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NATO Weaponizes Social Media in Latvia
Scholar warns nuclear war possible, threat worse than Cuban Missile Crisis
NATO has put the finishing touches on an information warfare office in Riga, the capital of Latvia. The office is staffed with propaganda technicians formerly deployed in Kabul, Afghanistan.
In July Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Italy Lithuania, Poland, and the UK signed a memorandum agreeing upon the establishment of a StratCom Centre of Excellence in Riga.
CIA front Voice of America interviews NATO boss on alleged Russian threat in Eastern Europe.
The latest effort will compliment a social media propaganda war against Russia run out of the State Department.
Last week Infowars.com reported on remarks by the Supreme Commander of NATO, Gen. Philip Breedlove, who said the West must engage in an information war with Russia in order to counteract its “false narratives” on social media.
“We need as a western group of nations or as an alliance to engage in this informational warfare. The way to attack the false narrative is to drag the false narrative into the light and expose it,” Breedlove said.
Prior to the rollout of NATO’s social warfare and propaganda effort, Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis accused the Russians on March 18 of engaging in “misinformation, bribery, economic pressure,” which are designed to “undermine the nation.”
“The first stage of confrontation is taking place — I mean informational war, propaganda and cyber attacks. So we are already under attack,” added Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.
The Chatham House think-tank believes Russia is involved in hybrid warfare “designed to cripple a state before that state even realizes the conflict has begun.
“It’s a model of warfare designed to slip under NATO’s threshold of perception and reaction.”
The Chatham House is a British think tank operating like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institute in the United States. Corporate members include Goldman Sachs International, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin, Bloomberg, GlaxoSmithKline, Coca-Cola, and other transnational giants and bankster operations. This elite membership, writes Tony Cartalucci, “is involved in coordinated planning, perception management, and the execution of its corporate membership’s collective agenda.”
US-NATO-Russian Confrontation Worst International Crisis since Cuban Missile Crisis
Professor Stephen Cohen, a scholar of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, believes a premeditated war with Russia is on the horizon and the situation is worse than during the Cold War.
Cohen says a “winner-takes-all” policy adopted during the Clinton administration after the fall of the Soviet Union has dominated U.S. foreign policy.
CIA director: Social media ‘greatly amplifies’ terror threat
CIA Director John Brennan said Friday that changing technology and social media websites have “greatly amplified” the security threats facing the free world
Source: Washington Times | Douglas Ernst |
CIA Director John Brennan said Friday that changing technology and social media websites have “greatly amplified” the security threats facing the free world.
Mr. Brennan told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that the Islamic State group, for example, uses new technologies to “coordinate operations, attract new recruits, disseminate propaganda, and inspire sympathizers across the globe to act in their name,” Reuters reported.
The CIA director said that the Sunni radical terror group has grown to roughly 20,000 fighters from more than 90 countries.
“The overall threat of terrorism is greatly amplified by today’s interconnected world, where an incident in one corner of the globe can instantly spark a reaction thousands of miles away; and where a lone extremist can go online and learn how to carry out an attack without ever leaving home,” he said.
Facebook to Collect Users’ Conversations for Advertisers
Social media site already sent funeral home ads to man who announced he was battling cancer
Source: Kit Daniels |
Facebook will start telling advertisers what its users are saying about their products on the social media site.
The social media giant announced its plan this week to show marketers “what audiences are saying on Facebook about events, brands, subjects and activities” so they can get a “holistic and actionable view of their audience for the first time.”
“Marketers want to understand what people think about topics related to their business, so they can make their products and marketing more relevant to their customers,” Facebook’s press released announced. “In the past they’ve looked at the things people share online to get an idea of what people care about, but, until now, the information available offered a limited view.”
“To make marketing content more relevant for people and more effective for marketers, we’re introducing topic data to select Facebook partners.”
Facebook claims the program will strip “identifying information” from the data, but the social media giant doesn’t exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to its users’ privacy.
Furthermore, the press release doesn’t indicate whether users can select to opt-out of the program, which is a notable omission.
This program once again underscores how Facebook practically claims ownership on just about everything published on its site, including personal conversations, leaving its users with no realistic expectations of privacy.
Recently one Facebook user, Daniel Kapp, wrote a status message announcing he was battling cancer, and not long afterwards he started seeing ads on Facebook for funeral homes.
“I was just knocked off my feet to see that there on the screen,” he said. “It is just completely insensitive, and every time I tried to delete it, it appeared again.”
Facebook isn’t alone in this mass data collection; yesterday we revealed that Apple is recording and transmitting the voice data of Siri users.
“By using Siri or Dictation, you agree and consent to Apple’s and its subsidiaries’ and agents’ transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input and User Data, to provide and improve Siri, Dictation, and dictation functionality in other Apple products and services,” Apple’s iOS Software License Agreement states.
