Thursday Reads: Rainbows, Wildfires, Gangsters, Spies, and Superheroes

Posted: June 13, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: corruption, Crime, Criminal Justice System, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 29 Comments »
Double rainbow over Boston, evening of June 12, 2013

Double rainbow over Boston, evening of June 12, 2013

Good Morning!!

Isn’t that a gorgeous photo? There was a double rainbow over Boston last night, and quite a few people took photos and videos of it. Here’s another shot of it over the harbor and seaport.

Double rainbow harbor

You can see more views of it here.

Some people said the rainbow must be a positive sign for the Boston Bruins, who are in the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Chicago Blackhawks. It didn’t work out that way though. The Blackhawks ended up winning game one, after what seemed like an endless triple-overtime hockey game.

In other local news, yesterday was the first day of the trial of 83-year-old Irish gangster James “Whitey” Bulger. Opening statements were apparently riveting. It’s a shame the federal courts won’t allow TV cameras, because this trial is going to be an incredible show. Yesterday both sides gave their opening statements. From The Washington Post:

BOSTON — The trial of James “Whitey” Bulger, the Irish mob boss who allegedly helped scratch out 19 lives and ran this city’s underworld aided by corrupt FBI agents, got underway Wednesday morning almost 20 years after he fled the city on the eve of his indictment.

Now 83 and with just a bit of white hair left, Bulger wore a long-sleeve green shirt and jeans and listened without displaying any reaction as prosecutors laid out their 32 charges against him in a packed South Boston federal courtroom near the gangster’s old hangouts.

“It’s a case about organized crime, public corruption and all types of illegal activities,” federal prosecutor Brian Kelly said during opening statements. “He was no ordinary leader. He did the dirty work himself. He was a hands-on killer.”

Kelly told the story of one of Bulger’s alleged murder victims, Arthur “Bucky” Barrett, who prayed for his life before he was led to a cellar stairwell. “Barrett’s going downstairs to lie down for a while,” Bulger told an accomplice. Barrett walked down the stairs, and Bulger shot him the back, Kelly said.

Bulger’s rise as the city’s brutal organized crime leader was aided and abetted by corrupt FBI agents, who brushed off Bulger’s racketeering and violence in exchange for his help as an informant to bring down the local mafia, according to a lengthy ruling by a federal judge and other investigations.

On the defense side, (Hartford Courant)

Bulger lawyer Jay Carney made it clear in his remarks to the jury that much of the crime boss’s defense will be spent trying to discredit the government’s three chief witnesses. They are close former Bulger associates who agreed to turn on him for leniency or other considerations.

Carney argued to the jury that the three — John Martorano, Stephen Flemmi and Kevin Weeks — will say whatever they think the government wants in order to protect their cooperation agreements. Among other things, he said, they are accusing Bulger of their crimes.

Martorano was sentenced to 14 years in prison for 20 murders. Weeks, once a Bulger protégé, got a shorter sentence for less serious offenses. Flemmi, Bulger’s long-time partner, got a life sentence, but was not exposed to possible death sentences for crimes in Florida and Oklahoma related to the gang’s attempt to takeover World Jai Alai, once one of the country’s largest pari-mutuel businesses.

Carney compared the federal prosecutors to chefs and the three witnesses to elaborately prepared meals.

‘What [we] are going to try to do is show you what happens in the prosecutors’ kitchen before the witness comes out,” Carney said.

I guess I’ve bored you with enough Boston news for today. Let’s see what’s happening in the rest of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Breaking . . . Edward Snowden Tells South China Morning Post US Hacks Into Hong Kong, China Computers

Posted: June 12, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: China, Crime, Foreign Affairs, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 75 Comments »
Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden

I’m no expert on the laws about revealing classified information to foreign governments, but this doesn’t sound very smart to me. Edward Snowden, who has leaked information about methods the NSA uses to collect data on Americans has now showed documents to the South China Morning Post to prove that the U.S. has been hacking into computers in Hong Kong and China since at least 2009.

In a frank hour-long interview, the 29-year-old, who US authorities have confirmed is now the subject of a criminal case, said he was neither a hero nor a traitor and that:

US National Security Agency’s controversial Prism programme extends to people and institutions in Hong Kong and mainland China;
The US is exerting “bullying’’ diplomatic pressure on Hong Kong to extradite him;
Hong Kong’s rule of law will protect him from the US;
He is in constant fear for his own safety and that of his family.

Snowden told the interviewer that none of the documents related to Chinese “military systems.”

One of the targets in the SAR, according to Snowden, was Chinese University and public officials, businesses and students in the city. The documents also point to hacking activity by the NSA against mainland targets.

Snowden believed there had been more than 61,000 NSA hacking operations globally, with hundreds of targets in Hong Kong and on the mainland.

