Senate has uncovered no direct evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russia
▻https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-has-uncovered-no-direct-evidence-conspiracy-between-trump-campaign-n
After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.
Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jones-russia.html
Ah, cette logique des « expériences » en direct live sans que les cobayes soient au courant... En fait, c’est cela le fonds de commerce de facebook : devenir un lieux d’expérimentation de la manipulation mentale. Voir le livre de Jaron Lanier, « Ten arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts ».
As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results.
The secret project, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race, in which the Democratic candidate it was designed to help, Doug Jones, edged out the Republican, Roy S. Moore. But it was a sign that American political operatives of both parties have paid close attention to the Russian methods, which some fear may come to taint elections in the United States.
One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
An internal report on the Alabama effort, obtained by The New York Times, says explicitly that it “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”
The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.
“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.
Mr. Morgan said in an interview that the Russian botnet ruse “does not ring a bell,” adding that others had worked on the effort and had written the report. He said he saw the project as “a small experiment” designed to explore how certain online tactics worked, not to affect the election.
Mr. Morgan said he could not account for the claims in the report that the project sought to “enrage and energize Democrats” and “depress turnout” among Republicans, partly by emphasizing accusations that Mr. Moore had pursued teenage girls when he was a prosecutor in his 30s.
“The research project was intended to help us understand how these kind of campaigns operated,” said Mr. Morgan. “We thought it was useful to work in the context of a real election but design it to have almost no impact.”
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The project had a budget of just $100,000, in a race that cost approximately $51 million, including the primaries, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Trump claims Twitter is stopping him from getting more followers | The Independent
▻https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-twitter-followers-tweets-today-facebook-google-democrats-accoun
Donald Trump has accused Twitter of blocking followers from his account, despite lacking any evidence to support such a claim, in his latest complaint about how he is treated by social media companies.
The president wrote on Twitter that the site had “made it much more difficult for people to join @realDonaldTrump,” despite his account featuring the same, one-click follow button as any other profile. He also claimed the platform had “removed many names & greatly slowed the level and speed of increase,” suggesting Twitter had targeted him and other Republicans by reducing following counts.
“Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased toward the Dems it is ridiculous!” Mr Trump said Tuesday during a series of angry morning tweets. “_They have acknowledged-done NOTHING!”
Twitter and other major social media sites have spent the year purging millions of fake accounts and bots, with countless celebrities — including the president — and regular users alike seeing slight reductions in their followings due to the loss of false profiles.
The effort has been part of a response to criticism from Congress that companies have not been doing enough to combat efforts at election meddling such as those seen during the 2016 presidential race. In October, Twitter announced it had removed at least nine million accounts as part of an effort that had been underway since July.
Facebook has also been steadily purging fake accounts throughout the year, and executives from all three platforms the president attacked on Twitter have testified before Congress in 2018 about their company’s responses to the spread of disinformation, Russian interference in the 2016 election and other issues.
It was previously reported the president’s personal Twitter handle, @realDonaldTrump, was followed by millions of fake accounts and bots. During one purge in July, Mr Trump lost at least 300,000 followers.
Gallup conducted a survey in May that found nearly 15m — 29 per cent — of Mr Trump’s Twitter followings appeared to be fake accounts.
The president has a Twitter following of 56.3m as of Tuesday, compared to his predecessor, Barack Obama, who has a following of 104m.
The same Gallup survey found Mr Obama’s following to have a fake following of nearly 15 per cent.
The tweets from the president come a day after a pair of reports were released by the Senate Intelligence Committee said Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election was more widespread than previously thought and aimed at dividing Americans.
How Russia Hacked U.S. Politics With Instagram Marketing – Foreign Policy
►https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/17/how-russia-hacked-us-politics-with-instagram-marketing
While the message itself was not aimed at swaying voters in any direction, researchers now believe it served another purpose for the Russian group: It boosted the reach of its account, likely won it new followers, and tried to establish the account’s bona fides as an authentic voice for the black community.
That advertising pitch was revealed in a report released Monday by the Senate Intelligence Committee and produced by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge. The report provides the most comprehensive look to date at the Kremlin’s attempt to boost Trump’s candidacy and offers a surprising insight regarding that campaign: Moscow’s operatives operated much like digital marketers, making use of Instagram to reach a huge audience.
By blending marketing tactics with political messaging, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) established a formidable online presence in the run-up to the 2016 election (and later), generating 264 million total engagements—a measure of activity such as liking and sharing content—and building a media ecosystem across Facebook and Instagram.
The authors of the report believe @blackstagram__ served as a vehicle for Kremlin propaganda targeting the American black community, skillfully adopting the language of Instagram, where viral marketing schemes exist side by side with artfully arranged photographs of toast.
As Americans streamed to the polls on Nov. 8, 2016, @blackstagram__ offered its contribution to the Kremlin’s campaign to depress turnout, borrowing a line from a Michael Jackson song to tell African-Americans that their votes didn’t matter: “Think twice before you vote. All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us. #Blacktivist #hotnews.”
While the effect of the IRA’s coordinated campaign to depress voter turnout is difficult to assess, the evidence of the group’s online influence is stark. Of its 133 Instagram accounts, 12 racked up more than 100,000 followers—the typical threshold for being considered an online “influencer” in the world of digital marketing. Around 50 amassed more than 10,000 followers, making them what marketers call “micro-influencers.”
These accounts made savvy use of hashtags, built relationships with real people, promoted merchandise, and targeted niche communities. The IRA’s most popular Instagram accounts included pages devoted to veterans’ issues (@american.veterans), American Christianity (@army_of_jesus), and feminism (@feminism_tag).
In a measure of the agency’s creativity, @army_of_jesus appears to have been launched in 2015 as a meme account featuring Kermit the Frog. It then switched subjects and began exclusively posting memes related to the television show The Simpsons. By January 2016, the account had amassed a significant following and reached its final iteration with a post making extensive use of religious hashtags: ““#freedom #love #god #bible #trust #blessed #grateful.” It later posted memes comparing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to Satan.
“The Internet Research Agency operated like a digital marketing agency: develop a brand (both visual and voice), build presences on all channels across the entire social ecosystem, and grow an audience with paid ads as well as partnerships, influencers, and link-sharing,” the New Knowledge report concludes. “Instagram was perhaps the most effective platform.”
How Russia Hacked U.S. Politics With Instagram Marketing – Foreign Policy
►https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/17/how-russia-hacked-us-politics-with-instagram-marketing
The Internet Research Agency took to the photo-sharing network to boost Trump and depress voter turnout.
Donald Trump as U.S. president, Kremlin operatives running a digital interference campaign in American politics scored a viral success with a post on Instagram.
The post appeared on the account @blackstagram__, which was in fact being run by the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked troll farm that U.S. authorities say orchestrated an online campaign to boost Trump’s candidacy in 2016. It racked up 254,000 likes and nearly 7,000 comments—huge numbers for the Kremlin campaign.
But oddly, the post contained no political content.
Instead, it repurposed an ad for a women’s shoe, with a photo of women of different skin tones wearing the same strappy high heel in different colors. The caption pitched the shoes as a symbol of racial equality: “All the tones are nude! Get over it!”
While the message itself was not aimed at swaying voters in any direction, researchers now believe it served another purpose for the Russian group: It boosted the reach of its account, likely won it new followers, and tried to establish the account’s bona fides as an authentic voice for the black community.
That advertising pitch was revealed in a report released Monday by the Senate Intelligence Committee and produced by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge. The report provides the most comprehensive look to date at the Kremlin’s attempt to boost Trump’s candidacy and offers a surprising insight regarding that campaign: Moscow’s operatives operated much like digital marketers, making use of Instagram to reach a huge audience.
By blending marketing tactics with political messaging, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) established a formidable online presence in the run-up to the 2016 election (and later), generating 264 million total engagements—a measure of activity such as liking and sharing content—and building a media ecosystem across Facebook and Instagram.
That campaign sought to bring Russian political goals into the mainstream, exacerbate and inflame divisions in American society, and blur the line between truth and fiction, New Knowledge’s report concludes.
Amid the intense discussion of Russian interference in the 2016 election, investigators probing that campaign had devoted relatively little attention to Instagram until now. But following their exposure in 2016 and early 2017, the IRA’s operatives shifted resources to Instagram, where their content often outperformed its postings on Facebook. (Instagram is owned by Facebook.)
Of the 133 Instagram accounts created by the IRA, @blackstagram__ was arguably its most successful, with more than 300,000 followers. Its June 2017 ad for the shoe, made by Kahmune, was the most widely circulated post dreamed up by the Kremlin’s operatives—from a total of some 116,000. (The shoe continues to be marketed by Kahmune. Company officials did not respond to questions from Foreign Policy.)
The authors of the report believe @blackstagram__ served as a vehicle for Kremlin propaganda targeting the American black community, skillfully adopting the language of Instagram, where viral marketing schemes exist side by side with artfully arranged photographs of toast.
As Americans streamed to the polls on Nov. 8, 2016, @blackstagram__ offered its contribution to the Kremlin’s campaign to depress turnout, borrowing a line from a Michael Jackson song to tell African-Americans that their votes didn’t matter: “Think twice before you vote. All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us. #Blacktivist #hotnews._”
Special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of investigators have secured indictments against the Internet Research Agency’s owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and a dozen of its employees.
