(Still no attacks in France - wait - we still have till the end of January)
The pen will always be mightier
The pen will always be mightier
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Monday, December 9, 2013
Feel good post of the day
NSA And CIA Spied In 'World Of Warcraft' And Other Online Games. You think they were on European Servers too? Because Anders Breivik played WOW... So good job at stopping terrorism again 'Murica!
Japan parliament approves contentious secrets law - It's like, just what the people needed!
Thousands protest in Japan against new state secrets bill - Tss, they don't even agree with the politicians, what's up with that!
It's not all bad, this new pope ain't half bad, he's not even a Nazi!
Seriously though most I have heard come out this pope's mouth seems good, it's pretty amazing. It's like the Vatican got a PR firm and got told just how retarded they were for appointing that last one.
Talking about bad news, someone e-mailed to ask how I'm doing, and then casually commented on how he'd be "disappointed if he wasn't among the first to be rounded up for the camps when the big nasty happens" or something like that because he had a FB group that was sticking it to the man. I cussed him out, if you think it's normal to mention something that dark that casually, you need your head straightened. A little while before that happened, I left all conspiracy sites I was following, I was and am beyond fed up with the self-defeated loser talk, the random belief systems, the group (non-)think and the "conspiracy community" in general. Seriously, if you post something that features the line "in the presence of the esteemed Roseanne Bar" it's pretty much a red alert to all the intelligent people to run the fuck away from you. Enjoy waiting for that fictional future big nasty Alex Jones and co are getting rich of, I'll be living my life while you're doing that.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
As Europe Erupts Over US Spying, NSA Chief Says Government Must Stop Media
With General Alexander calling for NSA reporting to be halted, US and UK credibility as guardians of press freedom is crushed
The most under-discussed aspect of the NSA story has long been its international scope. That all changed this week as both Germany and France exploded with anger over new revelations about pervasive NSA surveillance on their population and democratically elected leaders.
NSA Director General Keith Alexander, earlier this month. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
As was true for Brazil previously, reports about surveillance aimed at leaders are receiving most of the media attention, but what really originally drove the story there were revelations that the NSA is bulk-spying on millions and millions of innocent citizens in all of those nations. The favorite cry of US government apologists -–everyone spies! – falls impotent in the face of this sort of ubiquitous, suspicionless spying that is the sole province of the US and its four English-speaking surveillance allies (the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
There are three points worth making about these latest developments.
• First, note how leaders such as Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted with basic indifference when it was revealed months ago that the NSA was bulk-spying on all German citizens, but suddenly found her indignation only when it turned out that she personally was also targeted. That reaction gives potent insight into the true mindset of many western leaders.
• Second, all of these governments keep saying how newsworthy these revelations are, how profound are the violations they expose, how happy they are to learn of all this, how devoted they are to reform. If that's true, why are they allowing the person who enabled all these disclosures – Edward Snowden – to be targeted for persecution by the US government for the "crime" of blowing the whistle on all of this?
If the German and French governments – and the German and French people – are so pleased to learn of how their privacy is being systematically assaulted by a foreign power over which they exert no influence, shouldn't they be offering asylum to the person who exposed it all, rather than ignoring or rejecting his pleas to have his basic political rights protected, and thus leaving him vulnerable to being imprisoned for decades by the US government?
Aside from the treaty obligations these nations have to protect the basic political rights of human beings from persecution, how can they simultaneously express outrage over these exposed invasions while turning their back on the person who risked his liberty and even life to bring them to light?
• Third, is there any doubt at all that the US government repeatedly tried to mislead the world when insisting that this system of suspicionless surveillance was motivated by an attempt to protect Americans from The Terrorists™? Our reporting has revealed spying on conferences designed to negotiate economic agreements, the Organization of American States, oil companies, ministries that oversee mines and energy resources, the democratically elected leaders of allied states, and entire populations in those states.
Can even President Obama and his most devoted loyalists continue to maintain, with a straight face, that this is all about Terrorism? That is what this superb new Foreign Affairs essay by Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore means when it argues that the Manning and Snowden leaks are putting an end to the ability of the US to use hypocrisy as a key weapon in its soft power.
Speaking of an inability to maintain claims with a straight face, how are American and British officials, in light of their conduct in all of this, going to maintain the pretense that they are defenders of press freedoms and are in a position to lecture and condemn others for violations? In what might be the most explicit hostility to such freedoms yet – as well as the most unmistakable evidence of rampant panic – the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted (Techdirt has the full video here):
The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden.There are 25,000 employees of the NSA (and many tens of thousands more who work for private contracts assigned to the agency). Maybe one of them can tell The General about this thing called "the first amendment".
"I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog.
"We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared. [My italics]
I'd love to know what ways, specifically, General Alexander has in mind for empowering the US government to "come up with a way of stopping" the journalism on this story. Whatever ways those might be, they are deeply hostile to the US constitution – obviously. What kind of person wants the government to forcibly shut down reporting by the press?
