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Author Topic: they know what you are doing  (Read 273577 times)

Offline zorgon

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #585 on: June 05, 2015, 03:08:59 am »
Russians :P
Sexatary Pool :D

[youtube]2Uu_qI4GbgM[/youtube]


Offline Glaucon

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #586 on: June 05, 2015, 05:50:49 am »
Good find Z..... ;D ;D
"The beginning of wisdom comes with the definition of terms" -Socrates

"..that the people being ignorant, and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it to certain ruin" -Locke

Offline zorgon

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #587 on: June 06, 2015, 11:50:07 am »
"they know what you are doing"
Thank fuc4 for that.  Someone is actually doing their job properly!
They don't know do they?  ::)

AAWWWWW POOR BABIES

Seems they want to keep snooping on you :P

US govt attempts to block lawsuit against NSA



Lawyers from the Justice Department have urged a judge to halt a lawsuit against the NSA’s spy programs. This comes after the judge’s previous ruling that the NSA’s collection of metadata was likely unconstitutional and “almost Orwellian” in nature.

On Wednesday, government lawyers appealed to US District Court Judge Richard Leon to put court proceedings on hold for two lawsuits against the NSA filed by conservative legal activist, Larry Klayman.

Klayman has challenged the legality of the NSA’s programs that collect and store the metadata of American citizens on a massive scale.

The lawyers argued that if the lawsuits were allowed to go further, they would lead to the disclosure of classified information which would represent a “significant risk” to national security.

“Plaintiffs have made clear their intentions to seek discovery of this kind of still-classified information, concerning targets and subjects, participating providers, and other operational details of the challenged NSA intelligence programs,” said the motion.


http://drleonardcoldwell.com/2014/01/10/us-govt-attempts-to-block-lawsuit-against-nsa/

Offline Glaucon

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #588 on: June 08, 2015, 09:59:24 am »
Sounds like the "He opened it, why you looking at me?" accountability shift strategy.

Who has the balls to open this limited edition (government sanctioned) Pandora Box? Nobody, not ONE or TWO or even THREE of the highest cleaed individuals have the collective knowledge necessary to emulate the  wide  gaze required to see both ends of this thing.

"The beginning of wisdom comes with the definition of terms" -Socrates

"..that the people being ignorant, and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it to certain ruin" -Locke

Offline micjer

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #589 on: June 09, 2015, 05:10:51 am »
Russians :P
Sexatary Pool :D

[youtube]2Uu_qI4GbgM[/youtube]



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Offline thorfourwinds

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #590 on: June 11, 2015, 10:01:21 am »
[youtube]T4ZLhI3vOxo[/youtube]



Uploaded on May 3, 2010
Similar in creepiness to the video Ad:?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aD5VIGBkew??
This one, however, they call people who don't pay "criminals".

I'm surprised they don't just say that if you don't pay up, they
will introduce you to a man named "Bubba" who think's you're really pretty.?




[youtube]DbzxHKkEwm4[/youtube]



Uploaded on May 13, 2010
Pennsylvania Department of Revenue Says 'Find Us Before We Find You'
EARTH AID is dedicated to the creation of an interactive multimedia worldwide event to raise awareness about the challenges and solutions of nuclear energy.

Offline zorgon

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #591 on: June 11, 2015, 10:39:37 am »
WHY does the Pennsylvania State ad have a picture of the DARPA IAO badge? DARPA's IAO polices Restricted technology not collect back state taxes :P

Calling  bogus on that one  :P

space otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #592 on: June 12, 2015, 07:42:27 am »

yeah well my question is

what's the point..that's five years old already


actually since I live in pa I hafta tell you that most here were laughing and applauding  the approach to collect back taxes and going.. good, fine the losers..

so sorry if that disappoints anyone





this is last year but explains the problem and program






http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/09/21/New-laws-helping-Pennsylvania-collect-old-debts/stories/201408180002
 
New laws helping state collect old debts
September 21, 2014 12:00 AM
By Bill Toland / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
As state lawmakers spent the spring grappling with ways to raise money and close a projected budget shortfall of more than $1 billion, there was a potential revenue source sitting under their noses the whole time — the pot of uncollected, overdue taxes, much of it owed by Pennsylvania businesses.

