Puppet MastersS


USA

Patriot Act provisions vs. Freedom Act - How do the spy laws differ?


RT
Mon, 01 Jun 2015 19:03 UTC
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© Reuters / Jonathan Ernst
The US Senate is poised to pass the USA Freedom Act now that major surveillance powers vested in the USA Patriot Act have expired. The House-passed bill, representing a slightly less intrusive spying law, will come to a vote on Tuesday.

The Senate let certain parts of the USA Patriot Act lapse, failing to extend then by the June 1 deadline. Among them is the notorious Section 215, authorizing bulk collection of Americans' telephone data, which a federal court ruled illegal earlier this month. According to government officials, it has been used almost 200 times per year. Other provisions that expired enable the government to conduct "roving wiretaps" of suspects who switch communication devices, or spy on "lone wolf" individuals who are not affiliated with an international terrorism organization.

The National Security Agency used Section 215 of the Patriot Act as the basis for collecting vast troves of phone records of Americans, who weren't necessarily under official investigation. It was also used to track financial data and to obtain companies' internet business records. The extent of the mass surveillance program was revealed nearly two years ago by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Now, the Senate will address a so-called reform bill pushed by opponents of the expiring Patriot Act provisions. The USA Freedom Act, passed by the House in a 338-88 vote on May 13.
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Alarm Clock

Al-Qaeda theorist calls for infiltrating political systems, some believe the strategy is already being used in Syria

Ali Hashem
Al-Monitor
Fri, 29 May 2015 19:07 UTC
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© REUTERS/Ammar AbdullahA member of al-Qaeda's Jabhat al-Nusra burns a Syrian national flag in the northwestern city of Ariha, after a coalition of insurgent groups seized the area in Idlib province, May 29, 2015.
As radical Islamic groups continue to pursue the imposition of their ideologies and grab for power around the Middle East and North Africa, a prominent al-Qaeda ideologue has called on groups working within the framework of the infamous radical group to adopt a new strategy to infiltrate legitimate regimes in the region and build their influence and power from within. The logic is that this approach will allow them to better establish a lasting presence and implement their vision. Abdullah bin Mohammed has written several articles on al-Qaeda's strategies and conducted research on jihad in the region. Among his works is "Strategic Diaries," available online, and "The Strategy of the Regional War in Syria." His Twitter account, "Strategic Affairs," has attracted some 242,000 followers.


Comment: Right, it could also prove to be a viable strategy for US regime change operations, since ISIS militants dressed in suits could be roaming around the seats of power of legitimate governments, so we've gotta do something about it.


Mohammed, an al-Qaeda member, is the ideologue representing a new path for the movement, not just a different current. Marwan Chehadeh, an expert on islamists groups, told Al-Monitor, "Mohammed is an expert on security and military affairs. I believe he's from the Arabian Peninsula and introduced some new concepts, including political guerrilla wars. Mohammed calls for changing thinking about ruling in Islam. He is against jihadi emirates."

Mohammed believes the outcome of the jihadi effort of the last three decades justifies a change in strategy. In his article "Political Guerrilla Wars," he wrote, "The jihadi group's main problem isn't finding a way to fight the international system, as al-Qaeda provided an answer to this issue. The main problem is how to be able to rule under such a system. This needs political guerrilla war." He clarified his thinking, stating, "The military calculations proved to us that an open confrontation with a strong enemy like the US is military suicide. Therefore we had to go a different way in military confrontation, and in politics an open confrontation like declaring a state is also political suicide, as the West has the power to weaken us, pressure our societies and at the end uproot us as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore, we have to build a new strategy that can enhance our resilience."

Comment: How come it always happens to governments the US wants to overthrow, why haven't the jihadists decided to infiltrate Washington?

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Bulb

Senate lets provisions of Patriot Act expire


RT
Mon, 01 Jun 2015 18:30 UTC
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Controversial provisions of the Patriot Act authorizing government surveillance programs have expired after the Senate failed to vote for an extension. The Senate will reconvene to consider the USA Freedom Act on Monday afternoon.

Lawmakers have debated the possibility of extending the authority of Section 215, that authorizes bulk data collection, and other provisions in the extraordinary Sunday afternoon session. The debate started at 4:00 pm local time, eight hours before the expiration deadline.


