Tag Archives: cia

If This Does Not Chill You To The Bone, You Are Already Dead

14 Jun

Heard anything about the PRISM scandal?

No?

Well then, as we have grown accustomed to saying (but why?), “Google it … Google is your friend”.

Er … perhaps not.

In our world of digital everything, no one is your friend.

From Zero Hedge, a must read (reproduced in full, all emphasis in original … and watch carefully for the “Telstra” reference):

The rabbit hole just got deeper. A whole lot deeper.

On Sunday we predicated that “there’s one reason why the administration, James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the PRISM-gate fallout escalates: with every incremental attempt to refute some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on.”

And like a hole that just gets deeper the more you dug and exposes ever more dirt, tonight’s installment revealing one more facet of the conversion of a once great republic into a great fascist, “big brother” state, comes from Bloomberg which reports that “thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.”

The companies extend far wider than the legacy telcos, such as Verizon, that launched the entire NSA-spying scandal a week ago: “Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.”

Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.

And since what goes on behind the scenes is confidential, literally anything goes: “Along with the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and branches of the U.S. military have agreements with such companies to gather data that might seem innocuous but could be highly useful in the hands of U.S. intelligence or cyber warfare units, according to the people, who have either worked for the government or are in companies that have these accords.”

Some of the back and forth is innocuous, such as Microsoft revealing ahead of time the nature of its exposed bugs (ostensibly providing the government with a back door into any system using a Microsoft OS, but since it’s don’t ask, dont’ tell, nobody really knows). However the bulk of the interaction is steeped in secrecy: “Most of the arrangements are so sensitive that only a handful of people in a company know of them, and they are sometimes brokered directly between chief executive officers and the heads of the U.S.’s major spy agencies, the people familiar with those programs said.”

More on this “company within a company”:

Typically, a key executive at a company and a small number of technical people cooperate with different agencies and sometimes multiple units within an agency, according to the four people who described the arrangements.

If necessary, a company executive, known as a “committing officer,” is given documents that guarantee immunity from civil actions resulting from the transfer of data. The companies are provided with regular updates, which may include the broad parameters of how that information is used.

Remember how they say conspiracies are impossible because too many people know about them, and the information always eventually leaks? Well not if you contain it to a handful of people in any organization, and force them to sign a bloody NDA, pledging one’s first born in the case of secrecy breach.

An example of a company that is happy to “communicate” with tht the government is Intel’s McAfee internet security unit, which in addition to everything is one giant backdoor entrance for the government. If need be of course:

Intel Corp. (INTC)’s McAfee unit, which makes Internet security software, regularly cooperates with the NSA, FBI and the CIA, for example, and is a valuable partner because of its broad view of malicious Internet traffic, including espionage operations by foreign powers, according to one of the four people, who is familiar with the arrangement.

Such a relationship would start with an approach to McAfee’s chief executive, who would then clear specific individuals to work with investigators or provide the requested data, the person said. The public would be surprised at how much help the government seeks, the person said.

McAfee firewalls collect information on hackers who use legitimate servers to do their work, and the company data can be used to pinpoint where attacks begin. The company also has knowledge of the architecture of information networks worldwide, which may be useful to spy agencies who tap into them, the person said.

Google, another participant in PRISM, already lied about its participation in the covert-op:

Following an attack on his company by Chinese hackers in 2010, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, was provided with highly sensitive government intelligence linking the attack to a specific unit of the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military, according to one of the people, who is familiar with the government’s investigation. Brin was given a temporary classified clearance to sit in on the briefing, the person said.

According to information provided by Snowden, Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, had at that point been a Prism participant for more than a year.

Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog posting June 7 that he hadn’t heard of a program called Prism until after Snowden’s disclosures and that the Mountain View, California-based company didn’t allow the U.S. government direct access to its servers or some back-door to its data centers. He said Google provides user data to governments “only in accordance with the law.”

