Puppet MastersS


Padlock

Iran 'indicts 15 spies for US and Israel'


The Telegraph
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:02 UTC
burning flags
© MARYAM HASANZADEH/AFP/Getty ImagesIran regularly accuses the United States of seeking to undermine its regime through covert operations...because it does.
Iran has indicted 15 people on charges of spying for the United States and Israel, Tehran's chief prosecutor said on Tuesday, according to the Fars news agency.

"An indictment has been issued by the prosecutor's office against these 15 people," Jafari Dolatabi was quoted as saying.

"These people were spying for the United States and Israel," he said.

Dolatabi did not identify the suspects nor give any details of when they were arrested and under what circumstances.

Iranian officials have several times in the past announced the arrest of suspected spies for the United States, but provided little information to substantiate the detentions or allegations.

In May, Iran's intelligence ministry announced the arrest of 30 CIA "spies" conducting espionage and sabotage.
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Arrow Down

Fed battling economic forces beyond its control

John W. Schoen
MSNBC Bottom Line
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:20 UTC
Image
© HorseyRemember: It's NOT worse than the 30's!
Four years and $1.8 trillion after the worst financial collapse since the 1930s, there appears to be little more the Federal Reserve can do to get the U.S. economy back on track. Rarely in the central bank's 99-year history has so much been so far beyond its control.

At their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday, Federal Reserve policymakers made no changes in interest rates and held fire on buying more bonds to pump cash into the financial system. Beyond that, they were expected to devote much time at the meeting to an extensive discussion about changing the way the committee communicates its decision-making with the public.

Fed policy makers have gotten a bit of breathing room lately from data showing a gradual pickup in the U.S. economy. But that growth remains threatened by the financial crisis in Europe, the ongoing budget gridlock in Washington and a housing market that shows no sign of emerging from a deep recession.

After spending close to $2 trillion to put out the financial fires that swept through the U.S. banking system in 2008, Fed officials have watched their European counterparts fail to move decisively as fearful investors flee euro zone countries teetering on the brink of default. Despite calls to backstop Greece, Italy and Spain, the European Central Bank has responded tepidly to the crisis, arguing that those countries need to work harder to balance bloated budgets.

Comment: "Four years and $1.8 trillion after the worst financial collapse since the 1930s.." Just an FYI, but the current depression didn't end 4 years ago, is still ongoing, AND likely to get far worse for many. Maybe the writer lives in another world where the current depression, war mongering, economic collapse, fear, hunger, resource stealing.. somehow ended?

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Vader

Grand Delusion: Resisting the Siren Song of Specialness

Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:32 UTC
gitmo
© Unknown
The U.S. presidential campaign is now in full swing. (In truth, it never actually ends; the savage grasping and grappling among damaged souls seeking their brief season of domination and death-dealing goes on daily without respite.) In the months to come, we will be subjected to an ever-growing, ever-roaring flood of rhetoric about the unique, unquestionable, divinely ordained goodness of America. (And how the "other side" would destroy or demean this precious moral specialness.)

This rhetoric will come both from the radical, society-shaking extremists laughingly called "conservatives" in our fun-house political system, and from the reactionary defenders of elite wealth and murderous militarism laughingly known as "progressives." (And, of course, from the well-fed, milky mannered, comfortably numb burghers known as "centrists.")

All Americans are marinated in this mindset from birth, and it is reinforced in them, every day, by the most powerful and pervasive media machinery in history, by enormous societal pressure, and by the dead heavy weight of tradition. Even the most hardened cynics might feel the stirrings of atavastic response to these siren songs woven into the fabric of the American psyche.

In such cases, I recommend a reading of the following two articles. They will help remind you of the reality being cloaked by the psyche-stirring, button-pushing bullshit of the grasping wretches seeking power.
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Cell Phone

FBI Turns Down Request for Info on Carrier IQ


The Washington Post
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:48 UTC
Image
© unknown
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has denied a request regarding Carrier IQ, a piece of software found on smartphones and designed to send information on handsets to carriers. The request, filed by reporter Michael Morisy of Muckrock News under the Freedom of Information Act, asked for "manuals, documents of other written guidance used to access or analyze data" gathered by any Carrier IQ program.

In denying the request, the FBI said it had information but could not disclose it because it is considered "law enforcement records." In other words, they're vital to some kind of ongoing investigation.

That seems to confirm fears about the program being used as spyware by the government. But before you put on your tinfoil hat, you should note - as Morisy does - that this could also mean that the FBI is investigating Carrier IQ. It's not clear from the bureau's language at this time, and Morisy has said he will file an appeal in an effort to obtain more information.
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Vader

Cheney: President should have gone in and destroyed drone


CNN
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:37 UTC
Cheney
© unknown
President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States has asked Iran to return a U.S. drone aircraft that Iran claims it recently brought down in Iranian territory.

"We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said in a news conference, alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

A top Iranian military official previously vowed not to return the unmanned American stealth plane that it says it has.

"No nation welcomes other countries' spy drones in its territory, and no one sends back the spying equipment and its information back to the country of origin," said Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran's military, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday.

