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Thursday, December 5, 2013
Eat the Rich!
by Dean HendersonFor decades the American middle class bought into a plethora of Ayn Rand-inspired notions regarding their economic strategy. Keep your head down, plow money into your 401K and get to work on time. If you did these things, you could count on Wall Street money shufflers and their corporate “job creator” tentacles to lift your little life raft with their graft-ridden blood-soaked tide.
It was a formula predicated on endless resource wars in faraway lands, a necessary scorn for the poor, an infatuation with the wealthy and the shutting down of one’s humanity.
Reinforced by a barrage of propaganda from corporate media, the sharecropper climbers embraced their treadmill, sure that one day they would reap the spoils of the ongoing class war, which the bankers have waged against workers for centuries.
The price of admission to this fairy tale was steep – the grateful unrich checked their souls at the door. In some ways they were no different from those corrupt Congressmen they loved to bash before promptly re-electing, no different from the suits at Goldman Sachs who made a living destroying countries with 401K proceeds. They were bought and paid for. They were part of the problem.
Unemployment hovers near 7%. Poverty is at its highest level since 1993. Unions have never been weaker. Concentration of economic power continues at record levels. Not content with the Henry Ford model of capitalism – pay your workers a decent wage and they will be able to buy your product – a new class of parasitic financiers has emerged.
They make their living not by creating jobs, but by destroying them.
They hold no loyalty to country, moving their sweat shops to China and
their money to Dubai or Switzerland. They justify their greed through
fronts like the Tea Party, which spews out all manner of tired Frederick
Hayek, Chicago-school of economics dogma – deployed since their guru
Reagan to gut this country’s economy.Any sentient being, having done such grave harm to others, would say they were sorry. Instead, these psychopaths blamed the other guys and continued to push their failed dogma. The race to the bottom is nearly run.
Obama seems to have taken a left turn, especially in the area of foreign policy, where he has both Saudi and Israeli London-banker tools howling. Has he finally learned the lesson that one cannot compromise or negotiate with either the Illuminati Satanists or their well-paid village idiot ideological mouthpieces. Throw a clinically insane person a bone and they will chew off your leg.
A deep-seated self-hatred – encouraged by their trillionaire banker handlers – is what drives the far right infants to Puritanical notions – mysteriously in sync with laissez-faire capitalism – that We the People don’t deserve a good life. We deserve more suffering, sacrifice and hardship. The bankers and their gendarme K Street paymasters are exempt, of course, from this Calvinist cover story for a good old-fashioned Illuminati global austerity & depopulation program.
So what of the rapidly backsliding climber classes? Tea Party rhetoric rings increasingly hollow in the midst of a country where one in four children are not getting enough to eat? The American political graveyard overflows with the bodies of those who have committed ideological overreach.
But these politicians are merely a reflection of a much deeper moral crisis lodged in a devolving culture resting on its imperial laurels and stricken with the intellectual laziness which accompanies said condition. A severe and chronic state of “affluenza”.
Despite all this but mostly because of it, 35 years of right-wing supremacy in American politics is ending. The next lion to roar will come from the left, as more and more climbers slip down the economic ladder.
In 2016 the winning election slogan may well be, “Eat the Rich”!
NSA Spies for Israel – Tip of the Iceberg
This is the full version of an edited piece that was published on Press TV
… by Gordon Duff, VT Senior Editor
Who it really guarding the hen house?
The Anti-Defamation League publishes the names of Americans invited to Iran for a film festival. Ten days later, Iran contacts the same journalists asking if they would be “interested in attending.”
The source of this information was the NSA, in this case, not just spying on Iran or American journalists but American defense contracting firms, and doing so on behalf of foreign competitors.
NSA involvement in copyright piracy or commercial espionage, though now known, has yet to be addressed.
What we have learned is that the NSA’s supercomputers with their insatiable appetite for highly encrypted data have been not just intercepting operational intelligence and highly classified policy communications but have, without consideration for the aftermath, simply released it all to Israel, without one word redacted, including White House correspondence.
_________________________________
The NSA Worldwide Network
Recent revelations have tied the NSA to intelligence
agencies, not just in Britain, France and Germany, but around the
world. Earlier revelations covering their agreement with Israel
admitted that all raw data, including that withheld from US intelligence
agencies and even the White House, is regularly sent to Israel.Information withheld from the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, information critical to American defense and foreign policy initiatives, is sent out of the country with “no questions asked.”There are no agreements in place as to what is done with this information, whom it is sold to or how it is used. No one has asked, no one seems to care.
____________________________
Laws Mean Nothing
Security protocols long in place restrict the
distribution of such data and prohibit its distribution to any foreign
entity under any circumstance. Statute demands criminal prosecution for
any violating these protocols.However, something has been discovered even more alarming. The NSA has been distributing, through Israel or other possible avenues, we have no way of discerning any of their activities, “work product” of other US intelligence agencies, defense and intelligence contracting firms and even the US State Department.
Documents have been found in Africa, distributed by Israeli and Chinese defense groups, not just containing “NOFORN” restricted material but actual operational intelligence documents that were still in “edit” predistribution form.The NSA not only intercepts voice and data but has hacked tens of thousands of networks giving them full access to every document, every draft, every project folder on every American technology be it source code for commercial computer programs or video games but also things far more lethal.
The NSA and its “downline” of foreign clients are now part and parcel of every project team from Los Alamos to the Kennedy Space Center.
__________________________________
Is the NSA Really “American” ?
