Former High Ranking U.S. Senator Wants to “Hang Edward Snowden on the Courthouse Square”

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We need to hang him on the courthouse square as soon as we get a hold of him.

– Former vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Saxby Chambliss, on Edward Snowden

It appears the past few days have represented a sort of coming out party for formerly powerful players in the U.S. government to showcase their fascist tendencies. Earlier today, I highlighted General Wesley Clark’s clear suggestion during a MSNBC interview that Americans who are “disloyal” should be forcibly separated from the “normal” general population through the use of WWII style internment camps.

In the latest display, video has emerged of former Republican Senator, and ex-vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, saying that Edward Snowden should be hanged in the courthouse square. What ever happened to fair trials?

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Uber Executive Suggested Company Hire Team to Dig up Dirt on Journalists

Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 5.07.16 PMFirst there was Grubergate. Now we have Ubergate.

Reports of questionable behavior emanating from the executive suite at ridesharing company Uber are nothing new. My antennae first shot straight upward when I read that the company had hired one of Barack Obama’s chief political strategists, David Plouffe, as a senior vice president of policy and strategy. The Washington Post covered this in the articleUber hired David Plouffe when it realized ‘techies’ can’t do politics.

Around the exact same time, The Verge reported on the company’s playbook for sabotaging its competitor, Lyft. You can read that article here. Something seemed a little fishy, but I pretty much forgot all about it.

Well the latest revelation is simply something I can’t ignore. Thanks to a piece published yesterday at Buzzfeed, we now have an idea of the sick mindset of one of the company’s senior executives. Even worse, this guy sits on a board that advises the Department of Defense.

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It’s Not Just Spying – How the NSA Has Turned Into a Giant Profit Center for Corrupt Insiders

Screen Shot 2014-10-20 at 11.49.42 AMDear NSA Employees, You Now Have a Green Light to Loot and Pillage. It’s Time to Get Paid:

Are you just another one of those frustrated NSA employees who feels that unconstitutionally spying on your fellow citizenry under false pretenses isn’t giving you same thrill it once did? If so, have no fear.

Are you are sick and tired of having to spilt your precious working hours defending the destruction of our nation’s founding document to those pesky terroristic media dinosaurs who still think investigative journalism belongs in Amerika? If so, have I got a solution for you.

While it may sound too good to be true, trust me it’s not. You see, in recent years almost all crony-capitalist criminal activities have been deemed legal in the land of the free (to pillage). This incredible opportunity allows you to directly leverage your intelligence skill-set to earn the big bucks you know you’ve always deserved. You can now do just that by working in the private sector without having to give up that cushy government day job! I mean if we’re going to have this banana republic thing going we may as well GET PAID. Am I right?

Keep at it patriots,
Michael Krieger

If the above sounds like a joke, unfortunately it is not. Last week, two very important stories came out; one from Reuters and the other from Buzzfeed. They both zero in on how current NSA employees are using their expertise and connections to make big money in the private sector while still working at the NSA. Let’s start with the Reuters story, which covers former NSA-head Keith Alexander’s business relationship with the NSA’s current Chief Technical Officer, Patrick Dowd.

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Neocons Roast Dick Cheney in NYC – Joke About Waterboarding and War Crimes

On Monday night, the disgraced neocon establishment gathered at the Plaza Hotel in New York City to celebrate the depravity of Dick Cheney by having a gigantic laugh about all of the pain and suffering they inflicted on the rest of the world while they held the reigns of power. The event was hosted by Commentary … Read more

We Are Legion: Anonymous’ Presence in the U.S. Military

Are we going to see more leaks? 

Yes. A lot [of Anonymous members] are mid- to high-rank NCOs. They are well-respected, have connections, and overly large security clearances. A lot of people who are part of the [Anonymous] culture are just dying at this point for something to come across their table that isn’t already out there. It is so easy to leak information that if you want to, you can do it.

– From Buzzfeed’s recent article Anonymous’ Secret Presence In The U.S. Army

It was only after watching the excellent documentary We Are Legion: The Story of Anonymous, that I really understood the history of the decentralized hacktivist collective. It was also where I first learned of Barrett Brown and his groundbreaking investigative journalism into the murky world of defense contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton.

People’s opinion’s on “Anonymous” are varied and often confused, which makes sense considering it is more of a collection of ideas, rather than a top down organization with a specific and well defined platform. However, no matter what you think of it, there is no doubting the movement’s political influence. An influence that now extends deep into the bowels of the military-industrial complex. From Buzzfeed:

An active-duty Army captain and member of Anonymous describes how the organization operates, his own involvement in the Arab Spring, how the crackdown on Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden has affected soldiers, and how more leaks are on the way. He has agreed to speak with BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity.

Are there a lot of members of Anonymous in the Army?

There are more than you would think, more heavily in the techie world [of the military] — especially at Fort Huachuca, where all the intel people are. A lot of them wanted to get the job [there] because they want to learn secret stuff and have a better personal understanding of how the world actually works.

What are the most popular operations amongst soldiers? 

Anonymous is so distributed and leaderless that everyone has operations they love and hate. Operation Cartel, especially at Fort Bliss. Operation Dark Net was universally loved. And Operation Payback was pretty well received.

Why do Anonymous members outside the military trust you? 

My credibility is incredibly suspect in the group. I admit I work for the feds, and I provide information on myself so that they are comfortable. There are people who I only know as screen names but I have put my career in their hands.

Are the retaliations against Manning and Snowden discouraging Anonymous activity and the desire to leak information? 

A lot [of Anonymous members] have been in long enough and are jaded. They are watching as the government comes down harder and harder. There is a growing sense of disdain and hatred because we are complicit in it. There are some secrets that need to be secrets but the stuff [the military] keeps secret just to protect the bottom line — you just feel like you are selling your soul every day. That is a lot of the motivation. Especially for people of the generation that believe that information should be free.

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

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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