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The Real News does a report based on the recent article "Spooky Business" released last week by the Center for Corporate Policy. One thing I didn't pick up the first time around when I read about this report was that not only is this a revolving door issue where retired intelligence agents go to work for corporations, active CIA agents are "moonlighting" for corporations too.
Major Corporations Employ Former U.S. Intelligence Agents As Spies
Keith Alexander spent the better part of the last seven months telling the country that the NSA and the IC used their massive domestic surveillance machine to provide information that thwarted terrorist attacks and sussed out all the bad guys. Numerous times we've been told that Al Qaeda has been decimated (even Rumsfeld said that about six or seven years ago) and the trillions that we spent and the war we were lied into was all worth it to protect our freedoms and keep us safe. Nevermind that the Boston marathon bombings were not thwarted. Nobody wants to talk about that. But more than a decade later when the trillions are still flowing to the absolutely booming military and intelligence industry, and while almost everybody else has been making one kind of sacrifice or another, two things are on the table that threatens their exorbitant budgets and powers and there is a hearty appetite among the populace for both: Cuts to defense spending and NSA reforms.
On cue, despite the cognitive dissonance, comes DiFi leading the fearmongering campaign and the warning that the terrorists are more numerous and more dangerous than ever. There's no mention of our policies and the actions of our military creating more terrorists than they extinguish.
Intel chair warns of 'huge malevolence'
Americans are in more danger of terrorist attacks than ever before, the leaders of congressional intelligence panels said on Sunday.
“The threat level has never been more diverse than it is today,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN’s Candy Crowley on "State of the Union."
“The more efforts [extremists] try, the more perfect you have to be in trying to stop something, and that's a challenge," he said.
Feinstein and Rogers say terrorism threat to US is increasing
House intelligence committee leader uses appearance to bemoan effect of leaks on US surveillance programmes
Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers appeared together on CNN's State of the Union, on the day that al-Qaida's US spokesperson called for attacks on US interests around the world. Rogers said al-Qaida groups had changed their means of communication as a result of leaks about US surveillance programs, making it harder to detect potential plots in the early planning stages.
"We're fighting amongst ourselves here in this country about the role of our intelligence community that it is having an impact on our ability to stop what is a growing number of threats," he said. "And so we've got to shake ourselves out of this pretty soon and understand that our intelligence services are not the bad guys."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein: America Is 'Less Safe' Than 2 Years Ago
This story and 60 Minutes segment is causing a huge stir in social media. There were at least two Twitter parody accounts within hours and in fact conversations between those new parody accounts and other existing parody accounts.
Amazon wants to deliver packages in 30 minutes with drones
Jeff Bezos has never been known for thinking small. And in a new interview with 60 minutes, he outlined his latest plan for revolutionizing the retail industry: a fleet of drones that will deliver your packages to you in 30 minutes. Declaring himself an "optimist," the Amazon.com founder and CEO predicted the technology could be brought to market in as little as 5 years.
This is more than a theoretical idea. Bezos showed CBS's Charlie Rose a working prototype of an 8-rotor helicopter drone known as an "octocopter." Emblazoned with "Amazon Prime Air," the flying robot has a claw at the bottom allowing it to scoop up packages at Amazon fulfillment centers and carry them to customers' front lawns.
It was reported that the Republicans in the House said that immigration reform won't be happening this year. President Obama has said that he wants it done by the end of the year. I've said before that despite all the claims that there will be no Grand Bargain, I still think there is something in the works and that it's very likely that the immigration bill will be in the mix and if that's the case, it means we'll be giving up something big in exchange for it. It will make it very difficult for critics to protest it because so many people on the left want immigration reform (even though this particular immigration reform bill is more of a huge boon to the defense industry than to undocumented immigrants in the U.S.).
