CIA CATHOLIC IRISH ALCOHOLIC Access UK Data

U.K. Warned-CIA Will Access All Government Data
By Conrad Jaeger

February 09, 2013 "Occupy.com" --  U.S. intelligence agencies will soon be able to trawl through all British government documents stored online including ministerial files, local authority records and public sector data thanks to an unchallenged amendment to a spy law in Washington.

Britain’s ambitious plans to store all government data on the so-called G-Cloud have led to warnings from the European Union that security will be compromised now that U.S. intelligence agencies have the legal right to survey all data held on U.S. owned Cloud services.

At least four U.S. companies are involved in the U.K. government’s G-Cloud project which Whitehall hopes will slash costs and “deliver fundamental changes in the way the public sector procures and operates.”

Eventually, it is hoped the G-Cloud will hold the bulk of State data in addition to that of schools, charities, the BBC and police, even the Bank of England.

While the recent amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) have received scant attention in the British Press, there are a few Members of Parliament so concerned that they want Britain to think about ending all intelligence cooperation with the U.S.

“The Americans have got to remember who their allies are and who their enemies are,” Conservative MP David Davis told The Independent, warning of “a whole cascade of constitutional and privacy concerns for ordinary British people”.

Cloud storage is increasingly popular in the U.K. where around 35 per cent of businesses and an unknown number of private users employ some form of remote storage from U.S. based companies like Apple, Amazon and Google. The government wants to see even greater use of Cloud storage across all sectors in what it describes as a robust “public cloud first policy.”

The FISA amendments now give the CIA and NSA the right to access all this data not just in Britain or Europe, but anywhere in the world. U.S. citizens are excused this intrusion by the Fourth Amendment, but everybody else is included.

In the case of Britain, by putting all government data online – including health and criminal records – every facet of peoples’ lives will be open to scrutiny by intelligence analysts across the Atlantic.

Many warn that this will also lead to activists, journalists, politicians, Muslims and others being specifically targeted without the need to justify national security.

“In other words, it is lawful in the U.S. to conduct purely political surveillance on foreigners’ data accessible in U.S. Clouds,” warns the report for the European Parliament, Fighting Cyber Crime and Protecting Privacy in the Cloud by the Centre for the Study of Conflicts, Liberty and Security.

While most of the attention has been focused on Cloud storage and the effect FISA will have on Europe, the actual wording of the amendment speaks of “remote computing services” which could literally mean anything stored on a computer other than your own.

As it is, every financial transaction passes through U.S. intelligence channels. With the new extension, no stone need remain unturned. Every time you comment on a book, join a club, or do absolutely anything that passes through a computer owned by a U.S. company, you are open to scrutiny.

The Cloud, however, comes with other concerns. There is debate as to who legally owns what if it is stored or edited in the Cloud, and you can’t even bequest your online music collection to a loved one when you die.

NSA aside, hackers can easier access data en-route to the Cloud than they can on a local area network, and the Cloud administrators might one day be compromised. The companies themselves may go bust or be taken over. They might suffer some catastrophic event or decide to amended their terms and conditions.

The European Union is being urged to add a warning to all U.S. based Cloud services, with clear wording that anything stored in the Cloud will be under direct scrutiny by Federal authorities. The report also wants to see E.U. citizens given the same rights as Americans in U.S. courts.

“A lot of people wouldn’t realize where data is stored, and hence wouldn’t expect to be subject to U.S. law,” cautions another Member of Britain’s Parliament, Julian Huppert of the Liberal Democrats.

He wants to know if the government has received any guarantee from Washington that sensitive data will not be scrutinized as foreign intelligence fodder.

“If the U.S. will not give a clear assurance about government data,” he says. “Then we will have to stop using the Cloud, as we cannot allow that to happen.”

IRISH EEJITS & THE CLIFFS OF MOHAIR

When people were asked who they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow, party support – when undecided voters are excluded – compared with the last Irish Times poll was: Fine Gael, 25 per cent (down six points); Labour, 10 per cent (down two points); Fianna Fáil, 26 per cent (up five points); Sinn Féin, 18 per cent (down two points); Green Party, 1 per cent (down one point); and Independents/Others, 20 per cent (up six points).

