Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
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Introduction: This program continues the analysis and coverage of the intelligence operation being led by “Eddie the Friendly Spook” Snowden.
A recent editorial in The San Jose Mercury News (Tues. September 10, 2013, p. A9) opined: “Revelations that the National Security Agency has cracked the encryption technology that was supposed to protect Internet users’ privacy is a nightmare for Silicon Valley. . .”
The concerns expressed by The Mercury News and echoed by Silicon Valley CEO’s at a recent high tech conference go to the thrust of the main part of what we feel is the primary goal of Snowden’s multi-layered psy-op: to do to the Silicon Valley and the U.S. electronic business what the German and Japanese automobile industry’s capture of much of the U.S. market did to the city of Detroit.
In FTR #‘s 758 and 759, we noted that Snowden and the forces around and behind him are the same elements that were jeopardizing the U.S. and global economies in the government shutdown crisis last fall. In numerous posts and programs, we have discussed the fact that the GOP has been infiltrated by the Underground Reich to such an extent that it is little more than a Nazi/fascist front at this point.
Note that the GOP is de-funding scientific and technological development to such an extent that it fundamentally threatens the American high-tech economy, the Silicon Valley in particular. (See text excerpts below.) Of particular interest in this regard is the fact that the leading budget cutters are the Paulistinian “libertarian” elements of the GOP. The possibility that this may be a deliberate act on the part of an Underground Reich Fifth Column is one to be seriously considered.
In this context, the GOP/German “op” might be seen as a pincers movement.
Of paramount importance in our analysis is German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s maneuvering in this context. She is deliberately delaying the implementation of EU data privacy regulains in favor of pushing for the inclusion of Germany’s intelligence service into the “Five Eyes” club. In effect, it may well be that U.S. tech industry is being held hostage to BND’s inclusion in the Five Eyes club.
Program Highlights Include:
- Leaking journalist Glenn Greenwald stated that Snowden’s goal in leaking this information was to alert people that the software they were using was being accessed by NSA without their knowledge–a consideration that is almost certain to damage U.S. internet companies. (See text excerpts below.)
- Fear around the world about the NSA spying coverage is believed to be damaging U.S. internet companies. (See text excerpts below.)
- German and EU officials have been explicit in warning about using U.S. cloud providers.
- One German minister floated the idea of banning U.S. tech corporations in Europe.
- Bertelsmann appears to be acting in accord with the pronouncements of German and EU officials.
- A recent story in the German periodical Die Zeit claimed that the German government warned against using Windows 8 (and also Chromebook, a Google product) because the TPM chip had been equipped with a “back door” to permit the NSA to clandestinely access information. Although the German government denied that they had actually said that, it appears that damage may have already been done, perhaps deliberately. (See text excerpts below.)
- As it happens, the leading maker of TPM chips is a German firm, Infineon, suggesting the distinct possibility that BND may be doing what the Die Zeit article accuses the NSA of doing. Note that BND has been doing exactly what the NSA has been doing for many, many years. (See text excerpts below.)
- In an update (9/26/2013), we learn that Infineon is a spinoff of Siemens AG, one of the German core corporations, a key element of the Bormann capital network and inextricably linked with the BND! (See text excerpts below.)
1a. Beginning with review of material covered years ago on For The Record, the program notes that the information about NSA and GCHQ hoovering up electronic communications is not new. (Mr. Emory has been discussing this for years, referencing the analysis from open sources.) A New York Times article from 9/6/2001 highlights a European Parliament report that was compiled over the course of a year. The report notes, among other things, that several European countries were doing similar things.
[Notice when this was published–9/6/2001.–D.E.] . . . The United States-led spying system known as Echelon can monitor virtually every communication in the world — by e‑mail, phone or fax — that bounces off a satellite, the European Parliament was told. But in reporting on a yearlong study of the system that was prompted by concern that American companies were using data from the system to gain a competitive edge, Gerhard Schmid, a German member of the Parliament, said that many European countries had similar abilities . . .
1b. A revealing article in Der Spiegel notes two VERY important things: the same Angela Merkel who is “shocked, shocked” at what the NSA is doing has not only put roadblocks in European data privacy rules designed to guard against unwarranted government surveillance, but is actively seeking admittance to the “Five Eyes” club, which dates to World War II!
She’s not “shocked, shocked” at all! She wants access to the Five Eyes, which means–DUH–that she APPROVES of this very thing!