While the effect of the IRA’s coordinated campaign to depress voter turnout is difficult to assess, the evidence of the group’s online influence is stark. Of its 133 Instagram accounts, 12 racked up more than 100,000 followers—the typical threshold for being considered an online “_influencer” in the world of digital marketing. Around 50 amassed more than 10,000 followers, making them what marketers call “micro-influencers.”
These accounts made savvy use of hashtags, built relationships with real people, promoted merchandise, and targeted niche communities. The IRA’s most popular Instagram accounts included pages devoted to veterans’ issues (@american.veterans), American Christianity (@army_of_jesus), and feminism (@feminism_tag).
In a measure of the agency’s creativity, @army_of_jesus appears to have been launched in 2015 as a meme account featuring Kermit the Frog. It then switched subjects and began exclusively posting memes related to the television show The Simpsons. By January 2016, the account had amassed a significant following and reached its final iteration with a post making extensive use of religious hashtags: “#freedom #love #god #bible #trust #blessed #grateful. ” It later posted memes comparing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to Satan.
“The Internet Research Agency operated like a digital marketing agency: develop a brand (both visual and voice), build presences on all channels across the entire social ecosystem, and grow an audience with paid ads as well as partnerships, influencers, and link-sharing,” the New Knowledge report concludes. “Instagram was perhaps the most effective platform.”
Monday’s report, which was published alongside another by researchers at the University of Oxford and the network analysis firm Graphika, is likely to increase scrutiny of social media platforms. The New Knowledge report accuses technology firms of possibly misleading Congress and says companies have not been sufficiently transparent in providing data related to the Russian campaign.
Les deux rapports (pdf)
New Knowledge
The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency
▻https://disinformationreport.blob.core.windows.net/disinformation-report/NewKnowledge-Disinformation-Report-Whitepaper.pdf
University of Oxford and Graphika
Computational Propaganda Research Project
The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018
▻https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/93/2018/12/IRA-Report-2018.pdf
C’est une impression ou bien ces nombres de followers sont ridiculement faibles, par rapport à la prétention affichée de faire basculer la présidentielle américaine ?
reprise par le Guardian
But two new analyses of the Russian online propaganda campaign by the Internet Research Agency reveal that this view of Instagram was as rose-colored as, well, an artistically filtered Instagram post.
“Instagram was perhaps the most effective platform for the Internet Research Agency,” states the report by New Knowledge, an American cybersecurity firm which analyzed data sets from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
During the period studied by the report’s authors, IRA posts on Instagram garnered more than twice as many engagements (such as likes or comments) as IRA posts on Facebook – 187m on Instagram vs 77m on Facebook – despite the fact that Facebook offers many more ways for users to interact with content, and Instagram has no native “sharing” button to promote virality.
How Trump Governs by Tweet: Start with Outrage, Then Escalate | The New Yorker
▻https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-trump-governs-by-tweet-start-with-outrage-then-escalate
The tweets of @realDonaldTrump express what the President of the United States is thinking, and that alone makes them noteworthy. On top of that, Trump appears to think that he can govern by tweet.
His Twitter attack on the news media has followed a similar trajectory: a hundred and forty characters at a time, he searches for instruments of power available to him. Prosecute leakers? Get the Senate Intelligence Committee to go after journalists? And, finally, today: “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”
Get your popcorn ready.
titre du très sérieux…
Foreign Policy - Situation Report
▻http://link.foreignpolicy.com/view/52543e66c16bcfa46f6ced165t1nf.24c3/45ab5353
Get your popcorn ready. Fired FBI Director Jim Comey will testify in public before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, June 8. Comey will reportedly address his conversations with President Trump and claims that the commander in chief pressured the FBI chief to drop his investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Vault 7 : CIA Hacking Tools Revealed
▻https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1
Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named “Vault 7” by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
The first full part of the series, “Year Zero”, comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized “zero day” exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
“Year Zero” introduces the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of “zero day” weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency’s hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA’s hacking capacities.
Commentaire de Snowden sur Twitter :
Still working through the publication, but what @Wikileaks has here is genuinely a big deal. Looks authentic.
Snowden sur Twitter :
▻https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/839168025517522944
If you’re writing about the CIA/@Wikileaks story, here’s the big deal: first public evidence USG secretly paying to keep US software unsafe.
The CIA reports show the USG developing vulnerabilities in US products, then intentionally keeping the holes open. Reckless beyond words.
Why is this dangerous? Because until closed, any hacker can use the security hole the CIA left open to break into any iPhone in the world.
