A recent interview on RTTV about the ongoing civil war in Libya following the NATO invasion last year:
More on Libya, with RTTV
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The Real News Network on Whistleblowing, Part 2
Part Two of my recent interview on the excellent, independent and fearless Real News Network:
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The Petraeus Affair
My recent interview on RT about the Petraeus Affair and the possible real reasons for his exposure and resignation:
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LEAP Interview on The Real News Network, October 2012
I participated in the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) board meeting last October in Baltimore. While there, I arranged for board members to do a series of interviews about the failed global “war on drugs” with the excellent and independent Real News Network.
The tide of history is with us — more and more countries are speaking out about the failure of prohibition. LEAP supports and contributes to this discussion.
LEAP has representatives across the world with a wide range of professional expertise: police officers, drug czars, judges, prison governors, lawyers, drug enforcement officers, and even the occasional former spook.…
Our varied experiences and backgrounds have brought us to one conclusion: we all assess the “war on drugs” to have been an abject failure that causes more global societal harm than good, as well as funding organised crime, terrorism and white collar bank crime.
We urgently need to rethink the failed UN drug conventions.
Here is the RNN interview I participated in, along with Brazilian Judge Maria Lucia Karam:
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The Keiser Report — my recent interview
My recent interview on Max Keiser’s excellent RT show, The Keiser Report, apparently now the most watched English language news commentary show across the world.
We were discussing such happy subjects as the war on terror, the war on drugs, but predominantly the war on the internet:
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The Real News Network Whistleblower Special
The Real News Network coverage of the recent Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence, with contributions from many of the whistleblowers involved:
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The FISA/Echelon Panopticon
A recent interview with James Corbett of the Corbett Report on Global Research TV discussing issues such as FISA, Echelon, and our cultural “grooming” by the burgeoning surveillance state:
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Silfur Egils Interview, Iceland
My recent interview on Iceland’s premier news discussion show, Silfur Egils, hosted by the excellent Egill Helgason.
The name refers to an old Norse saga about a hero, an earlier Egill, throwing handfuls of silver to the ground so he could make the Viking politicos of the day scrabble around in the dirt trying to pick up the coins.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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RT interview about censorship of internet porn
Coincidentally, while in Iceland I was invited on to RT to do an interview about the country’s proposal to censor the internet in order to stop access to violent porn. I stress that this discussion is still, apparently, at a consultative stage — decisions have yet to be taken.
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Taken to court.…
A fun interview with Heimir Már Pétursson on TV2, filmed during my recent tour of Iceland:
Iceland TV 2 from Annie Machon on Vimeo.
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RT Interview about the Bradley Manning Hearing
Today’s RT interview about the Bradley Manning hearing:
And here’s the transcript of the full interview I did.
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RT interview — North Korea useful idiot for US to increase Pacific region presence
RT TV interview earlier this afternoon on US deployment of Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence systems in Alaska.
RT interview — North Korea useful idiot for US to increase Pacific region presence
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Anonymous Interventions
Another RT interview today, discussing the take-down of many Israeli websites by hacktivist group, Anonymous:
Israel Hacked — Anonymous assault act of protest, not terror from Annie Machon on Vimeo.
The motivation behind the protest, as posted by Anonymous, stated to the Israeli government: “You have NOT stopped your endless human right violations. You have NOT stopped illegal settlements. You have NOT respected the ceasefire. You have shown that you do NOT respect international law.”
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Interview on the Abby Martin show, RT America
My recent interview on “Breaking the Set”, Abby Martin’s show on RT America, discussing all things whistleblowing:
Secret Agent Turns Whistleblower from Annie Machon on Vimeo.
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RT interview about whistleblower Edward Snowden
The whistleblower behind last week’s PRISM leaks dramatically went public last night. Edward Snowden gave an interview to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian explaining calmly and cogently why he chose to expose the NSA’s endemic data-mining. An immensely brave man.
Here is an interview I did about the case last night for RT:
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Newsletter Excerpt re Edward Snowden
For readers who have not yet signed up to my monthly newsletter, here is the excerpt about Edward Snowden from my June edition, with a little update at the end:
The Edward Snowden saga is riveting for me on so many levels.You’ll no doubt be aware of the case, unless you have been living in a cupboard for the last few weeks. Snowden is the brave young NSA contractor who has blown the whistle on a range of global surveillance programmes that the Americans and the Brits have developed over the last few years to fight the war on terrorism spy on all of us.
The sheer scale of his disclosures so far is incredible and has huge implications for what remains of our democratic way of life. Just today more information emerged to show that the NSA has been spying on key EU institutions — which might go some way to explaining why so much recent EU legislation appears to favour the interests of US corporatism over those of European citizens.…
Pundits have been calling him the most significant whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam war 40 years ago. But I would go further. In my view Edward Snowden is the most significant whistleblower in modern history because, while Ellsberg disclosed vital information, it was largely a matter that affected the Americans and the hapless Vietnamese. What Snowden has exposed, just to date, impacts all of us around the world.
Snowden has confirmed the darkest fears of legal experts, geeks and concerned global citizens about the sheer scale of the surveillance society we all now live under. Not only are our intelligence agencies running amok, they do so using the infrastructure of the global internet megacorps. What he has laid bare is the fact that we are all already living under full-blown fascism.