Why would a massive internal industrial espionage operation be run by the NSA? For whose benefit?
Then the NSA sends, by their own admission, every iota of that intelligence to Israel where, minimally, it is used to undermine American commercial interests.
Is it also sold to Russia and China? The lessons learned from the real Jonathan Pollard investigation, the real reason he has spent nearly 30 years in prison yields one answer, a resounding “yes!”
For those unfamiliar with Jonathan Pollard, you can read a highly fictionalized outline of his activities from the Jewish Virtual Library:
“In 2006, Rafael Eitan (IDF Chief of Staff) said, ‘It is likely that we could have gotten the same information without him.’ He also said, however, that Pollard provided ‘information of such high quality and accuracy, so good and so important to the country’s security” that “my desire, my appetite to get more and more material overcame me.’Based on the version of events as outlined above, Israel has demanded the release of Pollard for over 20 years, offering him a home in Israel and a hero’s welcome.
He added that the information might have made a difference had Israel been involved in another war. Eitan also maintained that Pollard never exposed any American agents and that another spy, Aldrich Ames, tried to blame Pollard to divert suspicion from his activities.”
However, the debriefing of spy Aldrich Ames, supported by other sources showed Pollard to have passed on to Israel and by them to the Soviet Union, all NATO defense plans for Europe, America’s nuclear codes and to have brought about the death of over 1000 CIA operatives and assets behind the Iron Curtain.
Based on this information, Pollard was sentenced to life in prison and has spent nearly 30 years behind bars.
__________________________________
Nuclear Prolifertation Fiction
In 1975, Israel signed a concord with South Africa
to build nuclear weapons. Between then and 1989, 10 nuclear devices were
built with two, according to highest US intelligence sources, exploded:- September 22, 1979, 18.2 kilotons detonated on Prince Edward Island, south of Capetown.
- May 25, 2009, 182 kilotons, detonated in North Korea.
Whenever Israel is involved – the public is never told. Why?
During the 1990s, Pakistani nuclear scientists A. Q. Khan was tasked though a joint project of the ISI and CIA to offer nuclear trigger devices.
Several thermo-nuclear weapons had “gone missing” in a B 52 crash off the coast of Somalia and were believed to require both new trigger devices and, perhaps, tritium gas recharging before they could be used.
This created an “opening” where others involved in illegal proliferation operations, including part of the Israeli team from South Africa, could blame Khan while, in this case, helping Gaddafi in Libya develop nuclear weapons.
Another fictionalized account, this one from the Monterrey Institute of International Studies (2005):
Some of what is given above is true but not much. Meyer was arrested. However, he was broken out of jail by an Israeli special operations team and flown to Israel where he lives today.Police transferred the 11 containers to South Africa’s nuclear research center at Pelindaba for inspection by South African police and the IAEA. It is estimated that the 200 tons of equipment for the plant was worth around $33 million. During the raid, authorities also discovered various equipment designs that had been sent from KRL. Meyer was arrested on September 2, 2004 and charged with violating the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act and the Nuclear Energy Act.South African bomb casings – the real deal
Specifically, he was charged with importing and exporting a flow forming lathe that can be used to produce centrifuge components, as well as equipment for a gas centrifuge plant.
He admitted in an official statement that he knew the parts were to be used for a manufacturing plant, but he was unaware that the final destination was Libya. Charges were later dropped against Meyer in exchange for cooperation in the ongoing investigations into the Khan network.”
There is no record of Meyer assisting any investigation and no record of him existing in South Africa or leaving legally. There are no court records supporting the statements made in the paragraphs above.
Questions were submitted via Raja Mujtaba of Opinion Maker to A.Q. Khan as to any role with Meyer. Khan indicated he never heard of Meyer.
_______________________________
Not Just the NSA
“Sir, your escorts are waiting.”
There is nothing new to this, nothing “Israeli.” This is how intelligencer agencies penetrate enemy organizations by targeting key individuals using prostitutes in what is called a “honey trap.”
The US does it as do most other nations. That the US actually encourages its military to be subjected to recruiting by foreign intelligence agencies is one of the reasons the officer corps is being cleaned out, purged by General Dempsey and those deeply concerned about who America’s real friends are.
If only Snowden had warned us. It’s one thing with the NSA is spying for the US. In truth, we now have proof the NSA is actually spying not just on the American people but on the Department of Defense and American defense contractors.
“Sir, we thought we would let you select your male escort…oh yes, you can pick two.”
The NSA is actually, legally and very literally a foreign spy organization. Let’s talk about the term “NOFORN.” This is a term on sensitive documents that is supposed to mean that no foreign sources can access them, not MI 6, not the Mossad, not our NATO partners, nobody but Americans.
Israel seems to have been placed above normal protocols and functions as a defacto branch of US intelligence or is it the other way around?
What we have established, without touching on one of a dozen or more “conspiracy theories,” is that there is reason to assume that all information given to Israel is harmful to the United States.The current adversarial position between the two nations over Syria and Iran are more than sufficient evidence.
Tenets of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) prohibiting sharing of intelligence on US nationals with foreign governments are another reason for suspicion and distrust.
With previous proven instances, not just Pollard or Muller, bringing the world so close to destruction and today’s threats, Israeli nuclear attacks on Tehran a near reality, when might reason and even issues of national survival be a consideration of American leaders?
