OLIVER STONE TO RT: ‘US HAS BECOME AN ORWELLIAN STATE’

Published: 28 December, 2012, Edited: 29 December, 2012,
US director Oliver Stone (AFP Photo / Tizina Fabi) (116.9Mb) embed video
Americans are living in an Orwellian state argue Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick, as they sit down with RT to discuss US foreign policy and the Obama administration’s disregard for the rule of law.
­Both argue that Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and that people have forgiven him a lot because of the “nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him.”
“He has taken all the Bush changes he basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them,” Stone told RT. “It is an Orwellian state. It might not be oppressive on the surface, but there is no place to hide. Some part of you is going to end up in the database somewhere.”
According to Kuznick, American citizens live in a fish tank where their government intercepts more than 1.7 billion messages a day. “That is email, telephone calls, other forms of communication.”
RT’s Abby Martin in the program Breaking the Set discusses the Showtime film series and book titled The Untold History of the United States co-authored by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick.
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"Obama was a great hope for change"

RT: It took both of you almost five years to produce this series. And in it you have a chapter called Obama: Management of a Wounded Empire. You give a harsh critique of the Obama administration. What in your eyes has been the most troubling aspect of his presidency, Oliver?
Oliver Stone: I think under the disguise of sheep’s clothing he has been a wolf. That because of the nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him, people forgave him a lot. He was a great hope for change. The color of his skin, the upbringing, the internationalism, the globalism, seemed all evident. And he is an intelligent man. He has taken all the Bush changes he basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them. That is what is sad. So we are going into the second administration that is living outside the law and does not respect the law and foundations of our system and he is a constitutional lawyer, you know. Without the law, it is the law of the jungle.  Nuremburg existed for a reason and there was a reason to have trials, there is a reason for due process – ‘habeas corpus’ as they call it in the United States.
RT: Do you agree Peter?
Peter Kuznick: I agree, if you look at his domestic policy, he did not break with the Bush administration’s policies. If you look at his transparency – he claimed to be the transparency president when he was running for office. There has not been transparency. We have been actually classifying more documents under Obama than we did under Bush. All previous presidents between 1970 and 2008 indicted three people total under Espionage Act. Obama has already indicted six people under the Espionage Act. The surveillance has not stopped, the incarceration without bringing people to trial has not stopped. So those policies have continued.
Then there are war policies, militarization policies. We are maintaining that. We are fighting wars now in Yemen, Afghanistan, we are keeping troops in Afghanistan. We have not cut back the things that we all found so odious about the Bush administration and Obama added some of his own. The drones policy – Obama had more drone attack in the first eight months than Bush had his entire presidency. And these have very dubious international legality.  
OS: Peter was hopeful that the in the second term there will be some more flexibility, we hope so. But, there is a system in place, which is enormous – the Pentagon system.
RT: It almost seems that they took the odious CIA policies and just branded them, so it is now acceptable – the assassinations, the extrajudicial executioner without the due process. It is fascinating.
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"We are all ultimately watching ourselves"

PK: We complained during Bush years that Bush was actually conducting surveillance without judiciary review. Obama is killing people, targeted assassinations without judiciary review. That to us is obviously much more serious.
RT: You also cover Pearl Harbor, which of course led to the internment of Japanese American citizens. I do not think a lot of people acknowledge that once again underreported aspect of really what that meant. When you look at the surveillance grid in America today it almost seems like it is an open-air internment camp, where they do not need to intern people anymore because we have this grid set up in place. What do you guys think about that?
PK: The US government now intercepts more than 1.7 billion messages a day from American citizens. That is email, telephone calls, other forms of communication. Can you imagine: 1.7 billion? We’ve got this apparatus set up now with hundreds of thousands of people, over a million of people with top security clearances in this kind of nightmarish state, this 1984 kind of state.
OS: One million top security clearances. That is a pretty heavy number. In other words, we are living in a fish pond and I think the sad part is that the younger people accept that. They are used to the invasion. And that is true, how can we follow the lives of everybody? But the truth is that we are all ultimately watching ourselves. It is an Orwellian state. It might not be oppressive on the surface, but there is no place to hide. Some part of you is going to end up in the database somewhere.

Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone (right) and historian Peter Kuznick

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"US fears things,we fear the rest of the world"

PK: And it can be oppressive on the surface. One of the things we feared after 9/11 was that if there was a second serious attack like 9/11 then the constitution would be gone. The crackdown would be so outrageous at that point. And there is still this obsessive fear. The US fears things, we fear the rest of the world. We spend as much money on our military security intelligence as the rest of the world combined. Do we have enemies that we feel so threatened by? Do we really need this anymore? Is this what our priorities should be? No we think not, we want to turn that around.

