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Gary Edwards

Watergate Articles Of Impeachment - 0 views

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    "Articles of Impeachment This is the full text of the Articles of Impeachment adopted by House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974." Excerpts: Intro :: ARTICLE 1 In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his consitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that: Conclusion: In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Gary Edwards

The Constitution and and Impeachment - 0 views

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    "The Constitution, Article II, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. The Constitution, Article I, Section 3: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.  When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.  When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside:  And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachments shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States, but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishmnet, according to Law." Comment:  This web page includes the Framers debate on the Impeachment provisions in the Constitution.
Paul Merrell

Pepe Escobar - The real November surprise -- Puppet Masters -- Sott.net - 0 views

  • "As bad as it is the folks above the President make the decisions. They may have decided on Trump. These things do not happen by accident." Thus spoke a high-level US business mover and shaker with secure transit in rarified Masters of the Universe-related circles, amidst the utter political chaos provoked by head of the FBI James Comey's latest bombshell. It's virtually established by now that US Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Comey not to release his letter to Congress. But Comey did it anyway. If he had not, and a scandal would - inevitably - spring up after the US presidential election, Lynch would be perfectly positioned to deny she knew anything, and Comey would be on the firing line. Lynch is a certified Clinton machine asset. In 1999 then-President Bill Clinton appointed her to run the Brooklyn US Attorney's office. She left in 2002, taking the private practice revolving door. She was back to the Brooklyn office in 2010, urged by Obama. Five years later she became the 83rd US Attorney General, replacing the dodgy Eric Holder. A plausible case has been made that Comey took his fateful decision based on a serious internal revolt at the FBI - led by key people he trusts — as well as being egged-on by his wife. Yet one of the key questions that refuse to go away is why the FBI waited until 11 days before the US presidential election to supposedly "find" an email trove on certified sexting pervert Anthony Weiner's laptop.
  •      "As bad as it is the folks above the President make the decisions. They may have decided on Trump. These things do not happen by accident." Thus spoke a high-level US business mover and shaker with secure transit in rarified Masters of the Universe-related circles, amidst the utter political chaos provoked by head of the FBI James Comey's latest bombshell. It's virtually established by now that US Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Comey not to release his letter to Congress. But Comey did it anyway. If he had not, and a scandal would - inevitably - spring up after the US presidential election, Lynch would be perfectly positioned to deny she knew anything, and Comey would be on the firing line. Lynch is a certified Clinton machine asset. In 1999 then-President Bill Clinton appointed her to run the Brooklyn US Attorney's office. She left in 2002, taking the private practice revolving door. She was back to the Brooklyn office in 2010, urged by Obama. Five years later she became the 83rd US Attorney General, replacing the dodgy Eric Holder. A plausible case has been made that Comey took his fateful decision based on a serious internal revolt at the FBI - led by key people he trusts — as well as being egged-on by his wife. Yet one of the key questions that refuse to go away is why the FBI waited until 11 days before the US presidential election to supposedly "find" an email trove on certified sexting pervert Anthony Weiner's laptop.
  • The business source, although unsympathetic to the Clinton machine, especially in foreign policy, is a realpolitik practitioner, not a conspiracy theorist. He is adamant that, "the FBI reversal could not have happened without orders above the President. If the Masters [of the Universe] have changed their mind, then they will destroy Hillary." He adds, "they can make a deal with Donald just like anyone else; Donald wins; the Masters win; the people think that their voice has been heard. And then there will be some sort of (controlled) change." What's paramount in the whole soap opera is that faith in the US political system — as corrupt as it may be — must endure. That mirrors the faith in the US dollar; if confidence in the US dollar fails, the US as a hegemonic financial power is no more. The source is equally adamant that, "it is almost unprecedented to see a cover-up as extensive as Hillary's. A secret meeting between Bill Clinton and the Attorney General; the FBI ignoring all evidence and initially clearing Hillary to near rebellion of the whole of the FBI, attested to by Rudolf Giuliani whose reputation as a federal prosecutor is unquestioned; the Clinton "pay for play" foundation. The Masters are troubled that this is getting out of hand." The record shows that "the Masters do not usually have to go to such lengths to protect their own. They did manage to save Bill Clinton from the Monica Lewinsky perjury and keep him in the presidency. The Masters were not attacked in this case. They even got away with the 1987 cash settlement crash and the theft surrounding the Lehman debacle. In all these cases there were no overarching challenges to their control, as we see now open to the public by Trump. They antagonized and insulted the wrong man."
Paul Merrell

