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The Wolf Is Guarding The Hen House: The Government's War On Cyberterrorism

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

The game is rigged, the network is bugged, the government talks double-speak, the courts are complicit and there’s nothing you can do about it.”—David Kravets, reporting for Wired

Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore. As constitutional law professor Garrett Epps points out, “Big Brother is watching…. Big Brother may be watching you right now, and you may never know. Since 9/11, our national life has changed forever. Surveillance is the new normal.”

This is the reality of the internet-dependent, plugged-in life of most Americans today.

A process which started shortly after 9/11 with programs such as Total Information Awareness (the predecessor to the government’s present surveillance programs) has grown into a full-fledged campaign of warrantless surveillance, electronic tracking and data mining, thanks to federal agents who have been given carte blanche access to the vast majority of electronic communications in America. Their methods completely undermine constitution safeguards, and yet no federal agency, president, court or legislature has stepped up to halt this assault on our rights.

For the most part, surveillance, data mining, etc., is a technological, jargon-laden swamp through which the average American would prefer not to wander. Consequently, most Americans remain relatively oblivious to the government’s ever-expanding surveillance powers, appear unconcerned about the fact that the government is spying on them, and seem untroubled that there is no way of opting out of this system. This state of delirium lasts only until those same individuals find themselves arrested or detained for something they did, said or bought that runs afoul of the government’s lowering threshold for what constitutes criminal activity.

All the while, Congress, the courts, and the president (starting with George W. Bush and expanding exponentially under Barack Obama) continue to erect an electronic concentration camp the likes of which have never been seen before.

A good case in point is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), formerly known as CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). Sold to the public as necessary for protecting us against cyber attacks or internet threats such as hacking, this Orwellian exercise in tyranny-masquerading-as-security actually makes it easier for the government to spy on Americans, while officially turning Big Business into a government snitch.

Be warned: this cybersecurity bill is little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing or, as longtime critic Senator Ron Wyden labeled it, “a surveillance bill by another name.”

Lacking any significant privacy protections, CISA, which sacrifices privacy without improving security, will do for surveillance what the Patriot Act did for the government’s police powers: it will expand, authorize and normalize the government’s intrusions into the most intimate aspects of our lives to such an extent that there will be no turning back. In other words, it will ensure that the Fourth Amendment, which protects us against unfounded, warrantless government surveillance, does not apply to the Internet or digital/electronic communications of any kind.

In a nutshell, CISA would make it legal for the government to spy on the citizenry without their knowledge and without a warrant under the guise of fighting cyberterrorism. It would also protect private companies from being sued for sharing your information with the government, namely the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in order to prevent “terrorism” or an “imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.”

Law enforcement agencies would also be given broad authority to sift through one’s data for any possible crimes. What this means is that you don’t even have to be suspected of a crime to be under surveillance. The bar is set so low as to allow government officials to embark on a fishing expedition into your personal affairs—emails, phone calls, text messages, purchases, banking transactions, etc.—based only on their need to find and fight “crime.”

Take this anything-goes attitude towards government surveillance, combine it with Big Business’ complicity over the government’s blatantly illegal acts, the ongoing trend towards overcriminalization, in which minor acts are treated as major crimes, and the rise of private prisons, which have created a profit motive for jailing Americans, and you have all the makings of a fascist police state.

So who can we count on to protect us from the threat of government surveillance?

It won’t be the courts. Not in an age of secret courts, secret court rulings, and an overall deference by the courts to anything the government claims is necessary to its fight against terrorism. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging the government’s massive electronic wiretapping program. As Court reporter Lyle Denniston notes:

Daoud v. United States was the first case, in the nearly four-decade history of electronic spying by the U.S. government to gather foreign intelligence, in which a federal judge had ordered the government to turn over secret papers about how it had obtained evidence through wiretaps of telephones and Internet links. 

 

That order, however, was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, whose ruling was the one the Justices on Monday declined to review…. One of the unusual features of the government’s global electronic spying program is that the individuals whose conversations or e-mails have been monitored almost never hear about it, because the program is so shrouded in secrecy — except when the news media manages to find out some details.  But, if the government plans to use evidence it gathered under that program against a defendant in a criminal trial, it must notify the defendant that he or she has been monitored.

It won’t be Congress, either (CISA is their handiwork, remember), which has failed to do anything to protect the citizenry from an overbearing police state, all the while enabling the government to continue its power grabs. It was Congress that started us down this whole Big Brother road with its passage and subsequent renewals of the USA Patriot Act, which drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights. The Patriot Act rendered First Amendment activists potential terrorists; justified broader domestic surveillance; authorized black bag “sneak-and-peak” searches of homes and offices by government agents; granted the FBI the right to come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allowed the government access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you; allowed the government to secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Internet sites you’ve visited.

The Patriot Act also gave the government the green light to monitor religious and political institutions with no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they told anyone that the government had subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation; monitor conversations between attorneys and clients; search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without showing probable cause; and jail Americans indefinitely without a trial, among other things.

And it certainly won’t be the president. Indeed, President Obama recently issued an executive order calling on private companies (phone companies, banks, Internet providers, you name it) to share their customer data (your personal data) with each other and, most importantly, the government. Here’s the problem, however: while Obama calls for vague protections for privacy and civil liberties without providing any specific recommendations, he appoints the DHS to oversee the information sharing and develop guidelines with the attorney general for how the government will collect and share the data.

Talk about putting the wolf in charge of the hen house.

Mind you, this is the same agency, rightly dubbed a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast,” that is responsible for militarizing the police, weaponizing SWAT teams, spying on activists, stockpiling ammunition, distributing license plate readers to state police, carrying out military drills in American cities, establishing widespread surveillance networks through the use of fusion centers, funding city-wide surveillance systems, accelerating the domestic use of drones, and generally establishing itself as the nation’s standing army, i.e., a national police force.

This brings me back to the knotty problem of how to protect Americans from cyber attacks without further eroding our privacy rights.

Dependent as we are on computer technology for almost all aspects of our lives, it’s feasible that a cyberattack on American computer networks really could cripple both the nation’s infrastructure and its economy. So do we allow the government liberal powers to control and spy on all electronic communications flowing through the United States? Can we trust the government not to abuse its privileges and respect our privacy rights? Does it even matter, given that we have no real say in the matter?

As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, essentially, there are three camps of thought on the question of how much power the government should have, and which camp you fall into says a lot about your view of government—or, at least, your view of whichever administration happens to be in power at the time, for the time being, the one calling the shots being the Obama administration.

In the first camp are those who trust the government to do the right thing—or, at least, they trust the Obama administration to look out for their best interests. To this group, CISA is simply a desperately needed blueprint for safeguarding us against a possible cyberattack, with a partnership between the government and Big Business serving as the most logical means of thwarting such an attack. Any suggestion that the government and its corporate cohorts might abuse this power is dismissed as conspiratorial hysterics. The problem, as technology reporter Adam Clark Estes points out, is that CISA is a “privacy nightmare” that “stomps all over civil liberties” without making “the country any safer against cyberattacks.”

In the second camp are those who not only don’t trust the government but think the government is out to get them. Sadly, they’ve got good reason to distrust the government, especially when it comes to abusing its powers and violating our rights. For example, consider that government surveillance of innocent Americans has exploded over the past decade. In fact, Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin has concluded that, as a result of its spying and data collection, the U.S. government has more data on American citizens than the Stasi secret police had on East Germans. To those in this second group, CISA is nothing less than the writing on the wall that surveillance is here to stay, meaning that the government will continue to monitor, regulate and control all means of communications.

Then there’s the third camp, which neither sees government as an angel or a devil, but merely as an entity that needs to be controlled, or as Thomas Jefferson phrased it, bound “down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution.” A distrust of all who hold governmental power was rife among those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. James Madison, the nation’s fourth president and the author of the Bill of Rights, was particularly vocal in warning against government. He once observed, “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”

To those in the third camp, the only way to ensure balance in government is by holding government officials accountable to abiding by the rule of law. Unfortunately, with all branches of the government, including the courts, stridently working to maintain its acquired powers, and the private sector marching in lockstep, there seems to be little to protect the American people from the fast-growing electronic surveillance state.

