09/2/16

Will the KGB Kill Edward Snowden?

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Snowden

In a story headlined, “The New Snowden Movie is the Best PR He’ll Ever Get,” a young writer with no knowledge of Russian espionage operations quotes an ACLU lawyer as saying that the upcoming movie “Snowden” will paint the former NSA analyst living in Russia as “a hero who exposed the great injustices and overreach of the global surveillance state.” The film will therefore “have a huge effect on how the public sees Snowden,” he says.

But the film, scheduled for release on September 16, may be an attempt to salvage the reputations of both Edward Snowden and the filmmaker, Oliver Stone.

Edward Snowden is charged with espionage, and has been described by presidential candidate Donald J. Trump as a traitor who should be executed.

His disclosures of NSA surveillance techniques have assisted America’s enemies and adversaries, including the Islamic State and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I wrote a book about the case, Blood on His Hands: The True Story of Edward Snowden, examining the setbacks for American foreign policy in the wake of Snowden’s theft of classified documents, and the U.S. being caught blind regarding Russian aggression and Islamic State expansion into Europe and America.

Two days before the film’s release, some theaters will feature a live question-and-answer period between Snowden and Stone following a special screening, with Snowden appearing live from Moscow.

Stone is apparently hoping the film will restore his reputation as an avant-garde filmmaker whose previous release, “South of the Border,” was an embarrassing apology for a series of Latin American communists. It depicted Venezuela as heaven on earth and featured interviews with such despots as Hugo Chavez, Lula da Silva of Brazil and Raul Castro.

Chavez has since expired and met his maker, while Venezuela is a hell-hole example of how socialism works in practice, with shortages, massive inflation and violations of human rights on a constant basis. Lula da Silva’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, has just been impeached in Brazil. Castro is still in power because Barack Obama and Pope Francis engineered U.S. recognition of the Communist regime in Cuba, and thereby a lifeline of new money.

Trying to make himself newsworthy again, Stone has made the movie, “Snowden,” after a trip to Russia where he met with former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Upon his return, he delivered the commencement speech at the University of Connecticut, where he described Edward Snowden as “an avatar” for the next generation.

Previous avatars have included Aldrich Ames, the CIA traitor, and Robert Hanssen, the FBI traitor. Both were spies for the Soviets and are serving life sentences in prison.

“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country—you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” Trump said to host Eric Bolling on Fox News. “Well, you killed them, Donald,” Bolling replied.

He was apparently referring to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were American citizens executed for espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union back in 1953.

Yet, President Obama’s then-Attorney General Eric Holder actually wrote to the Russians, promising them that Snowden would be spared the death penalty if he returned to the United States.

In a story about how Snowden is pulling in tens of thousands of capitalist dollars for digital speaking appearances from Russia at American colleges and other events like concerts and Comic-Con, Michael Isikoff and Michael B. Kelley of Yahoo! News reported that advance work in the media for the new Snowden movie is being handled by “veteran liberal public relations executive David Fenton.”

That seems appropriate. In the past, Fenton has represented George Soros, the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Salvadoran communist guerrillas and CIA defector Philip Agee.

Snowden seems to be the NSA equivalent of Agee, who defected from the CIA and became a Cuban and Soviet agent. Benjamin S. Civiletti, attorney general in the Carter administration, provided Agee with immunity from prosecution. At the time, the FBI wasarguing for prosecution of Agee on the grounds that he was engaging in espionage activity against the U.S.

Snowden may be seeking to return to the U.S. because of what happened to another defector from the NSA to Russia. Victor Norris Hamilton, a former code analyst with the NSA who defected to Russia, was discovered in the 1990s at a Moscow psychiatric prison hospital. After the Soviets milked him, they put him in a rubber room.

Former Reagan National Security Council staffer Oliver North says that Snowden will be killed by the Russians when they have finished using him for propaganda purposes. Then, he suggests, the Russians will blame his death on the CIA.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

07/27/16

What Does Putin Have on Hillary?

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Putin

Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Times examines the question of who hacked the Democratic National Committee and whether the trail leads to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We know from reliable reporting that Russian hackers are not independent actors, and that they have been busy,” he writes. “And it’s eerie, at best, that Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks chose this moment to release the stolen emails (and complete a strange triangle that runs from him to Putin to Edward Snowden).”

For his part, on his Twitter page, Snowden said, “If Russia hacked the #DNC, they should be condemned for it. But during the #Sony hack, the FBI presented evidence.”

This is funny on Snowden’s part. Snowden sits in Russia, a guest of Putin, and Assange has acted like an agent of Russia. Trevor Loudon’s report on Assange documents his service to Moscow and associations with a number of Marxist or pro-Russian groups. Snowden is probably personally involved in the leak and could easily get to the bottom of why it happened.

“This has the appearance of a foreign power directly interfering in an American election, and that’s not something to take lightly,” Noah Rothman writes in Commentary. He goes on, “Rather than applaud and leverage this development, as he has, Donald Trump would be much better served by condemning it. If the Russians are set on undermining the Democratic Party in this election, it won’t be long before the public is asked to consider why that might be.”

Rothman has a point, but the more important issue is why the DNC and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used private or unsecure servers that were open to these foreign adversaries. One can argue that Mrs. Clinton, in particular, invited this foreign meddling in the election. Who knows what the Russians still have in their bag of tricks? The point is that Mrs. Clinton is a security risk and the Russians may still have emails to use against her.

