Criminal Clinton Cabal Crumbles - The Real Russian Hoax Exposed As Democrats Ironically Caught Colluding With Russia

By Susan Duclos - All News PipeLine


-Deep State, Democrats And Media In Panic Mode

Let me be as blunt as I can be right here and now. I do not care one iota if Russia purchased ads on Facebook during the 2016 election, just as I could give a damn if they had "bot" farms or whatever they are called to push trending hasthags on Twitter. I also do not care a bit if they were behind the DNC leaks, although Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who published those leaks, says Russia wasn't the source, but even if they were, I don't care. Neither Wikileaks (nor Russia or whoever leaked them to Wikileaks) altered the content, the leaks were very real emails, sent by the DNC and Clinton campaign, showing they rigged the primaries against BernieSanders, then they proceeded to collude with the mainstream media to influence the election in favor of Hillary Clinton. So, whoever leaked the information to Wikileaks, no matter who it was, helped inform the American public of what the MSM didn't. 

Takes some mighty big stones to cry publicly about the American people being told the truth for a change.

Why don't I care? Two reasons. 

Reason One - The U.S. has a long history of meddling in the politics and yes, the elections, in other countries. Historical data shows the U.S. has a "long history of rigging polls, supporting military coups, channeling funds and spreading political propaganda in other countries," and a break down of the data, shows that in 70 percent of those examples, the U.S. was the "meddling" entity.

Dov Levin, an academic from the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University, has calculated the vast scale of election interventions by both the US and Russia. According to his research, there were 117 “partisan electoral interventions” between 1946 and 2000. That’s around one of every nine competitive elections held since Second World War.

The majority of these – almost 70 per cent – were cases of US interference.

And these are not all from the Cold War era; 21 such interventions took place between 1990 and 2000, of which 18 were by the US.

So excuse the heck out of me if the hyperventilation on the left and the MSM over the fact that Russia, or whoever, bought some ads, hired some trolls and maybe revealed to Americans how corrupt the DNC and The Hillary Clinton campaign, and the American liberal mainstream media was, sounds a bit hypocritical to me.

Second Reason - The second and most important reason I don't care a fig about Russia is because the so-called "Russia meddling" was nothing, not even a blip on the radar, compared to the "meddling" in a U.S. presidential election by senior members of the DOJ, FBI, State department, the Obama administration, former British spy Christopher Steele, and the Hillary Clinton campaign and its allies, and the mainstream media, to manufacture and then perpetuate the real Russia Hoax upon the American people.

The real Russia Hoax wasn't that Russia attempted to sow discord through social media, ad buys, troll farms or even hacks into the DNC and the Clinton campaign, if they were behind those, which we truly cannot be sure if since the very same intelligence communities that made that claim, were full of senior members that we now know were part of the true Russia Hoax, which was accusations against the Trump campaign about "colluding" with Russia.

Considering the cornucopia of information that has been revealed since we first learned of senior FBI official Peter Strzok and his lover FBI lawyer Lisa Page's text messages, showing not only anti-Trump bias ran rampant at the top levels of both the FBI and the DOJ, where they actively plotted a "path" to clear Hillary Clinton of wrong-doing in regards to her private email server and classified email scandal, but they also arranged an "insurance policy," which we later discovered was the whole "Russia colluded with Trump" hoax, it has become apparent that there was huge conspiracy to frame Donald Trump on bogus charges, that included a whole host of top level Obama officials.

New Information: We now find out that two more people referenced by Strzok and Page in their text messages, have announced they are leaving their positions. They include the FBI's media chief, Mike Kortan,  and the head of the Justice Department's anti-espionage section, David Laufman. These departures follow "FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump; former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe; Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki; FBI General Counsel James Baker; as well as Strzok, who was booted off the special counsel investigation and sent to a job in the FBI’s personnel division," as reported by Politico.

According to conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, Laufman's resignation is a "big deal." In a series of social media statements, Hewitt shared the following:

From one of my long time (but now retired) AUSA pals: “David Laufman resignation is a big deal.

As Dep. Assist. AG for National Security Division, he was the Primary Supervisor over Counter-Intelligence work in Nat Sec. He would have had a hand in the approval of the FISA application on Page.

He likely had a role in the decision making on the Clinton email investigation since his section handled cases involving leaks of classified information. The decisions on granting immunity, and allowing conditions to be attached to the examination of computers, would have come from his office. I do not think those were conditions that the FBI would have wanted. On the immunity issue, FBI wouldn't have the authority -- that could only come from the prosecutors in Nat Sec.

The press reporting is that he offered his resignation yesterday, effective IMMEDIATELY.

That's what happens when you are told that your are the subject of an OPR or OIG investigation.

