tagged w/ Investigation
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Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch’s long-time confidante and a personal friend of British Prime Minister David Cameron, was arrested at dawn on Tuesday alongside her husband, the racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, as Scotland Yard’s investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World struck out in a new direction (read more)...
http://veracitystew.com/?p=32283Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch’s long-time confidante and a personal friend of... more
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Helicopters fight a massive forest fire affecting the commune of Quillon, in southern Chile's Bio Bio region, some 500 Km south of Santiago, on January 3, 2012. Forest fires in southern Chile, fueled by intense heat and strong winds, advanced further Tuesday after destroying nearly 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres), officials said. The worst of the blazes were concentrated in Chile's Bio Bio region, where about 22,500 hectares have been destroyed, according to Chile's National Emergency Office (Onemi). About 500 people have been evacuated from the area and 162 homes destroyed. The damage prompted the authorities to declare the region a "disaster zone," which will allow residents to receive federal emergency assistance. The Chilean government has asked Brazil for an aircraft that can carry water to extinguish flames.
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Forest fires in southern Chile, fueled by intense heat and strong winds, advanced further Tuesday after destroying nearly 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres), officials said.
President Sebastian Pinera blamed the La Nina weather phenomenon and "global warming" for the lack of rain.
"We still have 20 fires that are active," Pinera told reporters, warning that Chile is facing "an extraordinarily risky and vulnerable" fire season due to dry summer weather.
Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter said some of the fires might have been set intentionally.
"The probability that they were caused intentionally, unfortunately, is not a probability that we can dismiss," Hinzpeter said.
The worst of the blazes were concentrated in Chile's Bio Bio region, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Santiago, where about 22,500 hectares have been destroyed, according to Office of National Emergencies (ONEMI).
About 500 people have been evacuated from the area and 162 homes destroyed. A 75-year-old man died early Sunday when he refused to leave his home.
The damage prompted the authorities to declare the region a "disaster zone," which will give residents access to federal emergency assistance.
More at the linkHelicopters fight a massive forest fire affecting the commune of Quillon, in southern... more
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The Guardian has continued its war on WikiLeaks with three new attacks over 48 hours—five days before Julian Assange’s final extradition appeal judgement in the High Court and a UK Parliamentary debate and vote on extradition abuses (both Monday, December 5). While it is often counter-productive to divert resources to dealing with PR attacks head-on, we provide here a revealing window into the behind-the-scenes realities that WikiLeaks has to deal with every day as a result of its high profile. While many attacks come from "traditional" enemies — the organizations WikiLeaks has exposed — others come from opportunists trying to work an easy socio-political sector — apparently saying what they believe these powerful enemies would like to be said, in the hope of preferment or relief in other areas. Others still, in fear of their reputations or the legal process, seek to whitewash past opportunism before natural moral or legal redress. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/free-stuff/43033-guardian-pr-war-against-wikileaks-qwikileaks-secrets-and-liesq-guardian-documentaryThe Guardian has continued its war on WikiLeaks with three new attacks over 48... more
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The video images of unarmed and penned female protesters being intentionally maced by NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna during last week's "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations have caused a growing public demand for an investigation, and now that a second video has surfaced showing the same officer "getting trigger-happy with the spray, just moments after the first incident," the police commission has no choice but to act...or will they?
http://veracitystew.com/2011/09/28/nypd-under-fire-for-macing-after-second-video-surfaces-video/The video images of unarmed and penned female protesters being intentionally maced by... more
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Once Again Pandora’s box was opened. In a joint move between LulzSec and Anonymous, as part of Operation Antisec, were released documents, photos, audio files and videos, exposing that wich was one of the greatest corruption scandals in the recent history of Brazil. In 2008, after four years of investigations, the Operation Satiagraha resulted in the arrest of several bankers, CFOs and investors, accused of corruption, misuse of public money, as well as money laundering. Antisec Hackers released a cache of evidence revealing government cover up of a corruption investigation involving the CIA, theBrazilian telecom industry, and multiple US corporations. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/42994-operation-satiagraha-brazil-corruption-scandal-exposed-former-sao-paulo-mayor-banker-arrestedOnce Again Pandora’s box was opened. In a joint move between LulzSec and... more
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The FBI has launched an investigation into Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. after a report that employees or associates may have attempted to hack into phone conversations and voice mail of September 11 survivors, victims and their families, a federal law enforcement source told CNN Thursday.
Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/14/us.hacking/index.htmlThe FBI has launched an investigation into Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. after a... more
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The world's largest seed company, Monsanto, announced Wednesday that its quarterly profits surged nearly 80 percent.
But the news was clouded somewhat by another announcement that the biotechnology giant was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for offering incentives to distributors who sell its herbicides.
The company's herbicide division, which includes the flagship product, Roundup, has struggled in recent years, losing ground to cheaper, generic alternatives from China. In 2009 and 2010, Monsanto began offering incentives to customers to use Roundup in an attempt to shore up the brand.
On Wednesday, Monsanto executives said the SEC had launched a probe into the incentive programs and that the agency has subpoenaed documents.
The company also announced that farmers responded positively to new corn and soybean products this spring, helping push up profits for the third quarter nearly 80 percent to $680 million. Sales of the company's corn, soybean and cotton traits rose 12 percent in the quarter, to $2.6 billion.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/article_a4b71892-a25b-11e0-959d-001a4bcf6878.html#ixzz1Qp27TVNG
More at the link
http://www.sott.net/image/image/s2/55134/full/Food_Chain_by_Monsanto.jpgThe world's largest seed company, Monsanto, announced Wednesday that its... more
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On a brisk January morning in 2007, seven New Orleans police officers waded through a crowd of cheering supporters outside the city’s jail to face charges stemming from a deadly encounter with residents on a bridge in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. Before they were booked, the grim-faced officers accepted hugs and handshakes from fellow cops who shouted, “Heroes! Heroes!”
Three of the officers who received the hero’s welcome have admitted they were concealing a dark secret the day they surrendered, one so lurid it stunned a city with a long history of police corruption.
More here:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/06/trial-opens-for-new-orleans-police.htmlOn a brisk January morning in 2007, seven New Orleans police officers waded through a... more
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Keith Olbermann said:
"You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble .... You cannot say: By the way, there's something wrong with our .... system."
Former Washington Post - and now Huffington Post - columnist Dan Froomkin wrote in 2006:
"Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. . . .
There’s the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources, even as those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive. There’s the fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political spectrum.
If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy — if not to the comedians then to the bloggers.
I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter - whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way."
The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said:
"All of the institutions we thought would protect us -- particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress -- they have failed. The courts . . . the jury's not in yet on the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn't. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that's the most glaring....
Q: What can be done to fix the (media) situation?
[Long pause] You'd have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives. You'd actually have to start promoting people from the newsrooms to be editors who you didn't think you could control. And they're not going to do that."
Veteran reporter Bill Moyers criticized the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that the false information was not challenged because:
"the [mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked."
Of course, the corporate media is always pro-war. Since 9/11 provided a justification for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, the mainstream media doesn't want to question the government's version of events.
As Tom Brokaw notes: "All wars are based on propaganda."
What Does Ellsberg Say?
Ellsberg says that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11:
Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today's American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take [former FBI translator and 9/11 whistleblower Sibel] Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations [which Ellsberg calls "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers"].
As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who "sat on the NSA spying story for over a year" when they "could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome."
"There will be phone calls going out to the media saying 'don't even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,'" he told us.
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"I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to 'How do we deal with Sibel?'" contends Ellsberg. "The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn't get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told 'don't touch this . . . .'"
He supports a new 9/11 investigation.
He says that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". (Here's some of what that whistleblower says.) He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.
And he says that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible, that "very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much involvement there might have been", that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of those in office, and that there's enough evidence to justify a new, "hard-hitting" investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath (see this and this).
Alternative Media Is Not Much Better
It is not just the corporate media.
I have had the owners of highly-regarded alternative media companies confide in me privately that they don't believe the government's version of 9/11, but that are scared of discussing it publicly because they don't want to be tarred-and-feathered for discussing "conspiracy theories".
Even writers like Glenn Greenwald - who are good on so many issues - won't touch it.
Of course - as Ellsberg points out - "Secrets ... can be kept reliably ... for decades … even though they are known to thousands of insiders”. Indeed, the whole label "conspiracy theory" is just an attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful.
People used to understand this. As the quintessential American writer Mark Twain said in a more rational age:
A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public.
Of course, as thousands of top American military officers, counter-terrorism officials, intelligence officers, congressmen, structural engineers, and others have publicly said, the government's story about 9/11 makes absolutely no sense. See this, this, this and this. And family members of people who died on 9/11 - and many New Yorkers - want a new investigation.
But you'll never hear that in the corporate media.
