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Posted

Are people from the United States allowed to talk about the Kurdish question, the NSA, US Russia relations?

Posted (edited)

RT

Encrypted email service ( used by Snowden ) mysteriously shuts down :

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States,” the owner of lavabit.com said in the statement.

edit edit

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Edited by John Dolva
Posted
What does Dalight Saving have to do with the price of eggs in China?
Started by John Dolva, Aug 07 2013 04:11 PM

Are people from the United States allowed to talk about the Kurdish question, the NSA, US Russia relations?

?????????????????

Posted
What does Dalight Saving have to do with the price of eggs in China?
Started by John Dolva, Aug 07 2013 04:11 PM

Are people from the United States allowed to talk about the Kurdish question, the NSA, US Russia relations?

?????????????????

Sorry, I misspelled Daylight. Qurious little palindrome though. Thanks Len. Cheers.

Posted (edited)

oookay ... what does the title have to do with the 1'st post? Not a bad question to start with.

It goes to the heart of the matter.

In order to begin to glimpse the answer one must consider such diverse topics I've been posting in the last period, such as Fiat, and posts on the Kurds which are lightly sprinkled in other past posts, considerations about the Iranian Revolution in real time and the follow on years of war with Iraq with particular attention to western imeperialisms interests and actions.

In using prices one introduces the concept of market. In presenting that with a slang phrase one hopefully introduces a bit of humour, which is always nice, but primarily it allows the introduction of a pertinent allegory about the difficulty in stepping back from an issue and looking at the larger picture objectively.

Certain currect actions serve to point to a larger plan.

My ultimate thesis is to determine to what extent a war economy is being implemented and to what extent the apparent hobbling of western media and to some extent various others sources avoid the difficult questions even to the point of not acknowledging they exist at all even though many commentators from many groupings and individuals as well try to raise the debate to a significant level. This refusal to step out of a mode of thinking that accepts the status quo and to consider far wider much more important questions has the tinge of fascist societal control modus.

Hence the question of to what extent US controlled people in particular can.feel/talk about these matters and if not why not.

The combination of a developing war economy and the relentless development of a spy state and all that that entails, when that happens in a country so weak on international issues yet in position of having weapons of mass destruction far in excess of any other sovereign nation is clearly showing its willingness to use them overtly and covertly a discussion on these fundamental matters can help one to get a better predictive position with regard to coming events and the things unfolding today.

Thank you.

edit typo

Edited by John Dolva
Posted

RT

Encrypted email service ( used by Snowden ) mysteriously shuts down :

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States,” the owner of lavabit.com said in the statement.

edit edit

"The owner of the encrypted email service used by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden says he could face criminal charges for refusing to comply with a secret federal court order issued last week.

Ladar Levison abruptly shut down his company, Lavabit LLC, last week to avoid being forced to hand over customers’ personal information and communications."

http://rt.com/usa/lavabit-owner-fears-surveillance-arrest-595/

"Levison plans to challenge the secret order in a federal appeals court. He told NBC that he has been “threatened with arrest multiple times over the past six weeks.”

He stated that he has complied with court orders for information on targeted customers in the past, but insists the latest order is vastly different in scope and scale.

“I think the amount of information that they’re collecting on people that they have no right to collect information on is the most alarming thing,” he told RT. “I mean, the Fourth Amendment is supposed to guarantee that our government will only conduct surveillance on people in which it has a probable suspicion or evidence that they are committing some crime, and that that evidence has been reviewed by a judge and signed off by a judge before that surveillance begins. And if there’s anything alarming, it’s that now that’s all being done after the fact. Everything’s being recorded, and then a judge can after the fact say it’s okay to go look at the information.”

Following Levison’s move to shutter Lavabit, encrypted internet service provider Silent Circle has followed suit. Other encryption services have suggested that they would do the same if put in a similar position by the US government."

_________________

http://rt.com/usa/north-carolina-opening-nsa-facility-593/

"The Washington Post published top-secret documents Thursday night which provide a glimpse into just how often the NSA breaks the law and invades the privacy of Americans. Thousands of violations were recorded in each of the years since the NSA’s power was expanded in 2008."

Posted
News 112
10.08.2013 19:17 President of Iraqi Kurdistan ready to defend Kurds in Syria

... would intervene militarily to defend Syrian Kurds. In a letter which ... their own state. Iraqi Kurds have already sent food, ...

09.08.2013 10:55 Kurds in way: Witness account of atrocities as Al-Nusra Front asserts northern Syria position

... ’s civil war has already become more complex even without the Kurds participating in it, and that these latest happenings may go ...

07.08.2013 08:26 UNSC should condemn crimes committed against Kurds in Syria - Lavrov

... reported slaughter of 450 Kurd civilians, including more than ... taking over some Kurdish towns. Syrian Kurds have tried not to be ...

Op-Edge 26
16.08.2013 13:00 US could easily verify massacre of Kurdish civilians in Syria if they wanted

... Kurdish people want – self-government over the areas where the Kurds live is an inherent part of our political project. Some ...

15.08.2013 13:45 ‘No friends but the mountains’: Washington seeks to ensnare Kurds

... , there was an attempt to recruit the Syrian Kurds. The Syrian Kurds were cautious and the recruitment attempts failed. Despite ...

