While Congress lectures Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the importance of respecting user privacy, they ignore the fact that they are responsible for allowing illegal spying on millions of American citizens.
The post Hypocrisy Defined: The Gov’t That Spies On Its Citizens Is Lecturing Facebook CEO For The Same Thing appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
While Congress lectures Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the importance of respecting user privacy, they ignore the fact that they are responsible for allowing illegal spying on millions of American citizens.
The post Hypocrisy Defined: The Same Gov’t That Spies on Its Citizens is Lecturing Facebook CEO for Same Thing appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
During his 2015 trial, Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht’s defense attorneys raised questions about the government’s case that, although they were ultimately disregarded by the jury, have continued to bother crypto users with an affinity for so-called “conspiracy theories.” They pointed out vagaries in the FBI’s account of its years-long pursuit of Ulbricht, and questioned whether the bureau had truly discovered Ulbricht’s involvement on its own, or whether it had help from other deep state elements, namely the National Security Agency.
Of course, the judge, who eventually sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison without the possibility of parole, refused to entertain their argument. But if they were correct, it would mean that the government’s whole case was built on evidence that was ultimately inadmissible.
As it turns out, Ulbricht’s lawyers were on to something.
In a blockbuster report published Tuesday in the Intercept, reporter Sam Biddle cited several documents included in the massive cache of stolen NSA documents that showed that the agency has been tracking bitcoin users since 2013, and has potentially been funneling some of this information to other federal agencies. Or, as Biddle puts it, maybe the conspiracy theorists were right.
It turns out the conspiracy theorists were onto something. Classified documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the National Security Agency indeed worked urgently to target Bitcoin users around the world – and wielded at least one mysterious source of information to “help track down senders and receivers of Bitcoins,” according to a top-secret passage in an internal NSA report dating to March 2013. The data source appears to have leveraged the NSA’s ability to harvest and analyze raw, global internet traffic while also exploiting an unnamed software program that purported to offer anonymity to users, according to other documents.
Using its ability to siphon data directly from the fiber-optic cables, the NSA managed to develop a system for tracing transactions that went well beyond simple blockchain analysis. The agency relied on a program called MONKEYROCKET, a sham Internet-anonymizing service that, according to the documents, was primarily deployed in Asia, Africa and South America with the intention of thwarting terrorists.
The documents indicate that “tracking down” Bitcoin users went well beyond closely examining Bitcoin’s public transaction ledger, known as the Blockchain, where users are typically referred to through anonymous identifiers; the tracking may also have involved gathering intimate details of these users’ computers.
The NSA collected some Bitcoin users’ password information, internet activity, and a type of unique device identification number known as a MAC address, a March 29, 2013 NSA memo suggested. In the same document, analysts also discussed tracking internet users’ internet addresses, network ports, and timestamps to identify “BITCOIN Targets.”
…
The NSA’s budding Bitcoin spy operation looks to have been enabled by its unparalleled ability to siphon traffic from the physical cable connections that form the internet and ferry its traffic around the planet. As of 2013, the NSA’s Bitcoin tracking was achieved through program code-named OAKSTAR, a collection of covert corporate partnerships enabling the agency to monitor communications, including by harvesting internet data as it traveled along fiber optic cables that undergird the internet.
…
Specifically, the NSA targeted Bitcoin through MONKEYROCKET, a sub-program of OAKSTAR, which tapped network equipment to gather data from the Middle East, Europe, South America, and Asia, according to classified descriptions. As of spring 2013, MONKEYROCKET was “the sole source of SIGDEV for the BITCOIN Targets,” the March 29, 2013 NSA report stated, using the term for signals intelligence development, “SIGDEV,” to indicate the agency had no other way to surveil Bitcoin users. The data obtained through MONKEYROCKET is described in the documents as “full take” surveillance, meaning the entirety of data passing through a network was examined and at least some entire data sessions were stored for later analysis.
Naturally, once the NSA got involved, the notion of anonymity – whether with bitcoin, or even some of the privacy-oriented coins like Zcash – was completely crushed.
Emin Gun Sirer, associate professor and co-director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts at Cornell University, told The Intercept that financial privacy “is something that matters incredibly” to the Bitcoin community, and expects that “people who are privacy conscious will switch to privacy-oriented coins” after learning of the NSA’s work here. Despite Bitcoin’s reputation for privacy, Sirer added, “when the adversary model involves the NSA, the pseudonymity disappears. … You should really lower your expectations of privacy on this network.”
Green, who co-founded and currently advises a privacy-focused Bitcoin competitor named Zcash, echoed those sentiments, saying that the NSA’s techniques make privacy features in any digital currencies like Ethereum or Ripple “totally worthless” for those targeted.
While bitcoin appeared to be the NSA’s top target, it wasn’t the agency’s only priority. The NSA also used its unparalleled surveillance powers to take down Liberty Reserve – a kind of proto-ICO that was involved in money laundering. Though the company was based in Costa Rica, the Department of Justice partnered with the IRS and Department of Homeland Security to arrest its founder and hand him a 20-year prison sentence.
The March 15, 2013 NSA report detailed progress on MONKEYROCKET’s Bitcoin surveillance and noted that American spies were also working to crack Liberty Reserve, a far seedier predecessor. Unlike Bitcoin, for which facilitating drug deals and money laundering was incidental to bigger goals, Liberty Reserve was more or less designed with criminality in mind. Despite being headquartered in Costa Rica, the site was charged with running a $6 billion “laundering scheme” and triple-teamed by the U.S. Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the IRS, resulting in a 20-year conviction for its Ukrainian founder. As of March 2013 — just two months before the Liberty Reserve takedown and indictment — the NSA considered the currency exchange its No. 2 target, second only to Bitcoin. The indictment and prosecution of Liberty Reserve and its staff made no mention of help from the NSA.
Of course, several of the agency’s defenders argued that the notion that the NSA would use these programs to spy on innocuous bitcoin users is “pernicious”, according to one expert source.
The hypothesis that the NSA would “launch an entire operation overseas under false pretenses” just to track targets is “pernicious,” said Matthew Green, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. Such a practice could spread distrust of privacy software in general, particularly in areas like Iran where such tools are desperately needed by dissidents. This “feeds a narrative that the U.S. is untrustworthy,” said Green. “That worries me.”
