Obama confirmed Internet power grab during State of the Union address

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | FEBRUARY 14, 2013

President Barack Obama announced during his State of the Union that he has signed an executive order to ensure national security against possible cyber attacks. According to Obama, the United States has undergone several rounds of attacks directed to private companies and public infrastructure, declared in 2009 as “strategic assets” whose protection is a “national priority”.

“The United States must also address the real and growing threat of cyber attacks,” said the president during his speech. “We know that hackers steal people’s identities and infiltrate private emails. We know that foreign companies subtract our secrets. And our enemies seek the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions and our systems air traffic control, ” Obama fear-mongered in Congress.

Several U.S. officials claimed in recent months that their systems and facilities have suffered cyber attacks and that any of them could become “the next Pearl Harbor” in the words of then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

The executive order identified “critical infrastructure” such as systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital that its incapacitation or destruction could have a debilitating impact on national security, economic, health, or a combination of these “.

In response, the executive order includes measures to clarify the relationships of different sectors of the federal government, which supposedly would ensure and improve the security of infrastructure, facilitate the exchange of information between authorities and companies and create a plan that identifies the infrastructure that is more vulnerable in the event of an attack.

In simple words, the executive order signed by Obama codified the nationalization of all relevant infrastructure which will now be under the control of the Executive. It also legitimizes, at least in the eyes of the federal government, the exchange of private information from internet users, which the government has gathered for years. This will enable the Feds to avoid liability in the event an individual or a company denounces unwarranted government spying.

U.S. fears the consequences of a possible attack on its transmission system or electricity and has admitted they already have evidence that “intruders have gained access to control systems” of various infrastructures. A few weeks ago, several media outlets claimed having fought against the intrusion of Chinese hackers. No one has independently confirmed any of the these claims.

The Obama administration argues that any such attacks would be treated as an “act of war”. The executive order signed Tuesday by the President establishes coordination of various sectors of government, among them, defense, homeland security and anti-terror, but does not specify the methods of response to potential threats. It doesn’t explain how the government will go about gathering information from private companies or individuals.

As Obama said, the new “cyber defenses” will increase the exchange of information and develop standards “to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy.” However, the president also urged Congress to pass legislation that goes even further: “They must also act, passing laws that give our government a greater ability to protect our networks and deter attacks.”

The Government believes that ensuring safety is a shared responsibility between the authorities and companies that often manage internet infrastructure, the networks accessed by citizens, the telephone network, electricity and water supply. To do this, the order provides for the creation of a ‘voluntary program’ in which private companies and government share information about vulnerabilities in their systems and possible threats, so that they can better protect themselves. Note the term voluntary, because it will be voluntary for now. Later, the government will claim that any measures taken somehow worked to perfection before making compliance mandatory.

The executive order also requires that this information be shared “in an appropriate time” and expands the existing cybersecurity program that enabled government to share data on ‘potential threats’ in real time. This data exchange sparked criticism in the private sector, considering that there were not enough guarantees to provide their data to the Government.

The private sector and everyone else do have reason to be concerned, because the latest executive order will do for the web’s infrastructure what it did to healthcare, industry and the economy: it will turn them all into the hands of the federal government. It is a continuation of the process to fully install a Marxist regime in the United States.

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Obama to extend his powers to launch ‘preemptive’ cyber attacks

The latest power grab enables the President of the United States to launch pre-emptive attacks on anyone suspicious of planning to attack U.S. infrastructure.

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | FEBRUARY 5, 2013

President Barack Obama will have the authority to order preventive cyber attacks if the U.S. detects a potential threat from abroad. Officials consulted by several U.S. media say the administration wants to take action against the increasing number of attacks on computer networks in the country.

According to main stream media reports, Obama will sign a new executive order to take on new powers that enable him to start a new phase in American history: cyber wars. The Obama administration has recently studied the use of the available computer arsenal and its conclusion is that the president may assume such jurisdiction if a computer attack is sensed.

