Doubling Down on Insider Threats

A Senate commitee approved the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act during a closed door session on Tuesday, a bill that if signed into law will allow the US National Security Agency and other departments to keep receiving funding amid an international scandal that has caused calls for reform and even abolishment of the NSA both in the US and abroad in recent months.

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Next, the full chamber will weigh in on the matter before it is reconciled with a sister act by way of the House of Representatives and sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

[...]

The bill, the committee wrote, “includes important provisions to enhance the conduct, accountability and oversight of the intelligence activities of the United States,” such as one intended “to protect against insider threats by adding necessary funds to deploy information technology detection systems across the intelligence community.”

The bill would also empower the Director of National Intelligence to “improve the government’s process to investigate . . . individuals with security clearances to access classified information,” while at same time “Instituting new statutory protections that protect the ability of legitimate whistleblowers to bring concerns directly to the attention of lawmakers, inspectors general and intelligence community leaders.”

  RT

Because THAT has worked so well for past whistleblowers. Protect their ability to bring concerns? Those we have heard about were all able to bring concerns, and they were all told to go away and mind their own business.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Peace Is Not Good Business

As reported on RT, Pakistan has accused the US of sabotaging peace talks between the authorities in Islamabad and the Taliban following last Friday’s drone assassination of the Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

“The murder of Hakimullah is the murder of all efforts at peace," Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisa said. "Brick by brick, in the last seven weeks, we tried to evolve a process by which we could bring peace to Pakistan and what have you [the US] done?"

The killing of Hakimullah Mehsud comes less than a month after the US effectively wrecked the Afghan government’s efforts to engage with the Taliban by capturing Latif Mehsud, Hakimullah’s lieutenant. Latif Mehsud was the man that the Afghan government hoped would be a go-between for peace talks with the Taliban. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was reported to have been furious about the US operation.

  RT

Not exactly a first.

Ha

Who Are You Going to Believe? Me Or Your Lying Eyes (& Ears)?

Despite more than two-dozen video recordings showing otherwise, President Obama said that he never promised Americans they’d be able to keep their health care plans under the Affordable Care Act.

Speaking to supporters in Washington on Monday, Obama claimed that in the past, he said, “You could keep [your plan] if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed.”

However, the Daily Caller reports that there are at least 29 videos showing the president leaving out the crucial words, “if it hasn’t changed.” Instead, he unambiguously stated numerous times that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.”

  RT

And, furthermore...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called "Obamacare," may be the biggest insurance scam in history. The industries that profit from our current health care system wrote the legislation, heavily influenced the regulations and have received waivers exempting them from provisions in the law. This has all been done to protect and enhance their profits.

In the meantime, the health care crisis continues. Fewer people, even those with health insurance, can afford the health care they need because of out-of-pocket costs. The ACA continues that trend by pushing skimpy health plans with low coverage and restricted networks.

This is what happens in a market-based system of health care. People get only the amount of health care they can afford, rather than what they need. The ACA takes our failed market-based system to a whole new level by forcing the uninsured to purchase private health plans and using the government to sell and subsidize them.

  Truth Out

This is a good article, describing the realities of the ACA scam. You might want to read it all.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Does Anybody Fact Check? Or Read?

The White House and the leaders of the intelligence committee in Congress are rejecting National Security Agency-contractor Edward Snowden's plea for clemency.

"Mr. Snowden violated U.S. law," White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday about the former systems-analyst-turned-fugitive who has temporary asylum in Russia.

"He should return to the U.S. and face justice," Pfeiffer said, adding when pressed that no offers for clemency were being discussed.

Snowden made the plea in a letter given to a German politician and released Friday. In his one-page typed letter, he asks for clemency for charges over allegedly leaking classified information about the NSA to the news media. "''Speaking the truth is not a crime," Snowden wrote.

  AP News

Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American security contractor granted temporary asylum by Russia, has appealed to Washington to stop treating him like a traitor for revealing that the United States has been eavesdropping on its allies, a German politician who met with Mr. Snowden said on Friday.

Mr. Snowden made his appeal in a letter that was carried to Berlin by Hans-Christian Ströbele, a veteran member of the Green Party in the German Parliament.

[...]

In his letter, Mr. Snowden, 30, also appealed for clemency. He said his disclosures about American intelligence activity at home and abroad, which he called “systematic violations of law by my government that created a moral duty to act,” have had positive effects.

[...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/world/europe/snowden-appeals-to-us-for-clemency.html

  NY Times

Really?

Here’s the actual letter (I believe!) linked to in that NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/11/01/world/europe/02snowden-letter.html



See anything in there asking for clemency?  Or even an appeal to stop treating him like a traitor?  Me neither.

