NYT Forced to Acknowledge U.S. Spy Efforts due to Third Party Release of Leaked Documents

In Daniel Ellsberg's day, the NYT was seen as a place friendly to whistle-blowers and those who have documents exposing secret government activities. No longer. Further, the NYT refuses to post a link to the leaked documents, only linking to its own hand-wringing articles. Nowadays, secret documents are leaked elsewhere and the NYT needs to play catch-up, coupling its reluctant acknowledgement with a warning about the damage that could be caused by leaks about secret U.S. activity:

The leak has the potential to do real damage to Ukraine’s war effort by exposing which Russian agencies the United States knows the most about, giving Moscow a potential opportunity to cut off the sources of information. Current and former officials say it is too soon to know the extent of the damage, but if Russia is able to determine how the United States collects its information and cuts off that flow, it may have an effect on the battlefield in Ukraine.

The leak has already complicated relations with allied countries and raised doubts about America’s ability to keep its secrets. After reviewing the documents, a senior Western intelligence official said the release of the material was painful and suggested that it could curb intelligence sharing. For various agencies to provide material to each other, the official said, requires trust and assurances that certain sensitive information will be kept secret.

On the other hand, if you are part of the U.S. security state, the NYT is more than happy to post your propaganda, as it did in the case of the Nord Stream Pipeline. Unbelievably, knowing that it's "explanation" of the pipeline destruction is bullshit, the NYT suggests it's not a good idea to dig further into who destroyed the pipeline:

It's a good day to celebrate the immense good fortune of NYT reporters who get to draw big salaries while not having to do the difficult work of actually practicing journalism.

Proposed new Mission Statement for the New York Times: Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain.

Joe Biden promised to disable the pipeline prior to its destruction:

Biden's neocon crony, Victoria Nuland, helped to lead the post-destruction cheerleading, as Aaron Maté reminds us, but, again, Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain.

No wonder the corporate media and their U.S. government partners hate Twitter 2.0...

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The Little Sailboat that Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline

1. Joe Biden promises he will make Nord Stream pipeline inoperable. Someone then destroys the pipeline. Biden then denies that he had anything to do with this act of war. 2. Next, Seymour Hersh publishes detailed investigative article showing how the U.S. destroyed the pipeline. 3. Germany, co-owner of the pipeline, displays what has got to be the most vivid case of Stockholm Syndrome in human history. 4. U.S. news media ignores the Hersh story. 5. The CIA cooks up an absurd alternative story that not-Joe-Biden destroyed the pipeline. The pipeline was destroyed using "Pro-Ukrainian" group that uses a 49 foot sailboat. 6. The NYT, which has now begrudgingly acknowledged Hersh's blockbuster story, laps up the CIA story. 7. Seymour Hersh destroys the NYT-CIA story with a handful of simple questions.

Excerpt from Hersh's newest story, "THE NORD STREAM GHOST SHIP: The false details in the CIA's cover story":

My initial report received coverage around the world but was ignored by the major newspapers and television networks in the United States. As the story gained traction in Europe and elsewhere abroad, the New York Times on March 7 published a report quoting US officials asserting that American intelligence had accumulated information suggesting that a pro-Ukrainian group sabotaged the pipelines. The story said officials who had “reviewed” the new intelligence depicted it to be “a step toward determining responsibility” for the pipeline sabotage. The Times story got worldwide attention, but nothing more has been heard since from the newspaper about who did what. In an interview for a Times podcast, one of the three authors of the article inadvertently explained why the story was dead on arrival. The writer was asked about the involvement of the alleged pro-Ukrainian group: “What makes you think that’s what happened?” He answered: “I should be very clear that we know really very little. Right?”

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White House is Funding More Powerful Censorship Technologies

From Mike Benz at Foundation for Freedom Online:

SUMMARY of "The National Science Foundation’s “Convergence Accelerator Track F” Is Funding Domestic Censorship Superweapons":

The US government is giving millions to university labs and private firms to stop domestic US citizen opinions on social media.

