CIA & American Oligarchic Capitalist State: War on Independent Publishing / Investigative Journalism - Re-Classification Casts Wide Suppression Net

WikiLeaks   JULIAN ASSANGE SPEAKS OUT: THE WAR ON TRUTH RON PAUL LIBERTY REPORT BACKGROUND CIA DIRECTOR - MIKE POMPEO POMPEO Wikpedia: Mike Pomepo Incumbent:  Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) TRUMP ADMINISTRATION prior:   U.S. Representative for Kansas's 4th congressional district, 2011-17 prior:  member of TEA PARTY MOVEMENT, within REPUBLICAN PARTY origins:   Santa Ana, California majored in mechanical engineering subsequently serving in the Army as an Armor Branch cavalry officer from 1986 to 1991 J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review worked as a lawyer for Williams & Connolly >>  served his last tour in the Gulf War << Pompeo founded Thayer Aerospace and Private Security (now NEXT-TECH AEROSPACE) / interest sold 2006 POMPEO - >> President of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment company << Pompeo honored the SAUDI ARABIA Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef with the CIA's "George Tenet" Medal. >> first reaffirmation of ties between the Islamic monarchy and United States since President Trump took office 2013, Pompeo introduced the Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act (H.R. 1900; 113th Congress) >> bill placed a 12-month deadline on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, requiring it to approve or reject any proposal for a natural gas pipeline within that timeframe Pompeo has referred to the Obama Administration's environment and climate change plans as "damaging" and "radical" Pompeo supports eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas registry program Pompeo signed the Americans for Prosperity's No Climate Tax pledge Pompeo opposed the Affordable Care Act Pompeo opposes requiring food suppliers to label food made with genetically modified organisms Pompeo accused Obama of: "unforgivably fail[ing] to provide the total commitment of our national means to our servicemen in the field." JOURNALIST: MICHAEL HASTINGS see: General McChrystal,  forced to submit resignation for having made negative comments about Obama to Michael Hastings (1980–2013) - Rolling Stone magazine (The Runaway General) Hastings died in a fiery high-speed automobile crash on June 18, 2013, in Los Angeles, California ... in a single vehicle automobile crash in his Mercedes C250 Coupé at approximately 4:25 a.m. --Wikipedia VAULT 7 reveals CIA has been able to hack your car since 2014. Do you remember Michael Hastings? http://www.northcrane.com/2017/03/07/vault-7-reveals-cia-has-been-able-to-hack-your-car-since-2014-do-you-remember-michael-hastings/ Pompeo supports the National Security Agency's surveillance programs Pompeo denounced NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's inclusion in the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, and called for Snowden's invitation to speak via telecast at the annual Texas event to be withdrawn, lest it encourage "lawless behavior" among attendees DEATH SENTENCE 'DUE PROCESS' 2016, Pompeo said Snowden "should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence." Pompeo: " ...  Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed. That includes Presidential Policy Directive-28, which bestows privacy rights on foreigners and imposes burdensome requirements to justify data collection." Pompeo opposes closing Guantánamo Bay detention camp. 2013 visit to the prison, Pompeo said, of the prisoners who were on hunger strike,    "It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight." Pompeo has criticized the Obama administration's decision to end the CIA's secret prisons ("black sites") + administration's requirement that all interrogators adhere to anti-torture laws 2017 speech addressing CSIS, Pompeo referred to Wikileaks as "a non-state hostile intelligence service" and described founder Julian Assange as a narcissist, fraud, and coward. " ... Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values." COMMENT:  the AGENTS of RULING CAPITALIST ELITES ...  LOVE TO EXPLOIT notions of >> WESTERN VALUES <<  - even as these agents of ruling power ACTIVELY & hypocritically violate such crafted notions, that are apparently no more than public manipulation / PR fodder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pompeo POMPEO's background: POMPEO attended:  United States Military Academy (USMA), also known as West Point, Army, The Academy, or simply The Point / United States Military Academy - est. 1802 students are officers-in-training and are referred to as "cadets" or collectively as the "United States Corps of Cadets" most graduates are commissioned as second lieutenants in the Army / foreign cadets are commissioned into the armies of their home countries its ranks include two Presidents of the United States (as well as the President of the Confederate States of America), presidents of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and the Philippines, numerous famous generals, and seventy-six Medal of Honor recipients Continental Army first occupied West Point, New York, on 27 January 1778 /  the oldest continuously-operating Army post in the United States Mexican–American War brought the academy to prominence During the Gulf War, alumnus General Schwarzkopf was the commander of Allied Forces, and the American senior generals in Iraq, Generals Petraeus, Odierno and Austin, and Afghanistan, retired General Stanley McChrystal and General David Rodriguez, are also alumni. [End - Wikipedia source] ROUGH OUTLINE OF WHAT APPEARS ON VIDEO SOURCE: VIDEO - RON PAUL LIBERTY REPORT https://www.youtube.com/embed/QwkrtpXp-wg?autoplay=1&auto_play=true JULIAN ASSANGE INCUMBENT NATIONAL SECURITY DIRECTOR, MIKE POMPEO: introduces concept of NON-STATE INTELLIGENCE SERVICE Doesn't an 'intelligence service' denote a STATE INTELLIGENCE SERVICE? What could be a 'non-state intelligence service'? POMPEO - says WikiLeaks is one of these things. Is what WL does - OR human rights groups OR media organisations - is in some ways similar to 'intelligence services' The answer is, yes, AND ABSOLUTELY:  NO. Investigative reporters Investigating human rights groups Organisations like Intercept, Propublica and all the serious media that consider national security journalism are all involved in DEVELOPING SOURCES PROTECTING SOURCES VERIFYING what is obtained from sources ANALYSING what is obtained from sources COORDINATING internally what is obtained from sources -- and intelligence agencies also do all that. The equivalent of the CIA in Germany is the BND, or Bundesnachrichtendienst. The literal translation of Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is:  