Hey! How About This Economic Recovery?

Last year the median wage hit its lowest level since 1998, revealing that at least half of American workers are being left behind as the economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession.

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The median wage — half of workers make more, half less — came to $27,519 last year, virtually unchanged from 2011. Measured in 2012 dollars, the median wage was down $4.

  alJazeera

Lowest wages in 15 years, and that’s if you HAVE a job. No to mention: prices have not gone down in that time.

But at the top, wages soared.

Bringing the AVERAGE wage up. And what a surprise.

Business As Usual

A Malaysian businessman whose company has serviced U.S. warships for 25 years stands accused of buying military secrets by lining up prostitutes, Lady Gaga tickets and other bribes for a U.S. commander.

Prosecutors in a federal court case in San Diego, Calif. say Leonard Francis, nicknamed "Fat Leonard," worked his extensive connections to obtain military secrets in a scandal that signals serious national-security breaches and corruption in the Navy.

The accusations unfolding amidst an ongoing investigation have set off high-level meetings at the Pentagon with the threat that more people, including those of higher ranks, could be implicated as the inquiry continues.

[...]

So far, authorities have arrested [Navy Cmdr. Michael Vannak Khem] Misiewicz, Francis, his company's general manager of global government contracts Alex Wisidagama, and a senior Navy investigator, John Beliveau II. Beliveau is accused of keeping Francis abreast of the probe and advising him on how to respond in exchange for such things as luxury trips and prostitution services.

[...]

In October 2012, the USS George Washington was scheduled to visit Singapore and instead was redirected by the Navy to Port Klang, Malaysia, one of Francis' preferred ports where his company submitted fake contractor bids.

[...]

The company cheated the Navy out of $10 million in just one year in Thailand alone, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said.

[...]

[In 2010] Misiewicz caught the world's attention when he made an emotional return as a U.S. Naval commander to his native Cambodia, where he had been rescued as a child from the violence of the Khmer Rouge and adopted by an American woman. His homecoming was widely covered by international media.

Meanwhile, Francis was recruiting him for his scheme, according to court documents.

[...]

Within months, the Navy commander was providing Francis ship-movement schedules for the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group and other ships, according to the criminal complaint.

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The defendants face up to five years in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery.

  alJazeera

Wow. Five whole years. Maybe. Selling military secrets is not treasonous?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So, Okay, Now That You KNOW...

we'll just go ahead and make it completely legal.

In a closed session, the US Senate Intelligence Committee approved legislation that codifies into law the NSA’s bulk collection of domestic telephone metadata.

The bill, sponsored by committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), cements bulk phone metadata collection into the business records provision (Section 215) of the Patriot Act, strengthening NSA surveillance legality allowed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

[...]

Senate floor debate is the next step for Feinstein’s bill, though no date has been set.

  RT

So whatever it was she was mad about, it wasn't that they are collecting data on you and me.

When Will THIS Blow Wide Open?

Israeli warplanes struck a Syrian air defense base near the port city of Latakia on Thursday, US official have confirmed to media.

[...]

Another US official told CNN that the Israelis believed the base near Snobar Jableh, south of Latakia, had sensitive and sophisticated missile equipment that may have been transferred to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Earlier, Dubai-based broadcaster al-Arabiya reported two attacks carried out by the Israeli Air Forces – one in Latakia and the other one in Damascus.

[...]

There have been five previous incidents in which Israel is believed to have struck inside Syria. The first of those took place in January. In all of the alleged attacks, the reason given was that Israel feared that weapons were making their way into the hands of Hezbollah. But many critics said that it was just an excuse for a blatant direct attack inside Syria, RT’s Paula Slier explained.

In the past, Damascus has threatened to strongly retaliate against such attacks.

  RT

Like Cornered Rats

As the NSA points the finger at the Obama Administration for ordering the mass surveillance of European citizens, the White House is seeking to distance itself from the scandal, intimating the NSA was acting of its own volition.

Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the accusations, that the NSA recorded millions of European citizens’ telephone calls, in a video conference to London on Thursday. Kerry conceded that US surveillance had “reached too far” and stated that the NSA had been conducting its espionage on “automatic pilot.”

  RT

On Thursday evening, the director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, blamed US diplomats for requests to place foreign leaders under surveillance.

During a pointed exchange with a former US ambassador to Romania, James Carew Rosapepe, Alexander said: "We, the intelligence agencies, don't come up with the requirements. The policy-makers come up with the requirements."

He added: "One of those groups would have been, let me think, hold on, oh: ambassadors."

  Guardian

Nasty Alexander may be exploding before he resigns. And I'm sure HE knows things about lots of people. There may be hostages.