Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

NSA built back door in all Windows software by 1999


Government Built Spy-Access Into Most Popular Consumer Program Before 9/11


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In researching the stunning pervasiveness of spying by the government (it's much more wide spread than you've heard even now), we ran across the fact that the FBI wants software programmers to install a backdoor in all software.

Digging a little further, we found a 1999 article by leading European computer publication Heise which noted that the NSA had already built a backdoor into all Windows software:

Wall Street

Edward Snowden requests asylum in Russia...while continuing to leak 'top secret documents' to the Guardian

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© Tanya Lokshina/APEdward Snowden, centre, at a meeting with human rights activists at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.
NSA whistleblower says he will stay in Russia until he can get safe passage to Latin America at meeting with activists

The US whistleblower Edward Snowden said he has renewed his request to seek political asylum in Russia on Friday, in a meeting with human rights activists at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport that marked his first appearance since he fled Hong Kong.

Snowden said he intended to stay in Russia until he could win safe passage to Latin America, according to Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch, who was at the meeting.

In a statement to the meeting, released through Wikileaks, Snowden said he had no regrets over what he had done.

Snowden has been trapped in a Moscow airport since arriving from Hong Kong on 23 June. He has made nearly two dozen requests for political asylum, most of which have been refused.

Comment: So Snowden wants asylum from Russia... while going against Putin's terms and continuing to release top-secret documents?...

Stop the presses! More top secret documents (leaked by Snowden?) show that Microsoft and the NSA conspired against the masses!

Some more on this story from RT:




Flashlight

Stop the presses! More top secret documents (leaked by Snowden?) show that Microsoft and the NSA conspired against the masses!

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Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.

The documents show that:
  • Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
  • The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
  • The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
  • Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
  • In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;
  • Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".

Comment: "Top-secret documents"; what a quaint term!

Who exactly is supposed to be leaking these "top-secret documents" to the Guardian? Snowden has been living in Moscow airport for the past 19 days!

We're to believe that he can send them from there to Greenwald and Poitras with zero intervention from the NSA or anyone else??


Stock Down

Irish MP Clare Daly: Why are the Irish people being punished for the bankers' greed?

Clare Daly asks Irish Finance Minister Joan Burton what action the government proposes to take in regard to the Anglo-Irish Bank bailout, especially in light of the recent release of the 'Anglo Tapes'.

The Irish Independent newspaper, which leaked these recorded phone conversations between Anglo-Irish bankers at the outset of the financial crisis in Ireland in 2008, sat on these tapes for some time (how long is unknown, but you can see in the first minute of this video that they're pretty defensive about it), and the Irish government has asked them to curtail the release of further recordings because of its "concern about the potential consequences of the emergence of certain other information into the public domain."


Pirates

Best of the Web: Former Anglo Irish Bank CEO David Drumm in 'Anglo Tapes': We'll tell the Central Bank that if they don't give us billions now, the economy will collapse

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Psychopathic bankster David Drumm, believed to be hiding out in the U.S., laughs as he does his part to turn a booming economy into a broke nation.
Tapes of David Drumm, just days before he lost his job as Anglo Irish Bank CEO, reveal the frenetic atmosphere in the bank.

For the first time, Anglo's own executives speak about how the Brian Cowen-led government ignored the advice of international bankers Merrill Lynch to shut down Anglo, in recordings exclusively revealed today in the Irish Independent.

The bankers even tell how their own institution is described as a "basket case" by the firm, which were the government's external advisers.

"They're knifing us," Drumm tells colleague John Bowe, before telling him how he had prepared a plan to burn bondholders.

Mr Drumm reveals a conversation he's apparently had with former Fine Gael leader and ex-finance minister Alan Dukes - the government-appointed member of the board of the bank, where the former politician allegedly reported that the Government had decided to keep the bank going. Mr Dukes was appointed as public-interest director at Anglo days beforehand.