Editing: Jim W. Dean
Psychiatric insanity: Over 20% of young boys labeled 'ADHD'
naturalnews.com
Originally published December 5 2013
Psychiatric insanity: Over 20% of young boys labeled 'ADHD'
by J. D. Heyes(NaturalNews) It's no secret that, increasingly, Big Pharma, in cahoots with traditional medicinal practitioners, have created a society of near-zombies with all of the mood altering medications they push on the public. But even these figures are shocking.
According to recently published information from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an astounding 20-plus percent of all 14-year-old boys in the United States have been diagnosed, at one time or another over the course of their lives, with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - a condition that is, of course, treated with dangerous medications.
As reported by CNSNews.com:
The study also said more than 20 percent of 11-year-old boys had been diagnosed with ADHD at some point in their lives.
The study indicated that American boys were 125 percent more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD, and that boys were 127 percent more likely than girls to be medicated for it.
13.3 percent of American 11-year-old boys are being medicated for ADHD, said the study.
That's incredible; one in five American teenaged boys have been "diagnosed" with this "disorder."
'It highlights the consistent increases in ADHD diagnoses since 2003'
But it gets worse; according to the CDC's study, the percentage of U.S. children between the ages of 4 and 17 years who have been labeled with the diagnosis rose to a mind-boggling 42 percent between 2003 and 2011.
In addition, the study found that kids in public health programs like Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) were 53 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than children with private health insurance. So not only are too many kids being diagnosed with this "disorder," but you're paying for it.
"The parent-reported prevalence of a history of an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis by a health care provider among U.S. school-aged children increased from 7.8 percent in 2003 to 11 percent in 2011, an increase of 42 percent in less than a decade," said the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
"This study is really based on the parent-reported survey data and it extends what we know about the increasing prevalence of health-care-provider diagnosed ADHD," Susanna Visser, of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in a CDC podcast.
"It highlights the consistent increases in ADHD diagnoses since 2003," said Visser, who was one of the authors of the study. "Now we also document that there's been significant increases in the percentage of kids 4-17 years of age who are taking medication for ADHD since 2007."
Tens of thousands were surveyed
The ADHD diagnosis is not evenly distributed among the nation's children, the study also found.
"Ever-diagnosed ADHD was more common among children with health care coverage than those without coverage, and among those with public coverage than with private coverage," it said. "Nearly 1 in 5 high school boys and 1 in 11 high school girls had been diagnosed with ADHD."
Continuing, the researchers said, "Estimates of medicated ADHD increased in 2011, as compared to 2007, particularly among teen boys. In 2011, the highest medicated ADHD prevalence was among 11-year-old boys (13.3 percent)."
Researchers at the CDC based their conclusions on the National Survey of Children's Health, which was conducted in three phases - in 2003, 2007 and 2011. The survey interviewed a random sample of tens of thousands of parents, including 95,677 in the final 2011-2012 phase. Each was asked about one child in their family.
Among the questions asked was whether a physician or other healthcare provider had ever informed the parent that their child had ADHD, and whether the child was currently taking medications for the condition.
Sources:
http://www.cnsnews.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://www.wnd.com
http://science.naturalnews.com
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Wages Relative To Profits Drop To All Time Low
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-04/wages-relative-profits-drop-all-time-low
As we previously noted,
For those curious what the reason for records corporate profits is (or rather was: we have now finally turned the cycle and Y/Y profit growth is, for the first time since 2009, finally negative), the chart below explains it all.
It also explains why 401(k) plans are now redundant: anyone who wishes to keep up with the growth rate of their employer has no choice but to buy their stock, and generate returns for all shareholders. Because corporations, people or not, now have all the leverage.
Details of the Obama forgery exposed
“In my view, this is undoubtedly the most detailed and compellingly damning document
ever created pertaining to the controversy surrounding the long form
birth certificate. It provides critical insight into the people behind
the forgery, their methods, and more importantly, their mistakes.” – Doug Hagmann, investigator
5 December 2013: Every
American is the victim of one of the most insidious crimes ever
perpetrated on the collective – the capturing of our nation from within.
The set-up process occurred over decades, but culminated with the
selection and installation of Barack Hussein Obama, a/k/a Barry Soetoro,
as the front man in this silent coup. One important piece of evidence
to support this crime exists in the controversial Certificate of Live
Birth, but not in the way you have heard, and not in the manner that you
might suspect. The revelation of the manner and methods now exist in a
document that the criminal elements of our government and the complicit
media do not want you to see. And the evidence is as compelling as it is
damning.
Based on the popularity of television shows like Criminal Minds, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and Profiler
from the late 1990′s, a large number of people are fascinated by the
investigative science of criminal profiling. One aspect of such
behavioral profiling includes understanding the difference between a
perpetrator’s modus operandi or “M.O.,” and their “signature.”
While all criminals have a modus
operandi, analyzing a perpetrator’s “signature” is a bit more involved.
Signature behaviors serve to satisfy some need of the criminal, and
might be viewed as a “calling card” of sorts that link them to the
crime. This is particularly true in cases of forgery, where the forger
leaves a usually well hidden “signature” to identify them as the creator
of the forgery. The preceding is provided as a formal introduction to
the most important forgery of our time: Barack Hussein Obama’s
Certificate of Live Birth.
So far, the managed mainstream media has
ignored the October 18, 2013 filing of two affidavits, one public and
the other sealed, that identify twenty-(20) points of forgery on the
most controversial document concerning the most controversial figure of
our time: Barack Hussein Obama. In my view, this is undoubtedly the most
detailed and compellingly damning document ever created pertaining to
the controversy surrounding the long form birth certificate. It
provides critical insight into the people behind the forgery, their
methods, and more importantly, their mistakes.
