Orwell’s Nightmare: The NSA and Google—Big Brother Meets Big Business

John W. Whitehead

The Google services and apps that we interact with on a daily basis aren’t the company’s main product: They are the harvesting machines that dig up and process the stuff that Google really sells: for-profit intelligence.”
— Journalist Yasha Levine

We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”
— former Google CEO Eric Schmidt

What would happen if the most powerful technology company in the world and the largest clandestine spying agency in the world joined forces?

No need to wonder. Just look around you. It’s happened already. Thanks to an insidious partnership between Google and the National Security Agency (NSA) that grows more invasive and more subtle with every passing day, “we the people” have become little more than data consumer commodities to be bought, sold and paid for over and over again.


America’s Lies On Ukraine

Brother Nathanael Kapner

It all began with 9/11. A man living in a cave in Afghanistan supposedly outfoxed 16 US intelligence agencies. But “Architects and Engineers” tells us 9/11 was an inside job. Now we’ve got ‘Osama bin Putin’ and the lies keep pouring in.

First we got the lie that Yanukovych was firing on protesters from the rooftops at Maiden. But it was Right Sector snipers—enablers of DC’s coup-imposed regime—who shot at the crowd.

Jewish neocon, Victoria Nuland — of “F*** the EU” fame — was nailed by Rep Rohrabacher, as queen of the lie.

Clip: “The vast majority who participated on the Maidan were peaceful protesters. If you had a chance to see the pictures, some…many of us visited, including many members here. There were mothers and grandmothers, and veterans. However—however…”

“Before you go on, I also saw those pictures. And I saw a lot of pictures of people throwing fire bombs at groups of policemen who are huddled over in a corner where people are shooting into the ranks of police. So yes, there were mothers with flowers, but there were also very dangerous street fighters who were engaged in those demonstrations. Question is, were there neo-nazi groups involved in that?”

“Um, there were, as I said, almost every color of Ukraine was represented including some ugly…including some ugly colors.”

“The answer — the answer is yes, then."


Is the U.S. Government Funding Boko Haram?

Stefan Molyneux

"Unfortunately the American public has little or no sense of the geopolitical stakes at play in here. They hear a story about girls being kidnapped, they see a catchy hashtag, and they run with it. They would never even think for a moment that their outrage might be playing into the hands of the very people who created the problem in the first place."

The Nigerian terrorist group's connections with the rebels that Washington is funding and arming in Syria open up some very serious questions.

Somebody has been routing large sums of cash and/or weapons to the Nigerian terrorist Boko Haram. Most experts agree that the money itself is difficult to trace, but we do know a few things about their organization. You won't hear U.S. politicians or the corporate media going into detail about the group's leadership structure or alliances because doing so would open up some very uncomfortable questions, questions such as: are some of the weapons and money that the U.S. is sending to the Syrian rebels being routed to the Nigerian terrorist group? How would an honest look at Boko Haram's organization lead us to ask such an extreme question? Well, let's take a look at what we know:


Is Boko Haram a psy-op?

Kevin Barrett

"15 School Girls Escape Boko Haram Kidnappings – 185 Still Missing. One of the trucks that was carting the girls away reportedly broke down after it departed from the school premises. As the militants busied themselves with fixing the truck, 15 of the girls jumped out of the truck and ran into the nearby bushes. They were able to escape without being noticed because the terrorists were distracted by the broken down vehicle." (Caption: BellaNaija.com)

We are told that a radical Islamic group called Boko Haram has kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria. This classic good-vs.-evil tale pits crazed Muslim extremists against adorable innocent children. The whole world demands the rescue of the girls, and deplores the evils of "radical Islam." - It is a terrific story - the stuff Hollywood films are made of. But is it true?

Though the story is hogging the global media spotlight, it is full of gaping holes and wildly inconsistent official pronouncements. The Christian Science Monitor, hardly a bible of conspiracy theorists, points out:

"For all the urgent headlines and advocacy, however, what is still missing are basic facts. It is unclear how many girls were abducted, who they are, who did it, at what time, and exactly how."

A story featuring unknown heroines and unknown villains performing unknown actions at an unknown time does not even qualify as a myth. The word "rumor" might even be an exaggeration.


Doctor Strangelove Returns as General Breedlove

Wayne Madsen

«Mein Führer! Mein President!»

In Stanley Kubrick’s 1954 madcap dark comedy «Dr. Strangelove», the clearly demented main character is a former scientist for Adolf Hitler who ends up as a military adviser to a fictional American president involved in a nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union. The Strangelove character was not merely a figment of Kubrick’s otherwise brilliant imagination. Dr. Strangelove, who urges a massive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, is based on two immigrant Cold Warriors from Europe possessing doctoral degrees: Dr. Henry Kissinger, the Machiavellian National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon and Russian Affairs Advisor to President Barack Obama, and Dr. Edward Teller, the father of America’s hydrogen bomb. In real life, Kissinger, a German and a Jew, and Teller, a Hungarian Jew, brought their anti-Russian European political «baggage» to bear on America’s policy toward Moscow during the height of the Cold War. Kissinger and Teller, like the revenge-seeking Nazi, Strangelove, wanted Russia punished for personal political reasons.

