Feinstein's double standard

There has been a six year, 40 million dollar Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the practices of the CIA. Completed in 2012, it was to study and/or expose the use of torture tactics banned by the current White House administration when President Obama took office.

It is suspected that some within the spy agency ignored the ruling and simply continued right on with what might be known as 'extra-ordinary rendition' at secret prisons around the world known as Black Sites. Hidden from the peeking eyes of potential Washington whistle-blowers. And perhaps American laws. This would include the use of torture, water-boarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and other enhanced interrogation procedures. It is not known if the recipients of these secret attentions were all foreigners or even American citizens.

Dianne Feinstein, although masquerading as a Democrat, has been a staunch supporter of just about

You dare spy on ME?

anything the Republicans and any spy agency wanted, including everything George Bush and his henchman Dick Cheney wanted to do during their reign, in the interest of keeping terrorism away from the borders of the USA. She is the chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

The classified report, has about 15% of names and places redacted and runs to 6300 pages. The CIA is fighting its release saying that some officials of the CIA could be identified by foreign enemies even though pseudonyms are used.
They are even prepared to release a counter-argument. The agency is also worried that the report would show that certain officials repeatedly broke the law over time.
The full report will remain secret and only a 480 page redacted summery will be revealed.
(Could that be something like the Warren Report summary on the Kennedy assassination which had no relation to the actual facts contained in the long document whatsoever?)

The investigation searched over a million pages of CIA records but no CIA official was interviewed and no one has been charged. And the spy agency raised security concerns that the identity of certain CIA officers, some currently serving abroad could be revealed in the study.
(There was no mention of the outing purposely of  undercover CIA agent Valery Plame in a vengeful attack on her husband for defying the Bush White House)

All seemed fine with Feinstein until it was learned that the CIA had searched the computers used by the Committee investigators which she suddenly saw as illegal! The CIA had effectively spied on a Congressional committee and she furiously denounced the CIA on the Senate floor!

So Dianne Feinstein was okay with spying on anyone and everybody, including the total population of North America when it applied to the non-elite, the unwashed, but is now furious that the CIA might have spied on HER too!


What goes around comes around was never more true.

Questions, always questions

So Seal Team Six were the ones who raided the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2nd, 2011. Common knowledge now.
It was a carefully programmed successful effort to kill the man they deemed to be the terrorist leader of al Qaeda.
But now there are conflicting stories emerging about what actually happened. From Peter Bergen of CNN, a very reliable source and others jumping in now. But questions still appear.

One of the Seal Team Six members who arrived in the third floor bedroom and wrote a book on it (No Easy Day) says bin Laden was standing up and he shot him twice in the forehead.
A second man says (Esquire interview) bin Laden was lying wounded on the floor because he had been shot by someone outside through a window and he finished him off with two shots. A third seems to sort of agree with one. One said bin Laden was shot when he poked his head out the door as they stormed the building.

bin Laden's compound

There apparently was an instruction NOT to shoot bin Laden in the face because the CIA would need to analyze good pictures of bin Laden for its facial recognition experts to work effectively. And it was a CIA led operation.

That seems to imply that photographs were planned as part of the operation, yet none have surfaced.

Of course it was a lot easier to simply kill him right away, but would he have been a threat to 3 intensely trained and dangerous Navy Seals? We don't know if capture alive was an option for the team, but even wounded, wouldn't the CIA want the greatest intelligence prize ever in their grasp? Living breathing and talking? Would it have been a soldier's decision to finish him off? And as there were 23 Seal Team members ready to disappear back into the night skies via their helicopters to make their escape, why wouldn't they have just toted off bin Laden alive, to do what they wanted with him afterward? They evidently took his remains with them to be dropped into the sea.

Who IS this guy?

