State-Sponsored Commercial Espionage: The Global Theft of Ideas — Larry Romanoff

After digesting its massive theft of ideas, things and people from Operation Paperclip following the end of World War Two, the US wasted no time in designing and implementing the world’s largest network of commercial espionage that has ever existed, and one which still exists in vastly expanded form today – as we saw from the revelations by Edward Snowden....

Today, Echelon attempts to intercept and monitor every communications transaction transmitted by satellite, undersea cables, fiber optic, telephone lines, microwave and more, spying on every nation and, if possible, on every person, on earth. Moreover, it sorts and stores all this information in perpetuity, in the world’s largest database located in the American desert, in Bluffdale, Utah. This is state-sponsored commercial espionage on a global scale, intended primarily to benefit US multinational corporations in their quest for global dominance....

But look over there — China, Huawei. (snark)

Actually, "everyone" (that can) does it."

The US is not the only nation engaging in this activity. According to Robert Gates, a former CIA Director, there are about 20 countries that engage in state-sponsored economic espionage in the US. The worst offender is Israel, followed by France, Russia, and Britain. China is not high on this list....

Bill Totten's Weblog
State-Sponsored Commercial Espionage: The Global Theft of Ideas

Larry Romanoff

Jonathan Turley — The Steele Dossier and the perils of political insurance policies

This is legal in the US? If not, where was the line crossed? Even if legal, it appears that a line was crossed when participants lied to investigators and the press about it. There are also questions raised about politicization of the US intelligence services, perhaps assisted by British intelligence.

Even if is legal, it proves that HRC was preparing to do exactly what she was accusing DJT of planning to do–contest the result if he lost.

There is a very bad smell about this. In fact, it is beginning to stink.

The Democrats had better get out in front on this or the party apparatus will be even further discredited.

The Hill
The Steele Dossier and the perils of political insurance policies

Jonathan Turley | Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University

Tyler Durden — US Senate Calls On Julian Assange To Testify

Julian Assange has been asked to testify before the US Senate Intelligence Committee as part of their Russia investigation, according to a letter signed by Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Mark Warner (D-VA) posted by the official WikiLeaks Twitter account.

The letter, delivered to Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, reads in part "As part of the inquiry, the Committee requests that you make yourself available for a closed interview with bipartisan Committee staff at a mutually agreeable time and location." ...

The post provides the background leading to this request, if you are not familiar with it, or need a quick summary.

Not favorable for the FBI, especially when they did not secure or even examine the server involved as evidence.

Senior FBI officials involved in not only a coverup but also a frame up?

Zero Hedge
US Senate Calls On Julian Assange To Testify

Tyler Durden

Col. Pat Lang — Editorial - China hacked Clinton's e-mail

Another shoe drops. Short.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Editorial - China hacked Clinton's e-mail
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)

At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him. During that period, he also briefed President George H. W. Bush at the White House, as he had during Operation Desert Storm.

He was also the head of intelligence analysis for the Middle East for seven or eight years at that institution. He was the head of all the Middle East and South Asia analysis in DIA for counter-terrorism for seven years. For his service in the DIA, Lang received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. — Wikipedia

UPDATE

Page confirmed China penetration of HC e-mail.

Publius Tacitus — DOJ IG, Horowitz, Fails to Admit What He Proves

IG Horowitz is adopting a very narrow legal interpretation while opting to give DOJ and FBI officials the benefit of the doubt. In other words, unless he was presented with "documents" or "testimony" that political bias was influencing decisions, Horowitz decided to assume that everyone was acting in good faith. I suspect this was introduced into his draft by DOJ and FBI reviewers who were alarmed at the obvious conclusion an objective reader would reach if they only read the facts-the DOJ and FBI were crooked…

When I worked with the CIA we used to call this No Shit Analysis. Thank you Captain Obvious. Why in the world would you assign the same people who were working on the Hillary Clinton investigation on the Trump/Russia Collusion investigation when both cases were still active? This is more than a problem of appearance. This is circumstantial evidence of an attempted political coup. I give Horowitz credit for at least putting this fact on the record. But his refusal to call this out for what it is can be attributed to his caution of not appearing to be partisan....

Sic Semper Tyrannis
DOJ IG, Horowitz, Fails to Admit What He Proves

Publius Tacitus

Coleen Rowley — McCabe: A War on (or in) the FBI?

Andrew McCabe’s claim that his firing amounts to a “war on the FBI” doesn’t make sense considering it was the FBI’s own internal affairs office that recommended he be fired, as FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley explains....

About more than just McCabe.