That’s one reason the state’s Revenue Department has been ramping up efforts to recover past-due debts, armed with new laws that allow it to conduct expanded audits, as well as more aggressive — and efficient — tax collection.

Other states, counties and cities are trying to do the same, particularly post-Recession with tax collections stagnant.

Last year, Philadelphia stepped up its sequestration efforts, allowing the city to seize rental income bound for property owners who are delinquent on their tax debts. Vermont hired new compliance auditors. Counties are garnishing wages and seizing homes. Other states are simply filing liens and turning debts over to collection agencies more quickly.

Crackdowns such as these aren't necessarily popular, particularly with those being targeted — but they are generally more popular than the alternative.

“It’s always an easier sell to say that we need more aggressive enforcement than to say, ‘Let’s raise taxes,’ ” said Chester County tax law attorney Kelly Phillips Erb.

One of the new Pennsylvania collection programs, authorized by 2010 legislation, is known as the Enhanced Revenue Collection Account. This fiscal year, the $15 million spent on the program and its hundreds of employees helped recover $162 million in tax debts and helped keep $69.3 million in “refunds avoided.”



More than half of the state’s recoveries ($83.9 million) come from businesses that haven’t turned over sales and use taxes, with an additional $20 million recovered in corporate net income taxes, capital stock taxes and foreign franchise taxes.

The ERCA program gives the Revenue Department “a way to invest in the positions we know will bring money,” said Elizabeth Brassell, press secretary for the department.

And there’s a lot of money out there — though it’s impossible to say how much.

Each month, the state updates its online lien list, a collection of businesses and individuals believed to owe taxes. (Liens are a claim against a property that must be satisfied before that property or business changes hands.)

As of this month, the list contains 137,600 liens, representing nearly $1.1 billion in unpaid taxes.The state files liens against delinquent businesses and individuals only when the Department of Revenue has “exhausted a number of other collections efforts, including notices, assessments and even phone calls and visits.”

About $235 million originates in Allegheny County.

Those totals, however, aren't reflective of the actual debt owed by those taxpayers; they are merely estimates. Some liens have been paid down since originally filed by the state. Unpaid debts may also be higher than the recorded lien because, if a debt remains unpaid, taxes and penalties continue to accrue.

Other lien amounts are revised up or down once a business or individual agrees to a payment plan.

The lien list, Ms. Brassell said, is a “snapshot in time,” not reflective of the full amount owed to the state.

The state experimented with a “tax scofflaw” list starting in 2006, when it began publishing a list of businesses that had failed to pay employer withholding taxes and and sales taxes. (The new online lien list includes all delinquent state taxpayers).

Though the state began culling data in July 2009, it waited a year to publish the scofflaw list. It did so to allow delinquent taxpayers to settle debts via a “tax amnesty” window, during which back taxes could be paid at reduced penalty and interest rates.

While the campaign was popular, the TV and radio spots that advertised the amnesty program were themselves controversial, saying Pennsylvania revenue agents “are [in] your telephone; we are your mail ... we are going to make your life very complicated ... Find us before we find you.”

After the amnesty window expired in June 2010, the state Department of Revenue released its online scofflaw list, hoping to “shame” delinquent taxpayers into settling up.

State liens exist prior to 2009, Ms. Brassell said, but there’s no central state accounting method that keeps track of those older debts. Those aren't ignored, she said, but the department’s tax collectors pursue debtors more vigorously “when we have a scent on the trail.”

