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I don’t feel like I can really interact with that average, everyday person. I get too frustrated, because A) they don’t realize what’s going on over there. And B) they don’t care.
— Former drone operator shares with NBC News, after getting a diploma that gives him a scorecard of killing more than 1,600 people.
People say that drone strikes are like mortar attacks. Well, artillery doesn’t see this. Artillery doesn’t see the results of their actions. It’s really more intimate for us, because we see everything.
— A former drone operator says he’s killed about 1,626 people.
Brandon Bryant says he was sitting in a chair at a Nevada Air Force base operating the camera when his team fired two missiles from their drone at three men walking down a road halfway around the world in Afghanistan. The missiles hit all three targets, and Bryant says he could see the aftermath on his computer screen – including thermal images of a growing puddle of hot blood. “The guy that was running forward, he’s missing his right leg,” he recalled. “And I watch this guy bleed out and, I mean, the blood is hot.” As the man died his body grew cold, said Bryant, and his thermal image changed until he became the same color as the ground. “I can see every little pixel.
— A former Air Force drone operator talks to Richard Engel of NBC News
And, it’s being done to 41 prisoners there as of today, per Gitmo reporter Carol Rosenberg.
Another one from The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald:
Exclusive: Top-secret directive steps up offensive cyber capabilities to ‘advance US objectives around the world’
These plans are directed by President Obama, who has ordered intelligence chiefs of his administration to come up with a list of targets to perform cyber attacks across the world. It is a plan called, “Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO).”
Here’s the official directive by President Obama, via The Guaridan
There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world.
A quote from President Obama:
He wanted to “review [] the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept new types of communication, and build in privacy protections to prevent abuse.”
There.
Then, this came out, from The Washington Post:
U.S. intelligence has access to the servers of nine Internet companies as part of top-secret effort.
After Wednesday’s NSA Verizon leak, The Guardian and The Washington Post both covered even more information on the National Security Agency in the United States. This leak included a brand new program called PRISM, one that mines through online user data from multiple online companies from Google to Yahoo, Facebook to AOL, Apple to Microsoft, Skype to PalTalk, They collected information from these companies, analyzed the information they got and connected it to “possible threats of national security.”
The Washington Post got slides from the NSA powerpoint that introduced PRISM
From The Guardian:
An exclusive on a top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama administration
The first leak of the week, covered by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian, was on how the United States’ National Security Agency secretly collected meta data from millions of American phone numbers daily. The court order required that Verizon send the government location data, how long the phone call took, and the times it occurred, of every phone call placed from the Verizon Business Network. The contents of the phone conversation was not turned over to the NSA.
Here is the full U.S. court order, via The Guardian.
Summer is the killing season in American cities. The temperature rises and, yes, tempers do, too. […] In Los Angeles County, with an estimated 450 gangs that have 45,000 members, about half the murders are gang related. […] In Chicago, gang and gun violence is endemic, with 12 shootings last weekend and one death. And in New York, although the murder rate is much lower than the other cities, in the rougher parts of town that’s no guarantee of immunity. Between Friday and Sunday the first weekend in June, 26 people were shot and seven of them killed. […] The embattled streets of the city and the gunland of the heartland are wildly different places, and the failure to understand that difference, and overcome it, is the great American tragedy of our time.
— American “gun control isn’t about rights, it’s about survival.”
![Catching up on Syria, via reuters:
The Syria conflict continues to spread into neighboring countries. The Syrian town of Qusair becomes an international relief disaster as Red Cross prevented from entering.
On Sunday, Hezbollah and Syrian rebels fought in Lebanon, where at least a dozen fighters were killed. Syria’s two-year-old conflict has sucked in its smaller neighbor Lebanon. At least 80,000 people have been killed; at least 1.5 million Syrians are now refugees across the region.
Qusair becomes the epicenter of international focus:
Syrian rebels plead for help as army bombards strategic Qusair: Hezbollah, Syria’s army fighting to drive rebels from Qusair, a strategic town for rebel supplies and fighters. Syrian rebels said they will carry out attacks inside Lebanon in response to the assault on Qusair.
