Top Obama administration officials are holding a summit meeting on counterterrorism on Friday in Silicon Valley with top tech executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook. The White House delegation includes Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. “The goal here is to find additional ways to work together to make it even harder for terrorists or criminals to find refuge in cyberspace,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said at a news briefing.
The highly controversial topic of encryption is very much on the agenda, according to excerpts from a White House briefing distributed to participants of the summit, obtained by The Intercept. Read the excerpts below.
In addition to using technology to recruit and radicalize, terrorists are using technology to mobilize supporters to attack and to plan, move money for, coordinate, and execute attacks. The roles played by terrorist leaders and attack plotters in this activity vary, ranging from providing general direction to small groups to undertake attacks of their own design wherever they are located to offering repeated and specific guidance on how to execute attacks. To avoid law enforcement and the intelligence community detecting their activities, terrorists are using encrypted forms of communications at various stages of attack plotting and execution. We expect terrorists will continue to use technology to mobilize, facilitate, and operationalize attacks, including using encrypted communications where law enforcement cannot obtain the content of the communication even with court authorization. We would be happy to provide classified briefings in which we could share additional information.
Key Questions: We are interested in exploring all options with you for how to deal with the growing threat of terrorists and other malicious actors using technology, including encrypted technology, to threaten our national security and public safety. We understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to address this problem and that each of you has very different products and services that work in different ways. Are there high-level principles we could agree on for working through these problems together? And are there technologies that could make it harder for terrorists to use the internet to mobilize, facilitate, and operationalize? Or easier for us to find them when they do? What are the potential downsides or unintended consequences we should be aware of when considering these kinds of technology-based approaches to counter terrorism?
==
A number of organizations in the government, as well as some in private industry and academia, have researched techniques to detect and measure radicalization. Some have suggested that a measurement of level of radicalization could provide insights to measure levels of radicalization to violence. While it is unclear whether radicalization is measureable or could be measured, such a measurement would be extremely useful to help shape and target counter-messaging and efforts focused on countering violent extremism. This type of approach requires consideration of First Amendment protections and privacy and civil liberties concerns, additional front-end research on specific drivers of radicalization and themes among violent extremist populations, careful design of intervention tools, dedicated technical expertise, and the ability to iteratively improve the tools based on experience in deploying them. Industry certainly has a lot of expertise in measuring resonance in order to see how effective and broad a messaging campaign reaches an audience. A partnership to determine if resonance can be measured for both ISIL and counter-ISIL content in order to guide and improve and more effectively counter the ISIL narrative could be beneficial.
==
The United States recognizes the need to empower credible non-governmental voices that would speak out against ISIL and terrorism more broadly both overseas and at home. However, there is a shortage of compelling credible alternative content; and this content is often not as effectively produced or distributed as pro-ISIL content and lacks the sensational quality that can capture the media’s attention. Content creation is made difficult by ISIL’s brutal rule and near total control of communications infrastructure in its territory in Iraq and Syria, which can make it dangerous for citizens to speak out or provide video or images. Further, many of the leading and credible voices that might counter ISIL lack the content-generation and social media prowess that would be required to counter ISIL online. There is also a need for more credible positive messaging and content that provides alternatives to young people concerned about many of the grievances ISIL highlights.
In parallel with ongoing U.S. Government efforts, we invite the private sector to consider ways to increase the availability alternative content. Beyond the tech sector, we have heard from other private sector actors, including advertising executives, who are interested in helping develop and amplify compelling counter-ISIL content; and we hope there are opportunities to bring together the best in tech, media, and marketing to work with credible non-government voices to address this shared challenge.
Top photo: Apple CEO Tim Cook
A Money Morning Exclusive
For Release: January 11, 2016
If you are currently enrolled in Social Security, or are about to become eligible, please pay close attention to the following message.
By May 1, 2016, Congress will officially end a series of Social Security’s most lucrative benefits.
This will cause an estimated $11.41 billion to effectively disappear.
It is a historic amount of money.
Currently, as many as 21.3 million Americans could be eligible for large payouts from these benefits.
And if you are one of them, your time is quickly running out to step forward and claim what is rightfully yours.
Here’s what you need to know.
The banning of these benefits has been set in motion thanks to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015-2016.
In Section 831 of this legislation, it clearly states this reform was intended to prevent recipients from collecting more money from the Social Security Administration (SSA) than Congress intended.
With the Federal debt quickly approaching $19 trillion, not surprisingly, these dramatic changes were passed in both the House (266-167) and Senate (64-35) with overwhelming majorities.
And this past November President Obama signed the reform into law.
Congress and the White House Have Finally Found Something They Can Agree On.
…Americans are receiving too much money from
Social Security.
This is obviously not an opinion that is shared by the American people themselves, though.
And you owe it to yourself to do whatever it takes to ensure you are not short-changed from the biggest reform to Social Security in nearly four decades.
Because, to be absolutely clear, a lot of people stand to lose a lot of money if they don’t act now.
This New Law Mandates That the
Social Security Administration Ban:
•A provision that could allow you to collect a one-time, lump-sum check from Social Security for as much as $124,174.
•A “restricted application” that can boost your income by $63,648.
•A massive overhaul to Medicare payments and deductibles. Take the amount you were expecting to pay for Medicare. Now slash that number in HALF. That’s how much you could be saving!
•(Continued below…)
Congress justified this aggressive reform by stating they were closing unintended loopholes.
