■ NBC "Meet the Press" host David Gregory got a rise out of Glenn Greenwald on Sunday by asking the Guardian reporter why he shouldn't be charged with a crime for having "aided and abetted" former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden. ■ Greenwald said Gregory was embracing the Obama administration's attempt to "criminalize investigative journalism." ■ Later, Greenwald tweeted, "Who needs the government to try to criminalize journalism when you have David Gregory to do it?" and, "Has David Gregory ever publicly wondered if powerful DC officials should be prosecuted for things like illegal spying & lying to Congress?"

Justin Raimondo: The authoritarians are coming! Indeed, they are already here… - "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Edward Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” To this onscreen transformation of a supposed "journalist" into the Grand Inquisitor, Greenwald responded: "I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies." Well, yes, it is extraordinary, but I think we should all be getting used to it pretty soon. It was clear what Gregory was doing: letting the journalistic mask slip for a moment, and assuming his real role as the Voice of the Powers That Be, he was issuing a direct threat on behalf of his government Sources.

Government documents have revealed that the Obama administration is implementing a program that requires millions of federal employees to spy on their co-workers as part of a sweeping crackdown on security leaks across the U.S. government. - The program titled “Insider Threat” which has gone almost entirely unnoticed in the U.S. media also presses managers to punish employees who fail to report their suspicions, McClatchy reported Friday after obtaining the documents. The program spans all federal agencies and mandates employees and their superiors to identify and report behaviors associated with someone who might leak sensitive government information. Those who fail to expose “high-risk persons” face penalties that include criminal charges, according to the report.

McClatchy: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

■ NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden arrived in Moscow Sunday, eluding an extradition demand issued by the Obama administration to the government of Hong Kong. Snowden was a passenger on board Aeroflot flight SU213, leaving just before noon and arriving in Moscow about 5 p.m. local time. The governments of both China and Russia turned a blind eye to Washington’s claims that Snowden was a criminal fugitive who should be detained wherever authorities found him and then turned over to US custody. There is no question that the Hong Kong action was not an independent one, but was coordinated with Beijing, which has full control over Hong Kong’s relations with foreign powers, including the United States. Russian media reports said that Snowden would fly from Moscow to Havana on Monday. From Cuba he would make his way to another Latin American capital, most likely Quito, Ecuador, although some reports suggested he was bound for Caracas, Venezuela. According to a statement issued by WikiLeaks Sunday, Snowden “is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks. Mr. Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety.” ■ On Sunday television interview programs, both Democratic and Republican legislators denounced Russia and China. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, “I hope we’ll chase him to the ends of the Earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there will be consequences if they harbor this guy.” Even more strident was liberal Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York. “What’s infuriating here is Prime Minister Putin of Russia aiding and abetting Snowden’s escape,” he said. “I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship.” Schumer linked Putin’s refusal to seize Snowden and turn him over to Washington to Russian opposition to US policies in the Middle East. “Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways,” he said, “and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States, whether it is Syria, Iran, and now, of course, with Snowden.”

Stephen Lendman: Washington v. Edward Snowden Update
Tony Gosling: ‘Snowden exposes criminals, criminals are going for him now’ (Interview)
Russia Today: Snowden’s plane leaves Moscow, NSA leaker not seen aboard
Russia Today: Ecuador analyzing Snowden asylum bid – Foreign Minister
PilotOnline: NSA leaker Snowden's passport revoked

The German Justice Minister has called the British spy agency’s massive eavesdropping of international fiber-optic cables 'a catastrophe'. Sabine Leuthesser-Scharrenberger insisted European institutions should seek clarification “straight away”. - The exposure by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of the global eavesdropping capabilities of the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have sent European capitals into a stupor. Having revealed the NSA’s PRISM global surveillance program, Snowden told the UK’s Guardian newspaper information about Britain's top secret Tempora surveillance project under which the UK's GCHQ spying agency intercepts and stores for 30 days huge volumes of data, like emails, social network posts, phone calls and much more, culled from international fiber-optic cables. The most vociferous reaction has come from Berlin where politicians have demanded a thorough investigation of the activities of the British intelligence-gathering community.

British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal. - Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA). The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.

