Bank of America hired private intel to target WikiLeaks
It doesn’t look like there’s much on this story yet, but apparently Glenn Greenwald was contacted about it because he was mentioned in the leaked report (pdf). There are also news reports being made right now downplaying the the BoA documents, which could be a PR effort on their part.
The report also shows evidence of something I’d been hoping I wouldn’t see:
It’s called social network analysis and there is very powerful software available to do it. There are almost certainly all kinds of private databases being put together with all kinds of information about people obtained through data mining.
Categories: #uncategorized Tags: bank of america, Wikileaks
Qur’an burning vs. WikiLeaks
KABUL, Afghanistan — Gen. David Petraeus on Wednesday ratcheted up his condemnation of plans by a small Florida church to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by burning copies of the Quran, likening the popular outrage that would follow in Afghanistan to the reaction in Iraq to photographs of detainee abuses.
“I think the images of such an action would be as indelible and inflammatory as have been the images of Abu Ghraib,” he said. “This will put our troopers and civilians in greater danger, and it’s somewhat inexplicable to me that fellow citizens would do that.”
….
Just outside ISAF headquarters at the office of the World Philosophical Mathematics Research Center, scholars usually concerned with the pursuit of arcane formulas that attempt to explain and predict world events had turned their attention to more immediate affairs, erecting a banner saying the U.S. government would be blamed for the Quran-burning.
“If this happens, there will not be any protests,” said Ghulam Farouk Hamkar, a researcher at the center. “There will be fire. The U.S. Embassy will be burned. People will attack American soldiers wherever they see them. Everyone will do this, not just insurgents.”
Lets compare the reaction here to the WikiLeaks release:
Q Good afternoon. Robert, there’s a church in Gainesville, Florida, that says it’s going to go ahead and burn copies of the Koran to mark the 9/11 anniversary. Is the White House — is there anything the White House is doing to discourage that or prevent them from going ahead with that?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think the best place to look for the views of this administration would be to look at the — look at what General Petraeus said over the weekend. We know that that type of activity — we know that that type of activity is being transmitted back to places like Afghanistan, when General Petraeus obviously is our lead commander. As he said, it puts our troops in harm’s way. And obviously that — any type of activity like that would be — that
…..
Q And just quickly on the Koran story, have you heard the President comment on that?
MR. GIBBS: I have not. I have not.
I’d say that’s pretty mild. Now lets look back at WikiLeaks:
Q Thanks, Robert. Two questions, a few on WikiLeaks. What was the President’s reaction once he heard about the leaking —
MR. GIBBS: Well, I remember talking to the President sometime last week after discussions with news organizations that these stories were coming. Look, I think our reaction to this type of material, a breach of federal law, is always the same, and that is whenever you have the potential for names and for operations and for programs to be out there in the public domain, that it — besides being against the law — has a potential to be very harmful to those that are in our military, those that are cooperating with our military, and those that are working to keep us safe.
Q Well, I mean, was he personally angered by this? Did he demand answers or an investigation?
MR. GIBBS: Well, there is an ongoing investigation that predated the end of last week into leaks of highly classified secret documents.
….
Q Robert back on WikiLeaks. A couple of times now, you’ve said in the last couple of moments that a lot of this information is not really new, that named U.S. government officials have said some of this same information publicly.MR. GIBBS: Well, I’m not saying it’s — yes, I said there weren’t any new revelations in the material.
Q So how does it harm national security if we’ve known this already?
MR. GIBBS: Well, because you’ve got — it’s not the content as much as it is their names, their operations, there’s logistics, there are sources — all of that information out in a public way has the potential, Ed, to do harm. If somebody is cooperating with the federal government and their name is listed in an action report, I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that that could potentially put a group or an individual at great personal risk.
Categories: #shameful Tags: book burning, Gibbs, national security, reasons of state, The Troops, Wikileaks
Drain Clogs – 07-27-2010
- FreeRepublic.com is getting sued by a lawyer who buys up content rights from newspapers and then sues blogs that reprint the content. Basically, he’s a Copyright Troll, which is like a Patent Troll. He’s also a giant douchebag if this Wired write-up is to be believed. He has to be bad because we’re siding with FreeRepublic.com on this one! We’ll have more on Freerepublic’s last time they got sued by newspapers in the upcoming history of FreeRepublic.com article.
