Mar 8 2017

TSA Warns Local Police About Its New Airport Pat-Downs

TSA is a pain in the ass and there are better ways.

Mar 8 2017

Marine Le Pen: “I Will Introduce The New Franc At A Rate Of One-To-One To The Euro”

Providing some much needed details on her plans to redenominate the French currency, should she win the French presidential election in under two months, on Wednesday Marine le Pen told RTL radio should would introduce a new franc at a rate of one-to-one to the euro and then allow it to fluctuate, despite previously saying that any new national currency would continue to be pegged to a basket of currencies. She said the new French franc would likely fall “against whatever currency Germany uses”, making French car exports more competitive, but said it might rise against the currency in Italy, a country she said would also be better off without the euro.

Incidentally, many agree with Le Pen, and according to Paddy Power, Italy now has even odds of leaving the EU before 2025, far higher than even perpetually depressed Greece.

But back to Le Pen, who as Bloomberg writes has expressed often contradictory views on the issue throughout the campaign. At first she wouldn’t even say she proposed leaving the common currency, instead talking about restoring “monetary sovereignty.” She’s recently talked more openly about leaving the euro, but without many details on how it would be done. In her RTL interview, Le Pen wasn’t clear if she envisioned a completely free or controlled float.

Some have been quick to mock Le Pen’s vacillation on the issue: “Monday she’s out of the euro, Tuesday she’s not, Wednesday she pegs, Thursday she fluctuates,” said Patrick Artus, chief economist at Natixis Securities. “It’s nonsense and it will never be implemented. We have to stop taking her economic pretensions seriously.”

Le Pen left room for interpretation on the euro when she unveiled her 144-point program a month ago, saying she’d “return to monetary sovereignty” without mentioning the euro. An adviser explained at the time that the new franc would be pegged to a basket of currencies comparable to the European Currency Unit, which preceded the euro. However, last week, in a speech about economic policy, she was more explicit about leaving the euro, and at a conference with a French business lobby in Paris Tuesday she said the single currency “was unsustainable because the discrepancies” between member states are too wide, as Bloomberg reported.

She denied that leaving the euro and imposing what she calls “intelligent protectionism” would cut off trade, saying France traded better before joining the European Union. “If I want a new national money, it’s to help us set off to conquer the world,” she said. She didn’t mention France’s debt Wednesday, but in the past has said it will be denominated in the new currency. As reported previously, some have indeed taken Le Pen’s warning seriously as France has some $1.7 trillion in debt issued under French law, which would permit her government to change the denomination currency if she so choose, effectively wiping out most of French debt.

Yet while Le Pen has flip-floped on the topic of how the franc would treated under her regime, she has been consistent in her pledge to revoke the central bank’s independence to allow her to print more of the new currency to fund her policies (spoiler alert: that does not lead to a happy ending).

Meanwhile, according to recent polls Le Pen would win the most votes in the April 23 first round of the presidential election but heavily lose the May 7 second round against independent Emmanuel Macron. Tuesday’s daily Ifop poll put her at 26 percent and Macron at 25 percent in the first round, with Macron winning the run-off 61.5-38.5 percent.

On RTL, she attacked former Rothschild banker Macron as “a pure product of the banking system, of savage globalization.”

In the two-hour interview Wednesday, she also said she’d keep the Fessenheim nuclear power plant open and maintain tax advantages for diesel cars, saying pollution in France was more due to wind carrying emissions from German coal power plants. Asked about International Women’s Day, she said the main challenge facing women in France today is the rise of Islam. Le Pen also said that should the legal crackdown against her accelerate, she would simply not respect a judicial summons before the election, and she would refuse to be questioned by investigative judges until after the presidential election, adding that “the justice system is being manipulated to influence the presidential election”

Mar 8 2017

FBI’s Comey: “You’re Stuck With Me For Another Six And A Half Years”

by Tyler Durden

Refuting speculation that after infuriating first democrats with his handling of Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal, and then by demanding that the DOJ deny Trump’s allegations that Obama had bugged the Trump Tower, he may quit prematurely, FBI Director James Comey made it clear where he stands on the issue: “You’re stuck with me for about another six and a half years,” Comey said on Wednesday at a cybersecurity conference hosted by the FBI and Boston College, referring to the amount of time remaining in his 10-year appointment to the post.