Scents are developed more quickly these days. The state is stepping up “skip tracing” efforts, tracking down debtors who have no forwarding address or phone number. The state, through its ERCA program, also hired new phone agents for its delinquent tax call center. Liens are filed more quickly, too, now that the Revenue Department has moved away from its paper-based filing system.   

In 2012, the department was given legislative authority to attach a lien to a bank account. That means if a business’s taxes are past due, the department can get in touch with a bank and freeze an account until a tax debt is settled or at least until a payment plan is hashed out.

Also in 2012, the department was permitted to partner with a third-party contractor (the department hired Revenue Solutions Inc. of Pembroke, Mass.) that scours tax returns for questionable or fraudulent refunds. As of Sept. 15, the “benefits-based procurement” program had recovered nearly $11.8 million, yielding $7.74 million for the state with Revenue Solutions keeping $3.6 million for its own cut.

The state collected the money after first sending out tens of thousand of letters, telling taxpayers their refunds had been reduced or wiped out after further review. Others were asked to furnish additional documentation about deductions and work expenses.

While Revenue Solutions Inc. isn't a third-party collector — it just combs through the returns, while the state is still the party sending out letters and collecting money — the effect can be similar, Ms. Erb, the tax law attorney, said.

Because those companies work on commission — a cut of the money recovered — they have greater motivation to catch errors than resolve questions, she said. A taxpayer receiving a letter questioning a $50 deduction, even a legitimate one, is likely to pay the extra tax rather than put up a fight.

While taxpayers aren't thrilled, the Revenue Department would rather catch the money before it goes out the door than have to track it down later.

We’re “catching the errors earlier, before it gets to the lien process,” Ms. Brassell said. “We’re not waiting until it gets into the collections stream.”



Bill Toland: btoland@post-gazette.com .


The lien list, Ms. Brassell said, is a “snapshot in time,” not reflective of the full amount owed to the state.

 



« Last Edit: June 12, 2015, 07:49:35 am by space otter »

Offline thorfourwinds

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #593 on: June 12, 2015, 08:20:50 am »
WHY does the Pennsylvania State ad have a picture of the DARPA IAO badge? DARPA's IAO polices Restricted technology not collect back state taxes :P

Calling  bogus on that one  :P

Greetings:

If One had basic reading and comprehension skills, One would have noticed this: "Here is a logo for another REAL government program called "Total Information Awareness" The program is real and now is over 4 years old." The video graphics have nothing to do with the RADIO ad.

With great respect,
tfw

We're calling bogus on Your comment.   :P
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Offline zorgon

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #594 on: June 12, 2015, 11:36:08 am »
We're calling bogus on Your comment.   :P

Well maybe :P BUT I think it is one of those ploys to strike terror of the Illuminati into the people 

 ::)

space otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #595 on: June 12, 2015, 11:52:19 am »


geeeeeezee you two..

doom porn and illuminati..

what the hell world do you guys live it...
it was the pa tax guys tryng to get unpaid taxes collected...that's all it was

I can see why it resurfaced though
some idiot with nothing better to do is re posting it on you tube as tax Nazi's
and here
PA Tax Nazis Know Who You Are - Video Dailymotion

talk about regurgitation of non important crap


I'm  going back to my garden where real important things happen




edit to add..  btw  it's kinda off topic too  :P


Offline RUSSO

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #596 on: June 12, 2015, 12:42:39 pm »

doom porn and illuminati...


Is not it the winning recipe?

I think Brian Hugh Warner pretty much sums up it all.



 ::)

"Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer"
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

space otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #597 on: June 14, 2015, 04:34:33 am »


Russia and China broke into Snowden files to identify western spies, says MI6




The Guardian
James Tapper  1 hr ago

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-and-china-broke-into-snowden-files-to-identify-western-spies-says-mi6/ar-BBl7oh6



Downing Street believes that Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies have used documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden to identify British and US secret agents, according to a report in the Sunday Times.


The newspaper says MI6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, has withdrawn agents from overseas operations because Russian security services had broken into encrypted files held by American computer analyst Snowden.

