monday sept 30

NSA Corporate Spying Ira Winkler

Spies Among Us AMAZON link here

CSPAN BOOK TV link here
Ira Winkler, former security analyst at the National Security Agency, discloses how companies and individuals can protect themselves from hacking and identity theft. In "Spies Among Us" the author shares his security secrets as well as what he describes as cost-effective countermeasures for all types of attacks.

SPIES AMONG US CSPAN VIDEO HERE

Corporate Espionage AMAZON link here


DefCon 2012   General Alexander wore a T-Shirt-----most news stories just said ""The NSA boss, dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt for the occasion"" link here and every other news story

RACHEL MADDOW EXPLAINS THE T-SHIRT link here
June 10, 2013  We begin tonight with this very cool kid. Her name is CyFi. C-Y-F-I.  CyFi article

CyFi is obviously cooler than I am and probably significantly cooler
than you are as well. No offense. CyFi is the founder of something called
DefCon Kids.

DefCon is an annual convention of sorts for computer hackers, for
people who see themselves as white hat computer hackers. See themselves as
the good guys in the hacking world.

The kids part of DefCon is called DefCon kids. And CyFi is one of the
founding kid hackers of that convention.

In 2011, CyFi figured out a vulnerability in mobile phone apps. She
found a bug called Time Traveler that exists in games that you play on your
cell phone. She says she found the bug when she started to get bored with
the games.

And in figuring out how to change the time configurator in the games,
she found some glaring weak spots in games that supposedly had been tested
for security by all sorts of official corporate types. She found the Time
Traveler bug in a game called "Smurfs Village". She found it in "Pocket
Frogs". She found it in "Zombie Farm". She found it and she fixed it in
"Farm Story".

And she did all of this when she was 10 years old.

When I was 10 years old, I was fighting a daily losing battle with
cursive. But CyFi was debugging cell phone apps.

And at DefCon kids in 2011, they held a contest for other young
hackers to try to do the same kind of work. It was a bug chasing contest
for computer code, essentially. Find it and fix it.

And they named the contest after her. AT&T, the big corporation, gave
the prizes for winning that contest at DefCon kids that year, because AT&T
is apparently one of those companies that`s smart enough to know it`s good
to have hackers try to help you if you have the choice.

You can see here in small letters on this logo there, see it`s CyFi C-
Y-F-I, CyFi zero day contest. That`s her contest.

Last year, her contest logo ended up on this shirt on this guy. This
guy is one of the most powerful people in the country. His name is Keith
B. Alexander.

He`s generally called "General Alexander" because he is a general in
the U.S. Army. People who wear the uniform for a living sometimes don`t
exactly pull it off when all of a sudden they have to appear in public not
in a uniform, so forgive him the tucked in t-shirt. But there he is.

General Alexander is the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. He is
the director of the National Security Agency which we sometimes forget is a
part of the military.

And last year, as part of his job, running cyber command and running
the NSA, he took off the uniform, put on the jeans and the t-shirt, and
spoke to CyFi`s DefCon kids.

He also talked to the grown-ups, to the white hat, good guy grown-up
hackers of DefCon. That was him in the hacker contest logo t-shirt tucked
into the jeans. Got up on stage at the hacker convention and he talked to
that room full of hackers because he, as head of the NSA, wants to hire
them.

sunday sept 29

 


    45 Lies in Obama's UN Speech    link here


Congress seeks to Limit Free Press and Define Journalism with ""Shield Law"" link here

FFIA (Free Flow of Information Act) would ""protect"" journalists from subpoenas--because who needs them when METADATA works even better??  link here


Bagram---The Other GITMO link here
There are about 60 individuals the U.S. government is holding without charge or trial at Bagram (officially known as the Detention Facility at Parwan).

"The detention system and U.S. narrative surrounding it is intentionally dehumanizing and seeks to erase the humanity and histories and individualities of the victims of such policies," says Belal. "By focusing on the accounts of the families of the detainees, we are challenging the U.S. narrative (which is largely based on classified evidence, hearsay, etc.) of these guys being 'bad men' and terrorists by tracing out their histories, gathering their family histories and compiling accounts of their lives."

The United States transferred control of the Bagram facility to the Afghan government in March 2013, after months of delays cause by tensions between the two countries. Despite handing over control, however, the U.S. has continued to hold around 60 individuals under a stated law of war authority – the same legal rationale that applies to the detainees at Guantanamo. All of the U.S.-held detainees at Bagram are non-Afghans, and about two-thirds of them are Pakistani.


NSA Snowden Job Title was Key to Access to Documents link here

NSA Snowden took documents from internal NSA website link here

Q & A with Senator Ron Wyden about NSA link here



Seymour Hersh ""Bin Laden Story One Big Lie"" link here
"Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.
He isn't even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect. Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is skeptical about whether the revelations will change the US government's policy.

Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.

His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.

Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound....

For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been "despoiled".

"I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there's nothing there, it doesn't go anywhere."

"The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era," he said.

MY COMMENTS ON HERSH
On Seymour Hersh-----I respect him a lot, he is a great reporter----but am waiting for more on this story----He was wrong (as far as I know about Bush attacking Iran ""in the near future"" in 2006---so we will see)



Debt Battle---Where's Paul Ryan??


CR  (Continuing [Budget] Resolution) Fatigue link here
If you thought this week was bad, get used to it. The dysfunction in Congress is likely to make Capitol Hill life miserable for at least the next two months — if it doesn’t consume yet another holiday season.


Blah Blah Blah The Government Shutdown is Coming link here
A government shutdown is only [fill in the blank] days, [fill in the blank] hours and [fill in the blank] minutes away. The countdown clock shows the seconds ticking by. The end is near.

Well, maybe that’s true. Maybe the government is going to shut down. The national parks will close. You won’t be able to renew your passport, making it impossible for you to flee to some enlightened land where the government is still open and operating normally. You’ll have to re-schedule your visit to the Washington Monument. (Actually, it is closed for repairs anyway, so don’t blame the shutdown, if there is one.)

Or maybe all of the coverage is just a wee bit exaggerated and premature. Maybe the government won’t shut down at all.

Pardon my blasé attitude about it all, but I’ve seen this movie before, and unless they changed the ending — and it certainly is possible they did — I’m not getting too excited yet.

No Internet Security Bill likely until 2014

Would Feds Punish the District for Shutdown Showdown? link here

District officials have been warned that bucking requirements to suspend nonessential services if the federal government shuts down could result in arrests or hefty fines, but prospects of federal prosecution or a punishment from Capitol Hill appear slim.

“The reality of how so-called shutdowns work are that, retroactively, we pay every federal employee, including the ones that stay home. So from a practical standpoint in these short-term shutdowns, there is no money being saved by sending people home,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. “I rather doubt that Congress would take punitive actions against the District of Columbia for keeping their personnel on.”

Decode DC Podcast---Budget Battles and Budget Games

GOP still won't call Obamacare the law link here
Republicans often refer to President Obama’s signature healthcare law either as “ObamaCare” or a healthcare “bill” — subtly implying that it’s not truly permanent.
SYRIA CHEMICAL WEAPONS link here

On Friday, the U.N. said chemical or biological weapons might have been deployed three more times after the Aug. 21 attack.

U.N. officials in Syria say in the next few days, they will investigate incidents reported just days after in Bahhariyeh Aug. 22, in Jobar Aug. 24, and in Ashrafiah Sahnaya Aug. 25. 

Altogether, seven incidents were reported this year where chemical weapons might have been used. The three earlier events happened in March and April. 

Inspectors plan to launch their investigation by Tuesday and hope to have a report completed by late October, the United Nations said. 

GOP plans to let guns on Military Bases after DC Navy Yard Shooting link here

The bill is a response to this month's shooting spree on a Washington, D.C., naval base that left 13 dead.

House Republicans on Thursday introduced legislation that would end the ban on carrying firearms on military bases in response to this month's shooting spree on a Washington, D.C., naval base that left 13 dead, including the shooter.

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) proposed the Safe Military Bases Act, H.R. 3199, along with six other House Republicans. Stockman said the bill would reverse the Clinton-era gun policy that he said has led to two mass shootings on bases.

"Our disarmed military bases are vulnerable targets for terrorists, as we saw in Fort Hood and the Navy Yard," Stockman said Thursday. "Despite that, soldiers trained to use guns cannot carry on base.

Pensions---How Wall St Robs State Public Workers link here

2011 Debt Ceiling fight leads to S & P Downgrade BECAUASE OF POLITICS link here


NSA---Telco Exec released from jail after 4 years link here
However, it was only later that it started to come out that Nacchio was alone among all of the major telco execs to tell the NSA to get lost when they came calling, demanding the ability to basically tap Qwest's entire network. For years, Nacchio has insisted that the entire lawsuit against him was retaliation for his refusal. When he first made those claims, it sounded far fetched and ridiculous. However, in the intervening years, as more and more details of the NSA's activities have become clear, Nacchio's initial arguments seem a hell of a lot more plausible.





Larry Ellison of Oracle---after 9/11 promoted National ID Cards link here

Saturday sept 28

US DRONES IN AFRICA MAP http://publicintelligence.net/us-drones-in-africa/


NSA Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens link here
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.

The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents.

They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.

N.S.A. officials declined to say how many Americans have been caught up in the effort, including people involved in no wrongdoing.

