Ineptitude – Page 78 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/08/202013/08/20

Berto Jongman: Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, DHS, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War

Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports

The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras discusses how she has been repeatedly detained and questioned by federal agents whenever she enters the United States. Poitras said the interrogations began after she began working on her documentary, “My Country, My Country,” about post-invasion Iraq. Her most recent film, “The Oath,” was about Yemen and Guantánamo and follows the lives of two past associates of Osama bin Laden. She estimates she has been detained approximately 40 times and has had her laptop, cellphone and personal belongings repeatedly searched. Tonight she is leading a surveillance teach-in at the Whitney Museum in New York City with our other guests, computer security researcher and government target Jacob Appelbaum and National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney. Poiras is currently at work on a film about post-9/11 America. This interview is part of a 5-part special on growing state surveillance.. Click here to see segment 1, 3, 4 and 5. [includes rush transcript]

Transcript [Also Available as Video]

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are William Binney, who was technical director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. He worked with the NSA for almost 40 years, National Security Agency. We’re also joined by Laura Poitras, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker, and Jacob Appelbaum, a computer security researcher.

You two have something in common with each other. You—every time you come into the United States by plane, you are stopped, you are searched, you are interrogated. Laura Poitras, tell us about your experience. Your latest one?

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports”

2013/08/18

Berto Jongman: Al Jazeera on Deadly Contagions Across Arabia for Lack of Infrastructure — Could This Be Part of “The Plan”?

07 Health, 08 Wild Cards, Government, Ineptitude

Arab revolutions: Ignoring a potential catastrophe

As infrastructure deteriorates throughout the region, deadly contagions are a new cause for concern, writes scientist.

Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, is Dean, National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, President, Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, and Fellow in Disease and Poverty, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Recent conflicts in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East may have sufficiently destabilised national and international public health control measures to a point where several tropical diseases have either emerged and are sickening large populations in the region.

The most dramatic example is currently happening in Syria, where cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disfiguring parasitic skin disease transmitted by sandflies and also known as “Aleppo Evil”, is now affecting tens of thousands of innocent civilians both within the country and among refugees fleeing across the border to Lebanon or Turkey. But this disease is also flourishing in Afghanistan, Algeria, and Iraq where breakdowns in public health have allowed sandflies to breed and transmit disease.

Several mosquito-transmitted virus infections have also become important public health problems in the region. According to recent estimates 6 million cases of dengue fever occurred in Egypt in 2010 – more than 7 percent of that country’s population, while almost 14 million cases occurred that year in Pakistan. Dengue has also emerged in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen, while in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Rift valley fever has also appeared – the first time this mosquito-transmitted viral infection has been seen outside of Africa. There is concern that such viral infections could affect pilgrims entering Saudi Arabia during the Hajj this coming fall, as could the new MERS coronavirus, or the recently discovered Alkhurma hemorrhagic virus. Both viruses were first discovered in Saudi Arabia.

Read full article.

2013/08/162013/08/16

Penguin: 4th Media on Fukushima – NIGHTMARE Gets Worse!

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude

The News is Bad: The Fukushima Nightmare Gets Worse

Just when it seemed things might be under control at Fukushima, we find they are worse than ever.

Immeasurably worse.

Massive quantities of radioactive liquids are now flowing through the shattered reactor site into the Pacific Ocean. And their make-up is far more lethal than the “mere” tritium that has dominated the headlines to date.

Tepco, the owner/operator–and one of the world’s biggest and most technologically advanced electric utilities–has all but admitted it cannot control the situation. Its shoddy performance has prompted former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Dale Klein to charge: “You don’t what you are doing.”

The Japanese government is stepping in. But there is no guarantee–or even likelihood–it will do any better.

In fact, there is no certainty as to what’s causing this out-of-control flow of death and destruction.

Some 16 months after three of the six reactors exploded at the Fukushima Daichi site, nobody can offer a definitive explanation of what is happening there or how to deal with it.

Continue reading “Penguin: 4th Media on Fukushima – NIGHTMARE Gets Worse!”

