Tag: secrecy

CIA ‘Proxy’: Unravelling Saudi Arabia’s True 9/11 Role

In the leadup to 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Compelling evidence Saudi Arabian intelligence not only managed several hijackers as agents, but did so as a “proxy” for the CIA, has lain unexamined in plain sight for years. Yet, the Agency’s sinister shadowplay remains eerily absent from media consideration, despite mounting recognition of Riyadh’s role.

Bayoumi has long-been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival to the US in January 2000. A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, ruled there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi – and the House of Saud by extension – had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.

However, the media remained steadfastly silent a year later when a bombshell filing from the Office of Military Commissions – the legal body overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – was released. The document summarises classified government discovery disclosures, and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents shed unprecedented light on how the CIA recruited at least Hazmi and Mihdhar if not others who participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID).

The same document elucidates how the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavoured “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington DC embassy. No wonder – probing those connections would’ve amply revealed how the GID was acting as a “cutout” for the CIA, in all its clandestine dealings with the 9/11 hijackers.

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Australia: Officials Ask Parliament to Restrict Social Media Clips of Public Hearing Evidence

Just when you thought Australia’s steamrolling toward censorship couldn’t get any worse, the heads of Australian government departments want new limits on how members of parliament share recordings of officials testifying at public parliamentary hearings.

A new attempt to this end was made last week by the Secretaries Board, made up of the heads of Australia’s government departments. The board is currently chaired by Steven Kennedy, secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, which advises the prime minister and coordinates policy across the government.

The proposal was contained in a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Parliamentary Standards.

The board is unhappy that politicians are using excerpts of the footage from these hearings, often to criticize the officials, and sometimes to ridicule them, by editing the clips and adding captions to highlight certain parts of the testimony.

Comments left on social media under these posts are also a major concern for the board, as they can be “highly offensive” – and sometimes even defamatory.

As examples, the board cites personal attacks on officials’ physical appearance (especially if they are women), their integrity, as well as comparisons to “Nazis, pedophiles, and other criminal offenders.”

Some of the “highlights” of the comments mentioned in the submission include “despicable,” “filth,” “political puppet,” “bigot,” “pig,” “KKK member,” “parasite,” “shill,” “criminal,” “fraud,” “clown,” and “lying corrupt grub.”

The board wants parliament to come up with “guidance” on how to use these recordings on social media, and lists several ways to do it, such as preventing “potentially harmful” use of committee evidence, and requiring that a link to the full hearing or transcript is provided whenever an extract of an official’s testimony is posted.

Another idea is to have MPs disable comments on social media when they post these clips, and make sure that the full, unedited version of the hearing, or the transcript, is made available instead of extracts.

Reporting on the submission described full hearings and transcripts as the preferred approach, with fallback restrictions on editing, captions and posts targeting individual officials.

The submission said that officials appearing at these public hearings “have not consented to a subsequent use of their image, or its use by parliamentarians and their political parties for party-political purposes.”

And the board also complained of “the increasing use of excerpts from committee proceedings on social media, particularly where material is presented without context and exposes officials to ridicule, hostility or abuse.”

The proposal was rejected by Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May, who said that bureaucrats should not be allowed to decide how parliamentarians do their job, and that the proposed restrictions would be an attempt to “take the teeth out of parliamentary scrutiny.”

“Bureaucrats shouldn’t get to decide where to draw the line on parliamentary scrutiny, particularly when they’re the ones being scrutinised,” Hodgins-May said. “Restricting what parliamentarians can post from public proceedings is not the answer. This looks like an attempt to take the teeth out of parliamentary scrutiny. Frankly, if this scrutiny wasn’t having an impact, they wouldn’t be so worried about it.”

But the board’s proposal is not the first of its kind. In fact, the previous week, Celia Perkins, deputy secretary of Australia’s Department of Defence, made a similar request to a parliamentary hearing, asking that the committee prevent MPs from sharing video and audio of officials appearing at public hearings on social media.

