Some things from today's World Socialist Website. I've always liked the site. They used to savage Bush, then they gave Obama a respectful interval, and now they savage him for his fascist behavior.

Defend Edward Snowden!

The Obama administration has already said it plans to indict the 29-year-old former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor. Congressmen, senators and media commentators have denounced him for treason and demanded that he be jailed for life or executed.

The charge of treason is a vicious libel. Snowden is not the one betraying the democratic principles embodied in the Bill of Rights. By exposing the conspiracy against these rights and coming forward at the cost of his career and possibly his life, he is defending them....

Nor are there any calls for impeachment proceedings against Obama. Forty years ago, Richard Nixon faced impeachment for actions that did not come close in their gravity to the violations of the Constitution carried out by the current president.

The hysterical and vicious reaction of the establishment to Snowden's exposures has laid bare the degree to which anti-democratic, authoritarian and even fascistic conceptions are embedded in the outlook of the American state and media. Within these layers there is an increasingly rabid hostility to the Bill of Rights and, behind that, the American people....

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/13/pers-j13.html


Obama administration officials, guilty of perjury, defend spy program

The Obama administration has responded to the revelations of massive and unconstitutional spying operations, exposed in leaks by former intelligence employee Edward Snowden, with a campaign of lies, threats and intimidation.

Among other crimes, the leaks have provided clear evidence of perjury on the part of administration officials, a criminal offense.

Asked at a Senate hearing in March, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Director of National Intelligence James Clapper responded with the statement: "No, sir." He said that any information collected on Americans was not done "wittingly."

This was a brazen lie. Among the programs revealed by Snowden is one that allows the National Security Agency, which operates under Clapper's direction, to accumulate the phone records of most Americans. When questioned about his previous statements on Sunday, Clapper told NBC, "I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked a — 'When are you going to start — stop beating your wife' kind of question, which is meaning not answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying 'no.' "

The Orwellian phrase, "least untruthful," is an expression of the contempt with which Clapper—and the political establishment as a whole—views basic democratic rights. In other words, he lied, but with as much finesse as possible.

The Obama administration rushed to defend Clapper....

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/13/clap-j13.html