MCCONNELL SCANDAL; Strategy Session To Attack Ashley Judd’s MENTAL HEALTH, Jesse Benton Involved, FBI Called In By McConnell

War monger Mitch McConnell, the man who wants to preemptively attack Iran using “overwhelming force”, to satisfy his Zionist desires and AIPAC friends, and who also suggests giving his supposed political enemy Obama ”Unilateral Powers”, has been embarrassed by some leaked audio of his campaign strategists at work.

Rather than address the issue McConnell’s campaign is trying to spin this into a “Nixonian tactics to bug campaign headquarters” recording scandal, which it is not, since the leak is obviously from someone inside his own campaign.

I suggest this is just standard political demonization of an opponent practiced by both parties, however, it’s a very interesting look behind the scenes at how they are now focusing on opponent’s Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, family history, mental history, anything to paint their opponent in a bad light.  This is also a great example of why the government should NOT be allowed to data mine its own citizens, for this inevitably leads to an elite power using the collected data to blackmail any political opponents.

Interestingly this also involves “Patriot Movement” sellout and traitor Jesse Benton, and also the sellout Rand Paul.

 

2013.4.9 McConnell Involves FBI After Ashley Judd Tape Leaks (NewsyPolitics, youtube.com):

 

In the recording, published by Mother Jones, campaign staff for the Republican senator discuss a plan of attack against Ashley Judd.

 

2013.4.9 Full Transcript & Audio Of Mitch McConnell Campaign’s Meeting On Ashley Judd (motherjones.com):

 

Oppo research meeting against Ashley Judd.  Recorded February 2, 2013 in Louisville, KY.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/mcconnell-transcript

 

2013.4.9 Secret Tape; McConnell & Aides Weighed Using Judd’s Mental Health & Religion As Political Ammo (motherjones.com):

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/mitch-mcconnell-ashley-judd-secret-tape-senate

Pentagon creating teams to launch cyberattacks

Washington Post

The Pentagon’s Cyber Command will create 13 offensive teams by the fall of 2015 to help defend the nation against major computer attacks from abroad, Gen. Keith Alexander testified to Congress on Tuesday, a rare acknowledgment of the military’s ability to use cyberweapons.

The new teams are part of a broader government effort to shield the nation from destructive attacks over the Internet that could harm Wall Street or knock out electric power, for instance.

But Alexander warned that budget cuts will undermine the effort to build up these forces even as foreign threats to the nation’s critical computer systems intensify. And he urged Congress to pass legislation to enable the private sector to share computer threat data with the government without fear of being sued.

As he moves into his eighth year as director of the National Security Agency and his third year as head of the fledgling Cyber Command, Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the strategic-threat picture is worsening. “We’ve seen the attacks on Wall Street over the last six months grow significantly,” he said, noting there were more than 160 disruptive attacks on banks in that period.

Describing an attack on Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, he said: “Last summer, in August, we saw a destructive attack on Saudi Aramco, where the data on over 30,000 systems were destroyed. And if you look at industry, especially the anti-virus community and others, they believe it’s going to grow more in 2013. And there’s a lot that we need to do to prepare for this.”

The U.S. intelligence community has indicated that the assaults on the banks and Saudi Aramco were the work of Iran in retaliation for U.S. financial sanctions imposed to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Alexander’s remarks came as U.S. intelligence officials elsewhere on Capitol Hill testified about the growing cyberthreat. At a national security threat hearing, ­Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. called on China to stop its “cyber-stealing” of corporate secrets from U.S. networks.

Alexander said the 13 teams would defend against destructive attacks. “I would like to be clear that this team . . . is an offensive team,” he said.

Twenty-seven other teams would support commands such as the Pacific Command and the Central Command as they plan offensive cyber capabilities. Separate teams would ­focus on protecting the Defense Department’s computer networks. He said the first third of the forces, which officials have said will total several thousand civilians and uniformed personnel, will be in place by September and the second third a year later.

Some teams are already in place, Alexander said, to focus on “the most serious threats,” which he did not identify.

But he said uncertainty about the budget is affecting the ability to fill out the teams. About 25 percent of the Cyber Command’s budget is being held up by congressional wrangling over the fiscal 2013 budget, he said. And across-the-board ­cuts that took effect March 1 are forcing civilian furloughs. “By singling out the civilian workforce, we’ve done a great disservice,” said Alexander, noting that one-third of the command workforce is made up of Air Force civilians.

