06/3/15

ICYMI: KGB General: Of Course Snowden Is Working for Russian Intelligence

The Right Planet

The XX Committee

Edward-Snowden-FSB

May 23, 2014

As the Snowden Operation devolves into farce, with the inevitable falling-out between Wikileaks and the Greenwald axis happening online for the world to see, it seems that Edward Snowden isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. What contact, if any, he had with foreign intelligence services before he fled Hawaii for Hong Kong and then Russia, where he remains, is an important question that cannot be answered yet with publicly available information. Indeed, it may take years, perhaps decades for a reliable answer to emerge, given the nature of the espionage business. However, nobody familiar with spy games, particularly when Russians are involved, has any doubt the Ed is working for the Russians now. After all, what choice does he really have?

As if to deflect attention from this obvious truth, today President Vladimir Putin publicly denied that Ed is their guy: he “is not our agent, and gave up no secrets.” This should be taken about as seriously as any Kremlin utterance these days, such as claims that Jewish neo-Nazis are running things in Ukraine. For good measure, Putin added that the whole spectacle is really the fault of America’s “unprofessional” intelligence services, who failed to do their job and prevent this unprecedented disaster. Vlad sometimes can’t help himself, adding, “Russia is not a country that gives up champions of human rights,” meaning Ed.

More important is a new interview with Oleg Kalugin, who is a good deal more honest than Vladimir Putin. Titled “Snowden is cooperating with Russian intelligence,” this is an important development, given Kalugin’s position. He is something of a legend in espionage circles, since he was the youngest general in the KGB at the height of the Cold War, heading up the foreign counterintelligence office of the KGB’s elite First Chief Directorate, its overseas espionage arm. As such, Kalugin was responsible for overseeing the recruitment of foreigners working in the intelligence business…in other words, people just like Edward Snowden. Kalugin’s exploits working against U.S. intelligence are the stuff of exciting late-night spy stories, and you can read about some of them in his memoir, which I recommend (if you read Russian, that version is even better).

I don’t know of anybody in the West with better bona fides than Kalugin to discuss the modus operandi of Russia’s “special services,” particularly in their dealings with Western intelligence sources and defectors. Therefore I am including most of the article, since it merits reading:

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden probably never envisioned that he’d someday be working for the Russian federal security service, or FSB. 

But according to former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin, he is now, albeit as a consultant or technical advisor.

“These days, the Russians are very pleased with the gifts Edward Snowden has given them. He’s busy doing something. He is not just idling his way through life.”

“The FSB are now his hosts, and they are taking care of him,” Kalugin boldly claimed in an interview with VentureBeat.

The 80 year-old retired Soviet intelligence officer is Russian spy royalty personified. At 34, he became the youngest KGB general in history, and Kalugin famously helped run Soviet spy operations in America during a career that spanned over three decades.

Kalugin and his wife relocated to Maryland after falling out of favor with the Russian regime in the 1990s. After becoming a vocal critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin (Kalugin called Putin a war criminal for his second invasion of Chechnya), a warrant was issued for his arrest. He’s been in the U.S. ever since.

Kalugin still has juice within Russian intelligence circles and maintains contacts with friends in Russia from his days as a Soviet spy. Kalugin teaches at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies and also sits on the advisory board for the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

Back in Russia, according to Kalugin, Snowden is being handled by the FSB, the KGB’s successor. Kalugin claims that Snowden has shared much of his vast trove of secrets about the NSA with his Russian hosts, and in the process, has allegedly handed the FSB one of their biggest intelligence hauls and propaganda coups since the end of the Cold War.

This claim echoes early warnings from congressman Michael McCaul, senator Dianne Feinstein, lieutenant generalMichael Flynn, and congressman Mike Rogers, yet no concrete evidence proves that such an exchange took place. Snowden has consistently denied claims that he took security documents with him to Russia.

“Whatever he had access to in his former days at NSA, I believe he shared all of it with the Russians, and they are very grateful,” Kalugin claims.

It has been over a year since Snowden downloaded thousands of top secret NSA documents from his stint as a NSA contractor and traveled first to Hong Kong from his home in Hawaii. He arrived in Moscow August 1 after he failed to gain asylum in 30 other countries.

Snowden’s leaks revealed the NSA’s efforts to turn Facebook into a surveillance machine, the agency’s close ties with Google, and the theft of private user data from firms like Yahoo and Apple. In the wake of these revelations, many of the tech industry’s most powerful firms have frantically adopted new security protocols at unprecedented speeds.

Snowden shared his haul with security journalist Glenn Greenwald and other media outlets, like the Washington Post and Germany’s Der Spiegel, shedding unprecedented light on the prodigious intelligence gathering programs of his former employer and sending shockwaves around the world.

Greenwald, who lives in Brazil but is currently traveling in the U.S., did not return emails for comment.

These days, exile in Russia means Snowden, 30, has lots of time on his hands. A source in Moscow with connections to Russian intelligence said the American is believed to be living, at least part time, in a dacha 70 miles south of Moscow in an FSB retirement community reserved for favored cadres.

“He has lots of free time. He doesn’t need to go into the office anymore,” Kalugin said.

Snowden’s location could not be independently confirmed.

While free to leave Russia, Kalugin claims Snowden’s whereabouts are monitored by his FSB handlers, who allegedly control his spending budget and watch over whom he talks with.

In Kalugin’s view, Snowden is guilty of treason.

“Of course he is, by American standards. Snowden is a traitor,” Kalugin said. “When someone changes sides and goes over to the other side, it’s a victory,” he said.

Snowden’s value to his Russian handlers has not totally run its course, claims Kalugin, and the FSB will allegedly use him as a technical consultant and advisor on topics that interest them. His travel in the country also may be coordinated by the FSB, Kalugin said.

But the former KGB general believes that if he wants to, Snowden will have little trouble integrating himself into Russian culture and digging in for the long haul.

“He is not being left alone obviously. The Russians are trying their best to be hospitable,” Kalugin said.

“At this point,” said Kalugin, who has written three books on his 34 years in Soviet intelligence, “the reception in Russia for him has been exceptionally friendly.”

“And I’m sure that Snowden is enjoying it.”

Read more at 20committee.com …

05/22/15

Kremlin Disinformation and Propaganda [VIDEO]

The Right Planet

Via 20committee.com:

I recently was honored to participate at the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC) conference in Washington, DC, where I took part in a discussion of Kremlin disinformation and propaganda. My comments, on Chekist Active Measures and their relevance today, kicks off at 25:25, and the Q&A following the talks may be worth your time. Enjoy (and ignore that JBANC oddly called me a blogger, and that I got cut off in the middle of one of my all-time favorite KGB anecdotes)!

04/29/15

When Partisan Lying by the Press Damages a Nation

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

A Special Report from the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism

The Founders counted on an adversarial press to keep America’s politicians honest and accountable. If our media won’t investigate the backgrounds of our candidates on a bipartisan basis, our entire constitutional system is in jeopardy.

Remember how in 2012 The Washington Post dug into the past of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and reported that during his high school years he helped pin a boy down and cut his hair off.  Their intent was to suggest that Romney had a history of intimidating and harassing people less fortunate than himself. Reporter Chris Cillizza followed up by asking, “Was Mitt Romney a bully? Does it matter?”

On the other hand, Barack Obama’s relationship with a member of the Communist Party who may have been a Soviet espionage agent was not newsworthy when he ran in 2008. Was Obama influenced by a Marxist? Yes. Does it matter? Yes.

