Inside the World of Cambridge Analytica

[seemslikeadream]

Cambridge Analytica’s parent company was until recently owned by a British-Iranian businessman with ties to Putin-linked Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash who is wanted for bribery by the U.S. and was allegedly involved in a racketeering scheme with Paul Manafort.

READ. THIS. THREAD.

Steve Parks
‏
Once again the @frontlineclub is packed with journalists, @Byline_Media folk, and TV cameras for the latest revelations in the Cambridge Analytica / Trump / Brexit saga from two whistleblowers.


Follow this thread for live-tweeting coverage, and forgive my typos...

https://twitter.com/steveparks/status/9 ... 6508717057

Polly Sigh

NEW: Cambridge Analytica always denied ties to LeaveEU/AIQ but Rober Mercer & Bannon were pulling the strings for Brexit to install a populist movement in the UK, creating a culture war & using that to tip America. -@chrisinsilico

Emergency debate tomorrow in parliament grant re Vote Leave. But fresh evidence has emerged tonight re AIQ & Cambridge Analytica. The Electoral Commission cannot handle this. A public inquiry must now be a real possibility.

Vote Leave members 'may have committed criminal offences'

MPs to debate claims that official Brexit campaign colluded to breach spending limits

Carole Cadwalladr
Last modified on Mon 26 Mar 2018 17.00 EDT

Members of the official Brexit campaign during the EU referendum may have committed criminal offences relating to overspending and collusion, according to lawyers advising whistleblowers who worked inside the organisation.

Clare Montgomery and Helen Mountfield, barristers from Matrix chambers, concluded in a formal opinion that there was a “prima facie case” that Vote Leave submitted an inaccurate spending return and colluded with BeLeave, which was aimed at students.

They were reviewing a dossier of evidence supplied by solicitors Bindmans, which contained examples of alleged collusion showing that Vote Leave and BeLeave were not separate and therefore that the leave campaign spent over the £7m legal limit set by the Electoral Commission.

MPs will debate the allegations in the Commons on Tuesday, after the Lib Dems secured an emergency debate. The dossier has also been passed to the Electoral Commission, which is responsible for election law.

Tamsin Allen, from Bindmans, told a press conference “that there is a strong suspicion that the campaigns were very closely linked and co-ordinated, in which case it may be that Vote Leave spent huge sums unlawfully and its declaration of expenses is incorrect”.

Vote Leave formally declared it had spent £6.77m during the campaign in the summer of 2016, well below the £7m limit. That figure, however, excluded £625,000 donated by Vote Leave to BeLeave which was spent on the same digital marketing company, AggregateIQ, that Vote Leave used.

Vote Leave, whose leading members include Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, strongly denies any coordination with another campaign group during the referendum.

But Allen said there were grounds to suspect Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave’s campaign director, “of having conspired to break the law” because he was among those engaged in discussions with BeLeave about their organisation, activity and funding.

Emails compiled by Bindmans appear to show that Vote Leave assisted in the creation of BeLeave’s branding and that there was constant communication between to the two groups, who were based in the same office. They suggest that they used a single shared drive where campaign materials were shared.

Bindmans’ dossier was largely based on evidence supplied by Shahmir Sanni, a volunteer who worked at both Vote Leave and BeLeave, with supporting evidence from Christopher Wylie, a former employee of the political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica who worked on the Trump election campaign and who had worked for AggregateIQ.


The Brexit whistleblower: 'Not cheating is the core of what it means to be British' – video
A Facebook chat records Sanni discussing with the BeLeave founder, Darren Grimes, how they might set up independently in May 2016. “We could just say that you and I will be handling the money and using our social media data (alongside VL data) to decide where best to spend our money,” Sanni wrote.

Wylie said that an employee of AggregateIQ had told him the relationship between Vote Leave and BeLeave was “totally illegal” because “you are not allowed to coordinate between different campaigns and not declare it”. He said “I don’t feel confident in the result [of the referendum]” as a result.

The lawyers said there were also “grounds to investigate” Stephen Parkinson, Vote Leave’s national organiser, who now works as Theresa May’s special adviser and Cleo Watson, who was Vote Leave’s head of outreach and also now works at No 10. Parkinson and Watson have denied any wrongdoing.

Montgomery and Mountfield said in their opinion that there were “significant questions” about the role of a senior Vote Leave official who appeared to have removed references to themself and others in discussions with BeLeave after the referendum by appearing “to change permissions on a BeLeave shared drive in March 2017 while an EC [Electoral Commission] investigation into Vote Leave was under way”. This revoked permission for the official, Cummings and a third person from having access to BeLeave materials.

Separately, it emerged that AggregateIQ has worked in the United States developing software for Cambridge Analytica, which has been accused of benefiting from the harvesting of 50m Facebook profiles to use in political targeting. The little-known AggregateIQ helped develop software used by senator Ted Cruz in his failed presidential bid, Gizmodo reported, cited coding documents found online. Previously the only links noted were a licensing agreement and Wylie’s claim that he helped set up AggregateIQ.

Cummings wrote in a blogpost before the press conference that “a team will also be putting in formal complaints to the EC and ICO [Information Commissioner’s Office] about the illegal conduct of the remain campaign”. He has previously argued that Stronger In also took advantage of loopholes to reduce the expenditure against its £7m limit.

Vote Leave has repeatedly denied it coordinated its activities with BeLeave. Venner Shipley, Vote Leave’s lawyers, said: “We have never been instructed by, nor have we ever provided advice to BeLeave.”

The allegations have all been denied by Vote Leave and its former officials, who reject all accusations of wrongdoing.

The Electoral Commission has already assessed the issue twice and found in favour of Vote Leave on both occasions. But a judicial review launched by the Good Law Project in November led to the commission re-opening an investigation into the donation which is yet to report its findings.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... are_btn_tw

Did Trump campaign and John Bolton PAC get help from overseas?

Bolton super PAC linked to Cambridge Analytica

Fred Wertheimer is the founder and president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to promote government accountability and integrity. Former Ambassador Norman L. Eisen, a CNN contributor, is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and served as President Obama's "Ethics Czar" from 2009-11. The opinions expressed in this commentary are theirs.

(CNN)Recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica raise serious questions about whether President Donald Trump's campaign received illegal support from a foreign national. These same questions also exist regarding John Bolton and his super PAC. These matters need to be investigated by the Department of Justice, including special counsel Robert Mueller, as well as by the Federal Election Commission.

Both the Trump campaign and the Bolton Super PAC retained the services of Cambridge Analytica, a data research firm headed by CEO Alexander Nix, a British citizen. The Trump campaign reportedly paid nearly $6 million to Cambridge Analytica over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign, and the Bolton Super PAC reportedly paid Cambridge Analytica $1.1 million since 2014.
Fred Wertheimer
Norman Eisen
According to a New York Times report, in July of that year, an election lawyer for Bracewell & Giuliani advising Cambridge Analytica warned that Nix had to recuse himself and could not be involved in any "substantive management" of any of their clients participating in American elections. The memo from the lawyer also warned about the involvement of other foreign nationals in significant campaign activities. The warning was sent to Nix, then Cambridge Analytica vice president, board member Steve Bannon and board member Rebekah Mercer. (Bannon stepped down from the company in 2016 when he left to work on the Trump campaign.)
Federal law prohibits a foreign national from participating in American elections. An FEC regulation implementing the law says a foreign national shall not "directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of" a political committee with regard to the political committee's "election-related activities."
A report by Channel 4 News in the United Kingdom revealed Nix boasting that he was an integral part of Trump's victory. The report quoted Nix saying, "We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign, and our data informed all the strategy."
Cambridge Analytica denies Nix was ever in charge of US campaign-related activities and Nix has since been suspended from his job. And former Trump campaign officials said they never relied on Cambridge for voter targeting or persuasion, and that Nix's comments were "an overblown sales pitch."
The law is still three steps behind Facebook
But if Nix is telling the truth, his work for Trump and his campaign failed to comply with federal law and with the lawyer's advice to Cambridge Analytica that as a foreign citizen Nix could not be involved in managing "the work and decision-making functions, relative to campaign messaging and expenditures."

Thus, it appears the Trump campaign may have received substantial support from a foreign national. Furthermore, the Trump campaign either knew or should have known that receiving such support could be illegal.

The Trump campaign is not the only entity put on the spot by Nix's revelations. John Bolton and the John Bolton Super PAC also may have received similar illegal foreign support from Nix.

According to another New York Times report, Bolton's super PAC was one of the earliest clients of Cambridge Analytica, "which it hired specifically to develop psychological profiles of voters with data harvested from tens of millions of Facebook profiles, according to former Cambridge employees and company documents." According to the report, the relationship between Cambridge and the Bolton PAC grew so close "that the firm was writing up talking points for Mr. Bolton."
Cambridge Analytica brags about weaponizing 'Crooked Hillary' slogan
A Justice Department investigation must determine whether the John Bolton Super PAC received similar kinds of assistance as it appears the Trump campaign may have -- and if so, whether Bolton knew or should have known that federal law was being violated.

Bolton, through a spokesperson, denies wrongdoing or knowledge of it and a spokesman for the Bolton Super PAC said it "was completely unaware of anything Cambridge Analytica did until recent press reports." And Cambridge Analytica has said the company "adheres to FEC regulations" and that "all CA personnel in strategic roles were US nationals or green card holders and these strategic roles provided all direction to non-strategic personnel."
But general denials won't cut it here.

Bolton needs to answer specific questions, including about his personal knowledge. Did he ever meet with Nix? If so, did Nix ever make any statements to him of the kind revealed on camera last week? Did others at Cambridge Analytica make statements that suggested any foreign guidance of Cambridge's work for the Bolton Super PAC? Was that suggested by the source or content of the materials Bolton received from Cambridge? Did anyone else involved with Cambridge, such as Bannon or the Mercer family, make problematic disclosures to Bolton? (The Mercer family was heavily involved with the Bolton Super PAC in addition to their role in Cambridge Analytica. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Robert Mercer donated $5 million to the super PAC between April 2014 and September 2016.)
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower on Bolton super PAC
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower on Bolton super PAC 09:49
Former Cambridge Analytica employees told the Washington Post that, in 2014, it "assigned dozens of non-U.S. citizens to provide campaign strategy and messaging advice to Republican candidates." We also know that Cambridge Analytica did extensive work for the Bolton Super PAC during that same period, separate from those Republican candidates. This raises the question of whether similar staffing was provided to the Bolton Super PAC and to Bolton -- and whether Bolton or anyone else at his super PAC saw any indications of this.
During the 2013-2014 election cycle, the Bolton Super PAC reported paying $341,025 to Cambridge. The super PAC also reported $3 million in independent expenditures to support Republican Senate and House candidates.
If Bolton knew or should have known that his super PAC received illegal foreign support, that is highly relevant to the new position he will assume next month as national security adviser. One of us (Eisen) has helped vet candidates for this precise position and hundreds of other national security positions. Even benign relationships with foreign nationals are the subject of personnel scrutiny.

If an appointee has benefited from illegal foreign support, this creates the risk of more revelations that could worsen that person's exposure. All of that is, of course, not just relevant to personnel vetting, but to obtaining a security clearance -- even an interim one of the kind this administration is known for.

Moreover, whatever answers Bolton gives, DOJ and special counsel Mueller in particular, should also consider examining the issues regarding the Bolton Super PAC and Cambridge Analytica. Mueller is already examining the connections between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica, as well as foreign interference more generally in the 2016 election. While Russia has been his focus, Mueller has been given broad latitude to pursue matters related to his existing review.
Since he is already looking at the Trump-Cambridge relationship, he could easily take on the Bolton-Cambridge relationship as well. The facts may overlap, and so may the campaign finance legal issues. Consolidating the matter also makes sense as a matter of efficiency within DOJ.

Outside that body, the FEC has its own separate, independent jurisdiction and should also conduct a review. Because of the notorious dysfunction of that agency, however, we cannot accept the possibility of an FEC investigation alone as a substitute for DOJ's work.
Having both agencies investigate these serious issues is essential to ensuring that foreign interests are not allowed to intrude upon American elections.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/opinions ... 54PMVODtop

From their digital headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, the Trump campaign placed between 70,000-175,000 different pieces of content on Facebook every day specifically targeting profiles provided from Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica’s parent company was until recently owned by a British-Iranian businessman with ties to Putin-linked Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash who is wanted for bribery by the U.S. and was allegedly involved in a racketeering scheme with Paul Manafort.

