CRISSCROSS/PROTON Point Paper

Staff Writer, R. Patrick Chapman
News / Documentation
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CRISSCROSS/PROTON Point Paper

Documents pertaining to the Crisscross/Proton project.


Source: The Intercept

GCHQ Covert Mobile Phones Policy

Staff Writer, DL Mullan
Government / War on Terror
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GCHQ Covert Mobile Phones Policy

Document for your perusal.


Source: The Intercept

Burning Down the House, Law Enforcement Mob Mentality Unleashed

Staff Writer, DL Mullan

Police Brutality / Riots

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"... 911, what's your emergency?"

The Ferguson Police...

In the article by Glenn Greenwald, The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light by the Horrors of Ferguson, he uncovers the startling truth behind the increased aggression against the American people. 

As is true for most issues of excessive and abusive policing, police militarization is overwhelmingly and disproportionately directed at minorities and poor communities, ensuring that the problem largely festers in the dark. Americans are now so accustomed to seeing police officers decked in camouflage and Robocop-style costumes, riding in armored vehicles and carrying automatic weapons first introduced during the U.S. occupation of Baghdad, that it has become normalized. But those who bear the brunt of this transformation are those who lack loud megaphones; their complaints of the inevitable and severe abuse that results have largely been met with indifference.

If anything positive can come from the Ferguson travesties, it is that the completely out-of-control orgy of domestic police militarization receives long-overdue attention and reining in.

Amen.

Looters, law breakers, anyone can agree those individuals inciting violence need to be arrested for their day in court, but so do officers who commit crimes against the community they are supposed to serve. 

You do remember: To Serve and Protect, don't you? 

It's not: Shoot First and Ask Questions Later, if only there is an internal investigation, otherwise there seems to be a law enforcement free for all. This is America. This is not Iraq.

Americans walking down the street and protesting are protected by the First Amendment. That pesky Bill of Rights that tells the government what it can and cannot do along with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The latter is what officers are sworn to uphold.

Well an oath of office is just elective. Who cares about treason or Posse Comatatus anyway these days? The police are immune to simple legalities, right?

The best and most comprehensive account of the dangers of police militarization is the 2013 book by the libertarian Washington Post journalist Radley Balko, entitled “Rise of the Warrior Cops: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.” Balko, who has devoted his career to documenting and battling the worst abuses of the U.S. criminal justice system, traces the history and underlying mentality that has given rise to all of this: the “law-and-order” obsessions that grew out of the social instability of the 1960s, the War on Drugs that has made law enforcement agencies view Americans as an enemy population, the Reagan-era “War on Poverty” (which was more aptly described as a war on America’s poor), the aggressive Clinton-era expansions of domestic policing, all topped off by the massively funded, rights-destroying, post-9/11 security state of the Bush and Obama years. All of this, he documents, has infused America’s police forces with “a creeping battlefield mentality.”

I read Balko’s book prior to publication in order to blurb it, and after I was done, immediately wrote what struck me most about it: “There is no vital trend in American society more overlooked than the militarization of our domestic police forces.” The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim, in the outlet’s official statement about Reilly’s arrest, made the same point: “Police militarization has been among the most consequential and unnoticed developments of our time.”

In June, the ACLU published a crucial 96-page report on this problem, entitled “War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing.” Its central point: “the United States today has become excessively militarized, mainly through federal programs that create incentives for state and local police to use unnecessarily aggressive weapons and tactics designed for the battlefield.”

But isn't that what happens when the tiger catches its tail? The militarization of the police force is not solving American unrest, it's fueling it. The power and might of the military in civil forces' hands has created a far more volatile state of affairs.

Isn't that more dangerous than a teenager throwing rocks or a looter?

We have riots. After a few days, the rioters go home. Looters can be found with the RFID chips in the merchandise they stole. Easy fix: follow, document, search warrant, and arrest. How difficult can that possibly be?

Ultimately, police militarization is part of a broader and truly dangerous trend: the importation of War on Terror tactics from foreign war zones onto American soil. American surveillance drones went from Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia into American cities, and it’s impossible to imagine that they won’t be followed by weaponized ones. The inhumane and oppressive conditions that prevailed at Guantanamo are matched, or exceeded, by the super-max hellholes and “Communications Management Units” now in the American prison system. And the “collect-it-all” mentality that drives NSA domestic surveillance was pioneered by Gen. Keith Alexander in Baghdad and by other generals in Afghanistan, aimed at enemy war populations. 

