Snowden’s Leaks on China Could Affect Its Role in His Fate

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Passengers on a train in Hong Kong watched news of Edward J. Snowden, who is reported to have shared data of computers there.

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: June 14, 2013 311 Comments

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HONG KONG — The decision by a former National Security Agency contractor to divulge classified data about the United States government’s surveillance of computers in mainland China and Hong Kong has complicated his legal position, but may also make China’s security apparatus more interested in helping him stay here, law and security experts said on Friday.

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• A Promise of Changes for Access to Secrets (June 14, 2013)

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Joe Nocera: This Isn’t How to Stop Hacking (June 15, 2013)

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The South China Morning Post, a local newspaper, reported on Friday that Edward J. Snowden, the contractor, had shared detailed data showing the dates and Internet Protocol addresses of specific computers in mainland China and Hong Kong that the National Security Agency penetrated over the last four years. The data also showed whether the agency was still breaking into these computers, the success rates for hacking and other operational information.

Mr. Snowden told the newspaper that the computers were in the civilian sector. But Western experts have long said that the dividing line between the civilian sector and the government is very blurry in China. State-owned or state-controlled enterprises still control much of the economy, and virtually all are run by Communist Party cadres who tend to rotate back and forth between government and corporate jobs every few years as part of elaborate career development procedures.

Kevin Egan, a former prosecutor here who has represented people fighting extradition to the United States, said that Mr. Snowden’s latest disclosures would make it harder for him to fight an expected request by the United States for him to be turned over to American law enforcement. “He’s digging his own grave with a very large spade,” he said.

But a person with longstanding ties to mainland Chinese military and intelligence agencies said that Mr. Snowden’s latest disclosures showed that he and his accumulated documents could be valuable to China, particularly if Mr. Snowden chooses to cooperate with mainland authorities.

“The idea is very tempting, but how do you do that, unless he defects,” said the person, who spoke anonymously because of the diplomatic delicacy of the case. “It all depends on his attitude.”

The person declined to comment on whether Chinese intelligence agencies would obtain copies of all of Mr. Snowden’s computer files anyway if he were arrested by the Hong Kong police pursuant to a warrant from the United States, where the Justice Department has already been reviewing possible charges against him.

A Hong Kong Police Force spokeswoman said earlier this week that any arrest would have to be carried out by the Hong Kong police and not by foreign law enforcement. The Hong Kong police have a responsibility to share with mainland China anything of intelligence value that they find during raids or seizures of evidence, according to law enforcement experts.

Patricia Ho, a lawyer who specializes in political asylum at Daly and Associates, a Hong Kong law firm, said that if Beijing decides that it wants Mr. Snowden to stay in Hong Kong for a long time, the simplest way to do so would be for mainland officials to quietly tell Hong Kong’s government officials not to hurry the legal process.

The United States and China have long accused each other of monitoring each other’s computer networks for national security reasons. The United States has also accused China of hacking to harvest technological secrets and commercial data on a broad scale from American companies and transferring that information to Chinese companies to give them a competitive advantage.

Tom Billington, an independent cybersecurity specialist in Washington, said that mainland China could benefit by obtaining a copy of the data that Mr. Snowden gave to The South China Morning Post. The data, if independently verified, could help Chinese officials figure out which computers have been hacked, patch security holes, itemize compromised data, analyze the quality of computer security defenses and develop techniques for hardening other Chinese computers against future surveillance by the N.S.A.

“It certainly would seem valuable data for the Chinese,” Mr. Billington said.

According to The Guardian newspaper of Britain, Mr. Snowden showed up with four laptop computers for a meeting with its journalists in Hong Kong. But The Los Angeles Times has reported that Mr. Snowden originally smuggled electronic files out of the National Security Agency in Hawaii using a USB thumb drive.

Simon Young, the director of the Center for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong, said in a statement that it would be a violation of Hong Kong law to disclose any information that had been shared confidentially by the Hong Kong or mainland Chinese governments with the United States.

“These recent developments underline the importance of Mr. Snowden obtaining immediate legal advice in Hong Kong, especially before any further disclosures are made,” Mr. Young said.

Mr. Young did not suggest whether any of the data shared by Mr. Snowden would fall into this category. But the Hong Kong government has a history of close law enforcement cooperation with the United States, particularly in the area of counterterrorism. The Hong Kong police have long focused on trying to prevent the territory’s freewheeling financial system from becoming a base for Al Qaeda-related money laundering.

The South China Morning Post said that one target of N.S.A. hacking identified by Mr. Snowden was the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which hosts the city’s main hub for Internet connections to the rest of the world. “The University has not detected any form of hacking to the network, which has been running normally,” the university said in a statement.

The newspaper said that it had not independently verified the accuracy of the data that Mr. Snowden provided. But the United States government has not questioned the authenticity of any of the documents he has released.

The Global Times, a nationalistic mainland Chinese newspaper under direct control of the Communist Party, published an editorial on Friday calling for China to glean as much information as possible from him.