Handcuffs

Best of the Web: Caught On Tape: Irish bankers laugh about never repaying bailout

Bill Black is interviewed by Real News on the 'Anglo Tapes', which reveal how Anglo Irish Bank executives laughed as they manipulated the Irish Government into a 16 billion dollar bailout in 2008 that they knew neither the government nor the people would ever be able to repay...


Comment: Leaked recordings of Anglo-Irish phone conversation during outbreak of 2008 financial crisis: Banksters joked about defrauding the Irish people


Handcuffs

Best of the Web: Leaked recordings of Anglo-Irish phone conversation during outbreak of 2008 financial crisis: Banksters joked about defrauding the Irish people

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Once again, we have more embarrassing conversations between bankers...

The Irish Independent, a Dublin-based newspaper, has uncovered tapes of an internal phone conversation from September 2008 between two executives at Anglo Irish Bank during its bailout deal and they sound pretty scandalous. The Irish Independent points out that the recordings show they misled the Central Bank.

The executives from the recording have been identified as John Bowe (head of the bank's capital markets) and Peter Fitzgerald (director of retail banking).

However, Bowe "categorically denied" that he misled the Central Bank and Fitzgerald, who wasn't involved in discussions with regulators, said he was unaware of any intention to mislead, the report said.

Either way, the newly revealed recordings are still embarrassing.

Comment: Note that the Irish Independent is no angel in this: part and parcel of the Irish political establishment, this mainstream media outlet sat on the tapes for the longest time...


War Whore

Nobel Peace Prize winner sends four fighter jets to Egyptian army to maintain control over its slaves

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Obama administration agrees to go ahead with F-16 delivery to Egyptian army despite deepening unrest within the country

US officials have agreed to donate four fighter jets to Egypt's army, in the latest indication of international support for the country's interim government despite growing internal unease at the new regime's management of the power transition.

America's donation of the F-16s suggests the Obama administration is coming to terms with the downfall of the former president Mohamed Morsi, after initially displaying an ambiguous attitude to the military's role in the Islamist's ouster. The US gives annual aid worth $1.3bn (£860m) to the Egyptian army. There were concerns in Egypt that this support might be discontinued in the aftermath of Morsi's departure.

The aircraft donation follows a telephone conversation between the European Union's foreign affairs representative, Lady Catherine Ashton, and Egypt's new interim president, Adly Mansour. It follows the issuing of $12bn in grants and loans from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all conservative Gulf states known for their opposition to Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.

Che Guevara

Bolivian president Evo Morales joins Latin American allies in offering asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden

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© JUAN KARITA/APBolivia's President Evo Morales raises his fist during a welcome ceremony in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Thursday, July 4. Morales said Thursday that the rerouting of his plane in Europe over suspicions that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was on board was a plot by the U.S. to intimidate him and other Latin American leaders.
The president of Bolivia has called the rerouting of his flight home from a Moscow summit on the suspicion Snowden was aboard an intimidation tactic against him by the U.S. and European nations.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden has yet another place to go, if only he can get there.

Bolivian President Evo Morales says Snowden is welcome in his country. He said Saturday he is making the offer as a protest against the U.S. and European nations he accuses of temporarily blocking his flight home from a Moscow summit because they suspected his might have Snowden on board.

Stormtrooper

Israeli military is busy with manufacturing the next conflict and focuses on Northern border

An Israeli soldier collapses onto the floor of a house in Lebanon, shot by Hezbollah fighters. As his squad mates clear out the second floor, a medic rushes over, pulling on latex gloves and digging into his first aid kit. Gunfire echoes down the stairs as he starts to work on the wound.

The Israeli military experienced this kind of brutal house-to-house warfare during its inconclusive 2006 war with Hezbollah. As it trains in a mock village in its base in this northern Israeli town, it is recreating similar battle scenarios as it prepares for the next confrontation with the Lebanese militant group. Officials say such a conflict could erupt at any time.

While the world has focused its attention on the turmoil in Egypt following the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, Israel is keeping a close eye on its northern flank, where officials say the Syrian civil war, and Hezbollah's increasing involvement there, have created a combustible mix that could draw in Israel with little notice.