Puppet MastersS


Cut

German court rules investigators' access to private data must be limited


Reuters
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 10:59 UTC
spying tech
© Pixabay / Gerd Altmann
A German federal court said on Friday that several laws giving investigators access to personal internet or phone data were unconstitutional and needed to be amended to better protect privacy.

The court ruling is a victory for privacy activists who had said there were not sufficient limits on when and why federal police or domestic intelligence can access the names and addresses or even e-mail passwords and mobile phone PINs of users.

One of the suits on which the ruling published on Friday is based was filed by Katharina Nocun and Patrick Breyer of the Pirate Party, along with around 6,000 joint plaintiffs, in 2013.

Comment: See also: EU dictatorship: ECB given ultimatum over €2 trillion stimulus scheme by Germany's top court UPDATE

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Eye 2

US sanctions are part of a multi-front war on Syria, and its long-suffering civilians are the main target

Eva Bartlett
RT
Mon, 13 Jul 2020 20:32 UTC
Syrian refugee patients
© AFP / KHALIL MAZRAAWISyrian refugee patients
The US is waging multiple fronts of war against Syria, including brutal sanctions, while claiming concern over the wellbeing of Syrian civilians - the vast majority of whom are suffering as a direct result of US policies.

On June 17, the US implemented the Caesar Act, America's latest round of draconian sanctions against the Syrian people, to "protect" them, America claims. This, after years of bombing civilians and providing support to anti-government militants, leading to the proliferation of terrorists who kidnap, imprison, torture, maim, and murder the same Syrian civilians.

Just weeks after these barbaric sanctions were enforced, cue American crocodile tears about Syrian suffering, and claims that Moscow and Damascus are allegedly preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid. More hot air from American hypocritical talking heads who don't actually care about Syrians' wellbeing.

America trigger-happily sanctions many nations or entities that dare to stand up to its hegemonic dictates. The word "sanctions" sounds too soft - the reality is an all-out economic war against the people in targeted nations.
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Attention

Setting Pompeo loose on the concept of 'human rights' is a warning the US is about to violate a lot more of them!

Helen Buyniski
RT
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 20:56 UTC
Pompeo
© Reuters/Brendan SmialowskiUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has unveiled what he calls a "moral foreign policy," attempting to limit other nations' power to declare unalienable human rights. The aim, as usual, is legitimizing the American empire's abuses.

The 60-page preliminary report, released on Thursday, is the product of a year's work from an advisory panel Pompeo appointed to devise "a moral foreign policy...grounded in [a] conception of human rights." It calls for a dramatic reevaluation of what constitutes "human rights" and advises the international community to get off the Trump administration's back regarding their enforcement.

It wasn't hard to guess when the project was announced that where US policy and human rights were at odds, Washington would win out - Pompeo even acknowledged as much, warning that "loose talk of 'rights' unmoors us from the principles of liberal democracy" (translation: you have too many rights, don't make us come over there and civilize you ) in an op-ed published at the time. He confirmed it again on Thursday in a speech he gave to celebrate the report's release, quoting the commission's chair Mary Ann Glendon while complaining about the "proliferation of rights."
"A rapidly expanding catalog of rights...not only multiplies the occasion for risks of collision, but risks trivializing core American values."

Comment: Pompeo's moral judgements and accompanying provocations are akin to 'lipstick on a pig'.

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Snakes in Suits

Biden briefed on US Intelligence, says Russia still meddling in electoral process


RFE/RL
Sat, 18 Jul 2020 03:06 UTC
Biden
© File PhotoDemocratic presidential candidate Joe Biden
U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden says he is now getting regular intelligence briefings and has been told that Russia is continuing in its attempts to meddle in the upcoming U.S. election. Biden said on July 17:
"We know from before, and I guarantee you that I know now, because now I get briefings again. The Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. Fact."
Biden, the former vice president under President Barack Obama, is the presumptive Democratic nominee to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November 3 election. If Biden wins, he would assume office in January 2021.

Traditionally, the nominee for the leading opposition party begins receiving intelligence briefings ahead of the vote so that the candidate will be fully informed on the first day should he or she win the election.

Biden, speaking during an online fundraiser with supporters, warned that, if Moscow maintains its efforts to interfere, there will be "a real price to pay" if he wins the presidency.

Comment: Biden is being told what the Democrats want him to hear. The 'set up' and 'the pitch'.

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Propaganda

CNN's Acosta mangles WH quote on science and reopening schools, correction after misleading tweet goes viral


RT
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:07 UTC
school sign, McEnany
© Reuters/Kevin LamarqueWhite House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was lambasted online after relaying the president's support for reopening schools this fall, but a quote singled out by critics was deceptively stripped of all context.

The row was sparked during a White House presser on Thursday, after a reporter asked McEnany about how parents might approach the upcoming academic year, as a growing number of school districts around the country move to full-time virtual learning amid the coronavirus pandemic. McEnany replied:
"The president has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open.

"I was just in the Oval talking to him about that, and when he says open, he means open in full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way. The science is on our side here. We encourage localities and states to just simply follow the science."
Though McEnany went on to cite Scott Atlas, the former head of Stanford University's neuroradiology department, as well as a recent study by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), her first line about "science" promptly went viral. A Twitter pile-on soon followed, with detractors and a number of mainstream media outlets presenting the quote only in part, distorting its meaning to suggest the administration opposes 'science' altogether.