RT: The evisceration of the rule of law, especially the National Defense Authorization Act, which eradicates due process – our basic fundamental freedom in this country. I wanted to bring up another interesting point that really struck me in the film series, which are the kamikaze pilots. They were brave, that was the bravest act that you could do and then I can’t help but think of suicide bombers today and Bill Maher, he goes out and loses his show for saying these people are brave. And you have people like Ron Paul get up there and talk about blowback as a reality and he is ridiculed. How did we get here, where the discourse is just so tongued down when we can’t even acknowledge the truths such as that?
OS: Primitive of course. There has been a blind worship of the military and patriotism. I strongly believe in the strong military, but to defend our country, not to invade other countries and to conquer the world. I think there is a huge difference that has been forgotten: morality. Once you take the laws away, as Einstein once said famously, the country does not obey its laws, the laws would be disrespected. So it seems that the fundamental morality has been lost on us somewhere on the way recently and now it is what is effective. Can we kill Bin Laden without having to bring him to trial, can we just get it done? And that ‘get it down’ mentality justifies the ends and that is where countries go wrong, and people go wrong. All of our lives are moral equations. Does the end justify the means? No, it never did.
PK: And the other side of what you are asking is about the constraints upon political discourse in this country. Why are people so uninformed? That is what we are to deal with in the series. If people don’t understand their history, then they don’t have any vision of the future and what is possible. If they think what exists now – the tyranny of now – is all that is possible, then they can’t dream about the future. They can’t imagine the future that is different from the present. That is what I am saying – people have to understand the past because if you study the past then you can envision a future that is very different.
We came really close on many occasions to going into very different direction in the future. We came very close in 1944-1945 to avoiding atomic bombing and potentially not having the kind of Cold War that we had. We came very close in 1953 upon Stalin’s death to ending the Cold War. We came close in 1963 when Kennedy was assassinated to ending the war in Vietnam, to ending the Cold War, to heading into a very different direction. Then there were the Carter years, again a possibility of a different direction. And at the end of the Cold War in 1989 Gorbachev was reaching out to Bush. Did Bush take that olive branch that Gorbachev was giving him? No, very much different. What did we do instead? We applaud the Soviets for not invading when countries were liberating themselves from the Soviet Union and then we immediately go and invade Panama and then we invade Iraq.
So we are saying that “it is great that you are showing restraint, but we are not going to because we are the hegemon.” As Madeline Albright, Secretary of State under {Bill] Clinton, says “if the US uses force it’s because we are the United States of America; we are the indispensable nation. We see further and stand taller than other nations.” That is the attitude that Oliver and I are challenging. This sense of American exceptionalism that the US is a city on the hill, God’s gift to humanity, if we do it, it is right. And that is not acceptable.  
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"We want the country to begin thinking about the big questions again"

OS: It is very funny because the book has been out a few weeks, series have been playing for the fifth week now. We go to TV shows, we sit in these beautiful sets and they are always rushing and rushing. They got news in Gaza, they got Obama. And they ask us what are you talking about? History? What does it have to do with today? What is your point? We sit there very patiently and it is very bizarre to me that they say the past is prologue, that is all happened before and if we are smart you will see it more calmly and won’t overreact. We also argue that this kind of media is driven by dollars, the greed. You have a show and it is really not a news show, it is about rating and how you can get that – with a lot of speed, a lot of zoom and a lot of fancy sets and people watch. Goal is to keep it moving, don’t think, just keep it moving.
PK: A show like this, we can actually discuss the issues at a little more depth, a little more critically.
RT: If both of you are to make a film about this generation right now, what is one facet that you think is the most underreported or misrepresented?
OS: I don’t know about the younger generation, I have three children. I think it is an eternal story in some degree. People no matter what have a similar morality and consciousness, patterns re-emerge again and again. The young men and young women want to make their way into the world. And it is not that far off from what we went through. So I believe in cyclical history and I think my children are going through what I and my father and mother went through. I always look for those patterns first beyond the superficiality.
PK: I find that my students care very passionately about what is going on in the world. They are all doing lots of volunteer work. But what I find in this generation, like Oliver’s and my generation, is that they treat the symptoms. They are not asking the questions about the root cause of all of these problems. They care, they try to change things, but it is more superficial.
What we are challenging them to do is look at the patterns. Look at what has happened from the 1890s all the way through to today. Look at the consistency of the wars, interventions, the military expenditures, the paranoia, they fear of outsiders, the oppression. And get it to the root, what is making the system as a whole sick in a certain ways and how can we root out those deeper causes.
Now that we understand that, we can begin to change that. The Occupy movement did some of that there have been times in the 1930s, 1970-80s, 1960s when people were challenging on that scale. We want the country to begin thinking about these big questions again. What is our past, how did we get here, what are the possibilities for the future, what have we done wrong and what can we get right?
RT: Do you think these superficialities in the conventional wisdom that we hear are perpetuated to keep us in a perpetual state of war?
PK: I don’t know if it is quite so deliberate, but that seems to be the effect – dumbing down the population to the point where they cannot think critically and then you can pull anything over their eyes. They have a five-minute attention span and a five-minute memory of what happened in the past. We are saying learn your history, study it and think about what the alternatives are, think in utopian ways how different the world could be, how better it could be if we start to organize it rationally in the interest of people, not in the interest of profit, not in the interest of Wall Street, not in the interest of military, in the interest of our common humanity, the six billion of us who occupy this planet.
OS: The model of the series of The World at War, which was made by the BBC in the 1970s about WWII. Ours are 10 feature films, cut with care, an hour each, pure narration, music, and sometimes clips of films that make our point or don’t make our point. Either way we try to keep it flowing like a young person could enjoy it like a movie, I am glad you did.
http://rt.com/news/oliver-stone-us-orwellian-022/ 

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9/11 COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED, SAYS COUNTERTERRORISM CZAR

