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Showing posts with label government spying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government spying. Show all posts
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Governments Using Spyware to Track and Control Citizens
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Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Saturday, June 18, 2011
CIA denies spying on US critic of Iraq war
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| The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) logo © AFP/File Saul Loeb |
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Central Intelligence Agency on Friday denied allegations by an ex-spy that it had sought information on a US professor who was critical of the Iraq war in order to discredit him.
Glenn Carle, who served as a top CIA counter-terrorism official, had told The New York Times that Bush administration officials twice sought to investigate Juan Cole, a history professor and widely read blogger.
Carle detailed two occasions in which he was approached by colleagues who were looking for information to discredit Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan, despite a legal ban on the agency spying on Americans.
"We've thoroughly researched our records, and any allegation that the CIA provided private or derogatory information on Professor Cole to anyone is simply wrong," he said.
"We value the insights of outside experts, including respected academics, who follow many of the same national security topics we do. Diversity of thought is essential to the business of intelligence analysis."
In a post on his "Informed Comment" blog on Thursday, an outraged Cole said he had been targeted for exposing "propaganda" by former president George W. Bush's administration and called on Congress to investigate the matter.
He also wrote that around the time of the alleged requests he began receiving less invitations from Washington think tanks to speak to audiences that included intelligence analysts and counterterrorism officials.
The Times cited intelligence officials as saying that they had asked an analyst for information on Cole in 2006 because White House officials wanted to know why he had been invited to CIA-sponsored conferences.
But on Friday a senior intelligence official insisted Cole "has participated in CIA conferences in the years since this alleged series of events -- in both the Bush and the Obama administrations."
"It's the smart thing -- and the right thing -- for American intelligence agencies to hear from smart people," the official said.
© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license
Friday, June 3, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
FBI using surveillance software to track suspects online
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| Dees Illustration |
Raw Story
Documents recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal detailed information about the FBI's electronic surveillance capabilities. TheElectronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed the FOIA request in 2007 after it was reported that the agency was using "secret spyware."
The documents show that software called the Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier (CIPAV) was used by the FBI since at least 2001. The software allows the FBI to collect a variety of information from a computer every time it connects to the Internet, including the IP address, Media Access Control (MAC) address, open communication ports, list of the programs running, URLs visited, and more.
It is unclear how the FBI installs the software on a computer, but it is suspected that the spyware exploits a vulnerability in the user's browser, like other common Internet viruses.
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Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Western Civilization Has Shed Its Values
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| Dees Illustration |
Infowars
Western Civilization no longer upholds the values it proclaims, so what is the basis for its claim to virtue?
For example, the U.S. print and TV media and the U.S. government have made it completely clear that they have no regard for the First Amendment. Consider CNN’s Wolf Blitzer’s reaction to the leaked diplomatic cables that reveal how the U.S. government uses deceptions, bribes, and threats to control other governments and to deceive the American and other publics. Blitzer is outraged that information revealing the U.S. government’s improprieties reached the people, or some of them. As Alexander Cockburn wrote, Blitzer demanded that the U.S. government take the necessary steps to make certain that journalists and the American people never again find out what their government is up to.
The disregard for the First Amendment is well established in the U.S. media, which functions as a propaganda ministry for the government. Remember the NSA leak given to the New York Times that the George W. Bush regime was violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spying on Americans without obtaining warrants from the FISA court? The New York Times spiked the story for one year and did not release it until after Bush’s reelection. By then, the Bush regime had fabricated a legal doctrine that “authorized” Bush to violate U.S. law.
Glenn Greenwald writing at Salon has exposed the absence of moral standards among WikiLeaks’ critics. WikiLeaks’ critics could not make it clearer that they do not believe in accountable government. And to make certain that the government is not held accountable, WikiLeaks’ critics are calling for every possible police state measure, including extra-judicial murder, to stamp out anyone who makes information available that enables the citizenry to hold government accountable.
The U.S. government definitely does not believe in accountable government. Among the first things the Obama regime did was to make certain that there would be no investigation into the Bush regime’s use of lies, fabricated “intelligence,” and deception of the American public and the United Nations in order to further its agenda of conquering the independent Muslim states in the Middle East and turning them into U.S. puppets. The Obama regime also made certain that no member of the Bush regime would be held accountable for violating U.S. and international laws, for torturing detainees, for war crimes, for privacy violations or for any of the other criminal acts of the Bush regime.
As the cables leaked by a patriotic American to WikiLeaks reveal, the U.S. government was even able to prevent accountable government in the UK by having British prime minister Brown “fix” the official Chilcot Inquiry into the deceptions used by former prime minister Tony Blair to lead the British into serving as mercenaries in America’s wars. The U.S. was able to do this because the British prime minister does not believe in accountable government either.
The leaked documents show that the last thing the U.S. government wants anywhere is a government that is accountable to its own citizens instead of to the U.S. government.
The U.S. government’s frontal assault on freedom of information goes well beyond WikiLeaks and shutting down its host servers. In a Dec. 2 editorial, “Wave Good-bye to Internet freedom,” the Washington Times reports that Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski has “outlined a plan to expand the federal government’s power over the Internet.”
