Puppet MastersS


Headphones

US spying program is violating rules on protecting citizen privacy rights, but carry on, FISA court tells FBI


RT
Sun, 06 Sep 2020 23:08 UTC
Fed B of I
© The Daily Beast
The US FISA Court has authorized the FBI to continue using a warrantless surveillance program that taps conversations between Americans and noncitizens overseas despite finding that the government is still violating privacy rules.

"There still appear to be widespread violations of the querying standard by the FBI," chief FISA judge James Boasberg said in a December ruling that was declassified and made public with heavy redactions on Friday.

Those querying rules are meant to protect the privacy rights of American citizens and require that the warrantless searches of emails and telephone calls have a foreign-intelligence or law-enforcement purpose. Boasberg said the FBI last year made at least 87 queries - which are done by collecting data from Google, Verizon and other communication conduits - that "were not reasonably likely to retrieve foreign-intelligence information or evidence of a crime."

In one such incident, the FBI last August tapped communications involving about 16,000 Americans, despite only seven of those people being tied to the investigation involved. Boasberg rejected FBI claims that the searches were all likely to find foreign intelligence or evidence of a crime, saying that apart from the seven relevant suspects, the queries were "broad" and "suspicionless."

Comment: Gatekeeping: Slap wrist commentary by the FISA Court is aimed to muffle public inquiry and response, not reprimand the FBI.

Read More...
USA

White House Kosovo meeting: crossing the Atlantic, for this?

Eric Vögelin
The Saker
Sun, 06 Sep 2020 00:00 UTC
Trump/Vucic
© unknownPresident Donald Trump • President Aleksandar Vucic, Oval Office, Washington DC
The President of Serbia and Avdullah Hoti, the Prime Minister (perhaps it would be more correct to say "self-styled Prime Minister") of NATO's 1999 war booty, the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo were hosted for a conference at the White House on 3 and 4 September. The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to iron out their economic relations, as if anything were there to iron out given the devastated condition of both their economies. Putting aside the sensible question of why anybody at the White House would even care about this very local issue enough to devote the good part of two days to it, and bearing in mind that nothing in the Balkans is as it appears at first glance, the real agenda was, of course, quite a bit different. It had to do with putting finishing touches on legitimizing Kosovo as a separate state with international attributes, and economic concerns only served to camouflage that intention.

Comment: The 'art of the deal' is not in what is said - it is what is not said.

Read More...
Arrow Up

Turkey escalates tensions with tanks, armored troop carriers deployed to Greek border

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 06 Sep 2020 07:35 UTC
Map Turkey/Greece
© Daily MailEdirne border point on Turkish side
Amid soaring Turkey-Greece tensions related to the eastern Mediterranean gas exploration spat, which has already resulted in rival fighter jets patrolling airspace off Cyprus, the Associated Press reports Ankara has deployed some 40 tanks and armored vehicles to the border with Greece.

The AP and New York Times cites Turkish media reports on Saturday:

Meanwhile, Turkish media reported that tanks were being moved towards the Greek border. The Cumhuriyet newspaper said 40 tanks were being transported from the Syrian border to Edirne in northwest Turkey and carried photographs of armored vehicles loaded on trucks.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the deployment.
Read More...
Airplane

MH17 show trial goes for the jackpot - defense lawyers don't object

John Helmer
johnhelmer.net
Mon, 07 Sep 2020 18:10 UTC
mh17 money
The trial of the crime of the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 resumed on August 31 with the demand of Amsterdam and Rotterdam lawyers for the Russian Government to pay blood money to the relatives of the 298 passengers and crew killed when the aircraft was shot down on July 17, 2014.

Until this moment, the show trial presided over by Judge Hendrik Steenhuis, a former Dutch state tax collector and political ally of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, had been focused on admitting Ukrainian secret service evidence of the crime and disallowing Russian evidence to the contrary.

The lawyers of the relatives have now joined the prosecution to endorse a guilty verdict in advance for the four defendants - three Russian officers, one Ukrainian - and, in order to pay for the crime, the Russian state behind them. The lawyers are proposing the judge admit into the trial proceeding evidence by relatives, each taking fifteen minutes, ten testimonies per day over at least three weeks, to advertise the compensation claim and run up the judge's cash register.

There is a problem, though. In almost four hours of speechmaking, the lawyers revealed that less than half the relatives have signed for the money shot - none of them from the families of the Malaysian and Indonesian passengers and crew killed. Counting the 30% lawyers' commission, plus costs, this is entirely an operation for the Dutch to enrich themselves at the expense, they are figuring, of the Russian treasury.

There was another problem. The two Dutch lawyers engaged to represent the Russians in the trial to argue the defence of their innocence, made no objection to the victim lawyers' pitch on the two grounds available from the Dutch code of criminal procedure - inadmissibility as to evidence, prejudice as to proof. The defence lawyers are already making money at the Russian treasury's expense.
Read More...
Burka

Kamala Harris contradicts Biden on mask mandate policy, confusing voters

Virginia Kruta
Daily Caller
Sun, 06 Sep 2020 18:03 UTC
biden harris
Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris appeared to step back from calls for a nationwide mask mandate — one her running mate still supports.

Harris, whose CNN interview with Dana Bash aired Sunday morning on "State of the Union," said that a call for face masks nationwide would be a "standard" rather than a "mandate," despite the fact that presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden has called for a nationwide mandate on several occasions.

WATCH:


Bash began by pointing out Biden's support for a mask mandate, saying that he appeared to have shifted to support individual mandates from governors and mayors rather than at the federal level.

