intelligence – praag.org

French intel chief questions NATO claims

France’s intelligence chief has questioned NATO’s claims of Russia preparing to attack Ukraine as their agents failed to spot any activities signaling this – either before or after the crisis began.

A statement by the chief of France’s military intelligence, General Christophe Gomart, was published on the National Assembly’s website.

“NATO announced that the Russians were about to invade Ukraine. But, according to French intelligence, there is nothing to corroborate this hypothesis – we determined that the Russians were deploying neither command posts nor logistical facilities, including field hospitals, needed for a military incursion,” General Gomart told a parliamentary hearing.

NATO’s top brass has been incanting mantras about a “Russian invasion” ever since the crisis in Ukraine began a year ago. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as his predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen, have lashed at Russia on numerous occasions, claiming that the Russian military is present on the ground in Ukraine, but failing to provide evidence supporting these claims.

“Our conclusion eventually proved correct because even if some Russian soldiers had indeed been seen on the Ukrainian side of the border, it was just a ploy, meant to bring pressure to bear on President Poroshenko, rather than an attempt to invade Ukraine,” General Gomart said.

The French intelligence chief’s remarks came in the context of France’s role in NATO. Gomart noted that at the moment the alliance is dominated by US intelligence, while France’s intelligence is taken not taken into consideration so much.

“France will not be fooled. France has its own sources of information and we are aware what the explanation for the crisis in Ukraine is,” Philippe Migault, expert on Ukraine from the University of International and Strategic Relations, said.

Meanwhile an American RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft was buzzed by a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet over the Baltic Sea near Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, according to the Pentagon.

Major-General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that the interception was launched after “Russian air defense radars spotted an unidentified air target over the Baltic Sea making steady progress toward the national border.” The aircraft had its transponder turned off, Konashenkov said.

The head of Russia’s Upper House Committee for Foreign Relations, Konstantin Kosachev, called on to NATO to stop their “hysterics” over flights by the Russian Air Force, “presenting them as aggression and demonizing Russia.”

“In connection with the incident over the Baltic one should keep in mind that Russia is a Baltic country, whereas the US is not,” Kosachev said.

Frants Klintsevich, of the United Russia party, said the report showed US intelligence has been working to fulfill a political order.

Meanwhile, on Friday five Northern European states, non-NATO Finland and Sweden included, signed a declaration on the expansion of military cooperation to counter “Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

Since Finland and Sweden intend to interact with NATO on a matching contribution basis, which might indicate a desire to join the alliance, Moscow will view this declaration as an act of aggression, Norwegian defense analyst Janne Haaland Matlary warned.

“Finland and Sweden have also decided to keep their exercises to NATO standards, which implies a step on the way toward NATO. Today, there are no political grounds for them to join NATO, public opinion is not frightened enough, and referendums will be required. But what is happening now still looks like a preparation for membership,” Matlary told Aftenposten newspaper on Friday.

US, UK and NATO up the infowar

Documents posted on the web reveal a high-level anti-Russian propaganda war being waged in south and eastern Ukraine by the US, the UK and NATO on behalf of the Kiev Government, using non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as agents.

According to the Drakula blog, the West is raising its game in its campaign against Russian President Vladimir Putin. While it is — on the one hand — pumping up the military volume by moving NATO and US hardware nearer to the Ukraine and Russian borders, it is also playing a hybrid war by pumping funds into an anti-Russian propaganda war.

NATO documents show that a “co-ordination meeting on StratCom training for Ukraine” was held in Riga, Latvia on February 19, 2015 as part of its “on-going capacity building programme”.

StratCom stands for Strategic Communication, which means dealing with the “inability of Ukrainian media to provide sufficient reach for the south/east of the country; vast reach of media originating from Russia; lack of strong Public Broadcaster; lack of success stories; [and] lack of trust of the population of the south/eastern regions in the central government”.

The NATO document reveals the Kiev Government has a “weak Public Affairs capacity” and sets out proposals to counter Russian influence and tackling what it describes as a lack of cross-government work and co-ordination as well as a lack of understanding of the importance of “national narrative”.

Further documents reveal a project run by the UK Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence worth $360,500 with the purpose of: “National reconciliation in Ukraine through effective communication for restoring public trust and empowering of the participatory democracy mechanisms using regional media coverage, counteraction to Russian information influence”.

It outlines a pro-Kiev propaganda battle using Ukrainian agencies including the Ukrainian Institute for International Politics (UIIP); the Analytical Center for Geopolitical Studies ‘Borysfen Intel’ (BI); and the Department of the civil-military cooperation, HQ of the armed forces.

