June 13, 2013

Winston Smith loved Big Brother.

My recent Taki's Magazine column points out that all the shocked responses to the news that the American government could spy on Americans' private communications seem naive considering that the well-informed have long assumed that the Israeli government could spy on Americans' private communications through the domination of commercial communications software for certain infrastructure tasks such as telephone billing by firms launched in part by former officers of Israeli military intelligence. It concludes:
What are some of the advantages of having the means to know who calls whom in the US? We can only speculate, but it’s perhaps not wholly coincidental that Israel has become a highly prosperous country, with investment flooding in. Moreover, the Israeli government is extremely popular in Washington, with Prime Minister Netanyahu receiving 29 standing ovations the last time he addressed Congress. 
It could well be that Israel doesn’t actually have these snooping capabilities. But it apparently hasn’t hurt Israel that so many Washington and Wall Street insiders assume that Israel knows their secrets.

In other words, you might not have to go through all the work of actually spying on important people if you can get them to believe you are spying on them. Read the whole thing there.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

No more movie reviews, then?

Marlowe said...

I recently watched a repeat of al-Nakba (the catastrophe as Palestinians call the creation of the State of Israel in 1948), as a series on al-Jazeera, and in one episode it stated that the Zionists intercepted British Palestine mandate communications traffic during the 1930s (radio & land line phone calls).

Anonymous said...

The main difference is that Israel can do no wrong.

Anonymous said...

Related:

"IT FINALLY COMES OUT: Elite Traders Are Getting Access To Data Before Everyone Else"

http://www.businessinsider.com/latency-in-trading-2013-6

"In the past few days people have finally started paying attention to a funny thing going on in the market.

Time after time ahead of major news, there seems to be someone who knows something before it happens — there seem to be trades that hit too hard and fast before the news is actually made.

This has been going on for a while, and people are finally starting to understand why.

The current target of collective ire is Thomson Reuters. There was some shady trading ahead of the Consumer Confidence number at the end of last month. About a quarter of a second before the number was released, there was an eruption of orders in the SPDR S&P Sector ETF (SPY), the e-Mini (electronically traded futures), and in hundreds of stocks, according to Nanex, a market research firm.

After some digging CNBC's Eamon Javers reported that the source of the early trading was Thomson Reuters. The company has a well known deal with the University of Michigan, the source of the data, that allows Thomson Reuters to release that data 5 minutes before it's supposed to come out (9:55 am) to clients who pay for that privilege.

But Thomson Reuters also provides a service called "ultra-low latency", which allows premium customers to get the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index number 2 seconds before it's released to the general public for $2,000 a month.

Two seconds in high frequency trading time is an eternity."

Anonymous said...

Maybe, but how does this explain Lindsey Graham's asking Chuck Hagel to name one senator who was intimidated by the Israeli lobby? What bit of highly disreputable information regarding Graham could Israeli intelligence possibly have?

Whiskey said...

No Steve, it is likely Israel is the "Sixth Eye" spying on government employees and passing that on to the US government the way say, Canada and the UK spy on the US population and pass that on to the US government. All to get around domestic restrictions on spying.

You assume in the "Age of Weiner" (and Clinton, and Edwards, and Sanford, and Obama and ...) that there is shame and acts that if public would disqualify men and women from holding public office. If Obama today came out as a gay Muslim ... his popularity would rise ten points.

Heck if Lindsay Grahamnesty married say, a nineteen year old Thai man, his popularity would increase twenty points.

Moreover you underestimate the degree to which support for Israel mirrors that of Britain 1939-Dec 6 1941. It is a proxy means to push fighting and "Old America" via support for another country. See Jefferson and his support of the French Revolution.

Meanwhile Mueller confirmed to Congress today that Mosques and Muslims are exempt from surveillance, that PRISM and other Big Data sweeps include them out. Some animals are more equal than others.

That's the whole point. Not the least of which is White women's support for ultra-diversity to erode social unity and standards. Better to land some Alphas for fifteen minutes, and ride the sexy times merry go round, than to face social condemnation from a society of say, Iowa 1955. Diversity erodes social trust and public participation, everyone retreats to their private sphere. Which most women LOVE LOVE LOVE because that provides maximum sexual freedom. No Hester Prynnes if society is magically transformed into Eat-Pray-Love 24/7 by cultural enrichment.

Of course the price is total 24/7 surveillance to crush any nascent Nick Griffins, but hey, women are even more short term thinkers than men. And that's saying something.

Anonymous said...

Steve, going to write about this?

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/13/18934111-census-white-majority-in-us-gone-by-2043?lite

Consider that the category 'non-hispanic white' includes Arabs, Central Asians etc.

Anonymous said...

OT: worth a watch...

http://www.edge.org/conversation/napoleon-chagnon-blood-is-their-argument

Shouting Thomas said...

The nerd programmer in me says that attempting to conceal any electronic communication is impossible, given an adequate level of technological expertise on the part of the snooper.

In other words, I think the cat is out of the bag.

Dave Pinsen said...

"Meanwhile Mueller confirmed to Congress today that Mosques and Muslims are exempt from surveillance, that PRISM and other Big Data sweeps include them out. Some animals are more equal than others."

The NYPD has its own intelligence division, headed up by a former CIA honcho. They have spied on plenty of Muslims, and gotten heat for it. Another example of NYC following its

Anonymous said...

Just imagine how more sane US political babble was, if graham et al would come out the closet

Bob Loblaw said...