Oh, yeah, we're at WAR! 

With men in caves who don't exist and other militants created by the CIA and do we really need to go on? The American government has become the domestic terrorist that it tells us to fear in each other. But the fun doesn't stop there. 

One government newsletter - from “the Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO), a little known federal agency that equips police departments with surplus military gear” – boasted that “Fiscal Year 2011 was a record year in property transfers from the US military’s stockpiles to police departments around the nation.” The ACLU report notes: “the Department of Defense operates the 1033 Program through the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO), whose motto is ‘from warfighter to crimefighter.’” The Justice Department has an entire program devoted to “supporting military veterans and the law enforcement agencies that hire them as our veterans seek to transition into careers as law enforcement officers.”

As part of America’s posture of Endless War, Americans have been trained to believe that everything is justified on the “battlefield” (now defined to mean “the whole world”): imprisonment without charges, kidnapping, torture, even assassination of U.S. citizens without trials. It is not hard to predict the results of importing this battlefield mentality onto American soil, aimed at American citizens: “From Warfighter to Crimefighter.” The results have been clear for those who have looked – or those who have been subject to this – for years. The events in Ferguson are, finally, forcing all Americans to watch the outcome of this process.

Because if it's on television, Americans might wake up to the fact that their own government sees them as terrorists as outlined in the Patriot Act and NDAA. 

Okay, maybe not.

Source: The Intercept  

Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack

Staff Writer, R. Patrick Chapman

News / Government
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Glenn Greenwald wrote this special report defining America's role in the Israeli conflict with Gaza: Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack.

A portion of the article reads: 

The U.S. government has long lavished overwhelming aid on Israel, providing cash, weapons and surveillance technology that play a crucial role in Israel’s attacks on its neighbors. But top secret documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shed substantial new light on how the U.S. and its partners directly enable Israel’s military assaults – such as the one on Gaza.

Over the last decade, the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC.

The relationship has, on at least one occasion, entailed the covert payment of a large amount of cash to Israeli operatives. Beyond their own surveillance programs, the American and British surveillance agencies rely on U.S.-supported Arab regimes, including the Jordanian monarchy and even the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, to provide vital spying services regarding Palestinian targets.

The new documents underscore the indispensable, direct involvement of the U.S. government and its key allies in Israeli aggression against its neighbors. That covert support is squarely at odds with the posture of helpless detachment typically adopted by Obama officials and their supporters.

President Obama, in his press conference on Friday, said ”it is heartbreaking to see what’s happening there,” referring to the weeks of civilian deaths in Gaza – “as if he’s just a bystander, watching it all unfold,” observed Brooklyn College Professor Corey Robin. Robin added: ”Obama talks about Gaza as if it were a natural disaster, an uncontrollable biological event.”

Each time Israel attacks Gaza and massacres its trapped civilian population – at the end of 2008, in the fall of 2012, and now again this past month – the same process repeats itself in both U.S. media and government circles: the U.S. government feeds Israel the weapons it uses and steadfastly defends its aggression both publicly and at the U.N.; the U.S. Congress unanimously enacts one resolution after the nextto support and enable Israel; and then American media figures pretend that the Israeli attack has nothing to do with their country, that it’s just some sort of unfortunately intractable, distant conflict between two equally intransigent foreign parties in response to which all decent Americans helplessly throw up their hands as though they bear no responsibility.

To read the rest, click on the source link below.

Source: The Intercept

Movie Night: Great American Hypocrites

Staff Writer, R. Patrick Chapman

Government / Politics
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Movie Night: Great American Hypocrites

What has our country come to? In this provocative book, Glenn Greenwald exposes the myth-making and cultural exploitation of the American voter for political power. As a former constitutional lawyer turned advocate and author, Mr. Greenwald opens the play by play handbook that Republican politicians use to usurp the will of the people.

This book shows the hypocrisy of the conservative character building and illusion scheme. It is a pendulum swing contrast to the writings of mainstream conservative writers who promote fictional liberal effeminacy.

Even though this talk is liberal in perspective, Mr. Greenwald points out how the American voter and public at large are sold on image and not substance. Voters are not voting people into office on the merit of their politics or platform but by the hollywood creation produced by a political party.

If Republicans can seduce voters with fantasies, then is there anything real in our political discourse at all, including the Democrats?

Isn't it time voters woke up and voted for substance instead of style?