The Obama administration has worked on model legislation that would have passed both these powers as a framework of security standards to supposedly protect the country’s infrastructure as well as how the nation would respond to a cyber attack. The bill backed by the White House was rejected by the opposition in Congress, so the president, as he has done since his first day in office, will use an executive order to expand his power.

Remember the talk of a presidential internet kill switch? This is it, and the power to turn it on and off will now be put on paper.

Obama’s gesture coincides with recent reports of attacks by Chinese hackers to several U.S. media, so one of Obama’s justification to sign a new executive order that gives him unlimited power to launch a cyber attack is that his propaganda machine must be spared from any attacks so that it can continue lying to people about Obama’s real intention to grab the web. As it is widely known, no part of the United States sensitive infrastructure is ‘online’.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta used scare tactics last fall when he warned about a new “cyber Pearl Harbor” that could cause massive damage to American infrastructure. He mentioned that hackers could “derail passenger trains or cargo trains loaded with deadly chemicals” and that “there are cases in which intruders have gained access to control systems “of various parts of U.S. infrastructure. The Obama administration argues that any such attacks would be treated as an “act of war”.

The U.S. Department of Defense already created a new cyber command and ordered some sectors to increase its budget within the Army. Current legislation states that the U.S. can only carry out anti terrorist missions in those countries where it is involved in a war, but the new rules would allow the president and intelligence agencies to access foreign networks in order to detect possible attacks targeting the U.S. or  introduce computer viruses into their systems to prevent operation. That is exactly what the United States and Israel did to Iran last year even though there wasn’t any legislation approved neither by the Congress nor the president. What politicians in Washington are doing right now is simply coding what they’ve been doing for a long time. Of course any and all details about the so-called preemptive cyber attacks will remain secret.

The U.S. used cyber war to carry out an offensive against Iran, focusing exclusively on the infrastructure of its uranium enrichment plant, which in itself could have cause a massive nuclear accident. The project, inherited from the Bush administration, managed to block the operation of Iran’s nuclear program by introducing a computer virus in their systems, which showed that a nation’s infrastructure can be disabled or destroyed without previous warning and without bombarding buildings or civilian populations.

Experts say cyber warfare could cause serious damage to attack targets such as the U.S. financial system or transport networks. What those experts don’t point out is that very few nations, a dozen or less, have the technical capability to carry out such attacks, and that in the military community everyone knows who those countries are. Therefore, no preemptive strikes are needed. All it is needed is to remain vigilant instead of granting the president even more power than he already has.

What the United States is essentially saying is, do as we say, not as we do. The idea that the Americans intend to establish cooperation and exchange of information with governments and private entities in order to prevent a cyber Pearl Harbor, is as real as Santa Claus. The U.S. is simply announcing to the world that its next battlefield for conquest will be the world wide web, a territory rarely seen as the next stage in global warfare.

According to news reports, Obama’s main focus will be to prevent intrusions into the systems that manage the energy, finances chemical and basic services networks, none of which are ‘online’ or need to be online. The Obama Administration has publicly defended the U.S. response to cyber warfare, saying that it should focus both on preventing attacks as well as strengthening their computer systems to reduce the potential consequences of such an attack.

Since the supposed cyber attacks may not come from a nation, but could come from so-called terrorists groups, it is unlikely preemptive cyber attacks will be a real solution to them. The new power grab led by the Obama administration is mostly about grabbing the web to conduct its own terror plots, much like the United States has done in the physical world up until today. U.S. military dominance will extend itself from the ‘real’ world to cyber space.

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French government ‘begs’ for a terrorist attack

Alleged jihadist terrorist group threatens France after Hollande orders invasion of Mali

By LUIS MIRANDA MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | JANUARY 15, 2013

The ‘most urgent’ problem for France has been solved, it seems, after French troops invaded Mali last Friday. In another example of Western interventionism, France followed American steps in other African countries by putting boots on the ground to supposedly help liberate Mali from the advance of terrorists.

With its military intervention, Hollande apparently stopped an offensive led by three alleged radical groups while legitimizing their future attacks in the African country and on the French mainland. The former French colony is now ripe to become another Afghanistan in the heart of Africa.