What a hypocrite she is! And what a sick spectacle this whole bloody mess is, with a bunch of nitwits caterwauling about “civil liberties,” “human rights,” “the constitution,” and so forth.
Chancellor Merkel has put on a good show of being outraged by American spying. But, at the same time, she has impeded efforts to strengthen data security. Does she really want more privacy, or is she more interested in being accepted into the exclusive group of info-sharing countries known as the ‘Five Eyes’ club?
One particular point of clarification was especially important to Angela Merkel during the EU summit in Brussels last week. When she complained about the NSA’s alleged tapping of her cellphone, the German chancellor made clear that her concern was not for herself, but for the “telephones of millions of EU citizens,” whose privacy she said was compromised by US spying.
Yet at a working dinner with fellow EU heads of state on Thursday, where the agenda included a proposed law to bolster data protection, Merkel’s fighting spirit on behalf of the EU’s citizens seemed to have dissipated.
In fact, internal documents show that Germany applied the brakes when it came to speedy passage of such a reform. Although a number of EU member states — including France, Italy and Poland — were pushing for the creation of a Europe-wide modern data protection framework before European Parliament elections take place in May 2014, the issue ended up tabled until 2015.
Great Britain, itself suspected of spying on its EU partners, and Prime Minister David Cameron, who has former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as one of his advisors, put up considerable resistance. He pushed instead for the final summit statement to call simply for “rapid” progress on a solid EU data-protection framework.
A Setback for ‘Europe ‘s Declaration of Independence ’
Merkel also joined those applying the brakes. Over the weekend, SPIEGEL ONLINE gained access to internal German Foreign Ministry documents concerning the EU leaders’ final summit statement. The “track changes” feature reflects a crucial proposed change to item No. 8 under the subject heading “Digital Economy” — the suggestion that the phrase “adoption next year” be replaced with “The negotiations have to be carried on intensively.”
Ultimately, the official version of the final summit statement simply called for “rapid” progress on the issue — just as Great Britain was hoping for.
This amounts to a setback for proponents of the proposed data-protection law, which EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has called “Europe’s declaration of independence.”
The European Parliament recently began drafting stricter regulations in this area, including potential fines running into the billions of euros for any Internet company caught illegally passing private data to US intelligence agencies. Such proposed legislation has the support even of some of Merkel’s fellow conservatives in the European Parliament, including Manfred Weber of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who says: “We need to finally summon the political will for more data protection.”
American tech corporations could hardly believe their luck at having Merkel’s support. Now they’re hoping for more leeway to water down the data-protection law as soon as the furor over the latest spying scandal has subsided. One high-ranking American tech-company executive told the Financial Times: “When we saw the story about Merkel’s phone being tapped … we thought we were going to lose.” But, he added: “It looks like we won.” [Yeah, the tech companies are “shocked, shocked” too–D.E.]
Indeed, the EU leaders’ anger was already starting to dissipate during their sessions in Brussels. Summit participants say leaders pointed out that Europe is not exactly on the side of the angels when it comes to government spying. Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, cautioned his fellow leaders, questioning whether they were certain their own intelligence agencies had never violated data privacy themselves.
Code of Conduct for Intelligence Agencies
The concerns of the tech industry, in particular, received an attentive ear among Europe’s leaders. One summit participant relates that restructuring data-protection laws was portrayed as a “laborious” task that would require more time to complete, and that Merkel did not push for speed on the matter, to the surprise of some of her counterparts. [!–D.E.]
According to summit participants, the German chancellor seemed far more interested in the “Five Eyes” alliance among the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The top-level allies within this exclusive group, which began in 1946 as a pact between London and Washington, have agreed not to spy on one another, but instead to share information and resources. In Brussels, Cameron stressed to his fellow leaders how many terrorist attacks had been prevented by successful intelligence work.
Merkel, meanwhile, stated: “Unlike David, we are unfortunately not part of this group.” According to the New York Times, Germany has sought membership in the “Five Eyes” alliance for years, but has been turned down due to opposition, including from the Obama administration. But this could now change, the paper speculates.
1c. One of the major considerations with regard to “The Adventures of Eddie the Friendly Spook” concerns L’Affaire Snowden as an assault on U.S. internet business. We suggest the possibility of U.S. corporations being, in effect, held hostage.
