I am in Berlin for the annual Sam Adams Award – this time to William Binney, formerly Technical Director of the NSA. There will be an address by Edward Snowden (and a short contribution from me). It really is a tremendous event, with some very senior former intelligence professionals making revelations about the extent to which the security state is out of control, a tool of immoral governments dominated by corporate interests.
The event is at the Berlin-Moscow Venue, 52 Unter Den Linden, and starts at 7pm (6pm UK time). It will be livestreamed on the Sam Adams website.
7:00-7:05 Wilkommen by Joerg Dreger, Managing Partner, Dreger Group
7:05-7:12 Ray McGovern, veteran CIA senior intelligence officer (27 years) and presidential briefer; SAA cofounder and Master of Ceremonies: Moment of Silence for Ambassador Robert White; acknowledgement of David MacMichael, retired Senior Estimates Officer in National Intelligence Council; Overview of history/purpose of Sam Adams Award
7:12-7:15 Annie Machon, former M15 intelligence officer (speech + introduction of Katharine and Craig)
7:15-7:20 Katharine Gun*, former GCHQ intelligence officer
7:20-7:25 Craig Murray*, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan
7:25-7:28 Coleen Rowley*, former FBI Special Agent and Minneapolis Chief Division Counsel (brief remarks +introduction of Todd P., Jesselyn & Tom)
7:28-7:33 Jesselyn Radack*, former ethics adviser, US Department of Justice and National Security; Human Rights Adviser, Government Accountability Project (GAP)
7:33-7:37 Todd Pierce, Major, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.); Guantanamo Military Commissions Defense Counsel
7:37-7:45 Thomas Drake*, former senior intelligence service executive, National Security Agency (NSA) – (speech + introduction of Ed Snowden)
7:45-8:00 Edward Snowden* (by video link), former NSA contractor; former CIA systems administrator
8:00-8:05 Ray McGovern segue to SAA Award Announcement; Reading of SAAII citation by Annie M. & Elizabeth M.(English and German versions, respectively); conferral by Thomas Drake of Sam Adams Integrity in Intelligence Corner-Brightener Candlestick to William Binney, former National Security Agency (NSA) Technical Director, World Geopolitical and Military Analysis, NSA, and co-founder, Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center
8:05-8:20 Acceptance speech by William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical and Military Analysis, NSA, and co-founder, Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center; Q & A
8:20-8:25 Wrap-up by Ray McGovern
8:25-8:30 Closing remarks by Joerg Dreger
8:30-9:00 Reception
*denotes former Sam Adams Award recipient
“So Resident Dissident don’t go cosying up to Syriza and Podemos. They are not for the likes of you.”
I wouldn’t dream of doing so for a moment – but they are most clearly not in line with the racist/religionist/pro Soviet Union views that you express – although I suspect that you do share some of your ersatz leftism which favours grandiose political gestures above improving the lifes of ordinary working people.
“The Labour Party, when I joined as a Young Socialist,”
I do hope you were like myself fighting the infiltrators from Militant but I doubt it.
Thanks for the live link, Homenara, Herr Dreger likes to talk a lot, not only does it need translating to english, it also needs translating to the German speaking public, as his highly voluted presentation was off their horizon.
Mr Goss
“Habbabkuk
“The PASOK govt – in case you’ve conveniently forgotten – was a Socialist govt.”
Tony Blair’s government, in case you have conveniently forgotten, professed to be a Socialist government. And now because of his warmongering and theft, dictatorship over his country and subservience to the Great Dictator, Warmonger and Abuser of Human Rights, together with the bankers who have financed them and him, the failed world is having to rely on real socialism to get themselves out of the hole.”
_________________
Relevance to Greece/PASOK of your rant about Blair/NuLabour?
Thanks for the reasonable support of my work by both sides, but I object to all continuing to destroy any reasonable debate on the topic at hand, this time the Sam Adams awards.
I object to them all, starting even with their name. Adams always called himself Samuel, and certainly qualified as a revolutionary, but the award only goes to former officials, it seems, of our corrupt governments which should be revolutionized from top to bottom.
Guess the award managers want to make it more popular with the lager louts!
And why no awards to reporters like James Risen who has battled Washington tooth and nail about his many sources for years.
The award seems to be just for former government employees who seem a bit chilly about finally being out in the cold.
Wonder if Annie Machon will get it next year?
Habbabkuk I thought you might have been able to work out the relevance. Tony Blair = New Labour. Papandreou = PASOK. They are still there hoping to get 5% of the vote. That’s how Labour will be when the British public wake up.
