Puppet MastersS


Blackbox

Has President Obama been deliberately lying about the NSA?

David Sirota
Information Clearing house
Sat, 17 Aug 2013 10:51 UTC
OBAMA horn
© unknown
So many of President Obama's statements about NSA have been wrong. But he's too smart not to understand the truth

With the latest major revelation about National Security Agency surveillance, there's a huge taboo question that needs to be put out on the table: Has President Obama been deliberately lying about the NSA, or have his statements just been repeatedly "wrong"?

After Barton Gellman's blockbuster story today about the NSA breaking "privacy rules or overstepp(ing) its legal authority thousands of times each year," the Washington Post published an attendant commentary with a headline declaring the president was merely "wrong" in last week suggesting that the NSA wasn't "actually abusing" its legal authority. The implication is that when Obama made that comment - and then further insisted the surveillance programs "are not abused" - he may have been inaccurate, but he didn't necessarily deliberately lie because he may not have known he was not telling the truth.
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Eye 1

NSA broke the law and privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

Barton Gellman
The Washington Post
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 10:43 UTC
NSA audit
© The Washington Post
The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
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Arrow Down

Apple patents kill switch for mobile devices because: "Covert police or government operations may require complete 'Blackout' Conditions."


Cryptogon
Sun, 18 Aug 2013 18:07 UTC
Stalin
© Cryptogon
As wireless devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, personal media devices and smartphones become ubiquitous, more and more people are carrying these devices in various social and professional settings. The result is that these wireless devices can often annoy, frustrate, and even threaten people in sensitive venues.

Source: United States Patent 8,254,902
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Star of David

BBC to censor violinist Nigel Kennedy's statement about Israeli apartheid from TV broadcast

Tom Suarez
Mondoweiss
Fri, 16 Aug 2013 23:22 UTC
Image
© Chris Christodoulou/BBCNigel Kennedy
The BBC has confirmed that it will censor a statement made by violinist Nigel Kennedy from its television broadcast of his performance with the Palestine Strings at a prestigious music festival last week. In his statement at the Proms, Mr. Kennedy used the word "apartheid" to describe the world in which his Palestinian colleagues live.

Click here for a recording of the actual statement the BBC is excising from its broadcast[1]. The following is a transcript:
"It's a bit facile to say it, but we all know from the experience of this night of music, that giving equality and getting rid of apartheid gives a beautiful chance for amazing things to happen."
According to The Jewish Chronicle[2], BBC governor Baroness Deech called for an apology from Mr. Kennedy and said that "the remark was offensive and untrue. There is no apartheid in Israel." Not only is there no apartheid in Israel, she claimed, but nor is there any in Gaza or the West Bank. (She made no mention of East Jerusalem.)
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Stormtrooper

The police keep firing; the bodies pile up. In Cairo, bloodbaths are now a daily occurrence

Robert Fisk
The Independent
Fri, 16 Aug 2013 19:59 UTC
Image
It was a disgrace, a most shameful chapter in Egyptian history. The police - some wearing black hoods - shot down into the crowds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters from the roof of Cairo's Ramses Street police station and surrounding streets.

They even fired at traffic on the airport highway. And to see their terrible work, you had only to climb the pink marble steps of the Al-Fath Mosque - sticky with fresh blood yesterday evening - and see the acre of wounded lying on deep-woven carpets and, in a remote corner, 25 shrouded corpses. Dr Ibrahim Yamani gently lifted the bandages from their bodies: shot in the face, shot in the head, shot in the chest.
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Dollar

Obama gives support to Osprey: The military boondoggle that just won't die

DSWright
FireDogLake
Fri, 16 Aug 2013 11:00 UTC
Osprey
© United States Navy
Few military projects are more notorious than the V-22 Osprey. The name has become synonymous with flawed government contracting and planning. Originally conceived in 1980 in the wake of the botched Iranian Hostage Crisis rescue mission, the Osprey was supposed to represent a new type of aircraft that could land and takeoff vertically but also carry plane sized equipment and personnel. So ends the theory.

What followed was an amazing waste of money. The Osprey was first budgeted at $2.5 billion in 1986, by 2008 $27 billion had been spent, with another $27.2 billion needed to complete production. Yes $2.5 billion to an estimated $54.2 billion. And yes, in that time period other aircraft were developed to successfully fulfill US combat needs. And yes, no other country is even within striking distance of America's air capacity. Of course, other countries aren't interested in competing with America for developing anything like the Osprey, because the damn thing doesn't work.

In 2001 numerous officers were relieved of duty due to their falsifying records to try to make the Osprey seem like it worked. In 2007 the Pentagon deployed the aircraft leading to condemnation from many that the Osprey was too unsafe for combat use.
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Arrow Down

Obama supporters will go hysterical over this well sourced list of 252 examples of his lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc.