More importantly, the way Cambridge Analytica gained access to some 30 million Facebook accounts without users’ consent, along with private voting records, raises serious privacy concerns.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40854&p=651489&hilit=DMITRY+FIRTASH#p651489

The case also potentially affects the interests of another Ukrainian oligarch, Dmitry Firtash, now in exile in Austria awaiting possible extradition to the US on corruption charges that he has described as trumped up. His company, Group DF, is owed $300m by Raga, according to Mr Gorbunenko, after having partially financed the initial privatisation of Ukrtelecom in 2011.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&p=649341&hilit=DMITRY+FIRTASH#p649341

For his mastery of political campaigning, Manafort was dubbed a “mythical figure” in the Ukrainian press, and the country’s powerbrokers still give him much of the credit for turning the pro-Russian party around. “I can tell you he’s a real specialist,” says Manafort’s friend Dmitry Firtash, the Ukrainian billionaire and former partner to the Kremlin in the European gas trade. “He won three elections in Ukraine. He knew what he was doing.”
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&p=646464&hilit=DMITRY+FIRTASH#p646464

Jared Kushner's parents were friends with Netanyahu. He has forged an alliance with Putin.
His Chief Strategist is Steve Bannon. Bannon is the CEO of Breitbart, with the Mercer family having majority ownership. The Mercers, along with Bannon are heavily involved in Cambridge Analytica a data gathering firm. Cambridge Analytica’s parent company is SCL Group, which lists Dmitry Firtash as a board member. Breitbart and Bannon have extensive ties to the far right movement in Europe which is also funded by Putin.
His second campaign manager was Paul Manafort. He had to resign in August due to having questionable Russian ties like Dmitry Firtash and the former Ukrainian President. Manafort lives in Trump tower, along with Kellyanne Conway and her husband.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=640125&hilit=DMITRY+FIRTASH#p640125

Married to the Ukrainian Mob

Meet Dmytro Firtash, the shady billionaire at the heart of Russia’s energy stranglehold over Kiev.

Buried in the news of Russia’s invasion, and now annexation, of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea was the second most important event to affect the new Ukrainian government last week — and it happened in Austria. On the evening of March 12, one of the most notorious Ukrainian oligarchs, Dmytro Firtash, whose fortune has been estimated at anywhere from $673 million to the tens of billions, was arrested in Vienna, right outside of one of his offices in the Margareten district. Neither he nor his bodyguards put up a struggle, according to press reports, although Group DF, the massive international holding company Firtash owns, has said in a statement that the whole thing was a "misunderstanding" which would be "resolved in the very near term."
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=638086&hilit=DMITRY+FIRTASH#p638086

Manafort's co-defendants were Dmitry Firtash, a Ukranian gas executive under federal indictment for bribery, and Semyon Mogelivich, identified by the Justice Department as head of a transnational criminal organization that posed a threat to U.S. national security. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2015 because Tymoshenko was unable to show the role of each defendant in the alleged money-laundering plot
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=634648&hilit=DMITRY+FIRTASH#p634648

Austria grants US request to extradite Ukrainian mogul Dmytro Firtash
Vienna court overturns previous decision to reject extradition on grounds it was politically motivated
Tuesday 21 February 2017 08.55 EST
An Austrian court has granted a US request to extradite Ukrainian mogul Dmytro Firtash over bribery allegations.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=631734&hilit=DMITRY+FIRTASH#p631734

[seemslikeadream]

Common Cause filed legal complaints w/ FEC & DOJ against Cambridge Analytica & among others, Nix & whistleblower chrisinsilico for repeatedly violating US election law, citing Giuliani law firm warning letter to Rebekah Mercer, Bannon, & Nix.




‘EU referendum could have had different result if
it wasn’t for cheating’
-Tomorrow’s Guardian

This Sept. 2016 report describes the NRA's plan to spend $15 million on ads "to defeat Hillary Clinton in key states."

The campaign was called "Trigger the Vote."

Guess who was behind the campaign? Cambridge Analytica.

NRA to spend $15m on ads to defeat Hillary Clinton in key states

Peter StoneLast modified on Fri 9 Feb 2018 14.07 EST
The pro-gun lobbyists’ fear of a Clinton presidency – and a liberal supreme court – has outweighed any unease about Donald Trump’s prior support for gun control

To boost Donald Trump’s prospects of becoming president, the National Rifle Association is poised to pour more than $15m into ads in several battleground states to defeat Hillary Clinton, the most vocal pro-gun-control presidential candidate in years, according to an NRA board member.

The NRA has already plowed almost $6.5m into TV spots in several key states bashing Clinton and one NRA board member told the Guardian that the pro-gun goliath will spend “multiples” of that figure by election day on the presidential contest.

Next week, the NRA is slated to launch another seven-figure round of TV ads in Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Last month, the NRA made a $3m ad buy in these states that branded Clinton as a “hypocrite” for accepting secret service protection, while calling for more gun control, which the ad charged “would leave you defenseless”. An earlier NRA ad buy attacked Clinton on Benghazi.

In 2012, the NRA spent $15m in the hope of making Barack Obama a one-term president, and this year’s spending to defeat Clinton is expected to surpass that sum, according to the board member and another NRA source.

The five million-member NRA’s embrace of Trump, who once backed more gun control measures, has been spurred in part by its intense fear of a Clinton presidency.

Democrats running for president have traditionally shown “trepidation” about calling for more gun control, notes Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union. But this year, Schlapp told the Guardian, “the NRA and gun enthusiasts are faced with the specter of a Democrat running for the White House embracing additional gun control”.

The NRA disdains Clinton’s advocacy of moderate gun control measures –including expanding background checks on gun purchases and reinstating a ban on assault weapons to curb mass shootings – but is fearful that she would nominate supreme court justices who do not concur with the NRA’s staunch opposition to new gun controls.

“This race is probably more about the supreme court than anything else from the NRA’s perspective,” said the NRA board member.

The supreme court stakes are high: the vacancy created by the death of conservative Antonin Scalia is likely to remain open until the next president takes office. And the NRA is especially concerned that a more liberal court might overturn an earlier supreme court decision, known as Heller, which established an individual’s right to keep a handgun in the house for self-defense.

Significantly, the NRA’s endorsement of Trump in May at its annual convention came earlier than usual: Mitt Romney and John McCain had to wait until October in 2012 and 2008 to get the NRA’s blessing.

The NRA’s commitment to Trump was underscored when Chris Cox, the NRA’s top lobbyist gave a primetime speech at the GOP convention this summer, a first for the increasingly GOP-oriented pro-gun lobbying behemoth. A senior GOP operative noted that historically the NRA “tries to stay assiduously non-partisan. The dynamics of speaking at a convention are a little dicey.”

The NRA’s big campaign blitz has been partly fueled by an aggressive fundraising operation which in recent years has targeted mega-donors. In 2014, for instance, the NRA received $4.9m from Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the financial hub of the conservative advocacy network backed by the billionaire Koch brothers. The NRA is hoping to pull in another seven-figure grant this year, say two NRA sources, although nothing has come in yet and the Koch network itself is not focusing on the presidential race and Trump has been sharply criticized by Charles Koch.

The NRA’s entree to the Koch world stems in part from bonds that the gun group’s top officials have forged. One donor who goes to the twice-a-year policy and fundraising retreats hosted by the Koch network, told the Guardian that the NRA’s top executive, Wayne LaPierre, has attended them on a couple of occasions, affording him a chance to pitch and schmooze with big network donors such as investor Foster Friess.

Another key big-money link involves the hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer, who has given a pro-Trump Super Pac at least $2m, and is also a lifetime NRA member and a Koch network donor. This year Cambridge Analytica, a voter data firm in which Mercer is a key investor, has worked with the Herald Group, a DC-based consulting firm, to implement the NRA’s “Trigger the Vote” drive to register new voters and get them to the polls. i360, a big voter data firm that is closely tied to the Koch donor network, has also been involved in the Trigger the Vote campaign.

The pro-Trump blitz comes despite the real estate mogul’s earlier backing for a ban on assault weapons and longer waiting periods for background checks with gun purchases, ideas that the NRA has rejected. But Trump’s high-decibel anti-gun-control rhetoric this year seems to have ingratiated him with the NRA brass, and coupled with the strong pro-gun records of Trump’s two sons, proved instrumental in winning the NRA’s backing.

Trump and the NRA parted ways briefly earlier this year, when Trump responded to the Orlando massacre by suggesting that if the nightclub where it took place had allowed its guests to bring in arms, then the killings could have been averted. The NRA quickly shot back to distance itself from Trump: speaking to an ABC news show, the group’s top lobbyist, Cox, said that Trump’s calls for arming people in clubs “defies common sense. It also defies the law.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... are_btn_tw

[seemslikeadream]

MERCER is connected to PUTIN protégé Dmitry FIRTASH

ROBERT MERCER — MONEY LAUNDERER FOR VLADIMIR PUTIN
Renaissance Technologies (RENTEC) is the second largest hedge fund in the US, managing $45 billion in assets. It has a reputation for being the most successful hedge fund in history, for using quantitative trading strategies designed by top scientists, and for being extremely secretive.
Publicly available information on RENTEC implies that the firm is a massive money laundering tool disguised as a hedge fund, operating on behalf of Vladimir PUTIN.

BACKGROUND

Money laundering involves a transaction where illicit money is spent by one party, producing a seemingly legitimate profit for another party. Ostensibly the two parties are unrelated, but in reality, both parties are closely connected.
The money laundering process can be summarized in three steps:

• SOURCE Secure illegally sourced funds.

• TRANSACT Illegal money is used in a transaction, resulting in profits for another party.

• COVER UP The true nature of the transaction is visible only to insiders.
Evidence suggests money laundering via financial markets works like this:

• SOURCE Criminal organization invests in a hedge fund (Fund A) operating in a market with a high degree of corruption (for example Russia).

• TRANSACT On behalf of Fund A, an international bank purchases a security in the corrupted market. The bank then sells(i.e. shorts) the same security in a second developed market (for example the UK), and forwards the proceeds to Fund B. Both funds are owned by the same criminal organization.

• COVER UP The nature of the transactions are obfuscated with advanced financial techniques and the inner workings of the fund are kept secret.

A significant degree of sophistication is required to launder money in plain sight via financial markets. Due to this sophistication, it’s unlikely direct evidence will come to light without access to internal records. However, by using other cases as a guide, the following mosaic of indirect evidence will likely be found:
• SOURCE Key people are connected to criminal organizations via one or more intermediaries.

• TRANSACT An abnormally high rate of return that allows significant amounts of money to be laundered in a short amount of time. Evidence of buying and selling the same securities in different markets.

• COVER UP History of using financial engineering to hide the nature of transactions and a reputation for extreme secrecy.

