Watch the full interview with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now! at http://owl.li/mkCnI. Greenwald, who broke the NSA surveillance stories, talks about the mystery around Edward Snowden and the Obama administration's decision to charge Snowden with espionage.

Greenwald says: "Dianne Feinstein is outright lying when she says that she doesn't know of any instances of abuse at the National Security Agency. Leaving aside the fact that there have been several different reports by ABC News, by The New York Times, of the NSA abusing its eavesdropping powers over the last four years, there is a 2011 opinion, 80 pages long, from the FISA court, the secret court that oversees the NSA. And what it ruled, although the court—the opinion is top-secret and hasn't been publicly released. What it ruled is that the way in which the NSA is spying on American citizens is in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, as well as in excess of the limitations imposed by the statute, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. In other words, what the NSA is doing is both unconstitutional and illegal. And so, although the public doesn't have access to that opinion—shockingly, that in a democracy you could have a court rule the government has violated the law and the Constitution and keep it all a secret—Dianne Feinstein has access to that opinion. And so, when she says into the camera that there's no evidence that she is aware of that the NSA has abused its spying powers, she's simply lying, because she knows that the claim she's making is false."

Russia Today: NSA lies? Agency lacks evidence it thwarted 54 terrorist attacks
Russia Today: NSA methods reminiscent of those used in USSR under Stalin – Lavrov
Washington's Blog: Former Top NSA Official: “We Are Now In A Police State”

Over 80 civilians in a town northwest of the Syrian capital of Damascus have been executed by Islamist rebels, sources within the Syrian military told RT. Many others were kidnapped to be used as human shields. ● Government forces are continuing a large-scale operation against Jabhat al-Nusra and Liwa Al-Islam fighters, who captured the town earlier this week. The area is located some 20 kilometers away from Damascus. According to SANA news agency, around 1,000 militants were in the town when it was enveloped by the army on Friday. The military sources said the “armed groups have performed an execution of civilians” in Adra, RT Arabic correspondent Abutaleb Albohaya reported from Syria. “For now it’s established that over 80 people were killed in the areas now taken over by the army. Often whole families were murdered,” he said.

IIT: UNBELIEVABLE: Adra massacre: Terrorists show photos of those they beheaded

The Federal Reserve System was created on December 23, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. Today {12/16/13}, the Fed has decided to commemorate the event today with all three living Fed chairman delivering remarks. - A day that will live in infamy. Jacob H. Schiff, Paul Warburg and other bankers influenced Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act (December 23, 1913). The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was created in October 1913 to minimize predictable criticism. The bankers have manufactured panics, withdrawn credit and in the process have confiscated the citizen’s resources and personal property through phony bailouts, sanctioned by compromised politicians. These actions are calculated and designed to ultimately decimate the economy. The same bankers who promoted the Federal Reserve funded Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Molotov and Kirov (assumed names) in their godless, violent take-over of Russia. The bankers began making major profits when Bernard Baruch, Louis Brandeis and others manipulated their puppet Woodrow Wilson into entering World War I on borrowed money after the provoked attack on the Lusitania.

Brazil has no plans to grant asylum to Edward Snowden even after the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor offered on Tuesday to help investigate revelations of spying on Brazilians and their president, a local newspaper reported. ● The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, citing unnamed government officials, said the Brazilian government has no interest in investigating the mass Internet surveillance programs Snowden revealed in June and does not intend to give him asylum. In an "Open Letter to the Brazilian People" published by Folha and social media, Snowden offered to help a congressional probe into NSA spying on the country, including the personal communications of President Dilma Rousseff.

Russia Today/AWIP: Snowden offers to help Brazil investigate NSA spying when he's given asylum

A federal district judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, describing its technology as “almost Orwellian” and suggesting that James Madison would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way. The judge, Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered the government to stop collecting data on the personal calls of the two plaintiffs in the case and to destroy the records of their calling history. But Judge Leon, appointed to the bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush, stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” allowing the government time to appeal it, which he said could take at least six months. “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote in a 68-page ruling. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment,” which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Brad Blog: Federal Judge: NSA Phone Records Dragnet 'Likely Unconstitutional', 'Almost Orwellian'
The Examiner: Edward Snowden praises Judge Leon's ruling against the NSA
John Burton: Federal judge holds NSA telephone surveillance unconstitutional
Stephen Lendman: Federal Judge Rules Against Mass Surveillance

