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Treasure Chest

Deep Pockets - Former Bank of Israel Head Gets Fed Vice Chair Nod

President Barack Obama intends to nominate Stanley Fischer, a former head of the Bank of Israel, to be vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet Yellen, who is ascending to the central bank's chairmanship.

Fischer, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, is considered a leading expert on monetary policy. He was a long-time professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Departing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was one of his students.

Obama also is nominating Lael Brainard as a Fed governor. Brainard served as the undersecretary for international affairs at Treasury during Obama's first term. She left the administration recently. He also is renominating Jerome Powell to the Fed for a second term.

"These three distinguished individuals have the proven experience, judgment and deep knowledge of the financial system to serve at the Federal Reserve during this important time for our economy," Obama said in a statement.

In selecting Fischer, Obama is tapping someone with extensive experience in global economics to serve on the Fed's seven-member board. Fischer served as chief economist at the World Bank and deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. He led the Bank of Israel from 2005 until 2013.

Document

'Burglars' revealed: Sixties activists who stole FBI COINTELPRO files

john and bonnie rainnes
© Mark Makela / New York TimesJohn and Bonnie Raines, two of the burglars, at home in Philadelphia with their grandchildren.
'On March 8, 1971, a group of eight Vietnam War protestors broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Media, Pennsylvania and stole hundreds of government documents that shocked a nation.' - Jon Queally, staff writer

In an exclusive with the New York Times on Tuesday, published to coincide with a new book about a fateful plan more than four decades ago that helped bring down J. Edgar Hoover and expose the dark nature of the FBI's obsessive targeting of the dissident and anti-war left, the original burglars who broke into a bureau field office in 1971 have now stepped forward to discuss the meticously planned theft that altered the course of modern history.

Comment: This practice of spying on and squashing dissent through infiltration of opposition has of course not stopped, but only expanded and refined. These methods of social control are bound to be applied in any pivotal organization, institution and social movement. Laura Knight-Jadzyck writes in 'Secret History of the World':
Usually, when we think of COINTELPRO, we think of the most well known and typical activities which include sending anonymous or fictitious letters designed to start rumors, among other things, publishing false defamatory or threatening information, forging signatures on fake documents, introducing disruptive and subversive members into organizations to destroy them from within, and so on. Blackmailing insiders in any group to force them to spread false rumors, or to foment factionalism was also common.

What a lot of people don't keep in mind is the fact that COINTELPRO also concentrated on creating bogus organizations. These bogus groups could serve many functions which might include attacking and/or disrupting bona fide groups, or even just simply creating a diversion with clever propaganda in order to attract members away so as to involve them with time-wasting activity designed to prevent them from doing anything useful. COINTELPRO was also famous for instigation of hostile actions through third parties. According to investigators, these FBI programs were noteworthy because all documents relating to them were stamped "do not file". This meant that they were never filed in the system, and for all intents and purposes, did not exist. This cover was blown after activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania in 1971. The possibility of finding evidence for any of it, after that event, is about zero.
See also:
COINTELPRO: Information Warfare
COINTELPRO, Provacateurs and Disinfo Agents: The U.S. Government's war on the American People
How COINTELPRO really works and destroys social movements: Open letter from former Tea Partier to Occupy Wall Street protesters


Eye 1

Inside TAO: Documents reveal top NSA hacking unit

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© Google Earth
The NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting

In January 2010, numerous homeowners in San Antonio, Texas, stood baffled in front of their closed garage doors. They wanted to drive to work or head off to do their grocery shopping, but their garage door openers had gone dead, leaving them stranded. No matter how many times they pressed the buttons, the doors didn't budge. The problem primarily affected residents in the western part of the city, around Military Drive and the interstate highway known as Loop 410.

In the United States, a country of cars and commuters, the mysterious garage door problem quickly became an issue for local politicians. Ultimately, the municipal government solved the riddle. Fault for the error lay with the United States' foreign intelligence service, the National Security Agency, which has offices in San Antonio. Officials at the agency were forced to admit that one of the NSA's radio antennas was broadcasting at the same frequency as the garage door openers. Embarrassed officials at the intelligence agency promised to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and soon the doors began opening again.

It was thanks to the garage door opener episode that Texans learned just how far the NSA's work had encroached upon their daily lives. For quite some time now, the intelligence agency has maintained a branch with around 2,000 employees at Lackland Air Force Base, also in San Antonio. In 2005, the agency took over a former Sony computer chip plant in the western part of the city. A brisk pace of construction commenced inside this enormous compound. The acquisition of the former chip factory at Sony Place was part of a massive expansion the agency began after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bad Guys

EPA will let frackers keep on dumping chemicals into the sea

California coast
© Chuck RogersFracking chemicals are out there.

Companies that frack the seafloor off the coast of Southern California have some new federal rules to worry about. Unfortunately, the new rules will still allow their fracking fluids to be unleashed into the sea - including chemicals that are known to stunt human development and hurt wildlife. The companies will just have to tell the government what they're unleashing.

Under new rules that will take effect March 1, the companies must report the "chemical formulation, concentrations and discharge volumes" to the EPA of any "chemicals used to formulate well treatment, completion and workover fluids" that end up in the ocean.

