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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that applications are being accepted for grants to finance broadband deployment in remote, rural areas. The USDA Rural Development may award up to $21 million in grants through the Community Connect Grant program. It serves rural communities where broadband service is not available, but where it can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life for citizens.
USDA Seeks Applications to Finance Rural Broadband in Remote Areas
A majority of Americans – 56% – say the National Security Agency’s (NSA) program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism, though a substantial minority – 41% – say it is unacceptable. And while the public is more evenly divided over the government’s monitoring of email and other online activities to prevent possible terrorism, these views are largely unchanged since 2002, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Majority Views NSA Phone Tracking as Acceptable Anti-terror Tactic
A ”We the People” petition on the White House Web site is calling for the government to pardon Edward Snowden, who identified himself as the source of leaks detailing a National Security Administration program that receives consumer data taken from major technology firms. The petition, created June 9, has over 44,000 signatures and counting. 100,000 signatures are required to trigger a response from the White House.
Petition launches to pardon source of NSA leak, Edward Snowden Pardon Edward Snowden (We The People)
Edward J. Snowden said he had leaked secret documents about National Security Agency surveillance to spark a public debate about civil liberties. President Obama, while deploring the leak, endorsed the same goal of a vigorous public discussion of the “trade-offs” between national security and personal privacy. “I think it’s healthy for our democracy, “ he said of the prospect of re-examining surveillance policy. But the legal and political obstacles to such a debate, whether in Congress or more broadly, are formidable.
They only begin with the facts that the programs at issue are highly classified and that Snowden is now a hunted man, potentially facing a prison sentence for disclosing the very secrets that started the discussion that President Obama welcomed. Steven Aftergood, who runs the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said: “If President Obama really welcomed a debate, there are all kinds of things he could do in terms of declassification and disclosure to foster it. But he’s not doing any of them.” Nor is it clear that political pressure from either Congress or the public will be sufficient to prompt the administration to open the door wider on government surveillance.
Debate on Secret Data Looks Unlikely, Partly Due to Secrecy
Despite the political and media furor surrounding the recent news about data collection by the National Security Agency, the appetite among some top lawmakers for undoing the legislation that allowed the sweeps is meager.
The revelations that the government obtained millions of Verizon customers’ phone records, and that the NSA directly accessed information from top Internet service providers, prompted libertarian and liberal lawmakers alike to decry the news. But congressional leaders have been reticent to suggest legislative changes. It’s a signal, insiders say, not to expect Congress to roll back the laws that empowered the secret courts to authorize the programs. “I can’t imagine any legislative proposal to amend some of these programs will be passed by Congress,” said Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
Government’s Data Grabs are Unlikely to Prompt Legislative Action Change to Data-Program Laws Unlikely (WSJ)
[Commentary] For years, as the federal surveillance state grew into every corner of American society, the highest officials worked to pretend that it didn’t exist. Now that Americans are learning what really takes place behind locked doors, many officials claim they are eager to talk about it. This newfound interest in openness is a little hard to take seriously, not only because of the hypocrisy involved but because officials seem to want to do no more than talk about being open. If the president wants to have a meaningful discussion, he can order his intelligence directors to explain to the public precisely how the National Security Agency’s widespread collection of domestic telephone data works. Since there’s not much point in camouflaging the program anymore, it’s time for the public to get answers to some basic questions.
A Real Debate on Surveillance
Stung by allegations that it colluded with American intelligence agencies to collect data on its citizens, Britain’s government insisted that its secret services operate within the law, but did not give details of what rules apply to some requests for information from foreign powers.
Despite the growing controversy over the issue, the British government has yet to confirm or deny reports that it had been given information from an American surveillance program called Prism, which is said to have collected Internet data on foreigners abroad from companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Skype. But in a statement to Parliament, Foreign Secretary William Hague rejected as “baseless” the suggestion that the intelligence-gathering facility, Government Communications Headquarters, known as G.C.H.Q., had used its partnership with the United States to secure information not legally available to it at home. Britain, he added, had “one of the strongest systems of checks and balances and democratic accountability for secret intelligence anywhere in the world.”
Accused of Scheming With U.S., Britain Says It Follows the Law in Gathering Intelligence
An ex-CIA worker’s exposure of a once-secret U.S. electronic surveillance program has spawned a criminal investigation and congressional questions about the ability of a low-level employee to breach national security.
The Obama Administration, while refusing to say what it knows about Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old American and former technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency, said the case is being investigated. With Snowden having fled to Hong Kong, congressional leaders are demanding his indictment and extradition for what several lawmakers called treason. “There is, obviously, an investigation under way into this matter,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said, declining to comment further about Snowden, who provided detailed information about a wide-reaching National Security Agency Internet surveillance program to journalists and then revealed his identity voluntarily.
US Surveillance Leak in Criminal, Congressional Probes
As Justice Department officials began the process June 10 to charge Edward J. Snowden, a 29-year-old former C.I.A. computer technician, with disclosing classified information, he checked out of a hotel in Hong Kong where he had been holed up for several weeks, according to two American officials.
It was not clear where he went. Whether Snowden remained in Hong Kong or fled to another country — like Iceland, where he has said he may seek asylum — the charges would strengthen the Justice Department’s hand if it tries to extradite him to the United States. One government typically must charge a suspect before another government will turn him over. The department’s investigation of Snowden will be overseen by the FBI’s Washington field office, which has considerable experience prosecuting such cases, according to one of the officials. Agents are trying to learn as much as they can about him and have tried to interview his family members. The Justice investigation into Mr. Snowden was one of at least two government inquiries. The National Security Agency began trying to identify and locate the leaker when The Guardian published its first revelations
US Preparing Charges Against Leaker of Data
The source had instructed his media contacts to come to Hong Kong, visit a particular out-of-the-way corner of a certain hotel, and ask — loudly — for directions to another part of the hotel. If all seemed well, the source would walk past holding a Rubik’s Cube. So three people — Glenn Greenwald, a civil-liberties writer who recently moved his blog to The Guardian; Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who specializes in surveillance; and Ewen MacAskill, a Guardian reporter — flew from New York to Hong Kong about 12 days ago. They followed the directions. A man with a Rubik’s Cube appeared.
It was Edward J. Snowden, who looked even younger than his 29 years — an appearance, Greenwald recalled, that shocked him because he had been expecting, given the classified surveillance programs the man had access to, someone far more senior. Snowden has now turned over archives of “thousands” of documents, according to Greenwald, and “dozens” are newsworthy.
Cryptic Overtures and a Clandestine Meeting Gave Birth to a Blockbuster Story