APRIL 9TH 2014- UPDATES... everyday people of the west etc. do NOT want 2 become involved in a hijacked parliament and 'self-appointed' politicians... it's just wrong.... NATO... SHAME ON U... our sons and daughters and the flags of our nations... will not be participating in a WHITE MANS WAR OVER OIL, GAS AND ENERGY.... 4 get it... 2days news - many folks like our Russian brothers and sisters... who treated our global athletes like the queens and kings they r.... telling ya... we will vote in our elections on this crap.... and ya all not looking good.... $$$media roadkill has hijacked the world again whilst dumping Syria...
UKRAINE- Nationalists see Stepan Bandera as a pro-independence hero but Russians see him as a fascist
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GERMANY POLL
Germans reject Nato intervention in Ukraine
Published: 09 Apr 2014 10:33 GMT+02:00
Half of Germans do not want Nato forces to increase their military presence on Russia’s borders and a majority is against a military escalation of the conflict, a poll on Wednesday showed.
The Forsa poll for magazine Stern found 50 percent of respondents were against greater Nato engagement in eastern Europe and 42 percent were in favour.
A clear majority were also against a military escalation of the conflict with 77 percent rejecting Nato intervention - even if Russian troops invaded eastern Ukraine.
Just 16 percent of Germans polled wanted to respond militarily to a potential Russian invasion.
East Germans were particularly against Nato forces increasing their presence as were voters of the far-left party, Die Linke.
The poll was conducted with 1,001 respondents from April 3rd to 4th.
On Tuesday Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble warned that the crisis in Ukraine could threaten Berlin's bid to produce a balanced budget next year.
"No one knows, for example, how things will go in Ukraine," he told the Bild newspaper.
COMMENT: and the payback is going 2 sting at election time-just u wait and see... our military and Russia has worked 2gether in partnership - especially the Arctic and NORAD 4 sooooo many years... we just has the best Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia ever... and Paralympics were total triumph of respect, dignity and raw talent.... everyday people are NOT going 2 tolerate $$$$billions and $$$millions of our tax dollars going 2 Ukraine!!!! It's insulting 2 troops needing help, students needing $$, jobs, economy and having a decent life.... this is horrible... just horrible... check out France and most Europe nations, US (they are livid)... many Canadians and Brits and so on.... this is a $$media roadkill disgrace and global shame on NATO trying 2 have a job and EU stealing more countries versus Russia... come on!
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Americans are NOT buying in2 Ukraine... they just...don't...care- they have their own issues on their homeland- like unemployment, education, jobs,progress and bringing back respect of the American people 2 all the politicians who have so betrayed everyday Americans and their troops... imho
In the end, the U.S. could find itself practically alone fighting a war with a nuclear power over minimal geopolitical stakes. Washington should bar further NATO expansion, whether de jure or de facto. Over the longer term America should turn responsibility for Europe’s defense back to Europe. Irish journalist Constantin Gurdgiev complained that “Europeans can’t afford” to take over NATO and their own defense: “Imagine the public debt levels [the] EU would have to run.” But that spending is even less affordable for the U.S., which possesses a smaller GDP, is committed militarily around the globe, and has less at stake in Europe’s freedom than does Europe.
FORBES
Washington Should Not Defend Ukraine Or Expand NATO: U.S. Should Shift Responsibility For Europe's Defense to Europe
Until World War II the U.S. avoided what George Washington termed “entangling alliances.” America generally defended itself by avoiding old world conflicts. The U.S. changed course in World War II and the Cold War, fearing that hostile powers would dominate Eurasia. Protecting important embattled states preserved international space for America.
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BLOOMBERG
Putin Seen Signing China Gas Deal as Crisis Forces Russia’s Hand
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
Employees pass beneath pipes leading to oil storage tanks at the central processing... Read More
Vladimir Putin is more likely to sign 30-year deal to supply pipeline gas to China next month after more than a decade of false starts because the crisis in Ukraine is forcing Russia to look for markets outside Europe.
