1. SolarWinds - an IT monitoring company with the NSA, all five military branches of the Pentagon, and several major civilian agencies, had their software hacked by the Russian hacker group Cozy Bear yesterday, the same group responsible for the 2016 DNC hack.

#Justin A day before the @MyMDC_T EOC, the party Treasurer General says he is unable to fund travel costs for delegates to congress because the money was allegedly stolen. We share contents of the letter from #ChiefNdlovu

“My office has been inundated with calls from concerned EOC delegates who by now should have received their Provincial transport allocation.
It has come to my attention that some of our members may not be able to travel to the EOC due to lack of funding.”

Equally I have received allegations that the Treasury is refusing to make payments for EOC, nothing could be further from the truth. I would like to take this opportunity as your Deputy Treasurer to inform you that as treasury we are not able to pay due to the fact that...

that funds were withdrawn from the party account on the 18th December 2020, we are still pursuing and trying to get some Standing Committee members who were involved in the unapproved transfer to return the money to the Party.
I was left a bit shocked to learn that the SG expects

Treasury to release money when he is the one who transferred all the money out of the account without my explicit approval. Perhaps the SG must inform members where the money is. I certainly do not have any knowledge of who he sent the money to or what has happened to those funds

In 2009, I studied the history of the FBI/CIA and also the Hitler regime (research for a book). I expected it to be a dull errand, not a horrific realization that the evil methods of operation of US agencies were often indistinguishable in their actions from the N regime. AND...

2) I found no evidence whatsoever that these abhorrent programs had stopped. Quite the opposite... I kept waiting for the books to get to the part where the programs ended, were properly disclosed/exposed, all went to prison, victims were compensated, and these agencies prevented

3) from ever conducting unethical operations against their own citizens and others ever again... But... no. That part of the books wasn't written. We can only conclude then, that the operations are still ongoing. Even programs that were supposedly forced to end have many signs

4) of simply changing the name of the program/operation and shifting things around to look like something else... nope, just a continuation of the same unlawful evil thing as before. Except, year after year, the tech capabilities rose, and the level of wickedness had to also rise

5) As society became progressive, there wasn't much left that society universally labels a "compromising position": activities rejected as unacceptable, unforgivable, unpardonable & if caught- jailed or fired. Blackmail doesn't work if all human activity is accepted and defended

At least six people providing security for Roger Stone participated in the Capitol attack, our new Visual Investigation shows. Here's how the guards (all Oath Keepers) went from guarding Trump's longtime confidant to standing inside the Capitol on Jan. 6:

Mr. Stone, a convicted felon who was pardoned by Mr. Trump, has a long history as a self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” political operative. On Jan. 5 and 6, Oath Keepers provided security for him, something he himself confirmed.

We combed through hundreds of videos and photos and drew on research from @CTExposers to visually identify Mr. Stone's guards on Jan. 5 and 6. — from that group, these six entered the Capitol during the insurrection.

Here's how. On Jan. 5, Mr. Stone made two public appearances in D.C. in support of Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. In the afternoon, he spoke in front of the Supreme Court. Five of the six Oath Keepers we’re tracking can be seen in this video.

The Oath Keepers are a far-right, anti-government militia — and there's plenty of footage to visually identify them around Mr. Stone on Jan. 5 and 6. Here's another video from that same event in front of the Supreme Court.

So the Canadian government will soon be introducing legislation aimed at regulating platforms with respect to harmful speech, spearheaded by Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. I'm concerned b/c we haven't seen a lot of serious thought from the Gov on this. A thread:

Guilbeault has taken this on as part of a large digital regulatory agenda that also includes things like requiring Canadian content on streaming services, and potentially forcing intermediaries to pay for news (like Australia).

We don't know what form the legislation will take, but there's cause for concern that it's partially going to look a lot like the German NetzDG law, and require hate speech and other illegal speech to be taken down quickly. It will also include a new regulator to do...something

The concern comes from the PM's mandate letter to the Minister, which asked him to "create new regulations for social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties."

I haven't seen anything to suggest Guilbeault has moved away from this. His office was quoted recently as saying "our approach will require online platforms to monitor and eliminate illegal content that appears on their platforms."