The program involves “resuming the communication and community dialog in Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine using international experience shared by UIIP and BI foreign partners; informational support of national reconciliation ideas through broadcasting and media coverage of Eastern and Southern Ukraine regions by new alternative regional mass-media and Internet resources; and decreasing the Russian information influence in Ukraine, discredit of the Russian political and military leaders.”

The revelations will embarrass the US, NATO and UK who have been at pains to denounce Russia for promoting what they call a ‘hybrid war’ in Ukraine.

Source: Sputniknews

Falklands on high alert

Extra British troops will be stationed on the island for three to six weeks.

They are part of a force of more than 1,000 soldiers being prepared for duty in the south Atlantic and will be sent out in five tranches of 150 to 300.

They will include members of the Royal Artillery and 3 Commando, Royal Marines, with each group staying on the islands for three to six weeks.

Military chiefs are mounting a series of “high readiness reinforcement” exercises to plug a strategic gap until the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier is operational in 2020.

Senior military sources say the war games will be “low profile” as part of a commitment to ensure the UK can secure its overseas garrisons.

Currently the islands have a core military presence of 1,200 troops, four Typhoon fighter jets and a missile battery.

A senior source said: “The aim is to put more than 1,000 troops from five different cap badges into the islands by November but they will deploy in small groups from 150 to 300, for short tours.”

Last night the Ministry of Defence said there were “currently no plans to increase the number of troops deployed to the Falklands”.

However, the military source said the plan did not represent a “permanent increase in garrison numbers but a series of high-readiness exercises”.

Meanwhile Argentina will discuss a government-sponsored bill set to reform the Intelligence services in Congress on Friday.

New regulations will bring transparency to the country’s intelligence system the government says.

The dissolution of the Intelligence Secretariat (SI, formerly SIDE) and the creation of a new Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI), is “a major, transcendent” move, according to analysts.

The measure was first announced by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner last Monday, a week after the mysterious death of AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

Nisman’s death brought to the forefront issues associated with the country’s intelligence agencies.

Source: UK Express

Dutch soldier loses job due to relationship with Turk

A Dutch woman who was a corporal in the Dutch army named Yvette is about to lose her job due to her relationship with a Turk, Mehmet.

“I could not believe I got into trouble because I was in love,” Yvette said.

She met Mehmet, who worked as a bartender in the western tourist town of Bodrum, in early 2012 and first thought that it was a summer romance, but later it turned into a relationship when Mehmet visited the Netherlands and both decided to continue the relationship there.

In December 2013, Yvette received a letter from the Dutch Defense Ministry saying that her job was at stake due to her relationship with a foreigner.

Since the Dutch Military Intelligence Service has no working relation with the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT), the Netherlands was not able to look into Mehmet’s background.

According to Dutch laws, those who serve in the military are only allowed to have relationships with citizens from countries that share intelligence and data with the Netherlands. Reportedly, only because there is no intelligence sharing between the Netherlands and Turkey, Mehmet was found risky. With this safety policy enacted in 2013, the Dutch government aimed to end spying activities.

It is reported that the woman is supported by her co-workers in the military and there are nearly 20 soldiers in the Dutch military who face the risk of losing their jobs due to having relationships with people from other countries that do not share intelligence with the Netherlands. What makes Yvette and Mehmet’s relationship so eye-catching for the international media is that Mehmet is from a NATO ally country, not from other countries that are seen as “critical.”

Even the supreme chief of the Netherlands Defense Staff reportedly found the situation “incomprehensible” and showed support for Yvette so she could continue to work during the proceedings. Yvette’s lawyer Michale Ruperti said: “We exchange information with Turkey on criminals and extremists. But in this case, the Netherlands said, ‘We do not trust the intelligence of a partner.’ ”

Yvette, who has been serving in the military for 13 years and has been sent to Afghanistan twice, expressed her sadness for being pushed to make a choice between two things that she loves, her partner and her job.

Source: Daily Sabah

No law or policy for ‘mastering the Internet’

Britain’s GCHQ is scanning servers in multiple foreign countries for vulnerable ports, according to German newspaper Heise. Using a tool called Hacienda, the intelligence agency seeks to ‘master the internet’ for sources of espionage.

Spanish for estate, Hacienda can port scan all of the servers in a country to provide information on user endpoints and scan for potential vulnerabilities. The ability to port scan is not new, but the scale of its use by government spies, with 27 countries scanned by 2009, has shocked many familiar with the software.

“In 2009, the British spy agency GCHQ made port scans a ‘standard tool’ to be applied against entire nations,” Heise reports. “Twenty-seven countries are listed as targets of the Hacienda [program].”

