We Are Change

On Thursday, the US sanctioned six Russian individuals, including the head of Russia’s main intelligence directorate, as well as five entitities. The US is also expelling 35 Russian diplomats, who now have 72 hours to leave the nation.

The five entities sanctioned are the Autonomous Noncommercial Organization Professional Association of Designers of Data Processing Systems, the Federal Security Service, the Main Intelligence Directorate, the Special Technology Center, and Zorsecurity.

The Federal Security Service is comparable to the US FBI, meaning that this will effectively block any counter intelligence operations between the two nations.

Sanctioned individuals include Igor Valentinovich Korobov, the current Chief of the Glavnoe Razvedyvatel’noe Upravlenie; Sergey Aleksandrovich Gizunov, Deputy Chief of the GRU; Igor Olegovich Kostyukov, a First Deputy Chief of the GRU; and Vladimir Stepanovich Alexseyev, also a First Deputy Chief of the GRU.

Additionally, the US will be closing two Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland and New York, which the US claims were used for intelligence related activities.

“These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities. We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized,” the White House said in a statement. “In addition to holding Russia accountable for what it has done, the United States and friends and allies around the world must work together to oppose Russia’s efforts to undermine established international norms of behavior, and interfere with democratic governance. To that end, my Administration will be providing a report to Congress in the coming days about Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election, as well as malicious cyber activity related to our election cycle in previous elections.”

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the hacks on the Democratic National Committee or Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The claims have also been disputed by veterans of both the CIA and the NSA.

“If hacking were involved, the NSA would know about it, and so they would also know the sender and the recipient,” former CIA analyst Ray McGovern previously told Loud & Clear on Radio Sputnik. “There’s no reason in God’s world why they wouldn’t reveal that if they had it.”

The Trump transition team has also contested the validity of the claims.

“If the CIA Director [John] Brennan and others at the top are serious about turning over evidence … they should do that,” Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said on CBS’ Face the Nation earlier in the month. “They should not be leaking to the media. If there’s evidence, let’s see it.”

Conway went on to call retaliation against Russia “a political response” at the behest of “Team Hillary.”

“It seems like the president is under pressure from Team Hillary, who can’t accept the election results,” she said. “It’s very clear that President Obama could have ‘retaliated’ months ago if they were actually concerned about this and concerned about this affecting the election.”

In November, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee urged the White House to declassify “additional information concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election,” but they have still not received any response.

President Obama had ordered the intelligence community to prepare a full report on the their findings regarding Russia and the election before he leaves office on January 20. The incoming president-elect has stated that the US needs to “get on with our lives,” in response to the allegations against Moscow.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy Andrey Krutskikh said that Moscow hopes any sanctions imposed by Obama will be lifted by the incoming administration.

via Sputnik News

The post BREAKING: US Expels 35 Russian Diplomats, Closes 2 Diplomatic Compounds appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

In this series we divulge fascinating nuggets of information found hidden within the Snowden files that were not reported by corporate media and are not yet widely known.

In August 2016, The Intercept published it’s second bulk release of files from the Snowden archives, 263 documents from SIDtoday, the newsletter of the Signals Intelligence Directorate of the National Security Agency.

It is an internal publication of bite size proportions, averaging just over a page per article. Predictably upbeat and celebratory in nature, the general themes are news bulletins on:

• HR: awards, promotions and vacancies
• Compliance & oversight
• Theatres of NSA operations and “customers” (other agencies)
• Employee safety including mental health
• Events, meetings, trainings and employee profiles

The following is a set of unique findings from analysing the second batch of SIDtoday files.

1. Rather than it being strange, as many suggested, that Snowden moved from CIA to the NSA, the exchange of human resources between the agencies seems common.

In fact, the SIDtoday files lay waste to the theory that the CIA and NSA are in competition with each other, or that they aspire to usurp each other’s roles and resources. The documents consistently depict the agencies working in partnership as the left and right hands of the executive.

One specialises in collecting the information and the other specialises in acting on it.

Multiple documents announce appointments from senior executives on down to analysts moving between one agency and the other. As revealed in the last part of this series, the CIA even gave service awards to over 100 NSA employees.

This document refers to “a retired NSA senior executive with significant CIA experience” and details NSA staff members attending classes at the CIA which the then Director of the CIA participated in.

“The tone of the class was set on the first full day of presentations with a discussion led by the Honorable George J. Tenet, DCI.”

