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Government Corruption Media Articles

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You Are Reading This Thanks to Semiconductors
2023-05-04, ScheerPost
https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/04/you-are-reading-this-thanks-to-semiconductors/

On 7 October 2022, the United States government implemented export controls in an effort to hinder the development of China’s semiconductor industry. The next day, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said: "... By politicising tech and trade issues and using them as a tool and weapon, the US cannot hold back China’s development but will only hurt and isolate itself when its action backfires." Under the Trump and Biden administrations, the US has placed hundreds of Chinese companies on trade and investment blacklists. These restrictions have banned any company in the world that uses US products – effectively every chip designer and manufacturer – from doing business with Chinese tech firms. The US has also pressured governments and firms around the world to impose similar restrictions. Washington fears that China’s technological development will lead, through trade and investment, to the dispersal of advanced technologies more broadly throughout the world, namely, to states in the Global South that the US sees as a threat. This would be a significant blow to the US’s power over these countries. The scale of the developments in digital technology is staggering. Earlier conflicts took place over energy and food, but now this conflict has heated up ... the resources of our digital world. This technology can be used to solve so many of our dilemmas, and yet, here we are, at the precipice of greater conflict to benefit the few over the needs of the many.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


The FCC Is Supposed to Protect the Environment. It Doesn’t.
2023-05-02, ProPublica
https://www.propublica.org/article/fcc-environment-cell-towers-failures

Few people think of the FCC as an environmental cop. It’s known for regulating television and radio and overseeing the deployment of communications technology. But the agency also has a broad mandate to ensure that technology doesn’t damage the environment. This role is particularly critical now, as the FCC presides over a nationwide buildout for 5G service, which will require 800,000 new “small cell” transmitters, those perched on street poles and rooftops, often near schools, apartments and homes. But even with this massive effort underway, as ProPublica previously reported, the FCC has refused to revise its radiation-exposure limits, which date back to the era of flip phones. In addition, the agency has cut back on the environmental reviews that it requires while also restricting local governments’ control over wireless sites. The agency operates on the honor system, delegating much of its responsibility to the industries that it regulates. It allows companies to decide for themselves whether their projects require environmental study. And if the companies break the rules, they’re expected to report their own transgression. Few do. In the rare instances in which the FCC investigates, even brazen illegality is often met with a minor fine, a scolding “admonishment” or no action at all. Just 10% of FCC enforcement cases between 2014 and 2016 resulted in a monetary penalty, while 40% ended with a warning and the rest resulted in no action.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Can a 50-year-old treaty still keep the world safe from the changing threat of bioweapons?
2023-04-28, Vox
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23700801/bioweapons-biological-weapons-con...

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits the production, use, development, stockpiling, or transfer of biological toxins or disease-causing organisms against humans, animals, or plants. More than 180 countries are party to the pact, which came into force in 1975 as the first multilateral treaty to ban an entire class of weapon. And in the years since, the taboo against state use of biological weapons has largely held. Yet a volatile geopolitical environment, combined with the rapid advance and increased access in the ability to edit and engineer pathogens, is straining and testing the nearly 50-year-old BWC as never before. From the BWC’s beginnings, critics have said it lacked vital elements, like a verification mechanism to make sure everyone is following it. Global tensions, scientific advances, and the ever-expanding repertoire of what is possible with both biology and chemistry are making those flaws and cracks ever more visible. Some high-profile mishaps linked to the US chemical and biological weapons programs ... along with public anger over the use of herbicides like Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, prompted Congress to pressure the Nixon administration to review the biological and chemical weapons programs. Contagions are hard to control and contain, and the same pathogens that can infect your target can also sicken you and your population. This is also why they tend to be used as a stealth agent of war. “The holy grail that we’ve struggled with with the Biological Weapons Convention is how do you verify that the countries that have signed up to the treaty are not making biological weapons?” said Kenneth Ward, US special representative to the Biological Weapons Convention.

Note: Watch our latest Mindful News Brief series on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption from reliable major media sources.


When a prison sentence becomes a death sentence
2023-04-27, NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/27/1172320844/when-a-prison...

