Link du jour
https://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/t ... e-zwicker/Bonus read
“Snowden Effect” in Action: NSA Authority to Collect Bulk Phone
Metadata Expires
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/28/sno ... a-expires/Nov. 28 2015, 6:14 p.m.
The National Security Agency no longer has legal authority to collect
phone metadata in bulk as of midnight, Saturday, November 28. The
executive branch previously claimed the government possessed such
authority under Section 215 of 2001’s USA PATRIOT Act, which gave the
FBI power to demand “any tangible things” needed “for an investigation
to obtain foreign intelligence information.” The FBI was thus able to
obtain the phone records of millions of Americans from U.S.
telecommunications companies and turn them over to the NSA.
The USA FREEDOM Act, signed into law on June 2 earlier this year, gave
the executive branch 180 days to wind down the bulk collection
program. According to the Tumblr of the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, the government is “prohibited from collecting
telephone metadata records in bulk” starting November 29. The
executive branch will now be able to obtain phone metadata by asking
the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to order
telecommunications companies to turn over specific records.
The end of the bulk collection program is a modest but real victory
for former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who
provided documents concerning the program to Laura Poitras and Glenn
Greenwald, co-founding editors of The Intercept. The first article by
Greenwald based on the documents leaked by Snowden, published on June
6, 2013, was about the bulk collection
1.
http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/11/27/the-ci ... ld-part-6/The CIA, Mafia, Mexico — and Oswald, Part 6
David Atlee Phillips. Photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from Shane
McBryde / YouTube.
David Atlee Phillips. Photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from Shane
McBryde / YouTube.
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the United
States lost more than its president. It lost its innocence. The
subsequent investigations into the young president’s killing raised
more questions than they answered — and caused Americans to lose faith
in their government. Indeed, for many people in the US and across the
world, the assassination marked the point at which their fundamental
perceptions changed.
Just after the Warren Commission released its report on the
assassination, the level of public trust in government was at 77
percent. A decade later it had plummeted to less than half that (36
percent).
Kennedy’s death and the circumstances surrounding it gave birth to a
movement. This movement, composed of all kinds of people, is dedicated
to investigating the story behind the story, to exposing the power
networks hidden beneath surface events. These machinations have been
dubbed “Deep Politics.” Those who study it believe there is much more
to national and world events than what the public is told by
government officials and evening newscasters — and, as you will see,
Peter Dale Scott proves it.
On the occasion of the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination,
WhoWhatWhy is pleased to present excerpts from Chapter 2 of Scott’s
latest work – Dallas ’63: The First Deep State Revolt Against the
White House by Peter Dale Scott (Open Road Media, September, 2015).
For Part 1, please go here; Part 2 go here; Part 3 go here; Part 4 go
here; Part 5 go here.
The Sources of the Stories and the ZR/RIFLE Assassination Project
In the pages to follow, I shall show how Staff D, the small CIA unit
responsible for SIGINT (signals intelligence), and thus for electronic
intercept operations, was also the unit which housed the CIA’s
ZR/RIFLE assassination project. The Mexican DFS, which supplied the
raw intercept data to the CIA in Mexico City, also overlapped in many
ways with the Cubans and organized crime personnel picked for the
CIA-Mafia anti-Castro assassination plots.[163]
It is possible that the special circumstances in Mexico City explain
why the CIA’s generic assassination project, ZR/RIFLE, was housed
within the Staff D’s intercept operations. (“ZR” normally prefixed the
cryptonym for a intercept program.) In his hunt for killers, ZR/RIFLE
chief William Harvey searched for individuals with criminal
connections.[164] The Mexico City intercept operation against the
Soviet Embassy was by far the largest and most important CIA intercept
program anywhere in the world.[165]
And the DFS, the local intelligence service on which the CIA relied to
man its listening posts, was probably the intelligence service with
the profoundest links to the international drug traffic and to
American organized crime.
Morales was a CIA officer and killer who “was well known as the
Agency’s top assassin in Latin America.” He also openly described
Kennedy’s conduct during the Bay of Pigs operation as “traición
(betrayal).” According to a friend, Morales once ended an anti-Kennedy
tirade with the words, “Well, we took care of that son of a bitch,
didn’t we?”
For example, the brother-in-law of Luis Echeverría Alvarez, in 1963
the main liaison between Win Scott
2
Walmart Recruited FBI and Lockheed Intelligence Unit for Surveillance
of Employee Union Activity
Friday, November 27, 2015
http://www.allgov.com/news/controversie ... ews=857944When workers at Walmart tried to unionize two years ago, company
executives turned to a defense contractor and the FBI to keep track of
labor organizers and supporters.
Using documents obtained from the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB), Bloomberg Businessweek reported the retail giant launched a
surveillance campaign targeting OUR Walmart, which organized protests
in 2013 against the company.
Walmart leadership was so concerned about the union activity that “it
hired an intelligence-gathering service from Lockheed Martin,
contacted the FBI, staffed up its labor hotline, ranked stores by
labor activity, and kept eyes on employees (and activists) prominent
in the group” Susan Berfield reported for Bloomberg Businessweek.
“We are fighting for all workers to be paid a fair wage and enough
hours to put food on the table and provide for our families,” Mary Pat
Tifft, a Wisconsin Walmart employee of 27 years, said, according to
Common Dreams. “To think that Walmart found us such a threat that they
would hire a defense contractor and engage the FBI is a mind-blowing
abuse of power.”
The media investigation into Walmart revealed that inside its global
security operation is an Analytical Research Center (ARC), led by a
former FBI officer, Ken Senser. And overseeing ARC is an executive,
Steve Dozier, who used to run the Arkansas State Police. Walmart is
headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas.