2. Bloated overstatement over the historical significance of the Iraq War effort is rife in SIDtoday.

In a document titled “Driving History“, the NSA likens its participation in the Iraq War to the cracking of the Enigma code in World War II.

The publication claims that history will see the “role of NSA in the global war on terrorism… in a similar light” to the cryptographic breakthrough that SIDtoday says won World War II for the Allies.

Several documents assert how great it is that ‘democracy’ has been brought to Iraq. Thirteen years on it is clear that the actual historical record on the conflict is a far cry from what the NSA had predicted it would be. The Iraqi ‘theater’ remains, of course, an unmitigated disaster.

3. “Analysts want to see data the way the user saw it“, says one document, explaining the concept of a “native view” of data being viewed in the same environment as the target experienced it, as if through their eyes. It states a need to enhance this view with easy access to analytical tools.

4. Multiple documents in the cache brag about NSA’s contributions to ‘capture-and-kill’ operations in Iraq.

This document in particular states that NSA analysts on the ground in Baghdad “witnessed the importance of ‘translating’ SIGINT for the tactical commanders to help them understand how the SIGINT could serve as the basis for military operations.”

It continues: “in the last six months, tactical units have captured, killed, or wounded tens of thousands of insurgent forces in Iraq..”

The documents are littered with references to analysts being spread out in various locations around the world and the agency aspires to “evolve into an expeditionary SIGINT force.”

5. Post-Patriot Act Intelligence-sharing hubs known as Fusion Centers have existed on American soil since at least 2006.

If you type “Fusion Center” into Wikipedia, the search result in the drop-down has a blurb which reads: “Fusion Centers are owned and operated by state and local entities. They are not a product of, or under the control of the Federal Government.”

However, this SIDtoday document reveals that there are in fact fusion centres operated by the military, specifically the NSA. There is a specific reference to one being in Baghdad.

More, there is another reference to a mobile Fusion Center being established at the Olympics and partially staffed by an (expeditionary) 8-man NSA team.

This raises hugely significant questions. Such as:

• Did the very concept of Fusion Centers come from the military?
• Why does Wikipedia insist in its description of them that Fusion Centres operating on U.S. soil are non-military and not Federal entities if the very concept is from the military, as is a portion of the data?
• Is this because it is illegal for the military to operate on US soil? If so, are they not in fact participating in the ventures anyway, by feeding them information collected at military facilities by military resources?

6. There is perhaps no greater insight into the psyche of an ‘expeditionary’ NSA staff member than that found within this document. It was authored by a female NSA staffer who was deployed to Iraq:

“I’m in the military, we kill people and blow things up. It’s our job.”

7. When friends are enemies and enemies are friends: in the days of Obama’s ‘Pivot To Asia’ it’s hard to imagine that Chinese military officers would be hanging out in the halls of the Pentagon but according to this Snowden document, they were in 2003.

8. Many companies are hesitant to hire spouses or family members of existing employees. The NSA is apparently the opposite. In this document, a second-generation NSA employee tells a story of a co-worker having three parents (mother, father, step-father) and a sibling all working at the agency.

This article is part of a series so keep an eye out for more fascinating insights from the Snowden docs. To read Part One please click here.

This series would not be possible without the obviously immense amount of work invested by staff at The Intercept in preparing the Snowden files for release – you can read their report on the May 2016 SIDtoday files by clicking on this link.

Thanks to the awesome Twitter account @HelpSnowden for creating the header graphic used in this article.

By Suzie Dawson

The post Hidden Gems In The Snowden Files: Part Two appeared first on We Are Change.

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In this video Luke Rudkowski covers the latest news of The U.N resolution calling for the end of Israeli settlements. Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Barack Obama orchestrated this and will be giving the evidence to U.S President elect Donald Trump. This as Secretary of state John Kerry just gave a speech outlining the U.S vision of Israel Palestinian future and a peace accord schedule to take place in France. For more facts on this issue stay tuned to this channel and support us on https://www.patreon.com/WeAreChange

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The post What Is Really Happening Between Israel, The U.S and U.N Resolution appeared first on We Are Change.

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I spoke with @OpDailyMotion, an Anonymous collective account against the video hosting website Dailymotion, which allows users to host videos of cruel animal abuse.

DailyMotion does not remove animal abuse videos even in cases of brutal murdering of animals for “fun” or entertainment.

