A Missed Warning?
December 8th, 2015Via: Weekly Standard:
Scanner traffic indicates law enforcement may have investigated San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook a week before the attack.
U.S. Drone Whistleblowers Have Their Bank Accounts Frozen
December 7th, 2015Via: Hang the Bankers:
The U.S. Government failed to deter them through threats of criminal prosecution, and clumsy attempts to intimidate their families.
Now four former Air Force drone operators-turned-whistleblowers have had their credit cards and bank accounts frozen, according to human rights attorney Jesselyn Radack.
“My drone operators went public this week and now their credit cards and bank accounts are frozen,” Radack lamented on her Twitter feed (the spelling of her post has been conventionalized). This was done despite the fact that none of them has been charged with a criminal offense – but this is a trivial formality in the increasingly Sovietesque American National Security State.
Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland and Stephen Lewis, who served as drone operators in the US Air Force, have gone public with detailed accounts of the widespread corruption and institutionalized indifference to civilian casualties that characterize the program. Some of those disclosures were made in the recent documentary Drone; additional details have been provided in an open letter from the whistleblowers to President Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and CIA Director John Brennan.
“We are former Air Force service members,” the letter begins. We joined the Air Force to protect American lives and to protect our Constitution. We came to the realization that the innocent civilians we were killing only fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like ISIS, while also serving as a fundamental recruiting tool similar to Guantanamo Bay. This administration and its predecessors have built a drone program that is one of the most devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world.”
Research Credit: Pookie
How About That ‘Erl!?
December 7th, 2015Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
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Down 6%.
Huge pivot ahead at WTI$33.22, assuming that you pay any attention to candle shadows, which I do. If you just draw your lines on the bodies: That 2009 support is gone.
Best guess: Small bounce ahead, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s eyeing the $20s over the next few weeks.
Via: Reuters:
Crude oil futures tumbled 6 percent on Monday, reaching their lowest in nearly seven years, after OPEC failed to address a growing supply glut, while a stronger dollar made it more expensive to hold crude positions.
Brent and U.S. crude settled at or near February 2009 lows in belated reaction to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) policy meeting on Friday which ended without an agreement to lower production.
OPEC oil ministers dropped any reference to the group’s output ceiling for the first time in decades, highlighting disagreement among members about how to accommodate Iranian barrels once Western sanctions are lifted.
“What matters from here is whether there’ll be any meaningful production cuts in the U.S., which don’t seem to be coming,” said Doug King, chief investment officer in London for the Singapore-based Merchant Commodity Fund. As of Monday, the $220 million hedge fund was flat on the year after its bearish oil views helped it recoup a 10 percent loss through November.
“Price-wise, the market could be going for max pain after this,” King said. “The leader to the downside will be probably be WTI, because that’s where the production cuts have to come.”
WTI, the West Texas Intermediate benchmark for U.S. crude CLc1, settled down $2.32 at $37.65 a barrel. That was its lowest settlement since February 2009, and after reaching a session low of $37.50.
Beijing Red Alert for Smog
December 7th, 2015Via: BBC:
Schools in Beijing are to close and outdoor construction to stop after the Chinese capital issued its first “red alert” over smog levels.
The red alert is the highest possible, and has not been used in the city before, the state-run Xinhua news agency says.
Authorities expect more than three consecutive days of severe smog.
Cars with odd and even number plates will be banned from driving on alternate days.
Current pollution levels in Beijing are actually lower than last week’s, but the red alert has been placed because of levels expected over the coming days.
The order will last from 07:00 local time on Tuesday (23:00 GMT on Monday) until 12:00 on Thursday, when a cold front is expected to arrive and clear the smog.
China’s CCTV news channel reported at the weekend that some parts of Beijing had visibility of only 200m (660 feet).
France Looking at Banning Tor, Blocking Public Wi-Fi
December 7th, 2015Via: Ars Technica:
According to leaked documents from the Ministry of Interior the French government is considering two new pieces of legislation: a ban on free and shared Wi-Fi connections during a state of emergency, and measures to block Tor being used inside France.
