Skip to main content

Home/ Socialism and the End of the American Dream/ Group items tagged Photographers

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Paul Merrell

CIA photos of 'black sites' could complicate Guantanamo trials - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html

war & peace CIA black-sites

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Military prosecutors this year learned about a massive cache of CIA photographs of its former overseas “black sites” while reviewing material collected for the Senate investigation of the agency’s interrogation program, U.S. officials said. The existence of the approximately 14,000 photographs will probably cause yet another delay in the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as attorneys for the defendants demand that all the images be turned over and the government wades through the material to decide what it thinks is relevant to the proceedings.
  • The death penalty cases against the five men first began in 2008 under the Bush administration and was abandoned by the Obama administration for a planned trial in federal court in New York. That effort collapsed, and the prosecution was returned to the military in 2011.
  • The electronic images depict external and internal shots of facilities where the CIA held ­al-Qaeda suspects after 9/11, but they do not show detainee interrogations, including the torture of some suspects who were subjected to waterboarding and other brutal techniques. They do include images of naked detainees during transport, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the material remains classified. The pictures also show CIA personnel and members of foreign intelligence services, as well as psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, among the architects of the interrogation program.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • It’s unclear whether the military prosecutors have been able to review all the photographs and why they hadn’t unearthed them years earlier. Former U.S. officials said Martins’s team was supposed to have the same access as Senate investigators and federal prosecutors to shared electronic drives containing agency documents at a secret location in Virginia. “It raises the question whether the agency is being cooperative with the prosecutors,” said James Harrington, the civilian attorney for 9/11 defendant Ramzi Binalshibh. “It’s beyond preposterous.”
  • mong the images are those of cells and bathrooms at the detention sites, including a facility in Afghanistan known as “Salt Pit,” where the waterboard was photographed.
  • The bulk of the photographs depict black sites in Thailand, Afghanistan and Poland. There are fewer shots of prisons in Romania and Lithuania, which were among the last to be used before they were closed in 2006. A former intelligence official who reviewed some of the photographs of the prison in Thailand described them as nondescript.
  • “Why is it we are still learning about this stuff?” said Joe Margulies, Zubaydah’s attorney. “Who knows what is still out there? What else is there? That’s what is appalling.” James Connell, defense attorney for Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the 9/11 defendants, filed a motion in January 2013 to compel production of “documents and information” relating to where the “accused or a potential witness have been confined.” Connell said the military judge overseeing the case hasn’t ruled on that motion. “If pictures from black sites exist, they are crime scene photographs,” Connell said. “The military commission rules require the prosecution to turn them over to the defense, but federal and international prosecutors should also get a copy — not to mention the public.”
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Jun 15
     
    So finally the locations of at least some of the CIA "black sites" are out in the open. 
Paul Merrell

US ordered to explain withholding of Iraq and Afghanistan torture photos | US news | Th... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...e-photographs-iraq-afghanistan

war & peace torture photos FOIA litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The Obama administration has until early December to detail its reasons for withholding as many as 2,100 graphic photographs depicting US military torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, a federal judge ordered on Tuesday. By 12 December, Justice Department attorneys will have to list, photograph by photograph, the government’s rationale for keeping redacted versions of the photos unseen by the public, Judge Alvin Hellerstein instructed lawyers. But any actual release of the photographs will come after Hellerstein reviews the government’s reasoning and issues another ruling in the protracted transparency case. While Hellerstein left unclear how much of the Justice Department’s declaration will itself be public, the government’s submission is likely to be its most detailed argument for secrecy over the imagery in a case that has lasted a decade.
Gary Edwards

Boston And More Government Lies : Personal Liberty Digest™ - 0 views

personalliberty.com/...oston-and-more-government-lies

Boston Government-Lies False-Flag

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 May 13
     
    "However, now we - at least those of us who pay attention - know, thanks to Glenn Beck, the Saudi person of interest is not just some innocent bystander after all. Just hours after the April 15 bombing, Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi was put on a terror watch list and had an event file created that indicated he was armed and dangerous; and actions began that would lead to his deportation. Alharbi, who is related to a number of terrorists now residing in Gitmo and/or listed as part of al-Qaida, was admitted to the United States under a "special advisory opinion," indicating someone pulled some strings for him. His strings go a long way - all the way to the White House, where Alharbi was a frequent visitor (seven times since 2009). His file contained one prior event, indicating he was already in the terrorism watch list system. Yet even though he's marked as a terrorist, he was allowed in. Perhaps that explains Michelle Obama's hospital visit. Alharbi and the Obamas are friends. After news of his possible deportation leaked, government officials backtracked. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer questions from a Congressman about Alharbi. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told Beck a different Saudi was in custody but not connected to the bombing. Someone altered Alharbi's file on April 17 in a way that disassociated him from the bombing, according to Beck, but an original had been printed out and saved. The change happened around the time that first Secretary of State John Kerry and then President Barack Obama met with the Saudi foreign minister - a meeting that wasn't on Obama's schedule. There are photographs on the Internet that purport to show Alharbi with two other Saudis near the bomb site. If the government will lie about who Alharbi is and whether his is a suspect, what else about the official narrative is a lie? Despite initial claims by the FBI that included a request to help identify the two men
Paul Merrell

NSA surveillance may be legal - but it's unconstitutional - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...2-a73e-826d299ff459_print.html

surveillance state NSA constitutional law law

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Laura K. Donohue is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and director of Georgetown’s Center on National Security and the Law. The National Security Agency’s recently revealed surveillance programs undermine the purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was established to prevent this kind of overreach. They violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. And they underscore the dangers of growing executive power.
  • Another program, PRISM, disclosed by the Guardian and The Washington Post, allows the NSA and the FBI to obtain online data including e-mails, photographs, documents and connection logs. The information that can be assembledabout any one person — much less organizations, social networks and entire communities — is staggering: What we do, think and believe.The government defends the programs’ legality, saying they comply with FISA and its amendments. It may be right, but only because FISA has ceased to provide a meaningful constraint.Under the traditional FISA, if the government wants to conduct electronic surveillance, it must make a classified application to a special court, identitying or describing the target. It must demonstrate probable cause that the target is a foreign power or an agent thereof, and that the facilities to be monitored will be used by the target.In 2008, Congress added section 702 to the statute, allowing the government to use electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons it reasonably believes are abroad, without a court order for each target. A U.S. citizen may not intentionally be targeted.To the extent that the FISC sanctioned PRISM, it may be consistent with the law. But it is disingenuous to suggest that millions of Americans’ e-mails, photographs and documents are “incidental” to an investigation targeting foreigners overseas.
  • Another program, PRISM, disclosed by the Guardian and The Washington Post, allows the NSA and the FBI to obtain online data including e-mails, photographs, documents and connection logs. The information that can be assembledabout any one person — much less organizations, social networks and entire communities — is staggering: What we do, think and believe.The government defends the programs’ legality, saying they comply with FISA and its amendments. It may be right, but only because FISA has ceased to provide a meaningful constraint.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Under the traditional FISA, if the government wants to conduct electronic surveillance, it must make a classified application to a special court, identitying or describing the target. It must demonstrate probable cause that the target is a foreign power or an agent thereof, and that the facilities to be monitored will be used by the target.In 2008, Congress added section 702 to the statute, allowing the government to use electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons it reasonably believes are abroad, without a court order for each target. A U.S. citizen may not intentionally be targeted.To the extent that the FISC sanctioned PRISM, it may be consistent with the law. But it is disingenuous to suggest that millions of Americans’ e-mails, photographs and documents are “incidental” to an investigation targeting foreigners overseas.The telephony metadata program raises similar concerns. FISA did not originally envision the government accessing records. Following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Congress allowed applications for obtaining records from certain kinds of businesses. In 2001, lawmakers further expanded FISA to give the government access to any business or personal records. Under section 215 of the Patriot Act, the government no longer has to prove that the target is a foreign power. It need only state that the records are sought as part of an investigation to protect against terrorism or clandestine intelligence.
  • The telephony metadata program raises similar concerns. FISA did not originally envision the government accessing records. Following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Congress allowed applications for obtaining records from certain kinds of businesses. In 2001, lawmakers further expanded FISA to give the government access to any business or personal records. Under section 215 of the Patriot Act, the government no longer has to prove that the target is a foreign power. It need only state that the records are sought as part of an investigation to protect against terrorism or clandestine intelligence.This means that FISA can now be used to gather records concerning individuals who are neither the target of any investigation nor an agent of a foreign power. Entire databases — such as telephony metadata — can be obtained, as long as an authorized investigation exists.Congress didn’t pass Section 215 to allow for the wholesale collection of information. As Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who helped draft the statute, wrote in the Guardian: “Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations. How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?”As a constitutional matter, the Supreme Court has long held that, where an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, search and seizure may occur only once the government has obtained a warrant, supported by probable cause and issued by a judge. The warrant must specify the places to be searched and items to be seized.
  • There are exceptions to the warrant requirement. In 1979 the court held that the use of a pen register to record numbers dialed from someone’s home was not a search. The court suggested that people who disclose their communications to others assume the risk that law enforcement may obtain the information.More than three decades later, digitization and the explosion of social-network technology have changed the calculus. In the ordinary course of life, third parties obtain massive amounts of information about us that, when analyzed, have much deeper implications for our privacy than before.As for Section 702 of FISA, the Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect foreigners from searches conducted abroad. But it has never recognized a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement when foreign-targeted searches result in the collection of vast stores of citizens’ communications.Americans reasonably expect that their movements, communications and decisions will not be recorded and analyzed by the government. A majority of the Supreme Court seems to agree. Last year, the court considered a case involving 28-day GPS surveillance. Justice Samuel Alito suggested that in most criminal investigations, long-term monitoring “impinges on expectations of privacy.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor recognized that following a person’s movements “reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.”The FISC is supposed to operate as a check. But it is a secret court, notorious for its low rate of denial. From 1979 to 2002, it did not reject a single application. Over the past five years, out of nearly 8,600 applications, only two have been denied.
Paul Merrell

