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thinkahol *

Pentagon to investigate hundreds of suspected child pornography fans in its ranks | The... - 0 views

  • Kenneth deGraffenreid, one of the nation's top former counterintelligence officials, told The Upshot last week that the Pentagon's failure to run down at the very least every name with a clearance was "absurd," and that foreign intelligence services are actively seeking people who have both access to America's secrets and terrible secrets of their own that make them vulnerable to blackmail.
thinkahol *

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death - 0 views

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    t's increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition - except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress "suspects." In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it "believed" that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn't know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence - which, as we soon learned, Washington didn't have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that "we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda." Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden's "confession," but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.
Asif Sheeraz

Watch Lahore: Suspect arrested with grenade - 0 views

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    LAHORE: Police have captured suspected terrorist involved in attack on police training centre in Manawan, Lahore. A hand grenade has been found from the arrested man.
Ian Schlom

Pakistan urges US to end drone strikes - 0 views

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    inarticle: Pakistan is holding talks with the United States to end drone strikes against suspected Taliban fighters, which sometimes also kill civilians, a senior Pakistani official has said. "Drone attacks are against sovereignty of Pakistan, against international law and against the UN charter," Jalil Abbas Jilani, the administrative head of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry told members of Parliament in Islamabad, the capital. "Innocent people have been killed in these attacks," Jilani said on Friday, adding; "We are having talks with the US to stop the drone attacks and we hope for a positive outcome of the dialogue and hope that drone attacks will stop." The attacks, which are operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), have strained Pakistan's relations with the US. Pakistan says the attacks violate its sovereignty.
Joe La Fleur

Legal Jizya: Taxpayers Billed $180 million for representing Muslim terrorist suspects -... - 0 views

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    AMERICAN TAXPAYERS PAYING FOR LEGAL DEFENCE OF FOREIGN TERRORISTS.
thinkahol *

Bradley Manning Support Network » Deception sustains unjust wars - honesty en... - 0 views

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    Troops are coming home from Iraq despite the best efforts of the Obama administration to keep them there. "We're relieved to know all the troops will be home at the end of the year. This would not have been possible without the courageous actions of Wikileaks and the alleged participation of Bradley Manning" says Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Jose Vasquez. Until their abrupt reversal a few weeks ago, the Obama administration had been working hard to maintain between 8000 and 20,000 troops in Iraq after the current Status of Forces agreement was set to expire at the end of this year. Fortunately, the Iraqi government refused to renew the judicial immunity, under which the U.S. Armed Forces had been operating. Establishment news outlets have largely ignored the reason for this sudden change of plans. A few weeks before the negotiations between Washington and Baghdad reached an impasse, WikiLeaks released a cable providing clear evidence that U.S. forces had been engaged in a cover up of the heinous execution of civilian non-combatants following a raid of a suspected insurgent stronghold. "A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi." (link)
Skeptical Debunker

Harry Shearer: Attention, Dick Cheney: Don't the Germans Know We're At War? - 0 views

  • In Cheneyworld, that would be an act of war. So why aren't the Cheneys attacking the German government for its "mindset" problem? Because they have no political interest in weakening that administration, and they do in attacking the American administration. Or they're more scared of Angela Merkel than they are of Barack Obama. Unlike the US, Germany has had a recent successful experience in rolling up a terrorist threat against the country, when the Baader-Meinhof Gang was dealt with as... a criminal conspiracy. If this were a country where other countries' successes at least suggested something to be emulated, that record might be persuasive. But despite our self-image as a nation obsessed with success, some of us, at least, seem more obsessed with making a political point than with pursuing a successful course in dealing with terrorism.
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    While the Cheneys, father and daughter, continue to hammer away at the accusation that the Obama administration has a "mindset" problem because it (sometimes) chooses to deal with terrorists through the criminal justice system, another bullet-hole has been leveled at their argument by, of all nations, Germany. This isn't France that chose to try terrorist suspects in a civilian criminal court. This is big bad Germany. And these were not just any terrorists. The judge in the case declared, they had dreamed of "mounting a second September 11 2001" by killing US civilians and soldiers by bombing targets like Ramstein Air Base. They were accused of operating as a German cell of the radical al-Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic Jihad Union.
Yee Sian Ng