He was in the post since 2014 -- under Carlin, Yates, and Lynch in the chain of command.” This source isn’t perfect. None are. But very very accurate over many years.

his week we also found out from the Grassley/Graham Senate Judiciary Committee memo, that information obtained from a foreign source by a Clinton confidant, was fed to a State Department official, then handed over to Christopher Steele who was hired by Fusion GPS, paid by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to help compile the much-talked about Kremlin sourced Steele dossier, which was then used, without verification, by FBI and DOJ officials under Obama, to obtain multiple FISA warrants on a Trump advisor Carter Page.

New Information: We now the names of the Clinton associate, and the State Department official and how the "media and law enforcement echo chamber of Russia collusion," as it is described by Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School, William A. Jacobson, al began and continued to feed the Great Russia Hoax of collusion.

The Clinton associate was Sidney Blumenthal, known as "Vicious Sid," and the State department employee was Jonathan M. Winer, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for John Kerry during the Obama administration, who admits he had a long-standing information sharing relations with both Christopher Steele and Sidney Blumenthal.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier.” Steele’s sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.

In late September, I spoke with an old friend, Sidney Blumenthal, whom I met 30 years ago when I was investigating the Iran-contra affair for then-Sen. Kerry and Blumenthal was a reporter at The Post. At the time, Russian hacking was at the front and center in the 2016 presidential campaign. The emails of Blumenthal, who had a long association with Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been hacked in 2013 through a Russian server.

While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele’s reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature.

Why would a lawyer, that understands one has the right to remain silent in order to not self-incriminate, admit to this little circle jerk of sharing Kremlin sourced information? Because House intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes already knew about it and is targeting Winer in "phase two" of their investigation, which already produced the much talked about four-page FISA abuse memo, and Winer is trying to get the media spinning in his favor beforehand, and used the Washington Post to try to control the narrative.

Note- It is no surprise that Wapo is helping "spin" the narrative, as we know that Wapo met personally with Steele on at least two occassions as they played their part in manufacturing the Great Russia Hoax."

Fox News reported Winer's connection and Representative Trey Gowdy confirmed Blumenthal's connection at the end of the interview video clip below.




Professor Jacobson captures the crux of the manufacturing of the Great Russia Hoax very succinctly in one paragraph when he writes "Hillary’s campaign and the DNC paid for the Steele dossier. Other Clinton operatives, such as Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer, were spreading similar accusations and sharing information with Steele. Steele was also feeding accusations to the media. Employees of the FBI and possibly other agencies who hated Trump used that information both before and after the election."

Related: Russia-Trump Investigation: How Did Hillary Clinton Get FBI, FISA To Do Her Political Dirty Work?

TWO DEMOCRATS REALLY DID TRY TO COLLUDE WITH RUSSIA

New Information: We also learned this week that two of the loudest Democrats in Congress screaming Russia collusion against President Trump and his campaign members, ironically claiming that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia against Hillary Clinton, both attempted to colluded with Russia or Steele to obtain Russian sourced information against President Trump.

I kid you not.

One of the most vocal Democratic House members, and leaker, Rep. Adam Schiff was pranked by Russian hoaxsters that claimed to have nude images of Donald Trump, and he aggressively tried to obtain the non-existent photos to give to the FBI.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was pranked last year by Russian comedians who offered nude photos of President Trump.

Schiff thought he had been speaking with Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy, who offered potentially explosive information about Trump’s visit to Russia during the Miss Universe pageant in 2013, The Atlantic reported.

Schiff cautioned the man that “our Russian friends” could be eavesdropping on the call, and told him not to share anything he wouldn’t want them to hear.

But the man went on to say that the Russians had “pictures of naked Trump” and Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted Trump to know that “all those compromising materials will never be released if Trump will cancel all Russian sanctions.”

Schiff then told the man that his office would work with FBI to figure out “how we can obtain copies.”

The California Democrat, however, had actually been speaking with Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, two Russian pranksters known as Vovan and Lexus.

The second Democratic politician is Senator Mark Warner, who apparently "texted with Russian oligarch lobbyist in effort to contact dossier author Christopher Steele," as reported by Fox News. 

Secrecy seemed very important to Warner as the conversation with Waldman heated up March 29, when the lobbyist revealed that Steele wanted a bipartisan letter from Warner and the committee’s chairman, North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr, inviting him to talk to the Senate intelligence panel.

Throughout the text exchanges, Warner seemed particularly intent on connecting directly with Steele without anyone else on the Senate Intelligence Committee being in the loop -- at least initially. In one text to the lobbyist, Warner wrote that he would "rather not have a paper trail" of his messages.

The extreme irony and hypocrisy of Democrats accusing the Trump campaign of "colluding" with Russia against Hillary Clinton with absolutely no proof of said collusion, claiming it is a crime, while at the same time they were "colluding" with Russia to obtain information against Donald Trump.... cannot be overstated.