Perkins said that public servants giving evidence “do not consent to the reposting of our evidence to social media sites or the reproduction of our likenesses for the purposes outside the framework of the parliament and the transparent public proceedings of this committee.”

However, the Senate committee rejected the request on the advice of the Senate clerk.

Professor Luke Beck from the Monash University Law School, who specializes in constitutional law, believes that the latest proposal may be unconstitutional because it would likely violate the implied freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution by “directly and expressly” burdening political communication.

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A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over

Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime, but which the government thinks may be worth searching, 404 Media has found.

The units, the name of which 404 Media is revealing here for the first time, are called Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT). In one case, a PITT analyzed the financial activity of a man who was driving across Montana, and local authorities stopped him under the pretense of an obstructed license plate and charged him with a DUI.

404 Media identified one PITT in the Spokane Sector, Washington, which polices the U.S. border with Canada, and another in the Laredo Sector, Texas, which polices the border with Mexico. The findings add to an Associated Press investigation from last year which found Border Patrol was using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) as part of the same wide-spanning predictive policing program.

“The bottom line is genuine probable cause cannot be synthetically generated,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center For Democracy & Technology, told 404 Media in an email. Here Border Patrol seems to be “using parallel construction to cloak the reason behind its car stops in secrecy. If we can’t meaningfully review and evaluate these systems, we can’t trust them,” he added.

Predictive policing is a highly controversial practice that police departments and federal agencies are increasingly turning to. The practice is designed to find people who may have committed crimes, but at the moment, no evidence of them doing so exists. Broadly, law enforcement may analyze data — such as a person’s movements, where they are at a certain time, or the roads they drive — then create or find another pretense to pull them over.

At around 9:30pm one night in May, Kyle William Olson was driving his black Chevy SUV on Interstate 90, with his dog Ducky in the backseat, according to police reports and an interview Olson gave to 404 Media. In Olson’s vehicle were marijuana edibles, marijuana cuttings, and butane hash oil. He works on a licensed cannabis farm in California, where he had picked up the weed, and was transporting it home to Wisconsin, he told 404 Media.

Olson drove past Sergeant James Beck of the Montana Highway Patrol who was sitting in his police car along with a colleague. When Olson passed, Beck noticed the vehicle’s license plate was obstructed by what he described as a tinted cover and the luggage holder, according to a police report. Beck pulled out, caught up to Olson, and pulled him over.

“Nothing major,” Beck said once he approached the passenger side window and exchanged pleasantries with Olson, according to bodycam footage. Beck said Olson’s license plate was “a little bit obstructed.”

“Just so you know, that’s our reason for stopping you,” Beck said. In the end, the officers demanded Olson step out of the vehicle, they tested his blood and charged him with a DUI. Authorities later charged Olson with possession with intent to distribute because of the marijuana in his vehicle, Olson told 404 Media.

But that wasn’t the real reason for stopping Olson.

During discovery in his case, Olson was provided a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document that explained how Border Patrol instigated his traffic stop. Written by Border Patrol Agent Matthew Phelps, the document said Phelps was assigned to the “Spokane Sector Border Patrol Targeting & Intelligence Division (TID) — Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team (PITT).” Olson shared the document with 404 Media.

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WHO’S LEAKING AMERICA’S MILITARY SECRETS? Top Pentagon Officials Forced to Take Polygraphs After Classified Weapons Stockpile Information Reaches Media

Some of America’s highest-ranking military officials were subjected to polygraph examinations during a sweeping Pentagon investigation into the leaking of highly classified information about the nation’s weapons stockpiles.

President Donald Trump was reportedly furious after sensitive details concerning America’s supply of sophisticated weapons appeared in media reports.

According to leftist CBS News, several dozen officials were questioned earlier this summer, including officials assigned to U.S. Central Command and other combatant commands.

The scale of the polygraph operation was described as extraordinarily rare.