Whatever kind of person that is, he is not someone to be trusted in instituting and developing a massive bulk-spying system that operates in the dark. For that matter, nobody is.
© 2013 The Guardian
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Exclusive: Glenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization
Good news for journalism! The reporter who broke the NSA story promises “a momentous new venture.” A “very substantial new media outlet” with serious backing, he says.
“My partnership with The Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved,” Greenwald said in an emailed statement. “The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline.”
Greenwald said that because the news had leaked “before we were prepared to announce it, I’m not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture.” It will, he said, “be unveiled very shortly.”
A Guardian spokeswoman, Jennifer Lindenauer, also stressed that the writer and his news organization are parting on good terms — though she said The Guardian is “disappointed” to lose him.
“Glenn Greenwald is a remarkable journalist and it has been fantastic working with him,” Lindenauer said in an email. “Our work together over the last year has demonstrated the crucial role that responsible investigative journalism can play in holding those in power to account. We are of course disappointed by Glenn’s decision to move on, but can appreciate the attraction of the new role he has been offered. We wish him all the best.”
The Guardian, with a tradition of rigorous, crusading, liberal reporting and experience with two extremely sensitive international investigative stories — WikiLeaks and the News Corp. phone-tapping scandals — was in some ways a perfect home for Greenwald’s reporting, which in turn offered a huge boost to The Guardian’s American and global prestige.
But Greenwald never functioned as a typical employee of a news organization. He told BuzzFeed in August that he had not shared all of Snowden’s files with The Guardian, and that “only [filmmaker] Laura [Poitras] and I have access to the full set of documents which Snowden provided to journalists.” The Guardian, facing intense pressure from the British government, has continued to publish Snowden’s revelations at a deliberate pace in recent weeks; but Greenwald has moved more quickly on his own, publishing stories in Brazil and India. He said recently that he will also publish stories soon in Le Monde.
Greenwald declined to comment on the precise scale of the new venture or on its budget, but he said it would be “a very well-funded … very substantial new media outlet.” He said the source of funding will be public when the venture is officially announced.
Politico reported later Tuesday that a “philanthropist” would fund the venture. A spokesman for George Soros, perhaps the most famous philanthropist of the American left, ruled Soros out as the backer. “They have had no contact,” Soros spokesman Michael Vachon said of Greenwald.
“My role, aside from reporting and writing for it, is to create the entire journalism unit from the ground up by recruiting the journalists and editors who share the same journalistic ethos and shaping the whole thing — but especially the political journalism part — in the image of the journalism I respect most,” he said.
Greenwald will continue to live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he said, and would bring some staff to Rio, but the new organization’s main hubs will be New York City; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, he said.
The venture, which he said had “hired a fair number of people already,” will be “a general media outlet and news site — it’s going to have sports and entertainment and features. I’m working on the whole thing but the political journalism unit is my focus.”
Greenwald said he looked forward to creating a new organization with “no preexisting institutional strictures on what you can do.”
And he said his move is driven solely by the opportunity presented.
“When people hear what it is, there is almost no journalist who would say no to it,” he said.
Glenn Greenwald, the lawyer and blogger who brought The Guardian
the biggest scoop of the decade, is departing the London-based news
organization, for a brand-new, large-scale, broadly focused media
outlet, he told BuzzFeed Tuesday.
Greenwald, 46,
published revelations from former National Security Agency contractor
Edward Snowden about the extent of American and British domestic spying
and about officials’ deception about its scope. He said he is departing
for a new, “once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity” with major
financial backing, the details of which will be public soon.“My partnership with The Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved,” Greenwald said in an emailed statement. “The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline.”
Greenwald said that because the news had leaked “before we were prepared to announce it, I’m not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture.” It will, he said, “be unveiled very shortly.”
A Guardian spokeswoman, Jennifer Lindenauer, also stressed that the writer and his news organization are parting on good terms — though she said The Guardian is “disappointed” to lose him.
“Glenn Greenwald is a remarkable journalist and it has been fantastic working with him,” Lindenauer said in an email. “Our work together over the last year has demonstrated the crucial role that responsible investigative journalism can play in holding those in power to account. We are of course disappointed by Glenn’s decision to move on, but can appreciate the attraction of the new role he has been offered. We wish him all the best.”
The Guardian, with a tradition of rigorous, crusading, liberal reporting and experience with two extremely sensitive international investigative stories — WikiLeaks and the News Corp. phone-tapping scandals — was in some ways a perfect home for Greenwald’s reporting, which in turn offered a huge boost to The Guardian’s American and global prestige.
But Greenwald never functioned as a typical employee of a news organization. He told BuzzFeed in August that he had not shared all of Snowden’s files with The Guardian, and that “only [filmmaker] Laura [Poitras] and I have access to the full set of documents which Snowden provided to journalists.” The Guardian, facing intense pressure from the British government, has continued to publish Snowden’s revelations at a deliberate pace in recent weeks; but Greenwald has moved more quickly on his own, publishing stories in Brazil and India. He said recently that he will also publish stories soon in Le Monde.
