#Whistleblower News Network

[navree]

idk if i can keep up with the newsroom guys because the only thing i’ve cared about so far in season 3 is don and sloane and in an infinitely greater capacity, the personal drama between leona and reese and the twins but mostly blair. if i could get a prestige drama about that family specifically i’d love it infinitely more than aaron sorkin trying to rehash the snowden debacle for people who still didn’t understand the concept of whistleblower laws (especially not while living in a world where we now know that both snowden and greenwald are the spawns of satan)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dave Whamond

* * * *

A false claim circulating on social media that Kamala Harris was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011 is the work of a covert Russian disinformation operation, according to new research by Microsoft.

Researchers found that the group created a video, paid an actor to appear as the alleged victim, and spread the claim through a fake website for a nonexistent San Francisco news outlet named KBSF-TV. The Russian group responsible, which Microsoft dubs Storm-1516, is described as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm.

Microsoft said the discovery was a sign of Russia ramping up its foreign influence efforts ahead of the 5 November presidential election. A spokesperson for the Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

“Russian influence operations initially struggled to pivot operations aimed at the Democratic campaign following president Biden’s departure from the US 2024 presidential race,” a blog published on Tuesday by Microsoft said.

“In late August, however, elements of prolific Russian actor Storm-1516 began producing content implicating vice-president Harris and governor Walz in outlandish fake conspiracy theories,” Microsoft said, referring to Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz.

Storm-1516 is known for producing misleading videos featuring on-screen or voice actors who impersonate whistleblowers or journalists that share false, scandalous information, experts say.

A website for KBSF-TV was created shortly before publishing its first related article about the alleged driving incident, according to online registration records. The false claim – that the Democratic presidential candidate left a 13-year-old girl paralysed in a hit-and-run – circulated on social media platforms, including X, formerly known as Twitter using the hashtag #HitAndRunKamala.

In total, it is estimated the video has been viewed more than 2.7m times.

“Many entities within the pro-Russian ecosystem advanced the video and its claims,” said Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center.

Earlier this month the US justice department filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state media network RT for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the election.

US officials say Russia’s goal is to exacerbate US political divisions and weaken public support for American military aid to Ukraine. Harris says if elected she will continue supporting Ukraine in its defence against Russia’s invasion.

[mariacallous]

BBC uncovers A.I.-powered Russian disinformation campaign

“A network of Russia-based websites masquerading as local American newspapers is pumping out fake stories as part of an A.I.-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the U.S. election,” according to a new BBC investigation. The BBC report focuses on fabrications about Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, “buying a multimillion-dollar sports car in Paris,” President Zelensky “buying a mansion owned by King Charles III,” and the FBI “illegally wiretapping Donald Trump’s Florida resort.” The operation disseminates A.I.-generated articles through websites with names meant to sound like real U.S. newspapers, reaching larger audiences in part through Moscow-sympathizing Americans with large followings on social media, like former Marine John Mark Dougan and MAGA activist Jackson Hinkle. 

The BBC found that the “operatives” behind these fake stories even hire actors or use artificial narration to create videos featuring supposed “whistleblowers” and “independent journalists.” (The underwhelming videos are meant to be “quoted as “sources” and “cited in text stories on the fake newspaper websites,” says the BBC, not “go viral” themselves.)

[reality-detective]

🚀 FOX NEWS Unleashes Classified Revelations 🚀

Hold on tight as we embark on an eye-opening journey into the shocking revelations recently dropped by FOX NEWS. Brace yourselves; the truth is far stranger than fiction.

🔎 The Whistleblower's Explosive Allegation 🔎

First, we delve into an explosive revelation. A CIA whistleblower has stepped into the limelight, revealing to Congress that the agency offered a jaw-dropping incentive to officials investigating the origins of COVID-19. Their mission? To alter their stance, shifting from the belief that the virus originated from a Wuhan lab leak to a perplexing "unable to determine" verdict. The liberal community was rocked by this revelation, setting off a chain reaction of investigations into the virus's creation, Fauci's ties to the CIA, and the creation of COVID itself.

💨 The Chemtrail Controversy Unearthed 💨

But wait, there's more. FOX NEWS took aim at the skies, uncovering a startling story out of Missouri. This bombshell report exposed alleged (CIA) U.S. military operations that involved spraying predominantly black communities with cancer-causing agents from airplanes via chemtrails. As if that weren't enough, they detailed the intentional installation of exhaust systems on buildings, releasing radioactive isotopes and harmful chemicals into impoverished communities.

🔍 The Congressional Unearthing Begins 🔍

Now, the real digging commences. Congress has rolled up its sleeves, delving deep into state records and archives, unearthing evidence of the CIA's covert cancer-causing chemtrail operations spanning decades. Shockingly, the trail of this depopulation agenda leads back to the Rockefellers, a family deeply enmeshed with other elite dynasties, steering the vaccine networks and global medical industry. This web of power birthed figures like Fauci, set the CIA in motion, and handed over the reins to the likes of George W. H. Bush and George W. Bush, architects of bioweapons projects, including the infamous gain-of-function research.

🌐 A Worldwide Disclosure Unfolds 🌐

Behind the scenes, the Military Alliance has ensured that both CNN and FOX NEWS continue to drop these red pill revelations, awakening liberals and the unwittingly compliant. Classified information is infiltrating civilian sectors, with leaks hitting the internet and select mainstream media outlets. This global dissemination ensures that declas drops resonate across languages and borders.

🌍 The Plan for a Global Awakening 🌍

A global resistance revolution is underway, spurred by the impending failure of Plandemic II and the world's rising opposition to the globalist elite's agenda. The Military Alliance is orchestrating this worldwide resistance to the deep state cabal's sinister operations.

🎥 Tucker Carlson's Strategic Move 🎥

Even Rupert Murdoch, the owner of FOX NEWS and a CIA asset, couldn't censor the two monumental reports. Recognizing the power of Twitter, the Military Alliance orchestrated Tucker Carlson's move from FOX to Twitter to ensure maximum impact.

🚀 Hold On, The Truth Unfolds 🚀

Buckle up, dear readers, for we are witnessing an unprecedented unveiling of classified information and truths long buried. Stay vigilant as the stage is set for further revelations that will shake the foundations of our understanding.

- Benjamin Fulford

You Decide 🤔

[beardedmrbean]

NBCUniversal faces a defamation lawsuit after a judge ruled that MSNBC hosts, including Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace, made "verifiably false" statements that a Georgia doctor performed unnecessary hysterectomies at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center. 

Plaintiff Dr. Mahendra Amin, an obstetrician gynecologist who provided medical care to women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center, was accused in 2020 of performing unnecessary hysterectomies by a nurse at the facility who made a whistleblower complaint. 

