The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Washington NJ, On Wednesday, the nation suffered a catastrophic failure of security on Capitol Hill. The storming of Congress, and the evacuation of elected representatives and senators, is something we expect from war zones abroad. It is not something we should tolerate at home.
Continue reading The Nation Suffered a Catastrophic Failure of Security on Capitol Hill
photo courtesy of NJTPC
October 1,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Teaneck NJ, at a recent meeting hosted by NJTPC special guest Jason Goodman of Crowdsource the Truth spoke on what maybe the largest scandal in US history. According to Goodman there is a spy ring that operates in congress with many members complicit in the spy drama . The drama centers around Imran Awan, the former IT staffer for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was arrested on bank fraud .
Jason Goodman, is an independent journalist who operates Crowdsource the Truth, has been exploring full time the incredible scandal that Washington and the Mainstream Media have been as quiet about as they can be: Imran Awan, the Pakistani given responsibility for the Democratic Party’s computers and networks thanks to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and access to the confidential Blackberrys of some 50 Democratic Congressmen and according Goodman it is even possible he was enabled by the CIA.
Awan was arrested for bank fraud at the airport by the FBI as he was about to leave the country, but that’s the least of it. He may have sold US secrets he could access to Pakistan and other foreign governments. Goodman has found a lot to talk about that the media won’t publish in what has the potential to be the biggest political scandal in a century.
According to evidence discovered by citizen journalists broadcast on CrowdSource The Truth on YouTube ; Imran Awan Spy Ring in Congress, Awan was DWS IT consultant in Congress. He’s Pakistani ISI, doped over 150 Congressmen phones, sold US state secrets to Pakistan and foreign governments.
Imran Awan, used a secret server and a file hosting service that congressional staffers are prohibited from using to store massive amounts of Democrats’ data, according to reports.
Awan, who is under indictment for bank fraud, conspiracy and making false statements, allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server, Awan is alledged to be a member of the Packistani ISI that’s the Pakistani equivalent of the CIA, has stolen data then often black mailed with that data. infiltrated the US Congress.
PURR-FECT SPIES
CIA ‘implanted microphones into CATS’ in a bizarre attempt to spy on Russia
Spooks were praised for their ‘pioneering work’ creating robo-cats in declassified docs
By Neal Baker
28th April 2017, 3:05 am
CIA spooks tried to spy on Soviet Russia using CATS implanted with microphones under their skin.
Declassified docs show how spy chiefs praised “pioneering” scientists for slitting open moggies and stitching in electronic hardware to uncover their enemies’ secrets.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3433398/cia-wikileaks-cats-soviet-russia-spy-programme/
Michael Price
Mar 16, 2017
In case you’re wondering, microwaves can’t take pictures of you. For starters, they don’t have cameras. But—and I can’t believe I’m writing this—Kellyanne Conway earlier this week was right to raise concerns about the security of “smart” devices connected to the Internet, even if it was an attempt to distract from President Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Obama had “wiretapped” Trump Tower.
Had Conway said she was worried about her dishwasher instead of her microwave, she might’ve been on to something. Back in 2012, a Wired headline read, “CIA Chief: We’ll Spy On You Through Your Dishwasher,” describing the clandestine agency’s very real plans to hack the “Internet of Things.” And as we now know, the CIA did find a way to turn Samsung “smart” TVs into covert listening devices.
In fact, the proliferation of Internet-connected devices with poor security is a major problem for at least a few reasons. First, they are indeed capable of exposing personal information—which is precisely why the CIA did it. The words we say in front of the TV are, to put it mildly, quite different from the words we would use on TV. And other “smart” home devices, from thermostats to baby monitors to Wi-Fi-enabled light bulbs, are also vulnerable to hacking.
https://fortune.com/2017/03/16/kellyanne-conway-microwave-hacking/
March 7,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named “Vault 7” by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
The first full part of the series, “Year Zero”, comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized “zero day” exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
“Year Zero” introduces the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of “zero day” weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency’s hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA’s hacking capacities.
By the end of 2016, the CIA’s hacking division, which formally falls under the agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other “weaponized” malware. Such is the scale of the CIA’s undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook. The CIA had created, in effect, its “own NSA” with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.
