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Paul Merrell

Fire the Liar | War Is A Crime .org - 0 views

warisacrime.org/fire-liar

surveillance state Clapper VIPS lies Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Obama Urged to Fire DNI Clapper December 11, 2013 (Editor Note)  Last March – before Edward Snowden revealed the NSA’s sweeping collection of phone and other data – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said no such operation existed. Now, a group of ex-national security officials urge President Obama to fire Clapper. MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Fire James Clapper
  • We wish to endorse the call by Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be removed and prosecuted for lying to Congress. “Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it,” the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill. “The only way laws are effective is if they’re enforced.” Sensenbrenner added, “If it’s a criminal offense — and I believe Mr. Clapper has committed a criminal offense — then the Justice Department ought to do its job.”
  • This brief Memorandum is to inform you that we agree that no intelligence director should be able to deceive Congress and suffer no consequences. No democracy that condones such deceit at the hands of powerful, secretive intelligence directors can long endure. It seems clear that you can expect no help from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to which Clapper has apologized for giving “clearly erroneous” testimony, and who, at the height of the controversy over his credibility, defended him as a “direct and honest” person. You must be well aware that few amendments to the U.S. Constitution are as clear as the fourth:
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  • “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Even the cleverest lawyers cannot square with the Fourth Amendment many of the NSA activities that Clapper and Feinstein have defended, winked at, or lied about. Only you can get rid of James Clapper. We suspect that a certain awkwardness — and perhaps also a misguided sense of loyalty to a colleague — militate against your senior staff giving you an unvarnished critique of how badly you have been served by Clapper. And so we decided to give you a candid reminder from us former intelligence and national security officials with a total of hundreds of years of experience, much of it at senior levels, in the hope you will find it helpful. Statements by DNI Clapper re Eavesdropping on Americans
  • Mr. President, are you not also troubled by those misleading statements? We strongly believe you must fire Jim Clapper for his lies to the Congress and the American people and that you must appoint someone who will tell the truth. * * * For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Dec 13
     
    Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity call on Obama to sack Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for perjured testimony to Congress and lying to the public, with a nice collection of Clapper's lies. And Sen. Diane Feinstein gets a share of their wrath.  In my book both Clapper and Gen. Keith Alexander must be fired in disgrace else the message to the intelligence community is that there is no penalty for lying to Congress and the People, which can only encourage further lies.  Moreover, it send a message to the People that the President is more loyal to his henchmen than he is to the public's interest.
Paul Merrell

Warning Merkel on Russian 'Invasion' Intel | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...rkel-on-russian-invasion-intel

war & peace Ukraine Merkel Intel-professionals war-propaganda debunking

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Official Washington – and the specter of a new Cold War – U.S. intelligence veterans took the unusual step of sending this Aug. 30 memo to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian “invasion.” MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO We the undersigned are long-time veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on Sept. 4-5.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14
     
    Our buddies the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) are back, this time with a warning for German Chancellor Angela Merkel that John Kerry is lying about Russia invading Ukraine. The NATO Summit kicked off on the 4th; this was published on the 1st. 
Paul Merrell

Obama Should Release Ukraine Evidence | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...hould-release-ukraine-evidence

war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy VIPS MH17 Obama Kerry Clapper must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • With the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine turning a local civil war into a U.S. confrontation with Russia, U.S. intelligence veterans urge President Obama to release what evidence he has about the tragedy and silence the hyperbole. MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Intelligence on Shoot-Down of Malaysian Plane Executive Summary
  • U.S.–Russian tensions are building in a precarious way over Ukraine, and we are far from certain that your advisers fully appreciate the danger of escalation. The New York Times and other media outlets are treating sensitive issues in dispute as flat-fact, taking their cue from U.S. government sources. Twelve days after the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, your administration still has issued no coordinated intelligence assessment summarizing what evidence exists to determine who was responsible – much less to convincingly support repeated claims that the plane was downed by a Russian-supplied missile in the hands of Ukrainian separatists.
  • We, the undersigned former intelligence officers want to share with you our concern about the evidence adduced so far to blame Russia for the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. We are retired from government service and none of us is on the payroll of CNN, Fox News, or any other outlet. We intend this memorandum to provide a fresh, different perspective.
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  • Regarding the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down of July 17, we believe Kerry has typically rushed to judgment and that his incredible record for credibility poses a huge disadvantage in the diplomatic and propaganda maneuvering vis-a-vis Russia. We suggest you call a halt to this misbegotten “public diplomacy” offensive. If, however, you decide to press on anyway, we suggest you try to find a less tarnished statesman or woman.
  • As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information. As Americans, we find ourselves hoping that, if you indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay. In charging Russia with being directly or indirectly responsible, Secretary of State John Kerry has been particularly definitive. Not so the evidence. His statements seem premature and bear earmarks of an attempt to “poison the jury pool.”
  • If the U.S. has more convincing evidence than what has so far been adduced concerning responsibility for shooting down Flight 17, we believe it would be best to find a way to make that intelligence public – even at the risk of compromising “sources and methods.” Moreover, we suggest you instruct your subordinates not to cheapen U.S. credibility by releasing key information via social media like Twitter and Facebook. The reputation of the messenger for credibility is also key in this area of “public diplomacy.” As is by now clear to you, in our view Secretary Kerry is more liability than asset in this regard. Similarly, with regard to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, his March 12, 2013 Congressional testimony under oath to what he later admitted were “clearly erroneous” things regarding NSA collection should disqualify him. Clapper should be kept at far remove from the Flight 17 affair. What is needed, if you’ve got the goods, is an Interagency Intelligence Assessment – the genre used in the past to lay out the intelligence. We are hearing indirectly from some of our former colleagues that what Secretary Kerry is peddling does not square with the real intelligence. Such was the case late last August, when Kerry created a unique vehicle he called a “Government (not Intelligence) Assessment” blaming, with no verifiable evidence, Bashar al-Assad for the chemical attacks near Damascus, as honest intelligence analysts refused to go along and, instead, held their noses.
  • We believe you need to seek out honest intelligence analysts now and hear them out. Then, you may be persuaded to take steps to curb the risk that relations with Russia might escalate from “Cold War II” into an armed confrontation. In all candor, we see little reason to believe that Secretary Kerry and your other advisers appreciate the enormity of that danger. In our most recent (May 4) memorandum to you, Mr. President, we cautioned that if the U.S. wished “to stop a bloody civil war between east and west Ukraine and avert Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine, you may be able to do so before the violence hurtles completely out of control.” On July 18, you joined the top leaders of Germany, France, and Russia in calling for an immediate ceasefire. Most informed observers believe you have it in your power to get Ukrainian leaders to agree. The longer Kiev continues its offensive against separatists in eastern Ukraine, the more such U.S. statements appear hypocritical. We reiterate our recommendations of May 4, that you remove the seeds of this confrontation by publicly disavowing any wish to incorporate Ukraine into NATO and that you make it clear that you are prepared to meet personally with Russian President Putin without delay to discuss ways to defuse the crisis and recognize the legitimate interests of the various parties. The suggestion of an early summit got extraordinary resonance in controlled and independent Russian media. Not so in “mainstream” media in the U.S. Nor did we hear back from you. The courtesy of a reply is requested.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Jul 14
     
    Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) savage thecredibility of John Kerry and James Clapper, saying that Kerry's claims of Russian responsibility for shooting down MH17 are at odds with what they are being told by intelligence analysts still working for the government, and challenge Obama to release any evidence he has to support Kerry's version of events. Reading the entire communique is highly recommended.
Paul Merrell

US v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 621 F. 3d 1162 - Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit ... - 0 views

scholar.google.com/scholar_case

surveillance-state 4th Amendment bulk-collection future-investigations

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Concluding Thoughts
  • This case well illustrates both the challenges faced by modern law enforcement in retrieving information it needs to pursue and prosecute wrongdoers, and the threat to the privacy of innocent parties from a vigorous criminal investigation. At the time of Tamura, most individuals and enterprises kept records in their file cabinets or similar physical facilities. Today, the same kind of data is usually stored electronically, often far from the premises. Electronic storage facilities intermingle data, making them difficult to retrieve without a thorough understanding of the filing and classification systems used—something that can often only be determined by closely analyzing the data in a controlled environment. Tamura involved a few dozen boxes and was considered a broad seizure; but even inexpensive electronic storage media today can store the equivalent of millions of pages of information. 1176*1176 Wrongdoers and their collaborators have obvious incentives to make data difficult to find, but parties involved in lawful activities may also encrypt or compress data for entirely legitimate reasons: protection of privacy, preservation of privileged communications, warding off industrial espionage or preventing general mischief such as identity theft. Law enforcement today thus has a far more difficult, exacting and sensitive task in pursuing evidence of criminal activities than even in the relatively recent past. The legitimate need to scoop up large quantities of data, and sift through it carefully for concealed or disguised pieces of evidence, is one we've often recognized. See, e.g., United States v. Hill, 459 F.3d 966 (9th Cir.2006).
  • This pressing need of law enforcement for broad authorization to examine electronic records, so persuasively demonstrated in the introduction to the original warrant in this case, see pp. 1167-68 supra, creates a serious risk that every warrant for electronic information will become, in effect, a general warrant, rendering the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. The problem can be stated very simply: There is no way to be sure exactly what an electronic file contains without somehow examining its contents—either by opening it and looking, using specialized forensic software, keyword searching or some other such technique. But electronic files are generally found on media that also contain thousands or millions of other files among which the sought-after data may be stored or concealed. By necessity, government efforts to locate particular files will require examining a great many other files to exclude the possibility that the sought-after data are concealed there. Once a file is examined, however, the government may claim (as it did in this case) that its contents are in plain view and, if incriminating, the government can keep it. Authorization to search some computer files therefore automatically becomes authorization to search all files in the same sub-directory, and all files in an enveloping directory, a neighboring hard drive, a nearby computer or nearby storage media. Where computers are not near each other, but are connected electronically, the original search might justify examining files in computers many miles away, on a theory that incriminating electronic data could have been shuttled and concealed there.
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  • The advent of fast, cheap networking has made it possible to store information at remote third-party locations, where it is intermingled with that of other users. For example, many people no longer keep their email primarily on their personal computer, and instead use a web-based email provider, which stores their messages along with billions of messages from and to millions of other people. Similar services exist for photographs, slide shows, computer code and many other types of data. As a result, people now have personal data that are stored with that of innumerable strangers. Seizure of, for example, Google's email servers to look for a few incriminating messages could jeopardize the privacy of millions. It's no answer to suggest, as did the majority of the three-judge panel, that people can avoid these hazards by not storing their data electronically. To begin with, the choice about how information is stored is often made by someone other than the individuals whose privacy would be invaded by the search. Most people have no idea whether their doctor, lawyer or accountant maintains records in paper or electronic format, whether they are stored on the premises or on a server farm in Rancho Cucamonga, whether they are commingled with those of many other professionals 1177*1177 or kept entirely separate. Here, for example, the Tracey Directory contained a huge number of drug testing records, not only of the ten players for whom the government had probable cause but hundreds of other professional baseball players, thirteen other sports organizations, three unrelated sporting competitions, and a non-sports business entity—thousands of files in all, reflecting the test results of an unknown number of people, most having no relationship to professional baseball except that they had the bad luck of having their test results stored on the same computer as the baseball players.
  • Second, there are very important benefits to storing data electronically. Being able to back up the data and avoid the loss by fire, flood or earthquake is one of them. Ease of access from remote locations while traveling is another. The ability to swiftly share the data among professionals, such as sending MRIs for examination by a cancer specialist half-way around the world, can mean the difference between death and a full recovery. Electronic storage and transmission of data is no longer a peculiarity or a luxury of the very rich; it's a way of life. Government intrusions into large private databases thus have the potential to expose exceedingly sensitive information about countless individuals not implicated in any criminal activity, who might not even know that the information about them has been seized and thus can do nothing to protect their privacy. It is not surprising, then, that all three of the district judges below were severely troubled by the government's conduct in this case. Judge Mahan, for example, asked "what ever happened to the Fourth Amendment? Was it ... repealed somehow?" Judge Cooper referred to "the image of quickly and skillfully moving the cup so no one can find the pea." And Judge Illston regarded the government's tactics as "unreasonable" and found that they constituted "harassment." Judge Thomas, too, in his panel dissent, expressed frustration with the government's conduct and position, calling it a "breathtaking expansion of the `plain view' doctrine, which clearly has no application to intermingled private electronic data." Comprehensive Drug Testing, 513 F.3d at 1117.
  • Everyone's interests are best served if there are clear rules to follow that strike a fair balance between the legitimate needs of law enforcement and the right of individuals and enterprises to the privacy that is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment. Tamura has provided a workable framework for almost three decades, and might well have sufficed in this case had its teachings been followed. We have updated Tamura to apply to the daunting realities of electronic searches. We recognize the reality that over-seizing is an inherent part of the electronic search process and proceed on the assumption that, when it comes to the seizure of electronic records, this will be far more common than in the days of paper records. This calls for greater vigilance on the part of judicial officers in striking the right balance between the government's interest in law enforcement and the right of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The process of segregating electronic data that is seizable from that which is not must not become a vehicle for the government to gain access to data which it has no probable cause to collect.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Dec 14
     
