Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the 'shit-bag' now?

[Catherina]

Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the 'shit-bag' now?

by Julian Assange
August 24th, 2013

...

Two months after my meeting with Eric Schmidt, WikiLeaks had a legal reason to call Hilary Clinton and to document that we were calling her. It’s interesting that if you call the front desk of the State Department and ask for Hillary Clinton, you can actually get pretty close, and we’ve become quite good at this. Anyone who has seen Doctor Strangelove may remember the fantastic scene when Peter Sellers calls the White House from a payphone on the army base and is put on hold as his call gradually moves through the levels. Well WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison, pretending to be my PA, put through our call to the State Department, and like Peter Sellers we started moving through the levels, and eventually we got up to Hillary Clinton’s senior legal advisor, who said that we would be called back.

Shortly afterwards another one of our people, WikiLeaks’ ambassador Joseph Farrell, received a call back, not from the State Department, but from Lisa Shields, the then girlfriend of Eric Schmidt, who does not formally work for the US State Department. So let’s reprise this situation: The Chairman of Google’s girlfriend was being used as a back channel for Hillary Clinton. This is illustrative. It shows that at this level of US society, as in other corporate states, it is all musical chairs.

That visit from Google while I was under house arrest was, as it turns out, an unofficial visit from the State Department. Just consider the people who accompanied Schmidt on that visit: his girlfriend Lisa Shields, Vice President for Communications at the CFR; Scott Malcolmson, former senior State Department advisor; and Jared Cohen, advisor to both Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, a kind of Generation Y Kissinger figure — a noisy Quiet American as the author Graham Greene might have put it.

...

Documents published last year by WikiLeaks obtained from the US intelligence contractor Stratfor, show that in 2011 Jared Cohen, then (as he is now) Director of Google Ideas, was off running secret missions to the edge of Iran in Azerbaijan. In these internal emails, Fred Burton, Stratfor’s Vice President for Intelligence and a former senior State Department official, describes Google as follows:

“Google is getting WH (White House) and State Dept support and air cover. In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do… (Cohen) is going to get himself kidnapped or killed. Might be the best thing to happen to expose Google’s covert role in foaming up-risings, to be blunt. The US Gov’t can then disavow knowledge and Google is left holding the shit-bag”

...

WikiLeaks cables also reveal that previously Cohen, when working for the State Department, was in Afghanistan trying to convince the four major Afghan mobile phone companies to move their antennas onto US military bases. In Lebanon he covertly worked to establish, on behalf of the State Department, an anti-Hezbollah Shia think tank. And in London? He was offering Bollywood film executives funds to insert anti-extremist content into Bollywood films and promising to connect them to related networks in Hollywood. That is the Director of Google Ideas. Cohen is effectively Google’s director of regime change. He is the State Department channeling Silicon Valley.

...
http://thestringer.com.au/google-and-the-nsa-whos-holding-the-shit-bag-now/

[MotherPetrie]

1. K&R

[RC]

2. Why should anyone be surprised by now.

Jared Cohen, advisor to both Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice,

No wonder elections don't seem to matter as much as one would think they should, when the people pulling the levers just change the colors of the levers.

[Wilms]

4. More on Jared...

Jared Cohen (born November 24, 1981) is the Director of Google Ideas[1] and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.[2] Previously, he served as a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and as an advisor to Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton.[3] Initially brought in by Condoleezza Rice as a member of the Policy Planning Staff, he was one of the few staffers that stayed under Hillary Clinton.[4] In this capacity, he focused on counter-terrorism, counter-radicalization, Middle East/South Asia, Internet freedom, and fostering opposition in repressive countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen

fostering opposition in repressive countries

Shit-Stirrer

Hey Jared, when the shit you stir floats to the service are you gonna join the armed the armed services to go get IED'd somewhere in the ME??

[joshcryer]

19. The irony is he used Wikileaks' cable releases to foster that opposition.

[Wilms]

28. Help me with a link about that. please.

TIA

[joshcryer]

49. He founded Movements.org which cites Wikileaks frequently.

He's the type of person that Wikileaks would support, really, someone in government causing shit. Google wanted him disappeared.

