Espionage/"Intelligence"

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s blistering attack on the CIA’s conduct in searching the computers used by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was deemed a remarkable salvo.  The search was engendered by the Committee’s official request for a final version of the named “Internal Panetta Review”.  The Review had been created for internal use by the CIA as a record of assessing what documents should be turned over to the Committee in connection with its investigation of the torture program.

In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington warned the nation he had served as its first president against a “passionate attachment” or “inveterate hatred” toward any nation. Some Americans were impassioned about revolutionary France. Within a few years, agents of foreign minister Talleyrand would boast to American diplomats of French power within the United States, and demand large bribes and loans to advance relations.

The Australians are the underdressed Viceroys of the pacific, a vestige of past power.  They are happy to be retained for various tasks – doing the bidding of the US, most of the time, and playing that rather distasteful game of bullying smaller neighbours when required.  In 2013, the East Timorese government found that their cabinet rooms had been bugged by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).  The incident itself had happened nine years previously.

In one of a series of significant talks over the weekend by the world’s foremost Internet freedom activists, Julian Assange spoke on MSNBC about the central “battle” of the Information Age:

The Obama regime, in coordination with its allies and proxies, has re-launched a virulent world-wide campaign to destroy independent governments, encircle and ultimately, undermine global competitors, and establish a new US – EU centered world order.
We will proceed by identifying the recent ‘cycles’ of US empire-building; the advances and retreats; the methods and strategies; the results and perspectives. Our main focus is on the imperial dynamics driving the US toward greater military confrontations, up to and including conditions which can lead to a world war.

Without networks of collaborators conscripted from among the ranks of the insurgency, sustained military occupations are unthinkable. Yet, no one likes to talk about collaborators—it is an unpleasant subject because collaborators are about as loved by their handlers as they are by the communities they betray.

If the government can’t do it, they get the teachers to.  It’s an old trick of state regulation, and it only works if the teaching class prefers compliancy over independence.  In the British sense, the latest round of co-opting teachers into monitoring students and their immigration credentials has brought the issue to a head.

We’ve all become accustomed to hearing about Edward Snowden and the NSA scandal. In fact, it’s almost become a daily ritual: checking major news outlets and discovering new revelations which never seem to fail in shocking us about the extent and invasiveness of what’s been called the “national security apparatus”—at least, the reaction tends to be one of shock, though often without the surprise.

IPS — The Barack Obama administration has demanded that Iran resolve “past and present concerns” about the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear programme as a condition for signing a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Administration officials have suggested that Iran must satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding the allegations in the agency’s report that it has had a covert nuclear weapons programme in the past.

Have you ever been caught tapping a friend’s phone calls? Called out for the exploitative maltreatment your employees? Are you a multi-billionaire prone to going through the pockets of black youth in the hopes of finding marijuana?
Consider talking about your concern for the environment, particularly the effects of climate change. Leading governments, corporations, and political figures under fire for civil and human rights violations are giving it a whirl.
Greening Injustice