He said some cybersecurity recruits have taken a salary cut to work for the government, only to be faced with a furlough. “That’s the wrong message to send people we want to stay in the military acting in these career fields.”

The attacks hitting the banks are “distributed denial of service attacks” — or barrages of network traffic against Web site servers — that are best handled by the Internet service providers, he said. The issue is “when does a nuisance become a real problem” that ­forces the government to act, he said. The administration is debating that now, he said.

To detect major attacks on industry, the department needs to see them coming in real time, Alexander said. The Internet service providers are best positioned to provide that visibility, but they lack the authority to share attack data with the government, he said. In particular, he said, the companies need legal protection against lawsuits for sharing the data.

Affleck’s “Argo” condemned by NZ Parliament, To be sued by Iran

Propaganda was this years theme at the Oscars….

• 
• Argo director Ben Affleck arrives at the 85th Academy Awards – Source: Reuters

TVNZ

Hollywood’s attempt to re-write history has been condemned by New Zealand’s Parliament.

MPs have today voted unanimously to support a motion from New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters that condemned the way New Zealand is portrayed in Oscar-winning film Argo.

The film showed New Zealand diplomats turning away a group of Americans trying to escape from Tehran during the Iranian revolution in 1979.

In reality, a New Zealander drove the Americans to the airport in Tehran so they could fly to Switzerland.

Peters called it a “grave misrepresentation” of the courageous and commendable role of New Zealand diplomats.

“I move that this house acknowledge with gratitude the efforts of former New Zealand diplomats Chris Beeby and Richard Sewell,” Peters said.

“Our courageous New Zealand diplomats’ inspirational actions were of significant help to the American hostages and deserve the historic and factual record to be corrected.”

Director Ben Affleck defended his portrayal of Kiwis in the film saying it was not an easy decision to make.

“You try to honour the truth of the essence, the sort of basic truth of the story you’re telling,” he told Reel Life with Jane.

Argo won the best film Oscar at last month’s Academy Awards.

Related

• Ben Affleck defends depiction of Kiwis in Argo
• Ben Affleck film Argo wins Oscar for Best Picture video photos

 

Reports: Iran mulls suing Hollywood over ‘Argo’

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media say authorities are planning to sue Hollywood over the Oscar-winning “Argo” because of the movie’s allegedly “unrealistic portrayal” of the country.

Several news outlets, including the pro-reform Shargh daily, said on Tuesday that French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre is in Iran for talks with officials over how and where to file the lawsuit. Coutant-Peyre is also the lawyer for notorious Venezuelan-born terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal.

The decision on the lawsuit came after a group of Iranian cultural officials and movie critics screened the film in a closed audience in a Tehran theater late Monday.

Iranian officials in February dismissed “Argo” as pro-CIA, anti-Iran propaganda.

The movie is based on the escape of six American hostages from the besieged U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

IRAN: Bankers Get Death Penalty After $2.6B Scandal

Albeit – Middle Managers and patsies… Maybe this is just another way to eliminate the Competition? This could give Goldman Sachs (whom are parked in Tehran) pause. We ask, could THIS be the reason why Israel, the EU, and the USA are threatening Iran? Follow the money right?

 

Colonel says U.S. on verge of war

There is a good possibility that the Colonel is operating for the Obama Admin. either to run a beta test, or to scare the public into a temporary “solution”. While we realize that this article carries some merit, we believe that something will be worked out with Iran so that they can remain the “Immanuel Goldstein” (Boogeyman) the west needs to demonize Eurasia. As we have said before; when Goldman Sachs leaves Tehran … Look out. ~ JB

February 7, 2013

By Andrew W. Griffin The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — Mincing no words, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson said, “We’re going to war.”

And that war, Wilkerson told a group at the University of Oklahoma on Wednesday, will be with Iran. At least that is the current path the nation is on as long as we refuse to engage in serious diplomatic exchanges with that powerful Islamic republic.

“The president has said it is unacceptable that Iran have a nuclear capability. He has said all options are on the table. That includes the military option. He has said he is pursuing the diplomatic track, and that is true. But the diplomatic track is sanctions. Sanctions. Sanctions, pure and simple.”

And sanctions, Wilkerson said, won’t work in the long run.

