Crisis And Chaos Return To Greece Following National TV Shutdown

A week ago we joked that Greece was rapidly sliding into the "fourth world" (and had the photos to prove it). Well, today Equity Index provider MSCI took our joke and made it into something way too serious when overnight it made Greece the first developed nation ever to be downgraded into "emerging market" status. Not quite fourth world, but that too will come. However, what's worse for Greece is that as we reported yesterday, the majority of Greeks have no way of learning about this following the governmental "temporary" shutdown of its one national TV prodier, ERT. Kathimerini followed up with news that ERT would be renamed to NERIT, the New Hellenic Radio Internet and Television - a state company owned by the public sector and regulated by the state, and relaunched by the end of August, however what matters to the public is that the vast majority of employees would likely be let go permanently.

However, the biggest news out of Greece is that the events in the 24 hours have pushed the depressed country right back into crisis mode, with political bickering front and center (the opposition leader called the uncoordinated move "a coup" even as coalition partners blasted the broadcaster shutdown while Europe washed it hands), while the economic contraction is set to accelerate once more following what is certain to be another escalation in daily protests and riots. And who can blame them - with that last civilizational "premium" - free TV for all - gone, what else is there to do?

From Reuters:

Greece's fragile government faced an internal revolt and fierce public protest on Wednesday over the sudden closure of state broadcaster ERT, hours after the humiliation of seeing its bourse downgraded to emerging market status. The twin setbacks, coupled with the derailing of a troubled privatization program, blew a hole in rising investor confidence that had prompted Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to declare the risk of a "Grexit" from the euro was dead and a "Greekovery" was under way.

Yields on Greece's 10-year benchmark bond crept back above 10 percent after Athens failed to sell state gas firm DEPA on Monday, leaving it short of cash to meet its international bailout targets.

The stock market traded at two-month lows after Greece became the first developed nation ever to be lowered to emerging market by equity index provider MSCI.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's government declined comment on the market reclassification as it tried to fend off a growing media backlash against ERT's dramatic closure. The public broadcaster was yanked off air just hours after the shutdown was announced in what the government said was a temporary measure to staunch an "incredible waste" of taxpayers' money prior to relaunching a slimmed-down station.

Labor unions called a 24-hour national work stoppage for Thursday and journalists went on an open-ended strike, forcing a news blackout on privately owned television and newspapers. "The strike will only end when the government takes back this coup d'etat which gags information," the journalists' union said.

Some ERT journalists were occupying the broadcaster's building in defiance of police orders and broadcasting over the Internet. Hundreds of employees and protesters gathered outside.

Ah, the smell of Greek chaos in the morning - it smells like normalcy. In retrospect, it appears only the Greeks did not see this coming. When the country handed over its sovereignty to the European Commission, all of the subsequent events were perfectly clear for all to see.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that the state broadcaster was one of the more fervent supporters of the regime, gladly ignoring the flaws in the administration and focusing on what little positives there was. It will no longer have this chance:

Many Greeks have little love for ERT journalists and the state broadcaster is often cited as an example of inefficiency, overspending and jobs given in return for political favors.

But the speed and suddenness of the shutdown - ERT screens abruptly went black just before midnight - stunned Greeks long used to the slow pace of public sector restructuring.

"This government's ways are dictatorial: they decide and they order," said 45-year old Panagiotis, who declined to give his full name for fear of losing his own public sector job.

"It was a wrong move. Yes, the public sector needs to be downsized and we all knew that ERT was being used for political favors but they did not need to fire them all."

Coming back full circle, once more the biggest threat to Greece, to Europe and the Euro, is coming from Greece, where the events in the 24 hours may have destabilized the government enough to hand over power to the anti-bailout party, Syriza:

Many Greeks have little love for ERT journalists and the state broadcaster is often cited as an example of inefficiency, overspending and jobs given in return for political favors.

But the speed and suddenness of the shutdown - ERT screens abruptly went black just before midnight - stunned Greeks long used to the slow pace of public sector restructuring.

