Puppet MastersS


Megaphone

A renewed hysteria on Kremlin trolls

Virginia Tilley
CounterPunch
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 21:29 UTC
putin devil
On Christmas day, CounterPunch readers who opened the Washington Post were confronted by a startling lede in the top article. Under the alarmist headline, "Kremlin Trolls Burned across the Internet as Washington Debated Options." the piece reported that one "Alice Donovan" had contacted CounterPunch back in February 2016 and later posted articles on its website. She had claimed to be a freelance journalist, but her first email to CounterPunch, sent at 3:26 a.m. (which, the Post reminded us darkly, was "the middle of the day in Moscow"), was shared to buttress the central claim drawn from FBI sources: "Donovan" was actually a covert Russian agent.

According to the Post, "The FBI was tracking Donovan as part of a months-long counterintelligence operation code-named 'NorthernNight.' Internal bureau reports described her as a pseudonymous foot soldier in an army of Kremlin-led trolls seeking to undermine America's democratic institutions." CounterPunch had become the hapless propaganda patsy of this troll "army" and editor Jeffrey St. Clair was scrambling fruitlessly to sort out what had happened.

So far, so alarming. But CounterPunch readers are used to parsing media claims and under the briefest scrutiny the Post article quickly fell apart into a mass of unsupported assertions-even leaving aside obvious mysteries, such as why we are now supposed to take writing in the wee hours as revealing someone's true location in Eastern Europe (I now wonder what my insomniac messages are suggesting) and why a writer as obscure as Donovan warranted the Post's lede in the first place.

Comment: Perhaps they have friends in 'deep' places. See also:

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Cheeseburger

Flashback Glen Greenwald: Yet another major Russia story falls apart. Is skepticism permissible yet?

Glen Greenwald
The Intercept
Thu, 28 Sep 2017 17:48 UTC
Putin TVs
© Alexander Utkin/AFP/Getty Images
Last Friday, most major media outlets touted a major story about Russian attempts to hack into U.S. voting systems, based exclusively on claims made by the Department of Homeland Security. "Russians attempted to hack elections systems in 21 states in the run-up to last year's presidential election, officials said Friday," began the USA Today story, similar to how most other outlets presented this extraordinary claim.

usatoday headline

Comment: Amen! Going back to this piece in September gives some perspective on how little has changed in the intervening months. The MSM and US gov are completely hysterical about the "Russian threat" and continue to blame them for everything in need of a scapegoat. See also:

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X

UK: Social media giants face sanctions if fail to give 'proof' of Russian interference

Julie Hyland
World Socialist Web Site
Tue, 09 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
tied lamb
© Political TheologyThe new look of freedom.
A parliamentary committee has set a deadline of January 18 for Facebook and Twitter to provide information on supposed "Russian misinformation" or face sanctions.

Damian Collins, Conservative chair of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, declared the deadline before the New Year, insisting that Facebook and Twitter supply details of social media accounts and pages allegedly operated by Russian "misinformation actors."

The select committee is investigating so-called "fake news," centering on accusations of foreign interference in the June, 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union and the June, 2017 general election.

Both polls resulted in shock setbacks for the ruling elite, with the "Leave" vote narrowly winning the Brexit referendum and Prime Minister Theresa May losing her parliamentary majority in the general election.

The inquiry is bogus. If the committee were remotely concerned with false information, its first port of call would be parliament itself.

Comment: An international campaign: Sanctions to be issued for social media if they don't produce Russian collusion evidence. Will they fall for this and offer falsified proof and sacrificial lambs to avoid financial and oversight penalties? Fiction has become more important than truth and the cost to freedom and damage to the global community has gone beyond comprehension.

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Attention

Kushner receives $30M from Israeli firm while shaping ME/Israeli policy

Jake Johnson
Common Dreams
Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
The Don/Neti/Kushner
© Drew Angerer/Getty Images
"Are you comfortable with having Jared Kushner be the beneficiary of huge amounts of Israeli financing at the same time he's overseeing U.S. foreign policy on Israel?"

President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is once more under intense scrutiny after new reporting revealed that his lucrative financial relationship with Israel has deepened even as his influence over U.S. Middle East policy - from his leading role in Trump's effort to "derail" a U.N. vote against Israel to his sway over the president's Jerusalem move - has continued to grow.

According to a report published Sunday by the New York Times, Kushner's real estate firm received a $30 million investment from Menora Mivtachim - one of Israel's largest financial institutions - just before he accompanied Trump on his first diplomatic trip to Israel last year.

"The deal, which was not made public, pumped significant new equity into 10 Maryland apartment complexes controlled by Mr. Kushner's firm," the Times notes. "While Mr. Kushner has sold parts of his business since taking a White House job last year, he still has stakes in most of the family empire - including the apartment buildings in and around Baltimore."

Comment: The US is entrenched in supporting Israel with a bought Congress and 'blinders-on' foreign policy. Israel's grand mesmerize and icy fingers have finally and effectively infiltrated the inner circle of the presidency, a Netanyahu dream come true.

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Binoculars

Upcoming: NSA surveillance bill would legalize FBI ability to spy on Americans without a warrant

Alex Emmons
The Intercept
Tue, 09 Jan 2018 11:59 UTC
NSA guy
© Law Enforcement Cyber Center"Gotcha!"
With major NSA surveillance authorities set to expire later this month, House Republicans are rushing to pass a bill that would not only reauthorize existing powers, but also codify into law some practices that critics have called unconstitutional.

The bill takes aim at reforming how federal law enforcement can use data collected by the National Security Agency, putting a modest constraint on when the FBI can conduct so-called backdoor searches of Americans' communications. But because such searches make use of a legal loophole, critics say the current bill may do more harm than good by explicitly writing the practice into law.

