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September 10, 2013
Registering for nothing-to-see-here deadlines could help to sound the alert when a website has been compromised
Cory Doctorow - theguardian.com
Monday 9 September 2013 07.25 EDT
<snip>
...
...
...
No one's ever tested this approach in court, and I can't say whether a judge would be able to distinguish between "not revealing a secret order" and "failing to note the absence of a secret order", but in US jurisprudence, compelling someone to speak a lie is generally more fraught with constitutional issues than compelled silence about the truth. The UK is on less stable ground – the "unwritten constitution" lacks clarity on this subject, and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act allows courts to order companies to surrender their cryptographic keys (for the purposes of decrypting evidence, though perhaps a judge could be convinced to equate providing evidence with signing a message).
When the NSA came up with codenames for its projects to sabotage security products, it chose "BULLRUN" and "MANASSAS", names for a notorious battle from the American civil war in which the public were declared enemies of the state. GCHQ's parallel programme was called "EDGEHILL", another civil war battle where citizens became enemies of their government. Our spies' indiscriminate surveillance programmes clearly show an alarming trend for the state to view everyday people as adversaries.
Our world is made up of computers. Our cars and homes are computers into which we insert our bodies; our hearing aids and implanted defibrillators are computers we insert into our bodies. The deliberate sabotage of computers is an act of depraved indifference to the physical security and economic and intellectual integrity of every person alive. If the law is perverted so that we cannot tell people when their security has been undermined, it follows that we must find some other legal way to warn them about services that are not fit for purpose.
<snip>
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/09/nsa-sabotage-dead-mans-switch
In Case You Missed This... A Most Interesting "Tell" By The NSA And GCHQ...
How to foil NSA sabotage: use a dead man's switchRegistering for nothing-to-see-here deadlines could help to sound the alert when a website has been compromised
Cory Doctorow - theguardian.com
Monday 9 September 2013 07.25 EDT
<snip>
...
...
...
No one's ever tested this approach in court, and I can't say whether a judge would be able to distinguish between "not revealing a secret order" and "failing to note the absence of a secret order", but in US jurisprudence, compelling someone to speak a lie is generally more fraught with constitutional issues than compelled silence about the truth. The UK is on less stable ground – the "unwritten constitution" lacks clarity on this subject, and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act allows courts to order companies to surrender their cryptographic keys (for the purposes of decrypting evidence, though perhaps a judge could be convinced to equate providing evidence with signing a message).
When the NSA came up with codenames for its projects to sabotage security products, it chose "BULLRUN" and "MANASSAS", names for a notorious battle from the American civil war in which the public were declared enemies of the state. GCHQ's parallel programme was called "EDGEHILL", another civil war battle where citizens became enemies of their government. Our spies' indiscriminate surveillance programmes clearly show an alarming trend for the state to view everyday people as adversaries.
Our world is made up of computers. Our cars and homes are computers into which we insert our bodies; our hearing aids and implanted defibrillators are computers we insert into our bodies. The deliberate sabotage of computers is an act of depraved indifference to the physical security and economic and intellectual integrity of every person alive. If the law is perverted so that we cannot tell people when their security has been undermined, it follows that we must find some other legal way to warn them about services that are not fit for purpose.
<snip>
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/09/nsa-sabotage-dead-mans-switch
September 9, 2013
Andrew Sullivan - TheDish
9/9/13
<snip>
In his latest stream of unpersuasive self-righteousness, John Kerry today threw out an idea. Instead of threatening an imminent military strike, Kerry actually got creative:
He was, apparently, just being hypothetical. The State Department had to walk him back:
I’d have thought a pretty basic qualification for being secretary of state is not to air hypothetical ideas in a public forum that the US does not intend to pursue. But Kerry, who is already doing a huge amount to make Hillary Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom look magisterial, winged it. And the Russians immediately reacted:
Wow. So we have the possibility of two things...
<snip>
More: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/09/09/kerry-gaffes-the-russians-blink/
Kerry Gaffes; The Russians Blink - TheDish
Kerry Gaffes; The Russians BlinkAndrew Sullivan - TheDish
9/9/13
<snip>
In his latest stream of unpersuasive self-righteousness, John Kerry today threw out an idea. Instead of threatening an imminent military strike, Kerry actually got creative:
Asked if there were steps the Syrian president could take to avert an American-led attack, Mr. Kerry said, “Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.”
