Memeler Straße, Berlin-Friedrichshain - 23 May 1926 (hover photo: 2014)Elsewhere:
The National Security Agency has been recording and storing nearly all the domestic (and international) phone calls from two or more target countries as of 2013. Both the Washington Post and The Intercept (based in the US and published by eBay chairman Pierre Omidyar) have censored the name of one of the victim states, which the latter publication refers to as country "X".Read the rest at the link to the leaked leak here.
Both the Washington Post and The Intercept stated that they had censored the name of the victim country at the request of the US government. Such censorship strips a nation of its right to self-determination on a matter which affects its whole population. An ongoing crime of mass espionage is being committed against the victim state and its population. By denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimisation, this act of censorship denies each individual in that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere. Pre-notification to the perpetrating authorities also permits the erasure of evidence which could be used in a successful criminal prosecution, civil claim, or other investigations.
We know from previous reporting that the National Security Agency’s mass interception system is a key component in the United States’ drone targeting program. The US drone targeting program has killed thousands of people and hundreds of women and children in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia in violation of international law. The censorship of a victim state’s identity directly assists the killing of innocent people.
Helsingforser Platz, Berlin-Friedrichshain - 2014 (hover photo: 1926)
About the b&w photo: a demo of The Red Front, this day in 1926. Germany's Communist Party leader Ernst Thälman (on the left) and his vice, Willy Leow (to his left), were murdered in 1944 and 1937 by "the Nazis" and "Stalin", respectively and metonymously.