KOWN
“Yes, I’m an admirer of Trowbridge too, I find him often hard to follow but quite likeable. One nice way in which he differs from you is, he doesn’t behave like a Tell Tale Tit, posting derogatory remarks about people on this forum made by someone posting on a different forum.”
____________________
That’s very public school ethos of you, KOWN. You must have been a prefect, handy with the cane.
Would you care to pronounce on (1) the Tale Tale Tit nature, and (2) the likely age (7 or older?) of our recently silent friend Ben in the light of the comment below, posted by him on Squonk? :
“Havasack’s abusive behavior recoils back at Craig. His tolerance of attacks on Mary exacerbated, maybe even initiated Mary’s health issues. You would think people would back off, but the momentum of trolls seems a juggernaut of torture advocates who remain unabashed and unrepentant.
I blame Craig. Mary could file a harassment suit and win, I believe.”
(To give Mary credit, she immediately rubbished Ben’s comment)
Mr Goss
“Habbabkuk I thought you might have been able to work out the relevance. Tony Blair = New Labour. Papandreou = PASOK. They are still there hoping to get 5% of the vote. That’s how Labour will be when the British public wake up.”
_________________
As I said, you don’t know too much about modern Greek politics, do you.
5% is what PASOK is estimated to get at the election tomorrow.
The PASOK I was talking about was the PASOK before the 1981 election.
Got it? – 1981, not 2015.
Obomber is cutting short his visit to India in order to kneel to the Saudis.
~~
Good luck to Syriza tomorrow. Wish they would set up a branch here.
A loaded report from the state broadcaster here.
Greek elections: Party leaders make final calls for votes
Alexis Tsipras and Antonis Samaras, who are competing in Greek polls
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and conservative incumbent Antonis Samaras both made final appeals to voters
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has made a final appeal to voters ahead of Sunday’s general election, with his party battling the left-wing Syriza.
Mr Samaras said that despite years of austerity, the country was showing signs of recovery.
Meanwhile, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras said his party would restore “dignity” to Greece.
He wants to renegotiate Greece’s debt and end the austerity measures imposed by an international bailout.
Greece has endured deep budget cuts tied to its massive bailout from the so-called troika – the EU, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB).
The possibility of a Syriza victory in Sunday’s vote has sparked fears that Greece could default on its debt and exit from the euro.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30957033
This is how the chief troll deceives and Veattempts to divide us. This is the exchange he refers to. In no way did I ‘rubbish’ Ben.
Ben December 19, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Havasack’s abusive behavior recoils back at Craig. His tolerance of attacks on Mary exacerbated, maybe even initiated Mary’s health issues. You would think people would back off, but the momentum of trolls seems a juggernaut of torture advocates who remain unabashed and unrepentant.
I blame Craig. Mary could file a harassment suit and win, I believe.
Mary December 19, 2014 at 8:34 pm
Ben I don’t think I can hold him responsible for my thyroid cancer which is presumably environmental in origin – something I breathed, ate or drank. My ENT surgeon, eminently experienced and now in his sixties, told me that he and his colleagues are dealing with a large increase in these cancers. He has treated four local GPs (family doctors). He thinks that mine developed over six years as it had calcified.
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/types/thyroid/incidence/uk-thyroid-cancer-incidence-statistics
~~~
Good Squonk. Thanks. His arrogance needs taming.
Ben December 19, 2014 at 9:06 pm
Mary; Thanks. My best wishes and prayers for your long and well spent remission.
I just heard from my best friend of over 40 years that he has bladder cancer. His surgery is scheduled after Xmas. May we soon find a lasting remedy for this plague.
Sofia December 20, 2014 at 12:58 am
Mary. Yes you survived, and more! Your refusal to be silenced inspired.
Mackey and Ben. Everything you said, and more. It seems, like herpes, it can’t be dislodged.
Let Santana blow away the Habba Blues! Corazon Espinado, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SmNR53q0Ew
~~~
He is banned on Squonk as you know.
Trowbridge H. Ford, 1:58 pm:
That seems a reasonable criticism.
I have no idea of the organisation behind the award nor its internal structure. If you have, do please post it here, but please, only if you include some sort of checkable evidence to back it up.
Brilliant event imo.
And important to get together like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9gKyRmic20
The recipients are all former government employees, and you can google their names yourself.
And the fact that they are speaks to what one has to be or have been to be eligible.
You quibble too much, Clark, about obvious things.
