A hunger strike that started over a routine cell search and escalated into a worldwide debate on the future of Guantanamo continues. For some, it may have expedited a release, but to others, it has brought only humiliation. ● At its peak more than two-thirds of Guantanamo’s 166 prisoners refused food. More than 60 continue the strike at this time. ● It began in February when several prisoners accused guards at Camp Delta of confiscating their books, letters and other personal possessions, as well as restricting their activities, for no obvious reasons. Several inmates also said that US officers mishandled the Koran. ● But as time went by the strike numbers swelled, it became a protest at the ongoing existence of a prison in which more than half of the inmates have been cleared for release.

RT's GITMO hunger strike timeline

Republican senator Saxby Chambliss: Closures ordered in response to "most serious threat in years". ● The closure of 22 US embassies over an alleged security threat was seized on by defenders of the National Security Agency on Sunday, amid claims that its controversial surveillance programme alerted authorities to "pre-9/11" levels of terrorist chatter. ● A meeting of President Barack Obama's top security officials on Saturday concluded that intelligence apparently gathered from overseas communications intercepts showed a serious but unspecified threat against Western and US interests. The administration moved to shut the embassies across North Africa and the Middle East as a precaution. ● On Sunday the state department announced that diplomatic posts in 19 cities will remain closed at least until end of this week. A spokeswoman said the decision to keep the embassies and consulates closed is a sign of an "abundance of caution" and is "not an indication of a new threat." ● Britain said its embassy in Yemen would stay closed until the Muslim festival of Eid on Thursday. France also said it would not reopen its Sana'a mission until Thursday. ● Intelligence committee members in Washington who had been briefed on the alert said it was the most serious they had seen for years and repeatedly cited the threat during Sunday's political talk shows as a reason to resist growing calls in Congress for reform of the NSA's sweeping powers.

LibertyBlitzKrieg: NY Times Admits: Al-Qaeda Terror Threat Used to “Divert Attention” from NSA Uproar
PressTV: US citizens urged to leave Yemen due to 'high security threat' level
Kevin Barrett: Absurd US ‘terror alert’ hints at coming false-flag
Stephen Lendman: Fake Washington Terror Threat
Thomas Gaist: US extends global terror alert
Patrick Martin: The US terror scare
Thomas Gaist: Obama administration launches terror scare

Terrorists affiliated to al-Nusra Front have massacred 120 children and 330 men and women in Syria's northern district of Tal Abyad, al-Alam reports. ● According to our reporter, terrorists attacked villages in Tal Abyad, near al-Hasakah governorate on Monday, killing civilians including women and children. The Kurdish dominated region of Tal Abyad located in north of Al-Raqqa governorate, was already volatile after terrorist groups from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and al-Nusra Front attacked the region weeks ago to take it under control. Deadly clashes have been going on in the region as Kurds gathered volunteer fighters and started to stand against terrorists. Videos posted online by the militant groups showed hundreds of women and children in Tall `Aran, lying dead on the ground after their homes and plant fields were bombed. ● Kurds have come under attack in Aleppo as well, where earlier this week terrorists launched an assault on Tall `Aran and Tall Hasel, killing and abducting many people and forcing others to leave. Mass killings at the hands of terrorists have been increasing in Syria during the past month. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that the Syrian army has no option but to continue its operations against terrorists while political means have been stalled due to changing stances by the Syrian Western-backed opposition. ● Residents said the brutal attack on their homes reminded them of the Kurdish genocide, called al-Anfal Campaign, committed by slain Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s.

