intel

Well this is grim! The ACIC or Army Counterintelligence Center published in March 2008 a National Security Information Special Report, under the auspices of the Department of Defense Intelligence Analysis Program (DIAP). Michael D Horvath of the Cyver Counterintelligence Assessments Branch does not really believe or understand the First Amendment, apparently, and his mind must be a spooky place. It was a HQ Department of Army Production Requirement C764-97-0005 and ACIC Product ID Number is RB08-0617.

This document indicates that the Pentagon is pretty dangerous. But what else is new?

Source: U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, 18 Mar 2008

U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks release: March 15, 2010

keywords: WikiLeaks, U.S. intelligence, U.S. Army, National Ground Intelligence Center, NGIC, classified, SECRET,

NOFORN

restraint: Classified SECRET/NOFORN (US)

title: Wikileaks.org - An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence Services, Insurgents, Or Terrorist Groups?

date: March 18, 2008

group: United States Army Counterintelligence Center, Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch; Department

of Defence Intelligence Analysis Program

author: Michael D. Horvath

link: http://wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf

pages: 32

Description

By Julian Assange (julian@wikileaks.org)

This document is a classifed (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks.

“The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing

sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out”. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize

the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses “trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the

insiders, leakers or whisteblowers”, the report recommends “The identification, exposure, termination of employment,

criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage

or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site”.

[As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks’ source exposed, it appears that this plan

was ineffective]. As an odd justificaton for the plan, the report claims that “Several foreign countries including China,

Israel, North Kora, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website”.

The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks—U.S. equipment

expenditure in Iraq, probable U.S. violations of the Cemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the

Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanmo Bay. Note that the report contains a number of

inaccurances, for instance, the claim that WikiLeaks has no editorial control. The report concludes with 13 items of

intelligence to be answered about WikiLeaks.

(U) Wikileaks.org—An Online Reference to Foreign

Intelligence Services, Insurgents, or Terrorist Groups?

NGIC-2381-0617-08

Information Cutoff Date: 28 February 2008

Publication Date: 18 March 2008

National Security Information

Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions

Derived from: Multiple sources

Declassify on: Source documents marked 25X1

Date of source: 20060725

This Counterintelligence Analysis Report is published under the auspices of the Department of

Defense Intelligence Analysis Program (DIAP).

Prepared by:

Michael D. Horvath

Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch

Army Counterintelligence Center

External Coordination: National Ground Intelligence Center[1]

This product responds to HQ, Department of Army, production requirement C764-97-0005.

ACIC Product Identification Number is RB08-0617.

(U) Purpose

(U) This special report assesses the counterintelligence threat posed to the US Army by the

Wikileaks.org Web site.

 

SECRET//NOFORN

SECRET//NOFORN

Page 2 of 32

(U) Executive Summary

(S//NF) Wikileaks.org, a publicly accessible Internet Web site, represents a potential force

protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security

(INFOSEC) threat to the US Army. The intentional or unintentional leaking and posting of US

Army sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org could result in increased threats to

DoD personnel, equipment, facilities, or installations. The leakage of sensitive and classified

DoD information also calls attention to the insider threat, when a person or persons motivated by

a particular cause or issue wittingly provides information to domestic or foreign personnel or

organizations to be published by the news media or on the Internet. Such information could be of

value to foreign intelligence and security services (FISS), foreign military forces, foreign

insurgents, and foreign terrorist groups for collecting information or for planning attacks against

US force, both within the United States and abroad.

(S//NF) The possibility that a current employee or mole within DoD or elsewhere in the US

government is providing sensitive information or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot

be ruled out. Wikileaks.org claims that the ―leakers‖ or ―whistleblowers‖ of sensitive or

classified DoD documents are former US government employees. These claims are highly

suspect, however, since Wikileaks.org states that the anonymity and protection of the leakers or

whistleblowers is one of its primary goals. Referencing of leakers using codenames and

providing incorrect employment information, employment status, and other contradictory

information by Wikileaks.org are most likely rudimentary OPSEC measures designed to protect

the identity of the current or former insiders who leaked the information. On the other hand, one

cannot rule out the possibility that some of the contradictions in describing leakers could be

inadvertent OPSEC errors by the authors, contributors, or Wikileaks.org staff personnel with

limited experience in protecting the identity of their sources.

