NATO’s Secret Afghanistan Kill List Leaked: Sanctioned Collateral Damage to Target Low-Level Taliban & Drug Dealers

The existence of documents relating to the so-called Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) has only been described in vague terms until now. The missions by US special units are mentioned but not discussed in detail in the US Army Afghanistan war logs published by WikiLeaks in 2010. The documents that have now become accessible provide, for the first time, a systematic view of the targeted killings. They outline the criteria used to determine who was placed on the list and why.

The list, which included up to 750 people at times, proves for the first time that NATO didn’t just target the Taliban leadership, but also eliminated mid- and lower-level members of the group on a large scale. Some Afghans were only on the list because, as drug dealers, they were allegedly supporting the insurgents.

http://leaksource.info/2014/12/30/nato-secret-afghanistan-kill-list-leaked-sanctioned-collateral-damage-to-target-low-level-taliban-drug-dealers/

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-docs-reveal-dubious-details-of-targeted-killings-in-afghanistan-a-1010358.html

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Arrests plummet 66% with NYPD in virtual work stoppage

It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage.

NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.

The Post obtained the numbers hours after revealing that cops were turning a blind eye to some minor crimes and making arrests only “when they have to” since the execution-style shootings of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

Statistics obtained by The Post show a dramatic drop in NYPD activity between Dec. 22 — the first weekday after the double cop assassination — and Sunday, compared with the same period last year.

Police sources said Monday that safety concerns were the main reason for the dropoff in police activity, but added that some cops were mounting an undeclared slowdown in protest of de Blasio’s response to the non-indictment in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner.

http://nypost.com/2014/12/29/arrests-plummet-following-execution-of-two-cops/

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FBI briefed on alternate Sony hack theory

FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator — another example of the continuing whodunit blame game around the devastating attack.

Even the unprecedented decision to release details of an ongoing FBI investigation and President Barack Obama publicly blaming the hermit authoritarian regime hasn’t quieted a chorus of well-qualified skeptics who say the evidence just doesn’t add up.

Researchers from the cyber intelligence company Norse have said their own investigation into the data on the Sony attack doesn’t point to North Korea at all and instead indicates some combination of a disgruntled employee and hackers for piracy groups is at fault.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/fbi-briefed-on-alternate-sony-hack-theory-113866.html

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Year in Review: The 10 Biggest Spy-Related Stories of 2014

1. Western spy agencies refocus on Russia. It is too early to proclaim a Cold War 2.0, but there is no question that Western intelligence agencies have actively began to refocus on Russia more intensely than at any time since the collapse of communism in 1991. This is especially noticeable in the United Kingdom, where military intelligence agencies are reportedly scrambling to rehire retired Russian-language analysts, due to the crisis in Crimea. Meanwhile, this past November Britain’s civilian spy agencies launched a new drive to recruit Russian-language speakers. According to some, the Cold War never ended. IntelNews regulars will recall that, in March of 2013, Oleg Gordievsky, the Soviet KGB’s former station chief in London, who defected to the UK in the 1980s, alleged in an interview that Russia operates as many spies in Britain today as it did during the Cold War.

2. NSA spy leaks continue to cause diplomatic headaches for Washington. The NSA has seen itself feature in news headlines more times than ever before this year. For an Agency that relies on secrecy and a low public profile, this is clearly a regrettable state of affairs. We now know about the existence of the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations, described as “something like a squad of plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked”. And we know that the NSA targets allies of the US with the same intensity that it targets its traditional adversaries. This, along with leaks about an alleged CIA operation against Germany, caused Berlin to break all intelligence collaboration with Washington and even expel the CIA station chief in the German capital. Turkey came close to doing the same, according to some sources.

http://intelnews.org/2014/12/30/01-1619/
http://intelnews.org/2014/12/29/01-1618/

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License Plate Reader Technology Looks At Faces

Police and private companies link facial recognition software to databases that track motorists.

Vigilant SolutionsThe leading suppler of automated license plate reader technology in the US (ALPR, also known as ANPR in Europe) is expanding its offerings to law enforcement. Vehicle owners have already had their movements tracked by the company Vigilant Solutions, which boasts 2 billion entries in its nationwide database, with 70 million additional license plate photographs being added each month. Now passengers can also be tracked if they hitch a ride with a friend and are photographed by a camera aimed at the front of the car. The Livermore, California-based firm recently announced expanded integration of facial recognition technology into its offerings.

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/46/4602.asp

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Prying Eyes: Inside the NSA's War on Internet Security

US and British intelligence agencies undertake every effort imaginable to crack all types of encrypted Internet communication. The cloud, it seems, is full of holes. The good news: New Snowden documents show that some forms of encryption still cause problems for the NSA.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/inside-the-nsa-s-war-on-internet-security-a-1010361.html

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FBI keeps lid on sniper plot to kill ‘Occupy Wall Street’ organizers

Heavily redacted FBI memos confirm that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of a plot to assassinate the Houston organizers of “Occupy Wall Street,” but the agency has managed to withhold the details from the American public using the worn-out excuse that transparency compromises national security.

According to the agency’s official memos, an unnamed party or agency “planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors in Houston, Texas, if deemed necessary… [Redacted] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.”

The plot was allegedly devised in October 2011, shortly after the national debut of Occupy Wall Street in September of the same year. It wasn’t until 2013 that any mention of the plot was made known to the public, when Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student Ryan Noah Shapiro noticed startling references in the course of his extensive efforts to pursue transparency in the FBI. Mr. Shapiro subsequently filed a Freedom Of Information (FOIA) request for additional details.

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/sniper-plot-to-kill-ows-organizers/

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Shadow Government Intelligence Secrets & 9/11 Truth with John Banks

Government secret intelligence, CIA drug smuggling, 9/11 truth, and British counter-terrorist dirty business is shared by John Banks. Banks guides us through Pakistan & Afghanistan collaboration with mujahadeen, to Latin American cocaine business, and African civil wars--all operated through corrupt collaboration with warlords and drug cartels. As Afghanistan has just had a record year for heroin production, we trace how business has stayed dirty (and profitable) for the shadow governments of the West, and learn some of the dirty secrets of the intelligence departments of England and America in this uncensored Buzzsaw interview, hosted by Sean Stone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJSmcsouUnE

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Hundreds Turn Their Back on de Blasio at NYPD Officer's Funeral

More ABC News Videos | ABC World News

http://abcnews.go.com/US/nypd-officers-turn-back-de-blasio-cops-funeral/story?id=27851746

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Hitler’s Nazi Germany Used an American PR Agency

As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, I was shocked this week to learn via a recent book, Larry Roth’s The Nazi Account, that in 1933 Hitler hired a major NYC PR firm, Carl Byoir & Associates, to portray Nazi Germany in a positive light to an American audience. While the book is fiction, it’s based upon true facts. The Nation exposed Nazi propaganda in America, and revealed that the agency was paid $6,000 per month to favorably influence media and public perception of Nazi Germany. The book details—and independent research confirms—that Byoir’s employees were paid significant fees to spin for German tourism, railroads and were confident they would succeed.

Edward Bernays, considered the father of Public Relations (and Sigmund Freud’s nephew), turned down work for Germany, as he was concerned about how his work would be used – particularly by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. While Byoir resigned the work after a year-plus of being paid, WPP, one of the world’s largest advertising & pr conglomerates, describes the firm they acquired years ago as “one of the oldest and most honored public relations agencies in the business.” WPP, which owns Grey, JWT, Ogilvy and others, should remove the word “honored” from Byoir’s description, as any work for Nazi Germany is beyond the pale.

http://www.constantinereport.com/hitlers-nazi-germany-used-american-pr-agency/

http://observer.com/2014/12/hitlers-nazi-germany-used-an-american-pr-agency/#ixzz3N7DNVfPO

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THE WEBCAM HACKING EPIDEMIC

RATs are software that allow a third party to spy on a computer user from afar, whether rifling through messages and browsing activity, photographing the computer screen, or in many cases hijacking the webcam and taking photographs of whomever is on the other side. RATs are widely used in a variety of contexts, some benign, others not. Across the board, abuse tends to be the rule.