The real problem that most of the mainstream media don’t want to even mention is how unprecedented it was to have both Presidential campaigns under serious criminal investigation in the weeks before the 2016 election! In all fairness, even if these now-fired FBI Directors were trying to do the right thing – which would not be in line with their rather sordid track records – it wouldn’t really be possible to walk that political mine field without a faux pas one way or the other. Seen in that light, it’s possible to even sympathize a little with any FBI Director when the public corruption at the highest levels in Washington DC has become so bad (and fully bipartisan), that it’s hard to know where to start.

Consortium News
McCabe: A War on (or in) the FBI?

Coleen Rowley, retired FBI special agent, division legal counsel and law enforcement ethics instructor who testified in connection with the 9-11 Joint Intelligence Committee’s Inquiry, the Senate Judiciary Committee investigation and Department of Justice Inspector General’s investigation, exposing some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures

Zero Hedge — New Texts Reveal FBI's Peter Strzok Had Relationship With Recused Judge In Flynn Case

Recently discovered text messages - that were deliberately hidden from Congress - reveal that disgraced FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page conspired to meet with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judge, Rudolph Contreras, who as we reported last December, "mysteriously recused" himself from handling the case against Michael Flynn, reports The Federalist, which has seen the text messages....

Zero Hedge
New Texts Reveal FBI's Peter Strzok Had Relationship With Recused Judge In Flynn Case
Durden

Zero Hedge — Man Cited As Trump's "Russian Link" Actually Works For The FBI

Offered without comment.

Zero Hedge
Man Cited As Trump's "Russian Link" Actually Works For The FBI
Tyler Durden

John Helmer — A Lesson in Political Sociology for Robert Mueller – a Lesson in Warfare for Dmitry Peskov

The three types of power which decide the fate of regimes are force, fraud and subversion; that’s to say, arms, money, media....

Detailed analysis of the indictments. Important if you are following this closely.

Dances with Bears
A Lesson in Political Sociology for Robert Mueller – a Lesson in Warfare for Dmitry Peskov
John Helmer, from Moscow

Doug Tsuruoka — FBI director slammed over ‘Chinese spies’ claim in the US

Racism?

Asia Times
FBI director slammed over ‘Chinese spies’ claim in the US

Doug Tsuruoka | Editor At Large

also

Mobile apps and smartphones pose a clear and present danger
Patrick Dunne

Feeling paranoid yet? 😮

Publius Tacitus — Who Is Lying? John Brennan or James Comey?

Publius Tacitus responds to TTG's response (if you are following this debate).

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Who Is Lying? John Brennan or James Comey?

Publius Tacitus

Publius Tacitus — Pieces of the Coup Puzzle Fall Into Place

Most people, including many of you, have the memory of an Alzheimer's patient when it comes to putting events into their proper historical context. So let me help....

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Pieces of the Coup Puzzle Fall Into Place

Publius Tacitus

Soon the investigative crosshairs will settle on Brennan. He’d better have the right answers.

The Unz Review
Is John Brennan the Mastermind Behind Russiagate?

Mike Whitney

Related

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly blocked Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., from briefing President Donald Trump about a meeting he had in London in August with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Rohrabacher told The Intercept.

Rohrabacher claimed Assange had shown him and his traveling companion, Charles Johnson, definitive proof that Russia was not the source of the Democratic Party communications that WikiLeaks published during the 2016 campaign. Assange was willing to share that information with American officials, Rohrabacher said, but he was never able to present the offer to the president....

The Intercept

Congressman Says He Tried to Brief Trump on WikiLeaks and Russia After Meeting With Julian Assange, But John Kelly Blocked Him

Ryan Grim

Stephen F. Cohen — Russiagate or Intelgate?

The publication of the Republican House Committee memo and reports of other documents increasingly suggest not only a “Russiagate” without Russia but also something darker: The “collusion” may not have been in the White House or the Kremlin.

The Nation
Russiagate or Intelgate?
Stephen F. Cohen | Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History, and Politics at New York University and Princeton University

Publius Tacitus — Did British Intelligence Try to Destroy the Trump Presidency?

Last night's release of the memo by Senator's Grassley and Graham asking the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation of Christopher Steele for possible violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 provides critical confirmation of charges presented in the HPSCI memo prepared under the leadership of Devin Nunes, but it also confirms that Christopher Steele was not just some random guy offering good gossip to the FBI. He was an official intelligence asset. He was, in John LeCarre's parlance, our "Joe." At least we thought so. But, there is growing circumstantial evidence that Steele was acting on behalf of Britain's version of the CIA--aka MI-6. If true, we are now faced with actual evidence of a foreign country trying to meddle in a direct and significant way in our national election. Only it was not the Russians. It was our British cousins.

Here are the key take aways from the Grassley/Graham memo:

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Did British Intelligence Try to Destroy the Trump Presidency?

Publius Tacitus

Ray McGovern — Foxes in Charge of Intelligence Hen House

We learned in recent days that the FBI and the National Security Agency “inadvertently” deleted electronic messages relating to reported felonies, but one noxious reality persists: No one in the FBI or NSA is likely to be held to account for these “mistakes.”

