Show Notes: unfilter.show/280

The post Mutually Assured Manipulation | Unfilter 280 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

With the lead up to LinuxFest Northwest Chris takes a moment to reflect on the kick off of the 2016 horse races. Congress gets involved with Iran, Putin has missiles for sale & a Cyberwar take-down you have to hear to believe.

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The post The Rat Race Begins | Unfilter 141 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday proposed shrinking the Army to its smallest size in 74 years, closing bases and reshaping forces to confront future threats like cyberwarfare. Old special interests are digging in and fighting back with everything they’ve got. But how deep are the cuts? And is there really any reduction in spending? We’ll dig in.

Plus: The NSA doubles down in Germany, an update on the Ukraine, and much much more.

On this week’s episode of, Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is Crazy

• Obama Administration Seeks to Hold NSA Phone Records Longer – WSJ.com

The Obama administration has asked a special court for approval to hold onto National Security Agency phone records for a longer period–an unintended consequence of lawsuits seeking to stop the phone-surveillance program.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Justice Department was considering such a move, which would end up expanding the controversial phone records database by not deleting older call records.

Under the current system, the database is purged of phone records more than five years old. The Justice Department, in a filing made public Wednesday, said it needs to hold onto the older records as evidence in lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others.

Under the proposal made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the older data would continue to be held, but NSA analysts would not be allowed to search it.

After having stopped spying on Merkel, the NSA is now focusing on German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière and other confidants (google translate)

• How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations – The Intercept

These agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable.

Other tactics aimed at individuals are listed here, under the revealing title “discredit a target”:

Then there are the tactics used to destroy companies the agency targets:

GCHQ describes the purpose of JTRIG in starkly clear terms: “using online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world,” including “information ops (influence or disruption).”

• Reddit Censors Big Story About Government Manipulation and Disruption of the Internet Washington’s Blog

The moderators at the giant r/news reddit (with over 2 million subscribed readers) repeatedly killed the Greenwald/Snowden story on government manipulation and disruption of the Internet … widely acknowledged to be one of the most important stories ever leaked by Snowden.

Similarly, the moderators at the even bigger r/worldnews reddit (over 5 million subscribers) repeatedly deleted the story, so that each new post had to start over at zero.

• Brazil, Europe plan undersea cable to skirt U.S. spying

Under current plans, a joint venture between Brazilian telecoms provider Telebras and Spain’s IslaLink Submarine Cables would lay the communications link. Telebras would have a 35 percent stake, IslaLink would have a 45 percent interest and European and Brazilian pension funds could put up the remainder.

• Brazil, EU to circumvent NSA spying with undersea cable – YouTube

Brazil and the European Union are joining forces against the National Security Agency and spying by the United States. Brazil and the EU announced they will build an undersea communications cable to connect the two areas and to reduce the reliance on cables going through the US. The proposed $185 million cable would stretch from Fortaleza, Brazil to Lisbon, Portugal.

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Shrinking the Beast

• Hagel says US military must shrink to face new era – The Washington Post

In a speech at the one-year mark of his tenure as Pentagon chief, Hagel revealed many details of the defense spending plan that will be part of the 2015 budget that President Barack Obama will submit to Congress next week. Hagel described it as the first Pentagon budget to fully reflect the nation’s transition from 13 years of wa

• Defense.gov News Article: Hagel Outlines Budget Reducing Troop Strength, Force Structure

Some of that risk, Hagel said, is associated with a sharp drawdown in the size of the Army, which the proposed budget calls for reducing to as low as 440,000 active duty soldiers from the current size of 520,000, while ensuring the force remains well trained and equipped.

The cuts assume the United States no longer becomes involved in large, prolonged stability operations overseas on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan. “An Army of this size is larger than required to meet the demands of our defense strategy,” Hagel said. “It is also larger than we can afford to modernize and keep ready.”

• Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Feb 2011: Defending US defense spending Cuts

“It is my judgment that the Department of Defense needs an appropriation of at least $540 billion for FY2011 for US military to properly carry out its mission, maintain readiness and prepare for the future,” said Gates, who also discussed cuts he’s made to the military budget, on programs no longer needed.
However, what is not widely known is that most of the $78 billion he’s cut would not take place until 2014 and 2015, when there will be a new secretary of defense and possibly a new president.

• Pentagon proposes to shrink US Army to pre-WWII level – YouTube

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recommended Monday that U.S. troops be reduced levels not seen since prior to World War II. In a news conference at the Pentago.

• Proposed defense budget cuts would ground A–10 fleet – YouTube

The future of the A–10s is up in the air again after Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel outlined Monday massive proposed cuts to the military.

• Cheney Bashes Food Stamps In Pro-Military Rant, Forgetting Military Families Rely On Them

In the first half of fiscal 2013, however, those eligible to shop in military commissaries – which include disabled veterans and others with military identification – cashed in nearly $53 million in food stamps, according to data provided to The Huffington Post by the Defense Commissary Agency. In 2011, more than 5,000 “active duty military” relied on the government aid.

A September report by nonprofit think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that at least 900,000 veterans received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program assistance, or food stamps, each month.