But forget bitcoin: the notion that the NSA has been illegally feeding intelligence to other federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been a watershed issue for civil libertarians, with implications far beyond cryptocurrency money laundering. The process, known as “parallel construction”, would, if definitive proof could ever be obtained by a defense attorney, render an entire case as inadmissible.
Civil libertarians and security researchers have long been concerned that otherwise inadmissible intelligence from the agency is used to build cases against Americans though a process known as “parallel construction”:building a criminal case using admissible evidence obtained by first consulting other evidence, which is kept secret, out of courtrooms and the public eye. An earlier investigation by The Intercept, drawing on court records and documents from Snowden, found evidence the NSA’s most controversial forms of surveillance, which involve warrantless bulk monitoring of emails and fiber optic cables, may have been used in court via parallel construction.
The timing of the Intercept’s report is also interesting. We reported last year that a Russian national named Alexander Vinnick, the alleged mastermind of a $4 billion bitcoin-based money laundering operation, had been arrested following an indictment that levied 21 counts of money laundering and other crimes that could land him in a US prison for up to 55 years.
And given the justice system’s treatment of other cryptocurrency-related criminals, the notion that Vinnick might spend multiple decades in prison is not beyond the realm of possibility. Of course, if the case against him is built on illegally obtained evidence, one would think his defense team would want to know.
Heavily redacted versions of the Snowden documents are available on the Intercept’s website.
The post NSA Has Been Tracking Bitcoin Users Since 2013, New Snowden Documents Reveal appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Join me in this week’s explosive podcast where I truly breakdown the BIG PICTURE for all Patriots using Q anon’s own “Future proves past” formula. Today I take a look at the Edward Snowden constant references by Q and I put it all together in a way that makes sense and fits into the big picture.
The post Snowden Clues Solved! Q Anon Wrap up. Must Watch!! (VIDEO) appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
A new report by the YouTube channel X22 Report claims that the deep state may want NSA leaker, Edward Snowden. Apparently, Snowden may have information that could take them all down.
Dave from the X22 Report begins by stating the obvious: big tech giants such as YouTube have been taking down news channels that don’t align with the deep state’s brand of tyranny. But he says to watch for people to dump stocks as the Internet Bill of Rights (IBOR) becomes more widely accepted (the regulation of tech giants to stop censorship). Because once freedom is speech is allowed online again, all of the information can come out, and Snowden may have more that will cripple the deep state.
Christopher Steele, who was responsible for the infamous Trump dossier, was connected with the Russian double-agent and ex-spy who was poisoned along with his daughter, with a nerve agent. (The British government is blaming Moscow for the attempted assassination. Or “wet works” as Dave put it.)
Dave also says the media hasn’t the slightest idea of what to do with the news that Donald Trump has reached out to North Korea in an attempt to discuss denuclearization. But Trump continues to circumvent the deep state and the mainstream media.
“The corporate media doesn’t know what to do with all this. They’re out there saying ‘Trump is a madman, he’s gonna bring us to war. Trump is a madman, these peace talks are gonna bring us to war.’ They really don’t want to admit that we might have peace with North Korea because this is not part of their agenda. Their agenda is to go to war. That’s what they wanted all along. The thing that the corporate media doesn’t know, is that Trump has already met with Kim Jong-Un. The meeting already took place. The deal is already set. Everything is already done. How do we know this? Trump was in China at the Forbidden City. Met with Kim Jong-Un there; with China, Russia, and the rest. Already agreed that North Korea will disarm and discussed reunification.”
But one of the biggest revelations is about NSA leaker Edward Snowden. “CIA intelligence operatives want Snowden badly,” says Dave.
“They know where Snowden is…if they really wanted to arrest him, they would just go in and take him…Why are the clowns, CIA intelligence agencies after Snowden? Well, most likely, I think he has evidence on the deep state; certain individuals within the deep state. And maybe even information on 9/11. They’re saying there’s and 85% probability the Snowden has the Hillary Rodham Clinton video, the raw video. And people are speculating that this video is Hillary having sex with a child.”
There is a lot of speculation in this particular report, but it’s important to look at things from an alternative view. We could not verify that Trump has already made a deal with Kim Jong-Un, nor could we (obviously) verify what information Edward Snowden has that he hasn’t made public yet.
But what we can agree with Dave on is: “We’ve been lied to all this time, and they’re still lying to us.”
The promotion of the alleged Russian election hacking in certain media may have grown from the successful attempts of U.S. intelligence services to limit the publication of the NSA files obtained by Edward Snowden.
In May 2013 Edward Snowden fled to Hong Kong and handed internal documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) to four journalists, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian and separately to Barton Gellman who worked for the Washington Post. Some of those documents were published by Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian, others by Barton Gellman in the Washington Post. Several other international news site published additional material though the mass of NSA papers that Snowden allegedly acquired never saw public daylight.
In July 2013 the Guardian was forced by the British government to destroy its copy of the Snowden archive.
In August 2013 Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for some $250 million. In 2012 Bezos, the founder, largest share holder and CEO of Amazon, had already a cooperation with the CIA. Together they invested in a Canadian quantum computing company. In March 2013 Amazon signed a $600 million deal to provide computing services for the CIA.
In October 2013 Pierre Omidyar, the owner of Ebay, founded First Look Media and hired Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. The total planned investment was said to be $250 million. It took up to February 2014 until the new organization launched its first site, the Intercept. Only a few NSA stories appeared on it. The Intercept is a rather mediocre site. Its management is said to be chaotic. It publishes few stories of interests and one might ask if it ever was meant to be a serious outlet. Omidyar has worked, together with the U.S. government, to force regime change onto Ukraine. He had strong ties with the Obama administration.
Snowden had copies of some 20,000 to 58,000 NSA files. Only 1,182 have been published. Bezos and Omidyar obviously helped the NSA to keep more than 95% of the Snowden archive away from the public. The Snowden papers were practically privatized into trusted hands of Silicon Valley billionaires with ties to the various secret services and the Obama administration.
