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Germany planning major limitations of privacy rights


DW
Fri, 25 Nov 2016 03:24 UTC
Privacy Laws
© picture alliance/blickwinkel/McPHOTO
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere is planning a major limitation of privacy rights in Germany, say data protection groups. Germans will no longer have the right to know what data about them is being collected.

A draft law released by the German union for data protection (DVD) this week revealed that the interior ministry was proposing to drastically limit the powers of Germany's data protection authorities, banning them from investigating suspected breaches of people's medical and legal records.

As well as expanding video surveillance with facial recognition software, the bill would limit the government's own data protection commissioners to checking that the technical prerequisites are in place to ensure that doctors' and lawyers' files are secure, but it stops them from following up when citizens report concerns that their data has been leaked.

The bill would also shut down citizens' right to know what data is being collected about them - even by private firms, if releasing that information would "seriously endanger" a company's "business purposes," the SZ quoted the draft as saying. Thilo Weichert, former data protection commissioner for the state of Schleswig-Holstein and now DVD board member, condemned de Maiziere's plans as a "massive" erosion of privacy in Germany.

"The limitation of data protection controls in the medical field, which was a focal point of the [data protection] authorities up until now, is simply a disaster," Weichert said in a statement, adding that the ministry's bill was "further proof" that "data protection is not currently seen as relevant by the government."

DVD chairman Frank Spaeing described the law as a "data protection prevention law" and called on the Justice and Consumer Affairs Ministry, the Economics Ministry, and the Science and Research Ministry to intervene on behalf of people's civil rights.
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Die

Despite no "actionable evidence of hacking," Clintons confirm participation in recount plan

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 12:00 UTC
Killary selfie
This morning Hillary Clinton's campaign general counsel, Marc Elias, confirmed what we all knew already, namely that Jill Stein is likely acting at the direction of the Clintons in her recount efforts in WI, MI and PA. The discovery came after Elias posted a note to Hillary voters this morning on Medium confirming that they would participate in Stein's recount efforts even though the Clinton campaign itself had decided against a recount because they had "not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology." This approach seems to align perfectly with the strategy we laid out two days ago:
We joke, of course, as Jill Stein's effort to raise money for recounts in WI, PA and MI is obviously being done on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. It's a very clever approach (we would expect nothing less) as it allows Hillary to maintain the high road as the gracious loser while allowing someone else to play the bad guy...typical Clinton politics really.
That said, since Jill Stein decided to act "completely independently" to waste the money of a bunch of donors the Hillary general counsel figures they might as well participate despite the fact that "the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states—Michigan—well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount."

Comment: How disappointing to see Jill Stein become a dupe for the Clintons (and effectively the whole elite establishment) that is peddling all the nonsense behind the recount.

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Rocket

Ukraine decided to hold missile-firing exercise over Crimea without Moscow's approval


South Front
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 00:00 UTC
Ukraine has announced its plans to conduct missile-firing exercises over the Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea, in the Russian sovereign airspace.
Ukraine missile
© TASS / Yuri Smityuk
Ukraine has announced that missile-firing exercises will be conducted by the country over Crimea, in the Russian sovereign airspace, Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsiya reported. Kiev is going to fire missiles in regions, where civil and state aviation flights run.

In this way, Ukraine breaches a number of international laws and agreements, including annexes of the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation. Rosaviatsiya also reported that the military exercise, which would invade the territory of Russia, have not been coordinated with Moscow.

On Thursday, an aviation notification was released by Ukraine, according to which "dangerous zones" are being activated in all flight levels near Crimea and Simferopol city for December 1 and 2. The "dangerous zones" include airspace over Russian territorial waters and open sea, which is in Russia's area of responsibility.
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Roses

Fidel Castro's revolutionary life and legacy

John Wight
RT
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 00:29 UTC
Fidel Castro poster
© Desmond Boylan / Reuter
Fidel Castro dedicated his life to resisting empire and the ocean of injustice and oppression inflicted in its name. His death marks the end of the man, and the birth of a legend that will endure for centuries to come.

Such is the legacy that Fidel leaves behind it is impossible to fully comprehend the sheer magnitude of the role he played in breaking the chains of millions across the Third World, both literally and figuratively, in defiance of the racist conceit of apologists for imperialism. From leading a revolution in 1959 that succeeded against the odds in toppling the pro-Washington dictator, Fulgencio Batista, he went on to not only make history but mold and shape it thereafter.