In the meantime, surveillance has become the new normal, and the effects of this endless surveillance are taking a toll, resulting in a more anxious and submissive citizenry. As Fourth Amendment activist Alex Marthews points out,

Mass surveillance is becoming a punchline. Making it humorous makes mass surveillance seem easy and friendly and a normal part of life…we make uneasy jokes about how we should watch what we say, about the government looking over our shoulders, about cameras and informers and eyes in the sky. Even though we may not in practice think that these agencies pay us any mind, mass surveillance still creates a chilling effect: We limit what we search for online and inhibit expression of controversial viewpoints. This more submissive mentality isn’t a side effect. As far as anyone is able to measure, it’s the main effect of mass surveillance. The effect of such programs is not primarily to thwart attacks by foreign terrorists on U.S. soil; it’s to discourage challenges to the security services’ authority over our lives here at home.

 

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Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:06 | 5900792 Ignatius
Ignatius's picture

The "conspiracy theorists" are thus citizens who oppose the omnipotence of the State and who wish to place the state under surveillance.

 

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:15 | 5900815 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture

"They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL.  And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.  It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:30 | 5900856 Muh Raf
Muh Raf's picture

When you think about it there's only a few hundred of these pariah morons at the core of this conspiracy. Admittedly the numbers mushroom when we include all the paid lackeys and sock puppets. But in terms of a real change, well... whilst you can still buy ammo stateside... not that I'm instigating anything... it's just a numbers game after all. Let's face it a few thousand of these twats go down the involuntary nail gun option and suddenly the world is fixable, with tens of millions granted life again. Kinda makes you think this is "Militia Time". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjeNDKSTWIg

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:59 | 5901016 bag holder
bag holder's picture

It's not a Hollywood movie, where you can blast a few bad guys and live happily ever after. Those millions of lackeys and sock-puppets will eagerly assume the place of their masters, and the system will carry on.

The pattern repeats through human history - time and prosperity extinguish liberty and replace it with comfortable oppression. Ever-expanding government is the natural state of man; look at Europe for an example. They have not moved one inch in the direction of liberty since the reign of Augustus.

Liberty is a temporary condition that arises when a few intrepid or desperate individuals give up that comfort to escape the reach of the tyrant. The North American colonies are the most obvious example, though the same pattern was repeated on a smaller scale countless times before.

In short, the age of liberty in North America is over. We can mourn it, or we can do what our ancestors did, and look to the horizon. The tyrant's reach now encompasses the whole Earth, so the options we have left are about as ridiculous as sailing off the western edge of the Earth was in the fifteenth century: but there's a perfectly empty, perfectly free rock hanging in the sky, if anyone's desperate enough to eke out a life on the Moon.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 05:54 | 5901207 new game
new game's picture

nice post bag holder! no fucking where to hide. way i see it mericans got there remote controls and everything seems ok. yup all good in the neighborhood.

check is even put right in the account. whip out the plastic and walla, paid for.

yup, enegy cheap, job sucks, wife bitches every now and then, sun rises, life seems so good for now, but soon enough we all wake up to a red dawn and there will no turning back.

first and formost will be water and quality food. next is health, but hey all is good(today). tomorrow is where the problem lies...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:32 | 5901244 GetZeeGold
GetZeeGold's picture

 

 

Don't forget the really wicked expensive affordable healthcare......life is good.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:37 | 5901248 new game
new game's picture

i got no scam care. why should i pay for people that don't take care of themselves. insurance is a transfer monthly, from healthy to fuckheads who don't give a shit about their own health. fuck that. self insured, called money ahead under the mattress...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 08:33 | 5901490 Beowulf55
Beowulf55's picture

...And don'f forget the ever increasing property tax and love the life of a surf on your own property.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 08:58 | 5901562 Grinder74
Grinder74's picture

I wish I could surf on my own property.  But I don't want to be a serf.  Spelling is a bitch.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:24 | 5901911 conscious being
conscious being's picture

What the testosterone-challenged sheeple haven't figured out yet is that once you have no power, you get eaten. My prediction - a spark will set it off.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:35 | 5900875 SofaPapa
SofaPapa's picture

This is the surest way to kill a motivated citizenry.  People are aware that we are being spied on.  

Our response?  Stop.  People are stopping.  Creativity is dropping.  Inititative is dropping.  Economic activity is dropping.  The only places growing are the organs of the security apparatus themselves.  

We've seen before how this ends.  This is the road the USSR and its satellites took.  It will be equally effective here in destroying what was once the most vibrant economy in the world.  In fact, it has already been this effective.  Even the United States some of us grew up in in recent history is already dead.  To have done this in a couple of decades is quick work.  

The paranoia and insular thinking engaged in by power-hungry men and women will always have this effect.  The constitution was supposed to put a check on this, but a piece of paper is only as good as its enforcement.  And We the People have not enforced those principles upon our leaders.  If they aren't stopped, this is what power-mad people do.  Sucks to live it, though. :(

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:55 | 5900932 Jim in MN
Jim in MN's picture

Remember this is actually a financial website.  All of the social ills you speak of can be had via the manipulation of interest rates.   Work it out.  A subtle, decentralized signal that punishes savings and investment, and rewards risky speculation.  Much of what you speak of follows. 

Only two things would go far to restore our chances:

USA out of Eurasia and

Normalize interest rates.

 

Be well, and never stop learning.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:12 | 5900959 LetThemEatRand
LetThemEatRand's picture

It's a lot more than interest rates.  Offshoring, homeland security, NSA, CIA, Citizens United, etc.  To your point that this is a financial website, it all boils down to the old addage of "follow the money."  Follow the money to the destruction of America.  You'll find a few hundred guys who did it.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:24 | 5900981 cornfritter
cornfritter's picture

Proposed bill in TX to shut off utilities to NSA facility in San Antonio :-) Probably just to give the herd a bit more hope while the blade is falling, but ... elitists slave drivers must be stopped, besides they probably got too much visibility down here impeding independent texas "entrepeneurs"

http://www.activistpost.com/2015/03/bill-to-pull-plug-on-nsa-introduced-...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:42 | 5901254 new game
new game's picture

TX has been invaded by liberal think from kali for cheap housing, just like vegas. no hiding from the people that want your money and got a plan for it and will tell you how to live...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:46 | 5901257 GetZeeGold
GetZeeGold's picture

 

 

TX has been invaded

 

I think of Texas as Northern Mexico.....well, everything Austin and south.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:50 | 5901268 new game
new game's picture

u live in TX?

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 18:17 | 5903976 omniversling
omniversling's picture

In the upcoming (July-Sept) 8-week SpecOps combined military and LEA joint Realistic Mililitary Training excersise, JADE HELM, TX is a 'hostile' state. This interesting post seems under-reported given the recent history of 'drills that go live'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWn8VDOgKtc

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:48 | 5902013 Reptil
Reptil's picture

Possible.. or it's some people that have the audacity to actually try? Texans can be a PITA for anyone, even for TPTB.
I'm an incurable optimist, I know.
Here's some preperations for..... militairy takeover?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWn8VDOgKtc

FYI: Then even more interesting: Here's a presentation of Patrick Wood (a compadre of Sutton), in which he concludes that the technocratic system that is supposed to replace capitalism, has the "TOTAL SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY" as it's final element.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHWrceNajf4

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 09:39 | 5901711 Clycntct
Clycntct's picture

Following the money is what got us here.

Examine the money!

Stop the fraud.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 03:15 | 5901127 Kprime
Kprime's picture

Not interest rates.  FIAT

FIAT underpins interest rate manipulation and inflation.  These are the misdirection. FIAT is the foundation and murder is the flow of power.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:53 | 5901270 Thirst Mutilator
Thirst Mutilator's picture

 "Remember this is actually a financial website"

 

Where does it ACTUALLY state that?

 

I'll acknowledge that the front page links are largely to other financial websites, and the threads deal, percentage wise, largely with news and articles from 'folks' who make their living in financial sectors, but I wouldn't characterize it as a financial website [anymore].

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:53 | 5901010 YouThePeople
YouThePeople's picture

i miss george...saw him a coupla times...he says and explains more in 8 minutes than any other

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:09 | 5900801 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

The Government itself is responsible for 99 and 44/100ths of all cyber terrorism.

It's for our freedum.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:11 | 5900802 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

Most of Western history is a see-saw between oligarchy and the people.  When the oligarchy finally overreaches, a tyrant (or man of the people) arises and deposes the oligarchs until the next time around.

