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- defeat ISIS

You are a complete fucking idiot. Really, there's little else to say about you. Because Trump says so doesn't mean shit, except to you guys on your knees sucking him off daily.

https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

"ISIS and al-Qa‘ida and their respective networks will be persistent threats, as will groups not subordinate to them, such as the Haqqani Taliban Network."

"ISIS core has started and probably will maintain a robust insurgency in Iraq and Syria as part of a long term strategy to ultimately enable the reemergence of its so called caliphate. This activity will challenge local CT efforts against the group and threaten US interests in the region."

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

"The Islamic State may still have in excess of 30,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq and appears to have rebounded from some of its worst setbacks, according to two new reports that call into question whether the militants are as close to defeat as the U.S. military has suggested."
“The collective discipline of ISIL is intact,” the report said. “The general security and finance bureaus of ISIL are intact. The group’s immigration and logistics coordination office is also intact, although it is having difficulty communicating and its chief has been killed.”

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideas...

"While U.S. and allied forces in 2017 and 2018 successfully liberated most of the territory formerly held by the group in Syria and Iraq, IS leadership remains at large and IS fighters appear to be evolving into an insurgent force. The group’s international affiliates continue to operate, and individuals inspired by the group continue to attempt attacks in Europe and elsewhere. The stabilization of areas recovered from the group in Iraq and Syria remains an ongoing challenge, and a U.S. military spokesperson for the counter IS campaign warned in August 2018 that, “We cannot emphasize enough that the threat of losing the gains we have made is real, especially if we are not able to give the people a viable alternative to the ISIS problem.”

Regarding the ODNI report, I'll just leave this here as it covers most of the bases. More amazing are the points you did not argue over: you do not point to the report or any arguments or evidence from it. It's hard to do that for a document with a bunch of unsupported conclusory statements, though.

> But you've got a real knack for finding the meat of a story, which obviously is how many agencies contributed to the report written by Coats which was then ignored and dismissed by Trump against the counsel of virtually everyone around him. Yeah, the story there is the number of agencies.

That was *your* argument. You are the one who trumpeted the number of agencies as proving something, I said it was BS and challenged you to point to items of substance from the ODNI report. You failed to do so and then created this smokescreen as if I was the one claiming this statistic was meaningful. If you admit that it's BS and don't want it attacked, then maybe it shouldn't be the only damned factoid about the report that you cite. Maybe you should actually discuss the *factual basis* of said report as I've repeatedly challenged you to do so.

You do not because you cannot. Heck, you didn't even bother to link to the ODNI report because apparently it's not even important, despite you being the one to put it into evidence. Then again, that would get us back to discussing the factual basis underlying the report and you'd run into trouble right at the start of the document when we see this -

Thus, while the conclusions in the report are all reflected in the classified assessment, the declassified report does not and cannot include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence and sources and methods.

I used to joke that my classified evidence can beat up your classified evidence, but I don't really have to any more. Half of this stuff on the origins of the Russia nonsense came about via this bogus FISA warrant against Carter Page.

Also, one of the leaked emails from waaaay back when floated the idea of attacking Trump on Russia, so we knew it was planned as far back as the campaign. You can claim that Wikileaks is Russian if you want, but you would have to prove them *wrong* on this email to counter the argument. I alsso hope you don't want to play the game that some have of pretending the emails were manipulated, because they're not and I've long ago posted on Slashdot a copy of the DKIM keys that provide cryptographic non-repudiation.

> OK. Well, just because I'm curious, I've got a question for you: has Russia been actively attacking and trying to undermine US and European democratic processes, yes or no?

All countries are interfering with all other countries, more or less, I'm more interested in the specifics of actual wrongdoing. For example, Obama had Steele & Halper, both foreign spies, running a lot of interference.

I don't generally consider uncovering corruption or making political arguments to be 'wrongdoing' though, at least in the moral sense, nor do I consider anonymous or pseudonymous speech on the internet to be that either, as if each country had some right to regulate whether or not the rest of the world could even talk about them online. There are definitely process crimes that it can run afoul of--which is why the Podesta group was

This is public information.

And it's wrapped in limestone rather than granite, my bad.

> Did they ever release any actual evidence the Russians hacked the DNC?

They released the CrowdStrike report which said they think it was a Russian APT based on various signatures, such as an old copy of Ukranian malware called P.A.S. and a bunch of tor exit nodes, which they presented but failed to identify. They later retracted some of their claims. The DNC did not at any time turn over the affected servers to the FBI or anyone else, as one might expect for such a serious crime as was alleged.

Then the ODNI released the "17 agencies" report that doesn't present any technical info at all, just a few conclusions.

Somewhere in here we have that story about the "mystery server" where they think a Trump server (actually a 3rd party marketing site) is talking to a Russian bank. It turns out to be DNS traffic due to spam, but it's funny to look at now given the #Spygate allegations.

Then there were reports from Trend Micro including this one. There's a lot there about phishing and such, but not a whole lot about how to identify who this is other than "we think this is Russia."

Of course, then comes the Vault 7 leaks showing the CIA (likely among many others) has lots of tools to falsely attribute stuff to other parties. A person was later blamed for that leak, but they instead find that he's a pedophile which is... interesting. One may or may not be aware of a short-lived attempt by the "Todd & Claire" site to frame Julian Assange of that which melted under public scrutiny. There were also the infamous Guccifer 2.0 "Russian fingerprints" which seemed interesting, as he only dropped random Trump opposition research docs.

Sure: https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies. It covers the
motivation and scope of Moscow’s intentions regarding US elections and Moscow’s use of cyber tools and media campaigns to influence US public opinion. The assessment focuses on activities aimed at the 2016 US presidential election and draws on our understanding of previous Russian influence operations.
When we use the term “we” it refers to an assessment by all three agencies.

Yeah. If only we had some sort of official intelligence report confirming Russia's interference in the 2016 elections...

