Exclusive: Devastating dossier on 'abuse' by UK forces in Iraq goes to International Criminal Court

A devastating 250-page dossier, detailing allegations of beatings, electrocution, mock executions and sexual assault, has been presented to the International Criminal Court, and could result in some of Britain's leading defence figures facing prosecution for "systematic" war crimes.

General Sir Peter Wall, the head of the British Army; former defence secretary Geoff Hoon; and former defence minister Adam Ingram are among those named in the report, entitled "The Responsibility of UK Officials for War Crimes Involving Systematic Detainee Abuse in Iraq from 2003-2008".

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An Anti-US Missile Defense Weapon?

Ibtimes.com

The test, conducted on Jan. 9, was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon on Jan. 13 and confirmed by China’s Ministry of National Defense on Thursday. However, China denied initial reports that the weapon was designed with the purpose of penetrating U.S. missile defenses.  

The hypersonic glide vehicle was launched atop an intercontinental ballistic missile and released about 62 miles into the air. The speed test clocked the hypersonic glider zooming along at roughly 10 times the speed of sound.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that the Pentagon has named the weapon WU-14, though its sources were kept anonymous. 

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9/11 Truth: Rep Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) questioned about lies in the NIST report about WTC 7

In 2012 drawings were released, in response to a FOIA request, revealing that critical structural features in Building 7 were inexplicably missing from consideration in the NIST report on WTC 7.

If you are unfamiliar with the "omissions" by NIST, click here to read more!

Obama's NSA 'reforms' are little more than a PR attempt to mollify the public

In response to political scandal and public outrage, official Washington repeatedly uses the same well-worn tactic. It is the one that has been hauled out over decades in response to many of America's most significant political scandals. Predictably, it is the same one that shaped President Obama's much-heralded Friday speech to announce his proposals for "reforming" the National Security Agency in the wake of seven months of intense worldwide controversy.

The crux of this tactic is that US political leaders pretend to validate and even channel public anger by acknowledging that there are "serious questions that have been raised".

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Obama’s restrictions on NSA surveillance rely on narrow definition of ‘spying’

WASH POST

President Obama said Friday, in his first major speech on electronic surveillance, that “the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security.”

Obama placed restrictions on access to domestic phone records collected by the National Security Agency, but the changes he announced will allow it to continue — or expand — the collection of personal data from billions of people around the world, Americans and foreign citizens alike.

Obama squares that circle with an unusually narrow definition of “spying.”

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U.S.-Germany relations hit new low amid NSA spying scandal, official says

MAINZ, Germany -- The United States' relationship with its powerful ally Germany has hit a new low, a leading German official said ahead of President Obama's much-anticipated speech on the government's controversial surveillance methods.

"The current situation in transatlantic relations is worse than it was at the low-point in 2003 during the Iraq War," Philipp Missfelder, coordinator for transatlantic relations in Germany's foreign office, told NBC News.

In 2003, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder spoke out strongly against the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq and refused German military support, causing severe political friction between the two countries.

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How Paul Revere could have been outed as a ‘terrorist’ by metadata

WASH POST

Friday, the president started off his NSA reform speech with a reference to Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty, saying:

At the dawn of our Republic, a small, secret surveillance committee borne out of the “The Sons of Liberty” was established in Boston. The group’s members included Paul Revere, and at night they would patrol the streets, reporting back any signs that the British were preparing raids against America’s early Patriots.

But if the British Redcoats had access to the type of metadata and processing power the NSA does today, Revere probably would have been caught before he could go on his legendary midnight ride.

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Julian Assange: ‘We Heard a Lot of Lies in This Speech by Obama’

President Obama laid out some reforms for NSA surveillance programs today, but not everyone was impressed by it. Julian Assange reacted to Obama’s speech on CNN and said that the president was “dragged kicking and screaming” into this debate in the first place, remarking that “it’s embarrassing for a head of state to go on for 45 minutes like that and say almost nothing.”

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Think Tank: “Extraordinary Crisis” Needed to Preserve “New World Order”

Writing for the Atlantic Council, a prominent think tank based in Washington DC, Harlan K. Ullman warns that an “extraordinary crisis” is needed to preserve the NWO which is under threat of being derailed by non-state actors like Edward Snowden.

The Atlantic Council is considered to be a highly influential organization with close ties to major policy makers across the world. It’s headed up by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, former United States National Security Advisor under U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. Snowcroft has also advised President Barack Obama.

Harlan K. Ullman was the principal author of the “shock and awe” doctrine and is now Chairman of the Killowen Group which advises government leaders.

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NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep

The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to top-secret documents.

