John Simkin

She has been marking papers for several years. This is something very different. For example, a question is answered correctly. It is worth 2 marks but if the English is poor she was only allowed to give it 1 mark.

A friend of mine has just finished marking GCSE Science scripts. She forecasts that there will be a decline in achievement grades this year. The reason for this is that this year examiners have been told that students must be marked down if they do not answer in grammatical correct sentences. As a result, the students have received lower marks than in previous years. She says that this has particularly hurt students where English is not their first language.

What do you consider to be the most important information you discovered about the JFK assassination when you were writing the book?

Joseph McBride has agreed to answer questions on his new book, Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit (2013)

After many appeals from serious researchers I have decided to reopen the JFK Forum. I will once again try to make it a place where members can rationally discuss the evidence. This time rule (iv) will be rigorously applied: Members should not make personal attacks on other members. Nor should references be made to their abilities as researchers. Most importantly, the motivations of the poster should not be questioned. At all times members should concentrate on what is being said, rather than who is saying it. It is up to the reader to look at the biography submitted by the poster, to judge whether they are telling the truth or not. The word xxxx is banned from use on the forum. We have tried warning persistent offenders and placing people on moderation. This seemed to have little impact on their long-term behaviour. In future I will be applying a zero-tolerance policy. If someone breaks the rules, I will remove their right to post on the Forum. In this way I hope to persuade some of those important researchers to return to the Forum.

On 9th June I started a thread on the Future of the JFK Forum. I explained the reasons why I established the JFK Forum in March, 2003 and why I was so concerned about the way it had deteriorated into a Forum of bullying and personal abuse. I said I would make one last effort to make it work. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20259 However, it soon became clear that I did not have the full support of my moderators. One of them, Gary Loughran, actually used the thread to carry out an attack on me. In real life, I have surrounded myself with kind and supportive friends. They know who I am and act accordingly. My life is good and it is virtually without conflict. Yet on the Forum I have to take this abuse. I can no longer endure the stress this creates. Nor do I have the time or energy to try to keep people under control. My original vision of JFK researchers coming together to share information in a collaborative and friendly way does not appear to be favoured by enough members to make it work. I have therefore decided to close it down and let members form the kind of Forum that is more to their liking.

As usual you make some shrewd comments. It is true that long-term researchers become “high and mighty when a newbie re-explores what they have been told is a dead end, and refuses to take the elder statesman's word on it.” However, there have been people like Bill Simplich who have done important recent research. But he avoids abuse by not posting on Forums like this. The problem with JFK research is it is tribal. People get into groups and will then defend its members even if they are wrong. It also has a pack hound mentality. They attack in groups in order to keep individuals they disagree with from posting. There are several members who don’t behave like this, but there is not enough of them to change the atmosphere of the JFK Forum. Young historians are not willing to get involved in JFK assassination research. It is a subject that has been largely ignored by professional historians. Not because they are convinced that there was no conspiracy, but because of a lack of reliable evidence. If there ever was documentary evidence of a provable conspiracy, it has long been destroyed. Therefore, everything is speculation. Historians are not very comfortable with this concept and are unlikely to spend a lot of time on this subject (it helps to explain why virtually every book written on the case, for and against, have been journalists, lawyers or amateur historians). Historians concentrate on writing books based on available sources. Of course they do not always agree about the past. Interpretation of sources (or only consulting sources that support your theory). However, unlike books on the JFK assassination, it does not usually rely on speculation.

Can you explain what you mean by this?

This is untrue. Your email saying it was “tongue in cheek” was sent (18 June 2013 08:03). My post was an hour earlier at 7.02. My reference to “sarcasm” was in reply to your email on 09th June 2013 10:11 when you said: “Perhaps you will also be going to California to Jim Fetzers conference where Janney is appearing this summer. I suggest taking some acid before attending, proceedings will likely appear much more sensible and your policy making might also change as a result.”

I have always considered your behaviour exemplary. You understandably withdraw when it gets too heated. It is true that there is conflict in the academic world. However, I have never encountered as much conflict as I have on JFK forums. As I said before, the real problem was not between those who believed in the lone-gunman theory and those who were convinced it was a conspiracy. The real conflict was between those who believed in different conspiracy theories. Sometimes they agreed on the overall theory but disagreed passionately on some minor detail. In my case, I seem to have upset most people by my willingless to believe that JFK had numerous affairs. In reality, this has nothing to do with the conspiracy to kill JFK.