Samsung’s ‘Smart TV’ is likewise recording consumer’s personal conversations for third-parties through its use of its’ voice recognition technology.
The technology can be used to spy on people in their own living room, according to Michael Price, counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at NYU School of Law.
“I do not doubt that this data is important to providing customized content and convenience, but it is also incredibly personal, constitutionally protected information that should not be for sale to advertisers and should require a warrant for law enforcement to access,” he wrote.
Police Want Cop-Tracking App Banned, While They Use Technology To Monitor You
One rule for them, another for us
Source: Steve Watson |
As police are vehemently lobbying Google to disable a function within a popular app that allows real time tracking of officers’ whereabouts, officers themselves are relying heavily on social media to surveil citizens and even assign ‘threat ratings’.
A popular GPS based app called Waze has come under fire from police groups as it allows drivers to pinpoint the location of cops and report police sightings to others on the road.
The app was purchased by Google in 2013, at a cost of $966 million. It can be used to alert drivers when they are about to encounter speed cameras and police vehicles, in order that they can avoid what many have described as revenue generating harassment at the hands of the authorities.
Police unions are now arguing that the technology is putting their officers at risk, particularly in the wake of increased attacks on officers following heightened publicity concerning cases of police brutality.
Bedford County, Virginia Sheriff Mike Brown spoke out against the app recently, dubbing it a “police stalker,” and claiming that “The police community needs to coordinate an effort to have the owner, Google, act like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove this feature from the application even before any litigation or statutory action.”
Despite these claims, there is no evidence to suggest that the Waze app has been used in any attacks upon police whatsoever.
Waze spokesperson Julie Mossler has responded to the police backlash by urging that the cop-tracking feature in the app makes the roads more safe.
“These relationships keep citizens safe, promote faster emergency response and help alleviate traffic congestion,” Mossler said.
Of course, when it comes to police using similar technology to track and monitor citizens, it’s an entirely different matter. Safety and privacy go out the window in such cases.
Most recently, it was revealed that police departments across the United States are now using a program that mines Internet comments and social media posts to determine the “threat score” of a suspect before cops arrive on the scene.
Reuters reports that law enforcement authorities have utilized an application called Beware since 2012 that takes just seconds to crawl billions of records in commercial and public databases to assign a threat rating to an individual – green, yellow or red.
“Yet it does far more — scanning the residents’ online comments, social media and recent purchases for warning signs. Commercial, criminal and social media information, including, as Intrado vice president Steve Reed said in an interview with urgentcomm.com, “any comments that could be construed as offensive,” all contribute to the threat score.”
In addition, it was revealed this week that The United States government, in the form of the Drug Enforcement Agency, is tracking the movement of millions of vehicles around the country in a clandestine intelligence-gathering program.
The program relies on license plate tracking technology, which has been used by police to monitor Americans for years.
Police have also recently complained about GPS technology being installed in their own vehicles to track their driving behavior. Again when police are the target of such surveillance technology, it seems to be a problem, but not when they are using it target Americans.
New ‘Cyberbullying’ Law Will Force Illinois Students to Give Up Social Media Passwords
Students who refuse could face criminal charges according to school superintendent
Students suspected of “cyberbullying” could face criminal charges under a new Illinois state law if they refuse to reveal their social media passwords to school administrators.
According to the new rule, all forms of “digital harassment,” whether done on or off campus, will now be investigated as a violation of school disciplinary rules and procedures.
Parents and students in several districts were informed of the new policy, which began at the start of the year, after receiving letters from school officials earlier this month.
One such letter obtained by Motherboard states that administrators may demand passwords from any student deemed to have “evidence” relating to suspected cyberbullying.
“If your child has an account on a social networking website, e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, ask.fm, etc., please be aware that State law requires school authorities to notify you that your child may be asked to provide his or her password for these accounts to school officials in certain circumstances,” a letter to parents in the Triad Community Unit School District states.
“School authorities may require a student or his or her parent/guardian to provide a password or other related account information in order to gain access to his/her account or profile on a social networking website if school authorities have reasonable cause to believe that a student’s account on a social networking website contains evidence that a student has violated a school disciplinary rule or procedure.”
According to Triad District Superintendent Leigh Lewis, refusal from students and even parents could lead to criminal charges.
“If we’re investigating any discipline having to do with social media, then we have the right to ask for those passwords,” Lewis told Motherboard. “If they didn’t turn over the password, we would call our district attorneys because they would be in violation of the law.”
Parents speaking with KTVI News argued that the law went too far and violated not only the rights of students, but of parents as well.
“It’s one thing for me to take my child’s social media account and open it up, or for the teacher to look or even a child to pull up their social media account, but to have to hand over your password and personal information is not acceptable to me,” said Sara Bozarth.
The new policy, which will likely be challenged by civil liberties advocates, clearly represents yet another brazen attack on the rights of both students and parents alike.
