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From a British diplomatic source I learn that Britain has lobbied the United States against the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and extraordinary rendition.  The lobbying has been carried out “at all levels” – White House, State Department and CIA.  The British have argued that at the very least the report must be emasculated before publication. The British argument is that in a number of court cases including the Belhadj case, the British government has successfully blocked legal action by victims on the grounds that this would weaken the US/UK intelligence relationship and thus vitally damage national security, by revealing facts the American intelligence service wish hidden.  [We will leave aside for the moment the utter shame of our servile groveling judges accepting such an argument].  The British Government are now pointing out to the Americans that this argument could be fatally weakened if major detail of the full horror and scope of torture and extraordinary rendition is revealed by the Senate Intelligence Committee.  The argument runs that this could in turn lead to further revelations in the courts and block the major defence against prosecutions of Blair, Straw and Dearlove, among others, potentially unleashing a transatlantic wave of judicial activism. The unabashed collusion of two torturing security states in concealing the truth of their despicable acts – including complicity in the torture of women and minors – and blocking criminal prosecution of the guilty is a sign of how low public ethics have sunk.  Fortunately there are still a few people in the British Foreign Office disgusted enough to leak it.

In the duration of the “revolutionary frenzy” that categorized western media coverage of the Libyan Civil War in 2011, public audiences were captivated with both tales of rebels aspiring for “democracy” and with complimenting stories of unabated brutality by Gaddafi forces. Without any serious mainstream criticism, an imperialist mythology centered on the interventionist doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect” was cemented in public consciousness with even usually non-mainstream and “anti-imperialist” figures such as Juan Cole deliberately misrepresenting the situation in Libya. In Cole’s perspective, no reference to armed militants from the start of the conflict or the role of extremism and western premeditation found its way into the narrative and he predicted a simplistic narrative where the overthrow of Gaddafi would lead the region into an era of unity, prosperity and freedom. Libya Today How is Libya today? If one denied the existence of hell, they need not look further than Libya to observe a case of hell on Earth. Libya as a functioning, cohesive state has virtually ceased to exist, having been replaced by a myriad of conflicting factions divided on tribal and religious lines. While mainstream media tends to obscure the identity of these factions and their connection to western imperialists, Eric Draitser in his analysis, “Benghazi, the CIA, and the War in Libya” shows the beyond the fractious infighting, both primary factions engaging in direct combat have been beneficiaries of the NATO imperialist powers in their systematic aggression against the Libyan state.

“Confirmed: U.S. Armed Al Qaeda to Topple Libya’s Gaddaffi” with a very astonishing admission by “top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers” confirming the obvious truth that “conspiracy theorists” have been saying since 2011. The US backed Al Qaeda in Libya and that the Benghazi attack was a byproduct of this. Washington’s Blog notes that in 2012, it documented that: The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi: The Hindustan Times reported last year: “There is no question that al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,” Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times. It has always been Qaddafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi. Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya.  Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled. What was once deemed conspiracy theory became confirmed reality when the Daily Mail reported as Washington’s Blog subsequently pointed out:

A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn’t been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier. ‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline. She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants. ‘Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,’ Lopez claimed. ‘They were permitted to come in. … [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed.. ‘The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.’

Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become".

Controversial emergency laws will be introduced into the Commons next Monday to reinforce the powers of security services to require internet and phone companies to keep records of their customers' emails and calls.The move follows private talks over the past week and the laws will have the support of Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the basis that there will be a sunset clause and a new board to oversee the functioning of the powers.Details are due to be announced at a Downing Street press conference on Thursday morning.

he laws will expire in 2016, requiring fresh legislation after the election. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act will be reviewed between now and 2016 to make recommendations for how it could be reformed and updated. Lib Dems insist the new legislation does not represent an extension of existing surveillance powers or the introduction of the snooper's charter sought by the Home Office and long opposed by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.There will be no power to look at the content of phone calls, only location, date and the phone numbers. Government sources say they have been forced to act due to European court of justice ruling in April saying the current laws invaded individual privacy. The government says if there had been no new powers there would have been no obligation on phone and internet companies to keep records if there was a UK court challenge to the retention of data.