So while the Navy argues fore and aft about what exactly the three Seals were doing in that room. It would be totally easy to prove one or the other with a picture taken during the event. And now the building has been demolished since, so even blood remains on the floor cannot be analyzed for DNA. And no one says they saw any evidence of a dialysis machine. Bin Laden would have needed three times a week treatment.

One Seal says he shot him because he saw a weapon near. And another says the guns were discovered after a later search?
And one wonders, if bin Laden's bodyguards were involved in an intense firefight as the Team was entering the compound, why hadn't this savvy, internationally hunted terrorist not armed himself with one of those guns?

And then there is the old conspiracy theory that President Clinton got bin Laden long ago when he was thought to be hiding in caves in Tora Bora and they sent in a ton of cruise missiles and basically closed them all. And the succeeding theory that a photo-double had been used ever since. In order to keep the bogey man alive as a constantly ominous threat to America.

same man?

The old days of the truth will out are over. Too much fog to see clearly.
No information regarding evidence, such as DNA results or physical evidence etc, has been released to news organizations or the public, even through FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) requests.
And all records of the raid have since been transferred to a CIA 'black hole' immune from FOIA requests as 'operational files'. And even the Department of Defense has purged all it's records relating to the raid. Why?


Questions, always questions.





Of course this small query is in no way intended to denigrate the courage of the Seal Team Six men who put their lives on the line as they undertook a dangerous mission. Their bravery is a given.

Microsoft buys Skype

What is Skype? This is what Skype says about itself - - - Skype is for doing things together, whenever you’re apart. Skype’s text, voice and video make it simple to share experiences with the people that matter to you, wherever they are. - - -
Skype has a free download version.

So what you can do, is get a phone number of your friend, wherever they are, then you start the program, click stuff and contact your friend. They can be across town, in Florida, or Nairobi and you suddenly can text talk, voice talk and SEE them live and in living colour!
Wonderful program for Grandmas contacting their grandchildren, or offices doing impromptu sessions about their contracts, or anyone else who wants a live contact look.

So here we go again with my slant on it. First you might want to review some of my previous posts about Microsoft, and the reasons I believe they are beholden to the CIA, NSA or Homeland Security. Once you digest that, you'll either go away shaking your head or begin to realize the same things that these watcher agencies would love: an in with Skype.

It is believed that Microsoft may include Skype with Windows 8.
Having it built into their operating system means they can tinker however they like with the intricacies of the program, meaning what it does and how it does it. Perhaps even when it does it.
Imagine Skype being controlled or reporting to 'someone' what it sees from the top of YOUR computer? A spy master's treasure trove. An intrepid innovation.

Lends another aspect to big brother watching you, doesn't it? Who needs a satellite looking down at you and seeing your rooftop when the watcher can be right inside your house!
Hmm.

Yikes.

UPDATE: Was I right or was I right? Today, May 27, it was just announced that a recent 'glitch' on Skype has been fixed! And even though you have not been able to use it for a few days, you can now download the updated 'fixed' software version and get right back on!
Skype blames overloaded 'supernodes' for the failures, and says they are fixing them, trying to reassure you that hackers were not responsible for the downtime. Right, always blame hackers. Concentrate your attention on the imagined bad guys so you don't notice the real bad guys at work.

Is this a suspicion confirmed? So Microsoft buys Skype, shuts it down while they and/or the US Government Sneak Department installs new spyware, then you load the update that could make your webcam record you in your home without turning on your little light.
Wonderful.

Will we need to turn off the lights and whisper within our own homes soon? Will this KGB like intrusion become the Stasi or the Tonton Macoutes one day?
We need to go back to the woodshed days when we had a place to talk privately. Or Tony Soprano's basement.

Here is the link -
http://www.pcworld.com/article/228880/skype_glitch_fixed_no_big_deal.html#tk.rss_news

Meanwhile, they're saying the Skype system is a little slow right now. Could that be because it is classifying and organizing the 25 million subscribers at the moment? Perhaps with face recognition software after taking all your pictures?

Paranoid? You tell me.