Like rendition, spying on Americans is something US three letter agencies farm out to foreign countries because while it would be illegal for the CIA, for example, to spy on Americans, if they share data on Israeli citizens and get data from Israel on US citizens, it's not illegal because that's just intelligence sharing.

Rob said...

The nerd programmer in me says that attempting to conceal any electronic communication is impossible, given an adequate level of technological expertise on the part of the snooper.

Maybe not, but concealing your identity when acquiring the means of communication can't be that hard. It must be possible to buy phone and Internet credit vouchers for cash without having to register anywhere. Even if that's made impossible, you could use false identification when getting a phone or a broadband connection. Private businesses aren't going to suggest a customer is a criminal by questioning the authenticity of the document he produces as identification. Of course, there's usually CCTV footage of customers on business premises. Anyhow, what the powers that be are probably counting on is that terrorists will be careless or stupid and leave an obvious trail. Judging by many of the attacks so far, they seem to be right. But I'm convinced a careful terrorist could cover his tracks even with heavy surveillance.

IHTG said...

Didn't you already make a blog post for this article?

Anonymous said...

Whiskey:"Moreover you underestimate the degree to which support for Israel mirrors that of Britain 1939-Dec 6 1941. It is a proxy means to push fighting and "Old America" via support for another country. See Jefferson and his support of the French Revolution."

Out of all your bizarre opinions, this one is the the wackiest. There is no correlation between support for "Old America" ans support for Israel. The organizations that back Israel are the very same ones that back massive immigration into the USA.

As for Jefferson, this is uncannily similar. Jefferson backed both the French Revolution and large scale immigration into the USA. It was the Federalists, with their opposition to the French Revolution and large scale immigration, who stood for "Old America."

Syon

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer:"Clearly, the Israelis who spy on Americans for the American government avert their eyes and pay no attention to anything they learn about Americans. They are wholly disinterested and just doing it because they are patriotic Americans who happen to belong to the Israeli military-intelligence complex."


Spot on, Steve. The naivete of American supporters of Israel is astonishing.

syon

Hunsdon said...

Whiskey said: You assume in the "Age of Weiner" that there is shame and acts that if public would disqualify men and women from holding public office. (redacted for space only)

Hunsdon said: Weiner resigned from Congress, Whiskey. If Lindsay Graham came out, South Carolina would not send him back to office, not as a Republican.

As our host pointed out, the Israeli spies are 'wholly disinterested in what they learn about Americans.' Why, using that information to advance Israeli interests would be ungentlemanly, wouldn't it?

You should step up your game. (See what I did there?) This is just embarrassing---even from you.

TontoBubbaGoldstein said...

Heck if Lindsay Grahamnesty married say, a nineteen year old Thai man...

Wait... What?

He's not?

Kibernetika said...

An acquaintance of mine was asked by that small, geographically-challenged nation to provide informal info, rather casually, but he declined. He's a tenured prof.

Has anyone in the media noticed that a bunch of the STEM students and faculty, staff, at our unis are foreign nationals? They're a great source of income. But, umm...

Brazilian said...

"The NYPD has its own intelligence division, headed up by a former CIA honcho. They have spied on plenty of Muslims, and gotten heat for it. Another example of NYC following its"

NYC, more especifically Manhattan is like a City-State, maybe because is there where the true power in America is placed?.

Anonymous said...

Motive for 9/11.

Colin Laney said...

Round up the usual suspects:

http://www.businessinsider.com/israelis-bugged-the-us-for-the-nsa-2013-6

Matthew said...

"What bit of highly disreputable information regarding Graham could Israeli intelligence possibly have?"

It's a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma wrapped inside of a 16-year-old page boy's rectum.

"if they share data on Israeli citizens and get data from Israel on US citizens, it's not illegal because that's just intelligence sharing."

One of the facts that came out re: the NSA's tapping into Google, etc., is that they also had deals with these companies to allow British intelligence access to their servers. Depending on the arrangement, that could mean the Brits could spy on American citizens while passing any juicy stuff back to the US.

Dr Van Nostrand said...



Out of all your bizarre opinions, this one is the the wackiest. There is no correlation between support for "Old America" ans support for Israel. The organizations that back Israel are the very same ones that back massive immigration into the USA."

In what ways do these turncoat organization who apparently friendly to Israel think that by importing hordes of anti Semitic Hispanics and Muslims will U.S become more pliable to Israel's interests?

Dr Van Nostrand said...

Zionists have had little difficulty dominating the policy and economy of Hispanic countries."

LOL, is that why Hispanic countries are such economic powerhouses and vote unanimously in favor of Israel in the UN?

Dr Van Nostrand said...


Clearly, the Israelis who spy on Americans for the American government avert their eyes and pay no attention to anything they learn about Americans. They are wholly disinterested and just doing it because they are patriotic Americans who happen to belong to the Israeli military-intelligence complex."

Here we go... now it would seem that this work has been outsourced by the American government to private corporations and not foreign governments per se.
Now in any type of bidding for such prestigious projects,companies from all over the world would submit their tenders. Now what is the evidence that say British and French contractors were upto the task and were bidding cheaper but the Israelis got the project anyway.
Furthermore is it proven that these Israel companies are allowing Israeli governments access to what they have?That would be very bad business practice if it can proven and will severely handicap them in the next bidding round
What is the reasoning behind your assumption that if corporations based in gentile European nations were doing this for the NSA or what have you that they would be less honorable than handling this information the way you you imagine Israelis are not?

Marlowe said...

"Wholly disinterested" has it exactly right.