COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, December 16, 2013

Federal judge says NSA’s phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional - ​White House: No amnesty for Snowden



NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS's flawed report

Our take on five things the spy agency would like the public to believe about its vast surveillance powers

Spencer Ackerman in Washington 

theguardian.com, Monday 16 December 2013 13.56 EST

The National Security Agency is telling its story like never before. Never mind whether that story is, well, true.
On Sunday night, CBS’s 60 Minutes ran a remarkable piece that provided NSA officials, from director Keith Alexander to junior analysts, with a long, televised forum to push back against criticism of the powerful spy agency. It’s an opening salvo in an unprecedented push from the agency to win public confidence at a time when both White House reviews and pending legislation would restrict the NSA’s powers.
But mixed in among the dramatic footage of Alexander receiving threat briefings and junior analysts solving Rubik’s cubes in 90 seconds were a number of dubious claims: from the extent of surveillance to collecting on Google and Yahoo data centers to an online “kill-switch” for the global financial system developed by China.
Reporter John Miller, a former official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and an ex-FBI spokesman, allowed these claims to go unchallenged. The Guardian, not so much. Here’s our take:
Surveillance is just about what you say and what you write
If there’s a consistent thread to the NSA’s public defense of itself, it’s that the stuff NSA collects from Americans in bulk doesn’t actually impact their privacy. After all, as Keith Alexander told Miller, it’s just metadata – data about your phone calls, not what you said on the phone.
“There's no reason that we would listen to the phone calls of Americans,” Alexander told Miller. "There’s no intelligence value in that. There's no reason that we'd want to read their email. There is no intelligence value in that … How do you know when the bad guy who's using those same communications that my daughters use, is in the United States trying to do something bad? The least intrusive way of doing that is metadata.”
When Miller said the bulk metadata collection “sounds like spying on Americans”, Alexander replied: “Right, and that’s wrong. That’s absolutely wrong.”
Notice the tension here. It’s the metadata – who you called, who called you, for how long, how frequently you communicate – that has intelligence value, not, in Alexander’s telling, what you actually say on the phone. The NSA is relying for its defense on a public conception of surveillance as the interception of the content of your communications, even while it’s saying that what’s actually important is your network of connections – which the agency is very, very interested in collecting.
Senator Ron Wyden, an intelligence committee member who has emerged as a leading opponent of bulk collection, says the metadata provides NSA with a “human relations database”. For many, surveillance occurs when someone else collects anything on their interactions, movements, or communications, rather than when that other party collects certain kinds of information. And it hardly makes sense to say, as Alexander did, that surveillance on Americans doesn’t occur when NSA collects the sort of information that it believes actually has intelligence value.
Snowden and the NSA’s hiring boom
The NSA, for obvious reasons, isn’t fond of whistleblower Edward Snowden. It portrayed him to 60 Minutes as a weirdo. He wore “a hood that covered the computer screen and covered his head and shoulders”, NSA official Richard Ledgett said. He allegedly stole answers to a test to gain NSA employment and boasted about its hires of young geniuses ready to tackle NSA’s persistent intelligence and data challenges.
The obvious question here is why the NSA considers it exculpatory to say an obvious eccentric was able to abscond with an unprecedented amount of data. That sounds uncomfortably like an admission that the NSA is less able to safeguard its vast storehouses of information than it lets on. Let’s also pause to savor the irony of a spy agency complaining that one of its employees cheated on an employment test. (Meanwhile, for an alternative take on Snowden, an anonymous NSA colleague told Forbes that Snowden was a “genius among geniuses” and said the NSA offered him a job at its elite Tailored Access Operations directorate.)
Then there are all the smart codebreakers, analysts, officials and contractors that make up the NSA’s estimated workforce of 35,000 people. An intelligence agency that large, with a workforce that’s only grown since 9/11, is going to find it increasingly hard to keep data secure from future Edward Snowdens in the next cubicle. The NSA says it’s implementing new measures post-Snowden to limit data access. But even after Snowden, the NSA told the New York Times this weekend it has yet to fully understand the depths of its vulnerabilities. 