No 10 said the ECJ rulings had struck down regulations to retain communications data for law enforcement purposes for up to 12 months. Unless they have a business reason to hold this data, internet and phone companies will start deleting it, which has serious consequences for investigations, which can take many months and which rely on retrospectively accessing data for evidential purposes.Ministers added that some companies had already been calling for a clearer legal frameworkLabour backbencher Tom Watson described the move as a "stitch-up". He said: "There has been a deal and it had been railroaded through so my advice to MPs is there is no point turning up for work next week because there has been a political deal." He said he had not seen the detail of the legislation and promised to vote against the timetable.He added: "The government was aware of this ECJ ruling six weeks ago and what they are doing is railroading this through. No one in civil society has got a chance to be consulted." The shadow cabinet had not seen the proposals until this morning, he added.

12 August 1988  Cover, pages 10-12   Somebody's  listening  . . . and they don't give a damn about personal privacy or commercial confidence. Project 415 is a top-secret new global surveillance system. It can tap into a billion calls a year in the UK alone. Inside Duncan Campbell on how spying entered the 21st century . . .  They've got it taped In the booming surveillance industry they spy on whom they wish, when they wish, protected by barriers of secrecy, fortified by billions of pounds worth of high, high technology. Duncan Campbell reports from the United States on the secret Anglo-American plan for a global electronic spy system for the 21st century capable of listening in to most of us most of the time   American, British and Allied intelligence agencies are soon to embark on a massive, billion-dollar expansion of their global electronic surveillance system. According to information given recently in secret to the US Congress, the surveillance system will enable the agencies to monitor and analyse civilian communications into the 21st century. Identified for the moment as Project P415, the system will be run by the US National Security Agency (NSA). But the intelligence agencies of many other countries will be closely involved with the new network, including those from Britain, Australia, Germany and Japan--and, surprisingly, the People's Republic of China. New satellite stations and monitoring centres are to be built around the world, and a chain of new satellites launched, so that NSA and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham, may keep abreast of the burgeoning international telecommunications traffic.

Both the new and existing surveillance systems are highly computerised. They rely on near total interception of international commercial and satellite communications in order to locate the telephone or other messages of target individuals. Last month, a US newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, revealed that the system had been used to target the telephone calls of a US Senator, Strom Thurmond. The fact that Thurmond, a southern Republican and usually a staunch supporter of the Reagan administration, is said to have been a target has raised fears that the NSA has restored domestic, electronic, surveillance programmes. These were originally exposed and criticised during the Watergate investigations, and their closure ordered by President Carter. After talking to the NSA, Thurmond later told the Plain Dealer that he did not believe the allegation. But Thurmond, a right-wing Republican, may have been unwilling to rock the boat. Staff members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said that staff were "digging into it" despite the "stratospheric security classification" of all the systems involved. The Congressional officials were first told of the Thurmond interception by a former employee of the Lockheed Space and Missiles Corporation, Margaret Newsham, who now lives in Sunnyvale, California. Newsham had originally given separate testimony and filed a lawsuit concerning corruption and mis-spending on other US government "black" projects. She has worked in the US and Britain for two corporations which manufacture signal intelligence computers, satellites and interception equipment for NSA, Ford Aerospace and Lockheed. Citing a special Executive Order signed by President Reagan. she told me last month that she could not and would not discuss classified information with journalists. But according to Washington sources (and the report in the Plain Dealer, she informed a US Congressman that the Thurmond interception took place at Menwith Hill, and that she p

A secret listening agreement, called UKUSA (UK-USA), assigns parts of the globe to each participating agency. GCHQ at Cheltenham is the co-ordinating centre for Europe, Africa and the Soviet Union (west of the Ural Mountains). The NSA covers the rest of the Soviet Union and most of the Americas. Australia--where another station in the NSA listening network is located in the outback--co-ordinates the electronic monitoring of the South Pacific, and South East Asia.

