Remote Controlled Humans Via Internet in Real-Time Now a Reality (Update)

 

Activist Post
Every day seems to bring new revelations in the area of neuroscience.

image: University of Washington

Over the past year we have learned that scientists have been working on "neural dust" to create a remote-controlled computer pathway to the brain; that scientists have been successful implanting false memories in mice; an experiment at Harvard enabled a human to remote control a mouse by thought alone; and the world's first "telepathic e-mail" was sent.
However, when it was announced last year that remote-controlled humans via the Internet became a reality, it was still met with disbelief. The research team from the University of Washington who conducted this experiment is now announcing that they not only have duplicated their original experiment, but believe that they have moved a step closer to making this a viable technology that could be rolled out in the not-too-distant future. Their full press release with video follows our initial report below.
We recently reported on the release of a secret DARPA mind control program at Arizona State University. Part of that research was focused specifically on the attempt to replicate through language the same results obtained with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, which is a way to directly control movements, speech, and one's perception of reality via electromagnetic waves aimed at the cerebral cortex. Julie Beal also reported on DARPA's solicitation for portable brain recorders that could eventually be used in every classroom in America. Clearly there is a will to put research into action.

But so far, the ability to remote control an object from a distance with the mind alone has been limited to video games, drones, and the above-mentioned mouse. However, as you can see in the video below, a human-to-human remote link has been established. A researcher was able to control the hand movements of a person jacked in to the "brain net" in a completely different building:
As is typical, researchers are downplaying the technology by stressing that this type of stimulation is only possible through consenting participants. Yet they repeatedly tout how wonderful it is because it is "non-invasive." With nanotechnology such as that used in neural dust, a pathway can easily be opened non-invasively (or surreptitiously), and control can be achieved wirelessly. Julie Beal has speculated that perhaps this type of wireless control over another human being's brain contributed to the strange "short circuits" that have been seen in many news reporters. It's no longer beyond the realm of possibility.
What once was the craziest of conspiracies has now entered the daily news cycle. And there is more to come:

“The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains,” said researcher Andrea Stocco, assistant professor in psychology at the University of Washington.

[...]

Rao noted that his study managed “a one-way flow of information.”

“The next step is having a more equitable two-way conversation directly between the two brains,” he said.

The future is now; all that remains to be answered is whether or not ethical considerations will evolve along with the technology, or will simply be bypassed altogether. Given that the U.S. Army is funding this research, those who are skeptical of this technology only being used in a beneficial way have quite a bit of historical precedent upon which to base their concern.
UW study shows direct brain interface between humans
by Michelle Ma
(Activist Post emphasis added)
Sometimes, words just complicate things. What if our brains could communicate directly with each other, bypassing the need for language?
University of Washington researchers have successfully replicated a direct brain-to-brain connection between pairs of people as part of a scientific study following the team’s initial demonstration a year ago. In the newly published study, which involved six people, researchers were able to transmit the signals from one person’s brain over the Internet and use these signals to control the hand motions of another person within a split second of sending that signal.
At the time of the first experiment in August 2013, the UW team was the first to demonstrate two human brains communicating in this way. The researchers then tested their brain-to-brain interface in a more comprehensive study, published Nov. 5 in the journal PLOS ONE.
“The new study brings our brain-to-brain interfacing paradigm from an initial demonstration to something that is closer to a deliverable technology,” said co-author Andrea Stocco, a research assistant professor of psychology and a researcher at UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. “Now we have replicated our methods and know that they can work reliably with walk-in participants.”
Collaborator Rajesh Rao, a UW professor of computer science and engineering, is the lead author on this work.
The research team combined two kinds of noninvasive instruments and fine-tuned software to connect two human brains in real time. The process is fairly straightforward. One participant is hooked to an electroencephalography machine that reads brain activity and sends electrical pulses via the Web to the second participant, who is wearing a swim cap with a transcranial magnetic stimulation coil placed near the part of the brain that controls hand movements.