    From a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals en banc ruling in 2010. The Court's holding was that federal investigators had vastly overstepped the boundaries of multiple subpoenas and a search warrant --- and the Fourth Amendment --- by seizing records of a testing laboratory and reviewing them for information not described in the warrant or the subpoenas. At issue in this particular case was the government's use of a warrant that found probable cause to believe that the records contained evidence that steroids had been found in the urine of ten major league baseball players but searched the seized records for urine tests of other baseball players. The Court upheld the lower courts' rulings that the government was required to return all records other than those relevant to the ten players identified in the warrant. (The government had instead used the records of other player's urine tests to issue subpoenas for evidence relevant to those players potential use of steroids.) This decision cuts very heavily against the notion that the Fourth Amendment allows the bulk collection of private information about millions of Americans with or without a warrantor court order on the theory that some of the records *may* later become relevant to a lawful investigation.   Or rephrased, here is the en banc decision of the largest federal court of appeals (as many judges as most other federal appellate courts combined), in direct disagreement with the FISA Court orders allowing bulk collection of telephone records and bulk "incidental" collection of Americans' telephone conversations on the theory that the records *might* become relevant to national security investigations. Yet none of the FISA judges in any of the FISA opinions published thus far even cited, let alone distinguished, this Ninth Circuit en banc decision. Which says a lot of the quality of the legal research performed by the FISA Court judges. However, this precedent is front and center in briefs filed with the Ni
Paul Merrell

Aleksandr Mezyaev - Muhammadu Buhari - Nigeria's New President - Strategic Culture Foun... - 0 views

www.strategic-culture.org/...ari-nigeria-new-president.html

economic-warfare BRICS Nigeria

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Buhari’s foreign policy is notable for its proposal to «establish a special relationship» with the BRICS countries, particularly with Russia. The new president also plans to complete the creation of a free-trade zone - the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) - and to introduce a common currency in those nations. He sees Nigeria as a leader of this association. (2)
  • On April 1, the election commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria - a country with vast mineral wealth and a population of 185 million - announced that a new president had been elected, a professional soldier named General Muhammadu Buhari, who attracted nearly 54% of the vote, beating the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan. The new Nigerian president has a colorful history. In the 1980s he was behind a coup that forced out the democratically elected president, but after a year and a half he was himself overthrown during a takeover led by General Ibrahim Babangida. That was not Muhammadu Buhari’s first revolution. He took part in his first coup d’état back in 1966 when he and other generals ousted the military dictatorship of Aguiyi Ironsi.
  • On April 1, the election commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria - a country with vast mineral wealth and a population of 185 million - announced that a new president had been elected, a professional soldier named General Muhammadu Buhari, who attracted nearly 54% of the vote, beating the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan. The new Nigerian president has a colorful history. In the 1980s he was behind a coup that forced out the democratically elected president, but after a year and a half he was himself overthrown during a takeover led by General Ibrahim Babangida. That was not Muhammadu Buhari’s first revolution. He took part in his first coup d’état back in 1966 when he and other generals ousted the military dictatorship of Aguiyi Ironsi.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • On April 1, the election commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria - a country with vast mineral wealth and a population of 185 million - announced that a new president had been elected, a professional soldier named General Muhammadu Buhari, who attracted nearly 54% of the vote, beating the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan. The new Nigerian president has a colorful history. In the 1980s he was behind a coup that forced out the democratically elected president, but after a year and a half he was himself overthrown during a takeover led by General Ibrahim Babangida. That was not Muhammadu Buhari’s first revolution. He took part in his first coup d’état back in 1966 when he and other generals ousted the military dictatorship of Aguiyi Ironsi.
  • On April 1, the election commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria - a country with vast mineral wealth and a population of 185 million - announced that a new president had been elected, a professional soldier named General Muhammadu Buhari, who attracted nearly 54% of the vote, beating the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan. The new Nigerian president has a colorful history. In the 1980s he was behind a coup that forced out the democratically elected president, but after a year and a half he was himself overthrown during a takeover led by General Ibrahim Babangida. That was not Muhammadu Buhari’s first revolution. He took part in his first coup d’état back in 1966 when he and other generals ousted the military dictatorship of Aguiyi Ironsi. 
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

