News Items

Meet Xmission: The ISP Focused on Privacy

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Earlier this week, I highlighted alternative search engine DuckDuckGo, which focuses on privacy and claims that: “if the NSA demanded data there would be none to hand over.” Today’s article focuses on a little known internet service provider (ISP) called Xmission, which is based in Utah and has 30,000 subscribers. Ironically, it is situated close to the NSA’s new multi-billion dollar spy center and it has received rave reviews from the always excellent Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). It’s founder, Pete Ashdown is a brave man who, unlike his larger tech peers, has consistently stood up to the government and intelligence services to protect his customers’ Constitutional rights. From The Guardian:

Silicon Valley’s role in US government surveillance has triggered public anxiety about the internet, but it turns out there is at least one tech company you can trust with your data. The only problem: it’s a relative minnow in the field, operating from offices in Utah.

Xmission, Utah’s first independent and oldest internet service provider, has spent the past 15 years resolutely shielding customers’ privacy from government snoops in a way that larger rivals appear to have not.

The company, a comparative midget with just 30,000 subscribers, cited the Fourth Amendment in rebuffing warrantless requests from local, state and federal authorities, showing it was possible to resist official pressure.

“I would tell them I didn’t need to respond if they didn’t have a warrant, that (to do so) wouldn’t be constitutional,” the founder and chief executive, Pete Ashdown, said in an interview at his Salt Lake City headquarters.

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The 3 Key Takeaways from the Ridiculous “Insider Threat Program”

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McClatchy’s recent report covering the government’s expansive employee snitch policy, aka the Insider Threat Program, has gotten a great deal of attention in the alternative media, and rightfully so. I finally took the time to read it and quickly realized that I need to offer my own take since it encapsulates so much of the severe mental illness, delusion and sociopathy rampant within the so-called American “elite” class.

The first line of the report pretty much summarizes what the Insider Threat Program intends to do:

“In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues.”

There are three main takeaways from this revelation I think are crucial to be aware of.  I will cover each of them briefly.

1) This creates a horrible and counterproductive work environment where everyone distrusts everyone else.

So imagine working for the government and being fully aware that because you are going through a divorce or having some financial difficulties that you are now deemed “suspicious” to your superiors.  What about voicing a political view in a conversation at the water cooler? The mere fact that this program exists turns the work environment into a virtual prison where all normal human behavior is suspect and you are encouraged to become a government robot.  But it’s even worse than that.  This program guarantees that the nastiest and most immoral types will rise to the top. Someone with sociopathic tendencies will quickly realize that the “upside” is to always snitch on everyone. Is there someone right above you who’s position you covet?  Simply make consistent accusations against them and play the political game until you ruin that person. This works particularly well if your target is a decent person.

2) Solidifies the fact the government is not interested in solving problems, but rather is focused on continuing the cronyism and criminality and merely covering it up.

The above point basically summarizes everything that is wrong with all of our major institutions today, and why we have total political and economic disfunction. This is a topic I have covered for many, many years with regard to the financial system. The reason the economy has not really recovered and why it will not enter into a healthy recovery is that our “leaders” merely covered up all of the bubbles and crimes pre-2008.  Not only did no one go to jail, but those most responsible for the crisis were rewarded with high political positions (Larry Summers and Tim Geithner) and also monetarily through bailouts. The same thing is now happening with the NSA scandal. Rather than addressing this gross violation of the 4th Amendment as well as Clapper lying in front of Congress, the power structure is focused on making sure its crimes aren’t revealed going forward. Whistleblowers are prosecuted and jailed, while those in power destroying the Constitution are promoted. This guarantees future societal breakdown.

3) Exposes how completely hopeless and terminal the status quo is.

This is the silver lining to the entire thing. I have covered previously how the status quo has no philosophy the masses can believe in. Its position of power depends on its crimes being hidden in the shadows and enormous payoffs (or threats) for those at the top directly involved in the pillaging. Once the scam is exposed, the public will ultimately turn against the system. This is why Snowden’s leaks are so important and why the status quo is panicking. One of the things McClatchy notes is that one trend the government is looking out for is: “an increasingly disgruntled, post-Great Recession workforce and the entry of younger, ‘Gen Y’ employees who were ‘raised on the Internet.'”  Sorry, but a power structure this frightened of the younger generation cannot and will not survive. It is simply a matter of time.

Now here are some key excerpts from the McClatchy report:

WASHINGTON — In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.

The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers. Those who fail to report them could face penalties, including criminal charges.

The order covers virtually every federal department and agency, including the Peace Corps, the Department of Education and others not directly involved in national security.

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Red Pill Artwork: Revolutionary Paintings by Peter Santa-Maria

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Once you realize how silly the people in power are, and how silly it is that we give them any power, you instantly feel powerful and you instantly feel empowered to do something about it.  There’s a great phrase that says:  If you want to tell someone the truth, make them laugh…or else they’ll kill … Read more

How Much is Your Private Data Worth?

