The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.
The tools were created by GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), and constitute some of the most startling methods of propaganda and internet deception contained within the Snowden archive. Previously disclosed documents have detailed JTRIG’s use of “fake victim blog posts,” “false flag operations,” “honey traps” and psychological manipulation to target online activists, monitor visitors to WikiLeaks, and spy on YouTube and Facebook users.
But as the U.K. Parliament today debates a fast-tracked bill to provide the government with greater surveillance powers, one which Prime Minister David Cameron has justified as an “emergency” to “help keep us safe,” a newly released top-secret GCHQ document called “JTRIG Tools and Techniques” provides a comprehensive, birds-eye view of just how underhanded and invasive this unit’s operations are. The document—available in full here—is designed to notify other GCHQ units of JTRIG’s “weaponised capability” when it comes to the dark internet arts, and serves as a sort of hacker’s buffet for wreaking online havoc.
The “tools” have been assigned boastful code names. They include invasive methods for online surveillance, as well as some of the very techniques that the U.S. and U.K. have harshly prosecuted young online activists for employing, including “distributed denial of service” attacks and “call bombing.” But they also describe previously unknown tactics for manipulating and distorting online political discourse and disseminating state propaganda, as well as the apparent ability to actively monitor Skype users in real-time—raising further questions about the extent of Microsoft’s cooperation with spy agencies or potential vulnerabilities in its Skype’s encryption. Here’s a list of how JTRIG describes its capabilities:
• “Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS)
• “Mass delivery of email messaging to support an Information Operations campaign” (BADGER) and “mass delivery of SMS messages to support an Information Operations campaign” (WARPARTH)
• “Disruption of video-based websites hosting extremist content through concerted target discovery and content removal.” (SILVERLORD)
• “Active skype capability. Provision of real time call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists.” (MINIATURE HERO)
• “Find private photographs of targets on Facebook” (SPRING BISHOP)
• “A tool that will permanently disable a target’s account on their computer” (ANGRY PIRATE)
• “Ability to artificially increase traffic to a website” (GATEWAY) and “ability to inflate page views on websites” (SLIPSTREAM)
• “Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)” (GESTATOR)
• “Targeted Denial Of Service against Web Servers” (PREDATORS FACE) and “Distributed denial of service using P2P. Built by ICTR, deployed by JTRIG” (ROLLING THUNDER)
• “A suite of tools for monitoring target use of the UK auction site eBay (www.ebay.co.uk)” (ELATE)
• “Ability to spoof any email address and send email under that identity” (CHANGELING)
• “For connecting two target phone together in a call” (IMPERIAL BARGE)
While some of the tactics are described as “in development,” JTRIG touts “most” of them as “fully operational, tested and reliable.” It adds: “We only advertise tools here that are either ready to fire or very close to being ready.”
And JTRIG urges its GCHQ colleagues to think big when it comes to internet deception: “Don’t treat this like a catalogue. If you don’t see it here, it doesn’t mean we can’t build it.”
The document appears in a massive Wikipedia-style archive used by GCHQ to internally discuss its surveillance and online deception activities. The page indicates that it was last modified in July 2012, and had been accessed almost 20,000 times.
GCHQ refused to provide any comment on the record beyond its standard boilerplate, in which it claims that it acts “in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework” and is subject to “rigorous oversight.” But both claims are questionable.
British watchdog Privacy International has filed pending legal action against GCHQ over the agency’s use of malware to spy on internet and mobile phone users. Several GCHQ memos published last fall by The Guardian revealed that the agency was eager to keep its activities secret not to protect national security, but because “our main concern is that references to agency practices (ie, the scale of interception and deletion) could lead to damaging public debate which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime.” And an EU parliamentary inquiry earlier this year concluded that GCHQ activities were likely illegal.
As for oversight, serious questions have been raised about whether top national security officials even know what GCHQ is doing. Chris Huhne, a former cabinet minister and member of the national security council until 2012, insisted that ministers were in “utter ignorance” about even the largest GCHQ spying program, known as Tempora—not to mention “their extraordinary capability to hoover up and store personal emails, voice contact, social networking activity and even internet searches.” In an October Guardian op-ed, Huhne wrote that “when it comes to the secret world of GCHQ and the [NSA], the depth of my ‘privileged information’ has been dwarfed by the information provided by Edward Snowden to The Guardian.”
A must watch for every citizen of the US, UK, and the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qxU1voSEDA.
Note how there was no main stream oligarchy gatekeeper media coverage of this.
Great piece.
US, UK and Five Eyes hacking online polls and waging 24/7 information manipulation and warfare online – to and include online false flag operations to discredit companies, individuals, or online activists – to shape perceptions to create outcomes seen desirable by the US, UK and Five Eyes.
That is a 24/7, 365 day a year “Ministry of Truth,” or global online thought police state, in other words.
Washingtonsblog did a fine follow-up on this story: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/spy-agencies-dirty-trick-powers-revealed-snowden.html.
Thanks to the Snowden cache, it is an established fact that the NSA sucks up just about everything outside the US and most things inside the US.
When it can’t do it in the US, the Snowden documents have proved beyond any reasonable doubt, that it outsources to GCHQ and JTRIG.
The use of online false flags has already taken place namely, the 2011 Syrian government hack and Stratfor hack – both coordinated by the FBI / US government controlled hacker Sabu, Hector Monsegur, who was following the orders of his US government agency handlers.
The Syria hack was to gain public support for US and Western military intervention in Syria – on behalf of what has since been proven to be Al Qaida, the strongest and most numerous part of the anti-Assad resistance.
In terms of the Stratfor hack, the almost certain main focus being the discrediting of General Petreus: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/06/25/classicwho-why-petraeus-takedown-may-have-been-an-inside-job/.
Considering that the company’s branding was a “Shadow CIA,” and they had contacts of interest both within the US government, military and agencies, as well as across the world, it goes without saying that either a) The NSA was targeting all of their communications with foreigners for years prior or b) The US government outsourced their monitoring to GCHQ and JTRIG to monitor all internal and external communications.
The FBI (and almost certainly multiple other US and UK agencies) was directing and coordinating with Sabu, and had him order the two hacking collectives, LulzSec and AntiSec, whom he had exercised complete control over, to carry out every single one of the hacks between June 7, 2011 through the first week of March 2012 . During which time Sabu’s apartment had audio and video surveillance, his phone and mobile phone were tapped, and every keystroke on his computer was monitored and archived. So for each LulzSec and AntiSec hack that took place after June 7, 2011, the US government agencies involved (and almost certainly its UK Five Eye ally agencies) was an accessory before the fact, to the fact, and after the fact to every single hack.
So, in controlling Sabu, the US government and likely its UK allies provided a target list of over 2,000 domains (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131118/01151825270/list-targets-fbi-supposedly-asked-jeremy-hammond-to-crack-revealed.shtml), and carried out an estimated 200 hacks under the watchful, real-time eyes of said governments and their participating agencies.
Of those hacks, two massive – and publicity gathering – information dumps were sent to Wikileaks, namely the Syria files (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fbi-informant-sabu-organises-cyber-attacks-government-websites-iran-syria-brazil-1445885) and the Stratfor files (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/06/how-an-fbi-informant-orchestrated-lulzsec-s-hacking-spree.html; http://rt.com/usa/163940-fbi-hack-stratfor-brazil/; which were stored on an FBI server for three weeks before they were strategically released to Wikileaks).
This almost certainly meant – considering Sabu was an FBI handler of, as opposed to a simple mole inside of LulzSec and AntiSec – that Sabu and the two organizations he handled were sending corrupted files and or exploits to Wikileaks in their file-sharing.
As The Intercept reported, Wikileaks was and is under constant Five Eyes electronic surveillance (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/).
Considering Sabu was directing the online media campaign regarding the Syria files and Stratfor (which was almost certainly under FBI and various US and UK intelligence agency direction, in direct violation of the Smith Mundt Act, which restricted US government agencies engaging in domestic propaganda before its 2012 “reform”), himself posting, or ordering LulzSec and AntiSec members to post what the FBI and other US / UK intelligence agencies told him to (see slides 4 and 13 in the GCHQ slide show on online false flags: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/), to shape perceptions.
So it is almost certain that the LulzSec/AntiSec online media campaign before, during and after the hacks were also a FBI and US / UK agency agitprop campaign to drive visitors to Wikileaks for the Syria and Stratfor files – for monitoring purposes. Monitor Wikileaks, monitor how they went about getting ready, how they organized, how they analyzed, how they got financing, what they were looking for, what visitors were looking for, the most used key search words, etc.
The Stratfor online false flag and FBI, and other US / UK intelligence agency strategic information dump to Wikileaks had many other aspects other than bringing down Petreus – it entrapped ((http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-and-breaches/stratfor-hacker-fbi-entrapment-shaped-my-case/d/d-id/1111797; http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/06/05/new-evidence-shows-fbi-setup-jeremy-hammond-to-break-law/) the online activist Jeremy Hammond whose hacks under Sabu (read: FBI, see here: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/hammond-sabu-fbi-stratfor-hack/, here: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/03/anonymous-hackedwikileaks-released.html, here: http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/03/08/federal-bureau-of-facilitation-what-was-the-fbi-doing-with-stratfor-and-wikileaks/, and here: http://nigelparry.com/news/sacrificing-stratfor.shtml) were ordered by Sabu, meaning ordered by the US government agencies involved.
The hack, in addition to discrediting Petreus, and entrapping Hammond – whose FBI directed, monitored, and in the case of Stratfor, materially assisted hack made him the “most dangerous hacker in the world” in the first place – created a divide in Anonymous (http://readwrite.com/2011/12/26/malicious_hackers_play_robin_hood_anonymous_disavo), and it netted at least two UK anonymous members (http://news.sky.com/story/1457/lulzsecs-top-hacker-is-fbi-double-agent) – further supporting the role of UK intelligence agencies as well as multiple US intelligence agencies – and it provided the almost certain multiple US and UK intelligence agencies information from the 200 domains of interest to them hacked by LulzSec and AntiSec.
Finally, he hack also netted the satirical journalist and privacy advocate Barrett Brown for pasting a link that the FBI monitored and materially assisted (they provided the server that the emails sat on for nearly three weeks before they watched them get transferred to Wikileaks) hack made available, which it would not have been were it not for the FBI and likely multiple other US and UK intelligence agencies’ directed, monitored and materially assisted hack of Stratfor in the first place. Also the government charged him for thought crimes after making empty threats on youtube that no person on earth could take seriously, against the agents who threatened him and his mother on youtube (which led to his indefinite detention with no trial for over two years as well as a gag order).
The entire Stratfor hack is literally timelined and explained, play by play, in the Feb. 24, 2014 Intercept article (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/).
The bigger the lie, or in terms of the Operation Mockingbird mainstream media (http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php) coverage, the Haversack Ruse (see slide 13 in the Feb. 24, 2014 Intercept article), the more likely people will believe it.
There is a reason why almost all of the evidence against Hammond and Brown was either redacted or entirely suppressed under the guise of “National Security” – it is self-incriminating evidence for the government, who initiated, coordinated and materially assisted a ten month false flag cyber hacking spree to discredit and destroy reputations (Petreus), to entrap unwanted activists (Hammond, Brown), to create disunity among a burgeoning online social movement (Anonymous) that questioned many paradigms, and of course to justify the further monitoring of Wikileaks (as well as the almost certain tainting of their servers and systems with the government-provided Syria and Stratfor files), all while using a third party they, the government, exercised complete control over and whose activities were monitored real-time by the government, for plausible deniability.
Government initiated, plotted and materially assisted online false flag operations and cyber crimes subsidized by your tax dollars, to silence dissidents, to discredit people, to change and create new perceptions, while justifying Orwellian monitoring and passing legislation to crack down on internet freedom.
Keeping you “safe” from the religious and computer “terrorists” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QynchCojTzM).
1984
“Hacking Online Polls”… Anyone find it strange obama’s got the same xdna as their queen? and only has two daughters.. Then hilary clinton is basically a little queen elizebeth replica…. with chelsey.
So all of our hand picked presidents, and minority or women politicians are really all just same thing.
Are we picking our presidents or is britian? all the 5 eyes countries they’re all british.
My American company would have benefited this country and the world allot more than a british 5-eyes police state.
What was the purpose of the American War of Independence?
because we now have an entity controlling the top levels of our government that isn’t American anymore, it is serving the purpose specifically of the entire british population only.
Since when does OUR government lie to our faces about every single thing they do behind our backs?
I don’t think britian learned its lesson from the first American War of Independence. They’re making a mess over here and stealing all our rights and property.
Maybe they should know how it feels to have all their rights and property stolen for once.
surveillance is for pussies.
Multiculture comes with a price tag, which is the increased need of surveillance. That, we just have to accept. There is no such thing as “we are the world”, people hate eachother and they always will. So if you want everyone to come stay in your country, you will have to accept surveillance,
That makes no sense – two different issues.
Governments use surveillance to control not protect it’s citizens. Did you fail history class or something?
Sooooo… has anybody seen “Captain America: Winter Soldier” yet? Cool movie, huh?
BBC news article “UN warns on surveillance dangers” :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28367982
At Der Spiegel: “Hunting American Spooks: Germany Prepares Further Spying Clampdown”. Needless to say, they have had it.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/expulsion-of-cia-head-a-sign-of-tougher-german-response-to-spying-a-980912.html
Over to you, TI. Given the events of July 17, this is a good time for the US to make amends to the Germans, fast.
With all the conspiracy theory and pre-conspiracy theory flippantly bandied about on this blog–the TMZ of massive secretive and illegal government combinations–I’m shocked that the sharpest of those theorists haven’t circled around and started to devour the most obvious one: Greenwald and Snowden have worked with the NSA to shape the message. This theory fits the facts better than all of the other conspiracy theories. Greenwald has had a year to sift through potentially millions of Top Secret files, and he had the services of a mole, who had worked for the CIA for years, who had worked for two NSA contractors, who was trained to be a “real spy” (and real spies know how to break in and steal things), who had Admin privileges on NSA computers and who had spent months stealing all of the classified material he could find, and yet those two have managed to provide proof of exactly zero tiny intentional violations of the Constitution by the Government.
I mean, if you believe that the United States is “worse than the Stasi,” a “Security State” or a “Big Brother” which sees and hears everything and violates the United States Constitution on a minute-by-minute basis, how else do you explain it?
If Greenwald were reporting on Greenwald, he would have implied a connection between Greenwald and the NSA by now. And, Greenwald would have chastised Greenwald for not dumping all of the documents on the public. Greenwald would have hinted that Greenwald was “gotten to” and was not being transparent. “What does the NSA have on Greenwald?,” is what Greenwald would be obliquely asking.
And the big “Fourth of July Fireworks” that Greenwald promised as a finale? What a perfect way to dramatize the fact that the NSA under President Obama was carefully balancing national security with privacy rights. Hell, Greenwald even used screengrabs to imply that the surveillance of those Muslim-Americans ended in “2008.” In the end, Greenwald and Snowden have proved two very important things: First, they have established beyond a reasonable doubt the profundity of having our effective whistleblowing scheme in place so that naive 29-year-olds, who are ignorant of the most important law (Smith v. Maryland) and fact (Congress knew all about the NSA programs and voted to re-authorize them multiple times) related to his supposed whistleblowing, have no reason to become information vigilantes and make grave policy decisions on behalf of the entire country.
Second, when nobody was supposed to be watching them, the Obama Administration’s intelligence community has been very protective of privacy rights. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, used warrantless wiretaps of Americans, had no court order for its telephone metadata collection program, and was much less effective in stopping terrorism, which just goes to show how important it is to have Democrats in federal offices.
(Of course, I don’t believe the conspiracy theory aspects above, as that would make me a conspiracy theorist like much of the commentariat on this blog. The evidence, however, does show that even with all of the advantages afforded to Greenwald and Snowden, they couldn’t prove one intentional constitutional violation, and that President Obama has been buzz-fucking-light years ahead of President Bush in protecting the privacy of American citizens.)
Damn, NSA trolls everywhere lol.
Yep. Goose stepping back to the Swasi Headquarters right now as we speak no doubt. May even get a medal for service beyond the call of duty to the Nasty Spying Arse holes. But what a retarded statement to make suggesting that any of this mass surveillance nightmare has anything to do with “protecting the privacy of American citizens” Maybe he meant light years ahead in intruding into the privacy of American citizens.
I am completely up front about the need to control people for their own good. Please don’t discredit us authoritarians by advancing conspiracy theories and then dishonestly trying to disassociate yourself from them. If you won’t even take ownership of your own conspiracy theories, why should anyone else take them seriously?
As for everything the US government does being legal, that is the minimum standard of competence for any government since you get to write the laws. I myself was never convicted of any crime. The US government has created large databases of the communications of American citizens collected ‘incidentally’, and then searches through them at will. They have declared this to be legal and not in violation of the Fourth Amendment and so of course it is. It would take a pretty stupid government to declare what they were doing to be illegal.
Likewise, it is amazing that many people don’t recognize that Smith v. Maryland which affirmed the legality of the collection of a single piece of metadata (a telephone number) against a single individual does not automatically imply the validity of collecting an infinite amount of metadata against an unlimited number of individuals. Some people try to invoke a concept of proportionality, but that is a vague and subjective criterion and the US government, as far as I know, has never acknowledged itself to be restrained by any such principle.
I’m pretty damn sure Greenwald and Snowden aren’t working together with the NSA to shape the message. My father did the backgrounds on the the people hired directly by the NSA, (not the contractors). He repeatedly and emphatically stated that their mission was foreign collection. He refused to believe any of these stories, until I handed him document after document after document, at which point he finally said “they’ve lost their minds, they’re completely out of control”.
No one is saying that President Obama knew what NSA was doing. No one knows what he knew about “No Such Agency”. They have never been reviewed, audited or held accountable, since the day they were formed. How the hell would he know they have all these crazy programs aimed at American citizens. But you want to paint the the “leaker” and “the journalist” as moles and propagandists, for the most secretive agency in the history of the world.
I highly doubt President Obama would have personally allowed spying on Angela Merkel’s cell phone and Angry Birds (which his daughters probably play). Somebody would have to tell him wouldn’t they, unless during his busy day…he thought to ask very specific bizarre questions like “Are you tapping Angie’s cell, are you staging illegal psychological operations against Americans, are you profile children with Angry Birds, are your employees passing around nude female photos that just happened to be collected?”
The big question is…what is he going to do now? Now that we know, what do WE do?
In assessing the current atrocities Israel is committing on the Gazans, one should keep in mind that Israel is the aggressor, and it is always Gaza that is acting in self-defense; even tho yesteryear’s suicide bombs are morally unacceptable, these were the tactics of an oppressed victim.
These are the terms Hams offered yesterday for a ceasefire:
Not only are these reasonable terms, they are what should have the status quo ante.
I for one welcome our snoopy overlords
The secret state (CIA, NSA, etc.,) operates in the interstices between sanity and insanity, profiting immensely from the essential cover sanity’s lacunae uniquely provide.
In other words they create their own reality. Reality as the rest of us know it
is for girly men as the neo-cons used to say.
That big hole in Russia? I have a friend who worked for the Energy Department, and he said we have one of those in Colorado spilling methane into the atmosphere faster than we can burn it. Oooops. I always wondered why I used to sneeze like a repeater going through Rifle. I wonder who blew that hole in Rifle? He never said, he just said it was a really big hole spilling methane uncontrollably for years. Yup.
The UN is IN.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/edward-snowden-should-not-face-trial-un-human-rights-commissioner-navi-pillay
I don’t know whether to sickened, outraged, or what…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/bagram-detainees-hunger-strikes-revealed
…related story: courageous nurse declines to take part in Guantanamo force-feedings:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/guantanamo-nurse-refuses-force-feed-prisoners
NSA Surveillance: What the Government Can’t See
Sue Halpern
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/jul/15/nsa-surveillance-what-government-cant-see/?insrc=hpss
Nice summary of the last couple weeks’ revelations.
They can see everything except TOR browser users. VPN’s are no exceptions. Yes, Bit Torrent’s too. Who is really in control? Sure isn’t our elected ones.
They can see anything and everything including TOR browser users.
And, a sidebar. “NSA: Releasing Snowden Emails Would Violate His Privacy —
Surveillance agency says publishing more Snowden messages would be a ‘clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.'”– US News
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/14/nsa-releasing-edward-snowden-emails-would-violate-his-privacy
Jon Stewart, call your office.
That means exactly one thing: Those emails don’t make the NSA look very good and/or they contradict some of the establishment narratives. Otherwise, they would’ve been published or leaked.
@ Jose
Concur. But, I hope that Mr. Snowden has the evidence to counter the cover-up.
I think he should just say “I give consent, so there’s no privacy violation.” Of course, a different excuse will follow.
Great idea, hope he sees and responds to your comment!
FYI. Lawsuit filed in London WRT the Tempora program. Amnesty Int’l, ACLU among complainants. Hyperlinks.
http://rt.com/uk/172572-gchq-tribunal-civil-liberties/
Guys, guys, we are missing a major part of this article, some covert spy or highly advanced programming division in one of the biggest governments in the world (I couldn’t tell if the U.K or U.S developed these tools, but at least they both appear to employ these tools) decided to name their program after a race in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, using the term “Changeling.” Yes.
