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.
And it’s worked. Everyone is talking about “Edward Snowden.” The whole world knows what flight he was supposed to be on this morning and which countries he’s considering as safe harbors. The term “STELLARWIND,” by contrast, has largely dropped out of the news.
…
Operation: Snowden has become the NSA story.
So of course Snowden wasn’t on that plane. He couldn’t have been. If he’d disappeared into Cuba the Snowden story would be over and all that would be left is the NSA story. And that’s not the plan.
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Update: Snowden Not on Flight to Havana
Via: Independent:
The whereabouts of fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden remain an international mystery, after he failed to turn up on the Moscow-Havana flight he was reportedly booked on.
Snowden sought asylum from Ecuador yesterday after arriving in Moscow from Hong Kong, where he had been in hiding since disclosing a highly classified US surveillance programme, escaping Washington’s attempts to extradite him from the island.
He spent the night at a hotel before clearing customs at the city’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
He was expected to board an onward Aeroflot flight to Havana that departed early this afternoon. But airline staff said he hadn’t boarded the flight, and an Associated Press journalist tweeted a picture of the empty seat Snowden had been booked into.
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Update: Snowden Seeking Political Asylum in Ecuador
Via: WikiLeaks:
Sunday June 23, 17:50 BST
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mr Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who exposed evidence of a global surveillance regime conducted by US and UK intelligence agencies, has left Hong Kong legally. He is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks.
Mr Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed.
Former Spanish Judge Mr Baltasar Garzon, legal director of Wikileaks and lawyer for Julian Assange has made the following statement:
“The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr Snowden’s rights and protecting him as a person. What is being done to Mr Snowden and to Mr Julian Assange – for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest – is an assault against the people”.
—End Update—
Update: Snowden’s Passport Revoked, Meeting with Ecuador’s Ambassador to Russia
Via: Voice of Russia:
Ecuador’s ambassador to Russia said he expected to have talks with former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden in Moscow on Sunday.
Ambassador Patricio Alberto Chavez Zavala did not say what he would discuss with Snowden and Sarah Harrison, a representative of the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group.
But he told reporters as he entered an airport hotel: “We’re waiting for Sarah. We’re going to talk to them.”
Ecuador is a possible destination for Snowden, who is believed to have flown from Hong Kong to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport earlier on Sunday.
Ecuador’s Foreign Minister says in his Twitter that Ecuador already has received asylum request from Edward Snowden.
Meanwhile ABC reports that Snowden’s passport was revoked on Saturday, leaving US officials even more baffled as to how he was allowed to fly out from Hong Kong.
It is, however, unlikely to be a problem for Russia – if Snowden is in transit and never leaves the airport, his immigration status is not Moscow’s issue.
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Update: WikiLeaks Helping Snowden
Via: WikiLeaks / Twitter:
Mr. Snowden is currently over Russian airspace accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisors.
WikiLeaks has assisted Mr. Snowden’s political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers ans safe exit from Hong Kong. More soon.
—
Via: South China Morning Post:
US whistle-blower Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong and is on a commercial flight to Russia, but Moscow will not be his final destination, the South China Morning Post confirm.
It is understood the fugitive whistle-blower boarded the Moscow-bound flight earlier on Sunday and will continue to another country.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement on Sunday that Snowden had departed “on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel”.
It was understood that he left from Chep Lap Kok airport at 11.04am on Sunday morning. The 30-year-old boarded Aeroflot Flight SU213, which is scheduled to land at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport at 5.15pm local time (8.15pm Hong Kong time).
The Hong Kong government said it had notified the US government about Snowden’s departure.
“As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong,” the statement said.
It has been previously reported that Iceland or Ecuador were possible options for Snowden to seek political asylum.
The Russian embassy in Beijing would neither confirm nor deny Snowden is on a flight to Moscow. The Russian consulate in Hong Kong declined to comment.
Snowden is wanted by the US government after he disclosed classified documents detailing the clandestine cyber-snooping programmes carried out by Washington’s National Security Agency.
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 is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.
One key innovation has been GCHQ’s ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months.
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user’s access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
Beijing Pollution So Bad That International Schools Build Filtered Air Domes for Children
June 22nd, 2013How about if all the shit-for-brains politicians in New Zealand, who gladly bend over for China, send their kids over there to play in the domes?
Hmm? John Key? How does that grab ya?
Via: Los Angeles Times:
After nearly two decades in Beijing, David Wolf knew it was time for a change when his 11-year-old son, Aaron, somberly asked him, “Dad, when you were growing up, did you ever have PE outdoors?”