Greenwald declined to comment on the precise scale of the new venture or on its budget, but he said it would be “a very well-funded … very substantial new media outlet.” He said the source of funding will be public when the venture is officially announced.
Politico reported later Tuesday that a “philanthropist” would fund the venture. A spokesman for George Soros, perhaps the most famous philanthropist of the American left, ruled Soros out as the backer. “They have had no contact,” Soros spokesman Michael Vachon said of Greenwald.
“My role, aside from reporting and writing for it, is to create the entire journalism unit from the ground up by recruiting the journalists and editors who share the same journalistic ethos and shaping the whole thing — but especially the political journalism part — in the image of the journalism I respect most,” he said.
Greenwald will continue to live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he said, and would bring some staff to Rio, but the new organization’s main hubs will be New York City; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, he said.
The venture, which he said had “hired a fair number of people already,” will be “a general media outlet and news site — it’s going to have sports and entertainment and features. I’m working on the whole thing but the political journalism unit is my focus.”
Greenwald said he looked forward to creating a new organization with “no preexisting institutional strictures on what you can do.”
And he said his move is driven solely by the opportunity presented.
“When people hear what it is, there is almost no journalist who would say no to it,” he said.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Anonymous no more: Twitter engineer, UConn security analyst among 13 indicted for 'Operation Payback'
from the comments:
"They also accuse him of illegally accessing computer systems of at least one of the targets."
That’s the pot calling the kettle black.
How about throwing some names of NSA employees around and shaming those spineless fucks instead? And Timothy Leary on a pogo stick, there are some retarded willing-slaves in those comments too though. How can people be this fucking complacent and stupid. If someone called Edward Snowden a traitor in my presence I would have to introduce them to the floor.
NSA data center 'meltdowns' force year-long delay
Chronic electrical surges at the massive new data-storage facility central to the National Security Agency's spying operation have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery and delayed the center's opening for a year, according to project documents and current and former officials.
There have been 10 meltdowns in the past 13 months that have prevented the NSA from using computers at its new Utah data-storage center, slated to be the spy agency's largest, according to project documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Ok magickal discordians, whoever of you is doing this, keep at it :p
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Age of Unreason - The governments of Britain, Canada and Australia are trying to stamp out scientific dissent.
The governments of Britain, Canada and Australia are trying to stamp out scientific dissent.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 1st Ooctober 2013
It’s as clear and chilling a statement of intent as you’re likely to read. Scientists should be “the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.”(1) Vladimir Putin? Kim Jong-un? No, Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser at the UK’s department for environment.
Boyd’s doctrine is a neat distillation of government policy in Britain, Canada and Australia. These governments have suppressed or misrepresented inconvenient findings on climate change, pollution, pesticides, fisheries and wildlife. They have shut down programmes which produce unwelcome findings and sought to muzzle scientists. This is a modern version of Soviet Lysenkoism: crushing academic dissent on behalf of bad science and corporate power(2).
Writing in an online journal, Boyd argued that if scientists speak freely, they create conflict between themselves and policy-makers, leading to a “chronically deep-seated mistrust of scientists that can undermine the delicate foundation upon which science builds relevance”(3). This, in turn, “could set back the cause of science in government”. So they should avoid “suggesting that policies are either right or wrong”. If they must speak out, they should do so through “embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.”
Shut up, speak through me, don’t dissent, or your behaviour will ensure that science becomes irrelevant. Note that the conflicts between science and policy are caused by scientists, rather than by politicians ignoring or abusing the evidence. Or by chief scientific advisers.
In an online question and answer session hosted by his department, Professor Boyd maintained that 50% of tuberculosis infections among cattle herds are caused by badgers(4). He repeated the claim in an official document called “Science to inform TB Policy”(5). But as the analyst Jamie McMillan points out, the figure has been sexed up from inadequate data(6). Like the 45-minute claim in the Iraq debate, it is “spurious, simple to take on board, and crucial in convincing Parliament.”
The badger cull as a whole defies the findings of the £49m study the previous government commissioned. It has been thoroughly dissected by the leading scientists in the field, which might explain why Boyd is so keen to shut them up(7,8). It’s one of many ways in which his department has binned the evidence in setting its policies.
On Sunday, Boyd’s boss, Owen Paterson, told the Conservative party conference not to worry about global warming. “I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries.”(9) A few weeks ago on Any Questions, he managed to repeat ten discredited claims about climate change in one short contribution(10).
His department repeatedly misrepresents science to appease industrial lobbyists. It claimed that its field trials of neonicotinoid pesticides on bees showed that “effects on bees do not occur under normal circumstances”(11). Hopelessly contaminated, the study was in fact worthless, which is why it was not submitted to a peer-reviewed journal(12).
