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The World’s Most Famous Economic Hitman Confesses – They’re Coming for Your Democracy
by Zenaan Harkness 29 Mar '16

29 Mar '16

Very disheartening, the battle rages on... Chickens will come home to roost one day, I think soonish. Z http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_World%E2%80%99s_Most_Famous_Economic_Hit… The World’s Most Famous Economic Hitman Confesses – They’re Coming for Your Democracy Published: March 26, 2016 Source: Michael Krieger Allen Dulles, the CIA director under presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, the younger brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and the architect of a secretive national security apparatus that functioned as essentially an autonomous branch of government. Talbot offers a portrait of a black-and-white Cold War-era world full of spy games and nuclear brinkmanship, in which everyone is either a good guy or a bad guy. Dulles—who deceived American elected leaders and overthrew foreign ones, who backed ex-Nazis and thwarted left-leaning democrats—falls firmly in the latter camp. But what I was really trying to do was a biography on the American power elite from World War II up to the 60s. That was the key period when the national security state was constructed in this country, and where it begins to overshadow American democracy. It’s almost like Game of Thrones to me, where you have the dynastic struggles between these power groups within the American system for control of the country and the world… Absolutely. The surveillance state that Snowden and others have exposed is very much a legacy of the Dulles past. I think Dulles would have been delighted by how technology and other developments have allowed the American security state to go much further than he went. He had to build a team of cutthroats and assassins on the ground to go around eliminating the people he wanted to eliminate, who he felt were in the way of American interests. He called them communists. We call them terrorists today. And of course the most controversial part of my book, I’m sure, will be the end, where I say there was blowback from that. Because that killing machine in some way was brought back home. Most readers will be familiar with John Perkins and his best-selling novel Confessions of an Economic Hitman. What you may not know, is he’s currently making the rounds warning us that all the corporatist mercenary tactics employed against third-world nations to financially benefit U.S. conglomerates are now being turned inward on American communities. Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations. If economic pressure and threats didn’t work, Perkins says, the jackals were called to either overthrow or assassinate the noncompliant heads of state. That is, indeed, what happened to Allende, with the backing of the CIA. Perkins has just reissued his book with major updates. The basic premise of the book remains the same, but the update shows how the economic hit man approach has evolved in the last 12 years. Among other things, U.S. cities are now on the target list. The combination of debt, enforced austerity, underinvestment, privatization, and the undermining of democratically elected governments is now happening here. Sarah van Gelder: What’s changed in our world since you wrote the first Confessions of an Economic Hit Man? John Perkins: Things have just gotten so much worse in the last 12 years since the first Confessions was written. Economic hit men and jackals have expanded tremendously, including the United States and Europe. Back in my day we were pretty much limited to what we called the third world, or economically developing countries, but now it’s everywhere. van Gelder: So how has this switched from us being the beneficiaries of this hit-man economy, perhaps in the past, to us now being more of the victims of it? Perkins: It’s been interesting because, in the past, the economic hit man economy was being propagated in order to make America wealthier and presumably to make people here better off, but as this whole process has expanded in the U.S. and Europe, what we’ve seen is a tremendous growth in the very wealthy at the expense of everybody else. On a global basis we now know that 62 individuals have as many assets as half the world’s population. van Gelder: Is this the same kind of dynamic about debt that leads to emergency managers who then turn over the reins of the economy to private enterprises? The same thing that you are seeing in third-world countries? Perkins: Yes, when I was an economic hit man, one of the things that we did, we raised these huge loans for these countries, but the money never actually went to the countries, it went to our own corporations to build infrastructure in those countries. And when the countries could not pay off their debt, we insisted that they privatize their water systems, their sewage systems, their electric systems. van Gelder: I want to ask you about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and other trade deals. Is there any way that we can beat these things back so they don’t continue supercharging the corporate sphere at the expense of local democracies? Perkins: They’re devastating; they give sovereignty to corporations over governments. It’s ridiculous. I was just in Central America and what we talk about in the U.S. as being an immigration problem is really a trade agreement problem. They’re not allowed to impose tariffs under the trade agreements—NAFTA and CAFTA—but the U.S. is allowed to subsidize its farmers. Those governments can’t afford to subsidize their farmers. So our farmers can undercut theirs, and that’s destroyed the economies, and a number of other things, and that’s why we’ve got immigration problems. van Gelder: Can you talk about the violence that people are fleeing in Central America, and how that links back to the role the U.S. has had there? Perkins: Three or four years ago the CIA orchestrated a coup against the democratically elected president of Honduras, President Zelaya, because he stood up to Dole and Chiquita and some other big, global, basically U.S.-based corporations. He wanted to raise the minimum wage to a reasonable level, and he wanted some land reform that would make sure that his own people were able to make money off their own land, rather than having big international corporations do it. The big corporations couldn’t stand for this. He wasn’t assassinated but he was overthrown in a coup and sent to another country, and replaced by a terribly brutal dictator, and today Honduras is one of the most violent, homicidal countries in the hemisphere. It’s frightening what we’ve done. And when that happens to a president, it sends a message to every other president throughout the hemisphere, and in fact throughout the world: Don’t mess with us. Don’t mess with the big corporations. Either cooperate and get rich in the process, and have all your friends and family get rich in the process, or go get overthrown or assassinated. It’s a very strong message. That is how a once proud nation gets transformed into a rancid, oligarch-controlled Banana Republic.