Pro-Putin commentator Don Hank reported back in June, “I was invited to participate in a conversation among a group of friends who are hoping that the Kremlin will turn over their cache of Hillary emails obtained via the Romanian hacker ‘Guccifer’ just in time to smear her prior to the November election.”

Even earlier, Catherine Herridge of Fox News reported back in May that the Romanian hacker known as “Guccifer” had claimed he easily—and repeatedly—breached former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal email server in early 2013. The Clinton campaign denied the charge, but Herridge reported that “Guccifer” said “he first compromised Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL account, in March 2013, and used that as a stepping stone to the Clinton server.”

“Guccifer” has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a protected computer, aggravated identity theft, cyberstalking and obstruction of justice.

Mrs. Clinton’s emails may be even more valuable than the documents stolen and released by Snowden. After all, Clinton’s emails discussed the intentions of U.S. policymakers.

This is actually an old story involving the Clintons. As Reed Irvine and I reported back in 1998, the Ken Starr report on President Clinton revealed that Clinton had warned his sexual plaything Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, “that a foreign government may be monitoring their telephone conversations and that they should concoct a cover story to explain them.” Here is exactly what the Starr report says about this matter: “According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign embassy (he did not specify which one) was tapping his telephones, and he proposed cover stories. If ever questioned, she should say that the two of them were just friends. If anyone ever asked about their phone sex, she should say that they knew their calls were being monitored all along, and the phone sex was just a put-on.”

Nothing has really changed, except that emails have now been monitored and compromised in Mrs. Clinton’s case.

As we said back in May, “The evidence demonstrates that she is a full-blown security risk who should be indicted for her reckless criminal conduct as Secretary of State.” Hillary made herself into a security risk.

Now we are waiting for the next shoe to drop. Does it have something to do with Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, or Hillary’s own personal scandals?

Whatever the scandal, it’s not the fault of Donald J. Trump. Trump may have something to explain regarding his own ties to the Kremlin, but so does Hillary. If the truth doesn’t come out before Election Day, it means that Moscow may have blackmail power over the possible first female president of the United States.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

07/21/16

Trump’s Blind Spot on Russia

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Russia

It is not unusual for a politician to change his mind, even on critical national security matters. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) essentially flip-flopped on the damage done by NSA defector Edward Snowden. He went from saying that Snowden may have violated the law to accusing the NSA defector of being an outright traitor. On Thursday night, while the media continue their preoccupation with style rather than substance, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump will be watched closely to see whether he has learned anything about the aggressive intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s position on Russia has been so weak, from a national security perspective, that Hillary Clinton has accused him of being soft on Putin. “He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin,” Clinton said of Trump. “He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia.” The criticism of Trump has caused a number of GOP foreign policy experts to say they cannot support the New York businessman for president.

Trump has praised Putin, and vice-versa. What’s more, one of his top advisers on national security matters, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), has been embarrassed by revelations that he went to Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Russian propaganda channel Russia Today (RT) and sat next to Putin at a gala dinner. Flynn was being considered as Trump’s vice-presidential nominee.

At the GOP convention, Flynn was caught off-guard during an interview when Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News questioned him about the financing of the trip to Moscow. Flynn insisted that his speakers’ bureau paid for the trip. “Ask them. I was given an opportunity and I took it,” he said. Of course, even if there was a speakers’ bureau involved, the money came from Moscow, and most of it went to Flynn.

At the time, we called it “Moscow’s Five-Star Treatment of a Three-Star Army General.” We broke the story of Flynn flying to Moscow.

On the defensive, Flynn said, “I have no problems calling out Russia.” He is the author of the new book, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies.

But Flynn is known for advocating cooperation with Moscow in the Middle East, despite evidence that Moscow is using the refugee crisis as a weapon of war against the West.

Of course, as Flynn is quick to point out, Mrs. Clinton’s “experience” has been a disaster for the nation, as her “Russian “reset” paved the way for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Russian military intervention in Syria.

But what will Trump do to counter the Russians in Europe and the Middle East?

The criticism of Trump’s soft position on Russia has been a sore point with many on the conservative side. It doesn’t appear that Trump understands Putin’s geo-political game plan on the world stage.

This is one reason that GOP 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney had denounced Trump.  “Trump says he admires Vladimir Putin, while he has called George W. Bush a liar. That is a twisted example of evil trumping good,” said Romney.

By contrast, Mike Pence, the Indiana governor and former member of Congress picked as Trump’s running mate, has had a more realistic view of Putin. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015, he said that “A new Iron Curtain is descending down the spine of Europe as modern Russia seeks to redraw the map of Europe by force.” He added, “Putin’s Russia ignores talk of sanctions, claims land and supports rebels in Ukraine with impunity.”

Has Trump changed his position on Russia? There’s no evidence that he has done so.

Josh Rogin of The Washington Post noted that Trump’s people watered down a provision of the 2016 GOP platform calling for a tough response to Russian aggression. “The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington,” he reported.