THE FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE. Bundes = federal Nachrichten = news Endienst = service Similarly, in the CIA under Obama about six (6) years ago, the CIA introduced a change as to how it writes its internal reports to use the same style that journalists use to write articles, called the 'INVERTED PYRAMID STYLE', where you basically put the conclusion up top and then you justify how you got to the conclusion. So there are similarities between news services and intelligence services. BUT it ends with what happens with the results of the research. So, publishers PUBLISH, whereas STATE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES keep the information CONCEALED and USE it for the ADVANTAGE of their organisation, for their particular POLITICAL connections or MILITARIES, for OTHER INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, and so on. For the CIA to say that investigative media organisations and publishers are the same as an INTELLIGENCE SERVICE, is as ridiculous as it is to say that the CIA is a MEDIA ORGANISATION. There are similarities in the sourcing in relation to both, BUT in terms of what the organisations then do with the information is completely different. DANIEL McADAMS - head of Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity - foreign policy expert - worked for many years on Capitol Hill - worked as an election monitor in eastern Europe It seems like the use of the term - it's a term of ART - I don't think [POMPEO] used it to demonise; I think he used it to CATEGORISE, to create a NEW CATEGORY out of thin air, that would enable the US government to go after WikiLeaks in a much more military sort of way. JULIAN ASSANGE WIKILEAKS: Yes, absolutely. DANIEL McADAMS - head of Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity - foreign policy expert - worked for many years on Capitol Hill - worked as an election monitor in eastern Europe As the ACLU noted, never has a publisher in the history of the United States been prosecuted for revealing truthful information. So it seems to me that the key is to REMOVE THE IDEA that you're a PUBLISHER and call you something different. And I think the battlefield right now is probably in US PUBLIC OPINION:  turn that first against WikiLeaks and then see what happens. Does that make sense? JULIAN ASSANGE WIKILEAKS: I think POMPEO's speech came about partly as a response to an OpEd I wrote for THE WASHINGTON POST, [discussing] why WikiLeaks does its work and so on. It might have been coming anyway. He was in LONDON the day before and on the Wednesday he then returned to the UNITED STATES; he gave this SPEECH late on a Thursday evening, before Easter Friday. It was actually quite hard to respond to in the media. And, from that kind of media analysis point of view, it was well timed. The CIA has been deeply humiliated as a result of our ongoing VAULT 7 publications. So this is a pre-emptive move by the CIA to try and discredit our publications and create a new category for WikiLeaks and other national security reporters to STRIP them of FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS, by defining the organisation as something that fits into existing interpretations:  so, you can surveil and engage in certain actions on "HOSTILE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES". That's throughout different pieces of US regulation, that you don't need search warrants and so on authorised by a judge, if what you're intercepting or surveilling is connected to an organisation that is an "INTELLIGENCE SERVICE" that is influencing someone. So, to CREATE this NEW CATEGORY of "NON-STATE INTELLINGENCE  SERVICE" can then be very easily applied to ANY MEDIA ORGANISATION  - "NON-STATE", of course means commercial organsation or a non-profit organsation. I think it's a long-term strategy. It's taking two bites of the apple: 1.  to REDEFINE MEDIA as "NON-STATE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES"; 2.  to use a perverse JURISDICTIONAL ARGUMENT, which is to say that all foreign reporters have no FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. Of course, the FIRST AMENDMENT is not a positive right. It doesn't, generally speaking, give [ASSANGE] or, in fact, anyone else, a positive right; it's an obligation to the government to give ... a right:  it's a LIMITATION ON THE GOVERNMENT that LIMITS its ability to INTERFERE with FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION or of the PRESS, in order to create the necessary environment of PUBLIC DEBATE which can STOP AUTOCRACY developing within the UNITED STATES. I've seen a lot of misleading assumptions by even some of our supporters - a lot on the kind of nationalist right - going:  well, look,we all like you, but, of course, the US CONSTITUTION does not apply to you in AUSTRALIA and in LONDON. That completely misreads it. The US CONSTITUTION applies to the CIA in Langley, Virginia, and every US GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE and all the ACTIONS that they might take in relation to actions initiated against WIKILEAKS. And, of course, WIKILEAKS has lots of AMERICAN EMPLOYEES - we're a GLOBAL ORGANISATION, etc. RON PAUL: The other thing POMPEO was doing - and we've touched on this - that because you're not an AMERICAN CITIZEN, you don't have the rights. But our constitution wasn't written to protect CITIZENS; it's for the persons who are exposed to our COURTS. And, therefore, this accusation that you have no rights, you're not even an American citizen and therefore you don't qualify, I think a lot of people believe that AND THAT HAS TO BE REFUTED. The other charge that they've been throwing out - and I'm sure you've answered to this already, but I think it's important because I don't know whether it's just propaganda on their part or they think that they can get somewhere - but that you're 'different' than THE WASHINGTON POST and the NEW YORK TIMES; [that] you're not a PUBLISHER because you're a participant in obtaining this information, and they've thrown that out there. But I just want to hear how you answer that charge. JULIAN ASSANGE WIKILEAKS: Well, it's completely FALSE. They've tried this in the trial of CHELSEA MANNING in 2013, and it failed; it was NOT accepted by the MILITARY COURTS. They attempted to use it in order to get an extra charge up against the then BRADLEY MANNING (now CHELSEA MANNING), and did not succeed, and the evidence that they tried to present was really pitiful.  