Comment: A primed audience is a receptive one - looking for the next reinforcing bombshell to justify their beliefs. This is why disinformation sells more copies than truth.

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Laptop

Judicial Watch: New emails show frantic exchange between top officials around time of Trump's inauguration


Judicial Watch
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
Page/Strzok/Judicial Watch
© Judicial Watch/AP/Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times/KJNPeter Strzok • Lisa Page • Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch announced today it received 136 pages of emails between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. They include heavily redacted emails showing Strzok, Page and top bureau officials in the days prior to and following President Donald Trump's inauguration discussing a White House counterintelligence briefing that could "play into" the FBI's "investigative strategy."

On January 19, 2017, the night before President Donald Trump's inauguration, a series of emails were exchanged between top officials in the FBI's General Counsel's office, Counterintelligence Division and Washington Field Office, and included then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former Assistant Director for the Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap.

Comment: Thanks to the efforts of Judicial Watch, we are given more clues as to how deep and high the FBI was involved in trying to shape the outcome of the 2016 election and the scope of collusion implied within official records.

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X

Pentagon effectively bans Confederate flags on all military property

Lara Seligman
Politico
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 11:15 UTC
Confederate flag
© Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThe Confederate Flag banned at the Pentagon
"The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect," Esper wrote.

The Pentagon on Friday unveiled a new policy that effectively bans the display of the Confederate flag — without actually naming it.

The policy, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO ahead of the official rollout, reflects an effort to find a compromise on the divisive issue, as Defense Secretary Mark Esper strives to satisfy military leaders without irking President Donald Trump, who has criticized NASCAR for banning the flag.

Comment: Denial of history and eradication of reminders means no one will ask 'what it was', 'what it meant,' 'what it was for'. Learning cancelled. Lessons lost.

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Chart Bar

UK government panicking as fraudulent COVID death count is revealed


21st Century Wire
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 16:46 UTC
Matt Hancock
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock trying to sell the crisis to public
Today the public have been told via the mainstream press that UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock is now 'looking into' how data regarding coronavirus fatalities is being recorded. This, despite months of reporting by dissenting journalists who have been challenging the official government line raising this issue.


Downplaying a 'Strange Anomaly'

We're told all this comes after Public Health England (PHE) confirmed that people who are dying of natural causes are also being counted as 'COVID deaths' by virtue of the fact that they had previously tested positive for the virus.

Officials are calling this "a strange anomaly," but it's much more than that.

Quite clearly, Hancock and the Tory government are implementing damage control here, as this scandal is rapidly being disseminated across the public discourse, and for fear that the wider scale of the statistical fraud might be revealed.

By calling for a "urgent review," the Johnson government hopes to avoid a likely backlash from what can only be described as a historic fiasco for Public Health England and Westminster.

Comment: In light of the above news, the UK has halted its daily Covid-19 death updates - presumably they are trying to figure out a less obvious way of massaging the data to fit their narrative:
"Currently, the daily deaths measure counts all people who have tested positive for coronavirus and since died, with no cut-off between time of testing and date of death," reads a short message on the UK government's website. "There have been claims that the lack of cut-off may distort the current daily deaths number. We are therefore pausing the publication of the daily figure while this is resolved."


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X

Tunisian Government throws out the Muslim Brotherhood "terrorist" party

JoanneM
Libyan War On Truth
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:56 UTC
Tunisian prime minister resigns
So, the latest news on North Africa is BAD news for the Muslim Brotherhood and their Turkish regime headed by Erdogan.

One of the last strongholds of the terrorist organization called the "Muslim Brotherhood" in north Africa was Tunisia. Not withstanding their quickly failing strangle hold on Libya via the unelected GNA regime in Tripoli, Libya.

Tunisia has been controlled internally for some time by a party named the Ennahdha Movement led by a man named Rached Ghannouchi who is speaker of the Tunisian parliament and controller of many ministry appointments. Rached Ghannouchi is Muslim Brotherhood and has been working closely with Turkey and Erdogan against the will of the Tunisian people who do not follow radical Islam generally. He has gone against the President of Tunisia allowing Turkey to use Tunisian sea ports and airports to transfer mercenaries and weapons illegally into LIbya to support the Muslim Brotherhood regime of the GNA against the legitimate Libyan people and their national army the LNA.

Comment: More on the Muslim Brotherhood's power grabs and highly negative influence on the Middle East:

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Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: White Helmets co-founder stole aid money destined for Syria


RT
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:40 UTC
James Le Mesurier
White Helmets’ founder James Le Mesurier
As Western governments opened their checkbooks for the White Helmets - a controversial 'rescue organization' in Syria - their co-founder used the cash to top up his wage and even finance his wedding, according to a Dutch report.

Days before he plunged from a window in Istanbul to his death last year, White Helmets co-founder and British mercenary James Le Mesurier admitted to defrauding Mayday Rescue, an organization that fundraised for the anti-government rescue group in Syria.

According to documents seen by Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, Le Mesurier told an accountant sent to audit the charity's books that he forged receipts for $50,000, pretending that it was sent to finance an evacuation operation in Syria. Instead, the money was paid to Le Mesurier himself. In addition to paying himself a salary of €24,000 ($27,414) per month, Le Mesurier dipped into company cash to finance a lavish wedding in Istanbul in 2018, and to issue loans to his new wife, former diplomat Emma Winberg, the report claims.

Comment: Just about the only thing that the corporate media has truthfully reported about the White Helmets group is that they wear White Helmets.

See also:

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