55% Of Americans Want Independent To Run Against Trump, Clinton - 1 views

  • It’s happening! According to a new poll, Americans have finally maxed out their tolerance for “lesser evils” in presidential politics. The survey, published by independent research firm, Data Targeting, found a majority of Americans now want an independent candidate to take on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — two of the most disliked candidates in recent history. Researchers for the poll, conducted among 997 registered voters via both home and mobile phones this month, reported that “58% of respondents are dissatisfied with the current group of Republican and Democratic candidates for President” — and that 55 percent believe there should be an independent ticket (it is unclear why 3 percent apparently dislike the current candidates but puzzlingly do not think there should be another option). In perhaps the most extreme finding of the analysis, “a shocking 91% of voters under the age of 29 favor having an independent candidate on the ballot.” Considering younger generations’ lack of party allegiance and disillusionment with the status quo, their disapproval of Clinton and Trump seems predictable — but 91 percent constitutes near-total rejection. Tellingly, over 68 percent of participants in the poll were over the age of 50. Older generations are more likely to be attached to party identity, making their acceptance of other options a telling indicator of the populace’s distaste for their current options.
  • The United States has notoriously clung to the narrow two-party duopoly for most of its history — even as the crafters of the Constitution, for all their staggering shortcomings, cautioned of the dangers of such myopic political representation and party allegiance. But considering the unpopularity of Trump and Clinton — the former has a 55 percent unfavorability liking, the latter 56 percent — Americans appear to be turning a corner on their perception of who deserves power in politics. In fact, 65 percent of poll respondents said they would be “at least somewhat, pretty or very willing to support a candidate for President who is not Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton” — a stark difference from 2012, when Americans resisted deviation from the norm. A Gallup poll from that year highlighted the nation’s two-party rigidity. “U.S. registered voters show limited support for third-party candidates…with the vast majority preferring Barack Obama or Mitt Romney,” analysts reported just a few months before the 2012 general election. They concluded about 5% of Americans would vote for a third-party candidate that year. Just four years later, however, that figure has exploded. As the Data Testing report explains: “In a ballot test against Clinton and Trump, a truly independent candidate starts off with 21% of the vote,” already far greater than 2012’s 5%. “But this number increases to 29% in the ‘Big Sky’ region, 30% in ‘New England’ and 28% in the ‘West’ region.”
  • Independents were even more willing to break away from the options they’ve been given. “Among voters with an unfavorable opinion of both Trump and Clinton, the independent actually wins the ballot test,” researchers reported, noting that of the three options, 7 percent of respondents chose Clinton, 11 percent chose Trump, and a staggering 56 percent chose the unspecified third-party candidate. Though these ballot test findings are lower than the statistic that 65 percent would be open to breaking away from Clinton and Trump, the increase of third-party interest from 2012 remains palpably significant. It should be noted that Data Targeting is a GOP-affiliated political research firm, however, the results indicate little room for bias. In fact, they are paramount in an election where, as the analysis notes, Clinton and Trump provoke more animosity than enthusiasm. Perhaps highlighting lingering attachments to two-party thinking, Clinton’s highest unfavorability rating (78 percent) came from Republicans, while Trump’s highest unfavorability rating (71 percent) came from Democrats. Regardless, it is undeniable Americans are fed up with the system at large. According to another recent poll, just over half believe elections are rigged. Interest in third-party options, like the Libertarian and Green parties, is also steadily growing. As Ron Paul, the outspoken former presidential candidate, whose 2012 campaign wasundermined by the media and Republican establishment, recently said, “I’ve never bought into this idea that the lesser of two evils is a good idea” — and Americans increasingly agree. According to a Gallup poll released last year, 43 percent of Americans identify as independent — the highest number in the history of the poll.
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  • Meanwhile, faith in mainstream media is also dwindling — and it tends to dip even lower in election years, as Americans observe the perpetual circus acts performed by corporate outlets. With contentious power struggles raging both within the major parties and between them, Americans appear to be sobering up to the realities of party dominance and loyalty as they evolve beyond their crumbling political past.
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    Of course the 55% would never agree on a single candidate, so let's not get our hopes up.
Paul Merrell