Rogin added that “Republican delegates at last week’s national security committee platform meeting in Cleveland were surprised when the Trump campaign orchestrated a set of events to make sure that the GOP would not pledge to give Ukraine the weapons it has been asking for from the United States.” He noted that Diana Denman, a platform committee member from Texas who was a Cruz supporter, proposed a platform amendment calling for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to the Ukrainian military. Trump’s people vetoed that, and put in the phrase “appropriate assistance.” That means that Trump would continue the Obama policy of failing to give Ukraine the weapons they need to defend their nation and turn back the Russian invasion.

Meanwhile, Senator Cruz has become a more realistic thinker about Russia, and has admittedly changed his position on the damage done by former NSA and CIA employee Edward Snowden, who is now living in Moscow. “If Mr. Snowden has violated the laws of this country, there are consequences to violating laws and that is something he has publicly stated he understands and I think the law needs to be enforced,” Cruz said in early 2013.

Later, however, Cruz said, “Today we know that Snowden violated federal law, that his actions materially aided terrorists and enemies of the United States, and that he subsequently fled to China and Russia. Under the Constitution, giving aid to our enemies is treason. By disclosing secret intelligence information to our enemies—helping terrorists evade our surveillance overseas—Snowden made it more likely that Americans will be killed. It is now clear that Snowden is a traitor, and he should be tried for treason.”

To his credit, Trump recognizes Snowden’s treason. “I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country—you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” Trump said on Fox News.  The implication was that Snowden should be executed. “This guy is really doing damage to this country, and he’s also making us look like dopes,” Trump said.

What Trump doesn’t talk about is the fact that Snowden’s sponsor and patron is Putin’s Russia, and that Snowden has facilitated the activities of the Islamic State targeting citizens in the West, including the United States.

At the GOP convention on Tuesday night, Donald Trump, Jr. said, “If Hillary Clinton is elected, she would be the first president who couldn’t pass a basic background check.”

But could his father pass a background check? That’s the question that will be on many minds when the Republican candidate accepts the nomination and outlines his vision for the Free World.

Whatever he says, doubts will still surround some of his top advisers, including Paul Manafort, a “fixer” with Russian connections.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

04/5/16

The Panama Papers – In The Beginning There Was Putin

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Putin

Looks like Vlad got caught big time with his mitts in the cookie jar. In the largest financial data leak in history, we are getting to see just how corrupt Vladimir Putin and his inner circle of cronies are. It’s revealing to say the least. It’s a dirty dozen of world leaders who are using offshore tax havens to hidey hole their wealth. But as in all things secret, the light of day is shining into the buried coffers of power brokers. Good times.

And Putin is far from alone… a cadre of celebrities, sports stars, British politicians and the uber wealthy of the planet are all mired in this scandal. Welcome to the Panama Papers. This is a collection of 11 million files or so that contain data to kill for. It makes Edward Snowden look like a rank amateur by comparison. But this wasn’t a hack… it was a mass collection of documents and data.

The leak is originating from one of the world’s most secretive entities… the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca. In the dirt dug up, the firm is exposed for helping clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade taxation. Among their clientele are megastars Jackie Chan and Lionel Messi who have invested their millions offshore. Chan is a big fan of communist China. The whole story is like a movie come to life… it’s also revealed that 26 million pounds that was stolen during the Brink’s Mat robbery in 1983 was possibly funneled into an offshore company set up by this firm.

Continue reading

01/14/16

A Russian Spy in the NSA: A True Story of Espionage

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

Before Edward Snowden, there was Robert Lipka. He spied for the Russians at the NSA. Rather than flee to Moscow, Lipka moved to Pennsylvania and used the money he was paid by the Russians to bet on horse races. It took 32 years to bring Lipka to justice, and we may never know all of the state secrets he betrayed. Former FBI agent John Whiteside, discusses his book about the case, Fool’s Mate. He also addresses current security measures in the federal government and whether Barack Obama could pass an FBI background check.

Fools Mate

11/24/15

Media and Russia Still Protect Snowden

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Former CIA director James Woolsey accuses NSA defector Edward Snowden of having a role in the terrorist attacks in Paris. He said, “…I would give him the death sentence, and I would prefer to see him hanged by the neck until he’s dead, rather than merely electrocuted.” He added, “I think the blood of a lot of these French young people is on his hands.”

Defenders of Snowden insist that his critics are jumping to conclusions, and that it hasn’t been officially proven or confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the terrorists used secret communications.

We know the terrorists got away with the massacre, a reality suggesting that intelligence agencies failed for one reason or another to monitor their communications and stop the attack. That evidence suggests one possibility—that terrorists used encrypted communications apps, such as Telegram, which was developed by a Russian, Pavel Durov, who was mysteriously allowed to leave Putin’s paradise and develop high technology of potential use to terrorists. Since the massacre, Telegram has reportedly been shutting down some channels used by the Islamic State, or ISIS. This constitutes incriminating but circumstantial evidence.

In a piece for Bloomberg View titled, “Don’t Blame Snowden for Terror in Paris,” Eli Lake and Josh Rogin write that the U.S. intelligence community “has never explained what specific leaks from Snowden caused what specific terrorists to go dark.”

That’s quite a demand: specific leaks and the names of specific terrorists.

Such a public explanation would be itself an illegal disclosure. It would confirm the accuracy of Snowden’s leaks to more people. Lake and Rogin add, “Current and former U.S. intelligence officials didn’t provide such information to us either this week either [sic].” Additional confirmation to these two journalists would also constitute an illegal disclosure, perhaps a form of espionage that would tip off more terrorists to forms of communications beyond the current knowledge of intelligence officials.

