange detached small talk pleasantries with him, seemingly oblivious of his constantly offensive & childish insults, being his only real input here, need to think as to why they are encouraging him to continue posting here.

  • fedup

    Thanks Brian, and Macky, you have pointed out the anomalous; “don’t watch what they do, instead listen to what they say” (all good intentioned liberals, only always happen to be helping out a keyboard warrior tosser wearing its khakis to fight the keyboard war on this blog). In any given thread the entity masquerading as the vill… indulges in attacks on the usual “trouble makers, the likes of me” that is when it is not cutting and pasting oodles of bullshit from kirshnawotsit to deflect attention from its affiliations.

    Brain the point you have raised about the disgusting attitudes of the “normal citizenry” of zionistan towards the beleaguered Palestinians is an all too pervasive conduct that goes unexplored by the wider world, I wonder why?

    The horrible sights of rejoicing on hearing the news of the death of four children, is the stuff of the ghouls, and the vampires. Fucking unbelievable.

  • Mary

    Enjoyed the film exchanges overnight (Buñuel and Kurosowa were my bag and some French films) but glad I was not here for Mr Nasty’s bits. His tiny little sticks and pea sized stones fall to the ground. There is some pathology involved IMHO and he seems to emerge mainly at night.

    Jane Corbin presents her latest oeuvre on BBC 1 on Monday evening. Let’s hope that it contains more truths than her Death in The Med (the Israeli murders of the Mavi Marmara passengers) and contains less fiction.

    Murder in the Alps
    Monday Octoberm 2013 9pm
    Duration: 1 hour

    With exclusive access to eyewitnesses and investigators, Panorama reveals how and asks why a British family and a passer-by were brutally murdered by a hitman, who left a young girl for dead. Jane Corbin goes back to the murder scene in a remote beauty spot in the French Alps, with witnesses there that day, who have never spoken before.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03fgstr

  • Rose

    Mike – Oct 19th 1.10 – that takes me back – I got into terrible trouble once for receiving a letter with that on the envelope – and we lived nowhere near Norfolk.

  • Villager

    Dear Jon,

    Excuse the delay for not reciprocating your good wishes of peace earlier. You’re a gentleman and a good man with a very good brain and i wish you only well along your path.

    I noted that you stated you were only stepping away for the time being and i hope that we can see you back in more settled circumstances. In the meantime, look forward to reading your comments.

    To be clear, apart from your over-reaction in banning Habbabkuk, my only reservation was the selectivity of your deletions which often for some inexplicable reason would miss the root and only prune the branch.

    As for your interest in psychology, may i recommend this series on The Nature of the Mind…

    The Roots of Psychological Disorder
    1st Discussion with Drs. Bohm, Hidley & Sheldrake, Ojai, California, 16 April 1982

    http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-video/the-roots-of-psychological-disorder.php

    Serious stuff and darned better return for your time than here.

    Enjoy your Freedom and see you again soon!

    V

  • Villager

    MacKlown; “They will even be happy just talking to each other & turing the comments section of this Blog into a Zionist supporting playground just like Harry’s Place.”

    Sounding rather like the Myrtle Moaner whining to the Mod, words to the effect: “they’ve even been given space here to talk to each other” !!! LOL

    Re the latter point on zionists, pin it down with links to the record here, as you’ve been asked previously. Your credibility is anyway zero; your chance to retrieve.

  • Macky

    “Thanks for your immoderate suggestion, Jon. Now you can fuck off!”

    being Villager last comment to Jon.

    Villager Does Nice,

    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,

    Villager Does Nice,

    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,

    Villager Does Nice,

    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,
    Villager Does Nasty,

    etc

    A bit of a schizo ?

  • Villager

    Hats off for your typing speed. Hope you got the job as a steno, even if not the “clark”! 🙂

  • Macky

    “Re the latter point on zionists, pin it down with links to the record here, as you’ve been asked previously”

    Sorry I have rather a busy day today, but pro-zionist troll support is somewhere here on record, both blatant & sly, and they are not advocating attacking Syria, demonising Mpslems, etc, & every other pro-Israeli tactic that they can think of, just for the fun of it.

  • Villager

    MacKlown: P U T U P (the links) or S H U T U P!