Today, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe and chief of the U.S. European Command, four-star Air Force General Philip Breedlove, is attempting to reprise the movie role of Dr. Strangelove, his almost namesake. Just as Dr. Strangelove cited a «mine shaft» gap with the Soviets arising from a lack of underground facilities for the protection of American men and women who would repopulate the world through proper «breeding techniques», Breedlove has stated that NATO must match Russian troop deployments in western Russia with a commensurate buildup of NATO troops in its east.

Breedlove has stated that NATO’s military presence in Eastern Europe will continue with air, land and sea deployments until at least December 31 and possibly beyond. Sounding a lot like Dr. Strangelove in his analysis of the perceived Russian «threat» to Ukraine and NATO, Breedlove pulled out the best taling points from the RAND Corporation. Breedlove in a news conference held this month with Canada’s top military commander, Chief of the Defense Staff Tom Lawson. Breedlove said, «Based on the new paradigm that we see Russia has presented . . . we are all going to have to re-evaluate some of the decisions that we have made for structure, for positioning, for readiness, and . . . even more important in the short term, our force responsiveness will need to be re-evaluated.»


Ukraine: The waiting game

Pepe Escobar

Everything one needs to know about mediocre political elites allegedly representing the "values" of Western civilization has been laid bare by their reaction to the referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk.

The referendums may have been a last-minute affair; organized in a rush; in the middle of a de facto civil war; and on top of it at gunpoint - supplied by the Kiev NATO neo-liberal neo-fascist junta, which even managed to kill some voters in Mariupol. An imperfect process? Yes. But absolutely perfect in terms of graphically depicting a mass movement in favor of self-rule and political independence from Kiev.

This was direct democracy in action; no wonder the US State Department hated it with a vengeance.[1]

Turnout was huge. The landslide victory for independence was out of the question. Same for transparency; a public vote, in glass ballot boxes, with monitoring provided by Western journalists - mostly from major German media but also from the Kyodo News Agency or the Washington Post.

What should come after the Donetsk People's Republic proclaimed itself a sovereign state, and asked Moscow to consider its accession into Russia, is not secession, nor outright civil war, but a negotiation. That's clear by the Kremlin's measured official reaction: "Moscow respects the will of the people in Donetsk and Lugansk and hopes that the practical realization of the outcome of the referendums will be carried out in a civilized manner."

The cautious tone is also reflected by the Kremlin urging the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help broker the negotiation. Yet once again, there's concrete proof that the NATO neo-liberal neo-fascist junta does not want to negotiate anything. Farcical "acting" President Oleksandr Turchynov labeled the exercise in direct democracy a "farce, which terrorists call the referendum"; and Washington and Brussels branded it "illegal".


Fed Laundering Treasury Purchases to Disguise What’s Happening

Greg Hunter / Paul Craig Roberts

In his latest article, former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says, “The Fed is the great deceiver.” Why is he making this shocking accusation? The reason is tiny Belgium’s whopping purchase of $141 billion in Treasury bonds earlier this year. Dr. Roberts explains, “We know that Belgium didn’t have any money to buy $141 billion worth of bonds over a three month period. That sum comes to 29% of the Belgium GDP. So, they don’t have a surplus in their budget that is 29% of their GDP, and they don’t have trade or current account surplus in that amount. In fact, everything is in the red. Their budget deficit is in the red, and their trade and current accounts are in the red. So, Belgium didn’t have the money, and yet, they managed to pick up $141.2 billion in U.S. Treasuries over a three month period. So, where did they get the money?” Dr. Roberts, who holds a PhD in economics, goes on to say, “We know their central bank couldn’t have printed euros to buy the bonds with because the Belgium central bank can’t print euros. Belgium is part of the euro system and has lost the ability to create its own money. So, the only source for that kind of money would have been the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve thought it needed to hide the fact it was buying $141 billion in bonds over a three month period when it was officially reducing or tapering the quantitative easing down to $65 billion. It didn’t want to have to admit it was really purchasing $112 billion a month, almost double the announced purchases.”


Break the silence: a world war is beckoning

John Pilger

Why do we tolerate the threat of another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a "brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis", as if the truth "never happened even while it was happening".

Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his "updated summary of the record of US foreign policy" which shows that, since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.