In the context of the Spiegel story above, we note that Germany is far more interested in being admitted to the “Five Eyes” club than assuring data privacy. Again, we suggest that U.S. internet firms are being held hostage in this affair.
Obama appears to be over a barrel in this regard, having to chose between security and the profitability and success of U.S. internet business abroad.
. . . . The pressure to rein them in is coming from industry, which fears that the N.S.A.’s abilities to crack data encryption and bore into foreign computer systems and the cloud will scare away business across Europe and Asia. Mr. Obama must now make a choice: to keep building the world’s most sophisticated cyberarsenal, or pare back for fear of harming American competitiveness.
2. One of the statements made by Nazi fellow-traveler Citizen Greenwald is revealing. He stated that Snowden’s goal was to alert people to the fact that U.S. internet software was compromised. This would necessarily hurt U.S. competitiveness.
“About the Reuters Article” by Glenn Greenwald; The Guardian; 7/13/2013.
. . . .A: Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States. But that’s not his goal. [His] objective is to expose software that people around the world use without knowing what they are exposing themselves without consciously agreeing to surrender their rights to privacy. [He] has a huge number of documents that would be very harmful to the US government if they were made public. . . .
3. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg articulated the concerns of the U.S. tech industry at a recent conference. In FTR #718, we lookd a Facebook as a major intruder on people’s privacy, as well as its links to Underground Reich elements.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lashed out at the U.S. government Wednesday, saying that authorities have hurt Silicon Valley companies by doing a poor job of explaining the online spying efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies.
“Frankly I think the government blew it,” Zuckerberg complained during an onstage interview at the tech industry conference known as Disrupt, a weeklong event where Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer and other prominent tech executives also spoke out publicly and expressed frustration in person, for the first time, since a series of news leaks revealed the government’s controversial surveillance programs.
“It’s our government’s job to protect all of us and also protect our freedoms and protect the economy, and companies,” Zuckerberg told interviewer Michael Arrington, “and I think they did a bad job of balancing those things.”
He went on to say: “They blew it on communicating the balance of what they were going for.”
Facebook and other Internet companies have been under intense pressure in recent months after a series of news reports that suggest U.S. intelligence agencies have gained access to the online activities and communications involving users of Facebook and other popular services. Some of those reports have suggested that unnamed companies have cooperated with the U.S. efforts, although the details are unclear.
Analysts say those reports could hurt the companies financially, especially overseas, if if consumers and business customers believe their sensitive information isn’t safe from government prying. . . . .
4a. A recent Guardian/Observer article underscored the fears of U.S. business.
“It’s an ill bird,” runs the adage, “that fouls its own nest.” Cue the US National Security Agency (NSA), which, we now know, has been busily doing this for quite a while. As the Edward Snowden revelations tumbled out, the scale of the fouling slowly began to dawn on us.
Outside of the United States, for example, people suddenly began to have doubts about the wisdom of entrusting their confidential data to cloud services operated by American companies on American soil. As Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice president responsible for digital affairs, put it in a speech on 4 July: “If businesses or governments think they might be spied on, they will have less reason to trust the cloud and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn’t matter – any smart person doesn’t want the information shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity.“
“
Which providers? Why, the big US internet companies that have hitherto dominated the market for cloud services – a market set to double in size to $200bn (£126bn) over the next three years. So the first own goal scored by the NSA was to undermine an industry that many people had regarded as the next big thing in corporate computing....
4b. Some observers feel the Internet may be Balkanized.
This column over the weekend, by the British academic John Naughton in the Guardian, takes us one more step in assessing the damage to American interests in the broadest sense– commercial, strategic, ideological — from the panopticon approach to “security” brought to us by NSA-style monitoring programs.
Naughton’s essay doesn’t technically tell us anything new. For instance, see earlier reports like this, this, and this. But it does sharpen the focus in a useful way. Whoever wrote the headline and especially the subhead did a great job of capturing the gist:
Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is.
The press has lost the plot over the Snowden revelations. The fact is that the net is finished as a global network and that US firms’ cloud services cannot be trusted.
In short: because of what the U.S. government assumed it could do with information it had the technological ability to intercept, American companies and American interests are sure to suffer in their efforts to shape and benefit from the Internet’s continued growth.
