Philip Giraldi — Influencing Foreigners Is What Intelligence Agencies Do

The Rand Corporation defines America's influence operations as... “the coordinated, integrated, and synchronized application of national diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and other capabilities in peacetime, crisis, conflict, and post-conflict to foster attitudes, behaviors, or decisions by foreign target audiences that further US interests and objectives. In this view, influence operations accent communications to affect attitudes and behaviors but also can include the employment of military capabilities, economic development, and other real-world capabilities that also can play a role in reinforcing these communications.”…

The fact is that spreading disinformation and confusion are what governments and intelligence services do to protect what they consider to be vital interests. It is naïve for the US Senate and America’s leading newspapers to maintain that intelligence probing and other forms of interference from Russia or China or Iran or even “friend” Israel occur in a vacuum. Everyone intrudes and spreads lies and everyone will continue to do it because it is easy to understand and cheap to run. In the end, however, its effectiveness is limited. In 2016 the election result was determined by a lack of trust on the part of the American people for what the establishment politicians have been offering, not because of interference from Moscow.

Duh. The faux outrage over Russian and Chinese "meddling" is disingenuous and hypocritical.

More, "It's ok when we do it it, because we are the white hats, but bad when they do it, because they are the black hats."

Strategic Culture Foundation
Influencing Foreigners Is What Intelligence Agencies Do
Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Spiegel Online — Spying Scandal: German Intelligence Also Snooped on White House

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is famous for the terse remark she made after learning her mobile phone had been tapped by the NSA. "Spying among friends, that isn't done." As it turns out, Germany was spying on America too, even targeting the White House....

"Everybody does it."

Spiegel Online
Spying Scandal: German Intelligence Also Snooped on White House

Philip Giraldi — Did Russia Elect Trump?

Even-handed statement of fact and rumor by an intelligence veteran.

So nearly every country employs espionage when dealing with others and works on promoting its own interests through the use of its intelligence and other national resources. That should surprise no one. And it is impossible to know if the WikiLeaks publication of hacked emails changed the outcome of the recent election, though it is clear that it did not help Hillary. The lesson is not that the Russians spied on the United States and covertly assisted a candidate they favored. That should be a given, well understood by people in the White House and elsewhere in the administration. That information is no longer private in an age where electronic intrusion or hacking can be run out of someone’s garage should also be a given. But when aspirants to high office are careless in what they say, when they say it, and how they communicate to associates, there will be consequences.

Far better to mend our own fences than try to punish the Russians for doing what comes naturally. That would only lead to a tit-for-tat worsening of an already bad relationship.

People that grew up in the analog world do not understand the digital world. Result? Stupidity.

Moreover, the US has been interfering in election using analog age tools like NGO fronts for a long time, like the state-finance NED, not to mention actual covert operations to remove unwanted persons. The US "outrage" here is both hypocritical and manufactured in the light not only of history but ongoing US covert operations and propaganda abroad. Even if "Russians" did hack the election, it is a false equivalency.

The American Conservative
Did Russia Elect Trump?

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest

Ryan Gallagher — The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance

Big Brother watch. Going way beyond George Orwell's 1984 by transforming the Internet into a panopticon. 

The Intercept
The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance
Ryan Gallagher

emptywheel — Where Are NSA’s Overseers on the Shadow Brokers Release?

Marcy Wheeler (a.k.a. "emptywheel") asks some embarrassing questions. This fiasco is way beyond egg on the face.

emptywheel
Where Are NSA’s Overseers on the Shadow Brokers Release?

James Bamford — Commentary: The world's best cyber army doesn’t belong to Russia

The United States is, by far, the world’s most aggressive nation when it comes to cyberspying and cyberwarfare. The National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on foreign cities, politicians, elections and entire countries since it first turned on its receivers in 1952. Just as other countries, including Russia, attempt to do to the United States. What is new is a country leaking the intercepts back to the public of the target nation through a middleperson.

There is a strange irony in this. Russia, if it is actually involved in the hacking of the computers of the Democratic National Committee, could be attempting to influence a U.S. election by leaking to the American public the falsehoods of its leaders. This is a tactic Washington used against the Soviet Union and other countries during the Cold War. In the 1950s, for example, President Harry S Truman created the Campaign of Truth to reveal to the Russian people the “Big Lies” of their government. Washington had often discovered these lies through eavesdropping and other espionage.

Today, the United States has morphed from a Cold War, and in some cases a hot war, into a cyberwar, with computer coding replacing bullets and bombs. Yet the American public manages to be “shocked, shocked” that a foreign country would attempt to conduct cyberespionage on the United States….