“Snowden is a ‘card’ that China never expected,” the commentary said. “But China is neither adept at nor used to playing it.”

The commentary also called for China and Hong Kong to treat Mr. Snowden kindly enough so that others with national security secrets will not be discouraged from fleeing here. “China should make sure that Hong Kong is not the last place where other ‘Snowdens’ want to go,” it said.

The Associated Press reported on Friday that Britain had issued an alert to airlines around the world warning them not to bring Mr. Snowden to its soil, and threatening them with a fine of 2,000 pounds, or $3,125. Geoffrey Robertson, of London, who was an initial lawyer for Julian Assange during the WikiLeaks dispute, criticized the alert as unusual because it was being applied to someone who has denounced government policies.

“This is a power hitherto used only against those who incite terrorism, race hatred and homophobia — never before against whistle-blowers,” Mr. Robertson wrote in an e-mail. “The British government is simply afraid that its judges, who are fiercely independent, and the European court would embarrass its closest ally by ruling that Snowden could not be extradited because, even if his “revelations” prove to be mistaken, he would be subjected to oppressive treatment akin to that being meted out to Bradley Manning,” the American Army private accused of having leaked secrets in the WikiLeaks case.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 15, 2013, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Snowden’s Disclosures on Hacking in China Could Affect Its Role in His Fate.

Surprise .. Libyan intelligence Egypt received evidence of the involvement of a marina and deputy leader in the murder of U.S. diplomats

7/21/2013 7:12 AM

Security sources revealed that the visit of the Libyan intelligence chief copper Salem, who arrived in Cairo on Saturday evening, comes within the framework of coordination and exchange of information, documents and positions between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Libya, especially regarding the status of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The sources revealed that copper Salem carried with him to Egypt, evidence and documents condemns the involvement of the leaders of the Guidance Bureau, headed by Mohamed Morsi, isolated and Mahmoud Ezzat, deputy leader Essam and Jihad in mourning the assassination of U.S. diplomats in Libya.

The sources added that copper also carried with him the investigation, information and documents that reveal the role of the boy in the smuggling of arms deals to Egypt.

The sources said that the Saudi authorities in a meeting with copper alluded to the growing dissent of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya, but stressed on its support for the Libyan authorities provided support and endorsement of the Egyptian revolution and abandon support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and not to get involved in demanding Egypt to accept mediating in the case of an orphaned addition to helping Egyptian security authorities to stop the smuggling of arms into the country across the border with Libya

The copper-Salem arrived in Egypt, coming on a private plane from Medina, in a two-day visit during which he will meet with a number of Egyptian officials, headed by Egyptian intelligence chief and interior minister and director of the National Security Agency, Major General Khaled Tharwat.

شاهد المحتوى الأصلي علي بوابة الفجر الاليكترونية - Surprise .. Libyan intelligence Egypt received evidence of the involvement of a marina and deputy leader in the murder of U.S. diplomats

American: We have no evidence of using chemical Bashar

2013.08.30 - 11:28 - Latest update: Friday, August 30, 2013 - 11:28 am

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U.S. officials said at the National Security said on Thursday that the United States and its allies do not have compelling evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad personally issued orders to his troops to use chemical weapons in the attack on an area controlled by the opposition in Damascus.

Officials said that according to estimates by secret intelligence report after undisclosed CIA summarizes information about the alleged attack on August 21, the U.S. agencies have great confidence that the Syrian government forces launched the attack and then, Assad's forces bear the responsibility.

But officials speaking on condition of anonymity, said the evidence does not prove that Assad personally ordered the use of chemical weapons.

Officials said the evidence on the responsibility of the forces loyal to Assad for the attack exceeded presumptive evidence that includes electronic recordings and some experimental scientific sampling of the area that was attacked.

And congressional aides said that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James Infeld Jr. will participate with senior U.S. officials to inform the leaders of the Congress on Thursday on the situation in Syria and estimates on the intelligence services.

And will share the U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also in command. The assistants said congressional briefing position will be through telephone calls via the Internet at six o'clock in the evening are the east coast of the United States (2200 GMT) because many of the members spend their summer vacation.

Helpers said the briefing was supposed to be confidential, but many members of Congress have been unable to get telephone lines secure fit confidential information.

Was not announced by U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to launch military action against Syria, but did not leave room for doubt that the question is not whether he will be punished Assad on the attack, but when this punishment.

And some members of Congress complained of the Republican Party, but also some Democrats that they were not consulted as it should on Syria.

(Reuters)

Obama Disobeys the Law of the Land

Obama Disobeys the Law of the Land

Published on Wednesday, 09 October 2013 13:55

Written by Phyllis Schlafly 

 

BENADOR: Obama Ushering in the Age of the Global Caliphate

BENADOR: Obama Ushering in the Age of the Global Caliphate

Published on Thursday, 03 November 2011 01:00

Written by Eliana Benador

by Eliana Benador
Courtesy of Obama, Al Qaeda Black Flag in Libya, Signals Rule of World Terror

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”  Sir Winston Churchill 

Allah Hu Akbar!  Allah Hu Akbar!   The Muslim terrorist call...