It was that in 2009, WikiLeaks had a web page, and on that web page we had collected nominations from police, private investigators, journalists etc, about what kind of documents they'd be most interested in seeing come to the public. That was called the "WIKILEAKS MOST WANTED 2009". It wasn't something that we had asserted that 'we' wanted; it was collecting a list of what other people said that THEY wanted and, of course, that included all sorts of documents - and the US government argued that there was one of the types of documents that was on that page, CHELSEA MANNING has subsequently leaked to us and therefore this was some kind of 'conspiracy'. So, it's really very indirect and didn't stand up in the case. But, of course, the average NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER is engaged in a MUCH CLOSER RELATIONSHIP with their SOURCES, cultivating them over a long period of time, speaking to them - when a source says, "You know, I heard that this terrible thing happened ... "; and then the reporter goes:  "Well, that's interesting.  But can you prove it?  Do you have a document about it?" So, POMPEO - and it looks like the DOJ [Dept. of Justice] - is trying to REDEFINE that kind of conversation that occurs every day between journalists and their sources, as 'conspiracy' to commit 'espionage' and therefore OUTLAW it. DANIEL McADAMS - head of Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity - foreign policy expert - worked for many years on Capitol Hill - worked as an election monitor in eastern Europe Julian, you mentioned earlier on, the strange coincidence of the new assault on WikiLeaks with the VAULT 7 releases. Why is the CIA so upset about these VAULT 7 releases? JULIAN ASSANGE WIKILEAKS: Well, go back for a little while. You know, in the DEMOCRATICALLY ALIGNED PRESS, like THE WASHINGTON POST and CNN, this assault on us by the CIA and, apparently, the DOJ [Dept. of Justice], is being FRAMED as a TRUMP ADMINISTRATION initiative, but the reality is that this was going on under OBAMA for YEARS AND YEARS. That's why I have ASYLUM here.  There was a PENTAGON WAR ROOM of more than 120 people - publicly admitted - operating 24/7, back in 2010;  and then a very large FBI inquiry:  spraying out search warrants; trying to install informers; bribing people; flying people to Washington; [FBI] flying ILLICITLY plane-loads of FBI officers to ICELAND to interrogate people, etc. Extremely large. Now, because of the  POLITICAL RELATIONSHIP that the DEMOCRATS have with their base, by about two thousand and ... not long after I had asylum - so about mid 2012, they perceived that it did not benefit them POLITICALLY to talk the case up. But a lot was happening beneath the surface and continued to happen. Now this new REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION, perhaps because of the nature of the Republican base and because of the rhetorical assaults about them being approximate to RUSSIA, have now decided that it benefits them POLITICALLY to TALK UP the conflicts with WIKILEAKS and the DOJ [Dept. of Justice]. So that's why it's been raised up so much. The other reason is, yes, the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) and the VAULT 7 publications. Well, we have published previous documents about the CIA. But only only, you know, maybe ten (10) or twenty (20) documents previously. It's very rare to see an actual fresh document leaked from the CIA, with CIA letterhead.  Extremely rare. There's reports about some CIA official said something, or it may be a printed line in a document in a document seen by a journalist ... But for an actual document, it's extremely rare. Now, VAULT 7 is the largest ever series of publications about the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) in its history -- hundreds, thousands, of times larger than anything that has appeared before and it is on track to be the LARGEST INTELLIGENCE PUBLICATION EVER. So that is, of course, DEEPLY HUMILIATING to the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) and its RELATIONSHIPS TO OTHER INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, like MI6, and in its relationship with, say, the NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA) and with the FBI. So it's a way to get away from that HUMILIATION and, of course the PUBLIC and TECH COMPANIES are also don't like it very much because we've REVEALED that the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) created an ENORMOUS HACKER FORCE [that] produced HUNDREDS OF VIRUSES which it then went around hacking and installing in people, developing methods to install these in cars and telephones and probably LOST CONTROL close to the WHOLE LOT of them - and covered it up. So, LOST CONTROL of all this flowing around some INTELLIGENCE CONTRACTORS at the very least, and they covered it up.  So they didn't tell APPLE or MICROSOFT or other AFFECTED members of INDUSTRY about it, and the PUBLIC, of course, wasn't told.  It is quite interesting if it was also CONCEALED from President OBAMA. Anyway, so they have quite a lot to be concerned about in terms of POSSIBLE PROSECUTION OF CIA OFFICERS; DE-FUNDING of certain parts; general LOWERING OF PRESTIGE. And the CIA is a very INCOMPETENT organsiation.  I mean, this is the organisation that - let's look at it:  the CIA is the organisation that gave us * [the ILLEGAL INVASION of] IRAQ; * AL-QAEDA; * the destruction of democracy in IRAN; * PINOCHET; * the destruction of LIBYA; * the effective rise of ISIS; * and the SYRIAN CIVIL WAR. So this is an organisation that goes around engaging in actions which are either DEEPLY INCOMPETENT or which, even from the perspective of AMERICAN POWER, are COUNTER to its PURPOSES. RON PAUL: Julian, your opponents aren't too difficult to understand if you once realise that, from my viewpoint, I don't think they're interested in the TRUTH nor the LAW and they are interested in PROPOGANDISING a certain POSITION in order to PROMOTE some POLITICAL VIEWPOINT. But, you know, just recently you had an interview with [SEAN] HANNITY on FOX, which I found pretty fascinating. I don't know what your opinion is of that, but I thought it was positive and it's interesting that FOX had this on their program. How did you see this?  Did you see this as an advantage to you, to at least get your side out in an audience that might be back and forth on the issue? JULIAN ASSANGE WIKILEAKS: Yeah, just like publishing OpEds in THE WASHINGTON POST is now possible because THE WASHINGTON POST is lined against the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION and we now have a conflict in relation to the TRUMP CIA, so when that channel opens up, yes, we do it, because we reach an audience that we wouldn't necessarily normally reach. Same with FOX. Certain channels opened up there, because of CONFLICTS between the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION and the FBI administration and the CIA. It looks like CIA essentially won now. So that was important. People like HANNITY and SARAH PALIN have been accused of being hypocrites because they made some negative comments about WIKILEAKS before; we published SARAH PALIN's E-MAILS in 2008 - so you can understand why she might have been a bit annoyed - but she said I should be hunted down like the TALIBAN back in 2010 - and a few months ago, she APOLOGISED. Is she a 'hypocrite' or did she learn something and do the right thing? Maybe she's both.  