Behold Cap'n Barack Obama the crafty trimmer | Andrew Sullivan - Times Online - 0 views

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    "If I were to describe the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, it would be as that of a trimmer. He represented change - but not the radical kind the left wanted or the revolutionary kind the right still suspects. In the wake of the rigid, white-knuckled George W Bush and Dick Cheney, he appeared as a lithe and nimble, cat-like creature. Time after time he seems to have given way to opponents and to have bent too easily in the prevailing winds.\n\n[...]\n\nAll the way he seemed weak, reactive, vacillating, vague. He has given his supporters as little emotional satisfaction as he has given some of his allies (Britain included). In fact, he has driven his friends a little crazy and allowed his enemies to greet his open hand with contempt. He has bent to the prevailing winds and not picked battles when he was unsure he could win them. But in the end there isn't weakness here. There is a suppleness and pragmatism that is a kind of strength."
Skeptical Debunker

Switzerland Keeping the Secrets of Alleged Tax Evaders - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • Pick a dictator, almost any dictator - Cuba's Fulgencio Batista, the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, Haiti's Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier, the Shah of Iran, Central African Republic Emperor Jean-BÉdel Bokassa - and they all have this in common: they allegedly stashed their loot in secret, numbered accounts in Swiss banks, safely guarded by the so-called Gnomes of Zurich. This association - of bank secrecy and crime - has been fed into the public's imagination by dozens of books and movies. It's a reputation that rankles the Swiss, who have a more benevolent view of their commitment to privacy - one that happens to extend to tax privacy. Don't ask, because we won't tell. But the dramatic federal investigation of Switzerland's UBS has blown the lid off bank secrecy - and revealed how Swiss banks abet tax evasion on a far more widespread, if more banal, level. Over the past two decades, these secret banking services have been peddled progressively downmarket - first to the lesser-known fabulously wealthy, then to just the wealthy; more recently, private bankers have been tripping over themselves soliciting business from doctors, lawyers and other folks who are what the biz generally calls "high net worth" individuals. "The IRS has been concerned for decades that a combination of a global economy, the Internet, offshore banking, was really going to take offshore tax evasion from the old so-called 'gentlemen's sport' to tax evasion for the masses," says Mark Matthews, a former deputy IRS commissioner and now a tax attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.
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    The federal investigation into UBS, which led to a $780 million fine and an agreement to turn over the names of more than 4,450 suspected tax cheats, is now in tatters after Swiss courts ruled against the executive-branch deal. To get around it, a special law has been proposed to accomplish the handoff, but that may not get anywhere in the legislature either. One outcome is already known: tax evasion had become a key service of the Swiss economy, not some isolated event. "They have been outed completely because a very large chunk of their business has been shown to include people cheating on taxes," says Jack Blum, a tax-haven expert. Being "reasonably conservative," he estimates 30% of Swiss banking is related to tax evasion, a figure that jibes with recently released bank data. These revelations come as the financial meltdown has punched a huge hole in projected revenues for governments, which are suddenly a whole lot less tolerant of tax cheats. That's particularly true in Germany, whose wealthy account for a significant portion (at least 10%) of the $1.8 trillion in Swiss banking assets. That translates into hundreds of millions in lost revenue and is the reason the German Finance Minister recently thundered, "There's no future for bank secrecy. It's finished. Its time has run out." The Swiss are not going to be so easily convinced. The Swiss government has already warned that it will not cooperate with German authorities if they go ahead with plans to purchase purloined data about Germans with Swiss bank accounts.
thinkahol *

