TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  
Showing posts with label The Guardian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Guardian. Show all posts

January 04, 2017

FAKE NEWS PROPAGANDA EXPOSED - The Guardian - FAKE NEWS Manufacture






WikiLeaks


FAKE NEWS PROPAGANDA EXPOSED - The Guardian - FAKE NEWS Manufacture - Assault on Truth-Telling Aussie Journalist, Assange



WATCH VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPUewpOWJs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPUewpOWJs


STEFANIA MAURIZI


GUARDIAN DISTORTION



NOTES

TOKYO NOTES 
re video content
[For quotation purposes, review audio/video]



FAKE NEWS

The Guardian caught with its Fake News pants down

> engaged in contemptible attempt to DISCREDIT  brave truth-teller, award-winning Aussie journalist and publisher, JULIAN ASSANGE


SOURCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPUewpOWJs


Mark Crispin Miller
prof. Media Studies - NYU

teaches students to think critically about the media

The Guardian
flagship outlet of 'liberal' media, Britain & USA
ran piece highlighting two bald-faced lies:

That Julian Assange:

1. praised Trump, expressed optimism re Trump presidency

2. described Russia as marketplace of ideas with tremendous amount of free expression


THE GUARDIAN CLAIMS BORE NO RELATION to interview that THE GUARDIAN was purporting to paraphrase
interview - Assange with Italian journalist, STEFANIA MAURIZI

STEFANIA MAURIZI tweeted / outraged
>  message was almost completely ignored

meanwhile, THE GUARDIAN article, has been tweeted & reprinted

& basically heralded the world over

*hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting members of the public THE WORLD OVER now have picked up the PROPAGANDA from THE GUARDIAN

& are convinced that Assange said these things, which were calculated to defame Assange, according to Prof. Mark Crispin Miller

> so as to discredit truth-telling Aussie journalist, JULIAN ASSANGE

LATEST PROPAGANDA salvo to demonise Assange & to punish him for his truth-telling

RT reporter:  We are hearing term 'fake news' is this to help us distinguish or other reasons?


Mark Crispin Miller
prof. Media Studies - NYU

'Fake News' is a serious problem
> not b/c there is fringe outlets that post falsehoods

Fake News is a problem b/c the CORPORATE PRESS itself pumps out so much of it [ie. WESTERN CORPORATE PRESS/MEDIA FAKE NEWS]

these claims in THE GUARDIAN are just one example of FAKE NEWS that has been propagated as  truth

Mark Crispin Miller
prof. Media Studies - NYU
>  cannot begin to even catalogue all the nuggets of FAKE NEWS that have been used to keep the war in Syria going

RT reporter:

STEFANIA MAURIZI, who did interview with Assange, has protested that THE GUARDIAN deliberately distorted her interview with Assange
>  like you said, it was a bald-faced LIE

BUT why has the press chosen to IGNORE this Italian journalist's protest, even as they re-tweet the false claims in THE GUARDIAN?


Mark Crispin Miller
prof. Media Studies - NYU

Why would they pay attention to her attempt to set the record straight, since what we're talking about here is clearly a DELIBERATE PROPAGANDA EFFORT to DEFAME JULIAN ASSANGE and with no concern for accuracy, truth or any of that old fashioned stuff.

Why would they mention the actual objections of the journalist that did the interview with him:  it would defeat the whole purpose of this FAKE NEWS EFFORT TO ATTACK ASSANGE and to add to the long list of attacks on him, over the last few years.

[excuse typos ... cannot concentrate]

SOURCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNPUewpOWJs


VISUAL





AUDIO










April 13, 2016

Transcript: Jacob Appelbaum - Berlin Logan CIJ Symposium re: Journalism, the 'Big Tent' & The Guardian


TRANSCRIPT
[for quotation purposes, confirm audio]

Jacob Appelbaum
Berlin Logan CIJ Symposium 


Re: Journalism, the  'Big Tent' & The Guardian
VIDEO
- dur: 19:59
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY&feature=youtu.be


John Goetz
Moderator


So, before we go to the discussion, I would like to introduce — before we have one last speaker — Jake Appelbaum is surprisingly enough perhaps to some people, is now working on a PhD. in math at a university in the Netherlands, in Eindhoven.

Jacob Appelbaum was perhaps the first employee of the Tor Project, he was an early member of WikiLeaks, and in terms of journalism, he— it's very interesting when we think about what was the big story in Germany of 2013, we tend to think right away: oh it was the Edward Snowden revelations. But the real huge story in Germany and that kind of riveted the world was the story that appeared in Der Spiegel, and it was about the mobile phone of Angela Merkel being listened to by the NSA.