    Everybody is busy, not just your petty little ‘I’.

  • technicolour

    Dreoilin, whose been posting on this blog since 2005, is showered with abuse and not a word from anyone else, even longer term posters, who might be expected to object, if only on the grounds of accuracy. Which rather leads one to think that the large majority of people posting here now are utter hypocrites or: in playground terms, it’s OK if someone else gets beaten up or abused in front of you, as long as it’s not one of your mates. Because someone questioning one of your mates is to be attacked, aren’t they? No principles involved. Meanwhile we have the sniping and bitchery; we have the self-righteousness of people who obviously feel their politics justifies any old kind of behaviour; we have the paranoia that everyone who disagrees is ‘paid, and we have the frothing abuse in the background – which when directed at me I find rather funny, and sad, but when directed at other people is ridiculous. And, in the meantime, a link I post to people who are actually doing something in Israel about Palestine gets completely ignored, presumably because it doesn’t fit into the simplistic, divisive and violent narrative of ‘one side good, other side bad’. V depressing.

  • resident dissident

    Very revealing how Macky choses to beat up on few relatively few innocent comments by Villager when our resident Holocaust denier/liar places a great big pile of steaming ordure in our midst overnight.

    For those who are interested in the David Cole referred to in the first link – might I suggest that they look at this from a more reliable news source.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/03/david-stein-cole-holocaust-revisionist

    They might also wish to consider the similarities between David Cole’s and Daniel Rich’s stories about their visits to Auschwitz as young Jewish boy on their travels and how this led them to question the whole gas chambers story and then led them onto the conclusion that WW2 was all a big Zionist conspiracy driven by the Rothchilds etc. etc. It is also worth bearing in mind their heroes dictum “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

    I’m sorry but I’m smelling one great big nasty sock puppet – which puts the work of some of the amateurs here into the shade. This is of cause the reason why this blog needs the disinfectant provided by the likes of Habbakkuk (and Larry from St Louis who some older readers may remember who would not tolerate such garbage and was also banned for his efforts).

  • Villager

    TC, i empathise with all that you say. All one can say is that people think and live in ‘patterns’ which are very hard to break. You’re another good soul and in your compassion you gave too much leeway to Fedup the other day.

    As for Dreoilin of course everything that was said was utter bunkum. Her credibility, founded on her depth and balance, stands head and shoulders above the usual offenders here. Best not to engage with them?! Water off a duck’s back.

    Off for a swim — best holistic exercise there is in a city. No need to be depressed — whatever your exercise is and outdoors preferably will change your frame of reference.

  • resident dissident

    Technicolour

    Re Dreolin I couldn’t agree more – while we have had our past disagreements and obviously have different political stances she is quite clearly a member of the human race and has a life and interest outside this blog, she also doesn’t fall for the if you’re not with us 100% you are against us line that some here peddle incessantly. She always strikes me as the sort of person you could have a pleasant conversation and a drink with leave as a friend even after an argument.

  • Passerby

    Macky said;

    Villager is a real blight on this Blog; those who exchange detached small talk pleasantries with him, seemingly oblivious of his constantly offensive & childish insults,

    An interesting observation, with the added reflection that such pleasantries are not extended to the other commenters. This perhaps could be indicative of a prior acquaintance, if not then could there be a clique which is denying the existence of such a clique?

    ===

    Meanwhile after the energy price hikes, and the homilies of the “change suppliers” and if you don’t as a lazy individual you deserve to be overcharged and it has nothing to do with the plutocrats who privatised a nationalised monopoly to rip off the poor even more efficiently.

    Fact that the “switch over” sites are all filled with more tariffs than anyone can shake a stick at, all asking questions such as what colour car do you drive, how many rooms you have what is you annual heating costs, etc. All in the way of confusing the punter in the shell game and rip him off even more.

    However upon examination, the highest and lowest tariffs have only as thirty eight pound differential, that is the savings made, if the last company does not send you a and eight thousand pound bill for heating your one bedroomed flat and start to send the bailiffs to sequestrate your possessions in the way of making the arbitrary bill sent out as the parting gift from you to the rich shareholders of the company who would be sad to let you go.