The documents were seen by the French newspaper Le Monde. According to the paper, the new bills could be presented to parliament as soon as January 2016. The new laws are presumably in response to the attacks in Paris last month where 130 people were murdered.
The first piece of proposed legislation, according to Le Monde, would forbid free and shared Wi-Fi during a state of emergency. The new measure is justified by way of a police opinion, saying that it’s tough to track people who use public hotspots.
The second proposal is a little more gnarly: the Ministry of Interior is looking at blocking and/or forbidding the use of Tor completely. Blocking people from using Tor within France is technologically quite complex, but the French government could definitely make it difficult for the average user to find and connect to the Tor network. If the French government needs some help in getting their blockade set up, they could always talk to the only other country in the world known to successfully block Tor: China, with its Great Firewall.
Homeland Security: “An Entirely New Phase”
December 6th, 2015The whole ISIS mess originates with U.S. activities in Iraq (which, even the mainstream hive mind admits had nothing to do with 9/11), and now, “We have moved to an entirely new phase in the global terrorist threat.”
Via: Reuters:
U.S. officials, faced with an evolving threat of deadly attacks by homegrown extremists, are rethinking their strategy on battling domestic terror after Wednesday’s assault that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The United States should beef up airline security by increasing agents in overseas airports, bolster standards for visa waiver programs, and improve communications between officials and Muslim communities to help locate threats, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told the Times.
“We have moved to an entirely new phase in the global terrorist threat and in our homeland security efforts,” Johnson told the newspaper in an interview. Terrorists have “in effect outsourced attempts to attack our homeland. We’ve seen this not just here but in other places. This requires a whole new approach, in my view.”
72 Department of Homeland Security Employees On Terrorist Watchlist; 95% Failure to Find Weapons at Airports
December 6th, 2015Your what hurts?
Via: WGBH:
Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector General did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security. The director had to resign because of that. Then we went further and did and eight-airport investigation. We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate. We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.
Google Wants to Patent a Blood-Sucking Smartwatch
December 5th, 2015Via: Gizmodo:
Just when you thought our data-driven lifestyles were getting a little weird, Google wants to make it creepy. The company just filed a patent application for a “needle-free blood draw” device that can be implanted in a wearable.
Car Turns Driver in for Hit-and-Run
December 4th, 2015Via: WPBF:
A Port St. Lucie woman is under arrest in connection with a hit-and-run.
Police responded to a hit-and-run in the 500 block of Northwest Prima Vista Boulevard on Monday afternoon.
The victim, Anna Preston, said she was struck from behind by a black vehicle that took off. Preston was taken to the hospital with back injuries.
Around the same time, police dispatch got an automated call from a vehicle emergency system stating the owner of a Ford vehicle was involved in a crash and to press zero to speak with the occupants of the vehicle.
The person in the vehicle, Cathy Bernstein, told dispatch there had been no accident, that someone pulled out in front of her and that she was going home. She said she had not been drinking and didn’t know why her vehicle had called for help.
Police went to Bernsteins’s home on Northwest Foxworth Avenue and saw that her vehicle had extensive front-end damage and silver paint from Preston’s vehicle on it. Bernstein’s airbag had also been deployed.
Pentagon Task Force: We Want Villas and Flat-Screen TVs in Afghanistan
December 3rd, 2015Via: ProPublica:
The requirements were clear: Villas with no less than queen beds, flat-screen TVs of no less than 27 inches, meals of at least three stars, and round-the-clock bodyguards.
Sounds more like a celebrity rider than a description of Afghanistan accommodations for U.S. government employees. But that’s what the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations requested — at a cost of $150 million, according to a letter released today by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.
The high-end demands add to a string of recent controversies involving the now-defunct task force. Last month SIGAR reported that the task force spent $43 million on a gas station that should have cost about $500,000 and had no customers regardless. There are also allegations the Pentagon has retaliated against a task force whistleblower as well on-going criminal investigations. And a standoff between SIGAR and Pentagon officials over access to documents that has gotten the attention of Congress.
