NSA

Progressive groups, transparency advocates and the whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers are coming out strongly against a Senate bill to reform the National Security Agency (NSA), arguing the reforms it contains are inadequate.

“Our fundamental civil rights — the human rights we hold dear — are not adequately protected by either the Senate or House versions of the USA Freedom Act,” wrote the groups and individuals, including the Sunlight Foundation, Credo Action, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas Drake.

Anti-spying protestors were mostly disappointed by President Obama’s proposed reforms to the NSA surveillance program. Obama kept it vague, and defended the program as necessary for national security. Karissa Gerhke, an organizer with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, says though she doesn’t think the president is doing enough, there is still something to celebrate. “The main thing here today is that Obama’s announcement today would not have been possible without Edward Snowden,” says Gerhke.

President Barack Obama announced Friday significant changes to National Security Agency permissions and policies — changes that the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) says never would have occurred were it not for the actions of agency leaker Edward Snowden.

“Obama’s announcement today would not have been possible without Edward Snowden,” committee organizer Karissa Gerhke said in a statement Friday. He is a hero and a whistle-blower, and deserves clemency.”

The PCCC has raised more than $45,000 via the Edward Snowden Legal Defense Fund while advocating for Snowden’s pardon.

Check out the Top Ten Highlights of 2013 from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee!

It’s been a great year. Thanks to all of our bold progressive members for being part of it!

1. “Expand Social Security”

In July, we announced a big strategic shift: Instead of playing defense, we would rally around bills to EXPAND Social Security benefits.

Along with our allies, PCCC members deliveredAi??petitionsAi??to congressional offices around the nation. We releasedAi??pollsAi??showing this idea was popular by 2 to 1 in Kentucky and 3 to 1 in Texas!

After the Washington Post op-ed pageAi??attackedAi??”bold progressives” for leading the way on this issue, Elizabeth Warren made national news that day by endorsing Social Security expansion on the Senate floor (and in an email to PCCC members).

Nobel economist Paul Krugman writes, “a funny thing has happened in the past year or so. Suddenly, weai??i??re hearing open discussion of the idea that Social Security should be expanded, not cut.ai???

2. PCCC membersAi??Ai??Elizabeth Warren

When Elizabeth Warren called for students to get the same low interest rates as big banks, over 1000 professors (who are also PCCC members) endorsed the idea.

When Elizabeth Warren demanded bank regulators crack down on Wall Street crimes, PCCC members pressured the SEC to listen!

When Elizabeth Warren was attacked, PCCC members attacked back!

Warren’s hometown Boston GlobeAi??profiledAi??us recently. They wrote, “A group called Progressive Change Campaign Committee is waging the most visible of these pro-Warren crusades.”

The NationAi??writes, “Warrenai??i??s voice is amplified by groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which have identified her as their ‘north star’ in the fight to renew the Democratic Party. That scares corporate interests.”

Polls say Americans are concerned about National Security Agency surveillance. According to a progressive group’s survey, many want to see a top intelligence official punished for giving Congress inaccurate answers about the NSA’s efforts.

An internal NSA audit, released Thursday by The Washington Post, found that the agency has violated privacy rules thousands of times every year since 2008. But even before those revelations, a majority of voters in five state-level polls said that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, should be prosecuted for giving Congress a “clearly erroneous” answer about NSA surveillance.

The five polls were conducted by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has raised money for NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s defense fund.

There is no longer any doubt that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress. Likewise, there is no doubt that his lie runs afoul of federal law. And, of course, there is no doubt that in terms of its implications for oversight, constitutional precepts and privacy for millions of Americans, his lies were far more serious than those that have gotten other people prosecuted for perjury. The question now is whether his brazen dishonesty will become a political issue — or whether it will simply disappear into the ether.

As evidenced by President Obama this week attempting to promote Clapper to head an “independent” NSA reform panel, the White House clearly believes it will be the latter. But a set of new polls out today suggests such a calculation may be wrong.

Commissioned by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Credo and conducted by Public Policy Polling in five ideologically diverse states, the surveys find that huge majorities want Clapper prosecuted.

A new poll out today finds that the majority of Americans view former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden as a whistleblower, not a traitor. The poll also finds that a plurality of Americans think the government has gone too far in so-called “anti-terrorism efforts” like indiscriminate surveillance:

A majority of U.S. registered voters consider Edward Snowden a whistle-blower, not a traitor, and a plurality says government anti-terrorism efforts have gone too far in restricting civil liberties, aAi??pollAi??released today shows.