And what will undoubtedly come as a shock to many Americans is just how big these loopholes are.
The examples listed above are just the tip of the iceberg.
Laurence Kotlikoff is a former member of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors, who is currently with the National Bureau of Economic Research.
He believes many Americans could be missing out on $50,000 from these little-known (and soon to be gone) Social Security benefits.
But for some, that could be a drastic underestimate.
Consider this:
•If you are single and over the age of 60, you could miss the chance to add $84,240 to your bank account over the next five years.
Could You Be Owed $50,000, $100,000, Even More From These Banned Benefits…
…and Not Even Know It?
Find out before it’s too late!
•If you are married, another of these disappearing provisions allows you to call up your Social Security clerk, make a simple six-word request, and immediately raise your income by an extra $1,329 a month.
•If you are a parent or grandparent there is a 2-step filing method that could provide enough money to pay for your children, or grandkids, to get both a bachelor’s and master’s degree.
There is $2.5 billion available, just in this program, for the taking.
And we all know the cost of education has been going through the roof. You must find out if you are eligible!
•(Continued below…)
These Banned Social Security Benefits Will Disappear By
May 1, 2016.
This has understandably caused some backlash.
A PBS column has reported that with this legislation:
Forbes has written that this reform:
And Time questioned the manner in which everything was put together, noting:
The media’s assessment of this situation may be spot on.
But it doesn’t change the fact that this is happening.
These benefits are going to disappear very soon.
Fortunately, if you are already a Social Security recipient, or soon to be one, you can do something about this.
There is Good News.
If You Are Eligible and Claim These Banned Benefits NOW, You Will Be Grandfathered In.
You have paid into Social Security your entire working life.
12.4% of every single one of your paychecks is contributing to this safety net.
You have earned these benefits.
This money is available to you.
And if you do not step forward and claim it now, Congress and the SSA will make it impossible for you to do so in the coming months.
By Taking Just a Few Actions, You Can Ensure These Banned Benefits Will Never Be Shut Off From You.
But you must move fast.
Which is why I’m going to help you get every dollar you have coming your way.
I’m going to help you use Social Security to take back your retirement.
And we’re going to start right now.
My name is Keith Fitz-Gerald.
I have spent more than 34 years in the markets as an analyst, consultant, and quantitative trader.
I cut my teeth at some of Wall Street’s biggest firms, including Wilshire Associates, which oversees more than $8 trillion for over 600 institutional investors.
And today I’m the Chief Investment Strategist for Money Morning.
We are a large financial publisher located in Baltimore, MD.
And we are not associated with the Social Security Administration.
Our mission is simple.
Month after month, my team and I work tirelessly to provide our 1 million readers with the guidance and information they need to protect and grow their wealth.
We have identified Social Security as the greatest chance we have to dramatically improve the financial futures of people across the country.
The numbers here are impossible to ignore.
With each day that passes, an estimated 11,536 Americans become eligible to receive Social Security benefits.
And currently, three out of every four seniors rely entirely on this safety net for their monthly income.
Unfortunately, too many fail to take full advantage of Social Security.
But it’s not their fault.
The Social Security Administration has 2,728 rules governing their benefits and thousands upon thousands of additional sub-rules outlined in their Program Operations Manual.
But even the SSA admits that the way they are worded:
That may be why a Boston College study determined that retirees pass up $10 billion every year in Social Security benefits they’re entitled to.
However, the SSA has looked to rectify this by streamlining their disclosures.
So if you are willing to dedicate the time, you can dig through their complimentary publication and find details on each of Social Security’s benefits (banned or otherwise).
You could also speak to one of their agents or hire a financial advisor to sort through everything.
But why should you have to jump through all of these hoops?
My team and I believe that it shouldn’t be so difficult to get what you deserve from this safety net.
And this situation is only going to get worse.
Americans were already missing out on $10 billion a year. And now this new reform is putting $11.4 billion on the chopping block.
So it’s perfectly natural if you are feeling outrage over this. Nobody likes the idea of getting the short end of the stick.
But, in reality, there is another side to this story.
Frankly, there is an enormous opportunity here.
When we dug into these banned benefits we uncovered a Social Security filing tactic that had a value of up to $177,000 for eligible recipients.
Susan Boyle & Barbra Streisand….Memory (Cats)….Mix….
MrAeden 4,154,030 views
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=ZpLPxb-PZEY
Well, according to the Great Satan in Washington DC, they can do anything they want to anyone anywhere at anytime. So why are we even having this discussion? Screw em…if they find somebody they need to spy on either do it and don’t get caught or don’t do it at all. Of course these criminals won’t do any such thing, they want their proverbial cake and they want to eat it too. So soon as we find em grazing on that cake arrest a few of these traitors and throw em in jail. I have a feeling that will straighten the encryption debate out…
“A number of organizations…have researched techniques to detect and measure radicalization.” I wish it would have gone on to say that one of those techniques involved interviewing survivors of those who have been killed by a drone detonated over a wedding or funeral, or an attack helicopter firing from a mile away. Or, have a loved one who has been tortured or disappeared by one of the many brutal regime leaders that the U.S. props up and lets skate on rights violations.
That won’t happen, of course. And, the odds of any survivors of America’s meddling hating us for our freedoms is zero. They have much, much better reasons for hating us. The ultimate question is how much longer will the American people allow themselves be distracted and fooled by such a ridiculous notion?
