Headlines of note for December 2013...

Dec. 16, R.J. Leon, district court judge of D.C, rules against NSA....

NYTimes: Judge Questions Legality of N.S.A. Phone Records

Dec. 17, Snowden speaks...

Folha D'S.Paolo: An Open Letter to the People of Brazil

Dec. 18, the POTUS review group issues its report...

Liberty and Security in a Changing World

Dec. 23, Snowden interview...

Washington Post: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

Norman Solomon: Under Amazon's CIA Cloud - The Washington Post

Dec. 25, Snowden up against the Queen on UK's Channel 4...

Times of India: Snowden urges end to mass surveillance in UK Christmas message

A Christmas Message From Edward Snowden

Dec. 27, another judge...

Wall Street Journal: Judge Backs the NSA's Surveillance

A follow-up to the Wayne Madsen report we reposted last month...

WMR: Multiple plots by U.S., U.K. to kidnap Edward Snowden

In addition to the plot by the MI6 station at the British embassy in Moscow to kidnap National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden there is also evidence that the U.S. planned to "snatch" Snowden from German authorities had he traveled to Berlin to testify before the Bundestag.

Although members of the Green Party in the Bundestag requested Germany to protect Snowden if he traveled from Moscow to testify in person before the German parliament and Russia said Snowden had the right to travel from Russia to Germany, it was decided that Germany could not protect Snowden on German soil.

WMR has obtained information that Snowden's video appearance before the Bundestag was arranged after information was obtained by German parliamentarians that the German Federal Intelligence Service was working with the U.S. CIA and NSA to snatch Snowden from German hands. Snowden was to be returned to the United States for arraignment under Espionage Act criminal charges already brought against the whistleblower.

WMR's editor's report in Russia in November that was later carried by Russian TV News that the British embassy in Moscow had taken the lead in trying to lure Snowden into a trap for exfiltration to the West. The threat against Snowden was confirmed by an anonymous senior official of Russian counterintelligence. The official thanked
"former NSA employees and journalists for publishing such information, but added that operational, technical and other measures to counter intelligence and other illegal activities of foreign secret services on the territory of Russia were  constantly maintained."

WMR can also confirm that the investigation of the British embassy operation by the Russian media and the Federal Security Bureau's counterintelligence branch is ongoing and that further news reports on the operation are forthcoming.

WMR: Russia Vesti (News) in Russian. British MI-6 plot to ensnare Snowden

Pravda: Edward Snowden can be kidnapped from Russia?

PressTV:  Snowden safer in Russia than Brazil - W. Madsen

Russia Beyond The Headlines: Selling Edward Snowden


Glenn Greenwald busted?

Boiling Frogs Post: Omidyar’s PayPal Corporation Said To Be Implicated in Withheld NSA Documents

Twitter war ensues... @ggreenwald v. @sibeledmonds ...

BFP follow-up...

Greenwald-Omidyar Joint Venture: The Blurring Lines Between Being A Source and Being A Journalist

Others are on it...

Cryptome: O/G/R

Corbett Report: John Young Breaks Down the Snowden/NSA Saga

MarshaMitchelEffect: NewCo, PayPal, WikiLeaks, the Blockade and the U.S. Department of Justice

The fissure between establishment media (Greenwald was ever embedded within it) and the growing independent media (funded exclusively by its readers/viewers/listeners) is becoming sharpened. Even as it storms the gate-keepers, however, the latter will for some time remain dependent on old media...

Reuters: Exclusive - Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer

Spiegel: Inside TAO - Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

...though for even the most revered of reporters, finding a willing editor can be difficult...

Huffington Post: New Yorker, Washington Post Passed On Seymour Hersh Syria Report

Hersch did eventually find a publisher for the report, in which he calls out Obama/Kerry obfuscation on Ghouta sarin attack...

London Review of Books: Whose sarin?

Are they wisely in retreat now...?

Jerusalem Post: United States suspends non-lethal aid to northern Syria

...though a little too late to stem the monster they helped create...

Al-Monitor: Rise of Islamic Front a disaster for Syria

...so join them..?

Gulf news: US mulls aiding Islamist groups

The Peninsula: Syrian Islamist rebels to meet US officials

Who came up with ISIS..?

Spiegel: Masked Army: Jihadist Group Expands Rapidly in Syria 

 ... as Bandar now vows to help Putin fight Islamist radicals - the same ones he previously threatened to withhold protection from during Sochi Olympics?

DailyStar: Report - Bandar asked Putin to delay Geneva II conference

Intelligence Online: Bandar bin Sultan goes it alone

From Russia to NATO...

Dmitri Rogozin: Life Поздравляем наших друзей из НАТО с Новым годом!)

NATO's reply? Unleashing the dog Bandar?