Wolf had grown up in smog-choked Los Angeles in the 1970s, but even that wasn’t nearly as bad as Beijing today. His son, like many young students in the city, has been kept inside for months, with the luckier children getting the chance to exercise under huge air-filtered domes that their international schools have built.
Later this month, when school lets out, Aaron and his mother will move to Southern California for good, and Wolf begins a new way of doing his consulting work, splitting his time between Beijing and their new home at Channel Islands Harbor.
“I want them to leave before they hate this place,” Wolf, 49, said on a recent morning as he checked Beijing’s air quality on a smartphone app, something that many people here, expats and locals alike, routinely do several times a day.
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 to confirm but says ‘substantial assistance’ is being provided.
Brazil: Biggest Protests in Two Decades
June 22nd, 2013I read something back in the 1990s in one of the International Relations journals (apologies for not being able to recall the source) that put forth the theory that most people in the world would be living in situations resembling a Brazilian favela in the century ahead, and states needed to figure out how to manage them and run combat operations in them.
So, as bad as any urban collapse situation might seem in America, know that it has been much worse in Brazil… for decades. Here’s a glimpse at the situation that has emerged there:
More recently:
Via: Guardian:
Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, and key ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Friday following a night of protests that saw Rio de Janeiro and dozens of other cities echo with percussion grenades and swirl with teargas as riot police scattered the biggest demonstrations in more than two decades.
The protests were sparked last week by opposition to rising bus fares, but they have spread rapidly to encompass a range of grievances, as was evident from the placards. “Stop corruption. Change Brazil”; “Halt evictions”; “Come to the street. It’s the only place we don’t pay taxes”; “Government failure to understand education will lead to revolution”.
Rousseff’s office said she had cancelled a trip to Japan next week.
A former student radical herself, Rousseff has tried to mollify the protesters by praising their peaceful and democratic spirit. Partly at her prompting, Rio, São Paulo and other cities have reversed the increase in public transport fares, but this has failed to quell the unrest.
A vast crowd – estimated by the authorities at 300,000 and more than a million by participants – filled Rio’s streets, one of a wave of huge nationwide marches against corruption, police brutality, poor public services and excessive spending on the World Cup.
A minority of protesters threw stones, torched cars and pulled down lamp-posts. Police responded by firing volleys of pepper spray and rubber bullets into the crowd and up onto overpasses where car drivers and bus passengers were stuck in traffic jams. At least 40 people were injured in the city and many more elsewhere.
Simultaneous demonstrations were reported in at least 80 cities, with a total turnout that may have been close to 2 million. An estimated 110,000 marched in São Paulo, 80,000 in Manaus, 50,000 in Recife and 20,000 in Belo Horizonte and Salvador.
Clashes were reported in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, Porto Alegre in the south, Campinas north of São Paulo and Salvador.
Thirty-five people were injured in the capital Brasilia, where 30,000 people took to the streets. In São Paulo, one man was killed when a frustrated car driver rammed into the crowd. Elsewhere countless people, including many journalists, were hit by rubber bullets.
The vast majority of those involved were peaceful. Many wore Guy Fawkes masks, emulating the global Occupy campaign. Others donned red noses – a symbol of a common complaint that people are fed up being treated as clowns.
Singapore Smog Disaster
June 21st, 2013Via: Independent:
Singapore has been hit by the worst air pollution crisis in its history, while government agencies try to induce rain in an attempt to stop forest fires spreading a smoky haze across three south-east Asian countries.
The average Pollution Standard Index (PSI) – the measurement for air pollution – hit 401 at midday today, beating previous records of 371 and 321 on the previous two days. A reading between 101 and 200 is considered unhealthy. Anything over 300 is “hazardous”.
It is six days since the clouds of smoke first descended on Singapore, the result of fires in neighbouring Sumatra, Indonesia. Blaze season usually runs from June to September, when land is illegally cleared in this fashion for palm plantations.
Singapore’s environment minister flew to Jakarta today to discuss measures to tackle the forest fires, and the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency said it plans to use helicopters in a “water-bombing” operation, alongside more than 100 firefighters on the ground.
The agency added that planes would be sent over parts of Sumatra in the next few days in a “cloud-seeding” effort to try to induce rain chemically.
Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, has told people to remain indoors as much as possible, and warned that the smog could last for weeks.
Staff at Singapore’s famous Fullerton Hotel point to the skyline where the nearby Swissotel, The Stamford, used to be visible. It all but disappeared from view on Wednesday.
The hotel is now handing its guests masks before they head out; its revolving door at the front has closed, a small precaution to keep the noxious air from wafting in. The management has also issued eye drops for its staff.
More than 100 companies across Singapore sent their staff home, opting not to wait for the government to decide to stop work.
