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Bizarro Earth

British media admits it: Due process in Skripal case 'does not apply' to Russia

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Tue, 20 Mar 2018 16:40 UTC
Statue of Justice
Commentaries in Guardian and Financial Times say that Russia can be declared guilty without being given chance to defend itself

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the British authorities and for the British media to deny that 'due process' - ie. the well-established system of rules for conducting fair and impartial trials and investigations in order to determine questions of guilt or innocence - are not being followed by the British authorities in the Skripal case.

Here are some of the violations of due process the British authorities which in my opinion the British authorities are committing:
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Arrow Up

Iraq ready to cooperate with Turkey on securing common borders


Sputnik
Tue, 20 Mar 2018 20:24 UTC
army iraq
© AFP 2018/ MUSTAFA OZER
The Iraqi government has expressed its readiness to cooperate with Turkey on ensuring security of the countries' shared borders, the Iraqi Justice Ministry said Tuesday in a press release received by Sputnik.

"The Iraqi government has expressed its intention to cooperate with Turkey on all issues related to the security along common borders," the minister stated.

According to Zamily, Iraq is strengthening good-neighborly relations with countries in the region, particularly with its Turkish neighbor.

Comment: See Also:

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Boat

The secret yacht summit that realigned the Middle East

David Hearst
Middle East Eye
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 13:42 UTC
Riyadh summit Trump
© AFPLast year in Riyadh, US President Donald Trump with many of the same Arab leaders who were on the yacht.
George Nader, the Lebanese-American businessman and convicted paedophile, who is co-operating with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump's campaign funding, organised a secret summit of Arab leaders on a yacht in the Red Sea in late 2015, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Nader proposed to the leaders gathered on the yacht that they should set up an elite regional group of six countries, which would supplant both the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the moribund Arab League.

Nader said this group of states could become a force in the region "that the US government could depend on" to counter the influence of Turkey and Iran, according to two sources briefed on the meeting.
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V

Assange will give evidence to UK Parliament on Cambridge Analytica scandal


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 16:31 UTC
assange
© Rodrigo Garrido / Reuters
WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange may soon give evidence to a Parliamentary Committee about Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company which accessed data of some 50mn Facebook users, triggering an international scandal.

"I have accepted a request by the select committee of the UK parliament @CommonsCMS to give evidence, via video link, about Cambridge Analytica, and other matters, later this month,"Assange, currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, said on Twitter.

Just over half an hour later, the British Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee confirmed that Assange "has offered to appear" before the House of Commons body, explaining that "no formal invitation" has yet been issued to the whistleblower.

WikiLeaks rushed to clarify the matter, stating that the Australian was "approached" on a number of occasions to offer his expert opinion to British MPs. During the last attempt, on Monday, the investigative committee allegedly proposed holding the session with Assange on March 28 via video link, "to which Mr. Assange agreed."
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Eye 1

Snowden docs reveal NSA targeted Bitcoin users around the world


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 16:12 UTC
bitcoin
© Borut Zivulovic / Reuters
The US National Security Agency targeted Bitcoin users around the world, according to classified documents released by Edward Snowden. The revelations strike a blow to the financial privacy of bitcoin users, academics warn.

The National Security Agency (NSA) managed to find ways to 'track down senders and receivers' of Bitcoins, according to an internal NSA report dated March 2013. The findings come from classified NSA documents, exposed by ex-CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden and first published by The Intercept.

Crucially, the tracking may also have involved amassing information from bitcoin users' computers. One NSA memo suggests that the NSA collected some Bitcoin users' password information, internet activity and MAC address, which is a type of unique device identification number.

Bitcoin is a digital currency which uses encryption to regulate its units of currency. From the outset, cryptocurrencies were designed to circumvent the control of banks and provide discretion for financial transactions. But they could not easily evade the attention of national governments, who take a keen interest in controlling flows of money.
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Sheriff

Former FBI agent Fred Humphries calls McCabe firing 'fitting': 'Important for top officials to be held accountable'

Howard Altman
Tampa Bay Times
Sat, 17 Mar 2018 15:51 UTC
Andrew McCabe
© Aaron Bernstein / ReutersAndrew McCabe
Fred Humphries woke up Saturday morning and for the first time ever raised a blue and white Federal Bureau of Investigation flag on the pole in his front yard.

"I was encouraged and hopeful," said Humphries, 53, in an exclusive interview with the Tampa Bay Times, reacting to the news that former FBI director Andrew McCabe had been fired.