So shouted Al Qaeda terrorists as they were butchering Colonel Gaddafi...  And the world did not want to listen...

Silence is cowardly complicity as it represents a treacherous, untold approval of what’s evil.  And, one by one, terrorists worldwide are receiving the reins of power, facilitated by their godfather, Hussein Obama...

When Barack Hussein Obama took America’s military to war in Libya back in March 2011, not one person stood up to protest his arbitrary, unilateral, totalitarian, tyrannic move.  As time went by, we learned that our military were “helping” Al Qaeda terrorists to overturn Gaddafi -under the disguise of NATO...  No questions asked, our men had to obey orders and submit to fight alongside America’s archenemy:  Al Qaeda terrorists.

While many analysts, following Hussein Obama, insist in seeing this as the “Arab Spring,” or the “Arab Winter...”   We rather consider it, the rise of the “Muslim Debacle.”

Naive and trusting Americans, feel no need to be assertive and do not worry for their fate and their safety, and are allowing the situation to worsen by the day with regal impunity as, aloof, they sit back and watch the horror film of their lives pass by.

Tunisia

In an unlikely, simili-democratic election in the Muslim world, victory went to the Islamist party, Ennahda, which won 90 seats, becoming the largest bloc of the 217-member Assembly.  And they are now negotiating with other parties to form a government.  In post-Mubarak Egypt and post-Gaddafi Libya, one must see that victory for what it is...  an Islamist victory.

Ennahd’s pledge of tolerance and pluralism is the delusion for a better future.  In reality, Islam is, and can only be, a totalitarian fascist religion-based political ideology, and its goals are reflected in their founder and leader, Rachid Ghannouchi who, among others, supported Saddam Hussein.  “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world,” Ghannouchi has said.  The man also has no love lost for Israel and could not hide his burning desire for the destruction of the tiny country, naturally, encompassing the dreams of the Muslim Brotherhood.  So, let’s not celebrate yet... 

RUSH: What if Assad was framed by the rebels and the Obama admin? ALSO video proof rebels used chem weapons…

Posted by  The Right Scoop on September 3rd, 2013 in Politics | 118 Comments

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Rush laid a big one out there today in his first hour, citing an article that alleges that the rebels framed Assad for the use of chemical weapons and the White House maybe have been in on it. And what’s more is that Rush says the guy who wrote the article is very credible.
Here are a few quotes from the article:

On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence [“Mukhabarat Amriki”] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development” which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria.
The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive.
Indeed, unprecedented weapons distribution started in all opposition camps in Hatay Province on August 21-23, 2013. In the Reyhanli area alone, opposition forces received well in excess of 400 tons of weapons, mainly anti-aircraft weaponry from shoulder-fired missiles to ammunition for light-guns and machineguns. The weapons were distributed from store-houses controlled by Qatari and Turkish Intelligence under the tight supervision of US Intelligence.
…
Several senior officials from both the Syrian opposition and sponsoring Arab states stressed that these weapon deliveries were specifically in anticipation for exploiting the impact of imminent bombing of Syria by the US and the Western allies. The latest strategy formulation and coordination meetings took place on August 26, 2013. The political coordination meeting took place in Istanbul and was attended by US Amb. Robert Ford.
More important were the military and operational coordination meetings at the Antakya garrison. Senior Turkish, Qatari, and US Intelligence officials attended in addition to the Syrian senior (opposition) commanders. The Syrians were informed that bombing would start in a few days.
“The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days,” a Syrian participant in the meeting said. Another Syrian participant said that he was convinced US bombing was scheduled to begin on Thursday, August 29, 2013. Several participants — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that the assurances of forthcoming bombing were most explicit even as formally Obama is still undecided.
…
Several Syrian leaders, many of whom are not Bashar al-Assad supporters and are even his sworn enemies, are now convinced that the Syrian opposition is responsible for the August 21, 2013, chemical attack in the Damascus area in order to provoke the US and the allies into bombing Assad’s Syria. Most explicit and eloquent is Saleh Muslim, the head of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) which has been fighting the Syrian Government. Muslim doubts Assad would have used chemical weapons when he was winning the civil war.
“The regime in Syria … has chemical weapons, but they wouldn’t use them around Damascus, five km from the [UN] committee which is investigating chemical weapons. Of course they are not so stupid as to do so,” Muslim told Reuters on August 27, 2013. He believes the attack was “aimed at framing Assad and provoking an international reaction”. Muslim is convinced that “some other sides who want to blame the Syrian regime, who want to show them as guilty and then see action” is responsible for the chemical attack. The US was exploiting the attack to further its own anti-Assad policies and should the UN inspectors find evidence that the rebels were behind the attack, then “everybody would forget it”, Muslim shrugged. “Who is the side who would be punished? Are they are going to punish the Emir of Qatar or the King of Saudi Arabia, or Mr Erdogan of Turkey?”
And there remain the questions: Given the extent of the involvement of the “Mukhabarat Amriki” in opposition activities, how is that US Intelligence did not know in advance about the opposition’s planned use of chemical weapons in Damascus?
It is a colossal failure.
And if they did know and warned the Obama White House, why then the sanctimonious rush to blame the Assad Administration?
Moreover, how can the Obama Administration continue to support and seek to empower the opposition which had just intentionally killed some 1,300 innocent civilians in order to provoke a US military intervention?