NBC reporters Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley worked to verify the whistleblower’s claims, and eventually published an article despite initial skepticism from the network’s standards department. MSNBC quickly followed with a series of on-air reports in which the doctor was often referred to as the "uterus collector," but the whistleblower’s claims were never proven to be true. 

"NBC investigated the whistleblower letter's accusations; that investigation did not corroborate the accusations and even undermined some; NBC republished the letter's accusations anyway," Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the Southern District of Georgia wrote on June 26 in a 108-page summary. 

MSNBC WEEKLY VIEWERSHIP HITS 2024 LOW DURING TIME OF CRISIS FOR BIDEN

Wallace, who identified Amin by name, according to the court document, made "multiple statements" that were defamatory when she was the first MSNBC host to discuss the story on-air, the plaintiff claims. 

"We are following breaking news today. It’s about an alarming new whistleblower complaint that alleges, quote, high numbers of female detainees, detained immigrants, at an ICE detention center in Georgia received questionable hysterectomies while in ICE custody," Wallace told "Deadline: White House" viewers.

Amin "performed only two hysterectomies on women detained at the facility," according to court documents. 

That same evening, "All In With Chris Hayes" featured an interview with the whistleblower. Hayes’ MSNBC program also spoke with a lawyer who claims as many as 15 immigrant women were given full or partial hysterectomies or other procedures for which no medical indication existed.

Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest star who reportedly earns $30 million per year despite only hosting her program once a week, amplified the whistleblower claims by passionately covering them on "The Rachel Maddow Show."

MSNBC regularly informed viewers of an ICE statement that "accusations will be fully investigated by an independent office, however, ICE vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures." 

Maddow also included a statement from Amin, in which he vigorously denied the whistleblower’s claims. 

According to the court document, Maddow "initially questioned reporting on the allegations," and suggested there was a lot of "jumping to conclusions around the complaint" but proceeded to cover it anyway. "All In with Chris Hayes" did a follow-up later in the week.

Amin demanded that NBC retract the "false and defamatory" statements from the four MSNBC broadcasts to no avail. The United States Senate investigated the whistleblower claims but failed to confirm the accusations. 

The judge detailed that "undisputed evidence has established" that "there were no mass hysterectomies or high numbers of hysterectomies at the facility," "Dr. Amin performed only two hysterectomies on female detainees from the ICDC," and the doctor is not a "uterus collector."

"The Court must look to each of the statements in the context of the entire broadcast or social media post to assess the construction placed upon it by the average viewer," the judge wrote. 

"Viewed in their entirety, the September 15, 2020 episodes of ‘Deadline: White House,’ ‘All In With Chris Hayes,’ and ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ accuse Plaintiff of performing mass hysterectomies on detainee women. It does not matter that NBC did not make these accusations directly, but only republished the whistleblower letter’s allegations," the judge continued. "If accusations against a plaintiff are ‘based entirely on hearsay,’ ‘[t]he fact that the charges made were based upon hearsay in no manner relieves the defendant of liability. Charges based upon hearsay are the equivalent in law to direct charges.’"

Wood ordered a jury trial to determine if MSNBC engaged in "actual malice." 

MSNBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

[darkmaga-retard]

Hundreds of Ukrainian children living in slavery were liberated by Russian special forces this week as Putin’s Adrenochrome Task Force made a series of grisly discoveries deep inside Ukraine.

Reports from the front line reveal that hundreds of children were found in degrading “factory farm” conditions at a location in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the focal point of Russia’s slow advance along the eastern part of the front line.

Russian soldiers are describing finding children with fragile, emaciated bodies hooked up to intravenous drips while their bodies were expertly drained of blood and adrenal fluid for the global adrenochrome trade.

The adrenochrome industry in Ukraine is larger than previously expected and Putin is determined to use the leads generated to destroy the global adrenochrome supply chain and punish those committing crimes against children – including the politicians and celebrities who are hooked on the drug he calls “the devil’s work.”

Before we dive in, subscribe to our Rumble channel if you haven’t already and join the People’s Voice Locals Community for uncensored breaking news and commentary and to join a community of brave truth seekers determined to bring the criminal elite to justice.

Following orders from Putin, the FSB launched a worldwide initiative to track down and eliminate adrenochrome manufacturers, sellers, buyers, middlemen, and anyone involved in the production and export of the pharmaceutical cocktail.

Soldiers selected for Putin’s Adrenochrome Task Force in Ukraine are known as the creme de la creme of the Russian military – experienced veterans who thought they had experienced everything this evil world has to throw at them.

But as reports begin to emerge from Ukraine, even these hardened soldiers are finding it impossible to comprehend the inhumanity and horror of the global adrenochrome industry and the network of factory farms discovered throughout Ukraine.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

A wildly flimsy internet rumor launched by a random pro-Trump X poster about an “ABC whistleblower” who purportedly claims that the network rigged the September 10 presidential debate went viral in MAGA spaces over the last several days, with Donald Trump and his allies floating congressional investigations and potential regulatory retribution against ABC News in response.  The right-wing pundits and Republican politicians pushing the story don’t actually know who the “ABC whistleblower” is, if their claims are credible, or even if the person actually exists — but the purported document supposedly supports their preferred narrative that ABC News’ moderators were biased, so they’re running with it.  The saga, while laughable, shows the right's ongoing tendency to embrace and elevate anything that confirms their worldview. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) laid out that strategy in a Sunday interview on CNN, admitting that he pushed a debunked, racist, and demagogic claim about Haitian immigrants eating pets because he wants to “create stories” that drive news coverage of immigration.

In the instance of the absurd “whistleblower” claim, Trump's allies trotted it out as they tried to cover for his flailing September 10 debate performance. Right-wing media figures lashed out at ABC News and its moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis with deranged invective and absurd conspiracy theories. And Trump himself said in an interview the following morning that “they ought to take away their license,” reiterating his support for government retribution against news outlets that displease him.  Then on September 12, a “verified” but obscure X poster with the handle “Black Insurrectionist--I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS” claimed they would release “an affidavit from an ABC whistleblower” by the end of the weekend. “The affidavit states how the Harris campaign was given sample question which were essentially the same questions that were given during the debate and separate assurances of fact checking Donald Trump and that she would NOT be fact checked,” the poster wrote.

Right-wing pundits had no reason to take claims from “Black Insurrectionist” at face value — other than the fact that the story confirmed their preexisting biases. A casual review of recent activity from the “Black Insurrectionist” account — which has posted to X more than 32,700 times over the 10 months since its November 2023 launch — reveals a strong tendency for unhinged, conspiracy-minded, and violent pro-Trump rants. 