John McCain, Conductor of the "Arab Spring" and the Caliph , by Thierry Meyssan - 0 views

www.voltairenet.org/article185085.html

war & peace Iraq Syria U.S.-foreign-policy ISIL McCain NED Benghazi Arab Spring

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Everyone has noticed the contradiction of those who recently characterized the Islamic Emirate as "freedom fighters" in Syria and who are indignant today faced with its abuses in Iraq. But if that speech is incoherent in itself, it makes perfect sense in the strategic plan: the same individuals were to be presented as allies yesterday and must be as enemies today, even if they are still on orders from Washington. Thierry Meyssan reveals below US policy through the particular case of Senator John McCain, conductor of the "Arab Spring" and longtime partner of Caliph Ibrahim.
  • ohn McCain is known as the leader of the Republicans and unhappy 2008 US presidential candidate. This is, we will see, only the real part of his biography, which serves as a cover to conduct covert actions on behalf of his government. When I was in Libya during the "Western"attack, I was able to view a report of the foreign intelligence services. It stated that, on February 4, 2011 in Cairo, NATO organized a meeting to launch the "Arab Spring" in Libya and Syria. According to this document, the meeting was chaired by John McCain. The report detailed the list of Libyan participants, whose delegation was led by the No. 2 man of the government of the day, Mahmoud Jibril, who abruptly switched sides at the entrance of the meeting to become the opposition leader in exile. I remember that, among the French delegates present, the report quoted Bernard-Henry Lévy, although officially he had never exercised functions within the French government. Many other personalities attended the symposium, including a large delegation of Syrians living abroad.
  • Emerging from the meeting, the mysterious Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook account called for demonstrations outside the People’s Council (National Assembly) in Damascus on February 11. Although this Facebook account at the time claimed to have more than 40,000 followers, only a dozen people responded to its call before the flashes of photographers and hundreds of police. The demonstration dispersed peacefully and clashes only began more than a month later in Deraa. [1] On February 16, 2011, a demonstration underway in Benghazi, in memory of members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya [2] massacred in 1996 in the Abu Selim prison, degenerated into shooting. The next day, a second event, this time in memory of those who died by attacking the Danish consulate during the Muhammad cartoons affair, also degenerated into shooting. At the same time, members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya ,coming from Egypt and coordinated by unidentified, hooded individuals, simultaneously attacked four military bases in four different cities. After three days of fighting and atrocities, the rebels launched the uprising of Cyrenaica against Tripolitania [3]; a terrorist attack that the western press falsely presented as a "democratic revolution" against "the regime" of Muammar el-Qaddafi.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • On February 22nd, John McCain was in Lebanon. He met members of the Future Movement (the party of Saad Hariri) whom he charged to oversee the transfer of arms to Syria around the MP Okab Sakr [4]. Then, leaving Beirut, he inspected the Syrian border and the selected villages including Ersal, which were used as a basis to back mercenaries in the war to come. The meetings chaired by John McCain were clearly the trigger point for a long-prepared Washington plan; the plan that would have the UK and France attack Libya and Syria simultaneously, following the doctrine of "leadership from behind" and the annex of the Treaty of Lancaster House of November 2010. [5]
  • In May 2013, Senator John McCain made his way illegally to near Idleb in Syria via Turkey to meet with leaders of the "armed opposition". His trip was not made public until his return to Washington. [6] This movement was organized by the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which, contrary to its title, is a Zionist Organization led by a Palestinian employee of AIPAC [7]
  • John McCain in Syria. In the foreground at right is the director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. In the doorway, center, Mohammad Nour.
  • In photographs released at that time, one noticed the presence of Mohammad Nour, a spokesman for the Northern Storm Brigade (of the Al-Nosra Front, that is to say, al-Qaeda in Syria), who kidnapped and held 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Azaz. [8] Asked about his proximity to al-Qaeda kidnappers, the Senator claimed not to know Mohammad Nour who would have invited himself into this photo. The affair made a great noise and the families of the abducted pilgrims lodged a complaint before the Lebanese judiciary against Senator McCain for complicity in kidnapping. Ultimately, an agreement was reached and the pilgrims were released. Let’s suppose that Senator McCain had told the truth and that he was abused by Mohammad Nour. The object of his illegal trip to Syria was to meet the chiefs of staff of the Free Syrian Army. According to him, the organization was composed "exclusively of Syrians" fighting for "their freedom" against the "Alouite dictatorship” (sic). The tour organizers published this photograph to attest to the meeting.
  • John McCain and the heads of the Free Syrian Army. In the left foreground, Ibrahim al-Badri, with which the Senator is talking. Next, Brigadier General Salim Idris (with glasses).
  • If we can see Brigadier General Idriss Salem, head of the Free Syrian Army, one can also see Ibrahim al-Badri (foreground on the left) with whom the senator is talking. Back from the surprise trip, John McCain claimed that all those responsible for the Free Syrian Army were "moderates who can be trusted" (sic).
  • However, since October 4, 2011, Ibrahim al-Badri (also known as Abu Du’a) was on the list of the five terrorists most wanted by the United States (Rewards for Justice). A premium of up to $ 10 million was offered to anyone who would assist in his capture. [9] The next day, October 5, 2011, Ibrahim al-Badri was included in the list of the Sanctions Committee of the UN as a member of Al Qaeda. [10] In addition, a month before receiving Senator McCain, Ibrahim al-Badri, known under his nom de guerre as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ÉIIL) – all the while still belonging to the staff of the very "moderate" Free Syrian Army. He claimed as his own the attack on the Taj and Abu Ghraib prisons in Iraq, from which he helped between 500 and 1,000 jihadists escape who then joined his organization. This attack was coordinated with other almost simultaneous operations in eight other countries. Each time, the escapees joined the jihadist organizations fighting in Syria. This case is so strange that Interpol issued a note and requested the assistance of the 190 member countries. [11]
  • For my part, I have always said that there was no difference on the ground between the Free Syrian Army, Al-Nosra Front, the Islamic Emirate etc ... All these organizations are composed of the same individuals who continuously change flag. When they pose as the Free Syrian Army, they fly the flag of French colonization and speak only of overthrowing the "dog Bashar." When they say they belong to Al-Nosra Front, they carry the flag of al Qaeda and declare their intention to spread Islam in the world. Finally when they say they are the Islamic Emirate, they brandish the flag of the Caliphate and announce that they will clean the area of all infidels. But whatever the label, they proceed to the same abuses: rape, torture, beheadings, crucifixions. Yet neither Senator McCain nor his companions of the Syrian Emergency Task Force provided the information in their possession on Ibrahim al-Badri to the State Department, nor have they asked for the reward. Nor have they informed the anti-terrorism Committee of the UN.
  • But John McCain is not just the leader of the political opposition to President Obama, he is also one of his senior officials! He is in fact President of the International Republican Institute (IRI), the republican branch of NED / CIA [12], since January 1993. This so-called "NGO" was officially established by President Ronald Reagan to extend certain activities of the CIA, in connection with the British, Canadian and Australian secret services. Contrary to its claims, it is indeed an inter-governmental agency. Its budget is approved by Congress in a budget line dependent of the Secretary of State. It is also because it is a joint agency of the Anglo-Saxon secret services that several states in the world prohibit it from any activity on their territory.
  • he list of interventions by John McCain on behalf of the State Department is impressive. He participated in all the color revolutions of the last twenty years.
  • And an agent that has the best coverage imaginable: he is the official opponent of Barack Obama. As such, he can travel anywhere in the world (he is the most traveled US senator) and meet whoever he wants without fear. If his interlocutors approve Washington policy, he promised them to continue it, if they fight it, he hands over the responsibility to President Obama.
  • In 2003, France’s opposition was not enough to offset the influence of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. The United States attacked the country again and this time overthrew President Hussein. Of course, John McCain was a major contributor to the Committee. After handing to a private company the care of plundering the country for a year [17], they tried to partition Iraq into three separate states, but had to give it up due to the resistance of the population. They tried again in 2007, around the Biden-Brownback resolution, but again failed. [18] Hence the current strategy that attempts to achieve this by means of a non-state actor: the Islamic Emirate.
  • The operation was planned well in advance, even before the meeting between John McCain and Ibrahim al-Badri. For example, internal correspondence from the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, published by my friends James and Joanne Moriarty [19], shows that 5,000 jihadis were trained at the expense of Qatar in NATO’s Libya in 2012, and 2,5 million dollars was paid at the same time to the future Caliph. In January of 2014, the Congress of the United States held a secret meeting at which it voted, in violation of international law, to approve funding for the Al-Nosra Front (Al-Qaeda) and the Islamic emirate in Iraq and the Levant until September 2014. [20] Although it is unclear precisely what was really agreed to during this meeting revealed by the British Reuters news agency [21], and no media US media dared bypass censorship, it is highly probable that the law includes a section on arming and training jihadists.
  • Proud of this US funding, Saudi Arabia has claimed on its public television channel, Al-Arabiya, that the Islamic Emirate was headed by Prince Abdul Rahman al-Faisal, brother of Prince Saud al Faisal (Foreign Minister) and Prince Turki al-Faisal (Saudi ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom) [22]. The Islamic Emirate represents a new step in the world of mercenaries. Unlike jihadi groups who fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya around Osama bin Laden, it does not constitute a residual force but actually an army in itself. Unlike previous groups in Iraq, Libya and Syria, around Prince Bandar bin Sultan, they have sophisticated communication services at their disposal for recruitment and civilian officials trained in large western schools capable of instantly taking over the administration of a territory.
  • Brand new Ukrainian weapons were purchased by Saudi Arabia and conveyed by the Turkish secret services who gave them to the Islamic Emirate. Final details were coordinated with the Barzani family at a meeting of jihadist groups in Amman on 1 June 2014. [23] The joint attack on Iraq by the Islamic Emirate and the Kurdistan Regional Government began four days later. The Islamic Emirate seized the Sunni part of the country, while the Kurdistan Regional Government increased its territory by over 40%. Fleeing the atrocities of jihadists, religious minorities left the Sunni area, paving the way for the three-way partition of the country. Violating the Iraqi-US Defense agreement, the Pentagon did not intervene and allowed the Islamic Emirate to continue its conquest and massacres. A month later, while the Kurdish Peshmerga Regional Government had retreated without a fight, and when the emotions of world public opinion became too strong, President Obama gave the order to bomb some positions of the Islamic Emirate. However, according to General William Mayville, director of operations at the headquarters, "These bombings are unlikely to affect the overall capacity of the Islamic Emirate and its activities in other areas of Iraq or Syria ". [24] Obviously, they are not meant to destroy the jihadist army, but only to ensure that each player does not overlap the territory that has been assigned. Moreover, for the moment, they are symbolic and have destroyed only a handful of vehicles. It was ultimately the intervention of the Kurds of the Turkish and Syrian Kurdish PKK which halted the progress of the Islamic Emirate and opened a corridor to allow civilians to escape the massacre.
  • In the latest issue of its magazine, the Islamic Emirate devoted two pages to denounce Senator John McCain as "the enemy" and "double-crosser", recalling his support for the US invasion of Iraq. Lest this accusation remain unknown in the United States, Senator immediately issued a statement calling the Emirate the "most dangerous Islamist terrorist group in the world" [26]. This controversy is there only to distract the gallery. One would like to believe it ... if it were’t for this photograph from May 2013.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Aug 14
     
