France, Germany And Brazil Have Surveillance Agencies Too

President Francois Hollande summoned the U.S. ambassador Charles Rivkin to explain the United states’ actions. France’s Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls has already called the fact that the NSA, according to Le Monde newspaper, collected 70.3 million pieces of French telephone data in the span of a month “shocking.”

France is the latest U.S. ally to show its displeasure with the NSA’s tactics, joining others such as Germany and Brazil. What these official condemnations fail to mention, however, is the fact that each of these countries are currently engaging in their own rounds of espionage – both abroad and at home.

France was called out for collecting the same sort of data that the U.S. has been, but against its own citizens. France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), according to the report, works to gather nearly all data transmissions that come in and out of France.

Germany also made clear its rage at being the target of NSA spying. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reported in June to be preparing to confront President Obama over the issue. Embarrassingly enough for Merkel, German Federal Intelligence Service, aka Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) also benefited from the NSA’s data. “NSA’s also has held several multilateral technical meetings] with BND…to improve the [Federal office for the Protection of the Constitution]’s ability to exploit, filter, and process domestic data accesses and potentially develop larger collection access points that could benefit both Germany and the U.S.”
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is furious with the National Security Agency’s actions, after reports that her own emails were being read. As a result, the Brazilian government is considering proposals that would require foreign businesses to keep their servers in Brazil if they want to operate within the country.

The Hayes Brown is trying to reach the people of the United States that have a negative opinion about the NSA’s actions. His argument is very sound and he backs up what he is talking about with an evidence; but he makes the case simpler than it really is. Of course the foreign countries are going to take steps to be at the same level if another country is spying on them. The thing I don’t understand is why the NSA is spying of our long time ally’s. In my opinion the NSA should stop spying on our friends before war breaks out, and we have no ally’s to fight beside. click here to read more

Fixing Immigration From the Ground Up

The immigration marches and vigils that took place across the country on Saturday, uniting tens of thousands of people in more than 40 states, were a plaintive reminder that immigration reform — remember immigration reform? — is among the many pieces of business that remain unfinished while Congress is in lockdown.

Even though the bill passed the Senate, 68 to 32, in June, then entered the abyss of the Republican-controlled House. Last week, House Democrats offered their version of the Senate bill, but House leadership refusals to allow a vote on any measure that includes possible citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants and their preference for piecemeal measures, dealing largely with enforcement.

As this standoff continues, A Democratic governor in California, Jerry Brown,

 Signed the Trust Act, a law that will make it harder for federal agents to detain and deport unauthorized Californians who are non-criminals or minor offenders and pose no threat. “We’re not using our jails as a holding vat for the immigration service,” Mr. Brown said. That same day he signed a bill to allow qualified undocumented immigrants to become licensed as lawyers.

On Thursday, he signed a bill to allow driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, which advocates welcomed as a means to safer roads and greater economic opportunity. This followed earlier bills allowing legal permanent residents to work in polling places for elections and granting new labor rights to domestic workers, a largely immigrant work force whose members are often exploited and abused. A measure that awaits his signature would allow legal permanent residents to serve on juries. Together the bills put California far on the leading edge of expanding immigrant rights while finding humane, sensible solutions to a problem Washington refuses to solve.

This author was claiming that people in office have forgotten about Immigration reform, except one person (democratic governor in California, Jerry Brown). The governor have taken steps to insure the security of the Californian residents and those steps have gotten the illegal immigrants close to citizenship. The author has made it very clear that the House leadership does not want to take a chance of giving citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants.  The conclusion is valid. “President Obama is on the brink of setting an ugly record — the deportation during his time in office of two million people, of whom only a fraction are dangerous criminals. More than 100,000 people have been deported since the Senate passed its bill in June.” The Obama administration was supposed to deport less people. 

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