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Vladimir Putin must be called to account on surveillance just like Obama

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On Thursday, I questioned Russia's involvement in mass surveillance on live television. I asked Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, a question that cannot credibly be answered in the negative by any leader who runs a modern, intrusive surveillance program: "Does [your country] intercept, analyse or store millions of individuals' communications?"

I went on to challenge whether, even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified.

The question was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion. (See a side-by-side comparison of Wyden's question and mine here.)

Comment: It's interesting that Snowden is defending criticism from the West for asking a 'softball question', where in point of fact he 'dealt a blow for the team'!

It's highly probable that the Russian government does conduct mass surveillance. How else could they keep an eye on foreign agents' infiltration and subversion of public discussions and the country's internal political processes in general? Without it, they would have long since capitulated to a CIA 'colour revolution'.

Equivocating Russia's surveillance programs with America's GLOBAL surveillance infrastructure is like comparing the size of the US military with Russia's, AND their respective functions. America's serves to dominate the entire planet; Russia's to preserve its regional interests.


Arrow Up

Ukraine and the grand chessboard

Putin
© kevinspraggettonchess

The US State Department, via spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, said that reports of CIA Director John Brennan telling regime changers in Kiev to "conduct tactical operations" - or an "anti-terrorist" offensive - in eastern Ukraine are "completely false".

This means Brennan did issue his marching orders. And by now the "anti-terrorist" campaign - with its nice little Dubya rhetorical touch - has degenerated into farce.

Now couple that with NATO secretary general, Danish retriever Anders Fogh Rasmussen, yapping about the strengthening of military footprint along NATO's eastern border:

"We will have more planes in the air, mores ships on the water and more readiness on the land."

Welcome to the Two Stooges doctrine of post-modern warfare.

Pay up or freeze to death

Ukraine is for all practical purposes broke. The Kremlin's consistent position for the past three months has been to encourage the European Union to find a solution to Ukraine's dire economic mess. Brussels did nothing. It was betting on regime change to the benefit of Germany's heavyweight puppet Vladimir Klitschko, aka Klitsch The Boxer.

Regime change did happen, but orchestrated by the Khaganate of Nulands - a neo-con cell of the State Department and its assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nulands. And now the presidential option is between - what else - two US puppets, choco-billionaire Petro Poroshenko and "Saint Yulia" Timoshenko, Ukraine's former prime minister, ex-convict and prospective president. The EU is left to pick up the (unpayable) bill. Enter the International Monetary Fund - via a nasty, upcoming "structural adjustment" that will send Ukrainians to a hellhole even grimmer than the one they are already familiar with.

Once again, for all the hysteria propagated by the US Ministry of Truth and its franchises across the Western corporate media, the Kremlin does not need to "invade" anything. If Gazprom does not get paid all it needs to do is to shut down the Ukrainian stretch of Pipelineistan. Kiev will then have no option but to use part of the gas supply destined for some EU countries so Ukrainians won't run out of fuel to keep themselves and the country's industries alive. And the EU - whose "energy policy" overall is already a joke - will find itself with yet another self-inflicted problem.

The EU will be mired in a perennial lose-lose situation if Brussels does not talk seriously with Moscow. There's only one explanation for the refusal: hardcore Washington pressure, mounted via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Again, to counterpunch the current hysteria - the EU remains Gazprom's top client, with 61% of its overall exports. It's a complex relationship based on interdependence. The capitalization of Nord Stream, Blue Stream and the to-be-completed South Stream includes German, Dutch, French and Italian companies.

So yes, Gazprom does need the EU market. But up to a point, considering the mega-deal of Siberian gas delivery to China which most probably will be signed next month in Beijing when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits President Xi Jinping.

Airplane

Mysterious American private jet spotted in Tehran

Mystery Plane in Tehran
© Flickr
Spotted on a Tehran runway this week was a private jet with an American flag on its tail carrying an unknown passenger who seems very determined to remain anonymous. The New York Times asks, conspiracy or totally normal?

On the one hand, as the Times points out, Obama "has warned that Iran is not open for business." Due to complicated trade rules, the Commerce Department would have to grant clearance for the private jet's General Electric engine to touch Iranian ground.

Card - MC

What will you do when you can no longer buy or sell without submitting to biometric identification?

Biometric Identification?
© The Truth Wins

In some areas of the world, payment systems that require palm scanning or face scanning are already being tested. We have entered an era where biometric security is being hailed as the "solution" to the antiquated security methods of the past. We are being promised that the constant problems that hackers are causing with our credit cards, bank accounts, ATM machines and Internet passwords will all go away once we switch over to biometric identification.

And without a doubt, we have some massive security problems that need to be addressed. But do you really want a machine to read your face or your hand before you are able to buy anything, sell anything or log on to the Internet? Do you really want "the system" to be able to know where you are, what you are buying and what you are doing at virtually all times?

Biometric security systems are being promoted as "cool" and "cutting edge", but there is also potentially a very dark side to them that should not be ignored.

In this day and age, identity theft has become a giant problem. Being able to confirm that you are who you say that you are is a very big deal. To many, biometric security presents a very attractive solution to this problem. For example, the following is a brief excerpt from a recent Fox News article entitled "Biometric security can't come soon enough for some people"...
In a world where nearly every ATM now uses an operating system without any technical support, where a bug can force every user of the Internet to change the password to every account they've ever owned overnight, where cyber-attacks and identity theft grow more menacing every day, the ability to use your voice, your finger, your face or some combination of the three to log into your e-mail, your social media feed or your checking account allows you to ensure it's very difficult for someone else to pretend they're you.
Almost everyone would like to make their identities more secure. Nobody actually wants their bank accounts compromised or their Internet passwords stolen. But there is a price to be paid for adopting biometric identification. Your face or your hand will be used to continually monitor and track everything that you do and everywhere that you go.