But the Post still can’t bring itself to admit the truth.

On February 25th of this year, I thought that things might have changed. That was the day I received an email from Michelle Lee, a reporter on “The Fact Checker” feature of The Washington Post. She said, “I’m looking into a claim made by Rudy Giuliani that President Obama ‘grew up under the influence of Frank Marshall Davis, who was a member of the Communist Party, who he refers to over and over in his book, who was a tremendous critic of the United States.’ I read your AIM article from February 2008. Do you have some time to talk about this?”

I met with Lee on February 26. She reported, “When The Fact Checker arrived, Kincaid had been waiting with four of his peers, stacks of documents and a video camera pointed at an empty seat saved for us.”

Correct. We taped an introduction to our meeting, the meeting itself, and our response. We wanted a complete record of the exchange.

This AIM Special Report is the story of how the Post was seven years late to a Pulitzer Prize-winning story but has still failed to confirm the essential elements of that story. In effect, it is a cover-up on top of a cover-up. What’s more, it has been done under the guise of “fact-checking” a Republican for telling the truth about the Marxist education of a Democratic president.

Lee contacted us because Giuliani’s claim about Obama growing up under the influence of Davis, a member of the Communist Party, was based on information we developed seven years ago. We provided that information to Lee. There’s no question that Davis was a member of the Communist Party and was critical of the United States. Obama grew up under his influence in Hawaii, for as many as eight years of his young life. The claim is absolutely true.

In fact, if the former New York City mayor is going to be criticized for anything, it’s that he too, was late in coming to the story, and that he did not explain in detail the degree of influence that Davis had over Obama.

The Verdict

Almost a month later, on March 23, Ms. Lee reported her findings and accused Giuliani of lying. As we anticipated, the Post didn’t want to admit the truth of Giuliani’s claim because it would raise the issue of why the paper was seven years late to a story involving the background of a major presidential candidate. It’s disappointing, to say the least, that the Post missed the story seven years ago, and that it failed to acknowledge missing the story seven years later under the guise of “fact-checking” Giuliani.

We met Michelle Lee at a hotel and greeted her with a video camera to record everything. She seemed surprised by that. However, she recorded the interview with her own cell phone. Anti-communist analyst and blogger Trevor Loudon, who broke the Frank Marshall Davis story back in 2007, happened to be in town at the time, and joined me in the meeting with Lee.

Trevor and I provided information and documents to Lee during a lengthy meeting.

First, you should know the following about the so-called “Fact-Checker” feature of the Post. As the name implies, this is supposed to be the part of the paper that corrects errors. The paper uses what it calls “The Pinocchio Test.” It says:

“Where possible, we will adopt the following standard in fact-checking the claims of a politician, political candidate, diplomat or interest group.”

  • “One Pinocchio” means “Some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods.”
  • “Two Pinocchios” means “Significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.”
  • “Three Pinocchios” means “Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”
  • “Four Pinocchios” means “Whoppers.”

In her verdict, Lee of the Post gave Giuliani “Three Pinocchios,” for “significant” factual errors or obvious contradictions. In effect, she accused Giuliani of lying. Yet, what Giuliani said was absolutely true.

It seems clear that the purpose of this false finding of “fact” by the Post was to send a message that political figures are not supposed to talk publicly about Obama’s Marxist background. If you tell the truth, you can be accused of lying!

Remember that Lee told us in that email that she wanted to determine the truth of the claim made by Giuliani that President Obama grew up under the influence of Communist Frank Marshall Davis.

She admitted in her so-called findings of fact that Obama’s “anecdotes” from his own book Dreams from My Father “show he was intrigued by Davis’s experiences and insight.”

She also writes this in her column:

“Davis made an impression on Obama, as shown in his memoir. Obama mentions Davis several times in ‘Dreams from My Father’ as someone who influenced his understanding of his black identity. But there is no evidence Obama was ‘raised’ by Davis, or that Davis remained a close Communist mentor who advised him throughout his life.”

So she concedes Davis made an “impression” on Obama, whatever that means, and that Obama was “intrigued” by him. But then she plays a trick on her readers. She quotes Obama’s sympathetic biographer David Remnick as saying the relationship was “neither constant nor lasting, certainly of no great ideological importance.” How does Remnick know this? She doesn’t say. His claim is not subjected to any fact-checking. Remnick, you see, is a former employee of the Post.

The Bait-and-Switch

Ignoring the need for fact-checking those claims, Lee asks, “Why do Kincaid and others believe that the relationship with Davis shaped Obama more than, say, his own experiences and others he met throughout his life?”

This is a bait-and-switch. We did not say that Davis shaped him “more” than anyone else. Obama had plenty of Marxist associates to choose from in his life. Obama clearly admits the significance of Davis in his own autobiography. Why did he include “Frank” in his autobiography if he did not have an influence on his life?

Remember that, after falling under the Davis influence, Obama would go on to college, where, by his own admission, he would associate with Marxist professors and attend socialist conferences. That’s in Obama’s own book, and we told Lee about those references. Obama’s relationships also included going to the church of the anti-American preacher, Jeremiah Wright,  for 20 years, and associating with communist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.  Indeed, they helped launch his political career.

We went over all of this and much more during our meeting with Lee. As I indicated, Loudon was part of our meeting and he went into detail about several of the controversies in Obama’s background, including his contacts with socialists in Chicago.

Ignoring all of this, Lee’s so-called fact-checking article quoted Davis’s son Mark as saying he doesn’t believe his father indoctrinated Obama in communism. At the same time, she admits that Mark Davis “said he did not know his father had been involved with the Communist Party or that he had met Obama until he read about it years after his father died.” So quoting Mark Davis serves no useful purpose. It simply gives the impression that Lee did some serious fact-checking when she just wasted her time and that of her readers.

At this point, it’s important to understand a basic fact about this cover-up.

Obama never mentioned Davis by his full name in his 1995 book Dreams from My Father. Lee knows who Davis is because Loudon identified the “Frank” from Obama’s book as Frank Marshall Davis back in 2007. He provided that information to me and in early 2008 I confirmed the identity of “Frank” as Davis with another source in Hawaii, an associate of Davis. That person was Kathryn Takara. This resulted in my column titled “Obama’s Communist Mentor.” Lee found it seven years after it was published.

Asked why she thought Obama didn’t identify Davis in his book by his full name, Takara told me, “Maybe he didn’t want people delving into it.” Indeed, that is what the evidence suggests.  The question of why is critical.

Investigating “Frank”

It was later that year, in August of 2008, that we released the 600-page FBI file on Davis. It showed Davis was under FBI surveillance for 19 years for his Communist Party activities. A Washington Post reporter, Dana Milbank, had attended our earlier press conference on the Obama-Davis relationship, but he ridiculed the event as a UFO convention. We told Lee about how her paper had botched the coverage of this story.

In 2012, Professor Paul Kengor wrote a book about Davis titled The Communist, noting that Obama mentioned Davis 22 times as “Frank” (never once divulging his full name) and “dozens more [times] via pronouns and other forms of reference.”

I gave Lee a copy of Kengor’s nearly 400-page book.

Lee quotes some of what Kengor has to say about the Obama-Davis relationship. But she was determined to play down the relationship, and maintained that Obama “saw Davis 10 to 15 times as a teenager.” Even if this figure is true, people can be greatly influenced by people they met in person only a few times. Bill Clinton talked about how JFK influenced and inspired him. Yet, he only met him once.