SOURCE

Russia is controlled by a vast organization comprised of the intelligence services, organized crime and big business. This organization is led by Vladimir PUTIN and control is maintained through corruption, blackmail and assassination. (1)

Because of the high degree of control PUTIN has over Russian centers of power, all Russians in positions of influence should be assumed to have at least PUTIN’s blessing. Any persons significantly connected with these Russians are likely contributing to PUTIN’s goals either witting or otherwise.
Robert MERCER is co-CEO of RENTEC. MERCER is the largest financial backer of Donald TRUMP’s presidential campaign, and an influential funder of Republicans and conservatives causes including Citizens United. (2)

MERCER invested in data science firm CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA. MERCER insisted TRUMP campaign hire CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA to design its social media strategy. Through CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA and its owner Vincent TCHENGUIZ, MERCER is connected to PUTIN protégé Dmitry FIRTASH and Russian Intelligence Services (RIS). (3, 4)

March 2017 MERCER’s yacht the ‘Sea Owl’ was spotted in the British Virgin Islands, anchored next to Dmitry RYBOLOVLEV’s yacht the ‘Anna.’ RYBOLOVLEV is a member of PUTIN’s inner circle and likely his personal courier. (5)

MERCER is part owner of BREITBART news. The FBI is investigating BREITBART and CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA for cooperating with RIS during the 2016 US election. Evidence suggests that CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA and BREITBART used information warfare techniques in cooperation with RIS to support TRUMP and attack Hillary CLINTON. (3, 6, 7)

Several of RENTEC’S Russian born employees have been in the news:
• In the late 1990s Alexey KONONENKO was given a prominent role within RENTEC’s equities group. His rapid promotion was questioned by colleagues and characterized as a “power play.” (8)
• In 2001 RENTEC sued two Russian employees Alexander BELOPOLSKY & Pavel VOLFBEYN for intellectual property theft after they left for rival fund Millennium Partners. (8)
• In 2006 Alexander ASTASHKEVICH shot and killed his wife and himself. (9)

Prior to starting RENTEC in 1982, the firm’s founder Jim SIMONS was a cryptologist, contracted to the NSA. Like Edward SNOWDEN, SIMONS would have been a valued target for recruitment by RIS. (10)
2014 RENTEC received media attention for increasing its holding in Russian telecom company VIMPLECOM. Newsworthy because the stock was dropping following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In 2016 RENTEC further increased its holding in VIMPLECOM by 438%. VIMPLECOM is controlled by PUTIN insider Mikhail FRIDMAN. (11)

TRANSACT

In the past 20 years the average hedge fund returned 9% per year. In the same period RENTEC’s “MEDALLION” fund averaged 40%. After twenty years, one-thousand dollars invested in the average hedge fund would be worth nearly six-thousand dollars, the same investment made in MEDALLION would be worth over eight hundred-thousand dollars. (22)

RENTEC has long claimed that it must limit the size of its MEDALLION fund (most recently at $10 billion) in order to preserve its high rates of return. So, it was newsworthy when shortly after the election of Donald TRUMP the firm announced that it would be increasing the fund’s size by fifty percent and that employees would only have several weeks to raise additional funds. This would increase the fund to $15 billion and at current rates of return would produce a profit of $6 billion in 2017. In normal years virtually all profits of the fund are returned to investors instead of being re-invested. This unusual degree of cash returned to investors could be used to facilitate money laundering. (22)

Hedge funds are normally secretive in order to prevent competitors from copying their investment strategies. However, RENTEC is not only secretive about its strategies, but also about its financial position and executive compensation. For this reason, very little is known about internal workings of the firm. What can be pieced together is RENTEC uses quantitative models to buy and sell millions of stocks a year based on statistical ARBITRAGE strategies. Statistical ARBITRAGE attempts to make money by buying one security and selling another. These securities could be similar stocks in the same industry, or the same security trading in different markets.

COVER UP

In 2017 DEUTSCHE BANK was fined $425 million by the US government for laundering $10 billion out of RUSSIA using a scheme known as MIRROR TRADES. The scheme involved a customer in Moscow ordering DEUTSCHE BANK to buy shares for Rubles and then to immediately sell an identical amount of the same shares in London for Dollars. (14)



The money used in the scheme belonged to Igor Putin (cousin of Vladimir PUTIN) and the ROTENBERG brothers who are old friends of PUTIN. Investigators speculated that MIRROR TRADES where a part of a much larger money laundering operation but to date no additional evidence has been made public. To outsiders MIRROR TRADES are nearly indistinguishable from ARBITRAGE. (14)

MIRROR TRADES were kept under the radar by trading “over the counter”, and through a remote booking feature that did not require direct participation of the London office. Records showing losses at the end of the trading day would mysteriously show zero losses at the beginning of the next day. This strongly indicates traders were JOURNALING assets (moving assets between accounts) in order to make up for losses in one account with gains from another. (14, 15)

RENTEC is currently under investigation by the IRS for using a similar financial engineering structure to MIRROR TRADES known as BASKET OPTIONS (an option containing many different securities). Congressional investigators have claimed BASKET OPTIONS were used to avoid taxes and limitations on leverage, but they could also be used to facilitate money laundering. On behalf of the MEDALLION fund, RENTEC purchased an option from DEUTSCHE BANK and then sold the option one year later and claimed the long-term tax rate (24%) applied. In reality RENTEC exercised full control of the contents of the option, and executed hundreds of millions of high frequency transactions a year, most lasting only milliseconds. (16, 17)



If the IRS finds that RENTEC should be charged the short-term tax rate (44%), the fund will owe $6.8 billion. 2017 McClatchy reported on the investigation and specifically linked the possible tax bill with the increasing investments in political candidates made by RENTEC executives. Two weeks after the report was published the author Scott CHRISTIANSON died from massive head trauma at his home. (16, 18)

Evidence presented to US Congressional committee investigating RENTEC show that DEUTSCHE BANK allowed RENTEC to JOURNAL assets between sub accounts, thereby avoiding market transactions of buying and repurchasing the same security that could be interpreted as manipulative trading. Other evidence included emails from William BROEKSMIT, the DEUTSCHE BANK employee charged with managing the BASKET OPTIONS for RENTEC where he went into detail how the scheme was executed. In 2014 BROEKSMIT was found dead in his London apartment as result of hanging. (16, 19)

RENTEC is also currently under investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. RENTEC has resisted calls from the agency to hand over source code that runs MEDALLION’s trading algorithms. (20)

RENTEC manages three separate funds, two of these funds are available to outside investors. The third fund is the highly secretive MEDALLION and only accepts money from RENTEC employees. Records show that only five executives own seventy percent of the fund. In 2009, investors in the public funds were unhappy that MEDALLION’s returns far exceeded returns of their investments. These complaints led to an SEC investigation. SIMONS took the blame and resigned, making MERCER co-CEO together with IBM colleague and former roommate Peter BROWN. (21, 23)

CONCLUSION

The preceding sections demonstrate RENTEC has connections with Russian elites, produces extremely high rates of return via ARBITRAGE transactions, and engages in financial engineering techniques that are functionally equivalent to known money laundering methods. These are all red flags that imply RENTEC is involved in money laundering on behalf of Vladimir PUTIN.

The evidence suggests that RENTEC is a massive Russian money laundering operation hiding under the guise of a highly successful hedge fund. The scheme functions similar to MIRROR TRADES where shares are purchased in Moscow, immediately sold by RENTEC in the US, recorded as RENTEC’s profit, and the shares JOURNALED between US and Moscow accounts by DEUTSCHE BANK. RENTEC hides this scheme by executing hundreds of millions of trades a year, by using BASKET OPTIONS, and by limiting investment of the fund to RENTEC insiders. Every year RENTEC is capable of washing funds equal to the annual profits of its MEDALLION fund which are estimated at $6 billion this year.



For this scheme to be successful, all senior RENTEC leadership would have been involved including MERCER and SIMONS. In the 2016 election cycle MERCER spent $15 million on Republican candidates with the majority going towards supporting Donald TRUMP. In the same year SIMONS also spent $15 million, but on Democratic candidates, much of it going towards Hillary CLINTON. Regardless of the election result, PUTIN was guaranteed to have an agent with significant influence on the President of the United States.
q@q502q502
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Sources
1. Fiona Hill, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, 2015
2. Jane Mayer, The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency, The New Yorker, 2017
3. Carole Cadwalladr, Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media, The Gaurdian, 2017
4. Ann Marlowe, WILL DONALD TRUMP’S DATA-ANALYTICS COMPANY ALLOW RUSSIA TO ACCESS RESEARCH ON U.S. CITIZENS?, Tablet, 2016
5. John Pacenti, Yachts of Trump financial backer, Russian oligarch seen close together, My Palm Beach Post, 2017
6. Kate Brannen, DID RUSSIANS TARGET DEMOCRATIC VOTERS, WITH KUSHNER’S HELP?, Newsweek, 2017
7. Daniel Halper, Breitbart and InfoWars are drawn into FBI’s Russian bot probe, NY Post, 2017
8. Katherine Burton, Inside a Moneymaking Machine Like No Other, Bloomberg, 2016
9. Kieran Crowley, TRAGIC SIBERIA ‘EXILE’ — FOR SLAY-SUICIDE BOY, NY Post, 2017
10. wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harris_Simons
11. Jesse Solomon, What geopolitical risk? Hedge funds bet on Russia, CNN Money, 2014
12. Richard Rubin, How an Exclusive Hedge Fund Turbocharged Its Retirement Plan, Bloomberg, 2015
13. Nathan Vardi, Renaissance And Two Sigma, Growing At Stunning Pace, Now Nation’s 2nd Biggest Hedge Funds, Forbes, 2017
14. Ed Caesar, Deutsche Bank’s $10-Billion Scandal, The New Yorker, 2016
15. NY ST DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES, In the Matter of DEUTSCHE BANK AG and DEUTSCHE BANK AG NEW YORK BRANCH, 2017
16. Scott Christianson, Billionaire Robert Mercer did Trump a huge favor. Will he get a payback?, McClatchy, 2017
17. US Senate PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, ABUSE OF STRUCTURED FINANCIAL PRODUCTS, 2014
18. Casey Seiler, Scott Christianson, 69, acclaimed journalist, author and advocate, Times Union, 2017
19. Michael Gray, Why are so many bankers committing suicide?, NY Post, 2017
20. Kevin Dugan, Quant fund is concerned about CFTC getting its software code, NY Post, 2017
21. Mariah Blake, Why Are These Hedge Fund Kingpins Dumping Millions Into the Midterms?, Mother Jones, 2014
22. Miles Weiss, Renaissance’s Medallion Made a Stunning Shift After Trump’s Election, Bloomberg, 2017
23. Pamela Roux, Is Trump Backer Robert Mercer a Billionaire? I Tried to Find Out, Bloomberg, 2017
https://medium.com/@q502/robert-mercer- ... 596cd3d930

[Iamwhomiam]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/chris-wylie-testify-uk-facebook-cambridge-analytica-1.4594668

Whistleblower says 'cheating' may have changed Brexit vote outcome
Chris Wylie implicates Canadian company AIQ in testimony to U.K. parliamentary committee
CBC News · Posted: Mar 27, 2018 6:13 AM ET | Last Updated: 3 hours ago


During his testimony before a U.K. parliamentary committee on Tuesday, Canadian whistleblower Chris Wylie said he believed the B.C.-based company AggregateIQ had access to data that was inappropriately collected from millions of Facebook users, and alleged it had been used to influence the Brexit referendum. (Reuters)

The Canadian whistleblower at the heart of the Facebook privacy scandal says he believes it is "reasonable" to conclude that "cheating" in the Brexit vote through the manipulation of data to influence voters may have altered the outcome.

Chris Wylie made the statement while testifying before the British parliamentary committee on media in the wake of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, which began with his allegations that Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested details of 50 million Facebook users and used the material in U.S. President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.

Wylie is a data scientist who helped found Cambridge Analytica and left the company in 2014.

Wylie told the British committee on Tuesday that Vote Leave, the official campaign backing Britain's exit from the European Union, also had access to data that was inappropriately collected from millions of Facebook users.

During his testimony, Wylie implicated British Columbia-based marketing and software development company AggregateIQ (AIQ), saying he "absolutely" believed AIQ had drawn on Cambridge Analytica's databases for its work on the Brexit referendum.

The data would be used to influence what certain voters saw on social media, Wylie said. His understanding, he told the committee, was that AIQ was targeting people who were seen as key to swaying the result of the referendum.

Wylie also repeated an allegation that AIQ helped sidestep Brexit campaign spending limits — which had previously been made by whistleblower and former Vote Leave volunteer Shahmir Sanni, who has submitted documentation to the U.K.'s Electoral Commission.

AIQ co-founders Jeff Silvester and Zack Massingham, both based in Victoria, B.C., did not respond to multiple requests for interviews to respond to Sanni's allegations. But in a statement, the company denied any wrongdoing.

"AggregateIQ works in full compliance within all legal and regulatory requirements in all jurisdictions where we operate," the company told CBC News, and has "never knowingly been involved in any illegal activity."

Because of the links between the two companies, Wylie said, Vote Leave got the "the next best thing" to Cambridge Analytica when it hired AIQ, "a company that can do virtually everything that [Cambridge Analytica] can do but with a different billing name."

AIQ has publicly distanced itself from Cambridge Analytica. In a statement posted on its website on March 24, AIQ said it "has never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica or SCL. Aggregate IQ has never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica. Chris Wylie has never been employed by AggregateIQ."

SCL is the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.

Wylie told Britain's Observer newspaper that he was instrumental in AIQ's founding when he was the research director of SCL. He said they shared underlying technology and worked so closely together that some Cambridge Analytica staff often referred to the Canadian firm as a "department."

Video at link> 'You cannot call yourself somebody who believes in British law and win by breaking British law in order to achieve that goal,' says Christopher Wylie 2:55

Wylie also accused AIQ of operating unethically on a broad scale.

