BLUF: [Observer] There are other indications of Russian penetration of NSA that had nothing to do with Snowden. An espionage case that got too little attention was that of Jeffrey Delisle, a Canadian navy junior officer who was arrested in 2012 for passing secrets to Moscow. He admitted his guilt, specifically that for almost five years beginning in 2007, he regularly sold secrets to GRU, that is Russian military intelligence. Upset over his wife’s infidelity and short of cash, the sad-sack Delisle, who was assigned to a Canadian intelligence center in Halifax, simply downloaded secrets on a thumb-drive, which he passed to GRU every month or so.
Most of what Delisle gave Moscow wasn’t Canadian information but belonged to Five Eyes, much of which came from NSA. Yet the most interesting part of the Delisle case is what GRU did not want from him. As one intelligence scholar noted:
#3
The geniuses at NSA allow thumb drives in their facilities? They have computers on their internal networks that have USB ports where thumb drives can be inserted? This is sheer incompetence.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/24/2016 11:53 Comments ||
Top||
#4
If GRU wasn’t interested in that when Delisle offered it to them, the only explanation is that Moscow already had that very sensitive information.
I call bullsh*t.
Posted by g(r)omgoru
#6
Back in the 90s I wrote technical documentation for a large server company. One project had the NSA and the CIA as customers. These servers had 10,000 dollar boards in them that when they had a problem my company wanted them back. The NSA and CIA said no dice, someone could write code to the NVRAM chips and get info out of their black sites so the boards stayed until we produce a program that could wipe all the NVRAm chips clean and verify they were clean.
Back then I understood all USB ports were crazy-glued shut.
Either things have changed big time, the Canadians are far more lax than their American counterparts, or something is wrong with this story.
[PJ] An Army spokesman has confirmed that a training slide that lists Hillary Clinton as an "insider threat" is real. The slide -- which shows Hillary Clinton pictured along with the Fort Hood and Navy Yard shooters -- became an internet sensation after it was posted on the U.S. Army W.T.F! Moments Facebook page on Sunday.
Via the Washington Examiner:
The other photos show retired Gen. David Petraeus, who gave classified information to his biographer and mistress; Nidal Hasan, who carried out the Fort Hood shooting; Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who exposed classified information before seeking asylum in Russia; Aaron Alexis, the Navy Yard shooter; and Chelsea Manning, who gave classified information to WikiLeaks.
Asked for comment, an Army spokesman confirmed that the photo showed a real training slide that was developed 18 months ago and used locally to teach best practices for handling classified information and maintaining operational security. Maj. Thomas Campbell, a U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command spokesman, said the training slide has been removed.
"As is common with Army training requirements, the local unit was given latitude to develop their own training products to accomplish the overall training objective. This particular presentation had not been reviewed or approved by the unit's leadership, and does not reflect the position of the Army," Campbell said. But it does reflect reality. You might as well just retire Tom.
Why not? She's perfectly relevant to the topic. There is no better recent example of what not to do with classified material than Hillary Clinton.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] During a dinner, New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... (NYT) editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein met with writer Scott Anderson. They agreed to work on a feature on the threats facing the Middle East post-Arab Spring. Work on the story ‐ described as an epic as it is longer than 40,000 words ‐ lasted 18 months.
It is a really interesting piece, particularly in terms of the investigative journalism involved. An Arabic translation of the article, entitled "Fractured lands: How the Arab world came apart," was published in Ash-Sharq al-Awsat. It addressed economic factors as it looked into the prospects of disintegration in the Arab world, and how states have been crushed and institutions weakened.
The piece noted: "The scattershot nature of the Arab Spring makes it hard to provide a single answer. Some nations were radically transformed, even as others right next door were barely touched. Some of the nations in crisis were relatively wealthy (Libya), others crushingly poor (Yemen). Some countries with comparatively benign dictatorships (Tunisia) blew up along with some of the region’s most brutal (Syria).
"The same range of political and economic disparity is seen in the nations that remained stable. Yet one pattern does emerge, and it is striking. While most of the 22 nations that make up the Arab world have been buffeted to some degree by the Arab Spring, the six most profoundly affected - Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... - are all republics, rather than monarchies."