Douglas Vogt, an author and the owner and operator of a scanning business who also has an accounting background, invested
over two years conducting an investigation into the authenticity of
Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth. Mr. Vogt, along with veteran
typesetter Paul Ivey, conducted exhaustive research of the document
provided to the White House Press Corps on April 27, 2011 – not the
online PDF, a critical distinction that must be understood.
Using their combined experience of 80
years in this realm, they conducted extensive examinations of the “copy”
that was used as the basis for the PDF document. They acquired the same
type of equipment that was used back in the late 1950s and early 1960s
in an attempt to recreate the document presented as an “authenticated
copy” proving the legitimacy of Barack Obama. Instead, they found 20
points of forgery on that document and detail each point of forgery in
the affidavit.
Even more interesting, Mr. Vogt claims
to have identified the “signature” of the perpetrator, or the woman who
created the forged document, hidden within the document itself. Her
identity, in addition to the identity of other conspirators and their
precise methods are contained in a sealed document supplementing the
public affidavit.
In my extensive research of the open
source evidence revealed by Mr. Vogt in the affidavit publicly released,
I have been able to connect the dots myself. Mr. Vogt released
additional and even more specific details in a nearly 3-hour long radio
interview last evening on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report.
The elements of the alleged criminality
behind the creation of this forged document, along with the forgery of
the short form birth certificate are indeed staggering. The phrase that
was born out of the exposure to the crimes related to Watergate,
“plausible deniability,” has now been thrust forward to the present day.
The release of the long form birth
certificate at a press gaggle three days before the reported killing of
Osama bin Laden seemed to be ripped from the playbook used by the men
behind Nixon’s Watergate. Some who were involved knew exactly what was
taking place, while others served as useful dupes to quiet the growing
number intent on seeing evidence of Obama’s eligibility. Early on, the
perpetrators made a few key mistakes that they could not undo. Instead,
they attempted to cover their mistakes through additional forgery.
In addition to the errors they attempted
to cover, the alleged forger of the COLB covertly “signed” the forged
document, leaving her signature on one of the most important forgeries
of our time. Whether it was done out of personal hubris or to provide
her own level of “plausible deniability” in a most convoluted sense, it
is apparent once you know where to look. Then, it all begins to make
sense.
The affidavit filed by Mr. Vogt asserts
that violations of federal law, from misprision of felony to misprision
of treason occurred by the hands of Obama himself, his White House
counsel, the Hawaii Department of Health, Savannah Guthrie and her
employer at the time, certain other media companies, and those listed as
“John and Jane Does” in the unsealed affidavit. The John and Jane Does
are identified in the sealed affidavit.
Using a brilliant legal tactic unlike
anyone else who has attempted redress against this treasonous activity,
Mr. Vogt tapped into a section of federal law that necessitates action
on the part of the federal judiciary via a federal judge – currently in
the hands of the U.S. District Court in the Western District of
Washington in Seattle.
It is this method or loophole in the
federal statutes that separates this filing with all others.
Additionally, it makes this filing by orders of magnitude much more
dangerous to those involved in the alleged conspiracy to insert a
foreign agent in the highest office in America.
This is a very big deal. This is a very
viable threat to those who believe they are impervious to legal action
for their seditious and treasonous activities, and the very people who
have and continue to facilitate them. This is the best evidence yet that
America is a captured operation.
To listen to the most compelling presentation of the affidavit filed detailing the forgeries, click here.
Related articles
The unraveling of Barry Soetoro, a/k/a Barack Hussein Obama IIThe unraveling of Barry Soetoro – the sequel
Who is Barack Hussein Obama, or is it Barry Soetoro?
Exposing the Obama-Soetoro deception
Continuing to unravel the Soetoro-Obama legend
Barry Soetoro, the Invisible Man
From 2009: Threats, media manipulation on Obama eligibility – We have proof
Rihanna Displays Illuminati Hand Gesture at Latest Music Award Performance
Staff Writer | December 1, 2013 | http://intellihub.com/2013/12/01/rihanna-displays-illuminati-hand-gesture-at-latest-music-award-performance/
The Princess of Darkness Rihanna, performed “Diamonds” at the 2013 American Music Awards, displaying her love for the Illuminati.
Rihanna (Image: YouTube.com)
However, in typical Roc fashion, Rihanna threw up the Illuminati sign, forming a pyramid with her two hands raised above her head in mid performance. While this is a rather typical gesture for the artist, it fuels the conspiracy controversy and is unsettling to some.
Rihanna’s manager and billionaire Jay-Z has also been known to rock the symbol as well.
Ukraine protests: ‘Pros and cons of EU deal not evaluated, just emotions’
Published time: December 05, 2013
RT:We've heard it so many times that association with the EU is good for Ukraine in the long run. Why isn't there much talk of what it would cost the people to implement all this in the short term? And what it would be like?
Jeffrey Sommers: It's going to be painful in some regards, of course, and we have to wonder what is going to happen with social expenditures, with pensions and other similar kinds of social programs. The cuts that could be forthcoming could be very severe and of course they would be dealt to the population, which is already very much at risk and really can’t afford to have much more in the way of any kinds of cuts – they are already just barely existing.
RT: Are the hundreds of thousands on the streets over the last couple weeks fully aware of this? Has the full picture been painted, with all the pros and cons?
RT: Should the Ukrainian government that is so sure that the EU deal is so against the country's interests be doing a better job of explaining that to the hundreds of thousands out on the streets?
