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Oxford invites Michael Savage to debate Snowden affair - but he has been banned from entering UK


WND.com
Fri, 13 Dec 2013 06:33 UTC
banned in england
The famed Oxford Union in England has invited talk-radio host Michael Savage to participate in a debate on whether or not fugitive National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden should be called a hero.

There's only one hitch, as Savage pointed out in his reply to the invitation from the Oxford Union's Charles Vaughn.

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Vader

US officials to meet their Al Qaeda commanders in coming days to discuss progress in Syria


Gulf Today
Sun, 15 Dec 2013 05:34 UTC
Image
'Durka, durka - Mohammed jihad'
Syrian rebel commanders from the Islamic Front which seized control of bases belonging to Western-backed rebels last week are due to hold talks with US officials in Turkey in coming days, rebel and opposition sources said on Saturday.

The expected contacts between Washington and the radical fighters reflect the extent to which the Islamic Front alliance has eclipsed the more moderate Free Syrian Army brigades - which Western and Arab powers tried in vain to build into a force able to topple President Bashar Al Assad. The talks could also decide the future direction of the Islamic Front, which is engaged in a standoff with yet more radical Sunni Muslim fighters from the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

A rebel fighter with the Islamic Front said he expected the talks in Turkey to discuss whether the United States would help arm the front and assign to it responsibility for maintaining order in the rebel-held areas of northern Syria.
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Red Flag

Another FBI patsy? U.S. aviation worker arrested in FBI sting operation trying to set off car bomb in Kansas airport

Heather Saul
The Independent
Sat, 14 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
Terry Lee Loewen
An American avionics technician was arrested on Friday as part of an FBI sting after he drove a vehicle loaded with what he thought were explosives to a Wichita airport.

Authorities said the planned assault by Terry Lee Loewen at Wichita's Mid-Continent Regional airport was to demonstrate his support for al-Qa'ida.

Loewen, 58, who worked at the airport for Hawker Beechcraft, was arrested before dawn as he tried to drive into the tarmac. The materials in the car were inert, and no one at the airport was in any immediate danger, authorities said.

Loewen planned to die in the explosion in his quest to become a martyr in a jihad against America, according to court documents.

Police said they had been investigating Loewen, of Wichita, for approximately six months after he made statements online about wanting to commit "violent jihad" against the United States, US Attorney Barry Grissom said. Eventually, an undercover FBI agent befriended Loewen, striking up conversations about terrorism and Loewen's admiration for those who plotted violence against American interests.

Comment: Since the attacks of September 11, the FBI has brought approximately 500 terror cases to trail. Of these cases, 150 people have been involved in sting operations in which the FBI has supplied suspects with materials to act out plans of terror. The FBI has been heavily criticized for preying on individuals who are on the fringes of society. See:
Fake Terror and the War for Your Mind
Inside the FBI's 'Terror factory': Manufacturing the 'War on Terror'
The FBI's 'Islamic Terrorism' Fraud

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Compass

Meet the new boss, same as the old: South African government excluded Desmond Tutu from Mandela funeral

David Smith and Daniel Howden
The Guardian
Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
South Africa's ruling party lambasted for not inviting retired archbishop and old Mandela ally turned fierce government critic
Tutu & Mandela
© UnknownArchbishop Desmond Tutu with Nelson Mandela. Both men were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the most prominent figures in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has been excluded from the funeral of Nelson Mandela on Sunday in what has been described as a politically motivated snub.

Critics accused the governing African National Congress (ANC) of looking petty by apparently failing to invite Tutu, one of the most vocal campaigners for Mandela's release from jail during white minority rule.

An estimated 5,000 guests including Prince Charles, Malawian president Joyce Banda and various other dignitaries will attend the state funeral in Qunu, the village where Mandela grew up in Eastern Cape province. Tutu's daughter Mpho, chief executive of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, said on Friday: "The archbishop is not an accredited clergyperson for the event and will thus not be attending." His office declined to comment further.
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Eye 1

Chutzpah! U.S. government's 'review' of NSA activities recommends leaving spying program unchanged

Spencer Ackerman
The Guardian
Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:54 UTC
obama
© Rex FeaturesBarack Obama ordered the review of NSA surveillance in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures.
- Panel to propose bulk surveillance continue - with some curbs
- Adviser calls apparent decision to leave core intact 'shameful'

A participant in a White House-sponsored review of surveillance activities described as "shameful" an apparent decision to leave most of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk spying intact.

Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute, said Friday that the review panel he advised is at risk of missing an opportunity to restore confidence in US surveillance practices.

"The review group was searching for ways to make the most modest pivot necessary to continue business as usual," Meinrath said.

Headed by the CIA's former deputy director, Michael Morrell, the review is expected to deliver its report to President Barack Obama on Sunday, the White House confirmed, although it is less clear when and how substantially its report will be available to the public.

National security council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said she would have no further comment "on a report that is not yet final and hasn't yet been submitted to the White House".

Should the review group's report resemble descriptions that leaked late Thursday, the report "does nothing to alter the lack of trust the global populace has for what the US is doing, and nothing to restore our reputation as an ethical internet steward," said Meinrath, who met with the advisory panel and White House officials twice to discuss the bulk surveillance programs that have sparked international outrage.
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Folder

Officials Say U.S. May Never Know Extent of Snowden's Leaks

Mark Mazzetti, Michael S. Schmidt
The New York Times
Sat, 14 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
snowden
© Kin Cheung/APEdward Snowden
American intelligence and law enforcement investigators have concluded that they may never know the entirety of what the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden extracted from classified government computers before leaving the United States, according to senior government officials.