I don’t think the public wants to know in specific terms how the terrorists planned their carnage. I do think the public wants these massacres to stop.

Why don’t our media agree with this assessment? It’s apparently because they believe that more people have to die before they will give the intelligence agencies any slack. Perhaps the attacks have to take place on the streets of New York or Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, they will give the benefit of the doubt to Snowden, his Russian sponsors and the terrorists.

No wonder the public hates the press.

These journalists are saying to the intelligence agencies: give us specific evidence that Snowden’s disclosures aided the terrorists, and tell us what specific means of communication the terrorists employed in the Paris massacre. Otherwise, they’ll take Snowden off the hook.

Common sense tells you that such disclosures would probably make it impossible for the intelligence agencies to stop the next series of attacks, since the disclosures would alert the terrorists to what the authorities know about their activities, and would therefore prompt the terrorists to use another form of communication.

Our media don’t believe in common sense. They want to expose secrets that would make all of us more vulnerable to terrorist attack.

In a Sunday article, “Why it’s hard to draw a line between Snowden and the Paris attacks,” two Washington Post writers tried to give us their “insights.” Their conclusions were suggested by the headline. The case against Snowden hasn’t been definitively proven, at least to the satisfaction of these reporters.

Nevertheless, the paper noted that “CIA Director John O. Brennan made clear that he blames leaks by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden for enabling terrorists to evade detection.”

In addition, the paper noted:

  • Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that terrorist groups “adapted to the disclosures by Snowden and have made it more difficult for us to track their whereabouts as well as their plotting and planning.” He also said, “I do think the Snowden revelations have had an adverse security impact, because our enemies know far more about our capabilities and programs.”
  • “Experts who monitor the communications and social-media postings of terrorist groups said there are indications that Islamist militants studied the Snowden coverage.”

The Post did not remind its readers that Post reporter Barton Gellman worked with Snowden on some of his disclosures. So the paper may already have the blood of those young people in Paris on its hands.

We noted evidence that a 34-page ISIS manual on how to conceal communications from the NSA and other intelligence agencies used Snowden as a source.

Elsewhere, in an editorial, the Post said, “In the past, the Islamic State has used a heavily encrypted free program known as Telegram for promotion and recruitment. Telegram said it is trying to close down the accounts, but it has not been entirely successful.”

The editorial noted that “The Paris police found an unencrypted smartphone in a trash bin near the Bataclan concert hall that contained the text message ‘Let’s go, we’re starting.’” This fact has been seized upon by Snowden defenders who claim it means that the terrorists did not use encrypted messages. Of course, by that time, there was no need to encrypt messages, since the terrorist operation was underway.

The editorial went on: “We understand the benefit of encryption, including for citizens living under authoritarian regimes. But we also do not underestimate the risks to the public that terrorists and other criminals may pose. It seems obvious that, if there is a terrible attack in the United States, privacy advocates and tech companies instantly will lose this argument.”

Yes, they will lose this argument and people will lose their lives.

“We don’t have a solution,” said the Post, “but it would be in everyone’s interest to keep looking for one, before the next catastrophe.”

How’s that for taking a stand against terrorism?

This is the attitude of the media: let’s wait for the next catastrophe to happen, and then we will run more stories about who’s to blame.

The Post previously noted that the Russian inventor of Telegram, Pavel Durov, had stated publicly that he knew “that terrorists might be using his app to communicate” and had “decided it was something he could live with.”

The paper quoted him as saying, “I think that privacy, ultimately, and our right for privacy is more important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism.”

It seems to me that legitimate journalists ought to start asking some tough questions about Snowden and Durov and their links to Russia. We know Snowden fled to Russia, but Durov is reported to have fled from Russia and is typically described as “the Russian-born entrepreneur.”  We know enough about Putin’s authoritarian rule to understand you don’t become successful to the extent he did in Russia without the blessings of Putin and his KGB comrades.

A real opponent of Vladimir Putin, such as Bill Browder, fled Russia and lives in fear of being assassinated. Browder’s attorney was taken into custody in Russia by authorities, and was tortured and killed. Browder and those knowledgeable about Putin’s police state know what happened to former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who disclosed Russian training of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the most closely-held secrets of the KGB. Litvinenko was poisoned in London, sending a signal about what happens when the regime’s links to international terrorism are publicly revealed.

We know Snowden lives in comfort in Russia, a fact that makes Russia’s opposition to ISIS ring hollow. Even if a specific Snowden link to the Paris massacre cannot be revealed or proven, we know enough to say his disclosures have helped terrorist groups. Rep. Schiff admits that much publicly. If Russia were really opposed to ISIS, it would turn Snowden over to U.S. authorities so he could be prosecuted for espionage. Instead, Russia continues to protect the NSA leaker.

Durov left Russia, supposedly because he had disagreements with the Putin regime. But he still runs around the world developing his technology, useful by his own admission to the terrorists targeting the West. If Durov was a real threat to Russia, he would be dead by now.

The Russian connection to ISIS terrorism is what our media need to take a hard look at.

A good place to start is an article by Christian Gomez in The New American titled, “The Russian Roots of ISIS.” Research points to the Russian security services being behind the threat they ostensibly oppose.

