Snowden: NSA Employees Routinely Pass Around Nude Photos Obtained Via Mass Surveillance

Edward Snowden just told the Guardian:

Snowden …. Made a startling claim that a culture exists within the NSA in which, during surveillance, nude photographs picked up of people in “sexually compromising” situations are routinely passed around.

NSA employees have also been caught using their mass surveillance powers to spy on love interests, such as girlfriends, obsessions or former wives … and to eavesdrop on American soldiers’ intimate conversations with their wives back home.

By way of background, US and UK intelligence services have gathered millions of webcam images … many nude.  The NSA collects and permanently retains many suggestive photographic images gathered in other ways. And top experts say the NSA is collecting the CONTENT of all of our phone calls and emails.

So NSA employees have access to a lot of nude or suggestive videos, photos, phone calls and emails.

It’s not just NSA … many government agencies have become corrupted.

For example, an employee of the Transportation Security Administration admitted that TSA agents share – and laugh at – nude scans of passengers.

And as we’ve  previously documented:

  • Senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes
  • Nuclear Regulatory Commission workers watch porn instead of cracking down on unsafe conditions at nuclear plants
  • Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy
  • The Minerals Management Service – the regulator charged with overseeing BP and other oil companies to ensure that oil spills don’t occur – was riddled with “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity”, which included “sex with industry contacts




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Malaysia Airlines Management Needs Overhaul

By EconMatters  

 

 

On Thursday a Malaysia Airlines flight crashed with 295 people on board over eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, there is a high probability that the conflict in this region caused this plane to be shot down by accident. There are a myriad of scenarios of how this could happen in the confusion of what essentially has been a war zone, an area that the FAA has banned all U.S. commercial flights from flying over since April of this year. These kinds of accidents happen all the time in the confusion of military hotspots if we look back at historical records, the US even shot down a commercial Iranian flight by accident, these things happen. 

 

However the real question is why didn`t Malaysia Airlines also reroute flight patterns over this area as records show that other Malaysia Airlines flights have crossed over this highly combative area the last couple of days. How stupid do you have to be to send a commercial flight over what essentially is a warzone? I bet it came down to trying to save some fuel costs for the airline, but come on this is another case of an airline being penny wise and pound foolish. How much do you think the airline actually saved by taking the most direct route? Compare this figure with the amount of money they are going to pay out in liabilities to the families of the passengers on this plane. The trial lawyers must be lining up around the block on this one, not to mention the reputational damage caused by this latest incident with a Malaysia Airlines flight. Why would anybody ever fly this airline again?

 

 

I know some may think that I am being too harsh on poor Malaysia Airlines, as they are the victim in this case right, well that is one point of view. But the more logical perspective is that this was just an accident waiting to happen, so much so that the US rerouted flights over this area, and it appears that Malaysia Airlines was just being too cheap to do the same! Talk about gross incompetence at an airline, who knows what went on with that missing flight looking back in retrospect. This airline`s incompetence brings onboard an entirely new batch of possible scenarios of what really happened to that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March of this year.

 

One thing is apparent after this latest disaster at the airline, upper management needs to be completely overhauled. Their critical decision making abilities are non-existent, and their ability to manage and evaluate risk scenarios is severely lacking, and the way they handled the entire missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 investigation was incompetence at its finest! This management team is singlehandedly going to cause this airline to go out of business at this rate, and by my accounts Malaysia Airlines should go out of business. Let a competent airline buy out their operations, do humanity a favor, I mean come on flying commercial flights routinely over a combat zone, and you are surprised that an accident of this magnitude occurred? The real surprise is why it took this long given the circumstances in the region, what a bunch of idiots at Malaysia Airlines!

 

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Meanwhile, Israel Launches Ground Invasion Of Gaza

While the mainstream media busily speculates on just which Russians (because they are sure it’s not the Ukrainians) shot the jet out of the sky, Al Jazeera, via Bloomberg, reports that things are escalating once again in Israel:

  • ISRAEL GROUND INVASION OF GAZA HAS STARTED: AL JAZEERA
  • ISRAELI ARMY DECLINES TO COMMENT ON REPORT OF GROUND INVASION

The operation is reportedly on a wide scale.

  • *HEAVY ARTILLERY FIRE HEARD THROUGHOUT GAZA

As Blomberg reports,

Operation includes forces on ground, air, sea, Al Jazeera says, citing its own reporter.

 

Operation is on a wide scale: Al Jazeera

 

Israel Army declines to comment on the report when called by Bloomberg News




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Connecticut Man Arrested for “Passive Aggressive” Behavior to a Watermelon

Screen Shot 2014-07-17 at 1.16.25 PMAs is typically the case with posts on Liberty Blitzkrieg, the reason for highlighting this story is to see it in the context of other cultural trends happening within society. One of my biggest themes in 2014 has to do with the aggressive manner in which “authorities” relentlessly pursue average citizens for the most insignificant of infractions, while the most dastardly and destructive of criminals (financial oligarchs and others) receive, at worst, a slap on the wrist. Some of the more egregious examples of this behavior can be found below:

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What The Sky Above Ukraine Looks Like Right Now

With virtually every airline now avoiding to fly above east Ukraine like the airborne version of the plague (observed recently in Denver) for obvious reasons, here is a snapshot of what the sky over east Ukraine looks like courtesy of FlightRadar 24.