The NSA’s ultimate goal is to destroy individual privacy worldwide, working with its UK sidekick GCHQ, journalist Glenn Greenwald warned an EU inquiry, adding that they were far ahead of their rivals in their “ability to destroy privacy.” Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist renowned for publishing Edward Snowden’s leaks, criticized EU governments’ muted response to the revelations about the NSA’s mass espionage. Most governments reacted with “apathy and indifference” to reports that ordinary citizens were being spied upon, Greenwald said, pointing out that EU politicians only took action when they discovered that they themselves were being targeted. “I think western governments have inculcated people to accept that privacy does not really have much value,” said Greenwald, adding it was “to get populations accustomed to violations of their privacy.” “The NSA doesn’t need a specific reason to collect anybody’s communications,” said the journalist, reminding the panel that the agency’s ultimate goal was to “eliminate individual privacy worldwide.” Greenwald testified before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties and Home Affairs via a video link, contributing to an inquiry into the NSA’s surveillance on EU citizens.

Norsk etterretning er en stadig viktigere del av USAs globale overvåkningsnettverk. Det framgår av et topphemmelig dokument om «problemfritt» samarbeid mellom E-tjenesten og National Security Agency (NSA). ● «Modellpartner», «unik tilgang», «en av våre topp to-partnere» og «en ledende leverandør». Det er betegnelser National Security Agency (NSA) bruker internt om den norske Etterretningstjenesten på ulike områder i 2013. Også norsk signaletterretning mot utenlandske «sivile mål» som rapporteres videre til amerikanerne, blir framhevet. Det viser et hemmeligstemplet dokument som varsleren Edward Snowden i sommer hentet ut fra NSA og som Dagbladet har fått tilgang til. Denne artikkelen er skrevet i samarbeid med journalist Glenn Greenwald. Dagbladet skrev i går om hvordan E-tjenesten blant annet overvåker russiske politikere og rapporterer videre til NSA om sivil energipolitikk, men det er bare én del av samarbeidet. NSA er en av USAs største etterretningsorganisasjoner og opererer over hele verden. [Google Translate]

Russia Today: Revealed: Norway spies on Russia for NSA

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's Front National, has denounced the EU approach to the Ukrainian crisis as intervention in the home affairs of a nation, which she said did not need EU integration in the first place. She also described as "strange, to say the least" the Union's demand that Ukraine's legally-elected government step down just because that's what a few dozens of thousands wanted. The head of France's third largest party compared the situation in Ukraine to what had been going on in France when some 1.5 million protesters took to the streets to rally against Paris's decision to allow gay marriages and yet she stressed Brussels never doubted the legitimacy of President Francois Hollande. The Voice of Russia's readers and listeners have shared their take on the discrepancy, which was brought to the fore by Marine Le Pen.

Marine Le Pen's interview: 'European Union has no right to demand anything'

Arctic sea ice last month was around 50 percent higher in volume compared with a year earlier, following a recovery in area this summer, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Monday. ● This is some good news for the Arctic, but does not reverse a longer trend of decline, it said. Data from ESA’s high-tech ice-monitoring satellite CryoSat found that in October this year, there was about 9,000 cubic kilometres (2,100 cu. miles) of sea ice in the Arctic. A year earlier, the volume was 6,000 cu. kms (1,400 cu. miles). When measured over a timescale of several years, ice in October 2013 was about 30 centimetres (19 inches) thicker than last year’s — a rise of about 20 percent. Sea ice is ocean water that freezes in extremely low temperatures. In the Arctic, this ice goes through regular swings, contracting in the northern hemisphere’s summer and expanding in its winter. As a result, the changes are considered a bellwether of global warming, although experts also warn that only decades-long data can show whether something is a trend — meaning a man-made shift in climate — rather than a blip in the weather.

TruthSeeker, Comment — Dec 17, 2013 ■ Interesting how this story is being reported elsewhere in the corporate media. For example the Independent, long given to spouting N.W.O. party lines aimed at the liberal middle-class sometimes known as the “chattering classes”, reports that the increase in volume is “probably only a temporary respite“. That maybe but it it’s as well to recall that just 13-years-ago the very same Independent predicted that Flashback: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past. Since then, of course, Britain has seen plenty of snow in some of its worst winters in decades. So one should be a little sceptical by any of the Independent’s claims about climate.

A private firm with a federal contract - and backed up by city police - forced motorists off Laurel Street and into a private parking lot Friday to question them about their driving habits and ask for a swab of their mouth. ● "I feel this incident is a gross abuse of power on many levels," Reading resident Ricardo Nieves, one of those stopped, told City Council Monday. He said federal and local tax dollars were being used to stop innocent people without probable cause, and allow a private company to hire uniformed police to force citizens to listen to their questions. He said he wasn't told what the swab was for, but added, "Clearly it was for DNA." The checkpoint was among several being carried out in Pennsylvania by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, hired by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.