The legal underpinning of the policy change, she said, was a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that Americans could have no expectation of privacy about what numbers they had called.

In 2006, months after the wiretapping program was disclosed by The New York Times, the N.S.A.’s acting general counsel wrote a letter to a senior Justice Department official, which was also leaked by Mr. Snowden, formally asking for permission to perform the analysis on American phone and e-mail data. A Justice Department memo to the attorney general noted that the “misuse” of such information “could raise serious concerns,” and said the N.S.A. promised to impose safeguards, including regular audits (HMM EVERY 3 MONTHS BY FISA??), on the metadata program. In 2008, the Bush administration gave its approval.

The concerns in the United States since Mr. Snowden’s revelations have largely focused on the scope of the agency’s collection of the private data of Americans and the potential for abuse. But the new documents provide a rare window into what the N.S.A. actually does with the information it gathers.

A series of agency PowerPoint presentations and memos describe how the N.S.A. has been able to develop software and other tools — one document cited a new generation of programs that “revolutionize” data collection and analysis — to unlock as many secrets about individuals as possible.

MY COMMENT----WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION DOES IT SAY GOVT CAN MONITOR AMERICANS TO CATCH FOREIGN TERRORISTS??!!! 4TH AMENDMENT PROTECTS AGAINST THAT----ITS LIBERTY OVER SECURITY---WE HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT


Justices Say GPS Tracker Violated Privacy Rights
Jan 2012 link here

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days.

broad privacy principles to bring the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches into the digital age, when law enforcement officials can gather extensive information without ever entering an individual’s home or vehicle.

But five justices also discussed their discomfort with the government’s use of or access to various modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance, location data from cellphone towers and records kept by online merchants. 

“We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.

“The use of longer-term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses,” Justice Alito wrote, “impinges on expectations of privacy.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the concurrence.


MY COMMENT----I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF NSA SPYING WENT TO SUPREME COURT----




Metadata great for finding journalists' sources---not at catching terrorists  link here
The National Security Agency says that the telephone metadata it collects on every American is essential for finding terrorists. And that's debatable. But this we know for sure: Metadata is very useful for tracking journalists and discovering their sources.


On Monday, a former FBI agent and bomb technician pleaded guilty to leaking classified information to the Associated Press about a successful CIA operation in Yemen. As it turns out, phone metadata was the key to finding him.

FBI investigators started looking for the source of the story. They interviewed more than 550 officials, but they came up short.
So, in a highly controversial move, investigators secretly obtained a subpoena for phone records of AP reporters and editors. The records, which included the metadata of who had called whom, and how long the call lasted, covered a period in April and May of 2012. That was right around the time that the AP was reporting the Yemen story.

Once investigators looked at that phone metadata, they got their big break in the case.


SPY Q and A with Chris Boyce
A smart young dropout is welcomed into a promising career in the top secret world of U.S. defense contracting, but he’s quickly shocked to discover the deception practiced by America’s intelligence agencies at the highest levels. Disillusioned and outraged, he takes matters into his own hands and begins exfiltrating highly-classified documents right under the nose of his employer.

Today, that might describe NSA leaker Edward Snowden. But back in 1975, it was 22-year-old Christopher Boyce, who joined TRW as a telex operator and found himself handling some of the the government’s most sensitive communications. From inside TRW’s “Black Vault,” Boyce claims he learned the CIA was actively undermining the elected, left-wing government of Australia.

But instead of leaking to the press, as Snowden, and WikiLeaks leaker Chelsea Manning, would do decades later, Boyce became a spy. He embarked on a personal mission to damage the U.S. defense and intelligence complex, supplying classified crypto keys and program information to his friend Andrew Daulton Lee, who in turn traveled to Mexico and sold the information to the KGB.


Boyce and Lee were arrested in 1977 and both convicted of espionage.

The saga was the subject of the book and film The Falcon and the Snowman
I think that if contractors are going to leak info they need to go where they’re going to have asylum, stay there and then leak. And then that way the story becomes what they’re leaking and not the chase.

WIRED: If you were 30 years younger, do you think you would have been more like an Edward Snowden than someone who was going to sell secrets to the Russians?


Boyce: I have a quarter of a century of experience in the federal prison [system]. I almost spent 10 years in solitary confinement, and I just don’t think I could ever do that to myself again. I couldn’t bring the rage of the government down on my head again. Snowden’s a braver man than I would be now. I couldn’t do that again, and I’m sure there are hundreds and hundreds of other NSA contractors who also are thinking, ‘I couldn’t bring the power of the fed government down on me like that.’

So to what degree do you think the ‘problem’ is the public doesn’t have access to enough information about what governments are doing versus the problem being just general apathy?

