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Former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon on Friday spoke out strongly against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the nullification of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. Speaking at an event in the Capital, Menon said that what Indias recent actions had achieved were international isolation even among traditional allies which can lead to no good end.

There has been no meaningful international support for this series of actions, apart from a few committed members of the diaspora and a ragtag bunch of Euro MPs from the extreme right, said the former diplomat and foreign secretary who served as NSA during former PM Manmohan Singhs tenure.

The list of critical voices from abroad is really long. From President Macron to Chancellor Merkel to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to visitors like the King of Norway whod normally be polite, he said.

Referring to the recent instance of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar skipping a meeting with the foreign affairs committee in the US due to the presence of Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal who has been critical of CAA and Article 370, Menon said, We seem to know that we are isolated. Rather than attending this meeting and rebutting her charges, we chose to duck this. He also added that Jayapals resolution which was critical of India now had 29 co-sponsors that included Republicans and the only Indian origin lawmaker who attended the Howdy Modi conference.

The former NSA also raised an issue with the slogan during Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trumps joint event in the US- Abki Baar Trump Sarkar.

We have actually broken the bipartisan consensus that used to exist for the last 25 years in the US. NDA or UPA doesnt matter on improving India- US relations, he said adding, All the significant democratic Presidential candidates have spoken out on these issues.

Striking a note of caution, Menon said that India was violating Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with the newly passed CAA. This prevention of discrimination is for all persons present on the territory, not just citizens...thats exactly what the CAA does. We seem to be in violation of our international commitments, he said adding, You must consider the political and other consequences of being perceived as violators of International law.

What we have achieved in the recent past, is to hyphenate our image with Pakistan in a fundamental way, as religiously driven and intolerant states. We have gifted our adversaries, platforms from which to attack us, he said.

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We have gifted our adversaries platforms from which to attack us: Shiv Shankar Menon on CAA - Hindustan Times

The National Security Agency can gather the data of US citizens without a warrant - as long as it gathers this data by mistake, a court has ruled. However, this suits the agency just fine, whistleblower William Binney told RT.

The NSA is permitted to gather data on US citizens abroad, or foreign connected Americans at home. The dragnet surveillance operation necessary to gather this information also sucks up data on millions of Americans with no foreign contacts, a process critics say is unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, the 2nd Court of Appeals in New York declared this incidental collection of information permissible. The NSA has maintained that it is incapable of separating properly and improperly gathered data, but former NSA Technical Director William Binney told RT that this is simply untrue.

Theyve been lying to the courts all along, Binney said. Theyve had the capability to sort that stuff out. Its just that they dont want to.

This gives them power over everyone, the ability to look into political opponents like they did with President Trump, he continued.

While the court ruling gives the NSA free rein to suck up data on Americans phone and internet communications, it did not authorize the US other intelligence and law enforcement agencies to dig through this data. However, according to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court ruling issued last year, the FBI accessed this data trove some 3.1 million times in 2017.

Its agents did so without proper warrants, and on persons unrelated to ongoing criminal cases, as explicitly forbidden by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In at least one case, the FBI illegally accessed the data of a suspect before seeking a warrant to spy on them legally.

Wednesdays court ruling concerned Agron Hasbajrami, a US permanent resident who was arrested en route to Turkey in 2011. The government claimed that Hasbajrami was travelling to Pakistan to join a terrorist organization. Hasbajrami claims that the government illegally accessed NSA data to build its case against him.

The court did not issue a ruling on this data access, instead punting the decision back down to a lower court to examine the Fourth Amendment implications.

Hasbajramis case is rare, in that he was informed that the evidence against him was collected by the NSA. Defendants are usually kept in the dark when clandestine agencies do the investigating.

The CIA, the FBI, the DEA and other law enforcement people have access to that data to search for common crime within the United States, Binney said. And they use it against US citizens in criminal courts without telling anyone in the court, or anyone else in the court, lawyers included.

So theyre fundamentally violating the rights of thousands of US citizens every year...without any oversight whatsoever.

The existence of the NSAs mass surveillance program was revealed in 2013 by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. Though the agency has reportedly ended its phone spying program, the espionage charges against Snowden remain in place, and Snowden himself remains in Moscow, where he has been granted asylum.

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NSA has been lying to the courts all along, says whistleblower, as judges give warrantless surveillance the thumbs-up - RT

Edward Snowden won't see any of the proceeds from his new memoir instead, the US government is entitled to seize the profits, a federal judge ruled Dec. 17, 2019.

Snowden's memoir, "Permanent Record," describes his work as a contractor for the National Security Administration and his 2013 decision to leak government secrets, including the fact that the NSA was secretly collecting citizens' phone records. Snowden has lived in Moscow since 2013, where he has been granted asylum.

The US sued Snowden on the day his memoir was published in September, alleging that he violated contracts with the NSA by writing about his work there without pre-clearance.

Judge Liam O'Grady made a summary judgement in favor of the US government on Dec. 17, 2019, rejecting requests from Snowden's lawyers to move the case forward into the discovery stage. O'Grady ruled that Snowden violated his contracts, both with the publication of the memoir and through other public speaking engagements in which he discussed his work for the NSA.

"Snowden admits that the speeches themselves purport to discuss intelligence-related activities," O'Grady wrote in his decision, adding that Snowden "breached the CIA and NSA Secrecy agreements."

In recent years, Snowden has maintained his criticisms of US surveillance while also turning his attention to big tech companies. In November, he decried the practice of aggregating personal data, arguing that Facebook, Google, and Amazon "are engaged in abuse."

This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter.

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Government can seize all profits from Edward Snowden's book - We Are The Mighty

Retired Adm. Michael Rogers,former director of the National Security Agency, has been cooperating with the Justice Departments probe into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump presidential campaigns alleged ties to Russia, according to four people familiar with Rogerss participation.