"This is a company that has gone around the world and undermined democratic institutions in all kinds of countries. They could care less as to whether or not their work is compliant because they like to win," he told the committee.

Specifically, Wylie said AIQ worked on projects relating to the Nigerian election that involved "distributing violent videos of people being bled to death to intimidate voters."

The committee chair noted that Wylie has provided "a large number of documents" to support his allegations around AIQ's involvement in Nigeria.

Wylie said AIQ has been able to distance itself somewhat from controversial activities because it has "licensed their intellectual property."

During his testimony, Wylie said he was "incredibly remorseful" for his role in developing the data-targeting technology that made the alleged breaches possible.

But he also noted he is not against data targeting as a whole because it's possible to do it in "an ethical way."

AIQ is now the subject of an investigation by B.C.'s privacy commissioner, and on Tuesday the federal privacy watchdog said it has gotten involved, as well.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said it had "been in contact with our provincial counterpart in British Columbia, which has been examining matters related to AggregateIQ, and our discussions with them are ongoing."
'We played no role in the U.K. referendum'

Cambridge Analytica, which has also been embroiled in growing public scrutiny over use of online data, issued a statement Tuesday saying Wylie "was a part-time contractor who left Cambridge Analytica in July 2014 and has no direct knowledge of the company's work or practices since that date."

In its statement, the company said: "We played no role in the U.K. referendum on EU membership."

Alexander Nix, who has been suspended as Cambridge Analytica's CEO pending an investigation, has been recalled to appear before the same committee. The committee requested that he speak to it again after reports in the media, including a Channel 4 documentary, revealed more detail about the company's methods.

Ben Bradshaw, a Labour MP who was in favour of the U.K. remaining in the EU, told CBC News Network that Wylie's testimony raised "very serious questions which parliamentarians here now believe need to be answered."
Zuckerberg sending delegate to committee

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been asked to testify before the British parliamentary committee about the data privacy scandal.

But Facebook, which is also facing intense scrutiny and investigations in the U.S., has instead offered to send chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer or chief product officer Chris Cox.

Damian Collins, chair of the committee, urged Zuckerberg on Tuesday to "think again" about choosing not to appear and repeated an offer to have him testify via video link.

With files from CBC's Carolyn Ryan and The Associated Press

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/chris-wylie-testify-uk-facebook-cambridge-analytica-1.4594668

[Grizzly]

237 scroll/posts ago....

British-Iranian businessman!

Boo! (scary!) it's the Russians and IRANIANS! Persians*. And Assad, and and, Koreans and all yellow and brown countries!
repeat it's all them evil axes countries NOT repeat Not the DNC !!!! Their our saviours!


*Soooo Convenient

[seemslikeadream]

Thanks Iamwhomiam

Cambridge Analytica alone is 5 times bigger than Watergate and that's only a part of Mueller's investigation. Mueller is light-years ahead of Watergate.

Peter Thiel's Palantir worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Facebook data, via chrisinsilico. CA's Nix was introduced to Palantir by the daughter of ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt [an investor in Kushner's Artsy since 2010 along w/Thiel & FB's Morin].

Carole Cadwalladr
‏
We reported this a year ago. We had the emails (but couldn’t publish them then.) Palantir denied it. That’s Palantir who work with GCHQ. Who work with NSA. And whose owner Peter Thiel advised Trump campaign.

Justin Hendrix

Asked about other companies doing this work: PALANTIR. There were also Palantir staff working with Facebook data. Palantir staff came into the offices of CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA and helped build the models we were working on, even though there was no contract, says

The Observer

The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked
A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign influenced the result of the EU referendum. As Britain heads to the polls again, is our electoral process still fit for purpose?
by Carole Cadwalladr
Sunday 7 May 2017 04.00 EDT

“The connectivity that is the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims.[…] The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty.”
Alex Younger, head of MI6, December, 2016

“It’s not MI6’s job to warn of internal threats. It was a very strange speech. Was it one branch of the intelligence services sending a shot across the bows of another? Or was it pointed at Theresa May’s government? Does she know something she’s not telling us?”
Senior intelligence analyst, April 2017

In June 2013, a young American postgraduate called Sophie was passing through London when she called up the boss of a firm where she’d previously interned. The company, SCL Elections, went on to be bought by Robert Mercer, a secretive hedge fund billionaire, renamed Cambridge Analytica, and achieved a certain notoriety as the data analytics firm that played a role in both Trump and Brexit campaigns. But all of this was still to come. London in 2013 was still basking in the afterglow of the Olympics. Britain had not yet Brexited. The world had not yet turned.

“That was before we became this dark, dystopian data company that gave the world Trump,” a former Cambridge Analytica employee who I’ll call Paul tells me. “It was back when we were still just a psychological warfare firm.”

Was that really what you called it, I ask him. Psychological warfare? “Totally. That’s what it is. Psyops. Psychological operations – the same methods the military use to effect mass sentiment change. It’s what they mean by winning ‘hearts and minds’. We were just doing it to win elections in the kind of developing countries that don’t have many rules.”

Why would anyone want to intern with a psychological warfare firm, I ask him. And he looks at me like I am mad. “It was like working for MI6. Only it’s MI6 for hire. It was very posh, very English, run by an old Etonian and you got to do some really cool things. Fly all over the world. You were working with the president of Kenya or Ghana or wherever. It’s not like election campaigns in the west. You got to do all sorts of crazy shit.”

On that day in June 2013, Sophie met up with SCL’s chief executive, Alexander Nix, and gave him the germ of an idea. “She said, ‘You really need to get into data.’ She really drummed it home to Alexander. And she suggested he meet this firm that belonged to someone she knew about through her father.”

Who’s her father?

“Eric Schmidt.”

Eric Schmidt – the chairman of Google?

“Yes. And she suggested Alexander should meet this company called Palantir.”

I had been speaking to former employees of Cambridge Analytica for months and heard dozens of hair-raising stories, but it was still a gobsmacking moment. To anyone concerned about surveillance, Palantir is practically now a trigger word. The data-mining firm has contracts with governments all over the world – including GCHQ and the NSA. It’s owned by Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of eBay and PayPal, who became Silicon Valley’s first vocal supporter of Trump.

In some ways, Eric Schmidt’s daughter showing up to make an introduction to Palantir is just another weird detail in the weirdest story I have ever researched.

A weird but telling detail. Because it goes to the heart of why the story of Cambridge Analytica is one of the most profoundly unsettling of our time. Sophie Schmidt now works for another Silicon Valley megafirm: Uber. And what’s clear is that the power and dominance of the Silicon Valley – Google and Facebook and a small handful of others – are at the centre of the global tectonic shift we are currently witnessing.

It also reveals a critical and gaping hole in the political debate in Britain. Because what is happening in America and what is happening in Britain are entwined. Brexit and Trump are entwined. The Trump administration’s links to Russia and Britain are entwined. And Cambridge Analytica is one point of focus through which we can see all these relationships in play; it also reveals the elephant in the room as we hurtle into a general election: Britain tying its future to an America that is being remade - in a radical and alarming way - by Trump.

There are three strands to this story. How the foundations of an authoritarian surveillance state are being laid in the US. How British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by a US billionaire. And how we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored. Whoever owns this data owns the future.

My entry point into this story began, as so many things do, with a late-night Google. Last December, I took an unsettling tumble into a wormhole of Google autocomplete suggestions that ended with “did the holocaust happen”. And an entire page of results that claimed it didn’t.

Google’s algorithm had been gamed by extremist sites and it was Jonathan Albright, a professor of communications at Elon University, North Carolina, who helped me get to grips with what I was seeing. He was the first person to map and uncover an entire “alt-right” news and information ecosystem and he was the one who first introduced me to Cambridge Analytica.

He called the company a central point in the right’s “propaganda machine”, a line I quoted in reference to its work for the Trump election campaign and the referendum Leave campaign. That led to the second article featuring Cambridge Analytica – as a central node in the alternative news and information network that I believed Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon, the key Trump aide who is now his chief strategist, were creating. I found evidence suggesting they were on a strategic mission to smash the mainstream media and replace it with one comprising alternative facts, fake history and rightwing propaganda.

Mercer is a brilliant computer scientist, a pioneer in early artificial intelligence, and the co-owner of one of the most successful hedge funds on the planet (with a gravity-defying 71.8% annual return). And, he is also, I discovered, good friends with Nigel Farage. Andy Wigmore, Leave.EU’s communications director, told me that it was Mercer who had directed his company, Cambridge Analytica, to “help” the Leave campaign.

The second article triggered two investigations, which are both continuing: one by the Information Commissioner’s Office into the possible illegal use of data. And a second by the Electoral Commission which is “focused on whether one or more donations – including services – accepted by Leave.EU was ‘impermissable’”.

What I then discovered is that Mercer’s role in the referendum went far beyond this. Far beyond the jurisdiction of any UK law. The key to understanding how a motivated and determined billionaire could bypass ourelectoral laws rests on AggregateIQ, an obscure web analytics company based in an office above a shop in Victoria, British Columbia.

It was with AggregateIQ that Vote Leave (the official Leave campaign) chose to spend £3.9m, more than half its official £7m campaign budget. As did three other affiliated Leave campaigns: BeLeave, Veterans for Britain and the Democratic Unionist party, spending a further £757,750. “Coordination” between campaigns is prohibited under UK electoral law, unless campaign expenditure is declared, jointly. It wasn’t. Vote Leave says the Electoral Commission “looked into this” and gave it “a clean bill of health”.

How did an obscure Canadian company come to play such a pivotal role in Brexit? It’s a question that Martin Moore, director of the centre for the study of communication, media and power at King’s College London has been asking too. “I went through all the Leave campaign invoices when the Electoral Commission uploaded them to its site in February. And I kept on discovering all these huge amounts going to a company that not only had I never heard of, but that there was practically nothing at all about on the internet. More money was spent with AggregateIQ than with any other company in any other campaign in the entire referendum. All I found, at that time, was a one-page website and that was it. It was an absolute mystery.”

Moore contributed to an LSE report published in April that concluded UK’s electoral laws were “weak and helpless” in the face of new forms of digital campaigning. Offshore companies, money poured into databases, unfettered third parties… the caps on spending had come off. The laws that had always underpinned Britain’s electoral laws were no longer fit for purpose. Laws, the report said, that needed “urgently reviewing by parliament”.

AggregateIQ holds the key to unravelling another complicated network of influence that Mercer has created. A source emailed me to say he had found that AggregateIQ’s address and telephone number corresponded to a company listed on Cambridge Analytica’s website as its overseas office: “SCL Canada”. A day later, that online reference vanished.

There had to be a connection between the two companies. Between the various Leave campaigns. Between the referendum and Mercer. It was too big a coincidence. But everyone – AggregateIQ, Cambridge Analytica, Leave.EU, Vote Leave – denied it. AggregateIQ had just been a short-term “contractor” to Cambridge Analytica. There was nothing to disprove this. We published the known facts. On 29 March, article 50 was triggered.

Then I meet Paul, the first of two sources formerly employed by Cambridge Analytica. He is in his late 20s and bears mental scars from his time there. “It’s almost like post-traumatic shock. It was so… messed up. It happened so fast. I just woke up one morning and found we’d turned into the Republican fascist party. I still can’t get my head around it.”

He laughed when I told him the frustrating mystery that was AggregateIQ. “Find Chris Wylie,” he said.

Who’s Chris Wylie?

“He’s the one who brought data and micro-targeting [individualised political messages] to Cambridge Analytica. And he’s from west Canada. It’s only because of him that AggregateIQ exist. They’re his friends. He’s the one who brought them in.”

There wasn’t just a relationship between Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ, Paul told me. They were intimately entwined, key nodes in Robert Mercer’s distributed empire. “The Canadians were our back office. They built our software for us. They held our database. If AggregateIQ is involved then Cambridge Analytica is involved. And if Cambridge Analytica is involved, then Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon are involved. You need to find Chris Wylie.”

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I did find Chris Wylie. He refused to comment.

Key to understanding how data would transform the company is knowing where it came from. And it’s a letter from “Director of Defence Operations, SCL Group”, that helped me realise this. It’s from “Commander Steve Tatham, PhD, MPhil, Royal Navy (rtd)” complaining about my use in my Mercer article of the word “disinformation”.

I wrote back to him pointing out references in papers he’d written to “deception” and “propaganda”, which I said I understood to be “roughly synonymous with ‘disinformation’.” It’s only later that it strikes me how strange it is that I’m corresponding with a retired navy commander about military strategies that may have been used in British and US elections.