This is not to say the Russians control all factions of ISIS, or that “blowback” cannot affect them in the same way that U.S. military interventions have unexpected consequences.

Despite the downing of the Russian plane last month, there is an anti-Western flavor to what ISIS has been doing. The Paris attacks have been followed by threats against New York and Washington, D.C., not Moscow.

Therefore, the attacks on Paris have already served Putin’s purposes, since he’s been embraced by the weak French socialist President François Hollande, taking his NATO country into the Russian camp. Not surprisingly, President Obama lets the plan proceed.

Meanwhile, as if on cue, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the United States, Russia and other countries have to defeat terrorists “in the name of humanity.” UN Wire reports that on Friday the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a French-backed resolution calling for countries to take action against the Islamic State. The “New World Order” has arrived!

The irony, of course, is that the Soviet Union sponsored international terrorism for decades, and the Russian state today is led by a former Soviet KGB official. If Putin were sincere about this grand coalition against terrorism, he would immediately send Snowden back to the U.S. to stand trial. The fact he does not do so demonstrates that he is manipulating terrorism to get his way globally, in this case dividing NATO and diverting attention away from his continuing aggression in Ukraine.

Our media are too busy to notice any of this because they are defending Snowden.

11/20/15

Politico Exonerates, Blames Snowden for Paris

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Some of our media, including the publication Politico, seem totally confused about the role of NSA defector Edward Snowden in the crimes of the terrorists who murdered and maimed hundreds of people in the Paris attacks. The verdict is in: he has bloody hands.

In a November 16 story, “Blaming Snowden for Paris,” David Perera of Politico insisted that no evidence had surfaced that the “revelations” of NSA defector Edward Snowden had “made a difference” in the case of the Paris terrorist attacks, and there was no evidence the perpetrators had “used encrypted communications to conceal their activities.”

Once again, the publication had gotten ahead of the facts in this story, prejudging the case in order to get Snowden off the hook for facilitating the activities of the Islamic State, or ISIS.

Politico is the same publication that alleged that GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson had admitted fabricating an offer of a West Point scholarship, only to reverse course and drop the claim in a rewritten version of the same story.

Only 24 hours later, after exonerating Snowden, the publication again reversed itself, running an interview with Michael Morell, the former acting head of the CIA, who said the Snowden revelations not only helped the Islamic State but probably contributed to the Paris attacks.

Morell stated, “First, ISIS went to school on how we were collecting intelligence on terrorist organizations by using telecommunications technologies. And when they learned that from the Snowden disclosures, they were able to adapt to it and essentially go silent…And so, part of their rise was understanding what our capabilities were, adjusting to them so we couldn’t see them. No doubt in my mind. And the people who say otherwise are just trying to defend Edward Snowden.”

As embarrassing as this was, the original Politico story had referred to “journalist Glenn Greenwald” as “a Snowden ally” who was arguing “that U.S. officials had complained of difficulty tracking terrorist communications long before the NSA whistleblower emerged.”

It’s true that the terrorists had been evading the NSA before Snowden went to Russia, but that was beside the point. What Morell and others were pointing out is that Snowden had made it easier for the terrorists to plot to kill Europeans and Americans.

Rather than being a “journalist,” Greenwald is a political extremist who speaks before Islamist, Marxist and libertarian groups. He has, for example, been afeatured speaker at conferences sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Cato Institute and the International Socialist Organization. At one of these conferences he declared that al Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist attacks on America were “very minimal in scope compared to the level of deaths that the United States has been bringing to the world for decades—from Vietnam to illegal wars in Central America…”

He is more than a “Snowden ally.” He is a mouthpiece for Snowden’s illegal disclosures and an accomplice in his alleged espionage activities.

A former gay pornography executive, Greenwald was the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award, named in honor of the left-wing journalist identified as an agent of influence for Soviet intelligence. At the awards ceremony, Greenwald said that Soviet agent Stone “pioneered what modern journalism ought to be.”

Snowden is supposedly a “whistleblower,” but that is a false designation considering that he illegally leaked classified information and fled to Russia rather than face up to the authorities and take his punishment. He is specifically charged with espionage.

Despite the claim about encrypted communications not playing a role in the attacks, Politico had itself reported on November 16 in a separate article that “Terrorists linked to the so-called Islamic State are employing encrypted Internet services—including a new generation of mobile messaging apps—that the authorities do not have the technological capability to break, according to intelligence sources, public comments by senior officials, and evidence disclosed in recent criminal trials.”

By November 18, Cory Bennett of The Hill newspaper had identified and cited a 34-page ISIS manual on how to conceal communications from the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Bennett noted that the Arabic document was translated and released by analysts at the Combating Terrorism Center, an independent research group at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“It includes warnings to avoid Instagram because it is owned by Facebook, and Dropbox because former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sits on its board of investors. Famous government leaker Edward Snowden has also criticized Dropbox over its privacy, the document notes,” added Bennett.

In other words, the Islamic State is taking Snowden’s advice and openly citing the NSA defector’s expertise on planning terrorism against the West. The reference to Snowden is clear in the translation.

This means that no honest journalist can claim that Snowden’s activities have not helped the terrorists who want to kill us.

Bennett wrote a separate story noting evidence first developed by NBC News that ISIS had set up a 24-hour “help desk” to advise terrorists about encrypting their communications in order to evade authorities.