The process of scanning entire countries and looking for vulnerable network infrastructure to exploit is consistent with the meta-goal of “Mastering the Internet”, which is also the name of a GCHQ cable-tapping program. Targeted protocols include SSH, HTTP and FTP, among others.

Systems may be attacked simply because they might eventually create a path towards a valuable espionage target, even without indications this will ever be the case. Based on this logic, every device is a target.

The database resulting from the scans is shared with other spy agencies in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. MAILORDER is described in the documents as a secure transport protocol used between the ‘Five Eyes’ spy agencies to exchange collected data.

System and network administrators face the threat of industrial espionage, sabotage and human rights violations created by nation states indiscriminately attacking network infrastructure and breaking into services.

GCHQ says it will not comment on “intelligence matters” but reiterates that everything that it does is done within a strict legal framework. “It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters,” a GCHQ spokesperson told The Inquirer.

“All of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception of Communications and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

“All our operational processes rigorously support this position,” they added.

British intelligence is permitted to go further in surveillance than similar agencies in other Western countries, according to Edward Snowden. The former NSA contractor believes the powers of the British intelligence establishment are not restricted effectively enough by “law or policy”. The lack of legal restrictions allows UK intelligence services to target more people than is necessary.

Source: RT

Is Israel the Sixth Eye?

It’s common to hear when Israeli prime ministers travel to the White House that there isn’t ‘an inch of daylight’ between Israel and the U.S. That’s how damn close we are. It’s one thing (and troubling enough) to say this about political issues. But now it appears that our respective intelligence operations are increasingly coordinated and overlapping. Of course, there continues to be intensive spying by Israeli agents within the U.S. (Pollard and others agents exposed over the years following testify to this). But increasingly there appears to be no reason for Israel to attempt to penetrate U.S. security as we’re willing to give them the store.

Yesterday, I reported that Israeli security correspondent Ronen Bergman had revealed the NSA maintained a secret facility in Jerusalem that monitored all U.S. satellites. I also reported something not in Bergman’s interview: that this base was part of another secret agreement allowing Israel to share in all intelligence information produced as part of the Five Eyes network. In effect, Israel has become the Sixth Eye.

Working with an Israeli researcher, I’m publishing the first known picture of the facility, which is located on Martin Buber Street near the Hebrew University campus on Mt. Scopus. This is one of the highest points in Jerusalem and would offer the best vantage point to receive and transmit signals to space satellites. The NSA facility is located within an IDF SIGINT base called Ofrit, which intercepts telecommunications throughout the West Bank. Frankly, I’ve never heard of a U.S. intelligence facility housed within an Israeli military base. This brings home even more strongly how little separation there now is between Israeli and American intelligence operations. Or to paraphrase Lennon-McCartney: I am you and “you are me and we are all together.”

Source: richardsilverstein.com

Liberals and their IQ cake

by Albert Brenner

Everybody knows it is not very intelligent to want your cake and eat it. Yet, this is exactly what many liberals do when it concerns discourses surrounding the validity and applicability of IQ tests/scores. That the aforementioned is still a very sensitive issue needs no further elaboration.

Unfortunately ill fortune still awaits any serious writer when s/he addresses the IQ question in a frank manner, except when it comes to criminalizing the conservative (heterosexual) Pale Male, of course.

In a recent article in the science section of the left-wing Huffington Post newspaper, “evidence” was provided to prove that “racists” have low IQ scores.

According to the study`s lead author, Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at Brock University in Ontario, “People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice…”

His sentiments were echoed by Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, “ Reality is complicated and messy… Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.”

Now, seeing that one of the gods of the left, Karl Marx, imposed a “simpler solution” called dialectical-materialism on (the) “complicated and messy” Reality – by, basically, reducing everything to the monopoly of the means of production – it surely must cut both ways.

Meaning that both conservatives and liberals are, ultimately, equally prone to simpler solutions, ergo, being equal in the capacity to be people of low intelligence. Nosek readily admits to this logic; stating that less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal “simplifying ideologies“ as well as conservative ones.

It therefore suffices to say that this research only proved that the opposite of its hypothesis is also true. Rather “scientific”, wouldn’t you say? But that, obviously, did not dissuade the Huffington Post to boldly title this article Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism.

Their prejudice (low IQ?) is even more evident in the opening paragraph of said article, “Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes”.

Another example; in a recent article titled IQ tests: women score higher than men, in the left-wing British newspaper The Telegraph, it was boldly stated that women are more intelligent than men.The article quoted a certain Helena Jamieson… who said: “I think women probably always knew deep down that they were the more intelligent ones – but as the gentler sex we were quiet about it and let men continue to believe they ruled the world.”