Comment: For more on Castro's legacy:

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Info

Clinton campaign lawyer backs Jill Stein effort to ensure vote recount is 'fair'


RT
Sun, 27 Nov 2016 00:22 UTC
Jill Stein
© Jim Young / Reuters
A top lawyer for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has come out in support of Dr. Jill Stein's recount efforts in Wisconsin, in order to ensure that the initiative, which Donald Trump has labeled "ridiculous" and a "scam," is "fair to all sides."

Clinton lawyer Mark Elias said in a post on Medium on Saturday that the campaign will participate in the Wisconsin recount which was initiated by Green Party nominee Stein on Friday.

Elias said the campaign will follow the same approach in Michigan and Pennsylvania if Stein pursues recounts in those states.
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Attention

Unelected EU Parliament votes for citizens to fund their own brainwashing

Finian Cunningham
RT
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 00:04 UTC
General view of the European Parliament in Strasbourg
© Reuters
A fledgling group set up by the European Commission to allegedly counteract "Russian propaganda" is to be expanded with more public cash and resources. European citizens will be funding mechanisms inducing their own ignorance and misinformation.

This week, the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted by a dubious majority for a cash injection to expand the work of a media watchdog aimed at "debunking Russian propaganda."

The little-known media group, reportedly comprising 11 "diplomats," was established a year ago by the all-powerful, but unelected European Commission. The media unit has, therefore, no electoral mandate. It is potentially holding sway over how 500 million EU citizens will be able in the future to access news and public information.
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Snakes in Suits

EC head Juncker admits EU has links with 'odious regimes' like Saudi Arabia


RT
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 23:57 UTC
Jean-Claude Juncker
© Vincent Kessler / Reuters
When asked whether the EU should still have dialogue with a "more and more authoritarian" Turkish president, the head of the European Commission responded by asking why nobody has been questioning him about EU relations with Saudi Arabia. He spoke of a necessity to have links with "odious regimes".

"We have relations with all dictatorships because we need to organize, to co-organize the world," Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview with Euronews.

"We, the European Union, have links with regimes that are odious. And nobody asks us about it. Everybody's worried about Turkey, but nobody's talking about Saudi Arabia," he said.
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Attention

WaPo smear-mongering: A mea culpa for the Age of McCarthyism 2.0

Chris Floyd
CounterPunch
Fri, 25 Nov 2016 22:51 UTC
McCarthy redscare poster
OK, I guess I'd better come clean. It seems that I must be a paid agent of the Kremlin. After all, I write for CounterPunch Magazine — for money! I used to write regularly for Truthout.org — for money! I've contributed articles to the Baltimore Gazette. I've often quoted and linked to stories from the Black Agenda Report. I've regularly quoted and linked to articles by prize-winning AP/Newsweek reporter Robert Parry for years. According to the Washington Post, all of this makes me either a paid Kremlin propagandist or a Kremlin dupe. There is no other alternative.

And who says this? A collection of completely anonymous "experts" from a group no one has ever heard of until it materialized for the Post article. The group, PropOrNot, put out a list of publications and websites that are "outlets for Russian propaganda," a list that included all the venues named above, as well as several others which have been long-time critics of various aspects of American foreign policy. These were all mixed in with obvious propaganda mills and clickbait factories (of whatever provenance).
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Info

Wisconsin agrees to election vote recount after receiving Stein and Del La Fuente petitions


RT
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 22:39 UTC
Jill Stein
© Dominick Reuter / Reuters
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has received a vote recount petition from Green Party's Jill Stein, now running a fundraising campaign to cover recount costs in three swing states. Reform Party USA's Rocky de la Fuente also filed a similar petition.

"The Commission is preparing to move forward with a statewide recount of votes for President of the United States, as requested by these candidates," Administrator Michael Haas said in a statement.

The Elections Commission has assembled an internal team to direct the recount and arranged for legal representation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Haas said.

"We plan to hold a teleconference meeting for county clerks next week and anticipate the recount will begin late in the week after the Stein campaign has paid the recount fee, which we are still calculating," he added.
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Bad Guys

Syrian jihadists flaunt portable shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles


Sputnik
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 22:27 UTC
Syrian militant with manpad
© Orient News
Members of the Syrian terrorist group Ansar al-Islam Front have been seen in a recent video flaunting a store of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, the first known incident of jihadist forces possessing such weapons.

The jihadists claim they have a "good number" of SA-7 Strela-2 missiles, which the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Ansar both plan to use against government aircraft in Quneitra and Daraa. The weapons are not shown being fired in the video, but one fighter remarked, "We, in Ansar al-Islam Front, have distributed several points of air defense to counter any attempt by the Syrian warplanes or helicopters which bombs points in Quneitra province. We have good number of these missiles," according to Middle East Eye.
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