What we have in the US is a situation where the oligarchy has grown very long in the tooth and is well past its due date.  The reason a man of the people has not arisen is because of the 24-7 propaganda campaign against individuals, and the demonization of any leaders that may arise as tyrants.  The oligarchs are adamantly opposed to any such notions gaining purchase in the public mind.

The questions are how long this can go on before it breaks,and how is it going to break?  The current propaganda meme is that they are forever, and there is only an infinite horizon of misery coming to greet the people.  There is no point in maintaining hope, the oligarchs can never be removed.  But this is, of course, nonsense.

The current system is due for a tyrant to cut its gordian knot and release the people from slavery.  It will be interesting to see how this occurs.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:17 | 5900822 LongMarch
LongMarch's picture

The answer is simple-end the dollar= end the oligarchy.

 

 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 08:47 | 5901527 samsara
samsara's picture

Everything they have needs power.   Peak Oil.   They can't print natural resources.  

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:11 | 5900805 Jack Burton
Jack Burton's picture

Only the guilty need have fear. If you have done nothing wrong, if you are a true patriot, you have nothing to fear. If you are a patriot and obey all the laws, you have nothing to fear.

This is the logic of government, and probably 80% of average Americans. It is, after all, to protect us, and who could be against keeping us safe?

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:19 | 5900828 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

The end result of an indefatigable propaganda campaign waged against the citizens just as Orwell predicted.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 03:10 | 5901126 Kprime
Kprime's picture

We put up chicken wire. We build a hutch.  We put up security lights. We feed, water and care for the chickens. We assure them they are 100% protected and they can enjoy life.  Then, we steal their eggs and butcher them when we want to enjoy a delicious meal.

See any correlations?

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:46 | 5901260 new game
new game's picture

one problem, i wouldn't eat a gmo fed lazy ass merican...s/

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 03:54 | 5901147 tired1
Wed, 03/18/2015 - 08:56 | 5901555 Paveway IV
Paveway IV's picture

Old pictures - she's a three-star general now and no longer blonde. I think her correct title is 'Senior Prosecutor'.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:12 | 5900811 toady
toady's picture

I'm on the verge of going dark. I really can't justify giving ammo to the police state just read/write a few innane comments.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:39 | 5900882 Jim in MN
Jim in MN's picture

Me too.  Been here for years, but what is the point?

Is there anything in particular that you'd like to know....you know, before going dark.....I am sincerely asking. 

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:43 | 5900898 seek
seek's picture

They'll make up any ammo they need.

There are more useful places to go dark, like shutting off cell phones or "forgetting" them at home, and paying cash. Not knowing where you are or what you buy likely bothers them more than not knowing your opinion of them.

That said, you are far from alone in wanting to curtail their leads.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 03:06 | 5901123 Kprime
Kprime's picture

I went dark 4 years ago.  Closed my bank account.  Cash only here.  2 years ago I turned off my cell phone.  I have a piece of black electric tape over my built in net cam. I make sure the drivers for the mic and camera cannot load via policy blocks. I raise my own meat (chickens, cows, goats) and can my garden every year. I don't wear a watch and my vehicle is pre GPS and black box.  I will not be upgrading.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 03:36 | 5901139 gmrpeabody
gmrpeabody's picture

And yet..., here you are.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:57 | 5901273 Thirst Mutilator
Thirst Mutilator's picture

Thanks for telling us where you are, we were beginning to get worried ~ lol

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 06:59 | 5901276 new game
new game's picture

no where to hide. even a land line is tapped.

smoke signals? two cans with a string?

walk, bike or drive and talk in person, ha what a fucking novel idea...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 07:59 | 5901403 CrimsonAvenger
CrimsonAvenger's picture

So the solution is to go full Amish? Doesn't sound too bad actually.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:14 | 5900816 Intelligence_In...
Intelligence_Insulter's picture

How does one spot one of these cyberterrorist?

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:17 | 5900820 Smuckers
Smuckers's picture

If you're sitting at a full table for 10 minutes and can't spot the cyberterrorist, well then you are the cyberterrorist.

 

 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:48 | 5901110 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

You're posting on Zero Hedge.  Welcome to Terrorist Club fka Fight Club.

And you've had the dubious honor to be linked to me, a certified threat that has had personal interviews with the NSA and the FBI over my opinions posted on facebook and, possibly, here, too.

You're one of us now.  Might as well join Obama's ISIS at this point.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 09:36 | 5901700 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

If you post on FB they should know that you're too dumb to be a terrorist.

j/k

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:17 | 5900823 Himins
Himins's picture

Sooo...., you're not going to vote for Hillary???

Explain why you hate all women.

do i really need a sarc tag on this? 

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:21 | 5900827 Freewheelin Franklin
Freewheelin Franklin's picture

Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore

 

 

Bullshit. No one can crack PGP. Maybe, just maybe, if the government has these quantum computers they can crack your private key in about 3 or 4 months, if they are lucky. And the more people that use PGP the more difficult it is for them to sort it out. I would be easier for them to put a keylogger on your computer and get your passphrase. And no one has seen a BIOS hack in the wild. NO ONE. 

 

If they really, really want you, can they get you? Probably. But are you worth the time and effort? 

 

Oh, and always use open source GnuPG. There's no centralized location or business for them to go to and say, "this is a nice little business you got here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it."

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:26 | 5900844 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

It is unwise to underestimate how sneaky the stasi is or what undisclosed tools are available to them.

For example if your hard drive microcode was infected and keystrokes are being logged and burped out to one of their servers, PGP would not even enter into the equation.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:37 | 5900880 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

Every living entity on the planet save for probably trees and plants can be exterminated because the internet is out of the lab and in the public domain.

 

All minds are just gates and switches...turn them off and the bulk of all life on this planet is done.

 

Because of satellite and solar tech all of this can be and in fact is done "remotely" (drone strikes.)

 

Not just human existence but anything with a gate or a switch...anything that must sleep...is vulnerable.

 

So far only the corporate sector is even bothering with the idea of the data...let alone securing it.

 

The information liberation movement is in fact a terrorist organization more than capable of destroying every living thing on the planet.

 

All at the push of a button.

 

Apple secures that data better than anyone...hence 750 billion in market cap.

 

The Government still demands power over all living things...and the law remains silent.

 

The machines have already risen and yes they are capable of self replication.

 

If everyone and everything has a "signal" now what is to prevent an attack?

 

Angela Merkel had a file on her when she was East German...and she got to see that file no doubt as did many others when the Wall came down.

 

She needs to speak to that.

 

A "signal" is a lot more dispositive than a file...

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:45 | 5900903 Jim in MN
Jim in MN's picture

Hmm, really?  Lose the tubez, lose your mind?

I wonder.  What a fine illusion we have built upon the back of DARPA.

The only thing, maybe, that we can keep from all of this:

 

ROUTE AROUND THE DAMAGE

It may be sad that in the near future, when we have decided to collapse all of this (for the common good), that we may never meet someone a thousand miles or more away. 

But, when the narcissistic global elites have us in their finely gloved hands, FUCK IT.

It was nice virtually knowing you.

I hope you and yours have a nice patch of land.

That may be all we have in the end: flowers.  It will be enough.

Enough.  Shall we> dance?

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:57 | 5901119 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Virtual salute.

Taking the opportunity to let you know I appreciated your posts over the years.

But when this goes down or gets so oppressive I'll be going dark and consider the internet a thing of the past.

When that happens there will be no good byes or explanations.

You may assume I've simply gone dark or I'm in an undisclosed location with no access to justice.

I've had my encounters...I've been warned to be a good little serf.

But fuck them all.

I'm a nobody and I'm not taking their shit anymore.  I'm shrugging them off and doing my own life.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:18 | 5900972 Sanity Bear
Sanity Bear's picture

rosebud

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:53 | 5900924 seek
seek's picture

You're thinking about this the wrong way. They don't crack encryption, they use cheap tricks and hacks, and they have tools no one else has, namely magic letters.

They can issue national security letters and tell the telcos to do whatever they want, so even if you have a clean phone, they own everything coming from it to its destination. I'm sure the NSA likely has a realtime feed of every LAC and CID for every cellphone in use, meaning they've got realtime locations from 300 meters down to 10 meters for people, no GPS required. Encryption will protect you from none of that.

As far as no one seeing a BIOS hack in the wild, well before the BIOS hacks got disclosed a researcher was discussing some truly crazy things he was seeing his computers do, and dubbed it badBIOS. It sure as hell sounds like the hacked BIOS that came out of the snowden docs.