It is possible that Gary is right that my recent actions are linked to my age. I will be 68 this month. When I was brought up by my parents after the war I was brought up with certain values. They were what sociologists have called respectable working-class. I was taught not to steal or cheat and to be polite at all times. When I was eleven years old I was made a prefect at my junior school. I rushed home to show my dads prefects badge. Much to my surprise, my dad gave me a lecture on the dangers of being a prefect. In fact, he advised me to always question those in authority. I remember the conversation well because it was the last one we had. A few days later he was killed in a road accident. My parents have obviously shaped my personality. Although I always question those in authority, I always try to do it politely. At times it has cost me a great deal (it was clearly not good to be a teacher in the school system with a belief that you should always question those in authority) but at least I can go to my grave believing I am upholding my parents values. However, I suspect that Garys comments were not only directed against my old fashioned values. He is probably suggesting that I am suffering from mental deterioration. I suppose I am not the best person to judge if this is the case. However, I am willing to complain that somehow that when people reach the age of 60 their opinions must not be taken seriously. It is true that some of the people who have supported me have been over 60. But that is probably true of my critics such as Robert Charles Dunne. It is an interesting idea that the under 60s need a new forum for new ideas and new research." Maybe you should actually do this. If you do, I promise that I will not react by only allowing members over 60.

Edward Snowden is interviewed by the Guardian today. It includes the following: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower US officials say this every time there's a public discussion that could limit their authority. US officials also provide misleading or directly false assertions about the value of these programs, as they did just recently with the Zazi case, which court documents clearly show was not unveiled by PRISM. Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it. Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

Interesting theory by Naomi Wolf although the CIA would have been well-aware of these contradictions and would have been corrected if it was a CIA operation. In the 1980s British students were frightened away from left-wing activity by "leaks" stating that British intelligence had created a "blacklist" that would stop stop them from getting jobs in the future. We now know that these lists really did exist. However, it was the "leaks" that actually reduced left-wing activism on the campus.

I have scanned the relevant posts, John, and I cannot find where Tom calls Albarelli "a xxxx". Can anyone else? Are we to be told exactly when and how Tom and Jim broke forums rules in such a manner that earned them expulsion from the forum without fair warning? Are we entitled to any explanation or under the "new regime" are we supposed to just knuckle under? In my original posting on this matter I gave a link to: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19016 The quote I had in mind was the following Tom Scully, on 27 May 2013 - 7:24 PM, said: "Last year, when Peter Janney was prone to mistakes, exaggeration, and pomposity , I did not expect Hank Albarelli to speak out to distance himself from Janney and to account for the statements Janney attributed to Albarelli in "Mary's Mosaic". Now that Janney is in the business of making claims misleading to the point that they are deliberate lies, Albarelli's continued silence about what Janney has attributed to Albarelli in "Mary's Mosaic" is inexcusable." Remember, these are the words of a moderator, whose role is apparently to people from posting abuse of fellow members. I have had numerous complaints from members over the past few months pointing out that Tom continually flouted the rules that he was supposed to be enforcing. Tom Scully and Jim DiEugenio were not removed from this Forum for any individual breach of Forum rules. My decision was based on what I considered a long-term campaign into bullying members into not posting on this forum. It is a decision I will not revoke. I have received several emails from members who have thanked me for making this decision, admitting that in the past they have been intimidated from posting. As I explained earlier, this is my last effort at attempting to promote the idea of a reasoned debate on the JFK assassination.

