NSA vs. Tucker Carlson - that's a thing???

And finally for today this shameful bit of news.  The NSA is allegedly spying on Tucker Carlson.  Either the government is out of control or Tucker Carlson is lying for ratings.  Either thought is frightening for different reasons.

Coats and Rogers initial answers made continued hearings pointless

I'm watching Shepard Smith on Fox News trying to make smoke out of wet noodles on the testimony today of the denials made in the Senate committee hearing with Dan Coats and NSA chief Mike Rogers about feeling pressure to do anything illegal, or immoral ever. Yet people like independent senator King tried to create some spectacular sound bites to make it seem like the two were stonewalling.

That should be the end of it - at least so far as those two were concerned but questioning continued, needlessly. But facts were never the point.  If inveterate liberal Shepard Smith of Fox was trying to spin this, I can't imagine what the likes of MSNBC and CNN must be doing right now. 

A simple way to fight domestic terror

The latest news about an Egyptian man arrested for receiving $9000 from ISIS and claiming that he was just trying to scam ISIS out of money is a teachable moment to paraphrase the abstainer-in-chief.

Why not have the NSA or Homeland Security set up a bunch of fake domestic terrorists who have grand ideas and require cash from ISIS to carry out their attacks.  If it works, they get money from ISIS, and possible ways to trace terror donations.  In addition they take away funding from possible other radicalized domestic threats.  In the end, if ISIS finds it is sending money with no return time and again, they'll get wise and stop sending money.

If Chechen girls can trick ISIS, then why not the NSA?

Just a thought.  And who knows, maybe they are already doing that.  But if they are, maybe they should think about ramping it up.

GOP Candidate Info - Rand Paul Edition

Rand Paul on the Patriot Act, NSA and National Security.

NSA gets a win, Snowden a loss

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The NSA deservedly has a bit of black eye from the original Edward Snowden revelations.  But some of the work they do, while dirty, is still necessary.  China has been aggressively hacking and spying on Western servers for years.  So it's good to see that the NSA has more important work to do than tracking every domestic phone call and email ever.  It turns out the NSA has been spying and hacking China too.

WASHINGTON — Am
erican officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the United States for fear that the company would create “back doors” in its equipment that could allow the Chinese military or Beijing-backed hackers to steal corporate and government secrets.

But even as the United States made a public case about the dangers of buying from Huawei, classified documents show that the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors — directly into Huawei’s networks.

The agency pried its way into the servers in Huawei’s sealed headquarters in Shenzhen, China’s industrial heart, according to N.S.A. documents provided by the former contractor Edward J. Snowden. It obtained information about the workings of the giant routers and complex digital switches that Huawei boasts connect a third of the world’s population, and monitored communications of the company’s top executives.

One of the goals of the operation, code-named “Shotgiant,” was to find any links between Huawei and the People’s Liberation Army, one 2010 document made clear. But the plans went further: to exploit Huawei’s technology so that when the company sold equipment to other countries — including both allies and nations that avoid buying American products — the N.S.A. could roam through their computer and telephone networks to conduct surveillance and, if ordered by the president, offensive cyberoperations.

Meanwhile, this is where Snowden goes off the rails. Exposing American espionage is very different than letting the government know that it is spying on its own citizens and breaching privacy expectations to do so. Those who have argued that Snowden's actions are those of a traitor, have now had their claims justified by Snowden himself.  There is no domestic value in the U.S. of people knowing the government is spying on the Chinese.  People suspect that is the case but they don't really want to know about it. It serves no purpose for the public to know the details of covert action. But sharing that information with the world includes sharing it with China and potentially exposes an American asset.   Now they will have to come up with an alternative as the Chinese work to counter the existing abilities.  While they may or may not be successful, it is going to cost America time and money it cannot afford.  That is unacceptable,  and those who saw Snowden as a traitor initially*, are now having their opinions justified.

*Initially I was not one of those people.

Relief. Or worry.

In a way, I'm glad that the NSA has the knowledge to do these sort of things.  It provides me with a sense that America is not ceding the cyber-warfare space to the Chinese.  On the other hand, this is freaky scary that this capability exists since it is ripe for abuse by an overzealous agency or entire administration in Washington.

Via the NYT:

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks.

While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.

