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1) Yes, we’re downloading and installing a wiretapping black-box to your computer. But we’re not actually activating it. We did take advantage of our position as trusted upstream to stealth-insert code into open-source software that installed this black box onto millions of computers, but we would never abuse the same trust in the same way to insert code that activates the eavesdropping-blackbox we already downloaded and installed onto your computer without your consent or knowledge. You can look at the code as it looks right now to see that the code doesn’t do this right now.2) Yes, Chromium is bypassing the entire source code auditing process by downloading a pre-built black box onto people’s computers. But that’s not something we care about, really. We’re concerned with building Google Chrome, the product from Google. As part of that, we provide the source code for others to package if they like. Anybody who uses our code for their own purpose takes responsibility for it. When this happens in a Debian installation, it is not Google Chrome’s behavior, this is Debian Chromium’s behavior. It’s Debian’s responsibility entirely.3) Yes, we deliberately hid this listening module from the users, but that’s because we consider this behavior to be part of the basic Google Chrome experience. We don’t want to show all modules that we install ourselves.

If you think this is an excusable and responsible statement, raise your hand now.Now, it should be noted that this was Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome. If somebody downloads the Google product Google Chrome, as in the prepackaged binary, you don’t even get a theoretical choice. You’re already downloading a black box from a vendor. In Google Chrome, this is all included from the start.This episode highlights the need for hard, not soft, switches to all devices – webcams, microphones – that can be used for surveillance. A software on/off switch for a webcam is no longer enough, a hard shield in front of the lens is required. A software on/off switch for a microphone is no longer enough, a physical switch that breaks its electrical connection is required. That’s how you defend against this in depth.

Of course, people were quick to downplay the alarm. “It only listens when you say ‘Ok, Google’.” (Ok, so how does it know to start listening just before I’m about to say ‘Ok, Google?’) “It’s no big deal.” (A company stealth installs an audio listener that listens to every room in the world it can, and transmits audio data to the mothership when it encounters an unknown, possibly individually tailored, list of keywords – and it’s no big deal!?) “You can opt out. It’s in the Terms of Service.” (No. Just no. This is not something that is the slightest amount of permissible just because it’s hidden in legalese.) “It’s opt-in. It won’t really listen unless you check that box.” (Perhaps. We don’t know, Google just downloaded a black box onto my computer. And it may not be the same black box as was downloaded onto yours. )Early last decade, privacy activists practically yelled and screamed that the NSA’s taps of various points of the Internet and telecom networks had the technical potential for enormous abuse against privacy. Everybody else dismissed those points as basically tinfoilhattery – until the Snowden files came out, and it was revealed that precisely everybody involved had abused their technical capability for invasion of privacy as far as was possible.Perhaps it would be wise to not repeat that exact mistake. Nobody, and I really mean nobody, is to be trusted with a technical capability to listen to every room in the world, with listening profiles customizable at the identified-individual level, on the mere basis of “trust us”.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

While there is no true beginning to the story, we can start with the incredible build up and concentration of wealth among corporations in recent decades. The USA now boasts a cartel-like set of corporate titans in almost every industry. It goes beyond, but certainly includes, our Too Biggerer To Fail banks, merged from what was 37 banks in 1995 into a Frankenstein’s monster like 5 (Citigroup, JP Morgan-Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs). In agriculture, Monsanto alone controls over 85% of all corn and soy bean crops, four companies control 83% of the beef market, 66% of the hog market and 58% of the chicken market. So while shopping at the grocery store might appear to be the manifestation of capitalism at its finest, it doesn’t take much digging to look behind the curtain to see how little competition truly exists.

This, amazingly, has only accelerated since the crisis in 2008 in thanks to bailouts, Quantitative Easing and other gifts from Congress and the Fed. The wealthy 1% and in particular the .01% have now grown their fortunes to levels that tax comprehension and even their ability to spend it (the decisions by a few billionaires such as Bill Gates to essentially donate his fortune is a tacit acknowledgement that our current system over provides wealth to a select few).

So what is an incredibly wealthy capitalist CEO of a mega-corporation do once they control their industry and have essentially limitless wealth? Well in a competitive market, the only way to go from the top is down and the only thing that can make that happen is competition. Consequently, competition must be avoided whenever possible.