Now just imagine if a man had said, “I think men probably knew deep down that they were the more intelligent ones…“ Can you just imagine the furious outcry that would have caused, especially on the part of feminists?

As is glaringly evident in the above examples, liberals have absolutely no qualms in recognizing the scientific legitimacy/validity of IQ tests when it comes to nailing conservative Pale Males. Yet, when it comes to acknowledging the very same instrument as a scientifically legitimate tool to, for example, measure the difference in average IQ scores between blacks and whites, all hell breaks loose!

Be that as it may; the left certainly has a Gollum-like approach to IQ. A warped approach akin to acknowledging that a thermometer can measure warm temperatures, but when it gets cold, it suddenly does not “function” anymore.

The above irrationality is perfectly illustrated by the liberal columnist John Wiener of The Nation magazine. He wrote an article in lieu of the dismissal of Dr Jason Richwine from the Heritage Foundation. Wiener basically accused Richwine of “racism”. In his article, Why Did Harvard Give a PhD for a Discredited Approach to Race and IQ?, Wiener wrote: “Both ‘race’ and ‘intelligence’ are culturally constructed notions, not biological or genetic facts. None of this is hard to understand.”

Yet in his conclusion, he wrote the following: “The last word in this story goes to a study published in 2012 in the journal Psychological Science. ‘In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874),’ the researchers wrote, ‘we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood.'”

It really does seem that liberals want their IQ cake and eat it. It is a pity they do not allow conservative (heterosexual) Pale Males the same Gollum-like leeway. On the contrary; if the latter just mentions the words “race” and “IQ” then they will most certainly be crucified … like Dr Thilo Sarrazin, Prof James Watson, Dr Jason Richwine, et cetera.

The fact that any scientific inquiry into the differences between the races is a political landmine field guarded by the left, has its origins in a deliberate lie told by one of its doyens, Margaret Mead.

As the conservative columnist Christopher F. Chabris notes; “Before World War II, for example, the anthropologist Margaret Mead, presumably basing herself on her observations of non-Western cultures, wrote: ‘We are forced to conclude that human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions.’ Later, Mead admitted that what forced this conclusion was not the data she had collected but the political goals she espoused: ‘We knew how politically loaded discussions of inborn differences could become. . . . (I]t seemed clear to us that [their] further study . . . would have to wait upon less troubled times.'”

Well, these “troubled times” are still upon us. Difference has not disappeared. On the contrary, it has got progressively worse.

But then, what else could be expected from those who want their cake and eat it?

US intelligence intercepts ‘point to big Al-Qaeda attack’

The unusual US decision to close its diplomatic missions en masse in the Middle East Sunday was prompted by intercepts of high-ranking Al-Qaeda operatives signaling a major attack, US lawmakers said Sunday.

Lawmakers briefed on the intelligence called the threat reporting among the most serious they’ve seen in recent years, reminiscent of the intelligence chatter that preceded the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“There is a significant threat stream and we’re reacting to it,” General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with ABC.

Dempsey said the specific locations and targets were not known but “the intent is to attack Western, not just US interests.”

At least 25 US embassies and consular offices were ordered closed Sunday, most of them in the Middle East and North Africa, in response to the threat.

Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week” that Al-Qaeda’s “operatives are in place.”

He said the United States knows this “because we’ve received information that high level people from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are talking about a major attack and these are people in the high level.”

ABC News cited an unnamed US official as saying there was concern that Al-Qaeda might deploy suicide attackers with surgically implanted bombs to evade security.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, said the United States was in a high state of alert, calling it “probably one of the most specific and credible threats I’ve seen, perhaps, since 9/11.”

He said an attack appeared to be “imminent,” possibly timed to coincide with the last night of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

The suspected plot comes against the backdrop of a series of recent prison breaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan in which thousands of inmates have escaped, he said, creating additional risks.

US sensitivity to embassy security also has been heightened by the Al-Qaeda attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, last September 11 that claimed the life of the US ambassador and three other Americans.

It also dovetailed an intensifying US debate over electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency following bombshell leaks by fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The NSA’s congressional supporters were quick to point to the role of electronic intercepts in obtaining the latest intelligence, while dismissing suggestions it also served to divert attention from the agency’s role in scooping up Americans’ phone and Internet data.

“If we did not have these programs, then we simply wouldn’t be able to listen in on the bad guys,” said Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

However, he pointed out that the latest threat warnings did not stem from controversial domestic electronic surveillance programs, but from NSA’s monitoring operations outside the United States.

