Russia Bought BLM Ads Dupes Were Willing

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This website has published countless articles warning of these operations going back as far as 2014. This site has also warned of Russian hybrid warfare as noted by the Gerasimov Doctrine.

Russian State, Non-State Cyber Intrusions Sway Voting/Political Decisions

Russian Troll Operations Continue, What are You Reading?

During the campaign season, the Obama White House knew more than they were telling or sharing. Furthermore, that same White House refused to take any real action with regard to Russian interference.

Huddled in a private room on the sidelines of a meeting of world leaders in Lima, Peru, two months before Trump’s inauguration, Obama made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously. Unless Facebook and the government did more to address the threat, Obama warned, it would only get worse in the next presidential race.

Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem posed by fake news. But he told Obama that those messages weren’t widespread on Facebook and that there was no easy fix, according to people briefed on the exchange, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of a private conversation. More here.

Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

ChicagoTribune: The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African-American rights groups including Black Lives Matter and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics — also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

These targeted messages, along with others that have surfaced in recent days, highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups already wary of one another.

The nature and detail of these ads has troubled investigators at Facebook, on Capitol Hill and at the U.S. Justice Department, say people familiar with the advertisements who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share matters still under investigation.

The House and Senate Intelligence committees plan to begin reviewing the Facebook ads in coming weeks as they attempt to untangle the operation and other matters related to Russia’s bid to help elect Trump in 2016.

“Their aim was to sow chaos,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “In many cases, it was more about voter suppression rather than increasing turnout.”

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said he hoped the public would be able to review the ad campaign.

“I think the American people should see a representative sample of these ads to see how cynical the Russian were using these ads to sow division within our society,” he said, noting that he had not yet seen the ads but had been briefed on them, including the ones mentioning “things like Black Lives Matter.”

The ads which Facebook found raise troubling questions for a social networking and advertising platform that reaches two billion people each month and offer a rare window into how Russian operatives carried out their information operations during an especially tumultuous period in U.S. politics.

Investigators at Facebook discovered the Russian ads in recent weeks, the company has said, after months of trying in vain to trace disinformation efforts back to Russia. The company has said it had identified at least $100,000 in ads purchased through 470 phony Facebook pages and accounts. Facebook has said this spending represented a tiny fraction of the political advertising on the platform for the 2016 campaign.

The previously-undisclosed ads suggest that Russian operatives worked off of evolving lists of racial, religious, political and economic themes. They used these to create pages, write posts and craft ads that would appear in user’s news feeds — with the apparent goal of appealing to one audience and alienating another. In some cases, the pages even tried to organize events.

“The idea of using Facebook to incite anti-black hatred and anti-Muslim prejudice and fear while provoking extremism is an old tactic. It’s not unique to the United States and it’s a global phenomenon,” said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, California. and the executive director for the Center for Media Justice. Social media companies “have a mandate to standup and take deep responsibility for how their platforms are being abused.”

Facebook declined to comment on the contents of the ads being turned over to congressional investigators, and pointed to a Sept. 6 statement by Alex Stamos, the company’s chief security officer, who noted that the vast majority of the ads run by the 470 pages and accounts did not specifically reference the U.S. presidential election, voting or any particular candidate.

“Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the idealogical spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights,” Stamos said at the time.

Moscow’s interest in U.S. race relations date back decades.

In Soviet times, operatives didn’t have the option of using the Internet, so they spread their messages by taking out ads in newspapers, posting fliers and organizing meetings.

Much like the online ads discovered by Facebook, messages spread by Soviet-era operatives were meant to look as though they were written by bonafide political activists in the United States, thereby disguising the involvement of an adversarial foreign power.

Russian information operations didn’t end with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After a lull in tensions, Russia’s spy agencies became more assertive under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin. In recent years, those services have updated their propaganda protocols to take advantage of new technologies and the proliferation of social media platforms.

“Is it a goal of the Kremlin to encourage discord in American society? The answer to that is yes,” said former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. “More generally, Putin has an idea that our society is imperfect, that our democracy is not better than his, so to see us in conflict on big social issues is in the Kremlin’s interests.”

Clinton Watts, part of a research team that was among the first to warn publicly of the Russian propaganda campaign during the 2016 election, said that identifying and exploiting existing social and cultural divisions are common Russian disinformation tactics dating back to the Cold War.

“We have seen them operating on both sides” said Watts, a fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a former FBI agent.

When Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his college dorm room in 2004, no one could have anticipated the company would become an advertising juggernaut worth almost half a trillion dollars — the largest online advertising company in the world after Google. Roughly a third of the world’s population now log in monthly.