Google, ACLU call to delay government hacking rule | TheHill - 0 views

  • A coalition of 26 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Google, signed a letter Monday asking lawmakers to delay a measure that would expand the government’s hacking authority. The letter asks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellMitch McConnellTrump voices confidence on infrastructure plan GOP leaders to Obama: Leave Iran policy to Trump GOP debates going big on tax reform MORE (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Harry ReidHarry ReidNevada can’t trust Trump to protect public lands Sanders, Warren face tough decision on Trump Google, ACLU call to delay government hacking rule MORE (D-Nev.), plus House Speaker Paul RyanPaul RyanTrump voices confidence on infrastructure plan GOP leaders to Obama: Leave Iran policy to Trump GOP debates going big on tax reform MORE (R-Wis.), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to further review proposed changes to Rule 41 and delay its implementation until July 1, 2017. ADVERTISEMENTThe Department of Justice’s alterations to the rule would allow law enforcement to use a single warrant to hack multiple devices beyond the jurisdiction that the warrant was issued in. The FBI used such a tactic to apprehend users of the child pornography dark website, Playpen. It took control of the dark website for two weeks and after securing two warrants, installed malware on Playpen users computers to acquire their identities. But the signatories of the letter — which include advocacy groups, companies and trade associations — are raising questions about the effects of the change. 
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    ".. 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." Fourth Amendment. The changes to Rule 41 ignore the particularity requirement by allowing the government to search computers that are not particularly identified in multiple locations not particularly identifed, in other words, a general warrant that is precisely the reason the particularity requirement was adopted to outlaw.
Paul Merrell

Portrait of an Assassin: Obama's Revenge - The Unz Review - 0 views

  • Trump sensing Obama’s resort to violent retaliation against Russia, and the likelihood he would turn the gun to ‘Putin’s accomplice’, the President-elect decided to take precautionary measures, he replaced Obama’s secret service by his private security guards.
  • Conclusion We live in extraordinarily dangerous times. A deranged violent President is in command of a willing media and an intelligence apparatus ready and willing to obey. There is little doubt that the murder of the Russian Ambassador will be the beginning of a cycle of violent assassinations. It is certain that Putin and Trump will take the appropriate defensive measures. With a psychotic, frustrated and failed President refusing to concede defeat, we enter the beginning and most sinister period prior to his exit.
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    Author James Petras is a respected investigative journalist. This entire article is well worth reading. But I thought well worth highlighting his report that Trump doesn't trust the Secret Service and has hired private security guards.
Paul Merrell

Trump Executive Action Takes Aim At Dodd-Frank, Investor Protection Rule : NPR - 0 views

  • President Trump signed two directives on Friday, ordering a review of financial industry regulations known as Dodd-Frank and halting implementation of a rule that requires financial advisers to act in the best interests of their clients, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. Trump himself made his intentions clear in a meeting with small business owners Monday. "Dodd-Frank is a disaster," Trump said. "We're going to be doing a big number on Dodd-Frank."
  • These executive actions are the start of a Trump administration effort to reverse or revise financial regulations put in place by the Obama administration and seen by Trump and his advisers as onerous and ineffective. Based on the description given by the administration official who briefed reporters, the directives the president is expected to sign Friday won't immediately do a big number on the law. The directive will instruct the Treasury secretary to meet with the agencies that oversee the law to identify possible changes.
  • "Americans are going to have better choices and Americans are going to have better products because we're not going to burden the banks with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year," said National Economic Council director Gary Cohn in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Cohn, who was president and COO at the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs before joining the administration, added, "The banks are going to be able to price product more efficiently and more effectively to consumers." The president of the nonprofit Wall Street watchdog Better Markets issued a statement blasting Friday's actions.
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  • "The American people trusted candidate Trump when he said he was going to protect them from Wall Street's recklessness, but President Trump has betrayed that trust," Dennis Kelleher's statement says. "He is unleashing Wall Street on Main Street, which is exactly what the financial protections of Dodd Frank were put in place to prevent." Hinting at where the administration might expect the review to lead, the official said that under the Obama administration, "some of the rules may have even been unconstitutional, creating new agencies that don't actually protect consumers." That is an allusion to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog bureau which Republicans in Congress opposed from its very creation and was the subject of a years-long fight over its leadership and structure.
Gary Edwards