Maybe because the investgation was triggered by a DNI report which was subsequently investigated by the FBI and led to a special counsel being appointed after Trump fired the guy looking into the election which made him president.

See? Real facts are not hard.

Actually the evidence is mounting. This article has a good summary with plenty of links: https://www.theguardian.com/us...

I find this report by the Director of National Intelligence particularly interesting: https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trumpâ(TM)s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment;NSA has moderate confidence.

Moscowâ(TM)s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operationsâ"such as cyber activityâ"with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid socialmedia users or âoetrolls.â

The extent to which Trump was involved in this has yet to be determined. The investigation is on-going. It seems that some of his staff did meet with people working for the Russian government and communicated with them in other ways, but to be fair that in itself isn't proof of actual collusion. Trump and his team may well be victims of Russian government manipulation too. It certainly undermines his victory.

We don't know the full extent of this for some time, and even then the way Trump has interfered with the investigation means that any conclusions are unlikely to be accepted now.

I keep reading articles how the Russians hacked this or that and then a few paragraphs down; "we have no evidence the Russians are involved.".

If you can't discern fact from fiction, then read primary sources and quit listening to biased news. Here is a link to the report released by the intelligence agencies:

https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

Here's a spoiler:

We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.

The whole "Russia tried to influence the election" thing is bullshit.

So ALL of the intelligence agencies are wrong? Here, I'll quote Fox News for you since any other source is just "Fake News" from the liberal MSM:

On January 6, 2017, the U.S. Intelligence Community issued an “Intelligence Community Assessment” (ICA) that found Russia deliberately interfered in the 2016 presidential election to benefit Trump’s candidacy.

Here's a link to the actual report, please point out the errors:
https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

Russia didn't "try to influence the election", they DID influence the election. The question being investigated by the special counsel is if the President or his staff colluded with them to do it, not if it happened.

Any more fake news you wish to share?

"Fake news" has a specific meaning. The name given to things that have actually happened, regardless of whether they agree with your personal dogma or not, is known as reality. Trump has accepted that report, so I guess to reconcile that with your beliefs you'll have to add to your ever-growing stack of cognitive dissonance.

I am not sure who we should thank for the rejection of electronic vote: Russia or US intelligence.

Russia did not tamper with US voting, even US intelligence acknowledges this, and the real threat on electronic voting is more about fraud by national parties, but Russia threat made up by US intelligence seems the key to fix the problem.

Your comment incorrectly portrays the information in the report.

The CIA, FBI, and NSA all have high confidence that it was the Russians.

The NSA has moderate confidence the Russians did it to help elect Trump.

Please see page 7 of the report - https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We
have high confidence in these judgments.

- We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s
election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her
unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence
in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence."

How did that comment rate an "insightful" moderation? The "funny" reply was much more insightful, but rather funny, too, so I guess that's a fair cop of sorts...

The ideal of WikiLeaks is that there is too much abuse of secrecy by powerful people and more of those secrets should be revealed. There is a real problem there, because in many cases the powerful people are doing terrible, even criminal, things because they think they can keep them secret.

The implementation is fundamentally broken, but I'm not sure how much credit or blame you can assign to Assange. "The system" of corruption, the oligarchy or kleptocracy, if you prefer, is already so well established and powerful that you have to be insane to go against it in the first place. Only someone with personality problems along Assange's lines could have created a WikiLeaks-type organization of any visible significance. Did you even know there are several similar organizations with sane leadership?

Another pathology was the financial model, or rather the lack of any. In chasing the money they wound up producing disaster porn, sort of like a low-budget CNN. Actually, insofar as WikiLeaks had smaller expenses, you could argue the RoI was higher. However it led them to focus on controlled timing for maximum market value of their "news" (AKA disaster porn) and also made them too subject to manipulation.

Just reading the official report now https://www.dni.gov/files/docu... but it was already obvious to me that WikiLeaks was used as part of a propaganda and disinformation campaign. WikiLeaks never had the resources to actually check the validity (or even the potentially harmful consequences) of the data they were publishing. Yet it was the drive to maximize the impact and market value that made WikiLeaks such a useful tool last October.

I'm suffering a bit of a recall gap here. What's the expression for a naive fool manipulated by someone of great cunning (such as Putin)? Oh yeah. It's "useful idiot". Not sure where he started, but Assange ended as a useful idiot.

James Clapper lied about U.S. cybersecurity. James Clapper is the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. He resigned.

Two big issues:

1) If he feels comfortable lying, can anything he says be considered to be reliable?

2) He is 75 years old. Photos of him give the impression he is extremely conflicted. (See the resignation story.) Does he have any technical knowledge?

There is the possibility that everything that has been said is manipulated nonsense. Apparently NONE of the authors of the stories have investigated the depth of technical knowledge of ANYONE. There is no depth to any of the stories.

Where's the Beef? Here is the Declassified version of the U.S. Intelligence Report regarding Russia.

https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...

You know, the one cited for proof of undermining the U.S. election process. Well, I've read it, and I will sum it up with the following:

TOTAL BUNK...

Just some highlights...

"Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order"

This was funny, so they're only focused on undermining the liberal democratic order, conservatives and libertarians - YOU ARE SAFE!

"We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him."

The fact that statement is made, shows that this entire intelligence review is utter BS and mere politics. There is NO reason for Russia to be supporting Trump, and the actions could have just as easily benefited Bernie Sanders. If they were to accuse Russia of a motive, it would be to prevent Hillary being elected. Nothing to do with her competitors.

"When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election" Really, cause the appearances and statements across U.S. media was that this was an apparent given that Hillary would win and be our next president. This was de facto for a year or more.

I saw in another article that they had record of Russian officials celebrating upon Trump's win. And clearly this means they were for Trump. Bogus. I didn't want Trump, but I was happy to not have Hillary. And I believe the Russians simply did NOT want Hillary - for good reason.

"Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences."

Which has zero affect on U.S. populace. Really, so what...we have tons of evidence that the mainstream media was a propaganda machine for Hillary which went so far as to rigged debates and more.