At least 6,182 people died in state and federal prisons in 2020, a 46% jump from the previous year, according to data recently released by researchers from the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project. "During the pandemic, a lot of prison sentences became death sentences," says Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative. A Senate report last year found the U.S. Department of Justice failed to identify more than 900 deaths in prisons and local jails in fiscal year 2021. The report said the DOJ's poor data collection and reporting undermined transparency and congressional oversight of deaths in custody. A major reason the U.S. trails other developed countries in life expectancy is because it has more people behind bars and keeps them there far longer, says Chris Wildeman, a Duke University sociology professor who has researched the link between criminal justice and life expectancy. "It's a health strain on the population," Wildeman says. "The worse the prison conditions, the more likely it is incarceration can be tied to excess mortality." Over a 40-year span starting in the 1980s, the number of people in the nation's prisons and jails more than quadrupled, fueled by tough-on-crime policies and the war on drugs. The federal government can't definitively say how many people have died in prisons and jails since the covid-19 pandemic began, researchers say. "Without data, we are operating in the dark," says Andrea Armstrong, a professor ... who has testified before Congress on the issue.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


Whistleblower tells Congress that govt is delivering migrant children to human traffickers
2023-04-26, Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/whistleblower-tells-congress-that-govt-deliv...

A whistleblower who viewed first-hand what she testified is a "sophisticated network" of child migrant smuggling into forced labor and other forms of slavery is calling on Congress to act to crack down on the U.S. role in that network. The hearing, "The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children," was held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement and included Health and Human Services (HHS) whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas as a witness. Rodas, who was detailed with HHS at an Emergency Intake Site in Pomona, California, ... told lawmakers about what she experienced on the ground. "I thought I was going to help place children in loving homes. Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with recruiting in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends when [Office of Refugee Resettlement] delivers a child to a sponsor — some sponsors are ... members of Transnational Criminal Organizations. Some sponsors view children as commodities," Rodas said. The number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) who arrive at the border has swelled from 33,239 in fiscal year 2020 to more than ... 152,000 in fiscal year 2022. "The U.S. government has become the middleman in a large scale, multibillion-dollar child trafficking operation that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of children," Rodas said.

Note: Why is this horrific issue not being discussed on a significant mainstream level? According to a report by The Center for Public Integrity, thousands have disappeared from sponsors' homes after the federal government placed them there. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


Australian government is hit with class action lawsuit over Covid vaccines
2023-04-26, MSN News
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/australian-government-is-hit-with-cl...

A landmark Covid-19 vaccine injury class action lawsuit has been filed against the Australian government and the medicines regulator. The nation-wide suit, which reportedly has 500 members including three named applicants, seeks redress for those allegedly left injured or bereaved by the Covid-19 vaccines. One of the applicants who suffered a severe heart condition after getting the Pfizer jab is even claiming there was 'cover-up' during the vaccine rollout which hid the potential risks. The federal government, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the Department of Health - in addition to a number of senior public servants - are all named as parties to the class action, which was filed in the New South Wales Federal Court. The named parties are accused of negligence in their approval and monitoring of Covid-19 vaccines, breach of statutory duty and misfeasance in public office. Instructing solicitor Natalie Strijland, of Brisbane law firm NR Barbi, said the action would argue the TGA caused considerable harm and damage by failing to regulate the COVID-19 vaccinations properly. The class action names three applicants, one of whom is 41-year old father-of-two Gareth O'Gradie. Mr O'Gradie, a teacher from Melbourne, was left with a 20-centimetre scar down his chest after developing severe pericarditis — inflammation of the lining around the heart — following his first Pfizer vaccination in July 2021. In February 2022 doctors performed open heart surgery to remove his the pericardial sac lining his heart.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


Big Tech Companies Are Becoming More Powerful Than Nation-States
2023-04-25, Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/big-tech-companies-more-powerful-than-na...

U.S. citizens are being subjected to a relentless onslaught from intrusive technologies that have become embedded in the everyday fabric of our lives, creating unprecedented levels of social and political upheaval. These widely used technologies ... include social media and what Harvard professor Shoshanna Zuboff calls "surveillance capitalism"—the buying and selling of our personal info and even our DNA in the corporate marketplace. But powerful new ones are poised to create another wave of radical change. Under the mantle of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution," these include artificial intelligence or AI, the metaverse, the Internet of Things, the Internet of Bodies (in which our physical and health data is added into the mix to be processed by AI), and my personal favorite, police robots. This is a two-pronged effort involving both powerful corporations and government initiatives. These tech-based systems are operating "below the radar" and rarely discussed in the mainstream media. The world's biggest tech companies are now richer and more powerful than most countries. According to an article in PC Week in 2021 discussing Apple's dominance: "By taking the current valuation of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and others, then comparing them to the GDP of countries on a map, we can see just how crazy things have become… Valued at $2.2 trillion, the Cupertino company is richer than 96% of the world. In fact, only seven countries currently outrank the maker of the iPhone financially."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Will China’s Push for Multipolar World End US Global Domination?
2023-04-25, Truthout
https://truthout.org/video/will-chinas-push-for-multipolar-world-end-us-globa...