    Thierry Meysann makes the case that Sen. John McCain, working with  was the guiding force behind the Arab Spring, the overthrow of Qadaffi in Libya, and the invasion of Syria by mercenary Islamists, working with a Zionist but deliberately misnomered front group. Thierry goes on to show that McCain played a key role in the creation and deployment of ISIL.  
Paul Merrell

Al Nusrah Front, Western-backed rebels overrun key regime base south of Damascus - The ... - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...al_nusrah_front_free_2.php

war & peace Syria Al-Nusrah Al-Qaeda FSA-joint-military-operations

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • In the past two days, Syrian rebels overran a base belonging to Brigade 82 of the Syrian Army in the southern province of Deraa. The Brigade 82 facilities, which sit close to the town of Sheikh Maskeen and a highway connecting Damascus with Jordan, were considered a key part of the Assad regime's defenses
  • A number of insurgency groups have posted videos and photos online showing their fighters taking part in the assault on the base. The Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria, and the Islamic Front, an alliance of Islamist groups, are among them. Ahrar al Sham, an al Qaeda-linked organization, leads the Islamic Front. Screen shots and photos from the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic Front are included at the bottom of this article. Western-backed rebels, including fighters from the First Army, also participated in the raid on the Brigade 82 base. The First Army issued a statement before the operation was launched saying its men were going to take part in the rebels' new southern offensive. The First Army also released a statement afterwards saying that the base had fallen.
  • A leader of the First Army identified as Colonel Saber Safar spoke with Reuters about the significance of the base falling into rebel hands. "This advance will help us cut supply routes of the regime forces in the south from their supplies in the north to be able to eventually take over Deraa city," Safar told Reuters, which described the First Army as "a major faction of Western-backed rebels in the 'Southern Front' grouping." In early January, Asharq Al Awsat reported that the First Army was formed by three rebel groups, each of which had operated as part of the Free Syrian Army. Asharq Al Awsat described the three groups that make up the First Army as "moderate rebel factions," which said they wanted to "unify all FSA factions under a joint military command." The publication cited a commander in the group as saying that they would not only fight Bashar al Assad's regime and its proxies, but also work to contain the growing influence of extremists, meaning the Al Nusrah Front. The battle for Brigade 82's base, however, shows that the First Army and other "moderate" rebels continue to cooperate with al Qaeda and its extremists allies in southern Syria. Several pictures and screen shots of other rebels taking part in the raid are published
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 15
     
    Here we go folks, photographic evidence that the U.S.-backed, funded, supplied, and armed Free Syrian Army is running joint military operations with Al-Nusrah, the official wing of Al-Qaeda in Syria, against the Syrian government. Both Al-Nusrah and Al-Qaeda are formally listed as "terrorist organizations" by the U.S. State Department and the U.N. and supporting them is a criminal act in the U.S. and forbidden by a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council Resolution. This has been going on for well over a year, but this is the first time I have seen photographic evidence. 
digitalorainfo