“And that’s where all the planning is taking place, we think that’s where the activities is planned for,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Representative Peter King, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the intelligence was specific “as to how enormous it was going to be, and also there’s certain dates were given.”

“And, you know, the assumption is that it’s probably most likely to happen in the Middle East at or about one of the embassies, but there’s no guarantee of that at all,” he said on ABC.

“It could basically be in Europe, it could be in the United States, it could be a series of combined attacks,” he said.

Chambliss likened the stream of information to the intelligence chatter that preceded the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington.

“What we have heard is some specifics on what’s intended to be done and some individuals who are making plans such as we saw before 9/11,” he said.

“Whether they’re going to be suicide deaths that are used or whether they’re planning on vehicle-born bombs being carried into an area, we don’t know,” he said. – AFP

Snowden: ‘Ecuador an example to the world’

Edward Snowden, shortly after his arrival in Moscow

Fugitive intelligence analyst Edward Snowden has thanked Ecuador for its support in his bid to avoid extradition to the US, saying the country was an “example to the world” in a letter publicised on Monday.

“There are few world leaders who would risk standing for the human rights of an individual against the most powerful government on earth, and the bravery of Ecuador and its people is an example to the world,” he told President Rafael Correa in a letter obtained by Britain’s Press Association.

Snowden singled out Fidel Narvaez, the Ecuadorian consul in London, for guaranteeing his protection upon fleeing Hong Kong eight days ago.

“I could never have risked travel without that,” said the letter, which was written in Spanish.

“Now, as a result, and through the continued support of your government, I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest.” – AFP

Global surveillance: Where is the outrage?

The British-American surveillance program Tempora marks a historic turning point. Unnoticed by the public, intelligence agencies have pursued total surveillance. Governments have deliberately concealed from the public the extent to which we are being watched.

The term, “information superhighway” has always been insufficient to describe the Internet. In reality, the Web is a global communication space containing the private information of a large part of the population of every developed country. If someone were able to train an all-seeing eye onto the Internet, the blackmail potential would be almost limitless.

It is precisely this all-seeing eye that the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the American National Security Agency (NSA) have developed under the name Tempora. An appropriate real-world metaphor for the program might be something like this: In every room of every house and every apartment, cameras and microphones are installed, every letter is opened and copied, every telephone tapped. Everything that happens is recorded and can be accessed as needed.

It sounds preposterous, but it is frighteningly close to the reality that was unveiled by the Guardian on Friday. Together, the GCHQ and NSA monitor Internet traffic by tapping directly into the data stream sent through fiber-optic cables. They are able to copy and cache this data, to be sifted through later as needed.

Those behind this disgraceful program have not even bothered to deny what they are up to. The British spy agency has said it will not be commenting on the program — but said that whatever they do is in the service of the fight against terrorism and subject to strict legal controls. The NSA has been making this same argument since the Prism program was unveiled earlier this month. What we’re doing, they say, is for a good cause. It’s all regulated, and we’re only looking at the information collected when we deem it necessary.

But that’s all just pretence.

Would the public agree to the total video surveillance of their private living space because it could possibly also help in the pursuit of terrorists? Would we be satisfied with the fact that we would only be observed if some unnamed intelligence analyst considered it necessary? Of course not. A government proposing such a program would be forced out of office — and rightly so.

Where is the Outrage?

It therefore seems odd that the reactions in the Anglo-Saxon world have been so restrained. Sure, the Guardian, as well as the Washington Post, have reported in detail about the programs. Yet in the political sphere, it was mainly a few German politicians voicing their outrage.

And for good reason. The fact that the Americans and the British — it is yet to be revealed who else participated — have granted themselves this enormous power, without ever informing their own people, is a scandal of historic proportions. To the initiated, all the recent public debate about data retention, Internet privacy and the practices of Facebook and Google must have been downright amusing. The state, as it turns out, knew everything all along.

That was precisely the goal, according to the head of the NSA, Lieutenant General Keith Alexander. “Why can’t we collect all the signals all the time?” he asked in an internal document acquired by the Guardian. “Sounds like a good summer project for Menwith,” he continued, referring to a GCHQ/NSA facility at Menwith Hill in northern England.

Voters Must Defend Themselves

A different quote shows that intelligence personnel lied to the public following the first revelations of the existence of the program. European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said that, in meetings with US officials, she had been assured that data from Europeans had not been collected “in bulk.” The surveillance of Europeans, they insisted to Reding, had been targeted and only undertaken in exceptional cases. That now appears to be untrue — it’s just that the mass acquisition of data in Europe is taken care of by GCHQ, rather than by the NSA.