(U) The stated intent of the Wikileaks.org Web site is to expose unethical practices, illegal

behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt corporations and oppressive regimes in Asia, the

former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. To do so, the developers of the

Wikileaks.org Web site want to provide a secure forum to where leakers, contributors, or

whistleblowers from any country can anonymously post or send documentation and other

information that exposes corruption or wrongdoing by governments or corporations. The

developers believe that the disclosure of sensitive or classified information involving a foreign

government or corporation will eventually result in the increased accountability of a democratic,

oppressive, or corrupt the government to its citizens.[2]

(S//NF) Anyone can post information to the Wikileaks.org Web site, and there is no editorial

review or oversight to verify the accuracy of any information posted to the Web site. Persons

accessing the Web site can form their own opinions regarding the accuracy of the information

posted, and they are allowed to post comments. This raises the possibility that the Wikileaks.org

Web site could be used to post fabricated information; to post misinformation, disinformation,

and propaganda; or to conduct perception management and influence operations designed to

convey a negative message to those who view or retrieve information from the Web site.[3]

 

 

(U) Diverse views exist among private persons, legal experts, advocates for open government

and accountability, law enforcement, and government officials in the United States and other

countries on the stated goals of Wikileaks.org. Some contend that the leaking and posting of

information on Wikileaks.org is constitutionally protected free speech, supports open society and

open government initiatives, and serves the greater public good in such a manner that outweighs

any illegal acts that arise from the posting of sensitive or classified government or business

information. Others believe that the Web site or persons associated with Wikileaks.org will face

legal challenges in some countries over privacy issues, revealing sensitive or classified

government information, or civil lawsuits for posting information that is wrong, false,

slanderous, libelous, or malicious in nature. For example, the Wikileaks.org Web site in the

United States was shutdown on 14 February 2008 for 2 weeks by court order over the publishing

of sensitive documents in a case involving charges of money laundering, grand larceny, and tax

evasion by the Julius Bare Bank in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. The court case against

Wikileaks.org was dropped by Julius Bare Bank, the US court order was lifted and the Web site

was restored in the United States. Efforts by some domestic and foreign personnel and

organizations to discredit the Wikileaks.org Web site include allegations that it wittingly allows

the posting of uncorroborated information, serves as an instrument of propaganda, and is a front

organization of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[4]

(S//NF) The governments of China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and

several other countries have blocked access to Wikileaks.org-type Web sites, claimed they have

the right to investigate and prosecute Wikileaks.org and associated whistleblowers, or insisted

they remove false, sensitive, or classified government information, propaganda, or malicious

content from the Internet. The governments of China, Israel, and Russia claim the right to

remove objectionable content from, block access to, and investigate crimes related to the posting

of documents or comments to Web sites such as Wikileaks.org. The governments of these

countries most likely have the technical skills to take such action should they choose to do so.[5]

(S//NF) Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and

whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the

Web site that they will remain anonymous. The identification, exposure, or termination of

employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers

could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make

such information public.

 

 

(U) Key Judgments

(S//NF) Wikileaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence,

OPSEC, and INFOSEC threat to the US Army.

(S//NF) Recent unauthorized release of DoD sensitive and classified documents provide

FISS, foreign terrorist groups, insurgents, and other foreign adversaries with potentially

actionable information for targeting US forces.

(S//NF) The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the

US government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot

 

be ruled out. The claim made by Wikileaks.org that former US government employees

leaked sensitive and classified information is highly suspect, however, since

Wikileaks.org states that the anonymity of the whistleblowers or leakers is one of its

primary goals.

(U//FOUO) The Wikileaks.org Web site could be used to post fabricated information,

misinformation, disinformation, or propaganda and could be used in perception

management and influence operations to convey a positive or negative message to

specific target audiences that view or retrieve information from the Web site.

