Tuesday, 8 October 2013

Brazil is totally prostituted to the USA-UK. It wants simulate to be independent! It is a mix of cowardice and arrogance

USAHitman | Conspiracy News

Brazils Rousseff: US and allies must stop spying once and for all

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 05:06 PM PDT

In sharp reaction to the latest NSA leak revealing Canada’s acute interest in the Brazilian mining industry, President Dilma Rousseff condemned the “cyberwar” launched by the US and its allies against Brazil and demanded they stop the espionage.
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Canadian ambassador demanding clarification of what it called a “serious and unacceptable violation” of the country’s sovereignty and the right to privacy, a ministry statement said.
Rousseff’s initial fiery comments came via her Twitter account, where she posted 9 messages in a row condemning Canada’s alleged spying activities.
“That is unacceptable among countries that claim to be partners. We reject this cyberwar,” the Brazilian President wrote. “The United States and its allies must immediately stop their spying activity once and for all,” Rousseff tweeted.
On Sunday, Brazilian TV Globo released the latest leaks on the American and allied spying network obtained by Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The report detailed how the US National Security Agency (NSA) interacted with the Communication Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada to get data using software called Olympia from phone calls, internet traffic and emails flowing out of the Brazilian ministry.
It also claimed the method of cracking the Ministry’s cyber defenses were discussed and shared among the ‘Five Eyes’ spy network, which includes the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Following the leak, Rousseff tweeted that it indicated that each of the ‘Five Eyes’ governments, as well as “thousands” more in companies providing intelligence services had “ample access” to the information collected in Brazil.
According to the report, Canada has been particularly interested in the Brazilian mining industry, Rousseff pointed out. This confirms that the espionage had economic and strategic purposes, she added.
Brazilian-US relations have already been strained by the Snowden-exposed espionage scandal, with Rousseff recently postponing a state visit to Washington in response to the US spying on her communications with top aides. Rousseff has demanded a full public apology from the President Obama. However, no such apology has been made.
The South American country is now investigating whether Internet social media giants such as Facebook and Google cooperated with the NSA by sharing the private data of Brazilian users.
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TSA might allow passengers to board planes with marijuana

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 05:04 PM PDT

Bringing more than 3.4 ounces of liquid on an airplane is still prohibited, but attorneys say sneaking pot past TSA checkpoints might not be as problematic as with other contraband.
Medical marijuana is now permitted in nearly half of the United States, with Illinois recently becoming the twentieth state in the US to allow doctors to legally prescribe pot to patients. But while federal law still considers weed to be illegal, attorneys say bringing marijuana onboard airlines for some domestic travel shouldn’t necessarily raise any red flags.
Aaron Kase, a freelance reporter and blogger for Lawyers.com, noted recently that Transportation Security Administration agents in some states may choose to look the other way if they stumble upon certain contraband that may be illegal on a federal level but allowed locally.
“Although it’s a try-it-at-your-own-risk scenario, airplane passengers in certain situations are being permitted to carry marijuana on board, even if TSA agents sniff out the drugs,” Kase wrote last week for the legal website.
According to Kase, boarding a commercial airliner with any federally-prohibited drug is still a no-no in the eyes of Uncle Sam, but the TSA — indeed a federal agency — isn’t obligated to scour luggage for marijuana and arrest every airport patron possessing a little bit of pot.
A statement on TSA’s official website acknowledges that the federal agents staffed at security checkpoints at airports across America do not search for any drugs, and if they discover contraband then they “will refer the matter to a law enforcement officer.”
“Whether or not marijuana is considered ‘medical marijuana’ under local law is not relevant to TSA screening because TSA is governed by federal law and federal law provides no basis to treat medical marijuana any differently than non-medical marijuana,” the official statement continues.
Elsewhere, though, the TSA admits “the final decision rests with TSA on whether to allow any items on the plane,” and nothing explicitly instructs those agents to detain or arrest anyone traveling with marijuana, medicinal or otherwise.
“I hear reports from people flying from one medical use site to another or flying from one part of California to another and they generally report that if they carry their authorization, they simply show the letter and are sent on their way and are allowed to keep their medicine,” National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws attorney and founder Keith Stroup told Kase. “The same policy should apply Colorado to Washington or Washington to Colorado.”
Last year residents in those states voted to make marijuana legal for recreational use, even if a doctor’s note isn’t obtained. The Department of Justice hasn’t exactly endorsed those state laws, but in August Attorney General Eric Holder said that the federal government will not seek to pre-empt local legislation.
“We received good news this morning when Attorney General Eric Holder told the governor the federal government would not pre-empt Washington and Colorado as the states implement a highly regulated legalized market for marijuana,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement two months ago.
“We want to thank the attorney general for working with the states on this and for finding a way that allows our initiative to move forward while maintaining a commitment to fighting illegal drugs. This reflects a balanced approach by the federal government that respects the states’ interests in implementing these laws and recognizes the federal government’s role in fighting illegal drugs and criminal activity,” they said.
According to what attorney Stroup had to say to Kase, the TSA has so far been reluctant to enforce federal law in areas where state legislation has legalized marijuana.
“I’m delighted to hear that because I think it shows that TSA primarily is acting as it was intended when it was established, to protect all of us when we travel on the airlines and to thwart terrorists. It is not supposed to be an anti-drug agency,” Stroup said. “What nobody feels 100 percent comfortable with is it’s a grey zone you’re going through. It’s technically still illegal even though they aren’t enforcing it very strongly.”
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China urges US to avoid bankruptcy