So, the conumdrum for the U.S. is: How can we continue to have our way in the Middle East, and, indeed, the world, in the manner in which we have been doing for over a half century, and escape consequences? How can we continue to play all sides against the middle with impunity; without someone noticing and maybe taking action against what they see as an invasion force destroying their world?
The idea that encryption and surveillance of the entirety of cyberspace are the keys to world peace or America’s survival is absurd. But, no more so than thinking you can get away with decades of utterly self-interested, highly militaristic and chronically bloody actions in an entire region of the world forever and not expect some form of payback from the people affected.
RJ Steele :-( http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Reap-What-You-Sow/
“The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.”
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
April 27, 1961
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini
The choice is yours Freedom or Fascism !
Deuce is right; certainly this is Fascism. Smedley Butler is rolling in his grave.
Not sure U.S. citizens have had a real choice in sometime though. Corporate citizens and individuals with wealth or resources can participate in our system. Everyone else is left with what choice someone else made for them.
If you’re implying that it’s time to fight with your last sentence, perhaps that is a fools errand. Violation of the Constitutional Militia clauses and variation of “poll taxes” on arms sells, and regulations of the sell or transfer of military equipment , have put the common able bodied “man” out of commission for a fight.
We fight by not voting for Democrats or Republicans. Send a message they cant ignore & will understand ! Vote for independent candidates !
What a complete and utter joke…. the Wjote House’s briefing paper sent to all these Silicon Valley executives states: <> How cute, and disingenious: they act as if they don’t already KNOW the “downsides or unintended consequences” to zero privacy ! I am convinced they all read (and have conveniently forgotten) George Orwell’s novel “1984” ! Perhaps I can help them remember what consequences are of allowing a back door into every communication and web search. It will lead to a totalitarian state, if it hasn’t already done so. It will change the way we act as thinking beings, never convinced that are most private thoughts, aspirations, political and religious beliefs remain private. It will allow the government of the day the most perfect tool to seek successive re-election: private information on competing campaign candidates and citizens who are vocal against their leadership. All 11 government agencies involved in intelligence will demand to use these tools under the ever-constant flag of “counter-terrorism”. In fact, take a look at the White House’s briefing paper,,,, today it extols ISIS as the threat when only 24 months ago it was Al Quaida. ISIS is simply a rebranding of the Mid-East boogeyman that may indeed exist, but must be viewed through a crystal clear magnifying glass. The boogeyman will never end. It will bleed into every pseudo-policy and foreign activity.
If Silicon does not stand up against these draconian intelligence industry requirements, I predict that it will add a layer of fear so prevalent in our daily lives that our sense of “community” will extend only to our immediate family. All others will be regarded as untrustworthy.
I wonder what Jefferson and Adams and Franklin would say to all of that.
The only thing happening in this country that “isn’t total bullshit” or – alternately – “more smoke and mirrors” is the Bernie Sanders campaign for president 2016. I woke up immediately after 9/11!
I expect they will be shuffling the chairs on the deck *AGAIN* … any day now. That usually occurs after the next round of smoke and mirrors fails to detract from pressing issues and concerns of the citizenry. I still recall the day Ari Fleischer was the first rat to jump ship. And with distinction. His. Lol!
What a hoot! I also recall Mr. Fleischer was cohabitating / living in sin … lol! with a considerably younger girlfriend. And, furthermore, that he was offered a $1 million book deal to write yet another “life inside the White House exposé”. (’03)
Sorry Joanne, Bernie wants Ed Snowden to do hard time for being the patriot he is. He’s just another member of ‘the club’. He’s just like the rest of the horseshit running as ‘republicans’. Wake up & try again Joanne.
Sorry, Thomas Jefferson: But I don’t get the impression you have the first clue what it is “to do hard time for being … patriot.” On the subject of Edward Snowden; however, I don’t doubt that under a Bernie Sanders’ presidency, Edward would be treated fairly and in accordance with whatever laws may be appropriate. Sen.Sanders himself has implied that extenuating circumstances ought to be considered. Rightly so! And besides, my world view is much broader. I am not simply concerned about corrupt politicians and officials. :^]
Some words of true Patriots are as follows, as opposed to the words of false flag patriotism of bought & paid for professional politicians of today.
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.
Benjamin Franklin
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
Benjamin Franklin
Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson
Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”
Thomas Jefferson.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security,”
Thomas Jefferson wrote this in the Declaration of Independence .
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
James Madison
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
James Madison
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry
“We the People are the rightful masters of BOTH Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution”
Abraham Lincoln
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln
We should not forget the warning of President Eisenhower .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLqWfWxqh_0
The NSA is controlled & operated by the DOD & the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) Private Corporations.
“The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.”
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
April 27, 1961
gezzer: Good touch. Sweeet! And lest we all not forget … there is an “impeachment clause” in the U.S. Constitution for good reason.
President Eisenhowers words are never more true than they are today !
they should start with their own police force, they kill more Americans combined then any terrorist group
just stopped updating the iphone
Sending information technology offshore as people lose confidence in American encryption and privacy guarantees reminds me of that other triumph of the American security state: castor farming.
Not many people know it, but the reason why something like Reese Cups don’t taste as good as they did forty years ago is something called PGPR. Real cocoa butter is too expensive and nice to use in chocolate, so instead they put it in cosmetics. And to replace the cocoa butter? Well, they make this stuff PGPR out of castor oil, which they used to put in underarm deodorant, and now they put it in chocolate. (You may think this is a supervillain plot, and it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real)
So anyway, the neat thing about castor oil is it’s made out of castor *plants*, and those are a bit famous nowadays because just a few of their seeds will kill you. Because they’re full of ricin, a deadly poison protein that people tend to kick back and forth between categorizing as biological and chemical weaponry. The ricin *may* be detoxified by cooking it into cakes for animal feed, and generally that’s what farmers say they do with it.