Ralph Nader: 'The Left Has Nowhere to Go' | CommonDreams.org - 0 views

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    Ralph Nader in a CNN poll a few days before the 2008 presidential election had an estimated 3 percent of the electorate, or about 4 million people, behind his candidacy. But once the votes were counted, his support dwindled to a little over 700,000. Nader believes that many of his supporters entered the polling booth and could not bring themselves to challenge the Democrats and Barack Obama. I suspect Nader is right. And this retreat is another example of the lack of nerve we must overcome if we are going to battle back against the corporate state. A vote for Nader or Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2008 was an act of defiance. A vote for Obama and the Democrats was an act of submission. We cannot afford to be submissive anymore.
rich hilts

January CBO Report Belies Jobs And Economy Talk From Left - 0 views

shared by rich hilts on 29 Jan 11 - No Cached
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    Have you seen all the talking heads coming out and talking about all the jobs grown and how we're in a recovery? The CBO has come out with a report that has backed up what many of us have known or suspected - that this "stimulus" hasn't been, that it won't be, and that we need to go another way - see our suggestions and comment please!
thinkahol *

Activists Hold Wall Street Accountable for Economic Crisis - 0 views

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    Progressive groups threw a one-two punch at the nation's richest banks on Monday. A coalition of watchdogs and activists released a new report revealing how the wealthiest bailed-out banks have caused the current economic crisis by dodging taxes, and hundreds of demonstrators rallied in Washington, DC, to demand the attorneys general of all 50 states file criminal charges against banks that are suspected of committing foreclosure fraud during the nation's housing crisis.
thinkahol *

The Abuse of Private Manning - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks, has not even been tried let alone convicted. Yet the military has been treating him abusively, in a way that conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects. Inexplicably, it appears to have President Obama's support to do so.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Is Your Boss a Psychopath? | Fast Company - 0 views

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    You've long suspected, and now somebody thinks he knows. If he's right, what does that say about lassez faire?
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

JUSTICE: Ex-Chicago cop Burge arrested in torture cases | Chicago Cop Watch - 0 views

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    See previous bookmark on my profile. Jon Burges, who has been found to have "solved crimes" by having suspects tortured into confessing, tripped across the law against perjuring oneself on the stand. What a shame. :)
thinkahol *

Former Military Interrogator Matthew Alexander: Despite GOP Claims, "Immoral" Torture "... - 0 views

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    The death of Osama bin Laden has sparked a debate over whether torture of suspects held at places such as the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay helped track down and kill the al-Qaeda leader. Some claim the mission vindicated controversial Bush policies on harsh interrogation techniques. We speak with Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator in Iraq. "The laying of the groundwork, if you will, of these [Bush-era] techniques, I believe wholeheartedly, slowed us down on the road towards Osama bin Laden and numerous other members of al-Qaeda," Alexander says. "I'm convinced we would have found him a lot earlier had we not resorted to torture and abuse." [includes rush transcript]
thinkahol *

Massachusetts County Claims 75% Of Mortgages Assignments Are Invalid And Ineligible For... - 0 views

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    The Register of Deeds of South Essex County, Mass. is waging war on the banks over predatory lending and mortgage fraud (via Total Mortgage). John O'Brien's case hinges on the fact that the MERS system set up to expedite the bundling of mortgage backed securities skirted numerous local transaction fees. O'Brien figures his town lost as much as $22 million in revenue since 1998. To get some of it back he commissioned an audit of 2010 mortgage assignments. 16% of the assignments were valid, 75% were invalid, and 9% were deemed questionable. Of those that are invalid, 27% were fraudulent, 35% showed evidence of robo-signing, and 10% violated the Massachusetts Mortgage Fraud Statute. The proper owner of the mortgages could only be determined 60% of the time. In a release by his office O'Brien said: "This evidence has made it clear to me that the only way we can ever determine the total economic loss and the amount damage done to the taxpayers is by conducting a full forensic audit of all registry of deeds in Massachusetts. I suspect that at the end of the day we are going to find that the taxpayers have been bilked in this state alone of over 400 million dollars not including the accrued interest plus costs and penalties. The Audit makes the finding that this was not only a MERS problem, but a scheme also perpetuated by MERS shareholder banks such Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan and others. I am stunned and appalled by the fact that America's biggest banks have played fast and loose with people's biggest asset - their homes.  This is disgusting, and this is criminal."
Levy Rivers