The National Science Foundation is taking a program set up to solve "grand challenges" like quantum technology and using it for the science of censorship.

Government-funded projects are sorting massive databases of American political and social communities into categories like “misinformation tweeters" and "misinformation followers."

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About the Power of the CIA

How powerful is the CIA? Consider this "Six ways till Sunday . . ." comment Chuck Schumer to Rachel Maddox in 2017:

Maddow: "Let me ask you, I don't know if you've seen this. I don't want to blindside you with this. This is the latest tweet--as you were just saying--the President elect's latest unsolicited pronouncement on the intelligence community. This was his tweet just a little while ago tonight, and as you see the scare quotes there."

The intelligence briefing on so called Russian hacking was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange.

Maddow: "We're actually told intelligence sources tell NBC News since this tweet has been posted, that actually this intelligence briefing for the president elect was always planned for Friday. It hasn't been delayed. But he's taking these shots, this antagonisms, taunting to the intelligence."

Chuck Schumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you. So even for a practical, supposedly hard nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this."

Maddow: "What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were mad?"

Schumer: "I don't know, but I from what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them. And we need the intelligence community. We don't know what's gonna--look at the Russian hacking! Without the intelligence community, we wouldn't have discovered it."

Maddow: "Do you think he has an agenda to try to dismantle parts of the intelligence community. I mean, this form of when we talk to hostility . . ."

Schumer: "Let me tell you, whether you're a super liberal democrat or a very conservative Republican, you should be against dismantling the intelligence community."

In the meantime, Seymour Hersh has just released another jaw-dropping story, this one about John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, the CIA and the Mafia. Title: "THE KENNEDYS' SECRET SICILIAN OPERATION: What the CIA didn't tell the Warren Commission."

And I'm slowly working my way through The Devil's Chessboard, by David Talbot. Dozens of sordid tales about the CIA.

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Ag-Gag Law Struck Down

An Ag-Gag Law has been struck down by an Iowa Federal Court. Trespass is already prohibited and those who trespass can be punished for trespassing. Ag-gag laws go further and impose additional penalties on those who seek to engage in free speech regarding the things they notice while trespassing. Here is an excerpt from the Des Moines Register:

A federal judge has struck down the third attempt by the Iowa Legislature to stop animal-welfare groups from secretly filming livestock abuse, finding once again that the law passed last year violates free-speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.

The decision Sept. 26 rejected the law approved by Iowa lawmakers in April 2021 that makes it a crime to trespass on a property to place a camera to record or transmit images. The law, which had support from Republicans and some Democrats, made the first offense punishable by up to two years in prison and subsequent offenses a felony.

The case is one of many so-called ag-gag laws that have surfaced in the U.S. in recent years that pit the right of farmers to protect their property from trespassers against animal-welfare advocates. Farmers argue intruders could track in disease and want to unfairly portray their livestock practices, while animal-welfare groups say producers don't want the public to see how farm animals are treated.

Here is the conclusion of the court:

[T]he Act provides protection with respect to the exercise of a First Amendment right. The United States Constitution does not allow such a singling out of the exercise of a constitutional right. The decision to single out this conduct is most plainly shown by Defendants' description of the Act as “enhancing the penalty for conduct that is already prohibited by law.” That is the issue with the law—it is enhancing a criminal penalty based on the exercise of speech (or a predicate component of speech). The law does not limit its reach to specific instances of using a camera, such as a peeping tom situation. Rather, the Act only punishes a trespasser exercising a constitutional right. Section 727.8A burdens the exercise of speech and Defendants have not proffered a sufficient justification for such a burden.

The case is ANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, INC., BAILING OUT BENJI, FOOD & WATER WATCH, and IOWA CITIZENS FOR COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT, Plaintiffs, v. KIMBERLY REYNOLDS, in her official capacity as Governor of Iowa, TOM MILLER, in his official capacity as Attorney General of Iowa, Case No. 4:21-cv-00231-SMR-HCA, United States District Court, S.D. Iowa, Central Division.

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