Similar distortions surround the department’s refusal to establish meaningful marine reserves(13), its attempt to cull buzzards on behalf of pheasant shoots(14,15) and its determination to allow farmers to start dredging streams again, turning them into featureless gutters(16).
There’s one consolation: Ian Boyd, in his efforts to establish a tinpot dictatorship, has not yet achieved the control enjoyed by his counterparts in Canada. There, scientists with government grants working on any issue that could affect industrial interests – tar sands, climate change, mining, sewage, salmon farms, water trading – are forbidden to speak freely to the public(17,18,19). They are shadowed by government minders and, when they must present their findings, given scripts to memorise and recite(20). Dozens of turbulent research programmes and institutes have either been cut to the bone or closed altogether(21).
In Australia, the new government has chosen not to appoint a science minister(22). Tony Abbott, who once described manmade climate change as “absolute crap”(23), has already shut down the government’s Climate Commission and Climate Change Authority(24). But at least Australians are fighting back: the Climate Commission has been reconvened as an NGO, funded by donations(25). Here, we allowed the government to shut down the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Sustainable Development Commission with scarcely a groan of protest(26).
Cameron’s government claimed that the tiny savings it made were required to reduce the deficit. Yet somehow it manages to fund a lavish range of planet-wrecking programmes. The latest is the “Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil and Gas” just launched by the Natural Environment Research Council(27). Its aim is “to support the oil and gas sector” by providing “focused training” in fracking, in exploiting tar deposits and in searching for oil in polar regions. In other words, it is subsidising fossil fuel companies while promoting climate change. How many people believe this is a good use of public money?
To be reasonable, when a government is manipulating and misrepresenting scientific findings, is to dissent. To be reasonable, when it is helping to destroy human life and the natural world, is to dissent. As Julien Benda argued in La Trahison des Clercs, democracy and civilisation depend on intellectuals resisting conformity and power(28).
A world in which scientists speak only through their minders and in which dissent is considered the antithesis of reason is a world shorn of meaningful democratic choices. You can judge a government by its treatment of inconvenient facts and the people who expose them. This one does not emerge well.
Source (with the footnotes)
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 1st Ooctober 2013
It’s as clear and chilling a statement of intent as you’re likely to read. Scientists should be “the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.”(1) Vladimir Putin? Kim Jong-un? No, Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser at the UK’s department for environment.
Boyd’s doctrine is a neat distillation of government policy in Britain, Canada and Australia. These governments have suppressed or misrepresented inconvenient findings on climate change, pollution, pesticides, fisheries and wildlife. They have shut down programmes which produce unwelcome findings and sought to muzzle scientists. This is a modern version of Soviet Lysenkoism: crushing academic dissent on behalf of bad science and corporate power(2).
Writing in an online journal, Boyd argued that if scientists speak freely, they create conflict between themselves and policy-makers, leading to a “chronically deep-seated mistrust of scientists that can undermine the delicate foundation upon which science builds relevance”(3). This, in turn, “could set back the cause of science in government”. So they should avoid “suggesting that policies are either right or wrong”. If they must speak out, they should do so through “embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.”
Shut up, speak through me, don’t dissent, or your behaviour will ensure that science becomes irrelevant. Note that the conflicts between science and policy are caused by scientists, rather than by politicians ignoring or abusing the evidence. Or by chief scientific advisers.
In an online question and answer session hosted by his department, Professor Boyd maintained that 50% of tuberculosis infections among cattle herds are caused by badgers(4). He repeated the claim in an official document called “Science to inform TB Policy”(5). But as the analyst Jamie McMillan points out, the figure has been sexed up from inadequate data(6). Like the 45-minute claim in the Iraq debate, it is “spurious, simple to take on board, and crucial in convincing Parliament.”
The badger cull as a whole defies the findings of the £49m study the previous government commissioned. It has been thoroughly dissected by the leading scientists in the field, which might explain why Boyd is so keen to shut them up(7,8). It’s one of many ways in which his department has binned the evidence in setting its policies.
On Sunday, Boyd’s boss, Owen Paterson, told the Conservative party conference not to worry about global warming. “I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries.”(9) A few weeks ago on Any Questions, he managed to repeat ten discredited claims about climate change in one short contribution(10).
His department repeatedly misrepresents science to appease industrial lobbyists. It claimed that its field trials of neonicotinoid pesticides on bees showed that “effects on bees do not occur under normal circumstances”(11). Hopelessly contaminated, the study was in fact worthless, which is why it was not submitted to a peer-reviewed journal(12).
Similar distortions surround the department’s refusal to establish meaningful marine reserves(13), its attempt to cull buzzards on behalf of pheasant shoots(14,15) and its determination to allow farmers to start dredging streams again, turning them into featureless gutters(16).