Continue Reading at:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25286Keith Olbermann said:
"You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the... more
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For a leftwing French presidential hopeful trying to prove he didn't like bling, room 2806 of the Sofitel hotel near Manhattan's Times Square was luxurious. For $3,000 (£1,850) a night, it boasted a foyer, conference room, living room, bedroom and bathroom. But the size of the suite compounded the brutality of the alleged assault on the hotel maid who described being dragged from room to room in a violent sex attack by one of the most important men in the world economy.
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/05/dominique-strauss-kahn-from-3000-night.htmlFor a leftwing French presidential hopeful trying to prove he didn't like bling,... more
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Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday it’s an “outrage” the Obama administration continues to investigate CIA agents who interrogated terror suspects, claiming they did nothing wrong and expressing concern about the precedent it sets.
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/05/cheney-justice-probe-of-cia.htmlFormer Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday it’s an “outrage” the... more
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The state's investigation into vote irregularities in Waukesha County will stretch back at least five years, the head of the Government Accountability Board said Thursday.
Questions over vote totals in Waukesha have lingered over the past week after County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced she failed to report more than 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield in initial vote totals.
The new total gave incumbent Supreme Court Justice David Prosser a lead of about 7,000 votes over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg in the hotly contested state Supreme Court race. Official results in that race have not yet been announced.
Now questions have emerged over Nickolaus' published vote counts from as far back as the fall of 2006, when there were key statewide elections including races for governor and attorney general.
"This is part of what we're looking into. We have a lot of complaints," said Kevin Kennedy, the director and general counsel for GAB. "It's part of our investigation."
Kennedy said the board's current priority is determining the integrity of numbers reported in this spring's election but added investigators are reviewing broader questions about Nickolaus and vote counting.
GAB staff members have been in Waukesha County much of the week, and they were there again Thursday, staff attorney Mike Haas said.
‘Hand-entered results'
Additional questions surfaced after bloggers raised questions and Nickolaus posted a note to the clerk's website this week explaining discrepancies between the total ballots cast in several elections and the votes for particular offices.
In many cases, the number of votes totaled more than the number of ballots cast.
The results for the 2006 attorney general's race, for example, show 174,047 votes for either Democrat Kathleen Falk, Republican J.B. Van Hollen or write-in candidates, a total that is 17,243 votes higher than the total ballots cast recorded elsewhere in the results.
In her note, Nickolaus said the reference to ballots cast "is the number of ballots that were fed through the election machines at the polling places and the results were collected using a modem in the office" but does not include "any hand-entered results."
It was unclear what Nickolaus meant by "hand-entered results," and she was unavailable for comment Wednesday and Thursday.
Democrats seek answers
Calls for investigations into Waukesha County's vote count controversy have grown. Mike Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a letter to Kennedy on Wednesday that "these apparent repeated problems from the Waukesha County clerk undermine the public's confidence in elections."
Also Wednesday, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter urging joint Assembly-Senate hearings to investigate the results and conduct of election officials in Waukesha County. Others, including U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the matter.
Haas said investigators have spoken with Nickolaus and want to make sure "we understand her explanation."
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/article_46644a68-6704-11e0-907e-001cc4c03286.htmlThe state's investigation into vote irregularities in Waukesha County will... more
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Embattled HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr quit his job yesterday as the prospect of a Congressional investigation loomed. A dozen Democrats in Congress asked various Republican committee chairs to launch probes of HBGary Federal's idea for a "reconnaissance cell" targeting pro-union organizers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022805810.html
HBGary Federal was hacked last month by Anonymous after Aaron Barr believed he had unmasked much of the group's leadership—and Barr's entire cache of corporate e-mails was made public. Those messages revealed that Barr had joined up with two other security firms, Palantir and Berico, to pitch the powerhouse DC law firm of Hunton & Williams on an idea to go after union-backed websites who opposed the US Chamber of Commerce. The scheme, if adopted, would have cost the Chamber up to $2 million a month.
The three companies called themselves Team Themis, and instead of providing simple "business intelligence," they had a few other ideas:
* Create a false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information, and monitor to see if US Chamber Watch acquires it. Afterward, present explicit evidence proving that such transactions never occurred. Also, create a fake insider persona and generate communications with [union-backed Change to Win]. Afterward, release the actual documents at a specified time and explain the activity as a CtW contrived operation.
* If needed, create two fake insider personas, using one as leverage to discredit the other while confirming the legitimacy of the second. Such work is complicated, but a well-thought out approach will give way to a variety of strategies that can sufficiently aid the formation of vetting questions US Chamber Watch will likely ask.