Mark Kleiman: Changing the topic - Politics on The Huffington Post - 0 views

  • Coincidentally, on the very same day the Financial Times reported that UBS had advised 50 current and former employees of its private banking group not to travel to the United States. The bank is worried that they might be arrested in connection with a massive tax-evasion scheme under which UBS helped rich Americans cheat the IRS, thus making sure that the rest of us suckers had to pay for, e.g., the War in Iraq. Some of the clients of the scheme are already testifying before a grand jury, and a senior UBS official has already been indicted. UBS is offering to provide lawyers for all of the suspects. Now, how is it that Gramm got to be Vice-Chairman of UBS? Why, by being the chief author of the banking-deregulation legislation (the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act) that made so many bankers rich and helped create the crisis McCain doesn't want to do anything about. In keeping with McCain's decision to purge "lobbyists" from his campaign, Gramm had himself de-registered as a lobbyist. But he's still Vice Chairman of UBS, and still McCain's chief economic adviser. All the de-listing means is that he can't now personally call Congressmen or Senators; no doubt his staff can handle such details for the next few months.
Skeptical Debunker

Leaked intelligence documents: Here's what Facebook and Comcast will tell the police ab... - 0 views

  • The "Facebook Subpoena/Search Warrant Guidelines" from the Cryptome site are dated 2008, so there's a chance they've been superseded. The document spells out how law enforcement and intelligence agenices should go about requesting information about Facebook users, and details what information is turned over. Following is what Facebook will turn over about you, taken verbatim from the guide: Types of Information Available User Neoprint The Neoprint is an expanded view of a given user profile. A request should specify that they are requesting a “Neoprint of used Id XXXXXX”. User Photoprint The Photoprint is a compilation of all photos uploaded by the user that have not been deleted, along with all photos uploaded by any user which have the requested user tagged in them. A request should specify that they are requesting a “Photoprint of user Id XXXXXX”. User Contact Info All user contact information input by the user and not subsequently deleted by the user is available, regardless of whether it is visible in their profile. This information may include the following: Name Birth date Contact e-mail address(s) Physical address City State Zip Phone Cell Work phone Screen name (usually for AOL Messenger/iChat) Website With the exception of contact e-mail and activated mobile numbers, Facebook validates none of this information. A request should specify that they are requesting "Contact information of user specified by [some other piece of contact information]". No historical data is retained. Group Contact Info Where a group is known, we will provide a list of users currently registered in a group. We will also provide a PDF of the current status of the group profile page. A request should specify that they are requesting "Contact information for group XXXXXX". No historical data is retained. IP Logs IP logs can be produced for a given user ID or IP address. A request should specify that they are requesting the "IP log of user Id XXXXXX" or "IP log of IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx". The log contains the following information: * Script – script executed. For instance, a profile view of the URL http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=29445421 would populate script with "profile.php" * Scriptget – additional information passed to the script. In the above example, scriptget would contain "id=29445421" * Userid – The Facebook user id of the account active for the request * View time – date of execution in Pacific Time * IP – source IP address IP log data is generally retained for 90 days from present date. However, this data source is under active and major redevelopment and data may be retained for a longer or shorter period. Special Requests The Facebook Security Team may be able to retrieve specific information not addressed in the general categories above. Please contact Facebook if you have a specific investigative need prior to issuing a subpoena or warrant.