Candid Photography - Candid Wedding Photographers in Banglore Hydrabad - 0 views

yellowredphotography.com/candid-photography

Best Candid Photography Banglore

shared by digitalorainfo on 20 May 20 - No Cached
  • digitalorainfo on 20 May 20
     
    We have an elite team of candid photographers equipped with people skills. With a friendly approach, they make you feel ease and help you face the camera without being nervous. They thump interesting conversation and intermingle just like your long known friend. This is the appreciable quality of our candid photographer that makes them your first preference over the traditional photographer.
Paul Merrell

There Are Several Thousand Secret Photos of America's Horrific Torture Program. Should ... - 0 views

www.motherjones.com/...-photos-obama-pentagon-release

war & peace Iraq U.S.-military Abu-Graib torture photos ACLU FOIA litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • You may recall, from the dark days of Abu Ghraib, that there was a batch of photos that was never released—images the Pentagon deemed so inflammatory that they needed to stay under wraps. The ones we saw were disturbing enough: the piles of naked Iraqi prisoners, the soldier giving a thumbs up next to an ice-packed corpse, the prisoners being menaced by dogs. And who can forget that iconic shot of a hooded man (his name is Ali Shalil Qaissi), standing on a box in a shower with wires attached to his fingers—a mock execution. There are as many as 2,100 additional images, according to the ACLU, which sued the government in 2004 demanding their release. President Obama has resisted the legal efforts, noting in a statement that to make the photos public would "impact the safety of our troops." Newsweek's Lauren Walker nicely summarizes the developments so far, some of which my colleague Nick Baumann has also covered, so here's the upshot: In August, a federal judge gave the administration an ultimatum: either release the photos or provide evidence for each image explaining why publishing it would be detrimental to national security. On December 19, the administration indicated that it would take the latter course, and a hearing on the new evidence has been set for January 20.
  • Because the concealed images, the ACLU told Newsweek, aren't simply more examples of abuse: "One of the reasons we’ve been fighting for so long for these photographs is because the official narrative following the disclosure of the Abu Ghraib photos was that those abuses were the result of a few bad apples," says Alex Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney working on the case since 2005. "These photographs come from at least seven different detention facilities throughout Afghanistan and Iraq.... We think this would once and for all end the myth that the abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib was an aberration," he says. "It was essentially official policy. It was widespread at different facilities under different commanders."
  • Consider this exchange between Stanford psychologist Phil Zimbardo and former Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, who got an eight-year prison sentence for his role in the Abu Ghraib horrorshow. (He was the guy who staged the mock execution.) The interview is from Zimbardo's 2007 book, The Lucifer Effect, which is about how good people placed in bad situations end up doing abhorrent things.
digitalorainfo

Photography Tips For Couple - Candid Wedding Photographers in Banglore Hydrabad - 0 views

yellowredphotography.com/photography-tips-for-couple

Wedding photography Bangalore

shared by digitalorainfo on 22 May 20 - No Cached
  • digitalorainfo on 22 May 20
     
    Are you imagining yourself with your partner in a beautiful portrait? Do you want to capture your romantic moments with your beloved in the most amazing locations? No worry! Get photographed like this amorous couple. Get some bonus tips from Yellow red photographers' team of Wedding photography Bangalore expertise in a couple photoshoot.
digitalorainfo

Professional Photography - Candid Wedding Photographers in Banglore Hydrabad - 0 views

yellowredphotography.com/professional-photography

Best Professional Wedding Photographers in Bangalore

shared by digitalorainfo on 21 May 20 - No Cached
  • digitalorainfo on 21 May 20
     
    we have all covered with highly Professional Wedding Photographers with their high quality lenses and gears that will surely astonish you. So let us convert your happy ceremonies to some reminiscence days.
Paul Merrell

Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani rallies Iranian officers, Hezbollah in Syria | Th... - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...fficers-hezbollah-in-syria.php

war & peace Syria boots-on-the-ground Iran Hezbollah militias Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force, has been seen addressing Iranian military officers and members of Lebanese Hezbollah in western Syria. In the past, the leader of Iran’s expeditionary special operations forces has been spotted on key battlefields in Iraq and Syria prior to the launch of major operations against jihadist groups such as the Islamic State. Recent images of Soleimani (above) appeared on social media sites such as Twitter. His presence in the western province of Latakia in Syria was confirmed by Reuters. According to the news service, Soleimani was “addressing Iranian officers and Hezbollah fighters with a microphone, wearing dark clothes as he spoke to the men in camouflage.” In the photographs, Soleimani is flanked by by a handful of men wearing military fatigues. The faces of the individuals standing next to him are digitally altered to prevent their identity from being disclosed. A crowd of armed fighters who appear to be wearing US Marine Corps desert camouflage uniforms listens to his speech.
  • Latakia is a western coastal province that has long been a stronghold for the Assad family. Jihadists from the Jaysh al Fateh alliance, which is led by Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, and its close ally, Ahrar al Sham, have launched attacks in the province in an effort to break Assad’s power base. Just two days ago, Abu Muhammad al Julani, Al Nusrah’s emir, threatened to indiscriminately shell villages in the province to avenge regime attacks, including airstrikes and barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, on Sunni villages, towns, and cities controlled by jihadist groups and allied rebel forces. Iran is reported to have deployed significant forces, estimated at thousands of troops, to support the Assad regime’s offensive to retake areas controlled by Jaysh al Fateh in Hama and Aleppo. But Omran al Zoubi, Syria’s Information Minister, has denied a large Iranian presence in Syria. “Only some Iranian military advisers, whose mission is to provide consultations and nothing more, are present in Syria,” Zoubi said, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency. Soleimani is instrumental in organizing Syrian and Iraqi militias, as well as Hezbollah, to battle Sunni jihadists and allied rebels in Syria. He has played a similar role in Iraq, where he has organized, trained, and equipped Shiite militias along the lines of Lebanese Hezbollah to fight the Islamic State. The leaders of some of these militias are listed by the US as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and remain hostile to the US. Soleimani is occasionally photographed with these militia leaders.
  • Hezbollah has also committed a large force to back the government’s offensive in Hama and Idlib in western Syria. Thousands of the group’s fighters are said to be involved in the operation. In the past week, a senior Hezbollah leader known as Hassan al Haj was killed during the offensive. A senior Lebanese government official told Reuters that Haj was “the most important [Hezbollah] figure killed in battles in Syria since the start of the war.” Russia has also committed an expeditionary military force to back the Assad regime’s offensive. After building up its forces in Syria, the Russian military launched airstrikes on Sept. 30 and have primarily targeted Jaysh al Fateh and allied rebel groups in the northwest. Russia entered the fight under the guise of attacking the Islamic State, but few of its airstrikes have hit the jihadist group. In addition to warplanes and attack helicopters, the Russian military has deployed “marines, paratroopers, and special forces” to Syria, and even executed a sea-launched cruise missile strike from the Caspian Sea. Russia very likely coordinated its entry into the Syrian civil war with Iran and Soleimani. In July, Soleimani is reported to have visited Russia and met with met President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, despite a United Nations travel ban.
Paul Merrell