“We hack network backbones – like huge internet routers, basically – that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,” he said….

Snowden said he was releasing the information to demonstrate “the hypocrisy of the US government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries”.

“Not only does it do so, but it is so afraid of this being known that it is willing to use any means, such as diplomatic intimidation, to prevent this information from becoming public.”

What the hell? This guy is really starting to sound like a loose cannon. I’ll update with more info in the comment thread as I get it.

Glenn Greenwald’s NSA Source, Edward Snowden, Outs Himself

Posted: June 9, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Media, PRISM, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 101 Comments »
Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden

Another “bombshell” from Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian: the NSA whistleblower reveals his name, his reasons for copying classified material, and his plans for the future.

He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

Three weeks ago, Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last week’s series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii where he was working, he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose.

He then advised his NSA supervisor [He is currently employed at Booz Allen Hamilton] that he needed to be away from work for “a couple of weeks” in order to receive treatment for epilepsy, a condition he learned he suffers from after a series of seizures last year.

As he packed his bags, he told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a few weeks, though he said he was vague about the reason. “That is not an uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade working in the intelligence world.”

On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since. He chose the city because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”, and because he believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the dictates of the US government.

Snowden apparently decided to leave his life behind and begin a new one. He told the Guardian “I do not expect to see home again.” And if that isn’t dramatic enough, he has barely left his hotel room since arriving in Hong Kong because

He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.

OK, I’m in no position to evaluate the truth value of all this. It does sound a little paranoid, but look what has happened to Bradley Manning. Certainly the Feds will go after Snowden, whether his revelations are truly damaging to U.S. national security or not and despite the fact that other journalists than Greenwald are now pooh-poohing the revelations.

So who is Snowden? He has an unusual biography for someone in his position. He grew up in North Carolina. He was not a very good student and never graduated from high school, although he took computing courses at a community college. He went into an army special forces training program, hoping to go to Iraq, but he was badly injured and had to be discharged.

After that he worked at the NSA as a security guard, then somehow because of his apparent genius for computers he stepped up the CIA where he worked on IT network security. He eventually worked in Switzerland under diplomatic cover. He gradually became disillusioned and left the CIA to work for private contractors.

He thinks the

value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. “I don’t see myself as a hero,” he said, “because what I’m doing is self-interested: I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”

Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA’s surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he said.

You can read the rest at the Guardian.

I really don’t know what to think at this point. I’m not sure if we have learned anything new beyond what we have known throughout the Bush and Obama administrations–that we are being spied upon constantly, but government and corporations. I hate it, and I hope these revelations–whether they are new or not–may lead to change.

I’m going to add a few more links to add to the discussion.

Reuters: Senator seeks review of Patriot Act amid surveillance report

Bob Cesca: NSA Bombshell Story Falling Apart Under Scrutiny; Key Facts Turning Out to Be Inaccurate

ZDNet: The real story in the NSA scandal is the collapse of journalism

Rayne at Emptywheel: Truck-sized Holes: Journalists Challenged by Technology Blindness

Reuters: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks: officials

Tim Shorrock: Who’s helping the NSA? A Look at Palantir

What are you hearing and reading? What do you think?

Tuesday Reads: U.S.-Russia Cloak and Dagger Intrigue

Posted: May 14, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 40 Comments »
Ernest Hemingway reading The New York Times (naked)

Ernest Hemingway reading The New York Times (naked)

Good Morning!!

Ever since the bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15, there has been plenty of intrigue going on between the U.S. and Russia.

There have been reports that Russia “withheld intel on” Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers, who spent about 7 months in Russia (Dagestan mostly) in 2012.

While he was in Dagestan, Tsarnaev was squired around by a relative who is “a prominent Islamist” and most likely introduced Tsarnaev to two men who were fighting with the Chechen rebels. Soon after these meetings, these men were killed by the Russians.

Tsarnaev had expressed interest in joining the fight for Chechen independence, but left Dagestan soon after his two friends were killed. He hurriedly traveled to Moscow and then flew back to JFK in NY without anyone in Russian intelligence noticing supposedly. No one can explain how Tsarnaev was able to board a plane for Russia at JFK Airport when he was on two U.S. terror lists or how he was able to fly out of Moscow when he was supposedly being closely watched by Russian intelligence during his stay there.

There have also been numerous reports of CIA connections to the Tsarnaev brothers. In addition, a professor at U. Mass Dartmouth (Brian Glynn Williams, a Chechnya expert) who has worked with the CIA [NOTE: This link to post by Mark Ames at nsfwcorp will be available for 23 hrs], served as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mentor for a project on Chechen ethnic identity that the younger Tsarnaev brother did as a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. Dzhokhar later attended U. Mass Dartmouth, although Williams says he never had any direct contact with the future accused bomber (they interacted by e-mail).

