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Federal judge rules US government is entitled to seize proceeds from Edward Snowdens book sales and speaking fees By Kevin Reed 20 December 2019

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the US government can legally seize proceeds from whistleblower Edward Snowdens memoir Permanent Record and his paid public speeches because he is in breach of his obligations for not submitting these materials to the CIA and NSA for prepublication review.

In a 14-page decision, Judge Liam OGrady of the US Eastern District of Virginia ruled against the defendants Edward Snowden and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC and granted the US governments motion for summary judgement. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department against Snowden and his publisher on the same day that the former NSA contractors book was released last September.

In Permanent Record, Snowden tells the story of his life, how he became an intelligence officer and contractor and how it is that he came to realize that the CIA and NSA were engaged in a global electronic surveillance operation that was in violation of the constitutionally protected democratic rights of the public.

Snowden also explains in his book how he smuggled a massive trove of top-secret intelligence documents out of a secure facility in Hawaii and then handed them over to journalists from theGuardian in Hong Kong in May 2013. The whistleblower also recounts how he ended up gaining asylum in Moscowwhere he remains to this dayafter he was charged with violation of the Espionage Act and his passport was terminated by the US government.

The DOJ lawsuit and court ruling are predicated upon a series of six Secrecy Agreements that Edward Snowden signed between November 2005 and March 2013 while he was an employee or contractor with the CIA and NSA. According the to the ruling, these documents required Snowden to obtain prepublication review of any preparation, in any form, containing any mention of intelligence data or activities, or any other information or material which is or might be based on information that is marked classified, known to be classified, or known to be in a classification determination process.

The court ruling states, The terms of the CIA Secrecy Agreements further provide that Snowden forfeits any proceeds from disclosures that breach the Agreements. These terms continue to apply to Snowden. Although the ruling grants the government claim to Snowdens publishing earnings and speaking fees, it does not specify how or when the collection will be carried out.

As Snowden explained very clearly in Permanent Record, he acknowledges having signed the intelligence Secrecy Agreements. However, he also notes that he signed another agreement called an appointment affidavitsimilar to the Oath of Office for public officialsin which he swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and this oath supersedes any obligations contained in the intelligence agreements.

Along with the publication of his book, the ruling makes specific reference to several public speeches Snowden madeincluding at a Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and an Internet security trade fairwhere he displayed and discussed, among other things, at least one slide which was marked classified at the Top Secret level, and other intelligence-related activities of the CIA and NSA.

Judge OGradys decision in favor of the governments lawsuit rejected all three arguments put forward by Snowdens lawyers: (1) that the government had itself breached its own agreement by stating ahead of time that it would refuse to review the book or speeches in good faith or within a reasonable time; (2) that the DOJ lawsuit was based on animus toward Snowden and his views and that the government selectively enforced its Secrecy Agreements; and (3) there is no basis within the Secrecy Agreements for the governments claim to seize proceeds from his book and speeches.

Brett Max Kaufman, an attorney for Snowden from the ACLUs Center for Democracy, said that the legal team disagrees with the courts decision and will review our options. Kaufman also said, Its farfetched to believe that the government would have reviewed Mr. Snowdens book or anything else he submitted in good faith. For that reason, Mr. Snowden preferred to risk his future royalties than to subject his experiences to improper government censorship.

Snowdens revelations in 2013 contributed enormously to the awareness of the public both within the US and internationally that the surveillance operations of the CIA and NSAwith the cooperation of the telecommunications corporationsare collecting data on every phone call, e-mail and text message of everyone in the world. Sparking the so-called Snowden Effect, the revelations have encouraged the widespread use of end-to-end encryption that hampers or prevents government surveillance of electronic communications.

Although the US government claims to have officially ended its secret surveillance programs with the passage of the USA Freedom Act of 2015 under the Obama administration, numerous media reports, leaks and data beaches have since have revealed that similar if not the exact same programs are ongoing.

The vendetta against Snowden by the US government and its military-intelligence establishment for revealing these truths to the public will never be forgotten or forgiven. Although the state has been unableup to this pointto rendition Snowden back to the US, the recent lawsuit and federal court ruling show that every effort is being made to silence and intimidate him and set an example for anyone else who might be thinking about exposing the criminal activities of the government.