• President Obama Is Fighting Cuts to the Military, Not Demanding Them

You might disagree with Obama’s priorities, but Cheney’s claim is based entirely on the notion that Hagel and Obama are proposing military cuts. But they aren’t. Hagel proposed a change in force structure that would lead to a smaller Army, but his overall budget proposal is $115 billion more than the current sequester levels demanded by Republicans

• Army Gives Out $500,000 Armored Trucks for Free – YouTube

The U.S. Army is giving away 13,000 armored trucks, worth about $500,000 each. The 20-ton MRAPs, or Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected trucks, were built specifically to save U.S. soldiers from roadside bombs in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Now the trucks are patrolling U.S. city streets. U.S. law enforcement agencies have received the lion’s share of this high-powered military surplus. (Source: Bloomberg)

• Obama assessing four alternatives to NSA phone data collection: WSJ | The Verge

One proposal would be to put phone metadata collection under the purview of US telecommunications companies. Under this option, the NSA would inform the companies of when it needs to search their databases for terrorism-related investigations, and the phone companies would return only the results of those searches, rather than data on consumers unrelated to the investigations.

A second proposal would see a different federal agency hold the data — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), for instance — and a third would place them under the control of a third entity that’s neither a federal agency nor a telecom company.

The final proposal would abolish the data collection program altogether, an option that Obama in January said would require more work “to determine exactly how this system might work.”

• List of countries by military expenditures – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is a list of countries by military expenditure, the amount spent by a nation on its military in a given year.

• U.S. defense spending compared to other countries | pgpf.org

We currently spend more on defense than the next 10 countries combined. Defense spending accounts for about 20 percent of all federal spending — nearly as much as Social Security, or the combined spending for Medicare and Medicaid.

• Video: The Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight

Mike Lofgren, a former GOP congressional staff member with the powerful House and Senate Budget Committees, joins Bill to talk about what he calls the Deep State, a hybrid of corporate America and the national security state, which is “out of control” and “unconstrained.” In it, Lofgren says, elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests.

Ukraine mayhem

• BBC News – Ukraine crisis: Yatsenyuk is PM-designate, Kiev Maidan told

The Maidan council named Arseniy Yatsenyuk to become prime minister. The cabinet – to be voted on by MPs on Thursday – includes leading activists.

The US has offered Ukraine’s struggling economy – which faces default – loan guarantees of up to $1bn (£600m).

Meanwhile, Mr Yanukovych has been put on the international wanted list.

The fugitive president – whose whereabouts are unclear – is accused of being behind last week’s deaths of more than 100 protesters at the hands of riot police in and around the Maidan.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington planned to offer Ukraine the loan guarantees to help stabilise the country’s economy.

Mr Kerry also warned Russia it would be a “grave mistake” to embark on any military intervention in Ukraine.

• Russia flexes military muscle as tensions rise in Ukraine’s Crimea

Russia ordered surprise military exercises on Ukraine’s doorstep Wednesday as tensions in that country’s southern Crimea region simmered, with pro-Russian demonstrators facing off against rival protesters in the city of Simferopol.

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The post Military Budget Bomb | Unfilter 87 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

After a string of high profile Cyberattacks we could be witnessing the creation of the next generation military industrial complex. Or is President Obama desperately seeking to protect us from same the types of Cyber weapons we’ve attacked other nations with?

Nobody celebrates National Cybersecurity Awareness Month like the US government.

Plus: We start in the United States, which is facing a dramatic “Fiscal Cliff”. We’ll break down exactly what that term means, how it will impact you, and when the supposed deadline is.

Then from Libya to Spain we’ll focus on the important events that developed this week around the world.

And: The first presidential debates have just wrapped, we reflect on a few moments, and play a few of our favorite clips.

All that and a heck of a lot more, on this week’s Unfilter!

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Show Notes:

ACT ONE:

• U.S. names 55 Guantánamo captives cleared for release

• Youngest Guantanamo Bay inmate is shipped back to his native Canada – NY Daily News

• Report: Nearly 90 percent of Americans would see taxes rise if ‘fiscal cliff’ hits

• Impact of \’fiscal cliff\’ is studied
• U.S. States Teetering on Brink of Fiscal Cliff, Ganeriwala Says

• United States fiscal cliff – Wikipedia

• Spain\’s next crisis: Regional splits?

• Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan could be speeded up, says Rasmussen

• Syria chemical weapons worry Nato

• Sec. Clinton Pledges Additional $45 Million in Aid to Syrian Rebels

• U.S., France boost Syria support, less than rebels hoped

• U.S. Tracking Killers in Attack on Libya Mission

• White House secret meetings examine al-Qaeda threat in North Africa

• US Africom discusses intervention in Mali

• No terrorist found, just information whore house for corporations and spy agencies

• Homeland Security \’fusion\’ centers spy on citizens, produce \’shoddy\’ work, report says

ACT TWO:

• National Cyber Security Awareness Month

• US banks report cyber attacks from Middle East

• Hackers Block U.S. Banks\’ Online Service; Bank of America, PNC and Wells Fargo Affected

• DSL modem hack used to infect millions with banking fraud malware

• White House confirms cyberattack

• BBC News – White House confirms cyber-attack on \’unclassified\’ system

• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says she doesn\’t use email

ACT THREE: Debates

• Romney was stronger than expected?
• The Tax discussion seemed rather pointless. Romney remained vague, and neither addressed the 2013 automatic kick ins.
• Obama seemed like he did not want to be there, Romney seemed like he wanted the evening.
• Did this debate change your view of Romney or Obama?

Song pick of the week:

[asa]B000W0YLJO[/asa]

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The post Spooky Scary Cyberwar | Unfilter 20 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

In Barnes and Noble attempt to censor a magazine article about hacking, that have propelled it into the spotlight. We’ve got the details on this great write up!

PLUS: Moving big files around the world, faster torrents, and Microsoft’s hotmail flaw.

All that and more, in this week’s TechSNAP!

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