There’s one consolation: Ian Boyd, in his efforts to establish a tinpot dictatorship, has not yet achieved the control enjoyed by his counterparts in Canada. There, scientists with government grants working on any issue that could affect industrial interests – tar sands, climate change, mining, sewage, salmon farms, water trading – are forbidden to speak freely to the public(17,18,19). They are shadowed by government minders and, when they must present their findings, given scripts to memorise and recite(20). Dozens of turbulent research programmes and institutes have either been cut to the bone or closed altogether(21).
In Australia, the new government has chosen not to appoint a science minister(22). Tony Abbott, who once described manmade climate change as “absolute crap”(23), has already shut down the government’s Climate Commission and Climate Change Authority(24). But at least Australians are fighting back: the Climate Commission has been reconvened as an NGO, funded by donations(25). Here, we allowed the government to shut down the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Sustainable Development Commission with scarcely a groan of protest(26).
Cameron’s government claimed that the tiny savings it made were required to reduce the deficit. Yet somehow it manages to fund a lavish range of planet-wrecking programmes. The latest is the “Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil and Gas” just launched by the Natural Environment Research Council(27). Its aim is “to support the oil and gas sector” by providing “focused training” in fracking, in exploiting tar deposits and in searching for oil in polar regions. In other words, it is subsidising fossil fuel companies while promoting climate change. How many people believe this is a good use of public money?
To be reasonable, when a government is manipulating and misrepresenting scientific findings, is to dissent. To be reasonable, when it is helping to destroy human life and the natural world, is to dissent. As Julien Benda argued in La Trahison des Clercs, democracy and civilisation depend on intellectuals resisting conformity and power(28).
A world in which scientists speak only through their minders and in which dissent is considered the antithesis of reason is a world shorn of meaningful democratic choices. You can judge a government by its treatment of inconvenient facts and the people who expose them. This one does not emerge well.
Source (with the footnotes)
Saturday, September 28, 2013
You don't say? NSA abuse of power
Twelve cases of unauthorised surveillance documented in letter from NSA's inspector general to senator Chuck Grassley
From Reddit comments: So twelve dudes were found to use their power for personal relationship reasons. How many used it it in more shady, money making, insider trading, business spying, infinitely more profitable ways and did not get caught because they were infinitely smarter about it?
Or blackmailing/controlling members of Congress, Supreme Court, generals, journalists, lawyers...
The "first" NSA whistleblower, Russ Tice. In three interviews this year (two in June and July with Peter B. Collins, and one in June with James Corbett) Russ Tice expands on his previous testimony and names some of the people whom he alleges NSA were targeting for surveillance, including senior Congressional leaders, the former White House Press Secretary, Senate Intelligence Chair Dianne Feinstein, General Petraeus, Supreme Court Justice Alito, Obama since at least 2004...
Tice received national attention as the first NSA-whistleblower in May 2005 before William Binney, Thomas Andrews Drake, Mark Klein, Thomas Tamm, and Edward Snowden came forward.
"Nobody is listening to your phone calls."
Candidate Obama VS President Obama:
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Spying on innocent people would be wrong
From Brian Bolland's An Innocent Man (featured in Alan Moore's Killing Joke's Deluxe Version - Published in 1988) (Thanks to Rob for correcting, it's not from Year One!)
Brazilian president: US surveillance a 'breach of international law'
Dilma Rousseff's scathing speech to UN general assembly the most serious diplomatic fallout over revelations of US spying
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff speaks at the United Nations general assembly. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, has launched a blistering attack on US espionage at the UN general assembly, accusing the NSA of violating international law by its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeted on the country's strategic industries.
Rousseff's angry speech was a direct challenge to President Barack Obama, who was waiting in the wings to deliver his own address to the UN general assembly, and represented the most serious diplomatic fallout to date from the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Rousseff had already put off a planned visit to Washington in protest at US spying, after NSA documents leaked by Snowden revealed that the US electronic eavesdropping agency had monitored the Brazilian president's phone calls, as well as Brazilian embassies and spied on the state oil corporation, Petrobras.
"Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information – often of high economic and even strategic value – was at the centre of espionage activity.
"Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the permanent mission to the UN and the office of the president of the republic itself, had their communications intercepted," Rousseff said, in a global rallying cry against what she portrayed as the overweening power of the US security apparatus.
"Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront of the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country."
Washington's efforts to smooth over Brazilian outrage over NSA espionage have so far been rebuffed by Rousseff, who has proposed that Brazil build its own internet infrastructure.
"Friendly governments and societies that seek to build a true strategic partnership, as in our case, cannot allow recurring illegal actions to take place as if they were normal. They are unacceptable," she said.
"The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained. Brazil, Mr President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbour terrorist groups," Rousseff said.
"As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country," the Brazilian president said. She was imprisoned and tortured for her role in a guerilla movement opposed to Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s.
"In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations."
Rousseff called on the UN oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet. She said such multilateral mechanisms should guarantee the "freedom of expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights" and the "neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes.
"The time is ripe to create the conditions to prevent cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war, through espionage, sabotage and attacks against systems and infrastructure of other countries," the Brazilian president said.
As host to the UN headquarters, the US has been attacked from the general assembly many times in the past, but what made Rousseff's denunciation all the more painful diplomatically was the fact that it was delivered on behalf of large, increasingly powerful and historically friendly state.
Obama, who followed Rousseff to the UN podium, acknowledged international alarm at the scale of NSA snooping revealed by Snowden. He said: "Just as we reviewed how we deploy our extraordinary military capabilities in a way that lives up to our ideals, we have begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so as to properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies, with the privacy concerns that all people share."
Brazilian officials said that Washington had told them about this review but had noted that its results would not be known for months and that Rousseff believed it was urgent to raise the need for an
international code of ethics for electronic espionage.
Rousseff will leave New York tomorrow without meeting Obama but Brazil's new foreign minister, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, will remain at the UN throughout the week and will meet his opposite number, John Kerry, Brazilian officials said, in an attempt to start mending the rift between the two countries.
Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, has launched a blistering attack on US espionage at the UN general assembly, accusing the NSA of violating international law by its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeted on the country's strategic industries.
Rousseff's angry speech was a direct challenge to President Barack Obama, who was waiting in the wings to deliver his own address to the UN general assembly, and represented the most serious diplomatic fallout to date from the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Rousseff had already put off a planned visit to Washington in protest at US spying, after NSA documents leaked by Snowden revealed that the US electronic eavesdropping agency had monitored the Brazilian president's phone calls, as well as Brazilian embassies and spied on the state oil corporation, Petrobras.
"Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information – often of high economic and even strategic value – was at the centre of espionage activity.
"Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the permanent mission to the UN and the office of the president of the republic itself, had their communications intercepted," Rousseff said, in a global rallying cry against what she portrayed as the overweening power of the US security apparatus.
"Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront of the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country."
Washington's efforts to smooth over Brazilian outrage over NSA espionage have so far been rebuffed by Rousseff, who has proposed that Brazil build its own internet infrastructure.
"Friendly governments and societies that seek to build a true strategic partnership, as in our case, cannot allow recurring illegal actions to take place as if they were normal. They are unacceptable," she said.
"The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained. Brazil, Mr President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbour terrorist groups," Rousseff said.
"As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country," the Brazilian president said. She was imprisoned and tortured for her role in a guerilla movement opposed to Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s.
"In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations."
Rousseff called on the UN oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet. She said such multilateral mechanisms should guarantee the "freedom of expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights" and the "neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes.
"The time is ripe to create the conditions to prevent cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war, through espionage, sabotage and attacks against systems and infrastructure of other countries," the Brazilian president said.
As host to the UN headquarters, the US has been attacked from the general assembly many times in the past, but what made Rousseff's denunciation all the more painful diplomatically was the fact that it was delivered on behalf of large, increasingly powerful and historically friendly state.
Obama, who followed Rousseff to the UN podium, acknowledged international alarm at the scale of NSA snooping revealed by Snowden. He said: "Just as we reviewed how we deploy our extraordinary military capabilities in a way that lives up to our ideals, we have begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so as to properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies, with the privacy concerns that all people share."
Brazilian officials said that Washington had told them about this review but had noted that its results would not be known for months and that Rousseff believed it was urgent to raise the need for an
international code of ethics for electronic espionage.
Rousseff will leave New York tomorrow without meeting Obama but Brazil's new foreign minister, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, will remain at the UN throughout the week and will meet his opposite number, John Kerry, Brazilian officials said, in an attempt to start mending the rift between the two countries.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Golden Dawn member opened fire during an anti-fascist gathering today in Athens. He fired 10 shots but didn't hit anyone, he was beaten and then protected by the police. Then the police began to attack the protestors
Greece is fucked up right now. Either this is a stupid undercover cop or the police is protecting an idiot with a gun from vigilante justice. Btw the fascist Golden Dawn is not to be confused with Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (whew!).
Friday, September 20, 2013
Aaron Alexis and the Dark Side of Meditation (LET'S IGNORE HE WAS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS) by Maia Szalavitz, sensationalist excuse for a journalist
It's not a horrible article but it is a really stupid fucking retarded title, which should be obvious enough but will be illustrated by this post. Excerpt of the article:
How does someone who engages in meditation, which is supposed to focus the mind, and is often associated with efforts to diffuse violence, rather than instigate it, perform the acts that Alexis is accused of executing? Alexis had a record of violent crime and, his father told the Wall Street Journal that his son had anger issues related to post-traumatic stress from participating in rescue efforts during the 9/11 attacks. A former boss, who met Alexis at a Buddhist temple in the Fort Worth, Tex. area, said Alexis was also a heavy drinker who came to chanting and meditation sessions regularly.