The Latest U.S.-Russia Dustup

This morning news is breaking that an American diplomat has been detained in Russia by the FSB for allegedly trying to “recruit a Russian agent” for the CIA.

Fogel

Russia’s security services claimed Tuesday to have arrested a CIA agent posing as an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for allegedly trying to recruit a Russian secret service agent to work for the U.S.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had detained a man identified as Ryan Christopher Fogle on the evening of May 13 or early the next morning for attempting to recruit a Russian agent….

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted a statement from the FSB as saying Fogle was arrested while trying to recruit a member of the Russian security services, and he had on his person, “special technical devices, written instructions for the Russian citizen being recruited, a large sum of cash and means of changing his appearance.”

After being arrested and processed by Russian security services, the man was handed back to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Moscow.

The FSB said Fogle had been masquerading as a career diplomat at the Political Section of the U.S. Embassy, but that he was a CIA employee. A photo provided by the FSB and published across Russian media allegedly showed his Russian-issued diplomatic identification card.

And get this: Fogle was wearing a long blonde wig when he was arrested! And he had other disguises for his potential regruit.  From the NYT:

Photographs that appeared on Russian news sites on Tuesday afternoon showed a man in a blue checked shirt and baseball cap being pinned to the ground, evidently by a Russian officer. Further images showed a number of items evidently confiscated from him: a brown and blond wig, three pairs of glasses, several stacks of 500-Euro notes, and an embassy card identifying him as Ryan C. Fogle.

Mr. Fogel was brought to F.S.B. headquarters and then delivered to officials at the American embassy, the statement said. The F.S.B. went on to say its counterintelligence service has documented a series of recent attempts by the United States to recruit officers from Russian law enforcement and “special departments.”

According to the Times article, “Russia’s foreign ministry has summoned United States Ambassador Michael A. McFaul to appear on Wednesday to respond to the allegation” that Fogel was “carrying written instructions for a Russian recruit.” From Twitter, I learned that Fogel has a condo in McLean, Va.

Russia Today has lots of photos, including a photograph of an instruction sheet offering money and explaining how to set up a gmail account (WTF?!) to be used to contact U.S. intelligence. Apparently Fogel had “a large sum of cash” (in Euros?!) with him to hand over to the new recruit. Is this really how the CIA operates? It seems so half-assed.

CIA spy

Connections to the Tsarnaev Investigation?

Whether any of this will connect back to the Tsarnaev saga, I have no way of knowing; but I can’t help but suspect it will. There has simply been too much recent activity between the U.S. and Russia being reported lately for this to be completely unrelated to the Boston bombing investigation. Time will tell.

I think that’s about all the weird news I can handle for right now. I’ll leave it to you to post your own links–on any topic–in the comment thread.

Have a great day!!

Suddenly Mainstream Reporters are Outraged at Government Surveillance

Posted: May 13, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: The Media SUCKS, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments »

surveillance1

We’ve known for years that the Feds are tapping phones, reading e-mails, checking on which site we go to on the internet, all without warrants. This afternoon the news broke that the DOJ subpoenaed two months

of phone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

Naturally AP reporters and executives are outraged and President and CEO Gary Pruitt has sent a letter of protest to Attorney General Holder.

The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

The story in question was about the successful foiling of the so-called underwear bombing plot. There’s much more at the AP link. So the feds are enraged because of a leak about a successful counterterror operation. Imagine if it had been unsuccessful? Maybe those reporters would be headed to re-education camps by now.

But that’s not the whole story, according to Think Progress. The reason the feds were so nervous about that AP story was that the CIA stopped the underwear bomber rather than the FBI.

Why that drew the attention of the Justice Department, however, is that the CIA was the one who foiled the plot, which the AP report made clear:

The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought a plane ticket when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It’s not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.

AP learned of the plot a week before publishing, but “agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately” due to national security concerns. But, by reporting the CIA’s involvement in foiling the plot, they put AQAP on notice that the CIA had a window into their activities. The AP’s reporting also led to other stories involving an operative in place within AQAP, and details of the operations he was involved in. That operative, it was feared, would be exposed and targeted by AQAP as retribution for siding with the United States.

John Brennan, who is now the head of the CIA, said at his confirmation hearing that the release of information to AP was an “unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.”

The AP knew they were being investigated–the shock came when they realized the breathtaking extent of the federal intrusion.

The DOJ issued a statement claiming that “because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the free flow of information and the public interest”

Okay, if you say so….

So now what? Will mainstream reporters who have been accepting of government surveillance as long as it was directed at us “little people” now begin a real pushback? We shall see.

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