The Chinese financial sector kill-switch
Among the more eye-opening claims made by NSA is that it detected what CBS terms the “BIOS Plot” – an attempt by China to launch malicious code in the guise of a firmware update that would have targeted computers apparently linked to the US financial system, rendering them pieces of junk.
“Think about the impact of that across the entire globe,” NSA cyber-defense official Debora Plunkett told 60 Minutes. “It could literally take down the US economy.”
There are as many red flags surrounding the BIOS Plot as there are in all of China. First, the vast majority of cyber-intrusions in the US, particularly from China, are espionage operations, in which the culprits exfiltrate data rather than destroy computers. Second, the US economy is too vast, diversified, and chaotic to have a single point of cyber-failure. Third, China’s economy is so tied to the US’s that Beijing would ultimately damage itself by mass-bricking US computers.
Fourth, while malware can indeed turn a computer into scrap metal, no one has ever developed a cyber-weapon with the destructive capability of Plunkett’s scenario.
In 2004, for instance, Berkeley computer-science researcher Nicholas Weaver analyzed vulnerabilities to self-replicating malicious network attacks, including BIOS vulnerabilities, and concluded that a “worst-case worm” could cause “$50bn or more in direct economic damage”. That’s a lot, but not enough to “literally take down” the US economy.
Matt Blaze, a computer and information sciences professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said that BIOS could be overwritten by malware, bricking an unsuspecting computer. But the vagueness of the description of the “BIOS Plot” made him suspicious.
“It would take significant resources – and an extraordinary bit of co-ordination and luck – to actually deploy malware that could do this at scale,” Blaze said.
“And it's not clear how you'd ‘thwart’ such a scheme if you found out about it if you were NSA, since it's basically a combination of a large number of vulnerabilities spread among a zillion computers rather than one big problem that can be fixed with a single patch.”
The lack of specificity made cybersecurity expert Robert David Graham dubious that the plot NSA claimed to discover matched the one it described on TV. “All they are doing is repeating what Wikipedia says about BIOS,” Graham blogged, “acting as techie talk layered onto the discussion to make it believable, much like how Star Trek episodes talk about warp cores and Jeffries Tubes.”
NSA isn’t collecting data transiting between Google and Yahoo data centers, except when it is
Since it doesn’t own or operate any of the world’s telecommunications infrastructure, the NSA is significantly dependent on tech and telecommunications companies, such as Google and Yahoo. So when the Washington Post reported, based on Snowden documents, that the NSA intercepts data transiting between Google and Yahoo’s foreign data centers, the companies reacted with horror at what they considered a breach of trust – one that occurred without any court orders.
Alexander pushed back against the Post’s story to 60 Minutes. “That's not correct. We do target terrorist communications. And terrorists use communications from Google, from Yahoo, and from other service providers. So our objective is to collect those communications no matter where they are. But we're not going into a facility or targeting Google as an entity or Yahoo as an entity. But we will collect those communications of terrorists that flow on that network.”
If you take away Alexander’s “that’s not correct” line, the rest of his answer sounds remarkably like a confirmation of what the Post reported. “I think he confirmed it, feigning denial,” reporter Barton Gellman tweeted.
Indeed, the Post didn't say the NSA went into a Google data facility or organized an operation going after Yahoo “as an entity”. Instead, it reported that NSA takes advantage of security vulnerabilities on data from Google and Yahoo customers as the data transits between its centers. The documents published by the Post indicate NSA got 181m records in a single month that way. How many of those were from “terrorists” remains unknown.
The disclosure created a major tension between the two tech giants and NSA, since both companies are involved in the NSA’s Prism effort at collecting foreign online communications, and all sides have said that court orders compel that collection. Google and Yahoo are unhappy about giving NSA data through the front door while the agency collects more through the back. And NSA lawyers have stated publicly that US companies like Google and Yahoo are “US persons”, meaning they have fourth amendment protections that may be implicated in the data-center transit collection.
The NSA wasn’t trying to break the law that got broken
Give Miller credit for at least mentioning that “a judge on the Fisa court” overseeing US surveillance was alarmed that the NSA “systematically transgressed” the agreed-upon limitations on its abilities to query its databases. Alexander’s response: “There was nobody willfully or knowingly trying to break the law.”
Actually, two different Fisa court judges – John Bates and Reggie Walton, the current presiding judge – raised major concerns about the way the NSA searches through its vast data troves on multiple occasions. Bates found that “virtually every” record generated under a now-defunct NSA program that collected Americans’ internet metadata in bulk included information that “was not authorized for collection”.
In a different case, in 2011, Bates assessed that the discovery of thousands of American emails in NSA content databases designed to collect foreign data meant the “volume and nature of the information [NSA] has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe”.
And for most of 2009, Walton prevented the NSA from searching through its domestic phone data hives because it found “daily” violations of its restrictions
Very few people think the NSA is staffed by mustache-twirling villains who view the law as an obstacle to be overcome. The real concern is two-fold.
First, even if NSA doesn’t mean to break the law, the way its data dragnets work in practice incline toward overcollection. During a damage-control conference call in August, an anonymous US intelligence official told reporters that the technical problem bothering Bates in 2011 persists today. The NSA even conceded to Walton in 2009 that “from a technical standpoint, there was no single person who had a complete understanding” of the technical “architecture” of NSA’s phone data collection.
Second, there is a fundamental discrepancy in power between the Fisa court and the NSA. The court’s judges have lamented that they possess an inability to independently determine how the NSA’s programs work, and if they’re in compliance with the limits the judges secretly impose. That leaves them at the mercy of NSA, the director of national intelligence, and the Justice Department to self-report violations. When the facts of the collection and the querying are sufficiently divergent from what the court understands – something the court only learns about when it is told – that can become a matter of law.

