Conservative Politics for the Liberal World @socopolitics-blog - Tumblr Blog

Any political movement that glorifies self determination and self expression, but minimizes self reliance has no real intention whatsoever of granting its followers self determination.

thinksquad-deactivated20190405

https://www.wired.com/2017/03/feds-rather-drop-child-porn-case-give-exploit/

adzhe

TL;DR on the latest round of Wikileaks:

Literally nothing you do is safe from the CIA. There are numerous full-on spyware suites developed by them, mostly for iOS and Windows, but also targeting Android, Linux, OS X, and Solaris. Apps thought to be secure (Telegram with encryption enabled, WhatsApp, Signal) were compromised as well, as were a host of other devices (ie smart TVs).

THIS DOES NOT PERTAIN ONLY TO AMERICANS.

If you live in a Shengen area country, your country likely hosts several CIA backed cyberwar experts. They came in via the US consulate in Frankfurt. If you don’t, you likely do as well, but I can’t find anything without sifting through the files myself.

“I have nothing to hide, why does this matter?”: Because there are now multiple thousand “zero hour”- ie “developers get zero hours to fix”- vulnerabilities floating around that no one had any idea existed. The vulnerabilities themselves weren’t leaked, but it’s the fact that someone knew about these and didn’t say.

I hate to make this kinda clickbait-y thing, but this is honest to God one of the most important leaks in history. Our response to this is pretty much going to be life or death for privacy in the developed world. Be loud about this, be annoying about this, and do not shut up about this. Please reblog this and other posts relating to it.

priceofliberty

Not just any someone, this is one of the U.S. federal government’s foremost intelligence agencies, the CIA, which even mainstream media has reported operates on a black (off the record) budget, infamous for handing over “full” reports that are almost entirely redacted.

It’s a wonder that anyone out there could believe they are not the subject of surveillance—everyone has something to hide.

The USA can access personal email, chat, and web browsing history. (Source)

The USA tracks the numbers of both parties on phone calls, their locations, as well as time and duration of the call. (Source)

The USA can monitor text messages. (Source)

The USA can monitor the data in smartphone applications. (Source)

The USA can crack cellphone encryption codes. (Source)

The USA can identify individuals’ friends, companions, and social networks. (Source)

The USA monitors financial transactions. (Source)

The USA monitors credit card purchases. (Source)

The USA intercepts troves of personal webcam video from innocent people. (Source)

The USA is working to crack all types of sophisticated computer encryption. (Source)

The USA monitors communications between online gamers. (Source)

The USA can set up fake Internet cafes to spy on unsuspecting users. (Source)

The USA can remotely access computers by setting up a fake wireless connection. (Source)

The USA can use radio waves to hack computers that aren’t connected to the internet. (Source)

The USA can set up fake social networking profiles on LinkedIn for spying purposes. (Source)

The USA undermines secure networks [Tor] by diverting users to non-secure channels. (Source)

The USA can intercept phone calls by setting up fake mobile telephony base stations. (Source)

The USA can install a fake SIM card in a cell phone to secretly control it. (Source)

The USA can physically intercept packages, open them, and alter electronic devices. (Source)

The USA makes a USB thumb drive that provides a wireless backdoor into the host computer. (Source)

The USA can set up stations on rooftops to monitor local cell phone communications. (Source)

The USA spies on text messages in China and can hack Chinese cell phones. (Source)

The USA spies on foreign leaders’ cell phones. (Source)

The USA intercepts meeting notes from foreign dignitaries. (Source)

The USA has hacked into the United Nations’ video conferencing system. (Source)

The USA can spy on ambassadors within embassies. (Source)

The USA can track hotel reservations to monitor lodging arrangements. (Source)

The USA can track communications within media organizations. (Source)

The USA can tap transoceanic fiber-optic cables. (Source)

The USA can intercept communications between aircraft and airports. (Source)

And this leak shows that the CIA has all of these technologies and proliferates them to other entities who want this information all the time. You need your privacy to protect yourself and your information. If you have nothing to hide, you have plenty to hide:

The line “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about” is used all too often in defending surveillance overreach. It’s been debunked countless times in the past, but with the line being trotted out frequently in response to the NSA revelations, it’s time for yet another debunking, and there are two good ones that were recently published. First up, we’ve got Moxie Marlinspike at Wired, who points out that, you’re wrong if you think you’ve got nothing to hide, because our criminal laws are so crazy, that anyone sifting through your data would likely be able to pin quite a few crimes on you if they just wanted to.

