military industrial complex

Seymour Hersh on bin Laden death: ‘One big lie, not one word of it is true’

"Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider. Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London’s summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSeymour Hersh on bin Laden death: ‘One big lie, not one word of it is true’

Seymour Hersh on bin Laden death: ‘One big lie, not one word of it is true’

"Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider. Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London’s summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSeymour Hersh on bin Laden death: ‘One big lie, not one word of it is true’

Seymour Hersh on bin Laden death: ‘One big lie, not one word of it is true’

"Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider. Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London’s summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSeymour Hersh on bin Laden death: ‘One big lie, not one word of it is true’

Sophisticated U.S. Arms Flowing to Jihadists

"Fox News is reporting a stunning theft of U.S. arms by jihadist salafists in Libya. This news item will be made much of by critics of Obama on the right. However, military and government blunders, cost overruns, unneeded weapons systems, and general mis-management are par for the course. Of more relevance is the light this sheds on the U.S. arms being shipped into Syria. There are no significant controls that prevent these arms from reaching the most terror-prone and jihadist elements among the Syrian rebels, whose numbers are large in proportion to all the rebels. This decision to ship arms was foolhardy from the get-go, and now it looks even more ill-conceived." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSophisticated U.S. Arms Flowing to Jihadists

Sophisticated U.S. Arms Flowing to Jihadists

"Fox News is reporting a stunning theft of U.S. arms by jihadist salafists in Libya. This news item will be made much of by critics of Obama on the right. However, military and government blunders, cost overruns, unneeded weapons systems, and general mis-management are par for the course. Of more relevance is the light this sheds on the U.S. arms being shipped into Syria. There are no significant controls that prevent these arms from reaching the most terror-prone and jihadist elements among the Syrian rebels, whose numbers are large in proportion to all the rebels. This decision to ship arms was foolhardy from the get-go, and now it looks even more ill-conceived." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSophisticated U.S. Arms Flowing to Jihadists

Dozens of NSA employees used surveillance system to spy on lovers

"In one case, a foreign national who worked for the U.S. government told a colleague she suspected that her boyfriend, who worked for the NSA, was eavesdropping on her phone calls. Investigators found the employee had been collected his girlfriend’s phone conversations with nine different women without valid purpose between 1998 and 2003, and he was suspended without pay and then resigned before he could be disciplined. In another case, a woman told the NSA that she’d recorded a conversation between her husband and a foreign telephone number because she suspected he’d been unfaithful. She also resigned before she could be punished, the inspector general said." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDozens of NSA employees used surveillance system to spy on lovers

Declassified Documents: NSA Spied On MLK Jr., Senators, Journalists

"The six-year spying program, dubbed 'Minaret,' had been exposed in the 1970s but the targets of the surveillance had been kept secret until now. The documents were published after the government panel overseeing classification ruled in favor of researchers at George Washington University who had long sought the release of the secret papers. The intensity of anti-war dissent at home led President Lyndon Johnson to ask US intelligence agencies in 1967 to find out if some protests were fueled by foreign powers. The NSA worked with other spy agencies to draw up 'watch lists' of anti-war critics to tap their overseas phone calls." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDeclassified Documents: NSA Spied On MLK Jr., Senators, Journalists

Greenwald: NSA’s view of drone opponents as ‘threats’ and ‘adversaries’

"Under the title 'adversary propaganda themes', the document lists what it calls 'examples of potential propaganda themes that could be employed against UAV operations'. It states: 'Attacks against American and European persons who have become violent extremists are often criticized by propagandists, arguing that lethal action against these individuals deprives them of due process.' In the eyes of the US government, 'due process' – the idea that the US government should not deprive people of life away from a battlefield without presenting evidence of guilt – is no longer a basic staple of the American political system, but rather a malicious weapon of 'propagandists'." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGreenwald: NSA’s view of drone opponents as ‘threats’ and ‘adversaries’

US Military Fills Social Networks With Fake Sock Puppet Accounts [2011]

"You may recall that one of the things that came out in the big HBGary Federal data dump was that the US government had put out a request (that HBGary was thinking of bidding on) for software that would let the government manage a bunch of social networking profiles at once, in order to create a series of different online personas on different social networks that could all be easily controlled by one person. Well, HBGary Federal didn't get the account... but someone else did. A company called Ntrepid has scored the contract and the US military is getting ready to roll out these 'sock puppet' online personas. Of course, it insists that all of this is targeting foreign individuals, not anyone in the US." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUS Military Fills Social Networks With Fake Sock Puppet Accounts [2011]