(U//FOUO) Several countries have blocked access to the Wikileaks.org Web site and

claim the right to investigate and prosecute Wikileaks.org members and whistleblowers

or to block access to or remove false, sensitive, or classified government information,

propaganda, or other malicious content from the Internet.

(U//FOUO) Wikileaks.org most likely has other DoD sensitive and classified information

in its possession and will continue to post the information to the Wikileaks.org Web site.

(U//FOUO) Web sites such as Wikileaks.org use trust as a center of gravity by protecting

the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers. The identification,

exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current

or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this

center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the

Wikileaks.org Web site.

(U) Table of Contents

(U) Purpose

(U) Executive Summary

(U) Key Judgments

(U) Background

(U) Discussion

(U) Intelligence Gaps

(U) Conclusions

(U) Point of Contact

(U) References

(U) Appendix A: Glossary

(U) Appendix B: Methodology Used by Authors for Analysis of Leaked Tables of

Equipment for US Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan

(U) Tables

(U) Table 1. Abbreviated Listing of the Iraq Transition Team (UIC - M94216) Table of

Equipment (TOE)

(U) Table 2. Descriptive Entry of the File and How it is Catalogued by Wikileaks.org for

the NGIC Report Entitled ―(U) Complex Environments: Battle of Fallujah I, April 2004‖

[NGIC-1127-7138-06] posted on its Web site

 

(U) Figures

(U) Figure 1. M33A1 Bulk CS Chemical Dispenser

(S//NF) Figure 2. Map from Page 4 of NGIC Report Entitled ―(U) Complex

Environments: Battle of Fallujah I, April 2004‖ As Published in a Wikileaks.org Article.

 

 

(U) Background

(U//FOUO) Wikileaks.org was founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and

technologists from the United States, China, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Its

Web site became operational in early 2007. The advisory board for Wikileaks.org includes

journalists, cryptographers, a ―former US intelligence analyst,‖ and expatriates from Chinese,

Russian, and Tibetan refugee communities. The ACIC does not have any information to

associate or link the ―former US intelligence analyst‖ on the Wikileaks.org advisory board with

the leakage of sensitive or classified DoD documents posted to the Web site.[6]

(U) Wikileaks.org claims to have developed an uncensorable version of the publicly available

Wikipedia interface that is intended for mass leakage of sensitive documents that expose

wrongdoing and for allowing users to comment on the documents posted to the Web site.

Through its Web site, Wikileaks.org encourages large-scale anonymous leaking and posting of

sensitive and confidential government and business documents on the Internet. Wikileaks.org

claims to have received more than 1.2 million documents from dissident communities and

anonymous sources throughout the world. If true, additional articles involving sensitive or

classified DoD will most likely be posted to the Wikileaks.org Web site in the future.[7]

(S//NF) Wikileaks.org uses its own coded software combined with Wiki, MediaWiki, OpenSSL,

FreeNet, TOR, and PGP to make it difficult for foreign governments, FISS, law enforcement

agencies, and foreign businesses to determine where a leaked document originated from and who

was responsible for leaking the document. The goal of Wikileaks.org is to ensure that leaked

information is distributed across many jurisdictions, organizations, and individual users because

once a leaked document is placed on the Internet it is extremely difficult to remove the document

entirely.[8]

(S//NF) The obscurification technology[9] used by Wikileaks.org has exploitable vulnerabilities.

Organizations with properly trained cyber technicians, the proper equipment, and the proper

technical software could most likely conduct computer network exploitation (CNE) operations or

use cyber tradecraft to obtain access to Wikileaks.org‘s Web site, information systems, or

networks that may assist in identifying those persons supplying the data and the means by which

they transmitted the data to Wikileaks.org. Forensic analysis of DoD unclassified and classified

networks may reveal the location of the information systems used to download the leaked

documents. The metadata, MD5 hash marks, and other unique identifying information within

digital documents may assist in identifying the parties responsible for leaking the information. In

 

addition, patterns involving the types of leaked information, classification levels of the leaked

information, development of psychological profiles, and inadvertent attribution of an insider

through poor OPSEC could also assist in the identification of insiders.