The public revelation of these activities in the Guardian, thanks to the risky actions of former NSA worker Edward Snowden, marks a turning point. The next weeks and months will show whether democratic societies across the world are strong enough to take a stand against the unlimited, totalitarian ambitions of Western secret services — or not.

The governments of the countries in question apparently did not have the necessary backbone. They knew full well that the kind of surveillance being undertaken lacked all democratic legitimacy. But they pursued the programs anyway, behind the backs of their electorates.

It is now up to voters to defend themselves. It is up to us, whose data has landed as by-catch in the nets of Tempora. We must force our own representatives to defend our freedoms. – Der Spiegel

Snowden’s plane will pass through US airspace

Ex-CIA contractor, Edward Snowden’s plane to Cuba will pass through US airspace, an Interfax source reports. Washington has an extradition notice against Snowden on charges of espionage and could intervene if the plane enters US jurisdiction.

Aeroflot flight SU150, leaves Moscow at 14:04 local time (11:04 GMT) and will fly through US airspace a couple of kilometers from the coast of New York on its way to Havana, reported Russian news agency Interfax, citing a source in Sheremetevo airport air traffic control. Snowden is checked into the flight to Havana in seat number 17A, reports the Associated Press, citing Aeroflot.

The source added that US air traffic control can legally ground the plane and take Snowden into custody on charges of espionage, theft and conversion of government property. However, the pilot may change the course of the flight so as not to pass through American airspace.

“The pilot of the plane is within his rights to change the course of the flight and there should be enough fuel to do so,” said the source to Interfax.

The Ecuadorian government has confirmed that Snowden filed for asylum and is processing the request.
WikiLeaks has actively assisted Snowden in eluding the US extradition order, has confirmed the fugitive’s final destination will be Ecuador.

Mr Snowden is “bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from Wikileaks.”

The news that former CIA contractor Edward Snowden had left Hong Kong emerged on Sunday. The city’s authorities published a statement saying that Snowden had legally and voluntarily left Hong Kong on Sunday on a flight to a “third country” with a stopover in Moscow. The statement also said that the documents for Snowden’s extradition submitted to the Hong Kong authorities by Washington were not sufficient to be able to “process the request.”

The White House said it was “disappointed” with Hong Kong’s move to let Snowden go and has urged Russia to consider every option to expel the fugitive.

“The US is advising these governments that Snowden is wanted on felony charges, and as such should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States,” a state department official said.

Washington has stressed they will seek cooperation from whichever country Snowden arrives in.

Snowden initially fled to Hong Kong after leaking troves of classified data to UK newspaper the Guardian, including information of the US spy program Prism.- RT

‘Criminals are being exposed by Snowden’

Information that NSA leaker Edward Snowden is exposing can lead to trials against those involved in war crimes in Afghanistan or Iraq or in money laundering and that is why “the West is so afraid,” investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT.

The 29-year-old whistleblower – who was charged with espionage in the US for revealing secret surveillance programs – arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday. Snowden is on his way to a third country via Russia.

Gosling says Snowden’s got his options rather limited. “The real impact of what he’s done here is only now starting to be realized. Not only is he exposing the criminality of the GCHQ – the signals intelligence part of the British intelligence services – and the NSA, but he is also showing that much of that intelligence contains information which may bring criminal prosecutions. For example, of war crimes, or criminal prosecutions against bankers, people who’ve been doing money laundering, such as Lord Green who was in charge of HSBC. There’s a vast amount of information there.

“There’s one thing I can tell you though, is that he won’t be coming to London. He doesn’t want to end up in the Tower of London like Julian Assange, fugitive, is at the moment.

“Here in Britain, we have a very poor record. Although the government and many of our media talk about protecting whistleblowers, the fact of the matter is if you blow the whistle on anything really big and important, or, in fact, even some trivial things, you’ll be bullied and you’ll be taken out of your job. And there’s total hypocrisy. One of the reasons for this is the way our entire network of government is paid –tax-payers money that is paying for all this intelligence service stuff.

“Sir Malcolm Rifkind, for example, who chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, is supposed to oversee all this secret stuff. He is actually also employed by financial services firm that works for defense contractors. We are losing any kind of proper democratic oversight of these intelligence services. And that’s one of the things that Snowden has started to expose.