He was, apparently, just being hypothetical. The State Department had to walk him back:
“Secretary Kerry was making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility and unlikelihood of Assad turning over chemical weapons he has denied he used,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail to reporters after Mr. Kerry’s comments. “His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That’s why the world faces this moment.”
I’d have thought a pretty basic qualification for being secretary of state is not to air hypothetical ideas in a public forum that the US does not intend to pursue. But Kerry, who is already doing a huge amount to make Hillary Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom look magisterial, winged it. And the Russians immediately reacted:
“We don’t know whether Syria will agree with this, but if the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus,” Mr. Lavrov said at the Foreign Ministry. “And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction.”
Wow. So we have the possibility of two things...
<snip>
More: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/09/09/kerry-gaffes-the-russians-blink/
September 9, 2013
Found Here: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline
Updated With Documentation: https://www.eff.org/document/wiebe-declaration-support-plaintiffs-motion
Updated: Remember... THIS Is How The NSA Felt About Our Constitution After The 9/11 Attacks...
Culture Against Domestic Spying Begins to Shift at the NSA
Sep 12, 2001
(Wiebe Declaration, Pg 3)
Ex-NSA Analyst J. Kirk Wiebe recalls: "everything changed at the NSA after the attacks on September 11. The prior approach focused on complying with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"
. The post-September 11 approach was that NSA could circumvent federal statutes and the Constitution as long as there was some visceral connection to looking for terrorists." While another ex-NSA analyst also remembers: "The individual liberties preserved in the US Constitution were no longer a consideration [at the NSA]."
Sep 12, 2001
(Wiebe Declaration, Pg 3)
Ex-NSA Analyst J. Kirk Wiebe recalls: "everything changed at the NSA after the attacks on September 11. The prior approach focused on complying with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"
. The post-September 11 approach was that NSA could circumvent federal statutes and the Constitution as long as there was some visceral connection to looking for terrorists." While another ex-NSA analyst also remembers: "The individual liberties preserved in the US Constitution were no longer a consideration [at the NSA]."Found Here: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline
Updated With Documentation: https://www.eff.org/document/wiebe-declaration-support-plaintiffs-motion
September 9, 2013
Accusations that NSA is conducting intelligence-gathering operations that go beyond its core mission of national security
Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro - theguardian.com
Monday 9 September 2013 11.55 EDT
<snip>
The US National Security Agency has been accused of spying on Brazil's biggest oil company, Petrobras, following the release of more files from US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The latest disclosures, which aired on Brazil's Fantástico news program, have led to accusations that the NSA is conducting intelligence-gathering operations that go beyond its core mission of national security – often cited as the key distinction between the agency and its counterparts in China and Russia.
The revelations are likely to further strain ties between the US and Brazil ahead of a planned state dinner for president Dilma Rousseff at the White House in October. Bileteral relations have already been muddled by the earlier release of NSA files showing the US agency intercepted Brazilian communications and spied on Rousseff and her aides.
Petrobras is the largest company in Brazil and one of the 30 biggest businesses in the world. Majority owned by the state, it is a major source of revenue for the government and is developing the biggest oil discoveries of this century, which are in a pre-salt region deep under the Atlantic.
Fantástico revealed a top secret NSA file – given by Snowden to Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald – which shows Petrobras is among several targets for the agency's Blackpearl program, which extricates data from private networks.
Titled "Private networks are important", the slide names Petrobras along with the Swift network for global bank transfers, the French foreign ministry and Google. Several other targets on the list, which may have links to terrorist organisations and other operations that potentially threaten the US, were redacted.
<snip>
More: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras
<snip>
NSA Accused Of Spying On Brazilian Oil Company Petrobras - GuardianUK
NSA accused of spying on Brazilian oil company PetrobrasAccusations that NSA is conducting intelligence-gathering operations that go beyond its core mission of national security
Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro - theguardian.com
Monday 9 September 2013 11.55 EDT
<snip>
The US National Security Agency has been accused of spying on Brazil's biggest oil company, Petrobras, following the release of more files from US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The latest disclosures, which aired on Brazil's Fantástico news program, have led to accusations that the NSA is conducting intelligence-gathering operations that go beyond its core mission of national security – often cited as the key distinction between the agency and its counterparts in China and Russia.