I don't know.  But I see that as something positive. Regardless of what someone's previous position was, if they've now come to a better position, they should be applauded for coming to that better position. DANIEL McADAMS - head of Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity - foreign policy expert - worked for many years on Capitol Hill - worked as an election monitor in eastern Europe I'm constantly fascinated by the relationship between WIKILEAKS and the MAINSTREAM MEDIA (MSM). You mentioned THE WASHINGTON POST, and they've of course accused WIKILEAKS of being: "... It's core mission is not transparency but undermining US national security, if they gladly publish ..." your documents. But I think the thing that we haven't addressed yet that I think is very important, and I'm sure you're aware of this, it's the ONGOING DEMONISATION OF RUSSIA in the UNITED STATES. Anyone who QUESTIONS THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE is an 'agent of Putin'; TRUMP is an 'agent of Putin'; we're all 'agents of Putin' if we don't go along with this business, but THE WASHINGTON POST - especially its editoral page - which, as you know, has a very NEOCONSERVATIVE bent, under FRED HYATT - it talks about WIKILEAKS has "close ties with RUSSIA's INTELLIGENCE SERVICES"; this was 'proven' by the INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY's REPORT about the DNC 'hack'. Of course, we know about the DNC 'hack' - that the forensic investigation was done by an organisation called CROWD STRIKE. THE WASHINGTON POST wrote about that quite a bit. But, strangely enough, when CROWD STRIKE was DISCREDITED a couple of weeks ago, THE WASHINGTON POST neglected to mention that part. So maybe you can address these charges that WIKILEAKS is 'colluding with RUSSIAN intelligence services. JULIAN ASSANGE WIKILEAKS: Yeah, it's very mischievous to see that in certain media.  That, of course, is FALSE. But there's NO ALLEGATION - NO OFFICIAL ALLEGATION - from the US GOVERNMENT that there is ANY evidence of WIKILEAKS 'colluding' with RUSSIA, or EVEN that WIKILEAKS 'is colluding' with RUSSIA but they can't find the evidence. That simply doesn't exist and, in fact, it has been STATED MULTIPLE TIMES. BARRAK OBAMA in his last speech said that there was NO EVIDENCE of WIKILEAKS 'colluding' with RUSSIA. JAMES COMEY, within the last MONTH, has stated that if the RUSSIANS did anything with WIKILEAKS they didn't do anything directly with WIKILEAKS, unlike DNC LEAKS and GUCCIFER 2.0. AND JAMES CLAPPER - the DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, under OBAMA  - STATED just before the TRANSITION that the US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY had NO insight into how WIKILEAKS obtained its publications; when it obtained them; or the FREQUENCY or TIMING as to how we did our publications. So there you have it DIRECTLY from BARACK OBAMA and from the head of the FBI and the head of the NATIONANL INTELLIGENCE that there's no collusion that they can discern between WIKILEAKS and the RUSSIAN state. 25:31 So when you see reportage in the MEDIA suggesting otherwise, this is something that is EVEN going BEYOND what US intelligence is saying. I don't think US INTELLIGENCE is particularly credible. We all know that they're not particularly credible and they definitely have an ANGLE that they want to push for, particularly for their own POLITICAL and INSTITUTIONAL reasons. But they're NOT saying that WIKILEAKS 'colluded' with RUSSIA in any way. 25:58 FOLLOW:  WIKILEAKS TWITTER ACCOUNT - @wikileaks https://twitter.com/wikileaks LOOK AT:  JUSTICE4 ASSANGE https://justice4assange.com/ FOLLOW: @JulianAssange https://twitter.com/julianassange SOURCE: VIDEO - RON PAUL LIBERTY REPORT https://www.youtube.com/embed/QwkrtpXp-wg?autoplay=1&auto_play=true GLENN GREENWALD Trump’s CIA Director Pompeo, Targeting WikiLeaks, Explicitly Threatens Speech and Press Freedoms https://theintercept.com/2017/04/14/trumps-cia-director-pompeo-targeting-wikileaks-explicitly-threatens-speech-and-press-freedoms/ JOURNALIST: BARETT BROWN IN CUSTODY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_OOxcdAoE

United Snakes: Mongrel Capitalist Criminals Claim Global Jurisdiction

United Snakes:  Mongrel Capitalist Criminals Claim Global Jurisdiction SOURCE | New York Times Justice Department Opens Investigation Into Russian Doping Scandal By REBECCA R. RUIZ MAY 17, 2016 The United States Department of Justice has opened an investigation into state-sponsored doping by dozens of Russia’s top athletes, two people familiar with the case said. The inquiry escalates what has been a roiling sports controversy into a federal criminal case involving foreign officials. The United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York is scrutinizing Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, antidoping authorities and anyone who might have benefited unfairly from a doping regime, according to the people, who did not have authorization to speak about the inquiry publicly. Prosecutors are believed to be pursuing conspiracy and fraud charges. Federal courts have allowed prosecutors to bring cases against foreigners living abroad if there is some connection to the United States. That connection can be limited, such as the use of an American bank. [ ... ] The inquiry, which originated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would have to clear several hurdles before charges could be filed. Even if prosecutors are able to establish jurisdiction, securing the cooperation of Russian authorities in pursuing evidence and witnesses — and in ultimately delivering any charged defendants to the United States — would be all but impossible. It is rare for the United States government to take on sports doping cases. In February 2012, the United States attorney in Los Angeles, André Birotte Jr., dropped a two-year criminal investigation into Lance Armstrong and his Postal Service cycling team that had explored whether Mr. Armstrong and others defrauded sponsors by operating a doping program. [ ...] SOURCE | New York Times http://archive.is/G4egZ COMMENT Crooks.  Seriously.  These mongrel assh*les are criminals. Nuke 'em, Russia.  Please!!!!!!!!!!