Dan
Dan from Squirrel Hill Blog
Thu, 15 Aug 2013 19:36 UTC
Obama
© PunditKitchen.com
As the author of this blog post, I place it into the public domain. Anyone may freely copy it in any part or in its entirely, without asking my permission, and without paying any money. I do ask you please cite a link to my blog.

I ask you to please show this list to as many people as possible - and especially, to please show it to as many Obama supporters as possible. Sunshine really is the best disinfectant. I can't stop Obama from doing any of these horrible things, but I can tell people about what he is doing. So please share this list with others on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Thank you. The short link for this can be found here.

Every President, every politician, and every human being tells lies and engages in acts of hypocrisy. But Barack Obama does these things to a far greater degree than anyone else that I have ever known of. His campaign promises were so much better sounding than anyone else's - no lobbyists in his administration, waiting five days before signing all non-emergency bills so people would have time to read them, putting health care negotiations on C-SPAN, reading every bill line by line to make sure money isn't being wasted, prosecution of Wall St. criminals, ending raids against medical marijuana in states where it's legal, high levels of transparency.

Obama's promises of these wonderful things sounded inspiring and sincere. They sounded so much better than the promises of any other President. So when Obama broke these promises, it felt so much worse than when other Presidents broke their promises.
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Gear

And the show continues: Snowden not interrogated by Russian Security Services - Assange


RIA Novosti
Sat, 17 Aug 2013 16:12 UTC
Image
© REUTERS/ Bobby YipFugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden
Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was not interrogated by special services after his arrival to Russia, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said on Friday.

In an interview with Fairfax Media, the founder of the anti-secrecy organization has confirmed that WikiLeaks personnel have continuously accompanied Snowden since he left Hong Kong for Moscow on June 23.

"Since Hong Kong we have had someone physically by his side the entire time," Assange said. "We have had someone with him for 54 days."

The statement comes amid media speculations that Snowden has fallen into the hands of the Russian state security services.
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Attention

Oregon's GOP chair wants to sprinkle nuclear waste from airplanes

Tim Murphy
Mother Jones
Fri, 16 Aug 2013 04:00 UTC
Art Robinson.
© FacebookArt Robinson.
After months of in-fighting, the beleaguered Oregon Republican Party elected a new chairman last weekend. His name is Art Robinson, and he wants to sprinkle radioactive waste from airplanes to build up our resistance to degenerative illnesses. Robinson, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress against progressive Rep. Peter DeFazio in 2010 and 2012, took over after the previous chair resigned in advance of a recall campaign over her alleged financial mismanagement.

Robinson, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry, has marketed himself for the last three decades as an expert on everything from nuclear fallout to AIDS to climate science in the pages of a monthly newsletter, Access to Technology, which he published from his compound in the small town of Cave Junction. A quick glance at his writings, which were publicized during his ill-fated challenges to DeFazio, suggest that whatever the failings of the previous party leadership - Democrats now hold all statewide elected offices and control both houses of the state Legislature - Robinson brings with him a new set of challenges entirely.

On nuclear waste: "All we need do with nuclear waste is dilute it to a low radiation level and sprinkle it over the ocean - or even over America after hormesis is better understood and verified with respect to more diseases." And: "If we could use it to enhance our own drinking water here in Oregon, where background radiation is low, it would hormetically enhance our resistance to degenerative diseases. Alas, this would be against the law."
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Arrow Down

Amid Mideast arms race Israel demands more US weaponry

Lauren McCauley
Common Dreams
Fri, 16 Aug 2013 15:42 UTC
Obama and Netanyahu
© AP/Carolyn KasterUS President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at their joint news conference, Wednesday, March 20, 2013.

United States defense equipment is selling like hotcakes in the Middle East, and Israel is concerned. In light of its neighbors' growing military arsenals, the country is imploring the U.S., their premier benefactor, to raise their rations so they can be sure to maintain military dominance in the region.

U.S. and Israeli officials are in initial negotiations over a new 10-year military aid package.

As Defense News reports Thursday, the package, which would extend through 2027, is focusing on a "full spectrum of Israeli concerns, including military modernization needs, new threats from regional instability and the erosion of Israel's so-called qualitative military edge (QME) due to U.S. arms sales in the Mideast."

Under the existing $30 billion aid agreement, signed in 2007, the need for Israel to maintain an "edge" over their regional adversaries was not directly accounted for. The updated, more "holistic" approach - according to Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. - will ensure the relative superiority of Israel's arsenal will become codified in the agreement.
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