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VIDEO:
comment:
Just as we've been saying... Sweet Jesus, Mother Mary and Joseph... right in our faces like political mass doesn't think their voters are intelligent, educated, and savvy and... ANGRY.... Hijacking Democracy in Ukraine 4 greedy pockets of EU and West versus Russia?... THINK WE DIDN'T NOTICE? CHECK IT OUT
West Looks to Carve Up Ukraine & Privatize Industries Held by Kleptocrats
Michael Hudson: The financial grab for Ukraine's industries is simply war by another name, as other Eastern European countries have experienced a similar fate
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best comments of all
Russia and US take their petty war of words over Ukraine on to Twitter
Official communications from both sides suggest teenagers trying to wind each other up
BEST COMMENT:
I've just compared the Russian media with western MSM - more or less the same shit viewed from very different angles. The truth is somewhere in between, but I suppose the more honest Youtube posts from Ukraine you have, the more you understand the people in the east when they are just trying to have their say in the very same way the west-applauded Kiev protesters have done two months ago. Among hundreds of persons arrested by Kiev authorities in eastern Ukraine NONE happened to be a Russian citizen, in spite of all talks about "provocateurs". All arrested ones were eastern Ukrainian locals while the police arresting them were from western Ukraine. Local eastern Ukrainian police declared it have nothing to do with this, they cannot ignore the public opinion in their parts, which is faraway from the west and its Kiev marionettes outlook. The situation is aggravating. Why not giving people the chance to vote and decide for themselves? Autonomy is only thing they ask for now. If it goes likes this, next day they will ask independence, then - joining with Russia. And nobody could stop it with Russian troops are ready and Russian public support on Putin's side. EU and US started this game when Russia was all in the Olympics, they thought they were smart guys on February 22. But the game is going on, be ready to lose.
COMMENT:
In a slightly confused comparison, the embassy complained about violence from the Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda, which forms part of the interim government in Kiev: <SNIP> We have not seen London's reaction to that."
The Russians have a point. What is the British government's reaction to the inclusion of Svoboda in the interim Ukrainian government? They haven't commented about Svoboda supporters in Maidan wearing Wolfsangel armbands, waving UPA flags or posting pictures of their Nazi hero, Stepan Bandera - are we to assume that the British government is OK with all this Nazi stuff?
When is Nick Clegg going to meet his opposite number in Ukraine, Oleksandr Sych?
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der spiegel
How Western Is Germany? Russia Crisis Spurs Identity Conflict
An Essay By Christiane Hoffmann
Many Germans feel a special bond to Russia. This makes the Ukraine crisis particularly dangerous for Berlin because it raises important questions about the very nature of German identity. Are we as deeply rooted in the West as most believe?
The only reason my German grandfather survived as a Russian prisoner of war was that he had a beautiful singing voice. He had been drafted into the Volkssturm militia in 1944, during the final phase of the war in which the Nazi party recruited most able-bodied males into the armed forces, regardless of their age. The Russians captured him during the Siege of Breslau and he was taken to a labor camp, where he was forced to work as a logger.
There was barely anything to eat and he said the men died like flies. Every now and then, the camp cook would serve my grandfather an extra portion of the water gruel or an additional bit of bread because he had such a nice voice. At night, when he would sing his songs by the fire, the Russians would sit there as well, passing round the vodka bottle, and his voice would literally bring tears to their eyes -- or at least that's the version of events passed down in the family.
Right up to this day, Germans and Russians maintain a special relationship. There is no other country and no other people with which Germans' relations are as emotional and as contradictory. The connection reaches deep into German family history, shaped by two world wars and the 40-year existence of East Germany. German families still share stories of cruel, but also kindhearted and soulful Russians. We disdain the Russians' primitiveness, while treasuring their culture and the Russian soul.
'Tug-of-War' of Emotions
Our relationship to the Russians is as ambivalent as our perception of their character. "When it comes to the relations between the Germans and Russians, there is a tug-of-war between profound affection and total aversion," says German novelist Ingo Schulze, author of the critically acclaimed "Simple Stories," a novel that deals with East German identity and German reunification. Russians are sometimes perceived as Ivan the Terrible, as foreign entities, as Asians. Russians scare us, but we also see them as hospitable people. They have an enormous territory, a deep soul and culture -- their country is the country of Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy.
It's thus no wonder that the debate about Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis is more polarizing than any other issue in current German politics. For Germany, the Ukraine crisis is not some distant problem like Syria or Iraq -- it goes right to the core of the question of German identity. Where do we stand when it comes to Russia? And, relatedly: Who are we as Germans? With the threat of a new East-West conflict, this question has regained prominence in Germany and may ultimately force us to reposition ourselves or, at the very least, reaffirm our position in the West.