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) - Notes Part 1

FBI Notes - Pt 1 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Origins: 'Threat' from 'anarchists 1901 [Guessing that would be labour movements seeking social justice] Govt keeping records for years, but Theodore Roosevelt sought more monitoring powers FBI started off as Bureau of Investigation (BOI) - 1908 from Department of Justice (DoJ) funds  (FBI = Dept. of Treasury off-shoot) incl. members of Secret Service (est. 1865), role:  (1) financial crimes investigation  (2) physical protection of assigned persons counterfeit currency was a big issue / 1865 one-third currency circulating was counterfeit Fast-forward:  1984 1984 = Comprehensive Crime Control Act, extending  Secret Service jurisdiction over credit card fraud & computer fraud. [see Phreakers - prior 1990 illegal 'tapping' into telecommunications services / free phone calls.]  Analog to digital telecommunications switch =  more exposure of telcoms to hackers 1990 Secret Service initiated Operation Sundevil ext. wire fraud / to counter rampant credit card & calling card fraud  Operation Sundevil  = multiple USG agencies, incl. Secret Service + FBI new laws to investigate + prosecute:   phreaking, hacking, wire &  cit card fraud  Op Sundevil drama - resulted in establishment of Electronic Frontier Foundation (f. Mitchell Kapor, f. Lotus Development Corp) + John Perry Barlow, an author = hired lawyers to represent hackers in two of cases re  Operation Sundevil > intended sting against malicious hackers, allegedly responsible for disrupting telephone services across entire US  > No convictions / Secret Service was sued & required to pay damages [no Wikipedia citation given] Due to publicity, Op Sundevil seen as public-relations stunt & message to hackers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sundevil 2012  2012 - El Salvador - Secret Service agents hiring strippers & prostitutes prior to Obama  visit.  ;) -- Name change to FBI - 1935  HQ =   J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, DC FIELD OFFICES = 56 RESIDENT AGENCIES (smaller cities) = 400 + LEGAL ATTACHÉS (International embassy & consulate attachments) = 50 2012 Budget =  approx.  $8.12 billion --  J Edgar Hoover  John Edgar Hoover, Director (48 years) JEH =  FBI Director who served from 1924–1972 48 years with BOI, DOI + FBI. DOI = Dept of Interior = Fed dept re management of federal lands, resources etc.  aka   "The Department of Everything Else"  - ie broad range of responsibilities  GW Bush - emphasis on commerce over conservation Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney:   "Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of Interior. [1] -- FBI = US government (USG) agency,  within the US Department of Justice FBI is a USA security service & the agency is part of the US 'Intelligence Community' FBI organisation serves two functions: 1.  federal criminal investigations. 2.  internal intelligence agency. FBI investigates these: counter-terrorism / terrorist attacks counterintelligence / foreign intelligence ops & espionage cyberwarfare / cybercrime major white-collar crime significant violent crime transnational/national organised crime civil rights  [ummm, think they might actually subvert, rather than 'investigate' these ;)] public corruption (all levels) * Indian reservations = federal / FBI responsibility  * FBI works in conjunction with other USG federal agencies -- PATRIOT Act  increased FBI powers, esp. wiretapping & monitoring of Internet activity Controversial PATRIOT Act provision = 'sneak & peek' provision ie.  The State (via its FBI agency) can enter & search  a home while occupant is out, without notifiying occupant of this gross  violation "for several weeks". [Wow, that's seriously sick & totalitarian conduct, in the 'land of the free.'] FBI can also inquire into the 'library records' of targets / that presumably is a library of government stored data, rather than one's book library. FBI  Late 1970s - early 1980s -  Abscam controversy - allegations of FBI  entrapment of elected officials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam FBI, aided by Justice Department & a convicted con-man, Melvin Weinberg (convicted swindler, international con artist & informant) FBI videotaped politicians accepting bribes from a fraudulent Arabian co. in return for political favours. 31 targeted officials / 1 Senator + 6 House of Reps - convictions Weinberg avoided prison re prior scams & was paid $150,000 in agreement with Abscam operation Criticism:  "widespread and serious misuse" of national security letters (an administrative subpoena used to demand records & data of individuals). -- Counterintelligence 1940s - 1970s - FBI investigation of spying on US & allies cases Ex parte Quirin x8  Nazi agents (planned sabotage ops) - x8 arrested  / x6 executed Ex parte Quirin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Quirin EX PARTE Lat. 'By or for one party' or 'by one side.' http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e051.htm US Supreme Court -  precedent - 1942 Trial by military commission of unlawful combatant against USA "the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals." Leitenant Colonel Kenneth Royall:  Roosevelt had no right to create a military tribunal to try his clients, citing Ex parte Milligan (1866), a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not establish military tribunals to try civilians in areas where civilian courts were functioning, even during wartime.   Prosecutor Francis Biddle rebutted his argument, citing the case of British Major John André, who was executed as a spy by the Continental Army for passing through American lines to meet with American officer Benedict Arnold during the American Revolutionary War.  