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 05:04 PM PDT

As the Government shutdown in the US enters its second week, the country is just 10-days away from default, and the country’s main creditor China has urged Washington to take decisive steps to avoid bankruptcy and ensure safety of Chinese investments.
China, the US government’s largest foreign creditor, is “naturally concerned about developments in the US fiscal cliff”, as Reuters quoted Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao giving the Chinese government’s first public response to the Oct 17 US deadline for raising the debt ceiling.
China currently holds 22.85 percent of the US $16.7trln debt, which makes it the biggest US creditor.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew calculated the US would run out of money by October 17 and have less than $30 billion cash in hand if Congress fails to agree on its spending plans.
“We ask that the United States earnestly takes steps to resolve in a timely way before October 17 the political (issues) around the debt ceiling and prevent a US debt default to ensure safety of Chinese investment in the United States and the global economic recovery,” Zhu said.
In 2011 a similar budget deadlock cost the US its triple-A rating, with Standard & Poors downgrading the country to AA+. “We hope the United States fully understands the lessons of history,” Zhu said.
The debt ceiling debate of 2011 resolved with a last minute decision following tough warnings over the economic catastrophe from the looming default.
This time around alarm bells are ringing again, with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warning that the budget brinkmanship was “playing with fire” and imploring the Congress to pass legislation to re-open the government as well as increase the nation’s debt limit.
The lack of accord in the US Congress could cost the US a default – the first in history – which would send the global economy into a financial crisis similar to 2008 or worse. The 2008 financial crisis plunged the country into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Raising the debt ceiling is vital for the US itself and the global economy, but Republican House Speaker John Boehner insists the increase of the maximum allowed borrowing limit should come with terms. Boehner vowed on Sunday that there was “no way” Republican lawmakers would agree to a measure to raise the debt ceiling unless it included conditions to rein in deficit spending.
“The votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit, and the President is risking default by not having a conversation with us,” Boehner said.
The shutdown has put hundreds of thousands of workers off the job, closed national parks and museums and stopped an array of government services.
The one bright spot in a Washington deadlock is a significant chunk of the furloughed federal workforce is headed back to work. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered nearly 350,000 back on the job, basing his decision on a Pentagon interpretation of a law called the Pay Our Military Act.
Those who remain at home or are working without paychecks are a step closer to getting back pay once the partial government shutdown ends. The Senate could act this week on the measure that passed the House unanimously on Saturday.
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Epic fail: just 1 percent of Obamacare requests successfully processed

