Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

'Shutdown' smokescreen: Former NSA execs say agency still spies on American phones in hidden program

Nafeez Ahmed
Medium
Thu, 07 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
NSA surveillance
The bulk of the NSA’s surveillance and “offensive” information warfare capabilities remain completely unknown
On Monday 4th, the New York Times reported that the National Security Agency has "quietly" shut down a controversial phone records surveillance program revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

The claim was made by a senior Republican congressional aide who told the newspaper that the Trump administration had stopped using the program, which analyses the domestic call and text logs of American citizens, due to technical problems.

On Twitter Snowden hailed the news as a "victory", while Intercept journalist Glen Greenwald, who broke the Snowden story to international acclaim, took the story at face value. Neither of them raised the obvious question - is the "shut down" of this program merely a smokescreen to continue spying on American phones under new or different secretive programs?


Comment: See also:

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NPC

House Democrats overwhelmingly reject motion condemning illegal immigrant voting

Alex Pappas
Fox News
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 12:41 UTC
House Democrats Ocasio Cortez
Nearly every House Democrat on Friday opposed a measure condemning voting in U.S. elections by illegal immigrants, as part of a sweeping election reform bill.

The GOP-backed measure would have added language to the "H.R. 1" election proposal stating that "allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens."

Federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting in elections for federal office. But the GOP motion referenced how San Francisco is allowing non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to register to vote in school board elections.
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Eye 1

Abrams: Project Venezuela 'still on track' with even more sanctions coming 'any day now'


RT
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 12:41 UTC
maduro elliot abrams
US special envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams maintained that the regime change project in Caracas was still on track, with even more sanctions sure to persuade Venezuelans into backing the US-chosen opposition leader any day now.

Speaking to reporters at the State Department on Friday, Abrams tried to put the best face on the ongoing failure of Washington to replace the "regime" of President Nicolas Maduro with the "democracy" of self-proclaimed opposition leader Juan Guaido. Abrams went so far as to blame Maduro for Thursday's power blackouts, which the Venezuelan government said were a result of US sabotage.

He maintained that most Venezuelans, as well as the majority of the country's military, were unhappy with Maduro, but could not answer why only a handful of soldiers have switched sides to back Guaido. "It doesn't look like it's happening until the day it begins to happen."
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Bad Guys

Pence urged Merkel to provoke Russia by sending warships to Crimea

Patrick Donahue
Bloomberg
Thu, 07 Mar 2019 18:34 UTC
merkel pence
© Christof Stache/AFP via Getty ImagesAngela Merkel, right, shakes hands with Mike Pence in Munich on Feb. 16.
The U.S. leaned on German Chancellor Angela Merkel last month to conduct a naval maneuver in Russia's backyard aimed at provoking President Vladimir Putin, according to three people familiar with the talks.

At a Feb. 16 meeting at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence urged Merkel to send German warships through a narrow channel between the Crimean peninsula and mainland Russia to show Putin that Western powers won't surrender their access to those waters, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The German leader refused, they said, citing reservations from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. A spokesman for the chancellor declined to comment.

Comment: Yet another example of heinous US provocation towards Russia. And when we consider that most of Europe has chosen Russia to be the supplier of its much needed gas, any claims of Russian aggression are evidently unfounded:

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Network

Serbia greenlights expansion of Russia's Turkish Stream gas pipeline


RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 08:44 UTC
Turkish Stream
© GazpromThe Turkish Stream gas pipeline
The Serbian energy regulator has given final approval for the construction of a branch of the Turkish Stream pipeline that will deliver Russian natural gas into Turkey as well as southern and southeastern Europe.

"On March 5 the Energy Agency of the Republic of Serbia made the final decision and responded positively to the Gastrans [company] statement for the implementation of the project," the Serbian minister of mining and energy, Aleksandar Antic, announced on Thursday. He added that works on the Turkish Stream project, also known as TurkStream, are set to start in April.

Gastrans is responsible for laying the gas transportation branch from Bulgaria to Hungary. The company is owned by Swiss-based South Stream Serbia, of which Russia's Gazprom holds a 51-percent stake. Serbian gas company Srbijagas holds the remaining 49 percent.

Comment: The Western establishment will find it much more challenging to demonize Russia whose reliable and inexpensive gas is keeping people going throughout the increasingly harsh winters:

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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Syria accuses US of stealing over 40 tons of its gold

Eric Zuesse
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 23:55 UTC
gold bars
The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, "Gold deal between United States and Daesh" (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,

Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.

The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].

Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Target

'ISIS' claims mortar attack on high-profile Shiite memorial service in Kabul, killing three

Sayed Salahuddin & Pamela Constable
Washington Post
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:17 UTC
kabul attack ISIS
An outdoor memorial service attended by numerous Afghan politicians and officials, including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and former president Hamid Karzai, was attacked by mortar fire Thursday in the Afghan capital, killing three people, police and health officials said.

The attack, which also wounded 20 people, was claimed by the Islamic State extremist group through its affiliated website.


Comment: That site wouldn't happen to belong to Israeli SITE Intelligence, would it?


The midmorning gathering, which drew several thousand mourners, was being held in a public arena to mark the anniversary of the death of a minority Shiite and ethnic Hazara leader, Abdul Ali Mazari, who was killed in 1995 by the Taliban.

A year ago this week, a memorial service here for Mazari was attacked by a suicide bomber outside a mosque, killing 10 and injuring 22.

Both attacks took place in southwestern Kabul, the heart of the capital's large Shiite and Hazara community, which has been the target of dozens of bombings and other attacks in recent years. The 2018 bombing was also claimed by the Islamic State, a radical Sunni group that views Shiites as heretics and has claimed most terrorist attacks on Shiite targets.


Comment: That is also possible. The two are not mutually exclusive. Some in the Afghan government are undoubtedly traitors working for American/Western interests.

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Caesar

SOTT Focus: Assad's Tehran Visit Signals Iran's Victory in Syria

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 21:52 UTC
assad tehran
For the first time since war broke out in Syria in 2011, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has travelled to Iran to meet Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

President Assad had only travelled outside of Syria on two other occasions during the war - both times to Russia.

The significance of the trip cannot be understated - it was a message sent to those who orchestrated the proxy war against Syria that Damascus has prevailed and instead of driving a wedge between it and its allies in Moscow and Tehran - it has only drawn these regional powers closer together.

The symbol of solidarity between Syria and Iran comes at a time when Washington finds itself vacillating between a full withdrawal from Syria, a redeployment to Iraq, or an attempt to drag out the conclusion of the Syrian conflict for as long as possible by keeping US forces there indefinitely.

The Washington Post in its article, "Syria's Assad visits Iran in rare trip abroad," would admit:
U.S. officials said Trump's decision authorizing a small number of U.S. troops to stay is a key step in creating a larger multinational observer force that would monitor a so-called safe zone along Syria's border with Turkey. The buffer zone is meant to prevent clashes between Turkey and U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. It is also aimed at preventing Assad's forces and Iran-backed fighters from seizing more territory.
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Cell Phone

Beijing vows protection amid Huawei row - calls on Chinese firms not to be 'silent lambs'


RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 20:37 UTC
Huawei
© Reuters / Aly Song
Beijing has promised to take "all necessary measures" to defend Chinese companies and citizens who are under "deliberate political suppression" abroad amid legal clashes between tech giant Huawei and Washington.

"We support the company and individual in question in seeking legal redress to protect their own interests and refusing to be victimized like silent lambs," China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated on Friday. He referred to the ongoing Huawei row in the US and Canada's arrest of a Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

Comment:

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Yoda

Best of the Web: Venezuelan FM Arreaza holds UN marathon for peace while usurper Guaido urges military intervention and war

Carla Stea
Global Research
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 19:44 UTC
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza
© United Nations/ScreenshotVenezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza
In a herculean effort to prevent war, and protect the integrity of his country, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza held a breathtaking schedule of events at the United Nations, including a meeting with the Secretary-General, consultations with the envoys of 60 member states supporting Venezuela's sovereignty, a press conference the evening of February 22, speaking at a Security Council meeting February 26, and presenting an address at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on February 27.

Arreaza's encyclopedic knowledge of history is one of his powerful assets, as he patiently clarified to reporters, at last Friday's press conference, the reality of US instigated economic warfare underlying Venezuela's current crisis. At one bizarre moment, a European reporter, asked, Mussolini-style, about a report that Venezuelan armed forces shot an unarmed indigenous person, and compared the incident to "what happened in China." Arreaza asked whether the reporter had seen the incident, and, evading Arreaza's question the reporter continued: "Is your government giving specific orders to shoot unarmed people, and what will happen to those who refuse to comply with these orders?" The stupefying question, less a query, and more unsubstantiated innuendo, was asked with such arrogance and grandiosity that Arriaza, fully aware of the insinuation intended, replied:
"Your question is full of venom and very poisonous. The army of Bolivar has never had orders to fire on the civilian population, and you should be the first to assess the reliability of false 'reports,' and false flag operations. It is your responsibility as a reporter to be smart, astute, and delve into the truth, and recognize propaganda."
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