[Wilms]

50. Still trying to understand your point.

I'm not understanding how that links supports your assertion that "he used Wikileaks' cable releases to foster that opposition."

[joshcryer]

56. His fostering opposition site cited Wikileaks.

What else can I say? Simply citing Wikileaks is using Wikileaks...

[sabrina 1]

29. That's what they did in Libya and what they are doing now in Syria 'fostering opposition'

interesting that they add 'in repressive countries'. When most of our foreign allies are 'repressive countries', Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, the list is long. So how do they make the selection from among these 'selective countries' which ones call for the 'fostering' of 'opposition'?

It's not really hard to figure out.

I wonder how long before someone stops them, how many more lost lives?

Because each day we find out more it's clear we are living in a rogue state that appears bound and determined to rule the world. It is delusional thinking. No one has ever managed to control the world.

[Wilms]

37. Whadya talkin' bout? The Romans ruled the world.

Oh. Wait.

[pinto]

42. Whaa?

[Octafish]

3. We the People are left to hold the shit-bag.

Looking inside, I saw that democracy was at the very bottom.

Thank you for another outstanding post and thread, Catherina.

[They_Live]

6. I think we might be inside the shit-bag, actually

and it is a very unpleasant situation.

[silvershadow]

5. Is it true that Al Gore is no longer with Google? I seem to remember he was involved at one time.

And I think it was about the time all this stuff started being assembled. I bring it up because I saw a post earlier where he was slamming the security state. I'm wondering if he was involved in setting it up? Just a thought...

[loudsue]

7. And if it wasn't for Julian Assange and other whistleblowers, we'd never know this shit

was happening. Well, DUers might know, but the rest of the world prolly wouldn't.

[sabrina 1]

30. And that's why the Governments involved have gone after Julian Assange and Wikileaks

Snowden, Manning, Drake et al. They really are a threat to all of this evil.

[Mojorabbit]

43. Yep nt

[WillyT]

8. K & R !!!

[Supersedeas]

46. and another

[woo me with science]

9. K&R Waking up the people to the corporate state...

Thank you.

[joshcryer]

18. About time, too.

Respect for Assange now slightly ticked up.

Wish he went further, he claims that it's unsurprising that Google, encountering a big bad world, got big and bad. Uh, nah, Google, by its nature, is big and bad, the world has nothing to do with it. If it wasn't the 75% corporate controlled NSA it would be some other corporation.

[cantbeserious]

10. You've Woken Up...Now What?

&feature=player_embedded#t=0

[fascisthunter]

11. nah.. it's really a bag of gold dust for those who benefit financially

[hootinholler]

12. Is this a private citizen conducting foreign policy?

Isn't that like very illegal?

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. Google scares the shit out of me. n/t

[arely staircase]

36. don't use it

seriously, don't. i don't. i use

www.startpage.com

[winter is coming]

14. Assange should probably avoid the term "shit-bag".

I'm all for the concept of WikiLeaks, but Assange is an ass.

[MNBrewer]

15. Lovely ad hominem you have there.

It would be a shame if something happened to it.

[delrem]

16. Fred Burton of Stratfor isn't Julian Assange.

And your opinion of Assange is irrelevant.

[Violet_Crumble]

20. But Julian Assange is the one who wrote this article and said 'shit-bag'

While I wouldn't go so far as to call him a shit-bag, after the stuff I've read about the Senate preference deals for the upcoming election here (he was all for giving preferences to extreme RW parties), I no longer trust him or just about anything he writes.

[delrem]

22. But Assange wrote "shit-bag" as part of a *quotation* of Burton's

[Violet_Crumble]

23. Yr right. Though I stand by my complete lack of trust in Julian Assange...

...and anything he has to say now.

[Jesus Malverde]

25. Did you read the op?

The term came from Fred Burton, Stratfor’s Vice President for Intelligence and a former senior State Department official.

[sabrina 1]

31. What he should have done to AVOID the shitbags he trusted too much. But most of the world

was not fooled by the pursuit of Wikileaks. Just a few right wingers here in the US who will defend anything the US does no matter what.

It was obvious to most intelligent people why the UK and the US and Rove's Friends in Sweden were willing to help of course, went after Assange so vigilantly. Unfortunately it only enhanced his reputation around the world.