Fifty-five percent said Snowden was a whistle-blower in leaking details about top-secret U.S. programs that collect telephone and Internet data, in the survey from Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University. Thirty-four percent said heai??i??s a traitor. Snowden, 30, worked for McLean, Virginia-based federal contractorAi??Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. (BAH)

Thousands of people have donated to assist the legal defense of Edward Snowden. Donate at SnowdenLegalFund.com. Click here to chip in a few dollars to defend Snowden.

Last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined twelve of her colleagues “in sending a letter to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The letter calls for an investigation into recently disclosed NSA programs to determine whether they are conducted within the statutory authority granted by Congress and to ensure that American citizens’ civil liberties and privacy are protected.”

Now, she has upped the ante, joining a new letter of 26 Senators — 21 Democrats and 4 Republicans — in writing directly to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in demanding answers about the NSA’s spy programs. Here are a few of the questions that the letter is asking:

How long has the NSA used PATRIOT Act authorities to engage in bulk collection of Americans’ records? Was this collection underway when the law was reauthorized in 2006?
Has the NSA used USA PATRIOT Act authorities to conduct bulk collection of any other types of records pertaining to Americans, beyond phone records?
Please provide specific examples of instances in which useful intelligence was gained by reviewing phone records that could not have been obtained without the bulk collection authority, if such examples exist.

The letter also calls out Clapper for “misleading the public” with statements saying that the NSA doesn’t hold data on US citizens.

We wouldn’t even know about the NSA’s spying without Edward Snowden’s heroism. Thatai??i??s why thousands of people are fighting back at SnowdenLegalFund.com. Click here to chip in a few dollars to defend Snowden.

As news breaks that Edward Snowden has been charged with espionage and has left Hong Kong, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is announcing today that we raised over $25,000 for this defense fund at SnowdenDefenseFund.com for his legal fees. This came from over 1,300 small dollar donations, with the average donation being around $22.

Edward Snowden is a whistleblower — he revealed that the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about whether the government was collecting millions of phone and Internet records from ordinary Americans. Lying to Congress is a crime, and this program is likely unconstitutional.

Glenn Greenwald, who broke the NSA spying story inAi??The GuardianAi??newspaper,explained Ai??toAi??MSNBC’s Chris HayesAi??how Snowden’s actions are not espionage:

GREENWALD: I think itai??i??s very surprising to accuse someone of espionage who hasnai??i??t worked for a foreign government, who didnai??i??t covertly pass information to an adversary [or] enemy of the United States, who didnai??i??t sell any top secret information […] Ai??[Snowden] simply went to newspapers, asked newspapers to very carefully vet the information to make sure that the only thing being published are things that informed his fellow citizens but doesnai??i??t harm national security. That is not espionage in any real sense of the word.

At the end of the day, this is about whether the people own their democracy. The people depend on Congress to represent us and exercise oversight. If a secret part of our government can break the law, lie to Congress, and spy on millions of ordinary Americans, than the people donai??i??t own their government.

Thatai??i??s why thousands of people are fighting back at SnowdenLegalFund.com. Click here to chip in a few dollars to defend Snowden.

Since Glenn Greenwald’s blockbuster story on indiscriminate NSA spying on phone and Internet records, there has been appropriate outrage about American privacy and basic fourth amendment freedoms.

But there has been less attention on the fact that the national security state, largely through its outsourcing to private intelligence and defense contractors like Edward Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton, has basically become a welfare program for the very rich. Here are a few numbers showing how:

$763,000: That’s the reimbursement cap for defense contractors — almost twice what President Barack Obama makes and over three times what vice president Joe Biden makes. Repeated attempts to lower this cap have failed.
3.2 Percent: That’s the unemployment rate in Arlington County, Virginia, the hub of the intelligence contractor state and location of the headquarters of Booz Allen Hamilton. InAi??In January 2010, during the height of the recession, the widerAi??United States had an unemployment rate of 9.8%, while ArlingtonAi??maintained an unemployment rate of only 5.1%.
50-60 Percent:Ai??In 2007,Ai??that was the estimated percentageAi??of “the workforce of the CIA’s most important directorate, the National Clandestine Service (NCS), responsible for the gathering of human intelligence,” that was “composed of employees of for-profit corporations.”
70 Percent: That’s the percentage of the intelligence community’s secret budget that has gone to private contractors, despite the fact that only one in four intelligence workers is a contractor — a sign that the privatization of the security state is driving up costs.
$107Ai??million: The amount the top executives at the top five Pentagon contractors made. That’s “43Ai??percent more than the heads of the five biggest U.S. banks, who made $75Ai??million.”
$20 Million:Ai??That’s the compensation of Booz Allen Hamilton’s top five employees in the 2010 fiscal year. TheAi??Washington Post reportsAi??that the “Ai??vast majority of” the company’s revenue “about 98 percent…comes …