It’s hard to know how many RATs are out there because of their covert nature. Recent reports confirm hundreds of thousands of computers infected in 2014 by only a single type of RAT, with the actual number of infections across years and technology far, far higher. School districts have used RATs to spy on students in their bedrooms; rent-to-own computer stores have secretly watched their customers. Online, at places like HackForums.net, individuals, often men, trade and sell access to strangers' computers, often women, gained via RAT. The jargon that ratters use underscores the power dynamic—ratted computers are called "slaves."


The National Security Agency, too, is involved. The agency has budgeted tens of millions of dollars for an aggressive effort to scale its hacking operations and "own the net," a proposition that, as The Intercept reported, envisions indiscriminately infecting millions with malware that has the capability for remote video surveillance by webcam. The Department of Justice, for its part, expended considerable effort in 2014 making vague arguments in support of expansions in Federal Bureau of Investigation ability to use malware, like RATs, for domestic law enforcement.

http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2014/12/webcam-hacking-epidemic/101898/

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NSA DROPS CHRISTMAS EVE SURPRISE

The National Security Agency on Christmas Eve day released twelve years of internal oversight reports documenting abusive and improper practices by agency employees. The heavily redacted reports to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board found that NSA employees repeatedly engaged in unauthorized surveillance of communications by American citizens, failed to follow legal guidelines regarding the retention of private information, and shared data with unauthorized recipients.

While the NSA has come under public pressure for openness since high-profile revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the release of the heavily redacted internal reports at 1:30PM on Christmas Eve demonstrates limits to the agency’s attempts to demonstrate transparency. Releasing bad news right before a holiday weekend, often called a “Christmas Eve surprise,” is a common tactic for trying to minimize press coverage.

The reports, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union, offer few revelations, but contain accounts of internal behavior embarrassing to the agency. In one instance an NSA employee “searched her spouse’s personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting”, a practice which previous reports have indicated was common enough to warrant the name “LOVEINT”.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/26/nsa-releases-report-internal-abuses-christmas-eve/

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Pakistan Could Soon Have More Nukes Than the U.K. and France

Pakistan has one of the fastest growing nuclear stockpiles in the world. Islamabad refuses to release any information regarding its nuclear stockpile, but open sources suggest it possesses as many as 120 atomic warheads.

And lately, Pakistan has been working hard to shrink the warheads’ size and fit them on smaller, more flexible tactical missiles. That effort has some sobering implications.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/pakistan-could-soon-have-more-nukes-than-the-u-k-and-france-e23307efab84

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Flashback – An Illuminati Outline of History

An Illuminati Outline of History

http://www.hourofthetime.com/wordpresstest/flashback-an-illuminati-outline-of-history/

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The Military Wants Smarter Insect Spy Drones

The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency put out a broad agency announcement this week seeking software solutions to help small drones fly better in tight enclosed environments. The Fast Lightweight Autonomy program, the agency said, “focuses on creating a new class of algorithms to enable small, unmanned aerial vehicles to quickly navigate a labyrinth of rooms, stairways and corridors or other obstacle-filled environments without a remote pilot.”

The solicitation doesn’t focus on new drone designs so much as helping very small drones — able to fit through an open window and fly at 45 miles per hour — navigate tight and chaotic indoor spaces without having to communicate with operators, get GPS directions, or receive data from external sensors. All the thinking, steering and landing would be in the drone.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/12/military-wants-smarter-insect-spy-drones/101970/

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Pentagon budget documents detail growing military commitment to cyberwarfare

U.S. Cyber Command was officially stood up in 2010, based at Fort Meade in the Maryland suburbs of the nation’s capital, consolidating intelligence and cyberwarfare capabilities of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines under one house. Soon, billions of dollars were being invested in the concept that cyberattackers targeting America should be prepared to sustain their own damage.

Little has been discussed in public about U.S. Cyber Command’s specific capabilities since, though budget documents detail a growing commitment to this form of warfare. The Pentagon’s cyberwarfare budget has grown from $3.9 billion in 2013 to $4.7 billion in 2014 and an estimated $5.1 billion in 2015.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/22/us-cyber-command-investment-ensures-hackers-target/

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Big Oil’s $3 Billion Homage to Nazi War Criminal

Ships don’t come bigger than the Pieter Schelte. They don’t come more controversial either. Built in Korea at a cost of nearly $3 billion, the gargantuan new ship is now sailing towards the Netherlands, where it will soon enter service in the European offshore oil industry.

A huge catamaran, it weighs 932,000 tons, a world record, and nearly 18 times the Titanic. It will lift offshore oil rigs weighing up to 48,000 tons, again a world record. So much for the technicalities – but there is, ahem, a slight political problem: the ship’s name.

Almost unbelievably, the ship has been named in honor of Pieter Schelte Beerema, a Dutch collaborator in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. An officer in the Waffen SS and a propagandist who allegedly denounced the Jews as “parasitic,” Beerema was sentenced to three years in prison after World War II. Although the sentence was later reduced (apparently because of evidence that, after a row with the Nazis, he had changed sides in 1943), he went on after release to flee to Venezuela, where he allegedly helped German war criminals escape Allied justice.

http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2014/12/20/big-oils-3-billion-homage-to-nazi-war-criminal/

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The CIA Didn’t Just Torture, It Experimented on Human Beings

The “war on terror” is not the CIA’s first venture into human experimentation. At the dawn of the Cold War, German scientists and doctors with Nazi records of human experimentation were given new identities and brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip. During the Korean War, alarmed by the shocking rapidity of American POWs’ breakdowns and indoctrination by their communist captors, the CIA began investing in mind-control research. In 1953, the CIA established the MK-ULTRA program, whose earliest phase involved hypnosis, electroshock and hallucinogenic drugs. The program evolved into experiments in psychological torture that adapted elements of Soviet and Chinese models, including longtime standing, protracted isolation, sleep deprivation and humiliation. Those lessons soon became an applied “science” in the Cold War.

During the Vietnam War, the CIA developed the Phoenix program, which combined psychological torture with brutal interrogations, human experimentation and extrajudicial executions. In 1963, the CIA produced a manual titled “Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation” to guide agents in the art of extracting information from “resistant” sources by combining techniques to produce “debility, disorientation and dread.” Like the communists, the CIA largely eschewed tactics that violently target the body in favor of those that target the mind by systematically attacking all human senses in order to produce the desired state of compliance. The Phoenix program model was incorporated into the curriculum of the School of the Americas, and an updated version of the Kubark guide, produced in 1983 and titled “Human Resource Exploitation Manual,” was disseminated to the intelligence services of right-wing regimes in Latin America and Southeast Asia during the global “war on communism.”

In the mid-1980s, CIA practices became the subject of congressional investigations into US-supported atrocities in Central America. Both manuals became public in 1997 as a result of Freedom of Information Act litigation by The Baltimore Sun. That would have seemed like a “never again” moment.

http://www.thenation.com/article/193185/cia-didnt-just-torture-it-experimented-human-beings#

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CUBA WON’T LET FBI OR CHRISTIE HAVE JOANNE CHESIMARD BACK

Cuba delivered a blow late Monday to federal and state authorities who had hoped Assata Shakur, the famously exiled Black Liberation Army member, would be extradited back to the United States, vowing that the fugitive has “legitimately” earned political asylum.

Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s foreign ministry head of North American affairs, told the Associated Press that the communist nation would not return Shakur despite public requests to do so from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and acting state Attorney General John Hoffman. Both Christie’s and Hoffman’s requests came after diplomatic relations between the countries opened last week for the first time in 54 years.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/23/fbis-desperate-pursuit-assata-shakur-continues-u-s-cuba-talks/

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Experts Are Still Divided on Whether North Korea Is Behind Sony Attack

The FBI attributed the Sony hack to North Korea in part because it shares some code and components with hacks that were conducted in South Korea in 2013, which some have attributed to North Korea. They also cite as evidence the fact that IP addresses associated with North Korea contacted some of the command-and-control servers the Sony hackers used to communicate with malware on the Sony machines. Skeptics criticized the evidence saying it was inconclusive and failed to make the FBI’s case. The agency, however, maintains that it has other evidence it can’t disclose, raising questions about whether signals intelligence collected by NSA surveillance might have been used. Separately, a private security firm with ties to the FBI says it has additional clues that point to North Korea.

Let’s unpack these details.