WikiLeaks warns CIA can hack cars for ’undetectable assassinations’
▻http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2616661
“As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks,” WikiLeaks said in a statement. “The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.”
@baroug : l’article basé sur l’inocuité des activités de la CIA est assé rigolo. Comme vient de le rappeler Wikileaks, la CIA n’espionne pas que les méchantes puissances étrangères…
En 2014 par exemple : CIA admits it broke into Senate computers ; senators call for spy chief’s ouster
▻http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article24771274.html
An internal CIA investigation confirmed allegations that agency personnel improperly intruded into a protected database used by Senate Intelligence Committee staff to compile a scathing report on the agency’s detention and interrogation program, prompting bipartisan outrage and at least two calls for spy chief John Brennan to resign.
A Demand for Russian ‘Hacking’ Proof
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article/a-demand-for-russian-hacking-proof
Les VIPS à BHO : montrez les preuves
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), un groupement hautement qualifié d’anciens officiers du renseignement US communique un mémorandum au président Obama sur laquestion brûlante du “omplot russe” dans les élections présidentielles US. Le VIPS demande que des preiuves de ce “complot” soient produites aujourd’hui par Obama, lorsdesa defnières conférence de opresse de président. L’argument s’appuie sur l’évidence de jurispridence, montrée à plusieurs reprises par divers présidents,qu’en cas d’urgence de nationale, il est du devoir d’un président d’ignorer les règles de non-divulgation d’éléments obtenus par des moyens secrets par les services de renseignement, pour effectivement démontrer ce que ces servicxes avancent. Les VIPS, dont le mémo a été d’abord publié (...)
As President for a few more days, you have the power to demand concrete evidence of a link between the Russians and WikiLeaks, which published the bulk of the information in question. Lacking that evidence, the American people should be told that there is no fire under the smoke and mirrors of recent weeks.
We urge you to authorize public release of any tangible evidence that takes us beyond the unsubstantiated, “we-assess” judgments by the intelligence agencies. Otherwise, we – as well as other skeptical Americans – will be left with the corrosive suspicion that the intense campaign of accusations is part of a wider attempt to discredit the Russians and those – like Mr. Trump – who wish to deal constructively with them.
Remember the Maine?
(NB : une petite relecture du billet ne ferait pas de mal…)
Everyone Hacks
There is a lot of ambiguity – whether calculated or not – about “Russian hacking.” “Everyone knows that everyone hacks,” says everyone: Russia hacks; China hacks; every nation that can hacks. So do individuals of various nationalities. This is not the question.
Comme on le voit dans l’affaire Bauer, le mot « piratage » devient un fourre-tout qui permet d’accuser n’importe qui ou de camoufler n’importe quoi.
Our VIPS colleague William Binney, who was Technical Director of NSA and created many of the collection systems still in use, assures us that NSA’s “cast-iron” coverage – particularly surrounding Julian Assange and other people associated with WikiLeaks – would almost certainly have yielded a record of any electronic transfer from Russia to WikiLeaks. Binney has used some of the highly classified slides released by Edward Snowden to demonstrate precisely how NSA accomplishes this using trace mechanisms embedded throughout the network.
We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may have indicating that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks. If NSA can produce such evidence, you may wish to order whatever declassification may be needed and then release the evidence. This would go a long way toward allaying suspicions that no evidence exists. If NSA cannot give you that information – and quickly – this would probably mean it does not have any.
In all candor, the checkered record of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for trustworthiness makes us much less confident that anyone should take it on faith that he is more “trustworthy than the Russians,” as you suggested on Dec. 16. You will probably recall that Clapper lied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 12, 2013, about NSA dragnet activities; later apologizing for testimony he admitted had been “clearly erroneous.”
#Hacks_or_Leaks?
Not mentioned until now is our conclusion that leaks are the source of the WikiLeaks disclosures in question – not hacking. Leaks normally leave no electronic trace. William Binney has been emphasizing this for several months and suggesting strongly that the disclosures were from a leaker with physical access to the information – not a hacker with only remote access.
(allez, un dernier…)
Intel panel to examine possible campaign links with Russia - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intel-panel-to-examine-possible-campaign-links-with-russia/2017/01/13/1d090902-d9ee-11e6-a0e6-d502d6751bc8_story.html
The Senate Intelligence Committee will investigate possible contacts between Russia and the people associated with U.S. political campaigns as part of a broader investigation into Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
In a statement late Friday, Sens. Richard Burr. R-N.C., the committee’s chairman, and Mark Warner, D-Va., the panel’s top Democrat, said the panel “will follow the intelligence where it leads.”
[…]
The bulk of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s work will be done in secret, although the senators said they will hold open hearings when possible.
[…]
According to the committee’s statement, the inquiry will include:
— A review of the intelligence that informed the declassified report about Russia’s interference in the election.
— “Counterintelligence concerns” related to Russia and the election, “including any intelligence regarding links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns.”
— Russian cyber activity and other “active measures” against the United States during the election and more broadly.
la vérité avance mais nous ne la trouverons pas dans les médias maisntream. voici plusieurs personnes, blogeurs, journalistes ayant eu le fin mot de l’affaire : ▻http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/12/russia-hacking-election-inside-story-2.html
Alexandra Chalupa du lobby ethnique ukrainien (UCCA, OUN-B°)auprès des démocrates dont Hillary Clinton fait tout ce qu’elle peux pour faire imploser le nouvel élu de Trump. La propagande de guerre menée par Washington qui en a les moyens : ▻http://www.globalresearch.ca/counter-propaganda-bill-quietly-creates-us-propaganda-factory/5561852 Usa est un pays fasciste : ▻https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4909/text
l’Ukraine a un site qui chasse les journalistes occidentaux ou russes, qui selon eux n’ont pas le droit de travailler dans leurs pays voir leur liste des mauvais groupes sur facebook :▻https://informnapalm.org/fr/liste-des-sites-et-pages-facebook-francaises-pro-russes-et-soutenant-n
Ne faites pas confiance aux médias dominants
Le rapport sénatorial sur les tortures commises par la CIA préservé — et caché — dans les archives présidentielles d’Obama pour les 12 prochaines années.
▻https://theintercept.com/2016/12/12/obama-will-preserve-senate-torture-report-in-his-presidential-library
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,700-page history of the CIA torture program will be kept among Barack Obama’s presidential papers — safe from the Republicans on the committee who have attempted to have it destroyed. [...] But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Obama’s move falls well short of what’s necessary. “This history belongs to the American people,” Wyden said. “It’s also urgent. As we’ve already seen, burying the study achieves nothing but to create an information vacuum that gets filled with uninformed and highly dangerous propaganda.”
Au fait, il est toujours de bon ton de ricaner de Seymour Hersh, mais depuis son article The Redirection en 2007, il n’y a toujours aucune narrative officielle permettant d’expliquer comment et pourquoi les États-Unis livrent des armes au groupe même qui a fait sauter les deux tours du World Trade Center en 2001.
Non seulement je ne trouve pas de telles tentatives d’explication générale, mais surtout, à chaque fois qu’un article évoque le fait que « nos alliés » ou « les modérés » collaborent systématiquement avec Al Qaeda, et/ou que les armes américaines finissent immanquablement entre les mains d’Al Qaeda, l’audace s’arrête là ; pourtant ce n’est pas rien, de livrer des tonnes d’armes et d’explosifs à un groupe dont on nous a répété pendant une décennie qu’il était l’ennemi number one des États-Unis. Et personne ne réclame une narrative un tout petit peu cohérente à ce sujet ?
Al Qaeda ? Jamais entendu parler…
BBC Protects U.K.’s Close Ally Saudi Arabia With Incredibly Dishonest and Biased Editing - Glenn Greenwald
▻https://theintercept.com/2015/10/26/bbc-protects-uks-close-ally-saudi-arabia-with-incredibly-dishonest-and
But what this does highlight is just how ludicrous — how beyond parody — the 14-year-old war on terror has become, how little it has to do with its original ostensible justification. The regime with the greatest plausible proximity to the 9/11 attack — Saudi Arabia — is the closest U.S. ally in the region next to Israel. The country that had absolutely nothing to do with that attack, and which is at least as threatened as the U.S. by the religious ideology that spurred it — Iran — is the U.S.’s greatest war-on-terror adversary. Now we have a virtual admission from the Saudis that they are arming a group that centrally includes al Qaeda, while the U.S. itself has at least indirectly done the same (just as was true in Libya). And we’re actually at the point where western media outlets are vehemently denouncing Russia for bombing al Qaeda elements, which those outlets are manipulatively referring to as “non-ISIS groups.”
It’s not a stretch to say that the faction that provides the greatest material support to al Qaeda at this point is the U.S. and its closest allies. That is true even as al Qaeda continues to be paraded around as the prime need for the ongoing war.
Là aussi on avait ricané,
►http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/benghazi-hillary-clinton-is-guilty-but-not-as-charged
In April 2013, the famed US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published in the London Review of Books an account of what the CIA calls a “rat line” which was created in early 2012 “to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition”. This was the result of an agreement between the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to equip the armed Syrian rebels, and much of this weaponry ended up with jihadis affiliated to al-Qaeda. Hersh says that an account of what happened in setting up of the “rat line” is in a highly classified unpublished section of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report into the death of Mr Stevens in Benghazi which was issued in January 2013.
