After leaving The Washington Post in 1977, Carl Bernstein spent six months looking at the relationship of the CIA and the press during the Cold War years. His 25,000-word cover story, published in Rolling Stone on October 20, 1977, is reprinted below.
THE CIA AND THE MEDIA
How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up
BY CARL BERNSTEIN
In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America’s leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column. He went at the request of the CIA.
Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty‑five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services—from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go‑betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors without‑portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring‑do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations.
The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception for the following principal reasons:
■ The use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence‑gathering employed by the CIA. Although the Agency has cut back sharply on the use of reporters since 1973 primarily as a result of pressure from the media), some journalist‑operatives are still posted abroad.
■ Further investigation into the matter, CIA officials say, would inevitably reveal a series of embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and 1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and individuals in American journalism.
Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune.
By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.
The CIA’s use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress. The general outlines of what happened are indisputable; the specifics are harder to come by. CIA sources hint that a particular journalist was trafficking all over Eastern Europe for the Agency; the journalist says no, he just had lunch with the station chief. CIA sources say flatly that a well‑known ABC correspondent worked for the Agency through 1973; they refuse to identify him. A high‑level CIA official with a prodigious memory says that the New York Times provided cover for about ten CIA operatives between 1950 and 1966; he does not know who they were, or who in the newspaper’s management made the arrangements.
The Agency’s special relationships with the so‑called “majors” in publishing and broadcasting enabled the CIA to post some of its most valuable operatives abroad without exposure for more than two decades. In most instances, Agency files show, officials at the highest levels of the CIA usually director or deputy director) dealt personally with a single designated individual in the top management of the cooperating news organization. The aid furnished often took two forms: providing jobs and credentials “journalistic cover” in Agency parlance) for CIA operatives about to be posted in foreign capitals; and lending the Agency the undercover services of reporters already on staff, including some of the best‑known correspondents in the business.
In the field, journalists were used to help recruit and handle foreigners as agents; to acquire and evaluate information, and to plant false information with officials of foreign governments. Many signed secrecy agreements, pledging never to divulge anything about their dealings with the Agency; some signed employment contracts., some were assigned case officers and treated with. unusual deference. Others had less structured relationships with the Agency, even though they performed similar tasks: they were briefed by CIA personnel before trips abroad, debriefed afterward, and used as intermediaries with foreign agents. Appropriately, the CIA uses the term “reporting” to describe much of what cooperating journalists did for the Agency. “We would ask them, ‘Will you do us a favor?’”.said a senior CIA official. “‘We understand you’re going to be in Yugoslavia. Have they paved all the streets? Where did you see planes? Were there any signs of military presence? How many Soviets did you see? If you happen to meet a Soviet, get his name and spell it right .... Can you set up a meeting for is? Or relay a message?’” Many CIA officials regarded these helpful journalists as operatives; the journalists tended to see themselves as trusted friends of the Agency who performed occasional favors—usually without pay—in the national interest.
“I’m proud they asked me and proud to have done it,” said Joseph Alsop who, like his late brother, columnist Stewart Alsop, undertook clandestine tasks for the Agency. “The notion that a newspaperman doesn’t have a duty to his country is perfect balls.”
From the Agency’s perspective, there is nothing untoward in such relationships, and any ethical questions are a matter for the journalistic profession to resolve, not the intelligence community. As Stuart Loory, former Los Angeles Times correspondent, has written in the Columbia Journalism Review: ‘If even one American overseas carrying a press card is a paid informer for the CIA, then all Americans with those credentials are suspect .... If the crisis of confidence faced by the news business—along with the government—is to be overcome, journalists must be willing to focus on themselves the same spotlight they so relentlessly train on others!’ But as Loory also noted: “When it was reported... that newsmen themselves were on the payroll of the CIA, the story caused a brief stir, and then was dropped.”
During the 1976 investigation of the CIA by the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church, the dimensions of the Agency’s involvement with the press became apparent to several members of the panel, as well as to two or three investigators on the staff. But top officials of the CIA, including former directors William Colby and George Bush, persuaded the committee to restrict its inquiry into the matter and to deliberately misrepresent the actual scope of the activities in its final report. The multivolurne report contains nine pages in which the use of journalists is discussed in deliberately vague and sometimes misleading terms. It makes no mention of the actual number of journalists who undertook covert tasks for the CIA. Nor does it adequately describe the role played by newspaper and broadcast executives in cooperating with the Agency.
THE AGENCY’S DEALINGS WITH THE PRESS BEGAN during the earliest stages of the Cold War. Allen Dulles, who became director of the CIA in 1953, sought to establish a recruiting‑and‑cover capability within America’s most prestigious journalistic institutions. By operating under the guise of accredited news correspondents, Dulles believed, CIA operatives abroad would be accorded a degree of access and freedom of movement unobtainable under almost any other type of cover.
American publishers, like so many other corporate and institutional leaders at the time, were willing to commit the resources of their companies to the struggle against “global Communism.” Accordingly, the traditional line separating the American press corps and government was often indistinguishable: rarely was a news agency used to provide cover for CIA operatives abroad without the knowledge and consent of either its principal owner, publisher or senior editor. Thus, contrary to the notion that the CIA insidiously infiltrated the journalistic community, there is ample evidence that America’s leading publishers and news executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services. “Let’s not pick on some poor reporters, for God’s sake,” William Colby exclaimed at one point to the Church committee’s investigators. “Let’s go to the managements. They were witting.” In all, about twenty‑five news organizations including those listed at the beginning of this article) provided cover for the Agency.
In addition to cover capability, Dulles initiated a “debriefing” procedure under which American correspondents returning from abroad routinely emptied their notebooks and offered their impressions to Agency personnel. Such arrangements, continued by Dulles’ successors, to the present day, were made with literally dozens of news organizations. In the 1950s, it was not uncommon for returning reporters to be met at the ship by CIA officers. “There would be these guys from the CIA flashing ID cards and looking like they belonged at the Yale Club,” said Hugh Morrow, a former Saturday Evening Post correspondent who is now press secretary to former vice‑president Nelson Rockefeller. “It got to be so routine that you felt a little miffed if you weren’t asked.”
CIA officials almost always refuse to divulge the names of journalists who have cooperated with the Agency. They say it would be unfair to judge these individuals in a context different from the one that spawned the relationships in the first place. “There was a time when it wasn’t considered a crime to serve your government,” said one high‑level CIA official who makes no secret of his bitterness. “This all has to be considered in the context of the morality of the times, rather than against latter‑day standards—and hypocritical standards at that.”
Many journalists who covered World War II were close to people in the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime predecessor of the CIA; more important, they were all on the same side. When the war ended and many OSS officials went into the CIA, it was only natural that these relationships would continue. Meanwhile, the first postwar generation of journalists entered the profession; they shared the same political and professional values as their mentors. “You had a gang of people who worked together during World War II and never got over it,” said one Agency official. “They were genuinely motivated and highly susceptible to intrigue and being on the inside. Then in the Fifties and Sixties there was a national consensus about a national threat. The Vietnam War tore everything to pieces—shredded the consensus and threw it in the air.” Another Agency official observed: “Many journalists didn’t give a second thought to associating with the Agency. But there was a point when the ethical issues which most people had submerged finally surfaced. Today, a lot of these guys vehemently deny that they had any relationship with the Agency.”
From the outset, the use of journalists was among the CIA’s most sensitive undertakings, with full knowledge restricted to the Director of Central Intelligence and a few of his chosen deputies. Dulles and his successors were fearful of what would happen if a journalist‑operative’s cover was blown, or if details of the Agency’s dealings with the press otherwise became public. As a result, contacts with the heads of news organizations were normally initiated by Dulles and succeeding Directors of Central Intelligence; by the deputy directors and division chiefs in charge of covert operations—Frank Wisner, Cord Meyer Jr., Richard Bissell, Desmond FitzGerald, Tracy Barnes, Thomas Karamessines and Richard Helms himself a former UPI correspondent); and, occasionally, by others in the CIA hierarchy known to have an unusually close social relationship with a particular publisher or broadcast executive.1
James Angleton, who was recently removed as the Agency’s head of counterintelligence operations, ran a completely independent group of journalist‑operatives who performed sensitive and frequently dangerous assignments; little is known about this group for the simple reason that Angleton deliberately kept only the vaguest of files.
The CIA even ran a formal training program in the 1950s to teach its agents to be journalists. Intelligence officers were “taught to make noises like reporters,” explained a high CIA official, and were then placed in major news organizations with help from management. “These were the guys who went through the ranks and were told ‘You’re going to he a journalist,’” the CIA official said. Relatively few of the 400‑some relationships described in Agency files followed that pattern, however; most involved persons who were already bona fide journalists when they began undertaking tasks for the Agency.
The Agency’s relationships with journalists, as described in CIA files, include the following general categories:
■ Legitimate, accredited staff members of news organizations—usually reporters. Some were paid; some worked for the Agency on a purely voluntary basis. This group includes many of the best‑known journalists who carried out tasks for the CIA. The files show that the salaries paid to reporters by newspaper and broadcast networks were sometimes supplemented by nominal payments from the CIA, either in the form of retainers, travel expenses or outlays for specific services performed. Almost all the payments were made in cash. The accredited category also includes photographers, administrative personnel of foreign news bureaus and members of broadcast technical crews.)
Two of the Agency’s most valuable personal relationships in the 1960s, according to CIA officials, were with reporters who covered Latin America—Jerry O’Leary of the Washington Star and Hal Hendrix of the Miami News, a Pulitzer Prize winner who became a high official of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. Hendrix was extremely helpful to the Agency in providing information about individuals in Miami’s Cuban exile community. O’Leary was considered a valued asset in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Agency files contain lengthy reports of both men’s activities on behalf of the CIA.
O’Leary maintains that his dealings were limited to the normal give‑and‑take that goes on between reporters abroad and their sources. CIA officials dispute the contention: “There’s no question Jerry reported for us,” said one. “Jerry did assessing and spotting [of prospective agents] but he was better as a reporter for us.” Referring to O’Leary’s denials, the official added: “I don’t know what in the world he’s worried about unless he’s wearing that mantle of integrity the Senate put on you journalists.”
O’Leary attributes the difference of opinion to semantics. “I might call them up and say something like, ‘Papa Doc has the clap, did you know that?’ and they’d put it in the file. I don’t consider that reporting for them.... it’s useful to be friendly to them and, generally, I felt friendly to them. But I think they were more helpful to me than I was to them.” O’Leary took particular exception to being described in the same context as Hendrix. “Hal was really doing work for them,” said O’Leary. “I’m still with the Star. He ended up at ITT.” Hendrix could not be reached for comment. According to Agency officials, neither Hendrix nor O’Leary was paid by the CIA.
■ Stringers2 and freelancers. Most were payrolled by the Agency under standard contractual terms. Their journalistic credentials were often supplied by cooperating news organizations. some filed news stories; others reported only for the CIA. On some occasions, news organizations were not informed by the CIA that their stringers were also working for the Agency.
■ Employees of so‑called CIA “proprietaries.” During the past twenty‑five years, the Agency has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers—both English and foreign language—which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives. One such publication was the Rome Daily American, forty percent of which was owned by the CIA until the 1970s. The Daily American went out of business this year,
■ Editors, publishers and broadcast network executives. The CIAs relationship with most news executives differed fundamentally from those with working reporters and stringers, who were much more subject to direction from the Agency. A few executives—Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times among them—signed secrecy agreements. But such formal understandings were rare: relationships between Agency officials and media executives were usually social—”The P and Q Street axis in Georgetown,” said one source. “You don’t tell Wilharn Paley to sign a piece of paper saying he won’t fink.”
■ Columnists and commentators. There are perhaps a dozen well known columnists and broadcast commentators whose relationships with the CIA go far beyond those normally maintained between reporters and their sources. They are referred to at the Agency as “known assets” and can be counted on to perform a variety of undercover tasks; they are considered receptive to the Agency’s point of view on various subjects. Three of the most widely read columnists who maintained such ties with the Agency are C.L. Sulzberger of the New York Times, Joseph Alsop, and the late Stewart Alsop, whose column appeared in the New York Herald‑Tribune, the Saturday Evening Post and Newsweek. CIA files contain reports of specific tasks all three undertook. Sulzberger is still regarded as an active asset by the Agency. According to a senior CIA official, “Young Cy Sulzberger had some uses.... He signed a secrecy agreement because we gave him classified information.... There was sharing, give and take. We’d say, ‘Wed like to know this; if we tell you this will it help you get access to so‑and‑so?’ Because of his access in Europe he had an Open Sesame. We’d ask him to just report: ‘What did so‑and‑so say, what did he look like, is he healthy?’ He was very eager, he loved to cooperate.” On one occasion, according to several CIA officials, Sulzberger was given a briefing paper by the Agency which ran almost verbatim under the columnist’s byline in the Times. “Cycame out and said, ‘I’m thinking of doing a piece, can you give me some background?’” a CIA officer said. “We gave it to Cy as a background piece and Cy gave it to the printers and put his name on it.” Sulzberger denies that any incident occurred. “A lot of baloney,” he said.
Sulzberger claims that he was never formally “tasked” by the Agency and that he “would never get caught near the spook business. My relations were totally informal—I had a goodmany friends,” he said. “I’m sure they consider me an asset. They can ask me questions. They find out you’re going to Slobovia and they say, ‘Can we talk to you when you get back?’ ... Or they’ll want to know if the head of the Ruritanian government is suffering from psoriasis. But I never took an assignment from one of those guys.... I’ve known Wisner well, and Helms and even McCone [former CIA director John McCone] I used to play golf with. But they’d have had to he awfully subtle to have used me.
Sulzberger says he was asked to sign the secrecy agreement in the 1950s. “A guy came around and said, ‘You are a responsible newsman and we need you to sign this if we are going to show you anything classified.’ I said I didn’t want to get entangled and told them, ‘Go to my uncle [Arthur Hays Sulzberger, then publisher of the New York Times] and if he says to sign it I will.’” His uncle subsequently signed such an agreement, Sulzberger said, and he thinks he did too, though he is unsure. “I don’t know, twenty‑some years is a long time.” He described the whole question as “a bubble in a bathtub.”
Stewart Alsop’s relationship with the Agency was much more extensive than Sulzberger’s. One official who served at the highest levels in the CIA said flatly: “Stew Alsop was a CIA agent.” An equally senior official refused to define Alsop’s relationship with the Agency except to say it was a formal one. Other sources said that Alsop was particularly helpful to the Agency in discussions with, officials of foreign governments—asking questions to which the CIA was seeking answers, planting misinformation advantageous to American policy, assessing opportunities for CIA recruitment of well‑placed foreigners.
“Absolute nonsense,” said Joseph Alsop of the notion that his brother was a CIA agent. “I was closer to the Agency than Stew was, though Stew was very close. I dare say he did perform some tasks—he just did the correct thing as an American.... The Founding Fathers [of the CIA] were close personal friends of ours. Dick Bissell [former CIA deputy director] was my oldest friend, from childhood. It was a social thing, my dear fellow. I never received a dollar, I never signed a secrecy agreement. I didn’t have to.... I’ve done things for them when I thought they were the right thing to do. I call it doing my duty as a citizen.
Alsop is willing to discuss on the record only two of the tasks he undertook: a visit to Laos in 1952 at the behest of Frank Wisner, who felt other American reporters were using anti‑American sources about uprisings there; and a visit to the Phillipines in 1953 when the CIA thought his presence there might affect the outcome of an election. “Des FitzGerald urged me to go,” Alsop recalled. “It would be less likely that the election could be stolen [by the opponents of Ramon Magsaysay] if the eyes of the world were on them. I stayed with the ambassador and wrote about what happened.”
Alsop maintains that he was never manipulated by the Agency. “You can’t get entangled so they have leverage on you,” he said. “But what I wrote was true. My view was to get the facts. If someone in the Agency was wrong, I stopped talking to them—they’d given me phony goods.” On one occasion, Alsop said, Richard Helms authorized the head of the Agency’s analytical branch to provide Alsop with information on Soviet military presence along the Chinese border. “The analytical side of the Agency had been dead wrong about the war in Vietnam—they thought it couldn’t be won,” said Alsop. “And they were wrong on the Soviet buildup. I stopped talking to them.” Today, he says, “People in our business would be outraged at the kinds of suggestions that were made to me. They shouldn’t be. The CIA did not open itself at all to people it did not trust. Stew and I were trusted, and I’m proud of it.”
MURKY DETAILS OF CIA RELATIONSHIPS WITH INDIVIDUALS and news organizations began trickling out in 1973 when it was first disclosed that the CIA had, on occasion, employed journalists. Those reports, combined with new information, serve as casebook studies of the Agency’s use of journalists for intelligence purposes. They include:
■ The New York Times. The Agency’s relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper’s late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policy—set by Sulzberger—to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible.
Sulzberger was especially close to Allen Dulles. “At that level of contact it was the mighty talking to the mighty,” said a high‑level CIA official who was present at some of the discussions. “There was an agreement in principle that, yes indeed, we would help each other. The question of cover came up on several occasions. It was agreed that the actual arrangements would be handled by subordinates.... The mighty didn’t want to know the specifics; they wanted plausible deniability.
A senior CIA official who reviewed a portion of the Agency’s files on journalists for two hours onSeptember 15th, 1977, said he found documentation of five instances in which the Times had provided cover for CIA employees between 1954 and 1962. In each instance he said, the arrangements were handled by executives of the Times; the documents all contained standard Agency language “showing that this had been checked out at higher levels of the New York Times,” said the official. The documents did not mention Sulzberger’s name, however—only those of subordinates whom the official refused to identify.
The CIA employees who received Times credentials posed as stringers for the paper abroad and worked as members of clerical staffs in the Times’ foreign bureaus. Most were American; two or three were foreigners.
CIA officials cite two reasons why the Agency’s working relationship with the Times was closer and more extensive than with any other paper: the fact that the Times maintained the largest foreign news operation in American daily journalism; and the close personal ties between the men who ran both institutions.
Sulzberger informed a number of reporters and editors of his general policy of cooperation with the Agency. “We were in touch with them—they’d talk to us and some cooperated,” said a CIA official. The cooperation usually involved passing on information and “spotting” prospective agents among foreigners.
Arthur Hays Sulzberger signed a secrecy agreement with the CIA in the 1950s, according to CIA officials—a fact confirmed by his nephew, C.L. Sulzberger. However, there are varying interpretations of the purpose of the agreement: C.L. Sulzberger says it represented nothing more than a pledge not to disclose classified information made available to the publisher. That contention is supported by some Agency officials. Others in the Agency maintain that the agreement represented a pledge never to reveal any of the Times’ dealings with the CIA, especially those involving cover. And there are those who note that, because all cover arrangements are classified, a secrecy agreement would automatically apply to them.
Attempts to find out which individuals in the Times organization made the actual arrangements for providing credentials to CIA personnel have been unsuccessful. In a letter to reporter Stuart Loory in 1974, Turner Cadedge, managing editor of the Times from 1951 to 1964, wrote that approaches by the CIA had been rebuffed by the newspaper. “I knew nothing about any involvement with the CIA... of any of our foreign correspondents on the New York Times. I heard many times of overtures to our men by the CIA, seeking to use their privileges, contacts, immunities and, shall we say, superior intelligence in the sordid business of spying and informing. If any one of them succumbed to the blandishments or cash offers, I was not aware of it. Repeatedly, the CIA and other hush‑hush agencies sought to make arrangements for ‘cooperation’ even with Times management, especially during or soon after World War II, but we always resisted. Our motive was to protect our credibility.”
According to Wayne Phillips, a former Timesreporter, the CIA invoked Arthur Hays Sulzberger’s name when it tried to recruit him as an undercover operative in 1952 while he was studying at Columbia University’s Russian Institute. Phillips said an Agency official told him that the CIA had “a working arrangement” with the publisher in which other reporters abroad had been placed on the Agency’s payroll. Phillips, who remained at the Times until 1961, later obtained CIA documents under the Freedom of Information Act which show that the Agency intended to develop him as a clandestine “asset” for use abroad.
On January 31st, 1976, the Times carried a brief story describing the ClAs attempt to recruit Phillips. It quoted Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the present publisher, as follows: “I never heard of the Times being approached, either in my capacity as publisher or as the son of the late Mr. Sulzberger.” The Times story, written by John M. Crewdson, also reported that Arthur Hays Sulzberger told an unnamed former correspondent that he might he approached by the CIA after arriving at a new post abroad. Sulzberger told him that he was not “under any obligation to agree,” the story said and that the publisher himself would be “happier” if he refused to cooperate. “But he left it sort of up to me,” the Times quoted its former reporter as saying. “The message was if I really wanted to do that, okay, but he didn’t think it appropriate for a Times correspondent”
C.L. Sulzberger, in a telephone interview, said he had no knowledge of any CIA personnel using Times cover or of reporters for the paper working actively for the Agency. He was the paper’s chief of foreign service from 1944 to 1954 and expressed doubt that his uncle would have approved such arrangements. More typical of the late publisher, said Sulzberger, was a promise made to Allen Dulles’ brother, John Foster, then secretary of state, that no Times staff member would be permitted to accept an invitation to visit the People’s Republic of China without John Foster Dulles’ consent. Such an invitation was extended to the publisher’s nephew in the 1950s; Arthur Sulzberger forbade him to accept it. “It was seventeen years before another Times correspondent was invited,” C.L. Sulzberger recalled.
■ The Columbia Broadcasting System. CBS was unquestionably the CIAs most valuable broadcasting asset. CBS President William Paley and Allen Dulles enjoyed an easy working and social relationship. Over the years, the network provided cover for CIA employees, including at least one well‑known foreign correspondent and several stringers; it supplied outtakes of newsfilm to the CIA3; established a formal channel of communication between the Washington bureau chief and the Agency; gave the Agency access to the CBS newsfilm library; and allowed reports by CBS correspondents to the Washington and New York newsrooms to be routinely monitored by the CIA. Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and briefings.
The details of the CBS‑CIA arrangements were worked out by subordinates of both Dulles and Paley. “The head of the company doesn’t want to know the fine points, nor does the director,” said a CIA official. “Both designate aides to work that out. It keeps them above the battle.” Dr. Frank Stanton, for 25 years president of the network, was aware of the general arrangements Paley made with Dulles—including those for cover, according to CIA officials. Stanton, in an interview last year, said he could not recall any cover arrangements.) But Paley’s designated contact for the Agency was Sig Mickelson, president of CBS News between 1954 and 1961. On one occasion, Mickelson has said, he complained to Stanton about having to use a pay telephone to call the CIA, and Stanton suggested he install a private line, bypassing the CBS switchboard, for the purpose. According to Mickelson, he did so. Mickelson is now president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, both of which were associated with the CIA for many years.
In 1976, CBS News president Richard Salant ordered an in‑house investigation of the network's dealings with the CIA. Some of its findings were first disclosed by Robert Scheer in the Los Angeles Times.) But Salant's report makes no mention of some of his own dealings with the Agency, which continued into the 1970s.
Many details about the CBS‑CIA relationship were found in Mickelson's files by two investigators for Salant. Among the documents they found was a September 13th, 1957, memo to Mickelson fromTed Koop,CBS News bureau chief in Washington from 1948 to 1961. It describes a phone call to Koop from Colonel Stanley Grogan of the CIA: "Grogan phoned to say that Reeves [J. B. Love Reeves, another CIA official] is going to New York to be in charge of the CIA contact office there and will call to see you and some of your confreres. Grogan says normal activities will continue to channel through the Washington office of CBS News." The report to Salant also states: "Further investigation of Mickelson's files reveals some details of the relationship between the CIA and CBS News.... Two key administrators of this relationship were Mickelson and Koop.... The main activity appeared to be the delivery of CBS newsfilm to the CIA.... In addition there is evidence that, during 1964 to 1971, film material, including some outtakes, were supplied by the CBS Newsfilm Library to the CIA through and at the direction of Mr. Koop4.... Notes in Mr. Mickelson's files indicate that the CIA used CBS films for training... All of the above Mickelson activities were handled on a confidential basis without mentioning the words Central Intelligence Agency. The films were sent to individuals at post‑office box numbers and were paid for by individual, nor government, checks. ..." Mickelson also regularly sent the CIA an internal CBS newsletter, according to the report.
Salant's investigation led him to conclude that Frank Kearns, a CBS‑TV reporter from 1958 to 1971, "was a CIA guy who got on the payroll somehow through a CIA contact with somebody at CBS." Kearns and Austin Goodrich, a CBS stringer, were undercover CIA employees, hired under arrangements approved by Paley.
Last year a spokesman for Paley denied a report by former CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr that Mickelson and he had discussed Goodrich's CIA status during a meeting with two Agency representatives in 1954. The spokesman claimed Paley had no knowledge that Goodrich had worked for the CIA. "When I moved into the job I was told by Paley that there was an ongoing relationship with the CIA," Mickelson said in a recent interview. "He introduced me to two agents who he said would keep in touch. We all discussed the Goodrich situation and film arrangements. I assumed this was a normal relationship at the time. This was at the height of the Cold War and I assumed the communications media were cooperating—though the Goodrich matter was compromising.
At the headquarters of CBS News in New York, Paley's cooperation with the CIA is taken for granted by many news executives and reporters, despite tile denials. Paley, 76, was not interviewed by Salant's investigators. "It wouldn't do any good," said one CBS executive. "It is the single subject about which his memory has failed."
Salant discussed his own contacts with the CIA, and the fact he continued many of his predecessor's practices, in an interview with this reporter last year. The contacts, he said, began in February 1961, "when I got a phone call from a CIA man who said he had a working relationship with Sig Mickelson. The man said, 'Your bosses know all about it.'" According to Salant, the CIA representative asked that CBS continue to supply the Agency with unedited newstapes and make its correspondents available for debriefingby Agency officials. Said Salant: "I said no on talking to the reporters, and let them see broadcast tapes, but no outtakes. This went on for a number of years—into the early Seventies."
In 1964 and 1965, Salant served on a super-secret CIA task force which explored methods of beaming American propaganda broadcasts to the People's Republic of China. The other members of the four‑man study team were Zbigniew Brzezinski, then a professor at Columbia University; William Griffith, then professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology., and John Haves, then vice‑president of the Washington Post Company for radio‑TV5. The principal government officials associated with the project were Cord Meyer of the CIA; McGeorge Bundy, then special assistant to the president for national security; Leonard Marks, then director of the USIA; and Bill Moyers, then special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson and now a CBS correspondent.
Salant's involvement in the project began with a call from Leonard Marks, "who told me the White House wanted to form a committee of four people to make a study of U.S. overseas broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain." When Salant arrived in Washington for the first meeting he was told that the project was CIA sponsored. "Its purpose," he said, "was to determine how best to set up shortwave broadcasts into Red China." Accompanied by a CIA officer named Paul Henzie, the committee of four subsequently traveled around the world inspecting facilities run by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty both CIA‑run operations at the time), the Voice of America and Armed Forces Radio. After more than a year of study, they submitted a report to Moyers recommending that the government establish a broadcast service, run by the Voice of America, to be beamed at the People's Republic of China. Salant has served two tours as head of CBS News, from 1961‑64 and 1966‑present. At the time of the China project he was a CBS corporate executive.)
■ Time and Newsweek magazines. According to CIA and Senate sources, Agency files contain written agreements with former foreign correspondents and stringers for both the weekly news magazines. The same sources refused to say whether the CIA has ended all its associations with individuals who work for the two publications. Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.
For many years, Luce's personal emissary to the CIA was C.D. Jackson, a Time Inc., vice‑president who was publisher of Life magazine from 1960 until his death in 1964.While a Time executive, Jackson coauthored a CIA‑sponsored study recommending the reorganization of the American intelligence services in the early 1950s. Jackson, whose Time‑Life service was interrupted by a one‑year White House tour as an assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower, approved specific arrangements for providing CIA employees with Time‑Life cover. Some of these arrangements were made with the knowledge of Luce's wife, Clare Boothe. Other arrangements for Time cover, according to CIA officials including those who dealt with Luce), were made with the knowledge of Hedley Donovan, now editor‑in‑chief of Time Inc. Donovan, who took over editorial direction of all Time Inc. publications in 1959, denied in a telephone interview that he knew of any such arrangements. "I was never approached and I'd be amazed if Luce approved such arrangements," Donovan said. "Luce had a very scrupulous regard for the difference between journalism and government."
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine's foreign correspondents attended CIA "briefing" dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS. And Luce, according to CIA officials, made it a regular practice to brief Dulles or other high Agency officials when he returned from his frequent trips abroad. Luce and the men who ran his magazines in the 1950s and 1960s encouraged their foreign correspondents to provide help to the CIA, particularly information that might be useful to the Agency for intelligence purposes or recruiting foreigners.
At Newsweek, Agency sources reported, the CIA engaged the services of' several foreign correspondents and stringers under arrangements approved by senior editors at the magazine. Newsweek's stringer in Rome in the mid‑Fifties made little secret of the fact that he worked for the CIA. Malcolm Muir, Newsweek's editor from its founding in 1937 until its sale to the Washington Post Company in 1961, said in a recent interview that his dealings with the CIA were limited to private briefings he gave Allen Dulles after trips abroad and arrangements he approved for regular debriefing of Newsweek correspondents by the Agency. He said that he had never provided cover for CIA operatives, but that others high in the Newsweek organization might have done so without his knowledge.
"I would have thought there might have been stringers who were agents, but I didn't know who they were," said Muir. "I do think in those days the CIA kept pretty close touch with all responsible reporters. Whenever I heard something that I thought might be of interest to Allen Dulles, I'd call him up.... At one point he appointed one of his CIA men to keep in regular contact with our reporters, a chap that I knew but whose name I can't remember. I had a number of friends in Alien Dulles' organization." Muir said that Harry Kern, Newsweek's foreign editor from 1945 until 1956, and Ernest K. Lindley, the magazine's Washington bureau chief during the same period "regularly checked in with various fellows in the CIA."
"To the best of my knowledge." said Kern, "nobody at Newsweek worked for the CIA... The informal relationship was there. Why have anybody sign anything? What we knew we told them [the CIA] and the State Department.... When I went to Washington, I would talk to Foster or Allen Dulles about what was going on. ... We thought it was admirable at the time. We were all on the same side." CIA officials say that Kern's dealings with the Agency were extensive. In 1956, he left Newsweek to run Foreign Reports, a Washington‑based newsletter whose subscribers Kern refuses to identify.
Ernest Lindley, who remained at Newsweek until 1961, said in a recent interview that he regularly consulted with Dulles and other high CIA officials before going abroad and briefed them upon his return. "Allen was very helpful to me and I tried to reciprocate when I could," he said. "I'd give him my impressions of people I'd met overseas. Once or twice he asked me to brief a large group of intelligence people; when I came back from the Asian‑African conference in 1955, for example; they mainly wanted to know about various people."
As Washington bureau chief, Lindley said he learned from Malcolm Muir that the magazine's stringer in southeastern Europe was a CIA contract employee—given credentials under arrangements worked out with the management. "I remember it came up—whether it was a good idea to keep this person from the Agency; eventually it was decided to discontinue the association," Lindley said.
When Newsweek waspurchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. "It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from," said a former deputy director of the Agency. "Frank Wisner dealt with him." Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency's premier orchestrator of "black" operations, including many in which journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his "mighty Wurlitzer," a wondrous propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press.) Phil Graham was probably Wisner's closest friend. But Graharn, who committed suicide in 1963, apparently knew little of the specifics of any cover arrangements with Newsweek, CIA sources said.
In 1965‑66, an accredited Newsweekstringer in the Far East was in fact a CIA contract employee earning an annual salary of $10,000 from the Agency, according to Robert T. Wood, then a CIA officer in the Hong Kong station. Some, Newsweek correspondents and stringers continued to maintain covert ties with the Agency into the 1970s, CIA sources said.
Information about Agency dealings with the Washington Post newspaper is extremely sketchy. According to CIA officials, some Post stringers have been CIA employees, but these officials say they do not know if anyone in the Post management was aware of the arrangements.
All editors‑in‑chief and managing editors of the Post since 1950 say they knew of no formal Agency relationship with either stringers or members of the Post staff. “If anything was done it was done by Phil without our knowledge,” said one. Agency officials, meanwhile, make no claim that Post staff members have had covert affiliations with the Agency while working for the paper.6
Katharine Graham, Philip Graham’s widow and the current publisher of the Post, says she has never been informed of any CIA relationships with either Post or Newsweek personnel. In November of 1973, Mrs. Graham called William Colby and asked if any Post stringers or staff members were associated with the CIA. Colby assured her that no staff members were employed by the Agency but refused to discuss the question of stringers.
■ The Louisville Courier‑Journal. From December 1964 until March 1965, a CIA undercover operative named Robert H. Campbell worked on the Courier‑Journal. According to high‑level CIA sources, Campbell was hired by the paper under arrangements the Agency made with Norman E. Isaacs, then executive editor of the Courier‑Journal. Barry Bingham Sr., then publisher of the paper, also had knowledge of the arrangements, the sources said. Both Isaacs and Bingham have denied knowing that Campbell was an intelligence agent when he was hired.
The complex saga of Campbell’s hiring was first revealed in a Courier‑Journal story written by James R Herzog on March 27th, 1976, during the Senate committee’s investigation, Herzog’s account began: “When 28‑year‑old Robert H. Campbell was hired as a Courier‑Journal reporter in December 1964, he couldn’t type and knew little about news writing.” The account then quoted the paper’s former managing editor as saying that Isaacs told him that Campbell was hired as a result of a CIA request: “Norman said, when he was in Washington [in 1964], he had been called to lunch with some friend of his who was with the CIA [and that] he wanted to send this young fellow down to get him a little knowledge of newspapering.” All aspects of Campbell’s hiring were highly unusual. No effort had been made to check his credentials, and his employment records contained the following two notations: “Isaacs has files of correspondence and investigation of this man”; and, “Hired for temporary work—no reference checks completed or needed.”
The level of Campbell’s journalistic abilities apparently remained consistent during his stint at the paper, “The stuff that Campbell turned in was almost unreadable,” said a former assistant city editor. One of Campbell’s major reportorial projects was a feature about wooden Indians. It was never published. During his tenure at the paper, Campbell frequented a bar a few steps from the office where, on occasion, he reportedly confided to fellow drinkers that he was a CIA employee.
According to CIA sources, Campbell’s tour at the Courier‑Journal was arranged to provide him with a record of journalistic experience that would enhance the plausibility of future reportorial cover and teach him something about the newspaper business. The Courier‑Journal’s investigation also turned up the fact that before coming to Louisville he had worked briefly for the Hornell, New York, Evening Tribune, published by Freedom News, Inc. CIA sources said the Agency had made arrangements with that paper’s management to employ Campbell.7
At the Courier‑Journal, Campbell was hired under arrangements made with Isaacs and approved by Bingham, said CIA and Senate sources. “We paid the Courier‑Journal so they could pay his salary,” said an Agency official who was involved in the transaction. Responding by letter to these assertions, Isaacs, who left Louisville to become president and publisher of the Wilmington Delaware) News & Journal, said: “All I can do is repeat the simple truth—that never, under any circumstances, or at any time, have I ever knowingly hired a government agent. I’ve also tried to dredge my memory, but Campbell’s hiring meant so little to me that nothing emerges.... None of this is to say that I couldn’t have been ‘had.’”.Barry Bingham Sr., said last year in a telephone interview that he had no specific memory of Campbell’s hiring and denied that he knew of any arrangements between the newspaper’s management and the CIA. However, CIA officials said that the Courier‑Journal, through contacts with Bingham, provided other unspecified assistance to the Agency in the 1950s and 1960s. The Courier‑Journal’s detailed, front‑page account of Campbell’s hiring was initiated by Barry Bingham Jr., who succeeded his father as editor and publisher of the paper in 1971. The article is the only major piece of self‑investigation by a newspaper that has appeared on this subject.8
■ The American Broadcasting Company and the National Broadcasting Company. According to CIA officials, ABC continued to provide cover for some CIA operatives through the 1960s. One was Sam Jaffe who CIA officials said performed clandestine tasks for the Agency. Jaffe has acknowledged only providing the CIA with information. In addition, another well‑known network correspondent performed covert tasks for the Agency, said CIA sources. At the time of the Senate bearings, Agency officials serving at the highest levels refused to say whether the CIA was still maintaining active relationships with members of the ABC‑News organization. All cover arrangements were made with the knowledge off ABC executives, the sources said.