One has to be very on top of things to have even a reasonable belief that their communications are secure now. For most average people they're hopelessly outgunned.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:17 | 5900970 Sanity Bear
Sanity Bear's picture

They don't need to, they just need to wait for you to decrypt it then read your screen. Any illusion of digital safety is exactly that - an illusion. The only people you are putting up barriers in front of are amateurs.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:55 | 5901077 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Yet, in reality, there is far too much data for them to sift through.  They're not going to monitor everybody in real time.  If they're storing what I think they are, they'll wait until you piss them off, then go back and sift through your stored information.  That's very bad, but not as bad as watching everybody in real time in a way that allows them to take action. 

 

But worry not, because one way or another, they're going to lose their ability to hoover up all of this data.  It takes too many resources, and the access to those resources depend on a fiat currency.  That's going to go away. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 03:08 | 5901125 OldPhart
OldPhart's picture

Sorry, but you're mistaken. 

All the data they grab now can and will be used against you in the future whether you created it or they created it for you.  The last thing that will fall is the Stasi, they will eventually permeate everything including getting neighborhood snitches and encouraging children to report their parents.  We're already far along that trail.

They will come to your door with print outs of what you (or they, under your name) wrote as evidence that you present some sort of threat that must be dealt with.  HOW that threat gets dealt with will escalate with each visit to millions of other people,

I was one of the earlier ones so I had single agents coming to my porch.  Eventually that will be an entire federal SWAT team surrounding a house, dragging neighbors out of 'harms way', and locking down two or four blocks.

As to fiat currency, the pay for these vermin will go hard currency overnight.  We're the ones that will be fucked over the worthlessness of the dollar, not any "essential government employee".

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:42 | 5901929 Paveway IV
Paveway IV's picture

"...And no one has seen a BIOS hack in the wild. NO ONE..."

I had to hack the BIOS on several computers to get stuff working better/right. I think you mean BIOS MALWARE, but you would still be wrong.

The Chernobyl Virus is already over fifteen years old.

Several thousand Chinese can attest to being infected with mebromi almost four years ago.

McAfee reported MyBios and NIWA bioskits in 2012.

Computrace (LoJack) wasn't malware, but did insert itself in a computer's BIOS by reflashing it with added code. Derivative malware - mostly defective - based on Computrace's BIOS modification has been found in the wild for the last couple of years. Nessus was one of the few AV firms that could detect the original Computrace-modded BIOS and most derivative malware versions of it provided an infected BIOS was still capable of starting the operating system. Derivatives were not reported in the wild because they mostly didn't work - the user just assumed the motherboard was bad and replaced it or junked the computer.

Snowden revealed that the NSA developed DEITYBOUNCE as part of their ANT snooping suite, but this is undetectable on the target Dell servers. Nobody has 'found' it in the wild because nobody knows they're infected. Payloads like GODSURGE and FLUXBABBIT exploit the JTAG interface on the microprocessors - there's not anti-virus software capable of even looking for that kind of operation. HP Proliant servers BIOSes were exploited with IRONCHEF to give access to the SMM mode, hiding all virus operations from any AV software. It's not found in the wild because it's undetectable. The NSA supposedly only used this on selected foreign targets, not U.S. targets. And you can trust the NSA, right? 

Dragos Ruiu's BadBIOS is a big question mark. I hope you're not basing your opinion on the existance of any and all BIOS malwares solely on his old reports.

BIOS malware is specific to the BIOS and computer manufacturer. You're not going to hear about some kind of universal BIOS malware spreading around. You have to target a particular model and you have to get the user to use infected hardware or a BIOS modifying virus to infect the BIOS. That doesn't mean 'impossible' - it means limited in scope and having access to an infection vector. Nobody cares about home users, but don't you think someone might want to know what was happening on Goldman Sachs latest laptops they dole out to employees? And do you really expect them to announce any BIOS malware 'discovery' targeting them to everyone else in the world?

There's good reasons you don't hear much about BIOS malware - 'It doesn't exist in the wild' is not one of them.

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:27 | 5900847 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture

What?  Just like Wall Street?  Imagine that...

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:35 | 5900872 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Lois Lerner and Hillary will receive a felony charge. 

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:57 | 5900937 seek
seek's picture

If she doesn't win the presidency, she'll recieve a presidential pardon.

I'll go ahead and predict O's final act will be a pardon list that will make history due to its depth and breadth, and the news for the following months will be filled with debates over its legality. All the guy does is push the limits of office past any semblance of their origina definition.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 07:05 | 5901286 Thirst Mutilator
Thirst Mutilator's picture

I've been saying the same thing recently...

 

What goes along with that is the notion that you don't need a pardon if you've never been charged with any crime. Perhaps one or two minor 'examples' will be made during this lame duck period to throw some red meat to the wolves [or really, grass to the sheep].

 

Anyway ~ then these perps walk when Obama pardons them.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:35 | 5900997 Sanity Bear
Sanity Bear's picture

you can't possibly be that naive for realz

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 04:14 | 5901151 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

You can't possibly believe that the US Government will last much longer...for realz???

 

That is what will end up shutting them down. Insolvency, bankruptcy, and collapse with a balkanization....a decentralization.

 

That is the only hope which I have for it. You need to be concentrating your efforts on helping to bring that collapse to fruition.

 

Otherwise enjoy the jackboot on your neck smearing your face in the mud.

 

And to the rest of the FEARFUL on this page...I invite them.

 

They know where I live. I have made certain of that. Fuck the NSA.

 

I will introduce them to God and the afterlife.

 

I will rather die on my feet than live on my knees. I am a dead man already. I have nothing to lose.

 

Freedom you retort? Liberty? Both you and I have already lost that.

 

So what shall I fear?

 

 

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:36 | 5900877 Oswald did it
Oswald did it's picture

Let them collect all the data they want.   The more they collect,  the more unmanageable it becomes.   At some point the data has to be interpreted by an actual person.        So do your patriotic duty and flood the Internet with non sequitur and post as much random, ridiculous shit as possible

 

 

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:54 | 5900927 LongMarch
LongMarch's picture

You mean like this?

"An abundance of appropriations concerning the difference between class and society may be discovered. It could be said that if the textual paradigm of context holds, we have to choose between Sontagist camp and postcapitalist depatriarchialism.

Any number of narratives concerning textual neosemantic theory exist. Therefore, the example of the predialectic paradigm of reality which is a central theme of Burroughs’s The Ticket that Exploded is also evident in The Last Words of Dutch Schultz.

Many theories concerning not deappropriation, but predeappropriation may be found. But inPort of Saints, Burroughs examines Sontagist camp; in Nova Express he affirms the predialectic paradigm of reality."

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:59 | 5900930 opport.knocks
opport.knocks's picture

Hmmm - they know who's side we are on from the sites we visit and the content of our online posts.

They have our IP addresses and know the all the devices we use.

On the day of reckoning they just have to launch a DOS attack on all the people not on their side. No human intervention required.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:01 | 5901079 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

That's a lot of devices to do a DDOS attack on.  It might just tax their resources a tad bit too much.

 

Besides, I'm going to tell you and the NSA how to bypass the NSA spying if you don't want them to know what you're up to:  Go old school.  Pen and paper.  Face to face conversations.  Stay away from electronic devices that can transsmit information. 

 

You hear that NSA?  Yeah, there ain't shit you can do about it, you treasonous fucks.  You are an enemy of the people of the United States.  A domestic one. 

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:43 | 5900893 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

I'am glad BIBI won. Now we can peg the banana eating WH monkey to using US taxpayers money to offset BIBI. I don't like BIBI, but will use him to take down Obama. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:46 | 5901996 conscious being
conscious being's picture

Just glanced at the Guardian on this. Subheadline - something like 'Experts confounded by exit poll v. results.'

Hello Diebold. Is that you?

Tue, 03/17/2015 - 23:58 | 5900940 q99x2
q99x2's picture

Two things that can be done about the NWO: Russia and China bitchez.

 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:47 | 5901066 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Or Yellon cutting off the pig tough by raising rates. You'll watch how people own real assets, not IOU's. But the yahoo's claim they are rich while they don't accually own deed to given asset. Another valutions farce. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:45 | 5901005 lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

US-Planned Botched Raid kills 44 Phillipine Special Police. Will we see this in the MSM?