What’s been lost in the US coverage of this “data analytics” firm is the understanding of where the firm came from: deep within the military-industrial complex. A weird British corner of it populated, as the military establishment in Britain is, by old-school Tories. Geoffrey Pattie, a former parliamentary under-secretary of state for defence procurement and director of Marconi Defence Systems, used to be on the board, and Lord Marland, David Cameron’s pro-Brexit former trade envoy, a shareholder.

Steve Tatham was the head of psychological operations for British forces in Afghanistan. The Observer has seen letters endorsing him from the UK Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and Nato.

SCL/Cambridge Analytica was not some startup created by a couple of guys with a Mac PowerBook. It’s effectively part of the British defence establishment. And, now, too, the American defence establishment. An ex-commanding officer of the US Marine Corps operations centre, Chris Naler, has recently joined Iota Global, a partner of the SCL group.

This is not just a story about social psychology and data analytics. It has to be understood in terms of a military contractor using military strategies on a civilian population. Us. David Miller, a professor of sociology at Bath University and an authority in psyops and propaganda, says it is “an extraordinary scandal that this should be anywhere near a democracy. It should be clear to voters where information is coming from, and if it’s not transparent or open where it’s coming from, it raises the question of whether we are actually living in a democracy or not.”

Paul and David, another ex-Cambridge Analytica employee, were working at the firm when it introduced mass data-harvesting to its psychological warfare techniques. “It brought psychology, propaganda and technology together in this powerful new way,” David tells me.

And it was Facebook that made it possible. It was from Facebook that Cambridge Analytica obtained its vast dataset in the first place. Earlier, psychologists at Cambridge University harvested Facebook data (legally) for research purposes and published pioneering peer-reviewed work about determining personality traits, political partisanship, sexuality and much more from people’s Facebook “likes”. And SCL/Cambridge Analytica contracted a scientist at the university, Dr Aleksandr Kogan, to harvest new Facebook data. And he did so by paying people to take a personality quiz which also allowed not just their own Facebook profiles to be harvested, but also those of their friends – a process then allowed by the social network.

Facebook was the source of the psychological insights that enabled Cambridge Analytica to target individuals. It was also the mechanism that enabled them to be delivered on a large scale.

The company also (perfectly legally) bought consumer datasets – on everything from magazine subscriptions to airline travel – and uniquely it appended these with the psych data to voter files. It matched all this information to people’s addresses, their phone numbers and often their email addresses. “The goal is to capture every single aspect of every voter’s information environment,” said David. “And the personality data enabled Cambridge Analytica to craft individual messages.”

Finding “persuadable” voters is key for any campaign and with its treasure trove of data, Cambridge Analytica could target people high in neuroticism, for example, with images of immigrants “swamping” the country. The key is finding emotional triggers for each individual voter.

Cambridge Analytica worked on campaigns in several key states for a Republican political action committee. Its key objective, according to a memo the Observer has seen, was “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”: a profoundly disquieting tactic. It has previously been claimed that suppression tactics were used in the campaign, but this document provides the first actual evidence.

But does it actually work? One of the criticisms that has been levelled at my and others’ articles is that Cambridge Analytica’s “special sauce” has been oversold. Is what it is doing any different from any other political consultancy?

“It’s not a political consultancy,” says David. “You have to understand this is not a normal company in any way. I don’t think Mercer even cares if it ever makes any money. It’s the product of a billionaire spending huge amounts of money to build his own experimental science lab, to test what works, to find tiny slivers of influence that can tip an election. Robert Mercer did not invest in this firm until it ran a bunch of pilots – controlled trials. This is one of the smartest computer scientists in the world. He is not going to splash $15m on bullshit.”

Tamsin Shaw, an associate professor of philosophy at New York University, helps me understand the context. She has researched the US military’s funding and use of psychological research for use in torture. “The capacity for this science to be used to manipulate emotions is very well established. This is military-funded technology that has been harnessed by a global plutocracy and is being used to sway elections in ways that people can’t even see, don’t even realise is happening to them,” she says. “It’s about exploiting existing phenomenon like nationalism and then using it to manipulate people at the margins. To have so much data in the hands of a bunch of international plutocrats to do with it what they will is absolutely chilling.

“We are in an information war and billionaires are buying up these companies, which are then employed to go to work in the heart of government. That’s a very worrying situation.”

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A project that Cambridge Analytica carried out in Trinidad in 2013 brings all the elements in this story together. Just as Robert Mercer began his negotiations with SCL boss Alexander Nix about an acquisition, SCL was retained by several government ministers in Trinidad and Tobago. The brief involved developing a micro-targeting programme for the governing party of the time. And AggregateIQ – the same company involved in delivering Brexit for Vote Leave – was brought in to build the targeting platform.

David said: “The standard SCL/CA method is that you get a government contract from the ruling party. And this pays for the political work. So, it’s often some bullshit health project that’s just a cover for getting the minister re-elected. But in this case, our government contacts were with Trinidad’s national security council.”

The security work was to be the prize for the political work. Documents seen by the Observer show that this was a proposal to capture citizens’ browsing history en masse, recording phone conversations and applying natural language processing to the recorded voice data to construct a national police database, complete with scores for each citizen on their propensity to commit crime.

“The plan put to the minister was Minority Report. It was pre-crime. And the fact that Cambridge Analytica is now working inside the Pentagon is, I think, absolutely terrifying,” said David.

These documents throw light on a significant and under-reported aspect of the Trump administration. The company that helped Trump achieve power in the first place has now been awarded contracts in the Pentagon and the US state department. Its former vice-president Steve Bannon now sits in the White House. It is also reported to be in discussions for “military and homeland security work”.

In the US, the government is bound by strict laws about what data it can collect on individuals. But, for private companies anything goes. Is it unreasonable to see in this the possible beginnings of an authoritarian surveillance state?

A state that is bringing corporate interests into the heart of the administration. Documents detail Cambridge Analytica is involved with many other right-leaning billionaires, including Rupert Murdoch. One memo references Cambridge Analytica trying to place an article with a journalist in Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal: “RM re-channeled and connected with Jamie McCauley from Robert Thomson News Corp office,” it says.

It makes me think again about the story involving Sophie Schmidt, Cambridge Analytica and Palantir. Is it a telling detail, or is it a clue to something else going on? Cambridge Analytica and Palantir both declined to comment for this article on whether they had any relationship. But witnesses and emails confirm that meetings between Cambridge Analytica and Palantir took place in 2013. The possibility of a working relationship was at least discussed.

Further documents seen by the Observer confirm that at least one senior Palantir employee consulted with Cambridge Analytica in relation to the Trinidad project and later political work in the US. But at the time, I’m told, Palantir decided it was too much of a reputational risk for a more formal arrangement. There was no upside to it. Palantir is a company that is trusted to handle vast datasets on UK and US citizens for GCHQ and the NSA, as well as many other countries.

Now though, they are both owned by ideologically aligned billionaires: Robert Mercer and Peter Thiel. The Trump campaign has said that Thiel helped it with data. A campaign that was led by Steve Bannon, who was then at Cambridge Analytica.

A leading QC who spends a lot of time in the investigatory powers tribunal said that the problem with this technology was that it all depended on whose hands it was in.

“On the one hand, it’s being done by companies and governments who say ‘you can trust us, we are good and democratic and bake cakes at the weekend’. But then the same expertise can also be sold on to whichever repressive regime.”

In Britain, we still trust our government. We respect our authorities to uphold our laws. We trust the rule of law. We believe we live in a free and fair democracy. Which is what, I believe, makes the last part of this story so profoundly unsettling.

Donald Trump with Peter Thiel, one of his key Silicon Valley supporters.
Donald Trump with Peter Thiel, one of his key Silicon Valley supporters. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The details of the Trinidad project finally unlocked the mystery that was AggregateIQ. Trinidad was SCL’s first project using big data for micro-targeting before the firm was acquired by Mercer. It was the model that Mercer was buying into. And it brought together all the players: the Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan, AggregateIQ, Chris Wylie, and two other individuals who would play a role in this story: Mark Gettleson, a focus group expert who had previously worked for the Lib Dems. And Thomas Borwick, the son of Victoria Borwick, the Conservative MP for Kensington.

When my article linking Mercer and Leave.EU was published in February, no one was more upset about it than former Tory adviser Dominic Cummings, the campaign strategist for Vote Leave. He launched an irate Twitter tirade. The piece was “full of errors & itself spreads disinformation” “CA had ~0% role in Brexit referendum”.

A week later the Observer revealed AggregateIQ’s possible link to Cambridge Analytica. Cummings’s Twitter feed went quiet. He didn’t return my messages or my emails.

Questions had already been swirling about whether there had been any coordination between the Leave campaigns. In the week before the referendum, Vote Leave donated money to two other Leave groups – £625,000 to BeLeave, run by fashion student Darren Grimes, and £100,000 to Veterans for Britain, who both then spent this money with AggregateIQ.

The Electoral Commission has written to AggregateIQ. A source close to the investigation said that AggregateIQ responded by saying it had signed a non-disclosure agreement. And since it was outside British jurisdiction, that was the end of it. Vote Leave refers to this as the Electoral Commission giving it “a clean bill of health”.

On his blog, Dominic Cummings has written thousands of words about the referendum campaign. What is missing is any details about his data scientists. He “hired physicists” is all he’ll say. In the books on Brexit, other members of the team talk about “Dom’s astrophysicists”, who he kept “a tightly guarded secret”. They built models, using data “scraped” off Facebook.

Finally, after weeks of messages, he sent me an email. We were agreed on one thing, it turned out. He wrote: “The law/regulatory agencies are such a joke the reality is that anybody who wanted to cheat the law could do it easily without people realising.” But, he says, “by encouraging people to focus on non-stories like Mercer’s nonexistent role in the referendum you are obscuring these important issues”.

And to finally answer the question about how Vote Leave found this obscure Canadian company on the other side of the planet, he wrote: “Someone found AIQ [AggregateIQ] on the internet and interviewed them on the phone then told me – let’s go with these guys. They were clearly more competent than any others we’d spoken to in London.”

The most unfortunate aspect of this – for Dominic Cummings – is that this isn’t credible. It’s the work of moments to put a date filter on Google search and discover that in late 2015 or early 2016, there are no Google hits for “Aggregate IQ”. There is no press coverage. No random mentions. It doesn’t even throw up its website. I have caught Dominic Cummings in what appears to be an alternative fact.

But what is an actual fact is that Gettleson and Borwick, both previously consultants for SCL and Cambridge Analytica, were both core members of the Vote Leave team. They’re both in the official Vote Leave documents lodged with the Electoral Commission, though they coyly describe their previous work for SCL/Cambridge Analytica as “micro-targeting in Antigua and Trinidad” and “direct communications for several PACs, Senate and Governor campaigns”.

And Borwick wasn’t just any member of the team. He was Vote Leave’s chief technology officer.

This story may involve a complex web of connections, but it all comes back to Cambridge Analytica. It all comes back to Mercer. Because the connections must have been evident. “AggregateIQ may not have belonged to the Mercers but they exist within his world,” David told me. “Almost all of their contracts came from Cambridge Analytica or Mercer. They wouldn’t exist without them. During the whole time the referendum was going on, they were working every day on the [Ted] Cruz campaign with Mercer and Cambridge Analytica. AggregateIQ built and ran Cambridge Analytica’s database platforms.”

Infographic on how the Brexit campaigns were linked
Illustration: James Melaugh
Cummings won’t say who did his modelling. But invoices lodged with the Electoral Commission show payments to a company called Advanced Skills Institute. It takes me weeks to spot the significance of this because the company is usually referred to as ASI Data Science, a company that has a revolving cast of data scientists who have gone on to work with Cambridge Analytica and vice versa. There are videos of ASI data scientists presenting Cambridge Analytica personality models and pages for events the two companies have jointly hosted. ASI told the Observer it had no formal relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

Here’s the crucial fact: during the US primary elections, Aggregate IQ signed away its intellectual property (IP). It didn’t own its IP: Robert Mercer did. For AggregateIQ to work with another campaign in Britain, the firm would have to have had the express permission of Mercer. Asked if it would make any comment on financial or business links between “Cambridge Analytica, Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon, AggregateIQ, Leave.EU and Vote Leave”, a spokesperson for Cambridge Analytica said: “Cambridge Analytica did no paid or unpaid work for Leave.EU.”