At worst, most people see meditation as flaky, boring, self-involved or harmless. But as research starts to document how it can help to fight stress, high blood pressure, addictions and many other mental and physical disorders, it’s also becoming clear that meditating isn’t always so benign — particularly if it’s used against a background of existing mental illness.
As TIME reported recently:
People with depression or past experiences of trauma, for example, may find themselves feeling increasingly anxious during meditation, no matter how much they try to focus on the moment. Or they may be plagued by intrusive thoughts, feelings and images of the past during their mindfulness exercises.
That’s why [University of Washington researcher Sarah] Bowen suggests that people with depression or trauma issues who want to benefit from meditation should try it with expert guidance. “If you get stuck in ruts like rumination, there are ways to work with that,” she says, “It’s important to have teachers who are very familiar with meditation to guide you as you are learning.” Experts can let people know what to expect and offer emotional support to help them through rough patches.
"Honestly, this journalist is using this as a chance to get more page clicks on a story she wrote earlier in August. I work with some people who have done clinical work and clinical trials of mindfulness to treat mental illness, and what this journalist is saying is generally accurate.
From my understanding, some people can get really stuck in their own ruminative or distorted thoughts, and it takes really expert teachers to help them through that. If they have really serious mental illness/trauma or addiction, it could be a really bad idea to try meditation without guidance of an experienced teacher.
But what's irresponsible (beyond this article being mostly click-bait) is that the journalist is merely speculating more about "we don't know what this guy's practice was" or what his mental condition was or really anything else.
So, in fact, he could have been part of an MBSR group with an expert teacher, or been trying to do TM so he could levitate. Who knows. And that speculation is really inflammatory."
and
"It doesn't shock me to find He meditated. People who suffer are attracted to Buddhism (and meditation, and any spiritual path for that matter). Its never a surprise to me to find out someone with spiritual practices has suffered greatly.. In fact, its the opposite, I'm surprised to find people with a practice who haven't suffered. I feel bad for him that he wasn't able to get from his practice what he needed."
and
"Check out the title of the article man, i dont care if they specify some
things deeper in the article. They dont even mention the use of
antidepressive drugs he was taking."
and
"Mentally ill people are more likely to be on psychiatric drugs --> Mentally ill people are more likely to commit mass murder --> Mass murderers are more likely to be on psychiatric drugs."
Ok, but I haven't heard of much mass shootings were the killer was mentally ill but was NOT on antidepressive drugs. How come whenever something like this happens the killer is on antidepressants, how come this is either being kept silent or mentioned as a side note in the media (Money), how come this journalist has the nerve to use meditation in the title instead of antidepressants or mental illness (Sensationalism). Journalism is dead, sensationalism and the pharmaceutical companies are alive and well.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
NSA, Belgium is coming for you! (lol)
This weekend, Belgian telecom provider Belgacom
unvealed to have found 'traces of digital intrusion its internal IT
system'. Insiders confirm the involvement of American security agency
NSA.
ENGINEERINGNET.EU – This weekend internet and
telephone services provider Belgacom in Belgium revealed to have found
traces of a digital intrusion in its internal IT system. Belgacom is a
public company, of which the majority of shares is owned by the Belgian
state.
The company claims to have taken all appropriate actions to protect the integrity of its IT system and to further reinforce the prevention against possible incidents.
The newspaper 'De Standaard' however cites anonymous but reliable sources confirming that the National Security Agency was already monitoring all Belgacom international telephone traffic 'during at least two years'.
Belgacom has filed a complaint against an unknown third party and 'is granting its full support to the investigation that is being performed by the Federal Prosecutor'.
As to the perpetrators and their motives, the company states 'it is up to the Federal Prosecutor’s investigation to bring clarity on this'.
In the meantime the Belgian prime minister Elio Di Rupo also condemned the hack in an official press release, stating: "The Government takes notice that the technology used would indicate the high level involvement of another country."
"If this hypothesis is confirmed and the intrusion is indeed of a case of so-called cyber espionage, the government strongly condemns this intrusion and this breach of the integrity of the public company."
"In that case, the government will take the appropriate steps."
The company claims to have taken all appropriate actions to protect the integrity of its IT system and to further reinforce the prevention against possible incidents.
The newspaper 'De Standaard' however cites anonymous but reliable sources confirming that the National Security Agency was already monitoring all Belgacom international telephone traffic 'during at least two years'.
Belgacom has filed a complaint against an unknown third party and 'is granting its full support to the investigation that is being performed by the Federal Prosecutor'.
As to the perpetrators and their motives, the company states 'it is up to the Federal Prosecutor’s investigation to bring clarity on this'.
In the meantime the Belgian prime minister Elio Di Rupo also condemned the hack in an official press release, stating: "The Government takes notice that the technology used would indicate the high level involvement of another country."
"If this hypothesis is confirmed and the intrusion is indeed of a case of so-called cyber espionage, the government strongly condemns this intrusion and this breach of the integrity of the public company."
"In that case, the government will take the appropriate steps."