Boyce: Well, I agree with what my wife Cait said here not so long ago: The average American is more interested in how much cream and sugar he has in his coffee than his civil liberties.

I have to tell you that I’m very pessimistic. I think the surveillance state will get stronger and stronger. I’m not optimistic at all that civil liberties are going to be protected, and I think that’s the direction that we’re headed.



SYRIA chem weapons UN agreement  link here

The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a binding resolution on ridding Syria of chemical weapons.

At a session in New York, the 15-member body backed the draft document agreed earlier by Russia and the US.
The deal breaks a two-and-a-half year deadlock in the UN over Syria, where fighting between government forces and rebels rages on.

The vote came after the international chemical watchdog agreed on a plan to destroy Syria's stockpile by mid-2014.


Next Citizens United can be worse  link here
What’s at stake in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission — for which oral arguments are scheduled on Oct. 8 — is the limit to individual political spending. The federal government sets separate limits for each election cycle on how much an individual can give to candidates, party committees and political action committees. But it also currently limits overall spending to $123,200. It’s that overall limit that the McCutcheon fight is about. Proponents say it prevents corruption; opponents say it limits speech.


“We’re not challenging — and the plaintiff in McCutcheon is not challenging — any of the individual contribution limits,” says Rick Esenberg, a Marquette University Law School professor and president and general counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which filed a brief opposing the limit. Why, they ask, is it OK to donate $2,600 to 18 campaigns, but not 19? The case was brought by the Republican National Committee and Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman and conservative activist.

At the federal level only a small group — 646 individuals — bumped up against that aggregate limit during the 2012 election cycle, according to The Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets blog. But spending limits in a handful of states are lower, meaning that if they fall money could come flowing in.

While McCutcheon only affects the federal limit, experts are watching it closely and many on both sides believe the state limits either won’t survive or would become very vulnerable if the federal cap is nullified.


WIKILEAKS 
Microphone was placed in Ecuador Embassy in London before visit to Assange link here



NYPD Whistleblower Adrian Schoolcraft link here



Cory Booker

So I heard that Cory Booker was involved in a ""sex scandal""-----then I found out he was Tweeting a stripper----He tweets everyone---this is not news to me at least

link here

Late last night hundreds of reporters from across the United States tried to find her after she became a celebrity -- literally overnight -- when a series of direct Twitter messages between her and Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J. and a U.S. Senate candidate were released.

"I think it's pretty well known that the mayor talks with people from all walks of life on Twitter," Booker spokesman Kevin Griffis told Daily Intelligencer. "There have been a couple of stories about that over the years. Really, the most shocking part of this story was learning there is a vegan strip club in Portland."

"Come on," she said. "It was simple flirtation and flattery. The last time we messaged each other was last February. It's not a relationship that people are trying to make it out to be. I've never even spoken to him."

Lee said she did donate $100 to his Senate campaign.

link here        link here     

HBO Newsroom---Operation Genoa (CNN operation Tailwind report) 

Wikipedia Operation Tailwind

CNN retraction document

CNN video report

CNN program transcript

TIME magazine report

Friday september 27

America and Iran Presidents speak!!!! first time since 1979!!!! Obama and Rouhani  link here

Meanwhile Iran pulls strings in Syria link here


How Webcam Spy was caught link here
The sextortionist who snapped nude pictures of Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf through her laptop's webcam has been found and arrested, the FBI revealed yesterday. 19-year old Jared James Abrahams, a California computer science student who went by the online handle "cutefuzzypuppy," had as many as 150 "slave" computers under his control during the height of his webcam spying in 2012.

Wolf went to the FBI, and the Bureau's LA cyber squad swung into action. On March 29, the FBI looked at Wolf's laptop and found evidence of both DarkComet and another RAT known as Blackshades, which confirmed how the attacker had taken his photos. But who was he? The IP addresses behind the attacker's e-mails resolved back only to a VPN provider which purposely kept no logs. But the RATs themselves had connected back to the attacker by accessing no-ip.org, a service which allows users to mask source IP addresses, and no-ip.org did keep records. The FBI obtained them.

Pentagon purging Bin Laden Raid Data link here (Conservative website, with links to Benghazi, 2nd Amendment, Hilary, RINOs, etc----see my other blog for posts about Benghazi, 2nd Amendment, GOP and other topics)

Seymour Hersh writes that Obama is worse than Bush, but more complicated, and Bin Laden death was a lie link here (Hersh was also predicting imminent war with Iran under Bush around 2006---he is very good but I dont trust everything)



Iowa Senator Tom Harkin cursed??? I am shocked---I would never expect anything more severe than ""darn"" from him

What do Democrats think on the other side of the Capitol about the possibility that Congress would have to ultimately swallow a one-year delay of the health care law?