In the NBC News story, Josh Meyer quoted counterterrorism analysts affiliated with the U.S. Army as saying that the ISIS help desk is “manned by a half-dozen senior operatives around the clock” for the specific purpose of “helping would-be jihadists use encryption and other secure communications in order to evade detection by law enforcement and intelligence authorities.”

Now that it has been definitively proven that Snowden’s disclosures have aided ISIS in planning acts of terror, it is time for the media to start examining the Snowden network that AIM has been exposing for several years now. All of his apologists, including such figures as Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano, should apologize to the world for rushing to the defense of this despicable character, who now clearly has blood on his hands.

It was Napolitano who had declared, “I would describe this man [Snowden] an American hero, as a person willing to risk life, limb and liberty in order to expose to the American people one of the most extraordinary violations of the American principles, value judgments and the Constitution itself in all of our history.”

The evil genius of Snowden’s collaborators was to frame his defection in terms of alleging that he was a “whistleblower.”

He didn’t risk his life or limb but has given up his liberty in return for KGB protection in Moscow.

Citizens of France and possibly the United States, however, will be giving up their lives and limbs so that Snowden can be honored as a hero by Napolitano and his ilk.

11/12/15

Obama’s “Dangerous Hands” and the Security Breakdown

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Even when “60 Minutes” does a very worthwhile show, it still has to bow at the altar of political correctness. Hence, the program, “Into Dangerous Hands,” about flaws in the security clearance process, was itself flawed in a very strange way. Correspondent Scott Pelley danced around the issue of illegal leaker and former Army analyst Bradley/Chelsea Manning being a sexual pervert.

Pelley focused on three people who had security clearances and either stole and leaked classified documents or committed mass murder. They were Manning, Edward Snowden, and Aaron Alexis. Before getting into some dramatic new information about all three of them, Pelley said, “Some believe Snowden and Manning were right to expose what they saw as government abuses —like the NSA’s domestic surveillance program.”

These “some” are those who condone illegal behavior that benefits America’s enemies, such as Russia and China.

CBS interviewed a number of people who discussed terrible problems in the process of granting security clearances. One of the most significant was former Army specialist Jihrleah Showman, who supervised Bradley/Chelsea Manning in Iraq. Showman “was tasked with controlling security clearances for her unit and keeping secure facilities safe,” CBS noted. She said she had reason to doubt Manning’s loyalty to America and told her superiors she thought he was a spy. She told Pelley that even before the unit deployed to Iraq, she had grave concerns about Manning.

This is from the CBS account: “His behavior was erratic, she says, and he told her he had ‘no allegiance’ to America. But when she tried to alert her superiors, she says, she was told they couldn’t afford to lose someone with a valuable top-secret clearance.”

CBS added, “In Iraq, Manning was prone to fits of rage, Showman says, even punching her at one point. She says she also saw him bring CDs and a camera into a high-security intelligence vault, where classified material was kept. Over eight months, Manning used the CDs to record hundreds of thousands of secrets, delivering them to the website WikiLeaks. In 2013, Manning was convicted of espionage and other charges, and sentenced to 35 years in prison.”

CBS forgot to mention one thing: he was an active homosexual at the time he was in the Army.

Viewers may have gotten a hint of that, since Manning has changed his name from male to female. Pelley noted that he now considered himself a “transgender woman.” But the fact that he was an active homosexual at the time of his treachery is a big part of the story. At the time he was out of the closet and advertising his perversion, a law was still in place banning displays of open homosexuality in the Armed Forces.

Manning had been an active participant in the homosexual subculture, under the noses of his military superiors, and even went to gay bars. He advertised his homosexuality on Facebook.

However, it was known that the Obama administration was moving toward the acceptance of homosexuals in the military at that time.

We noted that Manning was a pervert who should have been booted out of the Army and should never have received a security clearance. We added, “The key question—not pursued by the media—is why Manning was allowed to remain in the Army when he was acting in violation of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ policy.”

In 2010, we asked, “Who in the Obama administration—and the Department of Defense—was aware of his conduct and looked the other way? Was Manning given a pass because his ‘lifestyle’ was considered to be in favor and acceptable under the Obama administration?”

Manning had claimed connections inside the Pentagon and the White House. But our media never followed up.

“60 Minutes” got into some of this, but still ignores the big issue—promotion of homosexuality by the Obama administration. The Department of Defense had a liberal policy about gays in the military, in deference to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief.

Our conclusion at the time is still valid: the buck stops with President Obama, whose announced desire to overturn the homosexual exclusion policy was undoubtedly a factor in Army officials looking the other way on Manning.

Yet, in reviewing the problems in the security clearance process, Pelley never once put any blame on the President of the United States.

In addition, Pelley never mentioned another critical fact: President Obama, the person ultimately in charge of the security clearance process, did not go through any kind of security clearance background investigation at all.

The title of the piece came from Pelley’s observation that there were “shortcuts” in the security clearance process that had put American security “into dangerous hands.” One of the biggest shortcuts, or loopholes, is the failure to make sure that federal elected officials are loyal to the United States.

Former FBI agent Max Noel told me the Bureau used to investigate candidates for federal employment by analyzing Character, Associates, Reputation, and Loyalty to the United States. The first letters in those words make up the acronym CARL. Noel told me that Obama could not have been elected president if he had been subjected to the CARL test.

