Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

CIA software engineer, 33, is convicted over ‘single biggest leak of classified information in Agency’s history’: Gave WikiLeaks top secret intel on how U.S. spies on people abroad using internet-connected TVs and compromised smartphones

A former CIA software engineer accused of the largest leak of classified data in agency history was convicted on all charges.

Joshua Schulte, 33, was convicted Wednesday of leaking classified CIA information to WikiLeaks in 2017. He was found guilty in federal court on eight espionage charges and one obstruction charge over the so-called Vault 7 leak.

Schulte, who chose to defend himself at the New York City retrial, told jurors in his closing arguments that the CIA and FBI made him a scapegoat for the embarrassing public release the trove of secrets.

The leaked materials concerned software tools the Central Intelligence Agency used to surveil people outside the U.S., through such means as compromising smartphones and internet-connected TVs.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Schulte was motivated to leak the materials out of spite because he was unhappy with how management treated him.

Prior to his arrest, Schulte had helped create the hacking tools as a coder at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. 

Keep reading

‘I’m A Pedophile’: Biden-Era USPS Chief in Mail-In Ballot Unit Arrested After Trying To Meet Teen Boy For Sex.

Ahigh-level U.S. Postal Service official appointed under President Joe Biden was caught during a child sex sting, admitting “I’m a pedophile” on camera.

Russell Rappel-Schmid, the Chief Data Officer for the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), was caught in San Diego, California attempting to meet a 14-year-old boy for sex.

The PRC is responsible for overseeing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) – which deals with mail-in ballots during election season – and Rappel-Schmid was tasked with running the commission’s data management and compliance with the OPEN Government Data Act.

While federal authorities have not yet confirmed the man in the video is Rappel-Schmid, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department announced that Rappel-Schmid was released from the city’s Central Jail early Tuesday morning after being arrested on Monday. His felony arraignment is set for next Monday.

Rappel-Schmid was reportedly in San Diego for a business conference when he allegedly tried to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old boy for sex. The People vs Predators group filmed the encounter, and Rappel-Schmid can be seen admitting “I’m a pedophile.”

Keep reading

WEF pushes for restricting “certain types of actors and transactions” from using decentralized finance

Like the response to trucker protests in Canada demonstrated earlier in the year, a centralized and tightly controlled financial system makes it very easy to punish those participating.

On a much bigger scale, the same is true of entire countries – if they are dependent solely on centralized international systems, they can be cut off at any point, and those in control of the systems can use them as very effective weapons.

But the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) is throwing a wrench into all this, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has noted in an article posted on its site. The WEF is calling the technology behind DeFi “something of a double-edged sword.” The case of Russia is being used as an example and perhaps a smokescreen, from which emerges the old push to regulate decentralized finances as such.

From the point of view of those developing and using DeFi, things are much more simple: the goal is to remove third parties and ensure financial sovereignty.

However, that also means the decentralized system can be used as protection against various forms of punishment – at the level of a single individual, all the way to the highest-stakes geopolitics. And the decentralized system seems to scale well across this huge playing field.

This is what the WEF is worried about: how to make sanctions designed to cripple economies of adversaries effective again, in the era of DeFi?

Keep reading

San Francisco wants real-time access to private surveillance cameras

Lawmakers in San Francisco are deliberating on a law that would give the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) real-time access to private security cameras, like those in retail shops and even residential doorbells. The city’s Rules Committee is set to vote on the ordinance on July 18.

The draft ordinance is an amendment to the city’s 2019 surveillance ordinance, which requires the SFPD to get permission from elected officials and the general public before launching or using surveillance systems. Without the law, the SFPD could conduct surveillance without the knowledge of the public.

We obtained a copy of the draft for you here.

The law also prevents SFPD’s real-time access to surveillance videos from CCTVs and other cameras. Currently, the police are only allowed to get historical surveillance videos from privately-owned cameras for specific cases.

The proposed amendment was promoted by Mayor London Breed following a weekend of theft and burglaries last November in the Bay Area.