As Facebook’s user base rapidly expanded, it wrote the playbook for digital targeting in the smartphone era — and for the type of micro-targeting that has become critical to modern political campaigns.

The social network invested heavily in building highly-sophisticated automated advertising tools that could target specific groups of people who had expressed their preferences and interests on Facebook, from newlyweds who studied at Dartmouth College to hockey enthusiasts living in a particular zip code in Michigan.

The migration from traditional personal computers to smartphones and tablets also helped Facebook gain a major edge: The company pioneered techniques to help advertisers reach the same user on their desktop and mobile devices, leading Facebook to grow seven-fold in its value since it went public in 2012. Today, advertisers who want to target Facebook users by demographics or interests have tens of thousands of categories to choose from, and they are able to flood users with ads wherever they go on the Internet.

Unlike most websites, where ads appear alongside content, ads on Facebook have directly appeared in people’s newsfeeds since 2012. If users like a page, the administrators of that page can pay for ads and post content that will then appear in the cascade of information from publishers and friends that users see right away when they log onto Facebook.

Since the 2012 presidential election, Facebook has become an essential tool for political campaigns that wish to target potential voters. During the height of election season, political campaigns are among the largest advertisers on Facebook. Facebook has built a large sales staff of account executives, some of whom have backgrounds in politics, that are especially trained to assist campaigns in spreading their messages, increasing engagement, and getting immediate feedback on how they are performing.

The Trump campaign used these tools to great effect, while Clinton’s campaign preferred to rely on its own social media experts, according to people familiar with the campaigns.

Since taking office, Putin has on occasion sought to spotlight racial tensions in the United States as a means of shaping perceptions of American society.

Putin injected himself in 2014 into the race debate after protests broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an African-American, by a police officer who was white.

“Do you believe that everything is perfect now from the point of view of democracy in the United States?” Putin told CBS’ 60 Minutes. “If everything was perfect, there wouldn’t be the problem of Ferguson. There would be no abuse by the police. But our task is to see all these problems and respond properly.”

In addition to the ads described to The Post, Russian operatives used Facebook to promote anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim messages. Facebook has said that one-quarter of the ads bought by the Russian operatives identified so far were targeted to a particular geographic area.

While Facebook has downplayed the impact of the Russian ads on the election, Dennis Yu, chief technology officer for BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that focuses on Facebook ads, said that $100,000 worth of Facebook ads could have been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

“$100,000 worth of very concentrated posts is very, very powerful,” he said. “When you have a really hot post, you often get this viral multiplier. So when you buy this one ad impression, you can get an extra 20- to 40-times multiplier because those people comment and share it.”

Watts, the Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow, has not seen the Facebook ads promised to Congress, but he and his team saw similar tactics playing out on Twitter and other platforms during the campaign.

Watts said such efforts were most likely to have been effective in mid-Western swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, where Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders had beaten Clinton. Watts said the disinformation pushed by the Russians includes messages designed to reinforce the idea that Sanders had been mistreated by the Democratic Party and that his supporters shouldn’t bother to vote during the general election in November.

“They were designed around hitting these fracture points, so they could see how they resonate and assess their effectiveness,” Watts said. “I call it reconnaissance by social media.”

Hey NFL, Why Stand? Billions in Subsidies, Say Thank You

Two years ago, Colin Kapernick began to take a knee in protest on racial injustice. That gesture has manifested and is now twisted into a race issue on national television on the field for all to see. Okay, we see it. What is the message today? What are the demands? Where is the cogent debate and proposed solutions? Why are kids in Pee Wee football taking a knee?

This began under the Obama administration and the Obama White House invited on countless occasions representatives to meet and work out the solutions that included re-tooling law enforcement and the approach of the Department of Justice. Now what? The fans are heartbroken and the division widens. So why not stand and work collectively? Let’s go deeper, shall we?

USAToday: In the course of everyday life, there are very few opportunities for the people of the United States to come together, pause and reflect on the hope that is only possible with freedom and democracy. Our national anthem is a statement of respect for this hope, not a declaration that those present agree with everything our nation does or fails to do.

That’s why members of the military and other public servants love sports and why sports love them. As the 18th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I witnessed the public ritual of playing the national anthem at sporting events dozens of times and saw Americans rise above their own self interests and celebrate something that is greater than themselves. More recently, I was in Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics and stood with enormous pride as our flag was raised and the anthem played when outstanding athletes across a variety of sports were moved to tears by the honor of representing their country.