Source: Glenn Greenwald

The Future of Edward Snowden with Bart Gellman and Laura Poitras

Staff Writer, DB Holmes
Whistleblowers / National Security
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The Future of Edward Snowden with Bart Gellman and Laura Poitras

Are we free? Do we have freedom of the press? Comments by Obama administration apologist officials call Mr. Greenwald and other journalists criminals and accomplices, which is further from the truth, in order to create a culture of fear and intimidation against investigative journalism. 

Journalism needs to break the chains of corporate and government slavery. Investigating and researching and uncovering wrongdoings of the ruling elite keeps the balance in favor of the republic and against tyranny. Reporters and news outlets have ceased to be relevant. 

By being unable to defend themselves against the shredding of the Bill of Rights, news agencies have forgotten whom they serve. Journalists do not serve corporations. Journalists do not serve governments. Rights have to be fought for everyday. 

The Fourth Estate is damaged. Journalism is supposed to serve the people but has failed in its duties. How will journalism recover from the embarrassment of its own ineptitude?

Source: Glenn Greenwald

NSA's Goal is Elimination of Privacy Worldwide

Staff Writer, DB Holmes

Surveillance / NSA 
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NSA's Goal is Elimination of Privacy Worldwide

The NSA's ultimate goal is to destroy individual privacy worldwide, working with its UK sidekick GCHQ, journalist Glenn Greenwald warned an EU inquiry, adding that they were far ahead of their rivals in their "ability to destroy privacy." 

READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/dgt0n5

Source: RT   

Munk Debate on State Surveillance: Greenwald/Ohanian vs Hayden/Dershowitz

Staff Writer, R. Patrick Chapman

Government / Surveillance State

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A great debate between pro and con of state surveillance.

Munk Debate on State Surveillance:Greenwald/Ohanian vs Hayden/Dershowitz 

It is the debate of the moment. In a risk-filled world, are democracies justified in turning to large-scale state surveillance, at home and abroad, to fight complex and unconventional threats? Or is the emergence of the surveillance state and the awesome powers it derives from information technology a new and pervasive threat to our basic freedoms? For some the answer is obvious: the threats more than justify the current surveillance system, and the laws and institutions of democracies are more than capable of balancing the needs of individual privacy with collective security. For others, we are in peril of sacrificing to state surveillance and exaggerated terrorist threats the civil liberties that guarantee citizens' basic freedoms. To engage this global debate our spring 2014 contest moves the motion:

Be it resolved state surveillance is a legitimate defence of our freedoms....

More: http://leaksource.info/2014/05/03/mun...

Youtube: Munk Debate

The Ridenhour Prizes for Truth Telling, Edward Snowden Wins

Staff Writer, R. Patrick Chapman

Human Rights / The Ridenhour Prizes
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Truth telling has been lost to this world. The American culture used to be "Truth, Justice, and the American Way." A notion Superman would be proud to own.

Instead another type of culture has been inserted into the United States configuration, one many do not recognize from our childhood musings. Hollywood has decided to manipulate the generations through programming and social engineering so most people do not see telling the truth as something special or correct, but something to be feared or ignored.

Luckily, there are still people and organizations who believe in Truth Telling. The Ridenhour Prizes are one such foundation:

The annual Ridenhour Prizes recognize acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society. These prizes memorialize the spirit of fearless truth-telling that whistleblower and investigative journalist Ron Ridenhour reflected throughout his extraordinary life and career.

Edward Snowden is the other. 

 "I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded. And that's not something I'm willing to support, it's not something I'm willing to build, and it's not something I'm willing to live under. So I think anyone who opposes that sort of world has an obligation to act in the way they can," Snowden told Greenwald, Poitras, and Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill in an interview for the Guardian in June 2013.

When Greenwald asked him why he revealed himself as the whistleblower, Snowden replied: "I think that the public is owed an explanation of the motivations behind the people who make these disclosures that are outside of the democratic model…. And I'm willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say, 'I didn't change these, I didn't modify the story.'"

Perhaps Superman can be proud of humanity after all. There are still people in this world who do not conform to or believe the notion that truth is untenable, unfathomable, or unremarkable, but something to be celebrated.

Maybe it is time people began telling the truth and showing the world what dark secrets hide away from public knowledge. 

Because evil takes root in the world when good men stand and do nothing.

Thank you, Edward Snowden, for speaking the Truth. We appreciate all The Ridenhour Prize recipients.

Source: The Ridenhour Prizes