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/sony-north-korea-hack-experts-disagree/

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How the CIA Sold Obama on Counterinsurgency by Drone Assassination

Last week, WikiLeaks released a June 2009 CIA report on “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Tool.” The report is classified secret and labeled “NoForn,” designating that it should not be distributed to non US nationals.

The Washington Post, ABC News, and other news outlets stress the report’s findings that targeted assassinations had limited impacts on Taliban targets. While this leaked report does criticize the effectiveness of some High-Value Target (HVT) assassination operations, such characterizations mistake the CIA’s argument that not all counterinsurgency problems can be solved with targeted assassinations as an argument against such operations. Far from dismissing HVT operations, the report advocates them in select conditions.

What the Post and others miss is the role this CIA report played in larger conversations about counterinsurgency strategies among members of the CIA, Pentagon, Congress, White House, and corporate military profiteers. In 2009, these conversations focused not only on the roles counterinsurgency should play in warzones, but whether this counterinsurgency should be based on soft power models (providing needed services, etc.) or hard power models (like Project Phoenix in Vietnam, or JSOC’s targeted assassination programs in Iraq). While this leaked document is only a single report, it provides a view into the types of intelligence analysis that informed President Obama’s rapid increased use of CIA HVT drone operations targeting individuals, including American citizens, in Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/23/how-the-cia-sold-obama-on-counterinsurgency-by-drone-assassination/?

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Snowden, Poitras & Others Sued For 'Billions Of Dollars' Spent By US Government In Response To Leaks

Horace B. Edwards, Navy veteran and former Secretary of Transportation for the state of Kansas, is suing Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and a handful of "Hollywood Defendants" for profiteering from the distribution of "stolen documents." This is supposedly being done on "behalf of the American people" ("John and Jane Does 1-10" listed in the "Plaintiffs" field). [pdf link]

What Edwards is seeking is a court-ordered "constructive trust," financed by the proceeds of Laura Poitras' Snowden documentary "CitizenFour," to offset the financial damage caused by the leaked documents.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141222/08155829502/lawsuit-filed-to-hold-snowden-poitras-responsible-billions-dollars-spent-us-government-response-to-leaks.shtml

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The Nazi cold warriors of postwar America

By Lichtblau’s reckoning, as many as 10,000 former Nazis and collaborators settled in the US. These included 1,600 physicists, chemists, engineers and doctors transplanted as part of Operation Paperclip, the audacious project designed to put top Nazi scientists to work for the US.

The most famous of these was Wernher von Braun, chief designer of both the V2 rocket, which rained terror on London, and the Saturn V, which lifted American astronauts to the moon. Another renowned Paperclip scientist was Hubertus Strughold, “the living sage of space medicine”, who had overseen horrific experiments on concentration-camp inmates.

However unsavoury their pasts, these scientists were welcomed and feted by the US – provided they could help develop ballistic missiles and high-altitude bombers capable of reaching the Soviet Union.

US spy agencies made equally generous use of Nazis, recruiting perhaps 1,000 former acolytes of Hitler to help gather intelligence on the Soviets. These included small fish, such as Soobzokov, but also such prominences as the SS general Karl Wolff, Himmler’s former chief of staff, and Otto von Bolschwing, an SS officer who had worked closely with Adolf Eichmann on the Nazis’ “Jewish policies”.

In the cool reckoning of Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, and in the hysterical imaginings of J Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, even the most tainted Nazi could be enlisted in the fight against the red menace.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-nazi-cold-warriors-of-postwar-america-1.2040775

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Oswald and Atta: Erratic, Protected and Seeking Attention

Lee Harvey Oswald and Mohamed Atta had much in common. They both traveled extensively in the time leading up to their respective crimes and both sought attention in ways that would implicate them in those crimes. They were both suspected of using illicit drugs. They both seemed to be protected by authorities when they might have been prosecuted before accomplishing their tasks, and they were both associated with CIA-linked entities. Officially the biggest difference between them is that one was part of a conspiracy and one was not, but the evidence indicates that they were both operating within wider deceptions controlled by powerful people.

http://911blogger.com/news/2014-12-21/oswald-and-atta-erratic-protected-and-seeking-attention

http://digwithin.net/2014/12/21/oswald-and-atta/

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The Untold Story of 9/11: A Luncheon with Bob Graham

Last month, 9/11 parents Loreen and Matt Sellitto hosted an informative event focused on one of the most important yet least-understood aspects of September 11: the extent to which the terrorists received support from foreign governments—and the extent of the government’s knowledge of that support, both before and after the attacks.

Held in Naples, Florida, the November 11 event was called “The Untold Story of 9/11: A Conversation with Bob Graham.” Following opening remarks from host Loreen Sellitto and from Terry Strada of 9/11 Families United for Justice Against Terrorism, the event featured three speakers:
Former Senator Bob Graham, the most prominent voice outside government fighting for declassification of the 28 pages.
Broward Bulldog editor Dan Christensen, who broke the story of the FBI’s discovery of a 9/11 cell in Sarasota, and who continues working to bring FBI investigation documents into the daylight.
Attorney Tom Julin, who is helping the Broward Bulldog in its effort to overcome the government’s stonewalling.

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2014/12/florida-event-spotlights-signs-of.html

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2 U.S. Government Agencies Say FBI’s Anthrax Case Is Full of Holes

Here is the GAO report released today, two years in the making, a study done for unnamed “congressional requesters.” In past years, the requesters have been listed, but in this case, they are not. This most likely reflects the sensitivity of this matter. Why so sensitive?

Because the FBI botched its investigation, never had even the shred of a case against Ivins, and this is not the first time they were called out on it. The 2011 National Academy of Science (NAS) report pointed out the same things as this GAO report: that FBI and its contractors developed methods that were not validated. They never proved that the anthrax in the letters actually grew from parent spores in Ivins’ flask, as FBI purports. This failed claim forms the linchpin of the FBI’s entire case.

Here is the 2011 WaPo editorial on the need for a comprehensive investigation, following release of the NAS report. Today’s GAO investigation did not fulfill the WaPo’s request to include an investigation of the case against Ivins himself.

Following the NAS report, in October 2011, veteran investigative reporters at McClatchey (Greg Gordon, who is amazing), PBS’ Frontline and ProPublica dug deeper into the case than anyone so far had done, and created a TV show, a huge online cache of documents on the case, and several journalistic pieces, like this one. Their work revealed new pieces of evidence that further undercut the FBI’s case, like this and this. One article explored the validity of the FBI’s scientific evidence.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/12/2-u-s-government-agencies-say-fbis-anthrax-case-full-holes.html

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Gunman executes 2 NYPD cops as ‘revenge’ for Garner

Two uniformed NYPD officers were shot dead Saturday afternoon as they sat in their marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner — in what investigators believe was a crazed gunman’s ­assassination-style mission to avenge Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

“It’s an execution,” one law-enforcement source said of the 3 p.m. shooting of police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.

http://nypost.com/2014/12/20/2-nypd-cops-shot-execution-style-in-brooklyn/

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THE FEDS WANT TO REPLACE YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE WITH A NATIONAL ID CARD

In 2005, Congress passed a bill called the Real ID Act, based upon recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. Whether or not you’ve heard of the law depends largely upon how in tune you are with conspiracy theories. Where you live matters, too, because nearly a decade after the law’s passage, only 19 states actually comply with its standards.

Real ID’s stated intent is to ensure that all jurisdictions issuing driver’s licenses and other identification meet federal stand­ards, “which should inhibit terrorists’ ability to evade detection by using fraudulent identification.” Basically, the government is upping the ante on what it will accept as valid forms of ID at federal facilities, nuclear power plants, and—here’s the biggie—federally regulated airline flights (i.e., most of them).

Opponents fear that Real ID will lead to a national identity card like those issued by “totalitarian” governments and that its requirement that states share data from their department of motor vehicle databases is an invasion of privacy. Others object because Congress didn’t offer financial backing to help states implement Real ID. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contends that the program wastes state resources while doing little to combat terrorism, calling it a “bureaucratic nightmare.”

http://blog.caranddriver.com/the-feds-want-to-replace-your-drivers-license-with-a-national-id-card/

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German researchers discover a flaw that could let anyone listen to your cell calls

German researchers have discovered security flaws that could let hackers, spies and criminals listen to private phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale – even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available.

The flaws, to be reported at a hacker conference in Hamburg this month, are the latest evidence of widespread insecurity on SS7, the global network that allows the world’s cellular carriers to route calls, texts and other services to each other. Experts say it’s increasingly clear that SS7, first designed in the 1980s, is riddled with serious vulnerabilities that undermine the privacy of the world’s billions of cellular customers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/18/german-researchers-discover-a-flaw-that-could-let-anyone-listen-to-your-cell-calls-and-read-your-texts/

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Cato Institute Surveillance Conference 2014

http://leaksource.info/2014/12/18/cato-institute-surveillance-conference-2014/

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Hollywood's Secret War On Net Neutrality Is A Key Part Of Its Plan Stop You From Accessing Websites It Doesn't Like

We already wrote about the MPAA's plan to break the internet by trying to twist a portion of the DMCA to force ISPs to remove DNS entries, making sites effectively disappear off the internet. However, one key element to this actually relies on an issue closely related to the net neutrality fight -- though understanding it involves going pretty deep into both copyright law and telecommunications law.

Historically, the MPAA has been against net neutrality for a long time. Back in 2007, during the original net neutrality fight, the MPAA weighed in with an FCC filing against net neutrality, arguing that it would interfere with filtering technologies that it wanted ISPs to start using. In 2009, as the second net neutrality battle ramped up, the MPAA sent a similar filing -- with some friends arguing that net neutrality is just another word for file sharing, and would lead to "rampant looting." Given all this, the 2010 open internet rules from the FCC included a special carveout for copyright content, arguing that the rules "do not apply" to copyright infringement.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20141218/06355229476/mpaas-secret-war-net-neutrality-is-key-part-its-plan-to-block-sites.shtml

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EFF in Court to Argue NSA Data Collection from Internet Backbone Is Unconstitutional

First Public Court Challenge to “Upstream” Internet Spying

Oakland - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue on Friday before a federal court that the National Security Agency (NSA) is violating the Fourth Amendment by copying and searching data that it collects by tapping into the Internet backbone. The hearing on a motion for partial summary judgment in Jewel v. NSA will be at 9 am on Dec. 19 before Judge Jeffrey White at the federal courthouse in Oakland.

Jewel was filed in 2008 on behalf of San Francisco Bay Area resident Carolyn Jewel and other AT&T customers. EFF has amassed a mountain of evidence to support the case, including documents provided by former AT&T technician Mark Klein, which show that the company has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA. Other whistleblowers—including Thomas Drake, Bill Binney and Edward Snowden—have revealed more detail about how this technique feeds data into the NSA's massive databases of communications. Since June 2013, the government has confirmed that it searches much of the content it collects as part of its "upstream" collection without a warrant. The government claims the content searches are justified under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act and do not violate the Fourth Amendment.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-court-argue-nsa-data-collection-internet-backbone-unconstitutional

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CIA Review of High-Value Target Assassination Programs

WikiLeaks today, Thursday 18 December, publishes a review by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of its "High Value Target" (HVT) assassination programme. The report weighs the pros and cons of killing "insurgent" leaders in assassination plots. After the report was prepared, US drone strike killings rose to an all-time high.

The report discusses assassination operations (by various states) against the Taliban, al-Qa'ida, the FARC, Hizbullah, the PLO, HAMAS, Peru's Shining Path, the Tamil's LTTE, the IRA and Algeria's FLN. Case studies are drawn from Chechnya, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.

Read the full press release here

https://wikileaks.org/cia-hvt-counterinsurgency/

Download the PDF for CIA Review of High-Value Target Assassination Programs

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The Pentagon Once Considered False-Flag Attacks To Justify An Invasion Of Cuba

The US is moving towards ending its 50-year political and economic embargo on Cuba, a breakthrough in American relations with the island nation.


But at the height of the Cold War, the US was panicked over the prospect of a communist regime less than 100-miles from its territory. And in 1962, three years after Fidel Castro and his allies had successfully carried out their Communist revolution in Cuba, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) proposed a number of measures aimed at legitimizing a US invasion of the island.

The majority of these measures involved false-flag attacks that would give the US the leeway needed to carry out regime change in Havana.

In an unclassified memo titled "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba," the JCS floats a number of actions that the US could execute which would "develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere."

The plans were developed under the name "Operation Mongoose," with an emphasis on the namesake animal's speed: The JCS wanted to carry out these operations, thereby legitimizing attacks on Cuba, before Havana and the Soviet Union established bilateral mutual support agreements. The report was released in March, seven months before the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/pentagon-tried-to-justify-an-invasion-of-cuba-2014-12?

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Drone strikes counterproductive, says secret CIA report

Drone strikes and other "targeted killings" of terrorist and insurgent leaders favoured by the US and supported by Australia can strengthen extremist groups and be counterproductive, according to a secret CIA report published by WikiLeaks.

According to a leaked document by the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, "high value targeting" (HVT) involving air strikes and special forces operations against insurgent leaders can be effective, but can also havenegative effects including increasing violence and greater popular support for extremist groups.

The leaked document is classified secret and "NoForn" (meaning not to be distributed to non-US nationals) and reviews attacks by the United States and other countries engaged in counter-insurgency operations over the past 50 years.

The CIA assessment is the first leaked secret intelligence document published by WikiLeaks since 2011. Led by Australian publisher Julian Assange, the anti-secrecy group says the CIA assessment is the first in what will be a new series of leaked documents relating to the US agency.

http://www.watoday.com.au/world/drone-strikes-counterproductive-says-secret-cia-report-20141218-129ynq.html?

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ABC NEWS: NORTH KOREA GOVT BEHIND SONY HACK

“Tonight, ABC News has learned federal investigators have determined North Korea is responsible for the worst corporate cyber-attack in history,” Vega said. “Sources say agents are closely scrutinizing an elite high-tech cyber-spy unit called Bureau 121 -- the group, believed to have recently hacked into tens of thousands of South Korean mobile devices, banks and broadcasters.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/12/17/ABC-News-North-Korea-Govt-Behind-Sony-Hack

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James Risen Prepared to "Pay Any Price" to Report on War on Terror Amid Crackdown on Whistleblowers

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Federal judge rules Obama amnesty order unconstitutional power grab

Judge Arthur J. Schwab, sitting in the Western District of Pennsylvania, said Mr. Obama has some discretion in how to enforce laws, but by setting out a comprehensive system to grant tentative legal status to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants, the president has strayed into trying to write the laws, which is a power reserved for Congress.

“President Obama’s unilateral legislative action violates the separation of powers provided for in the United States Constitution as well as the Take Care Clause, and therefore is unconstitutional,” Judge Schwab wrote.

Immigrant rights advocates said the ruling was a shocking overstep of the court’s authority. Indeed, the Obama administration has argued in federal court in Washington that judges have no power to review the president’s decision-making.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/16/judge-finds-obama-amnesty-unconstitutional/

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The War on Drugs Was Born 100 Years Ago

The War on Drugs was initiated by legislation that was passed not to help drug addicts and protect the innocent, but rather was designed to control and marginalize minority groups and to push the United States into a leadership role in world diplomatic affairs.

The War on Drugs is 100 years old today. It kills thousands of people, destroys untold number of lives, and wastes hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Plus it prevents us from using three of the most miraculous plants on the planet, even for their “legitimate” uses.

The Harrison Narcotics Act

As written, the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 was legislation that established a tax and registration requirement on narcotics and cocaine. Politicians and journalists openly targeted Chinese immigrants, Southern blacks, and Mexicans with outrageous propaganda. The real priority of the legislation, however, was to comply with the first international drug control treaty, the International Opium Convention of 1912.

As implemented, the legislation quickly evolved into an outright prohibition. Enforcement bureaucrats argued that doctors prescribing narcotics for drug addiction was an illegitimate medical practice. The courts ruled in their favor and addict-maintenance medical practices and addiction clinics were forced to close.

Marijuana prohibition went national with the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. It too quickly changed from a measure to tax and regulate into an outright prohibition. Even hemp, the non-intoxicating form of cannabis was banned! When propaganda claiming that marijuana was deadly and caused insanity, violence, and criminal behavior was debunked (aka Reefer Madness), the “gateway theory” was born to fill the void. The gateway theory posits that while marijuana might not be addictive or dangerous, it would lead the user to try the hard drugs, such as heroin. This theory became the prevailing view in the second half of the twentieth century.

http://mises.org/library/war-drugs-was-born-100-years-ago

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BILLION DOLLAR SURVEILLANCE BLIMP TO LAUNCH OVER MARYLAND

In just a few days, the Army will launch the first of two massive blimps over Maryland, the last gasp of an 18-year-long $2.8-billion Army project intended to use giant airships to defend against cruise missiles.