The obvious, but unasked, question is: Why does the U.S. government fear the American people and believe that only news that is managed and spun by the government is fit to print? Is there an agenda afoot to turn citizens into subjects?
Perhaps the most discouraging development is the accusation that is being spread via the Internet that Julian Assange is a dupe or even a covert agent used by the CIA and Mossad to spread disinformation that furthers U.S. and Israeli agendas. This accusation might come from intelligence services striving to protect governments by discrediting the leaked information. However, it has gained traction because some of the cables contain false information. Some have concluded, incorrectly, that the false information was put into the documents for the purpose of being leaked.
There is another explanation for the false information. Diplomats concerned with advancing their careers learn to tell their bosses what they want to hear, whether true or false. Diplomats understand that the U.S. government has agendas that it cannot declare and that they are expected to support these agendas by sending in reports that validate the undeclared agendas. For example, the U.S. government cannot openly say that it is endeavoring to create a climate of opinion that gives the U.S. a green light for eliminating the independent Iranian government and re-establishing an American puppet state. U.S. “diplomats,” a.k.a. spies, understand this and fabricate the information that supports the agenda.
In my opinion, the most important of all the cables leaked is the secret directive sent by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to 33 U.S. embassies and consulates ordering U.S. diplomats to provide credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers, frequent-flyer account numbers, and biographic and biometric information including DNA information on U.N. officials from the secretary-general down, including “heads of peace operations and political field missions.”
The directive has been characterized as the spy directive, but this is an unusual kind of spying. Usually, spying focuses on what other governments think, how they are likely to vote on U.S. initiatives, who can be bribed, and on sexual affairs that could be used to blackmail acquiescence to U.S. agendas.
In contrast, the information requested in the secret directive is the kind of information that would be used to steal a person’s identity.
Why does the U.S. government want information that would enable it to steal the identities of U.N. officials and impersonate them?
The U.S. government loves to pretend that its acts of naked aggression are acts of liberation mandated by “the world community.” The world community has been less supportive of U.S. aggression since it learned that the Bush regime lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, the U.N. has not given Washington the green light Washington wants for a military assault on Iran. Neither has the U.N. given Washington the extreme sanctions that it wants the world community to impose on Iran.
As the U.N. refused Washington’s menu of sanctions, Washington unilaterally added its own sanction package to the U.N. sanctions, to the dismay of the Russians and other governments who believed that they had arrived at a compromise with Washington over the Iran sanctions issue.
Could it be that Washington wants to be able to impersonate U.N. officials and country delegates so that it can compromise them by involving them in fake terrorist plots, communications with terrorists real or contrived, money laundering, sex scandals, and other such means of suborning their cooperation with Washington’s agendas? All the CIA has to do is to call a Taliban or Hamas chief on a U.N. official’s telephone number or send a compromising fax with a U.N. official’s fax number or have operatives pay for visits to prostitutes with a U.N. official’s credit card number.
The report in the Guardian on Dec. 2 that the CIA drew up the U.N. spy directive signed off by Hillary Clinton is a good indication that the United States government intended to compromise the United Nations and turn the organization, as it has done with so many governments, into a compliant instrument of American policy.
Perhaps there is another plausible explanation of why the U.S. government desired information that would enable it to impersonate U.N. officials, but as a person who had a 25-year career in Washington I cannot think of what it might be.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously the editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds
,” details why America is disintegrating.RELATED ARTICLES:
WikiLeaks Being Used to Justify "Patriot Act" Legislation for Internet
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Sunday, December 5, 2010
Government reports violations of limits on spying aimed at U.S. citizens
Washington Post
The federal government has repeatedly violated legal limits governing the surveillance of U.S. citizens, according to previously secret internal documents obtained through a court battle by the American Civil Liberties Union.
In releasing 900 pages of documents, U.S. government agencies refused to say how many Americans’ telephone, e-mail or other communications have been intercepted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – or FISA – Amendments Act of 2008, or to discuss any specific abuses, the ACLU said. Most of the documents were heavily redacted.
However, semiannual internal oversight reports by the offices of the attorney general and director of national intelligence identify ongoing breaches of legal requirements that limit when Americans are targeted and minimize the amount of data collected.
The documents note that although oversight teams did not find evidence of “intentional or willful attempts to violate or circumvent the law . . . certain types of compliance incidents continue to occur,” as a March 2009 report stated.
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Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Watchdog Probes DHS Spying on Drudge
Prison Planet
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by former Congressman Bob Barr seeks to discover whether the Department of Homeland Security has been keeping tabs on the Drudge Report and other prominent media outlets who have spearheaded a nationwide revolt against invasive TSA airport security measures.
The FOIA request, filed by Barr’s Liberty Guard organization (PDF here), demands that the Transportation Security Administration, an agency of the DHS, turn over all information related to “Matt Drudge,” the “Drudge Report,” along with other media personalities and websites that have been at the center of the TSA controversy, including “Alex Jones, “John Tyner” and “prisonplanet.com”.
The request seeks to ascertain whether any of these names have been linked with the term “domestic extremist,” in reference to a reported TSA memo that was leaked last week which, according to Doug Hagmann, “officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as ‘domestic extremists’.”