Under the terms of a secret agreement between the US and Turkey, partly funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals were procured in Libya by retired US soldiers through Libyan front companies, with the operation overseen by the CIA and MI6. Normally, the CIA should have reported what it was doing to Congress, but an exception is made for liaison missions and “the involvement of MI6 enabled the CIA to evade the law by classifying the mission as a liaison mission”. Hersh cites a former intelligence officer as saying that the only purpose for the US to keep open a consulate in Benghazi “was to provide cover for the movement of arms”. After the murder of Mr Stevens, the CIA abruptly ended the operation which then came under Turkish control.
The story would explain a relationship between the CIA and jihadis in Benghazi that might have led to the Americans being over-confident that they were safe from attack. Western governments have largely blamed Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf monarchies for arming the jihadi opposition in Syria, but the “rat line” shows the complicity of Western intelligence agencies.
(Vrais et faux) #idiots_utiles
Susie Day, « Outing Torture Queen Bikowsky »
▻http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2015/day060115.html
Dear Alfreda Frances Bikowsky,
So many people want to be famous. Not you. You were content to let Jessica Chastain portray a more competent version of your waterboarding and bin Laden-stalking self in the film Zero Dark Thirty. You never asked for credit. But now, thanks to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee’s Report on CIA Torture, we know you’ve made more history than the average, anonymous schlub. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker calls you “The Unidentified Queen of Torture.” She says you:
dropped the ball when the C.I.A. was given information that might very well have prevented the 9/11 attacks; . . . gleefully participated in torture sessions afterward; . . . And then . . . falsely told congressional overseers that the torture worked.
Of course, Jane Mayer doesn’t name you. Neither does Matthew Cole in his NBC News report, which was the basis for Mayer’s article. You are the “Unidentified Queen” because the CIA told the media not to reveal you. According to Mayer, you were the reason the Senate Intelligence Committee was not even allowed to use pseudonyms to identify you or any of the major players in its torture report, making it “almost impossible to . . . hold anyone in the American government accountable.”
We only know you are Alfreda Bikowsky because of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has problems with authority. Glenn defied the CIA to identify you in an article for The Intercept, an investigative news website that purposely operates outside the parameters of mainstream media. Thanks a lot, Glenn Greenwald.
I said that sarcastically, Ms. Bikowsky. Or, if I may: I said that sarcastically, Your Majesty. Glenn should not have “outed” you. After all, Glenn’s gay; he should know better.
Being a queer of the more sensitive variety, myself, I feel that people should not be forced out of the closet before they’re ready. There can be hard feelings. Like, I can only guess how you feel now. But if it’s even a little like being shackled and hung from the ceiling in freezing rooms, or forcibly hydrated and fed rectally, or stripped naked and deprived of sleep for a week, or put in stress positions for hours, you have my deep sympathy.
It’s not easy to be exposed as a war criminal. Now that you’re out, though, you may take a page or two from the Gay Rights movement. Here are some hard-won pointers to help you face an ignorant and uncomprehending world.
Say It Loud: War Criminal and Proud
According to NBC News, your name was redacted at least three dozen times from the declassified Senate Committee’s report on torture. This self-redacting tendency indicates that you are an extremely modest person, Your Majesty. Yet, like so many women, you may be sacrificing your self-esteem just to avoid “making a scene.”
Coming out allows you to proclaim your worth to society. Did you stop to think that maybe God made you this way? Much like God gave gay men, brain-wise, a small hypothalamus gland, He may have given you an abnormally tiny empathy-inducing anterior insular cortex. But whether your condition is biological or chosen, it’s time to step up and say, “Yes, America, I AM a war criminal. So what if all that torture did not yield useful information in finding bin Laden or anybody else — it was FUN!”
Back to the woman thing. Very few satanic creatures of note are women. Are you going to let Henry Kissinger and Beelzebub take all the credit? Isn’t it time Dick Cheney made coffee for YOU, for a change?
Out of the Black Sites and Into the Street
Contrary to myth, war criminals make good citizens. Like gay people, they boost property values and contribute to art and high culture. In fact, thanks to America’s more discerning war criminals, many prestigious U.S. museums are simply teeming with artifacts and masterpieces acquired from backward, terrorist-friendly countries that never fully appreciated them.
It’s often hard for prejudiced “normal” people to accept that war criminals are human. Part of being human is, of course, making mistakes. So stand up for your war criminal humanity, Your Majesty, by proudly defending your royal fuckups. Anybody in your CIA position could have goofed in snatching Khalid el-Masri, an innocent German citizen, off the street and torturing him for months in Afghanistan’s Salt Pit prison. Why, even most non-war-criminals mistake people with Muslim names for terrorists. It’s what unites us!