“That’s bullshit. That’s not going to happen,” offered Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. “The exchanges open on Tuesday, and we’re going to go ahead with it.”

“You can’t have nullification of laws by blackmail around here. That’s what they’re trying — they’re trying to nullify a law upheld by the Supreme Court, not through overturning the law, but through blackmail of shutting down the government because they don’t have the votes to overturn the law,” Harkin continued. “Have we come to that in the country? God help us all.”

Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.

NSA claims no record of interview with Journalist link here

another great Maysoon Zayid article   link here
Mahmoud Abbas has had a very big week. On Tuesday, the Palestinian president met with President Obama and reiterated his commitment to securing a peace deal within the nine months allotted to him by Secretary of State John Kerry. Abbas received a pat on the back and a hearty handshake from POTUS who, in return, reiterated his commitment to turning a blind eye to Israel’s compulsive settlement building. Then on Thursday, Abu Mazen had the unenviable task of following up his famous 2011 UNGA appearance, where he stole the show by declaring Palestinian statehood.

(Father's comments below reminds me of Gilad Shalit's father saying that if he were Palestinian he too would kidnap israeli soldiers) article below 

On September 21, 20-year-old Israeli soldier Tomer Hazan was killed by his co-worker in Qalqilya. Before Israel could collectively punish the encircled city, the culprit’s father came forward to condemn his own son and denounced his offspring's act as criminal. He was quoted in The Times of Israel as saying, “I am telling you this from the bottom of my heart… if the military would today give me an M-16 [assault rifle], I would go and shoot my son in the head.” One day later, an Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper in Hebron and all hell broke loose. Clashes at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians reached a crescendo this week, making matters even worse.

The Second Intifada is said to have been sparked by Ariel Sharon and his army entourage's visit to the Al Aqsa compound on September 28, 2000. What set off an uprising 13 years ago is now just your average Friday. I know it confuses people but the Abrahamic religions share a common origin story and therefore often share religious sites like the Patriarchs Tomb in Hebron or Jerusalem's Al Aqsa, also known as the Temple Mount. Those who argue that Al Aqsa is not that important to Islam and that Muslims only cared about it when Israel gained control are not well-read people. It is Islam's third holiest site. The Dome of the Rock protects the rock that Abraham didn’t sacrifice his son on and that Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven from. That big gold dome graces posters, postcards, and cablenews backdrops set in Jerusalem—much to the chagrin of the Israeli extremists who insist on storming the compound and shouting about rebuilding the Temple and bringing on Armageddon. These are not folks coming to solemnly worship during the several visiting hours open to non-Muslims. This is incitement.

link here   WE NEED MORE PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THE OTHER SIDE!!!
‘He’s no hero. He’s a coward,’ says Abdullah Amar of son Nidal, who killed IDF soldier Tomer Hazan and planned to use the corpse to extort his brother’s release.

Gilad Shalit's father link here MARCH 2012 article
The father of an Israeli soldier held in captivity for more than five years by Hamas has said he would fight Israeli soldiers if he were a Palestinian

Noam Shalit, who announced earlier this year that he would be standing for the opposition Labour party in the next Israeli elections, has provoked outrage among the Israeli right with the comments. His son, Gilad, was released in a prisoner swap in October 2011.

Shalit added that the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hamas militants was comparable to the techniques used by Israeli paramilitary fighters the Haganah against the British, arguing "we also kidnapped British soldiers when we were fighting for our freedom".

I listen to FAIR Media Watch's podcast Counterspin---where CBS' Bob Schieffer is mentioned almost every episode

THIS from Wikipedia entry ---He is considered to be a model for lapdog journalists world-wide, and is well respected among Pentagon officials and public relations experts for his abilities at information control.  (emphasis mine) link here

Climate Change Data from NOAA link here

thursday sept 26

Iran---hope for Pres Rouhani now, but remember the history with Iran Contra link here

UNGA Thursday highlights from the UN blog link here

The United States has reached a deal with Russia on Syria's chemical weapons, President Obama's ambassador to the United Nations said Thursday.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to take up the resolution Thursday evening, Samantha Power tweeted. A vote could come next week.  link here

Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program could come in as little as three months, depending on the country’s willingness to negotiate. link here

WENDY DAVIS WILL RUN link here

Davis, who became a darling of Democratic activists with a lengthy June filibuster of a law to restrict abortion in her state, has been traveling the country fundraising for a possible campaign. Her candidacy has been expected, but she is reportedly set to officially announce her campaign on Oct. 1.

NSA link here

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) suggested on Thursday that the National Security Agency tracked or considered tracking the cellphone location data of millions of people in the United States. 

During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Wyden asked NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander whether "the NSA has ever collected — or made any plans to collect — Americans' cell site information in bulk."