The technology, which the agency has used since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers. In some cases, they are sent to a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target.

 Somebody needs to get a handle on the holistic discussion around technology and the legality of what is permissible and not, what is ethical and what is not, before technology gets so far out in front of decision-making that the answers are foregone conclusions before they can even be discussed and debated in public.

2014 Predictions

Later I'll do a Top 10 list for 2013 stories, but today let me make a fool of myself by making some predictions for 2014.  I have a track record for getting predictions wrong.  It's not exactly forecasting because I don't have the data I need to forecast things in a really scientific fashion.  So this is just gut instinct, and that has a bad track record, much like when I try to pick NFL winners based on instinct rather than statistics.  So, more for your merriment than anything else, here goes.

(1)  The GOP will make gains in Congress, but they won't be big.  Congress currently consists of 233 Republicans and 201 Democrats.  It's early and a lot can happen to change voter intentions between now and next November, but I don't see this as being a wave election like 2010 unfortunately.  I think the GOP will only net out up a handful of seats - less than 6. And probably one 1 or 2.  There is an element of not voter fatigue but partisanship fatigue from those not politically engaged and as a result, most of the 50 or so true swing seats will even out as normally expected.  That said, I'd love to be wrong on this, but in many ways I expect to see too much political apathy in 2014 to send a message to Washington.

(2) The GOP will make gains in the Senate, but they won't be big.  The Senate currently has 53 Democrats, 45 Republicans and 2 Independents who vote with the Democrats.  The GOP will make gains. They could take as many as 6 and become the majority but to be, pardon the wording, conservative, I expect them to win 3-5 in another classic GOP under-performance and a missed chance to make a difference before 2016.  Sadly, this could be a GOP blessing in disguise.  Any improvement in the economy and/or national mood prior to 2016 will undoubtedly be attributed to Obama by the media and only serve to help Hillary Clinton (or God help us, Joe Biden) in 2016.

(3) Hillary Clinton will stump for secure Democratic candidates in 2014.  This is a no-brainer, not a prediction.  Hillary Clinton still has Democratic star power and the air of the inevitable first woman president in the United States.  Sadly.  The Democratic party will want to use that cache to mitigate any Democratic losses in the 2014 midterms, so she will be pressed into service.  But she will serve the party selectively and only endorse where they are confident her endorsements are safe and are guaranteed victories for the Democrats.  If this prediction comes true - you don't see any of her endorsed candidates take a loss, then you can bank on the fact that she is running for president in 2016.

(4) Obama's approval rating will remain flat throughout 2014.  His approval rating is stubbornly high at 40% for such a poor track record, but a lot of liberals remain locked in and the Democrats can rely on the low information voters to be swayed by a still mostly compliant media to believe the Democrat story line. Nevertheless, for Obama to remain at 40% popularity it means a number of things of national importance.  It means no more Obama scandals (bucking a trend to date).  It means Obamacare will no longer continue to suck the air out of Obama (i.e. it won't get any worse than it has been, but it won't get any better).  That's a bold prediction from a conservative.  Obamacare is fraught with perils and pitfalls and is a true clusterflop.  But my prediction is that anything that goes wrong will either be mitigated with promises to fix it, or else postponed beyond 2014 if the White House cabal can see it coming ahead of time.  In summary, all the upcoming problems will be mitigated by finger pointing, promises, delays and a compliant media corp (or "corpse" if you speak like the president).

(5) The Seattle Seahawks will win the Superbowl.  I'm suggesting you don't take this one to the bank.  My football predictions used to be pretty good when I kept on top of team stats and used formulas to make predictions.  This one is nothing more than a hunch, and a weak one at that.  I'm actually rooting for Peyton Manning and the Broncos this year.

(6) Nobody will attack Iran.  Not some bizarre Saudi-Israeli alliance, and certainly not the United States.  Consequently, Iran may announce having nuclear warhead capability before the end of the year. I'm not willing to predict how soon they use one...

(7) Flight of the Rich.  Given Europe's taxation schemes and a similar trend, further down the curve in the United States, and persecution of the non-Putin oligarchy rich in Russia, we'll see continued movement of the super rich from various countries to the diminishing number of tax haven countries of the world.  After that, at some point in the more distant future, you might either see the same happen with the rich in China.  Either that, or a flight of the rich to China where society seems happy to accept that the party apparatchiks can be treated differently, so why not the rich?

