Al-Manar: WikiLeaks Founder Assange: Google Working for NSA

ASSANGE WikiLeaks Founder Assange: Google Working for NSA Local Editor Julian Assange WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange made an alarming claim that internet search engine Google is working like an intelligence agency, collecting, storing and indexing the data of its users. Speaking to BBC and Sky News, Assange compared Google to a “a privatized version of the NSA,” referring to the US National Security Agency which was revealed to have been spying on millions of people worldwide by whistleblower Edward Snowden last year. “Google’s business model is the spy. It makes more than 80 percent of its money by collecting information about people, pooling it together, storing it, indexing it, building profiles of people to predict their interests and behavior, and then selling those profiles principally to advertisers, but also others,” Assange told the BBC. “So the result is that Google, in terms of how it works, its actual practice, is almost identical to the National Security Agency or GCHQ,” he said. Assange also went on to say that Google has been working with the NSA since 2002, and is included as part of the defense industrial base as of 2009. “They have been engaged with the Prism system, where nearly all information collected by Google is available to the NSA,” Assange said, adding “at the institutional level, Google is deeply involved in US foreign policy.” Assange, who has been trapped in London's Ecuadorian embassy since June 2012 after being granted asylum, risks being arrested immediately by British police who stand watch outside the embassy should he attempt to leave. http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?fromval=1&cid=31&frid=31&eid=171884

For information on PRISM program, a link to the Wikipedia - here. 

Briefly from Wikipedia:

PRISM is a clandestine mass electronic surveillance data mining program launched in 2007 by the National Security Agency (NSA), with participation from an unknown date by the British equivalent agency, GCHQ.

... The Prism program collects stored Internet communications based on demands made to Internet companies such as Google Inc. under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms.

Systems:

    PRISM
    ECHELON
    Carnivore
    DISHFIRE
    STONEGHOST
    Frenchelon

Agencies:

    ASD        (Australian Signals Directorate)

    BND       (German)

    CSIS       (Canadian) (Security Intelligence Service)

    CSEC      (Canadian) (Communications Security Establishment)

    DGSE     (French) 

(Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure/ 

General Directorate for External Security)

    GCHQ  (British)

    GCSB   (NZ) (Government Communications Security Bureau)

    NGIA   (US)  (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)

    NSA     (US)  (National Security Agency)

    NRO    (US) National Reconnaissance Office

 
[Agencies listed are matched with subsequent look-ups.] 

VIDEO - Assange: Google has revolving doors with State Dept (EXCLUSIVE)

Assange: Google has revolving doors with State Dept (EXCLUSIVE)

UK - SOCIALITY EQUALITY PARTY - Scotland’s No vote and the crisis of the British nation state