Snowden provided the Guardian with top secret documents from the US National Security Agency (NSA), which revealed that western intelligence agencies had been undertaking mass surveillance of phone and internet use.

He fled to Hong Kong, then to Moscow, and the Sunday Times claims that both Chinese and Russian security officials gained access to his files as a result.

The files held by Snowden were encrypted, but now British officials believe both countries have hacked into the files, according to the report.

The newspaper quotes a series of anonymous sources from Downing Street, the Home Office and British intelligence saying that the documents contained intelligence techniques and information that would enable foreign powers to identify British and American spies.

The newspaper quoted a “senior Downing Street source” saying that “Russians and Chinese have information”.

The source said “agents have had to be moved and that knowledge of how we operate has stopped us getting vital information”. The source said they had “no evidence” that anyone had been harmed.

A “senior Home Office source” was also quoted by the newspaper, saying: “Putin didn’t give him asylum for nothing. His documents were encrypted but they weren’t completely secure and we have now seen our agents and assets being targeted.”

The Sunday Times also quoted a “British intelligence source” saying that Russian and Chinese officials would be examining Snowden’s material for “years to come”.

“Snowden has done incalculable damage,” the intelligence source reportedly said. “In some cases the agencies have been forced to intervene and lift their agents from operations to prevent them from being identified and killed.”

A Downing Street spokeswoman told the Observer on Saturday night: “We don’t comment on leaks.”


space otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #598 on: June 14, 2015, 12:12:57 pm »


seeing the above article this morning made me wonder how long this next article would take to show..lol..not long


ahhhh the media.. who to believe.....who owns it ?  hummmmmmmm



this headline



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

'Sunday Times' Snowden Story Is Example Of Journalism At Its Worst


takes you to this article


https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-snowden-files-journalism-worst-also-filled-falsehoods/

The Sunday Times’ Snowden Story is Journalism at its Worst — and Filled with Falsehoods

By Glenn Greenwald ?

Western journalists claim that the big lesson they learned from their key role in selling the Iraq War to the public is that it’s hideous, corrupt and often dangerous journalism to give anonymity to government officials to let them propagandize the public, then uncritically accept those anonymously voiced claims as Truth. But they’ve learned no such lesson. That tactic continues to be the staple of how major US and British media outlets “report,” especially in the national security area. And journalists who read such reports continue to treat self-serving decrees by unnamed, unseen officials – laundered through their media – as gospel, no matter how dubious are the claims or factually false is the reporting.
We now have one of the purest examples of this dynamic. Last night, the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times published their lead front-page Sunday article, headlined “British Spies Betrayed to Russians and Chinese.” Just as the conventional media narrative was shifting to pro-Snowden sentiment in the wake of a key court ruling and a new surveillance law, the article (behind a paywall: full text here) claims in the first paragraph that these two adversaries “have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.” It continues:


Western intelligence agencies say they have been forced into the rescue operations after Moscow gained access to more than 1m classified files held by the former American security contractor, who fled to seek protection from Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, after mounting one of the largest leaks in US history.

Senior government sources confirmed that China had also cracked the encrypted documents, which contain details of secret intelligence techniques and information that could allow British and American spies to be identified.

One senior Home Office official accused Snowden of having “blood on his hands”, although Downing Street said there was “no evidence of anyone being harmed”.

Aside from the serious retraction-worthy fabrications on which this article depends – more on those in a minute – the entire report is a self-negating joke. It reads like a parody I might quickly whip up in order to illustrate the core sickness of western journalism.

Unless he cooked an extra-juicy steak, how does Snowden “have blood on his hands” if there is “no evidence of anyone being harmed?” As one observer put it last night in describing the government instructions these Sunday Times journalists appear to have obeyed: “There’s no evidence anyone’s been harmed but we’d like the phrase ‘blood on his hands’ somewhere in the piece.”