Julian Sanchez points out:

Some of the potentially sensitive facts those records expose becomes obvious after giving it some thought: Who has called a substance abuse counselor, a suicide hotline, a divorce lawyer or an abortion provider? What websites do you read daily? What porn turns you on? What religious and political groups are you a member of? Some are less obvious. Because your cellphone’s “routing information” typically includes information about the nearest cell tower, those records are also a kind of virtual map showing where you spend your time — and, when aggregated with others, who you like to spend it with.

We simply cannot possibly know when something is going to incriminate us and the State is not above scapegoating individuals or coercing them into submission. James Duane, a professor at Regent Law School and former defense attorney, notes:

Estimates of the current size of the body of federal criminal law vary. It has been reported that the Congressional Research Service cannot even count the current number of federal crimes. These laws are scattered in over 50 titles of the United States Code, encompassing roughly 27,000 pages. Worse yet, the statutory code sections often incorporate, by reference, the provisions and sanctions of administrative regulations promulgated by various regulatory agencies under congressional authorization. Estimates of how many such regulations exist are even less well settled, but the ABA thinks there are ”nearly 10,000.”

Supreme Court Justice Breyer elaborates:

The complexity of modern federal criminal law, codified in several thousand sections of the United States Code and the virtually infinite variety of factual circumstances that might trigger an investigation into a possible violation of the law, make it difficult for anyone to know, in advance, just when a particular set of statements might later appear (to a prosecutor) to be relevant to some such investigation.

Not just the State, but anyone could draw suspicion against you if they had the right information with the right circumstances. We are entitled to our privacy, and these institutions must be held to account.

southernsideofme-deactivated201

guerrillawar

#nobama

dj-moriarty

If your intentions are safety like most gun control advocates claim, then that first one should make it clear.

thinksquad-deactivated20190405

Earlier this month, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter said they would share a database of terror images and videos to quickly remove terrorism content.

“Without Defendants Twitter, Facebook, and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of IS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible,” Fox News cited the lawsuit as saying. “They create unique content by combining IS postings with advertisements in a way that is specifically targeted at the viewer. Defendants share revenue with IS for its content and profit from IS postings through advertising revenue,” the lawsuit alleged.

svcuriosities

“Yes Aleppo may be in ruins, but let’s talk about how wonderful the Obamas are! I’m sure none of his policies contributed to this disaster at all”

theweekmagazine

How Obama made Syria’s civil war much, much worse

The Obama administration, although it backed away from its half-hearted push for larger intervention, still carried on covert support of the rebels. The CIA and Defense Department armed different groups (who sometimes shot at each other). The Free Syrian Army, the so-called “moderate” rebels on whom so many hopes were pinned, kept disintegrating. Even as the U.S. tried to rebrand it as the “New Syrian Force,” its fighters often defected to al Qaeda, or even ISIS. If they didn’t defect, they would sometimes just lose their new weapons to these more established radical Sunni brands. The United States was allied with the allies of al Qaeda in Syria, and carried out its covert missions under the 2001 AUMF that authorized the U.S. to fight al Qaeda. It’s dizzying.

Along the way, the U.S.’s half-hearted intervention possibly created the worst of all worlds. It encouraged people to invest themselves in a doomed fight much longer than was necessary. It caused rebels to place their hopes in a more broad intervention that was never coming. And it lengthened one of the most disastrous civil wars of the modern era, one whose aftershocks and refugee flows have brought terror to Europe and helped empower a resurgent nationalism that is shaking the political and economic foundations of the European Union.

shadowfromthestarlight

This is the kind of legacy Obama deserves.