China is taking an increasingly assertive role in world affairs, helping to broker a restoration of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, offering a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine, and strengthening its relationships with European and Latin American powers. Last week, China continued its diplomatic outreach by offering to hold talks between Israel and Palestine. "What China is after, if we view it from China’s perspective, is what was also said: true multilateralism. And what that means, or true multipolarity, another term that they use, and that means they don’t want a U.S.-led world, they want a multipolar world," [said Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia University]. "And while the United States sometimes talks about a rule-based order, the fact of the matter is that ... the grand strategists of the U.S. state see our grand strategy in the United States as being dominance. Well, China doesn’t want the United States to be the preeminent power. It wants to live alongside the United States. But what’s very important and interesting to understand, and we’ve seen it clearly in the dynamics involving the Ukraine war, most of the world also does not want the U.S. as the global preeminent power. Most of the world wants a multipolar world, and is, therefore, not lined up behind the United States’ sanctions on Russia and so forth. In fact, the United States is withdrawing ... our politicians are withdrawing from the world financial and monetary scene and opening up the space for a completely different kind of international finance."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


EPA accused of failing to regulate use of toxic herbicides despite court order
2023-04-24, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/24/epa-monsanto-toxic-herbic...

The US Environmental Protection Agency has in effect ignored a 2020 federal court order prohibiting the use of Monsanto and other producers' toxic dicamba-based herbicides that are destroying millions of acres of cropland, harming endangered species and increasing cancer risks for farmers, new fillings in the lawsuit charge. Instead of permanently yanking the products from the market after the 2020 order, the EPA only required industry to add further application instructions to the herbicides' labels before reapproving the products. A late 2021 EPA investigation found the same problems persist even with new directions added to the label, but the agency still allows Monsanto, BASF and other producers to continue using dicamba. The EPA's pesticide office is included in allegations that career managers are influenced by or have colluded with industry, and in some cases falsified science to make dangerous substances appear less toxic. About one-third of the pesticide office's funding comes from industry fees. The agency in 2016 approved the dicamba-based herbicide developed by Monsanto, which was to be used on genetically modified soybean and cotton crops. The herbicide can damage or kill neighboring crops and plants that are not engineered to be dicamba-resistant. The results are "devastating" and destroying millions of acres as "as never before seen in the history of US agriculture", the plaintiffs said. In some cases, direct dicamba exposure can kill insects, mammals and other animals.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the food system from reliable major media sources.


Saudi Arabia Owns Stake in Firm that Bought Democratic Party’s Campaign Tech
2023-04-23, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2023/04/23/saudi-arabia-democratic-party-campaign-ng...

The government of Saudi Arabia is an investor in the private company that owns a virtual monopoly on software that powers Democratic candidates — including management of the Democratic National Committee’s all-important voter list. Sanabil Investments, the company that manages Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, recently published its first list of investments. The list includes two private equity firms involved two years ago in the sale and acquisition of EveryAction and NGP VAN, the companies that make up the Democratic Party’s campaign tech apparatus. Federal regulations are designed to stop sovereign wealth funds from interfering in domestic politics. If a particular investment includes a national security risk, federal regulators can force the transaction to be undone through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States under the Department of the Treasury. Most of that risk is typically mitigated because sovereign wealth funds tend to be invested in companies through intermediaries. Investment in a company that deals with data related to voting and politics could be of potential concern to the Committee on Foreign Investment, even if the investor has no real influence over relevant data. The Sanabil investment doesn’t mean the Saudi government has an interest in the functions of the companies. Instead, said progressive strategist Gabe Tobias, the disclosure is a further indication that the fate of EveryAction and NGP VAN is not a priority for their owners.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on elections corruption from reliable major media sources.