Tomgram: Nomi Prins, Goldmanizing Donald Trump | TomDispatch - 0 views

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    "The Goldman Sachs Effect How a Bank Conquered Washington By Nomi Prins This is a MUST READ document. Yeah, and it should scare the crap out of all of us. .............................................. Irony isn't a concept with which President Donald J. Trump is familiar. In his Inaugural Address, having nominated the wealthiest cabinet in American history, he proclaimed, "For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished -- but the people did not share in its wealth."  Under Trump, an even smaller group will flourish -- in particular, a cadre of former Goldman Sachs executives. To put the matter bluntly, two of them (along with the Federal Reserve) are likely to control our economy and financial system in the years to come. Infusing Washington with Goldman alums isn't exactly an original idea. Three of the last four presidents, including The Donald, have handed the wheel of the U.S. economy to ex-Goldmanites. But in true Trumpian style, after attacking Hillary Clinton for her Goldman ties, he wasn't satisfied to do just that.  He had to do it bigger and better.  Unlike Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, just a sole Goldman figure lording it over economic policy wasn't enough for him. Only two would do. The Great Vampire Squid Revisited Whether you voted for or against Donald Trump, whether you're gearing up for the revolution or waiting for his next tweet to drop, rest assured that, in the years to come, the ideology that matters most won't be that of the "forgotten" Americans of his Inaugural Address. It will be that of Goldman Sachs and it will dominate the domestic economy and, by extension, the global one. At the dawn of the twentieth century, when President Teddy Roosevelt governed the country on a platform of trust busting aimed at reducing corporate power, even he could not bring himself to bust up the banks.  That was a mistake
Gary Edwards

The planned re-election of Obama, revolutionary style - 0 views

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    Obama administration, including his czars and his closest Progressive supporters, are planning a manufactured insurgency against America. Using the media to garner both sympathy and support for his unfinished goals
    The ambition to re-elect Obama is nothing short of the plan to overthrow the US Constitutional Republic and replace it with a new world order. The article explains the carefully planned re-election of Obama, concluding that it's counting on chaos, rebellion, anger, fear and rioting. Author Doug Hagmann calls this "re-election via revolutionary style". He identifies three areas of aggressively planned chaos: economic, racial, and class warfare. Doug has a source inside the Department of HomeLand Security (DHS), which seems to be the main instrument of overthrow. The model is that of 1968 anti-war, anti-establishment, pro marxist movement. Hagmann and his inside source predict the destruction of the dollar, the seeming breakup and fall of the European Union, riots in the streets of America, and a failed attempt on Obama's life that will result in a horrific crackdown and roundup of Tea Party members. This is truly frightening stuff. Yet, Reagan era Conservative leaders like Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh - the guys with the megaphone - have no idea what the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel and their Globalist cronies have pulled off here. Obama is just a stooge carrying out the final stages of a plan that has been in place at least since 1875, when Freemason Albert Pike slipped up with the aging blueprint known to insiders as the "Luciferian Document", inadvertently leaking into the public through a series of letters to a trusted American henchman. Obama himself cut his marxist - new world order teeth, teaching the Alinsky "Rules for Radicals" plan of street revolution and overthrow. Alinsky dedicated his marxist handbook to that first revolutionary, Lucifer. Amazing. And here we are, wondering what mechanisms
Gary Edwards

The Top Twelve Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement « naked capitalism - 0 views