"Kremlin’s TV Seeks To Influence Politics, Fuel Discontent in US" Really? How many American's were watching Kremlin TV?

Basically, this report is Russian media outlets denigrated Hillary, while U.S. media outlets denigrated Bernie and Trump. And it's only okay for foreign media to denigrate Trump, not Hillary.

"Putin publicly pointed to the Panama Papers disclosure and the Olympic doping scandal as US-directed efforts to defame Russia, suggesting he sought to use disclosures to discredit the image of the United States and cast it as hypocritical."

HE IS RIGHT, IT WAS!!!

Do I doubt Russia has hacked U.S. systems. Not one bit. Every government is doing it. Though few at the level the U.S. is. We've conducted more hacking and election affecting than every other country in the world has combined. So threatening military action and retaliation is not only hypocritical, it's ludicrously insane.

Gee, so per the document Russia has had agents involved in monitoring the election process since the Carter days. Of course they do. So do we. Of course they're going to want to have insight into who will be the head of their largest rival. Duh... nothing to see here, go home.

"Russia Times aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against "the ruling class" and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations."

Um, ya...seems like the truth to me.

So far as I read this, it pretty much appears to be 25 pages going thru decades of Russia and U.S. opposing opinions and expressions. Well duh...we did have a cold war. And even after it's pretty much been lukewarm. So none of this crap is evidence for U.S. claims being made against Russia currently.

At

I want to point out that although the document claims that Russia hired internet trolls to spread propaganda, they did not link or show a single instance of the trolling. Come on, just link to one troll somewhere, one comment or one blog.

Hiring trolls seems like something Russia might do, but to say for sure they did, I want to see the evidence.

Read the whole document (I wish that were a requirement before any reporter could write a news story on the topic, but whatever).

The most entertaining part to me is the part where it says, "it was revenge for the Panama papers." Heh. As if Russia had no other reason to hack US computers.

Another interesting part is where it mentions Assange's ties to the official Russian news channel (RT). I was unaware that he sometimes appeared on TV there.

Another interesting part is where it analyzes Russian television support for Trump as a candidate. For example, as soon as he won, they say that the Russian TV stopped criticizing the election process as "unfair." So their analysis that Russia wanted Trump to win seems reasonable.

Their analysis of the hacking is not good though. They say:
1) Guccifier 2.0 is the Russian government because: he is probably a Russian speaker, not Romanian speaker. That's it? Very not convincing.
2) The leaks to Wikileaks were from the Russian government because Assange appears on the Russian news channel (RT). Again, that's it? Not very convincing.
3) They claim "Russia accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards." Of this, they give no evidence. Absolutely nothing to support this claim. Seriously, tell us which electoral board, or arrest the members of the board, or something.

Some things we do know: John Podesta had an extremely insecure password, and that's how his email leaked. We know that Assange claims the email came from a disgruntled DNC operative. That is not unreasonable, if I saw what they were doing in the DNC, I would have been upset about it too.

Enough Americans are good people, that if you have some surveillance program, or are doing things to mess with our free election process, sooner or later someone is going to leak that.

That's a fascinating article, actually. Why don't we look at the evidence they present to support their claims?

Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

So... they have anonymous people who are reporting rumors that they won't attach their names to.

AKA anonymous leakers, a basic reporting tool.

The leakers don't publicize their names because they're not supposed to be leaking the information, but the reporter can vouch for the fact that they are senior officials with access to the information.

And there are other insiders saying the complete opposite.

No there aren't, at least not in this article.

Lovely. Why don't they put out some actual, hard proof?

Because a lot of the evidence comes from confidential sources like CIA spies.

Or prosecute someone?

Who? Vladimir Putin?

The FBI and other agencies don't fully endorse that view, but few officials would dispute that the Russian operation was intended to harm Clinton's candidacy by leaking embarrassing emails about Democrats.

So the FBI is willing to put their name on this saying it's not true

I'm not sure how you read that sentence and came up with that interpretation.

The FBI did not say it was false that Russia was trying to elect Trump. The FBI, and every other agency that investigated it, said they agree that Russia was trying to hurt Clinton, but they don't know if the intent was merely to destabilize the US or to actually have Trump win the election.

And NBC simply labels this as a "Russian operation" despite failing to present any evidence of that.

Because that's been well established for months.

You can read all about the bad jouranlism behind this conclusion if you wish.

And have a good laugh at the "analysis" within. He simply dismissed all of the evidence of the hacking group intruding to the DNC network. Has Assange even disclosed how he knows that the "leaker" is a DNC insider and not some Russian operative claiming to be one?

Back on topic, let's not forget that they brought up the 17 intelligence agencies again. Would it kill you guys to actually name them? It's also misleading, because it comes from the directors (political appointees)

Who else is going to endorse the statement except the director? And you really think that not only did 17 directors all endorse a false statement, but that no one in any of their agencies leaked evidence to the contrary?

I love how they don't bother to link to the actual statement lest someone actually read what it said. It's not based on anything of substance as anyone can read. They essentially say this is totally something Russia would like to do.

No. They essentially say these hacks fit the profile of other attacks that have been tied to Russia.

That's a fascinating article, actually. Why don't we look at the evidence they present to support their claims?

Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

So... they have anonymous people who are reporting rumors that they won't attach their names to.

AKA anonymous leakers, a basic reporting tool.

The leakers don't publicize their names because they're not supposed to be leaking the information, but the reporter can vouch for the fact that they are senior officials with access to the information.

And there are other insiders saying the complete opposite.

No there aren't, at least not in this article.

Lovely. Why don't they put out some actual, hard proof?

Because a lot of the evidence comes from confidential sources like CIA spies.

Or prosecute someone?

Who? Vladimir Putin?

The FBI and other agencies don't fully endorse that view, but few officials would dispute that the Russian operation was intended to harm Clinton's candidacy by leaking embarrassing emails about Democrats.

