Thursday, June 27, 2013

UPDATE ON #EQUADOR, #sNOWDEN, #BLACKMAIL

THE ABSURD TIMES


This just came out and you should see it:





Ecuador to US: We Won't Be 'Blackmailed' over Snowden

Vowing not to be bullied, nation cancels trade pact preemptively and offers US human rights training

- Jon Queally, staff writer
30-year-old Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who embarrassed the US government by revealing details of vast Internet and phone surveillance programs, has requested asylum from Ecuador.(Photo: scmp.com)The clear message from the Ecuadorean government on Thursday is that it would not be bullied or 'blackmailed' by the US government over the possible asylum of Edward Snowden.
At a government press conference held in Quito, officials said the US was employing international economic "blackmail" in its attempts to obtain NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, but that such threats would not work.
Snowden, who remains inside an airport terminal in Russia, has become a flashpoint between Ecuador and the US after confirmation that the 30 year-old intelligence contractor has sought asylum in the Latin American country.
Ecuador indicated its offer of 'human rights assistance' to the US could be used to help address its recent problems with torture, illegal executions, and the attack on the privacy of its citizens.
On Wednesday, led by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the US threatened to deny Ecuador preferential trade status if it accepted Snowden's application for political asylum after he leaked a trove of classified documents that revealed details about the NSA's vast surveillance programs in the US and abroad.
“Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior,” Menendez said in a statement from Washington. “If Snowden is granted asylum in Ecuador, I will lead the effort to prevent the renewal of Ecuador’s duty-free access under GSP and will also make sure there is no chance for renewal of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act. Trade preferences are a privilege granted to nations, not a right.”
But on Thursday, Ecuador nullified the US threats—and made it clear it would not be intimidated by the global superpower—by proactively cancelling the trade agreement.
"Ecuador unilaterally and irrevocably renounces these preferential customs tariff rights," government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at the news conference.
"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests," he said.
Alvarado, who called threats from the US over trade arrangements a form of "blackmail,” said Ecuador’s government would not only willingly accept the loss of approximately $23 million in trade benefits, but in addition would offer a gift, in the form of an aid package of the same amount, that would be directed to provide human rights training in the United States.
According to reports, Ecuador indicated the money could be used to help the US address its recent problem with torture, illegal executions, and the attacks on the privacy of its citizens.
As Agence France-Presse reports, the trade agreement between Ecuador goes back decades:
The United States is Ecuador's main trade partner, buying 40 percent of the Andean nation's exports, or the equivalent of $9 billion per year.
The preferential trade program was set to expire on July 31 unless the US Congress renewed it. The arrangement, which dates back to the early 1990s, originally benefited four Andean nations and Ecuador was the last country still participating in it.
And Reuters adds:
Never shy of taking on the West, the pugnacious Correa last year granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to help him avoid extradition from Great Britain to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault accusations.
The 50-year-old U.S.-trained economist won a landslide re-election in February on generous state spending to improve infrastructure and health services, and his Alianza Pais party holds a majority in the legislature.
Ecuadorean officials said Washington was unfairly using the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which provides customs benefits in exchange for efforts to fight the drug trade, as a political weapon.
The program was set to expire at the end of this month.
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Bradley Manning's Contributions




THE ABSURD TIMES

 



Illustration: From manning.org 


          Bradley Manning’s contributions are, believe it or not, continuing and will last for a long time.



          We are not talking about the leaks he may have give to Wikileaks as those told us, and our readers, nothing that we hadn’t already known or surmised.  The footage of the helicopter murders is about the only thing most people remember and that mainly because of the sensationalistic impact it had on the general public.



          His most lasting contribution will be international awareness of how he has been treated while incarcerated.  His treatment violates numerous provisions of U.N. Human Rights declarations and gives any government who is a subscriber, as is the U.S., the right to treat him as a political refugee and thus is entitled to refugee status.



          The latest case is Snowden and others will probably follow.  Also, using the Espionage Act of 1917 (under which a Presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, was incarcerated) the Obama administration has charged more than double the total number of dissidents charges by all previous administrations combined.