Obama wrote in Dreams from My Father that he saw “Frank” only a few days before he left Hawaii for college, and that Davis seemed just as radical as ever. Davis called college “an advanced degree in compromise” and warned Obama not to forget his “people” and not to “start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit.”

This is also the time when Obama had told Davis about his own white grandmother being accosted by a black panhandler. In response, Davis told Obama that his grandmother was right to be scared and that “She understands that black people have reason to hate.”

As Paul Kengor points out, Davis was always critical of “the American way.” He notes, “That diatribe against ‘the American way’ is very revealing, is it not? Davis used it constantly. In fact, there are 38 uses of it in my book.”

Strangely, Lee maintains that Davis “was critical of American society, but not America as a country.” This is another example of where Lee goes astray, trying to make a point that is either irrelevant, nonsensical, or both.

Kengor notes that when the audio version of Dreams from My Father was released in 2005, all 22 references to Davis were deleted. He notes this was done as Obama was preparing for a run for the presidency and “no doubt feared being tied to closely to a man who joined the Communist Party under Stalin and had been so radical that the federal government placed him on the Security Index.”

This is a critical point. If the Davis influence was little or none, why cover this up?

From “Frank” to Frank Marshall Davis

Lee ignored all of this. Again, the obvious question is, if Obama’s relationship with Davis was so innocent, why cover up his full name? Why drop the references to “Frank” in the audio version of the book? The answer is that Obama never expected anyone to identify “Frank” as Communist Frank Marshall Davis. He thought his secret would remain safe.

Giuliani had said that Obama grew up under the influence of Davis. That was a simple and straightforward factual observation. All of the evidence shows that to be true. But nobody to our knowledge has even bothered to ask Obama anything about it publicly during the first six years of his presidency.

Instead of asking Obama about it, Lee and the Post now change the argument to the claim that Obama was indoctrinated or “raised” by Davis and “Remained a close communist mentor who advised him throughout his life.” But nobody with knowledge of the Obama-Davis relationship has made that claim.

Since Davis died in 1987, he could not have been an advisor throughout Obama’s whole life. Nobody with knowledge of the relationship would pretend otherwise.

The term “close communist mentor” is subject to interpretation, but Kengor analyzed in detail Davis’s writings for Communist Party newspapers and how his claims have been echoed in Obama’s views on economic matters. Citing Kengor’s book and other research, we also demonstrated in a major article how Davis’s anti-white racism clearly has influenced Obama’s views on race relations as President.

Lee wrote that Davis had “affiliations with more than a dozen leftist groups, including the Chicago Civil Liberties Committee, CIO unions and the National Committee to Combat Anti-Semitism” (emphasis added). The latter would seem to suggest that Davis opposed anti-Semitism. In fact, the book, The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946, names Davis as one of several black poets who continued to publish in Communist Party-supported publications after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. That means Davis was not bothered by the Soviet alliance with the Nazis which started World War II.

Pornographer, Pedophile and Atheist

The facts are that Davis mentored Obama for up to eight years of his young life, before Obama left Hawaii to attend college. Obama refers to “Frank” giving him advice on subjects such as race relations, but not sex. That is another significant omission that the Post decides it must not address.

Kathryn Takara, who confirmed to me that “Frank” was indeed Davis, wrote a book about Davis, titled, Frank Marshall Davis: The Fire and the Phoenix. She confirms that Davis not only wrote a pornographic novel, Sex Rebel: Black, which was “largely autobiographical,” but that he became “anti-Christian,” even writing a poem speaking of Christ irreverently as a “nigger.” An atheist, Davis “exposed the irony and hypocrisy of Christianity,” she said.

The Davis book, Sex Rebel: Black, refers to the main character, Davis, having sex with a 13-year-old girl named Anne. This makes Davis a pedophile.

Takara admits that Davis lived in a “world of sexual pleasures, multiple partners, and erotica.” She writes about the Davis obsession with bizarre sexual practices and pornography in her book. But Lee completely ignores this dimension of the story.

Yet, David Maraniss admits in his book, Barack Obama: The Story, that Obama wrote a poem about Davis called “Pop,” with some strange lines about stains and smells on shorts. “He looks at Pop and sees something that repels him and attracts him, that he wants to run away from yet knows he must embrace,” Maraniss wrote. Obama’s writing a poem about Davis certainly suggests a very close relationship that may in this case border on the sexual. Writer Jack Cashill says the poem has definite “sexual overtones.”

Whatever the ultimate truth about Obama’s own sexual proclivities and inappropriate personal relationship with Davis, it cannot be denied that the President’s “fundamental transformation” of America has also occurred in the sexual realm. Obama has relentlessly pushed the homosexual agenda on the United States, including and especially in the U.S. military.

In this regard, it’s important to note that Obama’s book Dreams from My Father not only hides the real identity of “Frank,” it covers up Obama’s extensive use of illegal drugs. This is where Maraniss truly does his homework and performs a public service. He says that Obama was a major dope smoker, not the occasional user we were led to believe. Maraniss says Obama was a member of the “Choom Gang,” a group of heavy users of the drug.

In another area, Obama’s alleged Christianity, we must ask: Did the atheism and anti-Christian views of Davis influence Obama’s views on Christianity? He ran as a Christian in 2008. He was brought up as a Muslim and attended a church in Chicago that allowed Muslims to worship. As President, Obama doesn’t attend church very much, a fact that occasionally generates some attention, and he has publicly complained about some Christians many years ago who practiced violence. However, violent jihad on display throughout the Middle East and the world today is not labeled as such by the Obama administration. Instead, Muslim terrorists are called “extremists.”

So it looks like his alleged Christianity may be another deliberate deception.

Was Lee Pressured to Lie?

Michelle Lee seemed to be a nice person who was genuinely interested in the facts. There has got to be an explanation for why she turned in such a dishonest performance.

She reports to the actual “Fact Checker,” a veteran Post reporter by the name of Glenn Kessler. If he were to conclude, at this late date in the Obama presidency, that a communist had a significant influence on Obama, it would be big news. The Post would have egg all over its face for ignoring the story for seven years.

Consider this. If Lee had found Giuliani’s claim to be truthful, it would have made the Post look very bad. After all, this paper had missed the significance of the story seven years ago. Second, it would have made Remnick look bad. He is the former Post reporter who wrote The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. Remnick is the source of the claim that the Davis-Obama relationship was “neither constant nor lasting, certainly of no great ideological importance.”

To find that Giuliani told the truth would mean that Remnick was wrong. The Post just couldn’t admit that.

This controversy alone suggests the paper went into this matter determined to make a Republican, former New York City Mayor Giuliani, look bad. We had that suspicion from the start.

The Remnick book was published in 2010, more than two years after Trevor Loudon and I broke the story of Obama’s relationship with Davis. If Remnick had admitted the known facts about the relationship even in 2010, it would have raised the question of why the Post and other media had missed the story back in 2008. That, too, would have been embarrassing.

Realizing that he missed the big story of Barack Obama’s background and mentor, Remnick dismisses the significance of the revelations. He writes in his book that “the right-wing blogosphere” had accused Davis of being a card-carrying communist, a pornographer, and having a pernicious influence on Obama. The term “right-wing blogosphere” is designed by Remnick to minimize the significance of what we discovered back in 2008. He says we were “loud and unrelenting.” But Remnick does not refute what we uncovered. The fact is we did the investigations the Post and other media failed to do.