Ah yes, the law that no mere mortal can observe in action, and which has zero popular checks and balances. So what specifically does Google provide to the government? “Highly offensive information” it appears.

That metadata includes which version of the operating system, browser and Java software are being used on millions of devices around the world, information that U.S. spy agencies could use to infiltrate those computers or phones and spy on their users.

“It’s highly offensive information,” said Glenn Chisholm, the former chief information officer for Telstra Corp (TLS)., one of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies, contrasting it to defensive information used to protect computers rather than infiltrate them.

Going back to Obama’s promise on live TV that nobody was listening in to any conversations, one wonders: why did the major telecom companies “ask for guarantees that they wouldn’t be held liable under U.S. wiretap laws.” Because if the companies demanded a waiver, they obviously were wiretapping, i.e., eavesdropping, and doing so on US citizens, or those protected by US laws. And that’s why Obama should have just kept his mouth shut, instead of having to explain what he meant and that he never said what he said.

Before they agreed to install the system on their networks, some of the five major Internet companies — AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon Communications Inc (VZ)., Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), Level 3 Communications Inc (LVLT). and CenturyLink Inc (CTL). — asked for guarantees that they wouldn’t be held liable under U.S. wiretap laws. Those companies that asked received a letter signed by the U.S. attorney general indicating such exposure didn’t meet the legal definition of a wiretap and granting them immunity from civil lawsuits, the person said.

Ah, the US Attorney General – because what is another Obama scandal that doesn’t involve his primary henchman Eric Holder…

Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Dallas-based AT&T, the nation’s biggest phone carrier, declined to comment. Edward McFadden, a spokesman for New York-based Verizon, the second-largest phone company, declined to comment. Scott Sloat, a spokesman for Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint, and Monica Martinez, a spokeswoman for Broomfield, Colorado-based Level 3, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

No need to comment – it’s quite clear.

The last question remains: what do companies get out of this proactive betrayal of their clients? Well, in some cases, such as those of IBM and Amazon as we described yesterday, they get lucrative government (CIA) contracts for billions of dollars. But that’s just taxpayer cash. Where it gets worse is when the kickbacks are yet more secrets.

In exchange, leaders of companies are showered with attention and information by the agencies to help maintain the relationship, the person said. In other cases, companies are given quick warnings about threats that could affect their bottom line, including serious Internet attacks and who is behind them.

In other words, what is going on behind the scenes is nothing more than one vast, very selective, extremely secretive, symbiotic and perfectly “legal” giant information exchange network, which allows corporations to profit off classified government information either in kind or in cash, and which allows the government to have all the information at its disposal, collected using public and private venues, in order to protect itself, to take out those it designates as targets, or simply said – to get ever bigger.

The loser in all of this?

You.

UPDATE:

From the UK Express –

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

THE whistleblower behind the largest leak of classified information in the history of the US National Security Agency (NSA) is not welcome in Britain, the Home Office has said because he is “detrimental to the public good.”

Edward Snowden has not been welcomed to come to the UK

Edward Snowden has not been welcomed to come to the UK

The Government has issued an alert to airlines around the world, urging them not to allow Edward Snowden to fly to the United Kingdom.

The alert, on a Home Office letterhead, said carriers should deny boarding to Snowden because “the individual is highly likely to be refused entry to the UK.”

…

Snowden, 29, revealed himself last week as the source of top-secret documents about controversial American surveillance programs.

He said he revealed America’s snooping of citizens’ internet use for a “better world”.

“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under,” he said.

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Bravo! To “Conspiracy Nut” Elizabeth Farrelly

12 Apr

Wonders will never cease. A mainstream journalist with the courage to write a column whose content will inevitably invite her public vilification as a “conspiracy nutter”. As she clearly foresaw … and yet, wrote it anyway:

I’m not given to conspiracy theories, incompetence being so much easier to imagine, but one thing gives credibility to Clive Palmer’s otherwise nutty CIA phantasm about US influence in Australia.

It is Julian Assange, a story that hinges on the uncomfortable relationship between truth and power.