“If we’re not willing to negotiate, where does that leave us? It leaves us with bombing … we’re going to go to war. We’re going to drop bombs, and those bombs aren’t going to do anything but force the Iranian people to be more cohesive and force them to support their draconian government and force them to make a decision about making a nuclear weapon. They’ll go underground and they’ll do it.”

And if that is the path that is taken, he predicts they will do it in two to five years.

Wilkerson, a vocal critic of the corporate takeover of the government and wars that are waged to line the pockets of Big Oil and others, spoke to the group at a luncheon as part of a lecture series on U.S./Iran relations that is being hosted by the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies and the OU Iranian Studies Program.

Wilkerson, who served as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff during the first George W. Bush administration, was the man who infamously provided Powell with the information that he presented to the United Nations Security Council in 2003 that ultimately led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Wilkerson has since renounced his role in that debacle and has since been speaking and lecturing about the plutocrats and “military industrial congressional complex” that has taken over U.S. government and led to the recent wars this nation has been engaged in, much of them based on a need to control energy supplies.

“I’m not opposed to oil and I’m not opposed to gas and I’m not opposed to energy,” Wilkerson said. “But I am opposed to young Americans having to die for ill-advised actions that essentially are designed to do something about that, that could be done economically, financially, diplomatically, politically or otherwise and not with boots on the ground and not with boys and girls dying.”

Wilkerson asked rhetorically and who is doing the dying. Less than 1 percent of the population. And with the recent approval of women serving in the front lines, Wilkerson explained that the real reason is not an interest in “egalitarian instincts,” it is that the armed forces “can’t recruit enough men.”

As a result, the armed forces are strained to the limit and the top brass are looking at all options to keep warm bodies in their ranks as long as the U.S. government continues to engage our military in foreign wars — as we are with the ongoing “War on Terror.”

He said “women make the best soldiers.” Women come in way ahead of men on every level.

“But is that the way the country should be going? For those reasons?” he said.

The U.S. military is worn out, he said, and without a draft, their ranks will continue to be stretched to the limit.

“Thirteen years of war,” he said, “War that in most soldiers’, sailors’, Marines’ and Airmen’s eyes has led to almost no success ….” he said. “It will give you post-traumatic stress disorder. It will push suicide rates in the Army and Marine Corps to historical levels — levels we’ve never seen before.”

And now with the prospect of an attack on Iran, morale will likely worsen and the casualties will likely be far worse than what was witnessed during the Iraq War of 2003-2011.

Wilkerson said our interference and meddling with Iran goes as far back as 1953 when the CIA, led by Kermit Roosevelt Jr., and the British MI6, led a coup — Operation Ajax — to depose the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, thereby installing the “tyrannical” Shah, who was a dictator but brought stability to the region.

“One could argue forever if that was a good bargain,” Wilkerson quipped.

And since those days, U.S. relations have been strained and, at the present, are at an all-time low as that nation threatens to build up a nuclear program.

And while prior wars, Wilkerson said, had more to do with control of energy production than an actual threat to the U.S., the situation in Iran has to do with protecting our ally Israel, “hegemony in the region” and what nation will we support in that region — Saudi Arabia? Iran “and the mad mullahs”? or Israel?

Ultimately, the reasons for our concern about Iran are mixed, he said.

“It has nothing to do with a nuclear weapon,” he said. “It’s all about power. It’s all about power in the Gulf” and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.

Quoting foreign policy experts who have said that a war on Iran would be “catastrophic,” Wilkerson said with a dark tone of sarcasm, “If you liked Iraq, you’ll love Iran.”

Netanyahu Tells America It’s Now Or Never

Netanyahu has drawn a line in the sand, only this time, it’s for the U.S.

According to a Maariv report, when speaking to a visiting delegation from the American Jewish Committee, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was simply not strong enough to force a halt to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. In order to halt the program, Bibi said, the U.S. would have to strike, and they must do so this year.

Netanyahu:

“The sanctions are only likely to stop Iran if there is a credible (military) threat over their head … and in order for it to be a credible threat, you need to mean it, meaning that if the sanctions don’t work – and they haven’t until now – you will use it,” he said.

He followed this up by saying that 2013 would be the last year America could effectively put an end to Iran’s nuclear program. If not, they would get their hands on enriched uranium and build a bomb in “a short time” according to Netanyahu.

Iran blamed for cyber onslaught on US banks

US financial institutions are being pounded with high-powered cyber attacks that some suspect are being orchestrated by Iran as payback for political sanctions.

