national intelligence

Obama and Romney Are Both Ignoring the Real Issue with Killing Bin Laden

9 Torture Myths DeBUNKED

George Orwell was right. He was just 30 years early.

In its April cover story, Wired has an exclusive report on the NSA's Utah Data Center, which is a must read for anyone who believes any privacy is still a possibility in the United States: "A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks.... Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.”... The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013." In other words, in just over 1 year, virtually anything one communicates through any traceable medium, or any record of one's existence in the electronic medium, which these days is everything, will unofficially be property of the US government to deal with as it sees fit... As former NSA operative William Binney who was a senior NSA crypto-mathematician, and is the basis for the Wired article (which we guess makes him merely the latest whistleblower to step up: is America suddenly experiencing an ethical revulsion?), and quit his job only after he realized that the NSA is now openly trampling the constitution, says as he holds his thumb and forefinger close together. "We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state."

The encroachment of yet another troubled nation into global geopolitical (read US implicitly) strife, this time Syria, appears to be intensifying further. As Sabah notes today, the CIA Director David Petraeus paid a surprise visit to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan yesterday. The topics of discussion were 'regional issues' but it was evident from concerns voiced about the instability in Syria and Iraq giving the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) terrorist organization a stronger foothold (a group which has been a source of tension between USA, Syria, Iraq, and obviously Turkey before - whose 'undeclared war' with Syria was a direct response to the countries assistance to the PKK). Seemingly stuck in the middle, Erdogan warned of "the potential crisis that could develop in the region due to the sectarian strife in Iraq" and underlined his concerns of events in Syria. One can only wonder at the strategic positioning that the CIA Director's surprise visit achieved, since the published agenda seemed so calmly diplomatic, and for what reason the ninety minute visit was so spontaneous.

It had been a quiet week in terms of geopolitical developments out of Middle East. Too quiet, well aside for that whole US escalating once again bit, and forcing Iran to eventually go over the edge. And while the role of the US and Iran has been extensively digested in the past few weeks, it is Iran that has remained in the shadows recently. No longer: as Al Arabiya reports, "Israeli officials say they won’t warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to a series of top-level U.S. visitors to the country, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security adviser and the director of national intelligence, and top U.S. lawmakers, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the U.S. over how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions, according to The Associated Press." Needless to say, the thoroughly effete and comical US foreign policy has no response to follow up queries: "The White House did not respond to requests for comment, and the Pentagon and Office of Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, as did the Israeli Embassy." And while there may be no comments here, look for more warnings about Israeli citizens being targetted by deranged Iranian around the world. Because when all else fails, fearmonger. Next up: the Status Quo will be telling the world how not attacking Iran would be tantamount to global destruction. The only trade off - will the spike in crude to $150 outdo the surge in Obama's popularity rating as the Nobel Peace Prize winner puts his name in the hat for a nomination in the Nobel War Prize category as well.

The drums of war are beating louder and louder ... What's really going on?

Even American military and intelligence chiefs admit this ...

Iran and the United States broke diplomatic ties following the 1979 Islamic revolution and the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran 32 years ago. Here are details of ups and downs in their relations since the 1950's.

This is NOT about conspiracy theories ... it is about Cheney's NEGLIGENCE, and what the failure to acknolwedge such negligence has done to our country

This post doesn't get into whether 9/11 was caused by incompetence, criminal negilgence or something more sinister ... It focuses only the fact that high-level whistleblowers want to tell us what happened, but no one in Washington or the flapping jaw media wants to hear about it

Politico's Ben White has pointed out something interesting, namely that while the 14th Amendment may or may not be practical under the current situation (especially not without a full blown constitutional crisis), one potential loophole that Obama may have comes from none other than former president Bush, in the form of the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20, one which deals with such trivia as "Catastrophic Emergency", "Continuity of Government", "Continuity of Operations", and lastly, and perhaps somewhat ironically, "Enduring Constitutional Government." Considering the amount of doom and gloom spun by the government is bigger than anything seen even under Hank Paulson, could this "crisis" be interpreted by the constitutional scholar as one that merits the invocation of Homeland Security privileges? Is America's maxing out its credit card comparable to a nuclear or terrorist attack on the continent? We may find out in less than 48 hours.

Is this like South Africa at the end of the Apartheid era, where those in power have to hand over some of the reins to the majority to prevent violence?

Well not quite the CIA, but close enough. The good ex-spies of BIA Behavioral Intelligence Analysis have conducted another behavioral assay, this time targeting global overlord Ben Bernanke and specifically his Wednesday press conference, focusing not on the script but what was left unsaid between the lines. For those unfamiliar, "The BIA team represents a diverse mix of highly accomplished professionals from the national intelligence and business communities, who came together to create and deliver BIA’s ground-breaking solutions for our clients. Our intelligence experts average more than 20 years experience in interviewing, evaluating and collecting information across the globe and have been working with premier firms since 2001 to improve investing and business outcomes through application of our unique methodologies." In lieu of a lie detector being hooked up to the Chairman (Simpsons scene comes to mind), this may be one of the better analyses in interpreting what was said... and unsaid.

But no one was demoted, let alone fired. In fact, many of those who dropped the ball were PROMOTED, just like the knuckleheads who caused the economic crisis were PROMOTED to top posts.

I hope not ... But Bennie, Timmy, Bammy and the boyz keep pushing on the wrong strings ...