A suspected North African branch of Al Qaeda (AQIM), the Tuareg, mobilized to northern Mali, which it allegedly controls since March. Seventy two hours after the French landed, the group moved south on two different axes to regroup in Segou.

France’s bombings were determined to stop a supposed take over led by the Tuareg. France intended to stop its advance to help the weak Mali Army to recover. The French fire spread north to, for example, Gao a city of 90,000 inhabitants, the largest Islamist jihadist power center, to destroy the bases.

The French operation seeks to create a sort of buffer zone in southern Mali protected from the ravages of the North. By sending hundreds of troops to Bamako, is an attempt by Hollande to supposedly hold on to one  of the weakest “democratic institutions in Africa”. The dissension of its political and the coup led by its military in March weakened the country even more.

“The operation will last long enough,” Hollande said on Friday, which means that the French must remain there for months, at least until they start the reconquest of the north.

More Bombardments, more troops

French President François Hollande, announced Tuesday morning that he will reinforce the French military operation in Mali, pending the arrival of troops from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that fight against Islamist rebels for the control of the north African country since last March.

The UN backed military intervention again called for a political solution and for national reconciliation to resolve the conflict, which the UN says has left 150,000 refugees in neighboring countries like Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Algeria, as well as 230,000 people displaced inland.

“Currently, there are 750 men and the number will increase so we can make room for African soldiers as quickly as possible,” said Hollande during his visit to a French naval base in Abu Dhabi. This figure will reach 2,500 soldiers, according to sources close to the French government.

Hollande, who believes that the deployment of African troops will still take “a long time” stated that “new attacks have reached their goals tonight.” According to a Malian military source quoted by AFP, the French air force has bombed the town of Diabali today, a place that the Salafists had taken over just 48 hours ago.

Without an open declaration of war, French war planes pounded Diabali, which is located 400 kilometers from the capital, Bamako. At least five people died and several other were injured in the attack, ” Hollande said. A local resident said he saw armed rebels fleeing the city.

Another Malian military source said, that jihadi fighters are still in Diabali and that several have kidnapped local politician as bargaining chips. The French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, who travels with Hollande, said he was confident that the Gulf states support the action of the African troops to fight Islamist Ansar Dine, the North African branch of Al Qaeda (AQIM ) and the Movement for the Union of Jihadism in West Africa (MUYAO), who supposedly control northern Mali.

U.S. to assist France in its reconquering of Mali

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said Monday that his country will provide “limited logistical support” and intelligence to the French Government in its military invasion in Mali.

“I’ve talked to the French Defense Minister,” said Panetta. Our aid will provide limited logistical and intelligence support where possible to assist them in their effort,” Panetta told reporters on the plane that took him to Lisbon.

Meanwhile, neither Panetta nor the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, confirmed that the Obama administration has granted telecommunications and transportation assistance to France, said French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius.

However, Panetta admitted that the Pentagon considers sending transport planes to carry French troops or military equipment. “There are some areas where airlift will be used to assist the operation,” he said.

The Defense Secretary did not say whether U.S. drones will be sent to Mali, as requested by the Government of François Hollande. “I will not go into details about the assistance beyond saying that we will assist in the area of ​​intelligence,” he reiterated. That of course means the U.S. will indeed send drones for intelligence gathering at the very least, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the drones are also used to strike targets as the U.S. did in Pakistan and Afghanistan throughout 2012.

“We have a responsibility to pursue Al Qaeda wherever they are,” said Panetta. “We’re chasing them in Yemen and Somalia, and we have a responsibility to ensure that al Qaeda does not establish a base of operations in North Africa, in Mali.” Panetta, who last year announced he takes military orders from NATO, not from the U.S. Congress did not consult American representatives in Washington about this new intervention in Mali.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) “may have no specific plans to attack the United States and Europe, but that is a goal that they still have over all and that is why we must take steps now,” he added. As it has been publicly revealed by Hillary Clinton, al-Qaeda is a terrorist group created by the United States back in the 1970s to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. government trained and financed al-Qaeda to carry out its dirty deeds all over the Middle East and now in Africa.