09.08.2013 12:50 US remains 'uninterested' as Kurds massacred by Syria’s militant opposition

... last two months. This latest wave of violence against Syrian Kurds comes at a time when Turkish–Kurdish relations have been on ...

Posted

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23745201

Thousands of refugees from Syria are pouring over the border into Iraqi Kurdistan, the UN refugee agency says.

Up to 10,000 crossed at Peshkhabour on Saturday, adding to an earlier influx of 7,000 on Thursday.

The UN agencies, the Kurdish regional government and NGOs are struggling to cope, correspondents say.

The UN says the reasons are not fully clear, but there has been a sharp rise in clashes between Syrian Kurds and anti-government Islamist militants.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says this is one of the biggest single waves of refugees it has had to deal with since the uprising against the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

Posted

http://rt.com/news/uk-detain-greenwald-partner-terrorism-645/

David Miranda was passing through London en route from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with Greenwald - the Guardian journalist who in a series of articles helped Edward Snowden to reveal the scale of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs.

Miranda was detained for questioning by security officers at Heathrow around 8am local time, under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Officials held him for almost nine hours without pressing any charges, which is the maximum amount of time that a person is allowed to be held under the controversial law.

Officers released him after confiscating all of his electronic equipment. According to the Guardian, officers confiscated Miranda’s mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs, and even his gaming console.

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Glenn Greenwald (left) and his partner David Miranda (Image from facebook.com)

"To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ,” Greenwald wrote in response to the incident. “The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.”

UK authorities did not offer any further explanation, other than stating that the 28-year-old man was “detained at Heathrow airport” and “subsequently released.”

The Brazilian government released a statement expressing grave concern over the episode. It stated that the measure was unjustified “since it involves an individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that legislation.”

“The Brazilian government expects that incidents such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today do not repeat,” the statement reads.

Under controversial Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, border officers are allowed to detain any person entering or leaving the UK for questioning for up to nine hours and confiscate personal belongings for seven days for counter-terrorism purposes. Legal advice can be requested at a person’s own expense. However, the examination is not delayed pending a lawyer’s arrival and refusal to answer questions might be considered an offense and lead to arrest. Out of 69,109 people questioned between April 2011 and March 2012, only about 42 were detained for more than six hours.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has stated that Miranda was a clear “victim of unwarranted revenge tactics.”

"It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the role his husband has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful nature of NSA surveillance," said Widney Brown, Amnesty’s senior director of international law and policy.

Following the “message of intimidation” which Greenwald says was aimed not only at him and his partner but also at all journalists, he has promised that “US and UK authorities will soon see” his defiance.

The Brazil-based American reporter, who broke the news about the espionage activities of the US and allied governments, recently revealed that former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had given him at least 15,000 classified documents, adding that the stories he published so far are just a “small portion” of what is to be revealed.

According to Greenwald, British authorities did not suspect David Miranda of any terror links and instead interrogated him about the NSA reports.

Posted

UK ordered Guardian to destroy hard drives in effort to stop Snowden revelations

It appears that people in the UK are also no longer allowed to talk or read/write about issues of primary importance anymore ?

""You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more," Reuters quoted the unnamed official as saying."

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

The Kurdish Question:

The PKK and the people of Kurdistan, I argue, are central to understanding the F, UK, US actions in central asia. Personally I think should Iran and Syria grant autonomy with support in establishing a seat in the UN to the Kurdish people the dynamic can change sufficiently to heel the dogs of war. It would then be nice to see Cuban peace keepers (as well as many other non aligned nations forces ) on the ground there to oversee/guard the formation of a stable Kurdistan in line with the wishes of the Kurdish people.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

http://rt.com/op-edge/galloway-exceptionalism-us-lawlessness-761/

RT: Well, you’re there in London, and many countries – including of course the UK (particularly the UK) – really do propagate this image of US exceptionalism. Why is that? They clearly assume there is some substance in it.

GG: Well, it’s a cultural cringe in part, in the UK. I believe that we are Greece, and America is Rome, and our best policy is to cringe along behind them in the hope of picking up some of the spoils – some of the glory. But there’s less and less glory from that kind of thing. The US moral standing in the world has shrunk almost to vanishing point. They still have a lot of hard power – thousands of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, lots of it. Indeed, they abrogated their obligations under the chemical weapons treaty - talking about Syria – so that they could keep their chemical weapons stockpile for a decade or more longer. They have a lot of hard power. But their soft power is diminishing rapidly. Let me just give you one example: people all over the world tonight are watching Russia Today, but they’re not watching Fox News all over the world. Indeed, anyone with half a brain in the US is not watching Fox News. The soft power of Russia, and in time of many other countries, will overhaul the US soft power. And without soft power, you’re really reduced to being a big bully with a big stick. Nobody likes that; it’s not an attractive look.

RT: Interesting you mention TV and media – just how much of a role, briefly, does the media have in propagating this image of the US being exceptional? Just briefly.

GG: Well, it has done in the past. I grew up in an era where we watched American television programs and watched American movies out of Hollywood and so on. But nowadays, the most familiar image from the US is the kind we saw yesterday, of a woman in a speeding car being shot dead and trying to ram through security barricades and so on. It’s really a country that’s more marked by columbine and by massacres in colleges and universities nowadays, and they’d be better to attend to that – their own sickness at home, instead of swaggering around the world trying to solve other people’s problems.

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