In other words, it can be simultaneously true that NSA doesn’t intend to break the law and that NSA’s significant technical capabilities break the law anyway. Malice isn’t the real issue. Overbroad tools are. But that’s not something that NSA had to address during its prime-time spotlight inaugurating its publicity tour.

76 comments:

  1. Bottom Line:

    The NSA did not give CBS access.

    The NSA gave CBS a script.

    At best, CBS acquiesced.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CBS Corporation (2006–present)

      Key people
      Leslie Moonves (Chairman of CBS),
      Nancy Tellem (President of CBS Network Television Entertainment)

      Delete

    2. Leslie Moonves

      Moonves resides in Beverly Hills, California in a house he bought from his former co-worker Andrew Heyward.[22] He also owns residences in New York City and Malibu.[23]

      Moonves is a great-nephew of David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel


      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Moonves

      Delete

    3. Nancy Tellem

      The daughter of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust,
      Tellem is married to sports agent Arn Tellem.
      The couple has three sons.


      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Tellem

      Delete
  2. Henry A. KissingerMon Dec 16, 07:37:00 PM EST


    The illegal we do immediately.
    The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

    Henry A. Kissinger


    http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/P860114-1573_MC_b.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Esenbel: The Europeans should find ways to meet quick needs; for example, the Air Force needs spare parts. For other items that they can't find in the stocks, maybe you could make a deal with the Dutch or others to send it here.

      Macomber: That is illegal.

      Kissinger: Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings,

      "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer."

      [laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say things like that.

      http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/P860114-1573_MC_b.html

      Delete
  3. Snowden says ruling vindicates leak of NSA files

    Michael Winter, USA TODAY

    He says decision that collection of phone data is unconstitutional is 'the first of many.'

    Edward Snowden said Monday that his decision to expose National Security Agency surveillance programs was vindicated by a federal judge's ruling that the mass collection of phone data is probably unconstitutional.

    "I acted on my belief that the N.S.A.'s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts,"

    Snowden, who resides in Russia under temporary political asylum, said in a statement.

    "Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights. It is the first of many."

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/16/nsa-phone-data-ruling-snowden-reaction/4045387/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. The decisions made by these Courts do seem to be an indication that Mr Snowden is more of a whistle blower than a free lance spy.

      Delete
  4. The White House says a National Security Agency official who suggested the U.S. consider granting Edward Snowden asylum was expressing his personal opinion.

    ...

    Carney's comments came after NSA official Richard Ledgett said it was worth discussing asylum for Snowden under the right conditions.

    ReplyDelete

  5. Russia moves nuke-capable missiles near Europe

    Moscow: Russia's armed forces have moved nuclear-capable Iskander missiles closer to Europe's borders in response to the US-led deployment of a disputed air defence shield.

