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Eye 2

Senate report states 'harsh interrogation' by CIA went beyond legal authority

bloody cia
A still-secret Senate Intelligence Committee report calls into question the legal foundation of the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists, a finding that challenges the key defense on which the agency and the Bush administration relied in arguing that the methods didn't constitute torture.

The report also found that the spy agency failed to keep an accurate account of the number of individuals it held, and that it issued erroneous claims about how many it detained and subjected to the controversial interrogation methods. The CIA has said that about 30 detainees underwent the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

The CIA's claim "is BS," said a former U.S. official familiar with evidence underpinning the report, who asked not to be identified because the matter is still classified. "They are trying to minimize the damage. They are trying to say it was a very targeted program, but that's not the case."

The findings are among the report's 20 main conclusions. Taken together, they paint a picture of an intelligence agency that seemed intent on evading or misleading nearly all of its oversight mechanisms throughout the program, which was launched under the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and ran until 2006.

Some of the report's other conclusions, which were obtained by McClatchy, include:
  • The CIA used interrogation methods that weren't approved by the Justice Department or CIA headquarters.
  • The agency impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making regarding the program.
  • The CIA actively evaded or impeded congressional oversight of the program.
  • The agency hindered oversight of the program by its own Inspector General's Office.
The 6,300-page report is the culmination of a four-year, $40 million investigation into the detention and interrogation program by the Democrat-led committee. A final draft was approved in December 2012, but it has undergone revisions. The panel voted 11-3 on April 3 to send the report's 480-page executive summary, the findings and conclusions to the executive branch for declassification prior to public release.

War Whore

Poland invites the fox to watch the henhouse: U.S. ground troops going to Poland, defense minister says

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© EPA/Michael ReynoldsPolish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, right, at the Pentagon on Thursday.
Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine. That was the word from Poland's defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who visited The Post Friday after meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday.

Siemoniak said the decision has been made on a political level and that military planners are working out details. There will also be intensified cooperation in air defense, special forces, cyberdefense and other areas. Poland will play a leading regional role, "under U.S. patronage," he said.

But the defense minister also said that any immediate NATO response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, while important, matter less than a long-term shift in the defense postures of Europe and America. The United States, having announced a "pivot" to Asia, needs to "re-pivot" to Europe, he said, and European countries that have cut back on defense spending need to reverse the trends.

Comment: The U.S. is in the war business. This slimy piece of propaganda would lead you to believe there is a good reason to send troops to Poland when there is no convincing argument or evidence to do so.

War Whores want your money: Military's top general propaganda on nation's defense


Calculator

West's paper tigers: Shell oil committed to expansion in Russia

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© Reuters/Maxim Shipenkov/PoolRussian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell, April 18, 2014.
Royal Dutch Shell is committed to expansion in Russia, Chief Executive Ben van Beurden told Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on Friday amid sanctions imposed on the country after its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.

Shell plans to expand Russia's only liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant with Russian partner Gazprom, he said at a meeting at Putin's residence.

"We, of course, will pledge all the necessary administrative guidance and support," Putin said in response in a meeting that was later broadcast on national television.

The United States and European Union have imposed targeted sanctions against a list of Russian and Ukrainian individuals and firms in retaliation for Moscow's annexation of Crimea last month.

EU and U.S. diplomats have indicated that they may consider wider sanctions against whole sectors of the Russian economy if Russian forces were to enter Ukraine.

"We are very keen to grow our position in the Russian Federation," van Beurden said. "We look forward with anticipation and confidence on a very long-term future here in Russia."

Padlock

​Anti-whistleblowing directive: US intel employees face new consequences for speaking to media

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© Reuters/Charles Platiau
Members of the United States intelligence community must now operate within the boundaries of a new media policy, as contact with a journalist without prior approval can now be considered a fireable offense, their boss said on Sunday.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper signed on Sunday a directive which outlines new restrictions that intelligence analysts must consider before speaking to the press about both classified and unclassified information.

Bad Guys

Jailhouse democracy: How the US rules the Middle East through puppet dictators

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During the beginning of his first term in office President Obama promised "to remake the Middle East into a region of prosperity and freedom". Six years later the reality is totally the contrary: the Middle East is ruled by despotic regimes whose jails are overflowing with political prisoners. The vast majority of pro-democracy activists who have been incarcerated, have been subject to harsh torture and are serving long prison sentences. The rulers lack legitimacy, having seized power and maintained their rule through a centralized police state and military repression. Direct US military and CIA intervention, massive shipments of arms,military bases, training missions and Special Forces are decisive in the construction of the Gulag chain from North Africa to the Gulf States.

We will proceed by documenting the scale and scope of political repression in each US backed police state. We will then describe the scale and scope of US military aid buttressing the "remaking of the Middle East" into a chain of political prisons run by and for the US Empire.