 

http://sputniknews.com/news/20150318/1019637537.html

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 00:57 | 5901013 Monetas
Monetas's picture

I will go slow .... with pauses .... Obama is a Muslim .... he has purged the US Military of it's best people .... he's helping Iran get nukes .... he's trying to interfere in Israeli elections .... he's bringing thousands of Muslims into the US as refugees from Muslim violence .... he's destroying the middle class .... he's not building the Keystone pipeline .... he's destroying health care .... he is an asshole .... he probably sabotaged this raid .... he's probably pissed they got one of the leaders ! 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:41 | 5901059 Runs-With_Toast
Runs-With_Toast's picture

Monetas reliable source references please

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:09 | 5901006 Monetas
Monetas's picture

UFO fotos were always grainy and "pie tin" suspicious .... now everyone has a digital camera .... and the UFOs go into hiding ! In Nixon's time .... back up was a magnetic tape .... you could just erase 17 minutes .... but he got caught by Hillary .... now, all data and Emails have multiple back ups .... and interfacing .... and the NSA has a multi-billion dollar data center in Utah .... that records every rat fart on earth .... with redundancy upon redundancy .... and we can't find Hillary's nor Lois Lerner's official communications .... that belong to the people who paid for the Data Center ? 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 15:20 | 5901522 One of these is...
One of these is not like the others..'s picture

What the fuck are you talking about monetas?

Get up off your knees and go take a look at some UFO sites, or youtube. Footage is getting more plenitful and better every day. It's ghosts that are failing that test.

There's so much good quality ufo stills and videos that the question isn't "where is it?" but "how much is fake?" The answer, speaking as someone who has put in some considerable time looking into the matter would appear to be, not all of it.And if even just a small part of UFO footage and reports turn out to be true then they are demonstrating a new physics, that we humans could have had about 40 years ago, if we had put as much effort into "electrogravitics" as we did into nuclear instruments of death.

 

 

 

Fri, 03/20/2015 - 04:48 | 5908999 Random
Random's picture

There is no such things as aliens. Aliens are demons impersonating ET.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:32 | 5901941 hootowl
hootowl's picture

There are hundreds/thousands of UFO sightings reported every day, all around the world.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:07 | 5901029 Sandmann
Sandmann's picture

The reality is they can plant evidence

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:28 | 5901052 Monetas
Monetas's picture

"I can cheat .... but, with you .... I don't have to !"  Leslie Carron as Gigi

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:05 | 5901081 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

That's been true as long as people have given a shit about evidence.  Ballot boxes have been stuffed as long as they have been around too.  None of this is new. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:30 | 5901936 hootowl
hootowl's picture

There is no need for the Sorosians to stuff the ballot boxes,......Diebold (a Sorosian-controlled international company) counts the votes!

Joseph Stalin is said to have stated, I paraphrase,  "I don't care who votes or what they vote for.  I just want to be sure that WE count the votes."

How could we have been so stupid!  stupid!  stupid!  as to have let this happen?

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:18 | 5901041 Monetas
Monetas's picture

With the computers .... that landed the Rover on Mars .... we could have coordinated firing sequence on Lee Harvey Oswald's robot trigger pull and the Grassy Knoll robot triger pull .... so that the bullets would arrive at Kennedy's accelerating and bobbing skull in the same nano second .... avoiding target corruption from a premature impact .... unfortuneately, those computers weren't available at the time !

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 05:35 | 5901174 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

To time that landing and have it land within a half mile by quarter mile ellipitical target when Mars was over 100 Million Miles away was difficult enough.

 

Then in addition to that, timing that landing so that an Orbiting Probe, Mars Recon Orbiter, could capture an image of the Rover descending to the surface on a parachute???

 

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/msl/120806mro/

 

That is amazing. And if you think that event was just by chance and unplanned?

 

Here is an image captured of the Phoenix Mars Polar Lander, descending on its parachute, also captured by the Mars Recon Orbiter, which just happened to be in the right spot at the right time to do that one also.

 

And MRO is only traveling at a speed of roughly 7,000 miles per hour.

 

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA10705_modest.jpg

 

In other words...IT IS REPEATABLE.

 

Just out of Curiousity (pun intended) just what do you think that tells the Russians about our targeting capabilities with our Thermonuclear tipped ICBMs?

 

Yeah. You are right about computers. They can be DEADLY accurate.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:43 | 5901062 HenryHall
HenryHall's picture

It's not a hugely difficult task to build a secure computering system that is impervous to attacks provided you deal directly only with trusted parties. And indirectly (via trusted parties) with all others.

Snowden did it on a small scale, it can be done on a big scale.

Of course this does not mean you can buy a book from an Amazon store and pay with a credit card and be secure. To do that you would have to interact with a trusted decrypt/encypt intermediary and Amazon was willing to deal with. But that is not impossible, just so long as there is some trustworthy entity somewhere and the Amazons and credit card companies of the world still want your business. Definitely can be done. But does any government anywhere actually want its citizens to have privacy? That must be in doubt, but it only takes one to make it all work.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:46 | 5901065 Robot Traders Mom
Robot Traders Mom's picture

I'd love to hear Eddie Snowden and his group of ops endorse Tor and encryption one more time...fucking honeypot. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:08 | 5901083 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

You really have to know what you're doing if you plunge into darknet. It's 80% of unregulated Internet. Stay away from the bad shit, great treasure troves of google filtered search engine information. Don't buy drugs, guns, ammo, or child porn.

Collect the Intel hidden from your paid peasant officials. The 20% is controlled Intel to protect your paid peasant political figurehead.  I empathize, don't do it unless you can find safe zones. Once established, it's fucking mind-boggling. 

Don't ask. I won't tell you. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:16 | 5901090 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Glad your still around. We had good times tormenting your child. 

Good laughing memories. Take care. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:49 | 5901070 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

Only tyranny need watch the people.

The banksters need to repay us.

 

All Americans should be creating a list of government and bankster criminals--a treason list--for later use in the trials and retribution of those on it.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:41 | 5901106 Late onset ADHD
Late onset ADHD's picture

not necessary to make a list - don't waste the ink and paper...

just note who ran away and isn't around when the dust clears... subtractive, not additive extrapolation - fewer false positives...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:24 | 5901910 hootowl
hootowl's picture

What trials????  With few exceptions ALL federal judges should be hanged!!  Some of the worst criminals on the planet are U.S. Federal Judges.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:50 | 5901071 ersatz007
ersatz007's picture

While I appreciate the information the article provides, it is yet another one of many that fails to address what the average American can do. There are supposed options out there for hiding what you do on the internet but based on everything I've seen regarding back doors what's to say those aren't compromised either unless

1). The code is open source
2). One has both the ability to AND time to go through the code line by line to ensure that there are no back doors.

Based on the article, writing one's elected officials will do little since they are the folks who have either authored or at least voted for many of these bills that allow said surveillance. After 911 the first thing I said to one of my neighbors was "you wait and see - they're going to use this as an excuse to watch everything we do." It's so fucking surreal that I sometimes wonder if I really even said it because I half didn't want to believe it at the time.

Really - it seems the only thing one can do as turn off and tune out as much as is humanly possible in this day and age. It's fucking sad.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:51 | 5901114 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

The cable companies want to fuck you over in leasing a new modem upgrade. Most Americans are to stupid to accept the new DOCSIS 3.0 HighSpeed Cable Modem requirement

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 03:15 | 5901116 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Buy it, don't lease it on your monthly bill. Comcast is a fucking joke. Shutdown my private modem. Then call me. We need to upgrade and we'll someone to plug it in for you. Talk about the snake eating it's tail. Timewarmer is no different. They both suck.

I have both active accounts in other locations. It's a fucking monopoly. I wish to pick 10 TV channel's, you fucking sink with the ship of ESPN and the NFL non-profit league broadcasting contract. I don't watch sports and bullshit advertising. Stop charging me to support cable channels that I don't watch. We have alternative, you already fear it. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:18 | 5901839 hootowl
hootowl's picture

The U.S. government has deceived and duped the Black Scourge into libtardism and victimism and emplanted them into myriad Socialist/fascist urban plantations and eternal government dependence/employment with which to dismantle our freedoms and drain-out our prosperity.

To add to the disintegrating social tumult, the libtards promote alien invasion of our country by refusing to close the borders and deport alien criminals.  Ovomit has instituted programs that reward the invaders and encourage savage terrorists to join the alien invasion and settle themselves into sleeper cells and await the day they are numerous enough to begin the assault on our "soft", "gun-free" targets libtards have set-up for them;  Our elementary and middle schools, where they can take hundreds of defenseless children hostage and murder them with little or no resistance, our "gun-free" shopping malls, our mass travel facilities, and our places of mass gatherings and entertainment.

