Notable
Looks like this is a dig. Baltimore, Phillips?
Ron Paul: How Expansive Is FBI Spying?
Cato Institute Research Fellow Patrick Eddington recently filed several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to find out if the Federal Bureau of Investigation ever conducted surveillance of several organizations dealing with government policy, including my Campaign for Liberty. Based on the FBI’s response, Campaign for Liberty and other organizations, including the Cato institute and the Reason Foundation, may have been subjected to FBI surveillance or other data collection. I say “may have been” because the FBI gave Mr. Eddington a “Glomar response” to his FOIA requests pertaining to these organizations. A Glomar response is where an agency says it can “neither confirm nor deny” involvement in a particular activity. Glomar was a salvage ship the Central Intelligence Agency used to recover a sunken Soviet submarine in the 1970s. In response to a FOIA request by Rolling Stone magazine, the CIA claimed that just confirming or denying the Glomar’s involvement in the salvage operation would somehow damage national security. A federal court agreed with the agency, giving federal bureaucrats, and even local police departments, a new way to avoid giving direct answers.
The Glomar response means these organizations may have been, and may still be, subjected to federal surveillance. As Mr. Eddington told Reason magazine, "We know for a fact that Glomar invocations have been used to conceal actual, ongoing activities, and we also know that they're not passing out Glomars like candy." Protecting the right of individuals to join together in groups to influence government policy is at the very heart of the First Amendment. Therefore, the FBI subjecting such groups to surveillance can violate the constitutional rights of everyone involved with the groups.
The FBI has a long history of targeting Americans whose political beliefs and activities threaten the FBI’s power or the power of influential politicians. The then-named Bureau of Investigation participated in the crackdown on people suspected of being communists in the post-World War I “Red Scare.” The anti-communist crackdown was headed by a young agent named J. Edgar Hoover who went on to become FBI director, a position he held until his death. Hoover kept and expanded his power by using the FBI to collect blackmail material on people including politicians. In the 1930s and 1940s, the FBI spied on supporters of the America First movement, including several Congress members. Two of the most famous examples of FBI targeting individuals based on their political activities are the harassment of Martin Luther King Jr. and the COINTELPRO program. COINTELPRO was an organized effort to spy on and actively disrupt “subversive” organizations, including antiwar groups. COINTELPRO officially ended in the 1970s. However, the FBI still targets individuals and organizations it considers “subversive,” including antiwar groups and citizen militias. Congress must hold hearings to determine if the FBI is currently using unconstitutional methods to “monitor” any organizations based on their beliefs. Congress must then take whatever steps necessary to ensure that no Americans are ever again targeted for surveillance because of their political beliefs and activities.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ron-paul-how-expansive-fbi-spying
'''Saudis Deny "Absurd" Claim Bezos' Phone Hacked By Crown Prince
Update (2055ET): Perhaps not entirely surprising - given our comments below on the source publication - the Saudi Embassy in the US has tweeted a quasi-denial. We look forward the Kingdom investigating The Guardian's claims (but won't be holding our breath for a retraction).
Jeff Bezos was allegedly hacked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or someone operating his WhatsApp account, according to The Guardian, so who knows. Bezos was apparently hanging out in an encrypted WhatsApp chat room in 2018 when he opened an "infected video file" sent to him from the Saudi heir's account, instantly installing malware on his phone. Within hours, large amounts of data had been exfiltrated - though exactly what was taken or how it may have been used is unknown. The two men had been having a seemingly friendly WhatsApp exchange when, on 1 May of that year, the unsolicited file was sent, according to sources who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. -Guardian
Recall that after the National Enquirer published an exposé in early 2019 detailing Bezos’s extramarital affair, the billionaire revealed that the publication had threatened to publish explicit photos of him unless he publicly stated that there had been no political motivation for the tabloid’s original story. Bezos would make no such concession - instead, penning a Medium post exposing the attempt. And while the Enquirer's parent company AMI insists their source was Michael Sanchez, the brother of Mr. Bezos’ girlfriend - Bezos's security consultant consultant, Gavin de Becker, alleged the Saudis were behind the leak - as they had "been intent on harming Jeff Bezos since . . . The Post began its relentless coverage" of the murder of Saudi dissident and Post journalist, Jamap Khashoggi."
De Becker writes: Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information. As of today, it is unclear to what degree, if any, AMI was aware of the details. We did not reach our conclusions lightly. The inquiry included a broad array of resources: investigative interviews with current and former AMI executives and sources, extensive discussions with top Middle East experts in the intelligence community, leading cybersecurity experts who have tracked Saudi spyware, discussions with current and former advisers to President Trump, Saudi whistleblowers, people who personally know the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS), people who work with his close associate Saud al-Qahtani, Saudi dissidents, and other targets of Saudi action, including writer/activist Iyad el-Baghdadi. Experts with whom we consulted confirmed New York Times reports on the Saudi capability to “collect vast amounts of previously inaccessible data from smartphones in the air without leaving a trace—including phone calls, texts, emails”—and confirmed that hacking was a key part of the Saudis’ “extensive surveillance efforts that ultimately led to the killing of [Washington Post] journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” -Gavin de Becker (via the Daily Beast)
As the Post noted in October, "After Khashoggi’s killing in Istanbul, the planet’s richest man, who also owns The Post, became the target of waves of criticism from Saudi-based online trolls." (Also interesting, and perhaps related, is a $1 billion Saudi data center deal Amazon was vying for in March 2018, which began to fizzle out as early as February 2019 - as the dick-pic scandal unfolded.) Sanchez, meanwhile, vehemently denied being AMI's source, while de Becker said in The Beast that Sanchez was contacted by the Enquirer first, not the other way around.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jeff-bezos-phone-hacked-saudi-crown-prince-report
https://twitter.com/SaudiEmbassyUSA/status/1219792870389035008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1219792870389035008&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fjeff-bezos-phone-hacked-saudi-crown-prince-report
Check out those orbs..
Concur Saturn,
I wonder if there would be any reference..to when POTUS when to Saudi..and they all put there hand on the orb that seemed to glow..