Two American journalists are working together to expose the role of the US National Security Agency in what they described as a “US assassination program.”
Contributor to The Nation magazine Jeremy Scahill and Rio-based journalist Glenn Greenwald are working on the project.
“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 center how the National Security Agency plays a significant, central role in the US assassination program,” Scahill said on Saturday.
“There are so many stories that are yet to be published that we hope will produce ‘actionable intelligence,’ or information that ordinary citizens across the world can use to try to fight for change, to try to confront those in power,” he added.
Greenwald was the first journalist who broke the revelations about US spying programs based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
“The really important thing to realize is the desire for surveillance is not a uniquely American attribute,” Greenwald was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
“America has just devoted way more money and way more resources than anyone else to spying on the world,” he added.
Greenwald also praised discussions by some South American governments to find ways to circumvent American control over the Internet.
“But I think it’s also very important to keep in mind that whenever governments, be it the US government or the Brazilian government or anybody else, starts talking about regulating the Internet, even when they tell you it’s designed to protect your privacy from the American government . There is also the danger that the Brazilian government or any other government or international institution will want to simply replace the United States as the entity that is monitoring your communications,” he said.
Court documents have shown that the NSA violated privacy rules for years with its surveillance practices.
The documents released over the past few months reveal a troubling picture of a super spy agency that has sought and won far-reaching surveillance powers to run complex domestic data collection without anyone having full technical understanding of the process.
The privacy violations were first revealed by Snowden in June. He leaked confidential information that showed the NSA collects data of phone records and Internet communication of American citizens.