NSA Data Will Soon Be Used By Domestic Law Enforcement - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...214734

surveillance state NSA raw-data-sharing

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • If you’re reading this, then I’m willing to bet that you’ve been called many different names throughout your life. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say they were names like kook, paranoid, conspiracy theorist, alarmist, insane, or gullible. And after this week, you can go by a new name: Vindicated. I’m of course talking about recent revelations from the NSA. Long before Edward Snowden came along, it was no secret that the NSA was spying on everyone without good cause. Anyone who believed that fact was called a conspiracy theorist, but their fears were eventually validated. These same people also understood that the NSA’s surveillance powers would never be used exclusively against terrorists and hostile governments. The power they have is just too tempting for any government. If various government agencies weren’t using the NSA’s surveillance apparatus to solve domestic crimes, it was only a matter of time before it was used for just that.
  • And again, they called us conspiracy theorists for believing that. And again, we were right all long. A while back, we noted a report showing that the “sneak-and-peek” provision of the Patriot Act that was alleged to be used only in national security and terrorism investigations has overwhelmingly been used in narcotics cases. Now the New York Times reports that National Security Agency data will be shared with other intelligence agencies like the FBI without first applying any screens for privacy. The ACLU of Massachusetts blog Privacy SOS explains why this is important: What does this rule change mean for you? In short, domestic law enforcement officials now have access to huge troves of American communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages. FBI agents don’t need to have any “national security” related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other “selector” into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. And if they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state police. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called “national security” will be used by police to lock up ordinary Americans for routine crimes.
  • Anybody who knows anything about how governments work, should not surprised. You can’t give them any kind of power, and expect them to use it responsibly. You can’t give them any stipulations. Eventually they’ll find a legal loophole to work around any limitations that have been placed on them. In other news, the Pentagon admitted this week that they’ve been deploying military drones over the United States for domestic surveillance purposes. Much like the NSA’s surveillance apparatus, we were assured that drones were for terrorists in faraway lands. Nothing so Orwellian would ever be used against ordinary American citizens at home. Yet here we are, with more to come.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 16
     
    The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a, provides in relevant part: "(a)(4) the term "record" means any item, collection, or grouping of information about an individual that is maintained by an agency, including, but not limited to, his education, financial transactions, medical history, and criminal or employment history and that contains his name, or the identifying number, symbol, or other identifying particular assigned to the individual, such as a finger or voice print or a photograph[.] ... "(b) Conditions of Disclosure.-No agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains, unless disclosure of the record would be- ... "(7) to another agency or to an instrumentality of any governmental jurisdiction within or under the control of the United States for a civil or criminal law enforcement activity if the activity is authorized by law, and if the head of the agency or instrumentality has made a written request to the agency which maintains the record specifying the particular portion desired and the law enforcement activity for which the record is sought[.]" So a separate written request for each "portion" of any individual record that describes the "law enforcement activity for which the record is sought[.]" That doesn't sound like the contemplated unfettered access to bulk raw data. And it gets even better, with a right to sue for any violation, attorney fees and expenses, and a statutory minimum of $1,000 damages per violation just for winning the case.  
Paul Merrell

» Bombshell: Kerry Caught Using Fake Photos to Fuel Syrian War Alex Jones' In... - 0 views

www.infowars.com/-fake-photos-to-fuel-syrian-wa

war & peace Syria Kerry lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Secretary of State John Kerry opened his speech Friday by describing the horrors victims of the chemical weapon attack suffered, including twitching, spasms and difficulty breathing.
  • Attempting to drive the point home, Kerry referenced a photograph used by the BBC illustrating a child jumping over hundreds of dead bodies covered in white shrouds. “We saw rows of dead lined up in burial shrouds, the white linen unstained by a single drop of blood,” said Kerry. The photo was meant to depict victims who allegedly succumbed to the effects of chemical weapons via Assad’s regime. However, the photograph used in this context has been exposed as a fake. It had been taken in 2003 in Iraq and was not related to Syrian deaths whatsoever and was later retracted.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Sep 13
     
    You'll need to visit the linked page to see the photo to see how compelling the image was juxtaposed with Kerry's statement. Rather blatant pro-war propaganda from our Secretary of State. Also note that while the image was retracted by the BBC, it was apparently not retracted by the State Department. 
Paul Merrell

Russia Claims NATO Satellite Photos Were Taken Last August - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...atellite-photos_n_5126556.html

war & peace Ukraine Russia Russia-build-up

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - An official in the Russian military general staff said on Thursday that NATO satellite photographs purporting to show Russian forces concentrated near the Ukrainian border were taken in August 2013, state-run news agency RIA reported. The report came hours after NATO unveiled photographs it said showed Russian deployments of some 40,000 troops, along with tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery and aircraft. It said the pictures were taken between March 22 and April 2. (Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Paul Merrell

Judicial Watch Played Into The Government's Hands -- Americans Are Blinded By Agendas -... - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...ands-americans-blinded-agendas

Roberts 9-11 bin-Laden-assassination

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Disinformation succeeds because so many people and interest groups across the political spectrum find that it serves their agendas as well as the agenda of the government. Consider for example the explanation of 9/11 that blamed Muslim terrorists for the attack. This served the interests of the neoconservatives, the private armaments companies, the US military, the private security companies, government security agencies such as the CIA, the left-wing, the right-wing, the Israel Lobby, and the print and TV media. The official explanation gave the neoconservatives the “new Pearl Harbor” that they needed for their program of invasions of Middle Eastern countries. The private armaments companies could look forward to decades of high profits. Wars always bring the military rapid promotions and higher retirement benefits. Private manufacturers of security equipment and spyware enjoy a rising demand for their products and have grown fat from the products sold to the TSA and NSA. Homeland Security has vastly expanded the federal workforce and administrative positions. The left-wing has proof of “blowback” caused by US interference in the internal affairs of other countries. The right-wing has proof that America has enemies against whom defense at all costs is necessary. The Israel Lobby has the US to overthrow the regimes in the way of Israel’s territorial expansion. The media has the story of the century with which to boost ratings and curry the favor of government.
  • In other words, the government’s story cannot stand the light cast by the facts and independent experts, and the government’s false story must be protected by shutting down the truth-telling experts. The government, Sunstein argued, needs to either gain control over these experts or to shut them down. Just as many different collections of interest groups and people have stakes in the Obama regime’s story of the killing of Osama bin Laden by US Navy SEALS in Abbottabad, Pakistan. This story and its selling by an enthusiastic media guaranteed Obama’s reelection. It served the emotions of super patriots desperate for revenge who wear their gullibility on their sleeves. It served the myth of CIA and NSA prowess. It served the reputation of the killing power of US Special Forces teams. It proved that America won even though it lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All the trillions of dollars spent were worth it. We got revenge on the guy who did 9/11. No one remembered that the US government, unable to find bin Laden for 10 years, had settled on a different “9/11 mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and had him water-boarded 183 times until he confessed to being responsible for 9/11. If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” why were SEALS sent, illegally, into Pakistan to murder bin Laden? As the FBI says, there is no evidence that bin Laden is responsible for 9/11. That is why bin Laden was not wanted on that charge by the FBI, as the FBI publicly stated.
  • Judicial Watch has been trying to pry the (nonexistent) photos of a dead bin Laden from the government’s hands. For “national security reasons” the US government does not want anyone to see evidence that supports its far-fetched tale of bin Laden’s murder. The photographic evidence of a successful raid are off limits. They are like the alleged videos of the airliner hitting the Pentagon that we are not permitted to see for “national security reasons.” In other words, the photos and videos do not exist and never did. No government, not even the American one, would be so totally stupid as to withhold the evidence for its claims. The government, seeing its unbelievable stories lose believability at home and abroad used Judicial Watch’s lawsuit to boost the credibility of its story. Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the photos that the Obama regime alleged to have of the murdered bin Laden but refused to release. Obviously, the government has no such photos and never had any such photos. But the government does not need evidence when it can rely on the gullibility of the American people.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • How was bin Laden, who was known in 2001 to be suffering from terminal illnesses, including renal failure, and whose death was widely reported in 2001 still alive ten years later to be murdered by SEALs? What sense does it make that the greatest terrorist leader of our time only had two unarmed women to protect him. What sense does it make that the US would murder the terrorist mastermind with all the plots in his head instead of capturing and questioning him? How can anyone be so gullible as to believe such a nonsense tale as told to them by Obama and the presstitute media? Is America really a nation of utter fools? Like the 9/11 story, the story of bin Laden’s murder is losing credibility with the US population. Pakistani National TV shot Obama’s story down with an eyewitness interview that reported that not one single person, dead body, or any piece of evidence left Abbottadad, because the only helicopter that landed blew up when it attempted to leave and there were no survivors. No other helicopters landed. So there was no dead bin Laden to be buried at sea (there are no known witnesses to the alleged burial) and no photographs of a dead bin Laden.
  • As the government had no photos to release, the US government decided to use the opportunity presented by Judicial Watch to bolster its story that photos of bin Laden murdered and dead were once in its possession. The government released to Judicial Watch a document under the Freedom of Information Act that is an order from Special Operations Commander Admiral William McRaven to “destroy immediately” the photos of the dead bin Laden. Judicial Watch took the bait. Instead of realizing that there was no reason whatsoever for the government to destroy the only evidence that might support its claim to have murdered bin Laden, Judicial Watch focused on the illegality of destroying the evidence. Judicial Watch says that “Federal law contains broad prohibitions against the ‘concealment, removal, or mutilation generally’ of government records.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/top-pentagon-leader-ordered-destruction-of-bin-laden-death-photos/5368389 Judicial Watch played into the government’s hands. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton was maneuvered by the government into defining the scandal as the destruction of evidence, “revealing both contempt for the rule of law and the American people’s right to know.” To the contrary, the real scandal is the massive lie that bin Laden was killed by a SEAL raid and the acceptance of this lie by the American people and Judicial Watch.
  • By damning the government for destroying evidence, Judicial Watch has given credibility to the government’s claim that SEALs murdered Osama bin Laden. The SEAL team credited with bin Laden’s murder was quickly eliminated when the team was loaded onto a 1960s vintage helicopter in Afghanistan. Apparently the team members were asking one another, “Were you on that mission that killed bin Laden?” Of course, no one was, and this information was too dangerous for the Obama regime.
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Apr 14
     