Life presents plenty of opportunities for us to disagree with one another and seemingly fewer opportunities on which we agree. Standing together during the national anthem at sporting events should be one of those times when we agree, when we focus on the things that bind us together, even as we prepare to let our voices be heard in disagreement about which team is the better team.

It’s important to remember that our military is composed entirely of volunteers. It obviously takes a special kind of patriotism for people to volunteer to risk their life for their country. Theirs is not blind patriotism that pretends there is nothing wrong with the country. Every man and woman in uniform knows we still have work to do to achieve the equality, opportunity and justice for all to which we aspire. But every member of the military also knows that what is right about America is worth defending. And if it’s worth defending, it’s worth honoring.

I spent my professional life defending individual rights, and I did so with the knowledge that sometimes people would use those rights in ways that might be hurtful or insensitive. I just hope that the athletes who are using the anthem as a protest understand why people like me intend to keep standing during the national anthem. We do so not because we agree with everything America has done, or everything that has been done in America’s name, but because despite all of that the world is a better place because America exists. That seems to me to be worth the honor of respect during the national anthem.

What’s wrong about America can’t be fixed unless we acknowledge, protect and, yes, honor what is right about America. For for those who don’t like standing because they disagree with what America has done, stand and pay it forward for what you think America should do. Then, as the last echoes of the anthem fade away, go back to arguing for change from that foundation of promise that is the national anthem.

Martin E. Dempsey is a retired Army general, a Duke University Rubenstein Fellow and chairman of the Jr. NBA Leadership Council.

***

Regardless of how much 160 million football fans will enjoy the current season — it’ll be the taxpayers who inevitably lose.

Last month, the Atlanta Falcons opened Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the 22nd new NFL stadium built or renovated over the last 20 years. Almost half of the total cost of new stadiums — $5.9 billion — came from public funding from state and local governments. And that doesn’t even include the $750 million that Nevada’s legislature gave to the Raiders last fall.

New England’s Gillette Stadium opened in 2002 for a comparatively modest $542 million. Local taxpayers paid “only” $72 million of that — a bargain considering that the average public subsidy for NFL stadiums is $266 million. In comparison, the Chiefs updated Arrowhead Stadium with a $375 million renovation in 2010, with state and local governments covering two-thirds of the cost. But that’s not all Missouri taxpayers are on the hook for.

Kansas City, Jackson County, and the state of Missouri also contribute around $8.5 million annually to a special maintenance fund for stadium upkeep. But here’s the real kicker: In 2012 a whistleblower revealed that an amendment to the stadium lease contract allows the team to use the money for management and operations expenses. From 2007 through 2012 the Chiefs spent $18.3 million on non-maintenance purposes, including more than $800,000 in payroll taxes.

That’s right, the Chiefs are using taxpayer money to pay their own taxes.

Even more infuriating, the public subsidies given to the Chiefs could have bought taxpayers every ticket in the stadium for the last seven seasons.

That suggestion is absurd, of course — just like the idea that people who will never tangibly benefit from a stadium should pay for it. But it illustrates an important tradeoff: Public money spent on professional sports can’t support schools, police or roads.

Beyond lost public services, a large body of academic research conclusively shows that the “economic development” promised by stadium subsidy advocates never materializes. Instead, fans simply shift their spending from one kind of entertainment to another, creating winners and losers among local bars, restaurants and entertainment venues.

Sadly, this problem is not new. In the 1986 tax reform, Congress tried to reduce the amount of public money spent on private projects. Instead, it made the problem much worse by increasing the incentive to use tax-exempt municipal bonds for stadium subsidies. Then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-New York, spent the rest of his career trying to close the loophole he accidentally helped create, to no avail.

Now, research by the Brookings Institution estimates that the 17 NFL stadiums built since 2000 have effectively collected $1.1 billion in federal subsidies.

Earlier this year, Sens. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, and James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, picked up Moynihan’s torch with a bipartisan proposal to remove the tax exemption for sports facility funding. It’s not a silver bullet — like economist Art Rolnick’s suggestion that the IRS tax any stadium subsidy at a rate of 100 percent — but it’s a first step.

Polls suggest 70 percent of Americans are against stadium subsidies, so it seems strange that the special interests who advocate for them would have a winning record. This is a classic case of “concentrated benefits and dispersed costs,” meaning the costs of any stadium subsidy are spread out over a large number of people, while the benefits go toward a select few.

So team owners have good reason to fight hard for the handout, while each individual taxpayer has less motivation to avoid their small share of costs. In situations like this, it’s actually more surprising when the underdog wins, like when San Diego voters rejected a stadium subsidy for the Chargers last year.