House puts squeeze on military's 'musical arsenal' - Checkpoint Washington - The Washin... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...gIQAs1WiYU_blog.html

military spending

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • The House, for a second year in a row, has approved a measure limiting Pentagon spending on military bands next year to only $200 million. An amendment by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, was approved as part of the fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization Bill and could save $188 million if it makes it through Congress. A similar amendment passed by the House last year, however, was dropped by the House-Senate conference. In a statement placed in the Congressional Record, McCollum said: “Over the past four years, taxpayers have spent $1.55 billion for the Pentagon’s 150 military bands and more than 5,000 full-time, professional military musicians.... At a time of fiscal crisis the Pentagon will have to get by spending only $200 million for their musical arsenal.”
  • But, when it comes to reining in spending, only the Air Force had plans to do so, dropping eight of its 23 bands next year. The other services are increasing funding.
  • The Army, Navy and Marine Corps, which also face personnel reductions, are keeping their current 125 bands for 2013 and actually increasing their spending on them by $6.4 million, according to the Defense Department.
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  • McCollum scored another victory on Thursday. Her amendment, put forward with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), to eliminate all Pentagon spending to sponsor professional or semi-professional sports, including auto racing, was attached to the fiscal Defense Appropriations Bill. Some $80 million was spent on sports sponsorship this year, including $26 million by the National Guard to place its logo on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s NASCAR vehicle, as well as on his uniform and those of his racing team.
Paul Merrell

U.S. Military and Intelligence Officials to Obama: "Assad NOT Responsible for Chemical ... - 1 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5348576

war & peace Syria false-flag must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap? Precedence: IMMEDIATE We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.” We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandumimmediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised.
  • The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond …  the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today. Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you. We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.
  • That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.” This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”
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  • There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war. According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured. We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons. In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.
  • Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria. At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.
  • We hope your advisers have warned you that retaliation for attacks on Syrian are not a matter of IF, but rather WHERE and WHEN. Retaliation is inevitable. For example, terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies and other installations are likely to make what happened to the U.S. “Mission” in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, look like a minor dust-up by comparison. One of us addressed this key consideration directly a week ago in an article titled “Possible Consequences of a U.S. Military Attack on Syria – Remembering the U.S. Marine Barracks Destruction in Beirut, 1983.”
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Sep 13
     
    This report by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity is almost certainly the most credible report contradicting the White House's "intelligence summary" that included zero evidence supporting the claim that Syrian government forces had unleashed the August 21, 2013 chemical attack in Ghoutu, near Damascus and less than five miles away from the just-arrived UN investigative team.  Spread it far and wide. 
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Sep 13
     
    Wow!! The cover-up of this false flag operation designed to get us into another civil war is incredible. Yet the truth continues to leak out. The ruling elites must be so pissed right now. The Internet is changing the world balance of power - in real time no less. And we are witness. Awesome stuff Paul.
Paul Merrell

The Vineyard of the Saker: The most pathetic case of backpedaling I have seen in my life - 0 views

vineyardsaker.blogspot.com.br/...etic-case-of-backpedaling.html

war & peace MH17 Russia Ukraine U.S.-intelligence

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Check out this story by AP and compare the lame, pathetic and self-evident nonsense of these so-called "intelligence officials" offer with the hard fact based presentation of the Russian Air Force Chief of Staff. Here is the full article with my comments in blue. WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for "creating the conditions" that led to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but they offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement. The intelligence officials were cautious in their assessment, noting that while the Russians have been arming separatists in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot down the passenger jet came from Russia. The officials briefed reporters Tuesday under ground rules that their names not be used in discussing intelligence related to last week's air disaster, which killed 298 people. The plane was likely shot down by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the intelligence officials said, citing intercepts, satellite photos and social media postings by separatists, some of which have been authenticated by U.S. experts. But the officials said they did not know who fired the missile or whether any Russian operatives were present at the missile launch. They were not certain that the missile crew was trained in Russia, although they described a stepped-up campaign in recent weeks by Russia to arm and train the rebels, which they say has continued even after the downing of the commercial jetliner.
  • In terms of who fired the missile, "we don't know a name, we don't know a rank and we're not even 100 percent sure of a nationality," one official said, adding at another point, "There is not going to be a Perry Mason moment here." White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the U.S. was still working to determine whether the missile launch had a "direct link" to Russia, including whether there were Russians on the ground during the attack and the degree to which Russians may have trained the separatists to launch such a strike. "We do think President Putin and the Russian government bears responsibility for the support they provided to these separatists, the arms they provided to these separatists, the training they provided as well and the general unstable environment in eastern Ukraine," Rhodes said in an interview with CNN. He added that heavy weaponry continues to flow into Ukraine from Russia following the downing of the plane. The intelligence officials said the most likely explanation for the downing was that the rebels made a mistake. Separatists previously had shot down 12 Ukrainian military airplanes, the officials said.
  • The officials made clear they were relying in part on social media postings and videos made public in recent days by the Ukrainian government, even though they have not been able to authenticate all of it. For example, they cited a video of a missile launcher said to have been crossing the Russian border after the launch, appearing to be missing a missile. But later, under questioning, the officials acknowledged they had not yet verified that the video was exactly what it purported to be. Despite the fuzziness of some details, however, the intelligence officials said the case that the separatists were responsible for shooting down the plane was solid. Other scenarios — such as that the Ukrainian military shot down the plane — are implausible, they said. No Ukrainian surface-to-air missile system was in range. (That is a lie as proven by the Russian satellite imagery and signal intercepts which prove that they Ukies had plenty of batteries freshly brought right next to the combat zone even though the Novorissians had just one Su-25 close air support aircraft in their entire inventory) From satellites, sensors and other intelligence gathering, officials said, they know where the missile originated — in separatist-held territory — and what its flight path was. But if they possess satellite or other imagery of the missile being fired, they did not release it Tuesday. A graphic they made public depicts their estimation of the missile's flight path with a green line. The jet's flight path was available from air traffic control data.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In the weeks before the plane was shot down, Russia had stepped up its arming and training of the separatists after the Ukrainian government won a string of battlefield victories. The working theory is that the SA-11 missile came from Russia, although the U.S. doesn't have proof of that, the officials said. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power said last week that "because of the technical complexity of the SA-11, it is unlikely that the separatists could effectively operate the system without assistance from knowledgeable personnel. Thus, we cannot rule out technical assistance from Russian personnel in operating the systems," she said. Asked about evidence, one of the senior U.S. intelligence officials said it was conceivable that Russian paramilitary troops are operating in eastern Ukraine, but that there was no direct link from them to the missile launch. Asked why civilian airline companies were not warned about a possible threat, the officials said they did not know the rebels possessed SA-11 missiles until after the Malaysian airliner was shot down. (WHAT?  Even I new this, just by reading the reports about the seized Buks, reports which even included photos.  They are really insulting our collective intelligence again!) 
  • ave you counted the "caveat words"?  I counted fifteen (depending on what you want to include).  Notice that they consider the Ukie missile as "implausible" but that they never explain why this would be implausible.  And they admit relying in part on social media and Ukie government info?  How absolutely utterly pathetic.  I mean - I feel sorry for them.  For any self-respecting intelligence official to admit such things is to commit a seppuku of your professional pride.  It's admitting that you are an amateur and a drooling moron.  And here is the deal - I very much doubt that these men are amateurs or morons.  So, yet again, they were back-stabbed by imbecile politicians like Obama and Power who just are not used to consulting with their own specialist before flapping their lips and nevermind if they make an entire intelligence community look like cretins.
  • I can barely imaging how much the US intelligence community must *hate* this administration.  Can you imagine what it must be to be a highly experienced US State Department or DIA career officer and listen to how the Russians constantly berate the US government for being "un-professional" and "amateurish" only to then hear that kind of absolute utter nonsense spoken in your name. Look, in this game I am 100% on Russia's side, but part of me, on a (ex-) professional level if you want,  feels the pain that I am sure many career intelligence officers feel today in the USA and they have my sincere sympathy.  I met enough of them to know that they are not the idiots that this Administration makes them out to be. But of course the big news here is this: the US fairy tale about Putin the terrorist is falling down in flames.  Yet again the Neocons by their sheer arrogance, hubris and boundless stupidity manged to lie their way into a corner from which there is no exit.  Not that the US had much street-cred anyway, not after Colin Powell's dishwasher powder in a vial at the UNSC.  But, of course, there is bad, very bad, even worse and outright terrible.  But now the US has reached the "terminal" stage. The AngloZionists sure had this one coming.
Paul Merrell