Lee concedes that Davis had a Communist Party card number. We had provided that piece of evidence to her initially. She later asked for another copy. Yet, she tries to dismiss the significance of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which investigated communist activities in Hawaii. She writes that the committee and the FBI “were quick to label people and organizations with dissenting views as Communist.” She seems to be trying to suggest that perhaps he was not a communist by using the word “quickly.” In fact, when Davis was given the chance to deny his party membership, he took the Fifth Amendment before the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. His lawyer, Harriett Bouslog of the National Lawyers Guild, was also a member of the Communist Party.

Lee never even touches the matter of Davis being a pornographer, and it is important to look at how she gets around it. As I also told her during our meeting, Davis was a pornographer who specialized in photos of nude women. That is why the FBI’s mention of his filming the Hawaii coastline is so significant.

Here’s how Lee deals with that issue: “Davis had an interest in photography. In Hawaii, he took pictures of shorelines, apparently not photographing any particular objects, according to an FBI informant. That implies he might have been taking photos for espionage, to send to Soviet leaders to target Hawaii as a strategic territory, said Kincaid and Trevor Loudon, a libertarian activist who also researches this topic.”

The Evidence of Espionage

Lee goes on to say: “He [Davis] was an activist, but there is no evidence that Davis was a hard-core Communist who spied for Soviet leaders.” But Davis was indeed a hard-core communist. That’s why he had a party card with a party number. The Communist Party was funded and controlled by Moscow.

One of the most disturbing FBI documents refers to the information we gave Lee that Davis “was observed photographing large sections of the [Hawaii] coastline with a camera containing a telescopic lens.” The FBI document states:

Informant stated that DAVIS spent much of his time in this activity. He said this was the third different occasion DAVIS had been observed photographing shorelines and beachfronts. Informant advised that it did not appear he was photographing any particular objects.

There’s no explanation for why Davis took pictures of the coastline, since he usually took pictures of nude women. We do know he was on the FBI’s security index, reserved for national security threats who could be detained during a period of war or national emergency. Members of the Communist Party such as State Department official Alger Hiss did become Soviet espionage agents.

My associate and friend, the late anti-communist researcher Herbert Romerstein, noted in a report which I provided to Michelle Lee:

“…the Hawaii Islands and the naval base at Pearl Harbor were essential for the defense of the United States. The Comintern, with its eye on possible Soviet expansion in Asia, wanted to remove that impediment. Over a period of time, American communists were sent to Hawaii to colonize the island and to promote the growth of the communist movement there.” The Comintern was the name for the Moscow-directed International Communist Movement.

As Romerstein documents in his report, Davis was sent to Hawaii as part of that effort. It makes sense from the communist perspective that he might be tasked with taking photos that had strategic value to the Soviets.

If Davis was in fact a Soviet espionage agent, that fact raises the additional question of whether he recruited others to the communist cause. The Post clearly doesn’t want to go there.

Pretending to be an expert on Marxism, Lee writes that “Obama has shown to be an ineffective Communist, if he were one. He has failed to unravel the capitalist system over the past six years that he has held the most powerful position in the world …”

That’s a strange thing for a journalist with limited experience on the subject to say. Is she saying he could be a Marxist but he is just not a good one? And what makes her think that he wants to “unravel” the capitalist system? This shows how ignorant she is of Marxist methods. The Communist Chinese have not “unraveled” the capitalist system, either.  Like Lenin, they have used the capitalist system to secure and enhance their power. Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy, welcomed Western investment in order to build up the military power that he has since used to invade Ukraine.

Finally, Lee says about the Davis influence on Obama, “We may never definitively know one way or another, but it is time to put it to rest.”

This is the story the media wish would go away. But it won’t.

Lee says she “definitively” doesn’t know if it is true or not but she knows enough to call me, Giuliani, and Loudon liars for noting the Davis influence on Obama as he was growing up in Hawaii.

Lee tries desperately to play down the significance of Davis’s membership in the Communist Party. But it is extremely damaging and telling. Showing how hard-core he was, Davis had called the decision by black writer Richard Wright to expose the Communist Party after leaving the party an “act of treason.” Davis said Wright had “aided only the racists who were constantly seeking any means to destroy cooperation between Reds and blacks” and had “damaged our battle.”

Wright contributed to the important 1949 book, The God That Failed, a collection of the testimonies of a number of famous ex-communists. Davis never gave up on the Marxist cause. But neither has Obama.

It would have been easy enough for Obama to have admitted Frank’s true identity in his book, and to have dismissed him as a communist crank. Obama did not do that. He attempted to conceal his true identity while confirming his role as a mentor. He never thought anyone would put the pieces of the puzzle together and determine “Frank” to be Davis. Loudon, an analyst from New Zealand, deserves great credit for this scoop.

Trevor had been tipped off to “Frank’s” true identity when a communist historian named Gerald Horne made a reference to his relationship with Obama in a 2007 speech. He found the speech while monitoring a communist website. In my 2008 column confirming this identification, I had noted that Frank Chapman, a Communist Party supporter, had written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator’s victory in the Iowa caucuses against Hillary Clinton.

He wrote, “Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle.”

Chapman wrote that Karl Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, “who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,’ not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.”

The suggestion is that Obama is a communist mole. Not only would he be our first Marxist president, but perhaps the agent of a foreign power.

Hillary’s Interest in the Davis Story

We were not the only ones concerned about Obama’s relationship with Davis during the 2008 campaign.

Hillary Clinton’s associate Sidney Blumenthal had circulated my article, “Obama’s Communist Mentor,” in an effort to question and damage Obama’s character and electability. That was in May 2008. Later that year, of course, Obama was elected president and picked Mrs. Clinton as his Secretary of State. That made disclosures about the Davis-Obama relationship from the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party less likely after Obama took office.

Obama’s deal with Hillary may have been straightforward: drop the Davis story, become Secretary of State, and have a shot to run for the presidency after Obama’s term or terms expire.

Whatever the motivation for the cover-up, the Post and other media had a duty back in 2008 to report the facts. The American people might have voted against a candidate under Marxist influence if they had been told the truth about Obama and Davis.

The Post, which brought down President Richard Nixon over a third-rate burglary and cover-up called Watergate, decided instead to go along with the Obama cover-up. And the cover-up continues, seven years later. It’s a sad commentary on the quality of American journalism and media ethics. The treatment of Davis demonstrates a partisan bias that has affected the course of our nation and the world.

We all know that Nixon, a Republican, was a special target for the Post. He had been a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and had seized upon the hidden documents known as the Pumpkin Papers of former communist Whittaker Chambers in order to make the case that former State Department official and United Nations founder Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy.

Washington Post Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein had an axe to grind against those, like Nixon and HUAC, who went after communists. He had written a book, Loyalties, about his parents, Al and Sylvia Bernstein, being members of the Communist Party. For whatever reason, Bernstein’s Watergate collaborator, Bob Woodward, was also not interested in “vetting” Obama during the 2008 campaign. He, too, missed or ignored the story of the Obama-Davis relationship.

In the end, history shows that Nixon was found guilty and forced out of office for what other presidents had done, a fact documented by Victory Lasky in his book, It Didn’t Start With Watergate. Nixon’s downfall brought to power Democrats who cut off aid to South Vietnam, producing a Communist bloodbath and genocide in Southeast Asia.