The survey was undertaken among a representative sample of 1,000 voters aged 18 and over, in face-to-face interviews at 100 sampling points in all constituencies.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3 per cent.

The "men in the mohair suits"regularly socialised with cabinet colleagues such as Donogh O'Malley and Brian Lenihan.^[4]

By day he impressed the Dáil. By night he basked in the admiration of a fashionable audience in the Russell Hotel. There, or in Dublin's more expensive restaurants, the company included artists, musicians and entertainers, professionals, builders and business people. His companions, Lenihan and O'Malley, took mischievous delight in entertaining the Russell with tales of the Old Guard. O'Malley in turn entertained the company in Limerick's Brazen Head or Cruise's Hotel with accounts of the crowd in the Russell. On the wings of such tales Haughey's reputation spread.

As Minister for Finance, Haughey on two occasions arranged foreign currency loans for the government which he then arranged to be left on deposit in foreign countries (Germany and the United States), in the local currency - instead of immediately changing the loans to the Irish currency and depositing in the Exchequer - these actions were unconstitutional, because it effectively meant that the Minister for Finance was making a currency speculation against his own currency. When this was challenged by the Comptroller and Auditor General Eugene Francis Suttle, Haughey introduced a law to retrospectively legalise his actions. The debate was very short and the record shows no understanding of the issue by the opposition finance spokesmen, O'Higgins for Fine Gael and Tully for Labour. The legislation was passed on 26 November 1969.

 One of his first functions as Taoiseach was a televised address to the nation – only the third such address in the Republic's history – in which he outlined the bleak economic picture:

“	I wish to talk to you this evening about the state of the nation's affairs and the picture I have to paint is not, unfortunately, a very cheerful one. The figures which are just now becoming available to us show one thing very clearly. As a community we are living away beyond our means. I don't mean that everyone in the community is living too well, clearly many are not and have barely enough to get by, but taking us all together we have been living at a rate which is simply not justified by the amount of goods and services we are producing. To make up the difference we have been borrowing enormous amounts of money, borrowing at a rate which just cannot continue. A few simple figures will make this very clear...we will just have to reorganise government spending so that we can only undertake those things we can afford...	”
—Charles Haughey, 9 January 1980

VICEROYAL VILLIERS : British Occupied Ireland

Indecent exposure: Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, surrounded by a press scrum as they leave the Old Bailey during the trial of Stephen Ward in 1963. Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty Images

Occasionally, a single passage in a book lingers long in the memory. This one will. A dominatrix who flogged men was asked why her rich clients had these tastes. "It went back to their nannies. Bus drivers and people like that who don't have nannies don't ask you to whip them," she replied.

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the affair to beat all affairs, Richard Davenport-Hines's book on the scandal is a masterful depiction of everything that was wrong with the 1950s and early 1960s. Yet for all the deceit and bullying, this is a romp of a read, full of colour and verve, a mix of The Hour and Mad Men in a single volume.Thus was life in the England of the early 1960s, an era epitomised by privilege, hypocrisy and sordid glamour, by powerful men and the "good time girls" they bedded. The era bears a name: Profumo.

The reader is taken on an extraordinary tour ofpolitics and the bedroom, and the politics of the bedroom. Pretty much everyone in public life, it seemed, was having it away with someone, usually a girl (or boy) of a lower station, either preyed upon or seduced by the vague prospect of a "better" life.

Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, the two young women at the heart of the story, were no different from others, desperate to get away from their stifling homes. "England was a country where the gravy served at main meals made everything taste alike," the author writes. It was more regimented than at any point in its history, the time of theLady Chatterley's Lover ban and backstreet abortions. "Audiences stood in respectful silence when the national anthem was played at the end of every cinema performance; pedestrians still doffed their hats… family-planning clinics did not dare to give contraceptive advice to the unmarried; every foreigner had to register with their local police station."