Numerous confirmed memos originating out of federal or state law enforcement agencies,such as the infamous MIAC report, have listed conservatives and libertarians as “domestic extremists” and even potential domestic terrorists for opposing big government and supporting Constitutionally-minded campaigns and causes.
Barr’s attempt to discover whether the federal government is treating critics of the TSA as domestic extremists is key in light of TSA chief John Pistole’s announcement yesterday that all travelers flying in US airspace would be checked against a government watch list before they are given permission to board an aircraft, a system some have likened to Communist-style internal checkpoints.
The notion that Matt Drudge, a constant thorn in the side of ‘Big Sis’ Janet Napolitano, along with other prominent media critics of the TSA, could be the target of DHS surveillance is hardly far fetched considering the fact that Homeland Security was caught recently spying on Tea Party groups as well as State Representative Daryl Metcalfe.
The TSA is turning into an arm of the DHS’ political police force – how long before Matt Drudge, Bob Barr and Alex Jones are put on a list and prevented from flying? Will everyone who opposes being radiated in a naked body scanner or having their kids felt up by TSA goons be put on a list?
Drudge has been at the forefront of a national rebellion against the TSA’s new enhanced pat down procedures which subject travelers, including children, the disabled and the elderly, to humiliating treatment which falls not far short of sexual molestation.
The Freedom of Information Act request also aims to uncover why the TSA made the decision to “stand down” on its normal security procedures the day before Thanksgiving in what was a blatant public relations ploy to deflate the impact of the national opt out day protest which had been scheduled for the same day.
“We’d like to think that the TSA has been listening to citizens concerned about being given a choice between naked imaging or pat down searches of people’s private parts,” said former Congressman Bob Barr, Liberty Guard’s Chairman. “If this is the indeed the case, we’d like to commend the TSA for applying a bit of common sense to the controversial situation. However, it’s far more likely the reason was political and we think the public should be made aware of the motivations of our country’s security chiefs.”
As we highlighted on Monday, according to numerous reports, major airports around the country roped off body scanners and refrained from conducting the more invasive pat downs on national opt out day. Our own reporters, who were flying from Denver International Airport, confirmed that the body scanners were out of use and pat downs were either light or non-existent.
This was later spun by the TSA and the establishment media to claim that the body scanner opt out protest had been a total failure, when in fact that majority of the body scanners were not even in use and millions more had boycotted airports altogether and traveled via clogged highways.
“Considering recent hardline statements made by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole, this apparent sudden reversal in the TSA’s direction warrants additional scrutiny,” said Joe Seehussen, President of Liberty Guard. “We’d like to know if we can expect a policy shift from the TSA or if they were merely attempting to shut down the public outcry regarding their search procedures.”
Statement from Alex Jones, one of the individuals named in the FOIA request.
“If the TSA really believes that the terror threat is so imminent that old ladies have to have hands put down their pants, then why did they turn off scanners on the busiest travel day of year?”*********************
“This is right out of the old Soviet Union and then some, the TSA is boldly going where no police state has ever gone before, sticking hands down people’s pants and radiating them, and when the public speaks up about it and the press reports on it they’re labeled extremists and spied on?”
“The TSA needs to be investigated by Congress and grand juries for standing down and removing security on the busiest travel day of year, security that they say is so vital to prevent terror attacks.”
“They didn’t announce they had changed security, then simply lied to everyone while mockingly taunting critics in claiming that the public loved the pat downs and scanners.”
“This is a group of bureaucrats gone wild, Big Sis is developing the TSA as a Gestapo force to be used on the streets of America, trained to humiliate Americans on highways, at shopping malls, sporting events and any other public gathering. Regardless of your political persuasion, me must stand up to this tyranny in unison.”
“Now the TSA is talking about putting its critics on lists? How about we put everyone who’s a real American on a list and then we can see who’s not on the list and find out who the real enemies are. Let Matt Drudge and Alex Jones go down in history as being at the top of the list when it comes to opposing sticking hands down children’s pants and groping them.”
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Coalition of 45 groups seeks investigation of FBI over peace activist raids
Raw Story
On September 24th, the FBI raided the homes of 14 peace activists in Minneapolis and Chicago, ostensibly searching for possible "material support" to terrorist organizations.
Nearly two months later, a coalition of 45 civil rights, human rights, peace and environmental groups have mounted a campaign to press Congress for an investigation of federal law enforcement's conduct, claiming the raids violated constitutional protections and could reflect a growing politicization of law enforcement.
"These raids suggest an ongoing trend of intrusive government surveillance of progressive activists in the United States," they wrote in a joint letter to President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, the leaders of Congress and FBI director Robert Mueller. "Prosecutions for protected political activity have a chilling effect, not just in the communities in which they occur, but also on the First Amendment rights of all Americans."
No arrests were made and the FBI said there was no "imminent danger" to the public.
"The problem here is, at the same time our government is criminalizing what used to be constitutionally protected, the FBI is regaining access to an expanding set of intrusive investigative tactics," explained Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, in an interview with Raw Story.
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Activism in The Age of Tyranny and Terror
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