So the FBI is willing to put their name on this saying it's not true

I'm not sure how you read that sentence and came up with that interpretation.

The FBI did not say it was false that Russia was trying to elect Trump. The FBI, and every other agency that investigated it, said they agree that Russia was trying to hurt Clinton, but they don't know if the intent was merely to destabilize the US or to actually have Trump win the election.

And NBC simply labels this as a "Russian operation" despite failing to present any evidence of that.

Because that's been well established for months.

You can read all about the bad jouranlism behind this conclusion if you wish.

And have a good laugh at the "analysis" within. He simply dismissed all of the evidence of the hacking group intruding to the DNC network. Has Assange even disclosed how he knows that the "leaker" is a DNC insider and not some Russian operative claiming to be one?

Back on topic, let's not forget that they brought up the 17 intelligence agencies again. Would it kill you guys to actually name them? It's also misleading, because it comes from the directors (political appointees)

Who else is going to endorse the statement except the director? And you really think that not only did 17 directors all endorse a false statement, but that no one in any of their agencies leaked evidence to the contrary?

I love how they don't bother to link to the actual statement lest someone actually read what it said. It's not based on anything of substance as anyone can read. They essentially say this is totally something Russia would like to do.

No. They essentially say these hacks fit the profile of other attacks that have been tied to Russia.

That's a fascinating article, actually. Why don't we look at the evidence they present to support their claims?

Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

So... they have anonymous people who are reporting rumors that they won't attach their names to. And there are other insiders saying the complete opposite. Lovely. Why don't they put out some actual, hard proof? Or prosecute someone? Maybe more of those banking restrictions they place on particular individuals? Oh, right.

The FBI and other agencies don't fully endorse that view, but few officials would dispute that the Russian operation was intended to harm Clinton's candidacy by leaking embarrassing emails about Democrats.

So the FBI is willing to put their name on this saying it's not true, but the anonymous people with rumors are going to say our allies gossiped about this? And NBC simply labels this as a "Russian operation" despite failing to present any evidence of that. We already discussed just yesterday how Podesta fell for a simple phishing scam, but presumably here they're talking about the DNC leaks, which Wikileaks says came from a DNC insider. You can read all about the bad jouranlism behind this conclusion if you wish. They're simply laundering anonymous rumors with no factual basis and referencing each other's stories that have no factual basis. The emperor has no clothes.

You know it's bad when my own Slashdot comments scooped the NYT on that Podesta email story by weeks and given that I provided more actual, verifiable sources than their article. Seriously, if you can't even beat Slashdot comments by some random guy on the internet, maybe it's time to give it up, guys? You don't even bother to link to the actual sources lest someone do a real investigation, what a pathetic joke.

Back on topic, let's not forget that they brought up the 17 intelligence agencies again. Would it kill you guys to actually name them? It's also misleading, because it comes from the directors (political appointees), specifically it was the: "Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security "

The latest intelligence said to show Putin's involvement goes much further than the information the U.S. was relying on in October, when all 17 intelligence agencies signed onto a statement attributing the Democratic National Committee hack to Russia.

I love how they don't bother to link to the actual statement lest someone actually read what it said. It's not based on anything of substance as anyone can read. They essentially say this is totally something Russia would like to do. Also, we've seen random probes from Russia. Which everyone who has a network has seen all the time (same for China, incidentally), making it utterly meaningless. Everyone with an SSH server has seen this kind of crap and Slashdot has reported many such stories in the past, like this one. A nice quote from the comments in that story sums it up: "If you truly expect no traffic from those places, dropping China, Brasil and Russia from ever reaching your ssh port is a great idea."

Let's also not forget that the DHS was

That's a fascinating article, actually. Why don't we look at the evidence they present to support their claims?

Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.

So... they have anonymous people who are reporting rumors that they won't attach their names to. And there are other insiders saying the complete opposite. Lovely. Why don't they put out some actual, hard proof? Or prosecute someone? Maybe more of those banking restrictions they place on particular individuals? Oh, right.

The FBI and other agencies don't fully endorse that view, but few officials would dispute that the Russian operation was intended to harm Clinton's candidacy by leaking embarrassing emails about Democrats.

So the FBI is willing to put their name on this saying it's not true, but the anonymous people with rumors are going to say our allies gossiped about this? And NBC simply labels this as a "Russian operation" despite failing to present any evidence of that. We already discussed just yesterday how Podesta fell for a simple phishing scam, but presumably here they're talking about the DNC leaks, which Wikileaks says came from a DNC insider. You can read all about the bad jouranlism behind this conclusion if you wish. They're simply laundering anonymous rumors with no factual basis and referencing each other's stories that have no factual basis. The emperor has no clothes.

You know it's bad when my own Slashdot comments scooped the NYT on that Podesta email story by weeks and given that I provided more actual, verifiable sources than their article. Seriously, if you can't even beat Slashdot comments by some random guy on the internet, maybe it's time to give it up, guys? You don't even bother to link to the actual sources lest someone do a real investigation, what a pathetic joke.

Back on topic, let's not forget that they brought up the 17 intelligence agencies again. Would it kill you guys to actually name them? It's also misleading, because it comes from the directors (political appointees), specifically it was the: "Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security "

The latest intelligence said to show Putin's involvement goes much further than the information the U.S. was relying on in October, when all 17 intelligence agencies signed onto a statement attributing the Democratic National Committee hack to Russia.

I love how they don't bother to link to the actual statement lest someone actually read what it said. It's not based on anything of substance as anyone can read. They essentially say this is totally something Russia would like to do. Also, we've seen random probes from Russia. Which everyone who has a network has seen all the time (same for China, incidentally), making it utterly meaningless. Everyone with an SSH server has seen this kind of crap and Slashdot has reported many such stories in the past, like this one. A nice quote from the comments in that story sums it up: "If you truly expect no traffic from those places, dropping China, Brasil and Russia from ever reaching your ssh port is a great idea."