Banoosh: Militants kill 450 Kurdish civilians in northern Syria

■ In yet another revelation of illegal spying on Americans by the US government, reports last week detailed the use by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of hacker techniques, including spyware, to gain access to information protected by encryption tools and other communications technologies. In law enforcement terminology, use of such technology to secure communications against interception is known as “going dark.”
■ The FBI has been building teams of hackers and arming them with cyber-weapons. Unnamed former officials told the Wall Street Journal [“FBI Taps Hacker Tactics to Spy on Suspects,”] that the FBI’s hacking activities are led by a group called the Remote Operations Unit. According to a former FBI cyber division official, the bureau “hires people who have hacking skill, and they purchase tools that are capable of doing these things.”
■ Hacking techniques enable the FBI to smuggle spyware into computers and laptops. The Journal reported that the FBI has been using “web bugs” since at least 2005 to extract data from targeted computers. According to a US official cited by the Journal, the FBI is even able to activate microphones in telephones using Google Inc.’s Android software.
■ The FBI has sought to conceal these activities from the public. As a US official commented to the Journal, the bureau “is loath to use these tools when investigating hackers,” fearing that computer savvy targets will figure out what is going on and report the use of hacker methods to the public.

Britain supported the US vicious nuclear attacks against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War, newly released top secret documents show. ● The US government documents, declassified by the National Archives and Records Administration after about 70 years, show London was involved in Washington’s decision to carry out the nuclear attacks as a close ally. ● London’s support was officially expressed to the US officials one month before the first and only nuclear attacks on a real target killed an estimated 250,000 civilians on August 6 and 9, 1945. ● The go-ahead was given in a meeting of the Combined Policy Committee of the US and the UK in Washington on July 4, 1945 in which British officials referred to the nukes as Tube Alloys, a codename they used for their research on nukes and plutonium at the time. ● British Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson told the meeting chaired by U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson that the British government "concurred in the use of the T.A. weapon against Japan", Kyodo News Agency reported. ● "The Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States had agreed that T.A. weapons should be used by the United States against Japan, the agreement of the British Government having been communicated" by Wilson, the documents said.

The CIA was transferring surface-to-air missiles from Libya to the rebels in Syria through Turkey when the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi took place, a report says. ● As investigation into the death of US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans last September carries on, the CNN reported on Thursday that dozens of CIA spies were working in an annex near the consulate on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armories to Syrian rebels. The details of US government activities in Benghazi have since the incident been the issue of controversy with some Congressional leaders pressing for a wide-ranging probe into the attack and the secret operations of the CIA in the African city. "Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings," CNN reported.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. We are dominated by [a] relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” - Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda

Now we have the announcement of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy "Nudge Team" led by 'wunderkind' Maya Shankar who will lead a 'behavioral insights team' to tinker with our minds and nudge us in the directions they want us to go. Nothing new here. We have had governments, religions and individuals trying to nudge us towards their viewpoints, well, forever. Often times if the nudge won't work, then the shove will. Failing that, the barrel of a gun works wonders. The science of behavior modification has come a long way in the last 100 years since the Federal Reserve came into being. Maya's task will be to put a kinder, gentler, youthful face to the fascism of our day. It's all for your own good and that of the collective, you know. Brainwashing is such an outdated term so let's try a new one without the baggage. I don't think that is a coincidence. Ever since Edward Bernays was hired by Woodrow Wilson to promote World War I, there has been one nudge after another to get the public to accept wars as the biggest money making scams there are. Bernays' propaganda became 'public relations' and the consumerist race was on. One can be nudged into buying just about anything as long as there is an emotional attachment to it, contrived or not. - We must be in the 'reveal our methods' times. It's so they can say 'you were told, you didn't say much, so you must have agreed.'

Condom ads, police state tactics, illegal drug use, & religious desecration featured at smarmy pop-culture gathering. ■ Hundreds of thousands of young and old alternative music fans have lined up and willingly received RFID micro-chipped non-removable wristbands to gain entrance to the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago's Grant Park, which began Friday August 2nd. On their website, festival organizers put a positive spin on the RFID tags, explaining "We're saving paper and saving you the hassle of redeeming a paper ticket for your wristband! All wristbands will be mailed to you either by USPS or transferable UPS." Fans were warned that if they remove the wristbands for any portion of the three day event, they are invalidated and can not be re-used. No refunds or replacements are given. The event warns of their "crack security" team and an infamous "trouble" table if any anomalies are noticed in a wristband, which "will be confiscated" if they appear "messed with."