"one of the world’s greatest privacy invaders just had his privacy invaded."

In the Intercept, Glenn Greenwald writes about the dispute between Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer. Bezos wants to know how the Enquirer got pictures of his private parts that he sent via iPhone to a L.A. t.v. personality with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Greenwald writes,

IF BEZOS WERE the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic.

That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with the Pentagon and the NSA to empower the U.S. Government with more potent and more sophisticated weapons, including surveillance weapons.

In December, 2017, Amazon boasted that it had perfected new face-recognition software for crowds, which it called Rekognition. It explained that the product is intended, in large part, for use by governments and police forces around the world. The ACLU quickly warned that the product is “dangerous” and that Amazon “is actively helping governments deploy it.”

“Powered by artificial intelligence,” wrote the ACLU, “Rekognition can identify, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. It can quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces.” The group warned: “Amazon’s Rekognition raises profound civil liberties and civil rights concerns.” In a separate advisory, the ACLU said of this face-recognition software that Amazon’s “marketing materials read like a user manual for the type of authoritarian surveillance you can currently see in China.”

...Then there are the serious privacy dangers posed by Amazon’s “Ring” camera products, revealed in the Intercept last month by Sam Biddle. As he reported, Amazon’s Ring, intended to be a home security system, has “a history of lax, sloppy oversight when it comes to deciding who has access to some of the most precious, intimate data belonging to any person: a live, high-definition feed from around — and perhaps inside — their house.”

...About the Ring surveillance in particular, the ACLU explained:

Imagine if a neighborhood was set up with these doorbell cameras. Simply walking up to a friend’s house could result in your face, your fingerprint, or your voice being flagged as “suspicious” and delivered to a government database without your knowledge or consent. With Amazon selling the devices, operating the servers, and pushing the technology on law enforcement, the company is building all the pieces of a surveillance network, reaching from the government all the way to our front doors.

...Then there’s the patent Amazon obtained last October, as reported by the Intercept, “that would allow its virtual assistant Alexa to decipher a user’s physical characteristics and emotional state based on their voice.” In particular, it would enable anyone using the product to determine a person’s accent and likely place of origin: “The algorithm would also consider a customer’s physical location — based on their IP address, primary shipping address, and browser settings — to help determine their accent.”

...Bezos’ relationship with the military and spying agencies of the U.S. Government, and law enforcement agencies around the world, predates his purchase of the Washington Post and has become a central prong of Amazon’s business growth. Back in 2014, Amazon secured a massive contract with the CIA when the spy agency agreed to pay it $600 million for computing cloud software. As the Atlantic noted at the time, Amazon’s software “will begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community.”

Given how vital the military and spy agencies now are to Amazon’s business, it’s unsurprising that the amount Amazon pays to lobbyists to serve its interests in Washington has exploded: quadrupling since 2013 from $3 million to almost $15 million last year, according to Open Secrets.

...But Bezos, given how much he works and profits to destroy the privacy of everyone else (to say nothing of the labor abuses of his company), is about the least sympathetic victim imaginable of privacy invasion. In the past, hard-core surveillance cheerleaders in Congress such as Dianne Feinstein, Pete Hoekstra, and Jane Harman became overnight, indignant privacy advocates when they learned that the surveillance state apparatus they long cheered had been turned against them.

Perhaps being a victim of privacy invasion will help Jeff Bezos realize the evils of what his company is enabling. Only time will tell. As of now, one of the world’s greatest privacy invaders just had his privacy invaded. As the ACLU put it: “Amazon is building the tools for authoritarian surveillance that advocates, activists, community leaders, politicians, and experts have repeatedly warned against.”

Read more here.

Writing about gossip

The Associated Press has dug up some dirt on a gossip editor at The National Enquirer. You can read it here if you want to!

He doesn't believe the Enquirer story

Jeff Dunetz at The Lid writes,

But on Friday the Cruz story erupted, and things I should have noticed when I first read the story on Wednesday came to light.
For example, three of the five women have been identified, one of the women Amanda Carpenter I know personally. Not that we are good friends but she is more of a friend to some of my good friends. And from everything I know about Amanda, everything I’ve read about her, and from posts on her Facebook page about her family, I feel comfortable betting big money on the fact that Amanda has never cheated on her husband with Ted Cruz, or any one else.

Amanda vehemently denied the story on CNN today (see the video below). Another of the five women who have been identified is Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson who has denied the accusations and a third who has been identified is former Carly Fiorina staffer Sarah Isgur Flores who hasn’t denied it yet, but I am sure it’s coming.