Published: 13 August, 2011,

Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City (Spencer Platt / Getty Images / AFP Photo)

A former White House official is speaking out about an alleged cover-up perpetrated by the CIA to cover-up information that could have prevented the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism czar under President George W Bush, told radio documentarians that former CIA Director George Tenet and two other top-ranking officials tried to keep both the White House and the FBI from coming into possession of information that he says could have prevented the 9/11 attacks from ever happening.
The conversation with Clarke, first reported by The Daily Beast, was conducted for an upcoming radio special to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks.
In the interview, Clarke says he believes that “there was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information,” and that he suspects that the Central Intelligence Agency was aware that the hijackers that later participated in the 9/11 attacks had been operating in America because the government had unsuccessfully tried to recruit them as al-Qaeda informants. When asked who he believes would have been behind such a cover-up, Clarke tells journalists, “I would think it would have been made by the director,” referring to Tenet.
Clarke neglects to pin-point any specific pieces of evidence to back-up his claim, but says that it is “the only conceivable reason that I’ve been able to come up with” that would explain why the CIA neglected to keep the FBI and White House in the know. He added, however, that even if Tenet and his associates were behind a cover-up, they would never come clean, “even if you waterboarded them.”
In response, Tenet has fired back that Clarke has “suddenly invented baseless allegations which are belied by the record and unworthy of serious consideration.”
“Richard Clarke was an able public servant who served his country well for many years,” reads a statement from Tenet, “but his recently released comments about the run-up to 9/11 are reckless and profoundly wrong.”
“Clarke starts with the presumption that important information on the travel of future hijackers to the United States was intentionally withheld from him in early 2000,” he adds. “It was not.”
The producers of the piece, documentarians John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski, had provided Tenet with a copy of Clarke’s interview before the finished product was released.
The interview conducted with Clarke took place in October of 2009, but is only now being readied for public consumption as the documentary is released in conjunction with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
http://rt.com/usa/news/terrorism-clarke-911-tenet-249/

PREPARING FOR AN APOCALYPSE IN AMERICA

Published: 11 August, 2011, 01:01

Some Americans are preparing for an end of the world.

(25.0Mb) embed video

TAGS: Arms, Health, Military, Natural disasters, Nuclear, Terrorism, USA, Culture

The American Preppers Network is a group of people storing supplies, equipment and ammunition in case an end of the world disaster strikes the U.S. RT visits one such family.
­A typical house in a regular suburban town, but here – a family is preparing for the end of the world.

A German Mauser and P-38 from the Second World War, a twelve-gage shot gun, a forty caliber pistol and an AR-15 – weapons and ammunition are key.

“If we are carrying this out on the street for some reason – all hell broke out. It’s an end of the world type situation. You can’t walk around with these guns here,” said Keith Proskura.

A certified NRA instructor and owner of two businesses, he stores food and supplies to help him survive no matter what disaster might hit.

“Brake down of government is one thing a lot of people are preparing for now. We are facing possible pay delays for social security. I am not going to need all of this stuff for that, but you are going to have a lot of Americans who are upset,” he explained.

The 37 year old is among thousands of American preppers who would rather be ready than sorry. RT spoke with Tom Martin – the founder of the Preppers Network – from inside his truck.

“It’s not so much political, but more economic. I see people every day lose their jobs and have to rely on food that they have stored up previously to live on that food, just because they’ve lost their jobs,” said Martin.

Gas masks, bullet-proof vests, canned food, tents and helmets fill basement like this one.

A prepper’s survival bag is not a regular first aid kit. It includes things like a parachute cord, a survival knife, a meal ready to eat, a body heat-retaining space blanket and bagged emergency drinking water. According to preppers, one must also be ready for chemical catastrophies, or a large-scale terrorist attack.

“If contaminates land on top of you, you’ve got to have a couple of pairs of gloves on. Your feet will slip into a chemical-proof boot. If you go into an unknown situation you are going to want to have one that’s fully incapsulated. So that you are 100 percent sure that nothing will get through to you,” said Keith Proskura.

A variety of walkie-talkies are ready for use if the communication network shuts down. On the other end of the line is Keith’s father, John Proskura, who is actually in the next room. A police officer for 25 years, he is now retired; his main past time is operating a ham radio. For him, communications will be key if disaster strikes.

“The tsunami and earthquake in Japan a couple of months ago – amateur radio played a big part in that in providing emergency communication. And the big hurricane in Haiti a couple of years ago,” said the man.

There is one scenario he fears more than others.

“If there was some kind of a nuclear fall-out, radio wave propagation would probably for all practical purposes seize,” said John.

Around $10,000 is the hefty price tag for these supplies.

But to preppers, it’s not just ten grand sitting in a basement – with uncertainty taking over the US, they say those who seem paranoid today may end up being the smartest tomorrow.
http://rt.com/usa/news/preparing-preppers-apocalypse-world/

AL-QAEDA FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT?

Published: 07 July, 2011, 01:04

Terrorists are urging insurgents to take advantage of US gun laws.