The whole article does literally nothing other than quote anonymous British officials. It gives voice to banal but inflammatory accusations that are made about every whistleblower from Daniel Ellsberg to Chelsea Manning. It offers zero evidence or confirmation for any of its claims. The “journalists” who wrote it neither questioned any of the official assertions nor even quoted anyone who denies them. It’s pure stenography of the worst kind: some government officials whispered these inflammatory claims in our ears and told us to print them, but not reveal who they are, and we’re obeying. Breaking!

Stephen Colbert captured this exact pathology with untoppable precision in his 2006 White House Correspondents speech, when he mocked American journalism to the faces of those who practice it:


But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works.The President makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!

The Sunday Times article is even worse because it protects the officials they’re serving with anonymity. The beauty of this tactic is that the accusations can’t be challenged. The official accusers are being hidden by the journalists so nobody can confront them or hold them accountable when it turns out to be false. The evidence can’t be analyzed or dissected because there literally is none: they just make the accusation and, because they’re state officials, their media-servants will publish it with no evidence needed. And as is always true, there is no way to prove the negative. It’s like being smeared by a ghost with a substance that you can’t touch.

This is the very opposite of journalism. Ponder how dumb someone has to be at this point to read an anonymous government accusation, made with zero evidence, and accept it as true.

But it works. Other news agencies mindlessly repeated the Sunday Times claims far and wide. I watched last night as American and British journalists of all kinds reacted to the report on Twitter: by questioning none of it. They did the opposite: they immediately assumed it to be true, then spent hours engaged in somber, self-serious discussions with one another over what the geopolitical implications are, how the breach happened, what it means for Snowden, etc. This is the formula that shapes their brains: anonymous self-serving government assertions = Truth.

By definition, authoritarians reflexively believe official claims – no matter how dubious or obviously self-serving, even when made while hiding behind anonymity – because that’s how their submission functions. Journalists who practice this sort of primitive reporting – I uncritically print what government officials tell me, and give them anonymity so they have no accountability for any it – do so out of a similar authoritarianism, or uber-nationalism, or laziness, or careerism. Whatever the motives, the results are the same: government officials know they can propagandize the public at any time because subservient journalists will give them anonymity to do so and will uncritically disseminate and accept their claims.

At this point, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that journalists want it this way. It’s impossible that they don’t know better. The exact kinds of accusations laundered in the Sunday Times today are made – and then disproven – in every case where someone leaks unflattering information about government officials.


In the early 1970s, Nixon officials such as John Ehrlichman and Henry Kissinger planted accusations in the U.S. media that Daniel Ellsberg had secretly given the Pentagon Papers and other key documents to the Soviet Union; everyone now knows this was a lie, but at the time, American journalists repeated it constantly, helping to smear Ellsberg. That’s why Ellsberg has constantly defended Snowden and Chelsea Manning from the start: because the same tactics were used to smear him.

pics of old news papers here

The same thing happened with Chelsea Manning. When WikiLeaks first began publishing the Afghan War logs, U.S. officials screamed that they – all together now – had “blood on their hands.” But when some journalists decided to scrutinize rather than mindlessly repeat the official accusation (i.e., some decided to do journalism), they found it was a fabrication.



Writing under the headline “US officials privately say WikiLeaks damage limited,” Reuters’ Mark Hosenball reported that “internal U.S. government reviews have determined that a mass leak of diplomatic cables caused only limited damage to U.S. interests abroad, despite the Obama administration’s public statements to the contrary.”

An AP report was headlined “AP review finds no WikiLeaks sources threatened,” and explained that “an Associated Press review of those sources raises doubts about the scope of the danger posed by WikiLeaks’ disclosures and the Obama administration’s angry claims, going back more than a year, that the revelations are life-threatening.” Months earlier, McClatchy’s Nancy Youssef wrote an article headlined “Officials may be overstating the dangers from WikiLeaks,” and she noted that “despite similar warnings ahead of the previous two massive releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone’s death.”