If destroying a Republican president can damage a nation, saving a Democratic President like Obama can have political repercussions as well. Haven’t we seen the evidence all around us, in domestic and foreign policy areas? It’s unclear if the U.S. will ever be able to recover.

Exposing Obama’s Marxism Still Matters

We have to entertain the possibility that, seven years later, Lee may have been pressured by her colleagues at the Post to whitewash the evidence against Obama and Davis that we had presented to her. If anything, the Post is and has long been a reliable organ of the Democratic Party.

My video on this entire process will serve as the historical record of a cover-up that has historical significance for the United States and the world. The public has a right to the facts that the major media concealed from them back in 2008.

As we have seen with their treatment of Giuliani’s remarks, the Post continues to obscure the facts and mislead its readers and the public at large. That is why we need your continuing help to set the record straight and put pressure on this paper to finally, once and for all, report the truth.

It is clearly an uphill struggle. Obama supporters and Internet “trolls” have sanitized the Wikipedia page on Frank Marshall Davis in order to eliminate any hint that Obama’s Marxist policies are being driven by the relationship he had with a Communist Party operative under surveillance by the FBI.

A better source is the page on Davis maintained by KeyWiki, a site established by Trevor Loudon. It goes into substantial detail about the Communist activities of Davis and examines his relationship to Vernon Jarrett, who was later to become the father-in-law to Valerie Jarrett, now a senior advisor to President Obama.

The Davis-Obama relationship was a Watergate-type story that was ignored at the time by Woodward and Bernstein and their colleagues in the “mainstream media.” Yet, even Matt Drudge and his Drudge Report refused to take paid advertising drawing attention to the Davis-Obama relationship.

Today, the Post continues the cover-up by attacking the messengers who bring the truth forward. We will not be silenced. Giuliani and other Republicans should not back down.

The Van Jones Story

It is still a story of Watergate proportions. It’s true that Davis was only one of many different influences on Obama. But he was there at a critical time in his life—his teenage years. And the history shows the Marxism-influenced Obama, as he continued associating with Marxists throughout his career, even as he assumed the presidency and picked such characters as Van Jones, a “former” communist, to be his Green Jobs Czar.

Jones is only one example of Obama’s Marxist policies in action. But the example is a good one. Jones lost his job when Loudon struck again, disclosing Jones’ communist background, in a story picked up by Glenn Beck, then with Fox News. Jarrett had said “they,” obviously referring to Obama administration people, had noticed Jones’ work in Oakland, California, where Jones had been an anti-police activist.

The Van Jones case is worth noting because it, too, shows the continuing influence of Davis on Obama. Davis, Jones, Obama and apparently Jarrett all share the same anti-American ideology and background.

Jones was forced out of his post, possibly to keep Congress from investigating the White House process that resulted in his appointment in the first place.

Yes, Frank Marshall Davis is dead, but his influence lives.

Postscript: After the Post tried to smear us as liars for noting the evidence of Frank Marshall Davis’s influence over Obama, a video from 1995 suddenly surfaced on the Internet and was discovered, in which Obama explicitly names “Frank” as Frank Marshall Davis and refers to how the communist had schooled him on the subject of white racism. In effect, Obama was admitting his student-teacher relationship with Davis. It was more evidence of what we had been saying all along.

It may have been the case that Obama’s supporters thought the release of the video wouldn’t make any difference at this time. There may be some truth to that. After all, didn’t Obama just crack a joke about a pot-smoking socialist in the White House in his talk before the White House Correspondents dinner? And weren’t those who were laughing in the audience some of the same journalists who have been covering the White House?

The joke’s on us.

03/5/15

How Frank Marshall Davis Transformed America

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

When Rudolph Giuliani mentioned that President Barack Obama, as a young man, was under the influence of Communist Party member and suspected Soviet espionage agent Frank Marshall Davis, Giuliani struck a nerve. In contrast to his claim that Obama didn’t love America, his remarks about the Davis-Obama relationship were not opinion, but fact. That is why a Washington Post fact-checker has been assigned to investigate Giuliani’s claim. We shall see whether the Post, at this late date, covers a story that could have been Pulitzer Prize-winning material more than seven years ago.

As the former New York City mayor noted, Obama’s grandfather turned him over to Davis for mentoring. His black father had taken off and his mother was mostly spending her time elsewhere. But the question remains: what kind of influence are we talking about? Paul Kengor’s book, The Communist: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor, explains Davis’s influence on Obama’s economic views. Rusty Weiss and I quoted Kengor in a piece we did on how Davis’s anti-white racism also influenced Obama.

Less well-known is how Obama adopted Davis’s outlook on sexual matters.

Davis, who died in 1987, was a heavy drinker and marijuana user who wrote a pornographic novel, Sex Rebel, disclosing that he had sex with children, including a 13-year-old girl.

The Davis view, according to his friend, Kathryn Waddell Takara, incorporated a “world of sexual pleasures, multiple partners, and erotica.” Takara writes about the Davis obsession with bizarre sexual practices and pornography in her book, Frank Marshall Davis: The Fire and the Phoenix.

Davis mentored Obama for as many as eight years of his young life, before Obama left Hawaii to attend college. Obama, however, only referred to Davis as “Frank” in his book, Dreams from My Father. Obama refers to “Frank” giving him advice on subjects such as race relations, but not sex.

However, Takara confirms that Davis wrote a pornographic novel, Sex Rebel, which was “largely autobiographical,” and that he became “anti-Christian,” even writing a poem speaking of Christ irreverently as a “nigger.” An atheist, Davis “exposed the irony and hypocrisy of Christianity,” she said.

Davis was a pornographer himself and specialized in photographs of nude women. Some of these are still on display in the Frank Marshall Davis Collection at Washington University in St. Louis.  Takara writes about Davis having “an ample supply of African American women models” for his work. However, the FBI took note of his habits when agents found him taking photographs of the Hawaii coastline, apparently for espionage purposes. This development is mentioned in Davis’s 600-page FBI file. Davis was on the FBI’s “security index” and was considered a potential national security threat.

Much controversy over the years concerned a poem Obama wrote about “Pop.” Sympathetic Obama biographer David Maraniss noted its strange lines about stains and smells on shorts, and confirmed that the subject was Davis. Writer Jack Cashill says the poem has definite “sexual overtones.”

Whatever the ultimate truth about Obama’s own sexual proclivities and inappropriate personal relationship with Davis, it cannot be denied that the President’s “fundamental transformation” of America has also occurred in the sexual realm. And even the Pentagon has not gone unscathed.

Defense Department officials have said that hormone treatment for gender reassignment has been approved for Bradley/Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of espionage for sending classified documents to WikiLeaks.

Almost three years ago, in our May 14, 2012 column, “How Our ‘Gay President’ Learned About Sex,” we noted that the media’s love affair with Obama had been heightened by his embrace of same-sex marriage. Rather than resist, important figures in the media, including the conservative media, have embraced the Obama/Davis revolution.

As traditional conservatives prepare to “March for Marriage” on April 25, within days of the Supreme Court debating cases that will decide the legal status of marriage, the news broke this week that billionaire David Koch, who pours millions of dollars into conservative and libertarian groups, is backing a legal challenge to state laws that protect traditional marriage.

Jennifer Rubin, who writes the Right Turn blog for The Washington Post, has already embraced the Obama position and hopes that the Supreme Court will “put the issue to rest as a legal matter.”