    The announcement on Monday is almost certain to irritate the former Communist states of Eastern Europe and add another layer to the tensions in Moscow's fraught relations with Washington.

    The advanced version of the Russian missile has a range of 500km and could potentially be used to take out ground-based radar and interceptors of the new NATO shield.

    Germany's Bild newspaper first reported over the weekend that Russia had deployed about 10 Iskander systems in its Kaliningrad exclave - wedged between Poland and Lithuania - at some point in the past year.

    A top Russian defence official said in response to the report that several Iskander batteries had been stationed in Russia's Western Military District - a region that includes the exclave and also borders the European Union's three Baltic nations that were once a part of the USSR.

    "Iskander operational-tactical missile systems have indeed been commissioned by the Western Military District's missile and artillery forces," Russian news agencies quoted defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying.

    He added that Russia's deployment "does not violate any international treaties or agreements" and should therefore not be subject to protests from the West.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/russia-moves-nukecapable-missiles-near-europe-20131217-hv602.html#ixzz2ngu9lz7r

    ReplyDelete
  6. This week the 60 Minutes program on CBS had a broadcast segment devoted to the NSA, and additional online features. It revealed that the first secret Snowden stole was the test and answers for a technical examination to get a job at NSA. When working at home, Snowden covered his head and screen with a hood so that his girlfriend couldn't see what he was doing. NSA considered the possibility that Snowden left malicious software behind and removed every computer and cable that Snowden had access to from its classified network, costing tens of millions of dollars. Snowden took approximately 1.7 million classified documents. Snowden never approached any of multiple Inspectors General, supervisors, or Congressional oversight committee members about his concerns. Snowden's activity caught the notice of other System Administrators. There were also other interesting details, such as the NSA has a highly competitive intern program for High School students that are given a Top Secret clearance and a chance to break codes that have resisted the efforts of NSA's analysts — some succeed. The NSA is only targeting the communications, as opposed to metadata, of less than 60 Americans. Targeting the actual communications of Americans, rather than metadata, requires a probable cause finding and a specific court order. NSA analysts working with metadata don't have access to the name, and can't listen to the call. The NSA's work is driven by requests for information by other parts of the government, and there are about 31,000 requests. Snowden apparently managed to steal a copy of that document, the 'crown jewels' of the intelligence world. With that information, foreign nations would know what the US does and doesn't know, and how to exploit it."

    There's your hero for ya.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Did they post that on the NSA bulletin board, T?

      .

      Delete
    2. Tereista,

      Just remember, Snowden is not a fifth columnist or a spy, although, without a shred of supporting evidence, based solely on guilt by association, the two Jews are (not here, but in Mohammed Zaatari's comments above.

      Whatever, the genius among geniuses knew, others now know. He is a traitor because he indiscriminately relased data to both friend and foe alike. Oh, and we don't know all our foes just yet, but they will very well know us a priori.

      Delete
    3. .

      Let's see, on the one side we have Edward Snowden, a guy who after taking the documents and reporting the info to the Guardian and WaPo, gave up a cushy job and a hot girl friend as well as family and friends and went on the run and into voluntary exile. To date, no one has indicated there was a financial interest involved with the crime.

      On the other side, we have James Clapper, DNI, who lied to Congress, admitted he lied to Congress, then sent addition four different communications to Congress explaining through four different excuses why he actually lied to Congress.

      Then you have Gen Alexander whose veracity was questioned along with the facts he presented in numerous appearances before the same Congress.

      Who to believe? Who to believe?

      .

      Delete
    4. They may all be criminals; but they are all not traitors.

      And not to be rude, but money is not the only reason spies have spied over the centuries.

      Delete
    5. .

      There is little doubt Snowden is a criminal in that he broke existing law.

      However, there are those here who will argue with your assertion he is a traitor. Many feel that the betrayal of the unconstitutional policies and practices of the NSA do not equate to betrayal of the USA.

      .

      Delete
    6. My position is arguable. For the moment, we have to start with something. I respect the positions of those who have different points of view.

      At the moment, There is a great disturbance in the Force

      Delete
  7. .