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 this. With NSA, though, they have the capability to turn the screws on people who are responsible for funding.
How far does the blackmailing go? Unfortunately, there wasn’t much detail along those lines, but Tice suggested that a lot of people who might look like they’re running things are really a bunch of compromised puppets. Obama (as Senator) was targeted by NSA, for example, according to Tice. I didn’t get any sense of who’s actually tasking the machine, or for what specific purposes, outside of expanding NSA’s budget, but it’s probably being used to compromise a lot of prominent people inside the U.S. Government. If this sounds outrageous, just read Gentry’s tome to get a feel for what has gone on in past generations.
For Cryptogon readers, there wasn’t much new in terms of technical information about intercept operations, but Tice’s explicit references to space based collection were interesting. He indicated that he was responsible for using “space capabilities” to gather data on U.S. Government officials who had links to the Iraq conflict. Since the volume of information that traverses satellite links is miniscule, compared to the terrestrial systems, my guess (which could be totally wrong) is that U.S. satellites were used to spy on individuals directly. Tice did not go into any details about what types of information NSA gathered on people using satellites. He suggested that the terrestrial intercepts are far more invasive, which makes sense.
Via: Boiling Frog Post:
In this bombshell episode of the Boiling Frogs Post Podcast Show NSA whistleblower Russ Tice joins us to go on record for the first time with new revelations and the names of official culprits involved in the NSA’s illegal practices. Mr. Tice explains in detail how the National Security Agency targets, sucks-in, stores and analyzes illegally obtained content from the masses in the United States. He contradicts officials and the mainstream media on the status of the NSA’s Utah facility, which is already operating and “On-Line.” He reveals the NSA as a Deep State that targets and wiretaps US political candidates for its own purposes. We discuss the latest controversies involving the NSA, PRISM, Edward Snowden, and the spins and lies that are being floated by the US mainstream and pseudo-alternative media.
More: Posts About Russ Tice on Cryptogon
Research Credit: HongPong
Chimeras: Japan Lifting Ban on Growing Human Organs in Animals
June 20th, 2013Via: Asahi Shimbun:
The government plans to lift a ban on basic scientific research to grow human internal organs in the bodies of other animals for potential use in transplants, raising concerns about compromising the dignity of human beings.
The proposed policy change was presented June 18 during a meeting of an expert panel under the government’s Council for Science and Technology Policy. It will open the door, for example, to experiments to engineer human pancreases and livers in pigs and other animals. Such tests will utilize advanced biotechnology such as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.
But the envisioned creation of animal-human chimeras, which have both human and nonhuman cells, could blur the boundary of humans and nonhumans.
A typical research program would use a fertilized pig egg, genetically modified to inhibit the formation of a pancreas, and grow it into an embryo. Injection of human iPS cells would turn it into an animal-human chimeric embryo.
Returning it into a pig uterus could result in the birth of a piglet with a human pancreas. Porcine internal organs are about the same size as their human counterparts and could therefore be transplanted into humans.
Gold, Silver Hammered to 2.5-Year Lows
June 20th, 2013Right now:
Gold: -$90.40 -6.58%
Silver: -$1.85 -8.57% [!!!]
Via: Forbes:
Gold and silver futures prices are sharply lower and have careened to better-than-2.5-year lows in early U.S. trading Thursday. The market place sees traders and investors in a keen “risk-off” mentality following Wednesday’s U.S. Federal Reserve events. Fresh, serious technical damage has been inflicted in the gold and silver markets to suggest they will see still more downside price pressure to come.
Never Give Stores Your Zip Code
June 20th, 2013Via: Forbes:
Why make such a big deal over five digits that only records that someone lives in the same area as many thousands of others? Because along with other information, the ZIP code may provide the final clue to figuring out your address, phone number and past purchasing details, if a sales clerk sees your name while swiping your credit card.
How does this work? In one of their brochures, direct marketing services company Harte-Hanks describes the GeoCapture service they offer retail businesses as follows: “Users simply capture name from the credit card swipe and request a customer’s ZIP code during the transaction. GeoCapture matches the collected information to a comprehensive consumer database to return an address.” In a promotional brochure, they claim accuracy rates as high as 100%.
Fair Isaac Corp., a company best known for its FICO credit scores, also offers a similar service which they say can boost direct marketing efforts by as much as 400%. “FICO Contact Builder helps you overcome the common challenges of gathering contact information from shoppers—such as complicating or jeopardizing the sales process by asking for an address or phone number, or complying with regulations,” it says. “It requires minimal customer information captured at point-of-sale, just customer name or telephone number and the customer or store ZIP code.”