Not mentioned here, in addition to the fact that (at least the US spy agencies) are able to alter documents while the target is working one them, US spy agencies delink published letters and articles they do not wish the public to access. A search of my real name will turn up no results of the six or so published letters that I assume got me on their target list. One of the editors who selected them for publication was transferred. I assume the Brits do the same.
The US spy agencies also can and do alter the call records on cell phones and/or your bill.
“…people who are innocent of any crime can be painted as the vilest of criminals based on evidence manufactured by their accusers.”
Agreed but It doesn’t take a lick of sophistication to do this, although I agree there are now very sophisticated tools that can be used to do this.
One police officer can fabricate a report. One lowly federal clerk, one bureaucratic paperclip fanatic can fabricate a report, suspicion, accusation out of whim or spite for any reason. This is happening.
If it is someone the feds don’t like for any reason, or where there is no other barrier to it, political or otherwise, or where even the person is a victim of a violation by a federal employee and complained about it, that now parlays into a terror task force file.
Perhaps this seems implausible, but beneath the radar, for those who are not headliners, state by state, Holder’s international/domestic, national security task forces are doing just that.
For every genuine threat there are probably hundreds, thousands, who are on the radar to be punished for things quite petty, whimsical and fabricated. It is the government’s latest billy club, and more powerful and systematic than ever.
I know for a fact this is going on. While we are occupied with the headliners, this is going on. I have seen this happening with my own eyes here where I live.
The state USAO offices have been hiring “intelligence specialists” and Holder recently announced he is pumping up resources for what he calls homegrown domestic terrorists. People get upset thast animal rights activists and so on will come under their purview, but it is even worse than that. Anyone, any individual with the authority to suggest it can put someone under their radar. I have seen pretexts so thin it has been impossible to conclude anything other than that a file was punted over to intelligence soley to scare an innocent person who has done absolutely nothing wrong. Bugging or annoying the government for any reason is being criminalized. Crime victim they don’t want to deal with? Complaining about it ? Well, that could later become disgruntled, and disgruntled could later mean worse, and if worse then a security threat. this is happening, that is the thin logic, the pretexts,and the reasons, the real reasons, are as petty as just wanting to scare someone or get revenge against someone.
It is like a criminal lawyer I know once said when she happened to notice abuses going on using misdemeanor charges in a way that was having a huge negative systematic impact. Wow, she said, misdemeanors are where it is at – and explained how stereotypically, lawyers equate important with felony, etc., this simplistic hierarchy. When she discovered that because misdemeanors fly under the radar, some of the worst abuses and systematic ones involve minor charges, they realize the simplistic way they were weighing things.
Same with these new very powerful legal entities and structures emanating from this terror mongering. You won’t even hear about most of these instances.
There is so little oversight, so few legal resources available to fight it, I am seeing fabricated reports where absolute proof exists that they are fabricated, but the person is being punted over to the terror task force based on them. Those engaged in this know this. They don’t bother to fabricate in a way the evidence won’t disprove. They don’t even bother. It is wholesale what is going on. Flood gates to abuse are fully fully opened and those abuses are happening now — not coming down the road but now.
Spot on.
And be warned: you can’t trust your relatives, especially if they have connections to the military.
Military folks are the least likely to support these programs.
Most folks in intelligence the same.
The US has been post-Constitutional. People have jobs. Retirements to think about, families to feed. They go with the flow and take notes and talk about the insane criminality in loud bars with colleagues. The braver ones blow the whistle like Snowden, Binney, Raydack and others.
The state has been out of control post-9/11 after the nullification of the Constitution in the mis-named PATRIOT Act.
People serving are aware of this. They have families to feed and real life responsibilities.
It is up to the journalists, and the citizens that read their reports, to force change. The military and intelligence community folks can’t do it because they end up like Kiraikou – because post-9/11, protecting the secrecy of illegal and treasonous activities supercedes the oath of defending and upholding the Constitution.
Time, however, is not on the Orwellian surveillance state’s, or its media and political defenders’ side. Thanks to folks like Snowden, Binney, and the reports that cover them.
To maintain their freedoms, it is the express duty of all citizens of a free nation to not trust its government. No matter how benevolent or good-intentioned it appears to be, a government is a base of power, and that attracts those who seek power like a flame does a moth. This makes government inherently and inevitably corruptable, and it is up to the people of a free society to keep it in check.
An interesting analysis of this article:
“The deceptions perpetrated by GCHQ and NSA are sophisticated enough that people who are innocent of any crime can be painted as the vilest of criminals based on evidence manufactured by their accusers.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/18708-british-surveillance-agents-create-false-internet-information
Wow just wow, I am not surprised anymore though by the different tactics these spying agencies will use to do their bidding. Its just when I think about it, these two countries, they aren’t following the laws I have to follow. The very laws they created, they do not even abide by. Its ironic and the fact the GCHQ continues to issue their standard boilerplate response that they follow all policies and laws is a big slap in the face. I guess if you think about it at least the NSA spokeswoman will issue responses to these news publications. GCHQ has balls when they get caught in a lie and obviously are engaging in illegal surveillance practices and will turn around and hit the “we are following the law” button and send the statement out.
Latest in the Julian Assange case.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/16/julian-assange-long-legal-drama
Oh, and this subhead under the Assange article, for our friends in Oz.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/journalists-face-jail-leaks-security-laws
Anyone who could read that article and not see that there is a coordinated five-eyes attempt to suppress information in the public realm to advance control of global humanity, is a idiot.
“The system used by GCHQ to monitor the WikiLeaks website – codenamed ANTICRISIS GIRL – is described in a classified PowerPoint presentation prepared by the British agency and distributed at the 2012 “SIGDEV Conference.” At the annual gathering, each member of the “Five Eyes” alliance – the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – describes the prior year’s surveillance successes and challenges.”
See: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/
RT article on the same subject: http://rt.com/news/173264-australia-asio-whistleblowing-jail/
Very disturbing.
What in the World???
An some folks still can’t see freedoms are under attack all over the world? Wake up, people, please, WAKE UP!
You know what? Julian Assange is one of the lucky ones. Julian Assange is known. People are aware of him. His narrative is out there. Do you, commenters, gg, the intercept, michael ratner, do you all f’ing know how god damned lucky he is? Please say yes. say it. say it. say it now.
You know what? Julian Assange is one of the lucky ones. Julian Assange is known. People are aware of him. His narrative is out there. Do you, commenters, gg, the intercept, michael ratner, do you all f’ing know how god damned lucky he is? Please say yes. say it. say it. say it now.
Do you know how many of us have been smeared to f’ing death??? Do you have any idea what it is like to be invisible and unbelieved and dismissed? do you have any f’ing idea. F-u all, you can’t save this country because you can’t acknowledge this one simple GD fact about how IT works
IT is an outrage wasting 6 million pounds of tax payers money just to politically persecute an innocent man who has done nothing mire than to publicise information about the crimes and war crimes of Governments. Just how in the so called age of austerity can the Uk Govt. Justify this and the recent latest billion pounds being wasted on further spying and intelligence when the majority of people exist in dire poverty. I fail to see how cuts can continue ti be made within the community which savagely target the poorest and weakest, often the elderly or handicapped whwn they continue ti waste money like this. Cameron is Robin Hood in reverse as he robs the poor ri give money ti the rich in his pursuit of being a servant to the extrwme and oppressive US Government. THe Uk is bankrupt financially and morally, and the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
This is fascinating. Won’t you make the document available as a downloadable .pdf? It is less useful to have to view the document in your web site’s browser.
Great quote from Garrison; thanks! The entire interview is available here: http://www.maebrussell.com/Garrison/Garrison%20Playboy%20Intvw%201.html
The need to manipulate public opinion and even scientific inquiry is required by the numerically tiny capitalist classes of the world’s nations, whose decrepit economic system exploits every working woman and man on the planet. The capitalist class can not continue to rule the world for long as more and more people are able to research and discover the vast distortions in global wealth distribution that make billionaires out of a handful of people while starving hundreds of millions to death annually. “Transparency” is neither possible nor desirable in the eyes of this tiny class of filthy rich swine who currently control the world’s economic and political spheres. Only global workers socialist revolution can place the worlds masses in actual possession of the Internet and all the world’s resources so that information as well as all the necessities of life can be made available to all.
Workers of the World, Unite!
Independent Workers Party of Chicago
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http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/07/16/u-s-spying-on-germany-breaking-the-rules-for-what/
Great questions from Peter Van Buren…
Peter Van Buren is on the forefront of human rights cognizance and active spokesman for it…DAILY. You can find his insights here….
http://www.wemeantwell.com/
vs.. all the depraved employees of the Milpropaganda sycophants of the totalitarian wannabe ruling class who post here daily in droves and those who work for all the corrupt corporate fascist IC contractors who suck the blood of honest working Americans…to which… I have some advice for you scumbags. You just might want to get some perspective. To all those spineless little worms who park in every CIA/NSA/BoozAllen/Cherkoff Group/General Atomics/etc etc etc parking lot every day… do you really think you are immune to the 100 Heads Life and Casualty 4th Gen warfare paradigm shift that is happening in this country..let alone the planet? All I can tell you is you are a TOTAL idiot if you think your life can continue de jour.
Meanwhile..Chris Floyd provides living proof why our preoccupation with the surveillance state is at best, an obfuscation of the atrocities going on in the name of those who are best served by the corporate oil driven CIA,NSA,DOJ,DHS,DEA,IRS, Congress, Potus, Scotus scum of Murka.
quote:”But beyond all the politics and petrodollars driving the madness of the latest assault lie the ordinary people whose bodies and lives are being ripped to shreds. As’ad AbuKhalil, the ‘Angry Arab,’ is, as usual, an important source for some hard fragments of reality amidst the toxic sludge of spin and propaganda. AbuKhalil points us to a number of stories on the human toll of the attacks. Such as this one:
Sahir Salman Abu Namous was just four years old, soon to turn five. … Sahir was killed on Friday afternoon when an Israeli warplane bombed his family home in the Tal al-Zaatar neighborhood in northern Gaza. “He was playing and smiling next to his mother when missile shrapnel divided his head,” Mahmoud writes. “His father took him to the hospital screaming ‘Wake up my son! I bought toys for you, please wake up!’”
…Sahir Salman Abu Namous was one of 21 children who had been killed in the onslaught by Friday.
A piece of shrapnel divided his head. “Wake up my son!” Wake up, indeed: the soul of the world is sleeping, and the murderous rampage goes on.”unquote
Only when the progeny of the ruling class of of the planet have their heads ripped by shrapnel, will they ever fear their time on this planet is in jeopardy.,. notwithstanding a hollow point round to their own heads.
Meanwhile…they live in a perpetual state of ruling class delusion….
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/saudi-arabia-is-building-kingdom-tower-the-worlds-tallest-building/story-e6frfq80-1226894520478
The Gaza situation….it breaks my heart.
Just tonight: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/witness-gaza-shelling-first-hand-account
And….the USG sanctions this slaughter. There is no honor or decency – no respect for life – nothing more than a means to an end of all that resembles freedom. Meanwhile….the BIS controls BRICS to aid the collapse of the US Petro dollar and the International Banking Cartel wins….control of all humanity on a global scale. The “elite” .001% have engineered complete chaos and absolute madness on an international scale.
Meanwhile in the United States of America, citizens stay dutifully blind to the truth. Perhaps the brainwashing is so complete, or maybe day to day survival is just too tenuous, or perhaps severe poverty prohibits any type of information input….whatever the reason…..clear, legal, coordinated oppositional action by the citizens has little chance to surface given multiple attempts at suppression of information and legalized denial of rights.
The Patriot Act and NDAA legal playbook says “do it in secret” to combat “terror’, and the President can always issue edicts in the interest of national security. Nice kingdom guys!
This is nothing like the country of my birth. The Constitution stood for something….In fact, I took an oath several times, to protect my country from enemies foreign and domestic. Now…it appears that all three branches of the government have colluded to become a domestic enemy to the Republic of the United States of America. If the people can not grab the lifeline that the Amendments of the Constitution represent; the only hope for an individual is to hone their survival skills and face the eventual possibility of fighting to the death with honor intact.
Gotta go sometime…..
Snowden —
? ????? ?? ?? ????? ? Nate
Yeah…I noticed that too with the same ?????????
Although….I agree with Snowden but unsure regarding the exact organizational affiliation of Nate.
The ? ???? ?? ????? ? was unprintable Russian characters acknowledging acronyms used by Nate indicating affiliation.
LOL, this cracks me up. You’re so “in the bubble” as Bill Maher would put it, that somebody disagreeing with you must OBVIOUSLY be a paid NSA/GCHQ/IC agent sent here to mingle with he likes of you and critique TI articles including ones irrelevant to the NSA!? Also, I guess my past compliments are all part of the ruse as well?
Fine work detective.
OK, you are not a Russian spy. I don’t have a dog in this fight, not tribal, no ideology, not political… My point is suspected infiltrators, tapped phones, internet sabotage, and so on, should remain unexposed to be useful.
@ Nate:
Don’t put words in my mouth asshole.
This is what I said: “I agree with Snowden but unsure regarding the exact organizational affiliation of Nate.”: and that is exactly what I meant.
For all I know, you could be employed by TI specifically to proffer opinions of dissent and puff up your own ego.
Speaking of “bubbles”, you are under no obligation “to mingle with he likes of you” (meaning who exactly?) as this would be below your lofty station in life. Nor am I under any obligation to engage in further discourse with you.
To make this perfectly clear: Stay away.
Lyra, that’s even more inane than your first response. Let’s imagine how this might work out:
Mr. Omidyar: Hi Nate, welcome to TI! Let’s go over your job description. Okay, we anticipate a homogenous crowd in this forum, so to prevent creating a “bubble” like Bill Maher would call it, you are going to masquerade as some average commenter and critique our stories and engage the most idiotic posters on TI!
Nate: Wow, won’t lie Mr. Omidyar, this is one of the stranger jobs I’ve had. Remind me, why do you want me to do this?
Mr. Omidyar: To “proffer opinions of dissent,” silly! And *winks several times* it may be a good means to puff up the ol’ ego. Naw mean!?
Nate: No I don’t but thanks for the pay check.
Mr. Omidyar: The only downside of this employment is that you will often be accused of being an NSA/GCHQ/Russian/Alien shill by people too daft to convey rational thought.
Nate: kind of like doug wood and Lyra1?
Mr. Omidyar and Nate *Both laughing*
Oh…stay away wasn’t adequate? Too difficult for your programmed brain to comprehend?
How about fuck-off?
Seriously, are you 10 years old?
The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.
Thanks for that, wiltmellow.
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill…and suspicion can destroy…and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children…and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is…that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.”
– Closing Narration of “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”
Aw, I don’t think Nate is a troll. He is more an intriguing brand of realist that seems to have appeared in the zeitgeist recently. Usually with an empiricist or at least rationalist bent and a tendency to pooh-pooh subjectivity, which, pretty much 100% of the time, results in a terrible irony – they mistake their own subjective stance for objectivity, and make a habit of trying to ‘learn’ others on the virtues of objectivity by insisting that this standard is “It”. When it’s not.
I’m sorry, Nate, to scrutinize you like that in a comments section, the phenomenon just intrigues me. ‘You’ seem to be popping up all over the place lately. It’s as if there’s odd gap between head and heart in 2014, with both denying the other exist, to their detriment. On a more positive note, I think your stance is full of admirable intent and a decent start towards something, it just requires a good bit of tweaking.
On review it appears compromised data has caused paranoia within the NSA about abuse and infighting over oversight.
We never expose infiltrators. They can be a good source of inside information and conduits of outside disinformation.
@ doug wood:
“We never expose infiltrators. They can be a good source of inside information and conduits of outside disinformation.”
OK….that is rather like playing the game.
My objective is more toward elevating the game board to a level where all of the players can see it.
A lofty goal!
We are engaged in other activities that will change the world in other ways. There will be no civil rights if there is no civilization.
Truly chilling. I think the fact that they can “masquerade” Facebook posts on a national scale is terrifying, I think you should have emphasised that more, Glenn. Can anyone clarify what “masquerading” means in this context? By my reading, it either means they can “spoof” wall posts, or hide legitimately created ones. Probably both.
In any case, this does raise the genuine concern that many of Glenn’s persistent critics spouting NSA talking points on comment threads from Salon, through to the Guardian, and finally to the Intercept are actually just astroturfed NSA and GCHQ operatives. That would go some way towards explaining their tenacity.
Not to go down a rabbit hole of paranoia, but if it’s now clear that GCHQ considers spoofing and astroturfing capabilities important, fully developed, and “ready to fire” (what a wonderful turn of phrase), then it would be foolish to think that this website wouldn’t be one of their hottest targets for their efforts.
Of course, this is probably what they wanted anyway – to create a choking atmosphere of paranoia where no one trusts anyone. Well done.
@ Wulfsten >> “Of course, this is probably what they wanted anyway – to create a choking atmosphere of paranoia where no one trusts anyone. Well done.”
This can cut both ways. First, it harms the targets, but later, it may damage the perps. If no one trusts the USG (who does?), and no one trusts American citizens (who does?), then some may finally decide it is time to trust the targets who have been describing this state of affairs for years.
Well I can show you intercepted cell phone messages…a text sent to myself that came back altered after I said via text that “these torturers would all go to jail”. The message came back “What’s so F*#cking special about you? Why should you have a good life?” I have it on film.
You want to know how to really upset these assholes. Show them pictures of Florence ADX Super Max Prison. Talk about life in prison, mention felonies, attempted murder, criminal conspiracy, terrorism…all of which they commit everyday. They know they are committing very serious crimes. You want to talk about psy ops warfare…ask these motherf8$ckers “if they look good in orange”?
They all know what they are doing and it is very illegal.
So if this is what GCHQ has you can bet your US Dollar that the NSA has it too…so this raises serious questions about democracy because a founding principle is honest and open debate about what we should make legal…and if the Government is manipulating the debate then we no longer have a democracy…we have a Wizard of Oz government with the intelligence communities sitting behind the curtain playing Oz…this revelation throws into question everything that both the US and UK governments have done since 9/11 under the guise of the war on terror…how do we know what decisions/elections/political debates they influenced and to what degree did they influence them…???
British watchdog Privacy International … if you check background of this organization, you will see, they are not independent from secret service. Their people are even from Covington & Burling.
Has the USG become a scumbag fascist regime in the name of “national security”?
http://www.diypoll.com/poll/30
Uh huh!
Jim Garrison certainly thought so.. in 1967 no less.
quote”1967 interview of Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, who tried to prosecute one of the conspirators in the coup d’etat of November 22, 1963:
PLAYBOY: Many of the professional critics of the Warren Commission appear to be prompted by political motives: Those on the left are anxious to prove Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy within the establishment; and those on the right are eager to prove the assassination was an act of “the international Communist conspiracy.” Where would you place yourself on the political spectrum — right, left of center?
GARRISON: That’s a question I’ve asked myself frequently, especially since this investigation started and I found myself in an incongruous and disillusioning battle with agencies of my own Government. I can’t just sit down and add up my political beliefs like a mathematical sum, but I think, in balance, I’d turn up somewhere around the middle. Over the years, I guess I’ve developed a somewhat conservative attitude — in the traditional libertarian sense of conservatism, as opposed to the thumbscrew-and-rack conservatism of the paramilitary right — particularly in regard to the importance of the individual as opposed to the state and the individual’s own responsibilities to humanity. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to formulate this into a coherent political philosophy, but at the root of my concern is the conviction that a human being is not a digit; he’s not a digit in regard to the state and he’s not a digit in the sense that he can ignore his fellow men and his obligations to society. I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau; I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there has haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I’ve always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets at a time when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I’m concerned about all of this because it isn’t a German phenomenon; it’s a human phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change and there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow man. What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one of the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it’s based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we’ve built since 1945, the “military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions; and we’ve seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution. In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can’t spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can’t look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won’t be there. We won’t build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We’re not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn’t the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same. I’ve learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the state and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act. I’ve always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government’s basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I’ve come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”unquote
So faved if I could…
Ditto.
Me too.
Exceptional post and excellent timing.
This shames those that labeled Jim Garrison as a “conspiracy theorist”, and those that fling that term out now to bolster the lies of media puppets for the USG, and their zionist masters – the Central Banking Cartel.
Bwah hah hah.
Agreed! Though, I think zionism is not an essential characteristic of the criminal banking cartel, it’s merely one that is coincidental to the current context. Power-lust is *the* driving motivation, and that’s a human characteristic regardless of ideology or any other of the emphasized and exploited differences between groups of humans. Power-lust, and the criminal acts it propels, has been with us since the beginning of human activity on earth.
To excerpt from Solzhenitsyn:
“… the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart…”
@seer:
This article, posted today, addresses that nicely:
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2231-the-reasons-we-fight-the-new-world-order
@Lyra1
“This article, posted today, addresses that nicely”
It does raise that issue – thank you very much.