And be PROUD you testified to Congress that waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (about 183 times, but who’s counting?) led to the apprehension of a particular terrorist — despite the fact that this suspect was already in CIA custody.
You will encounter prejudice. Some people will assume you “got that way” by being waterboarded as a child or exposed to a war criminal teacher at an early age. Although this may well be true, it’s none of their business. When confronted with such war-criminal-o-phobe behavior, it is best to respond thusly: “I appreciate your concern, but I feel comfortable with who I am.” Then arrest this person and have them slammed repeatedly against a wall.
Accept Your Greatness
Bottom line, O Queen? If we anonymous schlubs can’t hold you accountable for anything you’ve done, the least you can do is become a celebrity.
See, you know all about us — our metadata is vacuumed up every second by your friends in the NSA — but we know nothing about you. Do you own a PC or a Mac? What’s your most embarrassing moment? Favorite brand of toothpaste?
Please tell us, Your Majesty: Who ARE you? If we knew that, we might know something more about who we are.
The Unidentified Queen of Torture
By Jane Mayer
▻http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/unidentified-queen-torture
Had the Senate Intelligence Committee been permitted to use pseudonyms for the central characters in its report, as all previous congressional studies of intelligence failures, including the widely heralded Church Committee report in 1975, have done, it might not have taken a painstaking, and still somewhat cryptic, investigation after the fact in order for the American public to hold this senior official accountable. Many people who have worked with her over the years expressed shock to NBC that she has been entrusted with so much power. A former intelligence officer who worked directly with her is quoted by NBC, on background, as saying that she bears so much responsibility for so many intelligence failures that “she should be put on trial and put in jail for what she has done.”
Instead, however, she has been promoted to the rank of a general in the military, most recently working as the head of the C.I.A.’s global-jihad unit. In that perch, she oversees the targeting of terror suspects around the world. (She was also, in part, the model for the lead character in “Zero Dark Thirty.”)
Je ne suis pas de l’avis de Jane Mayer. J’ai l’impression que la divine Alfreda Frances Bikowsky ressemble plutôt à ça :
Prosecuting High-Level Officials Isn’t Enough: It’s Time We Abolish the CIA
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/abolishing-the-cia
The shock resonating from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report isn’t due so much to the revelations themselves, grotesque as the details are, but to the fact that they’re now...
Conférence de presse de Brennan, le parrain de la #CIA : incroyablement les #journalistes présents continuent à utiliser l’expression « Enhanced Interrogation Techniques »
After Scrutiny, C.I.A. Mandate Is Untouched - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/us/politics/after-scrutiny-cia-mandate-is-untouched-.html?_r=0
the scathing report the Senate Intelligence Committee delivered this month is unlikely to significantly change the role the C.I.A. now plays in running America’s secret wars. A number of factors — from steadfast backing by Congress and the White House to strong public support for clandestine operations — ensure that an agency that has been ascendant since President Obama came into office is not likely to see its mission diminished, either during his waning years in the White House or for some time after that.
The Report on CIA Torture Confirms Our Worst Fears
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0e1PTgCtHM
The American people need to know what was done in their name. The litany of horrific interrogation techniques detailed in the report—including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and forcing prisoners to stand shackled for hours on end—should help persuade those who still wish to deny that torture was conducted so that we can make sure this never happens again.
There was never a guarantee that this report would see the light of day. I admire the determination of those who pushed for the release of the committee’s executive summary on CIA interrogation and detention. It was not an easy task.
Senate Asks C.I.A. to Share Its Report on Interrogations - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/us/politics/senators-ask-to-see-internal-cia-review-of-interrogation-program.html?_r=0
The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the C.I.A. for an internal study done by the agency that lawmakers believe is broadly critical of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program but was withheld from congressional oversight committees.
The committee’s request comes in the midst of a yearlong battle with the C.I.A. over the release of the panel’s own exhaustive report about the program, one of the most controversial policies of the post-Sept. 11 era.
The Senate report, totaling more than 6,000 pages, was completed last December but has yet to be declassified. According to people who have read the study, it is unsparing in its criticism of the now-defunct interrogation program and presents a chronicle of C.I.A. officials’ repeatedly misleading the White House, Congress and the public about the value of brutal methods that, in the end, produced little valuable intelligence.
Ces informations sont révélées au cours de l’audition par le Sénat de Caroline Krass, que B. Obama souhaite nommer comme juriste en chef de la CIA.