Now we *can’t* have some deadly poison potentially being made in the U.S., so our security establishment wisely drew up regulations to discourage its production here. Instead, we import it from around the world, including the Middle East. Where I’m sure they take all the appropriate precautions!
Because if there’s one thing about sin, it’s that it can be expiated by a suitable adjustment of the balance of trade. Faust may have said that the Holy Church’s stomach alone can take Ill-gotten goods without stomach-ache, but in America, we make similar use of the import market to *provide* them.
Sadly you are completely end in users and companies “sending information technology overseas”. And there’s the rub: America prided itself on its manufacturing…. now that’s all but gone. One can easily imagine its most valuable industry shipping its data and engineering jobs overseas within the next 5 years if Google + Apple are not satisfied with the privacy of their data.
When I read the words ” To avoid law enforcement and the intelligence community detecting their activities, terrorists are using encrypted forms of communications at various stages of attack plotting and execution.” I get Chill’s up my spine wondering how all this Govt overreaction will put people who just want to be off the grid -on a Govt shit list.
Everyone is entitled to that information.
had apple, dumped wifi, pulled the board outta my mac mini, apple didn’t like that, they used ipad software to go through thunderbolt to get to my router to turn on wifi to enact airplane mode wifi, isp couldn’t over-ride apple and oh so much more nastiness, it got ugly…dumped apple, went to linux mint 17.3 mate, rock solid/secure/smooth/open source/free to down-load/9.00 for cd…read your logs, use encryption, use Tor and a vpn or just unplug; don’t be stupid, protect you and yours, if it is open source it’s in the day light for all to see, no hidden agenda…apple, google, microsoft these people are not your friends, goto prism-break to learn more, don’t be stupid…
Hmm…some kind of MDMA? Starting to see similarities between folks who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens and folks who think there’s some kind of giant government conspiracy out to get them. All a bit tragic really.
Chicken-shit American, you repeatedly lie at the behest of Zersetzung murderers. You’re not starting to see similarities that do not exist, but are merely paid to say so. Is patriot sock puppetry the best you can do because you don’t have the skills to find a real job?
Say it, Stasi tool: “American goon squads to not commit mass murder by Zersetzung.” It’s easy for a weak, shitty little American like you — just one more lie.
One more thing… it’s hilarious to know you think someone like you could discredit someone like me. Very entertaining indeed!
White House announces revamped counter-terrorism propaganda campaign
Published time: 9 Jan, 2016 04:36
https://www.rt.com/usa/328337-white-house-counter-terrorism-propaganda/
But these Government officials and their corporate sponsors require “security and protection”. How else are they gonna attempt to control the masses, silence the whistleblowers and crush the dissidents? Surveil the entire state and all internet traffic and transactions. For terrorists? Lol! Suuure! Too much!
Fascinating read! Thank you for the link, Christian C Holmer!
[Excerpt]
The Pentagon Highlands Forum was therefore intimately involved in all this as a convening network—but also quite directly. Confirming his pivotal role in the expansion of the US-led global surveillance apparatus, then Forum co-chair, Pentagon CIO Linton Wells, told FedTech magazine in 2009 that he had overseen the NSA’s roll out of “an impressive long-term architecture last summer that will provide increasingly sophisticated security until 2015 or so.”
My comment: ‘sophisticated security’ for whom exactly?
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e#.xblxvru1r
How do you spell “crock of sh*t”? The only “terrorists or criminals” that the public need protection from are felons like Clapper and aholes like Comey.
“The goal here is to find additional ways to work together to make it even harder for terrorists or criminals to find refuge in cyberspace,” Josh Earnest says. Substitute for “terrorists or criminals” the words “the general public” and you come to the real goal of these machinations.
Well I guess the cat that is “criminals” is out of the bag. Since Snowden exposed them, it’s always been about terrorists. “the general public’ will be the next target group admitted to, likely on the notion of possible association with “criminals” and the “huge threat” to society that this represents.
(Speaking of criminals, I note that Clapper still holds high office.) -I wonder at what point in all of this, that making that statement will get one put on a secret ‘List’? In light of what is going on, that’s not a radical question, folks.
If it becomes widely believed that American encryption products have been compromised, then you can kiss a whole lot of the American information technology service industry goodbye.
>We are interested in exploring all options with you for how to deal with the growing threat of terrorists and other malicious actors using technology<
Disgusting! Tell these Fascists to stop attacking the security of American businesses and citizens. Tell them if they want software that does not mock the U.S. Constitution to submit request for our tech co's to bid on the project.
We might have a similar point of view, but I would politely remind you the exorbitant growth of many CEO’s salaries are a function of their lack of interest in their own company’s and country’s welfare.
I don’t think they are on your side, the Constitution’s, or their employees’.
They are on their own side, and Uncle Sam can buy them out in five minutes.
Never mind if you were being sarcastic.
Well, if you mean that CEOs main goal is to enrich themselves that is usually true. However, generally that boils down to some form of increasing the profitability of the company, for which this Big Brother policy is an anathema. That is the one saving grace here. Big Brother is promoting an Anti-Capitalist agenda. And since our government is controlled to a significant extent by Corporate Money, they have a problem, thank goodness.