The motivation for the Bezos and Omidyar to do this is not clear. Bezos is estimated to own a shameful $90 billion. The Washington Post buy is chump-change for him. Omidyar has a net worth of some $9.3 billion. But the use of billionaires to mask what are in fact intelligence operations is not new. The Ford Foundation has for decades been a CIA front, George Soros" Open Society foundation is one of the premier "regime change" operations, well versed in instigating "color revolutions".
It would have been reasonable if the cooperation between those billionaires and the intelligence agencies had stopped after the NSA leaks were secured. But it seems that strong cooperation of the Bezos and Omidyar outlets with the CIA and others continue.
The Intercept burned a intelligence leaker, Reality Winner, who had trusted its journalists to keep her protected. It smeared the President of Syria as neo-nazi based on an (intentional?) mistranslation of one of his speeches. It additionally hired a Syrian supporter of the CIA"s "regime change by Jihadis" in Syria. Despite its pretense of "fearless, adversarial journalism" it hardly deviates from U.S. policies.
The Washington Post, which has a much bigger reach, is the prime outlet for "Russia-gate", the false claims by parts of the U.S. intelligence community and the Clinton campaign, that Russia attempted to influence U.S. elections or even "colluded" with Trump.
Just today it provides two stories and one op-ed that lack any factual evidence for the anti-Russian claims made in them.
In Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options the writers insinuate that some anonymous writer who published a few pieces on Counterpunch and elsewhere was part of a Russian operation. They provide zero evidence to back that claim up. Whatever that writer wrote (see list at end) was run of the mill stuff that had little to do with the U.S. election. The piece then dives into various cyber-operations against Russia that the Obama and Trump administration have discussed.
A second story in the paper today is based on "a classified GRU report obtained by The Washington Post." It claims that the Russian military intelligence service GRU started a social media operation one day after the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was illegally removed from his office in a U.S. regime change operation. What the story lists as alleged GRU puppet postings reads like normal internet talk of people opposed to the fascist regime change in Kiev. The Washington Post leaves completely unexplained who handed it an alleged GRU report from 2014, who classified it and how, if at all, it verified its veracity. To me the piece and the assertions therein have a strong odor of bovine excrement.
An op-ed in the very same Washington Post has a similar smell. It is written by the intelligence flunkies Michael Morell and Mike Rogers. Morell had hoped to become CIA boss under a President Hillary Clinton. The op-ed (which includes a serious misunderstanding of "deterrence") asserts that Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States:
Russia’s information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. But to get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.
The author link to this page which claims to list Twitter hashtags that are currently used by Russian influence agents. Apparently the top issue Russia"s influence agents currently promote is "#merrychristmas".
When the authors claim Russian operations are "more numerous than can be listed here" they practically admit that they have not even one plausible operation they could cite. Its simply obfuscation to justify their call for more political and military measures against Russia. This again to distract from the real reasons Clinton lost the election and to introduce a new Cold War for the benefit of weapon producers and U.S. influence in Europe.
None of the Russia-gate stories so far has held up to scrutiny. There is no proof at all, nor reasonable evidence, that Russia interfered in elections in the U.S. or elsewhere. There is no evidence of "collusion" with the Trump campaign.
One of the most complete debunking of the false claims can be found in the recent London Review of Books: What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking. Consortium News has published many pieces on the issue as well as analyses and warnings of what may follow from it. Many other writers have caught up and debunk the various false claims. The Nation lists various cases of journalistic malpractice with regard to Russia-gate.
The people who promote the "Russian influence" nonsense are political operatives or hacks. Take for example Luke Harding of the Guardian who just published a book titled Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. He was taken apart in a Real News interview (vid) about the book. The interviewer pointed out that there is absolutely no evidence in the book to support its claims. When asked for any proof for his assertion Harding defensively says that he is just "storytelling" - in other words: its fiction. Harding earlier wrote a book about Edward Snowden which was a similar sham. Julian Assange called it "a hack job in the purest sense of the term". Harding is also known as plagiarizer. When he worked in Moscow he copied stories and passages from the now defunct Exile, run by Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames. The Guardian had to publish an apology.
The Mexican government controls the media by buying an immense amount of advertisement. It thus guarantees income as long as its political line is followed. The U.S. government has its own ways of controlling the media. In the 1950s to 1970s the CIA ran Operation Mockingbird which gave it control over much of the news and opinion output in U.S. media. During that time up to 400 main stream journalists were working for the CIA.
The method of control has likely changed. The handling of the Snowden affair lets one assume that the CIA induces billionaires to buy up media and to implement the CIA"s favored policies through them. We do not know what the billionaires get for their service. The CIA surely has many ways to let them gain information on their competition or to influence business regulations in foreign countries. One hand will wash the other.
James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence, John Brennan as CIA head and James Comey from the FBI "assessed" that Russia influenced the U.S. presidential election. Annex B of their report, which hardly any report bothered to mention, read:
Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation and precedents.
That sentence is the core of Russia-gate. There are lots of claims, assertions and judgments but no proof at all that any of the alleged Russian influence really happened.
It is probably due to the undue influence of the intelligence services that media have adopted that Annex B standard for themselves. With regards to Russia (and other issues), assertions are now enough - there is no need to investigate, to find the truth or to verify claims.
* * *
How will that system work if an accident happens, some jet gets shot down and the issue escalates. Will there be any reporter left in the main stream media who is allowed to ask real questions?
Famed NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden has just launched Haven, an app for people to transform any Android smartphone into a high-tech security system for detecting intrusions.
Snowden, while currently on the run from the CIA, hiding somewhere in Moscow until 2020, has found enough time to launch his new mobile security app last Friday for the sufficiently paranoid person (e.g. activists, dissidents, journalists, & etc).
"When the lead developer explained the project to his young children, they found another use for it: "We’re going to catch Santa!" " https://t.co/Beangjk90g
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) December 23, 2017
Haven is designed to be installed on any Android smartphone, particularly inexpensive and older devices. It operates like a home surveillance system, leveraging on-device sensors to provide surveillance of physical areas. Sensors within the Android phone monitor motion, sound, vibration and light, watching for unwanted guests to notify a user. Combining Haven with an array of sensors in any smartphone, coupled with the most secure communications technologies like Signal and Tor, the app is providing Snowden and other activists around the world with a mobile security system.