A House Democrat said information revealed about the National Security Agency's secret surveillance programs are "the tip of the iceberg," Daniel Strauss of The Hill reports. "I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too," Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) told C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" after a classified briefing with national security officials. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who also attended the meeting, said that the NSA "violated the spirit of the law when it started collecting data from everyone in the country just because technology now makes that possible.” Barton added that "in America ... You don’t target everyone and violate their 4th Amendment rights just because of a handful of threats. But that is exactly what is happening at the NSA ... it is wrong and it needs to stop now.” More from Sanchez: "I don't know if there are other leaks, if there's more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it's the tip of the iceberg."

A House Democrat said information revealed about the National Security Agency's secret surveillance programs are "the tip of the iceberg," Daniel Strauss of The Hill reports. "I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too," Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) told C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" after a classified briefing with national security officials. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who also attended the meeting, said that the NSA "violated the spirit of the law when it started collecting data from everyone in the country just because technology now makes that possible.” Barton added that "in America ... You don’t target everyone and violate their 4th Amendment rights just because of a handful of threats. But that is exactly what is happening at the NSA ... it is wrong and it needs to stop now.”

Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian, who has served as a conduit for Snowden's leaks, recently said that there will me many more "significant revelations that have not yet been heard." Greenwald told The New York Times that he received “thousands” of classified documents — “dozens” of which are newsworthy — from the the 29-year-old ex-Booz Allen employee who was contracted by the NSA. Sanchez said that what lawmakers learned "is significantly more than what is out in the media today," which is interesting when considering previous reports by journalists and whistleblowers.

The National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant, according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information. Senator Ron Wyden told the Guardian that the law provides the NSA with a loophole potentially allowing "warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans".The authority, approved in 2011, appears to contrast with repeated assurances from Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials to both Congress and the American public that the privacy of US citizens is protected from the NSA's dragnet surveillance programs.

The intelligence data is being gathered under Section 702 of the of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the NSA authority to target without warrant the communications of foreign targets, who must be non-US citizens and outside the US at the point of collection.The communications of Americans in direct contact with foreign targets can also be collected without a warrant, and the intelligence agencies acknowledge that purely domestic communications can also be inadvertently swept into its databases. That process is known as "incidental collection" in surveillance parlance.But this is the first evidence that the NSA has permission to search those databases for specific US individuals' communications.

A secret glossary document provided to operatives in the NSA's Special Source Operations division – which runs the Prism program and large-scale cable intercepts through corporate partnerships with technology companies – details an update to the "minimization" procedures that govern how the agency must handle the communications of US persons. That group is defined as both American citizens and foreigners located in the US."While the FAA 702 minimization procedures approved on 3 October 2011 now allow for use of certain United States person names and identifiers as query terms when reviewing collected FAA 702 data," the glossary states, "analysts may NOT/NOT [not repeat not] implement any USP [US persons] queries until an effective oversight process has been developed by NSA and agreed to by DOJ/ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence]."The term "identifiers" is NSA jargon for information relating to an individual, such as telephone number, email address, IP address and username as well as their name.The document – which is undated, though metadata suggests this version was last updated in June 2012 – does not say whether the oversight process it mentions has been established or whether any searches against US person names have taken place.

The World is at a dangerous Crossroads. The Western military alliance is in an advanced state of readiness. And so is Russia. Russia is heralded as the “Aggressor”. US-NATO military confrontation with Russia is contemplated. Enabling legislation in the US Senate under “The Russian Aggression Prevention Act” (RAPA) has “set the US on a path towards direct military conflict with Russia in Ukraine.”  Any US-Russian war is likely to quickly escalate into a nuclear war, since neither the US nor Russia would be willing to admit defeat, both have many thousands of nuclear weapons ready for instant use, and both rely upon Counterforce military doctrine that tasks their military, in the event of war, to preemptively destroy the nuclear forces of the enemy. (See Steven Starr, Global Research, August 22, 2014) The Russian Aggression Prevention Act (RAPA) is the culmination of more than twenty years of US-NATO war preparations, which consist in the military encirclement of both Russia and China:

On July 24, in consultation with the Pentagon, NATO’s Europe commander General Philip Breedlove called for “stockpiling a base in Poland with enough weapons, ammunition and other supplies to support a rapid deployment of thousands of troops against Russia”.(RT, July 24, 2014). According to General Breedlove, NATO needs “pre-positioned supplies, pre-positioned capabilities and a basing area ready to rapidly accept follow-on forces”: “He plans to recommend placing supplies — weapons, ammunition and ration packs — at the headquarters to enable a sudden influx of thousands of Nato troops” (Times, August 22, 2014, emphasis added) Breedlove’s “Blitzkrieg scenario” is to be presented at NATO’s summit in Wales in early September, according to The London Times.  It is a “copy and paste” text broadly consistent with the  Russian Aggression Prevention Act (RAPA) which directs President Obama to:

“(1) implement a plan for increasing U.S. and NATO support for the armed forces of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, and other NATO member-states; and (2) direct the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO to seek consideration for permanently basing NATO forces in such countries.” (S.2277 — 113th Congress (2013-2014)) More generally, a scenario of military escalation prevails with both sides involved in extensive war games. In turn, the structure of US sponsored military alliances plays a crucial role in war planning. We are dealing with a formidable military force involving a global alliance of 28 NATO member states. In turn, the US as well as NATO have established beyond the “Atlantic Region” a network of bilateral military alliances with “partner” countries directed against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

New documents released this week via the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden outline how Irish subsea telecommunications cables have been targeted by British intelligence. The documents detail a whole series of underwater cables – essentially the backbone that connects Ireland to the globe – that are being tapped. A document titled “Partner Cables” list the cables that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has accessed or sought to access. The commercial owners of the cables are identified by codenames.

The cables include the Solas undersea cable, which extends from the Wexford coast to southern Wales. The owner of the cable is listed as “GERONTIC”, the password for Cable & Wireless, which is now part of Vodafone. The method of access is described as “DCO” or Direct Cable Ownership.

British intelligence also access the Hibernia cable, which connects Ireland to the US and Canada from Dublin to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It loops to the UK via Southport, on the other side of the Irish Sea. It is listed as a cable to which GCHQ does not “currently have good access”. According to the documents, the only providers assisting GCHQ with access to the Hibernia cable are called “VITREOUS” and “LITTLE”. They provide what’s called IRU/LC or “Indefeasible Rights of Use/Lit Capacity” access. An Irish company linked to the VITREOUS codename last night denied involvement.

A French court has ordered IMF boss Christine Lagarde to face trial over the part she played in the Tapie Affair, regarding a €400m (£291m, $433m) transfer to French business tycoon and entrepreneur Bernard Tapie.In September, France's main prosecutor recommended magistrates at the Cour de Justice de la Republique, which deals with crime allegations against government officials, drop the investigation. The magistrates were probing Lagarde's alleged negligence in regards to the affair when she was finance minister of the country.Why advertise with usIn 2008, when Lagarde served under Nicolas Sarkozy's government, she approved a three member arbitration panel that awarded the payment from the taxpayers' pockets. Lagarde and Sarkozy have both been under fire since then for approving the panel.The payment followed Tapie's accusation that French bank Credit Lyonnais defrauded him when it handled the businessman's sale of his majority stake in German sports retailer Adidas in 1993. Tapie alleged the bank of deliberately undervaluing the company after it sold the stake for a higher sum.

Because the now bust Credit Lyonnais was partly state owned, at least some of the money came from French taxpayers. Tapie sold his Adidas shares to become a cabinet minister. He backed and supported Sarkozy in his bid for presidency in 2007.

The case has been brought up numerous times throughout the years, but some have accused current president Francois Hollande of playing politics. While others say that Lagarde and Sarkozy approved the payment because the influential Tapie backed their government.Tapie used to be popular among the French, as an entrepreneur and 'rags to riches' success story. Apart from Adidas, he has owned cycling team and Tour de France winner La Vie Claire and French football club Olympique Marseille.