You should really read the whole thing.
If the above article is factual, it is a blockbuster article. And to be honest, it seems pretty plausible to me. Why?
Let’s start with this from Walid Shoebat:

On August 24th, a video was uploaded and featured on facebook that purports to show Syrian rebels loading what very well may be a rocket armed with some sort of chemical agent. The tip of the rocket is armed with a light blue tank or canister that very well contains a nerve agent. At the end of this video, two separate launches of these rockets can be seen:

Wait, there’s more:

This video from a Syrian TV news report claims to show chemicals (some of labels on these chemicals are in English) and weapons seized by the Syrian government in the rebel stronghold of Jobar. Note at the :10 mark a label that reads: “Saudi Factory for Chlorine and Alkalies”

If that isn’t damning enough, here are two from the Muslim Brotherhood discussing the use of sarin gas:

In this video, two Syrian rebels (Muslim Brotherhood gang) can be heard coordinating an attack on a nearby building. As smoke billows a short distance from the building, a rebel on the ground can be heard directing someone – presumably at the source of the launch – to change his direction. At that point, the rebel from the launch point can be heard talking about using sarin gas next:

But if that doesn’t do it for you, then here’s more evidence that came out last week that corroborates that the rebels are responsible and were getting chemical weapons from the Saudis. Reporter Yahya Ababneh actually interviewed residents and fighters in Ghouta, Syria about what really happened. The article was written in collaboration with Dale Gavlak from Mint Press:

MINT NEWS – The U.S. and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assad’s guilt was “a judgment … already clear to the world.”
However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.
“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.
Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”
Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.
Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.
“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
“When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.
A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named ‘J’ agreed. “Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material,” he said.
“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” ‘J’ said.
Doctors who treated the chemical weapons attack victims cautioned interviewers to be careful about asking questions regarding who, exactly, was responsible for the deadly assault.
The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders added that health workers aiding 3,600 patients also reported experiencing similar symptoms, including frothing at the mouth, respiratory distress, convulsions and blurry vision. The group has not been able to independently verify the information.
More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government.

Canadian officials fired IT firm behind troubled Obamacare website

By RICHARD POLLOCK | OCTOBER 10, 2013 AT 1:05 PM

Topics: Watchdog Obamacare Health and Human Services Canada Health Care Accountability GAO

Canadian provincial health officials last year fired the parent company of CGI Federal, the prime... 

 

Canadian provincial health officials last year fired the parent company of CGI Federal, the prime contractor for the problem-plagued Obamacare health exchange websites, the Washington Examiner has learned.
CGI Federal’s parent company, Montreal-based CGI Group, was officially terminated in September 2012 by an Ontario government health agency after the firm missed three years of deadlines and failed to deliver the province’s flagship online medical registry.
The online registry was supposed to be up and running by June 2011.
Officials at the U.S. government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded six technology contracts worth $87 million to CGI Federal for Obamacare website work, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