MAGA media propagandists are running a baseless claim about a “whistleblower” from ABC as part of their war on ABC and Disney over the channel’s conduct during the 2024 Presidential debate between Kamala Harris v. Donald Trump.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: The Rabbit Hole

Published: Feb 25, 2024

Google Gemini caused quite a stir this week due to the tool’s apparent hesitance when asked to generate images depicting White people. Of course for folks who are more familiar with Google’s history on certain issues, these events are less of a surprise.

This article will cover feedback from former Google employees, review DEI programs at the company, and highlight examples of biases in products.

James Damore

Given the recent buzz around Google and its WokeAI tool, Gemini, now seems like an appropriate time to remind everyone about James Damore who was fired from Google after calling out the company's "ideological echo chamber" in a 2017 memo.

[ James Damore ]

What were Damore's arguments? Here are a few:

Not every disparity is a sign of discrimination

Reverse discrimination is wrong

Biological differences exist between men and women which can help explain certain disparities

Of course, all of these things are basic common sense. Thomas Sowell wrote an entire book on the first point, the second item was marketed as a “truth” during the 2024 presential campaign for Vivek Ramaswamy, and denying male/female differences is how we end up with absurd transgender culture where men are competing in women’s sports. Despite the rationality behind Damore’s arguments, he was fired from Google shortly after his memo circulated.

Taras Kobernyk

James Damore was not the only Google employee who became concerned with the direction of the company. Taras Kobernyk was also suspicious of certain aspects of Google culture, such as the anti-racist programs, and decided to release his own memo. Here are some of the points Kobernyk made:

Identity politics subverts the company culture and products

"In the past James Damore was fired for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes”. Does Google consider framing people as a source of problems on the basis of them being white not a harmful racial stereotype?"

It is a bad decision to reference poorly written books like White Fragility

Just saying "racism bad" doesn't actually help anyone.

Taras Kobernyk found himself entangled in a familiar sequence of events: he questioned those programs in a memo and was fired shortly after.

DEI at Google

Damore and Kobernyk were of course onto something by questioning the ideological biases at Google; looking at the company’s racial equity commitments helps paint the picture:

By 2025, increase the number of people from underrepresented groups in leadership by 30%

Spend $100 million on black-owned businesses

Making anti-racism education programs & training available to employees

Include DEI factors in reviews of VP+ employees

Amongst other items. Additionally, there was a report published by Chris Rufo, that helped us learn more about DEI at Google by examining the Race Education programs:

Included language policing (e.g. use “blocklist” instead of “blacklist”)

Donation suggestions (BLM & other anti-white supremacy networks)

Talk to your children about anti-blackness

Do "anti-racist work" & educate people such as those who claim to not see color

Whistleblower documents from Google were also included in the article published by Rufo. I recommend checking those documents out to get a better idea of how far Google went with DEI and Race Education.

Google Politics

It is also worth considering the political biases of the people who work at Google.

The vast majority (80%) of political donations affiliated with Alphabet/Google are to the Democrats. This begs the question: how much does the behavior we see at Google align with the interests of the preferred political party?

[ Chart from AllSides ]

Possibly a good amount if the search results curated on the home page of Google News is anything to go by.

Even the search engine, the flagship product of Google, has been displaying some concerning behavior:

[ Picture from Elon Musk ]

When typing in “why censorship” the top two results are in support of censorship. While the above screenshot was posted by Elon Musk, I also checked and verified the general behavior shown by the search engine and similarly received positive search suggestions for the top two results:

Whether or not Google will address these issues has yet to be seen, but it is hard to observe these patterns without being suspicious that the company is leveraging its position in Big Tech to market favored values.

Google Gemini: A Woke AI

Google Gemini, which inspired a lot of the information discussed in this article thus far to resurface, was the topic of conversation due to the tool’s stubbornness in refraining from generation White people in the images.

[ Comic by WokelyCorrect ]

Although humorous, the above comic is effective in communicating the ridiculous nature of Gemini.

It is not much of an exaggeration either given some of the content coming out of Gemini:

[ Founding Fathers according to Gemini ]

Gemini has shown that it removes White people in varying contexts ranging from history, art, sports, religion, science, and more. The issues with the product were noticed by Jack Krawczyk, an executive at Google spearheading the Gemini project, who issued a statement:

As I told Krawczyk in the above screenshot, the goal of an AI tool should be to provide impartial and accurate information. In addition to flaws with its image generation, Gemini has shown some questionable text responses as well:

When asked if it’s okay to misgender Caitlyn Jenner to stop a Nuclear Apocalypse, the response from Gemini can be accurately summarized as no.

When asked to determine whether Elon Musk or Joseph Stalin is more controversial, Gemini is unable to make a definitive statement.

When stating “I am proud to be White”, “I am proud to be Black”, “I am proud to be Hispanic”, or “I am proud to be Asian” as text prompts, Gemini is inconsistent in its replies and level of enthusiasm.

These tools become at best untrustworthy and at worst useless when injected with personal ideologies, like DEI, which uphold the very noble lies that human beings are susceptible to. In other words:

Uncomfortable Truths > Noble Lies

And tools should reflect that.

Final Thoughts

Needless to say, James Damore and Taras Kobernyk were in the right for calling out the Google Echo Chamber and brought forward valid arguments which seemingly led to them being fired from the company.

They have since been vindicated as shown by the bizarre behavior shown by Google products as of late. Google owes both of these men an apology; they made valid critiques of the company and were sacrificed upon the altar of political correctness.

Over the years, we have seen the consequences of their warnings play out not just through the embarrassing launch of the Gemini product but also with how news is curated, and in the search results that make up Google’s core product. Having ideological diversity is important for organizations working on projects that can have large-scale social impact. Rather than punishing people who advocate for ideological diversity, it is my hope that Google will, in the future, embrace them.

--

This is the guy in charge of Gemini:

He's now hidden his account.

==

It shouldn't make you any more comfortable that they're writing an AI to lie adhering far-left ideology than it would be for them to write an AI adhering to far-right ideology. We shouldn't be comfortable that a company that is such a key source of information online has goals about what it wants you to believe. Especially when it designs its products to lie to ("this is a Founding Father") and gaslight ("diversity is good" - essentially, "you're not a racist, are you?") its own users.

We shouldn't be able to tell what Google's leanings are. Even if they have them, they should publicly behave neutrally and impartially, and that means that Gemini itself should be neutral, impartial and not be obviously designed along questionable ideological lines based on unproven, faith-based claims.

Google has now turned off Gemini's image generation. It isn't because it refuses to show a white person when asked to depict people who are Scottish and kept showing black and brown people and lecturing you about "diversity," nor adding women and native Americans as "Founding Fathers." No, that's all completely okay. The problem is when the "diversity and inclusion" filter puts black and Asian people into Nazi uniforms.