In a statement to WikiLeaks the source details policy questions that they say urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA’s hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency. The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.
Once a single cyber ‘weapon’ is ‘loose’ it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor stated that “There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons’. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such ‘weapons’, which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of “Year Zero” goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective.”
Wikileaks has carefully reviewed the “Year Zero” disclosure and published substantive CIA documentation while avoiding the distribution of ‘armed’ cyberweapons until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA’s program and how such ‘weapons’ should analyzed, disarmed and published.
Wikileaks has also decided to redact and anonymise some identifying information in “Year Zero” for in depth analysis. These redactions include ten of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States. While we are aware of the imperfect results of any approach chosen, we remain committed to our publishing model and note that the quantity of published pages in “Vault 7” part one (“Year Zero”) already eclipses the total number of pages published over the first three years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks.
more details see https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/
President-elect Donald Trump described a sting operation he says he conducted after growing frustrated at a series of leaks about his own classified briefings
He says he decided to tell no one about a particular briefing, shielding even his longtime scheduling aide, Rhoda, to rule out the possibility leaks were coming from his staff
When word got out anyway, Trump concluded it was the intelligence community who was putting out information
He described the operation he conducted after suggesting intelligence officials leaked a fake dirty dossier of information about him
Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4110654/Trump-conducts-sting-operation-ensnare-intelligence-briefers-says-caught-leaking.html#ixzz4VVMucxox
The CIA has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into Democratic and Republican computer networks and selectively releasing emails. But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar things.
The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.
That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring.
Levin defines intervention as “a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.” These acts, carried out in secret two-thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-us-intervention-foreign-elections-20161213-story.html
July 20,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Teaneck NJ, Was TWA Flight 800’s fiery crash part of a massive cover-up?, on the 20th anniversary of the crash . According to Arthur Jack Cashill ( TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover Up, The Conspiracy) the answer is a definitive yes .
TWA Flight 800 crashed into the Atlantic shortly after takeoff from JFK airport on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 passengers on board. Although initial reports suggested a terrorist attack, FBI and NTSB investigators blamed a fuel tank explosion. But skeptics have long questioned the official story, and new evidence has surfaced that suggests a widespread conspiracy.
In TWA 800, historian Jack Cashill introduces new documents and testimonies that reveal the shocking true chain of events: from the disastrous crash to the high-level decision to create a cover story and the attempts to silence anyone who dared speak the truth.
Cashill maintains that the plane was brought down by external forces and that the government has engaged in a decades-long cover-up.
According to Michele Talamo who hosted a book signing for Jack Cashill at the Teaneck American Legion for the NJ Tea Party Coalition, “Jack Cashill is by all accounts a JERSEY guy. Jack was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, graduated from Regis High School in New York City and Siena College in Loudonville, New York. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue University.
Jack has written for Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, AmericanThinker.com, and regularly for WorldNetDaily. He is Executive Editor for Ingram’s Magazine.
Jack has written eleven books of non-fiction — First Strike, Ron Brown’s Body, Hoodwinked, Sucker Punch, What’s the Matter with California, and Deconstructing Obama. His books have cracked Amazon’s top ten list. Jack has produced a score of documentaries for regional PBS and national cable channels, including the Emmy Award-winning, The Royal Years.
Jack has taught media and literature at Purdue and at Kansas City area universities, and served as a Fulbright professor in France.
One could say Jack is a detective by the way with hard work and true perseverance he gathers the facts and details them for us, “We the People”, and for this we are fortunate.
Jack’s most recent book is TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover Up, The Conspiracy”
https://www.amazon.com/TWA-800-Crash-Cover-Up-Conspiracy/dp/1621574717
FEINSTEIN STRIKES BACK AFTER SPOOKS SPY ON HER!
Sen. Bob Kerrey: Partisan torture report fails America
Bob Kerrey8:51 p.m. EST December 9, 2014
Intelligence agencies need guidance to do better, Senate Democrats failed to provide it.
I regret having to write a piece that is critical of the Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Most of them are former colleagues and friends. I hope they will remain friends after reading this.