The National Security Agency used Section 215 of the Patriot Act as the basis for collecting phone records of Americans who were not necessarily under official investigation. It was also used to track financial data and to obtain companies' internet business records. The extent of the mass surveillance program was revealed nearly two years ago by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Two other sections that were not extended included the "lone wolf" provision that allowed targeted surveillance of people suspected to be terrorists, but not part of any group. The "roving wiretap" provision allowed the monitoring of a specific person, irrespective of the devices used.

Comment: It must be remembered that, just because the legal authority has expired, does not mean that the NSA or other elements within the U.S. government have stopped spying on American citizens en masse. Those programs can simply go "dark", or undercover, like many other intelligence programs did when they saw the light of day.

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Eye 1

Homeland Security to test facial recognition program at Dulles International airport


Sputnik
Fri, 29 May 2015 18:01 UTC
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© Flickr/ Colm MacCárthaigh
A pilot program by US Department of Homeland Security which uses facial recognition technology to detect immigration violators at points of entry has privacy advocates concerned.

US Homeland Security Begins Testing Facial Recognition Program

The program, which US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agents are testing for three months at Washington's Dulles International airport, will use facial recognition technology to spot people using travel documents that don't belong to them, CBS News reports.

"We do see people trying to use the legitimate document, but it belonging to someone else, to conceal their identity," Customs and Border Protection Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Wagner told CBS, "and we are vulnerable to that."

The technology compares the photo in a passport with the face of the person presenting it, flagging those it believes to be a mismatch for further investigation by agents.

As they pass through customs at Dulles, about 250 people per day have their photos taken and stored in a secure database that is not shared with other agencies.
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Eye 1

NSA has no plans to delete its phone records if spying program expires


RT
Sat, 30 May 2015 17:22 UTC
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© Reuters/Mike Blake
The National Security Agency has said it will lock down and mothball its archive of US citizens' phone records if its legal authority to go on collecting the metadata expires as it is due to this Sunday.

The political and legal dispute will come to a head on Sunday when the Republican controlled Senate will seek a resolution before the law authorizing the controversial NSA spying program expires at 11:59pm.

The debate has pitted the Obama administration's national security team against those who say the surveillance program, which was revealed to the American public by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, infringes civil liberties and the US Constitution.

The hours leading up to midnight will see a jump in activity at US phone companies and at the NSA as engineers take down servers, monitoring software and hardware from the main optic cables of telephone data traffic, according to several senior officials, the LA Times reports.

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Cowboy Hat

United States playing with fire over South China Sea dispute

Chen Yue
Xinhua
Fri, 29 May 2015 15:57 UTC
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© Associated Press
The United States' attempts to stir trouble in the South China Sea and denigrate China raise doubts on whether the self-proclaimed global peacekeeper is really so keen on quiet waters.

Speaking on his way to Singapore to attend the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Wednesday called for an end to island-building in the South China Sea, urging China and other countries involved to stop militarizing disputes and find a peaceful solution in their competing claims to sovereignty in the area.

Though the land being reclaimed by China is within its sovereign territory, the move is "out of step" with the regional consensus, Carter said. Beijing has repeatedly asserted that China's work on the islands mostly serves civil purposes as well as meeting the needs of military defense.

This is not the first time the United States has made a fuss over a legitimate sovereign issue within China's territory.

Washington has never missed an opportunity to talk about the "China threat" when it comes to the South China Sea disputes between countries including China, the Philippines and Vietnam. It tries to pit other countries in the region against China.

Comment: The US is no policeman of the world, unless you define the police as a bunch of trigger-happy tyrants on steroids.

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2 + 2 = 4

Best of the Web: Washington's lies prevent diplomacy between Germany and Russia

Gilbert Doctorow
Russia Insider
Mon, 01 Jun 2015 12:46 UTC
Angela Merkel
© www.theblaze.com
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the possibility of German reunification arose, there were forebodings in France and the U.K. that there could be trouble ahead. As President Francois Mitterand reportedly joked with regard to his own misgivings, he liked Germany so much that he wanted there to be two of them.

At a minimum, Germany's European allies feared that the new, more powerful Germany would break free of the constraints of the European Economic Community and NATO to define an independent path serving its own interests. There was particular concern that Germany might strike a strategic deal with Russia to secure the peace in Europe without the Americans and at the expense of the West.