Related: Steele Dossier’s ‘Coincidences’ Keep Piling Up

BOTTOM LINE

One by one those implicated in attempting to rig the 2016 presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump, the "Criminal Clinton Cabal," are being investigated, resigning, being reassigned while investigations are pending against them, and being exposed publicly as their whole narrative of "Russia collusion with Trump" becomes a documented case of Clinton allies, senior level intelligence community members, the MSM and Democratic politicians, all colluding with either Russia or those obtaining information from Russia.

Watching the Criminal Clinton Cabal crumble has been intensely satisfying, seeing new revelations weekly, and in many cases even daily, and all this is happening before the final report from the year-long DOJ Office of Inspector General report has even been written.

What will be more satisfying is seeing indictments and charges filed against the Clinton cabal members of the intelligence community after the IG report is completed, flipping the low level fish in order to catch bigger fish, because make no mistake, seeing a few "sacrifices" at the bottom levels, are not going to be sufficient, when senior members of the Obama administration, that held positions of power, perhaps leading straight to the top, Obama himself, attempted to rig a presidential election by perpetrating one of the biggest hoaxes upon the American people, ever.

The deep state, Democrats and the MSM are in panic mode as their carefully planned conspiracy implodes.

Generally we either embed portions of interviews and clips, or even an opening statement which lays out the evidence documented to date, but below is the entire Sean Hannity show from February 8, 2018, where his initial monologue breaks down what is known at this point, and then he is joined by a number of experts.

It is worth watching in its entirety. (Update- Video was removed from YouTube. Replaced with two relevant segments.)

NSA Whistleblowers- Anyone Who Says the Government Only Spies On Metadata Is Sadly Mistaken (Video)

By Susan Duclos

William Binney, NSA’s former director of global digital data, and a 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency and Russell Tice, who helped the NSA spy with satellites, were both interviewed by PBS.

The headline of this article says it all...... Anyone who says the government spies only on metadata is sadly mistaken, according to these two whistleblowers.

In the video below, Binney and Tice confirmed that the NSA is recording every word of every phone call made within the United States.

Transcript, via WashingtonBlog:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Both Binney and Tice suspect that today, the NSA is doing more than just collecting metadata on calls made in the U.S. They both point to this CNN interview by former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente days after the Boston Marathon bombing. Clemente was asked if the government had a way to get the recordings of the calls between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife.

TIM CLEMENTE, former FBI counter-terrorism agent: On the national security side of the house, in the federal government, you know, we have assets. There are lots of assets at our disposal throughout the intelligence community and also not just domestically, but overseas. Those assets allow us to gain information, intelligence on things that we can’t use ordinarily in a criminal investigation. All digital communications are — there’s a way to look at digital communications in the past. And I can’t go into detail of how that’s done or what’s done. But I can tell you that no digital communication is secure.

 JUDY WOODRUFF: Tice says after he saw this interview on television, he called some former workmates at the NSA.

 RUSSELL TICE: Well, two months ago, I contacted some colleagues at NSA. We had a little meeting, and the question came up, was NSA collecting everything now? Because we kind of figured that was the goal all along. And the answer came back. It was, yes, they are collecting everything, contents word for word, everything of every domestic communication in this country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Both of you know what the government says is that we’re collecting this — we’re collecting the number of phone calls that are made, the e-mails, but we’re not listening to them.

 WILLIAM BINNEY: Well, I don’t believe that for a minute. OK?

 I mean, that’s why they had to build Bluffdale, that facility in Utah with that massive amount of storage that could store all these recordings and all the data being passed along the fiberoptic networks of the world. I mean, you could store 100 years of the world’s communications here. That’s for content storage. That’s not for metadata.

 Metadata if you were doing it and putting it into the systems we built, you could do it in a 12-by-20-foot room for the world. That’s all the space you need. You don’t need 100,000 square feet of space that they have at Bluffdale to do that. You need that kind of storage for content.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what does that say, Russell Tice, about what the government — you’re saying — your understanding is of what the government does once these conversations take place, is it your understanding they’re recorded and kept?

 RUSSELL TICE: Yes, digitized and recorded and archived in a facility that is now online. And they’re kind of fibbing about that as well, because Bluffdale is online right now. And that’s where the information is going. Now, as far as being able to have an analyst look at all that, that’s impossible, of course. And I think, semantically, they’re trying to say that their definition of collection is having literally a physical analyst look or listen, which would be disingenuous.


 [WATCH]

Newly Revealed NSA Documents Prove Obama Lied When He Said 'Nobody is listening to your telephone calls'

By Susan Duclos

The Guardian has released the secret documents pertaining to the "procedures used by NSA [National Security Agency] to target non-US persons."