(U) Wikileaks.org supports the US Supreme Court ruling regarding the unauthorized release of

the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, which stated that ―only a free and unrestrained press can

effectively expose deception in government.‖ The Wikileaks.org Web site further states the

following:

―We aim for maximum political impact. We believe that transparency in

government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government, and

stronger democracies. All governments can benefit from increased scrutiny by the

world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires

information. Historically that information has been costly—in terms of human life

and human rights. But with technological advances—the Internet, and

cryptography—the risks of conveying important information can be lowered.‖[10]

(U) The OPSEC measures used in the submission of leaked information to Wikileaks using the

Internet are designed to protect the identity and personal security of the persons or entities

sending or posting information to the Web site. Wikileaks.org claims that any attempt at trace

routing of IP addresses, MAC addresses, and other identifying information of a home computer

submissions (as opposed to cyber café submissions) through Wikileaks.org‘s Internet submission

system would require a knowledge of information available only to Wikileaks.org programmers

and to a rights organization serving the electronic community, or would require specialized

ubiquitous traffic analysis of Internet messages and routing systems. Nevertheless, it remains

technically feasible for FISS, law enforcement organizations, and foreign businesses that have

the motivation, intentions, capability, and opportunity to gain online access or physical access to

Wikileaks.org information systems to identify and trace whistleblowers through cyber

investigations, advanced cyber tools, and forensics.[11]

(U) Another method of posting leaked information to the Web site anonymously is for leakers to

use postal mail to send the information to volunteers in various countries who have agreed to

receive encrypted CDs and DVDs from leakers. These volunteers then forward the information

to designated personnel, who then upload the data on the CDs and DVDs to the Wikileaks.org

Web servers. To protect or mask the sender, leakers can take OPSEC measures such as using

Wikileaks.org encryption protocols when writing CDs and DVDs; using gloves while wrapping,

taping, handling, and mailing packages; and not including a return address or including a fake

return address on packages containing leaked information. Such measures are designed to protect

the identity of the leakers and prevent FISS, law enforcement, and postal inspectors from

intercepting the mail and decoding the information on the data storage devices in transit.

Wikileaks.org also claims that it is developing easy-to-use software to encrypt the CDs and

DVDs. Use of such methods also protects facilitators or intermediaries from harm because they

would not know the content of the encrypted submissions.[12]

(U) A Wikileaks.org spokesperson stated in early January 2007 that about 22 persons are

involved in the Open Society Initiative to make governments and corporations more accountable

 

to the citizens of the world. Wikileaks intends to seek funding from individual persons and

groups such as humanitarian organizations that fund sociopolitical activity intended to promote

democracy and human rights around the world through open access to government and business

information.[13]

(S//NF) Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and

Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org Web site to prevent citizens

or adversaries from accessing sensitive information, embarrassing information, or alleged

propaganda. The governments of China, Israel, and Russia have asserted that they have a right to

remove from the Internet protected government information, disinformation, and propaganda that

is intended to embarrass or make false allegations against their governments. China, Israel, North

Korea, and Russia are assessed to have state-sponsored CNE, computer network attack (CNA),

and cyber forensics capabilities that would most likely allow penetration or disrupt viewing of

the Wikileaks.org Web site. China, Israel, and Russia have used or are suspected of having used

CNA to target terrorist or dissident Web sites that have posted objectionable material intended to

embarrass, harm, or encourage terrorism or opposition to the government.[14]

 

(U) Discussion

(U//FOUO) An insider could present a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC, or

INFOSEC threat to the US Army through deliberate unauthorized release of official DoD

documents and posting of sensitive or classified information to the Internet. Several recent

postings to the Wikileaks.org Web site in November 2007 of sensitive US Army information

marked UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY and in December 2007 of US Army

information classified SECRET//NOFORN highlight the insider threat to DoD. The actual

perpetrators responsible for the unauthorized released of such documents could be subject to

administrative action, nonjudicial punishment, or criminal charges and prosecution if they are

identified.