Leaks Reveal Reality Behind U.S. Propaganda in Ukraine
2023-04-19, LA Progressive (A popular Los Angeles Newspaper)
https://www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peace/propaganda-in-ukraine

The U.S. corporate media’s first response to the leaking of secret documents about the war in Ukraine was to throw some mud in the water, declare “nothing to see here,” and cover it as a depoliticized crime story about a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who published secret documents to impress his friends. What these documents reveal, however, is that the war is going worse for Ukraine than our political leaders have admitted to us, while going badly for Russia too, so that neither side is likely to break the stalemate this year, and this will lead to “a protracted war beyond 2023,” as one of the documents says. We can’t help wondering what President Biden’s plan could be, or if he even has one. In what amounts to a second leak that the corporate media have studiously ignored, U.S. intelligence sources have told veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that they are asking the same questions, and they describe a “total breakdown” between the White House and the U.S. intelligence community. According to Hersh’s report, the CIA assesses that Ukrainian officials, including President Zelenskyy, have embezzled $400 million from money the United States sent Ukraine to buy diesel fuel for its war effort, in a scheme that involves buying cheap, discounted fuel from Russia. Meanwhile, Hersh says, Ukrainian government ministries literally compete with each other to sell weapons paid for by U.S. taxpayers to private arms dealers in Poland, the Czech Republic and around the world.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation and war from reliable sources.


COVID-19 vaccine claims yield small payouts from U.S. government
2023-04-18, Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/covid-19-vaccine-claims-yield-small-...

Of more than 8,000 people who filed claims with the federal government alleging injuries from COVID-19 vaccines, three have now received cash payouts, new government data shows. Their combined compensation? Less than $5,000. One person who had an anaphylactic reaction to the shot received $2,020 from the government’s Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, or CICP. Another who got myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle – from the jab received $1,583, while a second myocarditis sufferer got $1,033, according to the data, which was released last week. A third myocarditis patient’s claim was approved but the person was denied compensation due to lack of eligible expenses. The CICP has doled out just three small awards confirms [that] the government program is ill-suited to adjudicate these cases. The no-fault tribunal run by the Health Resources and Services Administration is stymied by statute in the relief it can offer, with compensation limited to unreimbursed medical expenses and up to $50,000 a year in lost wages. A death benefit of up to $422,035 may also be available. There’s no allowance for pain and suffering, no punitive damages, no attorneys’ fees, no public hearings or opinions, no right to judicial appeal. But it’s the only legal recourse available for the unlucky few who have experienced serious adverse effects from the vaccines. The COVID-19 vaccine makers are indemnified by the government and are not party to CICP proceedings.

Note: This article attributes vaccine injuries to the "unlucky few." However, an increasing amount of evidence makes it clear that vaccine injuries are more common than what we're told, as revealed in countless anecdotal stories of those significantly harmed from the vaccine and Pfizer's very own disclosed documents. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


Lockheed Martin Got $106 From the Average Taxpayer, While Renewables Got Just $6
2023-04-17, Truthout
https://truthout.org/articles/lockheed-martin-got-106-from-the-average-taxpay...

The average U.S. taxpayer in 2022 spent over four times as much on Pentagon contractors than on primary and secondary education, according to the annual Tax Day analysis published in recent days by the Institute for Policy Studies’ National Priorities Project. NPP found that, on average, American taxpayers contributed $1,087 to Pentagon contractors, compared with $270 for K-12 education. The top military contractor — Lockheed Martin — received $106 from the average taxpayer, while just $6 went to funding renewable energy. According to the analysis, the average 2022 U.S. taxpayer: Paid $74 for nuclear weapons, and just $43 for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Spent $70 on deportations and border control, versus just $19 for refugee assistance; Contributed $20 for federal prisons, and just $11 for anti-homelessness programs; and Gave $298 to the top five military contractors, and just $19 for mental health and substance abuse. “The main message? Our government is continuing to invest too much in the military, and in militarized law enforcement, and not nearly enough on prevention, people, and our communities,” NPP said. NPP’s analysis comes just over a month after the White House released President Joe Biden’s $1.6 trillion budget request for fiscal year 2024. More than half of that amount—$886 billion — would go to the military.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Billionaire Space Flight Isn’t About Colonization. It’s Stoking a New Cold War.
2023-04-16, Truthout
https://truthout.org/articles/billionaire-space-flight-isnt-about-colonizatio...

