Central Banks and the NSA agree to spy on stock market, emails phone calls etc.
This new agreement, called the 'Market Assistance Directive' (MAD) will allow the Central Banks to use their unlimited resources to trade and profit based on inside information on an almost unimaginable scale.
The National Security Agency (NSA), a host of European, Russian, Canadian and Chinese spy agencies and the world’s Central Banks will ensure that the only relevant force in Global Stock markets will be the trading activity of the world’s Central Banks. Thanks to the data gathering of the NSA and its subsidiary spy agencies around the world, the Central Banks will be privy to the most confidential conversations and communications from the boardroom, the bedroom and the trading floor.
Gustavo Laframboise-Pierre, Global Director of Statistical Creation at the European Central Bank [ECB]. Dear reader, before you click away in an indignant fit of outrage at the mere suggestion of this preposterous reality. I would encourage you to ask yourself one question. Would you or any of your trusted friends and honorable family members, if given access to inside information that would allow one to guarantee oneself untold wealth, without fear of legal reprisal, by trading in the stock market based on this inside information, would you or they turn the opportunity down?
Massive profits on their personal trading accounts are inevitable. It is a denial of human nature to believe that this activity is not only prevalent, it is the norm.
“The central banks, thanks to an agreement with the world’s spy agencies, [this would be the aforementioned MAD agreement] we bankers are now privy to not only the emails and phone calls of all the world’s politicians, business leaders, journalists, accountants, lawyers but to the innermost thoughts of every citizen who uses an electronic device for communication” Gustavo Laframboise-Pierre said.
“With this information we can use our resources to control the global markets. Now there is no trade, no event, no market information that we bankers do not know in advance. We can literally make as much money as we want. At the same time we relegate to destitution any soul who dares to challenge us. All we had to do to finalize the agreement was to promise to kick back 20% of our profits to the senior members of the spy agencies and 10% of our profits to their political masters.”
“Bankers have been given immunity from prosecution for any misdeed or imperfection no matter how damaging it is to the markets, the global economy and society. HSBC , JP Morgan Chase , European banks , the list goes on. Banks are fined but no individual banker goes to jail. How many times do bankers need to skate on corruption charges before you get it through your thick skull that you can fine the bank but you cannot put bankers in jail?” Gustavo postulated.
“Gustavo”, I replied, “I don’t know where to begin. How does any of this help Main Street and the masses? This sounds like a conspiracy by the 1% to own the entire universe”. “I am glad you brought that up David” he slurred. [The effects of his overindulgence of the Cognac was starting to have the usual impact] “That whole silly Occupy movement and its childish 99% versus the 1% was our creation. The 1% is a phrase we coined to give us cover as we filled our pockets. You see David; there are two types of wealth in this world. The first is wealth created by innovators, creators, entrepreneurs, risk-takers, hard workers, savers: diligent, honest, principled, prudent, responsible men and woman”, Gustavo pontificated.
The other type of wealth is created by creatures like me who scam, suck, pillage and plunder the public purse and Main Street’s wallets. We create nothing. We central bankers and our commercial and retail cousins contribute nothing. We take what we can while convincing the masses that we ‘have got their backs.’ Can you believe that bankers are still able to pay themselves tens of millions of dollars a year after the damage they have done to the global economy?” Gustavo opined.
http://davidhague.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/nsa-inks-landmark-deal-to-share-information-with-central-banks/
Handbook on the Implementation of the Services Directive:
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/services/docs/services-dir/guides/handbook_en.pdf
NSA says that without bulk collection of private data, they can't save American lives:
I don't know a better way to do it," said General Keith Alexander, director of the National Intelligence Agency, to a Senate oversight panel on Wednesday.
Referring to the bulk-collection of personal data that the NSA sweeps up in a series of domestic and global surveillance programs that have been disclosed to the public through a trove a leaked internal documents this year, Alexander defended the practices of his agency as necessary to save lives.
"There is no other way we know of to connect the dots," he said in testimony and suggested, according to reporting by the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman, that even if lawmakers passed measures barring the collection of so-called "meta-data" and other forms of private information, "that would not be final word on the matter." The NSA’s main justification for Constitution-shredding mass surveillance on all Americans is 9/11. In reality:
Top security experts say that mass spying interferes with U.S. counter-terror efforts (more here and here)
American presidents agree
The chairs of the 9/11 Commission say that the spying has gone way too far (and that the Director of National Intelligence should be prosecuted for lying about the spying program)
Top officials say that the claim that the government could only have stopped the attacks if it had been able to spy on Americans is wholly false
But we want to focus on another angle: the unspoken assumption by the NSA that we need mass surveillance because “lone wolf” terrorists don’t leave as many red flags as governments, so the NSA has to spy on everyone to find the needle in the haystack.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/12-0
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/saudis.html
Instead of reining in mass surveillance, Obama tries to put lipstick on a pig:
The New York Times Editorial Board writes:
President Obama, who seems to think the American people simply need some reassurance that their privacy rights are intact, proposed a series of measures that only tinker around the edges of the nation’s abusive surveillance programs.
The collection of records will continue as it has for years, gathering far more information than is necessary to fight terrorism.
