US State Department Unable to Explain Difference Between Panama & Snowden Revelations

Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

8th April, 2016

RT

The US State Department has stated that it supported the work of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, who published an archive of Panamanian documents, which contains information from the law firm Mossack Fonseca. The experts' attention was drawn to the fact that previously in such a situation, the State Department took the opposite position: in 2013, the US government called Edward Snowden's revelations a betrayal, and said that the declassification of information is a crime.

The media is wondering why the Panama papers contain so little information about American companies and individuals. Experts believe that the citizens of the US have no need to hide their assets abroad, as they can easily do it at home.

They don't have to go to Panama and other offshore zones. Not only because there are corrupt officials and other criminals to launder money. This can be done in any state of the United States. In 2015, the United States ranked third in the index of financial opacity. Financial analysts say that under current US tax law, companies are not required to disclose information about beneficiaries.

During a regular briefing, State Department spokesperson Mark Toner was asked to clarify Washington's position regarding the Panama documents.

"In fact, you support the publication of these papers, right? In the case of WikiLeaks and the documents of Edward Snowden , the US government publicly stated that it was theft," said Associated Press reporter Matt Lee to the representative of the State Department.

"We already talked about the fact that any profession, including in the legal field, should have a certain degree of privacy. Now I can't say if we would declare the incident a theft," said Toner.

Earlier, in the case of the WikiLeaks revelations, the US government taken a clear position, expressing the declassification of documents as theft. At the time, representative of the US State Department Jen Psaki declared "a patriot would not divulge classified information and endanger people," and Press-Secretary of the US Department of State Philip Crowley called the "declassification of information" a crime.

"Obviously, we are dealing with hypocrisy. On the one hand, American authorities are promoting information disclosure and treat the whistleblowers as witnesses, but if someone exposes their violation, they immediately call that person a traitor. That's the trend," explained former FBI agent Coleen Rowley.

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Russian Intelligence Historian: American Intelligence is a Branch of Wall Street

April 4, 2016

Alexander Kolpakidi 
Author, political scientist, historian of intelligence services 

Nakanune

Translated by Kristina Kharlova



The employee of Vnesheconombank Eugene Buryakov, who worked in New York is now on trial in the US. He was arrested in January on suspicion of espionage in favor of Russia. According to prosecutors, a group of spies was engaged in recruitment and collection of various economic information, including about sanctions against Russia, and Buryakov is an agent of Russian intelligence, working undercover at the bank. Moreover, at a recent court the suspect did not deny his guilt.

Usually our spies never admitted guilt, this is something different. As far as I understand our authorities continue to deny as they always do. It is strange for Buryakov to admit guilt – in fact, he is not facing a death sentence, as Abel. Apparently, our spies reflect the times. We can assume that he will then want to stay in America. Maybe he was presented with some kind of offer. But given that offers were always made to our arrested experts, his behavior is unusual. Especially strange on the background of the release of a film about Abel in a historical perspective: even under a threat of death sentence he behaved differently. This, I think, is the case that forces us to think about what kind of society we live in and used to live in.

Of course, we don't know what's happening to him – no details are known; therefore, we cannot draw conclusions. US could have faked the case, but I don't think he would have confessed, if there was nothing against him. I don't think that Americans tortured him or used psychotropic substances. This could happen in the Cold war years and it did, but now it is, of course, excluded. With terrorists - yes, but not with respect to such defendants.

Here, of course, the case has to do with what is called economic espionage – it has always been conducted, from the beginning, and even in tsarist times. Economic information was always in the shadow. In the Soviet era, we had the Chamber of Commerce, headed by Primakov, created by one of the closest associates of Beria – General Pitovranov. And financial intelligence is closely intertwined with economic, that's always been one of the most important tasks of the state. And everything to do with banks, related to finance is always in the shadow. So, naturally, intelligence in this area is doubly in the shadow. 

By the way, compared to Americans, as Snowden showed us well, we are like a blind, one-armed cripple on crutches fighting with a strong and healthy boxer. The struggle is unequal, the U.S. is really in control of the entire world, and not only just eavesdropping on terrorist conversations, but they control, primarily, all financial flows. Their intelligence from the very beginning was built as a branch of Wall Street. If you look at who created the CIA – they are the people from Wall street, so, naturally, owing to their habits they always left intelligence for large corporations.

Their intelligence is closely intertwined with financial sector, and in this respect, I think they are no match for the entire world.

The U.S. controls everything not only with military bases, but also this. Moreover, if it were not for Snowden, no one would know it and, by the way, is a very unpleasant fact for us – if not for this one person, then no one would know. And here is the question – why didn't we know about the things that Snowden voiced? Of course, the experts will say – we knew everything, but if they knew, why didn't reveal it?

In Soviet times, there were many more spy cases, now it's rare, but, nevertheless, it happens – about once in three or four years in America such scandals happen. Some of them are very known, such as Chapman and Co, some less known. But every year one or two such cases happen in even very small or less important to us countries, like Spain or Canada.

The current situation in intelligence - is a sign that in 1991 the state collapsed, which was built on a system basis. Don't like that word, created by our various "political analysts", but, nevertheless, it is a fact. Today everything is based on manual operation. It's not even worth comparing.

Now we are on the verge of a hot war – little is said about it, but it is being whispered about. What has changed? At that time we had a powerful counter-propaganda machine – books, articles, newspapers, we had people, experts. Now, if you look at who participates in talk shows – it's a shame. But they talk a lot about hybrid warfare. Perhaps we are now prepared militarily, perhaps we're trying to do something in economic terms. But we did not prepare the  ideological component. This is an indisputable fact, and this, in my opinion, is the main disadvantage compared with the Soviet Union, when we were prepared for a stand-off as equal. There was a whole system of measures of counter-propaganda, and it was not done by itself, but systematically, at the state level, not by manual control.

And now we have what we have.





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