The Anons behind this operation told We Are Change that Dailymotion has ignored the pressure from concerned citizens on the ground outside of it’s headquarters and online.

When I asked @OpDailyMotion if they were behind the recent Dailymotion breach that exposed 85 million accounts during the first week in December they responded with a resounding, “No.”

They made it clear that this wasn’t a hacking or DDoS targeting operation, and they felt it would hurt Dailymotion more by individually targeting their advertisers and hitting them in the pocket, but noted as Anonymous has no leaders and is decentralized they “can’t control what others choose to do on their own accord.”

The Anons of OpDailyMotion want people to contact Dailymotion’s advertisers and the video upload giant themselves to bring these animal abuse videos to their attention by ringing their phone lines off the hook and emailing their servers until their mailbox is filled with complaints.

Dailymotion is also the website that had several ISIS videos hosted on it’s platform for many months years back in 2014, so much so that the Indian government banned Dailymotion and several other sites for it’s hosting of the terrorists’ content. So it’s no surprise that Dailymotion would allow the hosting of such sick videos as “Guy punishes cat”, “Israeli kills cat with a bottle”, guy/girl microwaves cat, guy/girl lights cat on fire and many other sick and disturbing titles.

Anon is demanding Dailymotion turn these users uploading these videos into the authorities, handing them their personal data such as browser fingerprint, IP addresses and if possible physical location.

The full interview is below. Warning: the links are not safe for anyone (NSFA) and will make you extremely sick to your stomach.

Why are you guys going after Dailymotion?

“They are hosting videos depicting animal abuse that is not only graphic in nature but often with the abusers seen and heard laughing about their actions. We find this abhorrent and inexcusable.”

What’s OpDailyMotion about?

“About showing zero tolerance to those that profit from animal cruelty and promote their vile actions to earn a buck.”

What types of videos are there?

“They run the gamut from cats burned alive or microwaved to wolves tied down as bait for dogs however we are still reviewing the site’s content and find more.”

Two examples many more (NSFA):

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1k7hcl_israeli-kid-kills-cat-with-a-bottle_animals

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3j0h31_hun-kha-andy-a-man-catched-a-cat-and-punished_fun

Has Dailymotion responded at all to your concerns?

“To date no and they have been contacted by numerous concerned citizens both online and offline. This is very disappointing and seems to be consistent with the lack of compassion they show in what they host on their video site.”

What can people do?

“People can help in two major ways. Ideally it would be great for people to help ID the individuals involved. Often their faces are hidden but it’s always worth a try. Also we would really like to hit Dailymotion in the pocket and that entails pressuring those that advertise and promote on their site to have the content removed.”

Anonymous is famous for its digital sit ins Have there or are there any planned DDOS attacks against Dailymotion was it you who hacked Dailymotion’s user database?

“This is a very great question and while any Anon is free to do as they wish there are no such plans at this time. We feel contacting and intercepting their advertisers will have the desired effect. In short we are going to troll them, those who advertise on their site and their customers. We are going to make it clear Dailymotion endorses animal abuse and those that consort with them do as well. It is in our opinion not a coincidence that Dailymotion recently suffered a massive breach at the time the first video was discovered but no it was not us.”

Is OpDailymotion a branch or apart of #OpFunKill?

“At this jucture it is not but #OpFunKill is inspiration and we would welcome their expertise and support.”

Have any of these users been D0xed and exposed for their animal cruelty?

“To date we understand no, and this is due to lack of cooperation of Dailymotion to report to law enforcement and hand over relevant data.. We hope this changes.”

How long do you expect this operation to last?

“We would hope they would cooperate right away as we are working hard to make others aware but as long as it takes. We do not forget. And when it comes to animal torture we don’t see how Dailymotion can justify their vile and violent content. Frankly we feel people will not tolerate it and will speak out and be heard.”

Where can people find updates or further information on the operation?

“We will be working from @OpDailyMotion primarily but welcome all to participate and DM the Op if they wish to get involved more.”

The post EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous Hackers Attack DailyMotion Over Animal Abuse Videos appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

In this series we divulge fascinating nuggets of information found hidden within the Snowden files that were not reported by corporate media and are not yet widely known.

Last May, The Intercept published it’s first bulk release of files from the Snowden archives, 166 documents from SIDtoday, the newsletter of the Signals Intelligence Directorate of the National Security Agency.