Joining Rubin in the surrender to the Obama/Davis cultural transformation of America is Ana Navarro, a CNN political commentator who says she is joining the brief before the court. Navarro was the National Hispanic Co-Chair for Senator John McCain’s Presidential Campaign in 2008.

Other signatories from the media world on the pro-homosexual brief include:

  • David Frum, a senior editor at The Atlantic
  • Richard Grenell, an openly homosexual Fox News contributor
  • Alex Castellanos, a Republican media advisor and CNN contributor
  • Margaret Hoover, a self-described gay rights activist and CNN contributor
  • Nicolle Wallace, the so-called “conservative” on ABC’s “The View”

he National Organization for Marriage disagrees, saying, “One thing the U.S. Supreme Court won’t be able to do is redefine marriage, because marriage was created by God himself as the union of one man and one woman, and no judge or politician has the power to change it.”

Concerned Women for America continues to affirm that “marriage consists of one man and one woman,” and that “We seek to protect and support the Biblical design of marriage and the gift of children.” The group objects to the “disrespect for family and for the unique contribution of fathers and mothers,” and the “attempt to eliminate natural distinctions between men and women.”

Conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly, the founder of Eagle Forum, told a Huffington Post writer during the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that the battle for the traditional family will continue. She said, “I’m extremely disappointed that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, even the Democratic Party and the churches, have been saying, ‘Well soon the court will decide, and that will be it.’ But a lot of people thought that about Roe v. Wade, and we’ve seen the whole abortion issue turned around in the last ten years.”

Schlafly’s latest book, Who Killed the American Family?, laments how advocates of traditional marriage “retreated into ominous silence” after the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act in the 2013 case of United States v. Windsor.

One possible factor in a coming backlash to the homosexual rights movement was highlighted in a CPAC speech by Phil Robertson of the “Duck Dynasty” television show. Describing the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, which affect homosexual men more than any other group, he said, “You want a godly, biblical, medically safe option? One man, one woman—married for life.”

Robertson was presented at CPAC with the Second Annual Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award by Citizens United and the Breitbart News Network. Homosexual militants and their “progressive” allies tried to force his “Duck Dynasty” show off the air after Robertson made comments affirming traditional values and describing homosexuality as unnatural.

Citizens United President David Bossie said, “Having Phil Robertson and his family as a part of American culture has changed this nation for the better. Week after week, millions of Americans see a family living out their faith and their values boldly and without reservation. Despite the best attempts of the mainstream media and Hollywood liberals, the Robertson patriarch and his family are still on television and they are as popular as ever.”

Matt Schlapp, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, the main sponsor of CPAC, said, “Robertson personifies the importance of holding tight to that which gives our lives meaning. For Phil Robertson, that includes his family, the Lord above, and of course creating havoc in the Louisiana countryside. We are honored to have him at this year’s CPAC.”

It appears that there is resistance to the Frank Marshall Davis “vision” of America. But how long will CPAC and the traditional conservatives be able to resist?

One fact is certain: the major cable channels, including Fox News and CNN, are dominated by “conservatives” who embrace the Obama/Davis sexual revolution.

02/23/15

The Mysterious “Frank” Returns

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Yesterday’s news became big news on the Fox News Channel on Thursday when former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani brought up the name of President Barack Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. It was almost seven years to the day when we published our seminal piece about Davis, “Obama’s Communist Mentor.”

Davis was a member of the Communist Party and a suspected Soviet espionage agent. He was included in the FBI’s security index, meaning that Davis could be arrested or detained in the event of a national emergency. The FBI file on Davis documents his anti-white and pro-Soviet views, infiltration of the Hawaii Democratic Party, and other activities.

Davis also wrote an autobiographical and pornographic sex novel, Sex Rebel, disclosing that he had sex with a young girl and engaged in shocking and bizarre sexual activities.

Giuliani’s public identification of Davis and discussion of his role in grooming a young Barack Obama marks the first time, in my memory, that a top Republican has ever mentioned the Davis-Obama relationship. It was done in the context of Fox News’ Megyn Kelly of questioning how Giuliani could dare ask whether Obama loves America.

If the Republicans had brought this up during the 2008 campaign, Obama might have been defeated and the country could have been spared the last six years of “progressive” hope and change. The Davis-Obama relationship is something so damaging and corrupt that its public airing would have raised questions about the Democratic Party’s vetting of Obama and the direction of the Democratic Party itself.

However, Republican operative Karl Rove was warning Republicans not to accuse Obama of being a socialist. He said such a charge would generate a negative backlash. The result in 2012 was another Obama victory.

Now that it has become apparent to more and more people that Obama is not a traditional liberal Democrat and is, in fact, a Marxist with Muslim sympathies, a figure such as Giuliani feels compelled to speak out. So let’s take a look at what Giuliani said.

“I don’t feel it. I don’t feel this love of America,” Giuliani said, talking about Obama. “I’m talking about a man who grew up under the influence of Frank Marshall Davis who was a member of the Communist Party, who he refers to over and over in his book, who was a tremendous critic of the United States.”

Kelly countered that Obama “was raised in part by his grandparents. His grandfather served in World War II, his grandmother worked in a munitions plant to help the nation during World War II. I mean, to suggest he was raised by people who don’t love America or didn’t help him learn to love America.”

Giuliani argued that “his grandfather introduced him to Frank Marshall Davis, who was a communist.” He added, “You can fight in World War II, and then you introduce someone to a Communist and the young boy gets…”

After Kelly interjected that “it’s a political world view. It’s not a hatred for the country,” Giuliani responded, “Communism wasn’t hatred for America?”

Giuliani is correct about the Davis influence over Obama and the role that the grandfather played in picking Davis as a mentor.

But when Giuliani notes that Obama refers to Davis “over and over in his book,” Dreams from My Father, it’s important to point out that Davis was not identified as Frank Marshall Davis in that book. Instead, Obama identified him merely as “Frank.” The rest of the story was put together by anti-communist researcher Trevor Loudon, and we confirmed the identification with another source in Hawaii who was a close friend of Davis.

Even more of the story was put together by Paul Kengor in his authoritative book on Davis, The Communist. It appears that Davis was an influence over Obama for about nine full years, until Obama was 18 and went off to college. Obama went off to college and, by his own admission, would attend socialist conferences and pick Marxist professors as his friends.

This relationship alone would have disqualified Obama from getting low-level federal employment. The loophole in our system is that background checks are not required for federal elected officials. Our founders counted on a free press to review the fitness of those running for office.

When former Obama adviser David Axelrod talks about Obama being free from major scandals, he is ignoring the biggest scandal of all—how Obama concealed his Marxist upbringing and relationship with Davis. Axelrod of course was part of the cover-up. When “Frank” was identified as Davis, the Obama campaign insisted he was just a civil rights activist.

As we reported at the time, news organizations such as the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Newsweek and even Fox News ignored or downplayed Davis’s communist sympathies.

