military industrial complex

The NSA-DEA police state tango

"As revolutionary and noted hypocrite Thomas Jefferson once observed, the spread of tyranny only requires our silence. Millions of people have been sent to prison on drug-war convictions over the last 20 years. Most of those people have been poor and black. We will never know how many of those cases resulted from secret evidence collected by spy agencies, but it might not be a small number. One of the Reuters articles that broke this story quotes DEA officials as saying that the 'parallel construction' tactic had been used by the agency 'virtually every day since the 1990s.'" Continue reading →

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Glenn Greenwald plans to release more Snowden files in 10 days

"Glenn Greenwald is planning to release more documents from the cache handed over to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden, claiming that what has been seen so far is just a very small slice compared to the bigger picture. Greenwald plans to make new revelations public 'within the next 10 days or so', expected to be related to secret US backed surveillance of the internet, worldwide. One of the conditions that Snowden had for receiving temporary asylum in Russia was that he stop leaking. But Greenwald already has access to these files - so technically speaking - these will not be fresh leaks but the disclosure of already leaked material." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald plans to release more Snowden files in 10 days

U.S. Navy admiral pushes officers to curtail ‘jargon and gibberish’

"The fight against acronyms, adjectives and adverbs is one Kirby attacked with a handful of examples. 'The world isn’t a dangerous place. It’s a ‘dynamic and complex international environment'' Kirby mocked. 'We didn’t tell people we were reducing to one the number of carriers in the Middle East. We told them we were responding to a ’1.0 carrier presence requirement in the CENTCOM AOR.'' Faced with declining resources and a growing gap between the military and the American people, officers must communicate better, the email implored." Continue reading →

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Obama’s Response To NSA Surveillance Still Lacking Justification

"It's a lot of rhetoric about transparency, with a few random claims about how important these programs are. Separately, he continued to insist that we're better than some other countries (setting the bar low) and that we don't spy on Americans -- despite the evidence from this morning that this isn't true. In answering questions, he insisted the two key programs being discussed, Section 215 of the Patriot Act and 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, were critical to finding important intelligence -- despite the fact that multiple Senators have insisted that there remains no evidence that Section 215 was necessary in any terrorist case." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama’s Response To NSA Surveillance Still Lacking Justification

NSA ditching 90 percent of its system administrators to avoid leaks

"NSA director Keith Alexander told a conference in New York City that headcount among its system administrators would be severely curtailed in the future. Roughly 1,000 such employees maintain the agency’s networks and equipment. The NSA is dismissing all those people in the name of secrecy. 'What we’ve done,' Alexander added, 'is we’ve put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing.' An automated system operated by a minimum of human beings, on the other hand, will make the NSA’s digital assets more defensible." Continue reading →

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Julian Assange: Obama ‘validated’ Snowden as a whistleblower

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called President Barack Obama’s announcement of plans to limit sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs a victory of sorts for fugitive former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden. 'Today was a victory of sorts for Edward Snowden and his many supporters,' Assange said in the statement, which was posted on the WikiLeaks website on Saturday. Assange accused the U.S. government of 'stunning' hypocrisy in its treatment of Snowden while it gave asylum to thousands of dissidents, whistleblowers and political refugees from countries like Russia and Venezuela." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJulian Assange: Obama ‘validated’ Snowden as a whistleblower

Are Mexican drug cartels recruiting U.S. soldiers as hit men?

"What would cause U.S. soldiers to utilize their skills in such ways? Well, quite frankly, the pay is good — really good. From their military income, Walker brings home around $2,500 per month and Corley about $4,500. Both had agreed to perform the hits for $50,000 each in addition to receiving a supply of cocaine. Burton said that trained soldiers from the U.S., Mexico and Guatemala are highly sought after — and extremely valuable — to the cartels, who can more readily and easily transport drugs into and throughout the states, as well as carry out hits within the country using U.S. servicemen." Continue reading →

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US Military Caught Manipulating Social Media, Mass Fake Accounts

"The New York Times report goes on to detail information uncovered from hacked data regarding the military operation to stage ‘grassroots’ responses and organizations in order to deceive via psyop. Professor of philosophy Peter Ludlow writes for the Times: 'The hack also revealed evidence that Team Themis was developing a 'persona management' system — a program, developed at the specific request of the United States Air Force, that allowed one user to control multiple online identities ('sock puppets'_ for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the appearance of grass roots support.'" Continue reading →

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Snowden revelations force Obama’s hand on surveillance program

"After his administration issued repeated defenses of a National Security Agency monitoring program that collects Americans' phone and Internet data, Obama announced during a press conference Friday afternoon that reforms to the system will make the collection activities more transparent and 'give the American people additional confidence that there are additional safeguards against abuse.' Officials will also launch a new website next week that will serve as 'a hub for further transparency' for interested members of the public." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSnowden revelations force Obama’s hand on surveillance program