The U.S. has not engaged in a defensive war for nearly 80 years, instead destabilizing governments worldwide in Vietnam, the Korean Peninsula, Iraq, Afghanistan, throughout Africa and across Latin America. Although all weapons of mass destruction in space are technically prohibited by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, it isn’t without precedent for major military powers to withdraw from such treaties. In 2019, President Donald Trump diverged from President Barack Obama’s promise he would “not weaponize space,” and created an official Space Force. Countersurveillance and counter-communications have been central goals of U.S. military space operations since the 1990s, alongside attaining U.S. “full spectrum dominance” of all potential conflict sites — including space. Space infrastructure ... increases the risk of global nuclear war by presenting new opportunities for armament and hostility. The government’s ability to militarize this technology is strongly related to investment and development in the private sector through companies such as Boeing, SpaceX and Blue Origin. The commercial arm of the military-industrial complex is extending into space. Along with Blue Origin, SpaceX has collaborated with DOD in developing rapid global military cargo delivery systems, which the DOD hopes will make for global military logistics — delivery of supplies, weapons and even human soldiers anywhere on earth — in under 60 minutes.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Ukraine War Is Shaking Up Global Arms Industry
2023-04-16, LA Progressive (A popular Los Angeles Newspaper)
https://www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peace/global-arms-industry

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that six countries—the U.S., Russia, France, China, Germany, and Italy—were responsible for 80 percent of global weapons exports from 2018 to 2022. The U.S. alone counted for 40 percent, while Russia was a distant second at 16 percent. Maintaining and growing their market share is a prerogative for countries that export weapons. Turkey has sold many drones to Ukraine, while Iran has sold its own arsenal to Russia. Both Turkey and Iran are aiming to pitch their products as low-cost alternatives to Western manufacturers. Turkey, however, is still in talks to buy Russia's S-400 missile defense system. Its provision of weapons to Ukraine, while it continues to negotiate weapons deals with Russia, demonstrates the complicated nature of the global arms industry. The war in Ukraine continues to underline how integral the arms industry is to geopolitics. China, for example, has not provided weapons to either Ukraine or Russia, but its largest civilian drone maker, DJI, is one of the most important suppliers for their militaries. The U.S. has been criticized in recent years for its weapons exports to Saudi Arabia, which is under fire for human rights abuses and for its conflict in Yemen.  And though claims of Western weapons being smuggled out of Ukraine have often been dismissed, there is concern that many of the weapons sent to the Ukrainian military have or will end up on the black market.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Georgia National Guard Will Use Phone Location Tracking to Recruit High School Children
2023-04-16, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2023/04/16/georgia-army-national-guard-location-trac...

The Georgia Army National Guard plans to combine two deeply controversial practices — military recruiting at schools and location-based phone surveillance — to persuade teens to enlist, according to contract documents reviewed by The Intercept. The federal contract materials outline plans by the Georgia Army National Guard to geofence 67 different public high schools throughout the state, targeting phones found within a one-mile boundary of their campuses with recruiting advertisements “with the intent of generating qualified leads of potential applicants for enlistment while also raising awareness of the Georgia Army National Guard.” Geofencing refers generally to the practice of drawing a virtual border around a real-world area. The ad campaign will make use of a variety of surveillance advertising techniques, including capturing the unique device IDs of student phones, tracking pixels, and IP address tracking. It will also plaster recruiting solicitations across Instagram, Snapchat, streaming television, and music apps. The campaign plans not only call for broadcasting recruitment ads to kids at school, but also for pro-Guard ads to follow these students around as they continue using the internet and other apps, a practice known as retargeting. While the state’s plan specifies targeting only high school juniors and seniors ages 17 and above, demographic ad targeting is known to be error prone, and experts told The Intercept it’s possible the recruiting messages could reach the phones of younger children.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


How the Juvenile System Forces Minors Into Unsafe Institutions
2023-04-15, The Marshall Project
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/04/15/texas-california-children-juven...