I think, though, the author misrepresents H.G. Wells a little. Yes, he was a member of the Fabian Society, but he left them early and refuted them strongly. Also, his book The New World Order was never intended as a blueprint for establishing a fascist global dictatorship, but rather to end nationalism and borders, to create a government along the lines of the government envisioned by our own Founders. His ideas have been seized upon by fascists, the powerful amoral hyper-wealthy elite, the ones he’d warned us about years before WWII. His warning was too soon forgotten in the free-for-all destruction of war, and profits-driven explosion of unbridled scientific and technological advances that followed the end of that war.
Einstein had warned us that conducting science without wisdom would create monsters. His warnings too have have had little if any perceivable effect.
Wonderful post – great thoughts by Mr. Garrison. Especially:
“at the root of my concern is the conviction that a human being is not a digit; he’s not a digit in regard to the state and he’s not a digit in the sense that he can ignore his fellow men and his obligations to society.”
yes
Ach du lieber! Germany’s sausages are swinging in the dock! See, I DO smell the news before it’s casing bursts. German sausages AND FCPA for lunch yesterday… Just try to keep your secrets from me, Germany. Who’s an AF braut?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/15/german-sausage-cartel-caught-bangers-to-rights-wurst
I gotta say Jolie covering for Hague because he’s concerned about sexual violence ELSEWHERE, now THAT’S a role reversal!! I’d like some mustard on that. Gove can go roll in the hay.
I keep clicking yes and nothing happens :(
It’s been hacked, you actually ordered 43 sets of encyclopedias…
If the GCHQ and NSA were capable of controlling the Internet then these stories wouldn’t be seeing the light of day at all. They would be snuffed out as soon as their authors hit “send” or “upload” on their computers. But they are coming to light, which is cause for hope.
What is necessary right now is to identify and target all those who work for the GCHQ and NSA. Make them objects of the same surveillance they subject us to. When they buy a dirty magazine at a 7/11, let the world know about it, their kids, their wives, their pastors. When they stalk that blond who lives down the street, let the world know about it. When they cheat on their taxes, expose it. Then, let odd things start to happen to them.
They need to realize that they have declared war on the freedom of everyone on Earth, and that those people have access to the same math, science, and technology that they do.
Learn and use GPG (PGP).
Revolution is coming
I can’t exactly remember, but some years back in Switzerland (please don’t think they are the holy cow of democracy) there was an issue with ballot machines. But what I can remember is the lightning that struck me saying “something is wrong on the story and not all is said”. I then had the impression it was an issue of manipulating the outcome of the voting. The machines where removed and new one placed to the satisfaction of all. It was never know – of course – if the voting went smooth without any (online) tampering.
I recall a personal issue with my Twitter account (don’t judge me now without ever knowing my background and having walked in my shoes). I was stunned since 2008 that my Follower base is more or less the same since ever despite I have several new followers, sometimes 10 a month. I contacted Twitter and they confirmed nothing unusual. I leave the thinking and conclusions to each individual.
My take is this; the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) of Switzerland is much more sophisticated and efficient than the NSA. Therefore I pretend that FIS owns the NSA (only a slight sarcasm in my words).
Just a hint about myself and what I am talking about you should read up at Wikipedia on: ‘secret files scandal’ and do your own researches on it.
BTW; the Stasi in the former DDR and the case of ‘secret files scandal’ is very much the same except with two differences (at that time) – [1] the DDR was a Communist country and Switzerland still claims to be the oldest Democracy and [2] the volume of monitored citizens – in the DDR over 70% and Switzerland 10%. But the process has being very similar.
Why would I want to add a comment here? This site will absolutely be monitored by GCHQ and other comments are possibly from government-paid propagandists?
Realise how fully freedom-of-speech has been compromised.
“Realise how fully freedom-of-speech has been compromised.”
Obviously then, for some the point is telling pro-Big Brother cowards, “FUCK YOU!”, anyway.
Because our collective future depends on good people speaking out and telling the truth.
The question: Why would I want to add a comment here?
Because of the following, which is happening to many good, law-abiding people. It will only get worse and if we don’t stop it now, who knows where it will all lead.
Mark wrote (15 Jul 2014 at 11:40 pm),
“…I have had nails in tires, sliced electrical lines, dents in my cars, several broken car windows, many items stolen, and much more.
This is no laughing manner. Please do not minimize it.
Innocents are being targeted by their own governments. How legitimate is a government that targets its own citizens?”
I seriously doubt that it has gotten to that point yet. There is a lot of antisocial behavior out there that the government can’t be blamed for. Let’s be rational. The NSA isn’t going around putting nails in peoples’ tires. What we know for sure that they are doing is difficult enough to deal with.
I would suggest that you take a look at http://fightgangstalking.com. Given the resources that have been invested in this counterintelligence program, it’s quite clear that the NSA — the “Collect it All, Process it All, Exploit it All, Partner it All, Sniff it All and, ultimately, Know it All”- NSA — is well aware of it. (COINTELPRO is, in fact, alive and well — we’re just not sure what they’re calling it. I’ll bet the NSA could tell us.)
I can’t exactly remember, but some years back in Switzerland (please don’t think they are the holy cow of democracy) there was an issue with ballot machines. But what I can remember is the lightning that struck me saying “something is wrong on the story and not all is said”. I then had the impression it was an issue of manipulating the outcome of the voting. The machines where removed sand new one placed to the satisfaction of all. It was never know – of course – if the voting went smooth without any (online) tampering.
I recall a personal issue with my Twitter account (don’t judge me know without ever knowing my background and having walked in my shoes). I was stunned since 2008 that Follower base is more or less the same since ever despite I have several new followers. Sometimes 10 a month. I contacted Twitter and they confirmed nothing unusual. I leave the thinking and conclusions to each individual.
Just a hint about myself you should read up at Wikipedia on: ‘secret files scandal’ and do your own researches on it.
Nate: (couldn’t reply directly to your post)
Here are some of my thoughts regarding your post:
“the argument of “just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it right” is an ambigous excuse.” I beg to differ. We’ve seen over history too many examples of unjust laws – you know for example that Jim Crow was once legal – but certainly not RIGHT. The techniques mentioned in these documents are beyond creepy.
You say that I’m “naïve and have no clue about “real threats.” Well, haven’t we learned one thing from the Snowden data – that it’s NOT all about counterterrorism? You say that there’s only “speculation” as to whether these techniques have been used. Whether or not there’s evidence to satisfy you, I think you’re a bit naïve to believe they WON’T be used. Or that your data or mine WON’T be read or accessed. I wouldn’t trust them. Especially now.
Hey Feline16, didn’t you know “Nate” is actually a GCHQ operative who is doing exactly what this article is detailing?
Hi snowden –
Ya really think Nate is GCHQ – or- NSA? He certainly seems willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And I think the notion of being willing to sacrifice so much privacy for “security” needs to be challenged at any rate.
I’m not Nate, but your comment begs a response. I hope you realize that the “if” and the “who” that are missing from this story, and the “why” that was missing from the previous story about spying on Muslim-Americans are basically the whole ball of wax. If GCHQ is not doing any of this stuff, then the whole report is a waste of internet. If they are doing it, but only on extremists who incite violence or on hackers who steal credit cards and identities, without violating the privacy of their citizens, then these are pretty ingenious tools. As for the story about Muslim-Americans, the whole crux of that matter is why they were surveiled. Without that information, that story goes nowhere. Otherwise the story is: NEWSFLASH–Bigots in the Bush Administration!
Moreover, Greenwald has had a year to report and to sift through tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of documents, and he’s had a mole who worked for the CIA for years, who worked for two NSA contractors, who also spent months stealing as many Top Secret documents as he could lay his hands on, who claims to have been trained as a “real spy” and to be able to do “real spy” things, and who had Admin privileges on NSA computers, yet there has been no proof of even one tiny intentional violation of the United States Constitution by the Government. This far in–more than a year now–don’t you want proof?
I hope you realize those questions could be answered anytime by the government itself. They prefer to operate in secret and keep their populations in ignorance. A people kept ignorance cannot provide the informed consent on which the legitimacy of government rests – so the government is ultimately undermining its own authority. While that may be viewed by many as a good thing, I will reserve judgment. But it is always interesting to watch others engaged in self-defeating behavior.
I certainly agree the articles published by The Intercept are only the beginning, not the end, of this story. The government may wish to withhold the ‘why’ of spying on Muslim civic leaders, but those persons now have standing to sue in court and the ‘why’ will eventually emerge. And yes, it is an extremely important question.
Likewise the publication of the existence of these hacking tools would in a functioning democracy (I don’t know about the UK), lead to questions from the opposition of why substantial resources are being deployed to create them if they are not being used. Even if the government refuses to justify their actions, a useful suspicion of online polls and the integrity of online information in general will grow. People will be more wary, and therefore more likely to spot instances of government manipulation of online information. So even in this case, the “if” and the “who” will eventually emerge and become a part of the story. It will take a good deal of further journalistic work to uncover all this information, and I hope the The Intercept will be up to the challenge.
If you don’t like this kind of information, you should just say so. Incidentally, the Constitution has been violated. Proof is the 4th amendment; that’s why the government kept this info secret. You don’t have to have some one tell you they violated the big C, even if W said “it’s just a piece of paper”.
You’re pretty damned naive if you believe that these tools either aren’t being used or are only being used against the “bad guys”. The not-so-distant past ought to disabuse you of that notion, and, in any case, bureaucracies don’t spend billions on tools that will then just be left to rust in the toolbox. As far as the constitutionality of the various and sundry programs, it was determined by the FISA Court itself that some of them are unconstitutional.
The FISA court did no such thing. When the NSA turned itself in for making inadvertent errors, the court chastised them for it, but there was no finding of unconstitutionality. There was obviously no finding of an intentional violation of the Constitution. By the way, large computer programs are apparently notoriously “buggy.” Look at the ObamaCare exchanges, anything MicroSoft launches.
Again, and this is not a talking point; rather, this is reality: A year, perhaps as much as 1.7 million Top Secret files, a mole, trained as a spy, with Admin privileges on NSA computers equals proof of zero intentional constitutional violations.
I remember that there was some relief that he was unable to access DOD computers. People in the know keep mentioning the “tip of the iceberg”. I am not of the mind that the entire government or all of law enforcement is corrupt, but there are clearly corrupt groups, who may or may not be state sanctioned. There’s a big iceberg, just because Snowden didn’t hand over the proof, doesn’t mean it’s not real. One possibility is that factions, have been utilizing defense appropriations (paid for by US citizens) for their own personal agendas. Another possibility, it’s upstream hacking by defense department for profit contractors ( or countries) with dual allegiances and personal agendas. The whole MIC establishment is such a Frankenstein creation, that almost anything is possible. That’s the problem, there’s congressional no oversight, no accountability to the public at all…we have a crumbling infrastructure, trains that don’t work, brides falling down…yet we have managed to place the entire world under surveillance. It’s insane. This is from the wealthiest country in the world, it’s the manifestations of the totalitarian dreams of a madman.
Tortmaster –
I must first address your calling of these – intrusive violations of privacy as “pretty ingenious tools.” I find them to be despicable and against our Fourth and Frist Amendments if (and I would be pretty sure that they are) used against U.S. persona. The EU says they might be likely illegal (from the article above) in the EU. What those tools are is chilling. When I read their boast: “If you don’t see it here, it doesn’t mean we can’t build it.”; I become very concerned about what ever dirty (and that’s what they are) new tricks they may be up to.
If you are really uncertain about details, first read Montecarlo’s post. Then why not submit a FOIA. Good luck with that!
Well there is some good news today. Hamas announced today that it is willing
to “consider” lifting the blockade of Israel
and allowing necessities like food and medicine in.
Very good news, thank you.
What kind of moron would be swayed by online polls, and who gives a rip about who is taking the p on the internet? Don’t get it.
You know how government agencies function – bureaucracy perpetuates itself even in the absence of any need for its services. Someone at GCHQ several years ago probably decided they needed to hire some hackers in order to combat hacking on the internet. Those hackers then proceeded to produce a suite of hacking tools, and as described in this article, are trying to market them to other government agencies.
Do they have any value? The only way to find out would be to privatize JTRIG and see if there is any demand for these products on the open market. I suspect a lot of them are overhyped and others are already generally available. But it would be interesting to put JTRIG up for auction and find out one way or the other. It could be that some Gulf Emirate would be willing to overpay for them, and the British taxpayer could at least partially recoup their investment.
Mr. Greenwald
To start with, “likely illegal” isn’t necessarily illegal – just a suggestion which you choose to publish. In addition, this clearly was not your best effort exposing a government spy agency. You have no reason to expose the UK government spy agency except they held your partner for nine (whole) hours – and they are an ally of the US (which makes a lot of sense from my point of view). You might as well be reporting on Russia, China, Vietnam or any number of other countries in the world with far less freedom than the UK. Maybe you are a UK citizen as well?
“……..Chris Huhne, a former cabinet minister and member of the national security council until 2012, insisted that ministers were in “utter ignorance” about even the largest GCHQ spying program, known as Tempora—not to mention “their extraordinary capability to hoover up and store personal emails, voice contact, social networking activity and even internet searches.”…..”
Chris Huhne really doesn’t have a lot of credibility. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian (presumably he is paid for his services) which really should have been disclosed since the Guardian had their Snowden “materials” destroyed by the government. In addition, Huhne resigned as a member of Parliament after he lied – “….perverting the course of justice over a 2003 speeding case. His then wife had said that she was in the car at the time and thus accepted the licence penalty points on his behalf. Chris Huhne denied the charge until the trial began on 4 February 2013, when he changed his plea to guilty, resigned as a member of parliament and left the Privy Council.[7][8][9…”. He spent time in jail for lying – hardly a person you want to quote as a source – especially because he works for the Guardian. Indeed, why would he lie about a speeding ticket?
In addition, it’s also clear that you also have a personal vendetta against the GCHQ after your partner, David Miranda, was detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours by security. At the time you stated,
“……But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic….”
Of course this was a fabrication since Mr. Miranda – according to the Guardian – often worked with you on stories – and was paid by the Guardian on this particular trip. Indeed, he had just spent time at the residence of Poitras who is the partner of Greenwald on the NSA leaks. His computer was confiscated which contained 58,000 highly classified national security documents. A British High Court ruled the detention of Miranda and confiscation of his computer legal under British law (for reasons of national security).
“……But as the U.K. Parliament today debates a fast-tracked bill to provide the government with greater surveillance powers, one which Prime Minister David Cameron has justified as an “emergency” to “help keep us safe,”…..”
Well timed release, Mr. Greenwald!
US spy agencies using similar tactics to prevent any exposure of their other, more lethal crimes, this kind of exposure can not come soon enough. I stumbled into this. There is nothing these spy agencies hate as much as someone who wants justice. Bravo Snowden, Greenwald, Poitres, and all those who want an informed voting population, civil liberties, and an end to corruption. These spy agencies want to be dictators (behind the scenes- but dictators nevertheless).
If these agencies are ever reigned in, it will be quite clear the purpose of these tactics is to cover up crimes by lawless “law enforcement.”
Oh fer shur, Craig. Glenn Greenwald would NEVER have published the above story, but for the detention of David Miranda. Just cuz, yanno, GCHQ is the NSA’s first partner in crime, that’s no reason at all!
Hi Mona
Nice to see your return. Of course he would have published this story anyway. The UK is a part of the “five eyes” and a huge US ally (isn’t that reason enough?). None the less, I am certain that Greenwald is getting a particular pleasure out of releasing this information. The timing is exquisite and just by chance coincides with Don Cameron’s “emergency” bill.
Thanks.
Yes, of course. So one might then wonder what all this was about:
Bullshit just for it’s own sake, Craig?
“…….Bullshit just for it’s own sake, Craig?……”
Greenwald did threaten the British government with further releases of British intelligence because of the detention. None the less, the mere fact that the British government works with the NSA (and is a US ally) is all the incentive Greenwald needs to publish these documents. He recently stated (at the Intercept):
“……..The US government supports Israel financially, diplomatically, militarily and politically. Therefore, to discuss Israel is to discuss US Government policy……”
Obviously, that applies to Britain (just to a lesser extent than Israel). By the way, its been awhile since the Intercept ran a story quoting from the book of Ali Abunimah. With things heating up in Palestine, the timing could be right.
Thanks Mona.
Of course you can’t quote the threat you claim he made, because…well, because why?
Precisely, Summers, that is the work of good journalist – to inform the people of their government’s wrongdoings. So, yes, it is not only a great time to publish this story, but also in keeping with GG’s primary function as a member of the Fourth Estate. Even you should be congratulating him for performing his duties in an exemplary manner.
Thanks Seer
That’s a good opinion (after I noticed it that is). However, I might hold off on the congratulations for awhile.
You post complete nonsense from time to time, Craig. By your logic, Reuters doesn’t have a reason to expose the surveillance programs of the Chinese government (see Nate’s link below.)
Of course Glenn must have been furious when they detained his partner as he was carrying journalistic work product, but do you actually think Glenn would’ve ignored these programs otherwise? That’s preposterous.
“……..but do you actually think Glenn would’ve ignored these programs otherwise? That’s preposterous……”
Don’t worry Jose. I am well aware of that. British intelligence works far too closely with the NSA – and is far too important of an ally of the US for Greenwald to ignore. Still, it’s interesting to watch this unfold. The Germans are also a US ally, but the (political) goal of those releases is to undermine US-German cooperation (and has absolutely nothing to do with civil liberties). Again, at least since WWII, the NSA has been spying on friends and foes alike. None of this is really new – except the methodology.
Thanks.
Only if you ignore civil liberties of the German populace. The Germans might beg to disagree with you.
Exactly. I guess in Craig’s mind, telling Germans about surveillance has nothing to do with civil liberties, because aliens are obviously of a different species.
“………Only if you ignore civil liberties of the German populace. The Germans might beg to disagree with you…….I guess in Craig’s mind, telling Germans about surveillance has nothing to do with civil liberties, because aliens are obviously of a different species……”
As I recall, in the 1930s, the Germans thought they were of a different species. Regardless, the NSA surveillance exposed by the Snowden theft suggested that the program was a threat to the Fourth Amendment. That has nothing to do with anyone else, but Americans. The job of the NSA regardless of whether it’s preventing foreign and domestic hackers, identifying potential terrorists, or tracking the latest technological developments is to spy (illegally) on everyone else. Hopefully, they can do that efficiently, but I have my doubts that collecting so much information is worthwhile.
Germans should worry about the arrangements that the BND has made with other countries (like the NSA) to spy on their citizens. However, I don’t worry about Germans, Turks, Russians, Iranians and so on in that respect. Yes, they might disagree…….
Thanks.
Snowden has talked about the 4th amendment, but he has also referred to article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Nuremberg principles. In any case, it’s up to journalists to decide what information is newsworthy or in the public interest, and who “the public” are.
Jose
“…….. In any case, it’s up to journalists to decide what information is newsworthy or in the public interest, and who “the public” are……”
I don’t agree to a large extent. Journalists have to weigh the importance of the information. Does the public interests outweigh the damage to national security? There is always damage by releasing information – no matter how much denial comes from the source of the leak or the journalists involved.
Thanks.
Isn’t that exactly what I said?
BTW Craig, Germans in the 1930s didn’t think they were of a different species. A lot of them simply thought they were “exceptional.” That type of thinking is dangerous, of course, but not uncommon, even to this day.
Well not quite. The Germans thought they were superior racially. Of course, Joe Louis and Jesse Owens helped dispel that theory. Then the Russians made the eastern front hell on earth. “American Exceptionalism” isn’t racial superiority.
As far as weighing the importance of intelligence, it’s useful to consult the government first before releasing the information. So in my opinion, it’s not entirely up to the journalist.
Dear GCHQ,
Make your shills less obvious please, I could dig up more capable trolls on 4chan.
“…….Make your shills less obvious please, I could dig up more capable trolls on 4chan……”
I’ll pass your advice along to Sir Iain Lobban (GCHQ), Andrew Parker of MI5 and Sir John Sawers of MI6 at dinner tonight.
Thanks.
You don’t like this kind of info: Just say it.
Okay we know they have a toolbox of things to annoy people and to mess with them and get them set up in stings or get them to shut up and whatever all these fine doughnut eaters do with the endless billions they have all acquired to set up this monkey house of control freaks. However once you show your hands people begin to notice and then they get together and figure out how to pull the clowns off their chrome plated star decks on board that fine earth sucking octopus. Oh then they whine and say how could you let out all our secrets???? I am sure there are all sorts of ethics questions and all the Five Eyes are supposed to be civilized countries that honor basic human rights including the right not being stalked and tormented….. Cluck, cluck, cluck…..