In recent weeks, an intense and polemical debate has been waged between those tending to sympathize with Russia and those championing a harder line against Moscow. The positions have been extreme, with one controversy breaking out after the other. The louder the voices on the one side are in condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine, the louder those become in arguing for a deeper understanding of a humbled and embattled Russia; as the number of voices pillorying Russia for violating international law in Crimea grows, so do those of Germans raising allegations against the West.
One of the main charges is that the European Union and NATO snubbed Moscow with their recent eastward expansion. Everyone seems to be getting into the debate -- politicians, writers, former chancellors and scientists. Readers, listeners and viewers are sending letters to the editor, posting on Internet forums or calling in to radio or television shows with their opinions.
"Most Germans want to understand Russia's side of things," says Jörg Baberowski, a prominent professor of Eastern European history at Berlin's Humboldt University. Historian Stefan Plaggenborg of the Ruhr University in Bochum has described the sentimental relationship between Germans and Russians as "doting love." But how is it that this connection still exists after two world wars?
Perhaps a man who grew up in East Germany can explain what links Germans and Russians: Thomas Brussig, a novelist from the former East Berlin, says he first got to know Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union when he visited during a book tour. During his stay, he recalls being constantly asked which Russian writers influenced him. Brussig didn't give the obvious answers -- Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. He instead named a third-rate Soviet writer, Arkady Gaidar. "I did it to exact a bit of revenge and to remind them what imperialists they had been," he says.
Brussig says he has no special attachment to the Russians. He says the only Russian figure he actually views positively is Gorbachev. It was "his vision of a Common European Home that cleared the way for the demolition of the Soviet Union." It was a dream of a Europe without dividing lines. "We shouldn't act as though the border to Asia starts where Lithuania ends," says Brussig. "Europe reaches all the way into the Ural Mountains."
Romanticism and War
There are some obvious explanations for the bond between Germans and Russians: economic interests, a deeply rooted anti-Americanism in both countries on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. But those are only superficial answers -- dig a little deeper, and you'll find two other explanations: Romanticism and the war.
The war explanation is inextricably linked to German guilt. As a country that committed monstrous crimes against the Russians, we sometimes feel the need to be especially generous, even in dealing with Russia's human rights violations. As a result, many Germans feel that Berlin should temper its criticism of Russia and take a moderate position in the Ukraine crisis. It was Germany, after all, that invaded the Soviet Union, killing 25 million people with its racist war of extermination.
Hans-Henning Schröder, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs describes this as Russophilia and says it is a way of compensating for Germany's Nazi past. Noted German historian Heinrich August Winkler fears Germans have adopted a "pathological learning process."
The question of guilt has created a link between Germans and Russians, but the issue evaporated fairly quickly for the Russians after the war. Unlike the French, Scandinavians and Dutch, the Russians don't tend to name and shame the Germans for crimes committed during the German occupation.
"Those who suffered the most had the least hate for the Germans," says Baberowski, as if the issue of German guilt evaporated in the first frenzy of revenge at the end of the war. He believes it dissipated, at the very latest, after the return of the last prisoners of war to Germany. "The Russians told stories that would make your blood freeze in your veins, but they were never accusatory towards us," says Schulze, who spent several months in St. Petersburg during the 1990s.
Despite the fact that German politicians exploited fears of Russia for many years in the postwar period, the war still connects Germans with Russians today. Our relationship is characterized by the "intimacy of a relationship that arose out of two wars," says Herfried Münkler, a professor of political theory at Humboldt University. He describes the war as an experience shared by both Germans and Russians. He argues that conflict creates a stronger community dynamic than peace -- and that, as a result of the war, Germans learned another thing: to never again attack Russia.
Then, of course, there are Germans' romantic ideas about Russia. The country has always been idealized by Germans. No other country was as thrilled as Germany when glasnost and perestroika ushered in the de-escalation of the East-West conflict. Finally, they felt, it was acceptable for them to love Russia again. In Gorbachev, the good Russian had returned and the Germans saw no reason to continue living in fear of Russia.
Documentary programs about the remote reaches of Siberia and the banks of the Volga River attracted large viewership numbers. In the preceding decades, works by German-language authors like Heinz Konsalik -- whose book "The Doctor of Stalingrad," dealt with German prisoners of war -- and Johannes Simmel -- whose novels delved into Cold War themes -- had been best-sellers.