1. This complex meeting was organized and coordinated in secrecy well in advance of the scheduled event; Reuters first published the story the evening before the meeting. (Did the corporate media know earlier?)
2. This was a meeting of corporations and government. Common to both are the people and no one was there to represent the people. Knowing that neither corporations nor government, and in fact the two collectively, can be trusted it is fair and just to conclude this will not be in the best interest of the American people. “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
3. Nothing in the quotes categorically excludes law abiding Americans or notes the requirement to protect American’s privacy or constitutional rights. It is fair and just to conclude the use of “ISIL” is a defacto placeholder for any target that violates or might violate laws – domestic and foreign – and would be of interest to the NSA, FBI, CIA and any other agency with law enforcement powers or elite special interest entity.
4. Our government is encouraging the use of propaganda and brainwashing. Again, this could be used on Americans, too.
5. The most important issue on the agenda was to enable the government access to all citizens private actions, continuing the dismantling of the Constitution.
Retroactively analyzing people, anybody you want, any time you want, that’s certainly possible with bulk acquisition of data, but that’s certainly not what democracies are built on. That’s what totalitarian states are built on. ~ William Binney
Britain should not go further down this road and risk making the same mistakes as my country did, or they will end up perpetuating the loss of life. ~ William Binney
Former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) employee William Binney.
https://www.rt.com/uk/328093-snoopers-charter-william-binney/
United Stasi of America new definition of a terrorist:
“The whole … system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on — because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.”
? Noam Chomsky
Absolutely right.
And when the basic filtering is inadequate, one becomes a target.
At that point, as in the COINTELPRO of the past, all options for disruption, whether legal, illegal, sadistic or murderous, are on the table.
Mind you, the target need not be a big name. Just someone whom TPTB are worried might be effective.
Murder by the most cowardly method, Zersetzung, is the Stasi goon’s favored tactic.
Tin. Hat. Brigade.
Evil. Liar.
“American”
Simon, say it, coward: “Amercan goon squads do not commit muder by Zersetzung.”
Say it here.
Tin. Hat. Brigade.
Despised. American. Coward.
Well, according to a recent report, the govguys were able to fairly easily track and identify over 1500 pedos who had been trafficking in kiddyporn, and that was all on the darkweb. Apparently all you really need is the right people with the brains and the tech who know what they’re doing!
On working with our friends in local law enforcement to identify and prosecute those responsible for algorithmically generated Man In The Middle attacks on Law Abiding Americans TPTB digitally persecute and dox as criminals despite never having been charged with (let alone convicted) of any crimes.
Jacob Appelbaum goes outside the box. Satire.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TqRGMe9sL_0
Holy crap, that’s absolutely brilliant, and it all makes sense now!
The “wolves” are knocking on our digital door again. Giving them or anyone else the “master key” would be disasterous & reprehensible. I would hope that tech companies recognize that the risk in doing so is tremendous and irreversible.
Government surveillance since 9/11 has had little to nothing to preventing one terrorist attack after another in this country yet they continue to persist with their Big Brother fear/surveillance tactics. You would think the American public would get a better return on the $66 billion annual budget taxpayers spend on over 20 intelligence agencies of the US government.
If you were a CEO of a company and you paid a vendor BILLION$ ever year and they failed miserable year after year, what would you do? This is a big election year. Ballots are still bayonets in this country. We better make some big changes in this country while we still can.
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” Patrick Henry
“Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual, and putting terror in every heart.” -Justice Robert Jackson, chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, 1949
It would be a VERY bad idea for any Silicon Valley company to work with the government.
WHY? Because all those employees are tech-savvy. They all know how to use encryption, encrypted email, Wikileaks, etc.
Any betrayal of the public trust would be leaked around the world in 45 minutes. You’d never know who leaked it.
As an Apple shareholder who has ridden the stock from $119 to today’s $98, I don’t want to see another giant loss.
That is simply not true. I doubt even you believe that statement.
Silicon Valley is Civil Coward Central Station — because of the money at stake and narrow focus on bits and hype. They don’t care what goes on elsewhere, which explains the hold libertarian politics has on so many them. They don’t care about the rotten state of the Bay Area’s economy (not their problem), permanent war, torture, and the Zersetzung goons looking for any signs of independent thought. Hell, going out of their way to help Stasi goons stalk and harass targets in the workplace is commonplace. I have seen it happening for years.
Betrayal of publc trust is just in that sector is business as usual. Corruption makes it acceptable. Cowardice gives it impunity.
>the rotten state of the Bay Area’s economy<
Wow, how about thinking globally for one second. You think the Bay Area economy is hurting?, LOL! Not saying these companies are not subject to government controls, but this assessment is way out there, dude.
“Wow.” Typical of your kind.
That’s funny, you adivising me to think globally for a second.. You sound pretty myopic, “dude”. You think the majority of working age people in the Bay Area are feeling secure and confident about their finances? Or are “you” the majority of people in the Bay Area, or, the “only” people in the Bay Area? You sound like a typically ignorant American, completely clueless about what goes on half way around the world, much less in New Jersey, or across town.
Yes, the rotten state of the Bay Area’s economy, especially Santa Clara County. If you are not working for a tech company as an engineer or business mgr, you are probably not making enough money to make ends meet, if you have a job at all.