‘Operation Merlin’: Another self-serving CIA project
Gareth Porter
23 January 2015
The CIA hoped the Jeffrey Sterling trial would make ‘Operation Merlin’ look good, but CIA cables reveal a self-interest bureaucracy at work
The jury is still out in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling for allegedly having leaked the story of “Operation Merlin” – the covert CIA effort to lure Iran into working on phony plans for a key component of a nuclear weapon – to New York Times reporter James Risen.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/operation-merlin-another-self-serving-cia-project-2021804533
I’m done with you Habbabkuk if you can’t work it out. The Papandreou family have long governed Greece. They have no more been Socialists than Tony Blair whose father was also a Tory. Just because a party calls itself socialist does not mean it is. Come on lad, get to grips.
Trowbridge H. Ford, sorry, I didn’t make myself clear to you. My comment was in two parts, one part concerning the recipients up until now, and the other concerning the organisation that gives out the awards. So,
(1) your criticism that all the recipients are former government employees is valid,
(2) if you post anything about the organisation’s internal structure, please back it up with evidence.
I made my request in part (2) because over a long time you seem to have been posting quite complex stories about various agents and agencies, but usually without links to supporting evidence.
Things that may seem obvious to you are not necessarily obvious to others. You have studied and looked into certain things, so certain conclusions seem obvious to you. I have not looked into those things and often wouldn’t know where to look, so when you write, for instance, that
I have no idea how accurate these assertions may be. I know a little about Annie Machon and I know there was an MI6 plot to assassinate Gaddafi. But I have no idea who Anas Al-Liby is or whether he/she was a double-agent, nor which governments he/she may have been working for, nor what TUNWORTH refers to, and so on.
There is also the matters of relevance and urgency. Any stories about former agents will be relevant on this thread, which is very broad. But if you post such stories out-of-the-blue as being relevant on other threads (as you’ve tended to), the time and effort required to assess their authenticity discourages me from looking into them at all. Gathering relevant data and verifying it can take hours, by which time the discussion has moved on.
Only very little has changed in Greek society since 1981, to conveniently use the year provided by it,
Then, and long before then, Greeks upper crust decided to answer Governments tax requests with pointing to the importance of their businesses to the economy, a bit like certain tax avoiders in this country who hogg the high streets best retail outlets for paying either a pittance or nothing at all.
It is also fashionable to point to the number of corrupt civil servants one knows.
Once Greek society, their national sport being non payment of tax, limitation of their tax, if they are paying, or the circumnavigation of tax law by any means possible, exactly as it is established in this country.
Now once the Greek working classes found out how to play the same game, working in a badly paid job and a cash paid job on the side, the system failed to function. Tax evasion is a Mediterranean pandemic, just ask the Spanish upper echelon, their Royal family’s affairs, Taking a little more of you for something is seen as bravado in Italy, in Morocco, as in Greece.
I listened to small farmers when Greece was accepted, with much questions left open, was working outside Glivkourisis in the south of Sparta, only a third, roughly the bigger farmers, were in favour of the move, they had votes in the Cafenion and people watched, speeches were made for and against, on followed about another hours drinking,Tsikoudia flowed and it got louder, then a vote with about the majority being against, some stomped off and the rest carried on drinking.
Hard work and easy days it was then, two days work paid for 3-4 days food,fishing, cooking, diving, partying, a restorative time of my life after eight years of brainwashing.
I also worked in Voutez on Crete, only a few miles away from Peza, were they make some superb Raki, but its made almost anywhere they grow grapes, some very old Roman vineyards in places.
Greeks do not like paying taxes and on Crete collecting taxes can lead to accidents, i.e. there are guns galore since the great second unpleasantness, both German and English,they are mostly in good working order as I can vouch for.
Finally one could dream of Syriza managing to get a deal with Governments to impose a tax on mostly untaxed stashes in off shore havens, as well as Greek deposits in Switzerland, so it benefits the greek economy and is used to pay back Greek debts, then the secret depositors all still would live comfortably, Greece would be free, to carry on as it likes, but on their own, outside the EU market.
At the risk of boring you all (???), at the moment I’m having to get by with a knackred laptop that’s more than 15 years old. I’m running Windows 2000 and the most up to date version of Firefox I can use is version 12 (I believe it’s now up to version 36). I use this browser mostly with javascript disabled. With javascript enabled I can just about watch YouTube vids. However, the link given earlier in this thread, for the event in Berlin, crashes my browser.
Does anyone know of another YouTube link, either of just Craig’s piece or the entire event?
And PS: although a longtime reader of this blog, I’ve started posting here because in my present predicament the Guardian, et al, are an absolute nightmare and almost impossible to access.
I bet you’re just dying to know who I am on Guardian comments.