Let’s take a step back and take a glimpse at how the government was purchased, beginning with the executive branch. In 1980, Reagan’s election cost less than $300 million. When Bush beat Kerry in 2004, it cost almost 3x times as much, almost $900 Million. 4 years later, the 2008 election cost a record $1.3 Billion. It was in this election where Obama hammered the final nail in the coffin for government funded for elections. Obama, more so than any other candidate in recent decades had the widespread support of millions of small donors, but in the end I guess it wasn’t enough. So when Obama “leaned to the green”, it forever set the precedent that you can’t win without the backing of our nation’s oligarchs. Consequently, the money has only gushed in since as the cost of Obama’s reelection in 2012 skyrocketed to an unfathomable $7 billion. Needless to say this is slightly above the rate of inflation. Our Presidents are now preselected exclusively by a tiny fraction of Americans can have the money to fund what has become necessary for a legitimate run. Summary: Candidates spend years courting the super-rich to build up a multi-billion dollar war chest. Only those who succeed can actually run a campaign that an average American will be aware of. Then Americans get to choose one of the pre-selected “candidates”. No wonder voter turnout is so low… Executive branch, check!

The process has progressed similarly in Congress. In 1978, outside groups spent $303,000 on congressional races. In 2012 that was up to $457,000,000. That is over 1,500 times the level in 1978. It would be funny, if it was so blatant and terrifying. By many accounts, our “leaders” in Congress spend 50% or more of their time working the phones or fundraisers rather than trying (and failing) to actually do the “people’s business”. Let’s also take a minute to appreciate the hypocrisy of anyone that pretends that the money doesn’t influence our government. Businesses do not give to politicians for charity. This is a payment for services that has proven exceedingly reliable and profitable. The ROI for money invested in purchasing Congressman is what CEO dreams are made of. No wonder the incentive is to invest in Congress rather than R&D or marketing. There are very few places in the world or times in history where you can find ROI’s in the thousands, or even the tens of thousands.

In addition, increasingly those who work on Congress (and regulators) were previously employed by these large corporations or expect to work there later. A recent example is Chris Dodd who left the Senate the head lobbyist for Hollywood at the MPAA, the guys behind SOPA and PIPA, but there are many many others.

Change the Rules: Laurence Lessig of Harvard Law has put forward a visionary proposal for re-writing the way that campaigns are financed in his book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It. Put simply, he would like to empower every voter with a stipend, say $150 per election to give to whatever candidate or candidates they prefer. If you would like to accept this money, you would need to forgo any other contributions or support (one would hope including the indirect PAC kind). This would actually provide even more money than is used in current elections, but would effectively democratize the funding process. While there would still be a “funding election” that takes place before the actual election, the funding would not be unequally provided. Lessig’s work has only begun, as this sort of bill or likely constitutional reform is nearly impossible to achieve, but he has undertaken and I assume will continue to implement many brave and creative ways of bringing about the change all American’s should support. Most recently he has suggested we begin to fund, ironically enough, a Super PAC to end all Super PACs. It would be funded with the solitary goal of changing how money impacts our elections. Please support them here: www.mayone.us/

What if all the growing number of “Independents” (who usually still vote Blue), chose to vote for a third party? What if a third party candidate won a state like New York or California? What if that candidate was one whose primary promise to the voters was to champion a change to the role of money in government (perhaps in line with what Lessig proposes)? Would you vote for such a person?I would argue you should. If California alone (with 55 electoral votes) were to vote for a 3rd party that would likely prevent either Red or Blue candidate from winning the requisite 270 electoral votes.

As our users from China, Iran, Russia, and other countries around the world have shown us in the past months, ProtonMail is an important tool for freedom of speech and we are happy to finally be able to provide this to the whole world," the company said in a blog post.Google and Yahoo recently announced efforts to encrypt their email communications, but some specialists say the effort falls short."These big companies don't want to encrypt your stuff because they spy on you, too," said Bruce Schneier, a well-known cryptographer and author who is chief technology officer for CO3 Systems."Hopefully, the NSA debate is creating incentives for people to build more encryption."Stockman said that with services like Gmail, even if data is encrypted, "they have the key right next to it if you have the key and lock next to each other, so it's pretty much useless."