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TAGS: Arms, Conflict, Crime, Military, Scandal, Accident, Terrorism, USA, Culture

Following a recent al-Qaeda issued video in which terrorists are instructed about “how easy” it is to obtain guns in America, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is asking his citizens to complain to Congress about lax legislation.
“Close the loopholes that let terrorists buy guns,” reads a message in Bloomberg’s campaign, which rebroadcasts in part the al-Qaeda video and cautions America that rules need to be changed before another tragedy occurs.
RT’s Adam vs. The Man host Adam Kokesh says that making people afraid won’t help the debate over gun rights in the States. “You shouldn’t be afraid that someone is taking advantage of you for being disarmed, but that there is a massive government effort to keep people disarmed,” he says.
Kokesh debates RT host Lauren Lyster, who is in favor of more stringent gun laws. Kokesh, however, thinks that civilian firearm use isn’t really a problem. “When civilians use firearms, they are much less likely to fire arm. They are much more likely to be used to prevent crimes,” he says. Kokesh adds that, “in this country you are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist.”
Lyster asks, though, if owning a gun might give authorities a reason to shoot. She recalls the case of a former Military member residing in Arizona that was surprised by a SWAT team earlier this year. He allegedly had a gun when they stormed into his house, and, though he rightfully owned it, opened fire. “Granted, perhaps he is allowed to do that by law,” says Lyster, “but if he wasn’t pointing an AR-15 at the police when they banged down his door, do you think he’d be alive?'' 
“I think one of the arguments is you need to be able to protect yourself, but in this case, having a gun — is that what contributed to him being killed?”
Do gun rights backfire on people, she asks? “No, I think you can look at a freak case and always make that argument,” responds Kokesh, who says that taking away the Marine’s Second Amendment right wouldn’t solve anything. Rather, it would take the police to reevaluate their policies.
Does Bloomberg’s message scare Kokesh? He says he is affected by any tragedy in America that is caused by guns that doesn’t have to happen. “There is a potential for tragedy that this al-Qaeda video points out,” he says, but adds that the logical fallacy behind this would be the equivalent of outlawing air so that terrorists wouldn’t be able to breathe.
http://rt.com/usa/news/al-qaeda-amendment-gun-kokesh/

PROBE DOES LITTLE TO EXPLAIN NYPD TIES WITH CIA

Published: 17 October, 2011, 23:05

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / AFP

TAGS: Crime, Religion, Scandal, Information Technology, Corruption, USA, Culture

Facing questioning through an internal affairs investigation, the New York Police Department is attempting to explain what a CIA operative was doing on the force’s controversial Demographics Unit.
Despite this probe, however, the answers are still not so clear.
The Associated Press revealed in August that the NYPD was operating a top-secret unit that was performing clandestine surveillance on the Big Apple’s Muslim community without any probable cause other than targeting them for their religion. Officials on the force had originally denied the existence of the Demographics Unit, but as more and more documents surfaced through the AP’s investigation, the force eventually revealed a handful of details on the division. Now with an internal affairs probe looking to see why a CIA operative was working in cahoots with a municipal police department, an explanation, unfortunately, still seems a ways forthcoming.
The unit has reportedly singled out ethnic Muslims as high-terror-alert citizens, and sent undercover agents within the Police Department into Muslim-majority neighborhoods to conduct secret surveillance and report back with information on businesses, residences and habits. Serious questions have arisen over the legality of the operations, given that the CIA is prohibited from spying domestically in the States. Also called into question, however, has been why the NYPD has been sending officials overseas to gather intellect in foreign nations, creating much confusion as to why the two agencies have been cooperating.
Defending the Demographics Unit upon the opening of the AP’s investigation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters, “We live in a dangerous world, and we have to be very proactive in making sure that we prevent terrorism," adding, “I think most Muslims want police protection. They don't want their kids … falling off the … train and going down the wrong path.”
Retired-CIA Chief David Cohen told the AP, however, that surveillance occurred on unsuspected citizens with use of language-capable agents and “ethnic officers,” to which he called the department’s “secret weapon.”
In the latest news regarding the operation, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly acknowledged the placement of the CIA operative on the force, and noted that the agent provides officers with “technical information” but “doesn’t have access to any of our investigative files.” On the contrary, CIA Director David Patraeus said that the operative would make sure that information pertinent to both departments was properly shared, opening up many questions about what affiliation the agent has and who is actually coming clean.
If the operative is indeed sharing information between forces, it could only be strengthening ties between the agencies. The AP reports that a CIA liaison in New York already shares intel with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, however, which is staffed by hundreds of members of the NYPD.
A senior US officially speaking anonymously to the AP says that the CIA agent is working alongside the Police Department as a means of gaining managerial training, but with the agency denying he has any access to the NYPD’s files, it is unclear how ha is supervising anyone and to what extent.
"It's really important to fully understand what the nature of the investigations into the Muslim community are all about, and also the partnership between the local police and the CIA," Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