Keeler had lived with her mother and stepfather in a grim estate between Staines and Windsor, with no running water or electricity, and no privacy. As a teenager, she earned money babysitting, where it was normal for fathers "to kiss, fondle or rub against her". After an overture from her stepfather, she kept a knife under her pillow at night. She started working in a cabaret club in London where she met Rice-Davies. They launched themselves into society, with the "help" of a series of older men.

John Profumo, the secretary of state for war who famously had to resign after lying to Parliament about sleeping with Keeler (at the same time as Keeler was sleeping with a naval attache at the Soviet embassy), was a man of moderate intelligence. He had eased his way through Harrow and Oxford, and he knew the people he needed to know and how to climb the ladder. Married to a film star, Profumo was a breezy type who "scooted along on charm" yet was mistrusted by some because of his "Eye-tie" surname. He met Keeler at a party at the Astors' country pile, Cliveden.

The fourth and, according to the author, saddest victim-villain wasStephen Ward, an osteopath and socialite, whose sex-fuelled parties were the talk of London.Davenport-Hines vividly describes the extent to which the police, press and politicians colluded to hound Ward. It was partly an act of individual vindictiveness; it was also what was generally done to anyone who fell out with the establishment. Once Macmillan's government realised it was in trouble, everything was done to pursue Ward. One of the more bizarre charges levelled against him was the Sexual Offences Act of 1956. This included the crime of introducing any man to a woman under the age of 21 (even though the age of consent was 16) if they ended up sleeping with each other.

The levels of police corruption and press intrusion were on a different scale, a point Lord Justice Leveson might care to reflect on. "Reporters and photographers were proud of their deceptions," the author writes, "inveigling their way into houses pretending to be meter readers, equipping themselves with flowers or grapes and invading hospital rooms masquerading as relatives, waylaying children on their way from school… bribing and suborning."

The public craved to be shocked: the better the scandal, the higher the circulation. Newspapers indulged in an auction of prurience and faux indignation. "Keeler, the Shameless Slut," wrote the People. She was an "empty-headed trollop" who "smoked marijuana, loved orgies" and seldom washed. Such language about women was commonplace. The author quotes the Labour MP Richard Crossman as saying, shortly after marrying his third wife, a graduate in PPE from Oxford: "If you're going to marry, you want to marry either an alpha girl or a doormat. I married a doormat."

So sexually charged had the Brits become, the Americans were growing worried. J Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, "became fixated on Keeler's attraction to 'coloured men' and this solidified his conviction that British sexual and security looseness was a menace to the United States".

The police were in cahoots with the worst of the hacks – just as they are now. They also did whatever it took to secure convictions. One tactic was to keep witnesses waiting for hours at the station until they were too weary to resist signing inaccurate statements. Once, Rice-Davies was arrested at the airport as she tried to leave for Spain, was taken to Holloway prison where she was "subjected to body searches, her pubic hair was shaved and she was locked in her cell for 20 hours a day". The chief inspector told her: "You don't like it in here very much, do you? So you help us and we'll help you." She told them what they wanted to hear about Ward and his parties. Ward killed himself through an overdose as his "trial" was concluding. The report by Lord Denning on the affair was a masterpiece of whitewash.

Many a book and film have been devoted to the Profumo affair. It is easy to rush to judgment. If there is a criticism to be levelled at this tale, it is the author's projection of disdain from a contemporary vantage point in which we worry incessantly about our approach to race, gender and sexuality. Public life in 1963 revolved around homophobia, with its "abasement of vulnerable individuals, prudish lynch mobs [and] the deviousness behind the self-righteous wrath of the judiciary". Fifty years on, the government is planning to recognise gay marriage. Some things do get better.