          So, it does not matter what he is called here by any politician or “reporter.”  The fact remains that any government has a clear right to treat Snowden as a refugee.



          One final thing to clear up: much has been made of the fact that his passport has been revoked and therefore we are owed his body by any foreign government is belied by the fact that we grant asylum to Cuban refugees by the hundreds.



          I believe Mark Haim, an activist, will be doing an hour broadcast on the subject on KOPN.org this evening.  It is always a good broadcast and available online at kopn.org.       
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Friday, June 21, 2013

NSA and the DC MADAME


THE ABSURD TIMES


It is worth trying to read this note, although I've done my best with the color scheme.  Matt is a damn good researcher and you can believe what he says.




And without being too prolix, here's the text of the letter. Anyone who sends it off in my name, unredacted and unaltered has my full permission:  


Good day, I was a member of the DC Madam's defense team back in late 2007, early 2008. We were granted wide-ranging subpoena powers over the telecoms as well as the intelligence community by Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler, who, I might add, was shortly after that replaced without any explanation by a board of judges (a board she was on!) by former FISA Court judge James Robertson. He quashed all of that once on board for reasons that I think were obvious: the case involved surveillance, most likely of her escort service which had a large percentage of defense/intelligence contractors, military and intelligence officers, and a whole lot more. No one seems to want to touch this element of what was erroneously defined by the MSM as a simple sex scandal--it was not, it was far more. I don't expect you to answer because I'm always meeting a wall of silence on this.


I was hired as a general researcher by the late Ms. Palfrey in December 2007 and paid by the federal defender's office for my work, but I did far more pro bono after that month. Indeed, we were going through the subpoenaed phone records that had been provided by one of her carriers, Verizon, but AT&T and Sprint had yet to comply when Judge Kessler was abruptly replaced in the middle of the night in late November. But, we had the records that went much deeper into who had a phone number and a cell or landline--the whens and wheres--and came up with a stunning array that represented the national security state and their contractors and employees on both fronts. One of them was Ret. Col. Ron Roughead, brother to now-retired CNO Gary Roughead. The former worked for SAIC the last I knew and that firm came up in materials and outside of them so many times as not to be coincidental. I could go on and on with the very solid connections between players, but I will leave you with one example: there was one call, and one call only, from a former Verizon engineer with a Muslim name who was also an early war on terror arrest, in the DC area. I won't name him here, but his story was in the press and articles can be found online.


I should also add that we found some indications of intelligence activities in a hack of her email account going back to fall of 1998--yes, it could have been anyone, but they were being forwarded all of the ingoing and outgoing items in it, beyond the sophistication of the average internet user that year. It was a Yahoo.uk account. We got bounce-backs that I identified when the surveillance account was closed. Oddly, the bounce-backs contained the text of a 419 scam, a Nigerian one that's well-known, a fake barrister's note. This wasn't directed at us and was a clear glitch. It has been written that--and I cannot speak to the veracity of it--419 scams have been known to be used as covers for intelligence operations. And there is more, much more. I wrote an account on the case that's heavily-detailed and contains literally hundreds of emails between the late Ms. Palfrey, myself, and others, primary documents, court filings, etc., down to her autopsy report. The story's not cold, incidentally, since no one ever got to the real dynamics of it, other than myself and a few others. The press was ill-equipped to do so, or unwilling, but I cannot say decisively.


This NSA story, I believe, has a direct relation to what happened to Ms. Palfrey and her escort service. I've experienced strange online harassment, visits from contractors to my blog (http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com), hacking of accounts--you name it, outside of physical confrontation and/or shadowing. I implore you to at least consider this story in light of recent events, to look deeper, or to pass some of this along, and this is just the tip of the iceberg here.



Regards, Matt Janovic, writer and private researcher


Thursday, June 20, 2013

NSA, DRONES, OBAMA, GERMANY, BACH, MANDELA, ETC.

THE ABSURD TIMES



Illustration: Seen in Germany and elsewhere.