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Re: [Cryptography] USG Moves to Vacate Apple Decrypt Order
by John Young 29 Mar '16

29 Mar '16

At 11:22 PM 3/28/2016, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote: >Some random thoughts > >* Apple wins big. First, they beat off the FBI warrant, second >everyone with less than a 5s has to buy a new phone. > >* The new phone might still be crackable by someone who has the tools >to reverse the secure enclave. But Apple isn't one of the parties that >can do that. > >* FBI might in future be able to subpoena information to use it for >making a break attempt against the secure enclave. > >* If your security depends on someone else refusing to obey a >subpoena, change your security. > >* If their security depends on you refusing to obey a subpoena, get >another job. USG wins by assault, PR, obscurity, secrecy, and sanctification of the justice-court system. No substantiation yet of USG access to Farook's phone. The claim could be a ploy to raise doubt about Apple security, and have the same effect as if access was successful. This would take the public and political pressure off USG without having to disclose how access was obtained. As well as improve USG reputation for prowess, determination and triumph. Deception, lies, bluffs and ploys are obligatory in legal proceedings and all stripes of security. Doubt, braggardy, obscurity and secrecy are essential features of defensive and aggressive security whether governmental, commercial or personal.

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USG Moves to Vacate Apple Decrypt Order
by John Young 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

USG Moves to Vacate Apple Decrypt Order <https://t.co/qkQflTOzru>https://cryptome.org/2016/03/usg-apple-209.pdf

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More Bad Govt Shit To Fight (Burner Verizon FBI)
by grarpamp 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

https://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/03/25/2047211/bill-introduced-to-req… Give us all your papers please. For no effective impact or purpose whatsoever, other than fucking you. Other than hundred thousand insecure stores having it to be lost, stolen, abused, even by shopkeeper. BTW, you cant sell your phone anymore either... that's TWO years in Gitmo and loss of your life $avings. https://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/03/25/1918226/15-million-verizon-c… Now share all it with these retards too, but only MAY use crypto, which as we know doesn't matter. So hackers can steal it. And they can datamine you and sell it to whoever for the same. And share it with the NSA / FBI, for the same, and.... https://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/03/25/1657247/have-a-political-bumpe… Also so these jackasses can track and molest you when you go buy some fucking FAYGO. Better fight this bill too.