    Miller admits he worked for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Why would 60 Minutes use Miller as reporter on this interview leaving any doubt at all that he is coopted by his past experience.

    Alexander is either an idiot or he thinks we are. You have to listen to him closely but despite his constant "No, that's not true," "Only unintentional," "By accident", and though he misrepresents he does tell us exactly what they are doing.

    IMO Alexander should be fired. No because of what Snowden did on his watch but because of what Alexander did on his own watch.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alexander should be fired. Period.

      As I said on an earlier post, Snowden succeeded by "convenient" set of anamolies..

      Furthermore, how can anyone imply, with a straight face, that security measures have been taken, when NSA doesn't even know what Snowden has done?

      Delete
    2. Theodore RooseveltMon Dec 16, 09:10:00 PM EST


      "The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic
      .
      He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real
      heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.”

      Theodore Roosevelt 

      Delete
    3. Hey, Mohammed

      <a href="
      Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
      Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson made this famous pronouncement that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel on the evening of April 7, 1775. He doesn't provide any context for how the remark arose, so we don't really know for sure what was on Johnson's mind at the time.
      However, Boswell assures us that Johnson was not indicting patriotism in general, only false patriotism.</a>

      Delete


  8. Why would 60 Minutes use Miller as reporter on this interview ...

    Key people
    Leslie Moonves (Chairman of CBS)
    Nancy Tellem (President of CBS Network Television Entertainment)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, let's just hang them! You are a genius among genisuses, and have saved us the trouble of investigating rationally.

      Delete


    2. Present your evidence!

      What ever it may be.

      Delete

    3. Key people
      Leslie Moonves (Chairman of CBS)
      Nancy Tellem (President of CBS Network Television Entertainment)

      Explain why the largest individual stockholder, the CEO, Leslie Moonves and
      Mrs Tellem, who is the President of the CBS are not the responsible parties.

      You have blames Mr Obama for failures in Benghazi, and for the turmoil in the internal politics of Egypt.

      Explain why Mr Moonves and Mrs Tellem are not to be held responsible for the actions of CBS

      Delete
    4. Psychologists suggest that conspiracy theories often serve as a crutch for emotionally needy people, allowing them to feel good about themselves for seeing truth where others don't. They believe the world is being taken over by hidden forces, that an apocalyptic battle is at hand and now is the time for heroes to act.

      Delete
    5. Re: evidence

      Mohammed, my man, you have produced no evidence. Instead, you have ruined what could have been a good thread with your racial bigotry. Other than for Muslims and long dead Germans, being a Jew is not evidence of anything other than race.

      Delete

    6. Exactly, no charges were brought, no evidence was required.

      You claim the thread was hijacked by a presentation of fact regardng the people responsble CBS Television. Nothing more, nothing less.

      The "Conspiracy" is in YOUR head, not on the page, not in the thread, not in any post is "Conspiracy" mentioned, but for yours, allen.

      As for Judaism being a "Race", well, we will address that, too.
      Because it is not a "Race" of people, it may be a tribe, but not a race.

      The Jews of Ethiopia are proof positive of that.

      Delete
    7. The Invention of the Jewish People
      is a book written by Shlomo Sand, an Israeli professor of history at the University of Tel Aviv.

      The author wasn’t probing a belief system but Zionist fabrications of a spurious common lineage for people of the Jewish faith.

      Sand argues that the idea of Jews having a common ethnic identity is implausible because,
      as with Christianity and Islam, Judaism was originally a “proselytising religion”.

      The notion of Judaism as a “race”, rather than a religion of various races, is without foundation.

      The recent study by John Hopkins geneticist Dr Elhaik confirms...
      that the common genome structure of the European Jew gravitated towards an origin in old Khazaria.

      “The majority of Jews do not have Middle Eastern genetic component,” he told Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

      Founded on a mélange of myths and manufactured historical tales,
      Israel has failed the archaeological test of time and is now exposed by DNA science.

      Today’s genetics prove unequivocally that in 1948 “the children of the original Jews” were replaced by converts ...

      With no roots in the Middle East.

      Delete
  9. Pope Francis responded Sunday to critics like Rush Limbaugh
    who accused the pontiff of espousing Marxist views after he delivered
    an exhortation critical of capitalist economic policies.

