Puppet MastersS


Sherlock

Giving NSA the boot - California to pass law to end spying on its citizens


RT
Tue, 20 May 2014 07:10 UTC
NSA office
© mashable.comSpy Central
The state of California is looking to pass a law stating the federal government would need a warrant from a judge if it wants to search residents' cellphones and computer records. The bill passed the state senate with just one person voting against.

The bill was introduced following information that was leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who showed that US citizens had been subject to massive internal surveillance by the NSA.
"The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is very clear. It says the government shall not engage in unreasonable search and seizure," said the bill's author, Democratic State Senator Ted Lieu of Torrance, to Reuters. "The National Security Agency's massive and indiscriminate collecting of phone data on all Americans, including more than 38 million Californians, is a threat to our liberty and freedom."
California is one of eight states to introduce such measures, according to Lieu's spokesman, Jeff Gozzo. Alaska, Arizona and Oklahoma are also looking to counter this problem, though America's most populous state is the nearest to getting legislation passed. The bill will be heard before an assembly policy committee in June 2014.

The Obama administration is unhappy about the powers of NSA being diluted. Last year a federal judge ruled that the NSA's practice of 'spying' on its citizens was unconstitutional. The US government is currently appealing this ruling.

Comment: Can California really pull this off and set the bar? Or, will the "government" dial up another trump card...

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Bad Guys

The truth comes out about the Libyan War and Benghazi 2012 - Documentary

Joanne Moriarty
Libyanwarthetruth.com
Sun, 18 May 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Unknown
This video documentary just released interviews US intelligence agents, US military personnel and others who confirm EVERYTHING that we have been saying about the illegal war against Libya. It was Obama who illegally continued the war in Libya in 2011 while arming and funding Al Qaeda rebels and mercenaries. The state of Libya is the shame of the west and was intentional. Chris Stevens death and the death of the 3 other men could have been prevented but the truth about the illegal activities in Libya were to be kept hidden and Obama having touted his great victory in Libya would have to explain how Al Qaeda took control of that country and destroyed all security for all of North Africa.

Comment: It has become clear that what happened in Libya is little more that subversive undeclared war by Western powers (US and NATO) against Libya, and has resulted in the destruction of the country and horrendous suffering of its people.

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Red Flag

No right to privacy: Why I was forced to shut down Lavabit

Ladar Levison
The Guardian
Tue, 20 May 2014 07:30 UTC
Image
© Ueslei Marcelino/ReutersThe prosecution argued that my users had no expectation of privacy, even though the service I provided – encryption – is designed for just that.
For the first time, the founder of an encrypted email startup that was supposed to insure privacy for all reveals how the FBI and the US legal system made sure we don't have the right to much privacy in the first place

My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation of surveillance equipment on my company's network.

My company, Lavabit, provided email services to 410,000 people - including Edward Snowden, according to news reports - and thrived by offering features specifically designed to protect the privacy and security of its customers. I had no choice but to consent to the installation of their device, which would hand the US government access to all of the messages - to and from all of my customers - as they travelled between their email accounts other providers on the Internet.

But that wasn't enough. The federal agents then claimed that their court order required me to surrender my company's private encryption keys, and I balked. What they said they needed were customer passwords - which were sent securely - so that they could access the plain-text versions of messages from customers using my company's encrypted storage feature. (The government would later claim they only made this demand because of my "noncompliance".)

Comment: Criminalizing Privacy - U.S. Government Forces Snowden's Encrypted Email Service, Lavabit, to Shut Down

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Safe

Goodbye petrodollar: Russia's VTB and Bank of China agree on domestic currency settlements


RT
Tue, 20 May 2014 11:27 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin
VTB, Russia's second biggest lender, has signed a deal with Bank of China, which includes an agreement to pay each other in domestic currencies.

"Under the agreement, the banks plan to develop their partnership in a number of areas, including cooperation on ruble and renminbi settlements, investment banking, inter-bank lending, trade finance and capital-markets transactions," says the official VTB statement.

The deal underlines VTB Group's growing interest in Asian markets and will help grow trade between Russia and China that are already close trading partners, said VTB Bank Management Board Vasily Titov.

An Agreement on Cooperation was signed by Titov and Bank of China President Chen Siqing in Shanghai on Tuesday in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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Muffin

China heaps scorn on the US, calling it a 'robber playing cop'


RT
Wed, 21 May 2014 09:14 UTC
Image
www.globaltimes.cn
Traditionally reserved Beijing has heaped scorn on the US, calling it a 'robber playing cop,' after Washington filed criminal charges against Chinese military officers accused of conducting economic espionage against major US companies.

Chinese rhetoric crashed out of the gates on Wednesday after the US Justice Department took the unprecedented move of publishing, together with a 48-page indictment, the photographs of five Chinese military officers it suspects of committing cybercrimes against a number of household-name US companies, including US Steel, Westinghouse and Alcoa.

The wanted individuals are affiliated with Unit 61398, an elite cyber-department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army that attracted the condemnation of US officials even as the United States was conducting its own intensive cyber espionage against China.

An editorial in the Global Times, a subsidiary of the People's Daily, the official journal of China's Communist Party, was packed with insults aimed at Washington.

"We should encourage organizations and individuals whose rights have been infringed to stand up and sue Washington," the newspaper said. "Regarding the issue of network security, the US is such a mincing rascal that we must stop developing any illusions about it."

Comment: Things are getting interesting as the U.S empire has shown its overextension and unsurpassed greed in Ukraine and ultimately its weakness, allowing the other players to build bonds and openly stand up to the exposed bully, and call it what it is.