Why does this article point to joining two unknown callers as teenager prank etc. ? Has the writer done ANY research on spying etc by the FBI, CIA or Eschelon etc ? Connecting two (Perceived unknown callers to each other) callers, emailers, texters etc. etc. is EXTREMELY important AND an institutional tool by these spy agencies since practically the 1920’s. It stems back to medieval times having court appointed spies watching to see if two people who pretend NOT to know each other, actually do. It graduated to the 1970’s FBI investigations of Mafia and politcal campaigns to see if two people would: A. Know each other if they were spontaneously connected (As offered by AT&T working with agencies), B. Who would they contact after and C. Follow the targets actions afterwards. In todays world this is a HUGE tool to ascertain associations in A. Email relay B. Business forums C. Internet Social Sites D. Mailings and texting etc. They use this as a final sewing of the tapestry group. ” Hey why is Dave calling me at this number, he knows not to call me here yadda yadda yadda……….for what it is worth folks.
quote”.for what it is worth folks”unquote
For what it’s worth, I’ve got a wooden nickle for ya.
Not listed here is their probable ability to alter the target’s writing while the target is working on that document is open. Some American spy agencies do it, perhaps just to freak out their targets.
So we’re all officially tools now. I for one welcome our new overlords and will help wait America’s Got Talent is on!
I have been a target of NSA, CIA, FBI and the U.K. (individuals following me around driving vehicles having British of Columbia license plates). My status as a quasi-pro civil rights attorney and having sued numerous law enforcement officials for violation of my freedom of speech rights led to me being labeled as a “targeted individual”. I have been subjected to electronic microwave torture because it seems that whenever I sit at my home office computer desk for some odd reason I suffer electrical bodily disturbances such as tingling sensations in my hands and legs, headaches, blurred vision, loud ringing in my left ear, and involuntary muscle twitching. I believe these government agents are interfering with my legal work and hope that the effects of the electronic microwaves or Direct Energy Weapons attacks give me cancer in order to permanently shut my mouth about government law enforcement corruption. I have filed to complaints with the FCC after measuring electromagnetic interference outside FCC wattage limits both incidents my body began to swell (like after a gym work out for 45 min.) felt as if i was being slowly cooked from inside out. BE CAREFUL!!! FISA orders based on fictitious Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were used a pretext in labeling me and my family members as domestic terrorists then for secret assassination by way of direct energy weapons.
So basically they emulate the tactics anonymous used.
[Comment deleted by NSA]
When are you going to publish the results of the online poll at the beginning of the article, and what measures have you taken to prevent the GCHQ from hacking it?
whatsoever is happening to freedom first- if the big 3 ignoramuses englund, isntreal and americle one fond forget this for gainsake what about face the rest of man
Just thinking that the Brits are involved in spying concerns me, since they have managed to do such a great job in their own country, who in God’s name can trust them?
Would it matter? people who visit the site can be monitored anyways, what more does a comment do that a pagehit doesn’t?
First, I apologize for not taking the time to consolidate my comments here, so like Detective Columbo, I still have “just one more thing”, or 2.
Hacking online polls is not a big deal. Even in small towns. i can cite one that was hacked repeatedly in a mayoral contest, Described in this article are malicious script kiddies – who are not even paid very well and turned loose with impunity to raise the cost of free speech by making it difficult for a small operator to run a website, especially if it is political.
We can only hope that the public will be roused to zero tolerance of this illegal conduct by out illegitimate government.
Posted a link downstream regarding the Battle for Net Neutrality. Just in case anyone would like to comment, EFF, posted this comment today:
“So many net neutrality comments that FCC’s servers are crashing. New extended deadline is Friday: (link to FCC comment form) Jul 15 @ 11:43am”
Here is a link to make a very easy comment: https://dearfcc.org/
If Ann-Marie is right:
Corporate America: Throwing Good Money After Bad
http://deveer.org.uk/dvr/index.php?title=Corporate_America:_Throwing_Good_Money_After_Bad
Net Neutrality is pretty much a done deal. The froth and splutter in the MSM is merely pandering to the public as the corporates move in for the kill.
@ Anisha
Your article, although optomistic, is dated 3 May 2014.
From the EFF today:
“TAKE ACTION: Congress is trying sneak through a dangerous amendment that will kill Net Neutrality. Call right now: https://DearFCC.org/call ”
Link is also at the top of page on the original post above.
Jul 15 @ 2:25pm”
Governments (and to some extent corporations) develop these types of invasive tools and practices not to have them sit on a shelf just gathering dust. They use them, and not always for the right reasons. They use them to get the upper hand, to bring into question the integrity of others who may or may not be legitimate threats to the safety and security of a nation, but for political and economic gain. This is reaiity 101, not hypothetical make believe all is peachy keen.
I wonder if people are afraid to comment here for fear of being monitored by the NSA. At the Guardian 1500 + comments per article was not uncommon.
I’m sure that Obama’s NSA/DHS/FBI/IRS would NEVER stoop to such lows as described in this article. /sarc. Actually, this was probably all a gift from the NSA to their UK equivalents.
@ larry:
People should be wary of the owning or using the following listed devices: Telephones (lined or cell), Cameras, Televisions, and Computers with or without any type of internet access. It is also advisable to avoid, microwave ovens, energy saving light bulbs, digital electric meters, automobiles with navigation devices, water, food, and possibly toilets.
It is my hope that you own a small piece of land, a tent or lean-to, firewood (preferably a tesla coil), candles, well-water, a vegetable patch, a pond stocked with fish, some blankets, a good hunting knife, and a personal protective device such as a semi-automatic weapon with lots of ammunition. Please watch out for overhead aerial activity such as drones and/or insects which can be genetically altered to function as spy-drones. None of this applies in the event of nuclear attack. In that case you would need a sizable underground shelter capable of sustaining life for….well, a long, long, time.
Comments? All things considered, making comments is the least of my concerns.
Don’t think The Guardian isn’t monitored, larry. It’s off limits to govt workers and those military persons fighting for our freedom™. You ought to know that, you penny-a-post information distortion hack.
This is actually good.
+4,042 -0 (4,042 votes)
Gellman should ask an expert (Stasi officer Wolfgang Schmidt):
Fully agree
Kinda like making the kenyans poll numbers and approval numbers look like what they are not? F the GOVT
// “Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS)? Checked! See http://www.occupy-planet.com poll
// “Ability to spoof any email address and send email under that identity” (CHANGELING)”?
CHECKED! Cincinnati Bell claimed ( on audio files!) that the blocking of I.P-Address was due to us sending “spam”. What is no-where the case, nor is Bell willing to out of Court prove that claim.
This ability to impersonate and thus intentionally wrongfully implicate anyone IS among the most dangerous technologic ability the NSA/ GCHQ has posing a grave danger to anyone, even to world leaders btw! Particular IF a truly sinister and unchecked NSA/GCHQ crowd of brown-shirts combine the previous with //“For connecting two target phone together in a call” (IMPERIAL BARGE)”//
1. psychological manipulation to target online activists / Concurrent businesses?
Checked: Organized Astroturf’s and bot attacks, bullying, vilification with “don’t listen to him he is mentally ill”, needs his med”, direct online death threats like: “I’m gonna cut you son”, “you should be shot just like Obama lol”, and offline: hanging joke by a Cincinnati “cracker” on Street, wifi- hacking manipulator in front of the house ( leading to network interruptions and domain and revenue losses) and illegal externally brought heroin dealing activities at my door steps, which the Cincy Police is certainly ignoring even while presented concrete video surveillance evidences, ect., etc pp
2. Technologic Manipulations to target online activists / Concurrent businesses?
Checked: Evidences of intrusion into email accounts, business websites ( and inferring with development), into Paypal, Ebay, Whois/Nic.com accounts, into Skype conversations: “Active skype capability. Provision of real time call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists. (MINIATURE HERO)”,
U.S.’s ultra right-wingers on former Yahoo 360 as well as on Facebook were colluding to expose progressive Anti-war, Anti-Bush/Cheney progressives and environmentalists’s I.P-Adresses and photos on white supremacist websites, leading to massive disruption and hack attacks e.g:.
• “Targeted Denial Of Service against Web Servers” (PREDATORS FACE) and “Distributed denial of service using P2P. Built by ICTR, deployed by JTRIG” (ROLLING THUNDER)
Concrete technologic evidences of illegal hidden Facebook scripts, System Hardware-near internal back doors, deceptive screen projections, Internet traffic redirections, Facebook and other entries being hidden to others, Cincinnati Bell’s open legal answers in regards to their possible cooperations to illegal surveillance and evidences of attacks on our I.P.-Addresses,
// “Ability to artificially decrease traffic to a website” (GATEWAY) and “ability to deflate page views on websites” (SLIPSTREAM)”//?
Checked: Google declaring my small business to “Spam”, web-Sites were being reported to be Virus-infected, etc. ect. ect.
They Secret Service crowd of nowadays sure are through in their technologic mass deception and attempts of silencing critical voices and concurrence to advance some too big to fail Corporate as well as ideologic interests.
I read where a poster sees this as a problem of capitalism. What a joke. This is GOVERNMENT ABUSE as seen in Socialism and communism. Free markets have little need nor want for centralized government power.
Like shamans shaking rattles, you use words like “Government abuse”, “socialism”, “communism” or “free market” as if these empty labels mean something.
Let’s see what the vaunted “free market” has brought us just this century: Enron and the theft of billions; BP and the polluting of the Gulf of Mexico; Duke Energy and the poisoning of land and water in North Carolina, Lehman Brothers and the rest of Wall Street crooks collapsing the economy and throwing millions of Americans onto the streets; various coal mining disasters; GM going bankrupt, saved by taxpayer money, while producing death trap products; Citibank’s recent pay; various explosions and disasters across the country from cost cutting and negligence (West, Texas, Elk River, WVa mountain top removal) ; earthquakes and poisoned ground water from fracking … just off the top of my head.
I could go on but you get the point.
When “free market” is the question, government restraint is the answer.
When police state is the question, free market is the cause and public demand for responsible government is the answer.
But keep shaking your rattles. That’s what “free market” advertisers pay for — to undermine the single institution which properly managed might restrain the corporate pirates and outlaws who destroy the planet (and civil society) in pursuit of profit, privilege and power.
If they have this kind of capability then how can we in the US or anywhere believe our elections aren’t anything but a complete and utter fraud?
Seems harmless enough.A bunch of control freaks turning the sand box into a cat box.
In a Q&A today, Barton Gellman said that “[China and Russia] do a great deal of surveillance, with an emphasis on controlling domestic dissent that is absent in the files about the NSA”. What is absent, the “controlling domestic dissent” or the “emphasis on controlling domestic dissent”? Slight difference.
He also said, “I am not saying that the government is abusing the power it has accrued. Sometimes the scandal is what’s legal, especially if lawmakers and citizens had no reasonable opportunity to learn what the executive branch believed it was authorized to do.”
Comments like Bart’s are why he’s arguably the most respected voice on the matter. I have never heard him being accused as a wide-eyed idealist/advocate nor have I seen him characterized as an NSA shill. He is impressively dispassionate and just presents the information for us to decide. If you’ve seen him during an interview or debate (e.g. with Mike Hayden), he keeps a poker face the whole time.
Why is it, even after the revelations of Cointelpro, of spying on journalists and civil rights activists, of being caught red handed spying on Americas antiwar prostesters, and then calling people like Greenwald, Snowden (but not Gellman that I know of) “traitors”, why is it anyone gives these thugs in the Military/Security Industrial Complex the benefit of the doubt??
It is amazing to me that anyone would claim US authorities don’t try to stifle dissent!
Read the column.
Does anyone seriously think that only Britain does this and the US — through MSIC agencies or through contractors) — refrains?
Anyone?
Oh what wise and thoughtful men guide us!
So does Bart Gellman have documents from China and Russia where they admit in writing that they carry out surveillance in order to control domestic dissent? My guess is he doesn’t, but is quick to arrive at certain judgments based on his personal biases and learned narratives.
You can’t judge governments by what they admit in writing, or by what they ostensibly stand for. You have to judge them based on their actions, programs, capabilities, influence, and so on.
You accuse Gellman of “personal biases and learned narratives”!? Seems a bit harsh. He is one of the few people not polluting the internet and airwaves with an obvious bias or advocacy. In fact, I challenge you to show evidence of his alleged bias. Furthermore, his reporting is not “learned narratives.” After all, his work is dictating the narrative.
As for your implication that there is a lack of evidence, I’d suggest searching around on China because this isn’t exactly breaking news. Example: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/21/us-china-internet-idUSBREA0K04T20140121
That report illustrates my point. Does it show that China is using a surveillance program to crack down on dissent? No. The Chinese government claims otherwise. But you do assume they use it for that purpose, because it’s natural to think in those terms about a government. Yet, when we learn that the UK has a program to hack online polls, you give them the benefit of the doubt. (Maybe there are online polls that deserve to be hacked, is what I’m guessing you presume.) That’s the bias I’m talking about, which is self-evident enough that I don’t have to go around proving that every person possesses it. It’s there, even in organizations such as Human Rights Watch.
These people are friggen sick. Is it really even worth going online anymore? I can’t be the only one ready to bail. Soon as my phone contract is up I’m going old school to get away from the bastards.
Just goes to show you how worthless online polls and a lot of online information truly is.
What are they thinking??? Do they seriously have nothing better to do with their time???? All this technology makes me wish it never existed in the first place… maybe one day that will change (hopefully)
I heard a term, ‘organized lying’ that in many ways sums up exactly what our present form of government, world wide, actually encompasses. Are our problems caused by a gross deformity in the intellects of a few very conservative whacko’s who are so afraid of existence that they have to bury everyone else in their grave also? I am afraid that this human problem of ours may be insurmountable while humanity is in its present configuration. We may have to destroy ourselves again to kill this horrible virus of the mind we call capitalism. It is our doom!
What does capitalism have to do with government spying? Please, educate the rest of us.
This is GOVERNMENT, socialism, Collectivism, centralized control…NOT free market capitalism. You are, sadly, very confused about your isms….
William… You may be onto something big! I recall Lenin/Stalin/Marx/Mao took that ball and ran with it a few years ago. They really did ease slow down the ultimate disaster of “global warming” by eliminating some 30 million or so useless people. You are on to a really big idea!
Capitalism works OK, introduce GREED and no longer does one have Capitalism, but something else. Greed engenders Debt, Debt engenders Guilt, Guilt engenders Fear. Welcome to the New Age.
WTF?
quote”WTF?”unquote
Says dubya while forgetting his foot in his mouth …
quote”I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” –George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2008
Does anyone think that having the UN assume control of the Internet will make these despicable Big Brother tactics less pervasive? I’m sure the NSA has all these tools as well, and uses them to control, spy, and distribute Fedzilla opinions and propaganda.
If anyone thinks the US don’t have even more of these tools, they are delusional.
Secondly… Still think your vote matters? Are we to believe they have a hands off policy for electronic voting systems?
Arm yourselves, a final solution is still available.
You mean they hacked the polls like the Democratic Party hacked the 2012 presidential election to ensure a specific outcome? I’m SHOCKED!
Ok, so the intelligence agencies have these tools. That is not surprising.
Where are the documents showing how these tools have been used? Have they been used at all? For what purpose?
You’re Joking, right? If you owned “the Goose that laid the Golden Egg” would you have it spayed/nuetered?
You still think that you vote? EVERY computer on EARTH has been compromised on purpose for the status quo to Record, Edit, or Delete whatever they want EXCEPT for VOTING MACHINES! lol No one has voted for anyone since the inception of computers in the voting system. Everything is fake its called brainwashing you have been brainwashed. There are only Rothschild Rulers and people for whom they choose to rule. This is the New World Order. We lost the republic in 1913. You are just now getting the information to figure it out. If everyone figures out the jig that they are nothing more than an actor in a play, that has been scripted for over a 100 years. They will revolt and kill the evil that plagues this nation. They are getting scared so they are in a death spiral to kill 99% of humanity so they themselves are not killed and the power that has been theirs for over a 1000 years is not lost. Either they die or we die, I hope humanity can have another great awakening and realize they are enabling their very own death by complying with the staus quo demands. Either rise up or watch humanity destroy itself so the directors are never held accountable. Humanity has a choice, be free of the chains of their slave masters or die.
No surprises here. Has anybody ever bother to visit New York Times or Washington Post’s you cannot tell me comment’s on those sites isn’t heavily policed to remove and censor anything that doesn’t agree with the web administrator’s left-winged point of view: Gay Marriage; Legalization of Pot, whole-sale denigration of anything to do with Christianity; womens’ hallowed right to kill babies; etc. etc. …….
ad nauseum….
And then there is this matter to consider:
https://www.battleforthenet.com/#home
Home of “1984” finally coming to life to see how the “Ministry of Truth” is alive and being used against the citizens.
Thanks TI and Mr. Greenwald for publishing this article now.
The lesson here for those that are interested and are not afraid to speak out, is to openly oppose the introduced “make mass surveillance perfectly legal” bills recently submitted in GB and the USA.
Two links are required for explanation…..one here:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/13/edward-snowden-condemns-britain-emergency-surveillance-bill-nsa
USA link to follow.
CISA: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/zombie-bill-comes-back-look-senates-cybersecurity-information-sharing-act-2014
I appreciate the heads up, the EFF article is excellent. But what the US legislations does is legalize what I see on a daily basis. Countermeasures are already in place. I can give a list of companies that provide them if you are interested. I’ve already had Phish Labs contact one of the sites where I publish about documents from JP Morgan, and they also asked for “copies of all the hacking tools” on our site. My response was to send a similar request to their partner, Mike Rogers for copies of all the hacking tools on his site. I suppose those “tools” are actually somewhere in GB, it would be nice to have a live copy of that wiki so we can begin to fix the problem.
What we see in server logs every day is proof that corporations already act as if the worst possible version of this law has been enacted. We can not fail to respond.
David Roknich
INDYRADIO
https://indyradio.info
@ IndyRadio:
The damn bill has already been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee: http://rt.com/usa/171368-senate-committee-adopts-cybersecuirty-bill/
“What we see in server logs every day is proof that corporations already act as if the worst possible version of this law has been enacted.”
I have visited your site and bookmarked it and see that you have already posted a link to the EFF regarding net neutrality on 5 Jul 14. With regard to CISA, I would think that they would be interested to see your “list” of companies who are over-zealous in their communications countermeasures. You might want to do a “show” about this. Maybe an interview with a EFF representative……it can’t hurt. Just an idea.
Thank you for caring.
I also think that any shows that you do that pertain to
Finish last line with: the progress of the CISA bill will help.
Lyra1 – thanks for the encouragement, I will be using your suggestions. indyradio.info isn’t my only site, I’ve been busy elsewhere, and then, of course, the 8 streams of audio don’t happen by themselves. Hope you’ll use the contact form. – dave
Let go of that archive. Full disclosure is the only way for us to fix the problems. “The document appears in a massive Wikipedia-style archive used by GCHQ to internally discuss its surveillance and online deception activities.” John Young will be glad to help find a place for it, and there are more of us willing to help. – https://indyradio.info
It’s easy to code for this, when you have a gun to the head of every corporation. They must think they’re realy smart to modify the bios, OS, client hardware, server hardware, etc. It’s not really a challenge when all 52 cards are flipped open, is it.
That’s the main reason I Blog on sites like this everyday! Someone has to send a clear message that we’re
holding the people behind the power are accountable for the undermining our laws and our freedom and
the US Constitution. Help stop Intel- terror war waged against the innocents of civilian populations. Started by our own Governments development of it’s criminal organizations NSC, NSA, CIA, DEA, FBI and Congress under the facade of Justice. Accountability is pre amount to justice. All Senior staff of these organizations should be on trial for there lives this is a coup de tat. We have the power of the people and the US Constitution to back us up. They can only rule by consent of the people. Well this people does not consent WHY ARE YOU!
Rise up
We need the names of these individuals who are actually enabling this. They are the true criminals working under the guise of “for the good”. What a crock.
Starts at the President, includes most of the Legislative Branch, and includes the SCOTUS.
Read this: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/zombie-bill-comes-back-look-senates-cybersecurity-information-sharing-act-2014
@Lyra1 – Thanks for the url (;-}) and for your commitment and determination.
“Work is love made visible.” KG
As Usual,
EA
Angry pirate? lol
IRRATE-ADMIN
NAUGHTY-MINISTER
COUNTLESS-LAWSUIT
Could you please make a print icon so that we can print your articles? Just this basic tool would be really helpful to those of us who do not have cellphones, tech toys, use social media and just want to read your words in the privacy of our homes, on a sheet a paper and not on the computer. Thanks. Fan and Luddite.
It is a simple matter to high-lite the text, copy it, then paste it into a text form such as a new email in your mail program, then click print from the file menu above. Need help with that?
Or simply high-lite, then click print from the file menu of your browser.
In the poll above, I would like to vote for “Yes” :)
In the poll above, I don’t see any other choice :)
*Top knot graphics … pick a card, any card.
