Western Intel

Bush-Era NSA Whistleblower Makes Most Explosive Allegations Yet About Extent of Gov’t Surveillance

"Russ Tice, a former intelligence analyst and Bush-era NSA whistleblower, claimed Wednesday that the intelligence community has ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats. He also made another stunning allegation. He says the NSA had ordered wiretaps on phones connected to then-Senate candidate Barack Obama back in 2004. FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds and Tice agreed that such wide-ranging surveillance of officials could provide the intelligence agencies with unthinkable power to blackmail their opponents." Continue reading →

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Spyware claims emerge in spat over Chinese dissident at NYU

"When Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States in May last year he was given a fellowship at New York University, use of a Greenwich Village apartment, and a pile of gifts from supporters, including smartphones and an iPad. But at least two of the gadgets presented to Chen as gifts may not have been quite what they seemed: They included software intended to spy on the blind dissident, according to Jerome Cohen, an NYU professor who has been Chen’s mentor, and another source familiar with the episode." Continue reading →

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What the NSA Revelations Tell Us about America’s Police State

"Ongoing revelations by The Guardian and The Washington Post of massive, illegal secret state surveillance of the American people along with advanced plans for waging offensive cyberwarfare on a global scale, including inside the US, underscores what Antifascist Calling has reported throughout the five years of our existence: that democracy and democratic institutions in the United States are dead letters. If what the Bush and now, Obama regimes are doing is not Orwellian blanket surveillance of the American people, then words fail." Continue reading →

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CIA rolls out ‘new and improved website’

"The CIA prides itself on secrecy but the spy agency unveiled a revamped website Monday that promises a user-friendly layout and a 'sleeker, more modern web experience.' 'The new and improved website reflects CIA’s strong commitment to educating and informing the American people about the Agency’s history, mission, and organization,' John Brennan, CIA director, said in a statement. 'I encourage the public to explore the website and learn more about an American institution dedicated to protecting our country’s security,' said Brennan, known as the mastermind behind secret drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen." Continue reading →

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A General Gets Knifed

"In an administration that loves leak investigations, this is arguably the most significant one to date. The foreign-policy implications of identifying the Stuxnet virus as the handiwork of U.S. spies were enormous. The Obama administration's protests against Chinese cyber-espionage are undermined by the fact that America fired the first shot in a global cyberwar. And it arguably led to an escalation. U.S. intelligence believes that the cyberattack on the facilities of Saudi Aramco last year was carried out by the government of Iran. Yet there were members of the intelligence community who believe that the Stuxnet leak had its benefits." Continue reading →

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Why Roger Stone’s JFK book has to be taken seriously

"Roger Stone is the first JFK assassination author to have worked in the White House and among the few who have personal acquaintances with JFK’s sucessors. Stone’s background doesn’t mean that his interpretation of November 22, 1963, is necessarily correct, but he cannot be dismissed as 'conspiracy theorist' who is deluded about the realities of American politics and power. To the contrary, he has far more first-hand experience with those Washington realities than an academic like John McAdams or a prosecutor like VIncent Bugliosi. I think Stone’s indictment of Lyndon Johnson deserves to be taken more seriously than anyone else’s." Continue reading →

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How the Empire Works

"Former US intelligence asset John Perkins described how he and fellow 'Economic Hit Men' were used by Washington in a global loan-sharking scheme. The case of Yemen is instructive. In 1991, Yemen refused to vote in the UN in favor of the first Iraq War. Washington retaliated by cutting of all financial aid. Saudi Arabia expelled about a million Yemeni workers whose remittances were vital to the country’s economy. Yemen, which had barely become unified, descended into civil war and dictatorship. Today Yemen is ruled by a compliant puppet dictator who eagerly supports Washington’s drone warfare campaign against his subjects. Such are the ways of empire." Continue reading →

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How Much Are the NSA and CIA Front Running Markets?

"A 2008 paper by Arindrajit Dube, Ethan Kaplan, and Suresh Naidu (hat tip MS) found evidence that the CIA and/or members of the Executive branch either disclosed or acted on information about top-secret authorizations of coups. Stocks in 'highly exposed' firms rose more in the pre-coup authorization phase than they did when the coup was actually launched. Given the fact that there’s reason to believe that people in the intelligence with access to privileged information weren’t above leaking it to people who could take advantage of it, why should we expect things to be different now?" Continue reading →

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NSA has been blackmailing Supreme Court judges, members of Congress and more

"I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things -- they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the -- and judicial... They went after lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House -- their own people." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA has been blackmailing Supreme Court judges, members of Congress and more