Judicial Watch Forces Obama Administration to Release Pentagon Benghazi Attack Documents

Judicial Watch announced today that the Obama administration finally turned over hundreds of pages of documents about the military response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound and other facilities in Benghazi. The documents, which are heavily blacked out (redacted), confirm that the U.S. Military, through its U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) drafted orders for a military response to the attack, specifically “to protect vital naval and national assets.” Other documents suggest that the military, hours after the attack, tied the assault to a group supporting “an Islamic state” that wanted to attack U.S. interests in Libya in retaliation for a drone strike on an al-Qaeda leader.

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Eric Holder Says Putting Reporter James Risen Through Hell Is A Good 'Example' Of DOJ Process For Leak Investigations

TECH DIRT

Attorney General Holder raised some eyebrows earlier this week when answering a question about his Justice Department's notorious crackdown on leaks, and by extension the press, most notably saying this about its notorious pursuit of New York Times reporter James Risen, while claiming the DOJ did nothing wrong:

If you look at the last case involving Mr. Risen, the way in which that case was handled after the new policies were put in place [is] an example of how the Justice Department can proceed.

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Anonymous Companies Fighting National Security Letters Back Twitter’s NSL Battle

EFF

Two companies who must remain anonymous about their fight against secret government demands for information known as national security letters (NSLs) are backing Twitter's lawsuit over its rights to publish information about NSLs it may have received. The companies—a telecom and an Internet company—are represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Twitter filed its suit in October, saying users deserved to know certain basic facts about NSLs that the government did or did not serve on the social media company. NSLs—issued by the federal government but not approved by a judge—almost always contain a gag order barring the companies from notifying their customers or the public that any demands have been made.

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Elizabeth Warren And Sherrod Brown Fight Fed Audit, Foreclosure Transparency

EDITOR'S NOTE: They need to be voted out of office. Warren calls it congressional meddling! WTF? The Constitution states: Congress has the duty to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures. Where is the meddling? The creature from Jekyll Island is on its death bed! 70 to 80 percent of Americans want an audit!

WASHINGTON -- Top progressive senators are running away from a bill authored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to audit both the Federal Reserve's monetary policy operations and millions of foreclosures.

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NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been planting surveillance software deep within hard drives made by top manufacturers, allowing it to eavesdrop on almost every computer in the world, according to Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based software security company that announced its findings Monday.

Kaspersky did not explicitly name from which country or intelligence agency the spying software was found, but former operatives from the NSA confirmed that the findings correlated with NSA activity, Reuters reported.

The NSA’s spyware lies within drives manufactured by Western Digital and Seagate, who deny that they had any knowledge of such programs.

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Hackers tied to NSA hid for 14 years—and were found at last

Arstechnica

In 2009, one or more prestigious researchers received a CD by mail that contained pictures and other materials from a recent scientific conference they attended in Houston. The scientists didn't know it then, but the disc also delivered a malicious payload developed by a highly advanced hacking operation that had been active since at least 2001.

The CD, it seems, was tampered with on its way through the mail.

It wasn't the first time the operators—dubbed the "Equation Group" by researchers from Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab—had secretly intercepted a package in transit, booby-trapped its contents, and sent it to its intended destination.

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How Science Died at the World Trade Center

by Kevin Ryan

Science has been misused for political purposes many times in history. However, the most glaring example of politically motivated pseudoscience—that employed by U.S. government scientists to explain the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC)—continues to be ignored by many scientists.

As we pass the 10^th anniversary of the introduction of that account, it is useful to review historic examples of fake science used for political purposes and the pattern that defines that abuse.

An early example of pseudoscience used to promote a political agenda was the concerted Soviet effort to contradict evolutionary theory and Mendelian inheritance.

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U.S. Embedded Spyware Overseas, Report Claims

The United States has found a way to permanently embed surveillance and sabotage tools in computers and networks it has targeted in Iran, Russia, Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and other countries closely watched by American intelligence agencies, according to a Russian cybersecurity firm.

In a presentation of its findings at a conference in Mexico on Monday, Kaspersky Lab, the Russian firm, said that the implants had been placed by what it called the “Equation Group,” which appears to be a veiled reference to the National Security Agency and its military counterpart, United States Cyber Command.

It linked the techniques to those used in Stuxnet, the computer worm that disabled about 1,000 centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

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Is your toaster a silent recruit in a 'thingbot' army?

BBC

All kinds of gadgets, from toasters to sprinklers, fridges to domestic heating systems, are now boasting sensors, actuators and low-powered embedded chips.

Whirlpool, Samsung, and LG all have all announced wi-fi enabled washing machines in the last month.

Nest's smart thermostats can communicate with your GPS-enabled phone or tablet and activate your heater when you're on your way home.

There's even a clever egg tray that sends you a remote warning when you're running low on eggs or when they're getting old.