Republicans have been saying that they like the sequester, even though it contains significant cuts to the Pentagon budget. But it's really hard to believe that. Suppose that a compromise is reached such that sequester cuts are not eliminated but are rolled back a bit so that they are not as harsh as the current schedule calls for. Some money restored to the defense cuts and some money restored to the domestic cuts. Maybe throw in the very visible and highly reported cuts to food stamps. The deal ends up looking pretty even on both sides. But add to that an immigration bill with a giant chunk of $$ for the defense industry and the Pentagon, which in the end, makes the Pentagon and contractors whole again, effectively no sequester cuts when it's said and done while the domestic side of the cuts remain partially in place. That's what I think the deal might be, as I've been saying for a month or so.
The big question is, what else might be in the mix? They may have given up on the sweeping tax and entitlement reform because they just don't have the votes and both Democrats and Republicans in the House may have just said Hell No to Obama who doesn't have to face an election again while they have one in less than a year, and anyone who votes to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or any mix of them is absolute toast in the next election and anyone with half a brain would set up their reelection race with an opponent who has never been in Congress and didn't vote for a grand bargain and it will be a cakewalk to beat them except in the really really safe districts. The politicians in this country realize how volatile the situation is with American voters today. The approval numbers for Congress are in the tank. There have been a number of bellwethers like the de Blasio election, the reaction to the proposal for bombing Syria, the protests that pop up here and there and everywhere on various issues, etc.
No doubt the parties have their own internal polls on various issues and can see the writing on the wall and are saying dude, we have to run on populist issues. The Dems see a chance of grabbing the House and are worried about defending the Senate. The Repubs want to hold the House and are in turmoil right now and want to purge or transform their most extreme members and convince the country that they are moving back toward being the party of Reagan again, with more moderation. All the party establishment types are still stunned by the Snowden files and Amash-Conyers amendment vote that caught them off guard, where party leadership was defied on both sides and where members whose arms were twisted to vote against it told their party leadership the next day that they weren't going to take votes like that again or not too often anyway, not this close to an election and with Americans in the mood that they're in.
This is a time, yet again, rife with the opportunity for real change. We haven't seen politicians being this fearful of the populace in a long time. Will anything good come from it? I'd say some good already has come from it. When the people aren't caught up in adoration and hyperpartisanship, good things can actually happen, thought in the big picture, it's still crumbs.
Anyway, another sign that immigration reform is definitely still on the table this year is that they're putting Michelle Obama out in the media about it. That's a sure sign, IMHO. Not only is she out there in the media, they have her working Twitter on it, lol, and look at the first sentence of this article: "Obama wrote the tweet herself." 'Yes, this isn't part of a contrived political campaign by us, the political campaign consultants! This was FLOTUS on here own initiative, pinky swear! Well that's not exactly what we said, it's just what we said to make you read that into it. We only said that she wrote it, not that it was her idea all along, but hey...' I think she's probably the only one left in Washington with some decent approval numbers at this point.
First lady recognizes immigration fasters
Obama wrote the tweet herself.
The first lady is just the latest figure from the White House to have recognized the fasters. Vice President Biden met with the activists last week.
[...]
President Obama wanted Congress to pass a reform bill by the end of this year, and says the issue now lies in House Republicans’ hands.
Col. Pat Lang, retired military intelligence, reacts to an article in WaPo about the forever war agreement with Afghanistan.
Afghan CT operations will be impossible after 2014.
Isn't it obvious that the only Afghans who want the US to keep troops in their country after 2014 are those who are enemies of the Taliban in the ongoing civil war? Isn't it obvious?
Loftis is correct. it will be impossible to conduct CT operations in an environment in which there must be; no accidental Afghan civilian casualties, no entry of Afghan residences, no operations in built up areas.
If that is so, why would be staying? the kleptocrats in Kabul want us to stay to protect them and their money.
Start leaving now! pl
Whoever thought this was a good idea should have their heads examined, as my mother would say. If Hillary really is running for president, it looks like her political advisors are not much better than the ones she had in the 2008 primary. And oh look, they're dragging out women's rights again, as if this isn't all about the freaking money. I guess that's why Hillary is all in, to prop up the women's rights part of it.
War profiteers come in many flavors and the ones who get the reconstruction contracts, and the ones who do the financing, are the post-invasion flavor. You remember the gig that Wes Clark was involved in, right? I reported about an article some months ago, one that made me think the overthrow of Assad was still on the table because Clark, the same guy who, when he was considering another run for president, told us that Syria was one of the seven countries on the neocon overthrow list and then some years later, 2012ish, was a partner in an investment company that was going to be involved in the reconstruction of Syria.