These same sources professed to know few specifies about the Agency’s relationships with NBC, except that several foreign correspondents of the network undertook some assignments for the Agency in the 1950s and 1960s. “It was a thing people did then,” said Richard Wald, president of NBC News since 1973. “I wouldn’t be surprised if people here—including some of the correspondents in those days—had connections with the Agency.”
■ The Copley Press, and its subsidiary, the Copley News Service. This relationship, first disclosed publicly by reporters Joe Trento and Dave Roman in Penthouse magazine, is said by CIA officials to have been among the Agency’s most productive in terms of getting “outside” cover for its employees. Copley owns nine newspapers in California and Illinois—among them the San Diego Union and Evening Tribune. The Trento‑Roman account, which was financed by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, asserted that at least twenty‑three Copley News Service employees performed work for the CIA. “The Agency’s involvement with the Copley organization is so extensive that it’s almost impossible to sort out,” said a CIA official who was asked about the relationship late in 1976. Other Agency officials said then that James S. Copley, the chain’s owner until his death in 1973, personally made most of the cover arrangements with the CIA.
According to Trento and Roman, Copley personally volunteered his news service to then‑president Eisenhower to act as “the eyes and ears” against “the Communist threat in Latin and Central America” for “our intelligence services.” James Copley was also the guiding hand behind the Inter‑American Press Association, a CIA‑funded organization with heavy membership among right‑wing Latin American newspaper editors.
■ Other major news organizations. According to Agency officials, CIA files document additional cover arrangements with the following news‑gathering organizations, among others: the New York Herald‑Tribune, the Saturday‑Evening Post, Scripps‑Howard Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers Seymour K. Freidin, Hearst’s current London bureau chief and a former Herald‑Tribune editor and correspondent, has been identified as a CIA operative by Agency sources), Associated Press,9 United Press International, the Mutual Broadcasting System, Reuters and the Miami Herald. Cover arrangements with the Herald, according to CIA officials, were unusual in that they were made “on the ground by the CIA station in Miami, not from CIA headquarters.
“And that’s just a small part of the list,” in the words of one official who served in the CIA hierarchy. Like many sources, this official said that the only way to end the uncertainties about aid furnished the Agency by journalists is to disclose the contents of the CIA files—a course opposed by almost all of the thirty‑five present and former CIA officials interviewed over the course of a year.
COLBY CUTS HIS LOSSES
THE CIA’S USE OF JOURNALISTS CONTINUED VIRTUALLY unabated until 1973 when, in response to public disclosure that the Agency had secretly employed American reporters, William Colby began scaling down the program. In his public statements, Colby conveyed the impression that the use of journalists had been minimal and of limited importance to the Agency.
He then initiated a series of moves intended to convince the press, Congress and the public that the CIA had gotten out of the news business. But according to Agency officials, Colby had in fact thrown a protective net around his valuable intelligence in the journalistic community. He ordered his deputies to maintain Agency ties with its best journalist contacts while severing formal relationships with many regarded as inactive, relatively unproductive or only marginally important. In reviewing Agency files to comply with Colby’s directive, officials found that many journalists had not performed useful functions for the CIA in years. Such relationships, perhaps as many as a hundred, were terminated between 1973 and 1976.
Meanwhile, important CIA operatives who had been placed on the staffs of some major newspaper and broadcast outlets were told to resign and become stringers or freelancers, thus enabling Colby to assure concerned editors that members of their staffs were not CIA employees. Colby also feared that some valuable stringer‑operatives might find their covers blown if scrutiny of the Agency’s ties with journalists continued. Some of these individuals were reassigned to jobs on so‑called proprietary publications—foreign periodicals and broadcast outlets secretly funded and staffed by the CIA. Other journalists who had signed formal contracts with the CIA—making them employees of the Agency—were released from their contracts, and asked to continue working under less formal arrangements.
In November 1973, after many such shifts had been made, Colby told reporters and editors from the New York Times and the Washington Star that the Agency had “some three dozen” American newsmen “on the CIA payroll,” including five who worked for “general‑circulation news organizations.” Yet even while the Senate Intelligence Committee was holding its hearings in 1976, according to high‑level CIA sources, the CIA continued to maintain ties with seventy‑five to ninety journalists of every description—executives, reporters, stringers, photographers, columnists, bureau clerks and members of broadcast technical crews. More than half of these had been moved off CIA contracts and payrolls but they were still bound by other secret agreements with the Agency. According to an unpublished report by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Representative Otis Pike, at least fifteen news organizations were still providing cover for CIA operatives as of 1976.
Colby, who built a reputation as one of the most skilled undercover tacticians in the CIA’s history, had himself run journalists in clandestine operations before becoming director in 1973. But even he was said by his closest associates to have been disturbed at how extensively and, in his view, indiscriminately, the Agency continued to use journalists at the time he took over. “Too prominent,” the director frequently said of some of the individuals and news organizations then working with the CIA. Others in the Agency refer to their best‑known journalistic assets as “brand names.”)
“Colby’s concern was that he might lose the resource altogether unless we became a little more careful about who we used and how we got them,” explained one of the former director’s deputies. The thrust of Colby’s subsequent actions was to move the Agency’s affiliations away from the so‑called “majors” and to concentrate them instead in smaller newspaper chains, broadcasting groups and such specialized publications as trade journals and newsletters.
After Colby left the Agency on January 28th, 1976, and was succeeded by George Bush, the CIA announced a new policy: “Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full‑time or part‑time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station” At the time of the announcement, the Agency acknowledged that the policy would result in termination of less than half of the relationships with the 50 U.S. journalists it said were still affiliated with the Agency. The text of the announcement noted that the CIA would continue to “welcome” the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists. Thus, many relationships were permitted to remain intact.
The Agency’s unwillingness to end its use of journalists and its continued relationships with some news executives is largely the product of two basic facts of the intelligence game: journalistic cover is ideal because of the inquisitive nature of a reporter’s job; and many other sources of institutional cover have been denied the CIA in recent years by businesses, foundations and educational institutions that once cooperated with the Agency.
“It’s tough to run a secret agency in this country,” explained one high‑level CIA official. “We have a curious ambivalence about intelligence. In order to serve overseas we need cover. But we have been fighting a rear‑guard action to try and provide cover. The Peace Corps is off‑limits, so is USIA, the foundations and voluntary organizations have been off‑limits since ‘67, and there is a self‑imposed prohibition on Fulbrights [Fulbright Scholars]. If you take the American community and line up who could work for the CIA and who couldn’t there is a very narrow potential. Even the Foreign Service doesn’t want us. So where the hell do you go? Business is nice, but the press is a natural. One journalist is worth twenty agents. He has access, the ability to ask questions without arousing suspicion.”
ROLE OF THE CHURCH COMMITTEE
DESPITE THE EVIDENCE OF WIDESPREAD CIA USE OF journalists, the Senate Intelligence Committee and its staff decided against questioning any of the reporters, editors, publishers or broadcast executives whose relationships with the Agency are detailed in CIA files.
According to sources in the Senate and the Agency, the use of journalists was one of two areas of inquiry which the CIA went to extraordinary lengths to curtail. The other was the Agency’s continuing and extensive use of academics for recruitment and information gathering purposes.
In both instances, the sources said, former directors Colby and Bush and CIA special counsel Mitchell Rogovin were able to convince key members of the committee that full inquiry or even limited public disclosure of the dimensions of the activities would do irreparable damage to the nation’s intelligence‑gathering apparatus, as well as to the reputations of hundreds of individuals. Colby was reported to have been especially persuasive in arguing that disclosure would bring on a latter‑day “witch hunt” in which the victims would be reporters, publishers and editors.
Walter Elder, deputy to former CIA director McCone and the principal Agency liaison to the Church committee, argued that the committee lacked jurisdiction because there had been no misuse of journalists by the CIA; the relationships had been voluntary. Elder cited as an example the case of the Louisville Courier‑Journal. “Church and other people on the committee were on the chandelier about the Courier‑Journal,” one Agency official said, “until we pointed out that we had gone to the editor to arrange cover, and that the editor had said, ‘Fine.’”
Some members of the Church committee and staff feared that Agency officials had gained control of the inquiry and that they were being hoodwinked. “The Agency was extremely clever about it and the committee played right into its hands,” said one congressional source familiar with all aspects of the inquiry. “Church and some of the other members were much more interested in making headlines than in doing serious, tough investigating. The Agency pretended to be giving up a lot whenever it was asked about the flashy stuff—assassinations and secret weapons and James Bond operations. Then, when it came to things that they didn’t want to give away, that were much more important to the Agency, Colby in particular called in his chits. And the committee bought it.”
The Senate committee’s investigation into the use of journalists was supervised by William B. Bader, a former CIA intelligence officer who returned briefly to the Agency this year as deputy to CIA director Stansfield Turner and is now a high‑level intelligence official at the Defense Department. Bader was assisted by David Aaron, who now serves as the deputy to Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser.
According to colleagues on the staff of the Senate inquiry, both Bader and Aaron were disturbed by the information contained in CIA files about journalists; they urged that further investigation he undertaken by the Senate’s new permanent CIA oversight committee. That committee, however, has spent its first year of existence writing a new charter for the CIA, and members say there has been little interest in delving further into the CIA’s use of the press.
Bader’s investigation was conducted under unusually difficult conditions. His first request for specific information on the use of journalists was turned down by the CIA on grounds that there had been no abuse of authority and that current intelligence operations might he compromised. Senators Walter Huddleston, Howard Baker, Gary Hart, Walter Mondale and Charles Mathias—who had expressed interest in the subject of the press and the CIA—shared Bader’s distress at the CIA’s reaction. In a series of phone calls and meetings with CIA director George Bush and other Agency officials, the senators insisted that the committee staff be provided information about the scope of CIA‑press activities. Finally, Bush agreed to order a search of the files and have those records pulled which deals with operations where journalists had been used. But the raw files could not he made available to Bader or the committee, Bush insisted. Instead, the director decided, his deputies would condense the material into one‑paragraph summaries describing in the most general terms the activities of each individual journalist. Most important, Bush decreed, the names of journalists and of the news organizations with which they were affiliated would be omitted from the summaries. However, there might be some indication of the region where the journalist had served and a general description of the type of news organization for which he worked.
Assembling the summaries was difficult, according to CIA officials who supervised the job. There were no “journalist files” per se and information had to be collected from divergent sources that reflect the highly compartmentalized character of the CIA. Case officers who had handled journalists supplied some names. Files were pulled on various undercover operations in which it seemed logical that journalists had been used. Significantly, all work by reporters for the Agency under the category of covert operations, not foreign intelligence.) Old station records were culled. “We really had to scramble,” said one official.
After several weeks, Bader began receiving the summaries, which numbered over 400 by the time the Agency said it had completed searching its files.
The Agency played an intriguing numbers game with the committee. Those who prepared the material say it was physically impossible to produce all of the Agency’s files on the use of journalists. “We gave them a broad, representative picture,” said one agency official. “We never pretended it was a total description of the range of activities over 25 years, or of the number of journalists who have done things for us.” A relatively small number of the summaries described the activities of foreign journalists—including those working as stringers for American publications. Those officials most knowledgeable about the subject say that a figure of 400 American journalists is on the low side of the actual number who maintained covert relationships and undertook clandestine tasks.
Bader and others to whom he described the contents of the summaries immediately reached some general conclusions: the sheer number of covert relationships with journalists was far greater than the CIA had ever hinted; and the Agency’s use of reporters and news executives was an intelligence asset of the first magnitude. Reporters had been involved in almost every conceivable kind of operation. Of the 400‑plus individuals whose activities were summarized, between 200 and 250 were “working journalists” in the usual sense of the term—reporters, editors, correspondents, photographers; the rest were employed at least nominally) by book publishers, trade publications and newsletters.
Still, the summaries were just that: compressed, vague, sketchy, incomplete. They could be subject to ambiguous interpretation. And they contained no suggestion that the CIA had abused its authority by manipulating the editorial content of American newspapers or broadcast reports.
Bader’s unease with what he had found led him to seek advice from several experienced hands in the fields of foreign relations and intelligence. They suggested that he press for more information and give those members of the committee in whom he had the most confidence a general idea of what the summaries revealed. Bader again went to Senators Huddleston, Baker, Hart, Mondale and Mathias. Meanwhile, he told the CIA that he wanted to see more—the full files on perhaps a hundred or so of the individuals whose activities had been summarized. The request was turned down outright. The Agency would provide no more information on the subject. Period.
The CIA’s intransigence led to an extraordinary dinner meeting at Agency headquarters in late March 1976. Those present included Senators Frank Church who had now been briefed by Bader), and John Tower, the vice‑chairman of the committee; Bader; William Miller, director of the committee staff; CIA director Bush; Agency counsel Rogovin; and Seymour Bolten, a high‑level CIA operative who for years had been a station chief in Germany and Willy Brandt’s case officer. Bolten had been deputized by Bush to deal with the committee’s requests for information on journalists and academics. At the dinner, the Agency held to its refusal to provide any full files. Nor would it give the committee the names of any individual journalists described in the 400 summaries or of the news organizations with whom they were affiliated. The discussion, according to participants, grew heated. The committee’s representatives said they could not honor their mandate—to determine if the CIA had abused its authority—without further information. The CIA maintained it could not protect its legitimate intelligence operations or its employees if further disclosures were made to the committee. Many of the journalists were contract employees of the Agency, Bush said at one point, and the CIA was no less obligated to them than to any other agents.
Finally, a highly unusual agreement was hammered out: Bader and Miller would be permitted to examine “sanitized” versions of the full files of twenty‑five journalists selected from the summaries; but the names of the journalists and the news organizations which employed them would be blanked out, as would the identities of other CIA employees mentioned in the files. Church and Tower would be permitted to examine the unsanitizedversions of five of the twenty‑five files—to attest that the CIA was not hiding anything except the names. The whole deal was contingent on an agreement that neither Bader, Miner, Tower nor Church would reveal the contents of the files to other members of the committee or staff.
Bader began reviewing the 400‑some summaries again. His object was to select twenty‑five that, on the basis of the sketchy information they contained, seemed to represent a cross section. Dates of CIA activity, general descriptions of news organizations, types of journalists and undercover operations all figured in his calculations.
From the twenty‑five files he got back, according to Senate sources and CIA officials, an unavoidable conclusion emerged: that to a degree never widely suspected, the CIA in the 1950s, ‘60s and even early ‘70s had concentrated its relationships with journalists in the most prominent sectors of the American press corps, including four or five of the largest newspapers in the country, the broadcast networks and the two major newsweekly magazines. Despite the omission of names and affiliations from the twenty‑five detailed files each was between three and eleven inches thick), the information was usually sufficient to tentatively identify either the newsman, his affiliation or both—particularly because so many of them were prominent in the profession.
“There is quite an incredible spread of relationships,” Bader reported to the senators. “You don’t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are Agency people at the management level.”
Ironically, one major news organization that set limits on its dealings with the CIA, according to Agency officials, was the one with perhaps the greatest editorial affinity for the Agency’s long‑range goals and policies: U.S. News and World Report. The late David Lawrence, the columnist and founding editor of U.S. News, was a close friend of Allen Dulles. But he repeatedly refused requests by the CIA director to use the magazine for cover purposes, the sources said. At one point, according to a high CIA official, Lawrence issued orders to his sub‑editors in which he threatened to fire any U.S. News employee who was found to have entered into a formal relationship with the Agency. Former editorial executives at the magazine confirmed that such orders had been issued. CIA sources declined to say, however, if the magazine remained off‑limits to the Agency after Lawrence’s death in 1973 or if Lawrence’s orders had been followed.)
Meanwhile, Bader attempted to get more information from the CIA, particularly about the Agency’s current relationships with journalists. He encountered a stone wall. “Bush has done nothing to date,” Bader told associates. “None of the important operations are affected in even a marginal way.” The CIA also refused the staffs requests for more information on the use of academics. Bush began to urge members of the committee to curtail its inquiries in both areas and conceal its findings in the final report. “He kept saying, ‘Don’t fuck these guys in the press and on the campuses,’ pleading that they were the only areas of public life with any credibility left,” reported a Senate source. Colby, Elder and Rogovin also implored individual members of the committee to keep secret what the staff had found. “There were a lot of representations that if this stuff got out some of the biggest names in journalism would get smeared,” said another source. Exposure of the CIA’s relationships with journalists and academics, the Agency feared, would close down two of the few avenues of agent recruitment still open. “The danger of exposure is not the other side,” explained one CIA expert in covert operations. “This is not stuff the other side doesn’t know about. The concern of the Agency is that another area of cover will be denied.”
A senator who was the object of the Agency’s lobbying later said: “From the CIA point of view this was the highest, most sensitive covert program of all.... It was a much larger part of the operational system than has been indicated.” He added, “I had a great compulsion to press the point but it was late .... If we had demanded, they would have gone the legal route to fight it.”
Indeed, time was running out for the committee. In the view of many staff members, it had squandered its resources in the search for CIA assassination plots and poison pen letters. It had undertaken the inquiry into journalists almost as an afterthought. The dimensions of the program and the CIA’s sensitivity to providing information on it had caught the staff and the committee by surprise. The CIA oversight committee that would succeed the Church panel would have the inclination and the time to inquire into the subject methodically; if, as seemed likely, the CIA refused to cooperate further, the mandate of the successor committee would put it in a more advantageous position to wage a protracted fight .... Or so the reasoning went as Church and the few other senators even vaguely familiar with Bader’s findings reached a decision not to pursue the matter further. No journalists would be interviewed about their dealings with the Agency—either by the staff or by the senators, in secret or in open session. The specter, first raised by CIA officials, of a witch hunt in the press corps haunted some members of the staff and the committee. “We weren’t about to bring up guys to the committee and then have everybody say they’ve been traitors to the ideals of their profession,” said a senator.
Bader, according to associates, was satisfied with the decision and believed that the successor committee would pick up the inquiry where he had left it. He was opposed to making public the names of individual journalists. He had been concerned all along that he had entered a “gray area” in which there were no moral absolutes. Had the CIA “manipulated” the press in the classic sense of the term? Probably not, he concluded; the major news organizations and their executives had willingly lent their resources to the Agency; foreign correspondents had regarded work for the CIA as a national service and a way of getting better stories and climbing to the top of their profession. Had the CIA abused its authority? It had dealt with the press almost exactly as it had dealt with other institutions from which it sought cover — the diplomatic service, academia, corporations. There was nothing in the CIA’s charter which declared any of these institutions off‑limits to America’s intelligence service. And, in the case of the press, the Agency had exercised more care in its dealings than with many other institutions; it had gone to considerable lengths to restrict its role to information‑gathering and cover.10
Bader was also said to be concerned that his knowledge was so heavily based on information furnished by the CIA; he hadn’t gotten the other side of the story from those journalists who had associated with the Agency. He could be seeing only “the lantern show,” he told associates. Still, Bader was reasonably sure that he had seen pretty much the full panoply of what was in the files. If the CIA had wanted to deceive him it would have never given away so much, he reasoned. “It was smart of the Agency to cooperate to the extent of showing the material to Bader,” observed a committee source. “That way, if one fine day a file popped up, the Agency would be covered. They could say they had already informed the Congress.”
The dependence on CIA files posed another problem. The CIA’s perception of a relationship with a journalist might be quite different than that of the journalist: a CIA official might think he had exercised control over a journalist; the journalist might think he had simply had a few drinks with a spook. It was possible that CIA case officers had written self‑serving memos for the files about their dealings with journalists, that the CIA was just as subject to common bureaucratic “cover‑your‑ass” paperwork as any other agency of government.
A CIA official who attempted to persuade members of the Senate committee that the Agency’s use of journalists had been innocuous maintained that the files were indeed filled with “puffing” by case officers. “You can’t establish what is puff and what isn’t,” he claimed. Many reporters, he added, “were recruited for finite [specific] undertakings and would be appalled to find that they were listed [in Agency files] as CIA operatives.” This same official estimated that the files contained descriptions of about half a dozen reporters and correspondents who would be considered “famous”—that is, their names would be recognized by most Americans. “The files show that the CIA goes to the press for and just as often that the press comes to the CIA,” he observed. “...There is a tacit agreement in many of these cases that there is going to be a quid pro quo”—i.e., that the reporter is going to get good stories from the Agency and that the CIA will pick up some valuable services from the reporter.
Whatever the interpretation, the findings of the Senate committees inquiry into the use of journalists were deliberately buried—from the full membership of the committee, from the Senate and from the public. “There was a difference of opinion on how to treat the subject,” explained one source. “Some [senators] thought these were abuses which should be exorcized and there were those who said, ‘We don’t know if this is bad or not.’”
Bader’s findings on the subject were never discussed with the full committee, even in executive session. That might have led to leaks—especially in view of the explosive nature of the facts. Since the beginning of the Church committee’s investigation, leaks had been the panel’s biggest collective fear, a real threat to its mission. At the slightest sign of a leak the CIA might cut off the flow of sensitive information as it did, several times in other areas), claiming that the committee could not be trusted with secrets. “It was as if we were on trial—not the CIA,” said a member of the committee staff. To describe in the committee’s final report the true dimensions of the Agency’s use of journalists would cause a furor in the press and on the Senate floor. And it would result in heavy pressure on the CIA to end its use of journalists altogether. “We just weren’t ready to take that step,” said a senator. A similar decision was made to conceal the results of the staff’s inquiry into the use of academics. Bader, who supervised both areas of inquiry, concurred in the decisions and drafted those sections of the committee’s final report. Pages 191 to 201 were entitled “Covert Relationships with the United States Media.” “It hardly reflects what we found,” stated Senator Gary Hart. “There was a prolonged and elaborate negotiation [with the CIA] over what would be said.”
Obscuring the facts was relatively simple. No mention was made of the 400 summaries or what they showed. Instead the report noted blandly that some fifty recent contacts with journalists had been studied by the committee staff—thus conveying the impression that the Agency’s dealings with the press had been limited to those instances. The Agency files, the report noted, contained little evidence that the editorial content of American news reports had been affected by the CIA’s dealings with journalists. Colby’s misleading public statements about the use of journalists were repeated without serious contradiction or elaboration. The role of cooperating news executives was given short shrift. The fact that the Agency had concentrated its relationships in the most prominent sectors of the press went unmentioned. That the CIA continued to regard the press as up for grabs was not even suggested.
Former ‘Washington Post’ reporter CARL BERNSTEIN is now working on a book about the witch hunts of the Cold War.
Footnotes:
1 John McCone, director of the Agency from 1961 to 1965, said in a recent interview that he knew about "great deal of debriefing and exchanging help" but nothing about any arrangements for cover the CIA might have made with media organizations. "I wouldn't necessarily have known about it," he said. "Helms would have handled anything like that. It would be unusual for him to come to me and say, 'We're going to use journalists for cover.' He had a job to do. There was no policy during my period that would say, 'Don't go near that water,' nor was there one saying, 'Go to it!'" During the Church committee bearings, McCone testified that his subordinates failed to tell him about domestic surveillance activities or that they were working on plans to assassinate Fidel Castro. Richard Helms was deputy director of the Agency at the time; he became director in 1966.
2 A stringer is a reporter who works for one or several news organizations on a retainer or on a piecework basis.
3 From the CIA point of view, access to newsfilm outtakes and photo libraries is a matter of extreme importance. The Agency's photo archive is probably the greatest on earth; its graphic sources include satellites, photoreconnaissance, planes, miniature cameras ... and the American press. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Agency obtained carte‑blanche borrowing privileges in the photo libraries of literally dozens of American newspapers, magazines and television, outlets. For obvious reasons, the CIA also assigned high priority to the recruitment of photojournalists, particularly foreign‑based members of network camera crews.
4 On April 3rd, 1961, Koop left the Washington bureau to become head of CBS, Inc.’s Government Relations Department — a position he held until his retirement on March 31st, 1972. Koop, who worked as a deputy in the Censorship Office in World War II, continued to deal with the CIA in his new position, according to CBS sources.
5 Hayes, who left the Washington Post Company in 1965 to become U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, is now chairman of the board of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty — both of which severed their ties with the CIA in 1971. Hayes said he cleared his participation in the China project with the late Frederick S. Beebe, then chairman of the board of the Washington Post Company. Katharine Graham, the Post’s publisher, was unaware of the nature of the assignment, he said. Participants in the project signed secrecy agreements.
6 Philip Geyelin, editor of the Post editorial page, worked for the Agency before joining the Post.
7 Louis Buisch, presidentof the publishing company of the Hornell, New York, Evening Tribune, told the Courier‑Journal in 1976 that he remembered little about the hiring of Robert Campbell. "He wasn't there very long, and he didn't make much of an impression," said Buisch, who has since retired from active management of the newspaper.
8 Probably the most thoughtful article on the subject of the press and the CIA was written by Stuart H. Loory and appeared in the September‑October 1974 issue of Columbia Journalism Review.
9 Wes Gallagher, general manager of the Associated Press from 1962 to 1976, takes vigorous exception to the notion that the Associated Press might have aided the Agency. "We've always stayed clear on the CIA; I would have fired anybody who worked for them. We don't even let our people debrief." At the time of the first disclosures that reporters had worked for the CIA, Gallagher went to Colby. "We tried to find out names. All he would say was that no full‑time staff member of the Associated Press was employed by the Agency. We talked to Bush. He said the same thing." If any Agency personnel were placed in Associated Press bureaus, said Gallagher, it was done without consulting the management of the wire service. But Agency officials insist that they were able to make cover arrangements through someone in the upper management levelsof Associated Press, whom they refuse to identify.
10 Many journalists and some CIA officials dispute the Agency's claim that it has been scrupulous in respecting the editorial integrity of American publications and broadcast outlets.
A page from a GCHQ top secret document prepared by its secretive JTRIG unit 
Reading these comments is fascinating. We have an intersection of
1 People trying to get out the truth or find it
2 Paranoid lunatics basking in justifications for their paranoid world view
3 Government agents posing as 1 and 2
4 Anarchists posing as 3
5 Government agents posing as 4
6 The rest of us
7 Lunatics and government agents posing as the rest of us
If the effort is to neutralize the internet as a force to mitigate government power, the strategy is working. How can it not? Truffers, pseudo-truffers, lunatics, pseudo-lunatics, anarchists, pseudo-anarchists. The MSM is owned by the government, now so is the internet. Next we will find out that Greenwald is a CIA agent, who’s actually a double agent working for Putin, who is working for the Chinese. Then we’ll find out that the CIA spread that rumor and falsified the information to defange Greenwald.
Who wants pizza?
A conspiracy is merely a plan to do something. The United States actually does this all the time , and will boast about it even. They have a very good record of success also. The Raid to Kill or capture Bin Laden ; They conspired to do it, then they put it into action. It was a conspiracy, textbook definition.They use it in almost all levels of government, they conspire to give a tax hike for this or that, while they counter balance it in another manner, even your local city counsel conspire. In the office, on the phone, at the golf course and bar afterwards. WHy does the idea strike people as crazy. Guess we like things not to rock our little comfortable illusions we feel secure in.
What if all the comments here have been generated by government trolls making use of the playbook that the article is talking about?
By the way, if anyone wants to know what causes our leaders to be the idiots they are, to act without regard for humanity, to act with nothing but selfish concern; then you might consider reading this:
http://www.wolveswolveswolves.org/moralreasoning/DevelopmentalDisorderImpactingHumanSocialEvolution.htm
Please be patient, it is only the second draft, and I did suffer an injury which affected my ability to clearly articulate my thoughts. I stumble once in a while and haven’t gotten around to proofreading the paper yet.
Excellent Michael Wolf – couldn’t agree more, well done!
The “learned” aspect of pyscopathy in a society (with relevance to GCHQ and NSA) is that when society does not punish behavior of the sort these slides reveal has been going on the deterrent for the state (and its officials) to break it’s own laws vanish. Justice must be seen to be done, e.g the deterrent for taking a life does to some extent work as it incurs lengthy jail time if caught; but within government there appears to be no deterrent what so ever apart from we’ll vote you out in 4 years.
4 years of meta data handed over to the next government to analyze!
There needs to be real public debate especially in the United Kingdom, shrouding the subject in secrecy linked to terrorism is not going to help whether it is indeed a smokescreen or not.
Most acts of terrorism at their root are not psychopathic in my view, they may be miss guided and many other things. It is by definition alone as we all know that it just as terrorizing for a member of society to read the above article and to find out that government are using this kind of actions against it’s own citizens.
Violence has many forms. It seems to me that the idea that a subject might be too difficult to understand for the public stops an informed debate dead in its tracks. If giving up our privacy we need to do this with the full understanding of all the implications. This means different things for different people, for example some people really couldn’t care less about PORN metadata.
The legislation has been rushed through to get us in to this situation where the above article’s miss use of powers have arisen. What we ought to think about is imagine there was no Snowdon and we discovered this 10 years from now… What then??
History has shown us again and again a ruling “class” will somehow develop a type “superior” view in regards to themselves vs. those they are charged with leading. Pharaohs: adopted the belief they were the direct decendants of the gods, Moses: self proclaimed himself the hand of god to impose his ideals of morality upon the isrealis, so much so, if you do believe its accuracy, he took credit for the miracle of striking the stone and water springing from beneath in the desert. Ceasar(s): Came to the conclusion , since he had dominion over the entire known civilized world, he must in fact BE a GOD and demanded not only taxes but religeous sacrifices and tithes. Napoleon, very similar complex , and even the Nazi Party with their “superhuman” and Racial purity views. We see it today, where certain Acronymed agencies think the law only applies to the general population, nothing they need to follow,and the view of many in the Judicial, and enforcement branches proclaiming necesity to break the law in order to protect us from lawbreakers. Oblivious to the hypocrisy of the idea because they are the “good guys” so to say. Now they have a new theory to base their delusions on , genetics. the drug addict is ( without any evidence other than theory, and rumor) a genetic mishap,or the poor are that way because they lack the desire to be successful, a genetic trait passed on to them from their lazy poor parents.
The perfect conditions set long enough, a fungus, rust, disease, will inevitably set in,and thrive,flourish, if let be, whether or not you acknowledge it, or deny it in your mind. It’s only doing what it does, and so it will.
What is missing from this story is information on who the NSA targets, and what criteria they use to target those individuals.
When I was arrested after the National Park Service officer used the NSA surveillance tools to find my online information and set a trap for me because I turned in a marijuana grow operation he was protecting, I initially thought that it was just a coincidence that my reputation had been threatened twice by Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service employees.
My question then is, how do we know who is targeted with this program? Are there any examples? Can we ask Snowden? Is this limited to terrorist suspects, or does the NSA silence anyone who critiques the established powers-that-be?
Could I have been twice a victim of the NSA surveillance – found because I turned in a grow operation where the workers were running us off the road; but previously harassed for 7 years now in a massive campaign to defame me spanning the entire globe – as the stalker used foreign servers to get around my DMCA notices? The stalker also used IP blocking software.
I honestly don’t think the NSA would target me, but I don’t know. Since my work in wolf recovery, I have since been a journalist (http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/1022022/michael_wolf.html), and tried to start a rally, part of which included a pledge we the people would require our leaders to sign as a condition of service (http://www.wolveswolveswolves.org/federalpledge.htm). Or perhaps it is my internet show (user zapocalypsediaries on Youtube, or my video diary, Diaryofawolf. There is also my involvement as an amicus on the wolf delisting case in Montana, and the Proposition 8 case in California, where I was the first to argue that the gay marriage bans violate the Establishment Clause because people have been duped into believing that marriage is a religious, rather than a legal institution? Could these have been sufficient “crimes” to warrant trolling by the NSA?
Or is it just a coincidence that I am stalked by a man and his dozens of followers who just so happen to use the same exact techniques described in this story.
I think it’s a fair conclusion that either the NSA is stalking me, or the NSA is using the same methods. In other words, if the NSA isn’t stalking me, then they are behaving in the same exact manner as childish internet trolls.
Given the interference in world affairs and the whole of these Snowden revelations; I think the fair conclusion would be that yes indeed the NSA are no more than a bunch of internet trolls…likely because that’s who they recruited.
I, for one, am dispensing with the internet and am working to develop a MESH network which works on routers and uses the HAM system to connect meshes together. Anyone care to help?
You left out all the best stuff about magicians who work for spy agencies!
The one ray of hope is that all these goofy social science flowcharts are as meaningless to the people they were meant for as they seem to me. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they can’t cause people all kinds of grief anyway, with a child’s innate aptitude for cyberbullying.
A monkey with two Straight razors….
I see the “9/11 Truthers” have turned up — and there is no online campaign that I have ever been more suspicious of it being run by some kind of secret agency. I mean, the idea that after a jet plane crashes into a tower, you need a separate bomb to blow it up is so impossibly stupid, how would anyone ever fall for it? But by beating the drums, day in and day out for thirteen years, they drown out all the more interesting conspiracy theories – like that Bush allowed or even encouraged Osama bin Laden to attack, to authorize the spy agency takeover of the government that has by this point become de facto law. Real 9/11 conspiracy theories should ask _why_ the planes hit when they did, not come up with physically ludicrous alternative explanations. Somebody ask Snowden if any of those documents ADMIT this is the reason we’ve suffered this nonsense.
It appears to me that you are more obsessed with the 9/11 Truthers, as you call them, than they are with the tragedy. Why don’t you just go off and develope a series of science-based, engineer sanctioned, and First-responder approved Youtubes on your 9/11 “theories” and leave this blog to those interested in the subjects at hand? This is about real US government and UK government spying on their own publics. If that doesn’t chill your spine, perhaps you don’t have one.
now all 9/11 truthers subscribe to things you are describing. I would describe myself as a ‘truther’ but i think as you said the ‘more interesting’ SCADS (state crimes against democracies) are what truthers should be focusing on. The Bush administration lied about what happened on 9/11, lied about their level of foreknowledge, and then covered it up in the form of a whitehouse directed 9/11 commission. These are facts not ‘theories’, but to default or er on the side of the official Bush narrative, that the government was simply incompetent would be at this point pretty absurd. I think it’s just a matter of time before people stop knee jerking against ludicrous 9/11 theories and look at the ones blatantly in plain sight (saudi connections, FBI moles in Bin Laden’s inner circle, eerily similar war game scenarios proving that it was not a ‘failure of imagination) that contradict what we’ve been told.
Wow, try to discredit one crazy theory, only to insert another one !!
Ok, answer these questions then, how did two buildings manage to collapse almost exactly straight down into their own footprint ? Why did WTC 7 collapse when it was not hit by a plane. This was also the first day in the history of concrete core buildings when one has ever collapsed, bit on the day of 911 three collapsed. Supposedly collapse was caused from the aircraft fuel, but the problem with that is that burning aircraft fuel cannot reach a higher enough temperature to have melted, and weakened sufficiently the concrete core structures. Then of course their is the plane that supposedly hit the pentagon. Hmm no seats or visible aircraft parts strewn everywhere which you would expect to see when a large plane hits a building. Oh and the Pentagon has hundreds of surveillance cameras, why no footage released of the plane hitting the building. Then of course there is the mystery of the intense temperature and burning which continued in the ground for weeks following 911, and the explosions going up the stairs as reported by fire crews and the mysterious molten metal dripping from various structural points well below the point of impact of the planes. Even structural engineers, and demolition experts have gone on record questioning how two planes could hit two buildings at random structural points and manage to bring two enormous structures down so perfectly into their own footprints. This is very difficult to achieve even for the best demolition companies in the World.
Explain this one also
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/01/mole-m01.html
Way to demonstrate the tactics revealed in this article!
Wow, I’ve always expected commercial interests to influence people on the Internet, but kind of sad our great nation feels insecure enough to resort to these tactics, makes me sick in a way.
It’s not even our nation anymore. Our nation was taken over in a policy coup by Nazis prior to 9/11. It was by design that they didn’t bother to inform us.
That’s exactly right, people are being tortured to death with Directed Energy Weapons. If you go to the Army’s research site. It states that their greatest area of research is ” the effects of electricity on the human body”. I would be very curious to know who signed up as the “test subjects”…unwitting activists, artists and journalists. Plus targets of opportunity to fill out the research sample population by gender, age and ethnicity.
One of the many delusions that that the foot soldiers/ cannon fodder of the stalking operation are under…is that this is all legal. They think using a Directed Energy Weapon against an innocent civilian is legal, whereas physically attacking them or shooting them in the head is not.