JS: To a certain extent they brought the situation on themselves because of their failings. I think those who are seeking a better situation by entangling themselves with the European Union are unfortunately looking at fool’s gold. I don’t think it would deliver medium prosperity, I don’t even think it’s going to deliver prosperity in the long term.
RT:There’s no argument that Ukraine needs to reform and modernize. What are the options there?
JS: Unfortunately, the options are ones which would be very difficult to implement but, nonetheless, are necessary. What we need to see is a wholesale change in the economic development model. Again one which would keep capital at home, capital formation needs to take place, we need to see investments occurring in local enterprises. Until this happens we are not going to see a transformation of Ukraine’s economy. Frankly, I don’t even think that we will see this with the European Union either. In other words, I’m seeing both choices as being not very attractive. They may appear attractive to the protesters but I don’t think in a long run it’s going to serve the Ukrainian people well to continue with a current model nor to become part of the enlarged European Union, which is, by the way, on a very strong neo-liberal trajectory.
The old social model that people are looking at when they think about the European Union is the one which is being euthanized as we speak, but people don’t see that. It’s like with US in 1980s when people from the Soviet Union looked at what they were essentially seeing was an old Franklin Roosevelt “New Deal” America and they associated that ironically with Ronald Reagan, the guy who was in fact euthanizing, killing it. So we see the effects now of Reagan’s policy in United States today. In other words, a kind of mess that we have now, with financialization and economic dis-functionality, were planted in the 1980s. I think now we are starting to see something very similar with the European Union. People look at it as a model to follow but what they don’t recognize is the direction that it is going.
RT: Have people in the EU been painted the whole picture? I’m sure they were told that Ukraine would be a huge market for European goods, if Ukraine comes closer to it. But of course there also will be millions of Ukrainians who want jobs in better-paid Western Europe. Is the EU ready for that?
JS: Well, people certainly are not. You’ll see the massive number of people that would constitute a veritable precariat, who will live in very precarious existence in very low-wage service sector jobs.
RT: What jobs do these guys get when they go from the Eastern Europe to West?
JS: Construction or working in restaurants, service-type jobs, anywhere where the standards are not that strong in terms of labor protections and where, unfortunately, labor can be exploited. We’ve seen this already and we know about the famed Polish plumber of course in the United Kingdom, or people coming from Lithuania or Latvia and going to the UK and Ireland. I would say these experiences have been very bad for those people and I would say that Ukraine is suffering from a demographic crisis already, with very low birth rates. So what will happen when all people of childbearing age move out?
RT: You’ve mentioned Poland, we see Polish politicians on the streets urging Ukraine to join the EU. Why are they involved?
JS: I think it’s cultural vicinity with Western Ukraine, so they would be much happier with a Ukraine that is [closer] to the European Union. And of course Poland, let’s be honest, doesn’t like Russia and it would be more comfortable with Ukraine which would be more firmly in the European Union camp. I think it partly explains this.
The
statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Spy Software to Monitor Phone Conversations, E-mails and Text Messages: UN Counter-Terrorism Official to “Investigate” US and British Spying Agencies
A senior UN counter-terrorism official is to
assess Edward Snowden’s revelations that US and British intelligence
agencies are using specific software to retain and monitor telephone
conversations, e-mails, and text messages. UN Special Rapporteur Ben
Emmerson said in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian
that his inquiry would seek to establish whether the British parliament
had been misled about the capabilities of the G-C-H-Q, which is the
British intelligence agency that specializes in electronic surveillance.
He added that the media had a duty and right to publish stories about
the activities of British and U-S spy agencies. The inquiry is expected
to make a series of recommendations to the UN General Assembly next
year. (www.corbettreport.com)
Press TV has conducted an interview with James
Corbett, the editor of the corbettreport.com, about the United Nations
launching an investigation into the massive surveillance programs of
American and British intelligence agencies following revelations from US
whistleblower Edward Snowden.
What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: This inquiry will not have much power but
it can make recommendations to the UN General Assembly. What kind of
recommendations do you think it is going to be making?
Corbett: Well it is difficult to say what
recommendations it will be able to make especially because the UN
General Assembly is a body without any teeth as it has been demonstrated
over the previous decades.
And again I am not sure what this new inquiry is
going to uncover because I think only the most naïve in international
relations have not understood already that they were being spied on by
the US and Britain and other intelligence agencies. Besides, it is
really just the Edward Snowden’s leaks [that] are bringing this to the
forefront.
So I am not sure that this inquiry will really have
really much effect other than a symbolic one and I do not think any
recommendations other than the recommendations not to spy on allies will
be the result of this type of inquiry.
Press TV: But does the symbolism of this go very far
in putting pressure on governments like that of the UK and the US who
have been pressuring the media like The Guardian newspaper to not
publish these revelations?
Corbett: Well certainly the pressure is mounting not
only from the political classes but perhaps more importantly from the
average public which is now increasingly aware that these practices go
on.
But I think if the UN was being serious about really
investigating these claims, they would start by looking in their own
backyard because of course the most egregious cases of spying have
happened at UN summits or on UN premises in New York as has come out
time and time again in the past and in fact just recent revelations from
earlier this month, sorry earlier last month, showing once again for
example Indonesia was spied on by the US at the UN Summit and we have
had reassurances from the Obama administration back in October that they
would not be spying on the UN anymore but given the track record of
what has happened at the UN in the past, I think we can take those
assurances for what they are worth.