"It makes no difference where this drone originated and which group or country sent it to invade our airspace," Salami said. "This was an act of invasion and belligerence."
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Star of David

Iran must chose between a bomb or survival: Israel


Breitbart
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:30 UTC
Image
© Agence France-PresseStrategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon, pictured in November 2011. The senior Israeli cabinet minister on Monday said Iran must be forced to face an existential question over its nuclear drive: choose between getting an atomic bomb, or survival.
A senior Israeli cabinet minister on Monday said Iran must be forced to face an existential question over its nuclear drive: choose between getting an atomic bomb, or survival.

"We believe that in order to stop the Iranian military nuclear project, the regime in Tehran should face a dilemma -- whether to have a bomb or to survive," Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters in Jerusalem.

Yaalon said however it was for the international community, rather than Israel, to apply what he called an "achievable" policy.

"We prefer that the international community led by the United States will bring about this dilemma in order to convince the regime to give up its military nuclear programme," he said, stressing the need for political isolation and economic sanctions aimed at the banking and oil sectors.

Israel and much of the international community fear that Iran's nuclear programme masks a drive for a weapons capability.
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MIB

Lebanon: Hezbollah Identifies Undercover CIA Officers

Adam Goldman
The Associated Press
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
Hassan Nasrallah
© unknownHassan Nasrallah
The militant group Hezbollah has revealed the identities of CIA officers working undercover in Lebanon, a blow to agency operations in the region and the latest salvo in an escalating spy war.

Hezbollah made the names public in a broadcast Friday night on a Lebanese television station, al-Manar. Using animated videos, the station recreated meetings purported to take place between CIA officers and paid informants at Starbucks and Pizza Hut.

The disclosure comes after Hezbollah managed to partially unravel the agency's spy network in Lebanon after running a double agent against the CIA, former and current U.S. intelligence officials said. They requested anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

In June, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah bragged that his group had identified at least two spies working for the CIA. It is not clear whether one of those spies was, in fact, the same double agent working for Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. Nasrallah has called the U.S. Embassy in Beirut a "den of spies."
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Rocket

The U.S. Just Crashed Another Unmanned Drone - This Time In Seychelles

Robert Johnson
Business Insider
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:42 UTC
Image
© Wikimedia CommonsMQ-9 drone
For the second time in as many weeks, the U.S. Air Force lost a unmanned aerial vehicle, blaming mechanical problems once again.

AlertNet reports the MQ-9 drone crashed at Seychelles International Airport on Tuesday and the U.S. Embassy in Mauritius confirmed the news, saying: "A U.S. Air Force remote-piloted MQ-9 crashed at the Seychelles International Airport in Mahe. The MQ-9 was not armed and no injuries were reported."

The MQ-9, generally referred to as the Reaper, is capable of autonomous or controlled flight operations during its "hunter-killer" missions. The large drone flies at high-altitude for extended periods and can be laden with 1,000 pounds of ordnance and stay aloft for more than 14 hours.

Comment: There were also reports back in October of a mysterious virus that had infected America's drone fleet.

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Airplane

Unmanned Drones Are Already Being Used in the U.S.

Ross A. Lincoln
TomsGuide.com
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:21 UTC
It's unsurprising, but troubling nonetheless.
Image
© U.S. Air Force

At the end of November, news broke that the FAA was considering troubling changes to current regulations that, if enacted, will permit the use of unmanned drones for nonmilitary purposes. Alas, it appears that the proposed regulatory changes are merely a means of formalizing what is already an ongoing practice. A story in the Sunday, December 11 edition of the Los Angeles Times confirms that Law Enforcement officials are already using drones with support from the U.S. Customs.

The case in question, one of the strangest juxtapositions of modern technology and rustic, ahem, simplicity in recent memory, involves a dispute over the ownership of cattle - yes, moo cows - in Nelson County, North Dakota. Earlier this year, 6 cows from a neighboring property wandered onto the Brossart family farm. The Brossarts refused to return them to their original owners, and local Sheriffs were called in to resolve the mess. On June 23, Sheriff Kelly Janke attempted to serve the Brossarts with a warrant to search the property, only to be chased off at gunpoint. (The Brossarts, according to local Sheriffs, belong to the Sovereign Citizen movement, an extremist right wing movement that rejects the authority of the federal government and the US Constitution.)
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Handcuffs

Best of the Web: US: Suspend Habeas Corpus and Enact Martial Law?

Chris Powell
Connecticut Journal Inquirer
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:02 UTC
police in riot gear
© n/a
Americans seem ready to forfeit their most basic civil liberty -- actually, all their civil liberties -- without a whimper.

By a vote of 93-7 the Senate this month approved a military appropriations bill empowering the government to designate any U.S. citizen within the country as a terrorist and to have the military hold him indefinitely without trial and without the right to habeas corpus, the right to be brought before a court for a judgment on the legality of one's imprisonment.

In effect the legislation is a declaration of martial law throughout the country.

The bill still has to be reconciled by a conference committee with a different version passed by the House of Representatives. But even Connecticut U.S. Rep. Joseph D. Courtney, a liberal Democrat and a member of the committee, plans to support the martial law provision and expects it to be enacted. Courtney, who used to be a lawyer, cites as consolation the money contained in the bill for Connecticut military contractors, tens of millions of dollars for jet fighter engines manufactured by the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies Corp. in East Hartford and for nuclear submarines made by the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics in Groton.
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