* American companies, because no foreigners will believe these firms can guarantee security from U.S. government surveillance;
* American interests, because the United States has gravely compromised its plausibility as world-wide administrator of the Internet’s standards and advocate for its open, above-politics goals.Why were U.S. authorities in a position to get at so much of the world’s digital data in the first place? Because so many of the world’s customers have trusted* U.S.-based firms like Google, Yahoo, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc with their data; and because so many of the world’s nations have tolerated an info-infrastructure in which an outsized share of data flows at some point through U.S. systems. Those are the conditions of trust and toleration that likely will change.
The problem for the companies, it’s worth emphasizing, is not that they were so unduly eager to cooperate with U.S. government surveillance. Many seem to have done what they could to resist. The problem is what the U.S. government — first under Bush and Cheney, now under Obama and Biden — asked them to do. [This, by the way is wrong. It predates both Bush/Cheney and Obama Biden. I discussed this on air, from open sources, well before either team assumed power. This highlights my statement that; “Journalists are like a flock of birds. When one lands, they all land. When one flies away, they all fly away.”–D.E.] As long as they operate in U.S. territory and under U.S. laws, companies like Google or Facebook had no choice but to comply. But people around the world who have a choice about where to store their data, may understandably choose to avoid leaving it with companies subject to the way America now defines its security interests.
Here’s Naughton’s version of the implications:
The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty....
5. A Forbes analyst highlighted the damage that may be done to U.S. tech industry.
Reddit general manager Erik Martin noticed something strange when he was at a conference in Latvia last month. There was a contest held, with a prize of one year’s free web-hosting for a small business — a decent value, a fairly normal prize. But when it came time to award it, nobody in the audience wanted it. It was from a U.S.-based company, and this was just days after Edward Snowden’s landmark leaks about the NSA’s PRISM program hit the press. With that hanging over them, people at the conference would have preferred to go with a different country.
There’s a general sense of unease about the U.S. government’s relationship to the internet right now, and it’s starting to affect how international consumers choose their web services. I talked with Christian Dawson, head of hosting company Servint and co-founder of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, a group founded to inform the public and lawmakers about, as he puts it, how the internet works. He says that while it’s hard to put together any true statistics at this point, he’s heard a lot of anecdotal data about U.S.-based hosting and other web service companies losing business to overseas competitors since the Snowden leaks.
“We have a great fear that we are going to see a big exodus for US-based businesses over the information that’s been leaked,in part because there’s this tremendous lack of transparency, and lack of transparency is the absolute worst thing for these situations,” he says. “We’re competing on a global scale, and if people don’t have a reason to trust the host they’re using, they can go elsewhere in just a couple of clicks.”
Dawson stresses that the problem isn’t just with the program itself. He has little comment on what the government should or should not be doing to protect the country from terrorism. His problem is with the lack of open discussion surrounding these efforts. The U.S. may not have the most restrictive or the most repressive policies surrounding internet surveillance, but U.S. news is big news all over the world. According to Dawson, fear of the Patriot Act had already been dogging U.S. hosting companies for years, and the Snowden leaks just added fuel to the fire. In a global market as fluid as something like web hosting, a lot of consumers would just as soon prefer to take their business elsewhere.
“The lack of clear, intelligent language has put us at a tremendous marketing disadvantage,” he says. “These days, we’re finding that significant portion of our clientele values privacy. It is not simply the customer who has something to hide.” . . .
6a. The German government has been stoking the fires of global outrage.
Germany’s interior minister has suggested that people should stop using Google and Facebook if they fear interception by U.S. spies.
According to the AP, Hans-Peter Friedrich said on Wednesday that “whoever fears their communication is being intercepted in any way should use services that don’t go through American servers.” His call comes in the wake of Edward Snowden’s PRISM revelations, which showed how the NSA can easily access even supposedly private data on U.S. cloud services, at mass scale.
Friedrich is one of the first senior European politicians to explicitly urge privacy-minded citizens to avoid using U.S. services, although EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said a couple of weeks ago that “the PRISM debate will definitely increase calls for a European cloud, with a range of possible consequences for American companies.”
However, shunning Google and Facebook may not be a cure-all for keeping private communications private. Snowden also exposed a British program called Tempora, which allegedly involves the tapping of the fiber-optic cables that constitute the backbone of the internet – if that is the case, then all communications may be intercepted, regardless of where the service provider is located.
