SPY

Wikileaks recently continued the release of what they refer to as the “Spy Files.” These files provide a look into some of the companies behind the rapid commercialization of the spy equipment industry, who’s clients include repressive governments and dictatorial regimes around the world. In a press release announcing these files Wikileaks states: Across the world, mass surveillance contractors are helping intelligence agencies spy on individuals and ‘communities of interest’ on an industrial scale. The Wikileaks Spy Files reveal the details of which companies are making billions selling sophisticated tracking tools to government buyers, flouting export rules, and turning a blind eye to dictatorial regimes that abuse human rights. One of the companies highlighted is an Italian based company called Hacking Team...

I’ll scratch your back and you can scratch mine is the motto of the National Security Agency according to the latest revelations made about the data stored by the immense surveillance program of the NSA, which routinely provides intelligence data with Israel.

Hamilton Says Americans Should Be More Outraged About Spying Abuses

"I think it’s pretty damning," notes on complainant after receiving the detailsof the NSA's action over the last few years, adding "This shows a larger pattern that a lot of times the NSA doesn’t alert the court to serious privacy violations, whether they are intentional or unintentional, for years down the road." As Bloomberg reports, intelligence officials were forced to admit that The NSA for about three years violated restrictions on checking U.S. telephone records for surveillance and misled judges on how the data was used. Between 2006 and 2009, of the 17,835 phone numbers checked against incoming phone records, only about 2,000 were based on that reasonable suspicion standard, officials said. Despite Gen. Alexander's statement that "this is not a program where we are out freewheeling it," adding in June that "it is a well-overseen and a very focused program," it is now clear that "there was nobody at the NSA who had a full understanding of how the program worked," as one intelligence official noted.

These days, you could put ‘safety and security’ in front of just about anything and get people to readily comply. Well, OK. After all, who is against ‘safety and security’? Only criminal terrorists, apparently. This is now the easiest way for governments to exact their agendas... whether it’s invading new countries, monitoring all Internet activity worldwide, or bailing out the big banks at taxpayer expense. Apparently the citizenry has become so scared that we collectively lay down and let governments walk all over us. At this point, the Founding Fathers’ list of grievances nearly pales in comparison to the indignities and injustices to liberty that people suffer today under their government. We’ve been talking about this trend for four years now. This is no longer theory. It’s real. It’s happening. And it’s coming soon to a bankrupt, insolvent nation near you. Have you hit your breaking point yet?

Instead of bitching about the man, educate yourself on how the NSA does what it does. It's biggest weapon, the ignorance of the mass media consuming tech enduser.

Current US Treasury issuance is relatively low due to sequestration and (at least temporarily) less US warmongering in the Middle East. That's about to change, of course, now that the US is getting ready to launch a Cruise missile attack on Syria (we’re already been arming and financing the opposition rebels, including groups directly linked to al-Qaeda for several years now). Bernanke and the Fed doves would like nothing better than another “controlled” war in the Mideast, because with war comes massive debt issuance, and with massive debt issuance comes the transmission mechanism (QE) for monetizing that debt and mainlining it onto the Wall Street banks' broken balance sheets. And yes, they’re still broken, and Ben is still bailing them out at the expense of the American middle class. Make no mistake, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, and every other complicit banker on the Street has no problem with this, or any other, war, regardless of whether such a conflict would destabilize the entire region and would almost assuredly pull Russia and China into the fray. The more the merrier, just keep letting that free QE monopoly money roll in from the 4X weekly Federal Reserve Permanent Open Market Operations (POMO’s).  And with the significant financing needs for a large war effort in the Middle East, say good-bye to “Taper.”

Two months ago, when we reported that the NSA has successfully inserted illegal access protocols into the Android OS, thus granting it back door access into nearly three quarters of all cell phones, the news was met with skepticism and resistance: how could an open-sourced architecture be so frail and open to penetration was the most common complaint. We wonder if today's news, broken by Germany's Spiegel, according to which the NSA can spy not only on Android smartphones but tap user data on all iPhone and BlackBerry devices "including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been", will be met with the same skepticism or if the realization that every form of privacy is now gone, has finally dawned on the population. Spiegel reports, citing"internal NSA documents that the NSA has the capability of tapping user data from the iPhone, devices using Android as well as BlackBerry, a system previously believed to be highly secure. The documents also indicate that the NSA has set up specific working groups to deal with each operating system, with the goal of gaining secret access to the data held on the phones." While at this point it should come as no surprise that the NSA pervasively spies on Americans without a warrant or clearance, and has access to every device permitting electronic communication, the bigger question is: if everything is being spied on, what is left? Is carrierpigeons.com about to IPO?

