Friday, November 26, 2010

AMERICA UNDER THE GUN; Wikileaks Plus: Issues Of The Day









AMERICA UNDER THE GUN; Wikileaks Plus: Issues Of The Day

Washington (CNN) -- The threat of publication of thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables by a muckraker website has prompted a massive review of documents at U.S. embassies around the world, a U.S. official says.


The official, who was not authorized to comment on the record, tells CNN that the State Department has, for months, been intensively dealing with the potential impact of the release of documents that WikiLeaks just recently hinted it will publish.


The documents are believed to include hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of diplomatic reporting cables from around the world from between 2006 and 2009, the official said.
In October, WikiLeaks released nearly 400,000 U.S. military reports about operations in Iraq. In July, it released more than 70,000 reports from the war in Afghanistan.


"Next release is 7 [times] the size of the Iraq War Logs," the WikiLeaks stated in a posting on its Twitter page on November 21. "Intense pressure over it for months. Keep us strong."
The State Department has directed every diplomatic mission in the world to analyze cables issued from their locations during that period and to highlight those cables that might contain material sensitive enough to harm the relationship with the host country or put in danger the lives of any sources of information.


The State Department website lists 297 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.
The source says the concern is that the WikiLeaks release could undermine the United States all over the world.


Honest diplomatic reporting is essential, the official says, and the leaks could hurt that, as well as compromise traditional diplomatic sources. The leaks could ruin their careers or even result in their deaths.


In preparation, the State Department has been reaching out to other governments to warn them and has notified Congress about what could be published, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said earlier this week.


For example, David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, has called Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon to inform him of the matter, said Alain Cacchione, a Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman. The Canadian Embassy in Washington is working with the U.S. State Department, he said.


The Pentagon also is concerned about the newest release. Officials there expect the documents to be released soon, possibly by the end of the week.


The agency is increasing the size of a task force assigned to comb through the records of the already-leaked documents regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the new documents are published as threatened, the Pentagon team will help assess how damaging they are to U.S. interests. The task force numbers more than 100 people, including staffers from other agencies.


The military has charged Pfc. Bradley Manning with leaking videos to WikiLeaks, as well as downloading documents from military computers while he served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Among the documents he is alleged to have taken are 150,000 diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks has denied being in possession of those cables.
Manning is being held at a military jail in Quantico, Virginia.


If security guards at a big, fat terrorist target like the U.S. Capitol can be expected to figure out that members of Congress aren't a threat, why don't we trust TSA agents to figure out that little grandmothers, nuns and 8-year-olds aren't a threat either? - by Jose, the $20-an-hour security guard-




In case you haven't noticed, or are simply dim enough to believe the propaganda, the US has been stomping around the globe like it owns the place since the end of the Second World War. It might be true to say that was the prerogative of us Brits until the pesky Germans first started getting all uppity, but we can't be held responsible for the sins of our fathers, as my kids are pleased to note.

From Central America through the Middle East to the Far East, the US has fought wars, indulged in clandestine operations, organised coups, assassinated people it doesn't like the look of and generally behaved like a bully towards anyone not embracing its own brand of killer capitalism.
It usually trots out the line that it's up to such shenanigans in the name of 'freedom' or 'democracy'. Yet, its idea of freedom and democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan clearly amounts to: 'We'll make them have elections after we've killed all the people who won't vote the way we want them to.'
Thanks to WikiLeaks we have a better idea of the crimes the US militaryhas been committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it appears that, thanks to the bravery of the people working at WikiLeaks, including - it must be said - the much-hassled Julian Assange, it appears we're about to learn a whole lot more of the sort of dirty tricks the US is engaged in around the globe in its cause - not indeed of promoting democracy, or freedom, but of undermining it.
What is expected to be brewing is the delivery of hundreds of thousands of secret State Department cables.
"These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley has said on the matter, having consulted his crystal ball. "They are going to create tension in relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world."
We note that the newspapers in the likes of Canada and Australia say their governments have been alerted by the US that a diplomatic storm is brewing.
WikiLeaks has not said what the coming release might contain, other than to state it will be "seven times" the Iraq War logs leak which consisted of 400,000 secret documents.
Bring it on, we say.
The more we learn about what our governments actually get up to, the more informed the choices we make and the better the democratic process can function.
By spilling the beans, WikiLeaks is doing more for democracy than all the bombs that have so far fallen on the poor folk of Iraq and Afghanistan put together.
WikiLeaks Urges Public to Download 'Insurance' File
By Eric Calouro
WikiLeaks Insurance Tweet This is interesting, to say the least. Whistle-blowing organizationWikileaks is urging the public to download their ever-so-famous “ insurance” file from The Pirate Bay, according to a recently transmitted ...
Erictric - http://erictric.com/