A big F**k You to the NSA?
http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/14/5898323/artist-david-huerta-mails-the-nsa-an-encrypted-mixtape
Just listen. If you do any criminal activity guys do not comunicate through phones or social media. Use old methods like meet up and talk where is no cameras phones or computers around and never ever take any device with you when you go to meet someone and talk about crime.why? Becouse devices can listen your voice they can make photos through your phone and ypu even wont know that until they arest you. And they can see where have you been even if you will take som card out off your phone. So please guys do not use phones for your own safety. When you come back home from serious conversation then you can use phone or computer be patient and you will be unstoppable. I understand that these days is uncomfortable to do crime without phone but think guys Becouse police will catch you if you will do any crime and use phone to comunicate. Without phone you much safer Becouse there will be no evidence about conversations no evidence where have you been walking so yeah phone is only to use it when you living normal life but when you involved in criminal activity never ever use any device to contact anyone. Got it? It is very serious. Avoid prison like you avoid death. And good luck guys.
Ummm, let me get this straight. You are advising people who do “criminal activity”? Like terrorists perhaps?
You do know this is asking for trouble don’t you?
“You are advising people who do “criminal activity”? Like terrorists perhaps?”
Like everyone. There is no meaningful connection anymore between an acts legality and its morality. The state has made us all criminals.
“Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad company.”
George Washington
So presumably all of Rebbekah Brooks’ deleted emails likely not perished after all?
Please disregard the UK Ebay thing- I was mistaken. it was because there is a link to the UK Ebay in the article.
Phrases like “strict legal and policy framework” and “rigorous oversight” were probably developed by the same brainiacs who thought up euphemistic shit like “enhanced interrogation techniques.” It’s very difficult to find any hope for much-needed government reforms when we have criminal sociopaths like Dick Cheney enjoying his million-dollar-view in Wyoming and Clapper not being prosecuted for perjury, while whistleblowers are methodically disempowered, silenced, and punished.
Once again, thank you Edward Snowden for your sacrifice.
I’m MUCH more concerned about our Liar in Chief, Obama. You know, the one who has already sicced the IRS, EPA, and DoJ on his enemies. Personally, I’d vote for Cheney for POTUS – he’s a great man, except to leftists.
I can’t argue facts with someone who won’t be informed by them. But for the record, both Cheney and Obama have lied as a matter of indisputable fact. If you think this is about party politics and right vs. left, you’re missing the big picture. Entirely.
Ok an odd thing that might be related, or maybe there is some kind of odd quirk going on here. I am trying to share this article and link via FB. Those of you familiar with posting on Fb know that when you insert a link, you get a little thumbnail preview of the article linked to, to the site. But when I tried linking to this story as well as a summary story about this on FB, the link only gives the the UK Ebay sight.
Great article and great comments.
A fight is a fight is a fight is a fight is endless comments on the fight.
So let´s fight?
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from the use of these techniques. I just need to think of the attempted bomb plots that have been foiled by MI5 thanks to the use of these tools, and am grateful that there is an organisation looking out for the whole of the UK and it’s people.
Good grief! (Face palm)
slave
That’s called false causality. There is no evidence that it’s true, and much to the contrary. It’s the same as believing state efforts have prevented space alien attacks or wild bears in our bedrooms.
Nothing to hide? What is the definition of what must be kept hidden changes?
U R sooo naive. For example on FB for every “friend” that you have the NSA can go 3 or 4 deep into their friends and if they want to the NSA can eventually link you to a terrorist whether you know that person or not.
Charlie,
Kindly post your street address on this forum so that I may drop in on you and your family this evening between 8:00 PM and 2:00 AM to inspect your household thoroughly. Notes will be taken on the overall cleanliness of you and your wife’s underwear, amount of cash and other valuables present, presence or absence of sex toys, stool consistency rated from 1 (soft) to 10 (hard), body weight and fat %, percentage of sugary drinks and/or fatty snacks in your refrigerator/cupboard, total weight in grams of all wasted or discarded food in trash, alcoholic beverage audit, gun and ammo search and whatever else I think of between now and then… because I’m looking out for the whole of the UK and it’s people.
The gov does not have the right to know your business without probable cause and writs from courts. Courts, that should demand and require a high standard of circumstantial evidence before allowing secret surveillance apparatus to be used.
The trespass and rape of individual sovereignty leads to tyrannical control and suffocation of public opinion and representation in gov lost forever.
Life, Liberty, and Happiness cannot exist without secure privacy; and agreed, transparent limitations on gov power, as gov lives as a pariah, supported by the labor of the common citizen. Not the other way around.
What you said! Awesome :-)
Just like in the US: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G21-ZScALiA; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpUkRchJxv0.
Saving us from their own plots that they initiated, plotted and provided money and materials for, after targeting, brainwashing, inducing, and leading on people with low education, and in some cases, mental disabilities.
Psychopathic criminal sociopaths. All to justify bloated budgets and keep pushing the perception of the “terror threat,” despite as many people being killed by bee stings than by terror (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/04/statistics-you-are-not-going-to-be-killed-by-terrorists.html).
Search j edgar hoover
We are living in countries that monitor everything we do and the UK is and has been for sometime a Police State!
The Internet is the battleground for information, free speech and telling the narrative of our times. In recent years advocates for social justice have used the Internet to impact the dialogue on issues like the wealth divide, war and to show there is a worldwide revolt against neo-liberal economics. The Internet has been used to organize and mobilize people in revolts throughout the United States and world (see http://www.PopularResistance.org to stay up to date on these activities). During occupy we saw infiltration by government agents and a common tactic was to get control over the social media of an occupy to spread misinformation and confusion. They know how important the Internet is to our work.
The current debate in the FCC over net neutrality, where corporations are pushing for a tiered Internet based on fees will create an Internet divided by wealth. This is another aspect of the effort to prevent the Internet from reaching its full potential as a democratized media space.
This article on manipulation of the Internet by spy agencies, and we should assume the NSA, CIA and corporate spies are doing the same in the US; along with the overall dragnet surveillance that Greenwald et al have previously reported are also efforts to turn the democratized Internet media on its head so it can serve the interests of the power structure.
This is the battleground for free speech in the 21st Century. Social change advocates need to be playing on it and need to be smart about how to make it a democratized media space for generations to come.
Yes, Yes!
Great article, thanks. The link to the full document has been manipulated.
99% sure that I had a run-in with BUMPERCAR while trying to watch a YouTube from George H Smith a while back. I commented on the video at the time since I suspected something like was happening; it was not a subtle experience, it jumped back-and-forth persistently in a way I have not seen before or since. I suspect this happened not so much due to the “terror” material I was viewing but the “terrorist” IE: me who was viewing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH1m9AslfkU
Many people have posted here and talked about NSA/GCHQ interference but have you actually attacked ?? I have 5 times the last time earlier today over the space of several years of posting on news websites I now post on a highly political and controversial website that has upset them which is attacked regularly. I have been completely taken off the internet and my PC program scrambled -blocked from the internet- the last main attack several days ago was the exe, program =start.exe which blocked my use pf my PC it took a while to counteract it but the worse thing was one of the companies that use -start.exe is my ISP so back door GCHQ/NSA. It is not a required Microsoft program and in your Windows C folder 70 % dangerous. I hope I am allowed to post this ?
Switch to Linux. Try it out by booting Linux from DVD or USB. It takes some getting use to for somebody that is primarily use to using Windows, but it isn’t harder than learning anything else. Rebuilding a Linux desktop is a snap once you get the hang of the process.
Don’t think Linux is the answer either, just because it’s open source. Its kernel may have been compromised: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/31/linux_kernel_security_breach/
@chronicle – here’s how you proceed, the remind them of the General Public License laws which prohibit this specific kind of behaviour exactly.
NSA (not secret anymore) agency activities at a minimum raise several systemic issues involving basic violations.
These include violations of the U.N. Charter; “unauthorised” and blatantly illegal invasions and/or intrusions into national space; World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements, in particular the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); the International Telecommunication Union Treaty and Conventions; treaties and protocols of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO); the Universal Human Rights Declaration and conventions; and the Vienna diplomatic conventions and codes of behaviour among civilised nations.
Furthermore the General Public License stipulates, that you may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work from you, a discriminatory patent license.
Of course we the Public have been reassured that all actions undertaken by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are Legal and proportionate.
Therefore I just wanted to ask, was it Legal and Proportionate for the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States to fund and train Syrian rebels with over have a million AK-47 Magazines.
Was it Legal and Proportionate to violate peoples privacy on a Global scale with his colleague, who appears to have taken a Sabbatical in the wake of the Daily Mirror hacking scandal. (Steve Hilton) Google employee, furthermore, if its under the GPL it should be therefore available to the Public at large not kept under wraps and used to attack them instead.
And was it Legal and Proportionate to then attempt to cover it all up?
Every one of us should send an email consisting of a page of random characters every day and keep them busy trying to decode it.
The GCHQ has obviously put a lot of work into these systems. I hope their effort is rewarded and they experience much satisfaction from winning many on-line polls. Great Britain is no longer a military power, so it is nice to see they can relive their past glories skirmishing with their enemies on the internet. In fact, this may be a more humane alternative to war. It might even be possible to tweak the software so that everyone perceives themselves as the winner of the on-line polls – a war with no losers.
I now understand why the NSA and GCHQ have invested so much effort infiltrating on-line role playing games. It didn’t make sense that these games would be a hangout for terrorists – they are more concerned with causing havoc in the real world. No, these games represent the future of international competition and Great Britain, thanks to the intrepid GCHQ seems to have a leg up on the competition.
quote”I now understand why the NSA and GCHQ have invested so much effort infiltrating on-line role playing games.”unquote
Says Milpropaganda specialist 47 @ Unit 6, while masquerading as a murderous Fascist from WW11 who, along with his wife, were hung and beaten to death by their fellow citizens..who cheered when finished. ..thank god.
http://www.storyleak.com/us-military-caught-social-media-running-mass-propaganda-accounts/
For your information, propagandists are likely to adopt a more sympathetic persona. I really don’t care if people agree with me, and would actually advise them to disbelieve anything I say, unless it is true (h/t bahhummingbug).
If there were a GCHQ or NSA operative in the comment section, they would probably merely try and disrupt any conversations by using insults.
This is really nothing new or really unknown, except for the expanding scope and the fact of actually having documentation from the agencies (thank you Glenn, for this affirmation.) Meticulous research had demonstrated much of this already (but the intercept gets the facts greater exposure (thank you again Glenn.)
http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/04/18/military-sock-puppets-nsa-trolls-cia-shills/
The most interesting aspect (to myself at least) is the ulterior motive .. that is social engineering, a longtime aspect of intelligence agencies clandestine information operations. The question that needs really studied is, how it has come to point where a nations own populace is the target as opposed to a hostile nation’s populace. The short answer is (in my understanding), there are parallel structures these intelligence agencies answer to that fall outside of government oversight in any ‘traditional’ sense. These structures are perhaps best represented in a single name “Monsanto” (however this does not take away from a whole host of other monikers, e.g. Raytheon, Chevron, enter your candidate here … )
I should add here an example of CIA edits of Wikipedia:
http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/02/05/intelligence-agencies-wikipedia/
Wikipedia is great place to look up some things, like hydrophonics, perhaps, but certainly not where you’d wish to go for information on intelligence agency personalities ;)
Holy shit. Thanks.
(inserts 30 round magazine into online .50 caliber.)
Flip it to automatic chronicle. Let it rip.
@ Ronald Thomas West
Excellent work and posts. People who frequent the TI comments section should read them.
I particularly like the Intelligence Agencies & Wikileaks piece….get down and dirty with full disclosure of names, places, dates, and times. Although, that is something of the norm for you.
I certainly appreciate your participation in this forum.
Thank you Lyra1, the acknowledgement of the value of my work is much appreciated .. unlike at The Guardian where I am permanently banned ;)
Holy shit. Thanks.
(inserts 30 round magazine into online .50 caliber.)
”That’s like someone getting a warrant to search your home and, in the process, stealing some of your stuff, making a call from your phone pretending to be you, and delivering your naked photos to your neighbor’s house.”
In the context of an operation, such behavior would be alright against highly dangerous individuals. But the totalitarian approach worries me. They must stop screwing up technology in the first place just for the sake of more sabotage options!
So ‘Great’ Britain is like the ‘United’ States, then. Misnamed, to say the least.
I remember watching Air Force One (Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman) when I was a kid, and when the president says to the villain “Have you no honor?” it made quite an impact on me. I was impressed that holding to honor could distinguish what is right, and this insight has helped me immeasurably in all areas of life.
Now we must say to the establishments of the UK and America, probably all the 5 eyes: “Have you no honor?” Their response, considering their actions, would be “We can’t afford it anymore.” This is no small thing, and in psychology it is usually an indication of sociopathic deterioration if expressed by an otherwise functioning adult.
If this attitude that “We don’t need honor because it is impractical” continues to persist – it is already promoted in contemporary Western culture to an alarming degree, and already makes Harrison Ford’s portrayal of a morally focused president an anachronism – the loss is profound, deeply troubling.
Amen! Amen! Amen! When a virtue becomes conditional it ceases to be.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28237111
Amazing what you can rush through parliament during the world cup…
WG
GCHQ owes its existence to the supposed need to defend Britain from “bad” governments (such as the former Soviet Union) which employ these freedom-crushing tactics.
Make no mistake, the intelligence agencies are there to maintain the status quo, to control public opinion and social engineering of society to serve the interests of the elite. In short they are there to enslave us.
For anyone on the inside, this pre-Snowden interview with NSA whistle-blower Bill Binney is very enlightening in what lengths these crooks are willing to go to keep their power:
http://lucidtree.com/#/surveillance-teach-in/
Kind of off-topic, but not entirely unrelated.
This article has got me thinking about something that has been happening to me for the past month or so. I rarely use my phone, maybe once or twice a day. But when I make a call, as soon as I hang up I have an incoming call. It’s immediate. I’m pretty sure it’s a telemarketer; the prefix is usually the same but the last four digits are different (because I keep blocking the numbers as they come in). I never answer it. It’s just plain odd…someone, somewhere is tapping into my phone and knows when I’m using it.
Telemarketers have been using phony calls (I get these too), where you answer and there’s no one on the other end of the line. They usually hang up after a couple of rings if you don’t answer. The purpose of these phony calls is just to find out what time of day you are most likely to answer the phone. That information is then used by the real telemarketers, who will be sure to call you virtually every single day from there on.
But this is different. Somehow they know when I’m using the phone and when I’m finished. My phone rings before I can set it down. It doesn’t even have to be a phone call. Sometimes the call comes if I pick up my phone to check the web or Facebook. Any sort of activity on my part has at one time or another triggered a call (happens much more frequently after I make a phone call).
I doubt it’s the NSA on the other end of the line, but here I think is what might possibly be another aspect of the monster that they have created. The government’s partnership with the private sector to create back doors and other software features that can be manipulated has put not only the government in a position to abuse these new toys, but the private sector as well. They have as much business spying indiscriminately as the government does, which is to say, they have no business doing it at all.
I have no clue if it’s telemarketers, scammers, or whoever…I’m speculating here. It’s possible, I guess, that the timing of these calls are purely coincidental — possible, yes, but the odds have to be staggering.
Spyes are obsolete , The satellite system is so powerful it can read your mind.You are then grouped by your thoughts.If they see a HOT SPOT then watch out.I hope we can live knowing that everything we think is recorded at the data storage areas. John Bertotto
Baltimore City Paper spoofs Baltimore PD’s fake twitter likes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POD28ozUTeg
The Steering Committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press drove off the edge of the earth. What an embarrassment.
This most ridiculous move. They are bananas.
Here is Mr. Rubin, a lawyer employed by Microsoft, thrilled to be on the committee. He should step down. Most of this steering committee needs to take a hike and we need to take it back.
“As the first non-working journalist to be elected to the Steering Committee, I want to emphasize that the Constitution requires … blah blah blah.
Key part is where he says he is the first non-journalist elected. There is a reason non-journalists do not sit on the steering committee. There is a reason corporate executives and others with clear conflicts do not — mustn’t — sit on the Steering Committee.
, – See more at: http://www.rcfp.org/microsofts-rubin-elected-reporters-committee-steering-committee#sthash.IQfRcCoR.dpuf
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a lawyer who works for Microsoft has joined the Steering Committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. No one seems to mind.
And taxpayers have to pay for all this!
Taxation that could go to people in need of help, benefits, housing. etc instead!
Why was SCREAMING EAGLE highlighted in bloody crimson?
There have always been agents provocateur and there have always been disinformation campaigns, but these tools have the potential of taking the game to a whole new level. One only remember the effects of the study Facebook ran a couple of years ago: “Facebook reveals news feed experiment to control emotions” . Just think of how useful they would have been against popular uprisings like, say, OWS . . .Boy, I’ll bet the PsyOps guys are losing their cool thinking about all of the ways these tools can be used . . .
If we could just be blunt…what is the endgame of all this surveillance, psyops and experimental weapons testing? Well climate change is coming and it can’t be stopped. Oil is a finite resource, that is used for everything from, fuel, to cosmetics, plastics…it’s in most domestic products. When it was first discovered, it was a miracle, but the jig is up! The work is divided between two groups, one which wants to use science and capital to address the challenges of the future and another group that believes resource wars, mass dislocation due to climate change and scarcity is the future. This group is trying to secure their safety in a very uncertain future. I suspect they would like the population to decrease to a sustainable 1 billion. Which begs the question, what happens to the rest of us? If you are one of the unlucky .01 percent test population, you already have a taste of what’s in store. Slow kill teams, cancer, depilating harassment…ultimately death for 6 billion people, so that the ultra wealthy and their minions may maintain their lifestyle.
There is another group, equally as wealthy, that is trying to leverage science, finance and medicine against the world’s future challenges, which they do not view as inevitable. Since no one can predict the future with absolute accuracy.
I have on thing to say to the people with wealth and power…Even if the worst is true, wouldn’t you prefer to try…when your immortal soul hangs in the balance. What difference does a year or two make, when you have done the right thing…for you, your children, your grandchildren and the future of humanity.
Obviously, they’ve strayed from surveillance into propaganda. They are no longer defending against threats to the UK, more fighting political battles abroad.
I’M WAITING TILL THEY ADMIT TO INTERFERING IN UK ELECTIONS. Because UK has never elected an anti-surveillance PM, each candidate is demonized before they rise to power.
Why do Sheeple vote, what has ever changed B,liar, Cam,on, in, , like sheep to the slaughter, me what should I care, at 80 yrs old I,m out of here.
you view this as a battle between benevolent and malicious overlords. where are the people? only the people can solve this. stop believing in the concept of leaders. it’s the longest running propaganda campaign in human history. educate yourself, and help us smash the state
SheeeezusHfuckingchrist. Whine, moan, scream, bitch, ..when are you going to get a clue? The solution is so easy a cave man can do it. Read the 16th Amendment and decide whether or not it is the means to subjugate you or not. Then decide what you are willing to do about it. The INCOME TAX is the only way the can NSA exist. PERIOD.
Right. And corporations would never act like this.
you’re right to question the state, but since get hung up on which way they authorize their power — we must simply take it for ourselves
The last page of the document has some programs that are not in the article, which I think are quite interesting. These are software systems which are obviously intended for massive use:
* DEADPOOL: URL shortening service.
* HUSK: Secure one-to-one web based dead-drop messaging platform.
* LONGSHOT: File-upload and sharing website.
And so on.
How would they use these? Data collection and monitoring is one possible use. They could also infect user’s computers with malware.
GG , you continue to amaze, just when you thought the NSA/GCHQ were bad now we find out they are worse. I love your quote “They include invasive methods for online surveillance, as well as some of the very techniques that the U.S. and U.K. have harshly prosecuted young online activists for employing.” Do not do what the NSA does, do what they say? lol. Their hypocritical actions and contempt for our constitutional rights as Americans are truly appalling. From everything we have learned the last year from Edward and the Intercept, is this – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/airport-security-checks-electronic-devices-charged – another way for the GCHQ to illegally obtain peoples personal info from their phones and laptops to then give to the NSA? sure seems like it to me all under the guise of a constantly evolving threat from terrorism. Just as you all have proven time and time again this info from innocent people is useless. It sure did not stop the Boston Bombing and we could go on and on with countless other incidents. All Americans need to make sure when it is election time to vote for the candidates that actually care about our personal freedoms or this Government tyranny will never end.
Easier said than done. We’re manipulated by the politicians at least as much as by the intelligence services.
This gives the five eyes the opportunity to engage in PsyOps (against their own people) more subtly than ever. Remember the results of the experiment Facebook ran in 1012? http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds – Great tool for dealing with “problems” like OWS . . .
As a blogger I became aware that this was going on. Sites that reported government-sanctioned storylines — or just avoided serious issues a la Mashable — were rewarded by Google. Sites that pretended to challenge government — but in fact had comment section enabling sock puppets — ala Gawker, also fared well. Longtime students of the web saw this with their own eyes.
I was wondering whether in the course of their investigations of the Snowden material, whether Glenn or the others have come across anything where the NSA ever said, “Whoa, this is too radical and extreme; we shouldn’t do this!” I don’t get any sense of discretion or moderation whatsoever. The only limiting factor seems to be the technology at their disposal, and right or wrong does not enter into the equation. This can only end badly without proper oversight and controls, and, to steal a well-known retired coach’s phrase, the only variable is time.
