Tag Archives: spying

There is Something Wrong With the Reality Winner (Real Name) Case

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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I cannot put my finger on it but I feel it, sense it. Actually, there’s nothing but wrong with this matter – from end to end.

Reality “Being White is Terrorism” Winner (Real Name) is charged in the Southern District of Georgia with leaking a classified NSA report on Russian election manipulation. Something everything smells in this case.

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“What, me leak???”

By the way, this is the face of the NSA (Ft. Gordon and beyond) – and Gen. Y – and crossfit…

Nothing I’ve read makes any sense (especially the “Murican comments here and there). This is either a false flag, a ruse, a diversion, or else the most pitiful spying/whistle-blowing case I’ve ever heard of.

Thanking God I’m not on the Federal Defender appointment short list anymore. Not buying anything, here. And not looking much further into it.

Readers, beware.

Nica: Cigars or Surveillance?

10 Monday Apr 2017

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I go ahead and call it: Nicaragua is the new Cuba – simply the best tasting cigars in the world (with some stiff competition from numerous countries).

Nica also has a long, sad history of civil strife, coupled with international meddling. The U.S. has been involved for decades as have the Russians. Now, the NZ Herald reports on new suspicions over a Russian facility outside Managua.

US officials are keeping a keen eye on a Russian complex nestled on the edge of a volcanic crater in Nicaragua.

The center, which is believed to be a satellite station, has been built near the Laguna de Nejapa in Managua – the capital of the Central American nation, according to Daily Mail.

The Washington Post reports the local government described the complex as, “simply a tracking site of the Russian version of a GPS satellite system”, but not everyone is convinced it isn’t something more sinister.

“Clearly there’s been a lot of activity, and it’s on the uptick now,” a US official and expert on Central America, told the newspaper.

Other officials said there are concerns the hub could be a “dual use” facility, meaning it could house equipment and workers with the ability to conduct electronic surveillance against American citizens.

From where the compound is located, it offers those who are based there a clear view of the US Embassy about 10 miles away in the heart of Managua.

I have no idea what is going on down there and, unless and until it disrupts the trade from Esteli or Jalapa, I don’t really care.

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Leave these folks to work. Smoke Shop Mag / Perdomo.

Nations spy on each other, tensions and reasons or not. That’s not my concern. My concern is earthy-flavored smokes. Let me make it clear to Washington and Moscow: leave my friends and sticks alone. Keep your braindead BS in Syria or Ukraine or anywhere else. Don’t make me come down there…

Lock Them Up!

24 Friday Mar 2017

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Bob Woodward seems to think someone from the Obama administration is (or should be) going to jail for various illegal activities related to the wiretapping of Trump Tower.

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward warned on Wednesday that there are people from the Obama administration who could be facing criminal charges for unmasking the names of Trump transition team members from surveillance of foreign officials.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said earlier that he had briefed Trump on new information, unrelated to an investigation into Russian activities, that suggested that several members of Trump’s transition team and perhaps Trump himself had their identities “unmasked” after their communications were intercepted by U.S. intelligence officials.

It’s too soon to tell if this might include Barry himself. If it does, then perhaps he can share a cell with John McCain.

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Have fun, boys.

Developing…

It’s Coming: High Level Domestic Spying Evidence

23 Thursday Mar 2017

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Nunes obviously saw something, some confirmation of Trump’s wiretapping allegations. We’ll likely see it soon.

Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.

Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretappedhim in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.

The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

The key to that conclusion is the unmasking of selected U.S. persons whose names appeared in the intelligence, the sources said, adding that the paper trail leaves no other plausible purpose for the unmasking other than to damage the incoming Trump administration.

This will (should) have extreme implications. Here again, unless the evidence is a video showing BHO, in coveralls with a wrench, physically hacking away in a Trump Tower utility room, then it won’t matter to some people. Then, there’s the fact that stuff like this happens to most Americans on a daily basis; most seem unconcerned. Worse, I just remembered that it’s March Madness, prime time for tall, jumping ball. Nearly no one will even notice anything at all…

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This is a sh!t-ton more important than what happens with “your” government! All Rookie.

TrumpNet: Just the Facts

19 Sunday Mar 2017

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And this isn’t even the information Trump has promised for the coming weeks:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Infowars.com have obtained credible information from law enforcement sources regarding individual records of U.S. citizens under National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance in the years 2004 through 2010 – a database that suggests both Donald J. Trump and Alex Jones were under illegal, unauthorized government monitoring during those years.

Michael Zullo, formerly the commander and chief investigator of the Cold Case Posse (CCP), a special investigative group created in 2006 in the office of Joseph M. Arpaio, formerly the sheriff in Maricopa County, an Arizona State Certified Law Enforcement Agency, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, provided sections of the database to Infowars.com.

The electronic surveillance database, provided to Zullo by a whistleblower in 2013, was apparently created by the NSA as part of the NSA’s illegal and unconstitutional Project Dragnet electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens, first revealed by news reports published in 2005, as further documented by the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Investigator Zullo have identified dozens of entries at various addresses, including both Trump Tower in New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, under which Donald Trump was apparently under NSA electronic surveillance from 2004, during President George W. Bush’s term of office, through 2009, the first year of President Obama’s presidency.

The government has the ability to intercept just about all electronic transmissions these days. And, largely, they do just that. What they do with the information depends on several factors, none of them grounded in the law of Anglo-American jurisprudence.

There was little doubt that Trump has spied on. The question was whether he was targeted for something else. If he was, then he is in a unique position now to extract retribution from those who surveilled him. If he wasn’t, then he still has a unique opportunity to address the constant mass spying against nearly all Americans – spying which people either knew about or should have known about 10 or even 20 years ago.

One would think this sort of thing would be taken seriously in the “Land of the Free”. Then again, a bunch of above-average height men in squeaky shoes are playing with balls right now on the TeeVee.

The people must prioritize.

Developing…

It’s Not Just the CIA Spying Everywhere

12 Sunday Mar 2017

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There’s nothing like a Big Box in bed with the police state.

Recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Best Buy’s Geek Squad, including evidence the agency trained company technicians on law-enforcement operational tactics, shared lists of targeted citizens and, to covertly increase surveillance of the public, encouraged searches of computers even when unrelated to a customer’s request for repairs.

To sidestep the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against warrantless invasions of private property, federal prosecutors and FBI officials have argued that Geek Squad employees accidentally find and report, for example, potential child pornography on customers’ computers without any prodding by the government. Assistant United States Attorney M. Anthony Brown last year labeled allegations of a hidden partnership as “wild speculation.” But more than a dozen summaries of FBI memoranda filed inside Orange County’s Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse this month in USA v. Mark Rettenmaier contradict the official line.

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But evidence demonstrates company employees routinely snooped for the agency, contemplated “writing a software program” specifically to aid the FBI in rifling through its customers’ computers without probable cause for any crime that had been committed, and were “under the direction and control of the FBI.”

A $500 incentive to rifle through customer files. No PC. No warrant. No suspicion of a crime. Probably no need to look at data files either in most cases.

Given the cash promised, and the abandonment of the Constitution and the rule of law, who’s to say Geek Squad didn’t plant some evidence where and when they couldn’t find it.

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US Backlash.

Under no circumstances should one take a device to these Stasi hacks. Probably best not to do business with Best Buy at all. The Big Box of Entrapment.

Secrets of the Secret Squirrels: Hacking, Tracking, Spying, Plotting, and Planning

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

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Wikileaks dropped a Daisy Cutter on U.S. Intelligence today with the release of “Vault 7” – thousands of documents on and from the CIA.

Read more at:

The Independent; and

The Mirror.

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Wiki / CIA.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER VAULT 7

The amount of material is vast. Here is some of Wiki’s analysis:

CIA malware targets iPhone, Android, smart TVs
CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA’s DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major directorates of the CIA (see this organizational chart of the CIA for more details).

The EDG is responsible for the development, testing and operational support of all backdoors, exploits, malicious payloads, trojans, viruses and any other kind of malware used by the CIA in its covert operations world-wide.

The increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell’s 1984, but “Weeping Angel”, developed by the CIA’s Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its most emblematic realization.

The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom’s MI5/BTSS. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a ‘Fake-Off’ mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In ‘Fake-Off’ mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.

This is worse than 1984 because it is real and because Orwell’s world didn’t have smartphones. Use of these devices guarantees some level (usually high) of tracking, prying, and manipulation. And this is what Wiki has disclosed upfront and what they know about. More and more consumer devices – from TVs to HVACs to garage remotes to security systems to refrigerators to watches – are connected and, thus, open to hacking. Wiki goes on:

As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks. The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.

Your smart, bescreened, talking, sensing, feeling, modern car with the touchscreen, navigation, wi-fi, Bluetooth, cameras, little birds flying around, and all that other garbage that has nothing to do with driving. All of it is vulnerable. And this is nothing new. Shortly after October 2014 I started sounding that alarm.

