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What's Sauce for the goose dept.: Feinstein: CIA searched Intelligence Committee computers

Greg Miller, Ed O'Keefe and Adam Goldman
Washington Post
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:37 UTC
A behind-the-scenes battle between the CIA and Congress erupted in public Tuesday as the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the agency of breaking laws and breaching constitutional principles in an alleged effort to undermine the panel's multi-year investigation of a controversial interrogation program.

Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the CIA of ­secretly removing documents, searching computers used by the committee and attempting to intimidate congressional investigators by requesting an FBI inquiry of their conduct - charges that CIA Director John Brennan disputed within hours of her appearance on the Senate floor.


Senate Intelligence Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the CIA of breaking the law by searching her committee's computers. The Post's Karen Tumulty, Scott Wilson, Terence Samuel and Adam Goldman explain the impact in Washington.

. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned whether a CIA search of congressional records might have undermined government oversight during a Senate floor speech Tuesday.

Feinstein described the escalating conflict as a "defining moment" for Congress's role in overseeing the nation's intelligence agencies and cited "grave concerns" that the CIA had "violated the separation-of-powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution."
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War Whore

War Whore: Chairman of Joint Chiefs: U.S. ready for "military response" in Ukraine

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:33 UTC
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With diplomacy having failed miserably to resolve the Russian annexation of Crimea, and soon East Ukraine (and with John Kerry in charge of it, was there ever any doubt), the US is moving to the heavy artillery.

First, moments ago, the US DOE announced in a shocking announcement that it would proceed with the first draw down and sale of crude from the US strategic petroleum reserve, the first since June 2011, in what it said was a "test sale to check the operational capabilities of system infrastructure", but is really just a shot across the bow at Putin for whom high commodity prices are orders of magnitude more important than how the Russian stock market performs.

And now, as Bloomberg just reported, the US has escalated even further, citing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who "has claimed that in the case of an escalation of unrest in Crimea, the U.S. Army is ready to back up Ukraine and its allies in Europe with military actions."

So much for those peaceful hour long phone calls between Obama and Putin.
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Chess

Russia hints it will accept annexation as Crimean referendum nears

Fred Weir
Christian Science Monitor
Mon, 10 Mar 2014 09:28 UTC
Pro-Ukrainian demonstrators
© David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters
Pro-Ukrainian demonstrators react as an armored military vehicle, believed to be Russian, passes by outside the Crimean city of Simferopol today.
Russia's parliament is reportedly preparing legislation to make it easier for breakaway states to willingly join Russia - even as the legality of Crimean secession remains in doubt.

The prospects for a diplomatic solution to what some are calling Europe's worst crisis of the 21st century are growing dimmer by the day, with less than a week to go before Crimeans are set to vote on whether to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

The Mar. 16 referendum would offer Crimeans the option of either becoming part of Russia, or declaring their territory an independent state that's still formally part of Ukraine. But Crimea's pro-Russian legislature is already preparing a "roadmap" for joining Russia, including adopting the Russian rouble, dropping Ukrainian as an official language, and moving their clocks two hours forward to Moscow time.

Now Russia is signaling that it might be willing to take the unprecedented and politically explosive step of admitting Crimea into Russia, perhaps as an "autonomous republic" as it was in Ukraine.

If Russia did annex Crimea, it could mean a significant escalation of the crisis. In the past, Russia has supported breakaway territories such as Transnistria in Moldova and Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan. Following its brief war with Georgia in 2008, Russia recognized the independence of two Georgian territories, Akhazia and South Ossetia, sundering a sovereign country. Western powers did something similar in 2008 by granting independence to Kosovo, which had been wrested from Serbia by NATO in a 1999 war.
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USA

By demanding Russia interfere in Crimea, Obama regime's hypocrisy sets new world record

Paul Craig Roberts
paulcraigroberts.org
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:25 UTC
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From the moment that Washington launched its orchestrated coup in Kiev, Washington has been accusing Russia of "intervening in Ukraine." This propaganda ploy succeeded. The Western presstitute media reported (nonexistent) Russian intervention to the exclusion of coverage of Washington's obvious intervention.

Having falsely accused Russia of invading Crimea, the Obama regime now demands that Russia interfere in Crimea and prevent the referendum set for next Sunday. Unless Russia uses force to prevent the people of Crimea from exercising their right of self-determination, John Kerry declared that the Obama regime will not discuss the Ukrainian situation with Russia.

So, Kerry has given Russia the green light to send in troops to prevent Crimean self-determination.

The presstitute Western media has not noticed that out of one corner of his mouth Kerry denounces Russia for intervening and out of the other corner of his mouth Kerry demands that Russia intervene in behalf of Washington's interest and suppress Crimean self-determination.

What is the point of such an absurd demand on Russia?
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Bulb

Crimea vs. Quebec: The legal right to a referendum on self-determination

Professor John Ryan
Global Research
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:20 UTC
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There has been a great hue and cry by the USA, Ukraine and other countries about the supposed illegality of the proposed referendum by Crimea on its future political status. They indignantly proclaim that this is a violation of international law.

Amazingly, have Obama and the leaders of these other countries never heard of the situation in Canada with regard to Quebec? Quebec, as a province of Canada, has held two referenda (1980 and 1995) on the matter of independence from Canada . . . and a third referendum may be in the works in the near future.

Quebec never had to get permission from Canada's federal government to hold a referendum, and no one ever questioned the legality of Quebec's referendum.

Crimea is an autonomous region within Ukraine and seems to have the same rights as a Canadian province. So if it is perfectly legal for a province such as Quebec to hold a referendum on independence, why would it not be legal for Crimea to do the same? At no time did the USA object to Quebec holding a referendum on independence, so why the big brouhaha over Crimea? Moreover, what business would it be for the USA to have such objections - for Quebec or Crimea?