Are we being governed by morons?  No! It is much worse than that.  We are being governed by demons that are deliberately, unrelentingly, working in every way possible to destroy us. They are incessantly attacking us from many different directions simultaneously.  It makes it difficult to address or resist any specific issue in a concentrated effort. We are being overwhelmed and beaten down constantly, incrementally.

If you don't believe that, you are part of the problem.

I have lived on this planet for some 75 years now.  I have personally watched the devolution, dissolution, and disintegration of the America I grew-up in with increasing horror.  I never dreamed I would live to see an evil coven like this Ovomit/Soetoro/Sorosian cabal in control of this country.  It may well be too late to save the America we inherited for our children and their children.  The population of this country has been irretrievably morally and culturally degraded.  The government that was intended to protect us, has morphed into the most powerful and dangerous and insidious enemy we have ever faced.

We have abandoned every important cultural attribute that made us the greatest nation in history.  We were the last great hope of Mankind.

Shame on us!.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 01:51 | 5901073 newsoutlet
newsoutlet's picture

Orwell Russia:
RUS http://youtu.be/CyJNrknlyOw

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:27 | 5901099 Late onset ADHD
Late onset ADHD's picture

my urchin has postulated that all governance should model - (you choose) - gnu gpl, the mit license/open source - with the same prohibitions/penalties if used to ingratiate political office holders personally... funny ... that's what I though we had originally...

so I told him to dummy up and play stupid, lest he attract attention to himself... bad dad?... we'll see...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:43 | 5901102 Late onset ADHD
Late onset ADHD's picture

My personal feeling is all mass data collection is a power play - to control those in power... I'm a peasant... plebians, serfs and peasants have no power - they don't give a rat's ass which porno you watched or what book you read...

I bare-ass my web cam every few hours just because... eff em...

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 04:13 | 5901156 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

V-chip TV control was the best in the past. Block the carrier transmission. Dating myself. CNN has gone from airports to grocery stores to prop up progressive ratings. Ask someone in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Mrs Atomizer told me to stop laughing. It was hard to stop. Laughed all the way to the car.

I do a daily walk on N Ocean Blvd in Myrtle Beach (short stay, then back for 45 days). Some bitch told me I shouldn't me smoking while walking on the sidewalk. I said nothing. Another libtard that has no idea about grandfathered smoking rules in reasurants. 

The black biker weekend is more dangerous than second hand smoke. The negro's killed 3 peope last year. But this woman who doesn't pay taxes in Myrtle Beach complains of outdoor smoke. Not even a taxpayer resident. 

Do you think I should give her a complimentary night stay and have black biker's week give her a thrill evening?  Just google Black Bike week 2014. Won't stay here when the animals come thru. Can rent out my place to LEO imforcement or swat team. It's a 25 ft balcony. You can gaze at Ocean or look down at N Ocean Blvd. It's on 15th floor, they'll never see you because to can have them in scope 6 blocks away heading from boardwalk. 

I won't be staying here. Just chimpanzee on bikes. The Harley Davidson guys are saints and respectful to our great city of Myrtle Beach. 

 

 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 18:48 | 5904103 Me.Grimlock
Me.Grimlock's picture

What are the chances of not one, but TWO, people from Horry County on here?  VERY small, I'd wager, knowing the type that live there. 

While I no longer live there, I was born and raised there for the first 27 years of life (before I left that fucking shit hole and technological wasteland).

Cheers to you, fellow Horry County denizen.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 05:30 | 5901195 Apostate2
Apostate2's picture

In case you haven't noticed the 'wolf' or fox has been guarding the hen house for some time all over the world. It is not constrained by any specific country. As some speculate, oh nothing can be done. Bullocks. Get to work.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 08:16 | 5901444 F em all but 6
F em all but 6's picture

This kind of unreastrained power is but ba means to an end. More control and power. And so the organized State eats itself until it collapses. And it will collapse. Nothing will change that. No one will save us. This train has already gone off the edge of the cliff and is headed straight for the canyon floor. The question. Just how nasty will the deep State get as it struggles to expand and maintain a grip on power?? My take is that we are headed for Civil War.

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 09:42 | 5901717 hootowl
hootowl's picture

Civil war is what the government Elites want....divide us against one another.....They win.

 

What we need is revolution!....Secession by the states.....damn SCOTUS!  The 10th amendment retains all powers NOT granted to the federal beast to the states and to the people.....Including dissolution of the union.....SCOTUS illegal, beast-complicit, rulings notwithstanding.

The cowardly, self-serving, lifetime-career politicians will scream bloody murder.  They may have to rejoin the great unwashed and actually get a job....do something productive....stop living a parasitical existence, bleeding their fellow citizens into poverty and bankruptcy.

 

Powder is dry!

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 08:22 | 5901459 newsoutlet
newsoutlet's picture

‘I serve the Russian Federation!’ Soldiers deployed during the annexation of Crimea speak

It's more or less common knowledge that the Russian military was directly involved in the annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Very little is known, however, about the Russian servicemen deployed in Crimea before and during the controversial referendum that resulted in the peninsula's secession from Ukraine and absorption into the Russian Federation. In a special report for MeduzaDmitry Pashinsky spoke to several Russian nationals who were awarded medals For Returning Crimea.

Oleg Teryushin

 

23-years-old, Oleg is a sergeant of the 31st air assault brigade of Ulyanovsk. The brigade was relocated to Crimea from Russia for security purposes in March 2014, when Crimeans voted on seceding from Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation.

 

I wanted to serve in the military ever since I was a kid. I didn’t even have other career options in mind. I mean, someone has to defend the Motherland, right? My family actually doesn’t have any connection to the army, but my hometown, Ulyanovsk, where I was born and raised, does. A lot of military people live here, especially paratroopers. That’s why, as soon as I turned 18, practically the next day I went to the military enlistment office without even waiting to get my draft notice in the mail.

 

At first, I served as a foot soldier in the 419th motorized rifle regiment in the city of Kovrov. After one year, I came back home and almost immediately signed a contract with the paratroopers. That’s how I became a sergeant of the 31st air assault brigade of Ulyanovsk. Now I’m 23, and I’ve spent five years of my life in the military, and another month and a half returning Crimea to Russia. This year, I’m planning to get into the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School to keep rising in the ranks, hopefully becoming a lieutenant. The medal I got “for returning Crimea," though, won't be much help in getting into the school. Recommendations from the higher ups-are really important, as are my personal traits. The medal is more for my own memory. So I have something to tell my grandchildren.

 

We were among the first to end up in Crimea on February 24, [2014]. Two days earlier, we awoke to the alarm in our barracks. We formed tactical groups and took planes to Anapa. From Anapa, we rode trucks to Novorossiysk, and from there we took a big landing ship to Sevastopol.

 

No one aside from our commanders had any idea about the operation to return Crimea to Russia. They just put us in the part of the ship used for cargo. And in the morning we got out onto the shore and realized that we were somewhere in Sevastopol, at the naval station of the Black Sea Fleet.

 

As soon as we got out onto the shore, we were told to take any symbols and insignia off our uniforms, so that our presence on the peninsula wasn’t so apparent, to avoid panic. We were all given green balaclavas, dark sunglasses, and knee and elbow pads. I think we were some of the first to be called “polite people.” We were allowed to wear insignia with the Russian flag again only after the referendum.

 

We spent just a few days in Sevastopol. Our main task was to be ready to take on any assignment. Soon after that, our brigade relocated to the village Perevalnoe, where we set up camp. Mostly Ulyanovsk paratroopers camped with us, about 2,000 of them. This amount was necessary to demonstrate the strength of the Russian military. At this camp, our commanders talked to the Ukrainian side, trying to negotiate a timetable for their surrender. There was a lot of Ukrainian military there before the referendum. But we didn’t have any clashes with them. The officers had three options: (1) leave the peninsula and go to Ukraine, (2) join the Russian forces while retaining their ranks, (3) quit the military. If I were them, I would have chosen the first option, since I’m a patriot. But there weren’t many of them who did that. Most of them have families in Crimea and they had to join our forces and swear an oath to the Russian flag.

 

Then again, I remember there was a shooting range near us where two battalions were stationed. Not a single soldier from these two battalions remained. They all went to Ukraine. I really respected that act of patriotism.