Footprints

The CIA, pay-offs, lap dancers and BP's Deepwater Horizon

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From his investigation for Channel 4 Television in the newly released film, Vultures and Vote Rustlers.
There was CIA involvement through a company called Mega Oil. They were shipping in arms under the cover of oil tools.
The BP executive was explaining to me how the CIA, MI6 and British Petroleum engineered a coup d'état, overthrowing an elected president of a nation who was "not favorable to BP." The corporation's former Vice-President, Leslie Abrahams, is pictured here, holding an AK-47 in front of BP headquarters in Baku, Azerbaijan. Like most of the other BP executives I spoke with, he proudly added that while he was working for BP, he was also an operative for MI6, British intelligence.

The conversation was far from the weirdest I had in my four-continent investigation of the real story of the Deepwater Horizon.

Chess

Putin says oil wars with Russia will make West bleed

oil russia
© Reuters / Henry Romero
Opportunities for the West to hurt the Russian economy are limited, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Europe cannot stop buying Russian gas without inflicting pain on itself, and if the US tries to lower oil prices, the dollar will suffer.

If the West tries to damage Russia's influence in the world energy market, efforts will likely backfire, the Russian President said during his twelfth annual televised question and answer session.

To really influence the world oil market a country would need to increase production and cut prices, which currently only Saudi Arabia could afford, Putin said.

The president added he didn't expect Saudi Arabia, which has "very kind relations" with Russia, will choose to cut prices, that could also damage its own economy.

If world oil production increases, the price could go down to about $85 per barrel. "For us the price fall from $90 to $85 per barrel isn't critical," Putin said, adding that for Saudi Arabia it would be more sensitive.

Also the President said that being an OPEC member, Saudi Arabia would need to coordinate its action with the organization, which "is very complicated."

Meanwhile, Russia supplies about a third of Europe's energy needs, said Putin. Finland, for example, is close to Russia economically, as it receives 70 percent of its gas from Russia.

"Can Europe stop buying Russian gas? I think it's impossible...Will they make themselves bleed? That's hard to imagine," the Russian president said.

Light Sabers

Why more Bundy standoffs are coming - revolution brewing

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© New American
The federal government's over-the-top police action against the Bundy family ranch is an ominous portent of more to come, as rogue agencies and their corporate/NGO partners attempt to "cleanse" the West of ranchers, farmers, miners, loggers, and other determined property owners.

On Saturday, April 12, the federal bureaucrats backed down. Faced with hundreds of men and women on horseback and on foot who were armed with firearms and video cameras - as well as local television broadcast stations and independent media streaming live video and radio feeds across America - the Obama administration called off the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) operation to confiscate hundreds of cattle belonging to Cliven Bundy, the current patriarch of a respected pioneer family that has been ranching in Nevada's Clark County since the 1800s.

Document

IRS emails show Lois Lerner contacted DOJ about prosecuting tax exempt groups

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© AP/J. Scott Applewhite
According to new IRS emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch, former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner was in contact with the Department of Justice in May 2013 about whether tax exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for "lying" about political activity.

"I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ ... He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who "lied" on their 1024s --saying they weren't planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS," Lerner wrote in a May 8, 2013 email to former Nikole C. Flax, who was former-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller's chief of staff.

Hardhat

Reagan's fear of energy dependence on Russia

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© NCSL.org
Destroy the Evil Empire

As a Hollywood B-movie actor Ronald Reagan never made it, but as a New Age politician preaching New Age economics he was so popular that in 1984 Reagan was triumphantly re-elected to a second and last term as US president. From at latest 1982, his first administration beat the drum on Europe's dangerous energy dependence on the Evil Empire (which was also known as the USSR).

At the time, one of the Reagan administration's major concerns was the rapid construction of east-west gas pipelines, mainly through Ukraine, bringing cheap Russian gas to Europe - after serving the Soviet dependent Warsaw Pact countries of eastern Europe, including Ukraine, which from 1975 essentially abandoned the development of its own, very large domestic reserves of gas. Also at that time, Soviet oil production was growing at a rate almost as fast as gas production, as oilfield E&P activity pushed eastward in Russia, from the Urals to Siberia, to the Arctic and the Pacific Far East. In large part due to oil transport and refining infrastructures being concentrated in western USSR, oil export to Europe was the prime market destination for rising Soviet oil output.

Snakes in Suits

Obama White House: 'A new level of secrecy and control'

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© Consciouslifenews.com
In 2007, the Frontline documentary "News War" featured a series of interviews with Bill Keller, then the executive editor of Takeaway partner The New York Times. Frontline host Lowell Bergman asked Keller about freedom of the press under the Bush Administration.

"We have an administration that is more secretive and more hostile to the operations of the press probably than any since the Nixon administration," Keller replied.

As Bergman noted in the documentary, many prominent journalists and news organizations agreed with Keller. They may have even looked forward to the Obama years, hoping the new administration would have a change of heart.

Jill Abramson succeeded Keller as executive editor in July 2011, in the midst of the Obama era. She tells Takeaway host John Hockenberry that the White House's relationship with the press has only deteriorated.