Point A, the military is expressly prohibited against using psychological operations against American citizens. They are certainly not allowed to do human experimentation. Being instructed or paid off by the military or their contractors, does not get you a “get out of jail free card”, because everything they are doing is illegal. Federal agencies and local police can open an investigation on a U.S. citizen, based on probable cause. They can get a warrant collect evidence, interrogate the suspect, then charge the suspect with a crime. That is the only law enforcement activity that is legal in the United States.
Let’s talk about some of the crimes that these stalking groups and their Directed Energy torturing goon counterparts are committing on a daily basis. Keep in mind, they have openly bragged to me they will never go to jail:
1. Attempted murder
2. Felony gang assault
3. Stalking
4. Computer tampering
5. Breaking and entering
6. Grand Larceny ( if they have destroyed property or stolen)
7. Criminal conspiracy
8. Terrorsim
9. Interstate terrorism (if they’ve crossed state lines to follow a target)
10. International terrorism (if they have contacted counterparts in a foreign country and/or followed a target to a foreign country
Any of these charges, if proved, will result in a life sentence. Think about that you stalking torturing goons! Do you feel lucky?
Well said. Yes, targeting of this nature is indeed a serious crime yet they continue to get away with it. Any form of covert harassment like this is indeed murder. Take from me , someone that has survived it for nearly 2 decades and veterans like me have almost all taken their own lives or ended up, wrongly I might add, in mental institutions being misdiagnosed. This harassment destroys families, jobs friends and worst of all hope. Gratefully I can now usually smell a rat in comments under an article or a youtube video. Most of these creeps use the same boring tactics of insults and meanness. As far as alternative media and sites giving out the info, my advice, always do your own research. Also if the spin about someone is unfounded, rumor or shallow accusations then be wary. Nothing is what it seems in this cyber world we now live in. Character assassinations are generally a good indication that perhaps that person is in fact telling the truth. The spin on the adage ‘conspiracy nut’ has been well planned
Well said. ” Character assassinations are generally a good indication that perhaps that person is in fact telling the truth. “
Our scumbag western governments will stop at nothing, manipulating the stock market, the bond market, the gold and silver market, you name it these scum manipulate it, but the market will in the end decide, it’s just a matter of time!
With all due respect, the market will not decide in the end. Only true goodness that has influenced the market will decide in the end. The markets are now controlled by a small group of oligarchical elitists protected by their evil twins in government that are periodically rotated in and out of office through entertainment style “elections” (in the US, the UK and elsewhere). Together, they form a network of banking, business and government “officials” that attempts to display an outward looking appearance of legitimacy. In reality, they are secretive grifters that manipulate interest rates, currency values, trading, world conflicts, and, even the price of a loaf of bread. These official grifters cannot be bothered with what they deem to be simple nuisances, like human dignity, genuine liberty, the law and a constitution. At the same time, they are fearful about getting exposed, which is why US government officials are now engaging in contorted gymnastics to crucify Mr. Snowden simply because he exposed the maggots and their machinery. Every person has a moral duty to speak out and expose corruption whenever you see it. Not only for your own sake, but for the sake of everybody else in this world and for future generations. In the end, evil will lose and goodness will prevail.
Wow, try to discredit one crazy theory, only to insert another one !!
Well, Paul……….your factually empty comment means what????
Never seen this before, what happened on the 26th of DEC 2013?:
http://www.digitalattackmap.com/#anim=1&color=0&country=ALL&time=16065&view=map
The more I read about military surveillance, cyber warfare (including bots) and agency intercept powers in general the more it seems although a knee jerk response probably the only course necessary for a supper power to keep it’s world dominance in place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACOyzPKidQ
http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm
Just to let you know – I have nothing against Glen, hardly know him, because I don’t follow him everywhere like some people here. If somebody wants to attack me – go ahead, don’t give a damn!
Have to mention that if he (Glen) really wanted to release something, he will do it all at once and complete, without the blacked out parts even if that was not his idea, he should have demanded the complete info.
I am someone who experienced all of the so far released techniques and more, but I am still here!!!
Not as comfortable in my life as Glen surely is (releasing all ‘this’ without consequences), but I will get where I want to get: my total self-sufficiency, if someone up ‘there’ likes it or not!
I have battled UK government agencies, banks and corporations whenever they tried to cheat or steal from me and my son.
Refused to pay my tax – so not supporting any wars and illegal occupations!
Finally they had enough and gently (not really) forced us to leave the UK.
Not asking for any support from anyone – have worked many jobs in my life and I am not afraid of getting my hands dirty. See you later.
My android ph has been been *hijacked* in a quite sinister manner, while never leaving my side. For example, the weather app suddenly showed my locale as *island of the dragons, spain* (rather than small town usa), then on google out of 15 playlists on my google music, the ONLY list to “suddenly vanish” was titled Praise n contained spiritually uplifting tunes. (Versus all the other lists like Rock or Dub etc). So apparently *somebody* isnt feelin the positive, higher-vibe..(or WORSE!??)
I know someone who was burglarized 3 times in a 2 years and someone else who experienced attempted arson. Those crimes were never solved and hardly investigated -just examples. There is a huge law enforcement need, in the US at least, and this is the kind of minimally useful, invasive, and unconstitutional junk that the gov’t will spend billions on.
It appears that law enforcement has been re-routed to serve the interests of the powerful, or to act or not as each agency finds convenient. These slides really point to tactics used against environmental groups and others practicing perfectly legitimate, legal activism, while criminals slip through the “web” of protection. Really dispiriting.
The government have been running such operations on me for over 5 months now due to my development of a theory of the mind and gamification system that I have been developing. I am also active as an activist. I could shed some light on how these tactics are employed as I have seen them first hand and I have some training in psychology.
One particularly tyrannical thing they do is reverse engineer psychology. They take the descriptions of someone who is paranoid or psychotic and seeing patterns that are not there and turn them into a defense for their attack. It is a hit and run strategy. When their target complains about the attack they can claim that the person is crazy and some sort of threat to the community. They can deny having anything to do with the activity. When you are being persecuted in this fashion you will falsely attribute attacks to these agencies. What they have ultimately done to me I can not say. I do believe that they would like the systems that I have developed for their own purposes. My research sheds some rather negative light on the way that government is conducted around the globe. Teaming up with the government is not really a natural partnership for this reason. How would you feel about teaming up with someone who makes you the target of constant attacks? Anyways if someone would like more first hand accounts of how such operations can be conducted I can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I have a lot more information to share but I want this comment to be short enough that people read it. This shit is real and a large number of people being targeted probably don’t know it.
A omnipotent agency can troll you (for lack of a better term) 24/7, but they don’t have the means to get the systems and theorys you’ve been crafting, without you cooperating with them? With all due respect Sir, I don’t follow :/
The NSA and Co has become that evil organization that is in crime movies. Only this time its not a eccentric billionaire who’s running it, but the world’s biggest military force(s). No laws can get the lawmakers, except the constitutions which they don’t care about. Where is Superman when we needs him?
Dear friend,
Food for thought.
Justice Matthew Cooper who is Jewish, is convinced I am anti-Semitic. But, why would he conduct himself from the bench in such a way that would fuel anti-Semitism? Unless his outburst is an inspection of his own brain for his hatred of Gentile fathers of European decent.
Maybe he knows Jay Lefkowitz who said to The New York Times:
“Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews – reminds them who they are” (New York Times Magazine, February 12, 1995 p. 65). These comments were made by Jay Lefkowitz, a lawyer, who served as President Bush’s Special Envoy for Human Rights. The fact that the comments originated with a lawyer is uncanny, but even more so because of his background and his status as a Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea. What the comments really demonstrate is that a desirable amount of anti-Semitism – Mr. Lefkowitz needs “a little anti-Semitism”, not a lot – whenever absent, can and must be induced by provocation to perpetuate the cause for Jewish group stratagem.
Just thinking out loud.
–
Fanaticism is now mainstream in the legal community, that it is affecting my divorce case:
When a Judge (or the lawyers) loses his or her objectivity, then the truism applies:
Everything is religious, everything is political.
Justice Matthew F. Cooper: Sending me this about “The Fucking Jews”
Mr. Santomauro: No, actually, it was the opposite of that. It was “Fuck the Arabs” in the essay.
Sandra Schpoont (Attorney for my 11 year old son): Oh, that’s better.
Steven Mandel (Attorney for my ex-wife): Oh, that’s better.
Justice Matthew F. Cooper: Oh, that’s better.
Letter from The Mandel Law Firm (Steven J. Mandel) 12-9-13
http://tinyurl.com/ozkcek8
Justice Matthew F. Cooper: “Is that [Jewish] agenda to dilute the Aryan race?” On page 20:
http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/newsletters/Newsletter%20727.pdf
+++
The essay in question:
+The Myth of the Innocent Civilian
http://www.nolanchart.com/article674-the-myth-of-the-innocent-civilian.html
“Justice Matthew F. Cooper has distorted, invented or misremembered almost every significant claim and phrase. In particular, ‘Jewish conspiracy’ is completely false, in spirit and in word.
“It is serious and upsetting. Rather than correct a smear, Justice Cooper has attempted, perhaps not surprisingly, to justify one smear with another in the same direction.
“Michael Santomauro promotes the ideal of “scientific journalism” – where the underlaying evidence of all articles is available to the reader precisely in order to avoid these type of distortions. Michael Santomauro treasurse his strong Jewish support just as he treasures the support from pan-Arab democracy activists and others who share the hope for a just world.” –I.S.
Peace.
Michael Santomauro
Cell: 917-974-6367
+TWITTER: http://twitter.com/#!/Santomauro
“An anti-Semite condemns people for being Jews, I am not an anti-Semite.”–Michael Santomauro.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-nccl-was-right-to-affiliate-with-pie/14718#.UxKSVozivIU
The reality is that the secret service chiefs and their minions in NSA and other secret agencies already have unfathomable more secret power and information about us citizens, than Lavrentiy Beria or Heinrich Himmler both infamous secret services chiefs during Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union or Hitler’s rule of Nazi Germany. Now, they want to take away the freedom of the press, which make them accountable to us all. All that, because they want to have absolute control. Those chiefs are no different from other human beings anywhere, when given uncontrolled power they become corrupt, paranoid and quite dangerous to us all. It is high time to stop them using any available non-violent means of resistance as our freedoms and democracies are at stake!
Glenn, I big thank you for your courage and great journalistic service to democracy!
Araldo
Glenn – why didn’t you pitch this story to NBC and all the other mainstream media outlets that are running the sex driven spying stories?
Those stories were pitched just as you rolled out here – another clever marketing tool.
I think this is what pisses your critics off – and rightly so in many cases.
Notice that no media have written this story. Small audience of loyal followers who already understand the implications.
That’s not how social and political change is made.
These tactics are definitely true and I have seen the evidence of these tactics myself. It appears that some of these covert agents are already at work in the comments of this page.
Haha, seriously. Bunch of literature majors in here. My head is spinning.
Of course!!!
Navy Admits to Electric Powered Laser Weapons
Reporter, David Sharp, from the Associated Press, recently wrote an article about the U.S. Navy already having sophisticated laser weapons at their disposal. The name of the article is
‘Star Wars’ at sea: Navy ready to deploy laser system this summer – rail guns not far behind
The one problem they were encountering in using the electric laser weapons; is that these weapons require ample amounts of electricity to work.
Loren Thompson, defense analyst at the Lexington Institute said, “the rail gun requires a vast amount of electricity to launch the projectile.”
The “projectile” referred to by Loren Thompson, is a laser emitting electrical charge that is invisible to the naked eye, that produces searing heat onto the target.
“The Navy: “Producing enough energy for a rail gun is another problem.”
“The Navy’s new destroyer, the Zumwalt, under construction at Bath Iron Works in Maine, is the only ship with enough electric power to run a rail gun. The stealthy ship’s gas turbine-powered generators can produce up to 78 megawatts of power. That’s enough electricity for a medium-size city — and more than enough for a rail gun.” Said Capt. James Downey, the program manager.
The Yahoo article where these quotes came from confirm what I have known for almost 3 years now. That I had been attacked by a sophisticated laser that harnessed the energy of electricity. Not enough to kill me, but enough to disrupt my sleeps and make me appear “insane.”
It was August 1, 2011. At around 5AM, my wife and I were awoken to a car crashing almost directly in front of our house. A car driving at a very high rate of speed, plowed and crashed into the telephone pole next to our telephone pole. My father, who lives in the house next door to us, went out to see what had happened. The driver of the car had fled on foot, and was gone, never to be seen again.
A bald headed man, who lived across from my house at the time, who said he had just moved into the area, ran out as did my father, and asked my father if he was going to call the police, because he himself, “didn’t want to get involved.” So my father, who was going to call the police, decided not to either.
By the way, the driver was never caught or arrested for leaving the scene of a crash, and according to an unnamed policeman, it was kept, “hush, hush.” The incident never made it into any local newspapers.
On August 2, 2011, my wife and daughter had just come home from purchasing an air filled swimming pool, so our daughter could play, and keep cool in the hot weather.
What we came home to on our street, was the scene of about 30 “workers” who were installing a new phone pole. One “worker” I’ll never forget, was obviously a very strong man who was, by himself holding up the phone pole as the other damaged phone pole was being taken away. It was quite a site, to say the least.
That night, while sleeping, I started to feel heat on my head. Almost as if being electrically pricked, over and over again. The first time I thought, ok, I’m having a nightmare, and I woke up. But, this went on for 6 nights. No Sleep for 6 nights. Never happened to me before. Let me also state, that never in my 43 years did I ever have a mental illness, or a diagnosis of mental illness.
With lack of sleep, and an attack by way of the telephone, (yes, a burst of air blew my eardrum out causing me to become ill, I still have ringing to this day in my right ear) that was witnessed by my wife and child, I had had enough. I went into NYC, and tried to find the United Nations. I couldn’t find it, and wound up at Union Square Park, where I gave a calm, coherent speech to about 200 or so, New Yorkers.
I was arrested by a brigade of “police.” In January 2014, my arrest video surfaced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcMhVUrgbM4
In it, we can hear an “EMT” answer a man in the crowd as to why I am being arrested. The “EMT” replies: “we’re not arresting him, we’re going to put him in an ambulance.”
An arrest, according to The Rutherford Institute, that by the way is handling the case of Media Darling, former, decorated marine, Brandon J. Raub, who was “falsely arrested,” states, “that whenever handcuffs are used, it is taking away the liberty of the person, when that person is being held against their will, whether they go to a hospital or jail. It constitutes as an arrest.”
Why would the “EMT” say I wasn’t being “arrested,” when in fact, I was? Why would the hospital continue this lie to my family?
It’s called a COVER-UP. When two or more parties enter into an agreement to enter into illegal activity, it is called a CONSPIRACY.
To my chagrin, I found out that one only has 90 days from the point of incident to file a “False Arrest” case.
Well, that gives me my answer. Once the 90 days had past, they were in the clear.
I recently put in another claim with the same office, and requested this ruling be lifted due to the new evidence from my arrest video, clearly showing handcuffs being used, and the beginning of a “cover-up,” when the man said they weren’t arresting me.
After the false arrest, I then was brought to a NYC Psych Hospital, and was forced to stay 23 days. These were no ordinary days. They were filled with drugs, a full fledged, that I could best describe as a POW Mind Control Experiment. Looking back now, the most intriguing aspect of this stay, was the lack of sleep for another 23 days.
As I lay trying to sleep, an electric charge kept hitting me, making sleep impossible. Remembering back to this time, there was one day however, that I was not zapped. The day the electric power went out in NYC due to a Nor Easter that caused a power outage. Remember that? I want you also to remember what the Navy said: Vast Amounts of electricity needed to operate the electric laser weapon.” ELECTRICITY
Before these traumatic events happened to me, I had never been diagnosed with a metal illness. I was running many miles a day, had just finished my master’s degree. I was also putting the finishing touches on my third music album,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CFEP3Z6/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
and a self-produced movie by the same name, Kyrie. http://distrify.com/films/7060-kyrie
The doctors (who I believe were also in on this conspiracy) made the story I told to them even more fantastical. The Official Medical Report was filled with more inaccuracies and distortions and untruths – that would make even The Warren “JFK” Report blush.
The Official Medical Report: “Mr. Iannacchino said he felt as if “a big hand, a wand were over him.” I Never Said This. I said that it was quite possible that the electricity from the outside was being harnessed into a weapon, and the “electric work” being done the week before, where heavy transformers were placed on our phone pole were installed should be investigated. Why was a heavy electric transformer installed on our unaffected phone pole, when their had never been one there before?
Hopefully, the FOIA request put forth by me, to the electric company will answer and shed some light on these and many other questions pertaining to all work done and to the identities of the workers who worked on the August 2, 2011 job on my street.
Once I got back from the different psych hospitals, I went searching on the internet. Surely, I could find people that went through this. I made the mistake of stumbling upon a “human rights group” that dealt specifically with people being tortured by these sophisticated weapons.
What I found out however, from my own research, is that this group is made up of Disinfo Agents, and their job is to distort and confuse the public with this subject. It is also intriguing to me, that major news outlets will use this “human rights group” as the “goto official source” from time to time.
This group had many “members” complaining of the most far out stories. Maybe some of them were mental, but I could see why they would distort the facts on purpose. I had specifically told the leader of this group that they should have me speak with reporters, that the “victims” they were using were making the group look more “crazy and unbalanced.” I now suspect, that this was the true goal of the group. To appear to the public at large as “fucking crazy.”
First off, the leader of this group, who I spoke to on the phone tried to change the direction of my conclusions that these weapons ran off of electricity and came from lasers. Incredibly, this former Navy, NSA man, who leads this organization, told me that satellites and cell towers were most likely the cause of our “targeting.” BULLSHIT.
There are other reasons I suspect this “leader” is a charlatan. Back in August of 2012, I suspected that I was being targeted for assassination at my place of employment. I spoke to this “leader.” He told me that I had to go back to work, and “face them.” But before ending the call, he wanted to “say a prayer” with me.
I want to personally thank the writer, David Sharp of the Associated Press, as it confirms and supports my claims and suspicions that in fact, that more than likely, these sophisticated electric laser weapons were used on me.
The electric connection confirmed by the Navy, would also confirm that The electric power lines outside our houses then would work fine in powering these weapons. Wouldn’t they?
It is interesting to note, that when I first saw this article up on Drudgereport, it had disappeared from its website just as soon as I came across it.
Another piece of interesting trivia. Back in 2011, when I was first attacked by these electric laser weapons, just as I was trying to make sense of it all, I contacted the mayor’s office in my “medium- sized city.” He referred me to another department. In fact, a man came and did do an “investigation.” Not much more came of it, and I went on to other things.
Today, nearly three years later, we have a new mayor in our city. Paradoxically, our old mayor was able to find a job in record time – working at The Electric Company in a prestigious position.
Find more articles at http://www.kyriemovie.blogspot.com
I know a guy that does that to people. He helps set them up, one after another they die. He just sits there torturing people to death. High tech torture cult with interactive satellite technology or something.
He was trying to get me to do it, showing me how it works… It’s like, “Hey you wanna help me kill as many people as you can? It’s perfectly legal, you just look for the strongest, smartest, healthiest most beautiful people you can find and then go like this”.
Naturally I reported murder to the authorities. They get back to me saying they’re well aware of the situation because their the ones doing it and that I’m probably sick or need to be arrested.
They’re all a specific type of Western European that do that (of course a couple are lobotomized tokens or abused looters). Obama’s mamma looks like one of them so he’s probably one too (a half brain).
You’re not alone with this electric shock torture. One of the attacks I started experiencing over a year ago was a small electric shock sensation in my head at the very moment I was about to cross over into sleep. There would be a rush of energy after the shock, and they do this to me over and over to deny me sleep and try to drive me mad.
When I was trying to find what was causing these symptoms I read many different threads with many different people all suffering this. No doctors could ever find a solution and that’s because it’s not something a doctor is going to be able to “cure” :). Here is just one thread that comes up with lots of victims discussing it, they have no idea they’re being harassed or experimented on.
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/sleep-disorders/860013-electric-shock-sensation-while-falling-asleep.html
Interesting enough, I just recently read this article…http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/02/18/air-force-stimulates-brain-waves-improve-performance-drone-operators/V8ZG5DEYze4lCoGlloq14H/story.html
That is pretty much exactly what was being done to me for many months. It sounds like it’s similar to your own experience as well.
Burning under the skin. It can be very small and focused or my entire body. Voice to skull harassment. Particularly they spam repeat small sections of songs to try and distract me or deny me sleep. Forced muscle spasms. Waves of nausea which I recently learned are actually a sonic based attack, you can even buy one off amazon for 40 bucks! http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Nausea-Electronic-Audible-Device/dp/B004MTL3O2. Intense rushes of anxiety that wake me up. Vertigo. Dazing. Cointelpro-like stalking out in public. Vandalism. I’ve had my car broken into a few times at work. They threw my papers all over in my car, took the nobs off my radio and turned all the lights on. Didn’t steal anything. They have flattened my tires with nails, busted up my rims and keyed the fuck out of my car. After my targeting started I noticed a large increase in semi trucks blatantly running me off the expressway despite not being in their blind spot. One of the strangest things they’ve done to me while on my way to work was box me in with 4 black suvs on the highway and slowed me down to 40 mph (go figure it was black suvs, right?). I was late to work that day. Constant cyber stalking and hacking, especially in online games. Stuff I would do in my room my stalkers would repeat to me immediately through messages in games, essentially taunting me and letting me know they have complete and total surveillance of my life. This happens in public to. Complete strangers run into me when I’m grocery shopping and then repeat something I just said over the phone to a friend.
These tactics were known to be used by the Stasi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi Read about Zersetzung. The goal is to drive a target to suicide, and most people will never even know they’re being targeted by a govt hit squad. It seems here in the US they’re not only using this incredible abuse of power, but they’ve even taken it further by adding on psychotronic and dew weapons to the list. It’s inescapable torture and it’s also very hard to prove. Where do you go if you can’t even hide from it in your own home?
I’ll pull a quick quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon
The TECOM Technology Symposium in 1997 concluded on non-lethal weapons, “determining the target effects on personnel is the greatest challenge to the testing community”, primarily because “the potential of injury and death severely limits human tests”.[42]
Also, “directed energy weapons that target the central nervous system and cause neurophysiological disorders may violate the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980. Weapons that go beyond non-lethal intentions and cause “superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering” may also violate the Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1977.”[43]
That is EXACTLY what this technology is being used for. Massive suffering and discrediting campaigns (just try and tell a doctor about all this, they will label you as delusional or schizo).
Save this man, First Look Intercept.http://www.kyriemovie.blogspot.com/
Were there any specific examples except for Paypal 14 that I missed? If you steal data, you are a thief, plain and simple. These people who hide behind their internet wall because they do not like “The Man” have no guts to show their faces or they move to Russia. Whetever ?
He fought for you, now we must stand for him.
ACLU: Grant Edward Snowden Immunity Now
https://www.aclu.org/secure/grant_snowden_immunity?ms=tw_acluaction_131217
fun stuff
Did you see my post on this I posted 3 different links for this!!!
Just poking around and look…..http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37800.htm
See you later
I now have another post which didn’t reach here about “BOTS” posted 30 mins ago in reply to Michael Wolf. Boring. Just poking around also.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmdfence/106/106vw11.htm
The title of your link :
The documents provided are all Greek to me.
So its not Obama so much as Omidyar.
Front page news.
Scoop of the decade,
The author of the article, Mark Ames, is a pretty well-respected journalist. In fact, Greenwald has known Mark for years. Mark actually criticized him for starting a media operation with Pierre. I wonder what Greenwald’s response will be to this?
Do the documents actually show that Pierre co-funded Ukraine revolution groups in concert with the U.S. government? If so, that is one hell of a bombshell story. It definitely has serious implications for First Look.
Here’s his response, Ben:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/01/journalistic-independence/
Mark Ames is extremely well-respected for boasting of having sex with a 15-year-old while in his 30s in a book that claimed “This is a work of nonfiction,” then backpedaling and claiming it was all satire.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/beast-in-the-east/Content?oid=902762
Ames only started “criticizing” Greenwald after Glenn demolished Ames’s credibility in an article for Salon called “Anatomy of a Smear Job.” Ames has been stalking him for years.
This is absolutely insane!!! Hahahahaha
It’s reaching action-movie proportions!
http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/
http://www.thenation.com/blog/177417/glenn-greenwald-responds-critics-attacks-continue
Just poking around and look
Its a book called Geoge W Bush war criminal ? written by the Political Scientist, Michael Haas with a foreword by Nuremberg Chief Prosecuter Benjamin B Frenkz
Here is Michael Haas’ website
http://www.uswarcrimes.com/
Hope to see you later at the Haig George B.
Sorry, but I do believe you have found wrong George B mate. You have to try somewhere else. I wish to see HIM there(Hague) too!!!
Those in the US use arrest and the mental health system, which discredits the victim and ruins many aspects of his/her life.
See: http://revolutionpac.com/articles/welcome-to-the-american-gulag-using-involuntary-commitment-laws-to-silence-dissenters
Welcome to the American Gulag: Using Involuntary Commitment Laws To Silence Dissenters
Hired internet TROLLS are recruited by corporations that subcontracted agencies not only for marketing purposes, but also in a global effort to muddy the waters of truth and prevent public unification and outcry about unsustainable polluting programs such as climate engineering/weather modification, the dangers of genetically modified foods, and any issue where profiteers put their bottom line and lust for control, over the destruction of the planet at the expense of our health. These age old political tactics have been used for political purposes throughout history. It should be no surprise that these same tactics are being employed to manipulate the public for any number of reasons; if an entity has enough money, they can afford to hire a whole army of trolls to sway the masses. http://rebelsiren.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/dispelling-internet-disinformation-tactics-debunking-the-debunkers/
Last April I found out firsthand that this program exists, that the NSA is surveilling Americans in an effort to control and manipulate the entire population.
Worse, I discovered that the NSA tools are made available to any Federal Officer and thus any friend of a Federal Officer in law enforcement.
Yes folks, the NSA is going after people through your internet use. And if you, like me, happen to turn in a marijuana grow operation, you, like I, will find out firsthand that the NSA provides the results of these tools and techniques to any law enforcement agent who simply makes the request; whether legal and legitimate or not.
The NSA surveillance tools are in fact used to control the population of America, and indeed the world.
Greenwald and Snowden and a few others understand what I have come to understand; that the tools above, stolen from the Nazis and perfected by Americans, are among the tools utilized by the most sinister and evil psuedo-government in conjunction with private enterprise, to tilt the entire global game in their own favor.
If you want to know precisely what the NSA does to an individual, I urge you to look up “informationcides” and “infocides” and see what the NSA and FBI not only allowed to go on for, so far, seven years; but likely recruited the guy, or perhaps even WAS infocides – given the techniques used which I assumed were simply being employed by a clever hacker.
I don’t know if Infocides is the NSA, but I do know that the NSA has become what we ALL dread – a bunch of childish internet trolls who happen to have “administrator status” over the entire fucking globe.
Report in The Guardian
Senators to investigate NSA role in GCHQ ‘Optic Nerve’ webcam spying
Three senators condemn UK spy agency’s ‘breathtaking lack of respect’ over interception of Yahoo users’ webcam images
Spencer Ackerman in Washington
theguardian.com, Friday 28 February 2014 17.14 GMT
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/28/nsa-gchq-webcam-spy-program-senate-investigation
It’s now February 28th. This article was published on February 24th…and all I hear is crickets! Now how exactly is a story like this kept outside of the mainstream media worldwide??? I did hear that Justin Bieber had a problem with drugs etc… NYT and Washington Post did cover the “Yahoo is taking pictures (sometimes naked) over webcams story” at a rate of 2 million non-suspects per 6 months and Yahoo is furious. Of course the story was buried on the back pages. This is fucking outrageous! And I hope the silence indicates that the Senate and Congress are in the process of planning their hearings. May I suggest Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. He may have lost out on the top FBI job, but if you want to clean up Dodge…he’s the guy.
GCHQ’s interception and storage of Yahoo webcam images condemned
Critics react angrily to revelation that GCHQ intercepted and stored millions of images of people not suspected of wrongdoing
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-interception-storage-webcam-images-condemned
It’s not news, didn’t see anything specific in there except for Paypal 14….SOOOOOOO
My tax $$ at work. To the employees of these organizations please act with a clear conscious. If you don’t have a conscious you are a psychopath and should defer to a spiritual leader. Reap what you sow.
Heck. All U.S. companies do this. They hire “social media” kids to use internet scan bots to find every instance of their company’s name on the internet and then respond on the appropriate blogs as an anonymous person who just happened to see the reference. It’s the American way of pretending to be fair and open.
When Maduro tried to get Edward Snowden asylum in Venezuela, little did he know the consequences and power behind what can be done behind the scenes to someone who goes against the Administration’s grain. Reuters reported he offered Snowden “humanitarian asylum” so he could avoid “imperial North American persecution.” Hmm. Now look what’s happening to Maduro.
Not all US companies do this..and what is described here goes beyond a simple post.
Sounds like apologist talk.
Two major differences, the government doing it is fundamentally different than private companies doing it, the government has the power of the state and all its resources as cover for its activities, there is no effective counter action an aggrieved person can do.
And, the government literally has no business doing this, it has its own charter to govern within the laws, not to actively subvert its citizens’ private or public life.
“And, the government literally has no business doing this, it has its own charter to govern within the laws, not to actively subvert its citizens’ private or public life.”
So did you read this article?
I have been noticing “fake people” all over the internet comment sections ever since I started talking. Because of their obviousness I have exposed them by the dozen and their agenda’s vary but most have the same basic qualities: they are athiest, hateful, “peer reviewed” science obsessed and use psychiatric techniques to upset people so as to make them look unstable and therefor discredit them. They are easy to spot if you can access their “profile.” Some push racism, some push GMO’s are yummy and praise MonSatan, they love vaccines, and they all hate “Climate change Deniers.” Others have more subtle topics, but I can see them. Anyone speaking about “morgellons disease” will eventually get attacked like there’s no tomarrow. For some reason I have always been able to see them and I will not stop exposing them when I do. I have listed them out in my comments by the dozen on touchy topics, which angers them and gets them going. Once they are exposed they will eventually create new profiles. You can always tell when an article is likely true and there is a cover-up on information because they will show up in hordes and sometimes they will up-vote each other and expose whole groups of themselves that way. Often (but not always) their profiles are private and unviewable. They are surely trained in psychiatric harrassment but they aren’t very smart beyond that. They often use generic scripts, but not completely.
Groups of these “shills/trolls” have ganged up on me and attacked me personally online as a giant hordes of creeps, and sometimes it is obvious there is only one or two people playing the roles of dozens so the person being targeted and harrassed will think there are lots of people who hate them. They will fill up your e-mail will hate messages if responses to your own comments get sent to your e-mail. This is a psychiatric nightmare for someone who doesn’t see these “people” are fake! Learn to spot them and expose every last one!! Never take what they say to heart. They are PAID to upset people, create hate and create fear by making the general population look like a bunch of scary, evil thugs, changing a persons perspective of the world and people around them.
They will CLONE your account (on disqus, for example), steal your avatar and run around pretending to be you and saying mean or backwards things to destroy your reputation. They have done this to many people. The Natural News website has had severe problems with cloning by vaccine-promoting shills. They also “follow” people under fake profiles that link up to “disqus” employees via following the “follow” button trail. I have one following me and “ironically” following only one other person: the head of communications at Disqus(t). It’s incredibly f**ked!! Follow your intution and you’ll see them.
What you are describing sounds like ‘Persona Management’
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All
Just noticed something in the documents linked above.
One of the attack methods the NSA describes is “False Flag.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_tonkin_incident#NSA_report
That’s how they triggered the Vietnam war.
Black Propaganda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda
Why should I worry? I’m not doing anything wrong.
the reason you should worry is because that is the point of the article, people that use sites like this are targeted
Meanimg you’re not disobeying the guv’ment in any way. Cuz datz baaaaad.
You just did.
You don’t get to decide what’s “wrong” or whether you’ve done it or not. Those with arbitrary power get to decide.
Sorry guys. I was being sarcastic. Ever since the Ed Snowden defected from the NSA, about a third of the people that have commented (to me) on the domestic spying, have said: “Why should I worry? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The biggest problem with the Secret Police State (otherwise known as the United Secret Police State of America), is: Secret Laws & Secret Punishments.
Tell this to all the yellow bellied sheep, every time you hear that cop out.
If you weren’t being sarcastic, then you are both very worried, and doing something very wrong, 007. If not, agreed; those assinine “Why should I worry, [fill in the blank]!?” statements are extremely noxious.
But they’re funny too. My favorite, commonly heard in the US , was “Why should I worry, I’m an American!?”. Then I heard this in London, after the the US & UK went a-viking in Iraq, but just before the Underground/Bus bombings: “Why should you worry, you live in a democracy!?”.
Those Phucking Limeys! What will they think of next?
I’m working against the NSA/GCHQ: user zapocalypsediaries on YouTube. Give me a week or two to get all 100 episodes back to public so that something going on in my life can blow over.
half an hour trying to post my story and it was lost…
Hail to the United Secret Police State of America! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
I hope one day we can read ours minds ….so the nsa dont need anymore our money for make the internet a form of spy to the citizens (a real joke ) and wheres snowden information nothing will goona change Imo…
” compromising the integrity of the internet itself”
is that a joke?
what integrity?
what integrity?
Do me it is not the integrity of the internet, but the integrity of the government. There was recently a story in the news about how the same aide that grid-locked the George Washington Bridge to punish the Ft Lee, NJ mayor who didn’t endorse Governor Christie had also joked about grid-locking the neighborhood around a rabbi’s house who refuse to endorse him. The rabbi actually was a big supporter of Christie, but didn’t endorse him because he understood that this was not his role as a member of the clergy. Likewise, it is not the role of the government to be anonymously discrediting individuals that they do not agree with. It is the role of the government to prosecute these individuals if they do anything illegally.
Another good comparison I could make is that people in the US military are always (at least among the senior staff) publicly apolitical. Only after they retire, do they participate in partisan politics. There is a certain neutrality that we expect from the clergy, from the military, and from the government. When the IRS started to go after Tea Party folks, everyone including the President was outraged. In my eyes, this is the same thing. It is not acceptable for secret branches of the government to anonymously slander people.
And the reason that it is not ok to do that is because there is no Due Process which is gauranteed in the 5th amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without DUE PROCESS of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.[1]
Right? It’s just that these little details look an awful lot like what a totalitarian dictatorship might do to its own citizens. Malignant governmental power and expansion are the only things that appear to matter to these agencies, and I guess it works because it gives people an identity, a sense of importance and power, and a paycheck (or is better than jail).
Many people here have asked where are the “victims” I am a TI Targeted Individual. I have been for over 13 years now. I retired from the University of Maine in 2001 after a distinguished 34 year career and am professor emeritus there. My “crime” I now know was that I successfully spearheaded a move to collect over 74,000 citizen signatures to shut down a car exhaust testing company in Maine.
For most of the first few years the 24/7/365day harassment was mild and I could live with it ok. Little did I know after my retirement that a new “friend” was a plant by the Fusion Center who acted as a secret agent for them. For the past 3-4 years the level of harassment was suddenly increased to severe harassment being imposed on me. It ranged from stealing money, breaking my belongings and property, abusing my pet cat, practicing controling/crashing my computer to stop me from communicating with people, denial of service, fake web sites and the list goes on and on. Fusion Center ” government zombies” are now sent out in cars/on foot to harass me with coughs, loud noises, obnoxious odors and the list for that goes on and on, while in the safety of my home, they also surround me with loud vehicular noise every 15-30 minutes using super loud motorcycle , cars with very loud mufflers and the like to be sure that they tell me they are still there waiting to harsass me even more if I go out. The nasty thing about all this is that they have never told me anything of this directly….but boy did they make sure that I knew that the harassments were deliberate, hateful and hurtful. They continue to use gangstalking/gaslighting/psyop with full vengeance. I have leaned the majority of nasty tricks and do challenge them many times but I am powerless most of the time and must endure all the things they do. I have done nothing illegal nor have I been charged with any crime. The use of the harassments/gangstalking etc surely break the law. Stealing from me certainly does. My family and friends have all deserted me after visits by secret visits by the Fusion Center team. I am hoping that other TI will recognize my story and contact me. I would welcomed any help I could have with other people also trying to cope with this monstrous government travesty. feel free to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . there is strength in numbers. ( what I have not addressed here is the use by the Fusion Center of Corporations to deny/harass me)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
I’ve seen this post religiously pasted in just about every discussion of the NSA’s activities.