Now we have exactly the same thing here. There’s an anonymously made claim that Russia and China “cracked the top-secret cache of files” from Snowden’s, but there is literally zero evidence for that claim. These hidden officials also claim that American and British agents were unmasked and had to be rescued, but not a single one is identified. There is speculation that Russia and China learned things from obtaining the Snowden files, but how could these officials possibly know that, particularly since other government officials are constantly accusing both countries of successfully hacking sensitive government databases?

What kind of person would read evidence-free accusations of this sort from anonymous government officials – designed to smear a whistleblower they hate – and believe them? That’s a particularly compelling question given that Vice’s Jason Leopold just last week obtained and published previously secret documents revealing a coordinated smear campaign in Washington to malign Snowden. Describing those documents, he reported: “A bipartisan group of Washington lawmakers solicited details from Pentagon officials that they could use to ‘damage’ former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s ‘credibility in the press and the court of public opinion.'”

Manifestly then, the “journalism” in this Sunday Times articles is as shoddy and unreliable as it gets. Worse, its key accusations depend on retraction-level lies.

The government accusers behind this story have a big obstacle to overcome: namely, Snowden has said unequivocally that when he left Hong Kong, he took no files with him, having given them to the journalists with whom he worked, and then destroying his copy precisely so that it wouldn’t be vulnerable as he traveled. How, then, could Russia have obtained Snowden’s files as the story claims – “his documents were encrypted but they weren’t completely secure ” – if he did not even have physical possession of them?

The only way this smear works is if they claim Snowden lied, and that he did in fact have files with him after he left Hong Kong. The Sunday Times journalists thus include a paragraph that is designed to prove Snowden lied about this, that he did possess these files while living in Moscow:


It is not clear whether Russia and China stole Snowden’s data, or whether he voluntarily handed over his secret documents in order to remain at liberty in Hong Kong and Moscow.

David Miranda, the boyfriend of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was seized at Heathrow in 2013 in possession of 58,000 “highly classified” intelligence documents after visiting Snowden in Moscow.

What’s the problem with that Sunday Times passage? It’s an utter lie. David did not visit Snowden in Moscow before being detained. As of the time he was detained in Heathrow, David had never been to Moscow and had never met Snowden. The only city David visited on that trip before being detained was Berlin, where he stayed in the apartment of Laura Poitras.

The Sunday Times “journalists” printed an outright fabrication in order to support their key point: that Snowden had files with him in Moscow. This is the only “fact” included in their story that suggests Snowden had files with him when he left Hong Kong, and it’s completely, demonstrably false (and just by the way: it’s 2015, not 1971, so referring to gay men in a 10-year spousal relationship with the belittling term “boyfriends” is just gross).

Then there’s the Sunday Times claim that “Snowden, a former contractor at the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA), downloaded 1.7m secret documents from western intelligence agencies in 2013.” Even the NSA admits this claim is a lie. The NSA has repeatedly said that it has no idea how many documents Snowden downloaded and has no way to find out. As the NSA itself admits, the 1.7 million number is not the number the NSA claims Snowden downloaded – they admit they don’t and can’t know that number – but merely the amount of documents he interacted with in his years of working at NSA. Here’s then-NSA chief Keith Alexander explaining exactly that in a 2014 interview with the Australian Financial Review:


AFR: Can you now quantify the number of documents [Snowden] stole?

Gen. Alexander: Well, I don’t think anybody really knows what he actually took with him, because the way he did it, we don’t have an accurate way of counting. What we do have an accurate way of counting is what he touched, what he may have downloaded, and that was more than a million documents.

Let’s repeat that: “I don’t think anybody really knows what he actually took with him, because the way he did it, we don’t have an accurate way of counting.” Yet someone whispered to the Sunday Times reporters that Snowden downloaded 1.7 million documents, so like the liars and propagandists that they are, they mindlessly printed it as fact. That’s what this whole article is.