A transcranial magnetic stimulation coil is placed over the part of the brain that controls the receiver’s right hand movements. Mary Levin, U of Wash.

Using this setup, one person can send a command to move the hand of the other by simply thinking about that hand movement.
The UW study involved three pairs of participants. Each pair included a sender and a receiver with different roles and constraints. They sat in separate buildings on campus about a half mile apart and were unable to interact with each other in any way – except for the link between their brains.
Each sender was in front of a computer game in which he or she had to defend a city by firing a cannon and intercepting rockets launched by a pirate ship. But because the senders could not physically interact with the game, the only way they could defend the city was by thinking about moving their hand to fire the cannon.

The sender is hooked to an electroencephalography machine that reads brain activity. A computer processes the brain signals and sends electrical pulses via the Web to the receiver across campus.Mary Levin, U of Wash.

Across campus, each receiver sat wearing headphones in a dark room – with no ability to see the computer game – with the right hand positioned over the only touchpad that could actually fire the cannon. If the brain-to-brain interface was successful, the receiver’s hand would twitch, pressing the touchpad and firing the cannon that was displayed on the sender’s computer screen across campus.
Researchers found that accuracy varied among the pairs, ranging from 25 to 83 percent. Misses mostly were due to a sender failing to accurately execute the thought to send the “fire” command. The researchers also were able to quantify the exact amount of information that was transferred between the two brains.
Another research team from the company Starlab in Barcelona, Spain, recently published results in the same journal showing direct communication between two human brains, but that study only tested one sender brain instead of different pairs of study participants and was conducted offline instead of in real time over the Web.
Now, with a new $1 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, the UW research team is taking the work a step further in an attempt to decode and transmit more complex brain processes.
With the new funding, the research team will expand the types of information that can be transferred from brain to brain, including more complex visual and psychological phenomena such as concepts, thoughts and rules.
They’re also exploring how to influence brain waves that correspond with alertness or sleepiness. Eventually, for example, the brain of a sleepy airplane pilot dozing off at the controls could stimulate the copilot’s brain to become more alert.
(Read a Scientific American article by Rao and Stocco about possible uses of sending thoughts directly between brains.)
The project could also eventually lead to “brain tutoring,” in which knowledge is transferred directly from the brain of a teacher to a student.
“Imagine someone who’s a brilliant scientist but not a brilliant teacher. Complex knowledge is hard to explain – we’re limited by language,” said co-author Chantel Prat, a faculty member at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences and a UW assistant professor of psychology.
Other UW co-authors are Joseph Wu of computer science and engineering; Devapratim Sarma and Tiffany Youngquist of bioengineering; and Matthew Bryan, formerly of the UW.
The research published in PLOS ONE was initially funded by the U.S. Army Research Office and the UW, with additional support from the Keck Foundation.
Sources:

• http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/165081-first-human-brain-to-brain-interface-allows-remote-control-over-the-internet-telepathy-coming-soon
• http://neurogadget.com/2013/08/28/researcher-controls-colleagues-motions-through-first-noninvasive-human-to-human-brain-interface-video/8604
• http://singularityhub.com/2013/08/28/researcher-remotely-operates-colleagues-brain-over-the-internet/
• http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/11/05/uw-study-shows-direct-brain-interface-between-humans/

Updated 11/8/2014

Remote Controlled Humans Via Internet in Real-Time Now a Reality (Update)
Activist
Sat, 08 Nov 2014 19:22:00 GMT

U.S. Announces 1,500 More Troops Deployed To Iraq

 

Anthony Freda Art

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
On Friday, November 7, it was announced by the Pentagon that U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of up to 1,500 troops to Iraq under the guise of "fighting ISIS."
The Pentagon claims that the troops will not serve in a combat role but in an advisory capacity for the provision of assistance and training to the Iraqi military.
Anbar province was mentioned as one specific location where the troops will be active. Anbar has been the seen of fierce fighting and extreme acts of brutality committed by IS forces in recent weeks.
U.S. Central Command is also set to establish centers from which to train 12 Iraqi military brigades. Nine of these brigades are to come from the Iraqi army while three are to come from Kurdish security forces.
Some members of Congress are already lauding Obama's new move in Iraq and have wasted no time in calling for even greater measures.