Let's also not forget that the DHS was

no US agency has said anything of the kind

Wrongo bongo. Here's the Joint DHS and ODNI Election Security Statement. It begins: The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.

One side effect of the speech is that the NSA declassified more documents yesterday. Included is the original "metadata" orders from the FISA court. Not sure if this is a comprehensive list, but there is enough in there about domestic data collection.
I was under the impression that this data is collected and retained forever, but it seems the order requires this data to be deleted after five years. It also says what metadata is collected, and I am not sure if any single corporate entity has this data. For example, if a Verizon user calls a T-Mobile customer, both records are collected and matched. Similarly, device IDs are collected, not just numbers. So pre-paid SIMs are tracked even if the user switches carriers (ie, move from TracFone to T-Mobile to AT&T etc. - all uses of the phone can be identified as a single device). The orders (that I read) are unclear on whether the geographical location is tracked.

You mean it was clearly a lie, and you were caught.

He claims he was answering the wrong question. Yes, it's stupid, but it's not the same as admitting he lied.

The content of this website may be browsed anonymously

Riiiiiight... and I'm Mary, Queen of Scots!

The report from 15 years ago is here:
http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_2015%20Report.pdf

I found that link to download VERY slowly, and the PDF appears to be rasterised pages? Ick ick ick ick.
Anyway, suffice it to say that they missed a fair few very important trends. Like the social network platforms and social media that would emerge. The upheavals in the petroleum market, the shift towards gas, etc.

This NIC mob have been releasing their "Global Trends 20XX" for some time now. In fact, if you head over here: http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_2015%20Report.pdf you can see what they were saying about 2015. I'll be wanting to read that report, and see how right they were, before paying any attention to the latest one. Unfortunately they seem to have been /.-ed and that link is downloading VERY slowly.

From the joint DNI/DOJ statement:

"The updated Guidelines do not provide any new authorities for the U.S. Government to collect information, nor do they authorize acquisition of data from entities outside the federal government. All information that would be accessed by NCTC under the Guidelines is already in the lawful custody and control of other federal agencies. The Guidelines merely provide the NCTC with a more effective means of accessing and analyzing datasets in the government’s possession that are likely to contain significant terrorism information. They permit NCTC to consolidate disparate federal datasets that contain information of value to NCTC’s critical counterterrorism mission. Furthermore, the updated Guidelines do not supersede or replace any legal restrictions on information sharing (existing by statute, Executive Order, regulation, or international agreement). Thus, the updated Guidelines do not give NCTC authority to require another agency to share any dataset where such sharing would contravene U.S. law or an international agreement.

One of the issues identified by Congress and the Intelligence Community after the 2009 Fort Hood shootings and the Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt was the government’s limited ability to query multiple federal datasets and to correlate information from many sources that might relate to a potential attack. A review of government actions taken before these attacks recommended that the Intelligence Community push for the completion of state-of-the-art search and correlation capabilities, including techniques that would provide a single point of entry to various government databases."

So who here complained that we couldn't connect the dots with Abdulmutallab, given that we already had an severe adverse report on him, but that report didn't get fused or connected to anything else? Now the government tries to link databases containing information it lawfully has without any new authority, and it's automatically evil?

Sorry, I don't get the connection.

According to Wikipedia/Wikimedia, the original source is this pdf:

http://www.dni.gov/100-day-plan/100_FOLLOW_UP_REPORT.pdf

which (rather ironically in the circumstances) is a report which urges intelligence gathering agencies to 'Create a culture of collaboration' and 'Accelerate information sharing'.

Incidentally, if the feds are worried about the public distribution of high resolution seal images, why aren't they going after the Director of National Intelligence for making them available in the first place?

The fact is that Wikipedia has a super high resolution print quality and SVG image of the seal which could be used to manufacture fake credentials.

The fact is, Wikimedia got that image when they "Extracted from PDF version of a DNI 100-day plan followup report (direct PDF URL here)."
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US-FBI-ShadedSeal.svg

If the FBI didn't want anybody outside the bureau to have this image, then why have they been handing it out to anyone who asks?

The fact is that Wikipedia has a super high resolution print quality and SVG image of the seal which could be used to manufacture fake credentials.

The fact is, Wikimedia got that image when they "Extracted from PDF version of a DNI 100-day plan followup report (direct PDF URL here)."
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US-FBI-ShadedSeal.svg

If the FBI didn't want anybody outside the bureau to have this image, then why have they been handing it out to anyone who asks?

In just the Intelligence Community alone, there is great support for open source software and open standards and protocols.

As part of Community-wide tools and services, the Intelligence Community takes advantage of:

- MediaWiki for Intellipedia
- WordPress for blogs
- Jabber (XMPP) for instant messaging
- Zimbra for enterprise email
- Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP to support and provide many of these services
- LDAP backends for single signon and other authentication tasks
- RSS for blogs, social bookmarking, news feeds, realtime information, etc
- Open APIs and standards whenever possible

All of these services and tools are available via a suite called Intelink, and are available to all 16 Intelligence Community components, the military, federal government, and law enforcement and homeland security partners at the state and local levels. They are accredited for use for information anywhere from UNCLASSIFIED to TOP SECRET/SCI, and everything in between.

For the last few years, the Intelligence Community has not only "looked at" open source, but has embraced it with open arms. In fact, the information sharing supported by these tools was listed as one of the major achievements during the tenure of DNI Mike McConnell.

Open source works, and has allowed the Intelligence Community to rapidly provide a secure and robust suite of tools to its personnel, easily respond to changing requirements and requests, and all for far less money and far more flexibly than many commercial solutions. And the Intelligence Community isn't alone.

I think the idea here isn't to just indiscriminately target people who aren't US Persons.

But, to address your example specifically; if:

- One party of the conversation has no legal standing with the US (i.e., is not a citizen, visitor, permanent resident, employee of a US corporation, etc.), that is, not a US Person under the law,

- That person has been characterized as a target by our foreign intelligence apparatus, and

- That person is not being used as a justification to collect the content of the communication of a US Person,

then yes, that communication is fair game for foreign intelligence collection, by definition, just as much as someone on a Navy vessel listening in on someone in Saudi Arabia keying a radio mic in the clear.