The revelations are likely to further strain ties between the US and Brazil ahead of a planned state dinner for president Dilma Rousseff at the White House in October. Bileteral relations have already been muddled by the earlier release of NSA files showing the US agency intercepted Brazilian communications and spied on Rousseff and her aides.
Petrobras is the largest company in Brazil and one of the 30 biggest businesses in the world. Majority owned by the state, it is a major source of revenue for the government and is developing the biggest oil discoveries of this century, which are in a pre-salt region deep under the Atlantic.
Fantástico revealed a top secret NSA file – given by Snowden to Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald – which shows Petrobras is among several targets for the agency's Blackpearl program, which extricates data from private networks.
Titled "Private networks are important", the slide names Petrobras along with the Swift network for global bank transfers, the French foreign ministry and Google. Several other targets on the list, which may have links to terrorist organisations and other operations that potentially threaten the US, were redacted.
<snip>
More: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras
<snip>
September 9, 2013
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex
What Do You Make Of This ???
The phrase was thought to have been "war-based" industrial complex before becoming "military" in later drafts of Eisenhower's speech, a claim passed on only by oral history.[6] Geoffrey Perret, in his biography of Eisenhower, claims that, in one draft of the speech, the phrase was "military–industrial–congressional complex", indicating the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry, but the word "congressional" was dropped from the final version to appease the then-currently elected officials.[7] James Ledbetter calls this a "stubborn misconception" not supported by any evidence; likewise a claim by Douglas Brinkley that it was originally "military–industrial–scientific complex".[7][8] Additionally, Henry Giroux claims that it was originally "military–industrial–academic complex".[9] The actual authors of the speech were Eisenhower's speechwriters Ralph E. Williams and Malcolm Moos.[10]
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex
September 9, 2013
By Kevin Drum| MoJo
Sun Sep. 8, 2013 10:16 AM PDT
<snip>
Ellen Nakashima has an oddly downplayed story in the Washington Post today. As we all know, the NSA collects massive amounts of both domestic and foreign communications, which it stores for years. It's allowed to search this database, but under the Bush administration they could only search for names and email addresses of foreign targets. Two years ago, however, the Obama administration got permission to perform searches using the names and email addresses of American residents:
Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have issued warnings about this, but secrecy rules kept their warnings vague. Now, however, it's public knowledge:
So there you have it. When the NSA sweeps up this data in the first place, it says no individualized warrant is necessary because it's merely storing the information, not "collecting" it...
<snip>
Link: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/09/court-nsa-warrantless-search-american-records
Whoop, There It Is...
Court Decision Allows NSA to Search its Database for American Records Without a WarrantBy Kevin Drum| MoJo
Sun Sep. 8, 2013 10:16 AM PDT
<snip>
Ellen Nakashima has an oddly downplayed story in the Washington Post today. As we all know, the NSA collects massive amounts of both domestic and foreign communications, which it stores for years. It's allowed to search this database, but under the Bush administration they could only search for names and email addresses of foreign targets. Two years ago, however, the Obama administration got permission to perform searches using the names and email addresses of American residents:
The court decision allowed the NSA “to query the vast majority” of its e-mail and phone call databases using the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of Americans and legal residents without a warrant, according to Bates’s opinion. The queries must be “reasonably likely to yield foreign intelligence information.” And the results are subject to the NSA’s privacy rules.
The court in 2008 imposed a wholesale ban on such searches at the government’s request, said Alex Joel, civil liberties protection officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The government included this restriction “to remain consistent with NSA policies and procedures that NSA applied to other authorized collection activities,” he said.
But in 2011, to more rapidly and effectively identify relevant foreign intelligence communications, “we did ask the court” to lift the ban, ODNI general counsel Robert S. Litt said in an interview. “We wanted to be able to do it,” he said, referring to the searching of Americans’ communications without a warrant.
The court in 2008 imposed a wholesale ban on such searches at the government’s request, said Alex Joel, civil liberties protection officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The government included this restriction “to remain consistent with NSA policies and procedures that NSA applied to other authorized collection activities,” he said.
But in 2011, to more rapidly and effectively identify relevant foreign intelligence communications, “we did ask the court” to lift the ban, ODNI general counsel Robert S. Litt said in an interview. “We wanted to be able to do it,” he said, referring to the searching of Americans’ communications without a warrant.
Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have issued warnings about this, but secrecy rules kept their warnings vague. Now, however, it's public knowledge:
“The <surveillance> Court documents declassified recently show that in late 2011 the court authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless searches of individual Americans’ communications using an authority intended to target only foreigners,” Wyden said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Our intelligence agencies need the authority to target the communications of foreigners, but for government agencies to deliberately read the e-mails or listen to the phone calls of individual Americans, the Constitution requires a warrant.”
Senior administration officials disagree. “If we’re validly targeting foreigners and we happen to collect communications of Americans, we don’t have to close our eyes to that,” Litt said. “I’m not aware of other situations where once we have lawfully collected information, we have to go back and get a warrant to look at the information we’ve already collected.”
Senior administration officials disagree. “If we’re validly targeting foreigners and we happen to collect communications of Americans, we don’t have to close our eyes to that,” Litt said. “I’m not aware of other situations where once we have lawfully collected information, we have to go back and get a warrant to look at the information we’ve already collected.”
So there you have it. When the NSA sweeps up this data in the first place, it says no individualized warrant is necessary because it's merely storing the information, not "collecting" it...
<snip>
Link: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/09/court-nsa-warrantless-search-american-records
September 8, 2013
The implications of the prior week's reporting of NSA stories continue to grow
Glenn Greenwald - theguardian.com
Saturday 7 September 2013 09.04 EDT
<snip>
I'm currently working on what I believe are several significant new NSA stories, to be published imminently here, as well as one very consequential story about NSA spying in Brazil that will first be broadcast Sunday night on the Brazilian television program Fantastico (because the report has worldwide implications, far beyond Brazil, it will be translated into English and then quickly published on the internet). Until then, I'm posting below the video of the 30-minute interview I did yesterday on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez about our NSA encryption story and ongoing US/UK attacks on press freedom (the transcript of that interview is here).
There has been some excellent commentary on the implications of the NSA/GCHQ encryption story we published this week. The LA Times' Jim Healey says the story is "the most frightening" yet, and explains why he thinks that. The Bloomberg technology columnist David Meyer's analysis of what this all means is worth reading in its entirety. In the Guardian, security expert Bruce Schneier, who has worked with us on a couple of soon-to-be-published stories, identifies 5 ways to maintain the privacy of your internet communications notwithstanding the efforts of the NSA and GCHQ to induce companies to build vulnerabilities into certain types of encryption.
As for Brazil, the fallout continues from our report last week on Fantastico revealing the NSA's very personal and specific surveillance targeting of Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff and then-leading-candidate (now Mexican president) Enrique Peña Nieto (the NSA documents we published about those activities are here). In an interview this week with The Hindu's Shobhan Saxena, Brazil's highly popular ex-president Lula vehemently condemned NSA spying abuses and said Obama should "personally apologize to the world". The New York Times' Simon Romero has a good article from yesterday on the thus-far-unsuccessful attempts by Obama to placate the anger in the region from this report. As for the new report coming Sunday night in Brazil, please take note of this adamant statement last week from the NSA, as reported by the Washington Post [asterisks in original]:
In Europe this week, President Obama has been making similar claims when asked about NSA spying, repeatedly assuring people that NSA surveillance is overwhelmingly devoted to stopping terrorism threats.
One big problem the NSA and US government generally have...
<snip>
More: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/07/nsa-encryption-us-uk-press-freedoms
More NSA Stories Coming This Week... Lots Of Great Links Here:
NSA encryption story, Latin American fallout and US/UK attacks on press freedomsThe implications of the prior week's reporting of NSA stories continue to grow
Glenn Greenwald - theguardian.com
Saturday 7 September 2013 09.04 EDT
<snip>
I'm currently working on what I believe are several significant new NSA stories, to be published imminently here, as well as one very consequential story about NSA spying in Brazil that will first be broadcast Sunday night on the Brazilian television program Fantastico (because the report has worldwide implications, far beyond Brazil, it will be translated into English and then quickly published on the internet). Until then, I'm posting below the video of the 30-minute interview I did yesterday on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez about our NSA encryption story and ongoing US/UK attacks on press freedom (the transcript of that interview is here).