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The CMS officials refused to say if federal officials knew of its parent company’s IT failure in Canada when awarding the six contracts.
CGI Federal built Obamacare’s Healthcare.gov, which went live Oct. 1 but has since experienced multiple technical problems, including crashes, refusal to load and sign-on, or to provide accurate information.
Obamacare requires all Americans to register for health care coverage no later than six months from Oct. 1. Officials in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, which manages Obamacare, declined to say how many people succeeded in registering through Healthcare.gov.
CGI Federal also is the prime contractor for state health exchange websites in Colorado, Vermont, Hawaii and Massachusetts. Three of those states also reported significant website glitches.
In Hawaii, health exchange officials formally apologized for the inconvenience in delays and said they did not know when the site would be available.
Only Massachusetts, which has had a state health program in operation for seven years, reported no website problems.
The IT glitches were so acute across the nation that HHS shut down the site for weekend repairs Oct. 5-6, but the problems have persisted.
In Canada, eHealth, the Ontario provincial agency, scrapped its high-profile online medical registry for diabetes sufferers and treatment providers, and cancelled CGI Group’s $46.2 million contract, on Sept. 5, 2012. The company was 14 months behind schedule when it was given notice of termination by the Ontario government agency.
In the meantime, a group of other Ontario IT companies successfully replicated the registry, rendering CGI’s project obsolete.
Because the contract terms stipulated payment only upon delivery of a satisfactory final product, the province has refused to pay CGI.
CGI has not publicly discussed the eHealth failure, but has taken legal action, including filing a defamation suit against eHealth and the Toronto Star newspaper.
CGI has received bipartisan condemnation from Ontario government officials for its failure on the registry.
“They did not meet the requirements of their contract which was faced with many layers of delays, which caused great angst among the health care providers who are trying to do their best,” Frances Gélinas, a member of Ontario's provincial parliament, told the Washington Examiner.
“They basically said, ‘This is not working.’ CGI is not delivering what we need,” Gélinas said. Gélinas also serves as a health policy spokeswoman for the NDP, an opposition Canadian political party.
A knowledgeable official who requested anonymity said the CGI-eHealth controversy mainly stemmed from CGI’s failure to deliver its product on schedule.
“It basically boiled down to missed deadlines,” said the official. “CGI was contracted to build the diabetes registry in the province. They weren’t able to fulfill that commitment, and they weren’t able to meet guidelines to have a product up and running that physicians can use. It dragged on and on.”
“It was becoming an issue for the government in the sense that it was a prominent initiative of the government. Delay was causing some consternation and frustration,” the official said.
Nine thousand medical providers now use alternative online registries for Ontario’s estimated 40,000 diabetes patients. The province has certified 13 IT vendors, a number of which have sold and are maintaining the registries instead of CGI.
At the time, the Ontario health minister, Deb Matthews, told Canadian news organizations she was “enormously disappointed” by the CGI failure.
“They (CGI) were so late in delivering it, that our EMR (electronic medical records) providers here in the province expanded the scope and utility of their product and just rendered CGI’s technology irrelevant,” the source said.
Gélinas agreed. “The diabetes registry was conceived in concept almost four years ago. It may have had utility, had they been able to meet their deadlines. But what happened was that they just didn’t. The project dragged on,” she said.
CGI declined to comment on the eHealth controversy. Linda Odorisio, vice president for CGI’s global communications, said in an email that “discussions to resolve the issues between eHealth and CGI are ongoing. Both parties are bound by confidentiality agreements and we will not comment on the specifics of the matter while proceedings are underway.”
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UN Alarmed at Polio Threat in Sudan Border Region

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 11, 2013 at 5:50 PM ET

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UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council is expressing alarm at the imminent threat of the spread of polio through Sudan's violence-wracked South Kordofan and Blue Nile states and the continuing outbreak of polio in the Horn of Africa.

The U.N. humanitarian office has reported that the threat affects more than 165,000 children in the two Sudanese states "due to a lack of immunization in the border area in more than two years," the Security Council said in a statement Friday.

The SPLM-North, a rebel group backed by South Sudan, has been fighting government forces in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

The Security Council called on Sudan's government and the SPLM-North "to urgently overcome differences" over technical plans so that a two-week polio vaccination campaign can begin on schedule on Nov. 5. 

Groomed by the Muslim Brotherhood—is Obama the Muslim nation’s new caliph? Try to remove him and see “jihad” as never imagined before!

Obama is galvanizing (uniting) the Muslim nation — a supranational Islamic state (or empire) known in Islam as a “caliphate“ — with the Qur’an as its constitution.

The Muslim Brotherhood is primarily Sunni, one of the two major sects of Islam and which the majority of Muslims are, including all in Indonesia where Obama was in his most formative years raised by his Muslim stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, and where his name was Barry Soetoro, not Barack Obama. And now he is aiding the Muslim Brotherhood with American tax-dollars and weapons to overthrow the Shia sect in Syria. Shia Muslims in Syria have been receiving aid from the mullahcracy in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both are Shia Muslims. But don’t misunderstand, the violent conflict between the Sunni and Shia (seen in Iraq and Syria today) has always been temporary, i.e., until a new caliph is chosen.

NOTE: Mohammad gave no directions as to how to choose his successor. There were two customary means of selecting a leader — having a hereditary leader, or choosing someone when OPPORTUNITIES for action arise, i.e., opportunities to conquer (dominate) non-Muslims as instructed by the Qur’an.

For the cameras, Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (Sunni) and Ahmadinejad of Iran (Shia) are in fact united against the United States, Israel and Western civilization. See the Sunni Muslim glaring at Ahmadinejad: It will take time for them to get used to unity.

So now We the People of the United States of America have a Sunni Muslim in our White House aiding, comforting and uniting Islamic powers into a caliphate while most American Citizens are truly struggling financially. Many of us don’t even  have a bank account any longer and are dependent on food stamps.

If you do not know that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is a Muslim, then you do not know what Islam is, (i.e., you do not know what the Qur’an instructs), and have not acknowledged the facts.