I suspect it of being an NSA discredit bot. Sound mentally ill, pull the discussion down with you, that sort of thing.
Hi Tom, Gangstalking is real and I suspect run by MIC, NSA and DARPA. Now they probably have tons of disinfo agents working the posts. So who is a real victim, who is posting disinformation…well they main goal is to make people targeting by this harassment look crazy. Just last week I was surrounded by 3-4 NYPD/MTA officers 6 feet tall, who started the conversation by telling me they where “going to throw me into a mental institution”. Quite an escalation, considering they were surrounding a middle age female from Long Island. My crime…admittedly while drunk was pointing out all of the surveillance cameras in Penn station NY and loudly questioning how you could have a huge gangstalking operation taking place under surveillance cameras. I might have also mentioned that Booz Allen Hamilton (Snowden’s Defense Department contractor 70% of NSA) is owned by the Carlyle Co. Gee you mention Carlyle and the Bush connection, some paid off law enforcement goons surround you pretty quick, with an immediate threat to throw you into a mental institution. I’m sorry, I was under the impression that loudly mentioning surveillance and defense department contractors would fall under “disorderly conduct” for law enforcement purposes.
So do you want to know what’s really going on Tom. These torturing Motherf#$$f**ckers are testing/deploying Directed Energy Weapons against the American public (and abroad) every day 24/7. If you are a target, your life is a living hell. You are harassed by hundreds/ sometimes thousands of stalking goons and targeted with incapacitating experimental weapons. They appear to be going after dissidents, whistleblowers, artists, journalists and “targets of opportunity”…the rest of the world population is next on the hitless. What do you think this is all about Tom?
Do you really think they are just surveilling and there is no ground operation? The only question is, does Snowden have the documents to back it up.
I am real. the things happening are real. I have never posted this anywhere. What is your point? Who would make a discredit bot and how do you do it? I would love to meet you in person. My name is Richard Verville. I live in Londonderry NH USA. I invite you to email me at my email box….not a bot box. I have masses of documents and video to show these things going on. You are invited to look them over anytime. Now…would any bot do that? As to your mentally ill charge… how do you arrive at that DR. Czerniawsi? Or do you have other motives to smean someone without any proof?
Fucin’ eh Richard! Sticking up for yourself! I was starting a very big production company that Lion in the title.(hint hint( was married to a woman I met in Paris who I believe turned to be a call girl , assassin etc, take your pick(Eyes Wide Shut) She was an adviser/contributor on Shane Black’s Long Kiss Goodnight. Anyhoo, I became enemy of the state over 18 years ago. As crazy or paranoid as any of this man’s story sounds, shit happens. It is perfect isn’t it. Daily conditioning of harassment, making one sensitive to a noise campaign for example and oh boy, speak out about it and you are considered ‘ill’. Piss off. I was lucky, I was a movie actor with death threats recorded. I had some tangible proof like safety box break ins. Blacklisted and ridiculed. Fun fun fun!! However I am a resilient mo fo and reinvented myself. All scripts, story treatments stolen I just wrote more and sidestepped into an art career. But I will stick up for my fellow man and perhaps my story is more grandiose doesn’t detract from this man’s story. Sure, T.I. sites are full of fakers and perps and of course some real looney tunes but not all.I like to think that after all the years I have become more savvy about what is real and what is memorex. This man seems genuine. I know in the beginning of this harassment I had hoped someone would have just killed me because perhaps then my story would have been believed.
I could name drop all over this comment but what’s the point. It ain’t about me anymore,
Fear and apathy are the real enemies
Lookup “Network Analysis” — not the same as the InterNET.
The NSA programs are an application of “network analysis” that connects associations and generates inference from the collective “meta data”, which is far more powerful than the conversations itself. With network analysis, the government will be able to gerrymander down to the individual house (read “override the democratic process”), vilify or support key central nodes (bloggers, community leaders) in a political issue (read “send IRS to audit key activists during an election”).
Just KNOWING that two corporate entities are in negotiations is information that can be used to leverage profits outcomes and profits, not to mention the power that comes with monitoring other world leaders.
No, it’s not about terrorism — it’s about having untethered knowledge to control the masses. Terrorism is just the fear card used to sell the program.
I used to be very wary of anything that smacked of “conspiracy theory”. However, with the technological advancement we are seeing everyday, I am not so cynical about it anymore.
Wilhelmina – spot on.
There is nothing even remotely new about any of this. The media, even in the days of hard copy only, has always attempted to manipulate the naive (take a look at the Guardian sometime or the Daily Mail) for their own political or corporate (i.e. profit) reasons. Left and right opinions rarely co-incide even on the same subject so they try and manipulate their readers with spoof stories or non-inclusion of facts and inclusion of non-facts.
Smear campaigns are the norm in the media and that is precisely what this article is.
How many articles have you read where some journo refuses to ‘reveal his/her sources’. What he/she is actually saying is ‘I made it up but there’s no way I’m going to admit it’.
If you are unhappy with what spy agencies do but bury your head in the sand over ‘private’ manipulation then you can’t be surprised when what you believe to be the truth turns out not to be.
Don’t believe me? Ask Rebeka Brooks.
Anyone who employs techniques that are specifically designed to manipulate public discourse (incl. online discussions ) should be equally condemned.
I agree, governments have used printed media to manipulate the masses and to discredit political opponents for hundreds of years. The important thing today with the advent of the net is that the people can now answer back. All propaganda is used by the state to quell rebellion and conserve the powerbase of evil little shits who seek to control us. Those shits are by qualification unprincipled opportunists who will do or say anything that gives them an edge and keeps the lucre rolling in but at the first sight of a rebellion politicnicks always collapse, defer or run as their cynical policial masters jump onto the new bandwagon. Thus the internet and the masses who use it have the ability to destroy the evil little shits (ELS). The ELS sense this and will seek to divide and conquer by using small-minded peoples’ bigoted fears against them. The cure for JTRIG is more freedom of speech and a better educated populace who can drag their philosophically bankrupt policians into a new form of democracy. Well done Snowden. Well done Assange. Well done Manning. Believe nothing. Question everything.
How does the government’s behavior differ from that of bloggers who attempt to surreptitiously influence the opinions of their readership through the use of shills and sock puppets?
If bloggers are met with someone who disputes their opinions, they can’t send a drone to murder the one doing it, unlike the government. I suppose that’s where the chief difference lies.
“If bloggers are met with someone who disputes their opinions, they can’t send a drone to murder the one doing it, unlike the government. I suppose that’s where the chief difference lies.”
Red herring must be the fish of the day…
one 007?
Take a look at this site which I hope will help you with the task of differentiating Government from bloggers, but please don’t come back to me and say its Billingsgate, or its all just conspiracy theories. lol
https://generalstrikeusa.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/we-are-the-enemy-whistleblowers-journalists-dissenters-and-the-people/
@Blow the Whistle
To what in Dennis Loo’s article are you directing our attention specifically? How does his article help to differentiate the government’s practice of unscrupulously influencing public opinion by surreptitious means from that of bloggers who employ like behaviors?
The point is, clearly, that the state has power that individuals don’t. Yea, they won’t send a drone after you, just as they wouldn’t blow up the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but there are various ways in which state power can be used.
Just off the top of my head it seems the difference is that the government is using our own money to spy on us (and has the power to arrest us or whatever) , whereas bloggers don’t have the same powers and they are not using our own money to buy their computers and such. Another factor is that if a blogger tries to discredit you or ruin your reputation, you can sue them. You can’t sue the NSA.
This is similar to the argument many news media have wrongly suggested, i.e., that because sometimes we freely choose to give out our personal information to different groups — Credit Card agencies, Groupon, Amazon, etc. that we shouldn’t object to the government having that same personal information. Of course, that doesn’t follow.
Crikey we’re really screwed if people are downplaying this. Unlike the government we don’t pay those bloggers to propagandise us. And those bloggers don’t have virtually limitless professional resources to do so in a systematic way.
Because opinionated bloggers aren’t bankrolled by my tax dollars in secret?
One is a citizen and another is an entity for citizens aka the government. Are you implying there is no difference between a blogger and a govt. entity that can plant any “fact” into main stream.
We’re paying the government to do it, and a lot of people die at the hands of our government. Think Iraq. Any knucklehead who was paying a smidgen of attention to the reports prior to the invasion knew we were being fed a steaming pile of rubbish.
Any other questions?
Sounds like apologist talk.
Two major differences, the government doing it is fundamentally different than private companies doing it, the government has the power of the state and all its resources as cover for its activities, there is no effective counter action an aggrieved person can do.
And, the government literally has no business doing this, it has its own charter to govern within the laws, not to actively subvert its citizens’ private or public life.
1000 comments.
Do I win a years’ subscription?
Which organisation are you affiliated with I have allot of money riding on this.
I’M LOVEINT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU_vxogO_xU
Some comments on this revelation and the Yahoo revelation in this report published on http://www.wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/28/gchq-f28.html
It is funny that serious journalists writing about this topic are using googleapis for their own web site. We all know how tied in Google is to the surveillance activities of the government (the Snowden revelations are just the tip of the iceberg.) Now all their readers are compromised.
dont trash talk about google.
I worked at Google when they hired their first NSA contractor, jackass. That was a decade ago.
What if the goal of these organizations was to paralyze freedom of speech by making everyone afraid to use it on the internet?
The goal of the FBI back in the day was to make it seem like there was an agent behind every mailbox, Who’s to say it isn’t the same goal?
“paralyze freedom of speech by making everyone afraid to use it on the internet?”
That would be one of the effects of these programs, whether it’s the goal or not.
How to counteract it? There’s safety in numbers. Even the Stasi weren’t able to put everyone in jail. So it’s important not to let yourself be ruled by fear. Speak up publicly, speak up in private. Organize.
This stuff is simply beyond the imagination of a normal person (which, is why it has been created and implemented by abnormal persons that have contaminated a government entity). Nothing surprises me though. I am an attorney and I am now in “Year Number 9″ of being a “Target” of The U.S. Attorney’s Office. Obfuscation, misrepresentations, the use of fake documentary evidence and suborning perjury from their own petrified witnesses is their standard practice. Then when they get caught, their fall back position is to lie about it with a smile. We live in very troubled times.
I would like to know more about what you said here. Can you contact me please. My name is Richard Verville mail address: 2 Currier dr. Londonderry NH. 03053. My email box is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I am not certain that I can receive emails from anyone outside NSA/Fusion Center zombies approved list… can you try?
Dear Richard: I attempted to send an Email message to you at your designated address, but I received a message stating that your address could not be recognized. Perhaps you could try a different Email address?
These tactics are identical to those used by the advertising industry, the public relations industry, political campaigns, big pharma, mining/fracking companies when astroturfing… standard operating procedure for keeping the wheels of late capitalism greased, in other words. Having assumed for a long time that this was the case, I find this latest revelation somewhat underwhelming. At this point in history, there is very little functional distinction between big business and government. So the Brits got some advertising/PR/political campaign consultant to advise them on how to manipulate their perceived foes. Whupty do. Anyone can play that game. Let’s take solace in the fact that these tools can also be used in the other direction, asymmetrically.
Can we fund our “other direction” with bundles and bundles of tax payer money? Will we be targeted, arrested, prosecuted, jailed, imprisoned, tortured, stopped at airports and questioned/harassed when we use your “standard operating procedure” against the government? Is it just “Whupty do” to you that all of that is also “standard operating procedure” which only works one way?
Exposing this stuff with actual documents is not just “Whupty do.” It’s movement in a direction to do something about it.
No, we can’t match their financial resources, but we don’t need to. We don’t need bundles and bundles of taxpayers’ money. We are more numerous than they are. We have more intelligence, collectively, than governments do. And we have moral supremacy. It will not be easy, it will take time, and we will face resistance — state power — but we will prevail.
Their standard operating procedure, not ours, btw. We don’t need the creepy manipulative stuff, because we have the moral high ground, but we can and should use their techniques against them. My point in the original comment, restated differently: this new disclosure, while indeed welcome, does not describe a unique new direction or set of techniques that governments are using. We already knew this, and shouldn’t be at all surprised. And these techniques, specifically the psychological insights, are in the public domain, available to the rest of us. Indeed they are often used by activist groups and other political actors to push back in the other direction. What we need to do now is refine our own technique to maximise our effectiveness.
Now that is a clear and potent statement that I do not think could come from a govt spy troll.
What you said is absolutely, and recursively, true.
With the catalyst of the internet, it can become even more true. That is why the NSA et al have worked so hard at undermining the power of the internet.
“Whupty do. ” – 007
I would recommend “The Art of War” to not only expose the strategy being used against “We the People” and also as you say “these tools can also be used in the other direction, asymmetrically”
misallocation of resources. cut now, cut deep.
Just consider the implications of these shenanigans from these governments. If they don’t like what you’ve said online, they can contact your employer and tell lies about you, contact your next door neighbor when you’re not home and tell your neighbor lies about you. Then get both your employer and neighbors to give them info about you, making them believe it’s their civic duty to help their “investigation” of you. They can even contact a potential employer and prevent you from getting a job. No measure is too corrupt for these New World Order puppet masters.
If Politics doesn’t work and Journalism is illegal maybe Music might help?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlUsMuz9_RU
When Katy Perry sings about the NSA America might wake up. Here in the UK got caught hacking queen might make a propper statement or the likes of Morrisey might sing with Sir Cliff Richard:
!!WRAP HER UP IN THE NEWS OF THE WORLD!!
Public Enemy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPWz3Eil3qc
music IS helping- the state.
that was horrifying- so many other groups of people could have been featured singing a pop song, but Russian police? it’s like daddy playing monster, except in this case the daddy is fake and the monster is real.
perhaps the men in this choir mean well, but I suspect they are not aware that they are being used to soften the bayonet. and heaven help any of them who are gay
GCHQ’s response is a page out of their own book.
Operations carried out ‘under strict legal policy’ like shaking down the Guardian, dragging their editor in front of Parliament? Detaining people at airports for hours without any indication of criminal activity? A government interfering in the private internet communications of individuals is not operating legally or anything like it. Honey traps….since when is entrapment legal?
I don’t know which is worse.; the twisted ideology that builds programs like this or their lack of understanding/concern of what legality and justice are.
Up to now, I would doubt myself from time to time – “Perhaps I am over-reacting?” “Maybe our government is not gone completely rogue.” . . . (you know, etc., etc.)
I will never doubt my deductive reasoning skills / my critical thinking skills again.
Over 40 years in business and my gut was never wrong when using those skills.
I want so much to believe that our government has not stopped functioning within the checks and balances of our Constitution – because I am a thinker and a doer – an optimist – a decision maker – one who makes things work well, but also owns up to my own mistakes – and corrects them and/or my behavior based on learning from my mistakes. I guess I just need to understand that those in the “profession” of politician are not like me at all.
Looks like some, in the comments section, don’t take this fascist criminality seriously.
Given Snowden’s revelations, why wouldn’t everyone understand the danger in this latest corruption of democracy from the government: and Obama. Snowden didn’t make up the information he posted. And the fact that the government wants to hang him also legitimizes his act of civil disobedience.
These days, the government is violating privacy laws and most protections offered by the Constitution, all of which is supported by the fascist Supreme Court. One thing people say about this obtrusiveness is: I have nothing to hide. The problem is that it’s up the government spies to decide whether anyone is hiding something. People may think they have nothing to hide, but given the above information, the government can make up something, can say that you’re hiding this or that, or, worse, you’re thinking this or that.
Those who blanket themselves with denial, thinking they’re innocent of anything, are cowards in the end. They tend to believe that the government goes after someone because that someone must be guilty of something or other. They don’t understand, the deniers, that much of what was written above is about intimidation: people will not want to criticize the government. This means in the end that the methods above and other laws, most of which were written by corporations, are put in place to protect corporations from any scrutiny or lawsuits regarding their methods and practices and products.
Keeping people in fear is an old tactic of a fascist government. And it works.
People should read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” People who live in fear will sacrifice anyone, including members of their family. Government spying brings out the cowards among us, people who will never object to anything the government does even if it means members of their own families are framed, judged, and sentenced.
For the sensible people among us, it’s clear that using our votes, we have to stop the government from continuously breaking civil rights laws. We need to vote en masse. These next round of elections constitute a turning point. This will be time to ensure that democracy remains intact and that the government understands that it can no longer do these terrible things, for any reason.
What’s the good of destroying democracy to protect democracy, as the idiots doing these terrible things say and think?
All people/voters should take these all too serious cloak and dagger policies seriously. To not do so gives the government permission to do these things and more.
Voting only works when it represents an accurate count on valid votes by valid voters. The incredibly easy to hack voting machines make all elections suspect. As do the greater than the population of adults vote counts from the past several elections in various precincts.
The Republican Party knowingly and illegally changed primary counts in Maine and Indiana as reported by the caucus leaders there. In addition, they have announced their intention to refuse to assist Constitution supporting candidates in the next election. Both parties are bent on protecting the status quo. The only way I can see to win at the ballot box is to require paper ballots, which are verifiable (unlike the machines, where no recount is possible) and to coalesce behind one primary candidate en mass to be sure that person ends up on the general ballot. In the past four elections, we have experienced as many as 5 Constitution supporting candidates running in the primary against one incumbent. Guess who wins?
Did they address the one where you open a hidden channel of communication with someone, then use it to threaten people around them? Perfect catch-22 discrediting, works on anyone.
Everyone should read through these comments to see which ones were false flag posts by the CIA or GCHQ…
Perhaps it’s a race between the Various organisations to be crowned with post 1000. I fancy GCHQ: smaller resources and big balls to keep coming out with:
All of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the secretary of state, the interception and intelligence services commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee
http://www.thetreeofliberty.com/vb/showthread.php?s=d82c35861f3531b7fc007be806d5f60a&t=196350&page=2
Who cares if the other side of the argument is a pro?
I like to believe my amateur status is no handicap in such an arena.
As pros have a mandate to push talking points, a script, a mantra, it will be far easier to irritate, confound, and frustrate them with free thought, free flow discourse. As they must stay within the margins of their sanctioned points of view, I can run willy-nilly around them, flank their entrenched philosophical position, and ultimately give them the high, hard one from the rear.
We all know the greatest tools of government manipulation are leverage and intimidation. If they can apply neither effectively to you, they slink away, looking for easier prey.
Face it, they work for the gov’t. The gov’t is the refuge for those of little acumen and imagination.
__________________
Countering Nonsense With Triviality
Philosophy shapes history, and history shapes philosophy.
A good way to do this for anyone who has the time (as I already have) is to copy and paste the whole lot in to your favourite text application. There are plenty of clever ways to zoom around the text and examine the time of posts etc. I do believe there are lot less spooks here than some seem to imagine and outing one would be a bit childish for a forum such as this IMHO. Rather we should seek to appeal to their human side as suggested in a previous post.
SHAREINT
I’M LOVEINT
Just did a search on NYT’s website for “optic nerve”. Nothing on the GCHQ/Yahoo story, but plenty of stories about glaucoma and optic-nerve disorders. I suppose it’s one way of explaining NYT’s overlooking this story.
LOL It is fascinating how MSM like NYT always seem to cover the same stories and not cover others. Is it determined by conference call everyday or does each editor know what to cover and what to avoid from general rules given to them by their bosses.
Abby Martin covered this article on her Breaking The Set program on RT.
I read that the NYT was too afraid to publish articles about this
How did things degrade to such a low level of lies, deceit and lack of humanity? How has a culture so dark and heartless developed within our midst? What are the motivating forces that keep it in place? How is it that decent people will turn against their fellowman with such disregard to their consequences? What kind of philosophy, justification, or reward could contribute to such a Psychopathic development in a so called normal person so that they would willingly be a part of such a harmful and twisted culture of deceit and lies? Why would someone wish to follow the orders of someone else who tells them to harm another human being and see what they did all in a days work? What kind of mind control is at work here? Do they recruit only certain people who they know they can control and dominate? How old is this culture? Is it recent or is it ancient? Is it all about world domination? Is it about some people being more worthy than others? Is it an elite philosophy that justifies their actions? How do they keep themselves hidden? Are there man and women in congress who are part of this culture of cruelty? How many people in government are part of this culture of domination and control for the good of this elite few? Does this culture spread into business, religion, education, science, the arts, and do they use occult means to arrive at their objectives? Have they covered all the bases in their view? Is the world media controlled by this culture of control and domination for the benefit of an elite few who seek a world empire that they control? Does the world media, used by this culture, seek a “brave new world” where people are but bio-robots controlled and directed by their propaganda? Is compassion and love for humanity seen as a weakness to be cultivated? Are their other forces beyond this human elite who control them? Who are they and what is their long term agenda? Is humanity being herded like cattle is a specific direction? Do they know that humanity has the potential of eliminating their control and that is why they hid and lie and hope we don’t wake up to our divine power and find them out? Questions needing answers ASAP! Renounce with all your body, mind, heart and soul their control, power and domination over you, right now!!!! You are free.
How can someone post such a long comment without using paragraphs?
HEAR HERE!!!!! Very well put and questions I have always had my own self.
I suspect the trickle-down theory from Washington DeCeit caused what we have today, but it wasn’t born there. It goes way back. I’d like to coin a new term for the silly attempts to rule others: Sigh-ops.
Live well, be free.
These are the questions…
The mistake you are making is that you assume they are 100% human. The truth is out there. Why else do you think “they” would go to this much trouble. Find it. Maybe start with Michael’s song “They don’t really care about us” … its a deep and wide rabbit hole.
I’ll tell you how a large number of humans have reached this level of mental obscurity – About 60 years of chemical attack:
1) Inedible toxic sugar – did you know that government factions tried to stop its introduction in both the UK and the USA because it was known to be toxic?
2) Fossil fuel fertilizers – Started in the USA w/Truman after WWII. That’s the election where Dewey went to bed thinking he’d one, and woke up a loser. Well, the guy he picked for Secretary of Agriculture was going to ban fossil fuel fertilizers. Funny that. Oh, and now they’ve figured out that trace minerals in the plants grown in it can’t be absorbed by humans… and then there’s the tumors it causes.
3) Flouride & Chlorinated Water – The water we drink is ‘bacteria free and chemical heavy.” This means it kills the bacteria in our guts. Probiotics are a MUST, not a luxury because the death of good bacteria has lead to an overgrowth of Candida Yeast in 70% of the USA population. The list of diseases a Candida Yeast over growth can cause is VERY long and well documented since the introduction of sugar. Read the new book “Grain Brain” for the brain fog effect caused by excess Candida. // Flouride. Nasty and doesn’t prevent cavities… but it does interfere with many human metabolic systems… too many to list here. Ever met a person with brown teeth? That was a really unfair thing to do to kids in the 1960′s.
4) Dietary Prescription – Three square meals a day was the drill in the USA – protein, vegetable and starch. Well, if the stomach is handed a starch, it makes alkaline compounds to break it down. If it is handed a protein, it will produce acidic compounds. It cannot produce both. A steak eaten with a potato will take 12 hours to fully digest. Without the potato, the steak will take 3 hours to digest. By making people believe in a certain diet and timing consumption, the whole concept of feeding the body only what it needs and when it needs it – went right out the f-ing window. So now most people eat “foods that fight” and have to then metabolize the resulting toxin load that is produced in the stomach.
5) Smoking – Even Doctors prescribed cigarettes! How many decades did that mantra persist? And now the dirty secret they are still busy hiding is that smoking cigarettes increases the risk of ALL cancers.
6) Plastics – Go to Motherjones.org. Read the plastics article and weep. The same MF’s who helped the tobacco industry hide for 2 decades, are busy doing the exact same BS for the plastics conglomerates. The take away from that article is frighteningly simple: ALL plastics are outgassing chemicals ALL of the time and the effect of those outgassed chemicals is TOXIC. Next time you are in the grocery store – stop somewhere near the dairy aisle and just look around yourself.
7) Pollution – From point source, diffuse, solid or liquid, air or water borne – it does not matter. Pollution get’s into everything. From the cigarette butt tossed from the car to the construction trash landfill to the municipal incinerator to the big corporate messes on the Mexican Maquiladora. The USA now has 340,000 toxic dumps and less than a quarter of it’s so-called “SuperFund Sites” have been cleaned up since it was started. And now we have hydrolic fracturig – the injection of a selection of 600 hidden chemicals into our aquifers under high pressure in over 1 million locations, then we pump a portion of them back out, to inject into another place once again as ‘waste in 155,000 Class II “injection liquid waste wells.” So factor in pollution.
8) Food Additives – The one that caught my eye last week was a glycerol compound. We used to play with that one in Chemistry Class. We certainly wouldn’t eat it. It is used as an emulsifier in Cadbury Chocolate. Basically, the food conglomerates w/their desperate search for the “bliss point” and the perfect “mouth feel” have not given a damn about the actual long term effect on us… and how many people have you lost to cancer? Now, substitute that word with “measles.” The US Center for Disease Control would be all over it, if it was measles.
9) Pharmaceuticals – OK, if 1) through 7) didn’t flatten the person, there’s always pharmaceuticals. All of that “trust us” subliminal programming on the telly from 1945 to the present… Seriously, how many people have to get side affects for Pfizer to NOT be able to pay a $4 billion dollar fine? Anti-depressive medications pack a serious punch in human awareness and cognitive ability. In most situations, it isn’t how much you know, it’s how fast you can think. Feel me?
10) The Drug War combined with Low Wage Dead End and/or Abusive Jobs paying a Minimum Wage that is 30 years out of date against Current Iinflation – Enough said… but Bill Moyers actually said that the USA minium wage adjusted for inflation would be $21/hour (02/09/14).
11) Television — Save the best for last. Does everybody know that an image flashed on a screen at better than 1/48th of a second will only be seen by the subconscious mind? With the telly, the subconscious is where it’s at. From the music to the camera angle to the visual appearance of the archetypal characters…it is all designed to lull us into dull sense of familiarity in a reality defined by the mega corps. Since we are what we think – lamestream TV at this point is actually harmful to your health. Throw it out and go internet.
So, are you going to buy stock in glass container, bamboo and recycled natural container companies? Are you going to learn to make ‘living’ water out of dead? Are you going to take your TV to the local toxic waste drop off and use the internet instead? It’s time.
This is among the best posts I’ve ever read on the internet. We are all vicitims of an amoral toxic corporate enterprises that have no regard for public health. The all pervasive power of our DemPublicanCFR elite must be confronted and destroyed. They are robbing from the future for petty personal profit. Ifwe continue on this course, what will the state of planet at the end of this century? Thank you for your time and effort.
Yes to most of that. Do they hire only syncophants? Check out the WH appointments.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_illuminati_21.htm
So, has this story had any coverage by the big networks? I haven’t seen it on Huffington Post.
“They” may not being reporting, commenting nor acknowledging that the GCHQ exists but you better believe they have all read the report and are processing it, in their own individual evaluation, hopefully to be dispersed in the near future .
CNN, shockingly, did cover it:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/27/world/europe/uk-yahoo-spy-program/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
But naturally, being a USGov propaganda arm, they shifted the blame on the British.
The CNN article you linked to covers a completely different (and in my opinion, much less shocking) story than this The Intercept story. So the mainstream media silence continues.
Yeah, even though Greenwald stated that GCHQ trained the NSA with these tactics. I’ve been checking some of the mainstream news sites to see if the story would pop up, especially after what happened on reddit.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/reddit-censors-story-government-manipulation-disruption-internet.html
I was particularly interested in Huffington Post and saw nothing about it, and I know that place is infested. I’m sure these agents work as moderators on a lot of these sites. What happened at reddit confirmed it for me.
“infested”…as in insect??????? what are you about?
Travis Pickle, is that you?
they don’t generally go in for conspiracy theories.
Will we ever hear from Pierre on the paypal 14??
Julian Assange’s rape charges that were dropped, and (bizarrely for Swedish law), re-instated spring to mind.
Because justice systems within banana republics are banana republic justice systems, this is the most appropriate place for NSA/GCHQ targets to corroborate their experiences — hence the panic induced nonsense flooding this discussion thread.
Anyone care to speculate on how much it costs US and UK tax payers to maintain these Lorem Ipsum Generators?
“Latin placeholder text isn’t just a simple nuisance. It’s a plague on web design, a massive obstacle to building truly great online experiences. There’s no need for it in a world where content goes right to the heart of every successful website.” – John McGarvey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOTNAe3j7Bs
62 roger (10 4 good buddy) copy?
NSA is smokescreen!
The snoops are packed with the standard wind-up key in their back and sent to guard our schizophrenic society against any semblance of logic or normality.
How else could a handful of corporations carve up our world among themselves, if it were a functional, sensible society?
What possible role would there be for multinational parasites like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft…, to name but a few, in a sane, rational and coherent community?
Any other slant on the role of NSA is illusory.
When was the last time the 99.99 percent had a chance of influencing the events.
LOL.
Only would govt assholes feel the need to formulate a PowerPoint ‘plan’…for what they could’ve done practically for free, by hiring gossipy teen girls.
At the end of the day, that’s all this is: a promulgated teenbopper gossip.
Frankly, if you see a govt-troll-esque response, go on the non-sequitur ‘you and your Cheetos in mommy’s basement, never having seen the south side of a wo/man’s navel….blah blah blah’ always works. It’s just matter of patience, or not, online. It’s not about winning, it’s about tiring the other asshole at the other end. And, like everything else govt does, while they’re great at destroying shit, and ‘creating’ channels of destruction, they’re never truly creative, nor innovative, than a 5yo with a perpetual temper tantrum and a gun.
Just ponder what kind of asshole would want to get hired, to be paid to waste their time, and of others’ on and offline. Then, you’ll have your typical psych profile of a perpetual high school loser, or a just another run of the mill socipathic fascist control freak nerd-raging otaku, who make up the majority of govt terrorists: little kids, with little minds, with delusional sea of citizenry ‘granting’ them power to enslave them with, one in which the control freaky mind loves to centralize…everything with.
There you have it; that’s all corprotists, fascists, govt terrorists, and their acquiescent perpetually willful Blue Pill-ing assholes are: overgrown high school losers, and sociopaths and sociopathic nerds prone to whining and control-freaky centralizing.
How ‘hard’ is that really to spot, deal with, and p0wnz??
Sadly, the reality of the world these monkeys have sown, is a terrible one; there is no staving off the currency collapse at the Fed. Reserve/BIS’ current trajectory. As such, more civil unrests, and all the mechanisms of militarized, networked policestate will be deployed, with food sources poisoned with GMO and FUK-U-shima radiation, globally, the world these sociopathic nerds have sown is one in which they themselves will not be able to survive in, nor their loved ones and/or progeny (if they even have any).
Popcorn, anyone??
“Only would govt assholes feel the need to formulate a PowerPoint ‘plan’…for what they could’ve done practically for free, by hiring gossipy teen girls.”
I think you downplay exactly what this article is about. Creating a blog site as a victim of a person is not something a “gossipy teen girl” would do.
Can you recommend some good restaurants in the Ft. Meade area?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krb1lr-aiMs
I had been posting under 2 names. Same IP. Worzel Gummidge seems not to work any longer.
Was trying to add: Perhaps this news http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo is the reason for MSM and in particular the guardian not reporting on the above story. Also wanted to say (as Worzel): Surely now the UK government will have to make a statement that covers both stories!!?
Mr Park
uppermost post 10:34 FGTHW. 10:26, 10:45 (WG reply to FGW) severely staggered i.e well past 10:34.
Clearly a Schizophrenic NutJob.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJZQ3n-iQYE
More
http://www.prisonplanet.com/uk-spy-agency-intercepted-webcam-images-of-millions-of-yahoo-users.html
Original Article
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo
News
World news
The NSA files
UK spy agency intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users
• Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk
• 1.8m users targeted by GCHQ in six-month period alone
• Yahoo: ‘A whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy’
• Material included large quantity of sexually explicit images
Spencer Ackerman and James Ball
theguardian.com, Friday 28 February 2014 01.08 AEST
Coupled with this information surely there ought to be an immediate response from UK government. Perhaps this was the reason for silence at the guardian on the above story?
I agree with you fully Worzel, and I can also see thousands of customers of Yahoo deserting the website.
Have they recently been doing the same with Skype, Line, and other webcam sites ?
Yahoo should take legal action to seek damages and compensation, and to protect the privacy of their members. GCHQ should be made to apologize, and to compensate those who’s privacy they have violated, and they need to explain their actions, and to destroy the images which they intercepted.
I would like to know why they wanted to intercept a large quantity of sexually explicit images, and what they were doing targeting over 1.8 million users ?
What have they done with these images, and what do they intend to use them for ?
This is a potentially hugely damaging revelation, and this surely, will be widely reported on everywhere.
It’s damaging, all right — to Yahoo and, probably, to other Silicon Valley firms that do social media or related stuff. A big hit to one of the few sectors of the US economy that was successful.
Orwell and his two-way telescreens weren’t far off the mark. Only diff was that in our universe the users were paying for it.
Perhaps an explanation of MSM (in particular the guardian) quietness in the UK of above article. Surely the combination of both these stories will force the UK government in to making a statement!!?
Breaking news: Things just got even worse -
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo
“Dear NSA, Can I please have my vagina back, if your quite finished with it?”
LOL that’s the funniest post yet ! Don’t know why they wanted a picture of my dick though, they have enough dick heads in that infamous Cheltenham building already !
Maybe they just felt inferior, or wanted to run some sort of perverse study on size ?
“Dear NSA, Can I please have my vagina back, if your quite finished with it?”
It’s interesting that they aren’t too concerned with the legality of such endeavors while they are merely “researching” its use,
“Useful to the analyst” in what way? Nice of them to admit that they will craft the law to fit what they are doing, as opposed to crafting it to meet accepted legal parameters put forth by elected representatives of society. But this bit made me laugh,
So, they will watch whatever they please when they please, for as long as they find it “useful”, and will make sure the law not only allows but encourages their actions. But heaven forfend some prude in the watch room be offended by some bits s/he wasn’t expecting to lay eyeballs on. The willful masturbators, OTOH, will be good to go. lulz.
The new GCHQ motto: “Motivated by Greed, Ambushed By Prurience“.
Americans shouldn’t have to choose between new technology and keeping their personal information private. Protections for online privacy are justified and necessary, and the government must help draw boundaries to ensure that Americans’ privacy stays intact in the Digital Age. Americansrighttoprivacy.com DOES NOT collect your personal information. Regarding online privacy, we have heard people say they have nothing to hide and don’t care if their privacy is violated. Sadly, they are missing the point. As Americans, it is about standing up for our privacy rights as a law abiding citizen per the Constitution. Our Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures which is being violated everyday by many Email providers, hackers and Government agencies through unwarranted searches. One only needs to just read the U.S. Patriot Act or the latest CISPA legislation to verify this disturbing trend.
Americans Right to Privacy has solutions and I am anxious to share them with you. We offer secure, encrypted email, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which secures your computer’s internet connection, to guarantee that all of the data you’re sending and receiving is encrypted and secured from prying eyes. Also a “Swiss Bank Account for your Data” Digital Safe! Switzerland, a country known for its strict data privacy laws, has no back door access to encryption for any government agency, not even Switzerland itself
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SPAM and EGGS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFrtpT1mKy8
Monty Python – SPAM
We used psyops and black propaganda against Nazi Germany. Now the target is us. And we thought the Russians were bad…
The US government is no longer a legitimate government. The very source of its authority and legitimacy is derived from the Constitution, a document it no longer feels compelled to obey. Thus, if the Constitution is no longer the source of the legitimacy and authority of the United States government, from where does it come?
Nowhere. It is no longer a legitimate government, and people shouldn’t feel compelled to obey illegitimate governments.
The examiner published an extremely wierd article stating that the UFOs would be used for a false flag operation to militarize outer space. If you follow the discussion between Michio Kaku and Leslie Kean (the only reputable journalist on the subject that has the backing of the scientific community) I hate to say this but UFO’s are indeed likely real. So I too want to know what the UFO slides are meant to convey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIv696A815o Link to Michio Kaku bringing this subject out of the closet.
