The Government’s War on the Press

[Octafish]

11. Not even U.S. SENATORs can talk about what the Federal Government is doing to the American people.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado tried warning us about government spying and COULDN'T, because of SECRET LAWS in the USA PATRIOT Act.



How's that for "unintended" consequences of the War on Terra?

Democratic Senators Issue Strong Warning About Use of the Patriot Act

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
The New York Times, March 16, 2012

WASHINGTON — For more than two years, a handful of Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee have warned that the government is secretly interpreting its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming if the public — or even others in Congress — knew about it.

On Thursday, two of those senators — Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado — went further. They said a top-secret intelligence operation that is based on that secret legal theory is not as crucial to national security as executive branch officials have maintained.

SNIP...

“We would also note that in recent months we have grown increasingly skeptical about the actual value of the ‘intelligence collection operation,’ ” they added. “This has come as a surprise to us, as we were initially inclined to take the executive branch’s assertions about the importance of this ‘operation’ at face value.”

The dispute centers on what the government thinks it is allowed to do under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, under which agents may obtain a secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing them to get access to any “tangible things” — like business records — that are deemed “relevant” to a terrorism or espionage investigation.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/us/politics/democratic-senators-warn-about-use-of-patriot-act.html?_r=2

Gee. I sure hope Sen. Wyden and Sen. Udall succeed in letting us know what the hell is going on with the USA PATRIOT Act spying on Americans thing is all about. After all, it is a sad time in America when Senators are afraid of being whistleblowers.

Stratfor: executive boasted of 'trusted former CIA cronies'

By Alex Spillius, Diplomatic Correspondent
9:08PM GMT 28 Feb 2012
The Telegraph

A senior executive with the private intelligence firm Stratfor boasted to colleagues about his "trusted former CIA cronies" and promised to "see what I can uncover" about a classified FBI investigation, according to emails released by the WikiLeaks.

Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at the Texas firm, also informed members of staff that he had a copy of the confidential indictment on Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

The second batch of five million internal Stratfor emails obtained by the Anonymous computer hacking group revealed that the company has high level sources within the United States and other governments, runs a network of paid informants that includes embassy staff and journalists and planned a hedge fund, Stratcap, based on its secret intelligence.

SNIP...

Mr Assange labelled the company as a "private intelligence Enron", in reference to the energy giant that collapsed after a false accounting scandal.

CONTINUED...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9111784/Stratfor-executive-boasted-of-trusted-former-CIA-cronies.html

The two Senators were talking about this latest outrage way back when. More than a few DUers, of course, were aware. But the rest of the nation, not so much.

Now why would Capitalism's Invisible Army want to keep We the People in the dark? For one thing, besides keeping tabs on everyone's comings and goings, could be for personal gain, say via inside trading?

Stratfor & Goldman Sachs started hedge fund called Stratcap to trade on illegal inside gov't info

"Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS : "What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like". The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff : "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012. "

http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html

One thing is for certain: Secret government makes it really hard to follow the money. It does make obvious who's getting rich off it, though.

PS: Thanks for the heads up on Seth Rosenfeld. It's something even non-readers would appreciate, if only they knew why.