SCOTLAND Scotland’s No vote and the crisis of the British nation state Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (UK) 19 September 2014 Independence for Scotland was defeated in Thursday’s referendum by 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent on an 84.6 percent turnout. There was an initial sense of relief in ruling circles, given that at one point, according to opinion polls, the Yes campaign looked set to secure a majority—threatening the imminent dissolution of the 307-year union between Scotland, England and Wales. Such a prospect had been likened to a new “Lehman’s moment”—a reference to the bank failure that triggered the 2008 financial crash. There were fears too that a Yes victory would have weakened Britain’s ruling elite on all fronts, prompting warnings by politicians, economists, corporate executives and military figures. The British pound and UK shares both rallied Friday morning, after having suffered major losses in recent days. Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), announced his intention to resign in recognition of the Yes campaign’s failure. But by the end of the day, gains for shares and sterling had swung into reverse as it became clear that the acute crisis of the British nation state was far from over. Most worrying for the bourgeoisie was the fact that the majority against separation came despite, not because of, the campaign by the major parties—Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat—which formed the backbone of the “Better Together” camp. The campaign revealed the huge level of disaffection and hostility towards the Westminster elite, all of whom are associated with illegal colonial wars and austerity. That a majority rejected efforts to divert anger over this state of affairs into support for the creation of new national borders is testimony to the strong sense of shared identity among working people [Whose identity?] and a well-founded mistrust of the pro-big business SNP. However, the Yes campaign was able to successfully exploit social and political discontent among a section of workers and youth to increase support for independence by approximately 15 percent from 2012. More than two out of five voted for separation, with Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, registering a majority Yes vote. The SNP owes everything to fake-left forces—the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Tommy Sheridan, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Radical Independence Campaign. Their role was to conceal the reactionary social and political interests represented by Scottish separatism and paint it in pseudo-socialist colours. To this end they acted as the foot-soldiers of the Yes campaign, recasting the SNP as part of a broad movement for a more progressive post-independence Scotland. The fake-left tendencies now claim that the increase in the Yes vote is itself proof of the working class credentials of Scottish nationalism. It is nothing of the sort. The enormous development of globalised production and financial markets has provided a section of the regional bourgeoisie with the opportunity to secure direct relations with the transnational corporations and banks, bypassing central government.  That is why the SNP’s central demand was for a cut in corporation tax. Around this bourgeois faction gravitates a middle class layer of state functionaries, academics and trade union bureaucrats that provides the social basis for the fake-left groups. SSP leader Colin Fox summed up their future course, claiming that the result was “independence deferred.” They are mooting the possibility of forming a new “left,” i.e., nationalist, party in Scotland that could include sections of the Labour Party and the SNP. The No vote has in no way lessened the dangers facing working people across Britain. There are deep divisions within the ruling elite on virtually every question. Far from a period of “reconciliation” opening up, the next months will see a bitter struggle on every front. In the aftermath of their defeat, the SNP and its allies are demanding the greatest possible concessions from Westminster in a bitter scramble to control vital resources, such as taxes on North Sea Oil, from which they hope to become personally very wealthy. For his part, Prime Minister David Cameron used the result to insist that Scotland had had its say and it was now time to listen to the “millions of voices of England.” While guaranteeing that the three parties’ pledge of more powers for the Scottish parliament would be “honoured in full,” he pledged to introduce “English votes for English laws”—ending the right of Scottish and Welsh MPs to vote on certain issues now dealt with in the Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly. Drafted by Labour, and presented as an alternative path to “home rule” for Scotland, the measures to expand the powers of the Scottish parliament include a commitment to extend tax-varying powers and oversight of certain areas of social welfare to Holyrood. Cameron’s announcement makes clear that these measures will, in fact, be used to encourage national and regional competition everywhere, with one commentator claiming that the “slumbering beast of English nationalism” had been awakened.  [Uncertain what this means] In addition, Cameron hopes to permanently cripple the Labour Party by excluding Scottish and Welsh MPs, on whom Labour relies, from voting on English matters—prompting Labour Party leader Ed Miliband to reject Cameron’s proposals. Whatever emerges from the internecine [mutually destructive] conflict in ruling circles, the bill will be paid by the working class, who will be pitted against one another in a race to the bottom in terms of jobs, wages and social conditions. The referendum campaign must serve as a profound warning. Without a socialist reorientation of the working class, the deepening crisis of British and world capitalism can take on reactionary forms—above all in the deliberate fostering of national divisions. The Socialist Equality Party is the only tendency that advanced a political alternative. We urged a No vote in the referendum based on uniting working people against all sections of the bourgeoisie in the fight for a socialist Britain.  [Great.  So Scotland doesn't get its independence ... & working classes everywhere are shafted regardless.  Meanwhile a 'socialist Britain' is a fantasy that will *never* be realised.  Bad call.] We warned that the nationalism whipped up by the SNP and the fake-left would strengthen similar right-wing tendencies in Europe and internationally. The SEP counterposed [set against] to the Balkanization of the continent into a patchwork of mini-states and ethnic cantons the fight for the United Socialist States of Europe. In the course of our campaign, we sold over 10,000 copies of our statement “ Vote No in the Scottish referendum—Fight for a Socialist Britain ” and discussed with tens of thousands of workers and young people. Many expressed relief at meeting socialists opposed to nationalism and upholding working class unity. Our intervention centered on combating the lies and distortions of the pseudo-left groups. Explaining that the potential breakup of the UK was rooted in the deepening crisis of world capitalism and the outmoded division of the planet into antagonistic nation states, we urged the adoption by the working class of a new socialist and internationalist program and leadership. In the next period, this political offensive must and will be deepened, not just in Britain, but in a unified offensive by our comrades in Europe and internationally. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/19/scot-s20.html

COMMENT

The notion of international socialism is an unappealing and unrealistic concept.

Very disappointed to read that a socialist organisation supported a 'No' to the Scottish independence vote, on the basis of nothing more than some fantasy nirvana of worldwide socialism.

VIDEO - Jacob Appelbaum - People Think They're Exempt From NSA (2014)

People Think They're Exempt From NSA (2014)  Jacob Appelbaum   "Appelbaum  is a world renowned Internet freedom activist involved with the Tor Project to salvage privacy and anonymity for individuals in the digital age. He also co-wrote a book with Julian Assange of Wikileaks outlining many of the problems brought to light by the Edward Snowden revelations." "... NSA has compromised virtually the world’s computer networks. Its capacity to hack into these networks far surpasses the antiquated defense capacity of individuals, businesses and other governments." Source Tenth Commandment Centre - here.

