'Insane, Disgusting' and 'Epic Treachery' Bill McKibben reacts to Snowden's latest Revelation

[KoKo]

'Insane, Disgusting' and 'Epic Treachery': NSA Spied on Climate Talks
Obama admin. clearly never wanted Copenhagen talks to work,' says Bill McKibben following latest NSA revelations concerning climate talks


World leaders, including US President Barack Obama (standing), gathered druing the COP15 climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009. (Source: Information.dk)While climate activists from around the world gathered outside the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 called for "System Change, Not Climate Change' while demanding to be heard by world leaders, the U.S. delegation inside the talks was busy listening to something else: a steady stream of surveillance intelligence on other nations provided by the National Security Agency.

That's according to new documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden and published Thursday by reporters at the Huffington Post and the Danish newspaper Information, with help from American journalist Laura Poitras.

As the Information reports:

At the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, the world's nations were supposed to reach an agreement that would protect future generations against catastrophic climate change. But not everyone was playing by the rules. A leaked document now reveals that the US employed the NSA, its signals intelligence agency, to intercept information about other countries' views on the climate negotiations before and during the summit. According to observers, the spying may have contributed to the Americans getting their way in the negotiations.

And HuffPost's Ryan Grim and Kate Sheppard add:

The document, with portions marked "top secret," indicates that the NSA was monitoring the communications of other countries ahead of the conference, and intended to continue doing so throughout the meeting. Posted on an internal NSA website on Dec. 7, 2009, the first day of the Copenhagen summit, it states that "analysts here at NSA, as well as our Second Party partners, will continue to provide policymakers with unique, timely, and valuable insights into key countries' preparations and goals for the conference, as well as the deliberations within countries on climate change policies and negotiation strategies."

"Second Party partners" refers to the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with which the U.S. has an intelligence-sharing relationship. "While the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference remains uncertain, signals intelligence will undoubtedly play a significant role in keeping our negotiators as well informed as possible throughout the 2-week event," the document says.

According to Grim and Sheppard, citing the document, the intel gathered by the NSA "was likely would be used to brief U.S. officials, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama, among others."

Even more troubling, according to Information's assessment, is that the top secret "document suggests that the NSA's [...] focus in relation to climate change was spying on other countries to collect intelligence that would support American interests, rather than preventing future climate catastrophes."

Climate activists who had placed high hopes in the Copenhagen talks at the time responded to the new revelations with anger on Thursday, with key members of the advocacy group 350.org expressing contempt for the Obama administration's role in sabotaging the talks:

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/01/30-1

[G_j]

1. working to keep us safe..

[Enthusiast]

37. That's the objective.

[G_j]

4. welcome to DU

couldn't understand your post though..

[DonViejo]

5. I think it's a spam-bot eom

[Demo_Chris]

3. Nothing is surprising anymore. nt

[mindwalker_i]

6. But it's not illegal to spy on other countries

Waaaaaaa! Why does he keep getiing us in trouble for things that are perfectly legal? Besides, everyone does it!

[cali]

7. good imitation of the tireless defender/adorers.

[mindwalker_i]

8. Thanks, it's kind of extra-snarky, and I probably shouldn't do it

But damn! It like every thread about spying has someone (NOT going to name them here) saying it's not illegal to spy on other countries, even if the thread is about the NSA spying on us, which is illegal. And the argument completely sidesteps the issue that, even if it's not specifically illegal to spy on other countries, it's going to cause them to hate us and work against us.

[Maedhros]

10. Repitition of message is key to catapulting the propaganda.[n/t]

[ConservativeDemocrat]

12. It's good to know you won't ever be satisfied...

...until the US dismantles all its intelligence programs, including those that caught Osama bin Laden.

It makes it far easier to just ignore you.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[frylock]

16. how many attacks has this program prevented in the reality-based community?

and what plots were being discussed at the climate summit?

[zeemike]

21. Oh come on Frylock you know the answer to that.

the plot of decrease the use of oil, which is an act of terrorism against Exxon...and Exxon is people too.

[mindwalker_i]

22. That was a stupid argument

What terrorist attacks has spying prevented? None, according to several sources, including the president's panel.

Why are we spying on other countries during negotians? Purely to give us an advantage, and my "us" I mean the US government. Are their goals aligned with what the people in the US want? That's questionable.

Why do we have laws that limit government? Why do we have a constitution? If people like you are just going to come by and argue that the government should be able to break the laws when convenient, then why have a democracy? Why self-govern?

[villager]

26. The last I heard, this same rapidly changing climate is part of "reality" too

Though many deluded self-described "pragmatists" fantasize otherwise...

[hatrack]

34. And now, at Davos, the movers and shakers have noticed climate breakdown!

Why, even Coca-Cola is apparently now aware that an environment of record-smashing temperatures, tornadoes of F5 and beyond, extreme drought and flood and crop failures, and hurricanes that come ashore with maximum sustained winds of 200 mph might cause people to *gasp* buy less Coca-Cola!!

Oh. The humanity.

[villager]

35. "There's no economy on a dead planet," as we liked to say back in the 80's...

...during our street protests.

I guess the shakers and movers and such must've believed otherwise. Until too late.

[kardonb]

15. imitation

this guy is a class A imitator of Sarah Palin : as soon as you are out of the news , say something crazy and craven , and , voila , you are in the news again . Goal achieved .

[snappyturtle]

18. If "this guy" you're referring to is Snowden....(?)...Snowden didn't

release this information....although he did make it possible to distribute.