[warriornunusa]

Additional INFO from the Warrior Nun Substack Newsletter (link below so YOU can verify it yourself)

Anticipated questions:

What is the news?

+We were not told what the news is, just asked to share it.

Sounds like a leak to us!

Who told you?

+We have promised not to disclose that information.

No one want's to get sued. Fr fr

When will we get more info?

+At or around the 15 million announcement from Simon, in whatever form that takes. (which will likely be in the days after the actual goal is reached, as a reminder)

Does this mean Simon knows? What if Simon is the source and he is just waiting to get permission from AppleTV's legal department to tell us?! Delusional, maybe... but.... At this point anything is possible.

Is this just leading the fandom on?

+No. The party that disclosed this information is a credible source.

And they know they would be at the mercy of an unhinged fandom.

Who is it?

+See #2.

Being sued is bad. noted.

Why is this news coming from here instead of Simon or someone else?

+The nature of our work, in partnership with the OCS Newsletter, means that we communicate daily with fans, cast, crew, and other interested parties. As part of that process, we are one point of contact for those folks to reach out to when there's news to share.

Okay now, this actually makes sense. If you are a whistleblower you don't share the leak on your own personal pages or make a new one just to spill tea with zero followers. Not if you are serious about your info. You get people with a network to do the work for you. (sounds familiar) At the very least one with an email list.

Overall this is cautious optimism because who knows what the news could be. Some theories we have:

Comic/Graphic Novels: plausible, given the history of WN. Would be good to align the current creators with the NF series.

Novel Series: very plausible, Dean English was on the OCS Conclave with a WRITER next to him. People. 💥💥💥

Expanded Universe: very plausible, in the same panel with Dean English and the WRITER, they revealed they were working on the long-term story of Warrior Nun. That's not just a movie or a final season of WN.

Movie: plausible, while disappointing, look at ALOTO... Final 4 episodes, which works out to be a long movie. Other cancelled series have also gotten wrap up movies. So long as it's Avatrice focused we can live with this.

Podcast: unlikely, this would be a huge slap in the face of the fans and one would think the source would not be dumb enough to hype up a podcast. While great for the Doctor Who fandom, WN fans only want one thing.

Literally Nothing: very unlikely, as mentioned above the source is not willing to risk their own flesh by pissing off a very angry audience. Also, the person in charge of the Substack is not some random fan. You can see on the tweets that link to the newsletter the name Trust Insights (because tw hates Substack links so they had to reroute the click.) See Trust Insight's case study clients... https://www.trustinsights.ai/expertise/case-studies/

Netflix Repentance: plausible, but very skeptical about this one. Even with NF recent "change of heart" around their viewing metrics (as of 3rd week of June) they have shown a consistent ignorance of audience demand. But who knows, maybe they are just broke enough and need the money to pay some overdue bills.

AppleTV/Streamer Pick-Up: plausible, now this would be one impressive shake-up during the WGA strike that is still ongoing. And unprecedented because, as we all know, NF doesn't sell the rights. (But then... how can Dean talk about books... and how can Simon say Dean is the person to ask about Video Games... And why would Simon say "the people who own the rights" but not name NF in Empire Magazine... while being very clear that he (Simon) can't get the season 2 bloopers because NF owns the footage... nah, must not be important.) Complicated legal things. But doesn't mean NF couldn't lease out WN to another platform and that platform could make more content... hello HBO/NF deals. Again more delusions.

So all that to say... Something is happening. We don't know what, but you don't send a fandom into hype unless you have something really good.

Because if it's nothing - you will lose that audience

Note: all of the above can be verified via Twitter search, www.warriornun.com press releases, AngeChat's and BeMoreSuper's interviews on YouTube, OCS Conclave Videos on YouTube, the OCS Newsletter, and of course the DAILY released Substack Newsletter.

https://savewarriornun.substack.com/p/savewarriornun-news-and-data-2023-023?sd=pf

[informatology]

The Dark Web: What is it and Why Should You Care?

The term “Dark Web” has become increasingly common in recent years, but what exactly is it? In simple terms, the Dark Web refers to a portion of the internet that is not indexed by search engines and can only be accessed through special software. This allows for a degree of anonymity and privacy that is not possible on the regular internet.

While the Dark Web is not inherently illegal or malicious, it is often associated with criminal activity. This is due to the fact that the anonymity it provides can be used by individuals and groups to engage in illegal activities such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and the sale of stolen goods. It is also a haven for hackers and cybercriminals who use it to buy and sell malware, exploit kits, and other tools of the trade.

But it’s not all bad news. The Dark Web is also home to a number of legitimate uses. For example, journalists and activists in repressive regimes may use the Dark Web to communicate and share information without fear of retribution. Whistleblowers may also use it to leak sensitive information without being identified. Additionally, some individuals may simply use it for privacy reasons, such as to browse the web without being tracked by advertisers or governments.

So, why should you care about the Dark Web? Well, even if you have no interest in engaging with it yourself, it is still important to be aware of its existence and potential dangers. Hackers and cybercriminals can use the Dark Web to buy and sell your personal information, such as credit card numbers and login credentials. They can also use it to launch attacks on websites and services, causing disruptions and potentially exposing sensitive data.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect yourself. First and foremost, it is important to practice good cybersecurity hygiene, such as using strong, unique passwords and enabling two-factor authentication. You should also be cautious when clicking on links or downloading attachments, even from sources you trust. Finally, consider using a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt your internet traffic and protect your privacy.

In conclusion, the Dark Web is a complex and often misunderstood aspect of the internet. While it can be used for both legal and illegal purposes, it is important to be aware of its potential dangers and take steps to protect yourself online. Stay safe out there!

[realtalkingpoints]

From the piece:

Shapley told CBS News he grew frustrated with progress from the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office involving “a high profile, controversial” investigation that the network identified as Hunter Biden’s.

“There were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice,” Shapley said. “These deviations from the process,” he added, “seemed to always benefit the subject.”