"What exactly is the Biden-Harris stance on this? " Bash asked.

"Leaders lead and they set standards. What Joe has been very clear about in his personal behavior, much less in what he is admonishing and requesting of the American people is that we all make the sacrifice to wear a mask in the interest of love of our neighbor, in the interest of defeating or at least reducing the health risks and the number of deaths in America," Harris said. "It's about a national standard. Everyone should wear a mask. And here's the thing about this. None of us likes wearing a mask. Nobody likes to wear a mask."

Comment:



Read More...
Sheriff

New Justice Minister of Alberta, Canada says defunding police is 'ridiculous'

Joe Vaughan
The Post Millennial
Fri, 04 Sep 2020 00:25 UTC
Kaycee Madu
New Justice Minister and Solicitor General of Alberta, Kaycee Madu, says the calls to defund law enforcement from groups like Black Lives Matter are "ridiculous."
New Justice Minister and Solicitor General of Alberta, Kaycee Madu, says the calls to defund law enforcement from groups like Black Lives Matter are "ridiculous," Global News Reports.

Madu told a reporter he believes defunding the police won't solve racism, and that the police do important work in the community. "I do hear the concerns of the Black or Indigenous or minority communities about the application of our justice system" Madu said, but added "that is not an excuse to pull away the presence of law enforcement that will keep them safe."

Comment: See also:

Read More...
War Whore

Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump told her to go to North Korea and 'take one for the team' after Kim Jong Un winked at her

Thomas Colson
Business Insider
Wed, 02 Sep 2020 13:40 UTC
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
© Business InsiderTrump told Sarah Sanders to take one for the team after Kim Jong Un wink.
President Donald Trump told Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary, to go to North Korea and take one "for the team" after Kim Jong Un appeared to wink at her during a summit in 2018, she said in a new book.

In her memoir, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian, Sanders described an incident at the summit in Singapore with Trump, Kim, and a collection of their aides.

She said in the book, set to be released next Tuesday, that during a session of talks, Kim "reluctantly" accepted a Tic Tac mint from Trump, who "dramatically blew into the air to reassure Kim it was just a breath mint" and not poison.
Read More...
Attention

Lies by omission - How to read the news

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:49 UTC
Newspapers
© Micro Eeconomic Insights Org
It's not the most original observation you'll read this week, but it's one of the most important: the news lies to you by omission.

Shocked? I thought not. But let's really interrogate what this means.

All of us (presumably) would agree with the observation that "the news is lying to you." But most people hearing that statement immediately interpret it to mean that the news is lying by commission, i.e., deliberately spreading information that they know to be untrue.

While this is certainly true sometimes (and we can all think of examples of the news outright lying about the facts of a case), blatant lies about verifiable facts represent only a tiny fraction of the media's mendacity. Most of the time, the talking heads of the corporate mouthpiece media are not telling fibs, per se; they're just leaving out vital pieces of the story.

Often, this type of lying — lying by omission — is a more effective means of duping the public than telling provably untrue statements about independent reality. When the talking heads of the corporate media leave out the proper context for a story, the audience can be led to incorrect conclusions about the world. And, since these perfidious presstitutes haven't technically said anything that's untrue, they can never be caught in their lie. They maintain plausible deniability about whether they knew the missing parts of the story.

In the interest of learning how to really read the news, then, let's look at an example of a news story where the media is hiding key information from the public and see what that news story looks like when we add the relevant context.

Hopefully you'll remember the Novichok nonsense that took place in Salisbury in 2018. If not, you'll definitely want to go back and re-read my article on how "The Russian Poison Story is WMD 2.0" and follow that up with a deep dive into the archive of Craig Murray's coverage of the subject and The Blogmire's excellent summary of the story.
Read More...
Light Saber

Trump warns that schools implementing 1619 Project's America 'founded on racism' teachings will lose funding


RT
Sun, 06 Sep 2020 20:34 UTC
BLM protesters in London
© Getty Images/Maciek Musialek
President Trump has said the Department of Education is investigating schools that implement the New York Times' 1619 Project, which teaches that America was founded on racism, and those institutions could lose federal funding.

Trump made his declaration in a Sunday tweet, responding to a message claiming that California schools have begun teaching the 1619 curriculum.

"Department of Education is looking at this. If so, they will not be funded!" he tweeted.


The 1619 Project has inspired heated debate about American history and how it is viewed. It is based on a series of essays from the New York Times Magazine that claims US history began in 1619 - the year recognized as that when the first African slaves arrived in Virginia.

The Project also claims capitalism was founded on slavery and black people have contributed more to democracy than white people.
Read More...
Book 2

Flashback 'Presstitutes: Embedded in the Pay of the CIA': Udo Ulfkotte's book now available in English


thetruthseeker.co.uk
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 19:51 UTC
udo ulfkotte
Udo Ulfkotte died of a heart attack in January 2017. Given the efforts to bury his book, there is good reason to believe that he was murdered to prevent him revealing anymore. This makes the English translation of his book Gekaufte Journalisten a 'must read', as it is an insiders account of how our so-called 'free press' is now a controlled organ of the powers that be. Ed.

'Presstitutes: Embedded in the Pay of the CIA'

Ian Fanton - for Progressive Press Dec 20, 2019


Political lying? Biased reporting? Smear campaigns? These are now hot topics in the aftermath of the UK's General Election. But how can all this be going on without the collusion of the press?

Comment: See also:

Read More...