Biddle responded that the U.S. and Germany were at war and cited the Alien Enemies Act of 1798:  whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies  Supreme Court unanimously denied Royall's appeal, writing:  "The military commission was lawfully constituted ... petitioners are held in lawful custody for trial before the military commission and have not shown cause for being discharged by writ of habeas corpus." Writ of habeas corpus  =  writ to decide if a state's detention of a prisoner is valid / demands prisoner be brought before court Ex parte Quirin - SC decision controversy Justice Robert H. Jackson - draft opinion, expressing his disagreement with portions of SC opinion  http://www.greenbag.org/v9n3/v9n3_articles_goldsmith.pdf *Controversy revived - legal implications during War on Terror. Venona Project (1943-1980) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project  Joint US + UK code-breaking project  - Venona (1943-1980) initiated by forerunner of National Security Agency (NSA), ie US Army Signal Intelligence Service FBI was heavily involved Broke Soviet diplomatic & intelligence communications codes, allowing US + UK  to read Soviet communications Australians collected Venona intercepts Walter Seddon Clayton (cryptonym 'KLOD') - Australian, suspected of being Soviet spy-master. Communist Party of Australia / underground network within CPA, operable even if party shut down http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Seddon_Clayton Clayton mocked ASIO by going back into hiding shortly after his appearance at the Royal Commission. ASIO retaliated against Clayton with Operation Pigeon. Menzies cancelled Clayton & his wife's passports day before they were due to depart Australia. Clayton kept under ASIO surveillance throughout 1950s and 1960s as part of Operation Pigeon. Surveillance may have even extended into 1970s and 1980s. ASIO reportedly recruited services of local fishermen in Port Stephens area to monitor his movements at sea / submarine rendezvous preventative  [>> LMAO] Hoover, administering Verona, did not inform CIA re Verona until 1952. Summaries sourced at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation and/or other, as linked. COMMENT Must have looked at some of this stuff before, at some point.  But I've got a shocking memory, so any time I look something up it's like a wonderful revelation all over again. Doing some basic summaries is supposed to help me retain what I've read, but I wouldn't bet on it. Even if I don't remember this, it was really fun checking it out today. Surprised that the FBI seem to be quite powerful among the US agencies.  Always thought they were just fancy police or something like that. It looks like methods of operation remain the same:  ie use crooks facing time to participate in entrapment activities (see Melvin Weinberg, Abscam), combined with pay-offs. Also sounds like a creepy organisation - eg  'sneak & peak', wiretapping, data access etc. Activities extend beyond US national boundaries, as there's an international avenue through embassies (embassy & consulate legal attachments). OTHER * Check out the USD$8.12 billion est. 2012 budget of FBI (alone) vs their targets:  eg WikiLeaks & others. * USD$14.7 billion  2013 requested funding CIA - source here and here. So that's probably something like USD$22.82 billion vs. WikiLeaks publisher & other targets, in two US agencies' resources alone, and much a greater figure than that in resources of various combined USG agencies. "An espionage empire The summary provides a detailed look at how the U.S. intelligence community has been reconfigu by the massive infusion of resources that followed the 2001 attacks. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on intelligence during that period, an outlay that U.S. officials say has succeeded in its main objective: preventing another catastrophic terrorist attack in the United States. The result is an espionage empire with resources and a reach beyond those of any adversary, sustained even now by spending that rivals or exceeds the levels at the height of the Cold War." [Washington Post] "We the people" should be feeling dwarfed and freaked out by the size of the secret state apparatus ... and the size and power of the state. [ Edited out some colour code ( #A83128 ) that had somehow got into my text.  Very strange.  Did a global change of colour in notepad because the red was too bright.  But I somehow wound up with code among text without realising.  Hence the 'strange code'.   LOL Noooooo!  My colour code wasn't a code, as such.  It was the word 'red', which I globally searched & replaced with a HTML colour code ... but the letters 'red' appear in a number of words in the text document.  And they've been replaced with a code.  A code I removed.  So, why am I still having to edit?  Because it's has taken the letter combination - 'red' - out of the entire document.  Sh*t.  Now I've got to proofread and I'm really sleepy.   :(  Updated as best I could when I can barely stay awake.  Sure to have missed something.  It's a work in progress.  LOL]

US GOVT INJUSTICE, BARRETT BROWN & THE EVIL EMPIRE

BARRETT BROWN Journalist BARRETT BROWN #FreeBarrett  TWITTER: https://twitter.com/FreeBarrett_   SITE: http://echelon2.org   SUPPORT: http://freebarrettbrown.org My Post Cyberpunk Indentured Servitude http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/31/my-post-cyberpunk-indentured-servitude.html Journalist Barrett Brown looks back in anger at the government’s trumped up charges against him as he starts a 63 month prison sentence. Not long ago I was a mild-mannered freelance journalist, activist, and satirist, contributing to outlets like the Guardian and Vanity Fair. But last Thursday I was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison in a case that Reporters Without Borders cited as a key factor in its reduction of America’s press freedom rankings from 33 to 46. As inconvenient as this is for me, the upside is that for the first time in the two and a half years since I was arrested, I am at last able to speak freely about what has been happening to me and why—and what it means for the press and the republic as a whole. A portion of my sentence stems from an attempt I made to conceal from the government the identities of certain contacts of mine: pro-democracy activists living under Middle Eastern dictatorships such as Bahrain, with which the U.S. is known to share intelligence on such things. Another large chunk is due to an admittedly ill-conceived public threat I made—in the midst of opiate withdrawal and what court psychologists say was a manic state brought on by medication issues—to investigate and humiliate an F.B.I. agent, who had himself threatened to indict my mother in an attempt to get me to cooperate against individuals associated with the Anonymous movement (my mother was indeed charged). Though I clearly stated that my intent was not violent, the prosecution claimed that my “victim,” Dallas-based Special Agent Robert Smith, had reason to fear that I might physically harm him and even his children—in which case it is not immediately obvious why the prosecution felt the need to alter the end of the sentence in question when quoting it on the indictment. (My complete statement, (PDF) in which I make a point of noting that I was merely going to proceed along lines