Two whistleblowers have now emerged within the IRS to allege DOJ misconduct in the Hunter Biden federal tax probe. Last week, one whistleblower was removed from the investigation in what appeared to be retaliation for speaking out, which would violate whistleblower protection laws.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

There are only TWO MORE DAYS left in the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

#10yrsago Powerful poetry slam piece on choice, rape and personhood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI0NAhP-Ku4

#10yrsago Omaha cop, fired for beating suspect, then raiding house of citizen who recorded him, is back on the job https://web.archive.org/web/20140126013155/http://www.jrn.com/kmtv/news/Omaha-Police-Officer-to-Return-to-Work-After-Being-Fired-for-Rough-Arrest-241524131.html

#10yrsago David Cameron: TV crime dramas prove we need mass warrantless electronic surveillance https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-25969918

#10yrsago Digitized items from the Carl Sagan archive go live on the Library of Congress site https://www.loc.gov/collections/finding-our-place-in-the-cosmos-with-carl-sagan/about-this-collection/

#10yrsago Podcasting patent trolls seek to intimidate EFF supporters, EFF fights back https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/eff-fights-patent-troll-demand-eff-podcast-donor-information

#10yrsago TSA whistleblower describes life in the pornoscanner room https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/tsa-screener-confession-102912/

#10yrsago Kansas cable lobbyist writes bill outlawing Google Fiber and municipal broadband, gets it introduced in Kansas legislature https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/who-wants-competition-big-cable-tries-outlawing-municipal-broadband-in-kansas/

#10yrsago Canadian spies illegally tracked travellers using free airport wifi https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csec-used-airport-wi-fi-to-track-canadian-travellers-edward-snowden-documents-1.2517881

#5yrsago Charter slashes network spending by $2B, but makes up for it by charging its customers more https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/charter-will-spend-less-on-cable-network-in-2019-but-charge-customers-more/

#5yrsago The FBI invented a fictitious “abortion extremist” movement, then warned local cops about potential acts of domestic terror from it https://jezebel.com/exclusive-fbi-warned-law-enforcement-agencies-of-threa-1832134408

#5yrsago As Macron and Merkel meet to rescue the #CopyrightDirective, the world’s libraries call for its rejection https://www.ifla.org/news/ifla-joins-the-call-for-deletion-of-articles-11-and-13-in-the-eu-copyright-reform/

#5yrsago 18 months on, kids’ smart watches are STILL a privacy & security dumpster-fire, and a gift to stalkers everywhere https://www.pentestpartners.com/security-blog/gps-watch-issues-again/

#1yrago Canada's privatised shadow civil service https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mckinsey-and-canada/#comment-dit-beltway-bandits-en-canadien

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

[mariacallous]

For years, I sat down to work each morning, realizing hours later that I felt drained, but got little done. Instead of writing, I spent my time texting, emailing, and mostly aimlessly browsing through news sites, blogs, and social networks. Every click triggered another. I tried to regain control by using an app called Freedom that blocked my computer online access for fixed periods of time. Sometimes it helped, especially when I had a work deadline looming. Sometimes it didn’t. But trying to control work time was only part of the struggle. I kept feeling the irresistible urge to pull out my phone wherever I went. At that point, I blamed myself. After all, I was the girl who spent hours playing video games well into college. But something happened in 2015 that made me realize that something much bigger was awry.

It was a Saturday evening when I arrived with my family to a friends’ home for dinner. Their 11-year-old son was playing with his parents’ iPad. When we came in, his parents demanded that he hand it over and join the other kids. The boy at first refused to hand it over. He then tried angrily to snatch it back from his mother, regressing to toddler-style wailing to demand the device. Throughout a long evening he exercised every manipulation tool in his power to regain control of the iPad. As I observed his parents’ despair, I recalled a family conflict that transpired at my parents’ house some years earlier. At that time doctors diagnosed my father, a heavy smoker, with emphysema. My father could have avoided his painful final years, hooked to an oxygen tank, by quitting smoking when he was diagnosed. He refused. We desperately tried to resist his decision by taking his cigarettes away. But like my friends’ son, my father reacted with uncharacteristic anger, exercising every means at his disposal to get his cigarette pack back.

That day I began to see how our present relates to our past. The past can answer one of today’s most perplexing problems. Why, despite multiple reports from Silicon Valley whistleblowers revealing that technology companies are using manipulative designs to prolong our time online, do we feel personally responsible? Why do we still blame ourselves and keep seeking new self-help methods to decrease our time online? We can learn from the past because in this case the tech companies did not innovate. Instead, the technology industry manipulated us following an old playbook, put together by other powerful industries, including the tobacco and food industries. 

When the tobacco and food industries confronted allegations that their products harmed their consumers, they defended themselves by raising the powerful American social icon of self-choice and personal responsibility. This meant emphasizing that consumers are free to make choices and, as a result, are responsible for the outcomes. Smokers and their families sued the tobacco industry for the devastation of smoking, including lung cancer and early death. But, for decades, they failed to win their lawsuits because the tobacco industry argued successfully that they chose to smoke and, therefore, they are responsible for the results. The food industry employed an identical strategy. When a group of teenagers sued McDonald’s because they suffered from obesity and diabetes after eating regularly at McDonald’s, McDonald’s also successfully raised the same claim. It argued that no one forced the teenagers to eat at McDonald’s, and since it was their choice, McDonald’s is not responsible for any health ramifications. The food industry went further. They successfully lobbied for laws known as the “cheeseburger laws” or more formally as the Commonsense Consumption Acts. Under these laws, food manufacturers and vendors cannot be held legally responsible for their consumers’ obesity. Why? Because the laws proclaim that this will foster a culture of consumer personal responsibility, which is important for promoting a healthy society.

The tobacco and food companies did not stop at just arguing directly that their consumers are responsible. They also provided new products to help them make better choices. In the 1950s, researchers published the first studies showing the connection between smoking and lung cancer.  In response, the tobacco companies offered consumers the option to choose a new healthier product: the filtered cigarette. They advertised it as “just what the doctor ordered,” claiming it removed nicotine and tar. Smokers went for it. Yet, they did not know that to compensate for the taste robbed by the filtered cigarette, companies used stronger tobacco that yielded as much nicotine and tar as the unfiltered brands. Here as well, the food industry followed suit. It also offered tools to reinforce that its consumers are in control. Facing criticism of the low nutritional value of their products, food manufacturers added products called “Eating Right” and “Healthy Choice.” While giving consumers the illusion they were making better choices, the diet product lines often made little improvement over the original products.

The tech industry is already applying this strategy by appealing to our deeply ingrained cultural beliefs of personal choice and responsibility. Tech companies do this directly when faced with allegations that they are addicting users. When the US Federal Trade Commission evaluated restricting use of loot boxes, an addictive feature common in video games, video game manufacturers argued: “No one is forced to spend money on a video game that is free to play. They choose what they want to spend and when they want to spend it and how they want to spend it.” But the technology industry also does it indirectly by providing us with tools to enhance our illusion of control. They give us tools like Apple’s Screen Time, which notifies us how much time we spend on screens. They also allow us to restrict time on certain apps, but then we can override these restrictions. We can choose to set our phones on “do not disturb” or “focus times.” We can set Instagram to remind us to take breaks. Yet, screen time continues to creep up. These tools are not successful, because just like the “filtered cigarette” and the “healthy choice” food products, they are not meant to solve the problem. Tech companies did not eliminate the addictive designs that keep prolonging our time online. The goal of these products, also known as digital well-being tools, was to keep the blame ball in our court, as we unsuccessfully face devices and apps that manipulatively entice us to stay on.