Report: WikiLeaks Docs to Show US Military Supporting PKK in Turkey’s Civil War

Military Praises PKK as 'Warriors for Freedom' Against NATO Ally





Dutch issue warrant for Nazi war-criminal suspect
Boston Globe
... for one of the most prominent unpunished Nazi war crimes suspects — a Dutch collaborator convicted in the Netherlands but living in freedom in Germany. ...
See all stories on this topic »

President Obama is engaging in a relentless assault on our freedoms and constitutional government. The growing backlash against the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport screening procedures signifies that Americans finally may have had enough.
OR IS THIS OUR CHOICE?
There is a grass-roots revolt against state-sanctioned sexual harassment. And who can blame the protesters? Children are stripped of their shirts, and their private parts are touched. Nuns and old ladies are groped by intrusive TSA agents. Breasts have been fondled. Men's crotches have been patted down. Full-body scanners show images of people naked - a clear violation of privacy and civil liberties.
The administration insists that the enhanced procedures are vital for national security. The rationale: Last year's underwear bomber nearly blew up a plane flying over Detroit. Hence, everyone's private parts are now the property of the federal government - at least when flying.
This is wrong and dangerous. Airport screening procedures have been a huge experiment in mass political correctness. For fear of insulting Muslims, the U.S. government has insisted that all Americans take off their shoes, pull out their belts and walk through metal detectors at airports. Americans have patiently put up with these inconveniences. But now, for many, enough is enough. "Don't touch my junk" has become a national rallying cry.
The central problem with modern airport security is that it falsely assumes that every person - each of the 7 billion people who inhabit the planet-is an equal terrorist threat. The 80-year-old Irish Catholic nun, the 3-year-old toddler, the 61-year-old bladder cancer survivor whose urine bag was punctured by TSA apparatchiks - all of them, according to Mr. Obama, are potential suicide bombers. They're not. To pretend they are is to engage in leftist multicultural fantasy. It embodies the triumph of ideology over reality - the deranged belief that anyone at any time is a lurking jihadist.
Islamic terrorism is not an open-ended, universal characteristic. Rather, it is a specific, narrowly defined phenomenon. It is fueled by Muslim extremists bent on waging a holy war against the West. Its perpetrators tend to be young adults from the Middle East, North Africa, the Arab world and the Muslim ghettos of Europe. Most jihadists fit this profile. What is needed is not more groping, crotch-grabbing or nude screening, but better intelligence-gathering, random checking and targeted profiling.
Washington insists on perpetrating the illusion that a Christian grandmother in Iowa poses the same possible national security threat as a 19-year-old Yemenite exchange student majoring in Islamic studies. Hence, America is squandering precious resources and manpower, as well as abrogating basic civil liberties and humiliating its population, in order to appease the sensitivities of the Muslim lobby.
Moreover, the new TSA procedures mark another major step in Mr. Obama's drive to impose state socialism. If anyone else did what TSA agents do regularly, they rightly would be charged with sexual assault. Mr. Obama has done the unthinkable: He has extended the federal government's reach into our most private, intimate body parts. Big Brother not only watches us in the nude, he can routinely molest us at will.
The administration is not restricting its unprecedented power grab to airports. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently said that trains, boats and subways also may implement the same screening procedures. If the White House has its way, Americans will be getting felt up on the Metro and Amtrak every day - morning, afternoon and night.
Ultimately, these measures are not only degrading and wrongheaded. They are profoundly illiberal, reflecting a deep-seated contempt for individual rights and civil dignity. They also reveal a radical leftist outlook that views Americans not as self-governing citizens, but as subjects of a nanny state.
Like many on the progressive left, Mr. Obama is an anti-American political thug. He despises the Constitution and capitalism. He bristles under the restraints of democratic governance and the system of checks and balances. From Vladimir Lenin to Fidel Castro to Hugo Chavez, socialist leaders have masked their will to power by portraying themselves as visionary thinkers - sophisticated intellectuals seeking social justice. In reality, they have one goal: revolution.
Mr. Obama has embarked America upon that perilous path. He has de facto nationalized health care, the financial sector, the insurance industry, student loans and major automakers. He has appointed numerous policy czars with vast Cabinet-level powers who have not been confirmed - or even vetted - by the Senate. His administration violated parliamentary procedures and repeatedly bribed and arm-twisted members of Congress to ram through Obamacare - against the expressed will of the people. His surrogates sought to directly manipulate and interfere in primary elections on behalf of pro-Obama candidates - likely committing several felonies. His Interior Department falsified scientific reports to justify the temporary ban on oil drilling in the Gulf Coast. His Justice Department has refused to prosecute blatant voter fraud and intimidation. Mr. Obama has referred to his critics as "enemies" who must be "punished."
He is seeking to use the lame-duck session of Congress to pass more unpopular, sweeping legislation - a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill; the DREAM Act, which effectively grants amnesty to illegal immigrant students; and repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals in the military. Hence, an unrepresentative Congress, in which the House Democratic majority was defeated and replaced in the Nov. 2 election, thinks it has the right to circumvent the electorate.
Mr. Obama's regime has abused its power and fostered anti-democratic behavior. He is slowly erecting a soft police state. It is not one with a fascist jackboot on your face but with a unionized TSA bureaucrat in your crotch - all in the name of public safety. Say hello to Big Brother Barack.