But to paraphrase Ice-T, we shouldn’t hate the players, we should hate the game. Our political system is set up to allow sports teams to pursue government handouts. That’s why broad reforms addressing the root of the problem, like ending the municipal bond tax exemption, are so important. Just like the NFL tweaks the rules each year, policymakers need to address how to make football fair for taxpayers.

Goodbye Columbus, History, the Arts and Math

World history is ugly, but it is real and American history is no different. Learning about it and how it affects life today is a must, yet politics and special interest is interfering to the demise of culture and future generations.

Do you wonder why we still have CommonCore and actually what the Department of Education is doing? So do I. Take a look at the congressional committee title with education legislative responsibilities:

Committee on Education and the Workforce

No wonder there is limited education choice….

When math in public schools is being twisted in teaching methodology for social justice:

Initiative 3: Equity and Social Justice in Mathematics Education The Equity and Social Justice in Mathematics Education Initiative was established to promote, develop and support a just, equitable, and sustainable system of mathematics education that serves each and every child.

Why is this happening? Beyond political correctness and special interests, education systems are making judgments without parental input. Then local government officials take matters into the legislative realm.

A 2014 report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that an abysmal 18 percent of American high school kids were proficient in US history. When colleges such as Stanford decline to require Western Civilization classes or high schools propose changing their curriculum so that history is taught only from 1877 onward (this happened in North Carolina), it’s merely a blip in our news cycle.

A 2012 story in Perspectives on History magazine by University of North Carolina professor Bruce VanSledright found that 88 percent of elementary school teachers considered teaching history a low priority.

Los Angeles votes to rename Columbus Day ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’

The Los Angeles city council on Wednesday voted to rename Columbus Day “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

Over the years, many Native Americans groups and activists have decried the holiday as celebrating genocide, prompting numerous cities throughout the U.S. to change its name and emphasis. Columbus Day is celebrated nationally on the second Monday of October.

In Los Angeles, Italian-American groups voiced their opposition to changing the holiday, saying it would erase part of their heritage, the Los Angeles Times reported. Christopher Columbus was Italian.

South Dakota, as well as cities like Seattle, Albuquerque, and Denver, have already replaced the holiday with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The vote comes as New York has faced pressure to remove statues of Columbus in the wake of Charlottesville and the removal of Civil War statues. A beheaded statue of Columbus was found in Yonkers, N.Y., on Wednesday.

***

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — “Gone With the Wind” will be gone from The Orpheum’s summer movie series, the theater’s board said Friday.

The Orpheum Theatre Group decided not to include the 1939 movie about a plantation in the Civil War-era South in its 2018 Summer Movie Series after feedback from patrons following the last screening Aug. 11.

“As an organization whose stated mission is to ‘entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves’, the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population,” the theater’s operators said in a statement.

Memphis’ population is about 64 percent African-American.

The historic theater in Downtown Memphis has shown the movie for decades, but this year’s event “generated numerous comments,” leading to the decision.

“While title selections for the series are typically made in the spring of each year, the Orpheum has made this determination early in response to specific inquiries from patrons,” the Orpheum group said.

The theater’s 2018 movie series will be announced in the spring and will contain classic films and more recent blockbusters.

More Details for The Pro-Russia, Pro Assange Crowd

Is Sean Hannity getting something wrong here with his support of Congressman Rohrabacher and Julian Assange? If Assange is on the right side of the debate, why has he been held up in the protection of the Ecuador Embassy in Britain? Assange is working diligently to get out of his isolation and wants a seat at the White House press pool….yet he is also a financial crook too.

The FBI warned Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., in 2012 that Russian spies were attempting to recruit him as an “agent of influence,” according to a new report.

Rohrabacher was made aware of Moscow’s attempts during a meeting with an FBI agent in a secure room at the Capitol. Rohrabacher was made aware of Moscow’s attempts during a meeting with an FBI agent in a secure room at the Capitol.

Law enforcement did not believe Rohrabacher was working with or paid by the Russians, but feared he was targeted, a former U.S. official told the New York Times.

The California Republican said the meeting with the agent focused on contact he had with a person of the Russian Foreign Ministry. “They were telling me he had something to do with some kind of Russian intelligence,” Rohrabacher said.

The GOP lawmaker said the FBI agent warned him that Russia “looked at me as someone who could be influenced.”

Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., who both served on the House Intelligence Committee, were also at the meeting.

Rohrabacher has been a staunch defender of Russia for years, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., joked last year about Rohrabacher’s closeness to Moscow in a recording leaked to the Washington Post this week.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy said. The majority leader said Wednesday he was making a joke.