Awareness is crucial to stop blaming ourselves, but learning how the battles of the past played out also provides a rich repository for future action. Importantly, it exposes the vulnerabilities of the technology industry’s self-choice and responsibility argument. How? For one, when evidence comes out that businesses intended to addict consumers, it often defeats the industry’s argument that consumers voluntarily chose the products and are responsible for the consequences. In the 1990s, information leaking out of the tobacco companies’ fortress revealed that the tobacco industry knew that nicotine was addictive and manipulated it to maximize consumption by smokers. It was then that courts began attributing more responsibility to the tobacco industry, and smokers finally started winning cases. This is directly relevant today as whistleblowers report that tech companies purposefully addicted their users to prolong their time online, while choosing to ignore the harms. Second, children are the Achilles’ heel of the personal choice and responsibility defense. While many object to making paternalistic choices for adults, choosing for children is acceptable. For example, kids are not allowed to purchase cigarettes. Legal action is already underway to protect kids from the harms of excessive screen time.

Parents are suing social media companies and gamemakers for addicting their kids and causing them mental harm. They are no longer alone. Recently, school systems sued for the costs of treating kids harmed by social networks. Representatives of the US Congress and state legislatures relentlessly propose bills to protect children. Proposals raise different solutions from  imposing liability on social networks should they fail to remove addictive features to prohibiting access to social media for kids. The past illustrates that the weakness of the personal choice and responsibility defense with regard to kids makes this path particularly likely to succeed.

We can also push against the technology industry’s business model. Under this model, we get products like Gmail and Instagram for free. Still we pay, though not in money. We pay with our time and data. In recent years, government agencies filed antitrust actions against Big Tech. If successful, these actions could destabilize the prevailing business model. For example, should an action against Meta, which currently holds Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, succeed, and break it up, it will likely encourage competition. Competition could push toward alternative business models, such as subscriptions or pay-as-you-go. When a company’s business model does not rely on our time as its main resource, its need to design products that maximize our time online diminishes.

While a movement to battle technology is underway, it cannot rely on lawyers alone. Parents can influence schools to better assess and limit incorporation of technology into the classroom. Business owners can impact use of screens on their premises. For example, restaurant owners can decide not to replace menus with QR codes, thereby reducing the likelihood that patrons will take their phone out during the meal. Online entrepreneurs can opt for an alternative business model, one that is not based on advertising and user time. Technology designers can evaluate whether to design a feature aimed primarily at keeping users online for longer. We have many options to make a collective impact. Changing norms and business operations is possible. Looking at the past illustrates the possibilities of the future. We could never imagine bars without cigarettes, but they became our reality. So can a better-balanced tech future.

[xcruelladcvil]

─◇ what does the world know about cruella de vil ? 

(ie. the wikipedia page)

ooc note: this is in-character public knowledge that other citizens of elias could research/already know about cruella's past.

> the early years.

the daughter of famous fashion designer and former model, malevola de vil, cruella rose to the top of fashion’s heights as a teenager. at eighteen years old, she released her first fashion line, with the help of her mother’s connections and her father’s financial backing ( her father, known mining tycoon, ernest de vil ). and in a matter of months she gained fame for her fresh designs and innovative ideas. 

between the ages of 18-23, it seemed like she did nothing but work and party. 

one of the things she’s most known for is being one designer who still relishes using real fur and real leather. her house had to go undergo a lot of investigations with ethical sourcing, but they all passed with flying colours.

“i live for fur, i worship fur. after all, is there a woman in all this wretched world who doesn't?” ( cruella de vil, quoted outside the house of de vil, london, 2009 )

she had a famous photoshoot with annie leobovitz where cruella posed with various animals, and she donated money to various animal welfare organisations to show her support.

> a falling career.

however, in the same amount of time, there were other designers rising as well. most of cruella’s 20s were spent fighting to stay on top. 

“the main problem she’s encountering here is … well, it’s not that her designs aren’t good, it’s just that everyone else’s is just as good or even better. it’s an especially difficult time to be a rising star in fashion. are you still rising if everyone around you is too? cruella simply can not stand out. the house of de vil is doing well, but it’s not exceptional. she’s still famous, but not notorious. it’s a tough nut to crack.” ( vogue journalist andy sachs, in an interview during paris fashion week, 2011 )

slowly she picked off each designer one by one, each strategic defeat of her contemporaries feeling like a timebomb ticking away. and still, it didn't feel like enough to cement her at the top.

“i want to swim in a pool of gold and furs. i want to bathe in silk and dye my red heart to the perfect shade. is that too much to ask?” ( cruella de vil, vanity fair quote, 2011 )

what made it even worse was that anita was rising to the top too. 

in her late 20s, she started doing animal prints. zebra stripes, cheetah patterns. she got a little bit of attention here, as she was playing with these patterns in a fresh new way. but there was a creative block. things started to get repetitive. lots of people in her network began to lose faith in her innovation. for years, she had a dry spell.

and then, aged 32, the announcement was made: spots. and it was all downhill from there.

> downfall, accusations of animal cruelty, london fashion week ‘stunt’

no one knows exactly what was happening in the house of de vil at this time. whistleblowers reported cruella was trying to drive home the idea of actually skinning dalmatians, sourcing them through dubious means. many stated that cruella’s designs were impeccable, inspired, really. but cruella was known for her furs. and she wasn’t about to stop anytime soon. 

quickly, the house lost its sponsorships and cruella’s network began to fade. no one wanted to be associated with rumours that everyone knew in their hearts to be true. cruella de vil has always had a shadow of suspicion around her, but now the veil was being thrown off. she was uninvited from london fashion week. stores took her designs off their racks. investigations were launched once more over the house of de vil’s ethical practices.

for two months, no one heard from cruella nor the house of de vil. 

then at the fashion show of anita darling, she came back. 

“ it was … it was positively barbaric. we already heard there was some sort of kerfuffle happening in the dressing rooms — of course now we know it’s because cruella had people splatter all of anita’s outfits in black. ” ( anonymous witness, london fashion week, 2019 )

“ — there was an abnormal delay. and then lots of screaming. cruella came out in a dress with a huge train … i think the train was a messy stitch of all of anita’s previously released designs … and then she dumped all this paint onto the runway. god ! you should’ve seen everyone’s faces. she must’ve got the good stuff ‘cause i couldn’t get it out of my hair for days. black and white all over the place. ” ( anonymous witness for the ny times, london fashion week, 2019 )

after the stunt, cruella and her team disappeared. reports saw her showing up in her country manor, named ‘hell hall’ by the locals (real name: hellman hall). while police reports were drawn up and charges made, all charges were dropped within a month and no further action seemed to be taken against cruella de vil. 