Creepy and unelected new EU President Von Rompuy talks about the delightful new role of the EU, the G20, climate control and Global Governance (or 'global management'). I definitely heard the sound of global governance over the LRAD at the G20, that's for sure!

Some weirdo other stuff got released in the hilarious climate change email dumps which are now all over Wikileaks via surly hackers.
Duly noted by Cryptogon.com, perhaps this is all a program to generate MK assassins or maybe it's just an item for fans of The Parallax View: Military Experiment Seeks to Predict PTSD - TIME:

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif.) — Two days before shipping off to war, Marine Pfc. Jesse Sheets sat inside a trailer in the Mojave Desert, his gaze fixed on a computer that flashed a rhythmic pulse of contrasting images. Smiling kids embracing a soldier. A dog sniffing blood oozing from a corpse. Movie star Cameron Diaz posing sideways in a midriff top. Troops cowering for safety during an ambush.

A doctor tracked his stress levels and counted the number of times he blinked. Electrode wires dangled from his left eye and right pinky finger.

Sheets is part of a military experiment to try to predict who's most at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. Understanding underlying triggers might help reduce the burden of those who return psychologically wounded — if they can get early help.

Something like what they did to Warren Beatty at the Parallax Corporation's Division of Human Engineering, an MK lab of a classic sort:

BTW here's the intro which is outstanding. The Parallax View by Alan Pakula was a classic 70s paranoia thriller released in the middle of Watergate.

BACK IN 2004....

A wise ol friend of mine back at Macalester told me he was voting to re-elect George W. Bush, despite his own Marxist outlook.

"Why!?" I earnestly wanted to know -- it could hardly help advance anyone's interests!

Why vote for Bush? I got my answer: Because.... Bush would accelerate the contradictions in capitalism - further advancing its collapse!

*****

Talk about a hat tip. This guy was right on: Bush managed to finally shatter the great classic American 'late capitalist' financial system in just four years!

Say what you will, all the damn hippie college professors and bad kids never pulled that one off. Everyone has to give some deference to our Marxist-in-chief, who has systematically collapsed every institution we thought they were dedicated to protecting.

Strange times... it's hard for me to write about the whole thing, due to the incredible variety of fucked-up scenarios unfolding right now.

It's cool that the country wants to get serious and shift to the left, get some shit done. But the problem is that the problems with the financial system have been leveraged by the perpetrators to infest and steal everything they touch. Now the Democrats are left to clean up the mess & try to patch things over.

*****

So it will be fun to see some New Politics in the New Year - I remember when I thought that 2005 would be that year, before all our hopes got squished. But the material and structural problems will really fuck over a lot of people who had no part in this, and it's frightening to imagine where this road is really leading.

Obama's started hiring on the people that I think of as 'the usual suspects': Paul Volcker, Larry Summers, other people you've only heard about from trolling unhappy sectors of history. Rahm Emanuel perhaps has the right style for our times, but he's shady and will probably fuck things up, too.

It's pretty weird now, and I just smell that trillions are getting stolen & otherwise hitting the bottom, so I don't really feel a great deal of optimism.

Then again, I'm so used to hanging the roots on my own discontent on the nasty old leaders, it's kind of a deprivation when We Won't Have Nixon To Kick Around Anymore.

*****

In any case, the Malign Masters of the World are actually launching "Bretton Woods 2" to restructure the financial system at firesale prices. As a bonus, a true Sword Of Damocles has been installed over Obama's Oval Office; all he's got to do is stave off total collapse, carried out by the usual suspects and corrupt Baby Boomers... CBS columnist spells it out, you damn well better listen! (h/t Cryptogon)

Reagonomics hides in sleeper cells, harboring financial WMDs - MarketWatch

Warning: King Henry's bailout like Rummy's Iraq

Reaganomics hidden in 'sleeper cell' armed with lethal 'financial WMDs'

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

Last update: 6:47 p.m. EST Nov. 10, 2008

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- So you thought Barack Obama's victory signaled the death of Reaganomics? Wrong, wrong: Reaganomics is very much alive.