That actually was not a story that came from Edward Snowden, it was a story that came from Jake Appelbaum.

[applause]

Jacob Appelbaum

Ummm, Hi ...

So, first of all: it's really an honour to be here.

It's really fantastic to see so many colleagues in the audience that I've worked with, as well.

And to some of you, I'm sorry for some of the things that I'll say next, but not so sorry that I won't say them.

So, as a technologist in particular, I find myself often in a tech ghetto, and so I kind of expect that everyone here will expect me to talk about technology, but instead I want to talk about— I want to talk about the biggest threat to investigative journalists, and that is: other investigative journalists.

[audience titter]

2:00

And if that sounds a little bit ridiculous, I'd like to tell you a story, and the story's pretty simple.

Most of my stories are personal anecdotes that I've experienced in the last three to ten years working as a journalist independently, publishing on the internet, but also publishing with Der Spiegel, working with ProPublica or other agencies in different capacities.

And, so, I come from a background of working with WikiLeaks to these organisations, and currently WikiLeaks is — I don't know, the sixth or seven year of being investigated by the US government for espionage and terrorism.

So there's an important context there: which is, when we talk about journalism, there is a 'big tent' and that 'big tent', when you're inside of it, you have the political support — or, if you will, the privilege.

Most of the white male journalists in the room will of course know what I'm talking about when I speak of privilege, and this is a part of that privilege.

And, so, what I would say, in particular, is that I'd like to address a few realities about that.

So, one of them is literacy — which is to say that most of the people that are in this room, which I would say I have worked with, they understand to some extent, technology — but you've heard it here a little bit already, where people talk about the 'tech guys' and they bring up the 'tech guys', and there's an interesting thing there which is— actually, there's an issue of literacy.

We don't need to talk about 'tech activism,' just the same as we don't need to talk about, for example, 'grammar activism' or 'fact check activism'.

This is a fundamental core component of modern journalism — being able to use a computer, understanding operational security — and what happens is that when people don't understand that, instead of having a little bit of humility (of which I have plenty, I'm sure you can see), they will absolutely do everything that they possibly can in order to discredit and to disqualify other journalists.

And you actually see this happening all the time:  that is to say, if you know how to use a computer, you're instantly a 'nerd' and the 'nerd' is instantly out.

And this is done under the mask of so-called 'objectivity'.

3:52

And to that I say: you are rarely, if ever, fucking objective. Your politics are in everything that you write.

And, so the question is, where are the disclosures, where is the data?

So, when I speak of 'literacy' here, I don't only mean, of course, about fact-checking, or about understanding how systems work, but also literacy in understanding what is and is not political.

So, for example, when we consider that capitalism itself pits us against each other, are we questioning that?

Do we consider that the competitive models in journalism actually cause us to push people outside of the tents?

Isn't it the case that when we negotiate about our contracts?  Isn't it the case when we think about money, that that, in fact, is at the core, causing us to betray each other and to, in fact, betray the public?

I think the answer to that is:  yes.

And I think that the answer to that, for me personally, means that I have, almost every single time I have worked on stories, I have taken I would say very small amounts of money. I have tried not to make my primary living from working as an independent journalist because, in fact, I find that it compromises me.

It means that I'm tied to one editorial room, I am tied to one political viewpoint, and usually those viewpoints are hidden away. They're hidden away where it's supposedly objective.

But I tell you what, The Guardian — absolutely the shittiest publication in the English language — is shitty for not what they publish, but shitty for what they refuse to publish and pretend that it is a non-political discussion and decision.

And, so, I want to tell you a little bit about why they're shitty and give you some sourcing, which you can then, if you'd like, investigate.

I've not talked about most of these things in public, but I think it's important that after all of these great journalists have built up a tree of journalism, that we can put some fuel on the tree and then light the motherfucker on fire.

[laughter / applause]

So, first, I guess I should start by saying it's not just The Guardian. I have experienced this a lot.

5:53

Some of you have written things in papers, for example, were you call me, or Julian Assange, or Sarah Harrison, 'internet activists'.

To you that have done that, I think that you do not understand potentially what you do and, in that case, I have some forgiveness for you.

But for those of you that do, I understand that you think me your political enemy and I take that up quite seriously, and I will win.

6:17

So, with that in mind, I don't call you a 'grammar activist'.

But I would say that it is important that if we have 'disclosure activists' in the audience, I think it's important to consider, for example, that when we have bylines together in papers and later you call me an 'internet activist', it's important to remember you should probably have disclosed in your article where you called me an 'internet activist' that, actually, we were co-authors on, for example, the equivalent of the German Pulitzer Prize, or something similar to that.