"This government's ways are dictatorial: they decide and they order," said 45-year old Panagiotis, who declined to give his full name for fear of losing his own public sector job.

"It was a wrong move. Yes, the public sector needs to be downsized and we all knew that ERT was being used for political favors but they did not need to fire them all."

The closure opened cracks in Samaras's fragile three-party coalition. Samaras's two junior partners, the Socialist PASOK and the Democratic Left said they would oppose the decision.

Both parties said they had not been consulted but stopped short of saying the row could bring the government down.

So-called experts are appalled by the possibility of early elections:

"It's anyone's guess what would happen in elections now and what impact it would have on the economy at a time when a so-called Greekovery is visible on the distant horizon." The decision was taken by ministerial decree, meaning that it can be implemented without immediate reference to parliament. But the communist opposition said it would put a legislative amendment to parliament on Wednesday to annul the decision. Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras was to meet State President Karolos Papoulias to protest against the decision. On Tuesday, he called the closure "a coup, not only against ERT workers but against the Greek people", and accused the government of the "historic responsibility of gagging state TV".

Wait, Greekovery? That's a new (if idiotic) one. Is that abbreviated to "reek"? And in what nation is your GDP crashing to Year 2000 levels indicative of even the faintest "recovery"?

Oh yes, Greece.

Zero Hedge

Is the mail censorship next?

Sen. Lindsey Graham would propose censoring Americans' "snail" mail if he thought it would help protect national security, the South Carolina Republican said Tuesday. But for now, he says he doesn't think it's necessary.

Faced with questions about the disclosure that the National Security Agency has been collecting phone and email records of citizens, Graham pointed to a World War II-era program in which the federal government censored mail. He said it was appropriate at the time and that he would support reinstating the program if it aided security efforts.

"In World War II, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we're all in. We censored the mail. When you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. When a letter was written back from the battlefield to home, they looked at what was in the letter to make sure they were not tipping off the enemy," Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. "If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don't think it is."

The Guardian newspaper revealed last week details of a government surveillance program enacted in response to terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that secretly collects digital communication data from U.S. citizens. The source who provided the information to The Guardian, a Hawaii-based former government contractor named Edward Snowden, fled to Hong Kong and his whereabouts are currently unknown.

The new details about the program have sparked a debate over civil liberties and the extent of lawful government surveillance. On Tuesday, Graham suggested that Americans should be more willing to give up certain civil liberties to prevent future terrorist attacks.

"The First Amendment right to speak is sacrosanct, but it has limits," Graham added. "In World War II, our population understood that what we say in letters could be used against [us by] our enemies. It was designed to protect us and ensure that we would have First Amendment rights because under the Japanese and Nazi regime, they weren't that big into the First Amendment. We don't need to censor the mail, but we do need to find out what the enemy's up to."

Yahoo news

Catholic Archbishop: Wake Up! Religious Liberty at Risk in US

(CNSNews.com) - Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is calling on Americans to wake up and recognize that the Founding Fathers' vision of religious freedom is now threatened by the federal government.

"The day when Americans could take the Founders' understanding of religious freedom as a given is over," said the archbishop. "We need to wake up."

Chaput, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, pointed to Obamacare's sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation as one example. The regulation, issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, requires almost all health-care plans in the United States to provide coverage for sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to all women of reproductive age--even if the person or employer providing the insurance coverage and even if the female beneficiaries themselves do not want the coverage and believe it is morally wrong and violates their religious beliefs.

"[T]he HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion," the archbishop wrote in a recent column posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The column is entitled, "Religious Freedom and the Need to Wake Up."

Last year, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously approved a statement describing the HHS regulation as an "unjust and illegal mandate." The unanimous bishops said the regulation not only violated the religious freedom of religious institutions but also the "personal civil rights" of individual Americans who will be forced to comply with it either as employers or employees.

Archbishop Chaput noted that the bishops believe "basic medical care is a matter of social justice and human dignity." That principal, however, does not empower the government to force Americans to violate their moral and religious convictions.