Colin Todhunter: Britain’s Surveillance State: The Secret Ops of the “Government Communications Headquarters” (GCHQ) - “The innocent have everything to fear, mostly from the guilty, but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear.’” Terry Pratchett (British author), in Snuff (Doubleday, 2011). - For many people, personal privacy vs widespread surveillance has been a major issue for decades. However, some thought it might have been happening but chose to downplay it. Others didn’t want to know and just didn’t care. Edward Snowden’s recent revelations indicate it is happening and that we should all care.

PCR Interviewed by King Word News on Bernanke’s Statement that Roiled the Markets
Paul Craig Roberts on Another World Is Possible

Opposition is building to the Government's proposed new law expanding the powers of spy agency the Government Communications Security Bureau. - The New Zealand Law Society, Internet New Zealand and civil liberties groups are all questioning the need for new laws. Illegal spying on residents like Kim Dotcom prompted the Government to draft new legislation specifying exactly when and where the GCSB may spy on New Zealanders. Prime Minister John Key has defended the new legislation. "The bottom line is that because of difficulties in interpretation in the law we need to clarify that law. But this is something that has been going on for a very long period of time under previous governments," Mr Key said. Next week the Bill will get its first public hearing before Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, to be chaired initially by Mr Key. And the signs are it will draw plenty of flak.

■ Legislation that gives the Canadian state draconian and arbitrary powers to suppress protests became law last week after approval from the Conservative Party-dominated federal parliament. Bill C-309—the Preventing Persons from Concealing Their Identities during Riots and Unlawful Assemblies Act—makes it a crime punishable by a ten-year prison term to incite a riot while wearing a mask or any face covering, including face paint. Someone who merely participates in a riot or in an “unlawful” assembly with their face covered can, under the new law, be deemed to have committed an indictable criminal offense and jailed for up to five years. ■ Critics of the new law have rightly condemned it as a flagrant attack on the right to free speech. Masks and face paint have been used for centuries to make political points, and there are many reasons, including fear of victimization by employers, that can cause protesters to choose to conceal their faces. Police, it need be added, have subjected political protests to blanket surveillance for years, systematically photographing and videotaping demonstrators. ■ The criminalization of dissent goes hand in hand with the build-up of a secret state-within-the state. Under a series of ministerial directives, whose existence let alone content has been kept unknown to Canadians, Liberal and Conservative governments have authorized the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC)—a close partner of the U.S. National Security Agency—to mine the metadata of Canadians’ telephone, computer, and other electronic communications since at least 2005.

Patrick Henningsen: It’s no surprise that this latest announcement hardly registered on the US media who were busy covering Obama’s latest flip-flop on Syria, and the US royal family’s visit to Ireland. It’s deception on a grand scale this time, and here’s how it’s done… For the second time in as many years, Iran has once again made the right moves towards proving to the world that it is not, and will not be pursuing a nuclear weapons program. This time it announced it’s halting its 20% enriched uranium, and has a solid partner in Russia to help make this happen. As one would expect, the US-led axis bloc has completely ignored this important development, opting instead to soldier forward on a predictable war path which the bellicose Israeli lobby running the US Congress and Senate has been campaigning for all these years. When lawyers become Presidents: You can see why Obama was the candidate of choice for the Democratic Neoliberal machine in the US. As a lawyer-cum-salesman, he is a master in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and casting verbal smokescreens – very generous with words, but very stingy when it comes to conclusions.

Deputy Clare Daly: It is important to take this opportunity to bring some balance into the discussion surrounding the visit of the US President and his wife, given the almost unprecedented slobbering over the Obama family to which the nation has been exposed in recent days. It is difficult to decide which is worse, the outpourings of President Obama and his wife or the sycophantic fawning over them by the political establishment and sections of the media. While we had separate and special news bulletins by the State broadcaster to tell us what Michelle Obama and her daughters had for lunch in Dublin, there was very little questioning of the fact that they were having lunch with “Mr. Tax Exile” himself [reference to Bono of U2]. The statement that Mrs. Obama was glad to be home was barely challenged even though “home” is a country she has been in for less than one week and to which her husband has only tenuous links. The greatest irony of the visit was the protestations of President Obama in his speech about peace to children in Northern Ireland, in which he stated the following: To those who choose the path of peace, I promise you, the United States of America will support you every step of the way. We will always be a wind at your back. Is the US President seeking the hypocrite of the century award? We must call things by their right names. The reality is that by any serious examination, this man is a war criminal.