"The east is a place of longing for the Germans," says Münkler. The expanse and seeming infinity of Russian space has always been the subject of a German obsession for a simpler life, closer to nature and liberated from the constraints of civilization. The millions of Germans that were expelled from Eastern Europe and forced to move to the West after 1945 fostered that feeling. To them, it represented unspoiled nature and their lost homeland.
A Tradition of Anti-Western Sentiment
The flipside to Germany's longing for Russia is its desire to differentiate itself from the West. Fundamental opposition to the West's putative superficiality is seen as being part of the Russian soul: The perceived busyness and money-grubbing ways of the Western man stand in contrast to the East's supposed depth of emotion and spirituality. "When something is romanticized, there is always an antidemocratic streak," says Baberowski. It privileges harmony over conflict, unity over confrontation.
This tradition of anti-Western thinking has a long tradition in Germany. In "Reflections of an Unpolitical Man," written during the First World War, Thomas Mann sought to strongly differentiate Germany from the West, even citing Dostoyevsky in the process. "Being German," Mann wrote, "means culture, soul, freedom, art and not civilization, society, the right to vote, literature." Mann later revised his views, but the essay remains a document for those seeking to locate Germany's position between East and West.
Winkler points to a battle between the era's German intellectuals, which pitted the "Ideas of 1914" -- propagated by Johann Plenge, and emphasizing the "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order, ideas that would later influence National Socialism -- against those of liberté, égalité, fraternité -- which were adopted in 1789 during the French Revolution.
When West Germany became politically part of the West after 1945, the Eastern way of thinking was pushed to the wayside. But Russia remained a country of longing for the East Germans. Münkler believes that the longing for Russia is also a symbol of "what we used to think but are no longer supposed to think."
A Special Role for Germany?
Henrich August Winkler argues that Germany has now arrived at the end of a "long journey to the West." But with the Ukraine crisis and the threat of a revival of the East-West conflict, that arrival now seems less final. Suddenly old questions about a special role for Germany have resurfaced. Of course, no one would throw our membership in the EU or NATO into question, but Germany's special ties to Russia -- which differentiate it from other Western European countries -- have a justifiable effect on our politics.
"The ideology of taking the position in the middle has exhausted itself," Winkler told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper in a 2011 interview. That was easy to say at a time when the East-West rivalry seemed to have disappeared. Nowadays, that's no longer the case.
If the EU manages to speak with a single voice, it remains possible that the West will be able to achieve something close to a consensus position. But if the conflict with Russia escalates and decisions have to be made about economic sanctions or the stationing of troops, the situation could get very tricky for Germany. It may also force Germans to confront the crucial question of where they stand in their relationship with Russia. It would be a tough question for Germans to dodge, given Germany's current -- voluntary or not -- de facto leadership role in Europe.
In the Ukraine crisis, the stakes for Germany are higher than for perhaps any other country in Europe. So far, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, have managed, with difficulty, to maintain a unified position, but cracks are already showing. Leaders of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which implemented Ostpolitik policies of detente with the East under Chancellor Willy Brandt, are far less inclined to assume the role of adversary to Russia than Merkel's conservatives. The Social Democrats have now adopted the same strategy with Putin's authoritarian regime as they did in the 1970s, when they sought a better understanding of the Communists. Their approach -- to seek a better understanding of Russia's positions -- has been a successful political model for the party.
Germans Divided over Affiliation with West
Still, a divide is growing between the political elite and those in Germany who are sympathetic towards Russia. A recent survey conducted by pollster Infratest dimap showed that almost half of all Germans want the country to adopt the middle ground between Russia and the West. In the states that belonged to the former East Germany, twice as many people as in western German states believe that Germany should adopt a special role. But even in the western states, there is only a narrow majority which believes Germany should stand firmly on the side of NATO and the EU in the conflict with Russia. It's fair to say that when it comes to question of its affiliation with the West, Germany is a divided land.
Old anti-American sentiments, intensified by the NSA spying scandal, could very well be playing a role, along with fear of an escalation in the conflict with Russia. It's unlikely that the majority of Germans want to revive the former East-West order.