Judith Miller's Blame-Shifting Memoir | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...-millers-blame-shifting-memoir

war & peace MSM presstitutes war-propaganda Iraq-War Judith-Miller VIPS

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • U.S. intelligence veterans recall the real story of how New York Times reporter Judith Miller disgraced herself and her profession by helping to mislead Americans into the disastrous war in Iraq. They challenge the slick, self-aggrandizing rewrite of history in her new memoir.MEMORANDUM FOR: Americans Malnourished on the Truth About IraqFROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)SUBJECT: A New “Miller’s Tale” (with apologies to Geoffrey Chaucer)On April 3, former New York Times journalist Judith Miller published an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Iraq War and Stubborn Myths: Officials Didn’t Lie, and I Wasn’t Fed a Line.” If this sounds a bit defensive, Miller has tons to be defensive about.
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Apr 15
     
    Judith Miller experienced a richly deserved blow to her reputation as a journalist as even her former employer, The New York Times, published mea culpas on her pro-war propaganda "reporting" in the run-up to the Iraq War. Now she's making an attempt at a comeback. But not on the watch by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.  And not while Crooks & Liars is still watching. http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/judy-miller-hans-blix-bears-more
Paul Merrell

FBI Celebrates Duping Another Mentally Ill Man Into Fake Terror Plot - 0 views

thenewamerican.com/...-ill-man-into-fake-terror-plot

war on terror™ FBI terrorists™ entrapment sting-operations

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Following a series of similar widely ridiculed so-called “sting” operations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced last week that it had foiled yet another “terror plot” that, like virtually every supposed “terrorist” case in recent years, was created and managed from start to finish by the FBI itself. This time, the dupe was a 28-year-old California man, Matthew Aaron Llaneza, with a documented history of mental illness, who apparently believed his government handlers were helping him wage “jihad.” Critics, however, say the whole scheme smacks of entrapment and a waste of taxpayer money. Llaneza was arrested by federal agents on February 7 in Oakland after he supposedly tried to blow up a bogus bomb the FBI helped him create. According to authorities, the mentally ill San Jose suspect planned to detonate the fake explosives outside a Bank of America branch. The alleged plan, officials said, was to start a “civil war” by making it appear as if the attack had been carried out by “anti-government militias,” sparking a crackdown by the government on right-of-center dissidents.       “Unbeknownst to Llaneza, the explosive device that he allegedly attempted to use had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement and posed no threat to the public,” the FBI admitted in a press release celebrating the arrest of its mentally unstable stooge. The man was charged in a criminal complaint with “attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against property used in an activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.” If convicted, he could face life in prison.
  • According to the government’s court filings, the mentally ill man met with an undercover FBI agent late last year under mysterious circumstances. The federal official somehow managed to convince the naïve dupe that he was connected to the “Taliban and the mujahidin in Afghanistan” — Islamist forces that were originally armed and trained by the U.S. government before becoming official enemies. From there, federal handlers worked with the man to develop the half-baked plot and the fake bomb to blow something up.  
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Feb 13
     
    The trend continues. Still no Terrorist™ criminal charges brought against anyone by the FBI other than alleged 9/11 participants that the FBI did not incite to commit an act of Terrorism™; i.e., no real Terrorist™ threat resulting in criminal charges. Hard to justify continuation of all that funding the FBI gets for chasing domestic Terrorists™ if there aren't any, so the FBI continues to manufacture them in sting operations. Not to mention that the whole War on Terror™ government propaganda campaign would fall apart and the TSA would have to stop forcing air passengers to choose between being groped or viewed naked in those nifty body scanners. Heaven forbid that we might begin restoring civil rights and spending those trillions of dollars on the War on Terror™. No! No! We must maintain Cold War military spending as a percentage of GDP or we'd be flooded with unemployed military veterans and former government contractor workers. We only start wars to defend the U.S., not to enrich military contractors, seize natural resources from those that own or control them, enable the banksters to siphon more from a bigger bucket, or  expand the Globalist Empire. We are America! We are the good guys. Our motives for waging the War on Terror™ are entirely altruistic. Ditto for our professional politicians.   Not.     
Paul Merrell