Then there’s the claim that the Russian and Chinese governments learned the names of covert agents by cracking the Snowden file, “forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries.” This appears quite clearly to be a fabrication by the Sunday Times for purposes of sensationalism, because if you read the actual anonymous quotes they include, not even the anonymous officials claim that Russia and China hacked the entire archive, instead offering only vague assertions that Russian and China “have information.”

Beyond that, how could these hidden British officials possibly know that China and Russia learned things from the Snowden files as opposed to all the other hacking and spying those countries do? Moreover, as pointed out last night by my colleague Ryan Gallagher – who has worked for well over a year with the full Snowden archive – “I’ve reviewed the Snowden documents and I’ve never seen anything in there naming active MI6 agents.” He also said: “I’ve seen nothing in the region of 1m documents in the Snowden archive, so I don’t know where that number has come from.”

Finally, none of what’s in the Sunday Times is remotely new. US and UK government officials and their favorite journalists have tried for two years to smear Snowden with these same claims. In June, 2013, the New York Times gave anonymity to “two Western intelligence experts, who worked for major government spy agencies” who “said they believed that the Chinese government had managed to drain the contents of the four laptops that Mr. Snowden said he brought to Hong Kong.” The NYT‘s Public Editor chided the paper for printing that garbage, and as I reported in my book, then-editor-in-chief Jill Abramson told the Guardian‘s Janine Gibson that they should not have printed that, calling it “irresponsible.” (And that’s to say nothing of the woefully ignorant notion that Snowden – or anyone else these days – stores massive amounts of data on “four laptops” as opposed to tiny thumb drives).

The GOP’s right-wing extremist Congressman Mike Rogers constantly did the same thing. He once announced with no evidence that “Snowden is working with Russia” – a claim even former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell denies – and also argued that Snowden should “be charged with murder” for causing unknown deaths. My personal favorite example of this genre of reckless, desperate smears is the Op-Ed which the Wall Street Journal published in May, 2014, by neocon Edward Jay Epstein, which had this still-hilarious paragraph:


A former member of President Obama’s cabinet went even further, suggesting to me off the record in March this year that there are only three possible explanations for the Snowden heist: 1) It was a Russian espionage operation; 2) It was a Chinese espionage operation, or 3) It was a joint Sino-Russian operation.

It must be one of those, an anonymous official told me! It must be! Either Russia did it. Or China did it. Or they did it together! That is American journalism.

The Sunday Times today merely recycled the same evidence-free smears that have been used by government officials for years – not only against Snowden, but all whistleblowers – and added a dose of sensationalism and then baked it with demonstrable lies. That’s just how western journalism works, and it’s the opposite of surprising. But what is surprising, and grotesque, is how many people (including other journalists) continue to be so plagued by some combination of stupidity and gullibility, so that no matter how many times this trick is revealed, they keep falling for it. If some anonymous government officials said it, and journalists repeat it while hiding who they are, I guess it must be true.

 

UPDATE: The Sunday Times has now quietly deleted one of the central, glaring lies in its story: that David Miranda had just met with Snowden in Moscow when he was detained at Heathrow carrying classified documents. By “quietly deleted,” I mean just that: they just removed it from their story without any indication or note to their readers that they’ve done so (though it remains in the print edition and thus requires a retraction). That’s indicative of the standard of “journalism” for the article itself. Multiple other falsehoods, and all sorts of shoddy journalistic practices, remain thus far unchanged.


space otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #599 on: June 15, 2015, 11:10:54 am »
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/15/us-data-hack_n_7584600.html?utm_hp_ref=technology&ir=Technology


Sex, Lies And Debt Potentially Exposed By U.S. Data Hack



 Reuters 
   Posted:  06/15/2015 8:00 am EDT    Updated:  3 hours ago


By Arshad Mohammed and Joseph Menn

WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - When a retired 51-year-old military man disclosed in a U.S. security clearance application that he had a 20-year affair with his former college roommate's wife, it was supposed to remain a secret between him and the government.

