Archive for the 'Covert Operations' Category
Approved: HSBC Setttlement for Drug Money Laundering
July 3rd, 2013Via: Reuters: A federal judge has approved HSBC Holdings Plc’s (HSBA.L)(HBC) record $1.92 billion settlement with federal and state investigators of charges that it flouted rules designed to stop money laundering and thwart transactions with countries under U.S. sanctions. While noting “heavy public criticism” of the settlement, which enabled HSBC to escape criminal prosecution, U.S. […]
National Intelligence Director Apologizes for Lying to Congress
July 3rd, 2013Via: U.S. News and World Report: The director of National Intelligence apologized in June to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee for lying during a hearing, according to a letter published on the DNI website on Tuesday. Director James Clapper appeared before the committee in March, where Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked him specifically […]
Washington Post Brushes a Few More Prism Crumbs Onto the Floor
June 30th, 2013Thank you, Master, thank you. My now familiar and broken-record-response to this thing is to go back to Room 641A last decade if you want a real thrill. They have beam splitters installed at the peering points. NSA is getting everything. The end. The media’s repeated ramblings/mantras about the FISA court and protections for Americans […]
Booz Allen Hamilton to Hire Quantum Information Physicist
June 29th, 2013See: Well, it has been the $64,000 question for a couple of decades: Can NSA break something like PGP? Via: Clearance Jobs: Minimum Security Clearance Clearance Location Arlington, Virginia 22201 (map) Workplace: Not Specified Travel: Not Specified Quantum Information Physicist-01127026 Description Key Role: Serve as a consultant to government science and technology clients. Contribute to […]
Senators Accuse Government of Using ‘Secret Law’ to Collect Americans’ Data
June 29th, 2013Ya think? I was surprised to see them mention the mobile phone location data. I mean, come on, that’s the stuff of lunatic conspiracy theorists! *chortle* Via: Guardian: The senators said they were seeking public answers to the following questions in order to give the American people the information they need to conduct an informed […]
Africa: U.S. Spreads Blowback Nightmare
June 25th, 2013Via: Asia Times: A careful examination of the security situation in Africa suggests that it is in the process of becoming Ground Zero for a veritable terror diaspora set in motion in the wake of 9/11 that has only accelerated in the Obama years. Recent history indicates that as US “stability” operations in Africa have […]
Snowden Leaves Hong Kong on Commercial Flight to Moscow, Seeking Political Asylum in Ecuador
June 23rd, 2013Operation Snowden Has Become the NSA Story Via: Washington Post: We can surmise that the information was leaking anyway, and so the government needed a distraction. Something connected to the NSA, so covering it would still feel like covering the NSA story, but that would divert much of the press from covering the actual programs. […]
Captain Obvious: GCHQ Taps Fiber Optic Cables
June 22nd, 2013Via: Guardian: Britain’s spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA). The sheer scale of the agency’s ambition […]
U.S. CIA and Special Forces Training “The Terrorists” in Syria
June 22nd, 2013Now that Uncle $cam is shredding million dollar MRAPs for scrap in Afghanistan, it’s time to get the party started all over again. Via: Los Angeles Times: CIA and U.S. military operatives have been secretly teaching Syrian rebels how to use anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, the Los Angeles Times has learned. The White House refuses […]
Russ Tice on Boiling Frogs Podcast
June 21st, 2013What we have here is essentially a computer age, orders-of-magnitude-worse extension of what Curt Gentry laid out in J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. Tice said that NSA has turned into a rogue organization, “That’s there to protect its own interests.” That’s nothing new, if you look at bureaucratic politics—all government organizations do […]