Actually none of this is new. People have been tapping in and spying since the days of the telegraph. The public was aware (or should have been aware) of the government’s massive, global electronic surveillance apparatus back in the 1990s. Technology has grown since then. The system has grown with it. Assume that any and all electronic browsing, communicating, or other work you do is being monitored and recorded. Odds are, it is.

The CIA has also:

  • Targeted all operating systems;
  • Exploited all known vulnerabilities;
  • Worked with the communications/electronics/computer industry to stay one step ahead of everything;
  • Weaponized everything;
  • Opened the weaponization to mass international proliferation (by nations, companies, and hackers);
  • Spied on just about everyone; and
  • Developed systems to evade most forensics and anti-malware programs.

Much of the recent news about this stuff has centered on the NSA and the FBI, dire and grim outfits to be sure. But the CIA is different. They collect information like no one else. And they act on it. Sometimes lethally. Usually clandestinely. And almost always with deniability or immunity. No one, even in Congress, knows exactly what they do nor how much money they spend. America’s secret police and perhaps her most dangerous agency.

Now, just as the FBI is the big domestic intel agency, the CIA is generally for foreign affairs. By law and operation they are not supposed to target Americans in America (outside the borders, you’re on your own). Not supposed to. Just like you were supposed to keep your doctor you liked under the ACA, with the low prices too. Saddam was supposed to have WMD. Income tax withholding is supposed to go away once Hitler surrenders. Supposed to. Got that?

Just for fun, Google “MK Ultra”. Loads of fun – and still bearing fruit.

Supposed to.

We’re also supposed to have a curious press and diligent academics to look into things like these leaks. Wiki actively encourages that:

WikiLeaks has intentionally not written up hundreds of impactful stories to encourage others to find them and so create expertise in the area for subsequent parts in the series. They’re there. Look. Those who demonstrate journalistic excellence may be considered for early access to future parts.

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There are very considerably more stories than there are journalists or academics who are in a position to write them.

So start digging and researching. You might get famous for it. You might also want to unplug the TV and remove it from the house.

Did Obama Break the Law by Surveilling Trump?

05 Sunday Mar 2017

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Evidence is mounting that Obama and his team bugged Trump Tower last year. If this turns out true and if the manner of the surveillance is as it appears, Team Obama is in for serious problems:

If the stories are correct, Obama or his officials might even face prosecution. But, we are still early in all of this and there are a lot of rumors flying around so the key is if the reports are accurate. We just don’t know at this time. The stories currently are three-fold: first, that Obama’s team tried to get a warrant from a regular, Article III federal court on Trump, and was told no by someone along the way (maybe the FBI), as the evidence was that weak or non-existent; second, Obama’s team then tried to circumvent the federal judiciary’s independent role by trying to mislabel the issue one of “foreign agents,” and tried to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “courts”, and were again turned down, when the court saw Trump named (an extremely rare act of FISA court refusal of the government, suggesting the evidence was truly non-existent against Trump); and so, third, Obama circumvented both the regular command of the FBI and the regularly appointed federal courts, by placing the entire case as a FISA case (and apparently under Sally Yates at DOJ) as a “foreign” case, and then omitted Trump’s name from a surveillance warrant submitted to the FISA court, which the FISA court unwittingly granted, which Obama then misused to spy on Trump and many connected to Trump. Are these allegations true? We don’t know yet, but if any part of them are than Obama and/or his officials could face serious trouble.

Is this true? Any of it? We’ll find out soon. FISA applications are almost always granted, with complete deference to the Executive branch (12 denials in over 35,000 applications). That the FBI or someone backed off a regular warrant suggests a lack of evidence. That FISA would reject a subsequent application is amazing. The issuance of a follow-up application suggests impropriety (as does this entire episode).

As I mentioned yesterday, a sitting President is one of the few who can obtain FISA records with any ease. And he’s working on it: “”A senior White House official said that Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s chief counsel, was working on Saturday to secure access to what the official described as a document issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing surveillance of Mr. Trump and his associates.”

If any of this is substantiated, then the “why” behind it, the motives, will be explored – likely as part of the criminal prosecution. Was it an attempt to sway the election? A fishing expedition on Trump? War with Russia related? Who knows?

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Stanford Center.

Here’s an interesting thought, one grounded in existing precedent: what if the alleged actions touch substantially on national security matters (the Russian war angle or terrorism or something related)? Would an attempt to steer the U.S. into harm’s way constitute action giving aid to an enemy? If so determined, then the responsible party(ies) could possible be labeled as “enemy combatants”, accordingly detained, and treated as such.