In many cases Britain has been a collaborator. The degree of human suffering, let alone criminality, is little acknowledged in the west, despite the presence of the world's most advanced communications and nominally freest journalism. That the most numerous victims of terrorism - "our" terrorism - are Muslims, is unsayable. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11[*], was nurtured as a weapon of Anglo-American policy (Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan) is suppressed. In April the US state department noted that, following Nato's campaign in 2011, "Libya has become a terrorist safe haven".

The name of "our" enemy has changed over the years, from communism to Islamism, but generally it is any society independent of western power and occupying strategically useful or resource-rich territory. The leaders of these obstructive nations are usually violently shoved aside, such as the democrats Muhammad Mossedeq in Iran and Salvador Allende in Chile, or they are murdered like Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. All are subjected to a western media campaign of caricature and vilification - think Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, now Vladimir Putin.

Washington's role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us. For the first time since the Reagan years, the US is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last "buffer state" bordering Russia is being torn apart. We in the west are backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler. Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington's planned seizure of Russia's historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century. But Nato's military encirclement has accelerated, along with US-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained "pariah" role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.


Eastern Ukrainian Referendum Post-Mortems

Stephen Lendman


Donbass residents vote in the referendum on the status of the self-
proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
(RIA Novosti / M. Blinov)

On Sunday, Donetsk and Lugansk residents voted. Democracy triumphed overwhelmingly. Both regions declared independence. Self-determination is inviolable. It's a universal right.

Not according to Washington. Reaction was as expected. It didn't surprise. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki lied calling both referendums "illegal." They reflect real democracy in action. "We do not recognize the illegal referendum that took place in portions of Donetsk and Luhansk over the weekend," she said. "It was illegal under Ukrainian law and an attempt to create further division and disorder in the country." "Its methodology was also highly suspect with reports of carousel voting, pre-marked ballots, children voting, voting for people who were absent, and even voting in Moscow and St. Petersburg."

Fact: Donetsk and Lugansk referendums were legal.
Fact: UN Charter provisions affirm self-determination.
Fact: Kiev's putschist government has no legitimacy.
Fact: Rule by coup d'état reflects lawlessness.
Fact: Sunday's electoral process was scrupulously open, free and fair.
Fact: Verifiable passports identified eligible voters.
Fact: Ukrainian ex-pat voting is commonplace.
Fact: In 2004, this writer personally witnessed Chicago Ukrainians queued in front of the city's consulate waiting to vote at the time.

Don't expect Psaki to explain. Her job is suppressing truth. It's lying for wealth, power and privilege. It's twisting facts to fit policy. It's supporting US lawlessness. It's endorsing what demands condemnation. Psaki ignored Kiev forces attacking Eastern Ukrainian cities. Waging lawless aggression. Murdering civilians in cold blood.


The Detroit model: Permanent rule by the banks

Jerry White

The Michigan legislature is debating a series of bills to impose a financial authority on Detroit that would remain in place long after the city emerges from bankruptcy. An unelected financial “oversight” committee, known as the Michigan Settlement Administration Authority (MSAA), would run the city for two decades, effectively usurping the local government.

When the governor of Michigan installed Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr in Detroit last March, it was presented as a temporary measure, lasting 18 months at most. Now, according to the restructuring plan submitted by Orr, a bankruptcy lawyer with close ties to Wall Street, a new body “composed of individuals with recognized financial competence and experience” will have the authority to limit city borrowing and expenditures and tear up labor agreements.

The authority is to be charged with ensuring that the city “continues to implement financial and operational reforms” outlined in the restructuring plan. This includes an effective 30 percent cut in pensions and health care benefits for more than 30,000 current and retired public employees. The “robust governance structure” outlined in Orr’s plan will promote “long-term public confidence in the fiscal health and stability of Detroit, in particular with financial markets.”

It could hardly be stated more clearly: the proposed body will be accountable solely to Wall Street. It will remain in power indefinitely and will not be subject to a popular vote or recall.


Blackwater mercenaries direct Kiev regime’s crackdown in Ukraine

Alex Lantier

Hundreds of US mercenaries are directing the repression of pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine by the fascist forces of the NATO puppet regime in Kiev, according to German media reports.

They are employed by the firm previously known as Blackwater, a massive private military contracting firm founded by former US Navy SEAL Erik Prince. The firm was renamed Xe in 2009 and then Academi in 2011, trying to evade the infamy attached to its original name due to its massacres of civilians in US-occupied Iraq.

They are now coordinating the attacks by the fascist Right Sector militia, the Kiev regime’s National Guard, and groups of football hooligans that have led to hundreds of casualties across east Ukraine.