You singled out the Bay Area to call a rotten economy in an article about technology companies no less. You are an idiot. Yes ratings such as “rotten” are considered relative to the rest of the world. Does the Bay Area have issues. Damn right it does. But it is absurd to call its economy “rotten” given what is out there in the rest of the world. Try working 10 hours a day in the hot sun harvesting rice by hand and getting paid $7 for that effort! That is reality for much of the world, and it makes the Bay Area look good.
Another deluded American’s whataboutery, who continues the never ending task of lowering the bar on himself.
Santa Clara County’s roads are paved. The water runs. Tech company managers, salespeople, and engineers have good paying jobs, for now, and so do some doctors and lawyers. Most of Santa Clara County’s residents do not. Been there, worked there. Seen its pathetic service economy with my own eyes.
The state of the Bay Area’s economy is anemic. The manufacturing base that once supported your country’s middle class was shipped to China, remember? You voted for that.
— Stan
In Brazil, where I have seen poverty you have not (yet), in the interior of Bahia and Amazonia.
I have to say, the the comments on this article are some of the most intelligent and erudite I’ve seen on the subject matter. The Intercepts has a new fan…
By the term OTHER MALICIOUS ACTORS, what the government means is WHISTLEBLOWERS.
BINGO !!!
Makes me sick how they casually conflate criminal acts with terrorism. They’ve hyped the terrorism threat and use the overhype to sell their surveillance and then the technology is ultimately used to bust drug users. I hate these people. They’re terrorists.
Any back-door or weak encryption that is created for the US government to exploit end-users will be also be exploited by every foreign government and criminal that wants access. The blow back will be extreme, US suppliers of routers, servers and software will not be trusted. Any supplier caught participating in a scheme will be vulnerable to market forces (boycotts) and those market forces (we the people) will demand strong encryption that is beyond the reach of the US government. Who ever develops and certifies that their encryption scheme is secure from government spy-craft will win the business. The US government and the US ‘high tech’ industry does not have a monopoly on intelligent people or savvy, people who care and have the need for privacy will go to great lengths to keep their privacy and there is nothing the US spy agencies can do about it. There are end to end encryption techniques, including private key encryption systems that will never be broken and that is a fact. Just for a few groups of 5 for the cryptographers, uw177 n3v3r [email protected] a7700 crypt andu0 kn0w [email protected]…. n4rD6 d2EF5 mw4r2 Wt5fv sd330 s0wtf nsauk ciaf0 fb1es and00 kmaMF ;))
Sen. Lee: Encryption backdoors aren’t worth the price…
http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/encryption-mandates-senator-mike-lee/
“There is also a need for more credible positive messaging and content that provides alternatives to young people concerned about many of the grievances ISIL highlights.”
How about a broad based movement in the US challenging the corruption of democracy that is at the heart of imperial abuses against Muslims? How about “positive messaging” asking radicals to join the tradition of Martin Luther King and fight a nonviolent war to reclaim the soul of America from the military-industrial one percent complex?
Radicals want to live in a moral world that has integrity and vision. Let’s create a pathway to that, rather than just leaving things as a choice between corrupt consumer capitalist democracy and militant islam.
“A number of organizations in the government, as well as some in private industry and academia, have researched techniques to detect and measure radicalization.”
Pre-crime.
Philip K. Dick was even better at crystal gazing than we thought.
Last I heard, it was not illegal to be a ‘radical’….
@Stew
“Last I heard, it was not illegal to be a ‘radical’….”
Well, not technically “illegal” — perhaps — depending upon the time and place and the particular form of radicalism involved, but: It has always been effectively impermissible to engage in effective, “radical” dissent from majoritarian views in the US.
We are an utterly conformist culture and we marginalize (at best) and punish harshly (quite regularly) those who would dare to seriously challenge the march of Empire and greed.
Got a long list of examples, if you’d like to consider the reality. McCarthy, Vietnam protesters and resisters, civil rights activists, Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917-1918 . . . and so on.
“A number of organizations in the government, as well as some in private industry and academia, have researched techniques to detect and measure radicalization.”
Pre-crime. Philip K. Dick was even better at his craft than we thought.
Sorry for the double post. My posts were disappearing for such a long time that I wrote Glenn asking if I had something so awful that TI had decided to ban me. ;^)
Guys, you have plenty of resources to get a decent comment system. If I weren’t too old and tired, I do it as a volunteer. Please just fucking fix this.
you want to counter terrorism. Start supporting governments that don’t oppress their own people. Provide robust economic growth so people can work and feed their families. Allow people to educate their children in a safe environment. this would do more to stop terrorism than anything else.
To paraphrase and summarize,
the “government” of the fake USA
believes that better methods of
propaganda and manipulation are vital to dealing with
“terrorists” because the fake USA cannot recognize that
it is one of the major “drivers of radicalization” and so
the fake USA must do a thorough
“consideration of First Amendment protections and
privacy and civil liberty concerns” before we violate those
“concerns” in our heightened efforts at militarized delusions
for global corporate domination.
Substitute ‘Black lives matter activists’ for ‘terrorists, or some environmental activist group, and you can easily get the gist of this kind of heinous, behind the scenes, skullduggery. Treasonous indeed!
Since the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney has 808 Millions dollars, I challenged him use the Android Open Source Code to build a demo of what he believe it is easy to build. I did it at the New York City Community Board #7 – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf75zFbSbSRLbJ0LmdyiVUw –
It’s a challenge between them (the political establishment with no understanding of how to build it) and us (the technical establishment with no understanding of the political process.)