[mindwalker_i]

42. Just for the sake of argument, let's all agree that Snowden is an asshole

He didn't just release information (or Greenwald) about spying, and maybe that did some damage. We can argue about that separately.

The fact is, the U.S. government spies on us. Citizens, or if you prefer, consumers. Collecting all the information that they collect gives them enormout power which is detrimental to self-governance - democracy if you will. We already live in what is arguably a police state. The connections betwee government and corporations are way too deep. These are the things we should be talking about.

Instead, every thread about it has some dumb-ass saying, "well Snowden's a jerk," which seems entirely designed to derail the conversation away from what's important to trivial shit. As such, those comments are aiding in the destruction of democracy.

[lark]

24. You are so very polite.

I should emulate that more often instead of usually calling them Obamabots.

[Fumesucker]

9. We've known about this since 2006

And of course the always popular Pole Dancers.

[grasswire]

30. don't forget Poland!

Haha, your post made me laugh. Thanks.

[sabrina 1]

40. We are not going to get into trouble for things that are perfectly legal.

So don't worry about that.

But spying on member states of the UN eg, that can get us into trouble. And spying on allied nations in order to stop them from protecting the planet, that definitely should get someone in trouble.

And we were told that all this was to catch 'terrorists'. What a joke it all is.

[last1standing]

11. America has no interest in climate change other than to halt it.

On the other hand, corporations do. This kind of thing provides all the proof we need that Obama has sold out to corporate interests and is no longer (if ever) working for the American people.

I've never called Snowden a hero before, but I'm starting to think he may actually be one.

[VanillaRhapsody]

28. this is "proof"?

you meter is set reaaaaally low.

Are you suggesting impeachment too?

[Oilwellian]

13. Obama said in his SOTU, that climate change was proven science

Obviously, he just doesn't give a shit about it.

K&R

[Spider Jerusalem]

36. Sure, and how much has he said about the wonders of fracking and shale oil?

All that stuff in the speech about "natural gas" and "energy independence"? That's effectively "yay, fracking is awesome". So obviously he doesn't give a shit about climate change.

[jsr]

14. Recommend

[WillyT]

17. K & R !!!

[gcomeau]

19. For fuck's sake...

Seriously? Another "US Intelligence Agency collects intelligence for US government" revelation?

What the hell do people think intelligence agencies are for???

[JDPriestly]

20. It's like stealing the test questions before taking a test.

It is, to say the least, dishonorable. Spying prior to international negotiations is an old tradition among diplomats. Reading everything published, studying the parties and people who will sit across the table from you is normal, but grabbing their internal communications via electronics is beyond the pale.

Now all nations do some spying, but when a student has to steal the test questions to pass the test, that student is admitting he or she would flunk if he just studied and took the test.

This suggests that our government's negotiators are ill prepared without the theft of the test questions or simply not capable of passing the test.

This speaks very poorly of the capability of our state department and government and their negotiators.

[hatrack]

23. Well shit, Bill, what did you expect?

Powers-that-be do what they do, which is preserve the order of things as they are. Why? Because that's the way we've always done it.

To quote Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption, "Nothing stops. Nothing . . .You understand me? Catching my drift? Or am I being obtuse?"

Nothing stops. The people who "represent" us will stop at nothing to ensure that nothing stops. Holy, Sacred Economic Growth has been received from on high as the Answer to Everything, and if things aren't working out at the moment, all that means is that there hasn't been enough Holy, Sacred Economic Growth. That growth will be powered (as always) by ever-increasing amounts of flaming carbon. Why? Because that's the way we've always done it.

When Obama signs off on Keystone, what will you say? Better start preparing your remarks now, because when the announcement comes down (probably late on a Friday afternoon in November, maybe even Black Friday, when no-fucking-body is going to pay attention) we'll be waiting to hear how working within the system is working out for us. Sure, there'll be a little greenwash - maybe a solar panel tax credit extension, or a new National Monument designation (minimal acreage, bleached corals, flaming beetle-killed forests, melting glaciers, fracked springwater, disappearing wildlife) to daub a bit of rhetorical baking soda on the sting.

You might also want to consider changing the name of your organization. The world hasn't been below 350ppm since October 1989, and we won't be in that territory again until a whole lot of things are very different than they are now.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/sio-keel-flask/maunaloa_c.dat

[KoKo]

31. I hear Ya'...and it's sad we been driven into the "Camp of the Disbelievers"

but...I'm not GIVING UP ...and I hope that the rest of us WILL NOT GIVE UP.

Just saying.

[hatrack]

25. K&R

.

[TheMathieu]

27. The same reaction most Americans have had to Snowden.

Everyone has a thesaurus, Bill.

[Egnever]

29. Why do they never provide the actual document?

Just interpretations of it. I find it quite curious.

[Oilwellian]

32. They did

http://www.information.dk/databloggen/486321

[Egnever]

39. Clearly they did'n't

your link is from an entirely separate german article and oddly enough when you read the actual document you have to make a crazy leap to interpret it the way the articles that conveniently refused to provide it make.

Thank you for the link.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

33. Thank you again Edward Snowden.

[Savannahmann]

43. Kick

[woo me with science]

46. +1000000

[malaise]

38. When we win back our democracies

Edward Snowden will be a hero.

[sabrina 1]

41. To many he is already. He's collecting awards the Jamie Dimon is collecting bonuses

from grateful people who are now in possession of actual facts about what is going that directly affects their lives.

[KoKo]

44. and...Jamie Dimon is a Disgrace that will come back to haunt...

There are even folks on Wall Street who think he's gotten too many "FREE PASSES."

[woo me with science]

45. K&R