    Paul Craig Roberts goes on record as a 9-11 Truther and as a deep sceptic of Obama's claim that Seal Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. 
Paul Merrell

Spy Chief James Clapper Wins Rosemary Award - 0 views

www2.gwu.edu/...20140324

surveillance state NSA Rosemary-Award Obama Clapper Alexander

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance in 2013, according to the citation published today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org. Despite heavy competition, Clapper's "No, sir" lie to Senator Ron Wyden's question: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" sealed his receipt of the dubious achievement award, which cites the vastly excessive secrecy of the entire U.S. surveillance establishment. The Rosemary Award citation leads with what Clapper later called the "least untruthful" answer possible to congressional questions about the secret bulk collection of Americans' phone call data. It further cites other Clapper claims later proved false, such as his 2012 statement that "we don't hold data on U.S. citizens." But the Award also recognizes Clapper's fellow secrecy fetishists and enablers, including:
  • Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, for multiple Rose Mary Woods-type stretches, such as (1) claiming that the secret bulk collection prevented 54 terrorist plots against the U.S. when the actual number, according to the congressionally-established Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) investigation (pp. 145-153), is zero; (2) his 2009 declaration to the wiretap court that multiple NSA violations of the court's orders arose from differences over "terminology," an explanation which the chief judge said "strains credulity;" and (3) public statements by the NSA about its programs that had to be taken down from its website for inaccuracies (see Documents 78, 85, 87 in The Snowden Affair), along with public statements by other top NSA officials now known to be untrue (see "Remarks of Rajesh De," NSA General Counsel, Document 53 in The Snowden Affair).
  • Robert Mueller, former FBI director, for suggesting (as have Gen. Alexander and many others) that the secret bulk collection program might have been able to prevent the 9/11 attacks, when the 9/11 Commission found explicitly the problem was not lack of data points, but failing to connect the many dots the intelligence community already had about the would-be hijackers living in San Diego. The National Security Division lawyers at the Justice Department, for misleading their own Solicitor General (Donald Verrilli) who then misled (inadvertently) the U.S. Supreme Court over whether Justice let defendants know that bulk collection had contributed to their prosecutions. The same National Security Division lawyers who swore under oath in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for a key wiretap court opinion that the entire text of the opinion was appropriately classified Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (release of which would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to U.S. national security). Only after the Edward Snowden leaks and the embarrassed governmental declassification of the opinion did we find that one key part of the opinion's text simply reproduced the actual language of the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the only "grave damage" was to the government's false claims.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • President Obama for his repeated misrepresentations about the bulk collection program (calling the wiretap court "transparent" and saying "all of Congress" knew "exactly how this program works") while in effect acknowledging the public value of the Edward Snowden leaks by ordering the long-overdue declassification of key documents about the NSA's activities, and investigations both by a special panel and by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The PCLOB directly contradicted the President, pointing out that "when the only means through which legislators can try to understand a prior interpretation of the law is to read a short description of an operational program, prepared by executive branch officials, made available only at certain times and locations, which cannot be discussed with others except in classified briefings conducted by those same executive branch officials, legislators are denied a meaningful opportunity to gauge the legitimacy and implications of the legal interpretation in question. Under such circumstances, it is not a legitimate method of statutory construction to presume that these legislators, when reenacting the statute, intended to adopt a prior interpretation that they had no fair means of evaluating." (p. 101)
  • Even an author of the Patriot Act, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), was broadsided by the revelation of the telephone metadata dragnet. After learning of the extent of spying on Americans that his Act unleashed, he wrote that the National Security Agency "ignored restrictions painstakingly crafted by lawmakers and assumed plenary authority never imagined by Congress" by cloaking its actions behind the "thick cloud of secrecy" that even our elected representatives could not breech. Clapper recently conceded to the Daily Beast, "I probably shouldn't say this, but I will. Had we been transparent about this [phone metadata collection] from the outset … we wouldn't have had the problem we had." The NSA's former deputy director, John "Chris" Inglis, said the same when NPR asked him if he thought the metadata dragnet should have been disclosed before Snowden. "In hindsight, yes. In hindsight, yes." Speaking about potential (relatively minimal) changes to the National Security Agency even the president acknowledged, "And all too often new authorities were instituted without adequate public debate," and "Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us. We won't abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached." (Exhibit A, of course, is the NSA "watchlist" in the 1960's and 1970's that targeted not only antiwar and civil rights activists, but also journalists and even members of Congress.)
  • The Archive established the not-so-coveted Rosemary Award in 2005, named after President Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who testified she had erased 18-and-a-half minutes of a crucial Watergate tape — stretching, as she showed photographers, to answer the phone with her foot still on the transcription pedal. Bestowed annually to highlight the lowlights of government secrecy, the Rosemary Award has recognized a rogue's gallery of open government scofflaws, including the CIA, the Treasury Department, the Air Force, the FBI, the Federal Chief Information Officers' Council, and the career Rosemary leader — the Justice Department — for the last two years. Rosemary-winner James Clapper has offered several explanations for his untruthful disavowal of the National Security Agency's phone metadata dragnet. After his lie was exposed by the Edward Snowden revelations, Clapper first complained to NBC's Andrea Mitchell that the question about the NSA's surveillance of Americans was unfair, a — in his words — "When are you going to stop beating your wife kind of question." So, he responded "in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying 'no.'"
  • After continuing criticism for his lie, Clapper wrote a letter to Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Dianne Feinstein, now explaining that he misunderstood Wyden's question and thought it was about the PRISM program (under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) rather than the telephone metadata collection program (under Section 215 of the Patriot Act). Clapper wrote that his staff "acknowledged the error" to Senator Wyden soon after — yet he chose to reject Wyden's offer to amend his answer. Former NSA senior counsel Joel Brenner blamed Congress for even asking the question, claiming that Wyden "sandbagged" Clapper by the "vicious tactic" of asking "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Meanwhile, Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists countered that "it is of course wrong for officials to make false statements, as DNI Clapper did," and that in fact the Senate Intelligence Committee "became complicit in public deception" for failing to rebut or correct Clapper's statement, which they knew to be untruthful. Clapper described his unclassified testimony as a game of "stump the chump." But when it came to oversight of the National Security Agency, it appears that senators and representatives were the chumps being stumped. According to Representative Justin Amash (R-Mich), the House Intelligence Committee "decided it wasn't worthwhile to share this information" about telephone metadata surveillance with other members of Congress. Classified briefings open to the whole House were a "farce," Amash contended, often consisting of information found in newspapers and public statutes.
  • The Emmy and George Polk Award-winning National Security Archive, based at the George Washington University, has carried out thirteen government-wide audits of FOIA performance, filed more than 50,000 Freedom of Information Act requests over the past 28 years, opened historic government secrets ranging from the CIA's "Family Jewels" to documents about the testing of stealth aircraft at Area 51, and won a series of historic lawsuits that saved hundreds of millions of White House e-mails from the Reagan through Obama presidencies, among many other achievements.
  • Director Clapper joins an undistinguished list of previous Rosemary Award winners: 2012 - the Justice Department (in a repeat performance, for failure to update FOIA regulations for compliance with the law, undermining congressional intent, and hyping its open government statistics) 2011- the Justice Department (for doing more than any other agency to eviscerate President Obama's Day One transparency pledge, through pit-bull whistleblower prosecutions, recycled secrecy arguments in court cases, retrograde FOIA regulations, and mixed FOIA responsiveness) 2010 - the Federal Chief Information Officers' Council (for "lifetime failure" to address the crisis in government e-mail preservation) 2009 - the FBI (for having a record-setting rate of "no records" responses to FOIA requests) 2008 - the Treasury Department (for shredding FOIA requests and delaying responses for decades) 2007 - the Air Force (for disappearing its FOIA requests and having "failed miserably" to meet its FOIA obligations, according to a federal court ruling) 2006 - the Central Intelligence Agency (for the biggest one-year drop-off in responsiveness to FOIA requests yet recorded).   ALSO-RANS The Rosemary Award competition in 2013 was fierce, with a host of government contenders threatening to surpass the Clapper "least untruthful" standard. These secrecy over-achievers included the following FOI delinquents:
  • Admiral William McRaven, head of the Special Operations Command for the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, who purged his command's computers and file cabinets of all records on the raid, sent any remaining copies over to CIA where they would be effectively immune from the FOIA, and then masterminded a "no records" response to the Associated Press when the AP reporters filed FOIA requests for raid-related materials and photos. If not for a one-sentence mention in a leaked draft inspector general report — which the IG deleted for the final version — no one would have been the wiser about McRaven's shell game. Subsequently, a FOIA lawsuit by Judicial Watch uncovered the sole remaining e-mail from McRaven ordering the evidence destruction, in apparent violation of federal records laws, a felony for which the Admiral seems to have paid no price. Department of Defense classification reviewers who censored from a 1962 document on the Cuban Missile Crisis direct quotes from public statements by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The quotes referred to the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey that would ultimately (and secretly) be pulled out in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of its missiles in Cuba. The denials even occurred after an appeal by the National Security Archive, which provided as supporting material the text of the Khrushchev statements and multiple other officially declassified documents (and photographs!) describing the Jupiters in Turkey. Such absurd classification decisions call into question all of the standards used by the Pentagon and the National Declassification Center to review historical documents.
  • Admiral William McRaven memo from May 13, 2011, ordering the destruction of evidence relating to the Osama bin Laden raid. (From Judicial Watch)
  • The Department of Justice Office of Information Policy, which continues to misrepresent to Congress the government's FOIA performance, while enabling dramatic increases in the number of times government agencies invoke the purely discretionary "deliberative process" exemption. Five years after President Obama declared a "presumption of openness" for FOIA requests, Justice lawyers still cannot show a single case of FOIA litigation in which the purported new standards (including orders from their own boss, Attorney General Eric Holder) have caused the Department to change its position in favor of disclosure.
Paul Merrell