German data protection officials have urged the federal government to “do everything to protect the people in Germany against access to their data by third parties,” and have also called for explanations around how much the German government knew about PRISM and Tempora before the scandal broke. . . .
6b. More about the German government’s propaganda offensive:
NSA Blowback: German Minister Floats US Company Ban; Der Spiegel; 8/5/2013.
With the NSA spying scandal continuing to make headlines in Europe, the German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, has raised the possibility of new, tangible measures to punish corporations that participate in American spying activities. In an interview with Die Welt, the liberal Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called for the creation of EU-wide rules to regulate the protection of information, and said that, once those rules are in place, “United States companies that don’t abide by these standards should be denied doing business in the European market.”
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said that a package of EU measures is required in order to fight “the widespread spying of foreign spy services” and that German data protection laws should be a yardstick for the rest of the European Union — German privacy laws are considerably tighter than those of the United States and much of Europe.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich also raised corporate accountability in July, when he suggested requiring European firms to report any data they hand over to foreign countries. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who is running for reelection in September as part of the pro-business Free Democratic Party, did not further specify which kinds of penalties she would like American companies to face, though it seems unlikely that Europe would completely ban companies like Google, which dominate the online search market, or Facebook from doing business. Both of those companies were implicated in the documents leaked by former intelligence worker Edward Snowden.
It is the latest development in a German election season that has come to be dominated by online privacy issues. Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced widespread criticism from the opposition for her handling of the NSA scandal and Peer Steinbrück, the Chancellor candidate of the opposition SPD party, recently told German television channel ZDF that Merkel should demand written assurances from the Americans they will respect German laws and interests and not engage in industrial espionage . . . .
6c. Germany’s largest media firm is going with the rhetorical directives from German government officials. Bertelsmann was the publisher for the SS in World War II and appears to be a fundamental part of the Underground Reich.
. . . . Politicians in Europe and Brazil have cited the Snowden documents in pushing for new privacy laws and standards for cloud contracts and in urging local companies to steer clear of U.S. vendors.
“If European cloud customers cannot trust the U.S. government, then maybe they won’t trust U.S. cloud providers either,” European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes told The Guardian. “If I am right, there are multibillion-euro consequences for American companies.”
There have indeed been some contract cancellations.
Charles Mount, chief executive of business file-sharing service OneHub, told Reuters that an automated system that asks customers why they have dropped the OneHub service elicited this reply from an unspecified Bertelsmann unit in Austria:
“Headquarters is banning storage of company data in the U.S. or with U.S. companies altogether because of the NSA data-mining and industrial espionage. You should watch out for that. Maybe you should think about hosting in Iceland, Sweden or some other place known for complying with their own privacy legislation.”
Bertelsmann spokesman Christian Steinhof said the company couldn’t confirm that the exchange had occurred and therefore wouldn’t comment. . . .
7. A recent story in the German periodical Die Zeit claimed that the German government warned against using Windows 8 (and also Chromebook, a Google product) because the TPM chip had been equipped with a “back door” to permit the NSA to clandestinely access information. Although the German government denied that they had actually said that, it appears that damage may have already been done, perhaps deliberately.
Claims that there is a backdoor in Windows 8 giving access to all versions of the operating system to US intelligence have been gently rebuffed by Microsoft.
A reporter in Zeit had suggested the backdoor stemmed from the Trusted Platform Module, or TPM chip, which seeks to improve security by powering the Secure Boot process that checks for and ignores malicious low-level code when a machine starts up. It does this through cryptographic keys that ensure code cannot be tampered with on loading and that the code is legitimate.
The Zeit writer had suggested the TPM could give the manufacturer of a device control over it.
He said that in light of the leaks from Edward Snowden, it would not be a surprise if TPM 2.0, the version used by Windows 8, was actually a backdoor the National Security Agency (NSA) could easily exploit. As the chips powering TPM are manufactured in China, the Chinese could easily access Windows 8 machines too, the report alleged.
The reporter attained documents from the German government that led him to reach his supposition. But the German government has not said there is a backdoor in the OS.
The Office for Information Security (BSI) later clarified the government’s position, and did say the use of TPM 2.0 and Windows 8 (TPM is used in other non-Windows machines, including Chromebooks, making the claims even more questionable) meant the user had to deal with “a loss of control over the operating system and the hardware used”. This could lead to greater risk for the federal government and critical infrastructure, it said.
But the body said it had not warned the general public nor government bodies against using Windows 8.
