Ex-Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer found guilty in WikiLeaks trial, avoids jail

The former senior executive at Zurich-based Baer's Cayman Islands office was accused of passing confidential information to WikiLeaks on two occasions, one in 2008 and another in 2011.
Elmer was found guilty of the charges relating to 2008 but not guilty in relation to 2011. He was also found guilty of forging a letter from Baer to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2007.
He was ordered to pay costs towards the trial and was given a three-year suspended fine of up to 45,000 Swiss francs ($63,052). The prosecution had sought a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence, while Elmer's lawyer Ganden Tethong had argued for her client to be acquitted.
"The rationale from the court today has not convinced me," Tethong told reporters after the verdict. "I find (the prosecution) did not bring forward anything that would contradict what I argued."
Tethong said she would appeal the ruling.http://www.smh.com.au/world/exswiss-banker-rudolf-elmer-found-guilty-in-wikileaks-trial-avoids-jail-20150119-12tois.html

British intelligence intercepted emails from The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, and others

Newly released Snowden documents show GCHQ was listening in the internal communications of some of the most prestigious journalistic institutions in the world. A report in The Guardian details a test exercise that resulted in emails from BBC, Reuters, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Sun, NBC, and The Washington Post all being deposited onto GCHQ's internal intranet, available to anyone logged into the system. It does not appear to have been an intelligence gathering exercise, and the resulting emails don't seem to have targeted any sensitive stories, but it still represents a major privacy violation and a reminder of how easily bulk collection systems can be abused.
The test was meant to demonstrate a new filtering tool meant to strip out irrelevant data from final results. Over the course of ten minutes, researchers pulled 70,000 emails directly from GCHQ's cable-tapping sites, then ran the experimental filter to see which of those messages could be surfaced as potentially valuable intelligence. Journalistic communications shot to the top of the list, although there's no evidence to suggest the journalists were intentionally targeted. The news comes at a particularly sensitive time, as Prime Minister David Cameron pushes for comprehensive new surveillance laws that could ban encrypted chat or email clients in the UK.

• SourceThe Guardian

France’s Le Pen says Paris attacks were the work of US or Israeli agents.

PARIS: According to a report, published in The Independent, founder of France’s far right Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen has said that the Charlie Hebdo massacre may have been the work of an “intelligence agency”.

In an interview with a virulently anti-Western Russian newspaper Komsomolskaïa Pravda, Mr Le Pen, 86, gave credence to conspiracy theories circulating on the internet suggesting that the attack was the work of American or Israeli agents seeking to foment a civil war between Islam and the West, the report said.

The independent report further says, “The shooting at Charlie Hebdo resembles a secret service operation but we have no proof of that,” the newspaper quoted Mr Le Pen as saying. “I don’t think it was organised by the French authorities but they permitted this http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-172235-France%E2%80%99s-Le-Pen-says-Paris-attacks-work-of-US-or-Israeli-agents:-report

Actually happened: French high school student arrested for posting "ironic" cartoon on Facebook.

France begins jailing people for ironic comments

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Mon, 01/19/2015 - 13:36

charlie-hebdo-cest-de-la-merde.jpg

Mock Charlie Hebdo cover circulated after the murder of the magazine’s cartoonists. The text says “Charlie Hebdo is shit. It doesn’t stop bullets.”

It may sound like an ironic joke, but it isn’t. Less than a week after the massive rallies in defense of “free expression,” following the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, French authorities have jailed a youth for irony.
The arrest is part of a harsh crackdown on free speech in the country that has prompted criticism from national and international human rights organizations.
A 16-year-old high school student was taken into police custody on Thursday and indicted for “defending terrorism,” national broadcaster France 3 reports.
His alleged crime? http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/france-begins-jailing-people-ironic-comments

FAA Gives CNN Permission To Use Drones

CNN Is About To Launch a Fleet of Drones

DC Inno‎ - 1 day ago

CNN is the first news network to get permission from the FAA to let it use drones for ... from the FAA gives it a whole new scope for using them to cover the news from above.

BREAKING: 20 Year-Old British Man Linked To #CyberCaliphate, Hack On Pentagon Twitter Feed

Mirror.co.uk

Junaid Hussain: CyberCaliphate Leader And ISIS Member Was ...

International Business Times-18 minutes ago

Junaid Hussain is believed by U.S. and European government investigators to be the leader of CyberCaliphate, but it is unclear if he was ...

British hacker suspected of cyber attack on US Central Command ...
Mirror.co.uk-3 hours ago

British hacker linked to attack on Pentagon Twitter feed: sources
Reuters-3 hours ago

Was ISIS fan who hacked Tony Blair's Gmail behind US Central ...

NASCAR Driver Kurt Busch Testifies Ex-Girlfriend Is Trained Assassin Of Drug Lords

Kurt Busch: Ex was trained killer

ESPN‎ - 11 mins ago

... attorney, Rusty Hardin, questioned why he still believed Patricia Driscoll is a hired killer.Musician: Kurt Busch's ex-girlfriend was out for revenge

Busch and his attorney, Rusty Hardin, have staunchly denied the accusations and cast Driscoll, who runs the Armed Forces Foundation and her own defense company, as a jilted lover who wants to destroy Busch’s reputation. They have argued that Driscoll, who Busch claimed is a trained assassin deployed on many missions, was never physically abused.
“I’m just glad that the truth got told and that we’ll wait on the commissioner’s decision,” Busch told reporters outside of Kent County Family Court on Tuesday.
Driscoll’s alleged background as a trained assassin who had experience killing drug lords via long-range sniper rifles and close combat tactics – including the use of knives and poison – became a major talking point during the latter stages of the hearing.