Have seen a number of these in use. For example, got autoresponders from politicians saying “Thank you for your email” when I had sent none. Also from a person on vacation at Macy’s. This was while I lived in NYC and was under intense COINTELPRO-type harassment over something witnessed many years before. US absolutely does this as well.
I also note that the Brits are in the middle of a rather large scandal. Quite the coincidence, allowing carte blanche for JTRIG when MPs are accused of torturing, raping children.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28295282
Actually, it was probably the Brits doing it to you, as they often do the NSAs dirty work on US citizens.
If you’re looking for the correct word for this particular phenomenon, try “Sociopathic”.
Right on the money – they are SOCIOPATHS — EVIL SOCIOPATHS. I would like to see some explanation from our elected officials regarding what any of these activities have to do with “national security” or “terrorism.”
“The only limiting factor seems to be the technology at their disposal, and right or wrong does not enter into the equation.”
When funding for yet another contract is the driving imperative, you are unlikely to see any signs of “restraint” in the sales material. I would love to know what percentage of these slide decks were crafted in-house, as a opposed to by/for employees of the contract “security” companies that live off our federal tax dollars.
It amazes me that right or wrong never even enters their thinking.
IMPERIAL BARGE
SILVERLORD
ANGRY PIRATE
WARPARTH (Okay. This one is marginally clever)
Has anyone yet tried to do any linguistic analysis on these program names?
I’ve yet to see one named FARTINGPUPPY, FRAGILEMUFFIN or DAINTYDARLING. Does the intrusiveness or illegality of a program correlate with the machismo quotient of the title?
the angry pirate is a “joke” about unpleasant sexual practices:
http://youtu.be/aG9tyCvh63w
Arson sam is a youtu.be parody of “fireman sam”. http://youtu.be/5xaDQPIuPec
given that both of these things are welsh, i suspect cymdeithas infiltration of gchq.
it’s a shame they took the taff wars stuff down.
WARPARTH (Okay. This one is marginally clever)
Agreed, which is why I decided it must be a spelling error. ;-}
Does the intrusiveness or illegality of a program correlate with the machismo quotient of the title?
So it would seem. I like your names better. I would like to add some of my own submissions for consideration:
FAINTINGFLOWER
POOTINGGENTLEMAN (since you’ve already absonded with ‘fart’)
PERFUMEDBOSOM
GARGANTUANGIRDLE
You’d think a UK-based program (excuse me, “programme”) would use more British code names, and not stuff that sounds like it’s Fort Meade. British-flavoured tags might include things like:
DEAD PARROT
COCKROACH CLUSTER
SPRING SURPRISE
DIRTY VICAR
UPPERCLASS TWIT
SUMMARIZE PROUST
BETTY WINDSOR
HYACINTH BUCKET
CAPTAIN PEACOCK
Say, do I get an MBE out of this?
BALDRIC THEWISE
relying on the good nature of the spies isn’t reliable; assume they’ll stop at nothing.
While we’re on the subject of manipulating political views online, boy howdy are the Israelis all over that one.
Israel student union sets up “war room” to sell Gaza massacre on Facebook
“Organized lying”
Last year a “covert” Israeli government initiative came to light which planned to pay students for spreading propaganda online.
“The whole point of such efforts is to look like they are unofficial, just every day people chatting online,” Israel expert Dena Shunra told The Electronic Intifada.
“But in fact, these are campaigns of organized lying, orchestrated with government-approved talking points and crowdsourced volunteers and stipend recipients,” Shunra added.
According to Ynet, “The war room was opened in the afternoon of the first day of Operation Protective Edge,” one week ago, by the [Israeli student union branch at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya ] student union, and currently has more than 400 volunteers active in it, all students at the institution.
Working in 30 languages, the students working this comment far target online forums including so called “anti-Israel” pages on Facebook and comments sections of online media.
Tomer Amsalem, a second-year year psychology student, acts as one of the war room’s graphic designers.
“In one of our graphics we show the treatment that members of [Hamas leader] Ismail Haniyeh’s and Abu Mazen’s [Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas] families received in Israel, to show we’re even humanitarian to the families of the Palestinian leaders,” he told Ynet.
“In another graphic we show the trauma of the children living around Gaza, which is expressed in drawings of Qassams [rockets]. Another example is a series of cities around the world, being attacked. For example, Berlin – we wrote in German ‘What would you do?’ with a background of Berlin being attacked,’” Amsalem added.
Amsalem is quoted as saying that he sees his work in the “war room” as a civilian equivalent to being called up for military reserves.
Rest here, with videos: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-student-union-sets-war-room-sell-gaza-massacre-facebook
@ -Mona-:
Just wanted you to know that I read that article, and appreciate the fact that you are trying to increase awareness of Israeli psy-ops on the internet.
“war room” …..That is the preferred “room” for the zionist banking cartel.
Why haven’t I seen this yet from other news sources? People thought the Facebook newsfeed manipulation was creepy, wait till they get a load of this.
It was on The Guardian hours ago, prominently crediting First Look Media.
Now that the Internet has become an end-stage simulacrum, stage-managed by the aristocracy, it’s probably time to log off, leave the cell phones home and start talking to people in person, the good old fashioned way. There’s the sort of authentication no non-quantum crypto algorithm can match (but search your applicants carefully).
flash drive samizdat, anyone ? ? ?
Creepy is right people. The internet really is a threat to individuals who currently hold influence and it shows more than ever.
Only in the hands, hearts and minds/command and control of those and/or that [for of course, are there loads of machines engaged in such an enterprise/operation/mission too] which know what they be doing with the internet and know what it can really do, virtually/remotely, Paul.
And whereas it is indeed a most threatening of incredibly destructive and catastrophically disruptive, invisible and intangible weapons systems, is it also an unbelievably creative facility for manufacturing and managing future novel content for product placement into the present and current theatres of media hosted reality to driver base human perception to accept a certain decidedly more intelligent design of future existence as the default for reality, even though it be a internetworking coproduction and directed virtual reality picture …….. with the bigger picture being that in IT Circles which server and foster such as can be imagined and realised and virtualised as Postmodern Round Table Knights with Damsels in Distress to Comfort and Savour with Favours, is IT AI and Greater IntelAIgent Games Play for …… well, the JTRIG informative would appear to identify them as prime natives/bonobos of SPICE ISLAND, with that old information board hosting [This page was last modified on 5 july 2012, at 13:05] inevitably to be significantly improved upon and developed ever further and deeper for lead in the field and Operating Systems with Quite Quietly Sublime and Stealthy and Surreal and Special Intelligence Services and Servers supplying Internetworking Source Provision of Future Content Unifying Knowledge.
It’s good that GG has returned to the task of reporting on the Snowden files. He was too long away. I was beginning to lose hope.
Any information on who these methods have been used against or the purported oversight procedures that are so questionable?
It is tiring to merely hear about capabilities and not know of any of the operational results. Abuse and lack of oversight is what will spur change.
Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure they only hacked online polls that had it coming.
I’d rather not speculate. I’m moved by evidence.
You know, I agree with you about the lack of context here. That said – abuse is what will spur change? Nate!! That is so wrong on so many levels. C’mon. You are never baby-proofing my house if I ever have kids (“We’ll just leave this bottle of Drano open. A lost esophagus or two will spur change.”) Evolution gifted us with frontal lobes for a reason.
Pretty dumb analogy Nic.
Those techniques used by GCHQ are just not that controversial without knowing anything about targets.
Nate-
Those techniques not that controversial – without knowing about targets? Not to me they’re not! When you read or take part in an internet poll, don’t you want it to reflect the data of actual, not faked, respondents? Do you want the gov’t pushing certain videos? Do you want them scooping up personal facebook photos? Remember, that even if YOU’RE not the target, YOUR data may be hovered up as well as The WaPo reported. What you seem to be saying is -these nefarious means are “justified” to target the “bad guys” (at least that’s how I seem to be reading it). Let’s be very clear; these latest reports make it obvious that if you use the internet, true data YOU may want to use to evaluate a webpage, poll, video, blog, etc. could very well be compromised. Even if you’re not a target, is that something you find desirable? I, for one, don’t!
Then I’d argue that you are not seeing (or simply don’t care) about the full picture and are naive to the threat. The target obviously matters. By not knowing the target or how these techniques are applied, people gravitate to applying it to their own daily activities. So now when I’m on ESPN filling out the poll about where LeBron should go, I wonder if the NSA is inflating numbers!!
No, without hearing or seeing some example of how these techniques are used, one cannot draw any type of credible conclusion. The burden of proof is on Snowden and Greenwald to show that GCHQ or the NSA is manipulating internet polls in defiance of free speech rules. After all, that is the implication from the reporting.
Pushing certain videos such as what? There is a book out about the CIA’s push to send copies of Dr. Zhivago to Russia decades ago. Is the video equivalent of that to an adversary country not considered fair game? And there is a difference between scooping up and analyzing my Facebook photos versus a targets. I expect mine to not be viewed if sucked up “incidentally” and I am concerned about the NSA’s ability to differentiate based on the Washington Post article from last week.
Ugh, getting so tired of the verb “hoovered” :) Anyways, that is the nature of collection in a digitized world. The question isn’t whether incidental collection can be avoided but how to minimize and eliminate non-target data. I think the NSA needs serious reform in this area but deficiencies in this area doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it at all. To draw such a conclusion is to not see any value in intelligence collection or not understand how it works.
It’s not even close to that simple, and your use of “nefarious means” tells me that you are incapable of putting yourself in the government’s shoes with regard to dealing with real threats out there. My viewpoint is as follows: (1) intelligence collection as long as executed in accordance with the laws and the constitution, are fair game. The argument of “just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it right” is an ambigous excuse. (2) Measures must be in place to oversee these activities and protect our data. It is clear that the existing oversight needs serious improvement, especially from Congress who have been shown to be almost useless, and the FISA Court needs more independence from the NSA, among several other matters found by the President’s Review Panel and the PCLOB.
Actually no, it’s not clear at all because there is no EVIDENCE of their use, who was targeted, or the degree of the use. This specific report provided just enough information to create some pretty awesome speculation and whip up fear but it failed to show any operational results. That’s half the story and it’s missing!!
Comparing this story to the “NSA 5″ proves my point. The NSA 5 story was excellent because you saw the proof, you heard from these alleged “targets,” you heard perspective from both sides of the aisle, and although there are still unanswered questions, the NSA has the burden of proof on them. Why did these 5 individuals get surveilled. We should demand answers.
But this report on the other hand, the burden of proof is still on TI and they did not deliver.
Correction:
I said “the argument of “just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it right” is an ambigous excuse. ”
I meant that is an ambiguous excuse if stated broadly. In some cases, what may be legal may still be idiotic to do. For example, the monitoring of Merkel may not have violated any U.S. law but it struck me as foolish for the U.S. to do considering Germany is an ally.
Nice topic change from guiding principle to particulars of a specific situation, Nate.
The quote I was referencing was the idea that change should be abuse driven. That is very much like saying safety standards should be tragedy driven. Or, you can look ahead at what kind of system you’re building and what problems and bugs you could encounter in various situations, how likely they are, etc.
And way to ignore important context in my original quote.
I said: “Abuse and LACK OF OVERSIGHT is what will spur change.”
The question that nobody asks around here is: If these methods are used against legitimate targets, are they acceptable? What are the oversight mechanisms to prevent abuse?
Without knowing any operational results related to the above article, who is to say. So to conclude that “change” is even necessary has not been proven. Hence my claim: If there is not abuse and there is not evidence of inadequate oversight, what is the problem that needs to be changed!? This article did not answer that. Your analogies are simply not good because you ignored the part where I mentioned “lack of oversight.” Utterly convenient! Safety standards are dependent on oversight to identify problems and ensure consistency with standards. As is protecting the kiddos from accessing the Drano considered parental oversight.
Nate: “And way to ignore important context in my original quote.
I said: “Abuse and LACK OF OVERSIGHT is what will spur change.”
Um… ok. I didn’t specify the open Drano involved an *unsupervised toddler. Are we good now?
You’re conflating two points here. 1) Is it a good idea to let abuse and suffering, vs preventative planning based on human intelligence, drive change in systems (which you stated above) 2) Is said abuse actually happening.
I actually agree with you that there is a lack of context here on point 2, so on that point, I just don’t know. On the point 1, no, I think that’s like releasing a computer program and saying “We’ll just see what bugs people report and maybe fix those if they’re really bad and annoy a lot of people, and hey, if it’s some obscure thing that isn’t likely to impact anyone for a few years, we’ll totally ignore it until it crashes an entire system and let that be our indication that we should change things.” Again, frontal lobes – why we look for design flaws in bridges, safety-proof homes, and on and on. Do we need change here? On that, I’m very open, again, the context isn’t clear to me. Should bad things happening be the catalyst for change? One likes to think there are better ways.
To some degree you have described how companies like McAfee and Symantec operate. They do not have enough resources to address everything. They probably have to assess risk, it’s the nature of the beast. But I did not intend to make some overarching argument that all change must be reactive. You seem to be trying to take my comment and mold it into a worldview that can be applied uniformly across any topic.
I was commenting with the knowledge that Glenn sees the whole system rotten to the core and expects change. Well, good luck spurring change if you cannot prove that abuse has occurred or that the controls above are deficient. Personally, I have a greater demand for evidence than what is contained in this single report. And maybe, down the road more information will reveal serious problems, but until that happens, I am not even convinced that change to these particular GCHQ tools is necessary. Granted, I am curious about how Internet poll manipulation is used. If GCHQ is going to Iranian or Syrian websites to undermine their poll results, I’d probably laugh at its shrewdness and be extremely skeptical of its efficacy, but it wouldn’t spur the outrage that I’m seeing around here. Of course, my example is just as made up as manipulating your favorite political website polls. Hence, my desire for actual operational data.
This is a red herring/strawman. To take my comment and conclude that I don’t care about preventative measures across the gamut is absurd. Like most complex programs that carry risk, there must be preventative, detective and reactive controls.
However, I would add that the bitter truth is that often change is spurred by the bad outcomes. Take Social Security for example – it will continue, as an issue, to get punted down the road because it is politically explosive. It might just take people feeling the impact of its impending insolvency for action to occur.
“You seem to be trying to take my comment and mold it into a worldview that can be applied uniformly across any topic.”
Well, fair enough, I do assume that people don’t randomly assume different world views or standards for different issues – or, if they do, they don’t openly acknowledge this. But if you mean, “abuse should only be the catalyst for change – on *this topic”, well, I suppose I am flummoxed, and I am not sure what to invoke to tell you this seems like an odd way of organizing one’s standards. Although it does strike me as an odd way of organizing one’s standards.
I agree there is something to be said about finding out how much protection, exactly, is needed. Going back to the example of child-proofing a house – you could put locks on the paint doors, or you could wrap your child in bubble wrap and follow them around with a can of Lysol at all times. There is, of course, something to be known about what degree of safeguarding protects effectively from harm and what is just overkill and hurts more than it helps. The issue here is that assessing this without transparency (and I say that as someone who definitely believes in the need for some secrecy) and knowing what actual outcomes are is very difficult. But I don’t think this means we should say “Hey, so long as we don’t have examples of heinous abuse, we shouldn’t think about it” – that’s not how we’d evaluate any other system. I’ll even accept saying “In this case we can’t evaluate said systems that way, but this is a trade-off we’re willing to make for security and public safety” – but that’s subtly different (acknowledging it as a trade-off) than saying “we don’t know so it must be fine, then”. That doesn’t mean “We don’t know so it must *not be fine, either” – but it’s an acknowledgment that there is a system in place you’re willing to not evaluate / examine in the usual way, because this is considered a fair trade-off for the security it provides.
You ignored the part about oversight (Again!), so no – I don’t mean abuse is the only catalyst for change.
We are in agreement here. The fact that the several lawsuits against the NSA metadata program would have been thrown out due to lack of standing had Snowden not leaked it, is a serious problem. It’s a perverse incentive to use and abuse secrecy. Also, overclassification, which is a problem across the entire USG is a joke which has a cascading effect on getting information via FOIA requests.
Abuse or the potential for abuse is not the sole standard to judge a program but it is certainly a factor. Other factors from an NSA perspective include legality, cost, successes, impact on foreign relations, public perception, safeguarding of information, and monitoring and oversight.
Take the telephony metadata program. According to PCLOB, it has arguably violated statutes although not in a criminal manner. One federal judge called it “likely unconstitutional” and “Orwellian.” The President’s Review Group and PCLOB basically agreed that it has little value that isn’t already derived from other FBI tools such as National Security Letters. There have been some abuses such as the whole “LOVEINT” matter but that has been the exception and was identified by oversight matters. The FISC judges fumed that they were misled about parts of the program. And there is the risk of all our metadata, which is in government posession being abused. After you consider all these factors, it’s hard to justify both the government’s vast collection of all the metadata and even its very existence.
My opinion of this changed over time. The sequence was approximately this: (1) is this substantive data? No. (2) Does it make sense to me why they’d want this capability – yes, to track foreign based communications transiting the U.S. (3) to what extent can metadata be abused – potentially a lot, (3) is it legal or constitutional – TBD but Judge Leon’s opinion against it was very compelling and considered changes in technology since the precedential rulings, (4) is it operationally effective – hell no, the FBI uses this as a fallback option.
All these factors have led to my conclusion that the Phone Metadata program is a completely unnecessary overreach and should at the minimum be transferred to the telecoms and restructured, and at the most completely ended.
So when applied to this article, I circle the wagons by wanting to know operational results, if there has been abuse, and if the oversight is adequate.
I think every system and program deserves scrutiny. That was the reason for expanding the authority of Inspector Generals and creating intelligence oversight committees. When Snowden was first really becoming disillusioned with the NSA, that conclusion was based in part on a review of the DOD Inspector General’s report on the Bush surveillance programs. The problem is that the NSA is so damn huge that I don’t think there are anywhere near enough oversight resources. And going back to transparency, all these audits and reports are marked Top Secret and hidden. Whereas many people around TI are “end NSA surveillance” blowhards, I’m more of a realist who thinks reform and accountability are key. That Clapper and Alexander weren’t fired months ago is beyond me…
Hang ’em all. GCHQ is a blight.
scary stuff indeed. These guys are out of control.
We all Internetusers need to offer a small webserver, sharing all theese informations from our own also, so they have to shut down all the internet to prevent from true information.
We all users need to learn to “surf” safe, so everyone needs to have tails, and use it every day for some time, looking news, learning to use.
We all need to search daily for theese informations, and start thinking twice, mean searching the source and truth of an information, and share the paths to theese, here back to own servers, easy ones , just for html and text.
WE can break there power so easy, WE are the mankind – not the governments, not the secret services … !
I’ve found two ways Snowden can apply for asylum in another country from the safety of Russia.
If he’s sponsored by an Australian citizen:
http://www.immi.gov.au/Visas/Pages/202.aspx
If he’s sponsored by 5 Canadian citizens:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/sponsor/groups.asp
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/outside/index.asp
You’re joking, right? If he’s going for one of the 5 eyes, why not apply for asylum in the US while he’s at it?
My unstated assumption is that there is enough rule of law left in these countries that they would not sink so low as violate the principle of non-refoulement by rendering someone who they had officially granted asylum.
*grammar correction*
‘as violate’ = > ‘as to violate’
I don’t think Canada or Australia are safe places for Snowden to request asylum. In those countries he’ll be abducted by the bad guys (who think they are good guys – sociopaths are often delusional) before he even unpacks his suitcase. Russia is the safest place he can be until more countries in the west WAKE UP to the evil our security services are up to.
Neither Canada, with the ridiculous Abbot as PM, nor Canada, with a Quisling The Harper Government embarrassing the country. The Harper Government is wide open more loyal to the USA, Israel, Britain, and The Vatican than it is to their own country.
We are being told the enemy is at the gates when in fact the enemy has living with us all the time. Time to wake up to the reality of the society we live in. Time to challenge all we thought to be true. If we are to change society we must change first.
Thx again for your work GG….I will tell that once again – these leaks are more & more terrifying….I already knew what kind of country UK is when i spent few hours at one of London’s airports…It looked like warzone or zone somewhere in police state…not in normal country….
As always , in sad times I recommend to all of you one of the Simpsons episodes – this time it will be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Surveil_with_Love
cheers !
We need Governments with much higher ethical standards, that do not exaggerate threats to benefit the elite financially. We need Governments that are far less corrupt, and Governments that can be trusted, currently our Governments are worse than mafia – they are the enemy of the people, We need a new World order, but it is not the same New World order that the elite want. We need a fairer, less corrupt and more honest new order with much higher standards of governance and accountability We need Governments that do not conduct dirty wars for profit, based on lies. We need a new system of true democracy and with more fearless news publications like The Intercept. We need more Edward Snowdens, Julian Assanges and more Bradley Mannings, and Glenn Greenwalds. and we need to all learn to speak up more. We need Governments that do not seek to punish those that expose the crimes of Governments.