Trump Cabinet Appointments: The undoing of the #nevertrump movement, "thank-yous”, and reaffirming the base.

There has been constant controversy around Trump’s cabinet picks as to be expected from whom some of his supporters affectionately call “the mad man”. While media has painted his appointments as a disaster, a closer examination could reveal method to the madness. In this space, I’ll give my thoughts on what may be some of Trump’s reasons for his appointments.

#trump

Do you think the founders of the US intended for it to become the multi racial melting pot it is today?

I did less research on this subject than I wanted to as I decided whatever I investigated, the answer would come down to speculation. I do think most founders would be surprised, but not necessarily disturbed by the fast changing face of the United States. Certainly some would be as at the time racism was prevalent and slavery was law, but I do know many founders despised the practice and wanted slaves freed eventually, seeing the act itself as a necessary evil. I expect most of the founders would have at least realized there would be a growing population of African descendants in the future as a result of slavery and racial intermixing which was common among slave owners and their slaves. So their surprise wouldn't come from their growth or the growth of Hispanics bordering America, but rather the growth of Asian, Indian, Arabic, and Pacific Islander populations. If the founders had intended to keep America white I believe we would have seen many provisions for racial purity in their personal writings and founding government documents. Of all the criticism I've seen against them, I have not yet seen anything confirming those suspicions. I also think they would be less horrified by the races of American citizens and more horrified with the extended powers the federal government has taken, the breakdown of the family, and the youth identity crisis. There's no way of truly knowing what they would think of America today but I imagine it would be a mix of shock, awe, and disgust for a variety of reasons.

twelveangrymockingbirds-deactiv

I have an anon that asked about the founding fathers. It may take a while for me to answer because I'm doing some research.

schuetzengrabenmints-deactivate

Four staff members have resigned from a southeastern Oklahoma veterans facility rather than face the possibility of getting fired, after a resident was found to have maggots in a wound.

Reminder that the VA doesn’t give a shit about you.