With the deployment of the 1,500 troops mentioned above, the number of U.S. troops publicly deployed in Iraq will almost double. This number is in addition to those "stay behind" troops that remained in Iraq despite the media's claim that the United States had pulled out entirely.
Back in September, I wrote a report on a claim made by PressTV which suggested that that the United States will soon station 13,000 troops inside Iraq in the near future.
PressTV referred to the Vice President of Iraq’s Saladin Province as having stated that the troops, along with their vehicles, would be stationed at Speicher airfield in Tikrit, a city that is located 87 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Although, the recent announcement by Barack Obama and the Pentagon is nowhere near 13,000 troops, the trend is progressing in that direction.
We will continue to follow these develops closely.
Recently from Brandon Turbeville:

• Yes You Should Vote! . . . Maybe
• US: 'Stop ISIS By Attacking Assad's Oil Pipelines!'
• West Re-Arms Nusra - Mainstream Media Continues Coverup

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor's Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius -- The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria. Turbeville has published over 300 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville's podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV.  He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

U.S. Announces 1,500 More Troops Deployed To Iraq
Admin
Fri, 07 Nov 2014 20:54:00 GMT

West Virginia: Forcing Children to Become Autistic, by LAW

 

Jack Mullen
Activist Post
Dr. William Thompson, Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control, publicly admitted in August 2014 that the CDC covered up data linking the MMR vaccine to Autism in 1998, since then nothing at all has been done; children are still lining up to play Russian Roulette with 'shots' of Autism.
See this article.
New evidence, shown in link just below, presents even more convincing and damning revelations the CDC, FDA, NIH, Planned Parenthood and likely other United Nations cover operations are purposefully maiming and killing our children.
The article entitled "Finally the Truth: Study Links Autism to Vaccines of “Aborted Babies” Cells", announces a study showing "increases in Autism rates directly linked to the introduction of vaccines manufactured using human fetal cells from aborted babies. " The study, published in the September 2014 in the Journal of Public Health and Epidemiology, "was designed to analyze whether or not the environment factor of fetal cells could be connected with the rise in Autism."
The actual study is located here.
According to the study "Researchers identified three specific change points in the U.S. between 1970 and 2002 following the approval in 1979 of the MMR II and Varivax Chickenpox vaccines, which used the fetal cell line WI-38, instead of animal-based cells. The Late 1980 study by the EPA confirmed one of the change points in which the incidence of Autism rose significantly in the U.S. as well as points in other countries. Each of these points corresponds to the times that a vaccine containing DNA from aborted babies was added to the recommended vaccine schedule." [emphasis added] IBID

Worse yet “Not only are the human fetal contaminated vaccines associated with autistic disorder throughout the World but also with epidemic childhood leukemia and lymphomas.” IBID
With more and more babies being aborted, the irony of rising Autism rates, rising in direct proportion to "the increasing numbers of human fetal manufactured vaccines which have been added to the US immunization guidelines", should be interpreted as a wake-up call to those thinking nature will not push back against anti-life activities.
NO ONE will stand up for your children except you; The government is not on your side and will not stop harming the children, the economics of the vaccine deception are enormous. The vaccine industrial cartel is an integrated, well funded, viper prepared to do just about anything to continue the insurance covered vaccine cash cow.
The state of West Virginia has been notified and the above information is in the public domain and yet NO ACTION AT ALL has been taken to stop the forced maiming and possible death.
No standard waiver is available at all and medical waivers are difficult and many times impossible to get and politically instead of a matter of policy, local health departments have the final say.
Even providing evidence of likely allergic reaction to a vaccine is not sufficient for the State and local health departments to "grant" a vaccine waiver to a child.
By the time a child is 18 months old he or she will have received on average:
Up to 4 doses of the Hepatitis B Vaccine