This is all about continuing to enable foreign SIGINT collection in the digital age.

I like to read excerpts like these, which really speak to the issues at hand:

Safety and privacy - it's common thinking that, in order to have more safety, you get less privacy. I don't agree with that. I work from the assumption that you need to have both. When we try to make it an either/or proposition, we're bound to fail. You can be perfectly safe in a prison; but you certainly aren't free. And you can be perfectly free in an anarchist society; but you certainly aren't safe.

Now, security through collaboration raises questions among some people. You have all heard the discussion of pre-9/11 and the existence of the wall in the Justice Department that separated law enforcement and intelligence information. The concern, of course, was that grand jury information, other privileged kinds of information, would somehow improperly escape into the larger world. And I guess, on the intelligence side, you could argue there were suspicions as well. They've all been well-documented. And we've started to bring down those walls as we require information sharing between intelligence, Homeland Security, and Defense agencies, and law enforcement. Some have grown uneasy. People are asking, just what is it they're sharing?

And that leads you directly into the concern for privacy. Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity; and it's an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture. The Long Ranger wore a mask but Tonto didn't seem to need one even though he did the dirty work for free. You'd think he would probably need one even more. But in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity - or the appearance of anonymity - is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that. Instead, privacy, I would offer, is a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured. And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change.

Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety. This is work that the Office of the DNI has started to do, and must continue and make a high priority. This careful balance we need to strike, however, is nothing new. With the advent of telephones, we entered a new frontier that required careful balancing between safety and privacy. We faced this challenge again at the end of the '70s in the aftermath of the Church-Pike Hearings. And now, in the era of new technologies, we have to work to continue to keep that balance, to earn that trust, and re-earn it every day through our actions. But we also have to be willing to reopen the laws and regulations that were based on technologies that existed 1978 and adjust them to the realities of 2007 and 2008.

- PDDNI Dr. Donald Kerr

That and my p

No one actually cares about the truth here, any of the issues at play, nor the legality of any programs. Most make it a huge political issue, and is it any surprise that even the "leakers" have all had a political axe to grind with the Bush administration?

They just scream "unconstitutional" and rant about Bush, when the very mechanisms set up in our society to render legal opinions on actions of various components of government and to rule on issues of legality or constitutionality have judged certain things to be legal.

The issue is summed up fairly well by comments of DNI Mike McConnell (video) at Harvard's Kennedy School:

And I'll fast forward to a period of Watergate, when the community was used to do a lot of intrusive observation. Out of that came a bill called FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Here was the dilemma. We need this large, robust, wonderful capability to protect us in the context of the Cold War, but we can't allow it to conduct any observation of U.S. citizens. And our wonderful democracy, we want it both ways. Don't let anybody bother us, make sure we're safe, but don't do anything to look at anything that might reflect my activity.

So the law in 1978 said okay to observe foreign, but if you observe anything in the United States, U.S. person for a foreign intelligence purpose, you must have a warrant. That was the law of the land, but it was an analog law. Where we found ourselves most recently is it's one global network. And so communications overseas by foreigners - terrorists plotting to attack the United States - those communications were passing through the United States. If you go back to the old analog law, it said if you take information from a wire, even though it's a glass pipe called fiber on a wire in the United States, you must have a warrant. So the dilemma for us was we had a terrorist overseas plotting to attack us by speaking with a terrorist in another overseas location and the community was required to get a warrant.

The debate and the dilemma for us is how do you modernize that law for the modern age? And we debated. For two years we debated and we finally came to closure. The good news is when it was finally voted, two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate voted for it and here's what it says today: if it's a U.S. person anywhere in the globe, you must have a warrant. A judge must grant you to conduct surveillance and the purpose of the surveillance can only be for one thing, foreign intelligence. Now, why would you do surveillance of a U.S. person for foreign surveillance? What if it's a spy that's been recruited by a foreign agent and you need to know what they're giving away? You would then have a warrant for surveillance of that person for a foreign intelligence purpose.

The other part of the law is no warrant for a foreign target regardless of where or how you intercept it. And the third part of the law was in today's world it's digital, it's global - you can't do it without the help of the private sector and so the private sector was authorized to give us that help and provided a level of liability protection.

That's the kind of dilemma that we face in making sure we balance our responsibilities for conducting surveillance of foreign targets that might wish us harm and respecting the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens.

...and again in comments on Charlie Rose (video):

CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, wire tapping is necessary and it's okay without a warrant because? In your judgment.

DIRECTOR McCONNELL: Wire tapping is essential. It is now probably more than half of

No one actually cares about the truth here, any of the issues at play, nor the legality of any programs. Most make it a huge political issue, and is it any surprise that even the "leakers" have all had a political axe to grind with the Bush administration?

They just scream "unconstitutional" and rant about Bush, when the very mechanisms set up in our society to render legal opinions on actions of various components of government and to rule on issues of legality or constitutionality have judged certain things to be legal.

The issue is summed up fairly well by comments of DNI Mike McConnell (video) at Harvard's Kennedy School:

And I'll fast forward to a period of Watergate, when the community was used to do a lot of intrusive observation. Out of that came a bill called FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Here was the dilemma. We need this large, robust, wonderful capability to protect us in the context of the Cold War, but we can't allow it to conduct any observation of U.S. citizens. And our wonderful democracy, we want it both ways. Don't let anybody bother us, make sure we're safe, but don't do anything to look at anything that might reflect my activity.

So the law in 1978 said okay to observe foreign, but if you observe anything in the United States, U.S. person for a foreign intelligence purpose, you must have a warrant. That was the law of the land, but it was an analog law. Where we found ourselves most recently is it's one global network. And so communications overseas by foreigners - terrorists plotting to attack the United States - those communications were passing through the United States. If you go back to the old analog law, it said if you take information from a wire, even though it's a glass pipe called fiber on a wire in the United States, you must have a warrant. So the dilemma for us was we had a terrorist overseas plotting to attack us by speaking with a terrorist in another overseas location and the community was required to get a warrant.