Exhibit A here and Exhibit B here.

Starting with the headlined statement, when news first broke about the Obama administration, with secret FISA court orders, was directing the NSA to collect information in bulk from large tech companies and phone companies, catching data from US citizens as well as non-US persons,  Barack Obama took to the national stage and informed Americans "Nobody is listening to your telephone calls."

While it is clear the intended purpose is to target non-US persons, what Obama assured Americans was a blatant, bold-faced lie, according to the newly revealed documents.

"In the absence of specific information regarding whether a target is a United States person," it states "a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States or whose location is not known will be presumed to be a non-United States person unless such person can be positively identified as a United States person."

If it later appears that a target is in fact located in the US, analysts are permitted to look at the content of messages, or listen to phone calls, to establish if this is indeed the case.

This also means when Cyber Command Commander of the National Security Agency, Chief General Keith Alexander said the NSA doesn’t have the "technical insights" and added they are not authorized to collect from the sea of data nor does the NSA have the "equipment," that too was highly misleading as the newly released procedure documents makes very apparent.

Despite language written into the procedures to remove  US citizens and residents from data collection, the caveats in the policy allow for the exact opposite:

However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:

• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;

• Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;

• Preserve "foreign intelligence information" contained within attorney-client communications;

• Access the content of communications gathered from "U.S. based machine[s]" or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.

TechDirt takes particular issue with the NSA's determination to retain information if it is encrypted:

There's been plenty of commentary concerning the latest NSA leak concerning its FISA court-approved "rules" for when it can keep data, and when it needs to delete it. As many of you pointed out in the comments to that piece -- and many others are now exploring -- the rules seem to clearly say that if your data is encrypted, the NSA can keep it. Specifically, the minimization procedures say that the NSA has to destroy the communication it receives once it's determined as domestic unless they can demonstrate a few facts about it. As part of this, the rules note:

In the context of a cryptanalytic effort, maintenance of technical data bases requires retention of all communications that are enciphered or reasonably believed to contain secret meaning, and sufficient duration may consist of any period of time during which encrypted material is subject to, or of use in, cryptanalysis.

In other words, if your messages are encrypted, the NSA is keeping them until they can decrypt them. And, furthermore, as we noted earlier, the basic default is that if the NSA isn't sure about anything, it can keep your data. And, if it discovers anything at all remotely potentially criminal about your data, it can keep it, even if it didn't collect it for that purpose. As Kevin Bankston points out to Andy Greenberg in the link above:

The default is that your communications are unprotected.

That's the exact opposite of how it's supposed to be under the Constitution. The default is supposed to be that your communications are protected, and if the government wants to see it, it needs to go to court to get a specific warrant for that information.

Encryption is used for a variety of reasons, protecting data, sensitive information, companies developing new technology,  people using wireless to prevent their online credit card information from being hacked into...etc.

The bottom line here is the NSA does have the ability, technology, and the overly broad authority written into the procedures, to not only keep Americans data, but to eavesdrop for the purpose of supposedly ruling them out.

This directly contradicts Obama's assertion that "Nobody is listening to your telephone calls.."

Remember what started all this was The Guardian publishing a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order allowing the government to obtain information on every single Verizon customer, for three months, on an ongoing daily basis.

Verizon is one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, with approximately 121 million customers, according to its first-quarter earnings report this April.

Full Wake up America NSA scandal coverage found here.

FISA Court Compromised? FBI Investigates

By Susan Duclos

When a top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court order to Verizon for data on all their costumers, on an daily ongoing basis, for a period of almost three months, was published by The Guardian, it became obvious that someone with access to highly classified FISA warrants, one of the most highly classified documents inside the U.S. government, were being leaked.

The FBI are now investigating whether there is a mole within the FISA court.

Via The Daily Beast:

Those who receive the warrant—the first of its kind to be publicly disclosed—are not allowed “to disclose to any other person” except to carry out its terms or receive legal advice about it, and any person seeing it for those reasons is also legally bound not to disclose the order. The officials say phone companies like Verizon are not allowed to store a digital copy of the warrant, and that the documents are not accessible on most NSA internal classified computer networks or on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, the top-secret internet used by the U.S. intelligence community.

The warrants reside on two computer systems affiliated with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. Both systems are physically separated from other government-wide computer networks and employ sophisticated encryption technology, the officials said. Even lawmakers and staff lawyers on the House and Senate intelligence committees can only view the warrants in the presence of Justice Department attorneys, and are prohibited from taking notes on the documents.

“The only time that our attorneys would have gotten to read one was if Justice Department lawyers came over with it in a secure pouch and sat there with them when they read them,” said Pete Hoekstra, a former Republican chairman and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  “There was never one in the intelligence-committee spaces, never one left there without someone from the Justice Department. It would not have been left there overnight.”