Senators Clash With CIA Nominee Over Torture - Udall demands classified report
▻http://www.newser.com/story/179394/senators-clash-with-cia-nominee-over-torture.html
The real drama in yesterday’s hearings came when Dianne Feinstein [California Democrat who is the Intelligence Committee’s chairwoman] pressed Krass on whether she’d release the Justice Department legal memos used to justify practices like torture and drone strikes. Krass was evasive at first, but ultimately replied, “I do not think so, as a general matter,” arguing that the memos were “confidential legal advice,” the Guardian and Politico report.
Senate intelligence panel could seek to declassify documents; it just doesn’t | McClatchy
▻http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/12/199122/senate-intelligence-panel-could.html
Outspoken members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have said frequently that they wanted to warn the public about the National Security Agency’s sweeping collection of telephone records but the program’s highly classified nature prevented them from making public reference to the programs.
That, however, is not the full story. Buried in the pages of Senate Resolution 400, which established the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1976, is a provision that allows them to try. Across those nearly 40 years, it’s never been used.
The committee’s failure to make use of the provision even once, critics say, underscores a problem with congressional oversight: Congress has proved unwilling to openly question the intelligence agencies’ claims that something must remain secret.
Misinformation on classified NSA programs includes statements by senior U.S. officials - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/misinformation-on-classified-nsa-programs-includes-statements-by-senior-us-officials/2013/06/30/7b5103a2-e028-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_print.html
Il en est des membres du régime étasunien comme des banksters : Jusqu’à un passe récent se faire attraper entraînait des conséquences judiciaires mais plus maintenant.
Clapper’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March has drawn comparisons to other cases in which U.S. intelligence officials faced, under oath, questions that to answer truthfully would require exposing a classified program.
In 1973, then-CIA Director Richard Helms denied agency involvement in CIA operations in Chile, a falsehood that led to him pleading no contest four years later to misdemeanor charges of misleading Congress.
There is no indication that lawmakers have contemplated pursuing such a course against Clapper, in part because he subsequently corrected his claim, although there is disagreement over how quickly he did so.
NSA : le patron du renseignement américain reconnaît avoir dupé le Sénat | Sous surveillance
▻http://www.lapresse.ca/international/dossiers/sous-surveillance/201307/03/01-4667288-nsa-le-patron-du-renseignement-americain-reconnait-avoir-dupe-le
« Ma réponse était donc clairement erronée et je m’en excuse », écrit James Clapper dans son courrier adressé le 21 juin à la présidente de la commission du Renseignement du Sénat, Diane Feinstein.
Le DNI avait déjà reconnu son « erreur » en privé devant un collaborateur du sénateur démocrate Ron Wyden, l’élu qui avait posé la question lors de cette audition, mais avait refusé de le faire en public.
« Je peux maintenant faire cette correction publiquement parce que l’existence du programme de collecte des métadonnées a été déclassifiée », se défend M. Clapper.
Le sénateur Wyden est lui « profondément troublé par le nombre de communications erronées faites par de hauts responsables à propos de la surveillance intérieure ces dernières années », a affirmé à l’AFP son porte-parole Tom Caiazza.
Lawmakers say administration’s lack of candor on surveillance weakens oversight - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/lawmakers-say-administrations-lack-of-candor-on-surveillance-weakens-oversight/2013/07/10/8275d8c8-e97a-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_print.html
“If the administration has a policy to lie to Congress about classified materials in unclassified hearings, then you have to ask yourself what value the hearings have and whether or not anyone else is doing it,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.).
Twitter / ggreenwald : How is this not a huge scandal? ...
▻https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/355287505622405120
How is this not a huge scandal? NSA docs show serial lying to Congress by top Obama officials
Wyden: Declassified Documents Show How Inaccurate Statements Have Misled Congress | Press Releases | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
▻http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-declassified-documents-show-how-inaccurate-statements-have-misle
“The newly declassified briefing documents released today show that the executive branch repeatedly made inaccurate statements to Congress about the value and effectiveness of the bulk email records collection program that was carried out under the USA PATRIOT Act until 2011. These statements had the effect of misleading members of Congress about the usefulness of this program.
The briefing documents that were provided to Congress in December 2009 and February 2011 clearly stated that both the bulk email records and bulk phone records collection programs were “unique in that they can produce intelligence not otherwise available to NSA.” The 2009 briefing document went on to state that the two programs “provide a vital capability to the Intelligence Community,” and the 2011 briefing document stated that they provided “an important capability.”
(...)
... I continue to be skeptical of claims that the ongoing bulk phone records collection program provides the government with any unique value, as I have not yet seen any evidence to support this claim.
While I believe that releasing these documents is a welcome step toward greater openness and more informed debate about domestic surveillance programs, they are, in fact, further evidence of a pattern of misleading statements to Congress on this topic. Similarly misleading statements about the bulk email records program were also made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, though these statements unfortunately remain classified.”