Democrats lash Devin Nunes plan for private chat with William Barr

House Democrats are sounding the alarm over plans by House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to meet privately with Attorney General Bill Barr to discuss criminal referrals against federal authorities involved in investigating Trump and his campaign associates over the Russia collusion allegations. In a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee this week, Barr said that he plans to investigate the probes and the collection of evidence that sparked special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Nunes joined other congressional Republicans in supporting Barr's probe, saying over the last several days that he will send as many as eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department. At the hearing, Barr told lawmakers that he was awaiting Nunes' information as the new probes unfold. “We expect to learn more if and when the Department of Justice receives the referrals, assuming the department follows appropriate protocol and Barr holds any such meeting only with representatives of the majority and minority present," one Democratic Intelligence Committee member told Politico. "[B]ut it is clear they believe they now have an ally in the attorney general to perpetuate their conspiracy theories of ‘spying’ and their determination to investigate the investigators, no matter how misguided and damaging their efforts are to our national institutions, or the dedicated public servants who work to keep us safe," the aide added.

But congressional Republicans continue to urge Barr to stay the course in investigating the launch of the Mueller investigation, arguing that the real collusion and violations of federal law are buried in the Democrats' attempt to tear down President Trump. "Now that [Mueller] concluded that Trump did not collude with the Russians, which we all knew, it's time to see if Democrats and Obama and Clinton operatives broke the law in their attempt to smear Trump. We know the Steele dossier, which turned out to be fake, was illegally obtained and unethical in every sense of the word. Now we know that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign," a senior aide to a Republican member on the House Intelligence Committee told the Washington Examiner on Saturday.

"Democrats took a gamble and it failed. Now they don't want the spotlight on these issues anymore." Nunes told Sean Hannity this week that is preparing a meeting with the attorney general and will be joined by fellow House Intelligence Committee colleague John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, who previously served as a U.S. attorney.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/democrats-lash-devin-nunes-plan-for-private-chat-with-barr

Ecuador Hacked After Julian Assange Arrest

Two days after the Thursday arrest of Julian Assange at Ecuador's London embassy, several government websites were hacked; including Ecuador's official website, the Central Bank of Ecuador, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ecuadorian Assembly in the UK, according to Gateway Pundit's Cassandra Fairbanks, who was in London last week and documented the run-up to Assange's arrest. Concurrent with the breach, a hacking group operating under the name "AL1NE3737" released a database containing the full names and passwords for what appear to be 728 Ecuadorian government employees.

Furthermore, Ecuador's sites were hit with Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. According to DefCon Lab. Among those involved in these attacks stand out from the groups / hacker DeathLaw , 5UB5, Cyb3r C0nven Security and Al1ne ( Pryzraky ). DoS actions has consistently been against the Ecuadorian government targets, the country that gave Julian Assange to the UK police." -DefCon Lab

The hacker Al1ne ( Pryzraky ) performed page defacements against and released a list of vulnerable targets related to the government of Ecuador.

Agrocalidad - The Agency of Regulation and Control Fito and Zoosanitario: http://www.agrocalidad.gob.ec/

Metropolitan Transit Agency: http://www.amt.gob.ec/

Instituto Geográfico Militar - Ecuador: http://www.igm.gob.ec/

As noted by Fairbanks, "The cyber attack was reminiscent of 2010’s “Operation Avenge Assange” which was launched by the broader “Operation Payback” effort. The movement lead to hacktivists hitting companies such as PayPal, PostFinance, Mastercard, Visa, and others who had blocked services to WikiLeaks with a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack. This is when a website is flooded with fake traffic until it crashes and goes offline."

Following Assange's Thursday arrest, more than 70 MPs and peers signed a letter urging the UK home secretary to ensure that the WikiLeaks founder is extradited to Sweden if Swedish authorities request it. Sweden is considering whether to open a previously-dropped investigation into allegations of rape and sexual assault against Assange. The United States, meanwhile, wants to try Assange for the largest-ever leak of government secrets in 2010. On Thursday, the Justice Department hit him with an indictment that claims the WikiLeaks founder helped former US Army intelligence analyst crack DoD password using Linux. "The indictment alleges that in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications," reads a DOJ press release. Materials Manning released included videos of various US airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the "Iraq War Logs" and "Afghan War Diary." Assange faces five years in prison if convicted in the Manning case.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-13/ecuador-hacked-after-julian-assange-arrest

"Big Brother Is Watching": Facebook 'Accidentally' Includes Secret Orwellian Messages On VR Controllers

Tens of thousands of Facebook Oculus virtual reality (VR) controllers contain bizarre 'hidden' inscriptions warning that "Big Brother is Watching" and "The Masons Were Here" among other things ominous messages, according to Business Insider. According to Nate Mitchell, cofounder of Facebook-owned VR organization Oculus, the messages were "easter eggs" which were only meant for prototypes. Mitchell added "While I appreciate easter eggs, these were inappropriate and should have been removed." And while the affected units haven't shipped yet, Facebook spokeswoman Joanna Peace told Business Insider that they will ultimately go out to consumers with the hidden messages inside. "To be clear, no devices have been sold with these messages yet, since Quest and Rift S have not yet shipped. That said, as mentioned in Nate's tweet, the messages will be inside tens of thousands of controller pairs that will ship to consumers when Quest and Rift S ship," wrote Facebook in an email - which kind of makes this look like a giant advertising stunt. "We think it's important to be transparent with our community and take responsibility when there's an error," added the company.

Misstep or marketing campaign? The inscriptions are sure to draw comparisons to Mark Zuckerberg's 'illuminati' hoodie, which he revealed during a 2020 interview with Recode editor-at-large Kara Swisher.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-13/big-brother-watching-facebook-accidentally-includes-orwellian-hidden-messages-vr

>>6166648

Indeed..quite creepy.