Although high-ranking military and civilian officials with access to top-secret information routinely undergo periodic polygraph examinations, sources told CBS that the large number of officials summoned at once indicated that investigators were conducting a targeted leak probe.

The questioning reportedly covered a range of national-security matters, including whether officials had provided sensitive military information to members of the media.

Two sources claimed that none of the officials failed the questions specifically designed to identify the leaker.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine was reportedly not among those polygraphed.

The New York Times first reported the broader hunt, saying investigators put roughly 50 members of the Joint Staff through polygraphs in August after a wave of stories about depleted stocks of long-range missiles, Patriot interceptors, and other finite munitions as the United States fights Iran.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told CBS Friday night the Department “does not comment on internal personnel or investigative matters but takes all leaks of classified national security information extremely seriously and investigates accordingly.”

“Securing classified information is critical to ensuring the security of the United States and of our troops deployed around the world,” Parnell said.

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Sulzbergers Keep Secret Archives at Taxpayer Expense While Denouncing Supreme Court for Doing the Same Thing

A highly hyped New York Times investigation—touted with the unusual label “Times Exclusive”—appeared this month under the headline “How the Supreme Court Locks Away Its Own History.” It complained that “many of the justices have valued confidentiality over transparency and chosen to postpone scrutiny of their work for years to come.”

“Some scholars question why papers should be sealed long after a justice has retired,” says the Times article, by Jodi Kantor, with research and reporting contributed by Julie Tate, Ann Marimow, and Adam Liptak. It quoted a legal historian at the University of California, Davis, Mary Ziegler, accusing the justices of engaging in “reputation management,” and, as Ziegler was paraphrased in the article, “protecting themselves from examination and second-guessing.”

Not disclosed in the Times article: that the papers of former Times publishers Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., donated to the New York Public Library in 2007, are closed to public access until 2035 and 2057, respectively, according to the finding aid to the collection.

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Leon Black Sues Congress To Avoid Epstein Testimony

Between 2012 and 2017 – after Jeffrey Epstein got out of prison – billionaire Leon Black paid him roughly $170 million. Black has not provided a credible explanation as to why he paid Epstein amounts vastly exceeding those paid to other professional advisors – and instead of sitting down to explain it to Congress on Thursday, he sued the House Oversight Committee.

Recall, Black:

  • Paid Epstein $158 million per Dechert, the law firm Apollo hired, or $170 million per Sen. Ron Wyden’s investigation.
  • Stepped down as Apollo CEO in 2021 after a Dechert review “cleared” him, which we called bullshit at the time.
  • Wrote the 2003 birthday book poem about “Blond, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically,” signed “Love and Kisses.”
  • Paid roughly $20 million to a dozen women, some via Epstein; at least three have accused him of assault.
  • Says he signed Guzel Ganieva’s 2015 NDA because she was extorting him; her rape suit was dismissed.
  • Paid $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2023 to settle Epstein-related claims before any were made public.
  • Used Epstein to help structure his $106 million Picasso purchase through Narrows Holdings, as we reported in February.
  • Told Congress in June “I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde,” then walked out rather than discuss his NDAs.

The committee went ahead with a closed-door session anyway, with ranking Democrat Robert Garcia demanding an ‘immediate’ contempt vote against Black. Chairman James Comer (R) said that if it were up to him, “I would hold him in contempt right now,” but he wanted to discuss Black’s lawsuit with the committee’s lawyers first so as not to jeopardize the thing the committee actually wants: non-disclosure agreements that Black allegedly signed with several women. 

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington against the committee and Comer, argues that the two subpoenas issued June 26 (one for Black’s sworn testimony, one for “all the NDAs” he is party to) are “invalid to the extent they exceed” the committee’s “delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection” to its legislative purpose. Producing the agreements, the suit says, “would also expose women who value their privacy, who have no known or public connection to Epstein.” Black’s lawyer Susan Estrich called the probe “a fishing expedition” and said, “This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black.”

Comer hit back – saying that Black is “hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people.”