6:49

To call me a 'political activist' is to consciously put me outside of the political tent of privilege and to say: go ahead, instead of being under journalism law, you're under terrorism law.

[applause]

7:06

And, of course, it's important to name names, so thank you to the sponsor:

[ Appelbaum speaks German.  Says something like: ]


Der SPIEGEL hat keine Angst vor der Wahrheit
[Der Spiegel has no fear of the truth]

7:13

I think it's important to say, Michael Sontheimer(?), that for me, when you call me an 'activist', it breaks my heart because we have worked together.

But, more importantly, it breaks my heart because you put me under threat of going to prison for the rest of my fucking life.

[enthusiastic applause]

7:37

One of my favourite journalists in Germany, his name is Tilo Jung.

He's a wonderful journalist. He has a very funny comedy show and he says:


"Alle Journalisten sind Aktivisten für die Wahrheit."

All journalists are activists for the truth.

And, so, let us address this concept of activism, and it works like this: 'activism' is used as a pejorative term in order to suggest the participation in a democratic society is somehow outside of the normal behaviour.

Fuck that. That is wrong.

[applause]

8:11

The purpose of journalism is not only to be engaged, but to engage others in that process. That is the purpose.

It is to spread the truth. It is to bring facts. It is to put forward information.

8:24

So, let us speak now of the crimes of The Guardian, who are by far much worse than anyone else in this realm, in my experience.

First, what we'll start with is David Leigh and Alan Rusbridger.

Why will we start with them?

8:34

Well, first with David Leigh, because he is an incompetent, illiterate, absolutely despicable human being, with how he has treated Julian Assange.

He has lied about facts about Julian Assange, suggesting, for example, that Julian suggested that informants 'deserved it', when in fact no such thing was said, as John [Goetz ?] being at that lunch can attest to that.

He has, for example, released encrypted files, not understanding the difference between encryption and authentication, and done so in a way that actually published information that previously had even been withheld by WikiLeaks, and then blaming WikiLeaks for that.

This is an absolutely atrocious problem, but what is worse than that, is that when confronted with it, he continued to take his ignorance with him all the way out the door at The Guardian, instead of correcting his mistake and owning his mistake.

9:24

And for that, I really hope that we never forget that.

We should never forget David Leigh's legacy is to have published things, and to have done so because he did not even understand what they were doing, and then to put Julian Assange under a bus so that that bus could run him over instead.

So, let us call that what it is: it is a political act of betrayal of Julian Assange.

[applause]

In the early days of the Snowden affair, I worked with Glen Greenwald and with Laura Poitras, and with many others — many in this room.

9:58

Two of the great journalists that I worked with, Marcel Rosenbach and Holgar Stark (?), have really honoured me.

They've helped me to have a visa in Germany, to be safe here, and I really respect that very much.

And they understood what it meant to work with me, and in the past having worked with WikiLeaks; they were extremely good about this. They were in constant communication. They absolutely told us what they understood [and] they knew. They treated us as equals. They were so respectful to us that it is in some ways beyond the pale.

An important—

[applause]

Wait a second.

And I want to thank them them for that, because that is, with the exception of John Goetz and very few other people, they are the exception of doing that.

10:38

They treated us as equals. They did not try to treat us as sources, or try to manipulate us, they actually cared very much about getting out the truth. The understood the political impacts, they understood the 'big tent', they understood the 'umbrella', and for that, I really think they deserve a round of applause.

10:53

So thank you Marcel and Holgar (I know that you're here).

[applause]

Now, let's contrast that, for example, with The Guardian.

11:06

I requested a letter from The Guardian to say that I was working on classified documents.

Now, Glenn Greenwald had passed me a number of documents for working with him. Specifically, technical-related documents which he wanted me to help elucidate what they did and what kind of crimes the NSA was committing, and The Guardian actually refused — directly refused — to give me a letter, knowing that I was in possession of classified documents.

11:28

They directly refused to put myself and other people directly under that political tent. They simply didn't want to do it.

And, so, since I am not under contractual obligation and have no loyalty to people that want to put me outside the tent, I'd like to tell you a funny story about them.

[audience laughter]

And it goes like this: when The Guardian was raided, they did not call myself, or Laura Poitras here in Germany to tell us that the GCHQ, and other political powers and police powers in the UK, had in fact come to destroy source material. They did not tell us. We had to find out in public. They left us to hang in public. They did not treat us as equals. They did not protect us. They did not care. And the continued with this, every step of the way.

