Western Intel

NYPD collaborated with CIA on surveillance after 9/11

"Campaigners for greater accountability at New York’s powerful police force have seized on a report that details for the first time the extent of the collaboration between the CIA and the NYPD in the years after 9/11. The formerly-classified inspector general’s report also raises new questions over whether the spy agency’s partnership with the nation’s largest police department amounted to unofficial cover for CIA officers to operate in the US in ways that could otherwise be deemed unlawful. The 12-page document contains the December 2011 findings of an investigation into the CIA’s training and support of the NYPD that included embedding four officers in the department." Continue reading →

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Judge throws out Abu Ghraib detainees’ torture case citing jurisdiction

"U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Virginia said he lacked jurisdiction to hear claims brought by the four Iraqi plaintiffs under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and separate claims by one plaintiff that he said were barred under Iraqi law. Lee ruled eight months after Engility Holdings Inc, a spinoff of L-3 Communications Holdings Inc, paid $5.28 million to settle similar claims. Photos depicting abuse of Abu Ghraib detainees emerged in 2004. While no contractors were charged, some detainees accused their workers in lawsuits of physical and sexual abuse, inflicting electric shocks, and conducting mock executions." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJudge throws out Abu Ghraib detainees’ torture case citing jurisdiction

Evidence Snowden is Being Protected By the CIA?

"Apparently the Justice Department sent its documents to Hong Kong with the WRONG MIDDLE NAME for Snowden. I know government bureaucrats have little motivation to do their jobs well, but give me a break. It very well could be that they purposefully submitted incorrect documents to delay the process and allow him to get out. Perhaps more evidence that he's under CIA protection and is part of a turf war." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEvidence Snowden is Being Protected By the CIA?

British inventor of the World Wide Web scolds ‘insidious’ Western governments over spying

"The British inventor of the World Wide Web accused Western governments of hypocrisy in spying on the Internet while lecturing repressive leaders across the world for doing exactly the same. Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989 as the Berlin Wall crumbled, said the West was involved in 'insidious' online spying that could change the way normal people use their computers. Berners-Lee said the revelations about U.S. and British spying could alter the way people use the internet, especially for younger generations who can use it in intimate ways. He also questioned whether the governments could safeguard sensitive data once collected." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBritish inventor of the World Wide Web scolds ‘insidious’ Western governments over spying

Der Spiegel: Public Must Fight against Prism and Tempora Surveillance

"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. 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." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDer Spiegel: Public Must Fight against Prism and Tempora Surveillance

Is the National Security Agency behind Bitcoin?

"Recently a 1996 NSA report surfaced, ‘predicting’ a crypto-cyber unit eerily close to Bitcoin. The NSA report goes deeply into the challenges a crypto currency faces and lists the various security and implicated regulatory risks. Amazingly, a key writer of the report is called Tatsuaki Okamoto. In the Bitcoin community this has been picked up as remarkably similar to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of the enigmatic developer of Bitcoin. An interesting issue is In-Q-Tel’s involvement. In-Q-Tel is the ‘not for profit’ investment arm of the CIA. In-Q-Tel is investing or planning on investing in Bitcoin, presumably by buying some of them." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIs the National Security Agency behind Bitcoin?

CIA agents training Syrian rebels since late 2012

"The CIA and US special operations forces have been training Syrian rebels for months, since long before President Barack Obama announced plans to arm the opposition, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. Training for rebel forces covers the use of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons and has been carried out at bases in Jordan and Turkey since late last year. The two-week courses, for about 20 to 45 fighters at a time, began last November at a new US base in the desert in southwest Jordan, it said. The report came days after the Obama administration announced it had approved the arming of Syrian rebels." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCIA agents training Syrian rebels since late 2012

National-Security State Toadies Are Guilty Of Hypocrisy On Snowden

"They say that Snowden should have stayed here in the United States instead of fleeing to Hong Kong. They say that if he were a genuine hero, as his supporters say he is, he would have remained in the United States, where the national-security state would have incarcerated him, tortured him, and executed him. Oh? Well, pray tell, national-security state toadies: Where were you all when those CIA agents skedaddled out of Italy after committing felonious offenses in that country? The problem with kidnapping and torture is that they’re criminal offenses under Italian law, which is precisely why those CIA agents got criminally indicted and later convicted and sentenced." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNational-Security State Toadies Are Guilty Of Hypocrisy On Snowden

Michael Hastings’ Final Article Before Car Explosion: ‘Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans’

"For most bigwig Democrats in Washington, D.C., the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties, full stop. Glenn Greenwald’s exposure of the NSA’s massive domestic spy program has revealed the entire caste of current Democratic leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security. 'Everyone should just calm down,' Senator Harry Reid said yesterday, inhaling slowly. That’s right: don’t panic." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMichael Hastings’ Final Article Before Car Explosion: ‘Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans’

GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at G20 summits

"Foreign politicians and officials who took part in 2009 G20 summit meetings had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic. The disclosure raises new questions about GCHQ and the National Security Agency, whose access to phone records and internet data has been defended as necessary in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. The G20 spying appears to have been organised for the more mundane purpose of securing an advantage in meetings." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at G20 summits