"But health care has now morphed into a religious liberty issue provoked entirely--and needlessly--by the current White House," the archbishop wrote. "Despite a few small concessions under pressure, the administration refuses to withdraw or reasonably modify a Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate that violates the moral and religious convictions of many individuals, private employers and religiously affiliated and inspired organizations."

The archbishop noted that the administration's disregard for religious liberty in the enforcement of this regulation is in line with its refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and its advocacy in the Hosanna-Tabor case.

The Defense of Marriage Act says that a state cannot be forced to recognize a same-sex marriage contracted in another state and that for federal purposes marriage is between one man and one women. The Supreme Court is now considering the constitutionality of DOMA, and the administration has asked the court that the law be thrown out, arguing that opposition to same-sex marriage (which is the position of the Catholic Church and many other religious denominations) is the constitutional equivalent of racial discrimination.

In the Hosanna-Tabor case, the administration argued unsuccessfully in the Supreme Court that the government could tell a Lutheran school it must restore as a "commissioned minister" a person who violated the teachings of the Lutheran faith.

"Coupled with the White House's refusal to uphold the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and its astonishing disregard for the unique nature of religious freedom displayed by its arguments in a 9-0 defeat in the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court decision, the HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion," wrote the archbishop.

"Access to inexpensive contraception is a problem nowhere in the United States," he said. "The mandate is thus an ideological statement; the imposition of a preferential option for infertility. And if millions of Americans disagree with it on principle--too bad."

The archbishop went on to observe that abortion advocates use fraudulent language in describing their position.

"The fraud at the heart of our nation's 'reproductive rights' vocabulary runs very deep and very high," he wrote. "In his April 26 remarks to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the president never once used the word 'abortion,' despite the ongoing Kermit Gosnell trial in Philadelphia and despite Planned Parenthood's massive role in the abortion industry."

The archbishop noted that the scandal "involving IRS targeting of 'conservative' organizations ... also has a religious dimension."

"But the latest IRS ugliness," he wrote, "is a hint of the treatment disfavored religious groups may face in the future, if we sleep through the national discussion of religious liberty now. The day when Americans could take the Founders' understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up."- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/catholic-archbishop-wake-religious-liberty-risk-usa#sthash.6hFqJuFU.dpuf

THEY 'WANTS TO KNOW EVERYTHING'

It may not stay that way, if Ira Hunt, the agency’s chief technology officer, is right.

At a recent conference held by GigaOm Structure Data, Hunt said the agency wants to know everything there is to know and keep all the information forever so that it can “connect the dots” whenever it chooses.

“We have learned … that information has time value,” he said. “The value of any piece of information is only known when you connect it to something else in a further point of time,” he said.

That means, Hunt said, the agency is driven “into the mode of fundamentally trying to collect everything and hang onto it forever.”

Hunt’s comments came before whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed NSA programs to scan and record all telephone calls and database details about Americans from a wide range of companies.

On its website, the agency explained that every day the amount of data available is a deluge.

“Cell phones, smart houses, satellite sensors and countless other sources are creating huge amounts of information – known collectively as ‘big data,’” Hunt said.

“It’s the CIA’s job to leverage the world of big data, find out what actually matters, connect the dots and figure out what our adversaries are intending to do,” he said.

For example, Hunt told the conference there are 4,500 “tweets” per second on Twitter. Globally, there are an estimated 193,000 text messages sent per second. Americans make 2.2 trillion minutes of cell calls a year.

He said the agency found it easier to work with the old model, when the the sources of information were fewer and dominated by the likes of NBC News and the Russian news service Tass.

“We really liked the few to the many model,” he said, because it was “really easy to take advantage.”

When everyone is sharing information, he said, it’s hard for analysts to pick out a significant message.

He said the privacy risks are abundant. Most smart phones are built with technology that allows someone else to know where they are at all times. Sometimes owners even can be identified, through their smart phone, by how they walk, he said.

Hunt forecast the problem of hackers breaking into someone’s health database or health maintenance program.