It is a 70 year-old tradition. Today’s lack of accountability is enabled by (1) corruption at the top of intelligence agencies; (2) the convenient secrecy behind which their leaders hide; (3) bureaucratic indignities and structural flaws in the system; (4) the indulgence/complicity of most of the “mainstream media;” and (5) the eunuchs leading the Congressional “oversight” committees, who — history shows — can be bullied by threats, including blackmail, a la former longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover....

No accountability = license to abuse power.

Consortium News
Foxes in Charge of Intelligence Hen House
Ray McGovern

also

Disobedient Media
Documents Reveal The NSA Is An Agency Gone Rogue As FISA 702 Is Reauthorized
Elizabeth Vos

Reuters — Senator says FBI lost crucial texts tied to Clinton probe

The dog ate my homework.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has lost about five months worth of text messages between two staffers who worked on probes into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails and possible collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to a Republican lawmaker.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, revealed in a Jan. 20 letter that the FBI’s technical system failed to preserve texts that were exchanged between Lisa Page, a lawyer, and Peter Strzok, an agent, between mid-December 2016 through mid-May of 2017.

A spokesman for the FBI and a spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment....

Reuters
Senator says FBI lost crucial texts tied to Clinton probe
Sarah N. Lynch

Also

Add another batch of potentially damaging evidence to the mountain of missing documents.

The FBI “failed to preserve” five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI employees who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations.

The disclosure was made Friday in a letter sent by the Justice Department to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).

The Daily Caller

FBI ‘Failed To Preserve’ Five Months Of Text Messages Between Anti-Trump FBI Agents

Chuck Ross

Related

There is a growing consensus among many observers in Washington that the national security agencies have become completely politicized over the past seventeen years and are now pursuing selfish agendas that actually endanger what remains of American democracy.

As Philip Giraldi notes, up until recently it has been habitual to refer to such activity as the Deep State, which is perhaps equivalent to the Establishment in that it includes financial services, the media, major foundations and constituencies, as well as lobbying groups, but we are now witnessing an evolutionary process in which the national security regime is exercising power independently.

Nowhere is that "independence" of the 'state within a state' more evident than in the blatant and egregious news this week that The National Security Agency destroyed surveillance data it pledged to preserve in connection with pending lawsuits and apparently never took some of the steps it told a federal court it had taken to make sure the information wasn’t destroyed, according to recent court filings.

As Politico reports, the agency tells a federal judge that it is investigating and "sincerely regrets its failure."

Zero Hedge
NSA "Sincerely Regrets" Deleting All Bush-Era Surveillance Data It Was Ordered To Preserve

Tyler Durden

Which is worse?

15 Year Old Hacker Impersonated CIA Director And Other High Ranking Officials In Massive Data Breach

Ray McGovern — The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate

Not just the FBI. Brennan and Clapper deeply involved in politicizing intelligence.

But the main casualty is the FBI’s 18-month campaign to sabotage candidate-and-now-President Donald Trump by using the Obama administration’s Russia-gate intelligence “assessment,” electronic surveillance of dubious legality, and a salacious dossier that could never pass the smell test, while at the same time using equally dubious techniques to immunize Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers from crimes that include lying to the FBI and endangering secrets.

Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of breathless searching for “evidence” of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time gumshoes used to call “means, motive and opportunity.”

Even more unfortunately for Russia-gate enthusiasts, the FBI lovers’ correspondence provides factual evidence exposing much of the made-up “Resistance” narrative – the contrived storyline that The New York Times and much of the rest of the U.S. mainstream media deemed fit to print with little skepticism and few if any caveats, a scenario about brilliantly devious Russians that not only lacks actual evidence – relying on unverified hearsay and rumor – but doesn’t make sense on its face....

… the sordid process of using legal/investigative means to settle political scores further compromises the principle of the “rule of law” and integrity of journalism in the eyes of many Americans. After a year of Russia-gate, the “rule of law” and “pursuit of truth” appear to have been reduced to high-falutin’ phrases for political score-setttling, a process besmirched by Republicans in earlier pursuits of Democrats and now appearing to be a bipartisan method for punishing political rivals regardless of the lack of evidence....

The 64-dollar question

At this point, the $64 question is whether the various congressional oversight committees will remain ensconced in their customarily cozy role as “overlook” committees, or whether they will have the courage to attempt to carry out their Constitutional duty. The latter course would mean confronting a powerful Deep State and its large toolbox of well-practiced retaliatory techniques, including J. Edgar Hoover-style blackmail on steroids, enabled by electronic surveillance of just about everything and everyone. Yes, today’s technology permits blanket collection, and “Collect Everything” has become the motto.

