Michael Krieger

My name is Michael Krieger, and I am the creator and editor of Liberty Blitzkrieg. I'm originally from New York City.

As far as my academic and professional background, I attended college at Duke University where I earned a double major in Economics and Spanish. After completing my studies in 2000, I took a job at Lehman Brothers where I worked with the Oil analyst in the Equity Research Department.  In 2005, I joined Sanford C. Bernstein where I served as the Commodities Analyst on the trading floor. About halfway through my time there, I started to branch out and write opinions on bigger picture "macro" topics that no one else at the firm was covering. These opinion pieces were extremely popular throughout the global investment community, and I traveled around providing advice to some of the largest mutual funds, pension funds and hedge funds in the world.

I loved my job, but as time passed I started to educate myself about how the monetary and financial system functions and what I discovered disgusted me. I no longer felt satisfied working within the industry, and I resigned in January 2010.  At that point, I started a family investment office and continued to write macro pieces on economic, social and geopolitical topics. That summer, I drove cross country for six weeks and ultimately decided to leave the crowded streets of Manhattan for the open spaces of Boulder, Colorado, where I currently reside.

In the years that followed, I gradually recognized that my true passion centers upon writing on issues of significant societal importance given the extremely challenging times we live in. This realization culminated with me losing interest in financial markets and eventually launching this website in early 2012.

If you are interested in a more detailed description, replete with colorful anecdotes, of how I ended up making this bizarre professional transition, take the time to watch the video below.

https//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DcqMN-FXCIE?rel=0

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

The Bahrain Ghetto: Barbed Wire Fencing Goes Up Around Certain Neighborhoods

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The regime in Bahrain has been one of the world’s greatest human rights abusers over the past several years, yet there’s barely a peep by our “most transparent ever” President Barrack Obama. Why?

Well, as anyone with even the slightest degree of geopolitical awareness knows, Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which represents the regional forces responsible for protecting regional “democracy,” ie the petrodollar. In exchange for our key military base, the U.S. turns a blind eye to the autocratic activities of the feudal monarchy that runs the place. The latest civil rights abuse is the emergence of razor-wire and concrete structures around certain neighborhoods of the capital city of Manama so that the citizenry cannot engage in protest. From the Washington Post:

MANAMA, Bahrain — Inspired by the movement behind Egypt’s military coup, anti-government activists seeking more influence in Bahrain are hoping to gain new momentum by calling for nationwide protests Wednesday. Authorities warned they will “forcefully confront” any large demonstrations, raising fears of more violence in the strategic Gulf kingdom.

Concrete barriers lined major streets in the capital, Manama, and security checkpoints surrounded by barbed wire guarded roads leading to the city from majority Shiite neighborhoods that house many of the protesters. And hundreds of security forces in riot gear stood guard near armored personnel carriers around what used to be Pearl Square, the epicenter of weeks of anti-government rallies that were met with a crackdown in 2011.

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Two Powerful Videos on Physical Gold Supply Tightness

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If the physical gold market is anywhere near as tight as these two market observers indicate, get ready for some serious fireworks in the precious metals markets. The first video is one that has been making the rounds in recent days. It’s an interview with Mihir Dange, co-founder of commodity trading firm Grafite Capital from the … Read more

Forget Student Loans…Introducing Day Care Loans

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Now that enough college age Americans have been stuffed with over a trillion dollars in student debt only to get a job a McDonalds and live with their parents, folks in New York City have come up with a brilliant new concept to ensure the production of an entirely new generation of debt slaves. Introducing day care loans…and here’s the best part, they are “interest only” from childcare to kindergarden!

Of course it makes sense that these loans would originate in my hometown of NYC, which has in the past 15-20 years fully transformed itself into a corporatized, generic and unaffordable Wall Street whorehouse. From CBS:

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — After housing, child care is one of the largest expenses for families in New York City.

But now, there is an option for parents to get their kids into some of the city’s top pre-kindergarten programs with loans just for day care.

