PRISM

The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence gave the 2013 award for 'truth telling' to Edward Snowden. Following is their official statement.

Edward Snowden has issued a statement to the Huffington Post regarding confusion about his current situation, and Julian Assange has spoken with Australia's The Age in the same vein.

Edward Snowden has been selected as the first source to be aided by the new Journalistic Source Protection Defence Fund. The JSPDF is administered by Derek Rothera & Company Charted Accountants of the United Kingdom. Details of how you can donate follow.

On Friday 9 August 2013, US President Barack Obama addressed the world through a live feed at the White House website. Several topics were discussed, but the main topic - the obvious reason for the address - was of course the revelations about illegal NSA surveillance programmes. Today Julian Assange responds.

Harper's published an insightful interview with Glenn Greenwald yesterday on the evolving PRISM story. It's very much worth a read.

Gordon Humphrey served in the US Senate for 12 years and was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and the Judiciary Committee. The exchange below was shared with Glenn Greenwald.

Sweden used a veto to stop the EU from asking critical questions of the US about the superpower's extensive espionage programme, a matter the Swedish media chose to not report to their readers.

Sweden and the UK have blocked talks between Europe and the US on the surveillance scandal. The talks, due to begin Monday, will now be limited to the more abstract issues of privacy and PRISM. A second working group, to be set up to confront the US with the most recent developments, had the support of the entire EU save Sweden and the UK, who both used their veto to prevent its formation.

Denying Bolivian president Evo Morales air space was a metaphor for the gangsterism that now rules the world, writes John Pilger. Oliver Stone says the world is in danger with the tyranny of the US.

"Europeans are furious", reported Spiegel Online. "Revelations that the US intelligence service National Security Agency (NSA) targeted the European Union and several European countries with its far-reaching spying activities have led to angry reactions from several senior EU and German politicians."

The German Federal Prosecutors Office is looking into allegations that the NSA conducted massive spying against German citizens. A first formal complaint has already been lodged in one city, reported Spiegel Online.

"The fallout has been immense over revelations that US intelligence agencies systematically spied on EU officials as part of their far-reaching surveillance programs", reported German Spiegel Online. "German commentators on Monday say that Washington must explain itself."

The revelations of and the US hunt for Snowden, together with violations of the Vienna Convention by the US in connection with the flight of Bolivian President Evo Morales from Moscow to La Paz, have resulted in considerable political fallout in South America.

The Salt Lake Tribune published an in-depth look at the NSA Bluffdale data centre, one of six such centres in the US which will go operational soon.

"In many ways, the new Utah Data Center is the quintessential black box", wrote the SLT. "The Utah Data Center spans 1 million square feet, with a 100,000-square-foot, raised-floor area divided into four separate data halls, each holding what the NSA calls "mission-critical" computing servers and data-storage capacity."