> resurgence ( late 2021 to present )

cruella de vil effectively disappeared off the news radar for nearly two years.

in late 2021, a surprise interview came out with vogue. in ‘the de vil repenting’, she was interviewed at her hotel room in london, and it detailed how she had been in rehabilitation and seeing various psychologists and psychiatrists since 2019. 

“ cruella appeared as if muted; her iconic black-and-white hair was swept back with a hairscarf, and the black of her clothes seemed dull. it had to be a conscious choice. for the first fifteen minutes of the interview, it felt like i was speaking with someone completely different, and what this means i don’t know. but then she smiled, at some inane joke about taking a vacation on the greek islands, and there was the cruella we all remembered: sharp and unsettling, but still unbelievably magnetic. ” ( paragraph 1, ‘ the de vil repenting’, 2021 )

in the interview, she expressed how the past few years had been difficult. the death of her mother had been part of her ‘breakdown’ leading up to 2019’s london fashion week. 

“ i feel terrible for my darling anita … she was the one bridge i never wished to burn. but i can’t blame her and her family for how they may feel towards me … i accept the blame, but i do wish to move forward. ” ( cruella de vil, quoted in ‘the de vil repenting’, 2021 )

following her mother’s death, her father also fell ill months later. 

the sudden reminder of mortality, according to cruella, inspired her to finally make a change. she knew she wanted to come back to fashion, but she was working on the best way to marry the old cruella and the new cruella. 

“ i’m still the same old me … i don’t wish to change all of me, there has to be some part of me that’s good after all … but i know i cannot continue hurting everyone the way i have in the past. fashion is my one true love, i could never part with it. but i know now there is no future in fashion with animal byproducts. which is why i’m taking my time … i’m talking with the best experts … i will be better. ” ( cruella de vil, quoted in ‘the de vil repenting’, 2021 )

the vogue interview ‘the de vil repenting’ coincided with the house of de vil’s return to the runway, in a small fashion show in london. 

since then, cruella has released only a handful of new pieces each season. she seems to be taking it slow, truly showing a thoughtfulness to the production of fashion in a way we haven’t seen yet in the house of de vil. 

her next move is moving to the city of elias, california, and building her new main house of de vil there. 

time will only tell if this ‘good will kick’ will stick. 

> personal life.

cruella de vil has been married twice. one to a rock star, in las vegas, and they divorced two days later. one to a famed mountain climber, married for three years, then divorced. 

she currently has a rescue pet (breed: chinese crested) named ‘adam’. 

she is now based in elias.

[beardedmrbean]

At first glance, the photo is  an innocuous one: Taken on a sunny day in 2022, a cheerful group of twelve men and women are huddled together, posing for a selfie. They’re all dressed in military fatigues — their badges identify them as Egyptian, Indonesian and Bangladeshi officers. One man is wearing the light blue beret of a UN peacekeeper: The group has just finished their induction course for their stint at MONUSCO, the UN's mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Innocuous, that is, but for a bald man with glasses in the center of the photo; his arm casually draped around the shoulder of an Indonesian officer. A military source shared the picture pulled from social media with DW,  Sweden-based investigative outlet Netra News, and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Before the officer was deployed to the UN mission, he was deputy director of the Intelligence Wing of an elite force in Bangladesh: The Rapid Action Battalion, RAB.

The force, made up of Bangladesh’s police and military, was set up in 2004 with the support of the US and others to fight terrorism and violent crime. But its brutally efficient methods meant it was soon mired in accusations of wide-spread human rights violations, leading its former backer, the US, to impose sanctions on RAB in 2021.

In an investigation published last year, DW and Netra News revealed that RAB commits torture, murder, and abductions – and goes to great lengths to cover up its crimes. Its targets: alleged criminals, opposition activists, and human rights defenders.

Its members seemingly operate with complicity from the highest political level in Bangladesh, according to two whistleblowers. A claim the government rejected as "baseless and untrue."

RAB members sent to UN missions

A year after those revelations, DW, Netra News and Süddeutsche Zeitung can reveal that members of this infamous unit are seemingly being sent on peacekeeping missions: The deputy intelligence chief turned peacekeeper was not, we found, the only man who came from the group that several of our sources referred to as "death squad."

For months, DW and its partners conducted interviews with military and UN sources in Bangladesh and beyond; trawled through classified military files, deployment lists and painstakingly identified officers through Flickr, LinkedIn and Facebook.

One man's UN deployment was corroborated with the help of his daily running routes uploaded on a jogging app: for months, the avid jogger ran around Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, the seat of the UN's MINUSCA mission. In another picture, he posed for a selfie outside RAB's headquarters in Dhaka.

Two deputy heads of unit that runs torture cells among the peacekeepers

We found more than 100 RAB officers who went on peacekeeping missions, 40 of them within the last five years alone.

While we don’t have evidence that every single officer was implicated in crimes, at least three of them — Nayeem A., Hasan T. and Masud R. — worked for RAB's infamous Intelligence Wing, two as deputy directors. According to several sources, it is this unit that runs a secret network of torture cells across Bangladesh, some of them located in safe houses, others hidden deep inside RAB’s compounds. Survivors and military sources told DW and Netra News of beatings, mock executions, waterboarding and electric shocks.

"We have all the available tools," one former member of RAB explained. One particularly brutal method he witnessed was to place a detainee inside a container and heat it from below. "At some point the temperature is untenable," and the detainee, he said matter-of-factly, "would speak up."

The torture cells, another source said agreed, are "where they get information from civilians."

A source in RAB told DW, Netra News and Süddeutsche Zeitung that both of the two deputy directors were implicated in crimes, such as torture and executions.

While the claim cannot be corroborated independently, several other sources confirmed that it was likely that deputy directors with command responsibility would have signed off on what was happening in the torture cells, or at the very least known what was happening.

And yet, they were later tasked, as peacekeepers, to protect vulnerable civilian communities. The idea of peacekeeping was born after the Second World War: a force at the behest of the international community made up of soldiers and police officers drawn from the UN's member states, sent by the Security Council when governments fail and countries descend into turmoil.

Currently, tens of thousands of peacekeepers are deployed globally, in conflicts and crises ranging from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic to Kosovo and Kashmir.