It’s on tweeter under #BackDoorPenetration
Good for you! His crypto policy paper is comically nonsensical (“There has been no evidence of which we are aware of security breaches of [Android]”..!, and he has ignored my questio
Grr. Stupid touch screen.
Good for you! His crypto “policy paper” is comically nonsensical (“There has been no evidence of which we are aware of security breaches of [Android]”, and “the only keys would be held by the operating system designers”), and he’s ignored my twitter questions about it.
The Ever Receding Silicon Valley Summit Peaks
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e#.xblxvru1r
Fascinating read! Thank you for the link, Christian C Holmer!
[Excerpt]
We now know that just two months before O’Neill’s address at Harvard in 2001, under the TIA program, President Bush had secretly authorized the NSA’s domestic surveillance of Americans without court-approved warrants, in what appears to have been an illegal modification of the ThinThread data-mining project?—?as later exposed by NSA whistleblowers William Binney and Thomas Drake.
Re: The Ever Receding Silicon Valley Summit Peaks
[Excerpt]
And so we come full circle. Data-mining programs like ExecuteLocus and projects linked to it, which were developed throughout this period, apparently laid the groundwork for the new NSA programmes eventually disclosed by Edward Snowden. By 2008, as Facebook received its next funding round from Greylock Venture Capital, documents and whistleblower testimony confirmed that the NSA was effectively resurrecting the TIA project with a focus on Internet data-mining via comprehensive monitoring of e-mail, text messages, and Web browsing.
We also now know thanks to Snowden that the NSA’s XKeyscore ‘Digital Network Intelligence’ exploitation system was designed to allow analysts to search not just Internet databases like emails, online chats and browsing history, but also telephone services, mobile phone audio, financial transactions and global air transport communications?—?essentially the entire global telecommunications grid. Highlands Forum partner SAIC played a key role, among other contractors, in producing and administering the NSA’s XKeyscore, and was recently implicated in NSA hacking of the privacy network Tor.
The Pentagon Highlands Forum was therefore intimately involved in all this as a convening network—but also quite directly. Confirming his pivotal role in the expansion of the US-led global surveillance apparatus, then Forum co-chair, Pentagon CIO Linton Wells, told FedTech magazine in 2009 that he had overseen the NSA’s roll out of “an impressive long-term architecture last summer that will provide increasingly sophisticated security until 2015 or so.”
My recollection is that Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook start up was primarily funded by Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. ?
Instead of trampling or outright discarding our rights all together,I would
Much prefer we fix the ills of our country. Bring back the morals it was founded on and run our government the way the founding fathers outlined. Make it the strong nation led by and for the people thus making terrorism offensive to all of our citizens.
I see this meeting as just another way to spy on all of us. There will be those who will “go along” and without a Snowden to blow the whistle we won’t know the extent of the treason against us until it’s to late.
“Bring back the morals it was founded on” Would that be the genocide of the people already living in North America or the ‘peculiar institution’ aka chattel slavery. These are two of the most basic foundational elements of the USA. Personally I would be happy to see the government abandon those principles but I fear they continue in today’s policies both inside the borders and beyond.
Jennifer Grannick
“What is the national security value of authorizing warrantless surveillance of people who are not agents of foreign powers”
Much easier to blackmail.
Same as installing the manufactured sacrament of confession in Medieval Europe.
1. Which sacraments would you consider not manufactured?
2. The sacrament in question, known by various names, and in various forms, dates from the very earliest times following the founding of Christianity.
3. If we say the Middle ages began with the 5th century, the practice then known as Canonical Penance was at least a couple of hundred years old by the early Medieval period.
Just sayin’ — cuz I’m playing history cop today.
Individual confessions were not a thing until the 12th century. From wiki:
Beginnings of practising the sacrament of penance in the form of individual confession as we know it now, i.e. bringing confession of sins and reconciliation together, can be traced back to 11th century.[22]
In 1215 the Fourth Council of the Lateran made it canon law that every Catholic Christian goes to confession in his parish at least once a year.[23] The specification to one’s own parish was later dropped.
Sorry, Richard, but wiki isn’t really the best source for the complex history of the development of a “sacrament” peculiar to a particular religious tradition.
I would suggest that, when considering Roman (and Eastern) Catholic traditions, Catholic sources are likely more authoritative.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
= = = = =
According to the Council of Trent, the consensus of all the Fathers always understood that by the words of Christ just cited, the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and their lawful successors (Sess. XIV, c. i). It is therefore Catholic doctrine that the Church from the earliest times believed in the power to forgive sins as granted by Christ to the Apostles.
Such a belief in fact was clearly inculcated by the words with which Christ granted the power, and it would have been inexplicable to the early Christians if any one who professed faith in Christ had questioned the existence of that power in the Church. But if, contrariwise, we suppose that no such belief existed from the beginning, we encounter a still greater difficulty: the first mention of that power would have been regarded as an innovation both needless and intolerable; it would have shown little practical wisdom on the part of those who were endeavouring to draw men to Christ; and it would have raised a protest or led to a schism which would certainly have gone on record as plainly at least as did early divisions on matters of less importance. But no such record is found; even those who sought to limit the power itself presupposed its existence, and their very attempt at limitation put them in opposition to the prevalent Catholic belief.