    "Marxist ideology is wrong," the pope told Italian newspaper
    La Stampa, as quoted by NBC News. "But in my life I have known
    many Marxists who are good people, so I don't feel offended."

    Limbaugh said on his talk radio program last month that the pontiff
    was clueless about the economy, calling the November document
    "pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope."

    The pontiff told the newspaper that he didn't speak "as a technician
    but according to the social doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church,
    and this does not mean being Marxist," according to NBC News.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If he was a black Pope, Palin would call him a Muslim.

      Delete

  10. The Daily Star



    A Lebanese security source said no Lebanese soldiers were shot shortly after the Israeli soldier was killed.

    President Michel Sleiman followed up with the Army Command and the Defense Ministry on
    “the latest information on the situation in the border with a view to safeguarding sovereignty in the face of Israeli threats and ensuring full commitment to the implementation of Resolution 1701,”
    the National News Agency reported.

    In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon
    held the Lebanese government and Army responsible for the death of the soldier.

    “We will demand that the Lebanese Army first of all provide an explanation of exactly what happened there, and whether this is really a rogue soldier, what they did with him and what the Lebanese Army plans to do to prevent incidents of this type,” Yaalon said.

    The Israeli military identified the soldier as Shlomi Cohen, 31.

    It said Cohen was fatally shot by a Lebanese Army sniper near the tourist site of Rosh Hanikra on the Mediterranean Sea.

    But a security source in Lebanon said
    the Israeli soldier was killed after an Israeli army unit attempted to cross the border in Ras Naqoura.

    UNIFIL, after hosting an extraordinary tripartite meeting between senior Lebanese, Israeli and U.N. military officers to ease tensions, also said the Lebanese soldier acted alone in the border incident.

    Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2013/Dec-17/241365-lebanon-border-shooter-acted-alone.ashx#ixzz2nh4xUBdN
    (The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...and my main man, Mohammed wins the goat or "Israeli" juvenile prostitute of his choice...

      COME ON DOWN, Mohammed

      Delete

    2. According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF),
      more than 100 tons of explosives were dropped in the first 9 hours of 'Operation Cast Lead'.

      Delete

    3. JERUSALEM -- Israel's former chief rabbi was arrested Monday on suspicion of taking bribes, defrauding charities and obstructing an investigation, police said. 

      A gag order in connection with the arrest was lifted later in the day when the rabbi, Yona Metzger, was brought before a judge and remanded to police custody for an additional nine days.
       
      According to police, Metzger, who recently ended a 10-year term as the country's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, is suspected of diverting donations made to nonprofit organizations in return for bribes and benefits. He is also suspected of money laundering, fraud and breach of trust worth millions of dollars, police say.

      At a court hearing Monday, David Libai, Metzger’s attorney, said he was “stunned and surprised by the accusations” and suggested that someone was either making false claims against Metzger or framing him.

      Delete
    4. Psychologists suggest that conspiracy theories often serve as a crutch for emotionally needy people, allowing them to feel good about themselves for seeing truth where others don't. They believe the world is being taken over by hidden forces, that an apocalyptic battle is at hand and now is the time for heroes to act.

      Delete

    5. “The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.”
      ― Terry Pratchett

      Delete
  11. We managed to get one comment on this thread before it was hijacked by the OCD Jewish conspiracy theorist.,

    Psychologists suggest that conspiracy theories often serve as a crutch for emotionally needy people, allowing them to feel good about themselves for seeing truth where others don't. They believe the world is being taken over by hidden forces, that an apocalyptic battle is at hand and now is the time for heroes to act.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “They're called 'facts', and my role is to amplify those, not cheerlead.
      And I don't care at all what you think of my motives.”
      ― Glenn Greenwald

      Delete
    2. Key people
      Leslie Moonves (Chairman of CBS)
      Nancy Tellem (President of CBS Network Television Entertainment)

      Explain why the largest individual stockholder, the CEO, Leslie Moonves and
      Mrs Tellem, who is the President of CBS Network Television Entertainment
      are not the responsible parties.