Or maybe not…
Trowbridge, that’s a long comment I just posted about your commenting style, which is not really relevant to this (or any) thread. Let’s continue on the General Discussion Thread at squonk.tk
RobG, you come over to Squonk, too. One of us there should be able to help you install a modern operating system.
https://squonk.tk/blog/2014/01/20/the-general-discussion-thread/comment-page-34/
No one receiving the Sam Adams Award, which is handed out by a bunch of CIA guys, has ever had anything to say about 9/11 — other than to express their contempt for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Is that surprising, or what?
The Saudi king was a dictator. There isn’t any sort of democracy in the country. And yet at the drop of a hat the UK, which seems to spend a great deal of money trying to force democracy on dictatorial regimes in the Middle and Near East, which are not overseen by royals, sends the prime minister and Charlie out to fete the new king at enormous expense.
Surely Po-Face Hammond and some junior royal like Eddy or one of the ugly sisters, would have done fine, and possibly cost a bit less. Still spare no expense where the nobs are concerned, that’s their motto!
Of course we know that the regime in Saudi buys vast quantities of British arms. And, as it never seems to go to war with anyone itself, I can only imagine that it either uses them to keep its own people down, or it gives them over to terrorist organisations which support its hard line religious views.
But it seems that the UK economy is dependent on these weapons sales and that they can’t afford to upset the sheiks lest they go to France or China for their weaponry.
Lets face its only acolytes and sycophants who shed tears (mostly crocodile) for,Royals around the world, when in reality we should celebrate the passing of the parasites.
So right Canspeccy. That is something to ponder indeed. Good joining of the dots there.
@Node. Was it not Voltaire that said, To know who rules over you, find out who you cannot critisize.
RodG
“At the risk of boring you all (???), at the moment I’m having to get by with a knackred laptop that’s more than 15 years old.”
As said, a new OS is probably easiest. Unless you like more games any linux OS should be ok for old machines, often better. Ubuntu is really quite easy.
Also have you tried going direct to youtube and searching for it?
Anyhow I’m no expert but my feeling is you really can go on forever trying to sort issues in windows.
Mr Goss
“I’m done with you Habbabkuk if you can’t work it out. The Papandreou family have long governed Greece. They have no more been Socialists than Tony Blair whose father was also a Tory. Just because a party calls itself socialist does not mean it is. Come on lad, get to grips.”
______________________
You obviously still haven’t understood the point I was trying to make – which was not whether PASOK was ever/is a “genuine” Socialist party. Hence talk of Tony Blair is irrelevant.
My point is that SYRIZA is today promising, mutatis mutandis, many of the things PASOK promised before the 1981 election – higher wages, more money spent on schools and the health service, more jobs, especially in the public sector, including the bureacracy, etc.
And indeed PASOK carried out a lot of what it promised. The problem was that it carried out many of those costly policies without too much regard to how to pay for them in the longer run.
I merely suggest that SYRIZA’s promises today are as seductive as PASOK’s promises were in 1981 – but that it fails to explain how they will pay for them.
Writing off half of Greek sovereign debt (this is one of SYRIZA’s big themes) is no solution; this is because, with all the austerity measures already in place, Greece only just about managed a small primary budgetary surplus in 2014. Reverse the austerity measures (eg, by restoring previous civil service salary levels and re-engaging dismissed civil servants) and bang will go the small primary surplus and the country will again have to borrow – as it did before – on the markets. Which it will be unable to do this time round at affordable rates.
To understand the above para, you have to understand what a promary surplus is. But I suspect you know as little about macro-economics as you do about modern Greek politics.
Conclusion : I’m (NOT) done with you, Mr Goss!
Well well well, Jihadi John and his IS band of Beatles have supposedly beheaded one of the Japanese hostages.
A picture of the actor (I mean hostage) can be seen with his severed head sitting on his back, Madame Tussauds must be making a fortune, churning out these models.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=460_1422113857
Clark and homeneara, thanks for your advice.
I suppose it’s because of egits like me that Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world.
Lawyers for the alleged teenage ‘sex slave’ who says she slept with Prince Andrew are trying to serve papers on him via the British Embassy.
They claim the duke last week refused to accept a letter asking him to testify on oath about the allegations made by Virginia Roberts. In a bid to try again, Miss Roberts’ lawyer said yesterday: ‘We are attempting delivery through the British Embassy in Washington.’
The development came the day after Andrew spoke publicly to deny that he had sex with Miss Roberts.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2923267/Back-day-job-Prince-Andrew-continues-focus-work-hours-dismissing-sex-slave-claims-Davos.html
…………………….
No doubt ones mummy and daddy will clear the mess up that “Randy Andy” has created, allegedly, just another f*ck up in a family of f*ck ups.