The hack takes an extra dimension as Brussels, the capital of Belgium, hosts the official seats of the European Commission and the European Parliament, but also the NATO headquarters and many lobby organizations. << (BB) (photo: European Commission, prime minister Elio De Rupo)
STEPS bitch! IN YO FACE!
YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!
Man I'm so glad they cut out Di Rupo's trademark bowtie from that picture.
I've been employed by Belgacom twice btw.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Aggro monkey
(Aggro monkey is a MMORPG term for a player who blindly attacks all in sight drawing aggro to himself and his party members :p)
Monday, July 22, 2013
Viva la republique
Belgium got a new king, zippedeedooda. No semblance of any objective media the weeks leading up to it, what a show. Like it's still the medieval ages. The comments on the online papers articles though were gloriously around 90% negative but no mention in the news of any of that. At least they will be costing us slightly less money but the amount they cost us is still ridiculous. The day of the coronation, the Belgian national holiday, there was a top 100 of Belgian songs on the radio and after it was finished the first other song on the radio was Rockwell's Somebody's watching me, the NSA theme song lol.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Protests around the World
Turkey - Protests because they don't want a mall instead of a park and against the police brutality
How Turkish Protestors deal with Tear Gas
Turkey Police Brutality
Tayyip Erdogan, Monster of a Turkish Prime Minister, hopefully not for long anymore
Brasil protests against higher public transportation prices and that so much money is going to World Cup infrastructure when so many people are suffering
Syrian Civil War - still ongoing due to a lax international community and Russia's ridiculous stance, Syria is now completely cut off from the Internet.
In Syria things are getting way out of hand, Belgian immigrant youths are going to the country to fight, they have been overheard in a video speaking dutch saying it doesn't matter wether they use kalashnikovs or knives and targetting specific ethnic and religious groups of the population.
Both sides of the conflict have committed unspeakable atrocities.
Meanwhile in Belfast, empty shop windows are being camouflaged with huge Stickers showing merchandise so it seems they are open while the G8 meeting is in town.
Didn't you corrupt and inept motherfuckers get a bailout from the people's money?
NSA Scandal in the US
unbelievably no protests on the streets in the US, although lots of people are voicing their disapproval on the internet...
And meanwhile in Iraq...
What a world, how many centuries to go before governments are not run by insane powermongers?
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Hacker Faces More Jail Time Than The Convicted Steubenville Rapists He Exposed
A 26-year-old farm dweller who helped expose the rape of a teenage girl is facing
up to 5x more jail time than the high school football members who
publicly assaulted the girl. The Steubenville rape case became a national firestorm
after it was revealed that dozens of people had witnessed the assault
at a party and then shared pictures and social media updates of the
event mocking the girl.
Angered that a small town was turning their back on justice, several
hacktivist groups got involved, including Deric Lostutter, who helped
post a video on the football team’s website outing the assailants and
bringing national attention to their crimes.
“If convicted of hacking-related crimes, Lostutter could face up to
10 years behind bars—far more than the one- and two-year sentences doled
out to the Steubenville rapists,” reports Mother Jones, in an exclusive interview with Lostutter.
The first-time digital activist claims he never hacked the page, but
was the masked man in the video. His relatively light touch reportedly
didn’t stop the FBI from treating him like a world-class terrorist. “As I
open the door to greet the driver, approximately 12 FBI SWAT team
agents jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to ‘Get the fuck down!’
with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed
directly at my head,” Lostutter recalls on his own blog.
The excessive force and even worse penalty highlights why many are
calling for a reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFA), which
treats principled hacking on par with the worst federal crimes. The CFA
came to national attention last year after respected Internet prodigy,
Aaron Swartz, committed suicide after harsh prosecutors threatened him
with 50+ years in prison for freeing academic articles from a paywalled
database.
“We should prevent what happened to Aaron from happening to other Internet users,” wrote Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (CrunchGov Grade: A) about her (failed) “Aaron’s Law” bill.
While the hacker did violate the law, they are the newest evolution
in the beloved American tradition of civil disobedience. “It was
everything that I’d ever preached, and now there’s this group of people
getting off the couch and doing something about it. I wanted to be part
of the movement,” recalls Lostutter, of the Hacktivist mission-statement
videos that inspired him to get involved.
Like many first-time activists before him, he seems like a typical
American, not a thrill-seeking vigilante. “A 26-year-old corporate
cybersecurity consultant, Lostutter lives on a farm with his pit bull,
Thor, and hunts turkeys, goes fishing, and rides motorcycles in his free
time. He considers himself to be a patriotic American; he flies an
American flag and enjoys Bud Light,” writes Josh Harkinson of Mother
Jones.
U.S. law needs to be to be updated to reflect the values of the free
flow of information. Even though the acts were illegal, it’s hard to see
what Lostutter did was wrong. It’s a shame the courts could sentence
him with a punishment that treats his activism as worse than sexual
assault.
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