• 3 doses of the rotavirus vaccine
• 4 doses of the DTaP
• 4 doses of the Hib vaccine
• 4 doses of the pneumococcal vaccine
• 3 doses of the polio vaccine
• up to 2 doses of the flu vaccine
• 2 doses of the hepatitis A vaccine
• 1 MMR shot
• 1 chickenpox shot

http://www.smartvax.com/index.php…

And it has been shown infant mortality increases with the number of vaccine does given; children in the United States are forced to endure 38 doses of vaccines by the age of 18 months. - IBID
Additionally, vaccines are related to increases in autoimmune diseases, IQ decreases and cancer. Toxins, like formaldehyde are used in vaccines and "linked to several types of cancers, including Leukemia. Formaldehyde has been used in the Anthrax vaccine, DT, DTaP, Hib, HPV, Hep A, Hep B, Influenza, Meningitis, Polio, and more. Many of these vaccines are administered to children, and schools won’t allow your children to attend classes unless they’ve received them. 25 of the 53 vaccines listed by the CDC have this known carcinogen in them." (Source)
Additionally, other brain damaging ingredients like aluminum are used in DTaP and other vaccines and the once ubiquitous thimerosal (mercury), is still damaging brains in the flu vaccine.
Have all these vaccines improved the health and well being of our children?
According to Dr. Mercola at mercola.com:

During the past 30 years, the number of vaccinations our children receive has tripled, and during that same period of time, the number of children with learning disabilities, ADHD, asthma and diabetes has also more than tripled!

According to Mercola

More than twice as many children have chronic brain and immune system dysfunction today than they did in the 1970s when half as many vaccines were given to children.

Mercola's article is dated 2010 and in his study he found the Autism rate to be 1 in 110 children; 4 years later the rate has nearly doubled to approximately 1 in 68, according to known liars the CDC, and as high as 1 in 50 by other researchers. (Source)
Isn't it time this stops?
Its all about the money according to a report from 2010 entitled "Pipeline and Commercial Insight: Pediatric and Adolescent Vaccines," written by vaccine analyst Hedwig Kresse: "the pediatric and adolescent vaccine market will quadruple from approximately $4.3 billion in 2006, to over $16 billion by 2016, across the US, the EU-five including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, and Japan." (Source)
Other researchers estimate the market for vaccines to be $40 billion in 2015. (Source)
In addition to the money pocketed by big pharmaceuticals, lets not forget the money pocketed by politicians as lobbyist spend more than $1 billion a year in DC influencing legislation, the health care lobby spending $487,222,221 in 2013 and more than half was spent by the pharmaceutical lobby at $228,219,456. (Source)
How much is spent in West Virgina to continue being the worst State in the United States for obtaining a waiver is yet unknown.
Childhood is a time when adults have the responsibility to protect their children, America's future, from predators of all kinds. It is a time for children to play and feel healthy and safe. Children need their parents and moral members of public child advocacy groups and officials to stand up against harm being done to children.
Criminal governments with financial ties to big pharmaceutical companies are no less a predator. Medical tyranny operates under the cover of pretended authority and moral superiority sold with saccharine pseudo concern for the welfare of Citizens.
Vaccines are at the center of a growing lucrative and enslaving medical tyranny damaging the lives of children and adults every day; vaccine pushing is reaching levels of insanity as States, workplaces, schools and other 'authorities' insinuate themselves as the decider of issues for which none have any liability when the decision goes bad. Expect Ebola to be used for the next level attack on Americans with vaccines.
Parents and individuals own their own body; the body is a personal temple and its contents are the intellectual and physical property of the owner.
It is time for all parents and anyone concerned about America's future to stand up to tyrants, misanthropes, psychopaths and rapacious robber barons sucking the last nickle from a bankrupt society by forcing, through fear hysteria and false claims of efficacy, and soon likely the barrel of a gun, deadly and sickening, long ago debunked, vaccines on the population.
Contact the WV Health Departments and local Health Departments and provide them with the facts in writing. Call your State Representatives and demand the State stop forcing children into Autism, cancer, death and other long term life affecting damage: Stop the Shots NOW ...
More information on vaccines and aborted fetal cells
http://www.rtl.org/prolife_issues/LifeNotes/VaccinesAbortion_FetalTissue.html
Jack Mullen has been a businessman for more than 25 years, owning 3 radio stations, several technology based companies and a resource development company