BLOOMBERG DEFENDS SECRET SURVEILLANCE OF NYC MUSLIMS

Published: 08 September, 2011,

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) speaks at a press conference as construction continues at the World Trade Center site on September 7, 2011 in New York City. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has exposed a haunting Orwellian outcome for the future of New Yorkers in a recent interview where he defends alleged ethnic profiling among the NYPD.
The Associated Press has been continuing an investigating into the New York City Police Department following revelations that exposed undercover operations that spied on Muslims in the Big Apple. The AP last month unearthed information on a mysterious “Demographics Unit” inside the NYPD that, under the guidance of a CIA operative, installed clandestine cops in Muslim-majority neighborhoods to infiltrate the community and identify factors that could signal an eventual terror attack.
The NYPD originally denied the existence of any such unit, but in the days since the AP first exposed the operation they have produced documentation that served as training manuals within the Department’s Intelligence Division that points towards profiling. Now Mayor Michael Bloomberg is defending surveillance such as this and says that even more monitoring is soon to come.
"As the world gets more dangerous, people are willing to have infringements on their personal freedoms that they would not before," Bloomberg responds to the AP.
Instead of agreeing to allegations that the surveillance is spying on Muslims without specific reasoning, Bloomberg says rather that the techniques coming out of the NYPD are meant to be preventative.
“We live in a dangerous world, and we have to be very proactive in making sure that we prevent terrorism," he told reporters recently. The mayor remarked that he believes in being true to both the Constitution of the United States and the personal rights of people in America, but implied that he would go to any means to insure the safety of New Yorkers.
Bloomberg also adds that Muslims welcome the police into their community — even if more than 250 mosques have been secretly surveyed in the decade since the September 11 attacks unbeknownst to the worshippers.
"I think most Muslims want police protection. They don't want their kids … falling off the … train and going down the wrong path," Bloomberg says.
The protection, he adds, will only become more intense as his administration progresses. The mayor tells the AP that facial-recognition technology will soon allow authorities to monitor and identify anyone walking down a street, which while potentially nipping any 9/11-repeats in the bud also eliminates privacy as the people of New York know it.
Author Mordecai Dzikansky added to the AP’s initial report by confirming that he spied for the NYPD as far away from Manhattan as Israel and said it was merely a matter of “going where the problem could arise.” The author thanked God for the NYPD’s diversified squad which he said made it easy for officers of different makeup to infiltrate varying Muslim communities undetected.
“That’s our secret weapon,” saus Dzikansky.
Officers were installed in disguise outside of the jurisdiction of NYC — entering Pennsylvania, New Jersey and even abroad — to spy in mosques, coffee shops, community centers and other places of worship since September 11. Earlier this month, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne denied that his force was working in conjunction with the CIA.
http://rt.com/usa/news/bloomberg-surveillance-nypd-muslim-113/

MAINSTREAM MEDIA WHITEWASHES THE FACTS BEHIND TRAPWIRE SCANDAL

Published: 14 August, 2012,

Reuters / Joshua Lott

The discovery of a surveillance system named TrapWire has connected state and federal law enforcement agencies with a vast intelligence infrastructure, raising questions everywhere — except in the mainstream media.
The New York Times finally brought TrapWire into discussion late Monday in an article published on their website that has journalist Scott Shane discarding initial reports made about the surveillance system as “wildly exaggerated.” A piece published hours earlier in Slate says stories about TrapWire are “rooted in hyperbole and misinformation” and “heavier on fiction than fact,” and even Cubic Corporation, the San Diego, California company reported as the parent company to developers Abraxas Corp., have been driven to dismiss that rumored relationship with a formal press release.
“Cubic Corporation acquired Abraxas Corporation on December 20, 2010,” a Monday afternoon statement from Cubic claims. “Abraxas Corporation then and now has no affiliation with Abraxas Applications now known as Trapwire, Inc.”
But four days after RT first broke the news of a nationwide surveillance system operated underneath the noses of millions of Americans — and even citizens abroad — the mainstream media and the major players are going to great lengths to abolish any and all allegations about TrapWire. As private researchers, journalists and hacktivists correspond with one another over the Web, though, the information becoming increasingly available about Cubic, Abraxas and TrapWire — facts meant to be left under wraps — is opening up details about a vast operation with strict ties to the intelligence community, the federal government, the US Defense Department contractors and countless others across the globe.
While the New York Times has indeed finally come forth with a story on TrapWire, their rushed exposé about a story sparked by “speculation” contains references to allegations that are argued directly in emails obtained from Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, the intelligence company that was hacked by the Anonymous collective last year. Emails uncovered in the attack were provided to WikiLeaks, who on their part published the trove in installments, including a dump last week. Thanks to a red flag being raised by independent researcher Justin Ferguson last week, the TrapWire system was linked to Stratfor staffers, in turn causing a colossal investigation to be launched from all corners of the Internet.
So far, that probing has proved at least one thing: that the allegations made by both Cubic and sources speaking to the Times are either dead wrong or represent a quickly snowballing attempt at a cover-up.
Speaking to the Times for Shane’s article, New York Police Department chief spokesman Paul Browne says that rumors the city’s subway system is covered by 500 cameras linked to TrapWire are false. Explicitly, Browne says, “We don’t use TrapWire,” but the Times stops short of printing a quote from the NYPD that exceeds six syllables. While Browne has not publically weighed in yet as to if the NYC surveillance cams were formerly part of the TrapWire system, emails uncovered in the Stratfor attack seem to suggest exactly that.
In an email dated September 26, 2011, Stratfor Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton is believed to have responded to a memo about the NYPD’s counter-terrorism efforts by writing, “Note their TrapWire intuitive video surveillance capabilities. NYPD has done what no US Govt Agency has been able to do in the CT [counter-terrorism] arena.”
In a separate correspondence sent one year earlier on July 16, 2010, Burton writes that “TrapWire may be the most successful invention on the GWOT [Global War on Terror] since 9-11.”
“I knew these hacks when they were GS-12's at the CIA. God Bless America. Now they have EVERY major HVT in CONUS, the UK, Canada, Vegas, Los Angeles, NYC as clients,” he adds, referring to “high-value targets.”
Contrasting the statements made by the NYPD rep and Stratfor’s VP open up nothing more than a he-said-she-said scenario that makes it impossible, at this point, to put a finger on who exactly is in the right. Since New York City has readied their own domain-awareness-system, openly admitted to conducting undercover surveillance of Muslim residents and installed thousands of cameras on the island of Manhattan alone, though, it doesn’t seem all that odd that Mayor Bloomberg would have authorized the use of TrapWire in at least some capacity during the past few years.
Also brought into question are the merits behind Cubic Corporation's claims about their relationship with TrapWire. “Abraxas Corporation then and now has no affiliation with Abraxas Applications now known as Trapwire, Inc.,” the company claims in their press release issued this Monday. According to a 2007 report in the Washington Business Journal, though, that as well is a full-on fib.
“Abraxas Corp., a risk-mitigation technology company, has spun out a software business to focus on selling a new product,” the article reads. “The spinoff – called Abraxas Applications – will sell TrapWire, which predicts attacks on critical infrastructure by analyzing security reports and video surveillance.”
Published more than five years before the Stratfor emails prompted a probe into TrapWire and its affiliates, the Washington Business Journal article answers a lot of questions that are being asked today.
“Reston-based Abraxas Applications will seek federal, state and local government clients as [well] as companies in financial services, oil and gas, chemicals, transportation and other industries with critical infrastructure,” the article alleges.
Just as today, though, Business Journal also acknowledges a cloud of secrecy that keeps the juiciest part of TrapWire under wraps: “The 300-person company has spent millions of dollars developing TrapWire, but won't say precisely how much,” their article reads.
Elsewhere, the Journal adds another piece to the puzzle involving the surveillance system and the NYPD: “Abraxas Applications hits the ground running. Abraxas Corp. previously won contracts to test TrapWire with the New York Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Department of Energy and Marine Corps.”
Meanwhile, current investigations conducted by RT and other outlets have suggested that TrapWire may be connected to as many as thousands of cameras in Washington, DC and others in London, Las Vegas as elsewhere.
http://rt.com/usa/news/trapwire-surveillance-abraxas-times-671/