When I was in Australia a couple of years ago I was informed by one member of this forum that he had heard from a reliable source that I was a CIA agent who had started this forum so it would be easy for the agency to track the activities of JFK researchers. Of course, I am not, but if I was, I would do something like this. Do you know the story of Roman Malinovsky? He was a Bolshevik who was recruited by S. P. Beletsky, the director of Okhrana (the Russian Secret Police) in 1911. Beletsky later admitted that: "Malinovsky was given the order to do as much as possible to deepen the split in the Party. I admit that the whole purpose of my direction is summed up in this: to give no possibility of the Party's uniting. I worked on the principle of divide et impera." Beletsky ordered Malinovsky to "attach himself as closely as possible to the Bolshevik leader (Lenin)". Beletsky later testified that, in view of this important mission, he freed his agent at this time "from the further necessity of betraying individuals or meetings (though not from reporting on them), as arrests traceable to Malinovsky might endanger his position for the more highly political task." Malinovsky met Lenin in 1912. According to Bertram D. Wolfe: "When he met Lenin at the Prague Conference of 1912, he was thirty-four, robust, ruddy complexioned, vigorous, excitable, a heavy drinker, a rude and eloquent orator, a gifted leader of men." Lenin was impressed with Malinovsky and suggested that he should join the Bolshevik Central Committee. Lenin also advocated that Malinovsky should be a Bolshevik candidate for the Duma. Malinovsky became known as an eloquent and forceful orator. Before making his speeches he sent copies to Lenin and S. P. Beletsky. After being elected in October, 1912, Malinovsky became the leader of the group of six Bolshevik deputies. Lenin argued: "For the first time among ours in the Duma there is an outstanding worker-leader. He will read the Declaration (the political declaration of the Social Democratic fraction on the address of the Prime Minister). This time it's not another Alexinsky. And the results - perhaps not immediately - will be great." Malinovsky was now in a position to spy on Lenin. This included supplying Okhrana with copies of his letters. In a letter dated 18th December, 1912, S.E. Vissarionov, the Assistant Director of Okhrana, wrote to the Minister of the Interior: "The situation of the Fraction is now such that it may be possible for the six Bolsheviks to be induced to act in such a way as to split the Fraction into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Lenin supports this. See his letter (supplied by Malinovsky)". Rumours began to circulate that Malinovsky was a spy working for Okhrana. This included an anonymous letter sent to Fedor Dan about Malinovsky's activities. Another Bolshevik leader, Nikolai Bukharin, became convinced that Malinovsky was a spy. David Shub, a member of the Mensheviks, has argued: "There was a wave of arrests among the Bolsheviks in Moscow. Among those rounded up was Nikolai Bukharin... Bukharin, then a member of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party, had distrusted Malinovsky from the start, despite the latter's assiduous attempts to win his confidence. For Bukharin had noticed several times that when he arranged a secret rendezvous with a party comrade, Okhrana agents would be waiting to pounce on him. In each case Malinovsky had known of the appointments and the men whom Bukharin was to meet had been arrested." Bukharin wrote to Lenin claiming that when he was hiding in Moscow he was arrested by the police just after a meeting with Malinovsky. He was convinced that Malinovsky was a spy. Lenin wrote back that if Bukharin joined in the campaign of slander against Malinovsky he would brand him publicly as a traitor. Understandably, Bukharin dropped the matter. Nadezhda Krupskaya later explained: "Vladimir Ilyich thought it utterly impossible for Malinovsky to have been an agent provocateur. These rumors came from Menshevik circles... The commission investigated all the rumors but could not obtain any definite proof of the charge." Instead of carrying out an investigation into Malinovsky, Lenin made him his deputy inside Russia. In 1912, the wife of Alexander Troyanovsky, was arrested. As David Shub, the author of Lenin (1948) has pointed out: "In February 1913 Troyanovsky's wife, who had just returned from Austria with instructions from Lenin, was arrested in Kiev. She had been asked to become secretary to the Bolshevik group in the Duma. Important secret documents were found in her possession. Very few people had known of her arrival. Both Bukharin and Troyanovsky suspected Malinovsky's hand in her arrest. To confirm their suspicions, Troyanovsky sent a registered letter to his wife's father, telling him he knew who had betrayed his wife to the police and that he was determined to square accounts with the informer. The letter brought the results Troyanovsky expected. His wife was immediately released." S. P. Beletsky later testified that when he showed this letter to Malinovsky he "became hysterical" and demanded that she was released. In order that he remained as a spy Beletsky agreed to do this. Shub argues: "Convinced now that his wife's arrest was the work of an agent provocateur, Troyanovsky investigated the details of her trip to Russia, whom she met there - as well as the circumstances of her arrest and release. All the evidence pointed strongly to Malinovsky." After discussing the matter with Nikolai Bukharin, both men wrote to the Central Committee demanding that Malinovsky appear before a Party court. Lenin, speaking for the Central Committee, forbade them to spread these rumours about Malinovsky. Lenin called their action worse than treason, and threatened to have them expelled from the Bolsheviks if they persisted. Bukharin obeyed, but Troyanovsky decided to resign from the party. In June 1914 Lenin published an article in Prosveshchenie, where he continued to attack people like Jules Martov and Fedor Dan who continued to denounce Malinovsky as a spy: "We do not believe one single word of Dan and Martov.... We don't trust Martov and Dan. We do not regard them as honest citizens. We will deal with them only as common criminals - only so, and not otherwise... If a man says, make political concessions to me, recognize me as an equal comrade of the Marxist community or I will set up a howl about rumors of the provocateur activity of Malinovsky, that is political blackmail. Against blackmail we are always and unconditionally for the bourgeois legality of the bourgeois court... Either you make a public accusation signed with your signature so that the bourgeois court can expose and punish you (there are no other means of fighting blackmail), or you remain as people branded... as slanderers by the workers." After the Russian Revolution the Bolsheviks got hold of the Okhrana files and discovered that Malinovsky was indeed a spy. He was arrested and at his trial he made a full confession. He was executed a few hours after the trial ended. Si Liberman has argued: "Malinovsky's life was a series of crimes, his talents, his mind, and his will being used for one purpose: to sell himself at the highest possible price where he could do the most possible harm to the liberation of the working class. He will go down in history as one of its greatest traitors." http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSmalinovsky.htm

