In Court, Facebook Blames Users for Destroying Their Own Right to Privacy

In April 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat before members of both houses of Congress and told them his company respected the privacy of the roughly two billion people who use it. “Privacy” remained largely undefined throughout Zuckerberg’s televised flagellations, but he mentioned the concept more than two dozen times, including when he told the Senate’s Judiciary and Commerce committees, “We have a broader responsibility to protect people’s privacy even beyond” a consent decree from federal privacy regulators, and when he told the House Energy and Commerce Committee, “We believe that everyone around the world deserves good privacy controls.” A year later, Zuckerberg claimed in interviews and essays to have discovered the religion of personal privacy and vowed to rebuild the company in its image.

But only months after Zuckerberg first outlined his “privacy-focused vision for social networking” in a 3,000-word post on the social network he founded, his lawyers were explaining to a California judge that privacy on Facebook is nonexistent.

The courtroom debate, first reported by Law360, took place as Facebook tried to scuttle litigation from users upset that their personal data was shared without their knowledge with the consultancy Cambridge Analytica and later with advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign. The full transcript of the proceedings — which has been quoted from only briefly — reveal one of the most stunning examples of corporate doublespeak certainly in Facebook’s history.

Representing Facebook before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria was Orin Snyder of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who claimed that the plaintiffs’ charges of privacy invasion were invalid because Facebook users have no expectation of privacy on Facebook. The simple act of using Facebook, Snyder claimed, negated any user’s expectation of privacy:

There is no privacy interest, because by sharing with a hundred friends on a social media platform, which is an affirmative social act to publish, to disclose, to share ostensibly private information with a hundred people, you have just, under centuries of common law, under the judgment of Congress, under the SCA, negated any reasonable expectation of privacy.

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/14/facebook-privacy-policy-court/

Tax-free system can cover the whole country by 2019 year-end

The pilot tax-free system project was launched in Russia in April 2018

NEVINNOMYSSK, June 14. /TASS/. The tax-free system can be extended to all Russian regions by 2019 year-end, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov told TASS on Friday.

"As far as decisions already taken are concerned, Moscow, the Moscow Region, St. Petersburg and Sochi were the first ones. Cities hosting the FIFA World Cup joined later. The decision has been taken recently on Veliky Novgorod. As soon as the electronic document management system is fine-tuned by the year-end, all the regions will participate in this program without exceptions," the Minister said.

More than 100,000 checks worth 11 billion rubles ($170.9 mln) were issued during the first year of the Russian tax-free system, Manturov said earlier.

The pilot tax-free system project was launched in Russia in April 2018. The tax-free system allows foreign nationals who are not members of the Eurasian Economic Union to receive a refund of VAT paid when purchasing goods on the territory of the Russian Federation when taking them outside the Eurasian Economic Union. A foreigner needs to purchase goods to the amount of at least 10,000 rubles ($153) during one day and has a sales check issued for them in order to get the refund.

https://tass.com/economy/1063886

Russia, Syria bomb gathering of Jabhat al-Nusra ringleaders

Syrian and Russian warplanes have jointly carried out precision attacks against the positions of Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, in the northwestern province of Idlib.

A gathering of the terrorist group’s ringleaders at Taftanaz military airbase in Idlib was pounded three times by Syrian and Russian aircraft on Thursday night as part of a joint operation, Sputnik news agency reported.

The report said the terrorists’ hideouts in the southern areas of Khan Shaykhun, Sufuhon, Kafr Nabl, and Hass in the province were also targeted by the warplanes.

The strikes came after the militants refused to honor a full ceasefire agreement brokered between Russia and Turkey late Wednesday with the aim of halting clashes between Syrian forces and militants in the area.

That agreement put on hold a Syrian government offensive to liberate Idlib, where between 10,000 and 15,000 militants are estimated to be holed up.

Militants have persisted in their stay in the zone and refused to leave the area, launching instead numerous attacks on the outposts of the Syrian army and Russian forces. Russia and Turkey gave sharply conflicting accounts on Thursday of an attack on a Turkish military outpost.

Turkey claimed one of its observation posts in Idlib province had come under deliberate attack from Syrian forces, in which three Turkish soldiers were allegedly wounded.

Moscow said the attack was carried out not by the Syrian troops, but by militants.

Russia says it is Turkey’s duty to rein in the armed groups and help separate them from the Takfiri outfits, which form the backbone of the militant presence in Idlib.

Idlib remains the only large area in the hands of anti-Damascus militants after government forces managed to undo militant gains across the country and bring back almost all of the Syrian soil under government control.