In response four petitions by tribal leaders complaining that U.S. drone strikes were killing civilians, Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and the junior judge on Pakistan two-judge Peshawar High Court panel decided that the drone were war crimes as they killed innocent civilians. The panel says that the drone strikes were inhumane and violated the UN Charter on Human Rights.  The court is asking the government of Pakistan to push a UN resolution to condemn the strikes and declare them a war crimes, writing [according to translation by The Press Trust of India, "The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future.  If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US."

Shahzad Akbar, lawyer for victims in the case, is quoted as saying, "This is a landmark judgment. Drone victims in Waziristan will now get some justice after a long wait. This judgment will also prove to be a test for the new government: if drone strikes continue and the government fails to act, it will run the risk of contempt of court."

The administration also does have a policy of paying the family of civilians it kills in the Middle East "grief payments" of a few thousand dollars per body. While the current administration may be hesistant to take action in the UN against the U.S. elections are fast approaching.  This Saturday's election sees the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party leading in current polls.  Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the party's leader, promises a zero-tolerance policy on drone strike civilian deaths.  He comments, "Drone attacks are against the national sovereignty and a challenge for the country's autonomy and independence." The U.S. has often accused hostile regimes like the governments of Syria, Sudan, Iran, and North Korea of war crimes in recent years.  However, it has seldom been on the receiving end of such accusations, despite an aggressive (and expensive) overseas military program.

Newly released documents confirm what critics have long suspected—that the National Security Agency, a component of the Defense Department, is engaged in unconstitutional surveillance of Americans' communications, including their telephone calls and emails. The documents show that the NSA is conducting sweeping surveillance of Americans' international communications, that it is acquiring many purely domestic communications as well, and that the rules that supposedly protect Americans' privacy are weak and riddled with exceptions.

3. The Procedures permit the government to conduct surveillance that has no real connection to the government's foreign intelligence interests. One of the fundamental problems with the Act is that it permits the government to conduct surveillance without probable cause or individualized suspicion. It permits the government to monitor people who aren't even thought to be doing anything wrong, and to do so without particularized warrants or meaningful review by impartial judges. Government officials have placed heavy emphasis on the fact that the Act allows the government to conduct surveillance only if one of its purposes is to gather "foreign intelligence information." That term, though, is defined very broadly to include not only information about terrorism but also information about intelligence activities, the national defense, and even "the foreign affairs of the United States." The Procedures weaken the limitation further. Among the things the NSA examines to determine whether a particular email address or phone number will be used to exchange foreign intelligence information is whether it has been used in the past to communicate with foreigners. Another is whether it is listed in a foreigner's address book. In other words, the NSA seems to equate a propensity to communicate with foreigners with a propensity to communicate foreign intelligence information. The effect is to bring virtually every international communication within the reach of the NSA's surveillance.

In fact, the pedophile allegation has little to do with Assange’s plight that has kept him in the embassy in London, which involves incidents in Stockholm in the summer of 2010.

Rather, it is a bizarre tale involving a Houston-based dating website and its global and well-funded efforts to discredit Assange around the globe. The byzantine saga involves disconnected telephones and mystery websites. The website, toddandclare.com, launched and ramped up its efforts against Assange during the U.S. presidential campaign, as WikiLeaks released hacked emails related to the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.Whoever is behind the dating site has marshaled significant resources to target Assange, enough to gain entry into a United Nations body, operate in countries in Europe, North America and the Caribbean, conduct surveillance on Assange’s lawyer in London, obtain the fax number of Canada’s prime minister and seek to prod a police inquiry in the Bahamas.The dating site’s campaign sought to thwart WikiLeaks’ efforts and discredit Assange, who played a role in a presidential campaign season that deeply divided the U.S. electorate and illuminated Russia as a major cyber adversary of the U.S. government.One part of toddandclare’s two-pronged campaign put a megaphone to unproven charges that Assange made contact with a young Canadian girl in the Bahamas through the internet with the intention of molesting her. The second part sought to entangle him in a plan to receive $1 million from the Russian government.