The new law also highlights the fact that the surveillance of students has become a major priority for many schools across the country.
Just last August school officials in Washington County, Maryland announced the activation of a new software program that actively monitors students’ social media accounts for illegal activity on and off campus.
“If the algorithm catches a phrase or a word then it will automatically generate a text message or an email,” District superintendent Clayton Wilcox said. “That email or text message will go either to the principal or to our director of school security or perhaps both.
Last August a former U.S. Army colonel turned school superintendent in Huntsville, Alabama created a secret surveillance program to monitor students’ social media accounts as well after reportedly receiving a phone call from the National Security Agency.
#FireBoehner: Backlash Against Boehner Explodes On Social Media
House speaker owns millions in stocks profiting from Obamacare
Social media has exploded in opposition to Rep. John Boehner, who faces re-election as House Speaker and has profited from owning millions in stocks benefiting from Obamacare.
On Twitter, the number of tweets tagged #FireBoehner surged from 2,200 to 7,600 in only two hours last night as voters demanded a new House Speaker to replace Boehner.
“Why hasn’t Obama’s agenda been stopped the past four years? Two words: John Boehner,” @GovtsTheProblem tweeted.
He and thousands of others have completely flooded the social media accounts of Republican representatives, who find themselves wedged between the angry constituents who voted them into office and the Republican establishment who support Boehner.
For one thing, voters are angry at Boehner for his lack of opposition to Obamacare, which could be explained by his heavy investment in medical and insurance stocks, as Jerome Corsi of World Net Daily pointed out.
“Boehner has continued to profit from health-industry investments tracing back to 2009 [before Obamacare was enacted into law]: Wellpoint Inc, which he bought at $56 a share, is now trading at $124.37. Cardinal Health, which he bought when it was trading at approximately $30 a share in 2011, is now trading at $80.44; and Pfizer which was trading at under $20 a share in 2010, is now at $31.06,” Corsi reported. “In addition to the health-care stocks, Boehner’s investment portfolio includes several large insurance companies, including shares in John Hancock (bonds and notes), Travelers (stock), Prudential Financial (bonds and notes), Allstate (stock), AFLAC (bonds and notes) and MetLife (bonds and notes).”
Overall, Boehner’s portfolio of stocks prospering from Obamacare are worth $3.5 and $5 million, Corsi added.
Boehner is also profiting from businesses benefiting from President Obama’s executive amnesty, political commentator Pat Buchanan revealed.
“Boehner and those folks up on the Hill are going to follow the people who pay their room and board and tuition,” he told The Steve Malzberg Show. “The business community doesn’t want anything done.”
“They would like to have the amnesty just go forward.”
Police Using Social Media Posts to Determine “Threat Score” of Suspects
“Offensive” online comments could earn you a “red rating”
Source: Paul Joseph Watson |
Police departments across the United States are now using a program that mines Internet comments and social media posts to determine the “threat score” of a suspect before cops arrive on the scene.
Reuters reports that law enforcement authorities have utilized an application called Beware since 2012 that takes just seconds to crawl billions of records in commercial and public databases to assign a threat rating to an individual – green, yellow or red.
“Yet it does far more — scanning the residents’ online comments, social media and recent purchases for warning signs. Commercial, criminal and social media information, including, as Intrado vice president Steve Reed said in an interview with urgentcomm.com, “any comments that could be construed as offensive,” all contribute to the threat score.”
The program also “allows the routine code enforcement of a nanny state,” allowing homeowners who have failed to trim their trees to be targeted, as well as being used for fishing expeditions and revenue generation.
An annual subscription to Beware costs police departments around $36,000 dollars a year, the majority of which is covered by federal grants. The program represents another step towards “predictive policing,” with the report noting that one recent speaker at a national law enforcement conference “compared future police work to Minority Report, the Tom Cruise film set in 2054 Washington, where a “PreCrime” unit has been set up to stop murders before they happen.”
The report notes that the program could also produce any number of false positives if the system has failed to update who lives at a particular residence, potentially transforming, “a green rating into a red rating — turning a midday knock on the front door into a nighttime SWAT raid.”
Given that any number of different comments made online in the heat of the moment could be “construed as offensive” to someone yet not indicate that a person is violent at all, this program should alarm civil liberties advocates.
There are innumerable stories of police overreacting to social media posts, while the most shocking stories revolve around people being harassed for sharing strong political opinions.
In 2012, former Marine Brandon Raub was kidnapped from his home by police, FBI and Secret Service agents and forcibly incarcerated in a psychiatric ward by authorities in Virginia in response to Facebook posts which the FBI deemed “terrorist” in nature.
In reality, Raub’s posts, which included rhetoric about ‘taking the Republic back’, were tame in comparison to actual instances of terrorist propaganda and referenced figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.
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