In recent weeks, Syrian armed forces have been conducting counter-terrorism operations in areas surrounding Idlib. The Syrian army has warned civilians to leave Idlib amid preparations for a final military campaign to flush terrorists out of the region.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/06/14/russia-syria-bomb-gathering-of-jabhat-al-nusra-ringleaders/

Behind the Syrian Network for Human Rights: How an opposition front group became Western media’s go-to monitor

Top media outlets turn to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) for figures on deaths and detentions, never noting the group’s seamless connection to Syria’s opposition, the support it receives from states that waged war on the country, or its open lobbying for US military intervention.

This is part one in an investigation into government-funded, opposition-linked NGOs that pose as impartial monitors and investigators of the Syrian conflict.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) portrays itself as a neutral “monitor” of Syria’s bloody war. In recent years, the group has become a go-to source for corporate media outlets.

Major US newspapers, human rights organizations, and even governments have credulously echoed SNHR’s dubious reports. But not once have these institutions questioned what exactly the organization is, who funds it, and what its relationship is to Syria’s armed opposition.

An investigation by The Grayzone reveals that the Syrian Network for Human Rights is far from the impartial arbiter that it has been sold as. In reality, it is a key player in the Syrian opposition. Currently based in Qatar, SNHR is funded by foreign governments and staffed by top opposition leaders.

This “monitoring group” has even openly lobbied for “immediate intervention” in Syria by an “international coalition,” citing NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia as a model. These explicit calls for foreign military intervention have been repeated for years by SNHR itself, as well as by the organization’s leaders.

Yet one would never know this side of the SNHR’s activities from corporate media reporting.

An ‘independent monitoring group’ run by the Syrian opposition

On May 11, The New York Times published an exposé claiming to provide new details of a “secret, industrial-scale system of arbitrary arrests and torture prisons” in Syria. Filed from Turkey by reporter Anne Barnard, this article centered around the eyebrow-raising claim that 128,000 people have never emerged from Syrian prisons, “and are presumed to be either dead or still in custody.”

The Times’ source for this shocking statistic was the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which Barnard described as an “independent monitoring group that keeps the most rigorous tally.”

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/14/syrian-network-for-human-rights-opposition-snhr/

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>>6750731

responsible for less than 2 percent of those killed. As usual, the organization provided nothing to back up its absurd numbers other than a cartoon graph.

SNHR’s death tolls stand in stark contrast with those of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), another widely cited organization dedicated to tracking casualties in the Syrian conflict.

Based in Coventry, England and run by a single pro-opposition figure, Rami Abdulrahman, the SOHR has received funding from the British Foreign Office to monitor deaths in Syria.

But unlike SNHR, SOHR has asserted that the death toll among government forces has been almost equal to that of opposition fighters, with over 60,000 dying to beat back a foreign-backed insurgency.

Because numbers like these undermine the one-sided narrative fashioned by Western media and NGOs dedicated to regime change, many have turned to SNHR instead for more politically convenient statistics spun out through graphics simple enough for a child to digest.

“SOHR is more reliable than SNHR, which is closely associated with the Syrian opposition,” explained Joshua Landis, professor of international and area studies at the University of Oklahoma and a leading expert on Syrian affairs, in an interview with The Grayzone.

“SOHR is also associated with the opposition, but the head is sympathetic to the Kurdish opposition which perhaps makes him a bit more even handed than either of the main antagonists, who have been known to play fast and loose with the facts,” he said.

Landis emphasized that “SNHR is more partisan and less objective” than the pro-opposition SOHR, adding that “it is impossible to know what the real statistics are for the obvious reasons.”

Indeed, the United Nations stopped tabulating deaths in the Syrian conflict in 2014, citing the difficulty it had in obtaining even remotely accurate numbers.

Another chemical “red line” deception?

Not only has the Syrian Network for Human Rights conjured up ridiculously slanted death toll numbers, it recently made suspicious claims of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government in an overt bid to trigger US military intervention.

On March 27, as Syrian forces closed in on the province of Idlib, the home of the rebranded al-Qaeda affiliate known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), SNHR claimed that the Syrian government used a missile launcher to fire “poison gas” at an HTS position in the eastern suburbs of Latakia. The attack “caused breathing difficulty, redness of the eyes and tearing” among the targets, according to SNHR.

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>>6750750

Barnard told Democracy Now host Amy Goodman that the Syrian government was “vacuuming up people literally including followers of Gandhi,” suggesting that the rebellion was entirely peaceful while ignoring evidence that the opposition engaged in lethal violence just weeks into the revolt.

In a subsequent question-and-answer session at Reddit, Barnard described a militarized Syrian insurgency that saw the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra assume a leading role in taking over large swaths of the country as “a movement for reform and democracy.”

Barnard appeared upset that the United States had failed to intervene directly to affect regime change. “President Barack Obama spoke loudly, calling for Mr. al-Assad’s ouster,” she said, “but carried a small stick. He backed off from even symbolic enforcement of the red line he had set.”