There has been some excellent commentary on the implications of the NSA/GCHQ encryption story we published this week. The LA Times' Jim Healey says the story is "the most frightening" yet, and explains why he thinks that. The Bloomberg technology columnist David Meyer's analysis of what this all means is worth reading in its entirety. In the Guardian, security expert Bruce Schneier, who has worked with us on a couple of soon-to-be-published stories, identifies 5 ways to maintain the privacy of your internet communications notwithstanding the efforts of the NSA and GCHQ to induce companies to build vulnerabilities into certain types of encryption.
As for Brazil, the fallout continues from our report last week on Fantastico revealing the NSA's very personal and specific surveillance targeting of Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff and then-leading-candidate (now Mexican president) Enrique Peña Nieto (the NSA documents we published about those activities are here). In an interview this week with The Hindu's Shobhan Saxena, Brazil's highly popular ex-president Lula vehemently condemned NSA spying abuses and said Obama should "personally apologize to the world". The New York Times' Simon Romero has a good article from yesterday on the thus-far-unsuccessful attempts by Obama to placate the anger in the region from this report. As for the new report coming Sunday night in Brazil, please take note of this adamant statement last week from the NSA, as reported by the Washington Post [asterisks in original]:
"US intelligence services are making routine use around the world of government-built malware that differs little in function from the 'advanced persistent threats' that US officials attribute to China. The principal difference, US officials told The Post, is that China steals US corporate secrets for financial gain.
"'The Department of Defense does engage' in computer network exploitation, according to an e-mailed statement from an NSA spokesman, whose agency is part of the Defense Department. 'The department does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.'"
"'The Department of Defense does engage' in computer network exploitation, according to an e-mailed statement from an NSA spokesman, whose agency is part of the Defense Department. 'The department does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.'"
In Europe this week, President Obama has been making similar claims when asked about NSA spying, repeatedly assuring people that NSA surveillance is overwhelmingly devoted to stopping terrorism threats.
One big problem the NSA and US government generally have...
<snip>
More: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/07/nsa-encryption-us-uk-press-freedoms
September 8, 2013
Michael Calderone - HuffPo
9/8/13
<snip>
The Associated Press ran a skeptical piece Sunday about the Obama administration's public case for military intervention in Syria in response to a reported Aug. 21 chemical attack: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130908/ml-syria-attack-scenarios/
The AP's Zeina Karam and Kimberly Dozier wrote that "the U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence produced by U.S. intelligence -- no satellite imagery, no transcripts of Syrian military communications -- connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed hundreds of people."
The Obama administration has released videos to make its case, but the AP noted that it's requests for additional evidence the government claims to possess have been denied:
The AP has been especially skeptical of the Obama administration's claims, a reflection of how the media's failure in the run-up to the Iraq War still lingers...
<snip>
More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-calderone/obama-administration-ap-syria_b_3890207.html
Obama Administration Denies AP Requests For Syria Evidence - HuffPo
Obama Administration Denies AP Requests For Syria EvidenceMichael Calderone - HuffPo
9/8/13
<snip>
The Associated Press ran a skeptical piece Sunday about the Obama administration's public case for military intervention in Syria in response to a reported Aug. 21 chemical attack: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130908/ml-syria-attack-scenarios/
The AP's Zeina Karam and Kimberly Dozier wrote that "the U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence produced by U.S. intelligence -- no satellite imagery, no transcripts of Syrian military communications -- connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed hundreds of people."
The Obama administration has released videos to make its case, but the AP noted that it's requests for additional evidence the government claims to possess have been denied:
The Obama administration, searching for support from a divided Congress and skeptical world leaders, says its own assessment is based mainly on satellite and signals intelligence, including intercepted communications and satellite images indicating that in the three days prior to the attack that the regime was preparing to use poisonous gas.
But multiple requests to view that satellite imagery have been denied, though the administration produced copious amounts of satellite imagery earlier in the war to show the results of the Syrian regime's military onslaught. When asked Friday whether such imagery would be made available showing the Aug. 21 incident, a spokesman referred The Associated Press to a map produced by the White House last week that shows what officials say are the unconfirmed areas that were attacked.
The Obama administration maintains it intercepted communications from a senior Syrian official on the use of chemical weapons, but requests to see that transcript have been denied. So has a request by the AP to see a transcript of communications allegedly ordering Syrian military personnel to prepare for a chemical weapons attack by readying gas masks.