      You have blamed Mr Obama for failures in Benghazi,
      and for the turmoil in the internal politics of Egypt.

      Explain why Mr Moonves and Mrs Tellem are not to be held responsible for the actions of CBS

      Delete
    3. Since Mr Moonves and Mrs Tellem are obviously the people responsible for the policies, personnel and deportment of the CBS Network Television Entertainment, why should their personal background be off limits.

      Why is discussing the back story of the decision makers as it applies to CBS verbotten?

      Delete
    4. No mention was ever made of a conspiracy, except by allen.

      "Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page.”
      ― Brandon Mull

      Delete

    5. What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

      Delete

    6. It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.”

      ― Christopher Hitchens

      Delete
    7. Dear Mohammed

      The great debate on racial superiority and/or inferiority was settled 68 years ago in a Berlin bunker. Only a racist, who has yet to produce anything by way of evidence that would suggest that these two Jews have done anything wrong, would expect me to debate the fundamental good to be found in racial stereotyping.

      By the way, Mo, connect the dots only works without fail for linear equations.

      Delete

    8. On average, all Ashkenazi Jews are genetically as closely related to each other as fourth or fifth cousins, said Dr. Harry Ostrer, a pathology, pediatrics and genetics professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the author of "Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People" (Oxford University Press, 2012).

      Maternal DNA
      Richards and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is contained in the cytoplasm of the egg and passed down only from the mother, from more than 3,500 people throughout the Near East, the Caucusus and Europe, including Ashkenazi Jews.

      The team found that four founders were responsible for 40 percent of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA, and that all of these founders originated in Europe. The majority of the remaining people could be traced to other European lineages.

      All told, more than 80 percent of the maternal lineages of Ashkenazi Jews could be traced to Europe, with only a few lineages originating in the Near East.

      Delete
    9. Wrong?

      What accusations were made, allen?

      None.
      If there is an accusation made against either Mr Moonves or Mrs Tellem, please post it, bring THAT forward in evidence.

      Because no accusation was made, you will be unable to preform.

      Viagra may be of help to you, but it will not improve your performance here, amigo.

      Delete

    10. Some things just do not change

      Ash - Fri Dec 13, 09:40:00 AM EST

      allen, either you have trouble understanding written English or you purposely lied.
      Which is it?

      Delete
  12. Am so happy to testify about a great spell caster that helped me when all hope was lost for me to unite with my ex girl friend that i love so much. Am from CANADA and my name is JOHE ANDERSON, i had a girl friend that love me so much but something terrible happen to our relationship one afternoon when her girl friend that was always trying to get to me was trying to force me to make love to her just because she was been jealous of her friend that i was dating and on the scene my girl friend just walk in and she thought we had something special doing together, i tried to explain things to her that her friend always do this when ever she is not with me and i always refuse her but i never told her because i did not want the both of them to be enemies to each other but she never believed me. She broke up with me and i tried times with out numbers to make her believe me but she never believed me until one day i heard about the GREAT . SHAKADE and i emailed him with his email shakadespiritualtemple@live.com and he replied me so kindly and help me get back my lovely relationship that was already gone for two months. Am so happy and all thanks to the GREAT SHAKADE that help me with his white love powers. If you have any kind of problem email him now for help with his email': shakadespiritualtemple@live.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Or,....

      Simply sent $25.00 plus $37.50 s&h and a stamped, self addressed box to

      ShakadeShawls-R-Us
      P.O. Box 73577
      Sunnydale, CA 88877

      (Allow 8 weeks for delivery. Cash or Bullion accepted.)

      .

      Delete
  13. US Weighing Closer Ties With Hardline Islamists In Syria

    Why can't we mind our own business for a change? There are no good guys in Syria; let them fight it out.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Islam is not a religion. It is a political movement informed by the Quran, Just as Communists were informed by Karl Marx's published works.

    Soon after its creation, the Islamic Front signed a charter that made it clear the group aimed to create a Sunni theocracy, not a Western-style democracy. The document rejected the prospect of any sort of representative government, arguing that in Islam, only "God is the sovereign." It explicitly rejects secularism as "contradictory to Islam," and argues that Syria's ethnic and religious minorities can be protected on the basis of Islamic law.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Franklin D. RooseveltMon Dec 16, 10:29:00 PM EST


      Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.