Lavabit founder Ladar Levison meanwhile hopes to launch a new service with other developers in a coalition known as the "Dark Mail Alliance."Levison told AFP he hopes to have a new encrypted email system in testing within a few months and widely available later this year."The goal is to make it ubiquitous, so people don't have to turn it on," he said.But he added that the technical hurdles are formidable, because the more user-friendly the system becomes, "the more susceptible it is to a sophisticated attacker with fake or spoofed key information."Levison said he hopes Dark Mail will become a new open standard that can be adopted by other email services.

on Callas, a cryptographer who developed the PGP standard and later co-founded the secure communications firm Silent Circle, cited challenges in making a system that is both secure and ubiquitous."If you are a bank you have to have an email system that complies with banking regulations," Callas told AFP, which could allow, for example, certain emails to be subject to regulatory or court review."Many of the services on the Internet started with zero security. We want to start with a system that is totally secure and let people dial it down."The new email system would complement Silent Circle's existing secure messaging system and encrypted mobile phone, which was launched earlier this year."If we start competing for customers on the basis of maximum privacy, that's good for everybody," Callas said.

“It’s clear the global community of Internet users doesn’t like to be caught up in the American surveillance dragnet,” Senator Ron Wyden said last month. At the same event, Google chairman Eric Schmidt agreed with him. “What occurred was a loss of trust between America and other countries,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It's making it very difficult for American firms to do business.” But never mind the world. Americans don’t trust American social networks. More than half of the poll’s respondents said that social networks were “not at all secure. Only 40 percent of Americans believe email or texting is at least “somewhat” secure. Indeed, Americans trusted most of all communication technologies where some protections has been enshrined into the law (though the report didn’t ask about snail mail). That is: Talking on the telephone, whether on a landline or cell phone, is the only kind of communication that a majority of adults believe to be “very secure” or “somewhat secure.”

According to the study, 70 percent of Americans are “at least somewhat concerned” with the government secretly obtaining information they post to social networking sites. Eighty percent of respondents agreed that “Americans should be concerned” with government surveillance of telephones and the web. They are also uncomfortable with how private corporations use their data: Ninety-one percent of Americans believe that “consumers have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by companies,” according to the study. Eighty percent of Americans who use social networks “say they are concerned about third parties like advertisers or businesses accessing the data they share on these sites.” And even though they’re squeamish about the government’s use of data, they want it to regulate tech companies and data brokers more strictly: 64 percent wanted the government to do more to regulate private data collection. Since June 2013, American politicians and corporate leaders have fretted over how much the leaks would cost U.S. businesses abroad.

(That may seem a bit incongruous, because making a telephone call is one area where you can be almost sure you are being surveilled: The government has requisitioned mass call records from phone companies since 2001. But Americans appear, when discussing security, to differentiate between the contents of the call and data about it.) Last month, Ramsey Homsany, the general counsel of Dropbox, said that one big thing could take down the California tech scene. “We have built this incredible economic engine in this region of the country,” said Homsany in the Los Angeles Times, “and [mistrust] is the one thing that starts to rot it from the inside out.” According to this poll, the mistrust has already begun corroding—and is already, in fact, well advanced. We’ve always assumed that the great hurt to American business will come globally—that citizens of other nations will stop using tech companies’s services. But the new Pew data shows that Americans suspect American businesses just as much. And while, unlike citizens of other nations, they may not have other places to turn, they may stop putting sensitive or delicate information online.

Start in the 1980s with the urge of President Ronald Reagan and his fundamentalist Catholic spymaster, CIA Director William Casey, to make allies of fundamentalist Islamic movements at a time when their extreme (and extremist) piety seemed attractively anticommunist.  In that decade, in Afghanistan in particular, Reagan and Casey put money, arms, and training where their hearts and mouths were and promoted the most extreme Islamists who were ready to give the Soviet Union a bloody nose, a Vietnam in reverse.

It's easier for Brazil to win the World Cup with a team of crybabies with no tactical nous than having US Secretary of State John Kerry and his State Department ciphers understand that the Syrian "opposition" is controlled by jihadis. But then again, they do know -- and that perfectly fits into the Empire of Chaos's not so hidden Global War on Terror (GWOT) agenda of an ever-expanding proxy war in both Syria and Iraq fueled by terror financing. So 13 years ago, Washington crushed both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then the Taliban were reborn. Then came Shock and Awe. Then came "Mission Accomplished." Then al-Qaeda was introduced in Iraq. Then al-Qaeda was dead because Osama bin Laden was dead. Then came ISIL. And now there's IS. And we start all over again, not in the Hindu Kush, but in the Levant. With a new Osama. What's not to like? If anyone thinks this whole racket is part of a new live Monty Python sketch ahead of their reunion gig this month in London, that's because it is.