gop-tea-pub

THE MISLEADING CLAIM: “Native Americans are again being screwed over by the U.S., as the Dakota Access Pipeline encroaches on ‘sacred land’ belonging to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, absent consent.” THE REALITY: “Court documents, official land surveys, and pipeline maps, confirm this is almost entirely false.” Let’s begin with the notion of “sacred land”. Extensive cultural & land surveys were conducted in North Dakota before the pipeline received approval. It marked some land as “sacred.” The pipeline plans were then redrafted as to avoid ALL “sacred” pieces of land. [a] This isn’t just conservative-media opinion, either, it’s confirmed in the U.S. District Court memorandum, stating: “Where this surveying revealed …historic or cultural resources that might be affected, the company mostly chose to reroute. In North Dakota, for example, the cultural surveys found 149 potentially eligible sites, 91 of which had stone features (considered sacred). The pipeline workspace and route was modified to avoid ALL 91 of these stone features and all but 9 of the other potentially eligible sites. By the time the company finally settled on a construction path, …the pipeline route had been modified 140 times in North Dakota alone to avoid potential cultural resources. Plans had also been put in place to mitigate any effects on the other 9 sites through coordination with the North Dakota SHPO.” [b] Those modifications convinced the U.S. District Court to rule against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, citing the tribe’s inability to show how the pipeline would damage the group’s sacred ground. From the court document itself, it states, “if a party makes no showing of irreparable injury, the court may deny the motion… It follows, then, that the Court may deny a motion for preliminary injunction, without further inquiry, upon finding that a plaintiff is unable to show either irreparable injury" [b] “The Tribe has not met its burden to show that DAPL-related work is likely to cause damage.” [b] In addition to providing no substantive evidence to support their case, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe was offered ample time to consult with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but refused, instead opting “to boycott the entire consulting process.” [a] This petulance was again confirmed by the court’s review, which showed that, as the Army Corps of Engineers attempted more than a dozen times between 2014 and 2016 to discuss the DAPL route with the Standing Rock, “the tribe either failed to respond to requests for consultation or dragged its feet during the process.” [c] It’s also noteworthy that the company building the pipeline - Energy Transfer Partners - had only originally moved the project near the Standing Rock reservation in the first place because doing so was considered “less impactful on the environment, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.” [d] So any assumption that the company hadn’t gone out of its way to seek consultation and alter its plans in consideration of the environment is absolutely false. Now that we’ve established that the tribe failed to substantiate its complaints, let’s add this somewhat surprising revelation; THERE’S ALREADY AN EXISTING FUEL PIPELINE IN PLACE, UNDER THE SAME GROUND, WITH NO COMPLAINTS. This - again - was exposed in the court’s review and can be confirmed for yourself via utility pipeline maps. “The area around the permitted activity has been subject to previous surveying for other utility projects. DAPL likewise will run parallel, at a distance of 22 to 300 feet, to an ALREADY-EXISTING natural-gas pipeline under the lake. Dakota Access will also use the less-invasive HDD method to run the pipeline, which will require less disturbance to the land around the drilling and bury the pipeline at a depth that is unlikely to damage cultural resources. [b] One can see this for themselves by viewing side by side maps, one showing the existing pipelines, and the other showing the planned route for the new pipeline. They mirror each other. [f] Lastly is the issue of land ownership and the presumption that the pipeline encroaches on North Dakotan land owned by indigenous tribes. Wrong again. The truth is, the Dakota Access Pipeline traverses a path on PRIVATE PROPERTY and does not cross into the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. Literally 100% of affected landowners in North Dakota VOLUNTARILY signed contracts allowing for construction of the pipeline on their property. [g] They were offered a good deal and they took it. The Native American reservation is merely adjacent to affected property, it is not the ACTUAL affected property. One might ask, “but what if neighboring the reservation still puts it in danger?” Here, too, research suggests otherwise. Per a 2015 Fraser Institute Research Report entitled “Safety in the Transportation of Oil and Gas,” transporting oil and gas by pipeline is actually the safest method. Matter of fact, fuel transported via rail is found to be “over 4.5 times more likely to experience an occurrence” than via pipeline. [e] Additionally, “over 70 percent of pipeline occurrences result in spills of ONLY 1 cubic meter, and only 17 percent of pipeline occurrences take place in the actual pipeline.” [e] The vast majority of spills actually occur inside facilities [e], meaning it’s VERY unlikely that anything substantial will leak from the new pipeline. CONCLUSION: Essentially, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is complaining that private owners sold the rights to place a fuel pipeline on land that the Tribe does not own, in a way that mirrors existing pipelines, as to transport fuel in the safest and cheapest manner, with designs evolving from countless consultation efforts and professional advice on how to be as environmentally friendly as possible, while specifically redesigning the route an additional 140 times as to avoid offending the tribe, all while the tribe was largely boycotting the consultation efforts and failing to substantiate its complaints in court. What’s happening now, therefore, is nothing more than the political left latching onto the latest controversy as to perpetuate their endless narrative of victimhood. ————— Sources: [a] http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/30/anti-frackers-keep-falsely-suggesting-dapl-desecrated-tribal-lands/ [b] http://mwalliancenow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Document-39.pdf [c] http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/17/the-govt-actually-tried-several-times-to-consult-north-dakota-tribe-about-pipeline/ [d] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pipeline-nativeamericans-reroute-idUSKCN11P09K [e] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/safety-in-the-transportation-of-oil-and-gas-pipelines-or-rail-rev2.pdf [f] https://www.sayanythingblog.com/entry/dakota-access-pipeline-follows-existing-gas-line-protest-area/ [g] https://mwalliancenow.org/blog/dakota-access-easements-95-percent/

flyingattreelevel

I enjoy factual information, thank you.

thinksquad-deactivated20190405

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-and-intelligence-community-chiefs-have-urged-obama-to-remove-the-head-of-the-nsa/2016/11/19/44de6ea6-adff-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html

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