ZeroHedge: Caught On Tape - Suicide Bombing In Russia's Fifth Largest Train Station Kills 15, One Month Ahead Of Sochi Games

RT: Volgograd trolley blast - Terror attack hits southern Russia day after railway station bombing

Whoever is behind these bombings knows of course that Bandar will be the first to be blamed, in reference to an August Al Monitor article. Perhaps Bandar simply doesn't care.


A belated attempt to ignite the Arab Spring in Algeria?

Rayyisse: Un jeune homme s'immole par le feu dans le pays de bouteflika

How it all began in Tunisia...

The National: Sniper mystery in Kasserine, the town ‘which made Tunisia’s revolution’

Continuing skirmishes in the region...

RT: 14 dead, 130 injured as explosion destroys police office in Egypt

Reuters: Chadian peacekeepers fire on protesters in Central African Republic

Globe and Mail: U.S. aircraft hit by gunfire in South Sudan

+

Japan going dark...

Asahi Shimbun: Diet enacts state secrets law despite widespread protests

One of the most controversial points of the bill is that it allows bureaucrats and elected officials to arbitrarily widen their interpretations of what they deem to be state secrets...

Enjoy reports like this while they last...

ENE: Highest ever radiation levels detected outside reactor buildings at Fukushima — People exposed to it would die in 20 minutes

And look forward to more question-mark headlines like this...

Seemorerocks: What Is Happening To Alaska? Is Fukushima Responsible For The Mass Animal Deaths?

Nuclear Hotseat: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner

Japan bottom feeding to clean the mess up...

Reuters: Japan's homeless recruited for murky Fukushima clean-up
 

Nuclear Hotseat #129: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner - See more at: http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/nuclear-hotseat-129-us-sailors-vs-tepco-attorney-charles-bonner/#sthash.xVBoMbmr.dpuf

Nuclear Hotseat #129: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner - See more at: http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/nuclear-hotseat-129-us-sailors-vs-tepco-attorney-charles-bonner/#sthash.xVBoMbmr.dpuf

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Shooter of the month, with the obligatory same-day drill coincidence...

Legitgov: Active Shooter Drills in Littleton, Colorado Same Day as School Shooting


Sandy Hook one year on, investigations continue...

MemoryHole: The Sandy Hook School Massacre - A Compendium of Research and Analysis

Brendan Hunt: Analysis - The Sandy Hook Victims and Families - Part One

While some argue there never was an Adam Lanza...

KnowTheLies: Hoax and High Treason… Adam Lanza Never Existed!… Sandy Hook School Was Not an Operating School at Time of Shooting!

The legend has it that the hermetic slayer was an avid gamer, reportedly playing World of Warcraft under the avatar "blarvink"...

Sandy Hook Lighthouse: blarvink - Adam Lanza’s second username revealed

This raises the question, given the latest Snowden-leaks story, whether "Adam Lanza" - real or not - was profiled and/or programmed online...

NPR: Orc And Dagger - U.S., U.K. Reportedly Spied On Gamers Online

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Protest, it's the thing to do...

New Straits Times: Thai political protests spread outside Bangkok

Sky News: Lenin Statue Toppled By Protesters In Kiev

Pussy Riot released...

Sydney Morning Herald: Pussy Riot's latest protest - Mikhail Khodorkovsky for president

Turkish protests and counter-protests, from Istanbul...

Today's Zaman: Man wielding machete attempts to attack protesters in İstanbul

...to the Poconos...?

Pocono Record: Saylorsburg protesters focus on Turkish cleric

Background...

Boiling Frogs Post: Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan Signed an “Action Plan” Against the Gülen Movement

Hurriyet Daily: Gold at center of corruption, money laundering allegations hitting Turkish gov't

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Centenial of infamy...

Global Research: The Federal Reserve: 100 Years of “Financial Terrorism”

Other miscellanea...

NYPost:  Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup

BenSwann: Congressmen “absolutely shocked” of Foreign State involvement behind 9/11 attacks

TDS: Navy expands sonar testing despite troubling signs

The Week:  Robots are the not-too-distant future of war

PCMag: Google Acquires Boston Dynamics, Maker of Crazy, Walking Robots

Capitol City Proj: Confidential Obamacare Navigator training manual uploaded online

World Net Daily (Corsi): WHY COULDN'T HEALTHCARE.GOV VALIDATE OBAMA'S IDENTITY?

Telegraph: Nelson Mandela signer 'was in necklace murder group'

MsTilaTruth: Why I Sympathize With Hitler Part 1 - True History Unveiled

Do Tila Tequila's anti-Semetic, pro-Hitler views - admixed with anti-Illuminati, anti-GMO, anti-flouride lyrics - represent another tactic to discredit independent media?

RawStory: How Tila Tequila’s warm new embrace of Adolf Hitler is going down at Stormfront

Every time you hear my name it’s going down, goin down X 4
Feeding yo mind with GMOs
while givin yo babies flo flo
not flo rida but flo ride
that shit that burns yo third eye
Jewluminati motherfuckers hate me
Oh no they don’t wanna date me
Nor you nor you nor you too
Worldwide Genocide blame it on the jews

So now they call me a nazi
no bitch I’m just good at yhatzee
Espionage is my middle name HA!
I got you good while rolling through yo hood
Hitler no Hi Tila
Hitler no Hit Tila
Hitler No Hi Tila

Another MKULTRA grrl...?

