Blackwater's Black Ops | The Nation# Internal documents reveal the firm's clandestine work for multinationals and governments. Over the past several years, entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation . Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation. About the Author Jeremy Scahill Also by the Author What relationship Prado's CCG has with the CIA is not known.
P.A.N.D.A. People Against The NDAA | Declaring independence from tyranny since 1776 The internet is a threat to human civilization: Julian Assange’s A Call to Cryptographic Arms | via P2P Foundation | Social Network Unionism The following is excerpted from Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, by Julian Assange with Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn and Jérémie Zimmermann. OR Books, New York, 2012, Pages 1-7. – Julian Assange, London, October 2012: “This book is not a manifesto. The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia. These transformations have come about silently, because those who know what is going on work in the global surveillance industry and have no incentives to speak out. While many writers have considered what the internet means for global civilization, they are wrong. No description of the world survives first contact with the enemy. We have met the enemy. Over the last six years WikiLeaks has had conflicts with nearly every powerful state. What is to be done? Once upon a time in a place that was neither here nor there, we, the constructors and citizens of the young internet discussed the future of our new world. But we discovered something.
» Vote Obama For Unaccountable Drone Warfare. Vote Romney For Unaccountable Drone Warfare. Alex Jones Both candidates agree, secret kill lists and unaccountable CIA ‘double tap’ drone strikes are necessarySteve Watson Infowars.com Oct 23, 2012 Last night’s debate highlighted the fact that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in full agreement with each other that secret unmanned US missile strikes, documented to have killed thousands of innocent people, are “necessary” and “right “. When Romney was asked about the US policy of drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere, he responded: “Well, I believe that we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world. And it’s widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes, and I support that entirely and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology, and believe that we should continue to use it, to continue to go after the people who represent a threat to this nation and to our friends.” And Mitt Romney “supports that entirely.” Tags: drones, foreign affairs
OK for police to search cellphone if no password, says court - Toronto The court says it's okay for police to look through someone's cellphone under certain conditions. (CBC) Ontario's highest court has signalled that the right of police officers to look through someone's phone depends on whether there's a password. The Court of Appeal for Ontario says it's all right for police to have a cursory look through the phone upon arrest if it's not password protected, but if it is, investigators should get a search warrant. The court's ruling comes in the case of a man who appealed his robbery conviction, arguing that police breached his charter rights by looking through his phone after his arrest. Kevin Fearon was arrested in July 2009, after a jewelry stall at a flea market in Toronto was robbed, and police found pictures of a gun and cash as well as a text message about jewelry on his phone. "Rather, because the phone was not password protected, the photos and the text message were readily available to other users."
4 high-tech ways the federal government is spying on private citizens | Today in Tech Like it or not, the government is becoming increasingly watchful of everyone... even you One of the running jokes in the 1980s was how the former Soviet Union spied on its private citizens. As comedian Yakov Smirnoff used to joke: "In Soviet Russia, TV watches you!" But here in America, we were all safe from the prying eyes of the government. Fast forward to 2012, when the U.S. government actually has the tools and capabilities to spy on all its citizens. Does a new Utah facility really monitor your emails? 1. The $2 billion facility, slated to be complete by September 2013, is allegedly designed to be able to filter through yottabytes (10^24 bytes) of data. The good news (if there is any) is that the sheer volume of internet traffic and emails sent in a single day is far too much to be read by human eyes. 2. What kind of information does the government want from its applicants? Of course, Jobs is far from the only figure with an FBI file. Is your data out there for the taking? 3. 4.
So When will Dick Cheney be charged with Espionage? His Crime was the Same as Snowden's The US government charged Edward Snowden with theft of government property and espionage on Friday. Snowden hasn’t to our knowledge committed treason in any ordinary sense of the term. He hasn’t handed over government secrets to a foreign government. His leaks are being considered a form of domestic spying. He is the 7th leaker to be so charged by the Obama administration. All previous presidents together only used the charge 3 times. Charging leakers with espionage is outrageous, but it is par for the course with the Obama administration. The same theory under which Edward Snowden is guilty of espionage could easily be applied to former vice president Dick Cheney. Cheney led an effort in 2003 to discredit former acting ambassador in Iraq, Joseph Wilson IV, who had written an op ed for the New York Times detailing his own mission to discover if Iraq was getting uranium from Niger. And yet, Cheney mysteriously has not been charged with Espionage.
The Raw Story | 'Karl Rove's IT guru' Mike Connell dies in plane crash 'Karl Rove's IT guru' Mike Connell dies in plane crash UPDATE AT THIS LINK: GOP consultant killed in plane crash was warned of sabotage A top level Republican IT consultant who was set to testify in a case alleging GOP election tampering in Ohio died in a plane crash late Friday night. Michael Connell -- founder of Ohio-based New Media Communications, which created campaign Web sites for George W. "The plane was attempting to land around 6 p.m. Connell's exploits as a top GOP IT 'guru' have been well documented by RAW STORY's investigative team. The interest in Mike Connell stems from his association with a firm called GovTech, which he had spun off from his own New Media Communications under his wife Heather Connells name. Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney 04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates. "Mr.
the-amount-truth-rhetoric-politics Pentagon admits it has no photo evidence of Bin Laden's death (Includes interview) Pentagon officials recently disclosed to the Associated Press (AP) that they could not find any photo or video evidence to confirm that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed in the Navy Seal raid in Pakistan a year ago. AP has submitted more than 20 requests for information surrounding the raid on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound to the U.S. Government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In response to the request for visual evidence of Bin Laden’s death, the Pentagon stated that it could not find any pictures or video footage of the raid itself or of Bin Laden’s dead body. It also told AP it could not locate any images of Bin Laden’s body that were taken on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, the Navy aircraft carrier that reportedly lowered him into the sea after his death. Read more...
New WikiLeaks Cables Show US Diplomats Promote Genetically Engineered Crops Worldwide Dozens of United States diplomatic cables released in the latest WikiLeaks dump on Wednesday reveal new details of the US effort to push foreign governments to approve genetically engineered (GE) crops and promote the worldwide interests of agribusiness giants like Monsanto and DuPont. The cables further confirm previous Truthout reports on the diplomatic pressure the US has put on Spain and France, two countries with powerful anti-GE crop movements, to speed up their biotech approval process and quell anti-GE sentiment within the European Union (EU). Several cables describe "biotechnology outreach programs" in countries across the globe, including African, Asian and South American countries where Western biotech agriculture had yet to gain a foothold. Cables detail US efforts to influence the biotech policies of developed countries such as Egypt and Turkey, but France continues to stand out as a high-profile target.