So there certainly is a symbolic value in this and in
any way it is good I think to put the pressure on these agencies to
stop this type of spying activity.
Press TV: So then basically what you are saying is
that we will see a lot of condemnation coming out of this for the US,
for the UK and maybe even more revelations but it will be business as
usual when it comes to our privacy online as far as telecommunications
go?
Corbett: Very much so and in fact we see that the
biggest political brouhaha is about the spying that is happening on
politicians themselves, on governments, on government agencies but there
is not that type of widespread condemnation of what is happening to the
average citizens.
And as you mentioned there and as Snowden revelations
and other leaks have made clear, basically communications across the
board on the internet are being collected wholesale by the NSA and its
adjunct in Britain and in other intelligence agencies across the world
and I think there needs to be more outrage on that issue rather than
specifically on spying on governments.
Big Banks Are Being Hit With Cyberattacks “Every Minute Of Every Day”
By Michael Snyder, on December 5th, 2013
What
would you do if you logged in to your bank account one day and it
showed that you had a zero balance and that your bank had absolutely no
record that you ever had any money in your account at all? What would
you do if hackers shut down all online banking and all ATM machines for
an extended period of time? What would you do if you requested a credit
report and discovered that there were suddenly 50 different versions of
"you" all using the same Social Security number? Don't think that
these things can't happen. According to Symantec, there was a 42 percent increase in cyberattacks against U.S. businesses last year. And according to a recent report in the Telegraph,
big banks are being hit with cyberattacks "every minute of every day".
These attacks are becoming more powerful and more sophisticated with
each passing year. Most of the time the general public never hears much
about the cyberattacks that are actually successful because authorities
are determined to maintain confidence in the banking system. But if
people actually knew the truth about what was going on, they would not
have much confidence at all.At this point, the attacks have become so frequent that there is literally no break between them. According to the Telegraph, major financial institutions are continually under assault, and the total number of attacks is constantly increasing...
Every minute, of every hour, of every day, a major financial institution is under attack.The amount of money that some of these hackers are stealing is absolutely staggering. For example, during "Operation High Roller" thieves got away with somewhere between 78 million and 2.5 billion dollars...
Threats range from teenagers in their bedrooms engaging in adolescent “hacktivism”, to sophisticated criminal gangs and state-sponsored terrorists attempting everything from extortion to industrial espionage. Though the details of these crimes remain scant, cyber security experts are clear that behind-the-scenes online attacks have already had far reaching consequences for banks and the financial markets.
Dissected last year, Operation High Roller marked one of the biggest online thefts to have been made public. According to details of the investigation, somewhere between $78m (£48m) and $2.5bn was last year stolen from thousands of bank accounts across Europe, the US and Latin America.Do you find it unsettling that the authorities don't even know how much money was actually stolen?
Among the customers targeted were rich individuals and high-value commercial accounts, with sophisticated software identifying the victims’ main bank accounts and transferring money to prepaid debit cards which could be cashed anonymously. Once the money had been taken, the hackers were able to hide their thefts by changing the victims’ bank balances so they appeared unaltered.
I do.
And earlier this year, another gang of cyberthieves was able to steal 45 million dollars from ATM machines...
A global posse of cyberthieves, armed with laptops in place of guns, hacked into financial institutions and stole $45 million from automated teller machines in a first-of-its-kind heist made for the 21st century, authorities in New York said Thursday.But thefts involving tens of millions of dollars are just the beginning.
Over a seven-month period ending last month, the authorities said, hackers broke into computer networks of financial companies in the United States and India and eliminated the withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards.
Then, people involved in the heist withdrew tens of millions of dollars from ATMs in Manhattan and more than 20 other places around the world. In one case, surveillance cameras picked up a member of the “cashing crew” going from machine to machine, his cash-stuffed bag growing bigger with each hit.
In the future, gangs of hackers, terror organizations or even foreign governments could use cyberattacks to bring the entire system down.
John McAfee (formerly of McAfee Associates) recently warned that we are now entering an era of apocalyptic cyberattacks. He said that in the "next world war … the aggressors will be people sitting at home in armchairs while their software turns … all of our guns, our bombs … against us."
The truth is that it is not just our financial system that is vulnerable. Literally anything that is connected to the Internet could be attacked.
And that is a lot of stuff.
But for now, the big financial institutions remain the most prominent target. Just this week, we learned that a successful cyberattack on JPMorgan Chase resulted in the theft of the personal information of close to half a million corporate and government clients...
Personal information of nearly half a million corporate and government clients who hold prepaid cash cards issued by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) may have been compromised in a cyberattack that took place on the bank’s network in July, the bank warned on Wednesday.Of course this was not the first major "technical glitch" that JPMorgan Chase has encountered this year. In fact, earlier this year thousands upon thousands of their customers logged into their bank accounts only to discover that their balances had all been reset to zero. That problem was fixed shortly thereafter, but I guarantee you that all of the customers that witnessed that "glitch" will remember it for a very long time.
Corporations use JPMorgan’s cash card, known as UCard, to pay salaries, while government agencies use it for issuing tax refunds and unemployment benefits. JPMorgan said it discovered in September that web servers supporting its site, www.ucard.chase.com, had been hacked, potentially involving unauthorized access to the personal information of 465,000 cardholders, according to a Reuters report.
The issue was soon fixed and the incident has been brought to the attention of law enforcement authorities, JPMorgan said, adding that the bank has been trying to identify how many accounts were compromised in the attack.