 

On the day of the referendum, March 16, we went on duty with reinforcements. We took our posts early in the morning and tied white ribbons to our sleeves to show that we were peacekeepers, that we weren’t there to start any military aggression. But not everyone agreed with this.

 

There were constant provocations from the journalists. Not Russian journalists, but Ukrainian, American, and European ones. For example, they would stand in front of our checkpoints and film reports with us in the background, talking about how Russian troops had occupied Crimea. I don’t know English or Ukrainian that well, but I could still understand the gist of what they were saying. But we didn’t think of ourselves as occupying the peninsula. We were just carrying out orders and ensuring the security of Crimeans who made their decision to become a part of Russia. They were unhappy with the new government [in Ukraine], with its fascist tendencies, just like they didn’t like the corrupt government of Yanukovych. That’s why the bile of the foreign reporters came from their jealousy towards the triumph of real democracy in Crimea.

 

Our boys also learned from their relatives and friends in Ukraine that the local news reports really smeared us, saying we were practically shooting people. I guess they were talking about the people who came to our camp every day and said, “Thank you, Russian brothers! Finally we’ll live like we lived before.”

 

I spent a month and a half in Crimea, in all. I was home by April 12, and in the middle of May I got my medal. I remember, how on the flight home, our commander said, “Well, guys, you really made history!” Everyone in the airplane stood up and sang the national anthem. Unforgettable!

 

Arkady

From 2013 to 2014, Arkady served as a conscript in Russia’s motorized infantry. He completed two tours of duty in Crimea, after which, he says, he went to the “war zone” at the border between Russia and Ukraine in Rostov, where he transported ammunition to Russian “Grad” missile installations. Arkady’s comments are published here on the condition of anonymity.

I was born and raised in a small village. You’ve never heard of it, of course. It’s one of those remote villages you can’t find even with a map, if you don’t know the roads. Only the elderly haven’t left, and they’ve only managed to survive this long because of their gardens. The village hasn’t had any other kind of work for years; the meat-packing factory, the only employer, was long ago abandoned and now awaits demolition. Given all this, all the young people left a long time ago for the city to find jobs or go study. A few years ago, my family left, too. Like the others, it was forever.

Before I got to the Army, I worked for a taxi company, while studying at a vocational school to be a car mechanic. With my diploma, I received a summons from the recruiting office. I was drafted into the motorized infantry, because of my driving experience and that fact that I already held commercial driver’s licenses.

Generally, the motorized infantry provides logistical support to various other military units. Simply put, it’s like a giant army of “truckers” and “taxi drivers.” The job isn’t too demanding, and soldiers don’t have to get their hands dirty. You’re where it’s warm, turning a steering wheel and watching the road carefully, so the truck doesn’t end up in a ditch, or it’s your head if something happens, should you survive the accident. (We weren’t transporting just field rations, after all, but also weapons and ammo.)

Our unit was originally stationed in Stavropol Krai, where I spent the first four months of my service. It wasn’t the most interesting time of my life: training, the military oath, and more training. On March 17 exactly, immediately after the referendum in Crimea, we were sent there for our first tour of duty. A convoy of 10 trucks carried humanitarian aid for soldiers: food, ammunition, soap, refrigerators, and furniture. They didn’t really explain any of it to us. They just raised the alarm in the middle of the night, lined us up, and read us a short briefing.

First, we were forbidden to stop on our own. In the event of an accident, we were told to radio the lead car, where the convoy’s commander would be riding. He would determine what further action to take. Second, once in Crimean territory, we were to avoid all contact with local civilians, journalists, other soldiers, and anybody else. We were also told not to mention the mission to our parents, partners, or friends—to tell no one. The gag order was only lifted a couple of months later.

The roads we traveled from Stavropol Krai to Sevastopol took us about 3-4 days to cover. We only moved at night, when the highways were empty. There were no serious problems along the way. Only the older trucks would break down occasionally. We’d stop, make some quick repairs, and get back on the road. The border was completely open, when we got there. I didn’t notice a single Ukrainian guard. Our troops were everywhere, and they gave us the “green light.” It was impossible to understand which units exactly were manning the checkpoints, let alone who was patrolling the city and its suburbs.

They wore no insignia, except Saint George's Ribbons tied to their sleeves and, more rarely, badges bearing the Russian tricolor. Most likely, these were special forces soldiers from Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), though there were enough different kinds of troops roaming the military bases then that it looked like a bonafide Victory Day Parade. By that time, they’d managed to bring in an enormous number of soldiers: marines, paratroopers, aviation, and artillery. Having delivered the supplies, we too bunked at a Russian military base in Sevastopol. We didn’t budge from behind the base’s fences for a week. We slept right in our trucks, which were luckily equipped with sleeping bags.

My second tour in Crimea took place at some point in the middle or the end of April. I can’t remember when exactly. This was my last trip to Crimea while in the service. We drove the same route, without any changes: Stavropol to Sevastopol. This time, though, we transported weapons and ammo, not just humanitarian aid, and were escorted by a convoy of military inspection vehicles. The boxes were sealed, and we clearly weren’t supposed to know what was inside. Our job was to deliver the goods on time and as requested.

I still had six months before being discharged with our company started getting really busy. First we were transferred to Mozdok [in North Ossetia]. From there, were were sent in a large convoy (25 trucks) toward the war zone, stopping along the way in Tikhoretsk [in Krasnodar Krai] to pick up some Grad missiles at a military warehouse. We were told to deliver the ammo to Rostov. There, along the border between Russia and Ukraine, stood our soldiers, a whole unit. They were living in field camps divided into cordoned-off areas near the villages Russkoye and Kuybyshevo, and the town Kamensk-Shakhtinsky. They lied to the locals, saying the military was conducting training exercises. But people aren’t fools, and they understood what was going on.

We made trips to the border area until late November, shuttling Grad missiles and other long-range weaponry like Gvozdika howitzer ammunition. I counted 15-20 pieces of heavy weapons equipment near every village. They’re located about 5-7 kilometers (3-4.5 miles) from the Ukrainian border. But the Grad missile installations are always changing, sometimes moving closer to the border and sometimes getting farther away. Their firing range is 40-50 kilometers (25-31 miles), so none of this limited their ability to hit Ukrainian positions. The other side responds with the same weapons. Several times, I saw exchanges of artillery fire. I still remember how one night I drove up to one of the units stationed in Kuybyshevo. The ground crew unloaded the ammunition and the artillerymen immediately loaded it into their weapons and fired! Then they did it again. And again! When a Grad missile is fired, it’s very frightening and very beautiful, especially at night.

Besides the artillerymen stationed at the border, there are also paratroopers, tank operators, and scouts from the GRU. Without exception, they’re all contract soldiers without official insignia, though there are some such soldiers in the motorized motorized infantry, too. It’s precisely the contract soldiers who are charged with transporting the “200” and “300” cargos (the bodies of soldiers killed or wounded in action). We were not entrusted with such deliveries. There are also some “militiamen” from eastern Ukraine serving in Russia near the border. It’s easy to tell them from the rest: they’re dressed in God-knows-what, they’re often unshaven, and their haircuts don’t conform to official regulations.

They offered to keep me on as a contract soldier, but I refused. The pay was lousy: 17,000 rubles ($280) a month. For example, a sergeant in the paratroopers gets 30,000-40,000 rubles ($490-$645), and so on, depending on rank. The work is very risky, especially now. You can be shot at both near the border and quite far from it. I was lucky never to come under fire, but others in my convoy took fire, and there were even rumors about casualties, though I never saw with my own eyes anyone killed.

Most often, they shoot at those who cross the border. A couple of times, they asked to send us into Ukraine to the village of Snezhnoe, saying it was necessary to supply artillery ammo to our positions there, but our commander wouldn’t sign off. He said he wouldn’t give up his conscripted boys. Let them send the contract soldiers, he insisted. And so they did. What else could they do? Orders are orders, after all.

In a sense, I consider myself a war veteran, though it sounds rather forced coming out of my mouth. I wish they’d just put an end to this senseless war, or at least stop hiding it. And I wish they could award us not only with medals “For Saving Crimea” (which many of us received before being discharged), but with some kind of formal veterans’ benefits. Contract soldiers are deeply unhappy about participating in a “non-existent war,” and many of them are quitting the military for precisely this reason. I know of more than a few cases like this.