So we all know that whenever there are large pots of government money, there are all kinds of profiteers ready to grab some of it. If we took the zero option on Afghanistan and withdrew all of our troops, which the current sentiment in the country seems to support, or is trending toward, (even if the poll numbers aren't there yet, it seems pretty obvious where they're headed, especially in light of the predictions of a long recession or depression here) then what would become of all the plans for the reconstruction war profiteers? They've been counting on this money for a long time. And it's much harder to get do that reconstruction when there aren't enough US troops there to protect the reconstruction corporations and keep some kind of order for the for-profit operations. Also it's much harder to get Congress to approve billions and billions and billions of reconstruction money if we pull out all our troops. Pout! We have to stay so they can get that gravy, I mean, help the Afghan people and... women's rights!
The long term commitment to profiteers the people of Afghanistan is sacred. What, you say? What about the rights of the women whose houses are invaded in night raids, whose children are terrified, whose men are sometimes dragged off or if something goes wrong in the raid whose family are killed or injured by the elite troops who descend upon them in helicopters in the middle of the night? What about the women who get killed and/or their children get blown up by drone strikes, and the women who get blown up during double tap drone strikes?
Anyway, this is quite the coalition. Bush, Hillary, the neocons and Gloria Steinem.
Clinton, Bush-backed coalition pushes Congress not to abandon Afghanistan
A broad bipartisan coalition has launched a campaign pressuring Congress not to abandon Afghan civilians as the U.S. military continues its ongoing drawdown from the war-torn country.
The Alliance in Support of the Afghan People (ASAP) is backed by a wide range of political activists and foreign policy voices – representing the Obama administration, the Bush White House and the Hillary Clinton camp, among others – who fear any progress from the last 12 years will be lost if Congress doesn't continue backing efforts to move Afghanistan away from its long and repressive history under strict Islamist rule.
The group is focusing heavily on initiatives to ensure fair elections, women's rights, a free press and access to healthcare and education. But the underlying push is for the congressional funding that will help to prop up those institutions in the face of a war-weary public and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who fear the aid will be lost to a black hole of Afghan corruption and civil strife.
[...]
Other prominent figures backing the diverse ASAP effort include Michèle Flournoy, former top Pentagon official under President Obama; Fred Kagan, military analyst at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute; former-Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), a Clinton supporter who now serves as a top advisor in Obama's Defense Department; and Gloria Steinem, the renowned feminist.
Bruce Schneier. This is really disturbing. I'm a fairly recent convert to gmail and it took some getting used to but now I really like it, particularly for its spam blocking capabilities. But I really don't like the invasive things they are already doing, let alone what they're planning to adopt. And all of the things that they do in the name of personalized and more effective marketing plays right into the hands of the surveillance state, intentionally or not. I have to seriously consider my suite of tools and finding a way to ditch Google, Facebook and as many of these intrusive tech companies as I can, and to scale back in general. I have a hosting account and can host my own email. I'm now concerned about Windows 8 too and wondering what kind of crap they are collecting on my via the freaking operating system. These latest changes are clearly an attempt to get around the tools that people install and the actions they take while exercising control over their own property and information. When I use a free service like Google search or gmail, that's one thing but when I purchase a computer and pay for an operating system, that's another thing entirely. These companies are going to put themselves out of business.
The latest thinking is that the NSA is bad for the American tech industry but they are doing this to themselves too. I don't know about you, but at times, I'm not comfortable at all with some of the ads that are presented to me that clearly show that Google has information based on products I've ordered or in another case, medical information. It's pretty clear that someone sold medical information to Big Data. It's not a chance kind of thing because I don't get a whole bunch of different ads for all kinds of medical conditions. I only get Google ads for things I was treated for years ago. And it's a pretty inconsequential thing and something I hardly think about let alone talk about in emails or social media, so the only way this information could have made its way to some Big Data creep is via medical info. That's not cool. Not only is it not cool, it's not legal. And as far as I know, we have no way to request our "file" to see what kind of information that Big Data and Google have on us, just as the NSA doesn't comply with FOIA laws when people request information about what is being stored about them in the govt. data bases either. That's just beyond creepy and it's unjust.