Recall Chuck Schumer's remark about Trump dissing the intelligence community:

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

Looks like Schumer knew whereof he spoke.

The fight is now raging over the corpse of American democracy, and no, Putin didn't do it.

Consortium News
The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate

Ray McGovern, Army and CIA intelligence analyst for 30 years; prepared and briefed the President’s Daily Brief for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan; and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Publius Tacitus — Looks Like FBI or McCain May Have Paid for the 16th Report of the Steele Dossier

The plot thickens.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Looks Like FBI or McCain May Have Paid for the 16th Report of the Steele Dossier

Publius Tacitus

Andrew McCarthy — Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?

In conclusion, while there is a dearth of evidence to date that the Trump campaign colluded in Russia’s cyberespionage attack on the 2016 election, there is abundant evidence that the Obama administration colluded with the Clinton campaign to use the Steele dossier as a vehicle for court-authorized monitoring of the Trump campaign — and to fuel a pre-election media narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Trump was scheming with Russia to lift sanctions if he were elected president. Congress should continue pressing for answers, and President Trump should order the Justice Department and FBI to cooperate rather than — what’s the word? — resist. —

This is longish and detained, but important in light of the implications. Was the crime actually an attempted by the deep state to influence the election and afterward to negate it? This suggests it was on the part of the FBI.

Did CIA director John Brennan and DIA chief James Clapper know about it. Seems unlikely they would not.

This would be the real undermining of American "democracy" if so. If this is even plausible, the Trump administration and Congress should find out and inform the American public.

That is unlikely to happen since the ruling class never outs itself. A few people might be implicated, but the whole thing is likely to go the way of the G. W Bush administration policy of torture.

National Review
Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?
Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review

See also

Consortium News (Dec 15, 2017)
The Scary Void Inside Russia-gate
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation

Putting Trumpgate and Russiagate to bed - links

Deep state plot outed.

Consortium News

The Scary Void Inside Russia-gate

Stephen F. Cohen

The Foundering Russia-gate ‘Scandal’

Robert Parry

Protecting the Shaky Russia-gate Narrative

Robert Parry

Russia-gate’s Litany of Corrections

Robert Parry

Sucking Liberals into a New Cold War

William Blum

Russia-gate’s Reach into Journalism

Dennis J. Bernstein

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Fake News, Sedition and Public Apathy

Your Trump Dossier Cheat Sheet
Publius Tacitus

Irrussianality
The latest ‘existential threat’

Crackpot theory no. 9: Assume the worstPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

AntiWar
The Enemy Within: It’s called the “intelligence community”

Justin Raimondo

Zero Hedge

WSJ Exposes The Real Election Meddling... At The FBI

Grassley Fires Off Scorching Letter To DOJ After Anti-Trump Texts Reveal Burner Phone, "Insurance Policy"

Ex-FBI Assistant Director: Strzok Fabricated Information And "Belongs In Leavenworth"

FBI Edits To Clinton Exoneration Go Far Beyond What Was Previously Known; Comey, McCabe, Strzok Implicated

Putin Blasts American Establishment's "Russian Spy Hysteria"

New Russian Hacker Claims Putin Ordered Theft Of Clinton's Email, After First One Refused FBI Bribe To Lie

Tyler Durden

Russia Feed
Vladimir Putin: Russiagate “invented by those aiming to de-legitimize Trump”

Vlad

Putin: Russian collusion witch hunt undermines US president and weakens American nation

Russia makes a convenient enemy to blame for the West’s failures

veniamin Popov

The Duran

EXPOSED: FBI agents plotting an “insurance policy” should Trump win election

WSJ drops truth bomb! FBI collusion as agency “interfered in an American presidential election”

EPIC: Trey Gowdy destroys corrupt DOJ, FBI Trump-Russia collusion investigation (Video)

The man who gave fake “Trump dossier” to John McCain speaks out

Alex Christoforou

Strategic Culture Foundation

Deconstructing the Almighty Russian Hackers Myth

Patrick Armstrong

Why America’s Law Enforcement Empire Resembles Secret Police in a Dictatorship

Phillip Giraldi

The Daily Caller
Democrats Mobilize Against Rod Rosenstein As Inspector General Investigation Zeroes In On FBI

Peter Hasson

Russia Insider
CNN & MSNBC Attempt Coverup of Their Bogus Russia-Gate Story
Mike (Mish) Shedlock

The Intercept

The U.S. Media Suffered Its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages and Now Refuses All Transparency Over What Happened

Glenn Greenwald

Related

Fort Russ
VICE comes out swinging at Fort Russ News, here's what we think

Joachim Flores

Lobe Log
Donald Trump’s First Year Sets Record for U.S. Special Ops

Nick Turse

Sputnik International

Moscow Faces Information Confrontation Aimed to 'Strangle' Russia - Kremlin