Home · News · News Jun 2013 · June 13 2013
Thursday June 13, 2013
News Articles

Edward Snowden: US government has been hacking Hong Kong and China for years
South China Morning Post | Lana Lam | 06/13/13

US whistle-blower Edward Snowden yesterday emerged from hiding in Hong Kong and revealed to the South China Morning Post that he will stay in the city to fight likely attempts by his government to have him extradited for leaking state secrets.

In an exclusive interview carried out from a secret location in the city, the former Central Intelligence Agency analyst also made explosive claims that the US government had been hacking into computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland for years. ... Read more

NSA: Senators Who Back NSA Spying Oppose Gun Background Checks For Infringing Rights
HP | Michael McAuliff | 06/12/13

Just months after many U.S. senators opposed tougher background checks for gun buyers on the grounds that they would tread on Americans' liberties, many of them are standing behind the far more intrusive intelligence-gathering programs of the National Security Agency.

Senators -- mainly Republicans -- argued during the debate after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre that instituting broader background checks would violate the Second Amendment, infringe on privacy, and be the first step toward taking away people's guns. ... Read more

Quote of the Day: Senators: Background Checks Are Bad, But NSA Spying Is Good

NSA Director Says Programs Key to Stopping Attacks
WSJ | Siobhan Hughes | 06/12/13

WASHINGTON--National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said that he would work to try to declassify secret court opinions that make possible the agency's collection of most Americans' phone records, while also defending the government's controversial surveillance programs as critical to stopping terrorist attacks.

"We need to bring as many facts as we can out to the American people," Mr. Alexander told the Senate Appropriations Committee. "We want to tell you what we're doing….but I don't want to jeopardize the security of our country or our allies." ... Read more

NSA surveillance played little role in foiling terror plots, experts say
TheGuardian | Ed Pilkington | 06/12/13

Lawyers and intelligence experts with direct knowledge of two intercepted terrorist plots that the Obama administration says confirm the value of the NSA's vast data-mining activities have questioned whether the surveillance sweeps played a significant role, if any, in foiling the attacks. ... Read more

Earlier Denials Put Intelligence Chief in Awkward Position
NYTimes | Scott Shane | 06/11/13

For years, intelligence officials have tried to debunk what they called a popular myth about the National Security Agency: that its electronic net routinely sweeps up information about millions of Americans. In speeches and Congressional testimony, they have suggested that the agency's immense power is focused exclusively on terrorists and other foreign targets, and that it does not invade Americans' privacy.

But since the disclosures last week showing that the agency does indeed routinely collect data on the phone calls of millions of Americans, Obama administration officials have struggled to explain what now appear to have been misleading past statements. Much of the attention has been focused on testimony by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, to the Senate in March that the N.S.A. was not gathering data on millions of Americans. ... Read more

Bond bubble threatens financial system, Bank of England director warns
TheGuardian | Jill Treanor | 06/12/13

Andy Haldane fears the bursting of 'the biggest bond bubble in history' after electronic money printing exercises by the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve in the US.

A key Bank of England policymaker has warned of the risks to global financial stability when "the biggest bond bubble in history" bursts.   In a wide-ranging testimony to MPs, Andy Haldane, Bank of England director of financial stability, admitted the central bank's new financial policy committee is taking too long to force banks to hold more capital and appeared to criticise the bank's culture under outgoing governor Sir Mervyn King.Haldane told the Treasury select committee that the bursting of the bond bubble -- created by central banks forcing down bond yields by pumping electronic money into the economy - was a risk "I feel acutely right now". ... Read more

RBS resignation of Stephen Hester causes debate to rage
TheGuardian | Jill Treanor | 06/12/13

City surprise at chief executive's exit as politicians are accused of getting 'sticky little paws' on bank's future

The debate about the future of Royal Bank of Scotland was raging on Wednesday night after the surprise resignation of the bailed out bank's chief executive Stephen Hester. His departure is intended to clear the way for what will be one of the biggest ever public sell-offs.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, who opposes a rapid sale of the taxpayer's 81% stake, said the bank needed to focus more lending to small businesses and supporting the economy. ... Read more



*Videos I found Really Realistic
Shadow Company: Private Military Company (2006) [1:25:32]
America`s Secret Soldiers:Special Forces [44:51]
Restrepo [1:33:42]
Movie Trailers
THE EAST: Official Trailer (04/26/13) [1:42]
In THE EAST, Sarah Moss (Brit Marling) is a brilliant operative for an elite private intelligence firm whose top objective is to ruthlessly protect the interests of their A-list corporate clientele. She is assigned to go undercover to infiltrate an anarchist collective known for executing covert attacks upon major corporations. Living amongst them in an effort to get closer to their members, Sarah finds herself unexpectedly torn between two worlds as she starts to fall in love with the group's charismatic leader, finding her life and her priorities irrevocably changed.


DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Thursday, June 13 [13:00]
*DN | Chris Pyle, Whistleblower on CIA Domestic Spying in 70s, Says Be Wary of Attacks on NSA's Critics (06/13/13) [19:33]
DN | A Mexican Migrant's Death Portends Dangers of Harsh "Border Security" in Senate Immigration Bil (06/13/13) [16:44]
Fat, Bald, White Guy - holding onto power
TRNN News
*TRNN | Phyllis Bennis: Will any amount of surveillance make Americans secure when US foreign policy is based on global hegemony? (06/13/13) [8:49]
PBS | Frontline
*PBS Frontline | Syria Behind the Lines (06/11/13) [53:41]
Top Secret America


Military Contractors - Click to zoom
Security Contractors - Click to zoom
MSNBC | Chris Hayes - All In
*Chris Hayes | Plot thickens in real-life spy story unfolding in the news (06/12/13) [14:45]
Chris Hayes | Silicon Valley and the National Security State (06/12/13) [7:50], Part 2 [4:39]
MSNBC | Rachel Maddow
*Rachel Maddow | NSA power augmented by weak Congress (06/12/13) [13:30]
PBS Frontline - Inside the National Security State
"This administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our security," Obama said in a 2007 speech in Washington. "It is not. There are no short cuts to protecting America, and that is why the fifth part of my strategy is doing the hard and patient work to secure a more resilient homeland."