Rogers has met the prosecutor leading the probe, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, on multiple occasions, according to two people familiar with Rogerss cooperation. While the substance of those meetings is not clear, Rogers has cooperated voluntarily, several people with knowledge of the matter said.

Rogers, who retired in May 2018, did not respond to requests for comment.

The inquiry has been a pillar of Attorney General William Barrs tenure. He appointed Durham to lead the inquiry last spring, directing him to determine whether the FBI was justified in opening a counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and alleged links between Russia and the Trump campaign, among other matters. What began as a broad review has turned into a criminal investigation, according to the New York Times. Barr has described the use of undercover FBI agents to investigate members of the campaign as spying.

Last week, a separate, nonpartisan review of the investigation by the Justice Department inspector general concluded that while the FBI and Justice Department committed serious errors in their applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the investigation was opened properly and without political bias. Barr and Durham took the unusual step of publicly disagreeing with some of the inspector generals conclusions, with Barr describing the FBIs justification for the inquiry as very flimsy.

Rogerss voluntary participation, which has not been previously reported, makes him the first former intelligence director known to have been interviewed for the probe.

Hes been very cooperative, one former intelligence officer who has knowledge of Rogerss meetings with the Justice Department said.

Politico and NBC News have previously reported that Durham intends to interview both former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. It is unclear if that has happened. Brennan and the Justice Department declined to comment. Clapper could not be reached for comment.

The Times reported on Thursday that Durham is examining Brennans congressional testimony and communications with a focus on whatthe former CIA directormay have told other officials about his views on the so-called Steele dossier, a set of unverified allegations about links between Russia, Trump, and his campaign compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

Rogers is no stranger to the controversy surrounding the 2016 election. Shortly after Trump won the presidency, Rogers traveled to Trump Tower in New York, where he provided an unsolicited briefing to the then president-elect. Rogers informed Trump that the NSA knew that the Russians interfered in the election, according to three people familiar with the briefing. Despite delivering what Rogers told a confidant was bad news, Trump would keep Rogers on as NSA director while dismissing Brennan and Clapper.

In January 2017 just before Trump took office, the intelligence community released an unclassified assessment concluding that Russia interfered in the election. The assessment was based on a combination of intelligence collected and reviewed by the NSA, CIA, and FBI.

Russias initial purpose, the assessment found, was to undermine confidence in American democracy, but the effort ultimately focused on damaging Hillary Clintons campaign in an effort to help elect Trump. While all three intelligence agencies agreed on that aspect of the assessment, the CIA and FBI expressedhigh confidence that the Russian government sought to help Trump win by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him, while Rogerss NSA had only moderate confidence in that finding.

Trump entered his presidency deeply suspicious of the U.S. intelligence community and skeptical of the assessment. He has spent much of his administration claiming that he is the victim of a deep-state coup, beginning with the counterintelligence investigation into his presidential campaign. He has downplayed the intelligence communitys conclusions about Russias responsibility for hacking the Democratic National Committee computer system and providing internal emails to WikiLeaks, which published them beginning in July 2016, instead affirming conspiracy theories that blame Ukraine for stealing the emails.

A year into the Trump administration, in February 2018, Rogers testified at a Senate hearing that the White House had given the NSA no orders or instructions for countering further Russian election meddling.

President Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that theres little price to pay and that therefore I can continue this activity, Rogers said. Clearly, what we have done is not enough.

Four months later in Helsinki, Trump said that he confronted the Russian president about meddling in the election. But Vladimir Putin denied that his government was involved, and Trump said he believed him, directly contradicting Rogers and the other U.S. intelligence directors.

Rogers was concerned that his testimony before Congress drew the presidents ire, according to a former Trump White House official who spoke with Rogers earlier this year.

He asked if the president was mad at him, the former official said. I told him, No way, the president has always liked you.

The White House declined to comment.

Durhams inquiry into the origins of the Russia probe has perpetuated the bitter partisan conflict fueled earlier by special counsel Robert Muellers investigation. Among Muellers key findings was that Russias military intelligence unit, the GRU, stole Clinton campaign manager John Podestas emails, along with emails from the DNC, and delivered them to WikiLeaks. The Mueller investigation led to federal indictments or guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies, but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone in the Trump campaign with coordinating with the Russian government.

Yet the Mueller probe, the recent inspector generals report, and now the Durham investigation have done little to bridge the yawning political divide between Trump and his supporters, who continue to see him as the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt, and career intelligence and national security officials, who view the Durham investigation as an effort to punish those who led U.S. efforts to investigate Russias election meddling. In May, Trump gave Barr the unprecedented authority to review and declassify intelligence related to the Russia investigation, further inflaming national security veterans.

Durhams investigation has also sought information from foreign governments. This summer, Barr and Durham traveled to Italy to request information from Italian intelligence officials about Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor who first told a Trump campaign adviser that the Russians had dirt on Clinton in the form of stolen emails. That claim played a central role in the FBIs decision to open an investigation into the Trump campaign. But in the conservative press and the right-wing social media ecosystem, Mifsud was portrayed as part of an Obama administration plot to entrap and frame Trump. The inspector generals report concluded that there is no evidence that Mifsud had any affiliation with the FBI.

Barrs visit to Italy coincided with Trumps offer to trade congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine for that countrys help in pursuing the unsupported allegations that Ukraine hacked the DNC and framed Russia. Trumps efforts to solicit a favor from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Zelensky publicly announce an investigation into purported Ukrainian-backed hacking and look into alleged corruption by Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joseph Biden on behalf of Bidens son Hunter led to Trumps impeachment in the House of Representatives this week.

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Former NSA Director Cooperating With Probe of Trump-Russia Investigation - The Intercept

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