As Giuliani indicated, there are other influences on Obama that help explain his anti-Americanism. These include the “community organizing” philosophy of Saul Alinsky, his pastor Jeremiah Wright and the communist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Giuliani clearly feels, at this stage in Obama’s presidency, that some things have to be said openly for the sake of the country. A former crime-busting U.S. Attorney who was mayor of New York City at the time of 9/11, Giuliani fears for the future of our country. But it’s not just the fate of America that is at stake. It is clear that Obama has no love for America’s traditional allies, such as Israel. Hence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to America to plead his case personally. He is afraid that Obama wants to make a deal that will allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Now that Giuliani has publicly raised some inconvenient truths about Obama, the “progressives” and their media allies will naturally scream and cry “McCarthyism.”  Strangely taking this tack, Fox News’ Kelly wondered if Giuliani’s comments about Obama had damaged “the Republican brand.” The Republican brand will only be damaged by an inability to face facts and confront and expose anti-Americanism at the highest levels of the United States government. It is shocking that it has taken this long for the evidence to emerge publicly on a national basis on Fox News and other channels.

This controversy will help determine what direction the Republicans will take. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who has made it his job to protect Obama from the fallout from major scandals, was quick to label Giuliani’s remarks about Obama as “stupid.” He also attacked Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker as “spineless” for saying Giuliani “can speak for himself,” and not directly challenging what the former mayor had said

“What Scott Walker did ought to disqualify him as a serious presidential contender,” wrote Milbank.

This is a signal from one of Obama’s best friends in the media that the information unearthed by Giuliani is of the blockbuster variety. Giuliani went for the jugular and hit a gusher.

The first thing Republicans can do is simply challenge the media to report on the Davis FBI file. They have been avoiding it for over six years.

Congress could also investigate Obama’s communist connections, which stretch from Hawaii to Chicago, and question the FBI about what they knew, if anything, about the Obama-Davis relationship. The reestablishment of House and Senate internal security committees, including a loyalty program for U.S. officials to eliminate security risks, should be considered.

Republicans could remind people that it was anti-communist Democratic President Harry Truman who started the first loyalty program. He issued executive order 9835 establishing the program in 1947.

The executive order said that “each employee of the Government of the United States is endowed with a measure of trusteeship over the democratic processes which are at the heart and sinew of the United States,” and declared that “the presence within the Government service of any disloyal or subversive person constitutes a threat to our democratic processes…”

It is time for a background check on the President of the United States. Does he pass the loyalty test?

02/22/15

“America’s Enemies in Hollywood Then and Now” – UPDATED

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival


Actor Bryan Cranston (right) plays Soviet/Nazi agent
of influence Dalton Trumbo in the upcoming film “Trumbo

A press conference on “America’s Enemies in Hollywood Then and Now” will be held on February 24 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to offer commentary on the direction of the Academy Awards and the politics of Hollywood.

Sponsored by America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI), a public policy organization, the event will also explore whether Congress should reinstate a committee on un-American activities and internal security – the same kind that led to the exposure and “blacklist” of Stalinist Communists in Hollywood. Copies of the new book, Blood on His Hands: The True Story of Edward Snowden, will be available. The book analyzes the Snowden espionage operation and how Hollywood is working to glorify the illegal leaker and traitor.

Other topics will include:

  • How the Muslim Brotherhood lobby and Arab/Muslim money interests have been manipulating Hollywood.
  • The federal lawsuit against the Edward Snowden film, “Citizenfour,” and whether the film was even eligible for an Oscar at the Academy Awards.

Date: February 24, 2015 (two days after the Oscars are announced).

Location: Zenger Room, National Press Club,
529 14th Street Northwest, Washington, D.C.

Time: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Open to the press and the public.

Hosted by Cliff Kincaid, President, America’s Survival, Inc., the event is free and open to the public and will feature:

  • Allan H. Ryskind, author, Hollywood Traitors; editor-at-large, Human Events. Allan Ryskind is the son of Hollywood screenwriter Morrie Ryskind, who co-wrote many screenplays on the Marx Brothers and many Broadway musicals. His father, along with Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Walt Disney, and many others, led the charge against the Communist movement in Hollywood.
  • Trevor Loudon, author, The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress. Loudon has called for Congressional hearings into internal subversive activities.
  • Deborah Weiss, Esq. is a contributing author to the book, Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Terrorist Network, and is the primary writer and researcher for the book, Council on American-Islamic Relations: Its Use of Lawfare and Intimidation.

Copies of the new book, Hollywood Traitors, will be available for signing by the author. For more information, please go to: www.usasurvival.org 443-964-8208

02/17/15

Suit Seeks Financial Damages from Snowden Inc.

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Oscar-nominated movie “Citizenfour,” which features NSA defector Edward Snowden and celebrates his theft and release of classified documents. Snowden and his associates are being sued for financial damages for providing aid and comfort to America’s enemies.

Filed on behalf of a retired naval officer who saw the film and took offense at Snowden’s illegal activities, the suit says Snowden and his associates have participated in “a scheme to profit from stolen U.S. government property” and have no right to the money generated by the film. Snowden, who has been charged with espionage and is currently living in Russia, makes regular appearances via video to his supporters in the U.S. He spoke, for example, to a Koch Brothers-sponsored International Students for Liberty conference on February 13.

The “Citizenfour” film has already been shown in theaters, is up for an Oscar at the Academy Awards on Sunday night in the “documentary” category, and is then scheduled to air on the HBO cable channel the night of Monday, February 23.

The suit alleges that the film “glorifies international espionage for profit” and that Snowden’s “dissemination of top-secret documents to foreign enemies” has “seriously damaged” U.S. national security, putting the lives of Americans at risk. Information included in the complaint (Exhibit A) also alleges that the film is not eligible for an Oscar nomination because its entry violates the rules for documentary awards.

While the lawsuit has generated some interest from outlets like The Hollywood Reporter, it has not garnered the national press attention it deserves. Yet, the lawsuit has a very strong factual basis. It cites the 1980 precedent of Snepp vs. United States, in which a former CIA officer was denied the right to gain a profit from a book based on information obtained and then released to the public, in violation of his standard secrecy agreement.

Like Snepp, Snowden violated a secrecy agreement. What’s more, it has been reported that Snowden stole highly classified “Tier 3” documents about ongoing NSA operations. The NSA is part of the Defense Department and its mission is to support military men and women as they fight America’s foreign enemies.

The lawsuit shines a light on how Snowden’s disclosures have put our citizens, military personnel and allies in danger.

Snowden’s disclosures have been blamed for enabling the Russians to conduct a surprise invasion of Ukraine, and for the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS, to unexpectedly grow in power and strength in the Middle East. Former CIA officer Robert Baer has said, “…ISIS has been reading Snowden…they know to stay off phones, stay off e-mail and the rest of it. They’re communicating with mobile Wi-Fi. They can beat the National Security Agency…”

In addition to Snowden, defendants in the lawsuit include his collaborator Laura Poitras, the director of “Citizenfour,” and the Weinstein Company, which is distributing the film in the U.S.

To attempt to rectify the damage done to U.S. foreign policy, the lawsuit seeks the establishment of a “constructive trust” to hold the funds generated by the film. The suit argues that a trust would enable the government “to obtain an accounting of all monies, gains, profits, royalties, and other advantages that all Defendants have derived, or will derive in the future, from the publication, distribution, sale, serialization, or republication in any form, including any other rights, of the work entitled ‘Citizenfour,’ whether or not such gains remain in Defendant Snowden’s possession or in the possession, custody or control, whether direct or indirect, of any other Defendant herein.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Horace B. Edwards, a patriotic retired naval officer and former Secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation. Edwards is also a former president of both a pipeline and an engineering company.

His local newspaper, the Topeka Capital-Journal, quotes him as saying that he went to watch the film and soon realized that it was celebrating illegal activity that hurt the United States. Edwards said he had a security clearance while working for the government and would never think of disclosing secret documents. He contacted a local attorney, Jean Lamfers, a former journalist, to bring the legal action.