Corruption is the purpose and objective of representative government, no matter how many happy stories ooze from the Prussian ad-ucational system about the Founders that are easily contradicted by a look at academic history, a rather different beast from the bill of goods you learned in primary school.
Unless a supermajority of the electorate can instantly, summarily, with full force of law, with absolutely no concern for the supposed rights of the official, and with the very fact of the vote constituting the final supreme legal order have them arrested and held incommunicado until anyone cares enough otherwise, so-called representation is nothing more than tokenism.
ummm..did you just wake up from a coma from birth or what???…We need a government that..bla bla bla? JesusHchrist..what the fuck do you think human beings have been saying since the big bang??? fuck.. listen pal… look around you. Now what part of pick up a weapon and choose which side of the line in the sand you think is aligned with your prognosis of mankinds condition don’t you understand?
Now that you got that out of your system, are you feeling better?
Now that you found out why your mother pinched your umbilical cord..are you feeling better?
As with the panopticon effect, where prisoners never know if/ when they are being surveilled, we now turn the corner into a world in which the telescreen might be showing us something approximating ‘reality’, or might be a spooks plaything mashed up to monkey with our minds – how would we know? And our not knowing becomes the primary problem.
Options include resorting to some healthy common sense, some healthy paranoia, some recourse to solid state information. You could email a friend for confirmation … no, no, I see a problem there. Phone them on the IMPERIAL BADGER line and compare notes… no , oh fuck, what about pendulums and hazel sticks?
Oh I’ve got it, legislate, or something.
[this post was originally riveting and full of relevant forwarding links before the JTRIG crew got hold of it]
The biggest fear of the GCHQ and NSA is:
“… damaging **public debate** which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime.”
I guess that explains why the UK Parliament wants to push through its new surveillance bill so swiftly and without any public debate…
Nahhh it was probably just so that another billion pounds of tax payers money could be given to the major defence and intelligence contractor corporations of the elite. Money stolen from the poorest members of society through slashing vital services, and slashing social security in the name of austerity.Its a real moneyspinner – just ask Bush and Cheney . Just follow the money trail !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10965182/David-Cameron-pledges-1.1-billion-for-defence-to-fight-cyber-terrorists.html
Its about time the Intercept got its teeth into the trilateral commission and The Council On Foreign Relations too.
Well now that you mention the Council on Foreign Relations…I’ll way in. Years ago, before I was a target I used to cater at the Council on Foreign Relations. They were running models on Global Financial Collapse in 1999, when other groups, small financial parties that I catered were predicting DOW 30,000. Most of the attendees at the events are spectators, not involved. David always made sure he sat next to the speaker or the most important person in the room. One event stands out vividly, I was not in the room…it was another waiter. Ehud Barak (defeating Benjamin Netenyahu) had just been elected and they were freaking out because “they” had no one inside. The waiter walker out of the room and told me what had transpired and was incredibly disturbed that the Council on Foreign Relations, run by David R. was interfering in the internal relations of a foreign country. And Ehud Barak is no liberal…but he is reasonable and not a warmonger. He lasted a few years.
The powerful write the laws and even then they find the need to break them. The powerful of the gov or the oligarchy can and do break laws day in and day out and they do it with impunity. The entire legal system is corrupt to its core and must be abandoned. Just as the existing internet is damaged beyond repair.
Meanwhile, we – us – obey obey obey!
Revelation after revelation of the powerful oppressing us to the point of taking our privacy and personal thoughts from us and along with that goes our civil and human rights. They have taken them and no one (well ok, very few) seems to care. We either stop obeying or we surrender – it’s that simple.
quote”The entire legal system is corrupt to its core and must be abandoned.”unquote.
Abandoned???? Well Mr. Naive, just how do you propose “we” pull that off? Send a letter to the DOJ enmass? Or the prez? I can see it now.
Dear USG. We hereby abandon your system. Thanks.
fuk. Meanwhile, …the Dumbest Country On The Planet(DCOTPtm) continues to live in fear that if they do the ONE most powerful thing they could possibly do, the IRS SWAT will kick in their front door to either kill them or arrest them for income tax evasion. Now…are we clear? If not.. you haven’t lived long enough.
GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group means they make up threats after smoking joints.
JTRIG is code for “Time to trigger another’ J’, Dude.” Silly monkeys!
A follow-up to the NSA Five article. From today’s SF Chronicle, main editorial.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/U-S-spying-on-Muslim-Americans-a-cause-for-5618959.php
Gee, I wonder what having “ties” to Snowden means to imply? Usually when we talk about people having “ties” it’s in a negative context, like “ties to organized crime” or “ties to [terrorist group].”
I see the fnords…
It does end on a positive note, coram –
– but of course, it’s likely little good will come of it.
re:
Tim 14 Jul 2014 at 12:52 pm
We need anarchy
Reply
Oh, please god no.
All this great fishing gear and no fish. Must be boring for the Intelligence Production Team of 1200 users.
Glenn,Your buddy from Arkansas,lol Everyone knows these same programs are being used in the United states but do the papers leaked by Snowden show proof That the U.S, is using them also?
I suspect the US government is more careful about putting stuff like this down on paper. Furthermore, the UK has laws that make publishing their secrets, whatever they are, illegal.
I have always been grateful for the British sense of fair play, since without this restraining force it is possible to imagine them behaving in a quite underhanded manner.
I’ve always been grateful your countryman finally figured out that you and your wife were chromosomally aberrant pond scum tyrants and decided it was worth it to risk their lives to hang you both upside down and beat you until you were dead.
The moral of that story is – don’t lose a war. You will notice that the winners are never attacked by lynch mobs.
No, the winners Are lynch mobs. Why, aren’t you glad Osama and Alwaki are dead?
chronicle, it was funny the first few times. It’s not anymore. “Benito” is harmless; and if read properly, insightful.
This should explain the movement in the US to voting machines. How better to manipulate the public than to hack the vote? The Ministry of Truth is alive and well.
“This should explain the movement in the US to voting machines.”
Whether it is internet facing voting machines…remotely programmable (what could go wrong???)…
or voting on your ever so secure IPhone browser (no integrity problem there!!!!)
Voters around the world might be well advised to do a rethink before entrusting the vote to the internet,… where GCHQ, China’s secret service, NSA etc can compete to see who can electronically stuff the ballot box best.
This place is crawling with trolls Zinc/JLocke. Voting is what the internet is for practically. It’s harder to notice when something is missing, ie. missing votes, but once you find that out, it’s evidence that’s almost certainly right next to the trigger of a smoking gun. It’s often much harder to tell when there’s an abundance smoke/noise/decoy/misinformation false votes, but the electronic internet trail is probably the easiest trail to follow, as long as it is an open transparent way. Trolls love hiding in the shadows and shun the sun.
a newly released top-secret GCHQ document called “JTRIG Tools and Techniques”
When “newly” released, by whom?
Part of the Snowden files – https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2014/07/14/jtrig-tools-techniques/
Newly released: today.
By: The Intercept.
Glenn, they say you’re too slow in releasing these.
I suspect it’s judicious, because the intake rate of the public is not unlimited. If you dump them all at once, the digestion would be less than optimal. Getting it out is less the issue than getting it IN (to the public consciousness).
I think you’re on track.
Yes, you are correct.
Glenn — they say you’re too slow in releasing these.
I think it’s rather judicious, because the intake rate of the public mind is not unlimited.
Getting it OUT is less important than getting it IN (to the public consciousness).
I think you’re on track.
PP, is that you?
Here is a catalog of maxims good for building bureau morale and fostering interagency teamwork.
Democracy is too important to be left to the people.
Government is too lucrative to be open to public scrutiny.
Integrity is for losers.
We know better than you.
If you don’t believe your government, you can count on FOX.
We’re the good guys.
Trust us like we trust you.
You vote; we count.
Are you sure you aren’t a terrorist?
If you must hide it from us, you must be doing something wrong.
You remain ignorant. We decide.
Brilliant! Thanks :-)
crimincals all of them.
This is all very interesting in light of the Scottish Independence referendum in September. Theres no way the UK Government wants a Yes vote and Scotland breaks free. Whats the betting that GCHC are hard at work ‘ assisting ‘ their shadowy Westminster masters to aid the No campaign ? I’m expecting some anti-Yes vote shocks to appear before September courtesy of UK spooks.
If the Scottish people want independence then it’s on offer. This cannot be blamed for a failed “Yes” vote. Scots know full well what is going on and they have a vote to decide for themselves.
While the Scots may know what is going on, it does not necessarily mean that their democratic will can not be subverted by whatever means are at the disposal of the UK’s security services …
This IS happening, take a look here:
http://deveer.org.uk/dvr/index.php?title=MI5_Subversion_of_State_Power_in_Scotland
Dave Krueger a hug, I welcome your good humor, your sarcasm fine
So, what exactly is new? Is n’t brainwashing using falsified information a very very ancient trick? Are we just surprised now that it is being done using computers and the internet? Dah………
So true. Nothing new about fact that Western spy agencies are using tools to send email from “you” containing, say, links to child pornography sites. Why, the ancients did that too, amirite?
pffft
Mona, you’ve lost so much text, I fear these frackers have wefted your warp. You don’t have to live like a refugee on crumbs of rhetorical bread, girl, unless you enjoy being skinny as a post.
Yeah, I still resent our treatment. I don’t care who was at fault. That was some crappy laundry service. I was locked in their shute for three months! Of course I shat all over the linens.
What’s new is the ability of the powerful to manipulate and control entire populations, by virtue of the internet and your computer, the electronic extension of yourself in this age.
In the past, there was privacy at least on the most personal level, privacy that enables freedom to think. Now there is very little of that. And (manipulated) majority opinion pushes public policy to an extent never before quite so completely. Minority views are drowned in such vast seas of controlled opinion.
You should care about that if you are an authentic human.
And it’s getting pervasive.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-03/hospitals-are-mining-patients-credit-card-data-to-predict-who-will-get-sick
Nanny Security Agency, courtesy of private enterprise.
As long as it’s not used for marketing purposes or to deny health care benefits (two mighty big caveats!), I don’t have much of a problem with that particular intrusion. Go ahead and tell me I’m buying too much soda pop, or eating too much McDonald’s, and give me some alternatives. But it should be opt-in, all the way (and none of that “by using this credit card you agree” baloney).
It’s going to be a huge adjustment, getting used to the Brave New World. I don’t think we can avoid Big Data; it’s out there, it exists, and someone’s going to use it. If it’s to our benefit then fine. It’s all the ways it can be used against us that we have to watch out for.
I don’t think you’re thinking this through. If it’s to our benefit then fine. The one thing we’ve seen over, and over, and over again is our benefit is a priority way behind those who stand to make a profit off it. I can easily imagine your medical bill charges, or your pool’s insurance premium, being tied to the data-markers revealed by your pool’s credit card purchases. You might be living the “clean life,” but don’t assume your pool-mates are.
Did you read that article?
Yeah; I’d find it intrusive, too. Real intrusive.
Heck, I get irritated with the you-tube “recommended” list, which they base, supposedly, on the videos that I’ve viewed. The idea of someone calling me to advise me about my corn chips preference, based on whatever “concerns” they might have for my health, would not sit well with me at all.
@liberalrob
It’s going to be used to police the poor, an underclass equivalent to a slave class. Data concerning their consumption habits will very likely used by the IRS to determine their premiums for healthcare under the ACA, and what portion of those premiums are to be subsidized. If it can be shown the poor are not responsibly protecting their (future) health, they may be declined coverage for those conditions their habits presage. And because they are poor, those who do pay taxes and/or full premiums will, sadly and in the main, support such authoritarian punishment.
Any intrusion is a violation of privacy. Making exceptions is the way the intruder got his foot in the door to begin with.
The moral of that story is to purchase using cash as much as possible.
Let these assholes guess by hovering over their smudged crystal balls.
That’s why I said “As long as it’s not used for marketing purposes or to deny health care benefits.” I too can easily imagine those things.
Yes, I did.
Even if it was your family doctor? I’m not saying it’s OK for Tostitos to call you up. This specific case is your personal physician and/or hospital, contacting you as part of their interest in your health (and on an opt-in basis, as my condition).
In case y’all overlooked the document, the programs in the article appear to be the tip of the iceberg and the good folks at GCHQ have a virtual think tank going on of ways to exploit the internet to manipulate, influence and control people’s thoughts and behaviors.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2014/07/14/jtrig-tools-techniques/
I think this is actually more insidious than some of the surveillance programs because it is solely about manipulation and control in the guise and changing people’s mindsets. It is truly an effort to weaponize the internet. A tool for the free exchange of ideas was too tempting not to be used as weapon. The NSA may have a few more restrictions on what tools are used and how but don’t think for a second that they (or any government intelligence agency) wouldn’t use any of these tools if given access to the “toolbox”.
Great timing for the article. Everyone with a vote in the British Parliament will want to read about what they are giving the GCHQ carte blanche to do, right? Yeah, I doubt most would be interested as well…
yak, on page two of that document these two entries are marked ‘Operational’.
Astral Projection – Remote GSM secure covert internet proxy using TOR hidden services.
Twilight Arrow – Remote GSM secure covert internet proxy using VPN services.
This means they are now and have been using their capacity to break into TOR and VPN connections, is that so? Doesn’t this also mean that open source fixes can be quickly and easily violated?
Terrifying
Situation Normal All Fucked Up. The Powers have been working on this a long time, arguably since the beginning of the last century. Former CIA Director, William Casey said in 1981, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Katherine Graham in a 1988 speech to CIA recruits said, “We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.”
That last phrase is true enough – the press should decide. So GG, thank you for deciding what is fit to print and please don’t ever stop bringing to the public what they are not supposed to know!
Anyone besides me wondering how Great Britain remains part of the EU? They kept their currency, are part of the “5 Eyes,” and are apparently rushing through legislation to thwart the EU Court ruling. Why do the rest of them, especially Germany, allow it?
Because they are desperate for the UK to remain part of the EU.
bloopie2 – “In a novel I once read, someone “planted” kiddie porn on an adversary’s computer, then notified the FBI. So you’re saying that is possible?”
Snowden’s docs, say it is possible. if they have hacked administrator access, if they have collected passwords to a target’s computer, they can alter the info, delete add etc, as well as…peruse.
It erodes trust in the information.
Imagine if it was found that police, government agents could secretly break into physical spaces,… homes, …not only examine the contents but also remove things, deposit things….without notifying the public. What would be the consequences? How is the same thing being done in the cyber realm any less destructive?
Indeed…thus it would be pretty important that that capability not be found, wouldn’t it?
Title of the article may be a slight misnomer. GCHQ’s little toolbox (see document) seems designed more for wrecking, not control.
Ahhh, its that nuanced definition of “fixing things…”
With news like this, this certainly also would make mockery of a legal system. Just imagine “planted” and misconstrued evidence that was never real to begin with. NO WONDER Snowden did what he did. This is certainly worth informing the public of. It was bad enough to spy on attorney/client priviledge communications, intercept messages, race to impersonate websites and hack encryptions to banking, but this is another whole ballpark. One that would turn lies into truth to satisfy whatever craving of deceit they want to try and do. People talked about Snowden and tried to make him out to be some traitor. The nerve of them!
Wasn’t it rather toxic of them to use “rolling thunder” while they also burned that band name during same operation in Vietnam? PU, GCHQ, that joke has already been exploited. How old are you? DC5, does that mean anything to you but aircraft?
All done in the name of safety and security, but for whom is the question. Protection from terrorists, but who do these government officials consider terrorists? Thee and me, of course.
….and also yes I’m glad this story points out the obvious, that the ability to access computers around the world, collect the data…also means that the GCHQ can ALTER the info. this might be obvious to computer geeks, but I’m not sure if it has filtered out to the public that “they” can not only read your stuff, but they can also plant stuff…be it embarassing… or incriminating.
In a novel I once read, someone “planted” kiddie porn on an adversary’s computer, then notified the FBI. So you’re saying that is possible?
Sure, why not? If they’re able to access your computer via vulnerabilities and backdoors, they can do anything to it. That’s why you shouldn’t allow remote access at all. But I wonder if it’s a useless effort. Either you let them in to surveill you or they deem you a “person of interest” because obviously you have something to hide; look at how assiduously you’re protecting yourself!
I wonder how many online polls the Koch brothers are manipulating, it would explain a lot.
bloopie2 – “Seems that the law may be intended to “legalize” what they have already been doing illegally. ”
Yes, in the same way Sen Obama voted to “legalize the warrantless wiretapping Bush was caught doing in the US.
With the ability to connect 2 random phone calls to one another. Wouldn’t that raise questions about the legality of NSA spying on Americans ? I mean if you need a legal excuse in the US just have the UK connect your targets phone to a known terrorist or target and WHAMO they get sucked in as a legit target and no need to even get a FISA rubber stamp. How did you get these NSA ? oh he placed a phone call to someone we were already watching. How convenient.
“The page indicates that it was last modified in July 2012, and had been accessed almost 20,000 times.”
But are those numbers real — or SLIPSTREAMed? : )
Fortunately, the highly ethical GCHQ would never use dirty tricks to influence parliamentary voting on the pending intelligence legislation.
Yeah, I’m kidding.
Glenn – To what extent do you think these covert operations on the part of the world’s most powerful national security agencies (namely those of the US and UK) are coordinated? And if they do appear to be coordinated, are they committed to the same policy objective. Not to sound overly conspiratorial, but it seems logical that the world’s most powerful national security agencies would want to coordinate to achieve mutual policy objectives. This is a scary thought..
How utterly “awesome.” I imagine GCHQ as a club-med destination for every nearly sociopathic, adolescent minded, hacker in the world. Determined to out-Anonymous Anonymous they’ve built themselves an imperial crib that ought to make any serious hacker drool. Imagine having the whole of the internet to play with without fear of prosecution. It’s a dream world. A fantasy come true! And, you get paid to do it!
No barriers. No fear. No accountability. No recriminations. Sky’s the limit. Go for broke playing in the craziest gear you can imagine.
Un-fucking-real.
I imagine the recruitment pitch actually sounded a lot like that.
Yup, much like the awesome sauce of the destruction of a counter-culture icon by co-opting his brand – a la Bob Dylan’s Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler – the hacking subculture has been decimated by these NSA flacks. Probably by having semi-hot 20-year old internet porn stars yell at them that their penises are pathetic, and give them masturbation instructions. Myeah, that fantasy of the brave, noble hacker genius taking on the powers that be can be led out to pasture now. I wonder if Stephen Colbert can do another dinner keynote where he can take on that sorry state ….
The metaphor I had in mind, reading the JTRIG document, was more of a demolition derby. It appears to be a toolbox of espionage and sabotage tools. Nothing like wrecking your own infrastructure, is there? Especially when business starts deciding that the Web is no longer a safe place to do sales and handle intellectual properties?
It’s also like Elizabeth I and her privateers, but with one crucial difference: she didn’t have Drake and Morgan raiding England’s own ships.
– – –
I’m sure they’re quite confident of their ability to control and direct the monster they have created. Mad scientists always are.
That’s apparently asking too much of today’s would-be princes.
Seems that the pending UK legislation may be intended to “legalize” what they have already been doing illegally. Too bad there is no UK “Constitution” to override such. At least in the US we have a shot at it.
In the absence of any consequences, the concept of legality is essentially meaningless.
I don’t know how they can sleep.
“I don’t know how they can sleep”
Anglo supremacy, as usual. It’s for your own good, they say before, during and after the rape, and the endorphin rush afterward must mean it’s true.
Those “tool” names (BADGER, IMPERIAL BARGE, etc.) . . .
. . . they’re from a Monty Python skit – – the Ministry of Silly Names.
Imo, in fairness to Monty Python, Glenn should have acknowledged that in the article.
*pick a card, any card
No, I think it’s more in the nature of the Hungarian phrase book sketch. You know, like operation Hovercraft Eels.
Oh geez, I can barely read this stuff because I get too creeped out. Granted, it’s GCHQ and I live in the US, but still. There’s an expectation that good governments should protect people from creepers, not *be creepers. Sending people fake emails from ‘your’ address and finding private pictures on Facebook is beyond the pale – that’s the kind of thing you worry about a stalker ex doing, not the people who are supposed to be upholding national standards.
I’m still not 100% clear on criteria used to target people for these programs but it sounds as if it extends far beyond “extremist making a bomb in a cave somewhere”. I acknowledge some need for secrecy but when you are targeting people in potentially life-destroying ways I think the public has the right to extremely clear criteria regarding who is targeted, under what circumstances, and what controls are in place to prevent abuse.
The propaganda stuff is just silly – I mean why, really? Fussing with online polls – why risk getting found out when legal forms of PR would do far more anyways? Wait – they decide every outcome on “Hot or Not”, don’t they?! It all makes sense now…
“Granted, it’s GCHQ and I live in the US, but still.”
I assure you that the US spy agencies have these same tools. In fact, a good number of college-aged hackers have these same tools. If a computer researcher showed these tools off at DEFCON, a lot of people would yawn.
Poll manipulation, for example, something that our two political parties likely participate in. Perhaps they don’t have an automated tool, but I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.