And while the blimps may never stave off a barrage of enemy missiles, their ability to spot and track cars, trucks and boats hundreds of miles away is raising serious privacy concerns.

The project is called JLENS – or “Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System.” And you couldn’t come up with a better metaphor for wildly inflated defense contracts, a ponderous Pentagon bureaucracy, and the U.S. surveillance leviathan all in one.

Built by the Raytheon Company, the JLENS blimps operate as a pair. One provides omnipresent high-resolution 360-degree radar coverage up to 340 miles in any direction; the other can focus on specific threats and provide targeting information.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/17/billion-dollar-surveillance-blimp-launch-maryland/

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Obama Announces U.S. and Cuba Will Resume Relations

The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, President Obama announced on Wednesday.

In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 miles off the American coast.

NY Times

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Cuomo to Ban Fracking in New York State, Citing Health Risks

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration announced on Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State because of concerns over health risks, ending years of uncertainty over the disputed method of natural gas extraction.

State officials concluded that fracking, as the method is known, could contaminate the air and water and pose inestimable dangers to public health.

That conclusion was delivered during a year-end cabinet meeting Mr. Cuomo convened in Albany. It came amid increased calls by environmentalists to ban fracking, which uses water and chemicals to release oil and natural gas trapped in deeply buried shale deposits.

The question of whether to allow fracking has been one of the most divisive public policy debates in New York in years, pitting environmentalists against others who saw it as a critical way to bring jobs to economically stagnant portions of upstate.

NY Times

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The Ultimate Guide to Mainstream Media: American TV Networks (P1)

Navigating the opaque world of mainstream media, it can be easy to get lost in the fray. With that in mind, RT offers part one of its roadmap to the major MSM players to help viewers see the final destination that each has in store for the public.

http://rt.com/news/213171-us-mainstream-media-bias/

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Social Security continuing to pursue claims against family members for old debts

The Social Security Administration, which announced in April that it would stop trying to collect debts from the children of people who were allegedly overpaid benefits decades ago, has continued to demand such payments and now defends that practice in court documents.

After The Washington Post reported in April that the Treasury Department had confiscated $75 million in tax refunds due to about 400,000 Americans whose ancestors owed money to Social Security, the agency’s acting commissioner, Carolyn Colvin, said efforts to collect on those old debts would cease immediately.

But although some people whose refunds were seized were reimbursed in recent months, some of those same taxpayers have since received new demands from Social Security, asserting that the debts remain and seeking repayment.

Washington Post

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NYC Cops Are Blithely Firing A Potentially Deafening Sound Cannon At Peaceful Protesters

New York City police officers have lately taken to blasting protesters with 21st-century sound cannons, and as far as anyone can tell, the department doesn’t have any policies governing when and how they get to do so.

Video taken on the night of December 4th during one of the marches protesting the failure to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner clearly shows police officers deploying one of its Long Range Acoustic Devices, or LRADs, against protesters near Columbus Circle. Today, lawyers representing some of those protesters have written to NYPD Commissioner Bratton, raising concerns with the NYPD’s use of the device.

First popularized for military applications more than a decade ago, LRADs are powerful amplification systems that direct a focused cone of sound, enabling instructions and announcements to be communicated across great distances. But from early on, LRAD’s have also been equipped with a “powerful warning tone,” as the manufacturer’s website puts it, that allows for “near instantaneous escalation across the force protection spectrum” to “shape the behavior of potential threats.”

To translate that from the obfuscatory jargon of people who sell tools for hurting people: The LRAD can be used as a crowd-control device, emitting a piercing noise so loud that it can really mess you up if you don’t comply or disperse immediately.

http://gothamist.com/2014/12/13/lrad_nypd_protests_sound.php

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Nazis in the CIA

Florian Hartung and Dirk Pohlmann have reconstructed a previously unknown dimension of the collaboration between Nazis and the CIA in the Cold War. Drawing upon recently released documents, the film exposes for the first time a perfidious, worldwide net that reaches deep into the power structures of the Federal Republic of Germany. Lending their authority to the fact-finders’ mission are high-ranking statesmen, journalists and historians.

http://leaksource.info/2014/12/15/nazis-in-the-cia/

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Update on tapping German chancellor Merkel's phone

Over the last days, there were some new developments regarding the eavesdropping on the mobile phone of the German chancellor Angela Merkel, which was revealed in October last year. It was clarified that the record from an NSA database that was presented as evidence for this tapping, wasn't actually an original NSA document, but just a transcription.

Also, this database record wasn't among the Snowden-documents. This means the information about monitoring Merkel's phone was not provided by Edward Snowden, but by another leaker, something that many people may not have been aware of.

http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2014/12/update-on-tapping-german-chancellor.html

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CIA Funding: Never Constrained by its Congressional Budget

by Peter Dale Scott

Since it first began to be involved in covert operations, the CIA has always been able to draw on funds that were not specifically authorized by Congress for that purpose. Allen Dulles, while still a lawyer at the influential Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell in New York, was able to arrange for this.

In 1946, General Vandenberg, as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), recruited Dulles “to draft proposals for the shape and organization of what was to become the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947.” (1) Even earlier, Dulles began campaigning successfully to reconstruct Western Europe through what became known as the Marshall Plan. (2) Together with George Kennan and James Forrestal, Dulles also “helped devise a secret codicil [to the Marshall Plan] that gave the CIA the capability to conduct political warfare. It let the agency skim millions of dollars from the plan.” (3)

Funds diverted from the Marshall Plan were soon used to establish a

“‘compatible left’ labor union in Marseilles with Pierre Ferri-Pisani. On behalf of Brown and the CIA, Ferri-Pisani (a drug smuggler connected with Marseilles crime lord Antoine Guerini), hired goons to shellack striking Communist dock workers.” (4)

The CIA also made systematic use in Asia of self-financing drug trafficking forces to increase its covert influence—in Thailand and Burma, then in Laos and Vietnam, and most recently in Afghanistan. (5) With America’s expansion overseas, we have seen more and more covert programs and agencies, all using drug traffickers to different and opposing ends.

In 2004, Time and USA Today ran major stories about two of the chief Afghan drug traffickers, Haji Juma Khan and Haji Bashir Noorzai, alleging that each was supporting al-Qaeda, and that Khan in particular “has helped al-Qaeda establish a smuggling network that is peddling Afghan heroin to buyers across the Middle East, Asia and Europe.” (6) Later it was revealed that both traffickers were simultaneously CIA assets, and that Khan in particular was “paid a large amount of cash by the United States,” even while he was reportedly helping al-Qaeda to establish smuggling networks. (7)

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/12/12/cia-funding-never-constrained-congressional-budget/

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Hawaii under martial law was ‘military dictatorship’ (1941-1944)

Islanders suffered under nearly three years of martial law from 1941-1944; so oppressive that it was later described by a federal judge as a “military dictatorship.” All manner of civilian liberties were replaced by oppressive military orders enforced by American soldiers.

The dark period of Hawaiian history began on December 7, 1941, with the massive surprise attack of Japanese bombers on the U.S. Naval Base Pearl Harbor. The air raid successfully sunk or grounded 18 ships and killed 2,403 Americans.

As the smoke billowed from the harbor, Lieutenant General Walter Short met with Territorial Governor Joseph Poindexter to convince him to declare martial law. Being coerced through tactics discussed below, Gov. Poindexter reluctantly ceded power to the military — temporarily, or so he thought.

In declaring martial law, all forms of civilian law were suspended. An entire new system of justice and order was instituted and controlled at the absolute discretion of Lt. Gen. Short — the newly declared “Military Governor” of the islands.

The transfer of power meant that all civilian courts would be closed, and all government functions — federal, territorial, and municipal — would be placed under military control. The U.S. Constitution was suspended and civilians no longer guaranteed any individual rights or protections from the government. Civilians had no freedom of speech, self-defense, assembly, or protections from from unreasonable search and seizures, inter alia.