Pilots For 9/11 Truth - 0 views

pilotsfor911truth.org

war & peace 9-11 pilots truthers

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 May 16 - Cached
  • Pilots for 9/11 Truth is an organization of aviation professionals and pilots throughout the globe who have gathered together for one purpose. We are committed to seeking the truth surrounding the events of the 11th of September 2001. Our main focus concentrates on the four flights, maneuvers performed and the reported pilots. We do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, we are focused on determining the truth of that fateful day based on solid data and facts -- since 9/11/2001 is the catalyst for many of the events shaping our world today -- and the United States Government does not seem to be very forthcoming with answers or facts. We do not accept the 9/11 Commission Report -- a Commission admittedly "set up to fail" according to the Chairman himself, nor "hypothesis" as a satisfactory explanation for the continued gross violation(s) of the United States Constitution being committed by Government agencies, and the sacrifice every American has made and continue to make -- some more than others. We stand with the numerous other growing organizations of Firefighters, Medical Professionals, Lawyers, Scholars, Military Officers, Veterans, Religious and Political Leaders, along side Survivors, family members of the victims -- family members of soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice -- including the many Ground Zero workers who are now ill or have passed away, when we ask for a true, new independent investigation into the events of 9/11. Thank you for taking the time to inform yourself.
Paul Merrell

US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims - Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...-dispute-russia-hacking-claims

war & peace Auction 2016 Russia hacking debunked VIPS

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • As the hysteria about Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. election grows, a key mystery is why U.S. intelligence would rely on “circumstantial evidence” when it has the capability for hard evidence, say U.S. intelligence veterans. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity MEMORANDUM Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless A New York Times report on Monday alluding to “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” leading the CIA to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin “deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump” is, sadly, evidence-free. This is no surprise, because harder evidence of a technical nature points to an inside leak, not hacking – by Russians or anyone else.
  • We have gone through the various claims about hacking. For us, it is child’s play to dismiss them. The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here’s the difference between leaking and hacking: Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization and gives it to some other person or organization, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did. Hack: When someone in a remote location electronically penetrates operating systems, firewalls or any other cyber-protection system and then extracts data. All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it – and know both sender and recipient. In short, since leaking requires physically removing data – on a thumb drive, for example – the only way such data can be copied and removed, with no electronic trace of what has left the server, is via a physical storage device.
  • These collection resources are extensive [see attached NSA slides 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; they include hundreds of trace route programs that trace the path of packets going across the network and tens of thousands of hardware and software implants in switches and servers that manage the network. Any emails being extracted from one server going to another would be, at least in part, recognizable and traceable by all these resources. The bottom line is that the NSA would know where and how any “hacked” emails from the DNC, HRC or any other servers were routed through the network. This process can sometimes require a closer look into the routing to sort out intermediate clients, but in the end sender and recipient can be traced across the network. The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating – saying things like “our best guess” or “our opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that the emails alleged to have been “hacked” cannot be traced across the network. Given NSA’s extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked. The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods. Thus, we conclude that the emails were leaked by an insider – as was the case with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Such an insider could be anyone in a government department or agency with access to NSA databases, or perhaps someone within the DNC.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • As for the comments to the media as to what the CIA believes, the reality is that CIA is almost totally dependent on NSA for ground truth in the communications arena. Thus, it remains something of a mystery why the media is being fed strange stories about hacking that have no basis in fact. In sum, given what we know of NSA’s existing capabilities, it beggars belief that NSA would be unable to identify anyone – Russian or not – attempting to interfere in a U.S. election by hacking. For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Gary Edwards

Political Editors: Dick Morris Corrects the Record on Hillary Clinton - The Patriot Post - 0 views

patriotpost.us/44049

Hillary Political-Corruption

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Then Bill discusses Hillary’s legal career at the Rose Law firm. He doesn’t mention that she made partner when he was elected governor and was only hired when he got elected as attorney general. "He makes as if it was a public service job — it wasn’t. Her main job was to get state business, and she got tens-of-millions of dollars of state business, then hid her participation and the fees by taking an extra share of non-state business to compensate for the fees on state business that she brought in. Her other job was to call the state banking commissioner any time one of her banks got into trouble to get them off.
  • "Bill speaks at length how Hillary was a mother, juggling career and family, taking Chelsea to soccer games and stuff — that’s non-sense. Hillary was a mother but Chelsea in the Arkansas governor’s mansion had a staff of nannies and agents to drive her around and people to be with her, and Hillary didn’t have to bother with any of that. All of that was paid for by the state. "He says she became the warrior in chief over the family finances and that was true, and the result is she learned how to steal. "She accepted a $100,000 bribe from the poultry industry in return for Bill going easy on regulating them, despite new standards. Jim Blair, the poultry lobbyist, gave her $1,000 to invest in the Futures Market and lined up seven to eight other investors and their winnings were all deposited into Hillary’s account. She made $100,000 in a year and she was out. That essentially was a bribe.
  • ”[She did] a phony real-estate deal for Jim McDougal and the Madison Bank to deceive the federal regulators by pretending someone else was buying the property. She was called before a grand jury in 1995 about that but, conveniently, the billing records were lost, couldn’t be found and there wasn’t proof that she worked on it.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • “Bill talks about her work on the health care task force but doesn’t say the reason it didn’t pass was the task force was discredited because the meetings were all held in secret. A federal judge forced them open and fined the task force several hundred thousand dollars because of their secrecy. "He says that after the health care bill failed in 1994, Hillary went to work on adopting each piece of it piecemeal — mainly health insurance for children. "That is completely the opposite of the truth. The fact is when that bill failed, I called Hillary and I suggested that she support a proposal by Republican Bob Dole that we cover children, and she said, ‘We can’t just cover one part of this. You have to change everything or change nothing.’ Then in 1997 when I repeated that advice to Bill Clinton, we worked together to pass the Children’s Health Insurance Program. I found a lot of the money for that in the tobacco settlement that my friend Dick Scruggs was negotiating.
  • "Then Bill extols her record in the U.S. Senate. In fact, she did practically nothing. There were seven or eight bills that she introduced that passed; almost all of were symbolic — renaming a courthouse, congratulating a high school team on winning the championship. There was only one vaguely substantive bill, and that had a lot of co-sponsors of whom Hillary was just one.
  • "Then he goes to her record in the State Department and manages to tell that story without mentioning the word Benghazi, without mentioning her secret emails, without mentioning he was getting tens of millions — $220 million in speaking fees in return for favorable actions by the State Department.
  • "Also totally lacking in the speech was anything about the war on terror — terror is a word you don’t hear at the Democratic Convention. "Bill says that Hillary passed tough sanctions on Iran for their nuclear program. The opposite is true. "Every time a tough sanction bill was introduced by Senators Menendez or Kirk, Hillary would send Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman to Capital Hill to testify against it and urge it not to pass, and it was over Hillary’s objections that those sanctions were put into place.
  • ”[Liberal columnist] Maureen Dowd called the speech by Bill Clinton “air brushed.” “It was a hell of a lot more than that — it was fiction. (Also see Morris’s comments after Clinton’s DNC acceptance speech. "It’s strategy and message will be interdicted by reality at every turn. … She basically has no message. … Her entire campaign is, ‘I’m a woman and I am running against Donald Trump. … She bean her speech by saying let’s compromise and work together. Is there any woman in the world less likely to compromise?”)
  • Gary Edwards on 30 Jul 16
     