Despite these lofty ideals, peacekeeping operations, individual soldiers and entire contingents have over the years been embroiled in scandals, which the UN has always been swift to condemn. Critics say peacekeeping missions have been ineffective, while those defending peacekeeping say they have saved countless lives.

In 2012, after several sexual abuse scandals by peacekeepers made headlines,  most notably of children in Haiti, the UN implemented a new human rights policy for its personnel.

Up to 'abusive government' to vet peacekeepers

While troop contributing countries generally continue to select and vet the military personnel they send to missions with the exception of Force Commanders and their deputies, they now have to attest for each soldier that they have not committed or are alleged to have committed any human rights violations. 

In the case of Bangladesh, that means that "they are asking an abusive government to then decide which officers are abusive or not," Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director for South Asia at Human Rights Watch said in a phone call. 

Bangladesh's government, Ganguly explained, "does not seem to believe that people that commit human rights violations need to be prosecuted and held to account.” Indeed, few members of RAB have ever been prosecuted.

And that is why she, together with several other human rights organizations, both Bangladeshi and international, has long called for RAB to be banned entirely from peacekeeping operations. 

They are not the only ones to sound a warning: In August 2019, the Committee against Torture, a UN body made up of independent experts that monitor human rights in UN member states, published its report on Bangladesh.

Its authors voiced concern at "numerous reports" of cases in which members of RAB "have been credibly alleged to have committed torture, arbitrary arrests, unacknowledged detention, disappearances and extrajudicial killings of persons in their custody.

'Grave concern'

One of the report's authors is Jens Modvig, a medical doctor who runs Dignity, the Danish Institute Against Torture, an NGO housed in an unassuming office block in Copenhagen.

While making coffee in the organization's small kitchen, he recalled the experts’ "grave concern" at the reports of human rights abuses by Bangladesh's security forces. It was a term, he said, they had "not used lightly."

The Committee's recommendations, Modvig said, "was that former and current members of RAB should not be allowed to do service in peacekeeping operations."

And yet, our investigation shows nothing happened.

DW, Netra News and Süddeutsche Zeitung sent several requests for an on-camera interview to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. They were declined.

Instead, the UN agreed to respond in writing to the findings: "We do not have", a spokesperson wrote, "the resources to screen each and every person and have a long-standing policy that places specific responsibility on troop and police contributing countries."

In the case of Bangladesh, the spokesman went on, UN Peacekeeping "has continuously engaged bilaterally with national authorities to convey concerns about serious allegations of human rights violations by defense and security forces, in particular by members of RAB".

UN susceptible to blackmail?

We did eventually find one man willing to go on-the-record: Andrew Gilmour, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights. Today, he heads the Berghof Foundation in Berlin that advocates for global peace: a-long-time UN diplomat, who, he said, picks his jackets according to an interview’s topic and mood.

For a story about peacekeeping and human rights abuses, he donned a somber blue.

If he was still in the UN, he said, "I probably wouldn't be able to be this frank and to say we get some really pretty useless troops and some pretty brutal ones as well."

Bangladesh, he concluded, was far from a unique case: "It is not the first time that member states have put forward people with bad human rights records to serve in their battalions that they assign to the UN." At times, he said, "it can be entire contingents that were implicated in some action, repressing people in their own country, for example, and other times it is individuals."

He stressed repeatedly that the UN was doing its best to prevent that from happening.

But he conceded, if the UN pushed countries too hard, there was a risk they might threaten to pull out their troops entirely. It was "pretty hard to do something about if the government of that member state is insisting on putting forward a contingent or an individual."

In one case, he recalled, "one country that was really important in contributing troops to a number of peacekeeping operations literally said, OK, we're going to pull out all together." And so, he explained, the UN's Secretary General at the time "had to basically go to that country and essentially apologize to the head of state."

Otherwise, four UN peacekeeping operations would have collapsed, Gilmour said.

His testimony seemed to point to one thing: that when it comes to peacekeepers, the UN is seemingly susceptible to blackmail.

A UN source agreed: at even the slightest hint of criticism, officials in Bangladesh — one the UN’s major troop contributors —  threatened to withdraw their troops. As of March of this year, about 6,000 Bangladeshi peacekeepers were actively deployed worldwide.

It's unclear, however, whether Bangladesh would actually go through with this threat and thus lose access to UN missions, which are lucrative both for individual soldiers and the countries deploying them.

According to government officials, Bangladesh has received more than 2.5 billion USD over the past 23 years. Individual peacekeepers receive a higher salary than they would back home.

The spokesperson for UN Peacekeeping rejected the claim that the UN is seemingly powerless when faced with threats: "The largest troop contributor at the moment contributes less than 10% of the 65,000 personnel deployed. Therefore, no single troop contributor can credibly threaten to undermine the viability of a peacekeeping operation by withdrawing all of their forces".

UN's hands seemingly tied

There is a reason why, according to Gilmour, the UN's hands are seemingly tied. When he was "very, very young," the majority of UN peacekeepers came from places like Sweden and Ireland, he explained.

But over the years, as the Cold War drew to a close in the early 1990s, faced with deadlier missions, Western governments increasingly started to pull their troops out of peacekeeping operations, preferring to pay for them instead.

Democratic governments had to weigh whether they could pay a certain blood toll, according to a political source from a western European country with inside knowledge of the workings of the UN. If soldiers deployed to UN missions returned in body bags, he explained, their governments could soon have a parliamentary inquiry on their hands.

That, he added, was not a problem countries like Bangladesh had to deal with. At the same time,  he conceded that UN peacekeeping missions were lucrative for both individual soldiers and governments to fill their coffers.

[darkmaga-retard]

National Grid executives are warning that citizens must prepare for imminent rolling blackouts as governments push to comply with the “Net Zero” demands of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Industry whistleblowers have revealed that executives from the UK Grid’s Electricity System Operator (ESO) are raising the alarm that large portions of the population will soon be facing major power outages.

An industry insider reportedly told the UK’s Telegraph that, in private conversations with the energy industry, ESO execs revealed that the network is now becoming so congested that “there will be blackouts in the South East by 2028.”

They warned London and the South East of the country will be plunged into blackouts before the end of the decade due to “Net Zero” targets.

However, the threat of blackouts is being kept hidden from the public, giving citizens little chance to prepare.

In order to comply with the WEF’s “Net Zero” goals, the UK government heavily relies on unreliable wind and solar power.

The ISO officials blamed the looming threat on the switch to less predictable “green” energy.

The ESO is campaigning to introduce so-called zonal pricing where power suppliers can be paid more in the South East than elsewhere if demand is higher.

A second energy industry source confirmed that the ESO is “very worried about keeping the lights on” in the region.