He said the CIA’s assignment is to obtain information and analyze it so that commanders and the military can be warned about enemy plans, such as the case of the “underwear bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

But technology is “moving faster, I would argue, than you can keep up,” he said. “You should be asking the question …. what are your rights and who owns your data.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/cia-says-it-wants-to-know-everything/#6mK8QWVvj1dQ8Ouc.99

Thousands of Germans evacuate as dam on Elbe river breaks

Thousands of people left their homes in eastern Germany on Sunday as a dam burst on the swollen River Elbe and swathes of farmland were flooded in an attempt to spare towns, with meteorologists forecasting more rain.

In Magdeburg, one of the oldest cities in eastern Germany and a regional capital, some 23,000 people were asked to evacuate as water levels in the Elbe rose to a record 7.48 meters, around 5 meters above normal and surpassing the level reached in devastating floods in 2002.

"We helped yesterday to carry sandbags to secure the town. The mood is very depressed and frightened because many people have to leave their homes," said resident Liane Nagen.

There have been at least a dozen deaths as a result of floods that have hit Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic over the past week.

Officials said more than 8,000 people were evacuated by bus from towns and villages around Aken, south of Magdeburg. Some took their pets or farm animals with them.

A dam at the confluence of the River Elbe and the River Saale south of Magdeburg burst despite attempts to stabilize it. A dike was also breached, and a crisis unit said the high waters were likely to put further pressure on dikes in coming days.

Holger Stahlknecht, Interior Minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Magdeburg is located, said air and land surveillance would be stepped up in response to a threat from a previously unheard-of group calling itself the Germanophobic Flood Brigade to attack the sodden dikes.

More than 36,000 people were evacuated across Saxony-Anhalt. In Brandenburg, a largely rural state that surrounds the capital Berlin, some residents were evacuated and flooding of uninhabited areas was planned.

In Hungary, the Danube was also set to reach record levels in the capital Budapest on Sunday night and Prime Minister Viktor Orban said dikes had been strengthened at critical points to protect the city from flooding.

The deluge reached Hungary on Friday but so far authorities, soldiers and thousands of volunteers have managed to defend the villages and towns along the Danube, piling more than three million sandbags beside its dikes.

Carmaker Suzuki, one of Hungary's main exporters, said it would will halt production at its plant in Esztergom, north of Budapest, on Monday because of the floods.

GERMAN ELECTION FACTOR

The damage from the floods in Germany could amount to more than 6 billion euros ($7.93 billion), according to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces an election in September, has promised 100 million euros ($130 million) in aid for flooded areas.

"We'll do everything humanly possible when it comes to reconstruction. Germany is sticking together in an admirable way at the moment and it should stay like that," she said.

She has been seen visiting flooded regions and speaking to victims and helpers, unlike her Social Democrat (SPD) challenger Peer Steinbrueck, who told German state television on Sunday he would not get involved in a "rubber boot competition".

"When the worst is over, I'd like to sit down with those affected and discuss in concrete terms what kind of help we can give," he said, adding that he wanted to create an ombudsman to coordinate aid for the victims of flooding.

The pair's response to the flooding could affect their respective chances in the election on September 22. During the floods of 2002, decisive crisis management by SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder gave him a boost in the polls which helped him win a second term.

Reuters

The 2nd Temple - Chuck Missler

27 Edward Snowden Quotes About U.S. Government Spying That Should Send A Chill Up Your Spine

A month ago if someone say it in the street it was a conspiracy theorist and the people use to make fun of us, but now they see it wasn't a joke or crazy idea!!!

Would you be willing to give up what Edward Snowden has given up?  He has given up his high paying job, his home, his girlfriend, his family, his future and his freedom just to expose the monolithic spy machinery that the U.S. government has been secretly building to the world.  He says that he does not want to live in a world where there isn't any privacy. 

He says that he does not want to live in a world where everything that he says and does is recorded.  Thanks to Snowden, we now know that the U.S. government has been spying on us to a degree that most people would have never even dared to imagine.  Up until now, the general public has known very little about the U.S. government spy grid that knows almost everything about us.  But making this information public is going to cost Edward Snowden everything.  Essentially, his previous life is now totally over.  