Obama wrote in his book, “The person who made me proudest of all though was Roy, he converted to Islam.” A Christian would NEVER say that! Roy is Barack Obama’s brother and after “he converted to Islam” he changed his name to “Abongo“. What we must acknowledge here is that Obama’s mother married a second Muslim, Lolo Soetoro, who adopted her son in Indonesia and his name was Barry Soetoro. “Barry” is not a Muslim name and after leaving Indonesia he changed his name to “Barack,” an Arabic Muslim name. Also Barack wrote in his book, “Lolo followed a brand of Islam… I looked to Lolo for guidance.” What we must acknowledge is that Barry’s stepfather, Lolo, and mother enrolled him in two separate Indonesian schools as a Muslim. They could have circled Catholic, Christian, Buddhism, Hindu, but they circled Islam. And in a third quote from Obama’s book he says, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Instead of saying he is on the side of America, or of Western civilization, or on the side of the Jews and the Christians who are the victims of Islamic terrorism instructed by the Qur’an and hadith, he is going to stand with the Muslims. And we see him doing this daily: He has been aiding and comforting the Muslims on every issue and at every step of the way.

HHS gives up on Obamacare’s anti-fraud measures

By PHILIP KLEIN | JULY 7, 2013 AT 12:05 PM

Topics: Beltway Confidential Obamacare Health Care Kathleen Sebelius

The Obama administration has announced it will delay the implementation of anti-fraud procedures...

One of the biggest administrative hurdles facing Obamacare was the ambitious plan to verify the income and insurance status of applicants for federal health coverage subsidies. In theory, on Oct. 1 of this year, a prospective beneficiary of Obamacare was supposed to be able to visit a website like Orbitz, enter basic information, and wait as multiple state and federal government databases communicated with one another to confirm in real time the applicant’s income level, and then display the level of subsidy to which the applicant was entitled, if any. It was a level of technological sophistication unlike anything ever attempted by the government. Now, with less than three months to go before Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges are set to begin enrolling applicants, Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services is throwing up its hands. Just as it did with the employer mandate, the administration has announced it would delay the implementation of these anti-fraud procedures due to the administrative difficulty.

In a regulation released Friday and flagged by Washington Post reporters Sarah Kliff and Sandhya Somashekhar, the administration will now rely on self-reported data. You read that correctly. A man who earns $50,000 per year and gets insurance through his employer could log on to the new government website and say he earns $20,000 and gets no insurance through his employer, and the government would not even attempt to confirm that the information is accurate before forking over generous taxpayer subsidies. It’s a recipe for rampant fraud, which is already widespread in Medicare and Medicaid.
According to the rule as reported by Kliff and Somashekhar, “The exchange may accept the applicant’s attestation regarding enrollment in eligible employer-sponsored plan . . . without further verification” and “the Exchange may accept the attestation of projected annual household income without further verification.”
The authors’ note that if anybody is caught lying, that they would be subject to a $25,000 fine and forced to repay any excess subsidies they received. But just like a waiter who under-reports cash tips, it likely won’t be very hard to get away with lying on Obamacare forms.
With this news coming after the employer mandate delay announcement, the Obama administration has now openly conceded that it is in way over its head when it comes to implementing this unworkable law. Thus, the new strategy is to simply set up a mechanism to feed taxpayer subsidies to as many Americans as possible so that even if Obamacare is a complete train wreck, it will make enough people dependent on government to make repeal politically impossible. Republicans should seize on this immediately, and force the administration to defend a policy that would open the floodgates to fraud.

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Redskins Name Controversy: Mainstream Media Exaggerates Racial Divide in America

Media hypes up controversy so they can falsely label gov’t critics as “racist”
Kit Daniels
Infowars.com
October 10, 2013
The mainstream media is currently hyping up controversies surrounding the names of sport teams accused of sounding racist in order to exaggerate the prevalence of racism in America, which makes it easier for politicians to suppress their opposition by falsely labeling them “racist.”

A Stanley Cup banner being hoisted for the Chicago Blackhawks, whose name is now under attack.
(Credit: Nicole Yeary via Flickr)

The news wire is now flooded with articles which insist that the namesakes and logos of the Washington Redskins, the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Blackhawks are racial epithets and must be changed.
The Washington Post in particular has published numerous articles insisting that the Redskins change its name after President Obama said Saturday that he would probably do so if he owned the American football team.

Obama Supporter: ‘I’m Exhausted Of Defending You’

 

 

Exhausted of Defending You: http://youtu.be/b5GqYtrSzAo via @youtube 

CNBC
Sept 21, 2010
“I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for,” a woman told President Obama at a town hall.
Having A Supply Of Healthy Foods That Last Just Makes Sense (AD)

NSA Veterans: The White House Is Hanging Us Out to Dry

'There has been no support for the agency from the President, and this has not gone unnoticed.'

BY SHANE HARRIS | OCTOBER 10, 2013

Gen. Keith Alexander and his senior leadership team at the National Security Agency are angry and dispirited by what they see as the White House's failure to defend the spy agency against criticism of its surveillance programs, according to four people familiar with the NSA chiefs' thinking. The top brass of the country's biggest spy agency feels they've been left twisting in the wind, abandoned by the White House and left largely to defend themselves in public and in Congress against allegations of unconstitutional spying on Americans.