Which WikiLeakS Cover Names are still working ?

WikiLeak

There has been a fair amount of publicity in the blogosphere promoting the actual IP address 88.80.13.160 of the WikiLeakS.org servers at IPQ Internet in Stockholm, Sweden.
There have been some inaccurate reports in the the mainstream media about lots of "mirror sites". There do seem to be some sites which are mirroring actual copies of the disputed documents in the Bank Julius Baer legal action against Wikileaks in California e.g. Cryptome.org, and the documents are available via the BitTorrent distributed peer to peer file sharing network.
However most of these alleged mirrors hold no actual copies of the documents at all, and just point some of their Domain Name Service sub-domains at the 88.80.13.160 IP address in Stockholm. This is important, as many of these Cover Names are not legally under the jurisdiction of the United States of America or the People's Republic of China etc. which are trying to censor WikiLeakS.org.
There are other alternative ways of getting your web browser software to connect to this website, some of which may be useful for getting around some crude methods of PC client or local router based censorware, if some organisations may choose to add this IP address to their banned lists.e.g. 

·         http://88.80.13.160/ - the normal dotted quad form of the IP address
·         http://1481641376/ - the decimal form of the IP address
·         http://0130.0120.0015.0240/ - the octal form of the IP address
·         http://0x58.0x50.0x0D.0xA0/ - one of the hexadecimal forms of the IP address
·         http://0x0058.0x0050.0x000D.0x00A0/ - another of the hexadecimal forms of the IP address
There are all sorts of other possibilities including padding with leading zeros, hex encoded ascii characters, double byte Unicode representations etc., and mixing some or all of these formats within a single URL. Modern web browser will usually translate all of these variants into the real IP address.
Unless any Court Orders catch all of these possible variants, it may be that you can legally evade any censorship.

Harry Truman and the Atomic Bomb by Ralph Raico
While the mass media parroted the government line in praising the atomic incinerations, prominent conservatives denounced them as unspeakable war crimes. Felix Morley, constitutional scholar and one of the founders of Human Events, ...
LewRockwell.com - http://www.lewrockwell.com/



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