West Virginia: Forcing Children to Become Autistic, by LAW
Activist
Fri, 07 Nov 2014 16:05:00 GMT

UT Students Support Killing Children Up to Age 5

Ebola Alert: Obama Orders A Million Hazmat Suits

SPREAD THIS FAR AND WIDE - #STOPEBOLASTRIKE Obama on Ebola Travel Ban: 2+2=5

BACKED BY BIG AG! IT'S A TRICK! California’s Water Bond – NO ON PROP 1

California’s Water Bond – No on Prop 1 Don't Believe Gov. Brown

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CALIFORNIA’S WATER BOND (PROP 1)

TAXPAYERS BEING FORCED TO FEED WESTLANDS AND KERN WATER AGENCIES

Prop. 1 adds over $14.4 billion in taxpayer debt (including interest) to:

Help exporters take water from Northern California rivers, threatening the salmon industry, jobs, and fisheries.

Force taxpayers to buy water that the public already owns to protect fish and to ensure reliable supplies for export.

Help industrial farming operations overpump the San Francisco Bay Delta and avoid fixing the environmental damage they cause.

Subsidize private interests who want to build expensive dams that will only increase water supply by 1%

Prop. 1

Crowds out funding for public schools, public roads, public health and safety.

Does little to relieve the current drought.

Requires taxpayer repayment of $360 million per year for 40 years.

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Hillary Clinton Demands End To 2nd Amendment

Is TOR The Key To Internet Privacy?

HOW FORMER TREASURY OFFICIALS AND THE UAE ARE MANIPULATING AMERICAN JOURNALISTS

BY GLENN GREENWALD - @ggreenwald - TODAY AT 9:59 AM

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The tiny and very rich Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar has become a hostile target for two nations with significant influence in the U.S.: Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is furious over Qatar’s support for Palestinians generally and (allegedly) Hamas specifically, while the UAE is upset that Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (UAE supports the leadersof the military coup) and that Qatar funds Islamist rebels in Libya (UAE supports forces aligned with Ghadaffi).

This animosity has resulted in a new campaign in the west to demonize the Qataris as the key supporter of terrorism. The Israelis have chosen the direct approach of publicly accusing their new enemy in Doha of being terrorist supporters, while the UAE has opted for a more covert strategy: paying millions of dollars to a U.S. lobbying firm – composed of former high-ranking Treasury officials from both parties – to plant anti-Qatar stories with American journalists. That more subtle tactic has been remarkably successful, and shines important light on how easily political narratives in U.S. media discourse can be literally purchased.

This murky anti-Qatar campaign was first referenced by a New York Timesarticle two weeks ago by David Kirkpatrick, which reported that “an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel” is seeking to depict Doha as “a godfather to terrorists everywhere” (Qatar vehemently denies the accusation). One critical component of that campaign was mentioned in passing:

The United Arab Emirates have retained an American consulting firm, Camstoll Group, staffed by several former United States Treasury Department officials. Its public disclosure forms, filed as a registered foreign agent, showed a pattern of conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of Qatar’s role in terrorist fund-raising.

How that process worked is fascinating, and its efficacy demonstrates how American public perceptions and media reports are manipulated with little difficulty.

The Camstoll Group was formed on November 26, 2012. Its key figures are all former senior Treasury Department officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations whose responsibilities included managing the U.S. government’s relationships with Persian Gulf regimes and Israel, as well as managing policies relating to funding of designated terrorist groups. Most have backgrounds as neoconservative activists. Two of the Camstoll principals, prior to their Treasury jobs, worked with one of the country’s most extremist neocon anti-Muslim activists, Steve Emerson.

