(OT) The Conspiracy Theory Is True: Agents Infiltrate Websites Intending To "Manipulate, Deceive, And Destroy Reputations"

From Zero Hedge, summarizing the latest revelation from Edward Snowden by way of Glenn Greenwald(2/24/2014; emphasis is mine):

In the annals of internet conspiracy theories, none is more pervasive than the one speculating paid government plants infiltrate websites, social network sites, and comment sections with an intent to sow discord, troll, and generally manipulate, deceive and destroy reputations. Guess what: it was all true.

And this time we have a pretty slideshow of formerly confidential data prepared by the UK NSA equivalent, the GCHQ, to confirm it, and Edward Snowden to thank for disclosing it. The messenger in this case is Glenn Greenwald, who has released the data in an article in his new website, firstlook.org, which he summarizes as follows: "by publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself." Call it Stasi for "Generation Internet."

Greenwald's latest revelation focuses on GCHQ’s previously secret unit, the JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group).

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

For more and for pretty Powerpoint presentation, go to Zero Hedge.

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Quiet-Spoken 29-Year-Old Former CIA Technician Is the NSA Whistleblower

(UPDATE 6/10/2013) And he disappears. I hope it is his intention to disappear, not someone having him "disappear".

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"My name is Ed Snowden, I am 29 years old. I work for Booz Allen Hamilton as an infrastructure analyst for NSA in Hawaii."

Before that, he says he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Guardian has a video of the interview by Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill in Hong Kong, and part of the interview is written up as an article.

It is at Mr. Snowden's request that the paper is revealing his identity.

From The Guardian (6/9/2013; part):

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home again'

Source for the Guardian's NSA files on why he carried out the biggest intelligence leak in a generation – and what comes next

Ewen MacAskill

Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?

A: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

Q: Do you think what you have done is a crime?

A: "We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me. They have narrowed the public sphere of influence."

Q: What do you think is going to happen to you?

A: "Nothing good."

Q: What do the leaked documents reveal?

A: "That the NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America. I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinised most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians."

Q: Is it possible to put security in place to protect against state surveillance?

A: "You are not even aware of what is possible. The extent of their capabilities is horrifying. We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place."

(Interview video and full article at the link)

In another article about the interview, Mr. Snowden says:

"All my options are bad," he said. The US could begin extradition proceedings against him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and unpredictable course for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk him away for questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or he might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US territory.

"Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets," he said.

"We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."

Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."

He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become".

And this from Zero Hedge:

We would like to thank Snowden for putting a nail into the coffin of all those who use the term "conspiracy theorist" pejoratively. Because whatever his motives, whatever the outcome of this dramatic escalation between the people's right to know and a government intent on hijacking all civil liberties one by one, Snowden has showed that the distance from Conspiracy Theory to Conspiracy Fact is just one ethical judgment away.

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UK Guardian (Glenn Greenwald): NSA's "Boundless Informant" Tracks Global Surveillance Data, 97 Billion Pieces of Intelligence in One Month

Greenwald's scoop keeps going on and on...

From The Guardian (6/8/2013; part, emphasis is mine):

Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data

Revealed: The NSA's powerful tool for cataloguing data – including figures on US collection

Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill

The National Security Agency has developed a powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from, raising questions about its repeated assurances to Congress that it cannot keep track of all the surveillance it performs on American communications.

The Guardian has acquired top-secret documents about the NSA datamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.

The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message.

The Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. One document says it is designed to give NSA officials answers to questions like, "What type of coverage do we have on country X" in "near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals intelligence] infrastructure."

An NSA factsheet about the program, acquired by the Guardian, says: "The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country."

Under the heading "Sample use cases", the factsheet also states the tool shows information including: "How many records (and what type) are collected against a particular country."

A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in a top secret NSA "global heat map" seen by the Guardian, shows that in March 2013 the agency collected 97bn pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.

(Full article at the link)

The "heat map" shows NSA's keen interest in March 2013 in Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, and India.

Also from The Guardian/Greenwald, President Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks. I wonder if Chairman Xi had read that Friday June 7, 2013 article before he met with Obama.

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Glenn Greenwald: US Is Committed to Destroying Privacy Worldwide

(UPDATE) "Investigate" they will. "Shoot The PRISM-Gate Messenger: Obama To Launch Criminal Probe Into NSA Leaks", says Zero Hedge headline, with eyes on details like (emphasis is original):

Reuters reports that "President Barack Obama's administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents that revealed the secret surveillance of Americans' telephone and email traffic, U.S. officials said on Friday."

And how did Reuters learn this: from "law enforcement and security officials who were not authorized to speak publicly."

