Headlines of note for October 2013

Glenn Greenwald's Snowden series continues to trickle...

Guardian: NSA and GCHQ target Tor network that protects anonymity of web users

And then halts, for a new venture...

BuzzFeed: Glenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization

Raising red flags...

Rancid Honeytrap: A Harbinger of Journalism Saved

Others are eking it out...

Spiegel: Fresh Leak on US Spying - NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email

Embassy Espionage: The NSA's Secret Spy Hub in Berlin

Monde: Comment la NSA espionne la France

El Mundo: La NSA espió 60 millones de llamadas en España en sólo un mes

Panorama.it: Papa Francesco intercettato - ecco come gli 007 spiano il Vaticano da anni

Washington Post: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say

The Hill: NSA admits tracking locations of cellphones in the United States

The Local: Author and NSA critic denied entry into US

The fall-out...

DW: NSA affair could block EU-US free trade talks

Germany and Brazil want UN vote on NSA spying

Cryptome: Privacy and Cybersecurity Illusions Have to Go

Strategic Culture (Wayne Madsen): NSA’s Global Economic Intelligence Net

Madsen is the unsung hero among journalists covering the NSA. Unlike Glenn Greenwald and James Bamford, he won't be invited to comment on cable news or to produce PBS NOVA reports. Perhaps his "pithy comments" page might have something to do with this. The following story however goes into levels of detail and import that have yet to be found in the pages of the Guardian, Washington Post, N.Y.Times,Der Spiegel, etc., and is worth quoting at length...

Wayne Madsen Report: NSA has only itself to blame for leaks

At the outset of the English-speaking signals alliance after World War II, there were only five countries involved in carrying out signals intelligence operations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This alliance was based on the UK-USA Agreement of 1946 that had its actual roots during World War II and the BRUSA (Britain-U.S.) agreement of 1943.

During the Cold War era, the four non-U.S. English-speaking SIGINT alliance countries, known as "Second Parties," as opposed to the U.S. (the First Party), managed to keep their operations largely secret. Soon, agreements to share signals intercepts with NSA, were concluded with "Third Parties." Third parties were non-English speaking countries that were allies of the United States. The sharing was largely one-way, with Third Parties providing more to NSA than what they received in return. NSA "product" was usually highly-sanitized analysis reports. Third Parties originally included countries like Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and West Germany. Later, such countries as Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal joined the Third Party partners. 

France, which withdrew from NATO's military structure in 1967 and which carried out intelligence operations against the United States, was kept distant from the NSA partnership. However, France gradually became a Third Party, especially after French President Nicolas Sarkozy returned France to NATO's military fold in 2009.

Israel, which was considered a hostile intelligence nation by U.S. counterintelligence agencies until the Obama administration, was never even considered for Third Party status by NSA. The premeditated Israeli attack on the NSA intelligence collection ship, USS Liberty in 1967, Mossad's penetration of NSA operations via a spy ring at RCA Corporation in 1995-6, and the damage down by Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, discovered in 1995, ensured that Israel would never have official access to NSA's intelligence. NSA carefully covered its intercept operations mounted against Israel by having NSA Hebrew linguists described as being proficient in "Special Arabic."

Keeping Israel removed from NSA operations all changed under the Obama administration when a Memorandum of Understanding was drafted between NSA and the Israel SIGINT National Unit (also known as Unit 8200 or Yehida Shmoneh-Matayim) to share highly-classified SIGINT data. France's relationship with NSA graduated from Third Party to a category that can be described as Third Party plus. NSA SIGINT and Communications Intelligence or COMINT material was marked with the special caveat REL TO USA, FRA if it was authorized to be released to France. Likewise, Israel appeared to have received a Third Party plus status since NSA material authorized for release to Israel received a handling category of REL to USA, ISR. 

While NSA's control over its "FIVE EYES" English speaking partners was relatively without major incident, aside from a spat with New Zealand in the 1980s over its policy of refusing to allow U.S. nuclear-powered warships into its waters, the same was not the case with Israel and France.

The TOP SECRET//COMINT//REL to USA, ISR (but not releasable tol FIVE EYES) MOU with ISNU not only permitted NSA SIGINT, including raw intercept traffic, to be shared with Israel but also stipulated that SIGINT collected by the FIVE EYES alliance could also be shared with the Israelis. However, the other four members of FIVE EYES were not included in the releasing authority granted by the NSA-ISNU memorandum. ISNU was merely "requested" in the MOU to protect the SIGINT handling laws and regulations of the FIVE EYES countries. [Excerpt of the MOU below].