We’ve read how they are taught to troll professionally. How does this pan out in practice on a message board like this? Here’s a list, please add if you have any more…
1. Stream of consciousness – nonsensical and long wearying posts.
2. Ropadope – compliment the author, then question the source.
3. Mock outrage – how dare you suggest they are against us not with us?
4. Schizophrenic ramblings – I’m nuts!
5. Bore to tears – begin with mimicry, then round in endless circles.
6. The druggy – I’m clearly a drug addict and I love this writer.
7. The illiterate – cram what looks like a meaningful post with so many typos it’s a chore to read.
8. Poor me – I only said I disagree with everything, why should that make me a troll? (Well, it doesn’t necessarily but it does seem highly likely.)
8. Poor me – I only said I disagree with everything, why should that make me a troll? (Well, it doesn’t, but it does seem highly likely.)
9. Joke diversion – Trying to reroute deadly serious writtings into something funny so the message loses sharp edge.
11. Follow ups – a deceitful message quickly followed by 3 or 4 seemingly random short messages of praise.
12. Extremism – expression of violent sentiment.
9. Destabilize — release it all now! Names, everything.
11. Follow ups – a deceitful message quickly followed by 3 or 4 seemingly random short messages of praise.
4,6,7 would certainly be ‘useful techniques’ but these are the very damaged people who’s real world lives ought not to be Joked about 1. by people here and 2. (most abhorrent) at a government level (“Government” Communications HQ) to be used as Decoy’s to disrupt political dissent etc.
I think if this “forum” was to become serious place for discussion “Spooks” in particular ought not to be absolutely black listed from the outset as I expect some of them truly believe what they are doing is the right thing. Perhaps “in the line of duty” while they are “professionally” engaged in posing as “nut jobs” they might be a prime target for reading something that might appeal to their human side.
10. Anti-Muslim religious rhetoric?
13. Having a psudonym like “Worzel Gummidge ” or “abbadabba”
In RealTime chat, some methods are to deaden a chat area by kicking/banning users until the room is silent & chat no longer happens there. Another method is to constantly drag conversation into the topic of drugs/pot or abortion. Everytime current pertinent topics start, I notice the same culprits try and distract the topic to pot or abortion. Another tactic is to gain operator status in the chatroom & use that power to define what is allowed to be discussed & whom is allowed to enter & remain. Abusive Ops.
The reason I double posted a couple of things earlier on this thread was because this page became very glitchy, my Internet connection is high speed and stable, but when I tried to post the background to the text went completely red, unusually in this view the posts were numbered, also in a different font. It seemed my posts were not appearing so I resent them. Perhaps this is just a glitch on a new website, which wouldn’t be surprising – or maybe what you are referring to was happening and I was being temporarily blocked.
12. “Only a conspiracy nut would believe this stuff!” Or other ways to shame the author that invoke “structuralist” modes of analysis that presume the elite is made up of well meaning people who just make clumsy decisions.
14. Off topic – what about plastics leaking into the foodchain, fertilisers, etc. etc.?
Wow. This place is bombing. Even the Huffington Post has grown weary of the Power Point. Never fear, Libertarians. 2016 is still a ways out, and your chosen one, Christie, still has time to dig himself out of that black hole to secure your much desired Republican domination of Congress and the White House. Sorry about that Bitcoin thing, though.
This sounds like one of those posts Greenwald was covering…..
Bingo!
“disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats.”
As a journalist you would most definitely agree words and the definitions associated with, have great importance in the eyes of a journalist as well as in the eyes of the law. Heck! you need to avoid legal action brought against you for misquotes or unsubstantiated claims.
Why not look to the legal definitions of the words surrounding this story in the eyes of the law. Legal definitions and lawful definitions of words are very different, The later can be found in a very old book I will not name for reasons not worth expanding on now. Hint! it has no copy right on it and has never and will never have any claim of ownership placed upon it.
U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 113B › § 2331
18 U.S. Code § 2331 – Definitions
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
The KEY word above is appear lets look at the word appear. Lets not forget laws are to be expressed not implied. Appear at who’s discretion? Is appear based in facts and evidence or assumption? Expressed or implied.
The web of receipt i would suggest goes far deeper than questions of privacy and rights. I would suggest it may go to the very core of the world we see around us and what governs it for the majority, and that is law(mans) and the manipulation of our common understanding of words. One is to be licensed to intemperate law(mans) these laws carry crown copy rights. Legalize and common meaning of words are not the same.
If one does not understand this truth, one is at the mercy of the word smith. Casting spells??? hahaha.
Just wanted to point out the fact that the words are the key to understanding the word around us. Behind every business deal,every will written, every estate sale and every insurance company…exists the man who speaks a foreign language that only his/her law society fraternity members can “legally” intemperate. Yet most of us never question this gross monopoly on “meaning”
Small fish in a sea of sharks are we with out accepting this truth…. I believe.
Intro into the real game being played. The word magic of “LAW”
1 Peter 5:6
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaclHfXwKNI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUDd9cJ5qa3rx2grmZMqGfjQ
The one thing i find most interesting is the views of some atheists. If one does not believe in God, i feel for them cuz I once held that belief. The fact still remains there are those who do. Watch this short clip from one of the most viewed award shows of the year and I believe you will accept there are those who do believe in “a god”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYiSpDL3Htk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-54LNFDolc
Matthew 6:24
King James Version (KJV)
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon(Money).
whether you believe in God, a god or no god, It is obvious the money masters do believe in a “GOD” Wake up.
DO YOU HAVE EYES TO SEE!!!
There seems to be an unlimited number of individuals who when presented the opportunity are more than ready and willing to shove their heads up the arse of power, and who find the view and ambience quite to their liking. These individuals commonly work for our “intelligence” services.
Please help us! Greenwald has been raiding our shire, stampeding the serfs, devouring our cattle, trampling our crops, burning our mead-halls and besmirching our baron’s escutcheon! Will no one tell King John what we have suffered at his hands?
Furthermore, he’s the guy who let the dogs out.
Hey, thanks Glenn, we can use this stuff in our PI agency.
Furthermore, he’s the guy who let the dogs out.
The Baha Men can finally relax. ;-}
Shortly after the NSA revelations by Ed Snowden, I mentioned to my wife that I suspect that Eliot Spitzer just might have been set up and his phone meta data used to scandelize him enough for him to resign his position. He was…a thorn in the side of the big banks .
Agreed. My thoughts exactly.
If both people in a transaction receive what they want and it doesn’t hurt someone who is not part of the transaction, I’m Ok with it. As I understand it, Elliot used his own money – he didn’t steal it. Spitzer was trying to get to the source(s) of government evils so he had to go. The NSA/CIA/FBI/.., who were spying on all of us, provided the connection, and down he went. The evil powers that wanted him gone gloated in his downfall.
Remember Dominique Strauss Kahn?
Super Cyber Weapon ???! World is so small and so big. Trust no one! Consider facts and statistics, (trust your own)people you know personally. Eye contact safe way of communications when you know body and mimics languages – ask offset question, body or eyes will give you clue of false statements /hearing helps right away when you watch some “presidents” putting vein out : unfortunately many can hear false notes in voices ), otherwise those who don’t may these “basics” knowledge on human behavior may find themselves deep in jungles. No matter what those in the top will manipulate people… this is about people knowing how to have their 24 unarmed weapons …
There is nothing new here except that it is being done on the Internet. These are tried and true techniques for good old-fashion government espionage. We’d be up in arms if our own governments weren’t doing all of these things to further our interests.
How can these techniques further our interests? They’re designed for only one purpose – to subvert and destroy the democratic process. They’re what governments use when they fear their own people.
“These are tried and true techniques for good old-fashion government espionage.”
Yes, J Edgar Hoover’s FBI used these techniques against the civil rights and antiwar movements in the US. Mielke’s Stasi used these techniques against similar groups in East Germany. In both countries these techniques ruined the lives of well-meaning individuals who committed no crime. In both countries these techniques failed to stop the political movements they were targeted against.
Further whose interests, the interests of the elite, their corporate supporters, and themselves maybe In this age of austerity, which was caused by the Financial Institutions, the only people whose interests are being furthered are the wealthy and elite, and at the expense of the poor. The only espionage here is the espionage conducted by the Governments and their backers. If you describe editorial free press, and fearful journalists that fight censorship, and unlawful mass surveillance as espionage then you are sounding like a extremist, military minded “right wing nut job” Either that or you are Government. or one of the few elite members of society that has benefited,. Your entitled to your view, but If you seriously believe what you have said, I doubt you will find many supporters on here or in the free press.
It is in our interest to have government do these things to us?
You sir, are a masochist.
“You sir are a masochist” fits this poster, Steve, like a glove. Thanks for such a succinct description of Steve and posters who echo him.
It is now 2 days after this article has come out, and the English-language mainstream media has been silent on this story. Searched Google News. Searched individual English-language outlets. Not a peep, except from the usual suspects such as Democracy Now, which don’t count as mainstream. Several mentions in the German media, though. It’s as if goons have fanned out and personally threatened the families of journalists and editors throughout the Five Eyes countries.
More likely, this is so “out there”, so similar to some of the tactics used by East Germany’s MfS (Stasi) in the ’70s and ’80s, that the mainstream media are too scared to touch this story with a ten foot pole.
And then there’s the explanation Mona posted earlier today:
“I didn’t expect the MSM to go big with this story. It is of concern to those who value Internet freedom and the rights of political dissidents, but won’t resonate with average news consumers.
COINTELPRO didn’t bother white bread America, and neither will this.”
I hope she’s wrong, but I fear she’s right. It’s the most depressing explanation of all.
Cointelpro for the internet age.
I have noticed a jump in shills in recent weeks. They must be getting desperate. One thing to look for are the commenter s that attack other comments, and try to steer discussion. Not the run of the mill- “your and idiot’ stuff but fake intellectual attempts to steer discussion. They provide no evidence to support their opinion, and usually digress to – that’s a conspiracy. T hey use all the disinfo techniques when confronted. I actually IP traced one guy today- ‘Profit Prophet’. Be positive- Listen to ALL- Follow none.
“Pseudointellectual” is the perfect description for a lot of the left-leaning (but not really) establishment trolls on slashdot, youtube and dailykos. They’ll defend things like drone strikes while weaseling around the fact that they actually for them, and they’ll defend the NSA by attacking Assange / Snowden / Greenwald. On the IP thing, though, chances are the software they’re using guarantees fake addresses from various other countries. IMO it’s probably more likely to be a troll account if the IP isn’t from the US.
IMO it’s probably more likely to be a troll account if the IP isn’t from the US.
I wouldn’t make that assumption necessarily. It’s not hard to spot the British readers in any given column’s comment section. Glenn developed a worldwide readership while he was writing at the Guardian. And in the interim between when he left the Graun and started writing here, he had bylines on stories published in news organizations all over the world. I suspect that a large portion of those readers will have followed him here.
I’m not saying to doubt someone extra just because they’re not from the US, but if they already seem dubious due to other troll-like tells, the fact that they’re not from the US should increase one’s scrutiny.
Are 9/11 Truth comments allowed here? Why can’t people vote comments up and down like many other online forums? When is the next schedules mainstream media appearance by Glenn Greenwald or Edward Snowden? Is Wikileaks still going to release any damning information that can be used to prosecute those in power of the U.S.A.?
I don’t think post votes would be a good thing on such a sensitive site, i mean… look at the content of this aarticle alone. Post votes would be bombarded by GHCQ/NSA influence. Also you’ll find many people disregard the content of a post and decide whether the post is “correct” simply by looking at the vote number. Reddit ultimately fails because of that system. Nobody looks past the vote, they mostly can’t decide for themselves in the content of a post.
As I go through my day..thinking about this article..read at 6am this morning…the angrier and more sickened I become.
Amongst my initial conclusions..is this:
This is a WEAPON!
A WEAPON, people, POINTED at YOU and I and ANYONE else who “Gets it their way”.
The Weaponization of the web..and the FACT that what is described above IS a WEAPON..seems to me to be being…”Ignored”..or more likely it is almost “Automatically” becoming the immediate product of “Denial and Rationalization”.
HOW can the American public..even those of you who “Get What This Means”…deny the fact that a WEAPON is being USED against you?
This is now quite frankly a “New Cold War” scenario..a Cold CIVIL War..in which the Bureaucratic Class in league with their “Corporate Partners” are literally Attacking the People..with “Weaponized” forms of Control, coercion and mass surveillance…
So for me..the next question is this;
Can this WEAPON be TURNED on its current Users?
Obviously the “Hardware” or “Infrastructure” in this case is LITERALLY “Unique”..NSA/GCHQ have Billions to utilize etc..
But the “Intellectual” and “Social” “Infrastructure” is decidedly NOT “Unique” and in fact I would argue that amongst “We The People” resides an even GREATER “Tool Chest” or in this case “ARSENAL” of Minds and Will to use this vile NSA/GCHQ/Bureaucratic Class…WEAPON..for we are not inherently FASCIST or inherently devoid of all those characteristics “Weeded Out” by various “Pre-Employment Screening” that seeks to hire “Only Sociopaths” for NSA et al ad nauseam..so we may be positioned to use Their Weapon Against Them with even greater “Efficiency” then they themselves are capable of…
So let us use it.
I mean think “Redford and Newman Using NSA/GCHQ Guidelines In ‘The Sting’ Not To simply Profit From Some Gangster But To CHANGE EVERYTHING..”..I mean since “The Long Con” is pretty much outlined above..lets use it against its makers and teach them a little something about “Karma”.
After all..the Quickest Way to STOP someone from ‘Leaving Boards With Nails In Them Lying Around Where They Can Be Stepped On’..is to make SURE they Step On One Themselves!
Dig?
How’s that for a “Digital Tell”? Think you know me Now?
Something really bothers me about the comments on this article. The fact that anyone who thinks this is not plausible is being accused of being “asleep” or “a government agent”.
They’ve already won. People can not unite because we’re so divided we can’t even refrain from attacking one another on the internet for differing ideas. And if you think the government is blind to this fact, you’re naive.
It’s unfortunate that we can all agree things are completely out of hand, but can not unite to solve problems because we’re too busy attacking and arguing with people who don’t feel EXACTLY what we feel to the letter. Sad.
“The fact that anyone who thinks this is not plausible is being accused of being asleep”
The relevant documents are available for your perusal, sir.
The reaction of the authorities to the publication of these documents suggests that at least some of them are genuine.
So when you suggest that we dismiss this story out of hand, it looks odd.
Narcissist’s will kill their own brothers or sisters to protect his or her own reputation. The problem is everything is based on lie’s, if anything were to be based on truth there would be no human suffering anywhere in the world. This is what the Declaration of Independence guaranteed us. What this shows is that there reputations are based on lie’s. The definition of the Anti-Christ is lies and deception, Satan worshiping.
Glenn really has to confront the Pelagian heresy, which has gone on long enough. And he needs to re-examine the St. Bartholomew’s Day Unpleasantness.
From the article, “… all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework … ”
The GCHQ and the Five Eyes Alliance is a criminal organization engaging in criminal activity. Arrest, try and sentence to the full extent of the law. Distribute their pensions to victims.
LIBEL: Defamatory statement published through any manner or media. If intended to simply bring contempt, disrespect, hatred, or ridicule to a person or entity it is likely a civil breach of law.
SLANDER: Oral defamation; the speaking of false and malicious words concerning another, whereby injury results to his reputation.
DEFAMATION: The taking from one’s reputation. The offense of injuring a person’s character, fame, or reputation by false and malicious statements.
Definitions from the thelawdictionary.org
“… all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework …”
A criminal organization engaging in criminal activity. Arrest, try and sentence to the full extent of the law. Distribute their pensions to victims.
LIBEL: Defamatory statement published through any manner or media. If intended to simply bring contempt, disrespect, hatred, or ridicule to a person or entity it is likely a civil breach of law.
SLANDER: Oral defamation; the speaking of false and malicious words concerning another, whereby injury results to his reputation.
DEFAMATION: The taking from one’s reputation. The offense of injuring a person’s character, fame, or reputation by false and malicious statements.
Definitions from the thelawdictionary.org
HISTORY – Nazi Germany – Dictatorship
….Germany became a NATION of SNOOPS. People were employed in each street, in each building complex etc. with the sole purpose of keeping an eye on others in their ‘area’ and reporting them to the authorities if they believed that something was amiss. The reputation of the Nazi police and the secret police lead by Himmler was such that no-one wished to cause offence. People kept their thoughts to themselves unless they wished to invite trouble. In this sense, Nazi Germany was a nation run on fear of the government. Hitler had created a one party state within months of being appointed chancellor.
His only remaining problem from his point of view was loyalty within his own party ranks.
In June 1934, he overcame this with the Night of the Long Knives.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Nazi_Germany_dictatorship.htm
These are tactics also applied by the regular Dutch police.
This program (or an early beta version) was rolled out ON MY HEAD (ouch) in San Francisco in late 2010 and early 2011. They did nearly everything described here in GGs latest GCHQ powerpoint.
I ran a government transparency project FOR the SF Board of supervisors PURSUANT TO A BOS RESOLUTION written in 2004 by Matt Gonzalez then SF Board Prez. He was the Green Party guy that ran with Nader in 2004 – REMEMBER?
Of course hat they’re doing to targets goes far deeper than what Glens revealed so far but this document did bring me the same sense of relief I experienced with the first story on call detail record metadata content collection for it was that point I realized THEY WERE TAPPING EVERYONE not just my own family.
So nice to have company.
We collected only what the City Attorney approved (nsf files pst files redacted homeland security documents etc. etc.) and made our bones with the SF Department of Homeland Security during the Bush Administrations regional SUASI grant sweepstakes. We were very good at what we did.
Reply
This will get worse. Whistleblowing will get out of fashion and the usual paranoid conspiracy guy gets a hollywood comeback. Gambits anyone?
I have to say that I can see the meme of Sibel Edmonds construction has done its dirty work.
I had and in a diminished waywood way, still see her as a champion of sorts.
However her potboilers of late are very biased and she has kept the cauldron at the boil.
It seems to me, that she feels Mr Greenwald should have written about her in his articles.
This is a bit too precious for me. I think she feels left out and it was Mr Greenwald’s solemn duty to raise her profile by mentioning her in many articles.
I read some of what she wrote at boiling frog. But the Colbert report was a favourite of mine till she appeared on it. I wont link it or the articles.
Hell it seems has no fury ……..
This “documents and journalism for hire” meme is more telling on her personality than Mr Greenwald’s integrity.
Shame really. Sibel had suffered unfairly but maturity would see her being more circumspect
Reason not the need as Lear said.
I hope see can see that an apology is overdue.
Greenwald does not do motives but I do.
Absolutely. Sibel’s treatment of Amy Goodman has been especially unprofessional, calling Amy “prostitute” and claiming some Soros-funding hogwash. I have no patience left for Sibel, that she would smear fellow activists and well-meaning people just because she hates media competition.
>What’s compromising the internet is that you have the biggest fucking racket around: Posting powerpoint >slides with no context whatsoever and projecting whatever phobias you’re hiding under your tinfoil hat >while Pierre pays you the big bucks for it.
Gee, this sounds like an NSA troll trying to discredit this article. Makes me wonder if, as it should have been all along, we’ll all start disregarding trolls.
Personally I feel its time for T-Shirts and Bumper Stickers..to wit:
Say a T-Shirt with the word “Sociology” on the Front and then on the back “Obedience and Compliance”.
How about a bumper sticker that says:
“I’m A Victim Of The Hofstede Dimension: Interaction Across Cultures”
How about an “App” that can “Determine” when in fact “Fracture Points” and a chime could sound warning you that “This Is The Kind Of Thing That Pulls A Group Apart”.
And Finally..I TRULY Believe that The ENTIRE “GAMBITS FOR DECEPTION” chart should absolutely become the Subject of a NATIONWIDE Billboard and Advertising Campaign.
I think I coined this next one..but not certain:
“Wealth Is Wasted Upon The Wealthy, As Youth Is Wasted Upon The Young”..
Point is if I had Zuckerburgs Money..such Billboards WOULD be going up right now..people need to KNOW not only how “Simply” they “Can” be manipulated..but how “Convenient” their ONGOING Manipulation IS.
Why would zuckerburg put up billboards going against what his whole business revolves around ? I understand what you are saying but zuckerburg is the worst person to use as an example. Oliver North and many other big name folks have been working hard but cannot seem to connect to the folks who haven’t transitioned off of the boob tube and onto the WWW yet….
Why would zuckerburg put up billboards going against what his whole business revolves around ? I understand what you are saying but zuckerburg is the worst person to use as an example. Oliver North and many other big name folks have been working hard but cannot seem to connect to the folks who haven’t transitioned off of the boob tube and onto the WWW yet….
Because of the way reddit.com works, it’s possible to have a peek inside the active, concerted effort to have this story censored.
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1ywspe/new_snowden_doc_reveals_how_gchqnsa_use_the/
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/reddit-censors-story-government-manipulation-disruption-internet.html
Clearly, reddit.com would not be the only outlet where this is going on. That’s just the one where the process can be publicly observed.
This program (or an early beta version) was rolled out ON MY HEAD (ouch) in San Francisco in late 2010 and early 2011. They did nearly everything described here in GGs latest GCHQ powerpoint.
I ran a government transparency project FOR the SF Board of supervisors PURSUANT TO A BOS RESOLUTION written in 2004 by Matt Gonzalez then SF Board Prez. He was the Green Party guy that ran with Nader in 2004 – REMEMBER?
Of course hat they’re doing to targets goes far deeper than what Glens revealed so far but this document did bring me the same sense of relief I experienced with the first story on call detail record metadata content collection for it was that point I realized THEY WERE TAPPING EVERYONE not just my own family.
So nice to have company.
We collected only what the City Attorney approved (nsf files pst files redacted homeland security documents etc. etc.) and made our bones with the SF Department of Homeland Security during the Bush Administrations regional SUASI grant sweepstakes. We were very good at what we did
Good point. I too, some how feel better knowing they are watching all. A bit lonely if you think you are the only one, or one of a few.
However if I take myself out of the equation, it is obviously worse if they are doing it to all.
Can not Congress do something?
Why has no one in Congress tried to get assurances for Mr Greenwald to return to his home country to receive his rightly earned journalism prize without the chance of incarceration? Has it been raised in the house or the senate? Why not?
Surely the image of the United States could do with a lift.
What better way to acheive this, than to act honourably.
I guess I just answered myself, “honour” does not exist in Washington.
I would like to hear more about your experience since I have had the same thing happen to me. Can you contact me please. My name is Richard Verville mail address: 2 Currier dr. Londonderry NH. 03053. My email box is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I am not certain that I can receive emails from anyone outside NSA/Fusion Center zombies approved list… can you try?
You are missing the point. Say there was a gov run agency breaking the law. A group like this for example in the US might try and discredit the source and place information making the issue sound ridiculous or nothing more than a conspiracy theory. It also discusses the use of a psychological approach to deal with the individual, business or group. For starters it is a violation of free speech. Combined with a more direct approach It can include the ultimate destruction of their adversary. It can include financial ruin, prevention of new employment, discrediting and isolation.
“Hoover directed all of the Bureau’s Offices to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize” African American organizations ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-flint-taylor/the-fbi-cointelpro-progra_b_4375527.html
Often on blogs they are referred to as Gov Bots or Gov Trolls and they can redirect a discussion and something as simple as flooding the comments to push out an individuals opinion. They can go at the individual at the same time. In an of its self it appears somewhat harmless. Yet given its focus and currency and combined with a more direct approach it can have illegal and often destructive results. This type of activity challenges freedom of speech, internet information reliability and allows the gov to potentially manipulate an otherwise free society.
Who’s missing the point?
Even though it has been going on since Hoover’s time it is more electrifying to us when we have direct knowledge of how the Secrecy agencies operate. Also I don’t think Congress does anything because they are also being watched.
Mr Greenwald,
thank you and keep up your good work!
Considering all those comments spreading conspiracy stories and belittling your work, I wonder whether attempts at diversion are going on on your site right now…
Interesting report from Wired
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/02/comes-around-goes-around-latest-snowden-revelation-isnt-just-dangerous-anonymous-us/
Thank you for linking to this Om. This is a key bit, IMHO:
And it amazes me how many people find this race to the bottom just fine and dandy.
Time for a piece on just how craven and subservient the UK national press must be, to see a report that their government is in the business of destroying reputations with disinformation campaigns and remain sheepishly silent. Aren’t they the slightest bit curious about whose reputations their government is slandering with false information? It would be interesting to contact the representives of some UK papers and ask them whether they believe such behavior is necessary for Britain’s national security. Even if they just say they aren’t competent to judge, that would be quite revealing. Britain used to pay lip service to honor.
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.
William Shakespear
I think you hold the British press in to high a regard, they have continually aided in these character assassinations and obfuscation of facts. Many are willing instruments of the state and have no desire to shine a light into it’s dark recesses.
What can a Canadian citizen do to demonstrate our disagreement and outrage at the actions of the Government of the United States of America/NSA who is controlled and receives directions from Corporations/Banking Institutions or Capitalism? Killing people is not an option! Do I stop buying products and services to demonstrate my disaggreement? Do I vote for the Communist Party of Canada in local, provincial and federal elections? What?
Max
Canada
Canada’s Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is a partner in the NSA’s cyber-shenanigans. As a member of the “Five Eyes” alliance, Canada is an important player in the Panopticon of surveillance under which we now all live. Other member nations (all English-speaking BTW) are Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom along with the aforementioned Canada and the United States.
If you haven’t noticed lately, your own government has been taken over by the same fascists who run the US. I suggest you start by cleaning your own house first, not that the extra isn’t needed here in the US.
One thing is for sure do not vote for the Dauphin, the hair to the throne, Justin Trudeau. NDP is not much better but better. Trudeau is a stupe and dupe. Loves the tar sands and America, and hates Putin as is required for all card carrying deep state members these days.
Tweet your MP. Tweet our fake journalists (pretty much all of them) (at least people will see it). Put up some posters, organize!
Good luck eh!
Anyone have a link to the full version of the ‘Cyber Offensive Session: Pushing the Boundaries against Action against Hacktivism’ presentation without NBC’s notes?
It’s confusing how this news is being represented here and in other places. It appears that the ‘Discredit a target / company’ stuff and other stuff on the blue background is part of the ‘Art of Deception’ presentation released today when it’s not.
Thanks.
Speaking of, where can I find a good cache of all documents released so far? I need some catching up.
Anyone have a link to the full version of the ‘Cyber Offensive Session: Pushing the Boundaries against Action against Hacktivism’ (blue background) presentation in colour and without NBC’s notes?
It’s confusing how this news is being represented here and in other places. It appears that the ‘Discredit a target / company’ stuff and other stuff on the blue background is part of the ‘Art of Deception’ presentation released today when it’s not.
Thanks.
As you may know, in the last few months first Google and now Yahoo have begun locking down anonymous accounts. This prevents people from posting unless they have identified themselves with a phone number (“confirm text message” process). I strongly suspect the gestapo required this so they can further list and eliminate any True American who dares stand for the law of the land, the Constitution of the United States of America, with its Bill of Rights. Odd that as I type this I realize the gestapo will use my statements to label me as an enemy of the state. What state? Certainly not the United States of America. What state does the gestapo represent?
this just happened to me today with Outlook (Hotmail.com). what is going one with this ? I would like to know more about what you said here. Can you contact me please. My name is Richard Verville mail address: 2 Currier dr. Londonderry NH. 03053. My email box is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I am not certain that I can receive emails from anyone outside NSA/Fusion Center zombies approved list… can you try?
what’s 30 years late between friends? (do the math)
Don’t know what’s going on here. This seems like a lot of gobbledygook and the accompanying narrative strikes one as unhinged and rather hysterical. But if you want to point out their ranks are filled with Mengeleses, then yaeh. They’d even take down the towers–just to see the hell it caused, I reckon.
Thank you GCHQ agent. Now go to your boss and wag your tail and perhaps he will give you a biscuit.
why the nasty comments?
I wonder if the APA (American Psychological Association) would approve?
*Reminds me of Pavlov’s Dogs: “Watch what I can make Pavlov do. As soon as I drool, he’ll smile and write in his little book.”
Great. So all this is is a shitty powerpoint presentation purporting nefarious things that we think GCHQ does–because there’s no context AT ALL–using techniques that anyone can use right now.
“Cass Sunstein wants the government to “cognitively infiltrate” anti-government groups” – No. Way. Like no one has ever thought THAT idea up before.
“Write a blog purporting to be one of their victims.” Really? I need to be with a government agency to do that??
“tactics used to destroy companies the agency targets” – That’s what Yelp is for. Don’t need a government agency to do that.
“Email their colleagues,” etc. A guy I knew going through a divorce was the target of a nasty e-mail blast sent by his soon to be ex-wife. Was she NSA or GCHQ?
This is the most risible charge of all: “these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.”
For fuck’s sake, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker did that telling his employees and campaign aides to go to news websites and post comments promoting him and his record (http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-urged-county-staff-campaign-aides-to-promote-him-online-b99210902z1-246713991.html) Is he working for NSA or GCHQ too?
What’s compromising the internet is that you have the biggest fucking racket around: Posting powerpoint slides with no context whatsoever and projecting whatever phobias you’re hiding under your tinfoil hat while Pierre pays you the big bucks for it.
*… What’s compromising the internet is that you have the biggest fucking racket around: Posting powerpoint slides with no context whatsoever and projecting whatever phobias you’re hiding under your tinfoil hat while Pierre pays you the big bucks for it…*
Nuff said
I wonder why you came here ? waste of time imho, please go back to sleep if you dont want to wake up. In fact you came here while dreaming.
If I understand your position, you are saying that it matters little that the government does this because ordinary people do the same thing.
Not much of an argument really.
The government can do bad things because other people do bad things.
Way to go. Why bother even posting such dribble?
Whats that?
A dollar a word..
Now *that is a dedicated and hard-core Democratic partisan shill and Obama loyalist: finding ways to turn a story about NSA/GCHQ deceit into a complaint about some Republican governor. Congrats. An MSNBC chair awaits.
NO CONTEXT is the new preferred Dem partisan platitude when faced with documents that make them uncomfortable.
This isn’t the first story I’ve reported on these documents. It’s the fourth. NBC spent a good deal of time talking to GCHQ about the “context”. The documents themselves provide a lot more. There’s zero question they used these tactics as the links make clear, and the very last page of the new document says that they are currently training 150+ new operatives trained in these tactics for full roll-out in early 2013. There’s your context.
Whether what you’re sharing here is fact or fiction is irrelevant to me after reading some of these comments. When you meet criticism of your work with responses like “partisan shill” and “loyalist”, you show yourself to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution. YOU are manipulating discourse by responding to it like a child throwing a tantrum rather than furnishing those who have doubts with the evidence necessary to disprove those doubts.
Now assume you have great insight regarding my personal opinions and respond with more semi-articulate kicking and screaming. Hack.
Yes! Good one! Distract from the main topic and turn attention back on the author with a vague comment discrediting the author! Well done!
>There’s zero question they used these tactics as the links make clear, and the very last page of the new document says that they are currently training 150+ new operatives trained in these tactics for full roll-out in early 2013. There’s your context.
The gist of your article is that those tactics are used against targets that are outside of common understanding of legitimate target for such ops (whatever it may be), for this you provide no proof and, yes, no appropriate context. This is a legitimate gripe and accusing a person who questions you on this basis a “Dem shill” is incredibly lame.
Glenn, I cannot thank you and Edward enough for your courage in bringing these documents to light. THANK YOU!
Is it fuck around on the web time at GCHQ? Get back to work ruining lives!
Sorry your butt hurts.
” Construct experience in mind of target [general public] which should be accepted so they don’t realize it” This is brainwashing 101 by the state.
I have all certainty Mr. Greenwald has, and in good time, will elaborate on this evil and tyrannical practice being perpetrated against us all. This story will prove the biggest of the decade, if not the century. Yet in 12 hours time not a single mainstream media outlet has touched it….go figure.
However, I am relieved by these slides to realize the state is too stupid and overly concerned with personal career advancement to achieve much success with these evil schemes. As usual, government employees promote the latest theories, which they themselves don’t understand and are too lazy to study. The average government employee is too stupid and lazy to comprehend the psychology behind these plans of population control. If they could understand them, they would refuse to participate, exactly as Mr. Snowden refused to participate.
The combined effect of trying to teach all these brainwashing techniques to nitwits is failure: ‘pearls before swine.’
Austrian socialist leader Victor Adler characterized the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as “Despotismus gemildert durch Schlamperei” [despotism tempered by sloppiness). Let us hope there is a lot of Schlamperei in our intelligence agencies.
This strikes me as the same stuff exposed in the Wikileaks e-mails regarding Team Themis, where the Chamber of Commerce was targeting liberal groups who criticize them.
Yes, the private sector can do it too. But when a government does it, it’s way more menacing. They have other types of resources at their disposal, and can do very destructive stuff with virtual impunity.
It is rather amazing that there were no legal consequences for anyone at Team Themis, while those who exposed them got in a lot of trouble, including Barrett Brown. That’s the world order in a nutshell: not only unjust, but immoral.
As regards the questions such as ‘Didn’t This ALSO Occur In The ‘Private Sector’?” (btw; No SUBSTANTIVE Difference between public/private sector at certain levels of Corporate Fascism) One needs to remember/recall;
“The Revolving Door”.
ALL these “Intelligence” agencies consisting of “Bureaucratic Class” maggots..have their “Corporate Partners”..combine this with the more “Traditional” Revolving Door (look at FDA for truly sickening examples like “Day 1″ Obama Appointee Michael Taylor to FDA..a 30 YEAR..Thirty…Year..Career Monsanto “Fixer” now still undermining food and drug safety on a literally daily basis)..I digress..
The Point is these “Techniques” are already now “Both” (and here I wish I could call up some of their corpie-speak psychotic jargon..I’ll give it an admittedly lame try) “Public And Private Sector Utilizable” (yeah I know ‘sic?’)..which simply means the “Tool Box” is now employed by anyone and everyone who has either hired or is infested with these psychotic denial ridden fascists.
Booz Allen for example was VERY “Active” with “The Chamber”..so its all just “The Playbook” at this point with “Agents” now literally interchangeable amongst, for example, ‘GCHQ/NSA/CIA and The Chamber Of Commerce Or ‘Other’ Corporate Fascist Allies’.
Continued Payment = Approval.
All we have is the mortal fatal flaw in all of this “For Profit” control.coercion and mass surveillance insanity.
Tax Strikes and Boycotts are all we have..they are truly “The Citizens Nuclear Option”..ask yourselves this critical and undeniable question:
“How Many Employees Of EITHER CIA or Chamber Of Commerce (For example) Would Show Up To Work IF THEY WERE NO LONGER BEING PAID?”
It is literally as simple as that.
Stop Paying Them To destroy Your Freedom!
There is an answer for all this: http://voteafterparty.org
Good news from MIT Technology Review.
With a heavy emphasis on encryption and strong controls over all data from your phone, Blackphone launches amid intense interest at Mobile World Congress.
“The entire reason for the phone to exist is to protect your privacy,” says Phil Zimmermann, a Blackphone cofounder who invented a widely used encryption system known as PGP for “pretty good privacy.” “We are not a phone company adding a privacy feature; we are a privacy company selling a phone.”
Blackphone was a work in progress before NSA contractor Edward Snowden began leaking files about the scope of mass surveillance by the American spy agency. Those events have likely fueled user interest in the product, Weir-Jones says. “I think what we have seen is a heightened sensitivity of what the loss of privacy can mean,” he says.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/524906/a-629-ultrasecure-phone-aims-to-protect-personal-data/
These traitors are paid how much to agitate online for a living? I see a substantial budget savings by “reducing headcount” of these fascist adolescents.
If they’re crashing the economy soon, why pay taxes if this pathetic angst driven spying & character assassination is what it buys? When there are riots everywhere, the internet has been turned off, the agitators have to go home do you really think the IRS will be dropping by?
ARENT THOSE CALLED TROLL
These agencies’ refusal to “comment on intelligence matters” – meaning: talk at all about anything and everything they do – is precisely why whistleblowing is so urgent, the journalism that supports it so clearly in the public interest, and the increasingly unhinged attacks by these agencies so easy to understand.”
Ahh yes. Prop up the fake whistleblower lies while hammering home the idea that the media is on our side and fighting for the good guys. Give me a fucking break.