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/ww2-hawaii-martial-law/

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Cops scan social media to help assess your ‘threat rating’

Public safety organizations, using federal funding, are set to begin building a $7-billion nationwide first-responder wireless network, called FirstNet. Money is now being set aside. With this network, information-sharing capabilities and federal-state coordination will likely grow substantially. Some uses of FirstNet will improve traditional services like 911 dispatches. Other law enforcement uses aren’t as pedestrian, however.

One such application is Beware, sold to police departments since 2012 by a private company, Intrado. This mobile application crawls over billions of records in commercial and public databases for law enforcement needs. The application “mines criminal records, Internet chatter and other data to churn out … profiles in real time,” according to one article in an Illinois newspaper.

Reuters

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The Congressional report on torture confirms that Al Qaeda was not involved in the attacks of September 11

Publicly released excerpts of the report of the Senate Committee on the CIA’s secret torture program reveal a vast criminal organization. Thierry Meyssan has read for you the 525 pages of this document. He found evidence of what he has been saying for years.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article186204.html

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NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth of WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories

Why 2,300 Architects & Engineers Demand Independent Investigation Part 1

Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical piece on NIST's manipulation of the WTC 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The second installment (below) is PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth About WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories. The first installment was the INTRODUCTION. Stand by for the next four installments, to be published monthly.

http://www.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/928-nists-wtc-7-reports-filled-with-fantasy-fiction-and-fraud-pt1.html

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The World Government NWO Blueprint

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Senate Intelligence Committee Torture Report Executive Summary (Complete Coverage)

SSCI Torture Report Executive Summary

http://leaksource.info/2014/12/13/senate-intelligence-committee-torture-report-executive-summary-complete-coverage/

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A Century Ago: Rockefellers Funded Eugenics Initiative to Sterilize 15 Million Americans

The same elite robber barons who had consolidated and monopolized the oil, rail, steel and banking industries took it upon themselves to also push for laws to restrict which people might be allowed to have babies, all while lauding themselves and their blue blood friends as the types that should reproduce as much as possible.

During the era leading up to World War II, eugenics laws were passed in 27 states which allowed for the forcible sterilization of tens of thousands of Americans.

Now you know what kind of powerful elite (then-)millionaires were behind those laws.

As we’ve previously reported, “Following World War II, Eugenics was re-branded to cast of its associations with the Nazis, and emerged, as it were, in the form of such social policy topics as ‘population control,’ ‘family planning,’ abortion/Planned Parenthood, health care, various types of genetics, even laced in between such agendas as global warming/climate change – which leads to arguments about reducing the burden of over-population upon the earth.”

Later projects funded by the Rockefeller Foundation included everything from Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood, to an anti-fertility vaccine among others. These people spent millions back then and continued to do so throughout the decades.

Do you really believe the motives behind the money have changed?

The ultimate goal — total control over society and depopulation — has never changed, regardless of what they call it now or how they try to paint it in a positive light today.

http://truthstreammedia.com/a-century-ago-rockefellers-funded-eugenics-initiative-to-sterilize-15-million-americans/

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SSCI Report Reveals CIA Torture Program Originated in Same Department as MKULTRA

OTS has been part of the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) since the early 1970s. It was transferred from the Directorate of Plans (clandestine operations, renamed around that time, the Directorate of Operations). OTS had earlier gone under other names itself, including Technical Service Staff and Technical Services Division. OTS and its predecessors had been involved in arranging the technical aspect of covert operations, including audio surveillance, forgery, secret writing, spy paraphenalia, sophisticated electronics, and assassination devices.

Then, there was the massive MKULTRA project, which had other names as well, and was coordinated in various ways with similar military programs. MKULTRA had well over a hundred “subprojects,” and contracted with many of the U.S.’s top universities and medical and psychological researchers. (For listing of subprojects see here and here.)

MKULTRA research is probably best known for its use of hallucinogens, like LSD, which were sometimes used on unsuspecting civilians, and resulted in damaged lives and even deaths. Sometimes derided as subject matter for conspiracy theorists, MKULTRA and its assorted programs were all-too-real. While the vast majority of its documentation was destroyed by CIA leaders when the program was exposed in the early 1970s, what we do know is terrifying.

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/12/11/ssci-report-reveals-cia-torture-program-originated-in-same-department-as-mkultra/

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9/11 - Anatomy of a Great Deception - Complete Version

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FEDS WON’T FORCE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER TO REVEAL SOURCE

Attorney General Eric Holder has decided against forcing a reporter for the New York Times to reveal the identity of a confidential source, according to a senior Justice Department official.

The reporter, James Risen, has been battling for years to stop prosecutors from forcing him to name his source for a book that revealed a CIA effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The government wanted Risen's testimony in the trial of a former CIA official, Jeffrey Sterling, accused of leaking classified information.

But now, according to the Justice Department official, Holder has directed that Risen must not be required to reveal "information about the identity of his source."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/attorney-general-wont-force-new-york-times-reporter-reveal-source-n267481

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The Inside Story of How British Spies Hacked Belgium’s Largest Telco

Last year, documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that British surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters was behind the attack, codenamed Operation Socialist. And in November, The Intercept revealed that the malware found on Belgacom’s systems was one of the most advanced spy tools ever identified by security researchers, who named it “Regin.”

The full story about GCHQ’s infiltration of Belgacom, however, has never been told. Key details about the attack have remained shrouded in mystery—and the scope of the attack unclear.

Now, in partnership with Dutch and Belgian newspapers NRC Handelsblad and De Standaard, The Intercept has pieced together the first full reconstruction of events that took place before, during, and after the secret GCHQ hacking operation.

Based on new documents from the Snowden archive and interviews with sources familiar with the malware investigation at Belgacom, The Intercept and its partners have established that the attack on Belgacom was more aggressive and far-reaching than previously thought. It occurred in stages between 2010 and 2011, each time penetrating deeper into Belgacom’s systems, eventually compromising the very core of the company’s networks.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-inside-story/

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9/11 Petition Press Conference - Rethink911.ca - Dec 10,2014

Petition asks Canadian government to review 9/11 evidence

A new petition has been submitted by three citizen groups calling for a Parliamentary review of forensic evidence regarding the events of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.



http://rethink911.ca/

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US Attacked Iraq Based On False Report Of Saddam Hussein's Ties To Al Qaeda: Sen. Carl Levin

The George W. Bush administration misled the American public by relying on an unconfirmed report claiming links between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Levin brought up a 2003 CIA cable that warned the former president and his officials not to make references to allegations that Mohammad Atta -- the Egyptian hijacker who led the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks -- had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer named Ahmad al-Ani in Prague before 9/11, which killed 2,996 people and cost the U.S. at least $10 billion in property and infrastructure damage. Levin accused the Bush administration of using the report of the unconfirmed meeting to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“There was a concerted campaign on the part of the Bush administration to connect Iraq in the public mind with the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks. That campaign succeeded. According to public polls in the week before the Iraq war, half or more of Americans believed Saddam was directly involved in the attacks,” Levin said, in a statement released Thursday.

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-attacked-iraq-based-false-report-saddam-husseins-ties-al-qaeda-sen-carl-levin-1750592

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The Media Is Focusing On the WRONG Senate Torture Report

The Big Torture Story Everyone Is Missing

While the torture report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee is very important, it doesn’t address the big scoop regarding torture.

Instead, it is the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report that dropped the big bombshell regarding the U.S. torture program.

Senator Levin, commenting on a Armed Services Committee’s report on torture in 2009, explained:

The techniques are based on tactics used by Chinese Communists against American soldiers during the Korean War for the purpose of eliciting FALSE confessions for propaganda purposes. Techniques used in SERE training include stripping trainees of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, subjecting them to face and body slaps, depriving them of sleep, throwing them up against a wall, confining them in a small box, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatures [and] waterboarding.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/12/doesnt-mainstream-media-discuss-torture-issue.html

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Under pressure, Lockheed opens up about secret weapons unit

Lockheed Martin Corp , the Pentagon's No. 1 weapons supplier, has rarely felt the need to blow its horn about its secrecy-shrouded crown jewel - until now.

"Skunk Works," Lockheed's business for developing weapons outside the company's main chain of command, is starting to lift the veil in a sign of fierce pressure to win new orders and protect its brand as military budgets shrink.