We may have entered uncharted territory. Developing…

The “Thin Reed” Of Russian Hacking

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

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There appears significant dissent to the CIA narrative on the Ruskie hack attack. Both the ODNI and the FBI have doubts about the CIA’s information.

The CIA conclusion was a “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the three officials said on Monday.

“(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added.

Republican Senator John McCain said on Monday there was “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the election.

“It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation,” he told Reuters.

Congress should investigate, especially if that keeps them from passing more laws. Better to sway the thin reeds of intelligence communication impasse than the thick trunks of legislation.

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Getty.

Maybe The Russians Are Not THEIR Friends

12 Monday Dec 2016

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The good news is that they have moved on from blaming everything on “Hitler” and suggesting that anyone they disagree with in the slightest is THE new incarnation of Der Fuhrer. At last count, 8,974,307 Hilters had been identified, the original not included.

It got old. So they moved on to the Russians. The Ruskies are behind everything, behind every bush, lamp post, and mailbox. Better watch out!

The two top Republicans in Congress offered strong support for the intelligence community Monday, in sharp contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s attack on the CIA after reports the agency found that the Russian government tried to help him win the presidency.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he had the “highest confidence” in the intelligence agencies, while House Speaker Paul Ryan praised them for “working diligently” to take on cyber threats from foreign governments. But both leaders also warned against using the issue for partisan gain or casting doubt on the outcome of the election.

McConnell singled out the Central Intelligence Agency for praise and said the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services panels will investigate findings by intelligence agencies that Russia hacked into e-mails and computers used in the presidential campaign.

“Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” McConnell told reporters. He added later, “The Russians are not our friends.”

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the CIA has told senators that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government was actively seeking to help Trump win the election — a step beyond an earlier finding that the goal was to undermine the credibility of the U.S. political process.

“Any intervention by Russia is especially problematic because, under President Putin, Russia has been an aggressor that consistently undermines American interests,” Ryan said in a statement Monday. “As we work to protect our democracy from foreign influence, we should not cast doubt on the clear and decisive outcome of this election.”

President Barack Obama explained his reasons for ordering a full review of the evidence of Russian hacking in an appearance to be aired Monday night on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.”

Russia has been the aggressor, got it. Russia invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan while supporting ISIS in Syria, playing puppet-master with Europe, Walling off Iran, and destabilizing half the rest of the planet. Got that. Russia also mandates Obamacare, collects your income taxes, allows the Fed to decimate the dollar, pollutes the Animas River, and decides the size of your toilet tank. Damn Ruskies… Thanks, Mitchy!

And Obama says his spoke on Comedy Central. At least he keeps the environment proper. Ryan and McConnell should have an SNL skit.

Look, governments spy on each other. I’m confident the Russians did at least pry into our election. We’ve been known to do that sort of thing too. And they may have had a vested interest. The other mainstream candidate is or was in league with the rest of the establishment to _____________ Russia (fill in the blank: anything from isolate to nuclear war).

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Even if their not OUR friends, they are certainly not our enemies. The losers in D.C. always need an enemy in order to stay relevant. Russia might work out for them. That’s good for D.C. and terrible for us.

What has Russia ever done to you? I, personally, can’t think of a single thing Putin or his people have done to me. Last I recall hearing, Putin was praising the American people and expressing his desire for peace and friendship. I actually believe him. I’m not sure I entirely trust the man – a politician, you know – but I do trust him more than the local rodentia in Washington.

During a debate this fall Hillary claimed 17 U.S. intel agencies had information that Russia was attempting to influence the election. (Why do we need 17 intel agencies?!) Maybe they did. Where’s the proof? What does it prove? Who benefits?

Obviously Clinton might have gained, if not for the landslide defeat. She and Jill Stein have been busy trying to suggest voting fraud in their recount efforts. What little has been uncovered has almost universally been from (not against) Hillary’s camp.

Still, they try to find something. You can’t blame a gal for trying. Today from out the back, hidden room at the #PizzaGate place, even John Podesta piped up.

“Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” he said. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”

That sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy theory, there, Johnny. Better tone it down or Twitter might suspect fake news. Oh, wait. Yeah…

And is that the same CIA that reported Saddam with the yellow cake and Bin Laden’s 2001-2 kidney failure and death? The same that just almost, kinda, sorta missed 9/11? The people training the “rebels” in Aleppo? Huh? Again, why 17 of these agencies? Why even one?

So, that’s what we have now: fake news, wasted money, wasted lives, conspiracy theories, desperate idiots and warmongers, incompetence, and Comedy Central skits. If the Russians were doing anything, maybe they were trying inject a little sanity. Hardly the act of an enemy, that.