(9.5.2017) A delegation from the White House and Central Intelligence Agency is heading to Israel to plan US President Donald Trump’s visit to Israel amid reports it plans to turn Jerusalem’s iconic King David hotel into a virtual fortress.

According to Channel 2, the American advance team rejected Israel’s suggestion that Netanyahu accompany Trump, claiming that it was a “private visit.” The Israelis then asked for a TV crew to film Trump live, which an American official. reportedly flatly rejected.

This allegedly led to an outright shouting match between the two parties, with the Israelis maintaining that the Western Wall was “territory holy to Israel.”

McMaster’s deputy is Dina Powell, a former Bush administration official who was born in Egypt and is fluent in Arabic. She’s considered close to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and is emerging as an influential voice in the White House on Mideast-related issues. Powell took part in Trump’s recent meetings with Arab leaders, including with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and accompanied U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis on his recent visit to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Powell didn’t continue on with Mattis to Israel, however, since she was asked to accompany aid worker Aya Hijazi – an American citizen who was jailed in Egypt for three years and freed during Mattis’ visit – back to the United States. She is expected to join Trump on the upcoming trip.

Republican-backing casino billionaire dismayed at suggestion that relocating diplomatic mission is negotiable

An official at the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed the report, telling the Times of Israel that Israeli officials were “shocked” by the comments and have asked the Trump administration about the incident.

Top officials at the State Department, Department of Defense and the US intelligence community are urging the White House not to recognize Jerusalem as Israel‘s capital, warning that such a decision would be harmful to the peace process and carry broader regional risks, a senior administration official and several US officials told CNN.

„Malware created by intelligence agencies can backfire on its creators,“ said Putin, speaking to media in Beijing. He added that global leaders needed to discuss cyber security at a „serious political level“ and said the US has backed away from signing a cyber security agreement with Russia.

Der Kremlchef beschwor die Gefahr durch Internet-Attacken. „Wenn solche Geister aus der Flasche gelassen werden, vor allem durch Geheimdienste, dann wenden sie sich manchmal selbst gegen die Urheber und richten Schaden an“, sagte Putin der russischen Agentur Interfax zufolge. „Deshalb muss über diese Frage schnell und auf politisch hoher Ebene geredet werden, um Schutzsysteme auszuarbeiten.“

Special Report: The Russia-gate hysteria has grown stronger after President Trump’s firing of FBI Director Comey, but the bigger question is whether an American “soft coup” is in the works, reports Robert Parry.

Die EU-Oberen prangern den „Nationalismus“ des US-Präsidenten Donald Trump an. Der wolle mit „America first“ die USA abschotten und nur den US-Interessen dienen. Doch Juncker, Merkel, Schäuble und Dijsselbloem und jetzt auch Macron sind nicht nur militärische, sondern auch kapitalistische und geheimdienstliche Komplizen von „America first“ in Europa, Hassobjekt Russland inbegriffen.

An April 27 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that during 2016 the National Security Agency (NSA) collected some 151 million phone records of Americans, despite passage of the USA Freedom Act of 2015. While that law supposedly ended the program enabling the NSA to collect the phone records of Americans in bulk, it nonetheless allowed the NSA to continue accessing records from phone numbers of suspected terrorists via court orders.

Am 12. März äußerte sich dann jemand, der Ahnung hat: Rand Paul. (23.3.2017) In der „CBS“-Sendung „Face the Nation“ rückte Rand Paul, unter vielem Hin und Her und Ach und jaa-nee, endlich mit der Sprache heraus (Links wurden hinzugefügt): „Der Weg wie es funktioniert ist – das F.I.S.A.-Gericht, mittels Section 702 (Anm.: vom Patriot Act), hört Ausländer ab und hört dann Amerikanern zu. Es ist eine Durchleuchtung von Amerikanern durch die Hintertür. Und weil sie so viele Daten haben, können sie abhören — tippen sie Donald Trump in ihre gewaltigen Ressourcen (Anm.: Datenbanken) über Leute ein, die sie in Übersee abhören, und sie kriegen alle seine Telefonanrufe.

The push for a smooth Section 702 renewal continues. The never-not-abused surveillance program has received some vocal support in recent weeks. Former FBI Director James Comey‘s Senate testimony began with his praise for Section 702, despite there being about a million investigation-related questions Senators were dying to hear answers to.

(14.5.2017) Almost 50 years have passed, and now it‘s Jordan that, according to reports in the Arab media, is about to deploy forces to Syria. The Jordanians want to establish a security buffer zone along their border with Syria that will keep the Islamic State at bay, but will also serve as a barrier in case Iranian or Hezbollah operatives try to gain a foothold in southern Syria.

(19.7.2010) The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight.

(10.5.2017) I feel as if we are being conditioned to chaos by a “president” who abhors the stillness of stability. Every day we awake to a new outrage. We now exist in a rolling trauma — exhausting and unrelenting.

Yet even in that context, some things spike higher than others. Donald Trump’s firing of the F.B.I. director, James Comey, is one of those things. This should shock the whole of America out of its numbness.

Das System der Gewaltenteilung werde auch von innen angegriffen, sagt Ex-Geheimdienstkoordinator James Clapper. Trump überschreite seine Befugnisse.

The WannaCrypt exploits used in the attack were drawn from the exploits stolen from the National Security Agency, or NSA, in the United States. (…)

We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world. Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage. An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen. And this most recent attack represents a completely unintended but disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today – nation-state action and organized criminal action.

Microsoft criticized U.S. government agencies for “stockpiling of vulnerabilities” in light of the recent widespread ransomware attack targeting institutions around the world.

Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith penned a blog post Sunday about the massive cyberattack that used a ransomware known as “WannaCry” which locked down hundreds of thousands of computers at hospitals, businesses, governments, and more around the world over the past several days.

Brad Smith, Microsoft-Präsident und Chef der Rechtsabteilung des Tech-Giganten, ist sauer. Es sei ein «sich abzeichnendes Muster», dass Sicherheitslücken von Geheimdiensten an die Öffentlichkeit geraten und grossen Schaden anrichten, schreibt er in einem Statement. Es seien bereits ähnliche Lecks der CIA auf Wikileaks aufgetaucht.