Camstoll’s founder, CEO and sole owner, Matthew Epstein, was a Treasury Department official from 2003 through 2010, a run that included a position as the department’s Financial Attaché to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A 2007 diplomatic cable leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks details Epstein’s meetings with high-level Abu Dhabi representatives as they plotted to cut off Iran’s financial and banking transactions. Those cables reveal multiple high-level meetings between Epstein in his capacity as a Treasury official and high-level officials of the Emirates, officials who are now paying his company millions of dollars to act as its agent inside the U.S.

Prior to his Treasury appointment by the Bush administration, Epstein was a neoconservative activist, writing articles for National Review and working with Emerson’s aggressively anti-Muslim Investigative Project(Epstein’s published resume omits his work with Emerson). His pre-Treasury work for Emerson’s group, obsessed with The Muslim Threat Within, presaged Peter King’s 2011 anti-Muslim witch hunts.

In 2003, for instance, Epstein told the U.S. Senate that “large sections of the institutional Islamic leadership in America do not support U.S. counterterrorism policy” and that “the radicalization of the Islamic political leadership in the United States has developed parallel to the radicalization of the Islamic leadership worldwide, sharing a conspiratorial view that Muslims in the United States are being persecuted on the basis of their religion and an acceptance that violence in the name of Islam is justified.” He declared: “the rise of militant Islamic leadership in the United States requires particular attention if we are to succeed in the War on Terror.”

Camstoll’s Managing Director, Howard Mendelsohn, was Acting Assistant Secretary of Treasury, where he also had ample policy responsibilities involving the Emirates; a 2010 WikiLeaks cable details how he “met with senior officials from the UAE’s State Security Department (SSD) and Dubai’s General Department of State Security (GDSS)” to coordinate disruption of Taliban financing. Another Managing Director, Benjamin Schmidt, worked with Epstein at Emerson’s Investigative Project before his own appointment to Treasury; a 2009 diplomatic cable shows him working with Israel on controlling financing to Palestinians. A Camstoll director, Benjamin Davis, was the Treasury Department’s Financial Attaché in Jerusalem.

On December 2, 2012 – less than a week after Camstoll was incorporated – it entered into a lucrative, open-ended consulting contract with an entity wholly owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Outlook Energy Investments, LLC (its Emir, the President of UAE, is pictured above). A week later, Camstoll registered as a foreign agent working on behalf of the Emirate. The consultancy agreement calls for Camstoll to be paid a monthly fee of $400,000, wired each month into a Camstoll account. Two weeks after it was formed, Camstoll was paid by the Emirates entity a retainer fee of $4.3 million, and then another $3.2 million in 2013.

In other words, a senior Treasury official responsible for U.S. policy toward the Emirates leaves the U.S. government and forms a new lobbying company, which is then instantly paid millions of dollars by the very same country for which he was responsible, all to use his influence, access and contacts for its advantage. The UAE spends more than any other country in the world to influence U.S. policy and shape domestic debate, and it pays former high-level government officials who worked with it – such as Epstein and his company – to carry out its agenda within the U.S.

What did Camstoll do for these millions of dollars? They spent enormous of amounts of time cajoling friendly reporters to plant anti-Qatar stories, and they largely succeeded. Their strategy was clear: target neocon/pro-Israel writers such as the Daily Beast‘s Eli Lake, Free Beacon‘s Alana Goodman, Iran-contra convict Elliott Abrams, The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin, and American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin – all eager to promote the Qatar-funds-terrorists line being pushed by Israel. They also targeted establishment media figures such as CNN’s Erin Burnett, Reuters’ Mark Hosenball, and The Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick.

In the latter half of 2013, Camstoll reported 15 separate contacts with Lake, all on behalf of UAE’s agenda; in the month of December alone, there were 10 separate contacts with Goodman. They also spoke multiple times with Warrick. At the same time, they were speaking on behalf of their Emirates client with their former colleagues who were still working as high-level Treasury officials, including Kate Bauer, the Treasury Department’s Emirates-based Financial Attaché, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Danny McGlynn.