The app was developed by Freedom of the Press Foundation, Guardian Project, and Snowden. According to the Guardian Project, the app’s prototype funding was provided by FoPF, and donations to support continuing work can be contributed through their site: https://freedom.press/donate-support-haven-open-source-project/.
According to the Guardian Project, this is how the app works,
Haven only saves images and sound when triggered by motion or volume, and stores everything locally on the device. You can position the device’s camera to capture visible motion, or set your phone somewhere discreet to just listen for noises. Get secure notifications of intrusion events instantly and access the logs remotely or anytime later.
On-device sensors monitor for disturbance, and then logs the data:
Further, the group explains why Haven is well suited for Android devices and does make the claim, a version for the iPhone is on the horizon.
While we hope to support a version of Haven that runs directly on iOS devices in the future, iPhone users can still benefit from Haven today. You can purchase an inexpensive Android phone for less than $100, and use that as your “Haven Device”, that you leave behind, while you keep your iPhone with you. If you run Signal on your iPhone, you can configure Haven on Android to send encrypted notifications, with photos and audio, directly to you. If you enable the “Tor Onion Service” feature in Haven (requires installing “Orbot” app as well), you can remotely access all Haven log data from your iPhone, using the Onion Browser app. So, no, iPhone users we didn’t forget about you, and hope you’ll pick up an Android burner today for a few bucks!
If one of the sensors was triggered, a notification would be sent to one of the following platforms:
My partner has been testing Haven for a few months with a spare phone. Every time you open the closet, it sends a picture by Signal. In addition to impressive intrusion detection capabilities, you can also use it to send helpful reminders! ? https://t.co/FHi1bjFsLP pic.twitter.com/IS58HzDVha
— lex.txt (@lex_is) December 22, 2017
As for Snowden, he remains in an asylum somewhere in Moscow until 2020 when his residence permit expires.
With the launch of Haven, it seems as Snowden is attempting to change the calculus of risk for when US authorities come hunting for him once more.
If all else fails, Snowden might have just invented a baby monitor for the broke millennial.
Authored by James Cobett via The Corbett Report,
When WWII ended and the American deep state welded the national security establishment into place with the National Security Act, the world entered into a new era: the era of the military-industrial complex.
But when the Cold War ended and the “Clash of Civilizations” became the new existential threat, the deep state found an opening for another paradigm shift. As the all-pervasive threat of terrorism became the carte blanche for total surveillance, the powers-that-shouldn’t-be found the organizing principal of our age would not be military hardware, but data itself. Welcome to the age of the information-industrial complex.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
It is not difficult to see why these words passed so quickly into the political lexicon. Think of their explanatory power.
Why did the US use inflated estimates of Russian missile capabilities to justify stockpiling a nuclear arsenal that was more than sufficient to destroy the planet several times over?
The military-industrial complex.
Why did America send 50,000 of its own to fight and die in the jungles of Vietnam, killing untold millions of Vietnamese (not to mention Cambodians)?
The military-industrial complex.
Why did the US use the public’s fear and anger over 9/11 and a phony panic over non-existent weapons of mass destruction to justify the illegal invasion and trillion-dollar occupation of Iraq?
The military-industrial complex.
Why did Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama expand the fictitious “war on terror” into Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia, refuse to close Guantanamo despite his earlier promises to the contrary, commit US forces to “kinetic military action” in Libya without so much as seeking Congressional approval, and launch a new era of covert drone warfare?
The military-industrial complex.
Why has Trump not only continued but further expanded the US military presence in Africa, increased US aid to Israel and Saudi Arabia, actively enabled the war crimes in Yemen that have led to the largest cholera outbreak in human history, and killed more civilians in his first six months in office than former drone-king Obama killed in his entire eight-year presidency?
The military-industrial complex.
When you think about it, it’s rather remarkable that such a phrase was ever uttered by a President of the United States, much less a former five-star general. Could you imagine any modern-day President talking about something like the “military-industrial complex” and its attempted “acquisition of unwarranted influence” without immediately dismissing the idea as a conspiracy theory? Over the decades there has been much speculation about Eisenhower’s use of the phrase, and what precisely he was warning against. Some have argued that the phrase was prompted by Eisenhower’s discovery that the Rand Corporation was grossly misrepresenting the Soviet’s military capabilities to John F. Kennedy, who ended up using the Rand invented (and completely fictitious) “missile gap” threat as a cornerstone of his 1960 presidential election campaign.
Whatever the case, it is perhaps time to revisit Eisenhower’s most famous speech. What Eisenhower is ultimately describing is the rise of American fascism; the merger of government and corporate power. What term can better capture the nature of early 21st century American political life? Is there any longer any doubt that the military-industrial complex has reached its ultimate expression in firms like Blackwater (aka “Xe” aka “Academi”) and its military contractor brethren? Is there any other word but “fascism” to describe a state of affairs when a Secretary of Defense can commission a study from a private contractor to examine whether the US military should be using more private contractors, only for that same Secretary of Defense to leave office and become president of the company that conducted the study, only to leave that company to become Vice President of the US and begin waging a war that relies heavily on no-bid contracts awarded to that same company based on the recommendation that it made in its original study? Yet this is precisely the case of Dick Cheney and Halliburton. It would be difficult to think of a more blatant example of the military-industrial complex fascism that Eisenhower was warning of.
But as it turns out, there was another warning about fascism embedded in that farewell address that has received far less attention than the “military-industrial complex” formulation, perhaps because there is no catchphrase hook to describe it:
“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.”
Given that this warning came in 1961, before the age of communications satellites or personal computers or the internet, it was a remarkably prescient observation. If scientific research half a century ago was dominated by federal grants and expensive computer equipment, how much more true is that for us today, half a century later?
So what is the problem with this? As Ike explained:
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Here, again, the warning is of fascism. But instead of the military-industrial fascism that dominated so much of the 20th century, he was describing here a new fascistic paradigm that was but barely visible at the time that he gave his address: a scientific-technological one. Once again, the threat is that the industry that grows up around this government-sponsored activity will, just like the military-industrial complex, begin to take over and shape the actions of that same government. In this case, the warning is not one of bombs and bullets but bits and bytes, not tanks and fighter jets but hard drives and routers. Today we know this new fascism by its innocuous sounding title “Big Data,” but in keeping with the spirit of Eisenhower’s remarks, perhaps it would be more fitting to call it the “information-industrial complex.”