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 05:01 PM PDT

Millions of Americans visited newly launched websites last week to learn more about the benefits offered through the president’s health insurance mandate, but Obamacare is apparently not ready for everyone.
Americans officially became able to sign up for insurance coverage provided through President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act program Tuesday morning, but a number of issues have impacted the amount of people who are actually able to sign up for so-called Obamacare.
Heavy traffic early in the week caused many of the websites to reportedly crash, but complications are continuing to plague some pages. A report conducted by CNBC suggests that as few as one percent of those online applications were actually submitted correctly.
“As few as 1 in 100 applications on the federal exchange contains enough information to enroll the applicant in a plan,” CNBC health care reporter Dan Mangan wrote Friday.
According to several insurance industry sources who spoke to CNBC during the first week of Obamacare’s roll-out, a number of complications are causing the vast majority of submitted applications to be absent of the information necessary to implement coverage.
But while user error would presumably be the main culprit, some experts are saying the websites established to register Americans for the president’s health care plan were brimming with internal problems.
“It is extraordinary that these systems weren’t ready,” Sumit Nijhawan, CEO of Infogix, told CNBC.
According to Nijhawan, whose company handles data processing for insurers such as WellPoint and Cigna, there will be a “public relations nightmare” if the Obama administration can’t correct the issues that are complicating the sign-up process. If a large number of people wrongly believe they have new insurance when it officially goes into effect in January, he said, the response could be damaging for the White House.
“One hundred people submit their application, one of them goes all the way through the processing … a big chunk of them are being held,” Infogix Chief Product Officer Bobby Koritala added to CNBC. “They need to get more clarifying information.”
Dan Mendelson, the CEO of consulting firm Avalere Health, added to Mangang’s report that he wasn’t surprised by the 1-in-100 rate cited by Nijhawan.
“This is not a traffic issue,” Mendelson said. “Right now, the systems aren’t working.”
Dan Schuyler, director of the consultancy Leavitt Partners, added that “If we continue to see these issues through the next three or four weeks there’s a lot of concern about how many people will have effective coverage by Jan. 1.”
According to the New York Times, around 8.6 million people visited the new Obamacare websites last week. Before long, however, the Department of Health and Human Services had to take the website down during off-leak hours in order to provide “significant improvements in the online consumer experience.”
“We have built a dynamic system and are prepared to make adjustments as needed and improve the consumer experience,” HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in a statement.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia), the second-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, said in a statement of his own that “Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time.”
“We have been warned time and time again that ObamaCare is not ready for prime time,” independently added Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas). “Well, it turns out that is right.”
Republican efforts to stall Obamacare largely led to the government shutdown that started last Tuesday morning. GOP members of the House opposed approving any budget that funds the health insurance program, but Obamacare rolled out regardless early Tuesday just as hundreds of thousands of federal workers became furloughed over Congress’ failure to pass a spending bill.
According to the White House, healthcare.gov was visited by one million unique visitors within hours of its launch last week. Americans have until Dec. 15 to enroll in the president’s health insurance plan.
“In the first week, first month, first three months, I would suspect that there will be glitches,” Pres. Obama told NPR recently. “This is 50 states, a lot of people, signing up for something. And there are gonna be problems.”
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Exonerated Black Panther dies hours after serving 41 years in jail

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 05:00 PM PDT

Herman Wallace’s 41 years in solitary confinement came to an end last week when a federal judge overturned a decades-old murder conviction on Tuesday. Wallace, 71, died hours later on Friday morning after losing a fight with liver cancer.
Wallace was already serving time for armed robbery when he and two other prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison, were accused of murdering a guard in 1972.
The “Angola 3”— Albert Woodfox, Robert King and Wallace — maintained their innocence for the last several decades. Woodfox and Wallace have insisted that they were implicated solely for their involvement in a prison chapter of the Black Panthers. King’s conviction was overturned and he was released in 2001, and Woodfox’s case is currently pending before the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Tuesday, US District Chief Judge Brian Jackson in Baton Rouge overturned Wallace’s murder conviction and allowed him to be released hours later.
The murder conviction, Judge Jackson said, “violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of ‘the equal protection of the laws’” because the grand jury that indicted Wallace didn’t have any women, “thereby rendering his conviction and resulting sentence unconstitutional.”
Wallace spent nearly 42 years in solitary confinement, which according to his legal team is among the lengthiest of such stints in US history. A Louisiana grand jury re-indicted Wallace on his death bed on Thursday, though he passed away before he could be brought back to trial.
“It is Mr. Wallace’s hope that this litigation will help ensure that others, including his lifelong friend and fellow Angola 3 member, Albert Woodfox, do not continue to suffer such cruel and unusual confinement even after Mr. Wallace is gone,” his attorneys wrote this week.
In solitary, the Angola 3 reportedly spent around 23 hours a day in a cell that measured only two-by-three meters.
Less than three full days after being released from confinement, Wallace died at a friend’s home surrounded by loved ones early Friday. He had been receiving care for terminal, advanced-stage liver cancer, but was told he had only two months to live after treatment stopped on August 31.
According to friends of Wallace, his last words early on Friday were “I am free. I am free.”
“He completed that mission,” longtime friend Parnell Herbert told the Times Picayune. “And he was able to see himself a free man. He passed away peacefully in his sleep.”
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Users ‘locate’ FBI Silk Road wallet, send mocking Bitcoin donations