In the first half of 2014, as the Emirates attack on Qatar intensified, Camstoll spoke multiple times with Lake, Hosenball, and Erin Burnett’s CNN show “Out Front,” and had conversations with Goodman and the NYT‘s David Kirkpatrick. They continued to meet with high-level Treasury officials as well, including Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser (highlights added):
This work paid dividends for the UAE. In June, when the Obama administration announced a plan to release Guantanamo detainees to Qatar, Lake published a widely cited Daily Beast article depicting Qatar as friends of the terrorists; it quoted anonymous officials as claiming that “many wealthy individuals in Qatar are raising money for jihadists in Syria every day” and “we also know that we have sent detainees to them before, and their security services have magically lost track of them.” Lake himself pronounced that “Qatar’s track record is troubling” and that “the emirate is a good place to raise money for terrorist organizations.”

He then went on Fox News and said that “there still is a major issue with just terrorist financing in Qatar” and that in Doha there are “individuals who are roaming free who have raised a lot of money for al Qaeda, Hamas and other groups like that.”

Meanwhile, CNN sent Burnett to Doha where she broadcast a “special report” entitled: “Is Qatar a haven for terror funding”? CNN touted it as “an in-depth look into the people funding Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked groups, including ISIS.” She began her report by noting that “the terror group ISIS is committing atrocities in Iraq. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki blames Saudi Arabia and Qatar for providing ISIS militants with money and weapons.” She then put on a source, former Bush deputy national security adviser and Treasury official Juan Zarate, to say that “Qatar is at the center of this. Qatar has now taken its place in the lead of countries that are supporting al Qaeda and al Qaeda-related groups.”

On camera, Burnett asked her source: “So how high up in the government in Qatar does the support for Islamic extremism for these al Qaeda-linked groups go?” The answer: “Well, these are decisions made at the top. So Qatar operates as a monarchy. Its officials, its activities follow the orders of the government. And to the extent that there’s a policy of supporting extremists in the region, that’s a policy that comes from the top.” She then brought on the GOP Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, and asked whether he agrees that “money out of Qatar could end up being used to fuel the ambition, the dream, of attacks against the United States directly,” and he quickly said he did.

Camstoll’s work with the Post‘s Warrick also proved quite productive. Camstoll spoke with Warrick on December 17, 2013. The very next day, thePost reporter published an article stating that “private Qatar-based charities have taken a more prominent role in recent weeks in raising cash and supplies for Islamist extremists in Syria, according to current and former U.S. and Middle Eastern officials.”

Camstoll representatives spoke again with Warrick on December 20 and December 21. The day after, he published another more accusatory article citing “increasing U.S. concern about the role of Qatari individuals and charities in supporting extreme elements within Syria’s rebel alliance” and linking the Qatari royal family to a professor and U.S. foreign policy critic alleged by the U.S. government to be ”working secretly as a financier for al-Qaeda.”

As one of his sources, Warrick in the first of his articles cited “a former U.S. official who specialized in tracking Gulf-based jihadist movements and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of his work for the government was classified.” That perfectly describes several Camstoll Group members, though Warrick did not respond to questions from The Interceptabout whether this anonymous source was indeed a paid agent of the UAE working at Camstoll.

Also on Camstoll’s list of journalistic contacts was Kirkpatrick, who produced the article in the NYT two weeks ago headlined “Qatar’s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies Near and Far.” It noted that Qatar “has tacitly consented to open fund-raising” for Al Qaeda affiliates.

But unlike all the other reports helpfully produced by Camstoll’s journalistic allies, Kirkpatrick expressly described, and cast skeptical light on, the concerted campaign to focus on Qatar, not only mentioning Camstoll’s behind-the-scenes work but also reporting that “Qatar is finding itself under withering attack by an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, which have all sought to portray it as a godfather to terrorists everywhere.” Kirkpatrick also noted that “some in Washington have accused it of directly supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” a claim he called “implausible and unsubstantiated.”