One reason for this has been cited by Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, who has questioned the scrutiny he’s been given over issues in his background that occurred 40 or 50 years ago. “I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one President Barack Obama, when he was running,” Carson said. “In fact, I remember just the opposite, I remember people just said: Oh, we won’t really talk about that. We won’t talk about that relationship; well, Frank Marshall Davis, oh, we don’t want to talk about that. Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers—yeah, well, he didn’t really know him. You know, all the things that Jeremiah Wright was saying—ehh, not a big problem. Goes to Occidental college, doesn’t do all that well, and somehow ends up at Columbia University. Well, I dunno. His records are sealed. Why are his records sealed? Why are you guys not interested in why his records are sealed? Why are you not interested in that? Let me ask that: Can somebody tell me why, please?”

Technically, Obama’s records haven’t been “sealed;” he has just refused to release them.

But Carson’s reference to the media being derelict in regard to investigating Obama’s communist connections, such as his mentor Frank Marshall Davis, is backed up by the evidence.

Our media don’t want to come to grips with this part of Obama’s background for several different reasons, including that it is a factor that would have prevented Obama from getting a security clearance in the government he now heads.

Into dangerous hands? Yes, indeed.

11/5/15

The Sword of Revolution and the Communist Apocalypse – A Book Review

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Cliff Kincaid

Purchase at Amazon.com

I have read and admired the writings of Cliff Kincaid for years now. He is simply one of the most gifted researchers out there and he is a fantastic author. His latest book: The Sword Of Revolution And The Communist Apocalypse does not disappoint. It is the best book I have read in a long time. Right now, my husband is reading it and our children will also read the book. If you buy one book this year, it needs to be this one.

Communism is now pervasive throughout America. Because of political correctness and outright treason, we have allowed Marxists and Islamists to infiltrate our political and societal power structures. There are those in America who obviously don’t recall what true communism entailed. They don’t remember the Soviet Union as the massive threat as it was in the past and as it should be viewed now. Instead, a certain sector of America views Vladimir Putin as a hero, riding to the rescue to protect Christians and save the world. He is anything but. Look behind most of the evil in the world today and you will find Russia there somewhere. As I have long contended, the Cold War never ended… it shifted.

Here is a summary of Cliff’s new book from Amazon:

“International communism is not dead but more powerful and insidious than ever before.” That’s the message of this new book by veteran journalist and media critic Cliff Kincaid. The subject is the Marxist dialectic and communism’s worldwide advance. Chinese Red Army Commander Lin Biao called Marxist dialectics, the communist ideology of struggle and deception, a “spiritual atom bomb,” far superior to the real thing. Lenin called it the “living soul” of Marxism. The Sword of Revolution and the Communist Apocalypse explains this dangerous and sinister ideology. For the first time, a former U.S. intelligence agency official explains how the Sino-Soviet “split” deceived U.S. policymakers and weakened the Free World. America’s Survival, Inc. was the first American organization that warned about Barack Obama’s Marxist background and outlook when he ran for president in 2008. This book explains how Marxists have carried out the “fundamental transformation” of the United States, as Obama called it, and how Pope Francis has become the leading proponent of a world government based on Marxist principles.

Communism is indeed spreading and it is using Islam as a weapon to help clear the way. They lie and deceive without compunction. If it furthers their political agenda, then it is justified. The communists are in this for the long haul. They have planned what they are doing and it has always baffled me how our military and leaders could not see what was transpiring right before their very eyes. Cliff Kincaid has that vision. That vision should scare the holy crap out of America, but instead we elected Barack Obama – not once, but twice… a Marxist and an Islamist. Kincaid was one of the first to research Barack Obama and break stories on him and Frank Marshall Davis. He has worked with his fellow researcher, Trevor Loudon, tirelessly for years to expose the enemies within our now transformed government. Cliff has also written extensively on Pope Francis and his Marxist leanings. Pope Francis is working with the UN to lead the globe into a one world government and religion that adheres to Marxism.

In a time when our young people wouldn’t know a communist if they were trout smacked with one across the face, this book shows just how widespread the problem is. They fawn over Marxists such as Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and have no idea that they are basically advocating slavery and the demise of America. Marxism is a deadly poison to our Republic.

I want to share with you the release on Cliff’s book, which will give you a clearer picture of what is contained within:

For almost seven years, President Barack Obama has carried out his mission to “fundamentally transform” the United States. The explanation for why he has been so successful is contained in the new book, The Sword of Revolution and the Communist Apocalypse (available at Amazon.com), by veteran journalist and media critic Cliff Kincaid. Obama, Kincaid argues, is a Marxist who practices and preaches the theory of Marxism through social change, also know as dialectics. “Very few people, except for the communists themselves, understand the approach to national and world events,” Kincaid argues. Republicans, he says, have been reluctant to identify Obama as the Marxist he is.