A 2020 reform law was supposed to remake the way the California juvenile justice system looks. “De-escalation rooms” stocked with essential oils and weighted blankets are among the changes some county youth facilities have been pushed to install. It was all part of an effort to make the system less punitive and more therapeutic. But this air of change might be news to young people held in Los Angeles County, where this week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta asked a state judge to sanction local officials for what he called “illegal and unsafe conditions.” County officials across the state pushed back against the 2020 law — which phased out state-run juvenile facilities in favor of county-run ones. Tasked with rolling out the changes, local officials formed a multi-county non-profit organization — not subject to public information laws — to share resources and data. Some local advocates worry that this approach is creating a “shadow jury and justice system that operates outside of the public,” reports the Sacramento Bee. The way this has played out in California may be instructive to Texas, where some lawmakers are seeking a similar overhaul for a juvenile system long-plagued by abusive conditions and mismanagement. As in California, county juvenile justice officials in Texas oppose the changes. A recent report from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics found 1,762 confirmed incidents of young people being sexually harassed, abused, or assaulted in juvenile facilities between 2013 and 2018.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


TikTok: Chinese “Trojan Horse” is Run By State Department Officials
2023-04-13, MintPress News
https://www.mintpressnews.com/tiktok-chinese-trojan-horse-run-by-state-depart...

A MintPress News investigation has found dozens of ex-U.S. State Department officials working in key positions at TikTok. Many more individuals with backgrounds in the FBI, CIA and other departments of the national security state also hold influential posts at the social media giant, affecting the content that over one billion users see. The influx of State Department officials into TikTok’s upper ranks is a consequence of “Project Texas,” an initiative the company began in 2020 in the hopes of avoiding being banned altogether in the United States. During his time in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo led the charge to shut the platform down, frequently labeling it a “spying app” and a “propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.” It was widely reported that the U.S. government had forced the sale of TikTok to Walmart and then Microsoft. But in late 2020, as Project Texas began, those deals mysteriously fell through, and the rhetoric about the dangers of TikTok from officials evaporated. Project Texas is a $1.5 billion security operation to move the company’s data to Austin. In doing so, it announced that it was partnering with tech giant Oracle, a corporation that, as MintPress has reported on, is the CIA in all but name. Evidently, Project Texas also secretly included hiring all manner of U.S. national security state personnel to oversee the company’s operations – and not just from the State Department. Virtually every branch of the national security state is present at TikTok.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in intelligence agencies and in the corporate world from reliable major media sources.


Once Shocking, U.S. Spying on Its Allies Draws a Global Shrug
2023-04-13, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/us/politics/us-spying-allies.html

The last time a trove of leaked documents exposed U.S. spying operations around the world, the reaction from allied governments was swift and severe. In Berlin, thousands of people protested in the streets, the C.I.A. station chief was expelled, and the German chancellor told the American president that "spying on friends is not acceptable." In Paris, the American ambassador was summoned for a dressing-down. That was a decade ago, after an enormous leak of classified documents detailing American surveillance programs by ... Edward Snowden. The latest leak of classified documents that appeared online this year, the motive behind which remains unknown, has again illustrated the broad reach of U.S. spy agencies, including into the capitals of friendly countries such as Egypt, South Korea, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates. Though the documents mainly focus on the war in Ukraine, they include C.I.A. intelligence briefs describing conversations and plans at senior levels of government in those countries, in several cases attributed to "signals intelligence," or electronic eavesdropping. Unlike in 2013, however, U.S. allies appear to be mostly shrugging off the latest examples of apparent spying. So far, the only evident political fallout from the latest leaks has occurred in South Korea, where one classified U.S. document described a debate among senior national security officials about whether to send artillery shells abroad that might wind up in Ukraine, potentially angering Russia.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


In Pentagon Leak, The Problem is What’s Classified, Not What Gets Out
2023-04-13, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2023/04/13/pentagon-classified-documents-leak/

A set of secret national security documents burst into public view last week. The intelligence documents appear to have entered the public domain in an unusual way — someone began sharing them, starting late last year, on an obscure Discord server called Thug Shaker Central. The alleged leaker, Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested. It is traditional for the government to exaggerate the alleged harms of classified information becoming public, and this appears to be happening again. The real problem isn’t what’s leaked, but what’s classified. Almost every news story about the latest disclosures has noted that the Pentagon and other government agencies will now put tighter lids on secret documents, even though, as historian Matthew Connelly points out in his new book, “The Declassification Engine,” the government already puts way too much material behind its moat. In fact, the human harm caused by unauthorized leaks is almost always inflicted by the government itself in the form of egregious prosecutions of leakers. Although Snowden, [Chelsea] Manning, and, more recently, Reality Winner, revealed secrets that the public had a right to know, the government charged all of them under the draconian Espionage Act. While Snowden sought safety in Russia, Manning served seven years in prison (she was originally sentenced to 35 years), and Winner was sentenced to more than five years for leaking just a single document.

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