Then several years later the US encouraged South Korean incursions into Communist North Korea in order to manipulate North Korea into responding in kind. Guaranteeing South Korea full UN support, when the baited North Koreans retaliated by moving two miles inside the South Korean border, that June 1950 “transgression” immediately became the false pretense used to initiate the Korean War.

in August 1964 President Johnson lied to the American people with the bogus claim that a US Navy ship was attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin to launch America’s longest running war in history (that is until this century’s everlasting war of terror). That false flag cost near 60,000 American lives and over 3 million dead Southeast Asians, in addition to being the first US humiliating war defeat in its history, marking the first of many consecutive losses.

The smaller, less intensive military campaigns of Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua and El Salvador, the First Gulf War, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo were all jingoistic saber rattling manipulations of imperialistic Empire overpowering far weaker opponents to take down former US allied dictators (or in the case of Saddam Hussein a preliminary step to the father-son neocon tag team), balkanizing a divide and conquer strategy for global hegemony and imperial war profiteering from the always lucrative drug trafficking trade.

Meanwhile, the only true winners of all wars is the oligarch owned and controlled central banking cabal and its Wall Street 500. Once American Empire wreaks military havoc to achieve another ravaged failed state, be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, a second invasion that becomes the permanent occupation arrives in the form of IMF and World Bank loans. When the war destroyed nation cannot pay the bankster cabal’s loan shark extortion, privatization through transnational corporations rapidly descends as economic hit men-vultures move in for the final kill. The game’s been rigged, set up so no one but the filthy, gluttonous, bloodthirsty, psychopathic vampires comprising the ruling elite can possibly win from all this rigged warring death and destruction.

The Zionist neocon creation with a little help from their Saudi-Israeli evil axis friends pulled off the coup of the century on 9/11, massacring 3,000 Americans as their sacrificial lambs, setting into motion the fabricated war on terror masking their actual war on Islam to ensure that a constant fresh supply of made-by-the-USA enemy materializes to justify permanent global violence. During the near ten years that Americans fought in Iraq near a half million Iraqis lost their life, mostly innocent civilians. That toll has only since risen with war still raging. The Islamic State jihadists that the US-Saudi-Israeli unholy alliance secretly created, trained, armed and has funded (just as it did al Qaeda for decades) invaded Iraq last June and is currently in control of more area in Iraq than the weak US puppet government in Baghdad with no end of sectarian violence in sight. Afghanistan looks no better with the puppet Kabul government holding less territory than the surging Taliban that has been waiting for the US military exodus by December 2014 leaving 10,800 US military advisors still remaining behind.

The proxy wars leaving Libya as a corrupt and lawlessly violent failed state and Syria a stalemated quagmire with Islamic State mercenaries our not-so-secret friendly boots on the ground still unable to topple and remove Assad from power. Meanwhile, near a quarter of a million people have died in the war in Syria and an astounding 6.5 million have been displaced in that colossal human tragedy supported and caused by the United States.

‘It is also wrong to say Chilcot will only publish the gist of what Blair said. His words will be published word for word.’‘There will be redactions where appropriate but it will be quite clear to see what he said and what he meant. Bush’s comments will be less detailed but that is necessary as it is not up to Britain to publish details of what a US President says.’ Sir John fought a dogged battle with Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell and his successor Jeremy Heywood to win approval to publish the comments. O’Donnell refused to give way and it took Sir John a year to force Heywood to agree.

The dispute over publishing the confidential communications between the two leaders is the main reason for the delay in publishing the findings of the inquiry, which was set up in 2009.It meant Sir John could not fulfil until recently his duty to send so-called ‘Maxwell letters’ to those whom he intends to criticise in his report. Some of the 30 or so have received letters running into hundreds of pages. One individual is said to have received a 1,200-page letter from the inquiry.