The Attraction of Marxism

At a time when anti-American socialist Jeremy Corbyn is expected to become the next head of the Labor Party in Britain, and socialist Bernie Sanders is striking a major chord with Democratic Party voters in the United States, no one can seriously argue that Marxism is dead in the West, Kincaid notes. “International communism is not dead but more powerful and insidious than ever before,” the book proclaims. The book lists dozens of Communist Parties active around the world and examines how Marxists operate inside the U.S. and through the Democratic Party. As detailed in one chapter of the book, Kincaid cites evidence that Marxists and New Agers are going to battle over whether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders will win the Democratic presidential nomination. It is this struggle, Kincaid maintains, that has so many Democratic insiders worried about the 2016 election, leading some of them to seek an alternative candidate, such as Vice President Joe Biden. In a chapter titled “Obama’s Role in World Revolution,” Kincaid examines how Obama has used a Marxist approach that undermines traditional values and pits the races against each other, a form of dialectical or revolutionary change that exploits racial, sexual, and other differences for the purpose of destabilizing society. Historically, Kincaid demonstrates, Obama sees his role as bringing the U.S. from capitalism into socialism.

Former Intelligence Official Talks About Dialectics

Kincaid’s book looks at communist advances not only in the United States but in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Kincaid notes that Obama has recognized both Cuba (diplomatically) and Iran (with the nuclear deal), decisions which benefit America’s enemies, while failing to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression. A former intelligence official, who wrote three chapters of the book, explains the Marxists dialectical approach to history and argues that the Sino-Soviet “split” was a deception that has weakened the Free World, and that both China and Russia are still communist countries. The “collapse” of the Soviet Union, which occurred as a result of what has been called the “perestroika deception,” has resulted in a resurgent Russia that relies on the remnants of – and improvements to – Soviet military power, especially nuclear arms. “Russia and China have taken different socialist paths, based on the Marxist dialectic of historical progress, on the way to world communism,” the book maintains. But changes in the image they present to the West has meant that China and Russia have benefited from Western aid, financial assistance, and technology. The result: they have formed what many now increasingly recognize as a growing alliance against the United States. This proves, in the words of the author of Perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev, that they are still on the road to world communism. The West has been fooled and our survival is at stake, Kincaid says.

The Communist Apocalypse

Today, Russia alone has the means to physically destroy the American homeland and survive any anticipated counter-strike. Russia is what top U.S. Generals have recently called an “existential” threat to the U.S. The Marxist dialectic, Kincaid warns, justifies the complete extinction of the U.S. by any means necessary. The U.S. faces nothing less than planned annihilation at the hands of the Russian state, Kincaid says, a development based on the Marxist dialectic of how global capitalism will meet its fate at the end of human history when world communism is predicted to triumph. This is the meaning of the term “communist apocalypse” in the title of the book. “There is no reason to think Vladimir Putin, who was trained in dialectics by the KGB, is not determined to wipe the United States from the face of the earth,” he says.

Russia and Global Islam

In another maneuver that has confused Western policy makers, the book cites evidence that Russia is behind much of global Islamic terrorism, including the Islamic State. Kincaid, author of a book on NSA defector Edward Snowden, argues that the former CIA and NSA contract employee has greatly undermined the U.S. ability to monitor its adversaries and enemies, making the potential threats from Russia, China, and global Islam even more serious.

The Marxist Pope

Kincaid, the author of several books, including two on the United Nations, says global conflict or Marxist “struggle” is building and that the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has joined the side of the anti-American forces determined to ultimately bury America and the global capitalist system. He says the evidence is clear that the Vatican’s promotion of the U.N.’s “sustainable development” or “green” agenda represents the manipulation of the Pope by New Age and Marxist influences. He says the Pope, who backs a so-called “world political authority,” favors nothing less than world government along the lines advocated by communists as one of the final stages along the road to world communism.

Reagan’s Dialectical Reversal Strategy

Looking for solutions to the current predicament, Kincaid urges conservatives to revisit the wit and wisdom of anti-communist Ronald Reagan, who launched a strategy of “dialectical reversal” against the forces of communism, a rhetorical strategy that even included joking about how Marxism was destined to fail because of its incompatibility with human nature and man’s yearning to be free. What is lacking in the current context, from Republican candidates for president, is a pro-freedom strategy based on the Reagan approach that bolsters our national defenses, including strengthening intelligence agencies such as the NSA. Kincaid notes the evidence of Reagan’s support for this critical agency, whose capabilities have been subverted by Snowden, working with the Russians and Chinese. The book urges Congress to reestablish committees on internal security to examine the damage that has been done to America’s constitutional system, in order to restore the checks and balances that were supposed to guard against the Marxist takeover of the executive branch of government that has in fact occurred. Despite major setbacks for U.S. influence in the world, Kincaid emphasizes in the book that the forces of freedom are still alive, as we have seen Marxism and radical Islam on the defensive in such countries as Ukraine, Egypt, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil.

ASI Exposed Obama’s Communist Mentor

America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI) was the first American organization to warn of Obama’s Marxist background and outlook in 2008. The Sword of Revolution and the Communist Apocalypse examines how ASI has developed this story over the years, using alternative media and bypassing Fox News with an international streaming Roku television channel now seen by viewers in 110 countries. One of ASI’s Roku/YouTube videos on Obama’s relationship with Communist Frank Marshall Davis has already been seen nearly 400,000 times.

I really don’t need to add anything to that. The book sells itself. If you want to know more about communism and how it is destroying our nation and all we love and believe in, you need to get this book. I can tell you that there are few people I admire and respect more than Cliff Kincaid. He is a pioneer in the field of political research and his book is a fascinating read. Pick up several copies at Amazon.com today.