Al-Qaeda is the gift that keeps on giving for the United States. It was used as an excuse to attack Libya and later praised for its murderous campaign in Syria, where the U.S. recognizes the rebel opposition groups as ‘heroes’ for attacking innocent civilians while they try to destabilize the Assad regime. Now, Panetta warns that the American intervention in Mali is a preventive move to impede al-Qaeda related groups from establishing their bases on Mali.

Back in 2001, al-Qaeda was blamed by the Bush administration for the 9/11 attacks, which prompted the invasion of Afghanistan.

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U.S. amasses troops and missiles on Turkish border with Syria

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | DECEMBER 17, 2012

As tension escalates in Syria, the U.S. defense secretary, Leon Panetta, signed the order to send two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey, along with more than 400 U.S. soldiers.

“The purpose of this display is to show that the U.S., working with its NATO allies, will support Turkey’s defense, especially threats that may come from Syria,” said Pentagon spokesman George Little , shortly before Panetta landed in Incirlik Air Base (southern Turkey), in a surprise visit. No one at the conference dared to ask why had the U.S. sent troops, weapons and cash before this last shipment.

American missile batteries will join two from Germany and two from Holland and will be operational in late January next year. The Pentagon spokesman did not report where the missiles will be located and only said that the missiles would arrive in Turkey in the coming weeks.

After landing at Incirlik, from Afghanistan, Leon Panneta told reporters traveling with him that the U.S. is working with Turkey, Jordan and Israel to assess the situation in Syria and its supposed storage of chemical weapons. As usual, Panetta showed no proof of the existence of such weapons, much less any evidence that Syrian intends to use them on its people, a claim put out by U.S. intelligence and that the world’s corporate media have been megaphoning for two weeks in a row.

The Secretary of Defense, State and the U.S. President warned of “serious consequences” should Bashar Assad decided to use such weapons against the population. “We have designed various plans to present to the president,” said Panneta. “We have to be prepared.” Up until now, there is no evidence that plans have been drawn by Assad’s regime to use chemical weapons on anyone. In fact, the idea that the supposed movement of the weapons inside Syria is a step forward to launch attacks on Syrians is as valid as believing that Assad is trying to hide the weapons from rebel groups that may use them against the population to blame the Assad regime.

Unfortunately, the terrorist rebel groups do not need to use Assad’s chemicals to pull that one off, since the U.S. and its allies in the region possess enough chemicals to provide to the rebels so they can launch chemical attacks which they will then blame on Bashar Assad’s regime. In a sense, that action would be the perfect false-flag for the U.S. and NATO allies to launch an open assault from air, sea and land.

The idea to send missile batteries to Turkey originated in the country’s complicity on a series of terrorist attacks in Syria, after which its government called for protection from NATO members fearing Syrian retaliation. Such retaliation never came, although Turkey accused Syria of launching missile attacks from across the border. The Turkish regime never showed any proof to support such accusation.

The Patriot missiles deployed in Turkey are ground-air missiles designed to intercept other missiles, with the advantage that the batteries can move quickly and resist jamming. The current model is an evolution that the U.S. began using in the mid-80s, which were used against Iraq in the first Gulf War.

With almost all significant players in Europe recognizing the rebels in Syria as the “true representative” government, the second day of the Brussels European Council meeting, focused its the agenda on foreign policy issues, especially the conflict in Syria and Iran’s nuclear program.

The French president said that the European Union must aim to oust the Syrian president. “Now we have to get him off power as soon as possible,” said Hollande, who recalled that on the ground in Syria, there is a civil war.

Hollande forgot to point out that the civil war was fueled by western powers who have a stake in Syria. France, Germany, Italy, and the United States have all, in one way or another, supported the invasion of Syria and will surely come together if a decision to launch an full scale attack is made.