The concept of an information-industrial complex holds equally explanatory power for our current day and age as the military-industrial complex hypothesis held in Eisenhower’s time.
Why is a company like Google going to such lengths to capture, track and database all information on the planet?
The information-industrial complex.
Why were all major telecom providers and internet service providers mandated by federal law to hardwire in back door access to American intelligence agencies for the purpose of spying on all electronic communications?
The information-industrial complex.
Why would government after government around the world target encryption as a key threat to their national security, and why would banker after banker call for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be banned even as they plan to set up their own, central bank-administered digital currencies?
The information-industrial complex.
The effects of this synthesis are more and more felt in our everyday lives. Every single day hundreds of millions of people around the world are interfacing with Microsoft software or Apple hardware or Amazon cloud services running on chips and processors supplied by Intel or other Silicon Valley stalwarts. Google has become so ubiquitous that its very name has become a verb meaning “to search for something on the internet.” The 21st century version of the American dream is encapsulated in the story of Mark Zuckerberg, a typical Harvard whizkid whose atypical rise to the status of multi-billionaire was enabled by a social networking tool by the name of “Facebook” that he developed.
But how many people know the flip side of this coin, the one that demonstrates the pervasive government influence in shaping and directing these companies’ rise to success, and the companies’ efforts to aid the government in collecting data on its own citizens? How many know, for instance, that Google has a publicly acknowledged relationship with the NSA? Or that a federal judge has ruled that the public does not have the right to know the details of that relationship? Or that Google Earth was originally the brainchild of Keyhole Inc., a company that was set up by the CIA’s own venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, using satellite data harvested from government Keyhole-class reconnaissance satellites? Or that the former CEO of In-Q-Tel, Gilman Louie, sat on the board of the National Venture Capital Association with Jim Breyer, head of Accel Partners, who provided $12 million of seed money for Facebook? Or that, in 1999, a back door for NSA access was discovered in Microsoft’s Windows operating system source code? Or that Apple founder Steve Jobs was granted security clearance by the Department of Defense for still-undisclosed reasons while heading Pixar in 1988, as was the former head of AT&T and numerous others in the tech industry?
The connections between the IT world and the government’s military and intelligence apparatus run deep. In fact, the development of the IT industry is intimately intertwined with the US Air Force, the Department of Defense and its various branches (including, famously, DARPA), and, of course, the CIA. A cursory glance at the history of the rise of companies like Mitre Corporation, Oracle, and other household electronics and software firms should suffice to expose the extent of these relations and the existence of what we might dub an “information-industrial complex.”
But what does this mean? What are the ramifications of such a relationship?
Although the signs have been there for decades, perhaps the most startling example of what lies at the heart of this relationship has been revealed by the whistleblowers at the heart of the National Security Agency, one of the most secretive arms of the American intelligence apparatus. While Edward Snowden has received the most attention with his “revelation” of the PRISM program, much of the information about the NSA’s ability to surveil all electronic communications has been revealed over the past decade by NSA whistleblowers like Russ Tice, William Binney, Thomas Drake and J. Kirk Wiebe, third-party contractors like Snowden and AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, and independent journalists like James Bamford. Together, the story they tell is of a truly Orwellian society in which all communications are being captured and analyzed by the NSA, and, with the advent of facilities like the new data center in Utah, presumably stored indefinitely for use at any future time in any future investigation for any pretense by anyone with authorization to access that data. According to Snowden, this includes lowly third-party contractors like himself operating at NSA subcontractors like Booz Allen Hamilton in the vast (and expanding) private intelligence industry that has grown up around the information-industrial complex in the exact same way as private military contractors like Blackwater formed around the military-industrial complex.
In some ways, this information-industrial complex is even more insidious than its military-industrial counterpart. For all of the ills caused by the military-industrial complex (and there are many), at the very least it required some sort of excuse to drain the American people’s resources, and its failures (like the Vietnam quagmire or the debacle in Iraq) happened in the clear light of day. In the information-industrial complex, where vast spying programs happen in the shadows and under the cover of “national security,” it takes whistleblowers and insiders willing to risk it all even to find out what is being done by these shadowy agencies and their private-sector contractors. Even worse, the entire Orwellian spy grid is being run on the flimsiest of pretenses (the “war on terror”) that has no defined end point, and “justifies” turning that spy grid inward, on the American people themselves.
Surely Eisenhower never envisaged the monstrosity that this information-industrial complex has become, but the foresight he had in identifying its early stages over half a century ago is remarkable. The problem is that we are even further away from heeding the warning that he delivered in that 1961 address than we were at that time:
“It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system—ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”
If only this were the rhetoric that was shaping today’s debate on the issue, instead of the well-worn canard that we must “strike a balance” between freedom and security. Sadly, until such time as the National Security Act of 1947 is repealed and the cover of national security is lifted from the dark actors that populate this sector, the information-industrial complex is unlikely to be quashed—or even hampered—anytime soon.
U.S. officials admit they are not planning on shutting down the government"s warrantless spying program, even if it is not reauthorized by 2018.
It’s newsworthy that CIA head Mike Pompeo recently met with Bill Binney – who designed the NSA’s electronic surveillance system – about potential proof that the DNC emails were leaked rather than hacked.
It’s also noteworthy that the usual suspects – Neocon warmongers such as Max Boot – have tried to discredit both Binney and Pompeo.
But there’s a huge part of the story that the entire mainstream media is missing …
Specifically, Binney says that the NSA has long had in its computers information which can prove exactly who hacked the DNC … or instead prove that the DNC emails were leaked by a Democratic insider.
Remember – by way of background – that the NSA basically spies on everyone in America … and stores the data long-term.
After the story of Pompeo’s meeting with Binney broke, Binney told Washington’s Blog:
Here’s what they would have from the programs you list [i.e. NSA’s Fairview, Stormbrew and Blarney spying programs, which Edward Snowden revealed] plus hundreds if not thousands of trace route programs embedded in switches in the US and around the world.
