James Clapper Embarks on Propaganda College Speaking Tour After Droves of Students Name Snowden “Personal Hero”

Kevin Gosztola over at Firedoglake does some excellent work, and his latest story about the recent activities of perjuring Director of National Intelligence for the U.S., James Clapper, is no exception. To provide a little context, the Washington Post recently reported that:

Freitag skimmed the extracurriculars, read the first essay, rated it good. GW also asks students to list a role model and two words to describe themselves. As for herself, Freitag said, she would list “Martha Stewart/Tina Fey” and “sassy/classy.”This year, she’s seeing a lot of Edward Snowden citations.

Freitag is an admissions officer at George Washington University, and apparently this trend of college students accurately identifying Edward Snowden as a hero haS given James Clapper a panic attack. So much so, that he is taking time away from protecting us from “terrorists” (a term that now apparently includes folks at the Bundy Ranch according to Harry Reid) to embark upon a propaganda speaking tour of U.S. college campuses to demonstrate to those silly young kids that Snowden is no hero, but actually a traitorous villain.

This whole thing is eerily similar to Banana Ben Bernanke’s college propaganda tour back in 2012, which demonstrates that the status quo simply has one playbook that it sticks to aggressively. The only question I have is how long before Clapper realizes he can earn $250,000 a speech once he leaves his current role, as Benny Bernanke is currently raking in.

From Firedoglake:

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is touring universities and colleges in the United States in an attempt to persuade students that they should not consider former NSA contractor Edward Snowden a whistleblower or a hero.

Speaking at the GEOINT conference in Tampa, Florida, on April 15, Clapper addressed attendees and told university students at Georgetown University and the University of Georgia about a recent article in The Washington Post on college admissions.

“An admissions officer from George Washington University told The Post that for the admissions’ essay question, ‘Who’s your personal hero?’ the admissions officer observed that she was seeing a lot more of Edward Snowden citations. And the idea that young people see Edward Snowden as a hero really bothers me. So I thought I needed to talk about Snowden at Georgetown and Georgia and I am going to do the same elsewhere at colleges and universities.”

Seems like a great way to spend your time and taxpayer dollars.

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Apple Directors Overrule and Reject Shareholder Proposal to Protect User Privacy

Things at Apple seem to be going from bad to worse. From the company’s recent “War on Bitcoin,” to the major security flaw impacting virtually all its hardware from iPhones to Macs, Apple hasn’t done a single decent thing since Steve Jobs died.

Worst of all seems to be the company’s cozy relationship with the NSA and a complete disregard for user privacy and security. In order to push back against such behavior, a group of Apple shareholders, led by Restore the Fourth SF national liaison David Levitt, put forth a SpyLockout resolution. Key to this resolution is the following commitment:

The Spy Lockout plan is simple common sense for any company truly committed to data security.  Adopt best practices for security and encryption, as recommended by experts like the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Keep third party equipment off our networks.  Investigate and stop invasions of user privacy.  And when cooperating with police, require a warrant of limited duration, for a specific person or thing, instead of bulk collection.

So what could be wrong with that? Well, apparently Apple directors found it so unacceptable that they decided to use their power to overrule the resolution.

Firedoglake did some excellent reporting on this story. They note that:

Cupertino — At Friday’s Apple shareholder meeting, Apple’s directors overruled an urgent, popular shareholder resolution entitled Spy Lockout, aimed at improving security and keeping NSA surveillance and other intruders out of Apple’s products and systems. The same morning, Apple co-Founder Steve Wozniak endorsed the SkyLockout initiative.

Apple had quietly advised shareholders in its January 10, 2014 Proxy Statement that directors Bruce Sewell and Peter Oppenheimer would exercise their discretionary voting authority — their ability to cast votes for on behalf of shareholders who toss their voting forms in the trash — to defeat the proposal, without citing any reason.

The proxy statement does not refer to the proposal as “Spy Lockout” but as a “Floor Proposal” that “if approved, would, among other things, ask the Board ‘to enact a policy to use technical methods and other best practices to protect user data.’”

Apple gave no indication why it would vote against a resolution to follow best practices recommended by industry technical experts and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to protect users.

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