The nature of ISNU's special relationship with NSA was highlighted by the description of the duties of SUSLAIS (Senior U.S. Liaison Adviser Israel) in the MOU. The SUSLAIS, similar to the SUSLO (Senior U.S. Liaison Officer), officially attached to the U.S. embassy in London but assigned to work closely with the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, England, was to handle any discovery by the Israelis of raw data on U.S. persons foud in raw intercept traffic provided to ISNU. The MOU does not make it clear what kind of access, if any, the SUSLAIS has to ISNU facilities located at Camp Moshe Dayan at Glilot Junction, north of Tel Aviv and near Herzliya.

ISNU was also charged with requesting permission from NSA, presumably through the SUSLAIS, before releasing NSA SIGINT data to any other party, which would include the Mossad, Shin Bet, or other Israeli government agencies. The MOU also refers to a special NSA-ISNU shared communications network codenamed CHIPPEWA.

Israel had been caught over the past decade trafficking in stolen or forged passports from Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and Canada. However, the NSA and the Obama administration concluded that Israel could be trusted with highly-classified SIGINT and COMINT from the intelligence agencies of countries subjected to Israeli intelligence operations.

It was not long before Israel began taking advantage of its new relationship with NSA and its Second and Third Party partners. In April 2013, the French discovered that "cyber-attacks" were taking place against the French Presidential communications network.The French Directorate for External Security (DGSE) requested and received a meeting with senio0r NSA officials at NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. The meeting, held on April 12, 2013, was attended by Bernard Barbier, the Technical Director of DGSE, and Patrick Pailloux, the Director of the National Information Systems Security (ANSSI) unit of France. The information on the attack is contained in an overall TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN, meaning No Foreign Nationals memo issued by NSA for the visit. DGSE and ANSSI first informed NSA director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander about the cyber-attacks in January 2013 during a visit by Alexander to Paris. Alexander was prepared to send two NSA Threat Operations Center analysts to France to investigate. DGSE and ANSSI told Alexander about the cyber-attacks without going through the SUSLAF (Senior U.S. Liaison Activity France) or NSA's FAD (Foreign Affairs Directorate). Rather than receiving NSA analysts in France, DGSE and ANSSI opted, instead, to visit Fort Meade.

The NSA memo on the French visit only authorized for release to France (REL TO FRA) information on the visit of the two French officials to NSA. The unclassified reason for the visit was "Computer Network Defense."

The NSA organization charged with conducting cyber-attacks, Tailored Access Operations or TAO denied that the operations against the French Presidential network was their work. TAO, which includes personnel with the joint NSA-CIA Special Collection Service (SCS), inquired among "First Parties," that is the CIA, and "Second Parties," the UK's GCHQ and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) whether they were responsible for hacking the French network as they "were the most likely suspects," but they denied any involvement. The memo then states something vitally critical" "TAO did not ask either the Mossad or ISNU whether they were involved as France is not an approved target for joint discussion." In other words, NSA's compartmented security controls did not permit Israel to know anything about any NSA, GCHQ, or CSEC cyber-espionage against France. However, it is clear that NSA officials believed that Israel might have been the culprit behind the attacks on the French presidential network...

For another interpretation of the Snowden affair...

Rense (Yoichi Shimatsu): Saving Agent Snowden From His Handlers Greenwald and Omidyar

In a nutshell the Snowden case was used by the British military intelligence in partnership with a CIA faction opposed to the heavy-handed Pentagon-NSA eavesdropping programs that threaten to knock over sensitive operations, for instance, joint operations with Qatar and Saudi intelligence to direct Al Qaeda units in Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. Since assassination targets could include American, British and other allied European officers who know too much, the Agency prefers to operate without its communications with field agents and MK-ULTRA types being monitored by lads like Snowden or any of the many generals who have a grudge against the CIA...

A case in point?...

Telegraph: Iranian cyber warfare commander shot dead in suspected assassination

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In our September headlines summary, we had noted an intriguing comment made by Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his Le Monde interview, on the situation internal to the United States being a factor in his reluctant support for the Obama administration's plan (with the condition of congressional approval) for punitive military action against the Assad regime in Syria. With Russia's diplomatic intervention to prevent war, however, and with it the prevention of the diversion away from those internal concerns to which Brzezinski alluded, these domestic factors now have come to the fore, forcing the U.S. government to face the music, as it were, an existential crisis of the United States itself, in its capacity to honor its ever burgeoning debt.