  • Comcast The Comcast document is labeled "Comcast Cable Law Enforcement Handbook," and is dated 2007, so there's a possibility that it, too, has been superseded. As with the other documents, it explains how law enforcement agenices can get information, and details what information is available. There's a great deal of detail in the 35-page document, which describes what Internet, phone, and television information will be turned over. For example, here's the IP information it will make available: Comcast currently maintains Internet Protocol address log files for a period of 180 days. If Comcast is asked to respond for information relating to an incident that occurred beyond this period, we will not have responsive information and can not fulfill a legal request. (Comcast can process and respond to preservation requests as outlined below in this Handbook.) As expected, Comcast will also turn over the emails, including attachments, of those who use Comcast's email service, but "In cases involving another entity’s email service or account, Comcast would not have any access to or ability to access customer email in response to a legal request." Information Comcast turns over to law enforcement agencies varies according to the request. For example, a grand jury subpoena will yield more information than a judicial summons, as you can see in the excerpt below. Comcast notes, though, that this is just a sample, and that "Each request is evaluated and reviewed on a case by case basis in light of any special procedural or legal requirements and applicable laws." So the examples "are for illustration only."
  • For those who worry about privacy, though, all of this information is small potatoes. The real worry is about the use of what are called pen registers or trap-and-trace devices, which essentially capture all of your Internet activity --- the Web sites you visits, the emails you send and receive, IM traffic, downloads, and so on. Here's what the document says about them: Pen Register / Trap and Trace Device Title 18 U.S.C. § 3123 provides a mechanism for authorizing and approving the installation and use of a pen register or a trap and trace device pursuant to court order. All orders must be coordinated prior to submission to Comcast. Law enforcement will be asked to agree to reimburse Comcast's reasonable costs incurred to purchase and/or install and monitor necessary equipment. See "Reimbursement," below.
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  • As for your voice calls made via Comcast, here's what the company will turn over: Call Detail Records - Comcast maintains two years of historical call detail records (records of local and long distance connections) for our Comcast Digital Voice telephone service. This includes local, local toll, and long distance records. Comcast also currently provides traditional circuit-switched telephone service branded Comcast Digital Phone. Call detail records for this service are collected by AT&T and are available for approximately two years as well. To determine which type of service is involved, contact the Legal Demands Center—Voice and Video at 800-871-6298. Account Records - Account records are generally stored for approximately two years after the termination of an account. If the account has an outstanding balance due, records may be retained for a longer period of time. As with Internet information, what phone information will be turned over depends on the specific kind of legal request, and the examples "are for information only." Here's an excerpt:
  • And, as you would expect, there is the same pen register/trap-and-trace device language as in the section about the Internet. Oddly enough, it appears that when it comes to information about your television viewing habits, you have more privacy rights than you do when it comes to information about your Internet and voice use, because it can only be turned over in response to a court order, not a subpoena. Here's what the document has to say about TV information: Subscriber Account Identification and Related Records For subscribers to our cable television service, the Cable Act requires Comcast as a cable operator to disclose personally identifiable information to a governmental entity solely in response to a court order (and not, for example, a subpoena) or with the subscriber's express written consent. The Cable Act requires that the cable subscriber be afforded the opportunity to appear and contest in a court proceeding relevant to the court order any claims made in support of the court order. At the proceeding, the Cable Act requires the governmental entity to offer clear and convincing evidence that the subject of the information is reasonably suspected of engaging in criminal activity and that the information sought would be material evidence in the case. See 47 U.S.C. § 551(h). Why does the law give you more privacy protection over your television viewing habits than your Internet or phone use? I haven't a clue --- ask your congressman.
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    Wonder what information Facebook and Comcast will turn over to police and intelligence agencies about you? Cryptome, the site that last week posted the leaked Microsoft "spy" manual, has posted company documents that purport to describe what those companies will reveal about you. As with the Microsoft document, the information is eye-opening.
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