This story isn’t about cunning Dominic Cummings finding a few loopholes in the Electoral Commission’s rules. Finding a way to spend an extra million quid here. Or (as the Observer has also discovered )underdeclaring the costs of his physicists on the spending returns by £43,000. This story is not even about what appears to be covert coordination between Vote Leave and Leave.EU in their use of AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytica. It’s about how a motivated US billionaire – Mercer and his chief ideologue, Bannon – helped to bring about the biggest constitutional change to Britain in a century.

Because to understand where and how Brexit is connected to Trump, it’s right here. These relationships, which thread through the middle of Cambridge Analytica, are the result of a transatlantic partnership that stretches back years. Nigel Farage and Bannon have been close associates since at least 2012. Bannon opened the London arm of his news website Breitbart in 2014 to support Ukip – the latest front “in our current cultural and political war”, he told the New York Times.

Britain had always been key to Bannon’s plans, another ex-Cambridge Analytica employee told me on condition of anonymity. It was a crucial part of his strategy for changing the entire world order.

“He believes that to change politics, you have to first change the culture. And Britain was key to that. He thought that where Britain led, America would follow. The idea of Brexit was hugely symbolically important to him.”

On 29 March, the day article 50 was triggered, I called one of the smaller campaigns, Veterans for Britain. Cummings’s strategy was to target people in the last days of the campaign and Vote Leave gave the smaller group £100,000 in the last week. A small number of people they identified as “persuadable” were bombarded with more than a billion ads, the vast majority in the last few days.

I asked David Banks, Veterans for Britain’s head of communications, why they spent the money with AggregateIQ.

“I didn’t find AggegrateIQ. They found us. They rang us up and pitched us. There’s no conspiracy here. They were this Canadian company which was opening an office in London to work in British politics and they were doing stuff that none of the UK companies could offer. Their targeting was based on a set of technologies that hadn’t reached the UK yet. A lot of it was proprietary, they’d found a way of targeting people based on behavioural insights. They approached us.”

It seems clear to me that David Banks didn’t know there might have been anything untoward about this. He’s a patriotic man who believes in British sovereignty and British values and British laws. I don’t think knew about any overlap with these other campaigns. I can only think that he was played.

And that we, the British people, were played. In his blog, Dominic Cummings writes that Brexit came down to “about 600,000 people – just over 1% of registered voters”. It’s not a stretch to believe that a member of the global 1% found a way to influence this crucial 1% of British voters. The referendum was an open goal too tempting a target for US billionaires not to take a clear shot at. Or I should say US billionaires and other interested parties, because in acknowledging the transatlantic links that bind Britain and America, Brexit and Trump, so tightly, we also must acknowledge that Russia is wrapped somewhere in this tight embrace too.

For the last month, I’ve been writing about the links between the British right, the Trump administration and the European right. And these links lead to Russia from multiple directions. Between Nigel Farage and Donald Trump and Cambridge Analytica.

A map shown to the Observer showing the many places in the world where SCL and Cambridge Analytica have worked includes Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Iran and Moldova. Multiple Cambridge Analytica sources have revealed other links to Russia, including trips to the country, meetings with executives from Russian state-owned companies, and references by SCL employees to working for Russian entities.

Article 50 has been triggered. AggregateIQ is outside British jurisdiction. The Electoral Commission is powerless. And another election, with these same rules, is just a month away. It is not that the authorities don’t know there is cause for concern. The Observer has learned that the Crown Prosecution Service did appoint a special prosecutor to assess whether there was a case for a criminal investigation into whether campaign finance laws were broken. The CPS referred it back to the electoral commission. Someone close to the intelligence select committee tells me that “work is being done” on potential Russian interference in the referendum.

Gavin Millar, a QC and expert in electoral law, described the situation as “highly disturbing”. He believes the only way to find the truth would be to hold a public inquiry. But a government would need to call it. A government that has just triggered an election specifically to shore up its power base. An election designed to set us into permanent alignment with Trump’s America.

Martin Moore of King’s College, London, pointed out that elections were a newly fashionable tool for would-be authoritarian states. “Look at Erdoğan in Turkey. What Theresa May is doing is quite anti-democratic in a way. It’s about enhancing her power very deliberately. It’s not about a battle of policy between two parties.”

This is Britain in 2017. A Britain that increasingly looks like a “managed” democracy. Paid for a US billionaire. Using military-style technology. Delivered by Facebook. And enabled by us. If we let this referendum result stand, we are giving it our implicit consent. This isn’t about Remain or Leave. It goes far beyond party politics. It’s about the first step into a brave, new, increasingly undemocratic world.

Key names
SCL Group
British company with 25 years experience in military “psychological operations” and “election management”.

Cambridge Analytica
Data analytics company formed in 2014. Robert Mercer owns 90%. SCL owns 10%. Carried out major digital targeting campaigns for Donald Trump campaign, Ted Cruz’s nomination campaign and multiple other US Republican campaigns – mostly funded by Mercer. Gave Nigel Farage’s Leave.EU “help” during referendum.

Robert Mercer
US billionaire hedge fund owner who was Trump’s biggest donor. Owns Cambridge Analytica and the IP [intellectual property] ofAggregateIQ. Friend of Farage. Close associate of Steve Bannon.

Steve Bannon
Trump’s chief strategist. Vice-president of Cambridge Analytica during referendum period. Friend of Farage.

Alexander Nix
Director of Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group.

Christopher Wylie
Canadian who first brought data expertise and microtargeting to Cambridge Analytica; recruited AggregateIQ.

AggregateIQ
Data analytics company based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Worked for Mercer-funded Pacs that supported the Trump campaign. Robert Mercer owns AggregateIQ’s IP. Paid £3.9m by Vote Leave to “micro-target” voters on social media during referendum campaign. Outside British jurisdiction.

Veterans for Britain
Given £100,000 by Vote Leave. Spent it with AggregateIQ.

BeLeave
Youth Leave campaign set up by 23-year-old student. Given £625,000 by Vote Leave & £50,000 by another donor. Spent it with AggregateIQ.

DUP
Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. Spent £32,750 with AggregrateIQ.

Thomas Borwick
Vote Leave’s chief technology officer. Previously worked with SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ.

ASI Data Science
Data science specialists. Links with Cambridge Analytica, including staff moving between the two and holding joint events. Paid £114,000 by Vote Leave. Vote Leave declared £71,000 to Electoral Commission.

Donald Trump
US president. Campaign funded by Mercer and run by Bannon. Data services supplied by Cambridge Analytica and AggregrateIQ.

Nigel Farage
Former Ukip leader. Leader of Leave.EU. Friend of Trump, Mercer and Bannon.

Arron Banks
Bristol businessman. Co-founder of Leave.EU. Owns data company and insurance firm. Single biggest donor to Leave – £7.5m.

Some names, ages and other identifying details of sources in this article have been changed
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -democracy

[seemslikeadream]

Carole Cadwalladr
‏
Here is is. The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook contract. Denied by Facebook. Denied by Cambridge Analytica. Leaked by @chrisinsilico. And published today by @DamianCollins as part of UK parliament's fake news inquiry.




Yes, the stuff about SCL Elections is confusing but here's a helpful primer. A legal memo sent to Steve Bannon and Rebekah Mercer that explains the company's structure...

[seemslikeadream]

Committee publishes written evidence from Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower

In his appearance before the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 27 March, Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie highlighted a number of documents that he had sent the Committee.

Written evidence

This written evidence refers to the work of SCL elections, Cambridge Analytica, Global Science Research, Aggregate IQ, their connections, and their use of data and microtargeting voters during elections. The documents also contains case studies and insights into the worldwide work done for clients by SCL elections.

Today the Committee is publishing a number of these documents.

Background papers submitted by Christopher Wylie
Summary of the Committee’s activity this week in relation to Cambridge Analytica/SCL Elections and Facebook

Christopher Wylie gave evidence to the Committee on Tuesday 27th March 2018 during which he referred to the evidence the Committee is publishing today. This session is available to watch. Please note the transcript will be published online shortly.

On Tuesday 20th March, the Committee Chair Damian Collins MP wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, requesting oral evidence. Facebook have responded offering two senior executives. The Committee has accepted evidence from Chris Cox, Chief Product Officer, but has written today to Facebook to clarify whether Mr. Zuckerberg will also appear himself, as requested. This matter was also raised with The UK Prime Minister Theresa May, in her evidence before the Liaison Committee on the evening of the 27th March. She said that Facebook should be taking the matter seriously.
On Thursday 22nd, the Committee wrote to Alexander Nix, the suspended CEO of Cambridge Analytica, recalling him to Parliament to give further evidence. Mr. Nix has agreed to come before the Committee again. You can watch the evidence session that took place on 27th February 2018 where Mr. Nix gave evidence on Parliamentlive.tv and read the transcript.
https://www.parliament.uk/business/comm ... nce-17-19/

Facebook told me it would act swiftly on data misuse – in 2015

Harry Davies
Mon 26 Mar 2018 06.00 EDT

While I was tracing Cambridge Analytica’s activities, Facebook was portraying the 2016 election as a big commercial opportunity


Shortly after the US midterm elections in 2014 – and back when Donald Trump was busy launching the seventh series of Celebrity Apprentice – I received a tip about a little-known British company known as Strategic Communication Laboratories, or SCL. At the time I was working on the Guardian’s investigations desk, and I heard the company’s “election management” consultancy was branching out into US voter targeting with a curious new product and corporate identity. This, I would later discover, was Cambridge Analytica.

After that tip came a small cache of documents. And in December 2014, I wrote to SCL asking about its commercial relationship with a Cambridge University academic, Aleksandr Kogan, and its apparent acquisition of a vast database of personal information harvested from tens of millions of Facebook users by Kogan’s company, Global Science Research (GSR). At this stage I didn’t know whose political campaign it was working on in the US. It seemed to have acquired the data, but how was it using it? I now regret putting the story on the back burner, but when SCL repeatedly refused to engage, that’s what happened. Back then, few had heard of this company.

Fast forward to autumn 2015 and a source pointed me in the direction of a Politico article that made a connection between SCL and Cambridge Analytica. By then it was offering psychological methods for targeting voters to the Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. So I returned to my investigation and in December 2015 reported that SCL had paid GSR to harvest Facebook users’ data via online questionnaires. GSR boasted it owned “a massive data pool of 40+ million individuals across the United States – for each of whom we have generated detailed characteristic and trait profiles.”

Last week, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was forced to acknowledge the privacy breach and apologise for the company’s mistakes, embarking on an uncharacteristic media blitz. Yet when I first asked Facebook about the way this data had been siphoned from the social network, the company had little to say. Apparently, it didn’t anticipate the significance the dataset would take on. But then nor did I.

Before we published that story in 2015, I had approached Facebook’s public relations representatives in London to inform them of the allegations. I asked them a series of questions, including: “Is Facebook concerned that highly personal data about a large set of its users is now being exploited for experimental political campaigning purposes?” They didn’t answer. After declining to comment on the record, they emailed a few lines on background: “Facebook has a clear data use policy that makes it clear how the information people choose to add to Facebook is used.” Their repetition of the word “clear” only made this feel more doubtful.

Hours after the story was published, Facebook’s PRs got in touch seeking more information, and later that evening I heard from the mothership itself when a senior, California-based employee emailed a statement. “We are carefully investigating this situation,” it read, “misleading people or misusing their information is a direct violation of our policies and we will take swift action against companies that do.” In time, we would come to understand just what Facebook – one of the world’s most powerful companies – meant by “swift action”.

In early 2016, I continued to investigate Cambridge Analytica, pursuing leads about its parent company, SCL, and talking to former employees and clients. I interviewed Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica’s then CEO and a director of SCL. He refused to say whether he was or wasn’t working in the UK on the leave campaign. (Little did I know SCL had deep ties to the digital firm AggregateIQ, as the Observer reported on Sunday, to which Vote Leave would funnel 40% of its spending.) “We’ve been talking to all sorts of political parties about different matters in the UK,” he told me. In the US, Nix said that “hundreds of thousands of people across America” had taken Cambridge Analytica’s online questionnaires, but claimed respondents’ Facebook accounts were not accessed. He was dismissive of the privacy concerns posed by political campaigns hoovering up voters’ personal data: “If the individuals wish to remain more private then they shouldn’t consent to give up their information.”