The FBI is currently investigating ties between President Trump’s associates and Russia. Reporters have also documented previously undisclosed meetings between those with ties to Trump and Russians.

Rohrabacher, though, has defended Trump and tried to lessen the possibility that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

“Did they try to influence our election? We have tried to influence their elections and everybody’s elections,” Rohrabacher told the Los Angeles Times in March. “The American people are being fed information that would lead them to believe that we need to be in a warlike stance when it comes to Russia.”

( a long but important read) Now for Mike Pompeo at CIA regarding Julian Assange and Wikileaks:

Director Pompeo Delivers Remarks at CSIS

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

April 13, 2017/ CIA


Good afternoon, it is a great pleasure to be here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, home to some of the sharpest minds that Washington has to offer. I am honored to deliver my first public remarks as CIA Director at such a distinguished institution.

Let me start today by telling you a story.

He was a bright, well-educated young man. He was described as industrious, intelligent, and likeable, if inclined toward impulsiveness and impatience.

At some point, he became disillusioned with intelligence work and angry at his government. He left government and decided to devote himself to what he regarded as public advocacy—exposing the intelligence officers and operations he had sworn to keep secret.

He appealed to Agency employees to send him “leads, tips, suggestions.” He wrote in a widely circulated bulletin: “We are particularly anxious to receive, anonymously if you desire, copies of US diplomatic lists and US Embassy staff.”

That man was Philip Agee, one of the founding members of the magazine Counterspy, which in its first issue in 1973 called for the exposure of CIA undercover operatives overseas. In its September 1974 issue, Counterspy publicly identified Richard Welch as the CIA Chief of Station in Athens. Later, Richard’s home address and phone number were outed in the press in Greece.

In December 1975, Richard and his wife were returning home from a Christmas party in Athens. When he got out of his car to open the gate in front of his house, Richard Welch was assassinated by a Greek terrorist cell. At the time of his death, Richard was the highest-ranking CIA officer killed in the line of duty.

Richard led a rich and honorable life, one that is celebrated with a star on the Agency’s Memorial Wall. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery and remains dearly remembered by his family and colleagues.

Meanwhile, Agee propped up his dwindling celebrity with an occasional stunt, including a Playboy interview. He eventually settled down as the privileged guest of an authoritarian regime—one that would have put him in front of a firing squad without a second thought had he betrayed their secrets as he betrayed ours.

Today, there are still plenty of Philip Agees in the world, and the harm they inflict on U.S. institutions and personnel is just as serious today as it was back then.

They don’t all come from the Intelligence Community, share the same background, or use precisely the same tactics as Agee, but they are certainly his soulmates.

Like him, they choose to see themselves in a romantic light—as heroes above the law, saviors of our free and open society. They cling to this fiction, even though their disclosures often inflict irreparable harm on both individuals and democratic governments, pleasing despots along the way.

The one thing they don’t share with Agee is the need for a publisher. All they require now is a smart phone and internet access. In today’s digital environment, they can disseminate stolen US secrets instantly around the globe to terrorists, dictators, hackers and anyone else seeking to do us harm.

* * * *

Our nation’s first line of defense against complicated and fast-moving threats like these is the US Intelligence Community. I feel deeply privileged—and still a bit amazed—that as CIA Director, I get to be a part of this great group of men and women. I’m the son of a machinist from Orange County, California. I had never been east of the Mississippi until college, spending most of my summers working on the family farm in Winfield, Kansas.

To be entrusted with leading the greatest intelligence organization in the world is something that I still can’t wrap my head around. And just as I did at West Point, I feel that I stand on the shoulders of giants, atop a long tradition of courage, ingenuity, and dedication.

After I was nominated for this post by President Trump, I talked with nearly every living former CIA Director. They spoke of the need to call things as you see them, and of the apolitical nature of the job. Above all, they spoke of their admiration and respect for our workforce. From what I’ve seen so far, they were spot on in their assessment.

* * * *

I am today surrounded by talented and committed patriots. These are men and women who signed up for a life of discretion and impact—for a career in service to their country.

These officers have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution. They have signed secrecy agreements. They quietly go about their work and try not to get too worked up over the headlines, including the fanciful notion that they spy on their fellow citizens via microwave ovens. But they are not at liberty to stand up to these false narratives and explain our mission to the American people.

Fortunately, I am. In my first meeting with CIA’s workforce, I promised that I would serve them and the American people—both at home and abroad—with the same passion and vigor that I displayed as a tank platoon leader in the Army, a business owner in Kansas, and a Congressman representing my constituents back home.