"No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort”, a former Green Beret writes of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian insurgents, “they know we are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’”. “I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. ... Murphy states bluntly: “distinguishing between the FSA and al-Nusra is impossible, because they are virtually the same organization. As early as 2013, FSA commanders were defecting with their entire units to join al-Nusra. There, they still retain the FSA monicker, but it is merely for show, to give the appearance of secularism so they can maintain access to weaponry provided by the CIA and Saudi intelligence services. The reality is that the FSA is little more than a cover for the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra. ... It is one thing when Russia says somesthing, but another when Reuters, WSJ, and independent German and U.S. subject experts report this as facts. The first can be shunned as "Putin lies" but the others are extremely hard to refute. The Russians are right. The U.S. did not separate the "moderate rebels" from al Qaeda, as it had agreed to in the ceasefire agreement, because the "moderates" and al-Qaeda are the same. The "moderates" are al-Qaeda. This was not unknown. The 2012 Defense Intelligence Analysis said as much. The CIA of course knew this all along. But the Saudi tool heading the CIA, John Brennan, can not admit such as his masters in the Gulf are also the ones who finance al-Qaeda. They buy the weapons Brennan's people hadn over to al-Qaeda. The "end-user" according to this certificate for a weapon buy in Ukraine is Saudi Arabia. But who will believe that the Saudi dictators need for example 100 obsolete T-55 tanks? The weapons on the certificate, for an estimated $300-$500 million, are obviously for al-Qaeda in Yemen and in Syria. (Did Joe Biden or his son, both heavily engaged in Ukraine, get a provision from the deal?)

As the facts accumulate how long can the New York Times and Washington Post keep up with their propaganda claims. One has to admit, they really try their best. Unfortunately for them, their best is only mediocre. The NYT today found out that Vladimir Putin Relishes His Role as Disrupter. How does the NYT know what Putin "relishes"? The reporter did not ask Putin himself. But he did ask some knowledgeable experts with insight into Putin's inner mind and those assured the author that this is indeed the case. They know exactly how Putin feels. They are Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director and Robert Kagan, leading voice of of the neocons and Clinton promoter. Some "experts". Add that to dozens of stories on how "Russia indiscriminately bombs civilians/hospitals/bakeries in east-Aleppo" but never hits any "rebels" because none occur in these stories at all. A recent NYT piece of that kind had 14 "voices" in it. Eight belonged to various propagandists associated with the "White Helmets", four were "western" diplomats, one Syrian government official and a Russian spokesperson were quoted at the end. No Russian military and no one from west-Aleppo, where by far most people in the city live under government protection and daily rocket hail by the "rebels", were even asked. But all those tales we hear about the devilish Russians MUST be true! Even the 7 years old Bana Alabeb now tweets from east-Aleppo about her tragic fate under indiscriminate Russian assaults. This in perfect English and with an excellent WiFi and Internet connection as her many "White Helmets" photo attachments and her videos attest. But the whole city is devastated and in ruins she says, with phosphor bombs going off right in front of her house.

But Bana is a very responsible little lady: Bana Alabed @AlabedBana Dear world, it's better to start 3rd world war instead of letting Russia & assad commit #HolocaustAleppo 1:53 PM - 29 Sep 2016 Here "mother" phoned up the Daily Mail for an "exclusive" and assures us that this is all true. The Telegraph has her in a slideshow with sad music and the Guardian promotes her too. Another Gay Girl in Damascus media fail. In 2011 the Guardian also was part of that scam. If that 7-year old girl is in east-Aleppo and not in Denmark or the UK, I must be on Mars. No sane reader will take such a stunt serious. What Public Relation company came up with this sorry flimflam? Like the "moderate rebels" fantasy, such tales and the nonsense the "White Helmet" propaganda outlet distributes, are starting to fail. The UAE's National, a well established international newspaper, recently dug a bit around the White Helmet's creator, a "former" British military agent working for Gulf defense interests. That does not sound charitable. This is noticeable report, even as it still lacks any details, as it is the first in a major paper that shows some auspiciousness against that outlet. The Obama administration's lies about the "moderate rebels" are now openly discussed in major media. The propaganda of #HolocaustAleppo (isn't abusing the holocaust meme anti-semitic?) is turning into a laughing stock.

Russia is upping its stake in Syria. Additional Russian SU-24, SU-25 and SU-34 jets are arriving. Nearly 6,000 Russian soldiers are on the ground. The CIA's  al-Qaeda "rebels" are losing in east-Aleppo and are in stalemate and under pressure elsewhere. They will be bombed to smithereens. A few new BM-21 multiple missile launchers and heavier anti-air artillery was delivered to them. But those are just band-aids on lethally bleeding wounds. Even MANPADs will not change the situation one bit. The U.S., the Saudis and especially Brennan's CIA have lost that fight. Will Obama and Kerry admit it? Or will they throw another Hail Mary and do something crazy?

a constitutional amendment that limits state and federal taxation to 20% of income (from whatever the source) and abolishes all other forms of taxation at the state and local level. Give each household a $24,000 annual exemption.

How much did you make? Send the government 20% of it.

Every U.S. citizen has the right to keep 80% of his income.