    "Dick Morris is a nationally recognized political campaign adviser, analyst and author. He was the senior political adviser to Bill Clinton before and after his occupation of the White House. He was campaign manager of Clinton's 1996 re-election, and the architect of his successful "triangulation" rhetorical ruse. Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos said of Morris, "No single person had more power over [Bill Clinton]." This week, in a message entitled "What Bill Left Out, Morris corrected the record regarding Clinton's glowing remarks about Hillary Clinton, her personal attributes and professional achievements. Morris's insights into the Clintons are priceless. What follows is a transcript of Morris's comments: "Bill Clinton talked at length about Hillary's idealistic work in college and law school, but he omits that she was defending the Black Panthers who killed security guards; they were on trial in New Haven. She monitored the trial while she was in law school to find evidence that could be grounds for reversal in the event they were convicted. "That summer she went to work for the True-Haft (SP) law firm in CA, headed by True Haft who is the head of the CA Communist Party and that's when she got involved with Saul Alinsky, who became something of a mentor for the rest of her life. "Then Bill says that she went off to Massachusetts and he went to Arkansas, and eventually Hillary followed her heart to join him in Arkansas. He omits that she went to work for the Watergate Committee and was fired from that job for taking home evidence and hiding documents that they needed in the impeachment inquiry. Then she took the DC Bar exam and flunked it, she went to Arkansas because that is the only bar exam she could pass. "He talked about how in the 1970's she took all kinds of pro-bono cases to defend women and children. In her memoirs, she cites one which was a custody case and that's it. In fact, in 1975 she represen
Gary Edwards

Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing - Documents Show How Goldman et al ... - 0 views

www.rollingstone.com/...n-naked-short-selling-20120515

Banksters Naked-Short-Selling Overstock.com

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 17 May 12
     
    Incredible.  Take your time reading this because we now have legal evidence of outrageous Bankster criminality.  Read carefully. excerpt: The lawsuit between Overstock and the banks concerned a phenomenon called naked short-selling, a kind of high-finance counterfeiting that, especially prior to the introduction of new regulations in 2008, short-sellers could use to artificially depress the value of the stocks they've bet against. The subject of naked short-selling is a) highly technical, and b) very controversial on Wall Street, with many pundits in the financial press for years treating the phenomenon as the stuff of myths and conspiracy theories. Now, however, through the magic of this unredacted document, the public will be able to see for itself what the banks' attitudes are not just toward the "mythical" practice of naked short selling (hint: they volubly confess to the activity, in writing), but toward regulations and laws in general. "Fuck the compliance area - procedures, schmecedures," chirps Peter Melz, former president of Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp. (a.k.a. Merrill Pro), when a subordinate worries about the company failing to comply with the rules governing short sales. ...................... If this sounds complicated, just focus on this: naked short selling, in essence, is selling stock you do not have. If you don't have to actually locate and borrow stock before you short it, you're creating an artificial supply of stock shares. ................ The process of how banks circumvented federal clearing regulations is highly technical and incredibly difficult to follow. These companies were using obscure loopholes in regulations that allowed them to short companies by trading in shadows, or echoes, of real shares in their stock. They manipulated rules to avoid having to disclose these "failed" trades to regulators. The import of this is that it made it cheaper and easier to bet down the value of a stock
Paul Merrell

NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...nsiders-reveal-what-went-wrong

surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback VIPS Obama must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public. January 7, 2014 MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Former NSA Senior Executives/Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Input for Your Decisions on NSA
  • Signed/ William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of the SIGINT Automation Research Center. Thomas Drake, former Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service, NSA Edward Loomis, former Chief, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA J. Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA PREPARED UNDER AUSPICES OF AD HOC STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Jan 14
     
    Former NSA officials publish an open memorandum to Obama, seeking a meeting with him to explain how the NSA is drowning in data that it cannot effectively process, how more than $1 billion was wasted on a never-completed system to process it, and how a $3 million system that could and did process it effectively was shot down by former NSA Director Michael Hayden so he could award the contract for the much more expensive version to his buddies. And much, much more
Gary Edwards

NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY  by Gary Allen - 1 views

www.whale.to/allen_b1.html

Gary-Allen Larry-Abraham NDCIC

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 14
     
    "NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY" - Web Version Copyright © 1971 by Gary Allen with Larry Abraham  ISBN: 0899666612 Sourced INTRODUCTION 1. DON'T CONFUSE ME WITH FACTS 2. SOCIALISM - ROYAL ROAD TO POWER FOR THE SUPER-RICH 3. THE MONEY MANIPULATORS 4. BANKROLLING THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION 5. ESTABLISHING THE ESTABLISHMENT 6. THE ROCKEFELLERS AND THE REDS 7. PRESSURE FROM ABOVE AND PRESSURE FROM BELOW 8. YOU ARE THE ANSWER     FOURTEEN SIGNPOSTS TO SLAVERY     WHAT WILL YOU DO?     MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS NOMINATED AND APPOINTED BY PRESIDENT NIXON TO GOVERNMENT POSTS     OPERATION COUNTERATTACK WHAT THOSE "IN THE KNOW" SAY I wish that every citizen of every country in the free world and every slave behind the Iron Curtain might read this book. Ezra Taft Benson - Former Secretary of Agriculture NDCC is an admirable job of amassing information to prove that communism is socialism and socialism (a plot to enslave the world) is not a movement of the downtrodden but a scheme supported and directed by the wealthiest of people. If enough Americans read and act upon NDCC, they really can save the Republic from the conspirators - whose plans for the destruction of our country are galloping fast toward completion. Dan Smoot - Former Assistant to J. Edgar Hoover Now that NDCC is available, I no longer need to answer "no" to the question which is often put to me, namely: "Mr. Dodd, is there a book which I can read so I can know what you know?" No higher praise is possible for this book. Norman Dodd - Chief Investigator Reece Committee to Investigate Foundations This book concerns the way in which our nation and other nations are actually governed. As Benjamin Disaeli said, this is not the way in which most people think nations are governed. The whole subject of the Insiders who so largely control our political and economic lives is a fascinating mystery. For the reader who is intelligent but uninitiated in the literature of super
Paul Merrell

We were subjected to 'meticulous, daily torture' - freed Gitmo detainee - RT News - 0 views

rt.com/...amo-torture-sudan-detainee-552

war & peace war on terror™ Gitmo torture government secrecy war-crimes

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • After years of being held at the US Naval Base in Cuba without trial, Ibrahim Idris, one of two Sudanese detainees released on Thursday, said US prison officials had "systematically tortured" him in the course of his 11-year imprisonment at Gitmo. Idris, who has been described by US officials as mentally ill, delivered his comments in a news conference in Khartoum, just hours after returning home courtesy of a US military plane. Appearing weak and speaking with apparent difficultly, Idris gave a brief account of his lengthy imprisonment at Gitmo. “We have been subjected to meticulous, daily torture," he said. "We were helpless…on an isolated island, surrounded by weapons." He praised the Sudanese government and human rights organizations for working to secure the release of prisoners at Gitmo, which has been called “the GULAG of our times” by Amnesty International. Closed-door military tribunals, for example, have been riddled with problems, including courtroom speakers that have a mysterious tendency for being blocked during key testimony.
  • Another released detainee, Noor Othman Muhammed, was unable to attend the conference because he was recovering in the hospital, Idris said. On Feb. 18, 2011, Muhammed pleaded guilty in a military tribunal to offenses under the Military Commissions Act of 2009, and was sentenced to 14 years confinement, according to a Defense Department news release. In exchange for his guilty plea and Muhammed's cooperation with prosecutors, the military court agreed through a pre-trial agreement to suspend all confinement in excess of 34 months. Idris, who had been designated for transfer since 2009, said some of the former prisoners had pled guilty in a bid to secure their freedom. As Barack Obama wins congressional approval to transfer some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to their home countries, a released Sudanese inmate spoke of the torture he and others endured at the hands of their American jailers. Approval for a partial detainee release is contained in the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the Senate by an 84-15 vote on Thursday night.
  • While the bill does not address all of the administration's concerns, its provisions ... will provide the administration additional flexibility to transfer detainees abroad consistent with our national security interests," White House spokesman Jay Carney said earlier Thursday. Of those still held in the prison, five individuals stand accused of participating in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. At the same time, some four dozen detainees are considered “too dangerous” to be released. About half of Gitmo's 158 detainees have been cleared to be released since 2009, yet congressional restrictions prevented that from happening.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A new outbreak of hunger strikes happened in early 2013. By July, 106 of the 166 detainees were on hunger strike, with 45 of them being force-fed.
  • According to Idris, those inmates who participated in these protests were “doubly tortured.” In November, a 19-member task force concluded in a 269-page report, entitled 'Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the ‘War on Terror', that since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA ordered medical professionals to assist in intelligence gathering, as well as forced-feeding of hunger strikers, in a way that inflicted “severe harm.” Gitmo officials announced earlier this month that the US military will no longer disclose to the media and public whether prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike, explaining that "the release of this information serves no operational purpose."
anonymous

Frosted Dreams - The Art of Beautiful Cake Decorating - 0 views

www.cbsharer.com/...MjAxMzIwMjA

dreams art cake decorating

shared by anonymous on 14 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 14 Jul 13
     
    Now You Can Learn The Same Secrets to Cake Decorating That The Professionals Use To Create Truly Beautiful Cakes.
Gary Edwards

You Won't BELIEVE What's Going On with Government Spying on Americans - BlackListedNews... - 1 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower Edward-Snowden Tyranny-by-Executive-Order spying

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Aug 13
     
    "New Revelations Are Breaking Every Day" This web page is very well sourced and filled with links where you will get lost for hours. Excellent reference document ............................ Revelations about the breathtaking scope of government spying are coming so fast that it's time for an updated roundup: - Just weeks after NSA boss Alexander said that a review of NSA spying found not even one violation, the Washington Post published an internal NSA audit showing that the agency has broken its own rules thousands of times each year - 2 Senators on the intelligence committee said the violations revealed in the Post article were just the "tip of the iceberg" - Glenn Greenwald notes:  "One key to the WashPost story: the reports are internal, NSA audits, which means high likelihood of both under-counting & white-washing".(Even so, the White House tried to do damage control by retroactively changing on-the-record quotes) - The government is spying on essentially everything we do. It is not just "metadata" … although that is enough to destroy your privacy - The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that "everything" is relevant … so it spies on everyone - NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word - It's not just the NSA … Many other agencies, like the FBI and IRS - concerned only with domesticissues - spy on Americans as well - The information gained through spying is shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes.  The agencies are instructed to intentionally "launder" the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges - Top counter-terror experts say that the government's mass spying doesn't keep us
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