First, from deep packet inspection, they would have the originator and ultimate recipient (IP) of the packets plus packet series 32 bit number identifier and all the housekeeping data showing the network segments/path and time to go though the network. And, of course, the number of packet bits. With this they would know to where and when the data passed.
From the data collection, they would have all the data as it existed in the server taken from. That’s why I originally said if the FBI wanted Hillary’s email, all they have to do is ask NSA for them.
All this is done by the Narus collection equipment in real time at line rates (620 mbps [mega bits per second,] for the STA-6400 and 10 gbps [giga bits per second] for the Insight equipment).
Binney explained what these numbers mean: Each Narus Insight device can monitor and record around 1,250,000 emails each second … or more than 39 trillion emails per year.
Wired reported in 2006:
Whistle-blower Klein allegedly learned that AT&T was installing Narus boxes in secure, NSA-controlled rooms in switching centers around the country.
Binney told us there are probably 18 or so Narus recording systems throughout the U.S. deployed by the NSA at AT&T facilities, drawing our attention to the following NSA document leaked by Edward Snowden:
And this AT&T graphic:
(Binney has figured out their locations from publicly-available sources. He has also mapped out similar monitoring systems at Verizon facilities.)
Binney also sent me hard-to-find company literature for Narus. Here are some interesting excerpts:
NarusInsight …
- Provides full visibility into network traffic …
- Analyzes at macro or micro level targeting specific or aggregate full-packet data for forensic analysis
And:
Universal data collection from links, routers, soft switches, IDS/IPS, databases, etc. provides total network view across the world’s largest IP networks.
Binney also pointed me towards a couple of network engineering principles that show that figuring out who hacked the emails (or proving they were leaked) is well within NSA’s capabilities.
Initially, when data is transmitted online, it is sent using the TCP/IP Packet format. Put simply, data is not sent in a vacuum, but rather as part of a bundle containing a lot of other information.
Here’s the TCP part of the bundle:
And here’s the IP part of the bundle:
So any data analyst can learn a tremendous amount about the source address of the sender, the destination address of the receiver and a boatload of other information by using a “packet sniffer” to inspect the “packets” of information being sent over the web.
Additionally, it’s simple to conduct “traceroute” searches. “Traceroute” is a computer network diagnostic tool for displaying the route and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol network.
Wired reported in 2006:
“Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record,” says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. “We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their (voice over internet protocol) calls.”
So NSA can easily basic packet sniffers and traceroutes, And see this.
Remember, Edward Snowden says the NSA could easily determine who hacked the Democratic National Committee’s emails:
If Russia hacked the #DNC, they should be condemned for it. But during the #Sony hack, the FBI presented evidence.
***
Even if the attackers try to obfuscate origin, #XKEYSCORE makes following exfiltrated data easy. I did this personally against Chinese ops. 5:58 AM - Jul 25, 2016
Binney told us:
Snowden is right and the MSM is clueless.
***
Do they have evidence that the Russians downloaded and later forwarded those emails to wikileaks? Seems to me that they need to answer those questions to be sure that their assertion is correct.
***
You can tell from the network log who is going into a site. I used that on networks that I had. I looked to see who came into my LAN, where they went, how long they stayed and what they did while in my network.
Further, if you needed to, you could trace back approaches through other servers etc. Trace Route and Trace Watch are good examples of monitoring software that help do these things. Others of course exist … probably the best are in NSA/GCHQ and the other Five Eyes countries. But, these countries have no monopoly on smart people that could do similar detection software.
He explained:
If it were the Russians, NSA would have a trace route to them and not equivocate on who did it. It’s like using “Trace Route” to map the path of all the packets on the network. In the program Treasuremap NSA has hundreds of trace route programs embedded in switches in Europe and hundreds more around the world. So, this set-up should have detected where the packets went and when they went there.
He added:
As Edward Snowden said, once they have the IP’s and/or other signatures of 28/29 [the supposed Russian hacking groups] and DNC/HRC/etc. [i.e. the DNC and Hillary Rodham Clinton], NSA would use Xkeyscore to help trace data passing across the network and show where it went. [Background.]
In addition, since Wikileaks is (and has been) a cast iron target for NSA/GCHQ/etc for a number of years there should be no excuse for them missing data going to any one associated with Wikileaks.
***
Too many words means they don’t have clear evidence of how the data got to Wikileaks.
And he stressed:
If the idiots in the intelligence community expect us to believe them after all the crap they have told us (like WMD’s in Iraq and “no we don’t collect data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans”) then they need to give clear proof of what they say. So far, they have failed to prove anything.
Which suggests they don’t have proof and just want to war monger the US public into a second cold war with the Russians.
After all, there’s lots and lots of money in that for the military-industrial-intelligence-governmental complex of incestuous relationships.
***
If you recall, a few years ago they pointed to a specific building in China that was where hacks on the US were originating. So, let’s see the same from the Russians. They don’t have it. That’s why they don’t show it. They want to swindle us again and again and again. You can not trust these intelligence agencies period.
And he told Newsweek:
U.S. officials “know how many people [beyond the Russians] could have done this but they aren’t telling us anything. All they’re doing is promoting another cold war.”
Binney … compared allegations about Russian hacks to previous U.S. fabrications of intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the bombing of North Vietnam in 1964.
“This is a big mistake, another WMD or Tonkin Gulf affair that’s being created until they have absolute proof” of Russian complicity in the DNC hacks, he charged during a Newsweek interview. He noted that after the Kremlin denied complicity in the downing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1983, the U.S. “exposed the conversations where [Russian pilots] were ordered to shoot it down.” Obama officials “have the evidence now” of who hacked the DNC, he charged. “So let’s see it, guys.“
NSA either doesn’t have solid evidence of Russian hacking of DNC emails – which means the Russians didn’t do it – or those with the power to demand NSA produce the evidence simply haven’t asked the right questions.
By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at
When in 2013 Ed Snowden revealed to Joe Sixpack that his data was indeed being hacked and intercepted, not by crazy vodka swilling Ivan in Novgorod but by team America, there was the sort of surprise and outrage that comes with finding your 5-year old just wiped snot across your brand new leather sofa. A lot of yelling and screaming, limbs flailing, and a decent level of embarrassment for Johnny Snotnose, who in this instance was the NSA.