It is, in brief, a ghost sky.

The highlighted plane belong to Ukraine Airlines. All the other, yellow, ones are doing their best to fly well inside Russian borders.

The real-time interactive map can be found here.




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Fed’s Bullard Urges Investors To Sell Bonds (But Not Stocks)

Given the market's rapid surge to dismissing The Fed's stock-selling recommendations, we are stunned by the silence of "market defenders" as once again the Fed takes to the airwaves to demand investors sell their bonds…

  • BULLARD SAYS FED BALANCE SHEET POSES INFLATIONARY RISK; QE 'FORCED SOME INVESTORS INTO MORE RISK TAKING'
  • BULLARD SAYS HE WORRIES ABOUT A BOND MARKET BUBBLE BUT STOCKS RETURNED TO MORE TRADITIONAL VALUATION'

Of course we know why they are so desperate for investors to sell their bonds (aside from the economic growth reassuring meme it provides), because they are in full panic mode over the broken repo markets we discussed in detail here.

*  *  *

As if to embarass himself further, Bullard states…

  • *BULLARD PREDICTS FED WILL END QE WITHOUT DISRUPTING MARKETS

Which is NOT what happened the last 2 times… no matter how well telegraphed or discounted

*  *  *

As we explained previously,

But why do I care about some archaic money-market malarkey? Simple, Without collateral to fund repo, there is no repo; without repo, there is no leveraged positioning in financial markets; without leverage and the constant hypothecation there is nothing to maintain the stock market's exuberance (as we are already seeing in JPY and bonds).

Crucially, it should be inherently obvious to everyone that the moves we see in the stock market is not about mom and pop choosing to invest in the stock market (or not) as the 'cash on the slidelines' fallacy is "completely idiotic' but about the marginal leveraged machine (or human) quickly jumping oin momentum.

The spike in "fails to deliver" highlights a major growing problem in the repo markets that provide that leverage… and thus the glue that holds stock markets together.

Wondering why JPY and bond yields have diverged so notably from stocks in recent days… repo effects (it's just a matter of time before it hits stocks)…

 

So that explains why the Fed is so desperate to talk you into selling your bonds – most notably the short-end by demanding you listen to what Yellen said about raising rates.. as that reduces the shortfall of collateral that repo needs and restocks the banks with repo-able funds.

*  *  *

Is that why a noted dove like Jim Bullard was so visibly hawkish last time?

The irony of course of the Fed explaining how rates will rise faster is that it spooks stock investors who have grown used to exuberant liquidity supply and roitates them to bonds… which merely exacerbates the problem the Fed has




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Ukraine Rebels Find Black Box, Multiple Airlines Halt Routes Over Ukraine: Full MH 17 Update

The plot thickens. Moments ago, after Ukraine emergency services complained the crash probe was being hampered by separatists, it is these same “rebels” that appear to have found a key piece of the puzzle.

  • PRO-RUSSIAN SEPARATISTS IN EASTERN UKRAINE SAY THEY HAVE FOUND “BLACK BOX” FLIGHT RECORDER OF DOWNED MALAYSIAN AIRLINER – INTERFAX

The question now is simple: what happens to the black box next, and perhaps more importantly – why anyone thinks a black box will have any information on who shot the missile that allegedly took down flight MH 17.

Here are the other notable updates in the past hour from Bloomberg:

  • Putin’s plane may have been target of Ukrainian rocket: Interfax
    • Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plane crossed route of crashed Malaysian plane near Warsaw, Interfax reports, citing unidentified person in Russian aviation service.
    • Possible that Ukrainian rocket was fired from land or from military plane: Interfax cites source
    • Plane that crashed was similar in size, color: Interfax
      Obama Says U.S. Trying to Determine if U.S. Citizens on Plane
  • Ukraine Crash Kills 23 U.S. Citizens: Interior Ministry Adviser
  • Multiple airlines say they’re avoiding airspace in Eastern Ukraine
  • Lufthansa to avoid E. Ukraine airspace on shot-down plane
  • KLM avoids flying over concerned territory
  • Alitalia says all routes over Ukraine, nearby airspace halted
  • Aeroflot says flights going around Ukraine: RIA Novosti
  • Air France says it’s stopped flying over E. Ukraine
  • Turkish Airlines flights to avoid Ukraine airspace:  Reuters
  • Transaero to avoid flying over Ukrainian territory
  • BA says its flights don’t use E. Ukraine airspace




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President Obama Speaks – Live Feed

While President Obama is supposed to be discussing the need to spend more and more taxpayer money (especially those who benefitted unequally from the Fed’s money printing) on infrastructure… but can’t because of the Republicans… think of the bridges and roads. However, we suspect he will be forced to take note of the ongoing accusations in Ukraine (and his conversation with Putin)

  • *PUTIN `NOTED’ EARLY REPORTS OF DOWNED PLANE TO OBAMA: READOUT
  • *OBAMA TOLD PUTIN RUSSIA MAY FACE `CONTINUED COSTS’ W/O CHANGE

 

President Obama is due to speak at 1410ET…




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What Happens to These Folks When the Bond Bubble Bursts?