As a child in West Germany, I personally feared the Russians. I couldn't sleep at night because we had, technically at least, only reached a cease-fire agreement with the Soviet Union and it sounded like the shooting would resume again after a short pause. Fortunately, there was a lot of singing in my family. Perhaps it had to do my grandfather. Maybe they wanted to provide us with an important tool for survival later in life -- just in case the Russians came. In any case, my grandfather, who had sung for years for his very survival, never spared a nasty word about the Russians.
Translated from the German by Daryl Lindsey
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RUSSIA-UKRAINE-USA-NATO AND UN BULLSHIT AND BEANS..Ukraine is over 60% Russian ancestray....so grow up and F**k off Canada and nations that have allowed Democracy 2 be hijacked and 'pretend self-appointed rulers now of Ukraine!!!" . telling ya Canada... when we vote in 2015- we will remember this travesty of media's total bias....
U.S. uses ‘diplospeak’ to evade tough truths on Ukraine, other crises
By Hannah Allam
McClatchy Washington BureauApril 9, 2014
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/04/09/223866/us-uses-diplospeak-to-evade-tough.html#storylink=cpy
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Pro-Russian protests and secession demands in Ukraine lack broad local support but increase pressure for federalisation
IHS Jane's Intelligence Weekly
08 April 2014
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Ukraine
'Ukrainians divided by two narratives of the conflict'
The Ukrainian conflict is having serious consequences even for people living far away from Crimea and the Eastern part of the country, a US Russian scholar currently residing in Ukraine tells DW.
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The Germans Are Quietly Realigning Their Nation With the Vast Russian-Chinese-Central Asian-Pakistani-Indian-Iranian Alliance
By Jack D. Douglas
April 9, 2014
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Ukraine crisis: Does Russia have a case?
Is the government anti-Russian?
Part of the problem is that the government sworn in last week had little connection to Ukraine's more Russophile east. One of its first actions was to repeal a 2012 law recognising Russian as an official regional language. The decision was widely criticised across Ukraine.
What about the role of 'radical extremists'?
Moscow has regularly complained that the protests in Kiev's Independence Square were hijacked by the far right, who have since gone on to take power in a new government that includes "undisguised Nazis". Two groups, Right Sector and Svoboda (Freedom), are frequently mentioned and there are regular references to wartime nationalist Stepan Bandera, seen as a hero to some but accused by others of being a Nazi collaborator linked to massacres of Jews and Poles.
Nationalists see Stepan Bandera as a pro-independence hero but Russians see him as a fascist
The far right was a minority element in the protests that attracted a wide cross-section of support from Kiev and other cities. They were, however, often involved in the most violent confrontations and nationalist symbols were frequently visible in the square.
The nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party has four posts in the government. Oleksandr Sych is deputy prime minister and Oleh Makhnitsky becomes acting chief prosecutor. It also runs the agriculture and ecology portfolios but its leader, who has been accused of anti-Semitism, is not in the government.
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APRIL 9, 2014- UDATES...
EDWARD SNOWDEN- THANK U RUSSIA...
run baby run.... we love u Edward Snowden... even my blog on u was hijacked
FROM CANADA WITH LOVE...
USA
CANADA
europe- says no 2 our Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden challenges the NSA to deny that he tried to raise alarm legally
Edward Snowden has challenged NSA (National Security Agency) to deny that he tried to use legal means to 'blow the whistle' before leaking the documents.
Snowden said that he tried to contact NSA via e-mails, and welcomed members of Congress to get a written letter from NSA in this context despite the fact that 'whistle-blower protection laws in the US do not protect contractors in the national security arena'.
According to Cnet, the challenge was made when NSA Deputy Director Rick Ladgett reportedly said that Snowden didn't make any formal complaints.
However, Snowden maintains that he tried to work within the system before leaking the documents.
Wednesday, 9 April 2014 - 12:59pm IST | Place: WASHINGTON | Agency: ANI
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EDWARD SNOWDEN RULES BABY...
EU court ruling boost privacy rights of citizens
Apr 09, 2014 12:48 PM
By JUERGEN BAETZ
Associated Press
BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union's top court on Tuesday dealt a blow to law-enforcement agencies' spying on phone and internet records, saying the lives of citizens should not be "the subject of constant surveillance."