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Interesting article from the Star Tribune that shines a small degree of light on the fees telecommunication companies and others charge the U.S. government for your personal data.  Interestingly, while AT&T charges a $325 million activation fee per wiretap and $10 a day for maintenance, “Facebook doesn’t charge the government for access.”  That’s mighty generous of you Mr. Zuckerberg.

Also of interest, is the revelation that AT&T devotes roughly 100 employees to review each request and hand over data, while Verizon has a team of 70 employees that work around the clock on spying.  More below:

In the era of intense government surveillance and secret court orders, a murky multimillion-dollar market has emerged. Paid for by U.S. tax dollars, but with little public scrutiny, surveillance fees charged in secret by technology and phone companies can vary wildly.

AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 “activation fee” for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that, according to industry disclosures made last year to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Meanwhile, email records like those amassed by the National Security Agency through a program revealed by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden probably were collected for free or very cheaply. Facebook says it doesn’t charge the government for access.  And while Microsoft, Yahoo and Google won’t say how much they charge, the American Civil Liberties Union found that email records can be turned over for as little as $25. 

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Search Engine “Duck Duck Go” Experiences Traffic Surge in Wake of NSA Scandal

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The tremendous positive impact from Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations will only be properly appreciated in the years and decades ahead, but I believe they will be extraordinary. In fact, we are already seeing many of them. From the recent halt on the CISPA bill in Congress, to the forced exposure of authoritarian shills in the mainstream media as they struggle to publicly defend the NSA. However, perhaps the most significant long-term impact will be the resulting boom in the privacy business.  If you recall, I wrote a piece titled Bitcoin and Kim Dotcom: Why it’s Time to “Encrypt Everything” a couple of months ago.

In what I think is great news, the alternative, “non-tracking” search engine Duck Duck Go has seen a surge in traffic since the NSA scandal was revealed.  As was noted in a Guardian article from today: “If the NSA demanded data from DuckDuckGo, there would be none to hand over.”  More on this fascinating trend below:

Gabriel Weinberg noticed web traffic building on the night of Thursday 6 June – immediately after the revelations about the “Prism” program. Through the programme, the US’s National Security Agency claimed to have “direct access” to the servers of companies including, crucially, the web’s biggest search engines – Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Within days of the story, while the big companies were still spitting tacks and tight-lipped disclaimers, the search engine Weinberg founded – which pledges not to track or store data about its users – was getting 50% more traffic than ever before. That has gone up and up as more revelations about NSA and GCHQ internet tapping have come in.

Using it is very definitely an active choice, whereas using Google is the default option on most browsers. And 95% of people never change the default settings on anything.

But this 20-person business offers what none of the big search engines do: zero tracking. It doesn’t use cookies or store data about its users’ IP addresses, doesn’t offer user logins, and uses an encrypted connection by default.

 If the NSA demanded data from DuckDuckGo, there would be none to hand over.

Having decided that searching is intimately personal, he deduced that governments would want to get hold of search data. “I looked at the search fiascos such as the AOL data release, and decided that government requests were real and would be inevitable, and that search engines and content companies would be handing over that data [to government] in increasing amounts.”

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The Las Vegas Housing Market has Gone Full Chinese

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Let’s face it, the Las Vegas real estate market has gone full Chinese.  By full Chinese I mean a centrally planned bubble has been created that is just asking to blow up.  I’ve covered the renewed insanity of the Las Vegas market before, but this article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal provides even more detail.  In a nutshell, as a result of Assembly Bill 284, which essentially made foreclosures impossible in Nevada, extremely delinquent homes are not coming for sale, and this phony market signal is leading to rampant overbuilding and price speculation.

Here are some numbers. Utility data showed nearly 64,000 vacant homes in Las Vegas at the end of last September, only 8,000 of which are on the market. Meanwhile, new home sales are up 87% and new building permits are up 52% this year. What’s the end result? Another bubble, but this time one where Blackstone and other private equity firms are pricing out average citizens with elevated all cash bids.  USA! USA!  From the WSJ:

LAS VEGAS—In a city dotted with tens of thousands of vacant houses, Jericho Guarin figured it would be easy to buy his first home. But nearly a year after beginning a search late last summer, he has come up dry.

“It has been a nightmare,” says the 37-year-old U.S. Air Force officer. “There are plenty of empty houses, but they’re just not for sale.”

Thank you for your service Mr. Guarin, now go rent from Blackstone.

Many real-estate agents, home builders and consumer advocates argue that the law, intended to remedy foreclosure-processing abuses, has backfired. Some owners who are behind on payments aren’t maintaining their homes as banks refrain from eviction proceedings. The perverse outcome: Inventory shortages have spurred new developments despite a glut of properties stuck in foreclosure limbo.

“The people hurt most by this law are the middle class,” says Steve Hawks, a real-estate agent in Henderson, Nev. He refers to the phenomenon wrought by the foreclosure measure, Assembly Bill 284, as the “A.B. 284 bubble.”

The middle class…what’s that?