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Former intelligence officials closely aligned with the NSA criticized President Obama for saying little publicly to defend the agency, and for not emphasizing that some leaked or officially disclosed documents arguably show the NSA operating within its legal authorities.
"There has been no support for the agency from the President or his staff or senior administration officials, and this has not gone unnoticed by both senior officials and the rank and file at the Fort," said Joel Brenner, the NSA's one-time inspector general, referring to the agency's headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

More FP Coverage the NSA Leaks

• Hostile Takeover: Now the NSA Wants to Snoop on Wall Street, too
• Not Even the NSA Can Crack the State Dept's Favorite Anonymous Network
• How Congress Screwed Up America's Security Clearance System

The weak backing from top administration officials has aggravated the relationship between Alexander and the White House, where he has never been warmly embraced. The NSA now finds itself without the strong, visible support of the President at a time of extraordinary political vulnerability, with the agency's secrets laid bare and its future in doubt.
The Obama administration has long relied on America's intelligence agencies to carry out its most important foreign policy objectives, from killing Osama bin Laden to undermining Bashar al-Assad. The White House's embrace of the dark world of spycraft has been near-absolute. A rift between America's intelligence and political leaders could be more than fodder for Beltway cocktail parties. If left unchecked, it could start to erode the trusted relationships that have been at the heart of how the U.S. government handles global threats since 9/11.
Obama has only made one set of substantial remarks about the NSA's collection of Americans phone records and monitoring of Internet and email data, during a press conference in August. He did not distance himself from the programs, but he has not made a point of reminding the American people or lawmakers that he thinks they are vital. Neither the president's national security adviser, Susan Rice, nor his top counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, have given any public remarks arguing that the NSA programs are legal and necessary. And no Cabinet official has mounted a concerted effort to back the agency in public.
Former intelligence officials who remain in regular contact with those still in government say that morale at the NSA is low, both because of the reaction to leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden, which put the normally secretive agency under intense scrutiny, and because of budget cutbacks and the continuing government shutdown, which has left some employees furloughed without pay.
Brenner, who also served as the government's director of counterintelligence, said that Obama could have lifted morale had he gone to Ft. Meade and made a speech vigorously defending the NSA's work. "A president who had real feeling for the intelligence business and the people laboring in that vineyard would have paid them a visit," Brenner said.
Instead, said former senior CIA official Mark Lowenthal, "They are hurting."
Stewart Baker, the NSA's former general counsel, said he had not discussed the administration's response to the NSA scandal with officials in government, but that it was the "general perception" that it had been weak.
"The President is uncomfortable defending this. Maybe he spends too much time reading blogs on the left," Baker said. "That's fatal in cases like this. You have to make the case because nobody else will."
Laura Lucas Magnuson, a White House spokesperson, said that Obama had praised the work of the agency in his remarks in August and "believes the men and women of our intelligence community, including NSA, work every day to keep us safe because they love our country. He continues to have great confidence in them, and believes they carry out their work with a sense of He continues to have great confidence in them, and believes they carry out their work with a sense of professionalism and patriotism."

NSA Veterans: The White House Is Hanging Us Out to Dry

'There has been no support for the agency from the President, and this has not gone unnoticed.'