The European Court of Justice scrapped EU legislation allowing the indiscriminate collection of such communication data in crime-fighting efforts, finding that the rules were too broad and offered too few privacy safeguards.
"The judgment finds that untargeted monitoring of the entire population is unacceptable," said T.J. McIntyre, chairman of Digital Rights Ireland, who filed the original lawsuit.
Other rights groups also hailed a landmark victory for privacy, but governments stressed they still need to access phone records to prevent or investigate serious crimes such as terrorism.
"Data retention for the purpose of investigating serious crimes is necessary and that remains the case," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said after the ruling, urging quick agreement on more narrowly defined new legislation.
Germany highlighted the ambivalence toward the directive. The most populous of the EU's 28 nations never implemented it amid court challenges and domestic political differences, exposing Berlin to EU fines for non-compliance.
However, Britain's Home Office, which handles issues of law and order in the country, said saving communication data "is absolutely fundamental to ensure law enforcement have the powers they need to investigate crime, protect the public and ensure national security." Britain's GCHQ surveillance agency has close ties with the United States' National Security Agency.
Tuesday's verdict nullifies the EU data retention directive, rendering national laws very vulnerable to local court challenges.
The 2006 legislation required telecommunication firms to store phone calls or some online communication records for at least six months and up to two years. The data typically reveals who was involved in the communication, where it originated, when and how often - but not its content.
Still, the Luxembourg-based court ruled the legislation provided "very precise information on private lives," including daily habits and social relationships that represented a "particularly serious interference with fundamental rights."
The court said the rules must be narrowed down to ensure any privacy infringement will be restricted to "what is strictly necessary" for fighting serious crimes.
Beyond invading privacy, Green European Parliament lawmaker Jan Philipp Albrecht said the data collection also "totally failed to lead to any noticeable improvement in law enforcement."
In an apparent nod to the leaks disclosing U.S. surveillance agencies' alleged mass spying on communication overseas, the EU court also said the legislation's failure to ensure that the storage of communication data was retained within the EU represents a potential breach of the bloc's privacy laws.
Privacy advocates in Ireland and Austria brought cases against national legislation based on the EU directive to their countries' top courts, which in turn sought advice from the Luxembourg judges.
Associated Press writer Geir Moulson in Berlin, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/25188469/eu-court-ruling-boost-privacy-rights-of-citizens#ixzz2yPlD5jR1
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WITH VIDEO
NSA snoops on major human rights groups, Edward Snowden says
The US has targeted prominent human rights organisations and spied on their staff, Edward Snowden said, in giving evidence to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Europe's top human rights body.
Speaking via a video connection from Moscow, Snowden said that the National Security Agency - for which he worked as a contractor - had deliberately snooped on bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
He told members of the European Parliament: "The NSA has targeted leaders and staff members of these sorts of organisations, including domestically within the borders of the United States."
Snowden did not reveal which groups the NSA had bugged. But he gave a forensic account of how the NSA's powerful surveillance programmes violated the EU's privacy laws.
He said programmes such as XKeyscore use sophisticated data mining techniques to track "trillions" of private communications. "This technology offers the most significant new threat to civil liberties in the modern era."
XKeyscore allows analysts to search with no prior authorisation through vast databases containing e-mails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.
The Council of Europe invited the White House to give evidence but it declined.
The EU body said: "Snowden has triggered a massive public debate on privacy in the internet age. We hope to ask him what his revelations mean for ordinary users and how they should protect their privacy and what kind of restrictions Europe should impose on state surveillance.''
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these politican are just becoming creepy... the whole world knows what USA along with other nations have been doing and done... AND NOW CUBA??
Hague backs report rejecting Edward Snowden accusations against the Cheltenham-based GCHQ
By Impeyecho | Posted: April 09, 2014
William Hague, the foreign secretary and the minister responsible for GCHQ, has welcomed a report that clears the spy post over the Edward Snowden saga.
Claims that GCHQ carried out mass surveillance of British citizens have been rejected by a top watchdog.
The spy agency based in Cheltenham has been given a clean bill of health for the first time since Snowden, the US whistle-blower, stole documents that he claims reveal the extent of its snooping.
It has been reported in the past 10 months that both GCHQ and the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US were carrying out improper surveillance of citizens.
But the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Anthony May, has ruled that the British listening post did not misuse powers of mass intrusion.