“Plaintiff Edwards views Defendant Snowden’s acts as dishonorable and indefensible and not the acts of a legitimate whistleblower,” the lawsuit says.

The defendants have argued that their activities are protected by the First Amendment, and that Edwards doesn’t have the standing to sue.

As previously noted by Accuracy in Media, “Citizenfour” shows Snowden in Hong Kong, China, after arranging through encrypted messages to meet his collaborators and disseminate his stolen NSA documents. We argued that the film describes what amounts to an espionage operation to damage America and our allies. Snowden fled from China to Russia, where he is under the control of the Russian secret police, the FSB.

Because of the damage inflicted by Snowden and his associates, the suit anticipates that “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars” will be needed “to protect human assets placed at risk, restore/revamp computer infrastructure, rebuild relationships with foreign governments, and respond to various enemies’ resurgence efforts, due to the blowback associated with the film and the release of classified information to foreign enemies of this Nation.”

A similar estimate has also been made by former CIA officer Baer, who said about Snowden, “…this guy has done more damage to U.S. intelligence than I’ve seen anybody do. And he’s gone way beyond…protecting privacy of Americans…It’s going to cost us billions.”

Catherine Herridge, chief intelligence correspondent for the Fox News Channel, noted in December of 2013, “A review of the NSA leaks by Fox News shows the majority of the leaks since June now deal with sources, methods and surveillance activities overseas, rather than the privacy rights of American citizens.”

We commented at the time that the evidence showed that Snowden “stole NSA documents and leaked them for the express purpose of weakening America’s defenses against terrorism.”

The lawsuit highlights the financial nature of the Snowden operation, and how he and his associates stand to make millions of dollars from undermining U.S. national security.

01/13/15

Do Not Be Fooled by Recent Struggles. Russia Poses a Direct Threat to America and Her Interests.

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

While the media spikes the football in the face of a Russia hobbled by U.S. sanctions, the decline of the ruble and collapse in oil prices, Vladimir Putin’s protectorate poses a direct threat to America and its interests that we ignore at our own peril.

In the 15 years since Vladimir Putin ascended to his position as de facto czar, Russia has executed a long-term strategy that the West has failed to recognize and effectively counter under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West thought it had defeated the Soviet Union. But unlike in a hot war, the victor did not annihilate its enemy, nor did the enemy’s leaders ever face the gallows.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in fact resembled a corporate reorganization more than the fall of an empire, as heads rolled and the state spun off assets (many later to be “reclaimed”), but the company and its culture endured.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1991 signified the end of Communist rule in Russia.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1991 signified the end of Communist rule in Russia.

In the face of difficult circumstances, Russia, understanding the mindset of its “former” foes, made the brilliant decision to join the West through economic and diplomatic “cooperation.”

This convergence strategy gave the outward appearance of a liberalizing Russia, but consistent with its historical adeptness at subversion and subterfuge, proved a clever way to rebuild, gain leverage over and embed itself within its enemies.

Russia opened itself to trade to raise capital and procure technology that it could use to exploit its natural resources, rebuild its military and enrich Vladimir Putin and his cronies.

In so doing, Russia developed energy pipelines that not only provided it with wealth, but power over not just its “near abroad” — which could literally be made to freeze were it not compliant — but Western Europe. Stated differently, it brought America’s NATO allies into Russia’s orbit.

Russia also allegedly stole a significant amount of information and technology.

Perhaps most terrifying of all, Russia embedded itself in a world business and financial architecture that it could penetrate and exploit.

On the diplomatic front, Russia became a U.S. “partner” in the “War on Terror,” a curious position given that Russia was and is a key ally of Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terror. Vladimir Putin of course was the first world leader to call President George W. Bush on Sept. 11, 2001. We do not know all the ramifications of U.S. and Russian intelligence collaboration.

***

Despite a crumbling civil society rife with corruption, the suppression of dissent, rigged elections and the fact that the average life expectancy of a 15-year-old male is three years lower in Russia than in Haiti, Putin’s kleptocratic regime, aided by its powerful propaganda machine, and deceptive religious veneerremains overwhelmingly popular.

This is in no small part due to the fact that during Putin’s reign, Russia has strengthened itself against a West it portrays as aggressive, which has actually remained largely asleep.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, poses to the press as he prepares for arm wrestling during his visits in the Seliger youth educational forum  near Lake Seliger, some 450 kilometres (281 miles) northwest of Moscow, in the Tver region, Russia, Monday, Aug. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, poses to the press as he prepares for arm wrestling during his visits in the Seliger youth educational forum near Lake Seliger, some 450 kilometres (281 miles) northwest of Moscow, in the Tver region, Russia, Monday, Aug. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)

To wit, leaving aside foreign adventures in Ukraine and Georgia, under Putin:

Layer these data points on top of Russia’s economic and diplomatic relations with other anti-American regimes around the world, and it is difficult to find any trouble spot for the West that you can scratch without finding a Russian apparatchik.

***

While conventional military strength, intelligence operations and economic warfare against the U.S. are potent weapons in Russia’s arsenal, two recent asymmetric operations alone indicate low-cost high reward tactics Russia could employ to greatly damage our nation and her interests: (i) The terror attacks in France, and (ii) The little-noticed second cyber-attack ever to cause physical damage in world history, after Stuxnet.

On terrorism, while it is likely not in Russia’s interest to directly attack the U.S., sponsoring jihadist proxies provides plausible deniability, and maximal gain at minimal cost.

Lest you think this scenario unrealistic, it was Putin’s own FSB that was alleged to carry out attacks on Russian citizens as a pretext for war in Chechnya in 1999. Russia in fact has a long history of support for terrorism, from Yasser Arafat and the PLO, to alleged ties to Al-Qaeda including senior leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Cyber-terror, to the degree to which it can be masked, could prove equally potent, with the potential to cripple critical U.S. infrastructure and sow chaos at minimal cost.

Again, Russia already has a template from its actions in Estonia, not to mention some of the recent attacks on American institutions alleged to have emanated in Russia.

***

America deludes itself if she does not wake up to the multi-faceted Russian threat.

Russia’s strategic thinking, abundant natural resources and associated economic leverage, defense and intelligence capabilities pose a challenge that sanctions notwithstanding, the West is currently ill-equipped to handle.

Moreover, leaders in the West refuse to acknowledge either out of fear, ignorance, or political correctness (often a combination of the two), that Russian actions to back our enemies, end a dollar-based economy, terrorize those in its immediate orbit, while strengthening its control over Western Europe, all while flexing its muscle in U.S. airspace, indicate aspirations far beyond just rebuilding the Soviet Empire.

This file photo shows President Barack Obama with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Ireland in June. Photo Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

This file photo shows President Barack Obama with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Ireland in June 2014. Photo Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

Recent struggles if anything portend even more dramatic actions by the Putin regime — all likely negative for the West and freedom more broadly — by a leader who is now even clamping down on allies, while seeking propaganda victories to rally his people.

In order to effectively deal with Russia, as with the Islamic world, America must understand the country’s goals, strategies and tactics.

Only then can we devise a coherent plan to deter the threat, and with it, preserve Western civilization.

This piece was written to accompany the three-part series “The Root: Red Storm” on The Glenn Beck Program airing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night at 5 p.m. ET on TheBlaze TV.

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