The Enquirer piece neglected to mention that National Enquirer owner David Pecker is a close friend of Trump’s and this is not the first time the magazine tried to destroy a Trump rival.

his past October 7th issue, on the same cover that announced Ben Afflack and Jennifer Lopez were once again an item (no one told them), the National Enquirer promoted a story about how Ben Carson butchered a child’s brain. Inside they published a story about Dr. Ben Carson (who just so happened to be catching up to Donald Trump in the polls) called “Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!” (which btw sounds like the title of a great horror film). Per the article, Carson “brandished a scalpel like a meat cleaver!” (meat cleaver? Who knew he did circumcisions). The article said he botched surgeries leaving patients disfigured and in pain. According to the author of the piece “Judging by White House wannabe Ben Carson’s track record as a neurosurgeon, his presidential campaign should be declared dead on arrival!”



When Carly Fiorina had an excellent debate in September and began to rise in the polls the Enquirer ran an article called, “Homewrecker Carly Fiorina Lied About Druggie Daughter”joan-rivers2

Why would the Enquirer run a hit pieces on Donald Trump’s opponents when they just so happened to be creeping up in the polls on “The Donald?” According ot an October 2o15 issue of New York Magazine:
Trump and Enquirer CEO David Pecker have been friends for years. “They’re very close,” said a source close to the Enquirer. In July 2013, Trump even tweeted that Pecker should become CEO of Time magazine, which at the time was being spun off from its corporate parent, Time Warner. “He’d make it exciting and win awards!”

Read more here.

Amanda Carpenter's sister-in-law confirms Amanda's affair with Cruz

Someone who calls himself or herself "Enforcer for Trump," posted this yesterday on Medium:

The Cruz campaign has yet to respond to the allegations, but a short phone call with the sister in-law of one of the women, after I found her online through use of the White Pages, appears to confirm the allegations.

The woman, whose brother is married to the alleged paramour — who appears on CNN as contributor, said, “It’s true. They were together only a few times.” She added her sister-in-law, “was transfixed by Ted. He has a way of selling ice to an Eskimo.” I asked when the affairs occurred. “Right before Ted’s campaign for Senate,” she said. “They’d get together when Cruz visited DC.” She added, “The whole family knows, everybody knows about this.”

Cruz’s lover is married and has children.

Notice how none of these people ever uses their own names when they post on social media?

Here is Amanda Carpenter appearing on Hannity and Colmes in 2008 discussing the Enquirer's story about John Edwards

Responses from two of the women, Cruz, and Trump

Ben Shapiro writes this morning at The Daily Wire,

Katrina Pierson, another Of The National Enquirer’s Women, Has Denied The Story. Pierson, you may recall, is Trump’s campaign press spokeswoman. She would have every interest in confirming the story, given that it would put an end to Cruz’s presidential hopes and, indeed, his entire career. Yet here’s what she’s tweeted this morning about the Enquirer story: "Of course the National Enquirer story is 100% FALSE!!! I only speak to myself, however." and, "What's worse? People who actually believe the trash in tabloids, or the ones who know it's false &spread it anyway? #stupidity on all levels"

Amanda Carpenter is another one of the National Enquirer's women. She responded,

What’s out there is tabloid trash. If someone wants to comment on it, they can talk to my lawyer, it is categorically false, you should be ashamed for spreading this kind of smut, Donald Trump supporters should be held to account for it, and I will not be intimidated, I will continue to make my thoughts known about Donald Trump, and I am not backing down.

Ted Cruz's response:

I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage. For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald won’t go.

These smears are completely false, they’re offensive to Heidi and me, they’re offensive to our daughters, and they’re offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack.

Donald Trump’s consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow.

Donald Trump's response:

I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage. For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald won’t go.

These smears are completely false, they’re offensive to Heidi and me, they’re offensive to our daughters, and they’re offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack.

Donald Trump’s consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow.

Read more here.

Not all of the media is negative about Donald Trump

The National Enquirer is noted for finding out negative things about celebrities. I have been amazed, therefore, that they have not had one negative thing to say about Donald Trump. In fact, the N.E.'s current front page urges us to elect Donald Trump as our next president.

Trump now writing for the National Enquirer

I noticed today while standing in the supermarket line that Donald Trump is now writing columns for the National Enquirer. Seems fitting.