Mr. Guarin, the Air Force Captain, is preapproved for a mortgage backed by the Veterans Administration for up to $185,000. But like many buyers who need financing, he is at a severe disadvantage because sellers often prefer all-cash deals that won’t be tied up by a low appraisal or other red tape. “There’s no way I can match the cash offers,” says Mr. Guarin.

With investors in the game, more properties are commanding prices above asking—a phenomenon real-estate agent Bryan Lebo knows all too well. Recently, he listed a bank-owned property for $86,000. The home, which he said needed around $20,000 in repairs, drew 41 offers—39 of them all-cash—and sold to an investor for $135,000. “If you’re an honest working person, you pretty much don’t have a chance,” says Mr. Lebo of current market conditions.

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How Edward Snowden Helped Kill CISPA (for now)

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If you forgot about CISPA, it’s the latest version of the internet spying bill that Congress has been trying to pass for years. So not only did Edward Snowden alert the American public and the world of the extraordinarily unconstitutional and immoral activities of the NSA and U.S. government, his information also stopped CISPA dead … Read more

Good News: Judge Orders U.S. to Release Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File

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What is so disturbing about this aspect of the Aaron Swartz tragedy is the fact that the Secret Service had thousands of pages on Aaron Swartz to begin with.  Considering he was known to all as a kind and gentle soul, what was the Secret Service so worried about?

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is now inescapably clear.  When the U.S. government refers to “national security,” what it actually means is the wealth and power of the status quo, the 0.01%.  That is why a genius such as Aaron Swartz was considered an enemy of the state, and why the government amassed thousands of pages on him and drove him to his death. His genius and kindness was a threat to the corrupt establishment.  As I’ve noted before:  All My Heroes Have FBI Files.  From Wired:

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Friday ordered the government to promptly start releasing thousands of pages of Secret Service documents about the late activist and coder Aaron Swartz, following months of roadblocks and delays.

The order was issued in my ongoing FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security – the Secret Service’s parent agency.

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The Michael Hastings Car Crash: No Skids Marks, a Flying Engine and “Boston Brakes”

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In cases such as the highly suspicious and tragic car crash/explosion that killed celebrated investigative journalist Michael Hastings, I try to reserve commentary for a little bit to let facts emerge following the initial speculative flurry. Particularly when it involves a journalist with whom I am only slightly familiar.  I think we can all agree at this point that based on what has come forward in the past several weeks it is more than likely Mr. Hastings was murdered. The following report from San Diego News 6 provides an excellent summary of what we know, and what we don’t know.  The LAPD doesn’t seem to care much about the latter.  From San Diego 6:

An eyewitness at the scene, Jose, employed at nearby business ALSCO Inc said, the car was traveling very fast and he heard a couple explosions shortly before the car crashed. In fact, the explosion was so intense that it took the LA County assistant corner, Ed Winter, two days to identify the burned-beyond recognition body of Hastings.

As news of the journalist’s death reached family and work colleagues another story emerged, one that would seemingly contradict the LAPD’s verdict. It quickly surfaced that Hastings reached out to Wikileaks attorney Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before his death claiming the FBI was investigating him. 

One particular passage in Hastings book, “The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan,” revealed that a former McChrystal staff member made a death threat. “We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write,” the unnamed staffer said. Hastings coolly retorted: “Well, I get death threats like that about once a year, so no worries.”

He later wrote; “I wasn’t disturbed by the claim. Whenever I’d been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to kill me.”

But the most significant missing evidence was the absence of any skid marks—even though the car made a 60-degree turn into a palm tree.

Research of this topic reveals a new angle to this story, namely —Boston Brakes.

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U.S. Government’s Secret Move to Hide Files on the Osama Bin Laden Raid

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The Osama Bin Laden raid was suspect from the very beginning.  Not only were key initial descriptions of the assault completely incorrect (such as him being armed and his wife being killed), but the manner in which his body was rapidly tossed into the ocean was beyond bizarre.  I mean, Tony Soprano keeps a body longer than that.

Well it seems the “most transparent administration ever” has made sure that the American public never receives any information beyond the propaganda of Zero Dark Thirty. From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s top special operations commander ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout to be purged from Defense Department computers and sent to the CIA, where they could be more easily shielded from ever being made public.

The secret move, described briefly in a draft report by the Pentagon’s inspector general, set off no alarms within the Obama administration even though it appears to have sidestepped federal rules and perhaps also the Freedom of Information Act. 

But secretly moving the records allowed the Pentagon to tell The Associated Press that it couldn’t find any documents inside the Defense Department that AP had requested more than two years ago, and could represent a new strategy for the U.S. government to shield even its most sensitive activities from public scrutiny.

McRaven’s directive sent the only copies of the military’s records about its daring raid to the CIA, which has special authority to prevent the release of “operational files” in ways that can’t effectively be challenged in federal court. The Defense Department can prevent the release of its own military files, too, citing risks to national security. But that can be contested in court, and a judge can compel the Pentagon to turn over non-sensitive portions of records.

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