In a subtle, bloodless coup, the Reaganomics ideology magically pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat in the meltdown. The magic happened fast and quietly, in the shadows, while you were in a trance, distracted by the election drama.

Recently Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," framed the issue perfectly: "Has the Treasury partially nationalized the private banks, as we have been told? Or is it the other way around?" The question was rhetorical, the answer painfully clear. In a few weeks Wall Street did the old bait and switch, emerging from an economic and market disaster with new powers, in total control of America.

And thanks to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's brilliant bailout coup, Reaganomics is now the new "sleeper cell" quietly hidden inside the Obama White House and America's Treasury, where it will be for a long time to come, armed with what Warren Buffett calls financial weapons of mass destruction, guaranteed to sabotage the new president, taxpayers and the future of America.

Listen closely folks: You and your government are and will continue being conned out of trillions. Better that we should have taken care of ourselves first and cleaned house, not bailed out Wall Street financiers -- let them pay for their sins and feel the pain.

Unfortunately, while you were distracted by the election, Wall Street gained control of our Treasury using a Trojan Horse, Hank Paulson, who filled Treasury with Goldman Sachs alums and pulled off one of the greatest inside heists in the history of the world.

While you were distracted, Wall Street privatized the U.S. Treasury, got the keys to Fort Knox and will be stealing trillions for years to come, through a secret "sleeper cell," a "virus" installed in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. They're laughing: All you got was a heavily discounted paper IOU for you, your kids and generations to pay off. The winners: Paulson, Goldman, Wall Street banks and Reaganomics. The losers: America.

Wall Street and its buddies in Washington (all those politicians bankrolled by 41,000 lobbyists) know two things the voters never, never learn: that no matter how incompetent they are -- how greedy, how stupid and how destructive -- America's naive voters will always bail them out of a crisis

At the trough

Klein further exposed this insanity in a recent Rolling Stone article, "The New Trough: The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq, a 'free-fraud zone' where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create." Paulson's privatization, outsourcing and management of the $700 billion bailout has the exact same Reaganomics ideological, strategic and deceptive footprints that President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to privatize, outsource and mismanage the costly Iraq War blunder. Yes, Paulson is America's new Rumsfeld!

The American taxpayer is being royally screwed by the Wall Street bailout giveaway. According to Klein, they're adding insult to injury, rubbing salt in our wounds:

• "Many of the banks appear to have no intention of wasting the money on loans."

• Merrill CEO John Thain said "it's just going to be a cushion."

• Citigroup CFO Gary Crittenden "hinted that his company would use its share of the cash, $25 billion, to buy up competitors and swell even bigger," giving them the "possibility of taking advantage of opportunities that might otherwise be closed to us."

• And my old colleagues at Morgan Stanley are "planning to pay themselves $10.7 billion this year, much of it in bonuses." So screw the taxpayers and Main Street homeowners.

Want to know how badly America's taxpayers are getting screwed? Listen as Klein compares the American bailout to the British bailout which was negotiated just five days before Paulson "negotiated" our historic $125 billion deal with nine Wall Street banks:

• United Kingdom. Prime Minister Gordon Brown negotiated "meaningful guarantees for taxpayers -- voting rights at the banks, seats on their boards, 12% in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses." Brown took advantage of his negotiation position of strength.

• United States. What did the American taxpayers? A bad deal negotiated by a former Wall Street CEO loaded with conflicts of interest: We got "no controlling interest, no voting rights, no seats on the bank boards and just 5% in dividend payouts to the government, while [bank] shareholders continue to collect billions in dividends every quarter. What's more, golden parachutes and bonuses already promised by the banks will still be paid out to executives -- all before taxpayers are paid back. No wonder it took just one hour for Paulson to convince all nine CEOs to accept his offer, less than seven minutes per bank for one of the sweetest taxpayer giveaways in history.