You don’t even state what GCHQ stands for. *rolls eyes* Not very journalistic.
I also didn’t state what “NSA” stands for – or, for that matter, “US” or “UK”. Especially in my column, as opposed to a news article, I assume a basic knowledge of the most well-known facts.
I didn’t know what GCHQ meant, either. I think you’re so far in your own world that you don’t realize that other people exist outside of it. It’s a common failing of journalists and other people who associate exclusively with their own kind.
Oh come on. I think everybody using the internet knows how to double click, copy, and google search these days. If you don’t know how to find what GCHQ means, then you probably never read this.
So wait… you’re posting on the Intercept… a publication recently launched to discuss the NSA and GCHQ… and you don’t know what the GCHQ is?
You work for them, don’t you.
Well, they have to find ‘something’ ANYTHING to scrutinize. It’s what they’re trained to do. I think if that’s all they got it is a sign of desperation.
Well, they have to find ‘something’ ANYTHING to scrutinize. It’s what they’re trained to do. I think if that’s all they have it’s a sign of desperation.
Have you hear anything about googling or searching for an acronym on line? Try that once in a while, it would help calm you down…
Double click on the word. That selects the word. Right click, that bring up a menu. The second choice is “search Google for….”.
How hard is that?
I prefer duckduckgo.com over google as they don’t keep track of your searches:
https://duckduckgo.com/html
Of course, they leave out the bit about being assholes who break the law to get even with people who piss them off, but what can one expect from self-pwnage these days?
I dunno like mate, This was one of the focal points of the biggest scandals in recent time. Basic reading of any decent article around the time would surely cover GCHQ, if not that, then wikipedia.
Sorry, what does USA stand for? This is ridiculous! Look it up if you really are too insular to know!
Aside from the great work you and Co. do, I find you to be hysterically funny. Thank you. It must be most tiresome answering the “idiot’s delite” , AKA general public’s ill-fated attacks upon your excellent journalism.
Thank you Glenn, I was about to write the same.
why don’t you go to http://www.gchq.gov.uk/ to find out? you’re not very smart or are you? by the way, what do you expect they stand for? of course they struggle relentlessly to spread and keep the peace, love and happiness all over the fucking globe. cheers.
Google it.
Duh.
“Google it.”
Hilarious.
Its full name is Gung-ho Covert Halfwits and Quacks. The organization itself, however, generally just uses the acronym rather than the full name, for some reason.
+1 … good for a laugh
Good job! Sounds about right — like every other secret government trolling program.
truly hilarious…sounds like a monty python skit, also the answer on the back of a GCHQ t-shirt ..cheers
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)
National Security Agency (NSA)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) United Kingdom (UK)
Internet search is a very helpful tool to decode abbreviations.
Sorry, meant Acronyms not abbreviations. There is an Acronym Finder site (free) that claims to have over 4 million searchable acronyms or abbreviations. As a test, I just searched for GCHQ and it returned “Government Communications Headquarters (UK)”. Give it a try – you will be pleased.
Or you can just do a regular search.
Two more spying revelations of Democracy Now, and one is an exclusive so read it on the site, and here for ya all the other :
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/28/broadcast_exclusive_declassified_docs_reveal_military
OMG – After this story Rachel Maddox did ANOTHER bridge story for the masses today…omg. We’re all so doomed. I mean really, really F****d. Wake me when the apocalypse starts…I want don’t want to miss all the pretty colors.
It is really annoying to try to read comments that are not in chronological order. Many web sites offer options as to the order comments are presented; as far as I can tell, this one does not. Reverse chronological seems to be the only order available.
Please fix this; whether options are offered or not, chronological order should always be the default presentation, with new comments being added AT THE END.
I think these threads would be topping a thousand if there were a better system.
This is the work of the Tavistock institute.
Pls elaborate, Shalissa.
My respect for Glen Greenwald goes up
Gee, Glenn, there are far more powerful ways of infiltrating than those methods you describe here.
Take for instance Google Analytics. The mischief of Google, their long-time cooperation with the Fed spies, algorithms for the DoD, Schmidt’s understanding that we’ve reached ‘the end of privacy’ and should just get over it, and all the sundry Google product leechings of human knowledge on a scale that will be useful to future AI development but is a catastrophe on the human scale, where privacy is still required for consciousness to breathe….
And then of course there’s Amazon, which tracks every search and sale you make (whether you like it or not); Amazon with its flip smirk over drone deliveries, twerking in the face of those concerned by drone usage; Amazon, with its nearly impossible-to-cancel accounts (go ahead and try, just for the exercise, I dare you); and, Amazon with their very recent announcement that they are partnering with the CIA to build cloud services for the spies….
And Intercept uses the services of these malignant capitalizers. Indeed, according to my Ghostery listing, coming to Intercept means being tracked by Google, Amazon, and Mixpanel (“The most advanced analytics platform ever…”). And presumably eBay caches in at the back end, too. What it means, obviously enough, is that First Look tracks its viewers just as vigorously as any other player out there and provides Big Data with more marketing opportunities. One imagines that the kinds of people who read and respond favorably to your piece on infiltators above, for instance, would be of some interest to the authorities. (And we knows how the Googles an’Amzons likes to share they data wif Big Bro.) This would be ironical, Glenn, except that it’s too frightening to be merely glib about. I mean, after all, you built this city on rock and roll.
First Look is not the only “alternative journalism” site that employs such metrics, of course. Just the other day I was shocked to discover that Counterpunch tracks every time you open their e-newsletters. So if you read about the Fukushima meltdown, next thing you know you’re being prodded to buy more Blackmore’s iodine tablets (or some such). Looks like Big Data has everyone by the short follicles, but still: Don’t you think–you know, being The Most Transparent Blogger Ever (TM)–that you should make people explicitly aware of this practice and explain why you do it? Maybe explain how you can ‘reveal’ Google machinations, for instance, and then consciously employ their system to make a buck. Maybe, you know, if you feel like it…
BTw, and on a related (positive) note, I’ve found a good way of getting rid of ads while browsing is by using AdFender (adfender.com), which is a systems install and, thus, works for any browser.
This is a genuine problem. I see a ray of hope but it’s still off in the distance. That hope is this: as we get farmed for more and more information, that information will become more and more freely available. Since big data is collecting everyone’s secrets and personal information we will reach a tipping point where secrecy will be impossible and big data will be relatively useless because everyone will have it; remember value and scarcity often go hand in hand. Governments are stupid and shortsighted enough to not see their own peril yet, that all this data collection will eventually make it impossible for them to keep any secrets too. At this point everyone will be able to find out anything about anyone and societies will shift away from caring about keeping secrets and move toward dealing with everyone openly and honestly. Ultimately a win-win if it plays out that way a couple decades from now.
Excellent comment, my friend. It blows my mind that these websites that claim to stand for truth, transparency, privacy, anonymity, and against spying, etc., use all of these spy mechanisms on us, which also slow down the load of their webpages, often causing them to timeout in the midst of connecting with Google, etc. I am constantly having to reload pages that won’t finish loading because they’ve either timed out or are hung up on some external site like Google that isn’t working right. It’s driving me bananas! But do these sites care? No. All they mostly care about, though they of course claim otherwise, and that they “put readers first”, is mainly keeping enough money flowing in to pay salaries, and they’ll use a lot of methods to do so that they should, and probably do, know better than to use, knowing the government is using those methods to spy on everyone, but they rationalize it because otherwise, supposedly, they won’t be able to keep enough money flowing in to stay afloat. Well, my argument is, if this kind of thing is what it takes for them to stay in existence, then they shouldn’t remain so, but SHOULD go under; and, if they do, good riddance to them, because they’re part of the problem!
Something I have shamelessly stolen in paraphrase…
The internet, that for a brief moment, once showed us a glimpse of what could be, now has been tortured and turned, now a honeypot, now a spider’s web of tracking, surveillance and blackmail. It must be killed while we still have the chance. Before it is too late.
—-
Tech has been a hobby, a career, and a passion for most of my life. I’m close to done. I’m not giving up, but I am tired of subsidizing this crap. Dismantle it and start all over. In many ways, first look is really the last gasp. The last chance. I’m not giving up, but I am tired of forgiving myself. Turn it off and start all over.
I consider myself a geek, but now I spit on geeks. We failed. We fucked it up. Generations betrayed for table scraps. In less than a decade we threw it all away.
On this topic, journalists have long exploited the luxury of ignorance, but those youthful days are gone. We built the whore houses, you are the whores. I do not say this lightly or with malice. We built the hooks, you are the bait. Fishers of men indeed.
There is a certain cynical sickness required to offer up revelations of surveillance and tracking as baited honeytrap for surveillance and tracking. But frankly, as a geek, my only credible complaint is that you stole our business model.
Fuck us all.
I know it makes no sense, but we deserve better than what we are. We deserve better than what we have become. To say that history will not be kind is being too kind. History will hang us.
BUT it is so wonderful absurd if the surveiller complains about surveillance…
-(and let me add to your F… us all – and say: “especially facebook”!)
‘Tis strange and funny, I have yet to see except for rereading my own words at various places anyother acknowledgement that all of us allowed this shit to happen because we didn’t clamor loud enough to get gov’t to stop the first use of cookies when they first started appearing. Would it have made a differerence? Was it already too? I suppose it was. (I must quite typing, my screen is about a half of a second slow in displaying the keys that I punch. I’ve not had this happen in years. I wonder why?
I use Firefox with a ghostery plug-in and it shows only two trackers here on Mr Greenwald’s article.
Google Analytics and Mixpanel, which I block of course.
No Amazon?
I agree that it might be something for the Intercept to be up front and tell its readers that they are being tracked by use of the Intercepts arrangement with third parties.
That would be transparent.
Still one Ron Paul article by GG at Salon had 38, count them 38 trackers.
I hated Salon.
I’m no expert in analytic programs, but as I understand it, there are good reasons for using GA: it provides important data that few other things provide. But it’s also true there are serious privacy issues with it. We’re 15 days old. We’ve instituted some of innovative privacy and security features that few other media organizations are using. Still, there are several critiques around about how we can do better still – including alternatives to GA – and they’re all being seriously examined and considered.
All that said, as serious as those issues are, I think it’s just absurd to describe these problems as “far more powerful” than systematic surveillance and manipulation by the state.
Glenn Greenwald wrote:
“I’m no expert in analytic programs, but as I understand it, there are good reasons for using GA: it provides important data that few other things provide.”
Glenn,
Send whoever is making these decisions into the comment section to defend their choices and logic. If they can’t or are unwilling find someone who will.
If the tech people at the Intercept are bamboozling you with bullshit, and frankly it doesn’t sound like you are being well served at all, better to know about it now than a year from now.
From what I have seen your tech hires are in way over their head, and seem to have no real concerns about dragging you down along with them.
You have put together a dream team of journalists here. Don’t let them be subverted by some idiots who have no interest in civil liberties or putting in an honest day’s work.
You deserve better than this.
With all that said–
“…it provides important data that few other things provide.”
Are you fucking kidding me? Listen to yourself.
You didn’t even have the courage to say–
“…it provides important data ABOUT YOU that few other things provide.”
Well don’t be so mysterious tell us more on the ABOUT YOU . . .
@Joseph K junior
Replace “ABOUT YOU” with “about readers of the Intercept.”
Whatever information Google Analytics provides about the readership of Intercept that “few other things provide” will have to be explained by Glenn and The Intercept.
I have no insight into Glenn’s objectives concerning the tracking and analysis of his readership, or what is so important that only Google or a few others are capable of providing. Truthfully it sounds like a bunch of crap.
I am also not sure why a best of breed tracking and analytics system was considered a higher priority than a functioning website. These are some of the questions I would like answered.
I second the emotion about “are you kidding (us)”?!… Glenn, you know very well that Google is working with, if not a front company of, or at least an asset of, the spymaster U.S. government; and you’re using them on your website anyway?! I should think that, considering the level of what you know is really going on, you would know better than to rationalize it as you’ve done in your foregoing reply comment, and that you would make sure that this site has nothing to do with ANY asset of the authoritarian militarized police state that the U.S. government now is.
Therefore, please stop using ANY AND ALL spyware on this website. I mean, come on, really, you use this government-connected garbage considering what you ostensibly stand for?! If this keeps up, I’m going to have to start take Boiling Frog Post’s apparently-legitimate concerns more seriously!! I would also think that you would be seeking to avoid any appearance(s) of impropriety with this site, and anything and everything that makes Sibel Edmonds and company’s concerns look even more legitimate.
[Or are Sibel Edmonds and associates, U.S. government controlled "opposition" and/or gatekeepers seeking to ("falsely"?) discredit this new publishing endeavor before it even got out of the starting gate? (Perhaps you ought to look into that, if you haven't already, and write an article about it. Or write an article at least letting us know if any of Boiling Frog Post's concerns vis-a-vis First Look are legitimate; and, if not, how they are discredited.)]
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12/11/bfp-breaking-news-omidyars-paypal-corporation-said-to-be-implicated-in-withheld-nsa-documents/
Thank you.
Absurd? I’ll tell you what’s absurd, Glenn–you misrepresenting the point I was making, which was: Why worry about ‘infiltrators’ in the threads of political columns like this, if said threads are going to employ the very data collection tactics they decry in their columns? I’m surprised to see your attempt to separate government collection from corporate collection, given your past rhetorical essays on their collusion. I mean, gee, your Prism piece for the Guardian clearly infers Google’s longstanding relationship with the government.(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data)
As for seemingly propping up the virtues of Google Analytics, well what can one say to that? Google Analytics, with its sytematic algorithmic data catching, is the very prototype of the Surveillance State. Google Analytics, and its cousins, is responsible for the disposition matrix Obama uses to determine who to drone. Google Analytics probably alerted the feds to Tarek Mahenna. Google Analytics may have led our brave joy-sticky American heroes to the whereabouts of al-Awaki’s son. Google Analytics and its generated data stores make online infiltration redundant and unnecessary, since, as you have pointed out in the past, the NSA has access to the servers on which such metadata is stored. So talk up the marketing virtues of Google, Glenn; let’s hear how they do no evil, now that they optimize for your website.
Equally disturbing is the cavalier explanation of IP address collection provided by the Intercept (First Look). The Policy blithely explains, in parenthesis, almost as an unnecessary after aside, “(Your IP address is a numerical address that is used by computers and other devices connected to the Internet to identify your device so that data – such as the web pages you want to view – can be transmitted to you.)” Yeah, no big deal, right? Except that the IP address personally locates you in time and space, allowing hackers and spies to find you quickly and efficiently. And the rest of the Privacy Policy is not pretty either, with all the 3rd party data collections that First Look waives responsibility for usage. Indeed, the Privacy Policy has all kinds of lawyerly loophole language serving to place the reader at his or her own risk.
And why is Amazon part of the collection package, Glenn? Oh, right, they are currently pre-selling your pre-ordained Pulitzer Prize winning entry, No Place To Hide. It’s important to shape your readers toward other consumables they may desire.
If Omidyar’s First Look video intro is any indication, with all its package talk, what the Great Man wanted from you was not so much your Walter White-like product (call it crystal blue persuasion methology), but the solid number of exploitable followers you attract. Just keep serving up the suggestive but generic Powerpoint slides that hint at possibilities rather than actual deeds. Mention no specific names, dates or deeds, and let everyone pretend you beat James Bamford to the NSA ‘revelations’. (See the 2009 Nova program based on Bamford’s research: The Spy Factory: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html
This whole enterprise, thus far, reminds me of the Twilight Zone Episode “To Serve Mankind”–the one with the freaky tall alien who looked strangely like Malcolm X–bidding all to come aboard, peace and love and justice and transparency. Then you finally crack the Privacy Policy code and it says: To Serve Mankind, A Cookbook.
Mmm, comfy self-contented middleclass grazers taste just like chicken. Yum!
Glenn, is NoScript any help? A bitcoin for your thoughts.
How bizarre. Ghostery now shows no trackers on this page?
Anybody else showing no trackers.
Now they are back.
Strange days indeed mumma.
Okay.
Ghostery now shows the two trackers.
A script on this page
Script:chrome://browser/content/browser.js:16101
was non responsive.
Strange I do not have Google Chrome installed.
I use No Script and Ghostery for the pages. Here is what they came revealed:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/209511325/First-Look-Scripts-and-Cookies
Same here. My Firefox shows two trackers now but none earlier. It keeps changing. I don’t have Chrome either.
Frankly, I thought this website would be far more sophisticated in many ways. Given the money involved, I don’t understand why it looks like a shoestring operation. I’m starting to wonder about Pierre.
Cheers.
This site does not provide the scripts. They are the third party”s handy work.
Still it was interesting to find that that unresponsive script could influence Ghostery’s findings.
This stuff does my head in sometimes.
It is early days here and I have full confidence that things can only get better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj4wcuo9Mgo
Well, hawk, you seem mighty ticked, and apparently more concerned about the commercial realm with all those advertisements than what’s being emphasized with this article—the political realm and the latest iteration of the SS (snoops and slide-eyes). “Far more powerful”? We’d probably need to get further into definitions and delineations of “harm.” Thanks for the AdFender rec—seems like your thing is advertisement rage mostly.
Absurd? I’ll tell you what’s absurd, Glenn–you misrepresenting the point I was making, which was: Why worry about ‘infiltrators’ in the threads of political columns like this, if said threads are going to employ the very data collection tactics they decry in their columns? I’m surprised to see your attempt to separate government collection from corporate collection, given your past rhetorical essays on their collusion. I mean, gee, your Prism piece for the Guardian clearly infers Google’s longstanding relationship with the government.
As for seemingly propping up the virtues of Google Analytics, well what can one say to that? Google Analytics, with its sytematic algorithmic data catching, is the very prototype of the Surveillance State. Google Analytics, and its cousins, is responsible for the disposition matrix Obama uses to determine who to drone. Google Analytics probably alerted the feds to Tarek Mahenna. Google Analytics may have led our brave joy-sticky American heroes to the whereabouts of al-Awaki’s son. Google Analytics and its generated data stores make online infiltration redundant and unnecessary, since, as you have pointed out in the past, the NSA has access to the servers on which such metadata is stored. So talk up the marketing virtues of Google, Glenn; let’s hear how they do no evil, now that they optimize for your website.
Equally disturbing is the cavalier explanation of IP address collection provided by the Intercept (First Look). The Policy blithely explains, in parenthis, almost as an unnecessary aside, “(Your IP address is a numerical address that is used by computers and other devices connected to the Internet to identify your device so that data – such as the web pages you want to view – can be transmitted to you.)” Yeah, no big deal, right? Except that the IP address personally locates you in time and space, allowing hackers and spies to find you quickly and efficiently. And the rest of the Privacy Policy is not pretty either, with all the 3rd party data collections that First Look waives responsibility for usage. Indeed, the Privacy Policy has all kinds of lawyerly loophole language serving to place the reader at his or her own risk.
And why is Amazon part of the collection package, Glenn? Oh, right, they are currently pre-selling your pre-ordained Pulitzer Prize winning entry, No Place To Hide. It’s imporatant to shape your readers toward other consummables they may desire.
If Omidyar’s First Look video intro is any indication, with all its package talk, what the Great Man wanted from you was not so much your Walter White-like product (call it crystal blue persuasion methology), but the solid number of exploitable followers you attract. Just keep serving up the suggestive but generic Powerpoint slides that hint at possibilities rather than actual deeds. Mention no specific names, dates or deeds, and let everyone pretend you beat James Bamford to the NSA ‘revelations’.
This whole enterprise, thus far, reminds me of the Twilight Zone Episode “To Serve Mankind”–the one with the freaky tall alien who looked strangely like Malcolm X–bidding all to come aboard, peace and love and justice and transparency. Then you finally crack the Privacy Policy code and it says: To Serve Mankind, A Cookbook.
Mmm, comfy self-contented middleclass grazers taste just like chicken. Yum!
So talk up the marketing virtues of Google, Glenn; let’s hear how they do no evil, now that they optimize for your website.
Except he didn’t do that. This what he said:
Why doesn’t that hold at least as much weight for you as the two sentences you chose to focus on? Just curious. I don’t like being subject to GA either, so I appreciate the fact that they are taking that criticism to heart and are pursuing alternatives.
I just tweeted @micahflee to see if he might be amenable to writing a blurb giving us some general info on what’s happening with the comment section architecture (not even sure if that’s the word to use), as well as the choice to use GA (trackers). If I get a response I will forward.
I think it’s fair to note Glenn’s comment about only being up and running for 15 days. And, IIRC, the start up was rushed a bit by a premature disclosure of plans that left Glenn in a sort of no-man’s land with no place to write his own pieces. He put that to good use by pairing up with writers at other news organizations all over the place, but I’m sure that also cut short the prep time needed.
If folks took a look at the tweet he linked in his comment, there are indications that the Intercept is taking security steps that have impressed Christopher Seghoian, the Principal Technologist and a Senior Policy Analyst with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project:
Mr. Lee worked for the Electronic Frontier Foundation before his migration to First Look. I think that gives him a bit of cred so I’ll reserve judgment until we have a chance to hear from him.
Botticelli painted Venus on the half shell and she was lovely to behold. But even his Venus didn’t spring forth, fully formed, anatomically correct and ready to inspire at the first stroke of the brush. ;-}
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
How the hell do I disable beta? As a totally blind reader, this shit is making it almost impossible for my screen reader to parse worth a damn. From a zillion “article regions”, seemingly random headers for no apparent reason, and so much blank space it makes me wonder if the ‘reader has stopped working, this is absolute crap. I hate to say it, but the beta needs to die. Please put someone with a functioning brain in charge of site UI, hand them a copy of the American’s with Disabilities Act, highlight the part about Accessibility, and tell them to fix the damned thing. Go to Freedom Scientific, grab a current copy of Jaws, & install it. Let it run, turn off your monitor, & LISTEN to what this cluster fuck sounds like. If you don’t want to kill the UI folks after that, you’re either deaf or brain dead. FIX THE DAMNED SITE.
Well bless my sharries*, people, I would like to ask the lewdies among us who happen to be using the slide program as their guide to comment behavior here just you know why do you do it, what’s in it for you—it’s a job, right, and you’re stuck? But seriously what do you get out of it and what value system are you using to guide your sleep at night? Can we hear from you? Lay it out—maybe it’s the money. I mean the Pentagon budget is very high around 900 bn I believe and rising. Or, you’re saving the country from . . . commenters who don’t like The System? “What’s it going to be then, eh?” (*beware: Nadsat language employed, Clockwork Orangishly).
This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read in my entire life. What I can tell you as a “target” is that there is a concurrent ground operation using similar tactics. Ultimately the goal is to destroy “the target”, a person who may just be an artist or someone who doesn’t agree with a political policy or an unfortunate that pissed the wrong person in power off…
It’s a very sad state of affairs and until we start holding hearings and putting the people responsible for these crimes in handcuffs (and in jail), the United States has no business lecturing anyone about human rights
Reddit appears to be censoring this story. At least that’s what I’m seeing on Twitter and in links like this: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/reddit-censors-story-government-manipulation-disruption-internet.html
They’re not censoring the story. An article reporting this presentation has made its way to the top. Links to this page technically do not qualify as news. A news report on this presentation, however, does, which is why that link has not been removed.
Reddit just hates their moderators, and will often lead witch hunts against them without reading the rules.
Who isn’t censoring this story? I’be seen very few outlets picking it up.
I didn’t expect the MSM to go big with this story. It is of concern to those who value Internet freedom and the rights of political dissidents, but won’t resonate with average news consumers.
COINTELPRO didn’t bother white bread America, and neither will this.
NBC isn’t ‘MSM’ Mona? This is just a rehash of (better) stories Glenn contributed on for NBC.
False.
NBC didn’t focus on these issues at all when we did those reports.
Aside from the fact that I published a new article here that is vital to the story, that’s why I wrote this.
And apparently, huge numbers of people got the point from this article, but not from our NBC articles, disproving your claim that (1) it’s just a rehash of what NBC (with me) reported and (2) our NBC articles reported it better.
Outlets not picking a story up != Censorship. That’s a ridiculous line of logic.
Since we’re talking about “censorship.”
Raub VS Iannacchino: A Tale Of Two “False Arrests”
It is interesting to note that on August 16th, 2012, former decorated Marine, Brandon J. Raub, was “falsely arrested” for posting on Facebook; Raub wrote: “Sharpen my axe; I’m here to sever heads.” Raub was brought to a mental ward, and was released only a few days later. Raub garnered media attention, a law firm to represent him and a following on Facebook within hours of his arrest.
In no way Raub’s case comes even close to what Mr. Iannacchino’s horrific experience has been.
Compare Raub and Iannacchino: Raub has tremendous media attention. Iannacchino zero media attention. Raub has a law firm. Iannacchino has tried in vain to get a law firm to represent a clearly illegal arrest for free speech and not being a “status 9.39″ which this false arrest video proves that Mr. Iannacchino was speaking in a park, and was “not a danger to himself or others.” Raub supposedly wrote he wanted to “sever heads.” Mr. Iannacchino never made any threats but feared for his families safety. Raub has a Facebook following. Mr. Iannacchino has no Facebook following.
Mr. Iannacchino suspects that this whole Raub event was planned and coordinated by military intelligence. That Raub is in fact still working for the government, but now has moved on to the Intelligence sector. Mr. Iannacchino believes that Raub is being rewarded for his exemplarily decorated military service, and has done like many young men that leave the military do – work for the civilian intelligence.
Mr. Iannacchino also finds the date of Raub’s “false arrest” intriguing; August 16th, 2012, as that is the date of Mr. Iannacchino’s last date of employment with an employer he wishes not to name. On that date, Mr. Iannacchino had become aware of a plot, he suspects, to have had him assassinated at his place of employment. Most likely by way of a “heart attack.”
Could this have been a symbolic gesture on the part of the military intelligence to have Raub have an eerily similar event that Mr. Iannacchino had had one year prior on August 8th, 2011? That was the date Mr. Iannacchino who was in fear of his life, brought his family to New York City to seek Political Asylum, but ended up at Union Square Park, where he gave a calm speech about his fear of a secret government wanting to kill him. Mr. Iannacchino was falsely arrested as hundreds of New Yorkers watched on in condescending disbelief.
The arrest followed by the mental ward… On August 16th, Raub is rewarded with lawyers, a lawsuit, media attention within hours of his “arrest.” Mr. Iannacchino who got none of those things would on August 16th, 2011, receive a symbolic sacrifice of death. Mr. Iannacchino is assassinated, but everyone will think it was natural – except for those in the know, that is.
Mr. Iannacchino who was at the time of his arrest, running 3 to 5 miles a day, a Vegan, happily married with child, an award winning, Grammy voting, filmmaker-musician with no history of mental illness whatsoever who had just completed his Masters Degree – was hauled off to a NYC Hospital where the nightmare and horror would go on for 23 days.
“It was like being in an MK ULTRA Mind Control experiment,” Mr Iannacchino said.
Cops Don’t Do “Diversions”
DoD definition of the word “diversion.”
“The act of drawing the attention and forces of the enemy from the point of the principle operation; an attack, alarm, or feint that diverts attention. A change made in the prescribed route for operational or tactical reasons.”
On August 8th, 2011, Rocco Iannacchino brought his wife and child to NYC to seek political asylum, but ended up going to a park to tell his story of being harassed by covert factions of the government.
He was arrested and sent to an insane asylum for 23 days. He was dangerously misdiagnosed; dangerous life threatening drugs administered, subjected to a Brain CT scan that had 500 times more radiation than a regular X-ray, and nearly broke his arm when a guard tackled him. The arm did not break but turned completely black. All for a free speech in a park.
Towards the end of his arrest video, a man from the crowd yells out “diversion.” The cameraman who had filmed the whole speech and arrest followed the action as this man ran down the street as “cops” chased after him. When the camera swung back to film the arrested man, he was gone.
Cops don’t do “diversions”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcMhVUrgbM4
No, it’s called self-censorship. I don’t believe the reason they are not reporting it is because it’s more newsworthy and interesting to report that Delta made a change to its frequent flyer program.
It is certainly a form of censorship. It’s selective editing. They could just air a weeks worth of cat videos and make it look like they are reporting the new, while completely avoiding a worthy story.
A chair of a newspaper/network can easily make the decision that 1000 cat videos are more important than global spying/disinformation.
Not covering this, or outright censoring it, seems the popular option for the MSM. Here’s what Google News found, just now:
https://news.google.com/news/story?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=gchq&ncl=dx5JsJ6Q8PWwyZMsnJFJ0C6TLz70M&cf=all&scoring=d
Not surprising, it’s not the first time these idiots at reddit are censoring sensitive and alternative news
Does this little sidebar out of Seattle fit this pattern?
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/02/25/more-evidence-about-the-us-army-spy-who-befriended-local-activists-and-encouraged-the-purchase-of-guns
- – -
“When four sit down to talk revolution, three are fools and the fourth is a police spy.” — Russian proverb
This is a test to see if my post is being Intercepted. I’m being heavily censored.
Cops Don’t Do “Diversions”
DoD definition of the word “diversion.”
“The act of drawing the attention and forces of the enemy from the point of the principle operation; an attack, alarm, or feint that diverts attention. A change made in the prescribed route for operational or tactical reasons.”
Towards the end of his arrest video, a man from the crowd yells out “diversion.” The cameraman who had filmed the whole speech and arrest followed the action as this man ran down the street as “cops” chased after him. When the camera swung back to film the arrested man, he was gone.
Cops don’t do “diversions”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcMhVUrgbM4
Is there any evidence that this is being used by the NSA against American political activists? Some will accuse me of being naive, and I was a OWS protester. I do not have an issue doing this against foreign groups who are committing financial crimes against American interests. I hate the banks, however that does not give someone the right to steal their money. It seems to be a legitimate way to fight cyber warfare. Is there any doubt that other countries are committing cyber warfare against the US and our interests?
Now, if the NSA is actively targeting Americans or colluding with the British in the targeting of Americans than what they are doing is criminal and treasonous. However, if they are targeting foreigners with these techniques then I am not surprised at all. It seems to me when the Chinese/Russians/Whomeever are targeting American’s this seems like a fair response. I am interested in what people think assuming the targeting is all foreign. I say this knowing what is good for the goose…. and if an American was practicing Hacktvisim against a particular Russian interest and this was there response it seems measured to me.
Calling a Denial of Service Attach free speech seems to be stretching the definition. It is more akin to Civil Disobedience, doing something illegal because of ones own beliefs. I just ask people conduct a thought experiment. An outside government from your own colludes with its local citizen civilians to hack your local businesses to steal trade secrets. You know it is happening, you know it is being done, you know who is doing it. What is the appropriate government response?
This is happening every day, all the time. I think it is legitimate to use these tactics against such individuals. There is no world court to prosecute such actions. The UN cannot do anything about it. Do you really thing all Psych Ops should be banned? That sounds to me like surrender and appeasement.
you certainly dont sound like a shill at all
Who calls themself an “OWS Protester”?
None of the “OWS Protesters” I’ve met and communicated with. Which are a lot of them.
I’ll bet you came to one- if any.
Not that this matters, but you’ve used it as some sort of proof of not being right-wing before spilling out your right wing commentary, in order to make your comments seem like they might be ones that a reasonable person could have.
Is this performance art, or are you just coincidentally doing the mimic/derail thing that’s suggested on the slides?
On August 11, 2013, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. National Security Agency.
As a rogue, Jedi journalist, I was curious about what NSA might have collected with my name attached (as e-mail recipient or sender) since I have numerous contacts and sources, some of whom are foreign nationals. I was also curious about what information NSA might have on file concerning STARstream Research, the virtual organization I established in 2004 to monitor “way-out” developments in alternative fringe science and military technology developments, following on from information I had provided to Nick Cook, then at Jane’s Information Group (Jane’s is a British private intelligence collection business and publisher). At the time, Cook was working on his expose’ “The Hunt for Zero Point” about fringe physics research into mining the quantum vacuum for energy (the 21st Century version of the perpetual motion machine).
NSA acknowledged my FOIA request in admirably efficient fashion, responding by letter dated September 9, 2013.
In my request, I identified various sources and contacts I expected would be of interest to the American and foreign intelligence services, and asked for a wide-ranging amount of information including all database information, metadata, memorandums, draft letters, e-mail and audio or video recordings on file. The request, submitted by e-mail using the handy FOIA service at the NSA website, now bears government identifier DOCID: 4069449.
I was especially interested in three areas I expected were also of interest to the intelligence community at large.
The first involved standard collection on open-sources: copies of articles or books I had written or articles published by STARstream Research, as well as other (possibly foreign) sources online, republishing my material (recently it was brought to my attention that private intelligence source Stratfor had shared by e-mail one of my articles about Ron Pandolfi of the CIA — this e-mail was among those now posted by WikiLeaks from a stolen collection hacked by Anonymous).
The second involved what I consider to be one of our major investigative breakthroughs: confirmation by NSA whistle-blower Tom Drake (a former senior NSA manager) that British psychic Chris Robinson’s warning of passenger planes hitting the twin towers in New York City had been shared with the American intelligence community prior to the actual attacks on September 11, 2001.
The third involved persons and information I had received which I later learned were related in part to Laura Bradshaw Eisenhower Mahon (Laura Eisenhower), the great-granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and her claim of recruitment by a black-ops group concerning a Mars colonization mission.
I was also curious if NSA had been following developments in faster-than-light speed communication theory, and my friend Shan Gao who had been working on this concept for over a decade in Beijing, China. In 2008, I helped to arrange a meeting between Gao and Dr. Christopher Green, a former senior CIA analyst who was interested in mind-to-mind communication.
NSA quickly blocked my request, noting, “To the extent your request seeks any information on you in relation to NSA intelligence programs, or in relation to any specific methods or means for conducting the programs, we cannot acknowledge the existence or non-existence of such information.”
A 2004 generic request to the FBI concerning government policy for contact by persons we had identified with CIA, DIA and OSD resulted in a response from the Joint Terrorism Task Force:
Mon, 8 Nov 2004 19:25:50 +0000
From: “SA Joe Rivers”
To:
Subject: E-mail contact with CIA/DIA employees
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:25:40 -0600
Gary,
Please call me if /with your concerns on this issue. You are correct in that there are some guidelines that must be followed for contact but, I am not comfortable detailing those here.
Joe Rivers
Joint Terrorism Task Force
Minneapolis, MN
One of my key sources/contributors, Caryn Anscomb, was later smeared with a rumor she was working with or for MI6, after meeting with Ron Pandolfi, then identified with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This resulted in Anscomb being shut off from a source Pandolfi later accused of possibly being a spy in a series of leaked e-mail messages, some of which we later published. The expositional structure of the messages made them appear to be a setup, with discussion of DIA sources etc.
http://www.starpod.us/2010/12/22/cia-unauthorized-spy-games-the-pandolfi-green-doty-affair-leaked-email-stream-source-dr-ronald-s-pandolfi-cia/
It is important to note that it is now documented: What’s on your site or attributed to you may be from someone else. Therefore, if ever anybody is taken to court for what’s attributed to him/her, the defence is ‘Someone else put it there, not me’, even if you’ve done it yourself.
Archive the link, so you’ve got it ready if or when you need it. In East-Berlin they used to say ‘they can’t put each and everyone of us in jail, can they, because they don’t want to repair the plumbing themselves.’
I am appealing for you help
I am one of the victims of the GCHQ’s attack. Starting around 2007 my profile photo image on the Google search engine became image of skeleton. There were also many other harassments that took place in multiple forms, to destroyed the dignity of my person. Everyday and every second of my life, is under the scrutiny of these government agencies thugs belonging to the five eye countries.
I have been a victim of Electromagnetic Frequency (EMF) Mind Control technology for more then 24 years (as early as 1989). Over the years the Electromagnetic Frequency (EMF) attack has intensified.
The Electromagnetic Frequency (EMF) mind control technology operated by these criminals can affect all of your senses. They can cause your body discomfort in all sorts of ways. everyday headaches, stomach pains, bone-joint pain etc. They can play your mind in order to play your sexual stimulation.
The victim becomes an object of a transmitter. The victim became a bio-listening device and biological camera. The victim’s brain activities can be seen by computer and can be controlled remotely through satellite anywhere in the world. The computer can feed sound, taste, visual images, pain on the victim’s body.
This technology can mimic all memories stored in the victim’s brain and can feed it back into the victims.