“There is no doubt within the US government that Iran is behind these attacks,” James Lewis, a former official in the state and commerce departments and now a computer security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the New York Times.

While the identities of those behind the online onslaught officially remains a mystery, it was clear they were using a potent new weapon for slamming bank websites with overwhelming numbers or requests for information.

The attackers infected datacenters used to host services in the Internet “cloud” and commandeered massive computing power to back distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, according to security experts.

Full Article

Former FBI agent missing in Iran photographed in Guantánamo jumpsuit

US official: Canada under EMP threat

HALIFAX – A US official is sounding the alarm over electromagnetic pulse attacks and says Canada is under threat.

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a powerful pulse of gamma radiation that can hit the Earth in the form of a natural solar flare or a nuclear weapon detonated high in the atmosphere.

“Countries like Russia, Iran, North Korea, China have this weapon. We know that the North Koreans got it from the Russians,” security expert Clare Lopez told Sun News Network.

Lopez served on the congressional task force on national and homeland security for the EMP threat.

“We know, as of last month, that the North Koreans are capable of staging an intercontinental ballistic missile with the range to reach the United States and Canada.”

Full Article

Global Cyber-Warfare warnings for 2013 – Predictive Programming?

How can you prove where an attack comes from or if it happened at all? Just trust them right? This makes a  (false Flag?) Cyber “Pearl Harbor” and an I – Patriot Act a near certainty – If we do not stop them!

 

Expert Issues a Cyberwar Warning

MOSCOW — When Eugene Kaspersky, the founder of Europe’s largest antivirus company, discovered the Flame virusthat is afflicting computers in Iran and the Middle East, he recognized it as a technologically sophisticated virus that only a government could create.

He also recognized that the virus, which he compares to the Stuxnet virus built by programmers employed by the United States and Israel, adds weight to his warnings of the grave dangers posed by governments that manufacture and release viruses on the Internet.

“Cyberweapons are the most dangerous innovation of this century,” he told a gathering of technology company executives, called the CeBIT conference, last month in Sydney, Australia. While the United States and Israel are using the weapons to slow the nuclear bomb-making abilities of Iran, they could also be used to disrupt power grids and financial systems or even wreak havoc with military defenses.

Computer security companies have for years used their discovery of a new virus or worm to call attention to themselves and win more business from companies seeking computer protection. Mr. Kaspersky, a Russian computer security expert, and his company, Kaspersky Lab, are no different in that regard. But he is also using his company’s integral role in exposing or decrypting three computer viruses apparently intended to slow or halt Iran’s nuclear program to argue for an international treaty banning computer warfare.

A growing array of nations and other entities are using online weapons, he says, because they are “thousands of times cheaper” than conventional armaments.

While antivirus companies might catch some, he says, only an international treaty that would ban militaries and spy agencies from making viruses will truly solve the problem.

The wide disclosure of the details of the Flame virus by Kaspersky Lab also seems intended to promote the Russian call for a ban on cyberweapons like those that blocked poison gas or expanding bullets from the armies of major nations and other entities.

And that puts the Russian company in a difficult position because it already faces suspicions that it is tied to the Russian government, accusations Mr. Kaspersky has constantly denied as he has built his business.

While Russian officials have not commented on the discovery of Flame, the Russian minister of telecommunications gave a speech, also in May, calling for an international cyberweapon ban. Russia has also pushed for a bilateral treaty with the United States.

The United States has agreed to discuss such a disarmament treaty with the Russians, but has also tried to encourage Russia to prosecute online crime, which flourishes in this country.

The United States has long objected to the Russian crusade for an online arms control ban. “There is no broad international support for a cyberweapon ban,” says James A. Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “This is a global diplomatic ploy by the Russians to take down a perceived area of U.S. military advantage.”

Russia, many security experts note, has been accused of using cyberwarfare in disputes with Estonia and wars in Georgia.

Mr. Kaspersky said that at no point did he cooperate with the Federal Security Agency, the successor agency to the K.G.B., as the Flame virus was not a threat to Russian citizens.

Kaspersky Lab, he said, felt justified exposing the Flame virus because the company was working under the auspices of a United Nations agency. But the company has been noticeably silent on viruses perpetrated in its own backyard, where Russian-speaking criminal syndicates controlled a third of the estimated $12 billion global cybercrime market last year, according to the Russian security firm Group-IB.