U.S. intelligence officials were careful to say investigators have not yet concluded there is a mole inside the FISA Court or that the secure databases that store the court warrants have been compromised, only that both prospects were under active investigation.

If the secret court has been breached, it would be one of the most significant intelligence failures in U.S. history, potentially giving America’s adversaries a road map to every suspected agent inside the United States currently being watched by the FBI, according to the officials. Unlike the Verizon order and other such sweeping collection demands that have been received by internet and telecom companies, many FISA warrants identify a specific individual or entity being monitored by the U.S. government.

“If we have a human or electronic breach in this system it could be a counter-intelligence disaster. It would allow our adversaries to see what we are targeting and how,” said Joel Brenner, a former inspector general and senior counsel for the NSA who left the agency in 2010.

It has been determined that Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who provided subsequent documents to The Guardian about the NSA's secret Prism program, showing the NSA collecting data on Americans in a massive domestic spying scandal, did not have access to the FISA court orders, leading investigators to wonder if there is a mole in the FISA court itself.

The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, who published the top-secret Verizon court order and the Prism slides, has refused to confirm that Snowden was also the source for the FISA court order, saying "Well, first of all, I am not going to confirm that there is only one individual, there could be one or more than one."

A U.S. intelligence official with knowledge of the current investigation said Snowden would not be able to access a court warrant by himself. “This is not something, even if you are a contractor and you work for an intelligence agency like NSA, that you are going to be able to get a hold of,” this official said of the FISA warrant. ABC News first quoted law-enforcement sources last week saying that Snowden would not have access to the FISA warrant in his job as a system administrator employed by contractor Booz Allen Hamilton working for the NSA.

When asked if Snowden had more such warrants on Thursday, Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “Candidly, nobody really knows the answer to that today. I think we will know the answer to that shortly.”

Congressman Rogers is correct considering Snowden, during a live question and answer session, stated unequivocally the "Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped," as he promised further disclosures were coming.

Read the entire Daily Beast piece.

 

Facebook, Microsoft Release Partial NSA Spying Data, Google, Twitter Opt Out As 'Step Back For Users'

By Susan Duclos

(Headline corrected)

Facebook headlines with "Facebook Releases Data, Including All National Security Requests," which is a tad misleading since the deal made with the Obama administration to release information on FISA requests for user data forces the companies to release the number of requests " in aggregate," without the ability or permission to separate FISA requests for NSA, from local, state and other such requests. It also appears that no specific information on the FISA requests is being released.

......As of today, the government will only authorize us to communicate about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range. This is progress, but we’re continuing to push for even more transparency, so that our users around the world can understand how infrequently we are asked to provide user data on national security grounds.

 For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000. These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat. The total number of Facebook user accounts for which data was requested pursuant to the entirety of those 9-10 thousand requests was between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.

Microsoft has also released their numbers:

Here is what the data shows: For the six months ended December 31, 2012, Microsoft received  between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal). This only impacts a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s global customer base.

We are permitted to publish data on national security orders received (including, if any, FISA Orders and FISA Directives), but only if aggregated with law enforcement requests from all other U.S. local, state and federal law enforcement agencies; only for the six-month period of July 1, 2012 thru December 31, 2012; only if the totals are presented in bands of 1,000; and all Microsoft consumer services had to be reported together.

[UPDATE] Quick note- Microsoft's "2012 Law Enforcement Requests Report," states "As noted in the data table (available in the PDF below) in 2012, Microsoft and Skype received a total of 75,378 law enforcement requests. Those requests potentially impacted 137,424 accounts."
(Those numbers include Hotmail/Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Xbox LIVE, Microsoft Account, Messenger,Office 365 and Skype) PDF found here. [End Update]


Notice these figures are only for the last six months of 2012, yet according to the Prism chart released recently, collection of user data from Microsoft began in September 2007 and collection of user data from Facebook began in June 2009.

Click image to enlarge

Google opted out of the partial transparency agreement with the Obama administration, telling The Verge why.

We have always believed that it's important to differentiate between different types of government requests. We already publish criminal requests separately from National Security Letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately.

Benjamin Lee, Legal Director at Twitter, took to Twitter to agree with Google:

We agree with @Google: It's important to be able to publish numbers of national security requests—including FISA disclosures—separately.
— Benjamin Lee (@BenL) June 15, 2013

Allowing Facebook and Microsoft to tell their users that in the last six months of 2012, anywhere from 39,000 to 51,000 of their users, combined, had their personal information divulged, yet not allowing them to tell their customers how much of that information went to the NSA via FISA secret court orders, is nothing more than lip service and a pretense of transparency on the part of the Obama administration, limited at that.