Barnard’s article ultimately earned an endorsement from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called it “a remarkable piece of journalism.”

Through omissions like these, regime change propaganda has been carefully repackaged as news that’s fit to print.

Part two of this investigation will examine another widely cited, opposition-tied source that has been widely cited by US mainstream media in coverage of Syria. It is the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). With a tightly-knit coterie of lawyers, faceless Salafi-jihadist insurgents, and an intelligence network spanning from Washington to Doha, this group of so-called “document hunters” is honing the latest tactic in the West’s regime-change toolbox.

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>>6750756

>>>6750731 Behind the Syrian Network for Human Rights: How an opposition front group became Western media’s go-to monitor

>>6750731, >>6750750, >>6750768 Behind the Syrian Network for Human Rights: How an opposition front group became Western media’s go-to monitor

Cheers Baker!

Why Israel Won't Win Its Next War

A recent piece by veteran and award-winning Israeli military correspondent Ron Ben Yishai on the Hebrew language version of Ynet provides us with fascinating insight into the current situation facing Israel's military. The logic behind Ben Yishai's opinions are rather stunning given Israel's current situation with its neighbours in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.

Here are some quotes from a translated version of the article entitled "Why do we not win the next war?" which opens with the observation that "Israel will not be defeated in the next war, but it will not win":

"Whether it is a battle in Gaza, the Third Lebanon War or the First Lebanon War (or Lebanon), or a possible combination between them, we are destined to end it without a clear decision, with a sense of sourness, when the enemy emerges from the rubble, shaking the dust.

We will achieve a deterrence that will last a few years, and the end of hostilities agreed upon by international mediators will be reasonable for us, but the absence of a clear military and conscious victory in the battlefield erodes deterrence, and consequently shortens the lull until the next major military confrontation."

The author goes on to discuss the meeting held by Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi in which the concept of a military "victory" was discussed and what the IDF needs to achieve in the next war so that there will be a clear definition of who is the "winner" and who is the "loser".

https://russia-insider.com/en/why-israel-wont-win-its-next-war/ri27234

Senators Switched Key Votes On Gulf Arms Ban Hours After Tanker Attacks

A brief report from AntiWar.com's Eric Garris suggests Thursday's tanker attack incident in the Gulf of Oman which the United States promptly blamed on Iran has directly impacted bills placed before the Senate which would ban US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar.

Garris wrote of the vote which came hours after the Gulf tankers incident: "Both votes were considered highly likely to pass up until they were rushed to the floor today. The timing appears almost certainly to have been related to Thursday tanker bombings in the Gulf of Oman, and shifted a number of Senators’ votes in favor of continuing the arms sales." He noted that "some senators switched sides to kill the bills" following news of the tanker attacks.

The vote, according to Defense News, indeed came very close:

The U.S. Senate on Thursday rejected Sen. Rand Paul’s measures to block sales of munitions to Bahrain and Boeing AH–64E Apache helicopters to Qatar.

The vote on Bahrain was 43-56 and Qatar 42-57, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., announced their opposition Thursday. The White House earlier this week threatened to veto the measures.

The Kentucky Republican and prominent Libertarian argued passionately that the US should not be supporting authoritarian governments who are known backers of extremists and who are conducting mass atrocities in Yemen. Sen. Paul has repeatedly called on Congress and the White House to "stop arming radical jihadism".

“Dumping more weapons into the Middle East won’t get us any closer to peace,” Paul said. “A ‘yes’ vote today is a vote for sanity. A ‘yes’ vote is a vote to quit sending arms to people who abuse human rights.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-14/senators-switched-key-votes-bill-gulf-arms-ban-hours-after-tanker-attacks

Elizabeth Warren to introduce bill cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt for most borrowers

Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to cancel student debt will soon be one step closer to reality — even if she doesn’t become president.

The Democratic Senator of Massachusetts plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks that mirrors her presidential campaign proposal to cancel at least a portion of the student debt held by many of the nation’s 44 million borrowers, her Senate office announced Thursday. Rep. James Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina and the house majority whip, will introduce companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

Warren’s office hasn’t yet released a draft of the legislative text, but the bill is slated to propose cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt for the bulk of student loan borrowers, her office said.

Under the proposal Warren released as part of her presidential campaign in April, borrowers with a household income of less than $100,000 would have $50,000 of their student debt cancelled and borrowers with an income between $100,000 and $250,000 would be eligible for some student debt cancellation — though not the full $50,000. Borrowers earning $250,000 or more would receive no debt cancellation. Her campaign estimated the plan would cost $640 billion, which would be paid through a tax on the ultra-wealthy.

The idea of student debt cancellation has been popular in some circles for years, but Warren’s campaign proposal nudged it into the mainstream. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent seeking the Democratic nomination, has vowedto cancel “massive amounts of student debt,” though hasn’t offered specifics.