It said “the newly established mechanisms can also be used for sabotage by third parties”, but appeared only to be talking generally about vulnerability exploitation. There was no suggestion of a purposeful backdoor, as Zeit had hypothesised, even if the BIS does have problems with TPM.
Microsoft has responded to the kerfuffle first by denying it has ever provided such access to users’ data and by talking up the security benefits of TPM 2.0. It suggested government departments would be wise to use the security protections it provides by default. But for those governments who want to gain back control of their machines, they can go with OEMs who make Windows PCs without TPM. . . .
8. More about the TPM controversy.
With major industrial giants like Siemens, Germany is no small fry. As of 2012, it was the fourth-largest economy in the world. The German government’s recent announcement [that Windows 8 is unsafe due a backdoor called the Trusted Platform Module], is a dangerous omen for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) .
AN ALTERNATIVE EXISTS
The growth of open-source computing is causing major headaches for Microsoft, and this situation is no different. Linux is open source, and generally has fewer security vulnerabilities than Windows. Government and corporate IT departments are starting to realize that they can make their operations more secure and cut costs by switching from Windows to Linux. Using open-source alternatives to Microsoft Office is yet another way to lower costs. The City of Munich recently moved 14,000 desktop PCs to Linux and plans to save $13 million by using LibreOffice.
MICROSOFT’S FUTURE
European Union austerity is making governments look for cost savings wherever possible. Microsoft is already feeling the pain in its bottom line. In 2013, operating income for the Windows division fell to $9.5 billion from $12.3 billion in 2011, and falling PC sales paint a grim future. . . .
9. Note that the Die Zeit story is disinformation! Note also that the leading maker of TPM chips is Infineon, a spin-off of Siemens.
“Don’t Let Paranoia over the NSA and TPM Weaken Your Security” by Ed Bott; ZDNet; 8/23/2013.
The unintended by-product of Edward Snowden’s NSA document dump is a bull market in paranoid conspiracy theories.
The latest example is the breathless report out of Germany that Microsoft and the NSA have conspired to give American spies access to every copy of Windows 8, enforced by a mysterious chip called the Trusted Platform Module, or TPM. “It’s a backdoor!” scream the conspiracy theorists.
Apparently, Microsoft is so powerful that it is able to influence even its most bitter enemies.
. . . .The point is, a TPM is a platform-neutral device. It provides a secure way to encrypt data so that it can’t be accessed by anyone except you, and it protects your device from being tampered with. Both of those features are highly desirable these days.
But who knows what’s going on in that chip? I mean, they say it’s just a secure place to store encrypted keys, but who knows what else it can do? Obviously the American government or maybe the Chinese have intimidated the chip’s manufacturer, right?
Uh, maybe not. The most popular maker of TPM technology is Infineon Technologies AG , which is based in … Neubiberg, Germany. Perhaps those intrepid German journalists could, you know, hop on a train and head down to Infineon to see for themselves.
10. The corporate heritage of Infineon. Note that Siemens serves as something of a quartermaster for BND, German intelligence.
“Infineon Technologies’; Wikipedia.
Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded on 1 April 1999, when the semiconductor operations of the parent company Siemens AG were spun off to form a separate legal entity. As of 30 September 2010, Infineon has 25,149 employees worldwide. In fiscal year 2010, the company achieved sales of €3.295 billion. . . .
11. In FTR #‘s 758 and 759, we noted that Snowden and the forces around and behind him are the same elements that were jeopardizing the U.S. and global economies in the government shutdown crisis last fall. In numerous posts and programs, we have discussed the fact that the GOP has been infiltrated by the Underground Reich to such an extent that it is little more than a Nazi/fascist front at this point.
Note that the GOP is de-funding scientific and technological development to such an extent that it fundamentally threatens the American high-tech economy, the Silicon Valley in particular. Of particular interest in this regard is the fact that the leading budget cutters are the Paulistinian “libertarian” elements of the GOP. The possibility that this may be a deliberate act on the part of an Underground Reich Fifth Column is one to be seriously considered.
In this context, the GOP/German “op” might be seen as a pincers movement.