YahooShine: How Human Barbie Made Even More Headlines in 2013

Merry X-mas...

Interfax Ukraine: Topless FEMEN activist climbs altar in Cologne cathedral during Christmas mass

Al Goldstein R.I.P.

Thursday, December 19th, a pioneer in porno journalism passed...

CBS New York: Al Goldstein, Publisher Of ‘Screw’ Magazine, Dead At 77

 Before founding Screw, he served in the Army; sold insurance; drove a car for the gossip columnist Walter Winchell; got himself jailed in Cuba for taking unauthorized pictures of Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul; and, as a photographer for Pakistan International Airlines, was on hand in 1962 when Kennedy (then the first lady) visited Pakistan.

Leave it to the New York Times to assume St. Peter's judgement at the pearly gates (but with more biographical details of note)... 

Al Goldstein, a Publisher Who Took the Romance Out of Sex, Dies at 77

According to Gay Talese’s book “Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” Mr. Goldstein ran a dime-pitch concession at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair; sold rugs, encyclopedias and his own blood; drove a cab; and landed a job as an industrial spy, infiltrating a labor union. That experience so appalled him that he wrote an exposé about it for The New York Free Press, a radical weekly. 

The article did not make the splash Mr. Goldstein was hoping for, but he became friends with one of The Press’s editors, Jim Buckley, and persuaded him that there was money to be made covering the growing commercial sex scene, which the establishment press mentioned only to vilify. 

Investing $175 apiece, the two men published the first issue of Screw in November 1968: a 12-page Baedeker to the underworld featuring blue-movie reviews, nude photos, a guide to dirty bookstores and a field test by Mr. Goldstein of an artificial vagina.

More press...

Village Voice: Underground Porn King and Screw Magazine Publisher Al Goldstein Is Dead

The Atlantic: My Mentor, The Pornographer

That's "Rest In Piece" not "Peace" ...

jimbessman: The Great (Al) Goldstein

Some classic SCREW covers..

Vice: Screw Made You

A feature documentary...

PORN KING: The Trials of Al Goldstein

Porno-ops in the DPRK

For the Juche republic of North Korea, there is perhaps no figure to be held in higher regard - besides Kim Jong-un - than Ri Sol-ju, the wife of the dear leader. Her honor has of late come under assault, however, as the South Korean group Blue Union has launched porno rumor balloons into the DPRK...

KoreaBANG: Balloons Carry News of Ri Sol-ju’s ‘Porno’ to North Korea

This was after it was reported that members of the Unhasu Orchestra and Wangjaesan Art Troupe, the former of which Ri Sol-ju was a singer, were executed for scandalous behavior, including the shooting of a porno film...

Asahi Shimbun: Kim Jong Un orders 9 executed to protect wife from scandal

Two recent stories in the DailyNK raise the question of whether the sex scandal is now engulfing the secretive kingdom...

Why Has Ri Been Gone for 48 Days?

Ri Sol Ju, the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun, has not made any public appearances for 48 days, since it was reported that she attended a concert performed by a Russian orchestra in Pyongyang on October 16th.

That appearance was 24 days after a sex scandal indirectly implicating her broke in September. A Japanese daily reported that nine performers from both Unhasu and Wangjaesan art troupes had been publicly executed for their roles in sexually explicit videos....

Fear Arrives as Top Cadres Recalled

A Daily NK source has revealed that municipal and provincial Chosun Workers' Party secretaries and cadres from judicial and security organs have been summoned en masse to Pyongyang. Regional heavyweight officials are being kept in the dark about the details of Jang Sung Taek’s elimination in distant Pyongyang, but rumor inside North Korea already is that the staff recall is designed to weed out elements loyal to “the aunt’s husband” and instill fear throughout society.... 

“According to what the Upper (North Korean authorities) is saying, they have called people in for ‘drugs and watching illegal videos,’ but absolutely nobody actually believes that,” the source went on. “There is talk about there being a personal problem with the ‘aunt’s husband’ (Jang Sung Taek), that some of his close associates have been executed, and that his traitorous accomplices are now being rounded up.”... [our emphasis]

Given these recent developments, the reader may want to revisit the comments of Hank Crumpton included in our post: Al Qaeda and DPRK Officials Love Porno...

"I never met a North Korean that did not like pornography."

[Thanks to LF for the tip]

Update - December 12

AP: North Korea executes leader's uncle as a traitor

KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK: DPRK People Determined to Remain Loyal Only to Kim Jong Un

A sledgehammer blow should be delivered at anyone who goes against the single-minded unity of our people around supreme leader Kim Jong Un...