2013/08/162013/08/16

Berto Jongman: US Government Prepares for Internal (Domestic) Collapse and Widespread Disorder

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement

Marine Colonel Speaks Out: “We're building a domestic army”

StormCloudsGathering August 15, 2013

Four videos below the line, the last one sums up a common public concern.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: US Government Prepares for Internal (Domestic) Collapse and Widespread Disorder”

2013/08/16

Eagle: NSA Has Violated Privacy Rules Thousands of Times, Audit Finds

Corruption, Ineptitude, IO Impotency, Military

300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

NSA violated privacy rules thousands of times, audit finds

Transgressions ranged from serious legal violations to typos that led to unintended data collection, according to documents supplied to The Washington Post.

The National Security Agency exceeded its legal authority and broke agency rules thousands of times since it was granted broader powers in 2008, according to an internal agency audit obtained by The Washington Post.

Most violations involved unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the U.S., according to the documents, which were supplied to the newspaper by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The documents show infractions ranging from serious legal violations to typographical errors that resulted in unintended data collection, The Post reported.

The agency was not always forthcoming with the details of its transgressions, the Post found. A quality assurance report not shared with an oversight committee found that a “large number” of calls were placed to Egypt 2008 when the U.S. area code 202 was mistakenly entered as 20. In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews NSA warrant requests, was not made aware of a new collection method until it had been in place for several months. The court ultimately ruled it unconstitutional, the Post reported.

The audit, dated May 2012, uncovered 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications, the Post reported. One of those cases involved the unauthorized use of data on 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

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2013/08/152013/08/15

Former CIA Spy Jose Rodriguez’s Truly Sociopathic ’60 Minutes’ Interview

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Media, Officers Call

Former CIA Spy Jose Rodriguez’s Truly Sociopathic ’60 Minutes’ Interview

By: Kevin Gosztola

dissenter.firedoglake.com, Monday April 30, 2012

Former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Counterterrorism Center and its former Deputy Director of Operations Jose Rodriguez appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to flaunt his new book Hard Measures, which details how he came to be in charge of CIA torture against terror suspects at “black site” prisons, why he believes torture was effective and why it should not be vilified.

The segment with Lesley Stahl has the same title as Rodriguez’s book. The title sounds like the name of a film starring an action movie star like Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal, which makes it appropriate because each answer from Rodriguez is dripping with bravado. From Rodriguez’s first answer to the last, one cannot help but realize he believes it is somehow unmanly to be concerned that torture of terror suspects violates the rule of law. He appears in his sleek white Camaro rolling down the highway to the CIA. And he says at one point, “We needed to get everyone in government to put their big boy pants on and give us the authorities we needed.”

Of course, like most establishment media interviews, the torture is not called torture. It is called “harsh techniques.” Or the official term Cheney coined for it—“enhanced interrogation techniques.”

*Here are both parts of the interview: Part 1 / Part 2

The first words in the segment are, “After the attacks of 9/11…” That phrase is all one needs to hear to know that this is going to be a tireless exercise in explaining away acts that historically have been considered war crimes when carried out.

Read full post with quotes and links.

2013/08/15

4th Media: Fukushima Three Strikes

03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

There is No Way to Stop Fukushima Radioactive Water Leaking into the Pacific

The rate at which contaminated water has been pouring into the Pacific Ocean from the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant is worse than previously thought, an Industry Ministry official said Wednesday as PM Shinzo Abe pledged to step up efforts to halt the crisis. The Voice of Russia contacted Arnold Gundersen, founder and president of Fairewinds Associates, to discuss the crisis and its possible solutions. The expert suggests radioactive material will continue to leak into the global seas unless the plant is surrounded with a trench filled with zeolite. Even then however, toxic material will still flow into the Pacific through underwater routes.

Letting Tepco “Clean Up” Fukushima Is Like Letting a Murderer Do Brain Surgery On a VIP

In 3 Months, Do We Want to Entrust U.S. “National Security” and Perhaps Even “Human Survival” In the Northern Hemisphere to These Guys?

Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War
The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation
Michel Chossudovsky (Editor)
I-Book No. 3, January 25 2012