That is the reason I chose to speak here today.

As a policy, we at CIA do not comment on the accuracy of purported intelligence documents posted online. In keeping with that policy, I will not specifically comment on the authenticity or provenance of recent disclosures.

But the false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be ignored. There are fictions out there that demean and distort the work and achievements of CIA and of the broader Intelligence Community. And in the absence of a vocal rebuttal, these voices—ones that proclaim treason to be public advocacy—gain a gravity they do not deserve.

It is time to call these voices out. The men and women of CIA deserve a real defense. And the American people deserve a clear explanation of what their Central Intelligence Agency does on their behalf.

* * * *

First and foremost, we are an intelligence organization that engages in foreign espionage. We steal secrets from foreign adversaries, hostile entities, and terrorist organizations. We analyze this intelligence so that our government can better understand the adversaries we face in a challenging and dangerous world.

And we make no apologies for doing so. It’s hard stuff and we go at it hard.

Because when it comes to overseas threats, CIA is aggressive in our pursuit of the information we need to help safeguard our country. We utilize the whole toolkit at our disposal, fully employing the authorities and capabilities that Congress, the courts, and the Executive Branch have deemed lawful and appropriate, and consistent with our American ideals.

We do these things because it’s our job. It’s what we signed up to do. And if we didn’t, we’d have a tough time justifying our budget to the American taxpayer.

One of the few heartening things to come out of the disclosures debate is the realization that much of America does understand the important role we play. As the CEO of a security research firm recently noted, CIA appears to be doing “exactly what we pay them to do—exploit specific targets with limited attacks to support our national interests.”

Our mission is simple in concept yet difficult in practice. We work to provide the best information possible to the President and his administration so that they can advance our national interests and protect our country.

It is a mission that CIA has carried out for years, quietly and effectively. Our accomplishments generally remain classified, but a few special ones are known to the world.

For example, CIA has been a crucial player in the global campaign against nuclear proliferation. We’ve helped unravel the nuclear smuggling network used by A.Q. Khan, assisted in exposing a covert nuclear facility in Syria, and gathered intelligence—with the help of our liaison partners—that persuaded Libya to abandon its nuclear program.

CIA has also been at the cutting edge of incredible technological innovation throughout our history. We led efforts to develop the U-2 aircraft and orbiting satellites—endeavors that allowed us to surveil activities in rival states that were otherwise closed to us.

We’ve pushed back the boundaries of the possible in ways that have benefitted both the security and welfare of the American public. For example, when we needed long-lasting power sources for certain operational missions, in the 1960s our scientists helped to develop the lithium-ion battery—technology that ultimately has powered pacemakers and cell phones alike. More recently, CIA investment in a technology venture in 2003 led to the development of what we know today as Google Earth.

My first few months on the job have only reaffirmed for me that this innovative spirit is very much alive and well at CIA.

* * * *

So I’d now like to make clear what CIA doesn’t do. We are a foreign intelligence agency. We focus on collecting information about foreign governments, foreign terrorist organizations, and the like—not Americans. A number of specific rules keep us centered on that mission and protect the privacy of our fellow Americans. To take just one important example, CIA is legally prohibited from spying on people through electronic surveillance in the United States. We’re not tapping anyone’s phone in Wichita.

I know there will always be skeptics. We need to build trust with them. But I also know firsthand, from what I saw as a member of a Congressional oversight committee and from what I see now as Director, that CIA takes its legal restrictions and responsibilities with the utmost seriousness. We have stringent regulations, an engaged and robust Office of the General Counsel, and an empowered and independent Office of Inspector General to make sure of that.

Moreover, regardless of what you see on the silver screen, we do not pursue covert action on a whim without approval or accountability. There is a comprehensive process that starts with the President and consists of many levels of legal and policy review and reexamination. Let me assure you: When it comes to covert action, there is oversight and accountability every step of the way.

I inherited an Agency that has a real appreciation for the law and for the Constitution. Despite fictional depictions meant to sell books or box-office tickets, we are not an untethered or rogue agency. So yes, while we have some truly awesome capabilities at our disposal, our officers do not operate in areas or against targets that are rightfully and legally off-limits to us.

At our core, we are an organization committed to uncovering the truth and getting it right. We devote ourselves to perfecting our tradecraft. We work hard to maintain truly global coverage, operating in austere, far-flung areas that demand both expeditionary capabilities and spirit. We spend hours upon hours collecting information, and poring over reports and data. We experiment and innovate so we can dominate our adversaries in both the physical and cyber realms.