Less than 12 months later, all was forgotten. In the end nobody gave an isht.
In the ghettos of social media the Kardashians were calling and "Hey look, did you know there are pornos on the Internet with woman and farm animals?"
Joe Sixpack doesn"t care about the fact that his photos are accessible, even the naughty ones. Indeed almost every app downloaded today requests permission to breach that gap. Joe doesn"t care about his contacts list being breached. He clicks the "Sure, rape me" "Accept Permissions" button with glee, eager to get the download finished so that he can start sharing photos of what"s on his dinner plate with the whole world because... well, actually I have no idea.
It"s insane to me. Sadly the hoi-polloi spend more time looking at Joe"s dinner choice than reading the fine print on the permissions they"ve just granted to the apps downloaded.
You"d be forgiven for thinking that a goldfish-like memory could be to blame. I certainly thought people would care but obviously I was wrong because ever since then we"ve had more reasons to be outraged over real problems of this nature than you could shake a stick at.
Since Snowden, Wikileaks have provided an absolute deluge of additional fodder in this space. What"s happened?
Nothing! Nobody cares.
Just yesterday we were alerted to "Dumbo" a CIA project.
Try finding anything on the MSM about it and it"s like searching for a Texan cattle farmer at a vegan food festival.
Sure, we know the MSM are a complete joke but the masses still gather around the MSM drinking fountain for their daily dose of intellectual junk food. What did they have to say on the topic?
Instead of outrage and public humiliation showered on the perpetrators, we"re treated to snowflakes, daffodils, and bubble bath enthusiasts fighting the injustices perpetrated on Joey, who goes by the name Sheila due to his desire to don a frock and spend all his money rearranging his bits at the cosmetic surgeon.
There is, however, one thing that"s going to change it all...
Money.
Data security is like a seatbelt. It only matters when you park the beemer into a gum tree at speed.
People only protect data when that data is attached to economic value.
Ask anyone who"s bought, sold, and transacted in bitcoin what computer they use and not one will say a Windows machine.
The reasons for this are quite simple. That"d be like driving blindfolded at speed without a seatbelt, after chugging back a half a bottle of Glenfiddich.
This is just a first step in data security, and I use bitcoin as an example because typically the folks who have spent any time figuring it out know a thing or two about data security and cryptography.
Back to the masses, though.
Clearly when the wet-lipped psychopaths at some three letter agency are looking at Joe"s Facebook content or the naughty video he made last night with his girlfriend, Joe doesn"t much care. But when Joe begins storing real value and assets on his computer or smartphone and they get stolen, then, and only then, will Joe very quickly attach value to his data security. The learning curve promises to be steep.
That world is coming super fast as I mentioned previously.
Adoption of safety measures will come faster than Brangelina were picking up new ethnic babies from Nambabwia or wherever a few years back. When people realise that their livelihood is directly attached to their data security, then, and only then, will the begin to care.
I posted this chart previously in an article on the rise of cyber security:
Mark Andreessen famously stated that software is eating the world and by George, he was right. With all that software though comes a different set of problems. One of those problems, one even larger than John Prescott, is cyber security.
Now once again, I suspect Joe Sixpack won"t give an isht if someone can see that he"s turning on his heating system from his smartphone while on the way home. But when it gets disrupted and hacked and his phone automatically pays for a weekend at the Marriott in Bali without his knowledge, Joe will search for solutions in a blind panic.
When Joe begins getting paid via smart contracts and in value tokens attached to his workplace and it"s all done on a network, Joe will care a lot.
Economic incentives, both fear and greed, never change. What"s changing is our financial architecture and how we"re going to have to deal with that.
Fortunes will be made on the back of what promises to be an explosion in data security. Watch!
- Chris
"The great fear that I have is that nothing will change." — Edward Snowden
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Liked this article? Then you"ll probably like my other missives on
this topic as well. Go here to access them (free, of course).
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She thought she had it. The smoking gun that would prove someone in Trump"s campaign colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 election. But, when a forged NSA document sent to Rachel Maddow turned out to be just more bad information from more anonymous sources, it left the crusading MSNBC host feeling a bit "triggered." As such, she opened her show last night with the following segment:
“Somebody, for some reason, appears to be shopping a fairly convincing fake NSA document that purports to directly implicate somebody from the Trump campaign in working with the Russians in their attack in the election."
“This is news, because: why is someone shopping a forged document of this kind to news organizations covering the Trump-Russia affair?”
Not surprisingly, Maddow uses the discovery to imply that someone within the Trump administration is intentionally planting fake information in an attempt to discredit her show. She goes on to imply that similar efforts may have caused the recent firing of 3 "journalists" at CNN who simply couldn"t be bothered with verifying the anonymous tip they received.
Here are more details of Maddow"s show from the Daily Caller:
On June 7, an unidentified person sent documents to an online tip line for Maddow’s show, she said.
That was two days after The Intercept published legitimate NSA documents that were stolen by Reality Winner, a contractor for the agency.
And that"s where Maddow"s faux-outrage breaks down.
You see, if it"s clear that Maddow received her forgery after the intercept published their documents then there"s really no "there" there. Pretty much anyone with an internet connection could have simply taken the Reality Winner documents from The Intercept website and used them create a forgery to send to Maddow.
Of course, Maddow knew that her whole story was bullshit unless she could convince her viewers that the forgery she received was created before The Intercept published it for the world to see. If she could prove that, then she could insist the forged document must have come from someone on the "inside."
So, she decided to get "technical" and take a look at the "metadata" on the document she received. As it turns out, the "creation date" on the document she received was roughly 3.5 hours before The Intercept published their Reality Winner story. See, it"s all laid out right here on this lovely timeline graphic. Checkmate, Mr. Trump!
Except, not. Ironically, by stretching the truth in an attempt to prove that her story was in any way relevant, Maddow unwittingly proved exactly the opposite.
As The Intercept has subsequently pointed out, the "creation date" on the document received by Maddow (see the timeline above) perfectly matches, to the exact second, the "creation date" on The Intercept"s Reality Winner document.