An article by Daniel Ellsberg in today's Guardian is well worth reading: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-united-stasi-america Obviously, the United States is not now a police state. But given the extent of this invasion of people's privacy, we do have the full electronic and legislative infrastructure of such a state. If, for instance, there was now a war that led to a large-scale anti-war movement – like the one we had against the war in Vietnam – or, more likely, if we suffered one more attack on the scale of 9/11, I fear for our democracy. These powers are extremely dangerous. There are legitimate reasons for secrecy, and specifically for secrecy about communications intelligence. That's why Bradley Mannning and I – both of whom had access to such intelligence with clearances higher than top-secret – chose not to disclose any information with that classification. And it is why Edward Snowden has committed himself to withhold publication of most of what he might have revealed. But what is not legitimate is to use a secrecy system to hide programs that are blatantly unconstitutional in their breadth and potential abuse. Neither the president nor Congress as a whole may by themselves revoke the fourth amendment – and that's why what Snowden has revealed so far was secret from the American people. In 1975, Senator Frank Church spoke of the National Security Agency in these terms: "I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." The dangerous prospect of which he warned was that America's intelligence gathering capability – which is today beyond any comparison with what existed in his pre-digital era – "at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left." That has now happened. That is what Snowden has exposed, with official, secret documents. The NSA, FBI and CIA have, with the new digital technology, surveillance powers over our own citizens that the Stasi – the secret police in the former "democratic republic" of East Germany – could scarcely have dreamed of. Snowden reveals that the so-called intelligence community has become the United Stasi of America. So we have fallen into Senator Church's abyss. The questions now are whether he was right or wrong that there is no return from it, and whether that means that effective democracy will become impossible. A week ago, I would have found it hard to argue with pessimistic answers to those conclusions. But with Edward Snowden having put his life on the line to get this information out, quite possibly inspiring others with similar knowledge, conscience and patriotism to show comparable civil courage – in the public, in Congress, in the executive branch itself – I see the unexpected possibility of a way up and out of the abyss. Pressure by an informed public on Congress to form a select committee to investigate the revelations by Snowden and, I hope, others to come might lead us to bring NSA and the rest of the intelligence community under real supervision and restraint and restore the protections of the bill of rights. Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA's surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans' and foreign citizens' privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we're trying to protect.

Will do.

Great quote. I have not heard that before.

Pat, what message is being sent in the process which selected Tom and Jim's membership for deletion? The message is that it's John's Forum, and that he is only willing to put up with so much. So DON'T PUSH THE ENVELOPE. Several years back, John got into a fray with Tim Gratz. I supported Tim on the specific point in question (John had misquoted Tim about something), but supported John for ousting Tim anyhow. So why support John? Because this is JOHN'S forum, which is akin to his LIVING ROOM. That's how I see it. We are guests in John's living room, having a discussion. If we ask him for entry into his home, in order to talk to his other guests, and get out of hand, and abuse one of HIS other guests, well, then, we shouldn't be surprised when we're shown the door...ESPECIALLY if the guest was a friend of John's, invited by John into his home to discuss his work. It's that simple to me. We're his guests. And should act like it. On a point of information, Tim Gratz threatened me with legal action for pointing out his role in Watergate. Gratz, a disbarred lawyer, knew enough about the legal system to make life difficult for me when I visited the States. Yes Pat, you are right, I do consider this forum as like my home and have been unhappy for sometime about the way people behave in it. I am hoping that this decision will make people think twice before abusing other members. If it does not, then I will close it down and you can all get out of my house and find your own venue.