Espionage, of which hacking is a tool, is one aspect of cyber warfare. The second is introducing malware to disrupt information and control systems.

The first known use of cyber warfare aggressively against a perceived adversary was Stuxnet worm into Iranian computers apparently to take down their nuclear program without bombing. Experts believe that only a state-sponsored group would have been able to do this and the main suspects are the US (CIA) and Israel (Mossad), perhaps acting jointly.

Reuters
Commentary: The world's best cyber army doesn’t belong to Russia
James Bamford

RT — Brazil-Europe undersea cable to hide web traffic from US snooping

A new underwater cable that is to link Brazil with Portugal will protect Latin American internet traffic from US surveillance, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff indicated after meeting the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council.

“We have to respect privacy, human rights and the sovereignty of nations. We don't want businesses to be spied upon,”Rousseff told a joint news conference. 

Rousseff was among the world leaders who openly criticized the US after the revelation of the scale of its electronic surveillance program by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. She postponed a scheduled visit to America over a report that the US intelligence agency snooped on her emails and phone.

Not only Brazilian political leaders, but also captains of industry have been reportedly under US surveillance, including the oil giant Petrobras. Critics accused the US of using its intelligence capabilities for economic espionage that has nothing to do with national security.

RT
Brazil-Europe undersea cable to hide web traffic from US snooping

Lauren McCauley — Top-Secret Pentagon Program Exploited Aid Workers as Covert Spies

Experts warn that Department of Defense espionage program places international NGOs at great risk

And the US government is all up in a tizzy about Russia and China clamping down on NGOs. More hypocrisy from the hegemon. More US soft power down the drain, along with US credibility.

Common Dreams
Top-Secret Pentagon Program Exploited Aid Workers as Covert Spies
Lauren McCauley, staff writer

ht Don Quijones at Raging Bull-Shit

RT — US a surveillance superpower spying on foes & allies alike – Assange

“The US is a surveillance superpower,” [Assange] told Rossiya-1 in an interview, slated to be broadcast later on Sunday.

“This country spends on surveillance 60 percent of what the entire world spends on espionage,” he said. “They spy on everyone, including their allies. And use the information for their political and economic goals.”

RT

US a surveillance superpower spying on foes & allies alike – Assange

Xinhuanet — Commentary: Obama's criticism of upcoming Chinese counterterrorism law groundless

China smacks US down for hypocrisy over internal security over US global total information awareness and the national surveillance state.

And with transparent procedures, China's anti-terrorism campaign will be different from what the United States has done: letting the surveillance authorities run amok and turn counterterrorism into paranoid espionage and peeping on its civilians and allies.

Pretty harsh article.

Xinhuanet
Commentary: Obama's criticism of upcoming Chinese counterterrorism law groundless

Dan Froomkin — The Inverse of Oversight: CIA Spies On Congress

Like this is something new? If spies spy on foreign governments, you can bet they spy on their own government. It was at least suspected that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI did and even presidents feared him.

The Intercept
The Inverse of Oversight: CIA Spies On Congress
Dan Froomkin

Washington's Blog — Former Top NSA Official: “We Are Now In A Police State”

32-year NSA Veteran Who Created Mass Surveillance System Says Government Use of Data Gathered Through Spying “Is a Totalitarian Process”

Former Top NSA Official: “We Are Now In A Police State”
Washington's Blog

Der Spiegel — Fresh Leak on US Spying: NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email

Category: OMG.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly difficult missions. Called "Tailored Access Operations" (TAO), this department devises special methods for special targets.
That category includes surveillance of neighboring Mexico, and in May 2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report classified as "top secret" said: "TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account."

Spiegel Online International
Fresh Leak on US Spying: NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email
Jens Glüsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark

AFP — Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff accuses U.S. of spying for ‘economic’ interests

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff accused the United States of spying on oil giant Petrobras for its own “economic and strategic” reasons — not for national security.

The latest allegations of online snooping by the National Security Agency emerged Sunday night when TV Globo reported Brazilian oil giant Petrobras — world leader in deep-water oil exploration — was among those targeted, along with Google and the French foreign ministry.

Rousseff said in a statement that, “if the facts are confirmed, it would be clear the espionage was not for security or the fight against terrorism, but to respond to economic and strategic interests.”

“Without doubt, Petrobras is not a threat to the security of any country,” the president said.
These attempts to steal “data and information are incompatible with democratic co-existence between friends,” she added, saying Brazil would “take all measures to protect the country, the government and its companies.”

The Raw Story
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff accuses U.S. of spying for ‘economic’ interests
Agence France-Presse