As Trump surged in the polls, Sheryl Sandberg told investors the election was 'a big deal in terms of ad spend'
As I read through Nix’s comments in my notes two years later, I am struck by the similarity between his logic and that of Facebook. In rejecting the media’s characterisation of this large-scale privacy violation as a “data breach”, Facebook claims “everyone involved” in the 2014 data-siphoning exercise had given their consent. “People knowingly provided their information,” the company claimed. As with its interpretation of the word “clear”, Facebook seems to have a skewed understanding of what “knowingly” really means.

Facebook’s senior executives may now be feeling apologetic, “outraged” even. But in January 2016, as Trump surged in the polls, Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, told investors the 2016 election was “a big deal in terms of ad spend”. In other words, a major commercial opportunity. The ability to target voters, she said, was key: “Using Facebook and Instagram ads you can target by congressional district, you can target by interest, you can target by demographics or any combination of those,” she boasted. “And we’re seeing politicians at all levels really take advantage of that targeting.”

It’s perhaps worth remembering, then, that until recently Facebook was encouraging political operatives to take full advantage of its garden of surveillance. And while aspects of the Cambridge Analytica affair may be surprising, and offer a disturbing glimpse into the shadows, the routine exploitation of information about our lives – about who we are – is what’s powering Facebook. It’s the behemoth’s lifeblood.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... are_btn_tw

[seemslikeadream]

Paul Joseph Watson
@PrisonPlanet
BREAKING: The FBI is detaining contributors to Infowars (Ted Malloch) and accusing them of being "Russian agents" & forcing them to testify in front of a grand jury.
Join our live emergency broadcast at 7pm CST for more information

Jerome Corsi
‏
MUELLER in PANIC MODE grabs Ted Malloc of airplane from LONDON - FBI detains, takes CELLPHONE - Ted OUT OF CONTACT - questioned @realDonaldTrump @JulianAssange Russia EMERGENCY BROADCAST TONIGHT 7pm CT, 8pm ET @infowars ALEX JONES @jerome_corsi FBI in DRAGNET MODE -

Ted Malloch ‘made false statements’ to two US banks
Courts ruled that would-be Trump ambassador and wife could not write off $5.9m of debt


Ted Malloch, a professor at Henley Business School who wants to become Donald Trump’s ambassador to the EU, made false statements to deceive two US banks into giving him multimillion-dollar loans, according to court documents.

Legal papers obtained by the Financial Times reveal Mr Malloch and his wife Beth filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and list debts including credit cards, cable television bills and parking fines.

But two US banks refused to let outstanding debts of $5.9m be written off, arguing that the couple had falsely represented their assets when applying for loans.



https://amp.ft.com/content/d1b0453a-fde ... ssion=true

Scott Stedman
‏

Great catch. Malloch was allegedly arrested by Mueller’s team in London hours ago. Glenn Simpson named him as a Bannon/Stone associate.

Glenn Simpson (FusionGPS) to @RepAdamSchiff

My guess (based on some off the record chats) is that Malloch likely knows a lot about Nigel Farage.


All of this leads me to believe that Mueller’s team is zeroing in on the WikiLeaks/Cambridge Analytica aspect of the investigation recently.

Maybe no coincidence Julian lost Internet and visitor access

[stillrobertpaulsen]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/chris-wylie-testify-uk-facebook-cambridge-analytica-1.4594668

Whistleblower says 'cheating' may have changed Brexit vote outcome

Ben Bradshaw, a Labour MP who was in favour of the U.K. remaining in the EU, told CBC News Network that Wylie's testimony raised "very serious questions which parliamentarians here now believe need to be answered."
Zuckerberg sending delegate to committee


http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/chris-wylie-testify-uk-facebook-cambridge-analytica-1.4594668

So...can it be reversed? Or have the results thrown out and vote again?

[seemslikeadream]

Brexit can be reversed if that's what the public wants, says Tony Blair, Britain's former Prime Minister. In 2016, Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU in a divisive referendum. While Brexit negotiations are ongoing ahead of the UK's departure next March, some leaders are arguing that the exit is not inevitable.

Jan 26, 2018

Architect of Article 50 claims Brexit can be reversed

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/1 ... -reversed/

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Larisa Alexandrovna is describing this as BCCI 2.0. From her Facebook page:

Update:
Looks like I am right: Wiley just said in his hearing that (via Prof David Carroll's wording:

"Cambridge Analytica is a shell corp majority owned by Robert Mercer created to hide foreign actors and optics to obscure SCL Group, a military contractor with a tainted past. He came forward because military grade psychological operations have no place in democracies" h/t to Prof David Carroll (who is suing CA on behalf of the US public).

_________________

So if we piece this together, we are starting to see something familiar. Let's call it BCCI 2.0.

If you are unfamiliar with BCCI, then none of this will make sense and you have a lot of homework. Try here: http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,1 ... 29,00.html

I have finally had an aha moment on what CA actually is and what it actually does.

Cambridge Analytica seems to sell coups via being a shell company for other front companies which use spies, technology, etc. It acts as the front office for companies like Black Cube (Israeli intelligence) and AIQ and likely the Russian FSB who work as "private contractors"

Now it makes sense why they would outsource a product claimed as their own or deploy 15 operatives to the Cruz campaign for no apparent reason.

And several billionaires are the ones using this to create their ideal world in which they are kings. Mercer being just one. I am sure there are more involved.

Or as I like to call the Russian scandal = a post-national criminal syndicate (PNCS).

[seemslikeadream]

BCCI 2.0

catchy.......

Cambridge Analytica seems to sell coups

it surely does

a post-national criminal syndicate

post-national mob

BCCI was the Bank that Bush set up to launder Saudi money for black operations inside the US
https://www.democraticunderground.com/d ... 89x6811972

Defence opens in BCCI law suit
https://www.democraticunderground.com/d ... 102x694780

BCCI
https://www.democraticunderground.com/d ... 104x663304

[seemslikeadream]

Criminal complaint filed against Bannon, Trump campaign, Cambridge Analytica and Bolton Super PAC

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST BANNON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN, CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND BOLTON SUPER PAC

Washington—The FBI should investigate whether SCL Elections, Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, Stephen Bannon, the John Bolton Super PAC, and the Trump campaign criminally violated federal law prohibiting foreign nationals from participating in American elections, according to a complaint filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Democracy 21.

As recently reported by Britain’s Channel 4, numerous non-U.S. citizens appear to have participated in U.S. elections through work for SCL Elections Ltd., a corporation based in the United Kingdom, and Cambridge Analytica, its U.S. arm. Alexander Nix, a British national, directed much of this work in his role as a manager at Cambridge Analytica; Nix, in turn, was directed by Stephen Bannon, a co-founder of Cambridge Analytica. In particular, Nix and other SCL Elections Ltd. employees reportedly participated in strategic decision-making processes of John Bolton Super PAC, a U.S. political committee, starting as early as 2014, and according to Nix played a similar role in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

“The law prohibits foreign nationals from participating, directly or indirectly, in elections in the United States,” said CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder. “What’s worse than the fact that it apparently happened in this case is that the people involved apparently knew they were breaking the law and continued to do so anyway.”

In 2014, two weeks after the John Bolton Super PAC made its initial payment to Cambridge Analytica, a lawyer with Bracewell & Giuliani sent a memo to Bannon and Nix, advising them on the steps that they would have to take to comply with the prohibition on foreign national participation in United States elections related to activities with the Bolton Super PAC. SCL, Cambridge Analytica, Bannon, and Nix ignored the legal advice. In 2016, Bannon left Cambridge Analytica for the Trump campaign, which then hired Cambridge Analytica despite Bannon’s knowledge that the company apparently failed to follow U.S. law prohibiting foreign nationals from participating substantially in U.S. campaigns.

“These are very serious apparent violations of federal law,” Bookbinder said. “The Justice Department and the FBI should immediately commence an investigation into this matter and take appropriate action.”

Common Cause previously filed complaints asking the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice to examine whether Cambridge Analytica and related parties violated election law by having foreign persons perform work related to a United States election; this complaint asks the Department of Justice to examine whether criminal laws were violated and includes the American organizations that were the recipients of the work.

Click here to read the complaint.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/press ... super-pac/

Feb 2017: FT reported the laughably false statements in Ted Malloch’s autobiography. Malloch, whose specialist subjects include business ethics, then defamed the reporters and spouted more lies with the help of his very good friends at Breitbart.




FBI detained Trump campaign figure & Farage ally Ted Malloch at Logan airport w/ a Mueller subpoena on Wed, questioning him about if he'd ever visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London & about Roger Stone. "They seemed to know everything about me."




Ted Malloch, touted as Trump's pick for EU ambassador before getting caught lying in an autobiography, has been subpoenaed to testify before Mueller. Agents confiscated his mobile phone so it could be taken to Washington DC for a “full assessment.”

FBI questions Ted Malloch, Trump campaign figure and Farage ally
American once touted as possible ambassador to EU tells of being detained at Boston airport and subpoenaed by Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia inquiry

Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Fri 30 Mar 2018 00.36 EDT

Ted Malloch, once touted as a potential US ambassador to the EU, was detained by the FBI upon arrival in Boston on a flight from London. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP
A controversial London-based academic with close ties to Nigel Farage has been detained by the FBI upon arrival in the US and issued a subpoena to testify before Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Ted Malloch, an American touted last year as a possible candidate to serve as US ambassador to the EU, said he was interrogated by the FBI at Boston’s Logan airport on Wednesday following a flight from London and questioned about his involvement in the Trump campaign.

In a statement sent to the Guardian, Malloch, who described himself as a policy wonk and defender of Trump, said the FBI also asked him about his relationship with Roger Stone, the Republican strategist, and whether he had ever visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has resided for nearly six years.


Credibility of Trump's EU ambassador pick called into question by leading MEP

In a detailed statement about the experience, which he described as bewildering and intimidating at times, Malloch said the federal agents who stopped him and separated him from his wife “seemed to know everything about me” and warned him that lying to the FBI was a felony. In the statement Malloch denied having any Russia contacts.

Malloch became a source of controversy in 2016 when he was floated in media reports as a possible US ambassador to the EU, following an aggressive campaign in which, according to several reports at the time, he promoted himself as a strong candidate. European officials, alarmed by the possible pick and his lack of diplomatic credentials, openly criticised Malloch, particularly after he compared the EU to the Soviet Union.

Malloch’s campaign for the diplomatic post came to an end after a report in the Financial Times detailed several apparently misleading claims made in Malloch’s autobiography, including that he was a fellow at Wolfson and Pembroke colleges at Oxford, that he had once been called a “genius” by Margaret Thatcher, and that he was the “first” to coin the phrase “thought leadership”.

Mueller’s probe into whether or not the Trump campaign received assistance from Russia during the 2016 election campaign is examining various issues, including Donald Trump’s business empire and its possible ties to Russia.

The special counsel is also examining the 2016 release by Wikileaks of damaging emails that were stolen – allegedly by Russian hackers – from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Roger Stone, a strong champion of Trump, appeared to have some advance warning that Wikileaks had the emails before they were published, according to tweets he sent at the time.

Stone, who has known Trump since the late 1980s, acknowledged having communications with Assange through an intermediary. He later claimed the middleman was a journalist named Randy Credico, but Credico vigorously denied the allegation.

Malloch is ideologically close to Farage, the former Ukip leader who is also close to Trump and his former White House strategist Steve Bannon. Malloch has appeared on Farage’s radio show and the pair have been seen together in Brussels.


Trump adviser reveals how Assange ally warned him about leaked Clinton emails

News of Malloch’s detention by the FBI and subpoena was first reported by the far-right conspiracy theory website InfoWars after the controversial contributor Jerome Corsi said an alarmed Malloch had called him during the FBI interview.

Malloch said in a statement on Thursday – after he was released – that his role on the Trump campaign was informal and unpaid, that he had only met with Stone on three occasions and never alone, and that he knew nothing about Wikileaks and had never visited the Ecuadorian embassy.

He said the agents confiscated his mobile phone and told him it would be taken to Washington DC for a “full assessment”.

“I was unfazed and very dubious about why they thought I knew anything,” he said. He also suggested in the statement that prosecutors could have read a not yet published book that alleged a conspiracy was underway to undermine Trump’s presidency, a book he said clearly troubled the “deep state”.