We expect truth-telling from our four-year-olds but not from our politicians. In the case of Assange, truth is actively and repeatedly punished.

This implies that, as you move up through society’s power strata, there’s a point where morality flips.

A sort of moral inversion layer, beneath which the rules apply but above which they’re reversed.

The modern Labor Party seems to illustrate this as well as anyone.

…

I mention all this not just to illustrate that high-level grubbiness is so normal we almost expect it, but to highlight a more sinister possibility; that we, like the Philippines, are a puppet US state, where truth comes second to power.

This kind of talk I’ve always resisted. Yet it is now undeniable that, at US behest, Julian Assange stands to lose his liberty, indefinitely, for telling the truth. And the very same Labor Party, with its CIA-assisted PM and its concern for truth re-education, lifts not a finger to help him.

It’s quite clear that Assange is not guilty – not of rape, not of treason. As Malcolm Turnbull, responding to Gillard’s “illegal” claim, told a Sydney University law school audience last year, it is prima facie clear that Assange has broken no Australian law.

In words of one syllable, the Australian Federal Police agrees. There has been no breach of our law.

Bravo!

Isn’t truth a wonderful thing, dear reader?

Prioritising the quest for Truth above all else allows one to agree with those who you would, on other subjects, vehemently disagree with.

Like mainstream journalists.

And Malcolm Turnbull.

Elizabeth Farrelly is right.

And she is not the only female journalist who smells conspiracy in our government. And has finally found the courage to publish her observations of what is, in fact, nothing more than an uncomfortable yet blindingly obvious reality.

Here is Their ABC’s Annabel Crabb on the FWA/Craig Thomson protection racket, and the Australia Network/Chris Conroy totalitarian censorship fiasco:

Everyone knows that when faced with a choice between conspiracy and incompetence, the best explanation is usually incompetence, but in this case we are now dealing with some pretty special incompetence.

As of this week, conspiracy is now the more obvious conclusion.

Quite so Annabel.

Quite so.

Oh yes, and about the “conspiracy theory” of covert (and increasingly overt) US “influence” in Australian governance.

Regular readers may recall my irony-laden post This Will End Well in November last year, on the Gillard announcement of a permanently increased US military presence on our sovereign territory.

Today, a former leader of the Australian Army agrees that I was right.

Exactly right:

General Peter Leahy warns of US-China collision

FORMER Australian army chief Peter Leahy has urged Australia to tread warily in expanding its military ties with the US to ensure they do not “lead to increased tension and even conflict” with China.

Warning against becoming “caught” between the US as its security guarantor and China as its economic underwriter, Professor Leahy has welcomed Australia’s decision to play host to US marines, but noted that “too much of a good thing” could put unnecessary pressure on China.

His comments, in an opinion piece in today’s edition of The Australian, came as the China Daily state-owned newspaper hit out at Australia’s expanding links with the US, warning they could spark a collapse of trust and endanger Sino-Australian economic ties.

In a strongly worded editorial, the newspaper yesterday also warned that the Gillard government’s decision last month to ban Chinese communications giant Huawei from bidding for work in the $36 billion National Broadband Network had created the perception in Beijing that Australia wanted to obstruct Chinese companies.

…

Relations between China and Australia have been under pressure since US President Barack Obama visited Canberra in November to announce plans to station up to 2500 US marines in Darwin within five years. The deployment, which started last week, was part of a US push to shift its defence posture towards Asia in recognition of the growing influence of China and India.

Chinese suspicions were further provoked last month when The Washington Post reported that the US was interested in using the Australia-controlled Cocos Islands as a base for surveillance drones.

Professor Leahy, who led the army between 2002 and 2008 and is now director of the University of Canberra’s National Security Institute, argues against Australia becoming too closely tied to the US. “As a sovereign nation Australia should maintain the ability to say ‘no’ to the US and separate itself from their actions,” he writes, predicting the US marines agreement will lead to US pressure for even closer military ties with Australia, including greater access for American air and naval forces.