Our pain, Wall Street's gain

It gets even worse: The day after Paulson's nine-bank deal, he announced his selection of Bank of New York Mellon as the "master custodian" coordinating all phases of the Wall Street bank bailout. BNYM's role as "the contractor of contractors" is to the $700 billion bailout what Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton was to all the mercenary and private contractor operations in Iraq. Plus the new president's locked into a three-year contract.

BNYM's boss can outsource to friendly Wall Street "subcontractors," handing out billions of taxpayer money with little oversight much as Halliburton did in Iraq. They will "purchase toxic debts from Wall Street, service them and auction them off in the future." BNYM's boss called this plum "the ultimate outsourcing." An opportunity for his bank, because there's "a lot of new business that's going on even in this chaotic marketplace."

Main Street's suffering because of Wall Street's "sins," and Wall Street sees our pain as just an "opportunity" for them. That's textbook "disaster capitalism."

So now you know the truth: The Treasury did not nationalize America's banks. The fact is, Wall Street privatized the U.S. Treasury with a $700 billion rescue plan being controlled by the very banks that created the mess. You were distracted by the election, hoping for a savior, while Wall Street was turning defeat into victory using a classic "disaster capitalism" strategy.

That's right, Wall Street's Trojan Horse, Hank Paulson, operated quietly inside Treasury, protecting his old Wall Street buddies before they'd go bankrupt. He pulled the classic "disaster capitalism" stunt relieving the banks of the pain of their "sins." Ironically, that only leads to more "sinning," faster, bigger, sooner.

That's classic "moral hazard" and with Wall Street's new "business as usual" attitudes about mergers, bonuses, CEO pay and cash cushions, you just know those Reaganomics "financial WMDs" that Paulson's leaving behind in the bailout funds "sleeper cell" will ultimately trigger an even bigger financial meltdown soon, by 2011.

I tried putting the post below on just a few sites. After it got a strong, immediate reaction on DailyKos, the leading liberal mega-blog of our day, I decided that another, more refined post will later be needed to really get over people's bullshit filters. Or better yet, a comical video!

This was a pretty good one! My document dump on that whole Arkansas Iran Contra paper trail thingy pissed off most people who cared to notice at the Daily Kos. Pretty interesting reaction with 150+ comments: Daily Kos: Hillary's skeleton: These CIA Iran-Contra Arkansas docs reveal ugly past

Indeed the post was written pretty much off the cuff. I didn't go stuffing in links that corroborated many basic parts of Iran-Contra. In any case, many people thought that this whole area of skepticism had already been discredited (the conventional wisdom seemed to frame it as a Richard Mellon Scaife-induced Kool Aid episode.) A couple valiant souls pointed out that the broad outline of this shit is well proven, but the crowd wouldn't cop to that reality!

On the other hand, my framing of the whole thing as "rose law firm not really examined" was indeed not quite accurate. This ticked people off. But so did the idea that Hillary is "shady", which I'm surprised the DKos crowd can't handle.

The best of all was when people believed that the whole background of the Clintons in Arkansas was already off the table. And the guy who demanded about 8 times that the whole post get deleted off DailyKos because it was a 'conspiracy theory' article. Didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night.

There are a lot more double negatives to the case. It's a censored government document about a suppressed scandal the media has buried involving a presidential candidate. Therefore, um... it's too crazy to try to put into our conventional frame of reference?

A quality experiment. The people at the Agonist thought it was funny.

For some reason, it got bumped into the Ron Paul forum on the Alex Jones Prison Planet forum. Hillary's skeleton: These CIA Iran-Contra Arkansas docs reveal ugly past

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Here is a perfect example of why the Agonist is a good site: The Index of Suspicion: CIA plane and drugs in Mexico | The Agonist. This is the more recent September detainee plane with cocaine in Mexico thing. Usually they are run from Homeland Security contractors nowadays (as opposed to the CIA old days alluded to in my glorious Hillary post).

As long as we are on this, I stopped by to say hi to the biggest damn conspiracy forum on the Interwebs, Above Top Secret, about the same planes:

CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE.

And: NarcoNews | Cocaine Jet That Crashed in Mexico Part of Cowboy Government Operation, DEA Sources Claim

Looks like an ICE DEA cutout kind of thing. Way to go federal bureaucracies!