In response to questions from The Intercept about Camstoll’s role in his reporting, Lake refused to answer any questions, stating: “I don’t talk about how I do my reporting. I meet with many representatives and officials of foreign governments in the course of my job.” (So many journalists pride themselves on demanding transparency and accountability from others while adopting a posture of absolute secrecy for their own work that would make even a Pentagon spokesperson blush: “I don’t talk about how I do my reporting”). Goodman similarly said: “as I’m sure you understand, I can’t discuss my private conversations with contacts.” Camstoll’s contacts with Goodman and Hosenball appear to have produced no identifiable reports. Camstoll, Warwick, and Hosenball all provided no response to questions from The Intercept.

The point here is not that Qatar is innocent of supporting extremists. Nor is it a reflection on any inappropriate conduct by the journalists, who are taking information from wherever they can get it (although one would certainly hope that, as Kirkpatrick did, they would make clear what the agenda and paid campaign behind this narrative is).

The point is that this coordinated media attack on Qatar – using highly paid former U.S. officials and their media allies – is simply a weapon used by the Emirates, Israel, the Saudis and others to advance their agendas. Kirkpatrick explained: ”propelling the barrage of accusations against Qatar is a regional contest for power in which competing Persian Gulf monarchies have backed opposing proxies in contested places like Gaza, Libya and especially Egypt.” As political science professor As’ad AbuKhalil wrote this week about conflicts in Syria and beyond, “the two Wahhabi regimes [Saudi Arabia and Qatar] are fighting over many issues but they both wish to speak on behalf of political Islam.”

What’s misleading isn’t the claim that Qatar funds extremists but that they do so more than other U.S. allies in the region (a narrative implanted at exactly the time Qatar has become a key target of Israel and the Emirates). Indeed, some of Qatar’s accusers here do the same to at least the same extent, and in the case of the Saudis, far more so. As Kirkpatrick noted: “Qatar is hardly the only gulf monarchy to allow open fund-raising by sheikhs that the United States government has linked to Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front: Sheikh Ajmi and most of the others are based in Kuwait and readily tap donors in Saudi Arabia, sometimes even making their pitches on Saudi- and Kuwaiti-owned television networks.”

One U.S. government cable from 2009, also published by WikiLeaks, identified Saudi Arabia, not Qatar, as the greatest danger in this regard:

Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.

The writer of that cable complained that “it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.”

Prior to his appointment as a Treasury official – and before he began working as a paid agent of the UAE to finger Qatar as the key threat – Camstoll’s founder and CEO, Epstein, himself fingered Saudis as the key financiers of Al Qaeda and anti-American terrorism. His 2003 Senate testimony included this statement: “the Saudi Wahhabists have bankrolled a series of Islamic institutions in the United States that actively seek to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy at home and abroad”; he added: “in the United States, the Saudi Wahhabis regularly subsidize the organizations and individuals adhering to the militant ideology espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and its murderous offshoots Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, all three of which are designated terrorist.”

While the 2009 cable claimed claimed that ”Qatar’s overall level of CT cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region,” it said this was “out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals.” But the cable also identified other U.S. allies in the region as key conduits for terrorist financing, stating, for instance, that “Al-Qa’ida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point.” It also heavily implicated the Emirates themselves: ”UAE-based donors have provided financial support to a variety of terrorist groups, including al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups, including Hamas.”

One of the most critical points illustrated by all of this tawdry influence-peddling is the alignment driving so much of US policy in that region. The key principals of Camstoll have hard-core neoconservative backgrounds. Here they are working hand in hand with neocon journalists to publicly trash a new enemy of Israel, in service of the agenda of Gulf dictators. This is the bizarre neocon/Israel/Gulf-dictator coalition now driving not only U.S. policy but, increasingly, U.S. discourse as well.

Margot Williams and Andrew Fishman contributed additional reporting

Photo: Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Turkish Presidency Press Office/AP)

Email the author: glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com