Investigators remain in the dark about the extent of the data breach partly because the N.S.A. facility in Hawaii where Mr. Snowden worked - unlike other N.S.A. facilities - was not equipped with up-to-date software that allows the spy agency to monitor which corners of its vast computer landscape its employees are navigating at any given time.

Six months since the investigation began, officials said Mr. Snowden had further covered his tracks by logging into classified systems using the passwords of other security agency employees, as well as by hacking firewalls installed to limit access to certain parts of the system.

"They've spent hundreds and hundreds of man-hours trying to reconstruct everything he has gotten, and they still don't know all of what he took," a senior administration official said. "I know that seems crazy, but everything with this is crazy."

Comment: Here again we see more of the same 'ole 'business as usual', with another ongoing example of the government investigating itself. Look how well that's worked out with regard to 9/11.

How much truth can the American people, or anyone, for that matter, expect to emerge from such 'investigation'?

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Gear

U.S. 'totally dictates' Swedish surveillance


The Local
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 10:55 UTC
Greenwald
© APGuardian journalist Glenn Grenwald
The US dominates Sweden during joint surveillance cooperation, as the Swedes give information but ask for nothing in return, claimed journalist Glenn Greenwald on Wednesday. When Sweden's National Defence Radio Establishment (Svenska Försvarets radioanstalt - FRA) works with foreign countries, it usually gets something in return. But this is not the case when it cooperates with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in its efforts to gain unauthorized access to computers, said Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who revealed Edward Snowden's leaks this year.

"Quite simply, what the Swedes do is target the groups or the individuals that the U.S. tells them to (target), and then hand over the information in bulk," Greenwald said, according to the TT news agency.

Sweden has a key role in the US global surveillance programme, he added.
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Magnify

Ex-FBI agent who disappeared in Iran was on rogue mission for CIA

Adam Goldman
Washington Post
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Video: Robert Levinson was on an unapproved intelligence-gathering mission:

An American man who disappeared in Iran more than six years ago had been working for the CIA in what U.S. intelligence officials describe as a rogue operation that led to a major shake-up in the spy agency.

Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent, traveled to the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 to investigate corruption at a time when he was discussing the renewal of a CIA contract he had held for several years. He also inquired about getting re­imbursed for the Iran trip by the agency before he departed, according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials.

After he vanished, CIA officials told Congress in closed hearings as well as the FBI that Levinson did not have a current relationship with the agency and played down its ties with him. Agency officials said Levinson did not go to Iran for the CIA.

But months after Levinson's abduction, e-mails and other documents surfaced that suggested he had gone to Iran at the direction of certain CIA analysts who had no authority to run operations overseas. That revelation prompted a major internal investigation that had wide-ranging repercussions, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The CIA leadership disciplined 10 employees, including three veteran analysts who were forced out of their jobs, the officials said.
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Propaganda

Lying Propaganda: UN inspectors confirm Syria chemical attack

Edith M. Lederer
The Sacramento Bee
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 11:38 UTC
UNITED NATIONS -- Chemical weapons were probably used in four locations in Syria this year, in addition to the confirmed attack near Damascus in August that forced the government to abandon its secret chemical stockpile, U.N. inspectors said in a report released Thursday.

The experts, led by Swedish professor Ake Sellstrom, examined seven alleged chemical weapons attacks and said it lacked information to corroborate the allegations at two locations.

The inspectors' limited mandate barred them from identifying whether the government or opposition fighters were responsible for any of the attacks.

Thursday's report said evidence indicated chemical weapons were probably used in Khan al Assal outside Aleppo, Jobar in Damascus' eastern suburbs, Saraqueb near Idlib in the northwest, and Ashrafiah Sahnaya in the Damascus countryside. In two cases, it found "signatures of Sarin."
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Sheriff

Legal payouts involving former Sacramento sheriff's deputy, now accused in molestation case, totaled more than $2 million

Kim Minugh
The Sacramento Bee
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 11:12 UTC
Bad guy
© Fox410Donald Black
Once referred to by a local attorney as the "Million Dollar Man," a former sheriff's deputy cost the county of Sacramento more than $2 million in awards and settlements during his 23 years on the force.

By the time Donald Black retired Oct. 1 following his arrest on suspicion of child molestation and steroid possession, his actions had resulted in at least 10 payouts by the county, most of them involving excessive force allegations, according to a spreadsheet provided to The Sacramento Bee in response to a Public Records Act request. The largest payout - $1.5 million - went to a woman who had a 3-inch chunk of flesh taken out of her calf by Black's then-K-9 partner. In another case, according to a court complaint, Black and another deputy allegedly terrified a man during a traffic stop by pointing an unloaded pellet gun at his head and pulling the trigger.

Black, who was arrested by Nevada County authorities in September, retired from the department before the conclusion of two internal administrative investigations initiated by his arrest.

Even some who are familiar with Black's controversial history expressed shock at the $2 million total payout - and questioned how a deputy who had become such a financial liability managed to keep his job.

"It's utterly amazing.... This guy is off the charts," said local attorney Stewart Katz, who represented the man awarded $90,000 in the pellet gun incident.
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