For 40 years, the financial world has experienced a bull market in bonds. What this means is that for 40 years, bond prices have risen while yields fell.  As yields fell, it became easier and easier for investors to borrow money.

 

For simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on the 10-Year Treasury.

 

The 10-Year Treasury is the benchmark for risk in the financial system. All asset classes and interest rates are ultimately priced relative to the 10-Treasury yield.

 

The reason for this is that lending money to the US is considered to be the effectively “risk free” because A) the US can tax its citizens to pay you back or B) can print money. This, combined with the US’s low rate of defaults (the US has never officially defaulted on its debts, though there have been metaphoric defaults e.g. when we left the Gold standard)

 

Stocks, corporate bonds, mortgages, auto loans, emerging market stocks… everything you can name are ultimately priced based on their perceived risk relative to the “risk free” rate of lending money to the US for 10 years. After all, if you can earn 4% “risk free” why invest in a more risky investment unless you can earn more?

 

This is the basic philosophy underlying all modern financial analysis. It is applied by everyone from mutual fund managers to C-level executives looking to decide on whether to fund an expansion or not (again, if they can make 4% on their case “risk-free” any business venture they pursue should hopefully yield more than this if it’s worth the risk).

 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the history of the 10-Year Treasury.

 

In 1980, at the depth of the last bear market in bonds, the 10-year was yielding around 16%. This meant that in general, if you borrowed money at that time, you would be paying more than 18% per annum on the loan (anyone who lent you money instead of the lending to the US Government by buying a Treasury, would be expecting a much higher rate of return for the greater risk).

 

So, if you’d borrowed $100,000 in 1980, you’d need to pay at least $18K to finance the loan per year (for simplicity’s sake, I’m not bothering to include principal repayments).

 

Obviously, with interest rates at this level, you’d think twice before taking out that loan.

 

The great bull market in bonds started in 1983. Since that time the yield on the 10-year has fallen almost continuously.

 

When considering this it is important to assess two things:

 

1)   The psychological resistance to borrowing money/ investment risk shrank year after year.

2)   The overall timeline and its impact on different generations.

 

For 40 years, with few exceptions, it became increasingly cheaper to borrow money. The flip side of this is that the overall “risk” of the investment world (remember that all investments move in relation to “risk free” 10-year Treasuries) shrank on an almost yearly basis for 40 years.

 

This was a truly tectonic shift in the investment landscape occurring over four decades. During that period we had the Long-Term Capital Crisis, the Asia Crisis, the Ruble Crisis, the Peso Crisis, the Tech Crash AND the 2008 Meltdown.

 

Throughout this period, despite these numerous crises, risk became increasingly cheaper. This is truly astounding and can be largely traced to the Federal Reserve (more on this later).

 

The second item is important because this time period (40 years) encompasses at least 2 if not 3 generations. A 30 year old who shied away from borrowing money at 18% in 1980 was 50 with children in their teens by the year 2000. That individual’s children would grow up in an era in which interest rates were below 10% for their entire lives and below 7% for as long as they could remember.

 

From an investor perspective, this means that any professional investor who was working in the late ‘70s/ early ‘80s would now be retired (e.g. a bond fund manager who was 25 in 1980 would now be 65).  Put another way, there is an entire generation of professional investors aged 22-60 who have never invested during a bear market in bonds (a period in which risk was generally increasing).

 

In the near past, the last time the Fed raised rates was in 2004. And that was the first rate raise in four years. Put another way, the Fed has only raised interest rates once in the last 14 years.

 

So not only are we dealing with an investment landscape in which virtually no working fund manager has experienced a bear market in bonds… we’ve actually got an entire generation of investment professionals who have experienced only one increase in interest rates in 14 years.

 

Whenever rates rise, which they will, the investment herd will be out of their depth.

 

This concludes this article. If you’re looking for the means of protecting your portfolio from the coming collapse, you can pick up a FREE investment report titled Protect Your Portfolio at http://ift.tt/170oFLH.

 

This report outlines a number of strategies you can implement to prepare yourself and your loved ones from the coming market carnage.

 

Best Regards

 

Phoenix Capital Research

 

 

 

 




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Jim Rogers Blasts “The US Dollar Is A Terribly Flawed Currency”

Reflecting on the growing anti-dollar alliance (especially among the BRICS as we noted here), Jim Rogers exclaimsThe US dollar is an extremely flawed currency… we have serious problems… and the world needs something else.” His perspective is that maybe (just maybe) a combined China, Russia, Brazil joint-currency can battle the dollar’s dominance. Rogers goes on to discuss the rationale for the increased cooperation between these 5 nations with multi-billion populations but notes while Russia has lots to add, “I would throw India out” of BRICS.

 

 

The BRICS…




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