When Congress returns from its summer recess in early September, it will have exactly nine legislative days to agree on a budget or the government will shut down. House Republicans are seeking far greater cuts in non-defense spending than Senate Democrats, and some members of the GOP are threatening to hold up any budget agreement until the Obama administration abandons the Affordable Care Act. It’s going to be a slog, with all sorts of unseemly compromises. But let me suggest an area where Democrats should allow exactly zero more dollars to be excised from the federal budget: government research for science and technology. We’ve already seen a 13 percent drop in this area over the last two years, and it’s hard to overstate just how damaging to the country’s future further reductions would be.
Many people still cling to the idea that government is, without exception, a drag upon the private economy. Conservatives “know that when it comes to economic progress,” Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, wrote last year in National Review, “the best government philosophy is one that starts every day with the question, ‘What can we do today to get out of Americans’ way?’ ” They imagine the United States as a land of plucky inventor-entrepreneurs (“We built it!” they cry) who work out of garages and depend solely on their wits. The problem is that this vision of American inventiveness is pure myth.
Steve Jobs, who has nearly been beatified in his role as independent businessman, excelled at designing products based on government-funded inventions. Some of Apple’s most vaunted achievements—the mouse, a graphical user interface, the touch-screen, even Siri—were all developed in part with federal finances. Or take Google. Its search engine came out of a $4.5 million digital-libraries research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). You can also look at the pharmaceutical industry. According to a Congressional Budget Office study, 16 of the 21 “most influential drugs” introduced between 1965 and 1992 depended on federally funded research.
The list goes on. Federal money helped support the invention of lasers, transistors, semiconductors, microwave ovens, communication satellites, cellular technology, and the Internet. Now, the feds are prime backers of the Human Genome Project (which could transform medicine) and nanotechnology (which could transform manufacturing). Subtract these kinds of innovations from America’s future, and you have an economy dependent on tourism, the tottering superstructure of big finance, and the export of raw materials and farm products. More to the point, you have a weaker country—not just in comparison with its competitors, but also in its ability to provide its citizens with richer, longer, more imaginative lives. . . .
12. In a 1950 circular letter distributed by the Nazi government in exile in Madrid, a U.S. economic failure was forecast.
Germany Plots with the Kremlin by T.H. Tetens; Henry Schuman [HC]; 1953; p. 231.
. . . .Economic difficulties will one day plunge the United States down from its present dizzy heights. Such a catastrophe can be brought about through crafty manipulations and through artificially engendered crises. Such maneuvers are routine measures which have already been employed in international power struggle and will be used again and again as long as economic rivals fight for power positions and markets in the world.
It is quite conceivable that America, weakened by a depression, will one day seek support from a resurrected Germany. Such a prospect would open tremendous possibilities for the future power position of a bloc introducing a new order in the world. . . . .
The Future: Technology, Theocracy and the Thousand Year Reich
While it doesn’t look Germany will get the coveted “No-Spy Agreement”, there still might be an investigation. According to Germany’s top prosecutor, there’s already enough evidence to open an investigation into Merkel’s phone-hack:
As the article points out, the international debate over NSA spying is intertwined with the debate over how the internet should be governed so it will be interesting to see how the NSA spying scandal ends up shaping the debate over the future of the internet.
There could be one big winner in the US tech sector as a result of all this: the newly proposed ‘third party’ that will presumably be much more trustworthy than the government with our private data:
LOL, yes, let’s give the guy that can barely hide his contempt for humanity even more power over everyone’s safety and welfare.
Snowden just gave an interview for German TV where he charged that the NSA engages in industrial espionage, grabbing any intelligence it can get its hands on:
You gotta wonder if the NSA was using the infamous TPM Chip backdoor to hack into those Siemens networks.
It’s also noteworthy that this interview comes just days after Russia extended its asylum offer to Snowden because going on German TV and asserting that the NSA is engaging industrial espionage of major German firms seems like a pretty damaging new allegation. So you also have to wonder if there were any other revisions to Snowden’s initial asylum agreement.
Another tidbit from Snowden’s recent German TV interview: Snowden reiterated that he doesn’t have possession of the documents but claims that the documents — held by trustworthy journalists — are acting as “life insurance”. So it sounds like someone has their finger on Snowden’s “Dead Man’s Switch” again.