Why? Because that is the exact time in which The Intercept created their document and published it to their cloud server.
All of which simply proves that Maddow"s source didn"t have a sneak peak at the Reality Winner documents...they actually used The Intercept document as their source for creating their forgery.
Now, we could be wrong here...but, if the Trump administration wanted to dupe Rachel Maddow we suspect they could have gotten their hands on clean copies of the Reality Winner docs without having to lift them from The Intercept"s website.
So, what seems more likely to have happened here is that Maddow"s staff could easily tell the "NSA document" was a forgery from the start and simply ignored it at first. Afterall, she received the document on June 7th and is just now deciding to talk about it a month later? Unlikely.
But, when 3 journalists from CNN lost their jobs for publishing fake news, Maddow saw an opportunity to launch a whole new narrative attacking the Trump administration by alleging that they"re planting fake intelligence reports with the media. Never let a good crisis go to waste...as they say.
Edward Snowden summarized the situation the best in a series of tweets:
Maddow"s lawyerly defense of why her implication was wrong is disappointing. Such caution should come prior to raising alarm on national TV.
When the media"s credibility is under attack, rushing stories out before checking facts and contacting the subject is hard to comprehend.
That said, journalism is hard and mistakes happen. When they do, as in this Maddow case, apologies should be frank and unequivocal.
When we start getting economical with facts, we lose. This important story was mangled by needlessly injected an unsupportable conspiracy.
Each time the media gets a prominent story wrong right now, I wince. More than egg on a famous face, it risks a generation"s trust in news.
If our most famous journalists are so proud they can"t admit to what is now an obvious error, how can they hope to hold the public trust?
Most folks can"t read three different papers every day. If we don"t set the highest standard, many give up and say the truth is unknowable.
That is the twilight of an age.
When the media"s credibility is under attack, rushing stories out before checking facts and contacting the subject is hard to comprehend.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017
When we start getting economical with facts, we lose. This important story was mangled by needlessly injected an unsupportable conspiracy.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017
If our most famous journalists are so proud they can"t admit to what is now an obvious error, how can they hope to hold the public trust?
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017
That is the twilight of an age.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017
Still, we do feel badly for the liberal "journalists" of the world...all the embarrassing fake news stories of late means that they may have to actually start doing their jobs rather than just blindly running stories from "anonymous sources."
Director Oliver Stone, who’s recently released series “The Putin Interviews” stirred up controversy among liberals who accused him of being a Russian propagandist, appeared on the Liberty Report with former Texas Congressman Ron Paul to discuss the documentary, his views about former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and why the US’s aggressive approach to containing the purported threat posed by Russia has led to a breakdown in relations between the two powers.
Stone said he’s been “interested” in Russia since being raised as a conservative in New York City, claiming that his father instilled a “fear” of Communism and Russians in him at a young age. In the early 1980s, Stone visited the country for the first time as a screenwriter with the idea of interviewing several dissidents. He has returned several times since. In particular, Stone has become interested in the case of Snowden, whom he praised as “the most American of patriots.”
“I was interested in Russia – I went back into the 2000s. The Snowden story occupied me. And of course, it’s so ironic that he the most American of patriots is living in Moscow because he has to. It’s the only country in the world that would give him asylum - in other words it’s the only country in the word that can deny the US what it wants which is Snowden.”
“[Putin] explained to me that Russians wanted an extradition treaty with the US for years, but nothing doing, because there are a lot of Russian criminals in America who stole money from Russia. He did nothing wrong in Russian terms so they gave him asylum - now its 3 years 5 years whatever its going to be. I wish Ed well I really do.”
Stone tried explaining Putin’s point of view regarding the breakdown in relations between the US and Russia that has occurred since the end of the George W Bush presidency, saying the US’s decision to install new ABM defenses have greatly unsettled Russians, who see their installation as an encroachment.
“We come around now to this period in 2017…for some reason an improving US-Russia relationship deteriorated completely. Mr. Putin in his interview goes into the ABM treaty, he goes into the expansion of NATO and the American support of terrorism in the caucuses while the Russians were helping them in Afghanistan.”
“That’s an important issue for them. Many American lives were saved. I think you talked about those three issues NATO, ABM, the support of terrorism.”
The ABM installations, in particular, are threatening a policy of “nuclear parity” that has existed since the Soviet Union, Stone said, adding that the notion that Russia is a threat to the US is “insanity,” given Russia"s weaker economy and less powerful military.
“ABM destroys the nuclear parity that existed. When Mr. Bush tore that up in 2001, that was a signal that the US wanted nuclear superiority, or a first strike option.”
Stone also shared a story about watching the movie “Dr. Strangelove” with Putin, who he said was greatly moved.
“I showed him the movie Dr. Strangelove…and he watched it very serious about it. He said this movie was very accurate of that time and it’s still accurate today.”
Circling back to the issue of nuclear deterrents, Stone said he’s worried that rising tensions around the world could trigger a “nuclear confrontation.”
“I’m saying I have reached that age when I am not really concerned about what happens to me but… it’s not just about the US, but about the whole planet and I feel a nuclear confrontation, an accident, could happen tomorrow. But you put ABMs in Poland and Romania - that’s a gigantic mistake.”
“An ABM can be converted overnight from a defensive missile to an offensive missile. They’re surrounded from the North the East and the West by US missiles and we don’t seem to realize it.”
Stone says he’s “scared for America,” explaining that many US citizens prefer to blindly accept media spin that’s favorable to the US establishment, without questioning it, or trying to understand Russia’s point of view.
“It’s a good thing I went through JFK when I was younger…there’s been a lot of controversy around my movies. I’m scared not for myself because I’m at that age, they can’t destroy me anymore, but I’m scared for America, I’m afraid they’ve lost their sense. I’m afraid there’s a lack of foresight and leadership.”
Stone denied allegations that he provided questions to Putin ahead of time, and said the four-part documentary is a great opportunity for Americans to learn more about Russia’s enigmatic leader.
“Over four hours you can listen to a man who’s been there 16 years talk about the balance of power. We live in this spin cycle like a laundry every day it’s a crisis and I think that’s the way we like it, it creates more money but this is not a view of the world.”