And certainly JPMorgan Chase is far from alone in dealing with these kinds of issues. In fact, major U.S. bank websites were offline for a combined total of 249 hours during just one six week period earlier this year.
When it comes to the Internet, nobody is ever entirely safe. Every major website and every major company are being targeted. According to USA Today, a cyberattack that began on October 21st has resulted in the theft of the login information for about 2 million Internet accounts...
Almost 2 million accounts on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and other social media and Internet sites have been breached, according to a Chicago-based cybersecurity firm.So be cautious on the Internet. The bad guys are out there, and they are becoming more sophisticated with each passing day.
The hackers stole 1.58 million website login credentials and 320,000 e-mail account credentials, among other items, the firm Trustwave reported. Included in the breaches were thefts of 318,121 passwords from Facebook, 59,549 from Yahoo, 54,437 from Google, 21,708 from Twitter and 8,490 from LinkedIn. The list also includes 7,978 from ADP, the payroll service provider. According to a Trustwave blog, "Payroll services accounts could actually have direct financial repercussions."
And if you think that "the government will protect us", you are just being naive.
In fact, government agencies cannot even protect themselves from these guys. For example, identity thieves have been making fools of the IRS for years...
The Internal Revenue Service sent 655 tax refunds to a single address in Kaunas, Lithuania -- failing to recognize that the refunds were likely part of an identity theft scheme. Another 343 tax refunds went to a single address in Shanghai, China.So if you are waiting for the incompetent U.S. government to fix this problem, you are going to be waiting for a very, very long while.
Thousands more potentially fraudulent refunds -- totaling millions of dollars -- went to places in Bulgaria, Ireland and Canada in 2011.
In all, a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today found 1.5 million potentially fraudulent tax returns that went undetected by the IRS, costing taxpayers $3.6 billion.
As a society, we are constantly becoming even more dependent on the Internet.
Meanwhile, the attacks on the Internet are continually becoming even more sophisticated.
At some point those attacks are going to cause some major league problems.
It is just a matter of time.
The Chinese Want To Spend Billions Constructing A 600 Acre “China City” In New York State
By Michael Snyder, on December 5th, 2013
The
Chinese have made trillions of dollars flooding our shores with super
cheap products, and now they are using some of that money to buy land
and property all over America. For example, there is now a proposal to
construct a multibillion dollar “China City” that would span
approximately 600 acres in a remote area of New York state. This “China
City” (that is actually what it would be called) would be located on
Yankee Lake in Sullivan County, New York. The plans anticipate large
numbers of Chinese businesses, plenty of homes for Chinese immigrants, a
Chinese high school, a college, a casino and even a theme park. And
the first 600 acres is only for “phase one” of the plan. Ultimately,
the goal is for “China City” to cover more than 2,000 acres. Those
promoting this plan say that it will be a great way for New Yorkers to
learn to appreciate Chinese culture.So should we be concerned that the Chinese want to place a little slice of communist China right in the heart of New York state?
Should we really be allowing other nations (especially ones that publish maps showing what will happen when they nuke us) to be setting up self-sustaining communities inside our own country that have no intention of integrating into the wider culture?
David North of the Center for Immigration Studies is one of those that is sounding the alarm over this project. According to him, the eventual goal of the “China City” project is to essentially take over two small towns and cover a total of more than 2,000 acres…
The first version of the plan to emerge was a grandiose one. It would cover more than 2,000 acres (more than three square miles) spread over the towns of Mamakating and Thompson. It would include a Chinese theme park, a city full of China-related businesses, a high school, a college, and 1,000 residences. Every province in China would have an office there and the place would be replete with symbols of Chinese culture. For more on these plans see CCOA’s website, festooned with golden dragons and text in both Mandarin and English. When finished it would be a $6 billion project, its backers say.But for now, the first phase is only going to cover about 600 acres…
A revised version of the initial offering was proposed later; this would, as a modest start to the broader project, include a college, an urban area, some family housing, and lots of student housing; it would cover less than 600 acres and would all be in the town of Thompson, whose officials, a local lawyer tells me, are somewhat less hostile to the plan than those in Mamakating.And this is not the first time that this kind of thing has been proposed. As I reported last year, a different Chinese group has purchased 200 acres of land in a rural area of Michigan and hopes to create a “China City” out there…
A Chinese group known as “Sino-Michigan Properties LLC” has bought up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan. Their plan is to construct a “China City” with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens. Essentially, it would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of America. This “China City” would be located about 40 minutes from both Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that want to start businesses in the United States.You can read the full article about that project right here.
Most of the time, when the Chinese gobble up our properties they do not do it in such large chunks. But make no mistake – they are voraciously buying up real estate right now. In fact, CNN recently published an article about the cities where they are the most active…
New York and Los Angeles top the list of U.S. cities they are most interested in, according to Juwai.com, a website where Chinese buyers browse global real estate listings.It has been estimated that the Chinese are now buying one out of every ten homes sold in the state of California. And this buying spree actually appears to be accelerating. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent CNBC article entitled “Chinese buying up California housing“…
More surprisingly, Philadelphia and Detroit come in at No. 3 and No. 4.
The top 10 list is rounded out by Houston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Atlanta, San Diego and Memphis.
Chinese buyers purchased $8.2 billion worth of U.S. property in 2012, according to Juwai.
At a brand new housing development in Irvine, Calif., some of America’s largest home builders are back at work after a crippling housing crash. Lennar, Pulte, K Hovnanian, Ryland to name a few. It’s a rebirth for U.S. construction, but the customers are largely Chinese.So where did they get all of this cash?