(8) Edward Snowden will remain an unwelcome, no longer useful guest in Russia as nobody else will accept him.  His relevance/newsworthiness will evaporate and he'll have to find a job over there.  The only people who will care about him are the NSA.

There we go, my predictions for 2014.  Cue the laugh track.

Obama can't avoid PRing anything and everything - even a private meeting

Via Drudge,  Mail Online notes that president Obama hijacked a tech meeting about NSA over-reach and intrusive surveillance to pitch some PR about Obamacare and discuss the failed roll out of said program:

During a White House meeting called to brief America's largest tech companies today about government overreach in electronic surveillance, President Barack Obama changed the subject – angering some meeting participants by shifting gears to address the failed launch of healthcare.gov.

'That wasn't what we came for,' a vice-president of a company whose CEO attended told MailOnline. 'We really didn't care for a PR pitch about how the administration is trying to salvage its internal health care tech nightmare.'

One executive said that meeting participants were dead-set against straying from the principal focus of the meeting – the uncomfortable and legally untenable position they are in when the National Security Agency demands access to their digital records.

The White House said in advance that the meeting would include a discussion of healthcare.gov, but the company executive said the only subject that mattered to the participants was the NSA. 'He basically hijacked the meeting,' the executive said. 'We all told the White House that we were only there to talk about what the NSA was up to and how it affects us.'

When a presidency is based on public relations, it's the only trick in the bag of tricks.  It's no wonder the president, meeting with a group of technical insiders, felt the need to hijack the agenda and talk about his own legacy and the impact they all might have had on his legacy and what they could do to help him fix it. 

It's not what the rest of those in attendance wanted to discuss.

The unnamed business leader told the paper that 'there's only one subject that people really want to discuss right now.'

The 15 companies, including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Apple and Etsy, issued a one-line joint statement after the 150-minute marathon meeting in the White House's Roosevelt Room, saying that they 'appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the president our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform.' There was no mention in the statement of healthcare.gov.

The PR president is now failing at PR because there are important things going on that he can't seem to fathom, or even see.

A friendly reminder from your government

Unfortunately I'm not sure of the original source, but I saw this on Facebook somewhere today. 

In case you were wondering:

And if you were wondering, they might want to know why.

Back again - assorted quick hits



Quick hits eye candy?



I haven't had a chance to blog in a few days and I missed it.  I'm back again today playing catch up.  Be prepared for some quick hits type thoughts and not detailed essays today.

 

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The Virginia governor election is tomorrow.  There's talk that Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton ally Democratic nominee is reportedly tanking in the waning days of the campaign and Republican nominee could steal the election from the heavily favored Democrat.  As much as I'd love to believe that, I don't buy it.  We were told by many pollsters that Mitt Romney was going become president in 2012.  He not only lost, he lost dramatically.  Until I see a win, I'm not counting it.  If the election were to be held in another 2-3 weeks, I'd be willing to believe that McAuliffe could fall far enough fast enough to secure a GOP win.  Right now, I'm more than skeptical.

 

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All politics is local.  That does not change.  Tea Party supporters who believe that we should run ultra-conservative candidates in Vermont because it's the right thing to do, miss the point that politics is a long haul game.  You can't win it in a single election.  Liberal Democrats took decades to get the country into the mess it is in today and it can be fixed all at once because people's perceptions about right and wrong took decades to change in sufficient numbers and will take a similar amount of time to change back.  But Tea Party supporters aren't alone in their desire to be right about conservatives winning elections.  Liberalesque Chris Christie believes he knows better than the GOP how to win elections.  Tactically, he may have some credibility.  The problem with his notion is that while it may work in New Jersey, that same logic may not apply in Alabama.  All politics is local is still true.  Just like 50 different states can come up with better, more specific solutions to needs than a one size fits all solution (like for healthcare) winning elections takes effort at as local a level as possible.  Obama won in 2012 by taking the approach that an individual is as local as you can get.  They used regression models to target the most likely unlikely voters.  The future of elections borrows from the past.