The cruelest effects are sleeping deprivation using the “Voice to skull” technology. 24 hours day, every second the attacker can sending sound into the victim’s brain to stop the victim’s capacity to sleep. When this succeeds which means the victim’s health became weaker. The attacker can play horrible mind games and tricks to make the victim appear to be a psychotic. Particularly when the victims do not know what happening to them and have no knowledge about this type of inhuman attack the result could be disastrous.
Many of the victims could not sustain such tortures causing them to make suicide decisions. Some of the victims try to get help by talking to the institution such as police forces. Many of them not only did not get help but have been sent to psychiatric hospitals or been intimidated by these institutions, which the victims were trying to get help from.
The EMF attack is multi-facetted. The attacker is playing with the victim’s thoughts in victim’s brain. This extends in using common forms of surveillance of victim’s any electronic materials. These are revealed by Edward Snowden’s review of NSA prism. All the victim’s phone and email communication, media reading, research material was under scrutiny of the intelligence officers.
Often all these tools of connecting to the outside of the world were disrupted to assist the mind game which the attacker playing at that time. There were also added stalking by random incidents such as people speaking certain word at particular context for the victim to hear.
The words or sentences seems nothing to do with the victim but it was serving the function of the mind game for the attacker in the other end of the transmitting signal. The victim’s real life taking place every second such as eating, talking, associate with others etc., simultaneously the attacker’s game is taking place in the victim’s head. So everything could become a source of material for the attacker to play with the victim’s mind. That is why, without understanding the technology, so many people have been treated as having a psychiatric condition.
This attack intensified by multifaceted action to the victim. It is cruel. Inhuman.
This military high tech method to spy on the mass population is inhuman. This technology was secretly used for interrogation of terrorists in the US military.
I am a Targeted Individual. I greatly resent your post of “out of world fiction” to make it seem that it is only “crazies” who claim to be Targeted individuals of the FIve Eyes countries. My name is Richard Verville mail address: 2 Currier dr. Londonderry NH. 03053. My email box is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I welcome other Targeted Individuals to contact me. Sock puppets like you need not bother.
It is amazing how hard the governments use these trolls and shills to disgrace those of us that are really on the receiving end of this harassment. You are despicable.
To those who do not know the Word I apologize… But more than any time in our history as a bunch of Earthlings it is imperative that each of us read the instruction book ! If it be any comfort to you I do not believe there is another person on Earth that believes as I do . I speak as a teacher and not a preacher If you are offended by what I say you are not alone(I am blacklisted on Obama’s personal site)!! Regardless… what I tell you should sound bazaar because I have never heard anyone with the same theology. The Bible is incredibly old… older than you can even imagine . But not as the complete Living Bible of planet Earth . Matter of fact the way I understand , it is only the first sentence that is ageless… IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTHS… Again in john 1 “IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS GOD….They are the same phrase but different understanding to us…My point is this; the enemy of your/our souls is attacking our nation/and our planet . Most of those being used by Satan are not even aware of this intergalactic chess game going on 24/7 in their own mind. The Bible has been given to us to allow us to whip Satan’s ass openly in front of the world !! However you must quit believing the lies his servants tell you about the Bible… It has been handed down through the blood of endless numbers of martyrs (FOR YOU !) so that we would have victory in this century and the next generation will be able to prosper under Gods Love… Don’t be stupid ! Join those of us who know how to defeat the power of those controlling demons who enslave our children to drugs , pornography , Muslim hate , murder , bigotry , political bribery , and the destruction of our families… We can do this !!
Peter Dale Scott on the Deep State is well worth a read
http://www.globalresearch.ca/9-11-deep-state-violence-and-the-hope-of-internet-politics/9289
Peter Dale Scott
http://www.voltairenet.org/article169316.html
We could do the same thing to them.Just keep mentioning what they do in any of our comments that we make pertinent to the NSA. I do it to the CIA all the time.If we all say something enough times people begin to believe it.What better way do we have to make it hard for them to even exist after years of people not trusting them.Sooner or later there are bound to be political figures come into office that have heard this all the time.Enough of those and BAM good bye CIA,NSA or GC.I know if Jesse Ventura was ever elected their days would surely be numbered.
Clearly people will now see that the “Dragnet Surveillance Apparatus” is about control and not protection, right? This is some truly creepy ass shit.
This illegal police state business has very much upset me from the beginning, but this set of docs really outraged me. If GCHQ is doing this then I believe it’s very likely the NSA is doing this inside the US also.
So if I begin to comment publicly against the illegal spying of the police state – then I can expect the NSA to actively seek to ruin my business by leaking my company’s confidential information to competitors and seeking to destroy my business relationships?
This is nothing less than some thugs doing the same thing if I don’t pay my “protection” money.
No charge of any crime, no connection to actual harm to the country, no intention to carry out any malicious act, not a conviction, but I can very realistically expect people in the dark to destroy what myself and my family have worked years to build for nothing more than organizing resistance to them, just as the ally thugs would do if I started organizing with other businesses on the street against them.
This is *exactly* why we can’t allow anyone to build spying machines of this scale. It’s not even as if I would eventually be questioned and have some previously recorded information used out of context against me – it wouldn’t even go that far. I now have hard proof that the way my government would deal with me, if I began to speak negatively of them – by simply destroying my life, that of my family, and that of my employees.
After 911 happened, I was not terrified. I was a bit more cautious in large gatherings, but I never felt “fear”. I now feel fear. Very real chilling sick to my stomach fear. I am truly a victim of terrorism – terror placed on me by my own government.
Thank you Glenn and others. God bless the work you’re doing and I hope it spreads. Firstlook is a beacon of hope, and there aren’t many of those left these days.
I await the next document release, possibly regarding similar U.S. National Security behavior, in which case I’m SURE Attorney General Holder would find it impossible not to prosecute it’s agents.
Gang and Counter-gang, anyone?
There is not a thing new here in humanity. Only the technology has changed. The underlying game is not new at all. They are not trick. I work it backwards on them. Who says you cannot if you understand the game and know how to do it yourself. When self taught they do not know the key. Now they are confused. This sucks them into dangerous situations and they go crazy and make fatal errors if you know how to play the game back on them.
Basically, they know most people are sheep and do not have the guts to do anything or the mentality to take the pressure so they are easy targets for their psychological profiling. If they get your profile to your mind they can cook your mind if you do not know what is happening and know what to do. For me the only dicey time is when they decide to go rogue and physical. After all they are totally insane.
Chinese Whispers (English expression)
Telephone Arab (French expression)
I believe the American expression is a mixture of both. I wonder what kind of butterfly would have to be flapping it’s wings in Peeking for anyone in the intelligence community to think that the kind of tactics revealed so far on this site are making anything secure.
SHAREINT
These mind-poisoners are the counterparts of the poisoners of Ancient Rome.
Absolute power still corrupts absolutely.
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
These idiots must have real history mixed up with their illusions; remember that their virus will consume itself when there is nothing left. We are with you Glen.
My Country ‘Tis of Thee—Sweet Land of Liberty?
As a young lad in the 1950s still free and less crowded U.S.A, one of my favorite grade school classes was Music (and then P.E and every rowdy boy’s favorite, Class Recess). We learned about songs that helped make this country great. A few of those immortal songs of strife, pain, work, and humanity were The Erie Canal (Low Bridge Ever’body Down), Down in the Valley, and patriotic songs like Lincoln and Liberty Too and My Country ‘Tis of Thee (America) The last song is the subject of this post, since in 2014 it drips with copious irony.
The ironies: My Country ‘Tis of Thee is based upon a British melody derived from the national anthem of the UK ‘God Save the Queen’, that is, it is the same melodic tune. Aretha Franklin sang this song during President Obama’s first inaugural address and so did Ms. Kelly Clarkson at Obama’s second inaugural—the man who has reigned like a British Monarch/King over the destruction of civil liberties enumerated in the U.S. Constitution in this once-‘sweet land of liberty’ (that phrase being the theme of My Country ‘Tis of Thee).
NSA (Ennessay* in my song parody) and GCHQ (Gkeew) have brought U.S. full circle to where the British are now invading—through cyberspace—the country that defeated them during the Revolution and undermining our U.S. Constitution with the U.S.A.s help via NSA et al.
I penned some new parodic lyrics to the tune. Sing along by following the imaginary bouncing ball that was a common ‘metronome’ in melodies displayed on the big screen of the 1940s and 50s. (Disclaimer: NSA/GCHQ spy monitors, you do not get to sing along with the kiddos; you must sit in the corner under your Dunces’ caps).
Our Countries ‘Tis Of Thee
Bitter lands of tyranny
Of thee I scream
Lands where our Freedoms die
By Ennessay* and Gkew spies
Over cyberspaces’ once-clear blue skies
They’ve. Killed. Freedom’s. Dream
*Thanks to our resident ‘barrister’ commenter, Coram nobis, for that enunciation of the NSA borrowed from one of his comments.
I don’t think it is the British we have to blame here, but our own government. Our cousins over the pond are experiencing the same problems we are.
Wow. Bearing false witness against your fellow man is absolutely nothing new to history. Many movements and regimes–especially Marxist/Leninist/Socialist etc. ones whose underlying ideology underpins Mr. Greenwald’s world view as well as probably many of the commentators here–were especially adept at the politics of personal destruction and agitprop. In fact you could say they perfected early more crude incarnations of the techniques described above–adapted to the media of their day of course–to advance their own revolutionary agendas. It should come as no surprise that these “weapons” may now be turned against them by their adversaries i.e. nation states as well as other political factions etc.
Shorter marQc: GCHQ is only doing to the commies what the commies used to do, so it’s all good.
Certainly you can do better than ” Marxist/Leninist/Socialist.” It’s like you’re not even trying…
Indeed. Those attempting to throw those terms around as pejoratives in the post cold war era seem quaint, eccentric and trapped in a paradigm that no longer exists. Particularly funny in an ironic way are those who attach those terms to Obama, that quintessential tool of rapacious unchecked neoliberal capitalism. I doubt such reckless and misdirected usage finds traction with anyone born after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Are we still crying commie whenever facts challenge the inherit “rightness” of a truth-stifling status quo?
They did exactly that to the Zeitgeist Movement.
They were especially adept? I’d say they were almost amateurish in comparison in many ways.
It’s like propaganda. What’s more effective, propaganda that you know for sure is government propaganda, or one that appears to not be propaganda at all?
Maybe I should be surprised with you equating “Bearing false witness against your fellow man” to today’s GCHQ/NSA technical capability and capacity to bear false witness against all men – all men and women worldwide. I’m not. I’m not surprised with your claims as they clearly illustrate many of the discrediting/deceitful/destructive actions of the GCHQ shown in the slides. I’ll give you a “D” on your posting.
marQc is stupid fucking cunt. marQc is a fine example of the uneducated retarded fucknuts fox news and the right wing morons produce.
Good point! Governments are the same everywhere and throughout history. Wake up people. Government is the most dangerous superstition. We don’t need them!
So the government of North Korea is the same as the government of South Korea; the government of China is the same as the government of Sweden, and the government of Texas is the same as the government of Fiji???
Nonsense. You might as well say your computer needs no cpu or that mountains have no need of valleys.
Governments are simply the rules by which any society lives. If the institution has become incompetent or corrupt or unresponsive or even evil, it is not government that has failed, but those who think their underwear picks itself up, washes itself, dries itself, folds itself and puts itself away in the sock drawer. Ask your wife about that.
Magical wishing may keep lions from living under your bed, but government should ensure stuff like clean water, electricity, non-toxic foods roads and animal control. Things get done because people do things. Unless you want to live in a cave, government will determine your quality of live whether you want it to or not. It’s called “civilization”.
If you don’t like your government, work change it. Imagining or advocating that government should disappear merely opens the door for corruption. (This is why US politicians repeatedly campaign against it — by feeding off your anger, they feed off the population at large.) Whining is a form of defeatism, a child’s self-pity. Grow up.
Of the great falsehoods promulgated in the last decades of the 20th century, this has to be the most pernicious and most self-serving for corporations, financiers, politicians, spies and those who destroy the lives of others for personal profit.
Shorter MarQc: Accuse your enemies of what you yourself are doing. Does Booz pay well, dude?
I’m not sure what one of these looks like in the UK or what the equivalent would be:
Revised Adjudicative Guidelines for Determining Eligibility for Access to Classified Information (2005)
http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/guidelines.html
When does a persons life history not show these traits.
You simply cannot trust individuals in a society where the rule of law is
*wantonly ignored in very high office.
Mr Greenwald:
Even though there are very sound reasons for not publishing the names, it’s'a crying shame that they are not.
The uber wealthy will do anything to maintain the status quo and fear everything that exposes the unfairness of the status quo. The real question is will these tactics work? Many comments here correctly point out that tactics like these have been used throughout human history to discredit and destroy members of the opposition but as we see from GG and many other real Journalists the internet is a game changer for exposing these tactics and the true purpose of those that employ them. If First Look is true to it’s mission statement then a path to a more fair World is more possible. Most people want fair and honest and truth is necessary as the main ingredient. Godspeed GG et al.
Jacob Appelbaum has tweeted a link to a translation of a Stasi document on “decompostion measures” for destroying political activists. Very similar stuff.
http://ix.io/aJq
EXCELLENT! Keep the companion pieces coming!!
Here’s another ‘Companion Piece.’ Many of us are familiar with the crux of this story about Glenn and HBGary, but Digby, who authored the post, and Conor Friedersdorf, who was linked or was a contributer to the post, strongly connect it all to what we’re reading in this Intercept post.
Hullabaloo/Digby
Thanks for pointing to this well-written and factually sourced article. I’ve come late to the party as my alarm bell re our surveillance state didn’t really become deafening until the Snowden revelations. As you indicate, this is a enlightening example of what Glenn’s article discloses.
Humorously enough, it has been reported that now deceased Markus Wolf (of Stasi fame) consulted with, and aided our Government in setting up the Department of Homeland Security.
Some of those bullet points are chilling, in light of what’s happened to Assange, Snowden & Glenn in the last few years:
* the systematic discrediting of reputation due to spreading of true, checkable, discrediting statements and wrong but believable, non deniable, discrediting statements.
* the focused destruction of convictions associated with certain ideals, role models etc and the creating of doubts about the personal angle.
* the creation of mistrust and mutual suspicion in groups and organisations.
* the creation, exploitation and reinforcement of rivalry in groups and organizations due to aimed exploitation of weaknesses from certain members.
* the keeping of organizations and groups busy with their internal problems with the aim to stop negative hostile-actions.
* local and temporal prevention and restriction of mutual relationships of group/organization members due to legal actions like workplace binding and assignment of remotely located workplaces.
* focused spreading of rumors about targeted individuals, a group, groups or organization.
I suppose it’s possible this kind of behavior can arise naturally and not as a concerted, conscious effort. But then again, I might be giving people too much benefit of the doubt.
What is constructing global news media?
Anyone who wishes to read Cass Sunstein’s vile thoughts on the cognitive infiltration of the internet may do so here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
And never ever forget, virtually everything that Glenn, Laura and Gellman have revealed in the last months was denigrated and laughed at for years and years as “conspiracy theory”.
You will have to download a pdf, so be advised.
This abstract starts off by framing anyone who does not subscribe to the ‘official’ explanation of something to be a danger — to create serious risks. That’s an intentionally empty phrase. A risk to whom? The reader assumes to themselves, of course, and then buys into the rest of the fear meme embedded in the text.
The reason I didn’t buy the explanation for what happened on 9/11 is that I studied physics, and practiced logical thinking. The official explanation had too many problems. The question, though, is what actually DID happen?
Worst thing you could do in the 1600s was question the legality of witch hunting. Always got you charged and burned without a trial. But we kept at it until the more we tried them, the less we charged and eventually we felt pretty sick about the whole lawless thing. A mark of our failure to think straight and trust justice, however flawed it might be.
During these times, a town in the Netherlands (Holland at that time) offered, for a fee, a Certificate that stated you were not a witch. Folks from surrounding countries traveled to this town to get their Certificates in case they were later accused by a revengeful relative, neighbor, or anyone that didn’t like them. An accusation by someone with more “power” than you was an automatic death sentence during these times. The town’s technology was a scale that measured your weight as “witches” were assumed by the populace to be lighter than normal folks. My wife, daughter, and I have our certificates. I wonder if my Certificate will protect me from the NSA. Maybe not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_l5ntikaU
Signum et manus et oculus.
They threw suspected witches into water. If they sank and drowned they were deemed not to be a witch.
If they didn’t drown, they were witches and burnt at the stake.
Same old same old. A Muslim is a terrorist by similar logic.
A risk to the deep state, the power structure, our shadowy masters. Them. For sure not “us’.
Is a cabbie in NYC “at risk” because his passenger is a truther? Not bloody likely.
Is Cheney? hmmm
i wonder what they made of PJ’s little homemade video.
I got two cousins who I call Apache Twins, Monster Slayer and Child of the Waters. They like to stir shite up with media. One made that viral video “Zeitgeist” long before it woke up, and the other does cancer’s business end.
That’s my hubby’s side of the blood line. They come down from immigrant stock who took part in a few labor struggles themselves. Toot, toot! Their Gpa, my hubby’s uncle, told PJ Parts One and Two were not credible to his elder mind but Part Three? That’s been rolling since before HE was born.
Roll on boys, can’t harm anyone but monsters and water spoilers.
Whenever I hear “crippled epistemology,” Sunstein immediately comes to mind.
“The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper”
Easy: excessive government secrecy is the fertilizer on which conspiracy theories thrive.
“the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined”
Easy: transparency in government and business. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
As Upton Sinclair said: it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Are these posts being fucking censored???? http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=44e_1391545942
My husband gave a free speech in NYC about a “secret govt within a govt” wanting to kill him, and he was arrested falsely by rogue cops. The 200 New Yorkers who were watching were clearly on his side, but once the video was uploaded to Liveleak, the opposite happened. The posters were now All Against him! View arrest video here. It is wild. Also, copy video because it is being censored. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=44e_1391545942
No.
Being censored, please watch!! http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=44e_1391545942
Ignore the No. I wanted to reply and now it is a comment.
This is exactly what is happening to me! I was falsely arrested in NYC for saying I was in fear of my life. The crowd of about 200 New Yorkers were on my side, but when the video recently surfaced and I uploaded it to Liveleak, the viewers were all against me as if it was a planned attack. There is so much more to my story, and I have been writing my own articles about it. I was complaining of a secret govt within a govt trying to kill me and my family. Check out my arrest video here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=44e_1391545942&comments=1
I would like to know more about what you said here. Can you contact me please. My name is Richard Verville mail address: 2 Currier dr. Londonderry NH. 03053. My email box is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I am not certain that I can receive emails from anyone outside NSA/Fusion Center zombies approved list… can you try?
Just because government is *attempting* to do this doesn’t mean it’s capable of doing it *well*. The problem with liars is they get caught. Back in college, the immature but brilliant tried these techniques out on the internet, against their personal enemies—the spoofed email, the spoofed Usenet News posting. People who regularly used the internet got fairly sophisticated fairly quickly at recognizing these behaviors for what they were.
Note one of the statements on one of the slides that gaming this “requires empathy.” That’s one of their main problems. The willingness to conduct character assassination on innocent people requires that a person lack a conscience. People who lack a conscience are also deficient in empathy.
The agents provocateur who conduct the whispering campaigns are surely doing their best to apply modern psychology to its limits. However, modern psychology still has limits. The chiefest limit is that the old law still applies: “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
People who lack a conscience are (under present diagnostic terminology) generally classified as either narcissists or sociopaths. There are problems with having to rely on such folks to do your work–in this case, dirty work–for you. Along with their “positive” personality trait that they’re willing to do anything you order them to do, without messy scruples getting in the way, comes the _rest_ of the traits of their idiosyncratic and rather unlovely personalities.
Sociopaths and narcissists exist by preying on other humans, and they survive by hiding in plain sight among the rest of us. However, modern psychology knows enough about them now that experts can recognize them pretty easily. They don’t have normal brains. Their willingness to lie and blacken the characters of innocent people comes along with a lot of other brain idiosyncracies that are like a giant neon sign over their heads, to someone who knows enough about the brain and personality disorders.
They’re a small fraction of the population, and they can’t hide the ways in which they’re “differently normalled” for very long. Not from an expert. So if you have one of these jokers claiming to be the “victim” of someone who has been a pain in the butt for government or other large, moneyed interest, the faux victim has a dilemma. He can drive-by blog and disappear, or he can stick around and continue to present himself according to his “legend.” Exposing him if he sticks around is not all that hard if you can get an expert to talk to him and investigate his story. If his story is a drive-by, then its credibility is suspect just by virtue of having no real person sticking around backing it up.
There are people who will believe every whispering campaign that comes down the line. There are people who actually believed Bill Clinton’s smear machine that every woman he directed unwanted sexual attention at was a nut or a slut. (His accusers were demonstrably real human beings who stuck around to stand behind their allegations).
Those are the some of the people you can fool all of the time.
The trouble with a government gone rogue is that it puts itself in the position of having to fool all of the people all of the time to survive. Long term, that can’t be done. The masses always _eventually_ wise up, and you can’t keep dancing ahead of them forever, either–it’s been tried.
Humanity has had an arms race between liars and people’s ability to detect lies that is older than our species itself. It’s because lying successfully can be a matter of survival, and detecting lies can be a matter of survival, too.
NSA’s strategy relies on liars being able to win the arms race, hands down and permanently, against detection of lies. They simultaneously rely on being able to win the other side of the arms race and win the lie detection side, hands down and permanently, against people trying to lie to _them_.
In other words, they’re relying on being super-beings with super-powers that suddenly trump millions of years of evolution spreading the best genes and memes fairly evenly through the gene and meme pools.
Thinking (mistakenly) they’re super-beings with super-powers is a “feature” common to the distorted thinking of narcissists and sociopaths. It’s usually the failing that causes their grandiose plans to come undone and fail spectacularly.
They can do a lot of damage to a lot of innocent people before what goes around comes around, but the problem with this kind of strategy is the faster and harder you pursue it, the faster and more catastrophically it unravels on you.
They’ve over-reached, and they haven’t figured it out even now—when anyone with a near-normal brain would have already twigged.
Immensely empowering discussion. I especially liked “The trouble with a government gone rogue is that it puts itself in the position of having to fool all of the people all of the time to survive. Long term, that can’t be done. The masses always _eventually_ wise up, and you can’t keep dancing ahead of them forever, either–it’s been tried.”
“Humanity has had an arms race between liars and people’s ability to detect lies that is older than our species itself. It’s because lying successfully can be a matter of survival, and detecting lies can be a matter of survival, too.”
I also liked your conclusion that their “superpower feature” is “the failing that causes their grandiose plans to come undone and fail spectacularly”.
Comforting to know. Well done.
Yes, well explicated. Lying has real short term utility–or can, but over the longer term it erodes authority in a systemic and irreversible way. Productive human interaction always requires trust and once that trust is degraded one’s ability to further influence others is similarly so. Past a certain point, all that remains holding the system in place is crude coercion and intimidation and even that has its real limits. Once the agents employed by the system to enforce it no longer trust it–and there is no way to indefinitely maintain trust even within the system using crude carrots and sticks, there’s precious little left to prop it up any longer.
Thank you. You have given me hope that All this shall pass. I sincerely hope that the majority of Americans, including those that watch Fox News, will some day see through all the lies that they are being fed by our government.
Jules, few people have such wisdom and psychological insight. If you usually have those traits, then you would make a lot of money in investing. If you’re interested just pick up books on value investing and read :-).
But even more importantly, I sincerely hope that the majority of Americans that watch MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS will some day see through all the lies that they are being fed by Commies like you, and all other tyrants both in, and out, of any government.
The singular fly in your ointment is that those who can be fooled constitute a clear and vocal / violent majority and anyone who can be fooled some of the time can usually be fooled most of the time. It is merely a matter of bringing sufficient resources to bear as desired and this is made rather much easier by the fact that fools are quite willing to pay for their own nooses in order to see someone else hang first.
Fools are in the majority most of the time and it behooves us to ratchet our hubris back a notch in recognition thereof.
What’s this? The Rumsfeld Handbook for Dummies, PowerPoint edition?
Where’s my last post? My story is being censored. I was falsely arrested by rogue cops. The 200 New Yorkers present were on my side. I post my arrest video to Liveleak, and the posters are all against me. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=44e_1391545942&comments=1
And for the kids, we have AntiCrisisGirl. Grrrrr…
Geesh, wiki hasn’t whacked that up, yet. It looks like Ukranian Girl Band if you search for it.
OMG, was that a Ukraine pogrom, GCHQ? You iceholes.
Don’t speak to me now of Trust.
Trust is the basis of cooperation and society. Trust maximizes the efficiency of pooled labor and specialization. Trust builds up the foundation of science and technology.
Trust minimizes energy expenditure. Say it once more. Trust minimizes energy expenditure.
The total amount of labor, capital, and energy we have flushed down the toilet because of the actions of the NSA and our current leadership is mind boggling.
We will lay stagnant for a generation compared to the growth we would have achieved. Whatever hope we have as individuals and as a species is inextricably tied to trust and cooperation. To squander our trust is to squander our humanity. We are cooperative and social beings. Trust is the basis of our empathy.
Trust increases government’s ability provide positive and productive services to the citizenry. How many decades of progress have we thrown away? Government as a brand is now all but dead. Imagine how much energy will be spent just to rehabilitate the idea of government, just to regain trust. A generation lost.
We are only beginning to appreciate the size and ramifications of this debacle.
The stuff on trust is great. Specialization requires trust, that should be obvious. But this –
“We will lay stagnant for a generation compared to the growth we would have achieved … because of the actions of the NSA and our current leadership …”
– may be a case of “pronoun trouble”. Are we presuming?
(Methinks, in the end, the entire debate with the Libertarians comes down to that one question.)
I know how to turn this sword into a plowshare!
We can use Prism and the Utah hub to store all transactions our markets make, particularly flash trading and CDSs, so we can monitor them for manipulation and fee gouging, the obvious flaws in any bucket shop. Not to mention the black trading pools used to kick said bucket out from a fat target or sovereign state, right ,JP Morgan?.
Clean those markets up with some good old “If you ain’t done nothin’ wrong” sanitation service and throw a nickle a pop on their transactions. That market will to die of its own uselessness in a year or three. Case closed.
We’re eating out seed-corn in service to leviathan.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-25/eating-our-seed-corn-how-much-our-growth-one-time-cashouts
@barncat
Most off my writing can accurately be described as “pronoun trouble”, and I presume far too much. Every criticism is confession, and I am prone to confession.
I tried to use some arguments that might appeal to those that want government to work, and other arguments that might appeal to those that see government as the problem. I also wanted to use inclusive language evocative of cooperation and society, which somewhat explains the abundance of we.
I do think the problem is not government or corporations, but groups themselves. Groups adopt the moral certainty of the individual, but are incapable of forgiveness. Groups subsume and multiply our physical strength, but seem uncomfortable and awkward with empathy, like it was a foreign language.
But fellowship, cooperation and society are also the only chance we have for salvation and survival. Our only hope is giant monsters we can’t control, who really don’t like us very much. And yet all this seems far less tragic when I am with others. We are born and die on contradiction.
@abbadabba
We should add a nickel a pop and also slow the damn thing down. We are drowning in the liquidity of microseconds.
@Bill Jones
Thank you for the link.
@thelastnamechosen
“I tried to use some arguments that might appeal to those that want government to work, and other arguments that might appeal to those that see government as the problem. I also wanted to use inclusive language evocative of cooperation and society, which somewhat explains the abundance of we.”
I don’t see how your arguments can appeal to the “government is the problem” camp, which was the point of my reply. You say, “I do think the problem is not government or corporations, but groups themselves.” I’m suggesting the problem is that, increasingly, the reality of the larger “group” — the “we” — is being denied.
“There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.” ~Margaret Thatcher (1987)
Obviously, to deny the reality of “society” is even more radical than rejecting the legitimacy of government. If there is no society, then a government cannot possibly be legitimate; it can only be the result of coercion, that’s the logic. It cannot possibly be a government “of the people” because there is no “the people”.
The problem is that the meaningfulness of the term “individual” is obvious whereas the meaningfulness of “group” can reasonably be challenged; the term can reasonably be dismissed as a meaningless abstraction. That’s what Thatcher is doing in that quote. The question is what is it that converts a number of initially distinct and isolated individuals into a “group”? Do all individuals have to freely and explicitly claim membership, positively identify as members of the group? If so, then how it is possible to meaningfully speak of a mega-group of 310 million (freely associating) individuals?
It seems to me that, for some, an argument is needed here, and that’s all I meant to suggest. I’m not finding fault with your comment or reply; I think they’re both excellent. I just wanted to make this related point, fwiw.
@barncat
Thank you for your thoughtful responses. I need to let your latest steep and take some time to come a up with a reply deserving of your post.
I should have turned the computer off hours ago and attended to meat space issues, so it may be a while.
Thanks for the reply! No need to reply further in this thread if you’ve got other things to do, or better things to think about. It can sit… With several brilliant comments (not the least of which was the “Pete Manhedler”), you’ve already made an immense contribution to the thread. You can take the rest of the day off.
In the meantime, let me correct one awful mistake. The second sentence has been changed:
Do all individuals have to freely and explicitly claim membership, positively identify as members of the group? Is it really possible to meaningfully speak of a mega-group of 310 million (freely associating) individuals?”
The second question needs to be asked even if the first is answered in the negative.
youtu.be/pE4x6tXntBc Why you should never give information to #ScotlandYard, #MI5, #FBI, about #terrorist ?
Got Caught Hacking Queen.
I thought LOVEINT was a term generated outside of the intelligence community for what Snowdon and Manning did. To my horror on googling it it is of course spying on loved ones.
Is there a SEXINT how many INT’s are there?
Anyway as the word terrorist is so misused I would like to suggest that we reclaim LOVEINT to describe these incredibly brave acts that will no doubt be due to having a profound love for humanity.
I just assumed they were ripping off McDonald’s urban jive.
I’M LOVEINT
These tactics look surprisingly similar to the Church[sic] of Scient0l0gy … they have a whole IT wing.
These people are very dangerous..
You aren’t the first to say that, so we may safely assume GCHQ is not a good place for a kid to get a start? Sounds like a cult to me. Remember the Four Ds!
Anyone read the story about the GCHQ employee found inside a “carryall,” a big old duffel bag, in his bathtub with a lock on it who probably starved to death? That is some sick twisted stuff which GCHQ found unworthy of further investigation. He just killed himself. Really?
So they don’t even watch out for you on or off the job? Don’t keep tabs to make sure you aren’t going off the rails? I’d stay very far away from them, kids. Earn your badges working their corporate divisions if you must, but don’t trust them. Trust your gut.
Scientology is scientology – the NSA is the NSA. We are talking about the NSA – sorry – intriguing though, a discussion of scientology would be.
Could have named this “plans for making a Communist police state, secretly in the dark”
Watch Luke Radkowski confront Sunstein about his paper on Cognitive Infiltration. Sunstein says he does not remember even writing it.
http://bit.ly/19xfFIL
Probably got his memory wiped by that Men in Black thingy. He’s going to be proven a liar in the next reveal if my internal tarot cards tell no lies.
Do these guys have no sense of history? Can’t they recall what they’ve done so as to avoid confirming their duplicity? We may have the same issues in the future. “I said THAT? I don’t remember saying it. (Because it typed it, iceholes!)”
Good report. It is always nice to see conformation of the evils that governments commit so the public can see the underbelly of the beast. This comes as no surprise to those of use who read “Anatomy of the State” years ago, but like I say, conformation is nice. Please don’t think this is an aberation: it is SOP.
http://mises.org/document/1011 (book for free in PDF form or epub)
Keep up the good work.
One of the reasons I am sick they are wrecking the net is it’s given me so much to chew on, like my ancestors’ bad luck stories.
I recommend you stay off of bridges, NSA and GCHQ, because my lordly Gpa got poked from beneath one and it really ruined his riding habit. You might find peasants under that bridge with the trolls!!
Don’t Read Comments
https://twitter.com/AvoidComments
Samples:
“After you finish reading that article, remember to NOT scroll down and read the comments.”
“If you have a choice between reading the comments and, well, doing anything else with your life… that seems like an easy choice.”
“Eat a healthy diet. Exercise. Stay hydrated. Enjoy the company of friends and family. Also, avoid reading internet comments at all costs.”
Commenting can cause you leg cramps, so I recommend we get off our arses once and a while for a good walk so we don’t blow out our bums. I’ve never seen such a recommendation. Where I blow, there blows other hardcore commentators. We can smoke all day long. Not good for those who require your civil service at home.
This is really scary stuff they are doing. It would also appear that all of this spying, by both the NSA, and GCHQ, has an ulterior motive not connected with any democratic forms of government: i.e., all of this data is being used to build a data base that will allow ‘Big Brother’ the necessary information to operate in the near future. I mean, what in the hell else can they be using it for? Isn’t it quite obvious that they have now labeled terrorism, or terrorists, as any one performing any action that might challenge their rise to absolute power and wealth. This is the worst kind of tyranny! But because they are so stupid and in Inept, might they just be creating the social friction that will stop them, hopefully, dead in their tracks? Can we learn from what these criminals are trying to do to our democratic institutions? I think we all need to find out who these people who have taken over our governments really are.
And the criminality of it all shows, for a fact, that they know that what they are doing is totally wrong headed. These governments, more and more every day, remind me of a cartel like the Sinaloa cartel that did drug smuggling, run by the recently captured chapo Guzzman.
I’ve given this some thought and can only conclude they think they can control a hive mind. They cannot. Maybe a few sickly swarms, but no way can they manipulate the global hives. They cannot waggle dance for shite and bump like a bulldozer.
Bees overcome cross-inhibition, two ideas with opposing goals, by directing others’ attention to the source material for a recon and report upon their return. They re-transmit those steps if they found the target worth moving toward. If they do not, they don’t dance.
But some bees will butt other bees who are promoting a bad idea to gain the floor and display their steps once more. Once enough bees have got off their butts and done their due diligence, the hive will collectively conform. It goes where it wants to go to do what they wanna, wanna do.
Now I know Chomsky says they can manufacture consent in the media, but that can’t pay the rent of that humble flat or serve you at the automat. Bees sting, boys! Don’t pizz us off, because once you do, you’ll have to go jump in a lake!!
How in the heck can flat footed clowns like Clapper and crew get us to dance their way? They are so square!!
I wonder if… all the times I’ve been part of a message board community, there is always one (or a few) posters who’s sole purpose seems to start fights and piss everyone off, completely destroying whatever was being discussed. Simple trolls? or the government?
Thank you for posting the images too. WOW
The really clever ones are the ones that you don’t even notice.
The ones that inject some piece of information or opinion that he knows other people will pick up on. They don’t start the fights, they arm the fighters and cheer on them.
My guess is you are mainly in trouble if you are identified as a target, or part of a target group… On your average lefty discussion board you are more likely to be trolled by plain old right-wing trolls fueled by Fox and other sources. This goes far beyond yelling in caps. It’s basically cointelpro online.
Seriously, I read many coments here that are trying to spot each other’s chances of being covert agents of NSA? Really? Could you PLEASE take another look on that chart that explains what DISRUPTS group actions? THe oldest trick in the book of humanity is “divide to conquer”, appeal to personal power or to petty disagreements to push everyone apart… And you are really pointing fingers at each other instead of pointing ALL fingers to the puppetmasters? Really, this is why they are able to do things like these…. THE COMMON COUSE IS TO END THE GOVERNMENT’S ILLEGAL ACTIONS – WHAT UNITES US IS THIS COMMON GOAL…
In the past two weeks (almost) of perusing The Intercept, I’ve read through 100s of posts by various authors. Today, I made a list of those authors whose posts are a waste of my time to read. Not because they disagree with me. But because their posts are incoherent, inconsistent, usually off topic after their first paragraph, and repetitive. Are they covert agents? Not my interest at this time. Reading their posts is a waste of my valuable time so I skip them. My freedom of choice.
There’s too much to say to this but, mainly…I can’t speak for others but, I can see through propaganda. I can tell when someone is real. I don’t distrust everybody. I don’t trust ultra conspiralists or pretendo liberals. A troll is a troll, all subvertion and disruption techniques are outlined above for all to see.