The countries and regimes include Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan and Turkey . . . all of which promote and defend US imperial interests against the pro-democracy majority, represented by their independent social-political movements.

Arrow Up

The Bundy Paradigm: Will you be a rebel, revolutionary or a slave?

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy
Bundy Ranch
© OffGridSurvivalSupporters gathering outside the Bundy Ranch.

Those tempted to write off the standoff at the Bundy Ranch as little more than a show of force by militia-minded citizens would do well to reconsider their easy dismissal of this brewing rebellion. This goes far beyond concerns about grazing rights or the tension between the state and the federal government.

Few conflicts are ever black and white, and the Bundy situation, with its abundance of gray areas, is no exception. Yet the question is not whether Cliven Bundy and his supporters are domestic terrorists, as Harry Reid claims, or patriots, or something in between. Nor is it a question of whether the Nevada rancher is illegally grazing his cattle on federal land or whether that land should rightfully belong to the government.

Nor is it even a question of who's winning the showdown - the government with its arsenal of SWAT teams, firepower and assault vehicles, or Bundy's militia supporters with their assortment of weapons - because if such altercations end in bloodshed, everyone loses.

What we're really faced with, and what we'll see more of before long, is a growing dissatisfaction with the government and its heavy-handed tactics by people who are tired of being used and abused and are ready to say "enough is enough." And it won't matter what the issue is - whether it's a rancher standing his ground over grazing rights, a minister jailed for holding a Bible study in his own home, or a community outraged over police shootings of unarmed citizens - these are the building blocks of a political powder keg. Now all that remains is a spark, and it need not be a very big one, to set the whole powder keg aflame.

As I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, there's a subtext to this incident that must not be ignored, and it is simply this: America is a pressure cooker with no steam valve, and things are about to blow. This is what happens when a parasitical government muzzles the citizenry, fences them in, herds them, brands them, whips them into submission, forces them to ante up the sweat of their brows while giving them little in return, and then provides them with little to no outlet for voicing their discontent.

Stormtrooper

SWAT: Military-style units from government agencies are wreaking havoc on non-violent citizens

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© National Review Online
Military-style units from government agencies are wreaking havoc on non-violent citizen

Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle's grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy's ranch.

They shouldn't have been. Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It's not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies - not to mention local police forces.

Map

French police asks hoteliers to "report guests from Eastern Europe" - Hospitality Union protests "racial profiling"

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© Jerome Bon
Tension is mounting between police and hoteliers in Montpellier, after an official email apparently requested all visitors from Eastern Europe should be reported to authorities.

The email from the Regional Service of Judicial Police (SRPJ), seen by the Languedoc-Rousillon regional broadcasting arm of France 3 asked hoteliers and restaurateurs to "report the arrival in your institution of individuals, groups or families from Eastern Europe", including, if possible, the licence plates of their vehicles.

Jacques Mestre, regional president of the Union of Hospitality Trades and Industries (UMIH), claimed that the email effectively asked him to discriminate against visitors from Eastern Europe and warned that it amounted to "racial profiling".

Propaganda

Psychopathic N.Y. Post Propaganda Screed: The Pulitzers reward traitors and treason

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© Shutterstock
It's official: Treason is cool and traitors are acceptable sources for journalists. The Pulitzer Prize says so.

In giving the 2014 Public Service award to The Washington Post and The Guardian for publishing stories based on Edward Snowden's stolen documents, the Pulitzer judges gave their stamp of approval to news organizations that cooperate with criminals and compromise national security. No doubt the lesson will trickle down to scoop-hungry young journalists that they should cultivate people willing to betray America.

And why not? Those scribes whose sources steal the most important documents could win a Pulitzer and be the toast of anti-Americans around the world. No responsibility for catastrophe is required.

Other ambitious young people might conclude there is glory in being the next Snowden. If they're really successful, they might get to be part of a propaganda event with Vladimir Putin, as the fugitive Snowden was last week.

Megaphone

U.S. has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open internet sez U.S. ex-government official

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Brazil president Dilma Rousseff was a target of US surveillance
A meeting in Brazil this week will reveal whether Washington has succeeded in preventing international anger over the Edward Snowden revelations clouding discussions about future governance of the internet.

São Paulo is to host a two-day international meeting, starting on Wednesday, called by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, one of the international leaders who was a target of US surveillance.

International unrest over US and British internet surveillance has weakened Washington's ability to shape the debate about the internet's future, according to people involved in the process.

"The US has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open internet," said a former senior US government official.

The São Paulo meeting had the potential to become deeply political and expose rifts between countries over future control of the internet, said Greg Shatan, a partner at law firm Reed Smith in Washington. "It was called under extraordinary circumstances, it's a reaction to a perceived crisis," he said.