“These are momentous decisions with far-reaching consequences. They potentially implicate Australia in a series of actions that could lead to increased tension and even conflict with China.

“War is improbable but not impossible. Australia needs to be careful that it does not make inevitable the future that it should fear the most.”

Yesterday’s China Daily article accused Australia of jumping on “the bandwagon” of a US push to “contain” China, putting at risk the close economic ties developed since diplomatic relations were normalised four decades ago.

“As an old Chinese saying said . . . the person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere,” the article said. “Canberra is in danger of learning the truth of the Chinese saying that he who does not trust enough will not be trusted.

“If Canberra continues to place more importance on its alliance with Washington, the trend of giving China the cold shoulder will eventually hurt the good momentum that the two countries have worked hard to build.”

China is Australia’s largest trading partner, with the emerging giant’s hunger for coal and iron ore the key driver of Australia’s ongoing resources boom.

Truly, we are governed by muppets.

Dangerous muppets.

And the governing muppets are opposed by more muppets who, if given the chance to govern, would, on this particular topic, be even worse.

God help us.

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What Your TV Will Leave Out Of The Clive Palmer “CIA” Sound Bites

20 Mar

Apparently the Canberra media gallery and the social mediasphere are all abuzz over comments by anti-CO2-derivatives-scam activist, self-made billionaire and recently honoured National Living Treasure, Clive Palmer.

Naturally, the “buzz” is 99.999% abuse and insults, rather than objective, calm, reasoned assessment of Mr Palmer’s comments. And certainly there is no attempt whatsoever to calmly and methodically investigate the evidence Mr Palmer has cited in support of his comments.

Now, I haven’t had time to follow up and check his purported evidence either.

But then, neither am I making any rush-to-judgement call about whether he is right or wrong.

And I am certainly not jerking the knee in a self-glorifying display of imagined-witty insults, spewed bile, and general ad hominem abuse.

Like many journalists.

I am curious to follow up, to decide for myself whether there is any substance to Mr Palmer’s claims.

Especially since my own research over many years suggests there may be more than a little ring of truth in what he has said.

In the meantime though, here is a news article from the Brisbane Times this afternoon that does at least include a number of complete quotes from Mr Palmer’s press conference.

Since you will only see/hear selectively edited sound bites on the TV and radio news this evening – because after all, it is vital to smear the character of anyone threatening a legal challenge to the bankers’ CO2 derivatives scam – I’ll reproduce the Brisbane Times’ piece in full.

I assume that readers of this blog are significantly less predisposed to hasty judgements and attacking the messenger rather than dispassionately assessing the message, than the average egotistical narcissist twit on Twitter … and in the Canberra press gallery:

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has accused the Australian Greens and Queensland environmental campaigners of “treason” in conspiring with US powers to destroy the nation’s coal industry.

Mr Palmer was expected to give his response to the passing of the Gillard government’s mining tax at a media conference called this afternoon, but the multi-billionaire was concerned only with perceived collusion between the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the environmental lobby.

Mr Palmer turned his attention to a report by Greenpeace and other anti-coal groups, titled Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom, which outlined an environmental campaign designed to disrupt and delay the expansion of the industry.

While brandishing a copy of the report this afternoon, Mr Palmer said it was the result of a CIA conspiracy involving the US-based Rockefeller Foundation.

“This is funded by the CIA,” he said.

“You only have to go back and read … the reports to the US Congress that sets up the Rockefeller Foundation as a conduit of CIA funding.

“You only have to look at the secret budget which was passed by Congress last year – bigger than our whole national economy – with the CIA to ensure that.

“You only have to read the reports to US Congress where the CIA reported to the president that their role was to ensure the US competitive advantage – that’s how you know it’s funded by the CIA.”

Mr Palmer argued descendants of US oil magnate John Rockefeller had bankrolled the report, in a bid to disrupt and damage the Australian coal industry.