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Leon Panetta announces that “Cyber Pearl Harbor” is near

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | OCTOBER 22, 2012

The cyber ​​war against Iran began under President Bush with a series of attacks commanded by the governments of the United States and Israel. Their first known product, the Stuxnet virus, severely disrupted the Iranian nuclear facilities a couple of years ago. When it was discovered in the summer of 2010, the virus had escaped to the Internet from the Iranian Natanz nuclear plant. Obama made clear his concern and said he was weary about the U.S. turning into a “hacker” which could be a justification for other countries to launch attacks against the U.S.. But that is precisely what the cyber war is all about: seeking an external attack by provoking American foes so the military industrial complex can justify the takeover of the internet. Obama himself has approved internet censorship legislation that enables him and his government to block large portions of the internet or even to switch the net off.

Although officially the Iranians are the villains, they were not the first to push the button. It was Obama himself, who during his first presidential term, decided to carry out this less futile kind of war. He and his government developed cyber spying and cyber sabotage procedures that are now applied against the American people themselves as well as foreign governments. The plans to launch spying and cyber war games includes the use of drones to attack targets in countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The cyber war is usually kept quiet, so not many people learn about it unless it is found out that the U.S. and Israel are behind the attacks launched against Iran, as it has happened lately. Meanwhile, Leon Panetta, who has just declared that his country is on the brink of a “cyber Pearl Harbor”, does not say absolutely anything about the provocations carried out by the U.S. and its ally Israel. What is causing Panetta’s concerns? The Defense Secretary of the United States is referring to recent attacks on computer systems that belong to Saudi oil companies and U.S. financial institutions, which the U.S. attributes to Iran; more specifically, a cyber war operation put together by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The existence of Iranian cyber warriors is not new, but the US has not shown any convincing proof that Iran was the one that attacked the Saudis or American banks. Since 2011 and in response to a previous cyber attacks that sought to hack its nuclear program — conducted by Israel and the US — Iran began working on a program to not only defend itself from such attacks, but to carry out offensives against its aggressors. But the United States has not demonstrated that the attacks carried out in August that affected the national oil company Saudi Aramco and some US banks, were of Iranian making.

Obama’s doubts about having the US work as a cyber terrorists state ended quickly and the White House along with the Pentagon and the CIA began a program known as Olimpic Games. Through this and other programs, Obama approved the escalation of cyber attacks against Iran. back in early July, The New York Times published an extensive report that explained how Obama “secretly ordered increased attacks against sophisticated computer systems inside Iranian factories that worked in the enrichment of uranium.” The report detailed how this plan expanded significantly the use of cyber terror tools from the part of the US government.

After launching the attacks, Obama also called on American civil and military intelligence services to work closer together and to cooperate on this front with the Israelis. After initially denying it, so that it did not have to recognize its weakness, the Iranian regime ended up recognizing that trojans, viruses and malware coming from outside Iran had infiltrated its nuclear energy programs.

In 2010, Richard A. Clarke, who was head of U.S. counterterrorism services with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, published an essay entitled Cyber ​​War. Clarke talked about World War III in cyberspace for which states like U.S., Israel, Russia and China were already preparing to fight.

Some people believe that Flame, one of the viruses that got inside Iranian computers may have been the first of many trojan horses to come. In late May, the Iranian government agency dedicated to the fight against piracy (its acronym CERT) announced that it had located the virus, the most malignant ever invented. Flame had been infecting computers for two years without being detected by any antivirus software.

Flame is a set of programs that performs multiple tasks of espionage and sabotage: records conversations, allows the computer to be controlled remotely, has Bluetooth and takes over upcoming mobile phones near the computers, copies and transmits data remotely and is  undetectable by any existing antivirus program today.

Of course, the U.S. does not officially recognize any of these viruses that have undermined Iran’s nuclear program. Neither does Israel. But it is well known that the U.S. Air Force already has 7000 cyber warriors in bases located in Texas and Georgia. It is unknown to the public how many more of these the US has in other departments of the Pentagon, the CIA and other U.S. federal government agencies.

The effort to turn the US into a cyber terrorist state began in 2009 under President Obama. After approving various pieces of legislation, the US government created the United States Cyber ​​Command (USCYBERCOM) which is the organ that manages all special operations of the U.S. Air Force.

USCYBERCOM was not the only creature of its kind and now it seems to have found a serious rival in the Iranian specialized units.

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