BRITS TO PAY $3 BILLION TO BE SPIED UPON ON WEB, EMAILS, TEXTS

Published: 03 April, 2012,

Police to gain access to who you call, what sites you surf and how you play video games.

UK taxpayers will have to pay billions of dollars to have their web surfing, email exchange, text messaging, and even Skype calls, monitored. In addition to the hefty price-tag, innocent Brits risk being misidentified as terrorists.
The shocking data comes ahead of the plan announcement in the Queen's speech, which is scheduled for May. Meanwhile, the Home Office, Britain’s interior ministry, said ministers were preparing to legislate "as soon as parliamentary time allows".
More than $3 billion over the first decade alone is the extraordinary sum the British taxpayer will have to pay to be legally spied upon, reports the Daily Mail. In addition, annual running costs of roughly $320 million – $610 a minute – to store the data gathered from private communication.
Moreover, the above figures are based on 2009 estimates, which means the actual price, if it were estimated now, would be higher still.
British security agencies are pushing for a law, which would allow police to gain access to who you call, what sites you surf and how you play video games.
The government wants details about text messages, phone calls, email, visited websites, Facebook and Twitter exchanges and even online game chats.
The bill is aimed at finding potential terrorists and criminals in the name of protecting British citizens. However, Brits themselves might need protection from the side-effects caused by the new policy. According to the Information Commissioner’s Office – an independent watchdog upholding information rights in the public interest – once implemented, the bill may lead to innocents being wrongly identified as criminals. Or worse still – terrorists.
According to ICO internal documents uncovered by Tory MP Dominic Raab, this misidentification may lead to regular people being barred from flying along with terrorist suspects and criminals alike.
"Individuals may be wrongly identified, subject to identity fraud or there may just be a mistake. How do they put this right? Intelligence can be used to put people on no-fly lists, limit incomes or asset grabs by government agencies," the documents read.
Rights activists fear potential abuse of the surveillance, as well as hacker threats to the database storing the personal details collected. It will be a responsibility of providers to store the data for two years. ICO documents cover this sensitive subject too, warning of the potential for abuse by service providers.
These revelations have caused an upheaval among British politicians, with both Tories and Liberal Democrats standing their ground as opponents of the policy, which was first suggested by the Labour government back in 2006. Six years on, MPs are raising their brows at the estimated cost of the project, in the wake of financial hardships that push UK government to make cuts elsewhere.
The plan is said to have been prepared by the Home Office in collaboration with home security service MI5, the foreign intelligence service MI6 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the body responsible for signals intelligence and information assurance for UK’s government and armed forces.
The plan is expected to be announced in May in the Queen's Speech. It is a rewrite of a similar plan, which was developed by the Labour Party, but had been shelved in November 2009 due to lack of public support. Then in opposition the Conservatives criticized Labour’s “reckless” record on privacy.