Turning now to evidence of a positive sort, we have to note that the statements of any Father or orthodox ecclesiastical writer regarding penance present not merely his own personal view, but the commonly accepted belief; and furthermore that the belief which they record was no novelty at the time, but was the traditional doctrine handed down by the regular teaching of the Church and embodied in her practice. In other words, each witness speaks for a past that reaches back to the beginning, even when he does not expressly appeal to tradition.
St. Augustine (d. 430) warns the faithful: “Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God has power to forgive all sins” (De agon. Christ., iii).
St. Ambrose (d. 397) rebukes the Novatianists who “professed to show reverence for the Lord by reserving to Him alone the power of forgiving sins. Greater wrong could not be done than what they do in seeking to rescind His commands and fling back the office He bestowed. . . . The Church obeys Him in both respects, by binding sin and by loosing it; for the Lord willed that for both the power should be equal” (On Penance I.2.6).
Again he teaches that this power was to be a function of the priesthood. “It seemed impossible that sins should be forgiven through penance; Christ granted this (power) to the Apostles and from the Apostles it has been transmitted to the office of priests” (On Penance II.2.12).
The power to forgive extends to all sins: “God makes no distinction; He promised mercy to all and to His priests He granted the authority to pardon without any exception” (On Penance I.3.10).
Against the same heretics St. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona (d. 390), wrote to Sympronianus, one of their leaders: “This (forgiving sins), you say, only God can do. Quite true: but what He does through His priests is the doing of His own power” (Ep. I ad Sympron., 6 in P.L., XIII, 1057).
In the East during the same period we have the testimony of St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 447): “Men filled with the spirit of God (i.e. priests) forgive sins in two ways, either by admitting to baptism those who are worthy or by pardoning the penitent children of the Church” (In Joan., 1, 12 in P.G., LXXIV, 722).
St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) after declaring that neither angels nor archangels have received such power, and after showing that earthly rulers can bind only the bodies of men, declares that the priest’s power of forgiving sins “penetrates to the soul and reaches up to heaven”. Wherefore, he concludes, “it were manifest folly to condemn so great a power without which we can neither obtain heaven nor come to the fulfillment of the promises. . . . Not only when they (the priests) regenerate us (baptism), but also after our new birth, they can forgive us our sins” (On the Priesthood III.5 sq.).
St. Athanasius (d. 373): “As the man whom the priest baptizes is enlightened by the grace of the Holy Ghost, so does he who in penance confesses his sins, receive through the priest forgiveness in virtue of the grace of Christ” (Frag. contra Novat. in P.G., XXVI, 1315).
These extracts show that the Fathers recognized in penance a power and a utility quite distinct from that of baptism. Repeatedly they compare in figurative language the two means of obtaining pardon; or regarding baptism as spiritual birth, they describe penance as the remedy for the ills of the soul contracted after that birth. But a more important fact is that both in the West and in the East, the Fathers constantly appeal to the words of Christ and given them the same interpretation that was given eleven centuries later by the Council of Trent. In this respect they simply echoed the teachings of the earlier Fathers who had defended Catholic doctrine against the heretics of the third and second centuries.
Thus St. Cyprian in his “De lapsis” (A.D. 251) rebukes those who had fallen away in time of persecution, but he also exhorts them to penance: “Let each confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession can be received, while satisfaction and the forgiveness granted by the priests is acceptable to God” (c. xxix).
= = = = =
And so on. The action of Lateran IV in the 13th century is merely a formalization of a practice that had existed, in a number of variations, from the beginning of church history.
If you’re talking about the details of the physical arrangements we think of as “confession” today, little screened booths, ritualized statements of confession and forms of giving penance and absolution, you’re talking about details that only matter to the folks who worry about the angel-carrying capacity of pinheads.
And now, my history policing duty for the evening is finished.
Completely missed the point of my original comment by miles and miles, while grasping at semantics for your own. You should consider self-medicating.
“We reveal ourselves unto our God…”
Some people, such as myself, are being facetious while speaking in terms of making a confession. Just this past evening, I “confessed out loud” why I found it necessary to purchase (Aug 2005) and read my family Bible. For years I couldn’t understand why I was being persecuted; covertly stalked; psychologically tortured and taunted by certain political elites and their corporate media counterparts. Grr!
These Programs Were Never About Terrorism. They’re About Economic Spying, Social Control, and Diplomatic Manipulation. They’re About Power. ~ Edward Snowden
I think a lot of people have already been sliced on the cutting edge of AI interpretation of their speech in one area: job applications. Instead of being able to connect honestly with human beings and get appropriate positions, they’ve been hijacked into a holding pattern of spamming machines with text that they hope desperately will have all the right keywords and none of the wrong ones and not contain any facts that are too inconvenient or unusual to just have them pitched out altogether.
Now imagine speaking every conversation, writing every letter, like it’s a job application to be read by a machine — and the penalty for confusing it is not that you never hear back again, but a drone blows you up. Have fun with that one…
I have been trying just that with my blog for months, but to no avail.
But seriously, I have no doubt that somewhere among the reams of datum Snowden left behind, or maybe something too deep for even he to have been aware of, is a slide along the lines of a “Project GLORY-HOLE: Universal Encryption Key”. The government spy agencies had no qualms whatsoever in outright breaking laws, re-writing laws after the fact to suit their needs. All this huff and puff about suddenly wanting full cooperation from all parties in devising a legal de-encryption tool, I really feel, is complete smoke and mirrors. They already have it. And I bet everyone named in Jenna’s article knows that.
OMG