But Obama appeared to change his approach almost as soon as he was elected in 2008. "His people made it clear that in the terrorism arena, he was going to be as tough, if not tougher, than the Bush people," former CIA general counsel John Rizzo told FRONTLINE in June 2011. "He was going to be extraordinarily aggressive."

The following four PBS | Frontline videos help us see inside the NSA's intelligence apparatus.
PBS Frontline | Spying on the Homefront (older) [56:10]
"It is inevitable that totally innocent Americans are going to be affected by these programs," Suzanne Spaulding, a former CIA senior attorney, told Frontline. In this 2007 film, we investigate the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens - and how the NSA started building a secret outpost inside AT&T's San Francisco office.
PBS Frontline | Cheney's Law (older) [56:15]
The NSA program to spy on Americans was so controversial within the Bush administration that it led to a dramatic showdown at the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was suffering from acute pancreatitis. Ashcroft was supposed to reauthorize the program every 45 days, but this time, he refused on the advice of his then-deputy James Comey -- who is now Obama's expected nominee to head the FBI. Find out what happened next in this 2007 film:


PBS Frontline | Top Secret America - from 9/11 to the Boston Bombings (04/13/13) [53:51]
"NSA sucking down information from computer networks, from radios, from telephone calls all over the world, so much information that no human being could ever go through it on a daily basis," he told FRONTLINE. In the full film below, go inside the NSA's intelligence operations at home:
PBS Frontline | A Perfect Terrorist [53:40]
Is the NSA eavesdropping worth it? Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the program has helped the U.S. foil terror plots, as well as aided in the capture of David Coleman Headley, a onetime U.S. government informant who helped to plot the 2008 attack on Mumbai. In this 2011 film, FRONTLINE and ProPublica tracked Headley's strange path from informant to terrorist.

06.13.2013. 11:11



Special Interest Important stuff
GOOD Shorts Videos

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GOOD Short Videos
Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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Newer Documentaries
Documentaries You've Never Seen

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Documentaries (small | pop-up)
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Good YouTube Documentaries

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Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the quiet part aloud on why he’s still so close to former President Donald Trump: because we can use him for our goals. "President Trump has gotten people who wouldn't give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe he is on their side," the senator told the America First Agenda Summit crowd on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

AIArtificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals including humans. AI research has been defined as the field of study of intelligent agents, which refers to any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

The term "artificial intelligence" had previously been used to describe machines that mimic and display "human" cognitive skills that are associated with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem-solving". This definition has since been rejected by major AI researchers who now describe AI in terms of rationality and acting rationally, which does not limit how intelligence can be articulated.
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Quantum mechanics | AI - Artificial Intelligence
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.  It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York-based financial interests.

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis,.

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Jay explore Ellsberg's latest book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. In the introduction to the book, Ellsberg writes: "No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted over a half a century is a chronicle of human madness".

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Nukes
Nukes

Nuclear weapons have come a long way and come in all types of different sizes. Some are relatively small while others are enormous, so big they boggle the mind at what they can be capable of, i.e. the Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' is/was 3,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

Ms. Foroohar says financialization delivers stagnant wages, inequality and economic crisis; the Financial Times columnist and author of "Makers and Takers" says the financial sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. economy, but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.

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The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

A report written by a Georgetown University team led by Phillip Karber conducted a three-year study to map out China’s complex tunnel system, which stretches 5,000 km (3,000 miles). The report determined that the stated Chinese nuclear arsenal is understated and as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads may be stored in the underground tunnel network.

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911
911

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists attacked the Unites States. They hijacked four airplanes in mid-flight. The terrorists flew two of the planes into two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact caused the buildings to catch fire and collapse. Another plane destroyed part of the Pentagon (the U.S. military headquarters) in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Officials believe that the terrorists on that plane intended to destroy either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Passengers on the plane fought the terrorists and prevented them from reaching their goal. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides--Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, and secret audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? VICE News' "Trump Talk" mashup series tries to answer that. And, we're happy to say, it was just nominated for two Webby Awards. Now you can watch all the nominated videos.

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

Jessica Leeds (1980s)
Kristin Anderson (1990s)
E. Jean Carroll (1995 or 1996)
Lisa Boyne (1996)
Cathy Heller (1997)
Temple Taggart McDowell (1997)
Karena Virginia (1998)
Mindy McGillivray (2003)
Jennifer Murphy (2005)
Rachel Crooks (2005)
Natasha Stoynoff (2005)
Juliet Huddy (2005 or 2006)
Jessica Drake (2006)
Ninni Laaksonen (2006)
Cassandra Searles (2013)
Allegations of pageant dressing room visits(1997)
Mariah Billado,
Victoria Hughes,
and three other Miss Teen USA contestants
Bridget Sullivan (2000)
Tasha Dixon (2001)
Unnamed contestants (2001)
Samantha Holvey (2006)

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? Watch Trump at some of his rallys and see what you think.

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