We also know that a secret court order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, requiring Verizon, one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.

Verizon has over one million customers.

So if you combine the numbers from just the two companies, add in the recent Verizon numbers, realize there is more from Yahoo, Google, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple and obviously Twitter, since they issued a statement, and these are just the companies we know of,  that is a massive amount of personal, supposedly private, information being demanded about users, by the government.


Full Wake up America NSA scandal coverage found here.

Obama On NSA's Secret Data-Mining: Only "Modest Encroachments On Privacy'

By Susan Duclos

In answer to a reporter's question about the recently exposed secret government surveillance of millions of Americans' phones and Internet habits and data, Barack Obama first pays lip service to Americans' "constitutional right to privacy and an observance of civil liberties."

Then later in his long answer he says the data-mining and unprecedented broad collection of  all Verizon customers, and tech firm data,  as well as collection of data "directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple," is just a "modest encroachments on privacy."

Full transcript found here.

[WATCH]- Video below

Obama Administration Collects Verizon Phone Records On Millions Of Americans

By Susan Duclos

The US government is collecting the phone records of millions of US customers of Verizon under a top secret court order. Read the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order at The Guardian.

Via The Hill:

The information provided to the NSA did not include the content of conversations or customers’ identities but covered telephone numbers used and the length of calls.

The seizing of phone records by the NSA was first disclosed in 2006 during the Bush administration, and this is the first time it has been revealed that the practice was continued — and perhaps expanded — under President Obama.

An administration official defended the collection of data as a “critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States.”

“It allows counter terrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States,” the official added.

The news that the administration has been conducting secret surveillance on millions of ordinary citizens comes amid intensifying scrutiny over the DOJ’s spying on Associated Press and Fox News reporters, delivering another blow to President Obama’s already bruised reputation on civil liberties.

 The scope of the information being collected:

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

AP:

The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.

NYT:

For several years, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have been cryptically warning that the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under that section of the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming to the public if it knew about it. 

“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. 

They added: “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.” 

A spokesman for Senator Wyden did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the Verizon order. 

The senators were angry because the Obama administration described Section 215 orders as being similar to a grand jury subpoena for obtaining business records, like a suspect’s hotel or credit card records, in the course of an ordinary criminal investigation. The senators said the secret interpretation of the law was nothing like that.

As evidenced by the massive headlines and discussions dedicated to this newly revealed secret court order, even die-hard Obama supporters are showing no mercy to his administration over this expanded domestic surveillance.

The last thing the Obama administration needed at this time was yet another scandal to deal with, on top of the ones that have been rocking Washington for the last month.

Jesse Jackson Caught On Hot Microphone Criticizing Barack Obama-- UPDATE- Video added

[Update] 7/12/08- Hysterically, now the discussion begins on whether Jackson said he wanted to cut Obama's nuts "out" or "off", has begun!

Original Post Below:

[Update] Video of a portion of Jackson's comments added below where he says about Obama... "I wanna cut his nuts off"



Jesse Jackson is a former presidential candidate from 1984 and a well known civil rights activist.

Recently he made remarks, not knowing that the microphone in front of him was on, that were critical of Barack Obama.

When reports came out that his remarks were caught and would be shown on the Fox News program Hannity and Colmes, he issued a preemptive apology for those remarks which Jackson calls "crude and hurtful" comments toward the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama.

According to Jackson, Fox News microphones picked up the remarks that were meant to be delivered privately, which criticized Barack Obama for lecturing the black community on morality.

Jackson's apology did not specify what was said in the soon to be shown remarks but he does say that he was trying to explain that Obama was hurting his relationship with black voters by recently conducting "moral" lectures at African-American churches.

CNN reports that Jesse Jackson, who is endorsing Barack Obama is "very distressed" over the comments.

Jackson says, "This is a sound bite in a broader conversation about urban policy and racial disparities. I feel very distressed because I'm supportive of this campaign and with the senator, what he has done and is doing. I said he comes down as speaking down to black people. The moral message must be a much broader message. What we need really is racial justice and urban policy and jobs and health care. That's a range of issues on the menu.

"Then I said something I regret was crude. It was very private. And very much a sound bite.

Jackson's public apology is told to CNN where he says, "For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Senator Obama’s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal. I cherish this redemptive and historical moment."

What Jackson was referring to was a speech Barack Obama gave speaking about black fathers being more engaged in raising their children. He gave this speech at the Apostolic Church of God on Chicago's South Side where he was highly critical of absent black fathers that are absent in raising their children. .

According to the Drudge Report it says that Jackson's remarks were an appeal for "for the moral content of his message to not only deal with the personal and moral responsibility of black males, but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy which would be a corrective action for the lack of good choices that often led to their irresponsibility. "

That was the context of my private conversation and it does not reflect any disparagement on my part for the historic event in which we are involved or my pride in Senator Barack Obama, who is leading it, whom I have supported by crisscrossing this nation in every level of media and audience from the beginning in absolute terms.