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Evil Rays

School yard bully: US presses austerity squeezed Cyprus for tougher sanctions against Russia


ITAR-TASS
Wed, 21 May 2014 06:27 UTC
US and Cyprus flags
© AP Photo/Petros Karadjias
Nicosia supported the first and second phases of the EU sanctions - suspension of visa and cooperation negotiations as well as expansion of the sanction list, yet resists real sanctions bound to affect the economy.

Strategic relations between the US and Cyprus, new sanctions and settlement of the crisis on the island are the tasks of US Vice President Joseph Biden's visit on Wednesday - the first US visit of this kind in the last 52 years.

Explaining the White House's interest in the small island which is struggling to get out of the economic crisis, a state official said Cyprus could play a major role in ensuring regional peace and said he was satisfied the island supported the EU consensus over sanctions against Russia. He promised Biden would discuss continuation of the sanction regime in detail with President Nicos Anastasiades.

Comment:



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Light Sabers

It's a done deal! Russia and China seal historic multibillion gas deal


RT.com
Wed, 21 May 2014 04:53 UTC
Gas deal between Russia and China
© Reuters
After 10 years of negotiations, Russia's Gazprom and China's CNPC have finally signed a historic gas deal which will provide the world's fastest growing economy with the natural gas it needs to keep pace for the next 30 years.

The memorandum of understanding was signed in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of China Xi Jinping on the second day of Putin's two-day state visit to Shanghai.

No pricing details have been given so far. Gas will be delivered to China via the eastern 'Power of Siberia' pipeline.

Under the long-term deal, Gazprom will begin providing China's growing economy with 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year for the next 30 years, beginning in 2018. The details of the deal were discussed for more than 10 years, with Moscow and Beijing negotiating over gas prices and the pipeline route, as well as possible Chinese stakes in Russian projects.

Just ahead of Putin's visit to Shanghai, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave reassurance that the agreed price would be fair.
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Bizarro Earth

Zombie parliament: British MPs set for 223 days off work in 2014


RT.com
Tue, 20 May 2014 19:24 UTC
Parliament
© Reuters / Luke MacgregorHouses of Parliament, London
The British House of Commons will sit for just 142 days this year, that's 223 days off. During their time away from the parliament MPs claim they are working hard in their constituencies but this is not always the case.

MPs have just started a 19 day early summer holiday, right after they had an 18 day Easter break, RT's Sara Firth reports. They'll then sit for seven weeks before a six week fully paid summer holiday. And if that's not enough they get a month off in the autumn for party conferences.

Comment: Must be nice to have so much free time.

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Bomb

SOTT EXCLUSIVE: A day like any other in Iraq - Dozens killed in Baghdad as US-established death squads run rampant

Irini Gregoriou
Sott.net
Wed, 21 May 2014 10:53 UTC
Baghdad explosions
© Associated Press/Karim KadimPolicemen stand near burning vehicles moments after one in a series of bombs hit the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq Tuesday, May 13, 2014
As vote-counting got underway following recent national elections in Iraq last week, a string of bomb explosions occurred in Baghdad on Thursday May 16th, killing at least 30 people and wounding many more.

At least one of the bombs was placed in what authorities described as "an explosives-laden car left in a parking lot in Karrada, a busy commercial area where several government departments are located.

The second bomb, detonated just seconds later - was supposedly the work of a suicide bomber with an explosives belt, who blew himself up outside the offices of Iraq's Higher Education Ministry.

Later that evening another car bomb near an outdoor market in Baghdad's Sadr City killed another eight people and wounded 17.

Meanwhile in Youssifiyah, south of Baghdad, 'unknown gunmen' stormed the home of a Sunni militant who had taken up arms against 'al Qaeda', and killed him along with his entire family.

The following day, Friday 17 May, a bomb exploded at an outdoor market in North Baghdad, killing five shoppers and wounding 14 others, all civilians. The Voice of Russia reports that already this year, 3,500 people have been killed.
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Top Secret

Safe haven for sadists: Document reveals potential CIA coverup, further undercuts official story around Guantanamo 'suicides'

Kevin Gosztola
The Dissenter
Fri, 16 May 2014 12:57 UTC
Al-Zahrani
Yasser Al-Zahrani, who died at Guantanamo in 2006
Yasser Al-Zahrani was twenty-one years-old when he died at Guantanamo Bay. The US military claims he, along with two other prisoners, committed suicide in their cells. However, a new document uncovered by journalist Scott Horton and published by Harper's Magazine strongly suggests that they were killed at a CIA black site prison.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigated the deaths of Al-Zahrani, Ali Abdulla Ahmed, and Mana Shaman Allabard al Tabi. They concluded that they had died on June 10, 2006, after taking their own lives by making a rope out of bed sheets and T-shirts and hanging themselves.

Both Ahmed and Allabard were allegedly declared to be dead immediately when their bodies were discovered. Al-Zahrani, on the other hand, was transported to the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo and then pronounced dead later.

Horton uncovered a document, Exhibit 25, which was missing from the NCIS report on the "suicides" released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. It features statements from Master-at-Arms Denny, a member of the escort team who helped transfer the three detainees to the hospital.

Comment: There's no use trying to appeal to the judicial/military/government authorities in terms of normal human values. Psychopaths have nothing but contempt for human values, and the judicial/military/government authorities involved here are clearly psychopaths. Unfortunately, in a system that is set up to protect torturers and murderers, torture and murder will be the inevitable result. It's horrific and reprehensible, but it shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that this is what goes on behind closed doors in any number of closed military/intelligence facilities. These people enjoy torturing and murdering.

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