NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, is ready to go to Germany and testify over the US wiretapping of Angela Merkel’s phone on condition of granting him political asylum, a German MP who met Snowden has said. He also revealed the text of Snowden’s letter. Former contractor of the US National Security Agency, Snowden on Friday indicated he is ready to testify over the facts about the American snooping... 

General Keith Alexander, director of the US National Security Agency (NSA) has defended his agency’s surveillance of friendly foreign governments but he said the orders came from American diplomats and policymakers. Gen. Alexander tried to justify the NSA’s programs based on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He said they only keep the phone calls in addition to their date, time and duration,... 

US President Barack Obama has called on the National Security Agency to halt spying on the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in conjunction with a review of surveillance activities, Reuters reported. A US official told the news agency that President Obama curbed the spying within the last few weeks, around the same time he told the NSA to stop eavesdropping on the United... 

US spymaster James Clapper has said that learning foreign leaders’ intentions is a “top tenet” of overseas surveillance operations. “Leadership intentions is kind of a basic tenet of what we collect and analyze,” Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. The Director of National Intelligence was reacting to growing international outrage over reports that the US National... 

Controlling social behavior: Proposal could ban criticism of Islam, feminism! A frightening proposal currently being considered by the European Parliament would direct governments to monitor citizens deemed “intolerant” and could even lead to a ban on all criticism of Islam and feminism. The European Framework National Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance (PDF), which was drafted by the European... 

President Obama was aware of NSA spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2010, German media have revealed. An NSA spokeswoman later denied the allegations. According to German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, which cited US intelligence sources, National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander briefed Obama on the bugging operation against Merkel in 2010. “Obama did not halt the operation but... 

Twenty-one countries, including US allies France and Mexico, have now joined talks to hammer out a UN resolution that would condemn “indiscriminate” and “extra-territorial” surveillance, and ensure “independent oversight” of electronic monitoring. The news was reported by Foreign Policy magazine, which has also obtained a copy of the draft text. The resolution was proposed earlier this... 

Hundreds of people rally in the US capital to denounce the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance programs as furor grows at home and abroad over the US government’s spying activities. Protesters marched in Washington DC from Union Station to Capitol Hill on Saturday, the anniversary of the Patriot Act, holding signs that said, “Stop mass surveillance,” “Thank you, Edward... 

EU leaders say their relations with the US have been undermined by reports of NSA spying on European leaders and ordinary citizens. A partnership with America should be built on respect and trust, they said in a joint statement. The statement was released Friday amid the ongoing summit of top European politicians in Brussels. It said the reports of American surveillance in Europe have raised “deep... 

Mexican interior minister has ordered a major probe into reports of US electronic spying on its current President Enrique Pena Nieto as well as his predecessor Felipe Calderon. Miguel Angel Osorio Chong announced on Tuesday that he had instructed Mexico’s CISEN intelligence agency and federal police to conduct an “exhaustive” investigation into the spying operation and to determine whether... 

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in the US has ruled that the National Security Agency can continue its secret collection of phone records of all American citizens. The secret court ruling was announced late Friday by the Office of James Clapper who is the Director of National Intelligence. “DNI Clapper has decided to declassify and disclose publicly that the government filed an application... 

Highly-redacted documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws show the Australian Attorney-General’s Department prepared a secret briefing on the US PRISM spying program months before it was exposed in Edward Snowden’s leaks. The documents in question were requested and obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). They reveal that the Attorney-General’s Department had a... 

It’s widely known that the NSA has taps connected to the various telco networks, thanks in large part to AT&T employee Mark Klein who blew the whistle on AT&T’s secret NSA room in San Francisco. What was unclear was exactly what kind of access the NSA had. Various groups like the EFF and CDT have both been asking the administration to finally come clean, in the name of transparency, if... 

American investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald say they have teamed up to prepare a report on the National Security Agency’s role in what one of them described as the “US assassination program.” “The connections between war and surveillance are clear. I don’t want to give too much away but Glenn and I are working on a project right now that has at its... 

A US National Security Agency employee has abused the US government’s spying tools in order to intercept phone calls of nine foreign women. According to internal files of the US spying agency, the NSA agent intercepted the calls from 1998 to 2003 and twice collected communications of an American without ever being noticed by his managers. The illegal abuse of the NSA’s spying tools was disclosed...