ASSANGE - News Talk (Ireland) Article & Audio Interview

ASSANGE http://www.newstalk.com/-Julian-Assange-speaks-to-Newstalk Google's Stalinist views on providing whistleblower information to public -- think it should be mediated by govt -- http://goo.gl/WobbyC US had 2 admit under oath that NOT a SINGLE person was harmed as a result of #WikiLeaks whistleblower publication > http://goo.gl/WobbyC  COMMENT Assange AUDIO interview also @ link.  Following is my understanding of audio. The Guardian newspaper is an establishment newspaper. However, not the landed gentry or large corporations. Guardian is associated with the ‘Mandarin class’ – ie political advisors, MI6, the Foreign Office (aside:  they share office premises in London @ ‘Lego Building’, whatever that is), and the Commonwealth Office. As I understood audio, the Guardian was a most significant censor of WikiLeaks information, catering to this bureaucratic class of interests -- and due to fears of the cost of libel cases. Assange, who has been granted political asylum, has been the subject of the largest US investigation into a publisher – now spanning 4 years – and has been the subject of threats to his life (as has his family). The UK has indicated that it will arrest Assange irrespect of the outcome of the Swedish matter. It is unknown whether the US has issued a sealed extradition request.  However, the US may also phone in such a request (on the basis that necessarily paperwork may be lodged within 40 days of request). Therefore, it’s logical to conclude that any arrest of Assange by the UK authorities would manifest in Assange being handed over to the US by their UK ally. On a bright note, Assange is confident that – barring any geopolitical crises (eg action in Ukraine) intervening (which would grant special state powers on basis of national security) – the international law will inevitably be observed. That’s about it for the audio I think, but best to have a listen because I’m not familiar with all this stuff and may have misunderstood or missed bits.

YEMEN - UNREST

YEMEN #Yemen Sa'naa /fierce gunfire / rebel advance on the capital / TV station down / 40 ppl killed Thu./ UN envoy w/ rebels / flights suspended    #Yemen Sa'naa /fierce gunfire / rebel advance on the capital / TV station down / 40 ppl killed Thu./ UN envoy w/ rebels / flights suspended UN envoy would be Jamal Benomar >> flown in for talks w/ rebel leader Abdulmalik Al Houthi pic.twitter.com/x9SUXJY8we >Moroccan-born / political prisoner 8-yrs Morocco (1976–83) / uni lecturer politics / POST Carter admin H/Rights director Carter Ctr ----------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE also earlier news: Massive unrest - 'tens of thousands' protest in Sanaa #Yemen - re cutting of fuel subsidies & political - http://goo.gl/LZoeDc #Iran diplomat Nour Ahmad Nikbakht who was abducted in Sana'a in July is in good health conditions [Fars News] - Sana'a = #Yemen capital

UK - Attack on free speech & democracy (Lobbying Act - aka 'Gagging Act') || And GCHQ's John Sawers Interview

UK GCHQ - Sawers ----------------------------------------   Sir John Sawers GCHQ head has a nibble & chat re #Snowden revelations & reforming MI6 - http://goo.gl/4Fnkrv  - he looks shifty to me Ø      Governor of Ditchley Foundation 2 promote international, *especially* Anglo-American relations ... [wikipedia] ... LOL Ø      12 annual conferences/ invitees drawn from senior levels of politics, business, the armed forces, media & academia. Ø      Hey, it's the Who's Who of corporate & US butt-kissers - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditchley_Foundation … Ø      Sawers drew up plans to train & equip a Syrian rebel army of 100,000 to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad !! [wikipedia] GCHQ chief's holidays interrupted by " beheadings of two American hostages by Islamist jihadis" .. proceeds to sell need 4 intell @ lunch ----------------------------------------   LOBBYING ACT - aka 'Gagging Act' #UK govt quietly pushed thru Lobbying Act critics claim is highly UNDEMOCRATIC - dubbed 'Gagging Act' - http://on.rt.com/9012gg  > #ukPolitics >anti-lobbying bill passed Fri. UK govt set 2 silence & criminalise dissent 12 mth prior 2 any major election!! - #ukPolitics But electioneering propaganda in newspapers & political parties’ election spending OK.  Bill is de-facto pro-establishment. Ø      Trade Union Congress (TUC) as a “chilling attack on free speech.” --- #ukPolitics ----------------------------------------   COMMENT The way legislation is pushed through -- and the nature of the legislation -- is understandably a concern. With this sort of thing going on, it sure doesn't look like UK's a democracy. For the low-down on the guy that heads GCHQ (until November, I think it is), check out the Financial Times article - here.