As CBS 2’s Janelle Burrell reported Monday, tuition without room and board for undergrads at Harvard University is $38,891 for the 2013-2014 school year. For Princeton University, it is $40,170.

Pre-school in Manhattan is not far behind, with some elite day care costing families more than $35,000.

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Meet The Meshnet: A New Wave of Decentralized Internet Access

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Across the US, from Maryland to Seattle, work is underway to construct user-owned wireless networks that will permit secure communication without surveillance or any centralized organization. They are known as meshnets and ultimately, if their designers get their way, they will span the country.

– From the New Scientist article, Let’s Start the Net Again

In the wake of the NSA spy revelations, many people have become disillusioned or despondent regarding the seemingly unstoppable pervasiveness of the surveillance state. I am not one of those people. As James Baldwin famously stated: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

There’s a reason the highest levels of the U.S. military-industrial complex went to such extremes to keep all of this information hidden from the American public and much of Congress. They don’t want us to know that we are merely lab rats in their perverted real life Truman Show. What we don’t know about spying makes the spying all the more effective. I do not for a moment believe that they want us to know all of the details of this program so that we “self-censor.” All the evidence demonstrates that they wanted to keep this stuff deeply buried.

So now at least we all know we have a serious problem, or at least enough of us know. Now it is our duty to dismantle the surveillance state and create something better in its place. Fortunately, many very smart, dedicated people have already been working on this problem, and the information provided by Edward Snowden will merely accelerate our implementation of solutions. One exciting example of this are Meshnets. From the New Scientist:

The internet is neither neutral nor private, in case you were in any doubt. The US National Security Agency can reportedly collect nearly everything a user does on the net, while internet service providers (ISPs) move traffic according to business agreements, rather than what is best for its customers. So some people have decided to take matters into their own hands, and are building their own net from scratch.

Across the US, from Maryland to Seattle, work is underway to construct user-owned wireless networks that will permit secure communication without surveillance or any centralized organization. They are known as meshnets and ultimately, if their designers get their way, they will span the country.

Each node in the mesh, consisting of a radio transceiver and a computer, relays messages from other parts of the network. If the data can’t be passed by one route, the meshnet finds an alternative way through to its destination.

While these projects are just getting off the ground, a mesh network in Catalonia, Spain, is going from strength to strength. Guifi was started in the early 2000s by Ramon Roca, an Oracle employee who wanted broadband at his rural home. The local network now has more than 21,000 wireless nodes, spanning much of Catalonia. As well as allowing users to communicate with each other, Guifi also hosts web servers, videoconferencing services and internet radio broadcasts, all of which would work if the internet went down for the rest of the country.

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New Hampshire City Requests a Tank to Deal with “Domestic Terrorist” Groups Like Occupy Wall Street and Libertarians

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The State of New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type. We are fortunate that our State has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges.

– From Concord, New Hampshire’s application to the DHS for an armored police vehicle

It appears there is just a little too much freedom happening in the “live free or die” state of New Hampshire for the local authorities’ comfort level. A copy of Concord, New Hampshire’s application for a BearCat G3 armored vehicle was received by the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union (NHCLU), and provides shocking insight into the mindset of city officials.

It’s just incredible that these folks would demonize peaceful activists by referring to them as “terrorists” in order to militarize their police force and feel like tough guys. This is further proof that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not exist to protect the citizenry from outside threats, but rather to protect the corrupt oligarchic power structure from we the people. More from Mother Jones:

In an application to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking more than $250,000 to purchase an armored police vehicle, the capital city of New Hampshire specified the local branch of the Occupy movement and the Free State Project, an effort to recruit “liberty-loving people” to relocate to the Granite State, as potential sources of terrorist action.

“The State of New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type,” the filing reads. “We are fortunate that our State has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges.”

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An Excellent Interview with PGP Creator and Silent Circle Co-Founder Phil Zimmermann

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We need to take an objective look at the damage since 9/11 and that would take into account self-inflicted wounds. The harm we have done to our society has come as a reaction to 9/11. The cost includes our expectations of our legal system and our civil liberties. I don’t think it is a partisan issue. We need to push back against this tide of surveillance. In my case, I create technology, so I do things that allow me to apply my skills and part of that is to develop technology tools that push back against a small subset of that problem.