And while writing technical stories, they directly consulted with the White House and with the GCHQ and other government officials, in order to do, essentially, line by line redaction of things that were for the most part not even worth redacting. They weren't worth even compromising yourself.

It reminds me of the Winston Churchill story about whether or not someone would sleep with him for a million dollars and, of course, when a person says 'no' to one dollar but 'yes' to a million, we know what kind of person that person is, and the same is true for The Guardian. They were willing to compromise and to give editorial control to the state.

What are they then? They are stenographers.

And the way, for example, they talk about Laura Poitras, who has no knowledge of me giving this talk right now.

I would just like to underscore that by reading a small thing.

I apologise for reading from a screen, but it's just too good just to not say it.


"A team of reporters and editors here at the Guardian won the Pulitzer prize for their meticulous, months-long work bringing Snowden to scale. Yet Snowden’s first confidant was a film-maker, Laura Poitras, who documented her initial contact and subsequent collaboration with Snowden in Citizenfour, the third in a trilogy of feature documentaries on war and the security state. It is the weakest film of the three, despite its Oscar ..." [The Guardian]

[audience laughter]

Now, I don't need to go on to tell you what's going on there.

13:35

Why do we tolerate this shit from these people? What arrogant British cunts. It's unbelievable. Absolutely.

[applause]

Now, in addition to not telling us about the raids, let's talk about another reality.

David Miranda, working with The Guardian, working with Glenn Greenwald.

Who do you suppose paid David Miranda's legal bills, knowing that fact?

Anyone from The Guardian care to comment?

Right. So, in the beginning, it was potentially going to be The Guardian, but later when Glenn left, it wasn't The Guardian anymore. They left them to hang. Again and again.

14:18

So think of this in this case — this case in which serious journalistic freedoms are at risk, where serious people are in extreme danger under terrorism laws, and they are simply left out in the cold. And why is that?

14:32

Because in capitalism — when competing, when we aren't actually cooperating together — we find in that political space, the ability to get rid of our competition, literally with terrorism laws.

Is that really what we want?

I think what we want is a collaborative framework, where we actually work well together.

Now, I know that what I've done here does not work for much more than retiring, but that's OK.

And I'll leave you with another story. I suppose two stories.

One is Luke Harding.

Luke Harding wrote a book about Snowden in a very exploitative, extremely negative way, and knows next to nothing about anything in the story.

But an important detail is he came here to Berlin to try to pump me for information, to ask me questions about Hawaii, to ask me questions about other details.

Now, one of the things that he told me was that all of his computers were compromised to the point that his mouse was moving on his screen without him doing that, and he dumbly asks — and I'm not even sure if it was possible that he could really believe that he didn't know the answer to this.

He said: "Do you suppose my computer is compromised when someone is editing the text and it removes critical parts of my story?"

[audience laughter]

You might want to see a doctor about that, Luke.

[audience laughter]

And, finally, the most insulting aspect, I would say, about The Guardian, is what they did to Julian Assange upon him being in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

And I can't underscore this enough. There are plenty of problems with Julian. I can barely handle Australians. They're very difficult people culturally.

[audience laughter]

And then there's Julian.

[more audience laughter]

But The Guardian, in all seriousness, sent him a basket with soap and socks — while leaving us to hang, literally, where we could face life in prison or the death penalty for the things that we have published, where alleged sources of ours are in prison, or under threat, or needing political asylum.

That is not a serious thing to do. These are very serious topics indeed.

So, I think that it is important for us to consider also, if you were to watch the film Mediastan, you will see the edges of publication in the Western world and you will see the collaboration of the New York Times editor, where they have phone calls with the CIA.

This is a political decision. This is not an objectivity fact. This is a political negotiation. Under threat. Under coercion. And then it is a lie to the public and to other journalists to say that that is a non-political thing, that there's no issue.

And if the question is the law, about sources and methods and about names, well sure, let us say then, we would love to publish their names, we would love to publish the sources and methods. But we can't, because it is illegal for us to do that. But we should, because that would help us to hold power to account.

And, so, we should work, actually, to change those laws. To better inform people in our democracies. To ensure that it is actually possible to hold CIA agents, who commit war crimes, for their crimes to account. It is absolutely a necessity to do that, and we must as a free press to do that. And when we do not, we are collaborationists who are responsible for being a part of those crimes.

And so it is David Leigh, it is Luke Harding, it is other people along these lines, like Alan Rusbridger, who collaborate with them.