The bill would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which serves as the basis for some of the NSA's largest surveillance programs, and keep it on the books through 2023. The law was first passed in 2008 after the George W. Bush administration's secret warrantless wiretapping was made public, effectively to legalize what the administration was doing.

The law allows the intelligence community to spy on Americans' transnational communications without a warrant so long as the "targets" are not Americans. In 2013, documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA vacuums up a tremendous amount of wholly domestic communications through the program as well.

Comment: "What's in YOUR emails?" See also:

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Attention

Controversial release of Fusion GPS transcript sparks rift in Senate's Russia probe


RT
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 01:30 UTC
GrassleyFeinstein
© AxiosSen. Chuck Grassley, Rep. Chair Senate Judiciary Committee • Sen. Dianne Feinstein
"Somebody's already been killed," as a result of the Trump-Russia dossier being published, a co-founder of Fusion GPS has testified to the Senate. That's according to a controversial release of a partially redacted transcript.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) has released the 312-page transcript of the interview Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee last August as part of its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Fusion GPS, being hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign arms in the Democratic Party and a law firm, had commissioned ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele to collect opposition intelligence on President Donald Trump during the campaign season.

The transcript, which was released Tuesday, states that during the interview with congressional investigators, Simpson's lawyer, Josh Levy, said that someone has already died because of the GPS Fusion commissioned dossier.

Comment: Is Feinstein's unilateral action 'a senior moment' signifying an inability to discern appropriate from inappropriate procedure, or is it a blatant, partisan attempt to sabotage the findings by pre-empting standard protocol in an ongoing investigation? Grassley is justified in his response.

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Stop

Trump orders limits on 'unmasking' of US citizens caught in surveillance


RT
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 01:55 UTC
Trump
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
President Donald Trump has ordered the intelligence community to develop new rules to handle requests from government officials who want to reveal the identities of US citizens collected through foreign surveillance.

Trump signed a memorandum Tuesday, ordering Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats to create a policy requiring each branch of the intelligence community to create their own procedures for responding to so-called "unmasking" requests.

Specifically, Trump gave the DNI 30 days to implement a policy that would limit intelligence agencies from uncovering the identity of non-public US citizens and information "concerning known non-consenting United States persons that was originally omitted from disseminated intelligence reports."

The purpose of the memorandum is to improve the efficiency of "unmasking" requests and ensure the intelligence community complies with privacy laws, a White House official told Bloomberg.

The memorandum comes after Republicans complained about President Barack Obama's national security advisor Susan Rice admitting to revealing the identity of members of Trump's campaign team, whose identities had been concealed in surveillance reports.

Comment: The administration is overhauling how Washington intel does business by redefining policy aspects and enforcing tighter controls and accountability that affect citizen rights and privacy. That said, what intel does best is circumvent protocol.

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Cell Phone

FBI director Wray blasts strong encryption as 'urgent public safety issue'


RT
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 02:13 UTC
ChristopherWray
© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersFBI Director Christopher Wray
In another blast at privacy, FBI director Christopher Wray has said that powerful encryption which blocks law enforcement agencies from accessing data on devices represents an "urgent public safety issue."

In a speech at a cyber security conference in New York on Tuesday, Wray said the FBI was unable to access data from nearly 7,800 devices last year despite possessing the legal authority to do so, Reuters reports. This was more than half of the devices the bureau tried to crack into. "This is an urgent public safety issue,"Wray said, adding that finding a solution to the problem is "not so clear cut."
In an effort to protect data many devices and applications now encrypt content by default. Some applications, such as WhatsApp or Telegram, use end-to-end encryption, which means private communications cannot be intercepted.

Comment: Likely Wray's rant is hype to keep US citizens fearful enough to demand companies provide back-door access to all devices which, in essence, legalizes spying on ordinary citizens without their knowledge - that they do anyway.

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Propaganda

Insane Demand: America wants Assad to pay $250+ billion reconstruction cost in Syria

Eric Zuesse
The Duran
Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
The United States Government says that Syria's Government caused the U.N.-estimated "at least $250 billion" cost to restore Syria from the destruction that Syria's war produced, and so Syria's Government should pay those reconstruction costs.
syria before and after war
© Unknown
That link is to a New York Times article, which explicitly blames Syrian "President Bashar al-Assad's ruthless triumph" - which was won against all of the jihadist groups (which the U.S. and its allies had brought into Syria to overthrow and replace Assad's Government) - for having caused the devastation in Syria; the U.S. and its allies say they aren't to blame for it, at all, by their having organized and armed and trained and manned that 6-year invasion of Syria; and, so (they say, and the NYT article implicitly assumes it to be true), if the invaders-occupiers of Syria might ultimately agree to pay some portion of these $250B+ reconstruction costs, then this would be sheer generosity by the U.S. and its allies - nothing that these governments are obligated to pay to the surviving residents in Syria.
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Footprints

Freedom at last? Media reports Assange has been granted an Ecuadorian passport


RT
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 19:31 UTC
Julian Assange
© Neil Hall / ReutersWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London, Britain
WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has cryptically uploaded a picture of himself dressed in the national colors of Ecuador. The country's media reports the whistleblower has been granted an Ecuadorian passport.

Assange's passport was issued on December 21, Ecuadorian outlet El Universo reports, citing "reliable sources" and providing the civil registry number to check on the government website. The document number 1729926483, upon checking on the Internal Revenue Service, is indeed registered to one Julian Paul Assange.

Comment: Ecuador seeks third party to mediate 'safe passage' for Julian Assange

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