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Federal judge rules US government is entitled to seize proceeds from Edward Snowden's book sales and speaking fees - World Socialist Web Site

NSA Ajit Doval

Roughly twelve hours before people started gathering outside Red Fort, the capitals North Block witnessed a meeting called by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, with Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, Special CPs (law and order), JCPs of two ranges and DCPs of six districts in attendance, it is learnt.

On the agenda was a strategy to maintain law and order the following day. Intelligence agencies had received inputs that some people from Haryanas Mewat would be coming to Delhi in large numbers and could create trouble on the law and order front, a senior officer from Delhi Polices intelligence wing told The Indian Express. And so, barricades were put up on Gurgaon-Delhi border, and cars started being checked.

Speaking about last nights meeting, a police source said: He (Doval) discussed the situation with senior officers and asked for their viewpoints. The police chief suggested that a protest march could be allowed, but the NSA referred to a tweet by one of the DCPs which had earlier mentioned that no permission had been granted for the march. So it was decided that only a designated place like Jantar Mantar can be chosen for the protest.

He is also learnt to have taken a stern view of the failure of local intelligence during the first three days of the protest at Jamia, and for allowing local politicians and anti-social elements to hijack the students protest.

An officer who attended the meeting, which lasted 90 minutes, said it was decided to call all personnel from specialised units, Crime Branch and EOW, and deploy them at sensitive spots with anti-riot gear. Paramilitary force personnel were also called in with advanced gear. It was also decided to coordinate with police counterparts in neighbouring states, following which border with Haryana was sealed, the officer said. Following the meeting, DCP (Special Cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah wrote a letter dated December 18 to nodal officers of four telecom service providers, asking them to stop mobile internet, voice and SMS services in certain areas.

Sources said after the meeting with the NSA, senior officers held a meeting among themselves at the New Delhi DCPs office at Parliament Street. This meeting, addressed by Patnaik, ended around 1.15 am. It was decided that they will allow protesters to gather at Jantar Mantar, but those assembling elsewhere will be detained under CrPC Section 144. It was also decided to approach DMRC to shut some Metro stations, an officer said.

Read more:
Delhi CAA protests: How late-night meeting with NSA and top cops set the strategy for Thursday - Yahoo India News

The NSA's Upstream surveillance program was exposed by Edward Snowden back in 2013. In 2015, Wikimedia, the parent company of Wikipedia and other non-profit knowledge projects, challenged this program in a lawsuit against the NSA, the DoJ, the ODNI and the heads of those agencies.

While the Upstream surveillance program is similar to PRISM in that it allows the NSA to monitor and collect emails, search terms and other online activity of Americans, it is different in that, instead of relying on the cooperation of ISPs, Upstream bypasses them and instead relies on the cooperation of telecommunications infrastructure. Wikimedia argued that this program violates the first and fourth amendment rights of American citizens, and far exceeds the scope intended by Congress.

According to Data Center Dynamics, the case was dismissed later that year for a lack of evidence supporting the claim that the NSA was using it for bulk collection, rather than the targeted collection of a specific individual's data which meant that the NSA was acting legally.

In 2017, the case was appealed and the decision reversed, based on the understanding that Wikimedia generates so much traffic that it's impossible to be used for monitoring a specific individual meaning that the collection is indeed done in bulk, which is indeed in violation of the first and fourth amendment rights of American citizens.

Two days ago, the case was dismissed again after reaching the conclusion that without specific understanding of the upstream program, Wikimedias case has no leg to stand on. Of course, this is impossible due to the classified nature of the program.

Judge Ellis said:

For Wikimedia to litigate the standing issue further, and for defendants to defend adequately in any further litigation, would require the disclosure of protected state secrets, namely details about the Upstream surveillance program's operations.

For the reasons that follow, therefore, the standing issue cannot be tried, or otherwise further litigated, without risking or requiring harmful disclosures of privileged state secrets, an outcome prohibited under binding Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent. Thus, the case must be dismissed, and judgment must be entered in favor of defendants.

Originally posted here:
Judge dismisses Wikimedia case against the NSA - Reclaim The Net

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the normally-secretive federal court based in Washington, D.C. that oversees much of the nations foreign intelligence surveillance programs, took an unusual step yesterday: it issued a public order chastising the FBI for its handling of the applications submitted to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, a former adviser to the Trump Campaign.