“If I were him, I’d actually be thinking about maybe not going to South America but looking at Iceland. It has got a couple of very useful institutions. IMMI, the Iceland’s Modern Media Institute, which has been set up by the parliament to protect whistleblowers and to make sure that Iceland is seen is a safe heaven. There’s also the AWP, the Associated Whistleblowing Press in Iceland. These are really great institutions which have started to emerge now in Europe as a resistance to the intelligence, really, I suppose the military-industrial complex and the financial cults in the European world, taking over so much of our public life, essentially – leaving our democracies in tatters.”

Gosling thinks Moscow will probably be a transit point, because maybe it would be a little too explosive for him to stay in Moscow for too long.

“I think what’s happening now is that there’s a lack of faith in much of what our intelligence services are up to. When we’ve got no proper democratic oversight of them they are running of on their own.

“The money system as well is involved in it. This is why I point out that much of this intelligence will be to do with economic warfare. We’ve got many new types of warfare in the world – economic is just one of them. Another one is psychological warfare which is using media wars, attacking the reputations of individuals and countries around the world. So, those are the sorts of information that contained in these PRISM leaks that we are now starting to see.

“There have been serious crimes over the last ten years – particularly since 9/11 when the war on terror started – in Afghanistan, Iraq, in places like Yemen, Pakistan where many people were murdered through the use of drones and hellfire missiles completely illegally by mainly three countries – Israel, the US and the UK. But this is what people don’t necessarily understand: there will be information that Edward Snowden has that can actually bring some of these people to trial. That’s why the West is so afraid. If Britain was serious about any kind of real justice, we would be able invite him to London and say, ‘Yes, you can tell all your secrets or stories to people here in Britain, you’ll be safe here.’”

Gosling says Snowden is actually exposing criminals “and the criminals are going for him now”. – RT

UK tapping EU’s data flows a catastrophe – Germany

The German Justice Minister has called the British spy agency’s massive eavesdropping of international fiber-optic cables ‘a catastrophe’. Sabine Leuthesser-Scharrenberger insisted European institutions should seek clarification “straight away”.

The exposure by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of the global eavesdropping capabilities of the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have sent European capitals into a stupor.

Having revealed the NSA’s PRISM global surveillance program, Snowden told the UK’s Guardian newspaper information about Britain’s top secret Tempora surveillance project under which the UK’s GCHQ spying agency intercepts and stores for 30 days huge volumes of data, like emails, social network posts, phone calls and much more, culled from international fiber-optic cables.

The most vociferous reaction has come from Berlin where politicians have demanded a thorough investigation of the activities of the British intelligence-gathering community.

“If these accusations are correct, this would be a catastrophe,” German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in an email to the Reuters. She compared the news with a “Hollywood nightmare” and called on to the European institutions “to seek straight away to clarify the situation.”

“The accusations make it sound as if George Orwell’s surveillance society has become reality in Great Britain,” Thomas Oppermann, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats in the Bundestag told Reuters. German politicians called the situation ‘unbearable’ and demanded the government “act against a total surveillance of German citizens”.

A report in Britain’s Guardian newspaper has exposed that UK’s GCHQ has been spying on European capitals for at least 18 months intercepting data from over 200 fiber-optic cables.

Begun in 2008, by 2010 the Tempora project made GCHQ a true intelligence superpower, “’the biggest internet access’ of any member of the Five Eyes electronic eavesdropping alliance, comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand,” The Guardian’s report claims.

By the end of 2012 the GCHQ agency reportedly had enough computational capacity to process information from 46 fibre-optic cables at a time, which amounted to 600 million international phone calls and internet messages daily.

While it was reported earlier that NSA shared classified information obtained through its tapping of the world’s largest internet providers with GCHQ, it became known that these were tit for tat relations and GCHQ shared the info it obtained with the NSA, too. The Guardian believes that the 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors, like Edward Snowden, had access to GCHQ databases.

“The UK has a huge dog in this fight,” Snowden confirmed to the Guardian. “They [GCHQ] are worse than the US,” he stressed. – RT

Thank you for your service, Mr. Snowden

A heroic American whistleblower chooses, oh-so wisely, to expose Uncle Sam’s usurpations to the veteran reporters of the British Guardian and not to the partisan hacks of the American press. This fact tells you all you need to know about US presstitutes.

Confirmation of the degree to which American media has been co-opted by power came on June 10, again, via a British newspaper. The Mail Online divulged that Edward Snowden had “first approached the Washington Post with his leaks but the newspaper refused to comply with his publishing demands.” You see, the Washington Post had to hotfoot it back to Big Brother Obama before it would do its journalistic due diligence. “The Post broke the story on PRISM two weeks later, on Thursday, after consulting with government officials,” confirmed the Mail Online.