And sure—we also admit to making mistakes. In fact, because CIA is accountable to the free and open society we help defend, the times in which we have failed to live up to the high standards our fellow citizens expect of us have been catalogued over the years, even by our own government. These mistakes are public, to an extent that I doubt any other nation could ever match. But it is always our intention—and duty—to get it right.

* * * *

And that is one of the many reasons why we at CIA find the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. Because while we do our best to quietly collect information on those who pose very real threats to our country, individuals such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves. As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security.

WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations.

It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence—the GRU—had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia’s primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.

Now, for those of you who read the editorial page of the Washington Post—and I have a feeling that many of you in this room do—yesterday you would have seen a piece of sophistry penned by Mr. Assange. You would have read a convoluted mass of words wherein Assange compared himself to Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. One can only imagine the absurd comparisons that the original draft contained.

Assange claims to harbor an overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America. But I assure you that this man knows nothing of America and our ideals. He knows nothing of our third President, whose clarion call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness continue to inspire us and the world. And he knows nothing of our 34th President, a hero from my very own Kansas, who helped to liberate Europe from fascists and guided America through the early years of the Cold War.

No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history.

We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes, they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values.

They do not care about the causes and people they claim to represent. If they did, they would focus instead on the autocratic regimes in this world that actually suppress free speech and dissent. Instead, they choose to exploit the legitimate secrets of democratic governments—which has, so far, proven to be a much safer approach than provoking a tyrant.

Clearly, these individuals are not especially burdened by conscience. We know this, for example, because Assange has been more than cavalier in disclosing the personal information of scores of innocent citizens around the globe. We know this because the damage they have done to the security and safety of the free world is tangible. And the examples are numerous.

When Snowden absconded to the comfortable clutches of Russian intelligence, his treachery directly harmed a wide range of US intelligence and military operations. Despite what he claims, he is no whistleblower. True whistleblowers use the well-established and discreet processes in place to voice grievances; they do not put American lives at risk.

In fact, a colleague of ours at NSA recently explained that more than a thousand foreign targets—people, groups, organizations—more than a thousand of them changed or tried to change how they communicated as a result of the Snowden disclosures. That number is staggering.

And the bottom line is that it became harder for us in the Intelligence Community to keep Americans safe. It became harder to monitor the communications of terrorist organizations that are bent on bringing bloodshed to our shores. Snowden’s disclosures helped these groups find ways to hide themselves in the crowded digital forest.

Even in those cases where we were able to regain our ability to collect, the damage was already done. We work in a business with budgetary and time constraints. The effort to earn back access that we previously possessed meant that we had less time to look for new threats.

As for Assange, his actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned.

AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of life as well. That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of reprehensible.

Have no doubt that the disclosures in recent years caused harm—great harm—to our nation’s security, and they will continue to do so over the long term. They threaten the trust we’ve developed with our foreign partners when trust is a crucial currency among allies. They risk damaging morale for the good officers of the Intelligence Community who take the high road every day. And I can’t stress enough how these disclosures have severely hindered our ability to keep all Americans safe.

No, Julian Assange and his kind are not the slightest bit interested in improving civil liberties or enhancing personal freedom. They have pretended that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice. They may have believed that, but they are wrong.

Assange is a narcissist who has created nothing of value. He relies on the dirty work of others to make himself famous. He is a fraud—a coward hiding behind a screen.

And in Kansas, we know something about false Wizards.

But I’m not the only one who knows what Assange really is. Even those who often benefit from Assange’s leaks have called him out for his overblown statements. The Intercept, which in the past has gleefully reported on unauthorized disclosures, accused WikiLeaks in late March of “stretching the facts” in its comments about CIA. In the same article, the Intercept added that the documents were “not worth the concern WikiLeaks generated by its public comments.”

* * * *

So we face a crucial question: What can we do about this? What can and should CIA, the United States, and our allies do about the unprecedented challenge posed by these hostile non-state intelligence agencies?

While there is no quick fix—no foolproof cure—there are steps that we can take to undercut the danger. First, it is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons.

Second, there are steps that we have to take at home—in fact, this is a process we’ve already started. We’ve got to strengthen our own systems; we’ve got to improve internal mechanisms that help us in our counterintelligence mission. All of us in the Intelligence Community had a wake-up call after Snowden’s treachery. Unfortunately, the threat has not abated.

I can’t go into great detail, but the steps we take can’t be static. Our approach to security has to be constantly evolving. We need to be as clever and innovative as the enemies we face. They won’t relent, and neither will we.