WikiLeaks claims the dating site is “a highly suspicious and likely fabricated” company. In turn, the company has lashed out at Assange and “his despicable activities against American national security,” and warned journalists to “check with your libel lawyers first before printing anything that could impact or endanger innocent people’s lives.”For nearly two months after the October allegations, toddandclare.com went off line. But it recently reappeared, repeating charges about the 8-year-old Canadian girl. The website did not immediately respond Thursday to a new query from McClatchy, and no respondent in the past has given a name or allowed telephone contact.The online company paints itself as all-American. Online material says its founders, Todd and Clare Hammond, “are an average American couple from Michigan, who met in the eighth grade.” In 2011, the company says, the Christian couple started an email dating service, and “have married 3,000 couples to date.” Their online network began in 2015, and a statement it filed to a U.N. body says it has “100,000+ female singles” in six countries. The company’s operating address is a warehouse loading dock in Houston. Its mail goes to a Houston drop box. Its phone numbers no longer work. WikiLeaks says Texas officials tell it the entity is not registered there either under toddandclare.com or a parent company, T&C Network Solutions.A person who answered emails to the website in November declined to identify him or herself.

When Edward Snowden leaked American intelligence secrets the whole world became aware of the extent of US-UK surveillance of global phone and internet traffic. Have the revelations flagged up a corrosive infringement of individual liberty, or undermined efforts to protect the world from terrorism? Hardtalk speaks to journalist, Glenn Greenwald - the man who broke the Snowden story. His mission, he says, is to hold power to account. Is this a journalistic crusade that's gone too far?

One should not expect any change to come from the U.S. government itself (which includes Congress), whose strategy in such cases is to enact the pretext of “reform” so as to placate public anger, protect the system from any serious weakening, and allow President Obama to go before the country and the world and give a pretty speech about how the U.S. heard their anger and re-calibrated the balance between privacy and security. Any new law that comes from the radically corrupted political class in DC will either be largely empty, or worse. The purpose will be to shield the NSA from real reform. There are, though, numerous other avenues with the real potential to engender serious limits on the NSA’s surveillance powers, including the self-interested though genuine panic of the U.S. tech industry over how surveillance will impede their future business prospects, the efforts of other countries to undermine U.S. hegemony over the internet, the newfound emphasis on privacy protections from internet companies worldwide, and, most of all, the increasing use of encryption technology by users around the world that poses genuine obstacles to state surveillance. Those are all far, far more promising avenues than any bill Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss will let Congress cough up.

That national security state officials routinely mislead and deceive the public should never have even been in serious doubt in the first place – certainly not for journalists, and especially now after the experience of the Iraq War. That fact — that official pronouncements merit great skepticism rather than reverence — should be (but plainly is not) fundamental to how journalists view the world. More evidence for that is provided by a Washington Post column today by one of the national security state’s favorite outlets, David Ignatius. Ignatius interviewed the chronic deceiver, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who now “says it appears the impact [of Snowden's leaking] may be less than once feared because ‘it doesn’t look like he [Snowden] took as much’ as first thought.” Clapper specifically casts serious doubt on the U.S. government’s prior claim that Snowden ”had compromised the communications networks that make up the military’s command and control system”; instead, “officials now think that dire forecast may have been too extreme.” Ignatius — citing an anonymous “senior intelligence official” (who may or may not be Clapper) — also announces that the government has yet again revised its rank speculation about how many documents Snowden took: “This batch of probably downloaded material is about 1.5 million documents, the senior official said. That’s below an earlier estimate of 1.77 million documents.”