Social and cultural defects
There are major factors that are relevant to the prospects of disintegration and division in some Arab Spring countries. The Arab Spring exposed many social and cultural defects, awakening tribal affiliations as sectarianism fed off raging protests. This can clearly be seen in Syria, as the revolution shifted from a desire to achieve change to a struggle between Alawites and Shiites on one hand, and Sunnis who oppose the regime on the other.
This negative awakening makes countries such as Libya, Yemen and Syria an easy target for disintegration and collapse. This in addition to economic disparity in each country. We can complete Anderson’s note about monarchies by saying they are more able to adapt to global changes. The Arab Spring renewed their legitimacy as their citizens renewed their allegiance to them. In return, the states took developmental measures and devised programs and plans.
Since the days of Egypt’s late President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the era of Arab nationalism, some Arab republics have idolized some leaders provocatively, and outrageously idolized certain events, coups and revolutions. Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, the partisans of Honorius went for their knives and the partisans of Stilicho went for the doors... people suffered from economic bankruptcy and institutional collapse. This made societies completely separate from politics. As time passes and idolization decreases, a desire for Dire Revenge and accountability surfaces.
Even if people remain under the governance of a dictator for more than half a century, like in Libya, Syria and particularly Yemen, they will still find a way to avenge themselves. However, a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth... monarchies are distinguished for their rare wisdom, authentic awareness of societies’ needs, and being close to the people. This has created a social system that is radically different than those in Arab republics that adopted certain ideologies.
Therefore, the possibility of disintegration, as discussed in the NYT piece, will continue to exist because the situation on the ground is not stable yet, and these disturbed countries will not move toward peace anytime soon.
Although some crises are very bloody, they are still in their beginning stages, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, the possibilities range from disintegration to division and ongoing civil war. Perhaps the best-case scenario will be ’stable chaos’ within fragile economic entities.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2016 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[5 views]
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#1
Maybe I'm in a particular pessimistic mood this morning but I'm of the opinion it (chaos and disintegration) could happen here (USA); particularly in view of the widespread criminality going on in the govmint and the reluctance by the govmint to clean its house and address it.
#4
You missed this part JohnQ. The NYTs was taken to task by none other than Eleanor Roosevelt.
What I have also gather from other sources, is the the governor was called and asked for the Guard to be sent in. He quickly concluded that their brothers (in arms) from the very recent conflict were just as likely to join up rather than suppress those in Athens. Given the amount of sleaze and corruption you can imagine in the capital, probably was a good idea not the force the issue.
[PJ] Scholars at Johns Hopkins University released a new report on Monday which argues that there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that lesbian, gay, or transgender people are born with this sexual orientation or gender identity. I can almost see the government research grants drying up. "The idea there that sexual orientation is fluid, that people change as people grow," Lawrence Mayer, a co-author of the report and a scholar-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University's psychiatry department, as well as a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University, told The Christian Post. "There are probably some people that identify as hetrosexual [sic] that then later on identified as homosexual, so it goes both ways. The importance there is the fluidity and flexibility that these things change in time."
The three-part, 143-page report, which appeared in the Fall 2016 edition of The New Atlantis, also investigated other commonly accepted ideas about homosexuality and transgenderism. Mayer and his co-author Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, challenged the claim that discrimination and social stigma are the only reasons why homosexual and transgender people suffer higher rates of mental health problems and are more likely to commit suicide.
#1
Remember, genetics is somewhat of a dice roll. When you start dealing with populations of 300 million or 6 billion those percentages start to show up in real numbers no matter how small the possibility. Unfortunately, those numbers are far smaller than the number or overall percentage of the group that self identifies. They use the rare exception as a 'Poster Child' to pursue their own agenda which more and more is becoming simply an issue of power.
#3
This has always been a two-edged sword. If there are physical factors then presumably those factors could be intentionally manipulated. In other words, it could be 'cured.'
#6
The three-part, 143-page report, which appeared in the Fall 2016 edition of The New Atlantis, also investigated other commonly accepted ideas about homosexuality and transgenderism.
I'm going to put this in the 'I wonder how much was wasted on this stupid study' file.
#7
I wonder how much was wasted on this stupid study
The Johns Hopkins psychiatric department has been doing and writing up studies on the subject for decades in both the scientific and popular press. This is their penance for having pioneered sex change surgery, then not sufficiently explained why they discontinued what they concluded was a counterproductive treatment for gender dysphoria. To be fair, it's difficult to explain sufficiently to those loudly uninterested in hearing it, but with each attempt more people are exposed to the idea.