The UN charter gives people the right to self-determination and by virtue of that right they are free to determine their political status. Quebec in Canada has exercised that right, and there should be no reason why Crimea could not do the same.
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Star of David

Missiles to Gaza? Netanyahu's latest anti-Iran comedy routine

Finian Cummingham
PressTV
Thu, 13 Mar 2014 12:06 UTC
Image
© PressTV
File photo shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to reporters about rockets allegedly found aboard a ship bound for Gaza.
Comedians say that the art of telling jokes relies on "timing." Israeli's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the world's top comic politician, seemed to be proving the point with his "timely" claims about seizing Iranian rockets aboard a cargo ship in the Red Sea.

Standing in front of 40 pointed missiles, each carefully displayed on props (you sense the stilted exhibitionism here), the Israeli leader said the seized cache "showed the true face of Iran" in its support for terrorism. Netanyahu lashed out at Western leaders who are "shaking hands with Iran" and preparing to finalize a political settlement to the long-running nuclear dispute.

Iran swiftly denounced the Israeli allegations as orchestrated, indicating that the capture of munitions on a Panamanian-registered vessel was a set-up.
Even some of the Israeli media have grown weary of such "propaganda stunts," as the newspaper Haaretz described Netanyahu's melodramatic display of Iran's alleged clandestine cargo in the port of Eilat at the weekend. Netanyahu's corny sensationalist manner, standing in front of the green-colored rockets, was reminiscent of his previous presentation to the United Nations using a cartoon bomb in which he claimed then that Iran was "only months away from building a nuclear weapon."
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Eye 1

NSA plans to infect 'millions' of computers with malware

Ryan Gallagher and Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 11:47 UTC
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One presentation outlines how the NSA performs “industrial-scale exploitation” of computer networks across the world.
Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process.

The classified files - provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden - contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware "implants." The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.

The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic.

In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target's computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer's microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.
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Light Sabers

Washington cesspit: Why the CIA and U.S. senators are feuding over 9/11 secrets

Nancy Benac
The Guardian
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 06:10 UTC
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John Brennan and Diane Feinstein, 'feuding', 'jockeying for power', but most definitely on the same side and against the American people.
The festering dispute between the CIA and Senate investigators that exploded in public this week shows just how hard it can be to learn from the past and move on.

More than 12 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government still is struggling with what kind of public reckoning is due for harsh interrogation techniques introduced by President George W. Bush and banned by his successor, President Barack Obama.

Some questions and answers about how the Senate and the CIA got here and what happens next:

Q: What are the CIA and the senators quarreling about?

A: The CIA likes to hold its secrets close. It's the job of the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with its House counterpart, to keep tabs on the spy agency. Those interests have collided during the Senate committee's exhaustive review of the CIA's detention and interrogation program. Since 2009, the committee has worked on a classified report about waterboarding and other harsh methods used to interrogate suspected terrorists in overseas prisons. This week, the head of the Senate committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., went public with complaints that the CIA was interfering with the investigation.
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Propaganda

Putin rebuffs Obama on Ukraine, says Russia 'cannot ignore calls for help'

Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan
The Washington Post
Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© AP/Alexander Shalgin
President of the Russian parliament Sergei Naryshkin (right) welcomes Prime Minister Sergei Aksyono Crimea / center) before the conversation between Moscow, Russia, on Friday, March 7, 2014.
A day after President Obama ordered sanctions over Russia's military takeover in Crimea, Russian President Vladi­mir Putin emphatically rejected the U.S. position, saying his country could not "ignore calls for help" from ethnic Russians in Ukraine after what he has termed an illegitimate power grab there by pro-Western agitators.

Obama authorized the Treasury Department on Thursday to impose sanctions on "individuals and entities" responsible for the Russian intervention in Crimea or for "stealing the assets of the Ukrainian people."

The financial measures, and a separate ban on U.S. visas, are part of the administration's effort to squeeze Russia into pulling back its troops in Crimea, an autonomous, pro-Russia region of Ukraine that does not recognize the country's new Western-backed leaders.


Comment: Does anyone buy this? Financial Measures my sweet patooty.


After announcing his sanctions order and condemning a planned Crimean referendum on joining Russia as a violation of both Ukrainian and international law, Obama spoke to Putin on the phone for an hour in his latest outreach to the Russian leader.

But Putin, in a statement Friday, said he and Obama remain far apart on the situation Ukraine, whose new anti-Russian government he accused of making "absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions."

Comment: Lie and B.S. all you like, but the truth is: You're incompetent. Plain and simple. Nothing breeds support like success. You thought you could just waltz right into the Ukraine and overthrow its government. But the fact that you didn't succeed, besides making the U.S. look like a bunch of half-wit yahoos, proves that you are completely incompetent.

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Mr. Potato

Obama should be impeached over hypocritical Crimean stance says US analyst Mike Billington


Voice of Russia
Thu, 13 Mar 2014 05:32 UTC
Obama
© EPA
An American political analyst, Mike Billington, says the United States' plot to oust a sovereign elected government in Ukraine is a gross crime, adding that US President Barack Obama must be impeached over the Crimean crisis.The expert supposes it is a disgusting hypocrisy. Everyone knows is that it is not the Russians who are intervening in the internal affairs of Ukraine - it is the US indeed.

Everybody heard Victoria Nuland's open discussion with ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt about who they want to put in office and who they want to keep out on the street, continue the violent demonstrations that were going on.

The call for a referendum for separation in Ukraine is, in fact, contrary to the national constitution. But the vote to throw [ousted Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych out of office was also against the constitution, the expert assumes. It did not have the required number, according to the constitution, to impeach the president and therefore in fact Yanukovych is still the legitimate president, even though he is obviously not in office.
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