Some say there is good reason. “He’s got family,” said Sean Sullivan, an adviser at F-Secure, a computer security firm in Helsinki. “I wouldn’t expect them to be the most aggressive about publicizing threats in their neighborhood for fear those neighbors would retaliate.”

Last year, Mr. Kaspersky’s 19-year-old son was kidnapped by criminals demanding a ransom. The kidnappers did not appear to have ties to any of Russia’s online criminal syndicates, but Mr. Sullivan says, “It was probably a wake-up call.”

Some computer security firms say Mr. Kaspersky’s researchers have hyped Flame. It is too early, his critics say, to call the virus a “cyberweapon” and to suggest it was sponsored by a state.

Joe Jaroch, a vice president at Webroot, an antivirus maker, says he first encountered a sample of Flame in 2007. He says he did not publicize the discovery because he did not consider the code sophisticated. “There are many more dangerous viruses out there,” he said. “I would be shocked if this was the work of a nation state.”

Mr. Sullivan, from F-Secure, said: “It’s interesting and complex, but not sleek and stealthy. It could be the work of a military contractor — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other contractors are developing programs like these for different intelligence services. To call it a cyberweapon says more about Kaspersky’s cold war mentality than anything else. It has to be taken with a grain of salt.”

Whether the skepticism is authentic or professional jealousy, no one doubts the Kaspersky Lab’s skills. Mr. Kaspersky studied cryptography at a high school that was co-sponsored by the K.G.B. and Russia’s ministry of defense, and later took a job with the Russian military. He started tracking computer viruses as a side project in 1989, after his work PC was infected with one. In 1997, he co-founded Kaspersky Lab with his wife at the time, Natalya, in their Moscow apartment.

The headquarters of the team that unraveled Flame is an open-plan office of cubicles overlooking a park on the edge of Moscow. Mr. Kaspersky eschews suits and his researchers wear Converse shoes and tattered jeans, much as their counterparts in the United States do. A Darth Vader mask adorns one desk.

Talent also abounds. The Belarussian virus hunter who first found the Stuxnet virus in 2010, Sergei Ulasen, now works for Kaspersky Lab.

Today, the company is one of Russia’s most recognizable exports. It commands 8 percent of the world’s software security market for businesses, with revenue reaching $612 million last year.

Yet Mr. Kaspersky says he often has to dispute suggested ties to Russia’s security services. Analysts say suspicions about the firm’s Russian roots have hindered its expansion abroad.

“The U.S. government, defense contractors and lots of U.S. companies won’t work with them,” said Peter Firstbrook, director of malware research at Gartner, a research firm. “There’s no evidence that they have any back doors in their software or any ties to the Russian mafia or state. It’s a red herring, but there is still a concern that you can’t operate in Russia without being controlled by the ruling party.”

Mr. Kaspersky said his company tackled Flame upon the request of the International Telecommunication Union, an agency of the United Nations. He assigned about three dozen engineers to investigate a virus that was erasing files on computers at Iran’s oil ministry. Kaspersky researchers, some of whom had analyzed suspected United States and Israeli viruses that destroyed centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear program two years earlier, were already following up on complaints from Iranian clients that Kaspersky’s antivirus software was not catching a new type of malware on their systems, Kaspersky officials said.

“We saw an unusual structure of the code, compressed and encrypted in several ways,” Vitaly Kamlyuk, a researcher on the team that cracked the virus.

It was the first virus to look for Bluetooth-enabled devices in the vicinity, either to spread to those devices, map a user’s social or professional circle, or steal information from them. The program also contained a command called “microbe” that silently turned on users’ microphones to record their conversations and sent audio files back to the attackers. It was clearly not a virus made by criminals.

“Antivirus companies are in a not easy situation,” Mr. Kaspersky said. “We have to protect our customers everywhere in the world. On the other hand, we understand there are quite serious powers behind these viruses.”

Even though finding viruses first is usually a boon for antivirus companies, cracking Flame, Mr. Kaspersky said, might hurt his business in one regard. “For the next five years, we can forget about government contracts in the United States.”

 

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 8, 2012

 

An article on Monday about a warning from the computer security expert Eugene Kaspersky about the dangers posed by government-created Internet viruses misstated the name of a United Nations branch for which he did some research. It is the International Telecommunication Union, not the International Telecommunications Unit.

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