The FISC gave the FBI less than a month to report what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that future surveillance applications accurately and completely reflect[] the facts the FISC needs to evaluate whether surveillance should be authorized. The FISCs unusual public filing comes on the heels of the Department of Justices Inspector General report, released earlier this month, which reported a number of significant problems with the Page surveillance applications. The IG found that there were omissions and misstatements in the FBI's applications to conduct surveillanceinaccuracies that went uncorrected, despite three subsequent renewals of the FBIs surveillance order. In light of the problems with the Page application, the IG indicated it would conduct a more comprehensive review of FBI applications to the FISC.

Of course, the fact that a federal agency provided the FISC with incomplete, incorrect, or affirmatively misleading information about federal surveillance practices should come as no surpriseto the FISC, or to anyone else. Over the past twenty years, federal agencies have repeatedly misled the FISC about the nature and scope of FISA surveillance. For example, in one opinion from 2009, a FISC judge recounted how the NSA had repeatedly submitt[ed] inaccurate descriptions of the way the NSA was conducting surveillance. In another opinion from 2011, another FISC judge wrote that he was troubled by the governments substantial misrepresentations regarding the scope of a major collection program the third instance in less than three years of the government misleading the FISC about a significant aspect of the governments surveillance programs.

We've long complained about one-sided and secretive FISA surveillance. For too long, the process trafficked in secrecy and the misguided belief that the government would be forthcoming with the federal judges that sit on the surveillance court. Weve been successful in enacting some incremental reform to make the process more transparent and to counterbalance the government's monopoly on the views presented to the FISC. But, no matter your view of the current politically charged debate about the propriety of the surveillance of Carter Page, its clear from the IG report that the FISA process remains broken and in need of serious reform.

Another point about the Page-FISA application is worth emphasizing: no FISA application has ever received the amount of public scrutiny this application has received. In fact, in the statutes forty-year history and the tens of thousands of applications the FISC has approved, only a handful have ever previously been released (and those applications typically related to the authorization of some type of bulk surveillance). Yet, over the past forty years, countless numbers of people have been deprived of their libertyand sentenced to lengthy prison sentenceswithout the benefit of reviewing the FBI's application to the FISC to conduct the surveillance that ultimately led them to prison. As weve argued in court before, that type of secrecy turns the rights of a criminal defendant and fundamental notions of due process upside down.

Its time to fix FISA. The Carter Page surveillance has brought new attention to an old problem. But it's up to Congress now to fix it. We join our friends at the ACLU in calling on Congress to enact serious meaningful reform to the statutereforms that will benefit the entire public, not just those politically fortunate to capture Congress's attention.

See the article here:
Surveillance Court to the FBI: You Have Some Explaining to Do - EFF

Shannon Kent(Photo: Courtesy of the NSA)

A Dutchess County native who died in service to the country will be honored at a post office in Pine Plains.

U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon M. Kent was one of four Americans killed in Syria in a January suicide bombing.

The 35-year-old graduate of Stissing Mountain High School was in her fifth tour of duty.

A post office at 7722 South Main St. will be named in her honor after a bill introducing the measure was signed into law by President Donald Trump, according to a release from Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, who introduced the bill in April.

The bipartisan bill passed the Senate in November after being passed in the House of Representatives in October.

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"The courage and devotion to our nation shown by Senior Chief Petty Officer Kent should continue to serve as an inspiration to us all, and I am elated Dutchess County will be home to this permanent fixture honoring her life, service, and legacy," Delgado said in a statement.

Kent, who grew up in Pine Plains,enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 11, 2003 and then graduated from boot camp and Recruit Training Command in Illinois in February, 2004, according to the Navy.

Achief cryptologic technician in the Navy, Kent's name was added to the National Security Agency's National Cryptological Memorial,located inside the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

Kent, a wife and mother of twochildren, was a recipient of several honors, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, twojoint service commendation medals, the Navy and Marine Corps commendation medal, the Army commendation medal and the Joint Service Achievement medal. She also survived thyroid cancer in 2016 and returned to active duty.

Geoffrey Wilson: gwilson@poughkeepsiejournal.com; 845-437-4882; Twitter:@GeoffWilson_

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Pine Plains Post Office to be named after Shannon Kent - Poughkeepsie Journal