Full Show: Disband The NSA {aTV002}

Originally Posted at PopularResistance.org

Shahid Buttar, the Executive Director of The Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and Kevin Zeese of Popular Resistance sit down with host Dennis Trainor, Jr. in this episode of Acronym TV to discuss, among other things:

The Utility of the NSA | The 4^th Amendment | Edward Snowden | The Espionage Act | Why the MSM treats Glenn Greenwald as a criminal | An update on Chelsea Manning | The Reset the Net Campaign | The Criminalization of Dissent | The Campaign to cut off Water to the NSA | and we ask the question: In what significant ways is President Obama different than the Straussian, noble liars that preceded him?



Also, you will want to stick around for part two of the show to see Shahid perform the lyrics for his new house track called The NSA Vs. The USA. 

Episode introduction:
The Pulitzer Prize for public service, among the most prestigious awards in journalism, was awarded to The Washington Post and Guardian U.S. for their articles based on National Security Agency documents leaked by the former government contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden released astatement, which read in part: (The Pulitzer decision) “is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognizes was work of vital public importance.”

In stark contrast to the work of vital public important is the overwhelming majority of content produced by the main stream media; one that demonizes anyone who questions the right and might of the American Empire to do whatever it deems necessary to expand its imperial reach by any means necessary.

Guests on this episode of Acronym TV with Dennis Trainor, Jr.:

Shahid Buttar is the Executive Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, a 2003 graduate of Stanford Law School, and has appeared in media outlets including the Intercept, the Guardian, the Washington Post, CNN, FOX News, Al-Jazeera and the Baltimore Sun. He spoke about NSA spying at Johns Hopkins recently to a packed audience organized by the Hopkins human rights working group and the New Political Society.

Kevin Zeese is an attorney and political activist who works on peace, economic justice, criminal law reform and reviving American democracy. He co Directs It’s Our Economy, serves on the steering committees of the Chelsea Manning Support Network, and is an organizer atPopularResistance.org.
(Disclosure – Acronym TV receives partial financial support from Popular Resistance.)

Dennis Trainor, Jr. is a writer, filmmaker, producer, and activist. His documentary on the Occupy movement, American Autumn: an Occudoc, garnered critical praise from The New York Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and more.  He also wrote and directed Legalize Democracy, a documentary short about the Movement To Amend the Constitution. Trainor was an embedded YouTube personality/media advisor on the staff of Dennis Kucinich’s 2008 presidential campaign and his work is regularly published on The Huffington Post, Truth Out, The Real New Network, Popular Resistance and several others.

The Drone That Takes Out Juilian Assange

Originally posted at AcronymTV



Earlier this year, as the Edward Snowden story was just starting to break, Michael Grunwald – the Time magazine senior national correspondent and poster boy for everything wrong with journalism, no strike that, poster boy for everything wrong with the blowback inducing homicidal bull in a cultural, religious and geopolitical china shop of US foreign policy that I like to call manifest destiny’s child, wrote that he “could not wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange. “

While it might be a stretch to imagine that Julian Assange is on Barack Obama’s infamous kill list- there is a overt trend to brand journalists as terrorists.  If the objective behind this trend is successful, it might grant Michael Grunwald his sadistic wish after all.

For example, this week it was revealed that British police are examining whether Guardian newspaper staff should be investigated for terrorism offenses over their handling of data leaked by Edward Snowden, Britain’s senior counter-terrorism officer said on Tuesday.

If one parrots the talking points that filter down form on high, for example, one is considered a journalist. If you challenge the dominant narrative, and very few do, you run the risk of being labeled a terrorist.

Ask Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who worked with Glen Greenwald to film Edward Snowden and break perhaps the biggest story of the year. You’ll have to go to Germany to ask her, however, because she will not work in her country of birth, the United States, out of fear.

Ask Glenn Greenwald- who continues to break more of the evolving Edward Snowden story and saw his partner, David Miranda, detained in an airport under a terrorism act.

Ask the editors of the Guardian UK who had hard drives destroyed under the orders of UK security officials.




tags
Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Drone, Julian Assange Drone Strike, Wikileaks, Edward Snowden WikiLeaks, Glenn Greenwald, edward snowden, Drone attacks, killer drones, Acronym TV, ATV, Michael Grunwald

The New Normal

The ACLU recently warned that the Obama Administration was in danger of establishing a "New Normal" by continuing with the WORST policies of the Bush administration.

This includes monitoring our internet use, the recent legalization of what was previously illegal wiretapping, and yet another extension of the police-state loving USAPATRIOT act. Guantanamo bay is still open in blatant violation of international law, 9 years after September 11th.

But now, Obama has exceeded Bush in terms of police-state douchebaggery.

The Bush administration never claimed to have the authority to assassinate US citizens.
The Obama administration, however, has.

And the left has largely been quiet about this. Well hopefully, the left will finally wipe the post-election confetti out of their eyes and wake up to what's really going on in their country. With their president.

The ACLU along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) recently filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration challenging this very claim to authority, on the behalf of the father of an assassination target- and U.S. Citizen.

Or they would have, that is, except for this legal manuver by the US government. From Glenn Greenwald:

...regulations promulgated several years ago by the Treasury Department prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with individuals labeled by the Government as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," and those regulations specifically bar lawyers from providing legal services to such individuals without a special "license" from the Treasury Department specifically allowing such representation."

So it turns out that the Treasury Dept stepped in two weeks after the suit was filed to label Anwar al-Awalaki a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" which one can only assume was specifically done by the Obama administration to block the suit against them, and retain the authority to assassinate US Citizens.

Well, in response to that, the ACLU has filed a suit agains the US Treasury and Timothy Geithner, saying, that the entire thing is insanely unconstitutional-- that the US Treasury has no constitutional authority to designate people as terrorists, that the US Government has no right to deny US Citizens access to a lawyer.

If the ACLU and CCR lose this case, we're going to be living in a nation where the government can legally pick out "problem citizens" and kill them on sight. Which is actually the country we're living in right now.

If this doesn't bother you, if this doesn't send up a red flag in the pit of your soul that says, "this is incredibly fucked" then maybe it's because you've already adjusted your psyche to accept the New Normal.