 


          We should be thankful for NSA’s voyuererism in collecting every shred of data we generate or are about to generate.  Why, if they were not so vigorously anal-retentive about preserving every scrap of everything about us, why there might have been a bombing at the Boston Marathon.  Oh, shit, there was.  Well, at least nobody had bomb material in thier underwear in Detroit.  Oh.  Well, come on, that just proves the point.



          They did stop a psychiatrist who asked to be let out, would pay back all his tuition and stuff, but please let me out, and who corresponded with a guy we later assassinated in Yemen from shooting a bunch of people at Ft. oh, never mind.



          Testimony is that they foiled 50 plots.  I think if you demand to know about them, they will say 75 plots!  And so on.



          Some guy in Sweden was extradited to Denmark for hacking.  Maybe Assange was on to something? 



          Actually, they did mention one thwart in particular:  the Times Square bombing.  I remember something about a homeless guy asking someone else to call 911 and that some agent was involved in starting the guy out, maybe.  It was pretty clear that the guy didn’t know what he was doing, however, and that the wiretapping really had nothing to do with him being thwarted.



          But, I’m sure they already know that.  It is time now to free Nelson Mandella.  I mean, the guy has done so much for his country and the rest of the world, he deserves to die a dignified life.  It seems right now that they are keeping him on life-support.  Leave him alone and give him a large funeral, commemorate his life.  After all, he is 93.



          Free Jimmie Hoffa.  They keep trying to find the body.  It’s gone and he’s dead.  Stop covering it on the network news.  And he wasn’t as bad a guy as our capitalist press claims.  He did help his union.



          Free Whitey Bulger.  I’m just tired of the story.  He’s pretty old right now and not likely to kill anyone.



          And let’s not forget the death of the great Slim Whitman.  If Mars Attacks again, we are lucky to have his recordings.  I wonder if he is on You Tube?  I bet he is.



          17 years ago, it seems that the FBI faked the investigation of flight 800 – at least 6 people on the team have blown the whistle.  Are they going to be tried for treason?



          Meuller says the FBI does fly drones over the United States.  It was amazing how quickly and bluntly he said “yes” to that question.  He then said, but not much.  So, relax.



          Obama gave a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany.  Now that was just plain stupid.  It invites comparisons to JKF.  Barak Obama, I knew JFK and you are no JFK.  And, stay away from that gate.  It keeps making me think of the Brandenburg Concertos by Bach and NOONE measures up to those.  So stop it already.



          People are carrying signs comparing Obama of MLK, with picture of both, one captioned “I have a Dream,” and the other “I have a Drone.”  It doesn’t stop there.  Also seen are signs saying “Yes, we scan.”



          Finally, I didn’t expect we would lose Michael Hastings so soon.  He was a good reporter and, therefore, much pursued by the FBI, although there is no evidence that they conducted drone strikes against him. 



          A smattering of timely quotes from the NeinQuarterly: 






1.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Think globally, redact locally.


2.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

The #NSA walks into a bar... Wait, I'll let it tell the rest.


3.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Surveil me maybe.


4.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

The good news is they could have called it DREAMCATCHER. #PRISM


5.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Arranging my constitutional rights by expiration date. #prism


6.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Pappi, was hast du denn bei der #NSA gemacht?


7.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

I remember those innocent days of old when #NSA meant vodka, Craig's List, and a cheap motel.


8.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

The #NSA walks into a bar. Bartender: "What'll it be, sir?" NSA: "Didn't know? You're having a boy!"


9.             Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

The #NSA walks into a bar. Bartender: "Long day?" NSA: "Tell me about it."


10.          Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Facebook status: surveiled. #PRISM


11.          Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

The #NSA walks into a bar. Bartender: "Got a new joke for you." NSA: "Heard it."


12.          Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Coffee later, #NSA?


13.          Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Should the history of art be written some fine day, it will probably not be art history.


14.          Nein. @NeinQuarterly12 Jun

Art for art's sake. Kitsch for kitsch's sake. Aesthetic theory for the sake of the forsaken.


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