John Kampfner is author of Blair's Wars and Freedom for Sale

IRISH REPTILE REILLY

State 'can't afford' disability costs - Irish Times

 international | workers issues | news report  Wednesday February 06, 2013 19:32 by BrianClarke - AllVoices 

Censored in the Irish Times

State 'can't afford' disability costs - Irish Times

"They're Only the Little People"

tate 'can't afford' disability costs - Irish Times

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state can't afford disability costs...

 by anon Thu Feb 07, 2013 13:08

They can't afford disablitiy costs,yet the politicians making those tough decisions (lol) can afford to keep their extra expenses, lavish pensions, without having them cut.....And didn't DARE touch their 100,000+ salaries,in fact they put in a rule whereby people earing 100,000+ don't have thier salaries affected,that includes those in the dail obviously.

This country if it is to get back on its feet can do with cutting those on higher 100,000 + wages,cutting someone on welfare hardly is going to bring in the big bucks..

The level of disabilities where people merit disregard and cuts

 by Comyn - Excellent Cartoon: Silent epidemics exclude Thu Feb 07, 2013 13:51

Minister Reilly is portrayed in this cartoon in such a way that prompts to mind the potential of him going forward falling into a number of the categories highlighted for people who have the visible disabilities. Obesity is supposed to be the curse and plight of the Western world with its links to diabetes, to heart disease and other other costly health conditions. Luckily for Minister Reilly being a doctor that his private health care should cover him, add to this his investments, his Dail salary, expenses and pensions (include the lucrative IMO negotiated pensions for doctors in public practice) and then his property investments.

What the cartoon forgets is those of us with the bottom of the tier disabilities - the silenced conditions where people can appear normal to look at but the wiring to the brain is off kilter. I am talking about people with brain injury, victims of stroke, people with mental illhess and worst of all those with alzheimers and pre front lobe brain damage. Vision of Change is a decade being promoted, only to be basically binned....The promises from Minister Kathleen Lynch are hollow and the reality is those people with no voice will be labelled, stigmatised and worse again called Moochers as happens in the USA.

They say about suicide and provision. Again this is hollow. We have scattered organisations set up with the HSE having used the opportunity to divest responsibility into some 630 support groups all vying for potential clientele. I sound harsh. Try searching Indymedia on Mental Health, Suicide, Health, Public Private health provision, Alcoholism. Don't be fooled about the requests of the silenced that have gone unheard for a decade.

Minister Reilly - Shame on you, whose parents were doctors and you too are in medicine. Portrane was your local asylum, how grossly unfair you are to people who are vulnerable to mental Health.

Horizon research in the 1990's was funded by Europe, Trinity College Dublin, Centre for Women Studies, St Patrick's Hospital and FAS. The project was a success but FAS said it was too expensiv to roll out in early 2000. Shame on them. Look at the homeless, talk to them and you will find a lot have been released into the community with no provision for their needs. The latest scandal will be these people in bedsits facing eviction.

Again consider our prisons and people who in another decade might have been in mental hospitals. It is an ageing population and if we note what is happening with the Germans - yes the old people are siphoned out of the country to care homes in mainly lower tier countries where care is cheap, We surely need to be thinking and acting sensibly now.

Winners do not do Drugs. Drugs are for Losers. Just say No to drugs.

 by Paul Ryan - Revolt Video Thu Feb 07, 2013 18:40

We can grow food with seedballs and traditional sowing.

We can make our own asprin from a willow tree and a good blender.

We can order organic food and support our health shop.

We can take care of our family first.

Help the aged.

Stop watching Tv

Get your news from indymedia not skybluesnn

You only need text

Send a stamp to your elderly loved one. Visit your relatives.

Make time for your family tree.

Use supplements in your diet.

Go Vegan.

Negate the industrial complex

Related Link: http://www.revoltvideo.blogspot.ie

PRICE SISTERS INTERNED An Phoblacht

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Marian Price’s health deteriorates after sister’s death – Sinn Féin MLA repeats call for release

Dolours and Marian were convicted with Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly (now a Sinn Féin MLA) of the IRA bombing of the Old Bailey in London in 1973. The sisters had together – with Hugh and Gerry – endured the ordeal of a hunger strike for more than 200 days for transfer to prisons in the North. The four were force-fed from 3 December 1973 to 18 May 1974. On 8 June 1974, all four ended their hunger strike after 206 days. They were subsequently transferred to the North.