For example, The Guardian holds ProPublica in a gag. You may not know this, but ProPublica has access to the Snowden archive, but they are not allowed to publish things unless The Guardian will allow them, and The Guardian has decided that they will not allow things from the Snowden archive to be published.

Things about Afghanistan or Iraq, crimes — serious war crimes — are documented in there. Crimes where civilians are killed, things that are absolutely political, and we will never see them because of the collaborationists at The Guardian, who absolutely kowtow to the British political class and the hereditary power structures in the UK, and we should not tolerate that and we should pressure them.

[applause]

Now that I've committed journalistic career suicide, I'd also just like to encourage you to encrypt your communications.

[laughter / applause]

Also, I think it's important to fight sexism in journalism quite seriously and I hope we replace most of the editors in journalistic rooms around the world with women, who have better sense and are stronger and will stand up to these fucking fascists.

[applause]

-- end audio --


---------------------- ----------------------



Snowden Data

According to reports, the documentation taken by Snowden is now in the hands of three parties: First Look Media – the news organisation set up by Poitras and Greenwald, and financed by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay; the Guardian and the Washington Post

24 Oct 2014
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11185627/Edward-Snowden-the-true-story-behind-his-NSA-leaks.html

 _____________________________________________________________

Sunday, Apr 8, 2012 08:37 PM AEST
U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border
Laura Poitras makes award-winning controversial films, and is targeted by the U.S. government as a result
Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/08/u_s_filmmaker_repeatedly_detained_at_border/


COMMENT

Despite the 1960s campus radical-inspired views that are alien and jarring to me, it was an interesting talk Appelbaum gave.  And funny.  I think.  In a pouty, cross sort of way. 
Except the bit about that guy's computer being compromised. The audience found it funny, but I didn't get what was funny about that.

Hard to know what to make of this guy.

On the other hand, I don't know how to read anyone here. 
Everybody sounds really suspicious to me:
  • Who does an NSA leak without having an advance exit plan and winds up accidentally in Moscow without a passport? 
  • Who goes to Germany to escape American harassment when Germany's an occupied state that hasn't been sovereign since WWII -- and an oppressive state that covers up mass rapes (Cologne); deploys agents to infiltrate political parties (or the ones described as 'right-wing'); deploys former East German Stasi to watch and censor so-called 'social media', which it polices in collaboration with CIA-book's Zuckerberg; Germany, which raids the homes of social media commenters; when Germany's not imprisoning old women, old men, lawyers who defend old men, or renditioning German expatiates from Canada and Britain?
  • The lady film-maker also sounds very unusual to me, from what little I know. 
  • And what's the deal with the Snowden adulation, or am I just particularly ungrateful?  As in an Oliver Stone film?  C'mon?  Hollywood attention reminds of the incongruous Hollywood sparkle bouncing off William Hague's skull, not so long ago.

Listening to Appelbaum give The Guardian a serve was entertaining.
In terms of the gag on Snowden material, it would appear that parties other than The Guardian also have possession of the Snowden NSA data, and presumably The Guardian doesn't have veto over that.  Whoever has the data [Poitras, Greenwald, Intercept, Washington Post] isn't publishing, they're not making an archive available to the public, and they're not even saying how much data they've received, which seems rather excessively secretive and controlling.  So what were all those enthusiastic accolades for?  Or am I ungrateful once again?
EDIT:  there's an archive of the 400 released documents of an 'estimated' 50,000 at this site:


The Snowden Surveillance Archive
https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/

collection of approx. 400 documents
of estimated 50,000 documents
to journalists:
    -- Laura Poitras - US documentary film-maker
    -- Glenn Greenwald - US lawyer-journalist
    -- Ewan MacAskill - UK journalist (The Guardian)
Archive
built to enable citizen & researcher to access documents
re US National Security Agency (NSA)
& Five Eyes partner countries (UK, Canada, Australia, NZ)

Archive built by:
George Raine
Master of Information program
University of Toronto
assisted by:  Jillian Harkness
then current student of program

various project partners & supporters listed
https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/
*unclear to me how an 'estimate' of documents can be made if nobody is saying what was released

Snowden turned over the data, in a round-about way, to the corporate press ... despite a history of corporate press propaganda, state and establishment service, and CIA / intelligence collaboration.

That being the nature of the beast, there's not much logic in  expecting the corporate press to behave as anything other than:   the corporate press.  And there's not much sense in crying foul that press snakes slither on their bellies.   Or is there?

Well, I guess it's always good to know the ugly truth.  Had I not listened to this, I'd have had no idea just how appalling the today's moralising and Putin-bashing press is, and I wouldn't have known about the concept of political protection for journalists as a collective.