So, hey, at least we'll know more about fracking pollution. (Assuming, that is, that the frackers are honest.)

Whistle

Democracy needs whistleblowers. That's why I broke into the FBI in 1971

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© Bettmann/CORBISJ Edgar Hoover helped Richard Nixon gain power in the US.
Like Snowden, we broke laws to reveal something that was more dangerous. We wanted to hold J Edgar Hoover accountable

I vividly remember the eureka moment. It was the night we broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, in March 1971 and removed about 1,000 documents from the filing cabinets. We had a hunch that there would be incriminating material there, as the FBI under J Edgar Hoover was so bureaucratic that we thought every single thing that went on under him would be recorded. But we could not be sure, and until we found it, we were on tenterhooks.

A shout went up among the group of eight of us. One of us had stumbled on a document from FBI headquarters signed by Hoover himself. It instructed the bureau's agents to set up interviews of anti-war activists as "it will enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles and will further serve to get the point across there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."

That was the first piece of evidence to emerge. It was a vindication.

Looking back on what we did, there are obvious parallels with what Edward Snowden has done in releasing National Security Agency documents that show the NSA's blanket surveillance of Americans. I think Snowden's a legitimate whistleblower, and I guess we could be called whistleblowers as well.

USA

American Jihad 2014: On the new National Security State Fundamentalists

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© Commondreams
Put it all together and what you have is a description of a militant organization whose purpose is to carry out a Washington version of global jihad, a perpetual war in the name of the true faith

In a 1950s civics textbook of mine, I can remember a Martian landing on Main Street, U.S.A., to be instructed in the glories of our political system. You know, our tripartite government, checks and balances, miraculous set of rights, and vibrant democracy. There was, Americans then thought, much to be proud of, and so for that generation of children, many Martians were instructed in the American way of life. These days, I suspect, not so many.

Still, I wondered just what lessons might be offered to such a Martian crash-landing in Washington as 2014 begins. Certainly checks, balances, rights, and democracy wouldn't top any New Year's list. Since my childhood, in fact, that tripartite government has grown a fourth part, a national security state that is remarkably unchecked and unbalanced. In recent times, that labyrinthine structure of intelligence agencies morphing into war-fighting outfits, the U.S. military (with its own secret military, the special operations forces, gestating inside it), and the Department of Homeland Security, a monster conglomeration of agencies that is an actual "defense department," as well as a vast contingent of weapons makers, contractors, and profiteers bolstered by an army of lobbyists, has never stopped growing. It has won the undying fealty of Congress, embraced the power of the presidency, made itself into a jobs program for the American people, and been largely free to do as it pleased with almost unlimited taxpayer dollars.

The expansion of Washington's national security state -- let's call it the NSS -- to gargantuan proportions has historically met little opposition. In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, however, some resistance has arisen, especially when it comes to the "right" of one part of the NSS to turn the world into a listening post and gather, in particular, American communications of every sort. The debate about this -- invariably framed within the boundaries of whether or not we should have more security or more privacy and how exactly to balance the two -- has been reasonably vigorous. The problem is: it doesn't begin to get at the real nature of the NSS or the problems it poses.

If I were to instruct that stray Martian lost in the nation's capital, I might choose another framework entirely for my lesson. After all, the focus of the NSS, which has like an incubus grown to monumental proportions inside the body of the political system, would seem distinctly monomaniacal, if only we could step outside our normal way of thinking for a moment. At a cost of nearly a trillion dollars a year, its main global enemy consists of thousands of lightly armed jihadis and wannabe jihadis scattered mainly across the backlands of the planet. They are capable of causing genuine damage -- though far less to the United States than numerous other countries -- but not of shaking our way of life. And yet for the leaders, bureaucrats, corporate cronies, rank and file, and acolytes of the NSS, it's a focus that can never be intense enough on behalf of a system that can never grow large enough or be well funded enough.

Laptop

Online privacy demands global action, just as with apartheid - UN human rights chief

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© AFP PhotoUN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay has associated the global response to government mass surveillance with the collective uproar that eventually helped cripple South Africa's apartheid regime.

Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights and a South Africa native, said in an interview aired on Thursday that just as international pressure helped end apartheid in her home country, so must widespread condemnation of intrusive spying help boost online privacy rights. Pillay was the first non-white woman to serve as a High Court judge in South Africa.

"Combined and collective action by everybody can end serious violations of human rights," she said in an interview with BBC Radio 4. "That experience inspires me to go on and address the issue of internet [privacy], which right now is extremely troubling because the revelations of surveillance have implications for human rights...People are really afraid that all their personal details are being used in violation of traditional national protections."

Pillay is tasked with preparing a report for the UN on digital privacy protections following the cascade of revelations supplied by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden regarding the American spy agency's global surveillance apparatus.

Magnify

'Getting the ungettable': Leaks reveal NSA's top hacking unit

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© Reuters / NSA
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden have uncovered a secret NSA hacking unit which delivered the US some of its most significant intelligence information in recent years. The unit has been tapping into computers and networks since the dawn of the internet.