TRAPWIRE TIED TO WHITE HOUSE, SCOTLAND YARD, MI5 AND OTHERS, CLAIMS HACKED STRATFOR EMAIL

Published: 16 August, 2012

AFP Photo / Mario Tama

An email hacked from Stratfor that discusses the use of the TrapWire surveillance system has been decrypted, revealing insider claims that the widespread spy program was adopted by the White House, Scotland Yard, Canadian authorities and others.
When WikiLeaks published a trove of correspondence last week reported to be from the servers of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, included in the data dump was at least one email that initially appeared as pure gibberish. The communiqué, sent from Stratfor Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton to seven other staffers within the private firm, has now been decoded, however, and its content suggests that the TrapWire surveillance program was put into the hands of the most elite and powerful governments and law enforcement agencies in the entire world.
The email, dated September 23, 2010, includes a string of correspondence between Burton and more than half-a-dozen colleagues exchanging information for a full day about how Stratfor is distributing feeds from its TrapWire system and with whom. Although encoded, the emails are encrypted in Base64 format, which can easily be decoded online. A decoded copy has also been uploaded to the Web by hacktivists aligned with Anonymous.
“Chatted with Mike M, the TW [TrapWire] operator and former CIA crony,” Burton writes in the first email included in the encrypted chain. “He said our feed was taking up 25% of the TW screens inside the client command posts and that the feedback they are getting is that the info being pushed in is more geo-pol centered vice tactical-security.”
“How can we fix?  Who is auditing what is going in the pipe?” Burton asks his cohorts.
Stratfor is reported to have had a contract directly with the developers of TrapWire that allowed them a substantial cut of their profits in exchange for their assistance in promoting their product to high-ranked customers, other emails published by Wikileaks as part of the Global Intelligence Files suggest. One file included in the trove, a partnering agreement between Stratfor and TrapWire’s parent group, Abraxas, provides Burton and company with an 8 percent referral fee for any businesses they help sign on to the surveillance system [pdf].
The first reply to the encrypted Burton email is from Beth Bronder, whose public LinkedIn profile documents her as serving as the senior vice president of government & corporate solutions at Stratfor until November of that year. She was only at the agency for ten months before moving to Bloomberg Government and then the CQ – Roll Call Group, where she is listed as an employee today.
According to the decrypted emails, Bronder says that Stratfor is on top of trying to fix the feed being streamed to TrapWire clients in order to make it more “security focused” per his superior’s suggestion, but when Burton responds with the names of customers involved in the surveillance program, it is no wonder why Stratfor was so eager to entice their buyers with the best material available.
“This audience is the who's who of the CT world,” the email from Burton reads, referring to counterterrorism. “TW has RCMP, MI5, Scotland Yard SO15, USSS White House and PPD, LAPD, NYPD, Las Vegas PD and Fusion, Seattle PD, SEA-TAC…etc.”
Since breaking the news of TrapWire last week, the science-fiction-like surveillance system has slowly but surely penetrated the mainstream media, although few agencies have responded to the attention by addressing their connection with TrapWire. Earlier this week, though, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne flatly refuted on behalf of the NYPD to the New York Times, “We don’t use TrapWire.” According to Burton’s claim, however, the NYPD was indeed a customer as of September 2010, as were the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, British intelligence and the US Secret Service and White House.
Other information collected in the last week have also suggested that the NYPD was in cahoots with TrapWire, but no correspondence is believed to have been published linking the surveillance system with the Executive Branch of the United States or any agencies in Canada. Although an unencrypted email from Burton that was circulated by hacktivists last week includes the claim that TrapWire was installed on the site of every major high-value target in the continental US, UK and Canada, no other correspondence is thought to have put these specific agencies in direct connection to TrapWire.
In the next line, Burton explains that intelligence caught by TrapWire was being fed directly to these high-profile customers, bypassing any complication that could arise by a more bureaucratic distribution. He even acknowledges that problems could be put in play if they relied on sending their surveillance to the US Department of Homeland Security or lesser government agencies.
“Our materials are on their screens INSIDE the walls,” Burton writes. “We circumvent the dysfunctional DHS/DC by having our info already on their 24x7 screen.”
“We need to laser focus pieces to capture their attn.  Maybe even a video,” Burton adds. “Trust me, the agents and cops watching the TW feed WANT something interesting to see.”
In a 2005 interview with The Entrepreneur Center, Richard “Hollis” Helms, co-founder of TrapWire developers Abraxas, says the system “can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition, draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under observation from terrorists.” He calls it “a proprietary technology designed to protect critical national infrastructure from a terrorist attack by detecting the pre-attack activities of the terrorist and enabling law enforcement to investigate and engage the terrorist long before an attack is executed,” and that, “The beauty of it is that we can protect an infinite number of facilities just as efficiently as we can one and we push information out to local law authorities automatically.”
In a unencrypted email from September 26, Burton writes that the “NYPD has done what no US Govt Agency has been able to do” in the counterterrorism arena because of TrapWire.”
Since the TrapWire scandal broke, Stratfor has kept mum on the allegations that they were directly affiliated with a widespread, international surveillance program, and are probably inclined to follow the tactic proposed by the head of the security firm earlier this year. In February, Stratfor CEO and founder George Friedman addressed the hack credited to Anonymous, saying, “Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies,” but, also, “Some may be authentic.”
“We will not validate either, nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questions about them,” Friedman said.
http://rt.com/usa/news/trapwire-stratfor-email-burton-786/