Alexei Karuna

From 2013 to 2014, 20-year-old Alexei Karuna served the Black Sea Fleet, and was awarded a medal "for returning Crimea." He returned home to Pavlovsk, near Voronezh, a local celebrity. Town newspapers printed his photograph, and schools asked him to appear at “patriotic education” lessons.

 

I graduated from high school after the ninth grade and enrolled in a railroad technical college, but then I got expelled for fighting. I messed up this one kid, standing up for a girl. I also had bad attendance and acted out. We had to wear the same stupid uniform almost all the time, and I'm by nature a free-spirited person who isn’t used to taking orders. I spent some time working in this shady agricultural business for a little while and then I joined the army.

I'd always looked at army service as something inevitable, like going to the dentist. You just suffer and endure. So dodging conscription was out of the question. I got the call one morning and reported to the recruitment office. After a medical examination, I was declared fit to serve.

“Where do you want to serve?” asked the officer sitting behind a big table.

“Nowhere, to be honest,” I answered.

“What do you mean nowhere?! Everyone wants to serve in the airborne! In the marines! In the Spetsnaz [special forces],” he shouted while chopping the air with his hand. “But you don’t want to serve anywhere!”

In the end, I decided to go to the Crimea, to the “resort.” They said it's warm, there’s the sea, the beach, and I'd earn a good salary. I thought there was no other choice anyway. So I said, okay, let's go to the Crimea.

When I got to Sevastopol, I did my basic training, and then I was stationed on a military ship positioned at the "wall" on the Black Sea. A month later, I ended up getting a hernia and was hospitalized. I had an operation and wasn't doing so well. The remaining ten months, I served as a mechanic in the Black Sea Fleet. Our detachment was stationed in the village of Gvardeiskiy, in the Simferopol region, where the 24th Ground Attack aviation unit is based. You remember the story, when the USS Donald Cook was training off the Black Sea coast, and one of our Su-24s circled over it, causing its electronic equipment to fail. That was our Su-24.* Soon, the Air Force captured the airport, and we were moved to Sevastopol.

During my service, we usually had to be "shepherds," which is army slang meaning that we had to unload and carry things. Almost every day in the Crimea, cargo planes would fly in carrying ammunition. I probably unloaded a whole squadron's worth of ammo all by myself. I remember once a huge IL-76 flew in, and it took us three days to unload it all. It was jam-packed with barbed wire and I thought that it would be enough to fence in the entire peninsula.

I first heard about the plans to annex the Crimea in early February. We were certainly aware of what was happening in Ukraine, because every night all the soldiers went to watch the news in a dedicated room with a TV. This was mandatory by order. At the same time, our military began to enter Crimea actively. They created and organized patrols to prevent a Maidan movement there, because Crimeans were strongly against the new Ukrainian government. Hence the idea to join Russia. It didn’t just come into Putin’s mind; the residents of the Crimea wanted it. We talked a lot with the locals, and I know what I’m talking about. When it comes to Sevastopol, there was a Russian tricolor hanging from every balcony.

On the eve of the referendum, we were warned that the alarm would be raised and we had to be ready. The whole day we sat wearing body armor. Provocations were expected from Ukrainian nationalists and the Crimean Tatars. Some of them were for joining the Russian Federation, or rather, they didn't care whether the future was with the Russians or the Ukrainians. Others wanted Crimea to remain a part of Ukraine. But everything went very quietly, because so many Russian troops were in such a tiny place! The Black Sea fleet had 15,000 people, another 20,000 soldiers were on the ground, plus there were the special forces, located in the city. Any resistance would have been crushed. And no one resisted.

In general, we only encountered Ukrainian military personnel when some of them began to cross over to our side, taking the oath. For example, the deputy commander of our unit, a captain of the second rank, was a former Ukrainian officer—a defector. He didn't like us conscripts. Once he came into the barracks, and one of us ventured to address him.

“Comrade Captain of the second rank, we have few people left. Please reduce the workload.”

“I bet they make you clean your weapons?”

“No, they don’t make us clean our weapons.”

“Well we’ll fix that,” he said.

And he kept his promise, of course. We thought his bias towards us might have been a sort of revenge for the annexation of Crimea.

Many Ukrainian officers defected. Their ships and units were not seized by force. Wherever our troops appeared, they immediately raised the white flag. They were told that those who wished to join the Russian army were welcome to take the oath, and they would keep their ranks. Some went to Ukraine, and some were on our side. What eventually happened to the Ukrainian ships is a good question. I don't know. I do know that we unloaded weapons and ammunition from the Ukrainian units. I don’t know about the ships. But I would have really liked to see the ships end up with us. They’re good trophies.

Generally speaking, I'm a big patriot, and I was thrilled to hear the news about Crimea's return. But most of my colleagues were close to getting out. They had one thought: hurry home. That’s the army for you. I would serve again, if I had the chance. I didn’t end up going to the front lines because that would have taken a whole mountain of paperwork.

During the service, I wrote a request to switch to contract service. I had ten days left on duty, but they didn’t manage to prepare a contract for me in time. Now I'm not really thinking about returning to the army. Our major joked once that he would call me again, if Russia continued reclaiming land from the former Soviet Union.

The medals were awarded on March 28. We were told earlier that morning, so we could put on our dress uniforms, and we lined up on the parade grounds. The unit commander came out with the chief of staff and called each man individually.

“Sailor, Karuna!”

“Present!”

“Step forward to receive your award!”

“Yes sir!”

I took three steps forward and said, “Sailor Karuna, reporting!”

The colonel presented a medal in a box along with a certificate, and in a quiet, fatherly tone says:

“Thank you very much.”

Then you turn 180 degrees and while saluting you shout:

“I serve the Russian Federation!”

And, for half the day, that’s how they gave out awards. We wondered if any former members of the Ukrainian military got awards for returning the Crimea. It would have been funny to see.

Now it seems to me that the medal has brought me no good, apart from the emotional thrill and the memories I'll have for the rest of my life. On the other hand, we did not serve like others did. My friends come back from the army and I ask them: “How was the service?" And they reply: "Nothing special. We dug out a fence until lunch! We hauled bags!" And though we also hauled bags, we came back with an award. The only thing that marred my service was lower wages. The fact is that while the Crimea was considered abroad, we received the 4800 hryvnia for the last month. That was about 20,000 rubles [$320 at today's currency exchange rate]. And then we received only two thousand. That’s all Russian conscripts get. Many of them were extremely dissatisfied. When I heard about it, I just laughed. "Well, here's to returning home to Russia!" I said to myself.

*The claim about the USS Donald Cook’s equipment failure came from Voice of Russia and was never independent confirmed. During the incident, the Donald Cook did not go to battle stations and continued its mission in the Black Sea without further incident.

 

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2015/03/16/i-serve-the-russian-federation

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 09:30 | 5901678 Mike Honcho
Mike Honcho's picture

If you can't believe a 23 and 20 year olds with the intellect to be conscripts, then who can you believe?

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:12 | 5901855 Mi Naem
Mi Naem's picture

Yet another factual, cogent, passionate explanation of much that is wrong with the current police and surveillance state where government and large corporate interests operate against the interests of the people and contrary to founding laws of the land. 

Unfortunately, any similarly factual, cogent, and passionate explanation of how we are to extricate ourselves from this real life nightmare would likely lead to unfiled charges of sedition, terrorism,  or other criminal conspiracy.  You'll just disappear, or your business will be audited out of existence, your reputation will be ruined and employers will terminate and/or not hire you, ....

Merely a philosophical question: how bad will it have to get before we start shooting back? 

Excuse me, I gotta go - there's someone knocking at the door. 

Wed, 03/18/2015 - 10:40 | 5901978 GRDguy
GRDguy's picture

If you really want to fight back, here's a few simple steps to remove sociopaths out of the House of Representatives and allow the 99% to be represented once again at the table.

(1) Make sure you vote in the primaries, but never cast a vote for an incumbent.

(2) Vote only for someone who's words have matched their actions in the past, and are the least financed on the ballot.

(3) Make no political contributions. Haven't they stolen enough from you?

Repeat these three steps every state and national election. You'll soon eliminate the sociopaths. There's lots of good folks who would represent you well, but want no part of being beholding to any political machine. Besides, two years is long enough for any good person to suffer the slime and stench of the D.C. pit, and still be able to come back to their neightborhood intact. Then they live with whatever laws they passed for the rest of their lives, and hopefully will have undone some previous damage.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!