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In case you have not yet discerned my new pattern, I have decided to step back from being a partisan crusader for a limited set of issues, and instead try to hit a wider target by putting out weird government documents that totally cut against the grain of conventional wisdom, in an effort to rattle the frames of lame ordinary political perceptions.

This is merely the first step in a larger process of action!

(And also there will be a healthy proportion of weird spoofs, like the Telepathy SRI thing. Hell yeah!)

Boston artist Nick Rodrigues developed a cell phone box that you wear. Pretty awesome. Video here. Old news apparently, but sweet. The auto-loader harness that pops it onto your back is nice. Here is another booth made of fabric, not quite as nifty a construction.

[via technabob and notcot]

On the other hand, it turns out that the Feds are tracking you via your cellphone without a warrant. Interestingly, such stuff seemed to be among the deep tinfoil hattery of one whats his face....

On an unrelated subject, outside.in is the new thing in geo-blogging, as in Minneapolis. Storming the News Gatekeepers was pretty funny, but i guess it proves i'm not 31337 enough, because i found Outside.in via the Washington "lame" Post.

Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request - washingtonpost.com:

Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 23, 2007; Page A01

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.

The issue is taking on greater relevance as wireless carriers are racing to offer sleek services that allow cellphone users to know with the touch of a button where their friends or families are. The companies are hoping to recoup investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking. Sprint Nextel, for instance, boasts that its "loopt" service even sends an alert when a friend is near, "putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town."

With Verizon's Chaperone service, parents can set up a "geofence" around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

"Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."

SHIT! Cell phones are essentially spies in your pocket. And now cops don't need a warrant to use them. | The Agonist

At this point I have to hand it to the so-called Tinfoil Hat crowd, but I can't remember if it was Stew Webb or Tom Flocco. One of these guys is hawking damper bags that can suppress all signal from the NSA scheme that's listening to your mic. For bonus points, here are some random paranoia links of the classic style, sure to entertain the Reynolds Wrap fans. So here are some fun links

Stew Webb. I don't know what happened to Flocco? Tom Flocco.com and his IN BRIEF ARCHIVE

PROFITS OF DEATH--INSIDER TRADING AND 9-11. Acxiom Had Data on 11 of 19 Hijackers

Killtown: Is Barbara Olson still alive? from Killtown, a 9/11 blogger who's keeping it so real that he/she got kicked off practically every big 9/11 blog. Stay black bro!

I seriously have to roll my eyes at how the supposedly open-minded conspiracy crowd has already decided what goes. I mean it could have been holograms and space lasers. Not really very likely, but is it that much less likely than other widely accepted conspiracy theories? I find it funny that they are drawing up these rules against poor Killtown:

Killtown: Banned at AboveTopSecret, public execution style, Killtown: Banned at 911Blogger, Harassment of 9/11 Truth Activists | 911Blogger.com related. www.letsrollforums.com :: View topic - Drone 767 fired missile a split sec B 4 hitting South Tower, Killtown: Banned at Loose Change forum, Killtown's: WTC Crash Videos.

After watching Loose Change: Final Cut in a packed theater, I have to say that sideshow fights like this are a perfect example of everyone missing the forest for the trees. The forum admins should fuckin' chill out a little. Killtown appears to have parsed out all kinds of weird video anomalies. Those deserve their own examination, without bias. Could fake videos ordered up from the Mysterious Cheney Bunker have painted stuff onto America's networks? Sure, why not? See my ramble bits: Internet Radicalization Thought Crimes, Centers of Orwellian Excellence & Strategic Communication Laboratories: What Modules are in the OpCentre?

I almost forgot to add the piece de resistance: Killtown's website got put up alongside 'Al Qaeda' websites as examples of evil internet radicalization. KEEPING IT REAL. Definitely. The Alex Jones Krew noted: House Subcommittee Presentation Equates 9/11 Truth With Terrorism, and here:

To paraphrase Chomsky or HS Thompson or something: You're not really fighting the system till you're on the RAND Corporation's shit list!