He played it so well with that early film stating very clearly his motivation to go public — to defend a way of life that he saw was under threat. He appears to have learned from the mistakes of previous whistleblowers. He chose a journalist who understands the issues and has the fire in the belly and the international profile to fight his corner. Glenn Greenwald is a fearless campaigning lawyer-turned-journalist who for years has been defending the work of Wikileaks, with the irony being that he is now the new Assange, being attacked, threatened and smeared for reporting the disclosures.
Of course, I and many other former whistleblowers have been swamped by the usual frenzied media tsunami, called up for interview after interview. For me this began just as I was about to turn in for the night at 11.30pm on 9th June, when RT rang me up asking for an urgent live interview just as the identity of Snowden was emerging across the world’s media. After a frantic 15 minutes sorting out the makeup and the tech (in that order, naturally), I was wide awake again and speaking on live TV. From that came a slew of other requests over the next few days, including many programmes on the BBC, Sky News, and multiple radio and newspaper interviews. I could barely find time to leave my phone and computer to get to the bathroom.… Then the wave receded for a few days before Snowden fled to Russia, when the whole cycle began again.
Reading about Snowden going on the run also brought back a number of personal memories for me. In 1997 I fled the UK with David Shayler only 12 hours ahead of his initial disclosures about MI5 criminality breaking in the UK media. We were pursued across Europe, and had a month literally on the run, followed by a year living in hiding in la France Profonde before David was arrested, pending extradition, at the request of the British government. He spent almost 4 months in a Paris prison before the French released him — their view being that he was a whistleblower, which was deemed to be a political offence for which France specifically does not extradite. We lived more openly in Paris for another two years, although David was trapped in France — had he travelled to another country the whole ghastly extradition process would have started again.
Well, there are worse places than France to be trapped in exile, but even so it was difficult for him. How much more so for Edward Snowden, whose options are more seriously constrained and who faces life in prison in the US if he is caught? Knowing the penalties he faces and being aware of the tracking capabilities and the ruthless disregard for the law and human rights of the modern US intelligence infrastructure, his bravery in exposing the global US surveillance state is truly breath-taking.
To finish, here is one of my recent Sky News interviews about the Edward Snowden case:
Sky TV interview on Snowden case from Annie Machon on Vimeo.
Addendum: today’s news told us that Bolivian President, Evo Morales’s official, diplomatically protected, plane have been barred from flying home from Moscow over much of Euro airspace, where he had been participating in high-level talks. The reason being that Edward Snowden might have been be on board. Morales was grounded in Austria and had to submit to a police search of the plane, against all diplomatic protocol. No Snowden was found, naturally.
I see this as a very clever move by persons unknown — testing exactly what the international response would be if Edward Snowden tries to fly out of Russia. And the Europeans, under undoubted pressure from the US, have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
The US-Euro complicit patsies have been flushed out by this diplomatic scandal. Demonstrations are apparently already occurring against the French embassy in Bolivia. And this on the same day that the French President, Francois Hollande, used the Snowden disclosures to delay the rightly-maligned US-EU trade agreement.
So, even as the French use the Snowden disclosures for political advantage, they apparently refuse to assist the source. Which is unfortunate — my memory of French law is that whistleblowing is deemed a political act and the French specifically do not extradite for alleged political offences.
Perhaps the French constitution and law have changed since Sarkozy took France into NATO.…
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My RNN interview — Snowden disclosures cause outrage across EU
Here is a recent interview I did for the Real News Network about the global and European fall-out from the Edward Snowden disclosures:
And here’s a version with the text.
My RNN interview — Snowden disclosures cause outrage across EU
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German complicity in NSA PRISM surveillance programme
My latest interview on RT about the German intelligence agencies’ complicity in the PRISM surveillance programme:
Revealed: Germany partner of NSA, Merkel denies knowledge from Annie Machon on Vimeo.
Edward Snowden’s disclosures first revealed that the NSA had been spying on EU institutions; cue German anger.
Then it was revealed that Germany is seen as a Class 3 partner in surveillance by the USA. This means that they are not deemed by the NSA to be intelligence partners but rather targets — in the same way as China, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. This means that on average half a billion German communications are hoovered up by the NSA every month. And this despite a strong constitution devised to prevent such excesses, as the memories of the Gestapo and the Stasi still resonate; cue German anger.
And now it appears that, despite their (unknown?) Class 3 status, the German intelligence services, the foreign BND and the domestic BfV, have themselves been main-lining off the NSA’s illegal PRISM programme; cue German.… political embarrassment.
With friends like the USA, who needs enemies?
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Dutch festival OHM — Observe, Hack, Make
Today I am limbering up to attend the Dutch geek festival, Observe Hack Make (OHM 2013). A lot of talks from whistleblowers, scientists, geeks, futurists and bleeding edge tech people. The visionaries? You decide — all talks will be live … Continue reading
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UK spy agency GCHQ prostitutes itself to NSA
From the middle of a Dutch field at the OHM 2013 festival, I managed to do this interview for RT about GCHQ taking large sums of money from its US equivalent, the NSA:
UK spy agency GCHQ prostitues itself to NSA in corrupt relationship (HD) from Annie Machon on Vimeo.
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