ARC also took action the year before in 2012 when labor activists
talked about organizing strikes on Black Friday that year, which could
have hurt sales on one of the biggest shopping days of the year. “When
we received word of potential strikes and disruptive activity on Black
Friday 2012, that’s when we started to ask the ARC to work with us,”
Karen Casey, who was in charge of Walmart’s U.S. labor relations, told
the NLRB. “ARC had contracted with Lockheed leading up to Black Friday
to help source open social media sites.”
Additionally, a Lockheed analyst, Christian Blandford, monitored the
social media of activists in Bentonville before Walmart’s shareholder
meeting two years ago.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
How Walmart Keeps an Eye on Its Massive Workforce (by Susan Berfield,
Bloomberg)
‘Mind-Blowing Abuse of Power’: Walmart Spied on Workers with FBI,
Lockheed Martin's Help (by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams)
Labor Board Charges Wal-Mart with Illegally Firing and Punishing
Employees (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Largest Dutch Pension Fund Pulls Investments in Walmart over Poor
Labor Practices (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov).
3.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/co ... 43183.htmlHow J Edgar Hoover got Larkin deported from US
Future FBI chief fabricated evidence to oust 'Big Jim' the agitator,
writes Emmet O'Connor
Emmet O'Connor
Published
29/11/2015 | 02:30
S
HERO’S WELCOME: Jim Larkin (centre) cuts a dour figure as he is
greeted by supporters on his return from America
1
HERO’S WELCOME: Jim Larkin (centre) cuts a dour figure as he is
greeted by supporters on his return from America
When we think of James Larkin, what probably comes to mind is the 1913
Lockout or the iconic statue on Dublin's O'Connell Street of 'Big Jim'
with arms aloft in the middle of one of his famous orations. We are
unlikely to consider - or perhaps we are even unaware of - the
considerable time he spent in the United States.
That Larkin's experience should intersect with the infamous figure of
J Edgar Hoover, who would later head the FBI, is something one would
never expect - but it did happen in 1923 when Hoover colluded in the
fabrication of evidence to achieve Larkin's deportation.
Crushed by the Lockout, Larkin had gone to the US in October 1914,
hoping to develop a new career as a globe-trotting agitator. In 1918
his James Connolly club in New York's Greenwich Village became the hub
of a campaign to turn the Socialist Party of America into a communist
party. Among his confederates was Jack Reed, just back from Russia and
soon to be the author of a celebrated account of the Bolshevik
revolution, Ten Days That Shook The World. When the red scare of 1919
led to arrests, Larkin was seen as one of the biggest fish in the net.
Hoover took a keen interest in his case. All this radicalism, he
thought, was due to foreign malcontents and the answer was
deportation. Even after Larkin was gaoled in 1920, Hoover complained
to the New York State Attorney that he was carrying out propaganda
work from prison.
Worse followed for Hoover. Imprisonment won Larkin worldwide sympathy
as a man punished for his beliefs rather than anything he said or did.
One of his many famous prison visitors was Charlie Chaplin. Jim's
brother, Pete, was invited to Hollywood to speak to stars like Charles
Ray and Milton Stills. Chaplin sent presents to Jim's wife, Elizabeth,
and her children in Dublin.
In January 1923, Al Smith, New York's first Irish-American governor,
was persuaded that Larkin was a political prisoner and had him
released from Sing Sing with a free pardon. Hoover immediately set
about preparing a case for deportation in collaboration with William J
Burns, Director of the Bureau of Investigation, later the FBI. The
problem was there was no evidence Larkin had advocated violence. Burns
collated reports from field offices and found that "certain statements
are quoted and attributed to Larkin but copies of the reports in which
the statements appear cannot be located".
On January 23, 1923, he wrote to his New York 'Special Agent in
Charge' asking if quotes attributed to Larkin at a meeting in the Odd
Fellows Hall, New York, in 1919 could be proven. Despite a negative
reply, Hoover offered to draft a deportation case for the Department
of Labor. To seal the case, Burns supplied the missing evidence,
alleging that at the Odd Fellows Hall, New York City, on February 16,
1919, Larkin appealed for money, using such slogans as 'Every Dollar
Kills the Capitalist'. This was hardly the required smoking gun, but
Burns told the Department of Labor: "... it is very evident that James
Larkin is a person who fully comes within the provisions of the
immigration law providing for deportation of an alien who advocates
the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force or
violence. It would be very desirable to effect his deportation at an
early date…"
A deportation warrant was issued on April 18.
Larkin was arrested on April 19, taken to Ellis Island and deported.
On Monday, April 30, he landed at Dun Laoghaire where his sister and
40 supporters greeted him. A few hours later, a crowd of 4,000
followed him to Liberty Hall. Home was the hero.
4.
http://www.41nbc.com/story/d/story/burg ... XmDQSk0WNQBurger King manager: Police erased video of Chicago shooting
11/28/2015 08:05 PM
11/28/2015 08:07 PM
CHICAGO (AP) — A Burger King manager who accuses Chicago police of
erasing surveillance video in the case of a black teenager shot last
year by a white officer says he has testified before a federal grand
jury investigating the shooting.
Jay Darshane tells the Chicago Tribune that the FBI also took the
restaurant video recorder containing all of its surveillance images.
Federal prosecutors said this week that their investigation is
continuing, but would not comment further.
Under a judge's order, the city released police squad car video
showing the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Cook County
prosecutors also announced this week that the officer has been charged
with first-degree murder.