USA TODAY: Federal authorities have charged a former defense contractor with espionage and theft in connection with the disclosure of details about two secret surveillance programs managed by the National Security Agency, a government official confirmed Friday.
The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, confirmed that the charges against Edward Snowden were filed in a sealed complaint released late today and that authorities were seeking the cooperation of Hong Kong officials to assist in his detention…
The news came hours after the Guardian reported that Britain’s GCHQ spy agency had secretly tapped into the fiber-optic cables that carry the world’s phone calls and Internet traffic and is sharing information with the NSA… (more)
EDITOR: For good or ill, this means that my conversation with my American citizen son Richard in Hungary are subject to monitoring by the Brits with the information then possibly passed on to the CIA. Apparently the privacy of citizenry (whatever is left) ends at the shore.
More importantly, President Barack Obama is squandering his credibility through parsing his words and thereby somewhat misleading us. He would do better just to say he cannot discuss matters concerning vital national security other than there are safeguards in place to avoid misuse and abuse.