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give all citizens six weeks of police training before eliminating the police
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

This "Rojava" process of training every adult member of the population to be competent as a police officer, then (intending to) ditching the police force, is something I have pondered over the years, my first awareness is from the Swiss concept - every household has a rifle (at least) and at least one person able to use it. Here in Australia we are well fed fat cows it seems, with no particularly egregious external threats, only the steady degradation by our own government corrupt activities and extortive practices towards us "citizens", and therefore little motivation within the population to be competent at anything much other than telly, tinnies and trivia. "The existing police force is trained in non-violent conflict resolution as well as feminist theory before being allowed access to a weapon. Directors of the Asayiş police academy have said that the long-term goal is to give all citizens six weeks of police training before ultimately eliminating the police.[100] https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/no-this-is-a-genuine-revolution/ " I'm -reasonably- sure they mean 'retiring' or 'dissolving' the police force.

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Re: [Cryptography] More Bad Govt Shit To Fight (Burner Verizon FBI)
by grarpamp 27 Mar '16

27 Mar '16

On 3/26/16, Ray Dillinger <bear(a)sonic.net> wrote: > > > On 03/26/2016 07:24 AM, Henry Baker wrote: >> It'll be interesting to see how this bill is received. >> >> IMHO the vast majority of these phones -- at least here in California -- >> are used by undocumented residents, who have no papers, no driver's >> licenses, no bank accounts, and operate 100% on cash. >> > > I'm also in California but the main use I see is at halfway > houses and womens' shelters. There are a lot of scared battered > women out there who can't disentangle exes from their financial > crap fast enough to establish independent phone service without > them, and a lot of shelters that go through them like tissues. > > It's a pretty big deal for them because there are *LOTS* of violent > loons who are trying to find those places, and everyone who winds > up there is completely inexperienced in the art of Not Being Seen. > Lots of chances for one person's mistake to become everybody's > problem, and phones are like the "ablative surface" that can be > gotten rid of for mutual protection when someone makes a mistake. > > I see their IT manager at Urban Ore, buying a basket full of > old used phones, almost every time I'm over there. You would be surprised how many *men* have to deal with crazy battering women and need to seek refuge in shelters and safe supportive halfway houses for men. Either way, all such people who are innocent enjoy the right for the government and commerce not to impede upon their right to privacy, including shielding their innocent selves from warrantless govt and commercial tracking and datakeeping. Stop giving away your rights and taking those of other innocents. For it is not the criminal they are after, but control over you.

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GitHub's 2014 Transparency Report (and dmca repo)
by Georgi Guninski 27 Mar '16

27 Mar '16

GitHub's 2014 Transparency Report https://github.com/blog/1987-github-s-2014-transparency-report dmca repo: https://github.com/github/dmca

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Privacy Centric Naming of Humans
by grarpamp 26 Mar '16

26 Mar '16

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/03/26/2017231/names-that-break-com… https://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2015-May/007632.html Breaking the db as a means of remaining out of the db, or hiding in it among hundred thousands of Smiths. Be own corp / trust.

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Bitcoin GoldBugs / Ghetto Gold
by grarpamp 26 Mar '16

26 Mar '16

On 3/26/16, elrippo <elrippo(a)elrippoisland.net> wrote: > *Want to trade Bitcoin for physical GOLD* -> > https://www.vaultoro.com/?a=100345 Their logical gold, needs minor KYC. And to get their physical, needs anal probing KYC. Bitcoiners who care about that are better off going btc > localcash > gold. Or skip btc and go cash > gold at any ghetto shop. Nice try at referral link tho bruh.

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Re: [tor-talk] Traffic shaping attack
by grarpamp 26 Mar '16

26 Mar '16

On 3/20/16, Mike Perry <mikeperry(a)torproject.org> wrote: > For example, I wonder if users see such interrupts on all of their Tor > traffic at that time, or just hidden service traffic? Or just hidden > service traffic to specific services? ... the OP appears to know the onion url and refers to fora discussion the situation. So OP should post those links for others to review analyse formulate hypothesis etc. Not as if OP and all have not already been shaped / confirmed themselves or that links [to links] mean anything. Oh noes, thousands links in your mbox... http://skunksworkedp2cg.onion/

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