The bottom line here is that people should be aware of whether a microphone is on or off before speaking for all the world to hear because the statements made could end up on new coverage stories across the country, indeed, the world.

[Update] From Bucks Right:

Hannity also intimated that Jackson says he wants to “rip Obama’s nuts off” on the tape. Hannity would not say “nuts,” but based on his description (portion of the male anatomy beginning with an “n”) I believe that’s the word he was going for.

Hannity says the tape will be played in its entirety on tonight’s Hannity and Colmes. Other sources indicate it will also air on The O’Reilly Factor. Hannity may have been mistaken about the tape airing “in its entirety” this evening, as it is reported to be so crude that it will require extensive editing.

O’Reilly is quoted as saying that FOX held back more damaging portions of the tape that were not relevant to the conversation. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if Hannity plays the entire tape during his radio show at 3PM ET Thursday.

Drudge reports that Jackson said: "Cut his nuts out."

Not good.

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Heartbreak in Liberal Land Over FISA Bill Passage

Obama votes yes and Clinton votes no! Final tally is 69 Ayes, 28 Nays! FISA passes!

Bleeding hearts are broken!

Here is a sample:

In Obamaworld, apparently wrecking the Fourth Amendment is roughly equivalent to ridiculing some obscure rapper. The only thing more depressing than the conceit that supporting unconstitutional measures is a way to "signal" to swing voters that you are not a radical loon bent on "ideological purity," which is basically to make defending the Constitution a position held only by radicals and extremists, is the dishonest representation of support for the compromise legislation as being a pro-civil liberties position.

Just so we are clear...here is the flip-flop in black and white.

December 17, 2007: "Senator Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd's efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same. It's not clear whether he can return for the vote, but under the Senate rules, the side trying to end a filibuster must produce 60 votes to cut off debate. Whether he is present for the vote or not, Senator Obama will not be among those voting to end the filibuster."

June 25, 2008: "My view on FISA has always been that the issue with phone companies per se is not one that overrides security interests of the American people. I do want accountability, and making sure that, as I've said before, that somebody is watching the watchers."

More here.

Watch the ACLU meltdown here.

I was once sitting on plane waiting for it to taxi to the gate, chatting on my phone to my cousin about work, and the word “terrorist” nearly escaped my lips. I did catch myself, but that’s the chilling effect. It’s self-censorship, and thanks to Congress’s capitulation today to the White House, all Americans who talk on the phone or email will know it well.

So say good-bye to the Fourth Amendment. Nice knowin’ ya!

Heh! Always fun to watch the left freak out!

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Senate Passes FISA Bill With Telecom Immunity

The US Congress approved the compromise FISA bill with immunity for telecommunications companies included, back on June 20, 2008 with a vote of 293 to 129 with 13 not voting and then the Senate voted for cloture to discuss the bill before their fourth of July recess, with a vote of 80 to 15, bypassing a filibuster from those opposed to the bill that the Congressional negotiators worked months on to get passed the House.

Today the US Senate approved the FISA bill with the highly controversial immunity for telecommunications companies attached, over the objections to those opposed to the immunity attachment within the Senate and the active campaign from the left side of the blogosphere to force their Senators to vote against the bill.

(Roll call will be here)

[Update] Roll call is up and the FISA bill passed with a vote of 69 to 28. Barack Obama voted yes for the bill. [End Update]

The Senate opposition tried to propose an amendment to have Title II (Protections For Electronic Communications Service Providers) stricken from the FISA bill. This amendment proposed by Senator Chris Dodd was rejected by the Senate. That vote was 32 to 66.

The second one was the Specter Amdt. No. 5059- To limit retroactive immunity and that was rejected with a vote of 37 to 61.

The third was the Bingaman Amdt. No. 5066- To stay pending cases against certain telecommunications companies and that was rejected as well with a vote of 42 to 56, not enough votes to bypass a filibuster, where 60 votes are needed.

Then the Senate voted for cloture so they could get to the actual vote on the bill, that vote passed with a 72 to 26 vote and according to the roll call, Obama voted yeah on cloture.

President Bush has already indicated he will sign the bill that the House sent to the Senate so it is expected that this bill will now be signed into law.

Barack Obama has been suffering from massive criticism from his base for his stated support for the bill whether immunity ended up being stripped from it or not.

His original statement given immediately after the House passed it's compromise bill, Obama said, "while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's." The statement went on to detail a various improvements in the bill, but ended with a reluctant acknowledgment that he'll vote for it.

"It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program..."