Der Spiegel described the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO) as "something like a squad of plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked."

According to the secret documents obtained by the German news magazine, TAO specialists are involved in the most sensitive operations of US intelligence - including counterterrorism, cyber-attacks, and traditional espionage.

The unit, which was created at the dawn of the internet, was developed with the mission of "getting the ungettable."

"It's not about the quantity produced, but the quality of intelligence that is important," a former TAO boss wrote, describing her work in a document. She added that her hacked had contributed to "some of the most significant intelligence our country [the US] has ever seen."

She stated that TAO "needs to continue to grow and must lay the foundation for integrated Computer Network Operations" and that it must also "support Computer Network Attacks as an integrated part of military operations."

Gear

Winter Psycho Games: Mystery bodies, explosives discovered near Winter Olympics site

Russian security forces launched an aggressive "anti-terrorism sweep" today after coming across multiple unexplained deaths and explosive devices in a region near Sochi, where the Winter Olympic Games will be held in a matter of weeks, according to Russian news reports.

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A car with a body inside exploded as police approached it in Russia's Stavropol Territory, reported Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti, citing the Interior Ministry. In the same area, Russian authorities reportedly discovered a car containing the bodies of three men along with explosive material. The day before, two more bodies were found in cars the same region.

All of the victims appear to have been shot, according to a Russian security official and international news reports. Two were taxi drivers and another reportedly worked assembling furniture.

Comment: On the eve of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, it looks like Saudi Prince Bandar 'Bush' wasn't bluffing when he told Putin he would 'unleash Chechen terrorists' if Russia maintained its support of President Bashar al-Assad against the Saudi-funded foreign terrorists in Syria.

Saudi snake, Prince Bandar, tried first to bribe Russia to drop its support of Syria, then threatened to unleash Chechen terrorists at 2014 Winter Olympics

Syrian rebels and local residents testify that Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, supplied chemical weapons to 'al-Qaeda-linked group'
"Bandar told Putin, "There are many common values ​​and goals that bring us together, most notably the fight against terrorism and extremism all over the world. Russia, the US, the EU and the Saudis agree on promoting and consolidating international peace and security. The terrorist threat is growing in light of the phenomena spawned by the Arab Spring. We have lost some regimes. And what we got in return were terrorist experiences, as evidenced by the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the extremist groups in Libya. ... As an example, I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us"



Cut

Massive austerity budget cuts risk England's ability to deal with floods

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© Steve Parson/PAEnvironment Agency workers lay sandbags onto river defence barriers next to the River Thames on Osney Island in Oxford. The EA is facing cuts to its budget and has to reduce staff.
Report warns of impact of budget cuts on coping with extreme weather emergencies

"Massive" and ongoing cuts to the budget of the department of environment, food and rural affairs mean its ability to respond to emergencies such as flooding is in danger, according to a report by MPs published on Tuesday.

"Recent flooding events reinforce our concerns about cuts to the Defra budget. It is a small ministry facing massive cuts," said Anne McIntosh, Conservative MP and chairman of the Efra select committee. "Ministers must clarify how further budgets will impact on ... the ability of the department to respond to emergencies."

She added: "It is remarkable that the current flood defences have held against the force of the substantial and sustained recent battering."

Heavy rain and huge waves caused further flooding and damage on Monday, following rainfall last month that made it the sixth wettest December since 1910. Environment secretary Owen Paterson, who chaired the eighth meeting of the government's Cobra crisis response committee on Monday, said extreme weather since the start of December had caused seven fatalities and flooded over 1700 properties in England. Over 1m properties have been protected by flood defences, Paterson said, but criticism of cuts in flood defence spending is intensifying as the flood waters rise.

Year-on-year spending fell by over a quarter when the coalition took power in 2010 and, despite partial U-turns since then, real-terms spending will be significantly lower at £546m in 2015-16 than the £646m spent in 2010-11. In July 2012, the Guardian revealed that almost 300 shovel-ready flood defence projects which had been in line for funding had not been built due to budget cuts.

Comment: And more cuts are in the works:

"In an interview on Radio 4's Today programme, Osborne said he would seek to achieve some of the £12bn savings by targeting housing benefit for under-25s and by means-testing people on incomes of £60,000 to £70,000 who live in social housing. But one Whitehall source said that targeting those two areas would produce "laughable" savings. Department of Communities and Local Government figures show that the 11,000 to 21,000 council tenants, who earn more than £60,000 a year, each cost the taxpayer £3,600 a year. Targeting this group would produce savings of £40m-£76m a year.

Department of Work and Pensions figures show that 351,678 people under the age of 25 claim housing benefit at a cost of £1.8bn. Of these 55.6% of these are parents, which means the cuts would not apply to them. Osborne's plan would therefore produce savings of £827.4m in this area. But Whitehall sources suggested this figure could be reduced to as low as £50m once other groups among the under-25s, such as victims of domestic violence, are excluded from housing benefit cuts. "It is laughable that you can get anywhere near £12bn in cuts this way," one source said."

UK Cabinet split over George Osborne's plan for £12bn more welfare cuts