Most notable is Ignatius’ summary of the government’s attempt to claim Snowden seriously compromised the security of the U.S.: Pressed to explain what damage Snowden’s revelations had done, the official was guarded, saying that there was “damage in foreign relations” and that the leaks had “poisoned [NSA’s] relations with commercial providers.” He also said that terrorist groups had carefully studied the disclosures, turning more to anonymizers, encryption and use of couriers to shield communications. The senior official wouldn’t respond to repeated questions about whether the intelligence community has noted any changes in behavior by either the Russian or Chinese governments, in possible response to information they may have gleaned from Snowden’s revelations. In other words, the only specific damage they can point to is from the anger that other people around the world have about what the U.S. government has done and the fact that people will not want to buy U.S. tech products if they fear (for good reason) that those companies collaborate with the NSA. But, as usual, there is zero evidence provided (as opposed to bald, self-serving assertions) of any harm to genuine national security concerns (i.e., the ability to monitor anyone planning actual violent attacks).

Barack Obama’s determined, if unbelievably secretive, bid to fast-track agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ‘not tomorrow, as they say, but yesterday’ is clearly driven by the bitter knowledge that America got well and truly pipped-at-the-post when China launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). "Evidence of the relative power of the Chinese and American economies," wrote Pepe Escobar in Asia Times, "was the world’s reaction to China’s launch of the badly needed AIIB to provide development funds for Asia and beyond.   The level of funding necessary for such development has long been denied by the US-dominated World Bank and IMF."   More galling to the self-annointed ‘Indispensable Nation’ was that even its staunch allies, UK and Israel, unhesitatingly got on board AIIB – despite, as Escobar reveals, "the bullying of the US to stop them leaving the US and its cat’s paw in East Asia, Japan, out in the cold." More amazingly, added Escobar, the US actually thought it could write the rules of trade for China and East Asia!

Consider for instance, Obama’s speech on May 8, 2015 at a Nike factory in Oregon: "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy and we should do it today while our economy is in a position of global strength. If we don’t write the rules for trade around the world, guess what, China will. And they’ll write those rules in a way that gives Chinese workers and Chinese businesses the upper hand." What is one to conclude from such an unabashed ‘confession’ except that the imperial mind-set is still very much alive and kicking in the 21st Century? The TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership is being put together in absolute secrecy, so what little has become public knowledge is thanks to Wikileaks. What needs to be remembered is that the US already trades heavily with the other 11 nations included in the TPP talks. Economist and leading commentator Paul Krugman’s blunt assessment: "This not a trade agreement. It’s about intellectual property and dispute resolution; the big beneficiaries are likely to be pharma companies and firms that want to sue governments."

And that, precisely, happens to be the bone of contention between Obama and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has been particularly critical of the so-called ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ provisions in the TPP which, she charged publicly, would empower corporations to use international courts to sue the US government and other state institutions of signatory governments that enact regulations and ‘protections’ which impact on the profits of corporations. The Obama administration, for its part, argues that the deal is instead about trade and increasing American exports abroad. It has set up a web page on the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) site listing the benefits of exports from each of America’s fifty states resulting from the TPP. But an obscure government document put out by that very same USTR office adequately makes Senator Warren’s case for her! That document happens to be the USTR’s annual report on "foreign trade barriers" around the world, going country by country to list complaints the US government has about their laws with respect to commerce.

Turkey threatens to deploy army to end unrest: Deputy PM says army could be called into action to restore order, as unions go on strike to protest police crackdown. Five Turkish trade unions begin nationwide demonstrations with one-day strike; Five trade unions are set to begin today a nationwide demonstration campaign and one-day strike following the harsh police intervention in Taksim the night of June 15, daily Hürriyet has reported. Turkey Protests: Government Targets Doctors Who Treated Injured Demonstrators: The Health Ministry had demanded a list of the names of all doctors who treated demonstrators from the Turkish Medical Association (TBB), the association said on Friday 14 June.

The slogans, leaders, and agenda of the "Occupy Central" movement are supposedly the manifestations of Hong Kong's desire for "total democracy," "universal suffrage," and "freedom." In reality, the leaders of "Occupy Central" are verified to be directly backed, funded, and directed by the US State Department, its National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and its subsidiary, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Despite admitting this overwhelming evidence, many "Occupy Central" supporters still insist the protests are genuine and now some propose that the "Occupy Central" leadership does not truly represent the people of Hong Kong. While the leadership of "Occupy Central" indeed in no way represent the people of Hong Kong, the fact still remains that the protest itself was prearranged at least as early as April 2014, revealed by "Occupy Central" co-organizers Martin Lee and Anson Chan before NED in Washington DC.