That caused Obama's base to level massive criticisms towards him for his statement that he would try to strip immunity from the Senate version but if that did not happen he would vote for it, that he actually was forced to respond again to the criticisms from people on his very own website.

Expect the President to sign the bill within days thereby ending the chapter regarding the immunity for telecommunications companies, at least for the next few years.

(Note- The far left blogospherepreemptively started throwing their temper tantrums, knowing that the FISA bill was going to be passed)

That was before the actual vote, stay tuned for reactions afterwards.

Tons of reactions already coming out and probably a ton more to come. You can see them at memeorandum. The biggest whiner award goes to Greenwald, the man with constant diarrhea of the keyboard.

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Online Mutiny Against Barack Obama On His Own Website Over FISA

[MAJOR UPDATE] The FISA bill with the immunity passes and Barack Obama did vote for it....Roll call and more at the following piece.

In what is being called "something of an online mutiny" Barack Obama supporters are registering dissent and leveling criticism at him and they are using his own website to do so.

Ardent Barack Obama supporters are registering disappointment, leveling criticism and expressing anger over what they perceive to be Obama's shift to the middle on a variety of issues in recent weeks.

There choice of venue to express their dissatisfaction is on Barack Obama's own official website, MyBarackObama.com.

Thousands of supporters are actively organizing against him, using his site, with anger being shown over his recent decision to back the FISA bill that is due to be voted on today, to which Obama is specifically flying in to register his vote in support of the bill that was passed by the house on June 20, 2008 and sent to the Senate for a vote.

The controversy centers on modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the government's quest to monitor suspected terrorists that civil libertarians worry could infringe on the privacy rights of others. Obama had pledged earlier this year to oppose—even filibuster—legislation that would immunize telecommunications companies against lawsuits that challenge cooperation with federal authorities in warrantless wiretapping.

Obama more recently stated that he would back the compromise bill and that very same day, members of the Obama site formed a group called "Senator Obama—Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity—Get FISA Right". this group has grown to over 22,000 members, making it the largest group on MyBarackObama.com.

The anger shown has seen members threatening to demand their campaign contributions be returned to them with others declaring they will not even vote in November but will instead just sit out the election and one man claiming he has removed his Barack Obama bumper sticker off his car, saying, "It's the first and only bumper sticker that I've ever put on a vehicle that I owned, so my disappointment felt personal and significant."

The group is eagerly waiting to see if Obama will speak from the Senate floor on the issue, something Pincus said could generate an "Obama moment," like those triggered by other passionate speeches he has given on such topics as race.

Still, that may not be enough for those who say they have lost trust in Obama's conviction on this and other matters.

"This just seems like a tremendous betrayal," said Tom Vincent, a Web designer from upstate New York. "It's a deal-breaker for me."

Not all Obama supporters are expressing this anger, some say they are disappointed but believe this is a "pragmatic" decision and say they will still support Obama and vote for him in November.

The group has caused such ripples that Barack Obama felt the need to issue a statement back on July 3, 2008, reiterating his stance and he even provided members of his staff which stayed online to respond to comments for over an hour-and-a-half.

The comments generated from that statement equaled 2, 517 to date, some supportive and understanding and others angry, bitter and demanding.

Obama has denied that he is shifting to the center, to which he stated in Georgia on Tuesday, that people who accuse him of moving to the middle, "haven't apparently been listening to me."

Today the Senate has rejected three separate amendments trying to either strip the immunity from the FISA bill or limit retroactive immunity, and they are expected to have a final vote on the bill by the end of the day, which President Bush has already indicated he will sign.

The first amendment rejected was from Senator Christopher Dodd, Amdt. No. 5064, to strike Title II (Protections For Electronic Communications Service Providers) from the FISA bill, and that was rejected with a 32 to 66 vote.

The second one was the Specter Amdt. No. 5059- To limit retroactive immunity and that was rejected with a vote of 37 to 61.

The third was the Bingaman Amdt. No. 5066- To stay pending cases against certain telecommunications companies and that was rejected as well with a vote of 42 to 56, not enough votes to bypass a filibuster, where 60 votes are needed.

Barack Obama did vote for these amendments, although he did say that if these and any other amendments fail to pass, he will vote for the actual FISA bill whether immunity has been stripped or not.

Barack Obama is in between a rock and a hard place here. His supporters want him to vote against the FISA bill as long as immunity is included, yet he understands that the GOP would use that as ammunition against him in the general election campaign.

He also could have stayed away and simply not been there for the vote, where he wouldn't actually have had to register a yeah vote for the bill, but he took a stand that many might say is brave by standing up to his base and not allowing himself to be pressured into changing his mind.

Then again, brave might not be the word because he knows that his supporters have no options but to vote for him....unless they want to sit out the election.

How this stand will play out with his base, only time will tell.

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