The untargeted collection and storage of SMS messages – including their contacts – is revealed in a joint investigation between the Guardian and the UK’s Channel 4 News based on material provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The documents also reveal the UK spy agency GCHQ has made use of the NSA database to search the metadata of “untargeted and unwarranted” communications belonging to people in the UK.

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how the FCC lost net neutrality and could kill the internet

The wrong words.

That was the overwhelming message delivered to the FCC by the DC Circuit yesterday when it ruled to vacate the agency’s net neutrality rules. The FCC had tried to impose so-called “common carrier” regulations on broadband providers without officially classifying them as utilities subject to those types of rules, and the court rejected that sleight of hand.

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Goldman Sachs pays employees average of $383,000 after profits rise 5%

Goldman Sachs paid its bankers an average of $383,000 (£233,000) in 2013, after profits for the year rose by 5% to $8bn.

Putting a fresh focus on the debate over bankers' pay, Goldman's 32,900 global employees will be told the size of their individual bonuses on Thursday.

The bank set aside $2.19bn in the quarter ending December 31 to compensate employees, up 11% from a year earlier but down 8.1% from the previous quarter. Goldman partners were told about their bonuses on Wednesday.

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President Obama Locking In Cosmetic NSA 'Reforms' Before Key Privacy Board Can Even Weigh In

While so much attention has been paid to the special White House task force that was set up to look at the NSA situation, and the fact that President Obama is planning to announce his almost entirely cosmetic "reforms" for the NSA tomorrow, it seems that almost everyone has forgotten that there is an official Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) that is planning to give its own recommendations concerning the NSA's programs... only, it's after the President will have already announced his plans. Admittedly, it must be easy to forget about or ignore the PCLOB.

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Lawmakers seek to stymie plan to shift control of drone campaign from CIA to Pentagon

Congress has moved to block President Obama’s plan to shift control of the U.S. drone campaign from the CIA to the Defense Department, inserting a secret provision in the massive government spending bill introduced this week that would preserve the spy agency’s role in lethal counterterrorism operations, U.S. officials said.

The measure, included in a classified annex to the $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, would restrict the use of any funding to transfer unmanned aircraft or the authority to carry out drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon, officials said.

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Obama NSA speech on anniversary of Eisenhower warning

It’s a coincidence, White House aides say. President Barack Obama did not deliberately schedule his big NSA speech for Friday to mark the anniversary of Dwight Eisenhower’s warning that the “military-industrial complex” posed a potential threat to American democracy.

Eisenhower’s Jan. 17, 1961, speech portrayed the country as locked in a struggle of “indefinite duration” — he meant against Soviet Communism, though the label could apply today to Islamist extremism.

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'The Americans Lied': Trans-Atlantic 'No-Spy' Deal on the Rocks

Spiegel.de

Failed talks? Hardly. The negotiations "are continuing," says Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). "We are still talking," says the German government. In other words, nothing has yet been decided. The No-Spy deal is still alive.

But the statements coming out of Berlin and Pullach, where the BND is headquartered, reek of forced optimism. Nobody wants it to look as though efforts have been abandoned toward a deal which would see the US agree to swear off spying operations in Germany.

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Iraqi Death Scene Pics of Marines Burning Bodies Trigger U.S. Military Investigation [PHOTOS]

The United States military is conducting a formal investigation into American soldiers burning the dead bodies of what appear to be Iraqi insurgents.

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America in crisis: Government cited as No. 1 problem in the country

WASH TIMES

Americans think poor leadership within government is the most important problem facing the nation, according to a new poll.

Gallup says 21 percent of people put their dissatisfaction with Congress and politicians in general just above the economy, at 18 percent. Unemployment and health care issues come in third, at 16 percent.

Only 3 percent of people cite issues like foreign aid and immigration, and 2 percent say welfare and “a lack of respect for each other” are the top problems.

Gallup says concern about the government spiked during the government shutdown in October, however current levels are higher than they were prior to the federal stalemate.

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N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers

NY TIMES

The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks.

While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.

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Net neutrality is dead. Bow to Comcast and Verizon, your overlords

Advocates of a free and open Internet could see this coming, but today's ruling from a Washington appeals court striking down the FCC's rules protecting the open net was worse than the most dire forecasts. It was "even more emphatic and disastrous than anyone expected," in the words of one veteran advocate for network neutrality.

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit thoroughly eviscerated the Federal Communications Commission's latest lame attempt to prevent Internet service providers from playing favorites among websites--awarding faster speeds to sites that pay a special fee, for example, or slowing or blocking sites and services that compete with favored affiliates.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-net-neutrality-20140114,0,522106.story#ixzz2qQI900If