He went on to say that the document confirmed local environmental campaigners, including Lock the Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton and Greens leader Bob Brown, were improperly collaborating with foreign multinationals.

“The Greens have not been providing you with the full information about where their money comes from or what it’s about,” he said.

“I think the Greens [candidates] in this upcoming state election … should resign if they’re being funded by an offshore political power.

“It’s paramount [sic] to treason and something needs to be done about it.”

Mr Palmer made little mention of mining tax legislation, passed last night in the Senate, saying he had no concern with it.

“I don’t care about any tax. It won’t affect my life one way or the other,” he said.

Mr Palmer said the controversial tax, which aims to distribute the spoils of Australia’s mining boom, would have no affect on his businesses.

“It probably won’t cost me anything, because I’m not mining anything that comes under the classification of it. So, you know, it’s not something that’s worried me,” he said.

Mr Palmer said he would not join Australia’s third largest iron ore miner, Fortescue Metals, owned by Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, in mounting a legal challenge.

“Certainly Andrew Forrest has indicated he’ll do that – he has major concerns with it, because it affects him, affects his business and affects the ability of his workers,” Mr Palmer said.

UPDATE:

Andrew Bolt at least shows some restraint in joining the mockers, but does make one worthy observation (emphasis added) –

The Opposition will be thinking, oh, damn.

That’s not to say there wasn’t a straw from which this grass castle was built. From the CIA’s website, this book review:

She also does a fine job in recounting the intriguing story of how the CIA worked with existing institutions, such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and established numerous “bogus” foundations to “hide” its funding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and its other covert activities. Everything came a cropper in 1967, however, as a result of press articles, especially revelations in the long-gone Ramparts magazine.

UPDATE 2:

ABC News video clip here.

UPDATE 3:

Twitterer @pyrmontvillage sagely observes –

According to #WikiLeaks, we have people in the federal ALP, who REPORT to the US Embassy…Not much of a stretch..#auspol#ClivePalmer#CIA

Pyrmontvillage is right.

From The Australian, December 9, 2010:

WikiLeaks outs Mark Arbib as US informant

FEDERAL Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib has been outed as a key source of intelligence on government and internal party machinations to the US embassy.

New embassy cables, released by WikiLeaks to Fairfax newspapers today, reveal the influential right-wing Labor MP has been one of the embassy’s best ALP informants, along with former frontbencher Bob McMullan and current MP Michael Danby.

The documents say the Minister for Sport had been secretly offering details of Labor’s inner workings even before his election to the Senate in 2007, dating back to his time as general secretary of the party’s NSW branch from 2004.

Senator Arbib was one of the “faceless men” who was instrumental in the decision to oust Kevin Rudd and install Julia Gillard as Prime Minister in June.

Those leaked US State Department cables show that sitting members of the Federal ALP Government are informants for the USA.

So it is no stretch at all to believe the possibility that some (or all) of Clive Palmers’ claims regarding the CIA and the Greens are true.

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CIA: The ALP Are Donut Punchers

14 May

While our lamestream media continue to look the other way, the CIA says that our Labor government is right up there with the Greeks at punching donuts:

There is no doubt Australia is one of the most heavily indebted countries. A list compiled by the American Central Intelligence Agency puts us at No. 14 on the foreign debt scale with about $1.2 trillion owing to offshore lenders.

When you consider our relatively small population, and our strong but comparatively tiny economy, that means we are punching well above our weight in the spendthrift stakes. In fact, total foreign debt easily outstrips national income. The CIA reckons we owe the rest of the world 132 per cent of our annual gross domestic product.

That’s not too far behind Greece which, at 165 per cent, finally appears to have tipped the balance and is heading towards bankruptcy (more politely expressed these days as a debt refinancing).

Yes, the ALP are good at punching O’s.

As are our “safe as houses” Big Four banks.

Bend over Australia, and grab your ankles.

This won’t hurt a bit.

Trust us.

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