While one can speculate if the sarin gas attack on August 22 was ordered and orchestrated by Saudi/Qatari petrodollar interests, with the assistance of the CIA and the funding of al Qaeda, and executed by the Syrian "rebels" (there is much circumstantial evidence pointing in the false flag direction: here, here, here and here), the reality is that since the narrative behind Obama's offensive Syrian air strikes has been staged as punishment for Assad, the onus is on the affirmative proof, namely clear and unequivocal evidence that it was Assad who ordered the attack. So far, despite repeated vows and promises that such proof exists, none has been presented, aside from numerous YouTube clips which show an attack did take place (and even that is in question). When it comes to the actual perpetrator, John Kerry and company are reduced to emotional pleadings to the audience to look at pictures of dead children redirecting from the most important question of all: did Assad actually do it. The reason for such Copperfieldian tactics is that there simply is no link - Reuters reports that  "No direct link to President Bashar al-Assad or his inner circle has been publicly demonstrated, and some U.S. sources say intelligence experts are not sure whether the Syrian leader knew of the attack before it was launched or was only informed about it afterward." And yet Obama's entire publicly stated motive is to punish Assad... for something there is zero evidence he did.

In all the stories surrounding mass interception, recording (and abuse) of every form of private electronic communication by the NSA, there was always one missing link: encryption. After all, the NSA's primary task has always been to decrypt data, not to record and store every bit of communication traversing the ether or the internet. And yet, with the advent of recent encryption technologies, it would, or at least could, have made such pervasive interception by the spying agency problematic at least. However, according to a just released exposed by the NYT and ProPublica, it turns out the NSA had that base covered too. Presenting Bullrun, or "there's a hack for that."

It was just yesterday, when we reported on the build up of Russian naval forces in the Meditteranean, in this case two new marine-carrying amphibious assault ships, that we made a simple forecast: "Our prediction: the next ship to be dispatched in direction Syria will be the missile cruiser Moskva, the "flag ship of the Black Sea fleet" and more of its affiliated warships... That, and a whole lot of submarines." We were right.

RUSSIA SENDS MISSILE CRUISER MOSKVA TO EAST MEDITERRANEAN: IFX
RUSSIA SENDS DESTROYER, FRIGATE TO EAST MEDITERRANEAN: IFX

The deployment is, more than anything, symbolic. It means Russia will no longer take US military build up  in the region on the sidelines. Because while the Mediterranean build up is inevitable (and can be tracked here), the next step will be the arrival of Russian air and land-based support in Syria. Oh, and China. Let's not forget China.

• Mediterranean 'Ballistic Targets' Were Part of Israeli Test – Defense Ministry (RIA)
• Microsoft to Buy Nokia’s Devices Unit for $7.2 Billion (BBG)
• Long-Term Jobless Left Out of Recovery (WSJ)
• Swiss banks apologize for assisting tax cheats (Reuters)
• As Obama pushes to punish Syria, lawmakers fear deep U.S. involvement (Reuters)
• India Looking to Expand Rupee-Payment System (WSJ)
• Citigroup Dialing Back Its 'Alternative' Holdings (WSJ)
• Libya Seeks New Solutions to Oil Crisis (WSJ)
• Lenovo Chief Yang Shares Bonus With Workers a Second Year (BBG)

It is convenient that in a recent post covering the latest historic Verizon M&A deal we showed a spaghetti chart, created by the WSJ, of the US telecom space because it lays roughly how many current subscribers that other US telecom giant, AT&T, has.  The reason for this is that according to the latest revelations from the NYT, which following recent work-sharing with the Guardian is now another official distributor of the Edward Snowden leaks (who in a brilliant move has decided to spread out his disclosures week after week, many times allowing such staggered disclosures to catch the administration - which has no idea what is coming next - in flagrant lies), the chart above shows that 140 million landline and wireless paying AT&T customers is the minimum number of affected Americans whose every call is recorded, however not directly or indirectly by the government, but rather by a private corporation working in collaboration with the US government.

The name of the collaboration: the Hemisphere Project, fomerly Hudson Hawk.

Update: it appears the photos posted on twitter are fake. Hopefully that means there are no B-2 in the vicinity of Syria.

Remember what the 2012 leaked Stratfor memo said about the focal point of western airborne power? Here it is again: "Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not an easy one. The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn't use Cyprus as their main air force base." (sic) Well, it has begun. Guardian reports that "Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria."