Are Spy Agencies Once Again Lying to Justify War Against Syria?

The U.S. government’s main “classified” claim is that it intercepted communications from the Syrian government both before and after the chemical weapons attack which implicate at least some people in Assad’s government. For example, the Washington Post notes:

Unknown to Syrian officials, U.S. spy agencies recorded each step in the alleged chemical attack, from the extensive preparations to the launching of rockets to the after-action assessments by Syrian officials. Those records and intercepts would become the core of the Obama administration’s evidentiary case linking the Syrian government to what one official called an “indiscriminate, inconceivable horror” — the use of outlawed toxins to kill nearly 1,500 civilians, including at least 426 children.

Who would have intercepted those communications?

You guessed it … likely the National Security Agency, the American agency tasked with intercepting foreign communications.

The NSA has consistently been caught lying about what it is and isn’t doing. Read more >>

DHS to scan crowds and identify people using Biometric Optical Surveillance System

The federal government is making progress on developing a surveillance system that would pair computers with video cameras to scan crowds and automatically identify people by their faces, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with researchers working on the project.

The Department of Homeland Security tested a crowd-scanning project called the Biometric Optical Surveillance System — or BOSS — last fall after two years  of government-financed development. Although the system is not ready for use, researchers say they are making significant advances. That alarms privacy advocates, who say that now is the time for the government to establish oversight rules and limits on how it will someday be used.

There have been stabs for over a decade at building a system that would help match faces in a crowd with names on a watch list — whether in searching for terrorism suspects at high-profile events like a presidential inaugural parade, looking for criminal fugitives in places like Times Square or identifying card cheats in crowded casinos.

The automated matching of close-up photographs has improved greatly in recent years, and companies like Facebook have experimented with it using still pictures. Read more >>

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts. Read more >>

What Every Student in America Needs to Know About the Federal Reserve

oftwominds.com
People are confused about the Fed, and I think it would be better if everybody had a clear understanding of what the Federal Reserve is and what it is not.

First of all, the Federal government thinks of the Federal Reserve as a service bureau, whose function it is to print money that the government can spend. As long as the Federal Reserve performs that function--reliably printing, let's say, a trillion or more each year to top off the Federal budget--then Congress will be happy with the Federal Reserve (their rainmaker) and will follow its advice and try to keep it happy.

It should be emphasized here that the whole Keynesian smokescreen and sideshow has very little to do with the reality of the relationship here. The Federal Reserve's job is not just to lend Uncle Sam some money during a recession so as to provide temporary stimulus. The Fed is a milk cow for Uncle Sam. Its job is to give milk all the time.

So to summarize this first point, the Fed is a service bureau for the Federal government whose job it is to provide the government with freshly printed fiat every year. This job has very little to do with the Keynesian prescription of how to deal with a recession.

The Fed is also a service bureau to the big banks that own it. Its job is to give unfair advantage to those banks, either by granting them low-interest loans that can be rolled over into infinity, or by buying their bad debts and disposing of them properly, or by doing any number of other special favors for them that increase their profits and executive bonuses. The Fed is not independent in the sense that it is self-governing. It must provide service to the banks who own it and to the Federal government, which controls its legal environment. Big banks have owned and controlled the Fed since its inception in 1913.

Summary: The Fed is also a service bureau to the big banks. It is not as independent as it proclaims itself to be; it provides services for its owners. Its owners have a profit motive. Read more >>

101 Million Get Food Aid from Federal Govt; Outnumber Full-Time Private Sector Workers

The number of Americans receiving subsidized food assistance from the federal government has risen to 101 million, representing roughly a third of the U.S. population.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101,000,000 people currently participate in at least one of the 15 food programs offered by the agency, at a cost of $114 billion in fiscal year 2012.

That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of full-time private sector workers in the U.S.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 97,180,000 full-time private sector workers in 2012.

The population of the U.S. is 316.2 million people, meaning nearly a third of Americans receive food aid from the government. Read more >>

Poll: Majority of Americans believe federal government too powerful

The 54 percent that expressed that belief, however, is only slightly higher than reported in 2012 and slightly lower than reported in 2010 and 2011, Gallup said. Only 8 percent of Americans said they thought the federal government has "too little" power, while 36 percent said the government has about the right amount of power, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said.

Results indicated more than twice as many Republicans as Democrats said the government has too much power, 76 percent to 32 percent. Forty-six percent of Americans said they agreed with the statement that the federal government "poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens," while 53 percent disagree, Gallup said.

Gallup said recent allegations that the IRS targeted conservative organizations and reports of U.S. Justice Department investigations into The Associated Press and Fox News records and emails did not alter Americans' views of the federal government's power. Read more >>

Software Predicts Future Behavior

A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.

A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an "extreme-scale analytics" system created by Raytheon, the world's fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

Raytheon says it has not sold the software - named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology - to any clients. But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing "trillions of entities" from cyberspace.

The power of Riot to harness websites for surveillance offers a rare insight into techniques that have attracted interest from intelligence and national security agencies, at the same time prompting civil liberties and online privacy concerns. Read more >>

Only 15 States Opt to Run Obamacare Exchanges

Only 15 states have told the federal government they plan to operate health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for two-thirds of the country.

On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges, a top health care policy official told lawmakers that the exchanges will start enrolling eligible families starting on Oct. 1.

"I am confident that states and the federal government will be ready in 10 months, when consumers in all states can begin to apply," Gary Cohen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, told a House panel. Read more >>

8,000 requests for Google user data from USGOVT in last 6 months

Google received more requests from the U.S. government to hand over user data during the first half of this year than from any other country, according to the search company's biannual "Transparency Report" released on Tuesday.

From January to June, Google received nearly 8,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government. The search company said it "fully or partially" compiled with roughly 90 percent of them. That's up from the 5,950 requests for user data that Google received from the U.S. government during the same period a year ago.

More than 16,000 Google accounts were specified in the U.S. government's user data requests, according to the report.

However, the search company cautioned that the total number of U.S. government requests for user data also tallied requests "issued by U.S. authorities on behalf of other governments pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaties and other diplomatic mechanisms."

Still, that number dwarfs the requests from other countries: India and Brazil came after the U.S. with 2,319 and 1,566 requests for user data, respectively, during the first half of 2012. Read more >>

Food banks struggle as federal government hands out less

Consumers are not the only ones trying to stretch their food dollar in the face of rising prices. As the market demand for food increases, the federal government is buying less fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products to give to needy families. Food banks and pantries nationwide are feeling the pinch as they struggle to provide food to the hungry, especially as record numbers of families turn to them for help.

Although Food Finders Food Bank in Lafayette has managed to increase the amount of food distributed to area agencies in the last few years, it has recently seen cuts in the federal food that is donated. Kim Motuliak, director of operations at Food Finders Food Bank, said there has been a 39 percent drop in the amount of federal food donated this year compared to last.

In the first seven months of 2011, the food bank received 1.12 million pounds of food from the federal government to distribute to 170 nonprofit agencies in 16 counties across midnorth Indiana, including Tippecanoe County. Read more >>

More Than Half Of All Americans Are At Least Partially Dependent On The Government

A very large segment of the population has figured out that it can use voting as a tool to get more money and benefits from the government, and that is a very dangerous thing.  Once upon a time, the free market was the one that distributed nearly all the wealth in our system.

But now the federal government has become a giant deluded "Santa Claus" that distributes goodies to the American people far beyond its actual capacity to do so.  In fact, we are borrowing trillions of dollars that we do not have so that our politicians can continue to buy votes with handouts.  Look, we will always need a safety net.  We don't want anyone in America starving to death or sleeping in the street.

However, our current system has gotten completely and totally out of control.  Today, there are nearly 80 different "means-tested welfare programs" operated by the federal government.  As I have written about previously, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in those programs.  Sadly, that does not even count Social Security and Medicare.  Tens of millions of Americans are enrolled in each of those programs as well.  Read more >>

General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy -- Again

President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors.  That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again.  The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company.  It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday.  This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share.  However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow. Read more >>

U.S. Debt Just Grew by $11 Trillion

Republicans and Democrats spent last summer battling how best to save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. They are spending this summer battling how best to not save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap -- the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness -- rose by $11 trillion.

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones.

Some question whether “official” and “unofficial” spending commitments can be added together. But calling particular obligations “official” doesn’t make them economically more important. Indeed, the government would sooner renege on Chinese holding U.S. Treasuries than on Americans collecting Social Security, especially because the U.S. can print money and service its bonds with watered-down dollars.

For its part, economic theory sees through labels and views a country’s official debt for what it is -- a linguistic construct devoid of real economic content. In contrast, the fiscal gap is theoretically well-defined and invariant to the choice of labels. Each labeling choice changes the mix of obligations between official and unofficial, but leaves the total unchanged. Read more >>

Government Motors: Feds expand fleet of cars to 449,000 vehicles

Budgets may be tight, but the federal government has increased its fleet of cars to 449,000 vehicles — or nearly one for every seven federal employees — according to the Government Accountability Office.

The Department of Veterans Affairs saw the biggest jump, adding 49 percent more vehicles between 2005 and 2011 — or even more than the Homeland Security Department, which was new in 2005 and has steadily grown since, including doubling the size of the U.S. Border Patrol. Read more  >>

Obama’s New Free Speech Threat

An Executive order seeks to punish U.S. citizens even for "indirectly" obstructing dictatorial rule in Yemen

Salon - Glenn Greenwald
There is substantial opposition in both Yemen and the West to the new U.S.-backed Yemeni President, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi was the long-time Vice President of the Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, and after Saleh finally stepped down last year, Hadi became President as part of an “election” in which he was the only candidate (that little fact did not prevent Hillary Clinton from congratulating Yemen “on today’s successful presidential election” (successful because the U.S. liked the undemocratic outcome)). As it does with most U.S.-compliant dictators in the region, the Obama administration has since been propping up Hadi with large amounts of money and military assistance, but it is now taking a much more extreme step to ensure he remains entrenched in power — a step that threatens not only basic liberties in Yemen but in the U.S. as well:

President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.
The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism.

 Unlike similar measures authorizing terrorist designations and sanctions, the new order does not include a list of names or organizations already determined to be in violation. Instead, one official said, it is designed as a “deterrent” to “make clear to those who are even thinking of spoiling the transition” to think again. . . .

 The order provides criteria to take action against people who the Treasury secretary, in consultation with the secretary of state, determines have “engaged in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Yemen, such as acts that obstruct the implementation of the Nov. 23, 2011, agreement between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provides for a peaceful transition of power . . . or that obstruct the political process in Yemen.”

In other words, the U.S. Government will now punish anyone who is determined — in the sole discretion of the U.S. Government — even to “indirectly” obstruct the full transition of power to President Hadi. More...

The Entire Bogus Recovery Driven by Subprime Auto Loans - 85% owned by the U.S. Government

The entire bogus recovery is again being driven by subprime auto loans being doled out by Ally Financial (85% owned by the U.S. government) and the other criminal Wall Street banks.

The Federal Reserve and our government leaders will continue to steer the country on the same course of encouraging rampant speculation, deterring savings and investment, rewarding outrageous criminal behavior, purposefully generating inflation, and lying to the average American. All good Keynesian economists know that consumer spending is always good for America, no matter how it is achieved. We must be in a recovery if income and spending are reaching new highs, right?

It will work until we reach a tipping point. Dr. Krugman thinks another $4 trillion of debt and a debt to GDP ratio of 130% should get our economy back on track. When this charade is revealed to be the greatest fraud and theft in the history of mankind, Ben and Paul better have a backup plan, because there are going to be a few angry men looking for them. More...

100 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have Jobs

2009 unemployment numbers

The unemployment crisis in America is much worse than you are being told.  Did you know that there are 100 million working age Americans that do not get up in the morning and go to work?  No wonder why it seems like there are so many people that do not have jobs! 

According to the federal government, there are 12.6 million working age Americans that are considered to be "officially" unemployed, but there are another 87.8 million working age Americans that are not working either.  The federal government considers those Americans to be "not in the labor force" so they are not included in the unemployment rate.  In fact, this is one of the key ways that the government manipulates the unemployment numbers. 

The Obama administration would have us believe that the unemployment rate is going down and that since the start of the last recession about as many Americans have left the labor force as we saw during the entire decades of the 1980s and 1990s combined. The truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is just about the same right now as it was two years ago. More...

Hyperinflation Watch – Numbers Don’t Lie

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeFor several months I have been warning that hyperinflation of the US dollar is looming. The ominous signs of this impending currency train-wreck are becoming increasingly clear.

For example, crude oil is threatening to break above $90 per barrel. Copper has broken through $4 per pound to a record high price. The prices of many other commodities are also in uptrends. These commodities are not in short supply. There is no shortage of oil or copper. Rather, these high prices are the result of too much money printing, which if not quickly stopped by returning to a sound money policy will ultimately lead to hyperinflation.

Last week another important part of the hyperinflation puzzle fell into place. Long-term interest rates surged, continuing their sharp upward path that began two months ago. The 10-year T-note during this two month period has risen from 2.4% to end last week over 3.2%, a remarkable and therefore telling jump.

This rise in long-term rates lays bare the flawed logic of the Federal Reserve’s newly announced $600 billion so-called “Quantitative Easing” program supposedly designed to help the economy. This new round of money printing is not going to help the economy, which has been hollowed out by years of debt financed consumption along with too little savings and production. This money printing is serving only one purpose. This central bank trickery is providing the federal government with all the dollars it wants to spend.

So despite the fact the Fed will be purchasing $600 billion of US government debt instruments, T-bond and T-note yields are climbing, a clear sign that investors are rushing to sell their US government paper. Why? Because they know the purchasing power of the dollar is being debased by QE, and more importantly, will continue being debased. More...

There are striking similarities between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome

Image by Giampaolo Macorig via FlickrIs America On A Burning Platform?

Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform

David Walker, the former Comptroller of the United States from 1998 until 2008, has been warning politicians, the media, and the American public for over a decade that we are off course and headed for disaster. In August 2007, before the financial system meltdown of 2008, Mr. Walker declared:

The US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon. There are striking similarities between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government. The fiscal imbalance meant the US was on a path toward an explosion of debt. With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiraling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks. Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an unsustainable path. Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernize everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. More...

Federal government funds nearly 100 percent of new mortgage loans

A stat which may be of great interest is the prediction by the average of the indexes that our fall in prices is only half-way accomplished – a forecast which, if true, will elicit fear in the hearts of homeowners, buyers, bankers and government officials.

A natural fall-back in prices is a matter of the highest gravity to the Federal Reserve Bank and the Treasury and to current and future homeowners. The federal government has massively intervened in the housing market. It funds nearly 100 percent of new mortgage loans originated today.

Fed and Treasury are attempting to preserve bubble values for homeowners and save mortgage investors. Absent government intervention, housing prices would have fallen 50 percent or 75 percent by now. Probably one-of-three or one-of-two mortgages would be in default. Global depression would surely have followed such a fall. More...