This information was communicated to the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top German officials on April 29. Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) said that 400 Blackwater troops are supporting Kiev’s security forces in eastern Ukraine, including in Slavyansk. Der Spiegel wrote, “This information reportedly comes from US intelligence services and was communicated during a so-called Intelligence Situation meeting, a regular discussion chaired by Chancellery Chief of Staff Peter Altmaier (CDU). The Presidents of the intelligence services and of the Federal Criminal Office and the intelligence coordinator of the Chancellery as well as high-ranking government officials attended the meeting.”

Though the BND apparently did not say who had hired the Blackwater mercenaries now fighting in Ukraine, they are undoubtedly working closely with US intelligence. Prince himself said last year that after the US invasion of Iraq, his firm “became a virtual extension of the CIA.”


USA insulting world's intelligence

Kevin Barrett


Anti-American poster in Beijing following the U.S.
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade

“They must really think we're stupid.” That is what people all over the world are saying about the American government and media's portrayal of world events.

Several weeks ago, an interviewer said to Russian President Putin: "NATO claims the missile shield was not built against you but against Iran." Putin broke out laughing. When the laughter finally subsided, Putin said: "You really make me laugh. God bless you because it’s almost time to finish the day… indeed it’s already time to go to sleep. At least I get home in good humor."

No sane person could seriously assert that NATO's missile shield circling Russia is intended to protect the West from Iran. Yet, that is exactly what NATO - the imperial American occupation army in Europe - tells the world. How stupid do they think we are?

Governments lie. Imperial governments construct vast empires of lies. But in the past, most official lies carried at least a thin veneer of plausibility. Today, the US government and its media echo chamber do not seem to care whether their lies are even slightly credible.

The Ukraine crisis has been a non-stop festival of American lies, each one more ridiculous than the last.


World War II continues...against Russia

Finian Cunningham

This week sees commemorations that mark the end 69 years ago of World War II. In reality, the war never ended. It continues to this day.

That may seem an oxymoron to many. Of course, it will be said, the Second World War ended in May 1945. Nazi Germany was defeated, as were other European fascist forces. Was peace not brought to Europe and henceforth decades of harmony and prosperity reigned, under the benign auspices of Pax Americana?

Well, yes, in a narrow sense the war was formally closed. But the underlying forces that engendered that war are still active today, discernible only if we debunk Western media propaganda.

This ongoing reality of conflict is because the Second World War, as with the First World War, was not merely about belligerents confined in time and space. These conflagrations were really about imperialist power conflict and hegemony whose dynamics still persist to the present day.

The Western public, inculcated with decades of brainwashing versions of history, have a particular disadvantage in coming to a proper understanding of the world wars. It is popularly understood that the Western powers, the US and Britain in particular, fought "good wars" and took a victorious stand against despotism.


US, Europe issue further threats over self-rule referenda in eastern Ukraine

Chris Marsden


Members of a local election commission empty a ballot box as
they start counting votes from a referendum on the status of
Donetsk region, in Donetsk, May 11, 2014.
(Photo: Reuters)

Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have declared a victory for “self-rule” in referenda held yesterday. The votes took place in the face of condemnation by the regime in Kiev and its Western backers and an appeal for the referenda to be postponed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The reign of terror unleashed by Kiev with the full support of Washington, Berlin and Brussels against anti-government protesters in the east continued on Sunday. Dozens of members of Kiev’s National Guard, recruited largely from neo-Nazis aligned with the Right Sector and the Svoboda party, forcibly shut down voting in the town of Krasnoarmeisk and fired on a crowd outside the town hall, killing a number of unarmed civilians.

The referendum papers asked in both Ukrainian and Russian: “Do you support the act of state self-rule of the Donetsk People’s Republic/Luhansk People’s Republic?

There were 3.2 million ballots printed, less than half the seven million people living in the two provinces. But long queues formed from the early hours, reportedly registering overwhelming support.


Blackwater Killers in Eastern Ukraine

Stephen Lendman

Blackwater's rap sheet reveals a record too deplorable to conceal. It became Xe. It's now Academi. Putting lipstick on this pig doesn't help. It's no different than before. Jeremy Scahill's book titled "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" called it: A "shadowy mercenary company (employing) some of the most feared professional killers in the world accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences (and) largely off the congressional radar." It has "remarkable power and protection (within) the US war apparatus." It's well funded. It operates extrajudicially. It's unaccountable. It's licensed to kill, terrorize, destroy and destabilize. It takes full advantage. It does so wherever it's deployed.

On May 11, Voice of Russia (VOR) headlined "400 US commandos help Kiev in its military offensive in east Ukraine - reports." They arrived to commit mayhem. They're from the "notorious US private security firm Academi..." They're involved "in a punitive operation mounted by (Kiev) against federalization supporters in Eastern Ukraine…"

Bild am Sonntag is Germany's largest Sunday circulation broadsheet. It reported Academi operatives near Slavyansk. It's uncertain who hired them, it said. It's clear Washington's dirty hands are involved.


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