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    Must read stuff.  The Obama Foreclosure Settlement Act is a clever exit strategy for criminal Banksters having committed the most egregious fraud.  A $9 Trillion dollar problem, rife with criminal activities, is settled for a mere $25 Billion, much of which will come out of the taxpayers hide thanks to Fannie and Freddie guarantees.  This deal stinks of typical Obama crony banksterism.  Now we need to watch for how many millions the Banksters pour into the newly authorized Obama Super PACS.  Should be interesting. excerpt: As we've said before, this settlement is yet another raw demonstration of who wields power in America, and it isn't you and me. It's bad enough to see these negotiations come to their predictable, sorry outcome. It adds insult to injury to see some try to depict it as a win for long suffering, still abused homeowners. 1. We've now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. It's $2000 per loan. This is a rounding error compared to the chain of title problem these systematic practices were designed to circumvent. The cost is also trivial in comparison to the average loan, which is roughly $180k, so the settlement represents about 1% of loan balances. It is less than the price of the title insurance that banks failed to get when they transferred the loans to the trust. It is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged. It's a great deal for the banks because no one is at any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over 300 years of real estate law....... 12. We'll now have to listen to banks and their sycophant defenders declaring victory despite being wrong on the law and the facts. They will proceed to marginalize and write off criticisms of the servicing practices that hurt homeowners and investors and are devastating communities. But the problems will fester and the housing market will continue to suffer. Inv
Gary Edwards

Robosigning Credit Cards: The Next Major Bank Scandal? | The Reformed Broker - 0 views

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    This article is definately a "must read".  The summary is that the credit card debt mess is far worse than the mortgage foreclosure mess.  The Banksters are guilty of massive illegal activities in foreclosure gate, including forging documents and signatures.  Apparently the same thing has happened with Credit Card Debt Collection!!!! excerpt:   From American Banker: "If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it's 100 times bigger in credit card accounts," says Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Worse than mortgages, even? Let's just review the mortgage situation: Robosigning consists of blatantly illegal practices in which banks and mortgage companies had their employees sign affidavits and other documents without verifying the information therein; forge signatures on documents; backdate documents; falsely notarize documents; create new documents to replace missing ones; or some combination of all the above. Did I mention that all of this is illegal? Contrary to what the banks would have you believe, robosigning was not a one-off - it happened on a systematic level. So much so that some of the nation's largest banks (including Bank of America Corp. and  JPMorgan Chase & Co., ) were forced to halt foreclosures to "review" these practices in late 2010. The companies that did this claimed that they had to cut corners because they couldn't keep up with all of the paperwork created by the housing boom last decade. But we now know that this is not true - there's evidence that robo-signing goes back all the way to at least 1998. This all means that thousands of Americans were foreclosed upon erroneously and that even homebuyers and sellers in good standing may be unable to prove their rightful ownership. The problem is so big that Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, acknowledged that they don't even know how big it is. It's so big that the b
Gary Edwards

End the Fed « orwelliania - 0 views

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    Good stuff from the Orwellian blog.  Check out the "Rothschild-owned "Central Banks" of the world.  This is a list of countries where the Central Bank is owned by the Rothschild family and their interlocking globalist extended families.  Note, these are "families" not "Corporations.  although many of the family fortunes are now managed through trust funds that own banks and corporations.  It's the new feudalism.  Sovereign debt has replaced family debt as the new serfdom. There are only seven countries where the Central Bank is not owned by Rothschild banksters.
Paul Merrell

The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

  • The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them “too big to fail.” Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks’ balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused by the financial crisis.
  • The Fed’s policy of monetizing one trillion dollars of bonds annually put pressure on the US dollar, the value of which declined in terms of gold. When gold hit $1,900 per ounce in 2011, the Federal Reserve realized that $2,000 per ounce could have a psychological impact that would spread into the dollar’s exchange rate with other currencies, resulting in a run on the dollar as both foreign and domestic holders sold dollars to avoid the fall in value. Once this realization hit, the manipulation of the gold price moved beyond central bank leasing of gold to bullion dealers in order to create an artificial market supply to absorb demand that otherwise would have pushed gold prices higher. The manipulation consists of the Fed using bullion banks as its agents to sell naked gold shorts in the New York Comex futures market. Short selling drives down the gold price, triggers stop-loss orders and margin calls, and scares participants out of the gold trusts. The bullion banks purchase the deserted shares and present them to the trusts for redemption in bullion. The bullion can then be sold in the London physical gold market, where the sales both ratify the lower price that short-selling achieved on the Comex floor and provide a supply of bullion to meet Asian demands for physical gold as opposed to paper claims on gold.
  • The evidence of gold price manipulation is clear. In this article we present evidence and describe the process. We conclude that ability to manipulate the gold price is disappearing as physical gold moves from New York and London to Asia, leaving the West with paper claims to gold that greatly exceed the available supply.
Gary Edwards