Research indicates that cancelling student debt would have major benefits both for the economy and the individuals who would see their loans disappear (or at least minimized). Warren’s proposal is also popular among voters, polling shows.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not without controversy. In the past, critics of the idea of student debt forgiveness have argued that it would benefit well-off borrowers the most because they’re more likely to have higher debt loads. Warren’s proposal aims to address these concerns by tying the level of forgiveness to the borrower’s income, though some analyses have found that borrowers in the second-highest income quintile would receive the largest share of total debt relief as measured by dollars.

Still, low-income borrowers would receive a substantial benefit by having their entire debt cancelled — even if the total dollar amount forgiveness isn’t as high — because they often have relatively low debt loads that can be particularly onerous on their low-incomes.

Other critics of Warren’s plan have said it isn’t fair to borrowers who have scrimped and saved to pay for college or manage their debt. But a recent analysis hints at the unfairness in the current student loan system that makes easier for some than others to do those things. Warren’s camp has argued her plan would help to address some of those discrepancies.

Twelve years after entering college, white men have paid off 44% of their student-loan balance on average, according to a recent analysis from Demos, a left-leaning think tank. For white women, that share is 28%. Black women see their balances grow 13% on average during that period, while black men see their balances increase 11%.

The racial wealth gap means that black families often have less money to draw on to pay for college. Racial and gender pay gaps also mean that women and borrowers of color can have a tougher time repaying their student loans.

http://www.cuzzblue.com/2019/06/elizabeth-warren-to-introduce-bill.html

True colors

Erdogan: Turkey Will Respond If Syrian Army Continues Attacks On Observation Post Around Idlib

On June 14, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) of launching any attacks on Turkish observation posts around Syria’s Idlib and vowed that Ankara will respond to any such offinsive.

“If the regime attacks more Turkish observation points and continues to take such missteps, we cannot remain silent,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before departing for Tajikistan to attend the Fifth Summit of Heads of State of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), according to the Daily Sabah.

The Turkish President went on to call the ongoing Syrian-Russian aerial campaign on Greater Idlib “inexcusable,” saying that Turkey is listening to the voice of the people in the region, who are “asking Ankara to intervene against the bloodshed.”

A day earlier, four Turkish soldiers were slightly injured in a mortar attack on an observation post south of Idlib. Turkey held the SAA responsible for the attack. However, the Ministry of Defense of Russia denied these claims and revealed that its warplanes hit the militants responsible for the attack upon an official request from Ankara.

Erdogan’s threat confirms that Turkey is trying to take advantage of the incident to increase the pressure on Damascus and force it to hold its anti-terrorist operation in Idlib. Ankara may even use such attacks as a pretext to launch strikes on SAA positions around Idlib. Such a development could lead to a dangerous military confrontation.

https://southfront.org/erdogan-turkey-will-respond-if-syrian-army-continues-attacks-on-observation-post-around-idlib/

>>6751171

New Wave Of Russian, Syrian Airstrikes On Militants’ Positions In Hama And Idlib (Videos)

Warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) carried out at least 35 airstrikes on the opposition-held areas in northwestern Syria in the last 24 hours, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on June 14.

According to the UK-based monitoring group, the airstrikes covered the towns of al-Lataminah and Kafr Zita in northern Hama, as well as the towns of Khan Shaykhun, Arihah, al-Mastumah, Hobait, Jabal al-Arba’in, Ehsim, Tell Mardikh and Sutuh al-Dir in the southern and eastern countryside of Idlib.

Opposition news outlets and activists released several videos showing the Russian and Syrian airstrikes.

https://youtu.be/0sgCP1PcC3k

https://youtu.be/9MfD_EPIInU

https://youtu.be/48YOuKyrgIM

https://youtu.be/Fb07i6zwvtY

https://youtu.be/LW8k3eqUvdo

This wave of airstrikes was reportedly a response to the militants’ repeated violations of the new ceasefire agreement, that was announced two days ago.

If militants continue their attacks on government-held areas, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) will likely resume its ground operations in Greater Idlib.

https://southfront.org/new-wave-of-russian-syrian-airstrikes-on-militants-positions-in-hama-and-idlib-videos/

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio: Impeach Trump for Treason

Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said President Donald Trump committed treason when he said he would accept “dirt” on political opponents from foreign countries.

De Blasio said, “What happened the other day changed my mind because that was treason.”

He continued, “That was treason, what he said was openly treason. It was an invitation to hostile foreign governments to find information on American leaders and give it to Donald Trump to help Donald Trump.”

He added, “I heard that, and I said, ‘That’s the last straw. They should begin impeachment proceedings.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/06/14/nyc-mayor-bill-de-blasio-impeach-trump-for-treason/