AP News : UK police spied on reporters for years, docs show - 0 views

m.apnews.com/...contentdetail.htm

UK civil-liberties freedom-of-the-press terrorism™ police-crackdown journalism

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Freelance video journalist Jason Parkinson returned home from vacation this year to find a brown paper envelope in his mailbox. He opened it to find nine years of his life laid out in shocking detail.Twelve pages of police intelligence logs noted which protests he covered, who he spoke to and what he wore - all the way down to the color of his boots. It was, he said, proof of something he'd long suspected: The police were watching him."Finally," he thought as he leafed through documents over a strong black coffee, "we've got them."Parkinson's documents, obtained through a public records request, are the basis of a lawsuit being filed by the National Union of Journalists against London's Metropolitan Police and Britain's Home Office. The lawsuit, announced late Thursday, along with recent revelations about the seizure of reporters' phone records, is pulling back the curtain on how British police have spent years tracking the movements of the country's news media.
  • Parkinson, three photographers, an investigative journalist and a newspaper reporter are filing the lawsuit after obtaining their surveillance records. Parkinson, a 44-year-old freelancer who has covered hundreds of protests - some of them for The Associated Press - said he and his colleagues had long suspected that the police were monitoring them."Police officers we'd never even met before knew our names and seemed to know a hell of a lot about us," he said.Several journalists told AP the records police kept on them were sometimes startling, sometimes funny and occasionally wrong.
  • Jess Hurd, a 41-year-old freelance photographer and Parkinson's partner, said she was worried the intelligence logs were being shared internationally."I go to a lot of countries on assignment," she said. "Where are these database logs being shared? Who with, for what purpose?"The revelations add to public disclosures about British police secretly seizing journalists' telephone records in leak investigations. Several senior officers have recently acknowledged using anti-terrorism powers to uncover journalists' sources by combing through the records.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Union statement: https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/nuj-members-under-police-surveillance-mount-collective-legal/
Paul Merrell

NUJ members under police surveillance mount collective legal challenge - National Union... - 0 views

www.nuj.org.uk/...illance-mount-collective-legal

UK civil-liberties freedom-of-the-press terrorism™ police-crackdown journalism

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Six NUJ members have discovered that their lawful journalistic and union activities are being monitored and recorded by the Metropolitan Police. They are now taking legal action against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Home Secretary to challenge this ongoing police surveillance. The NUJ members involved in the legal challenge include Jules Mattsson, Mark Thomas, Jason Parkinson, Jess Hurd, David Hoffman and Adrian Arbib. All of them have worked on media reports that have exposed corporate and state misconduct and they have each also previously pursued litigation or complaints arising from police misconduct. In many of those cases, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has been forced to pay damages, apologise and admit liability to them after their journalistic rights were curtailed by his officers at public events.
  • The surveillance was revealed as part of an ongoing campaign, which began in 2008, during which NUJ members have been encouraged to obtain data held about them by the authorities including the Metropolitan Police 'National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit' (NDEDIU). The supposed purpose of the unit is to monitor and police so called 'domestic extremism'. In the course of the campaign, a number of NUJ members have obtained data held about them and the union fears there are many more journalists and union members being monitored.
  • The NUJ has instructed Bhatt Murphy Solicitors to pursue the case. The cases raise significant and wide-ranging concerns about: the impact on privacy, the chilling effect on the ability of NUJ members and journalists to do their jobs, and their ability to take part in legitimate trade union activity. The claim challenges the surveillance and retention of data on the basis that it is unnecessary, disproportionate and not in accordance with the law. Journalists and union members have no way of knowing the circumstances in which their activities are monitored, retained, disclosed and systematically stored on secret police 'domestic extremism' databases. The NUJ continues to offer support and assistance to the members involved and extends its support to other media workers who may be affected. The union is extremely concerned by the lack of legal safeguards to protect the press and trade unions from state interference, and believes the actions of the authorities do not abide by domestic law and the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 8 on privacy, Article 10 on freedom of expression and Article 11 on freedom of assembly and association.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • I'm A Photographer Not A Terrorist – NUJ supported campaign. Met's journalist files include details of sexual orientation, childhood and family medical history - Jules MattssonTimes journalist Jules Mattsson is one of six members of the NUJ to launch a legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police after finding that it keeps surveillance files on them in a database of Domestic Extremism. When police spy on journalists like me, freedom is at risk - Jason N ParkinsonPersistent requests under the Data Protection Act revealed that files were kept on journalists who were simply doing their job IFJ backs legal challenge by journalists over police surveillance in UKThe International Federation of Journalists has joined in supporting six NUJ members who have taken legal action against the Metropolitan Police and the Home Secretary. The legal challenge concerns the monitoring and recording of their lawful journalistic and union activities.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 14
     