The Week: US debt default - is world facing 'economic Armageddon'?

Signs of the times in D.C...

Cryptogon: U.S. Capitol Shooting

N.Y. Daily News: Man sets himself on fire at National Mall, one witness says his accomplice filmed the entire ordeal

Todd Zwillich: House Stenographer Rant During Govt Shutdown Vote

D-Day re-enactments outside the White House...

PrisonPlanet: Riot Police Use Force Against Elderly Vets Outside White House

CrimeFileNews: Why The DC Cops Stood Down During The Face Off With Our Veterans

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More accusations against Prince Bandar in Ghouta chemical attack...

Voice of Russia: Saudi black op team responsible for Damascus chemical attack – Russian diplomatic source

Bandar already making good on his threat to Putin to remove his "protection" in the Caucasus...

Al Jazeera: Female suicide bomber blamed for Russia blast

Next to take it out on the U.S...?

Silvia Cattori: Saudi-US Row - Prince Bandar bin ‘Sulking’ Tries Old Bribe and Threat Trick Again

Civil wars continue and spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa...

Al-Alam: Syria terrorists shell Kafteen village, massacre 30 civilians

Voice of America: Syria Spillover Violence in Lebanon Raises Alarms

All Africa: Sudan's Turabi Warns of Civil War and Calls On Bashir to Step Down

Reuters: Militants shoot down military helicopter in northern Iraq-police

Brought down by a shoulder-fired missile perhaps? Where might they have obtained that?

NYTimes: Algeria - Troops Find Large Cache of Weapons Near Libyan Border

Prompted by the deaths of several hundreds of African migrants in the Mediterranean - migrants who if not for the NATO action of 2011 would have found gainful employment in Qadaffi's Libya...

Le Monde: Face à "l'afflux" de migrants, le sénateur UMP Philippe Marini "regrette le régime Kadhafi en Libye"

sic: the tweet states "...regrette la disparition du regime Kadhafi en Libye" - Marini regrets the demise of the Qadaffi regime in Libya; but it was his UMP cohort Sarkozy who led the charge in toppling Qadaffi.

RT: Gunmen attack Russian embassy in Libya's Tripoli

Telegraph: Libyan PM Ali Zeidan 'arrested' at gunpoint and released

Boots on the ground...

Guardian: US special forces raids target Islamist militants in Libya and Somalia

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WWIII triggers at large...?

PrisonPlanet: Top Nuke Commanders Terminated Following Missing Nuclear Warheads Report

Other firings, following the Camp Bastion debacle of Sept. last year...

Washington Post: Two Marine generals fired for security lapses in Afghanistan

It is the first time since the Vietnam War that a general, let alone two, has been sacked for negligence after a successful enemy attack. But the assault also was unprecedented...

So was Benghazi. The Wa-Po article however neglects to mention one crucial detail, which demonstrates to whom U.S. military forces are subject...

Inquisitr: U.S. Marine Generals Fired Over Taliban Attack On Prince Harry

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Perilous Fukushima Daiichi beset by the elements...

ENENews: Footage shows minute-long quake shaking Fukushima nuclear plant... Fukushima Official: “It was fairly big, and rattled quite a bit” 

Fukushima Diary: Fukushima plant area had collapse and subsidence due to the last Typhoon / No press release

Expect even less press releases in the future...

RT: Fuk-‘hush’-ima - Japan’s new state secrets law gags whistleblowers, raises press freedom fears

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Miscellania...

Political Vel Craft: Hungary Kills The Rothschild Banks - Ordered To Vacate Country

Voltairenet: Torture is still in practiced in Guantanamo

BoilingFrogsPost: U.S. Government: Documents Pertaining to Awlaki Being an Asset on “An Agency” Payroll Are All Classified

Infowars: FBI Boston Bombing Coverup Accelerates

Steve Pieczenik: Ambassador Samantha Power -  The “Hellish Power” Who Bombs her Way Out of Genocide!

Farm Wars: Intestinal Disease, Immune Disease and GMOs

GMOs and Neurological Disease: ADHD, Autism, Alzheimer’s, Schizophrenia, Bipolar