Even after being scooped by the Guardian, the Obama embeds at the Washington Post saw fit to inform their readers about PRISM on a purely need-to-know basis, “reprinting only four of the 41 PRISM PowerPoint slides,” and generally misrepresenting the nature of the program known as PRISM. The manufactured-in-America version of PRISM thus contradicts the “internal NSA documents” leaked to the Guardian.

According to the guardian of American freedoms at the Guardian, reporter Glenn Greenwald, the 41-slide PowerPoint presentation he acquired from Snowden has been authenticated as a document “used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program.” The presentation, pictorials with captions, handed out by the National Security Agency, boasts of having “direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, PalTalk, YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL, and other servers.”

Contrary to what you’re being told, “the world’s largest surveillance organization” can and does “obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders.” And it is contrary to the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, in particular. It specifies that “warrants shall issue” only “upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Tellingly, the tools of Big Media and big government are not apprising you of these facts. Like a tortoise in its shell they’ve retreated from the watersheds that are the AP, the IRS and the NSA scandals, informing you only of what New York and Northeast elites think is important: “Most of you still like Obama.”

In light of “the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation,” the Gray Lady endeavored, fleetingly, to shake off a flea or two, and adopt a slightly less reverential tone toward the godhead Obama. The New York Times quickly lay down with dogs again; the paper rushed to restore Obama’s bona fides the following day.

As to other “nimble” minds in media: Andrea Tarantula, one of the interchangeable females on a Fox News idiot’s extravaganza called “The Five,” said that, “If they are competent with my information; they can have it. If not, let me have my freedoms back.” To Andrea (who is, admittedly, not as invincibly stupid as the statist Dana Perino), the inviolable “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” is subject to the efficiency of a naturally illicit search.

Not for Greg Gutfeld are arguments from principle. Sitting in for Bill O’Reilly, Gutfeld declared that “this” was not about surveillance but about a progressive government that could not be trusted. The majority of Americans are equally adrift, oblivious to the individual liberties American Constitution makers bequeathed them. The individuals questioned by the polling professionals at the Pew Research Center were inclined to approve of the phone-call tapping of millions, if conducted by the party for which they voted.

Lawrence O’Donnell and his entourage at MSNBC—Alex Wagner and Chris Hayes, the most enthusiastic Obama bobbleheads on TV—acted all surprised about rudderless America, never implicating their daily, partisan promotionals in the process. The hosts harped on the fact that no harm had come from the NSA PRISM program. And, after all, was Obama not obligated to continue the incursions into liberty begun by Bush? C’est la vie. Wagner did display a modicum of remorse for her cover-up. She admitted that Obama had gone beyond the call of duty in expanding counterterrorism and state surveillance.

Neoconservatives such as Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal; retired United States Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, and radio talker Hugh Hewitt—all pronounced the NSA data sweep a non-scandal. Another neocon, Charles Krauthammer, saw Obama’s infractions as a vindication of Bush’s. The columnist invited Democrats now excusing Obama to pardon Bush and … party on.

Snowden came forth, in his words, “to reveal criminality.” But Fox News’ Megyn Kelly chose to mine crime from the ore of virtue. Kelly summoned a two-bit profiler, allegedly from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit—who sounded like she’d been plucked from the set of Criminal Minds—to expose “this guy.” Not to be outperformed by Kelly, the profiler unloaded terms like “loser” and “drop-out” on a man who has held many responsible positions within the intelligence community in his young life.

Yet another Fox News personality, Neil Cavuto, went on to compare Snowden to celebrity seducer Roman Polanski, who, in 1978, sought asylum in France after being convicted of sleeping with an American minor. Chimed Cavuto, “We don’t know why [Snowden] did what he did.”

Oh yes we do. Contra Cavuto, Snowden forsook creature comforts and worldly possessions to speak truth to power—and not to any power. The 29-year-old National Security Agency contractor has gone up “against the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies,” as he stated soberly. Snowden understands his chances of prevailing are not good. “[T]ey’re such powerful adversaries that no one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they will get you in time.”

In Snowden’s poignant words, “You can’t wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.” “I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American,” he summed-up so simply.

Yes, we need fewer personalities like Cavuto and more men of character like Snowden.

Those who’re not suspended in the moral abyss with mainstream media already know that Edward Snowden is the best of America. Let us prove ourselves worthy of his sacrifice. Come every Memorial Day—more aptly called “Dying For Nothing Day”—we direct a commonplace saying at members of a military that has not defended authentic American liberties for decades. It is, however, to a young man such as this that we should say:”Thank you for your service, Mr. Snowden.”

Read Ilana Mercer’s blog.