“They see the market here still has room for appreciation,” said Irvine-area real estate agent Kinney Yong, of RE/MAX Premier Realty. “What’s driving them over here is that they have this cash, and they want to park it somewhere or invest somewhere.”
A lot of it came from us of course. We have lost tens of thousands of businesses and millions of jobs to the Chinese, and now they are literally buying up little pieces of America with the money that we spent on all of the cheap plastic trinkets that they exported to us.
And they are not just buying up residential real estate. They are buying lots of commercial real estate as well. In fact, in a previous article I talked about how one Chinese firm recently purchased one of the most important landmarks in New York City…
Chinese conglomerate Fosun International Ltd. (0656.HK) will buy office building One Chase Manhattan Plaza for $725 million, adding to a growing list of property purchases by Chinese buyers in New York city.So where is all of this eventually heading?
The Hong Kong-listed firm said it will buy the property from JP Morgan Chase Bank, according to a release on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange website.Chinese firms, in particular local developers, have looked overseas to diversify their property holdings as the economy at home slows. Chinese individuals also have been investing in property abroad amid tight policy measures in the mainland residential market.Earlier this month, Chinese state-owned developer Greenland Holdings Group agreed to buy a 70% stake in an apartment project next to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., in what is the largest commercial-real-estate development in the U.S. to get direct backing from a Chinese firm.
Should we all start learning how to speak Chinese?
Megaupload Slams U.S. Secret Move to Share Evidence With Copyright Holders
- December 5, 2013
After
five months without any progress in the criminal case against
Megaupload, Kim Dotcom’s legal team has discovered that the U.S.
Government has been granted permission to share critical case evidence
with copyright industry groups. An ex-parte order was issued last month and filed under seal, which means that its exact contents remain hidden. The information available reveals that the Government intends to share MD5 hash values of Megaupload users’ files, among other things.
Megaupload’s legal team is not happy with the ‘secret’ order and TorrentFreak has obtained a letter in which they voice their concerns to the U.S. federal court.
“It has been brought to our attention by Mr. Dotcom’s New Zealand counsel that this Court issued a sealed ex parte order on November 22, 2013, which requires that the Government publicly disseminate, through trade organizations and a press release, certain information related to the above-captioned matter,” the letter begins.
The lawyers claim that with the covert filing the U.S. Government has deprived the defendants of their due process rights. The order was issued without proper justification, they claim, as there is no valid reason to conceal it from Megaupload and the other defendants.
“The defendants have been indicted, their assets have been frozen, their business has been destroyed, and their liberty has been restrained. Given these constraints, it is unclear what evils the Government fears defendants will inflict if provided notice of the Government’s submission, beyond having Defendants’ counsel come into court to make opposing arguments,” the lawyers write to the court.
Megaupload’s legal team disagrees with this line of reasoning and points out to the court that over the past months the Government did not appear to be in a hurry at all.
“Any claimed urgency, however, is entirely manufactured, given that the Government first indicted the defendants on January 5, 2012 and has made no previous effort to publicize the information. Having sat on its hands for nearly two years, the Government cannot credibly claim that circumstances are sufficiently exigent to outweigh defendant’s due process rights,” they write.
“Now, after two years, the Government is suddenly reversing course and claiming it is imperative to get its biased, selective account of the evidence out to the public. The claim of emergency rings hollow.”
The legal team further points out that the request goes against the law. The Government cites the Crime Victims Rights Act (CVRA) as an authority, however, the Fourth Circuit has indicated that the CVRA is “silent and unconcerned” with the rights of supposed victims to file civil claims.
Furthermore, the disclosure of evidence is problematic because it allows the Government to carefully select information that can tip the balance in their favor when it becomes public.
“The Government’s request also substantially prejudices the defendants in the case. Permitting the Government to widely disseminate a one-sided, cherry-picked set of facts threatens to improperly infect the jury pool before defendants are afforded any opportunity to present their side of the story.”
Among the information the Government intends to release are MD5 hash values of the files Megaupload users have stored. The lawyers point out that this information “implicates important privacy rights” of the company’s former customers.
All in all Megaupload sees the latest filing as yet another attempt to put the defendants at a disadvantage.
“From the outset of this prosecution, the Government has sought to deny defendants any semblance of due process. The Government has frozen every penny of defendants’ assets, made frivolous attempts to disqualify defendants’ counsel of choice, and sought at every turn to block defendants from filing briefs in their own defense.”
“The instant effort to circumvent the adversarial process through an ex parte filing is merely the latest example of this troubling pattern.”
Considering the above, the lawyers ask the court to withdraw the November 22 order. In addition, Megaupload’s legal team wants to be able to access and oppose the filings that formed the basis of the order.
It is now up to Judge Liam O’Grady to evaluate whether Megaupload’s protest is warranted and how to proceed.
While the covert action by the Government is already quite significant in its own right, it also suggests that copyright holders are considering legal action against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom. Since the MPAA has been very involved in the case from the start, the Hollywood studios are the prime candidate for such a civil proceeding.
Previously the MPAA asked the court to retain the files stored on Megaupload for possible legal actions to be taken against the companies and those associated with it.
“Independent of the ongoing criminal proceeding, the Studios have civil claims against the operators of Megaupload, and potentially also against those who have knowingly or materially contributed to the infringement occurring through Megaupload,” MPAA wrote last year.
Thus far there has been no sign that the MPAA or any individual movie studios have concrete plans to file a civil suit, but this may change in the near future.
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