The US government has betrayed the internet. We need to take it back | Bruce Schneier | Comment is free | The Guardian - 0 views

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    "The USA Government has betrayed the Internet. We need to take it back. The NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract. We engineers built the Internet - and now we have to fix it and take it back." "Government and industry have betrayed the internet, and us. By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract. The companies that build and manage our internet infrastructure, the companies that create and sell us our hardware and software, or the companies that host our data: we can no longer trust them to be ethical internet stewards. This is not the internet the world needs, or the internet its creators envisioned. We need to take it back. And by we, I mean the engineering community. Yes, this is primarily a political problem, a policy matter that requires political intervention. But this is also an engineering problem, and there are several things engineers can - and should - do."
Gary Edwards

The Syrian Gambit: Critical Mass in the Middle East - The Patriot Post - 0 views

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    excerpt: "After five years of Barack Hussein Obama's colossal cluster of foreign policy FUBAR, the Middle East is steadily progressing toward a critical mass meltdown, and our "foreign policy" has become the laughingstock of the entire world -- particularly in Tehran, Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang. Taking a cue from Bill Clinton's impotent missile attacks against Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida training camps, Obama wants to launch a hundred million dollars worth of cruise missiles at what may or may not be strategic targets in Syria, ostensibly to eradicate Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapon stores as punishment for using those weapons on Syrian civilians. Assuming Assad himself actually ordered the chemical attacks rather than Islamist insurgents using those weapons to bait a U.S. military strike, we should have no illusion that the consequences of attacking Syria are, at best, unpredictable, and may far exceed the limited damages inflicted on Assad's capabilities. On the eve of another 9/11 anniversary in remembrance of the tragic consequences of Clinton's "foreign policy," the "Arab Spring" Obama was touting a couple years ago is looking more like an "Arab Fall," and making good on his "red line" rhetoric could accelerate the regional meltdown. A year ago, amid all his other Middle East bluster, and just weeks ahead of the 9/11 Benghazi attack, Obama issued this declaration in regard to Syrian chemical weapons: "A red line for us is, we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus." Apparently, the "whole bunch" threshold has been crossed several times since, but the latest evidence of chemical weapon use has Obama, once again, eating his arrogance. Running for political cover, he now insists, "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line." So, why isn't the rest of the world behind Obama? Because the rest of the world does not trust Obama, nor should they. Even our closest allies in the UK are not back
Paul Merrell

Congressmen Call For DNI Clapper's Ouster | Threatpost - English - Global - threatpost.com - 0 views

  • A group of six Congressmen have asked President Barack Obama to remove James Clapper as director of national intelligence as a result of his misstatements to Congress about the NSA’s dragnet data-collection programs. The group, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), said that Clapper’s role as DNI “is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in our security programs”.
  • Clapper is the former head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and has been DNI since 2010. In their letter to Obama, the group of Congressmen calling for his ouster said that he lied to Congress and should no longer be in office. “The continued role of James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in our security programs and ensuring the highest level of transparency. Director Clapper continues to hold his position despite lying to Congress, under oath, about the existence of bulk data collection programs in March 2013. Asking Director Clapper, and other federal intelligence officials who misrepresented programs to Congress and the courts, to report to you on needed reforms and the future role of government surveillance is not a credible solution,” the letter from Issa, Ted Poe, Paul Broun, Doug Collins, Walter Jones and Alan Grayson says. The Congressmen sent the letter to Obama on Monday, 10 days after the president gave a much-anticipated speech on the NSA’s role and some new limits he wants to place on the scope of its data collection. Security experts and privacy advocates were not enthusiastic about the changes Obama announced, which included a recommendation that a third party hold phone metadata records, which are now stored by the NSA.
  • One issue that Obama didn’t address in his speech was the agency’s alleged subversion of cryptographic standards and algorithms. In their letter, Issa and his colleagues urged Obama to address this issue. “While the collection of bulk telephone records (meta-data) under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act has understandably garnered the most significant public debate over government overreach, considerable concern has been raised about the govemment’s exploitation of the Internet through circumvention of encryption. The Review Group recognized the potential hazard created by exposing vulnerabilities in encryption data and recommended that your Administration support, rather than undermine, efforts to protect the integrity of these systems.3 However, your January 17′th speech failed to address the future of encryption related programs. Internet freedom is indispensible, and reports regarding the govemment’s treatment of encryption protocols underscore the need to provide leadership and clarity beyond the collection of telephone records,” the letter says.
Paul Merrell