I do not mind what people's opinions are. They can disagree as much as they want to. All I am asking is that they do not break rule (iv): “Members should not make personal attacks on other members. Nor should references be made to their abilities as researchers. Most importantly, the motivations of the poster should not be questioned. At all times members should concentrate on what is being said, rather than who is saying it. It is up to the reader to look at the biography submitted by the poster, to judge whether they are telling the truth or not. The word “xxxx” is banned from use on the forum.”

Andy Walker and I started the Education Forum in December 2003. The main objective was to create a place to discuss educational issues. At the time we were both involved in several educational projects, including the European Virtual School. If you look at the following thread you will see the biographies of our early members. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=530 A second objective of the forum was to enable people to engage in debate about the content of my Spartacus Educational website. This was important because my website contains information on controversial subjects. In fact, it was started in September 1997 to support the History National Curriculum (England and Wales). An important feature of this curriculum is to study the different interpretations of the past. In those early months of the Forum we had some interesting discussions about educational issues and the content of my website. Although members strongly disagreed about some of these subjects all the members treated each other with respect and no one was banned nor did we need to have moderators. In March 2004 I was asked if I would start a new section of the Forum on the subject of the JFK assassination. I had taught the subject in the classroom as an “interpretation” exercise since 1979 and had put some of this material on the website in 1998. At the time, there was very little material of the subject and was appearing near the top of search-engine inquiries (this was a time before Google). I agreed to this request and the first posting took place a few days later on the subject of David Atlee Phillips. The main objective of this section was to bring together researchers into the assassination of JFK. As I said a few months later: “It is hoped that this forum will enable researchers to share information they have acquired about the case. In this way, the forum will become a major way of communicating information about the assassination to the wider community (we have a far larger number reading the forum than those posting information).” In the early days of the JFK forum authors of books on the assassination, were willing to discuss their material on the subject. I was aware that people held strong opinions on the assassination but I had no idea of the level of hatred that people had for fellow researchers. The real problem was not between those who believed in the lone-gunman theory and those who were convinced it was a conspiracy. The real conflict was between those who believed in different conspiracy theories. Sometimes they agreed on the overall theory but disagreed passionately on some minor detail. These discussions often resulted in members making abusive comments. The worst offenders were members who saw JFK as some Jesus Christ type figure who was killed because he was trying to save the world. Therefore, anyone who suggested that JFK was a flawed individual faced the prospect of venomous attack. Several of the authors who had been attacked told me they were no longer willing to post on the Forum because of the abuse they received. At that time I considered closing down the JFK section of the forum. It was causing me more grief than it was worth. However, at the same time, the forum did contain good researchers who were always polite and argued their case in a logical manner. I therefore asked for volunteers to moderate the forum. It was a thankless task but some people did volunteer to do the job. In November, 2004, I posted the new forum rules. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2243 It included (iv): “Members should not make personal attacks on other members. Nor should references be made to their abilities as researchers. Most importantly, the motivations of the poster should not be questioned. At all times members should concentrate on what is being said, rather than who is saying it. It is up to the reader to look at the biography submitted by the poster, to judge whether they are telling the truth or not. The word “xxxx” is banned from use on the forum.” Members often broke this rule and persistent offenders were warned about their behaviour. Some were put on moderation but it seemed to have little impact on their long-term behaviour. I have to confess that by this stage I was completely disillusioned with the JFK Forum and rarely read it and only occasionally posted items that I thought members might find interesting. Occasionally I received emails from friends bring my attention to what some members were saying about me on the forum, other people’s forums and websites. Some of these unpleasant comments were about my so-called support of Peter Janney’s book, Mary’s Mosaic. It is true that I believe that the CIA were involved in the death of Mary Pinchot Meyer as can be seen on my page on her and the discussion that I started on 23rd March 2005. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3520 It seems my main sin was not that I was blaming the CIA for her death but because I was suggesting that JFK had affairs with women. I posted this attack on me by Jim DiEugenio here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=11208 I even allowed Jim to join the Forum in June 2010 so he could continue his attacks on me. I am not complaining. I think these attacks say more about Jim than me. However, to my eternal shame, I did not protect Peter Janney enough when his book Mary’s Mosaic was published in 2012. What made it worse was one of his main tormentors was one of our moderators, Tom Scully. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19058 http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19777 http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19367 The main reason I did not act on this was because I was part of the argument. If I had tried to restrain these attacks I would have been accused of being biased and interfering with free speech. Even so, it was no real excuse for not protecting a friend. Last week I received an email from Hank Albarelli Jr. about a thread about his book, "A Secret Order" http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19016 I had not read the thread before and would have assumed it would have been dealt with by the moderators. In fact, the main offender was one of the moderators, Tom Scully, where he breaks the Forum rules by calling Albarelli a xxxx. Hank argues: The recent posts and actions of James DiEugenio and one Tom Scully are accomplishing nothing but the gross discrediting, and perhaps destruction, of the forum. These two fellows seem to be on some sort of pathological campaign to damage and discredit any forum member who may happen to disagree with them or that posts something they don't agree with. Their destructive campaign against Peter Janney is a very good example. Their blatant attempt to coerce me into that campaign is yet another fine example of how devious and harmful these two individuals can be. (The fact that Scully lists himself as a site "moderator" is quite surprising to me.) I noted you in my new book as a fine historian, and also highly praised the forum and several of its members, but I would hesitate to do that again given the actions of the above two fellows. I fear that they are making a mockery of the forum and are using it simply for their own devices. Quite sad to observe and experience. I find I am in complete agreement with Hank’s comments and have decided to delete Jim DiEugenio and Tom Scully membership. This is a start of a new regime at the Forum. If any other member makes abusive comments about a fellow member, their membership will also be deleted. If anyone tries to subvert this measure by posting comments of banned members, they will also be removed from the forum. This is the last chance for the JFK Forum. If this new approach does not work, the whole forum will be removed.