The disclosure last week that hackers had penetrated a database containing such intimate and possibly damaging facts about millions of government and private employees has shaken Washington.

The hacking of the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could provide a treasure trove for foreign spies.

The military man's affair, divulged when he got a job with a defense contractor and applied to upgrade his clearance, is just one example of the extensive potential for disruption, embarrassment and even blackmail arising from the hacking.

The man had kept the affair secret from his wife for two decades before disclosing it on the government's innocuously named Standard Form 86 (SF 86), filled out by millions of Americans seeking security clearances.

His case is described in a judge's ruling, published on the Pentagon website, that he should keep his security clearance because he told the government about the affair. His name is not given in the administrative judge's decision.

The disclosure that OPM's data had been hacked sent shivers down the spines of current and former U.S. government officials as they realized their secrets about sex, drugs and money could be in the hands of a foreign government.

The data that may be compromised by the incident, which was first reported by the Associated Press, included the detailed personal information on the SF 86 "QUESTIONNAIRE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY POSITIONS," according to U.S. officials.


U.S. SUSPECTS LINK TO CHINA

As with another cyberattack on OPM disclosed earlier this month, U.S. officials suspect it was linked to China, though they have less confidence about the origins of the second attack than about the first.

China denies any involvement in hacking U.S. databases.

While the Central Intelligence Agency does its own clearance investigations, agencies such as the State Department, Defense Department and National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on the world, all use OPM's services to some degree.

Intelligence veterans said the breach may prove disastrous because China could use it to find relatives of U.S. officials abroad as well as evidence of love affairs or drug use which could be used to blackmail or influence U.S. officials.

An even worse scenario would be the mass unmasking of covert operatives in the field, they said.

"The potential loss here is truly staggering and, by the way, these records are a legitimate foreign intelligence target," said retired Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA and NSA director. "This isn't shame on China. This is shame on us."

The SF 86 form, which is 127-pages long, is extraordinarily comprehensive and intrusive.

Among other things, applicants must list where they have lived; contacts with foreign citizens and travel abroad; the names and personal details of relatives; illegal drug use and mental health counseling except in limited circumstances.

A review of appeals of security denials published on the web shows the variety of information now in possession of the hackers, including financial troubles, infidelities, psychiatric diagnoses, substance abuse, health issues and arrests.

"It's kind of scary that somebody could know that much about us," said a former senior U.S. diplomat, pointing out the ability to use such data to impersonate an American official online, obtain passwords and plunder bank accounts.


SOME AGENCIES LESS VULNERABLE

A U.S. official familiar with security procedures, but who declined to be identified, said some agencies do not use OPM for clearances, meaning their employees' data was at first glance less likely to have been compromised.

However, the former senior diplomat said someone with access to a complete set of SF 86 forms and to the names of officials at U.S. embassies, which are usually public, could compare the two and make educated guesses about who might be a spy.

"Negative information is an indicator just as much as a positive information," said the former diplomat.

A review of appeals of security denials published on the web shows a variety of information now in possession of the hackers, including financial troubles, infidelities, psychiatric diagnoses, substance abuse, health issues and arrests.

The case of the 51-year-old former military man who told the government, but not his wife, about his 20-year affair came to light when he filed an appeal because his effort to upgrade his security clearance ran into trouble.

According to a May 13 decision by an administrative judge who heard his case, the man revealed the affair in the "Additional Comments" section of SF 86 in January 2012, ended the affair in 2013, and told his wife about it in 2014.

"DOD (Department of Defense) is aware of the affair because Applicant disclosed it on his SF 86; the affair is over; and the key people in Applicant's life are aware of it," the judge wrote, according to a Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals document posted online.

His access to classified information was approved.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by David Story and Sue Horton)

 


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