We can never truly eliminate the threat but we can mitigate and manage it. This relies on agility and on dynamic “defense in depth.” It depends on a fundamental change in how we address digital problems, understanding that best practices have to evolve in real time. It is a long-term project but the strides we have taken—particularly the rapid and tireless response of our Directorate of Digital Innovation—give us grounds for optimism.

Third, we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.

And finally—and perhaps most importantly—we need to deepen the trust between the Intelligence Community and the citizens we strive to protect.

At CIA, I can assure you that we are committed to earning that trust every day. We know we can never take it for granted. We must continue to be as open as possible with the American people so that our society can reach informed judgments on striking the proper balance between individual privacy and national security.

As CIA Director, it is my sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and defend national security. And as somebody who practiced law, built businesses, and ran for public office to represent my neighbors and fellow citizens, I fully understand why nobody should have to blindly place their trust in government.

Granted, the intelligence arena can never be as transparent as other parts of government. Secrecy is essential to us because we have hardworking officers and foreign agents in harm’s way, doing dangerous work on behalf of our country.

But even if we can’t share everything with the people, we can share it with the President they elected and with the overseers they sent to Congress. Having served on the committee myself, I am a CIA Director who fully understands the imperative of oversight. Doing right by the American people is as important to me as carrying out our Agency’s mission. And I will hold our officers to the same standard.

But remember, these officers grew up loving this country and the ideals it represents. They are Americans just like you, devoted to their jobs, trying to do their best.

The men and women I work with at Langley are patriots, and I am honored to lead them. They have my trust. They have my faith. And as long as I’m lucky enough to have the best job in the world, I promise you that CIA will be tireless in our mission to keep our country safe and, yes, to get it right.

Thank you all very much.

UNESCO declares Hebron shrine Palestinian

  Israeli soldier guards at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron

You would think by virtue of a UN heritage committee known as United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, they would get history right. Israel has provided proof and historical evidence, where is that from the Palestinians?

The Tomb and the city of Hebron is the second holiest site in Judaism, after the Temple Mount and its Western Wall, he noted. The Bible clearly records its purchase by Abraham. The committee of T21  members are: Angola, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Croatia, Cuba, Finland, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, United Republic of Tnzania, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Anymore questions on the countries that refuse history and remain Anti-Semitic?

Now is the time for the United States to defund UNESCO and the UNRWA.

Following the resolution passed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee regarding the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Friday, 7 July 2017), decided to cut an additional $1 million from the membership funds that Israel pays to the UN and to transfer it to the establishment of “The Museum of the Heritage of the Jewish People in Kiryat Arba and Hebron” and to additional heritage projects related to Hebron.

Against UNESCO’s denial of the past, Prime Minister Netanyahu is determined to present to the entire world the historic truth and the Jewish People’s deep connection – of thousands of years – to Hebron.

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Tomb of Sarah, wife a Patriarch Abraham

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The U.N. cultural organisation declared an ancient shrine in the occupied West Bank a Palestinian heritage site on Friday, prompting Israel to further cut its funding to the United Nations.

UNESCO designated Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart – the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque – a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called that “another delusional UNESCO decision” and ordered that $1 million be diverted from Israel’s U.N. funding to establish a museum and other projects covering Jewish heritage in Hebron.

The funding cut is Israel’s fourth in the past year, taking its U.N. contribution from $11 million to just $1.7 million, an Israeli official said. Each cut has come after various U.N. bodies voted to adopt decisions which Israel said discriminated against it.

Palestinian Foreign Minister, Reyad Al-Maliki, said the UNESCO vote, at a meeting in Krakow, Poland, was proof of the “successful diplomatic battle Palestine has launched on all fronts in the face of Israeli and American pressure on (UNESCO) member countries.”

Hebron is the largest Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank with a population of some 200,000. About 1,000 Israeli settlers live in the heart of the city and for years it has been a place of religious friction between Muslims and Jews.

Jews believe that the Cave of the Patriarchs is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives, are buried. Muslims, who, like Christians, also revere Abraham, built the Ibrahimi mosque, also known as the Sanctuary of Abraham, in the 14th century.

The religious significance of the city has made it a focal point for settlers, who are determined to expand the Jewish presence there. Living in the heart of the city, they require intense security, with some 800 Israeli troops protecting them.

Even before Netanyahu’s budget announcement, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan signalled Israel would seek to further make its mark at the Hebron shrine, tweeting: “UNESCO will continue to adopt delusional decisions but history cannot be erased … we must continue to manifest our right by building immediately in the Cave of the Patriarchs.”

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)