MARIAN PRICE’S health has deteriorated since the death of her sister, Dolours, a fortnight ago and she should be released from prison immediately, Sinn Féin Foyle MLA Raymond McCartney has said yet again.

The Vice-Chair of the Justice Committee was speaking after Junior Minister Jennifer McCann visited Marian Price (right).

Belfast-born Dolours was found dead at her home in Malahide, County Dublin, on 23 January.

Foyle MLA Raymond McCartney said:

“The continuing imprisonment of Marian Price is unacceptable. It is obvious she is a threat to no one and continuing to keep her in prison is wrong.

“Sinn Féin met Justice Minister David Ford last week concerning this case and again called on him to intercede and ensure that justice is served and this clearly unwell woman is released immediately.”

Jennifer McCann said:

“It is a disgrace and totally unjust that yet again the date for Marian Price's Parole Commission hearing has been put back.

“It is clear that her health has worsened since the death of her sister, Dolours, and it serves no purpose whatsoever to keep her in custody.

“Marian Price has already been granted bail on the charges she faces, yet is unjustly held at the diktat of the British Secretary of State. She should be released on bail immediately."

FREE MARIAN PRICE

SS UK STATE TERRORISM "WON'T LET IT HAPPEN" CAMERON

The British Prime minister Mr David Cameron in refusing a public inquiry regarding the British state murder  of lawyer Pat Finucane, citing costs as a reason but when he met the Finucane family at Downing Street in October 2011, he said that there “are people in buildings all around here (meaning 10 Downing Street) who won’t let it happen”. Which begs the question:who is actually running the country?

Lawyer Pat Finucane, like lawyer Rosemary Nelson was a “thorn in the flesh” of the British occupation in Ireland and were left vulnerable to loyalist murder?. MI5’s role was crucial, said BBC investigative reporter John Ware, in a rare piece of BBC honesty. Nuala O’Loan former police ombudsperson claims the new regulatory roles were still not strong enough in 2003.


The British state murders of Irish human rights lawyers and truth tellers such as the journalist Martin O'Hagan, were not isolated examples of British state terrorism in occupied Ireland. Investigation has shown, that this pattern of activity was systemic.The role of MI5 or any of SS UK's activity is not open to a public inquiry? They are beyond accountability. Which again begs the question:who is actually running the UK?



MI5 and SB wanted Lawyer Pat Finucane dead and the UDA was penetrated at its most senior level by three MI5 agents.According to Justice Cory, MI5 was warned three times that Mr Finucane was being targeted for assassination, the last being just seven weeks before he was shot in front of his family. MI5 did not inform Special Branch, though it is clear even had they done so, this Branch of SS UK would have done nothing about this, since they too had already heard from their own informants, that a hit  was imminent and did nothing to stop it, nor did they help another Branch of SS UK the CID, catch the state sponsored killers. Simply put, the police, military intelligence and MI5 wanted these Human rights lawyers dead.

The previous British Government could not agree with the Finucane family on arrangements for  an inquiry, but the Finucane family indicated, that they would support a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 as a way forward. Reviews thus far have had limited resources, and limited access to the Stevens files which are now under control of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who are neither forthright or straightforward on the matter. MI5 have used delaying tactics such as requiring Sir Desmond to justify why he wanted to publish certain documents.He was able to question witnesses but had no power to conduct oral hearings and it all was conducted in secret behind closed doors.

 The British state murder of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson, Martin O'Hagan are just a tiny pieces of the jigsaw of British war crimes, such as Bloody Sunday in British Occupied Ireland, along with the denial of civil rights, internment, torture, Ballymurphy, numerous other questionable murders and attempted murders. British cover ups and their refusal to allow the Irish any political power for decades, requires putting all these pieces together, which poses one key question. Do the British government now have any legitimacy what so ever in Ireland?