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is among those organizations trying to keep the National Security Agency’s phone and Internet record surveillance practices in the spotlight. On Wednesday, the group delivered a petition demanding a congressional investigation to Senate Judiciary Chair Pat Leahy, D-Vt., as well as two prominent supporters of the surveillance program, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. The petition has nearly 97,000 signatories.

The email went out shortly after midnight Thursday, a few hours after the news broke about the Obama administration’s large-scale monitoring of Americans’ cell-phone records: “You are being spied on.” It was sent by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a leading liberal organization, to its list of supporters, and it asked them to sign a petition demanding an investigation of the cell-phone surveillance. “It’s simply unacceptable,” the email said. As further revelations about domestic surveillance have emerged in recent days, the group has kept up the drumbeat. The response, PCCC officials say, has been overwhelming — a sign of the widespread liberal anger at Obama over civil liberties.

A progressive group upset with news about the breadth of the Obama Administration’s surveillance efforts started raising money Monday to help self-confessed leaker Edward Snowden’s legal defense. Snowden admitted Sunday he leaked information to The Guardian and The Washington Post about the large, classified telephone and internet surveillance programs aimed at thwarting terrorism. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee announced the initiative with an e-mail from Stephen Kohn, the executive director of the National Whistleblower Center, which has represented federal employees in the past.

Progressives have begun raising money for the legal defense of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who has admitted to leaking several secret national security documents to the British newspaper The Guardian and the Washington Post.
In an email to supporters today, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said that because “whistleblower” cases are extremely expensive to litigate, they would raise money to pay Snowden’s legal fees.

The Guardian has just published an article about and video interview with the man behind the NSA leaks. 29 year-old Edward Snowden works for the massive defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and is a former technical assistant to the CIA. Snowden explained to the Guardian that he realized he was risking extreme harm to himself by revealing the government’s spying programs, but that he wanted the public to know the truth about the massive surveillance state. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he warned, and also said that the NSA “routinely lied to Congress,” which would be a crime.

We’re raising money for aAi??Edward Snowden Legal Defense Fund to help him defend himself and tell his story. Can you chip in $10 and tell others too?

Read more from The Guardian:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history isAi??Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for theAi??CIAAi??and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “IAi??have no intention of hiding whoAi??IAi??am becauseAi??IAi??knowAi??IAi??have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequentialAi??whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations ai??i?? theAi??NSA.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “IAi??understand thatAi??IAi??will be made to suffer for my actions”…

He …

After last week’s explosive revelations from The Guardian and Washington Post about the government’s massive spying and cyberattack programs, there has already been one important victory — the United States is once again debating its massive security state.

Here’s empirical data showing that. Google Trends maps news headlines over time. Here’s a headline search from 2004 to the present. As you can see, news about spying hasn’t been this high since January 2006 (approximately the time of the Bush-era NSA scandal):

MSNBC reportsAi??that “the PCCC is…marshalling an organized response.” Click here to sign aAi??Ai??petition calling on Congress to immediately investigate this surveillance and share the results with the public. Click here to sign on.

Just hours after the Guardian newspaper reported on a secret court order that allows the government access to Verizon company phone records, progressive groups are marshaling an organized response. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) posted an online petition demanding a congressional investigation of the domestic surveillance program operated by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Last night, news broke that the NSA had requested and gained access to the phone records of millions of Verizon customers. Today, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) put out a statement condemning this massive surveillance program:

“This type of secret bulk data collection is an outrageous breach of Americans’ privacy. I have had significant concerns about the intelligence community over-collecting information about Americansai??i?? telephone calls, emails, and other records and that is whyAi??I voted against the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act provisions in 2011 and the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act just six months ago.ai???

ai???This bulk data collection is being done under interpretations of the law that have been kept secret from the public. Ai??Significant FISA court opinions that determine the scope of our laws should be declassified. Can the FBI or the NSA really claim that they need data scooped up on tens of millions of Americans?ai???

We’ve launched a petition calling on the House and Senate Judiciary committees to immediately investigate this surveillance and share the results with the public. Click here to sign on.Ai??