– Phil Zimmerman

Om Malik of Gigaom has just released an excellent interview with Phil Zimmermann, the creator of PGP and co-founder of Silent Circle. In case you missed it, Silent Circle made the preemptive decision to shut down its encrypted email service last week after the Feds went after Lavabit. What follows is a real treat, a philosophical and pragmatic discussion with one of the most aware and knowledge observers in this crucial debate. From Gigaom:

Phil Zimmermann might be a technologist, but he tends to get philosophical when it comes to the issues of privacy and security and how they intersect with our society. A cryptographer, in 1991, he created Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), an email encryption software and published it for free on the internet. Since then he has become an eloquent proponent for the need for privacy and tools. Zimmermann has had his run-ins with the authorities in the past, but he is widely respected for his views on cryptography and privacy — one of the reasons why he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame and has been a recipient of multiple awards recognizing his achievements.

The spotlight fell on Zimmermann again this week when Silent Circle, a secure-private communications company he co-founded, decided to suspend its Silent Mail service amid fears of future government interference. That action followed on the heels of a decision by another secure and private email service provider, Lavabit, to shut down operations.

Om Malik: We suddenly find ourselves in a very confusing landscape, grappling with the enormity and speed of changes. I was wondering if you could try and make sense of this post-Snowden world and what it means for the long term.

Phil Zimmermann: The surveillance landscape is far worse than it has ever been and I feel like everything we do is now observable. All of our transactions and communications are all fused together into total information awareness apparatus. I don’t think any of this can be fixed merely by the application of cryptography. It is going to require some push back in the policy space. We are going to have to have Congress react to this and we need to get the population to react, perhaps through the economic consequences we face of losing a lot of business for American internet companies. Maybe American internet companies can push back because of economic harm that comes with the rest of world turning its back on us.

If China was to intercept our phone calls, I wouldn’t like that but I wouldn’t worry that Chinese authorities would bang on my door and haul me to prison because I don’t live in China. So when a government turns its powerful surveillance tools on its people, it has impact on the political opposition within the country. The power of incumbency becomes greater and opportunities for the democratic process become less and are undermined.

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

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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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New Interview with SGT Report: The Great Awakening

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It’s been a little while since my last interview with SGT Report, so I’m really pleased to be able release the recording of a chat we had last weekend. I was in an area with spotty internet connection, so you will notice some bad audio quality in the beginning, but I promise it gets better … Read more

In London Big Brother is Now in the Trash Cans

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You may want to think twice before switching your phone setting to WiFi the next time you are in Great Britain. London-based marketing firm Renew’s ORB technology allows trash cans (or seemingly anything for that matter) to spy on people’s habits through their smartphones, and it has now been released into the wild. For example, in a press release the company boasts:

It provides an unparalleled insight into the past behavior of unique devices—entry/exit points, dwell times, places of work, places of interest, and affinity to other devices.

Awesome. This basically looks like metadata for retailers, or the corporate side of the NSA spy story in many ways. Here’s a company video:

More from ArsTechnica:

Renew, the London-based marketing firm behind the smart trash cans, bills the Wi-Fi tracking as being “like Internet cookies in the real world.” In a press release, it boasts of the data-collection prowess of the cans’ embedded Renew “ORB” technology, which captures the unique media access control (MAC) address of smartphones that belong to passersby. During a one-week period in June, just 12 cans, or about 10 percent of the company’s fleet, tracked more than 4 million devices and allowed company marketers to map the “footfall” of their owners within a 4-minute walking distance to various stores.

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A Chat in NYC with Adam Levine – Part 2

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His show may be called Let’s Talk Bitcoin, but in this segment we didn’t talk Bitcoin at all! Rather, we focused on the key distinction between protecting “acts of journalism” versus protecting specific “journalists.” We also discuss decentralization, Bradley Manning’s trial, the Amash amendment, and much, much more. I had a lot of great feedback … Read more