 

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With cratering public approval the Obama presidency has entered it's waning phase, also known as lame duck status.  Or has it?  Adding to the NSA spying scandal (clearly first among the plague of Obama scandals), the Obamacare website woes, and the shattering illusion of keeping your coverage and keeping your doctor under Obamacare have hit the president's job approval hard.  He's at 40% popularity.  Liberal satirists don't mind poking him now and again lately.  They are preparing to turn their attention to electing Hillary Clinton in 2016.  But the president understands that he's no lame duck.  The polls that counted have already happened in 2008 and 2012.  Yes his influence is waning but he's no lame duck.  He's got court justices to appoint.  He's got an agenda to try to fulfil.  He's got executive orders, and vetoes and pardons to dispense.  He's got fundraisers and speeches he can use to try to continue to shape public opinion in 2014, and 2016 and indeed beyond.  Wait until liberals have an Obama legacy to canonize - he'll be in vogue again in 2017.  And he can clearly still continue to have an impact on America until at least 2016.  Sadly for the country the impact is a very negative one, even if not all voters realize it yet.

Wouldn't you love to hear THIS conversation?

You know the NSA wants to hear it and probably already have.  Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany called president Obama to complain about her mobile phone being targeted by the NSA.

News site Spiegel reported that Merkel's mobile may have been spied on by the US and the German Chancellor is taking the allegations seriously.

She demanded an explanation in the telephone conversation with Obama, Spiegel said.

Her spokesman Steffen Seibert said Merkel made it clear that she found such practices "completely unacceptable".

"The chancellor today telephoned President (Barack) Obama" and "made clear that she unequivocally disapproves of such practices, should they be confirmed, and regards them as completely unacceptable," he said.

Of course the U.S. spies on enemies and allies alike.  They have done so, like every other country, for centuries.  While Merkel's complaint is valid, I'm sure she isn't actually surprised.

The real question here is whether the NSA has lost its ability to keep what it's doing under the cover of darkness.  They are being outed regularly this year.  Has spying become too much for the NSA to handle, or does the bungling actually come right from the top?

Remember, all of this exposed spying is coming with a press compliant with the Obama agenda.  Yet no other president has seen so many spying efforts exposed as this one has.  It must be a real mess in D.C.

Thursday Hillary Bash - Tapout Edition

I'm preoccupied today with my wife's dental adventures, and I'm also feeling pretty low energy.  So instead of investing an effort in pointing out obvious potential flaws with a Hillary Clinton presidency, I thought I would just tap out and say, yep - she's going to win in 2016.

But I'm not THAT tired.  Instead, enjoy this video of her cynicism in 2000.  Hopefully the NSA has done some investigating of her emails while it was busy collecting everyone else's.

Quick observation - NSA' scandal's biggest loser

I was reading Bob J's Rants moments ago and he made a point that I think encapsulates the entire problem that has bubbled to the surface since the 9-11 attacks.  The NSA's scandal's biggest loser is you.  Yes, you.

You have a segment of the global population - jihadists - intent on wiping out your country on on hand, and on the other hand you have a government not sophisticated enough to capture or monitor terror suspects without majorly eroding your personal privacy.  

The country the jihadists want to destroy might not be around for them to come after if they ever got aroud to doing it successfully.

Ironic.

The face of the NSA Prism leak: Edward Snowden

The Guardian has been brilliant in its slow roll of the NSA leak scandal.  Today, with the express permission of the leaker, they released a few pieces on his identity.  The big reveal is the video.  The shock is that he has gone public with his identity at all.

Setec Astronomy. Sneakers come to life.

Click the link above to watch the video.  It's important to watch, whether you believe him or partially believe him or not at all.

UPDATE: Video embedded below.

It's a fascinating watch.  Whether it changes the direction of the debate over remains to be seen. It certainly will change the course of events. Does the NSA go after Snowden?  What about the interviewer Glen Greenwald? Is Snowden an Occupy Wall Street type? Or did he vote for the Libertarian party in 2008?  Is he a plant by the NSA to distract from the real search for the leak? Will he be extradited from China?  Is he a communist sympathizer for that matter? What about Booz Allen - who are they and what do they do for the NSA?

And if this guy claims there are no secrets that can be kept from the government, why does he have no Facebook Page?  The government knows all about him already anyway and he planned all along on going public, so the need to be secretive is lost on me.