Denying Appelbaum a letter in relation to the classified material he was working on is pretty low, and sending Assange the socks package is warped, when you think about the enormity of the risk to Assange and the pressure on Assange (who has now been arbitrarily detained for over five and a half years).  And not paying the legal fees of Miranda sounds dishonourable to me.

Appelbaum's right.  They sound like a pack of c*nts.

But I think maybe he ought to reconsider adulation of women:


Katharine Graham
Washington Post

Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from." Graham has been identified by some investigators as the main contact in Project Mockingbird, the CIA program to infiltrate domestic American media. In her autobiography, Katharine Graham described how her husband worked overtime at the Post during the Bay of Pigs operation to protect the reputations of his friends from Yale who had organized the ill-fated venture.

After Graham committed suicide, and his widow Katharine assumed the role of publisher, she continued her husband's policies of supporting the efforts of the intelligence community in advancing the foreign policy and economic agenda of the nation's ruling elites. In a retrospective column written after her own death, FAIR analyst Norman Solomon wrote, "Her newspaper mainly functioned as a helpmate to the war-makers in the White House, State Department and Pentagon." It accomplished this function (and continues to do so) using all the classic propaganda techniques of evasion, confusion, misdirection, targeted emphasis, disinformation, secrecy, omission of important facts, and selective leaks.

Graham herself rationalized this policy in a speech she gave at CIA headquarters in 1988. 
"We live in a dirty and dangerous world," she said. "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."

http://www.wanttoknow.info/secrecygraham


Coincidentally, there's also an amusing story of Janet Cooke, the Washington Post ... and the Pulitzer Prize:
EXTRACTS


The Case of Janet Cooke

When "Jimmy's World," the story of an eight-year-old heroin addict, appeared on the front page of the Washington Post last…

Naomi Munson / Aug. 1, 1981

When “Jimmy’s World,” the story of an eight-year-old heroin addict, appeared on the front page of the Washington Post last September, it created quite a stir in the city. According to Janet Cooke, the young black woman who reported the story, “Jimmy” (a pseudonym) had been on heroin since the age of five ...

The local government reacted to this grisly tale by launching an intensive search for the child. When schools, social-welfare services, and police all failed to unearth any trace of him, the authorities requested that the Post reveal Jimmy’s whereabouts.

The Post refused. There was, first of all, Miss Cooke’s personal safety to consider: it seems that Ron had threatened to come after her with a knife at the first sign of police interest in him. So terrifying was this prospect that Miss Cooke had felt constrained to keep the true identity of her sources secret even from her immediate superiors. Then, of course, the Post recognized a First Amendment issue when it saw one. Where soldiers and statesmen had failed in their efforts to abridge the constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, was a mere child to be permitted to open a breach in the wall? When the mayor and police chief threatened to subpoena Miss Cooke’s notes, Post staffers professed themselves ready to face jail sooner than capitulate to the pressure.

..  three weeks after the story was published, Miss Cooke was unable to produce her star witness for Coleman, and offered the flimsy excuse that the family had suddenly moved to Baltimore, Coleman’s faith was shaken.

But not shaken enough, apparently, to make Coleman think twice before recommending “Jimmy’s World” for a Pulitzer prize nomination—and for four other awards as well—more than a month after the family’s disappearing act.

...

... Criticism from outside the Post served only to send Woodward into what he described as his “Watergate mode: protect the source and back the reporter.” In fact, questions raised by the mayor and police chief hardened Woodward’s resolve to see Miss Cooke’s story nominated for the Pulitzer.

When the vote came, it was unanimous (with one abstention); the Pulitzer prize for feature writing was awarded to “Jimmy’s World.”

The Post management was jubilant.

Nobody counted on Janet Cooke—who had, it soon turned out, been less than entirely honest about her past when seeking work at the Washington Post. Not content with her own achievements in life, she had embroidered her résumé, claiming a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Vassar, an M.A. from the University of Toledo, and fluency in several languages. When the time came to provide a curriculum vitae for the Pulitzer committee, to be published if she won, she added a year at the Sorbonne and a couple of more languages for good measure.

...  Post announced it had discovered that the story was a “hoax” and requested that the Pulitzer be withdrawn. The prize was handed over to the runner-up; Janet Cooke resigned, with apologies “to my newspaper, my profession, the Pulitzer board, and all seekers of the truth”; and the Washington Post went about the business of trying to salvage some of its credibility.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-case-of-janet-cooke/




April 07, 2016

Panama 'Leaks' Amigos: Limited Hangout Leak



SOURCE
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Dance-to-the-Panama-Papers-Limited-Hangout-Leak-20160405-0036.html


Dance to the Panama Papers 'Limited Hangout' Leak

By: Pepe Escobar


Associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin were revealed to have hundreds of millions of dollars stashed away in offshore accounts.