And if the U.S. government gets their hands on him, he will be very fortunate if he only has to spend the next several decades rotting in some horrible prison somewhere.  There is a reason why government whistleblowers are so rare.  And most Americans are so apathetic that they wouldn't even give up watching their favorite television show for a single evening to do something good for society.  Most Americans never even try to make a difference because they do not believe that it will benefit them personally.  

Meanwhile, our society continues to fall apart all around us.  Hopefully the great sacrifice that Edward Snowden has made will not be in vain.  Hopefully people will carefully consider what he has tried to share with the world.  The following are 27 quotes from Edward Snowden about U.S. government spying that should send a chill up your spine...

#1 "The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and Governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate."

#2 "...I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents."

#3 "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to."

#4 "...I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

#5 "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything."

#6 "With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your e-mails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails, passwords, phone records, credit cards."

#7 "Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere... I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President..."

#8 "To do that, the NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government, or someone that they suspect of terrorism, they are collecting YOUR communications to do so."

#9 "I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinized most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians."

#10 "...they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them."

#11 "Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded. ...it's getting to the point where you don't have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life."

#12 "Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest."

#13 "Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state."

#14 "I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

#15 "I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy, and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."

#16 "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong."

#17 "I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act."

#18 "There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich."

#19 "The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People] won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things... And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it's only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that... because of the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny."

#20 "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

#21 "You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk."

#22 "I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me."

#23 "We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."

#24 "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end."

#25 "There’s no saving me."

#26 "The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what keeps me up at night."

#27 "I do not expect to see home again."

Would you make the same choice that Edward Snowden made?  Most Americans would not.  One CNN reporter says that he really admires Snowden because he has tried to get insiders to come forward with details about government spying for years, but none of them were ever willing to...

As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government servers or the big data algorithms they've written to be used on our e-mails by intelligence agencies. I always begged them to write about it or to let me do so while protecting their identities. They refused to come forward and believed my efforts to shield them would be futile. "I don't want to lose my security clearance. Or my freedom," one told me.

And if the U.S. government has anything to say about it, Snowden is most definitely going to pay for what he has done.  In fact, according to the Daily Beast, a directorate known as "the Q Group" is already hunting Snowden down...

The people who began chasing Snowden work for the Associate Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence, according to former U.S. intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity. The directorate, sometimes known as “the Q Group,” is continuing to track Snowden now that he’s outed himself as The Guardian’s source, according to the intelligence officers.

If Snowden is not already under the protection of some foreign government (such as China), it will just be a matter of time before U.S. government agents get him.

And how will they treat him once they find him?  Well, one reporter overheard a group of U.S. intelligence officials talking about how Edward Snowden should be "disappeared".  The following is from a Daily Mail article that was posted on Monday...

A group of intelligence officials were overheard yesterday discussing how the National Security Agency worker who leaked sensitive documents to a reporter last week should be 'disappeared.'

Foreign policy analyst and editor at large of The Atlantic, Steve Clemons, tweeted about the 'disturbing' conversation after listening in to four men who were sitting near him as he waited for a flight at Washington's Dulles airport.

'In Dulles UAL lounge listening to 4 US intel officials saying loudly leaker & reporter on #NSA stuff should be disappeared recorded a bit,' he tweeted at 8:42 a.m. on Saturday.

According to Clemons, the men had been attending an event hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

As an American, I am deeply disturbed that the U.S. government is embarrassing itself in front of the rest of the world like this.

The fact that we are collecting trillions of pieces of information on people all over the planet is a massive embarrassment and the fact that our politicians are defending this practice now that it has been exposed is a massive embarrassment.

If the U.S. government continues to act like a Big Brother police state, then the rest of the world will eventually conclude that is exactly what we are.  At that point we become the "bad guy" and we lose all credibility with the rest of the planet.

Economic Collapse