    Two excellent short videos on this page. It's disturbing that police are ignoring the EU Convention on Human Rights. Related, legislation is currently in Parliament to grant the government the power to censor any form of "extremism" on the Web, with the term "extremism" left undefined.   Civil liberties have been under attack in the UK for at least 1,000 years. Time for a new Magna Carta?
Paul Merrell

U.S. Syria strategy falters with collapse of rebel group | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...ia-hazzm-idUSKBN0M10GV20150305

war & peace Syria moderate-rebels Hazzm Al-Nusrah U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - The Hazzm movement was once central to a covert CIA operation to arm Syrian rebels, but the group's collapse last week underlines the failure of efforts to unify Arab and Western support for mainstream insurgents fighting the Syrian military. A blow to U.S. moves to aid rebels, the dissolution of Hazzm also highlights the risks that a new Department of Defense program could face in training and equipping fighters in Jordan, Turkey and Qatar.U.S. officials plan to train thousands of Syrian rebels over three years. The program is expected to begin this month in Jordan and focuses on battling the hardline Islamic State group rather than President Bashar al-Assad.Hazzm's collapse has shown how such efforts will prove difficult in a country where insurgents often battle each other and arms have fallen into the hands of hardline groups.
  • (Reuters) - The Hazzm movement was once central to a covert CIA operation to arm Syrian rebels, but the group's collapse last week underlines the failure of efforts to unify Arab and Western support for mainstream insurgents fighting the Syrian military. A blow to U.S. moves to aid rebels, the dissolution of Hazzm also highlights the risks that a new Department of Defense program could face in training and equipping fighters in Jordan, Turkey and Qatar.U.S. officials plan to train thousands of Syrian rebels over three years. The program is expected to begin this month in Jordan and focuses on battling the hardline Islamic State group rather than President Bashar al-Assad.Hazzm's collapse has shown how such efforts will prove difficult in a country where insurgents often battle each other and arms have fallen into the hands of hardline groups.
  • An onslaught by al Qaeda's Syria wing, the Nusra Front, last week forced Hazzm into dissolution, its members swallowed by Jabhat al-Shamiyya, a mainly Islamist alliance. It was the second time in four months that Nusra had crushed a Western-backed rebel group.Nusra is now considering cutting its ties with al Qaeda in a rebranding exercise backed by Qatar and some other Gulf states that will bring in more funds, sources say.On Tuesday, Nusra followers published photographs on Twitter of what they said were U.S. weapons, including anti-tank missiles, seized in battles with opposition brigades.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Reuters could not authenticate the photographs but the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said many arms had been seized, including 60 to 90 TOW anti-tank missiles.Hazzm members did not respond to requests for comment or were not reachable. The group once claimed to be the main recipient of the secret U.S.-led operation supporting rebels in the north. It numbered 1,200-1,500 last year, Abdulrahman said.It was set up in January 2014 and came under a body known as MOM, which was used to funnel resources to rebels in an attempt to coordinate funding. Money has poured into northern Syria from Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, much of it going to Islamist fighters, including hardliners. "The United States was never particularly serious in its support for the MOM, and coordination among the United States and other state backers broke down," said Noah Bonsey, a senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group. "The defeat of Hazzm is the latest indication of the MOM's failure in the north," he said.
  • State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Hazzm had received non-lethal U.S. assistance. Washington has never acknowledged the CIA program.The group's demise "will have an impact on the moderate opposition's capabilities in the north," Harf said.The group had shrunk to about 400 fighters last month after killings, desertions and arrests, the Observatory's Abdulrahman said. "They are now finished, like sugar in tea."
Paul Merrell

Canada Casts Global Surveillance Dragnet Over File Downloads - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...e-levitation-mass-surveillance

surveillance state Canada CSE NSA-targets downloads

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Canada’s leading surveillance agency is monitoring millions of Internet users’ file downloads in a dragnet search to identify extremists, according to top-secret documents. The covert operation, revealed Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, taps into Internet cables and analyzes records of up to 15 million downloads daily from popular websites commonly used to share videos, photographs, music, and other files. The revelations about the spying initiative, codenamed LEVITATION, are the first from the trove of files provided by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to show that the Canadian government has launched its own globe-spanning Internet mass surveillance system. According to the documents, the LEVITATION program can monitor downloads in several countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. It is led by the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, Canada’s equivalent of the NSA. (The Canadian agency was formerly known as “CSEC” until a recent name change.)
  • The latest disclosure sheds light on Canada’s broad existing surveillance capabilities at a time when the country’s government is pushing for a further expansion of security powers following attacks in Ottawa and Quebec last year. Ron Deibert, director of University of Toronto-based Internet security think tank Citizen Lab, said LEVITATION illustrates the “giant X-ray machine over all our digital lives.” “Every single thing that you do – in this case uploading/downloading files to these sites – that act is being archived, collected and analyzed,” Deibert said, after reviewing documents about the online spying operation for CBC News. David Christopher, a spokesman for Vancouver-based open Internet advocacy group OpenMedia.ca, said the surveillance showed “robust action” was needed to rein in the Canadian agency’s operations.
  • In a top-secret PowerPoint presentation, dated from mid-2012, an analyst from the agency jokes about how, while hunting for extremists, the LEVITATION system gets clogged with information on innocuous downloads of the musical TV series Glee. CSE finds some 350 “interesting” downloads each month, the presentation notes, a number that amounts to less than 0.0001 per cent of the total collected data. The agency stores details about downloads and uploads to and from 102 different popular file-sharing websites, according to the 2012 document, which describes the collected records as “free file upload,” or FFU, “events.” Only three of the websites are named: RapidShare, SendSpace, and the now defunct MegaUpload.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “The specific uses that they talk about in this [counter-terrorism] context may not be the problem, but it’s what else they can do,” said Tamir Israel, a lawyer with the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. Picking which downloads to monitor is essentially “completely at the discretion of CSE,” Israel added. The file-sharing surveillance also raises questions about the number of Canadians whose downloading habits could have been swept up as part of LEVITATION’s dragnet. By law, CSE isn’t allowed to target Canadians. In the LEVITATION presentation, however, two Canadian IP addresses that trace back to a web server in Montreal appear on a list of suspicious downloads found across the world. The same list includes downloads that CSE monitored in closely allied countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Spain, Brazil, Germany and Portugal. It is unclear from the document whether LEVITATION has ever prevented any terrorist attacks. The agency cites only two successes of the program in the 2012 presentation: the discovery of a hostage video through a previously unknown target, and an uploaded document that contained the hostage strategy of a terrorist organization. The hostage in the discovered video was ultimately killed, according to public reports.
  • LEVITATION does not rely on cooperation from any of the file-sharing companies. A separate secret CSE operation codenamed ATOMIC BANJO obtains the data directly from internet cables that it has tapped into, and the agency then sifts out the unique IP address of each computer that downloaded files from the targeted websites. The IP addresses are valuable pieces of information to CSE’s analysts, helping to identify people whose downloads have been flagged as suspicious. The analysts use the IP addresses as a kind of search term, entering them into other surveillance databases that they have access to, such as the vast repositories of intercepted Internet data shared with the Canadian agency by the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters. If successful, the searches will return a list of results showing other websites visited by the people downloading the files – in some cases revealing associations with Facebook or Google accounts. In turn, these accounts may reveal the names and the locations of individual downloaders, opening the door for further surveillance of their activities.
  • Canada’s leading surveillance agency is monitoring millions of Internet users’ file downloads in a dragnet search to identify extremists, according to top-secret documents. The covert operation, revealed Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, taps into Internet cables and analyzes records of up to 15 million downloads daily from popular websites commonly used to share videos, photographs, music, and other files. The revelations about the spying initiative, codenamed LEVITATION, are the first from the trove of files provided by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to show that the Canadian government has launched its own globe-spanning Internet mass surveillance system. According to the documents, the LEVITATION program can monitor downloads in several countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. It is led by the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, Canada’s equivalent of the NSA. (The Canadian agency was formerly known as “CSEC” until a recent name change.)
1 - 20 of 74 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page