Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
U.S. Special Forces Getting Constellation of Mini Satellites To ‘Hunt Down People Considered To Be Dangerous To The United States And Its Interests’
May 22nd, 2013Those birds should be busy when they fly over Washington, D.C. Oh. Wait. Via: Wired: In September, the U.S. government will fire into orbit a two-stage rocket from a Virginia launchpad. Officially, the mission is a scientific one, designed to improve America’s ability to send small satellites into space quickly and cheaply. But the launch [...]
Chinese Hackers Who Breached Google Gained Access to Data on U.S. Surveillance Targets
May 21st, 2013Via: Washington Post: Chinese hackers who breached Google’s servers several years ago gained access to a sensitive database with years’ worth of information about U.S. surveillance targets, according to current and former government officials. The breach appears to have been aimed at unearthing the identities of Chinese intelligence operatives in the United States who may [...]
China Now Spends $125 Billion Per Year On Riot Gear And ‘Stability Maintenance’
May 20th, 2013Via: AFP: Mannequins in riot gear, armoured cars and drones line a police equipment and “anti-terrorism technology” trade fair in Beijing as vendors seek to profit from China’s huge internal security budget. The country is estimated to have more than 180,000 protests each year and the ruling Communist Party spends vast sums on ensuring order [...]
CALEA II: FBI Wants Backdoors In Secure Communications Tools
May 20th, 2013Via: Freedom to Tinker: Today I joined a group of twenty computer scientists in issuing a report criticizing an FBI plan to require makers of secure communication tools to redesign their systems to make wiretapping easy. We argue that the plan would endanger the security of U.S. users and the competitiveness of U.S. companies, without [...]
‘War on Terror’ Is Permanent
May 19th, 2013Via: Guardian: That the Obama administration is now repeatedly declaring that the “war on terror” will last at least another decade (or two) is vastly more significant than all three of this week’s big media controversies (Benghazi, IRS, and AP/DOJ) combined. The military historian Andrew Bacevich has spent years warning that US policy planners have [...]
‘Al-Qaeda’s Syrian Wing’ Takes Over Oilfields Once Belonging to Assad
May 19th, 2013Via: Telegraph: Al-Qaeda’s Syrian wing is helping to finance its activities by selling the product of oilfields that once helped to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Up to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east that are [...]
Taxes On Some Wealthy French Top 100 Percent Of Income
May 19th, 2013Via: Reuters: More than 8,000 French households’ tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data. The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of [...]
Gladio B
May 18th, 2013Via: Cease Fire Magazine: While the reality of Gladio’s existence in Europe is a matter of historical record, Edmonds contended the same strategy was adopted by the Pentagon in the 1990s in a new theatre of operations, namely, Asia. “Instead of using neo-Nazis, they used mujahideen working under various bin Ladens, as well as al-Zawahiri”, [...]
IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office
May 17th, 2013Via: ABC: The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since [...]
U.S. Congress Restricts Government Purchase of Chinese Computer Equipment, Citing Cyber-Espionage Concerns
May 17th, 2013haha. Good luck with that. Via: The Verge: The latest US appropriations bill, signed into law just this week, includes a provision that is likely to further raise tensions between the country and China. The provision requires the Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, NASA, and the NSF to perform a formal assessment of risk [...]