As a member of the Intelligence Committee, Wyden has access to classified information about the NSA's surveillance programs.

NSA Wyden link here

NSA Hearing Video link here


TED CRUZ AND OBAMACARE (This was not a filibuster--the order was backwards--- A Filibuster is)
Ted Cruz talks 21 hours (FAUXLIBUSTER) over Obamacare then votes yes on cloture-- Cruz (R-TX), Yea 

Definition of Cloture link here
cloture - The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes.


Continuing Resolution  100-0 voted yes to proceed

Sep 23

H.J.RES.59

Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014    motion to proceed

Reid

Sep 25

100 - 0 No. 205

I

Vote Breakdown 100-0 voted yes link here

Question: On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to H.J.Res. 59 )
Vote Number:	205	Vote Date:	September 25, 2013, 12:55 PM
Required For Majority:	3/5	Vote Result:	Cloture Motion Agreed to

Vote Counts:	YEAs	100
	NAYs	0

9/25/2013:

Cloture on the motion to proceed to the measure invoked in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 100 - 0. Record Vote Number: 205.

Cloture Motion link here

   We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.J. Res. 59, a joint resolution making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes. 
Harry Reid, Barbara A. Mikulski, Joe Donnelly, Richard J. Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Michael F. Bennet, Patrick J. Leahy, Heidi Heitkamp, Debbie Stabenow, Charles E. Schumer, Mark R. Warner, Martin Heinrich, Tim Kaine, Tammy Baldwin, Tom Harkin, Christopher A. Coons, Angus S. King, Jr.

CR vote on Friday link here
Procedurally, it will be left to Democrats to provide funding for the implementation with a vote in favor of an amendment offered by Reid and Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., that would strip out defunding provisions and make several other changes, including moving up the end date to Nov. 15.

Cruz and Lee will now get that vote in the middle of the day. As part of the agreement offered by Reid, the entire 30 hours available for debate after the vote for cloture (on the House CR that includes defunding of Obamacare) will be yielded back, setting up a string of four votes.

The ultimate result, after adoption of the amendment, will be passage of a “clean” continuing resolution that maintains funding for the health care overhaul, sending the measure back to the House.

link here
Cruz, Lee and their supporters both inside and outside the Capitol are pushing their fellow Republicans to oppose a debate-limiting cloture motion, in a bid to muster 41 votes to send a signal that Reid shouldn’t be allowed to amend the measure with a post-cloture vote to fund the health care overhaul. The effort has the backing of a number of outside conservative and tea-party-affiliated groups.

It is true that imposing limits on the debate will also allow Reid to get a vote on his germane amendment without needing 60 votes.

That’s created a tactical disagreement among Republicans. Corker’s long been critical of the strategy favored by Cruz and Lee.

Did Cruz accomplish anything? link here

Senate votes 100-0 link here
The Senate voted 100-0 to take up the House-passed continuing resolution Wednesday, while Sen. Ted Cruz indicated a willingness to accelerate the timetable for the more important vote to cut off debate on the bill.

The Texas Republican has long said that the real test will come on the vote to limit debate on the underlying bill, after which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could get the simple majority vote to strike defunding of the health care law.

If all the debate time is used, that would come on Saturday, although Cruz seems to be expressing a new willingness to truncate the debate time. At the end of his marathon floor talk Wednesday, he floated a series of consent agreements that could shorten the dayslong timeline for final Senate approval of a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown next week.

Though it is unclear whether leaders will accept Cruz’s offers, the fact that Cruz moved at all from his original position that the Senate should take up full debate time to Sunday could mark progress toward avoiding a shutdown. Many, including most Senate Republicans, view government shutdown as an unavoidable outcome unless the GOP cedes debate time. On Wednesday morning, Cruz offered to open debate on the House-approved continuing resolution by unanimous consent as long as the majority agreed to hold the vote to cut off debate on Friday, so more people might pay attention to it.


Cornyn Praises Cruz, but Disagrees on Obamacare Tactics link here
“If we can’t defund it, I’m for delaying it, but here’s the challenge: The end of fiscal year is Monday,” Cornyn said. “Because of the Senate rules, it’s unlikely we’re going to finish this until maybe as late as Sunday, and so I don’t know how much time that Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor have to put together 218 votes in the House without seeing the government shut down.”

And Cornyn said a shutdown would hurt the GOP.

“As much as I loathe Obamacare, I don’t think a shutdown actually works in our best interests because the press and the mainstream media will inevitably side with Prsident Obama, and I don’t want to do anything to change the focus from President Obama and his failed policies, including Obamacare,” Cornyn said Wednesday morning.

Manchin Backs One-Year Delay of Individual Mandate (to avoid shutdown) link here
Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., said Thursday that he would support a one-year delay in implementing the individual mandate, the cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s health care law, as part of larger budget negotiations to avert a government shutdown.

“There’s no way I could not vote for it,” Manchin said at a breakfast sponsored by Bloomberg News. “It’s very reasonable and sensible.”
Senate CR keeps funds for Lautenberg Widow link here







INTERNET SECURITY LINKS
Internet security links and much more https://anonymissexpress.cyberguerrilla.org/?page_id=8593
see also blog post on encryption guides

ADL Imagine

Anti Defamation League 

fighting hate crimes and hate speech http://www.adl.org/imagine/

Hate Crimes Laws http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/hate-crimes-law/

Imagine Lesson Plan http://www.adl.org/imagine/imagine-video-educators-guide.pdf

Imagine THE VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KyvlMJefR4

Wednesday sept 25

UN Iran President Rouhani text of speech link here

Obama UN speech text link here

45 Lies in Obama's UN Speech  link here


2013 Brazil DILMA ROUSSEFF UN speech link here
2011---great speech wrong year!!! Brazil Pres DILMA ROUSSEFF UN Speech text here link here


Planning Nairobi mall attack link here
The plot was hatched weeks or months ago on Somali soil, by the Shabab’s “external operations arm,” officials say. A team of English-speaking foreign fighters was carefully selected, along with a target: Nairobi’s gleaming Westgate mall.

The building’s blueprints were studied, down to the ventilation ducts. The attack was rehearsed and the team dispatched, slipping undetected through Kenya’s porous borders, often patrolled by underpaid — and deeply corrupt — border guards.

A day or two before the attack, powerful belt-fed machine guns were secretly stashed in a shop in the mall with the help of a colluding employee, officials say. At least one militant had even packed a change of clothes so he could slip out with fleeing civilians after the killings were done.



UN weapons inspectors back in Syria link here


Islamist rebels in Syria reject National Coalition link here

Eleven Islamist rebel groups in Syria have announced they do not recognise the authority of the main opposition alliance, the National Coalition.

A joint statement says: "All groups formed abroad without having returned to the country do not represent us."

They also call for the opposition to unite under an "Islamic framework".

Islamist rebel forces have become increasing prominent in the conflict in Syria, and they are believed to command tens of thousands of fighters.

The signatories include members of the Free Syrian Army as well as more radical Islamists - among them the powerful al-Nusra Front, which has links to al-Qaeda.

It comes amid fighting on the ground between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and more moderate rebel forces, especially in areas along Syria's northern and eastern borders.

Where did Syria's chemical weapons come from?? link here
In the wake of a recent Russian-U.S. deal averting American airstrikes, Syria hasbegun to answer questions about its chemical weapons stockpile. One thing inspectors don’t have the mandate to ask is where those weapons came from in the first place. But evidence already out there suggests Syria got crucial help from Moscow and Western European companies.



Iraq 1988 Halabja Chemical Weapons attack trial sues western countries who supplied Iraq's Chemical weapons link here

Twenty Iraqi Kurds have taken legal action to expose French firms who supplied poison gas to Saddam Hussein in 1988. The plaintiffs were among the victims of a chemical weapon attack that killed 5,000 in the town of Halabja during the Iran-Iraq war.

“The French companies we have targeted notable made equipment for producing chemical agents, reactors and columns and steel tanks to contain toxic agents to be used to make gas,” said lawyer David Père. “We want the individuals and companies that knowingly helped Saddam Hussein’s regime acquire chemical weapons which were used to commit crimes against humanity to be forced to face up to their responsibilities.”



GITMO funds denied for new prison link here
The Pentagon has rejected a military request that it spend $195.7 million to renovate the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official with the United States Southern Command said on Tuesday. The Obama administration has been trying to close the prison, but Congress has prevented it from doing so. (MORE BELOW!!!)Citing facilities that were built to be temporary a decade ago and are deteriorating, Gen. John F. Kelly, the head of the Southern Command who oversees Guantánamo, requested money in March to rebuild structures associated with the complex. The request included $49 million to replace a semi-secret prison where a small number of “high-value” detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, are housed.
While the money was denied sometime during the summer, it was publicly disclosed on Tuesday by a Southcom spokesman, Col. Greg Julian of the Army, in response to a question from The New York Times. He said the request had been rejected “because of a lack of Congressional support to use the overseas contingency funding that we sought to complete those projects. So now we are working on various measures to mitigate some of the conditions of the facilities.”




OBAMA CAN CLOSE GITMO!!! here  here  here
In January, the State Department reassigned the special envoy who had been in charge of trying to persuade countries to take Guantanamo inmates approved for release, Daniel Fried, and did not replace him. That was widely seen as a signal that Obama was giving up on closing the prison any time soon. 

Obama has blamed Congress for interfering with his plan to close Guantanamo. Starting in 2011, Congress began restricting transfers out, saying the Defense Department first had to certify a number of things, including that the destination country was not a state sponsor of terrorism and would take action to make sure the individual would not threaten the United States.

Starting last year, Congress let some restrictions be waived if it was in the "national security interests" of the United States. Obama has not used the waiver or certification provisions.

Two years ago, Obama signed an executive order establishing extra review procedures for Guantanamo detainees to determine if continued detention were warranted, but the Periodic Review Boards have not been used.

This option looks fairly simple, since it involves carrying out the president's own executive order. But there may have been no rush to establish more reviews boards since prisoners cleared by earlier review boards are still being held.

Wells Dixon, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, suggested the administration could use court rulings to help get prisoners released. Two members of China's Muslim Uighur minority were resettled in El Salvador in April 2012, four years after a U.S. District Court in Washington ruled there were no grounds to hold them.

When prisoners challenge their detention in federal court, the government could decide not to contest the case, paving the way for a court order effecting the prisoner's release, said Dixon. He said that could happen in any of the more than 100 detainee "habeus corpus" cases filed in federal court.

Obama could instruct the Justice Department to stop contesting those cases.
here
The impromptu comments were a little surprising for their rhetoric, sounding more like a 2007 campaign speech than the words of someone who has been U.S. president for four-plus years. As the New Yorker's Amy Davidson put it, "He spoke as if he had happened upon the place, like a bystander."


link here

U.S. Military to Stop Releasing Tally of Guantánamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike

The U.S. military says it will stop reporting the number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay after its official tally has dropped to just 19 prisoners. Eighteen of the prisoners are listed for force-feeding with nasal tubes. The hunger strike against indefinite detention began in February. At its peak, the military counted 106 participants, while prisoner attorneys said the number was higher, with nearly all 166 prisoners taking part. The strike forced President Obama to publicly address his failure to deliver on a promise to close Guantánamo. Last month, two prisoners were moved to Algeria in the first transfer out of Guantánamo in nearly a year.

Bahrain jails American link here

GREAT ARTICLE from Maysoon Zayid on Anthony Bourdain in Palestine

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/19/watching-anthony-bourdain-in-palestine.html

Tuesday sept 24

AP leak investigation Yemen Al Qaeda bomb plot double agent 
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/fbi-ex-agent-pleads-guilty-in-leak-to-ap.html?_r=0

A former F.B.I. agent has agreed to plead guilty to leaking classified information to The Associated Press about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen last year, the Justice Department announced Monday. In a twist, the former agent had already been under investigation in a separate child pornography case, and he has also agreed to a guilty plea in it.

Federal investigators said they were able to identify the man, Donald Sachtleben, a former bomb technician, as a suspect in the leak case only after secretly obtaining A.P. reporters’ phone logs, a move that set off an uproar among journalists and members of Congress of both parties when it was disclosed in May.

“This prosecution demonstrates our deep resolve to hold accountable anyone who would violate their solemn duty to protect our nation’s secrets, and to prevent future, potentially devastating leaks by those who would wantonly ignore their obligations to safeguard classified information,” said Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia.

The 43-month sentence for leak-related offenses is the longest ever imposed by a federal civilian court in such a case, although a military judge last month sentenced Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, to 35 years in prison for leaking archives of documents to WikiLeaks.

Article from May 
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtains-wide-ap-phone-records-probe




UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
UN General Assembly web videos http://webtv.un.org/
CSPAN coverage link here


Iran, Syria will dominate UN General Assembly link here

Weapons inspectors will return to Syria link here
Russia's government says UN chemical weapons inspectors are expected to return to Syria on Wednesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said they would investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks at Khan al-Assal, Sheikh Maqsoud and Saraqeb.
The inspectors had been preparing to do so when chemical weapons were fired at suburbs of Damascus on 21 August, killing hundreds of people.
Last week, they confirmed the nerve agent sarin was used in that attack.



A  History of ""Red Lines"" on Chemical Weapons
http://www.wnyc.org/story/history-weapons-red-lines/
Agent Orange in Vietnam was considered a defoliant, clearing trees, NOT technically a chemical attack directly on humans


German Elections link here
Chancellor Angela Merkel's triumphant conservative party is considering who to team up with to form a new German coalition after their election victory.
Her conservative bloc got 41.5% - their best result since 1994, but just short of a clear majority.
The election was a shock for their liberal partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), who failed to get any seats.
A coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) is seen as most likely - but only after hard bargaining.


old radio show on Constitution (2006) On Point With Tom Ashbrook
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2006/12/04/correcting-the-constitution