“I did … find it objectionable to treat me the way they had, as I was entering my home country, where I am a citizen,” Malloch said. “They did not need to use such tactics or intimidation. I was a US patriot and would do anything and everything to assist the government and I had no information that I believed was relevant.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... are_btn_tw

Oxford distances itself from Trump favourite Ted Malloch

Academic said to be in line for EU post accused of falsely claiming college fellowships

Ukip MEP Nigel Farage and Ted Malloch at an event in Washington last month © Splash News

Henry Mance, Political Correspondent FEBRUARY 23, 2017 Print this page268
● This article was updated on February 22 with a footnote in response to false statements by Mr Malloch.

Oxford university has distanced itself from the political scientist who wants to be Donald Trump’s ambassador in Brussels, accusing him of falsely claiming to be a fellow at two of its colleges.

Ted Malloch, who has compared the EU to the Soviet Union, taught at Oxford’s Saïd Business School until last year. He has appeared regularly on British television since the US election in November, often billed as a likely Trump appointee.

This week the FT identified a number of misleading statements in Mr Malloch’s autobiography, including claims that he was “knighted” into the Sovereign Order of St John by the Queen and called a “genius” by Margaret Thatcher. Mr Malloch said the FT was “involved in political assassination”.

The FT has found further signs that Mr Malloch — whose specialist subjects include business ethics — has exaggerated his academic and diplomatic credentials.

The University of Oxford rejected Mr Malloch’s assertion to have been a senior fellow of Wolfson College. “In publicity statements about, and by, Professor Ted Malloch, he is described as having been a ‘senior fellow of Wolfson College’. This is inaccurate,” it said in a statement.

Malloch book’s dubious details include Emmy nomination and being ‘knighted’ by Queen

Mr Malloch was a visiting academic for two years but “he very rarely visited the college and did not see through any of his plans for research activities in the college”, added the university, which is usually reluctant to criticise former staff.

An online CV for Mr Malloch — which contains his correct mobile phone number and email, and which he did not deny preparing — also states he was a fellow and director of an international summer school at Pembroke College, Oxford. Pembroke College told the FT that this was incorrect. Mr Malloch said he had “receipts of payments proving” his work there.

The CV also states that Mr Malloch has written extensively for The New York Times, the Washington Post and The Economist. No record could be found of him having done so. Asked by the FT, he declined to indicate any articles. Mr Malloch said he had “organised a number of conferences for which papers were done for The Economist”.

Mr Malloch’s mooted appointment as a US envoy and his frequent appearances on the BBC have alarmed Brussels officials, who fear the Trump administration wants to undermine the EU. Mr Malloch told the FT last month that other countries would follow Britain out of the bloc and said people should “short the euro”.

He has built his credibility on associations with a wide variety of well-regarded institutions, from Yale University to the World Economic Forum. However, many of his roles have ended after two years or less.

In publicity statements about, and by, Professor Ted Malloch, he is described as having been a ‘senior fellow of Wolfson College’. This is inaccurate

Wolfson College, Oxford
His longest-serving role appears to be as “chairman and CEO” of the Roosevelt Group, “a leading strategic advisory and thought leadership company”. The company does not have its own website and a LinkedIn search did not reveal any other employees. Mr Malloch said in a statement, “At its height it had approx 15 employees [full-time] and many [part-time employees].”

Laura J. Spence, professor of business ethics at Royal Holloway, University of London, said that describing oneself as chairman and CEO “could be an accurate statement”, but added it may be misleading “because it suggests a large company”.

Last year Mr Malloch set up a UK company, Roosevelt Global Fiduciary Governance, with his wife as company secretary, which suggests a small operation. “Why is there a problem with small companies?” he told the FT.

Mr Malloch’s most senior diplomatic posting was at the UN Economic Commission for Europe between 1988 and 1991. In his autobiography, he described the role as “ambassadorial-level”, a D-2 on the UN pay scale, and the “top US position in Geneva”. The UNECE told the FT that the role was not ambassadorial level, was a lower grade (D-1), and that there were higher-ranking US officials at the UN in Geneva at the time.

Ms Spence, of Royal Holloway, said the questions surrounding Mr Malloch were “a warning signal to universities” as they broadened their appointments. “There is a new challenge for universities appointing people not on the basis of their academic credentials. That’s not where our strength lies,” she said.

Saïd Business School declined to specify whether it had done due diligence before appointing Mr Malloch, stating it had received references from Yale, where he was a research professor, and that he “gave no reason for suspicion” during his time in Oxford.

Henley Business School, which currently employs Mr Malloch, said: “While we do not comment on individual members of staff, our academic staff are free to express views.” Henley came 37th in the FT’s European Business School Rankings 2016.

Additional reporting by Cynthia O’Murchu

Disputed claims
The FT has identified a number of potentially misleading claims made in Mr Malloch’s autobiography, Davos, Aspen & Yale, and in an online CV.
● That he held an “ambassadorial level” role at the UN in Geneva, from which he “helped bring down the Soviet Union”. UN and US officials have said the role was not ambassadorial level.
● That Margaret Thatcher called him “a genius” and a “global sherpa” live on CNN in 1992. After video evidence contradicted his claim, he said the comment was made off-camera. A friend of Mr Malloch’s has told the FT he remembers hearing Thatcher use the “global sherpa” phrase of Mr Malloch.
● That he was “made a laird” by the Lord Lyon. The Lord Lyon does not have the power to create lairds. Mr Malloch told the FT that he had a scroll showing his position as laird.
● That his documentary Doing Virtuous Business was nominated for an Emmy award. The production company said it was submitted for a regional Emmy, but not nominated. A previous documentary was nominated.
● That he completed his “entire doctoral programme in an unprecedented less than three years”. Mr Malloch now says this did not include finishing his thesis.
● That he wrote for The New York Times and the Washington Post. No record could be found of him having done so. Mr Malloch declined to provide a list of articles.
● That he is “chairman and CEO” of Global Fiduciary Governance LLC and the Roosevelt Group. Neither company has its own website or any listed employees on LinkedIn, suggesting they are less grand than Mr Malloch’s use of the titles implies.
● That he was a fellow at Wolfson and Pembroke colleges, Oxford. Both institutions deny such an affiliation. Mr Malloch rejects this.
● That he was a “professor” at Saïd Business School, Oxford. In fact he was a senior fellow on a short-term appointment. Mr Malloch told the FT he was a professor at Yale and Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.
● That he was the “first” to use the phrase thought leadership, a phrase that dates back to the 19th century. Contacted by the FT, Mr Malloch repeated the claim.
Update: 22 February 2017

After this article was published, Mr Malloch made a series of false statements about the Financial Times and defamatory allegations against two of its journalists.

The website BrexitCentral.com published a correction and apology above an amended article that had previously contained some of Mr Malloch’s false statements.

However, on 19 February Breitbart.com then published some of the same, and other, false statements by him.

Far from rebutting the FT’s reporting, Mr Malloch has failed to justify a number of claims made in his autobiography and the online CV mentioned in our coverage.

Since our reporting, another part of the University of Oxford — Wadham College — has confirmed Mr Malloch’s CV has wrongly claimed he was a “Senior Common Room Fellow” there, and confirmed: “He has never been a Fellow of Wadham College and the role of Senior Common Room Fellow does not exist here.”

His dissemination of false facts in his inaccurate article on Breitbart.com is unacceptable, therefore we are setting the record straight. Mr Malloch made a number of false statements about the FT and its journalists, of which some of the most serious are addressed below.

● Various statements he made about his conversation with FT industry editor Peggy Hollinger after he submitted an op-ed article to the Financial Times are false. In fact, Mr Malloch had called FT industry editor Peggy Hollinger (not, as he claimed, vice versa), who made clear she was not responsible for op-eds.

Ms Hollinger did not tell him the comment piece he had offered to the FT would not be published “because it was contrary to [FT’s] pro-EU policy”. The FT’s comment sections carry a diverse range of views, including pro-Brexit pieces by contributors such as Ruth Lea, Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Redwood and Nigel Lawson. The FT encourages op-ed submissions via its website. Ms Hollinger did not “lecture” Mr Malloch and did not say, as claimed, that “the EU is the most perfect thing ever invented”.

● FT political correspondent Henry Mance did not describe himself as a “media writer” and did not say he had been told “by higher ups” to do his reporting on Mr Malloch; the reporting was his own initiative. Mr Malloch never asked Mr Mance if the EU was paying him. Had he asked, Mr Mance would have informed him that of course it was not doing so.

● Mr Mance never offered to show Mr Malloch any text before publication. The Financial Times does not give subjects of news reports the right to review articles prior to publication.

● In his Breitbart piece, Mr Malloch’s account of his exchange of questions and answers with Mr Mance in relation to the above article and the news report of 9 February is flawed and embellished.

● Mr Mance asked him about an Emmy “nomination”, not about an Emmy “award”. Mr Malloch’s claim in his book, that Doing Virtuous Business was nominated, remains incorrect.

● In his book, Mr Malloch states Margaret Thatcher called him a “genius” and a “global sherpa”, and specifies the precise moment — on stage at a 1992 CNN conference at the start of her speech. That is contradicted by a C-Span video of the event.

● Mr Malloch’s Breitbart article confirms the FT’s reporting that he was not “knighted into the Sovereign Order of St. John by the Queen, Elizabeth II herself” as stated in his book.

● His book states he was “made a laird by Lord Lyon of Scotland” whereas a spokesperson for the Lord Lyon denied this, and the FT’s reporting reflected that discrepancy.

● FT’s reporting questioned Mr Malloch’s claim, in his book, that he “finished [his] entire doctoral program in an unprecedented less than three years”. Mr Malloch himself has conceded that he completed coursework and oral exams within three years but not his thesis. Mr Malloch never offered to put FT in contact with his thesis examiner, as claimed.

● The New York Times and Washington Post confirmed to the FT that they had no record of Mr Malloch’s having written for them. Mr Malloch declined to identify to Mr Mance any specific articles he claims to have written for those news organisations.

● In his Breitbart article Mr Malloch cited correspondence from a Dr Christopher Hancock in support of his claim to have been a fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. However, no such correspondence was received by Mr Mance; in any event, the correspondence does not confirm Mr Malloch’s status. The college authorities have denied Mr Malloch was a fellow there.

● Mr Malloch’s article also cited an email from Mr H. Skip Weitzen and complained that the FT did not publish it. However, Mr Weitzen’s account is referenced in Mr Mance’s article of 10 February.

The FT stands by its reporting and will continue to set the record straight in the face of any further false claims.
https://www.ft.com/content/ce317948-efb ... 1b01e23655

This is no longer a US / UK story. Cambridge Analytica's role in Indian elections has caused a huge political stir over there as big as here & in the US. And India is Facebook's biggest market.

Ex-staffer claims Cambridge Analytica had worked for Congress

LONDON: A former employee of Cambridge Analytica has claimed that the controversial data firm undertook work for the Congress party in India and worked “extensively in India”.

Christopher Wylie, who was a research director with SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, from June 2013 to July 2014, made the revelations during a lengthy statement he gave to the digital, culture, media and sport committee at the House of Commons on Tuesday.

“I believe their client was Congress” he said. “But I know that they have done all kinds of projects, both regional and… I don’t remember a national project but I know regionally, they have. India is so big that one state can be as big as Britain. They do have offices there, they have staff there. I believe I have some documentation on India I can provide the committee.”

Wylie had blown the whistle on Cambridge Analytica’s alleged use of data of millions of Facebook users for political campaigns.

‘Analytica an example of modern-day colonialism’

Adding another twist, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, an IT expert, told the committee that Wylie’s predecessor at Cambridge Analytica, Dan Mursean, was working in India for Congress but had been paid by a billionaire to subvert the party’s chances. “There are stories starting to come out that he was working for Congress when he died in Kenya. Apparently he was really paid for by an Indian-origin billionaire who actually wanted Congress to lose. So he was pretending to work for one party while he was actually paid underhand by someone else.”

“Cambridge Analytica was more of a concept and a brand than anything. It does not have any employees. It is all SCL Group,” he explained.

“When you look at how SCL or Cambridge Analytica operate, they don’t care whether what they do is legal, as long as it gets the job done,” Wylie said.

“There are a lot of reasons I find the company problematic. It’s not just the data, they are an example of what modern-day colonialism looks like,” he said.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... ed_Stories

[Grizzly]

It's not just about data protection; it's about strategies designed to induce addictive behavior, and thus to manipulate
Cambridge Analytica and Online Manipulation
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... ipulation/

I post this article w/ a caveat'; I think 'Scientific American' as a whole is a shit propagenda rag. However, there are often good observations in it sometimes. This may be one. YMMV.