The debate and the dilemma for us is how do you modernize that law for the modern age? And we debated. For two years we debated and we finally came to closure. The good news is when it was finally voted, two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate voted for it and here's what it says today: if it's a U.S. person anywhere in the globe, you must have a warrant. A judge must grant you to conduct surveillance and the purpose of the surveillance can only be for one thing, foreign intelligence. Now, why would you do surveillance of a U.S. person for foreign surveillance? What if it's a spy that's been recruited by a foreign agent and you need to know what they're giving away? You would then have a warrant for surveillance of that person for a foreign intelligence purpose.

The other part of the law is no warrant for a foreign target regardless of where or how you intercept it. And the third part of the law was in today's world it's digital, it's global - you can't do it without the help of the private sector and so the private sector was authorized to give us that help and provided a level of liability protection.

That's the kind of dilemma that we face in making sure we balance our responsibilities for conducting surveillance of foreign targets that might wish us harm and respecting the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens.

...and again in comments on Charlie Rose (video):

CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, wire tapping is necessary and it's okay without a warrant because? In your judgment.

DIRECTOR McCONNELL: Wire tapping is essential. It is now probably more than half of

This is a good summary of China's lines of thinking:

Hypothetical attack on U.S. outlined by China, Air Force Times, January 28, 2008

The democratic Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan -- which America backs and the communist People's Republic of China considers part of its territory -- frequently irritates Chinese leaders with calls for greater independence from the mainland. But while the American military mulls its options, Chinese missiles hit runways, fuel lines, barracks and supply depots at U.S. Air Force bases in Japan and South Korea. Long-range warheads destroy American satellites, crippling Air Force surveillance and communication networks. A nuclear fireball erupts high above the Pacific Ocean, ionizing the atmosphere and scrambling radars and radio feeds.

This is China's anti-U.S. sucker punch strategy.

It's designed to strike America's military suddenly, stunning and stalling the Air Force more than any other service. In a script written by Chinese military officers and defense analysts, a bruised U.S. military, beholden to a sheepish American public, puts up a small fight before slinking off to avoid full-on war.

[...]

Because the American public is "abnormally sensitive" about military casualties, according to an article in China's Liberation Army Daily, killing U.S. airmen or other personnel would spark a "domestic anti-war cry" on the home front and possibly force early withdrawal of U.S. forces.

[...]

The PLA also would likely use less conventional attacks on the American military's vital communications network. The goal, as one Chinese expert put it: leaving U.S. combat capabilities "blind," "deaf" and "paralyzed." Losing early-warning systems designed to detect incoming missiles would be, for the Air Force, the most devastating setback -- one that could force the service to exit the region altogether, according to Rand.

The report that is the subject of this article also discusses options for hardening US military targets and infrastructure. But ultimately, even dedicated military networks have some of the same vulnerabilities as the commodity internet. They are just as sensitive to EM disruption, and some common modes of attack. The other piece you're missing is the more subtle psychological manipulation, which can occur over a much longer term.

This isn't just about DoSing web sites. The attacks that can occur in the information realm span many more areas, and may not even be interpreted or recognized as an attack until it's too late. It pays to be aware of this landscape in a changing world:

A global multipolar system is emerging with the rise of China, India, and others. The relative power of nonstate actors -- businesses, tribes, religious organizations, and even criminal networks -- also will increase.

By 2025 a single "international community" composed of nation-states will no longer exist. Power will be more dispersed with the newer players bringing new rules of the game while risks will increase that the traditional Western alliances will weaken. Rather than emulating Western models of political and economic development, more countries may be attracted to China's alternative development model.

If we place any importance on the positive aspects of Western systems of values and influence (something which moral relativists may find extremely difficult to do), over, say, government and social models in China or Russia, then there should be an awareness about threats against those systems.

See also: Entering the Dragon's Lair: Chinese Antiaccess Strategies and Their Implications for the United States. This entire book is available free and is a great read for those interested in Chinese military strategy.

...they would do good to read at least this portion of a speech by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government just last week.

I find it interesting that the linked "article" is actually an opinion piece from an "alternative newsweekly". It makes a lot of assumptions and unwarranted logical leaps; long on paranoia and short on facts. In any event, here's bit of history, with the important parts in bold. I doubt many people will be interested in what the leaders in the Intelligence Community actually have to say for themselves, their missions, and the law.

What is intelligence? If I asked this audience, what is it? You probably would struggle a little bit. I saw a movie, I read a book, I know a little bit about it. But let me sort of break it down into parts for you and then I want to talk about the community and how it's vital that we have such a community and why it's such a challenge for the American people.

First of all, when you collect intelligence, there are esoteric parts of it that basically comes down to taking a photograph - take a photograph of military equipment or geography, or people, or something, but you capture something that you want to examine later on. People communicate and you can listen to that communication, intercept it, process it, know when it turned on, when it turned off, and you can get lots of information from it. Or you can recruit a spy. A spy is someone who will share information that's secret, that's privileged inside a government or an organization that will share it with you. Those are the basic building blocks of intelligence. There's other little esoteric pieces, as I mentioned.

So when you look at us as a nation, we have an organization that takes pictures from space, from airplanes. They use that to make maps. They use it to make foundation for the geographic tracking of the world. They look for weapons systems. They look for mobilization. They're always looking for information from the context of the photographs. We have an organization. It's called the NGA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. We have another one called the National Security Agency, the one I was privileged to lead. I will use an example that's historical: World War II.

In World War II, the great secret was that we were listening to and reading German high command communications from very early in the war. That was a strategic advantage that we enjoyed for the entire war. Now, think about that for a second. We are reading code to know what their orders are to the German field commanders. Often, we were reading it and understanding it before the German commanders could break it and decrypt it.