DOJ accuses firm that vetted Snowden of faking 665,000 background checks - Investigations - 0 views

  • As Edward Snowden prepares to defend himself in a worldwide webinar Thursday, the Justice Department is accusing the private contractor that vetted him and thousands of other intelligence workers of bilking U.S. taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars by conducting phony background checks.USIS, the giant private contractor that conducted the background checks of both Snowden and Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, is accused in a Justice Department lawsuit filed Wednesday night of conducting 665,000 fake background checks between 2008 and 2012.
  • “USIS management devised and executed a scheme to deliberately circumvent contractually required quality reviews of completed background investigations in order to increase the company’s revenues and profits,” said the Justice Department in its complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Alabama. Advertise | AdChoices The DOJ lawsuit cites internal emails to back up charges that USIS senior officials devised a wide-ranging "scheme" to defraud the federal government on background checks through a practice known as "dumping" or "flushing" in order to boost the firm's profits.
  • The practice of "dumping" or "flushing" involved certifying to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that full "quality review" background checks had been  performed when in fact those reviews had not been completed. Aided by a software program known as "Blue Zone," USIS identified large volumes of cases at the end of day as "Review Complete" -- and then fraudulently certified them to OPM, according to the complaint.
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    665,000 more reasons for not trusting the government with confidential citizen data. 
Paul Merrell

Wyden Statement at Senate Intelligence Committee's Open Hearing | Press Releases | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden - 0 views

  • U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) delivered the following statement prior to questioning senior Intelligence Community officials during the Senate Intelligence Committee’s open hearing. Wyden is a senior member of the Intelligence committee. “The men and women of America’s intelligence agencies are overwhelmingly dedicated professionals and they deserve to have leadership that is trusted by the American people. Unfortunately, that trust has been seriously undermined by senior officials’ reckless reliance on secret interpretations of the law and battered by years of misleading and deceptive statements that senior officials made to the American people. These statements did not protect sources and methods that were useful in fighting terror. Instead they hid bad policy choices and violations of the liberties of the American people. For example, the director of the NSA said publicly that the NSA doesn’t hold data on U.S. citizens. That was obviously untrue.  Justice Department officials testified that section 215 of the Patriot Act is analogous to grand jury subpoena authority. And that deceptive statement was made on multiple occasions. Officials also suggested that the NSA doesn’t have the authority to read Americans’ emails without a warrant but the FISA court opinions declassified last August showed that wasn’t true either.
  • The statement and subsequent questions may be viewed below or here:
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    Ron Wyden comes out swinging at a Senate hearing, giving 3 examples of lies about digital surveillance told to Congress by intelligence officials and DoJ. Then he presses DNI Clapper, CIA head Brennan, and FBI head Comey to provide by dates certain written public answers to a series of questions that he had previously asked in writing but never received answers on. All three said they would provide the answers, Clapper within 30 days and the other two within 7 days.  The questions themselves are extremely important, about the government's interpretation of legal authorities to conduct warrantless searches and in the case of the CIA, whether it is subject to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. That Act provides for criminal penalties and civil damages for accessing a "protected computer" (essentially any computer connected to the internet, whether in the U.S. or abroad) or activating any command or installing any malware on a protected computer. See generally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act That question suggests that Wyden and his staff are boring into issues involving the government breaking into computers to access private data. Another question asked whether the government claimed the authority to access private data stored in the cloud without a warrant.  This is a short video well worth the watching time.
Paul Merrell

Bernie Sanders: 'I Am Prepared to Run for President of the United States' | The Nation - 0 views