These above criteria are used by the British government, as a basis for their invasions and support for overthrowing regimes in North Africa and the Middle East currently. Measured by the same criteria the British government, has long lost any right to rule in British Occupied Ireland? Mumbled half apologies, without proper amends in the Commons, really does not cut the mustard anymore, particularly when no one ever seems to go to jail. Like their genocide of more than 6 million Irish, there is nothing, not even an apology never mind the considerable amends that the Nazis made for their holocaust dwarfed by the enormity of British war crimes and genocide committed in Ireland.

The British state which pretends to represent all of the people of the UK including British Occupied ireland while at the same time engaged in illegal activity of murder, terrorising the irish people, with a massive cover-up apparatus at the very highest level. They pervert their own so called  justice system and withhold justice from happening, A civilized state is supposed to have standards and a legal bases in law not in state terrorism or war crimes.

A European political observer who is a regular visitor, with intimate knowledge of both Ireland and Britain, made an astute observation on this matter. He said the lack of a public outcry in England about the British state being exposed, to systematically operating outside the rule of law, with regard to matters of state terrorism, cover ups and perverting the course of of justice is simply savage and that the British state murder of  the Irish,  not being traditionally a big issue for the English public, will eventually come home to roost some day and negatively affect themselves?

With Britain's MI5 murderers completely in charge of administering British Occupied Ireland, she said it does not require a great leap of the imagination from the Pat Finucane case, to other notable cases such as MI5's internment of the Price Sisters (or the Princess Diana case, for example?) to become a focus for more people connecting the dots. MI5 are the prime suspect culprits for stealing the Royal Prerogrative with regard to internment of Marian Price and perverting the course of justice by shredding the Royal document, prior to her kidnap and political internment, shrouded in secrecy.

MI5 and SS UK while being a puppet of the British state, used for many years, to terrorize the whole nationalist community,.in collusion with their state sponsored terrorists, is what they are principally about in Ireland. This is what the UK government is engaged in, using its proxies in a campaign of British state terrorism against the native Irish. The United Kingdom uses its secret services such as MI5, MI6 and Army Intelligence in an extra judicial capacity but it is also becoming clear, that in so doing over an extended period of time, large elements have gone rogue to the extent that more often than not its a case of the tail now wagging the bulldog, in a secret service culture, not only of impunity but complete impunity which cannot now be disappeared overnight. The UK are not only ones now becoming victims of their own rogue elements, as the article below demonstrates.

" Rogue Elements Within US Military: Defense Nominee Hagel Had Warned Obama

By Steve Watson

February 05, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - The Washington Post reports an interesting exchange that is said to have happened between the President in his first term, and Chuck Hagel, the nominee to be the next Secretary of Defense.

Bob Woodward writes in the Post that on a visit to the White House in 2009, Hagel warned Obama that he should look out for rogue elements within the Pentagon that were leading a ‘new world order’:

According to an account that Hagel later gave, and is reported here for the first time, he told Obama: “We are at a time where there is a new world order.

“We don’t control it. You must question everything, every assumption, everything they” — the military and diplomats — “tell you. Any assumption 10 years old is out of date. You need to question our role. You need to question the military. You need to question what are we using the military for.”

The Post states that Hagel warned Obama about becoming “bogged down” in the ongoing war in Afghanistan, saying it would define Obama’s first term. Hagel reportedly later privately questioned the wisdom of sending additional troops to join the conflict.

At the time, Obama had announced a proposed deployment of over 50,000 troops to Afghanistan, based on recommendations from the Pentagon.

In response, Hagel is said to have noted “The president has not had commander-in-chief control of the Pentagon since Bush senior was president.”

“If Hagel is confirmed, as appears likely, he and the president will have a large task in navigating this new world order.” The Post report concludes.

The assertion here seems less centered around the concept of ‘new world order’ and more towards the simple notion that the military industrial complex is driving perpetual war for its own ends; not really a major revelation in itself, and more an obvious statement.

Nevertheless, Hagel’s comments make for interesting reading.