The reason why this thread is in this section is because of the possible impact on JFK research (especially those who make contact with people outside of the US). Spokesman for the CIA have said on British television that the use companies like Google to spy on foreigners rather than US citizens. That is not very reassuring for British citizens (or for US citizens in contact with "foreigners"). This story will have a tremendous impact on the way "foreigners" see Google. This comes not long after discovering the way Google avoids paying tax in the UK. This weekend the Bilderberg group meet at the Grove hotel in Watford. David Cameron will be there. So will George Osborne, the founder of Amazon (another company that does not pay its tax and therefore destroys local businesses), chairman of Google, the chief executives of both BP and Shell, Marcus Agius, the CEO of the defence manufacturer EADS, Thomas Enders, and the Goldman Sachs International chairman, Peter Sutherland.

BBC follow-up to the Guardian story. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22809541 US spy chief James Clapper has strongly defended government surveillance programmes after revelations of phone records being collected and internet servers being tapped. He said disclosure of a secret court document on phone record collection threatened "irreversible harm". Revelations of an alleged programme to tap into servers of nine internet firms were "reprehensible", he said. The director of US national intelligence said he wanted to reassure Americans that the intelligence community was committed to respecting their civil liberties and privacy. He issued a strong-worded statement late on Thursday, after the UK's Guardian newspaper said a secret court order had required phone company Verizon to hand over its records to the National Security Agency (NSA) on an "ongoing daily basis". That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that US agencies tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms to track people in a programme known as Prism. The reports about Prism will raise fresh questions about how far the US government should encroach on citizens' privacy in the interests of national security. The NSA confirmed that it had been secretly collecting millions of phone records. But Mr Clapper said the "unauthorized disclosure... threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation". The article omitted "key information" about the use of the records "to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous safeguards that protect privacy and civil liberties". He said reports about Prism contained "numerous inaccuracies". While admitting the government collected communications from internet firms, he said the policy only targets "non-US persons". Prism was reportedly developed in 2007 out of a programme of domestic surveillance without warrants that was set up by President George W Bush after the 9/11 attacks. Mr Clapper said the communications-collection programme was "designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-US persons located outside the United States". "It cannot be used to intentionally target any US citizen, any other US person, or anyone located within the United States," he added. Mr Clapper said the programme, under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was recently reauthorised by Congress after hearings and debate.

Interesting article in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers. Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program. In a statement, Google said: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data." Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. "If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge," one said. An Apple spokesman said it had "never heard" of PRISM. The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012. The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US. It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants. Disclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers. The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata. Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is our priority" – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online. Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.

If you do a search for "Google and the CIA" at Bing the top search is: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/9612 If you do the search at Google it does not appear.