- Republican Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck called Birthers “dumbasses”!
- Tom Tancredo (Racist-CO) will run for governor of Colorado as a Constitution Party Candidate! And he’s already gotten into shouting matches!
- Texas Rep. Lamar Smith (R-of course) was on Lou Dobb’s radio show saying Obama’s close to violating his oath of office. Tom Tancredo isn’t one to speak softly, he just up and says “Mr. Obama is a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda.”
- Republican Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp (R-03) is planning on seceding from the union over the health care bill. He quickly backpedaled faster than Lance Armstrong twisted backwards.
- In the midst of the whole flap over Shirley Sherrod, the Senate strips funding for Black Farmers who were discriminated against for decades. Good job, senate! By good I mean bad.
- WikiLeaks posted a bajillion leaked military documents about Afghanistan
- US Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg is a giant pussy who just cost you $1.6 billion. Change.
- Michele Bachman can’t do anything right – Her rollout of the Tea Party Caucus was filled with blunder after blunder.
- What if Sharron Angle held a press conference, and then ran away when the press actually tried to ask her questions!? Wonder no more cuz it happened!
- Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry has launched a campaign to burn Lindsay Graham in effigy because he is not voting against Elena Kagan
- Salon sez:
The IRS filing of American Crossroads, an outside 527 group that was conceived by Rove and ex-RNC chair Ed Gillespie, gives a good taste of who is funding the GOP effort to make big gains in the House and Senate come the fall. The group has already burned through $600,000 on ads attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is facing a reelection contest against Republican Sharron Angle (see one of the spots below). Chaired by another ex-RNC chair, Mike Duncan, American Crossroads has pledged to raise $50 million to beat Democrats in the midterms and has been seen by some as a competitor to the Republican National Committee itself.
- There are no limits on how much corporations, unions, and individuals can donate to 527 groups.
- Buy an Obama Stress Head, mofos! The Weekly Standard could sure use the cash.
- Cartoon of the Day:
Categories: #astroturf, #culturewar, #drainclogs Tags: Afghanistan, American Crossroads, Birthers, Colorado, Elena Kagan, FreeRepublic.com, Immigration, Karl Rove, Ken Buck, Kenneth Feinberg, Lamar Smith, Michele Bachmann, Mike Lester, Nevada, not racist, Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, Sharron Angle, Shirley Sherrod, Tea Party Caucus, Tennessee, Texas, Tom Tancredo, Wikileaks, Zach Wamp
Drain Clogs – 06-07-2010
A man who admitted he leaked the Wikileaks Iraq tape that showed US troops killing civilians has been arrested. That makes much more sense than punishing the troops who murdered civilians!~
Helen Thomas has announced her immediate retirement as fallout from her recent very controversial comments over Israel.
In a story that broke Friday and I was too lazy to add to the Drain Clogs that day, an AZ school wanted to change faces on a mural at the school so they were lighter shades. The kids in the mural were actual students at the school. This prompted outrage, and now the mural will stay as it is and a jerkoff radio host who started the whole mess got fired.
SPLC goes over the three main groups behind the AZ SB 1070 law – FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA
BP has hired Dick Cheney’s former campaign press secretary. That will make America love you just as much as we love Dick Cheney!
The most powerful man in this arid stretch of southern Afghanistan is not the provincial governor, nor the police chief, nor even the commander of the Afghan Army.
It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces.
In little more than two years, Mr. Matiullah, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, has grown stronger than the government of Oruzgan Province, not only supplanting its role in providing security but usurping its other functions, his rivals say, like appointing public employees and doling out government largess. His fighters run missions with American Special Forces officers, and when Afghan officials have confronted him, he has either rebuffed them or had them removed.
Cartoon of the Day:
Categories: #drainclogs Tags: Afghanistan, Arizona, BP, CIS, FAIR, Helen Thomas, Iraq, NumbersUSA, racism, Wikileaks