spelled out by the FBI-linked contractor C.E.O. Aaron Barr while he was investigating activists on behalf of his corporate clients, and that I was doing so perfunctorily, and merely in order to make a point about the F.B.I.’s traditional reluctance to investigate its allies, has been viewed on YouTube by well over 100,000 people, including the dozens of reporters who have covered the story; none of them seem to agree with the Department of Justice contention that a journalist’s threat to “look into” someone in an explicitly non-violent manner necessarily entails violence.) A separate declaration I made to the effect that I’d defend my family from any illegal armed raids by the government, while silly and bombastic, was not actually illegal under the threats statutes. To judge from similar comments made by Senator Joni Ernst, it would not even have necessarily precluded me from delivering the G.O.P.’s recent response to the State of the Union address. But the charges that prompted the most international outrage were those alleging fraud. In late 2011, I copied and pasted a link to a publicly-available file, which chat transcripts introduced in court showed that I initially believed to contain the same leaked corporate emails I’d long been in the habit of reviewing for my Guardian articles. The file turned out to contain customer data, including credit card numbers. Although the government’s own forensics showed that I never opened the file, the D.O.J. contended (PDF) that I had thereby engaged in 11 counts of aggravated identity theft, punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of 22 years in federal prison. The feds were eventually forced to drop these precedent-setting charges, after which I agreed to plea to the spurious make-believe crimes described above, so as to avoid the perils of a Texas jury. (As the government itself warned in a 2013 public filing, (PDF) my status as an atheist would have seriously damaged my ability to get a fair trial here in Dallas—although one might wonder how a jury would know I’m an atheist unless the government made a point of bringing it up, as they did, say, in that 2013 public filing.)     I will spend the rest of my life in a strange state of post-cyberpunk indentured servitude to an amoral private intelligence firm. I also had to plea to an Accessory After the Fact charge for having contacted the corporate espionage outfit Stratfor after some Anonymous-affiliated hackers stole several million of the firm’s emails and vowed to publish them online; I offered to arrange with the hackers to redact any of those communications that could potentially have endangered any foreign contacts if made public. For this, I will not only serve additional prison time, but have also been ordered to pay the company over $800,000—which is to say that I will spend the rest of my life in a strange state of post-cyberpunk indentured servitude to an amoral private intelligence firm that’s perhaps best known for having spied on Bhopal activists on behalf of Dow Chemical. That the prosecution did not quite manage to articulate how I did any damage to this particular company did not seem to dissuade U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay in this matter. Likewise, His Honor did not express any visible interest in the fact that the F.B.I. itself has acknowledged having actually overseen the hack on Stratfor via its confidential informant, Hector “Sabu” Monsegur, who recently appeared in a national television interview with Charlie Rose to discuss his role in these matters. Quite understandably, most media coverage of last week’s sentencing hearing has focused on the exciting twist ending. Despite having dropped the notorious “linking” charges, the government still managed to convince Judge Lindsay to hold me responsible for the act of copying and pasting a link—a link that was already public, and which led to a file which was already itself public, and to which other journalists had also linked without being prosecuted for it—by way of a sentencing mechanism known as “relevant conduct.” In doing so, Judge Lindsay stated that this would not actually cause any concern among journalists—an exquisitely bizarre claim insomuch as countless journalists have been expressing concern over this very matter since the charges were first brought in 2012, with Wired’s Quinn Norton even having testified at a prior hearing that she herself would have been subject to such prosecution not only in the Stratfor affair, but throughout much of her career reporting on online security. In the wake of last week’s sentencing, Norton announced she could no longer report on security breaches and advised her colleagues to refrain as well. I will leave it to Judge Lindsay to explain to the concerned members of the press that they are not actually concerned; based on the commentary that’s now coming out of outlets ranging from the U.S. News & World Report to The Intercept and the Columbia Journalism Review, His Honor has a big job ahead of him. Instead, I will merely point out the other major scandal inherent to this case, one which has so far gone largely unreported—that in addition to having lost the “right to link” journalists have also now lost the “right to quote.” In trying to make the case that I was a violent threat to Agent Smith, the prosecution attributed to me the following statement: “Dead men can’t leak stuff … illegally shoot the son of a bitch.” I will admit that this is clearly an outright call for murder, and thus would certainly seem to warrant an F.B.I. investigation. The problem is that it wasn’t I who uttered this, but rather Fox News commentator Bob Beckel, who said it on national television in the course of a no-doubt productive discussion about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. I had merely quoted the statement on my Twitter feed—in disapproval, of course, as I happen to admire Assange, and he, himself, has put out a statement expressing astonishment that the U.S. government would attribute to me a call for his murder made by someone else on a major cable news network. Now, it would be one thing if this had simply been a misunderstanding on the part of the D.O.J., which, in all fairness, was clearly in a rush to flesh out its fabricated case against me. But when my attorneys pointed this out in a motion to dismiss the charge, the prosecutor, Candina Heath, actually stuck to her guns, arguing that, by quoting this, I had “promoted” the idea. Among many other things, this leaves open the question of why Bob Beckel has not been indicted. The answer is that, unlike me, Beckel did not spend much of 2011 investigating the full extent of the Team Themis conspiracy, in which F.B.I.