#8
I thought they explained their stopping the reassignment surgery by the stats that the suicide rates didn't change after the surgery as expected which led them to believe the problem was far deeper.
#10
I find it hard to believe that anyone would make a conscious decision to be gay. Why put yourself through all of the hassles that go along with it if you don't have to? Of course, some people may be gluttons for punishment.
I happen to have some close friends who are gay. I recall years ago when one of them came out of the closet to me and I asked him, "when did you know you were gay?" His answer was in the form of a question, "when did you know you were straight?"
I thought about it for a moment and answered, "I guess when I started paying attention to attractive women a lot more and realized that I really liked looking at them."
His response, "it wasn't really any different for me, except I felt that same way about men."
#11
You think I'm "loudly uninterested in hearing it"?
The study of origins of such a sexual diaspora are fascinating. Of greater interest is the embolded empowerment of the sanctimonious butchers that perform such surgeries under the protective umbrella of academic advancement and why it is allowed to continue.
[ENG.MAJALLA] March 2, 2016 was the day that (finally!) heralded official recognition of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization by an important bloc of countries in the Arab World. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—comprised of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman—announced their decision to designate the Shi‘i Lebanese Militia a terrorist group based on Hezbollah’s engagement in “hostile acts” throughout the region and its endangerment of “Arab national security” through arms smuggling, inciting violence, and recruiting terrorists. While the momentum for this decision had been building for some time, it can still be understood as an escalation of the regional rivalry between the Sunni Arab monarchies and their arch-nemesis—Shi‘a Iran.
But the real question remains, what took so long for Hezbollah to be revealed as the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing that it has always been? The answers lie in the perfect storm that has emerged in the post-Arab uprisings period in which Iran’s expansive, destabilizing ambitions have gone too far to remain uncontested by the Arab World; Hezbollah pretense of championing the Palestinian cause has been revealed to be a farce; and chaos in the streets from Tunis to Sanaa have led Arab regimes to renew their emphasis on security, and to clamp down on terrorists of all stripes and their funders.
There was a time in the Middle East and North Africa that Hezbollah enjoyed approval ratings in the high nineties, and its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was seen as Batal al-‘Alam al-‘Arabi (a hero of the Arab World) alongside Saddam Hussein and others. In fact, the organization enjoyed this status as recently as 2006 in the immediate aftermath of its war with Israel. So what happened? It finally became clear to the majority of the Arab World that Hezbollah was not an indigenous socio-political resistance movement dedicated to fighting Israel—a cause that most of the region could rally behind for much of the 20th century—but rather a dangerous Iranian puppet whose ideology, training, funding, materiel, and direction were coming directly from Tehran. Now while the Gulf Monarchies seem to be acutely aware of this reality in light of their ongoing proxy-war with Iran, it has in fact always been apparent.
Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto very clearly pledged loyalty to then Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini , and urged the creation of a greater Islamic State governed by Imam Khomeini, in keeping with his idea of wilayat al-faqih (authority of the jurist-theologian). These sentiments were regularly echoed by Nasrallah himself as early as his undated speech from the late eighties prior to assuming his position as Secretary General of Hezbollah, and as recently as his televised speech at the 2015 Second Annual Conference of Renovation and Intellectual Jurisprudence of Imam Khamenei. Iran has been directing Hezbollah toward these aims since the beginning. For example, during the Fourth Conference on Islamic Thought in Tehran in 1986, several key meetings were held between the Lebanese and Iranian clerics to work on a constitution for the so-called Islamic Republic of Lebanon, modeled on the Iranian constitution. This republic, had it emerged, would have retained local authority, but would ultimately be answerable to Tehran.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2016 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[5 views]
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#1
Shakes down into another Sunni vs. Shi'ite struggle except we have the balance a bit by sending a ton on money to Iran who supports the Hezbullies who resides on Israel's doorstep. Thanks a hell of s lot Obama; what a blithering, bungling idiot.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Men of the ranks are cunning and devious. They bear watching.
[PJ] Scholars at Johns Hopkins University released a new report on Monday which argues that there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that lesbian, gay, or transgender people are born with this sexual orientation or gender identity.