Concerns over Comey’s tenure re-emerged after he again found himself in the center of a political storm, this time over probes into Russian hacking of the 2016 election and his request on Sunday night that the Justice Department officials reject President Donald Trump’s claims that his predecessor “tapped” his phones (three days later the DOJ has still not complied with Comey’s request). Comey is among those invited to testify at the March 20 hearing over Russian “hacking” of the US elections.

As Bloomberg reports, Comey didn’t address the controversy during his speech, which was focused on cybersecurity threats, or in response to questions from the audience afterward. He did, however, say that hacking attacks are moving beyond just stealing money and data to affect the U.S. economy and security. “They’re increasingly attacks on our fundamental rights, the rights guaranteed to us as free people especially here in this great country,” Comey said.

The FBI director also called on companies to report hacking attacks to the FBI – perhaps here he was referring to the DNC which inexplicable sat on news that it had been allegedly hacked by Russians without referring it to the FBI – and develop relationships with the bureau before attacks happen. “The majority of intrusions in this country are not reported to us,” he said. ‘It’s a Crime’

Companies shouldn’t retaliate by trying to hack back against their attackers, Comey said. “Don’t do it; it’s a crime,” Comey said. “It’s not only against the law but it runs the risk of tremendous confusion in a crowded space.”

He also complained about the increasing ease with which smartphones and other devices encrypt the contents of their data, although as Wikileaks broke in a scandalous report yesterday, the CIA does not appear to have much of a problem when it comes to circumventing personal privacy and security. Not the FBI, allegedly, because as Comey said, from October to December 2016, about 1,200 of 2,800 devices seized by law enforcement couldn’t be accessed by FBI personnel due to encryption. “The advent of default, ubiquitous strong encryption is making more and more of the room in which the FBI investigates dark,” he said.Perhaps this was meant to be an overture toward smartphone makers and consumers to be more tolerant of potential FBI snooping and to remove password protections altogether.

But more interesting than even his tenure, was the FBI’s take on yesterday’s Wikileaks data dump, which as we reported, revealed that CIA hackers have developed tools letting them break into devices to monitor conversations and messages before they can be encrypted. Not surprisingly, Comey didn’t comment on the disclosure but said using hacking tools to break into phones isn’t always efficient or dependable.

“While having other technical tools can be useful, it’s incredibly expensive and it doesn’t scale,” he said. “It can’t be used broadly because it’s perishable.” He did not provide a reasonable alternativ

Mar 8 2017

Germany’s Chief Prosecutor To Start Probe Into Wikileaks-Exposed Frankfurt Cyber-Spy Hub

by Tyler Durden

The Germans are once again angry at the Americans over spying. Just a few years after Obama’s infamous apology for hacking Merkel’s phone, Germany’s chief federal prosecutor announced plans to carefully examine documents from Wikileaks (related to a secret CIA cyber-spy hub in Frankfurt), and will launch an investigation if it sees concrete indications of wrongdoing.

As VOA News reports, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said Berlin was in close touch with Washington about the documents, which Wikileaks said showed that the CIA used the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt as a major remote hacking base.

“We will initiate an investigation if we see evidence of concrete criminal acts or specific perpetrators,” a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office told Reuters.

“We’re looking at it very carefully.”

He said Germany needed to verify the authenticity of the documents, which, as DW.com reports, purportedly revealed that a top secret CIA unit used the German city of Frankfurt am Main as the starting point for numerous hacking attacks on Europe, China and the Middle East.

WikiLeaks reported that the group developed trojans and other malicious software in the American Consulate General Office, the largest US consulate in the world. The programs focused on targets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The documents revealed that CIA experts worked in the building under cover and included advice for life in Germany.

“Do not leave anything electronic or sensitive unattended in your room,” it told employees, also advising them to enjoy Lufthansa’s free alcohol “in moderation.”

The Frankfurt hackers, part of the Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe, were said to be given diplomatic passports and a State Department identity. It instructed employees how to safely enter Germany. A WikiLeaks tweet published an section of the Frankfurt information.

The consulate was the focus of a German investigation into US intelligence capabilities following the 2013 revelation that NSA agents had tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone.

German daily “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported the building was known to be home to a vast network of intelligence personnel including CIA agents, NSA spies, military secret service personnel, Department of Homeland Security employees and Secret Service employees. It reported the Americans had also established a dense network of outposts and shell companies in Frankfurt.

Of course, with Obama long gone, President Trump will have to face the music on this one… because we are sure President Obama never authorized any wiretaps from Germany either.

Wikileaks has started a poll to decide whether it will release more evidence to the Germans…