However, with the encouragement of both Russia and the United States, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl seized the opportunity and proceeded posthaste with reunification while remaining firmly anchored to the other member states of the EEC and NATO.

Comment: Washington will do everything it can to prevent the integration of the main block of the 'heartland' with the EU:
In labelling the Americas as "outlying islands", and the British Isles "outer islands", Mackinder was highlighting that they were peripheral to the "center", the "pivot area", which just happens to be Russia. This is where Mackinder's contribution as a geographer ends, and his contribution as a servant of empire begins. He understood 100 years ago that it was (and is) a pipe-dream for the stewards of empires like today's U.S. - E.U. 'Atlantic Alliance' to gain outright dominance over the "World-Island" by conventional means, simply because the combined populations and resources of that vast, interconnected and mutually dependent landmass dwarfs their 'outlying islands' like the UK and North America. So, what to do?

[...] They figured the only way they could ever hope to establish a global empire was to periodically organize a wrecking party by maneuvering the countries on the landmass into slaughtering one another, then before anyone could recover from the shock and become economically and militarily strong enough, they step in to 'reset' relations between peoples in a way they calculate will be favourable to the maintenance and advancement of Anglo-American hegemony.

Geopolitics of Empire: Mackinder's Heartland Theory and the Containment of Russia


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Bad Guys

Washington's hypocrisy: Anti-Russian sanctions cripple EU while US increases trade


Sputnik News
Mon, 01 Jun 2015 14:18 UTC
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© Reuters / Lukas Barth

Europe is on alert: while European businessmen continue to lose money and market share due to the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by Brussels under intense pressure from the US, Washington has quietly stepped up its business with Russia.

Europe has found itself in jeopardy. While its businessmen continue to lose money due to the anti-Russian sanctions the EU was compelled to launch amid intense pressure from Washington, the US seems to be boosting its business with Russia.

Trade turnover between the EU and Russia shrank by almost ten percent in the first two months of 2015 year-on-year, while Russian statistics shows that trade between the US and Russia spiked by approximately 6 percent, states German weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

Comment: See: Sanctions? What sanctions? Visa, MasterCard say its business as usual with Russia

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Stock Down

No guarantee that Ukraine can survive its financial crisis

Constantin Gurdgiev
True Economics
Mon, 01 Jun 2015 12:39 UTC
IMF effects in Ukraine
An interesting and far-reaching article on Ukraine's attempts to restructure some of its debts via Bloomberg.

In the nutshell, Ukraine needs to restructure its debt per IMF three targets for debt 'sustainability':
  • generate $15 billion in public-sector financing during the program period;
  • bring the public and publicly guaranteed debt-to-GDP ratio under 71% of GDP by 2020; and
  • keep the budget's gross financing needs at an average of 10% of GDP (maximum of 12% of GDP annually) in 2019 - 2025

Comment: Also see: What happens when you take a psycho's advice: Europe to pay for the whole mess in Ukraine

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Laptop

Expanding hacking powers: U.S. government to allow judges to grant warrants to search computers 'remotely' in multiple jurisdictions


RT
Sun, 31 May 2015 12:27 UTC
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© Rare.us
The Department of Justice has confirmed that a US court committee approved proposed rules that would allow judges to grant warrants to search computers "remotely" in multiple jurisdictions, even when investigators do not know exactly where a device is.

According to the current rules judges can grant warrants for "remote searches" only under their own jurisdictions, with several exceptions allowed under the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41. But back in February a little known body the Advisory Committee on Rules of Criminal Procedure proposed the changes at the request of the Department of Justice. The committee approved the proposed amendment, DOJ confirmed on Friday.

The change in the law would allow US government agencies to get a warrant to conduct remote searches of electronic storage media if its location has been "concealed through technological means," widely expanding the Federal Bureau of Investigation's reach when it comes to targeting suspected cybercriminals.

The DOJ claims the proposed change in the law is minor and was long overdue.

"With the rise of techniques that make it easy for criminals without any technical skill to hide their true locations, lawfully authorized remote access has become increasingly important to protect people from predators and solve serious crimes," wrote agency spokesman Peter Carr in an email to VentureBeat in February.
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