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Real0ne -> RE: Snowden Report from Congress (9/16/2016 4:00:23 PM)
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the report claims snowden cannot be classified as a whistlebower because he did not disclose anything related to fraud lada lada lada, but he did, he blew the whistle on the NSA which is now tapping everyone using PRISM, CARNIVORE wasnt good enough. Yeh he kicked them in the nuts, and the treasonist NSA is pissed, and of course congress rather than taking action against the NSA would rather bury snowden.
Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the CIA, left the US in late May after leaking to the media details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence. Mr Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, faces espionage charges over his actions.
As the scandal widens, BBC News looks at the leaks that brought US spying activities to light.
US spy agency 'collects phone records'
Image copyright Reuters
Q&A: Prism internet surveillance
What could 'they' know about me?
The scandal broke in early June 2013 when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans.
The paper published the secret court order directing telecommunications company Verizon to hand over all its telephone data to the NSA on an "ongoing daily basis".
That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that the NSA tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, to track online communication in a surveillance programme known as Prism.
Britain's electronic eavesdropping agency GCHQ was also accused of gathering information on the online companies via Prism.
Shortly afterwards, the Guardian revealed that ex-CIA systems analyst Edward Snowden was behind the leaks about the US and UK surveillance programmes.
He has been charged in the US with theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence.
UK spy agency 'taps fibre-optic cables'
The GCHQ scandal widened on 21 June when the Guardian reported that the UK spy agency was tapping fibre-optic cables that carry global communications and sharing vast amounts of data with the NSA, its US counterpart.
Image copyright AP
Profile: Edward Snowden
The paper revealed it had obtained documents from Edward Snowden showing that the GCHQ operation, codenamed Tempora, had been running for 18 months.
GCHQ was able to boast a larger collection of data than the US, tapping into 200 fibre-optic cables to give it the ability to monitor up to 600 million communications every day, according to the report.
The information from internet and phone use was allegedly stored for up to 30 days to be sifted and analysed.
Although GCHQ did not break the law, the Guardian suggested that the existing legislation was being very broadly applied to allow such a large volume of data to be collected.
GCHQ and NSA eavesdropping on Italian phone calls and internet traffic was reported by the Italian weekly L'Espresso on 24 October. The revelations were sourced to Edward Snowden.
It is alleged that three undersea cables with terminals in Italy were targeted. Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta called the allegations "inconceivable and unacceptable" and said he wanted to establish the truth.
US 'hacks China networks'
After fleeing to Hong Kong, Edward Snowden told the South China Morning Post that the NSA had led more than 61,000 hacking operations worldwide, including many in Hong Kong and mainland China.
He said targets in Hong Kong included the Chinese University, public officials and businesses.
"We hack network backbones - like huge internet routers, basically - that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one," Mr Snowden was quoted as saying.
EU offices 'bugged'
Claims emerged on 29 June that the NSA had also spied on European Union offices in the US and Europe, according to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.
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Media captionEuropean parliament president Martin Schulz: "I am deeply shocked"
The magazine said it had seen leaked NSA documents showing that the US had spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the 27-member bloc's UN office in New York.
The paper added that it had been shown the "top secret" files by Edward Snowden.
One document dated September 2010 explicitly named the EU representation at the UN as a "location target", Der Spiegel wrote.
The files allegedly suggested that the NSA had also conducted an electronic eavesdropping operation in a building in Brussels, where the EU Council of Ministers and the European Council were located.
It is not known what information US spies might have obtained. But observers say details of European positions on trade and military matters could be useful to those involved in US-EU negotiations.
Merkel phone calls 'intercepted'
The German government summoned the US ambassador on 24 October - a very unusual step - after German media reported that the NSA had eavesdropped on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.
The allegations dominated an EU summit, with Mrs Merkel demanding a full explanation and warning that trust between allies could be undermined. She discussed the matter by phone with US President Barack Obama. He assured her that her calls were not being monitored now and that it would not happen in future. But the White House did not deny bugging her phone in the past.
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