The shitbags in Sweden are still keeping up the pretext of course, but no one believes them at this point. Most didn't from the beginning.

[Enthusiast]

17. I thoroughly distrust the government, the PTB.

Thank you, Catherina.

[blackspade]

21. It just gets worse every day.

[snot]

24. K&R'd & bookmarked.

[arely staircase]

26. Assange reduced to making prank calls from his garage apartment at the Ecuadorian Embassy

[sabrina 1]

33. Don't know much about Wikileaks, do you? Did you really think that the US/UK campaign

to try to silence them had worked?

Omg!

[arely staircase]

34. let's break down what you just said

a. I don't know much about them

b. they haven't been silenced

ok

[MannyGoldstein]

27. Google: We're not the NSA*

[gulliver]

32. Has Assange been cleared of sexual assault charges?

Why do we care what he has to say?

[arely staircase]

35. look what happened to the last two people that took his advice nt

[sabrina 1]

39. And who would that be?

[arely staircase]

44. one is a prisoner of the us military and the other a prisonerer of Russian Security State

I guy reduced to forging travel documents and making prank phone calls from a virtual prison of his own is not one to take aadvice from

[sabrina 1]

47. Care to expand on what you are trying to say?

[arely staircase]

52. i think i have

Assange is the kinda anti-midas. All he touches turns to shit.

[sabrina 1]

53. Thanks, and you are wrong.

It is precisely because the opposite is true, that he became a target of the Big Banks and the MIC.

Wikileaks, a multiple awarding News Orgs has exposed corruption around the world and naturally has made a few enemies. Talk about 'shit'. I call genocidal maniacs 'shit' and thanks to Assange at least one of them finally had to pay the consequences of his crimes.

The corrupt Bankers of Iceland and their cohorts in the old Government, found out that at least in some parts of the world (not here of course) there ARE consequences, like jail, when you collapse your country's economy.

Long before Wikileaks exposed the War Crimes of the Bush gang, they had been earning a reputation of publishing real news, the kind that makes dictators shake in their boots.

But criminals get very nervous when they can't control ALL of the media, and they always strike out at the truth tellers.

It's an old story, most of the world gets it.

[sabrina 1]

38. There are no 'sexual charges' against Assange. We're still waiting for that to happen.

[sabrina 1]

40. Wow!

WikiLeaks cables also reveal that previously Cohen, when working for the State Department, was in Afghanistan trying to convince the four major Afghan mobile phone companies to move their antennas onto US military bases. In Lebanon he covertly worked to establish, on behalf of the State Department, an anti-Hezbollah Shia think tank. And in London? He was offering Bollywood film executives funds to insert anti-extremist content into Bollywood films and promising to connect them to related networks in Hollywood. That is the Director of Google Ideas. Cohen is effectively Google’s director of regime change. He is the State Department channeling Silicon Valley.

We did know we were being fed propaganda, now we know for sure where a lot of it came from.

[Hydra]

45. This is amazing and direct corroboration to something I've seen hints of all over

That the 1% are all linked together by blood, marriage or business relationships in a huge incestuous chain. Everything they do is linked together this way. Roads are paved via these relationships to create the kind of world they will be in total control of.

Conspiracy? Nah, they never talk to each other...see?

[MelungeonWoman]

48. K&R!

[Oilwellian]

51. Amazing info

Wonder how it will play out in Hillary's campaign for the presidency.

K&R

[Agony]

54. end all secrecy

I used to think that a certain amount of secrecy was OK... Fuck that noise

[Leopolds Ghost]

55. So Google was playing the "white hat" role in Arab Spring? Not sure what interest they would have

Unless the US was paying Google (and other major services?) to serve as ambassadors for "freedom of information" abroad?

Or more likely this was a straight cover ID for a US diplomatic undercover that has since been blown, in which case it's not as dramatic as it sounds... just means Google agreed to provide cover for this guy, just like I bet they've embedded people in all the major corporations... it's when those people then graduate to policy positions that it becomes a revolving door of corporate owned government, since then the corporate figures are the people with the security clearance.

The bit about Hillary (or any senior official) being in bed with media/tech conglomerates does not surprise me, but the details certainly are juicy and notably absent from the headlines of the US papers.