Eric London

Alexander and company are given center stage not to “let the public know the true facts,” but rather to peddle a series of lies in an attempt to quell widespread opposition to the international programs of government surveillance.

Government and intelligence officials appeared before Congress yesterday as part of the cover-up of the Obama administration’s massive international surveillance programs. The meeting was convened as a joint effort to attack whistleblower Edward Snowden and downplay the assault on democratic rights that he has made public.

The title of House Intelligence Committee hearing — “How Disclosed National Security Agency Programs Protect Americans, and Why Disclosure Aids Our Adversaries” — made clear its anti-democratic purpose and content.

The committee meeting came one day after Snowden issued a defiant response to the government threats, saying in an Q&A on the Guardian website that more revelations are in store, and that the “[t]ruth is coming and it cannot be stopped.”

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rodgers responded by saying in his opening remarks: “It is at times like these when our enemies within become almost as damaging as the enemies outside.”

The testimonies provided by NSA head General Keith Alexander, FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce, NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis, General Counsel to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert Litt, and Deputy Attorney General James Cole followed a similar script, consisting of unsubstantiated tales of thwarted terrorist attacks mixed with threats of future attacks.

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Stephen Lendman

Vladimir Putin wasn’t the odd man out over Syria at the G8 summit.
In fact, his view prevailed. When Stephen Harper told reporters that
Vladimir Putin had made concessions to other leaders, he was wrong.
The reverse seems to be true, writes Thomas Walkom. (The Star)

On June 17, G8 leaders began two days of talks in Northern Ireland. Seven nations want escalated war on Syria. Putin's alone. He's an outlier for peaceful conflict resolution.

Obama's hands are bloodrenched. He bears full responsibility for ravaging Syria. It's been ongoing since early 2011. It was planned many years earlier. On Monday, Obama lied saying:

"We're not taking sides in a religious war. Really, what we're trying to do is take sides against extremists of all sorts and in favor of people who are in favor of moderation, tolerance, representative government, and over the long-term, stability and prosperity for the people of Syria." "We share an interest in reducing the violence, securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they are neither used nor are they subject to proliferation." "We want to try to resolve the issue through political means if possible, so we will instruct our teams to continue to work on the potential of a Geneva follow-up."

Since conflict began, America's been arming, training, funding and directing death squad fighters in Syria. They're imported from dozens of regional and other countries.

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James Petras

The vast expansion of the police state apparatus is not a response to the terror attack of 9/11. - Why has such a massive police-state apparatus and universal spying become so central to the ruling regime?

Introduction: The exposure of the Obama regime’s use of the National Security Agency to secretly spy on the communications of hundreds of millions of US and overseas citizens has provoked world-wide denunciations.

In the United States, despite widespread mass media coverage and the opposition of civil liberties organizations, there has not been any mass protest. Congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as top judges, approved of the unprecedented domestic spy program.. Even worse, when the pervasive spy operations were revealed, top Senate and Congressional leaders repeated their endorsement of each and every intrusion into all electronic and written communication involving American citizens. President Obama and his Attorney General Holder openly and forcefully defended the NSA’s the universal spy operations.

The issues raised by this vast secret police apparatus and its penetration into and control over civil society, infringing on the citizens freedom of expression, go far beyond mere ‘violations of privacy’, as raised by many legal experts. Most civil libertarians focus on the violations of individual rights, constitutional guarantees and the citizen’s privacy rights.

These are important legal issues and the critics are right in raising them. However, these constitutional–legal critiques do not go far enough; they fail to raise even more fundamental issues; they avoid basic political questions.

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