Published 5 April 2016

Pepe Escobar connects the dots.


Calling out around the world; time to put on your made in Ecuador Panama hat and frantically start dancing to the ultimate limited hangout leak.

And if you believe in the purity of intentions of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) at the center of the leak, I’ve got a made in Shenzhen Panama hat to sell you (disclosure: I never was, and never will be, a member of the ICIJ).

The Washington-based ICIJ gets its cash and its "organizational procedure" via the Exceptionalistan-based, Orwellian-named Center for Public Integrity. The funds flow mostly from the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Kellogg Foundation and the George Soros-owned Open Society.

Then there is Eastern Europe-based partner organization OCCRP, an even more Orwellian outfit self-styled as playing some sort of progressive, alternative media role. OCCRP is funded by Soros and USAID
.

And finally there’s this fictional land named Panama – a certified U.S. vassal. Absolutely nothing of real substance happens in Panama without a green light by the United States government
. Or, as an international tax lawyer told me, “you have to be an idiot to stash money in Panama. You cannot flush a toilet there without the Americans knowing about it.

This sets the scene for the Panama Papers leak – a massive hoard of 11.5 million documents allegedly leaked from someone inside offshore heavies Mossack Fonseca to the center-left, NATO-friendly Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Munich and then shared by the ICIJ with selected mainstream media partners.

Even without a smoking gun, a case can be made this alleged most massive leak ever was obtained by – what else – U.S. intel. This is the kind of stuff the NSA excels at. The NSA is able to break into virtually any database and/or archives anywhere; they steal “secrets;” and then selectively destroy/blackmail/protect assets and “enemies,” according to USG interests.

    Absolutely nothing of real substance happens in Panama without a green light by the United States government.

That’s the essence of a limited hangout sold to public opinion as a serious corruption investigation. And that’s where Western corporate media enters the scene, protecting whatever 0.00000001 percent honcho is caught in the net, as well as sacrificing some disposable pawns.

So we have over 300 reporters pouring over hundreds of thousands of document/files for over an interminable year with, miraculously, no leaks whatsoever; just for a bunch of corporate mainstream media hacks meticulously cherry picked stories and decide what is “newsworthy." Western alternative media would have investigated the data without sparing anyone; but it would be out of the question to grant them access.

What’s already certain is that the full extent of the Panama leak will never be known. Even the by now exceedingly pathetic The Guardian admitted, on the record, that "much of the leaked material will remain private". Why? Because it may – inadvertently and directly – implicate a gaggle of Western 0.00000001 percent multibillionaires and corporations. All of them play the offshore casino game (although not necessarily in Panama.)

So the Panama Papers, stripped to the bone, may reveal themselves essentially as an infowar operation by the NSA – targeted mostly against “enemies” (as in the BRICS nations) and selected disposable pawns; a weaponized psyops posing as an 'activist leak', straight from the Hybrid War playbook.

Step on the Monster Truck

A who’s who of wealthy/powerful players has been directly targeted in the Panama Papers, from the – demented King of Saudi Arabia to former Fiat/Ferrari stalwart Luca de Montezemolo, from Lionel Messi to (unnamed) Chinese Communist Party officials and the brother-in-law of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Extra-juicy element is provided by the presence of Alaa Mubarak – the son of the deposed Egyptian snake; Ayad Allawi, the butcher of Fallujah and former U.S. occupation prime minister; Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (a Saudi protégé, so he must get offshore advice as well); and Dov Weisglass, the butcher of Gaza and former advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert (this one already convicted of corruption.) These are all disposable.

We find in the list not only Middle Eastern racketeers but also the token “respectable” European – from Iceland’s Prime Minister (already forced to resign) to David Cameron’s father Ian. And some players that might be considered Exceptionalistan’s friends, such as vulture fund-friendly Argentina President Mauricio Macri and chocolate heavyweight cum Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has a lot of funds parked in the British Virgin Islands.

Predictably, particular emphasis is on BRICS members – from those mysterious Chinese to Indian companies. As far as Brazil is concerned, there may be a healthy counterpoint; the presence of notoriously corrupt leader of the lower house Eduardo Cunha; his Swiss accounts had surfaced after the HSBC leaks, now some more showed up on the Panama Leaks.