Hague said: "I strongly welcome this report. A senior and fully independent judge has looked in detail at whether the interception agencies 'misuse their powers to engage in random mass intrusion into the private affairs of law abiding UK citizens'. He has concluded that the answer is 'emphatically no'.
“We are open to suggestions to strengthen the oversight framework even further and make it as transparent as possible without putting security at risk. Sir Anthony's role and the recommendations in this report are very important in that regard.
“The intelligence agencies work tirelessly and with minimal recognition to keep us safe from terrorists, criminals, hostile governments and others who pose risks to our society. They exist to defend our freedoms and values, not to threaten them."
May’s report does however claim that constabularies in Britain had been over-using surveillance.
David Cameron has also welcomed the report by May although activist groups remain sceptical over his findings.
“I don’t think we want to say the interception of communications commissioner is acting in bad faith,” Rachel Robinson, policy director of activist group Liberty, told the Guardian newspaper.
“But his office is necessarily limited,” she added.
May, who is responsible for overseeing warrants requested by police and intelligence services, was concerned, however, about the “very large number” of requests for information.
It was claimed that around 90 per cent of requests were made by the law enforcement services.
David Cameron added: “I believe his report provides an authoritative, expert and reassuring assessment of the lawfulness, necessity and proportionality of the intelligence agencies’ work.”
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Edward Snowden calls for international deal on data
surveillance
By AFP | 9 Apr, 2014, 02.14AM IST
( FRANCE): Fugitive
US intelligence contractor Edward
Snowden said on Tuesday there should be an international agreement on data
collection to protect against the mass surveillance of citizens.
Speaking to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg via video link, he said a set of
"common standards" would be needed to prevent widespread surveillance programmes
like that carried out by the US National Security Agency.
The
whistleblower, who lives in Moscow
after bein ..
Read more at:
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Syria has 1 million women and children being raped and displaced in Lebanon; over 500,000 Syrians in Jordan- Muslim on Muslim countries with their $$$$TRILLIONS REFUSE 2 HELP... Nato refuses... UN refuses.... and this white on white man's war???
AND... there we have it... told u we were good at tracking and hunting...
Prior to the Ukraine crisis, there were many asking what purpose NATO would serve once the alliance's troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan.
and...sigh... told u... white man's wars... and political crap... Ukraine gets hijacked from democratic election by USA interference... AGAIN...
AND..
But now that Putin has taken over the Crimea -- leading countries on the alliance's eastern edge to feel threatened -- the mood in NATO's Brussels headquarters has changed dramatically. General Secretary Rasmussen, one NATO source said, has "positively blossomed." And the US, Britain and most Eastern European member states support him.
Searching for Deterrence: Ukraine Crisis Exposes Gaps Between Berlin and NATO
By SPIEGEL Staff
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/ukraine-crisis-exposes-gaps-between-berlin-and-nato-a-962978.html
BLOGGED:
IDLE NO MORE CANADA- EUROPE'S FACISM- is not because of Russia and ya all know it -OIL AND ENERGY GREEDY NATIONS... United Nations what happend 2 u... what happened 2 Humanity First -No Fracking Canada/NATO ur whites only is showing/Over 1 Million innocent Muslims murdered by Heretic Muslims-no one cares BUT little Israel of 8 Million people amongst 2 billion Muslims is a monster? What happened 2 Humanity?
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2014/04/idle-no-more-canada-europes-facism-is.html
BLOGGED:
EDWARD SNOWDEN- WELL SOMEONE CRASHED MY HERO- EDWARD SNOWDEN BLOG HERE- -April 7 2014- CUBA (Cuban Twitter invaded by America -USAID- Oh God) -SUPERSTAR... FREEDOM ROARS..... F**K the free world who refused 2 help the freedom of each of us... only Russia had the guts2 step up.... we will remember. hugs and love Edward Snowden... hugs and love... AND 2 our troops- 2Da Canada finishes in Afghanistan- Afghan Women and Children matter 2
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2014/03/edward-snowden-well-someone-crashed-my.html
BLOGGED:
Crimean War--APRIL 7,2014- Nova Scotia's William Nelson Edward Hall Victoria Cross-Halifax has only monument 2 honour/Nations of War- u all need 2 behave/CANADA'S CRIMEA HISTORY-DAILY UPDATES
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2014/03/canada-military-news-crimean-war.html
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