Black is the first Epstein witness to sue the committee rather than show up. Jes Staley and Kathy Ruemmler both sat for questions this summer. Which makes the timing of Thursday’s other Leon Black story hard to improve on.

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“You hired me to produce a work of art”

A few hours before the empty chair, Bloomberg Law published a piece about a May 2016 email in which Epstein described the tax plan he sold Black as, literally, art.

“Leon, you hired me to produce a work of art. it was not inexpensive. the value far exceeds any other piece in your collection.- by FAR . It took me 30 years to be able to craft such a work. I understand your desire to modifiy my work, in doing so you have brad telling me , just a bit more red., here let me show you, you yourself pick up a brush a add some strokes… however Im aware that you own the work and you have the right to paint over it. tear it up , put it in the closet in the basement . its yours.”

And on the price:

“Unfortunatley for us both, the price for my works has not changed since day one. 40m per year, I m willing to discount it to 35 as I did give you a bad number when asked and should pay an embarassment fine.”

And a weird line:

“you recently seemed shy to discuss certain things. , please be assured I make no judgement on any of your activities , whether or not i agree with them . not my role I am always on your side on the table. I hope your personal life quiets. you’ve had a rough 15 months.”

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Local Mom Dragged Into Court For Trying To Obtain Info On Secret Data Center Deals

An Arkansas mom and healthcare worker obtained a trove of documents about a data center deal between a local energy company and Google. Now, she is caught in a legal fight between the energy company and the news outlet she shared the documents with, with video surfacing of her being dragged into federal court Tuesday, weeping and scared.

Jessica Kivell recently sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Arkansas Public Service Commission, which regulates state electricity prices, regarding a data center deal between Entergy Arkansas and Google, according to the Arkansas Times. The government appeared to have mistakenly handed Kivell the documents, which she then sent to a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The documents purportedly revealed that Google will not be paying the entire cost of infrastructure upgrades needed to power a new data center in West Memphis, despite claims to the contrary, according to the Arkansas Times. Google will only pay a third of the cost, $526 million, of a new solar array required to power the data center, the outlet reported.

Entergy sent attorneys and officials to a federal courthouse Tuesday to prevent the documents and information from remaining public, according to the Arkansas Times. The company sued the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and requested a restraining order on Kivell, arguing the documents contained trade secrets, the publication of which might violate state and federal laws.

Kivell was “visibly scared” when she arrived in court in her work scrubs after she arranged for her husband to pick up their daughter, according to the Arkansas Times, which was also listed in Entergy’s restraining order request. Throughout a closed-door portion of the hearing, Kivell wept loudly and continued to sob when she returned to the courtroom, the Arkansas Times reported.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky issued a ruling Wednesday that denied Entergy’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have prohibited the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from publishing information about the deal. He also denied the restraining order on Kivell.

Entergy disputed the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s reporting and called for a retraction Wednesday.

“The information first published in the Aug. 31 Arkansas Democrat Gazette contains a serious and careless mathematical error,” Entergy alleged. “The calculation accounts for only 12 months of payments rather than the full twenty-year term of the agreement — a fact that was known to the paper but not included in its math.”

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Documents reveal why the Canadian military was asking soldiers about ‘extremist’ hats

In December 2024, Harrison Faulkner of True North broke the story: a questionnaire went out to soldiers asking if they’d ever “liked” an extremist post on social media, donated to an extremist cause, or purchased “extremism merchandise — such as a Make Canada Great Again hat.” 

Rebel News filed an access to information request the day it went viral. Twenty-one months later, the answer came back: 2,688 pages, most of it useless — the actual survey questions are blacked out entirely, withheld under the Access to Information Act’s trade-secret provisions. A hat questionnaire, apparently, is a trade secret.

When the story broke, National Defence’s approved line for reporters was: “DND/CAF is not funding this research, nor has it contracted this research.” But the consent form every soldier signed lists, at the top: “External Funder/Sponsor: Department of National Defence (DND).”

