Apparently the Trump administration is drafting an order to review the usage of “black sites” abroad.
In plain English that’s called “conspiracy to commit torture” which is a crime under Section 18 of the US Code, chapter 113c.
Yesterday I discussed the retro-scope of information-gathering[1] and I probably should have mentioned that President Obama – along with commuting Chelsea Manning’s sentence – handed the citizens of the US a great big “F.U.” Just before leaving office he quietly changed how the NSA is allowed to share information, considerably expanding the power of the intelligence apparatus.
The US Constitution is not a special document. It’s traditional for Americans to say something flattering about the great political geniuses who devised the US political system, but I don’t think they were so hot: after all, the country they built didn’t last 100 years before it fell apart in a vicious civil war. The democracy of the republic is a multi-levelled sham, first because something like 70% of the population (women and slaves) were disenfranchised, secondly because the franchise was mooted by the superimposed electoral college.
There’s another nice example of attribution, in a recent piece by Brian Krebs [krebsonsecurity] “Who is Anna-Senpai the Mirai Worm Author?” I’m not going to walk through it in detail, because Krebs has already done that very well.
It’s a good example of how to do attribution of an attack; the $30+billion/year US intelligence community should be able to do as good a job as a blogger like Krebs, don’t you think?
The lulzsec logo
I haven’t hidden how unimpressed I am with the FBI/CIA/NSA’s joint report that alleges Russian hackers interfered with the 2016 elections. In my opinion, the ‘evidence’ they present is painfully thin, and mostly bad or inaccurate.
Let’s have a look at some of the quality of evidence that the FBI has been able to present in other hacking cases.
The Obama administration is – brilliantly – punishing Russia for “hacking” the US election by censuring a few intelligence officers and forcing them to close a “luxurious 45-acre compound” in Maryland.[1]
Trump had big meetings with generals, to talk about bringing down Pentagon costs.
The funny thing is that, if Trump wanted to do that, he should be “draining the swamp” that is Washington and its network of lobbyists and beltway bandit con-artists.
I’ve always been interested in naval hijinks, mostly because navies are the premier means of “projecting power” for nation-states.* And, of course, gathering intelligence as well. The US’ military has a huge emphasis on naval force-projection because of the logistics of having a navy: a carrier task force group is a movable city with its own inner supply chain. As mentioned elsewhere, you can tell a lot about the purpose of a nation’s military by its force structure.
Because, once you’re a billionaire, your political views matter. They should matter. Right?
I’ve been amazed at all the tasteless christmas molded plastic landfill-in-waiting that are being deployed in the war on christmas. The “war on christmas” is the concerted attempt by people to make christmas look cheesy, silly, and degenerate, right? Or did I miss the “war on christmas” strategy meeting?
Caine posted a link to the hipster crèche, which is definitely a fine piece of work. It reminded me that it’s time to post my own offering…