-linked contracting firms prepared a covert and criminal scheme by which to launch cyber-attacks in a campaign of intimidation against activists and journalists deemed supportive of Wikileaks—a conspiracy that, as the press and even some members of Congress noted at the time that it was foiled and made public by Anonymous, had been put in motion by none other than the D.O.J. itself. The dozen or so Americans who still have faith in the essential decency of the D.O.J., despite the assorted scandals of the last 15 years, might find it hard to believe that the charges against me were actually prompted by my efforts to bring attention to the agency’s own wrong-doing. It’s a fine thing, then, that the late journalist Michael Hastings saw fit to publish a copy of the original search warrants in my case, which list Themis firms HBGary Federal and Endgame Systems as subjects to be searched among my files, along with echelon2.org, the website on which my colleagues and I posted our research on the matter. Stratfor, the firm I allegedly cost almost a million dollars via a single phone call, is left unmentioned. But what should worry Americans most is not that the various frightening aspects of this case can fill a rather wordy article. What should worry them is that this is not even that article. The great bulk of the government’s demonstrable lies, contradictions, and instances of perjury are still sealed and thus unavailable to the public. Other matters are just now coming to light, such as the revelation, two days before my sentencing, that the D.O.J. had withheld from my defense team sealed chat transcripts from the Jeremy Hammond hacking case which contradicted its key claim that I was a co-conspirator in the Stratfor hack. And there are still other aspects of all this, such as the F.B.I.’s seizure of my copy of the Declaration of Independence as evidence of my criminal activity, that I blush to even commit to print, lest I not be believed, even despite the F.B.I. itself having now confirmed it. Suffice to say that I shall produce a far more comprehensive account of this whole affair later this year, even if I have few illusions that it will make much difference; a state that had reason to fear the press would not have acted as openly as it has, for as long as it has, and to such ends as it has. If anyone needs me in the meantime, I’ll be in prison.  [ ... LOL, BB's always funny.] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/31/my-post-cyberpunk-indentured-servitude.html COMMENT How's that for sleaze, injustice, and violation of democracy, liberties, law, and who knows what else?  And that's not some official USG enemy; that's the Evil Empire itself. People don't get a fair go or fair trials in America. Notice how they only go after those they consider a 'threat' and how arbitrary it all is? Also, that you can't get a fair hearing as an atheist in Texas is surely a joke. So is the prosecution targeting a person's lack of superstitious beliefs, to gain the upper hand in a courtroom, based on a trumped up case to further the interests of a bunch of wrongdoers and sleasebags. If that isn't evidence of absolute godlessness and a case for atheism, I don't know what his.  Another good reason for society to abolish state endorsement of religion (which is used to manipulate ignorant or misguided people politically, and in other ways, by the state, by lobby funders, by interest groups, by individuals, by preachers, by gurus and so on - the list is endless).   Look-Ups Cluster of contractors known as Team Themis Team Themis - a consortium made up of: HBGary Palantir Berico (with Endgame Systems serving as a "silent partner") source:   http://echelon2.org/wiki/Team_Themis Barrett Brown Faces 105 Years in Jail http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces-105-years-in-jail-20130905 ROLLING STONE - EXTRACTS (some minor modification) ... origins of Team Themis date to Bank of America  alarm over Julian Assange 2010 claim to possess documents that "could take down a bank or two." Department of Justice recommended Bank of America retain the services of: DC law firm Hunton & Williams Booz Allen Hamilton (high-powered intelligence contractor) On behalf of Bank of America, Hunton & Williams turned to the large and growing world of InfoSec subcontractors to come up with a plan, settling on: > HBGary > x2 data ­intelligence shops: Berico Technologies Palantir Technologies Themis three were also preparing a proposal for Hunton & Williams on behalf of another client, the US Chamber of Commerce. The leaked HBGary documents revealed that Themis was exploring ways of discrediting and disrupting the activities of organized labor and its allies for the Chamber. potential money at stake in these contracts was considerable According to Wired, the trio proposed that the Chamber create a $2-million­a-month sort of cyber special-forces team "of the kind developed and utilized by the Joint Special Operations Command." They also suggested targeting a range of left-of-center organizations, incl.: > SEIU > watchdog groups like US Chamber Watch > Center for American Progress (The Chamber of Commerce and Bank of America have denied ever hiring Team Themis or having any knowledge of the proposals.) Pursuing Chamber and Bank of America contracts, the Themis three devised multipronged campaigns, amounting to: > a private-sector information-age COINTELPRO  (ie FBI's program to infiltrate and undermine "subversive" groups between 1956 and 1971) Among the Themis ideas presented to Hunton & Williams: 1.      Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. 2.      Disinformation. 3.      Create messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization. 4.      Submit fake documents and then call out the error. 5.      The revelations represented a triumph for Brown and his wiki. A group of Democratic congressmen asked four Republican committee chairs to hold hearings on the "deeply troubling" question of whether "tactics developed for use against terrorists may have been unleashed illegally against American citizens." But the calls for investigation went nowhere.  Brown on lack of outrage Washington & media: "[politicians and pundits] clearly intent on killing off even this belated scrutiny into the invisible empire that so thoroughly scrutinizes us – at our own expense and to unknown ends."  SOURCE:  http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces-105-years-in-jail-20130905