In fact, DND signed a $49,995 funding agreement with Ontario Tech University, five dollars under the disclosure threshold, and later paid $250,000 more to Dr. Barbara Perry’s “Network for Research on Hateful Conduct and Right-Wing Extremism in the Canadian Armed Forces.” She is getting rich off of calling our soldiers racist.

The whole thing traces back to General Jonathan Vance ordering the study in 2019 — not long before resigning over his own conduct scandal. DND then rewrote the survey questions, pushed it down the chain of command, and leaned on a reluctant Navy — already suffering “severe staff shortages” — to participate. The consent form warns soldiers that “incriminating” answers get reported to military police, who can in turn notify their commanding officer. Risk to a career, for a hat.

Ezra is more worried about left-wing violence in the CAF — like Gabriel Lepage, the Antifa extremist who threw incendiary devices into a crowded Montreal church while working at a Canadian Forces base, exposed by Rebel’s own Alexa Lavoie.

Internally, DND tracked the media fallout using MediaBiasFactCheck.com, grading True North as low-credibility and “part of the right ideology perspective,” while noting with relief: “We have not observed any articles from mainstream media.” When reporters pressed on the funding, staff wrote plainly: “I don’t think we touch it at this point.” They knew, and they chose not to tell you.

The study’s own vetted webpage admits the number of CAF members holding extremist beliefs is “comparable to the general population.” No epidemic. Just a headline, and a professor with a grant.

This was a loyalty test, not a research project. If you were nineteen and thinking about enlisting, and you saw this — would you?

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Inside Israel’s Torture Camps: Abuse, Secrecy and Impunity

After October 7, 2023, Israel expanded and reorganized a system of military detention facilities used for people detained in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians passed through facilities under the direct control of the Israel Defense Forces, brought there for registration, interrogation and decisions about further incarceration. But what was officially intended as a temporary stage quickly turned into prolonged detention; the Israeli military itself later acknowledged that, because of the unprecedented number of detainees and overcrowding in regular prisons, many remained in military camps far longer than anticipated.

Behind the barbed wire, accounts of abuse quickly piled up. Released detainees described routine blindfolding, shackling, beatings, dog attacks, starvation, sleep deprivation, denial of medical care and sexual violence. These abuses were independently documented by Amnesty International, the UN human rights office and later UN special mechanisms. In May 2024, the Israeli military conceded that Sde Teiman and Anatot are military lockups where Palestinians are held indefinitely without trial or charges under the “Unlawful Combatants” law. Two years later, the system is still operating.

Geopolitics Prime has assembled a comprehensive picture of this system, drawing on survivor testimonies, legal documents, internal military correspondence and findings from human rights organizations and UN mechanisms.

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Hillary Clinton’s Search for Intern with ‘High Level’ of ‘Discretion’ Draws Mockery: ‘Who the Hell Would Sign Up for That Job?’

Failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s search for an intern has drawn criticism because she wants someone who can keep their mouth shut.

The intern, who will not be paid, will work for Clinton’s office in New York City, the New York Post reported Sunday.

The Daybook posting said, “The Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking Fall Interns from September 9, 2026 — November 13, 2026.”

“Interns will provide support to our staff, assisting on a wide range of projects,” it continued. Most notably, the posting said the office is looking for someone who has a “high level of professionalism and discretion.”

Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton (D), had an affair with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, who was 22 years old, during his time in office. However, his wife has since argued he did not abuse his power in the situation, Breitbart News reported in 2018.

Social media users shared their thoughts on the recent internship posting, with one person writing, “I wonder if Monica Lewinsky is available. She was a real team player!”

“Who the hell would sign up for that job???” another user commented, while someone else said, “I value my life. Pass.”

The affair scandal resulted in the former president’s impeachment in 1998 for “lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair,” CNN reported at the time.

In 2019, Breitbart News reported that Bill Clinton, who had previously been accused of multiple sexual assaults, claimed he knew nothing about pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes involving sex trafficking and minors.

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