This is the so-called "internet of things" (IoT).

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Federal judge orders temporary halt to Obama executive actions on immigration, setting up major court showdown

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration Monday, giving a coalition of 26 states time to pursue a lawsuit that aims to permanently stop the orders.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen's decision puts on hold Obama's orders that could spare as many as five million people who are in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

The federal government is expected to appeal the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. 

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9/11 False Flag: American Traitors & Mossad Agents

9/11 is the litmus test!

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Sources: U.S. copters support Iraqi troops battling ISIS

(CNN)U.S. helicopter gunships supported Iraqi ground forces battling ISIS militants in al-Baghdadi, military sources said, an action that brings U.S. troops closer to combat.

ISIS took control of the town earlier Friday.

The U.S. military also deployed Apache attack helicopters against an ISIS assault on the strategic Ayn al-Assad Air Base about 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of al-Baghdadi, sources said.

Iraqi ground forces killed those attackers and the Apaches safely returned to base without firing a shot, the source said.

Robert Baer, a former CIA officer, said the battles may indicate a deepening involvement of U.S. troops in the fight against ISIS.

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Poroshenko reveals true nature of the ceasefire for Ukraine

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says coup was backed by the US

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says his government had blocked what he called a U.S.-backed coup plot that included plans to attack the presidential palace with a military jet.

"It is the government of the United States that is behind the plans of destabilization and coups against Venezuela. I have come here to denounce it. ... We have dismantled a coup attempt against democracy, against the stability of our homeland," Maduro said in a televised address Thursday. "It was an attempt to use a group of officials from the air force to provoke a violent act, an attack."

He didn't name which members of the military were allegedly involved, but claimed that the U.S. government and right-wing opposition groups in Venezuela were behind the plan.

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The Terror We Give Is the Terror We Get

by Chris Hedges

We fire missiles from the sky that incinerate families huddled in their houses. They incinerate a pilot cowering in a cage. We torture hostages in our black sites and choke them to death by stuffing rags down their throats. They torture hostages in squalid hovels and behead them. We organize Shiite death squads to kill Sunnis. They organize Sunni death squads to kill Shiites. We produce high-budget films such as “American Sniper” to glorify our war crimes. They produce inspirational videos to glorify their twisted version of jihad.

The barbarism we condemn is the barbarism we commit. The line that separates us from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is technological, not moral. We are those we fight.

“From violence, only violence is born,” Primo Levi wrote, “following a pendular action that, as time goes by, rather than dying down, becomes more frenzied.” 

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Malcolm X Was Right About America

by Chris Hedges

NEW YORK—Malcolm X, unlike Martin Luther King Jr., did not believe America had a conscience. For him there was no great tension between the lofty ideals of the nation—which he said were a sham—and the failure to deliver justice to blacks. He, perhaps better than King, understood the inner workings of empire. He had no hope that those who managed empire would ever get in touch with their better selves to build a country free of exploitation and injustice. He argued that from the arrival of the first slave ship to the appearance of our vast archipelago of prisons and our squalid, urban internal colonies where the poor are trapped and abused, the American empire was unrelentingly hostile to those Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth.” This, Malcolm knew, would not change until the empire was destroyed.

“It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck."

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How Brian Williams Can Regain Our Trust

by Kevin Ryan

NBC News anchor Brian Williams is taking heat for having repeatedly lied to the public about an Iraq War experience that he never had. Williams has decided to take a few days off to see if the whole affair will blow over but that strategy is not likely to work given the legs that the story has grown. There is a way for Williams to turn it all around, although it would be tougher than anything he has done in the past. He could save face by coming clean on something important that he once reported and never mentioned again.

On September 11, 2001, Williams was covering the terrorist attacks of the day. Late that afternoon a third skyscraper collapsed at the World Trade Center (WTC) and Williams interviewed a New York City fireman named David Restuccio about it.

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Woah! Did Putin's Threat Of 9/11 False Flag Proof Just WIN Him Ukraine?

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U.S. Drops to 49th in World Press Freedom Rankings, Worst Since Obama Became President

Each year, Reporters Without Borders issues a worldwide ranking of nations based on the extent to which they protect or abridge press freedom. The group’s 2015 ranking was released this morning, and the United States is ranked 49th.

That is the lowest ranking ever during the Obama presidency, and the second-lowest ranking for the U.S. since the rankings began in 2002.

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Senate Democrats come out against Fed audit bill

(Reuters) - Democrats on the Senate Banking committee on Wednesday voiced opposition to a bill that would expose the U.S. Federal Reserve to a full government audit.

The support from Democrats shows they are starting to form a united front against Republican-led efforts to open the Fed's internal discussions of interest rate and other policy matters to the public.

Republicans say the Fed needs greater transparency after it gained too much power during the financial crisis. Fed officials say exposing policy discussions to public scrutiny would increase political pressure on the independent government body.

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