U.N. says the world watching response to Qusair: the United Nations said on Saturday that up to 1,500 wounded people might be trapped inside Qusair and U.N. officials called for an immediate ceasefire to allow them to receive treatment. Syria’s government says Red Cross will be allowed access to Qusair when fighting is over.
Russia blocks U.N. Security Council declaration on Qusair: Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council declaration of alarm over the bloody siege of Qusair.
U.S. State Department continues to plan peace talks: Four months into his term, Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to end the Syrian civil war . Russia and the United States are planning a peace conference for early June or even July.
[Photo: Lebanese soldiers inspect a site which was hit by a rocket, which residents say was fired from Syria on June 1, 2013 REUTERS/Stringer]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/348bb7db15d4b65a72501bc2bcbdae80/tumblr_mnrxb6N09A1qmaoalo1_500.jpg)
Catching up on Syria, via reuters:
The Syria conflict continues to spread into neighboring countries. The Syrian town of Qusair becomes an international relief disaster as Red Cross prevented from entering.
On Sunday, Hezbollah and Syrian rebels fought in Lebanon, where at least a dozen fighters were killed. Syria’s two-year-old conflict has sucked in its smaller neighbor Lebanon. At least 80,000 people have been killed; at least 1.5 million Syrians are now refugees across the region.
Qusair becomes the epicenter of international focus:
Syrian rebels plead for help as army bombards strategic Qusair: Hezbollah, Syria’s army fighting to drive rebels from Qusair, a strategic town for rebel supplies and fighters. Syrian rebels said they will carry out attacks inside Lebanon in response to the assault on Qusair.
U.N. says the world watching response to Qusair: the United Nations said on Saturday that up to 1,500 wounded people might be trapped inside Qusair and U.N. officials called for an immediate ceasefire to allow them to receive treatment. Syria’s government says Red Cross will be allowed access to Qusair when fighting is over.
Russia blocks U.N. Security Council declaration on Qusair: Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council declaration of alarm over the bloody siege of Qusair.
U.S. State Department continues to plan peace talks: Four months into his term, Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to end the Syrian civil war . Russia and the United States are planning a peace conference for early June or even July.
[Photo: Lebanese soldiers inspect a site which was hit by a rocket, which residents say was fired from Syria on June 1, 2013 REUTERS/Stringer]
Source: reuters
![From reuters:
Obama gives major foreign policy speech: President Barack Obama plans to limit the use of U.S. drone strikes and close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Obama also asked the Attorney General to report on how the Department of Justice investigates the media. The report is due by July 12, 2013.
[Photo: REUTERS/Larry Downing]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/ee923c6c0fd44887369a850e60a794f7/tumblr_mn9ll4LMEd1qmaoalo1_500.jpg)
From reuters:
Obama gives major foreign policy speech: President Barack Obama plans to limit the use of U.S. drone strikes and close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Obama also asked the Attorney General to report on how the Department of Justice investigates the media. The report is due by July 12, 2013.
[Photo: REUTERS/Larry Downing]
Source: reuters
AFRICA
M23 rebels announce ceasefire near Goma as UN’s Ban Ki-moon visits DR Congo (Reuters)
Suicide bombings in Niger kill at least 17 soldiers (BBC News)
AMERICAS
Secretary of State Kerry may make bid to restart Middle East peace talks (NYTimes)
ASIA
Car bomb in Pakistan kills eleven police officers and one civilian (AP)
Malaysia police arrest opposition figures in crackdown (Reuters)
Iran says a new report by the IAEA shows its nuclear drive is “peaceful” (AFP)
North Korea says they are willing to take China’s advice to start talks (Reuters)
EUROPE
European banks stop sending money to North Korea, aid groups say (Reuters)
Sweden’s Stockholm continues to experience riots through city (NYTimes)
France backs call to put Hezbollah armed wing on EU terror list (Reuters)
MIDDLE EAST
In clashes, five killed and 50 wounded in Lebanon’s Tripoli (Reuters)
Former head of Syria’s opposition puts forward a new proposal on governing Syria (Al Jazeera)