How do you now handle that information? Does the American public have a right to know? Now, think about the context. You're in global conflict, you're reading the communications of the enemy, and if it's compromised they'll change the rotors and their encryption system is gone. And I've just introduced you now to the issue of sharing information and protection of sources and methods.

The primary responsibility that I have was that the new Director of National Intelligence is to cause these agencies - the three I've just mentioned - to share information across boundaries and at the same time protect sources and methods. If we have this very vital source of information that's allowing to either understand or intercept or have an appreciation for an issue that's vital to the country, do we want that to appear on the front page of the newspaper? So that's the dilemma we're always attempting to balance.

Now, let me give you a little more context. If you look at the history of intelligence, we're not very prepared for anything that's ever happened. It's because Americans don't like spies. Think about our Constitution, the framing of the Constitution, the framework of the time. It's expensive. If you think about spies in

Trade barriers on a country with a coastline of 14500KM, in an economically interlinked multi-polar world system highly dependant on Chinese production capabilities?

For some actual insight into possible future policies and trends, read the new report from the National Intelligence Council that just came out a few days ago.

And it says that the U.S. dollar will continue to weaken and fall from favor as a top world currency.

Thomas Fingar, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council predicts water shortages, disruptions to delicate agricultural patterns, continued unrest in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and the continued emergence of China as America's greatest economic rival.

And from the report summary itself:

The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future.

http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

What did I miss, again?

The 'climate change' debate is just a distraction.

I'm not sure I can agree with this. The Government seems to take it pretty seriously. There have already been 2 humanitarian disasters as a result of climate change (Somalia and now Sudan). You see, when it stops raining people cant grow food, and hungry people tend to get angry after a while. So... a 10 year drought in Somalia is a real problem for the people that live there. And somehow the US seems to just "get involved" in these sorts of things from time to time.
And when the analysis (done by guys a lot smarter than me) says that people are going to starve to death, well I guess I have to take the situation pretty seriously.
Back to the point of the article though - CO2 is probably not the main problem in this particular case - it is pesticides. I see no slowing in the use of pesticides in the near future agriculturally and eventually we really will have to figure out a better way to keep bugs from eating our food. When vast estuaries (see the Mississippi delta for one) become totally dead, well it makes it harder and more expensive to get delicious fresh seafood. And I like sushi.

I was waiting for that. In case you don't know, the report was from a highly-selective leak, that was think massaged by reporters at the NYT suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome.

The NIE was declassified, and is available here: http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE _Key_Judgments.pdf

A close reading reveals it to be...pablum.

In ralated news, al Qaeda is not polling all too well in Iraq: http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/30289.html

I say F*ck the Whales! There are enemy subs out there with freaking nuclear weapons! What are the whales gonna save your ass from being irradiated? No, the heavily armed and constantly patrolling nuclear submarines of the United States Navy are gonna will save your ass from oblivion! We have to worry about the Chinese and others with nuclear ballistic missile submarines! I also say F*ck the dolphins with the poison dart guns! How else are you supposed to kill a terrorist scuba diver with an explosive charge? Like we need another incident like the USS Cole?

I am so sick of these wacko bag of nuts tree hugging weirdos so concerned about the environment! Especially when they go after the US Navy. I work with many people who served on nuclear subs and they cannot talk about certain 'incidents' where we were closer to oblivion then during the Cuban missile crisis! We are always minutes from destruction, the only way 'we the people' get along in our happy little lives is that we don't know about it!

The same people who rant and rave about the whales actually think we can pull out of the middle east and ignore the crazies who want to kill us. They also think we should give peace a chance. If we pull out the whole of Iraq will be swallowed by a new crazy dictator or some Mullah will declare themselves the world wide Caliphate! What do you think will happen the Iraqi's if we pull out? What happened to millions of Vietnamese when the US pulled out? Well I'll tell ya what happened, they were slaughtered! Yeah, I know some who escaped the horror of Vietnam and within hours of the US leaving, the beloved communists, rounded up their neighbors in the middle of the night and they were never seen nor heard from again!

Code Pink is organizing a trip to Cuba! I say we revoke their passports and citizenship and let them stay in Cuba! It's illegal to travel to Cuba unless you have family there and you have a special permit. But of course, you would endanger your family if you as an American, travel to Cuba because the secret police will know about it and your family will suffer for it.

Yeah, I'm posting this as an anonymous coward! Because I'd be crucified for stating these things on Slashdot! Open your eyes people! Read the Al Zawahiri to Zarqawi letter! http://www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html These people want to rule the world and kill or convert all the non-believers. They especially hate the liberals. i.e. they respect Christians more then non-believers! The hatred goes in the following order -- 1. The Jews 2. The Homosexuals 3. Hollywood 4. The unbelievers (Kuffar) 5. The Christians 6. The Shiites 7. The Middle East Dictators. And for those of you who believe the letter is a fake, I've news for you! This is exactly the sort of thing that Bin Laden and Zawahiri have been claiming since before 9/11! i.e. they want a world wide Islamic government ruled by a single Caliphate religious leader! Nothing is going to appease them nor sway them from their goal.

Now we've got the U.N. re-wording the letter to the Security Council and trying to cover up the fact that the leadership of Syria was involved in assassinating the Lebanon leader. Syria is in deep deep trouble! We knew they did it before this came out but now we can claim it officially and politically! We also have a conspiracy at the UN to deal with as well. I say, it's time to revoke their lease on the UN building in NYC and kick their sorry asses out of our country. I don't think it's wise to withdraw from the UN yet, but we don't have to host them in our country any more!

Yeah, I'm a raging conservative, but at least I am not a blind fool! I know what's going on in the world. I also don't worship Bush, but given the choice between a weak Democrat and a strong Republican, there was no other choice! I disagree with Bush on many things but not when it comes to the war on Islamic Jihad, um err the war on terror, yeah that's the ticket, the war