Also, regarding Snowden’s opposition to the ‘Five Eyes’ agreement because it subverts prohibitions against domestic spying via intelligence sharing agreements, the Five Eyes agreement is supposed to restrict spying on fellow members’ citizens. As the Snowden documents showed, there is indeed spying on UK citizens by the NSA (which can then be shared with the UK government), but it’s very unclear from those documents that you can actually blame that spying on the Five Eyes agreement. The insight on Snowden’s thinking helps explain why so much of the Snowden Affair reporting has involved international intelligence sharing agreements. But with Snowden calling for international regulations on state surveillance program, it’s going to be interesting to see what types are agreements are deemed acceptable.
The great escape doesn’t have a clear destination:
I can think of all sorts of nations that would be more than happy to dedicate their entire economies to secure data warehousing and little else. Granted, these nations don’t actually exist. Yet.
So...does this mean Merkel no longer wants in on the Five Eyes?
As Snowden recently asserted on German TV, the BND doesn’t just have the software the NSA uses like XKeyScore for use in building its own database. The BND also has access to NSA’s XKeyScore database itself, contrary to the BND’s claims that they were only testing it out. So presumably this access will be cut off by the BND and all other EU intelligence agencies once they form the EU-Eyes club. Or maybe not. We’ll just have to wait see.
It’ll be interesting to see how far this one goes:
No doubt they were just searching through the XKeyScore database to find Merkel’s old deleted emails. She’s only human!
Greetings Dave,
Is it Bertelsmann following the EU’s dictates, or could it be the other way around, a case of Bertelsmann laying down agendas for the EU? Some weeks ago, I caught a Saturday morning French radio political programme in the car. The host was veteran French journalist Christine Ockrent and her guest was a consumately articulate and professional gentleman from the Bertelsmann Foundation. While I wasn’t fully paying attention — I’ve come to the point frankly where family time trumps paying attention to snakes, any time, especially on Saturday mornings — one thing struck me: Ockrent was lapping it all up, “religiously” as the adverb would be used in French. I was stunned, she was completely aligned with the German view, without reservations, and did not say one word in support of possible French views or interests, or any other European nation’s for that matter. The Bertelsmann guy was all about how Europe had to do Germany’s bidding, or there could be no Europe.
Also, this small nugget from a recent entry in Jon Rappoport’s blog.
“NOVAK (the reporter): Is it true that a private [Trilateral committee] led by Henry Owen of the US and made up of [Trilateral] representatives of the US, UK, West Germany, Japan, France and the EEC is coordinating the economic and political policies of the Trilateral countries [which would include the US]?
COOPER: Yes, they have met three times.
NOVAK: Yet, in your recent paper you state that this committee should remain informal because to formalize ‘this function might well prove offensive to some of the Trilateral and other countries which do not take part.’ Who are you afraid of?
KAISER: Many countries in Europe would resent the dominant role that West Germany plays at these [Trilateral] meetings.”
I’ve never looked much into Trilateral Commission theories and can’t assess them but I thought the information to be significant. A “dominant role” by Germany at such meetings is interesting to say the least. Wasn’t the German ex-SS Prince Bernhardt involved in the creation of that body? When most people think about nazis escaping after the war, it conjures up images of tanned Germans roughing it up in South American jungles. Whether the TC is/was significant as a center of power or not, it is all too clear that many of them transitioned almost seamlessly from war suit to business suit, into companies, banks (such as the very powerful, and understudied BIS, about which there is now an excellent recent book by Adam Lebor), and perhaps such convenient arenas of political power such as the TC for a country that could not assert power openly.
Great show as always.
All the best,
goelette
We’re one step closer to the mush anticipated EU-Snowden investigation. It also sounds like Jan-Phillip Albrecht is going to push for Snowden to make a trip to the EU “for a later in-depth testimony”:
European Commission vice-president, Viviane Reding, floated the idea of “United States of Europe” with full fiscal and political integration, although not necessarily at the same time:
Oh wow, so “there is a strong case for a true fiscal and ultimately political union”...sounds like the idea is for a fiscal union first and later a political union. How might that work?
Another question raised by this possible “United States of Europe” proposal: Will all the EU nations ditch their own intelligence agencies at that point? Reding was calling for the creation of an EU intelligence agency by 2020 last November. So, once they politically merge, will all the national intelligence agencies get collapsed into once big agency? Or was Reding’s proposed EU intelligence agency not intended to replace national spy agencies at all but merely coordinate their spying(like an EU Eyes spy-ring)? And when there’s a fiscal but not yet political union, will the troikas get to set spending levels for the national spy agencies? These are just some of the fun questions in store for the “United States of Europe”.