The pride of Lockheed, Skunk Works has been celebrated since it developed the first jet fighter in 143 days during World War Two to battle the Nazis. But its logo was kept off buildings and employees were barred from saying where they worked.

Now, the company has published a glossy brochure with a 10-point "Skunk Works 2015" agenda focused on keeping costs down, working closely with government, and building prototypes. Its officials are meeting in small groups with all 3,300 employees, or "Skunks" as they are known, to underscore the importance of staying competitive.

Reuters

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Presenting The $303 Trillion In Derivatives That US Taxpayers Are Now On The Hook For

Courtesy of the Cronybus(sic) last minute passage, government was provided a quid-pro-quo $1.1 trillion spending allowance with Wall Street's blessing in exchange for assuring banks that taxpayers would be on the hook for yet another bailout, as a result of the swaps push-out provision, after incorporating explicit Citigroup language that allows financial institutions to trade certain financial derivatives from subsidiaries that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, explicitly putting taxpayers on the hook for losses caused by these contracts.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-12/presenting-303-trillion-derivatives-us-taxpayers-are-now-hook

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Torture Report Reveals CIA’s Manipulation of US Media

The Senate report makes clear that CIA officials attempted to play the media like a fiddle by selectively releasing classified information about the detention and interrogation program.

“The CIA manipulated rules on classified information to serve it’s own interests,” Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, said. “And the Senate report cites several examples of that.”

In fact, one of the findings of the report is quite blunt on that front:

“The CIA's Office of Public Affairs and senior CIA officials coordinated to share classified information on the CIA' s Detention and Interrogation Program to select members of the media to counter public criticism, shape public opinion, and avoid potential congressional action to restrict the CIA's … authorities and budget. These disclosures occurred when the program was a classified covert action program.”

This finding is troubling in light of the ongoing efforts to prosecute well-known whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden of NSA-leak fame, and some half dozen others in separate cases, all of whom could face (or are facing) years in prison for allegedly disclosing classified information to the media. To be sure, there are nuances in each of the cases and the comparison is not perfect, but at the heart of it all is a set of rules on the release of classified information that are marked with double standards.

“If you have no security clearance, and there is not a need to know, then you’re not supposed to get classified information,” Aftergood said. “The Senate committee found that CIA officials leaked classified information [to the media] and no further investigation was conducted.”

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2014/12/torture-report-reveals-cia-s-manipulation-us-media

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Bilderberg vs. Putin

For fear of being called “conspiracy theorists,” most journalists avoid mentioning Bilderberg – the annual conclave where wealthy power-brokers gather to discuss and attempt to orchestrate unfolding world events. But if journalism is the so-called “first draft of history,” then leaving Bilderberg out of the narrative distorts any attempt at contemporary understanding of an ongoing crisis such as this one between Russia and the West.

Daniel Estulin, the foremost (non-member) expert on Bilderberg, reported in June 2012 that the “top headache” for the Bilderberg participants at that May 2012 meeting was Russian President Vladimir Putin because of his “opposition to war in Syria and Iran,” his “belligerence with respect to U.S. bases encircling Russia,” his “insistence on maintaining state sovereignty intact,” and his plans for another natural gas pipeline to Europe (South Stream) that “could turn into a major victory for Russia” at the expense of competing plans (the Nabucco pipeline) backed by Bilderberg members. [1]

Some 30 per cent of Western Europe’s natural gas has been coming from Russia, with most of it provided by a pipeline network centred in Ukraine.

Estulin noted a Bilderberg “campaign to delegitimize Putin,” financed by “some very angry and powerful Anglo-American elites.” Present at that 2012 conclave were top executives from Royal Dutch Shell (CEO Peter Voser and Chair Jorma Ollila) and BP (CEO Robert Dudley). [2] Also present was then-Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, now U.S. Secretary of State.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/10/bilderberg-vs-putin/

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The Game Is Rigged: Why Americans Keep Losing to the Police State

It’s a sorry lesson in how a well-intentioned law or program can be perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes. The war on terror, the war on drugs, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school zero tolerance policies, eminent domain, private prisons: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns. However, once you add money and power into the mix, even the most benevolent plans can be put to malevolent purposes.

In this way, the war on terror has become a convenient ruse to justify surveillance of all Americans, to create a suspect society, to expand the military empire, and to allow the president to expand the powers of the Executive Branch to imperial heights.

Under cover of the war on drugs, the nation’s police forces have been transformed into extensions of the military, with SWAT team raids carried out on unsuspecting homeowners for the slightest charge, and police officers given carte blanche authority to shoot first and ask questions later.

Asset forfeiture schemes, engineered as a way to strip organized crime syndicates of their ill-gotten wealth, have, in the hands of law enforcement agencies, become corrupt systems aimed at fleecing the citizenry while padding the pockets of the police.

Eminent domain, intended by the founders as a means to build roads and hospitals for the benefit of the general public, has become a handy loophole by which local governments can evict homeowners to make way for costly developments and shopping centers.

Private prisons, touted as an economically savvy solution to cash-strapped states with overcrowded prisons have turned into profit- and quota-driven detention centers that jail Americans guilty of little more than living off the grid, growing vegetable gardens in the front yards, or holding Bible studies in their back yards.

Traffic safety schemes such as automated red light and speed cameras, ostensibly aimed at making the nation’s roads safer, have been shown to be thinly disguised road taxes, levying hefty fines on drivers, most of whom would never have been pulled over, let alone ticketed, by an actual police officer.

School zero tolerance policies, a response to a handful of school shootings, have become exercises in folly, turning the schools into quasi-prisons, complete with armed police, metal detectors and lockdowns. The horror stories abound of 4- and 6-year-olds being handcuffed, shackled and dragged, kicking and screaming, to police headquarters for daring to act like children while at school.

Rutherford.org

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The CIA and Its Torturers

By Andrew P. Napolitano

When the head of the CIA’s torture unit decided to destroy videotapes of his team’s horrific work, he unwittingly set in motion a series of events that led to the release this week of the most massive, detailed documentation of unlawful behavior by high-ranking government officials and intentional infliction of pain on noncombatants by the United States government since the Civil War era. Here is the backstory.

One of the reasons repeatedly stated by President George W. Bush for the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the maintenance of “torture rooms” by Saddam Hussein. While making this very argument, Bush was secretly authorizing CIA agents to engage in similar unlawful behavior for similar purposes: intelligence and deterrence. Bush sounded credible when he claimed that his administration adhered to federal and international legal standards.

He knew he could make that claim because the torturers were sworn to secrecy, as were their congressional regulators. The CIA charter permits Congress to regulate the CIA in secret. Congress has established two secret congressional committees, one from the Senate and one from the House, to serve as monitors and regulators of CIA activities. The stated reason for the secrecy is to keep our enemies from knowing what the CIA is doing. The effect of the secrecy has been a muzzled Congress, lied to by law-breaking and rogue CIA officials.

Until now.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/andrew-p-napolitano/arrest-the-cia/

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FBI’S POLICE STATE

http://goo.gl/A9wLN1

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CIA boss says 9/11 attacks justified CIA enhanced interrogations

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9/11 Truth: Mainstream Media Labels 9/11 Petition to Canada’s Parliament “A Call to Support a Conspiracy Theory”

There are mistakes and omissions in every excerpt above, some even containing two mistakes in one sentence such as saying the “bizarre petition” is “asking the government to support a popular 9/11 conspiracy theory”. First, the Canadian government already supports a conspiracy theory, namely the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. What the petition is asking is to review the official conspiracy theory because it has been proven a complete fiction by years of serious research and investigations by prominent researchers and independent journalists. These people have done what the mainstream media failed to do and are still not doing. Their job.

Isn’t the rule of law, even seemingly, supposed to prevail in the US? Then why was a group accused within hours of the attacks, before any investigation was set up? Why was the crime scene cleaned up and the evidence removed? Why did it take so long to set up an investigation? Why is the Commission Report accepted as undeniable truth when the commissionnaries themselves said the investigation was set up to fail?