CONVICTED AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS LAUNCH HUMAN RIGHTS BID AGAINST UK

Published: 26 August, 2012,

The European Court of Human Rights in the French eastern city of Strasbourg (AFP Photo / Johanna Leguerre)

Two Al-Qaeda members serving life sentences in Britain have lodged a complaint against the UK at the European Court of Human Rights. They claim Britain’s MI5 security agency was complicit in their being tortured while in Pakistan to get a confession.
­Salahuddin Amin and Rangzieb Ahmed, both born in the UK, are doing life terms in British prisons. Amin was convicted in 2007 for plotting a massive explosion at the Bluewater shopping center in Kent and another at the Ministry of Sound nightclub in Central London in 2005.
The other man, Rangzieb Ahmed, is viewed as the highest-ranked Al-Qaeda operator put on trial in the UK. He was the first person to be convicted of “directing terrorism” and as a center of Al-Qaeda’s global web was found to have had links with every one of Al-Qaeda’s terrorist cells in the UK.
Both were arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the UK for further trial.
Now the men allege that the British domestic intelligence service, MI5, were complicit in their torture by Pakistan’s security services who were trying to beat testimony out of them, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Thus, Amin claims in his request to the EU human rights court that Pakistan’s security agents used pliers to remove three of his fingernails. Then, as prosecution began in the UK, Pakistani files were withheld from him and his defense team. Moreover, he asserts, the court knew the evidence had been obtained by torture and “inhuman degrading treatment”.
Ahmed alleges he was allowed to leave Britain for Pakistan before MI5 tipped off local intelligence services on his person. He says the UK was aware of the torture which followed his arrest by Pakistani agents in 2006. He also claims a fair trial was denied to him since his defense team also had no access to Pakistani materials.
The complaints have already been rejected by British courts, but the European Court of Human Rights has given them the green light. As a result, UK officials will have to give explanations to a panel in Strasburg.
The British media view the complaint as a last-ditch attempt for Amin and Ahmed to be freed from jail. If Strasburg rules the men's human rights were breached during their prosecutions, their case in Britain will get a review.
This is not the first time MI5’s reputation has been smeared with allegations of torture. Last summer, human rights groups boycotted an inquiry into reports that the agency sanctioned its staff to use harsh interrogation methods in overseas operations, if valuable information could be gained.
As MI5 refused to disclose relevant documents, the inquiry was slammed as lacking credibility even before it started. All this was taking place as “interrogation” victims were alleging having been tortured or kept against their will at length at Bagram or Guantanamo military bases at the wish of the UK.
http://rt.com/news/terrorists-human-rights-uk-598/

‘OPERATION FREE ASSANGE’: ANONYMOUS TAKE DOWN INTERPOL WEBSITE

Published: 27 August, 2012

Interpol

Hactivist group Anonymous claims to have taken down the websites of Interpol and a British police force as part of a campaign calling for the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Several Twitter accounts associated with the loose-knit Anonymous collective have announced that the website of International Criminal Police Organization was taken down. The site was unavailable as of 9:18 pm GMT but resumed functioning soon after.
The hackers also claim to have taken down the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), a UK police unit responsible for operations against serious and organized crime.
Assange, the founder and editor of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has been ordered by Swedish authorities to be extradited from the UK where he had been under house arrest. Two women from Sweden have accused Assange of sex crimes, although he has yet to be charged.
In fear of being sent to Sweden and then extradited to the US to be tried for his role with WikiLeaks, Assange applied for political asylum in Ecuador, which the Latin American country finally granted him earlier this month.
Regardless, British authorities have refused to give Assange safe passage out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London so that he may travel overseas.
http://rt.com/news/anonymous-interpol-free-assange-607/

ISRAEL ’SUPER-READY TO ATTACK IRAN – DEFENCE CHIEF

Edited: 5 June, 2012
 

Israel is fully prepared to attack Iran if needed, declared Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, saying the military threat is one convincing method of forcing Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions.

According to the military chief, “the vectors of international diplomatic isolation, economic pressure and sanctions, disturbances to the [nuclear] project… and a credible military threat” make the list of factors that can influence the direction of Iran's nuclear program.

“In order to be a credible military threat, we must be super-ready, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re super-ready,”Gantz was cited by Israeli media as saying to the country’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

The military official also explained that Tehran has yet to determine whether to use its nuclear capabilities for weapons, but the IDF is prepared for either scenario.

Israel has repeatedly declared that it does not rule out the military option as a tool to curb the Iranian nuclear program. 

A close ally of Israel, the US has also assured Tel Aviv that it will do everything to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Tehran insists that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, and despite a lack of any evidence pointing to weapons development, the West is reluctant to believe the assurances. 

In the recent rounds of nuclear talks in Baghdad on May 23-24 Tehran refused to suspend its 20 per cent uranium enrichment program, raising more controversy regarding its eventual goals.

The next round of talks will take place this month in Moscow.

http://www.rt.com/news/israel-ready-attack-iran-military-chief-097/

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GOOGLE AND CIA WORKING TOGETHER TO SPY ON YOU!! THE NEW WORLD ORDER IS WATCHING YOU!!

PART 1

PART 2

MEDIA LIES ABOUT LIBYA AND GADDAFI