* Create a humor piece about the leaders of CtW.
Now, some members of Congress want an investigation. "The [Team Themis] techniques may have been developed at US government expense to target terrorists and other security threats," said a letter signed by the representatives.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49777524/Hunton-Williams-Investigation-letter
"The e-mails indicate that these defense contractors planned to mine social network sites for information on Chamber critics; planned to plant 'false documents' and 'fake insider personas' that would be used to discredit the groups; and discussed the use of malicious and intrusive software ('malware') to steal private information from the groups and disrupt their internal electronic communications."
Did anything illegal happen? The letter suggests that forgery, wire fraud, and computer fraud might have taken place and that Congress should investigate the ways that private contractors turn their military contracting experience on private targets.
Going after the lawyers
Hunton & Williams, the middleman law firm in all this (and the middleman between a major US bank and Team Themis' similar plan to take down WikiLeaks), has steadfastly refused to comment on the whole story. But it too may find itself in trouble after a professional conduct complaint (PDF) was lodged against it last week in Washington, DC. http://www.velvetrevolution.us/images/H_W_Bar_complaint.pdf
The complaint was filed by Stop the Chamber and Velvet Revolution, two of the groups targeted for the potential Chamber of Commerce campaign. It accuses the three Hunton & Williams lawyers named in the HBGary Federal e-mails of "an extended pattern of unethical behavior that included likely criminal conduct."
> Specifically, they solicited, conspired with and counseled three of its investigative private security firms to engage in domestic spying, fraud, forgery, extortion, cyber stalking, defamation, harassment, destruction of property, spear phishing, destruction of property, identity theft, computer scraping, cyber attacks, interference with business, civil rights violations, harassment, and theft.
Most of this alleged bad behavior was done, of course, by Team Themis and not by Hunton & Williams. Still, they reviewed (and appear to have had no problems with) the material. As the complaint puts it, "none of the H&W lawyers ever expressed any reservation or doubt about the unethical conduct proposed and committed by their investigators. In fact, they actively solicited and approved everything that was proposed and presented."
The complaint asks the DC Board of Professional Responsibility to strip all three Hunton & Williams lawyers of their licenses.Embattled HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr quit his job yesterday as the prospect of a... more
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Governor Walker likes to complain of "outside agitators." Hard to imagine an agitator with more influence and money than the Koch-family.
February 24, 2011 |
Embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker came under fire today after news broke about statements he made in a 20-minute phone call from a Boston-area alternative news reporter posing as David Koch, a billionaire whose PAC directly supported Walker and who has given millions to groups that have run ads to aid Walker's rise to the state's highest office.
As the Center for Media and Democracy has reported, the Koch PAC not only spent $43,000 directly on Walkers race, but Koch personally donated $1 million to the Republican Governor’s Association which spent $5 million in the state. Besides the Governor, Koch Brother’s has other “vested interests" in the state.
They include Koch Pipeline Company, which operates a pipeline system that crosses Wisconsin. It also owns Flint Hill Resources, which distributes refined fuel through pipelines and terminals in Junction City, Waupun, Madison and Milwaukee. Koch Industries also owns the C. Reiss Coal Company, a power plant company located in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan.
The Koch brothers opened a lobby shop in Wisconsin two days after Walker was elected, and many protesters have suspected that the “budget repair bill” provisions allowing the no-bid sell-off of any state-owned heating, cooling, or power plant, plus new rules on pipeline transport may be of interest to Koch. The company has denied any interest in these assets.
Transcript Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns.
At the start of the conversation Walker eagerly reports on all he is doing:
First, he tells the fake Koch brother about a plan to change Senate rules on pay to reel-in the out-of state Democratic senators who are holding out to protect collective bargaining. The new rule would force the Senators to pick up their paychecks in-person. This rule was passed in a partisan vote in the Senate yesterday--a move that went unnoticed by the mainstream press.
The fake Koch asks Walker how they might get others in Senate to vote to stop collective bargaining. Walker responds that he's involved the Justice Department in investigating whether the union is paying the absent Democratic senators to remain out of state, or providing them with food, shelter, etc., saying it would be an ethics violation or potentially a felony. Wisconsin legislators are well aware of these rules and have already stated they are using their own money while they are out of state.
More -http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/150030/hilarious_koch_prank_may_reveal_serious_ethics_violations_by_wisconsin_governor_scott_walker/Governor Walker likes to complain of "outside agitators." Hard to imagine an... more
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