Somehow, for the mainstream media, crazy conspiracy theorists are people who denounce the absence of the rule of law in the wake of the biggest terrorist attack in America. In turn, those who are considered intelligent people with common sense are the ones who blindly accept, without any question, to be fed a prefabricated story, thinking you have to be mentally ill not to believe it and ask for a proper investigation. In the post-911 world, only “tin foil hats” ask legitimate questions. The media defamation of the truther movement is nothing but a soft version of Inquisitorial orders where denying official stories had you burned at the stake. Nowadays only your character is assassinated.

It is convenient to point out that for over 13 years the mainstream media’s obedience to authority has been remarkable. George W. Bush had demanded in his address to the UN on November 10, 2001: “We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/911-truth-mainstream-media-labels-911-petition-to-canadas-parliament-a-call-to-support-a-conspiracy-theory/5418808

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Ex-CIA Operative Says Prison Was Punishment for Whistleblowing on Torture

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou is the only CIA employee connected to its interrogation program to go to prison. But he was prosecuted for providing information to reporters, not for anything connected to waterboarding or other actions that today’s Senate Intelligence Committee report calls “torture.”

No other person connected to the program has been charged with a crime, after the Justice Department said their actions had been approved legally or that there was not sufficient admissible evidence in a couple cases of potential wrongdoing, even in light of the death of two detainees in the early 2000s.

Kiriakou was the first person with direct knowledge of the CIA interrogation program to publicly reveal its existence, in an interview with ABC News in 2007. He is now serving a nearly-three-year prison sentence for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, but he says that’s only what the government wants people to believe.

“In truth, this is my punishment for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal torture program and for telling the public that torture was official U.S. government policy,” Kiriakou said in a letter last May from a prison in Loretto, Penn. “But that’s a different story.”

http://abcnews.go.com/International/cia-operative-prison-punishment-whistleblowing-torture/story?id=27474359

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US court extends NSA surveillance rules in current form

A U.S. secret court has extended the authorization of the National Security Agency to continue surveillance of phone records in its current form after a reform bill ran into difficulties in the Senate.


Besides stopping the NSA from collecting bulk phone records of Americans from phone companies, the USA Freedom Act aimed to restrict the NSA's access to these records by requiring the use of targeted selection terms.

It also has a provision for the appointment of a special advocate tasked with promoting privacy interests in closed proceedings in the secret court.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has reauthorized the NSA program for another 90 days at a request from the government, according to a statement Monday by the offices of the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. The order expires Feb. 27.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2857297/us-court-extends-nsa-surveillance-rules-in-current-form.html

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Global Power Project: Bilderberg and the Global Financial Mafia

This is the fourth installment in a series that examines the activities and individuals driving the Bilderberg Group. Read the first part, second part and third part.

In the previous Bilderberg article, I wrote that financial markets were “a type of global parasite with unprecedented power capable of determining the fate of nations and peoples.” In truth, the "super-entity" known as financial market power functions like a cartel, or an organized criminal network: a Mafia. This installment examines some of the members of the global financial mafia who are present at Bilderberg meetings and thus are given unparalleled access to political leaders behind closed doors.

At Bilderberg meetings, participants frequently include leading officials and advisers to banks like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and AXA, among others. The participation of leaders and advisers to these and other large financial institutions provides world leaders with direct, "private" access to some of the leading voices at the core of global financial markets. The interests and actions of financial markets can thus be articulated to the leaders of powerful political, media, military, intelligence and technocratic institutions. The “invisible hand” may voice where and when it might smack.

Through Bilderberg, leaders in financial markets are given an inside look at, and access to, those who shape and wield foreign and economic policy in the world’s most powerful nations. Their interests become a part of that process, just as geopolitical interests are integrated into the actions of financial markets. While financial markets command no armies, they determine the flow and functions of money upon which all armies are dependent, and to which nations are obedient. Bilderberg brings these institutions and individuals together for an off-the-record, private chat about global affairs and policy.

http://www.occupy.com/article/global-power-project-bilderberg-and-global-financial-mafia

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US believed FBI mole passed secrets to IRA in Thatcher murder plot, files reveal

The US government suspected that a mole inside the FBI was passing secrets to Irish republican militants who repeatedly plotted to assassinate Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and 90s, files released to the Guardian showed on Monday.

A series of investigations by federal agents into alleged plots to murder Thatcher during visits to the US are detailed in hundreds of pages of FBI files involving the former prime minister, which were made public following a freedom of information request made after her death.

One trusted source told the FBI that a “female, secretary type” in the agency’s New York bureau was giving the provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) “access to computers, name checks and ID” – a claim that agents said tallied with independent allegations of a leak.

Fears that the New York field office may have been compromised led William Sessions, then the FBI director, to order that all material relating to an apparent plot against Thatcher by a two men linked to Sinn Féin must be restricted to a pair of senior officials.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/08/us-fbi-mole-plot-kill-margaret-thatcher

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Rogue FBI agent 'gave secrets to IRA as they plotted to kill Thatcher'

The American government believed a rogue FBI mole was passing secrets to the IRA at the time the group were plotting to assassinate Margaret Thatcher, it was reported last night.
Files released to The Guardian show that federal agents launched a series of investigations into alleged plots to murder the former Prime Minister during visits to the US.
One trusted source told the FBI that a ‘female, secretary type’ in the agency’s New York bureau was giving the provisional IRA ‘access to computers, name checks and ID’.
The documents, released after a freedom of information request following Lady Thatcher’s death, reveal this claim tallied with independent allegations of a leak.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2866367/Rogue-FBI-agent-gave-secrets-IRA-plotted-kill-Thatcher-Secret-files-agents-launched-series-investigations-plots-murder-former-PM-US.html

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Former Anonymous Hacktivist Turned FBI Snitch “Sabu” Breaks Silence

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Senate Torture Report Faults C.I.A. for Brutality and Deceit

A scathing report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday found that the Central Intelligence Agency routinely misled the White House and Congress about the information it obtained from the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, and that its methods were more brutal than the C.I.A. acknowledged either to Bush administration officials or to the public.

The long-delayed report, which took five years to produce and is based on more than six million internal agency documents, is a sweeping indictment of the C.I.A.'s operation and oversight of a program carried out by agency officials and contractors in secret prisons around the world in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It also provides a macabre accounting of some of the grisliest techniques that the C.I.A. used to torture and imprison terrorism suspects.

NY Times

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Off the Grid: Nine CIA ‘Black Sites’ Where Detainees Were Tortured

Six days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush issued a directive allowing the CIA to secretly detain and interrogate prisoners at clandestine sites located around the world, cut off from communication with legal counsel, family, and everyone else. The locations of eight of these sites, along with descriptions of some of the deeply disturbing practices there, were included in today’s release of the so-called “torture report” — the heavily redacted executive summary of a senate committee study of the CIA’s Bush-era interrogation program.

The report identifies the locations of the CIA black sites by color codes and redacts the country names, but previous reports by NGOs, European agencies, media reports and detainee statements can identify most of the locations. The sites are located in Afghanistan, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Thailand, and a secret site on the Guantanamo Naval Base, known as Strawberry Fields, – “forever.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/09/map-of-cia-black-sites/

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Senate report: CIA misled public on torture

The CIA's harsh interrogations of terrorist detainees during the Bush era didn't work, were more brutal than previously revealed and delivered no "ticking time bomb" information that prevented an attack, according to an explosive Senate report released Tuesday.

The majority report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a damning condemnation of the tactics -- branded by critics as torture -- the George W. Bush administration deployed in the fear-laden days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The techniques, according to the report, were "deeply flawed," poorly managed and often resulted in "fabricated" information.

The long-delayed study, distilled from more than six million CIA documents, also says the agency consistently misled Congress and the Bush White House about the harsh methods it used and the results it obtained from interrogating al Qaeda suspects.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/cia-torture-report/

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/12/09/sscistudy1.pdf

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LIVE COVERAGE OF THE SENATE TORTURE REPORT

The Senate Intelligence Committee today will release part of its “torture report.” The report is the by-product of four years of work (2009-2013) and is 6,000 pages long. Only the Executive Summary, roughly 600 pages, will be released today. Even some of that is redacted: the names of CIA agents participating in the torture, countries which agreed to allow CIA black sites, and other details. For months, top Democrats on the Committee warred with the Obama White House due to the latter’s attempts to redact far more vital information than even stalwart CIA ally Dianne Feinstein thought necessary.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/09/live-coverage-release-senate-torture-report/

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William Binney on Alex Jones Show (12-8-14)

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