Still to be explained is a juicy Brazilian-related angle; whether the Panama Leaks are directly related to the fact that Ramon Fonseca, 50 percent of Mossack Fonseca, was dismissed as president of the Panameñista Party last month because of Operation Car Wash – which targets mostly the ruling Workers’ Party in Brazil. The Panama Papers are in fact a Monster Truck, global version of Car Wash.

Lula, predictably, is not on the Panama list – to the despair of the Exceptionalistan-supported regime changers in Brazil, many of them (media barons, bankers, businessmen) featured on the previous HSBC leaks. Regime-Changers-in-Chief, the Globo media empire, are also not on the Panama leaks, although they profit from a certified offshore racket.

Syria was always bound to be a key target. Much of Western corporate media “newsworthy” stories now focus on “Assad’s fixer” Rami Makhlouf, described in U.S. diplomatic cables as Syria’s “poster boy for corruption” and under U.S. sanctions since February 2008. Such a convenient target. Yet “poster boy” happened to be quite sheltered by HSBC as well.

Putin Did It

And so we finally get to the key target of Monster Truck (in Brazil’s Car Wash they are Lula and President Rousseff). It’s got the requisite BRICS angle and it’s a dream spin; cue to virtually every major Western corporate media headline blaring that Vladimir Putin has stashed US$2 billion offshore.

The problem is he didn’t. Putin is guilty by association because of his “close associates” Arkady and Boris Rotenberg’s alleged ties to money laundering. Yet three “incriminating” emails in the files happen not to “incriminate” them, or Putin.

And then there’s cellist Sergey Roldugin, a childhood friend of Putin’s. Here’s the – politically filtered – spin by the ICIJ
:

“The records show Roldugin is a behind-the-scenes player in a clandestine network operated by Putin associates that has shuffled at least US$2 billion through banks and offshore companies. In the documents, Roldugin is listed as the owner of offshore companies that have obtained payments from other companies worth tens of millions of dollars. … It’s possible Roldugin, who has publicly claimed not to be a businessman, is not the true beneficiary of these riches. Instead, the evidence in the files suggests Roldugin is acting as a front man for a network of Putin loyalists – and perhaps for Putin himself.”

What about rephrasing it as, “the evidence in the files suggests Lionel Messi is acting as a frontman for a network of football loyalists trying to evade the rape of Argentina by U.S. hedge fund vultures friendly to new President and offshore account holder Mauricio Macri”?

The juiciest bit is that Moscow knew all along another
Hybrid War offensive chapter was imminent, days if not weeks before Panama went viral.

Make America Great Again

Offshore bank accounts are not intrinsically illegal. Quite a few though involve dodgy money, or at least provide the euphemistic “low-tax environment” fundamental to the very wealthy.

    OPINION:

    The New Silk Roads and the Rise of the 'Chinese Dream'   

It’s not an accident that the Panama Papers unveil connections to several dozen firms and individuals who are prominently featured in U.S. sanctions blacklists. That configures the Panama Papers as even more of a limited hangout; the real Papers would be the Cayman Papers or the Virgin Island Papers. That’s where most of the in-the-know park their money (not to mention Luxembourg). Adding to the hilarity factor, David Cameron suddenly woke up to the need to stop British overseas territories – and Crown dependencies – being used by the wealthy to park their untaxed fortune.

It’s never going to happen. The so-called international banking/financial system is a demented casino. It’s not only 8 percent; Hong Kong players tell me as much as 50 percent of global wealth may currently be parked, undisturbed, in untaxable offshore havens. If a fraction of these astonishing funds would be taxed, governments right and left would be paying their debts, investing in infrastructure, launching round after round of sustainable growth, and a productive spiral would be in motion.

And that leads us to the cherry in the corruption cake; how come there are no Americans in this limited hangout leak? Of course there are none. Panama is for suckers. Too obvious. Too rakish. Too crude. Ergo, forget about The Cayman Papers.

As for foreigners in-the-know, we just need to go back a mere three months ago to this Bloomberg piece, where Andrew Penney, Managing Director of Rothschild & Co., spells it all out; the U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world.

The circle is finally squared; Panama is revealed as the patsymere collateral damage in this limited hangout Monster Truck operation. Domestic tax haven providers, such as Rothschild, are the real deal. Make America great again? It already is – as the top tax shelter for hardcore dodgy money had to be...a monster Panama: Exceptionalistan itself. Now dance, suckers.


Pepe Escobar is a columnist for RT.

SOURCE
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Dance-to-the-Panama-Papers-Limited-Hangout-Leak-20160405-0036.html

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COMMENT
Cool article.   
Wow, an NSA dunnit?  LOL
C'mon, China ... give us real leaks.  ;)