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I forgot to mention who wrote that Guardian article on the top-secret NSA program called PRISM. It is Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill.

Greenwald, who used to write for Salon.com, a progressive constitutional lawyer and strong advocate for civil liberty, appeared on the US news media and blasted the US government. He is also one of the few who continue to write about Bradley Manning and his treatment by the US government under the Obama administration.

From Politico (6/7/2013; part, emphasis is mine):

Glenn Greenwald: U.S. wants to destroy privacy worldwide

...“There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world,” charged Glenn Greenwald, a reporter for the British newspaper “The Guardian,” speaking on CNN. “That is not hyperbole. That is their objective.”

“So whatever the Justice Department wants to do, they can beat their chests all they want,” he said. “People like Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss can have press conferences threatening people for bringing … light to what it is they’re doing, but the only people who are going to be investigated are them. It’s well past time that these threats start to be treated with the contempt that they deserve. That’s certainly how I intend to treat them moving forward, with more investigation and disclosures.”

“The Obama administration has been very aggressive about bullying and threatening anybody who thinks about exposing it or writing it or even doing journalism about it, and it’s well past time that come to an end,” he said.

“What the Obama administration is doing in interpreting the PATRIOT Act is so warped and distorted and it vests themselves with such extremist surveillance powers over the United States and American citizens that Americans, in their words, would be stunned to learn what the Obama administration is doing,” he said on CNN’s “The Lead.”

Speaking with MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, Greenwald dared lawmakers to investigate how information about the Verizon phone records leaked, as Feinstein has said should happen.

“Let them go and investigate,” Greenwald said.

He added, “There is this massive surveillance state that the United States government has built up that has extraordinary implications for how we live as human beings on the earth and as Americans in our country, and we have the right to know what it is that that government and that agency is doing. I intend to continue to shine light on that, and Dianne Feinstein can beat her chest all she wants and call for investigations, and none of that is going to stop and none of it is going to change.”

(Full article at the link)

It looks Glenn Greenwald has declared his war.

Unlike other liberal/progressive commentators who almost completely stopped criticizing the federal government once their idol became the occupant of the White House, Greenwald has continued to criticize the government for what it does, regardless of who is at the (nominal) top.

Unlike Greenwald, New York Times folded in mere two and a half hours or so after they dare published an editorial condemning the Obama administration and President Obama. They "modified" it, they say.

The "communication companies" that have been aiding the NSA turn out to be (no surprise here) Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. In addition, NSA has been obtaining the records from credit card companies. No surprise there either, particularly the issuing companies are big Wall Street banks who were bailed out by the federal government at the expense of small people who were made to foot the bill.

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"Feminists" on TV in Full Support of TSA, Denounce Critics as "Terrorists"

In the incredible, ongoing TSA saga, I've been waiting to hear from two particular entities on the left side of the political spectrum: one is Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, a constitutional attorney who in the past never failed to defend the rights of individuals against the tyranny of the state; the other is the feminists.

Glenn Greenwald finally spoke out against two despicable writers at The Nation magazine, in the article titled "Anatomy of a journalistic smear".

And I finally heard from the other entity, feminists, or at least I think that what they want to pass themselves as such. Their view is fully expressed in the video clip below, which I found in the post by Thomas DiLorenzo at LRC Blog. This particular group of middle-aged women as you see in the clip below includes several who walked out of the TV set over the Muslim terrorist remark by Bill O'Reilly.

Do they defend women and men who suffered sexual abuse in the past and who refuse naked scanning and highly intrusive patdowns? Hell no.

Are they indignant that the TSA had a woman scanned and then patted down in the groin because she had a sanitary napkin on? Hell no.

Instead, they loudly pronounce people who refuse the scan and end up in the heavy patdown as terrorists! Why? In their feminine logic (oxymoron, I know), these people, by refusing the scan, are tying up the valuable TSA resource by forcing the TSA to individually pat them down, while some real terrorists may snuck by them unnoticed.

What's the big deal, they all say.

It is by far the most disgusting video I've seen so far on the topic.

If it is the Democratic government doing the molestation, particularly under the charming (to them at least) black president, it's all fine and dandy to them. This particular feminist lawyer who claims to fight "on behalf of victims whose rights have been violated" announced she thoroughly enjoyed the heavy patdown.

Do you see the message they are sending to the rest of us? If we are as sophisticated, educated as they are, we should be enjoying the sexual abuse. Just enjoy the occasion.

Much like we've been pushed to appreciate abstract paintings (now we know the CIA was behind the promotion), twelve-tone and atonal music ("because all notes are created equal"; and this was another CIA job), which to many unsophisticated people including myself look and sound like a crap.

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