BY SHANE HARRIS | OCTOBER 10, 2013

An NSA spokesperson downplayed any rift between the agency and the administration. "National security is a team sport. For us, collaboration is built into the very fabric of who we are," said Vanee Vines. "There is no truth to rumors of dissension between NSA and the administration regarding the Agency's mission to help defend the nation and save lives. Together, we all prevail."
But Alexander may have publicly hinted at his displeasure with the administration last month, when he and Chris Inglis, the NSA's deputy director, sent a two-page letter to the family members of NSA employees and contractors. In it, Alexander and Inglis quote from a blog post by Benjamin Wittes, the editor-in-chief of Lawfare and a frequent defender of some of the NSA's programs. The quote reads, in part: "Shameful as it is that these documents were leaked, they actually should give the public great confidence both in NSA's internal oversight mechanisms and in the executive and judicial oversight mechanisms outside the agency. They show no evidence of any intentional spying on Americans or abuse of civil liberties."
What the letter did not say is that Wittes's blog post was also a harsh critique of the White House's failure to defend the NSA programs in a "full-throated and serious way." The passage cited in the letter was actually Wittes's suggestion of what an administration "with the imagination to try to change the narrative" could have said to the NSA's detractors.
After quoting the passage, Alexander and Inglis wrote, "We couldn't agree more."
Jack Goldsmith, the one-time head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, wrote on Lawfare that "it is unclear if they are agreeing with the substance of [Wittes'] defense of NSA or with his criticism of the administration's very tepid defense of NSA, or both. But whichever it is, the letter shows that leaders of the NSA are aware that the [U.S. government] has done a truly awful job of responding to the often-misleading public characterizations of both the documents Snowden leaked and the ones disclosed by the NSA itself."
The White House's response to the NSA leaks is not in keeping with its defense of other intelligence controversies. Last year, John Brennan, then the White House counterterrorism chief, gave a major public address justifying the use of drones to kill suspected terrorists. Former intelligence officials called for a similar speech on NSA surveillance now. (Brennan became the CIA director in March.)
"I think actually this is the first signal that John Brennan is gone," said Baker, the former NSA general counsel. "I think that if Brennan had still been there he would have immediately appreciated the importance, and communicated that to the president, of defending the program."
Alexander has never been especially close to Obama or White House officials. Some thought he had tried to amass too much surveillance authority without appreciating the legal constraints on his agency, according to a former administration official. "I don't understand why the White House didn't throw Alexander under the bus," the official added.
The public response to the fallout from Snowden's leaks has been managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all the government's intelligence agencies. In August, the office released thousands of pages of classified documents that it said showed the NSA operating within its authorities and abiding by the law. Originally, officials had planned to release a much smaller set of data, but the DNI's general counsel, Robert Litt, intervened and pushed for a much bigger release, according to two sources familiar with the declassification process.
Litt has been one of the leading defenders of the agency, along with Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Referring to the Snowden leaks, Clapper told Foreign Policy in a statement, "This situation is unprecedented. The release of these documents represents one of the most egregious violations of trust I've seen in more than 50 years in Intelligence. Since the NSA documents were disclosed, the President and his staff have worked closely with my staff and NSA to manage this very challenging set of circumstances. I greatly appreciate the president's unwavering support of the men and women at the NSA and across the entire Intelligence Community."
Former officials may be calling for a more visible sign of that support from Obama. But it's not clear the president or a Cabinet official would persuade skeptical lawmakers and citizens that the NSA's programs should remain intact. Polls have shown a majority of Americans believe the government hasn't told them the full story about what the NSA does with people's communications records. And while legislative attempts to scale back NSA surveillance have failed so far, Congress is considering other bills that could change the way that NSA spies.
"Would the president's intervention be enough to call off Patrick Leahy and Ron Wyden? I don't think so," said Lowenthal, referring to two of the NSA's biggest antagonists in the Senate. "The president doesn't have a lot of clout on the Hill right now, in either party."

Kissinger's 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide

NSA Staff Whining That President Obama Isn’t Defending Them Enough

OH BOO HOO 

HE DONT PROTECT ANY ONE WHO HELPS HIM LOOK AT BENGHAZI HE WILL THROW YOU UNDER A BUS 

BUT YOU EVIL PEOPLE KEEP HELPING HIM

 

Mike Masnick
TechDirt
October 11, 2013
Foreign Policy magazine has an article highlighting how NSA employees are pissed off that President Obama hasn’t been defending the NSA strongly enough these past few months. While many (including us) have been quite critical of President Obama’s weak defense of the NSA programs, folks inside Ft. Meade are pissed off that he’s not out there defending them more strongly:

Gen. Keith Alexander and his senior leadership team at the National Security Agency are angry and dispirited by what they see as the White House’s failure to defend the spy agency against criticism of its surveillance programs, according to four people familiar with the NSA chiefs’ thinking. The top brass of the country’s biggest spy agency feels they’ve been left twisting in the wind, abandoned by the White House and left largely to defend themselves in public and in Congress against allegations of unconstitutional spying on Americans.
Former intelligence officials closely aligned with the NSA criticized President Obama for saying little publicly to defend the agency, and for not emphasizing that some leaked or officially disclosed documents arguably show the NSA operating within its legal authorities.
“There has been no support for the agency from the President or his staff or senior administration officials, and this has not gone unnoticed by both senior officials and the rank and file at the Fort,” said Joel Brenner, the NSA’s one-time inspector general, referring to the agency’s headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Of course, one response to this is: too bad. Perhaps if the NSA didn’t keep pushing the boundaries further and further out, and there were more courageous folks like Ed Snowden willing to speak up and say “what we’re doing is wrong,” those NSA employees wouldn’t be dealing with this mess. And, of course, you’d hope that the NSA would employ grown ups who don’t get all mopey because the President has other things to focus on.
Full article here

Related posts:

1. Obama Supporter: ‘I’m Exhausted Of Defending You’
2. Former Russian Gen: Russia Is ‘Defending The Entire World From Fascism’
3. While Defending Enhanced Interrogation, Former CIA Chief Hayden Beat Up A Subordinate In Front Of Obama
4. Joe Scarborough Explodes At Pro-Gun Advocates Defending Assault Weapons: ‘You’re Fools’
5. Dobbs to Obama: ‘Quit Whining and Start Leading’

This article was posted: Friday, October 11, 2013 at 11:14 am