I have been thinking: since “intelligence agencies” and “law enforcement” now have ALL the communications, transactions, etc of everyone. Why hasn’t ALL CRIME and ALL criminal activity come to a screeching halt yet? IF they know what everyone is doing why is there still any criminal activity at all ( not counting the criminal activities of the “intelligence agencies” and “law enforcement agencies” themselves, of course… We KNOW who the REAL criminals are now.
Just saying – if their job is to stop criminal activity and they now have everyone’s every communication why haven’t crimes stopped? Are they just not doing their job or are they totally inept? And IF either reason is the answer… why don’t they just arrest themselves and each other for NOT doing their effing job?! And leave the rest of us in peace. Just sayin… “DO your goddamned job or get the F out of the way!”
? MANIPULATE THE MARKET ?
I read Apple’s got a big worm hole in it that NSA put there, the lethal grubs. Is NSA gonna kill Wall-E, too?
Bad, NSA, kiss my boo boo.
The Harper government in Canada got caught “cognitively infiltrating” the internet or as they called it “weighing in and correcting”. See the report on Canadian television here: http://bit.ly/1pqdba6
Both the host and the guest wonder about the chilling effect on speech when people know that they are being watched.
Did GCHQ beat up BlackBerry in the girl’s bathroom with our mean girl help? I can’t yet see all the pieces, but did our spooks get together to bust a berry for doing her job? BB can’t help it she was voted crossing guard! Mean girls suck. I see berry stains.
keep you going to work at a job you hate for a future you think will be. keep on consumin’.
Thank you very much for your work. I love how you are inflicting on these Fascists the death of a thousand cuts. Keep ‘em screaming.
Heh, remember what happened to one of Massive Attack band members in 2003 ? he was accused of being peadeophile…strangely, he didnt support “that much” UK goverment invasion in Iraq….And he supported (and still supports) many NGOs projects and so on…..Few months later, also in 2003 he got cleared from being suspicious….
How about that icehole Jimmy Savile and the whole BBC looking the other way because he was so great with the kids? He abused children in hospitals because he was a fund raiser no one could say no to. Come on, lots of people knew. BCC even canceled the reveal show so they could run a Chirstmas show for the kids featuring the perv. 40 years of getting away with the worst one could think to imagine. Like the tabloid press didn’t know. Come ON! Is he Pete Townsend’s Uncle Ernie?
Are we gonna wait until every perv in GCHQ and NSA are dead before we call them out for abusing us? Not me. “FIRE! FIRE! YOU AREN’T MY DADDY!!” Let’s practice kids, it always gets an officer’s attention.
Oh, hell, even Pete Townshend, himself. Got a reprimand with absolutely NOTHING even close to kiddie porn on his several computers.
I guess that’s what one gets for peeping, but he was also abused as a kid, right? Where’s the line? Servers should have never permitted it? I’d vote for that, but then we are skiing, again.
They probably have about 5 guys who are good at manipulating an internet forum, as for the rest of them, ever notice how someone comes out of a communication class more f—ed up than before? Stilted? Now they got caught being creepy. Ever notice how news about someone being an idiot gradually does leak out and people remember that? For example, the NSA thinks they’re all cool and everything, they’re manipulators, ha ha, they’re up on internet forums with their how-to manual – okay – but now they’re caught! It may be a small publication and they may have access to the media to co-ordinate a response – but we know – nobody forgets when someone is creepy.
I feel sorry for anyone who must spend their time making comments to serve a POV they do not hold, particularly if it incites hatred and ignorance. Might as well go build V2s in the Vosages with that kind of master.
Anyone who has a chance to be good person and blows it should regret that very much.
Now I’m regretting my failings, just to make certain I don’t fall out of grace. I got a lot of nerve telling other people to be good.
More worrying in my mind is that these organisations that have been around for sometime now seem to be increasingly very busy bees .I,m not convinced their up scaled rise from reasonable slumber to what their up to at present should cause too much alarm to ordinary folks . What concerns me is that these organisations don,t historically get excited unless they think there is a threat to the status quo in the democratic system that most free countries have. The fear of another world war is again on the agenda . It could start as in the other two wars from a small innocuous event in a country or region that at present is not on page 1 of any G8 agenda.
We live in fragile times , natural resources are under pressure , information good bad and ugly flys around the globe frightenly fast for any of us to make informed or considered judgments . We are restless consumers and we don,t seem to know where we are going .
I think what bothers me about this comment (I’m not attacking you, just commenting generally), is that there is an implication that these things [We live in fragile times , natural resources are under pressure , information good bad and ugly flys around the globe frightenly fast for any of us to make informed or considered judgments . We are restless consumers and we don,t seem to know where we are going] “Just happened” or that we are powerless observers being acted upon by the world. No. We live in fragile times made much the worse by our insane policy. Our insane consumerism, profit-driven psychopathic economic system, our view as life as a zero sum game, our inabilility to cooperate with the rest of humanity, our tribalism, our eschatological beliefs that our race is not logn for this world, so enjoy ourselves, etc. etc. We need to STOP now. Stop this insanity of thinking that this is some kind of game we can win. This is not a F*cking football game…… we’re in this together. If thes orgs are seeing the potential for world war III, the answer is not to throw gas on the damn fire….
It’s natural to want to live at peace and hope not to have to fight to regain your security.
It is true the world news is faster than Django, but haven’t we the character to stand up t it? Humans are crazier than honey badgers, and that’s saying something. Just try to take my Kodachrome away. I will bite your freaking balls off.
Remember the part of the Declaration where Jefferson says we will take a lot of pressure, but eventually we blow our gaskets? Orange you glad we built expulsion and impeachment valves into this baby?
No need to freak unless Congress won’t. And if they won’t we will freak on them in 2014 like righteous amendment defenders. They always cave for them.
Hey what about Andrew M. Lobaczewskis book about psychopathy in politics?? Political Ponerology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponerology What do we do about this??
In the paranoid minds of the intelligence agencies, whether they be US, British, Australian, etc., everyone is a potential terrorist, which is to say anyone who might disagree with their actions or policies. All thoughts , never mind actions, are potential crimes to them.
Speaking of twisted hacks, Rebekah Brooks is claiming she WOULD have authorized the illegal practice of secretly intercepting voice mail to corner a target if they were a pedophile. She loves to shield herself with those suckers. Her team is making the Public Interest Defense that Mike Rogers so loathes and the DoJ pretends does not exist. In pursuit of revealing crime, it is lawful for a reporter to commit one.
But Brooks denies ever having once directed anyone under her to hack a cell phone. That would be a gross violation of privacy and, as she learned 6 years after the fact, illegal. I’m exceeding my irony requirements daily with these two chapters of the same book. I’ve heard the London Times in-house make the same lame ignorance claim, and it didn’t save his bacon. Oink. Somehow those sister papers never knew why they were so artfully and coincidentally avoiding detection at every turn?
That must be why the prosecution charged the alleged conspirators with a horrifically bad taste hacking case and one so commonplace they really ought not have bothered anyone about it especially since they got the parties wrong. Covering all the bases.
Public Interest should surely win the day should any journalist ever be drawn into some foolish effort to suppress these stories. Then the government will have to admit this war gaming is costing us more than interest on the unpaid debt. It’s destroying us from the inside out.
Of the 72 reporters and government officials arrested from Murdoch’s UK give away bag of Sun staffers’ emails, several were let go because believe it or not, sometimes one can bribe a copper for details if it is a crime inside government and GET AWAY WITH IT!!
One might even give such a copper a medal for the deed. Like the copper who told us police were suppressing evidence of thousands of victims of tabloid phone hacking. Now why would the Terror Unit do such a thing? To hide their own well connected cables, of course! You can’t carry those into court and get away with it! In 2006, there weren’t even twisted laws to cover for such a thing.
I’m telling us these two scandals are one and the same. I call the whole interconnected mess Tea Pot Blown.
A construction as common as it is misleading
“Sure, I may have [YYYY-ed]. But I didn’t [XXX]. In fact by doing [YYY], I prevent [XXX]!
Examples:
Politician: Sure I took money from the Koch. But really isn’t starving children worse? I voted against starving children.
NSA agent: Sure we spy on people, but really isn’t a terrorist attack much worse? We prevent terrorist attacks.
Oil Baron: Sure our product contributes to climate change, but isn’t a collapsed economy and 50% unemployment worse? We keep the economy running and people employed.
Chemical company: Sure agent orange causes cancer, but isn’t that better than letting our soldiers get killed by Viet Cong travelling on the Ho Chi Minh trail? We prevent US soldiers deaths by using Agent Orange.
Republican: Sure we’re cruel and heartless. But letting the government regulate people to death is worse. We prevent too much government.
Democrat? Sure we believe in government regulation. It would be worse to be cruel and heartless. We prevent too much cruelty and heartlessness.
Plutocrat: Sure I have billions of dollars. But wouldn’t it be worse if children starved? I prevent children from starving.
Relativism — can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
But it gives us so much more to giggle about, I can’t quit that cowboy! You break down horsing around very well, melting mallow.
It amazes and sickens me to see how Five Eyes, or UKUSA community, has continued to expand its mission over the years to control the world’s electromagnetic spectrum which includes human electronic communications. In my day, 40 years ago, before the Digital Revolution, this did not include communications dominion, by the electronic warriors of NSA and its Big Brothers such as GCHQ, over every single human being on the planet as can now be done in the digital age. In my day, NSA has the same attitudes of collect all signals, all electronics communications possible, the same attitudes revealed in the documents Snowden has released, but that did not filter down to individual citizens as it does now. Those who argue that such manipulation of the Internet and social media by units like JTRIG is only targeted against adversaries ignore both historical fact and present realities. NSA and JTRIG operations fit and are indispensable to the actual “adversaries” seen by the Five Eyes and their sponsors and consumers in the governments and the financial communities of the Five Eyes nations. NSA, GCHQ, etc., must be seen in the context of the War on Terror and what the Five Eyes are doing in hot spots across the globe, the economic and financial moves being made, and the political situations of these countries. Too many times in our history and even today, I would argue, the national security state including NSA and GCHQ, are deployed against adversaries that need not be adversaries in wars, both military and economic, that we need not wage. And when we wage illegal and unnecessary wars, there is inevitable blowback including the weapons of the spooks used abroad being used upon citizens. This was true when we protested the Vietnam War, and, from all reports, is true today in the wars of first Bush and now Obama.
This article reveals that the Five Eyes are now getting into reputation destruction, which back in my day was largely the work of the CIA and FBI here in the U.S. and there counterparts in the other Five Eyes nations. I suspect that the CIA and FBI and their counterparts (such a Britain’s MI5 and MI6) have their versions of JTRIG also. The Internet and social media are treacherous grounds.
I also noticed that contrary to statements by U.S. and British officials, the documents (that I have seen in the news reports, published by Greenwald, the Washington Post and other news outlets- which is all I know on the subject) DO NOT reveal the Five Eyes “sources and methods” only the broad policies and programs (not operations), which are damning enough. The documents in this article bare ordinary classifications and are not CODEWORD material. NSA and GCHQ are certainly hurt political by Snowden’s revelations but I doubt if they have been damaged technically or operationally. Everything I have read so far had to be broadly known by any “adversary”; these “secrets” were simply unknown to the public at large. The Five Eyes and the entire intelligence are no doubt still expanding their mission, uninterrupted.
I noticed recently at the website of the Five Eyes (FVEY) interface with the military industrial complex, the Association of Old Crows at https://www.crows.org/conventions/50th-annual-aoc-international-symposium-and-convention.html (click on the individual dates on this page for insights into the future of this stuff) that these Old Crows (ex NSA, Five Eyes and Electronic Warfare personnel, and the industrial leaders behind them) are way ahead of most reporting on this topic. For example, the Five Eyes community is preparing to train their future electronic warriors from kindergarten through college to serve this signals intelligence and electronic warfare community. Will this stop future Snowdens? Future whistleblowers? I doubt it. Even a well trained and indoctrinated cadre will still produce people of conscience unless they figure out ways to wash that out of our brains. But then we would no longer be human.
The real question is will citizens of the Five Eyes nations do anything to stop this madness?
Perry Fellwock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Fellwock
http://gawker.com/after-30-years-of-silence-the-original-nsa-whistleblow-1454865018
Fellwock was a hero. I read his interview in Ramparts at the time.
Hey NSA, you’ve read my stuff, you know I could do better work than the clowns you have, you know I am right, hey hire me I’ll fuck you up. You’re over your head NSA.
Probably the hen in me, but we need not be unclear about what part of GCHQ or NSA we hope to screw. I
am bent on blowing their minds as they bother to try and blow mine. I bet Brown said something similar and FBI blew it up into a federal offense, so be clear when sounding vague. You surely meant no harm come to them, only their screwed up policy and any consequence the law might shed on them.
If the NSA hired me, I would put together some powerpoint slides for them that would REALLY mess up their head and make them creepy as hell.
I understand, the NSA could for example take what I said, use it to add my name to an on-going secret investigation, and then as a result of my name being on that list, every piece of data could then be interpreted as suspicious, and they could save that up in case they ever have a use for it, and merely say “so and so under investigation for terrorism”. But, there’s two edges to that.
I see, you are building your class action case. Go daddy.
But remember, they don’t play fair. You’ll be waiting in a cold storage until freedom rings. OMG, the bastards have me cautioning kids. Don’t listen to me, kid. I’m over 30. I’m ashamed of myself. Your reckless age is your passport and mine.
I am not building any case, I am just being myself, if that’s what they want to make of it that’s their problem. They got bigger fish.
It’s good to know that what many of us have suspected for some time is, in fact, true. A lot of what is described on the slides are techniques of NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP). When I was first introduced to it in the early 80′s, I was horrified at the possible ways it could be misused by the military, but I didn’t imagine that it would be done against our own citizens. Fast-forward to 2007, and I was pretty certain that it was, and incorporated the surmise into a series of short stories I wrote about the members of an activist group that was only interested in ways of making governance more responsive to the people, and the spy-in-training who infiltrated them. This story is called ‘Double Agent’.
http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/short-story-double-agent/
And I thought it was just fiction. Thanks, Mr. Greenwald, for spreading the truth we all needed to know.
OMG, I remember those NLP guys. a woman I know mastered in it. They watch your eyes and can tell when we lie. More accurately, they can tell when you fabricate vs recall.
They scare the shite out of me and lying is not my business. I just don’t like being read like a book which is enough to look suspicious in theirs.
This is why it is not a science, it’s a crock. Not all folks look down when recalling, they might be suppressing a laugh. And looking up isn’t evidence they are searching for an answer, they may just remember where the tree house was. We used to play secret agent all up in those branches.
NLP is a branch of Hypnosis, like most mental therapeutic disciplines. The purpose of it is for healing but most people never get any except for advertisers and other manipulators. There’s a small percentage of people who are “hyper-responsive” and these people are the best subjects at stage hypnosis shows. But mostly, NLP is just a way to sharpen the rhetoric just a notch, it isn’t Darth Vader kind of stuff, it’s just more like phrase it a certain way and you may optimize your response. If you want to experience NLP, listen to NPR especially on centrist topics. In fact, if you want to experience most of deception techniques listed on the slides shown here, listen to NPR. “The big move conceals the small move” – and all that stuff is right there on NPR. Phrases like “the picture that keeps getting clearer is ____”. The big move concealing the little move is talking about how, given a particular audience with a set of beliefs, concede some seemingly major minor points so they think you’re being fair, so they don’t notice the tiny little re-framing.
I presumed one could reverse engineer that observable signal, but how can one guess how it is received? No one has the exact same set of dishes. What I think works might make another barf. Come on, Dianne Rehm does not sound like that because she wants to, she’s got issues. Or is that why her voice is so compelling? She has to work at it.
Speaking of golf, I always find that very soothing until some idiot shouts. I wouldn’t put too much credibility into it, but I bet NSA’s wasted some dimes talking to GCHQ about it.
Well there’s really 2 problems with NPR, the centrist framing techniques on one hand, and the fact that none of them talk like normal people on the other hand and that they all sound alike, means they are all going to the same vocal instructor who is obviously way overpaid.
Ctrl-F
Since this ‘under construction’ comment section is currently user-unfriendly, there is a device to help you locate your and others’ posts and keywords within comments. As commenter Kitt posted yesterday, use Ctrl-F and then type in your search term(s). That will assist you in replying to those who took the time to reply to your comments, if you like, and finding those especially good comments that exemplify Greenwalds’ articles and those of the majority of his commenters.
Thanks (and to Kitt too). That’s very useful
This very document is yet another ploy of deceit. Reading this document promotes the idea that there are unrestrained uses of media to abuse (virtually or reality) an individual, company, group, or idea (this is not in anyway a new use of media – just a different form). There will shortly appear, from different sources, ideas that follow this logic stating that regulation should be changed in specific slight manners to inhibit this type of behavior of media outlets. This then is the purpose of this document, to change the law through means of fear of freedom. The idea that I don’t like one thing more than my freedom, so I’ll give my freedom up to keep my self and my family from this thing that I fear. This is an ancient tactic and is constantly being used and is effective on large groups of people because of their social desires and insecurities. While this information is very real and is being used and has been for a very long time. Regurgitating it does not mean that regulation should be put in place to stop it. What should change is for personal responsibility to be reflected in each persons actions. This will prevent even slanderous material from being believed because of the person’s integrity is already known. Thus proving the statement, “by their actions ye shall know them”.
It isn’t regurgitating, it’s a leak.
Just try and picture the administrators and bureaucrats and political appointees and elected officials who know about these activities. How could anyone with a conscience condone our govt behaving this way? In one sense, I’m actually more forgiving to the intelligence types who come up with this stuff. They are advocates for a particular POV and like soldiers, they are looking to use whatever weapon they can against an “enemy”. But that’s why we have oversight, right? That is the biggest failure here, to me. It seems just as in the U.S., GCHQ has managed to so obcure its actions and bamboozle elected office holders and other govt officials, that they are running wild. Something is so wrong that I have no idea how to fix it. Thanks for exposing this.
I imagine they are all very pasty white and globulous and indistinct.
For what’s it’s worth, my fellow droogs, here’s an effort to sum up (sort of):
*first we’re don’t like the comments system which sucks big ones mostly, tho there has been the theory that it’s the way it is to make things more difficult for the Feds on the payroll (someone has suggested using ctrl F to find comments);
*the trolls appear to be here certainly, and it seems they have a hard time hiding their hostility to GG as one indication, although they could also be I think it’s called compensating (which is in pattern with the behavior revealed by this article generally—very insecure types);
*that is, questions and requests plus outright challenges are NOT the problem (maybe the hostile types should study their own slides more diligently?);
*the article featured is a bombshell for most of us because it confirms what we sort of knew and hoped wasn’t the case as one of our problems has been (for years now) convincing ourselves that our “democracy” has not been functioning for quite some time now;
*there are a number of sort of jeering calls for “evidence” that the slides and the article actually apply to reality but you need to read in here to find there are quite a few commentators who are witnesses and victims to what the slides describe;
*Julian is being recognized as a victim of the forms of psychopathy the slides describe and I’m very happy about that, since people forget that the original charge against him is completely bogus since the females involved continued to party with him for several days following the supposed “assault”;
*the slides themselves at times look like notes for an anti-dystopian novel that my grandfather might have cooked up when he was writing The Trial 100 years ago.
So, hey, thanks, granpappy, as one of your sons you have helped me great ready for this moment and I thank GG et al also.
And you know I wouldn’t mind being able to edit once in a while also.
Why can’t they just use Disqus or something?
That’s ridiculous. Total-Anonymous posting such as this site uses is the LEAST vulnerable to professional trolling. Professional trolls don’t mind if they have to register. Professional trolls don’t care how much you moderate, their trolling is under-the-radar. The very restrictions that are supposed to make it harder for trolls are actually giving them a paradise. I vote for the present comment system as-is. Trolls are part of any real argument.
Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.
“You can’t go out, you are arrested.” “So it seems,” said K. “But what for?” he added. “We are not authorized to tell you that. Go to your room and wait there. Proceedings have been instituted against you, and you will be informed of everything in due course.”
Having educated youth with a state contract to avoid sexual assault, I was loath to criticize these alleged victims, but I have to say that those complaints are the strangest I have ever heard in my 10 years of disclosures, and I have heard a lot.
I hate to suggest this, but those women sound as though they were subjected to suggestion, more commonly applied by police the other way to dismiss the offense, and their perception of what occurred was altered to fit a proffered profile. I have never heard of consensual sex with a celebrity being a crime of said celeb after the facts once two parties concur.
Now I have heard of selfish, cruel pigs who take advantage of a person and treat them rather poorly, but not giving much of a snort after a toss is not a crime just good warning. Not my sort of thing, but I try not to judge. And good strike me down if I’ve maligned any victims, but I just don’t see any. He may be a selfish lay, but he did not exploit anyone. What the hell is wrong with Aussies and no condoms, Mel and Julian? Why so stupid?
Interesting that he hasn’t said anything, altho he’s invited authorities to question him. So to me the not giving much of a snort and being a selfish lay are unclear. Plus the offending balloon apparently broke? Seems to me tho it would be better to wait until the partner woke up before presuming for more . . . but hey the male is a lusty zesty animal! I’m sorry.
an anti-dystopian novel that my grandfather might have cooked up when he was writing The Trial 100 years ago.
I have visited 22 Golden Lane. I believe that would be your great Aunt’s house? My husband is from Prague and we have eaten at the restaurant that is in what used to be your Grandfather’s house. How lovely to find a connection here in Glenn’s comment section.
Pedinska, apologies. I should have said “that the creator of my grandfather might have cooked up.” I attach only to literary lineage, not biological, meaning Joseph K as the grandpa. Thank you for this nice response and I’m sorry to be disappointing.
No worries. No disappointment at all! I claim all sorts of literary lineages myself.
Glenn, a fantastic story. Maybe, we should start wearing our tin foil hats.
Troll score: 3/10. Reasonable work with the compliment, but lunatic fringe conspiracy theories are not backed up with indisputable evidence.
you are sick.
my remark is pointed at Mr. All… not at jackf. to him I say thank you for the troll count.
Another excellent report. Thanks.
This article outlines who is perpetrating the REAL terrorism and insurrection against the United States (“We, the People”). Now please tell me who’s going to stop this incredible undermining of free speech and legitimate discourse?
Speaking of honey-traps: thousands of videos on YT pretending
to be against surveillance & MKUltra sleep deprivation/ psychic
driving are actually made by a sanctioned network that does
all the above. The experts imitating mental derangement.
I wonder if anyone familiar with corporate or Gov PR
might instantly recognize them for what they are…
or pretend/ lie & say the said videos are “obviously”
made by nutjobs.
And don’t see RussellM anywhere on that chart! Why are you still withholding documents Glenn!?
“Why are you still withholding documents Glenn!?”
Bill you have to be patient with Greenwald…as the Canadian Harper government rightly points out, to deflect criticism of its collaboration with NSA/GCHQ, Greenwald has his hands full in his other line of work as a “Brazilian porno spy”, and so is only able to fence stolen documents in his spare time, even with the help of his terrorist lover (only recently caught sneaking into Britain at the behest of the Guardian, an organization that was on the cusp of betraying Britain, had it’s computers not been smashed…I don’t care how many times Rusbridger says he loves his country…If Australia hadn’t spied on that US law firm to get an advantage in trade talks with Indonesia,…Urgh, glub…ahh,…The Terrorists Win!!!!
One thing is for sure, our shadowy masters™ really need some help with their PowerPoint layouts. Yeuch!
I know, Bill! They are craptastic. I don’t think competence is the number one hiring requirement for these goons. It has to be paranoia plus an us-them mentality.
I would love to hang around for some back and forth with the spooks on this thread, but I can’t because I need to get to work. (I’ll check back later tonight.)
This subject is personal. I was branded a ‘terrorist’ after I severed relations with some pretty hard-core, right-wing religious relatives with connections to the USAF, and ever since I’ve been stalked, surveilled, and threatened (as in death-threats: “terroristic threats against my person”).
Every individual on this thread, including Mr. and Ms. 007, knows that labeling a person ‘terrorist’ is akin to a social (up to a physical) death sentence in 21st century USA. Today, the label is used in exactly the same way “communist” was used to brand a person legitimately “destroyable” during the 20th century. Fortunately, I’m still breathing, while at least one of those who planned to kill me is not. And I know that really, really p*sses you off, 007.
I want to ask you, 007: please explain how engaging in this ongoing, pathological gang-stalking (in the context of the death threats from those connected to the USAF), and trying to destroy this innocent person’s ability to earn a living, can be characterized as “patriotic”. Please elucidate? I would really like a sincere answer, lest the cynic in me defaults to the conviction you love stalking almost as much as you love torturing and killing ‘terrorists’. (And worst of all: the american people have your back.)
Surely, if people like you are as courageous as Hollywood, Fox, and CNN portray you, you’ll give me a straight answer, along with your real name, address, and a workplace phone number.
I disowned family (not a capital offense), and I criticized your country’s perpetual, offensive war binging (also not a capital offense). And you’ve been after me for at least 12 years, probably more. But I am still here. You could have just paid some kid in Sao Paulo $50 to kill me, or do it here in San Jose. The police wouldn’t do anything and you know it. After all, it’s a matter of ‘national security’. It’s absurd. Why spend so many tax dollars harassing someone as innocuous as myself? Are you bored? Do you need creative ways to spend all of each year’s budget, so you get at least the same amount in the next fiscal year? Did I get under your skin too much?
I have explained myself. What about you?
Don’t leave me guessing! What’s worse: me, answering for you, or you, displaying 1/10th of a gram of civil courage.
I am a Targeted Individual for 13 years now. Please see my post of February 25. I would like to know more about what you said here. Can you contact me please. My name is Richard Verville mail address: 2 Currier dr. Londonderry NH. 03053. My email box is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I am not certain that I can receive emails from anyone outside NSA/Fusion Center zombies approved list… can you try please?
Along with everything mentioned: there is the tactic of
creating & funding your own opposition. Like Big Brother
who formed a state controlled “underground” & then
spread rumors about those dark subversive underground
activities as a lure. Big T, tobacco, Big Oil do the same.
As shown in a Matt Damon movie last year…
Big Oil formed their own environmental anti-fossil fuel
group always using rigged bogus material to attract
attention. After awhile the bogus materials are “exposed”
as being photo-shopped as planned therefore undermining
the green movement. Damon worked for an oil company
and found out that the guy he thought of as a pain in the ass
activist was actually working for Big Oil also.
This is done right in everyone’s face all across You Tube.
Do you think all the batcrazy “Paranoid Style” mind control
videos are really made by delusionals? Ha!
They are mostly or all done by PR pros imitating crazy or
serious w/ factual material expertly blended with nonsense.
That last sentence is another version of honey-trap manipulation.
(True Lies, the 10% that’s true is mixed with 90% BS)
That is also the main reason for making these pretend anti-
mind control videos by the thousand. The difference being
that the pretend “morons” tell you, in most cases, that the
video is BS. Then they have comment writers who support
the videos pretending to be just as psychotic.
And yes, a few are made by ppl who are mentally ill or by those selling DVD’d to them.
How to prove this? Difficult to impossible.
My guess – the above is run by civilian contractors
who are going way out of their way to hide something
in plain sight. Maybe trying to proactively discredit a very
nasty program to discourage anyone from coming forward.
Just a guess.
For example, oh I can’t mention an example because the conspiracy-theory believers would come and disagree with me that it’s a conspiracy theory.
So, without citing any example, heck yes I myself believe most conspiracy theories are planted, trying to hide that information which is in plain public sight already.
a similar thing was done to Dan Rather with the faked up T.A.N.G. documents about Bush Jr. the story was real enough, but the planted evidence was faked up on purpose.
Interesting. If I didn’t know, I would have thought I was reading Scientology documents.
Publiquen in leangue Español please
An excellent article. In reading some of the previous comments, it is only too apparent that many of the targeted audience failed to understand the greater significance of this material. That is, that everyone who is using the internet is a potential and/or identified target on all social media sites including media procurement outlets, by the greater majority of search engines, and yes, even by simply using a Microsoft or Apple computer which is connected to the internet. There is no completely safe way to operate.
You are by the way also a potential and/or identified target by using the telephone, riding in a GPS equipped car or carrying a GPS equipped device. Most electronic devices, like televisions and computers are presently being designed with cameras they you may or may not be able to control. Did your utility company silently install a “Smart Meter” on your place of residence? Every being presently on Planet Earth is presently threatened and affected by the sheer scope of this activity . Thank you Mr Greenwald for attempting to shed light on that fact.
Please take a clear look at the extent of the problem. A massive control grid on planet Earth is a definitive problem. Always, follow the money trail to find the root source of this problem. Perhaps Mr. Taibbi will help shed light on that matter with the second digital magazine effort being launched by firstlook.org. For now, I am grateful for The Intercept. I wish you all the most enlightened and benevolent outcome.
Regarding the monitoring of “conspiracy theory” discussion forums/chat rooms etc. online, I have found it to be very interesting how any discussions of, say, the events of 9/11 on most websites is now verboten.
It appears that the actual websites have made rules that no “conspiracy theories” can be discussed (especially 9/11). John Amato at Crooksandliars.com basically said that anyone bringing up 9/11 would be bounced off the site. Comments made at Commondreams.org and HuffPo regarding 9/11 are simply moderated out.
My question is: Have these websites been “told” to not allow any discussions of 9/11 by the PTB?
We all know of many websites where comments are just “moderated” away if “certain things” are being mentioned. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post.
On Obamacare there was a thread in the last week at the Los Angeles Times where “Estate Recovery” was being discussed. A recent article on it had been linked from Paul Craig Roberts website. Quite a lively discussion took place and I sent the link for the article to my friend in Massachusetts. She loved the discussion and went back to it a few days later and the link to the PCR article had been scrubbed along with several other comments against Obamacare.
Censorship is what’s bothering me as well as the “games” the Intelligence Community appears to be playing with all of us.
Attempts to moderate forums make the forums more vulnerable to trolls and tactics like cooked-up conspiracy theories, not less.
Is this another covert recruitment drive?
Would these type of activities be illegal? Sure seems like it. Or if not illegal, at least subject to law suits.
Just for kicks, have a look at an article I published back in June of 2011:
Information Warfare Part II
http://www.upwardvectorpubs.com/41iw2.htm
In that article, I discussed exposing these types of operations over ten years ago.
“Eventually, by correlating IP addresses, service providers, operating systems & browser configurations, posting times, and actual posted statements, the evidence showed that a relatively small number of persons were utilizing a large number of false online identities, going thru a variety of different service providers in different geographical locations, in order to create the illusion that a very large percentage and number of people all felt the same way about a particular topic.
In one particular case, over 100 different posting identities were tied to a single individual, and many of them were used for rabid and vicious attacks using black propaganda and lies, while the real person behind them remained hidden.”
Now in my particular case, I’ve been posting information about a subject which remains, to this day, a very highly-classified subject – extraterrestrial beings, groups, and operations:
UFOs – Setting the Record Straight
http://www.upwardvectorpubs.com/62ufos1.htm
Do you suppose that I might possibly be a target for some of these dispicable covert operations?
Things that make you go hmmm…
Upward Vector Publishing
http://www.upwardvectorpubs.com
Really interesting documents with those UFO pics just hanging out there. Would like to have heard the full presentation to get the context. Doubt these guys would be in the loop about any UFO reality, but the whole thing is very significant. Lots of Snowden/UFO crap floated earlier . . . . . preventative disinfo? Hahahahaha.
Glenn, please, give us a human example of such a campaign. Humanise this barbarity, people’s lives are being ruined by these agencies. It is scandalous how monstrously evil these agencies are. You are being quite coy about this but I am pretty sure that Assange is one clear victim!
Mr. Greenwald, as a competent journalist and lawyer, is most likely under legitimate legal constraints regarding such disclosures. Perhaps one way around that would be for a credible person—with unimpeachable character—to sally forth with unequivocal evidence that these tactics were used against them.
Don’t forget pornographer
Indeed, you are right. There probably are constraints to him humanising this filth. We live in the real world so “credible person-with unimpeachable character” may well be subjective and difficult to find. In any case, we will continue to support the fight against this overbearing and illegal shadowy organisation who continually breach our rights. I must say that it is surprising that all these exposures have not created the kind of outrage which it deserves. SMH.
Glenn, please, give us a human example of such a campaign. — TomCat
Just look what they are doing to Glenn. He’s a perfect example. Vilified, maligned, smeared, threatened, harassed, his house has been broken into his partner David’s laptop stolen, David himself being stopped, detained and questioned at Heathrow under Terrorism legislation, the Canadian government has called him a liar and a “porn spy”, we have been treated to every single detail of his personal life, the lawsuits over dogs, his defence of a Nazi, he outstanding student loans. Then there are the NSA water carriers such as Ohtarzie and Sibel Edmonds attacking him daily with their special state sauce of deranged, outré libels, even Naomi Wolf has had a kick at the can — the list just goes on and on.
And don’t miss the comments section, here, today.
You are right, Bill, but I suppose that we all know that they would muck rack and come up with something sexually based on all “dissidents.’ Luckily, we should be taking this with the pinch of salt that it deserves.
All of the above mentioned tactics to smear and criminalize have been used against me for almost 40 years, and they still are. Britain’s GCHQ and all the rest of the so-called Security Services in Britain and the USA are pure scum of the worst kind!
I know just spend 6 months of 2 years sentence for speaking out about the war and I am 70 years old so age does not matter
In understanding someone’s psychology we often ask the question, “what was their intention?” and here you can clearly see the intention behind these tactics were based on FEAR. In my humble opinion, emotions that arise within a human being come from either a place of LOVE or FEAR. LOVE being: positive emotions; good, joy, happy, generous, healthy, strong, kind, etc…FEAR being: negative emotions: hate, manipulate, destroy, distrust, nervous and so on…. Which ever one you consistently choose and apply in your daily practices; be it personal or business, molds your character and shapes your life or in this case your business, the NSA! When you no longer care about the good of “all” only “some” and you replace “we” with “me” you no longer are living by the rules that apply to everyone else. Therefore, ultimately rendering “game it” unjust. All the while, disregarding the constitution that sits right outside your office!!! (3 exclamation points because I mean it!)…
wow…how said.
I wrote a chirpstory detailing ALL of the harassment on Twitter I could find directed at Barrett Brown. Chirpstory deleted it within a few days after a complaint from one of the security firms and I was never able to get it restored.
I’ve told people about this & used to tweet the information, and no one really seemed to care about Barrett Brown at the time. But they sure as hell cared about shutting ME up.
So I hope that Glenn Greenwald or somebody else looking into these matters is willing to use this information. Barrett Brown had people trying to get the CARTEL after him, and they even doxed his ex-girlfriend in Spanish, directing cartel members to her house. There’s much more, please take the time to look if you can.
https://anonfiles.com/file/0ae4af5ca6c2e226c8b74ee1273a39ec
Having read some of the comments below and hearing the question: HOW TO AVOID BEING MANIPULATED, I wish to share some of what I know about that subject.
My personal experience is with my mom who was a master at it and began her regime when I was an infant. These are some rules I picked up along the way to defend myself.
1) Any and all information she knows will be used against you. (Avoid letting them know anything about you.)
2) When she objects to something, it is because what you have done is a threat to her — not because you have hurt anyone.
3) Always question things you have always assumed to be true — many of the things she taught me were lies and worse.
4) Never trust anyone who wants you to follow them blindly.
5) Anyone who acts disrespectful to someone else will also be disrespectful to you when that suits them. (Don’t trust anyone who slurs another person.)
6) Anyone trying to look perfect and beyond suspicion has something to hide.
Probably this is not a perfect list. But it works well for me with these spies that live among us in much the same way that it served to protect and heal me from the assaults I went through in my childhood.
I share them in the hope they may help someone AND in the hope of reducing the power of the spies even if it is just by a tiny amount.
Marry me, i need a woman like you.
Sage advice Denise.
My sister!
During a 5 year period with my last ISP I had 14,762 500 series errors. When I would inquire about it I was told that it was my problem, not theirs. They were right, I was too stupid to move on, now the numbers are creeping up again. I have been calling for the Democratic inducement and regulation of World Federalism at http://www.foundationcanada.ca Apparently it is a forbidden idea.
Oh, this is TOO good, Der-Spiegal in Germany has picked up this Greenwald story on the British GCHQ dirty tricks before any paper in Britain!
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/gchq-greenwal