    However, that is not all, now the good and thoughtful gubimnet has come out with the ideas of telling us all how to keep warm by wearing our woollies, and wrap up to keep warm.

    Millions of people facing soaring fuel bills should consider wearing a jumper, Downing Street suggested today.

    Well I never would have thought of that, and I am sure those of you who read this may not have thought of it either, because we are all so desperately stupid that we really need to be told what to wear, eat, think, and do as our hobbies now. Clearly our gubiment is discharging its duty of care really well, and takes pride in solving the problems, expensive and extortionate energy prices are solved by telling us to wear our woollies. How nice of the gubiment, who is also thinking of making a bad bank and pouring all the toxic assets into it, by actively considering RBS “bad bank”-paper

    British finance minister George Osborne said his ministry was actively looking at breaking up the state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland to create a “bad bank” to house its problem loans,

    #
    Rothschild’s review is due shortly and the paper said the government was “understood” to be considering three options for dealing with RBS’s problem assets.

    So there you go, how to asset strip the bank and handover the good bits to the banksters, and hold on to the bad bits for the tax payer and the pension fund managers who will all be investing long term to make good the bad bank too, which soon after that will be handed over to the privateers and banksters to do as they wish.

    How grateful I am to our gubiment for being so thoughtful and diligent in looking after the interests of the rich while it dishes out homilies and advice to me and the rest of us on how to keep warm and how not to get any pensions if we don’t have to. More importantly we will be soon advised to start eating grass, and the road side flora and fauna to keep healthy by eating the five blades of grass a day! Although I am sure that we will all have to ask permission before we go on to help ourselves from the veritable dinner table by the roadside. First we must find who owns the five blades of grass to circumvent committing an offence and depriving our plutocrats from their grass!

  • Mary

    Have just come home from a beautiful hour long walk with a bag of blackberries. A neighbour has given me some windfall cookers so we will have a lovely pudding tonight. And a glorious colour as someone remarked many threads back.

    See we are on page 6 here already and it’s back to ‘babies in incubators time’ in the corporate media.

    Murdoch is putting out anti- Assad propaganda today with the headline ‘Assad’s snipers target unborn babies’ and a photo of a radiograph of a foetus with a bullet in its head. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3898764.ece

    Read the second comment here from another surgeon, below the copy of the Times piece.
    http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1382151908.html

    Radio 4 Today interviewed the surgeon Nott who said that on different days, the ‘snipers’ targeted specific areas of the bodies of their victims, eg the groin, the armpit, the abdomen. Nott sounded SO plausible. Justin Webb, the presenter, was nearly in tears.

    ‘The US has urged the Syrian government to allow immediate aid convoys to starving civilians cut off in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. British vascular surgeon David Nott explains what he has seen since from volunteering on the Syrian frontline.’
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03d7v59 12 mins in

    Read the second comment here below the copy of the Times piece.
    http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1382151908.html

    No! I scream. This just about does it. From an interview with Nott.

    ‘Is Tony Blair your most famous patient?
    Yes. He’s a very good patient, a nice man.’

    http://metro.co.uk/2010/12/20/vascular-surgeon-david-nott-tony-blair-is-a-very-good-patient-615856/

    Blair is such a nice man that he is a war criminal, like Cameron and Hague.

  • Mary

    This is better!

    Have just come home with a bag of blackberries from a beautiful hour long walk.

  • Jemand

    Well it’s quite clear that this blog’s comment section doesn’t need me to tear itself up in internecine contempt.

    An interesting observation is that the most obnoxious creeps who post here are those who are most vocal and supportive of Stormfront Mary. Which is not too surprising as their common obsession in JIZ (J3ws, Isr@el and Z!onists) brings them together in mutual hatred of the tribe.

    And those who send their kindest regards to these same creeps whose kooky psychoses manifest as extreme antagonism towards disagreeing commentators – think before you post. Remember, when you cuddle up to the likes of Fedup/Passerby, you cuddle up to a fruitcake who called Technicolour a CUNT. Nice huh? That’s your friend.

    So for all you runny-brained buddies of Stormfront Mary, Fedup/Passerby and Macky – “birds of a feather …” and all that.

  • resident dissident

    Mary 12.02pm

    What a pathetic and cowardly attack on a good man who gives of his own time and skills to help those injured in the conflict in Syria – as well as many other troubled parts of the world – who you automatically consider suspect because he has a good view of Tony Blair.