The talk titled, "Why Democracy in Hong Kong Matters," spanned an hour, with NED regional vice president Louisa Greve leading the duo through a full introduction of the "Occupy Central" movement, its characters, agenda, demands, and talking points. Anson Chan - Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary under British rule - in particular, with her perfect British accent, insisted repeatedly that the issue was China's apparent backtracking on "deals" made with the UK over the handover of Hong Kong in the late 1990's. Lee, as well as members of the audience, repeatedly stated that Hong Kong's role was to "infect" mainland China with its Western-style institutions, laws, and interests. Lee also repeatedly appealed to Washington specifically to ensure they remained committed to defending American interests in Hong Kong. Both Lee and Chan would also state that since China appears to be concerned over global perception of how it rules its people, this could be exploited to excise from Beijing concessions over Hong Kong's governance. This included mention of previous protests, including those led by "activist" Joshua Wong and his suspicious "Scholarism" organization that has been tracked since at least 2012 by the US State Department's NDI. And of course, future destabilization was submitted as a viable solution to bending Beijing toward Western concessions.

For those able to listen to the entire 1 hour interview as well as questions and answers, the entire "Occupy Central" narrative is laid bare, verbatim, in Washington DC months before demonstrations began in the streets of Hong Kong. For a supposed "pro-democracy" protest seeking self-governance and self-determination and denouncing "interference" from Beijing, that their leaders are funded by foreign interests, and the plans for "Occupy Central" laid in a foreign capital is ironic at best - utter and very intentional deceit at worst. Democracy indeed assumes self-governance and self determination. If the US State Department is colluding with, funding, and directing the politicians and protest leaders behind "Occupy Central," the people of Hong Kong are governing and determining nothing - Washington and Wall Street are. Martin Lee and collaborator Anson Chan complain about Beijing dictating policy in Hong Kong, while they sit together in a room full of foreign interests who would dictate Hong Kong's governance instead.  Laid bare is "Occupy Central's" true agenda. It is not about having Hong Kong vote for who they desire to see in power, it is about getting the foreign-backed political cabal behind "Occupy Central" into power, and disarming Beijing of any means to prevent what is for all intents and purposes the "soft" recolonization of Hong Kong, and a further attempt to divide and destabilize China as a whole.

Over the last year the U.S. bombed Jabhat al-Nusra personal and facilities in Syria some five or six times. The al-Qaeda subgroup also has a history of attacking U.S. paid "relative moderate" proxy forces in Syria. The Pentagon recently inserted another U.S. mercenary group into north Syria. This was accompanied by a media campaign in which the administration lauded itself for the operation. The newly inserted group is especially trained and equipped to direct U.S. air attacks like those that earlier hit al-Nusra fighters. Now that freshly inserted group was attacked by Jabhat al-Nusra. Some of its members were killed and others were abducted. The Obama administration is shocked, SHOCKED, ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED that Jabhat al-Nusra would do such a ghastly deed. "Why would they do that?" "Who could have known that they would attack U.S. proxy forces???"

There is no longer an Jihadist ISIS or ISIL in Syria and Iraq. The people leading that entity declared (pdf) today, at the highly symbolic beginning of Ramadan, themselves to be a new caliphate:

Could someone explain to the fucking dimwits in the Pentagon and the Obama administrations that people everywhere, and especially terrorists group, hate it when you bomb them and kill their leaders? That those people you bomb might want to take revenge against you and your proxies? That people you bombed will not like your targeting team moving in next door to them? That alQaeda is not an "ally"? These people are too pathetically clueless to even be embarrassed about it. The accumulated intelligence quotient of the administration and Pentagon officials running the anti-Syria operation must be below three digits. But aside from their lack of basic intelligence the utter lack of simple "street smarts" is the real problem here. These people have no idea how life works outside of their beltway cages.