      Delete

    2. Primitive Middle Eastern religions (and most others) are much the same – Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust for women's bodies.

      Delete

    3. Vered Lee Mon Dec 16, 11:34:00 AM EST

      Age of child prostitutes in Israel dropping, report finds

      Knesset study cites cases of 11-year-olds used for commercial sex that are among the several thousands of teenagers involved in prostitution.
      By Vered Lee

      http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.542420

      "Spengler's Laws": "When a nation is reduced to selling its women, it's lost."

      Delete

    4. hat tip to allen:

      "Spengler's Laws": "When a nation is reduced to selling its women, it's lost."


      Delete
    5. Mohammed wrote: Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust for women's bodies.

      Now, old man, you may prefer fantasies about prepubescent Jewish "prostitutes", the subject of most of your posts, but Jewish men and women have always enjoyed sex. It was one of the faults that both Muslims and Christians impotently wailed about. Google: "Rabbis' Night"

      Your ignorance, if cataloged, would fill a set of Oxford Dictionaries..

      Delete

    6. "JEWISH LAW"

      is not Israeli law, is it?

      This year, the rabbis cited
      “the extreme seriousness involved in killing fetuses, which is like actual murder.”


      Delete

    7. By the bye, that was Polly Toynbee, not Anonymous, you were referencing.

      Ash - Fri Dec 13, 09:40:00 AM EST

      allen, either you have trouble understanding written English or you purposely lied.
      Which is it?


      I vote for ... you purposely lied.

      But you can explain your debauchery, if you run true to form.
      It does not matter.

      "The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic.

      He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.”

      Theodore Roosevelt 



      Delete
  15. Mohammed

    Had you gone after their business decisions, interface with Obama, Democrat Party affiiation (?), why those chose Miller, anything real world,, that would have been fair game. Instead, you went right after their Jewish ancestry. You are racist, condemned by the topics you choose to infect this site.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. None of those were mentioned at Wikipedia.
      Anonymous leaves those avenues of investigation to you.

      Feel free to pursue them, as for the rest ...

      “It’s often said that those who are unduly bothered by gays are latent homosexuals.
      Isn’t it possible that people obsessed with racism are themselves racist.”


      ― Ann Coulter





      Delete
  16. Asian stock markets moved higher early on Tuesday as upbeat economic data from the U.S. and Europe lifted investor confidence ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting.

    ...

    The Aussie moved as high as US$0.8954, from US$0.8933 before the minutes were released, and was last at $0.8947.

    ReplyDelete
  17. On this day in 1773, a group of Boston colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped tea into Boston Harbor. They were protesting the Tea Act of 1773, a development that only years later become known as the “Boston Tea Party.”

    ReplyDelete
  18. Good Grief !!

    Whackopath is outdoing himself this day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “You presume to name those who have no name.
      We are pandemonium and disaster.
      We are the dancing, gibbering horror of the world.”


      'I am he as you are he as you are me.'


      We are Anonymous - We are Legion - We are he Collective

      we be bob

      Delete
    2. .

      We are the dancing, gibbering horror of the world.”

      When you're right, you're right.

      .

      Delete
  19. The rule right now is you have an expectation of privacy of the content of you emails. But no privacy of the record of your emails, which is already in the hands of a third party and you consented to that: your email provider.

    If they are trying to protect the record of your emails I think they will ultimately fail.

    The remedy for this lies in Congress.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is the very argument Quirk-O made once when the state provided documents showing over 200 phone calls to two known criminals. The state tried to slip in the content of the conversations gotten from the criminal co-defendants who were singing like canaries trying to get reduced time by implicating poor old Quirk. Quirk kept objecting as to the content, claiming he just wishing them Happy Birthday, and the Judge was ruling against Quirk right down the line. In the upshot, the Jury, which was composed of nine women and three men, found Quirk Not Guilty.

      One of the women jurors was quoted after as saying "we gals all liked the way Quirk winked."

      Delete
    2. Another lady juror said:

      "Holy Oklahoma, I don't know, Quirk up there defending himself all alone seemed such a pro boner. And the boy does know how to wink."

      Delete