Posted: 05 Oct 2013 05:28 PM PDT

Internet users are sending tiny donations with critical messages to what they believe is the FBI’s Bitcoin wallet. The wallet, which is worth US$3.3 million, is thought to contain digital funds seized from users of the online black market Silk Road.
Following the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht (alias “Dread Pirate Roberts”) and the shutdown of underground online marketplace Silk Road, which Ulbricht is suspected to have run, Reddit users discovered what they say is an FBI-linked public wallet containing more than 27,000 BTC (one Bitcoin is equal to $122 at the time of writing).
While it could not be verified who owns the wallet, which was created on October 2, a massive amount of transactions came after the statement in the indictment against Ulbricht, which says that federal agents are authorized to “seize any and all Bitcoins contained in wallet files residing on Silk Road servers.”
It was not long before Bitcoin users came up with a way to attract the web’s attention to the alleged FBI haul, using the site Blockchain.info to send tiny donations with publicly streamed messages to the account. The wallet has since been dubbed “Silkroad Seized Coins” on the Blockchain.info page.
The donations could be as small as .000001 BTC, but each one enabled users to post their opinions of the FBI’s closure of Silk Road – which, for the most part, were far from approving.
One public note directly referred to Dread Pirate Roberts’ arrest, saying that he was not “the bad guy,” and urging others not to be “brainwashed.” Another one questioned: “Members of the FBI, are you more interested in control or in justice?”
Particularly critical users blasted the “immoral government action” and demanded to “stop ruining peoples’ lives.” Anti-government and anti-tyranny quotes from famous historical figures followed.
Others doubted the effectiveness of shutting down an online network allegedly linked to illegal activities, such as drug and arms trafficking.
“Prohibition doesn’t work. Good try. Many more will rise,” one user wrote. A list of “alternatives” for Silk Road available through the Tor proxy network was also provided in one of the notes.
The rest simply “trolled” the US government, the FBI and other agencies with deriding messages.

“This is a donation for the US government which is in desperate need for money these days. Consider this a small contribution to get around the fiscal cliff,” one message read, with another one boasting: “I’m Behind 7 Proxies.”
The public nature of the Bitcoin wallet also sparked a discussion among proponents of a transparent government. “Imagine if we could trace every single dollar the government spends? Why can’t we do that today? This is the age of the internet, but the gov’t is clouded in secrecy.”
Just two users congratulated the FBI for “great work,” but one of them raised hopes that the agency will now “crack down much more dangerous criminals,” suggesting HSBC bank as one such target.
While it has also been noted that the alleged FBI wallet could contain the largest online currency seizure ever made, the criminal complaint against Ulbricht suggests it to be only a small fraction of the Silk Road’s sales revenue, which is estimated at 600,000 Bitcoins.
An FBI spokesperson quoted by Forbes explained that the amount of Bitcoins already seized was held from Silk Road user accounts, and that the agency has not yet been able to get to Ulbricht’s own encrypted Bitcoin wallet.
“That’s like another $80 million worth,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The agency also appeared to be unsure what to do with the digital money trove once the Silk Road court case is closed.
“This is kind of new to us. We will probably just liquidate them,” the FBI spokesperson said.
Despite the controversy which has been surrounding Bitcoin currency in the US, a criminal complaint against Ulbricht states that “Bitcoins are not illegal in and of themselves and have known legitimate uses.”
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