For eight years I served on this committee. I know how difficult and important the work of providing tough and fair oversight of our nation’s$50 billion top-secret intelligence network.
I will wait until I have fully read and considered Tuesday’s report to enter the debate over whether the CIA handled interrogation of detainees in an appropriate manner. Thanks to the 2005 and 2006 efforts of Senator John McCain I do not have to wait to be certain our interrogation policies and procedures are aligned with our core values.
I also do not have to wait to know we are fighting a war that is different than any in our country’s past. The enemy does not have an easy to identify and analyze military. In the war against global jihadism, human intelligence and interrogation have become more important, and I worry that the partisan nature of this report could make this kind of collection more difficult.
Top CIA officer in Benghazi delayed response to terrorist attack, US security team members claim
Published September 05, 2014
FoxNews.com
A U.S. security team in Benghazi was held back from immediately responding to the attack on the American diplomatic mission on orders of the top CIA officer there, three of those involved told Fox News’ Bret Baier.
Their account gives a dramatic new turn to what the Obama administration and its allies would like to dismiss as an “old story” – the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
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Speaking out publicly for the first time, the three were security operators at the secret CIA annex in Benghazi – in effect, the first-responders to any attack on the diplomatic compound. Their first-hand account will be told in a Fox News special, airing Friday night at 10 p.m. (EDT).
Based on the new book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi” by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team, the special sets aside the political spin that has freighted the Benghazi issue for the last two years, presenting a vivid, compelling narrative of events from the perspective of the men who wore the “boots on the ground.”
The security contractors — Kris (“Tanto”) Paronto, Mark (“Oz”) Geist, and John (“Tig”) Tiegen — spoke exclusively, and at length, to Fox News about what they saw and did that night. Baier, Fox News’ Chief Political Anchor, asked them about one of the most controversial questions arising from the events in Benghazi: Was help delayed?
Word of the attack on the diplomatic compound reached the CIA annex just after 9:30 p.m. Within five minutes, the security team at the annex was geared up for battle, and ready to move to the compound, a mile away.
“Five minutes, we’re ready,” said Paronto, a former Army Ranger. “It was thumbs up, thumbs up, we’re ready to go.”
But the team was held back. According to the security operators, they were delayed from responding to the attack by the top CIA officer in Benghazi, whom they refer to only as “Bob.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/05/top-cia-official-in-benghazi-delayed-response-to-terrorist-attack-us-security/
CIA admits to spying on Senate
By Julian Hattem – 07/31/14 12:32 PM EDT
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/213933-cia-admits-to-wrongly-hacking-into-senate-computers#ixzz399aEwd7A
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
CIA officials improperly hacked the Senate Intelligence Committee’s computers as staffers compiled a report on “enhanced interrogation” techniques, the spy agency’s inspector general has concluded.
In a statement shared with The Hill, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said the internal watchdog determined “that some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding” between the agency and the committee about access to the network they used to share documents.
CIA Took Secret, “Unprecedented Action” Against Senate Intelligence Committee
Nick Gillespie|Mar. 5, 2014 8:08 am
The New York Times is reporting that the CIA took what Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) called “unprecedented action” against the Senate Intelligence Committee in response to an investigation of the spy agency’s actions following the 9/11 attacks.
The [Senate Intelligence] committee has spent several years working on a voluminous report about the detention and interrogation program, and according to one official interviewed in recent days, C.I.A. officers went as far as gaining access to computer networks used by the committee to carry out its investigation….
The specifics of the inspector general’s investigation are unclear. But several officials interviewed in recent days — all of whom insisted on anonymity, citing a continuing inquiry — said it began after the C.I.A. took what Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, on Tuesday called an “unprecedented action” against the committee.
The action, which Mr. Udall did not describe, took place after C.I.A. officials came to suspect that congressional staff members had gained unauthorized access to agency documents during the course of the Intelligence Committee’s years-long investigation into the detention and interrogation program.
Welcome to the 21st century, which is looking a whole lot like the 20th when it comes to CIA fooling around in places it shouldn’t be. The Times story is short on specifics but includes this gem from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) who generally has never met a government incursion against civil liberties she doesn’t like.
https://reason.com/blog/2014/03/05/wtf-cia-took-secret-unprecedented-action