It is an internal publication of bite size proportions, averaging just over a page per article. Predictably upbeat and celebratory in nature, the general theme is news bulletins on:

• HR: awards, promotions and vacancies
• Compliance & oversight
• Theatres of NSA operations and “customers” (other agencies)
• Employee safety including mental health
• Events, meetings, trainings and employee profiles

Some of the reference terms inspire deeper digging. An early but unexplained reference to the ‘Target Office of Primary Interest (TOPI)’ led me to search the term. According to an extremely edifying article on Electrospaces.net:

So these are the people who were famously revealed to have been spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s cellphone, among others.

There are other interesting references that appear in the SIDtoday files, which are from 2003.

The NSA was already perturbed about the consequences of ‘today’s information overload‘, suggesting that analysts already had more data than they knew what to do with. However this doesn’t appear to have put a damper on the ‘Collect It All‘ mentality on display a decade later.

The following is a set of unique findings from analysis of the first batch of SIDtoday files.

1. There is an oblique reference to ‘Transformation 2.0‘ which in the context it is placed in, reads as if it is some kind of NSA strategic directive or change management program.

It is followed by talk of allowing people in other agencies with ‘unique expertise‘ to access data that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, by having them ‘swim upstream‘.

2. The Director of Central Intelligence gives out ‘Denial and Deception Awards‘. Over 100 NSA employees were on the awards list.

3. As far back as 2003, the U.S. relationship with Turkey was ‘seriously weakened‘ and the U.S. was ‘unlikely to champion Turkey’s cause with Europe‘.

4. The files show an obsession with controlling the flow of information to congressional overseers and adherance to established protocols for responding to requests from them. These seem to be largely budget related. In a document titled ‘SIDs Interactions With Congress: Setting The Budget‘ there is a reference to a 761-page ‘Congressional Budget Justification Book’ for the 2004 fiscal year, and an explanation of budget ‘markups‘.

In a document titled ‘SIDs Interactions With Congress: Communications‘ there is a reference to opportunities ‘to influence the markups‘ in the budget and it is stressed that Congress should hear both ‘good news as well as bad news…from us before they read it in the paper’. Bad news includes ‘power outages that have resulted in degradation of service or security breaches at field stations‘ which in theory means that Congressional overseers learned about the Snowden leaks before reading them in the Washington Post or The Guardian.

5. In ‘Profile: SIGINT Legislative Affairs‘ this is expanded upon. The writer states that the Signals Intelligence Directorate must be ‘proactive with Congress‘ in ‘providing notifications‘ and that the Legislative Affairs office will advise ‘affected offices‘ of any ‘funding impacts‘ and ‘will assist you with preparing reclamas to adverse funding language‘. Reclamas are, to paraphrase Merriam Webster, requests for reconsideration of a policy directive or decision. Use of the term is prevalent within military circles and related organisations.

The document says that all communications with Congressional overseers should adhere to ‘The 5 c’s‘, namely ‘candid, complete, correct, consistent, corporate‘.

6. In ‘Crisis Support For Employees‘ SIDtoday incongruously states in back-to-back sentences that employees can seek help with obtaining weapons training and with potential employee suicides, from the same department.

7. As early as November of 2003, SIDtoday was announcing that ‘elements of‘ the exit strategy for Iraq (referred to in the document as ‘phase IV’) were ‘already underway‘. In the document titled ‘Post-War Iraq Plan‘ key responsibilities mentioned include ‘maintaining domestic security’, ‘watching for efforts to undermine the nascent Iraqi government’, and ‘uncovering war criminals’. These tasks are stated to have been ‘complicated by much broader international participation’.

8. Sometimes it is easy to forget just how far back this type of spying goes. In a document titled ‘SID Support To POW Rescue‘, particularly, that of Jessica Lynch, there is a reference to SIGINT reporting (on the location of an Iraqi General Hospital) dating back to 1979. Of course, the history of the NSA goes back even further – formally, to 1952 but in its historical forefather was in its earliest incarnation established in 1917.

This article is part of a series so keep an eye out for more fascinating insights from the Snowden docs.

This series would not be possible without the obviously immense amount of work invested by staff at The Intercept in preparing the Snowden files for release – you can read their report on the May 2016 SIDtoday files by clicking on this link.

Thanks to the awesome Twitter account @HelpSnowden for creating the header graphic used in this article.

By Suzie Dawson

The post Hidden Gems In The Snowden Files: Part One appeared first on We Are Change.