However, there is no reason to believe that Obama, as president, would not already be aware of any form of ‘new world order’, be it rogue elements within the Pentagon or a vast elite shadow government structure, if Chuck Hagel, as a Senator, was aware of it.

This all begs the question, if Hagel knows the position of Secretary of Defense carries little meaningful influence over the military top brass, then will he attempt to do anything about it, or will he simply play along with the role?"

SET FIRE | DUBSTEP

I spend a considerable amount of time rummaging through my head. I come up with bits and pieces, some make me happy, others make me sad, and some make me downright angry, and I mean angry. The reader will know; I think we all rummage. [...]  

Do Sinn Fein (you will change the name soon, won't you?) really believe that men died on Hunger-Strike for this defeat? That men walked to the scaffold for seats in Stormont, Westminster (when will you be taking your rightful place there, boys?) and Dail Eireann? That my own aunt lived without hands or eyes with quiet dignity and without complaint for forty years to hear that the tri-colour is lodged in the corner of some office in Stormont. Stormont! The symbol of Republican defeat in 1921? I defy anyone to tell me they did because I will call them liars and hypocrites.

Admit it, lads -- you lost the war; some of us see it as only having lost another battle. You can lose all the battles but only when you surrender do you lose your Soul.

- Dolours Price

PRESSTITUTES

Better an Honest Socialist than a Lying Republican


- Dolours Price


 Have You No Shame?

Lies, Damned Lies, and Newspaper Reporting 
By Annie Machon

February 01, 2013 "Huffington Post" - -Where to start with this tangled skein of media spin, misrepresentation and outright hypocrisy?

Last week the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence presented this year's award to Dr Tom Fingar at a ceremony jointly hosted by the prestigious Oxford Union Society.

Dr Fingar, currently a visiting lecturer at Oxford, had in 2007 co-ordinated the production of the US National Intelligence Estimate - the combined analysis of all 16 of America's intelligence agencies - which assessed that the Iranian nuclear weaponisation programme had ceased in 2003. This considered and authoritative Estimate directlythwarted the 2008 US drive towards war against Iran, and has been reaffirmed every year since then.

By the very fact of doing his job of providing dispassionate and objective assessments and resisting any pressure to politicise the intelligence (à la Downing Street Memo), Dr Fingar's work is outstanding and he is the winner of Sam Adams Award, 2012. This may say something about the parlous state of our intelligence agencies generally, but don't get me started on that...

Anyway, as I said, the award ceremony was co-hosted by the Oxford Union Society last week, and many Sam Adams Associates attended, often travelling long distances to do so. Former winners were asked to speak at the ceremony, such as FBI Coleen Rowley, GCHQ Katherine Gun, NSA Thomas Drake, and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray. Other associates, including CIA Ray McGovern, diplomats Ann Wright and Brady Kiesling and myself also said a few words. As former insiders and whistleblowers, we recognised the vitally important work that Dr Fingar had done and all spoke about the importance of integrity in intelligence.

One other previous winner of the Sam Adams Award was also invited to speak - Julian Assange of Wikileaks. He spoke eloquently about the need for integrity and wasgracious in praising the work of Dr Fingar.

All the national and international media were invited to attend what was an historic gathering of international whistleblowers and cover an award given to someone who, by doing their job with integrity, prevented yet further ruinous war and bloodshed in the Middle East.

Few attended, still fewer reported on the event, and the promised live streaming on YouTube was blocked by shadowy powers at the very last minute - an irony considering the Oxford Union is renowned as a free speech society.

But worse was to come. The next day the Guardian newspaper, which historically fell out with Wikileaks, published a myopic hit-piece about the event. No mention of all the whistleblowers who attended and what they said, no mention of the award to Dr Fingar, no mention of the fact that his work saved the Iranian people from needless war.