    Please never try and take the superior line with us trolls ever again.

  • resident dissident

    I have a friend who like Tony Nott works for Medicin sans Frontiers from time to time who would disagree with Tony Blair on Iraq, but would I am sure consider Mary and her Medialens friend’s comment as highly insulting – MSF people just do not take sides when it comes to giving medical help, from experience they have more integrity than practically anyone else I know.

  • Mary

    Jemand Cease your slurs. I have never had and never will have any connection to Stormfront. If I discover your identity I will sue you. Hope you are safe from the bush fires. Australia seems to be on fire again. When will the people learn not to invade the habitat of other creatures?

    That post brought the hornets flying out of their nest, together. I saw one the other day. Nasty looking beasty and a dangerous sting too.

  • Mary

    A local hospital’s core values and behabiours are set out here.
    http://www.royalsurrey.nhs.uk/Our_Values_and_Behaviours

    They (via chairman ex Vice Admiral Peter Dunt) has just announced the outsourcing of ALL portering, cleaning, switchboard and reception services. involving 200 staff, to Medirest. Medirest is part of Compass and already provide the catering. Saving £400k pa he says.

    http://www.compass-group.co.uk/healthcare.htm

    http://www.compass-group.co.uk/executive-team.htm

    Chairman Sir Roy Gardner ex Centrica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Gardner_(businessman) £17billion turnover

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurest In the US too.

    A weak response from Unite. Devastated at the news. No consultation. Sad. No spirit or fight.

    As I have said, the construct for our NHS from Cameron/Clegg/Lansley and now Hunt is
    DEMORALIZE, DESTABILIZE AND THEN DESTROY. It’s happening before our eyes but very few even know about the changes.

    The chair of the local Clinical Commissioning Group (which replaced the PCTs) is a GP. He is quoted:
    ‘We have to cut down on our use of hospitals. The report in the local is headed ‘Bid to cut number of patients’.

    Primary care is the answer he says. He is quoted as saying ‘A lot of primary care may be by telephone now’. He continues ‘A lot of hospitals are starting to say to patients ‘You can come back if you want to or telephone’. It’s their choice. If they are happy with that, they don’t have to come back’.

    No end to it. The CCGs are employing CCUs!
    http://www.england.nhs.uk/2013/08/12/surrey-sussex-ccgs/

    Look at the register of interests of this CCG board. Registering an interest does not remove any conflict of interest. Two mentions of Virgin Care and other medical connections of wives. Even a mention of Price Waterhouse Cooper in the list.
    http://www.guildfordandwaverleyccg.nhs.uk/website/X09413/files/Register_of_interest_of_Governing_Body_Members_updated__25_07_13.pdf

  • A Node

    Resident dissident

    If you’d heard someone question the honesty of the sobbing nurse who described Saddam’s troops throwing babies out of their incubators, would you have said: “What a pathetic and cowardly attack on a good woman man who gives of her own time and skills to help those injured in the conflict in Iraq.”?

  • Mary

    I will be listening to this episode of Booktalk on the Parliament Channel 81 at 14.05

    Iain Martin
    Image for Iain Martin
    Duration: 15 minutes

    Mark D’Arcy talks to journalist and author Iain Martin about his book Making it Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy.

  • Villager

    Moaning Myrtle Mary (of 3M fame): “If I discover your identity I will sue you.”

    LOL 🙂 Roll another one!

    3M, how about commenting on what TC had to say at 11h19 today?

    ________

    Jemand: “Mary, Fedup/Passerby and Macky – “birds of a feather …” and all that.”

    Can we trolls call them the MFM brigade?

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    Re the Good Surgeon.

    “Is Tony Blair your most famous patient?”
    Yes. He’s a very good patient, a nice man.’

    Accepting an OBE?

    So we should trust the judgement of this fellow then?

    I’ll leave the rest to Benjamin Zephaniah.

    “Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised. It is because of this concept of empire that my British education led me to believe that the history of black people started with slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this idea of empire that black people like myself don’t even know our true names or our true historical culture. I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people. Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire…”

    ….more at http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/27/poetry.monarchy

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