Fundamentally, Mr. Obama does not seem to understand that the nation needs to hear more than soothing words about the government’s spying enterprise. He suggested that if ordinary people trusted the government not to abuse their privacy, they wouldn’t mind the vast collection of phone and e-mail data.
Bizarrely, he compared the need for transparency to showing his wife that he had done the dishes, rather than just telling her he had done so. Out-of-control surveillance is a bit more serious than kitchen chores.
It is the existence of these programs that is the problem, not whether they are modestly transparent. As long as the N.S.A. believes it has the right to collect records of every phone call — and the administration released a white paper Friday that explained, unconvincingly, why it is perfectly legal — then none of the promises to stay within the law will mean a thing.
Once again – when bad government policy is revealed – the government just tries to put lipstick on the pig.
As the Guardian reports:
A participant in a White House-sponsored review of surveillance activities described as “shameful” an apparent decision to leave most of the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk spying intact.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/instead-reining-mass-surveillance-obama-tries-put-lipstick-pig.html
Facebook saves everything you type - even if you don't publish it:
The code that powers Facebook still knows what you typed – even if you decide not to publish it. It turns out the things you explicitly choose not to share aren't entirely private.
Facebook calls these unposted thoughts "self-censorship", and insights into how it collects these non-posts can be found in a recent paper written by two Facebookers. Sauvik Das, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon and summer software engineer intern at Facebook, and Adam Kramer, a Facebook data scientist, have put online an article presenting their study of the self-censorship behavior collected from 5 million English-speaking Facebook users. It reveals a lot about how Facebook monitors our unshared thoughts and what it thinks about them.
The NSA is monitoring things we have actually put online. Facebook, on the other hand, is analyzing thoughts that we have intentionally chosen not to share.
The study examined aborted status updates, posts on other people's timelines and comments on others' posts. To collect the text you type, Facebook sends code to your browser. That code automatically analyses what you type into any text box and reports metadata back to Facebook.
Storing text as you type isn't uncommon on other websites. For example, if you use Gmail, your draft messages are automatically saved as you type them. Even if you close the browser without saving, you can usually find a (nearly) complete copy of the email you were typing in your drafts folder.
Facebook is using essentially the same technology here. The difference is that Google is saving your messages to help you. Facebook users don't expect their unposted thoughts to be collected, nor do they benefit from it.
It is not clear to the average reader how this data collection is covered by Facebook's privacy policy. In Facebook's Data Use Policy, under a section called "Information we receive and how it is used", it's made clear that the company collects information you choose to share or when you "view or otherwise interact with things". But nothing suggests that it collects content you explicitly don't share.
Typing and deleting text in a box could be considered a type of interaction, but I suspect very few of us would expect that data to be saved. A Facebook, representative told me the company believes this self-censorship is a type of interaction covered by the policy.http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/facebook-saves-everything-you-type--even-if-you-dont-publish-it-20131214-2zdk0.html
Obama offering high school seniors $30,000+ to spy for NSA:
Obama is offering high school seniors $30,000 a year for college tuition, PLUS a job, housing, transportation and a galore of other benefits. Apparently, Obama is having a hard time finding youths willing to spy on their friends, so he’s upping the ante. NSA.Gov currently has a “job” posted for young people who are desperate for a job, thanks to Obama’s lackluster recovery. Under “Careers” and “Opportunities for You,” the NSA has this posting with a bold red alert notice at the top: “Notice: Stokes Scholarship Application Deadline extended until 30 November 2013.” The objective of this job is ambiguous. The Obama administration should be transparent about why taxpayers are being forced to provide these “jobs” and “entitlements” to high school seniors. In the long run, will these jobs benefit young people, or will they benefit control-hungry bureaucrats? Also, what exactly will these young people be doing? The NSA website says young people will work in “computer science” and “computer or electrical engineering,” but without concrete details on the projects under those categories. From the NSA’s website: “Stokes is open to high school seniors planning on majoring in computer science or computer/electrical engineering. As an NSA employee with the Stokes Program, you will attend college full-time, receive up to $30,000 per year for tuition and mandatory fees; and work during the summers at NSA for 12 weeks in areas that are related to your course of study. You'll acquire real-world experience and receive a year-round salary. Please note: must maintain a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale after your freshman year, if selected as a program participant, you are required to work in your area of study for NSA after your college graduation for at least one-and-one-half times the length of study.” Wait. That’s not all! The government has many other benefits in store for young snoopers:· Housing and travel entitlements available during summer employment (if the distance between NSA and the school exceeds 75 miles) (You are “entitled” to housing and a taxi driver.) · Year-round salary (Never worry about beer money again.)· Guaranteed continued employment with NSA after graduation (Snooper for Life!)· Receive annual and sick leave and paid federal holidays (Lovely.)· Health and life insurance (While the rest of us see premium increases and cancelations.)· Participation in federal retirement plans (Retirement plan? These are high school seniors!) Seriously? This is what Obama is pushing on our young people? This is a complete joke. Young people should be encouraged to pursue careers in their field of interest that utilize their talents, not to troll Facebook, text messages and who knows what else to spy on Americans.http://townhall.com/columnists/katiekieffer/2013/11/18/obama-offers-high-school-seniors-30000-to-snoop-for-nsa-n1747547/page/full