A day earlier, both men left the FBI after 21-year careers.

Humphries retired, a short while after serving a 60-day unpaid suspension for previously speaking to the Times without permission.

McCabe, fired after the Justice Department rejected an appeal that would have let him retire this weekend, is accused in a yet-to-be-released internal report of failing to be forthcoming about a conversation he authorized between FBI officials and a journalist.
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Bullseye

Toxic nothing-burger: Cambridge Analytica "scandal" is a political attack posing as journalism

Igor Ogorodnev
RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:58 UTC
cambridge analytica
Seeing Donald Trump's media and political critics, who for years feted "big data," suddenly pretend it's a crime, is hard to stomach. And the feigned outrage is being used as a weapon of establishment control over social media.

Before being repackaged by two leading liberal-leaning outlets to produce a media firestorm that has wiped tens of billions off Facebook's valuation and could usher in a new wave of investigations and regulation, the actual facts of Cambridge Analytica's data collection had been known since 2015. What has changed is the language: what the Guardian called "psychological profiling" and "behavioral microtargeting" before Donald Trump was elected, in the latest reports from the same newspaper becomes "psyops," the sinister-sounding "harvesting," the alarming "data breach," and most gloriously "Steve Bannon's psychological warfare mindf**k tool."

Behind the grand claims, the germ of the story remains - by tech standards - almost disappointingly quotidian. In 2014, the upstart data analysis company Cambridge Analytica developed a psychological quiz app that over 270,000 users of the world's biggest social network downloaded and completed. As well as passing their own data to the UK-headquartered firm, the test-takers agreed to share limited information about their friends - age, location and likes - as in line with Facebook's policy at the time, producing the much-cited but unverified figure of 50 million users that were profiled.
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Eye 1

Israel needs to kick out 450 elderly people to make room for Jerusalem's new US embassy


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:02 UTC
US embassy in Tel Aviv
© Ack Guez / AFPUS embassy in Tel Aviv
Israeli authorities would need to relocate some 450 USSR immigrants, many of whom are in their 80s, from a plot of land to facilitate the construction of a new US embassy. And there is no solution in sight.

The plot in Jerusalem's predominantly Jewish Arnona neighborhood is owned by the United States and currently accommodates an American consulate, which will soon be promoted to embassy status. This is scheduled to happen on May 14, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence, although red tape may force a postponement, according to local media.

While the consular compound, which opened in 2010, is among the most secure American diplomatic facilities in Israel, it's far too small to serve as the full-fledged fortified embassy that the US wants it to be. Construction work required to change this would involve the relocation of 450 residents of the decades-old Diplomat Hotel, which was purchased by the US in 2014 and leased out to house elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

According to the Israeli parliament's website, authorities have no plans on how to do this, with a heated debate taking place about the fate of those residents at a recent Immigration Committee meeting. "We cannot leave them in suspense, worry and fear of what their future will be and where they will be transferred," said Committee Chairman Avraham Neguise.

Comment: See also:

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Red Flag

EU court finds men subjected to CIA-style '5 techniques' by British Army were not tortured


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:48 UTC
European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
© Vincent Kessler / ReutersEuropean Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
A European court has rejected a request to find that a group of 14 men detained during internment in Northern Ireland suffered torture. The prisoners were subjected to white noise, sleep and food deprivation as well as beatings.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected the Irish government petition to revise a 1978 judgement against the UK and find that the prisoners, known as the 'hooded men' were subjected to torture.

The men were exposed to methods known as the "five techniques" - hooding, white noise, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and food deprivation. The practice was applied over an unknown period of four to seven days for an unspecified number of hours at a time. Similar interrogation techniques have since been deployed by the CIA and outlined in a 2014 Senate Torture report.
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Red Flag

Sweden will criminalize sex without first getting explicit consent


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:43 UTC
rapes
© Mark Makela / Reuters
Sex without first getting explicit consent is to be criminalized in Sweden. The new bill was sent to lawmakers Tuesday, despite some deeming the law unnecessary.

Sweden already has extensive sexual assault laws, but country's lawmakers want to further cement the need for consent in the hope that the new law will see more sexual assault cases being prosecuted. The government describes the bill as being "based on the obvious: sex must be voluntary."

"Sex should be voluntary. Everything else is abuse," Justice Minister Morgan Johansson tweeted.

"I think it's important to reach that clarity in legislation," Johansson later added, Omni reports. "I think the number of crimes solved will increase. Particularly through the combination of stronger and broader legislation together with increased support for victims."
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