It was recently reported that Google now takes in one third of all the advertising revenue in the world, if I remember correctly. When will enough be enough? Apparently never. And if Google is doing it then everyone else will want to do it too, or do it more, or do it better. When we get the government to pass some laws to help us keep these creeps off our backs and out of our private business, even a little, like the Do Not Track legislation, they look for other ways to do it and they abuse technology to stay ahead of what they know is always lagging legislation. There is no respect for the spirit of the law at all. There is no consideration at all for the fact that some of us, probably many of us, if the predecessor laws about telemarketing are any gauge, want them to stop it, stop tracking, collecting and hounding us. I think the marketing industry is alarming, incredibly so. And that's what Google has become. They are slowly becoming known not for their incredible innovation as a technology company but as the world's biggest and most invasive marketing company. That's where things are heading. And Microsoft, WTF, after decades of being known for their software, they are going to become primarily a marketing company too? It looks like that's where things are heading. Hell, we talk about revolutions. We need a revolution to get these parasites off our backs and out of our personal business. There's a huge opportunity for privacy products coming, I think. There always was a market to some extent but I think those opportunities get bigger and more lucrative every day.
Schneier notes that Al Gore calls it the "stalker economy". That's very apt. One thing we can do is to apply some social pressure to all of this. We're already doing that, but maybe we should spend more time thinking about how to use the sort of guerilla tactics that are used in politics in assymetrical situations like this, but use them on predator companies like Google, Facebook, etc. I know that this is already happening, but more could be done. We're kind of good at this kind of thing, given our experience as the underdog political activists of the left. There are ways to shun this kind of thing and point out how none of this is cool at all. There is so much focus on how cool various new gadgets are and the technology aspects of things. In Apple's case it's also about the aesthetics and status of iPhones, etc. These companies count on their products being cool, coveted, etc. What they're doing could undermine their coolness and status. It would be great if other companies rose up, competitors, with a different business model though that's going to take a lot of creativity. This "free services" thing is tough to beat.
Surveillance as a Business Model
Google recently announced that it would start including individual users' names and photos in some ads. This means that if you rate some product positively, your friends may see ads for that product with your name and photo attached—without your knowledge or consent. Meanwhile, Facebook is eliminating a feature that allowed people to retain some portions of their anonymity on its website.
These changes come on the heels of Google's move to explore replacing tracking cookies with something that users have even less control over. Microsoft is doing something similar by developing its own tracking technology.
More generally, lots of companies are evading the "Do Not Track" rules, meant to give users a say in whether companies track them. Turns out the whole "Do Not Track" legislation has been a sham.
[...]
And three, the Internet's winner-takes-all market means that privacy-preserving alternatives have trouble getting off the ground. How many of you know that there is a Google alternative called DuckDuckGo that doesn't track you? Or that you can use cut-out sites to anonymize your Google queries? I have opted out of Facebook, and I know it affects my social life.
There are two types of changes that need to happen in order to fix this. First, there's the market change. We need to become actual customers of these sites so we can use purchasing power to force them to take our privacy seriously. But that's not enough. Because of the market failures surrounding privacy, a second change is needed. We need government regulations that protect our privacy by limiting what these sites can do with our data.
Col. Pat Lang.
"Hollywood Producer/Spy Arnon Milchan Played A Key Role In Israel's Nuke Program" Business Insider
"Milchan reportedly became a key operative for LAKAM chief Benjamin Blumberg and top spy Rafi Eitan, who ran jailed spy Jonathan Pollard and infiltrated a U.S. company to obtain tons of highly-enriched uranium.)"
Holder and Obama like to try people for espionage. Well? pl
TEPCO Downplays Huge Risks Involved in Removing Fukushima Fuel Rods
Action
Stop Watching Us.
The revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.
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Red Hot Chili Peppers - Throw Away Your Television - Live at Slane Castle