AND in the US, corporations have thousands of these weasels doing their dirty work…and corporations run the US government.
Well, tools are one thing. What percentage of the US population has access to firearms, or at least knives? The tools of harm are there, and yet the vast, vast majority of people manage to make it through the day without abusing them. People who are authorized use them in a sanctioned way to prevent more harm with said tools than they cause (i.e., law enforcement using guns to stop a criminal) – I’m sure there’s a long, long debate about the ins and outs of that, just saying that it tends to be the norm that we have genies out of the bottle all over the place and yet manage that as a society somehow.
So it’s not necessarily the tools, it’s what you do with them (hmm, I’m sure there’s a dirty joke in there somewhere) – a college kid who goes into the Facebook account of a girl he likes and looks at her spring break pictures? Maybe he needs a better role model regarding how to treat women, but if that’s the extent of it, I hardly consider that kid a cyber terrorist or something. A government employee of some sort conducting a legitimate investigation? I don’t have a problem with that. So what exactly is being done with the tools and why is a big part of the equation – my worry here is that 1) We don’t know a lot about the process 2) The bits and pieces we *are hearing are troubling – again, who are these strategies levied against, and why? To me, they sound punitive in nature – I thought intelligence agencies were concerned with investigating crimes and reporting their findings to the appropriate people – it seems as if now there’s a weird blur there, and crime and punishment are both taking place behind the scenes. That’s like someone getting a warrant to search your home and, in the process, stealing some of your stuff, making a call from your phone pretending to be you, and delivering your naked photos to your neighbor’s house. Possibly that’s overstating it because again, it’s not clear to me if the above programs were ever used, if so, how, and against whom, but the general description is still troubling.
Well said!! Thank you!! I think we are dealing with psychologically unwell people, that’s the bottom line here. People who want to control others and view themselves as better and smarter than the rest of us…. Sounds simplistic, but in the end, people are running this show and it’s their choices and behavior we are all being impacted with.
quote “I think we are dealing with psychologically unwell people,”unquote
Hahahahaha. Says one after taking the red pill.
You’re one of the people I’m talking about.
And what’s the GCHQ’s definition of “extremist”? We know that they’ve targeted visitors to the Wikileaks website, and anyone who hangs out with Anonymous, so that gives you an idea.
Not to mention anybody who even reads about TOR or security minded articles on sites like Boing Boing.
Extremist? Anyone who tells the truth.
If you want to know what’s going on right under your nose, make a visit to http://fightgangstalking.com. It’s a Cointelpro-style program that’s thriving in the US. (The UK has its version, too, as I understand it.)
Though I don’t think everything on that page is correct… It sadly is describing a real life “disruption” operation. Still it is pointless to try to spread accurate information about this phenomenon. Search for it you will find the kind of disinformation talked about in this article. You will see people claiming satellites are torturing them etc. These agencies do a good job at making sure that people that have not experienced will conclude those complaining of it are crazy. The real gist of the program:you are put under surveillance… They find out embarrassing details on your life… Then recruit your real life friends to harass you with said information. This harassment has the effect of disrupting those that are considered dangerous. And if you complain of it you are “paranoid” or have “schizophrenia”. But like I said this is kept pretty secret there is no real use trying to spread info about it. Without documents you have no chance.
“Still it is pointless. … There is no real use trying to spread info about it. Without documents you have no chance.” -Jim
Not only is this program “disrupting” lives — it’s killing people — and, as such, anyone who participates in it is complicit in torture and murder. Silence is also complicity. The truth will out, eventually.
Like a lot of other people, I am eager to see the discussion of modern Cointelpro operations in the U.S. (organized stalking) move from the comments section of The Intercept – and the Guardian, etc. – to the news reports. It is a massive scandal and an open secret within the law enforcement and intelligence industry in America.
I agree with Jim’s characterization of the disinformation campaign about the whole practice, and I agree that the “Fight Gang Stalking” site offers the most well-sourced explanation of the whole business.
Actually I do not think that site is very accurate at all. There is no real stalking… It simply appears that way to a target. Their friends are given lines they are then supposed to repeat to the target. The friends are not “in on it” they are repeating lines which have no significance to them. It is not too complicated. They just want to pull your attention away from activism and get you to pay attention to their show. It is simple disruption.
What is going on is FAR more serious than you have been led to believe. Cointelpro operations did not become less sophisticated after J. Edgar Hoover; they became much more sophisticated – just as all surveillance and counterintelligence activities have.
There has never been an Edward Snowden-type whistle-blower in the FBI or the LEIU. The only time we got a real glimpse of how they operate was in 1971 when activists dropped a bunch of stolen secret documents into the lap of the press. What was exposed was a list of serious crimes that included overt stalking and black bag jobs for psyops purposes. In the case of actress Jean Seberg for example (whose slander by the FBI made the front page of the LA Times), it drove her to suicide.
Your portrayal of what is going on as being a few comments made here and there to the target does not even begin to capture the scope and seriousness of the abuses.
I don’t mean to trivialize anything… Especially not the psychological damage / trauma they are able to inflict on SOME targets. However I am a target and have been for 5 years and for about 2 months they were able to really affect me/make me look crazy. I was lucky enough to realize early that their main goal is to cause self-inflicted damage. When you realize that and when you realize there is no real slander going on, the whole thing becomes just a running prank that doesn’t seem to end. They obviously designed this program with the idea that it might be discovered and so made sure they would cause the targets to discredit themselves as opposed to them doing it themselves.
The real damage is caused by a targets own imagination!
I personally know several people who have been targeted by “surveillance role player” contractors (retired U.S. military counterintelligence agents) and Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIUs) in the modern American version of Cointelpro. None of them share Jim’s unique and bizarre notion that “gang stalking” is just a minor annoyance that can be ignored.
It is a vicious (although cowardly) and illegal set of tactics that are very real and not a bit fictional or imaginary. It includes tactics such as slander, black bag operations, vandalism, hacking, noise harassment to cause sleep deprivation (a form of torture that is very effective at breaking anyone – regardless of his or her attitude), etc. – in short, all the stuff that the FBI got caught red-handed doing in the J. Edgar Hoover era.
If you study the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee reports thoroughly you will not find any claims that the FBI’s crimes could have simply been ignored by the people they targeted.
Jim- you are simply wrong. As a matter of fact, it sounds like disinformation. I have had nails in tires, sliced electrical lines, dents in my cars, several broken car windows, many items stolen, and much more.
This is no laughing manner. Please do not minimize it.
Innocents are being targeted by their own governments. How legitimate is a government that targets its own citizens?
@Jim, only way non-targets can possibly make a judgement on the site’s accuracy is if one is a Stasi perp, engaged in stalking, disruption, & murder… and organized lying: “There is no real stalking…”
I am absolutely convinced that “gang stalking” is a made up term, just like “enhanced interrogation”. They’re not stalking you…they’re f*#cking killing you, after they have discredited you “you’re crazy” etc.. Then they start with the surveillance and weapons testing. Last week, I filmed one of these A-holes as I left my house at night for a walk…his arm was hanging out the window, driving a black Mercedes, but I didn’t get camera out in time, so I had nothing, but a black car half way down another street. This guy turns around, follows me down another street, stops me and asks me why I took his picture…I told him I had had problems with stalking. He tells me he is calling the police. I told him “go right ahead, then they have your number”. He makes the call, has a conversation with the police about this girl who took his picture. Now I have his picture and license plate. I walk over to the precinct and describe the incident and ask if I’m allowed to take pictures on public property. They told me “nobody called us”. I said this guy had a conversation with the police. The police officer checked in back, the officer confirmed…nobody called. So I said “he pretended to call the police” and they shook their heads and said “have a nice night”. Keep this in mind…
note to self.. file this under..
Things NOT to do when the car is a black Mercedes.
I’m talking of simple harassment/disruption. Using sort of childish methods to get on a person’s nerves. That’s all.
Jim @ 15 Jul 2014 at 4:25 am: “I’m talking of simple harassment/disruption. Using sort of childish methods to get on a person’s nerves. That’s all.”
Jim, In the context of “gang stalking” (slang) / Cointelpro-stalking (accurate term), your use of the terms “simple harassment” and “simple disruption” is interesting, though troublesome. While, when viewed in isolation, some of the tactics that are being employed might arguably be described as “simple” or “childish”, they are anything but “simple”, when viewed in their totality and greater context. When one is able to see the whole picture, the process/program would best be described as one of psychological torture, and I can assure you that there is nothing even remotely benign or “simple” about it.
I am an actual ‘victim’ of this program. Like I said it has the ability to cause much damage to a target; or rather, cause a target to cause damage to himself. During the period of time when you believe in the show they are putting on for you, it is scary and disorienting. However once you realize the name of the game, it becomes kind of like a joke or a prank.
There is no stalking done by groups of people. There is one or a couple people somewhere (a fusion center? i don’t know) that will turn your cellphone into a roving bug and will monitor all your actions online. They will try to create the impression that all the people around you are watching you… all your friends and coworkers. But in reality these people are just repeating lines that they (purposely) can’t understand the meaning of. They do not want to become an enemy of the FBI themselves, so they comply – with key instructions that they can not reveal the true source of the comments. I’d call it harassment by proxy – gang stalking as a term is itself disinformation.
When you realize it is a show and that nobody around you knows what they are saying, you gain the ability to have fun with them and make them think the reason behind the comments is basically anything you want. It becomes a game and nothing more. Then you just wait… and wait… and wait… and I’m still waiting. Someday it will end. I might be a special case – as I never took any positions against the USG nor against any official narratives. And as a matter of fact I tried (poorly) to defend USG policies when I thought nobody was looking. It’s just that what I said was to the wrong person online – someone in a middle eastern country.
Jim,
A colleague of mine says that, given the opportunity, a person will often give himself away, and that may be the case here. Having reviewed your comments, the terms “minimization” and “victim-blaming” come to mind. (A quick and basic review of “minimization” (“minimisation (psychology”)) is available on Wikipedia. While not a reference that I’d typically recommend, you may find it helpful — it provides a good overview, as well as some additional resources. Others may find it to be useful, as well. I will leave it to you (and other readers) to draw any appropriate and relevant inferences.)
As to some of your remarks, let me say this:
As noted in my last comment, there is nothing benign about this form of COINTELPRO, which involves prolonged stalking and psychological torture. It’s certainly not a “joke”, “prank”, or “game.” Neither is it the fault of the victim, just as it is not about “simple disruption”, or a little “slander” but, rather, a complex program that is designed to destroy a person’s life. In keeping with this goal, it’s ruining the lives of some very good people, as was the case with the original COINTELPRO.
Let’s put the blame squarely where it belongs; those to blame are the perpetrators of these crimes. And I’m sure that it’s beginning to get a little hot in the kitchen for some of these folks, as details of the government’s pervasive surveillance activities continue to be revealed. (As you’ve correctly noted, Jim, the disinformation surrounding this topic has been very effective. That, too, would appear to be changing.)
Jim,
A colleague of mine says that, given the opportunity, a person will often give himself away, and that may be the case here. Having reviewed your comments, the terms “minimization” and “victim-blaming” come to mind. (A quick and basic review of “minimization” (“minimisation (psychology”)) is available on Wikipedia. While not a reference that I’d typically recommend, you may find it helpful, as it provides a good overview, as well as some additional resources. Others may find it to be useful, as well. I will leave it to you (and other readers) to draw any appropriate and relevant inferences.)
Regarding some of your remarks, let me say this:
As noted in my last comment, there is nothing benign about this form of COINTELPRO, which involves prolonged stalking and psychological torture. It’s certainly not a “joke”, “prank”, or “game.” Neither is it the fault of the victim, just as it is not about “simple disruption” or a little “slander” but, rather, a complex program that is designed to destroy a person’s life. In keeping with this goal, it’s ruining the lives of some very good people, as was the case with the original COINTELPRO.
Let’s put the blame squarely where it belongs; those to blame are the perpetrators of these crimes. And I’m sure that it’s beginning to get a little hot in the kitchen for some of these folks, as details of the government’s pervasive surveillance activities continue to be revealed. (As you’ve correctly noted, Jim, the disinformation surrounding this topic has been very effective. That, too, would appear to be changing.)
My apologies for the duplicate postings. There appears to be a lag, at times.
I enjoy going back and forth with you.
I’m not trying to blame the victims as much as they are innocent people that never committed a crime. They exercised their first amendment rights in such a way that the government (illegally) determined to be dangerous.
There is nothing good about this program and for a couple months I suffered from it immensely-so I don’t mean to minimize the potential damage it can cause.
It can be a very traumatic experience-however in my case at least I find it difficult to see how it damaged me. Once you are able to see through the facade however, it is possible to realize the truth. If you ignore it and don’t react to it, it becomes powerless over you. It is highly psychological-but when you realize that it is someone’s job to fabricate criticisms of you which not even they necessarily believe, at that point you are over it and have broken their spell. I am fortunate that I never complained about the harassment to anyone but my wife – so I never discredited myself in public. I’d imagine that many if not most targets are not lucky enough to be able to break the spell. For those people I feel really bad. In my case I do feel like it has made me stronger-and I consider myself fortunate that I was able to get through this relatively unscathed. Once a target comes to the conclusions that I have, they begin to recover. Once they realize the people in their lives have NOT turned against them-they will feel better.
I’ve not talked to others about it so I can only speak to my case. One thing I do believe is that for other targets, reading about how bad,sinister,and evil this program is will only make them feel worse. I do understand others probably view this much differently than myself.
I can certainly understand the potential this has to ruin lives. I really do not mean to trivialize it. I can understand how it can push people into social isolation. I can understand how it can cause people to flip their lid and lose their job or their reputation. I was lucky enough to catch on early enough and thus limit the damage. Also I am not very outspoken, so perhaps my personality type helped me through this as well.
The key thing is that most people likely do not understand the basic mechanics behind the program. If you do not see through it, the program will definitely take you down over time. I just think I must’ve gotten lucky. There is a youtube video called the gangstalking program explained – about 41 minutes long -i honestly believe that to be recorded by the authorities themselves… and while it contains some deceptions in it as well, I see it as something that is meant to legitimately help targets out.
Jim,
I would refer you to the comments by “AnonOrwellFan.”
At 6:38 pm today (15 Jul 2014), AnonOrwellFan wrote:
“I personally know several people who have been targeted by “surveillance role player” contractors (retired U.S. military counterintelligence agents) and Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIUs) in the modern American version of Cointelpro. None of them share Jim’s unique and bizarre notion that “gang stalking” is just a minor annoyance that can be ignored.
“It is a vicious (although cowardly) and illegal set of tactics that are very real and not a bit fictional or imaginary. It includes tactics such as slander, black bag operations, vandalism, hacking, noise harassment to cause sleep deprivation (a form of torture that is very effective at breaking anyone – regardless of his or her attitude), etc. – in short, all the stuff that the FBI got caught red-handed doing in the J. Edgar Hoover era.
“If you study the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee reports thoroughly you will not find any claims that the FBI’s crimes could have simply been ignored by the people they targeted.”
Other “tactics” include, but are not limited to theft, interference with employment, and conspicuous surveillance.
This is what targets report happens. This is what targets believe is happening. They are things targets have seen with their own eyes. Things that any logical person would conclude are happening if they were in the situation.
It is all a carefully crafted illusion. These things are not happening. The methods of deception are very sophisticated. Those that are complaining of these things are not crazy and are reporting what they see. But they have been deceived.
Honest to god, once you’ve cracked the code and know the truth, the entire illusion falls apart. You will see it is an assault of words and language and nothing more.
I think of it like the movie “the matrix” – where agents can infiltrate the body of anyone around you. They will alter your environment. But once you’ve gone through the training and understand the rules of the system you can start to bend their “hyper reality” back in your direction. Eventually you can take their attacks with ease.
These people certainly have the ability to ruin lives directly but if they follow the rules they cannot do so.
I know I am 100% right in what I say.
Jim is doing something which – in the technical parlance of counterintelligence agents – is called “lying.”
Anyone reading this thread who has even a slight interest in the subject of modern U.S. domestic Cointelpro activities, should visit “Fight Gang Stalking” and browse the archive of aggregated published news reports about the ongoing intense psyops against protesters, dissidents, and whistle-blowers by the FBI and Law Enforcement Intelligence Units, and “surveillance role players” (intelligence-security contractors).
There is a lot of creepy but interesting material there which “Jim” would prefer not to discuss – such as the pending federal lawsuit by Jeffrey Kantor against several U.S. intelligence agencies for “gang stalking.”
I am right. I know what is happening- however if for your purposes this kind of talk is necessary to maintain the integrity of the program, I understand and will back off. Enjoyed sparring XD
@Jim 15 Jul 2014 at 1:40 pm: “I never took any positions against the USG nor against any official narratives. And as a matter of fact I tried (poorly) to defend USG policies when I thought nobody was looking.”
There it is: that’s why you were treated with kid gloves, and you really do not know what you are talking about.
@Jim 15 Jul 2014 at 4:25 am “I’m talking of simple harassment/disruption. Using sort of childish methods to get on a person’s nerves. That’s all.”
You are lying. Attempted murder and denial of medical treatment is not simple harassment/disruption. Nor is denying someone a driver’s license simply because they are married to a target. Also, death threats are acts of terrorism. These are serious crimes.
To the stalked and interested observers: so glad to see the topic discussed! True, targets don’t have the documents, and may never have them, but the more discussion about this the better, for all kinds of reasons. One possible effect is to gradually shift the widely held perception that self-proclaimed targets are ‘crazy’, to a perception which better matches up against reality: America’s state is a vicious Stasi regime and American citizens cannot be trusted. (Duh.) It has to get worse before it gets better. Make it worse for the US consumer; he is not going to help you, he is going to help the Stasi, as Jim is doing here in the comments section.
If you can financially afford it, confront the Stasi’s fanboys & girls, especially friends or siblings who are just making it worse. What sort of family member or friend would condone the Stasi’s attacks on you, or worse, help them? Ditch ’em. It works. No protest march, petition, or political statement has a greater impact on an enemy who was assured of his/her own impunity. The Stasi wants compliant consent from the population. Shred it. Shred your family if necessary; you don’t need a Stasi mommy and daddy. The Stasi and their little helpers are enemies — as they have so obnoxiously declared themselves to be (as is disinfo agent Jim). Be civil, loyal, and respectful to allies, if you could be so fortunate to find such a thing among such untrustworthy people; ditch and disrespect enemies. Stop feigning civility towards them; they want to kill your integrity, and failing that, they will try to kill you.
If you want to know what’s going on right under your nose, pay a visit to fightgangstalking dot com. It’s a Cointelpro-style program that’s thriving in the US. (The UK has its version, too, as I understand it.)
quote”There’s an expectation that good governments should protect people from creepers, not *be creepers.”
note..file this under…
Things you believed as a child when adults lectured you before Pledging Allegiance to the Flag.
Good response to the announcement of the pending UK legislation. Seems that the law may be intended to “legalize” what they have already been doing illegally. One step forward …
quote”Seems that the law may be intended to “legalize” what they have already been doing illegally.”unqoute
Shades of every legal imperialism since the big bang, notwithstanding Henry the Eighth
We need anarchy
No we don’t.
We’ll need to know what both of you mean by anarchy to determine which one of you is correct.
My default is the classical definition, i.e. absence of government structures.
Anarchy doesn’t last, it is a vacuum quickly replaced by whoever is the most violent
Actually we need a return to the rule of law. Anarchy would quickly fail-and when it does there will be a despot waiting to take advantage of the situation. Calling for anarchy is indirectly asking for despotism.
quote”Actually we need a return to the rule of law.” unquote
Return. right. Please enlighten us old wise one on exactly how “we” should proceed? Considering the USG is now the preeminent legal imperialism of the entire planet with nuclear powers that no other sovereign on the face of this planet can force them to do ANYTHING?
I submit..unless you are willing to either pick up weapon to show us how, you are ..
1. An idiot of biblical proportions
2. A naive taxpayer who hasn’t got a clue
3. A johnny come lately to the world of DUH!
4. or someone who hasn’t lived long enough to understand the implications of Senator Churche’s meaning of the abyss.
Yes. We cease being in a state of war. If you think that’s impossible then fine. Even permanent war is preferable to your precious little anarchy. There is no use arguing with an idiot like yourself that would secretly rather destroy the USG and watch other countries carve up North America. You must be naive to think that every other country in the world wouldn’t have so-called imperialist impulses if the opportunity presented itself. Russia does. Europe does. China does in Africa. Japan has. The ottomans did. ISIS will. But in your dream anarchist paradise you’d rather see the US as an oppressed country rather than a united one.
Bufferting Melons, Baboons Orafice, Bangers & Mash and not forgetting my personal favorite.. Dribbling Politician! – Still didnt see any of the Smurfs or Sqweeky Dolphins, so I assume this is only the tip of the ice-burg. So reasuring to see they themselves remove internet explorer, something the rest of us find almost impossible without yards of text! Gee, thanks Microsoft! And I wouldnt be surprised if half the tools listed are just stolen Open Source projects that have been renamed. For example DIALd is on Freenode!