Oh no, the entire piece focused on the tawdry allegations emanating from Sweden about Julian Assange's extradition case. Discounting the 450 students who applauded all the speeches, discounting all the serious points raised by Julian Assange during his presentation, and discounting the speeches of all the other internationally renowned whistleblowers who spoke that evening, the Guardian's reporter, Amelia Hill, focused on the small demo outside the event and the only three attendees she could apparently find to criticise the fact that a platform, any platform, had been given to Assange from his political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy.

So this is where we arrive at the deep, really deep, hypocrisy of the evening. Amelia Hill is, I'm assuming, the same Guardian journalist who was threatened in 2011 with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. She had allegedly been receiving leaks from the Metropolitan Police about the on-going investigation into the News of the Worldphone-hacking scandal.

At the time Fleet Street was up in arms - how dare the police threaten one of their own with prosecution under the OSA for exposing institutional corruption? Shades of the Shayler case were used in her defence. As I wrote at the time, it's a shame the UK media could not have been more consistently robust in condemning the chilling effects of the OSA on the free-flow of information and protect all the Poor Bloody Whistleblowers, and not just come out fighting when it is one of their own being threatened. But such is the way of the world....

But really, Ms Hill - if you are indeed the same reporter who was threatened with prosecution in 2011 under the OSA - examine your conscience.

How can you write a hit-piece focusing purely on Assange - a man who has designed a publishing system to protect potential whistleblowers from precisely such draconian secrecy laws as you were hyperbolically threatened with? And how could you, at the same time, airbrush out of history the testimony of so many whistleblowers gathered together, many of whom have indeed been arrested and have faced prosecution under the terms of the OSA or US secrecy legislation?

Have you no shame? You know how frightening it is to be faced with such a prosecution.

Your hypocrisy is breath-taking.

The offence was compounded when the Sam Adams Associates all wrote a letter to theGuardian to set the record straight. The original letter is reproduced below, and this iswhat was published. Of course, the Guardian has a perfect right under its Terms and Conditions to edit the letter, but I would like everyone to see how this can be used and abused.

And the old media wonders why it is in decline?

Letter to the Guardian, 29 January 2013:

Dear Sir

With regard to the 24 January article in the Guardian entitled "Julian Assange Finds No Allies and Tough Queries in Oxford University Talk," we question whether the newspaper's reporter was actually present at the event, since the account contains so many false and misleading statements.

If the Guardian could "find no allies" of Mr. Assange, it did not look very hard! They could be found among the appreciative audience of the packed Oxford Union Debate Hall, and - in case you missed us - in the group seated right at the front of the Hall: the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

Many in our group - which, you might be interested to know co-sponsored the event with Oxford Union - had traveled considerable distances at our own expense to confer the 10th annual Sam Adams award to Dr. Thomas Fingar for his work on overseeing the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that revealed the lack of an Iranian nuclear weaponization program.

Many of us spoke in turn about the need for integrity in intelligence, describing the terrible ethical dilemma that confronts government employees who witness illegal activity including serious threats to public safety and fraud, waste and abuse.

But none of this made it into what was supposed to pass for a news article; neither did any aspect of the acceptance speech delivered by Dr. Fingar. Also, why did theGuardian fail to provide even one salient quote from Mr Assange's substantial twenty-minute address?

By censoring the contributions of the Sam Adams Associates and the speeches by Dr. Fingar and Mr. Assange, and by focusing exclusively on tawdry and unproven allegations against Mr. Assange, rather than on the importance of exposing war crimes and maintaining integrity in intelligence processes, the Guardian has succeeded in diminishing none but itself.

Sincerely,

The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence:

Ann Wright (retired Army Colonel and Foreign Service Officer of US State Department), Ray McGovern (retired CIA analyst), Elizabeth Murray (retired CIA analyst), Coleen Rowley (retired FBI agent), Annie Machon (former MI5 intelligence officer), Thomas Drake (former NSA official), Craig Murray (former British Ambassador), David MacMichael (retired CIA analyst), Brady Kiesling (former Foreign Service Officer of US State Department), and Todd Pierce (retired U.S. Army Major, Judge Advocate, Guantanamo Defense Counsel).

Julian Assange | Sam Adams Awards | Oxford Union