But multiple requests to view that satellite imagery have been denied, though the administration produced copious amounts of satellite imagery earlier in the war to show the results of the Syrian regime's military onslaught. When asked Friday whether such imagery would be made available showing the Aug. 21 incident, a spokesman referred The Associated Press to a map produced by the White House last week that shows what officials say are the unconfirmed areas that were attacked.
The Obama administration maintains it intercepted communications from a senior Syrian official on the use of chemical weapons, but requests to see that transcript have been denied. So has a request by the AP to see a transcript of communications allegedly ordering Syrian military personnel to prepare for a chemical weapons attack by readying gas masks.
The AP has been especially skeptical of the Obama administration's claims, a reflection of how the media's failure in the run-up to the Iraq War still lingers...
<snip>
More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-calderone/obama-administration-ap-syria_b_3890207.html
September 8, 2013
AP/HuffPo
09/06/13 05:48 PM ET EDT
NEWTOWN, CT - JANUARY 14: Nelba Marquez Greene and her husband Jimmy Green grieve over the loss of their daughter Ana Grace Marquez Green (in photo) during a press conference on the one month anniversary of the Newtown elementary school massacre on January 14, 2013 in Newtown, Connecticut.
<snip>
NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The mother of one of the 26 victims of last December's massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School wished the country's educators "courage, faith and love" Friday as they start a new school year.
Nelba Marquez-Green's 6-year-old daughter Ana Grace was killed by Adam Lanza during his Dec. 14, 2012, shooting spree. She also has a son who was at the school at the time of the shooting and was uninjured.
In her letter published on the Education Week website, Marquez-Green relayed how much the teachers at Sandy Hook impressed her by coming back to work after the tragedy.
"While I pray you will never find yourself in the position of the teachers at Sandy Hook, your courage will support students like my son, who have lived through traumas no child should have to," she wrote.
She said the teachers also will have an impact on students who are "left out and overlooked, like the isolated young man who killed my daughter."
"At some point he was a young, impressionable student, often sitting all alone at school," she wrote. "You will have kids facing long odds for whom your smile, your encouraging word, and your willingness to go the extra mile will provide the comfort and security they need to try again tomorrow."
Marquez-Greene said the only letter of the 15,000 she received after the shooting that she keeps at her bedside is one from her own high school English teacher.
"Real heroes don't wear capes," she wrote. "They work in America's schools."
<snip>
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/06/nelba-marquez-green_n_3883034.html
:( ::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Nelba Marquez-Green, Newtown Mom, Wishes Educators 'Courage, Faith, Love' For New School YearAP/HuffPo
09/06/13 05:48 PM ET EDT
NEWTOWN, CT - JANUARY 14: Nelba Marquez Greene and her husband Jimmy Green grieve over the loss of their daughter Ana Grace Marquez Green (in photo) during a press conference on the one month anniversary of the Newtown elementary school massacre on January 14, 2013 in Newtown, Connecticut.
<snip>
NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The mother of one of the 26 victims of last December's massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School wished the country's educators "courage, faith and love" Friday as they start a new school year.
Nelba Marquez-Green's 6-year-old daughter Ana Grace was killed by Adam Lanza during his Dec. 14, 2012, shooting spree. She also has a son who was at the school at the time of the shooting and was uninjured.
In her letter published on the Education Week website, Marquez-Green relayed how much the teachers at Sandy Hook impressed her by coming back to work after the tragedy.
"While I pray you will never find yourself in the position of the teachers at Sandy Hook, your courage will support students like my son, who have lived through traumas no child should have to," she wrote.
She said the teachers also will have an impact on students who are "left out and overlooked, like the isolated young man who killed my daughter."
"At some point he was a young, impressionable student, often sitting all alone at school," she wrote. "You will have kids facing long odds for whom your smile, your encouraging word, and your willingness to go the extra mile will provide the comfort and security they need to try again tomorrow."
Marquez-Greene said the only letter of the 15,000 she received after the shooting that she keeps at her bedside is one from her own high school English teacher.
"Real heroes don't wear capes," she wrote. "They work in America's schools."
<snip>
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/06/nelba-marquez-green_n_3883034.html
September 8, 2013
Whoa... Wait A Moment Now !!! (GRAPHIC... sort of...)
So the MSM is gonna show the convulsing/dying bodes of the victims of a sarin attack...
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/07/politics/us-syria-chemical-attack-videos/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Yet they are not going to allow us to see the actions of our new allies ???
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