Keep reading

The Left Is Doing Its Best To Make Self-Defense A Crime

The same left-wing prosecutors who let rioting run rampant and let repeat offenders out on low bail also want to make it difficult for you to defend yourself.

We don’t yet know all the details about an apparent fatal stabbing of an agitated man by bodega clerk Jose Alba in New York City last week, but we do know that the clerk was quickly charged with murder and initially held at Rikers Island on $250,000 bail while video surveillance seems to indicate he likely acted in self-defense. Surveillance videos show the unnamed girlfriend of Austin Simon, the man Alba killed who had a history of felony arrests and was out on parole, becoming upset with Alba when her card was declined and threatening to “bring my n– down here and he gonna f-ck you up.”

Another video shows Simon walking behind the counter to Alba, shoving him, and getting in his face before Alba stood up and appeared to try to walk past Simon, at which point the two wrestled until Alba eventually stabbed the other man. “I don’t want a problem,” Alba told Simon when he walked in, according to the New York Post. Further footage appears to show the girlfriend pulling out a knife of her own and slashing Alba, although she has not been charged.

After outrage over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to charge Alba, who has no prior criminal record, with murder, and his pursuit of such a high bail while Alba languished at Rikers, the bail amount was reduced — but the charges have so far not been dropped. In the meantime, GoFundMe deleted a fundraising page for Alba’s defense, in a move that has become common for the platform when its leaders don’t agree with a cause.

A fearless citizen with the will and means to defend himself is a threat to left-wing bureaucrats who want to boss him around — like they did when they knocked on doors sniffing out “unauthorized” religious services and gatherings during Covid lockdowns, or when they allowed lawless riots to hold cities hostage during the summer of 2020. Bragg’s decision to crack down on what appears to at least potentially be a strong case of self-defense may not have been an intentional ploy to criminalize self-protective autonomy, but it does follow a long string of actions and attitudes on the left that are hostile to the idea of a law-abiding citizen using a lethal weapon to protect himself and his property.

Keep reading

There Has Been A Series Of “Mysterious Explosions” At Natural Gas Facilities In The United States

Are we under attack?  Previously, I have written about a series of very strange fires that have occurred at key food production facilities in the United States this year.  Authorities insist that each one of those fires was an “accident”, and maybe they are correct.  But now the same thing is starting to happen to the energy industry.  In particular, we have seen a number of “mysterious explosions” at natural gas facilities in the United States during the past two months.  Of course natural gas prices were already spiking dramatically all over the world, and so this string of disasters comes at a really bad time.

On Saturday, an absolutely massive explosion at a very important natural gas facility in Medford, Oklahoma made headlines all over the nation.  The following comes from CBS News…

A large fire Saturday afternoon engulfed a natural gas plant in the small northern Oklahoma town of Medford. Video posted to social media showed heavy flames and smoke billowing hundreds of feet into the air.

The fire occurred at a “natural gas liquids fractionation facility” operated by ONEOK, a company spokesperson confirmed in a statement to CBS News.

The explosion that caused this fire was so large that it actually caused “a 1.74 magnitude earthquake”.

Keep reading

State spends half a BILLION dollars pushing ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’

The Democratic-controlled state of California spent millions on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the past several years, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report by The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), a consumer protection nonprofit, examined about 400 public records requests to local and state governments as well as K-12 school districts and higher education institutions. California spent roughly $497 million on DEI activities between mostly 2020 and 2022 and years prior, according to CORE.

“DEI spending is out of control,” Will Coggin, a researcher for CORE, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The people of California are footing the bill for diversity consultants, equity authors, and inclusion officials to rake in millions. With hundreds of millions already spent and potentially billions more to come, it’s a feeding frenzy funded by taxpayers.”

For instance, California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife spent close to $50,000 for “racial equity” workshops and trainings for employees between 2019 and 2021, according to the report. The state’s Department of Conservation spent around $180,000 on DEI initiatives for the fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the report says.

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in June 2021 requiring federal agencies implement DEI training and race-conscious hiring practices. DEI is often linked to Critical Race Theory, which holds that America is systemically racist and that people must view social interactions in terms of race.

Keep reading