  • Bernie Sanders says he is “prepared to run for president of the United States.” That’s not a formal announcement. A lot can change between now and 2016, and the populist senator from Vermont bristles at the whole notion of a permanent campaign. But Sanders has begun talking with savvy progressive political strategists, traveling to unexpected locations such as Alabama and entertaining the process questions that this most issue-focused member of the Senate has traditionally avoided. In some senses, Sanders is the unlikeliest of prospects: an independent who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate but has never joined the party, a democratic socialist in a country where many politicians fear the label “liberal,” an outspoken critic of the economic, environmental and social status quo who rips “the ruling class” and calls out the Koch brothers by name. Yet, he has served as the mayor of his state’s largest city, beaten a Republican incumbent for the US House, won and held a historically Republican Senate seat and served longer as an independent member of Congress than anyone else. And he says his political instincts tell him America is ready for a “political revolution.” In his first extended conversation about presidential politics, Sanders discussed with The Nation the economic and environmental concerns that have led him to consider a 2016 run; the difficult question of whether to run as a Democrat or an independent; his frustration with the narrow messaging of prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton; and his sense that political and media elites are missing the signs that America is headed toward a critical juncture where electoral expectations could be exploded.
  • Bernie Sanders says he is “prepared to run for president of the United States.” That’s not a formal announcement. A lot can change between now and 2016, and the populist senator from Vermont bristles at the whole notion of a permanent campaign. But Sanders has begun talking with savvy progressive political strategists, traveling to unexpected locations such as Alabama and entertaining the process questions that this most issue-focused member of the Senate has traditionally avoided. In some senses, Sanders is the unlikeliest of prospects: an independent who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate but has never joined the party, a democratic socialist in a country where many politicians fear the label “liberal,” an outspoken critic of the economic, environmental and social status quo who rips “the ruling class” and calls out the Koch brothers by name. Yet, he has served as the mayor of his state’s largest city, beaten a Republican incumbent for the US House, won and held a historically Republican Senate seat and served longer as an independent member of Congress than anyone else. And he says his political instincts tell him America is ready for a “political revolution.” In his first extended conversation about presidential politics, Sanders discussed with The Nation the economic and environmental concerns that have led him to consider a 2016 run; the difficult question of whether to run as a Democrat or an independent; his frustration with the narrow messaging of prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton; and his sense that political and media elites are missing the signs that America is headed toward a critical juncture where electoral expectations could be exploded.
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    Interview with Bernie Sanders about his possible run for the White House. There's a lot of difference between socialism and democratic socialism. Sanders is at least a civil libertarian, one of the few honest people in Congress, who frequently worked closely with other civil libertarians such as Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Peter Defazio. And he's anti-war, anti-surveillance society, anti-bankster, and anti-insurance industry, the banksters in disguise who have the only industry in the U.S. that is exempt from anti-trust laws. If he runs, he'll likely get my vote regardless of whether he runs as a Democrat or as an Independent.  But I'd love to see him run as an Independent. 
Paul Merrell

Merkel compared NSA to Stasi in heated encounter with Obama | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • In an angry exchange with Barack Obama, Angela Merkel has compared the snooping practices of the US with those of the Stasi, the ubiquitous and all-powerful secret police of the communist dictatorship in East Germany, where she grew up.The German chancellor also told the US president that America's National Security Agency cannot be trusted because of the volume of material it had allowed to leak to the whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to the New York Times.Livid after learning from Der Spiegel magazine that the Americans were listening in to her personal mobile phone, Merkel confronted Obama with the accusation: "This is like the Stasi."The newspaper also reported that Merkel was particularly angry that, based on the disclosures, "the NSA clearly couldn't be trusted with private information, because they let Snowden clean them out."
  • Snowden is to testify on the NSA scandal to a European parliament inquiry next month, to the anger of Washington which is pressuring the EU to stop the testimony.
  • A draft report by a European parliament inquiry into the affair, being presented on Wednesday and obtained by the Guardian, says there has to be a discussion about the legality of the NSA's operations and also of the activities of European intelligence agencies.The report drafted by Claude Moraes, the British Labour MEP heading the inquiry, says "we have received substantial evidence that the operations by intelligence services in the US, UK, France and Germany are in breach of international law and European law".
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